Note note 34 — ANALYSIS OF THE PHENOMENA OF THE HUMAN MIND James Mill

34 To reflect on any of our feelings or mental acts is more properly identified with attending to the feeling, than, (as stated in the text) with merely having it. The author scarcely recognises this as a difference. He sometimes indeed seems to consider attention as mental repetition; but in his chapter on the Will, we shall find that he there identifies attending to a feeling with merely having the feeling. I conceive, on the contrary, (with the great majority of psychologists) that there is an important distinction between the two things; the ignoring of which has led the author into errors. What the distinction is, I have endeavoured to shew in my note to the chapter on Consciousness; and the subject will return upon us hereafter.—Ed.