Percipuum
On the whole […] the percipuum is not an absolute event. There is no span of present time so short as not to contain something remembered, that is, taken as a reasonable conjecture, not without containing something expected for the confirmation which we are waiting. The peculiar element of the present, that it confronts us with ideas which it forces upon us without reason, is something which accumulates in wholes of time and dissipates the more minutely the course of time is scrutinized.
There is no percipuum so absolute as not to be subject to possible error.
The percipuum is a recognition of the character of what is past, the percept which we think we remember. The interpretation is forced upon us; but no reason for it can be given.
We know nothing about the percept otherwise than by testimony of the perceptual judgment, excepting that we feel the blow of it, the reaction of it against us, and we see the contents of it arranged into an object, in its totality, – excepting also, of course, what the psychologists are able to make out inferentially. But the moment we fix our minds upon it and think the least thing about the percept, it is the perceptual judgment that tells us what we so “perceive.” For this and other reasons, I propose to consider the percept as it is immediately interpreted in the perceptual judgment, under the name of the “percipuum.” The percipuum, then, is what forces itself upon your acknowledgment, without any why or wherefore, so that if anybody asks you why you should regard it as appearing so and so, all you can say is, ‘I can’t help it. That is how I see it.’