THOUGHT. 39 



posts ; whereas the sleep-walker keeps his footing 

 and makes his way in situations where he would not 

 venture, or venturing would fall, if wide awake. 



Thus the fact of remembering has nothing to do 

 either with sleeping or waking ; for it may be present 

 or absent in both states ; and the probability is, that 

 we think just as much in an hour of the most dream- 

 less sleep as we do when we are wide awa^ce for an 

 hour. As little does the fact of remembering depend 

 on the mere thought the " act of the mind" in think- 

 ing, for that is too airy a nothing for the most lively 

 imagination to give it "a local habitation," though 

 we all can give it " a name," and " the sign" of that 

 name can be written, and all can know it if they will. 

 It is not very probable that when the author of " The 

 Rejected Addresses" wasted his own wits in that 

 most inimitable of all imitations, he had any intention 

 of dealing in philosophy ; but so philosophic is genius, 

 even in its sportive moments, that the most ludicrous 

 form of expression will not hide the sterling sense ; 

 and we never laugh happily and heartily unless at 

 that which is full of meaning. In pushing the parody 

 on Byron's philosophical but somewhat conceited 

 misanthropy, to an absurdity, Smith says, 



u Thinking is but an idle waste of thought ;" 



but that, instead of being even an approach to an 

 absurdity, is a positive and practical truth, and one 

 of the most important that -ever was uttered. If we 

 do nothing further than think, then how fast soever 

 the thoughts may arise, how profound or acute soever 

 they may be in themselves, and how valuable soever 

 they might be rendered in their applications, if they 

 were rightly applied, they pass into utter oblivion, 

 the oblivion of annihilation a waste into which 

 nothing material could pass but by the command of 

 Him who made it. 



And how can it be otherwise ] For what, after 

 all, is the act of thought ? It is not a thing or being 



