Chapter 19

[272]"Also nur dadurch, dass ich ein Mannigfaltiges gegehener Vorstellungen ineinem Bewusstseinverbinden kann, ist es möglich dass ich dieIdentität des Bewusstseinsin diesenVorstellungenselbst vorstelle, d. h. die analytische Einheit der Apperception ist nur unter der Voraussetzung irgend einer synthetischen möglich." In this passage (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2te Aufl. § 16) Kant calls by the names of analytic and synthetic apperception what we here mean by objective and subjective synthesis respectively. It were much to be desired that some one might invent a good pair of terms in which to record the distinction—those used in the text are certainly very bad, but Kant's seem to me still worse. 'Categorical unity' and 'transcendental synthesis' would also be good Kantian, but hardly good human, speech.

[273]So that we might say, by a sort of bad pun, "only a connected world can be known as disconnected." I say bad pun, because the point of view shifts between the connectedness and the disconnectedness. The disconnectedness is of the realities known; the connectedness is of the knowledge of them; and reality and knowledge of it are, from the psychological point of view held fast to in these pages, two different facts.

[274]Some subtle reader will object that the Thought cannot call any part of its Object 'I' and knit other parts on to it, without first knitting that part on toItself; and that it cannot knit it on to Itself without knowing Itself;—so that our supposition (above,p. 304) that the Thought may conceivably have no immediate knowledge of Itself is thus overthrown. To which the reply is that we must take care not to be duped by words. The wordsIandmesignify nothing mysterious and unexampled—they are at bottom only names ofemphasis; and Thought is always emphasizing something. Within a tract of space which it cognizes, it contrasts aherewith athere; within a tract of time anowwith athen; of a pair of things it calls onethis, the otherthat. I andthou, I andit, are distinctions exactly on a par with these,—distinctions possible in an exclusivelyobjectivefield of knowledge, the 'I' meaning for the Thought nothing but the bodily life which it momentarily feels. The sense of my bodily existence, however obscurely recognized as such,maythen be the absolute original of my conscious selfhood, the fundamental perception thatI am. All appropriationsmaybe madetoit,bya Thought not at the moment immediately cognized by itself. Whether these are not only logical possibilities but actual facts is something not yet dogmatically decided in the text.

[275]Metaphysik, § 245fin. This writer, who in his early work, the Medizinische Psychologie, was (to my reading) a strong defender of the Soul-Substance theory, has written in §§ 243-5 of his Metaphysik the most beautiful criticism of this theory which exists.

[276]On the empirical and transcendental conceptions of the self's unity, see Lotze, Metaphysic, § 244.

[277]Appendix to book i of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature.

[278]Herbart believed in the Soul, too; but for him the 'Self' of which we are 'conscious' is the empirical Self—not the soul.

[279]Compare again the remarks onpp. 158-162above.

[280]System of Psychology (1884). vol. i, p. 114.

[281]'Distinct only toobservation,' he adds. To whose observation? the outside psychologist's, the Ego's, their own, or the plank's?Darauf kommt es an!

[282]Analysis, etc., J. S. Mill's Edition, vol. i, p. 331. The 'as it were' is delightfully characteristic of the school.

[283]J. Mill's Analysis, vol. ii, p. 175.

[284]Examination of Hamilton. 4th ed. p. 263.

[285]His chapter on the Psychological Theory of Mind is a beautiful case in point, and his concessions there have become so celebrated that they must be quoted for the reader's benefit. He ends the chapter with these words (loc. cit.p. 247): "The theory, therefore, which resolves Mind into a series of feelings, with a background of possibilities of feeling, can effectually withstand the most invidious of the arguments directed against it. But groundless as are the extrinsic objections, the theory has intrinsic difficulties which we have not set forth, and which it seems to me beyond the power of metaphysical analysis to remove...."The thread of consciousness which composes the mind's phenomenal life consist not only of present sensations, but likewise, in part, of memories and expectations. Now what are these? In themselves, they are present feelings, states of present consciousness, and in that respect not distinguished from sensations. They all, moreover, resemble some given sensations or feelings, of which we have previously had experience. But they are attended with the peculiarity that each of them involves a belief in more than its own present existence. A sensation involves only this; but a remembrance of sensation, even if not referred to any particular date, involves the suggestion and belief that a sensation, of which it is a copy or representation, actually existed in the past; and an expectation involves the belief, more or less positive, that a sensation or other feeling to which it directly refers will exist in the future. Nor can the phenomena involved in these two states of consciousness be adequately expressed, without saying that the belief they include is, that I myself formerly had, or that I myself, and no other, shall hereafter have, the sensations remembered or expected. The fact believed is, that the sensations did actually form, or will hereafter form, part of the self-same series of states, or thread of consciousness, of which the remembrance or expectation of those sensations is the part now present. If, therefore, we speak of the mind as a series of feelings we are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future; and we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the mind, or Ego, is something different from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox that something whichex hypothesiis but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series."The truth is, that we are here face to face with that final inexplicability, at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts; and in general, one mode of stating it only appears more incomprehensible than another, because the whole of human language is accommodated to the one, and is so incongruous with the other that it cannot be expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth. The real stumbling-block is perhaps not in any theory of the fact, but in the fact itself. The true incomprehensibility perhaps is, that something which has ceased, or is not yet in existence, can still be, in a manner, present; that a series of feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or future, can be gathered up, as it were, into a simple present conception, accompanied by a belief of reality. I think by far the wisest thing we can do is to accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place; and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a theory, to use them with a reservation as to their meaning."In a later place in the same book (p. 561) Mill, speaking of what may rightly be demanded of a theorist, says: "He is not entitled to frame a theory from one class of phenomena, extend it to another class which it does not fit, and excuse himself by saying that if we cannot make it fit, it is because ultimate facts are inexplicable." The class of phenomena which the associationist school takes to frame its theory of the Ego are feelings unaware of each other. The class of phenomena the Ego presents are feelings of which the later ones are intensely aware of those that went before. The two classes do not 'fit,' and no exercise of ingenuity can ever make them fit. Noshufflingof unaware feelings can make them aware. To get the awareness we must openly beg it by postulating a new feeling which has it. This new feeling is no 'Theory' of the phenomena, but a simple statement of them; and as such I postulate in the text the present passing Thought as a psychic integer, with its knowledge of so much that has gone before.

