The psychology of conviction; a study of beliefs and attitudes

Front matter

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Preface

Thinking is an art, the art of logic; and thinking is an expression of our total mental nature, which brings it under the domain of psychology. Psychology is concerned with explaining how we incline to think; logic undertakes to lay down the law of how we must think if we would think correctly. The actual thinking that we do, whether true or false, strong or weak, original or commonplace, consistent or capricious, direct or rambling, is none the less thinking. The results are psychological specimens, however well or ill they stand the test of logic; they are all plants, whether weeds or flowers. In the standard patterns of thought, the process begins with premises and ends with conclusions, and requires some sort of bond to hold the two together in an argument. Formally that is the whole procedure; actually it is little more than a bare skeleton, lacking all the features of the flesh-and-blood reality.

What makes it so is the distribution of our interests and the limitations of our mental nature. Primarily we are interested in conclusions; for they bear upon our conduct, our comfort, our emotional security. Thinking encounters — as it is stimulated by — the reaHty of facts and events, the complexity of experience. We Uve under a practical stress; thinking must satisfy needs. We are ever thrown back upon our composite psychology. The tangible outcome of our taking thought is the reservoir of our convictions, that supplies the stream of action. The relation between viii PREFACE

thinking and doing is elastic as well as complex. Thinking may not decide, but merely incHne; it gives rise to beliefs and attitudes, tendencies toward conclusions, more or less tempered, beset by reservations, qualifications, doubts, and counter-inclinations. Particularly are we moved by our emotions, our hopes and desires, more practically by our interests, always by our varied relations to the content of our thought.

As a consequence, though we share a common order of reasoning and a common human nature, we reach very different conclusions, approach the same problems in different attitudes, with different incUnations. Yet equally are we affected by the beliefs of others. Conviction is a social process, follows the herd instincts. Tradition and convention bear heavily upon us, and determine what we beUeve almost as rigidly as what we eat or what we wear. We are in the stream and are borne along by the general current, and caught in the eddies and tossed by the waves of our immediate surrounding. Still we must each sink or swim by our individual strokes of effort and give them the direction of our purpose. We cannot escape the obHgation of setting a course, and in following it we show the impress of our psychology, the loyalty of our minds.

The subject of this volume is concerned with the interaction of our logical and our psychological nature. It attempts to deal with the psychology of our most complex logical products. It follows the "case " method as the only pragmatic procedure, the only one that does justice to the rich content of a concrete issue. In the course of the analysis principles emerge and are emphasized; as in a trial at court, the judge and jury.

PREFACE ix

though concerned with evidence and argument, are guided by principles. The sweep is a wide one and includes "cases" from the past, survivals into the present, of outgrown beliefs which still linger in strange persistence, popular beliefs in conflict with expert conclusion, and the varied range of controversy in which protagonists contend for opposite verdicts upon much the same though differently selected evidence. Since many of the beliefs thus creditably sponsored must in the nature of things be more wrong than right, the analysis has to consider closely the psychology of fallacy and prejudice, the tendencies to wrong belief that make a strong appeal to our nature. ^ For like reason a comparative survey of the several belief processes in terms of their logical structure, introduces the study of the series of "cases."

A supporting motive in the enterprise is to impress upon a generation over-impressed with the practical side of material achievement and the stern logic of events (so many of them plainly the complex issues of convictions that have become institutionally strong), the fundamental obligation of clear thinking, the moral obligation to be reasonable. Reasonableness is many-sided. It means a competent training in the process of evidence and argument; it implies a fair immunity from prepossession as well as from fallacy; it supposes a fair-mindedness, as much in the sporting

* In an earlier volume. Fact and Fable in Psychology, I have considered in more concrete manner a range of problems of more direct interest to psychology. Yet in some measure the present volume supplements the former one, and carries the same intention to distinguish between the fact and the fable that are so complexly interwoven in the fabric of our thought.

