Attentive observation is more trustworthy than inattentive, and also gives more facts. Attentive movement is more accurate than inattentive, and may be quicker as well. Attentive study gives quicker learning than inattentive, and at the same time fixes the facts more durably.

Shall we say, then, "Do everything attentively"? But that is impossible. We sense so many stimuli at once that we could not possibly attend to all of them. We do several things at once, and cannot give attention to them all. A skilful performance consists of many parts, and we cannot possibly give careful attention to all the parts. Attention is necessarily selective, and the best advice is, not simply to "be attentive", but to attend to the right things.

In observation, the best plan is obviously to decide beforehand exactly what needs to be observed, and then to focus attention on this precise point. That is the principle underlying the remarkably sure and keen observation of the scientist. Reading may be called a kind of observation, since the reader is looking for what the author has to tell; and the rule that holds for other observation holds also for reading. That is to say that the reader finds the most when he knows just what he is looking for. We can learn {268} something here from story-reading, which is the most efficient sort of reading, in the sense that you get the point of the story better than that of more serious reading matter, the reason being that attention is always pressing forward in the story, looking for something very definite. You want to know how the hero gets out of the fix he is in, and you press forward and find out with great certainty and little loss of time. The best readers of serious matter have a similar eagerness to discover what the author has to say; they get the author's question, and press on to find his answer. Such readers are both quick and retentive. The dawdling reader, who simply spends so much time and covers so many pages, in the vague hope that something will stick, does not remember the point because he never got the point, and never got it because he wasn't looking for it.

In skilled movement, or skilled action of any sort, the best rule is to fix attention on the end-result or, if the process is long, on the result that immediately needs to be accomplished. "Keep your eye on the ball" when the end just now to be achieved is hitting the ball. Attention to the details of the process, though necessary in learning a skilled movement, is distracting and confusing after skill has been acquired. The runner does not attend to his legs, but to the goal or, if that is still distant, to the runner just ahead of him.