The Works of George Berkeley D.D.

                        Formerly Bishop of Cloyne

                      Including his Posthumous Works

  With Prefaces, Annotations, Appendices, and An Account of his Life, by

                        Alexander Campbell Fraser

                           Hon. D.C.L., Oxford

    Hon. LL.D. Glasgow and Edinburgh; Emeritus Professor of Logic and
                Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh

                             In Four Volumes

                   Vol. 1: Philosophical Works, 1705-21

                                  Oxford

                          At the Clarendon Press

                                   1901





CONTENTS


Preface
George Berkeley, By The Editor
Errata
Commonplace Book. Mathematical, Ethical, Physical, And Metaphysical
   Editor’s Preface To The Commonplace Book
   Commonplace Book
An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision
   Editor’s Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision
   Dedication
   An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision
   An Appendix To The Essay On Vision
A Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human Knowledge
   Editor’s Preface To The Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human
   Knowledge
   Dedication
   The Preface
   Introduction
   Part First
Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous The Design Of Which Is Plainly
To Demonstrate The Reality And Perfection Of Human Knowledge, The
Incorporeal Nature Of The Soul, And The Immediate Providence Of A Deity,
In Opposition To Sceptics And Atheists, Also To Open A Method For
Rendering The Sciences More Easy, Useful, And Compendious
   Editor’s Preface
   Dedication
   The Preface
   The First Dialogue
   The Second Dialogue
   The Third Dialogue
De Motu: Sive; De Motus Principio Et Natura, Et De Causa Communicationis
Motuum
   Editor’s Preface To De Motu
   De Motu
Footnotes






PREFACE


                              [Frontispiece]

More than thirty years ago I was honoured by a request to prepare a
complete edition of the Works of Bishop Berkeley, with Notes, for the
Clarendon Press, Oxford. That edition, which contains many of his writings
previously unpublished, appeared in 1871. It was followed in 1874 by a
volume of annotated Selections from his philosophical works; and in 1881 I
prepared a small volume on “Berkeley” for Blackwood’s “Philosophical
Classics.”

The 1871 edition of the Works originated, I believe, in an essay on “The
Real World of Berkeley,” which I gave to _Macmillan’s Magazine_ in 1862,
followed by another in 1864, in the _North British Review_. These essays
suggested advantages to contemporary thought which might be gained by a
consideration of final questions about man and the universe, in the form
in which they are presented by a philosopher who has suffered more from
misunderstanding than almost any other modern thinker. During a part of
his lifetime, he was the foremost metaphysician in Europe in an
unmetaphysical generation. And in this country, after a revival of
philosophy in the later part of the eighteenth century, _idea_, _matter_,
_substance_, _cause_, and other terms which play an important part in his
writings, had lost the meaning that he intended; while in Germany the
sceptical speculations of David Hume gave rise to a reconstructive
criticism, on the part of Kant and his successors, which seemed at the
time to have little concern with the _a posteriori_ methods and the
principles of Berkeley.

The success of the attempt to recall attention to Berkeley has far
exceeded expectation. Nearly twenty thousand copies of the three
publications mentioned above have found their way into the hands of
readers in Europe and America; and the critical estimates of Berkeley, by
eminent writers, which have appeared since 1871, in Britain, France,
Germany, Denmark, Holland, Italy, America, and India, confirm the opinion
that his Works contain a word in season, even for the twentieth century.
Among others who have delivered appreciative criticisms of Berkeley within
the last thirty years are J.S. Mill, Mansel, Huxley, T.H. Green, Maguire,
Collyns Simon, the Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Dr.
Hutchison Stirling, Professor T.K. Abbott, Professor Van der Wyck, M.
Penjon, Ueberweg, Frederichs, Ulrici, Janitsch, Eugen Meyer, Spicker,
Loewy, Professor Höffding of Copenhagen, Dr. Lorenz, Noah Porter, and
Krauth, besides essays in the chief British, Continental, and American
reviews. The text of those Works of Berkeley which were published during
his lifetime, enriched with a biographical Introduction by Mr. A.J.
Balfour, carefully edited by Mr. George Sampson, appeared in 1897. In 1900
Dr. R. Richter, of the University of Leipsic, produced a new translation
into German of the _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_, with an
excellent Introduction and notes. These estimates form a remarkable
contrast to the denunciations, founded on misconception, by Warburton and
Beattie in the eighteenth century.

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In 1899 I was unexpectedly again asked by the Delegates of the Oxford
University Press to prepare a New Edition of Berkeley’s Works, with some
account of his life, as the edition of 1871 was out of print; a
circumstance which I had not expected to occur in my lifetime. It seemed
presumptuous to undertake what might have been entrusted to some one
probably more in touch with living thought; and in one’s eighty-second
year, time and strength are wanting for remote research. But the
recollection that I was attracted to philosophy largely by Berkeley, in
the morning of life more than sixty years ago, combined with the pleasure
derived from association in this way with the great University in which he
found an academic home in his old age, moved me in the late evening of
life to make the attempt. And now, at the beginning of the twentieth
century, I offer these volumes, which still imperfectly realise my ideal
of a final Oxford edition of the philosopher who spent his last days in
Oxford, and whose mortal remains rest in its Cathedral.

Since 1871 materials of biographical and philosophical interest have been
discovered, in addition to the invaluable collection of MSS. which
Archdeacon Rose then placed at my disposal, and which were included in the
supplementary volume of _Life and Letters_. Through the kindness of the
late Earl of Egmont I had access, some years ago, to a large number of
letters which passed between his ancestor, Sir John (afterwards Lord)
Percival, and Berkeley, between 1709 and 1730. I have availed myself
freely of this correspondence.

Some interesting letters from and concerning Berkeley, addressed to his
friend Dr. Samuel Johnson of Stratford in Connecticut, afterwards
President of King’s College in New York, appeared in 1874, in Dr.
Beardsley’s _Life of Johnson_, illustrating Berkeley’s history from 1729
till his death. For these and for further information I am indebted to Dr.
Beardsley.

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In the present edition of Berkeley’s Works, the Introductions and the
annotations have been mostly re-written. A short account of his romantic
life is prefixed, intended to trace its progress in the gradual
development and application of his initial Principle; and also the
external incidents of his life in their continuity, with the help of the
new material in the Percival MSS. and the correspondence with Johnson. It
forms a key to the whole. This biography is not intended to supersede the
_Life and Letters_ of Berkeley that accompanied the 1871 edition, which
remains as a magazine of facts for reference.

The rearrangement of the Works is a feature in the present edition. Much
of the new material that was included in the 1871 edition reached me when
the book was far advanced in the press, and thus the chronological
arrangement, strictly followed in the present edition, was not possible. A
chronological arrangement is suggested by Berkeley himself. “I could wish
that all the things I have published on these philosophical subjects were
read in the order wherein I published them,” are his words in one of his
letters to Johnson; “and a second time with a critical eye, adding your
own thought and observation upon every part as you went along.”

The first three volumes in this edition contain the Philosophical Works
exclusively; arranged in chronological order, under the three periods of
Berkeley’s life. The First Volume includes those of his early life; the
Second those produced in middle life; and the Third those of his later
years. The Miscellaneous Works are presented in like manner in the Fourth
Volume.

The four little treatises in which Berkeley in early life unfolded his new
thought about the universe, along with his college _Commonplace Book_
published in 1871, which prepared the way for them, form, along with the
Life, the contents of the First Volume. It is of them that the author
writes thus, in another of his letters to Johnson:—“I do not indeed wonder
that on first reading what I have written men are not thoroughly
convinced. On the contrary, I should very much wonder if prejudices which
have been many years taking root should be extirpated in a few hours’
reading. I had no inclination to trouble the world with large volumes.
What I have done was rather with a view of giving hints to thinking men,
who have leisure and curiosity to go to the bottom of things, and pursue
them in their own minds. Two or three times reading these small tracts,
and making what is read the occasion of thinking, would, I believe, render
the whole familiar and easy to the mind, and take off that shocking
appearance which hath often been observed to attend speculative truths.”
Except Johnson, none of Berkeley’s eighteenth-century critics seem to have
observed this rule.

_Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher_, with its supplement in the _Theory
of Visual Language Vindicated_, being the philosophical works of his
middle life, associated with its American enterprise, form the Second
Volume. In them the conception of the universe that was unfolded in the
early writings is applied, in vindication of religious morality and
Christianity, against the Atheism attributed to those who called
themselves Free-thinkers; who were treated by Berkeley as, at least by
implication, atheistic.

The Third Volume contains the _Analyst_ and _Siris_, which belong to his
later life, _Siris_ being especially characteristic of its serene quiet.
In both there is a deepened sense of the mystery of the universe, and in
_Siris_ especially a more comprehensive conception of the final problem
suggested by human life. But the metaphysics of the one is lost in
mathematical controversy; that of the other in medical controversy, and in
undigested ancient and mediæval learning. The metaphysical importance of
_Siris_ was long unrecognised, although in it Berkeley’s thought
culminates, not in a paradox about Matter, but in the conception of God as
the concatenating principle of the universe; yet this reached through the
conception of Matter as real only in and through living Mind.

The Miscellaneous Works, after the two juvenile Latin tracts in
mathematics, deal with observations of nature and man gathered in his
travels, questions of social economy, and lessons in religious life.
Several are posthumous, and were first published in the 1871 edition. Of
these, perhaps the most interesting is the _Journal in Italy_. The
_Discourse on Passive Obedience_ is the nearest approach to ethical theory
which Berkeley has given to us, and as such it might have taken its place
in the First Volume; but on the whole it seemed more appropriately placed
in the Fourth, where it is easily accessible for those who prefer to read
it immediately after the book of _Principles_.

I have introduced, in an Appendix to the Third Volume, some matter of
philosophical interest for which there was no place in the editorial
Prefaces or in the annotations. The historical significance of Samuel
Johnson and Jonathan Edwards, as pioneers of American philosophy, and also
advocates of the new conception of the material world that is associated
with Berkeley, is recognised in Appendix C. Illustrations of the
misinterpretation of Berkeley by his early critics are presented in
Appendix D. A lately discovered tractate by Berkeley forms Appendix E. In
the Fourth Volume, numerous queries contained in the first edition of the
_Querist_, and omitted in the later editions, are given in an Appendix,
which enables the reader to reconstruct that interesting tract in the form
in which it originally appeared.

The present edition is thus really a new work, which possesses, I hope, a
certain philosophical unity, as well as pervading biographical interest.

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As Berkeley is the immediate successor of Locke, and as he was educated by
collision with the _Essay __ on Human Understanding_, perhaps Locke ought
to have had more prominence in the editorial portion of this book.
Limitation of space partly accounts for the omission; and I venture
instead to refer the reader to the Prolegomena and notes in my edition of
Locke’s _Essay_, which was published by the Clarendon Press in 1894. I may
add that an expansion of thoughts which run through the Life and many of
the annotations, in this edition of Berkeley, may be found in my
_Philosophy of Theism_(1).

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The reader need not come to Berkeley in the expectation of finding in his
Works an all-comprehensive speculative system like Spinoza’s, or a
reasoned articulation of the universe of reality such as Hegel is supposed
to offer. But no one in the succession of great English philosophers has,
I think, proposed in a way more apt to invite reflexion, the final
alternative between Unreason, on the one hand, and Moral Reason expressed
in Universal Divine Providence, on the other hand, as the root of the
unbeginning and endless evolution in which we find ourselves involved; as
well as the further question, Whether this tremendous practical
alternative _can_ be settled by any means that are within the reach of
man? His Philosophical Works, taken collectively, may encourage those who
see in a reasonable _via media_ between Omniscience and Nescience the true
path of progress, under man’s inevitable venture of reasonable Faith.

One is therefore not without hope that a fresh impulse may be given to
philosophy and religious thought by this reappearance of George Berkeley,
under the auspices of the University of Oxford, at the beginning of the
twentieth century. His readers will at any rate find themselves in the
company of one of the most attractive personalities of English philosophy,
who is also among the foremost of those thinkers who are masters in
English literature—Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley and
David Hume.

A. Campbell Fraser.

GORTON, HAWTHORNDEN, MIDLOTHIAN,
_March, 1901_.





GEORGE BERKELEY, BY THE EDITOR




I. Early Life (1685-1721).


Towards the end of the reign of Charles the Second a certain William
Berkeley, according to credible tradition, occupied a cottage attached to
the ancient Castle of Dysert, in that part of the county of Kilkenny which
is watered by the Nore. Little is known about this William Berkeley except
that he was Irish by birth and English by descent. It is said that his
father went over to Ireland soon after the Restoration, in the suite of
his reputed kinsman, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, when he was Lord
Lieutenant. William Berkeley’s wife seems to have been of Irish blood, and
in some remote way related to the family of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. It
was in the modest abode in the valley of the Nore that George, the eldest
of their six sons, was born, on March 12, 1685.

There is nothing in the recorded family history of these Dysert Berkeleys
that helps to explain the singular personality and career of the eldest
son. The parents have left no mark, and make no appearance in any extant
records of the family. They probably made their way to the valley of the
Nore among families of English connexion who, in the quarter of a century
preceding the birth of George Berkeley, were finding settlements in
Ireland. The family, as it appears, was not wealthy, but was recognised as
of gentle blood. Robert, the fifth son, became rector of Middleton and
vicar-general of Cloyne; and another son, William, held a commission in
the army. According to the Register of Trinity College, one of the sons
was born “near Thurles,” in 1699, and Thomas, the youngest, was born in
Tipperary, in 1703, so that the family may have removed from Dysert after
the birth of George. In what can be gleaned of the younger sons, one finds
little appearance of sympathy with the religious and philosophical genius
of the eldest.

Regarding this famous eldest son in those early days, we have this
significant autobiographical fragment in his _Commonplace Book_: “I was
distrustful at eight years old, and consequently by nature disposed for
the new doctrines.” In his twelfth year we find the boy in Kilkenny
School. The register records his entrance there in the summer of 1696,
when he was placed at once in the second class, which seems to imply
precocity, for it is almost a solitary instance. He spent the four
following years in Kilkenny. The School was in high repute for learned
masters and famous pupils; among former pupils were the poet Congreve and
Swift, nearly twenty years earlier than George Berkeley; among his
school-fellows was Thomas Prior, his life-long friend and correspondent.
In the days of Berkeley and Prior the head master was Dr. Hinton, and the
School was still suffering from the consequences of “the warre in Ireland”
which followed the Revolution.

Berkeley in Kilkenny School is hardly visible, and we have no means of
estimating his mental state when he left it. Tradition says that in his
school-days he was wont to feed his imagination with airy visions and
romance, a tradition which perhaps originated long after in popular
misconceptions of his idealism. Dimly discernible at Kilkenny, only a few
years later he was a conspicuous figure in an island that was then
beginning to share in the intellectual movement of the modern world,
taking his place as a classic in English literature, and as the most
subtle and ardent of contemporary English-speaking thinkers.

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In March, 1700, at the age of fifteen, George Berkeley entered Trinity
College, Dublin. This was his home for more than twenty years. He was at
first a mystery to the ordinary undergraduate. Some, we are told,
pronounced him the greatest dunce, others the greatest genius in the
College. To hasty judges he seemed an idle dreamer; the thoughtful admired
his subtle intelligence and the beauty of his character. In his
undergraduate years, a mild and ingenuous youth, inexperienced in the ways
of men, vivacious, humorous, satirical, in unexpected ways inquisitive,
often paradoxical, through misunderstandings he persisted in his own way,
full of simplicity and enthusiasm. In 1704 (the year in which Locke died)
he passed Bachelor of Arts, and became Master in 1707, when he was
admitted to a Fellowship, “the only reward of learning which that kingdom
had to bestow.”

In Trinity College the youth found himself on the tide of modern thought,
for the “new philosophy” of Newton and Locke was then invading the
University. Locke’s _Essay_, published in 1690, was already in vogue. This
early recognition of Locke in Dublin was chiefly due to William Molyneux,
Locke’s devoted friend, a lawyer and member of the Irish Parliament, much
given to the experimental methods. Descartes, too, with his sceptical
criticism of human beliefs, yet disposed to spiritualise powers commonly
attributed to matter, was another accepted authority in Trinity College;
and Malebranche was not unknown. Hobbes was the familiar representative of
a finally materialistic conception of existence, reproducing in modern
forms the atomism of Democritus and the ethics of Epicurus. Above all,
Newton was acknowledged master in physics, whose _Principia_, issued three
years sooner than Locke’s _Essay_, was transforming the conceptions of
educated men regarding their surroundings, like the still more
comprehensive law of physical evolution in the nineteenth century.

John Toland, an Irishman, one of the earliest and ablest of the new sect
of Free-thinkers, made his appearance at Dublin in 1696, as the author of
_Christianity not Mysterious_. The book was condemned by College
dignitaries and dignified clergy with even more than Irish fervour. It was
the opening of a controversy that lasted over half of the eighteenth
century in England, in which Berkeley soon became prominent; and it was
resumed later on, with greater intellectual force and in finer literary
form, by David Hume and Voltaire. The collision with Toland about the time
of Berkeley’s matriculation may have awakened his interest. Toland was
supposed to teach that matter is eternal, and that motion is its essential
property, into which all changes presented in the outer and inner
experience of man may at last be resolved. Berkeley’s life was a continual
protest against these dogmas. The Provost of Trinity College in 1700 was
Dr. Peter Browne, who had already entered the lists against Toland; long
after, when Bishop of Cork, he was in controversy with Berkeley about the
nature of man’s knowledge of God. The Archbishop of Dublin in the early
years of the eighteenth century was William King, still remembered as a
philosophical theologian, whose book on the _Origin of Evil_, published in
1702, was criticised by Boyle and Leibniz.

Dublin in those years was thus a place in which a studious youth, who had
been “distrustful at eight years old,” might be disposed to entertain
grave questions about the ultimate meaning of his visible environment, and
of the self-conscious life to which he was becoming awake. Is the universe
of existence confined to the visible world, and is matter the really
active power in existence? Is God the root and centre of all that is real,
and if so, what is meant by God? Can God be good if the world is a mixture
of good and evil? Questions like these were ready to meet the inquisitive
Kilkenny youth in his first years at Dublin.

One of his earliest interests at College was mathematical. His first
appearance in print was as the anonymous author of two Latin tracts,
_Arithmetica_ and _Miscellanea Mathematica_, published in 1707. They are
interesting as an index of his intellectual inclination when he was hardly
twenty; for he says they were prepared three years before they were given
to the world. His disposition to curious questions in geometry and algebra
is further shewn in his College _Commonplace Book_.

This lately discovered _Commonplace Book_ throws a flood of light upon
Berkeley’s state of mind between his twentieth and twenty-fourth year. It
is a wonderful revelation; a record under his own hand of his thoughts and
feelings when he first came under the inspiration of a new conception of
the nature and office of the material world. It was then struggling to
find adequate expression, and in it the sanguine youth seemed to find a
spiritual panacea for the errors and confusions of philosophy. It was able
to make short work, he believed, with atheistic materialism, and could
dispense with arguments against sceptics in vindication of the reality of
experience. The mind-dependent existence of the material world, and its
true function in the universe of concrete reality, were to be disclosed
under the light of a new transforming self-evident Principle. “I wonder
not at my sagacity in discovering the obvious and amazing truth. I rather
wonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding it out before—’tis no
witchcraft to see.” The pages of the _Commonplace Book_ give vent to
rapidly forming thoughts about the things of sense and the “ambient space”
of a youth entering into reflective life, in company with Descartes and
Malebranche, Bacon and Hobbes, above all, Locke and Newton; who was trying
to translate into reasonableness his faith in the reality of the material
world and God. Under the influence of this new conception, he sees the
world like one awakening from a confused dream. The revolution which he
wanted to inaugurate he foresaw would be resisted. Men like to think and
speak about things as they have been accustomed to do: they are offended
when they are asked to exchange this for what appears to them absurdity,
or at least when the change seems useless. But in spite of the ridicule
and dislike of a world long accustomed to put empty words in place of
living thoughts, he resolves to deliver himself of his burden, with the
politic conciliation of a skilful advocate however; for he
characteristically reminds himself that one who “desires to bring another
over to his own opinions must seem to harmonize with him at first, and
humour him in his own way of talking.”

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In 1709, when he was twenty-four years old, Berkeley presented himself to
the world of empty verbal reasoners as the author of what he calls
modestly _An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_. It was dedicated to
Sir John Percival, his correspondent afterwards for more than twenty
years; but I have not discovered the origin of their friendship. The
_Essay_ was a pioneer, meant to open the way for the disclosure of the
Secret with which he was burdened, lest the world might be shocked by an
abrupt disclosure. In this prelude he tries to make the reader recognise
that in ordinary seeing we are always interpreting visual signs; so that
we have daily presented to our eyes what is virtually an intelligible
natural language; so that in all our intercourse with the visible world we
are in intercourse with all-pervading active Intelligence. We are reading
absent data of touch and of the other senses in the language of their
visual signs. And the visual signs themselves, which are the immediate
objects of sight, are necessarily dependent on sentient and percipient
mind; whatever may be the case with the tangible realities which the
visual data signify, a fact evident by our experience when we make use of
a looking-glass. The material world, so far at least as it presents itself
visibly, is _real_ only in being _realised_ by living and seeing beings.
The mind-dependent _visual_ signs of which we are conscious are
continually speaking to us of an invisible and distant world of _tangible_
realities; and through the natural connexion of the visual signs with
their tactual meanings, we are able in seeing practically to perceive, not
only what is distant in space, but also to anticipate the future. The Book
of Vision is in literal truth a Book of Prophecy. The chief lesson of the
tentative _Essay on Vision_ is thus summed up:—

“Upon the whole, I think we may fairly conclude that the proper objects of
Vision constitute the Universal Language of Nature; whereby we are
instructed how to regulate our actions in order to attain those things
that are necessary to the preservation and well-being of our bodies, as
also to avoid whatever may be hurtful and destructive of them. And the
manner wherein they signify and mark out unto us the objects which are at
a distance is the same with that of languages and signs of human
appointment; which do not suggest the things signified by any likeness or
identity of nature, but only by an habitual connexion that experience has
made us to observe between them. Suppose one who had always continued
blind be told by his guide that after he has advanced so many steps he
shall come to the brink of a precipice, or be stopped by a wall; must not
this to him seem very admirable and surprising? He cannot conceive how it
is possible for mortals to frame such predictions as these, which to him
would seem as strange and unaccountable as prophecy does to others. Even
they who are blessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make
it less observed) find therein sufficient cause of admiration. The
wonderful art and contrivance wherewith it is adjusted to those ends and
purposes for which it was apparently designed; the vast extent, number,
and variety of objects that are at once, with so much ease and quickness
and pleasure, suggested by it—all these afford subject for much and
pleasing speculation, and may, if anything, give us some glimmering
analogous prænotion of things that are placed beyond the certain discovery
and comprehension of our present state(2).”

Berkeley took orders in the year in which his _Essay on Vision_ was
published. On February 1, 1709, he was ordained as deacon, in the chapel
of Trinity College, by Dr. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher. Origen and
Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, Malebranche, Fenelon, and Pascal, Cudworth,
Butler, Jonathan Edwards, and Schleiermacher, along with Berkeley, are
among those who are illustrious at once in the history of philosophy and
of the Christian Church. The Church, it has been said, has been for nearly
two thousand years the great Ethical Society of the world, and if under
its restrictions it has been less conspicuous on the field of
philosophical criticism and free inquiry, these names remind us of the
immense service it has rendered to meditative thought.

The light of the Percival correspondence first falls on Berkeley’s life in
1709. The earliest extant letters from Berkeley to Sir John Percival are
in September, October, and December of that year, dated at Trinity
College. In one of them he pronounces Socrates “the best and most
admirable man that the heathen world has produced.” Another letter, in
March, 1710, accompanies a copy of the second edition of the _Essay on
Vision_. “I have made some alterations and additions in the body of the
treatise,” he says, “and in the appendix have endeavoured to meet the
objections of the Archbishop of Dublin;” whose sermon he proceeds to
deprecate, for “denying that goodness and understanding are more to be
affirmed of God than feet or hands,” although all these may, in a
metaphorical sense. How far, or whether at all, God is knowable by man,
was, as we shall see, matter of discussion and controversy with Berkeley
in later life; but this shews that the subject was already in his
thoughts. Returning to the _Essay on Vision_, he tells Sir John that
“there remains one objection, that with regard to the uselessness of that
book of mine; but in a little time I hope to make what is there laid down
appear subservient to the ends of morality and religion, in a _Treatise_ I
have in the press, the design of which is to demonstrate the existence and
attributes of God, the immortality of the soul, the reconciliation of
God’s foreknowledge and the freedom of man; and by shewing the emptiness
and falsehood of several parts of the speculative sciences, to induce men
to the study of religion and things useful. How far my endeavours will
prove successful, and whether I have been all this time in a dream or no,
time will shew. I do not see how it is possible to demonstrate the being
of a God on the principles of the Archbishop—that strictly goodness and
understanding can no more be assumed of God than that He has feet or
hands; there being no argument that I know for God’s existence which does
not prove Him at the same time to be an understanding and benevolent
being, in the strict, literal, and proper meaning of these words.” He
adds, “I have written to Mr. Clarke to give me his thoughts on the subject
of God’s existence, but have got no answer.”

The work foreshadowed in this letter appeared in the summer of 1710, as
the “First part” of a _Treatise concerning the Principles of Human
Knowledge, wherein the chief causes of error and difficulty in the
Sciences, with the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are
inquired into_. In this fragment of a larger work, never finished,
Berkeley’s spiritual conception of matter and cosmos is unfolded,
defended, and applied. According to the _Essay on Vision_, the world, as
far as it is visible, is dependent on living mind. According to this book
of _Principles_ the whole material world, as far as it can have any
practical concern with the knowings and doings of men, is real only by
being realised in like manner in the percipient experience of some living
mind. The concrete world, with which alone we have to do, could not exist
in its concrete reality if there were no living percipient being in
existence to actualise it. To suppose that it could would be to submit to
the illusion of a metaphysical abstraction. Matter unrealised in its
necessary subordination to some one’s percipient experience is the chief
among the illusions which philosophers have been too ready to encourage,
and which the mass of mankind, who accept words without reflecting on
their legitimate meanings, are ready to accept blindly. But we have only
to reflect in order to see the absurdity of a material world such as we
have experience of existing without ever being realised or made concrete
in any sentient life. Try to conceive an eternally dead universe, empty
for ever of God and all finite spirits, and you find you cannot. Reality
can be real only in a living form. Percipient life underlies or
constitutes all that is real. The _esse_ of the concrete material world is
_percipi_. This was the “New Principle” with which the young Dublin Fellow
was burdened—the Secret of the universe which he had been longing to
discharge upon mankind for their benefit, yet without sign of desire to
gain fame for himself as the discoverer. It is thus that he unfolds it:—

“Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need
only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz.
that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all
those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any
subsistence without a Mind; that their _being_ is to be perceived or
known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me,
or do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must
either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some
Eternal Spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the
absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an
existence independent of a Spirit(3).”

This does not mean denial of the existence of the world that is daily
presented to our senses and which includes our own bodies. On the
contrary, it affirms, as intuitively true, the existence of the only real
matter which our senses present to us. The only material world of which we
have any experience consists of the appearances (misleadingly called
_ideas_ of sense by Berkeley) which are continually rising as real objects
in a passive procession of interpretable signs, through means of which
each finite person realises his own individual personality; also the
existence of other finite persons; and the sense-symbolism that is more or
less interpreted in the natural sciences; all significant of God. So the
material world of concrete experience is presented to us as mind-dependent
and in itself powerless: the deepest and truest reality must always be
spiritual. Yet this mind-dependent material world is the occasion of
innumerable pleasures and pains to human percipients, in so far as they
conform to or contradict its customary laws, commonly called the laws of
nature. So the sense-symbolism in which we live is found to play an
important part in the experience of percipient beings. But it makes us
sceptics and atheists when, in its name, we put a supposed dead abstract
matter in room of the Divine Active Reason of which all natural order is
the continuous providential expression.

Accordingly, God must exist, because the material world, in order to be a
real world, needs to be continually realised and regulated by living
Providence; and we have all the certainty of sense and sanity that there
_is_ a (mind-dependent) material world, a boundless and endlessly evolving
sense-symbolism.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

In the two years after the disclosure of his New Principle we see Berkeley
chiefly through his correspondence with Percival. He was eager to hear the
voice of criticism; but the critics were slow to speak, and when they did
speak they misconceived the question, and of course his answer to it. “If
when you receive my book,” he writes from Dublin, in July, 1710, to Sir
John, who was then in London, “you can procure me the opinion of some of
your acquaintances who are thinking men, addicted to the study of natural
philosophy and mathematics, I shall be extremely obliged to you.” He also
asks Percival to present the book of _Principles_ to Lord Pembroke, to
whom he had ventured to dedicate it, as Locke had done his _Essay_. The
reply was discouraging.

“I did but name the subject-matter of your book of _Principles_ to some
ingenuous friends of mine,” Percival says, “and they immediately treated
it with ridicule, at the same time refusing to read it; which I have not
yet got one to do. A physician of my acquaintance undertook to describe
your person, and argued you must needs be mad, and that you ought to take
remedies. A bishop pitied you, that a desire and vanity of starting
something new should put you upon such an undertaking; and when I
justified you in that part of your character, and added other deserving
qualities you have, he could not tell what to think of you. Another told
me an ingenious man ought not to be discouraged from exerting his wit, and
said Erasmus was not worse thought of for writing in praise of folly; but
that you are not gone as far as a gentleman in town, who asserts not only
that there is no such thing as Matter, but that we ourselves have no being
at all.”

It is not surprising that a book which was supposed to deny the existence
of all that we see and touch should be ridiculed, and its author called a
madman. What vexed the author was, “that men who had never considered my
book should confound me with the sceptics, who doubt the existence of
sensible things, and are not positive of any one thing, not even of their
own being. But whoever reads my book with attention will see that I
question not the existence of anything we perceive by our senses. Fine
spun metaphysics are what on all occasions I declaim against, and if any
one shall shew anything of that sort in my _Treatise_ I will willingly
correct it.” A material world that was real enough to yield physical
science, to make known to us the existence of other persons and of God,
and which signified in very practical ways happiness or misery to sentient
beings, seemed to him sufficiently real for human science and all other
purposes. Nevertheless, in the ardour of youth Berkeley had hardly
fathomed the depths into which his New Principle led, and which he hoped
to escape by avoiding the abstractions of “fine-spun metaphysics.”

