Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Power Of Attention The subject of attention is one of the first that should be considered after you have obtained some knowledge of the brain ; for it is an elementary mental process without which you can scarcely hope to become familiar with the actions of the mind. You have seen how impressions are made upon the brain, and now you must understand how to get the greatest amount of good from them, as well as how to control them in ways that are advantageous to you. Not only must you know what attention means, but also you must clearly appreciate where a deficient faculty of attention is bound to land you. When you perceive so much, you will be prepared to take up the natural extensions of the subject. The monks of Mount Athos were said to have had a certain exercise in contemplation which led them to experience beautiful sensations. Eachone was to retire to his cell, allow the chin to rest on his breast, and contemplate the centre of the abdomen. If this were continued long enough, the holy man was supposed to see beautiful things, "a mystic and ethereal light." This instance has been cited many times as the effect of attention and of the remarkable things that attention can accomplish. And yet it is not by any means an example of this faculty ; it entirely misses the characteristic part of attention ; and it demonstrates finely the need that most people have of defining accurately what they mean. This lack of clearness is brought about by their equally deficient power of attention. For of all intellectual imperfections this is, in all likelihood, one of the commonest. At the same time attention is a faculty of such fundamental importance that the possession of it is absolutely indispensable to the doing of any thorough or large piece of work. The power o...