only do them, but in such a manner as even to surpass what can be done by the same person in any other state, under the most favorable circumstances? First, the Movement. - As to the first thing - the movement and locomotion in sleep-it may be accounted for in two ways. We may suppose it to be wholly automatic. This is the view of some eminent physiologists. The conscious soul, they say, has nothing to do with it, no knowledge of it. The will has nothing more to do with it, than it has with the contraction of a muscle, or irritation in an amputated limb. Objection to this View. - For reasons intimated already, we cannot adopt the automatic theory. It seems to us subversive of all true science of the mind. The body is selfmoved in obedience to the active energy of the nervous or ganism, and this organism again, acts only as it is acted upon by the mind that animates, pervades, and controls that or ganism. In the waking state, this mental action, and the consequent nervous and muscular activity, are under the control of the will. In sleep, this control is, for the time, suspended, and the thoughts come and go as it may chance, subject to no law but that of the associative principle. The mind, however, is still active, and the thoughts are busy in their own spontaneous movement. To this movement, the brain and nervous system respond. thinks, that the nerves and muscles act, and the limbs move automatically, without the energizing activity of the mind, is a supposition purely gratuitous, inconsistent with all the known facts and evident indications of the case, and at war with all just notions of the relation of body and mind. That the brain itself Another Theory. — Another, and much more reasonable supposition is, that the will, which ordinarily in sleep loses control both over the mind and the body, in the state of somnambulism regains, in some way, and to some extent, its power over the latter, so that the body rises and moves about in accordance with the thought and feeling that hap pen, at the moment, to be predominant in the mind. There is no control of the will over those thoughts and suggestions: they are spontaneous, undirected, casual, subject only to the ordinary laws of association; but for the time, whether owing to the greater vividness and force of these suggestions and impressions, or to the disturbed and partially aroused state of the sensorial organism, the will, acting in accordance with these suggestions of the mind, so far regains its power over the bodily organism, that locomotion ensues. The dream is then simply acted out. The body rises, the hand resumes the pen, and the appropriate movements and actions corresponding to the conceptions of the mind in its dream, are duly performed. The second Point of Inquiry.—This virtually answers the second question, how the somnambulist can perform actions requiring intelligence, yet without apparent conscious ness. There is, doubtless, consciousness at the time there must be; the thought and feeling of the moment are known to us at the moment. Not to be conscious of thought and feeling, is, not to think and feel. That the acts thus performed are not subsequently remembered, is no evidence that they were not objects of consciousness at the time of their occurrence. This is absence of memory, and not of consciousness. Not remembered.- Why they are not subsequently remembered, we may, or may not, be able to explain. Not improbably, it may be owing to the partial inactivity of the senses, and the consequent failure to perceive the actual relations of the person to surrounding objects. But to whatever it may be owing, it does not prove that the mind is, for the time, unconscious of its own activity, for that is impos sible. Third Question. As to the third question, how the somnambulist can safely move where the waking person cannot, as along the edge of precipices, and on the roofs of houses, the explanation is simple and easy. The eye is closed. The sense of touch is the only guide. Now the foot requires but a space of a few inches for its support, that, given it knows nothing further, asks nothing beyond. It is the eye that informs us at other times of the danger be yond, and so creates, in fact, the present danger. You walk safely on a two-inch plank one foot from the ground. The same effort of the muscles will enable you to walk the same plank one hundred feet from the ground, if you do not know the difference. This the somnambulist, with closed eye, and trusting to the sense of feeling alone, does not recognize. A Question still to be answered. But the most difficult question remains. How is it that the sleep-walker in utter darkness, reads, writes, paints, runs, etc., better even than others can do, or even than he himself can do at other times and with open eyes. How can he do these things without seeing? and how see in the dark and with the organs of vision fast locked in sleep. The facts are manifest. Not so ready the explanation. I can see how the body can move and with comparative safety, and even how the cerebral action may go on in sleep, without subsequent remembrance. But to read, to write, to paint, to run swiftly when pursued through a dark cellar, without coming in contact with sur rounding objects, are operations requiring the nicest power of vision, and how there can be vision without the use of the proper organ of vision, is not to me apparent. It does not answer this question to say that the action is automatic. That would account for one's sceing, but not without eyes. The movement from place to place, according to the same theory, is also automatic; that accounts for a person's walk ing in sleep, but not for his walking without legs. No does it solve the difficulty to say that in sleep the life of the soul is merged in that of the body; doubtless, but how can the body see without the eye, or the eye without light? Theory of a general Sense. The only theory that seems to offer even a plausible solution is that advanced by some German psychologists, and by Rauch in this country, of a general sense. The several special senses, they say, are all resolvable into one general sense as their source, viz., that of feeling. They refer us in illustration to the ear of the crab, to the eye of the fly and the snail, to the scent of flies, in which cases, respectively, we find no organ of hearing, or vision, or smell, but simply an expansion of the genera nerve of sensation, or some filament from it, connecting with a somewhat thinner and more delicate membrane than the ordinary skin. This shows that our ordinary way of perceiving things is not the only way; that special organs of vision, etc., are not needed in order to all perception, much less to sensation. It has been found by experiment that bats, after their eyes have been entirely removed, will fly about as before, and avoid all obstacles just as before. In these cases, it is contended, perception is merely feeling heightened, the exercise of the general sense into which the special senses are severally merged. And this, it is said, may be the case with the somnambulist. Remarks on this Theory. There is doubtless truth in the general statement now advanced. I do not see, however, that it accounts for all that requires explanation in the case. It explains, perhaps, how, without the organ of vision, a certain dim, confused perception of objects might be furnished by the general sense, but not for a clearer vision and a nicer operation than the waking eye can give. This, to me, remains yet unexplained. Is there an inner conscious ness, a hidden soul-life not dependent on the bodily organization, which at times comes forth into development and manifests itself when the usual relations of body and soul are disturbed and suspended? So some have supposed, and so it may be for aught we know to the contrary, but this is only to solve one mystery by supposing another yet greater. Must admit what. Whatever theory we adopt, or even if we adopt none, we must admit, I think, in view of the facts in the case, that in certain disordered and highly excited states of the nervous system, as, e. g., when weakened by disease, so that ordinary causes affect it more powerfully than usual, it can, and does sometimes, perceive what, under ordinary circumstances, is not perceptible to the eye, or to the ear; nay, even dispenses with the use of eye and ear, and the several organs of special sense. This occurs, as we have seen, in somnambulism, or natural magnetic sleep. We meet with the same thing also in even stranger forms, in the mesmeric state, and in some species of insanity. The mental Process obvious. So far as regards the purely mental part of the phenomena, the operations of the mind in somnambulism, there is nothing which is not easily explained. In somnambulism, as indeed in all these states so closely connected-sleep, dreams, the mesmeric process, and even insanity the will loses its controlling power over the train of thought, and, consequently, the thought or feeling that happens to be dominant gives rise to, and entirely shapes, the actions that may in that state be performed. This dominant thought or feeling, in the case of the somnambulist, is, for the most part, probably, the result of previous causes; a continuation of the former mental action, which, when the influence of the will is suspended and the senses closed, by a sort of inherent activity keeps on in the same channel as before. Of such action, the soul is itself probably conscious at the moment, but afterward no recol lection of it lingers in the mind. § IV.-DISORDERED MENTAL ACTION. - Relation to other mental Phenomena. — Closely allied to somnambulism, dreaming, etc., are certain forms of dis ordered mental condition commonly termed insanity; hav ing this one element in common with the former the loss |