THOUGHT-CULTURE/PART 5
CHAPTER V.
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.
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