we have an incomplete perception of it. Indeed, just so far as we have
failed finally to perceive it in terms of its functions or uses, in that
far also have we failed to know it completely. Tomatoes were for many
years grown as ornamental garden plants before it was discovered that
the tomatoes could minister to the taste as well as to the sight. The
clothing of civilized man gives the same sensation of texture and color
to the savage that it does to its owner, but he is so far from
perceiving it in the same way that he packs it away and continues to go
naked. The Orientals, who disdain the use of chairs and prefer to sit
cross-legged on the floor, can never perceive a chair just as we do who
use chairs daily, and to whom chairs are so saturated with social
suggestions and associations.

THE CONTENT OF THE PERCEPT.--The percept, then, always contains a basis
of _sensation_. The eye, the ear, the skin or some other sense organ
must turn in its supply of sensory material or there can be no percept.
But the percept contains more than just sensations. Consider, for
example, your percept of an automobile flashing past your windows. You
really _see_ but very little of it, yet you _perceive_ it as a very
familiar vehicle. All that your sense organs furnish is a more or less
blurred patch of black of certain size and contour, one or more objects
of somewhat different color whom you know to be passengers, and various
sounds of a whizzing, chugging or roaring nature. Your former experience
with automobiles enables you to associate with these meager sensory
details the upholstered seats, the whirling wheels, the swaying movement
and whatever else belongs to the full meaning of a motor car.

The percept that contained only sensory material, and lacked all memory
elements, ideas and meanings, would be no percept at all. And this is
the reason why a young child cannot see or hear like ourselves. It lacks
the associative material to give significance and meaning to the sensory
elements supplied by the end-organs. The dependence of the percept on
material from past experience is also illustrated in the common
statement that what one gets from an art exhibit or a concert depends on
what he brings to it. He who brings no knowledge, no memory, no images
from other pictures or music will secure but relatively barren percepts,
consisting of little besides the mere sensory elements. Truly, "to him
that hath shall be given" in the realm of