be tinged with that mass of error which we have found to be connected with single acts of introspection, recollections of past personal experience, and illusory single expectations of future personal experiences.  How large an opening for erroneous conviction here presents itself can only be understood by a reference to certain deeply fixed impulses and feelings connected with, the very consciousness of self, and favouring what I have marked off as active illusion.  I shall try to show very briefly that each man’s intuitive persuasion of his own powers, gifts, or importance—­in brief, of his own particular value, contains, from the first, a palpable ingredient of active illusion.

Most persons, one supposes, have with more or less distinct consciousness framed a notion of their own value, if not to the world generally, at least to themselves.  And this notion, however undefined it may be, is held to with a singular tenacity of belief.  The greater part of mankind, indeed, seem never to entertain the question whether they really possess points of excellence.  They assume it as a matter perfectly self-evident, and appear to believe in their vaguely conceived worth on the same immediate testimony of consciousness by which they assure themselves of their personal existence.  Indeed, the conviction of personal consequence may be said to be a constant factor in most men’s consciousness.  However restrained by the rules of polite intercourse, it betrays its existence and its energy in innumerable ways.  It displays itself most triumphantly when the mind is suddenly isolated from other minds, when other men unite in heaping neglect and contempt on the believer’s head.  In these moments he proves an almost heroic strength of confidence, believing in himself and in his claims to careful consideration when all his acquaintance are practically avowing their disbelief.

The intensity of this belief in personal value may be observed in very different forms.  The young woman who, quite independently of others’ opinion, and even in defiance of it, cherishes a conviction that her external attractions have a considerable value; the young man who, in the face of general indifference, persists in his habit of voluble talk on the supposition that he is conferring on his fellow-creatures the fruits of profound wisdom; and the man of years whose opinion of his own social importance and moral worth is quite disproportionate to the estimation which others form of his claims—­these alike illustrate the force and pertinacity of the belief.

There are, no doubt, many exceptions to this form of self-appreciation.  In certain robust minds, but little given to self-reflection, the idea of personal value rarely occurs.  And then there are timid, sensitive natures that betray a tendency to self-distrust of all kinds, and to an undue depreciation of personal merit.  Yet even here traces of an impulse to think well of self will appear to the attentive eye, and one can generally recognize that this impulse is only kept down by some other stronger force, as, for example, extreme sensitiveness to the judgment of others, great conscientiousness, and so on.  And however this be, it will be allowed that the average man rates himself highly.