ABSTRACT
Every perception of an external body involves a presentation of it to the mind as such or such—as a something more or less specific; and this implies, either the identification of it as a particular thing, or the ranging of it with certain like things. As there can be no Classification or Recognition of objects without Perception of them; so there can be no Perception of them without Classification or Recognition. Every complete act of perception implies an expressed or unexpressed “assertory judgment”—a predication respecting the nature of the perceived entity; and as is generally admitted, the saying what a thing is, is the saying what it is like—what class it belongs to. The perception of any object, therefore, is impossible save under the form either of Recognition or Classification. The primary act is a cognition of likeness of a more or less general kind; though there may subsequently arise a cognition of a subordinate unlikeness to all before-known things.
