APPREHENSION (Latin apprehensio, from ad + prehendere, to seize), a term em ployed to denote the subjective character of perception. In the philosophy of Aristotle the act of attaining direct acquaintance with any truth or object of knowledge was called ktie, which figuratively means a touching or immedi ate contact with truth. The scholastics trans lated this term by the word apprehension, which has descended with modified and ex tended meaning to modern philosophy. This word has accordingly been employed to desig nate the act or faculty (1) of perceiving any thing through the senses, (2) of forming an image in imagination, (3) of conceiving with out judging, the so-called simple apprehension of nominalistic logic; or (4) a relatively simple and immediate act of intellection with or with out reference to an external object. In this use of the word it distinguishes this form of intellection from the more complex and elabo rated forms of knowledge denoted by the words comprehension, judgment, etc. Thus, for ex ample, when an object or event is viewed apart from other things or events, it is said to be apprehended. When brought into systematic relations with kindred objects of knowledge we say it is comprehended. Stone makes a rather important distinction between implicit and ex plicit apprehension. Through frequent recog nition of an object of knowledge the mind ac quires the ability to distinguish and identify it as a whole without apprehending any of its constituent elements. The act which thus grasps its object without conscious combination or synthesis of parts is an implicit apprehen sion. If attention lingers upon the object, a tendency toward multiplicity arises, the com ponent parts become discernible, and implicit apprehension becomes explicit. In the one there is a distinctionless unity; in the other a conscious synthesis. Implicit apprehension is a form of what Professor Ladd calls the con densation of a series and is an important aim and result of correct mental training.
Wundt distinguishes apprehension from ap perception, or what we should call clear and self-conscious perception, in a very suggestive though highly figurative way. He, of course, recognizes that in a series of temporarily suc cessive ideas or mental states the one immedi ately present in perception has the most favor able position as regards clearness and distinct ness. Likewise, in a spatial series, or in a complex of simultaneously interconnected fact ors present in consciousness, some factors are more favorably located than others. There is, accordingly, a state of clearest grasp in con sciousness, which, when accompanied by a special feeling, is called attention. This state of clearest grasp is figuratively styled the fixa tion point of consciousness, or, more briefly, the inner fixation point. In contrast the whole complex psychical content is called the field of consciousness. A conscious process which passes into an unconscious state is said to pass below the threshold of consciousness. A psy chical compound which enters the field of con sciousness passes on to the inner fixation point, then out again into the field, and finally de scends below the threshold, is an apperceived compound. But just as such compounds may enter the field of consciousness before reaching the point of fixation, so may other compounds enter the field and pass out again without en tering the fixation point at all. Such compounds are only apprehended. Thus it appears that Wundt's distinction between apprehension and apperception is simply one of relative clearness and distinctness of perception. Perceptions that are vague and unclear are.calted apprehen sions, while those which are clear, self-con scious and voluntary are apperceptions. Con sult Wundt, 'Outlines 4)1 Psychology> (Leipzig 1907) ; Stout, 'Analytical Psychology> (Lon don 1909) ; Titchener, E. B., of (New York 1910).