Perception

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language

·noun An idea; a notion.

II. Perception ·noun The quality, state, or capability, of being affected by something external; sensation; sensibility.

III. Perception ·noun 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.

IV. Perception ·noun 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.