1084 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
Now 5:— THE. PSYCHOLOGY: OF ATEN TION: 
By the Rev. N. J. Cocks, M.A. 
(Read Monday, January 10, 1898.) 
TneErE are at the present day an old anda new Psychology existing 
side by side. , 
Once there were an old and a new Astronomy, but the new took 
up the old and both became one—a Science in which the ancient 
observation of Fact is combined with the modern conception of 
Law. 
The time has not yet arrived for a similar development in the 
science of Mind. 
The methods of experience and analysis will continue for a 
while to appear antagonistic to each other. 
The biologist who comes with experiment and searching inquiry 
will still believe he is on a different quest from the philosopher 
who arranges old facts and uses an antique phraseology ; but the 
two will mcet some day, and will find they have really been bent 
towards the same point, though from opposite directions. 
Without any claim to special insight, it may be predicted that 
the field of their common observation will lead to this ultimate 
unity. There is always that in the world we look out upon which 
draws the mind irresistibly to surpass its own earlier attainment. 
Since, then, Psychology is in this stage, the value of the present 
inquiry will be obvious. The great need for those who follow 
either the old or the new method is to ascertain clearly and fully 
the nature and scope of their subject matter ; for the activity of 
Thought is itself the inspiration of renewed research, and in the 
multitude of phenomena is hidden their final Law. 
Our attempt will be, therefore, to survey and arrange the facts 
of this subject of Attention. 
What Attention is most people pretty well understand, and to 
define the familiar is often to veil the known with the obscure—to 
clothe Apollo. 
Still the limits of the subject must be stated, and some picture 
or illustration of it may not be out of place. 
By Attention, then, will be meant,—sustained perception, leading 
to the grasp of new relations in the object under view. 
An example that brings out this meaning may be found in the 
way a chemist deals with an apparently new specimen. First, he 
