330 An Essay on Dreaming., including 



transmission, and deposited, as in them, in every part of their 

 mass. This deposition taking place ou the nervous substance in- 

 termingled with their texture, may be accompanied with the same 

 result as when it aft'ects more perfect systems ; the difference 

 between their sleeping and waking, it is true, is not so obvious, 

 as where a larger portion of intelligence is suspended by the pa- 

 ralysing effects of the process ; and indeed the whole of their ex- 

 istence seems little better than a perpetual sleep. 



A fourth objection insists, that if the process of assimilation be 

 supposed the cause of sleep in hibernating animals, all their su- 

 perfluous store of fat, converted into nervous matter, and depo- 

 sited in their head, would swell their brain to so unconscionable 

 a size, as to render the theory altogether incredible ; and also, 

 that the perspiration of those creatures sufficiently accounts for 

 their meagerness at the end of their retirement, without suppos- 

 ing their previous obesity to be exhausted in the manner presumed 

 in the hypothesis. In these objections, the action of the absor- 

 bents has been entirely overlooked. There is no reason to sup- 

 pose that they discontinue their office ; and if not, it is natural 

 to think that they will scarcely suffer the brain to increase to any 

 very unusual dimensions. And with regard to the phaenomenou 

 of perspiration, it will hardly be maintained that the fat will exude 

 like oil through the pores of the skin, before it has been taken up 

 in the usual way by the absorbents, and conveyed by them into 

 the blood-vessels, and by their extremities deposited somewhere 

 within or without the body. If within the body, the deposition 

 of nutritious particles, being general, must, as well as elsewhere, 

 take place upon the brain itself, in support of the litigated hy- 

 pothesis ; where having performed their duty for a time, they 

 may be carried away as before, and detruded from the cuticular 

 pores in the form of perspiration, though so lately employed in 

 the ministry of the intellect, and perhaps not altogether inactively, 

 if these animals dream. 



The only remaining objection which has been advanced, notices 

 the common occurrence of our dreaming on the subject which has 

 most occupied our thoughts during the day — and contends, that 

 if the peculiar organ has been exhausted bv this exercise, it must 

 be in a condition favourable to its renewal by the process of assi- 

 milation ; ami this process, wherever it is active, precludes the 

 possibility of dreaming. The truth of this reasoning must be 

 admitted : without admitting, however, as a fact, that we dream 

 more frequently on the subjects which have occupied us during 

 the day, than on other subjects : but when this circumstance oc- 

 casionally occurs, is it inconceivable that the organ should receive 

 a portion of refreshment dining the night, and, from the very- 

 urgency and importance of the thoughts which occupied it during 



the 



