Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/477

476 A. BAIN : given too exclusively under the alternatives of Nominalism and Realism. I have not space to advert to what is characteristic in this portion, nor to follow the author's examination of the developed categories of Unity, Difference, Identity, Likeness, which he thinks have been hitherto derived in a too easy-going and slovenly fashion. Causality he also discusses, and under it Belief. A section on " Presentation of Self, Self-consciousness and Conduct " closes the treatise. I will add nothing to the running criticism already be- stowed, in the course of setting forth the chief positions, except to advert in a few words to the peculiar stress every- where laid on Attention. The immense compass assigned to the word is somewhat discomposing. At a very early stage we are told that Attention is to cover what is commonly meant by inattention. When Daniel O'Connell was at the height of his repeal-agitation, he was warned by Sydney Smith that he might have to reason the point with that armed Aristotle, the Duke of Wellington. So we can imagine the response to this view of Attention by the commander-in-chief of the British Army, whose central word of discipline is thus tampered with. I make the fullest allowance for the need of a general word to express the reaction of the Subject upon presentations, &c., yet I doubt if the sum total of the influences that intensify impressions and promote their retention should be comprised under the one word "Attention". A still more general designation, such as ' mental tension ' or ' conscious intensity,' would be desirable ; while ' attention ' could be reserved for special modes of intensification. The operation of exercising control over the mental trains presents one of the most difficult of our psychological analyses. It has been discussed with very great acumen by Mr. Bradley in the last number of MIND ; and I think his conclusions on the whole remarkably just. On the question, whether, in our voluntary control of the thoughts, there is always a muscular intervention (in an ideal transmutation), Mr. Bradley unintentionally misrepresents my published views on the point (see in particular, The Emotion* cud t/f H'ill, 3rd edit., p. 372). I do not regard muscular intervention as operative in all cases, and have expressly referred to the in- stance of attending to one instrument in an orchestra as demanding some other medium of selection. I will not here endeavour to classify all the forms of the intensifying in- fluence, but will advert to one real distinction lying at the very root of our voluntary power. I mean the difference