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Perception
 Perception
First Form of Mind

TY L E R B U R G E
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 Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Iris Murdoch, Existentialists and Mystics: Writings on

Philosophy and Literature, © 1950, 1951, 1952, 1956, 1957, 1958,
1959, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1977, 1978, 1986,
1997 by Iris Murdoch. Used by permission of Penguin Books, an
imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random
House LLC. All rights reserved.

Chapter 3: Stephen E. Palmer, Vision Science: Photons to

Phenomenology, The MIT Press, 1999, p. 32.

Chapter 6: W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse, from The Rings

of Saturn, © 1995 by Vito von Eichborn GmbH & Co Verlag KG.
Translation © 1998 by The Harvill Press. Reprinted by permission of
New Directions Publishing Corp.

Chapter 11: William Blake, Notebook, British Library Add MS 49460,

3rd and 4th lines from first draft of the poem.

Chapter 16: Excerpt from Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory: An

Autobiography Revisited © 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1967 by
Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint
of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin
Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Chapter 19: Hans Moravec, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and
Human Intelligence, © 1988 by Hans Moravec. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
 Contents

Preface
Animal Eyes
Figures
Abbreviations

PART I. PERCEPTION

1. Introduction
Biological Function, Action, Sensing, and Perception—The
Emergence of Mind
Principal Aims of the Book
The Fregean Source of Key Semantical Notions for Perception
2. Perception
Perceptual States as Sensory States
Representation and Information Registration
Representation and Veridicality Conditions
Representations and Representational Contents
The Three Fundamental Representational Constituents in
Perceptual States
The Basic Representational Form of Perceptual States
Perception as Objectification
Perceptual Constancy—First Mark of Representational Mind
3. Perceptual Constancy: A Central Natural Psychological Kind
Scientific Practice Demarcates Perceptual Constancies from
Other Invariances
 Two Misguided Ways of Thinking About Perceptual Constancies
Even Non-Perceptual Invariances Contribute to the Fitness of
Individuals that Sense
Efference Copy: An Example of a Non-Perceptual Invariance
Path Integration: Another Non-Perceptual Invariance
Very Simple Perceptual Color and Lightness Constancies
Retinal Image Contour Registration and Surface Contour
Perception
Visual Spatial Property and Relation Constancies
Visual Body Categorization
Visual Spatial Perceptual Constancies and Body Categorization
Visual Temporal Perceptual Constancies

PART II. FORM

4. Some Basics about Perceptual Systems

Principles Governing Transitions Contrasted with
Representational Contents
Perception, Computation, and the Language-of-Thought
Hypothesis
Representational-Dependence Hierarchies in Perceptual
Attribution
Two Methodological Points About Natural-Kind and Functional
Attributives
Taxonomic Hierarchies in Perception
5. Perceptual Reference Requires Perceptual Attribution
Basic Form of Perceptual Contents
Perceptual Reference is Partly Guided by Perceptual Attribution
Support for (AA1)
Support for (AA2)
General Remarks on Attributives and Perceptual Discrimination
Criticism of Two Attempted Rejections of (AA1) and (AA2)
6. Form and Semantics of Representational Contents of Perceptual
States
Review of Basic Form of Perceptual Representation
Perception of Property-Instances
Betokening and Four Types of Perceptual Attribution
Perceptual Attribution of Relations
Scope Hierarchies in Perceptual Content
Scope and Modificational Attribution Hierarchy
Absence in Perception of Negations, Conditionals, Disjunctions,
Quantifiers
Perceptual Contents, Propositions, and Noun Phrases
7. Perceptual Attributives and Referential Applications in Perceptual
Constancies
Perceptual Constancies and Frege’s Sense–Bedeutung
Distinction: Similarities
Perceptual Constancies and Frege’s Sense–Bedeutung
Distinction: Differences
Minimalism: Defocus and Color Constancy
Minimalism and Iconic Representation in a Spatial Coordinate
System
Perceptual Units in Packages in Iconic Visual Spatial
Representation
Linkage of Different Perceptual Attributives in Perceptual
Constancies
The Form of Perceptual Attributives in Linkages
Accuracy Conditions for Perceptual Attributives in Perceptual
Constancies
Referential Applications in Accuracy Conditions for Tracking
Particulars
8. Egocentric Indexing in Perceptual Spatial and Temporal
Frameworks
Egocentric Spatial Indexes in Perception
 Egocentric Temporal Frameworks and Perceptual
Representation of Motion
Is Temporal Representation Constitutive to Perceptual
Representation?
9. The Iconic Nature of Perception
Noun-Phrase-Like Structure and Iconic Representation in
Perception
Iconic Aspects of Perceptual Spatial Representation
Temporal, Qualitative, and Packaging Iconic Aspects of Visual
Perception
Iconic Visual Perception and Maps or Pictures
Some Ways Not to Think about Iconic Representation
Iconic Perception, Iconic Concepts, Iconic Representation in
Propositional Thought
Part–Whole Representation in Pictures and Visual Perception
Compositionality in Iconic Perceptual Representation
Spatial Mapping in Visual Perception Again: The Non-Planar
Surface of the Scene
Relations Between Iconic Format and Representational Content
The Tractability of Iconic Attributional Complexity

PART III. FORMATION

10. First-Formed Perception: Its Richness and Autonomy

What are First-Formed Perceptual States Like?: Three Limitative
Views
Framework
Marr’s 2½-D Sketch
Change Detection
Treisman’s Binding Theory
Two Lines of Empirical Criticism of Treisman’s Theory
Philosophical Views Influenced by Treisman’s Binding Theory
Two Types of First-Formed Perception
11. Intra-Saccadic Perception and Recurrent Processing
Two Changes in Scientific Understanding of Perception-
Formation
Some Main Brain Areas Involved in Visual Processing
Timing of Visual Processing; Some Main Types of
Representation
Categorization and Timing
Levels of Specificity in Perceptual Categorization
Perceptual Constancies in Categorization Processing
12. Further Attributives: Primitive Attribution of Causation, Agency
Methodology for Finding Perceptual Attributives
Primitive Attribution of Mechanical Causation
Primitive Attribution of Agency
Attribution of Further Structural Elements of Agency

PART IV. SYSTEM

13. Perceptual-Level Representation and Categorization

Perceptual Categorization is Perceptual
Richer Perceptual Categorization and Perceptual Processing that
Contributes to It
14. Conation: Relatively Primitive, Perceptually Guided Action
Action Imperialism
Relatively Primitive Action
Form of Relatively Primitive Conative States
Broader Structure of Conation in Causing Relatively Primitive
Action
Summary: Philosophical Issues
15. Perceptual Attention
Forms of Perceptual Attention
Attention and Accuracy
Sources and Levels of Attention
 Perceptual-Level Attention Commands and Guidance of
Saccades
The Executive Control System and Propositional Drivers
Supra-Perceptual Effects on Perceptual-Level Operations: An
Example
16. Perceptual Memory I: Shorter Term Systems
Perceptual Memory and Consciousness
Priming and Memory
Visual Sensory Memory
Fragile Visual Short-Term Memory
Trans-Saccadic Memory
Visual Working Memory
Conceptual Short-Term Memory
17. Perceptual Memory II: Visual Perceptual Long-Term Memory
Overview
Ability-General Long-Term Visual Perceptual Memory
Episodic Visual Memory; De Re Long-Term Non-Episodic Visual
Memory
Perceptual and Conceptual Attributives in Long-Term Memory
Summary of Relations Among Major Types of Visual Perceptual
Memory
18. Perceptual Learning, Perceptual Anticipation, Perceptual
Imagining
Perceptual Learning
Perceptual Anticipation
Perceptual Imagining
19. Perception and Cognition
The Original Epistemic Grounds for Reflecting on Cognitive
Influence on Perception
Fodor and Pylyshyn’s Conceptions of Modularity; The Visual
System as a Module
Uses and Misuses of the Term ‘Cognition’
 The Issue of Cognitive Penetration
Framework Issues
Conceptions of Penetration
The Cognitive Penetration Controversy
A Computational Construal of Modularity
Psychological Systems and Psychological Kinds
The Empiricist Model of Perception and Conception: Degrees of
Abstraction
What Should Count as Cognition?
20. Conclusion
Emergence of Representational Mind
Empirical Characteristics of First-Formed Perceptions
Changes in the Science; Reading the Changes Philosophically
Perception: Form and Representational Content
Perception: The Seed of New Things to Live and Die For