In December Percival writes from London that he has “given the book to
Lord Pembroke,” who “thought the author an ingenious man, and to be
encouraged”; but for himself he “cannot believe in the non-existence of
Matter”; and he had tried in vain to induce Samuel Clarke, the great
English metaphysician, either to refute or to accept the New Principle. In
February Berkeley sends an explanatory letter for Lord Pembroke to
Percival’s care. In a letter in June he turns to social questions, and
suggests that if “some Irish gentlemen of good fortune and generous
inclinations would constantly reside in England, there to watch for the
interests of Ireland, they might bring far greater advantage than they
could by spending their incomes at home.” And so 1711 passes, with
responses of ignorant critics; vain endeavours to draw worthy criticism
from Samuel Clarke; the author all the while doing work as a Tutor in
Trinity College on a modest income; now and then on holidays in Meath or
elsewhere in Ireland. Three discourses on _Passive Obedience_ in the
College Chapel in 1712, misinterpreted, brought on him the reproach of
Jacobitism. Yet they were designed to shew that society rests on a deeper
foundation than force and calculations of utility, and is at last rooted
in principles of an immutable morality. Locke’s favourite opinion, that
morality is a demonstrable, seems to weigh with him in these _Discourses_.

But Berkeley was not yet done with the exposition and vindication of his
new thought, for it seemed to him charged with supreme practical issues
for mankind. In the two years which followed the publication of the
_Principles_ he was preparing to reproduce his spiritual conception of the
universe, in the dramatic form of dialogue, convenient for dealing
popularly with plausible objections. The issue was the _Three Dialogues
between Hylas and Philonous_, in which Philonous argues for the absurdity
of an abstract matter that is unrealised in the experience of living
beings, as against Hylas, who is put forward to justify belief in this
abstract reality. The design of the _Dialogues_ is to present in a
familiar form “such principles as, by an easy solution of the perplexities
of philosophers, together with their own native evidence, may at once
recommend themselves as genuine to the mind, and rescue philosophy from
the endless pursuits it is engaged in; which, with a plain demonstration
of the Immediate Providence of an all-seeing God, should seem the readiest
preparation, as well as the strongest motive to the study and practice of
virtue(4).”

When the _Dialogues_ were completed, at the end of 1712, Berkeley resolved
to visit London, as he told Percival, “in order to print my new book of
Dialogues, and to make acquaintance with men of merit.” He got leave of
absence from his College “for the recovery of his health,” which had
suffered from study, and perhaps too he remembered that Bacon commends
travel as “to the younger sort a part of education.”

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Berkeley made his appearance in London in January, 1713. On the 26th of
that month he writes to Percival that he “had crossed the Channel from
Dublin a few days before,” describes adventures on the road, and enlarges
on the beauty of rural England, which he liked more than anything he had
seen in London. “Mr. Clarke” had already introduced him to Lord Pembroke.
He had also called on his countryman Richard Steele, “who desired to be
acquainted with him. Somebody had given him my _Treatise on the Principles
of Human Knowledge_, and that was the ground of his inclination to my
acquaintance.” He anticipates “much satisfaction in the conversation of
Steele and his friends,” adding that “there is lately published a bold and
pernicious book, a _Discourse on Free-thinking_(5).” In February he “dines
often with Steele in his house in Bloomsbury Square,” and tells in March
“that you will soon hear of Mr. Steele under the character of the
_Guardian_; he designs his paper shall come out every day as the
_Spectator_.” The night before “a very ingenious new poem upon ‘Windsor
Forest’ had been given to him by the author, Mr. Pope. The gentleman is a
Papist, but a man of excellent wit and learning, one of those Mr. Steele
mentions in his last paper as having writ some of the _Spectator_.” A few
days later he has met “Mr. Addison, who has the same talents as Steele in
a high degree, and is likewise a great philosopher, having applied himself
to the speculative studies more than any of the wits I know. I breakfasted
with him at Dr. Swift’s lodgings. His coming in while I was there, and the
good temper he showed, was construed by me as a sign of the approaching
coalition of parties. A play of Mr. Steele’s, which was expected, he has
now put off till next winter. But _Cato_, a most noble play of Mr.
Addison, is to be acted in Easter week.” Accordingly, on April 18, he
writes that “on Tuesday last _Cato_ was acted for the first time. I was
present with Mr. Addison and two or three more friends in a side box,
where we had a talk and two or three flasks of Burgundy and Champagne,
which the author (who is a very sober man) thought necessary to support
his spirits, and indeed it was a pleasant refreshment to us all between
the Acts. Some parts of the prologue, written by Mr. Pope, a Tory and even
a Papist, were hissed, being thought to savour of Whiggism; but the clap
got much the better of the hiss. Lord Harley, who sat in the next box to
us, was observed to clap as loud as any in the house all the time of the
play.” Swift and Pope have described this famous first night of _Cato_;
now for the first time we have Berkeley’s report. He adds, “This day I
dined at Dr. Arbuthnot’s lodging in the Queen’s Palace.”

His countryman, Swift, was among the first to welcome him to London, where
Swift had himself been for four years, “lodging in Bury Street,” and
sending the daily journal to Stella, which records so many incidents of
that memorable London life. Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her daughter, the unhappy
Vanessa, were living in rooms in the same street as Swift, and there he
“loitered, hot and lazy, after his morning’s work,” and “often dined out
of mere listlessness.” Berkeley was a frequent visitor at Swift’s house,
and this Vanhomrigh connexion with Swift had an influence on Berkeley’s
fortune long afterwards. On a Sunday in April we find him at Kensington,
at the Court of Queen Anne, in the company of Swift. “I went to Court
to-day,” Swift’s journal records, “on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one
of the Fellows of Trinity. College, to Lord Berkeley of Stratton. That Mr.
Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great philosopher, and I have
mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his
writings, and I will favour him as much as I can.” In this, Swift was as
good as his word. “Dr. Swift,” he adds, “is admired both by Steele and
Addison, and I think Addison one of the best natured and most agreeable
men in the world.”

One day about this time, at the instance of Addison, it seems that a
meeting was arranged between Berkeley and Samuel Clarke, the metaphysical
rector of St. James’s in Piccadilly, whose opinion he had in vain tried to
draw forth two years before through Sir John Percival. Berkeley’s personal
charm was felt wherever he went, and even “the fastidious and turbulent
Atterbury,” after intercourse with him, is reported to have said: “So much
understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I
did not think had been the portion of any but angels till I saw this
gentleman.” Much was expected from the meeting with Clarke, but Berkeley
had again to complain that although Clarke had neither refuted his
arguments nor disproved his premisses, he had not the candour to accept
his conclusion.

It was thus that Berkeley became known to “men of merit” in that brilliant
society. He was also brought among persons on whom he would hardly have
conferred this title. He tells Percival that he had attended several
free-thinking clubs, in the pretended character of a learner, and that he
there heard Anthony Collins, author of “the bold and pernicious book on
free-thinking,” boast “that he was able to demonstrate that the existence
of God is an impossible supposition.” The promised “demonstration” seems
to have been Collins’ _Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty_, which appeared
two years later, according to which all that happens in mind and matter is
the issue of natural necessity. Steele invited Berkeley to contribute to
the _Guardian_ during its short-lived existence between March and
September, 1713. He took the _Discourse_ of Collins for the subject of his
first essay. Three other essays are concerned with man’s hope of a future
life, and are among the few passages in his writings in which his
philosophy is a meditation upon Death.

In May, Percival writes to him from Dublin that he hears the “new book of
Dialogues is printed, though not yet published, and that your opinion has
gained ground among the learned; that Mr. Addison has come over to your
view; and that what at first seemed shocking is become so familiar that
others envy you the discovery, and make it their own.” In his reply in
June, Berkeley mentions that “a clergyman in Wiltshire has lately
published a treatise wherein he advances something published three years
ago in my _Principles of Human Knowledge_.” The clergyman was Arthur
Collier, author of the _Clavis Universalis_, or demonstration of the
impossibility of an external world(6).

Berkeley’s _Three Dialogues_ were published in June. In the middle of that
same month he was in Oxford, “a most delightful place,” where he spent two
months, “witnessed the Act and grand performances at the theatre, and a
great concourse from London and the country, amongst whom were several
foreigners.” The Drury Lane Company had gone down to Oxford, and _Cato_
was on the stage for several nights. The Percival correspondence now first
discloses this prolonged visit to Oxford in the summer of 1713, that ideal
home from whence, forty years after, he departed on a more mysterious
journey than any on this planet. In a letter from thence to Percival, he
had claimed Arbuthnot as one of the converts to the “new Principle.”
Percival replied that Swift demurred to this, on which Berkeley rejoins:
“As to what you say of Dr. Arbuthnot not being of my opinion, it is true
there has been some difference between us concerning some notions relating
to the necessity of the laws of nature; but this does not touch the main
points of the non-existence of what philosophers call material substance;
against which he acknowledges he can assert nothing.” One would gladly
have got more than this from Berkeley, about what touched his favourite
conception of the “arbitrariness” of law in nature, as distinguished from
the “necessity” which some modern physicists are ready vaguely to take for
granted.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The scene now changes. On October 15 Berkeley suddenly writes from London:
“I am on the eve of going to Sicily, as chaplain to Lord Peterborough, who
is Ambassador Extraordinary on the coronation of the new king.” He had
been recommended by Swift to the Ambassador, one of the most extraordinary
characters then in Europe, who a few years before had astonished the world
in the war of the Succession in Spain, and afterwards by his genius as a
diplomatist: in Holland, nearly a quarter of a century before, he had
formed an intimate friendship with John Locke. Ten months in France and
Italy in the suite of Lord Peterborough brought the young Irish
metaphysician, who had lately been introduced to the wits of London and
the dons of Oxford, into a new world. It was to him the beginning of a
career of wandering and social activity, which lasted, with little
interruption, for nearly twenty years, during which metaphysics and
authorship were in the background. On November 25 we find him in Paris,
writing letters to Percival and Prior. “From London to Calais”, he tells
Prior, “I came in company of a Flamand, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, and three
English servants of my Lord. The three gentlemen, being of three different
nations, obliged me to speak the French language (which is now familiar),
and gave me the opportunity of seeing much of the world in little
compass.... On November 1 (O.S.) I embarked in the stage-coach, with a
company that were all perfect strangers to me. There were two Scotch, and
one English gentleman. One of the former happened to be the author of the
_Voyage to St. Kilda_ and the _Account of the Western Isles_(7). We were
good company on the road; and that day se’ennight came to Paris. I have
since been taken up in viewing churches, convents, palaces, colleges, &c.,
which are very numerous and magnificent in this town. The splendour and
riches of these things surpasses belief; but it were endless to descend to
particulars. I was present at a disputation in the Sorbonne, which indeed
had much of the French fire in it. I saw the Irish and the English
Colleges. In the latter I saw, enclosed in a coffin, the body of the late
King James.... To-morrow I intend to visit Father Malebranche, and
discourse him on certain points.”

The Abbé D’Aubigné, as he informs Percival, was to introduce him to
Malebranche, then the chief philosopher of France, whose Vision of the
world in God had some affinity with Berkeley’s own thought. Unfortunately
we have no record of the intended interview with the French idealist, who
fourteen years before had been visited by Addison, also on his way to
Italy, when Malebranche expressed great regard for the English nation, and
admiration for Newton; but he shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned,
whom he ventured to disparage as a “poor silly creature.” Malebranche died
nearly two years after Berkeley’s proposed interview; and according to a
story countenanced by Dugald Stewart, Berkeley was the “occasional cause”
of his death. He found the venerable Father, we are told, in a cell,
cooking, in a pipkin, a medicine for a disorder with which he was
troubled. The conversation naturally turned on Berkeley’s system, of which
Malebranche had received some knowledge from a translation. The issue of
the debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of disputation
he raised his voice so high, and gave way so freely to the natural
impetuosity of a man of genius and a Frenchman, that he brought on a
violent increase of his disorder, which carried him off a few days
after(8). This romantic tale is, I suspect, mythical. The Percival
correspondence shews that Berkeley was living in London in October, 1715,
the month in which Malebranche died, and I find no trace of a short sudden
visit to Paris at that time.

After a month spent in Paris, another fortnight carried Berkeley and two
travelling companions to Italy through Savoy. They crossed Mont Cenis on
New Year’s Day in 1714—“one of the most difficult and formidable parts of
the Alps which is ever passed over by mortal man,” as he tells Prior in a
letter from Turin. “We were carried in open chairs by men used to scale
these rocks and precipices, which at this season are more slippery and
dangerous than at other times, and at the best are high, craggy, and steep
enough to cause the heart of the most valiant man to melt within him.” At
the end of other six weeks we find him at Leghorn, where he spent three
months, “while my lord was in Sicily.” He “prefers England or Ireland to
Italy: the only advantage is in point of air.” From Leghorn he writes in
May a complimentary letter to Pope, on the occasion of the _Rape of the
Lock_: “Style, painting, judgment, spirit, I had already admired in your
other writings; but in this I am charmed with the magic of your invention,
with all those images, allusions, and inexplicable beauties which you
raise so surprisingly, and at the same time so naturally, out of a
trifle.... I remember to have heard you mention some half-formed design of
coming to Italy. What might we not expect from a muse that sings so well
in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun and
breathed the same air with Virgil and Horace.” In July we find Berkeley in
Paris on his way back to England. He had “parted from Lord Peterborough at
Genoa, where my lord took post for Turin, and thence designed passing over
the Alps, and so through Savoy, on his way to England.” In August they are
in London, where the aspect of English politics was changed by the death
of the Queen in that month. He seems to have had a fever soon after his
return. In October, Arbuthnot, in one of his chatty letters to Swift,
writes thus: “Poor philosopher Berkeley has now the _idea_ of health,
which was very hard to produce in him, for he had an _idea_ of a strange
fever upon him, so strange that it was very hard to destroy it by
introducing a contrary one.”

Our record of the two following years is a long blank, first broken by a
letter to Percival in July, 1715, dated at London. Whether he spent any
time at Fulham with Lord Peterborough after their return from Italy does
not appear, nor whether he visited Ireland in those years, which is not
likely. We have no glimpses of brilliant London society as in the
preceding year. Steele was now in Parliament. Swift had returned to
Dublin, and Addison was the Irish chief secretary. But Pope was still at
Binfield, among the glades of Windsor, and Berkeley congratulated him
after receiving the first volume of his _Homer_. Of his own literary
pursuits we hear nothing. Perhaps the Second Part of the _Principles_,
which was lost afterwards in his travels, engaged him. In the end of July
he wrote to Lord Percival(9) from Flaxley(10) on the Severn; and in
August, September, October, and November he wrote from London, chiefly
interested in reports about “the rebels in Scotland,” and “the forces
under Lord Mar, which no doubt will languish and disperse in a little
time. The Bishop of Bristol assured me the other day that the Court expect
that the Duke of Orleans would, in case of need, supply them with forces
against the Pretender.” Our next glimpse of him is in May, 1716, when he
writes to Lord Percival that he is “like soon to go to Ireland, the Prince
of Wales having recommended him to the Lords Justices for the living of
St. Paul’s in Dublin.” This opening was soon closed, and the visit to
Ireland was abandoned. A groundless suspicion of Jacobitism was not
overcome by the interest of Caroline, Princess of Wales. In June, 1716,
Charles Dering wrote from Dublin, that “the Lords Justices have made a
strong representation against him.” He had to look elsewhere for the
immediate future.

We find him at Turin in November, 1716, with a fresh leave of absence for
two years from his College. It seems that Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, had
engaged him as travelling tutor to his son, a means not then uncommon for
enabling young authors of moderate fortune to see new countries and mix
with society. Addison had visited Italy in this way sixteen years before,
and Adam Smith long afterwards travelled with the young Duke of Buccleuch.
With young Ashe, Berkeley crossed Mont Cenis a second time. They reached
Rome at the beginning of 1717. His _Journal in Italy_ in that year, and
occasional letters to Percival, Pope, and Arbuthnot, shew ardent interest
in nature and art. With the widest views, “this very great though singular
sort of man descended into a minute detail, and begrudged neither pains
nor expense for the means of information. He travelled through a great
part of Sicily on foot; clambered over the mountains and crept into the
caverns, to investigate its natural history and discover the causes of its
volcanoes; and I have known him sit for hours in forges and foundries to
inspect their successive operations(11).” If the _Journal_ had been
transformed by his own hand into a book, his letter to Pope from Inarime
shews that the book might have rivalled Addison’s _Remarks on Parts of
Italy_ in grace of style and large human interest.

In the summer of 1720 we find the travellers at Florence, afterwards for
some time at Lyons, and in London at the beginning of the next year. On
the way home his metaphysical inspiration was revived. The “Cause of
Motion” had been proposed by the French Academy as the subject of a prize
dissertation. The subject gave an opportunity for further unfolding his
early thought. In the _Principles_ and the _Dialogues_ he had argued for
the necessary dependence of matter, for its concrete substantial reality,
upon living percipient mind. He would now shew its powerlessness as it is
presented to us in sense. The material world, chiefly under the category
of substance, inspired the _Principles_. The material world, under the
category of cause or power, inspired the _De Motu_. This Latin Essay sums
up the distinctive thought of Berkeley, as it appears in the authorship of
his early life. _Moles evolvit et agitat mentes_ might be taken as the
formula of the materialism which he sought to dissolve. _Mens percipit et
agitat molem significantem, cujus esse est percipi_ expresses what
Berkeley would substitute for the materialistic formula.

The end of the summer of 1721 found Berkeley still in London. England was
in the social agitation and misery consequent upon the failure of the
South Sea Company, a gigantic commercial speculation connected with
British trade in America. A new inspiration took possession of him. He
thought he saw in this catastrophe signs of a decline in public morals
worse than that which followed the Restoration. “Political corruption”,
“decay of religion,” “growth of atheism,” were descriptive words used by
the thoughtful. Berkeley’s eager imagination was apt to exaggerate the
evil. He became inspired by social idealism, and found vent for his
fervour in _An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain_, which,
as well as the _De Motu_, made its appearance in 1721. This _Essay_ is a
significant factor in his career. It was the Cassandra wail of a sorrowful
and indignant prophet, prepared to shake the dust from his feet, and to
transfer his eye of hope to other regions, in which a nearer approach to
Utopia might be realised. The true personality of the individual is
unrealisable in selfish isolation. His favourite _non sibi, sed toti
mundo_ was henceforward more than ever the ruling maxim of his life.




II. Middle Life (1722-34).


In October, 1721, Berkeley was in Dublin. The register of the College
shews that “on November 14, 1721, Mr. Berkeley had the grace of the House
for the Degree of Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity.” There is no ground for
the report that he returned to Ireland at this time as Chaplain to the
Duke of Grafton, the Lord Lieutenant(12). But preferment in the Church
seemed within his reach. “I had no sooner set foot on shore,” he wrote to
Percival in that October, “than I heard that the Deanery of Dromore was
vacant.” Percival used his influence with the Lord Lieutenant, and in
February, 1722, Berkeley’s patent was “passing the Seals for the Deanery
of Dromore.” But the Bishop of Dromore claimed the patronage, and this led
to a protracted and ineffectual lawsuit, which took Berkeley to London in
the following winter, “to see friends and inform himself of points of
law,” and he tells that “on the way he was nearly drowned in crossing to
Holyhead(13).”

Berkeley’s interest in church preferment was not personal. He saw in it
only means to an end. In March, 1723, he surprised Lord Percival by
announcing, in a letter from London, a project which it seems for some
time had occupied his thoughts. “It is now about ten months,” he says,
“since I have determined to spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where
I trust in Providence I may be the mean instrument of doing great good to
mankind. Whatever happens, go I am resolved, if I live. Half a dozen of
the most ingenious and agreeable men in our College are with me in this
project, and since I came hither I have got together about a dozen
Englishmen of quality, who intend to retire to those islands.” He then
explains the project, opening a vision of Christian civilisation radiating
from those fair islands of the West, whose idyllic bliss poets had sung,
diffused over the New World, with its magnificent possibilities in the
future history of mankind.

I find no further record of the origin of this bright vision. As it had
become a practical determination “ten months” before March, 1723, one is
carried back to the first months after his return to Dublin and to the
_Essay_ that was called forth by the South Sea catastrophe. One may
conjecture that despair of England and the Old World—“such as Europe
breeds in her decay”—led him to look westward for the hopeful future of
mankind, moved, perhaps, by the connexion of the catastrophe with America.
His active imagination pictured a better Republic than Plato’s, and a
grander Utopia than More’s, emanating from a College in the isles of which
Waller had sung.

In the meantime a curious fortune unexpectedly favoured him. Swift’s
unhappy Vanessa, associated with Bury Street in 1713, had settled on her
property at Marley Abbey near Dublin; and Swift had privately married
Stella, as she confessed to Vanessa, who thereafter revoked the bequest of
her fortune to Swift, and left it to be divided between Berkeley and
Marshal, afterwards an Irish judge. Vanessa died in May, 1723. A few days
after Berkeley wrote thus to Lord Percival: “Here is something that will
surprise your lordship as it doth me. Mrs. Hester Vanhomrigh, a lady to
whom I was a perfect stranger, having never in the whole course of my life
exchanged a word with her, died on Sunday. Yesterday her Will was opened,
by which it appears that I am constituted executor, the advantage whereof
is computed by those who understand her affairs to be worth £3000.... My
Bermuda scheme is now stronger in my mind than ever; this providential
event having made many things easy which were otherwise before.” Lord
Percival in reply concludes that he would “persist more than ever in that
noble scheme, which may in some time exalt your name beyond that of St.
Xavier and the most famous missionaries abroad.” But he warns him that,
“without the protection of Government,” he would encounter insurmountable
difficulties. The Vanessa legacy, and the obstructions in the way of the
Deanery of Dromore, were the subjects of a tedious correspondence with his
friend and business factotum, “Tom Prior,” in 1724 and the three following
years. In the end, the debts of Vanessa absorbed most of the legacy. And
as to the Deanery of Dromore, he tells Percival, on September 19, 1723: “I
despair of seeing it end to my advantage. The truth is, my fixed purpose
of going to Bermuda sets me above soliciting anything with earnestness in
this part of the world. It can be of no use to me, but as it may enable me
the better to prosecute that design; and it must be owned that the present
possession of something in the Church would make my application for an
establishment in those islands more considered.”

Nevertheless, he got a Deanery at last. In May, 1724, he informs Lord
Percival from Trinity College: “Yesterday I received my patent for the
best Deanery in the kingdom, that of Derry. It is said to be worth £1500
per annum. But as I do not consider it with an eye to enriching myself, so
I shall be perfectly contented if it facilitates and recommends my scheme
of Bermuda, which I am in hopes will meet with a better reception if it
comes from one possessed of so great a Deanery.” In September he is on his
way, not to Derry, but to London, “to raise funds and obtain a Charter for
the Bermuda College from George the First,” fortified by a remarkable
letter from Swift to Lord Carteret, the new Lord Lieutenant, who was then
in Bath(14). As Swift predicted in this letter, Berkeley’s conquests
spread far and fast in England, where he organised his resources during
the four following years. Nothing shews more signally the magic of his
personality than the story of his life in London in those years of
negotiation and endeavour. The proposal met with a response wonderful in a
generation represented by Walpole. The subscriptions soon reached five
thousand pounds, and Walpole was among the subscribers. The Scriblerus
Club, meeting at Lord Bathurst’s, agreed to rally Berkeley, who was among
them, on his Bermuda scheme. He asked to be heard in defence, and
presented the case with such force of enthusiasm that the company “were
struck dumb, and after a pause simultaneously rose and asked leave to
accompany him.” Bermuda for a time inspired London.

Berkeley was not satisfied with this. He remembered what Lord Percival had
said about failure without help from Government. Accordingly he obtained a
Charter from George the First early in 1726, and after canvassing the
House of Commons, secured a grant of £20,000, with only two dissentient
votes, in May of that year. This was the beginning of his difficulties.
Payment was indefinitely delayed, and he was kept negotiating; besides,
with the help of Prior, he was unravelling legal perplexities in which the
Vanessa legacy was involved. It was in these years that he was seen at the
receptions of Caroline at Leicester Fields, when she was Princess of
Wales, and afterwards at St. James’s or at Kensington, when she became
Queen in 1727; not, he says, because he loved Courts, but because he loved
America. Clarke was still rector of St. James’s, and Butler had not yet
migrated to his parsonage at Stanhope; so their society was open to him.
The Queen liked to listen to a philosophical discussion. Ten years before,
as Princess of Wales, she had been a royal go-between in the famous
correspondence between Clarke and Leibniz. And now, Berkeley being in
London, he too was asked to her weekly reunions, when she loved to hear
Clarke arguing with Berkeley, or Berkeley arguing with Hoadley. Also in
1726 Voltaire made his lengthened visit to England, a familiar figure in
the circle of Pope’s friends, attracted to the philosophy of Locke and
Newton; and Voltaire mentions that he met “the discoverer of the true
theory of vision” during his stay in London.

From the summer of 1727 until the spring of 1728 there is no extant
correspondence either with Percival or “Tom Prior” to throw light on his
movements. In February, 1728, he was still in London, but he “hoped to set
out for Dublin in March, and to America in May.” There is a mystery about
this visit to Dublin. “I propose to set out for Dublin about a month
hence,” he writes to “dear Tom,” “but of this you must not give the least
intimation to anybody. It is of all things my earnest desire (and for very
good reasons) not to have it known that I am in Dublin. Speak not,
therefore, one syllable of it to any mortal whatsoever. When I formerly
desired you to take a place for me near the town, you gave out that you
were looking for a retired lodging for a friend of yours; upon which
everybody surmised me to be the person. I must beg you not to act in the
like manner now, but to take for me an entire house in your own name, and
as for yourself; for, all things considered, I am determined upon a whole
house, with no mortal in it but a maid of your own putting, who is to look
on herself as your servant. Let there be two bed-chambers: one for you,
another for me; and, as you like, you may ever and anon lie there. I would
have the house, with necessary furniture, taken by the month (or
otherwise, as you can), for I propose staying not beyond that time; and
yet perhaps I may. Take it as soon as possible.... Let me entreat you to
say nothing of this to anybody, but to do the thing directly.... I would
of all things ... have a proper place in a retired situation, where I may
have access to fields and sweet air provided against the moment I arrive.
I am inclined to think one may be better concealed in the outermost skirt
of the suburbs, than in the country or within the town.... A house quite
detached in the country I should have no objection to, provided you judge
that I shall not be liable to discovery in it. The place called Bermuda I
am utterly against. Dear Tom, do this matter cleanly and cleverly, without
waiting for further advice.... To the person from whom you hire it (whom
alone I would have you speak of it to) it will not seem strange you should
at this time of the year be desirous, for your own convenience or health,
to have a place in a free and open air.” This mysterious letter was
written in April. From April till September Berkeley again disappears.
There is in all this a curious secretiveness of which one has repeated
examples in his life. Whether he went to Dublin in that spring, or why he
wanted to go, does not appear.

But in September he emerges unexpectedly at Gravesend, newly married, and
ready to sail for Rhode Island, “in a ship of 250 tons which he had
hired.” The marriage, according to Stock, took place on August 1, whether
in Ireland or in England I cannot tell. The lady was Anne, daughter of
John Forster, late Chief Justice, and then Speaker of the Irish House of
Commons. She shared his fortune when he was about to engage in the most
romantic, and ideally the grandest, Christian mission of the eighteenth
century. According to tradition she was a devoutly religious mystic:
Fénelon and Madame Guyon were among her favourites. “I chose her,” he
tells Lord Percival, “for her qualities of mind and her unaffected
inclination to books. She goes with great thankfulness, to live a plain
farmer’s life, and wear stuff of her own spinning. I have presented her
with a spinning-wheel.” A letter to Prior, dated “Gravesend September 5,
1728,” thus describes the little party on the eve of their
departure:—“To-morrow, with God’s blessing, I set sail for Rhode Island,
with my wife and a friend of hers, my Lady Handcock’s daughter, who bears
us company. I am married since I saw you to Miss Forster, whose humour and
turn of mind pleases me beyond anything that I know in her whole sex. Mr.
James(15), Mr. Dalton, and Mr. Smibert(16) go with us on this voyage. We
are now all together at Gravesend, and are engaged in one view.” We are
further told(17) that they carried stores and goods to a great value, and
that the Dean “embarked 20,000 books, besides what the two gentlemen
carried. They sailed in September for Rhode Island, where the Dean intends
to winter, and to purchase an estate, in order to settle a correspondence
and trade between that island and Bermudas.” Berkeley was in his
forty-fourth year, when, full of glowing visions of Christian Empire in
the West, “Time’s noblest offspring,” he left England, on his way to
Bermuda, with the promise of Sir Robert Walpole that he should receive the
promised grant after he had made an investment. He bought land in America,
but he never reached Bermuda.

Towards the end of January, in 1729, the little party, in the “hired ship
of 250 tons,” made their appearance in Narragansett Bay, on the western
side of Rhode Island. “Blundering about the ocean,” they had touched at
Virginia on the way, whence a correspondent, sceptical of the enterprise,
informs Lord Percival that the Dean “had dined with the Governor, and
visited our College,” but thinks that “when the Dean comes to put his
visionary scheme into practice, he will find it no better than a religious
frenzy,” and that “he is as much a Don Quixote in zeal as that renowned
knight was in chivalry. I wish the good Dean may not find out at last that
Waller really kidnapt him over to Bermuda, and that the project he has
been drawn into may not prove in every point of it poetical.”

We have a picture of the landing at Newport, on a winter day early in
1729. “Yesterday arrived here Dean Berkeley of Londonderry, in a pretty
large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable,
pleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered into the town with a great
number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant
manner. ’Tis said he proposes to tarry here with his family about three
months(18).” Newport was then a flourishing town, nearly a century old, an
emporium of American commerce, in those days the rival of Boston and New
York. He was “never more agreeably surprised,” he says, than “at the size
of the town and harbour.” Around him was some of the softest rural and
grandest ocean scenery in the world, which had fresh charms even for one
whose boyhood was spent in the valley of the Nore, who had lingered in the
Bay of Naples, and wandered in Inarime and among the mountains of Sicily.
He was seventy miles from Boston, and about as far from Newhaven and Yale
College. A range of hills crosses the centre of the island, whence meadows
slope to the rocky shore. The Gulf Stream tempers the surrounding sea.
“The people,” he tells Percival, “are industrious; and though less
orthodox have not less virtue, and I am sure they have more regularity,
than those I left in Europe. They are indeed a strange medley of different
persuasions.” The gentry retained the customs of the squires in England:
tradition tells of a cheerful society: the fox chase, with hounds and
horses, was a favourite recreation. The society, for so remote a region,
was well informed. The family libraries and pictures which remain argue
culture and refinement. Smibert, the artist of the missionary party, who
had moved to Boston, soon found employment in America, and his pictures
still adorn houses in Rhode Island(19).