"The thread of consciousness which composes the mind's phenomenal life consist not only of present sensations, but likewise, in part, of memories and expectations. Now what are these? In themselves, they are present feelings, states of present consciousness, and in that respect not distinguished from sensations. They all, moreover, resemble some given sensations or feelings, of which we have previously had experience. But they are attended with the peculiarity that each of them involves a belief in more than its own present existence. A sensation involves only this; but a remembrance of sensation, even if not referred to any particular date, involves the suggestion and belief that a sensation, of which it is a copy or representation, actually existed in the past; and an expectation involves the belief, more or less positive, that a sensation or other feeling to which it directly refers will exist in the future. Nor can the phenomena involved in these two states of consciousness be adequately expressed, without saying that the belief they include is, that I myself formerly had, or that I myself, and no other, shall hereafter have, the sensations remembered or expected. The fact believed is, that the sensations did actually form, or will hereafter form, part of the self-same series of states, or thread of consciousness, of which the remembrance or expectation of those sensations is the part now present. If, therefore, we speak of the mind as a series of feelings we are obliged to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future; and we are reduced to the alternative of believing that the mind, or Ego, is something different from any series of feelings, or possibilities of them, or of accepting the paradox that something whichex hypothesiis but a series of feelings, can be aware of itself as a series.

"The truth is, that we are here face to face with that final inexplicability, at which, as Sir W. Hamilton observes, we inevitably arrive when we reach ultimate facts; and in general, one mode of stating it only appears more incomprehensible than another, because the whole of human language is accommodated to the one, and is so incongruous with the other that it cannot be expressed in any terms which do not deny its truth. The real stumbling-block is perhaps not in any theory of the fact, but in the fact itself. The true incomprehensibility perhaps is, that something which has ceased, or is not yet in existence, can still be, in a manner, present; that a series of feelings, the infinitely greater part of which is past or future, can be gathered up, as it were, into a simple present conception, accompanied by a belief of reality. I think by far the wisest thing we can do is to accept the inexplicable fact, without any theory of how it takes place; and when we are obliged to speak of it in terms which assume a theory, to use them with a reservation as to their meaning."

In a later place in the same book (p. 561) Mill, speaking of what may rightly be demanded of a theorist, says: "He is not entitled to frame a theory from one class of phenomena, extend it to another class which it does not fit, and excuse himself by saying that if we cannot make it fit, it is because ultimate facts are inexplicable." The class of phenomena which the associationist school takes to frame its theory of the Ego are feelings unaware of each other. The class of phenomena the Ego presents are feelings of which the later ones are intensely aware of those that went before. The two classes do not 'fit,' and no exercise of ingenuity can ever make them fit. Noshufflingof unaware feelings can make them aware. To get the awareness we must openly beg it by postulating a new feeling which has it. This new feeling is no 'Theory' of the phenomena, but a simple statement of them; and as such I postulate in the text the present passing Thought as a psychic integer, with its knowledge of so much that has gone before.

[286]Kritik d. reinen Vernunft, 2te Aufl. § 17.

[287]It must be noticed, in justice to what was said above onpage 274ff., that neither Kant nor his successors anywhere discriminate between thepresenceof the apperceiving Ego to the combined object, and theawareness bythat Egoofits own presence and of its distinctness from what it apperceives. That the Object must be known to something whichthinks, and that it must be known to something whichthinks that it thinks, are treated by them as identical necessities,—by what logic, does not appear. Kant tries to soften the jump in the reasoning by saying the thoughtof itselfon the part of the Ego need only bepotential—"the 'I think' mustbe capableof accompanying all other knowledge"—but a thought which is only potential is actually no thought at all, which practically gives up the case.

[288]"As regards the soul, now, or the 'I,' the 'thinker,' the whole drift of Kant's advance upon Hume and sensational psychology is towards the demonstration that the subject of knowledge is anAgent." (G. S. Morris, Kant's Critique, etc. (Chicago, 1882), p. 224.)

[289]"In Kant's Prolegomena," says H. Cohen,—I do not myself find the passage,—"it is expressly said that the problem is not to show how experience arises (ensteht), but of what it consists (besteht)." (Kant's Theorie d. Erfahrung (1871), p. 138.)

[290]The contrast between the Monism thus reached and our own psychological point of view can be exhibited schematically thus, the terms in squares standing for what, for us, are the ultimate irreducible data of psychological science, and the vincula above it symbolizing the reductions which post-Kantian idealism performs:ChartThese reductions account for the ubiquitousness of the 'psychologist's fallacy (bk. ii, ch. i, p. 32) in the modern monistic writings. Forusit is an unpardonable logical sin, when talking of a thought's knowledge (either of an object or of itself), to change the terms without warning, and, substituting the psychologist's knowledge therefor, still make as if we were continuing to talk of the same thing. For monistic idealism, this is the very enfranchisement of philosophy, and of course cannot be too much indulged in.

Chart

These reductions account for the ubiquitousness of the 'psychologist's fallacy (bk. ii, ch. i, p. 32) in the modern monistic writings. Forusit is an unpardonable logical sin, when talking of a thought's knowledge (either of an object or of itself), to change the terms without warning, and, substituting the psychologist's knowledge therefor, still make as if we were continuing to talk of the same thing. For monistic idealism, this is the very enfranchisement of philosophy, and of course cannot be too much indulged in.

[291]T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, §§ 57, 61, 64.

[292]Loc. cit.§ 64.

[293]E. Caird: Hegel (1883), p. 149.

[294]One is almost tempted to believe that the pantomime-state of mind and that of the Hegelian dialectics are, emotionally considered, one and the same thing. In the pantomime all common things are represented to happen in impossible ways, people jump down each other's throats, houses turn inside out, old women become young men, everything 'passes into its opposite' with inconceivable celerity and skill; and this, so far from producing perplexity, brings rapture to the beholder's mind. And so in the Hegelian logic, relations elsewhere recognized under the insipid name of distinctions (such as that between knower and object, many and one) must first be translated into impossibilities and contradictions, then 'transcended' and identified by miracle, ere the proper temper is induced for thoroughly enjoying the spectacle they show.

