Strictly speaking, such simple feelings as these appear to be, involve an ingredient of false perception: in saying that we _perceive_ light at all, we go beyond the pure sensation, interpreting this wrongly.
Very closely connected with this limitation of our sensibility is another which refers to the consciousness of the local seat, or origin of the impression.

This has so far its basis in the sensation itself as it is well known that (within the limits of local discrimination, referred to above) sensations have a particular "local" colour, which varies in the case of each of the nervous fibres by the stimulation of which they arise.[28] But though this much is known through a difference in the sensibility, nothing more is known.

Nothing can certainly be ascertained by a mere inspection of the sensation as to the distance the nervous process has travelled, whether from the peripheral termination of the fibre or from some intermediate point.
In a general way, we refer our sensations to the peripheral endings of the nerves concerned, according to what physiologists have called "the law of eccentricity." Thus I am said to feel the pain caused by a bruise in the foot in the member itself.

This applies also to some of the sensations of the special senses.

Thus, impressions of taste are clearly localized in the corresponding peripheral terminations.
With respect to the sense of smell, and still more to those of hearing and sight, where the impression is usually caused by an object at a distance from the peripheral organ, our attention to this external cause leads us to overlook in part the "bodily seat" of the sensation.