Chapter VII: Part 7

Of a plurality of organs in the brain, I have been convinced, even from my own knowledge and dissections. I have seen that very considerable portions of the _cerebrum_ may be removed, the individual still existing. The _vital_ functions may continue, the _animal_ functions are deranged or lost. The most extensive injuries of the brain, too, are often discovered, which were not even suspected; and the converse of this is often observed,—the diseases of the brain being commonly found in an _inverse ratio_ to the severity of the symptoms. When chronic tumours and _cysts_ of water are _gradually_ formed, the extreme danger is averted by the balancing power of the circulation of the brain’s blood; without which its incompressibility would subject it to constant injury.

In _tubercles_ of the brain, it is curious that _memory_ is the faculty chiefly influenced; it is sometimes rendered dull, while the fancy is vivid,—often more perfect and retentive.

Brain, however, can no more be considered as mind itself, than _retina_ sight, or than the sealing-wax can be identical with the electricity residing in it. For if we look at the brain of a brute, we see how closely it resembles our own; then, if we reflect on human intellect and brute instinct, we must all believe at once that there is some diviner thing breathed into us than the _anima brutorum_ of Aristotle, something more than the mere vitality,—

“Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem.”

Brain is therefore the _habitat_ of mind, the workings of which cannot be indicated without it; for, as the material world would be intact without a sense, so there can be no mortal evidence of mind without a brain, which is indeed the sense of the spirit. Thus, without adopting the creed of the _Hyloist_, the _moderate_ materialist,—that the mind cannot have, during the life of the body, even a momentary existence independent of matter,—I believe, that when this matter is in a state of repose, mind is perfectly passive to _our cognizance_.

IDA. It is with diffidence, Evelyn, that I enter this arena with a physician, learned in the body; but is there no danger in this doctrine? does it not imply the office of a _gland_,—that brain is the _origin_ of soul, and that its function was the _secretion of thought_.

EV. Such is the timid error of the mere metaphysician, Ida. There is no such danger; for, remember, if there _be_ secretion, it is the _soul_ which _directs_. Many a thought is referred to things which we cannot bring into contact with our consciousness,—_except by the brain_.

Dr. Gall writes of a gentleman, whose forehead was far more elevated on the right side than the left; and he deeply regretted that with this left side he could never think. And Spurzheim, of an Irish gentleman, who has the left side of the forehead the least developed by four lines,—he also could not think with that side, as indeed I have before hinted.

I may tell you the brain is _double_, and _one_ healthy _hemisphere_ is sufficient, as the organ of mind, if pain or encroachment of the opposite, when diseased, does not destroy life, and this especially when it is a _chronic_ change, or exists from birth; so that I have often seen one hemisphere of the brain a pulpy bag of water, and yet vitality and many signs of intellect may still exist; nay, even if the _whole_ brain be reduced to one _medullary_ bag, _animal_ life shall for some time be preserved.

To oppose this blending of mind and matter, Lord Brougham (in his Natural Theology) likens the marble statue hewn into beauty, to the perfect arrangement of organization in a being. While I admire the idea, I may observe that he forgets this truth,—that the maker of the one was a mere _statuary_, without even the fabulous power of Prometheus, or Pygmalion, or Frankenstein; the other, the _Creator_ of all things, who _breathed a breath of life into the shape he had made fitted to receive it_. My lord thus halts at the threshold of discovery: mind is not the _product_ of organization, but it works _by_ and _through_ it; and therefore, for its _earthly_ uses, cannot be independent of the qualities of matter. We may as well agree with Plato, in endowing the soul with “a plastic power, to fashion a body for itself, to enter a shape and make it a body living.” I remember Plutarch (in his Quæst. Platon.) makes him say, that the soul is older than the body, and the source of its existence, and that the intellect is in this soul. But where is the sacred evidence of this? for, even in our _antenatal_ state, we live, and yet there is probably no consciousness; there is vitality, at least, without the _consciousness_ of an intellect.

ASTR. As the creation of light was _before_ that of the sun, its reservoir, so the creation of the soul might be before the brain, in which the Creator _subsequently_ placed it.

EV. For this there _is_ sacred evidence, Astrophel. There _was_ light, ere the sun was created as its reservoir; but the soul was breathed into the body, which was already then created.

ASTR. This is a specimen of your special pleading, Evelyn, allied to that perilous error of Priestley, that supposed function and structure to be identical, because they are influenced by the same disease, and seem to live and die, flourish and decay, _together_. Democritus also has written his belief that, “as the smell of a rose exists in the bloom, and fades as that dies, so the soul of an animal is born with its birth, and dies with its death.” You have conceded to me (and we must all be conscious of) the great difficulty of conceiving the _nature_ of _spirit_; but, if we are required to prove its existence, we may answer, by analogy, that we cannot always palpably prove the existence of _matter_, although we _know it_ to exist. The _electric fluid_ may remain for an indefinite period invisible, nay, may never meet the sight,—it may even traverse a space without any evidence but that of its wonderful influence, and at length be collected in a jar.

As light, existing in remote stars, has not yet reached our earth, so the electricity is now residing in myriads of bodies, which will never be elicited; and thus (if I may extend the simile) the principle of life, whatever it be, may have an independent existence during life, may leave the body and yet not perish. Is not this a fine illustration of the living of the soul without the body; for here even a grosser matter, yet invisible, is evinced by its passage from one thing to another, although it is inert when involved in the substance?

