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Chapter 2: Culture

Multiple-Choice Questions

TB_Q2.1.1
The language, beliefs, values, norms, and behaviors passed from one generation
to the next make up a group’s
a. identity.
b. ethnocentrism.
c. culture.
d. material culture.

Answer: c. culture.
Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

TB_Q2.1.2
would be part of material culture.
a. Hairstyles
b. Language
c. Beliefs
d. Values

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—2)

Answer: a. Hairstyles
Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.1.3
Nonmaterial culture refers to a group’s
a. art.
b. weapons.
c. ways of thinking and doing.
d. eating utensils.

Answer: c. ways of thinking and doing.

Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.1.4
One thing that can be said about material culture is that
a. it is “natural.”
b. it includes gestures.
c. it includes a people’s language.
d. there is nothing “natural” about it.

Answer: d. there is nothing “natural” about it.

Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.1.5
Who is ethnocentric?
a. Everyone
b. Westerners
c. Easterners
d. Older people

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—3)

Answer: a. Everyone
Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.1.6
To try to understand a culture on its own terms is called
a. ethnocentrism.
b. cultural relativism.
c. folklore.
d. cultural education.

Answer: b. cultural relativism.

Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

TB_Q2.1.7
Which of the following statements about cultural relativism is true?
a. It has not been criticized by social scientists.
b. Cultural relativism has come under attack because it can lead to acceptance of
practices like genital cutting and wife beating.
c. Sociologists accept all cultures, without judgment.
d. Cultural relativism encourages cultural smugness.

Answer: b. Cultural relativism has come under attack because it can lead to
acceptance of practices like genital cutting and wife beating.
Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.1.8
After a fairly short plane ride from New York City, Irving found himself on a
dusty road with goats, chickens, and motor scooters, rather than cars. Food,
clothing, and carpets were being sold by street vendors, some of whom worked

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—4)

from a cloth spread on the ground, in no order that he could recognize. Irving was
experiencing
a. ethnocentrism.
b. culture shock.
c. a step back into history.
d. contact with people who shared none of his values.

Answer: b. culture shock.

Learning Objective: LO 2.1 Explain what culture is, how culture provides
orientations to life, and what practicing cultural relativism means.
Topic/Concept: What Is Culture?
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.2.9
Another term for nonmaterial culture that sociologists use is
a. material culture.
b. symbolic culture.
c. gestural culture.
d. culture shock.

Answer: b. symbolic culture.

Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.2.10
An advantage of knowing a culture’s gestures is
a. they are closely tied to the language.
b. that although most gestures are recognized as universal, there are occasional
differences between cultures.
c. being able to communicate with simplicity.
d. that they will enable you to completely understand the culture.

Answer: c. being able to communicate with simplicity.

Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Difficult

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—5)

Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.2.11
The main way people communicate is through
a. gestures.
b. intermarriage.
c. language.
d. artwork.

Answer: c. language.
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.2.12
The basis of culture is
a. customs.
b. heredity.
c. language.
d. sociology.

Answer: c. language.
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.2.13
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that
a. languages are universal.
b. some languages, such as English, are superior to others.
c. perception and language are unrelated.
d. language has ways of looking at the world embedded within it.

Answer: d. language has ways of looking at the world embedded within it.

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—6)

Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,

language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.2.14
People’s are their ideas of what is desirable in
life. a. values
b. mores
c. taboos
d. folkways

Answer: a: values
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.2.15
A term for rules of behavior is
a. culture.
b. norms.
c. moral holidays.
d. sanctions.

Answer: b. norms.
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

TB_Q2.2.16
When people break norms, they receive
a. positive sanctions.
b. a day in court.
c. negative sanctions.

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—7)

d. hugs and kisses.

Answer: c. negative sanctions.

Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.2.17
Paul loved to party at Mardi Gras, even if he was not involved in making a float
or anything else. The atmosphere on the street was just so different, so easy. He
had a great time. At such a(n) , the rules were loosened.
a. culture-free event
b. police-free event
c. free-for-all
d. moral holiday

Answer: d. moral holiday

Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.2.18
When someone is walking on the right side of the sidewalk, and you are walking
faster and overtake them to their left, this is in the United States.
a. a taboo
b. a more
c. illegal
d. a folkway

Answer: d. a folkway
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—8)

TB_Q2.2.19
If you kill another person, you have violated a society’s
a. mores.
b. incidental values.
c. folkways.
d. ethnocentrism.

Answer: a. mores.
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.2.20
Even just the thought of the violation of a fills us with revulsion.
a. taboo
b. more
c. parking regulation
d. folkway

Answer: a. taboo
Learning Objective: LO 2.2 Know the components of symbolic culture: gestures,
language, values, norms, sanctions, folkways, mores, and taboos; also
explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Topic/Concept: Components of Symbolic Culture
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.3.21
A world within the larger world of the dominant culture is a
a. superculture.
b. subculture.
c. counterculture.
d. microculture.

