Experiment shows that the _one thing necessary to recognition is the_ =feeling of familiarity=. In some cases the incoming ideas, and more especially the direct verbal supplement of the perception, the name, seem to be integral factors in the experience; but recognition is possible in their absence; and, what is more, recognition may fail in their presence; a perception may call up ideas that are objectively correct, and yet there may be no recognition of the thing perceived. _Recognition, then, is essentially a feeling, a sense-feeling of the agreeable and relaxing type, diffusively organic in its sensory character_; any perception or idea to which this feeling attaches is, by that very fact, the perception or idea of something recognised. That is as far as analysis can take us. If we care to go further, and speculate, we may venture to guess that the feeling of familiarity is a weakened survival of the =emotion of relief=, of fear unfulfilled. There is a distinct touch of pleasurable relief, of the letting-down of strain, in the feeling as we have it; and the derivation is therefore psychologically reasonable. Moreover, primitive man was so defenceless an animal that the strange must always have been cause for anxiety; language, indeed, bears witness on the point; for ‘fear’ is, etymologically, the state of mind of the traveller, the ‘farer’ away from home; and ‘hostis,’ which we translate enemy, originally meant simply stranger. The bodily and mental attitude which expresses recognition thus seems to be still the attitude of going off guard, of ease and confidence. In our everyday life, as you will readily see, the tinge of sense-feeling may be overlaid by the heavier colours of some positive emotion; we may recognise an acquaintance with whom we are heartily angry, or whose conduct has brought us sorrow; primitive man himself recognised his enemies! But in the laboratory, where these disturbing influences are ruled out, the nature of the feeling of familiarity comes clearly to light; intrinsically, recognition is always an agreeable and relaxing experience.