The sensory acts are accordingly distinguished by their objects.

Thus the same object may supply a practical perception to one person and a speculative one to another, or the same person may perceive it partly practically and partly speculatively.

Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.

The thing of which the act of perception is the perception is experienced as something not mental.

In the perception of a tree we can distinguish the act of experiencing, or perceiving, from the thing experienced, or perceived.

When we come to images or memories or thoughts, speculation, while always closely related to practice, is more explicit, and it is in fact not immediately obvious that such processes can be described in any sense as practical.

But though cognition is not an element of mental action, nor even in any real sense of the word an aspect of it, the distinction of cognition and conation has if properly defined a definite value.