The psychological characteristics of the five senses in general, omitting those which properly belong to physiological inquiries, may be summed up as follows: The proper function of each and all of them is a sensation, or affection of the nervous organism as animated; which affection, however, does not, and in all probability cannot, exist in … Continue reading The psychological characteristics of the five senses
Tag: perception
The object of touch proper has no special name
Touch, however, differs in some remarkable particulars from the other senses. There is no distinct organ appropriated to the tactual sensations alone; and the various parts of the body by which these may be communicated may also be the instruments of other classes of sensations, all of which have been confounded under the general name … Continue reading The object of touch proper has no special name
Sight is of all the senses the most communicative as a vehicle of information
Sight is of all the senses the most communicative as a vehicle of information, and consequently the one in which there is the least immediate consciousness of pleasure or pain in the exercise. Most of the knowledge, however, which this sense, in its matured state, conveys to us, belongs to its acquired, not to its … Continue reading Sight is of all the senses the most communicative as a vehicle of information
The pleasure derived from music is mainly intellectual
In Hearing, the functions of sensation and perception are perhaps more nearly balanced than in any other of the senses. The subjective character of various sounds, as sources of pleasure or pain to the hearer, maybe contrasted with their objective character, as resembling or differing from each other; and as in the latter relation this … Continue reading The pleasure derived from music is mainly intellectual
The stronger the sensation, the weaker the perception
Perception is sometimes defined as “ the knowledge we obtain, by means of our sensations, of the qualities of matter.” This definition may be admitted, if matter is understood as including our own bodily organism, as well as the extra-organic objects to which it is related. The former is the only kind of matter that … Continue reading The stronger the sensation, the weaker the perception
Space is the form or mental condition of our perception
Space is the form or mental condition of our perception of external objects. The phenomena of the material world may vary in an infinite number of ways; but, under every variety, they retain the condition of existing in space, either as being themselves sensibly extended, or as having a local position in the sensitive organism. … Continue reading Space is the form or mental condition of our perception