Answer: b. subculture.
Learning Objective: LO 2.3 Distinguish between subcultures and countercultures.
Topic/Concept: Many Cultural Worlds
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—9)

TB_Q2.3.22
How many subcultures does U.S. society contain?
a. Five
b. Almost 90
c. Hundreds
d. Thousands

Answer: d. Thousands
Learning Objective: LO 2.3 Distinguish between subcultures and countercultures.
Topic/Concept: Many Cultural Worlds
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.3.23
Some of the values and norms of a place it at odds with the dominant
culture.
a. subculture
b. core culture
c. counterculture
d. motorcycle group

Answer: c. counterculture
Learning Objective: LO 2.3 Distinguish between subcultures and countercultures.
Topic/Concept: Many Cultural Worlds
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.3.24
Harold got up early and cleaned and polished his motorcycle, while Fabienne
packed a picnic lunch. Their destination was a park on a lake about 50 miles
away, where they would meet some friends who also liked to ride motorcycles on
weekends. They soon got underway, driving safely on the highway at the speed
limit, enjoying the trip, while they listened to National Public Radio.
About halfway to their destination, Harold and Fabienne were overtaken
by a speeding clump of about 10 motorcycles ridden by people with swastikas on
the back of their jackets. Several of the group appeared to be completely nude
under their jackets, which was legal in their state due to an anachronistic law that
said you could not disrobe outdoors, but that did not address the situation where
you were already disrobed when you arrived outdoors.
In all likelihood, Harold and Fabienne could be termed members of a
motorcycle enthusiast and the cyclists who passed them could be termed

members of a motorcycle enthusiast .

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—10)

a. culture; subculture
b. subculture; counterculture
c. subculture; culture
d. counterculture; subculture

Answer: b. subculture; counterculture

Learning Objective: LO 2.3 Distinguish between subcultures and countercultures.
Topic/Concept: Many Cultural Worlds
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.4.25
A society made up of many different groups is called a(n)
a. pluralistic society.
b. fragmented society.
c. anachronous society.
d. ungovernable aggravation.

Answer: a. pluralistic society.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

TB_Q2.4.26
Sociologists call values that are shared by most of the groups in a society
a. core values.
b. taboos.
c. habitual values.
d. universal values.

Answer: a. core values.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.4.27

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—11)

The core value of education has

a. been easily pursued in the United States, because college is free.
b. changed over the years, until today a college education is considered an
appropriate goal for most Americans.
c. not been held by most Americans.
d. changed over the years, until today a college education is considered an
appropriate goal only for a small number of Americans.

Answer: b. changed over the years, until today a college education is considered
an appropriate goal for most Americans.
Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.4.28
Most Americans feel that the only proper basis for marriage is
a. parental approval.
b. economics.
c. mutual respect.
d. romantic love.

Answer: d. romantic love.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.4.29
“In God We Trust” appears on American money. This reflects the core value of
a. group superiority.
b. religiosity.
c. education.
d. freedom.

Answer: b. religiosity.
Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—12)

Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society

Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.4.30
Education, hard work, material comfort, and individualism can be said to be
bound up in
a. a confused approach to life.
b. a value contradiction.
c. a value cluster that surrounds success.
d. the value of democracy.

Answer: c. a value cluster that surrounds success.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.4.31
A exists between the value of group superiority and the values of freedom,
democracy, and equality.
a. continuity
b. folkway
c. taboo
d. value contradiction

Answer: d. value contradiction

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.4.32
Which statement about the origin of values is true?
a. Essentially, values “just happen.”
b. Values are unrelated to conditions of society.
c. Values are related to conditions of society.
d. Individuals invent their own values.

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—13)

Answer: c. Values are related to conditions of society.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.4.33
Values are like lenses through which we see the world
a. not at all.
b. as it ought to be.
c. with great clarity.
d. like it is.

Answer: b. as it ought to be.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Apply What You Know

TB_Q2.4.34
The culture refers to the values, norms, and goals that a group considers
worth aiming for.
a. real
b. concrete
c. ideal
d. fantasy

Answer: c. ideal
Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Easy
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

TB_Q2.4.35
The human potential movement reflects the emerging value.

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—14)

a. self-fulfillment
b. aging population
c. leisure
d. acceptance

Answer: a. self-fulfillment
Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.4.36
The term real culture refers to
a. the norms and values that people aspire to follow.
b. historical culture.
c. universal culture.
d. the norms and values that people actually follow.

Answer: d. the norms and values that people actually follow.

Learning Objective: LO 2.4 Discuss the major U.S. values and explain how value
clusters, value contradictions, value clashes, how values are lenses of
perception, and ideal versus real culture.
Topic/Concept: Values in U.S. Society
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

TB_Q2.5.37
places an emphasis on the influence of genes on human behavior.
a. Genetics-informed sociology
b. Classical sociology
c. Conflict theory
d. Sociologically informed genetics

Answer: a. Genetics-informed sociology

Learning Objective: LO 2.5 Take a position on the issue of the existence of
cultural universals and contrast sociobiology and sociology.
Topic/Concept: Cultural Universals
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

(Henslin 13e Test Bank) (2—15)

TB_Q2.5.38
Which statement about incest is true?
a. No society permits generalized incest for its members.
b. All societies agree on what incest is.
c. The marriage of brothers and sisters is forbidden by all societies.
d. The marriage of fathers and daughters is forbidden by all societies.

Answer: a. No society permits generalized incest for its members.

