we must now proceed to inquire into the cause why one sleeps and wakes, and into the particular nature of the sense-perception, or sense-perceptions, if there be several, on which these affections depend. since, then, some animals possess all the modes of sense-perception, and some not all, not, for example, sight, while all possess touch and taste, except such animals as are imperfectly developed, a class of which we have already treated in our work on the soul; and since an animal when asleep is unable to exercise, in the simple sense any particular sensory faculty whatever, it follows that in the state called sleep the same affection must extend to all the special senses; because, if it attaches itself to one of them but not to another, then an animal while asleep may perceive with the latter; but this is impossible.
now, since every sense has something peculiar, and also something common; peculiar, as, e.g. seeing is to the sense of sight, hearing to the auditory sense, and so on with the other senses severally; while all are accompanied by a common power, in virtue whereof a person perceives that he sees or hears (for, assuredly, it is not by the special sense of sight that one sees that he sees; and it is not by mere taste, or sight, or both together that one discerns, and has the faculty of discerning, that sweet things are different from white things, but by a faculty connected in common with all the organs of sense; for there is one sensory function, and the controlling sensory faculty is one, though differing as a faculty of perception in relation to each genus of sensibles, e.g. sound or colour); and since this [common sensory activity] subsists in association chiefly with the faculty of touch (for this can exist apart from all the other organs of sense, but none of them can exist apart from it-a subject of which we have treated in our speculations concerning the soul); it is therefore evident that waking and sleeping are an affection of this [common and controlling organ of sense-perception]. this explains why they belong to all animals, for touch [with which this common organ is chiefly connected], alone, [is common] to all [animals].
for if sleeping were caused by the special senses having each and all undergone some affection, it would be strange that these senses, for which it is neither necessary nor in a manner possible to realize their powers simultaneously, should necessarily all go idle and become motionless simultaneously. for the contrary experience, viz. that they should not go to rest altogether, would have been more reasonably anticipated. but, according to the explanation just given, all is quite clear regarding those also. for, when the sense organ which controls all the others, and to which all the others are tributary, has been in some way affected, that these others should be all affected at the same time is inevitable, whereas, if one of the tributaries becomes powerless, that the controlling organ should also become powerless need in no wise follow.
it is indeed evident from many considerations that sleep does not consist in the mere fact that the special senses do not function or that one does not employ them; and that it does not consist merely in an inability to exercise the sense-perceptions; for such is what happens in cases of swooning. a swoon means just such impotence of perception, and certain other cases of unconsciousness also are of this nature. moreover, persons who have the bloodvessels in the neck compressed become insensible. but sleep supervenes when such incapacity of exercise has neither arisen in some casual organ of sense, nor from some chance cause, but when, as has been just stated, it has its seat in the primary organ with which one perceives objects in general. for when this has become powerless all the other sensory organs also must lack power to perceive; but when one of them has become powerless, it is not necessary for this also to lose its power.
we must next state the cause to which it is due, and its quality as an affection. now, since there are several types of cause (for we assign equally the ‘final’, the ‘efficient’, the ‘material’, and the ‘formal’ as causes), in the first place, then, as we assert that nature operates for the sake of an end, and that this end is a good; and that to every creature which is endowed by nature with the power to move, but cannot with pleasure to itself move always and continuously, rest is necessary and beneficial; and since, taught by experience, men apply to sleep this metaphorical term, calling it a ‘rest’ [from the strain of movement implied in sense-perception]: we conclude that its end is the conservation of animals. but the waking state is for an animal its highest end, since the exercise of sense-perception or of thought is the highest end for all beings to which either of these appertains; inasmuch as these are best, and the highest end is what is best: whence it follows that sleep belongs of necessity to each animal. i use the term ‘necessity’ in its conditional sense, meaning that if an animal is to exist and have its own proper nature, it must have certain endowments; and, if these are to belong to it, certain others likewise must belong to it [as their condition.]
the next question to be discussed is that of the kind of movement or action, taking place within their bodies, from which the affection of waking or sleeping arises in animals. now, we must assume that the causes of this affection in all other animals are identical with, or analogous to, those which operate in sanguineous animals; and that the causes operating in sanguineous animals generally are identical with those operating in man. hence we must consider the entire subject in the light of these instances [afforded by sanguineous animals, especially man]. now, it has been definitely settled already in another work that sense-perception in animals originates ill the same part of the organism in which movement originates. this locus of origination is one of three determinate loci, viz. that which lies midway between the head and the abdomen. this is sanguineous animals is the region of the heart; for all sanguineous animals have a heart; and from this it is that both motion and the controlling sense-perception originate. now, as regards movement, it is obvious that that of breathing and of the cooling process generally takes its rise there; and it is with a view to the conservation of the [due amount of] heat in this part that nature has formed as she has both the animals which respire, and those which cool themselves by moisture. of this [cooling process] per se we shall treat hereafter. in bloodless animals, and insects, and such as do not respire, the ‘connatural spirit’ is seen alternately puffed up and subsiding in the part which is in them analogous [to the region of the heart in sanguineous animals]. this is clearly observable in the holoptera [insects with undivided wings] as wasps and bees; also in flies and such creatures. and since to move anything, or do anything, is impossible without strength, and holding the breath produces strength-in creatures which inhale, the holding of that breath which comes from without, but, in creatures which do not respire, of that which is connatural (which explains why winged insects of the class holoptera, when they move, are perceived to make a humming noise, due to the friction of the connatural spirit colliding with the diaphragm); and since movement is, in every animal, attended with some sense-perception, either internal or external, in the primary organ of sense, [we conclude] accordingly that if sleeping and waking are affections of this organ, the place in which, or the organ in which, sleep and waking originate, is self-evident [being that in which movement and sense-perception originate, viz. the heart].
some persons move in their sleep, and perform many acts like waking acts, but not without a phantasm or an exercise of sense-perception; for a dream is in a certain way a sense-impression. but of them we have to speak later on. why it is that persons when aroused remember their dreams, but do not remember these acts which are like waking acts, has been already explained in the work ‘of problems’.
