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 impossible. _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 beyond, 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 surrounding 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 seeing, but not _without eyes_. The movement from place to place, according to the same theory, is also automatic; that accounts for a person's walking in sleep, but not for his walking _without legs_. Nor 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?