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EXTRAORDINARY PERCEPTION
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of distance, since the eyes have "no independent means of apprehending those relations of surfaces and lines which presuppose the third dimension.” If there can be a visual perception of distance, coldness, hardness, etc., there can also be a visual perception of fragrance. Hence the fundamental question to be discussed here is this : Can there be, and is there in fact, a visual perception (i) of distance, (ii) of coldness, bardness, etc., and (iii) of fragrance.
With regard to the first case (i), J. S. Mill' was strongly of opinion that the perception of distance by the eye is, in reality, an inference grounded on experience ; though in familiar cases it takes place so rapidly as to appear exactly on a par with those perceptions of sight which are really intuitive, our perceptions of colour.' Modern psychology, however, has outgrown this view and finds no difficulty in admitting that there is a visual perception of distance. With regard to the other cases, however, there is much difference of opinion among pbilosophers, both Indian and Western. While the Advaitins would bring all such cases under inference, the Naiyāyikas are in favour of treating them as genuine perceptions. Among modern thinkers some psychologists like Stout, Ward and Wundt take at least the second group of cases (11) as a form of perception, although, to distinguish it from ordinary perception, they give it the name of " complication.” Many other psychologists, however, would reduce them to some kind of rapid or implicit inference. As for the third case (iii), the Naiyāyikas are perhaps the only realists who would say that we have a visual perception of fragrance.
How are we to deal with the second and the third case ? We have to raise two questions, viz. (i) how are we to distinguish between perception and inference, and (ii) where are we to draw the line between perception and inference ?
1 System of Logic, p 4.
31—(1117B)
