red in detail, and a
result accomplished that will seem little less than marvelous to those
who do not know the secret.

_Thompson_ has said: "The experiences most permanently impressed upon
consciousness, are those upon which the greatest amount of attention has
been fixed."

Another writer upon the subject has said that "Attention is so
essentially necessary to understanding, that without some degree of it
the ideas and perceptions that pass through the mind seem to leave no
trace behind them."

_Hamilton_ has said: "An act of attention, that is, an act of
concentration, seems thus necessary to every exertion of consciousness,
as a certain contraction of the pupil is requisite to every exertion of
vision. Attention then is to consciousness what the contraction of the
pupil is to sight, or, to the eye of the mind what the microscope or
telescope is to the bodily eye. It constitutes the better half of all
intellectual power."

And _Brodie_ adds, quite forcibly: "It is Attention much more than any
difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast
difference which exists between minds of different individuals."

_Butler_ gives us this important testimony: "The most important
intellectual habit I know of is the habit of attending exclusively to the
matter in hand. It is commonly said that genius cannot be infused by
education, yet this power of concentrated attention, which belongs as a
part of his gift to every great discoverer, is unquestionably capable of
almost indefinite augmentation by resolute practice."

And, concluding this review of opinions, and endorsements of that which
the Yogis have so much to say, and to which they attach so much
importance, let us listen to the words of _Beattie_, who says: "The
force wherewith anything strikes the mind, is generally in proportion to
the degree of attention bestowed upon it. Moreover, the great art of
memory is attention, and inattentive people always have bad memories."

There are two general kinds of Attention. The first is the Attention
directed within the mind upon mental objects and concepts. The other is
the Attention directed outward upon objects external to ourselves. The
same general rules and laws apply to both equally.

Likewise there may be drawn another distinction and division of attention
into two classes, _viz._, Attenion attracted by some impression coming
into consciousness without any conscious effort of the Will--this is