382 MAUKY ON SLEEP AND DREAMS. 



left on waking, of the thoughts and feelings which have 

 existed in the mind.' 



To this we may add, that such mode of regarding 

 sleep brings its phenomena into closer relation with 

 those of our waking existence, making them serve to 

 mutual illustration, and to the solution of many 

 anomalies which depend on this relation, and the 

 manner in which the two states graduate into each 

 other. It is impossible, indeed, for anyone at all ob- 

 servant of the facts to regard sleep as a single or simple 

 function. We know that through the nervous system 

 and circulation of the blood all parts of the body, and 

 more especially the organs of sense, are affected and 

 altered by it. But these changes of state are ever 

 varying in the same organ, as well as in the different 

 organs of our complex frame ; and the inter-relations 

 thus produced, were they more accessible to observa- 

 tion, would give us deepest insight into this mysterious 

 part of our nature. Every organ may be said to have 

 a sleep of its own. The several senses, the voluntary 

 power, the functions of the brain in their totality, are 

 not merely affected in different degrees at different 

 times, but are differently affected in degree at the same 

 time. These facts are now generally recognised by 

 physiologists. Bichat (a man of original genius, pre- 

 maturely lost to science) thus tersely expresses them : 

 ' Le sommeil general est 1'ensemble des sommeils par- 

 ticuliers.' M. Maury, though less explicit in his state- 

 ment of it, manifestly adopts the same view, which, in 

 truth, affords theonly just definition of sleep, and its 

 concomitant phenomena. It is the view, moreover, 



