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CHAPTER SECOND.

ATTENTION.

9. Attention expresses the immediate direc tion of the mind to a subject. The distinctness of our notions, the correctness of our judg ments, and the improvement of all our intellectual powers, depend, in a great degree, on the habitual excercise of this act. Its surprising influence, in improving the perceptive powers, is manifest in persons, who have been led, by. their peculiar callings, or by necessity, to place uncommon reliance on a particular sense.

Thus sailors, who are accustomed to look at distant objects, acquire the power of seeing and distinguishing things, which, by reason of their distance, are invisible to common eyes.* Musicians become capable of discerning the minutest difference in sounds. Cooks and epicures acquire an uncommon sensibility in tasting and smelling; and blind persons improve the sense of feeling to such a degree, as to make it, in some measure, supply the want of sight. These effects are produced chiefly. by an increased and habitual attention, which

A seafaring life, especially when early commenced, has a ten. dency to produce some physical change in the organ of vision.

enables those persons to notice impressions, which are so slight and languid, as wholly to escape the observation of others.

10. Attention is considered a voluntary act of the mind, but it is not at all times equally subject to our command, and in young children is wholly involuntary. Extraordinary occurrences, which awaken curiosity, and things, which interest us in a high degree, by exciting some violent passion or emotion, often draw the attention so strongly, that we are unable for a time to transfer it to any other subject. So intensely are we sometimes engaged, that we lose our account of time, and take no notice of the objects, which strike the senses.

11. Attention is so essential to memory, that, without some degree of it, no thought could. ever be recalled; and the reason why we commit things to memory more easily at one time, than another, is, that we command our attention more perfectly. It is equally necessary in every operation of comparing, judging, and reasoning. Dr. Reid has remarked, " that, if "there be any thing that can be called genius,

* Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Mind, vol. i. ch. 2. Reid, Essays on the Active Powers, Essay II. ch. 3.

"in matters of mere judgment and reasoning, "it seems to consist chiefly in being able to "give that attention to the subject, which keeps "it steady in the mind, till we can survey it "accurately on all sides. There is a talent "of imagination, which bounds from earth to "heaven, and from heaven to earth, in a mo"ment. This may be favourable to wit and "imagery; but the powers of judging and rea"soning depend chiefly on keeping the mind "to a clear and steady view of the subject."*

CHAPTER THIRD.

COMPARING.

12. When the mind contemplates two things in reference to each other, it performs the operation of comparing. Thus, when we say iron is harder than lead, and lead is heavier than iron, we compare these two substances with respect to the degrees, in which they possess the qualities of weight and hardness. From this operation we derive all our notions of relation; as father, cousin, largeness, smallness, superiority, subjection, and the like.

* Essays on the Active Powers, Essay II. ch. 3.

We make comparisons with the greatest ease, and frequently without being conscious of them. It is only by this operation, that we are enabled to recognise the objects, which we have before known, or to give to any quality or object an appropriate name; for the application of the name requires not only the sensation, produced by a present object, but the comparison of that 'sensation with one formerly felt.*

13. This operation is performed by children in their earliest efforts at speech. It is by successively comparing the sounds, they utter, with those, made by others, that they learn to pronounce the words of their native tongue. That propensity to imitation, which is always conspicuous in the sports of children, is happily calculated to improve this effort of the mind. The same may be asserted of many of those studies, which usually occupy the years of childhood, and particularly of the study of foreign languages. Translations from one language into another require a constant and careful comparison of the corresponding words of different languages; an exercise doubly •

Stewart, Elements, vol. i. ch. 3.

important to children, as it serves to improve their discerning faculties, and at the same time leads them to ascertain the exact import of words. The correctness of every process of judgment and reasoning depends, immediately or ultimately, on the accuracy of our compari

sons.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

ABSTRACTION.

14. Abstraction literally implies the separating of one thing from another; but, as a mental operation, it denotes only a partial consideration of any thing. It is the act of considering one or more of the properties or circumstances of an object, apart from the rest. Thus we may consider the length of a bridge, without regarding its breadth or construction. We may speak of fluidity in water, hardness in marble, or sweetness in sugar, without noticing the other properties of those substances. As the quality, thus mentally separated from those existing with it, may be found in numerous subjects, the name applied to it becomes a general term. So whiteness stands for the

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