The Divine Lamp

Article 7
Attention is Different Than Memory

78. Condillac, after imagining that he had shown the non-essential difference between the faculty of memory and the faculty of sensation, continues in the following forthright vein: “As a result of this, we are capable of two forms of attention: one exercised by the memory, the other by the senses. As there are two forms of attention here, a comparison is involved; paying attention to two idea is the same as comparing them. but they cannot be compared unless one perceives some difference or similarity between them. To perceive such relationships is to judge.”

This is a rapid bird’s eye view of a vast area; obstacles magically disappear as Condillac takes flight.

79. First, it requires little though to understand that the act whereby we focus our attention either on the objects of memory or on the terms of senses is neither memory nor a sense.

Attention is a power directed by our spirit or rather, it is the deliberative activity itself or our spirit (cf. 73-74). We focus our attention by an act of will, and can vary the intensity of such attention to suit ourselves.

We have already seen how sensation is distinguished from attention by its passivity, and from memory by its different term (cf. 75-77). It is easy to also see that attention is distinct from memory, which is formed from remembrance of things past. This is its very nature. The act whereby we focus our attention can be applied to things past and things present. It is therefore different from the act of remembrance.

80. Consequently we have three essentially different faculties: 1. that whereby we feel present impressions; 2. that whereby we retain our memory of them when they are over, finally 3. that whereby we focus the intellective activity of our spirit at will on present or past sensations (this can be done with varying degrees of intensity).