(Contraction and expansion are the conditions of perceptibility.)

The contraction of his brows had become a scowl of mystification.

A more important fact is that, as far as I know, extreme contraction of the pupils is not a symptom of sleeping sickness.

A little before, he had felt his heart growing weaker, its contractions becoming feebler and slower.

Contraction is not, however, the natural state of a muscle.

Dr. Alexander Murray too, In accounting for the frequent abbreviation of words, seems to suggest the possibility of giving them the celerity of thought: "Contraction is a change which results from a propensity to make the signs as rapid as the thoughts which they express.