[105] So far as any mental state, though originating in a fusion of elements, is now unanalyzable 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 space, 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 associationist is here reading something into the idea which does not belong to it.  It is to be added that the illusion which the associationist commonly seeks to fasten on his opponent is that of confusing final with original simplicity.  Thus, he says that, though the idea of space 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, assuming 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 assume, 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 analogous 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.