Perception is only a special kind of knowledge, and
sensation a special kind of feeling. . . . Knowledge
and feeling, perception and sensation, though always
coexistent, are always in the inverse ratio of each
other. --Sir W.
Hamilton.
2. A purely spiritual or psychical affection; agreeable or
disagreeable feelings occasioned by objects that are not
corporeal or material.
3. A state of excited interest or feeling, or that which
causes it.
The sensation caused by the appearance of that work
is still remembered by many. --Brougham.
Usage: {Sensation}, {Perseption}. The distinction between
these words, when used in mental philosophy, may be
thus stated; if I simply smell a rose, I have a
sensation; if I refer that smell to the external
object which occasioned it, I have a perception. Thus,
the former is mere feeling, without the idea of an
object; the latter is the mind's apprehension of some
external object as occasioning that feeling.
``Sensation properly expresses that change in the
state of the mind which is produced by an impression
upon an organ of sense (of which change we can
conceive the mind to be conscious, without any
knowledge of external objects). Perception, on the
other hand, expresses the knowledge or the intimations
we obtain by means of our sensations concerning the
qualities of matter, and consequently involves, in
every instance, the notion of externality, or outness,
which it is necessary to exclude in order to seize the
precise import of the word sensation.'' --Fleming.