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96 [[left margin]] Merits of the cause of muscular motion. [[/left margin]] It follows undeniably from what has been said, that if we can prove, that a given muscle of voluntary motion, does really feel an increase of the familiar warmth of its contained blood, or an equivolent, to rise and fall instantly at the command of the will, we shall then duly account for the subsequent motion. Or, more particularly, if we can prove, that the will has a direct power of heightenning, increasing, and rendering more acute, the sense of any nerve, distributed to a given muscle, the same familiar positive degree of warmth in the contained blood will, to this more acute sense, appear to be proportionably heightened and increased, and the muscle (by lemma 2) will instantly contract, and continue in that state during the action of the will; allowing for a small feebleness, that will gradually arise from the gradual exclusion of the contracting cause, and from the blunting of this more acute, and, as it were, new sensation; which yet, as we see, may be proportionably compensated, by the will, for a time, even to the destruction of the nerve, the blood-vessels, and indeed the whole organ, by a mortification, which has been known to succeed a long muscular contraction. [[left margin]] The Will, has a power & does increase & heighten the sensation of the nerves. [[/left margin]] [[underlined]] Observations, proving, that the will has a direct power of rendering more acute the sensations of the nerves universally. [[/underlined]] We know from daily experience, that the will hath a power over all the organs of sense, to heighten, or render acute, and again to relax them, their proper objects, in a reasonable dgree, being supposed present. And the same experience teaches us, that this power is greater or less, according to the more or less frequent use and exercise that is made of it. For it is obvious to [[strikethrough]] any one [[/strikethrough]], every one, that any sound man is able to feel, to taste, to smell, to hear, and to see, more accurately when he pleases. And it is equally obvious and certain, that any one of these five senses, being exercised, with an uncommon degree of attention and industry, either from choise, or from necessity, arrives at an uncommon degree of accuracy, and perfection. Indeed it is entirely from use and exercise, that a child learns to distinguish at all between the several objects of a given sense, or, which are the same, between the several degrees, or modes, of its proper object. All these particulars, being demonstrably true of every sense, that we can directly examine, the inference is very fair to the single sense ([[underlined]]Lem[[/underlined]]. 2.) that we cannot directly examine; and, in truth, the induction in this case, is but one step below a complete experimental demonstration. It appears therefore, that the will hath a direct power of heightening, increasing, and rendering more acute, the sense or feeling in a given nerve, dispersed throughout the whole contracting substance of a given muscle, with all its gradations of accuracy and perfection. by repeated use and exercise. [[left margin] Muscular motion, how produced. [[/left margin]] [[underlined]] Solution, or answer to the problem. [[/underlined]] It follows therefore, that, a muscle being given, in its natural state, in a living animal body, the blood, which is present in every part of its contracting substance, and which, in effect, to the sense of the given muscle, (which is occasionally render'd more acute) puts on an [[end page]]