Learning Objective: LO 2.5 Take a position on the issue of the existence of
cultural universals and contrast sociobiology and sociology.
Topic/Concept: Cultural Universals
Difficulty Level: Difficult
Skill Level: Analyze It

TB_Q2.5.39
said that sociobiology will eventually absorb sociology.
a. Charles Darwin
b. Edward Wilson
c. William Ogburn
d. Benjamin Whorf

Answer: b. Edward Wilson

Learning Objective: LO 2.5 Take a position on the issue of the existence of
cultural universals and contrast sociobiology and sociology.
Topic/Concept: Cultural Universals
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Remember the Facts

TB_Q2.5.40
Sociobiologists believe that
a. biology is a basic cause of human behavior.
b. the key to human behavior is culture.
c. as a result of natural selection, biology no longer plays a role in human
behavior.
d. the key to human behavior is religion.

Answer: a. biology is a basic cause of human behavior.

Learning Objective: LO 2.5 Take a position on the issue of the existence of
cultural universals and contrast sociobiology and sociology.
Topic/Concept: Cultural Universals
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Skill Level: Understand the Concepts

Copyright © 2017 by Pearson Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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to test this, sight and hearing. The momentary signal was an
induction-spark leaping from one platinum point to another
against a dark background. The steady stimulation was the
noise above described.
Spark. Mean. Maximum. Minimum. No. of Expts.
Without noise 0.222 0.284 0.158 20
With noise 0.300 0.390 0.250 18
"When one reflects that in the experiments with one and the
same sense the relative intensity of the signal is always
depressed [which by itself is a retarding condition] the amount
of retardation in these last observations makes it probable that
the disturbing influence upon attention is greater when the
stimuli are disparate than when they belong to the same sense.
One does not, in fact, find it particularly hard to register
immediately, when the bell rings in the midst of the noise; but
when the spark is the signal one has a feeling of being coerced,
 as one turns away from the noise towards it. This fact is
immediately connected with other properties of our attention.
The effort of the latter is accompanied by various corporeal
sensations, according to the sense which is engaged. The
innervation which exists during the effort of attention is
therefore probably a different one for each sense-organ."[354]

Wundt then, after some theoretical remarks which we need not

quote now, gives a table of retardations, as follows:
Retardation.
1. Unexpected strength of impression:
a) Unexpectedly strong sound 0.073
b) Unexpectedly weak sound 0.171
2. Interference by like stimulus (sound by sound) 0.045[355]
3. Interference by unlike stimulus (light by sound) 0.078
It seems probable, from these results obtained with elementary
processes of mind, that all processes, even the higher ones of
reminiscence, reasoning, etc., whenever attention is concentrated
upon them instead of being diffused and languid, are thereby more
rapidly performed.[356]

Still more interesting reaction-time observations have been made by

Münsterberg. The reader will recollect the fact noted in Chapter III
(p. 93) that reaction-time is shorter when one concentrates his
attention on the expected movement than when one concentrates it
on the expected signal. Herr Münsterberg found that this is equally
the case when the reaction is no simple reflex, but can take place
only after an intellectual operation. In a series of experiments the
five fingers were used to react with, and the reacter had to use a
different finger according as the signal was of one sort or another.
Thus when a word in the nominative case was called out he used
the thumb, for the dative he used another finger; similarly
adjectives, substantives, pronouns, numerals, etc., or, again, towns,
rivers, beasts, plants, elements; or poets, musicians, philosophers,
etc., were co-ordinated each with its finger, so that when a word
belonging to either of these classes was mentioned, a particular
finger and no other had to perform the reaction. In a second series
of experiments the reaction consisted in the utterance of a word in
answer to a question, such as "name an edible fish," etc.; or "name
the first drama of Schiller," etc.; or "which is greater, Hume or Kant?"
etc.; or (first naming apples and cherries, and several other fruits)
"which do you prefer, apples or cherries?" etc.; or "which is Goethe's
finest drama?" etc.; or "which letter comes the later in the alphabet,
the letter L or the first letter of the most beautiful tree?" etc.; or
"which is less, 15 or 20 minus 8?"[357] etc. etc. etc. Even in this
series of reactions the time was much quicker token the reacter
turned his attention in advance towards the answer than when he
turned it towards the question. The shorter reaction-time was
seldom more than one fifth of a second; the longer, from four to
eight times as long.
To understand such results, one must bear in mind that in these
experiments the reacter always knew in advance in a general way
the kind of question which he was to receive, and consequently the
sphere within which his possible answer lay.[358] In turning his
attention, therefore, from the outset towards the answer, those
brain-processes in him which were connected with this entire
'sphere' were kept sub-excited, and the question could then
discharge with a minimum amount of lost time that particular
answer out of the 'sphere' which belonged especially to it. When, on
the contrary, the attention was kept looking towards the question
exclusively and averted from the possible reply, all this preliminary
sub-excitement of motor tracts failed to occur, and the entire process
of answering had to be gone through with after the question was
heard. No wonder that the time was prolonged. It is a beautiful
example of the summation of stimulations, and of the way in which
expectant attention, even when not very strongly focalized, will
prepare the motor centres, and shorten the work which a stimulus
has to perform on them, in order to produce a given effect when it
comes.

THE INTIMATE NATURE OF THE ATTENTIVE PROCESS.

