450 PSYCHOLOGY. 



accounted for if Ave grant that there is something interest- 

 ing enough to arouse and tix the thought of "whatever may 

 be connected with it. This fixing is the attention ; and it 

 carriec. with it a vague sense of activity going on, aud of 

 acquiescence, furtherance, and adoption, which makes us 

 feel the activity to be our own. 



This reinforcement of ideas and impressions by the pre- 

 existing contents of the mind Avas Avhat Herbart had in 

 mind when he gave the name of apperceptive attention to the 

 variety we describe. We easily see now why the lover's tap 

 should be heard — it finds a nerve-centre half ready in ad- 

 vance to explode. We see how we can attend to a com- 

 panion's voice in the midst of noises which pass unnoticd 

 though objectively much louder than the Avords Ave hear. 

 Each Avord is doubly aAvakened ; once from without by the 

 lips of the talker, but already before that from within by 

 the premonitory processes irradiating from the preAious 

 words, and by the dim arousal of all processes that are 

 connected with the * topic ' of the talk. The irreleA^ant 

 noises, on the other hand, are awakened only once. They 

 form an unconnected train. The boys at school, inatten- 

 tive to the teacher except when he begins an anecdote, and 

 then all pricking up their ears, are as easily explained. 

 The words of the anecdote shoot into association with ex- 

 citing objects Avhich react and fix them ; the other words do 

 not. Similarly with the grammar heard by the purist and 

 Herbart's other examples quoted on page 418. 



Even Avhere the attention is voluntary, it is possible to 

 conceive of it as an effect, and not a cause, a product and 

 not an agent. The things we attend to come to us by their 

 own laws. Attention creates no idea ; an idea must already 

 be there before we can attend to it. Attention only fixes 

 and retains what the ordinary laAvs of association bring ' be- 

 fore the footlights ' of consciousness. But the moment Ave 

 admit this we see that the attention ^er 5e, the feeling of at- 

 tending need no more fix and retain the ideas than it need 

 bring them. The associates which bring them also fix them 

 by the interest which they lend. In short, voluntary and 

 involuntary attention may be essentially the same. It is 

 true that where the ideas are intrinsically v^ery unwelcome 



