in empty barrels. We turn from the account with sickening horror; yet the necessity was stern and unrelenting. Russia was stealing a march on the south of Europe: had she conquered Turkey, she would have made a flank movement on Italy, Austria, and Spain; had she not been checked, France must at last have fought her on her own borders, and we along our own shores. The necessity was obvious; and the people, with their natural sagacity, perceived the dilemma, and boldly extricated themselves from between its horns by insisting on war. The present contest will strengthen more than ever the cause of freedom and the power of the people, who prove themselves to be as far-sighted in their diplomacy as the most finished diplomatist ever pretends to be in his. The result is already visible in the temperate but firm tone with which the British nation continues to address itself to the war, and bear the necessary cost of its being carried on to a successful issue. The liberality with which they provided for the sick and wounded was not less estimable than unpretending. They openly did their duty, without looking for applause or recompence. A frame of mind of this cool and deliberate character is more than an omen of success, because it is the means of success itself, and the inferences to be drawn from it in favour of the future are bright and encouraging. The first Napoleon said, "Fifty years after my decease, Europe must make up its mind to become Republican or Cossack." That crisis has arrived, and France and England united have faced the rising foe on his own ground, and encountered him in the secret lair of his vast dominions. The end of war is peace, and peace upon a higher elevation than it was before the commencement of the struggle. Examples without end could be adduced from history to prove that right ultimately prevails over might, and that the poetic justice awarded in works of fiction, is but the conclusion drawn from our experience of the world; for were it otherwise, we should be disappointed, because its failure would not be in accordance with profane or sacred truth. But it is from this confidence in the course of events that we so fearlessly rely upon the fate of arms a proceeding which, though it may be discountenanced by the consent of mankind, yet is practically found to be the surest, if not the only means left for determining the balance of power or equity in the final adjustment of affairs. War is, therefore, the trial by battle on a large scale, in which thousands die instead of one, and the magnitude of the question at stake involves the welfare of millions instead of the particular interests of a king, a noble, or a plebeian. Nor is the appeal to Heaven in vindication of ourselves one iota less sincere and legitimate than the appeal to our drawn sword; since the dangerous expedient of leaving the justice of our cause to the arbitrement of Heaven or of arms, seldom betrays us. The experiment is not likely to prove too much for itself-the capricious choice of victory decides in favour of the injured party. A single battle or campaign may apparently go against this superstitious dogma; but, in the long run, success protects the deserving, and war never fails to yield the triumph incontestably in favour of truth, of justice, and of peace. ART. II.-ON SOMNAMBULISM. IN common with all animals which possess well-defined sensuous relations with the external world, man exists in two distinct, and, so far as the organs of these relations are involved, opposed conditions—one of waking and one of sleep, labour and repose alternating. Under certain limitations, this alternation appears to be a general law of organization, more or less modified according to the varying complexity of the functions of life. It is true that in sleep only the animal or relational functions are at rest; the repose of the tissues concerned in vegetative life is of much shorter duration, action and rest recurring every instant. It is in accordance with the same principles that we find the amount and regularity of sleep in great measure proportionate to the development of relational life. In the higher carnivorous vertebrata, where the muscular and nervous tissues are at the maximum development, sleep is much more required than in those of lower type where the nutritive functions appear predominant; and in those lowest forms of organic existence which still appear to have some trace of animal nature, but whose chief and entire function appears to be assimilative, we have no evidence of the occurrence of the phenomenon at all. As might be expected, it is in man, where the balance of the two classes of functions is most evident, and where the operations are still more complicated by the superaddition of an intellectual nature, that the periodical recurrence of repose is most marked, and its regularity most essential to the well-being of the individual. It will materially assist our investigation into some of the interesting phenomena involved in our subject, if we briefly examine the points of contrast between these two opposed conditions, as well as the points of resemblance, and those states in which they appear to trespass upon each other's domains. What are the characteristics of a healthy waking man, mens sana in corpore sano ?-As the basis of all his knowledge, and of all his actions, there is a profound conviction and consciousness of distinct existence and personality, a strong intuitive and undefinable, yet irrefragable, sense of the unchanging "I." (It is necessary to mention this fundamental truth, because in dreaming, and certain forms of insanity, it is very frequently utterly lost from the mind.) This consciousness is modified and intensified by the evidence of the senses-these respond instantaneously and accurately to their own appropriate stimuli, the eye to the undulations of light, the ear to the vibrations of sound, and so on with the other senses, none of which can supply the place of another; nor is the general sense of touch ever capable of being exalted to the condition of a special sense. But not only do these organs take cognizance of the external world and its phenomena, but the mind receives the impressions from them, and is prepared at once to exercise upon them its various functions; memory, imagination, fancy, comparison, judgment, calculation, all these, and all other faculties into which metaphysicians have dissected the Divine spark, are either in activity, or ready to be so, at the command of the will. Finally, the muscular system obeys accurately the mandates of the will. So far as to the positive phenomena—but the negative indications of health and wakefulness are not