 The Argument from Illusion. Consider a person perceiving a penny from a series of slightly different angles and distances. He would unhesitatingly assume that in each of the slightly differing perceptual situations the facing brownish surface of a certain penny is sensuously manifested to him. But in Broad’s view this could not be so: “If he carefully inspects the objective constituents of these perceptual situations he will certainly find that they seem to be of different shapes and sizes” (1925, p. 158). The objective constituent will in most of the situations seem elliptical rather than circular. This indicates, Broad claims, that in each perceptual situation, the constituent—the sensuously manifested item—cannot be the top of the penny. What happens is that instead of being immediately aware of the circular surface of the penny (as he takes himself to be) he is immediately aware of an elliptical item, an elliptical sensum. Hence it is an elliptical sensum rather than the circular surface of the penny that is manifested to the subject. The same holds mutatis mutandis when we perceive a white sheet of paper dimly lit by a candle. On careful consideration it seems clear that the paper looks yellowish to us. So what we are immediately aware of is a yellowish sensum rather than the white sheet of paper we are looking at.