The representation of ourselves as entertained dislodges from our internal field of vision our actual condition, relegating this to the region of obscure consciousness.

Could we for a moment get rid of this representation and look at the real feelings of the time, we should become aware of our error; and it is possible that the process of becoming _blase_ involves a waking up to a good deal of illusion of the kind.
Just as we can thus deceive ourselves within certain limits as to our emotional condition, so we can mistake the real nature of our intellectual condition.

Thus, when an idea is particularly grateful to our minds, we may easily imagine that we believe it, when in point of fact all the time there is a sub-conscious process of criticism going on, which if we attended to it for a moment would amount to a distinct act of disbelief.

Some persons appear to be capable of going on habitually practising this petty deceit on themselves, that is to say, imagining they believe what in fact they are strongly inclined to doubt.
Indeed, this remark applies to all the grateful illusions respecting ourselves and others, which will have to be discussed by-and-by.

The impulse to hold to the illusion in spite of critical reflection, involves the further introspective illusion of taking a state of doubt for one of assurance.