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]