ANIMALS. 11 



any circulation of their juices, if cut in pieces 

 they do not awake, nor does any fluid ooze out 

 at the wound. These may be considered rather 

 as congealed than as sleeping animals ; and their 

 rest during winter, rather as a cessation from 

 life than a necessary refreshment: But in the 

 higher races of animals, whose blood is not thus 

 congealed and thawed by heat, these all bear 

 the want of sleep much better than man ; and 

 some of them continue a long time without seem- 

 ing to take any refreshment from it whatsoever. 



But man is more feeble : he requires its due 

 return ; and if it fails to pay the accustomed visit, 

 his whole frame is in a short time thrown into 

 disorder ; his appetite ceases ; his spirits are de- 

 jected j his pulse becomes quicker and harder; 

 and his mind, abridged of its slumbering visions, 

 begins to adopt waking dreams. A thousand 

 strange phantoms arise, which come and go with- 

 out his will : these, which are transient in the 

 beginning, at last take firm possession of the 

 mind, which yields to their dominion, and, after 

 a long struggle, runs into confirmed madness. 

 In that horrid state, the mind may be considered 

 as a city without walls, open to every insult, and 

 paying homage to every invader : every idea that 

 then starts with any force becomes a reality ; 

 and the reason, over-fatigued with its former im- 

 portunities, makes no head against the tyrannical 

 invasion, but submits to it from mere imbecility. 



But it is happy for mankind that this state of 

 inquietude is seldom driven to an extreme, and 

 that there are medicines which seldom fail to give 