Bibliography
Author Index
Subject Index
 Preface

This book is not the one that I set out to write over twelve years
ago. I had intended to follow Origins of Objectivity with an account
of what is distinctive about the main representational capacity more
advanced than perception. I thought, and still think, that that
capacity is propositional representation. I took some steps in that
direction in the Petrus Hispanus Lectures, Lisbon, 2009, and the
Nicod Lectures, Paris, 2010, and developed an argument for
connecting propositionality, constitutively, with propositional
deductive inference. I remain interested in that other book, and
hope to complete it. But it was pre-empted.
In writing a lead-up to discussing propositional capacities, I
wanted to elaborate an account of perception. Perception is, I think,
the first representational capacity to evolve. It is the main pre-
propositional representational capacity. The lead-up was intended to
be a relatively concise refinement of the account of perception in the
last chapters of Origins of Objectivity, a refinement that now
occupies approximately Chapters 1–3 of this book.
I became interested in vision just before I spent a semester
teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1982.
My interest resulted in part from reading David Marr’s important
book, Vision. Although Marr died before I arrived at MIT, I audited
courses in perceptual psychology by Marr’s former colleagues during
the visit. I later wrote some articles on vision and made it a central
theme of Origins of Objectivity (2010). During work on that book
and later, I benefitted from discussions of vision science with my
son, Johannes Burge, who is currently a vision scientist at the
University of Pennsylvania. After 2010, I came to understand the
science more thoroughly, and developed ideas about structural and
semantical issues associated with perception. I did so through giving
a series of graduate seminars at University of California Los Angeles
(UCLA), and through discussing the science with various scientists—
especially in person with David Brainard, Bill Geisler, and Shimon
Ullman, and via correspondence with Jeffrey Schall and Yaffa
Yeshurun—and with Ned Block, one of few philosophers who
seriously engages with the science. In writing the refinement of the
Origins account of visual perception, I soon realized that I had too
much material to present in a run-up to another topic, in a single
book. The preliminary became the whole.
The book is about first form of representational mind. I take
perception to be the most primitive type of representational mind.
Relevant first form is three-fold.
One type of first form is the representational structure of
perception. Here, first form is the first representational form that
emerges in the evolution of representational mind. This form is
center-stage in Chapters 1–9. I had the main ideas about this
structure when I wrote Origins, but I discovered much more in
thinking through its details, applying it to cases, developing a
semantics for it, and reflecting on how it is embedded in the iconic
format of perception.
A central theme in the book, centered in Parts I and II, is
developing the foundations for a systematic semantics for perceptual
states. Perceptual psychology takes perceptual states to be accurate
or inaccurate. One of its main aims is to explain, causally, how
accurate and inaccurate perceptual states are formed. It has,
however, paid little attention to explaining what it is for such states
to be accurate or inaccurate, or to reflecting on how representational
capacities combine to yield a form of representation. Nor have these
issues been related to the obvious iconic nature of perceptual
representation. I take steps toward remedying this situation. In the
course of doing so, I think that I have discovered some basic aspects
of attribution, the root of predication. Predication in language and
thought has been a longstanding topic of philosophical reflection,
beginning with Aristotle and Kant, and developing mainly in Frege,
but also in Tarski and Strawson. Traditionally, the topic has been
pursued by reflection on logic. I have found it enlightening to reflect
on its roots in perception.
The second type of first form of representational mind is the first-
formed states in the order of perceptual processing. What is the
nature of the perceptual states that are formed fastest? What
properties in the environment do they represent? What sort of
processing leads to them? There are empirical answers to these
questions, at least for mammalian vision. These answers provide a
starting point for reflecting on what the fastest-formed perceptual
states are like in lower animals and even in evolutionary history. Of
course, each species must be considered on its own. I do not much
discuss lower animals, nor do I provide an evolutionary account,
although I occasionally comment on those topics. This second type
of first form is center-stage in Chapters 10–11. Issues about later-
formed perceptual representations, such as those used in perceptual
recognition of individuals, and perhaps for causation, agency, and
functional attributes, such as mate or edible, are touched on in
Chapter 12.
The third type of first form of representational mind is a natural-
kind system of representational capacities, with perception at the
representational center of the system. The systems that I highlight
are the visual-perceptual system and the visuo-motor system. The
two systems intersect and overlap. What it is to be part of these
systems is the central theme of Part IV, Chapters 13–19. I believe
that perception shares its representational structure and content,
outlined in Chapters 2–12, with several other representational
capacities. Generically, the capacities are conation, attention-
initiation, memory, affect, learning, anticipation, and imagining. I
think that the listed generic capacities have perceptual-level species
—species that have representational structures and contents that are
essentially those of perception. These capacities differ from
perception in mode (memory vs. perception) and transition-
operations, not in form or content. The notion of representational
level is explained in Chapter 1, the section The Principal Aims of the
Book, and again, more fully, at the beginning of Chapter 13.
Perceptual-level species of the listed capacities share attributional
content with perception. They share attributional and iconic
structure with perception. And they involve operations or
transformations that are either similar to those in perception-
formation itself, or at least not more sophisticated than they are.
These sub-species join with perception to form two large, natural-
kind psychological systems—the perceptual system and the
perceptual-motor system. These systems are unified (a) in sharing a
function (contributing to perception in the first case, contributing to
perceptually guided action in the second), and (b) in sharing the
representational structure of perception. They are also unified (c) in
using only representational attributive contents in or borrowed from
perception; and (d) in being held together by computational causal
processes both within perception and between perception and the
perceptual-level species of the listed generic capacities. Again, the
relevant perceptual-level species are perception-guided conation,
perceptual-attention initiations (or attention commands), perceptual
memory, perceptual affect, perceptual learning, perceptual
anticipation, and perceptual imagining.
I think that these two large, overlapping systems—the perceptual
system and the perceptual-motor system—constitute the natural-
kind center of lower representational mind. I conjecture that variants
of these systems, sometimes perhaps omitting one or two of the
auxiliary capacities—such as perceptual imagining—or adding other
auxiliary capacities—like amodal mapping—occur in all animal
perceivers, from insects to human beings. These systems and the
perceptual-level capacity-species are discussed in Chapters 13–19,
focusing on visual perception and visually guided action.
The three notions of first form are associated with the general
plan of the book. Parts I and II discuss what perception is. Part III
centers on how perception works—how it is formed and the nature
and scope of its processing. Part IV treats relations between
perception and satellite capacities, and wherein they form a unified
perceptual system and perceptual-motor system.
A further theme runs through nearly all parts of the book. The
theme is opposition—sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit—to a
way of thinking about perception started by the classical empiricists,
Locke and Hume. In trying to understand the main features of
perception, this approach takes too seriously intuitive groupings and
senses of similarity via introspection of conscious perceptual
experience. It also errs by distinguishing perception from conception
primarily in terms of differences in abstraction. Perception is
supposed to operate toward the concrete end. Conception, toward
the abstract end. The spectrum is intuitive—not very carefully
explained. My opposition is centered in reflecting on the explanatory
practice of perceptual psychology. It also derives from reflecting on
the form, content, function, capacities, and uses that turn up in
systematic explanation—causal and semantical.
As with language, so with perception, understanding
representational form and content depends not on introspection of
intuitively salient features of the vehicle of representation (sentence
or image-like-representation), but on competencies that underlie use
of the representation. Intuitive reflection on sentential structure
would treat it as linear and as simply being composed of a string of
words. Reflection, in logic and linguistics, informed by systematic
consideration of sentential use, reveals a hierarchical structure with
words forming phrase units that are not immediately obvious to
intuition. Finding representational structure in perception is parallel.
It depends not primarily on introspection of conscious perceptual
images, but on systematic reflection on the capacities evinced in
uses and transformations of perceptions. This reflection must
consider the representational functions of perception and the
structures of capacities discovered in empirical science. Most of what
there is to be understood about perception is unconscious. All
operations that lead to perceptions are unconscious, and there are
many unconscious perceptions. Moreover, given the way in which
perceptual discriminative capacities, and their use in guiding action,
are molded, in evolution and learning, by perceiver-needs and by
frequently unobvious causal and statistical patterns in the
environment, one cannot rely on introspection of images, and
intuitive types of image-similarity to understand perception—even
the iconic, broadly image-like character of vision. Perceptual
grouping does not in general conform to intuitive image-similarity.
Yet all perceptual groupings are grounded, at least partly, in shape-
size-motion attributions, plotted iconically in an image-like way in
perceptual representation.
The book is resolutely a work in philosophy of science—
specifically philosophy of psychology. Perceptual psychology,
centrally the psychophysics of vision, has become a mature science
in the last fifty years. It gives philosophy an opportunity to
understand important features of psychological capacities at a level
of depth, rigor, and empirical groundedness that has never before
been attainable. Philosophy should leap at the opportunity to make
use of such a powerful and rapidly advancing science, as a basis for
philosophical understanding. Some philosophy of perception makes
no use at all of perceptual psychology. Much philosophy of
perception makes at best decorative use. I think that it is no longer
intellectually responsible to philosophize about perception without
knowing and seriously engaging with that science. I believe that the
practice of centering philosophical reflection about perception on
phenomenology, or on analysis of ordinary talk about perception,
without closely connecting the reflection with what is known from
science (a centering that is a residue of the early empiricist model of
perception), and the practice of allowing epistemology to guide
reflection on what perception must be like, will all soon become
museum pieces of past, misdirected philosophy.
Most of the book’s claims are, of course, supported only
empirically, by interpreting the empirical results of the science. Some
of the claims are, however, supported apriori. One should not
confuse apriority with innateness, certainty, obviousness, infallibility,
dogmatism, unrevisability, or immunity from revision based on
empirical considerations. To be apriori supported, or apriori
warranted, is to have support or warrant that does not depend for its
force on perception or on sensing. Most apriori warranted judgments
in this book are warranted by reflection that yields understanding of
key concepts or principles used or presupposed in the science. All
the relevant apriori judgments are synthetic, certainly in the sense of
being non-vacuous and the sense of not being truths of logic. I think
that the judgments are also synthetic in the sense of not being the
products of analysis of conceptual complexes into concepts
contained in the complexes. I think that most concepts that are
central to our discussion are not complexes. They are simple. They
are, however, necessarily and apriori embedded in networks with
other concepts. Reasoning through such networks sometimes yields
synthetic apriori understanding of foundations of mind.
Apriori supported judgments can be further supported empirically,
by the science. But insofar as they are apriori warranted, they have
sufficient warrant to support belief; and the warrant derives from
reasoning or understanding, independently of support from
perception, perceptual experience, or sensory registration. An
example of an apriori warranted judgment, I think, is that perceptual
states can be accurate or inaccurate. Another example is that
perceptual states have a representational function—to accurately
pick out and characterize particulars via causal relations to them:
perceptual states fail in some way (representationally) if they are not
accurate. I doubt that one can know apriori that any individual has
perceptual capacities. Our empirical knowledge that we do have
such capacities is, however, firm. It is more certain than some things
that we know apriori about perception. As noted, being apriori does
not imply some super-strong type of support. Apriori warrant for
belief in simple arithmetical truths is super-strong. But much apriori
support is not stronger, often less strong, than strong empirical
support.
Our firm empirical knowledge that individuals have perceptual
states does not require a detailed, reflective, philosophical
understanding of what perception is. Knowing that individuals have
perceptual states requires only a minimal understanding. One must
be able to distinguish perception, at least by some cases, from just
any sensing. And one must be able to recognize various examples of
perception. Detailed philosophical understanding requires reflection,
articulation, and elaboration of a minimal understanding of the
concept perception and of relations between perception and other
matters—semantical, functional, biological, causal, and so on.
Elaboration is mainly empirical, but partly apriori. Given an
elaborated understanding of what perception is, it is possible to
draw, apriori, some further conclusions about the form, semantics,
and functions of perceptual states. Such conclusions are abstract
and limited. They are important in being basic to understanding.
Again, most of the book’s claims are empirical. For example, the
accounts of how perceptual and perceptual-motor systems work in
Parts III and IV, and the accounts of what these systems are in Part
IV, are warranted partly by appeal to explanations in the science.
Those accounts and those explanations are certainly empirically, not
apriori, warranted.
I became interested in perception partly because it promises
insight into basic types of representation of the world, and partly
because it is a key factor that must be understood if one is to
understand empirical knowledge. This book shows some fruits of the
first motivation. In investigating the structure and semantics of
perceptual representation, one investigates primitive and basic types
of reference and attribution. My interest in the role of perception in
empirical knowledge remains. But I take understanding perception to
owe almost nothing to epistemology, whereas understanding
epistemology absolutely requires understanding perception.
Epistemology investigates epistemic norms for capacities that can
contribute to obtaining knowledge. One cannot understand the
norms without understanding the capacities. One understands
perceptual capacities by reflecting on empirical science and its basic
commitments, not by reflecting on epistemology. Understanding
perception is the task of this book. Epistemic use of an
understanding of perception is posterior. For epistemic work in this
direction, see my ‘Perceptual Entitlement’, Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 67 (2003), 503–548; and ‘Entitlement:
The Basis for Empirical Warrant’, in P. Graham and N. Pedersen eds.,
Epistemic Entitlement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
I have some slight hope, even in this specialized world, that this
book will interest not only philosophers, but at least some scientists
in perceptual psychology and other areas of psychology. The best
science is informed by a breadth and depth of perspective that is
philosophical. This point is particularly relevant to perceptual
psychology. A central, often stated, aim of the science is to
understand conditions in which accurate perception occurs, and
conditions under which illusions occur. (See Chapter 1, note 25.)
Accuracy is a semantical concept.
So the science is committed at its very core to there being a
semantics for perception—a systematic account of relations between
perceptual representation and its subject matters. The account must
explain what it is for perception to be accurate or inaccurate. Of
course, the science is mainly concerned with causal patterns and
mechanisms. Much of it, indeed probably most of it to date, focuses
on pre-representational, pre-perceptual states that register the
proximal stimulus. But the point of this scientific work is partly to
build toward understanding perception of the physical environment.
Part of understanding perception scientifically is to understand not
only the causal patterns that lead to accurate and inaccurate
perception, but also to understand the form and content of
perceptual states, and what it is for them to be accurate or
inaccurate.
Yet the science has paid no serious attention to these issues—
specifically to semantics. It has not developed a vocabulary or set of
principles that enable it to discuss accuracy and inaccuracy of
perception with the precision and clarity of its accounts of causal,
formational aspects of psychological states and processes. It
provides no answers to questions like ‘What is it for a perceptual
state to be accurate or inaccurate?’, ‘What sorts of representational
competencies are involved in forming a state that is accurate or
inaccurate?’; ‘In what ways can a perception be partly accurate and
partly inaccurate?’; ‘What is the representational form or structure of
perceptual states?’. Such questions are addressed in Parts I and II of
the book.
Scientific understanding of perception is incomplete if it does not
incorporate a systematic semantical understanding of perceptual
states into its understanding of principles according to which
perceptual states are causally generated. Semantical understanding
is understanding of the representational contents, their forms, and
their accuracy conditions—the conditions for representational
success. Perceptual psychology would benefit from mastering the
vocabulary necessary to think systematically about the semantics of
perception.
Philosophy is the source of modern work in semantics—first the
semantics of mathematics and logic, later the semantics of natural
language. The basic semantical concepts, in something like their
modern form, come from Gottlob Frege, about 130 years ago. In the
last section of Chapter 1, I explain some of Frege’s basic concepts. I
think that these concepts, with some modification, are valuable in
understanding perception, even though they were first developed for
understanding much higher-level representation—representation in
mathematics.
I think that parts of the science need not only a deeper grip on
semantics, but a much more rigorous terminology. Uses of terms like
‘representation’, ‘knowledge’, ‘cognition’, ‘recognition’, ‘judgment’,
‘belief’, ‘concept’, ‘prediction’, ‘intention’, ‘voluntary’ are far from
reflective, much less standardized, in the science. Assimilating the
whys and wherefores of terminology, is often the beginning of better,
more fruitful empirical inquiry. Centrally, in Chapter 19, the section
Uses and Misuses of the Term ‘Cognition’, but also throughout the book,
there is a concerted effort to emphasize sharper uses of key
mentalistic terms so as to respect basic differences in
representational level. Such differences correspond to important
differences in representational kinds—that is, representational
capacities.
 This is a long, complex book. Understanding anything well
requires effort and patience. Genuine philosophical and scientific
understanding cannot be grabbed off the shelf. The time and effort
required to understand this book will be considerable. One cannot
get there in a few sittings. The key point is to read and reread
carefully and slowly, noting and reflecting on nuances and
qualifications, mastering terminology, reading in context, connecting
different contexts together, reading the footnotes, going back to
earlier passages—all the while, reflecting. Few readers outside
philosophy ever read this way. Most philosophers have, I think, lost
the art. Iris Murdoch, in harmony with the marvelous quote that
heads Chapter 1, wrote: ‘In philosophy, the race is to the slow’. Too
many race at high speeds. The psychological and sociological
pressures to form opinions and publish them quickly, and often, are
very strong. Academic pressures and computer fluency have yielded
much more writing, with no more time to master the increasingly
complex topics written about. Careless reading, misdirected criticism,
uninformed opinions, simplistic proposals abound. Perhaps it was
always so. However, as knowledge grows—and grows more complex
—lack of patience in pursuing understanding is an increasingly
debilitating vice. Given that philosophical understanding of this
book’s topics has become harder—because more is known and what
is known is more complex—patience is more required than ever.
For those who may have some interest in the book, but are not
initially willing to invest large of amounts of time in it, I set out a
plan for getting some of the book’s gist. My hope is that after
achieving an overview, some readers will be tempted to go back for
more—not just noting fine points, but mastering the book’s
conceptual framework and conceptual intricacies.
For vision scientists, Parts I–II deal with the least familiar ideas—
principally, the representational form and semantics of perception.
Part III and Chapters 13–18 in Part IV mainly describe matters that
many vision or visuo-motor scientists are familiar with, although
these passages cast those matters in a conceptual form that may be
more unified than specialized accounts provide. Chapter 19 of Part
IV, supported by Chapters 13–18, presents a large view of the visual
system and visuo-motor system that uses perhaps familiar empirical
materials to develop a possibly less familiar, or more sharply
articulated, view of those systems as wholes.
For those, either vision scientists or others, who simply want to
get a sense for the main lines of thought, I offer the following,
tentative guide.
I recommend, in Part I, the first two sections of Chapter 1 and all
of Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, I recommend the prologue and the
section Retinal Image Contour Registration and Surface Contour
Perception. This section illustrates concretely how I think perceptual
constancies are distinguished from other invariances in visual
perception.
In Part II, I recommend the prologue at the beginning of Chapter
4, and the third and fifth sections of the chapter (Representational-
Dependence Hierarchies in Perceptual Attribution and Taxonomic
Hierarchies in Perception). In Chapter 5, I recommend the first two
sections (Basic Form of Perceptual Contents and Perceptual Reference is
Partly Guided by Perceptual Attribution). In Chapter 6, I recommend
the first three and the last of the sections (Review of Basic Form of
Perceptual Representation; Perception of Property Instances; Betokening
and Four Types of Perceptual Attribution; and Perceptual Contents,
Propositions, and Noun Phrase). Chapter 7 gives the central account of
the semantics of perception. This may be hard to follow if one has
skipped too much of the slow development of concepts that lead up
to it. The key section is the next-to-last one (Accuracy Conditions for
Perceptual Attributives in Perceptual Constancies). Chapter 8 centers on
the way space and time are represented in visual perception. It can
be skipped by those not interested in details of perceptual
representational structure. Chapter 9 connects basic representational
structure (the structure of reference and attribution) with the iconic
form of visual perception. The key sections are the first and the last
two (Noun-Phrase-Like Structure and Iconic Representation in Perception;
Relations Between Iconic Format and Representational Content; and The
Tractability of Iconic Attributional Complexity).
 In Part III, I recommend the prologue at the beginning of
Chapter 10 and the first and last sections of that chapter (What Are
First-Formed Perceptual States Like?: Three Limitative Views and Two
Types of First-Formed Perception). In Chapter 11, I recommend the
prologue and the first section (Two Changes in Scientific Understanding
of Perception-Formation). The second section is a brief run-through of
the course that visual processing takes in the brain. The main points
will be familiar to any vision scientist. The remaining sections provide
basic facts about timing and about perceptual categorization. They
may be skimmed or skipped by those seeking only gist. All these
sections in Chapter 11 are mainly descriptive—with some
improvements, I think, in conceptual rigor—of facts familiar to many
vision scientists. Chapter 12 has a methodological discussion of
considerations that bear on whether an attributive is, or should be,
considered a perceptual attributive—an attributive, or characterizer,
generated in the visual system (Methodology for Finding Perceptual
Attributives). That section tries to codify and state more precisely
methods already in place in the science.
Part IV treats the visual system at a level of generality far from
the focused empirical studies that make up most of the science. The
prologue for Chapter 13 is recommended. It sets the plan of Part IV.
Readers trying for an overview can pick and choose within, or skip,
Chapters 13–18. These chapters discuss categorization, conation,
attention, various forms of short-term memory, long-term memory,
affect, learning, anticipation, and imagining. The chapters develop
the idea that all these capacities have functions at the
representational level of perception. As noted, the notion of level is
explained briefly in Chapter 1 and in more detail at the beginning of
Chapter 13. The chapters are part of an extended argument that the
perceptual-level functions and operations of these capacities occur
within the visual system or the visuo-motor system, in a specific
sense of ‘occur within’. Chapter 19 can be read by sampling the
beginning of each section, then determining how much further to
read. Chapter 19 uses work in Chapters 13–18 to develop the idea
that the perceptual system—for which the visual system is
paradigmatic—and the perceptual-motor system are lower
representational mind. A proposal for understanding the unity of
lower representational mind is advanced in A Computational Construal
of Modularity. Although I explore some intermediate territory in What
Should Count as Cognition?, I think that lower representational mind
contrasts most dramatically with capacities for propositional
inference and language, the more primitive of which constitute the
first capacities in upper representational mind. I believe that the
most important feature of upper representational mind is
competence to produce explanations. This capacity develops into
science, moral thinking and practice, and, most broadly, into
understanding. The section The Empiricist Model of Perception and
Cognition: Degrees of Abstraction brings together criticisms, which
recur throughout the book, of an old way of thinking about the
relation between perception and thought that, while not prevalent in
psychophysics of perception, remains widespread in other parts of
psychology and in philosophy. This section might be useful to
psychologists as well as philosophers. Chapter 20 summarizes main
themes, and concludes.
For valuable input, I am grateful to: Marty Banks, John Bartholdi,
Blake Batoon, Ned Block, David Bordeaux, David Brainard, Denis
Buehler, Daniel Burge, Dorli Burge, Johannes Burge, Susan Carey,
Sam Cumming, Will Davies, Frank Durgin, Chaz Firestone, Julian
Fischer, Bill Geisler, Katherine Gluer, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Graham, Gabe Greenberg, Michael Hansen, Catherine Hochman,
Gabby Johnson, Nancy Kanwisher, Ed Keenan, Philip Kellman, Ela
Kotkowska, Bill Kowalsky, Kevin Lande, Hakwan Lau, Gavin
Lawrence, Yannig Luthra, Tony Martin, Peter Momtchiloff, Bence
Nanay, Peter Pagin, Alexi Patsaouras, Christopher Peacocke, Sam
Pensler, Atthanasios Raftopoulos, Jacob Reid, Michael Rescorla,
Pieter Roelfsema, Jeffrey Schall, Brian Scholl, Wesley Seurat,
Houston Smit, Sheldon Smith, Irene Sperandio, Galen Strawson, Paul
Talma, Shimon Ullman, Tamar Weber, Fei Xu, Yaffa Yeshurun. Thanks
also to three anonymous reviewers. The two complex drawings,
Figures 9.2 and 9.3, are by Bill Kowalsky, as are the other drawings,
except for one by Johannes Burge.
My immediate family—sons and wife—has supported and taken
interest. I am especially grateful to my wife, Dorli, for patience in
understanding her often distracted husband and for helping me to
look more carefully at the world, especially appreciating details and
finding joy in the beauties of little things.

