68 THE PROBLEM OF THE GALLOPING HORSE 



quick succession, near their extreme limit, an ascending 

 and a descending phase which are not strictly but sensibly 

 alike, and so doubly impress the retina, and obtain for the 

 legs " attention " when in that extreme position. The 

 choice of the attitude depicted by Morot is explained by 

 the fact that, as is shown by its persistence through two 

 successive pictures (figs. 2 and 3 of PI. I), this pose must 

 produce a more continuous impression on the retina than 

 any other of the attitudes shown, since none of them endure 

 through two successive pictures. 



The mental process of attention results in a certain 

 duration or memory of the mental- condition which is a 

 distinct thing from the primary retinal impression, and 

 leads to the ignoring or mental obliteration of an instan- 

 taneous interval separating two phases of the position of 

 moving legs which have strongly " arrested the attention." 

 Hence, it seems that the most forward pose of the galloping 

 horse's front legs and the most backward pose of its hind 

 legs — though far from simultaneous, even in the slow 

 changing retinal impressions — may be mentally combined 

 by " the arrest of attention," and that the artist really 

 ought to present his picture of the galloping horse with 

 those two poses combined (although as a matter of scientific 

 truth they do not occur simultaneously) in order that he 

 may produce by his painted piece of canvas, as nearly as 

 he can, the mental result which we call " seeing '' a horse 

 gallop. This combination of the front half of one figure 

 with the hinder half of another so as to give in each case 

 the extreme phase of extension of the legs I have made 

 in PI. I, fig. 12. 



But there is, further, in all " seeing " before even a 

 mental result of attention to the retinal picture is, as it 

 were, " passed," admitted and registered as " a thing seen," 

 the further operation of rapid criticism or judgment, 

 brief though it be. We are always unconsciously forming 



