COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



these inferences with those many others through 

 which the locaHty is recognized."^ From this 

 example it appears that while, at the highest 

 extreme, perception emerges into reasoning, on 

 the other hand at its lowest extreme, as where 

 a body is perceived to be rough or hard, it 

 borders very closely upon simple sensation. 

 Proceeding then a step farther in our descend- 

 ing analysis, we have to examine the character 

 of the difference between perception and sen- 

 sation. 



Sensation, no less than perception, has a 

 variety of grades. At the one extreme it rises 

 to a point where it is barely distinguishable 

 from perception ; at the other extreme it lapses 

 into an unconscious or sub-conscious psychical 

 state. While writing these lines the sum total 

 of my consciousness may contain elements con- 

 tributed by dull sounds of persons walking 

 overhead, by the rumbling of wagons in the 

 street, by faint odours wafted from the kitchen, 

 by soothing pulses of sensation from the pipe 

 held in my mouth, and by the occasional strik- 

 ing of the cuckoo-clock, as well as by the pres- 

 sure exerted by the chair in which I am sitting, 

 and the table upon which my arm is resting, 

 and the pen which is grasped in my fingers. But 

 while I am absorbed in thought, none of these 



^ Spencer, Principles of Psychology, vol. ii. p. 245. [Part 

 yi. chapter xviii. § 352.] 



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