ough intuitive in form, are
obviously determined by previous experience, association, and habit.
Hence, on its passive side, an illusion of insight may be described as a
wrong interpretation of a new or exceptional case. For example, having
associated the representation of a slight feeling of astonishment with
uplifted eyebrows, we irresistibly tend to see a face in which this is a
constant feature as expressing this particular shade of emotion. In this
way we sometimes fall into grotesque errors as to mental traits. And the
most practised physiognomist may not unfrequently err by importing the
results of his special circle of experiences into new and unlike cases.

Much the same thing occurs in language. Our timbre of voice, our
articulation, and our vocabulary, like our physiognomy, have about them
something individual, and error often arises from overlooking this, and
hastily reading common interpretations into exceptional cases. The
misunderstandings that arise even among the most open and confiding
friends sufficiently illustrate this liability to error.

Sometimes the error becomes more palpable, as, for example, when we
visit another country. A foreign language, when heard, provokingly
suggests all kinds of absurd meanings through analogies to our familiar
tongue. Thus, the Englishman who visits Germany cannot, for a time, hear
a lady use the expression, "Mein Mann," without having the amusing
suggestion that the speaker is wishing to call special attention to the
fact of her husband's masculinity. And doubtless the German who visits
us derives a similar kind of amusement from such involuntary
comparisons.

A fertile source of illusory insight is, of course, conscious deception
on the part of others. The rules of polite society require us to be
hypocrites in a small way, and we have occasionally to affect the signs
of amiability, interest, and amusement, when our actual sentiment is one
of indifference, weariness, or even positive antipathy. And in this way
a good deal of petty illusion arises. Although we may be well aware of
the general untrustworthiness of this society behaviour, such is the
force of association and habit, that the bland tone and flattering word
irresistibly excite a momentary feeling of gratification, an effect
which is made all the more easy by the co-operation of the recipient's
own wishes, touched on in the last chapter.

Among all varieties of this deception, that of the stage is the m