[295]The reader will please understand that I am quite willing to leave the hypothesis of the transcendental Ego as a substitute for the passing Thought open to discussion ongeneral speculative grounds. Onlyin this bookI prefer to stick by the common sense assumption that we have successive conscious states, because all psychologists make it, and because one does not see how there can be a Psychology written which does not postulate such thoughts as its ultimate data. The data of all natural sciences become in turn subjects of a critical treatment more refined than that which the sciences themselves accord; and so it may fare in the end with our passing Thought. We have ourselves seen (pp. 299-305) that thesensiblecertainty of its existence is less strong than is usually assumed. My quarrel with the transcendental Egoists is mainly about theirgroundsfor their belief. Did they consistently propose it as asubstitutefor the passing Thought, did they consistentlydeny the latter's existence, I should respect their position more. But so far as I can understand them, they habitually believe in the passing Thought also. They seem even to believe in the Lockian stream of separate ideas, for the chief glory of the Ego in their pages is always its power to 'overcome' this separateness and unite the naturally disunited,'synthetizing,' 'connecting,' or 'relating' the ideas togetherbeing used as synonyms, by transcendentalist writers, forknowing various objects at once. Not the being conscious at all, but the being conscious ofmany things togetheris held to be the difficult thing, in our psychic life, which only the wonder-working Ego can perform. But on what slippery ground does one get the moment one changes the definite notion ofknowing an objectinto the altogether vague one ofuniting or synthetizing the ideasof its various parts!—In the chapter on Sensation we shall come upon all this again.

[296]"When we compare the listless inactivity of the infant, slumbering from the moment at which he takes his milky food to the moment at which he wakes to require it again, with the restless energies of that mighty being which he is to become in his maturer years, pouring truth after truth, in rapid and dazzling profusion, upon the world, or grasping in his single hand the destiny of empires, how few are the circumstances of resemblance which we can trace, of all that intelligence which is afterwards to be displayed; how little more is seen than what serves to give feeble motion to the mere machinery of life!... Every age, if we may speak of many ages in the few years of human life, seems to be marked with a distinct character. Each has its peculiar objects which excite lively affections; and in each, exertion is excited by affections, which in other periods terminate without inducing active desire. The boy finds a world in less space than that which bounds his visible horizon; he wanders over his range of field and exhausts his strength in the pursuit of objects which, in the years that follow, are seen only to be neglected; while to him the objects that are afterwards to absorb his whole soul are as indifferent as the objects of his present passions are destined then to appear.... How many opportunities must every one have had of witnessing the progress of intellectual decay, and the coldness that steals upon the once benevolent heart! We quit our country, perhaps at an early period of life, and after an absence of many years we return with all the remembrances of past pleasure which grow more tender as they approach their objects. We eagerly seek him to whose paternal voice we have been accustomed to listen with the same reverence as if its predictions had possessed oracular certainty,—who first led us into knowledge, and whose image has been constantly joined in our mind with all that veneration which does not forbid love. We find him sunk, perhaps, in the imbecility of idiotism, unable to recognize us,—ignorant alike of the past and of the future, and living only in the sensibility of animal gratification. We seek the favorite companion of our childhood, whose tenderness of heart, etc.... We find him hardened into a man, meeting us scarcely with the cold hypocrisy of dissembled friendship—in his general relations to the world careless of the miseryheis not to feel.... When we observe all this,... do we use only a metaphor of little meaning when we say of him that he is become a different person, and that his mind and character are changed? In what does the identity consist?... The supposed test of identity, when applied to the mind in these cases, completely fails. It neither affects, nor is affected, in the same manner in the same circumstances. It therefore, if the test be a just one, is not the same identical mind." (T. Brown: Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, 'on Mental Identity.')

[297]"Sir John Cutler had a pair of black worsted stockings, which his maid darned so often with silk that they became at last a pair of silk stockings. Now, supposing these stockings of Sir John's endued with some degree of consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning; and this sensation would have continued in them through all the succession of darnings; and yet after the last of all, there was not perhaps one thread left of the first pair of stockings: but they were grown to be silk stockings, as was said before." (Pope's Martinus Scriblerus, quoted by Brown,ibid.)

[298]Hours of Work and Play, p. 100.

[299]For a careful study of the errors in narratives, see E. Gurney: Phantasms of the Living, vol. i, pp. 126-158. In the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research for May 1887 Mr. Richard Hodgson shows by an extraordinary array of instances how utterly inaccurate everyone's description from memory of a rapid series of events is certain to be.

[300]See Josiah Royce (Mind, vol. 13, p. 244, and Proceedings of Am. Soc. of Psych. Research, vol. i, p. 366), for evidence that a certain sort of hallucination of memory which he calls 'pseudo-presentiment' is no uncommon phenomenon.

[301]Maladies de la Mémoire, p. 85. The little that would be left of personal consciousness ifallour senses stopped their work is ingenuously shown in the remark of the extraordinary anæsthetic youth whose case Professor Strümpell reports (in the Deutsches Archiv f. klin. Med., xxii, 847, 1878). This boy, whom we shall later find instructive in many connections, was totally anæsthetic without and (so far as could be tested) within, save for the sight of one eye and the hearing of one ear. When his eye was closed, he said: "Wenn ich nicht sehen kann, dabinich gar nicht—I no longeram."

[302]"One can compare the state of the patient to nothing so well as to that of a caterpillar, which, keeping all its caterpillar's ideas and remembrances, should suddenly become a butterfly with a butterfly's senses and sensations. Between the old and the new state, between the first self, that of the caterpillar, and the second self, that of the butterfly, there is a deep scission, a complete rupture. The new feelings find no anterior series to which they can knit themselves on; the patient can neither interpret nor use them; he does not recognize them; they are unknown. Hence two conclusions, the first which consists in his saying,I no longer am; the second, somewhat later, which consists in his saying,I am another person." (H. Taine: de l'Intelligence, 3me édition (1878), p. 462).

[303]W. Griesinger: Mental Diseases, § 29.

[304]See the interesting case of 'old Stump' in the Proceedings of the Am. Soc. for Psych. Research, p. 552.

[305]De l'Intelligence, 3me édition (1878), vol. ii, note, p. 461. Krishaber's book (La Névropathie Cérébro-cardiaque, 1873) is full of similar observations.

[306]Sudden alterations in outward fortune often produce such a change in the empiricalmeas almost to amount to a pathological disturbance of self-consciousness. When a poor man draws the big prize in a lottery, or unexpectedly inherits an estate; when a man high in fame is publicly disgraced, a millionaire becomes a pauper, or a loving husband and father sees his family perish at one fell swoop, there is temporarily such a rupture between all past habits, whether of an active or a passive kind, and the exigencies and possibilities of the new situation, that the individual may find no medium of continuity or association to carry him over from the one phase to the other of his life. Under these conditions mental derangement is no unfrequent result.

