By so doing we may reach a rough average recollection
which shall at least be free from any individual error corresponding to
that of personal equation in perception. But even thus we cannot be sure
of eliminating all error, since there may be a cause of illusion acting
on all our minds alike, as, for example, the extraordinary nature of the
occurrence, which would pretty certainly lead to a common exaggeration
of its magnitude, etc., and since, moreover, this process of comparing
recollections affords an opportunity for that reading back a present
preconception into the past to which reference has already been made.

The result of our inquiry is less alarming than it looks at first sight.
Knowledge is valuable for action, and error is chiefly hurtful in so far
as it misdirects conduct. Now, in a general way, we do not need to act
upon a recollection of single remote events; our conduct is sufficiently
shaped by an accurate recollection of single recent events, together
with those bundles of recollections of recurring events and sequences of
events which constitute our knowledge of ourselves and our common
knowledge of the world about us. Nature has done commendably well in
endowing us with the means of cultivating our memories up to this point,
and we ought not to blame her for not giving us powers which would only
very rarely prove of any appreciable practical service to us.

NOTE.

MOMENTARY ILLUSIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

The account of the apparent ruptures in our personal identity given in
this chapter may help us to understand the strange tendency to confuse
self with other objects which occasionally appears in waking
consciousness and in dreams. These errors may be said generally to be
due to the breaking up of the composite image of self into its
fragments, and the regarding of certain of these only. Thus, the
momentary occurrence of partial illusion in intense sympathy with
others, including that imaginative projection of self into inanimate
objects, to which reference has already been made, may be said to depend
on exclusive attention to the subjective aspect of self, to the total
disregard of the objective aspect. In other words, when we thus
momentarily "lose ourselves," or merge our own existence in that of
another object, we clearly let drop out of sight the visual
representation of our own individual organism. On the other hand, when
in dreams we double our personality, or represent to ourse