has it been considered by any one, so far as I know, as of sufficient importance to deserve a particular examination. Helvetius, indeed, in his very ingenious work, De l'Esprit, has intitled one of his chapters, De l'inégale capacité d'Attention; but what he considers under this article, is chiefly that capacity of patient inquiry, (or, as he calls it, une attention suivie,) upon which philosophical genius seems in a great measure to depend. He has also remarked, with the writers already mentioned, that the impression which any thing makes on the memory, depends much on the degree of attention we give to it; but he has taken no notice of that effort which is absolutely essential to the lowest degree of memory. It is this effort that I propose to consider at present ;not those different degrees of attention which imprint things more or less deeply on the mind, but that act or effort, without which we have no recollection or memory whatever.

With respect to the nature of this effort, it is perhaps impossible for us to obtain much satisfaction. We often speak of greater and less degrees of attention; and, I believe, in these cases, conceive the mind (if I may use the expression) to exert itself with different degrees of energy. I am doubtful, however, if this expression conveys any distinct meaning. For my own part, I am inclined to suppose, (though I would by no means be understood to speak with confidence,) that it is essential to memory, that the perception or the idea, that we would wish to remember, should remain in the mind for a certain space of time, and should be contemplated by it exclusively of every thing else; and that attention. consists partly (perhaps entirely) in the effort of the mind, to detain the idea or the perception, and to exclude the other objects that solicit its notice.

Notwithstanding, however, the difficulty of ascertaining, in what this act of the mind consists, every person

which I propose to take of attention at present, is extremely limited; and is intended merely to comprehend such general principles as are necessary to prepare the reader for the chapters which are to follow.

"C'est l'attention, plus ou moins grande, qui grave plus ou moins profondément les objects dans la mémoire."

must be satisfied of its reality from his own consciousness; and of its essential connexion with the power of memory. I have already mentioned several instances of ideas passing through the mind, without our being able to recollect them next moment. These instances were produced, merely to illustrate the meaning I annex to the word attention; and to recall to the recollection of the reader, a few striking cases, in which the possibility of our carrying on a process of thought, which we are unable to attend to at the time, or to remember afterwards, is acknowledged in the received systems of philosophy. I shall now mention some other phenomena, which appear to me to be very similar to these, and to be explicable in the same manner; although they have commonly been referred to very different principles.

The wonderful effect of practice in the formation of habits has been often and justly taken notice of as one of the most curious circumstances in the human constitution. A mechanical operation, for example, which we at first performed with the utmost difficulty, comes, in time, to be so familiar to us, that we are able to perform it without the smallest danger of mistake; even while the attention appears to be completely engaged with other subjects. The truth seems to be, that in consequence of the association of ideas, the different steps of the process present themselves successively to the thoughts without any recollection on our part, and with a degree of rapidity proportioned to the length of our experience; so as to save us entirely the trouble of hesitation and reflection, by giving us every moment a precise and steady notion of the effect to be produced.*

In the case of some operations which are very familiar to us, we find ourselves unable to attend to, or to recollect, the acts of the will by which they were pre

*I do not mean by this observation, to call in question the effects which the practice of the mechanical arts has on the muscles of the body. These are as indisputable as its effects on the mind. A man who has been accustomed to write with his right hand, can write better with his left hand, than another who never practised the art at all; but he cannot write so well with his left hand as with his right.-The effects of practice, therefore, it should seem, are produced partly on the mind, and partly on the body.

ceded; and accordingly, some philosophers of great eminence have called in question the existence of such volitions; and have represented our habitual actions as involuntary and mechanical. But surely the circumstance of our inability to recollect our volitions, does not authorize us to dispute their possibility; any more than our inability to attend to the process of the mind, in estimating the distance of an object from the eye, authorizes us to affirm that the perception is instantaneous. Nor does it add any force to the objection to urge, that there are instances in which we find it difficult, or perhaps impossible, to check our habitual actions by a contrary volition. For it must be remembered, that this contrary volition does not remain with us steadily during the whole operation, but is merely a general intention or resolution, which is banished from the mind, as soon as the occasion presents itself, with which the habitual train of our thoughts and volitions is associated.*

It may indeed be said, that these observations only prove the possibility that our habitual actions may be voluntary. But if this be admitted, nothing more can well be required; for surely, if these phenomena are clearly explicable from the known and acknowledged laws of the human mind, it would be unphilosophical to devise a new principle on purpose to account for them. The doctrine, therefore, which I have laid down with respect to the nature of habits, is by no means founded on hypothesis, as has been objected to me by some of my friends; but, on the contrary, the charge of hypothesis falls on those who attempt to explain them, by saying that they are mechanical or automatic; a doctrine which, if it is at all intelligible, must be understood as

*The solution of this difficulty, which is given by Dr. Porterfield, is somewhat

curious.

