Astr. There is a solemn problem associated with this, on which I have often reflected, the solution of which, I presume, your philosophy cannot offer to us. At what moment would the mind cease to influence the body, were there no recovery from the trance? I have sometimes felt a mysterious influence, apart, I am sure, from philosophy, that whispered me, the life, which I had watched in its ebb, was at length gone. Yet, of the transit of an immaterial spirit, although convinced of the sublime truth, it is certain we know nothing.
Ev. Nothing demonstrative. It is not, however, when the body seems dead, for consciousness, or the systemic life, may for awhile be suspended by mere cold. But dissolution is that point, unknown to us, when the principle of life (whether that be the influence of arterial blood, or electricity, magnetism, or galvanism,) is not excitable—when molecular death has ensued; not even irritability, that vis insita or vis nervosa of Haller, remaining. Of course mind must instantly depart on the commencement of decomposition, the brain being then totally incompatible with mind. The stoics believed the soul to occupy the body until it was putrified, and resolved into its materia prima.
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.