1090 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 
The function of Will, in relation to attention, is commonly 
known as abstraction. In the countless calls that come for interest 
and inquiry, selection must first be made ; then, after the choice 
has been taken, serious interference with the mind’s occupation 
has to be guarded against. The service thus rendered by abstraction 
seems to be of a preventive or negative character ; but it is mani- 
festly unfair to regard it apart from the positive vision with which 
it is associated, and to stigmatise it as bare and unfruitful. 
Sometimes choice may be made of an unworthy object ; then the 
abstraction of purpose is judged speedily, and condemned as being 
exclusive of good, and leading to a vain result. At another time, 
however, when a great theme occupies the mind, the negative 
abstraction is lost sight of in the splendid thought it serves to 
protect. 
It may be said that Will, to a great extent, takes the place of 
the teacher noticed above ; and, of course, if the object regarded 
voluntarily be like the dry subject of insufficient interest or value, 
the result also will be like that described. 
There is a graphic account given by a champion cyclist of his 
experiences while following pace, that illustrates abstraction. 
‘“‘ After riding a little time,” he says, “the people around the 
course eradually became indistinct, and their applause sounded far 
away ; ‘then the colour of the track and the grass was lost, and 
the rush of the air became less perceptible, until at last, in the 
intensity of his effort to pick up the pacing machines, the daylight 
almost entirely faded away from him, and all the varied sounds 
of the course sank into a confused roar.” 
The chronicling of this experience produced in the minds of 
many who read it a feeling almost of horror at the effect narrated. 
The end sought is so palpably inadequate to the loss of sight and 
sound it involves. 
Should anyone, however, who is accustomed to close mental 
application, compare what is here set down with what he himself 
has felt in the course of his work, he will recognise, by the stmilarity 
-of the result, an abstraction identical in itself with hisown. For 
him, in his writing or experiment, the world gradually becomes 
far away, and indistinct ; he is not conscious of sunshine or shade ; 
the voices of friends are mere sounds, indefinite and unheeded. 
The abstraction involved in attention then beyond its power of 
persistence, takes all its quality, its value, from the object of 
scrutiny. It may be bare and conspicuous ; it may be hidden in 
a rich world of idea. Everything as to its character depends on 
that to which the mind is Gircercal The example of Newton will, 
perhaps, serve to show to how noble a height this controlling 
purpose may attain. 
In describing the method he adopts to reach his discoveries, he 
5 
said he kept the subject always before him, sometimes for long 
