ciprocal opposites, our two principles should be of equal
dignity and value. To concede, however, the equality of rest with motion
must, for an American, be not easy; and it is therefore in point to
assert and illustrate this in particular. What better method of doing so
than that of taking some one large instance in Nature, if such can
be found, and allowing this, after fair inspection, to stand for all
others? And, as it happens, just what we require is quite at hand;--the
alternation of Day and Night, of sleep and waking, is so broad, obvious,
and familiar, and so mingled with our human interests, that its two
terms are easily subjected to extended and clear comparison; while also
it deserves discussion upon its own account, apart from its relation to
the general subject.

Sleep is now popularly known to be coextensive with Life,--inseparable
from vital existence of whatever grade. The rotation of the earth
is accordingly implied, as was happily suggested by Paley, in the
constitution of every animal and every plant. It is quite evident,
therefore, that this necessity was not laid upon, man through some
inadvertence of Nature; on the contrary, this arrangement must be such
as to her seemed altogether suitable, and, if suitable, economical.
Eager men, however, avaricious of performance, do not always regard it
with entire complacency. Especially have the saints been apt to set up
a controversy with Nature in this particular, submitting with infinite
unwillingness to the law by which they deem themselves, as it were,
defrauded of life and activity in so large measure. In form, to be
sure, their accusation lies solely against themselves; they reproach
themselves with sleeping beyond need, sleeping for the mere luxury and
delight of it; but the venial self-deception is quite obvious,--nothing
plainer than that it is their necessity itself which is repugnant to
them, and that their wills are blamed for not sufficiently withstanding
and thwarting it. Pious William Law, for example, is unable to disparage
sleep enough for his content. "The poorest, dullest refreshment of the
body," he calls it,... "such a dull, stupid state of existence, that
even among animals we despise them most which are most drowsy."
You should therefore, so he urges, "begin the day in the spirit of
renouncing sleep." Baxter, also,--at that moment a walking catalogue
and epitome of all diseases,--thought himself guilty for all sleep he
enjoyed beyond t