[307]The number of subjects who can do this with any fertility and exuberance is relatively quite small.

[308]First in the Revue Scientifique for May 26, 1876, then in his book, Hypnotisme, Double Conscience, et Altérations de la Personnalité (Paris, 1887).

[309]Der Hypnotismus (1884), pp. 109-15.

[310]Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, April 4, 1888. Also, less complete, in Harper's Magazine, May 1860.

[311]Cf. Ribot's Diseases of Memory for cases. See also a large number of them in Forbes Winslow's Obscure Diseases of the Brain and Mind, chapters xiii-xvii.

[312]See the interesting account by M. J. Janet in the Revue Scientifique, May 19, 1888.

[313]Variations de la Personnalité (Paris, 1888).

[314]Op. cit.p. 84. In this work and in Dr. Azam's (cited on a previous page), as well as in Prof. Th. Ribot's Maladies de la Personnalité (1885), the reader will find information and references relative to the other known cases of the kind.

[315]His own brother's subject Wit...., although in her anæsthetic waking state she recollected nothing of either of her trances, yet remembered her deeper trance (in which her sensibilities became perfect—see above,p. 207) when she was in her lighter trance. Nevertheless in the latter she was as anæsthetic as when awake. (Loc. cit.p. 619.)—It does not appear that there was any important difference in the sensibility of Félida X. between her two states—as far as one can judge from M. Azam's account she was to some degree anæsthetic in both (op. cit.pp. 71, 96).—In the case of double personality reported by M. Dufay (Revue Scientifique, vol. xviii, p. 69), the memory seems to have been best in the more anæsthetic condition.—Hypnotic subjects made blind do not necessarily lose their visual ideas. It appears, then, both that amnesias may occur without anæsthesias, and anæsthesias without amnesias, though they may also occur in combination. Hypnotic subjects made blind by suggestion will tell you that they clearly imagine the things which they can no longer see.

[316]A full account of the case, by Mr. R. Hodgson, will be found in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research for 1891.

[317]He had spent an afternoon in Boston, a night in New York, an afternoon in Newark, and ten days or more in Philadelphia, first in a certain hotel and next in a certain boarding-house, making no acquaintances, 'resting,' reading, and 'looking round.' I have unfortunately been unable to get independent corroboration of these details, as the hotel registers are destroyed, and the boarding-house named by him has been pulled down. He forgets the name of the two ladies who kept it.

[318]The details of the case, it will be seen, are allcompatiblewith simulation. I can only say of that, that no one who has examined Mr. Bourne (including Dr. Read, Dr. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Guy Hinsdale, and Mr. R. Hodgson) practically doubts his ingrained honesty, nor, so far as I can discover, do any of his personal acquaintances indulge in a sceptical view.

[319]The Watseka Wonder, by E. W. Stevens. Chicago, Religio-Philosophical Publishing House, 1887.

[320]My friend Mr. R. Hodgson informs me that he visited Watseka in April 1890, and cross-examined the principal witnesses of this case. His confidence in the original narrative was strengthened by what he learned; and various unpublished facts were ascertained, which increased the plausibility of the spiritualistic interpretation of the phenomenon.

[321]See his highly important series of articles on Automatic Writing, etc., in the Proceedings of the Soc. for Psych. Research, especially Article ii (May 1885). Compare also Dr. Maudsley's instructive article in Mind, vol. xiv, p. 161, and Luys's essay, 'Sur le Dédoublement,' etc., in l'Encéphale for 1889.

Strange to say, so patent a fact as the perpetual presence of selective attention has received hardly any notice from psychologists of the English empiricist school. The Germans have explicitly treated of it, either as a faculty or as a resultant, but in the pages of such writers as Locke, Hume, Hartley, the Mills, and Spencer the word hardly occurs, or if it does so, it is parenthetically and as if by inadvertence.[322]The motive of this ignoring of the phenomenon of attention is obvious enough. These writers are bent on showing how the higher faculties of the mind are pure products of 'experience;' and experience is supposed to be of something simplygiven. Attention, implying a degree of reactive spontaneity, would seem to break through the circle of pure receptivity which constitutes 'experience,' and hence must not be spoken of under penalty of interfering with the smoothness of the tale.

But the moment one thinks of the matter, one sees how false a notion of experience that is which would make it tantamount to the mere presence to the senses of an outward order. Millions of items of the outward order are present to my senses which never properly enter into my experience. Why? Because they have nointerestfor me.My experience is what I agree to attend to.Only those items which Inoticeshape my mind—without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos. Interest alone gives accent and emphasis, light and shade, background and foreground—intelligible perspective, in a word. It varies in everycreature, but without it the consciousness of every creature would be a gray chaotic indiscriminateness, impossible for us even to conceive. Such an empiricist writer as Mr. Spencer, for example, regards the creature as absolutely passive clay, upon which 'experience' rains down. The clay will be impressed most deeply where the drops fall thickest, and so the final shape of the mind is moulded. Give time enough, and all sentient things ought, at this rate, to end by assuming an identical mental constitution—for 'experience,' the sole shaper, is a constant fact, and the order of its items must end by being exactly reflected by the passive mirror which we call the sentient organism. If such an account were true, a race of dogs bred for generations, say in the Vatican, with characters of visual shape, sculptured in marble, presented to their eyes, in every variety of form and combination, ought to discriminate before long the finest shades of these peculiar characters. In a word, they ought to become, if time were given, accomplishedconnoisseursof sculpture. Anyone may judge of the probability of this consummation. Surely an eternity of experience of the statues would leave the dog as inartistic as he was at first, for the lack of an original interest to knit his discriminations on to. Meanwhile the odors at the bases of the pedestals would have organized themselves in the consciousness of this breed of dogs into a system of 'correspondences' to which the most hereditary caste ofcustodiwould never approximate, merely because to them, as human beings, the dog's interest in those smells would for ever be an inscrutable mystery. These writers have, then, utterly ignored the glaring fact that subjective interest may, by laying its weighty index-finger on particular items of experience, so accent them as to give to the least frequent associations far more power to shape our thought than the most frequent ones possess. The interest itself, though its genesis is doubtless perfectlynatural, makesexperience more than it is made by it.

Every one knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trainsof thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatter-brained state which in French is calleddistraction, andZerstreutheitin German.

