Illusions Part 21

[91] I was on one occasion able to observe this process going on in the transition from waking to sleeping. I partly fell asleep when suffering from toothache. Instantly the successive throbs of pain transformed themselves into a sequence of visible movements, which I can only vaguely describe as the forward strides of some menacing adversary.

[92] Even the "unconscious impressions" of waking hours, that is to say, those impressions which are so fugitive as to leave no psychical trace behind, may thus rise into the clear light of consciousness during sleep. Maury relates a curious dream of his own, in which there appeared a figure that seemed quite strange to him, though he afterwards found that he must have been in the habit of meeting the original in a street through which he was accustomed to walk (_loc. cit._, p. 124).

[93] See p. 53.

[94] See Maury, _loc. cit._, p. 146.

[95] See what was said respecting the influence of a dominant emotional agitation on the interpretation of actual sense-impressions.

[96] It is proved experimentally that the ear has a much closer organic connection with the vocal organ than the eye has. Donders found that the period required for responding vocally to a sound-signal is less than that required for responding in the same way to a light-signal.

[97] On the nature of this impulse, as ill.u.s.trated in waking and in sleep, see the article by Delboeuf, "Le Sommeil et les Reves," in the _Revue Philosophique_, June, 1880, p. 636.

[98] _Physiologische Psychologie_, p. 660.

[99] I may, perhaps, observe, after giving two dreams which have to do with mathematical operations, that, though I was very fond of them in my college days, I have long ceased to occupy myself with these processes.

I would add, by way of redeeming my dream-intelligence from a deserved charge of silliness, that I once performed a respectable intellectual feat when asleep. I put together the riddle, "What might a wooden ship say when her side was stove in? Tremendous!" (Tree-mend-us). I was aware of having tried to improve on the form of this pun. I am happy to say I am not given to punning during waking life, though I had a fit of it once. It strikes me that punning, consisting as it does essentially of overlooking sense and attending to sound, is just such a debased kind of intellectual activity as one might look for in sleep.

[100] See Radestock, _op. cit._, ch. ix.; _Vergleichung des Traumes mit dem Wahnsinn_.

[101] For Spinoza's experience, given in his own words, see Mr. F.

Pollock's _Spinoza_, p. 57; _cf._ what Wundt says on his experience, _Physiologische Psychologie_, p. 648, footnote 2.

[102] See an interesting account of "Recent Researches on Hypnotism," by G. Stanley Hall, in _Mind_, January, 1881.

[103] I need hardly observe that physiology shows that there is no separation of different elementary colour-sensations which are locally identical.

[104] This kind of error is, of course, common to all kinds of cognition, in so far as they involve comparison. Thus, the presence of the excitement of the emotion of wonder at the sight of an unusually large object, say a mountain, disposes the mind to look on it as the largest of its cla.s.s. Such illusions come midway between presentative and representative illusions. They might, perhaps, be specially marked off as illusions of "judgment."

[105] So far as any mental state, though originating in a fusion of elements, is now una.n.a.lyzable by the best effort of attention, we must of course regard it in its present form as simple. This distinction between what is simple or complex in its present nature, and what is originally so, is sometimes overlooked by psychologists. Whether the feelings and ideas here referred to are now simple or complex, cannot, I think, yet be very certainly determined. To take the idea of s.p.a.ce, I find that after practice I recognize the ingredient of muscular feeling much better than I did at first. And this exactly answers to Helmholtz's contention that elementary sensations as partial tones can be detected after practice. Such separate recognition may be said to depend on correct representation. On the other hand, it must be allowed that there is room for the intuitionist to say that the a.s.sociationist is here reading something into the idea which does not belong to it. It is to be added that the illusion which the a.s.sociationist commonly seeks to fasten on his opponent is that of confusing final with original simplicity. Thus, he says that, though the idea of s.p.a.ce may now to all intents and purposes be simple, it was really built up out of many distinct elements. More will be said on the relation of questions of nature and genesis further on.

[106] I may as well be frank and say that I myself, a.s.suming free-will to be an illusion, have tried to trace the various threads of influence which have contributed to its remarkable vitality. (See _Sensation and Intuition_, ch. v., "The Genesis of the Free-Will Doctrine.")

[107] I purposely leave aside here the philosophical question, whether the knowledge of others' feelings is intuitive in the sense of being altogether independent of experience, and the manifestation of a fundamental belief. The inherited power referred to in the text might, of course, be viewed as a transmitted result of ancestral experience.

[108] I here a.s.sume, along with G.H. Lewes and other competent dramatic critics, that the actor does not and dares not feel what he expresses, at least not in the perfectly spontaneous way, and in the same measure in which he appears to feel it.

[109] The illusory nature of much of this emotional interpretation of music has been ably exposed by Mr. Gurney. (See _The Power of Sound_, p.

345, _et seq._)

[110] The reader will note that this impulse is complementary to the other impulse to view all mental states as a.n.a.logous to impressions produced by external things, on which I touched in the last chapter.

[111] Errors of memory have sometimes been called "fallacies," as, for example, by Dr. Carpenter (_Human Physiology_, ch. x.). While preferring the term "illusion," I would not forget to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Carpenter, who first set me seriously to consider the subject of mnemonic error.

[112] From this it would appear to follow that, so far as a percept is representative, recollection must be re-representative.

[113] The relation of memory to recognition is very well discussed by M.

