But this kind of relation, which I sometimes have to sensibles of
all sorts of different kinds, images as well as others, is evidently
quite different in kind from another relation which I may also have
to sensibles. After looking at this black mark, I may turn away my
head or close my eyes, and then I no longer _actually see_ the mark I
saw just now. I may, indeed, have (I myself actually do have at this
moment) a visual _image_ of the mark before my mind; and to this image
I do now have exactly the same kind of relation which I had just now
to the mark itself. But the image is not identical with the mark of
which it is an image; and to the mark itself it is quite certain that
I have _not_ now got the same kind of relation as I had just now, when
I was actually seeing it. And yet I certainly may _now_ have to that
mark itself a kind of relation, which may be expressed by saying that
I am _thinking of_ it or remembering it. I can _now_ make judgments
about _it itself_--the very sensible which I did see just now and am no
longer seeing: as, for instance, that I did then see it and that it was
different from the image of it which I am now seeing. It is, therefore,
quite certain that there is a most important difference between the
relation I have to a sensible when I am actually seeing or hearing it,
and any relation (for there may be several) which I may have to the
same sensible when I am only thinking or or remembering it. And I want
to express this difference by using a particular term for the former
relation. I shall express this relation, which I certainly do have to
a sensible when I actually see or hear it, and most certainly do not
have to it, when I only think of or remember it, by saying that there
is in my mind a _direct apprehension_ of it. I have expressly chosen
this term because, so far as I know, it has not been used hitherto as
a technical term; whereas all the terms which have been so used, such
as "presented," "given," "perceived," seem to me to have been spoilt
by ambiguity. People sometimes, no doubt, use these terms as names for
the kind of relation I am concerned with. But you can never be sure,
when an entity is said to be "given" or "presented" or "perceived,"
that what is meant is simply and solely that it has to someone that
relation which sensibles do undoubtedly have to me when I actually see
or hear them, and which they do _not_ have to me when I only think of
or remember them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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