Elements of the philosophy of the human mind. By Dugald Stewart. Rev. and abridged, with critical and explanatory notes, for the use of colleges and schools. By Francis Bowen ...

ATTENTION. 65
motion of the intestines, etc.] If it be admitted, say these philosophers, that there are instances in which we will an effect,
without being able to make it an object of attention, is it not
possible that, what we commonly call the vital and involuntary
motions, may be the consequences of our own thought and volition? But there is surely a wide difference between those
cases, in which the mind was at first conscious of thought and
volition, and gradually lost the power of attending to them, from
the growing rapidity of the intellectual process; and a case in
which the effect itself is perfectly unknown to the bulk of mankind, even after they arrive at maturity, and in which this effect
has continued to take place with the most perfect regularity,
from the very beginning of their animal existence, and long before the first dawn of either reflection or experience.
Some of the followers of Stahl have stated the fact rather inaccurately, even in respect to our habitual exertions. Thus Dr.
Porterfield, in his Treatise on the Eye, is at pains to prove that
the soul may think and will without knowledge or consciousness.
But this, I own, is to me inconceivable. The true state of the
fact, I apprehend is, that the mind may think and will, without
attending to its thoughts and volitions, so as to be able afterwards
to recollect them. Nor is this merely a verbal criticism; for
there is an important difference between consciousness and attention, which it is very necessary to keep in view, in order to
think upon this subject with any degree of precision.* The one
is an involuntary state of the mind; the other is a voluntary
act; the one has no immediate connection with memory; but
the other is so essentially subservient to it, that, without some
degree of it, the ideas and perceptions which pass through the
mind, seem to leave no trace behind them. t
* The distinction between attention and consciousness is pointed out b3
Dr. Reid. " Attention is a voluntary act; it requires an active exertion to
begin and to continue it, and it may be continued as long as we will; hut
consciousness is involuntary, and of no continuance, changing with every
thought."
t [Here, and elsewhere, Stewart assumes too absolutely, that every act
or movement is either entirely voluntary or entirely involuntary. But the
6*