[140] James Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, edited by J.S. Mill, vol. i p. 414, et seq.
[141] Principles of Geology, ch. iii.
[142] To make this rough analysis more complete, I ought, perhaps, to include the effect of all the errors of introspection, memory, and spontaneous belief, into which the person himself falls, in so far as they communicate themselves to others.
[143] In the case of a vain woman thinking herself much more pretty than others think her, the error is still more obviously one connected with a belief in objective fact.
[144] The Study of Sociology, ch. ix.
[145] As a matter of fact, the proportion of accurate knowledge to error is far larger in the case of classes than of individuals. Propositions with general terms for subject are less liable to be faulty than propositions with singular terms for subject.
[146] For a description of each of these extremes of boundless gaiety and utter despondency, see Griesinger, op. cit., Bk. III. ch. i. and ii. The relation of pessimism to pathological conditions is familiar enough; less familiar is the relation of unrestrained optimism. Yet Griesinger writes that among the insane "boundless hilarity," with "a feeling of good fortune," and a general contentment with everything, is as frequent as depression and repining (see especially p. 281, also pp. 64, 65).
[147] It has been seen that, from a purely psychological point of view, even what looks at first like pure presentative cognition, as, for example, the recognition of a present feeling of the mind, involves an ingredient of representation.
[148] See especially what was said about the rationale of illusions of perception, pp. 37, 38.
[149] I say "usually," because, as we have seen, there may sometimes be a permanent and even an inherited predisposition to active illusion in the individual temperament and nervous organization.