20 
It was the power of concentrated attention as the sign of an 
unfatigued mind and I might add, of a superior mind, which 
kept Sir James Paget’s memory in activity. Charles Darwin 
considered a/fention the most important of all the faculties for the 
development of the mind. He tells of a certain man who used 
to purchase monkeys for the Zoological Society of London for £5 
each. He wanted them for training to act in plays, and he offered 
410 if he were allowed to keep three or four of them for a few 
days in order to select one. When he was asked how he could 
tell in so short a time whether a monkey would prove an apt 
pupil or not, he replied, “that it all depended on the degree 
of attention which the animal gave to what was done in its 
presence.” If when he was teaching it anything its attention was 
easily attracted, as bya fly or other trivial cause, all hope of 
instructing it had to be given up. An animal when fatigued has 
undergone a temporary involution, and become of the level of an 
inattentive monkey. If the brain is fatigued it is almost 
impossible to be attentive. Galton studied the movements which 
take place in a large audience, when a lecture has been prolonged 
so much as to fatigue the listeners. Says Galton, ‘‘ The art of 
class teaching consists chiefly in knowing how long, and in what 
way, one can retain the attention of the students. The best 
masters are those who never fatigue too much any one region of 
the pupils’ brains, so that their attention being directed, now here, 
now there, obtains some rest, and so is better able to grapple with 
the main subject of the lesson. 
Beard, an American author, writing of the increase of 
nervousness across the Atlantic, says, ‘‘ That at the present time 
no lecturer can attract very large crowds unless he be a humourist 
and makes his hearers laugh, as well as cry ; and the lectures of 
the hument, now a class by themselves, are more frequented than 
those of philosophers, or men of science, or of fame in literature. 
Americans prefer nonsense to science for an evening’s employ- 
ment. They are so exhausted by the hard toil of the day that 
they cannot concentrate their attention for anything scientific.” 
Beard is convinced that in no other country is nervous fatigue so 
common as in the United States. All I have just said on the 
question of want of attention in fatigue has reference to cerebral 
fatigue, but it applies equally to severe muscular fatigue. Alpine 
climbers have noticed that it is well nigh impossible to fix the 
attention for intellectual work ; not only does the attention fail, 
but memory becomes impaired. 
Mosso found in his case, that after climbing Monte Viso and 
Monte Rosa he could not remember anything of what he had 
seen from the summit. He says, “ My recollection became more 
and more dim in proportion to the height attained. It seems 
that the physical condition of thought and memory becomes less 
me 
