EV. Nay, a truth. The _irritability_ of plants is excited by their peculiar stimulus; when this is withdrawn, they fall to sleep. Most of the _discous_ flowers turn to the sun in his course, as the sun-flower, the _helianthus_, and the _croton_. The acacia leaves at noon point towards the zenith. The tamarind, the _oxalis_, and the trefoil, fold their leaves on the exclusion of light. The evening primrose shuts its blossom at sunset, while that minion of the moon, the night-blowing _cactus, then only_ begins to bloom; perhaps like the owl, and goat-sucker, and bat, who find _the sun too powerful an excitant_. Vegetables may be put asleep by the withdrawal of proper stimulus,—the exclusion of this light. But this is a law of nature, and ordained for a special purpose. It is chiefly _during fructification_; the leaves at night folding round the flowers and seed-vessels, to protect them from the chilling blight of the night cold, which would congeal their juices. In this condition of the plant its irritability ceases, but the circulation of its sap-vessels is not suspended. Its vitality continues, but if the exercise of its _peculiar phenomena_ be long discontinued, it will fade and die. Now the _vis insita_ of the muscle resembles vegetable irritability; and, as this is lost and sensibility suspended, the body is indeed in a condition of vegetable sleep; for vegetables have not of course sensation, although the Darwinian romance would endow the _dionæa_, the _hedysarum_, and the _mimosa_ with sensibility, and all the blossom-beauties of Flora with the fervour of sexual passion. Trance then is caused by _the removal of a stimulus_. As somnambulism may result from a _redundancy_ of nervous energy, trance and catalepsy, as well as _incubus_, seem to arise from an _inefficient_ secretion or supply of this quality, in whatever it may consist, or an impediment to its transmission from the _sensorium_ or brain to the expansion of a nerve. Thus the motive power of a muscle is in these diseases _suspended_, which in _paralysis_ may be _permanently_ impaired or destroyed. To describe this state, I must abound in negatives. The brain is not conscious: there is no sensation. Even the marrow by its _reflex faculty_ does not excite a muscle: there is no action: the mind has no cognizance: the body is for a time paralyzed. What is there then which may be termed life? merely involuntary circulation and gentle breathing. In this condition also there is a congestion of dark blood about the brain and in the right side of the heart; the circulation being reduced to an extreme _lentor_ or sluggishness, while in real _asphyxia_ there is a total stagnation.