Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/460

446 GUSTAV SPILLER : There is, therefore, nothing mysterious in the seeming absence of complexity in routine. The energy required being largely reduced, the process is simplified in proportion. 7. The Result of Liberating Attention Energy. Along with the changes which we have been describing has gone a silent transformation which we now proceed to state. We know that there is present at any time an equal amount of attention energy. If we require more energy in one direction, we have less at our disposal in any other direction, and vice versa. Hence, as the process of writing is being simplified, the attention energy set free will be employed in other ways ; and as the routine process reaches its maximum simplicity, the mass of our attention energy must be redistributed. After slight practice we can spare just enough energy to look around us. Later on we may possess sufficient to hum a tune, and later still, to pursue long trains of thought. As, at the commencement, there was no attention energy avail- able except for writing, so at the finish our writing makes no practical difference to the general current of thought. We have observed how in the struggle for life and comfort thoughts drive each other off the mental stage. The same procedure we encounter here in a modified form. At first, when a little energy is set free, when a kind of attention vacuum is created, and our eyes wander, there is embarrass- ment and the balance is disturbed. We are confused in our work and confused in our outlook. As more and more energy is set free the effort to divide the attention is repeated, and, persevering, the endeavour becomes more and more successful. Finally, we closely attend to our writing while also attending to other matters. Just as nature " abhors a vacuum," so attention energy ever strives to be fully employed. A simple experiment will provide a further illustration of what we are attempting to elucidate. A man takes two pebbles. He holds them in one hand. He throws them up into the air successively. He tries to catch them in the same hand as they successively return. At the start of the experiment he is confused. He has too much to attend to. In trying to follow the eccentricities of one pebble, he follows neither and catches neither. It seems impossible to him to attend simultaneously to both. While he is thinking of one, he neglects the other. His adjustments for intercepting them fail. Instead of closing his hand for an instant when the pebble touches it, he watches the other pebble. Instead of watching the other pebble, he closes his hand. But as he proceeds with the experiment the attention is thoroughly divided, and he acquires the coveted skill. After additional