ATTENTION
Attention is not a faculty of the mind in the same sense as perception,
abstraction, judgment, etc., but is rather in the nature of an act of
will concerned in the focusing of the consciousness upon some object of
thought presented or represented to the mind. In some respects it bears
a resemblance to Abstraction, inasmuch as it sets aside some particular
object for the consideration of the consciousness, to the exclusion of
other objects. Wayland explains attention as a condition of mind in
which the consciousness is excited and directed by an act of the will.
Hamilton says: "Consciousness may be compared to a telescope; Attention
is the pulling out and pressing in of the tubes in accommodating the
focus of the eye;" and also that: "An act of attention, that is an act
of concentration, seems thus necessary to every exertion of
consciousness, as a certain contraction of the pupil is requisite to
every exertion of vision.... Attention then is to consciousness what
the contraction of the pupil is to sight, or to the eye of the mind what
the microscope or telescope is to the bodily eye.... It constitutes the
better half of all intellectual power."
Brodie says that: "It is Attention, much more than any difference in the
abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference which
exists between minds of different individuals." Butler says: "The most
important intellectual habit that I know of is the habit of attending
exclusively to the matter in hand.... It is commonly said that genius
cannot be infused by education, yet this power of concentrated
attention, which belongs as a part of his gift to every great
discoverer, is unquestionably capable of almost indefinite augmentation
by resolute practice." And Beattie says: "The force wherewith anything
strikes the mind is generally in proportion to the degree of attention
bestowed upon it."
Realizing the importance of attention, the student will naturally wish
to cultivate the power of bestowing it when necessary. The first role in
the cultivation of the attention is that the student shall carefully
acquire _the habit of thinking of or doing but one thing at a time_.
This first rule may seem easy, but in practice it will be found very
difficult of observance, so careless are the majority of us in our
actions and thinking. Not only will the trouble and care bestowed upon
the acquiring of this habit of thought and action be well repaid by the
development of the attention, but the student will also acquire a
facility for accomplishing his tasks quickly and thoroughly. As Kay
says: "There is nothing that contributes more to success in any pursuit
than that of having the attention concentrated on the matter in hand;
and, on the contrary, nothing is more detrimental than when doing one
thing to have the mind taken up with something else." And as Granville
says: "A frequent cause of failure in the faculty of attention is
striving to think of more than one thing at a time." Kay also well says:
"If we would possess the power of attention in a high degree, we must
cultivate the habit of attending to what is directly before the mind, to
the exclusion of all else. All distracting thoughts and feelings that
tend to withdraw the mind from what is immediately before it are
therefore to be carefully avoided. This is a matter of great importance,
and of no little difficulty. Frequently the mind, in place of being
concentrated on what is immediately before it, is thinking of something
else--something, it may be, that went before or that may come after, or
something quite alien to the subject."
The following principles of the application of the attention have been
stated by the authorities:
I. The attention attaches more readily to interesting than to
uninteresting things.
II. The attention will decline in strength unless there is a variation
in the stimulus, either by a change of object or the developing of some
new attribute in the object.
III. The attention, when tired by continuous direction toward some
unvarying object, may be revived by directing it toward some new object
or in allowing it to be attracted and held by some passing object.
IV. The attention manifests in a two-fold activity; _viz._ (1) the
concentration upon some one object of thought; and (2) the shutting out
of outside objects. Thus, it has its positive and negative sides. Thus,
when a man wishes to give his undivided attention to one speaker in a
crowd of speaking individuals, he acts positively in focusing his
consciousness upon the selected individual, and negatively by refusing
to listen to the others.
V. The attention is not a faculty, but a means of using any faculty with
an increased degree of efficiency.
VI. The degree of attention possessed by an individual is an indication
of his power of using his intellect. Many authorities have held that, in
cases of genius, the power of concentrated attention is usually greatly
developed. Brooks says: "Attention is one of the principal elements of
genius." Hamilton says: "Genius is a higher capacity of attention."
