REVERY, AND TRANCE. 



249 



as those of disease or excessive grief, the vital or involuntary organs them- 

 selves are fatigued and exhausted ; and when the exhaustion is complete, 

 they also, like the organs of external sense, sleep or become torpid : in other 

 words, DEATH ensues, the living principle ceases, and the spirit separates from 

 the body. The resemblance, therefore, between death and sleep is not less 

 correct upon the principles of physiology, than it is beautiful among the 

 images of poetry. Sleep is the death or torpitude of the voluntary organs, 

 while the involuntary continue their accustomed actions. Death is the sleep 

 or torpitude of the whole. 



Every organ of the animal frame recovers from its fatigue or torpor by rest, 

 provided the principle of life continues. Hence the organs of external sense, 

 in a definite period of time, and a period generally proportioned to the degree 

 of their exhaustion, reacquire their accustomed vigour, are alive to the influ- 

 ence of their appropriate stimuli ; and the smallest excitement applied to any 

 one of them throws the whole once more into action, in consequence of their 

 habit of acting associately and by common consent. In other words, the man 

 awakes from sleep; he rouses himself from the temporary death of the 

 organs of external sense. Were it possible for the principle of life to con- 

 tinue during a total rest or torpitude of the vital or involuntary organs, as it 

 does during that of the voluntary, there can be no doubt that these also would, 

 in time, recover from their exhaustion ; and that the man would, in like 

 manner, awake from the total torpitude, the sleep or death of the entire frame ; 

 but this in man, excepting under very particular circumstances, and circum- 

 stances I shall advert to presently, is impossible. The rule of nature is, that 

 as soon as the vital or involuntary functions are discontinued, the principle 

 of life ceases; the soul deserts the body; the laws of chemistry, hitherto 

 held in subjection by a superior control, assert their authority; and the whole 

 visible system falls a prey to corruption and ruin. 



When the organs of external sense have recruited themselves by repose, I 

 have already observed that the stimulus that rouses the one rouses at the same 

 time the rest, from a habit of association. From the same habit, the torpi- 

 tude produced by exhaustion in any single organ is propagated through every 

 other, and the sleep becomes common to the whole : although it is also un- 

 questionable that the whole are fatigued, or partially exhausted, in conse- 

 quence of the general stock of sensorial power having been borrowed, in a 

 considerable degree, from the rest, and expended at a single outlet. 



The sensitive fibres of the organs of external sense are equally affected, 

 and of course become equally exhausted, whether a stimulus be applied at 

 the one end or at the other, the end terminating externally or that connected 

 with the brain : and hence, internal excitements, as those of severe study, in- 

 tense grief, undue eating or drinking, or febrile diseases, produce the same 

 effect as causes operating from without. 



In either case, the sleep or torpitude produced is sound or healthy under a 

 certain degree of exhaustion alone : hence, mankind sleep most refreshingly 

 after a moderate or accustomed fatigue, moderate or accustomed study, mo- 

 derate or accustomed meals. 



If the stimulus be a little increased beyond this medium, an undue and 

 morbid proportion of sensorial power is secreted, which postpones, indeed, 

 the torpitude or sleep for the present, but at the expense of the general 

 strength of the system, and an expense to which the vital organs themseJves 

 contribute something : whence a far deeper and heavier sleep or torpitiiide 

 ensues than would have ensued with a less proportion of fatigue. If such 

 torpitude take place before the vital organs are totally exhausted, it is con- 

 fined to the organs of sense alone, which hereby progressively recover their 

 accustomed activity and vigour. But if the vital organs be also exhauste>d 

 before the torpitude ensues, it will be propagated to themselves, the hvin,^ 

 principle will cease, and the sleep will be the sleep of death. Violent and 

 continued pain or labour, as external stimuli, violent and continued fevers,, 

 violent and continued grief, a very inordinate debauch, as internal stimuli, are 

 all liable to produce these effects ; and the one or the other will take place in 

 oroportion to their excess and extremity. 



