Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 46:184 (Oct 1889)
Article: The Philosophy Of Perception
Author: Henry N. Day

BSac 46:184 (Oct 1889) p. 671

The Philosophy Of Perception

Professor Henry N. Day

The doctrine of perception was justly recognized by Sir William Hamilton as “a cardinal point of philosophy.” He accordingly prosecuted his study of the subject with an earnestness and persistence elsewhere unsurpassed in all his labors. We are astounded at his wealth of learning and bewildered by his dialectic subtlety, but are left, withal, entirely adrift in regard to what we should think of the exact nature and the philosophical significance of this mental phenomenon. His extended discussions of the subject, however, will relieve the student from much wearisome toil in tracing out the history of the doctrine in its dreary succession of stages, as well as in the detection and refutation of errors that have crept into the speculations. We may thus take our departure at once from his voluminous expositions, resting in the conviction, that, if successful in grasping the truths in fact and logic which he has established, while shunning the mistakes and supplying the deficiencies that unhappily mar his work, as they do more or less all human endeavor, we shall attain the fullest and the exactest knowledge possible to us in this fundamental department of philosophical research.

Perception Defined

We may safely start in our study with the summary exposition given of perception by Hamilton in his last utterance. He now defines perception to be “the appre-

BSac 46:184 (Oct 1889) p. 672

hension, through sense, of external things.”1 By “apprehension,” as the word is here used, we must suppose Hamilton to have meant cognitive apprehension; and by “external things,” as the object of this cognitive action, things exterior to the knowing subject or self. It is this characteristic of externality in its object which distinguishes perception proper—external perception, from the other kind of cognitive apprehension—internal perception—“which is concentrated on the mental phenomena.” The apprehension, further, in perception, is “through sense”—through the bodily organism.

In this posthumous exposition, we may note here, Hamilton proceeds to set forth, that in perception “the thing perceived and the percipient organ must meet,” since a thing can act only where it is. Hence, he says, “it is erroneous to affirm, in the first place, that we are percipient of distant objects,” and, “in the second place, to say that we perceive external things in themselves.” Still further, he here teaches that “the real, the total, the only object perceived has, as a relative, two phases, and may be described either as the idiopathic affection of the sense, or as the quality of a thing actually...