ATTENTION. 421 



an identical object in the psycliological sense (p. 275), but a 

 succession of mutually related objects forming an identical 

 topic only, upon which the attention is fixed. No one can 

 possibly attend continuously to an object that does not cliange. 



Now there are always some objects that for the time 

 being will not develop. They simply go out ; and to keep 

 the mind upon anything related to them requires such in- 

 cessantly renewed effort that the most resolute Will ere long 

 gives out aud lets its thoughts follow the more stimulating 

 solicitations after it has withstood them for what length of 

 time it can. There are topics known to every man from 

 which he shies like a friglitened horse, and which to get a 

 glimpse of is to shun. Such are his ebbing assets to the 

 spendthrift in full career. But why single out the spend- 

 thrift when to every man actuated by passion the thought 

 of interests which negate the passion can hardly for more 

 than a fleeting instant stay before the mind ? It is like 

 ' memento mori ' in the heyday of the pride of life. Nature 

 rises at such suggestions, and excludes them from the 

 Adew : — How long, O healthy reader, can you now continue 

 thinking of your tomb ? — In milder instances the difficulty 

 is as great, especially when the brain is fagged. One 

 snatches at any and every passing pretext, no matter how 

 trivial or external, to escape from the odiousness of the 

 matter in hand. I know a person, for example, who will 

 poke the fire, set chairs straight, pick dust-specks from 

 the floor, arrange his table, snatch up the newspaper, take 

 down any book which catches his eye, trim his nails, waste 

 the morning anyhoiv, in short, and all without premedita- 

 tion, — simply because the only thing he ought to attend to 

 is the preparation of a noonday lesson in formal logic 

 which he detests. Anything but that ! 



Once more, the object must change. When it is one of 

 sight, it will actually become invisible ; when of hearing, 

 inaudible, — if we attend to it too unmovingly. Helmholtz, 

 who has put his sensorial attention to the severest tests, 

 by using his eyes on objects which in common life are ex- 

 pressly overlooked, makes some interesting remarks on 

 this point in his chapter on retinal rivalry.* The phe- 

 * Physiologische Optik, § 32. 



