112 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. n. 



stomaclis, which were previously present to sense. Thus the 

 classification involved in reasoning differs from that involved 

 iu perception, not only in heterogeneity and definiteness, 

 but also in indirectness. Nevertheless the difference is not 

 fundamental, but is only a difference in degree ; as is proved 

 by the fact that alike in reasoning and in perception there is 

 implied the previous reception of the actually present sensa- 

 tions of which the ideas or revived sensations are the copies. 

 Our statement, therefore, will become strictly correct if we 

 say that the fundamental characteristic common to the most 

 refined reasoning, and the crudest perception, is the presence 

 of certain states of consciousness, accompanied by the classifi- 

 cation of these states and of the relations between them 

 according to their various likenesses and unlikenesses ; the 

 differences between the processes being differences in hetero- 

 geneity, definiteness, indirectness, and extent of integration 

 or compounding. 



Let us next observe that, as between the highest and 

 lowest kinds of reasoning there is a great difference in the 

 extent to which the comparison of relations is carried, so 

 between the highest and lowest kinds of perception there is 

 a similar difference. 



There is a striking contrast in degree of directness " be- 

 tween the perception that some surface touched by the finger 

 is hard, and the perception that a building at which we are 

 looking is a cathedral. The one piece of knowledge is almost 

 immediate. The other is mediate in a double, a triple, a 

 quadruple, and even in a still higher degree. It is mediate 

 inasmuch as the solidity of that which causes the visual im- 

 pression is inferential ; mediate inasmuch as its position, its 

 size, its shape, are inferential; mediate inasmuch as its 

 material, its hollowness, are inferential; mediate inasmuch 

 as its ecclesiastical purpose is an inference from these infer- 

 ences ; and mediate inasmuch as the identification of it as a 

 particular cathedral is a still more remote inference resulting 