IDA. May I not fear that the errors of philosophy, grounded on the difficulty of conceiving the nature of a self-existent spirit, will not stop until they lapse into the belief of annihilation?

For there are many suspicious sentiments even in the pages of well-meaning writers; such are the dangerous sentiments which Boswell has ascribed to Miss Seward: “There is one mode of the fear of death which is certainly absurd, and that is the dread of annihilation, which is only a pleasing sleep without a dream.”

There may be nothing terrible in the condition of annihilation, yet the moral effect is deplorable; indeed, to doubt the eternal existence is to argue that man’s life is but a plaything of the Deity. The notion of annihilation is so abhorrent, that he who believes it dooms himself indeed to a miserable existence; for the crowning solace of a Christian life is holy hope, and belief in the priceless gift of immortality.

“Know’st thou th’ importance of a soul immortal?
Behold this midnight glory—worlds on worlds!
Amazing pomp: redouble this amaze!
Ten thousand add; and twice ten thousand more;
Then weigh the whole; one soul outweighs them all,
And calls th’ astonishing magnificence
Of unintelligent creation poor.”

Would that Priestley had read wisely that prophetic truth in Ecclesiastes: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

EV. I do not approve his latitude of thought, yet it were severe to think this, even of Priestley, merely because he disbelieved _separate_ spiritual existence; for Aristotle also asserts, that “the soul could not exist _without the body_, and yet that it was not the body, but a part of it.” Zeno, and the Stoics, termed that which was called a spirit _material_; and not only Ray and Derham, but even Paley, and Johnson, disbelieved the separate existence. The archdeacon’s opinion, that we should have a _substantial_ resurrection, is founded on New-Testament evidence, and expressed in his discourse on a future state. The apostle’s simile of the wheat implies a _death_ of the grain: it dies, but there is no _remodelling_, for it is the _germ_ that lives and grows; so, although the body may not be restored, there is a development of _its_ germ in the transit or resurrection of _its_ spirit. The sage thought also the simile of St. Paul should be taken _literally_, and not _figuratively_: and yet he qualifies it thus: “We see that it is not to be the same body, for the Scripture uses the illustration of grain sown (which in its exact sense implies an offspring, and not a resurrection), and we know that the grain which grows is not the same with what is sown. You cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body; it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish identity of person.”

Blumenbach believed that when the soul revived, after death, the brain would equally revive; and there is, indeed, nothing very irrational in all this, for death is, even to our senses, not an annihilation, but only a new combination of matter. The Greek sceptics thought that the teeth would remain perfect, if all else was decomposed and lost; and the rabbins conferred this perpetuity on _one_ bone of the _spinal column_, which they called LUZ. These strange notions of the mystic union may explain to us that diversity of custom, in various nations, as to the disposal of the dead. While the Irish papists, with a superstitious reverence for inanimate clay, celebrate their wakes with rites often as licentious as they are profane; the cannibal _Calatiæ_ thought it more respectful to _eat_ the bodies of _their_ departed friends, at least so writes Herodotus; and the filial love of other Indian tribes invites the children to strangle their aged parents, as they sit in their fresh-made graves.

It is certainly more consolatory to associate our thoughts with the _immortal_ part of a lost friend; to believe the _spirit_ to be in celestial keeping, and that it still hovers around us. The collapse and change of features prove that the _body_ is then but as the dust from which it was first formed. I would not wish, like Socrates, to have my limbs scattered over the earth, because

“Cœlo tegitur qui non habet urnam;”

but, as the body _must_ be consumed, were it not better and safer, as the Greeks did, to _burn_ the dead, to resolve the corpse, as soon as possible, into its constituent elements. I shall ever remember with horror the scenes which I witnessed in Naples, when a _pile of bodies_, collected from the chapels by the dead carts, which go round the city at night, was thrown by irreverent hands into the public cemetery of the Campo Santo.

The fiat of the Creator MAY at once produce a reconstruction of the body, however widely scattered its particles, and the return of the soul to the brain, from which it had once departed; but is it not somewhat irrational to think that we should again be endowed with organs, without the functions and passions to which they are subservient?

IDA. It may be a bliss to gaze even on the _shadows_ of those we love. There is a beautiful allegory of this solemn question told in the “Spectator,” which, as Addison approves, it cannot be profanation to admire. It is the Indian legend of “Marraton and Yaratilda,” in which the devoted husband comes unawares on Paradise, and sees the shadowy _forms_ of his wife and children, without their _substance_. The story exquisitely blends the fond wish of Marraton to die, that he may be again admitted to the holy communion of those so fondly loved; for Paradise is painted in the mind’s eye even of the heathen, although, in his dearth of revelation, he associates the joys of his elysium with the sensual pleasures of terrestrial life. The Indian dreams of his dogs, believing that the greatest hunters shall be in the highest favour with Brahma; the proselytes of the prophet die in a vision of their houri’s beauty; and the warriors of Odin already drink the honey-water from the skulls of their enemies, served up to them by the beautiful “Valkhas” of the “Valhalla.” Thus even the creed of infidels is not atheism. What thinks Evelyn?

