.SliUKP AND DKHAMS. 



65 



wall, J was told that some peas on a dinner table woi'o tlio 

 direct descendants of a few shrivelled seeds that were found 

 enclosed in the hand of a mnmmy. They had grown in 

 l^jgy|)t in the titno, pei-haps, of the Captivity, and liad lain 

 in their strange hiding-place ever since, in hopes, getting 

 fainter and fainter, of a resurrection to life. They were 

 [)lantod in England : some grow, flowered and bore seeds, 

 which in their turn gave rise to many descendants. It is 

 not, I think, pushing the phrase too far to say that these 

 seeds had been asleep. Their energies had lain dormant, not 

 dead, and they merely wanted the right stimulation, viz., 

 moisture and warmth, to re-animate the germ within them. 

 In the case of the seed, the egg, and probably the dormouse, 

 some stimulus is nocessaiy to make the latent energy 

 potential. There appears to me to be a gi'eat analogy 

 between these cases and the sleep of man, which is de- 

 pendent, as 1 hope to show, on the withdrawal of stimuli, 

 and requires tlie action of stimuli to convert it into the 

 Waking state. This is at least partly true. Withdi'aw all 

 stimuli, and under certain circumstances sleej) will be 

 iiulnced. This will be made clear by a.n example or two. 

 What do we usually do, for instance, when we wish to sleep. 

 Some people can do so anywhere and at all times ; they 

 have mei'oly to lie down, close their eyes, and they become 

 unconscious in a few minutes. But the usual thing is to 

 earefully witlidraw, as much as is possible, everything that 

 can excite the mind or body. We lie down, and by so 

 doing distribute tlu; j)ressure as much as we can. over our 

 surface, so that the feeling of contact is diminished, aiui 

 this is aided by the softness of the bed. Tlie attitude we 

 assume, moreover, is that in which the muscles are nu)st 

 completely at vv.nt; but the curled up posilion, with the 

 knees drawn uj), is i)iU'tly also for tlu^ sake of wn-rinlh. 



irawn up, is 



