434 PSYCHOLOGY. 



this preliminary sub-excitement of motor tracts failed to 

 occur, and the entire process of answering had to be gone 

 through with after the question was heard. No wonder 

 that the time was prolonged. It is a beautiful example of 

 the summation of stimulations, and of the way in which 

 expectant attention, even when not very strongly focalized, 

 will prepare the motor centres, and shorten the work which 

 a stimulus has to perform on them, in order to produce a 

 given effect when it comes. 



THE INTIMATE NATURE OP THE ATTENTIVE PROCESS. 



We have now a sufficient number of facts to warrant our 

 considering this more recondite question. And two physi- 

 ological processes, of which we have got a glimpse, imme- 

 diately suggest themselves as possibly forming in combina- 

 tion a complete reply. I mean 



1. TJw accommodation or adjustment of the sensory or- 

 gans ; and 



2. The anticipatory preparation from icithin of the idea- 

 tional centres concerned with the object to which the attention is 

 paid. 



1. The sense-organs and the bodily muscles which favor 

 their exercise are adjusted most energetically in sensorial 

 attention, whether immediate and reflex, or derived. But 

 there are good grounds for believing that even intellectual 

 attention, attention to the idea of a sensible object, is also 

 accompanied with some degree of excitement of the sense- 

 organs to which the object appeals. The preparation of 

 the ideational centres exists, on the other hand, wherever 

 our interest in the object — be it sensible or ideal — is de- 

 rived from, or in any way connected wdth, other interests, 

 or the presence of other objects, in the mind. It exists as 

 well when the attention thus derived is classed as passive 

 as w^hen it is classed as voluntary. So that on the whole 

 we may confidently conclude — since in mature life we never 

 attend to anything without our interest in it being in some 

 degree derived from its connection with other objects — that 

 the tivo processes of sensorial adjustment and ideational prep- 

 aration probably coexist in oil our concrete attentive acts. 