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as in the judicial sense; and a tempered and well-poised sense of proportion, which is the essence of sanity. At no time are these qualities so supremely necessary as in the critical times through which the convictions as well as the emotions of men are now passing. The world war has shaken convictions and made necessary an examination of foundations, and a fundamental inquiry into the basis of those values that keep endeavor keen and civilization ahve. In such times we learn to cherish with an increasing fervor the convictions that sustain our national and our individual being. The shock to men's minds has been as serious as to their senses. That German minds could think as they do seems even more amazing than that German hands should be so infamously polluted with crime. The assault upon reason has been as savage and as deadly as the violation of law, of morahty, of decency, of honor, of humanity. The intellectual violation is the more responsible, since by its nature it emanates from the trained leaders, those by calling competent and vowed to the defense of the values of right thinking. The supreme importance of conviction is thus revealed in MacchiaveUian motive and pan-Germanic perspective. But equally are the responsible nations of a moralized world determined to defend to the uttermost of their resources of mind and hand, of wealth and blood, the convictions that they are assured by all the evidence of time and faith, stand at the root of sane and humane living.

No phase of the quickening of convictions that comes in war time can compare in significance with this source of our determination. But it is chastening to consider

PREFACE xi

also the lesser menace and the slighter lessons, inherent in the altered psychological attitude that war brings. They may all be regarded as temptations toward intolerance under emotional stress; and they find their correction in the conviction that sanity and keeping one's head are indispensable supports of an enduring patriotism. As an instance of one type of unreason I have considered in the concluding chapter the widespread distortion of the position of pacifists, which has swept over the country in a wave of inconsistency, misunderstanding, and maHce. That any word or deed, however slight or indirect, which in any measure interferes with the war efficiency of the nation, is to be unreservedly condemned; that those who persist in it must be restrained by force if need be, — all this and more is admitted by practical-minded, loyal citizens. But to direct this animus blindly against those who repudiate with vehemence and indignation the attitudes ascribed to them, is peculiarly intolerant in a democratic community. The most lenient explanation of the matter is that those guilty of the sin fail to distinguish between a principle and the mode of its application, and again that they fail to distinguish between patriotism and the approved manner of its expression. In a country that safeguards the right of opinion, men inevitably differ in their views of attitudes and policies that will best maintain the nation in its determination to win the war and win it rightly. When one body of loyal patriots attempts to impose its views upon another body of loyal patriots, the path of intolerance is approached. Fortunately the wise authorities of the central government are alert to the menace and are taking xii PREFACE

steps to check its spread. Fortunately, also, the good sense of the American people may be trusted to aid the recovery from a temporary lapse, under an intelligible provocation.

War time demands that minor differences of opinion be set aside in favor of an indispensable unity of action; and by the same token it demands that no portion of the community be estranged from the common cause by a hostile attitude toward tenets and principles which in times of peace have contributed to the moral capitalization of the nation. Still more bindingly the same obligation rests upon advocates of views (in whatever field of opinion) which the majority regard as false and dangerous, but which under ordinary conditions are accorded a tolerant hearing, though equally a vigorous protest under approved principles of controversy. A flagrant violation of this tolerance appears in the suit instigated by the anti-vivisectionists against the Red Cross organization to prevent the use of funds in the interests of medical research; and that means, to mitigate the sufferings and save the Uves of the victims of war. To push a private prejudice against a public interest at this time and in this manner is an ignorant, obstinate, and malicious attack, inhumane and unpatriotic even though sincere; it is a tragic demonstration of the menace that lies in unreason. Though exceptional, the instance should be used to strengthen the forces of reason and loyalty. Convictions have too momentous a part to play in the winning of the cause of the pledged allies to permit any encroachment upon their sacred principles. It is this conviction that gives pertinence to the general consideration of our logical

PREFACE xiii

and psychological resources — the perfection of our intellectual munitions — at this critical period when right thinking must prove the powerful ally of right action.

Most of the chapters have appeared in periodical form; all have been thoroughly revised, and some rewritten in the interests of a more uniform presentation, and an adjustment to timely interests. Acknowledgments are made for permission to reprint as follows: To the Popular Science Monthly (now the Scientific Monthly) for the "Psychology of Conviction"; "The Antecedents of the Study of Character and Temperament "; "Fact and Fable in Animal Psychology "; to the Educational Review for "Belief and Credulity" and "The Democratic Suspicion of Education "; to the Review of Reviews for "The Case of Paladino"; to Hampton* s Magazine for "Malicious Animal Magnetism"; to the Nineteenth Century for "The Will to Believe in the Supernatural." The remaining essays have not appeared before, the printing of one of them having been delayed by the exigencies of the war. The obligation which I owe in the election of the theme and in the continued pursuit of the central problem that gives unity to the volume, is acknowledged upon the dedicatory page. The preparation of the manuscript for the press has had the critical care of my wife.

