We may distinguish between different steps in the full act of visual recognition. First of all comes the construction of a material object of a particular figure and size, and at a particular distance; that is to say, the recognition of a tangible thing having certain simple space-properties, and holding a certain relation to other objects, and more especially our own body, in space. This is the bare perception of an object, which always takes place even in the case of perfectly new objects, provided they are seen with any degree of distinctness. It is to be added that the reference of a sensation of light or colour to such an object involves the inclusion of a quality answering to the sensation, as brightness, or blue colour, in the thing thus intuited. This part of the process of filling in, which is the most instantaneous, automatic, and unconscious, may be supposed to answer to the most constant and therefore the most deeply organized connections of experience; for, speaking generally, we never have an impression of colour, except when there are circumstances present which are fitted to yield us those simple muscular and tactual experiences through which the ideas of a particular form, size, etc., are pretty certainly obtained. The second step in this process of presentative construction is the recognition of an object as one of a class of things, for example, oranges, having certain special qualities, as a particular taste. In this step the connections of experience are less deeply organized, and so we are able to some extent, by reflection, to recognize it as a kind of intellectual working up of the materials supplied us by the past. It is to be noted that this process of recognition involves a compound operation of classifying impressions as distinguished from that simple operation by which a single impression, such as a particular colour, is known. Thus the recognition of such an object as an orange takes place by a rapid classing of a multitude of passive sensations of colour, light, and shade, and those active or muscular sensations which are supposed to enter into the visual perception of form. A still less automatic step in the process of visual recognition is that of identifying individual objects, as Westminster Abbey, or a friend, John Smith. The amount of experience that is here reproduced may be very large, as in the case of recognizing a person with whom we have had a long and intimate acquaintance. If the recognition of an object as one of a class, for example, an orange, involves a compound process of classing impressions, that of an individual object involves a still more complicated process. The identification of a friend, simple as this operation may at first appear, really takes place by a rapid classing of all the salient characteristic features which serve as the visible marks of that particular person.