Page 257 - Wilhelm Wundt zum siebzigsten Geburtstage

Fluctuations of Attention and After-images. 245

peripheral functions. It would also do away with the necessity of
treating the attention as a transcendental activity.
There still remain for explanation those peculiarities which have
been observed e. g. in the perception of tones. Granting that the
auditory sensations fluctuate in some cases and in others show no
fluctiiation, we are not thereby compeUed to infer that the attention
is free from fluctuation. The anatomical and physiological relations
are obviously different for the several sorts of Sensation. Hence,
while we admit that the attention is conditioned by changes in the
brain centres, we may still hold that its constancy or variability
depends upon the particular relations, in structure and in fimction,
which exist between the centre and the several organs of sense.