afterward. We remember not every thing that occurs, but only that to which we attend, and which makes some impression upon us.
The true Explanation.—In the other cases referred to, the explanation now given is still more evidently the true one. What is called an absence of consciousness is simply an absence of attention at the time, and consequently of memory afterward. The person who is reading aloud, in the case supposed, is mentally occupied with something else than the sentiments of the author, is not attending, in a word, to what he is reading, and hence does not, a moment after, remember what it was that he read. So of the striking of the clock. The sound fell upon the ear, the auditory nerve performed its office, the usual change, whatever it may be, was produced in the brain, but the process of hearing went no further; either no mental activity was awakened by that sound, or, if any, but the slightest, for the mind was otherwise occupied, in a word, did not attend to the summons of the messenger that waited at the portal, and hence there was no subsequent remembrance of the message, or at most a vague impression that something of the kind was heard.
On the whole, it does not appear from the cases cited, that mental activity is ever, at the moment of its exertion, unaccompanied with consciousness.
Summary of the Argument.—I hesitate then to assign consciousness a place among the faculties of the mind, as distinct from and coördinate with them, for the following reasons:
1. It seems to me to be involved in all mental acts. We cannot, as it has been already said, suppose an act of perception, for example, or of sensation, without the consciousness of that perception or sensation. Whatever the mind does, it knows that it does, and the knowing is involved in and given along with the doing. Not to know that I see a book, or hear a sound, is in reality not to see and not to hear it. Not to know that I have a sensation is not to have it. But what is involved in all mental action cannot be set down by itself as a specific mental act. This were much the same as to reckon the whole among the parts.
2. Consciousness, while involved in, cannot be, either psychologically or chronologically, distinguished from the mental acts which it accompanies. The act and the consciousness of the act are inseparable in time, and they are incapable of being distinguished as distinct states of mind. We cannot break up the sensation or perception into a fact, and the consciousness of that fact. Logically we may distinguish them as different objects of thought and attention, but not psychologically as distinct acts of mind.
3. Consciousness is not under the control of the will, and is not therefore a faculty of the mind. It is not a power of doing something, but an inseparable concomitant of all doing. What has been termed by some writers voluntary consciousness, or reflection, is simply attention directed to our own mental acts.
Distinction of Consciousness and Self-Consciousness.—Others again distinguish between consciousness and self-consciousness; but all consciousness, properly so called, involves the idea of self or the subjective element. To know that I have a sensation is virtually to know myself as having it.
Cases of abnormal or suspended Consciousness.—In certain disordered and abnormal states of the nervous organism, the knowledge of what has transpired previously to that state seems to be lost; and then again, on passing out of that condition into the normal one, all knowledge of what took place while in the abnormal state is wanting. Instances are on record where persons have alternated in this manner from one to the other condition, carrying on, as it were, by turns, two separate and independent lines of mental activity. An instance of this nature is related by Dr. Wayland. It has been usual to speak of these as instances of disordered or suspended consciousness. Strictly speaking, however, it is not consciousness but memory that is in such cases disordered. It is not the knowledge of the present, but of the past, that is disturbed and deficient. While the abnormal state continues, the individual is conscious of what transpires in that state. When it ceases, the patient wakes as from a reverie or dream, and retains no recollection of any thing that took place during its continuance. It is the memory that fails, and not the consciousness. We are never conscious of the past.
Objects of Consciousness.—1. Consciousness deals only with reality. We are conscious only of that which is, not of that which may be. The poet is conscious indeed of his fiction, the builder of air-castles is conscious of his reverie, but the fiction and the reverie, regarded as mental acts, are realities, and it is only as mental acts that they are objects of consciousness.
2. Not every thing real is an object of consciousness, but only that which is present and in immediate relation to us. The destruction of Pompeii, and the existence of an Antarctic continent are realities, but not objects of my consciousness.
3. Primarily and directly we are conscious of our own mental states and operations; of whatever passes over the field of our mental vision, our thoughts, feelings, actions, physical sensations, moral sentiments and purposes: mediately and indirectly we are conscious of whatever, through the medium of sense, comes into direct relation to us. For instance, when I put forth my hand and it strikes this table, I am conscious not only of the movement, and the effort to move, but of the sensation of resistance also, and indirectly I may be said to be conscious not of the resistance only, but of something—to wit, the table—as resisting. This something I know, as really as I know the sensation and the fact of resistance. To this immediate perception of the external world in direct relation to our physical organism, Sir W. Hamilton would extend the sphere of consciousness. Usually, however, the term has been employed in a more restricted sense—to denote the knowledge of what passes within, rather than of what lies without the mind itself.
CHAPTER II.
ATTENTION.
General Character of this Power.—It has not been usual to treat of Attention as one of the distinct faculties of the mind. It is doubtless a power which the mind possesses, but like the power of conception, or more generally the power of thought and mental apprehension, it is involved in and underlies the exercise of all the specific mental faculties. Nor is it, like consciousness, confined to a distinct department of knowledge, viz., the knowledge of our own mental states. It is subsidiary to the other mental powers, rather than a faculty of original and independent knowledge. It originates nothing—teaches nothing—puts us in possession of no new truth—has no distinct field and province of its own. And yet without it other faculties would be of little avail.
Definitions.—If it were necessary to define a term so well understood, we might describe it as the power which the mind has of directing its thoughts, purposely and voluntarily, to some one object, to the exclusion of others. It is described by Dr. Wayland as a sort of voluntary consciousness, a condition of mind in which our consciousness is excited and directed by an act of the will. He speaks also of an involuntary attention, a state of mind in which our thoughts, without effort or purpose of our own, are engrossed by objects of an exciting nature. It may be questioned, perhaps, whether this is properly attention. Only in so far as attention is a voluntary act is it properly a power of the mind, and only in so far does it differ from the simple activity of thought, or of consciousness. The latter is always involuntary, and in this it differs from attention.
Instances in Illustration.—It can hardly be necessary to illustrate by example the nature of a faculty so constantly in exercise. Every one perceives, for instance, the difference between the careless perusal of an author—the eye passing listlessly over the pages, and the mind receiving little or no impression from its statements—and the reading of the same volume with fixed and careful attention, every word observed, every sentiment weighed, and the whole mental energy directed to the subject in hand. We pass, in the streets of a crowded and busy city, many persons whom we do not stop to observe, and of whose appearance we could afterward give no account whatever. Presently, some one in the crowd attracts our notice. We observe his appearance, we watch his movements, we notice his peculiarities of dress,