We all know this latter state, even in its extreme degree. Most people probably fall several times a day into a fit of something like this: The eyes are fixed on vacancy, the sounds of the world melt into confused unity, the attention is dispersed so that the whole body is felt, as it were, at once, and the foreground of consciousness is filled, if by anything, by a sort of solemn sense of surrender to the empty passing of time. In the dim background of our mind we know meanwhile what we ought to be doing: getting up, dressing ourselves, answering the person who has spoken to us, trying to make the next step in our reasoning. But somehow we cannotstart; thepensée de derrière la têtefails to pierce the shell of lethargy that wraps our state about. Every moment we expect the spell to break, for we know no reason why it should continue. But it does continue, pulse after pulse, and we float with it, until—also without reason that we can discover—an energy is given, something—we know not what—enables us to gather ourselves together, we wink our eyes, we shake our heads, the background-ideas become effective, and the wheels of life go round again.

This curious state of inhibition can for a few moments be produced at will by fixing the eyes on vacancy. Some persons can voluntarily empty their minds and 'think of nothing.' With many, as Professor Exner remarks of himself, this is the most efficacious means of falling asleep. It is difficult not to suppose something like this scattered condition of mind to be the usual state of brutes when not actively engaged in some pursuit. Fatigue, monotonous mechanical occupations that end by being automatically carried on, tend to produce it in men. It is not sleep; and yet when aroused from such a state, a person will often hardly be able to say what he has been thinking about Subjects of the hypnotic trance seem to lapse into it whenleft to themselves; asked what they are thinking of, they reply, 'of nothing particular'![323]

The abolition of this condition is what we call the awakening of the attention. One principal object comes then into the focus of consciousness, others are temporarily suppressed. The awakening may come about either by reason of a stimulus from without, or in consequence of some unknown inner alteration; and the change it brings with it amounts to a concentration upon one single object with exclusion of aught besides, or to a condition anywhere between this and the completely dispersed state.

The question ofthe 'span' of consciousnesshas often been asked and answered—sometimesa priori, sometimes by experiment. This seems the proper place for us to touch upon it; and our answer, according to the principles laid down inChapter IX, will not be difficult. The number ofthingswe may attend to is altogether indefinite, depending on the power of the individual intellect, on the form of the apprehension, and on what the things are. When apprehended conceptually as a connected system, their number may be very large. But however numerous the things, they can only be known in a single pulse of consciousness for which they form one complex 'object' (p. 276ff.), so that properly speaking there is before the mind at no time a plurality ofideas, properly so called.

The 'unity of the soul' has been supposed by manyphilosophers, who also believed in the distinct atomic nature of 'ideas,' to preclude the presence to it of more than one objective fact, manifested in one idea, at a time. Even Dugald Stuart opines that everyminimum visibileof a pictured figure

"constitutes just as distinct an object of attention to the mind as if it were separated by an interval of empty space from the rest.... It is impossible for the mind to attend to more than one of these points at once; and as the perception of the figure implies a knowledge of the relative situation of the different points with respect to each other, we must conclude that the perception of figure by the eye is the result of a number of different acts of attention. These acts of attention, however, are performed with such rapidity, that the effect, with respect to us, is the same as if the perception were instantaneous."[324]

Such glaringly artificial views can only come from fantastic metaphysics or from the ambiguity of the word 'idea,' which, standing sometimes for mental state and sometimes for thing known, leads men to ascribe to the thing, not only the unity which belongs to the mental state, but even the simplicity which is thought to reside in the Soul.

When the things are apprehended by thesenses, the number of them that can be attended to at once is small, "Pluribus intentus, minor est ad singula sensus."

"By Charles Bonnet the Mind is allowed to have a distinct notion of six objects at once; by Abraham Tucker the number is limited to four; while Destutt Tracy again amplifies it to six. The opinion of the first and last of these philosophers" [continues Sir Wm. Hamilton] "seems to me correct. You can easily make the experiments for yourselves, but you must beware of grouping the objects into classes. If you throw a handful of marbles on the floor, you will find it difficult to view at once more than six, or seven at most, without confusion; but if you group them into twos, or threes, or fives, you can comprehend as many groups as you can units; because the mind considers these groups only as units—it views them as wholes, and throws their parts out of consideration."[325]

Professor Jevons, repeating this observation, by counting instantaneously beans thrown into a box, found that the number 6 was guessed correctly 120 times out of 147, 5 correctly 102 times out of 107, and 4 and 3 always right.[326]It is obvious that such observations decide nothing at all about our attention, properly so called. They rather measure in part the distinctness of our vision—especially of the primary-memory-image[327]—in part the amount of association in the individual between seen arrangements and the names of numbers.[328]

Each number-name is a way of grasping the beans as one total object. In such a total object, all the parts converge harmoniously to the one resultant concept; no single bean has special discrepant associations of its own; and so, withpractice, they may grow quite numerous ere we fail to estimate them aright. But where the 'object' beforeus breaks into parts disconnected with each other, and forming each as it were a separate object or system, not conceivable in union with the rest, it becomes harder to apprehend all these parts at once, and the mind tends to let go of one whilst it attends to another. Still, within limits this can be done. M. Paulhan has experimented carefully on the matter by declaiming one poem aloud whilst he repeated a different one mentally, or by writing one sentence whilst speaking another, or by performing calculations on paper whilst reciting poetry.[329]He found that

"the most favorable condition for the doubling of the mind was its simultaneous application to two easy and heterogeneous operations. Two operations of the same sort, two multiplications, two recitations, or the reciting one poem and writing another, render the process more uncertain and difficult."

The attention often, but not always, oscillates during these performances; and sometimes a word from one part of the task slips into another. I myself find when I try to simultaneously recite one thing and write another that the beginning of each word or segment of a phrase is what requires the attention. Once started, my pen runs on for a word or two as if by its own momentum. M. Paulhan compared the time occupied by the same two operations done simultaneously or in succession, and found that there was often a considerable gain of time from doing them simultaneously. For instance:

"I write the first four verses of Athalie, whilst reciting eleven of Musset. The whole performance occupies 40 seconds. But reciting alone takes 22 and writing alone 31, or 53 altogether, so that there is a difference in favor of the simultaneous operations."

Or again:

"I multiply 421 312 212 by 2; the operation takes 6 seconds; the recitation of 4 verses also takes 6 seconds. But the two operations done at once only take 6 seconds, so that there is no loss of time from combining them."

Of course these time-measurements lack precision. With three systems of object (writing witheachhand whilst reciting) the operation became much more difficult.

