EV. The retentive powers of old age, are the _exception_ to a rule, which the ultra spiritualist assumes as a _general_ rule, in attempting to disprove the growth and decay of mind, according to the age of the body. But as _lives_ are of different duration and _constitutions_ vary, so may _mental powers_ indicate different degrees of vigour. If mind _in_creases, no doubt it _de_creases; and I have known many, who retain every faculty but _memory_, which is the first to decay and indicate failing power; and so also is it with idiots, in whose _memory_, usually, the greatest defects appear; the faculty of counting numbers reaches only to three, and of letters to C, the third letter in the alphabet.
Ida will grant that there is no more impressive lesson of humility than the dwindling and decay of genius, when, in the words of the Athenian misanthrope—
“Nature, as it grows again toward earth, Is fashion’d for the journey, dull and heavy.”
Reflect on the painful end of Sheridan and other brilliant wits of their day; that
“From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show;”
and we may almost wish that biography should begin at each end, and finish in the middle, or zenith of a life.
IDA. If the fact be so, I grant the lesson to our pride, Evelyn; and we may dwell with fervent admiration on the divinity of that mind, which can ennoble and consecrate our body, so fraught as it is with basest passions, and so decayable withal.
“——Sleep, gentle sleep! Nature’s soft nurse.” HENRY IV. Part ii.
IDA. I begin to perceive the importance of this digression on the nature of mind. You wish us to believe, there is a temporary desertion of the spirit from the body, and _therefore_ the body sleeps?
EV. Not absolute desertion, but a limit to its influence. Many have thought in conformity to your question; and indeed, Ida, it is a belief so holy, that I may feel it to be almost an impiety to differ.
From the time of Aristotle to Haller, the term “Sleep” expresses that condition which is marked by a cessation of certain mental manifestations, coincident with the degree of oppression; for it is an error to say that the _body_ sleeps,—it is the _brain_ only, perhaps I may say, the _cerebrum_, or the _fore_ lobes; for I believe the lower part of it (that which imparts an energy to the process of breathing and of blood circulation) is never in a complete sleep, but merely in a state of languor, or rather of repose, sufficient for its restoration,—if it were to sleep, _death_ would be the result.