Tyler Burge
Animal Eye Grid
Animal eye grid credit lines:
(1) Tarsier monkey, © nikpal/Getty Images; (2) Horse, © Magdalena
Strakova/EyeEm/Getty Images; (3) Cat, © Dobermaraner/Shutterstock.com; (4) Racing
pigeon, © triocean/Getty Images; (5) Red-eyed tree frog, © Mark Kostich/Getty Images;
(6) Indian elephant, © Volanthevist/Getty Images; (7) Bearded vulture, ©
Slowmotiongli/Dreamstime.com; (8) Robber fly, © suwich/Getty Images; (9) Blue-spotted
pufferfish, © Shahar Shabtai/Shutterstock.com; (10) Deer fly, © ekamelev/Unsplash; (11)
Goat, © Tsuneya Kudoh/EyeEm/Getty Images; (12) Iguana, ©
Gaschwald/Dreamstime.com; (13) Grey butterfly, © egor-kamelev/Pexels; (14) Emerald
tree boa, © George lepp/Getty Images; (15) Ant, © Visual&Written SL/Alamy Stock Photo;
(16) Jumping Spider, © Razvan Cornel Constantin/Dreamstime.com; (17) Discus Fish, ©
tunart/getty Images; (18) Tokay Gecko, © Spaceheater/Dreamstime.com; (19) Octopus, ©
iStock.com/leventalbas; (20) Eurasian Eagle Owl, © GlobalP/Getty Images; (21) Sumatran
tiger, © ekamelev/Unsplash; (22) Human, © Tatiana Makotra/Shutterstock.com; (23)
Chameleon, © aluxum/Getty Images; (24) Bee, © ekamelev/Unsplash; (25) Chimpanzee,
© Karl Ammann/Getty Images; (26) Green tree python, © Zoran Kolundzija/Getty Images;
(27) Finschs Imperial Pigeon, © Marc Dozier/Getty Images; (28) Sparrowhawk, © Katie
Kokoshashvili/Shutterstock.com; (29) California grey whale, © Michael S. Nolan/Alamy
Stock Photo; (30) Lion, © Ben Puttock/Alamy Stock Photo; (31) Northern harrier eagle, ©
Wildlife World/ Dreamstime.com; (32) Mantis shrimp, © Alex Permiakov/Shutterstock.com;
(33) Napoleon wrasse fish, © ifish/Getty Images; (34) Caiman crocodile, © Jonathan
Knowles/Getty Images; (35) Fly, © egor-kamelev/Pexels; (36) Parrot, © Couleur/Pixabay.
Animal Eyes
 Figures