EV. As you do, Ida. As to the atheist, one, perchance, may have _lived_, if we rightly interpret the sentiments of Diogenes, and Bion, and Lucian, and Voltaire; but, I believe, one never _died_. My solemn duty has summoned me to the death-bed of more than one reputed infidel, who have in health reasoned with fluency and splendour, and have penned abstruse theses on life and the world’s creation. But, when danger lay in their path of life, their stoic heroism fled, and left them abject cowards. They looked not even on the lightning’s flash without trembling, and the vision of death was a sting to the conscience. I have seen many a death-bed like that of Beaufort, who made “no signal of his hope,” not because he disbelieved a God, but because a conviction of his sin left him without a hope and faith in the promises.

Of course there cannot be an _Euthanasia_ where irreligion has marked a life, but, believe me, there would be no _fear_ of death in an atheist.

ASTR. The mythologist and pagan may cite their tables, and worship their idols in the recesses of their pagodas and choultries; but some idea of the Deity has been unfolded to the mind of all. Even the eastern princes have had some glimpses of the true faith, and shahs and caliphs were once engaged in building their Nestorine or Christian churches.

The profane Chinese has, it is true, called his realm the _celestial empire_; Fohi, who is believed to have reigned three thousand years before Christ, established his “Iconolatria” or “idolatry,” and Si Lao Kiun struck at the establishment of _polytheism_, but the purer theology of Confucius prevailed over his rival.

The Deity, indeed, is the essence of every creed, for all believe in a great spirit as well as an immortal mind and a paradise. Like the reasonings of natural philosophy, our notions and epithets of the great Creator certainly differ, but in all there is faith in his perfection. Xam Ti is the great spirit of the Chinese, as Woden is the god of the Gothic races, and Brahma, or Alla, or the Kitchi Manitou, or even the sun, the source of light, and heat, and joy to the creation, are the deities of other nations. Nor may we wonder more that the Ghebir, and the Peruvian, and the Natches should worship their orb of fire, than that the Irish should, on the morning of their _Beltane_, light their peat fires to the sun.

The doctrines of the Brahmins all attest their creed of _theism_, if we interpret aright the evidence of the learned _Pundits_ of Benares, especially in the Gentoo code; and the records of Abul Fazel in the “Baghvat Geeta,” an episode in the poem of the “Mahabarat,” written to prove the unity. The devout Christian will deem this creed a woful error, but he will confess his admiration of their sublime notion of the divine attribute, which Colonel Dow has thus imparted to us: “As God is immaterial, he is above all conception; as he is invisible, he can have no form; but from what we behold of his works, we may conclude that he is eternal, omnipotent, knowing all things, and present everywhere.”

I will grant that the oriental notions of cosmogony, or the creation of the world, are a blot on their scripture page: because the pagan theologians were shorn of the light of Christianity, they were prone to refer creation to natural causes within their own comprehension, and their ideas were fabulous and impure. Thus, among the Hindoos and Egyptians, there is a mass of obscenity adduced to account for the development of the globe, in the associations of _Vishnu_ and _Siva_, and _Osiris_ and _Isis_; and the temples of Elephanta and Elora are adorned with symbolic paintings of this incarnation of Vishnu. Yet, with all this error, there is in the “Vedas” or Hindoo scriptures, a not remote analogy to the Bible itself; and, granting that the cosmogony of Phœnicia is little more than a mysterious romance; yet, whether the great cause be the _demiurgic spirit_ uniting with desire, or the being “That” of the Hindoos, the essence of all these mysteries still combines the grand scheme of the creation,—the formation of a beautiful world from a chaos of wide and dark waters.

IDA. You are wandering very far eastward, Astrophel: I will propose this question to Evelyn.

If it is so evident that the brain and mind, although not identical, exist in a most intimate union, may we not undervalue their relative influence by adducing the energy of intellect and brilliancy of conception possessed by many in advanced life? Remember the green old age of Plato, and Cicero, and Newton, and Johnson, and, above all, Goëthe, whose last work was brilliant as his first. And all this, coincident with that love of Infinite Wisdom that exists, (as we read in the “Consolations of a Philosopher,”) “even in the imperfect life which belongs to the earth, _increases with age_, outlives the perfection of the corporeal faculties, and, at the moment of death is felt by the conscious being.” Does this imply decay?

EV. The retentive powers of old age, are the _exception_ to a rule, which the ultra spiritualist assumes as a _general_ rule, in attempting to disprove the growth and decay of mind, according to the age of the body. But as _lives_ are of different duration and _constitutions_ vary, so may _mental powers_ indicate different degrees of vigour. If mind _in_creases, no doubt it _de_creases; and I have known many, who retain every faculty but _memory_, which is the first to decay and indicate failing power; and so also is it with idiots, in whose _memory_, usually, the greatest defects appear; the faculty of counting numbers reaches only to three, and of letters to C, the third letter in the alphabet.

Ida will grant that there is no more impressive lesson of humility than the dwindling and decay of genius, when, in the words of the Athenian misanthrope—

“Nature, as it grows again toward earth,
Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.”

Reflect on the painful end of Sheridan and other brilliant wits of their day; that

“From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow,
And Swift expires a driveller and a show;”

and we may almost wish that biography should begin at each end, and finish in the middle, or zenith of a life.

