From these sources there spring a number of small errors of
introspection which, to distinguish them from others to be spoken of
presently, may be called passive. These would include all errors in
detecting what is in consciousness due to the intricacies of the
phenomena, and not aided by any strong basis. For example, a mental
state may fail to disclose its component parts to introspective
attention. Thus, a motive may enter into our action which is so
entangled with other feelings as to escape our notice. The fainter the
feeling the greater the difficulty of detaching it and inspecting it in
isolation. Again, an error of introspection may have its ground in the
fugitive character of a feeling. If, for example, a man is asked whether
a rapid action was a voluntary one, he may in retrospection easily
imagine that it was not so, when as a matter of fact the action was
preceded by a momentary volition. When a person exclaims, "I did a thing
inadvertently or mechanically," it often means that he did not note the
motive underlying the action. Such transitory feelings which cannot at
the moment be seized by an act of attention are pretty certain to
disappear at once, leaving not even a temporary trace in consciousness.
We will now pass to the consideration of other illusions of
introspection more analogous to what I have called the active illusions
of perception. In our examination of these we found that a pure
representation may under certain circumstances simulate the appearance
of a presentation, that a mental image may approximate to a
sense-impression. In the case of the internal feelings this liability
shows itself in a still more striking form.
The higher feelings or emotions are distinguished from the simple
sense-feelings in being largely representative. Thus, a feeling of
contentment at any moment, though no doubt conditioned by the bodily
state and the character of the organic sensations or coenaesthesis,
commonly depends for the most part on intellectual representations of
external circumstances or relations, and may be called an ideal
foretaste of actual satisfactions, such as the pleasures of success, of
companionship, and so on. This being so, it is easy for imagination to
call up a semblance of these higher feelings. Since they depend largely
on representation, a mere act of representation may suffice to excite a
degree of the feeling hardly distinguishable from the actual one. Thus,
to imagine myself as contented is really to see myself at the moment as
actually contented. Again, the actor, though, as we shall see by-and-by,
he does not feel all that the spectator is apt to attribute to him,
tends, when vividly representing to himself a particular shade of
feeling, to regard himself as actually feeling in this way. Thus, it is
said of Garrick, that when acting Richard III., he felt himself for the
moment to be a villain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account