We have now a sufficient number of facts to warrant our considering

this more recondite question. And two physiological processes, of
which we have got a glimpse, immediately suggest themselves as
possibly forming in combination a complete reply. I mean
1. The accommodation or adjustment of the sensory organs; and
2. The anticipatory preparation from within of the ideational centres
concerned with the object to which the attention is paid.
1. The sense-organs and the bodily muscles which favor their
exercise are adjusted most energetically in sensorial attention,
whether immediate and reflex, or derived. But there are good
grounds for believing that even intellectual attention, attention to
the idea of a sensible object, is also accompanied with some degree
of excitement of the sense-organs to which the object appeals. The
preparation of the ideational centres exists, on the other hand,
wherever our interest in the object—be it sensible or ideal—is
derived from, or in any way connected with, other interests, or the
presence of other objects, in the mind. It exists as well when the
attention thus derived is classed as passive as when it is classed as
voluntary. So that on the whole we may confidently conclude—since
in mature life we never attend to anything without our interest in it
being in some degree derived from its connection with other objects
—that the two processes of sensorial adjustment and ideational
preparation probably coexist in all our concrete attentive acts.
The two points must now be proved in more detail. First, as respects
the sensorial adjustment.
That it is present when we attend to sensible things is obvious.
When we look or listen we accommodate our eyes and ears
involuntarily, and we turn our head and body as well; when we taste
or smell we adjust the tongue, lips, and respiration to the object; in
feeling a surface we move the palpatory organ in a suitable way; in
all these acts, besides making involuntary muscular contractions of a
positive sort, we inhibit others which might interfere with the result
—we close the eyes in tasting, suspend the respiration in listening,
etc. The result is a more or less massive organic feeling that
attention is going on. This organic feeling comes, in the way
described on page 302, to be contrasted with that of the objects
which it accompanies, and regarded as peculiarly ours, whilst the
objects form the not-me. We treat it as a sense of our own activity,
although it comes in to us from our organs after they are
accommodated, just as the feeling of any object does. Any object, if
immediately exciting, causes a reflex accommodation of the sense-
organ, and this has two results—first, the object's increase in
clearness; and second, the feeling of activity in question. Both are
sensations of an 'afferent' sort.
But in intellectual attention, as we have already seen, (p. 300),
similar feelings of activity occur. Fechner was the first, I believe, to
analyze these feelings, and discriminate them from the stronger
ones just named. He writes:

"When we transfer the attention from objects of one sense to

those of another, we have an indescribable feeling (though at
the same time one perfectly determinate, and reproducible at
pleasure), of altered direction or differently localized tension
(Spannung). We feel a strain forward in the eyes, one directed
sidewise in the ears, increasing with the degree of our attention,
and changing according as we look at an object carefully, or
listen to something attentively; and we speak accordingly of
straining the attention. The difference is most plainly felt when
the attention oscillates rapidly between eye and ear; and the
feeling localizes itself with most decided difference in regard to
the various sense-organs, according as we wish to discriminate
a thing delicately by touch, taste, or smell.
 "But now I have, when I try to vividly recall a picture of memory
or fancy, a feeling perfectly analogous to that which I
experience when I seek to apprehend a thing keenly by eye or
ear; and this analogous feeling is very differently localized.
While in sharpest possible attention to real objects (as well as to
after-images) the strain is plainly forwards, and when the
attention changes from one sense to another only alters its
direction between the several external sense-organs, leaving the
rest of the head free from strain, the case is different in memory
or fancy, for here the feeling withdraws entirely from the
external sense-organs, and seems rather to take refuge in that
part of the head which the brain fills; if I wish, for example, to
recall a place or person it will arise before me with vividness,
not according as I strain my attention forwards, but rather in
proportion as I, so to speak, retract it backwards."[359]

In myself the 'backward retraction' which is felt during attention to

ideas of memory, etc., seems to be principally constituted by the
feeling of an actual rolling outwards and upwards of the eyeballs,
such as occurs in sleep, and is the exact opposite of their behavior
when we look at a physical thing. I have already spoken of this
feeling on page 300.[360] The reader who doubts the presence of
these organic feelings is requested to read the whole of that passage
again.

It has been said, however, that we may attend to an object on the

periphery of the visual field and yet not accommodate the eye for it.
Teachers thus notice the acts of children in the school-room at
whom they appear not to be looking. Women in general train their
peripheral visual attention more than men. This would be an
objection to the invariable and universal presence of movements of
adjustment as ingredients of the attentive process. Usually, as is well
known, no object lying in the marginal portions of the field of vision
can catch our attention without at the same time 'catching our
eye'—that is, fatally provoking such movements of rotation and
accommodation as will focus its image on the fovea, or point of
greatest sensibility. Practice, however, enables us, with effort, to
attend to a marginal object whilst keeping the eyes immovable. The
object under these circumstances never becomes perfectly distinct—
the place of its image on the retina makes distinctness impossible—
but (as anyone can satisfy himself by trying) we become more
vividly conscious of it than we were before the effort was made.
Helmholtz states the fact so strikingly that I will quote his
observation in full. He was trying to combine in a single solid percept
pairs of stereoscopic pictures illuminated instantaneously by the
electric spark. The pictures were in a dark box which the spark from
time to time lighted up; and, to keep the eyes from wandering
betweenwhiles, a pin-hole was pricked through the middle of each
picture, through which the light of the room came, so that each eye
had presented to it during the dark intervals a single bright point.
With parallel optical axes the points combined into a single image;
and the slightest movement of the eyeballs was betrayed by this
image at once becoming double. Helmholtz now found that simple
linear figures could, when the eyes were thus kept immovable, be
perceived as solids at a single flash of the spark. But when the
figures were complicated photographs, many successive flashes
were required to grasp their totality.

