We have now, perhaps, sufficiently reviewed sense-illusions, both of waking life and of sleep. And having roughly classified them according to their structure and origin, we are ready to go forwards and inquire whether the theory thus reached can be applied to other forms of illusory error. And here we are compelled to inquire at the outset if anything analogous to sense-illusion is to be found in that other great region of presentative cognition usually marked off from external perception as internal perception, self-reflection, or introspection.

Illusions of Introspection defined.

This inquiry naturally sets out with the question: What is meant by introspection? This cannot be better defined, perhaps, than by saying that it is the mind's immediate reflective cognition of its own states as such.

In one sense, of course, everything we know may be called a mental state, actual or imagined. Thus, a sense-impression is known, exactly like any other feeling of the mind, as a mental phenomenon or mental modification. Yet we do not usually speak of introspectively recognizing a sensation. Our sense-impressions are marked off from all other feelings by having an objective character, that is to say, an immediate relation to the external world, so that in attending to one of them our minds pass away from themselves in what Professor Bain calls the attitude of objective regard. Introspection is confined to feelings which want this intimate connection with the external region, and includes sensation only so far as it is viewed apart from external objects and on its mental side as a feeling, a process which is next to impossible where the sensation has little emotional colour, as in the case of an ordinary sensation of sight or of articulate sound.

This being so, errors of introspection, supposing such to be found, will in the main be sufficiently distinguished from those of perception. Even an hallucination of sense, whether setting out from a subjective sensation or not, always contains the semblance of a sense-impression, and so would not be correctly classed with errors of introspection.

Just as introspection must be marked off from perception, so must it be distinguished from memory. It may be contended that, strictly speaking, all introspection is retrospection, since even in attending to a present feeling the mind is reflectively representing to itself the immediately preceding momentary experience of that feeling. Yet the adoption of this view does not hinder us from drawing a broad distinction between acts of introspection and acts of memory. Introspection must be regarded as confined to the knowledge of immediately antecedent mental states with reference to which, no error of memory can be supposed to arise.

It follows from this that an illusion of introspection could only be found in connection with the apprehension of present or immediately antecedent mental states. On the other hand, any illusions connected with the consciousness of personal continuity and identity would fall rather under the class of mnemonic than that of introspective error.

Once more, introspection must be carefully distinguished from what I have called belief. Some of our beliefs may be found to grow out of and be compounded of a number of introspections. Thus, my conception of my own character, or my psychological conception of mind as a whole, may be seen to arise by a combination of the results of a number of acts of introspection. Yet, supposing this to be so, we must still distinguish between the single presentative act of introspection and the representative belief growing out of it.

It follows from this that, though an error of the latter sort might conceivably have its origin in one of the former; though, for example, a man's illusory opinion of himself might be found to involve errors of introspection, yet the two kinds of illusion would be sufficiently unlike. The latter would be a simple presentative error, the former a compound representative error.

Finally, in order to complete this preliminary demarcation of our subject-matter, it is necessary to distinguish between an introspection (apparent or real) of a feeling or idea, and a process of inference based on this feeling. The term introspective knowledge must, it is plain, be confined to what is or appears to be in the mind at the moment of inspection.

By observing this distinction, we are in a position to mark off an illusion of introspection from a fallacy of introspection. The former differs from the latter in the absence of anything like a conscious process of inference. Thus, if we suppose that the derivation by Descartes of the fact of the existence of God from his possession of the idea to be erroneous, such a consciously performed act of reasoning would constitute a fallacy rather than an illusion of introspection.

We may, then, roughly define an illusion of introspection as an error involved in the apprehension of the contents of the mind at any moment. If we mistake the quality or degree of a feeling or the structure of a complex mass of feeling, or if we confuse what is actually present to the mind with some inference based on this, we may be said to fall into an illusion of introspection.

But here the question will certainly be raised: How can we conceive the mind erring as to the nature of its present contents; and what is to determine, if not my immediate act of introspection, what is present in my mind at any moment? Indeed, to raise the possibility of error in introspection seems to do away with the certainty of presentative knowledge.

