Here, then, is a capital fact. The movements of the lobster are due to
muscular contractility. But why does a muscle contract at one time and
not at another? Why does one whole group of muscles contract when the
lobster wishes to extend his tail and another group when he desires to
bend it? What is it originates, directs, and controls the motive power?
Experiment, the great instrument for the ascertainment of truth in
physical science, answers this question for us. In the head of the
lobster there lies a small mass of that peculiar tissue which is known
as nervous substance. Cords of similar matter connect this brain of
the lobster, directly or indirectly, with the muscles. Now, if these
communicating cords are cut, the brain remaining entire, the power of
exerting what we call voluntary motion m the parts below the section is
destroyed; and, on the other hand, if, the cords remaining entire, the
brain mass be destroyed, the same voluntary mobility is equally lost,
whence the inevitable conclusion is, that the power of originating these
motions resides in the brain and is propagated along the nervous cords.
In the higher animals the phenomena which attend this transmission have
been investigated, and the exertion of the peculiar energy which resides
in the nerves has been found to be accompanied by a disturbance of the
electrical state of their molecules.
If we could exactly estimate the signification of this disturbance;
if we could obtain the value of a given exertion of nerve force by
determining the quantity of electricity, or of heat, of which it is the
equivalent; if we could ascertain upon what arrangement, or other
condition of the molecules of matter, the manifestation of the nervous
and muscular energies depends (and doubtless science will some day or
other ascertain these points), physiologists would have attained their
ultimate goal in this direction; they would have determined the relation
of the motive force of animals to the other forms of force found in
nature; and if the same process had been successfully performed for all
the operations which are carried on in, and by, the animal frame,
physiology would be perfect, and the facts of morphology and
distribution would be deducible from the laws which physiologists had
established, combined with those determining the condition of the
surrounding universe.