less important for our purposes. These may be briefly summed up in a few wordscomplete unconsciousness of all organic or vegetative processes. And during this time a waste, both of substance and of vital energy is going on, which requires the periodical return of sleep for its repair, the phenomena of which condition we have now to notice. "Somne, quies rerum, placidissime, Somne, Deorum, Thus by negations is sleep invoked by the ancient poet; and certainly sleep in its perfect form is only to be described by negations, with the exception of the continuance of the organic functions, which remain nearly unaffected, or in some cases increased in intensity, as Hippocrates justly observed, somnus labor visceribus. Perfect sleep is characterized by a complete and profound unconsciousness of everything, even of existence-the senses are closed against all impressions, the limbs have become relaxed and inactive, even volition, in common with every other faculty of the mind, is in abeyance-phenomena well and elegantly portrayed by Lucretius Debile fit corpus, languescunt omnia membra, Brachia, palpebræque cadunt, poplitesque procumbunt." Many extraordinary histories are related in illustration of the extent to which insensibility to outward impressions may be carried; one will suffice, as an extreme case. It is quoted by Dr. Carpenter, with tokens of credence from Mr. R. Smith, late senior surgeon to the Bristol Infirmary, under whose observation it occurred. "A travelling man, one winter's evening, laid himself down upon the platform of a lime-kiln, placing his feet, probably numbed with cold, upon the heap of stones, newly put on to burn through the night. Sleep overcame him in this situation; the fire gradually rising and increasing until it ignited the stones upon which his feet were placed. Lulled by the warmth, the man slept on; the fire increased until it burned one foot (which probably was extended over a vent-hole) and part of the leg above the ankle entirely off, consuming that part so effectually that a cinder-like fragment was alone remaining, and still the poor wretch slept on; and in this state was found by the kilnman in the morning." He experienced no pain when he awoke, but he died in hospital about a fortnight afterwards. It appears probable, however, that the atmosphere in this case was charged with carbonic acid, and that the sleep was nearly approaching to, if not altogether identical with, coma. Sleep is not always, nor even commonly, thus profound; yet, even under its ordinary aspects, it presents such a picture of inactivity as to have been considered by many, both poets and philosophers, as nearly related to death. "Sleep," says Macnish, "is the intermediate state between wakefulness and death." Diogenes is said to have spoken, in his last moments, of death and sleep as brother and sister. Cicero speaks thus of the affinity-nihil videmus morti tam simile quam somnum; and Ovid in like manner asks "Quid est somnus, gelidæ nisi mortis imago ?" Yet the analogy is much more poetical than true; sleep is as far removed from death as muscular repose is from paralysis. It is probably the normal state of foetal existence, and throughout life it is the great agent in repairing the ravages of constant molecular changes, and averting the ever-threatening somatic death. The most usual form of sleep is by no means so profound as that which we have described; some of the functions both animal and intellectual are often at work, and dreaming, with or without accompanying action, is the result. In such a case, a kind of consciousness is restored, yet often with peculiar modifications, one of the most remarkable being the loss of that distinct sense of individuality by which the waking man has been said to be characterized. Imagination and memory are both awake, at times more active than in true wakefulness; but they play strange tricks with each other and with their possessor. He can contemplate his own murder, or attend his own funeral, without any feeling of surprise or awe; he can commit the most fearful crimes without any horror; he sees the most tremendous convulsions of nature and the utter subversion of her ordinary laws without astonishment; he converses with the dead, yet asks not how they have escaped their prison-house; and with the living, whom he knows to be separated from him by seas and continents; and all seems natural and a matter of course. Truly has sleep a thousand sons (natorum mille suorum, Ovid). Such are the ordinary and typical forms of man's two livesthe waking and the sleeping life; yet in this, as in all other instances, nature does nothing by sudden leaps (nihil per saltum). As night and day are united by twilight-as the two great divisions of organic existences merge into each other through the scarce distinguishable classes of phytozoa and zoophyta—as the various genera of both sub-kingdoms are united by links very nearly allied to both the neighbours-so waking allies itself to sleep by abstraction and reverie-so sleep allies itself to waking by dreaming, by sleep-talking, and by the sleep-vigil, commonly called somnambulism. So closely allied are the extreme forms of reverie and of somnambulism- so difficult in some cases is it to state the precise diagnostic marks-that a few remarks on the former will properly precede and illustrate our more especial theme. Reverie is a state of the mind in which it wanders to a thousand different subjects independent of volition-the attention cannot be directed to any one point; on the other hand, abstraction is characterized by the total absorption of the mind in one subject, the senses taking cognizance only of such matters as are connected with the subject under examination. Distinct as are these two conditions in their origin, they are often confounded together; and, indeed, the external phenomena are similar, being summed up in a more or less complete insensibility of surrounding objects or influences. Great students, especially those of the mathematical or physical sciences, are very prone to falling into this state. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have committed many absurdities when thus absorbed; such as taking a lady's finger for a tobacco-stopper. Archimedes, during the siege of Syracuse, was either totally insensible to or regardless of the noisy operations around, and was insisting on finishing the problem on which he was engaged, when he received his death-blow. The mind appears to be in a state of polarity with regard to its subject, and only responds to the allied influences. Of its sensibility to questions and remarks on the one subject and no other, advantage may occasionally be |