Such experiments in perception and attention, association and
memory, repeatedly demanded of yourself--_i. e._, the being able to
recall and describe in detail the room- or ward-arrangements and to
place the patients accurately, as we have just described--will prove
invaluable practice, helping you to attend to every change in your
patient's demeanor and expression, which may prove significant symptoms.
And remember that while the mind can only contain so many isolated
facts, yet there is no limit to its possibilities when the power of
association of ideas is employed.
Your first step to clear thinking is accuracy of perception, with
attention to the thing reason chooses; your second is association of the
things perceived, a grouping of them to fit in with each other, and with
what is already in the mind. And both imply the third--concentration,
aided by emotion and will. For passive attention and haphazard
associations assure the opposite of clear thinking.
CONCENTRATION
_How to Study._--You learn sooner or later from experience that the
quickest and best way to learn anything new is to give it your undivided
attention at the moment; to perceive one thing at a time and to perceive
it as something that is definite, or as some quality that is unblurred.
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