IDA. If the fact be so, I grant the lesson to our pride, Evelyn; and we may dwell with fervent admiration on the divinity of that mind, which can ennoble and consecrate our body, so fraught as it is with basest passions, and so decayable withal.

NATURE OF SLEEP.

“——Sleep, gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse.”
HENRY IV. Part ii.

IDA. I begin to perceive the importance of this digression on the nature of mind. You wish us to believe, there is a temporary desertion of the spirit from the body, and _therefore_ the body sleeps?

EV. Not absolute desertion, but a limit to its influence. Many have thought in conformity to your question; and indeed, Ida, it is a belief so holy, that I may feel it to be almost an impiety to differ.

From the time of Aristotle to Haller, the term “Sleep” expresses that condition which is marked by a cessation of certain mental manifestations, coincident with the degree of oppression; for it is an error to say that the _body_ sleeps,—it is the _brain_ only, perhaps I may say, the _cerebrum_, or the _fore_ lobes; for I believe the lower part of it (that which imparts an energy to the process of breathing and of blood circulation) is never in a complete sleep, but merely in a state of languor, or rather of repose, sufficient for its restoration,—if it were to sleep, _death_ would be the result.

This repose is in contrast with a state of _waking_, that activity of mind in which ideas are constantly chasing each other like the waves of ocean; the mode of displacing one idea being by the excitement of another in its place.

In that state of sound sleep which overcomes children, whose tender brains are soon tired, or old persons whose brains are _worn_, and in persons of little reflection,—the mind is perfectly passive, and its manifestations cease.

So writes Professor Stewart,—that there was a total suspension of volition during sleep, as regards its influence over mental or corporeal faculties; and I may even adduce a scrap from Burton, although I am an admirer of the quaint old compiler for little else than his measureless industry:—

“Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common sense, for the preservation of body and soul. Illigation of senses proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which they should come; this stopping is caused by vapours arising out of the stomach, filling the nerves by which the spirits should be conveyed. When these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits perform their accustomed duties: so that _waking_ is the _action_ and _motion_ of the senses, which the spirits, dispersed over all parts, cause.”

ASTR. But is volition always suspended even in sound sleep? Was it not the opinion of Berkley, that the mind even then was _percipient_? How else can we account for the waking exactly at one predetermined hour? If we retire to sleep at the latest hour, or oppressed with fatigue, so strong an impression is produced in our mind, that the breaking of our sleep is almost at the given moment.

EV. I will answer you at present, Astrophel, only by analysis; it is not yet time to _explain_.

I may grant that there is some _latent_ effect,—_passive_ memory, if you will,—for we do not _count_ the hours in sleep, and calculate our time _by the clock_; but we wake, and soon the bell strikes.

We have on record some very curious instances of the periodical recurrence of ideas in a waking state, the measurement of time being referrible to mental impression, mechanically established by constant habit.

There was an idiot once, who was in the habit of amusing himself constantly by counting the hours as they were struck on the clock. It chanced, after some time, that the works of the clock were injured, so that the striking for a time had ceased. The idiot, notwithstanding, continued to measure the day with perfect correctness, by counting and beating the hour. This is a story of Dr. Plott’s, in his History of Staffordshire.

There is one of more modern date, somewhat analogous to this.

I may quote Holy Writ in support of this passive condition of true sleep; nay, even its similitude to death. How often do we find allusions to sleep and death as synonymous! Sir Thomas Brown was impressed so deeply with this _likeness_, that he “did not dare to trust it without his prayers.” And the Macedonian, who wished for more worlds to conquer, confessed his sleep proved to him his mortality. I may quote ancient poetry also in my support. Homer and Virgil describe sleep as the “Brother of Death;” and, among the profane poets of later times, the same sublime association is traced of this

“Mortis imago—et simulacrum.”

Among the ancient allegories, sleep is portrayed as a female, with black unfolded wings,—in her left hand, a white child, the image of Sleep; in her right, a black child, the image of Death.

On the tomb of Cypselus, according to Pausanias, _night_ is thus personified.

CAST. How true, then, was the thought of the first deep sleeper, on the sensation of slumber:—

“——There gentle sleep
First found me, and with soft oppression seiz’d
My drownéd sense, untroubled; tho’ I thought
I then was passing to my former state,
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve.”

But how fearful is this resemblance which changes “tir’d nature’s sweet restorer” into a type of death! Pr’ythee, Evelyn, do not affright me thus, by clothing sleep with terror, as if it were disease and danger.

EV. Why tremble for the mortal sleep of the just and good, who will feel, with William Hunter, on their death-bed, “how _pleasant_ and easy it is to die;” and with another moralist,—

“Oh what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
Night following night!”

Fear not, Castaly; I do not term _slumber_ and _gentle_ sleep disease, but signs of health. Not so, however, many a _profound_ sleep, and its advances towards _coma_; those results of exhaustion from excess, or from intense and direct narcotics, as opium sleep, and the paralyzing senselessness from extreme cold, as in the story of Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander in the antarctic regions.

You are aware that many _remedies_ in medicine may be so intense as to cause fatality: inflammation, too, is the restorative process of wounds, but if in _excess_ it is fatal. Appetite also, to a certain degree, is healthy; but craving and thirst, its extremes, are proved, by _suffering_, to be morbid.

