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as a class, we may, either in extending our knowledge or in reviving it, reason from the class to any one of its subdivisions. This is done under the Aristotelian principle, that what is affirmed of a class is affirmed of each member in that class. This is deduction, and its logical formula is A is A.
Lesson 64 - 4. The control of the mind over its phenomena - p.291
4. The intellect being thus furnished with faculties, and stored with their fruits, we inquire into its control over them, its directing influence. "We speak first of the government of the thoughts. The mind can direct the eye, the ear, to any object it chooses, and command their prolonged attention. (1) It can make any object the subject of protracted contemplation, and confine the analytic and reasoning processes to it. It can intensify and guide its mental activities in degrees varying with the power which previous practice has given it. This voluntary direction and handling of faculties is attention, and is referable to that personal force from which all the faculties as separate directions of action spring.
The number of objects which can at once be made the subjects of attention has been a question vigorously debated. The mind seems to be single in what may be termed its line of movement, its chain of connections; but to be able to unite in this movement many diverse things. Our thoughts braid into one experience, link in one argument, diverse subjects; they proceed by junction and inclusion, evening and strengthening the thread with material drawn from the right hand and the left.
The reason why it has been doubted whether the mind can attend to more than one object is in part found in the fact, that the very effort of the mind to decide the question serves to occasion that fixed, full, complete attention which is concentrated on a single object, and leads to the partial exclusion of other objects. Of course we cannot give the
