424 PSYCHOLOGY. 



each other mutually by some rational law. Therefore we 

 call the atteutiou ' sustained ' and the topic of meditation 

 for hours ' the same.' In the common man the series is 

 for the most part incoherent, the objects have no rational 

 bond, and we call the attention wandering and untixed. 



It is probable that genius tends actually to prevent a 

 man from acquiring habits cf voluntary attention, and that 

 moderate intellectual endowments are the soil in which we 

 may best expect, here as elsewhere, the virtues of the will, 

 strictly so called, to thrive. But, whether the attention 

 come by grace of genius or by dint of will, the longer one 

 does attend to a topic the more mastery of it one has. And 

 the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering at- 

 tention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, 

 character, and will. No one is compos sui if he have it not. 

 An education which should improve this faculty would be 

 the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this 

 ideal than to give practical directions for bringing it about. 

 The only general pedagogic maxim bearing on attention is 

 that the more interest the child has in advance in the sub- 

 ject, the better he will attend. Induct him therefore in 

 such a way as to knit each new thing on to some acquisi- 

 tion already there ; and if possible awaken curiosity, so 

 that the new thing shall seem to come as an answer, or 

 part of an answer, to a question pre-existing in his mind. 



At present having described the varieties, let us turn to 



THE EFFECTS OF ATTENTION. 



Its remote effects are too incalculable to be recorded. 

 The practical and theoretical life of whole species, as well 

 as of individual beings, results from the selection which the 

 habitual direction of their attention involves. In Chapters 

 XIV and XV some of these consequences will come to light. 

 Suffice it meanwhile that each of us literally chooses, by his 

 ways of attending to things, what sort of a universe he 

 shall appear to himself to inhabit. 



The immediate effects of a-ttention are to make us: 



a) perceive — 



h) conceive — 



c) distinguish — 



d) remember — 



