"ATTENTION," said Ebbinghaus, "is a veritable embarrassment of psychology.

In some even comprehensive treatments of the mental life it has still up to the most recent time been as completely neglected, as for the most part it had been neglected in the English association- psychology.

In others it appears to be inserted in the whole system in the strangest, now and again it may be said in the most helpless, fashion.

That under these circumstances great divergence prevails both in the presentation of its features and in the more detailed accounts of its nature is intelligible.

As compared either with the ordinary use of the term or with the inner relatedness of the facts appropriately grouped together as facts of attention, the majority of these accounts are too narrow ; they are too inclined to take into con- sideration but one side of the matter or something which is only to be met with under special conditions 1.