MAN 255 



giving rise to the perception they elicit. They can only 

 be recognised by an express turning back of the intellect 

 upon them. Ordinarily they remain unnoticed, and we 

 only perceive the thing they reveal things they 

 " represent," in the sense of making them present to the 

 intellect. If we enter a library we do not see " images 

 of books in rows " but the very books themselves. 

 Perception is not inference from sense-impressions ; for, 

 in the first place, we do not attend to them, while if we 

 are doubtful about any object, we "make sure" of it, 

 not by any reasoning about sensations, but by merely 

 tightening, as it were, our sensuous grasp of an object 

 and focusing our sense-impressions more carefully. 

 Intellectual perception, then, is a natural, spontaneous, 

 and unconsciously made, interpretation of sensible 

 signs, by a special power of our intelligence. Such an 

 "interpretation" is an act of mental conception, and 

 " concepts " are the simplest elements of our intellectual 

 life. A concept contains implicitly a judgment. Thus, 

 e.g., the concept " bright sun " contains, implicitly, the 

 explicit judgment <( the sun is bright " and explicit 

 judgment comes next after concepts. The most elemen- 

 tary complete acts of the mind are, then, explicit 

 judgments, which are acts of the intellect, as it were, 

 itself sitting in judgment on two concepts, and pro- 

 nouncing as to some relation which exists between 

 them as, that they agree or disagree : in fact 

 stating explicitly, what has been already implicitly 

 seen. 



Every object which we perceive, possesses a number 

 of different qualities shape, size, colour, hardness, 

 &c., and acts on our sensibility accordingly. Now, our 

 attention may be directed to various qualities, according 

 to the different circumstances of each case, and then these 