If the mind is composed to perfect rest, it is lulled to senselessness; then metaphysically we are said to sleep: the mind is not excited by thought, and, in consequence, its supply of _arterial_ blood is less, the more _rapid_ flow of which would be the cause of waking.

Within certain limits sleep is a _remedy_; but it becomes perilous when intense, or too much indulged. One eccentric physician, as we read in the learned Boërhave, even fancied sleep the _natural_ condition of man, and was wont to yield to its influence during eighteen of the twenty-four hours; but apoplexy soon finished his experiment.

This _negative_ quiescence (for sleep is not a _positive_ state) allows the restoration of energy, and then we wake. Even the senses accumulate their power in sleep; the eye is dazzled by the light when we wake, from the sensitiveness imparted by this accumulation.

The conceits regarding the cause of sleep are so various, that if I were to discuss their merits I should only weary your patience, as I perceive I have already done.

Some have thought that sleep arose from certain conditions of the blood in the vessels and nerves of the brain; its congestion in the _sinuses_; or a _reflux_ of a great portion of it towards the heart: the result of depressed nervous energy—exhaustion, fatigue, cold, and the influence of powerful narcotics, or the combustion of charcoal. Others, that sleep arises from the deposition of fresh matter on the brain, and its sudden pressure. Then we have the cerebral collapse of Cullen, and of Richerand; the deficiency of animal spirits of Haller; the diminished afflux of blood to the brain of Blumenbach; and the exhausted irritability of the Brunonian theory adopted by Darwin.

Where the truth lies I presume not to decide, but it is clear there is a necessity for the occasional repose of the mental organ:

“Non semper arcum
Tendit Apollo.”

Watchfulness invariably reduces, even in the brute: the wild elephant is tamed by the perseverance of the hunter in keeping it constantly awake.

The mind, then, as it is manifested to us (for deeply important is it that we confound not the perfect and pure, because unembodied essence of the soul, with its _combined_ existence in the brain—that union from which a _thought is born_), the mind cannot exert itself beyond a certain period without a sensation of fatigue in the brain, as palpable as the exhaustion from excessive muscular exertion. And this depends on a natural law, that organs after acting a certain given period, flag and lose their energy. Thus the first harbinger of sleep is the _closing of the lids_ from languor, and relaxation of the muscles. Muscular fibre will, however, regain its expenditure by simple rest, requiring a certain period for this re-accumulation, like the charging of an electrical jar. Sleep, however, is not always a sequence of exhausted irritability of muscle; we may be _too tired_ to sleep; and thought and memory also will keep the mind awake, and prevent nervous energy from renewing corporeal vigour.

The excitement of thought beyond certain limits is both painful and destructive, evincing its effects by various grades of mental disorder, from simple headache to confirmed mania. Our first ray of hope, in fever, is often the coming on of a quiet sleep, and in the sad cases of _delirium tremens_ we must either _sleep or die_; the effort of philosophical determination to overcome the depression only adding to its intensity, as in the case of a person worn out by labour, in attempting to labour on. This conflict cannot be more pertinently exemplified than by some passages in the life of Collins, by one who knew him well:—

“He languished some years under that depression of mind which unchains the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield to his malady, and returned. His disorder was no alienation of mind, but general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit, but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able to talk with his former vigour.”

I believe that sensibility and fatigue of mind, by inducing sleeplessness, may often be the source even of mania.

The sleep of animals is usually _light_, especially that of birds, and they are easily startled when at roost. The cackling of the geese on their awaking, you know, saved the Roman capitol. Yet sleep is altogether very nearly balanced with waking. Some animals sleep often, like the cats, but they are long awake, and prowling in the night. The python and the boa are also long awake, and then sleep for many days during the process of digestion. Indeed, all the _feræ_ fall into sound sleep after feeding; while the ruminants scarcely sleep at all; nor do they crouch like the _feræ_, with the head between the legs: but then their whole life is one scene of quiet; rumination is a mindless reverie. The West Indian slaves and the Hottentots, or woolly bipeds, resemble the brute animal in this, that they fall asleep as soon as their labour is concluded.

That activity of mind in excess may induce even mania, I may offer two impressive, although negative, proofs, from the records of Dr. Rush.—“In despotic countries, and where the public passions are torpid, and where life and property are secured only by the extinction of domestic affections, madness is a rare disease. Dr. Scott informed me that he heard of but one single instance of madness in China.”

“After much inquiry, I have not been able to find a single instance of fatuity among the Indians, and but few instances of melancholy and madness.”

I may add, that Baron Humboldt assures us of this immunity among the wild Indians of South America.

IDA. And may not this melancholy effect be averted by caution and rule? We have a saying in Herefordshire, that “Six hours are enough for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.”

EV. There cannot be a fixed rule on that point, except the prevailing law of nature,—the feeling of necessity; but this may often lead astray.

It is calculated that one half of a child’s life is passed in sleep, and one quarter to one sixth of the adult existence; but for old age there is no essential period or limit. Old Parr slept almost constantly about the close of his life; while Dr. Gooch records the case of one whose period of sleep was only one quarter of an hour in the twenty-four. It is well to inure an infant to a _gradual_ diminution of its time of sleep, so that at ten years old its period should be about eight hours.

