_In what Sense these several Steps distinct._--In the preceding analysis, in order more clearly to illustrate the nature of the process, we have regarded the act of perception as broken into several distinct parts, or steps of progress. This, however, is not strictly correct as regards the psychology of the matter. Logically, we may distinguish the simple sensation as mere feeling, from the reference of the same to this or that part of the bodily organism as affected, and each of these again, from the cognizance of the external object, which by contact or resistance produces the sensation. Chronologically, the act is one and indivisible. The sensation and the perception are synchronous. We cannot separate the act of sense-perception into the consciousness of a sensation, the consciousness of the bodily organism as affected by that sensation, and the consciousness of an external something as the proximate cause of that affection. To experience a sensation, is to experience it as here or there in the sentient organism, and to perceive contact or resistance, is to perceive something in contact or resisting. There may, however, be sensation without cognizance of the external producing cause. _Restricted Sense of the term Perception._--According to the view now advanced, perception is _immediate_; not a matter of inference, not a roundabout reflective process. It is a cognizance direct and intuitive of the bodily organization as thus and thus affected, and of an external something in correlation with it, affecting and limiting that organism in its movements. Usually, however, a wider range has been given to the term, and the faculty thereby denoted. It has been made to comprehend any mental process by which we refer a specific sensation to something external as its producing cause. It is thus employed by Reid and Stewart, and such has been in fact the prevalent use of the term. According to this, when we experience the sensation of fragrance, and refer that sensation to the presence of a rose, or the sensation of sound, and refer it to the stroke of a bell, or a passing carriage, we exercise the faculty of perception. Evidently, however, our knowledge in these cases is merely a matter of inference, of judgment, not of immediate direct perception, not in fact of perception at all. All that we properly perceive in such a case, all that we are directly conscious of is the fragrance or the sound. That these are produced by the rose and the bell is not perceived, but only _conceived_, inferred--known, if at all, only by the aid of previous experience.