it from both a positive and negative side. But while we have devoted
our attention to thinking, we have neglected the thinker. In more
scientific terms, we have treated thought from the logical side; we are
now to treat it from the psychological.
Few people will admit specific faults in themselves of any kind,
especially if these happen to be intellectual. But almost any man
is willing to confess that he cannot always “concentrate” when he
wants to, in fact, that he is one of the countless victims of “mind
wandering.”
Most of us imagine we know just what we mean by both these terms.
But if we are to judge by most of what has been written, no two
terms are more misconceived. Before trying to find the best means of
concentrating, we must first find just what we mean by concentration.
In a previous chapter I said that suggestions for solutions “occurred.”
I did not say how or why. To discover this we must refer to the famous
psychological principle of association.
Any train of thought is made possible by previous connections of ideas
in our minds. While a girl sits at her window a parade passes along a
nearby street. The band is playing, and ere the tune is completed the
band has gone so far that the music is no longer audible. But the tune
still goes along in her mind, and she completes it herself. It suggests
a dance she had been to where it was played, and this suggests that
she danced the two-step to it. The two-step suggests the more modern
one-step, and this leads her to compare the familiar dancing of to-day
with the distant and respectful minuet.
This is an example of a random train of ideas. It is that loose
“thinking” referred to in our first chapter. But even this is made
possible only by the connection of ideas in our mind at some previous
period. No thought can enter our minds unless it is associated in
some way with the previous thought. Psychologists have traditionally
classified associations into four kinds: association by succession,
by contiguity, by similarity and by contrast. The example just given
involves all four. Association by succession means that when two ideas
or impressions of objects have entered the mind in succession, the
second is likely to be suggested whenever the first is thought of. A
tune consists in a succession of notes, and when the first notes are
brought to mind, as by a passing band, the rest will follow—sometimes
in spite of ourselves. Association by contiguity means that when two
objects or ideas have been in consciousness together, one is always
likely to suggest the other thereafter. This was the case with the
music and the dance, or the music and the two-step. Association
by similarity occurs when two ideas resemble each other in some
particular. They need not have occurred together at any past time, nor
after each other. The fact that they have a common element suffices
to bring up one idea when the other is in mind: thus the two-step
suggested the one-step. Association by contrast needs no explanation.
It is exemplified when the idea of present-day dancing brings up the
idea of distant dancing.
Any attempt to show _why_ the mind acts in this way, any explanation of
the way in which the different kinds of association are made possible,
would bring us into physiological psychology, would involve a study of
the brain and the nervous system. For our purposes it is sufficient to
keep in mind that such associations do take place. Without them no idea
can occur. Without them thought is impossible.
The bearing of all this on concentration has yet to be made plain.
We must remember that every idea has more than one associate; in
fact that each idea generally has a cluster of possible associates.
Instead of suggesting the minuet, the one-step may have made the fox
trot or the three-step occur to the young lady. It may have made her
think of a young man with whom she danced it, or the trouble she had
in learning it. Each of these suggestions, in turn, would also have
potential connections with a cluster of ideas. When we are thinking at
random—when we are day dreaming, as in the example given—the strongest
association, or the first to be aroused, is the one we dwell upon. But
when we are thinking with a purpose, in a word, when we are reasoning,
we reject all associations which have no bearing on our purpose, and
select only those which serve it.
Concentration does not, as popularly supposed, mean keeping the mind
fastened on one object or idea or in one place. It consists in having a
problem or purpose constantly before one. It means keeping our thought
moving toward one desired end.
Concentration is often regarded as intense or focused attention. But
the fact is that all attention is focused attention. Psychologists are
fairly well agreed that we can attend to only one thing at a time. Mind
wandering, and so-called distributed attention, is really attention
directed first to one thing, then to another, then to another; or first
to one thing, then to another, and then back again to the original
object, resting but a few moments on each idea.
Concentration may best be defined as prolonged or sustained attention.
It means keeping the mind on one subject or problem for a relatively
long period, or at least continually reverting to some problem whenever
one’s thoughts momentarily leave it.
Having decided just what we mean by concentration, our next step is
to inquire whether concentration is worth while. The reader may smile
at this question or he may be shocked, according to his temperament.
But if most men were so convinced that concentration is such an
unquestionable virtue, they would practice it a little more. At least
they would make greater efforts to practice it than they do at present.
The truth is that concentration, _per se_, is of little value.
The value of concentration depends almost entirely on the subject
concentrated on. Almost any one will agree that even were a man to
allow his mind to dwell now on one important problem and now on
another, without stopping a very appreciable time at any, he might
nevertheless be improving his time far more than a man who concentrated
continually on some insignificant and inconsequential question.
