800 Dynamic Theory. 



Where there is no special antagonism against an incoming stimulus, un- 

 less it be overpowering, it may fail of attention by reason of the preoc- 

 cupation of the brain. It is the degree of change that constitutes the 

 intensity of the sensation. If one hand be held in hot and the other 

 in cold water, and then both suddenly transferred to tepid water, it will 

 feel warm to one and cool to the other. We get used to noises, or 

 smells, or degrees of light or heat, which startle a person not accus- 

 tomed to them. Same is true of poisons and stimulants. A telegraph 

 operator will go to sleep alongside of his ticking instrument, and re- 

 main undisturbed till his own "call" is sounded, which, to uneducated 

 ears, is indistinguishable from the rest of the clatter of the instrument. 



While we are assailed by an infinite number of stimulations, there is 

 not capacity in our small machinery to give them all attention. The 

 greater part of them glance off without appreciable effect, and a great 

 many that would have an influence are neutralized by others of contrary 

 qualities. Those stimuli which we have already assimilated, and which 

 have made us what we are, determine what new ones shall receive atten- 

 tion. What we are, determines what we shall be. There are different 

 degrees and modes of attention, as mentioned in the beginning. 



Reverie is a state into which most persons are more or less liable to 

 fall. It is a condition in which the cerebral actions are not under the 

 control of any dominant idea, but rather of a particular class and spe- 

 cies of ideas, and in which each memory or idea is either directly or in- 

 directly a suggesting stimulus for the next. In this respect it is like 

 dreaming, and such cerebral actions are properly called waking dreams. 

 The persons to whom this state is most common are those of an emo- 

 tional and imaginative nature. And their thoughts are more apt to em- 

 brace subjects in which ideas of that sort are involved. While under 

 such general influence the sort of external impressions most attended to 

 are those which appeal to the esthetic and sentimental feelings, the 

 grand and poetic in nature and art, &c. 



Abstraction, or " Absence of Mind," is usually reckoned a more in- 

 tense state of reverie. Almost everybody is more or less liable to it, 

 but to some persons it is easily habitual. When persons are in a pro- 

 found state of abstraction they are so engrossed by the ideas towards 

 which their attention is directed, that they are almost wholly oblivious 

 to external impressions, and the perceptions the} 7 do obtain are apt to be 

 distorted and false. The sort of ideas most common in states of ab- 

 straction, are of an intellectual and abstract nature, devoid, in general, 

 of emotional or personal elements. There are persons so addicted to 

 this habit that only the most forcible impressions of the senses can dis- 

 turb the tenor of their thoughts. 



Remarkable and amusing stories are told of persons to whom abstrac- 