Helvetius says: "Genius is nothing but protracted attention."
Chesterfield says: "The power of applying our attention, steady and
undissipated, to a single object is a sure mark of superior genius."
The attention may be cultivated, just as may be the various faculties of
the mind, by the two-fold method of Exercise and Nourishment; that is,
by using and employing it actively and by furnishing it with the proper
materials with which to feed its strength. The way to exercise the
attention is _to use it frequently_ in every-day life. If you are
listening to a man speaking, endeavor to give to him your undivided
attention, and, at the same time, to shut out from your consciousness
every other object. In working, we should endeavor to use the attention
by concentrating our interest upon the particular task before us to the
exclusion of all else. In reading, we should endeavor to hold our minds
closely to the text instead of hastily glancing over the page as so many
do.
Those who wish to cultivate their attention should take up some line of
study in which it is necessary to fasten the attention firmly for a
time. A half-hour's study in this way is worth more than hours of
careless reading so far as the cultivation of the attention is
concerned. Mathematics is most valuable in the direction of developing
the power of attention. Gibbon says: "After a rapid glance on the
subject and distribution of a new book, I suspend the reading of it
which I only resume after having myself examined the subject in all its
relations."
Some writers have held that the attention may be developed by the
practice of selecting the voice of one person speaking among a crowd of
speakers, and deliberately shutting out the other sounds, giving the
whole attention to the particular speaker; or, in the same manner,
selecting one singer in a church choir or band of singers; or one
musical instrument in an orchestra; or one piece of machinery making
sounds in a room filled with various machines, etc. The practice of so
doing is held to strengthen one's powers of concentration and attention.
Draper says: "Although many images may be simultaneously existing upon
the retina, the mind possesses the power of singling out any one of them
and fastening attention upon it, just as among a number of musical
instruments simultaneously played, one, and that perhaps the feeblest,
may be selected and its notes exclusively followed." And as Taylor says:
"In a concert of several voices, the voices being of nearly equal
intensity, regarded merely as organic impressions on the auditory
nerve, we select one, and at will we lift out and disjoin it from the
general volume of sound; we shut off the other voices--five, ten and
more--and follow this one alone. When we have done so for a time, we
freely cast it off and take up another." Carpenter says: "The more
completely the mental energy can be brought into one focus and all
distracting objects excluded, the more powerful will be the volitional
effort."
Many authorities hold that the attention may be best applied and
exercised by analyzing an object mentally, and then considering its
parts one by one by a process of abstraction. Thus, as Kays says: "An
apple presents to us form, color, taste, smell, etc., and if we would
obtain a clear idea of any one of these, we must contemplate it by
itself and compare it with other impressions of the same kind we have
previously experienced. So in viewing a landscape, it is not enough to
regard it merely as a whole, but we must regard each of its different
parts individually by itself if we would obtain a clear idea of it. We
can only obtain a full and complete knowledge of an object _by analyzing
it and concentrating the attention upon its different parts, one by
one_." Reid says: "It is not by the senses immediately, but rather by
the power of _analyzing and abstraction_, that we get the most simple
and the most distinct notions of objects of sense." And, as Brown says:
"It is scarcely possible to advance even a single step in intellectual
physics without the necessity of performing _some sort of analysis_." In
all processes requiring analysis and examination of parts, properties or
qualities, the attention is actively employed. Accordingly, it follows
that such exercises are best adapted to the work of developing and
cultivating the attention itself. Therefore, as a parting word we may
say: _To develop and cultivate the power of attention and concentration,
(1) Analyze; (2) Analyze; and (3) Analyze. Analyze everything and
everybody with which or whom you come in contact._ There is no better or
shorter rule.
The student will also find that the various directions and the advice
which we shall give in the succeeding chapters, regarding the
cultivation of the various faculties, are also adapted to the
development of the attention, for the latter is brought into active
play in them. And, likewise, by developing the attention, one may
practice the future exercises with greater effect.