Joseph Jastrow

Madison, Wisconsin March 1918

Contents

I. The Psychology of Conviction .... 1

The forces playing upon conviction; imitation, conservative tendencies, taboo, conformity, tradition; why men beUeve and what they believe. Emotion and convention; the f miction of conviction; logic, ethical, aesthetic regulation; relation to conduct. The "case" method; "cases" of inadequate evidence; credulity and weak hypothesis. Theories of human nature; the temperaments; knowledge and wisdom; "cases" of survival of cruder notions; belief in rare and occult power; middle ground between old-time credulity and present-day controversies. The psychology of controversial issues; the "case" of indulgence; the "case" of feminism; the "case" of pacifism. The personal aspects of conviction; social bearings of personal conviction; the Freudian interpretation of sources of conviction; Freudian mechanisms; compensation and the will to believe; rationalization of motives; consistency and the pride in rationality; reserved areas of belief; attraction of irregular beliefs; the abnormal field. Logic and psychology in control of conviction; the scientific realm.

II. Belief and Credulity 37

II

If this approach is rightly set, the chief determinants of the psychology of conviction, with bearing alike upon process and content, are emotion and convention. Fundamentally beliefs are formed and held because they satisfy, because they minister to some deep psychological craving, or some simpler need or indulgence; equally significant is the sharing of such beUefs with others, which is their indispensable social reinforcement and gives the added value of a conscious adjustment and an acknowledged approval.

Before considering at closer range the nature of the satisfactions that sustain convictions, their psychology should be brought into relation with yet more comprehensive, allied processes. The general formula is supphed by sensibility, which stands as the parent type of the instrument of distinction. As ever, the feeling factor is basic; the elemental distinction is that between pleasure and pain. Recognition promptly enters, and fuses as it extends the lessons of comfort and discomfort, of profit and loss. It widens rapidly to increasing circles of distinctive mental situations, inherent in the indirect responses required of complexly intelligent agents. Eventually distinction becomes an explicit and a logical process — a delineation between truth and error. In simpler situations men feel their way by support of sensibiUties; gradually they come to reason their way through the problems that confront them. In any practical modern situation the rational factor is so pervasive, so intricate, aUke by nature and tradition, that a prolonged and complex process of education is necessary to fit the individual to cope with it. The place of the keystone in the educative process is held by the structure of science, composed of highly specialized systems of relations, orderly analyses of causes and effects, rigid establishment of principles. These guide and support the most directive convictions of the human mind. In them appear the most adequate products of the logical mind, not detached from psychology, but surmoimting it. Yet the earher modes of reaching convictions, and the satisfactions attending them, persist; they yield, but never with complete surrender, to the later discipline.

The varieties of distinctions in the higher reaches of the mind, where lies the psychology of mature and complex convictions, comprise more than the logical ones. The regulations of attitude and action which they serve are commonly distinguished as of three orders : the logical, the moral, the aesthetic. In all there is a rightness and a wrongness, a principle of selection which distinguishes alike the decisions and the natures of men. The logically right, the morally right, the sesthetically right is set apart — sharply it may be, with delicacy and uncertainty of distinction more commonly — from the wrong. More specific terms are available. Logically there is the correct and the false, truth and error; morally there is good and bad in conduct and intention; sesthetically the standards are more variable, more responsive to condition, but the distinction between good taste and bad taste and their products is no less real. Convictions reflect these several phases of a common human nature. Conduct is determined by logical, moral, and aesthetic convictions. The factors cumulate and interact. The conviction is formulated as one, but embodies logical, moral, and aesthetic considerations. Now one and now another phase dominates; but the selecting mind is at once and compositely logical, moral, and aesthetic in its temper, expresses loyalty to each and all. Hence the complexity of the psychology of conviction. The same conclusion — which practically is a regulation of conduct through attitude and belief — is reinforced by logical, moral, and aesthetic supports. Men share a common allegiance in belief or action upon a somewhat different grouping of motives and reasons.