If, then, by the original question, how many ideas or things can we attend to at once, be meant how many entirely disconnected systems or processes of conception can go on simultaneously, the answer is,not easily more than one, unless the processes are very habitual; but then two, or even three,without very much oscillation of the attention. Where, however, the processes are less automatic, as in the story of Julius Cæsar dictating four letters whilst he writes a fifth,[330]there must be a rapid oscillation of the mind from one to the next, and no consequent gain of time. Within any one of the systems the parts may be numberless, but we attend to them collectively when we conceive the whole which they form.

When the things to be attended to are small sensations, and when the effort is to be exact in noting them, it is found that attention to one interferes a good deal with the perception of the other. A good deal of fine work has been done in this field, of which I must give some account.

It has long been noticed, when expectant attention is concentrated upon one of two sensations, that the other one is apt to be displaced from consciousness for a moment and to appear subsequent; although in reality the two may have been contemporaneous events. Thus, to use the stock example of the books, the surgeon would sometimes see the blood flow from the arm of the patient whom he was bleeding,beforehe saw the instrument penetrate the skin. Similarly the smith may see the sparks flybeforehe sees the hammer smite the iron, etc. There is thus a certain difficulty in perceiving the exactdateof two impressions when they do not interest our attention equally, and when they are of a disparate sort.

Professor Exner, whose experiments on theminimal perceptible successionin time of two sensations we shall have to quote in another chapter, makes some noteworthy remarks about the way in which the attention must besetto catch the interval and the right order of the sensations, when the time is exceeding small. The point was to tell whethertwo signals were simultaneous or successive; and, if successive, which one of them came first.

The first way of attending which he found himself to fall into, was when the signals did not differ greatly—when, e.g., they were similar sounds heard each by a different ear. Here he lay in wait for thefirstsignal, whichever it might be, and identified it the next moment in memory. The second, which could then always be known by default, was often not clearly distinguished in itself. When the time was too short, the first could not be isolated from the second at all.

The second way was to accommodate the attention for a certainsortof signal, and the next moment to become aware in memory of whether it came before or after its mate.

"This way brings great uncertainty with it. The impression not prepared for comes to us in the memory more weak than the other, obscure as it were, badly fixed in time. We tend to take the subjectively stronger stimulus, that which we were intent upon, for the first, just as we are apt to take an objectively stronger stimulus to be the first. Still, it may happen otherwise. In the experiments from touch to sight it often seemed to me as if the impression for which the attention wasnotprepared were there already when the other came."

Exner found himself employing this method oftenest when the impressions differed strongly.[331]

In such observations (which must not be confounded with those where the two signals were identical and their successiveness known as meredoubleness, without distinction of which came first), it is obvious that each signal must combine stably in our perception with adifferentinstant of time. It is the simplest possible case of two discrepant concepts simultaneously occupying the mind. Now the case of the signals beingsimultaneousseems of a different sort. We must turn to Wundt for observations fit to cast a nearer light thereon.

The reader will remember the reaction-time experiments of which we treated inChapter III. It happened occasionally in Wundt's experiments that the reaction-time was reduced to zero or even assumed a negative value, which, being translated into common speech, means that the observerwas sometimes so intent upon the signal that his reactionactually coincided in time with it, or even preceded it,instead of coming a fraction of a second after it, as in the nature of things it should. More will be said of these results anon. Meanwhile Wundt, in explaining them, says this:

"In generalwe have a very exact feeling of the simultaneity of two stimuli,if they do not differ much in strength. And in a series of experiments in which a warning precedes, at a fixed interval, the stimulus, we involuntarily try to react, not only as promptly as possible, but also in such wise that our movement may coincide with the stimulus itself. We seek to make our own feelings of touch and innervation [muscular contraction] objectivelycontemporaneous with the signalwhich we hear; and experience shows that in many cases we approximately succeed. In these cases we have a distinct consciousness of hearing the signal, reacting upon it, and feeling our reaction take place,—all at one and the same moment."[332]

In another place, Wundt adds:

"The difficulty of these observations and the comparative infrequency with which the reaction-time can be made thus to disappear shows how hard it is, when our attention is intense, to keep it fixed even ontwodifferent ideas at once. Note besides that when this happens, one always tries to bring the ideas into a certain connection, to grasp them as components of a certain complex representation. Thus in the experiments in question, it has often seemed to me that I produced by my own recording movement the sound which the ball made in dropping on the board."[333]

The 'difficulty,' in the cases of which Wundt speaks, is that of forcing two non-simultaneous events into apparent combination with the same instant of time. There is no difficulty, as he admits, in so dividing our attention between tworeallysimultaneous impressions as to feel them to be such. The cases he describes are really cases of anachronistic perception, of subjective time-displacement, to use his own term. Still more curious cases of it have been most carefully studied by him. They carry us a step farther in our research, so I will quote them, using as far as possible his exact words:

"The conditions become more complicated when we receive a series of impressions separated by distinct intervals, into the midst of whicha heterogeneous impression is suddenly brought. Then comes the question, with which member of the series do we perceive the additional impression to coincide? with that member with whose presence it really coexists, or is there some aberration?... If the additional stimulus belongs to a different sense very considerable aberrations may occur."The best way to experiment is with a number of visual impressions (which one can easily get from a moving object) for the series, and with a sound as the disparate impression. Let, e.g., an index-hand move over a circular scale with uniform and sufficiently slow velocity, so that the impressions it gives will not fuse, but permit its position at any instant to be distinctly seen. Let the clockwork which turns it have an arrangement which rings a bell once in every revolution, but at a point which can be varied, so that the observer need never know in advance just when the bell-stroke takes place. In such observations three cases are possible. The bell-stroke can be perceived either exactly at the moment to which the index points when it sounds—in this case there will be no time-displacement; or we can combine it with a later position of the index—...positive time-displacement, as we shall call it; or finally we can combine it with a position of the index earlier than that at which the sound occurred—and this we will call anegative displacement. The most natural displacement would apparently be the positive, since for apperception a certain time is always required.... But experience shows that the opposite is the case: it happens most frequently that the sound appears earlier than its real date—far less often coincident with it, or later. It should be observed that in all these experiments it takes some time to get a distinctly perceived combination of the sound with a particular position of the index, and that a single revolution of the latter is never enough for the purpose. The motion must go on long enough for the sounds themselves to form a regular series—the outcome being a simultaneous perception of two distinct series of events, of which either may by changes in its rapidity modify the result. The first thing one remarks is that the sound belongs in a certain region of the scale; only gradually is it perceived to combine with a particular position of the index. But even a result gained by observation of many revolutions may be deficient in certainty, for accidental combinations of attention have a great influence upon it. If we deliberately try to combine the bell-stroke with an arbitrarily chosen position of the index, we succeed without difficulty, provided this position be not too remote from the true one. If, again, we cover the whole scale, except a single division over which we may see the index pass, we have a strong tendency to combine the bell-stroke with this actually seen position; and in so doing may easily overlook more than 1/4 of a second of time. Results, therefore, to be of any value, must be drawn from long-continued and very numerous observations, in which such irregular oscillations of the attention neutralize each other according to the law of great numbers, and allow thetrue laws to appear. Although my own experiments extend over many years (with interruptions), they are not even yet numerous enough to exhaust the subject—still, they bring out the principal laws which the attention follows under such conditions."[334]

