Sensation

Charles Buck Theological Dictionary

Properly signifies that internal act by which we are made conscious of pleasure or pain felt at the organ of sense. As to sensations and feelings, says Cr. Reid, some belong to the animal part of our nature, and are common to us with the brutes; others belong to the rational and moral part. The first are more properly called sensations; the last, feelings. The French word sentiment is common to both. The design of the Almighty in giving us both the painful and agreeable feelings is, for the most part, obvious, and well deserving our notice.

1. The painful sensations are admonitions to avoid what would hurt us; and the agreeable sensations to invite us to those actions that are necessary to the preservation of the individual or the kind.

2. By the same means, nature invites us to moderate bodily exercise, and admonishes us to avoid idleness and inactivity on the one hand, and excessive labour on the other.

3. The moderate exercise of all our rational powers gives pleasure.

4. Every species of beauty is beheld with pleasure, and every species of deformity with disgust.

5. The benevolent affections are all accompanied with an agreeable feeling; the malevolent on the contrary; and,

6. The highest, the noblest, and the most durable pleasure is that of doing well; and the most bitter and painful sentiment, the anguish and remorse of a guilty conscience.

See Theorie des Sentiments Agreables; Reid on the Intellectual Powers, p. 332; Kaims's Elements of Criticism, vol. 2: p. 501.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) An impression, or the consciousness of an impression, made upon the central nervous organ, through the medium of a sensory or afferent nerve or one of the organs of sense; a feeling, or state of consciousness, whether agreeable or disagreeable, produced either by an external object (stimulus), or by some change in the internal state of the body.

(2): ( n.) A purely spiritual or psychical affection; agreeable or disagreeable feelings occasioned by objects that are not corporeal or material.

(3): ( n.) A state of excited interest or feeling, or that which causes it.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

the immediate effect produced on the mind by something acting upon the bodily organs. The earliest sign by which the Ego becomes perceptible is corporeal sensation, and this sensibility appears to be a necessary attribute of animated organic matter itself. All the perceptions of sense are rooted in the general sensation, which, however, is very obscure, even pain not being clearly felt by it at the place where it exists. The next step from this obscure, original, innate sensation is particular sensation, through the medium of the nervous system. Sensation should be distinguished from perception. The former properly expresses that change in the state of the mind which is produced by an impression upon an organ of sense; perception, on the other hand, expresses the knowledge or the intimations we obtain by means of our sensations concerning the qualities of matter. Sensation proper is not purely a passive state, but implies a certain amount of mental activity. It may be described, on the psychological side, as resulting directly from the attention which the mind gives to the affections of its own organism. Objection may be made that every severe affection of the body produces pain quite independently of any knowledge we may possess of the cause or of any operation of the will being directed towards it. Yet facts prove that if the attention of our minds be absorbed in other things, no impulse can produce in us the slightest feeling. Numerous facts prove that a certain application and exercise of mind, on one side, is as necessary to the existence of sensation as the occurrence of physical impulse, on the other. See Fleming, Vocab. of Philosophy, s.v.