MUSCLE AND MIND. 381 



It thus appears that the brain has a twofold connection with 

 the muscular machinery of the body ; that it not only supplies 

 the stimulus required for the production of voluntary movements, 

 necessitating a corresponding activity on its own part, but that it 

 is stimulated in turn by the active muscles ; since every contrac- 

 tion is a separate occasion for the return of responsive impulses 

 to the brain, by means of which the corresponding centers there 

 are informed of the degree of energy put forth, and the extent of 

 the resulting movement. Voluntary movements are thus associ- 

 ated with three distinct kinds of consciousness : 1. That which 

 accompanies the outgoing impulse from the brain — the so-called 

 " sensation of innervation." * 2. That excited by contraction of 

 muscles through impulses arising within the muscle itself and 

 thence transmitted to the brain — the true muscular sensation in 

 which the muscle acts the part of a special sense-organ. 3. That 

 produced by the resulting movement, also due to impulses sent to 

 the brain — perhaps from the surfaces of the bones as they move 

 against each other at the joints, or from the stretched and com- 

 pressed tissues, especially the tendons in which many "Pacinian 

 corpuscles " are found. 



The brain is thus infused with a knowledge of the work done 

 by the muscles, and hence of the external world of matter upon 

 which the body acts by means of its muscles. These muscular 

 tuitions — so-called intuitions — become permanent constituents of 

 the mental life ; and my third thesis is to the effect that the 

 muscles play a role in the development of mind similar to that 

 which "belongs to the other special sense-organs — the eye, the 

 ear, etc. 



The dependence of intellect upon sensation was recognized by 

 Aristotle in his famous dictum, " Nothing in the intellect not 

 first in the senses " ; f and whatever the differences of view which 

 divide the schools of psychology or individual psychologists as to 

 the origin of our ideas of matter, time, and space, and whatever 

 the real nature of the so-called " muscle-sense/' all agree that the 

 special sense-organs are the chief avenues of approach to the 



an underived spatial element, though opposed to that of the exclusively muscular origin of 

 the space idea, does not conflict with the general scope of my argument, since, as will appear 

 later, the more important special sense-organs involve a muscular element. 



* Not a true sensation, since it starts from the center. These sensations are described 

 by Prof. Meynert as dependent on the memory of originally reflex movements. See " Psy- 

 chiatry," by Theodor Meynert, M. D. 



•{• Said by Schwegler to be falsely attributed to Aristotle ; the following citations, how- 

 ever, from Grote's account of the psychology of Aristotle show that this aphorism is in 

 harmony with his philosophy : " Without the visible phantasm of objects seen and touched, 

 or the audible phantasm of words heard and remembered, the ' nous ' [intellect] in human 

 beings would be a nullity." — " The fundamenta of intellect are sense and hearing." Many 

 other excerpts of similar purport might be given. 