"The best way to experiment is with a number of visual impressions (which one can easily get from a moving object) for the series, and with a sound as the disparate impression. Let, e.g., an index-hand move over a circular scale with uniform and sufficiently slow velocity, so that the impressions it gives will not fuse, but permit its position at any instant to be distinctly seen. Let the clockwork which turns it have an arrangement which rings a bell once in every revolution, but at a point which can be varied, so that the observer need never know in advance just when the bell-stroke takes place. In such observations three cases are possible. The bell-stroke can be perceived either exactly at the moment to which the index points when it sounds—in this case there will be no time-displacement; or we can combine it with a later position of the index—...positive time-displacement, as we shall call it; or finally we can combine it with a position of the index earlier than that at which the sound occurred—and this we will call anegative displacement. The most natural displacement would apparently be the positive, since for apperception a certain time is always required.... But experience shows that the opposite is the case: it happens most frequently that the sound appears earlier than its real date—far less often coincident with it, or later. It should be observed that in all these experiments it takes some time to get a distinctly perceived combination of the sound with a particular position of the index, and that a single revolution of the latter is never enough for the purpose. The motion must go on long enough for the sounds themselves to form a regular series—the outcome being a simultaneous perception of two distinct series of events, of which either may by changes in its rapidity modify the result. The first thing one remarks is that the sound belongs in a certain region of the scale; only gradually is it perceived to combine with a particular position of the index. But even a result gained by observation of many revolutions may be deficient in certainty, for accidental combinations of attention have a great influence upon it. If we deliberately try to combine the bell-stroke with an arbitrarily chosen position of the index, we succeed without difficulty, provided this position be not too remote from the true one. If, again, we cover the whole scale, except a single division over which we may see the index pass, we have a strong tendency to combine the bell-stroke with this actually seen position; and in so doing may easily overlook more than 1/4 of a second of time. Results, therefore, to be of any value, must be drawn from long-continued and very numerous observations, in which such irregular oscillations of the attention neutralize each other according to the law of great numbers, and allow thetrue laws to appear. Although my own experiments extend over many years (with interruptions), they are not even yet numerous enough to exhaust the subject—still, they bring out the principal laws which the attention follows under such conditions."[334]

Wundt accordingly distinguishes thedirectionfrom theamountof the apparent displacement in time of the bell-stroke. The direction depends on the rapidity of the movement of the index and (consequently) on that of the succession of the bell-strokes. The moment at which the bell struck was estimated by him with the least tendency to error, when the revolutions took place once in a second. Faster than this,positiveerrors began to prevail; slower,negativeones almost always were present. On the other hand, if the rapidity wentquickening, errors becamenegative; ifslowing, positive. The amount of error is, in general, the greater the slower the speed and its alterations. Finally, individual differences prevail, as well as differences in the same individual at different times.[335]

Wundt's pupil von Tschisch has carried out these experiments on a still more elaborate scale,[336]using, not only the single bell-stroke, but 2, 3, 4, or 5 simultaneous impressions, so that the attention had to note the place of the index at the moment when a whole group of things was happening. The single bell-stroke was always heard too early by von Tschisch—the displacement was invariably 'negative.' As the other simultaneous impressions were added, the displacement first became zero and finally positive, i.e. the impressions were connected with a position of the index that was too late. This retardation was greater when the simultaneous impressions were disparate (electric tactile stimuli on different places, simple touch-stimuli, different sounds) than when they were all of the same sort. The increment of retardation became relatively less with each additional impression, so that it is probable that six impressions would have given almost the same result as five, which was the maximum number used by Herr von T.

Wundt explains all these results by his previous observation that a reaction sometimes antedates the signal (see above,p. 411). The mind, he supposes, is so intent upon the bell-strokes that its 'apperception' keeps ripening periodically after each stroke in anticipation of the next. Its most natural rate of ripening may be faster or slower than the rate at which the strokes come. If faster, then it hears the stroke too early; if slower, it hears it too late. The position of the index on the scale, meanwhile, is noted at the moment, early or late, at which the bell-stroke is subjectively heard. Substituting several impressions forthe single bell-stroke makes the ripening of the perception slower, and the index is seen too late. So, at least, do I understand the explanations which Herren Wundt and v. Tschisch give.[337]

This is all I have to say about the difficulty of having two discrepant concepts together, and about the number of things to which we can simultaneously attend.

The things to which we attend are said tointerestus. Our interest in them is supposed to be thecauseof our attending. What makes an object interesting we shall see presently; and later inquire in what sense interest may cause attention. Meanwhile

Attention may be divided into kinds in various ways. It is either to

a) Objects of sense (sensorial attention); or to

b) Ideal or represented objects (intellectual attention). It is either

c) Immediate; or

d) Derived: immediate, when the topic or stimulus is interesting in itself, without relation to anything else; derived, when it owes its interest to association with some other immediately interesting thing. What I call derived attention has been named 'apperceptive' attention. Furthermore, Attention may be either

e) Passive, reflex, non-voluntary, effortless; or

f) Active and voluntary.

Voluntary attention is always derived; we never make aneffortto attend to an object except for the sake of someremoteinterest which the effort will serve. But both sensorial and intellectual attention may be either passive or voluntary.

