120 STONEY—UNIVERSE OF REAL EXISTENCES.  [April3, 
sensations appear to me to be located elsewhere, viz.: at or near 
the centre of space, as J apprehend space. So also with the sensa- 
tion of warmth which seems to me to be on the surface of my hands 
when I hold them to the fire. Now-.sensations which thus appear to 
occupy positions in space are perceptions.’ 
In such cases the perception is far from being a mere coexistence 
of sensations. It is the result of a very subtle synthesis, a synthesis 
usually of many sensations and of my mind’s present and past experi- 
ence, with probably other materials. My mind assisted by its syn- 
ergos could not have effected this synthesis but for their inherited 
tendency to make it and their inherited capacity for doing so. 
By the synthesis which results in my wéswa/ perceptions, a very 
remarkable co-ordinaticn has been effected between the muscular, 
the tactual and the visual sensations produced in me by sense-com- 
pelling auta; an equally remarkable co-ordination between the per- 
ceptions of my own mind and the perceptions of my fellow-men and 
of other animals; above all a co-ordination between my own per- 
ceptions, past, present and future: which co-ordinations enable me 
promptly to form correct predictions and are of the greatest service 
to me in regulating my acts. Natural selection has probably helped 
to develop them. Of all the syntheses by which the mind assisted 
by its synergos succeeds in translating sensations into perceptions, 
that which provides us with our visual perceptions appear to accom- 
plish the greatest and most useful transformation. The intense ten- 
dency to make this particular synthesis and the extraordinary fa- 
cility with which I can effect it, are no doubt due to the frequent 
repetition of the process in an immense series of progenitors: and, 
in fact, there is evidence to show that the co-ordination, substan- 
tially as my synergos and I now make it, had been effected in my 
ancestors at a very remote geological period.’ 
1 Perceptions are distinguished from our other thoughts by having relation to 
zwo situations in space—to that position in space which the object observed seems 
to occupy (or, in the case of warmth, to some situation on the surface of the 
body), and to that position which seems to be occupied by the portion of the brain 
which is affected when this particular thought presents itself in the mind. Our 
other thoughts—affections, beliefs, sentiments, motives, etc.—have relation to 
only one of these situations in space, viz,: to the situation in which the part of 
the brain affected seems to be located. 
? Before birds were differentiated from other vertebrates. See the marvelous 
representation of balls within sockets or beans within a pod, each supported by 
a little stalk, which is found on the secondary wing feathers of the male Argus 
