420 PSYCHOLOGY. 



tive or voluntary attention. It is a feeling which every one 

 knows, but which most people would call quite indes-crib- 

 able. AVe get it in the sensorial sphere whenever we seek 

 to catch an impression of extreme faijitness, be it of sight, 

 hearing, taste, smell, or touch ; we get it whenever we seek 

 to discriminate a sensation merged in a mass of others that 

 are similar ; we get it whenever we 7'esist the attractions of 

 more potent stimuli and keep our mind occupied with 

 some object that is naturally unimpressive. We get it in 

 the intellectual sphere under exactly similar conditions : 

 as when we strive to sharpen and make distinct an idea 

 which we but vaguely seem to have ; or painfully discrimi- 

 nate a shade of meaning from its similars ; or resolutely 

 hold fast to a thought so discordant with our impulses 

 that, if left unaided, it would quickly yield place to images 

 of an exciting and impassioned kind. All forms of atten- 

 tive effort would be exercised at once by one whom we 

 might suppose at a dinner-party resolutely to listen to a 

 neighbor giving him insipid and unwelcome advice in a 

 low voice, whilst all around the guests were loudly laugh- 

 ing and talking about exciting and interesting things. 



There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for 

 more than a few seconds at a time. What is called sustained 

 voluntary attention is a repetition of successive efforts 

 which bring back the topic to the mind.* The topic once 

 brought back, if a congenial one, develops ; and if its de- 

 velopment is interesting it engages the attention passively 

 for a time. Dr. Carpenter, a moment back, described the 

 stream of thought, once entered, as ' bearing him along.' 

 This passive interest may be short or long. As soon as it 

 flags, the attention is diverted by some irrelevant thing, and 

 then a voluntary effort may bring it back to the topic 

 again ; and so on, under favorable conditions, for hours to- 

 gether. During all this time, however, note that it is not 



* Prof. J. M. Cattell made experiments to which we shall refer further 

 on, on the degree to which reaction-times might be shortened by distract- 

 ing or voluntarily concentrating the attention. He says of the latter series 

 that "the averages show that the attention can be kept strained, that is, the 

 centres kept in a state of unstable equilibrium, for one second" (Mind, xi. 

 240). 



