Illusions, A Psychological Study (Classic Reprint)

PREF ACE.
THE present volume takes a wide survey of the field
of error, embracing in its view not only the illusions
of sense dealt with in treatises on physiological optics,
etc., but also other' 'errors familiarly known as illusions,
and resembling the former in their structure and mode
of origin. I have throughout endeavoured to keep
to a strictly scientific treatment, that is to say, the
description and classification of acknowledged errors,
and the explanation of these by a reference to their
psychical and physical conditions. At the same time,
I was not able, at the close of my exposition, to avoid
point~ng out how the psychology leads on to the
philosophy of the subject. Some of the chapters
were :first roughly sketched out in articles published
in magazines and reviews; but these have been not
only greatly enlarged, but, to a considerable extent,
rewritten.
J. S.
HampsteadJ April, 1881.

Table of Contents

OONTENTS; -; CHAPTER I; THE STUDY OF ILLUSION; Vulgar idea of Illusion, 1, 2; Psychological treatment of subject, 3, 4 ;; definition of Illusion, 4-7; Philosophic extension of idea, 7, 8; CHAPTER II; THE OLASSIFICATION OF ILLUSIONS; Popular and Scientific conceptions of Mind, 9, 10; Illusion and Halluci·; nation, 11-13; varieties of Immediate Knowledge, 13-16; fourfold; division of Illusions, 16-18; CHAPTER III; ILLUSIONS OF PEROEPTION: GENERAL; Psychology of Perception :-The Psychological analysis of Perception, 19,; 20; Sensation and its discrimination, etc, 20, 21 ; interpretation of; Sensation, 22, 23; construction of material object, 23, 24; recognition; of object, specific and individual, 24-27; Preperception and; Perception, 27