The strength or energy of brain will, when aided by custom, modify the faculty of controlling the disposition to slumber. Frederick the Great, and our own Hunter, slept only five hours in the twenty-four; while Napoleon seemed to exert a despotic power over sleep and waking, even amid the roaring of artillery. Sir J. Sinclair slept eight hours, and Jeremy Taylor three. As a general precept, however, for the regulation of sleep in energetic constitutions, I might propose the wise distribution which Alfred made of his own time into three equal periods,—one being passed in sleep, diet, and exercise, one in despatch of business, and one in study and devotion. Careful habit will often produce sleep at regular and stated periods, as it will render the sleeper insensible or undisturbed by loud noises; the gunner will fall asleep on the carriage amid the incessant discharge of the cannon; and, if I remember right, the slumbers of the bell-ringer of Notre Dame were not broken by the striking of the quarters and the hour close to his ear.

IDA. And at what seasons should we wake and sleep? It seems to me, that the Creator himself has written his precepts in the diurnal changes of this world, that are still so healthfully observed by the peasant, but so strangely perverted by the capricious laws of fashion, and even by the romantic

“sons of night,
And maids that love the moon;”

always excepting Astrophel and Castaly. It moves my wonder that they who have looked upon the beauty of a sunrise from the mountain, or the main, can be caught sleeping, when such a flood of glory, beyond all the glare of peace-rejoicings and birth-lights, bursts upon the world.

EV. The wisest have thought with you, Ida, although there was one idle poet, even Thomson, who confessed he had “noe motive for rising early.” It was the custom of Jewel and Burnet to rise at four; and Buffon, we are told, rewarded his valet with a crown, if he succeeded in getting him up before six.

It is to slight the creation, not to enjoy the beauties of daylight; and it is the _natural_ time for sleep, when the dews of night are on the earth. The proof of this:—There were two French colonels who were marching their troops, one by day, the other by night; and the loss in men and horses was very far greater among the night marchers.

CAST. I believe it was Panza, who “never desired a second sleep, because the first lasted from night till morning,”—that immortal Sancho Panza, whose quaint rhapsody we must all echo so gratefully,—“Blessed is he that first _invented_ sleep.” The eulogies of this blissful state, and the wailings of a sleepless spirit, have ever been a favourite theme of the poet, and our own ancient dramatists,—as Beaumont and Fletcher, in the play of “Valentinian,” and Shakspere, from the lips of Henry IV. in his beautiful invocation, and Young, and many others.

EV. Sleeplessness is one of the severest penalties of our nature. In the darkness and silence of night the wakeful mind preys on itself; the pulse is rapid, it is a throb of anguish,—to the wearied thought there is no conclusion, and the parched tongue prays in vain for the morning light. In the curse of Kehama, I think the sleepless lid is one of the most cruel inflictions; and in the severe disorder which we term _hemicrania_, this curse is to a degree realized.

The sleeplessness of Caligula is related by Suetonius. In Bartholinus, we read of one who slept not for three months, and he became a melancholy hypochondriac. And Boërhave, from intense study, was constantly awake during six weeks.

IDA. We are happy in our quiet minds, are we not, dear Castaly? Yet, if we are ever summoned to the couch of one wearied by night watching, Evelyn will tell us how we may soothe the pillow of a sleepless mind, to which the secret of inducing slumber would be a priceless treasure.

EV. Study the causes of _insomnia_, or sleeplessness, Ida; as those which excite nervous irritability,—coffee, green tea, _small_ doses of opium, the protracted use of antimony, &c.; and believe not in the virtues of vulgar remedies, often as dangerous as they are ridiculous. There is a batch of these which Burton has gleaned from various authors; as a sample,—nutmegs, mandrakes, wormwood; and from Cardan and Miraldus,—the anointing the soles of the feet with the fat of a dormouse, and the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog, swine’s galls, hares’ ears, &c.

I might offer to you many plain precepts for the alleviation of the _light_ causes of sleeplessness; and while I dole them out to you in very dullness, you will fancy my gold-headed cane to my chin, and other essential symbols of an Esculapius of the olden time. Adopt, then, a free ventilation in summer, and airing in winter, of the chamber. This should never be a mere closet, always above the ground floor, neither very light nor dark, the window not being close to the bed, and, above all, not in the vicinity of stoves, ovens, and large kitchen fires. Do not allow the windows to be open throughout the night, to admit the cold dew or air; and, in winter, the basket-fire should be placed there for an hour before you enter your chamber. A slight acceleration of the circulation may be produced by gentle exercise before rest; and two or three wafer biscuits or spring water, to prevent the wakeful effects of both chilliness and hunger. A light woollen sock may be worn, which is unconsciously displaced when sleep comes on, and the night-cap should be little more than a net, except during the very cold months. The position of the body should be that which is the easiest, except the supine, which induces congestion and often “night mare;” and if there be much sensitiveness of the surface, the hydrostatic bed should be employed, but that not too long, as it will become heated by protracted pressure. Children should not be enveloped in clothes, nor crowded in bed; nor should infants be shaken, or tossed, or patted, as foolish nurses too often do.

There are many simple modes of inducing slumber: I allude not to poppy and henbane, nor to the pillow of hops, which, in the case of the third George, was the charm that sealed up the lids of the king; but to other modes, such as a tedious recital, (something like my own dull prosing,) the gentle motion of a swing, a cot or cradle, the ripple of a stream, and the dashing of a waterfall, the waving of a fan, the caw of rooks, the hum of bees, the murmur of an Æolian harp—

CAST. So gracefully wound up in that quaint _morceau_, the “Fairy Queen,” when Archimago sends the spirit to fetch a dream from Morpheus—

“Cynthia still doth steepe
In silver dew his ever-drooping head,
Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred.

