\Per*cep"tion\, n. [L. perceptio: cf. F. perception.
See {Perceive}.]
1. The act of perceiving; cognizance by the senses or
   intellect; apperhension by the bodily organs, or by the
   mind, of what is presented to them; discernment;
   apperhension; cognition.
2. (Metaph.) The faculty of perceiving; the faculty, or
   peculiar part, of man's constitution by which he has
   knowledge through the medium or instrumentality of the
   bodily organs; the act of apperhending material objects or
   qualities through the senses; -- distinguished from
   conception. --Sir W. Hamilton.
         Matter hath no life nor perception, and is not
         conscious of its own existence.       --Bentley.
3. The quality, state, or capability, of being affected by
   something external; sensation; sensibility. [Obs.]
         This experiment discovereth perception in plants.
                                               --Bacon.
4. An idea; a notion. [Obs.] --Sir M. Hale.
Note: ``The word perception is, in the language of
      philosophers previous to Reid, used in a very extensive
      signification. By Descartes, Malebranche, Locke,
      Leibnitz, and others, it is employed in a sense almost
      as unexclusive as consciousness, in its widest
      signification. By Reid this word was limited to our
      faculty acquisitive of knowledge, and to that branch of
      this faculty whereby, through the senses, we obtain a
      knowledge of the external world. But his limitation did
      not stop here. In the act of external perception he
      distinguished two elements, to which he gave the names
      of perception and sensation. He ought perhaps to have
      called these perception proper and sensation proper,
      when employed in his special meaning.'' --Sir W.
      Hamilton.