484 VOLUNTARY AND 



whereas, in another muscle, the overgrowth may be a matter of 

 no importance. In different persons, different muscles may be better 

 developed and stronger than others: and some persons have their 

 general voluntary muscular system remarkably developed. When 

 this is the case, there is usually a disposition to employ the more 

 powerful parts freely, and thus exercise farther augments them. 

 From the most ancient times some men have performed extraordin- 

 ary feats of strength. Milo of Crete, after killing an ox with his fist, 

 carried it through the stadium, a space of 625 feet ; and, when the 

 pillar which supported the roof of his master's school gave way, he 

 saved Pythagoras and the scholars from destruction by supporting 

 the roof himself till they escaped. The Jews had their Sampson; 

 and at our shows I have seen a man support a table with many 

 persons upon it and even carry it some little distance between his 

 teeth. Muscular strength appears by Dr. Edwards's experiments 

 to vary at different periods of the day, and to be much affected by 

 diet. By means of the dynamometer he found it increase during 

 the first half of the day, and decrease during the latter ; to be in- 

 stantly increased by a moderate and nutritious meal, except in the 

 weak, in whom the immediate effect of a meal was depression of 

 the strength. Mere water, especially warm, and sugar and water, 

 also instantly diminished the strength. Gelatine, well flavoured 

 with the skin and odorous parts of meat, gave the greatest 

 strength. <i 



The muscles are usually divided into involuntary and volun- 

 tary, those which we have not ordinarily the power of di- 

 rectly contracting, and those which we have ordinarily the 

 power of directly contracting. The action of the heart and all 

 vessels, canals, and cavities, except the outward opening of 

 some, is involuntary: that of most other muscles, voluntary. 

 The mind, however, though not its will, powerfully affects in- 

 voluntary muscles. Under emotion, the action of the heart may 

 be excited or depressed : any one part may grow turgid and red 

 or shrink and grow pale : and by thinking, voluntarily, of circum- 

 stances calculated to excite such emotions, we may voluntarily, 

 in this indirect manner, affect the action of involuntary parts, 

 and even without thinking of circumstances affecting ourselves, 

 but by only dwelling on the circumstances of others, as in 

 reading. Betterton the actor, when playing Hamlet, could cause 



' "Read in the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Paris, Feb. 11. 1885. 



