Some very wise men have stated as their belief, that no man living is really of sound mind, any more than of sound body, in the strictest application of the term; all have their crazy aspects——their “weak spots,” as we say; and the anxious, brooding man, who fears the loss of his reason, may take courage from the thought that his symptoms are only a little worse than his neighbor’s, and only demand of him to diminish his dyspepsia if he would become normally insane! To attack insomnia as a disease instead of a symptom, is sure to result in discomfiture in the great majority of cases, and is in every instance unsound in principle. Once established, this condition of wakefulness tends to perpetuate itself; but this would be otherwise with an absolutely natural regimen. A man is wakeful at night because under his present physical condition he ought to be——just as in diarrhœa, the looseness is doing its work of cure. So with all symptoms. _Pain_ has its office, and this is coming to be better understood; is already well known to thoughtful, well-informed people; and the _wakefulness_ of which so many complain, and which, in some cases, is of the most distressing, painful character, is as truly normal, considering the present physical state of the sufferer’s brain, as is pain following a cut. As an aid in the removal of this symptom, next to a radical reform in one’s living habits, which is the only possible cure for the disease, the above reasoning is one of the most effectual. When a man is wounded severely his anxiety is not increased by the pain; it causes no additional alarm, because he knows that it is entirely natural; let him know that sleeplessness is an analogue of pain, and he will, or may, bear it philosophically, and thus tend to its removal. He has a poverty-stricken mind, indeed, who can not, under such circumstances, pass an hour, or several of them, in comparative comfort, knowing that sleep will come in good time. But, thinking all the while that it is sleep only that he needs, his sleeplessness distresses him, causes him to be more and more alarmed, and, consequently, has the effect to postpone the oblivion so devoutly prayed for, but so little earned. To _deserve_ sleep is to _have_ it. Let the insomniac read the concluding article of this volume, and by the light of it review the hints on diet, air, exercise, etc., in the body of the article on consumption, so as to know what he has to do to become a _good man_, physiologically; and go to bed at about the same hour every night, if possible, or at any rate when he does lie down to sleep it should be after a quiet hour or half-hour devoted to peaceful and thought-steadying occupations, never exciting mental exercise, whether amusing or instructive; and when he draws the blankets about him, let it be with a sublime indifference as to whether he shall or shall not go to sleep promptly. “As to the subduing of the senses, the attempt to shut out external impressions by deafening the