And even where this force of excitement is wanting, a gentle impulse of feeling may suffice to beget an assurance of a distant reality.

The unknown recesses of the remote future offer, indeed, the field in which the illusory impulses of our emotional nature have their richest harvest.
"Thus, from afar, each dim discover'd scene More pleasing seems than all the past hath been; And every form, that Fancy can repair From dark oblivion, glows divinely there." The recurring emotions, the ruling aspirations, find objects for themselves in this veiled region.

Feelings too shy to burst forth in unseemly anticipation of the immediate future, modestly satisfy themselves with this remote prospect of satisfaction.

And thus, there arises the half-touching, half-amusing spectacle of men and women continually renewing illusory hopes, and continually pushing the date of their realization further on as time progresses and brings no actual fruition.
So far I have spoken of such expectations as refer to future personal experience only.

Growing individual experience and the enlargement of this by the addition of social experience enable us to frame a number of other beliefs more or less similar to the simple expectations just dealt with.