3.1. Geisler Contours

7.1. Drawings conveying the different modes of representation for the top edge
and side edges and their lengths in two orientations of the same surface, or
two orientations of two different but similarly sized and shaped surfaces
9.1. A sample surface made up of six smallest-discriminable cells
9.2. A model of the iconic representational content of a perceptual state
representing the 6-cell surface.
9.3. Depiction of a scene showing different points of view
10.1. Illustration of a simple example of the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation
(RSVP) experimental paradigm. Source: M. Potter, B. Wyble, C. Hagmann,
and E. McCourt, ‘Detecting Meaning in RSVP at 13 ms per Picture’
11.1a. Diagrammatic section through the head, sketching major features of the
main visual pathway linking the eyes to the striate cortex (V1). Source: J.P.
Frisby and J.V. Stone, Seeing, second edition, figure 1.5, p. 4, © 2010
Massachusetts Institute of Technology by permission of The MIT Press
11.1b. Illustration of two visual pathways underneath the cortical areas of the
brain.Source: J.P. Frisby and J.V. Stone, Seeing, second edition, figure 1.6,
p. 5, © 2010Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by permission of The
MIT Press
11.2. Some main visual areas of the brain
12.1. The launching (top row) and entrainment (bottom row) effects, discovered
by Michotte
12.2. Habituated launching sequence and the same sequence in reverse
12.3. William Ball experimental paradigm
12.4. Causation and overlap
14.1. Important states in Relatively Primitive Action-Motor System
15.1. Sequence of display in each trial of flashed discs
 15.2. A visibility map of a 15-degree-circumference-sized part of a retinal image.
Source: J. Najemnik and W. Geisler, ‘Simple Summation Rule for
OptimalFixation Selection in Visual Search’, figure 2a, p1288, © 2009,
withpermission from Elsevier
15.3a. Flow chart for computational program of Tsotsos and Kruijne for visual
discrimination task. Source: Adapted from J. Tsotsos and W. Kruijne,
‘Cognitive Programs: Software for Attention’s Executive’, Figure 1, p. 4,
open-access distributedunder the terms of the Creative Common Attribution
License (CC BY)
15.3b. Abstract diagram of the structure of the functional components necessary
to support the executive control of attentive processing with information-
passing channels indicated in red arrows. Source: Adapted from J. Tsotsos
and W. Kruijne, ‘Cognitive Programs: Software for Attention’s Executive’,
Figures 5–6, p8, open-access distributed under the terms of the Creative
Common Attribution License (CC BY)
15.3c. Diagram of model for system of processing of visual executive-control
system’s (vAE’s) attention commands for visual task execution. Source:
Adapted from J. Tsotsos and W. Kruijne, ‘Cognitive Programs: Software for
Attention’s Executive’, Figures 5–6, p8, open-access distributed under the
terms of the Creative Common Attribution License (CC BY)
16.1. A typical Sperling test display
18.1. Examples of figures used in mental rotation experiments. Source: Adapted
from Roger N. Shepard and Lynn A. Cooper, Mental Images And Their
Transformations, figure, page 495, © 1982 Massachusetts Institute of
Technology by permission of The MIT Press
19.1. Causal analogy
 Abbreviations

CSTM conceptual short-term memory

FEF frontal eye fields
FFA fusiform face area
FFE fast field echo
fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging
FVSTM fragile visual short-term memory
IT inferior temporal cortex
LGN lateral geniculate nucleus
LOT language of thought
LTM long-term memory
MST medial superior temporal area
MT middle temporal area / medial temporal cortex
ms millisecond
OFC orbital frontal cortex
PFC pre-frontal cortex
PHC para-hippocampal cortex
RC retrosplenial cortex
RDS random dot stereograms
RSVP rapid serial visual presentation
SM simple model
SOA stimulus onset asynchrony
TSM trans-saccadic memory
V1–V5 visual cortical areas
VLTM visual long-term memory
VWM visual working memory
WM working memory
 PA RT I
PERCEPTION
 1
Introduction

In philosophy, if you aren’t moving at a snail’s pace, you aren’t

moving at all.
Iris Murdoch, Existentialists and Mystics

In the grand array of occupants of the universe, from sub-atomic

particles through higher animals, the animals with minds stand out
as special. Some of the specialness derives from our being in this
group. We interest ourselves. This interest extends to animals like
us.
The natural interest is grounded in more than self-interest. It is
grounded in a deep joint in nature—the joint between the minded
and the mindless. The joint may be ragged. It may have borderline
cases. But it is real. It is relevant to matters of great value and
importance—science, understanding, morality, art. Without mind,
none of these pursuits or goods exist. They seem good
independently of whether we engage with them. They depend for
being good on realizing functions of certain types of minds. The
mindedness and the type of mind ground the goodness, not their
being ours. My project is understanding—understanding some
central aspects of mind.
Understanding the mind–mindless joint requires understanding
mind in its most basic forms. Of course, mind depends on the
mindless and makes use of it. Without the regularities of organic
chemistry, minds could not be minds. Without the regularities of the
broader macro-physical world, minds could not navigate through it.
In many ways, the non-minded physical world stamps itself into the
very natures of mental states. In understanding mind, however, it is
important to understand what is new and different about it, at its
most elementary levels. Such understanding aids understanding
richer forms that guide the listed pursuits. Those pursuits are not
possible where mind begins. They are not possible for the first forms
of mind. However, they depend on and employ these forms. A
central aim of this book is to understand forms of mind at this initial
juncture—forms of perception.

