pontaneous belief, into which the person himself falls, in so far as
they communicate themselves to others.

[143] In the case of a vain woman thinking herself much more pretty than
others think her, the error is still more obviously one connected with a
belief in objective fact.

[144] _The Study of Sociology_, ch. ix.

[145] As a matter of fact, the proportion of accurate knowledge to error
is far larger in the case of classes than of individuals. Propositions
with general terms for subject are less liable to be faulty than
propositions with singular terms for subject.

[146] For a description of each of these extremes of boundless gaiety
and utter despondency, see Griesinger, _op. cit._, Bk. III. ch. i. and
ii. The relation of pessimism to pathological conditions is familiar
enough; less familiar is the relation of unrestrained optimism. Yet
Griesinger writes that among the insane "boundless hilarity," with "a
feeling of good fortune," and a general contentment with everything, is
as frequent as depression and repining (see especially p. 281, also pp.
64, 65).

[147] It has been seen that, from a purely psychological point of view,
even what looks at first like pure presentative cognition, as, for
example, the recognition of a present feeling of the mind, involves an
ingredient of representation.

[148] See especially what was said about the _rationale_ of illusions of
perception, pp. 37, 38.

[149] I say "usually," because, as we have seen, there may sometimes be
a permanent and even an inherited predisposition to active illusion in
the individual temperament and nervous organization.

[150] See what was said on the nature of passive illusions of sense (pp.
44, 68, 70, etc.) The logical character of illusion might be brought out
by saying that it resembles the fallacy which is due to reasoning from
an approximate generalization as though it were a universal truth. In
thus identifying illusion and fallacy, I must not be understood to say
that there is, strictly speaking, any such thing as an unconscious
reasoning process. On the contrary, I hold that it is a contradiction to
talk of any _mental_ operation as altogether unconscious. I simply wish
to show that, by a kind of fiction, illusion may be described as the
result of a series of steps which, if separately unfolded to
consciousness (as they no longer are), would correspond to those of a
process of inference. The fact that illusion arises by a process of