GEN. IV. SPEC. I. Aphelxia socors. Absence of mind. Sometimes the will loses its power for want of habit. the faculty of attention too feeble for long exertion. Either case highly injurious to does not exert its power; the attention is suffered to wander to something of stronger attraction; or the imagination is left to the play of its own nugatory ideas; and, though we continue to read, we have not the smallest knowledge of the argument before us: and if the subject to which the train of our thoughts is really directed be of a strikingly ludicrous character, we may possibly burst into a laugh in the middle of a discourse of great gravity and seriousness, to the astonishment of those around us. This is a common case, and may lead to great embarrassment. We have nevertheless thus far supposed that the will does not exert its power, and sufficiently rein in the attention to the subject addressed to it. It not unfrequently happens, however, that the will, for want of a proper habit, has lost its power either wholly or in a very great degree, and cannot, with its utmost energy, exercise a due control over the attention; and it also happens in other cases, from a peculiarity of temperament, or morbid state of body, that the faculty of the attention itself is so feeble, that it is incapable of being steadily directed for more than a few minutes to any object of importance whatever, with all the effort of the will to give it such direction. The mind, under either of these conditions, is in a deplorable state for all the higher purposes of reflection and mental ex-, knowledge, for which by its nature it is intended; since invigoration it is upon the faculty of attention that every other faculty of the other is dependent for its vigour and expansion; without it the pansion, and faculties. Attention weak in perception exercises itself in vain; the memory can lay up no store of ideas; the judgement draw forth no comparisons; the imagination must become blighted and barren: and, where there is no attention whatever, the case must necessarily verge upon fatuity. In early life the attention, like every other faculty of the mind, is weak and wandering, is often caught with infancy; but like the other difficulty, and rarely fixed upon any thing. Like every other faculty, however, it is capable of being strengthened invigoration. and concentrated; and may be made to dwell upon almost any object proposed. But this is a work of time, faculties capable of and forms one of the most important parts of education: and, in the course of this discipline, it should not be forgotten that the faculty of attention, when it first shows itself, is more readily arrested by some subjects than by others, and that it is hence of great moment to ascertain those subjects, and to select them in the first instance. The habit is what is chiefly wanted, and the quicker this is acquired, the more time we gain for transferring the same habit to other and perhaps more valuable purposes afterwards. This is a point seldom sufficiently considered in the course of education; and for want of such consideration, far more than half the time of many boys becomes an entire blank and is lost, and not a few are suffered to remain blockheads in the particular department to which their hours of study are directed, who might discover a considerable capacity and genius if the department were changed for one more adapted to their own taste, or, in other words, more attractive to their attention. habitual erroneous There is a very singular instance of habitual absence Singular of mind related by Sir A. Crichton, in a young patient example of under the care of Dr. Pitcairn and himself, which, though absence of some other circumstances appear to have combined with mind; it, is ascribed considerably to the error of education we largely reare now speaking of, that of not duly studying the pecu- sulting from liar bent of a mind in many respects singularly consti- education. tuted, and drawing forth and strengthening the faculty of attention, which was in an especial degree weak and truant, by an employment of such objects and pursuits as were most alluring. This patient was a young gentleman of large fortune, who, till the age of twenty-one, and he does not seem to have been much more at the time of describing his case, had enjoyed a tolerable share of health, though of a delicate frame. In his disposition he was gentle and calm, but somewhat unsociable. His absence of mind was extreme, and he would sometimes willingly sit for a whole day without moving. Yet he had nothing of melancholy belonging to him; and it was easy to discover by his countenance that a multiplicity of GEN. IV. Aphelxia socors. Absence of mind. Defect in this case not only in the mode of education thoughts were constantly succeeding each other in his imagination, many of which were gay and cheerful; for he would heartily laugh at times, not with an unmeaning countenance, but evidently from mental merriment. He was occasionally so strangely inattentive that, when pushed by some want which he wished to express, if he had begun a sentence, he would suddenly stop short after getting half way through it, as though he had forgotten what else he had to say. Yet when his attention was roused, and he was induced