Chapter XVI.
Of Revery, or Absence of Mind.
This disease is induced by two causes,
1. By the stimulus of ideas of absent subjects being so powerful, as to destroy tiie perception of present objects; and, 2. By a torpor of mind so great as not to feel the impressions of surrounding objects upon the sense. It is an inferior or feeble grade of ca- talepsy. It is more common from the latter than the former cause. It is no objection to this asser- tion, that it sometimes occurs in scholars, and in men celebrated for their great literary attain- ments. A capacity for acquiring knowledge is a cheap endowment, and differs widely from that capacity, which enables a man not only to ac- quire knowledge from books, but to create it by observation and reflection, and to apply it to the