The Dean and his young wife lived in Newport for some months after their
arrival. Mr. Honeyman, a missionary of the English Society, had been
placed there, in Trinity Church, in 1704. The church is still a
conspicuous object from the harbour. Berkeley preached in it three days
after his arrival, and occasionally afterwards. Notes of his sermons are
included in this edition among his Miscellaneous Works.

In the summer of 1729 he moved from Newport to a quiet valley in the
interior of the island, where he bought a farm, and built a house. In this
island-home, named Whitehall, he lived for more than two years—years of
domestic happiness, and of resumed study, much interrupted since he left
Dublin in 1713. The house may still be seen, a little aside from the road
that runs eastward from Newport, about three miles from the town. It is
built of wood. The south-west room was probably the library. The ocean is
seen in the distance, while orchards and groves offer the shade and
silence which soothed the thinker in his recluse life. No invitations of
the three companions of his voyage(20), who had migrated to Boston, could
allure him from this retreat, where he diverted his anxieties about
Bermuda by the thoughts which found expression in the dialogues of
_Alciphron_, redolent of Rhode Island and the invigorating breezes of its
ocean shore. Tradition tells that much of _Alciphron_ was the issue of
meditation in the open air, at a favourite retreat, beneath the Hanging
Rocks, which commands an extensive view of the beach and the ocean; and
the chair in which he sat in this alcove is still preserved with
veneration.

While Berkeley loved domestic quiet at Whitehall(21) and the “still air of
delightful studies,” he mixed occasionally in the society of Newport. He
found it not uncongenial, and soon after he was settled at Whitehall he
led the way in forming a club, which held occasional meetings, the germ of
the Redwood Library, still a useful Newport institution. His own house was
a place of meeting for the New England missionaries.

                              [Illustration]

             Whitehall, Berkeley’s Residence in Rhode Island


Soon after his arrival in Rhode Island, Berkeley was visited by the
Reverend Samuel Johnson, missionary at Stratford, an acute and independent
thinker, one of the two contemporary representatives of philosophy in
America. The other was Jonathan Edwards, at that time Congregational
minister at Northampton on the Connecticut river. They had both adopted a
conception of the meaning and office of the material world in the economy
of existence that was in many respects similar to Berkeley’s(22). It seems
that Berkeley’s book of _Principles_ had before this fallen into Johnson’s
hands. He hastened to visit the author when he heard of his arrival. A
succession of visits and a life-long correspondence followed. The
“non-existence of Matter,” interpreted as a whimsical and even insane
paradox, was found by Johnson to mean the absence of unrealisable
Substance behind the real material world that is presented to our senses,
and of unrealisable Power in the successive sense-presented appearances of
which alone we are percipient. He came to see the real existence of the
things of sense in the constant order of the data of sense, through which
we gain our knowledge of the existence of our fellow men, and of the
omnipresent constant Providence of God; whose Ideas are the true
archetypes of the visible world. He adopted and applied this conception
with a lucidity and force which give him a high place among American
thinkers.

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All the while a cloud darkened the recluse life at Whitehall. In June,
1729, Berkeley explains to Percival the circumstances and secrecy of his
departure from England:—

“Before I left England I was reduced to a difficult situation. Had I
continued there, the report would have obtained (which I had found
beginning to spread) that I had dropped the design, after it had cost me
and my friends so much trouble and expense. On the other hand, if I had
taken leave of my friends, even those who assisted and approved my
undertaking would have condemned my coming abroad before the King’s bounty
was received. This obliged me to come away in the private manner that I
did, and to run the risque of a tedious winter voyage. Nothing less would
have convinced the world that I was in earnest, after the report I knew
was growing to the contrary.”

Months passed, and Walpole’s promise was still unfulfilled. “I wait here,”
he tells Lord Percival in March, 1730, “with all the anxiety that attends
suspense, until I know what I can depend upon, or what course I am to
take. On the one hand I have no notion that the Court would put what men
call a _bite_ upon a poor clergyman, who depended upon charters, grants,
votes, and the like engagements. On the other hand, I see nothing done
towards payment of the money.” Later on he writes—“As for the raillery of
European wits, I should not mind it, if I saw my College go on and
prosper; but I must own the disappointments I have met with in this
particular have nearly touched me, not without affecting my health and
spirits. If the founding a College for the spread of religion and learning
in America had been a foolish project, it cannot be supposed the Court,
the Ministers, and the Parliament would have given such public
encouragement to it; and if, after all that encouragement, they who
engaged to endow and protect it let it drop, the disappointment indeed may
be to me, but the censure, I think, will light elsewhere.”

The suspense was at last ended. Gibson, the Bishop of London, pressed
Walpole for a final answer. “If,” he replied, “you put this question to me
as a Minister, I must, and can, assure you that the money shall most
undoubtedly be paid, as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you
ask me as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America
expecting the payment of twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means
to return home to Europe, and to give up his present expectations.” It was
thus that in 1731 the Prime Minister of England crushed the project
conceived ten years before, and to which the intervening period had, under
his encouragement, been devoted by the projector with a singular
enthusiasm.

                              [Illustration]

                     Berkeley’s Alcove, Rhode Island


A few months after this heavy blow, Berkeley, with his wife, and Henry
their infant child, bade farewell to the island home. They sailed from
Boston in the late autumn of 1731, and in the following February we find
them in London. Thus ended the romantic episode of Rhode Island, with its
ideal of Christian civilisation, which so moves the heart and touches the
imagination in our retrospect of the eighteenth century. Of all who have
ever landed on the American shore, none was ever moved by a purer and more
self-sacrificing spirit. America still acknowledges that by Berkeley’s
visit on this mission it has been invested with the halo of an illustrious
name, and associated with religious devotion to a magnificent ideal, even
if it was sought to be realised by impracticable means. To reform the New
World, and mankind at last, by a College on an island in the Atlantic, six
hundred miles from America, the Indians whom it was intended to civilise
being mostly in the interior of the continent, and none in Bermuda, was
not unnaturally considered Quixotic; and that it was at first supported by
the British Court and Parliament is a wonderful tribute to the persuasive
genius of the projector. Perhaps he was too much influenced by Lord
Percival’s idea, that it could not be realised by private benevolence,
without the intervention of the Crown. But the indirect influence of
Berkeley’s American inspiration is apparent in many ways in the
intellectual and spiritual life of that great continent, during the last
century and a half, especially by the impulse given to academical
education. It is the testimony of an American author that, “by methods
different from those intended by Berkeley, and in ways more manifold than
even he could have dreamed, he has since accomplished, and through all
coming time, by a thousand ineffaceable influences, he will continue to
accomplish, some portion at least of the results which he had aimed at in
the founding of his university. It is the old story over again; the
tragedy of a Providence wiser than man’s foresight; God giving the victory
to His faithful servant even through the bitterness of overruling him and
defeating him(23).” American Empire, as we now see it with its boundless
beneficent influence, is at least an imperfect realisation of Berkeley’s
dream.

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Berkeley’s head quarters were in London, in Green Street, for more than
two years after the return to England in the beginning of 1732. Extant
correspondence with Lord Percival ends in Rhode Island, and our picture of
the two years in London is faintly formed by letters to Prior and Johnson.
These speak of ill-health, and breathe a less sanguine spirit. The
brilliant social life of former visits was less attractive now, even if
old friends had remained. But Swift had quitted England for ever, and
Steele had followed Addison to the grave. Gay, the common friend of
Berkeley and Pope, died soon after the return from Rhode Island, and
Arbuthnot was approaching his end at Hampstead. Samuel Clarke had passed
away when Berkeley was at Whitehall; but Seeker now held the rectory of
St. James’s, and Butler was in studious retirement on the Wear; while Pope
was at Twickenham, publishing his _Essay on Man_, receiving visits from
Bolingbroke, or visiting Lord Bathurst at Cirencester Park. Queen
Caroline, too, was holding her receptions at Kensington; but “those who
imagine (as you write),” he tells Prior in January, 1734, “that I have
been making my court here all this time, would never believe (what is most
true) that I have not been at the Court or at the Minister’s but once
these seven years. The care of my health and the love of retirement have
prevailed over whatsoever ambition might have come to my share.” There is
a hint of a visit to Oxford, at Commemoration in 1733, when his friend
Seeker received the honorary degree.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Soon after he had settled in London, the fruit of his studies in Rhode
Island was given to the world in the Seven Dialogues of _Alciphron, or The
Minute Philosopher_. Here the philosophical inspiration of his early years
is directed to sustain faith in Divine Moral Order, and in the Christian
Revelation. _Alciphron_ is the longest, and in literary form perhaps the
most finished of his works, unsurpassed in lively strokes of irony and
satire. Yet if it is to be regarded as a philosophical justification of
religion, as against modern agnosticism, one may incline to the judgment
of Mr. Leslie Stephen, that it is “the least admirable of all its author’s
admirable works.” As we have seen, the sect of free-thinkers was early the
object of Berkeley’s ridicule and sarcasm. They claimed for themselves
wide intellectual vision, yet they were blind to the deep realities of the
universe; they took exclusive credit for freedom of thought, although
their thinking was confined within the narrow compass of our data in
sense. The book of _Principles_, the _Dialogues_, and the _De Motu_ of his
early years, were designed to bring into clear light the absolute
dependence of the world that is presented to our senses on Omnipresent
Spirit; and the necessary subjection of all changes in our surroundings to
the immediate agency or providence of God. Boasted “free-thinking” was
really a narrow atheism, so he believed, in which meaningless Matter
usurped the place that belonged in reason to God, and he employed reason
to disclose Omnipotent Intelligence in and behind the phenomena that are
presented to the senses in impotent natural sequence.

The causes of the widespread moral corruption of the Old World, which had
moved Berkeley so profoundly, seem to have been pondered anew during his
recluse life in Rhode Island. The decline of morals was explained by the
deification of Matter: consequent life of sensuous pleasure accounted for
decay of religion. That vice is hurtful was argued by free-thinkers like
Mandeville to be a vulgar error, and a fallacious demonstration was
offered of its utility. That virtue is intrinsically beautiful was taught
by Shaftesbury; but Berkeley judged the abstract beauty, with which
“minute philosophers” were contented, unfit to move ordinary human beings
to self-sacrificing action; for this involves devotion to a Perfect Person
by whom goodness is finally distributed. Religion alone inspires the
larger and higher life, in presenting distributive justice personified on
the throne of the universe, instead of abstract virtue.

The turning-point in _Alciphron_ is in man’s vision of God. This is
pressed in the Fourth Dialogue. The free-thinker asserts that “the notion
of a Deity, or some invisible power, is of all prejudices the most
unconquerable; the most signal example of belief without reason for
believing.” He demands proof—“such proof as every man of sense requires of
a matter of fact.... Should a man ask, why I believe there is a king of
Great Britain? I might answer, Because I had seen him. Or a king of Spain?
Because I had seen those who saw him. But as for this King of kings, I
neither saw Him myself, nor any one else that ever did see Him.” To which
Euphranor replies, “What if it should appear that God really speaks to
man; would this content you? What if it shall appear plainly that God
speaks to men by the intervention and use of arbitrary, outward, sensible
signs, having no resemblance or necessary connexion with the things they
stand for and suggest; if it shall appear that, by innumerable
combinations of these signs, an endless variety of things is discovered
and made known to us; and that we are thereby instructed or informed in
their different natures; that we are taught and admonished what to shun
and what to pursue; and are directed how to regulate our motions, and how
to act with respect to things distant from us, as well in time as place:
will this content you?” Euphranor accordingly proceeds to shew that
Visible Nature is a Language, in which the Universal Power that is
continually at work is speaking to us all, in a way similar to that in
which our fellow men speak to us; so that we have as much (even more)
reason to believe in the existence of the Universal Person who is the
Speaker, as we have to believe in the existence of persons around us; who
become known to us, when they too employ sense-symbols, in the words and
actions by which we discover that we are not alone in the universe. For
men are really living spirits: their _bodies_ are only the sign of their
spiritual personality. And it is so with God, who is also revealed in the
visible world as a Spirit. “In a strict sense,” says Euphranor, “I do not
see Alciphron, but only such visible signs and tokens as suggest and infer
the being of that invisible thinking principle or soul. Even so, in the
self-same manner, it seems to me that, though I cannot with eyes of flesh
behold the invisible God, yet I do, in the strictest sense, behold and
perceive, by all my senses, such signs and tokens ... as suggest,
indicate, and demonstrate an invisible God as certainly, and with the same
evidence, at least, as any other signs, perceived by sense, do suggest to
me the existence of _your_ soul, spirit, or thinking principle; which I am
convinced of only by a few signs or effects, and the motions of one small
organised body; whereas I do, at all times, and in all places, perceive
sensible signs which evince the being of God.” In short, God is the living
Soul of the Universe; as you and I are the living souls that keep our
bodies and their organs in significant motion. We can interpret the
character of God in the history of the universe, even as we can interpret
the character of our neighbour by observing his words and outward actions.

This overwhelmed Alciphron. “You stare to find that God is not far from
any one of us, and that in Him we live and move and have our being,”
rejoins Euphranor. “You who, in the beginning of this conference, thought
it strange that God should leave Himself without a witness, do now think
it strange the witness should be so full and clear.” “I must own I do,”
was the reply. “I never imagined it could be pretended that we saw God
with our fleshly eyes, as plain as we see any human person whatsoever, and
that He daily speaks to our senses in a manifest and clear dialect.”

Although this reasoning satisfied Alciphron, others may think it
inconclusive. How one is able to discover the existence of other persons,
and even the meaning of finite personality, are themselves questions full
of speculative difficulty. But, waiving this, the analogy between the
relation of a human spirit to its body, and that of the Omnipresent and
Omnipotent Spirit to the Universe of things and persons, fails in several
respects. God is supposed to be continually creating the world by constant
and continuous Providence, and His Omniscience is supposed to comprehend
all its concrete relations: a man’s body is not absolutely dependent on
the man’s own power and providence; and even his scientific knowledge of
it, in itself and in its relations, is scanty and imperfect, as his power
over it is limited and conditioned. Then the little that a man gradually
learns of what is going on in the surrounding universe is dependent on his
senses: Omniscience comprehends Immensity and Eternity (so we suppose) in
a single intuition. Our bodies, moreover, are visible things: the
universe, this organism of God, is crowded with _persons_, to whom there
is nothing corresponding within the organism which reveals one man to
another.

But this is not all. After Euphranor has found that the Universal Power is
Universal Spirit, this is still an inadequate God; for what we want to
know is what _sort_ of Spirit God is. Is God omnipotent or of limited
power, regarded ethically, fair or unfair in His treatment of persons;
good or evil, according to the highest yet attained conception of
goodness; a God of love, or a devil omnipotent? I infer the _character_ of
my neighbour from his words and actions, patent to sense in the gradual
outward evolution of his life. I am asked to infer the _character_ of the
Omnipresent Spirit from _His_ words and actions, manifested in the
universe of things and persons. But we must not attribute to the Cause
more than it reveals of itself in its effects. God and men alike are known
by the effects they produce. The Universal Power is, on this condition,
righteous, fair, and loving to the degree in which those conceptions are
implied in His visible embodiment: to affirm more or other than this, on
the basis of analogy _alone_, is either to indulge in baseless conjecture,
or to submit blindly to dogma and authority.

Now the universe, as far as it comes within the range of human experience
on this planet, is full of suffering and moral disorder. The “religious
hypothesis” of a perfectly righteous and benevolent God is here offered to
account for the appearances which the universe presents to us. But do
these signify exact distributive justice? Is not visible nature apparently
cruel and unrelenting? If we infer cruelty in the character of a man,
because his bodily actions cause undeserved suffering, must we not, by
this analogy, infer in like manner regarding the character of the Supreme
Spirit, manifested in the progressive evolution of the universal organism?

We find it impossible to determine with absolute certainty the character
even of our fellow men, from their imperfectly interpreted words and
actions, so that each man is more or less a mystery to his fellows. The
mystery deepens when we try to read the character of animals,—to interpret
the motives which determine the overt acts of dogs or horses. And if we
were able to communicate by visible signs with the inhabitants of other
planets, with how much greater difficulty should we draw conclusions from
their visible acts regarding _their_ character? But if this is so when we
use the data of sense for reading the character of finite persons, how
infinite must be the difficulty of reading the character of the Eternal
Spirit, in and through the gradual evolution of the universe of things and
persons, which in this reasoning is supposed to be His body; and the
history of that universe the facts of His biography, in and by which He is
eternally revealing Himself! For we know nothing about the unbeginning and
unending. The universe of persons is assumed to have no _end_; and I know
not why its evolution must be supposed to have had a _beginning_, or that
there ever was a time in which God was unmanifested, to finite persons.

Shall we in these circumstances turn with Euphranor, in the Fifth and
Sixth Dialogues, to professed revelation of the character of the Universal
Mind presented in miraculous revelation, by inspired prophets and
apostles, who are brought forward as authorities able to speak infallibly
to the _character_ of God? If the whole course of nature, or endless
evolution of events, is the Divine Spirit revealed in omnipresent
activity, what room is there for any other less regular revelation? The
universe of common experience, it is implied by Berkeley, is essentially
miraculous, and therefore absolutely perfect. Is it consistent with
fairness, and benevolence, and love of goodness in all moral agents for
its own sake, that the Christian revelation should have been so long
delayed, and be still so incompletely made known? Is not the existence of
wicked persons on this or any other planet, wicked men or devils, a dark
spot in the visible life of God? Does not perfect goodness in God mean
restoration of goodness in men, for its own sake, apart from their merit;
and must not Omnipotent Goodness, infinitely opposite to all evil, either
convert to goodness all beings in the universe who have made themselves
bad, or else relieve the universe of their perpetual presence in
ever-increasing wickedness?

Sceptical criticism of this sort has found expression in the searching
minute philosophy of a later day than Berkeley’s and Alciphron’s; as in
David Hume and Voltaire, and in the agnosticism of the nineteenth century.
Was not Euphranor too ready to yield to the demand for a visible God,
whose character had accordingly to be determined by what appears in nature
and man, under the conditions of our limited and contingent experience? Do
we not need to look below data of sensuous experience, and among the
presuppositions which must consciously or unconsciously be taken for
granted in all man’s dealings with the environment in which he finds
himself, for the root of _trustworthy_ experience? On merely physical
reasoning, like that of Euphranor, the righteous love of God is an
unwarranted inference, and it even seems to be contradicted by visible
facts presented in the history of the world. But if Omnipotent Goodness
must _a priori_ be attributed to the Universal Mind, as an indispensable
condition for man’s having reliable intercourse of any sort with nature;
if this is the primary postulate necessary to the existence of truth of
any kind—then the “religious hypothesis” that God is Good, according to
the highest conception of goodness, is no groundless fancy, but the
fundamental faith-venture in which man has to live. It _must_ stand in
reason; unless it can be _demonstrated_ that the mixture of good and evil
which the universe presents, necessarily contradicts this fundamental
presupposition: and if so, man is lost in pessimistic Pyrrhonism, and can
assert nothing about anything(24).

The religious altruism, however inadequate, which Berkeley offered in
_Alciphron_ made some noise at the time of its appearance, although its
theistic argument was too subtle to be popular. The conception of the
visible world as Divine Visual Language was “received with ridicule by
those who make ridicule the test of truth,” although it has made way
since. “I have not seen Dean Berkeley,” Gay the poet writes to Swift in
the May following the Dean’s return, and very soon after the appearance of
_Alciphron_, “but I have been reading his book, and like many parts of it;
but in general think with you that it is too speculative.” Warburton, with
admiration for Berkeley, cannot comprehend his philosophy, and Hoadley
shewed a less friendly spirit. _A Letter from a Country Clergyman_,
attributed to Lord Hervey, the “Sporus” of Pope, was one of several
ephemeral attacks which the _Minute Philosopher_ encountered in the year
after its appearance. Three other critics, more worthy of consideration,
are mentioned in one of Berkeley’s letters from London to his American
friend Johnson at Stratford: “As to the Bishop of Cork’s book, and the
other book you allude to, the author of which is one Baxter, they are both
very little considered here; for which reason I have taken no public
notice of them. To answer objections already answered, and repeat the same
things, is a needless as well as disagreeable task. Nor should I have
taken notice of that Letter about Vision, had it not been printed in a
newspaper, which gave it course, and spread it through the kingdom.
Besides, the theory of Vision I found was somewhat obscure to most people;
for which reason I was not displeased at an opportunity to explain
it(25).” The explanation was given in _The Theory of Visual Language
Vindicated_, in January, 1733, as a supplement to _Alciphron_. Its blot is
a tone of polemical bitterness directed against Shaftesbury(26).

Although Berkeley “took no public notice” of “the Bishop of Cork’s
book(27)” it touched a great question, which periodically has awakened
controversy, and been the occasion of mutual misunderstanding among the
controversialists in past ages. “Is God knowable by man; or must religion
be devotion to an object that is unknowable?” In one of his first letters
to Lord Percival, as we saw, Berkeley animadverted on a sermon by the
Archbishop of Dublin, which seemed to deny that there was goodness, or
understanding God, any more than feet or hands. An opinion somewhat
similar had been attributed to Bishop Browne, in his answer to Toland, and
afterwards in 1728, in his _Procedure and Limits of Human Understanding_.

This touched to the quick Berkeley’s ultimate conception of the universe,
as realisable only in, and therefore necessarily dependent on, living
mind. We are reminded of the famous analogy of Spinoza(28). If the
omnipresent and omnipotent Mind, on which Euphranor rested, can be called
“mind” only metaphorically, and can be called “good” only when the term is
used without human meaning, it may seem to be a matter of indifference
whether we have unknowable Matter or unknowable Mind at the root of things
and persons. Both are empty words. The Power universally at work is
equally unintelligible, equally unfit to be the object of worship in the
final venture of faith, whether we use the term Matter or the term Mind.
The universe is neither explained nor sustained by a “mind” that is mind
only metaphorically. To call this “God” is to console us with an empty
abstraction. The minutest philosopher is ready to grant with Alciphron
that “there is a God in this indefinite sense”; since nothing can be
inferred from such an account of God about conduct or religion.

The Bishop of Cork replied to the strictures of Euphranor in the _Minute
Philosopher_. He qualified and explained his former utterances in some two
hundred dull pages of his _Divine Analogy_, which hardly touch the root of
the matter. The question at issue is the one which underlies modern
agnosticism. It was raised again in Britain in the nineteenth century,
with deeper insight, by Sir William Hamilton; followed by Dean Mansel, in
controversy with F. D. Maurice, at the point of view of Archbishop King
and Bishop Browne, in philosophical vindication of the mysteries of
Christian faith; by Mr. Herbert Spencer and by Huxley in a minute
philosophy that has been deepened by Hume’s criticism of the rationale of
theism in Berkeley(29).

Andrew Baxter’s _Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul_, referred to
in Berkeley’s letter to Johnson, appeared in 1733. It has a chapter on
“Dean Berkeley’s Scheme against the existence of Matter and a Material
World,” which is worthy of mention because it is the earliest elaborate
criticism of the New Principle, although it had then been before the world
for more than twenty years. The title of the chapter shews Baxter’s
imperfect comprehension of the proposition which he attempts to refute. It
suggests that Berkeley argued for the non-existence of the things we see
and touch, instead of for their necessary dependence on, or subordination
to, realising percipient Mind, so far as they are concrete realities.
Baxter, moreover, was a Scot; and his criticism is interesting as a
foretaste of the protracted discussion of the “ideal theory” by Reid and
his friends, and later on by Hamilton. But Baxter’s book was not the first
sign of Berkeley’s influence in Scotland. We are told by Dugald Stewart,
that “the novelty of Berkeley’s paradox attracted very powerfully the
attention of a set of young men who were then prosecuting their studies at
Edinburgh, who formed themselves into a Society for the express purpose of
soliciting from him an explanation of some parts of his theory which
seemed to them obscurely or equivocally expressed. To this correspondence
the amiable and excellent prelate seems to have given every encouragement;
and I have been told on the best authority that he was accustomed to say
that his reasoning had been nowhere better understood than by this club of
young Scotsmen(30).” Thus, and afterwards through Hume and Reid, Berkeley
is at the root of philosophy in Scotland.

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The two years of indifferent health and authorship in London sum up what
may be called the American period of Berkeley’s life. Early in 1734
letters to Prior open a new vista in his history. He was nominated to the
bishopric of Cloyne in the south of Ireland, and we have now to follow him
to the remote region which was his home for eighteen years. The interest
of the philosophic Queen, and perhaps some compensation for the Bermuda
disappointment, may explain the appearance of the metaphysical and social
idealist in the place where he shone as a star of the first magnitude in
the Irish Church of the eighteenth century.




III. Later Years (1734-53).


In May, 1734, Berkeley was consecrated as Bishop of Cloyne, in St. Paul’s
Church, Dublin. Except occasional visits, he had been absent from Ireland
for more than twenty years. He returned to spend eighteen years of almost
unbroken seclusion in his remote diocese. It suited a growing inclination
to a recluse, meditative life, which had been encouraged by circumstances
in Rhode Island. The eastern and northern part in the county of Cork
formed his diocese, bounded on the west by Cork harbour, and on the east
by the beautiful Blackwater and the mountains of Waterford; the sea, which
was its southern boundary, approached within two miles of the episcopal
residence in the village of Cloyne.

As soon as he was settled, he resumed study “with unabated attention,” but
still with indifferent health. Travelling had become irksome to him, and
at Cloyne he was almost as much removed as he had been in Rhode Island
from the thinking world. Cork took the place of Newport; but Cork was
twenty miles from Cloyne, while Newport was only three miles from
Whitehall. His episcopal neighbour at Cork was Bishop Browne, the critic
of _Alciphron_. Isaac Gervais, afterwards Dean of Tuam, often enlivened
the “manse-house” at Cloyne by his wit and intercourse with the great
world. Secker, the Bishop of Bristol, and Benson, the Bishop of
Gloucester, now and then exchanged letters with him, and correspondence
was kept up as of old with Prior at Dublin and Johnson at Stratford. But
there is no trace of intercourse with Swift, who was wearing out an
unhappy old age, or with Pope, almost the only survivor of the brilliant
society of other years. We are told, indeed, that the beauty of Cloyne was
so described to the bard of Twickenham, by the pen which in former days
had described Ischia, that Pope was almost moved to visit it. And a letter
from Secker in February, 1735(31), contains this scrap: “Your friend Mr.
Pope is publishing small poems every now and then, full of much wit and
not a little keenness(32).” “Our common friend, Dr. Butler,” he adds,
“hath almost completed a set of speculations upon the credibility of
religion from its analogy to the constitution and course of nature, which
I believe in due time you will read with pleasure.” Butler’s _Analogy_
appeared in the following year. But I have found no remains of
correspondence between Berkeley and their “common friend”; the two most
illustrious religious thinkers of the Anglican communion.

When he left London in 1734 Berkeley was on the eve of what sounded like a
mathematical controversy, although it was in his intention metaphysical,
and was suggested by the Seventh Dialogue in _Alciphron_. In one of his
letters to Prior, early in that year, he told him that though he “could
not read, owing to ill health,” yet his thought was as distinct as ever,
and that for amusement “he passed his early hours in thinking of certain
mathematical matters which may possibly produce something(33).” This
turned, it seems, upon a form of scepticism among contemporary
mathematicians, occasioned by the presence of mysteries of religion. The
_Analyst_ was the issue. It was followed by a controversy in which some of
the most eminent mathematicians took part. _Mathematica exeunt in
mysteria_ might have been the motto of the _Analyst_. The assumptions in
mathematics, it is argued, are as mysterious as those of theologians and
metaphysicians. Mathematicians cannot translate into perfectly
intelligible thought their own doctrines in fluxions. If man’s knowledge
of God is rooted in mystery, so too is mathematical analysis. Pure science
at last loses itself in propositions which usefully regulate action, but
which cannot be comprehended. This is the drift of the argument in the
_Analyst_; but perhaps Berkeley’s inclination to extreme conclusions, and
to what is verbally paradoxical, led him into doubtful positions in the
controversy to which the _Analyst_ gave rise. Instead of ultimate
imperfect comprehensibility, he seems to attribute absolute contradiction
to the Newtonian fluxions. Baxter, in his _Inquiry_, had asserted that
things in Berkeley’s book of _Principles_ forced the author “to suspect
that even mathematics may not be very sound knowledge at the bottom.” The
metaphysical argument of the _Analyst_ was obscured in a cloud of
mathematics.

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The social condition of Ireland attracted Berkeley almost as soon as he
was settled in Cloyne. He was surrounded by a large native Irish
population and a small group of English colonists. The natives, long
governed in the interest of the stranger, had never learned to exert and
govern themselves. The self-reliance which Berkeley preached fifteen years
before, as a mean for “preventing the ruin of Great Britain,” was more
wanting in Ireland, where the simplest maxims of social economy were
neglected. It was a state of things fitted to move one who was too
independent to permit his aspirations to be confined to the ordinary
routine of the Irish episcopate, and who could not forget the favourite
moral maxim of his life.

The social chaos of Ireland was the occasion of what to some may be the
most interesting of Berkeley’s writings. His thoughts found vent
characteristically in a series of penetrating practical queries. The First
Part of the _Querist_ appeared in 1735, anonymously, edited by Dr. Madden
of Dublin, who along with Prior had lately founded a Society for promoting
industrial arts in Ireland. The Second and Third Parts were published in
the two following years. _A Discourse to Magistrates occasioned by the
Enormous Licence and Irreligion of the Times_, which appeared in 1736, was
another endeavour, with like philanthropic intention. And the only
important break in his secluded life at Cloyne, in eighteen years of
residence, was when he went for some months to Dublin in 1737, to render
social service to Ireland in the Irish House of Lords.

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His metaphysic, at first encountered by ridicule, was now beginning to
receive more serious treatment. A Scotsman had already recognised it. In
1739 another and more famous Scotsman, David Hume, refers thus to Berkeley
in one of the opening sections of his _Treatise of Human Nature_: “A very
material question has been started concerning abstract or general
ideas—whether they be general or particular in the mind’s conception of
them. A great philosopher, Dr. Berkeley, has disputed the received opinion
in this particular, and has asserted that all general ideas are nothing
but particular ones, annexed to a certain term which gives them a more
extensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other
individuals which are similar to them. I look upon this to be one of the
greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in
the republic of letters.” It does not appear that Berkeley heard of Hume.

