or the act of attention. This is therefore one of
the modes of luxury especially cultivated in a highly civilized state of
society.

The same considerations will also explain to us the principal part of
the pleasure that is experienced by mankind in all states of society
from public shews and exhibitions. The spectator is not called upon to
exert himself; the amusement and pleasure come to him, while he remains
voluptuously at his ease; and it is certain that the exertion we make
when we are compelled to contribute to, and become in part the cause
of our own entertainment, is more than the human mind is willing to
sustain, except at seasons in which we are specially on the alert and
awake.

This is further one of the causes why men in general feel prompted to
seek the society of their fellows. We are in part no doubt called upon
in select society to bring our own information along with us, and a
certain vein of wit, humour or narrative, that we may contribute our
proportion to the general stock. We read the newspapers, the newest
publications, and repair to places of fashionable amusement and resort;
partly that we may at least be upon a par with the majority of the
persons we are likely to meet. But many do not thus prepare themselves,
nor does perhaps any one upon all occasions.

There is another state of human existence in which we expressly dismiss
from our hands the reins of the mind, and suffer our minutes and our
hours to glide by us undisciplined and at random.

This is, generally speaking, the case in a period of sickness. We have
no longer the courage to be on the alert, and to superintend the march
of our thoughts. It is the same with us for the most part when at any
time we lie awake in our beds. To speak from my own experience, I am in
a restless and uneasy state while I am alone in my sitting-room, unless
I have some occupation of my own choice, writing or reading, or any of
those employments the pursuit of which was chosen at first, and which is
more or less under the direction of the will afterwards. But when awake
in my bed, either in health or sickness, I am reasonably content to let
my thoughts flow on agreeably to those laws of association by which I
find them directed, without giving myself the trouble to direct them
into one channel rather than another, or to marshal and actively to
prescribe the various turns and mutations they may be impelled to
pursue.

It is thus that we are sick; and it