"DISTINCTION BETWEEN THOUGHT AND ATTENTION.--By THOUGHT is here meant the voluntary reproduction in our own minds of those states of consciousness, or (_to use a phrase more familiar to the religious reader_) _of those inward experiences_, to which, as to his best and most authentic documents, the teacher of moral and religious truth refers us. In ATTENTION, we keep the mind _passive_; in THOUGHT, we rouse it into activity. In the former, we submit to an impression,--we keep the mind steady in order to receive the stamp. In the latter, we seek to imitate the artist, while we ourselves make a copy or duplicate of his work. _We may learn arithmetic or the elements of geometry by continued attention alone_; but self-knowledge, or an insight into the laws and constitution of the human mind, and, the grounds of religion and true morality, in addition to the effort of attention, requires the energy of thought." Now this reference to the word _experience_, as one which would be more familiar to the religious reader, is pure affectation; because he must have known that religious people never use that term in the wide or general sense of states of consciousness, but restrict its meaning to a very peculiar class of feelings. As to the distinction which is here laid down, we thought we agreed with Coleridge till we came to the illustration that was to make all clear. He who has to learn arithmetic, or geometry must assuredly exercise thought as well as attention. It is by that "voluntary reproduction" of the ideas presented to him, by which Coleridge defines thought, that he can alone fully understand and make the subject his own. At other times this erratic genius rejoices in astonishing all philosophically-minded individuals by some extravagance got from the remotest regions of the religious world. What but some morbid caprice could have induced him to pen such a paragraph as this:-- "It might be the means of preventing many unhappy marriages, if the youth of both sexes had it early impressed on their minds that marriage contracted between Christians is a true and perfect Symbol or Mystery; that is, the actualising Faith being supposed to exist in the receivers, it is an outward sign co-essential with that which it signifies, or a living part of that, the whole of which it represents." Coleridge never did seriously think--of that we may be sure--that the repetition of this _abracadabra_ could be the means "of preventing many unhappy marriages."