Page:Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind - Benjamin Rush.djvu/315



This disease is induced by two causes,

1. By the stimulus of ideas of absent subjects being so powerful, as to destroy tiie perception of present objects; and, 2. By a torpor of mind so great as not to feel the impressions of surrounding objects upon the sense. It is an inferior or feeble grade of ca- talepsy. It is more common from the latter than the former cause. It is no objection to this asser- tion, that it sometimes occurs in scholars, and in men celebrated for their great literary attain- ments. A capacity for acquiring knowledge is a cheap endowment, and differs widely from that capacity, which enables a man not only to ac- quire knowledge from books, but to create it by observation and reflection, and to apply it to the