Biological Function, Action, Sensing, and

Perception—The Emergence of Mind
Before mind emerged, another deep and interesting joint in nature
had already developed. Brief attention to this joint is valuable in
understanding the joint on which mind hinges. Most of the universe
is fire, rock, or emptiness. Already with life, there is a momentous
difference. Life occupies small crevasses in the universe. However, it
marks a large change from the chemical mixes from which it
emerged. Although the living share a material basis with the non-
living, the living comprise a genuinely new and different group of the
universe’s occupants.
The point is not just intuitive. It shows up in new terms and
methods in the scientific study of life. Notions of function, growth,
reproduction, natural selection, adaptation, life-cycles, ecology have
no place in physics or chemistry. They are central to biology. The
historical study of evolution and a lesser emphasis on law, are
foreign to physics and chemistry. These scientific differences signal
subject-matter differences. The living are very different from the
rest.
A key aspect of life, lacking in the lifeless natural world, is
function. Rock and fire have no functions in themselves. Biological
functions are patterns of operation whose existence derives from
their contributions to success in reproduction.1 The function of
photo-synthesis is to convert light energy into chemical energy that
subsequently is transformed in a way that feeds an organism’s other
operations. The process exists in plants and other organisms
because it contributed to their reproduction. It was naturally
selected.
Like other types of function, biological function is conceptually
linked with doing well, being successful. These types of goodness
are not moral, or products of plans or purposes. They are good for
the system, or individual, or species, because they aid survival long
enough to reproduce. Being a biological function is an objective
matter: functions are what they are independently of whether
anyone recognizes them. They are open to objective evaluation,
even scientific evaluation, by rational standards. Whether and to
what degree a process fulfills one of its functions can be empirically
assessed. Either a process functions well or it does not.
Some functions are attributable to plants and animals as whole
organisms. Others are attributed only to subsystems or parts of a
plant or animal. For example, functions to grow and reproduce are
functions of the whole plant. By contrast, production of pollen grains
is a function of the anther in a plant’s flower. Photo-synthesis is an
operation in each individual cell. The whole plant, its sub-systems,
and its parts can succeed or fail in realizing their functions.
Functional processing in plants responds in ways sensitive to the
environment. Photo-synthesis depends on features of the plant that
are specialized to be sensitive to light. Photo-synthesis yields
responses, such as directional growth, that depend on chemical
reactions in the plant that transform the light’s energy into chemical
energy. These are antecedents of sensing and action that occur in
animals. I think it well to follow common sense in thinking that these
are not strictly cases of sensing or acting. I say that plants are
sensitive to the environment, whereas animals sense it. Animals, but
not plants, act. Directional growth and pollination are not actions. A
plant’s absorption of water and nutrients is not drinking or eating.
The Venus Fly Trap’s engulfing of visitors is not eating. I conjecture
that this is so because the relevant changes in the plant can be too
easily explained in terms of summations of changes that occur in
plant cells. There is no need to postulate a central locus of conation,
as we do for agents.
Some speak metaphorically, even poetically, of sensing and acting
by plants. Some scientists like to say that plants communicate with
one another. Perhaps there is a broad enough notion of
communication to allow such talk to be non-metaphorical. I believe
that any such communication is not action. Calling functional, cross-
individual patterns of sensitivity and response among plants’
“communication” serves advertisement more than understanding.
True understanding depends more here on exploring differences
than on engaging in assimilation.
I think that serious conceptual and scientific investigation of these
matters will confirm some variant of what common sense assumes.
Plants may communicate. They do not act. Some or all animals, and
perhaps other organisms that are neither plants nor animals, do.
I think that action has to do with a coordination among central
capacities of an organism—typically, but not necessarily,
endogenously causing movement by the individual.2 As noted, I
conjecture that plants do not act, because their changes derive not
from a central coordinating capacity, but from a mere aggregation of
changes in plant parts. Photo-synthesis occurs in every plant cell.
Growth is not action partly because it is a summation of aggregate
increases in various cells. Directionality in growth stems from the
fact that more stimulated cells multiply faster. Plants are sensitive to
light. Relevant stimulation for growth is often from light. Plants grow
toward the light. Directional growth is an aggregate response of
changes in the plant’s most stimulated cells. This is not action.
Similarly, for absorption of water and nutrients. Such absorption is
not drinking or eating. These points are at best a gesture at a
position on a complicated topic.
I take the notion of sensing, as distinct from that of sensitivity, to
be tied to action. Plants are sensitive to stimuli. Animals sense
stimuli. Sensing and action emerge together.3
 The distinction between plant responses and animal (or other
organisms) action is not central to the present project. It is
background. What I have pointed to is a broad analogy between
plant sensitivity and functional growth-like responses, on one hand,
and animal sensing and functional behavioral responses that include
action, on the other.
The sensing-action nexus is very old, older than the emergence of
mind. Organisms that surely lack minds—paramecia, simple worms,
snails—act. They eat, swim, or crawl. They depend on elementary
sensing capacities in fulfilling these activities’ functions.
Here again, biological functions of the organism are to be
distinguished from biological functions of organs and operations
within the organism. For example, eating, mating, swimming,
crawling, and navigating are biological functions of the whole animal.
All meet earlier-discussed conditions for being a biological function.
All depend for being functional on the well-functioning operation of
biological systems or organs within the organism. For example,
eating’s fulfilling its function depends on the well-functioning
operation of a digestive system. The whole-animal functions are
relevant to understanding success and failure for the whole animal,
not just sub-systems or sub-parts of the animal. Acting and sensing
are functional pursuits at the level of the whole animal. They form
the womb out of which basic forms of mind are born.
Philosophical tradition has come to a broad consensus on the
most general marks of mind. They are consciousness and
representation.4 Thought and perception—both of which are types of
representation—can be conscious or unconscious. Consciousness, I
think, can be either representational or not. A representational state
like a perception can, obviously, be conscious. A feel of a pain or a
tickle can, I think, be distinguished from a proprioceptive
representation of its location. Such feels are conscious, but not in
themselves representational in the ordinary sense of representation
—the sense that I will refine and develop.
This book focuses on representation, not consciousness. I take
perceptual representation to be a basic mark of mind and a mark of
nature’s mind–mindless joint. This view does not compete with the
idea that consciousness is also a basic mark of mind. There may be
two joints in nature between minds and the mindless. Many minds
are both representational and at some times conscious. But it may
be that there are conscious beings that do not represent and
representational beings that are not conscious. I focus on the first
mark of mind—representation. Vastly more is known about it. The
science of consciousness is in its gestation stage. The science of
perceptual representation is in its early maturity.
There is no consensus about how consciousness and
representation are related in being marks of mind. The issue is
complicated by the fact that there are importantly different historical
understandings of the putative subject matter here—mind. The
notions of mind, psyche, soul, psychological system, and so on, each
has different historical associations. I ignore nuance here, in the
interests of providing a broad-brushed setting for the main project. I
think that having consciousness and having representation are each
sufficient for having a mind.
Neither is by itself necessary for having a mind. An animal that
feels pain—and hence is conscious—has a mind. It may or may not
have a capacity to represent, in the sense of ‘represent’ that will
occupy us. For example, it may or may not have perceptual states.
An animal that perceives, and hence represents, has a mind. It may
or may not be capable of consciousness.
So I think that representation and consciousness are in principle
separable. Each is a mark of mind.5 It follows that there could be
two paths to mind in the evolution of animals—one through
consciousness, one through representation. If one wants to
distinguish mind—marked by consciousness—from psychology—
marked by representation—,I have no strong objection. Then there
may be minds without psychologies, and psychologies without
minds. I do not, however, write in these ways. I do sometimes write
of conscious mind or representational mind.
I assume that the two marks of mind—consciousness and
representation—are each sufficient for having mind. Having at least
one is necessary. Neither is by itself necessary.
Of course, many animals that are conscious are capable of
representation, and many animals capable of representation are
conscious. All higher animals, certainly all mammals, have
representational capacities and are (often) conscious. So if there are,
in evolutionary history, separate streams into mind—animals that are
conscious but do not represent and/or animals that represent but
are not conscious—, these two streams flow back together in more
complex animals.
The point about the separability of consciousness and
representation is a very general, conceptual point. There is no
necessary connection between consciousness and representation.
The point is not just of general conceptual importance. It bears
on understanding the kind of representation that figures in this
book. I have said that, for all we know, there may be animals that
have perception and lack consciousness. Bees and other arthropods
have perception. They may lack consciousness. We do not know
enough about consciousness to settle the question. One day,
unconscious robots might be produced so as to have visual
perception.
I think that perception without even a capacity for consciousness
is epistemically, metaphysically, and nomologically possible.
Epistemically: I think that nothing that we know, either empirically or
apriori, rules out perceptual representation without consciousness
(or vice-versa). Metaphysically and nomologically: I think it a real
possibility that an animal have perceptual representation and lack
any capacity for consciousness. Representation is primarily a
functional matter. It hinges on what an individual or the individual’s
sub-systems can do. Consciousness is not a functional matter; it
hinges on an individual’s material basis.
Psychophysical explanations posit human perceptual states that
are not and cannot become conscious.6 Much of the science of
perception is carried on without specifying whether a perception is
conscious. These points form the ground for the conjecture that
there is nothing in the nature of things that requires some
association between consciousness and representation.
Of course, conscious perceptions are an interesting topic. They
have different psychological-representational, as well as
phenomenological, properties from unconscious ones. But
consciousness itself is not yet a central scientific topic. Perceptual
science has been spectacularly successful without theorizing much
about it. Eventually, more will be known.
Some philosophers claim that perception must be conscious.
Some claim that perception that picks out bodies, or perception that
is not guesswork and could support knowledge, requires
consciousness. None of the arguments that I know of for such
positions has any force. I discuss some in Chapter 10, the section
Philosophical Views Influenced by Treisman’s Binding Theory. Several are
incompatible with what is known from science. Issues about
consciousness are not central in our story, but they arise recurrently.
I mention them here both to acknowledge their natural interest and
to motivate not centering on them. My primary focus is
representation.
More specifically, I focus on perceptual representation. Perceptual
representation is where representational mind begins. I reflect on
the joint in nature between mind and the mindless by reflecting on
differences between perceptual representation and those non-
perceptual sensory capacities that underlie it. I center on perception
—and related capacities like perceptual memory and perceptual
anticipation—because it is functionally the most basic
representational capacity. No other representational capacity evolved
earlier. If other representational capacities (perceptual memory, for
example) evolved equally early, they depend functionally on
perception.
Perception is, evolutionarily, the first known manifestation of
representational mind. Arthropods—bees, praying mantises, and
certain spiders—are known to have visual perception. Visual
perception is distinct, in ways to be discussed, from other types of
light-based sensing. Snails, molluscs, and tapeworms sense light,
even light-direction. Ants respond to light-produced templates that
correspond to surface shape.7 These capacities for visual sensing are
not perception. Snails and molluscs are not known to have visual
perception. I think it unlikely that animals that evolved much earlier
than the arthropods had perceptual representation. So we have a
rough sense of where representational mind begins. It begins among
the arthropods.8
I do not center on the evolutionary emergence of
representational mind, despite its great interest. My topic is
different. Given that perception is the earliest form of representation,
and that other forms develop from it, what can be learned about
representation and the earliest form of representational mind by
reflecting on perception? I center on what perception is—its
structure and function—not on how it evolved. Evolution will,
however, recurrently come up.
I also want to understand relations between perception and
closely, almost inevitably associated capacities—perceptual attention,
primitive perceptually guided action, perceptual memory, perceptual
anticipation, perceptual imagining, perceptual learning. I argue later
that these capacities participate, with perception, in a psychological
system all of whose capacities share representational form and
representational content with perception itself.
Philosophy is fortunate to be able to reflect on science. A science
of perception, particularly vision science, has bloomed into a
rigorous enterprise over the last fifty years. It is by far the most
impressive psychological science. It is more advanced in
mathematization, and in predictive and explanatory power than
many biological sciences. Especially in the second half of the book, I
make extensive use of what is known from this science. Doing so is
part of gaining a philosophical understanding of issues attaching to
perception and perceptual-level representation.
Such understanding is inevitably affected by scientific change. A
lot of detail that I discuss will turn out to be mistaken and
superceded. Some of it is probably already known by someone to be
mistaken. The science is so vast that no account can keep up with
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 CHAPTER III
REFORMS AFTER THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1763–1774