The practical criterion throughout is conduct. What men do depends upon what they believe, and how they feel; their thoughts and feelings are important because these affect their actions. The common utility is in the regulation of behavior. We thus return to the r6le of conviction as a determiner of conduct. Schooling and experience, book-learning and practical occupations, dealings with men and all manners of social observances and institutions — all of which are regulated by beliefs in the form of traditional explanations — leave as their deposit a logical sense, which acts after the manner of sensibility of the sensory type but with a more complex psychology. The logical sense also follows its type, reflects the stage of culture of the times, the social station, the mental development. It functions by accepting congenial orders of belief and rejecting others, while the very conditions of its acceptances preclude from its horizon orders of conviction beyond its ken. All this is familiar because the like holds of every evolutionary product. The logical sense is the slowest, most laborious, as well as the most precious of psychological growths. As commonly exercised by the average man, it keeps him fairly safe from crude error so long as he remains on familiar ground. Within these limitations it distinguishes between the true and the false, much as his senses — in turn not so well protected as those of animals — distinguish (though not infallibly) between wholesome and unwholesome food. But to follow the lead of one's mind is a far more intricate matter than to follow one's eyes or one's nose. And similarly of one's moral sense and one's aesthetic sense: these select among the alternatives of conduct and preferences of attitude, make their way through situations, and in their exercise according to one's schooling and tradition confer ahke logical, moral, and sesthetic sensibilities and their satisfactions — all of them capable of indefinite expansion. The record of that expansion is in a profound sense the story of civilization.

The moral sense and the aesthetic sense are truer to the parent type in that their affective ingredient is strong, and their social dependence marked. Moral convictions and the satisfactions which they bring — and with a different bearing the same is true of aesthetic ones — affect the entire psychology of conviction. To neglect in any measure the moral and aesthetic moments in the genesis and operation of convictions is to miss the genius of their nature, the source of their strength. Logical convictions and the satisfactions attaching to them are in all respects more derivative and more artificial, belong characteristically to later educational stages. Yet our chief concern is with them, because the latter-day issues, which alone adequately illustrate the psychology of conviction as it affects our behefs and attitudes, are so largely intellectual matters. Our approach to them and our faith in them is in the main a logical one. The disturbances of the even tenor of our logical ways by the strong currents of moral and aesthetic emotions and sentiments form a vital part of our problems. They shape daily prejudices no less than the jealousies and unreasoning loyalties that precipitate world's crises.

Ill

The profitable pursuit of the psychology of conviction proceeds by the "case" method. Outgrown and discarded beliefs and attitudes, no less than those within our living experience, furnish the data for instructive analysis and suggestive diagnosis. Types of belief demonstrably false, yet once prevalent and commanding the allegiance of a considerable portion of men of fair or superior intelligence, still bring a valuable lesson in the analysis of the appeal which they once made, in the dissection of the motives and arguments which led to their acceptance. As such types of befief are selected from among modern, even contemporary movements, the use of latter-day enlightened criteria is the more justifiable; less allowance need be made for an imperfect logic and for the as yet unexplored regions of the continent of science. In point of fact the illustrations are continuous, with no breach of analogy between ancient credulity and its modern representatives, no abrupt change in the motives or the mechanisms of appeal. With due allowance for the change of outlook and attitude of other days and other ways, there must be considered the parallel changes in the grouping of forces at the focus of each problem considered. This gives the set to the psychology of the several "cases" of conviction; the cases fall into types, and the differentiation of types becomes the psychologist's task.

In clinical metaphor, each "case" requires the study of its antecedents, of the mode of life, and the individuality of the patient and of the nature of the disease from which he suffers. Patient and disease are at once one and distinct. The study of a "case" of conviction requires knowledge of the antecedents of the problems and its bearings upon human interests, along with a study of the appeal which it makes and the psychology of its adherents. There is the psychology of the conviction as an objective belief, and the psychology of the convinced as a subjective issue. If one assumed a detached point of view, one might separate the strictly logical cases and recognize beliefs accepted upon evidence and applied coldly and consistently. In this view the logical plant — which is the human mind — would accept the crude material in the form of data and turn out the finished product as conclusions. If the result proves to be false, the fault lies in a too ready acceptance of premises or their imperfect manipulation. Such an analysis is bare and formal, literally true but psychologically barren. Yet, as will presently appear, a fair approximation to the type may be selected. The inclination to accept the premises upon the (inadequate) evidence, and the tendency to point the data to the ends reached (prepossession) are as real as the formal logical processes. These tendencies make the psychology of the problem, constitute its character.

