We see, then, that, in spite of obvious differences in the form, the
process in all kinds of immediate cognition is fundamentally identical.
It is essentially a bringing together of elements, whether similar or
dissimilar and associated by a link of contiguity, and a viewing of
these as connected parts, of a whole; it is a process of synthesis. And
illusion, in all its forms, is bad grouping or carelessly performed
synthesis. This holds good even of the simplest kinds of error in which
a presentative element is wrongly classed; and it holds good of those
more conspicuous errors of perception, memory, expectation, and compound
belief, in which representations connect themselves in an order not
perfectly answering to the objective order.
This view of the nature and causes of illusion is clearly capable of
being expressed in physical language. Bad grouping of psychical elements
is equivalent to imperfect co-ordination of their physical, that is to
say, nervous, conditions, imperfect in the evolutionist's sense, as not
exactly according with external relations. So far as illusions of
suggestion (passive illusions) are concerned, the error is connected
with organized tendencies, due to a limited action of experience. On the
other hand, illusions of preconception (active illusions) usually
involve no such deeply fixed or permanent organic connections, but
merely a temporary confluence of nerve-processes.[149] The nature of the
physical process is best studied in the case of errors of
sense-perception. Yet we may hypothetically argue that even in the case
of the most complex errors, as those of memory and of belief, there is
implied a deviation in the mode of connection of nervous structures
(whether the connection be permanent or temporary) from the external
order of facts.
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