ATTENTION. 451 



aud the effort to attend to them is great, it seems to us as 

 if the frequent renewal of the effort were the very cause by 

 which they are held fast, and we naturally think of the ef- 

 fort as an original force. In fact it is only to the effort to 

 attend, not to the me^e attending, that we are seriously 

 tempted to ascribe spontaneous power. We think we can 

 make more of it if ice ivill ; and the amount which we make 

 does not seem a fixed function of the ideas themselves, as 

 it would necessarily have to be if our effort were an effect 

 and not a spiritual force. But even here it is possible to 

 conceive the facts mechanically and to regard the effort as 

 a mere effect. 



Effort is felt only w^here there is a conflict of interests 

 in the mind. The idea A may be iutrinsicall}- exciting to 

 us. The idea Z may derive its interest from association 

 with some remoter good. A may be our sweetheart, Z 

 may be some condition of our soul's salvation. Under 

 these circumstances, if we succeed in attending to Z at all it 

 is always with expenditure of effort. The ' ideational prepar- 

 aration,' the ' preperception ' of A keeps going on of its own 

 accord, whilst that of Z needs incessant pulses of voluntary 

 reinforcement — that is, we have the feeling of voluntary re- 

 inforcement (or effort) at each successive moment in which 

 the thought of Z flares brightly up in our mind. Dynami- 

 cally, however, that may mean only this : that the associa- 

 tive processes which make Z triumph are really the 

 stronger, and in A's absence would make us give a ' passive ' 

 and unimpeded attention to Z ; but, so long as A is present, 

 some of of their force is used to inhibit the processes con- 

 cerned with A. Such inhibition is a partial neutralization 

 of the brain-energy which would otherwise be available 

 for fluent thought. But what is lost for thought is con- 

 verted into feeling, in this case into the peculiar feeling of 

 effort, difficulty, or strain. 



The stream of our thought is like a river. On the 

 whole easy simple flowing predominates in it, the drift of 

 things is with the pull of gravity, aud effortless attention 

 is the rule. But at intervals an obstruction, a set-back, a 

 log-jam occurs, stops the current, creates an eddy, and 

 makes things temporarily move the other way. If a real 