If, however, the reader will recall what was said in an earlier chapter about the possibility of error in recognizing the quality of a sense-impression, he will be prepared for a similar possibility here. What we are accustomed to call a purely presentative cognition is, in truth, partly representative. A feeling as pure feeling is not known; it is only known when it is distinguished, as to quality or degree, and so classed or brought under some representation of a kind or description of feeling, as acute, painful, and so on. The accurate recognition of an impression of colour depends, as we have seen, on this process of classing being correctly performed. Similarly, the recognition of internal feelings implies the presence of the appropriate or corresponding class-representation. Accordingly, if it is possible for a wrong representation to get substituted for the right one, there seems to be an opening for error.

Any error that would thus arise can, of course, only be determined as such in relation to some other act of introspection of the same mind. In matters of internal perception other minds cannot directly assist us in correcting error as they can in the case of external perception, though, as we shall see by-and-by, they may do so indirectly. The standard of reality directly applicable to introspective cognition is plainly what the individual mind recognizes at its best moments, when the processes of attention and classifying are accurately performed, and the representation may be regarded with certainty as answering to the feeling. In other words, in the sphere of internal, as in that of external experience, the criterion of reality is the average and perfect, as distinguished from the particular variable and imperfect act of cognition.

We see, then, that error in the process of introspection is at least conceivable. And now let us examine this process a little further, in order to find out what probabilities of error attach to it.

To begin with, then, an act of introspection, to be complete, clearly involves the apprehension of an internal feeling or idea as something mental and marked off from the region of external experience. This distinct recognition of internal states of mind as such, in opposition to external impressions, is by no means easy, but presupposes a certain degree of intellectual culture, and a measure of the power of abstract attention.

Confusion of Internal and External Experience.

Accordingly, we find that where this is wanting there is a manifest disposition to translate internal feelings into terms of external impressions. In this way there may arise a slight amount of habitual and approximately constant error. Not that the process approaches to one of hallucination; but only that the internal feelings are intuited as having a cause or origin analogous to that of sense-impressions. Thus to the uncultivated mind a sudden thought seems like an audible announcement from without. The superstitious man talks of being led by some good or evil spirit when new ideas arise in his mind or new resolutions shape themselves. To the simple intelligence of the boor every thought presents itself as an analogue of an audible voice, and he commonly describes his rough musings as saying this and that to himself. And this, mode of viewing the matter is reflected even, in the language of cultivated persons. Thus we say, "The idea struck me," or "was borne in on me," "I was forced to do so and so," and so on, and in this manner we tend to assimilate internal to external mental phenomena.

Much the same thing shows itself in our customary modes of describing our internal feelings of pleasure and pain. When a man in a state of mental depression speaks of having "a load" on his mind it is evident that he is interpreting a mental by help of an analogy to a bodily feeling. Similarly, when we talk of the mind being torn by doubt or worn by anxiety. It would seem as though we tended mechanically to translate mental pleasures and pains into the language of bodily sensations.

The explanation of this deeply rooted tendency to a slightly illusory view of our mental states is, I think, an easy one. For one thing, it follows from the relation of the mental image to the sense-impression that we should tend to assimilate the former to the latter as to its nature and origin. This would account for the common habit of regarding thoughts, which are of course accompanied by representatives of their verbal symbols, as internal voices, a habit which is probably especially characteristic of the child and the uncivilized man, as we have found it to be characteristic of the insane.

Another reason, however, must be sought for the habit of assimilating internal feelings to external sensations. If language has been evolved as an incident of social life, at once one of its effects and its causes, it would seem to follow that it must have first shaped Itself to the needs of expressing these common objective experiences which we receive by way of our senses. Our habitual modes of thought, limited as they are by language, retain traces of this origin. We cannot conceive any mental process except by some vague analogy to a physical process. In other words, we can even now only think with perfect clearness when we are concerned with some object of common cognition. Thus, the sphere of external sensation and of physical agencies furnishes us with the one type of thinkable thing or object of thought, and we habitually view subjective mental states as analogues of these.

Still, it may be said that these slight nascent errors are hardly worth naming, and the question would still appear to recur whether there are other fully developed errors deserving to rank along with illusions of sense. Do we, it may be asked, ever actually mistake the quality, degree, or structure of our internal feelings in the manner hinted above, and if so, what is the range of such error? In order to appreciate the risks of such error, let us compare the process of self-observation with that of external perception with respect to the difficulties in the way of accurate presentative knowledge.

