ABSTRACT
The doctrine that affection or feeling, in the form of pleasure or pain, determines attention and all forms of mental and bodily activity has a long history and has had a great influence, not only in psychological speculation, but also in other fields of theory and practice. The measures of the degree of attention are: the efficiency with which the subject works toward his goal; the resistance displayed to all diverting influences. The highest degree of mental activity, of attention, is achieved when some strong impulse sustains our attention to some topic of which we have a rich and systematically organized knowledge, gained through much and varied experience. The most effective effort of the will never achieves the high degree of concentration of attention which the awakening of any strong impulse immediately produces.
