 Brentano (1874 [1973]) responded to Comte’s concern by distinguishing between “inner observation” [innere Beobachtung] and “inner perception” [innere Wahrnehmung]. Observation, as Brentano characterizes it, involves dedicating full attention to a phenomenon, with the aim of apprehending it accurately. This dedication of attention necessarily interferes with the process to be observed if the process is a mental one; therefore, he says, inner observation is problematic as a scientific psychological method. Inner perception, in contrast, according to Brentano, does not involve attention to our mental lives and thus does not objectionably disturb them. While our “attention is turned toward a different object … we are able to perceive, incidentally, the mental processes which are directed toward that object” (1874 [1973, 30]). Brentano concedes that inner perception necessarily lacks the advantages of attentive observation, so he recommends conjoining it with retrospective methods.