"Now it is interesting," he says, "to find that, although we keep

steadily fixating the pin-holes and never allow their combined
image to break into two, we can, nevertheless, before the spark
comes, keep our attention voluntarily turned to any particular
portion we please of the dark field, so as then, when the spark
comes, to receive an impression only from such parts of the
picture as lie in this region. In this respect, then, our attention is
quite independent of the position and accommodation of the
eyes, and of any known alteration in these organs; and free to
direct itself by a conscious and voluntary effort upon any
selected portion of a dark and undifferenced field of view. This
 is one of the most important observations for a future theory of
attention."[361]

Hering, however, adds the following detail:

"Whilst attending to the marginal object we must always," he

says, "attend at the same time to the object directly fixated. If
even for a single instant we let the latter slip out of our mind,
our eye moves towards the former, as may be easily recognized
by the after-images produced, or by the muscular sounds heard.
The case is then less properly to be called one of translocation,
than one of unusually wide dispersion, of the attention, in which
dispersion the largest share still falls upon the thing directly
looked at,"[362]

and consequently directly accommodated for. Accommodation exists

here, then, as it does elsewhere, and without it we should lose a
part of our sense of attentive activity. In fact, the strain of that
activity (which is remarkably great in the experiment) is due in part
to unusually strong contractions of the muscles needed to keep the
eyeballs still, which produce unwonted feelings of pressure in those
organs.

2. But if the peripheral part of the picture in this experiment be not

physically accommodated for, what is meant by its sharing our
attention? What happens when we 'distribute' or 'disperse' the latter
upon a thing for which we remain unwilling to 'adjust'? This leads us
to that second feature in the process, the 'ideational preparation' of
which we spoke. The effort to attend to the marginal region of the
picture consists in nothing more nor less than the effort to form as
clear an idea as is possible of what is there portrayed. The idea is to
come to the help of the sensation and make it more distinct. It
comes with effort, and such a mode of coming is the remaining part
of what we know as our attention's 'strain' under the circumstances.
Let us show how universally present in our acts of attention this
reinforcing imagination, this inward reproduction, this anticipatory
thinking of the thing we attend to, is.
It must as a matter of course be present when the attention is of the
intellectual variety, for the thing attended to then is nothing but an
idea, an inward reproduction or conception. If then we prove ideal
construction of the object to be present in sensorial attention, it will
be present everywhere. When, however, sensorial attention is at its
height, it is impossible to tell how much of the percept comes from
without and how much from within; but if we find that the
preparation we make for it always partly consists of the creation of
an imaginary duplicate of the object in the mind, which shall stand
ready to receive the outward impression as if in a matrix, that will be
quite enough to establish the point in dispute.
In Wundt's and Exner's experiments quoted above, the lying in wait
for the impressions, and the preparation to react, consist of nothing
but the anticipatory imagination of what the impressions or the
reactions are to be. Where the stimulus is unknown and the reaction
undetermined, time is lost, because no stable image can under such
circumstances be formed in advance. But where both nature and
time of signal and reaction are foretold, so completely does the
expectant attention consist in premonitory imagination that, as we
have seen (Footnote 273; pp. 373, 377), it may mimic the intensity
of reality, or at any rate produce reality's motor effects. It is
impossible to read Wundt's and Exner's pages of description and not
to interpret the 'Apperception' and 'Spannung' and other terms as
equivalents of imagination. With Wundt, in particular, the word
Apperception (which he sets great store by) is quite interchangeable
with both imagination and attention. All three are names for the
excitement from within of ideational brain-centres, for which Mr.
Lewes's name of preperception seems the best possible designation.
Where the impression to be caught is very weak, the way not to
miss it is to sharpen our attention for it by preliminary contact with it
in a stronger form.

"If we wish to begin to observe overtones, it is advisable, just

before the sound which is to be analyzed, to sound very softly
the note of which we are in search.... The piano and harmonium
are well fitted for this use, as both give overtones that are
strong. Strike upon the piano first the g' [of a certain musical
example previously given in the text]; then, when its vibrations
have objectively ceased, strike powerfully the note c, in whose
sound g' is the third overtone, and keep your attention steadily
bent upon the pitch of the just heard g'; you will now hear this
tone sounding in the midst of the c.... If you place the resonator
which corresponds to a certain overtone, for example g' of the
sound c, against your ear, and then make the note c sound, you
will hear g' much strengthened by the resonator.... This
strengthening by the resonator can be used to make the naked
ear attentive to the sound which it is to catch. For when the
resonator is gradually removed, the g' grows weaker; but the
attention, once directed to it, holds it now more easily fast, and
the observer hears the tone g' now in the natural unaltered
sound of the note with his unaided ear."[363]