But of course this is not really an argument against concentration. It
has no application when you concentrate on the proper subject. For if
you start to concentrate on some question which you have decided is
really important, you should keep at it, allowing no deviation. It may
be that during the course of your thought associations will be aroused
which will suggest or bear upon important problems, problems more
important perhaps than the one you originally started to concentrate
on. But if you immediately abandoned every problem you started to
think of, whenever you came across one which you imagined was just as
important, you would probably never really solve any big question.
Our attention is guided by interest. If a man merely allows his
thoughts to flow at random, thinking only of those things which
spontaneously arouse his interest, he may or may not attend to things
worth thinking about. All will depend upon the path in which his
natural interests run. But the point is that if the subject he thinks
about is valuable, it will be so only by accident; whether or not
his thinking is useful will depend upon mere chance. If however he
consciously chooses a subject—chooses it because he believes it to be
important—then his thinking will be worth while.
But there is another reason why concentration is necessary. Suppose a
man started to put up a barbed wire fence, got as far as driving in
all the posts, then lost interest in the fences and decided to grow
potatoes in his field, plowed up the ground, lost interest in the
field and neglected to plant the seeds; decided to paint his house,
got the porch done, lost interest . . . That man might work as hard as
any other man, but he would never get anything done. So with the mind
wanderer and the concentrator. The mind wanderer thinks of a problem,
loses interest, and abandons it. The concentrator sticks to it until it
is solved.
Much of our mind wandering is due to the fact that we are not fully
convinced of the importance of the problem being attacked, or that
we regard other problems or ideas as more important. Concentration
consists in devoting one’s mind to the solution of one problem.
During our train of thought associations bring up new ideas or suggest
problems which do not bear on the question at hand. Now when we wander,
when we follow up these irrelevant ideas or suggested problems, or
when we happen to glance at something or hear something and begin to
think of that, we do so because of a half-conscious belief that the new
idea, problem or fact needs attending to, is important. I have already
pointed out that if this new idea is important it will be so only by
accident. If we were consciously to ask ourselves whether any of these
irrelevant problems were as important as the one we were concentrating
on, or even important at all, we would find, nine times out of ten,
that they were not.
Therefore before beginning to concentrate you should assure yourself
that the problem you are about to attack is one worth solving, or at
least devoting a certain time to. And during that time you should think
only of that problem, and unhesitatingly throw out all irrelevant
suggestions coming either from your course of thought or from external
sights and sounds.
One qualification is necessary. Sometimes an irrelevant suggestion
occurs which is nevertheless really important and worth developing. As
this might be forgotten, and as it might never occur again, it would be
poor counsel indeed to ask that it be thrown aside forever. The best
move in such a case would be to make written note of the suggestion or
problem, so that it could be referred to at some future time. Having
written the idea, you will have it off your mind, and will be able to
continue your line of thought without perturbation.
It has been suggested that a great aid to concentration is writing
one’s thoughts. It must be admitted that this certainly helps one to
keep much closer to a subject. Ordinarily we wander without being
aware of it, and bring our minds back to a subject only after sudden
intermittent realizations that we have gone astray. When we write our
thoughts, however, we doubly secure ourselves against mind wandering.
All writing requires a certain effort, and this alone is sufficient
to keep most of us from writing irrelevant thoughts, or anything not
directly bearing upon the subject in hand. When we write, too, we
capture our thoughts in tangible symbols; we make them less elusive
than in their original form. Finally, we keep our entire past train of
thought in view. Like an oarsman, who cannot look ahead, but guides
himself by the objects he is constantly leaving further behind, we keep
to our original course of thought by a survey of the ideas already
written.
In spite of these great advantages, writing has certain serious
handicaps as a practical method for concentrating. First among these
is its slowness. Thoughts flash through our minds much faster than we
can write them. We either lose many ideas by the wayside, or fail to go
as far in our subject as we otherwise would. Another disadvantage is
that we are forced to give part of our attention to the physical act of
writing, and thus cannot concentrate entirely on our subject.
There are two methods of writing comparatively free of at least one of
these handicaps. Both shorthand and typewriting, if mastered to any
degree, are much faster than ordinary writing. This is especially true,
of course, of shorthand. But even with a good stenographer shorthand
has serious defects. Unless one is quite expert it requires even more
attention than longhand, and at that is often unable to keep pace
with thought. Typewriting requires almost no attention from a touch
operator, but it too is open to the charge of slowness, coming in this
respect about midway between short and longhand.
But to those so unfortunate as not to know either shorthand or
typewriting the necessity for still another method is evident. Indeed,
even those acquainted with these two arts cannot always use them.