And more to lull him in his slumber soft,
A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe,
And ever dringling rain upon the loft,
Mix’d with a murmuring winde, much like the soune
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune.”

SUBLIMITY AND IMPERFECTION OF DREAMING.

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded by a sleep.”
TEMPEST.

EV. In the transition _to_ and _from_ the repose of sleep, the mind is sinking into oblivion, and thought is fading, and the senses and sensation are overshadowed in their regress to insensibility: even instinct is well nigh a blank. This is the state of _slumber_. Then, I believe, and only then, are we ever wandering in the ideal labyrinth of DREAMS.

There is a curious calculation of Cabanis, that certain organs or senses of the body fall asleep at regular progressive periods; some, therefore, may be _active_ while others are _passive_, and in this interesting state, I may hint to you, consists the essence of a dream. It seems that in _dreamless_ sleep, the senses fall asleep altogether, as in the case of Plutarch’s friends, Thrasymenes and Cleon, and others who _never dreamed_.

ASTR. So there is some truth in the fanciful conceit of Cardanus, that “Sleep is the rest of the spirits,—waking their vehement motion, and dreaming their tremulous motion.”

CAST. And philosophy plumes herself on her wonderous intuition for this _discovery_. Let her blush, and kneel before the shrine of poesy. The poets, even of a ruder age than ours, have thought and written before you, Evelyn, and have unfolded these _arcana_. How doth Chaucer usher in his “Dreme?”—

“Halfe in dede sclepe, not fully revyved;”

and again:

“For on this wyse upon a night
As ye have herd withouten light,
Not all wakyng ne full on slepe,
About such hour as lovirs wepe;”

and in “La Belle Dame sans Mercy,” there is the same thought:

“Halfe in a dreme, not fully well awaked;”

and in Sir Walter’s “Antiquary:” “Eh, sirs, sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before they win to the long sleep and the sound.” So will your philosophy dwindle somewhat in its consequence, Sir Clerke.

EV. We are not jealous of these _glimpses_ of a poet, Castaly; they impart a value to their rhymes: we enrol _such_ poets in the rank of philosophers.

IDA. Solve me this question, Evelyn: is there any relative difference between the subjects of dreams _before_ and _after_ sleep?

EV. It has been thought that there is more reference to reality in the _first_, and more confusion and wandering of imagination in the _second_; but as nature is often _excited_ rather than exhausted at night, there may be equal brightness with the morning dream, occurring after the recreation and refreshment of sleep.

CAST. We may concede, then, some wisdom to the Sybarites, who destroyed their morning heralds, the cocks, that they might enjoy their matin dreams undisturbed. And I remember one of Pope’s allusions to the virtues of this _υπαρ_, or morning dream:

“What time the morn mysterious visions brings,
While purer slumbers spread their golden wings.”

ASTR. We have often discoursed on the psychology of Locke, Evelyn, and we are now involved in one of its most interesting points—_innate idea_. Is the dreamer _conscious_ of his dream? It has been asserted, especially by two profound metaphysicians, Beattie and Reid, that they _persuaded_ themselves in their dreams that they _were_ dreaming, and would then attempt to throw themselves off a precipice; this awoke them, and proved the impression a fiction. Were there not present in this, volition and consciousness; and is it not an evidence of an innate idea without sensation?

EV. No. A train of thought and passive memory may take place without volition, even in a waking mind; a train of _reasoning_ cannot. So feeling and _passive_ thought may in the mere dream, but not a _conscious acting_ on it. The phenomena, and the expressions used to describe these impressions, are precisely illustrative of another condition of sleep, to which we have not yet pointed. This notion of Beattie was but an echo of Aristotle. The Stagyrite himself was subject to dreams of danger, and, after a while, he used to whisper to himself: “Don’t be frightened,—this is only a dream:” the glaring proof that it was _not_; and yet psychologists still talk of the _management_ of a dream.

The fairest explanation is, that there has been a predetermination on some point, and _unconscious_ ideas on the same point are elicited, or may be the first to present themselves to the mind in the morning, _at the moment_ we awaken, and thus it is the first which the judgment acts on in its reverie; that is, the line between dreaming and being awake. If there be many organs asleep, there is still some _clouding_ of this judgment; but if that be asleep also, there is an absolute dream.

If we _know_ that we are dreaming, the faculty of judgment _cannot_ be inert, and the dream would be _known_ to be a _fallacy_. We might, by thinking, render our dream what we pleased, and be sure we should never wish for devils or dangers. The essence of the dream is that it is _uncontrolled_: other states are not dreaming. Above all, if judgment influenced the dream of Beattie, who was not a madman, would he have _wished_ to have toppled down headlong from a rock? Listen to Johnson on this point. “He related that he had once, in a dream, a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. Now.” said he, “one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for had not my judgment failed me, I should have seen that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own character.”

