An idea held respecting ourselves or respecting our past history does not depend on any other piece of knowledge; in other words, is not adopted as the result of a process of reasoning.

What I believe with reference to my past history, so far as I can myself recall it, I believe instantaneously and immediately, without the intervention of any premise or reason.

Similarly, our notions of ourselves are, for the most part, obtained apart from any process of inference.

The view which a man takes of his own character or claims on society he is popularly supposed to receive intuitively by a mere act of internal observation.

Such beliefs may not, indeed, have all the overpowering force which belongs to illusory perceptions, for the intuition of something by the senses is commonly looked on as the most immediate and irresistible kind of knowledge.