Wundt, commenting on experiences of this sort, says that

"on carefully observing, one will always find that one tries first
to recall the image in memory of the tone to be heard, and that
then one hears it in the total sound. The same thing is to be
noticed in weak or fugitive visual impressions. Illuminate a
drawing by electric sparks separated by considerable intervals,
and after the first, and often after the second and third spark,
hardly anything will be recognized. But the confused image is
held fast in memory; each successive illumination completes it;
and so at last we attain to a clearer perception. The primary
motive to this inward activity proceeds usually from the outer
impression itself. We hear a sound in which, from certain
associations, we suspect a certain overtone; the next thing is to
 recall the overtone in memory; and finally we catch it in the
sound we hear. Or perhaps we see some mineral substance we
have met before; the impression awakens the memory-image,
which again more or less completely melts with the impression
itself. In this way every idea takes a certain time to penetrate to
the focus of consciousness. And during this time we always find
in ourselves the peculiar feeling of attention.... The phenomena
show that an adaptation of attention to the impression takes
place. The surprise which unexpected impressions give us is due
essentially to the fact that our attention, at the moment when
the impression occurs, is not accommodated for it. The
accommodation itself is of the double sort, relating as it does to
the intensity as well as to the quality of the stimulus. Different
qualities of impression require disparate adaptations. And we
remark that our feeling of the strain of our inward attentiveness
increases with every increase in the strength of the impressions
on whose perception we are intent."[364]

The natural way of conceiving all this is under the symbolic form of a
brain-cell played upon from two directions. Whilst the object excites
it from without, other brain-cells, or perhaps spiritual forces, arouse
it from within. The latter influence is the 'adaptation of the
attention.' The plenary energy of the brain-cell demands the co-
operation of both factors: not when merely present, but when both
present and attended to, is the object fully perceived.
A few additional experiences will now be perfectly clear. Helmholtz,
for instance, adds this observation to the passage we quoted a while
ago concerning the stereoscopic pictures lit by the electric spark.

"These experiments," he says, "are interesting as regards the

part which attention plays in the matter of double images.... For
in pictures so simple that it is relatively difficult for me to see
them double, I can succeed in seeing them double, even when
the illumination is only instantaneous, the moment I strive to
imagine in a lively way how they ought then to look. The
 influence of attention is here pure; for all eye movements are
shut out."[365]

In another place[366] the same writer says:

"When I have before my eyes a pair of stereoscopic drawings

which are hard to combine, it is difficult to bring the lines and
points that correspond, to cover each other, and with every little
motion of the eyes they glide apart. But if I chance to gain a
lively mental image (Anschauungsbild) of the represented solid
form (a thing that often occurs by lucky chance), I then move
my two eyes with perfect certainty over the figure without the
picture separating again."

Again, writing of retinal rivalry, Helmholtz says:

"It is not a trial of strength between two sensations, but

depends on our fixing or failing to fix the attention. Indeed,
there is scarcely any phenomenon so well fitted for the study of
the causes which are capable of determining the attention. It is
not enough to form the conscious intention of seeing first with
one eye and then with the other; we must form as clear a
notion as possible of what we expect to see. Then it will actually
appear."[367]

In figures 37 and 38, where the result is ambiguous, we can make

the change from one apparent form to the other by imagining
strongly in advance the form we wish to see. Similarly in those
puzzles where certain lines in a picture form by their combination an
object that has no connection with what the picture ostensibly
represents; or indeed in every case where an object is inconspicuous
and hard to discern from the background; we may not be able to see
it for a long time; but, having once seen it, we can attend to it again
whenever we like, on account of the mental duplicate of it which our
imagination now bears. In the meaningless French words 'pas de
lieu Rhône que nous,' who can recognize immediately the English
'paddle your own canoe'?[368] But who that has once noticed the
identity can fail to have it arrest his attention again? When watching
for the distant clock to strike, our mind is so filled with its image that
at every moment we think we hear the longed-for or dreaded sound.
So of an awaited footstep. Every stir in the wood is for the hunter
his game; for the fugitive his pursuers. Every bonnet in the street is
momentarily taken by the lover to enshroud the head of his idol. The
image in the mind is the attention; the preperception, as Mr. Lewes
calls it, is half of the perception of the looked-for thing.[369]
 Figs. 37 & 38.
It is for this reason that men have no eyes but for those aspects of
things which they have already been taught to discern. Any one of us
can notice a phenomenon after it has once been pointed out, which
not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered for himself. Even
in poetry and the arts, some one has to come and tell us what aspects
we may single out, and what effects we may admire, before our
æsthetic nature can 'dilate' to its full extent and never 'with the wrong
emotion.' In kindergarten instruction one of the exercises is to make
the children see how many features they can point out in such an
object as a flower or a stuffed bird. They readily name the features
they know already, such as leaves, tail, bill, feet. But they may look for
hours without distinguishing nostrils, claws, scales, etc., until their
attention is called to these details; thereafter, however, they see them
every time. In short, the only things which we commonly see are
those which we preperceive. and the only things which we preperceive
are those which have been labelled for us, and the labels stamped into
our mind. If we lost our stock of labels we should be intellectually lost
in the midst of the world.