If every time we were to think we had to have with us a typewriter,
or even a pencil and note-book, we would not engage in any too much
reflection.
Fortunately there is one method superior to any yet named, which
requires no study before its application, and no paraphernalia during
it. It consists in simply talking your thoughts as you think them. One
who has not tried this can have no idea of its effect. It possesses
almost all the advantages of writing. You cannot wander without
realizing the fact immediately. It makes your thinking much less vague
than if you thought silently, increases your vocabulary, always keeps
pace with your ideas, and requires practically no attention.
It may be objected that silent thinking itself is put in unspoken
words. But this is not true. Part of silent thinking consists of
unspoken words, but part of it consists of images, concepts and
attitudes which pass through our minds and which we do not take the
trouble to name. In silent thinking, too, there are also what appear
to be occasional dead stops. All these processes drift into each other
indefinably and are unrecognizable. When we talk we realize whether our
images or concepts are vague or definite by our ability to name them,
and we realize when our thought comes to a “dead stop” by the fact that
we miss the sound of our own voice.
Another practice can be used with talking. The degree of concentration
we give to any subject depends upon the degree of natural interest we
take in it. Mind wandering comes because we are also interested in
other subjects. No matter how slight our interest in a thing, we would
always concentrate on it if we were interested in nothing else. To
secure sustained attention, then, we should (1) stimulate or increase
interest in problems we want to concentrate on, (2) decrease or remove
temporarily any interest in the things we do not want to think about.
Men often complain that noises distract their attention. While not
impossible, it is inconvenient and unpleasant to shut off our ears. But
men are far more distracted by sights than they are by sounds. And they
never think of merely shutting their eyes. The next time you attempt
to concentrate—silently or by talking—try shutting your eyes and see
whether or not you are helped.
Talking has one disadvantage—it cannot always be used. To practice it,
you must either lock yourself up in your room, or sit alone in a forest
or field, or walk along unfrequented streets and by-ways. You can by no
means allow any one to hear or see you talking to yourself. If you are
caught doing this some asinine idiot is sure to mistake you for one.
We are brought back again, then, to the necessity of occasionally
thinking in silence. There is one other reason why we shall sometimes
need to do this. Thoughts of certain kinds are so elusive that to
attempt to articulate them is to scare them away, as a fish is scared
by the slightest ripple. When these thoughts are in embryo, even the
infinitesimal attention required for talking cannot be spared. But
later, as they take more definite and coherent form, they can and
should be put into words, for otherwise they will be incommunicable and
useless.
No definite rule can be laid down, however, as to what should be spoken
and what thought of silently. This depends to a large extent upon the
individual thinker. Some will probably find that talking helps them in
almost all their thinking, others that it is often an actual hindrance.
The same is true of closing one’s eyes. If you do not know which is
better for you, find out by experiment.
At those times when you suddenly catch yourself wandering, it would
be a good plan to stop occasionally and trace back your train of
thought to the point where it left its original direction. In this way
you would get some valuable insight into the _how_ and _why_ of mind
wandering; you would be helped in recognizing its appearance sooner
the next time it occurred.
Whenever a person is left alone for a short time, with no one to talk
to and no “reading matter”; when for instance, he is standing at a
station waiting for his train, or sitting at a restaurant table waiting
for his order, or hanging on a subway strap when he has forgotten to
buy a newspaper, his “thoughts” tend to run along the tracks they have
habitually taken. If a young man usually allows a popular tune to float
through his head, that will be most likely to happen; if he usually
thinks of that young lady, he will most likely think of her then; if
he has often imagined himself as some great political orator making a
speech amid the plaudits of the multitude, he is likely to see a mental
picture of himself swinging his arms, waving flags and gulping water.
The only way a man can put a stop to such pleasant but uneducative
roamings, is to snap off his train of day dreaming the first moment he
becomes aware of it, and to address his mind to some useful serious
subject. His thoughts will be almost sure to leak away again. They may
do this as often as fifteen times in half an hour. But the second he
becomes aware of it he should dam up the stream and send his thoughts
along the channel he has laid out for them. If he has never done this
he will find the effort great. But if he merely resolves now that
the next time his mind wanders he will stop it in this manner, his
resolve will tend to make itself felt. If he succeeds in following this
practice once it will be much easier a second time. Every time he does
this it will become increasingly easy, until he will have arrived at
the point where his control over his thoughts will be almost absolute.
Not only will it be increasingly easy for him to turn his mind to
serious subjects. It will become constantly more pleasurable. Frivolous
and petty trains of thought will become more and more intolerable.