Inpassive immediate sensorial attentionthe stimulus is a sense-impression, either very intense, voluminous, or sudden,—in which case it makes no difference what its naturemay be, whether sight, sound, smell, blow, or inner pain,—or else it is aninstinctivestimulus, a perception which, by reason of its nature rather than its mere force, appeals to some one of our normal congenital impulses and has a directly exciting quality. In the chapter on Instinct we shall see how these stimuli differ from one animal to another, and what most of them are in man: strange things, moving things, wild animals, bright things, pretty things, metallic things, words, blows, blood, etc., etc., etc.

Sensitiveness to immediately exciting sensorial stimuli characterizes the attention of childhood and youth. In mature age we have generally selected those stimuli which are connected with one or more so-called permanent interests, and our attention has grown irresponsive to the rest.[338]But childhood is characterized by great active energy, and has few organized interests by which to meet new impressions and decide whether they are worthy of notice or not, and the consequence is that extreme mobility of the attention with which we are all familiar in children, and which makes their first lessons such rough affairs. Any strong sensation whatever produces accommodation of the organs which perceive it, and absolute oblivion, for the time being, of the task in hand. This reflex and passive character of the attention which, as a French writer says, makes the child seem to belong less to himself than to every object which happens to catch his notice, is the first thing which the teacher must overcome. It never is overcome in some people, whose work, to the end of life, gets done in the interstices of their mind-wandering.

The passive sensorial attention isderivedwhen the impression, without being either strong or of an instinctively exciting nature, is connected by previous experience and education with things that are so. These things may be called themotivesof the attention. The impression draws an interest from them, or perhaps it even fuses into a single complex object with them; the result is that it is brought into the focus of the mind. A faint tapper seis not an interesting sound; it may well escape being discriminatedfrom the general rumor of the world. But when it is a signal, as that of a lover on the window-pane, it will hardly go unperceived. Herbart writes:

"How a bit of bad grammar wounds the ear of the purist! How a false note hurts the musician! or an offence against good manners the man of the world! How rapid is progress in a science when its first principles have been so well impressed upon us that we reproduce them mentally with perfect distinctness and ease! How slow and uncertain, on the other hand, is our learning of the principles themselves, when familiarity with the still more elementary percepts connected with the subject has not given us an adequate predisposition!—Apperceptive attention may be plainly observed in very small children when, hearing the speech of their elders, as yet unintelligible to them, they suddenly catch a single known word here and there, and repeat it to themselves; yes! even in the dog who looks round at us when we speak of him and pronounce his name. Not far removed is the talent which mind-wandering school-boys display during the hours of instruction, of noticing every moment in which the teacher tells a story. I remember classes in which, instruction being uninteresting, and discipline relaxed, a buzzing murmur was always to be heard, which invariably stopped for as long a time as an anecdote lasted. How could the boys, since they seemed to hear nothing, notice when the anecdote began? Doubtless most of them always heard something of the teacher's talk; but most of it had no connection with their previous knowledge and occupations, and therefore the separate words no sooner entered their consciousness than they fell out of it again; but, on the other hand, no sooner did the words awaken old thoughts, forming strongly-connected series with which the new impression easily combined, than out of new and old together a total interest resulted which drove the vagrant ideas below the threshold of consciousness, and brought for a while settled attention into their place."[339]

Passive intellectual attentionis immediate when we follow in thought a train of images exciting or interestingper se; derived, when the images are interesting only as means to a remote end, or merely because they are associated with something which makes them dear. Owing to the way in which immense numbers of real things become integrated into single objects of thought for us, there is no clear line to be drawn between immediate and derived attention of an intellectual sort. When absorbed in intellectual attention we may become so inattentive to outer things as to be'absent-minded,' 'abstracted,' or 'distraits.' All revery or concentrated meditation is apt to throw us into this state.

"Archimedes, it is well known, was so absorbed in geometrical meditation that he was first aware of the storming of Syracuse by his own death-wound, and his exclamation on the entrance of the Roman soldiers was:Noli turbare circulos meos!In like manner Joseph Scaliger, the most learned of men, when a Protestant student in Paris, was so engrossed in the study of Homer that he became aware of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and of his own escape, only on the day subsequent to the catastrophe. The philosopher Carneades was habitually liable to fits of meditation so profound that, to prevent him sinking from inanition, his maid found it necessary to feed him like a child. And it is reported of Newton that, while engaged in his mathematical researches, he sometimes forgot to dine. Cardan, one of the most illustrious of philosophers and mathematicians, was once, upon a journey, so lost in thought that he forgot both his way and the object of his journey. To the questions of his driver whether he should proceed, he made no answer; and when he came to himself at nightfall, he was surprised to find the carriage at a standstill, and directly under a gallows. The mathematician Vieta was sometimes so buried in meditation that for hours he bore more resemblance to a dead person than to a living, and was then wholly unconscious of everything going on around him. On the day of his marriage the great Budæus forgot everything in his philological speculations, and he was only awakened to the affairs of the external world by a tardy embassy from the marriage-party, who found him absorbed in the composition of hisCommentarii."[340]

The absorption may be so deep as not only to banish ordinary sensations, but even the severest pain. Pascal, Wesley, Robert Hall, are said to have had this capacity. Dr. Carpenter says of himself that

"he has frequently begun a lecture whilst suffering neuralgic pain so severe as to make him apprehend that he would find it impossible to proceed; yet no sooner has he by a determined effort fairly launched himself into the stream of thought, than he has found himself continuously borne along without the least distraction, until the end has come, and the attention has been released; when the pain has recurred with a force that has overmastered all resistance, making him wonder how he could have ever ceased to feel it."[341]

Dr. Carpenter speaks of launching himself by a determinedeffort. This effort characterizes what we calledactive or voluntary attention. It is a feeling which every one knows, but which most people would call quite indescribable. We get it in the sensorial sphere whenever we seek to catch an impression of extremefaintness, be it of sight, hearing, taste, smell, or touch; we get it whenever we seek todiscriminatea sensation merged in a mass of others that are similar; we get it whenever weresist the attractionsof more potent stimuli and keep our mind occupied with some object that is naturally unimpressive. We get it in the intellectual sphere under exactly similar conditions: as when we strive to sharpen and make distinct an idea which we but vaguely seem to have; or painfully discriminate a shade of meaning from its similars; or resolutely hold fast to a thought so discordant with our impulses that, if left unaided, it would quickly yield place to images of an exciting and impassioned kind. All forms of attentive effort would be exercised at once by one whom we might suppose at a dinner-party resolutely to listen to a neighbor giving him insipid and unwelcome advice in a low voice, whilst all around the guests were loudly laughing and talking about exciting and interesting things.

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