Misreading of Internal Feelings.

First of all, it is noteworthy that a state of consciousness at any one moment is an exceedingly complex thing. It is made up of a mass of feelings and active impulses which often combine and blend in a most inextricable way. External sensations come in groups, too, but as a rule they do not fuse in apparently simple wholes as our internal feelings often do. The very possibility of perception depends on a clear discrimination of sense-elements, for example, the several sensations of colour obtained by the stimulation of different parts of the retina.[103] But no such clearly defined mosaic of feelings presents itself in the internal region: one element overlaps and partly loses itself in another, and subjective analysis is often an exceedingly difficult matter. Our consciousness is thus a closely woven texture in which the mental eye often fails to trace the several threads or strands. Moreover, there is the fact that many of these ingredients are exceedingly shadowy, belonging to that obscure region of sub-consciousness which it is so hard to penetrate with the light of discriminative attention. This remark applies with particular force to that mass of organic feelings which constitutes what is known as coenÆsthesis; or vital sense.

While, to speak figuratively, the minute anatomy of consciousness is thus difficult with respect to longitudinal sections of the mental column, it is no less difficult with respect to transverse sections. Under ordinary circumstances, external impressions persist so that they can be transfixed by a deliberate act of attention, and objects rarely flit over the external scene so rapidly as to allow us no time for a careful recognition of the impression. Not so in the case of the internal region of mind. The composite states of consciousness just described never remain perfectly uniform for the shortest conceivable duration. They change continually, just as the contents of the kaleidoscope vary with every shake of the instrument. Thus, one shade of feeling runs into another in such a way that it is often impossible to detect its exact quality; and even when the character of the feeling does not change, its intensity is undergoing alterations so that an accurate observation of its quantity is impracticable. Also, in this unstable shifting internal scene features may appear for a duration too short to allow of close recognition. In this way it happens that we cannot sharply divide the feeling of the moment from its antecedents and its consequents.

If, now, we take these facts in connection with what has been said above respecting the nature of the process of introspection, the probability of error will be made sufficiently clear. To transfix any particular feeling of the moment, to selectively attend to it, and to bring it under the proper representation, is an operation that requires time, a time which, though short, is longer than the fugitive character of so much of our internal mental life allows. From all of which it would appear to follow that it must be very easy to overlook, confuse, and transform, both as to quality and as to quantity, the actual ingredients of our internal consciousness.

From these sources there spring a number of small errors of introspection which, to distinguish them from others to be spoken of presently, may be called passive. These would include all errors in detecting what is in consciousness due to the intricacies of the phenomena, and not aided by any strong basis. For example, a mental state may fail to disclose its component parts to introspective attention. Thus, a motive may enter into our action which is so entangled with other feelings as to escape our notice. The fainter the feeling the greater the difficulty of detaching it and inspecting it in isolation. Again, an error of introspection may have its ground in the fugitive character of a feeling. If, for example, a man is asked whether a rapid action was a voluntary one, he may in retrospection easily imagine that it was not so, when as a matter of fact the action was preceded by a momentary volition. When a person exclaims, "I did a thing inadvertently or mechanically," it often means that he did not note the motive underlying the action. Such transitory feelings which cannot at the moment be seized by an act of attention are pretty certain to disappear at once, leaving not even a temporary trace in consciousness.

We will now pass to the consideration of other illusions of introspection more analogous to what I have called the active illusions of perception. In our examination of these we found that a pure representation may under certain circumstances simulate the appearance of a presentation, that a mental image may approximate to a sense-impression. In the case of the internal feelings this liability shows itself in a still more striking form.

The higher feelings or emotions are distinguished from the simple sense-feelings in being largely representative. Thus, a feeling of contentment at any moment, though no doubt conditioned by the bodily state and the character of the organic sensations or coenÆsthesis, commonly depends for the most part on intellectual representations of external circumstances or relations, and may be called an ideal foretaste of actual satisfactions, such as the pleasures of success, of companionship, and so on. This being so, it is easy for imagination to call up a semblance of these higher feelings. Since they depend largely on representation, a mere act of representation may suffice to excite a degree of the feeling hardly distinguishable from the actual one. Thus, to imagine myself as contented is really to see myself at the moment as actually contented. Again, the actor, though, as we shall see by-and-by, he does not feel all that the spectator is apt to attribute to him, tends, when vividly representing to himself a particular shade of feeling, to regard himself as actually feeling in this way. Thus, it is said of Garrick, that when acting Richard III., he felt himself for the moment to be a villain.

