sensation

Definitions

1. 1.A purely spiritual or psychical affection; agreeable or disagreeable feelings occasioned by objects that are not corporeal or material.
2. 2.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. -- 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.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Synonyms

Related questions

• What does "sensation" mean?
• What is another word for "sensation"?

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is sensation.

• What is a purely spiritual or psychical affection; agreeable or disagreeable feelings occasioned by objects that are not corporeal or material called?