Perception

How does Hegel's description of perception differ from that of sense-certainty? While sense-certainty appears to us as immediate truth, or as "pure being", perception is the next step in the evolution of sense-certainty because it begins to make distinctions within a singular object. Perception can take an object and break it down into its parts or qualities. A tree, for example, is equally a tree as it is a combination of branches, leaves, bark, fibers, roots, etc, but it is neither an exclusionary "One", to use Hegel's terms, or merely a combination of parts. We are drawn back into Hegel's ideas about negation and universality with this presentation of perception. But what does Hegel mean when he claims, "the Thing is the Also, or the universal medium in which the many properties subsist apart from one another, without touching or cancelling one another..."? Using his example of a cube of salt, it appears to us as white, tart, and formed into a cube. Its whiteness is not dependent upon its tartness, which is in turn not dependent on it being a cube. All of the qualities of an object are indifferent to one another. We must say that the salt cube is white, also tart, and also a cube. It is not white, tart, or cube-shaped; it must be a particular combination of these qualities. Hegel claims that this is where something gets its thingness, from the various alsos that apply to it and only it.