explanation is, I think, that the point of view unconsciously shifts from effort as a psychical fact, as fact of direct consciousness, to effort as an objective or teleological fact. We stop thinking of the sense of effort, and think of the reference or import of the experience. Effort, as putting forth of energy, is involved equally in all psychical occurrences. It exists with a sense of ease just as much as with a sense of strain. There may be more of it in cases of extreme absorption and interest, where no effort is felt, than in cases of extreme sense of effort. Compare, for example, the psycho-physical energy put forth in listening to a symphony, or in viewing a picture-gallery, with that exercised in trying to fix a small moving speck on the wall; compare the energy, that is, as objectively measured. In the former case, the whole being may be intensely active, and yet there may be, at the time, absolutely no consciousness of effort or strain. The latter may be, objectively, a very trivial activity, and yet the consciousness of strain may be the chief thing in the conscious experience. In some cases it seems almost as if the relation between effort as an objective fact, and effort as a psychical fact, were an inverse one. If a monotonous physical movement be indefinitely repeated, it will generally be found that as long as 'activity' is put forth, and accomplishes something objectively (as measured in some dynometric register), there is little sense of effort. Let the energy be temporarily exhausted and action practically cease, then the sense of effort will be at its maximum. Let a wave of energy recur, and there is at once a sense of lightness, of ease. And in all cases, the sense of effort and ease follows, never precedes, the change in activity as objectively measured.[1]
We are not concerned, accordingly, with any question of the existence or non-existence of spiritual activity, or even of psycho-physical activity. The reference to this, as furnishing the differentia of cases of consciousness of effort from those of ease, is not so much false as irrelevant.
Where, then, shall we locate the discriminative factor? Take the simplest possible case: I try to make out the exact
- ↑ Lombard, Journal of Physiology, 1892.
