It is, indeed, doubtful whether in its first stages in early
life it is invariably so, for there seem to be good reasons for
attributing to the infant mind a certain degree of instinctive or
inherited capability in making out the looks and tones of others.[107]
And, however this may be, it is certain that with the progress of life a
good part of this interpretation comes to be automatic or unconscious,
approximating in character to a sense-perception. To recognize
contentment in a placid smile is, one would say, hardly less immediate
and intuitive than to recognize the coolness of a stream.

We must, of course, all allow that the fusion of the presentative and
the representative element is, speaking generally, more complete in the
case of sense-perception than in that here considered. In spite of
Berkeley's masterly account of the _rationale_ of visual perception as
an interpretation of "visual language" and all that has confirmed it,
the plain man cannot, at the moment of looking at an object, easily
bring himself to admit that distance is not directly present to his
vision. On the other hand, on cool reflection, he will recognize that
the complacent benevolent sentiment is distinct from the particular
movements and changes in the eye and other features which express it.
Yet, while admitting this, I must contend that there is no very hard and
fast line dividing the two processes, but that the reading of others'
feelings approximates in character to an act of perception.

An intuitive insight may, then, be defined as that instantaneous,
automatic, or "unconscious" mode of interpreting another's feeling
which occurs whenever the feeling is fully expressed, and when its signs
are sufficiently familiar to us. This definition will include the
interpretation of thoughts by means of language, though not, of course,
the belief in an objective fact grounded on a recognition of another's
belief. On the other hand, it will exclude all the more complex
interpretations of looks and words which imply conscious comparison,
reflection, and reasoning. Further, it will exclude a large part of the
interpretation of actions as motived, since this, though sometimes
approaching the intuitive form, is for the most part a process of
conjectural or doubtful inference, and wanting in the immediate
assurance which belongs to an intuitive reading of a present emotion or
thought.

From this short account of the process of insight, its relation t