Volume 1

Zoonomia; or, the laws of organic life / [Erasmus Darwin].

  • Erasmus Darwin
Date:
1794-1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Zoonomia; or, the laws of organic life / [Erasmus Darwin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ations, that are fometimes indiffoluble but with life. Hence the idea of .an inhuman or difhonourable action perpetually calls, up before us the idea of the wretch that was guilty of it. And hence thofe unconquerable antipathies are formed, which fome people have to the fight of peculiar kinds of food, of which in their muaned they have eaten to excefs or by conftraint. I]I. 1. In learning any mechanic art, as moufic, pai iees or the ufe of the fword, we teach many of our mufcles to act together or in fucceffion by repeated voluntary efforts; which by habit become formed into tribes or trains of aflociation, and ferve all our pur- pofes with great facility, and in fome inftances acquire an indif- foluble union. .Thefe motions are gradually formed into a habit of acting together by a multitude of repetitions, whilft they are yet feparately caufable by the will, as is evident from the long time that is taken up by children in learning .to walk and to {peak ; and is experienced by every one, when he firft attempts to ikate upon the ice or to fwim: thefe we fhall term voluntary affociations. 2. All thefe mufcular movements, when they are thus aflociated into tribes. or trains, become afterwards not only obedient to volition, but to the fenfations and irritations ; and the fame movement com- pofes a part of many different tribes or trains of motion. Thus a fingle mufcle, when it adts in confort with its neighbours on one fide, affifts to move the limb in one direction; and in an- other, when it acts with thofe in its neighbourhood on the other fide ; and in other directions, when it ake feparately or joint- ly with thofe that. lie immediately under or above it; and all. thefe with equal facility after their affociations have been well eftablifhed. . The facility, with which each mufcle changes hota one affociated tribe to another, and that either backwards or forwards, is weil obfervable i in the mu({cles of the arm in moving. the windlafs of an H 2 aire
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