ever,
psychophysically considered, the end of the process, it is always also a
beginning. No external action may follow, but the mental impulse to such
is nevertheless starting in the highest center.

If we look at the landscape, every single spot of color, reaching a
nerve fiber in our eye and finally a sensory cell in our brain, is there
the starting point for an impulse to make an eye movement in the
direction of the seen point. The eye may remain entirely quiet as the
impulse to move to the right and to the left, to move up and to move
down, may be equally strong, but those thousands of impulses work in the
motor paths and only their equilibrium results in the suppression of the
outer movement. With such motor scheme, we begin to understand the
selective process in attention. An impression may be accompanied by
other stimuli and associations, by thoughts and ideas, and thousands of
sensory excitements may thus arise in the cortex, but only those have a
chance for full vividness of development which cooeperate in the motor
action already started. Those impressions which would lead to the
opposite actions have no chance because their motor paths are blocked
and their own full development is dependent upon their possibility of
expression. To close the path means to inhibit the idea which demands
such action. We can attend to a hundred thoughts together, if they all
lead to the same attitude and deed. We can look at the opera, can see
every singer and every singer's gown, can listen to every word, can have
the whole plot in mind, can hear the thousands of tones which come from
the orchestra; and yet combine all that in one act of attention, because
it all belongs to the same setting of our reactive apparatus. Whatever
the one wants is wanted by the others. But if at the same time our
neighbor speaks to us, we do not notice it; his words work as a stimulus
which demands an entirely different motor setting as answer. Therefore
the words remain unvivid and unnoticed.

To attend means therefore to bring about a motor setting by which the
object of attention finds open channels for discharge in action. Which
particular action is needed in the state of attention cannot be
doubtful. Attention demands those motor responses and those inner steps
by which the object of attention shows itself more fully and more
clearly. When we give attention to the picture we want to see more
details, when we give attention to the problem we wa