CONSCIOUSNESS AND SENSATION. 111 
to move the pinna of the ear or bring the palmaris 
brevis into action. If I attempt either of these 
actions I am conscious of exercising an effort to 
produce contraction in the neighbourhood of the 
part, on that side of it towards which I wish to 
move it. It seems to me therefore that muscular 
sense, as I have sought to explain it, is sufficient, in 
conjunction with experience, to account even for 
the movement of the fingers. 
The bearing of the hypothesis now put forward 
on the functions of the nerves may be expressed in 
a few propositions. 
1. The irritation of a nerve of common sensation 
throws the nerve into the impressed -condition ; 
and as soon as that condition is continued to the 
brain, the mind recognizes the irritation at the site 
where it is applied, in the form of sense of touch, 
temperature, or pain, according to its character. 
Over-intensity of the impressed condition may also 
itself be recognized in the form of pain. 
2. Nerves of special sense differ from those of 
common sensation both in the circumstance that 
the apparatus at their extremities is affected by 
irritations of a different kind from those which 
affect other nerves, and in their irritation being 
recognized in the form of the special sense to which 
they are devoted. 