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A curious interest began to engage him about this time. The years
following 1739 were years of suffering in the Irish diocese. It was a time
of famine followed by widespread disease. His correspondence is full of
allusions to this. It had consequences of lasting importance. Surrounded
by disease, he pondered remedies. Experience in Rhode Island and among
American Indians suggested the healing properties of tar. Further
experiments in tar, combined with meditation and much curious reading,
deepened and expanded his metaphysical philosophy. Tar seemed to grow
under his experiments, and in his thoughts, into a Panacea for giving
health to the organism on which living mind in man is meanwhile dependent.
This natural dependence of health upon tar introduced thoughts of the
interdependence of all things, and then of the _immediate_ dependence of
all in nature upon Omnipresent and Omnipotent Mind. The living Mind that
underlies the phenomena of the universe began to be conceived under a new
light. Since his return to the life of thought in Rhode Island, he had
been immersed in Platonic and Neoplatonic literature, and in books of
mystical Divinity, encouraged perhaps by the mystical disposition
attributed to his wife. An eccentric ingenuity connected the scientific
experiments and prescriptions with the Idealism of Plato and Plotinus. The
natural law according to which tar-water was universally restorative set
his mind to work about the immanence of living Mind. He mused about a
medicine thus universally beneficial, and the thought occurred that it
must be naturally charged with ’pure invisible fire, the most subtle and
elastic of bodies, and the vital element in the universe’; and water might
be the natural cause which enables this elementary fire to be drawn out of
tar and transferred to vegetable and animal organisms. But the vital fire
could be only a natural cause; which in truth is no efficient cause at
all, but only a sign of divine efficiency transmitted through the world of
sense: the true cause of this and all other natural effects must be the
immanent Mind or Reason in which we all participate; for in God we live
and move and have our being.

It is thus that Berkeley’s thought culminates in _Siris_, that _Chain of
Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of
Tar-water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one
from another_, which appeared in 1744. This little book made more noise at
the time of its appearance than any of his books; but not because of its
philosophy, which was lost in its medicinal promise to mankind of immunity
from disease. Yet it was Berkeley’s last attempt to express his ultimate
conception of the universe in its human and divine relations. When _Siris_
is compared with the book of _Principles_, the immense difference in tone
and manner of thought shews the change wrought in the intervening years.
The sanguine argumentative gladiatorship of the _Principles_ is exchanged
for pensive speculation, which acknowledges the weakness of human
understanding, when it is face to face with the Immensities and
Eternities. Compare the opening sections of the Introduction to the
_Principles_ with the closing sections of _Siris_. The contingent data of
our experience are now felt to be insufficient, and there is a more or
less conscious grounding of the Whole in the eternal and immutable Ideas
of Reason. “Strictly, the sense knows nothing. We perceive, indeed, sounds
by hearing and characters by sight. But we are not therefore said to
understand them.... Sense and experience acquaint us with the course and
analogy of appearances and natural effects: thought, reason, intellect,
introduce us into the knowledge of their causes.... The principles of
science are neither objects of sense nor imagination: intellect and reason
are alone the sure guides to truth.” So the shifting basis of the earlier
thought is found to need support in the intellectual and moral faith that
must be involved in all reasonable human intercourse with the phenomena
presented in the universe.

The inadequate thought of God, as only a Spirit or Person supreme among
the spirits or persons, in and through whom the material world is
realised, a thought which pervades _Alciphron_, makes way in _Siris_ for
the thought of God as the infinite omnipresent Ground, or final sustaining
Power, immanent in Nature and Man, to which Berkeley had become accustomed
in Neoplatonic and Alexandrian metaphysics. “Comprehending God and the
creatures in One general notion, we may _say_ that all things together
(God and the universe of Space and Time) make One Universe, or τὸ Πᾶν. But
if we should say that all things make One God, this would be an erroneous
notion of God; but would not amount to atheism, as long as Mind or
Intellect was admitted to be τὸ ἡγεμονικόν, or the governing part.... It
will not seem just to fix the imputation of atheism upon those
philosophers who hold the doctrine of τὸ Ἕν.” It is thus that he now
regards God. Metaphysics and theology are accordingly one.

No attempt is made in _Siris_ to articulate the universe in the light of
unifying Mind or Reason. And we are still apt to ask what the truth and
goodness at the heart of all really mean; seeing that, as conceived in
human minds, they vary in the gradual evolution of intellect and
conscience in men. _Omnia exeunt in mysteria_ is the tone of _Siris_ at
the end. The universe of reality is too much for our articulate
intellectual digestion: it must be left for omniscience; it transcends
finite intelligence and the _via media_ of human understanding. Man must
be satisfied to pass life, in the infinitesimal interval between birth and
death, as a faith-venture, which he may convert into a growing insight, as
the generations roll on, but which can never be converted into complete
knowledge. “In this state we must be satisfied to make the best of those
glimpses within our reach. It is Plato’s remark in his _Theætetus_, that
while we sit still we are never the wiser; but going into the river, and
moving up and down, is the way to discover its depths and shallows. If we
exercise and bestir ourselves, we may even here discover something. The
eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern; and there is no
subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring
on it. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly where it
is the chief passion it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views; nor
is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life: a time
perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make
a real progress in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as his youth,
the later growth as well as the first-fruits, at the altar of Truth.” Such
was Berkeley, and such were his last words in philosophy. They may suggest
the attitude of Bacon when, at a different view-point, he disclaims
exhaustive system: “I have made a beginning of the work: the fortune of
the human race will give the issue. For the matter in hand is no mere
felicity of speculation, but the real business and fortunes of the human
race(34).”

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While Berkeley’s central thought throughout his life is concerned with God
as the one omnipresent and omnipotent Providential Agent in the universe,
he says little about the other final question, of more exclusively human
interest, which concerns the destiny of men. That men are born into a
universe which, as the visible expression of Moral Providence, must be
scientifically and ethically trustworthy; certain not to put man to
confusion intellectually or morally, seeing that it could not otherwise be
trusted for such in our ultimate venture of faith—this is one thing. That
all persons born into it are certain to continue living self-consciously
for ever, is another thing. This is not obviously implied in the former
presupposition, whether or not it can be deduced from it, or else
discovered by other means. Although man’s environment is essentially
Divine, and wholly in its smallest details Providential, may not his body,
in its living organisation from physical birth until physical death, be
the measure of the continuance of his self-conscious personality? Is each
man’s immortal existence, like God’s, indispensable?

Doubt about the destiny of men after they die is, at the end of the
nineteenth century, probably more prevalent than doubt about the
underlying Providence of God, and His constant creative activity; more
perhaps than it was in the days of Toland, and Collins, and Tindal. Future
life had been made so familiar to the imagination by the early and
mediaeval Church, and afterwards by the Puritans, as in Milton, Bunyan,
and Jonathan Edwards, that it then seemed to the religious mind more real
than anything that is seen and touched. The habit wholly formed by natural
science is apt to dissipate this and to make a human life lived under
conditions wholly strange to its “minute philosophy” appear illusory.

A section in the book of _Principles_(35) in which the common argument for
the “natural immortality” of the human soul is reproduced, strengthened by
his new conception of what the reality of body means, is Berkeley’s
metaphysical contribution for determining between the awful alternatives
of annihilation or continued self-conscious life after physical death. The
subject is touched, in a less recondite way, in two of his papers in the
_Guardian_, and in the _Discourse_ delivered in Trinity College Chapel in
1708, in which a revelation of the immortality of men is presented as the
special gospel of Jesus Christ. To argue, as Berkeley does in the
_Principles_, that men cannot be annihilated at death, because they are
spiritual substances having powers independent of the sequences of nature,
implies assumptions regarding finite persons which are open to criticism.
The justification in reason for our venture of faith that Omnipotent
Goodness is at the heart of the universe is—that without this
presupposition we can have no reasonable intercourse, scientific or
otherwise, with the world of things and persons in which we find
ourselves; for reason and will are then alike paralysed by universal
distrust. But it can hardly be maintained _a priori_ that men, or other
spiritual beings in the universe, are equally with God indispensable to
its natural order; so that when they have once entered on conscious
existence they must _always_ continue to exist consciously. Is not the
philosophical justification of man’s hope of endless life ethical rather
than metaphysical; founded on that faith in the justice and goodness of
the Universal Mind which has to be taken for granted in every attempt to
interpret experience, with its mixture of good and evil, in this
evanescent embodied life? Can a life such as this is be _all_ for men, in
a universe that, because it is essentially Divine, must operate towards
the extinction of the wickedness which now makes it a mystery of
Omnipotent Goodness?

A cheerful optimism appears in Berkeley’s habit of thought about death, as
we have it in his essays in the _Guardian_: a sanguine apprehension of a
present preponderance of good, and consequent anticipation of greater good
after death; unlike those whose pessimistic temperament induces a lurid
picture of eternal moral disorder. But his otherwise active imagination
seldom makes philosophy a meditation upon death. He does not seem to have
exercised himself in the way those do who find in the prospect of being in
the twenty-first century as they were in the first, what makes them
appalled that they have ever come at all into transitory percipient life;
or as those others who recoil from an unbodied life after physical death,
as infinitely more appalling than the thought of being transported _in
this body_ into another planet, or even to a material world outside our
solar system. In one of his letters to Johnson(36) he does approach the
unbodied life, and in a characteristic way:—

“I see no difficulty in conceiving a change of state, such as is vulgarly
called _death_, as well without as with material substance. It is
sufficient for that purpose that we allow sensible bodies, i.e. such as
are immediately perceived by sight and touch; the existence of which I am
so far from questioning, as philosophers are used to do, that I establish
it, I think, upon evident principles. Now it seems very easy to conceive
the _soul_ to exist in a separate state (i.e. divested from those limits
and laws of motion and perception with which she is embarrassed here) and
to exercise herself on new ideas, without the intervention of these
tangible things we call _bodies_. It is even very possible to apprehend
how the soul may have ideas of colour without an eye, or of sounds without
an ear(37).”

But while we may thus be supposed to have all our present sensuous
experience in an unbodied state, this does not enable one to conceive how
unbodied persons can communicate with one another in the absence of _all_
sense signs; whether of the sort derived from our present senses, or from
other senses of whose data we can in this life have no imagination.

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Berkeley’s tar-water enthusiasm lasted throughout the rest of his life,
and found vent in letters and pamphlets in support of his Panacea, from
1744 till 1752. Notwithstanding this, he was not forgetful of other
interests—ecclesiastical, and the social ones which he included in his
large meaning of “ecclesiastical.” The Rising under Charles Edward in 1745
was the occasion of a _Letter to the Roman Catholics of Cloyne_,
characteristically humane and liberal. It was followed in 1749 by an
_Exhortation to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland_ in a similar spirit;
and this unwonted courtesy of an Irish Protestant bishop was received by
those to whom it was addressed in a corresponding temper.

It is difficult to determine Berkeley’s relation to rival schools or
parties in Church and State. His disposition was too singular and
independent for a partisan. Some of his early writings, as we have seen,
were suspected of high Tory and Jacobite leanings; but his arguments in
the suspected _Discourse_ were such as ordinary Tories and Jacobites
failed to understand, and the tenor of his words and actions was in the
best sense liberal. In religious thought _Siris_ might place him among
latitudinarians; perhaps in affinity with the Cambridge Platonists. His
true place is foremost among the religious philosophers of the Anglican
Church; the first to prepare the religious problem for the light in which
we are invited to look at the universe by modern agnostics, and under the
modern conception of natural evolution. He is the most picturesque figure
in that Anglican succession which, in the seventeenth century, includes
Hooker and Cudworth; in the eighteenth, Clarke and Butler; and in the
nineteenth, may we say Coleridge, in lack of a representative in orders;
although Mansel, Maurice, Mozley, and Jowett are not to be forgotten, nor
Isaac Taylor among laymen(38): Newman and Arnold, illustrious otherwise,
are hardly representatives of metaphysical philosophy.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

A more pensive tone runs through the closing years at Cloyne. Attempts
were made in vain to withdraw him from the “remote corner” to which he had
been so long confined. His friends urged his claims for the Irish Primacy.
“I am no man’s rival or competitor in this matter,” were his words to
Prior. “I am not in love with feasts, and crowds, and visits, and late
hours, and strange faces, and a hurry of affairs often insignificant. For
my own private satisfaction, I had rather be master of my time than wear a
diadem.” Letters to his American friends, Johnson and Clap, shew him still
moved by the inspiration which carried him over the Atlantic, and record
his influence in the development of American colleges(39). The home
education of his three sons was another interest. We are told by his widow
that “he would not trust his sons to mercenary hands. Though old and
sickly, he performed the constant tedious task himself.” Of the fruit of
this home education there is little to tell. The death of William, his
favourite boy, in 1751, “was thought to have struck too close to his
father’s heart.” “I am a man,” so he writes, “retired from the amusements,
politics, visits, and what the world calls pleasure. I had a little
friend, educated always under mine own eye, whose painting delighted me,
whose music ravished me, and whose lively gay spirit was a continual
feast. It has pleased God to take him hence.” The eldest son, Henry, born
in Rhode Island, did not long survive his father. George, the third son,
was destined for Oxford, and this destiny was connected with a new
project. The “life academico-philosophical,” which he sought in vain to
realise in Bermuda, he now hoped to find for himself in the city of
colleges on the Isis. “The truth is,” he wrote to Prior as early as
September 1746, “I have a scheme of my own for this long time past, in
which I propose more satisfaction and enjoyment to myself than I could in
that high station(40), which I neither solicited, nor so much as wished
for. A greater income would not tempt me to remove from Cloyne, and set
aside my Oxford scheme; which, though delayed by the illness of my
son(41), yet I am as intent upon it and as much resolved as ever.”

The last of Berkeley’s letters which we have is to Dean Gervais. It
expresses the feeling with which in April, 1752, he was contemplating
life, on the eve of his departure from Cloyne.

“I submit to years and infirmities. My views in this world are mean and
narrow; it is a thing in which I have small share, and which ought to give
me small concern. I abhor business, and especially to have to do with
great persons and great affairs. The evening of life I choose to pass in a
quiet retreat. Ambitious projects, intrigues and quarrels of statesmen,
are things I have formerly been amused with, but they now seem to be a
vain, fugitive dream.”

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Four months after this, Berkeley saw Cloyne for the last time. In August
he quitted it for Oxford, which he had long pictured in imagination as the
ideal home of his old age. When he left Cork in the vessel which carried
his wife, his daughter, and himself to Bristol, he was prostrated by
weakness, and had to be taken from Bristol to Oxford on a horse-litter. It
was late in August when they arrived there(42).

Our picture of Berkeley at Oxford is dim. According to tradition he
occupied a house in Holywell Street, near the gardens of New College and
not far from the cloisters of Magdalen. It was a changed world to him.
While he was exchanging Ireland for England, death was removing old
English friends. Before he left Cloyne he must have heard of the death of
Butler in June, at Bath, where Benson, at the request of Secker,
affectionately watched the last hours of the author of the _Analogy_.
Benson followed Butler in August.

We hear of study resumed in improved health in the home in Holy well
Street. In October a _Miscellany, containing several Tracts on various
Subjects_, “by the Bishop of Cloyne,” appeared simultaneously in London
and Dublin. The Tracts were reprints, with the exception of _Further
Thoughts on Tar-water_, which may have been written before he left
Ireland. The third edition of _Alciphron_ also appeared in this autumn.
But _Siris_ is the latest record of his philosophical thought. A
comparison of the _Commonplace Book_ and the _Principles_ with the
_Analyst_ and _Siris_ gives the measure of his advancement. After the
sanguine beginning perhaps the comparison leaves a sense of
disappointment, when we find metaphysics mixed up with mathematics in the
_Analyst_, and metaphysics obscurely mixed up with medicine in _Siris_.

It is curious that, although in 1752 David Hume’s _Treatise of Human
Nature_ had been before the world for thirteen years and his _Inquiry
concerning Human Understanding_ for four years, there is no allusion to
Hume by Berkeley. He was Berkeley’s immediate successor in the
eighteenth-century evolution of European thought. The sceptical criticism
of Hume was applied to the dogmatic religious philosophy of Berkeley, to
be followed in its turn by the abstractly rational and the moral
reconstructive criticism of Kant. _Alciphron_ is, however, expressly
referred to by Hume; indirectly, too, throughout the religious agnosticism
of his _Inquiry_, also afterwards in the _Dialogues on Natural Religion_,
in a vindication of minute philosophy by profounder reasonings than those
which satisfied Lysicles and Alciphron. Berkeley, Hume, and Kant are the
three significant philosophical figures of their century, each holding the
supreme place successively in its beginning, middle, and later years.
Perhaps Reid in Scotland did more than any other in his generation to make
Berkeley known; not, however, for his true work in constructive religious
thought, but for his supposed denial of the reality of the things we see
and touch.(43)

The ideal life in Oxford did not last long. On the evening of Sunday,
January 14, 1753, Berkeley was suddenly confronted by the mystery of
death. “As he was sitting with my mother, my sister, and myself,” so his
son wrote to Johnson at Stratford, in October, “suddenly, and without the
least previous notice or pain, he was removed to the enjoyment of eternal
rewards; and although all possible means were instantly used, no symptom
of life ever appeared after; nor could the physicians assign any cause for
his death. He arrived at Oxford on August 25, and had received great
benefit from the change of air, and by God’s blessing on tar-water,
insomuch that for some years he had not been in better health than he was
the instant before he left us(44).”

Six days later he was buried in Oxford, in the Cathedral of Christ
Church(45), where his tomb bears an appropriate inscription by Dr.
Markham, afterwards Archbishop of York.





ERRATA




Vol. I


Page 99, line 3 _for_ 149-80 _read_ 149-60.

Page 99, line 22 _for_—and to be “suggested,” not signified _read_—instead
of being only suggested.

Page 100, line 10 _for_ hearing _read_ seeing.

Page 103, note, lines 5, 6 _for_ pp. 111, 112 _read_ p. 210.

Page 200, note, line 14 _for_ Adam _read_ Robert.

Page 364, line 8 from foot _for_ and _read_ which.

Page 512, note 6, line 3 _for_ imminent _read_ immanent.




Vol. II


Page 194, note, line 3 _for_ Tyndal _read_ Tindal.

Page 207, line 1, insert 13. before _Alc._.

Page 377, line 6 _for_ antethesis _read_ antithesis.




Vol. IV


Page 285, lines 4, 5 _for_ Thisus Alus Cujus, &c. _read_ Ursus. Alus.
Cuius. &c. The inscription, strictly speaking, appears on the Palace of
the Counts Orsini, and is dated MD.





COMMONPLACE BOOK. MATHEMATICAL, ETHICAL, PHYSICAL, AND METAPHYSICAL


Written At Trinity College, Dublin, In 1705-8

_First published in 1871_




Editor’s Preface To The Commonplace Book


Berkeley’s juvenile _Commonplace Book_ is a small quarto volume, in his
handwriting, found among the Berkeley manuscripts in possession of the
late Archdeacon Rose. It was first published in 1871, in my edition of
Berkeley’s Works. It consists of occasional thoughts, mathematical,
physical, ethical, and metaphysical, set down in miscellaneous fashion,
for private use, as they arose in the course of his studies at Trinity
College, Dublin. They are full of the fervid enthusiasm that was natural
to him, and of sanguine expectations of the issue of the prospective
authorship for which they record preparations. On the title-page is
written, “G. B. Trin. Dub. alum.,” with the date 1705, when he was twenty
years of age. The entries are the gradual accumulation of the next three
years, in one of which the _Arithmetica_ and the _Miscellanea Mathematica_
made their appearance. The _New Theory of Vision_, given to the world in
1709, was evidently much in his mind, as well as the sublime conception of
the material world in its necessary subordination to the spiritual world,
of which he delivered himself in his book of _Principles_, in 1710.

This disclosure of Berkeley’s thoughts about things, in the years
preceding the publication of his first essays, is indeed a precious record
of the initial struggles of ardent philosophical genius. It places the
reader in intimate companionship with him when he was beginning to awake
into intellectual and spiritual life. We hear him soliloquising. We see
him trying to translate into reasonableness our crude inherited beliefs
about the material world and the natural order of the universe,
self-conscious personality, and the Universal Power or Providence—all
under the sway of a new determining Principle which was taking profound
possession of his soul. He finds that he has only to look at the concrete
things of sense in the light of this great discovery to see the
artificially induced perplexities of the old philosophers disappear, along
with their imposing abstractions, which turn out empty words. The thinking
is throughout fresh and sincere; sometimes impetuous and one-sided; the
outcome of a mind indisposed to take things upon trust, resolved to
inquire freely, a rebel against the tyranny of language, morally burdened
with the consciousness of a new world-transforming conception, which duty
to mankind obliged him to reveal, although his message was sure to offend.
Men like to regard things as they have been wont. This new conception of
the surrounding world—the impotence of Matter, and its subordinate office
in the Supreme Economy must, he foresees, disturb those accustomed to
treat outward things as the only realities, and who do not care to ask
what constitutes reality. Notwithstanding the ridicule and ill-will that
his transformed material world was sure to meet with, amongst the many who
accept empty words instead of genuine insight, he was resolved to deliver
himself of his thoughts through the press, but with the politic
conciliation of a persuasive Irish pleader.

The _Commonplace Book_ steadily recognises the adverse influence of one
insidious foe. Its world-transforming-Principle has been obscured by “the
mist and veil of words.” The abstractions of metaphysicians, which poison
human language, had to be driven out of the author’s mind before he could
see the light, and must be driven out of the minds of others before they
could be got to see it along with him: the concrete world as realisable
only in percipient mind is with difficulty introduced into the vacant
place. “The chief thing I pretend to is only to remove the mist and veil
of words.” He exults in the transformed mental scene that then
spontaneously rises before him. “My speculations have had the same effect
upon me as visiting foreign countries,—in the end I return where I was
before, get my heart at ease, and enjoy myself with more satisfaction. The
philosophers lose their abstract matter; the materialists lose their
abstract extension; the profane lose their extended deity. Pray what do
the rest of mankind lose?” This beneficent revolution seemed to be the
issue of a simple recognition of the fact, that the true way of regarding
the world we see and touch is to regard it as consisting of ideas or
phenomena that are presented to human senses, somehow regularly ordered,
and the occasions of pleasure or pain to us as we conform to or rebel
against their natural order. This is the surrounding universe—at least in
its relations to us, and that is all in it that we have to do with. “I
know not,” he says, “what is meant by things considered in themselves,
i.e. in abstraction. This is nonsense. Thing and idea are words of much
about the same extent and meaning. Existence is not conceivable without
perception and volition. I only declare the meaning of the word
_existence_, as far as I can comprehend it.”

In the _Commonplace Book_ we see the youth at Trinity College forging the
weapons which he was soon to direct against the materialism and scepticism
of the generation into which he was born. Here are rough drafts, crude
hints of intended arguments, probing of unphilosophical
mathematicians—even Newton and Descartes, memoranda of facts, more or less
relevant, on their way into the _Essay on Vision_ and the treatise on
_Principles_—seeds of the philosophy that was to be gradually unfolded in
his life and in his books. We watch the intrepid thinker, notwithstanding
the inexperience of youth, more disposed to give battle to mathematicians
and metaphysicians than to submit even provisionally to any human
authority. It does not seem that his scholarship or philosophical learning
was extensive. Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke were his intimates;
Hobbes and Spinoza were not unknown to him; Newton and some lesser lights
among the mathematicians are often confronted. He is more rarely in
company with the ancients or the mediaevalists. No deep study of Aristotle
appears, and there is even a disposition to disparage Plato. He seeks for
his home in the “new philosophy” of experience; without anticipations of
Kant, as the critic of what is presupposed in the scientific reliability
of any experience, against whom his almost blind zeal against abstractions
would have set him at this early stage. “Pure intellect I understand not
at all,” is one of his entries. He asks himself, “What becomes of the
_aeternae veritates_?” and his reply is, “They vanish.” When he tells
himself that “we must with the mob place certainty in the senses,” the
words are apt to suggest that the senses are our only source of knowledge,
but I suppose his meaning is that the senses must be trustworthy, as ’the
mob’ assume. Yet occasionally he uses language which looks like an
anticipation of David Hume, as when he calls mind “a congeries of
perceptions. Take away perceptions,” he adds, “and you take away mind. Put
the perceptions and you put the mind. The understanding seemeth not to
differ from its perceptions and ideas.” He seems unconscious of the total
scepticism which such expressions, when strictly interpreted, are found to
involve. But after all, the reader must not apply rigorous rules of
interpretation to random entries or provisional memoranda, meant only for
private use, by an enthusiastic student who was preparing to produce
books.

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I have followed the manuscript of the _Commonplace Book_, omitting a few
repetitions of thought in the same words. Here and there Berkeley’s
writing is almost obliterated and difficult to decipher, apparently
through accident by water in the course of his travels, when, as he
mentions long after in one of his letters, several of his manuscripts were
lost and others were injured.

The letters of the alphabet which are interpreted on the first page, and
prefixed on the margin to some of the entries, may so far help to bring
the apparent chaos of entries under a few articulate heads.

I have added some annotations here and there as they happened to occur,
and these might have been multiplied indefinitely had space permitted.




Commonplace Book


I.  = Introduction.
M.  = Matter.
P.  = Primary and Secondary qualities.
E.  = Existence.
T.  = Time.
S.  = Soul—Spirit.
G.  = God.
Mo. = Moral Philosophy.
N.  = Natural Philosophy.

Qu. If there be not two kinds of visible extension—one perceiv’d by a
confus’d view, the other by a distinct successive direction of the optique
axis to each point?

(M1) No general ideas(46). The contrary a cause of mistake or confusion in
mathematiques, &c. This to be intimated in ye Introduction(47).

The Principle may be apply’d to the difficulties of conservation,
co-operation, &c.

(M2) Trifling for the [natural] philosophers to enquire the cause of
magnetical attractions, &c. They onely search after co-existing ideas(48).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

(M3) Quæcunque in Scriptura militant adversus Copernicum, militant pro me.

(M4) All things in the Scripture wch side with the vulgar against the
learned, side with me also. I side in all things with the mob.

(M5) I know there is a mighty sect of men will oppose me, but yet I may
expect to be supported by those whose minds are not so far overgrown wth
madness. These are far the greatest part of mankind—especially Moralists,
Divines, Politicians; in a word, all but Mathematicians and Natural
Philosophers. I mean only the hypothetical gentlemen. Experimental
philosophers have nothing whereat to be offended in me.

Newton begs his Principles; I demonstrate mine(49).

(M6) I must be very particular in explaining wt is meant by things
existing—in houses, chambers, fields, caves, &c.—wn not perceiv’d as well
as wn perceived; and shew how the vulgar notion agrees with mine, when we
narrowly inspect into the meaning and definition of the word _existence_,
wh is no simple idea, distinct from perceiving and being perceived(50).

The Schoolmen have noble subjects, but handle them ill. The mathematicians
have trifling subjects, but reason admirably about them. Certainly their
method and arguing are excellent.

God knows how far our knowledge of intellectual beings may be enlarg’d
from the Principles.

(M7) The reverse of the Principle I take to have been the chief source of
all that scepticism and folly, all those contradictions and inextricable
puzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach to human
reason, as well as of that idolatry, whether of images or of gold, that
blinds the greatest part of the world, and that shamefull immorality that
turns us into beasts.

(M8) היה Vixit & fuit.

οὐσία, the name for substance, used by Aristotle, the Fathers, &c.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

If at the same time we shall make the Mathematiques much more easie and
much more accurate, wt can be objected to us(51)?

We need not force our imagination to conceive such very small lines for
infinitesimals. They may every whit as well be imagin’d big as little,
since that the integer must be infinite.

Evident that wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite.

We cannot imagine a line or space infinitely great—therefore absurd to
talk or make propositions about it.

We cannot imagine a line, space, &c., quovis lato majus. Since yt what we
imagine must be datum aliquod; a thing can’t be greater than itself.

If you call infinite that wch is greater than any assignable by another,
then I say, in that sense there may be an infinite square, sphere, or any
other figure, wch is absurd.

Qu. if extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of?

No reasoning about things whereof we have no ideas(52); therefore no
reasoning about infinitesimals.

No word to be used without an idea.

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(M9) If uneasiness be necessary to set the Will at work, Qu. how shall we
will in heaven?

Bayle’s, Malbranch’s, &c. arguments do not seem to prove against Space,
but onely against Bodies.

(M10) I agree in nothing wth the Cartesians as to ye existence of Bodies &
Qualities(53).

Aristotle as good a man as Euclid, but he was allowed to have been
mistaken.

Lines not proper for demonstration.

(M11) We see the house itself, the church itself; it being an idea and
nothing more. The house itself, the church itself, is an idea, i.e. an
object—immediate object—of thought(54).

Instead of injuring, our doctrine much benefits geometry.

(M12) Existence is percipi, or percipere, [or velle, i.e. agere(55)]. The
horse is in the stable, the books are in the study as before.

(M13) In physiques I have a vast view of things soluble hereby, but have
not leisure.

(M14) Hyps and such like unaccountable things confirm my doctrine.

Angle not well defined. See Pardies’ Geometry, by Harris, &c. This one
ground of trifling.

(M15) One idea not the cause of another—one power not the cause of
another. The cause of all natural things is onely God. Hence trifling to
enquire after second causes. This doctrine gives a most suitable idea of
the Divinity(56).

(M16) Absurd to study astronomy and other the like doctrines as
speculative sciences.

(M17) The absurd account of memory by the brain, &c. makes for me.

How was light created before man? Even so were Bodies created before
man(57).

(M18) Impossible anything besides that wch thinks and is thought on should
exist(58).

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That wch is visible cannot be made up of invisible things.

M.S. is that wherein there are not contain’d distinguishable sensible
parts. Now how can that wch hath not sensible parts be divided into
sensible parts? If you say it may be divided into insensible parts, I say
these are nothings.

Extension abstract from sensible qualities is no sensation, I grant; but
then there is no such idea, as any one may try(59). There is onely a
considering the number of points without the sort of them, & this makes
more for me, since it must be in a considering thing.

Mem. Before I have shewn the distinction between visible & tangible
extension, I must not mention them as distinct. I must not mention M. T. &
M. V., but in general M. S., &c.(60)

Qu. whether a M. V. be of any colour? a M. T. of any tangible quality?

If visible extension be the object of geometry, ’tis that which is
survey’d by the optique axis.

(M19) I may say the pain is _in_ my finger, &c., according to my
doctrine(61).

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Mem. Nicely to discuss wt is meant when we say a line consists of a
certain number of inches or points, &c.; a circle of a certain number of
square inches, points, &c. Certainly we may think of a circle, or have its
idea in our mind, without thinking of points or square inches, &c.;
whereas it should seem the idea of a circle is not made up of the ideas of
points, square inches, &c.

Qu. Is any more than this meant by the foregoing expressions, viz. that
squares or points may be perceived in or made out of a circle, &c., or
that squares, points, &c. are actually in it, i.e. are perceivable in it?

A line in abstract, or Distance, is the number of points between two
points. There is also distance between a slave & an emperor, between a
peasant & philosopher, between a drachm & a pound, a farthing & a crown,
&c.; in all which Distance signifies the number of intermediate ideas.

