On muscular motion ... / Sir Gilbert Blane.

  • Gilbert Blane
Date:
1790
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On muscular motion ... / Sir Gilbert Blane. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    larity between what takes place in a nerve, and what takes place in a mufcuiar fibre in the aCt of voluntary contraction. I have already acknowledged my ignorance of the manner in which Jlimuli in general operate, and that this muff be admitted as an ultimate fad in nature. But the operation of the will through the nerves, feems involved in double obfcurity ; for as it depends on the nature of thought, it cannot be made a fubjeCt of experi- mental inveftigation. For this reafon I fhall decline the inquiry, as not being adapted to the ends of this Society ; and it feems impoffible for human fagacity to penetrate the connection of matter with fenfation and volition, except by inferences more or lefs hy- pothetical. The properties of different bodies, in relation to each other, appear to be the only proper fubjeCts of experimental rea- foning; for, in their relation to the mind, they are only the ef- fects, perhaps the remote effeCts, of their intimate nature upon the fenfes; fo that we may venture to affirm that human reafon can no more fathom the connection of thought with the correfponding changes in the corporeal organs, than the eye can fee itfelf. Thofe affeCtions of the mufcuiar fibres, which depend on the paf- Jions, though diftinCt from thofe excited by the will, may yet be enumerated here among thofe which flow from confcioufnefs ; for there are emotions of the mind that have vifible and powerful effeCts on the heart and vafcular fyftem, which are organs entirely out of reach of the will. Not to mention the well-known effeCts of grief, fear, and joy, which affeCt the whole circulation, there are certain paffions and fentiments which produce partial and local effeCts. Thefe are eftabhfhed by Nature, either to anfwer fome impor- tant natural purpofe, as in the cafe of the congeftion of the fluids in the parts of generation, in confequence of the venereal appetite, F Effe£b of the paffions od mufcuiar fibres or
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