ation. An event is not
registered from having merely occurred; but the causes which produced it
are investigated, and a calculation is instituted concerning its
probable tendency. Words are not simply regarded as the floating
currency or medium of exchange, but they are severely subjected to
analysis to establish their standard, or to detect the excess of their
alloy; their senses are little awake to external impressions; the
objects which a change of scene presents are slightly noticed, and
feebly remembered; their curiosity is not attracted from without, but
excited from within; they are strangers to the haunts of gay and
mirthful intercourse, and are rather consulted as oracles, than selected
as companions. This constant occupation of thought produces the
philosophical historian, profound critic, physiologist, mathematician,
general grammarian, etymologist, and metaphysician. After long exertion
they become disposed to melancholic disquietude, and often turn in
disgust from a world, the beauties of which they want an incentive to
examine, and taste to admire. Both of these intellectual orders of our
species contribute, but in different manners, to the stores of
knowledge. The sound, efficient, and useful mind consists in a due
balance and regular exercise of its different faculties.

How great soever the pains which an individual may bestow, to fix his
thoughts to the examination of a particular subject, he will find that
the effective duration of his attention is very limited, and that other
thoughts, often wholly unconnected with the subject, will intrude and
occupy his mind; on some occasions they are so prevailing and
importunate, that he loses the original subject altogether. It is
acknowledged, that the soundest and most efficient mind, is
distinguished by the control it is capable of exerting on its immediate
thoughts; which consist, as has before been observed, of terms, and the
phantasmata of visible recollection:--this wandering of the thoughts to
other subjects, or this intrusion of irrelevant words and pictures,
whichever may be the case, appears to bear a very strong resemblance to
a morbid state. It is usually the attendant on indolence, and has
probably its source in a want of the proper occupation of mind, and, by
indulgence, may become an incurable habit. Yet this rumination of mind
has its votaries: by some it is courted as a delightful amusement, and
eulogies are bestowed on the incoherent tissue o