SENSATIONS
Noun
sensations
plural of sensation
Source: Wiktionary
SENSATION
Sen*sa"tion, n. Etym: [Cf. F. sensation. See Sensate.]
1. (Physiol.)
Definition: An impression, or the consciousness of an impression, made upon
the central nervous organ, through the medium of a sensory or
afferent nerve or one of the organs of sense; a feeling, or state of
consciousness, whether agreeable or disagreeable, produced either by
an external object (stimulus), or by some change in the internal
state of the body.
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.
Syn.
– Perception.
– 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