Organic adjustment, then, and ideational preparation or preperception

are concerned in all attentive acts. An interesting theory is defended
by no less authorities than Professors Bain[370] and Ribot,[371] and
still more ably advocated by Mr. N. Lange,[372] who will have it that
the ideational preparation itself is a consequence of muscular
adjustment, so that the latter may be called the essence of the
attentive process throughout. This at least is what the theory of these
authors practically amounts to, though the former two do not state it
in just these terms. The proof consists in the exhibition of cases of
intellectual attention which organic adjustment accompanies, or of
objects in thinking which we have to execute a movement. Thus
Lange says that when he tries to imagine a certain colored circle, he
finds himself first making with his eyes the movement to which the
circle corresponds, and then imagining the color, etc., as a
consequence of the movement.

"Let my reader," he adds, "close his eyes and think of an

extended object, for instance a pencil. He will easily notice that
he first makes a slight movement [of the eyes] corresponding to
the straight line, and that he often gets a weak feeling of
innervation of the hand as if touching the pencil's surface. So, in
thinking of a certain sound, we turn towards its direction or
repeat muscularly its rhythm, or articulate an imitation of it."[373]

But it is one thing to point out the presence of muscular contractions

as constant concomitants of our thoughts, and another thing to say,
with Herr Lange, that thought is made possible by muscular
contraction alone. It may well be that where the object of thought
consists of two parts, one perceived by movement and another not,
the part perceived by movement is habitually called up first and fixed
in the mind by the movement's execution, whilst the other part comes
secondarily as the movement's mere associate. But even were this the
rule with all men (which I doubt[374]), it would only be a practical
habit, not an ultimate necessity. In the chapter on the Will we shall
learn that movements themselves are results of images coming before
the mind, images sometimes of feelings in the moving part,
sometimes of the movement's effects on eye and ear, and sometimes
(if the movement be originally reflex or instinctive), of its natural
stimulus or exciting cause. It is, in truth, contrary to all wider and
deeper analogies to deny that any quality of feeling whatever can
directly rise up in the form of an idea, and to assert that only ideas of
movement can call other ideas to the mind.
So much for adjustment and preperception. The only third process I
can think of as always present is the inhibition of irrelevant
movements and ideas. This seems, however, to be a feature incidental
to voluntary attention rather than the essential feature of attention at
large,[375] and need not concern us particularly now. Noting merely
the intimate connection which our account so far establishes between
attention, on the one hand, and imagination, discrimination, and
memory, on the other, let us draw a couple of practical inferences, and
then pass to the more speculative problem that remains.

The practical inferences are pedagogic. First, to strengthen attention

in children who care nothing for the subject they are studying and let
their wits go wool-gathering. The interest here must be 'derived' from
something that the teacher associates with the task, a reward or a
punishment if nothing less external comes to mind. Prof. Ribot says:

"A child refuses to read; he is incapable of keeping his mind fixed

on the letters, which have no attraction for him; but he looks with
avidity upon the pictures contained in a book. 'What do they
mean?' he asks. The father replies: 'When you can read, the book
will tell you.' After several colloquies like this, the child resigns
himself and falls to work, first slackly, then the habit grows, and
finally he shows an ardor which has to be restrained. This is a
case of the genesis of voluntary attention. An artificial and
indirect desire has to be grafted on a natural and direct one.
Reading has no immediate attractiveness, but it has a borrowed
one, and that is enough. The child is caught in the wheelwork,
the first step is made."

I take another example, from M. B. Perez:[376]

"A child of six years, habitually prone to mind-wandering, sat

down one day to the piano of his own accord to repeat an air by
which his mother had been charmed. His exercises lasted an hour.
 The same child at the age of seven, seeing his brother busy with
tasks in vacation, went and sat at his father's desk. 'What are you
doing there?' his nurse said, surprised at so finding him. 'I am,'
said the child, 'learning a page of German; it isn't very amusing,
but it is for an agreeable surprise to mamma.'"

Here, again, a birth of voluntary attention, grafted this time on a

sympathetic instead of a selfish sentiment like that of the first
example. The piano, the German, awaken no spontaneous attention;
but they arouse and maintain it by borrowing a force from elsewhere.
[377]

Second, take that mind-wandering which at a later age may trouble us

whilst reading or listening to a discourse. If attention be the
reproduction of the sensation from within, the habit of reading not
merely with the eye, and of listening not merely with the ear, but of
articulating to one's self the words seen or heard, ought to deepen
one's attention to the latter. Experience shows that this is the case. I
can keep my wandering mind a great deal more closely upon a
conversation or a lecture if I actively re-echo to myself the words than
if I simply hear them; and I find a number of my students who report
benefit from voluntarily adopting a similar course.[378]
Second, a teacher who wishes to engage the attention of his class
must knit his novelties on to things of which they already have
preperceptions. The old and familiar is readily attended to by the mind
and helps to hold in turn the new, forming, in Herbartian phraseology,
an 'Apperceptionsmasse' for it. Of course it is in every case a very
delicate problem to know what 'Apperceptionsmasse' to use.
Psychology can only lay down the general rule.

IS VOLUNTARY ATTENTION A RESULTANT OR A FORCE?

