SUSPENDED ANIMATION. 409 



CHAPTER II. 



Life and suspended animation, or asphyxia Interment alive Pheno- 

 mena of the grave Coma, or extraordinarily long sleeps Sears 

 Toads found in rocks Tadpoles: separated vitality Polypes 

 Annelides, or worms Process of restoring severed parts Sus- 

 pended and restored animation Eotifera Reproductive powers 

 of animals and plants Divisibility of matter Facts beyond the 

 range of physics Extraordinary divisibility of life Ne w fact in 

 philosophy The philosophers of fixity Superiority of a child s 

 logic A fact of science for Unitarians Conclusion. 



THE extraordinary circumstances under which life may 

 sometimes continue to exist has given rise to many 

 remarkable, and, in some instances, painful impressions 

 among mankind. The dormant condition of bears and 

 other animals during their winter's sleep of many months' 

 duration, and many well-authenticated instances of un- 

 usually long periods of sleep by human beings, who 

 during this condition have maintained their vitality with- 

 out food and at a very low and all but suspended rate of 

 vital action, have doubtless given rise to those popularly- 

 recited cases of asphyxia, or suspended animation, under 

 which people have been said to be buried alive, and which 

 many living individuals have a horror may be their fate 

 if left to the charge of the careless and incautious at the 

 time of death. Many have felt this apprehension so 

 oppressive that they have desired that their interment 

 should not take place after apparent death under ordinary 

 circumstances, unless in addition some violence were done 

 to the physical organization, so as to prevent the pos- 

 sibility of their coming to life again after the earth had 

 been closed in upon them ; and many have wished to do 



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