to speak, he always expressed himself in good language and with much propriety; and if a question were proposed to him which required the exercise of judgement, and he could be made to attend to it, he judged correctly. It was with difficulty he could be made to take any exercise: but was at length prevailed upon to drive his curricle, in which Sir Alexander at times accompanied him. He at first could not be prevailed upon to go beyond half a mile but in succeeding attempts he consented to go farther. He drove steadily, and when about to pass a carriage took pains to avoid it: but when at last he became familiarized with this exercise he would often relapse into thought, and allow the reins to hang loose in his hands. His ideas seemed to be for ever varying. When any one came across his mind which excited anger, the horses suffered for it; but the spirit they exhibited at such an unusual and unkind treatment made him soon desist, and re-excited his attention to his own safety. As soon as they were quieted, he would relapse into thought; if his ideas were melancholy, the horses were allowed to walk slow; if they were gay and cheerful, they were generally encouraged to go fast *. Something may in this case perhaps be owing, as supposed by Sir A. Crichton, to an error in the mode of education but the chief defect seems to have been in the but probably attentive faculty itself, and its labouring under a natural chiefly in a imbecility which no mode of education could entirely have natural de- removed. We have had frequent occasions to observe fect of the attention itself. * Of Mental Derangement, Vol. 1. p. 281. GEN. IV. SPEC. I. B Aphelxia socors. Absence of that the powers of the mind vary in different individuals SPECIES II. APHELXIA INTENTA. Abstraction of Mind. THE ATTENTION WOUND UP AND RIVETTED TO A PAR- GENERAL DRIFT. GEN. IV. Faculty of SPEC. II. liarly and in full co-opera tion with the will. In this species the faculty of attention, instead of being feeble, or contumacious to the will, is peculiarly strong, and vehemently excited, and acts in perfect co-operation attention with the will itself. And in many instances the sensorial here pecuenergy maintained is so great, and demands so large a strong; supply of sensorial power, as apparently to exhaust the entire stock, except indeed the reserve which is in almost all cases instinctively kept back for the use of the vital or involuntary organs. And hence, all the external senses remain in a state of torpor, as though drawn upon for their respective contributions of sensorial power in support of the predominant meditation: so that the eyes do not see, nor the ears hear, nor the flesh feel; and the muser may be spoken to, or conversation may take place around him, or he may even be struck upon the shoulders, without any knowledge of what is occurring. Abstraction of mind may be produced by various cau Sensorial energy so great as haust the entire stock, except what often to ex is kept in reserve for the vital organs: GEN. IV. SPEC. II. Aphelxia intenta. Abstraction of mind. a A. intenta à pathe mate. Revery from overwhelming passion. The individual sometimes as much lost to the world as in sleep. B A. intenta à studio. Revery from intense study. ses, but the following are the chief, and form two distinct varieties: a Aphelxia à pathemate. From some overwhelming passion. From intense study. B Aphelxia à studio. Of THE FIRST VARIETY we have already offered abundant examples in the two preceding genera: and especially in the cases of ungovernable joy or rapture, grief and despondency; under the influence of which the affected person is often as much lost to the world around him, as if he were in a profound sleep and dreaming; and only hears, sees, and feels the vivid train of ideas that possess themselves of his mind, and rule it as a captured citadel. To these alone the attention is directed; here it exhausts a profound all its power, and the will concurs in the exhaustion ; insomuch that the patient is said in some cases to have stared at the meridian sun without pain*; and in others to have been undisturbed by the discharge of a cannon†. We meet with like proofs of this variety of revery in many cases of intense study, and especially upon abstract subjects, as those of pure mathematics, in which all the reasoning and more serious faculties of the mind, as the perception, the memory, and the judgement, as well as the attention, are jointly called into action, and kept equally upon the stretch. Of the power of this variety of revery in rendering an individual torpid and almost dead to all around him, we have a decided instance in Archimedes at the time of his arrest. When the Roman army had at length taken Syracuse by stratagem, which the tactics of this consummate engineer prevented them from taking by force, he was shut up in his closet, and so intent on a geometrical demonstration, that he was equally insensible to the shouts of the victors, and the outcries of the vanquished. He was calmly drawing the lines of a diagram when a soldier abruptly entered his room, and clapt a sword to his throat. "Hold friend", said Archimedes, one moment, and my demonstration will be Instanced in Archimedes. 66 • Blumenb. Bibl. 1. p. 736. + Darwin, Zoonom. III. I. ii. 2. |