PHILOSOPHY, MENTAL. 
and shall therefore decline enlarging upon it 
here. 
ATTENTION, ABSTRACTION, AND CERERAL- 
lEATION. 
117. By investigating the phenomena of 
mind at a time when we have formed a con- 
nection between volition and certain men- 
tal states or operations, we are repeatedly 
led to consider those states or operations, 
Jiowever passive the mind might originally 
have been, as totally, and in their own na- 
ture voluntary. — ^This is remarkably the 
case with that state of mind which we call 
attention. That this is in young children 
intirely involuntary, is apparently certain, 
and those who are endeavouring to form 
their minds to habits of study and reflec- 
tion, know from constant experience that 
tliey have it not under their command. So 
far from having an original power of ex- 
cluding vivid ideas or sensations, to give 
our attention to those which, though most 
certainly demanding it, do not make the 
same lively impression upon the mind, it 
is a habit which requires the strictest 
and severest discipline to produce it ; it 
is a possession honourable and invaluable, 
but like every other of importance, not 
the acquisition of the moment, but of a 
long continued course of rigorous, and in 
many cases, of painful exertion. And when 
the habit of attention is formed, that is, 
when we can produce the state of mind 
called attention by a volition, how much 
may fairly be attributed to the nature of 
the object, which though, perhaps, at first 
uninteresting, becomes pleasing and im- 
pressive, and thus produces that state by 
tlie original laws of our constitution. — It 
even appears probable that the person who 
has formed such habits of attention to a 
particular science as to be able to give it 
his undivided attention, would be almost as 
incapable of directing it to frivolous ob- 
jects, as to a science to which habitual at- 
tention, or the nature of the subject, does 
not give any charms, as i.e was when he first 
entered upon his pursuits. — In a word, 
when we take into consideration the cir- 
cumstances that our attention is never un- 
divided, except to those things which are 
calculated to engage it, either by the original 
agreeableness of their nature, or that which 
they acquire in proportion as our habits be- 
come confirmed, and that the associa- 
tive faculty may, and in many instances 
4oes, form a connection between the men- 
tal states we call attention and volition, 
we have probably then sufficient data to 
account for the phenomena of attention 
without calling in the aid of a new fa- 
culty. 
118. Abstraction is defined by Mr. Stew- 
art, the faculty by which the mind sepa- 
rates the combinations which are presented 
to it. This definition, so far as it goes, 
appears to be very correct ; but if the pro- 
cesses of generalization are intended to be 
contained in it, it is by no means suiEcient; 
as will immediately appear from the slight- 
est consideration of that mental process. 
Abstraction, in this acceptation, is indeed 
“ essentially subservient to every act of 
classification but by no means compre- 
hends that act in the number of its func- 
tions. Though we cannot agree with Mr. 
Stewart in all his statements in his chapter 
on attention, we must in this position, that 
the mind “ cannot attend at one and the 
same instant to objects which we can at- 
tend to separately.” If this be the case, 
what is abstraction but attention directed 
to particular objects, owing either to some- 
thing vivid in the sensations they excite, or 
to the frequency of their recurrence; in 
fact, subject to all the laws of attention, 
perfectly involuntary in early life, and af- 
terwards becoming, to a certain degree, 
voluntary by means of a strong association 
formed between the states of mind called 
volition and attention, 
119. In speaking of the process of genera- 
lization, some observations will apply to tlig 
process of abstraction separately consi- 
dered. We shall therefore proceed to con- 
sider tire formation of general or abstract 
notions ; a process in which the mind is 
most usually passive ; which seems capable 
of satisfactory explanation upon the princi- 
ple of the associative powers, and appa- 
rently cannot be explaiiied without it. 
120. Sensible objects, and particularly 
visible, are undoubtedly the first which ex- 
ercise the power of abstraction, or separate 
attention, and here the process appears 
plain. The object makes its appropriate 
impression upon the organs of sense, and 
when withdrawn leaves in tiie mind an 
idea. Another sensation is received from 
an object bearing strong features of simi- 
larity to the former, by the latvs of associ- 
ation, it calls up the idea it produced, and 
becomes associated with it. Other similar 
objects are presented, and the features in 
which they agree being the most frequently 
called up, engage most the attention of th* 
