Illusions by James Sully (story reading txt) π
And here at once there forces itself on our attention the question, What exactly is to be understood by the term "illusion"? In scientific works treating of the pathology of the subject, the word is confined to what are specially known as illusions of the senses, that is to say, to false or illusory perceptions. And there is very good reason for this limitation, since such illusions of the senses are the most palpable and striking symptoms of mental disease. In addition to this,
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This attitude of the scientific mind towards philosophic problems will be confirmed when it is seen that those who seek to resolve stable common convictions into illusions are forced, by their very mode of demonstration, to allow these intuitions a measure of validity. Thus, the ideas of the unity and externality attributed to the object in the act of perception are said by the associationist to answer to a matter of fact, namely, the permanent coexistence of certain possibilities of sensation, and the dependence of the single sensations of the individual on the presence of the most permanent of these possibilities, namely, those of the active or muscular and passive sensations of touch, which are, moreover, by far the most constant for all minds. Similarly, the idea of a necessary connection between cause and effect, even if illusory in so far as it expresses an objective necessity, is allowed to be true as an expression of that uniformity of our experience which all scientific progress tends to illustrate more and more distinctly. And even the idea of a permanent self, as distinct from particular fugitive feelings, is admitted by the associationist to be correct in so far as it expresses the fact that mind is "a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future." In short, these "illusory intuitions," by the showing of those who affirm them to be illusory, are by no means hallucinations having no real object as their correlative, but merely illusions in the narrow sense, and illusions, moreover, in which the ratio of truth to error seems to be a large one.
It would thus appear that philosophy tends, after all, to unsettle what appear to be permanent convictions of the common mind and the presuppositions of science much less than is sometimes imagined. Our intuitions of external realities, our indestructible belief in the uniformity of nature, in the nexus of cause and effect, and so on, are, by the admission of all philosophers, at least partially and relatively true; that is to say, true in relation to certain features of our common experience. At the worst, they can only be called illusory as slightly misrepresenting the exact results of this experience. And even so, the misrepresentation must, by the very nature of the case, be practically insignificant. And so in full view of the subtleties of philosophic speculation, the man of science may still feel justified in regarding his standard of truth, a stable consensus of belief, as above suspicion.
A.
Abercrombie, Dr. J, 141, note[82], 278.
Abnormal life, relation of,
to normal, 1, 120, 121, 124, 182, 277, 284, note[132], 336;
effects of amputation, 62;
modification of sensibility in, 65;
gross sense-illusions of, 111, hallucinations of, 118;
sense of personal identity in, 289.
Active, stage in perception, 27;
illusion distinguished from passive, 45, 332-334.
Actor. See Theatre.
Adaptation, illusion as want of, 124, 188, 339.
Γsthetic intuition, 213;
illusions of, 214.
After-dreams, 144, 183.
After-sensation, after-impression, 55, 115.
Anæsthesia, 65.
Ancestral experience, results of, 281.
Animals, recognition of portraits by, 105;
expectation of, 298.
Anthropomorphism, 225, 360.
Anticipation. See Expectation.
Apparitions. See Hallucination.
Aristotle, 130.
Art, illusions of, 77, 104.
Artemidoros, 129.
Association, laws of, in perception, 22;
in dreams, 153, 156;
link of resemblance in dreams, 159;
associative dispositions in dreams, 169;
effect of, in insight, 221;
inseparable, 359.
Associationist, views of, 349, 352, 355.
Attention, involved in perception 21;
absence of, in sense-illusion, 39, 87;
relation of, to recognition of objects, 90;
expectant, 93;
attitude of, in dreaming, 137, 172;
to internal mental states, 194;
absence of, in errors of insight, 228.
Authority, influence of, in introspection, 210;
in belief, 325.
Autobiography, errors connected with, 276, 280.
Automatic activity of centres, in hallucinations, 113;
in dreams, 136, 151;
automatic intellectual processes, 300, 335, 352.
B.
Baillarger, J., 13, note [1], 113, note[57], 119,
notes[64] and [65]], 120, note[66].
Bain, Dr. A., 32, note[12], 117, note[60], 190.
Beattie, J., 141, note[82]].
Beauty, sentiment of, 206, 213.
Belief, immediate, 14, 15, 294;
simple and compound, 296;
illusory forms of, 297;
simple expectation, 297;
expectation, of extra-personal experiences, 307;
retrospective, 309;
in persistent objects and persons, 312;
self-esteem, 315;
representation of classes of things, 322;
representations of mankind, 322;
representation of life and the world as a whole, 322;
as predisposition to error, 324;
amount of divergence in, 325;
tendency towards convergence in, 326.
Beneficial, correct knowledge as, 340;
illusion as, 342.
Berkeley, Bishop, 218, 349, note[154].
Binet, A., 53, note[20].
Boismont, Brierre de, 11, note[1].
BΓΆrner, J., 146.
Braid, James, 186, 187.
Brewster, Sir D., 42, 73, 81, 116.
BrΓΌcke, E., 77, note[38].
Byron, Lord, 116.
C.
Carpenter, Dr. W.B., 32, note[12], 108, 110, note[56], 186, 231,
note[111], 265, note[125], 276.
Castle-building, as illusory perception, 3, 99.
Cause, idea of, in science, 344;
reality of relation of, 347, 349, 356, 360.
Change, a condition of conscious life, 252, 287, note[133].
Childhood, our recollections of, 263, 269.
Children, curiosity of, 175, 180;
estimate of time by, 256;
confusion of dream and waking life by, 276;
imagination of, 279;
self-assertion of, 319;
intellectual condition of, 357, note[159].
Clarke, Dr. E.H., 117.
Classification, in recognition of sensation, 21;
in recognition, of object, 24;
in introspective recognition, 193.
Clifford, Professor W.K., 56, note[24].
Coalescence, of sensations, 43, 52;
of dream-images, 162;
of internal feelings, 196;
of mnemonic images, 265.
CΕnΓ¦sthesis, 41, 99, 145, 286, 288.
Cognition, immediate or intuitive, 5, 14-16, 294;
presentative and representative, 9, 13, 217, 330;
nature of, in dreams, 168, 172;
nature of, generally, 295, 331;
philosophic problems of, 346.
Colour, external reality of, 8, 37;
illusory perception of, 37, 88;
subjective complementary colours (colour-contrast), 67, 83.
Coloured media, objects seen through, 82.
Common cognition, and truth, 337;
genesis and validity of, 353.
Common experience distinguished from
individual, 26, 27, 137, 209, 214, 336, 351;
illusion as, 47,325, 337.
Common sense, intuitions of, 346, 349, 352, 357.
Complementary colours, 67, 83.
Concave, apparent conversion of, into convex, 84.
Conjuror, tricks of, 56, 106.
Consciousness, veracity of, 192, 205;
inspection of phenomena of, 196;
of self, 283, 285.
Consensus, the standard of truth, 7, 8, 211, 325, 338, 357.
Conservation of energy, 343.
Construction, rational, in dreams, 170.
Continuum, the perception of the world as, 52, 56, note[24] .
Correction of illusion, in sense-illusion, 38, 124, 137;
dreams, 182;
introspection, 210;
insight, 229;
memory, 291;
historical correction 338;
intellectual processes involved in, 351.
Criterion of illusion, 337.
Cudworth, R., 161
D.
Deception of the senses, 19;
self-deception, 200;
conscious deception of others, 222.
DelbΕuf, J., 175, note[97]. 235, note[113].
Delirium tremens, 118, note[62].
Democritus, 130.
De Quincey, 253, 280.
Descartes,
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