We should expect from all this that in the act of introspection the mind is apt, within certain limits, to find what it is prepared to find. And since there is in these acts often a distinct wish to detect some particular feeling, we can see how easy it must be for a man through bias and a wrong focussing of the attention to deceive himself up to a certain point with respect to the actual contents of his mind.

Let us examine one of these active illusions a little more fully. It would at first sight seem to be a perfectly simple thing to determine at any given moment whether we are enjoying ourselves, whether our emotional condition rises above the pleasure-threshold or point of indifference and takes on a positive hue of the agreeable or pleasurable. Yet there is good reason for supposing that people not unfrequently deceive themselves on this matter. It is, perhaps, hardly an exaggeration to say that most of us are capable of imagining that we are having enjoyment when we conform to the temporary fashion of social amusement. It has been cynically observed that people go into society less in order to be happy than to seem so, and one may add that in this semblance of enjoyment they may, provided they are not blasÉ, deceive themselves as well as others. The expectation of enjoyment, the knowledge that the occasion is intended to bring about this result, the recognition of the external signs of enjoyment in others—all this may serve to blind a man in the earlier stages of social amusement to his actual mental condition.

If we look closely into this variety of illusion, we shall see that it is very similar in its structure and origin to that kind of erroneous perception which arises from inattention to the actual impression of the moment under the influence of a strong expectation of something different. The representation of ourselves as entertained dislodges from our internal field of vision our actual condition, relegating this to the region of obscure consciousness. Could we for a moment get rid of this representation and look at the real feelings of the time, we should become aware of our error; and it is possible that the process of becoming blasÉ involves a waking up to a good deal of illusion of the kind.

Just as we can thus deceive ourselves within certain limits as to our emotional condition, so we can mistake the real nature of our intellectual condition. Thus, when an idea is particularly grateful to our minds, we may easily imagine that we believe it, when in point of fact all the time there is a sub-conscious process of criticism going on, which if we attended to it for a moment would amount to a distinct act of disbelief. Some persons appear to be capable of going on habitually practising this petty deceit on themselves, that is to say, imagining they believe what in fact they are strongly inclined to doubt. Indeed, this remark applies to all the grateful illusions respecting ourselves and others, which will have to be discussed by-and-by. The impulse to hold to the illusion in spite of critical reflection, involves the further introspective illusion of taking a state of doubt for one of assurance. Thus, the weak, flattered man or woman manages to keep up a sort of fictitious belief in the truth of the words which are so pleasant to the ear.

It is plain that the external conditions of life impose on the individual certain habits of feeling which often conflict with his personal propensities. As a member of society he has a powerful motive to attribute certain feelings to himself, and this motive acts as a bias in disturbing his vision of what is actually in his mind. While this holds good of lighter matters, as that of enjoyment just referred to, it applies still more to graver matters. Thus, for example, a man may easily persuade himself that he feels a proper sentiment of indignation against a perpetrator of some mean or cruel act, when as a matter of fact his feeling is much more one of compassion for the previously liked offender. In this way we impose on ourselves, disguising our real sentiments by a thin veil of make-believe.

So far I have spoken of an illusion of introspection as analogous to the slight misapprehensions of sense-impression which were touched on in connection with illusions of sense (Chapter III.). It is to be observed, however, that the confusing of elements of consciousness, which is so prominent a factor in introspective illusion, involves a species of error closely analogous to a complete illusion of perception, that is to say, one which involves a misinterpretation of a sense-impression.

This variety of illusion is illustrated in the case in which a present feeling or thought is confounded with some inference based on it. For example, a present thought may, through forgetfulness, be regarded as a new discovery. Its originality appears to be immediately made known in the very freshness which characterizes it. Every author probably has undergone the experience of finding that ideas which started up to his mind as fresh creations, were unconscious reminiscences of his own or of somebody else's ideas.

