THE EAKTH. 343 



When the Anicricaii Indians undertake long journeys, and 

 >.vhen, consequently, a stock of provisions sufficient to support 

 .liem the whole way, would be more than they could carry; in 

 oi-der to obviate this inconvenience, instead of carrying the ne- 

 cessary quantity, they contrivea method of palliating their hunger 

 by swallowing pills, made of calcined shells and tobacco. These 

 pills take away all appetite, by producing a temporary disorder 

 in the stomach ; and, no doubt, the frequent repetition of this 

 wretched expedient must at last be fatal. IJy these means, 

 however, they continue several days without eating, cheerfully 

 bearing such extremes of fatigue and watching, as would quickly 

 destroy men bred up in a greater state of delicacy. For those 

 arts by which we learn to obviate our necessities, do not fail to 

 unfit us for their accidental encounter. 



Upon the whole, therefore, man is less able to support hunger 

 than any other animal; and he is not better qualified to support 

 a state of watchfulness. Indeed, sleep seems much more ne- 

 cessary to him, than to any other creature : as, when awake, he 

 may be said to exhaust a greater propoition of the nervous fluid ; 

 and, consequently, to stand in need of an adequate supply 

 Other animals, when most awake, are but little removed from a 

 state of slumber ; their feeble faculties, imprisoned in matter, 

 and rather exerted by impulse than deliberation, require sleep, 

 rather as a cessation from motion, than from thinking. But it is 

 otherwise with man ; his ideas, fatigued with their various ex- 

 cursions, demand a cessation, not less than the body, from toil : 

 and he is the only creature that seems to require sleep from 

 double motives ; not less for the refreshment of the mental than 

 of the bodily frame. 



There are some lower animals, indeed, that seem to spend 

 the greatest part of their lives in sleep ; properly speaking, 

 the sleep of such may be considered as a kind of death ; and 

 their waking, a resurrection. Flies and insects are said to 

 be asleep, at a time that all the vital motions have ceased, with- 

 out respiration, without 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 sleep- 

 is not to be denied, however, that niauy wonderful instances of abstinence 

 fniin food for montlie, and even years, arc on i<Tiiirl, hiit these were nlwavc 

 oc<Hbioucd or ac«;oinpauitd by fi-'vcr torpor, or oUicr diicuacd states of buiiy. 