In September Hale’s Light Dragoons moved up

to Berwick-on-Tweed, and thence into Scotland, 1760.
where they were appointed to remain for the three
ensuing years. Before it left Coventry the regiment, in common with
all Light Dragoon regiments, had gathered fresh importance for itself
from the magnificent behaviour of the 15th at Emsdorf on the 16th
July; in which engagement Captain Martin Basil, who had returned to
his own corps from Colonel Hale’s, was among the slain. The close
of the year brings us to the earliest of the regimental muster-rolls,
which is dated Haddington, 8th December 1760. One must speak of
muster-rolls in the plural, for there is a separate muster-roll for each
troop—regimental rolls being at this period unknown.
These first rolls are somewhat of a curiosity, for that every one of
them describes Hale’s regiment as the 17th, the officers being
evidently unwilling to yield seniority to the two paltry troops raised by
Lord Aberdour. The next muster-rolls show
considerable difference of opinion as to the 1761.
regimental number, the head-quarter troop calling
itself of the 18th, while the rest still claim to be of
the 17th. In 1762 for the first time every troop 1762.
acknowledges itself to be of the 18th, but in April
1763 the old conflict of opinion reappears; the 1763.
head-quarter troop writes itself down as of the 18th,
two other troops as of the 17th, while the remainder decline to
commit themselves to any number at all. A gap in the rolls from
1763–1771 prevents us from following the controversy any further;
but from this year 1763, the Seventeenth, as shall
be shown, enjoys undisputed right to the number 1763.
which it originally claimed.
Albeit raised for service in the Seven Years’ War, the regiment
was never sent abroad, though it furnished a draft of fifty men and
horses to the army under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. All efforts
to discover anything about this draft have proved fruitless; though
from the circumstance that Lieutenant Wallop is described in the
muster-rolls as “prisoner of war to the French,” it is just possible that
it served as an independent unit, and was actively engaged. But the
war came to an end with the Treaty of Paris early in 1763; and with
the peace came a variety of important changes for the Army, and
particularly for the Light Dragoons.
The first change, of course, was a great reduction of the military
establishment. Many regiments were disbanded—Lord Aberdour’s,
the 20th and 21st Light Dragoons among them. Colonel Hale’s
regiment was retained, and became the Seventeenth; and, as if to
warrant it continued life, Hale himself was promoted to be full
Colonel. We must not omit to mention here that, whether on account
of his advancement, or from other simpler causes, Colonel Hale in
this same year took to himself a wife, Miss Mary Chaloner of
Guisbrough. History does not relate whether the occasion was duly
celebrated by the regiment, either at the Colonel’s expense or at its
own; but it is safe to assume that, in those hard-drinking days, such
an opportunity for extra consumption of liquor was not neglected. If
the fulness of the quiver be accepted as the measure of wedded
happiness, then we may fearlessly assert that Colonel Hale was a
happy man. Mrs. Hale bore him no fewer than twenty-one children,
seventeen of whom survived him.
The actual command of the regiment upon Colonel Hale’s
promotion devolved upon Lieut.-Colonel Blaquiere, whose duty it
now became to carry out a number of new regulations laid down
after the peace for the guidance of the Light Dragoons. By July 1764
these reforms were finally completed; and as they
remained in force for another twenty years, they 1764.
must be given here at some length. The pith of
them lies in the fact that the authorities had determined to
emphasise in every possible way the distinction between Light and
Heavy Cavalry. Let us begin with the least important, but most
sentimental of all matters—the dress.
Privates
Coat.—(Alike for all ranks.) Scarlet, with 3-inch white lapels to the
waist. White collar and cuffs, sleeves unslit. White lining. Braid on
button-holes. Buttons, in pairs, white metal with regimental
number.
Waistcoat.—White, unembroidered and unlaced. Cross pockets.
Breeches.—White, duck or leather.
Boots.—To the knee, “round toed and of a light sort.”
Helmet.—Black leather, with badge of white metal in front, and white
turban round the base, plume and crest scarlet and white.
Forage Cap.—Red, turned up with white. Regimental number on little
flap.
Shoulder Belts.—White, 2¾ inches broad. Sword belt over the right
shoulder.
Waist Belt.—White, 1¾ inches broad.
Cloaks.—Red, white lining; loop of black and white lace on the top.
White cape.
Epaulettes.—White cloth with white worsted fringe.

Corporals
Same as the men. Distinguished by narrow silver lace round the turn-
up of the sleeves. Epaulettes bound with white silk tape, white silk
fringe.

Sergeants
Same as the men. Epaulettes bound with narrow silver lace; silver
fringe. Narrow silver lace round button-holes. Sash of spun silk,
crimson with white stripe.

Quartermasters
Same as the men. Silver epaulettes. Sash of spun silk, crimson.

Officers
Same as the men; but with silver lace or embroidery at the Colonel’s
discretion. Silk sash, crimson. Silver epaulettes. Scarlet velvet
stock and waist belts.
Trumpeters
 White coats with scarlet lapels and lining; lace, white with black edge;
red waistcoats and breeches. Hats, cocked, with white plume.
Farriers
Blue coats, waistcoats, and breeches. Linings and lapels blue; turn-up
of sleeves white. Hat, small black bearskin, with a horse-shoe of
silver-plated metal on a black ground. White apron rolled back on
left side.
Horse Furniture.—White cloth holster caps and housings bordered
with white, black-edged lace. xvii. l. d. embroidered on the
housings on a scarlet ground, within a wreath of roses and
thistles. King’s cypher, with crown over it and xvii. l. d. under it
embroidered on the holster caps.
Officers had a silver tassel on the holster caps and at the corners of
the housings.
Quartermasters had the same furniture as the officers, but with
narrower lace, and without tassels to the holster caps.

Arms
Officers.—A pair of pistols with barrels 9 inches long. Sword (straight
or curved according to regimental pattern), blade 36 inches long.
A smaller sword, with 28-inch blade, worn in a waist belt, for foot
duty.
Men.—Sword and pistols, as the officers. Carbine, 2 feet 5 inches
long in the barrel. Bayonet, 12 inches long. Carbine and pistols of
the same bore. Cartridge-box to hold twenty-four rounds.
So much for the outward adornment and armament of the men, to
which we have only to add that trumpeters, to give them further
distinction, were mounted on white horses, and carried a sword with
a scimitar blade. Farriers, who were a peculiar people in those days,
were made as dusky as the trumpeters were gorgeous. They carried
two churns instead of holsters on their saddles, wherein to stow their
shoeing tools, etc., and black bearskin furniture with crossed
hammer and pincers on the housing. Their weapon was an axe,
carried, like the men’s swords, in a belt slung from the right shoulder.
When the men drew swords, the farriers drew axes and carried them
at the “advance.” The old traditions of the original farrier still survive
in the blue tunics, black plumes, and axes of the farriers of the Life
Guards, as well as in the blue stable jackets of their brethren of the
Dragoons.
Passing now from man to horse, we must note that from 27th July
1764 it was ordained that the horses of Horse and Dragoons should
in future wear their full tails, and that those of Light Dragoons only
should be docked.[3] This was the first step towards the reduction of
the weight to be carried by the Light Dragoon horse. The next was
more practical. A saddle much lighter than the old pattern was
invented, approved, and adopted, with excellent results. It was of
rather peculiar construction: very high in the pommel and cantle, and
very deep sunk in the seat, in order to give a man a steadier seat
when firing from on horseback. Behind the saddle was a flat board or
tray, on to which the kit was strapped in a rather bulky bundle. It was
reckoned that this saddle, with blanket and kit complete, 30 lbs of
hay and 5 pecks of oats, weighed just over 10 stone (141 lbs.); and
that the Dragoon with three days’ rations, ammunition, etc., weighed
12 stone 7 lbs. more; and that thus the total weight of a Dragoon in
heavy marching order with (roughly speaking) three days’ rations for
man and horse, was 22 stone 8 lbs. In marching from quarter to
quarter in England, the utmost weight on a horse’s back was
reckoned not to exceed 16 stone.
A few odd points remain to be noticed before the question of
saddlery is finally dismissed. In the first place, there was rather an
uncouth mixture of colours in the leather, which, though designed to
look well with the horse furniture, cannot have been beautiful without
it. Thus the head collar for ordinary occasions was brown, but for
reviews white; bridoons were black, bits of bright steel; the saddle
was brown, and the carbine bucket black. These buckets were, of
course, little more than leather caps five or six inches long, fitting
over the muzzle of the carbine, practically the same as were served
out to Her Majesty’s Auxiliary Cavalry less than twenty years ago.
Light Dragoons, however, had a swivel fitted to their shoulder-belt to
which the carbine could be sprung, and the weapon thus made more
readily available. The horse furniture of the men was not designed
for ornament only; for, being made in one piece, it served to cover
the men when encamped under canvas. As a last minute point, let it
be noted that the stirrups of the officers were square, and of the men
round at the top.
We must take notice next of a more significant reform, namely, the
abolition of side drums and drummers in the Light Dragoons, and the
substitution of trumpeters in their place. By this change the Light
Dragoons gained an accession of dignity, and took equal rank with
the horse of old days. The establishment of trumpeters was, of
course, one to each troop, making six in all. When dismounted they
formed a “band of music,” consisting of two French horns, two
clarionets, and two bassoons, which, considering the difficulties and
imperfections of those instruments as they existed a century and a
quarter ago, must have produced some rather remarkable
combinations of sound. None the less we have here the germ of the
regimental band, which now enjoys so high a reputation.
Over and above the trumpeters, the regiment enjoyed the
possession of a fife, to whose music the men used to march. At
inspection the trumpets used to sound while the inspecting officer
went down the line; and when the trumpeters could blow no longer,
the fife took up the wondrous tale and filled up the interval with an
ear-piercing solo. The old trumpet “marches” are still heard (unless I
am mistaken) when the Household Cavalry relieve guard at
Whitehall. But more important than these parade trumpet sounds is
the increased use of the trumpet for signalling movements in the
field. The original number of trumpet-calls in the earliest days of the
British cavalry was, as has already been mentioned, but six. These
six were apparently still retained and made to serve for more
purposes than one; but others also were added to them. And since,
so far as we can gather, the variety of calls on one instrument that
could be played and remembered was limited by human
unskilfulness and human stupidity, this difficulty was overcome by
the employment of other instruments. These last were the bugle horn
and the French horn; the former the simple curved horn that is still
portrayed on the appointments of Light Infantry, the latter the curved
French hunting horn. The united efforts of trumpet, bugle horn, and
French horn availed to produce the following sounds:—
Stable call—Trumpet.
(Butte Sella). Boot and saddle—Trumpet.
[4]
(Monte Horse and away—Trumpet. But sometimes bugle horn; used
Cavallo).[4] also for evening stables.
(? Tucquet).[4] March—Trumpet.
Water—Trumpet.
(Auquet).[4] Setting watch or tattoo—Trumpet. Used also for morning
stables.
(? Tucquet).[4] The call—Trumpet. Used for parade or assembly.
Repair to alarm post—Bugle horn.
(Alla Standard call—Trumpet. Used for fetching and lodging
Standarda). standards; and also for drawing and returning swords.
[4]
Preparative for firing—Trumpet.
Cease firing—Trumpet.
Form squadrons, form the line—Bugle horn.
Advance—Trumpet.
(Carga).[4] Charge or attack—Trumpet.
Retreat—French horns.
Trot, gallop, front form—Trumpet.
Rally—Bugle horn.
Non-commissioned officers’ call—Trumpet.

