[9] Hamilton, like Ribot, denies that all attention is of the voluntary type. Under the heading Attention possible without an act of freewill, he says,

I think Reid and Stewart incorrect in asserting that attention is only a voluntary act, meaning, by the expression voluntary, an act of free-will . . .

Attention of three degrees or kinds. - It, therefore, appears to me the more correct doctrine to hold that there is no consciousness without attention, - without concentration, - but that attention is of three degrees or kinds. The first, a mere vital and irresistible act; the second, an act determined by desire, which though involuntary, may be resisted by our will; the third, an act determined by a deliberate volition. 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 exercise of vision. We have formerly noticed, that discrimination is a condition of consciousness; and a discrimination is only possible by a concentrative act, or act of attention. This, however, which corresponds to the lowest degree, - to the mere vital or automatic act of attention, has been refused the name; and attention, in contradistinction to this mere automatic contraction, given to the two other degrees, of which, however, Reid only recognises the third. ⁷⁴

This passage is interesting on a number of counts. Hamilton is in agreement with Ribot in maintaining that voluntary attention is not the only type of attention. He recognizes the existence of what I have referred to as rudimentary attention, even though he refuses it the name. He contends that there is no consciousness without attention. And he offers a more flexible classification than the twofold system adopted by Ribot. It is not possible to identify either of Ribot's two types of attention with any of Hamilton's threefold

schema. Ribot's spontaneous attention is not Hamilton's mere vital attention, because Ribot's is based on desire, and the vital attention mentioned by Hamilton is not. It cannot be identified with Hamilton's second variety, because although this is based on desire, it can be suspended by an act of will, whereas Ribot's spontaneous attention cannot. Finally, Ribot's voluntary attention is not identical with Hamilton's attention determined by deliberate volition, because Hamilton contrasts attention based on volition with attention based on desire, and Ribot does not. As far as Ribot is concerned voluntary attention is as much based on desire, or emotional factors, as he calls them, as is spontaneous attention. Even if we prefer Hamilton's classification to Ribot's we do not arrive at a satisfactory position.

Both thinkers endeavour to distinguish types of attention through tracing differences in their origins. They thus reduce the issue to one of motivation, i.e. to the question of the various possible types of cause of an instance of attention. For instance, spontaneous or vital attention is caused by processes in the percipient, a second type of attention is caused by desire, and a third is caused by an act of volition. As opposed to this approach, I wish to argue that the type of attention is not determined by the circumstances of its motivation. On the contrary, I hope to show that each type of attention could equally well be motivated by any of the causes identified by Hamilton.

I hold that whether or not the attention demanded an effort, whether or not it was voluntary, and whether or not it was spontaneous, are not factors that are intrinsic to specific types of attention. These considerations are incidental. In short, if there are three types of attention - A, B, and C - it will be true on some occasions that A demanded effort, B was due to an act of will, and C was the result of a desire; and it will be equally true on other occasions that A was effortless, B was the result of desire, and C was due to an act of will. And so on for the other permutations. Where I think it is easy to be misled, and where perhaps Ribot and Hamilton were misled, is in the assumption that if a certain type of attention must originally have had a certain motivation, it must thereafter always retain the same motivation. This assumption commits the genetic fallacy according to which the nature of a phenomenon is determined entirely by its origin.

This point can best be illustrated in connection with the form of attention Hamilton describes as 'mere vital attention'. It is evident

that he has in mind the 'sense-organ' attention I have been discussing. ⁷⁵

Now we have seen that this type of attention can be attributed to animals, and this makes it seem entirely reasonable to assume that when it is met with in man it operates in the same way as it does in animals. But this ignores the fact that we also ascribe to man 'higher' forms of attention, which are not found in animals. Voluntary attention is the obvious example. Once this is admitted the whole picture alters radically. There exists at least the possibility that a man may be able to disengage his 'mere vital attention' in virtue of his possession of the abilities intrinsic to his higher forms of attention. But if 'mere vital attention' can be disengaged, it has an altogether different significance from - is a different form of attention from - a 'mere vital attention' that cannot be disengaged by an act of will. Furthermore, in a percipient in which the higher forms of attention are found, it may prove impossible to isolate the lower forms in the purity they possess in those percipients which do not possess the higher forms. Just as in man it is alleged that there are no instances of his behaviour being determined by 'pure' motives (all his motives being mixed), so too it may be the case that in man there are no cases of pure instances of a single type of attention; all attention being a resultant of a number of different types.

These, I suggest, are logical possibilities. It is only necessary to admit that they are possibilities for it to be realized that the assumption that types of attention are determined by their origins is questionable. On these grounds we would be advised to be extremely wary of quasi-evolutionary accounts of the stages of attention, such as Ribot gives us, and such as is implicit in Hamilton's theory.

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