In fact, many, if not the most of our attentions, are merely intensifyings of some present cognition, of some cognitive psychosis which has simply come or happened. Take the instance of attention to marginal retinal images, this certainly does not always imply preperception, the forming of an idea of what we are to see, though in the cases mentioned by Professor James it may. For example, I was writing the above seated with my profile to the window when I became suddenly aware, through the physiological agency of a marginal image, of a moving object to my right. This perception of bare undefined object was spontaneous, a pure given; I exercised no will in attaining it, and so the state of cognition was not an attention. However, by attending, by intensifying the cognition by will effort, I perceive that the indefinite object is a man walking on the sidewalk, who is of a certain height, clothed in a certain way, etc. I do not trace the least ideation in the whole process, the slight attending as act of will did not imply any anterior or posterior idea or representation. The reason for the will act was the intrinsic interest of movement, and this intrinsic interest arises in the fact that moving objects have had for all life a special pleasure-pain significance, the moving object is the most dangerous, and so motion perceived has become ingrained in mind as a special stimulant of attention. This habit of attentiveness to things in motion survives and continues for cases where it is of no use and even of harm; thus, in the present instance, it diverts me from my work. It is obvious that attention often occurs in the same way for other senses without preliminary idea. On the whole we must conclude that attention is a much abused term, and it is to be hoped that psychologists will for the future keep to the definite and best use of the term; namely, to denote cognitive effort in all its degrees and modes. HIRAM M. STANLEY. IS MONISM ARBITRARY? In Vol. II, No. 3, of _The Monist_, a very kind criticism appeared from the pen of Mr. Francis C. Russell of the doctrine of a double-faced unity of mind and matter. It was said that this doctrine is very far from inducing that final satisfaction which we rightly expect of a competent theory, and the critic propounded as a possible explanation of mental phenomena the postulate of a conservation of spirit. He calls spirit the elementary basis of consciousness considered as a quality. Spirit would be the subjectivity of nature, the elements of feeling, or as Professor Morgan calls it metakinesis; and consciousness would originate in the same way as electricity, i. e., by rending spirit asunder into positive and negative spirit so as to produce a tension. This would account for the appearance and disappearance of consciousness in that spiritual “dynamo” which is called the nervous system.