Halley’s doctrine about the proportion between infinitely great quantities
vanishes. When men speak of infinite quantities, either they mean finite
quantities, or else talk of [that whereof they have(62)] no idea; both
which are absurd.

If the disputations of the Schoolmen are blam’d for intricacy,
triflingness, & confusion, yet it must be acknowledg’d that in the main
they treated of great & important subjects. If we admire the method &
acuteness of the Math[ematicians]—the length, the subtilty, the exactness
of their demonstrations—we must nevertheless be forced to grant that they
are for the most part about trifling subjects, and perhaps mean nothing at
all.

Motion on 2d thoughts seems to be a simple idea.

(M20) Motion distinct from ye thing moved is not conceivable.

(M21) Mem. To take notice of Newton for defining it [motion]; also of
Locke’s wisdom in leaving it undefin’d(63).

Ut ordo partium temporis est immutabilis, sin etiam ordo partium spatii.
Moveantur hæ de locis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Truly
number is immensurable. That we will allow with Newton.

(M22) Ask a Cartesian whether he is wont to imagine his globules without
colour. Pellucidness is a colour. The colour of ordinary light of the sun
is white. Newton in the right in assigning colours to the rays of light.

A man born blind would not imagine Space as we do. We give it always some
dilute, or duskish, or dark colour—in short, we imagine it as visible, or
intromitted by the eye, wch he would not do.

(M23) Proinde vim inferunt sacris literis qui voces hasce (v. tempus,
spatium, motus) de quantitatibus mensuratis ibi interpretantur. Newton, p.
10.

(M24) I differ from Newton, in that I think the recession ab axe motus is
not the effect, or index, or measure of motion, but of the vis impressa.
It sheweth not wt is truly moved, but wt has the force impressed on it, or
rather that wch hath an impressed force.

_D_ and _P_ are not proportional in all circles. _d d_ is to 1/4_d p_ as
_d_ to _p_/4; but _d_ and _p_/4 are not in the same proportion in all
circles. Hence ’tis nonsense to seek the terms of one general proportion
whereby to rectify all peripheries, or of another whereby to square all
circles.

N. B. If the circle be squar’d arithmetically, ’tis squar’d geometrically,
arithmetic or numbers being nothing but lines & proportions of lines when
apply’d to geometry.

Mem. To remark Cheyne(64) & his doctrine of infinites.

Extension, motion, time, do each of them include the idea of succession, &
so far forth they seem to be of mathematical consideration. Number
consisting in succession & distinct perception, wch also consists in
succession; for things at once perceiv’d are jumbled and mixt together in
the mind. Time and motion cannot be conceiv’d without succession; and
extension, qua mathemat., cannot be conceiv’d but as consisting of parts
wch may be distinctly & successively perceiv’d. Extension perceived at
once & _in confuso_ does not belong to math.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The simple idea call’d Power seems obscure, or rather none at all, but
onely the relation ’twixt Cause and Effect. When I ask whether A can move
B, if A be an intelligent thing, I mean no more than whether the volition
of A that B move be attended with the motion of B? If A be senseless,
whether the impulse of A against B be followed by ye motion of B(65)?

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Barrow’s arguing against indivisibles, lect. i. p. 16, is a petitio
principii, for the Demonstration of Archimedes supposeth the circumference
to consist of more than 24 points. Moreover it may perhaps be necessary to
suppose the divisibility _ad infinitum_, in order to demonstrate that the
radius is equal to the side of the hexagon.

Shew me an argument against indivisibles that does not go on some false
supposition.

A great number of insensibles—or thus, two invisibles, say you, put
together become visible; therefore that M. V. contains or is made up of
invisibles. I answer, the M. V. does not comprise, is not composed of,
invisibles. All the matter amounts to this, viz. whereas I had no idea
awhile agoe, I have an idea now. It remains for you to prove that I came
by the present idea because there were two invisibles added together. I
say the invisibles are nothings, cannot exist, include a
contradiction(66).

I am young, I am an upstart, I am a pretender, I am vain. Very well. I
shall endeavour patiently to bear up under the most lessening, vilifying
appellations the pride & rage of man can devise. But one thing I know I am
not guilty of. I do not pin my faith on the sleeve of any great man. I act
not out of prejudice or prepossession. I do not adhere to any opinion
because it is an old one, a reviv’d one, a fashionable one, or one that I
have spent much time in the study and cultivation of.

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Sense rather than reason or demonstration ought to be employed about lines
and figures, these being things sensible; for as for those you call
insensible, we have proved them to be nonsense, nothing(67).

(M25) If in some things I differ from a philosopher I profess to admire,
’tis for that very thing on account whereof I admire him, namely, the love
of truth. This &c.

(M26) Whenever my reader finds me talk very positively, I desire he’d not
take it ill. I see no reason why certainty should be confined to the
mathematicians.

I say there are no incommensurables, no surds. I say the side of any
square may be assign’d in numbers. Say you assign unto me the side of the
square 10. I ask wt 10—10 feet, inches, &c., or 10 points? If the later, I
deny there is any such square, ’tis impossible 10 points should compose a
square. If the former, resolve yr 10 square inches, feet, &c. into points,
& the number of points must necessarily be a square number whose side is
easily assignable.

A mean proportional cannot be found betwixt any two given lines. It can
onely be found betwixt those the numbers of whose points multiply’d
together produce a square number. Thus betwixt a line of 2 inches & a line
of 5 inches a mean geometrical cannot be found, except the number of
points contained in 2 inches multiply’d by ye number of points contained
in 5 inches make a square number.

If the wit and industry of the Nihilarians were employ’d about the usefull
& practical mathematiques, what advantage had it brought to mankind!

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(M27) You ask me whether the books are in the study now, when no one is
there to see them? I answer, Yes. You ask me, Are we not in the wrong for
imagining things to exist when they are not actually perceiv’d by the
senses? I answer, No. The existence of our ideas consists in being
perceiv’d, imagin’d, thought on. Whenever they are imagin’d or thought on
they do exist. Whenever they are mentioned or discours’d of they are
imagin’d & thought on. Therefore you can at no time ask me whether they
exist or no, but by reason of yt very question they must necessarily
exist.

(M28) But, say you, then a chimæra does exist? I answer, it doth in one
sense, i.e. it is imagin’d. But it must be well noted that existence is
vulgarly restrain’d to actuall perception, and that I use the word
existence in a larger sense than ordinary.(68)

N. B.—According to my doctrine all things are _entia rationis_, i.e. solum
habent esse in intellectum.

(M29) [(69)According to my doctrine all are not _entia rationis_. The
distinction between _ens rationis_ and _ens reale_ is kept up by it as
well as any other doctrine.]

You ask me whether there can be an infinite idea? I answer, in one sense
there may. Thus the visual sphere, tho’ ever so small, is infinite, i.e.
has no end. But if by infinite you mean an extension consisting of
innumerable points, then I ask yr pardon. Points, tho’ never so many, may
be numbered. The multitude of points, or feet, inches, &c., hinders not
their numbrableness (i.e. hinders not their being numerable) in the least.
Many or most are numerable, as well as few or least. Also, if by infinite
idea you mean an _idea_ too great to be comprehended or perceiv’d all at
once, you must excuse me. I think such an infinite is no less than a
contradiction(70).

(M30) The sillyness of the current doctrine makes much for me. They
commonly suppose a material world—figures, motions, bulks of various
sizes, &c.—according to their own confession to no purpose. All our
sensations may be, and sometimes actually are, without them; nor can men
so much as conceive it possible they should concur in any wise to the
production of them.

(M31) Ask a man, I mean a philosopher, why he supposes this vast
structure, this compages of bodies? he shall be at a stand; he’ll not have
one word to say. Wch sufficiently shews the folly of the hypothesis.

(M32) Or rather why he supposes all ys Matter? For bodies and their
qualities I do allow to exist independently of _our_ mind.

(M33) Qu. How is the soul distinguish’d from its ideas? Certainly if there
were no sensible ideas there could be no soul, no perception, remembrance,
love, fear, &c.; no faculty could be exerted(71).

(M34) The soul is the Will, properly speaking, and as it is distinct from
ideas.

(M35) The grand puzzling question, whether I sleep or wake, easily solv’d.

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Qu. Whether minima or meer minima may not be compar’d by their sooner or
later evanescence, as well as by more or less points, so that one sensible
may be greater than another, though it exceeds it not by one point?

Circles on several radius’s are not similar figures, they having neither
all nor any an infinite number of sides. Hence in vain to enquire after 2
terms of one and ye same proportion that should constantly express the
reason of the _d_ to the _p_ in all circles.

Mem. To remark Wallis’s harangue, that the aforesaid proportion can
neither be expressed by rational numbers nor surds.

We can no more have an idea of length without breadth or visibility, than
of a general figure.

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One idea may be like another idea, tho’ they contain no common simple
idea(72). Thus the simple idea red is in some sense like the simple idea
blue; ’tis liker it than sweet or shrill. But then those ideas wch are so
said to be alike, agree both in their connexion with another simple idea,
viz. extension, & in their being receiv’d by one & the same sense. But,
after all, nothing can be like an idea but an idea.

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No sharing betwixt God & Nature or second causes in my doctrine.

(M36) Materialists must allow the earth to be actually mov’d by the
attractive power of every stone that falls from the air, with many other
the like absurditys.

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Enquire concerning the pendulum clock, &c.; whether those inventions of
Huygens, &c. be attained to by my doctrine.

The ... & ... & ... &c. of time are to be cast away and neglected, as so
many noughts or nothings.

Mem. To make experiments concerning minimums and their colours, whether
they have any or no, & whether they can be of that green wch seems to be
compounded of yellow and blue.

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(M37) Qu. Whether it were not better _not_ to call the operations of the
mind ideas—confining this term to things sensible(73)?

(M38) Mem. diligently to set forth how that many of the ancient
philosophers run into so great absurditys as even to deny the existence of
motion, and of those other things they perceiv’d actually by their senses.
This sprung from their not knowing wt Existence was, and wherein it
consisted. This the source of all their folly. ’Tis on the discovering of
the nature and meaning and import of Existence that I chiefly insist. This
puts a wide difference betwixt the sceptics &c. & me. This I think wholly
new. I am sure this is new to me(74).

We have learn’d from Mr. Locke that there may be, and that there are,
several glib, coherent, methodical discourses, which nevertheless amount
to just nothing. This by him intended with relation to the Scholemen. We
may apply it to the Mathematicians.

Qu. How can all words be said to stand for ideas? The word blue stands for
a colour without any extension, or abstract from extension. But we have
not an idea of colour without extension. We cannot imagine colour without
extension.

Locke seems wrongly to assign a double use of words: one for communicating
& the other for recording our thoughts. ’Tis absurd to use words for
recording our thoughts to ourselves, or in our private meditations(75).

No one abstract simple idea like another. Two simple ideas may be
connected with one & the same 3d simple idea, or be intromitted by one &
the same sense. But consider’d in themselves they can have nothing common,
and consequently no likeness.

Qu. How can there be any abstract ideas of colours? It seems not so easily
as of tastes or sounds. But then all ideas whatsoever are particular. I
can by no means conceive an abstract general idea. ’Tis one thing to
abstract one concrete idea from another of a different kind, & another
thing to abstract an idea from all particulars of the same kind(76).

(M39) Mem. Much to recommend and approve of experimental philosophy.

(M40) What means Cause as distinguish’d from Occasion? Nothing but a being
wch wills, when the effect follows the volition. Those things that happen
from without we are not the cause of. Therefore there is some other Cause
of them, i.e. there is a Being that wills these perceptions in us(77).

(M41) [(78)It should be said, nothing but a Will—a Being which wills being
unintelligible.]

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One square cannot be double of another. Hence the Pythagoric theorem is
false.

Some writers of catoptrics absurd enough to place the apparent place of
the object in the Barrovian case behind the eye.

Blew and yellow chequers still diminishing terminate in green. This may
help to prove the composition of green.

There is in green 2 foundations of 2 relations of likeness to blew &
yellow. Therefore green is compounded.

A mixt cause will produce a mixt effect. Therefore colours are all
compounded that we see.

Mem. To consider Newton’s two sorts of green.

N. B. My abstract & general doctrines ought not to be condemn’d by the
Royall Society. ’Tis wt their meeting did ultimately intend. V. Sprat’s
History S. R.(79)

Mem. To premise a definition of idea(80).

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(M42) The 2 great principles of Morality—the being of a God & the freedom
of man. Those to be handled in the beginning of the Second Book(81).

Subvertitur geometria ut non practica sed speculativa.

Archimedes’s proposition about squaring the circle has nothing to do with
circumferences containing less than 96 points; & if the circumference
contain 96 points it may be apply’d, but nothing will follow against
indivisibles. V. Barrow.

Those curve lines that you can rectify geometrically. Compare them with
their equal right lines & by a microscope you shall discover an
inequality. Hence my squaring of the circle as good and exact as the best.

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(M43) Qu. whether the substance of body or anything else be any more than
the collection of concrete ideas included in that thing? Thus the
substance of any particular body is extension, solidity, figure(82). Of
general abstract body we can have no idea.

(M44) Mem. Most carefully to inculcate and set forth that the endeavouring
to express abstract philosophic thoughts by words unavoidably runs a man
into difficulties. This to be done in the Introduction(83).

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Mem. To endeavour most accurately to understand what is meant by this
axiom: Quæ sibi mutuo congruunt æqualia sunt.

Qu. what the geometers mean by equality of lines, & whether, according to
their definition of equality, a curve line can possibly be equal to a
right line?

If wth me you call those lines equal wch contain an equal number of
points, then there will be no difficulty. That curve is equal to a right
line wch contains the same points as the right one doth.

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(M45) I take not away substances. I ought not to be accused of discarding
substance out of the reasonable world(84). I onely reject the philosophic
sense (wch in effect is no sense) of the word substance. Ask a man not
tainted with their jargon wt he means by corporeal substance, or the
substance of body. He shall answer, bulk, solidity, and such like sensible
qualitys. These I retain. The philosophic nec quid, nec quantum, nec
quale, whereof I have no idea, I discard; if a man may be said to discard
that which never had any being, was never so much as imagin’d or
conceiv’d.

(M46) In short, be not angry. You lose nothing, whether real or
chimerical. Wtever you can in any wise conceive or imagine, be it never so
wild, so extravagant, & absurd, much good may it do you. You may enjoy it
for me. I’ll never deprive you of it.

N. B. I am more for reality than any other philosophers(85). They make a
thousand doubts, & know not certainly but we may be deceiv’d. I assert the
direct contrary.

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A line in the sense of mathematicians is not meer distance. This evident
in that there are curve lines.

Curves perfectly incomprehensible, inexplicable, absurd, except we allow
points.

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(M47) If men look for a thing where it’s not to be found, be they never so
sagacious, it is lost labour. If a simple clumsy man knows where the game
lies, he though a fool shall catch it sooner than the most fleet &
dexterous that seek it elsewhere. Men choose to hunt for truth and
knowledge anywhere rather than in their own understanding, where ’tis to
be found.

(M48) All knowledge onely about ideas. Locke, B. 4. c. 1.

(M49) It seems improper, & liable to difficulties, to make the word person
stand for an idea, or to make ourselves ideas, or thinking things ideas.

(M50) Abstract ideas cause of much trifling and mistake.

Mathematicians seem not to speak clearly and coherently of equality. They
nowhere define wt they mean by that word when apply’d to lines.

Locke says the modes of simple ideas, besides extension and number, are
counted by degrees. I deny there are any modes or degrees of simple ideas.
What he terms such are complex ideas, as I have proved.

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Wt do the mathematicians mean by considering curves as polygons? Either
they are polygons or they are not. If they are, why do they give them the
name of curves? Why do not they constantly call them polygons, & treat
them as such? If they are not polygons, I think it absurd to use polygons
in their stead. Wt is this but to pervert language? to adapt an idea to a
name that belongs not to it but to a different idea?

The mathematicians should look to their axiom, Quæ congruunt sunt æqualia.
I know not what they mean by bidding me put one triangle on another. The
under triangle is no triangle—nothing at all, it not being perceiv’d. I
ask, must sight be judge of this congruentia or not? If it must, then all
lines seen under the same angle are equal, wch they will not acknowledge.
Must the touch be judge? But we cannot touch or feel lines and surfaces,
such as triangles, &c., according to the mathematicians themselves. Much
less can we touch a line or triangle that’s cover’d by another line or
triangle.

Do you mean by saying one triangle is equall to another, that they both
take up equal spaces? But then the question recurs, what mean you by equal
spaces? If you mean _spatia congruentia_, answer the above difficulty
truly.

I can mean (for my part) nothing else by equal triangles than triangles
containing equal numbers of points.

I can mean nothing by equal lines but lines wch ’tis indifferent whether
of them I take, lines in wch I observe by my senses no difference, & wch
therefore have the same name.

Must the imagination be judge in the aforementioned cases? but then
imagination cannot go beyond the touch and sight. Say you, pure intellect
must be judge. I reply that lines and triangles are not operations of the
mind.

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If I speak positively and with the air of a mathematician in things of
which I am certain, ’tis to avoid disputes, to make men careful to think
before they answer, to discuss my arguments before they go to refute them.
I would by no means injure truth and certainty by an affected modesty &
submission to better judgments. Wt I lay before you are undoubted
theorems; not plausible conjectures of my own, nor learned opinions of
other men. I pretend not to prove them by figures, analogy, or authority.
Let them stand or fall by their own evidence.

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(M51) When you speak of the corpuscularian essences of bodys, to reflect
on sect. 11. & 12. b. 4. c. 3. Locke. Motion supposes not solidity. A meer
colour’d extension may give us the idea of motion.

(M52) Any subject can have of each sort of primary qualities but one
particular at once. Lib. 4. c. 3. s. 15. Locke.

(M53) Well, say you, according to this new doctrine, all is but meer
idea—there is nothing wch is not an _ens rationis_. I answer, things are
as real, and exist _in rerum natura_, as much as ever. The difference
between _entia realia_ & _entia rationis_ may be made as properly now as
ever. Do but think before you speak. Endeavour rightly to comprehend my
meaning, and you’ll agree with me in this.

(M54) Fruitless the distinction ’twixt real and nominal essences.

We are not acquainted with the meaning of our words. Real, extension,
existence, power, matter, lines, infinite, point, and many more are
frequently in our mouths, when little, clear, and determin’d answers them
in our understandings. This must be well inculcated.

(M55) Vain is the distinction ’twixt intellectual and material world(86).
V. Locke, lib. 4. c. 3. s. 27, where he says that is far more beautiful
than this.

(M56) Foolish in men to despise the senses. If it were not for

(M57) them the mind could have no knowledge, no thought at all. All ... of
introversion, meditation, contemplation, and spiritual acts, as if these
could be exerted before we had ideas from without by the senses, are
manifestly absurd. This may be of great use in that it makes the happyness
of the life to come more conceivable and agreeable to our present nature.
The schoolemen & refiners in philosophy gave the greatest part of mankind
no more tempting idea of heaven or the joys of the blest.

The vast, wide-spread, universal cause of our mistakes is, that we do not
consider our own notions. I mean consider them in themselves—fix, settle,
and determine them,—we regarding them with relation to each other only. In
short, we are much out in study[ing] the relations of things before we
study them absolutely and in themselves. Thus we study to find out the
relations of figures to one another, the relations also of number, without
endeavouring rightly to understand the nature of extension and number in
themselves. This we think is of no concern, of no difficulty; but if I
mistake not ’tis of the last importance,

(M58) I allow not of the distinction there is made ’twixt profit and
pleasure.

(M59) I’d never blame a man for acting upon interest. He’s a fool that
acts on any other principles. The not considering these things has been of
ill consequence in morality.

My positive assertions are no less modest than those that are introduced
with “It seems to me,” “I suppose,” &c.; since I declare, once for all,
that all I write or think is entirely about things as they appear to me.
It concerns no man else any further than his thoughts agree with mine.
This in the Preface.

(M60) Two things are apt to confound men in their reasonings one with
another. 1st. Words signifying the operations of the mind are taken from
sensible ideas. 2ndly. Words as used by the vulgar are taken in some
latitude, their signification is confused. Hence if a man use words in a
determined, settled signification, he is at a hazard either of not being
understood, or of speaking improperly. All this remedyed by studying the
understanding.

Unity no simple idea. I have no idea meerly answering the word one. All
number consists in relations(87).

Entia realia et entia rationis, a foolish distinction of the Schoolemen.

(M61) We have an intuitive knowledge of the existence of other things
besides ourselves & order, præcedaneous(88). To the knowledge of our own
existence—in that we must have ideas or else we cannot think.

(M62) We move our legs ourselves. ’Tis we that will their movement. Herein
I differ from Malbranch(89).

(M63) Mem. Nicely to discuss Lib. 4. c. 4. Locke(90).

(M64) Mem. Again and again to mention & illustrate the doctrine of the
reality of things, rerum natura, &c.

(M65) Wt I say is demonstration—perfect demonstration. Wherever men have
fix’d & determin’d ideas annexed to their words they can hardly be
mistaken. Stick but to my definition of likeness, and ’tis a demonstration
yt colours are not simple ideas, all reds being like, &c. So also in other
things. This to be heartily insisted on.

(M66) The abstract idea of Being or Existence is never thought of by the
vulgar. They never use those words standing for abstract ideas.

(M67) I must not say the words thing, substance, &c. have been the cause
of mistakes, but the not reflecting on their meaning. I will be still for
retaining the words. I only desire that men would think before they speak,
and settle the meaning of their words.

(M68) I approve not of that which Locke says, viz. truth consists in the
joining and separating of signs.

(M69) Locke cannot explain general truth or knowledge without treating of
words and propositions. This makes for me against abstract general ideas.
Vide Locke, lib. 4. ch. 6.

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(M70) Men have been very industrious in travelling forward. They have gone
a great way. But none have gone backward beyond the Principles. On that
side there lies much terra incognita to be travel’d over and discovered by
me. A vast field for invention.

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Twelve inches not the same idea with a foot. Because a man may perfectly
conceive a foot who never thought of an inch.

A foot is equal to or the same with twelve inches in this respect, viz.
they contain both the same number of points.

[Forasmuch as] to be used.

Mem. To mention somewhat wch may encourage the study of politiques, and
testify of me yt I am well dispos’d toward them.

(M71) If men did not use words for ideas they would never have thought of
abstract ideas. Certainly genera and species are not abstract general
ideas. Abstract ideas include a contradiction in their nature. Vide
Locke(91), lib. 4. c. 7. s. 9.

A various or mixt cause must necessarily produce a various or mixt effect.
This demonstrable from the definition of a cause; which way of
demonstrating must be frequently made use of in my Treatise, & to that end
definitions often præmis’d. Hence ’tis evident that, according to Newton’s
doctrine, colours cannot be simple ideas.

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(M72) I am the farthest from scepticism of any man. I know with an
intuitive knowledge the existence of other things as well as my own soul.
This is wt Locke nor scarce any other thinking philosopher will pretend
to(92).

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(M73) Doctrine of abstraction of very evil consequence in all the
sciences. Mem. Barrow’s remark. Entirely owing to language.

Locke greatly out in reckoning the recording our ideas by words amongst
the uses and not the abuses of language.

(M74) Of great use & ye last importance to contemplate a man put into the
world alone, with admirable abilitys, and see how after long experience he
would know wthout words. Such a one would never think of genera and
species or abstract general ideas.

(M75) Wonderful in Locke that he could, wn advanced in years, see at all
thro’ a mist; it had been so long a gathering, & was consequently thick.
This more to be admir’d than yt he did not see farther.

Identity of ideas may be taken in a double sense, either as including or
excluding identity of circumstances, such as time, place, &c.

(M76) I am glad the people I converse with are not all richer, wiser, &c.
than I. This is agreeable to reason; is no sin. ’Tis certain that if the
happyness of my acquaintance encreases, & mine not proportionably, mine
must decrease. The not understanding this & the doctrine about relative
good, discuss’d with French, Madden(93), &c., to be noticed as 2 causes of
mistake in judging of moral matters.

Mem. To observe (wn you talk of the division of ideas into simple and
complex) that there may be another cause of the undefinableness of certain
ideas besides that which Locke gives; viz. the want of names.

(M77) Mem. To begin the First Book(94) not with mention of sensation and
reflection, but instead of sensation to use perception or thought in
general.

(M78) I defy any man to imagine or conceive perception without an idea, or
an idea without perception.

(M79) Locke’s very supposition that matter & motion should exist before
thought is absurd—includes a manifest contradiction.

Locke’s harangue about coherent, methodical discourses amounting to
nothing, apply’d to the mathematicians.

They talk of determining all the points of a curve by an equation. Wt mean
they by this? Wt would they signify by the word points? Do they stick to
the definition of Euclid?

(M80) We think we know not the Soul, because we have no imaginable or
sensible idea annex’d to that sound. This the effect of prejudice.

(M81) Certainly we do not know it. This will be plain if we examine what
we mean by the word knowledge. Neither doth this argue any defect in our
knowledge, no more than our not knowing a contradiction.

The very existence of ideas constitutes the Soul(95).

(M82) Consciousness(96), perception, existence of ideas, seem to be all
one.

Consult, ransack yr understanding. Wt find you there besides several
perceptions or thoughts? Wt mean you by the word mind? You must mean
something that you perceive, or yt you do not perceive. A thing not
perceived is a contradiction. To mean (also) a thing you do not perceive
is a contradiction. We are in all this matter strangely abused by words.

Mind is a congeries of perceptions(97). Take away perceptions and you take
away the mind. Put the perceptions and you put the mind.

Say you, the mind is not the perception, not that thing which perceives. I
answer, you are abused by the words “that a thing.” These are vague and
empty words with us.

(M83) The having ideas is not the same thing with perception. A man may
have ideas when he only imagines. But then this imagination presupposeth
perception.

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(M84) That wch extreamly strengthens us in prejudice is yt we think we see
an empty space, which I shall demonstrate to be false in the Third
Book(98).

There may be demonstrations used even in Divinity. I mean in revealed
Theology, as contradistinguish’d from natural; for tho’ the principles may
be founded in faith, yet this hinders not but that legitimate
demonstrations might be built thereon; provided still that we define the
words we use, and never go beyond our ideas. Hence ’twere no very hard
matter for those who hold episcopacy or monarchy to be established _jure
Divino_ to demonstrate their doctrines if they are true. But to pretend to
demonstrate or reason anything about the Trinity is absurd. Here an
implicit faith becomes us.

(M85) Qu. if there be any real difference betwixt certain ideas of
reflection & others of sensation, e.g. betwixt perception and white,
black, sweet, &c.? Wherein, I pray you, does the perception of white
differ from white men....

I shall demonstrate all my doctrines. The nature of demonstration to be
set forth and insisted on in the Introduction(99). In that I must needs
differ from Locke, forasmuch as he makes all demonstration to be about
abstract ideas, wch I say we have not nor can have.

(M86) The understanding seemeth not to differ from its perceptions or
ideas. Qu. What must one think of the will and passions?

(M87) A good proof that Existence is nothing without or distinct from
perception, may be drawn from considering a man put into the world without
company(100).

(M88) There was a smell, i.e. there was a smell perceiv’d. Thus we see
that common speech confirms my doctrine.

(M89) No broken intervals of death or annihilation. Those intervals are
nothing; each person’s time being measured to him by his own ideas.

(M90) We are frequently puzzl’d and at a loss in obtaining clear and
determin’d meanings of words commonly in use, & that because we imagine
words stand for abstract general ideas which are altogether inconceivable.

(M91) “A stone is a stone.” This a nonsensical proposition, and such as
the solitary man would never think on. Nor do I believe he would ever
think on this: “The whole is equal to its parts,” &c.

(M92) Let it not be said that I take away existence. I only declare the
meaning of the word, so far as I can comprehend it.

(M93) If you take away abstraction, how do men differ from beasts? I
answer, by shape, by language. Rather by degrees of more and less.

Wt means Locke by inferences in words, consequences of words, as something
different from consequences of ideas? I conceive no such thing.

(M94) N. B. Much complaint about the imperfection of language(101).

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(M95) But perhaps some man may say, an inert thoughtless Substance may
exist, though not extended, moved, &c., but with other properties whereof
we have no idea. But even this I shall demonstrate to be impossible, wn I
come to treat more particularly of Existence.

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Will not rightly distinguish’d from Desire by Locke—it seeming to superadd
nothing to the idea of an action, but the uneasiness for its absence or
non-existence.

(M96) Mem. To enquire diligently into that strange mistery, viz. How it is
that I can cast about, think of this or that man, place, action, wn
nothing appears to introduce them into my thoughts, wn they have no
perceivable connexion with the ideas suggested by my senses at the
present?

(M97) ’Tis not to be imagin’d wt a marvellous emptiness & scarcity of
ideas that man shall descry who will lay aside all use of words in his
meditations.

(M98) Incongruous in Locke to fancy we want a sense proper to see
substances with.

(M99) Locke owns that abstract ideas were made in order to naming.

(M100) The common errour of the opticians, that we judge of distance by
angles(102), strengthens men in their prejudice that they see things
without and distant from their mind.

(M101) I am persuaded, would men but examine wt they mean by the word
existence, they wou’d agree with me.

c. 20. s. 8. b. 4. of Locke makes for me against the mathematicians.

(M102) The supposition that things are distinct from ideas takes away all
real truth, & consequently brings in a universal scepticism; since all our
knowledge and contemplation is confin’d barely to our own ideas(103).

(M103) Qu. whether the solitary man would not find it necessary to make
use of words to record his ideas, if not in memory or meditation, yet at
least in writing—without which he could scarce retain his knowledge.

We read in history there was a time when fears and jealousies, privileges
of parliament, malignant party, and such like expressions of too unlimited
and doubtful a meaning, were words of much sway. Also the words Church,
Whig, Tory, &c., contribute very much to faction and dispute.

(M104) The distinguishing betwixt an idea and perception of the idea has
been one great cause of imagining material substances(104).

(M105) That God and blessed spirits have Will is a manifest argument
against Locke’s proofs that the Will cannot be conceiv’d, put into action,
without a previous uneasiness.

(M106) The act of the Will, or volition, is not uneasiness, for that
uneasiness may be without volition.

(M107) Volition is distinct from the object or idea for the same reason.

(M108) Also from uneasiness and idea together.

The understanding not distinct from particular perceptions or ideas.

The Will not distinct from particular volitions.

(M109) It is not so very evident that an idea, or at least uneasiness, may
be without all volition or act.

The understanding taken for a faculty is not really distinct from ye will.

This allow’d hereafter.

(M110) To ask whether a man can will either side is an absurd question,
for the word _can_ presupposes volition.

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(M111) Anima mundi, substantial form, omniscient radical heat, plastic
vertue, Hylaschic principle—all these vanish(105).

