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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 (gcide)

Perception \Per*cep"tion\ (p[~e]r*s[e^]p"sh[u^]n), n. [L.
perceptio: cf. F. perception. See {Perceive}.]
1. The act of perceiving; cognizance by the senses or
intellect; apprehension by the bodily organs, or by the
mind, of what is presented to them; discernment;
apprehension; cognition.
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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.
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Matter hath no life nor perception, and is not
conscious of its own existence. --Bentley.
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3. The quality, state, or capability, of being affected by
something external; sensation; sensibility. [Obs.]
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This experiment discovereth perception in plants.
--Bacon.
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4. An idea; a notion. [Obs.] --Sir M. Hale.
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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.
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