Delboeuf, in connection with a definition of memory given by Descartes. (See the article "Le Sommeil et les Reves," in the _Revue Philosophique_, April, 1880, p. 428, _et seq._)

[114] A very interesting account of the most recent physiological theory of memory is to be found in a series of articles, bearing the t.i.tle, "La Memoire comme fait biologique," published in the _Revue Philosophique_, from the pen of the editor, M. Th. Ribot. (See especially the _Revue_ of May, 1880, pp. 516, _et seq._) M. Ribot speaks of the modification of particular nerve-elements as "the static base" of memory, and of the formation of nerve-connections by means of which the modified element may be re-excited to activity as "the dynamic base of memory" (p. 535).

[115] What const.i.tutes the difference between such a progressive and a retrogressive movement is a point that will be considered by-and-by.

[116] It is not easy to say how far exceptional conditions may serve to reinstate the seemingly forgotten past. Yet the experiences of dreamers and of those who have been recalled to consciousness after partial drowning, whatever they may prove with respect to the revivability of remote experiences, do not lead us to imagine that the range of our definitely localizing memory is a wide one.

[117] _Der Zeitsinn nach Versuchen_, p. 36, _et seq._

[118] _Physiologische Psychologie_, p. 782.

[119] Wundt refers these errors to variations in the state of preadjustment of the attention to impressions and representations, according as they succeed one another slowly or rapidly. There is little doubt that the effects of the state of tension of the apparatus of attention, are involved here, though I am disposed to think that Wundt makes too much of this circ.u.mstance. (See _Physiologische Psychologie_, pp. 782, 783. I have given a fuller account of Wundt's theory in _Mind_, No. i.)

[120] Strictly speaking, it would occupy more time, since the effort of recalling each successive link in the chain would involve a greater interval between any two images than that between the corresponding experiences.

[121] I need hardly say that there is no sharp distinction between these two modes of subjective appreciation. Our estimate of an interval as it pa.s.ses is really made up of a number of renewed antic.i.p.ations and recollections of the successive experiences. Yet we can say broadly that this is a prospective estimate, while that which is formed when the period has quite expired must be altogether retrospective.

[122] See an interesting paper on "Consciousness of Time," by Mr. G. J.

Romanes, in _Mind_ (July, 1878).

[123] It is well known that there is, from the first, a gradual falling off in the strength of a sensation of light when a moderately bright object is looked at.

[124] _Cf._ Hartley, _Observations on Man_, Part I. ch. iii. sec. 4 (fifth edit., p. 391).

[125] See Dr. Carpenter's _Mental Physiology_, fourth edit, p. 456.

[126] This is, perhaps, what is meant by saying that people recall their past enjoyments more readily than their sufferings. Yet much seems to turn on temperament and emotional peculiarities. (For a fuller discussion of the point, see my _Pessimism_, p. 344.)

[127] The only exception to this that I can think of is to be found in the power which I, at least, possess, after looking at a new object, of representing it as a familiar one. Yet this may be explained by saying that in the case of every object which is clearly apprehended there must be vague revivals of _similar_ objects perceived before. Oases in which recent experiences tend, owing to their peculiar nature, very rapidly to a.s.sume the appearance of old events, will be considered presently.

[128] _Mental Physiology_, p. 456.

[129] _Mental Physiology_, second edit., p. 172.

[130] _Loc. cit._, p. 390.

[131] This source of error has not escaped the notice of autobiographers themselves. See the remarks of Goethe in the opening pa.s.sages of his _Wahrheit und Dichtung_.

[132] One wonders whether those persons who, in consequence of an injury to their brain, periodically pa.s.s from a normal into an abnormal condition of mind, in each of which there is little or no memory of the contents of the other state, complete their idea of personal continuity in each state by the same kind of process as that described in the text.

[133] The reader will remark that this condition of clear intellectual consciousness, namely, a certain degree of similarity and continuity of character in our successive mental states, is complementary to the other condition, constant change, already referred to. It may, perhaps, be said that all clear consciousness lies between two extremes of excessive sameness and excessive difference.

[134] It follows that any great transformation of our environment may lead to a partial confusion with respect to self. For not only do great and violent changes in our surroundings beget profound changes in our feelings and ideas, but since the idea of self is under one of its aspects essentially that of a relation to not-self, any great revolution in the one term, will confuse the recognition of the other. This fact is expressed in the common expression that we "lose ourselves" when in unfamiliar surroundings, and the process of orientation, or "taking our bearings," fails.

[135] On these disturbances of memory and self-recognition in insanity, see Griesinger, _op. cit._, pp. 49-51; also Ribot, "Des Desordres Generaux de la Memoire," in the _Revue Philosophique_, August, 1880. It is related by Leuret (_Fragments Psych. sur la Folie_, p. 277) that a patient spoke of his former self as "la personne de moi-meme."

[136] In the following account of the process of belief and its errors, I am going over some of the ground traversed by my essay on _Belief, its Varieties and Conditions_ ("Sensation and Intuition," ch. iv.). To this essay I must refer the reader for a fuller a.n.a.lysis of the subject.

[137] For an account of the difference of mechanism in memory and expectation, see Taine, _De l'Intelligence_, 2ieme partie, livre premier, ch. ii. sec. 6.

[138] J.S. Mill distinguishes expectation as a radically distinct mode of belief from memory, but does not bring out the contrast with respect to activity here emphasized (James Mill's _a.n.a.lysis of the Human Mind_, edited by J.S. Mill, p. 411, etc.). For a fuller statement of my view of the relation of belief to action, as compared with that of Professor Bain, see my earlier work.