ATTENTION. 453 



its causal function witli no feeling in our hearts but one of 

 pride that we are applying Occam's razor to an entity that 

 has multiplied itself 'beyond necessity.' 



But Occam's razor, though a very good rule of method, 

 is certainly no law of nature. The laws of stimulation and 

 of association may well be indispensable actors in all at- 

 tention's performances, and may even be a good enough 

 * stock-company ' to carry on many performances without 

 aid ; and yet they may at times simjDly form the background 

 for a ' star-performer,' who is no more their * inert accompa- 

 niment ' or their ' incidental product ' than Hamlet is 

 Horatio's and Ophelia's. Such a star-performer would be 

 the voluntary effort to attend, if it were an original psychic 

 force. Nature may, I say, indulge in these complications ; 

 and the conception that she has done so in this case is, I 

 think, just as clear (if not as ' parsimonious ' logically) as the 

 conception that she has not. To justify this assertion, let 

 us ash jitst luhat the effort to attend ivould effect if it were an 

 original force. 



It would deepen and j^rolong the stay in consciousness 

 of innumerable ideas which else would fade more quickly 

 away. The delay thus gained might not be more than a 

 second in duration — but that second might be critical ; for 

 in the constant rising and falling of considerations in the 

 mind, where two associated systems of them are nearly in 

 equilibrium it is often a matter of but a second more or less 

 of attention at the outset, whether one system shall gain 

 force to occupy the field and develop itself, and exclude 

 the other, or be excluded itself by the other. When devel- 

 oped, it may make us act ; and that act may seal our doom. 

 "When we come to the chapter on the Will, we shall see that 

 the whole drama of the voluntary life hinges on the amount 

 of attention, slightly more or slightly less, which rival 

 motor ideas may receive. But the whole feeling of reality, 

 the whole sting and excitement of our voluntary life, depends 

 on our sen^e that in it things are really being decided from 

 one moment to another, and that it is not the dull rattling 

 off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago. This 

 appearance, which makes life and history tingle with such 

 a tragic zest, may not be an illusion. As we grant to 



