=150. Illusions coming from ourselves.=--1. A first cause of illusion in the judgments we pass upon things, is to take our interest for a motive of belief: "I am of such or such a country, _ergo_, I must believe that such or such a saint has preached the Gospel there; I belong to such or such a class, _ergo_, I believe that such or such a privilege is a just one." 2. Our affections are another cause of illusion: "I love him, _ergo_, he is the cleverest man in the world; I hate him, _ergo_, he is nobody." This is what may be called the sophistry of the heart. 3. Illusions of self-love. There are some who decide about everything by the general and very convenient principle, that they must be in the right. They listen but little to the reasons of others; they wish to carry everything before them by main authority, and treat all those who are not of their opinion as indifferent thinkers. Some even, without suspecting it, go so far as to say to themselves: "If it were so, I should not be the clever man I am: or, I am a clever man; _ergo_, it is not so." 4. Reciprocal reproaches which people may make to each other with the same right: for example, you are a caviler, you are selfish, blind, dishonest, etc. Whence this equitable and judicious rule of Saint Augustine: "Let us avoid in discussions mutual reproaching; reproaches which, though they may not be true at that moment, may justly be made by both parties." 5. A spirit of contradiction and dispute, so admirably depicted by Montaigne: "We only learn to dispute that we may contradict, and every one contradicting and being contradicted, it falls out that the fruit of disputation is to lose and nullify the truth.... One flies to the east, the other to the west; they lose the principal, and wander in the crowd of incidents; after an hour of tempest, they know not what they seek; one is low, the other high, and a third wide; one catches at a word and a simile; another is no longer sensible of what is said in opposition to him, being entirely absorbed in his own notions, engaged in following his own course, and not thinking of answering you; another, finding himself weak, fears all, refuses all, and, at the very beginning, confounds the subjects, or, in the very height of the dispute, stops short, and grows silent; by a peevish ignorance affecting a proud contempt, or an unseasonable modest desire to shun debate...." 6. The contrary defect, namely, a sycophantic amiability, which approves of everything and admires everything: example, the _Philinte_ of Molière. Besides these different illusions which are due to ourselves and our own weaknesses, there are others engendered from without, or at least from the divers aspects under which things present themselves to us: