THE ATTENTION 413 



fixed is, as a rule, of all the objects within sight, the most interesting 

 to us during that time. For that reason we ' look at ' it. For that 

 reason it ' claims our attention.' Sometimes, indeed, but then only 

 by a conscious effort, we do not concentrate our attention on the 

 object of sight on which our eyes are fixed, but on some other 

 object in the peripheral area of vision. Thus, in a drawing room, 

 though we may be gazing full at the face of a friend, we may 

 really be watching through the ' corner of our eye ' the pretty girl 

 beside us, who is talking to some one else. More commonly, 

 however, when, as is often the case, we are ' not attending ' to the 

 object that falls on the fovea centralis of the retina, our attention 

 is concentrated, not on any object of sight, but on something else. 

 Thus, while we are almost entirely oblivious of our friend or the 

 pretty girl, we may be concentrating our attention on some 

 interesting gossip that is being whispered behind us. Our con- 

 centrated attention, the fovea centralis of our attention, wanders, 

 like the fovea centralis of the eye, from one sensation (auditory, 

 tactile, etc.) to another ; or it may ignore sensations altogether, 

 and, as when we are in a brown study, be concerned only with our 

 thoughts. Our concentrated attention is what is colloquially termed 

 ' active,' while the diffused attention is termed * mechanical.' Thus, 

 when we are thinking of the pretty girl or the gossip, we are 

 actively attending to one or the other and mechanically to our 

 friend. But the latter attention, however mechanical, however 

 diffused, is still attention. We are not quite oblivious of the 

 friend. We still converse mechanically. 



68 1. The degree of concentration of attention varies greatly. 

 It may be so concentrated that we are almost unconscious of the 

 rest of our surroundings. It may be so diffused that it is hard to 

 say which object is claiming the most of our attention. But there 

 always is some concentration and some diffusion. Now, we 

 invariably remember best those things on which we have concen- 

 trated our attention most. Thus, as a rule, we can recall only the 

 seen things on which we have fixed our sight, and even then only 

 when we have paid attention to them at the time. All the rest 

 we have seen, or otherwise felt, is vague in recollection, if it be 

 recollected at all, in proportion to the degree of the diffusion of 

 the attention. Thus, I have been invited to see an interesting 

 town, by a friend who was even more interesting, and have walked 

 miles with him, and have come away with hardly a recollection of 

 the place, but full of vivid remembrances of what my friend said. 

 If he had been less interesting I should have remembered more of 



