are readily inclined to fancy that this additional significance which
belongs to the familiar language and which is absent from the foreign
one is something which comes to us in the perception itself as if the
meaning too were passing through the channels of our ears. But
psychologically the meaning is ours. In learning the language we have
learned to add associations and reactions of our own to the sounds which
we perceive. It is not different with the optical perceptions. The best
does not come from without.

Of all internal functions which create the meaning of the world around
us, the most central is the attention. The chaos of the surrounding
impressions is organized into a real cosmos of experience by our
selection of that which is significant and of consequence. This is true
for life and stage alike. Our attention must be drawn now here, now
there, if we want to bind together that which is scattered in the space
before us. Everything must be shaded by attention and inattention.
Whatever is focused by our attention wins emphasis and irradiates
meaning over the course of events. In practical life we discriminate
between voluntary and involuntary attention. We call it voluntary if we
approach the impressions with an idea in our mind as to what we want to
focus our attention on. We carry our personal interest, our own idea
into the observation of the objects. Our attention has chosen its aim
beforehand, and we ignore all that does not fulfil this specific
interest. All our working is controlled by such voluntary attention. We
have the idea of the goal which we want to reach in our mind beforehand
and subordinate all which we meet to this selective energy. Through our
voluntary attention we seek something and accept the offering of the
surroundings only in so far as it brings us what we are seeking.

It is quite different with the involuntary attention. The guiding