April 19, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



429 



besides the idea of effort, we experience 

 effort itself. That is one of the hardest 

 points in psychology to have made clear to 

 j-ou. or to make clear to yourselves. This 

 instance may help you : You know that we 

 speak of one man as having more ' go ' in 

 him than his neighbor, without implying 

 by the phi-ase that he has more ideas. 

 There are many names for the effort- 

 experience. Some psychologists speak of 

 it as the experience of spontaneity, of one's 

 own initiative; otliers of an activity in 

 cousciousness. ' Eflbrt ' is at once the most 

 concrete and, I think, the most intelligible 

 word. (2) Our power over the world out- 

 side, again, is manifested in another way 

 — by the phenomena of attention. Not 

 every process among our physical surround- 

 ings has us at its mercj" in the same degi-ee. 

 We are exposed to all maimer of impres- 

 sions : but they are not all alike powerful 

 to affect our consciousness. Think of your 

 own state of mind now. You have pre- 

 sented to j'ou a certain number of visual 

 impressions — the room, its furniture, the 

 people about you. You are subject to cer- 

 tain temperature sensations; to certain pres- 

 sures, from your clothing ; to certain or- 

 ganic sensations, hunger or satietj'. Each 

 of you has a large stock of memories, readj- 

 to crowd into consciousness if they are 

 allowed to. Each of you, again, has the 

 day's programme in his mind ; he can 

 imagine what will be done between now 

 and bed-time ; and this train of ideas of 

 the imagination is ready to sweep across 

 his mind, if free plaj" is given to it. But 

 all this medley of conflicting influences you 

 are able, if j'ou like, to neglect. You can 

 just brush them aside, by attending to the 

 single series of auditory impressions that is 

 affecting you, to the succession of words 

 which I am speaking. "When the whole of 

 j'our suiTOundings is pressing in ujHjn you 

 through the avenues of the sense-organs, 

 clamoring for notice, you have the power 



of choosing wliich shall be let in at the 

 door of ctmsciousness. Only those facts 

 cross the thresliold to which j-ou desire to 

 attend. 



" But," you may sjiy, " suppose that this 

 is true, what has attention to do with move- 

 ment ? You told us that it was movement 

 that distinguished the animal from the 

 plant, and that along with movement went 

 power over the external world. Now what 

 has movement to do wdth attention ?" That 

 is a perfectly fair question, but one which I 

 cannot here answer for you in detail. To 

 understand the fact of the connection 

 thoroughly — and the connection is a fact — 

 you must have studied psychologj*. But I 

 can give you a pair of statements which 

 will be better than nothing. The first is 

 this : "Whenever we attend, we move. I do 

 not mean that the whole body moves, that 

 there is locomotion : but that there is move- 

 ment, — movement in the ej^e, movement in 

 the ear, movement in the scalp, movement 

 somewhere. And the second is this : It is 

 the moving thing that attracts the attention. 

 You cannot attend to one single thing, one 

 really single thing, for more than a few 

 seconds together. Either you go to sleep, 

 or you go into hysterics. On the other 

 hand, one is almost constrained to attend 

 to anything that moves. You can hear the 

 single voice that carries the melody, when 

 there is an orchestra of half-a-hundred in- 

 struments thundering on at the same time, 

 because the melody changes, the tones 

 move ; while the accompaniment is rela- 

 tively stationary. So that attention to the 

 melody is easy. If any of you liave been 

 out shooting after dark, you will know that 

 one tells the game by its movement. So 

 long as it is still, it is safe. But let it move, 

 and though the eyes liave been looking in 

 a (luite wrong direction, the attention is 

 drawn upon it by force, as it were ; one 

 cannot help seeing it. 



Those, then, are two categories of mental 



