tters
respecting which we are directed to introspect ourselves, are the most
subtle and complex things of our intellectual and emotional life. And
some of these philosophers even go so far as to affirm that the plain
man is quite equal to the niceties of this process.

It has been brought as a charge against some of these same philosophers
that they have based certain of their doctrines on errors of
introspection. This charge must, of course, be received with some sort
of suspicion here, since it has been brought forward by avowed disciples
of an opposite philosophic school. Nevertheless, as there is from our
present disinterested and purely scientific point of view a presumption
that philosophers like other men are fallible, and since it is certain
that philosophical introspection does not materially differ from other
kinds, it seems permissible just to glance at some of these alleged
illusions in relation to other and more vulgar forms. Further reference
to them will be made at the end of our study.

These so-called philosophical illusions will be found, like the vulgar
ones just spoken of, to illustrate the distinction drawn between passive
and active illusions. That is to say, the alleged misreading of
individual consciousness would result now from a confusion of distinct
elements, including wrong suggestion, due to the intricacies of the
phenomena, now from a powerful predisposition to read something into the
phenomena.

A kind of illusion in which the passive element seems most conspicuous
would be the error into which the interrogator of the individual
consciousness is said to fall respecting simple unanalyzable states of
mind. On the face of it, it is not likely that a mere inward glance at
the tangle of conscious states should suffice to determine what is such
a perfectly simple mental phenomenon. Accordingly, when a writer
declares that an act of introspection demonstrates the simple
unanalyzable character of such a feeling as the sentiment of beauty or
that of moral approval, the opponent of this view clearly has some show
of argument for saying that this simplicity may be altogether illusory
and due to the absence of a perfect act of attention. Similarly, when it
is said that the idea of space contains no representations of muscular
sensation, the statement may clearly arise from the want of a
sufficiently careful kind of introspective analysis.[105]

In most cases of these alleged philosophical errors,