(M112) Newton proves that gravity is proportional to gravity. I think
that’s all(106).

Qu. whether it be the vis inertiæ that makes it difficult to move a stone,
or the vis attractivæ, or both, or neither?

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Mem. To express the doctrines as fully and copiously and clearly as may
be. Also to be full and particular in answering objections(107).

(M113) To say ye Will is a power; [therefore] volition is an act. This is
idem per idem.

Wt makes men despise extension, motion, &c., & separate them from the
essence of the soul, is that they imagine them to be distinct from
thought, and to exist in unthinking substance.

An extended may have passive modes of thinking good actions.

There might be idea, there might be uneasiness, there might be the
greatest uneasiness wthout any volition, therefore the....

(M114) Matter once allow’d, I defy any man to prove that God is not
Matter(108).

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(M115) Man is free. There is no difficulty in this proposition, if we but
settle the signification of the word _free_—if we had an idea annext to
the word free, and would but contemplate that idea.

(M116) We are imposed on by the words will, determine, agent, free, can,
&c.

(M117) Uneasiness precedes not every volition. This evident by experience.

(M118) Trace an infant in the womb. Mark the train & succession of its
ideas. Observe how volition comes into the mind. This may perhaps acquaint
you with its nature.

(M119) Complacency seems rather to determine, or precede, or coincide wth
& constitute the essence of volition, than uneasiness.

(M120) You tell me, according to my doctrine a man is not free. I answer,
tell me wt you mean by the word free, and I shall resolve you(109).

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(M121) Qu. Wt do men mean when they talk of one body’s touching another? I
say you never saw one body touch, or (rather) I say, I never saw one body
that I could say touch’d this or that other; for that if my optiques were
improv’d, I should see intervalls and other bodies behind those whch now
seem to touch.

Mem. Upon all occasions to use the utmost modesty—to confute the
mathematicians wth the utmost civility & respect, not to style them
Nihilarians, &c.

N. B. To rein in ye satyrical nature.

Blame me not if I use my words sometimes in some latitude. ’Tis wt cannot
be helpt. ’Tis the fault of language that you cannot always apprehend the
clear and determinate meaning of my words.

Say you, there might be a thinking Substance—something unknown—wch
perceives, and supports, and ties together the ideas(110). Say I, make it
appear there is any need of it and you shall have it for me. I care not to
take away anything I can see the least reason to think should exist.

I affirm ’tis manifestly absurd—no excuse in the world can be given why a
man should use a word without an idea(111). Certainly we shall find that
wt ever word we make use of in matter of pure reasoning has, or ought to
have, a compleat idea, annext to it, i.e. its meaning, or the sense we
take it in, must be compleatly known.

’Tis demonstrable a man can never be brought to imagine anything should
exist whereof he has no idea. Whoever says he does, banters himself with
words.

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(M122) We imagine a great difference & distance in respect of knowledge,
power, &c., betwixt a man & a worm. The like difference betwixt man and
God may be imagin’d; or infinitely greater(112) difference.

(M123) We find in our own minds a great number of different ideas. We may
imagine in God a greater number, i.e. that ours in number, or the number
of ours, is inconsiderable in respect thereof. The words difference and
number, old and known, we apply to that wch is unknown. But I am
embrangled(113) in words—’tis scarce possible it should be otherwise.

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The chief thing I do or pretend to do is onely to remove the mist or veil
of words(114). This has occasion’d ignorance & confusion. This has ruined
the schoolmen and mathematicians, lawyers and divines.

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(M124) The grand cause of perplexity & darkness in treating of the Will,
is that we imagine it to be an object of thought: (to speak with the
vulgar), we think we may perceive, contemplate, and view it like any of
our ideas; whereas in truth ’tis no idea, nor is there any idea of it.
’Tis _toto cælo_ different from the understanding, i.e. from all our
ideas. If you say the Will, or rather volition, is something, I answer,
there is an homonymy(115) in the word _thing_, wn apply’d to ideas and
volition and understanding and will. All ideas are passive(116).

(M125) Thing & idea are much what words of the same extent and meaning.
Why, therefore, do I not use the word thing? Ans. Because thing is of
greater latitude than idea. Thing comprehends also volitions or actions.
Now these are no ideas(117).

(M126) There can be perception wthout volition. Qu. whether there can be
volition without perception?

(M127) Existence not conceivable without perception or volition—not
distinguish’d therefrom.

(M128) N. B. Several distinct ideas can be perceived by sight and touch at
once. Not so by the other senses. ’Tis this diversity of sensations in
other senses chiefly, but sometimes in touch and sight (as also diversity
of volitions, whereof there cannot be more than one at once, or rather, it
seems there cannot, for of that I doubt), gives us the idea of time—or
_is_ time itself.

Wt would the solitary man think of number?

(M129) There are innate ideas, i.e. ideas created with us(118).

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(M130) Locke seems to be mistaken wn he says thought is not essential to
the mind(119).

(M131) Certainly the mind always and constantly thinks: and we know this
too. In sleep and trances the mind _exists not_—there is no time, no
succession of ideas(120).

(M132) To say the mind exists without thinking is a contradiction,
nonsense, nothing.

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(M133) Folly to inquire wt determines the Will. Uneasiness, &c. are ideas,
therefore unactive, therefore can do nothing, therefore cannot determine
the Will(121).

(M134) Again, wt mean you by determine?

(M135) (M136) For want of rightly understanding time, motion, existence,
&c., men are forc’d into such absurd contradictions as this, viz. light
moves 16 diameters of earth in a second of time.

(M137) ’Twas the opinion that ideas could exist unperceiv’d, or before
perception, that made men think perception(122) was somewhat different
from the idea perceived, i.e. yt it was an idea of reflection; whereas the
thing perceiv’d was an idea of sensation. I say, ’twas this made ’em think
the understanding took it in, receiv’d it from without; wch could never be
did not they think it existed without(123).

(M138) Properly speaking, idea is the picture of the imagination’s making.
This is ye likeness of, and refer’d to the real idea, or (if you will)
thing(124).

(M139) To ask, have we an idea of Will or volition, is nonsense. An idea
can resemble nothing but an idea.

(M140) If you ask wt thing it is that wills, I answer, if you mean idea by
the word thing, or anything like any idea, then I say, ’tis no thing at
all that wills(125). This how extravagant soever it may seem, yet is a
certain truth. We are cheated by these general terms, thing, is, &c.

(M141) Again, if by is you mean is perceived, or does perceive, I say
nothing wch is perceived or does perceive wills.

(M142) The referring ideas to things wch are not ideas, the using the term
“idea of(126),” is one great cause of mistake, as in other matters, so
also in this.

(M143) Some words there are wch do not stand for ideas, viz. particles,
will, &c. Particles stand for volitions and their concomitant ideas.

(M144) There seem to be but two colours wch are simple ideas, viz. those
exhibited by the most and least refrangible rays; [the others], being the
intermediate ones, may be formed by composition.

(M145) I have no idea of a volition or act of the mind, neither has any
other intelligence; for that were a contradiction.

N. B. Simple ideas, viz. colours, are not devoid of all sort of
composition, tho’ it must be granted they are not made up of
distinguishable ideas. Yet there is another sort of composition. Men are
wont to call those things compounded in which we do not actually discover
the component ingredients. Bodies are said to be compounded of chymical
principles, which, nevertheless, come not into view till after the
dissolution of the bodies—wch were not, could not, be discerned in the
bodies whilst remaining entire.

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(M146) All our knowledge is about particular ideas, according to Locke.
All our sensations are particular ideas, as is evident. Wt use then do we
make of abstract general ideas, since we neither know nor perceive them?

(M147) ’Tis allow’d that particles stand not for ideas, and yet they are
not said to be empty useless sounds. The truth really is, they stand for
operations of the mind, i.e. volitions.

(M148) Locke says all our knowledge is about particulars. If so, pray wt
is the following ratiocination but a jumble of words? “Omnis homo est
animal; omne animal vivit: ergo omnis homo vivit.” It amounts (if you
annex particular ideas to the words “animal” and “vivit”) to no more than
this: “Omnis homo est homo; omnis homo est homo: ergo, omnis homo est
homo.” A mere sport and trifling with sounds.

(M149) We have no ideas of vertues & vices, no ideas of moral
actions(127). Wherefore it may be question’d whether we are capable of
arriving at demonstration about them(128), the morality consisting in the
volition chiefly.

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(M150) Strange it is that men should be at a loss to find their idea of
Existence; since that (if such there be distinct from perception) it is
brought into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection(129),
methinks it should be most familiar to us, and we best acquainted with it.

(M151) This I am sure, I have no idea of Existence(130), or annext to the
word Existence. And if others have that’s nothing to me; they can never
make me sensible of it; simple ideas being incommunicable by language.

(M152) Say you, the unknown substratum of volitions & ideas is something
whereof I have no idea. I ask, Is there any other being which has or can
have an idea of it? If there be, then it must be itself an idea; which you
will think absurd.

(M153) There is somewhat active in most perceptions, i.e. such as ensue
upon our volitions, such as we can prevent and stop: e.g. I turn my eyes
toward the sun: I open them. All this is active.

(M154) Things are twofold—active or inactive. The existence of active
things is to act; of inactive to be perceiv’d.

(M155) Distinct from or without perception there is no volition; therefore
neither is there existence without perception.

(M156) God may comprehend all ideas, even the ideas wch are painfull &
unpleasant, without being in any degree pained thereby(131). Thus we
ourselves can imagine the pain of a burn, &c. without any misery or
uneasiness at all.

(M157) Truth, three sorts thereof—natural, mathematical, & moral.

(M158) Agreement of relation onely where numbers do obtain: of
co-existence, in nature: of signification, by including, in morality.

(M159) Gyant who shakes the mountain that’s on him must be acknowledged.
Or rather thus: I am no more to be reckon’d stronger than Locke than a
pigmy should be reckon’d stronger than a gyant, because he could throw off
the molehill wch lay upon him, and the gyant could onely shake or shove
the mountain that oppressed him. This in the Preface.

(M160) Promise to extend our knowledge & clear it of those shamefull
contradictions which embarrass it. Something like this to begin the
Introduction in a modest way(132).

(M161) Whoever shall pretend to censure any part, I desire he would read
out the whole, else he may perhaps not understand me. In the Preface or
Introduction(133).

(M162) Doctrine of identity best explain’d by taking the Will for
volitions, the Understanding for ideas. The difficulty of consciousness of
wt are never acted surely solv’d thereby.

(M163) I must acknowledge myself beholding to the philosophers who have
gone before me. They have given good rules, though certainly they do not
always observe them. Similitude of adventurers, who, tho’ they attained
not the desired port, they by their wrecks have made known the rocks and
sands, whereby the passage of aftercomers is made more secure & easy.
Preface or Introduction.

(M164) The opinion that men had ideas of moral actions(134) has render’d
the demonstrating ethiques very difficult to them.

(M165) An idea being itself unactive cannot be the resemblance or image of
an active thing.

(M166) Excuse to be made in the Introduction for using the word _idea_,
viz. because it has obtain’d. But a caution must be added.

Scripture and possibility are the onely proofs(135) with Malbranch. Add to
these what he calls a great propension to think so: this perhaps may be
questioned. Perhaps men, if they think before they speak, will not be
found so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of Matter.

(M167) On second thoughts I am on t’other extream. I am certain of that
wch Malbranch seems to doubt of, viz. the existence of bodies(136).

(M168) Mem. To bring the killing blow at the last, e.g. in the matter of
abstraction to bring Locke’s general triangle in the last(137).

(M169) They give good rules, tho’ perhaps they themselves do not always
observe them. They speak much of clear and distinct ideas, though at the
same time they talk of general abstract ideas, &c. I’ll [instance] in
Locke’s opinion of abstraction, he being as clear a writer as I have met
with.

Such was the candour of this great man that I perswade myself, were he
alive(138), he would not be offended that I differ from him: seeing that
even in so doing I follow his advice, viz. to use my own judgement, see
with my own eyes, & not with another’s. Introduction.

(M170) The word thing, as comprising or standing for idea & volition,
usefull; as standing for idea and archetype without the mind(139),
mischievous and useless.

(M171) To demonstrate morality it seems one need only make a dictionary of
words, and see which included which. At least, this is the greatest part
and bulk of the work.

(M172) Locke’s instances of demonstration in morality are, according to
his own rule, trifling propositions.

(M173) Qu. How comes it that some ideas are confessedly allow’d by all to
be onely in the mind(140), and others as generally taken to be without the
mind(141), if, according to you, all are equally and only in the mind?
Ans. Because that in proportion to pleasure or pain ideas are attended
with desire, exertion, and other actions which include volition. Now
volition is by all granted to be in spirit.

(M174) If men would lay aside words in thinking, ’tis impossible they
should ever mistake, save only in matters of fact. I mean it seems
impossible they should be positive & secure that anything was true wch in
truth is not so. Certainly I cannot err in matter of simple perception. So
far as we can in reasoning go without the help of signs, there we have
certain knowledge. Indeed, in long deductions made by signs there may be
slips of memory.

(M175) From my doctrine there follows a cure for pride. We are only to be
praised for those things which are our own, or of our own doing; natural
abilitys are not consequences of our volitions.

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(M176) Mem. Candidly to take notice that Locke holds some dangerous
opinions; such as the infinity and eternity of Space and the possibility
of Matter’s thinking(142).

(M177) Once more I desire my reader may be upon his guard against the
fallacy of words. Let him beware that I do not impose on him by plausible
empty talk, that common dangerous way of cheating men into absurditys. Let
him not regard my words any otherwise than as occasions of bringing into
his mind determin’d significations. So far as they fail of this they are
gibberish, jargon, & deserve not the name of language. I desire & warn him
not to expect to find truth in my book, or anywhere but in his own mind.
Wtever I see myself ’tis impossible I can paint it out in words.

(M178) N. B. To consider well wt is meant by that wch Locke saith
concerning algebra—that it supplys intermediate ideas. Also to think of a
method affording the same use in morals &c. that this doth in
mathematiques.

(M179) _Homo_ is not proved to be _vivens_ by means of any intermediate
idea. I don’t fully agree wth Locke in wt he says concerning sagacity in
finding out intermediate ideas in matter capable of demonstration & the
use thereof; as if that were the onely means of improving and enlarging
demonstrative knowledge.

(M180) There is a difference betwixt power & volition. There may be
volition without power. But there can be no power without volition. Power
implyeth volition, & at the same time a connotation of the effects
following the volition(143).

(M181) We have assuredly an idea of substance. ’Twas absurd of Locke(144)
to think we had a name without a meaning. This might prove acceptable to
the Stillingfleetians.

(M182) The substance of Body we know(145). The substance of Spirit we do
not know—it not being knowable, it being a _purus actus_.

(M183) Words have ruin’d and overrun all the sciences—law, physique,
chymistry, astrology, &c.

(M184) Abstract ideas only to be had amongst the learned. The vulgar never
think they have any such, nor truly do they find any want of them. Genera
& species & abstract ideas are terms unknown to them.

(M185) Locke’s out(146)—the case is different. We can have an idea of body
without motion, but not of soul without thought.

(M186) God ought to be worship’d. This easily demonstrated when once we
ascertain the signification of the words God, worship, ought.

(M187) No perception, according to Locke, is active. Therefore no
perception (i.e. no idea) can be the image of, or like unto, that which is
altogether active & not at all passive, i.e. the Will.

(M188) I can will the calling to mind something that is past, tho’ at the
same time that wch I call to mind was not in my thoughts before that
volition of mine, & consequently I could have had no uneasiness for the
want of it.

(M189) The Will & the Understanding may very well be thought two distinct
beings.

(M190) Sed quia voluntas raro agit nisi ducente desiderio. V. Locke,
Epistles, p. 479, ad Limburgum.

You cannot say the m. t. [minimum tangibile] is like or one with the m. v.
[minimum visibile], because they be both minima, just perceiv’d, and next
door to nothing. You may as well say the m. t. is the same with or like
unto a sound, so small that it is scarce perceiv’d.

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Extension seems to be a mode of some tangible or sensible quality
according as it is seen or felt.

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(M191) The spirit—the active thing—that wch is soul, & God—is the Will
alone. The ideas are effects—impotent things.

(M192) The concrete of the will & understanding I might call mind; not
person, lest offence be given. Mem. Carefully to omit defining of person,
or making much mention of it.

(M193) You ask, do these volitions make _one_ Will? Wt you ask is meerly
about a word—unity being no more(147).

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N. B. To use utmost caution not to give the least handle of offence to the
Church or Churchmen.

(M194) Even to speak somewhat favourably of the Schoolmen, and shew that
they who blame them for jargon are not free of it themselves. Introd.

Locke’s great oversight seems to be that he did not begin with his third
book; at least that he had not some thought of it at first. Certainly the
2d & 4th books don’t agree wth wt he says in ye 3d(148).

(M195) If Matter(149) is once allow’d to exist, clippings of weeds and
parings of nails may think, for ought that Locke can tell; tho’ he seems
positive of the contrary.

Since I say men cannot mistake in short reasoning about things
demonstrable, if they lay aside words, it will be expected this Treatise
will contain nothing but wt is certain & evident demonstration, & in truth
I hope you will find nothing in it but what is such. Certainly I take it
all for such. Introd.

(M196) When I say I will reject all propositions wherein I know not fully
and adequately and clearly, so far as knowable, the thing meant thereby,
this is not to be extended to propositions in the Scripture. I speak of
matters of Reason and Philosophy—not Revelation. In this I think an
humble, implicit faith becomes us (when we cannot comprehend or understand
the proposition), such as a popish peasant gives to propositions he hears
at mass in Latin. This proud men may call blind, popish, implicit,
irrational. For my part I think it is more irrational to pretend to
dispute at, cavil, and ridicule holy mysteries, i.e. propositions about
things that are altogether above our knowledge, out of our reach. When I
shall come to plenary knowledge of the meaning of any fact, then I shall
yield an explicit belief. Introd.

Complexation of ideas twofold. Ys refers to colours being complex ideas.

Considering length without breadth is considering any length, be the
breadth wt it will.

(M197) I may say earth, plants, &c. were created before man—there being
other intelligences to perceive them, before man was created(150).

(M198) There is a philosopher(151) who says we can get an idea of
substance by no way of sensation or reflection, & seems to imagine that we
want a sense proper for it. Truly if we had a new sense it could only give
us a new idea. Now I suppose he will not say substance, according to him,
is an idea. For my part, I own I have no idea can stand for substance in
his and the Schoolmen’s sense of that word. But take it in the common
vulgar sense, & then we see and feel substance.

(M199) N. B. That not common usage, but the Schoolmen coined the word
Existence, supposed to stand for an abstract general idea.

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Writers of Optics mistaken in their principles both in judging of
magnitudes and distances.

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(M200) ’Tis evident yt wn the solitary man should be taught to speak, the
words would give him no other new ideas (save only the sounds, and complex
ideas which, tho’ unknown before, may be signified by language) beside wt
he had before. If he had not, could not have, an abstract idea before, he
cannot have it after he is taught to speak.

(M201) “Homo est homo,” &c. comes at last to Petrus est Petrus, &c. Now,
if these identical propositions are sought after in the mind, they will
not be found. There are no identical mental propositions. ’Tis all about
sounds and terms.

(M202) Hence we see the doctrine of certainty by ideas, and proving by
intermediate ideas, comes to nothing(152).

(M203) We may have certainty & knowledge without ideas, i.e. without other
ideas than the words, and their standing for one idea, i.e. their being to
be used indifferently.

(M204) It seems to me that we have no certainty about ideas, but only
about words. ’Tis improper to say, I am certain I see, I feel, &c. There
are no mental propositions form’d answering to these words, & in simple
perception ’tis allowed by all there is no affirmation or negation, and
consequently no certainty(153).

(M205) The reason why we can demonstrate so well about signs is, that they
are perfectly arbitrary & in our power—made at pleasure.

(M206) The obscure ambiguous term _relation_, which is said to be the
largest field of knowledge, confounds us, deceives us.

(M207) Let any man shew me a demonstration, not verbal, that does not
depend on some false principle; or at best on some principle of nature,
which is ye effect of God’s will, and we know not how soon it may be
changed.

(M208) Qu. What becomes of the _æternæ veritates_? Ans. They vanish(154).

(M209) But, say you, I find it difficult to look beneath the words and
uncover my ideas. Say I, Use will make it easy. In the sequel of my Book
the cause of this difficulty shall be more clearly made out.

(M210) To view the deformity of error we need onely undress it.

(M211) “Cogito ergo sum.” Tautology. No mental proposition answering
thereto.

(M212) Knowledge, or certainty, or perception of agreement of ideas—as to
identity and diversity, and real existence, vanisheth; of relation,
becometh merely nominal; of co-existence, remaineth. Locke thought in this
latter our knowledge was little or nothing. Whereas in this only real
knowledge seemeth to be found(155).

(M213) We must wth the mob place certainty in the senses(156).

’Tis a man’s duty, ’tis the fruit of friendship, to speak well of his
friend. Wonder not therefore that I do wt I do.

(M214) A man of slow parts may overtake truth, &c. Introd. Even my
shortsightedness might perhaps be aiding to me in this matter—’twill make
me bring the object nearer to my thoughts. A purblind person, &c. Introd.

(M215) Locke to Limborch, &c. Talk of _judicium intellectus_ preceding the
volition: I think _judicium_ includes volition. I can by no means
distinguish these—_judicium_, _intellectus_, _indifferentia_, uneasiness
to many things accompanying or preceding every volition, as e.g. the
motion of my hand.

(M216) Qu. Wt mean you by my perceptions, my volitions? Both all the
perceptions I perceive or conceive(157), &c. are mine; all the volitions I
am conscious to are mine.

(M217) Homo est agens liberum. What mean they by _homo_ and _agens_ in
this place?

(M218) Will any man say that brutes have ideas of Unity & Existence? I
believe not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensation, ’tis
strange they should want them(158).

(M219) It is a strange thing and deserves our attention, that the more
time and pains men have consum’d in the study of philosophy, by so much
the more they look upon themselves to be ignorant & weak creatures. They
discover flaws and imperfections in their faculties wch other men never
spy out. They find themselves under a necessity of admitting many
inconsistent, irreconcilable opinions for true. There is nothing they
touch with their hand, or behold with their eyes, but has its dark sides
much larger and more numerous than wt is perceived, & at length turn
scepticks, at least in most things. I imagine all this proceeds from, &c.
Exord. Introd.(159)

(M220) These men with a supercilious pride disdain the common single
information of sense. They grasp at knowledge by sheafs & bundles. (’Tis
well if, catching at too much at once, they hold nothing but emptiness &
air.) They in the depth of their understanding contemplate abstract ideas.

It seems not improbable that the most comprehensive & sublime intellects
see more m.v.’s at once, i.e. that their visual systems are the largest.

Words (by them meaning all sorts of signs) are so necessary that, instead
of being (wn duly us’d or in their own nature) prejudicial to the
advancement of knowledge, or an hindrance to knowledge, without them there
could in mathematiques themselves be no demonstration.

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Mem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, &c., and recalling men to
Common Sense(160).

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(M221) We cannot conceive other minds besides our own but as so many
selves. We suppose ourselves affected wth such & such thoughts & such and
such sensations(161).

(M222) Qu. whether composition of ideas be not that faculty which chiefly
serves to discriminate us from brutes? I question whether a brute does or
can imagine a blue horse or chimera.

Naturalists do not distinguish betwixt cause and occasion. Useful to
enquire after co-existing ideas or occasions.

(M223) Morality may be demonstrated as mixt mathematics.

(M224) Perception is passive, but this not distinct from idea. Therefore
there can be no idea of volition.

Algebraic species or letters are denominations of denominations. Therefore
Arithmetic to be treated of before Algebra.

2 crowns are called ten shillings. Hence may appear the value of numbers.

Complex ideas are the creatures of the mind. Hence may appear the nature
of numbers. This to be deeply discuss’d.

I am better informed & shall know more by telling me there are 10,000 men,
than by shewing me them all drawn up. I shall better be able to judge of
the bargain you’d have me make wn you tell me how much (i.e. the name of
ye) money lies on the table, than by offering and shewing it without
naming. I regard not the idea, the looks, but the names. Hence may appear
the nature of numbers.

Children are unacquainted with numbers till they have made some progress
in language. This could not be if they were ideas suggested by all the
senses.

Numbers are nothing but names—never words.

Mem. Imaginary roots—to unravel that mystery.

Ideas of utility are annexed to numbers.

In arithmetical problems men seek not any idea of number. They only seek a
denomination. This is all can be of use to them.

Take away the signs from Arithmetic and Algebra, and pray wt remains?

These are sciences purely verbal, and entirely useless but for practice in
societies of men. No speculative knowledge, no comparing of ideas in
them(162).

Qu. whether Geometry may not properly be reckon’d amongst the mixt
mathematics—Arithmetic & Algebra being the only abstracted pure, i.e.
entirely nominal—Geometry being an application of these to points(163)?

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(M225) Locke of Trifling Propositions. [b. 4. c. 8] Mem. Well to observe &
con over that chapter.

(M226) Existence, Extension, &c. are abstract, i.e. no ideas. They are
words, unknown and useless to the vulgar.

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(M227) Sensual pleasure is the _summum bonum_. This the great principle of
morality. This once rightly understood, all the doctrines, even the
severest of the Gospels, may clearly be demonstrated.

(M228) Sensual pleasure, quâ pleasure, is good & desirable by a wise
man(164). But if it be contemptible, ’tis not quâ pleasure but quâ pain,
or cause of pain, or (which is the same thing) of loss of greater
pleasure.

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(M229) Wn I consider, the more objects we see at once the more distant
they are, and that eye which beholds a great many things can see none of
them near.

(M230) By _idea_ I mean any sensible or imaginable thing(165).

(M231) To be sure or certain of wt we do not actually perceive(166) (I say
perceive, not imagine), we must not be altogether passive; there must be a
disposition to act; there must be assent, wch is active. Nay, what do I
talk; there must be actual volition.

What do we demonstrate in Geometry but that lines are equal or unequal?
i.e. may not be called by the same name(167).

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(M232) I approve of this axiom of the Schoolmen, “Nihil est in intellectu
quod non prius fuit in sensu.”(168) I wish they had stuck to it. It had
never taught them the doctrine of abstract ideas.

(M233) “Nihil dat quod non habet,” or, the effect is contained in the
cause, is an axiom I do not understand or believe to be true.

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(M234) Whoever shall cast his eyes on the writings of old or new
philosophers, and see the noise is made about formal and objective Being,
Will, &c.

(M235) Absurd to argue the existence of God from his idea. We have no idea
of God. ’Tis impossible(169).

(M236) Cause of much errour & confusion that men knew not what was meant
by Reality(170).

(M237) Des Cartes, in Med. 2, says the notion of this particular wax is
less clear than that of wax in general; and in the same Med., a little
before, he forbears to consider bodies in general, because (says he) these
general conceptions are usually confused.

(M238) Des Cartes, in Med. 3, calls himself a thinking substance, and a
stone an extended substance; and adds that they both agree in this, that
they are substances. And in the next paragraph he calls extension a mode
of substance.

(M239) ’Tis commonly said by the philosophers, that if the soul of man
were self-existent it would have given itself all possible perfection.
This I do not understand.

(M240) Mem. To excite men to the pleasures of the eye & the ear, which
surfeit not, nor bring those evils after them, as others.

(M241) We see no variety or difference betwixt volitions, only between
their effects. ’Tis one Will, one Act—distinguished by the effects. This
Will, this Act, is the Spirit, i.e. operative principle, soul, &c. No
mention of fears and jealousies, nothing like a party.

(M242) Locke in his 4th Book(171), and Des Cartes in Med. 6, use the same
argument for the existence of objects, viz. that sometimes we see, feel,
&c. against our will.

(M243) While I exist or have any idea, I am eternally, constantly willing;
my acquiescing in the present state is willing.

(M244) The existence of any thing imaginable is nothing different from
imagination or perception(172). Volition or Will, Wch is not imaginable,
regard must not be had to its existence(?) ... First Book.

(M245) There are four sorts of propositions:—“Gold is a metal;” “Gold is
yellow;” “Gold is fixt;” “Gold is not a stone”—of which the first, second,
and third are only nominal, and have no mental propositions answering
them.

(M246) Mem. In vindication of the senses effectually to confute what Des
Cartes saith in the last par. of the last Med., viz. that the senses
oftener inform him falsely than truely—that sense of pain tells me not my
foot is bruised or broken, but I, having frequently observed these two
ideas, viz. of that peculiar pain and bruised foot go together, do
erroneously take them to be inseparable by a necessity of Nature—as if
Nature were anything but the ordinance of the free will of God(173).

(M247) Des Cartes owns we know not a substance immediately by itself, but
by this alone, that it is the subject of several acts. Ans. to 2d
objection of Hobbs.

(M248) Hobbs in some degree falls in with Locke, saying thought is to the
mind or himself as dancing to the dancer. Object.

(M249) Hobbs in his Object. 3 ridicules those expressions of the
scholastiques—“the will wills,” &c. So does Locke. I am of another
mind(174).

(M250) Des Cartes, in answer to Object. 3 of Hobbs, owns he is distinct
from thought as a thing from its modus or manner.

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(M251) Opinion that existence was distinct from perception of horrible
consequence. It is the foundation of Hobbs’s doctrine, &c.

(M252) Malbranch in his illustration(175) differs widely from me. He
doubts of the existence of bodies. I doubt not in the least of this.

(M253) I differ from Cartesians in that I make extension, colour, &c. to
exist really in bodies independent of our mind(176). All ye carefully and
lucidly to be set forth.

(M254) Not to mention the combinations of powers, but to say the
things—the effects themselves—do really exist, even wn not actually
perceived; but still with relation to perception(177).

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The great use of the Indian figures above the Roman shews arithmetic to be
about signs, not ideas—or at least not ideas different from the characters
themselves(178).

(M255) Reasoning there may be about things or ideas, or about actions; but
demonstration can be only verbal. I question, no matter &c.

(M256) Quoth Des Cartes, The idea of God is not made by me, for I can
neither add to nor subtract from it. No more can he add to or take from
any other idea, even of his own making.

(M257) The not distinguishing ’twixt Will and ideas is a grand mistake
with Hobbs. He takes those things for nothing which are not ideas(179).

(M258) Say you, At this rate all’s nothing but idea—mere phantasm. I
answer, Everything as real as ever. I hope to call a thing idea makes it
not the less real. Truly I should perhaps have stuck to the word thing,
and not mentioned the word idea, were it not for a reason, and I think a
good one too, which I shall give in the Second Book(180).

(M259) Idea is the object of thought. Yt I think on, whatever it be, I
call idea. Thought itself, or thinking, is no idea. ’Tis an act—i.e.
volition, i.e. as contradistinguished to effects—the Will.

