(From incito,to stir up to action,) incitability. In a practical view it has appeared necessary to make a distinction between this term and irritability; because, though it is allowed that to those two powers the existence of a machine in a living state, and the action of its moving solids with respect to their continuance, are entirely owing; yet they do in some degree certainly exist independent of each other. By this knowledge, therefore, it is supposed that we shall sometimes be able to explain the different appearances of diseases, and the means of relieving them by medicines directed to either. By incitability is meant that power in the brain and nervous system, which may be excited to action by mental affections, as well as local irritation, and which produces those affections we call sympathy; by irritability, that power which may be put into action by material stimulus, locally exerted, yet is obedient to the influence of the nerves in general, and cannot in the living machine exist for any considerable time without this union. More strictly, incitability is confined to the nervous, and irritability to the moving, fibres. See Wallison Health and Disease; Irritabilitas and Sensibilitas.