Volume 2

The principles of psychology / by Herbert Spencer.

  • Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of psychology / by Herbert Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    256/322 (page 244)
    CHAPTER XVIII. PERCEPTION IN GENERAL. § 352. As foregoing chapters have made sufficiently manifest, the term Perception is applied to mental states infinitely varied, and even widely different in their natures. Between the consciousness of a vast landscape and the con- sciousness of a minute dot on the surface of this paper, there exist countless gradations which pass insensibly one into another; and which yet unite extremes almost too strongly contrasted to he classed together. A perception may vary indefinitely in complexity, in degree of directness, and in degree of continuity. We will glance at its variations under these heads. In one of the primitive cognitions of resistance lately treated of, perception may rise hut a step above simple sensa- tion. Conversely, when watching the evolutions of a ballet, there is a consciousness not only of the multiplied relations of coexistent positions which constitute our notions of the distance, size, figure, and attitude of each dancer—not onlv of the various space-relations between the figure of each dancer and the several colours of her dress—not onlv of the relations of distribution among the dancers; but also of the many relations of sequence which the body and limbs of every dancer exhibit in their movements with respect to one another, and of those yet more involved relations of sequence exhibited in the movements of every dancer