(M260) Locke, in B. 4. c. 5, assigns not the right cause why mental
propositions are so difficult. It is not because of complex but because of
abstract ideas. Ye idea of a horse is as complex as that of fortitude. Yet
in saying the “horse is white” I form a mental proposition with ease. But
when I say “fortitude is a virtue” I shall find a mental proposition hard,
or not at all to be come at.

(M261) Pure intellect I understand not(181).

Locke is in ye right in those things wherein he differs from ye
Cartesians, and they cannot but allow of his opinions, if they stick to
their own principles or causes of Existence & other abstract ideas.

(M262) The properties of all things are in God, i.e. there is in the Deity
Understanding as well as Will. He is no blind agent, and in truth a blind
agent is a contradiction(182).

(M263) I am certain there is a God, tho’ I do not perceive Him—have no
intuition of Him. This not difficult if we rightly understand wt is meant
by certainty.

(M264) It seems that the Soul, taken for the Will, is immortal,
incorruptible.

(M265) Qu. whether perception must of necessity precede volition?

(M266) Error is not in the Understanding, but in the Will. What I
understand or perceive, that I understand. There can be no errour in this.

(M267) Mem. To take notice of Locke’s woman afraid of a wetting, in the
Introd., to shew there may be reasoning about ideas or things.

(M268) Say Des Cartes & Malbranch, God hath given us strong inclinations
to think our ideas proceed from bodies, or that bodies do exist. Pray wt
mean they by this? Would they have it that the ideas of imagination are
images of, and proceed from, the ideas of sense? This is true, but cannot
be their meaning; for they speak of ideas of sense as themselves
proceeding from, being like unto—I know not wt(183).

(M269) Cartesius per ideam vult omne id quod habet esse objectivum in
intellectu. V. Tract. de Methodo.

(M270) Qu. May there not be an Understanding without a Will?

(M271) Understanding is in some sort an action.

(M272) Silly of Hobbs, &c. to speak of the Will as if it were motion, with
which it has no likeness.

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(M273) Ideas of Sense are the real things or archetypes. Ideas of
imagination, dreams, &c. are copies, images, of these.

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(M274) My doctrines rightly understood, all that philosophy of Epicurus,
Hobbs, Spinosa, &c., which has been a declared enemy of religion, comes to
the ground.

(M275) Hobbs & Spinosa make God extended. Locke also seems to do the
same(184).

(M276) Ens, res, aliquid dicuntur termini transcendentales. Spinosa, p.
76, prop. 40, Eth. part 2, gives an odd account of their original. Also of
the original of all universals—Homo, Canis, &c.

(M277) Spinosa (vid. Præf. Opera Posthum.) will have God to be “omnium
rerum causa immanens,” and to countenance this produces that of St. Paul,
“in Him we live,” &c. Now this of St. Paul may be explained by my doctrine
as well as Spinosa’s, or Locke’s, or Hobbs’s, or Raphson’s(185), &c.

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(M278) The Will is _purus actus_, or rather pure spirit not imaginable,
not sensible, not intelligible, in no wise the object of the
understanding, no wise perceivable.

(M279) Substance of a spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or
if you please (to avoid the quibble yt may be made of the word “it”) to
act, cause, will, operate. Its substance is not knowable, not being an
idea.

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(M280) Why may we not conceive it possible for God to create things out of
nothing? Certainly we ourselves create in some wise whenever we imagine.

(M281) “Ex nihilo nihil fit.” This (saith Spinoza, Opera Posth. p. 464)
and the like are called _veritates æternæ_, because “nullam fidem habent
extra mentem.” To make this axiom have a positive signification, one
should express it thus: Every idea has a cause, i.e. is produced by a
Will(186).

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(M282) The philosophers talk much of a distinction ’twixt absolute &
relative things, or ’twixt things considered in their own nature & the
same things considered with respect to us. I know not wt they mean by
“things considered in themselves.” This is nonsense, jargon.

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(M283) It seems there can be no perception—no idea—without Will, seeing
there are no ideas so indifferent but one had rather have them than
annihilation, or annihilation than them. Or if there be such an equal
balance, there must be an equal mixture of pleasure and pain to cause it;
there being no ideas perfectly void of all pain & uneasiness, but wt are
preferable to annihilation.

Recipe in animum tuum, per cogitationem vehementem, rerum ipsarum, non
literarum aut sonorum imagines. Hobbs against Wallis.

’Tis a perfection we may imagine in superior spirits, that they can see a
great deal at once with the utmost clearness and distinction; whereas we
can only see a point(187).

Mem. Wn I treat of mathematiques to enquire into the controversy ’twixt
Hobbes and Wallis.

(M284) Every sensation of mine, which happens in consequence of the
general known laws of nature, & is from without, i.e. independent of my
will, demonstrates the being of a God, i.e. of an unextended, incorporeal
spirit, which is omnipresent, omnipotent, &c.

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(M285) I say not with J.S. [John Sergeant] that we _see_ solids. I reject
his “solid philosophy”—solidity being only perceived by touch(188).

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(M286) It seems to me that will and understanding—volitions and
ideas—cannot be separated, that either cannot be possibly without the
other.

(M287) Some ideas or other I must have, so long as I exist or will. But no
one idea or sort of ideas being essential(189).

(M288) The distinction between idea and ideatum I cannot otherwise
conceive than by making one the effect or consequence of dream, reverie,
imagination—the other of sense and the constant laws of nature.

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(M289) Dico quod extensio non concipitur in se et per se, contra quam
dicit Spinoza in Epist. 2a ad Oldenburgium.

(M290) My definition of the word God I think much clearer than those of
Des Cartes & Spinoza, viz. “Ens summe perfectum & absolute infinitum,” or
“Ens constans infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque est
infinitum(190).”

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’Tis chiefly the connexion betwixt tangible and visible ideas that
deceives, and not the visible ideas themselves.

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(M291) But the grand mistake is that we know not what we mean by “we,” or
“selves,” or “mind,” &c. ’Tis most sure & certain that our ideas are
distinct from the mind, i.e. the Will, the Spirit(191).

(M292) I must not mention the understanding as a faculty or part of the
mind. I must include understanding & will in the word Spirit—by which I
mean all that is active. I must not say that the understanding diners not
from the particular ideas, or the will from particular volitions.

(M293) The Spirit, the Mind, is neither a volition nor an idea.

(M294) I say there are no causes (properly speaking) but spiritual,
nothing active but Spirit. Say you, This is only verbal; ’tis only
annexing a new sort of signification to the word cause, & why may not
others as well retain the old one, and call one idea the cause of another
which always follows it? I answer, If you do so I shall drive you into
many absurditys: you cannot avoid running into opinions you’ll be glad to
disown, if you stick firmly to that signification of the word Cause.

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(M295) In valuing good we reckon too much on the present & our own.

(M296) There be two sorts of pleasure. The one is ordained as a spur or
incitement to somewhat else, & has a visible relation and subordination
thereto; the other is not. Thus the pleasure of eating is of the former
sort, of musick of the later sort. These may be used for recreation, those
not but in order to their end.

(M297) Three sorts of useful knowledge—that of Coexistence, to be treated
of in our Principles of Natural Philosophy; that of Relation, in
Mathematiques; that of Definition, or inclusion, or words (which perhaps
differs not from that of relation), in Morality(192).

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(M298) Will, understanding, desire, hatred, &c., so far forth as they are
acts or active, differ not. All their difference consists in their
objects, circumstances, &c.

(M299) We must carefully distinguish betwixt two sorts of causes—physical
& spiritual.

(M300) The physical may more properly be called occasions. Yet (to comply)
we may call them causes—but then we must mean causes yt do nothing.

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(M301) According to Locke, we must be in an eternal uneasiness so long as
we live, bating the time of sleep or trance, &c.; for he will have even
the continuance of an action to be in his sense an action, & so requires a
volition, & this an uneasiness.

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(M302) I must not pretend to promise much of demonstration. I must cancell
all passages that look like that sort of pride, that raising of
expectation in my friend.

(M303) If this be the case, surely a man had better not philosophize at
all: no more than a deformed person ought to cavil to behold himself by
the reflex light of a mirrour.

(M304) Or thus, like deformed persons who, having beheld themselves by the
reflex light of a mirrour, are displeased with their diseases.

(M305) What can an idea be like but another idea? We can compare it with
nothing else—a sound like a sound, a colour like a colour.

(M306) Is it not nonsense to say a smell is like a thing which cannot be
smelt, a colour is like a thing wh cannot be seen?

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(M307) Bodies exist without the mind, i.e. are not the mind, but distinct
from it. This I allow, the mind being altogether different therefrom(193).

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(M308) Certainly we should not see motion if there was no diversity of
colours.

(M309) Motion is an abstract idea, i.e. there is no such idea that can be
conceived by itself.

(M310) Contradictions cannot be both true. Men are obliged to answer
objections drawn from consequences. Introd.

(M311) The Will and Volition are words not used by the vulgar. The learned
are bantered by their meaning abstract ideas.

Speculative Math, as if a man was all day making hard knots on purpose to
unty them again.

Tho’ it might have been otherwise, yet it is convenient the same thing wch
is M.V. should be also M.T., or very near it.

(M312) I must not give the soul or mind the scholastique name “pure act,”
but rather pure spirit, or active being.

(M313) I must not say the Will or Understanding are all one, but that they
are both abstract ideas, i.e. none at all—they not being even _ratione_
different from the Spirit, _quâ_ faculties, or active.

(M314) Dangerous to make idea & thing terms convertible(194). That were
the way to prove spirits are nothing.

(M315) Qu. whether _veritas_ stands not for an abstract idea?

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(M316) ’Tis plain the moderns must by their own principles own there are
no bodies, i.e. no sort of bodies without the mind, i.e. unperceived.

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(M317) Qu. whether the Will can be the object of prescience or any
knowledge?

(M318) If there were only one ball in the world, it could not be moved.
There could be no variety of appearance.

According to the doctrine of infinite divisibility, there must be some
smell of a rose, v. g. at an infinite distance from it.

(M319) Extension, tho’ it exist only in the mind, yet is no property of
the mind. The mind can exist without it, tho’ it cannot without the mind.
But in Book II. I shall at large shew the difference there is betwixt the
Soul and Body or extended being.

(M320) ’Tis an absurd question wch Locke puts, whether man be free to
will?

Mem. To enquire into the reason of the rule for determining questions in
Algebra.

It has already been observed by others that names are nowhere of more
necessary use than in numbering.

(M321) I will grant you that extension, colour, &c. may be said to be
without the mind in a double respect, i.e. as independent of our will, and
as distinct from the mind.

(M322) Certainly it is not impossible but a man may arrive at the
knowledge of all real truth as well without as with signs, had he a memory
and imagination most strong and capacious. Therefore reasoning & science
doth not altogether depend upon words or names(195).

(M323) I think not that things fall out of necessity. The connexion of no
two ideas is necessary; ’tis all the result of freedom, i.e. ’tis all
voluntary(196).

(M324) If a man with his eyes shut imagines to himself the sun &
firmament, you will not say _he_ or _his mind_ is the sun, or is extended,
tho’ neither sun or firmament be without mind.

(M325) ’Tis strange to find philosophers doubting & disputing whether they
have ideas of spiritual things or no. Surely ’tis easy to know. Vid. De
Vries(197), _De Ideis Innatis_, p. 64.

(M326) De Vries will have it that we know the mind agrees with things not
by idea but sense or conscientia. So will Malbranch. This a vain
distinction.

August 28th, 1708. The Adventure of the [Shirt?].

It were to be wished that persons of the greatest birth, honour, &
fortune, would take that care of themselves, by education, industry,
literature, & a love of virtue, to surpass all other men in knowledge &
all other qualifications necessary for great actions, as far as they do in
quality & titles; that princes out of them might always chose men fit for
all employments and high trusts. Clov. B. 7.

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One eternity greater than another of the same kind.

In what sense eternity may be limited.

(M327) Whether succession of ideas in the Divine intellect?

(M328) Time is the train of ideas succeeding each other.

Duration not distinguish’d from existence.

Succession explain’d by before, between, after, & numbering.

Why time in pain longer than time in pleasure?

Duration infinitely divisible, time not so.

(M329) The same τὸ νῦν not common to all intelligences.

Time thought infinitely divisible on account of its measure.

Extension not infinitely divisible in one sense.

Revolutions immediately measure train of ideas, mediately duration.

(M330) Time a sensation; therefore onely in ye mind.

Eternity is onely a train of innumerable ideas. Hence the immortality of
ye soul easily conceiv’d, or rather the immortality of the person, that of
ye soul not being necessary for ought we can see.

Swiftness of ideas compar’d with yt of motions shews the wisdom of God.

Wt if succession of ideas were swifter, wt if slower?

(M331) Fall of Adam, use of idolatry, use of Epicurism & Hobbism, dispute
about divisibility of matter, &c. expounded by material substances.

Extension a sensation, therefore not without the mind.

(M332) In the immaterial hypothesis, the wall is white, fire hot, &c.

Primary ideas prov’d not to exist in matter; after the same manner yt
secondary ones are prov’d not to exist therein.

Demonstrations of the infinite divisibility of extension suppose length
without breadth, or invisible length, wch is absurd.

(M333) World wthout thought is _nec quid_, _nec quantum_, _nec quale_, &c.

(M334) ’Tis wondrous to contemplate ye World empty’d of all intelligences.

Nothing properly but Persons, i.e. conscious things, do exist. All other
things are not so much existences as manners of ye existence of
persons(198).

Qu. about the soul, or rather person, whether it be not compleatly known?

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Infinite divisibility of extension does suppose the external existence of
extension; but the later is false, ergo ye former also.

Qu. Blind man made to see, would he know motion at 1st sight?

Motion, figure, and extension perceivable by sight are different from
those ideas perceived by touch wch goe by the same name.

Diagonal incommensurable wth ye side. Quære how this can be in my
doctrine?

(M335) Qu. how to reconcile Newton’s 2 sorts of motion with my doctrine?

Terminations of surfaces & lines not imaginable _per se_.

Molyneux’s blind man would not know the sphere or cube to be bodies or
extended at first sight(199).

Extension so far from being incompatible wth, yt ’tis impossible it should
exist without thought.

(M336) Extension itself or anything extended cannot think—these being meer
ideas or sensations, whose essence we thoroughly know.

No extension but surface perceivable by sight.

(M337) Wn we imagine 2 bowls v. g. moving in vacuo, ’tis only conceiving a
person affected with these sensations.

(M338) Extension to exist in a thoughtless thing [or rather in a thing
void of perception—thought seeming to imply action], is a contradiction.

Qu. if visible motion be proportional to tangible motion?

(M339) In some dreams succession of ideas swifter than at other times.

(M340) If a piece of matter have extension, that must be determined to a
particular bigness & figure, but &c.

Nothing wthout corresponds to our primary ideas but powers. Hence a direct
& brief demonstration of an active powerfull Being, distinct from us, on
whom we depend.

The name of colours actually given to tangible qualities, by the relation
of ye story of the German Count.

Qu. How came visible & tangible qualities by the same name in all
languages?

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Qu. Whether Being might not be the substance of the soul, or (otherwise
thus) whether Being, added to ye faculties, compleat the real essence and
adequate definition of the soul?

(M341) Qu. Whether, on the supposition of external bodies, it be possible
for us to know that any body is absolutely at rest, since that supposing
ideas much slower than at present, bodies now apparently moving wd then be
apparently at rest?

(M342) Qu. What can be like a sensation but a sensation?

Qu. Did ever any man see any other things besides his own ideas, that he
should compare them to these, and make these like unto them?

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(M343) The age of a fly, for ought that we know, may be as long as yt of a
man(200).

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Visible distance heterogeneous from tangible distance demonstrated 3
several ways:—

1st. If a tangible inch be equal or in any other reason to a visible inch,
thence it will follow yt unequals are equals, wch is absurd: for at what
distance would the visible inch be placed to make it equal to the tangible
inch?

2d. One made to see that had not yet seen his own limbs, or any thing he
touched, upon sight of a foot length would know it to be a foot length, if
tangible foot & visible foot were the same idea—sed falsum id, ergo et
hoc.

3dly. From Molyneux’s problem, wch otherwise is falsely solv’d by Locke
and him(201).

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(M344) Nothing but ideas perceivable(202).

A man cannot compare 2 things together without perceiving them each. Ergo,
he cannot say anything wch is not an idea is like or unlike an idea.

Bodies &c. do exist even wn not perceived—they being powers in the active
being(203).

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Succession a simple idea, [succession is an abstract, i.e. an
inconceivable idea,] Locke says(204).

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Visible extension is [proportional to tangible extension, also is]
encreated & diminish’d by parts. Hence taken for the same.

If extension be without the mind in bodies. Qu. whether tangible or
visible, or both?

Mathematical propositions about extension & motion true in a double sense.

Extension thought peculiarly inert, because not accompany’d wth pleasure &
pain: hence thought to exist in matter; as also for that it was conceiv’d
common to 2 senses, [as also the constant perception of ’em].

Blind at 1st sight could not tell how near what he saw was to him, nor
even whether it be wthout him or in his eye(205). Qu. Would he not think
the later?

Blind at 1st sight could not know yt wt he saw was extended, until he had
seen and touched some one self-same thing—not knowing how _minimum
tangibile_ would look in vision.

(M345) Mem. That homogeneous particles be brought in to answer the
objection of God’s creating sun, plants, &c. before animals.

In every bodie two infinite series of extension—the one of tangible, the
other of visible.

All things to a blind [man] at first seen in a point.

Ignorance of glasses made men think extension to be in bodies.

(M346) Homogeneous portions of matter—useful to contemplate them.

Extension if in matter changes its relation wth _minimum visibile_, wch
seems to be fixt.

Qu. whether m.v. be fix’d?

(M347) Each particle of matter if extended must be infinitely extended, or
have an infinite series of extension.

(M348) If the world be granted to consist of Matter, ’tis the mind gives
it beauty and proportion.

Wt I have said onely proves there is no proportion at all times and in all
men between a visible & tangible inch.

Tangible and visible extension heterogeneous, because they have no common
measure; also because their simplest constituent parts or elements are
specifically different, viz. _punctum visibile & tangibile_. N. B. The
former seems to be no good reason.

(M349) By immateriality is solv’d the cohesion of bodies, or rather the
dispute ceases.

Our idea we call extension neither way capable of infinity, i.e. neither
infinitely small or great.

Greatest possible extension seen under an angle wch will be less than 180
degrees, the legs of wch angle proceed from the ends of the extension.

(M350) Allowing there be extended, solid, &c. substances without the mind,
’tis impossible the mind should know or perceive them; the mind, even
according to the materialists, perceiving onely the impressions made upon
its brain, or rather the ideas attending these impressions(206).

Unity _in abstracto_ not at all divisible, it being as it were a point, or
with Barrow nothing at all; _in concreto_ not divisible _ad infinitum_,
there being no one idea demonstrable _ad infinitum_.

(M351) Any subject can have of each sort of primary qualities but one
particular at once. Locke, b. 4. c. 3. s. 15.

Qu. whether we have clear ideas of large numbers themselves, or onely of
their relations?

(M352) Of solidity see L. b. 2. c. 4. s. 1, 5, 6. If any one ask wt
solidity is, let him put a flint between his hands and he will know.
Extension of body is continuity of solid, &c.; extension of space is
continuity of unsolid, &c.

Why may not I say visible extension is a continuity of visible points,
tangible extension is a continuity of tangible points?

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(M353) Mem. That I take notice that I do not fall in wth sceptics,
Fardella(207), &c., in that I make bodies to exist certainly, wch they
doubt of.

(M354) I am more certain of ye existence & reality of bodies than Mr.
Locke; since he pretends onely to wt he calls sensitive knowledge(208),
whereas I think I have demonstrative knowledge of their existence—by them
meaning combinations of powers in an unknown substratum(209).

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(M355) Our ideas we call figure & extension, not images of the figure and
extension of matter; these (if such there be) being infinitely divisible,
those not so.

’Tis impossible a material cube should exist, because the edges of a cube
will appear broad to an acute sense.

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Men die, or are in [a] state of annihilation, oft in a day.

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(M356) Powers. Qu. whether more or one onely?

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Lengths abstract from breadths are the work of the mind. Such do intersect
in a point at all angles. After the same way colour is abstract from
extension.

Every position alters the line.

Qu. whether ideas of extension are made up of other ideas, v.g. idea of a
foot made up of general ideas of an inch?

The idea of an inch length not one determin’d idea. Hence enquire the
reason why we are out in judging of extension by the sight; for which
purpose ’tis meet also to consider the frequent & sudden changes of
extension by position.

No stated ideas of length without a minimum.

(M357) Material substance banter’d by Locke, b. 2. c. 13. s. 19.

(M358) In my doctrine all absurdities from infinite space &c. cease(210).

Qu. whether if (speaking grossly) the things we see were all of them at
all times too small to be felt, we should have confounded tangible &
visible extension and figure?

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(M359) Qu. whether if succession of ideas in the Eternal Mind, a day does
not seem to God a 1000 years, rather than a 1000 years a day?

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But one only colour & its degrees.

Enquiry about a grand mistake in writers of dioptricks in assigning the
cause of microscopes magnifying objects.

Qu. whether a born-blind [man] made to see would at 1st give the name of
distance to any idea intromitted by sight; since he would take distance yt
that he had perceived by _touch_ to be something existing without his
mind, but he would certainly think that nothing _seen_ was without his
mind(211)?

(M360) Space without any bodies existing _in rerum natura_ would not be
extended, as not having parts—in that parts are assigned to it wth respect
to body; from whence also the notion of distance is taken. Now without
either parts or distance or mind, how can there be Space, or anything
beside one uniform Nothing?

Two demonstrations that blind made to see would not take all things he saw
to be without his mind, or not in a point—the one from microscopic eyes,
the other from not perceiving distance, i.e. radius of the visual sphere.

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(M361) The trees are in the park, i.e. whether I will or no, whether I
imagine anything about them or no. Let me but go thither and open my eyes
by day, & I shall not avoid seeing them.

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By extension blind [man] would mean either the perception caused in his
touch by something he calls extended, or else the power of raising that
perception; wch power is without, in the thing termed extended. Now he
could not know either of these to be in things visible till he had try’d.

Geometry seems to have for its object tangible extension, figures, &
motion—and not visible(212).

A man will say a body will seem as big as before, tho’ the visible idea it
yields be less than wt it was; therefore the bigness or tangible extension
of the body is different from the visible extension.

Extension or space no simple idea—length, breadth, & solidity being three
several ideas.

Depth or solidity _now_ perceived by sight(213).

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Strange impotence of men. Man without God wretcheder than a stone or tree;
he having onely the power to be miserable by his unperformed wills, these
having no power at all(214).

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Length perceivable by hearing—length & breadth by sight—length, breadth, &
depth by touch.

(M362) Wt affects us must be a thinking thing, for wt thinks not cannot
subsist.

Number not in bodies, it being the creature of the mind, depending
entirely on its consideration, & being more or less as the mind
pleases(215).

Mem. Quære whether extension be equally a sensation with colour? The mob
use not the word extension. ’Tis an abstract term of the Schools.

(M363) Round figure a perception or sensation in the mind, but in the body
is a power. L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8.

Mem. Mark well the later part of the last cited section.

Solids, or any other tangible things, are no otherwise seen than colours
felt by the German Count.

(M364) “Of” and “thing” causes of mistake.

The visible point of he who has microscopical eyes will not be greater or
less than mine.

Qu. Whether the propositions & even axioms of geometry do not divers of
them suppose the existence of lines &c. without the mind?

(M365) Whether motion be the measure of duration? Locke, b. 2. c. 14. s.
19.

Lines & points conceiv’d as terminations different ideas from those
conceiv’d absolutely.

Every position alters a line.

(M366) Blind man at 1st would not take colours to be without his mind; but
colours would seem to be in the same place with the coloured extension:
therefore extension wd not seem to be without the mind.

All visible concentric circles whereof the eye is the centre are
absolutely equal.

Infinite number—why absurd—not rightly solv’d by Locke(216).

Qu. how ’tis possible we should see flats or right lines?

Qu. why the moon appears greatest in the horizon(217)?

Qu. why we see things erect when painted inverted(218)?

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(M367) Question put by Mr. Deering touching the thief and paradise.

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(M368) Matter tho’ allowed to exist may be no greater than a pin’s head.

Motion is proportionable to space described in given time.

Velocity not proportionable to space describ’d in given time.

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(M369) No active power but the Will: therefore Matter, if it exists,
affects us not(219).

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Magnitude when barely taken for the _ratio partium extra partes_, or
rather for co-existence & succession, without considering the parts
co-existing & succeeding, is infinitely, or rather indefinitely, or not at
all perhaps, divisible, because it is itself infinite or indefinite. But
definite, determined magnitudes, i.e. lines or surfaces consisting of
points whereby (together wth distance & position) they are determin’d, are
resoluble into those points.

Again. Magnitude taken for co-existence and succession is not all
divisible, but is one simple idea.

Simple ideas include no parts nor relations—hardly separated and
considered in themselves—nor yet rightly singled by any author. Instance
in power, red, extension, &c.

(M370) Space not imaginable by any idea received from sight—not imaginable
without body moving. Not even then necessarily existing (I speak of
infinite space)—for wt the body has past may be conceiv’d annihilated.

(M371) Qu. What can we see beside colours? what can we feel beside hard,
soft, cold, warm, pleasure, pain?

Qu. Why not taste & smell extension?

Qu. Why not tangible & visible extensions thought heterogeneous
extensions, so well as gustable & olefactible perceptions thought
heterogeneous perceptions? or at least why not as heterogeneous as blue &
red?

Moon wn horizontal does not appear bigger as to visible extension than at
other times; hence difficulties and disputes about things seen under equal
angles &c. cease.

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All _potentiæ_ alike indifferent.

A. B. Wt does he mean by his _potentia_? Is it the will, desire, person,
or all or neither, or sometimes one, sometimes t’other?

No agent can be conceiv’d indifferent as to pain or pleasure.

_We_ do not, properly speaking, in a strict philosophical sense, make
objects more or less pleasant; but the laws of nature do that.

(M372) A finite intelligence might have foreseen 4 thousand years agoe the
place and circumstances, even the most minute & trivial, of my present
existence. This true on supposition that uneasiness determines the will.

(M373) Doctrines of liberty, prescience, &c. explained by billiard balls.

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Wt judgement would he make of uppermost and lowermost who had always seen
through an inverting glass?

All lines subtending the same optic angle congruent (as is evident by an
easy experiment); therefore they are equal.

We have not pure simple ideas of blue, red, or any other colour (except
perhaps black) because all bodies reflect heterogeneal light.

Qu. Whether this be true as to sounds (& other sensations), there being,
perhaps, rays of air wch will onely exhibit one particular sound, as rays
of light one particular colour.

Colours not definable, not because they are pure unmixt thoughts, but
because we cannot easily distinguish & separate the thoughts they include,
or because we want names for their component ideas.

(M374) By Soul is meant onely a complex idea, made up of existence,
willing, & perception in a large sense. Therefore it is known and it may
be defined.

We cannot possibly conceive any active power but the Will.

(M375) In moral matters men think (’tis true) that they are free; but this
freedom is only the freedom of doing as they please; wch freedom is
consecutive to the Will, respecting only the operative faculties(220).

Men impute their actions to themselves because they will’d them, and that
not out of ignorance, but whereas they have the consequences of them,
whether good or bad.

This does not prove men to be indifferent in respect of desiring.

If anything is meant by the _potentia_ of A. B. it must be desire; but I
appeal to any man if his desire be indifferent, or (to speak more to the
purpose) whether he himself be indifferent in respect of wt he desires
till after he has desired it; for as for desire itself, or the faculty of
desiring, that is indifferent, as all other faculties are.

Actions leading to heaven are in my power if I will them: therefore I will
will them.

Qu. concerning the procession of Wills _in infinitum_.

Herein mathematiques have the advantage over metaphysiques and morality.
Their definitions, being of words not yet known to ye learner, are not
disputed; but words in metaphysiques & morality, being mostly known to
all, the definitions of them may chance to be contraverted.

(M376) The short jejune way in mathematiques will not do in metaphysiques
& ethiques: for yt about mathematical propositions men have no prejudices,
no anticipated opinions to be encounter’d; they not having yet thought on
such matters. ’Tis not so in the other 2 mentioned sciences. A man must
[there] not onely demonstrate the truth, he must also vindicate it against
scruples and established opinions which contradict it. In short, the dry,
strigose(221), rigid way will not suffice. He must be more ample &
copious, else his demonstration, tho’ never so exact, will not go down
with most.

Extension seems to consist in variety of homogeneal thoughts co-existing
without mixture.

Or rather visible extension seems to be the co-existence of colour in the
mind.

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(M377) Enquiring and judging are actions which depend on the operative
faculties, wch depend on the Will, wch is determin’d by some uneasiness;
ergo &c. Suppose an agent wch is finite perfectly indifferent, and as to
desiring not determin’d by any prospect or consideration of good, I say,
this agent cannot do an action morally good. Hence ’tis evident the
suppositions of A. B. are insignificant.

Extension, motion, time, number are no simple ideas, but include
succession to them, which seems to be a simple idea.

Mem. To enquire into the angle of contact, & into fluxions, &c.

The sphere of vision is equal whether I look onely in my hand or on the
open firmament, for 1st, in both cases the retina is full; 2d, the
radius’s of both spheres are equall or rather nothing at all to the sight;
3dly, equal numbers of points in one & t’other.

In the Barrovian case purblind would judge aright.

Why the horizontal moon greater?

Why objects seen erect?

(M378) To what purpose certain figure and texture connected wth other
perceptions?

Men estimate magnitudes both by angles and distance. Blind at 1st could
not know distance; or by pure sight, abstracting from experience of
connexion of sight and tangible ideas, we can’t perceive distance.
Therefore by pure sight we cannot perceive or judge of extension.

Qu. Whether it be possible to enlarge our sight or make us see at once
more, or more points, than we do, by diminishing the _punctum visibile_
below 30 minutes?

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(M379) Speech metaphorical more than we imagine; insensible things, &
their modes, circumstances, &c. being exprest for the most part by words
borrow’d from things sensible. Hence manyfold mistakes.

(M380) The grand mistake is that we think we have _ideas_ of the
operations of our minds(222). Certainly this metaphorical dress is an
argument we have not.

Qu. How can our idea of God be complex & compounded, when his essence is
simple & uncompounded? V. Locke, b. 2. c. 23. s. 35(223).

(M381) The impossibility of defining or discoursing clearly of such things
proceeds from the fault & scantiness of language, as much perhaps as from
obscurity & confusion of thought. Hence I may clearly and fully understand
my own soul, extension, &c., and not be able to define them(224).

