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entire attention to two objects as two, struggling in the same instant to contemplate them with distinctness separately. Failing in this, we have hastily concluded that the mind can attend to but one thing at a time. Let the thoughts move freely, and it seems obvious that we do consider several objects at once, some of us more, some less. The shepherd counts his flock as they pass before him or stand around him. He will more likely do it by threes or fives, grouping the numbers by a stroke of the eye. One practiced in dividing paper into quarter quires will instantaneously, on the ruffled edge, select the number six, and with astonishing rapidity run through the pile. This tendency in enumeration to divide objects into greater and smaller groups, according to the degree of skill, plainly reveals the power of the mind to contemplate at once several objects. Indeed, were the mind limited to absolute singleness of attention and direction, its states would succeed each other in a disconnected and independent form. Every judgment involves two terms and a relation between them.

A more important question arises, (2) as to the power which the mind possesses in introducing to itself the objects which it may afterward consider. So far as these are external objects it may open for them the avenues of perception, and then select among them those which it will more carefully observe. It may also seek the locality of remembered or described objects, and thus prolong their consideration. In this direction, the mind is limited, first to things that are; second to those among these known to it and accessible to it. A large share of the government we have over our thoughts is found in our mastery of the external conditions of life, of situations and circumstances. A deeper inquiry lies in the questions, (3) How far does the mind control the order of ideas that are passing through it?