Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XI PERCEPTION 45. The Nature of Perception E are now prepared to consider a third V V synthetic fact of mind, namely, perception. By perception we mean the process by which the sensory elements of experience are organized into units, or things. When one looks out upon a landscape, it is not mere blotches of shade and color in areas of different shape and size that meet the gaze, but houses and trees, fields and hills, clouds and sky, --in a word, objects to which a definite significance attaches. It is evident that the percept, i.e., any object which has a sensory basis and means something, is no simple aggregate of sensations. On the contrary, it is both more and less than the sum of the possible sensations of the moment: more, in that very important additions are supplied from the individual mind in which the sensations occur; and less, in that the selective ability of the mind grasps and assimilates only a portion of what is offered by the sensory stimuli. A percept is a complex group of elements in which the sensational constituents are augmented by all manner of centrally aroused elements. Just what these are is a matter for special analysis in i. The Analysis of a Percept each particular instance. But the most striking fact is that over and above its sensory and imaginal constituents, the experience possesses a form-quality and unit-character which is notional. 2. Hallucinations We cannot even affirm that sensation constitutes the invariable nucleus of the percept, though this is undoubtedly the type of experience with which we are dealing. In cases where no adequate sensory basis is to be found, we have what is known as an hallucination. Such experiences are clearly abnormal, and it is contended by some that they indicate..