The quick march on foot—The fife.

The slow march on foot—The band of music.

All attempts to discover the notation of these calls have, I regret to

say, proved fruitless, so that I am unable to state positively whether
any of them continue in use at the present day. The earliest musical
notation of the trumpet sounds that I have been able to discover
dates from the beginning of this century,[5] and is practically the
same as that in the cavalry drill-book of 1894; so that it is not
unreasonable to infer that the sounds have been little altered since
their first introduction. Indeed, it seems to me highly probable that
the old “Alla Standarda,” which is easily traceable back to the first
quarter of the seventeenth century, still survives in the flourish now
played after the general salute to an inspecting officer. As to the
actual employment of the three signalling instruments in the field, we
shall be able to judge better while treating of the next reform of
1763–1764, viz. that of the drill.
The first great change wrought by the experience of the Seven
Years’ War on the English Light Dragoon drill was the final abolition
of the formation in three ranks. Henceforward we shall never find the
Seventeenth ranked more than two deep. Further, we find a general
tendency to less stiffness and greater flexibility of movement, and to
greater rapidity of manœuvre. The very evolutions sacrifice some of
their prettiness and precision in order to gain swifter change of
formation. Thus, when the left half rank is doubled in rear of the right,
the right, instead of standing fast, advances and inclines to the left,
while the latter reins back and passages to the right, thus
accomplishing the desired result in half the time. Field manœuvres
are carried out chiefly by means of small flexible columns, differing
from the present in one principal feature only, viz. that the rear rank
in 1763 does not inseparably follow the front rank, but that each rank
wheels from line into column of half-ranks or quarter-ranks
independently. Moreover, we find one great principle pervading all
field movements: that Light Dragoons, for the dignity of their name,
must move with uncommon rapidity and smartness. The very word
“smart,” as applied to the action of a soldier, appears, so far as I
know, for the first time in a drill-book made for Light Dragoons at this
period. In illustration, let us briefly describe a parade attack
movement, which is particularly characteristic.
The regiment having been formed by previous manœuvres in
echelon of wings (three troops to a wing) from the left, the word is
given, “Advance and gain the flank of the enemy.”
First Trumpet.—The right files (of troops?) of each wing gallop to
the front, and form rank entire; unswivel their carbines, and keep up a
rapid irregular fire from the saddle.
Under cover of this fire the echelon advances.
Second Trumpet.—The right wing forms the “half-wedge” (single
echelon), passes the left or leading wing at an increased pace, and
gains the flank of the imaginary enemy by the “head to haunch” (an
extremely oblique form of incline), and forms line on the flank.
 Third Trumpet—“Charge.”—The skirmishers gallop back through
the intervals to the rear of their own troops, and remain there till the
charge is over.
French Horns—“Retreat.”—The skirmishers gallop forward once
more, and keep up their fire till the line is reformed.

The whole scheme of this attack is perhaps a shade theatrical,

and, indeed, may possibly have been designed to astonish the weak
mind of some gouty old infantry general; but a regiment that could
execute it smartly could hardly have been in a very inefficient state.

In 1765 the Seventeenth was moved to Ireland,

though to what part of Ireland the gap in the 1765.
muster-rolls disenables us to say. Almost certainly
it was split up into detachments, where we have reason to believe
that the troop officers took pains to teach their men the new drill. We
must conceive of the regiment’s life as best we may during this
period, for we have no information to help us. Colonel Blaquiere, we
have no doubt, paid visits to the outlying troops from time to time,
and probably was able now and again to get them together for work
in the field, particularly when an inspecting officer’s visit was at hand.
We know, from the inspection returns, that the Seventeenth
advanced and gained the flank of the enemy every year, in a fashion
which commanded the admiration of all beholders. And let us note
that in this very year the British Parliament passed an Act for the
imposition of stamp duties on the American Colonies—preparing,
though unconsciously, future work on active service for the
Seventeenth.
For the three ensuing years we find little that is
worth the chronicling, except that in 1766 the 1766.
regiment suffered, for a brief period, a further
change in its nomenclature, the 15th, 16th, and 17th being
renumbered the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Light Dragoons. In this same year
we discover, quite by chance, that two troops of the Seventeenth
were quartered in the Isle of Man, for how long we know not. In 1767
a small matter crops up which throws a curious light on the
grievances of the soldier in those days. Bread was so dear that
Government was compelled to help the men to pay for it, and to
ordain that on payment of fivepence every man should receive a six-
pound loaf—which loaf was to last him for four days. Let us note
also, as a matter of interest to Colonel Blaquiere, a rise in the value
of another article, namely, the troop horse, whereof the outside price
was in this year raised from twenty to twenty-two guineas.
In 1770 we find Colonel Hale promoted to be
Governor of Limerick, and therewith severed from 1770.
the regiment which he had raised. As his new post
must presumably have brought him over to Ireland, we may guess
that the regiment may have had an opportunity of giving him a
farewell dinner, and, as was the fashion in those days, of getting
more than ordinarily drunk. From this time forward we lose sight of
Colonel Hale, though he is still a young and vigorous man, and has
thirty-three years of life before him. His very name perishes from the
regiment, for if ever he had an idea of placing a son therein, that
hope must have been killed long before the arrival of his twenty-first
child. His successor in the colonelcy was Colonel George Preston of
the Scots Greys, a distinguished officer who had served at
Dettingen, Fontenoy, and other actions of the war of 1743–47, as
well as in the principal battles of the Seven Years’ War.
Meanwhile, through all these years, the plot of the American
dispute was thickening fast. From 1773 onwards
the news of trouble and discontent across the 1770.
Atlantic became more frequent; and at last in 1774
seven infantry regiments were despatched to Boston. Then probably
the Seventeenth pricked up its ears and discussed, with the lightest
of hearts, the prospect of fighting the rebels over
the water. The year 1775 had hardly come in when 1775.
the order arrived for the regiment to complete its
establishment with drafts from the 12th and 18th, and hold itself in
readiness to embark at Cork for the port of Boston. It was the first
cavalry regiment selected for the service—a pretty good proof of its
reputation for efficiency.[6]
Marching Order. Field-day Order. Review Order.
PRIVATES, 1784–1810.
 CHAPTER IV
THE AMERICAN WAR—1ST STAGE—THE NORTHERN CAMPAIGN, 1775–
1780.

