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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    impression of the moment, by which we are wont to “ orientate,” or take our bearings as to the position of things about us. In sleep, and in certain artificially produced states, much the same thing presents itself. Images become realities just because they are not instantly recognized as such by a reference to the actual surroundings of the moment. But in normal waking life this power of correction remains with us. We may not exercise it, it is true, and thus the illusion will tend to become more or less persistent and recur- ring; for the same law applies to true and to false per- ception : repetition makes the process easier. But it we only choose to exert ourselves, we can always keep our illusions in a nascent or imperfectly developed stage. This applies not only to those half-illusions into which we voluntarily fall, but also to the more irresistible passive illusions, and those arising from an over-excited imagination. Even persons subject to hal- lucinations, like Nicolai of Berlin, learn to recognize the unreal character of these phantasms. On this point the following bit of autobiography from the pen of Coleridge throws an interesting light. “ A lady (he writes) once asked me if I believed in ghosts and apparitions. I answered with truth and simplicity, No, madam, I have seen far too many myself.”1 How- ever irresistible our sense-illusions may be, so long as we are under the sway of particular impressions or mental images, we can, when resolved to do so, un- 1 Friend, voL i. p. 248. The story is referred to by Sir W. Scott in Lis Demonology and Witchcraft.