This whole idea of forcing our thought has been questioned by no less a
thinker than Herbert Spencer. Let us hear what he has to say regarding
his own practice:
“It has never been my way to set before myself a problem and puzzle out
an answer. The conclusions at which I have from time to time arrived,
have not been arrived at as solutions of questions raised; but have
been arrived at unawares—each as the ultimate outcome of a body of
thoughts which slowly grew from a germ. Some direct observation, or
some fact met with in reading, would dwell with me: apparently because
I had a sense of its significance. It was not that there arose a
distinct consciousness of its general meaning; but rather that there
was a kind of instinctive interest in those facts which have general
meanings. For example, the detailed structure of this or that species
of mammal, though I might willingly read about it, would leave little
impression; but when I met with the statement that, almost without
exception, mammals, even as unlike as the whale and the giraffe,
have seven cervical vertebræ, this would strike me and be remembered
as suggestive. Apt as I thus was to lay hold of cardinal truths, it
would happen occasionally that one, most likely brought to mind by an
illustration, and gaining from the illustration fresh distinctiveness,
would be contemplated by me for a while, and its bearings observed. A
week afterwards, possibly, the matter would be remembered; and with
further thought about it, might occur a recognition of some wider
application than I had before perceived: new instances being aggregated
with those already noted. Again after an interval, perhaps of a month,
perhaps of half a year, something would remind me of that which I
had before remarked; and mentally running over the facts might be
followed by some further extension of the idea. When accumulation of
instances had given body to a generalization, reflexion would reduce
the vague conception at first framed to a more definite conception;
and perhaps difficulties or anomalies passed over for a while, but
eventually forcing themselves on attention, might cause a needful
qualification and a truer shaping of the thought. Eventually the
growing generalization, thus far inductive, might take a deductive
form: being all at once recognized as a necessary consequence of some
physical principle—some established law. And thus, little by little, in
unobtrusive ways, without conscious intention or appreciable effort,
there would grow up a coherent and organized theory. Habitually
the process was one of slow unforced development, often extending
over years; and the thinking done went on in this gradual, almost
spontaneous way, without strain. . . .”[6]
But compare this method with that of John Stuart Mill; who speaks of
“the mental habit to which I attribute all that I have ever done, or
ever shall do, in speculation; that of never abandoning a puzzle, but
again and again returning to it until it was cleared up; never allowing
obscure corners of a subject to remain unexplored because they did not
appear important; never thinking that I perfectly understood any part
of a subject until I understood the whole.”[7] Mill’s method was, in
short, “that of conscious and vehement effort directed towards the end
he had in view. He solved his problems by laborious application and
study.”[8]
William Minto writes of Adam Smith: “His intellectual proceedings
were calm, patient, and regular: he mastered a subject slowly and
circumspectly, and carried his principles with steady tenacity through
multitudes of details that would have checked many men of greater
mental vigor unendowed with the same invincible persistence.”
With such thinkers differing so markedly in their methods, the ordinary
man is left bewildered. He may indeed decide that effort or no effort
makes little difference. Let us, however, look to the psychology of the
question, and see whether we can find any guiding principle.
Spencer, defending his method, says: “A solution reached in the way
described, is more likely to be true than one reached in pursuance of
a determined effort to find a solution. The determined effort causes
perversion of thought. When endeavoring to recollect some name or
thing which has been forgotten, it frequently happens that the name or
thing sought will not arise in consciousness; but when attention is
relaxed, the missing name or thing often suggests itself. While thought
continues to be forced down certain wrong turnings which had originally
been taken, the search is vain; but with the cessation of strain the
true association of ideas has an opportunity of asserting itself. And,
similarly, it may be that while an effort to arrive forthwith at some
answer to a problem, acts as a distorting factor in consciousness and
causes error, a quiet contemplation of the problem from time to time,
allows those proclivities of thought which have probably been caused
unawares by experiences, to make themselves felt, and to guide the mind
to the right conclusion.”
Spencer’s first argument, that an effort to recollect something is
often without results, while the thing is remembered later when we are
not trying to think of it, is true as to fact. But it does not show
that the effort was unfruitful. As pointed out in the discussion of
association, one idea is associated with not only one other idea but
with an entire group. This may give a possible explanation of why it
is so often difficult to recollect anything when we make a determined
effort. The attempt partly arouses a whole cluster of ideas, each
of which tends to return, but is prevented from doing so by all the
others. It is analogous to a crowd of people all struggling to get
through a narrow doorway. They cause such a jam that for a time no
one succeeds. When the pushing and jostling cease one person at a
time is able to pass through. When effort is abandoned, probably all
but one of the associates become dormant, and this one slides into
consciousness at the slightest provocation.