242 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MENTAL 



Insanity is, in many cases, a disease of the fimcy alone, unconnect- 

 ed with any appreciable bodily complaint ; and, in these instances, 

 somnambulism, in certain forms, bears a strict analogy to it. We 

 have no attendant disorder, to which it can be attributed ; but all 

 its phenomena are alone referable to the ungovernable activity of 

 a morbid imagination. 



Reverie consists in an inactivity of the senses to the impression of 

 surrounding objects ; the concentration of all the powers of the mind 

 upon one point, or a limited number of ideas; whilst, although the 

 person be wide awake, the senses are not alive to the impression of 

 external objects. Sounds cease to affect the ear, light makes no 

 impression upon the eye, and to such an extent does the deadness to 

 external stimuli occasionally rise, that some are said to have stared 

 at the meredian sun without pain, others to have been undisturbed 

 with a report of a cannon; and there is extant a story of an Italian 

 nobleman, who was so absorbed in the scenes which his fancy pic- 

 tured, as to be insensible to the torture of the rack. The appear- 

 ance of a person in intense reverie is not unlike that of the 

 somnambulist, and so little difference is to be detected in their re- 

 spective affections, that Darwin has considered somnambulism as a 

 variety of reverie. The countenance is vacant, the eye dull, and 

 without speculation ; and the whole character listless and unimpas- 

 sioned. So active and vivid is the predominant idea which possesses 

 the imagination, that it appears to have abstracted all the energy 

 of other organs to concentrate them upon itself. It arises com- 

 monly from two causes — from intense study, or from some over- 

 whelming passion of joy or grief. The latter cause, only, will 

 merit our attention here. It is not under ordinary circumstances, 

 or from common causes, that reverie amounts to a degree sufficient 

 to demand more than passing attention or remark ; but when the 

 result of a mental affection, which occupies all the energies of our 

 very being, it sometimes acquires a pitch which is only exceeded by 

 certain forms of insanity. The predominant idea which possesses 

 the mind becomes one round which all the faculties at length assem- 

 ble ; and relates, as in the case of dreams, to the situation in which 

 we are placed, or to the circumstances with which we are sur- 

 rounded; to the hopes which allure us, to the griefs which depress, 

 to the joys which animate, or to the cares which distress, harrass, and 

 corrode. The imagination now becomes so active, that an addition- 

 al beauty is given to one class of ideas ; whilst, by the same 

 law of mental abstraction, those of an opposite character are invested 

 by a deeper gloom. We cease to be excited by external objects — 



