Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/58

 Hi. PSYCHOLOGICAL PBINCIPLES. (III.) By JAMES WABD. Attention and the Field of Consciousness. IN resuming, after a long interval, 1 this attempt to define and explicate the principles of general psychology, the writer feels bound first of all to consider certain objections urged by Prof. Bain in the last number of MIND to some of the posi- tions already taken up. Though Prof. Bain's very generous criticisms refer directly to an article that has appeared else- where, yet in one chief point at least his strictures apply equally to what has been said here. The point in question is everywhere the peculiar stress "laid on Attention" and "the immense compass assigned to the word ". It is then first a question of fact and next a question of terms. Prof. Bain also cites Mr. Bradley's discussion in an earlier Number (43) of the question : " Is there any special Activity of Attention ? " as containing "conclusions on the whole re- markably just," and which therefore, it may be supposed, he regards as a further refutation of the doctrine of the present writer with which he had just been dealing. The " very great acumen " of this discussion of Mr. Bradley's is un- mistakable, and he would be a foolishly confident man who had no misgivings on finding a thinker of such subtlety and independence dissenting from him. But against whom is this discussion directed? Certainly it has but little relevance as against the position to be here expounded and defended, though it may serve incidentally to make that position clearer ; for such purpose perhaps the reader will be kind enough to look back to it occasionally. One or two preliminary considerations may serve to clear the way and, by showing the steps through which the writer came to lay this peculiar stress on Attention, enable the reader the better to judge whether the leading was that of truth or error. Everyone the least familiar with the history of modern knowledge must have remarked the influence of the more exact sciences upon the science of mind and upon philosophy generally. For Descartes and Spinoza mathe- matics was the model ; for Leibniz, and still more for Kant, 1 See MIND viii. 153, 465.