"Cases" of this order may readily be summoned from the annals of science. Consider the explanation of fossils. Under a scholastic type of word-learning they were ascribed to a "stone-making force," a "lapidific juice," "seminal air," "tumultuous movement of terrestrial exhalations." To our type of sciencedrilled mind, all this is the mere husk and shell of explanation, empty verbiage, stale and unprofitable. Yet it is a factor in the psychology of conviction. Dogma and formulae, formidable words, like popular slogans, help to carry conviction. They are more apt to contribute to obvious fallacy and pretense than to subtle error; but they play their part variably. On the other hand, when the upholders of scriptural literalism accounted for fossils as "sports of nature," as models made by the Creator before he had decided upon the most suitable forms for animals, or as snares hidden by the Almighty to tempt the unorthodox, we are plunged at once into definite prepossessions and allegiances to accepted doctrines which have powerfully affected not only the beliefs but the actions of men. Charges of heresy lurk in the background, and we enter upon the warfare of science ^ with dogmatically established conviction, however fortified. When Voltaire argued (one does know how seriously) that "fossil fishes were the remains of fishes intended for food, but spoiled and thrown away by travelers; that the fossil shells were accidently dropped by Crusaders and pilgrims returning from the Holy Land," we read the explanation with a strange sense of incongruity between data and conclusion. The true explanation might have appeared strained to Voltaire, because the facts underlying it were so completely out of his ken. Everywhere facts and theories cooperate and determine plausibility. We reach an undisputed "case" of credulity, not merely of weak hypothesis, when we learn of one Beringer who presented long arguments to prove that fossils were "stones of a peculiar sort, hidden by the Author of nature for his own pleasure." It is related that Beringer's students prepared bakedclay fossils of fish, flesh, and fowl — and even specimens with Hebrew and Syriac inscriptions upon them — and buried them in the Herr Professor's favorite digging places. Illustrations of these miraculous fossils were published, with the subsequent attempt of the author to suppress the work when the deception be-

1 It is in such service that Andrew D. White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology (1896), has become a classic. Science is neutral in its campaign. It necessarily regards dogma as its enemy; it respects the province of religion when the latter refrains from an invasion of occupied territory. The tremendous struggle of the evolutionary position to gain a foothold in the nineteenth century is an adequate example of the varied prejudices which scientific argument may encounter, in enlightened times.

came known. As an individual "case" of credulity the incident would be amusing only; its significance lies in this: that not the inherent improbability of the conclusion by our standards, but the standard of judgment of the convinced scholar is the essential consideration. The tendency to accept the explanation of the origin of fossils (the theory) is congenial to the acceptance of the "finds" as corroborative (the facts). But in the "case" of fossils, however explained, an objective attitude is readily taken. The conviction carries no social or emotional consequences; one's views of fossils have no bearing upon conduct, or at best a most remote one. It sets up no allegiances of a practical order, creates no causes or loyalties, except as the convictions one espouses become extensions of one's personality, defended with the warmth of a cause embraced.

IV

It is the peculiar merit of beliefs concerning our psychological nature in contrast to the constitution of natural objects like fossils, that they carry such a wide appeal, play so largely among the motives that support vital convictions, while yet patterned after the manner of scientific conclusions. An interesting group of beliefs relates to the interpretation of human types and differences. The ancient doctrine of temperaments, explaining the psychological types of men by the dominance of blood (sanguine), black bile (melancholic), yellow bile (choleric), and phlegm (phlegmatic), is as purely fictitious and as baseless as the cited views of the origin of fossils; but it persisted with remarkable tenacity and gave rise to a varied progeny of speculations that in turn dominated the convictions and the practices of men. The doctrine of the four temperaments was incorporated in the "humoral" system of medicine. From Hippocrates to Harvey, diseases were diagnosed and patients treated in terms of the "hot" and the "dry," the "cold" and the "moist," with most fantastic elaborations. Chills and fevers, parchings and perspirations, flushing and pallor, confirmed the findings; and the recovery of the patient — by the assistance of nature or in spite of the resistance to nature — proved the value of the system and established the prestige of the practitioner. The explanation of disease (theory) and the cure of ills (practice) form such a powerful motive to thought and action that the entire armament of the mind's powers — scientific and imaginative — was brought to bear upon the problem.

