60 OF VITAL MOTION. 



are still two preliminary considerations which deserve 

 attention as well calculated to facilitate our future 

 inquiries. 



It may be supposed, in the first place, that the 

 mystery of muscular action will receive some explana- 

 tion from the history of the fibrine dissolved in the 

 blood, for this substance is analogous, in essential 

 particulars, to that which occurs in muscular tissue. 

 Now the history of the two is indeed parallel in some 

 respects. As to the fibrine of the blood, it is found 

 to remain in a fluid condition during life, and to 

 solidify after death, so that we may properly argue 

 that the latter in relation to the former is the passive 

 state, and that the influence of life be this what it 

 may is exerted in counteracting the state of solidity. 

 In the fibrine of muscular tissue there is also a two- 

 fold condition, and from the solidification which takes 

 place after death we may argue that there is during 

 life, if not a condition of fluidity, a quasi-softness 

 approaching to this state. In addition to the solidifi- 

 cation which supervenes upon death, there is also 

 another form which occurs during life, and the ques- 

 tion is as to what is the meaning of this. Is it, we 

 may ask, in any way related to the phenomenon 

 which occurs in the fibrine of blood and muscle after 

 death ? If it is, then the inference will be that mus- 

 cular contraction in relation to the opposite condi- 

 tion is a phenomenon which, like the coagulation of 



