Illusions : a psychological study.

  • Sully, James, 1842-1923.
Date:
1887
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illusions : a psychological study. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    in a position to take up these facts into its particular theory, and to view them in its own way. But in addition to this scientific psychology, there is another so-called psychology, which is, strictly speaking, philosophic. This, I need hardly say, is the association philosophy. It proceeds by analyzing certain cognitions and sentiments into their elements, and straightway declaring that they mean nothiug more than these. That is to say, the associationist passes from genesis to validity, from the history of a conscious state to its objective meaning. Thus, from showing that an intuitive belief, say that in causation, is not original (in the individual or at least in the race), it goes on to assert that it is not a valid imme- diate cognition at all. Now, I am not concerned here to inquire into the logical value of this transition, but simply to point out that it is extra-scientific and dis- tinctly philosophic. If logically justifiable, it is so because of some plainly 'philosophic assumption, as that made by Hume, namely, that all ideas not derived from impressions are to this extent fictitious or illusory. And now we are in a position to understand the bearing of our scientific analysis of acknowledged illusions on the associationist’s treatment of the alleged illusions of common sense. There is no doubt, I think, that some of the so-called intuitions of common sense have points of analogy to acknowledged illusions. For example, the conviction in the act of perception that something external to the mind and independent of it exists, has a certain superficial resemblance to an hallu- cination of sense; and moreover, the associationist seeks to explain it by means of these very processes which