How important to our happiness and improvement is this recognition of past ideas, few are wont to imagine. If all our knowledge of external things were forever lost to us after sensation is past, our existence would be one of mere sensitive enjoyment, and all the honor and dignity of mind would be destroyed. No past experience could be of any avail, nor could any act of judgment or of reasoning be performed. Even the most common wants of animal nature could not be supplied; for, were the cooling water and sustaining food presented to the sight, no memory of the past comfort secured by them would lead the mind to seek it again. Or, had nature, by some implanted instinct, provided for these necessities, yet life in this case would have consisted of a mere succession of sensations, without even the amount of intellect of which the lower animals give proof. It is the capacity of retrospection, too, which gives us the power of foreseeing the future, and thus of looking both before and behind for sources of enjoyment in delightful reminiscences and joyful anticipations. It is this power of remembrance and foresight which raises man to be the image of his Creator, the miniature of Him who sees the end from the beginning, who looks back on never commencing ages, and forward through eternal years. It is true the mind of man can foresee only by the process of reasoning, by which it is inferred that the future will, in given circumstances, resemble the past. And how the Eternal Mind can foresee by intuition all the events which hang upon the volitions of the myriads of acting minds which he has formed is what no human intellect can grasp. The _foresight of intuition_ has not been bestowed upon man, but is reserved as one distinctive prerogative of Deity. CHAPTER XI. ATTENTION AND ABSTRACTION. To understand clearly the nature of the mental phenomena called _attention_ and _abstraction_, two facts in our mental history need definitely to be understood--facts which have a decided bearing on the nature and character of almost all the operations of mind. The first is, that the objects of our conceptions are seldom, if ever, isolated, disconnected objects. On the contrary, there is an extended and complex picture before the mind, including often a great variety of objects, with their several qualities, relations, and changes. In this mental picture some objects are clear and distinct, while others seem to float along in shadowy vagueness. This fact must be evident to any mind that will closely examine its own mental operations. It is also equally evident when we consider the mode in which our ideas are gained by perception. We never acquire our ideas in single disconnected lineaments. We are continually viewing complex objects with numerous qualities and surrounded by a great variety of circumstances, which unitedly form a _whole_ in one act of perception.