"Such is the power of custom and habit, that many actions, which are no doubt voluntary, and proceed from our mind, are in certain circumstances rendered necessary, so as to appear altogether mechanical, and independent of our wills; but it does not from thence follow, that our mind is not concerned in such motions, but only that it has imposed upon itself a law, whereby it regulates and governs them to the greatest advantage. In all this, there is nothing of intrinsical necessity; the mind is at absolute liberty to act as it pleases; but being a wise agent, it cannot choose but to act in conformity to this law, by reason of the utility and advantage that arises from this way of acting." Treatise on the Eye, vol. ii. p. 17.

implying the existence of some law of our constitution, which has been hitherto unobserved by philosophers; and to which, I believe, it will be difficult to find any thing analogous in our constitution.

In the foregoing observations, I have had in view a favorite doctrine of Dr. Hartley's; which has been maintained also of late by a much higher authority, I mean Dr. Reid.

"Habit," says this ingenious author, "differs from instinct, not in its nature, but in its origin; the last being natural, the first acquired. Both operate without will or intention, without thought, and therefore may be called mechanical principles." In another passage,† he expresses himself thus: "I conceive it to be a part of our constitution, that what we have been accustomed to do, we acquire not only a facility but a proneness to do on like occasions; so that it requires a particular will or effort to forbear it, but to do it requires, very often, no will at all."

The same doctrine is laid down still more explicitly by Dr. Hartley.

"Suppose," says he, "a person who has a perfectly voluntary command over his fingers, to begin to learn to play on the harpsichord. The first step is to move his fingers from key to key, with a slow motion, looking at the notes, and exerting an express act of volition in every motion. By degrees the motions cling to one another, and to the impressions of the notes, in the way of associations, so often mentioned, the acts of volition growing less and less express all the time, till at last they become evanescent and imperceptible. For an expert performer will play from notes, or ideas laid up in the memory, and at the same time carry on a quite different train of thoughts in his mind; or even hold a conversation with another. Whence we may conclude, that there is no intervention of the idea, or state of mind, called Will." Cases of this sort, Hartley calls "transitions of voluntary actions into automatic ones."

Essays on the Active Powers of Man, p. 128.

Vol. i. p. 108, 109.

† Ibid. p. 130.

I cannot help thinking it more philosophical to suppose, that those actions which are originally voluntary, always continue so; although, in the case of operations which are become habitual in consequence of long practice, we may not be able to recollect every different volition. Thus, in the case of a performer on the harpsichord, I apprehend, that there is an act of the will preceding every motion of every finger, although he may not be able to recollect these volitions afterwards; and although he may, during the time of his performance, be employed in carrying on a separate train of thought. For, it must be remarked, that the most rapid performer can, when he pleases, play so slowly, as to be able to attend to, and to recollect, every separate act of his will in the various movements of his fingers; and he can gradually accelerate the rate of his execution, till he is unable to recollect these acts. Now, in this instance, one of two suppositions must be made; the one is, that the operations in the two cases are carried on precisely in the same manner, and differ only in the degree of rapidity, and that when this rapidity exceeds a certain rate, the acts of the will are too momentary to leave any impression on the memory.-The other is, that when the rapidity exceeds a certain rate, the operation is taken entirely out of our hands; and is carried on by some unknown power, of the nature of which we are as ignorant, as of the cause of the circulation of the blood, or of the motion of the intestines.* The last supposition seems to me to be somewhat similar to that of a man who should maintain, that, although a body projected with a moderate velocity, is seen to pass

*This seems to have been the opinion of Bishop Berkeley, whose doctrine concerning the nature of our habitual actions, coincides with that of the two philosophers already quoted. "It must be owned, we are not conscious of the systole and diastole of the heart, or the motion of the diaphragm. It may not nevertheless, be thence inferred, that unknowing nature can act regularly as well as ourselves. The true inference is, that the self-thinking individual, or human person, is not the real author of those natural motions. And, in fact, no man blames himself, if they are wrong. or values himself, if they are right. The same may be said of the fingers of a musician, which some object to be moved by habit, which understands not; it being evident that what is done by zule, must proceed from something that understands the rule; therefore, if not from the musician himself, from some other active intelligence; the same, perhaps, which governs bees and spiders, and moves the limbs of those who walk in their sleep." See a Treatise, entitled, Siris, p. 123, 2d edit.