One might call this selective effect the narrowness or focalness of consciousness; in ordinary life it is called attention. We say that attention is given to certain contents, and that the others are not attended to, that they are under the influence of inattention. There is no similar phenomenon in the whole inorganic world. In our mental life nothing is more ordinary. I look up and notice many things. But many more are projected upon my retina without succeeding in becoming noticed. When reading a book I cannot accomplish everything that I wish I could. Giving attention to the meaning, I fail to become conscious of the beauty of style. Looking for typographical errors, I fail to understand the logical connection of the sentences. For each purpose a new reading is necessary. Mental work requires the exclusion of piano music and crying babies. Thinking is not so easy while we are performing a gymnastic feat or walking at a rapid gait. When we are listening to difficult music, we shut our eyes. When a momentous question, a dangerous task, presents itself, we are in danger of losing our head; that is, being occupied by ideas of the magnitude of the event, we fail to become conscious of thoughts and memories of the simplest and most ordinary kind. The popular view of attention is that it is an independent being, separate from the contents of the mind. Attention stands at the helm, and as the mind desires these or those contents, attention changes the ship’s course. This, of course, is pure mythology. The enhancement and impairment of impressions to which we refer in speaking of attention and inattention are not a peculiar activity of mind; they are simply the effects of peculiar relations existing between the impressions themselves. A few of these relations may be briefly discussed. Whatever situation is capable of being a source of pleasantness or unpleasantness, is also likely to become enhanced in vividness, so that one may say that the value of an impression for our life of feeling is one of the factors determining attention. Any remark of a person near by, although merely whispered and hardly perceived by others, quickly rises to a high degree of consciousness in my mind if it concerns my reputation. That which we have experienced frequently, no longer causes much pleasantness or unpleasantness; and in accordance with this, it is not likely to be attended to.