Of accidental and occasional illusions of sight many amusing examples
might be given. Two will suffice. One is a reminiscence of my own. I was
lying in my berth in a steamer listening to the sailors 'at their
devotions with the holystones' outside; when, on turning my eyes to the
window, I perceived with perfect distinctness that the chief-engineer of
the vessel had entered my state-room, and was standing looking through
the window at the men at work upon the guards. Surprised at his
intrusion, and also at his intentness and immobility, I remained
watching him and wondering how long he would stand thus. At last I
spoke; but getting no reply, sat up in my berth, and then saw that what
I had taken for the engineer was my own cap and coat hanging on a peg
beside the window. The illusion was complete; the engineer was a
peculiar-looking man; and I saw him unmistakably; but after the
illusion had vanished I found it hard voluntarily to make the cap and
coat look like him at all.
'=Apperception.='--In Germany since Herbart's time psychology has always
had a great deal to say about a process called _Apperception_. The
incoming ideas or sensations are said to be 'apperceived' by 'masses' of
ideas already in the mind. It is plain that the process we have been
describing as perception is, at this rate, an apperceptive process. So
are all recognition, classing, and naming; and passing beyond these
simplest suggestions, all farther thoughts about our percepts are
apperceptive processes as well. I have myself not used the word
apperception, because it has carried very different meanings in the
history of philosophy, and 'psychic reaction,' 'interpretation,'
'conception,' 'assimilation,' 'elaboration,' or simply 'thought,' are
perfect synonyms for its Herbartian meaning, widely taken. It is,
moreover, hardly worth while to pretend to analyze the so-called
apperceptive performances beyond the first or perceptive stage, because
their variations and degrees are literally innumerable. 'Apperception'
is a name for the sum total of the effects of what we have studied as
association; and it is obvious that the things which a given experience
will suggest to a man depend on what Mr. Lewes calls his entire
psychostatical conditions, his nature and stock of ideas, or, in other
words, his character, habits, memory, education, previous experience,
and momentary mood. We gain no insight into what really occurs either in
the mind or in the brain by calling all these things the 'apperceiving
mass,' though of course this may upon occasion be convenient. On the
whole I am inclined to think Mr. Lewes's term of 'assimilation' the most
fruitful one yet used.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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