It may be plausibly contended that this idea arises partly from a mixing up of facts of present consciousness with inferences from them, and partly from a natural predisposition of the mind to invest itself with this supreme power of absolute origination.[106] In a similar way, it might be contended that other famous philosophic dicta are founded on a process of erroneous introspection of subjective mental states.

In some cases, indeed, it seems a plausible explanation to regard these illusions as mere survivals in attenuated shadowy form of grosser popular illusions.

But this is not yet the time to enter on these, which, moreover, hardly fall perhaps under our definition of an illusion of introspection.
_Value of the Introspective Method._ In drawing up this rough sketch of the illusions of introspection, I have had no practical object in view.

I have tried to look at the facts as they are apart from any conclusions to be drawn from them.

The question how far the liability to error in any region of inquiry vitiates the whole process is a difficult one; and the question whether the illusions to which we are subject in introspection materially affect the value of self-knowledge as a whole and consequently of the introspective method in psychology, as many affirm, is too subtle a one to be fully treated now.