his chapter on the Fallacious Tendencies of the
Human Mind.[1]

The illusions to which we are all subject may best be classified
according to their origin in the depths of our nature. Let us try to
realise how illusory beliefs arise.

What is a belief? One of the uses of Logic is to set us thinking about
such simple terms. An exhaustive analysis and definition of belief is
one of the most difficult of psychological problems. We cannot enter
upon that: let us be content with a few simple characters of belief.

First, then, belief is a state of mind. Second, this state of mind is
outward-pointing: it has a reference beyond itself, a reference to the
order of things outside us. In believing, we hold that the world as it
is, has been, or will be, corresponds to our conceptions of it.
Third, belief is the guide of action: it is in accordance with what we
believe that we direct our activities. If we want to know what a man
really believes, we look at his action. This at least is the clue to
what he believes at the moment. "I cannot," a great orator once said,
"read the minds of men." This was received with ironical cheers. "No,"
he retorted, "but I can construe their acts." Promoters of companies
are expected to invest their own money as a guarantee of good faith.
If a man says he believes the world is coming to an end in a year,
and takes a lease of a house for fifteen years, we conclude that his
belief is not of the highest degree of strength.

The close connexion of belief with our activities, enables us to
understand how illusions, false conceptions of reality, arise. The
illusions of Feeling and the illusions of Custom are well understood,
but other sources of illusion, which may be designated Impatient
Impulse and Happy Exercise, are less generally recognised. An example
or two will show what is meant. We cannot understand the strength of
these perverting influences till we realise them in our own case. We
detect them quickly enough in others. Seeing that in common speech the
word illusion implies a degree of error amounting almost to insanity,
and the illusions we speak of are such as no man is ever quite free
from, it is perhaps less startling to use the word _bias_.

_The Bias of Impatient Impulse._

As a being formed for action, not only does healthy man take
a pleasure in action, physical and mental, for its own sake,
irrespective of consequences, but he is so charged with energy that
he cannot be comfort