THE COMPOSITION OF MIND 



distinction between sensation and perception. 

 Impossible as it is to disentangle the two in 

 practical experience, analysis yet distinguishes 

 the former as an apparently elementary state 

 of consciousness, while the latter is " a discern- 

 ing of the relations between states of conscious- 

 ness." According, therefore, as attention is 

 directed chiefly to a conscious feeling or to the 

 relations between a number of feelings, is now 

 sensation and then perception predominant. 



It remains to be observed that sensations, 

 or — as we may otherwise call them — feelings, 

 are either peripherally or centrally initiated. In 

 other words, a feeling may either originate at 

 the surface of the organism — as Is the case 

 with sensations of sight, hearing, smell, taste, 

 and touch, and In the main with muscular and 

 thermal sensations ; or it may originate In the 

 interior of the organism — as is the case with 

 the sensations of hunger and repletion, and with 

 certain muscular sensations, such as cramp ; or, 

 again, it may start from some group of nerve 

 centres, as is the case with those vague feelings 

 which accompany more or less complex acts 

 of perception and reasoning, and which, when 

 they acquire a certain degree of prominence, we 

 call emotions. By the inclusion of these states 

 of consciousness, the term " feeling " covers 

 a somewhat wider range of meaning than the 

 term " sensation." Nevertheless the current use 

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