Also a selective process goes on in the case of the action of those associative dispositions just referred to.

But in each of these cases the action of selective attention is comparatively involuntary, passive, and even unconscious, not having anything of the character of a conscious striving to compass some end.

Besides this comparatively passive play of selective attention, there is an active play, in which there is a conscious wish to gain an end; in other words, the operation of a definite motive.

This motive may be described as an intellectual impulse to connect and harmonize what is present to the mind.

The voluntary kind of selection includes and transcends each of the involuntary kinds.