When, a few pages back, I symbolized the 'ideational preparation'

element in attention by a brain-cell played upon from within, I added
'by other brain-cells, or by some spiritual force,' without deciding
which. The question 'which?' is one of those central psychologic
mysteries which part the schools. When we reflect that the turnings of
our attention form the nucleus of our inner self; when we see (as in
the chapter on the Will we shall see) that volition is nothing but
attention; when we believe that our autonomy in the midst of nature
depends on our not being pure effect, but a cause,—
Principium quoddam quod fati fœdera rumpat,
Ex infinito ne causant causa sequatur—
we must admit that the question whether attention involve such a
principle of spiritual activity or not is metaphysical as well as
psychological, and is well worthy of all the pains we can bestow on its
solution. It is in fact the pivotal question of metaphysics, the very
hinge on which our picture of the world shall swing from materialism,
fatalism, monism, towards spiritualism, freedom, pluralism,—or else
the other way.
It goes back to the automaton-theory. If feeling is an inert
accompaniment, then of course the brain-cell can be played upon only
by other brain-cells, and the attention which we give at any time to
any subject, whether in the form of sensory adaptation or of
'preperception,' is the fatally predetermined effect of exclusively
material laws. If, on the other hand, the feeling which coexists with
the brain-cells' activity reacts dynamically upon that activity, furthering
or checking it, then the attention is in part, at least, a cause. It does
not necessarily follow, of course, that this reactive feeling should be
'free' in the sense of having its amount and direction undetermined in
advance, for it might very well be predetermined in all these
particulars. If it were so, our attention would not be materially
determined, nor yet would it be 'free' in the sense of being
spontaneous or unpredictable in advance. The question is of course a
purely speculative one, for we have no means of objectively
ascertaining whether our feelings react on our nerve-processes or not;
and those who answer the question in either way do so in
consequence of general analogies and presumptions drawn from other
fields. As mere conceptions, the effect-theory and the cause-theory of
attention are equally clear; and whoever affirms either conception to
be true must do so on metaphysical or universal rather than on
scientific or particular grounds.

As regards immediate sensorial attention hardly any one is tempted to

regard it as anything but an effect.[379] We are 'evolved' so as to
respond to special stimuli by special accommodative acts which
produce clear perceptions on the one hand in us, and on the other
hand such feelings of inner activity as were above described. The
accommodation and the resultant feeling are the attention. We don't
bestow it, the object draws it from us. The object has the initiative,
not the mind.
Derived attention, where there is no voluntary effort, seems also most
plausibly to be a mere effect. The object again takes the initiative and
draws our attention to itself, not by reason of its own intrinsic interest,
but because it is connected with some other interesting thing. Its
brain-process is connected with another that is either excited, or
tending to be excited, and the liability to share the excitement and
become aroused is the liability to 'preperception' in which the attention
consists. If I have received an insult, I may not be actively thinking of
it all the time, yet the thought of it is in such a state of heightened
irritability, that the place where I received it or the man who inflicted it
cannot be mentioned in my hearing without my attention bounding, as
it were, in that direction, as the imagination of the whole transaction
revives. Where such a stirring-up occurs, organic adjustment must
exist as well, and the ideas must innervate to some degree the
muscles. Thus the whole process of involuntary derived attention is
accounted for if we grant that there is something interesting enough
to arouse and fix the thought of whatever may be connected with it.
This fixing is the attention; and it carries with it a vague sense of
activity going on, and of acquiescence, furtherance, and adoption,
which makes us feel the activity to be our own.
This reinforcement of ideas and impressions by the pre-existing
contents of the mind was what Herbart had in mind when he gave the
name of apperceptive attention to the variety we describe. We easily
see now why the lover's tap should be heard—it finds a nerve-centre
half ready in advance to explode. We see how we can attend to a
companion's voice in the midst of noises which pass unnoticed though
objectively much louder than the words we hear. Each word is doubly
awakened; once from without by the lips of the talker, but already
before that from within by the premonitory processes irradiating from
the previous words, and by the dim arousal of all processes that are
connected with the 'topic' of the talk. The irrelevant noises, on the
other hand, are awakened only once. They form an unconnected train.
The boys at school, inattentive to the teacher except when he begins
an anecdote, and then all pricking up their ears, are as easily
explained. The words of the anecdote shoot into association with
exciting objects which react and fix them; the other words do not.
Similarly with the grammar heard by the purist and Herbart's other
examples quoted on page 418.
Even where the attention is voluntary, it is possible to conceive of it as
an effect, and not a cause, a product and not an agent. The things we
attend to come to us by their own laws. Attention creates no idea; an
idea must already be there before we can attend to it. Attention only
fixes and retains what the ordinary laws of association bring 'before
the footlights' of consciousness. But the moment we admit this we see
that the attention per se, the feeling of attending need no more fix
and retain the ideas than it need bring them. The associates which
bring them also fix them by the interest which they lend. In short,
voluntary and involuntary attention may be essentially the same. It is
true that where the ideas are intrinsically very unwelcome and the
effort to attend to them is great, it seems to us as if the frequent
renewal of the effort were the very cause by which they are held fast,
and we naturally think of the effort as an original force. In fact it is
only to the effort to attend, not to the mere attending, that we are
seriously tempted to ascribe spontaneous power. We think we can
make more of it if we will; and the amount which we make does not
seem a fixed function of the ideas themselves, as it would necessarily
have to be if our effort were an effect and not a spiritual force. But
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