In the case of present emotional states this liability to confuse the present and the past is far greater. Here there is something hardly distinguishable from an active illusion of sense-perception. In this condition of mind a man often says that he has an "intuition" of something supposed to be immediately given in the feeling itself. For instance, one whose mind is thrilled by the pulsation of a new joy exclaims, "This is the happiest moment of my life," and the assurance seems to be contained in the very intensity of the feeling itself. Of course, cool reflection will tell him that what he affirms is merely a belief, the accuracy of which presupposes processes of recollection and judgment, but to the man's mind at the moment the supremacy of this particular joy is immediately intuited. And so with the assurance that the present feeling, for example of love, is undying, that it is equal to the most severe trials, and so on. A man is said to feel at the moment that it is so, though as the facts believed have reference to absent circumstances and events, it is plain that the knowledge is by no means intuitive.

At such times our minds are in a state of pure feeling: intellectual discrimination and comparison are no longer possible. In this way our emotions in the moments of their greatest intensity carry away our intellects with them, confusing the region of pure imagination with that of truth and certainty, and even the narrow domain of the present with the vast domain of the past and future. In this condition differences of present and future may be said to disappear and the energy of the emotion to constitute an immediate assurance of its existence absolutely.[104]

The great region for the illustration of these active illusions is that of the moral and religious life. With respect to our real motives, our dominant aspirations, and our highest emotional experiences, we are greatly liable to deceive ourselves. The moralist and the theologian have clearly recognized the possibilities of self-deception in matters of feeling and impulse. To them it is no mystery that the human heart should mistake the fictitious for the real, the momentary and evanescent for the abiding. And they have recognized, too, the double bias in these errors, namely, the powerful disposition to exaggerate the intensity and persistence of a present feeling on the one hand, and on the other hand to take a mere wish to feel in a particular way for the actual possession of the feeling.

Philosophic Illusions.

The opinion of theologians respecting the nature of moral introspection presents a singular contrast to that entertained by some philosophers as to the nature of self-consciousness. It is supposed by many of these that in interrogating their internal consciousness they are lifted above all risk of error. The "deliverance of consciousness" is to them something bearing the seal of a supreme authority, and must not be called in question. And so they make an appeal to individual consciousness a final resort in all matters of philosophical dispute.

Now, on the face of it, it does not seem probable that this operation should have an immunity from all liability to error. For the matters respecting which we are directed to introspect ourselves, are the most subtle and complex things of our intellectual and emotional life. And some of these philosophers even go so far as to affirm that the plain man is quite equal to the niceties of this process.

It has been brought as a charge against some of these same philosophers that they have based certain of their doctrines on errors of introspection. This charge must, of course, be received with some sort of suspicion here, since it has been brought forward by avowed disciples of an opposite philosophic school. Nevertheless, as there is from our present disinterested and purely scientific point of view a presumption that philosophers like other men are fallible, and since it is certain that philosophical introspection does not materially differ from other kinds, it seems permissible just to glance at some of these alleged illusions in relation to other and more vulgar forms. Further reference to them will be made at the end of our study.

These so-called philosophical illusions will be found, like the vulgar ones just spoken of, to illustrate the distinction drawn between passive and active illusions. That is to say, the alleged misreading of individual consciousness would result now from a confusion of distinct elements, including wrong suggestion, due to the intricacies of the phenomena, now from a powerful predisposition to read something into the phenomena.

A kind of illusion in which the passive element seems most conspicuous would be the error into which the interrogator of the individual consciousness is said to fall respecting simple unanalyzable states of mind. On the face of it, it is not likely that a mere inward glance at the tangle of conscious states should suffice to determine what is such a perfectly simple mental phenomenon. Accordingly, when a writer declares that an act of introspection demonstrates the simple unanalyzable character of such a feeling as the sentiment of beauty or that of moral approval, the opponent of this view clearly has some show of argument for saying that this simplicity may be altogether illusory and due to the absence of a perfect act of attention. Similarly, when it is said that the idea of space contains no representations of muscular sensation, the statement may clearly arise from the want of a sufficiently careful kind of introspective analysis.[105]