It would be beside the purpose to enter upon a

relation of the causes which led to the rupture 1775.
between England and the thirteen North American
Colonies, and to the war of American Independence. The immediate
ground of dispute was, however, one in which the Army was
specially interested, namely, the question of Imperial defence.
Fifteen years before the outbreak of the American War England had,
by the conquest of Canada, relieved the Colonies from the presence
of a dangerous neighbour on their northern frontier, and for this good
service she felt justified in asking from them some return.
Unfortunately, however, the British Government, instead of leaving it
to the Colonies to determine in what manner their contribution to the
cost of Imperial defence should be raised, took the settlement of the
question into its own hands, as a matter wherein its authority was
paramount. Ultimately by a series of lamentable blunders the British
ministers contrived to create such irritation in America that the
Colonies broke into open revolt.
It was in the year 1774 that American discontent
reached its acutest stage; and the centre of that 1774.
discontent was the city of Boston. In July General
Gage, at that time in command of the forces in America, and later on
to be Colonel-in-Chief of the 17th Light Dragoons, feeling that the
security of Boston was now seriously threatened by the rebellious
attitude of the citizens, moved down with some troops and occupied
the neck of the isthmus on which the city stands.
This step increased the irritation of the people so 1774.
far that in a month or two he judged it prudent to
entrench his position and remove all military stores from outlying
stations into Boston. By November the temper of the Colonists had
become so unmistakably insubordinate that Gage issued a
proclamation warning them against the consequences of revolt. This
manifesto was taken in effect as a final signal for general and open
insurrection. Rhode Island and New Hampshire broke out at once;
and the Americans began their military preparations by seizing
British guns, stores, and ammunition wherever they
could get hold of them. By the opening of 1775 the 1775.
seizure, purchase, and collection of arms became
so general that Gage took alarm for the safety of a large magazine at
Concord, some twenty miles from Boston, and detached a force to
secure it. This expedition it was that led to the first shedding of
blood. The British troops succeeded in reaching Concord and
destroying the stores; but they had to fight their way back to Boston
through the whole population of the district, and finally arrived, worn
out with fatigue, having lost 240 men, killed,
wounded, and missing, out of 1800. The Americans 19th April.
then suddenly assembled a force of 20,000 men
and closely invested Boston.
It was just about this time that there arrived in Boston Captain
Oliver Delancey, of the 17th Light Dragoons, with despatches
announcing that reinforcements would shortly arrive from England
under the command of Generals Howe and Clinton. Captain
Delancey was charged with the duty of preparing for the reception of
his regiment, and in particular of purchasing horses whereon to
mount it. Two days after his arrival, therefore, he started for New
York to buy horses, only to find at his journey’s end that New York
also had risen in insurrection, and that there was nothing for it but to
return to Boston.
And while Delancey was making his arrangements, the
Seventeenth was on its way to join him. The 12th and 18th
Regiments had furnished the drafts required of them, and the
Seventeenth, thus raised to some semblance of
war strength, embarked for its first turn on active 1775.
service. Here is a digest of their final muster, dated,
Passage, 10th April 1775, and endorsed
“Embarkation”— 10th April.

Lieutenant-Colonel.—Samuel Birch.
Major.—Henry Bishop.
 Adjutant.—John St. Clair, Cornet.
Surgeon.—Christopher Johnston.
Surgeon’s mate.—Alexander Acheson.
Deputy-Chaplain.—W. Oliver.

Major Bishopp’s Troop.

Robert Archdale, Captain. Frederick Metzer, Cornet.
1 Quartermaster, 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, 1 trumpeter, 29 dragoons,
31 horses.

Captain Straubenzee’s Troop.

Henry Nettles, Lieutenant. Sam. Baggot, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Moxham’s Troop.

Ben. Bunbury, Lieutenant. Thomas Cooke, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Delancey’s Troop.

Hamlet Obins, Lieutenant. James Hussey, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 1 hautboy, 27 dragoons,
31 horses.

Captain Needham’s Troop.

Mark Kerr, Lieutenant. Will. Loftus, Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 26 dragoons, 31 horses.

Captain Crewe’s Troop.

Matthew Patteshall, Lieutenant. John St. Clair (Adjutant), Cornet.
5 Non-commissioned officers, 1 trumpeter, 1 hautboy, 26 dragoons,
31 horses.
What manner of scenes there may have been at the embarkation
that day at Cork it is impossible to conjecture. We can only bear in
mind that there were a great many Irishmen in the ranks, and that
probably all their relations came to see them off, and draw what
mental picture we may. Meanwhile it is worth while to compare two
embarkations of the regiment on active service, at roughly speaking,
a century’s interval. In 1879 the Seventeenth with its horses sailed to
the Cape in two hired transports—the England and the France. In
1776 it filled no fewer than seven ships, the Glen, Satisfaction, John
and Jane, Charming Polly, John and Rebecca, Love and Charity,
Henry and Edward—whereof the very names suffice to show that
they were decidedly small craft.
The voyage across the Atlantic occupied two whole months, but,
like all things, it came to an end; and the regiment
disembarked at Boston just in time to volunteer its June 15–19.
services for the first serious action of the war. That
action was brought about in this way. Over against Boston, and
divided from it by a river of about the breadth of the Thames at
London Bridge, is a peninsula called Charlestown. It occurred, rather
late in the day, to General Gage that an eminence thereupon called
Bunker’s Hill was a position that ought to be occupied, inasmuch as
it lay within cannon-shot of Boston and commanded the whole of the
town. Unfortunately, precisely the same idea had occurred to the
Americans, who on the 16th June seized the hill, unobserved by
Gage, and proceeded to entrench it. By hard work and the aid of
professional engineers they soon made Bunker’s Hill into a
formidable position; so that Gage, on the following day, found that
his task was not that of marching to an unoccupied height, but of
attacking an enemy 6000 strong in a well-fortified post. None the
less he attacked the 6000 Americans with 2000 English, and drove
them out at the bayonet’s point after the bloodiest engagement
thitherto fought by the British army. Of the 2000 men 1054, including
89 officers, went down that day; and the British occupied the
Charlestown peninsula.
The acquisition was welcome, for the army was
sadly crowded in Boston and needed more space; 1775.
but the enemy soon erected new works which
penned it up as closely as ever. Moreover the Americans refused to
supply the British with fresh provisions, so that the latter—what with
salt food, confinement, and the heat of the climate—soon became
sickly. The Seventeenth were driven to their wit’s end to obtain
forage for their horses. It was but a poor exchange alike for animals
and men to forsake the ships for a besieged city. The summer
passed away and the winter came on. The Americans pressed the
British garrison more hardly than ever through the winter months,
and finally, on the 2nd March 1776, opened a
bombardment which fairly drove the English out. 1776.
On the 17th March Boston was evacuated, and the
army, 9000 strong, withdrawn by sea to Halifax.
However mortifying it might be to British sentiment, this
evacuation was decidedly a wise and prudent step; indeed, but for
the determination of King George III. to punish the recalcitrant
Boston, it is probable that it would have taken place long before, for
it was recommended both by Gage, who resigned his command in
August 1775, and by his successor, General Howe. They both saw
clearly enough that, as England held command of the sea, her true
policy was to occupy the line of the Hudson River from New York in
the south to Lake Champlain in the north. Thereby she could isolate
from the rest the seven provinces of Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, and reduce
them at her leisure; which process would be the easier, inasmuch as
these provinces depended almost entirely on the States west of the
Hudson for their supplies. The Americans, being equally well aware
of this, and having already possession of New York, took the bold
line of attempting to capture Canada while the English were frittering
their strength away at Boston. And they were within an ace of
success. As early as May 1775 they captured Ticonderoga and the
only King’s ship in Lake Champlain, and in November they obtained
possession of Chambly, St. John’s, and Montreal. Fortunately
Quebec still held out, though reduced to great straits, and saved
Canada to England. On the 31st December the little garrison
gallantly repelled an American assault, and shortly after it was
relieved by the arrival of a British squadron which made its way
through the ice with reinforcements of 3500 men under General
Burgoyne. This decided the fate of Canada, from which the
Americans were finally driven out in June 1776.
One other small incident requires notice before we pass to the
operations of Howe’s army (whereof the Seventeenth formed part) in
the campaign of 1776. Very early in the day Governor Martin of
North Carolina had recommended the despatch of a flying column or
small force to the Carolinas, there to rally around it the loyalists, who
were said to be many, and create a powerful diversion in England’s
favour. Accordingly in December 1775, five infantry regiments under
Lord Cornwallis were despatched from England to Cape Fear,
whither General Clinton was sent by Howe to meet them and take
command. An attack on Charleston by this expedition proved to be a
total failure; and on the 21st June 1776, Clinton withdrew the force to
New York. This episode deserves mention, because it shows how
early the British Government was bitten with this plan of a Carolina
campaign, which was destined to cost us the possession of the
American Colonies. Three times in the course of this history shall we
see English statesmen make the fatal mistake of sending a weak
force to a hostile country in reliance on the support of a section of
disaffected inhabitants, and each time (as fate ordained it) we shall
find the Seventeenth among the regiments that paid the inevitable
penalty. From this brief digression let us now return to the army
under General Howe.
While the bulk of this force was quartered at Halifax, the
Seventeenth lay, for convenience of obtaining forage, at Windsor,
some miles away. In June the 16th light Dragoons arrived at Halifax
from England with remounts for the regiment; but it is questionable
whether they had any horses to spare, for we find that out of 950
horses 412 perished on the voyage. About the same time arrived
orders for the increase of the Seventeenth by 1 cornet, 1 sergeant, 2
corporals, and 30 privates per troop; but the necessary recruits had
not been received by the time when the campaign opened. On the
11th June the regiment, with the rest of Howe’s army, was once more
embarked at Halifax and reached Sandy Hook on the 29th. Howe
then landed his force on Staten Island, and awaited the arrival of his
brother, Admiral Lord Howe, who duly appeared with a squadron and
reinforcements on the 1st July. Clinton with his troops from
Charleston arrived on the 1st August, and further reinforcements
from England on the 12th. Howe had now 30,000 men, 12,000 of
them Hessians, under his command in America, two-thirds of whom
were actually on the spot around New York.
Active operations were opened on the 22nd August, by the
landing of the whole army in Gravesend Bay at the extreme south-
west corner of Long Island. The American army, 15,000 strong,
occupied a position on the peninsula to the north-west, where
Brooklyn now stands—its left resting on the East River, its right on a
stream called Mill Creek, and its front covered as usual by a strong
line of entrenchments. From this fortified camp, however, they
detached General Putnam with 10,000 men to take up a position
about a mile distant on a line of heights that runs obliquely across
the island. After a reconnaissance by Generals Clinton and Erskine,
the latter of whom led the brigade to which the Seventeenth was
attached, General Howe decided to turn the left flank of the
Americans with part of his force, leaving the rest to attack their front
as soon as the turning movement was completed. At 9 p.m. on the
26th August the turning column, under the command of Howe
himself, marched across the flat ground to seize a pass on the
extreme left of the enemy’s line, the Seventeenth forming the
advanced guard. On reaching the pass it was found that the
Americans had neglected to secure it, being content to visit it with
occasional cavalry patrols. One such patrol was
intercepted by the advanced party of the 1776.
Seventeenth; and the pass was occupied by the
British without giving alarm to the Americans. At nine next morning,
Howe’s column having completely enveloped Putnam’s left, opened
the attack on that quarter, while the rest of the army advanced upon
the centre and right. The Americans were defeated at all points and
driven in confusion to their entrenchments; but Howe made no effort
to pursue them nor to storm the camp, as he might easily have done.
He merely moved feebly up to the enemy’s entrenchments on the
following day, and began to break ground as if for a regular siege.
On the 29th the Americans evacuated the camp, and retired across
the East River to New York; and this they were allowed to do without