Nay, in the words of Beattie himself, in his “Essay on Truth,”—

“Sleep has a wonderful power over all our faculties. Sometimes we seem to have lost our moral faculty; as when we dream of doing that without scruple or remorse, which, when awake, we could not bear to think of. Sometimes memory is extinguished; as when we dream of conversing with our departed friends, without remembering any thing of their death, though it was, perhaps, one of the most striking incidents we had ever experienced, and is seldom or never out of our thoughts when we are awake.”

Even the most sensitive and amiable girls will dream of committing murder, or the most awful crimes, without any sense of compunction. We feel no surprise at the working of our own miracles; and we know not how to avoid danger. I have myself dreamed of occurrences long past, as if they were of to-day; have fretted in my sleep, on ideal events, and on waking was for a moment wretched. But I have reflected, _awake_, on these very events, and have not only felt resigned, but deemed them benefits.

There was in the university of Gottingen the physician Walderstein. He was a constant dreamer, and this is his account of one of these illusions. “I dreamt that I was condemned to the stake, and during my execution I was perfectly composed, and indeed _reasoned_ calmly on the mode in which it was conducted;—whispering to myself, ‘Now I am burning, and presently I shall be converted into a cinder.’” It seems that he was dissatisfied with his dream, on account of this apathetic calmness; and he concludes: “I was fearful I should become all thought, and no feeling.” _I_ would say, he was all illusion and no judgment.

It is but lately that I dreamed I was reciting a metaphysical poem, which my vanity whispered me possessed a deal of merit. During the recitation I thought there was a turning up of noses, and of tongues into cheeks—a very expressive sign of incredulity and satire. At length a general murmur ran through the assembly that it was a complete “boggle.” Nothing daunted, I assured them that it was a very abstruse passage, and the fault was in the shallow comprehension of my audience. Need I add, that I should blush at such an evasion in my waking judgment?

How different also is our dream from a waking thought, in which we can control the fancy!

If in the dream the chain be abruptly broken, the waking mind does not then carry on the train, and if any thing occur in waking, associating with the dream, to join the broken link, the dream is not completed, but the ideas _revert_, or are retraced, to their source; and if any idea at the origin of the dream be _re-excited_, there will be no consistent continuance of it beyond the dream itself, or, if there be, it will bear the stamp of reasoning, losing all connexion with the illusion. On the contrary, if we read as we are falling asleep, we continue _in the dream_ the subject of our study, but _erroneously_; and if we then start and wake, we shall find that at the moment of slumber we had _changed the integrity_ of our thinking. Be assured, then, that Virgil is correct in this—

“She seems alone
To wander in her sleep, through ways unknown,
_Guideless_ and _dark_.”

CAST. And now, Sir Knight, deign to look on the other side of the shield. Answer me with sincerity,—if your words be true, is not this a high privilege of imaginative minds, to lift themselves out of the gloomy atmosphere of this world of woe; to soar with fancy, not to drudge with fact? How do I envy a romantic dreamer, like him of whom Master Edmund Spenser writes,—

“——at length, some wonted slepe doth crowne
His new falne lids, dreames straight, tenne pound to one,
Out steps some faëry with quick motion,
And tells him wonders of some flourie vale.”

Sleep is indeed the reality of another existence.

ASTR. So breathed the thought of Heraclitus, in words like these,—that “all men, whilst they are awake, are in one common world; but that each, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.” The fairies are his boon and chosen compeers, and the sylphs are as much his handmaidens, as those around the toilet of Belinda. We are indeed the happy children, and, like them, our existence is a dream of felicity,—one long and happy thought of the _present_, with no reflection or forethought to mar its blisses.

Then the shades and memory of departed friends and lovers, are they not around us as true and as beautiful as when they lived? The common sentiment of enamoured dreamers is—

“I hear thy voice in dreams upon me softly call;
I see thy form as when thou wert a living thing.”

In the dream, ambition is lifted to the loftiest pinnacle of her high aspirings; and power and riches are showered in profusion in the path of their votaries from the cornucopia of fancy; and all this with a depth and intensity that gilds for a time the moments of waking life. And I agree with Saint Augustine, that if we sleep and dream in Paradise, our existence will be perfectly felicitous.

But then, alas! the cruel waking from this world of pleasure. I have breathed many a sigh of sympathy with Milton’s dream of his dead wife, and with Crabbe, in his “World of Dreams.”

You remember, Evelyn, how oft you have wondered at my absence from our college cœna. You thought not that I was then deeply studying how I might gain a victory over my thoughts in sleep. As my waking memory would, from some indefinite cause, be re-excited after it had seemed to fade and die, so the subject of my dreams has been resumed after many months, without any chain of relative thoughts in the interval. I believed then that this might be a dream; that I had dreamt the same before; but on the morning of the _second_ dream, reflection assured me that on the morning of the _first_ I had known and thought on it. I was waiting for a golden hour of inspiration, and it was granted me. One night came o’er my slumber a dream of beauty: there was an innocent happiness, a sense of purest pleasure, that might be the beatitude of a peri ere she lost her place in Eden. In the morning, the dream was a part of my being; I nursed it throughout the live-long day, and at night lay me down to slumber, and again with the sleep came the dream. I was thus the monarch of an ideal world: the dream was my life, so long as my thoughts were on it concentrated, and even study was a _Rembrandt_ shadow on its brightness.

In a moment of rapture, I cried,—

“We forget how superior, to mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth which they know.”