242 Reverie y considered as 



of those few, harmless delights, that heaven 

 has apportioned to us, and that nature has com- 

 manded us to husband. Yet this riot of fancy 

 should be seldom and carefully indulged. If 

 it be sometimes allowable to slacken the reins, 

 with which the mind is held attentive, never 

 let us throw them entirely away ;-T-for though 

 it would be pedantry to suggest, that since 

 moments thus passed, are inconsistent with 

 our active duties, they ought, without reser- 

 -vation, to be condemned; — we ought, ne- 

 vertheless, to beware of every relaxation, 

 which prc-disposes the mind to habitual ini- 

 activity. 



Stimuli may be encreased to so intense a 

 degree, that attention will be compelled to 

 leave the fondest object on which it broods, 

 and to obey their impulse. For although we 

 have read, that Archimedes was solving a 

 problem during the sack of Syracuse, that 

 Newton was often insensible to his meals 

 having been brought before him and removed ; 

 that Gicero calmly pursued his studies while his 

 mind was dejected by domestic grief and 

 harassed by public vexation \ — yet it is certain, 

 that pain or hunger, fear or borrow, or joy, 

 or any violent passion, will, in most minds, 

 overcome the deepest and most philosophical 

 abstraction. 



