Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/182

 CHAPTER VIII

ATTENTION

IN the development of a mind the world of experience gradually comes to be clearly distinguished into two parts: the ego and the non-ego the me and the not-me. At first the self is not differentiated from the body; but with the progress of the intellectual life that important distinction is made, and the body becomes a sort of middle ground be tween the self and the not-self; while the former deepens into an interior psychical centre, the focus of thought and feeling, and the latter broadens out into an objective world. 1 The ego becomes a point and the non-ego an indefinite exten sion ; the one a unit and the other a multitude. The multi tude of objects stand over against me, the subject; and life resolves itself into a series of adjustments which I make to these objects. I am one and at a given instant can perform but a single act, though that act may be either a simple or a complex movement; and either ideal or physical, or both. At the moment I can make the adjustment with reference only to one object, or a small group of objects considered as a unit. My adaptation to my environment must be made bit by bit. If the objects which compose my total environ ment were all vividly and equally present to my conscious ness at each instant, and I were equipped with the neces sary capacity, I would be able to act with reference to all of them at once ; it would not be necessary for me to pick out from among them a single one, or a small group, and for the instant have exclusive or primary reference to them in my act. But as it is, that is exactly what I have to do. My

i See Baldwin s &quot;Thought and Things,&quot; Vol. I, p. 250, ff.

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