Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/447

 j. SULLY'S OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY. 435 correspond in part to this general treatment, but he has not suc- ceeded in conveying so clearly as could be desired a representation of the elementary constituents of mind, and he does not con- sistently apply even what is given. I shall take one or two special matters to illustrate what I imagine would follow were the more complete conception carried out. Mr. Sully rightly gives to Attention a place as a general fact, and under that head treats fully and instructively of the condi- tions under which the " self -direction of the mind" is brought about. But he seems to be uncertain as to what attention is in itself and gives only metaphors in explanation. Now closer in- spection of the numerous facts he adduces might have led him to the just conclusion that attention is not in one sense an addi- tional fact, something over and above the content of mental life to which, as one popularly expresses it, attention is given, and also that the precise significance of attention, the component parts, will vary according to the stage of mental development. If we bear in mind that the individual self-consciousness contains always the three factors, knowing, feeling and striving, that it is constantly altering, that at each stage there becomes more de- finite the notion of self, and that at each moment the empirical self may present special features, there is no difficulty in regarding attention as the term to indicate the definite, momentary connexion of any given content of the mental life with the sense of indivi- dual being. The difference between attention and consciousness would then simply be, that in the former the given fact has such concomitants as connect it for the moment in a special way with the prevailing contents (' the ruling cluster of ideas,' as Volkmann puts it in the passage quoted by Mr. Sully) of the in- dividual's self-consciousness. It is by a slow process that there grows up so definite and habitual a ' cluster of ideas ' (constituting self in opposition to other things) that voluntary concentration becomes possible. Indeed the distinction between the so-called involuntary and voluntary modes of attention is to be regarded as one of degree only. There is one general consequence of the view taken which is so important in its bearing on isolated problems that it may here be briefly stated. Nothing that we can call a state of mind is ever simple. We may therefore dismiss as frivolous the inquiry whether the mind can be in more than one state at a time, and look with distrust upon all the modes of speech which imply that the mental life consists of a series or train of states. We shall even qualify the old rule of attention which Mr. Sully quotes with approval, Ffvribm intentus, minor est ad gingula sensus, and say that it is utterly false when taken without due explanation, and extremely valueless with it. And when we proceed to the analysis of highly-developed phases of mental life we must be on our guard not to neglect such useful hints as the general view supplies to us. In examining, e.g., the