In most cases of these alleged philosophical errors, however, the active and passive factors seem to combine. There are certain intricacies in the mental phenomenon itself favouring the chances of error, and there are independent predispositions leading the mind to look at the phenomenon in a wrong way. This seems to apply to the famous declaration of a certain school of thinkers that by an act of introspection we can intuit the fact of liberty, that is to say, a power of spontaneous determination of action superior to and regulative of the influence of motives. It may be plausibly contended that this idea arises partly from a mixing up of facts of present consciousness with inferences from them, and partly from a natural predisposition of the mind to invest itself with this supreme power of absolute origination.[106]

In a similar way, it might be contended that other famous philosophic dicta are founded on a process of erroneous introspection of subjective mental states. In some cases, indeed, it seems a plausible explanation to regard these illusions as mere survivals in attenuated shadowy form of grosser popular illusions. But this is not yet the time to enter on these, which, moreover, hardly fall perhaps under our definition of an illusion of introspection.

Value of the Introspective Method.

In drawing up this rough sketch of the illusions of introspection, I have had no practical object in view. I have tried to look at the facts as they are apart from any conclusions to be drawn from them. The question how far the liability to error in any region of inquiry vitiates the whole process is a difficult one; and the question whether the illusions to which we are subject in introspection materially affect the value of self-knowledge as a whole and consequently of the introspective method in psychology, as many affirm, is too subtle a one to be fully treated now. All that I shall attempt here is to show that it does not do this any more than the risk of sense-illusion can be said materially to affect the value of external observation.

It is to be noted first of all that the errors of introspection are much more limited than those of sense-perception. They broadly answer to the slight errors connected with the discrimination and recognition of the sense-impression. There is nothing answering to a complete hallucination in the sphere of the inner mental life. It follows, too, from what has been said above, that the amount of active error in introspection is insignificant, since the representation of a feeling or belief is so very similar to the actual experience of it.

In brief, the errors of introspection, though numerous, are all too slight to render the process of introspection as a whole unsound and untrustworthy. Though, as we have seen, it involves, strictly speaking, an ingredient of representation, this fact does not do away with the broad distinction between presentative and representative cognition. Introspection is presentative in the sense that the reality constituting the object of cognition, the mind's present feeling, is as directly present to the knowing mind as anything can be conceived to be. It may be added that the power of introspection is a comparatively new acquisition of the human race, and that, as it improves, the amount of error connected with its operation may reasonably be expected to become infinitesimal.

It is often supposed by those who undervalue the introspective method in psychology that there is a special difficulty in the detection of error in introspection, owing to the fact that the object of inspection is something individual and private, and not open to common scrutiny as the object of external perception. Yet, while allowing a certain force to this objection I would point out, first of all, that even in sense-perception, what the individual mind is immediately certain of is its own sensations. The relatively perfect certainty which finally attaches to the presentative side of sense-perception is precisely that which finally attaches to the results of introspection.

In the second place, it may be said that the contrast between the inner and the outer experience is much less than it seems. In many cases our emotions are the direct result of a common external cause, and even when they are not thus attached to some present external circumstance, we are able, it is admitted, by the use of language, roughly to compare our individual feelings. And such comparison is continually bringing to light the fact that there is a continuity in our mental structure, that our highest thoughts and emotions lead us back to our common sense-impressions, and that consequently, in spite of all individual differences of temperament and mental organization, our inner experience is in all its larger features a common experience.

I may add that this supposition of the common nature of our internal experience, as a whole, not only underlies the science of psychology, but is implied in the very process of detecting and correcting errors of introspection. I do not mean that in matters of feeling "authority" is to override "private judgment." Our last resort with respect to things of the mind is, as I have said, that of careful self-inspection. And the progress of psychology and the correction of illusion proceed by means of an ever-improving exercise of the introspective faculty. Yet such individual inspection can at least be guided by the results of others' similar inspection, and should be so guided as soon as a general consensus in matters of internal experience is fairly made out. In point of fact, the preceding discussion of illusions of introspection has plainly rested on the sufficiently verified assumption that the calmest and most efficient kind of introspection, in bringing to light what is permanent as compared with what is variable in the individual cognition, points in the direction of a common body of introspected fact.