, in which will
prevails, and directs the powers of mind or of bodily action in one
channel or another; and, secondly, that in which these faculties, tired
of for ever exercising their prerogatives, or, being awakened as it were
from sleep, and having not yet assumed them, abandon the helm, even as
a mariner might be supposed to do, in a wide sea, and in a time when
no disaster could be apprehended, and leave the vessel of the mind to
drift, exactly as chance might direct.

To describe this last state of mind I know not a better term that can
be chosen, than that of reverie. It is of the nature of what I have seen
denominated BROWN STUDY(16) a species of dozing and drowsiness, in which
all men spend a portion of the waking part of every day of their lives.
Every man must be conscious of passing minutes, perhaps hours of the
day, particularly when engaged in exercise in the open air, in this
species of neutrality and eviration. It is often not unpleasant at the
time, and leaves no sinking of the spirits behind. It is probably of
a salutary nature, and may be among the means, in a certain degree
beneficial like sleep, by which the machine is restored, and the man
comes forth from its discipline reinvigorated, and afresh capable of his
active duties.

(16) Norris, and Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language.

This condition of our nature has considerably less vitality in it, than
we experience in a complete and perfect dream. In dreaming we are often
conscious of lively impressions, of a busy scene, and of objects and
feelings succeeding each other with rapidity. We sometimes imagine
ourselves earnestly speaking: and the topics we treat, and the words we
employ, are supplied to us with extraordinary fluency. But the sort
of vacancy and inoccupation of which I here treat, has a greater
resemblance to the state of mind, without distinct and clearly unfolded
ideas, which we experience before we sink into sleep. The mind is in
reality in a condition, more properly accessible to feeling and capable
of thought, than actually in the exercise of either the one or the
other. We are conscious of existence and of little more. We move our
legs, and continue in a peripatetic state; for the man who has gone out
of his house with a purpose to walk, exercises the power of volition
when he sets out, but proceeds in his motion by a semi-voluntary act,
by a sort of vis inertiae, which will not cease to operate without
an expres