In reality, however, Perception and Memory differ
fundamentally.
Our conscious perception is just our power of choice, reflected from
things as though by a mirror, so that representation arises from the
omission of that in the totality of matter which has no bearing on our
needs and consequently no interest for us. "There is for images merely a
difference of degree and not of kind between 'being' and 'being
consciously perceived.'"[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 30 (Fr. p.
25).] Consciousness--in regard to external perception--is explained by
this indeterminateness and this choice. "But there is in this necessary
poverty of conscious perception, something that is positive, that
foretells spirit; it is, in the etymological sense of the word,
discernment.'"[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 31 (Fr. p. 26).] The
chief difficulty in dealing with the problems of Perception, is to
explain "not how Perception arises, but how it is limited, since it
should be the image of the whole and is in fact reduced to the image of
that which interests you."[Footnote: Matter and Memory, p. 34 (Fr. p.
29).] We only make an insuperable difficulty if we imagine Perception to
be a kind of photographic view of things, taken from a fixed point by
that special apparatus which is called an organ of perception--a
photograph which would then be developed in the brain-matter by some
unknown chemical and psychical process. "Everything happens as though
your perception were a result of the internal motions of the brain and
issued in some sort from the cortical centres.
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