The most ambitious of such constructions was the medical appHcation of astrology, seeking the fate of men in the positions of the heavenly bodies. Medicines were concocted and administered with reference to the position of sun, moon, and stars; elaborate correspondences were set up connecting the mineral, the vegetable, the animal kingdoms and the cosmic systems with the fates of men and the cure of ills that flesh is heir to. Disease is but part of man's fate. The prediction of the future, the control of fortune, the detection of talents — all combine and proceed upon the same flimsy logic and consoling psychology. The horoscope summarizes the issue astrologically as alchemy, physiognomy, palmistry, phrenology, and their like illustrate the persistence of the notions and the imaginative constructions by which they were satisfied. These vagaries of the human mind in the realm of conviction — vagaries to us, but serious behefs to former generations — embody a common psychological factor, that of finding what one seeks, which is vital to the understanding of each and all. Also central to their psychology is the tendency of the thought to shape the issue — the peculiar and elusive sense in which thinking aids and induces the result. In the treatment of disease this becomes "mind-cure" — the faith that facilitates as well as the prejudice that blinds. The possession of this key to the situation — like the knowledge of the true nature of fossils — exposes the irrelevance and falsity of the several wild if shrewd guesses and proofs; but unhke the "case" of fossils, the motives contributory to convictions in regard to human nature and the control of human fate continue in subtle and complex form to shape current views, orthodox and unorthodox alike. We are still subject to disturbing influences in the psychology of our convictions, in the interpretation of our own psychology. The establishment of the logic of science in these realms is still imperfect by virtue of the same tendencies — admittedly far better disciplined — that gave currency to beliefs that seem to us preposterous in temper, absurd in evidence. Thus in retrospect the dual lesson bearing upon the psychology of conviction appears: first, that every advance in understanding is a step forward in logic, in the standards of evidence and the rigidity of conclusions, in the conceptions of plausibility and the discipline of the mind; second, that the forces inclining to belief persist, however altered their perspective, and continue to make the attainment of reasonable convictions and the consistent direction of conduct through them, a difficult and deHcate task — the art of intellectual living. Wisdom is the name for the exercise of the logical function, with due recognition of the assets and liabilities of an ancient and fallible human psychology.

Such considerations make it pertinent to look upon persistences or revivals of beliefs continuing the older patterns of conviction, as survivals — never simple, often intricately disguised. Along with the older loyalties they incorporate the newer ones; particularly, they profess and in a measure maintain an adherence to high-grade logical standards. Their defection, however, is as commonly and as essentially a reversion to older psychological habits of belief as to a weakness in logical manipulation. Such "cases" of survival are most varied, indeed individual in composition. Interesting examples may be found in that wide domain already surveyed, belonging to psychology in a double sense: the one, that the content of the belief relates to the conceptions of thinking and the views of our psychic nature; the other, that the tendencies shaping belief in this realm are so characteristic of the "conviction " phase of our psychology. One of these " cases " and the most typical is the survival and revival of the belief in the possession of powers by some individuals in defiance or transcendence of the estabhshed laws and limitations of human endowment. So characteristically psychological is this conviction that the phenomena associated with it have received the name of "psychical research" — a term irrelevant or misleading, but harmless if accepted as a convenient phrase. As here considered there I's no choice but to regard the beHef-tendency thus displayed as an inclination toward the supernatural. This trait merits detailed analysis; its "cases" are difficult, sometimes baffling. For the belief persists in minds thoroughly loyal to scientific ideals in other realms. The "cases" contribute a further factor to the psychology of conviction, and raise the interesting question of consistency. They suggest the existence of reserved areas of belief, more or less exempt from the limitations of logic, where the satisfactions of belief may be more freely sought and accepted without logical compunctions. Such indulgences are more appropriately considered under the personal phases of belief; but they contribute essentially to the convictions that keep alive the "proofs" of telepathy as of other modes of mental communication unrecognized by psychology, and the evidence of survival after death at the hands or mouths of mediums. The logical interest lies in the elaborate technique which such convictions have developed in support of the hypothesis, and the continued vitality of the belief, despite repeated exposures of fraud in the accumulation of evidence and woeful defects in logic in the arguments. Much of the belief in the supernatural is based upon the conviction that the facts cannot be otherwise explained, that deception is impossible. Such assumption in turn has its reasons; they lie in the will to believe and the gross underestimation of what can be done by deliberate or subconscious deception.