Experimental Study of Associative Processes 145 



them. The really effective part of animal consciousness, 

 then, as of human, is the part which is attended to; at- 

 tention is the ruler of animal as well as human mind. 



But in giving attention its deserts we need not forget 

 that it is not here comparable to the whole of human at- 

 tention. Our attention to the other player and the ball 

 in a game of tennis is like the animal's attention, but our 

 attention to a passage in Hegel, or the memory which 

 flits through our mind, or the song we hear, or the player 

 we idly watch, is not. There ought, I think, to be a separate 

 name for attention when working for immediate practical 

 associations. It is a different species from that which 

 holds objects so that we may define them, think about them, 

 remember them, etc., and the difference is, as our previous 

 sentence shows, not that between voluntary and involun- 

 tary attention. The cat watching me for signs of my walk- 

 ing to the cage with fish is not in the condition of the man 

 watching a ball game, but in that of the player watching 

 the ball speeding toward him. There is a notable difference 

 in the permanence of the impression. The man watching 

 the game can remember just how that fly was hit and how 

 the fielder ran for it, though he bestowed only a slight 

 quantity of attention on the matter, while the fielder may 

 attend to the utmost to the ball and yet not remember at 

 all how it came or how he ran for it. The one sort of atten- 

 tion leads you to think about a thing, the other to act with 

 reference to it. We must be careful to remember that 

 when we say that the cat attended to what was said, we 

 do not mean that he thereby established an idea of it. 

 Animals are not proved to form separate ideas of sense- 

 impressions because they attend to them, for the kind of 

 attention they give is the kind which, when given by men, 

 results in practical associations, not in establishing ideas 



