Apparently the field of consciousness shades off gradually into the field of unconscious activity. Some physiological processes go on unconsciously, and very habitual movements may be almost or entirely unconscious. The boundary [{266}] between what is vaguely conscious and what is entirely unconscious is necessarily very vague itself, but the probability is that the field of consciousness is broader than we usually suspect, and that many activities that we ordinarily think of as unconscious, because we do not observe them at the time nor remember them later, lie really near the margin of the field of consciousness, but inside that field. "Unconscious motives", such as spite or pride often seem to be, are probably vaguely conscious rather than unconscious. We shall return to the fascinating topic of the unconscious at the close of the book.
Degree of consciousness does not always tally with intensity of sensation or energy of muscular action. You may be more conscious of a slight but significant sound than of much louder noises occurring at the same time. You may be more conscious of a delicate finger movement than of a strong contraction of big muscles occurring at the same time. Degree of consciousness goes with degree of mental activity. Of all the reactions we are making at the same time--and usually there are several--the most active in a mental way is the most conscious. The slight sound arouses intense mental response because it means something of importance--like the faint cry of the baby upstairs, noticed instead of the loud noises of the street. The delicate finger movement aims at some difficult result, while the big muscles may be doing their accustomed work automatically.
It is not always the most efficient mental process that is most conscious; indeed, practising an act makes it both more efficient and less conscious. It is, rather, the less efficient processes that require attention, because they require mental work to keep them going straight.
Our sixth law of attention, emerging from this introspective study, is naturally of a different style from the remainder of the list, which were objectively observed; yet it [{267}] is no less certain and perhaps no less significant. It may be called:
(6) The law of degrees of consciousness, and thus stated: An attentive response is conscious to a higher degree than any inattentive response made at the same time. An inattentive response may be dimly conscious or, perhaps, altogether unconscious. The less familiar the response, and the higher it stands in the scale of mental performances, the more attentive it is, and the more conscious.
The Management of Attention
Attentive observation is more trustworthy than inattentive, and also gives more facts. Attentive movement is more accurate than inattentive, and may be quicker as well. Attentive study gives quicker learning than inattentive, and at the same time fixes the facts more durably.
Shall we say, then, "Do everything attentively"? But that is impossible. We sense so many stimuli at once that we could not possibly attend to all of them. We do several things at once, and cannot give attention to them all. A skilful performance consists of many parts, and we cannot possibly give careful attention to all the parts. Attention is necessarily selective, and the best advice is, not simply to "be attentive", but to attend to the right things.
In observation, the best plan is obviously to decide beforehand exactly what needs to be observed, and then to focus attention on this precise point. That is the principle underlying the remarkably sure and keen observation of the scientist. Reading may be called a kind of observation, since the reader is looking for what the author has to tell; and the rule that holds for other observation holds also for reading. That is to say that the reader finds the most when he knows just what he is looking for. We can learn [{268}] something here from story-reading, which is the most efficient sort of reading, in the sense that you get the point of the story better than that of more serious reading matter, the reason being that attention is always pressing forward in the story, looking for something very definite. You want to know how the hero gets out of the fix he is in, and you press forward and find out with great certainty and little loss of time. The best readers of serious matter have a similar eagerness to discover what the author has to say; they get the author's question, and press on to find his answer. Such readers are both quick and retentive. The dawdling reader, who simply spends so much time and covers so many pages, in the vague hope that something will stick, does not remember the point because he never got the point, and never got it because he wasn't looking for it.
In skilled movement, or skilled action of any sort, the best rule is to fix attention on the end-result or, if the process is long, on the result that immediately needs to be accomplished. "Keep your eye on the ball" when the end just now to be achieved is hitting the ball. Attention to the details of the process, though necessary in learning a skilled movement, is distracting and confusing after skill has been acquired. The runner does not attend to his legs, but to the goal or, if that is still distant, to the runner just ahead of him.