ASTR. I once thought, Evelyn, that the difference in the tenacity of life in the man and the zoophyte might with some subtlety be explained on this principle—thus: That the life of a reasoning creature was in _its soul_; that of an inferior animal in its _spinal irritability_. Thus, when man is decapitated, his _soul_ is gone from him—he is dead; but when vitality is in the _vis nervea_, as in the insect, life may exist without a head, that is, the organ of a soul. The butterfly will flutter, I am told, long after decapitation. EV. The _excito-motary_ principle illustrates this fact, without the requisition of such a notion; and life, we know, may be _artificially sustained_ for a time after decapitation. The interesting physiology of the _reflex actions_ of a nerve explains this, and all the terrific convulsions of galvanized bodies. CAST. I think I have a glimpse of your meaning, Evelyn. May we not believe, then, that there is truth in the affirmation, that Charlotte Corday’s cheeks _blushed_ at her exposure after her decollation? EV. There is far more romance than truth, fair Castaly, in this story; but I do believe the probability of a story almost as marvellous, that the lips of Mary Stuart _prayed visibly_ after her head fell from her body. Sœmmering has written, that if the open eyes of a decollated head be turned full on the sun, the lids will immediately close, but this of course _without consciousness_. CAST. And yet some _learned_ men believed the head of Charlotte Corday sensible of its state, from this asserted fact of its blushing. EV. They should _not_ have believed without complete evidence. Indeed, this question may now be deemed decided _in the negative_, by the experiments of a learned professor of Heidelburg, on the head of Sebastian Zink, decollated at Rastadt. On placing bitters on the tongue, and hallooing “pardon” in his ear _at the instant of decapitation_, it was proved that there was an utter insensibility to all. IDA. Then sensation is instantly destroyed. In this, as in all his dispensations, how is the mercy of the Deity displayed! EV. It is still a question with us, whether our physical sensations on the point of dissolution are often so acute as they appear. Cabanis and the famous Guillotine declared their conviction that no pain was felt at the moment of or after decapitation. In the works of Lord Bacon, we read of one who was suspended till he was all but dead, and his declaration was that his suffering was a mere trifle. Cowper also left a manuscript, in which he states that in one of his three attempts at suicide, he hung himself over his door in the Temple, but that he did not suffer in the least. IDA. And in drowning?