(M382) The substance _wood_ a collection of simple ideas. See Locke, b. 2.
c. 26. s. 1.

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Mem. concerning strait lines seen to look at them through an orbicular
lattice.

Qu. Whether possible that those visible ideas wch are now connected with
greater tangible extensions could have been connected with lesser tangible
extensions,—there seeming to be no _necessary_ connexion between those
thoughts?

Speculums seem to diminish or enlarge objects not by altering the optique
angle, but by altering the apparent distance.

Hence Qu. if blind would think things diminish’d by convexes, or enlarg’d
by concaves?

(M383) Motion not one idea. It cannot be perceived at once.

(M384) Mem. To allow existence to colours in the dark, persons not
thinking, &c.—but not an actual existence. ’Tis prudent to correct men’s
mistakes without altering their language. This makes truth glide into
their souls insensibly(225).

(M385) Colours in ye dark do exist really, i.e. were there light; or as
soon as light comes, we shall see them, provided we open our eyes; and
that whether we will or no.

How the retina is fill’d by a looking-glass?

Convex speculums have the same effect wth concave glasses.

Qu. Whether concave speculums have the same effect wth convex glasses?

The reason why convex speculums diminish & concave magnify not yet fully
assign’d by any writer I know.

Qu. Why not objects seen confus’d when that they seem inverted through a
convex lens?

Qu. How to make a glass or speculum which shall magnify or diminish by
altering the distance without altering the angle?

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No identity (other than perfect likeness) in any individuals besides
persons(226).

(M386) As well make tastes, smells, fear, shame, wit, virtue, vice, & all
thoughts move wth local motion as immaterial spirit.

On account of my doctrine, the identity of finite substances must consist
in something else than continued existence, or relation to determined time
& place of beginning to exist—the existence of our thoughts (which being
combined make all substances) being frequently interrupted, & they having
divers beginnings & endings.

(M387) Qu. Whether identity of person consists not in the Will?

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No necessary connexion between great or little optique angles and great or
little extension.

Distance is not perceived: optique angles are not perceived. How then is
extension perceiv’d by sight?

Apparent magnitude of a line is not simply as the optique angle, but
directly as the optique angle, & reciprocally as the confusion, &c. (i.e.
the other sensations, or want of sensation, that attend near vision).
Hence great mistakes in assigning the magnifying power of glasses. Vid.
Moly[neux], p. 182.

Glasses or speculums may perhaps magnify or lessen without altering the
optique angle, but to no purpose.

Qu. Whether purblind would think objects so much diminished by a convex
speculum as another?

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Qu. Wherein consists identity of person? Not in actual consciousness; for
then I’m not the same person I was this day twelvemonth but while I think
of wt I then did. Not in potential; for then all persons may be the same,
for ought we know.

Mem. Story of Mr. Deering’s aunt.

Two sorts of potential consciousness—natural & præternatural. In the last
§ but one, I mean the latter.

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If by magnitude be meant the proportion anything bears to a determined
tangible extension, as inch, foot, &c., this, ’tis plain, cannot be
properly & _per se_ perceived by sight; & as for determin’d visible
inches, feet, &c., there can be no such thing obtain’d by the meer act of
seeing—abstracted from experience, &c.

The greatness _per se_ perceivable by the sight is onely the proportion
any visible appearance bears to the others seen at the same time; or
(which is the same thing) the proportion of any particular part of the
visual orb to the whole. But mark that we perceive not it is an orb, any
more than a plain, but by reasoning.

This is all the greatness the pictures have _per se_.

Hereby meere seeing cannot at all judge of the extension of any object, it
not availing to know the object makes such a part of a sphærical surface
except we also know the greatness of the sphærical surface; for a point
may subtend the same angle wth a mile, & so create as great an image in
the retina, i.e. take up as much of the orb.

Men judge of magnitude by faintness and vigorousness, by distinctness and
confusion, with some other circumstances, by great & little angles.

Hence ’tis plain the ideas of sight which are now connected with greatness
might have been connected wth smallness, and vice versâ: there being no
necessary reason why great angles, faintness, and distinctness without
straining, should stand for great extension, any more than a great angle,
vigorousness, and confusion(227).

My end is not to deliver metaphysiques altogether in a general scholastic
way, but in some measure to accommodate them to the sciences, and shew how
they may be useful in optiques, geometry, &c.(228)

Qu. Whether _per se_ proportion of visible magnitudes be perceivable by
sight? This is put on account of distinctness and confusedness, the act of
perception seeming to be as great in viewing any point of the visual orb
distinctly, as in viewing the whole confusedly.

Mem. To correct my language & make it as philosophically nice as
possible—to avoid giving handle.

If men could without straining alter the convexity of their crystallines,
they might magnify or diminish the apparent diameters of objects, the same
optic angle remaining.

The bigness in one sense of the pictures in the fund is not determin’d;
for the nearer a man views them, the images of them (as well as other
objects) will take up the greater room in the fund of his eye.

Mem. Introduction to contain the design of the whole, the nature and
manner of demonstrating, &c.

Two sorts of bigness accurately to be distinguished, they being perfectly
and _toto cælo_ different—the one the proportion that any one appearance
has to the sum of appearances perceived at the same time wth it, wch is
proportional to angles, or, if a surface, to segments of sphærical
surfaces;—the other is tangible bigness.

Qu. wt would happen if the sphæræ of the retina were enlarged or
diminish’d?

We think by the meer act of vision we perceive distance from us, yet we do
not; also that we perceive solids, yet we do not; also the inequality of
things seen under the same angle, yet we do not.

Why may I not add, We think we see extension by meer vision? Yet we do
not.

Extension seems to be perceived by the eye, as thought by the ear.

As long as the same angle determines the _minimum visibile_ to two
persons, no different conformation of the eye can make a different
appearance of magnitude in the same thing. But, it being possible to try
the angle, we may certainly know whether the same thing appears
differently big to two persons on account of their eyes.

If a man could see ... objects would appear larger to him than to another;
hence there is another sort of purely visible magnitude beside the
proportion any appearance bears to the visual sphere, viz. its proportion
to the M. V.

Were there but one and the same language in the world, and did children
speak it naturally as soon as born, and were it not in the power of men to
conceal their thoughts or deceive others, but that there were an
inseparable connexion between words & thoughts, so yt _posito uno, ponitur
alterum_ by the laws of nature; Qu. would not men think they heard
thoughts as much as that they see extension(229)?

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All our ideas are adæquate: our knowledge of the laws of nature is not
perfect & adæquate(230).

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(M388) Men are in the right in judging their simple ideas to be in the
things themselves. Certainly heat & colour is as much without the mind as
figure, motion, time, &c.

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We know many things wch we want words to express. Great things
discoverable upon this principle. For want of considering wch divers men
have run into sundry mistakes, endeavouring to set forth their knowledge
by sounds; wch foundering them, they thought the defect was in their
knowledge, while in truth it was in their language.

Qu. Whether the sensations of sight arising from a man’s head be liker the
sensations of touch proceeding from thence or from his legs?

Or, Is it onely the constant & long association of ideas entirely
different that makes me judge them the same?

Wt I see is onely variety of colours & light. Wt I feel is hard or soft,
hot or cold, rough or smooth, &c. Wt resemblance have these thoughts with
those?

A picture painted wth great variety of colours affects the touch in one
uniform manner. I cannot therefore conclude that because I see 2, I shall
feel 2; because I see angles or inequalities, I shall feel angles or
inequalities. How therefore can I—before experience teaches me—know that
the visible leggs are (because 2) connected wth the tangible ones, or the
visible head (because one) connected wth the tangible head(231)?

(M389) All things by us conceivable are—

1st, thoughts;

2ndly, powers to receive thoughts;

3rdly, powers to cause thoughts; neither of all wch can possibly exist in
an inert, senseless thing.

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An object wthout a glass may be seen under as great an angle as wth a
glass. A glass therefore does not magnify the appearance by the angle.

(M390) Absurd that men should know the soul by idea—ideas being inert,
thoughtless. Hence Malbranch confuted(232).

I saw gladness in his looks. I saw shame in his face. So I see figure or
distance.

Qu. Why things seen confusedly thro’ a convex glass are not magnify’d?

Tho’ we should judge the horizontal moon to be more distant, why should we
therefore judge her to be greater? What connexion betwixt the same angle,
further distant, and greaterness?

(M391) My doctrine affects the essences of the Corpuscularians.

Perfect circles, &c. exist not without (for none can so exist, whether
perfect or no), but in the mind.

Lines thought divisible _ad infinitum_, because they are suppos’d to exist
without. Also because they are thought the same when view’d by the naked
eye, & wn view’d thro’ magnifying glasses.

They who knew not glasses had not so fair a pretence for the divisibility
_ad infinitum_.

No idea of circle, &c. in abstract.

Metaphysiques as capable of certainty as ethiques, but not so capable to
be demonstrated in a geometrical way; because men see clearer & have not
so many prejudices in ethiques.

Visible ideas come into the mind very distinct. So do tangible ideas.
Hence extension seen & felt. Sounds, tastes, &c. are more blended.

Qu. Why not extension intromitted by the taste in conjunction with the
smell—seeing tastes & smells are very distinct ideas?

Blew and yellow particles mixt, while they exhibit an uniform green, their
extension is not perceiv’d; but as soon as they exhibit distinct
sensations of blew and yellow, then their extension is perceiv’d.

Distinct perception of visible ideas not so perfect as of
tangible—tangible ideas being many at once equally vivid. Hence
heterogeneous extension.

Object. Why a mist increases not the apparent magnitude of an object, in
proportion to the faintness(233)?

Mem. To enquire touching the squaring of the circle, &c.

That wch seems smooth & round to the touch may to sight seem quite
otherwise. Hence no _necessary_ connexion betwixt visible ideas and
tangible ones.

In geometry it is not prov’d that an inch is divisible _ad infinitum_.

Geometry not conversant about our compleat determined ideas of figures,
for these are not divisible _ad infinitum_.

Particular circles may be squar’d, for the circumference being given a
diameter may be found betwixt wch & the true there is not any perceivable
difference. Therefore there is no difference—extension being a perception;
& a perception not perceivd is contradiction, nonsense, nothing. In vain
to alledge the difference may be seen by magnifying-glasses, for in yt
case there is (’tis true) a difference perceiv’d, but not between the same
ideas, but others much greater, entirely different therefrom(234).

Any visible circle possibly perceivable of any man may be squar’d, by the
common way, most accurately; or even perceivable by any other being, see
he never so acute, i.e. never so small an arch of a circle; this being wt
makes the distinction between acute & dull sight, and not the m.v., as men
are perhaps apt to think.

The same is true of any tangible circle. Therefore further enquiry of
accuracy in squaring or other curves is perfectly needless, & time thrown
away.

Mem. To press wt last precedes more homely, & so think on’t again.

A meer line or distance is not made up of points, does not exist, cannot
be imagin’d, or have an idea framed thereof,—no more than meer colour
without extension(235).

Mem. A great difference between _considering_ length wthout breadth, &
having an _idea_ of, or _imagining_, length without breadth(236).

Malbranch out touching the crystallines diminishing, L. 1. c. 6.

’Tis possible (& perhaps not very improbable, that is, is sometimes so) we
may have the greatest pictures from the least objects. Therefore no
necessary connexion betwixt visible & tangible ideas. These ideas, viz.
great relation to _sphæra visualis_, or to the m. v. (wch is all that I
would have meant by having a greater picture) & faintness, might possibly
have stood for or signify’d small tangible extensions. Certainly the
greater relation to s. v. and m. v. does frequently, in that men view
little objects near the eye.

Malbranch out in asserting we cannot possibly know whether there are 2 men
in the world that see a thing of the same bigness. V. L. 1. c. 6.

Diagonal of particular square commensurable wth its side, they both
containing a certain number of m. v.

I do not think that surfaces consist of lines, i.e. meer distances. Hence
perhaps may be solid that sophism wch would prove the oblique line equal
to the perpendicular between 2 parallels.

Suppose an inch represent a mile. 1/1000 of an inch is nothing, but 1/1000
of ye mile represented is something: therefore 1/1000 an inch, tho’
nothing, is not to be neglected, because it represents something, i.e.
1/1000 of a mile.

Particular determin’d lines are not divisible _ad infinitum_, but lines as
us’d by geometers are so, they not being determin’d to any particular
finite number of points. Yet a geometer (he knows not why) will very
readily say he can demonstrate an inch line is divisible _ad infinitum_.

A body moving in the optique axis not perceiv’d to move by sight merely,
and without experience. There is (’tis true) a successive change of
ideas,—it seems less and less. But, besides this, there is no visible
change of place.

Mem. To enquire most diligently concerning the incommensurability of
diagonale & side—whether it does not go on the supposition of units being
divisible _ad infinitum_, i.e. of the extended thing spoken of being
divisible _ad infinitum_ (unit being nothing; also v. Barrow, Lect.
Geom.), & so the infinite indivisibility deduced therefrom is a _petitio
principii_?

The diagonal is commensurable with the side.

(M392) From Malbranch, Locke, & my first arguings it can’t be prov’d that
extension is not in matter. From Locke’s arguings it can’t be proved that
colours are not in bodies.

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Mem. That I was distrustful at 8 years old; and consequently by nature
disposed for these new doctrines(237).

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Qu. How can a line consisting of an unequal number of points be divisible
[_ad infinitum_] in two equals?

Mem. To discuss copiously how & why we do not see the pictures.

(M393) Allowing extensions to exist in matter, we cannot know even their
proportions—contrary to Malbranch.

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(M394) I wonder how men cannot see a truth so obvious, as that extension
cannot exist without a thinking substance.

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(M395) Species of all sensible things made by the mind. This prov’d either
by turning men’s eyes into magnifyers or diminishers.

Yr m. v. is, suppose, less than mine. Let a 3rd person have perfect ideas
of both our m. vs. His idea of my m. v. contains his idea of yours, &
somewhat more. Therefore ’tis made up of parts: therefore his idea of my
m. v. is not perfect or just, which diverts the hypothesis.

Qu. Whether a m. v. or t. be extended?

Mem. The strange errours men run into about the pictures. We think them
small because should a man be suppos’d to see them their pictures would
take up but little room in the fund of his eye.

It seems all lines can’t be bisected in 2 equall parts. Mem. To examine
how the geometers prove the contrary.

’Tis impossible there should be a m. v. less than mine. If there be, mine
may become equal to it (because they are homogeneous) by detraction of
some part or parts. But it consists not of parts, ergo &c.

Suppose inverting perspectives bound to ye eyes of a child, & continu’d to
the years of manhood—when he looks up, or turns up his head, he shall
behold wt we call _under_. Qu. What would he think of _up_ and
_down_(238)?

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(M396) I wonder not at my sagacity in discovering the obvious tho’ amazing
truth. I rather wonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding it out
before—’tis no witchcraft to see.

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(M397) Our simple ideas are so many simple thoughts or perceptions; a
perception cannot exist without a thing to perceive it, or any longer than
it is perceiv’d; a thought cannot be in an unthinking thing; one uniform
simple thought can be like to nothing but another uniform simple thought.
Complex thoughts or ideas are onely an assemblage of simple ideas, and can
be the image of nothing, or like unto nothing, but another assemblage of
simple ideas, &c.

(M398) The Cartesian opinion of light & colours &c. is orthodox enough
even in their eyes who think the Scripture expression may favour the
common opinion. Why may not mine also? But there is nothing in Scripture
that can possibly be wrested to make against me, but, perhaps, many things
for me.

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(M399) Bodies &c. do exist whether we think of ’em or no, they being taken
in a twofold sense—


    1. Collections of thoughts.

    2. Collections of powers to cause those thoughts.


These later exist; tho’ perhaps _a parte rei_ it may be one simple perfect
power.

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Qu. whether the extension of a plain, look’d at straight and slantingly,
survey’d minutely & distinctly, or in the bulk and confusedly at once, be
the same? N. B. The plain is suppos’d to keep the same distance.

The ideas we have by a successive, curious inspection of ye minute parts
of a plain do not seem to make up the extension of that plain view’d &
consider’d all together.

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Ignorance in some sort requisite in ye person that should disown the
Principle.

Thoughts do most properly signify, or are mostly taken for the interior
operations of the mind, wherein the mind is active. Those yt obey not the
acts of volition, and in wch the mind is passive, are more properly call’d
sensations or perceptions. But yt is all a case of words.

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Extension being the collection or distinct co-existence of minimums, i.e.
of perceptions intromitted by sight or touch, it cannot be conceiv’d
without a perceiving substance.

(M400) Malbranch does not prove that the figures & extensions exist not
when they are not perceiv’d. Consequently he does not prove, nor can it be
prov’d on his principles, that the sorts are the work of the mind, and
onely in the mind.

(M401) The great argument to prove that extension cannot be in an
unthinking substance is, that it cannot be conceiv’d distinct from or
without all tangible or visible quality.

(M402) Tho’ matter be extended wth an indefinite extension, yet the mind
makes the sorts. They were not before the mind perceiving them, & even now
they are not without the mind. Houses, trees, &c., tho’ indefinitely
extended matter do exist, are not without the mind.

(M403) The great danger of making extension exist without the mind is,
that if it does it must be acknowledg’d infinite, immutable, eternal,
&c.;—wch will be to make either God extended (wch I think dangerous), or
an eternal, immutable, infinite, increate Being beside God.

(M404) Finiteness of our minds no excuse for the geometers.

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(M405) The Principle easily proved by plenty of arguments _ad absurdum_.

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The twofold signification of Bodies, viz.


    1. Combinations of thoughts(239);

    2. Combinations of powers to raise thoughts.


These, I say, in conjunction with homogeneous particles, may solve much
better the objections from the creation than the supposition that Matter
does exist. Upon wch supposition I think they cannot be solv’d.

Bodies taken for powers do exist wn not perceiv’d; but this existence is
not actual(240). Wn I say a power exists, no more is meant than that if in
the light I open my eyes, and look that way, I shall see it, i.e. the
body, &c.

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Qu. whether blind before sight may not have an idea of light and colours &
visible extension, after the same manner as we perceive them wth eyes
shut, or in the dark—not imagining, but seeing after a sort?

Visible extension cannot be conceiv’d added to tangible extension. Visible
and tangible points can’t make one sum. Therefore these extensions are
heterogeneous.

A probable method propos’d whereby one may judge whether in near vision
there is a greater distance between the crystalline & fund than usual, or
whether the crystalline be onely render’d more convex. If the former, then
the v. s. is enlarg’d, & the m. v. corresponds to less than 30 minutes, or
wtever it us’d to correspond to.

Stated measures, inches, feet, &c., are tangible not visible extensions.

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(M406) Locke, More, Raphson, &c. seem to make God extended. ’Tis
nevertheless of great use to religion to take extension out of our idea of
God, & put a power in its place. It seems dangerous to suppose extension,
wch is manifestly inert, in God.

(M407) But, say you, The thought or perception I call extension is not
itself in an unthinking thing or Matter—but it is like something wch is in
Matter. Well, say I, Do you apprehend or conceive wt you say extension is
like unto, or do you not? If the later, how know you they are alike? How
can you compare any things besides your own ideas? If the former, it must
be an idea, i.e. perception, thought, or sensation—wch to be in an
unperceiving thing is a contradiction(241).

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(M408) I abstain from all flourish & powers of words & figures, using a
great plainness & simplicity of simile, having oft found it difficult to
understand those that use the lofty & Platonic, or subtil & scholastique
strain(242).

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(M409) Whatsoever has any of our ideas in it must perceive; it being that
very having, that passive recognition of ideas, that denominates the mind
perceiving—that being the very essence of perception, or that wherein
perception consists.

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The faintness wch alters the appearance of the horizontal moon, rather
proceeds from the quantity or grossness of the intermediate atmosphere,
than from any change of distance, wch is perhaps not considerable enough
to be a total cause, but may be a partial of the phenomenon. N. B. The
visual angle is less in cause the horizon.

We judge of the distance of bodies, as by other things, so also by the
situation of their pictures in the eye, or (wch is the same thing)
according as they appear higher or lower. Those wch seem higher are
farther off.

Qu. why we see objects greater in ye dark? whether this can be solv’d by
any but my Principles?

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(M410) The reverse of ye Principle introduced scepticism.

(M411) N. B. On my Principles there is a reality: there are things: there
is a _rerum natura_.

Mem. The surds, doubling the cube, &c.

We think that if just made to see we should judge of the distance &
magnitude of things as we do now; but this is false. So also wt we think
so positively of the situation of objects.

Hays’s, Keill’s(243), &c. method of proving the infinitesimals of the 3d
order absurd, & perfectly contradictions.

Angles of contact, & verily all angles comprehended by a right line & a
curve, cannot be measur’d, the arches intercepted not being similar.

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The danger of expounding the H. Trinity by extension.

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(M412) Qu. Why should the magnitude seen at a near distance be deem’d the
true one rather than that seen at a farther distance? Why should the sun
be thought many 1000 miles rather than one foot in diameter—both being
equally apparent diameters? Certainly men judg’d of the sun not in
himself, but wth relation to themselves.

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(M413) 4 Principles whereby to answer objections, viz.


    1. Bodies do really exist, tho’ not perceiv’d by us.

    2. There is a law or course of nature.

    3. Language & knowledge are all about ideas; words stand for
    nothing else.

    4. Nothing can be a proof against one side of a contradiction that
    bears equally hard upon the other(244).


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What shall I say? Dare I pronounce the admired ἀκρίβεια mathematica, that
darling of the age, a trifle?

Most certainly no finite extension divisible _ad infinitum_.

(M414) Difficulties about concentric circles.

(M415) Mem. To examine & accurately discuss the scholium of the 8th
definition of Mr. Newton’s(245) Principia.

Ridiculous in the mathematicians to despise Sense.

Qu. Is it not impossible there should be abstract general ideas?

All ideas come from without. They are all particular. The mind, ’tis true,
can consider one thing wthout another; but then, considered asunder, they
make not 2 ideas. Both together can make but one, as for instance colour &
visible extension(246).

The end of a mathematical line is nothing. Locke’s argument that the end
of his pen is black or white concludes nothing here.

Mem. Take care how you pretend to define extension, for fear of the
geometers.

Qu. Why difficult to imagine a minimum? Ans. Because we are not used to
take notice of ’em singly; they not being able singly to pleasure or hurt
us, thereby to deserve our regard.

Mem. To prove against Keill yt the infinite divisibility of matter makes
the half have an equal number of equal parts with the whole.

Mem. To examine how far the not comprehending infinites may be admitted as
a plea.

Qu. Why may not the mathematicians reject all the extensions below the M.
as well as the dd, &c., wch are allowed to be something, & consequently
may be magnify’d by glasses into inches, feet, &c., as well as the
quantities next below the M.?

Big, little, and number are the works of the mind. How therefore can ye
extension you suppose in Matter be big or little? How can it consist of
any number of points?

(M416) Mem. Strictly to remark L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8.

Schoolmen compar’d with the mathematicians.

Extension is blended wth tangible or visible ideas, & by the mind
præscinded therefrom.

Mathematiques made easy—the scale does almost all. The scale can tell us
the subtangent in ye parabola is double the abscisse.

Wt need of the utmost accuracy wn the mathematicians own _in rerum natura_
they cannot find anything corresponding wth their nice ideas.

One should endeavour to find a progression by trying wth the scale.

Newton’s fluxions needless. Anything below an M might serve for Leibnitz’s
Differential Calculus.

How can they hang together so well, since there are in them (I mean the
mathematiques) so many _contradictoriæ argutiæ_. V. Barrow, Lect.

A man may read a book of Conics with ease, knowing how to try if they are
right. He may take ’em on the credit of the author.

Where’s the need of certainty in such trifles? The thing that makes it so
much esteem’d in them is that we are thought not capable of getting it
elsewhere. But we may in ethiques and metaphysiques.

The not leading men into mistakes no argument for the truth of the
infinitesimals. They being nothings may perhaps do neither good nor harm,
except wn they are taken for something, & then the contradiction begets a
contradiction.

a + 500 nothings = a + 50 nothings—an innocent silly truth.

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(M417) My doctrine excellently corresponds wth the creation. I suppose no
matter, no stars, sun, &c. to have existed before(247).

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It seems all circles are not similar figures, there not being the same
proportion betwixt all circumferences & their diameters.

When a small line upon paper represents a mile, the mathematicians do not
calculate the 1/10000 of the paper line, they calculate the 1/10000 of the
mile. ’Tis to this they have regard, ’tis of this they think; if they
think or have any idea at all. The inch perhaps might represent to their
imaginations the mile, but ye 1/10000 of the inch cannot be made to
represent anything, it not being imaginable.

But the 1/10000 of a mile being somewhat, they think the 1/10000 inch is
somewhat: wn they think of yt they imagine they think on this.

3 faults occur in the arguments of the mathematicians for divisibility _ad
infinitum_—


    1. They suppose extension to exist without the mind, or not
    perceived.

    2. They suppose that we have an idea of length without
    breadth(248), or that length without breadth does exist.

    3. That unity is divisible _ad infinitum_.


To suppose a M. S. divisible is to say there are distinguishable ideas
where there are no distinguishable ideas.

The M. S. is not near so inconceivable as the _signum in magnitudine
individuum_.

Mem. To examine the math, about their _point_—what it is—something or
nothing; and how it differs from the M. S.

All might be demonstrated by a new method of indivisibles, easier perhaps
and juster than that of Cavalierius(249).

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(M418) Unperceivable perception a contradiction.

(M419) Proprietates reales rerum omnium in Deo, tam corporum quum
spirituum continentur. Clerici, Log. cap. 8.

Let my adversaries answer any one of mine, I’ll yield. If I don’t answer
every one of theirs, I’ll yield.

The loss of the excuse(250) may hurt Transubstantiation, but not the
Trinity.

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We need not strain our imaginations to conceive such little things. Bigger
may do as well for infinitesimals, since the integer must be an infinite.

Evident yt wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite.

Qu. Whether extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of?

Nor can it be objected that we reason about numbers, wch are only words &
not ideas(251); for these infinitesimals are words of no use, if not
supposed to stand for ideas.

Axiom. No reasoning about things whereof we have no idea. Therefore no
reasoning about infinitesimals.

Much less infinitesimals of infinitesimals, &c.

Axiom. No word to be used without an idea.

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(M420) Our eyes and senses inform us not of the existence of matter or
ideas existing without the mind(252). They are not to be blam’d for the
mistake.

I defy any man to assign a right line equal to a paraboloid, but wn look’d
at thro’ a microscope they may appear unequall.

(M421) Newton’s harangue amounts to no more than that gravity is
proportional to gravity.

One can’t imagine an extended thing without colour. V. Barrow, L. G.

(M422) Men allow colours, sounds, &c.(253) not to exist without the mind,
tho’ they have no demonstration they do not. Why may they not allow my
Principle with a demonstration?

(M423) Qu. Whether I had not better allow colours to exist without the
mind; taking the mind for the active thing wch I call “I,” “myself”—yt
seems to be distinct from the understanding(254)?

(M424) The taking extension to be distinct from all other tangible &
visible qualities, & to make an idea by itself, has made men take it to be
without the mind.

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I see no wit in any of them but Newton. The rest are meer triflers, mere
Nihilarians.

The folly of the mathematicians in not judging of sensations by their
senses. Reason was given us for nobler uses.

(M425) Keill’s filling the world with a mite(255). This follows from the
divisibility of extension _ad infinitum_.

Extension, or length without breadth, seems to be nothing save the number
of points that lie betwixt any 2 points(256). It seems to consist in meer
proportion—meer reference of the mind.

To what purpose is it to determine the forms of glasses geometrically?

Sir Isaac(257) owns his book could have been demonstrated on the
supposition of indivisibles.

(M426) Innumerable vessels of matter. V. Cheyne.

I’ll not admire the mathematicians. ’Tis wt any one of common sense might
attain to by repeated acts. I prove it by experience. I am but one of
human sense, and I &c.

Mathematicians have some of them good parts—the more is the pity. Had they
not been mathematicians they had been good for nothing. They were such
fools they knew not how to employ their parts.

The mathematicians could not so much as tell wherein truth & certainty
consisted, till Locke told ’em(258). I see the best of ’em talk of light
and colours as if wthout the mind.

By _thing_ I either mean ideas or that wch has ideas(259).

Nullum præclarum ingenium unquam fuit magnus mathematicus. Scaliger(260).

A great genius cannot stoop to such trifles & minutenesses as they
consider.

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1. (261)All significant words stand for ideas(262).

2. All knowledge about our ideas.

3. All ideas come from without or from within.

4. If from without it must be by the senses, & they are call’d
sensations(263).

5. If from within they are the operations of the mind, & are called
thoughts.

6. No sensation can be in a senseless thing.

7. No thought can be in a thoughtless thing.

8. All our ideas are either sensations or thoughts(264), by 3, 4, 5.

9. None of our ideas can be in a thing wch is both thoughtless &
senseless(265), by 6, 7, 8.

10. The bare passive recognition or having of ideas is called perception.

11. Whatever has in it an idea, tho’ it be never so passive, tho’ it exert
no manner of act about it, yet it must perceive. 10.

12. All ideas either are simple ideas, or made up of simple ideas.

13. That thing wch is like unto another thing must agree wth it in one or
more simple ideas.

14. Whatever is like a simple idea must either be another simple idea of
the same sort, or contain a simple idea of the same sort. 13.

15. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 14. Another
demonstration of the same thing.

16. Two things cannot be said to be alike or unlike till they have been
compar’d.

17. Comparing is the viewing two ideas together, & marking wt they agree
in and wt they disagree in.

18. The mind can compare nothing but its own ideas. 17.

19. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 16, 18.

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N. B. Other arguments innumerable, both _a priori_ & _a posteriori_, drawn
from all the sciences, from the clearest, plainest, most obvious truths,
whereby to demonstrate the Principle, i.e. that neither our ideas, nor
anything like our ideas, can possibly be in an unperceiving thing(266).

N. B. Not one argument of any kind wtsoever, certain or probable, _a
priori_ or _a posteriori_, from any art or science, from either sense or
reason, against it.

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Mathematicians have no right idea of angles. Hence angles of contact
wrongly apply’d to prove extension divisible _ad infinitum_.

We have got the Algebra of pure intelligences.

We can prove Newton’s propositions more accurately, more easily, & upon
truer principles than himself(267).

Barrow owns the downfall of geometry. However I’ll endeavour to rescue
it—so far as it is useful, or real, or imaginable, or intelligible. But
for _the nothings_, I’ll leave them to their admirers.

I’ll teach any one the whole course of mathematiques in 1/100 part the
time that another will.

Much banter got from the prefaces of the mathematicians.

(M427) Newton says colour is in the subtil matter. Hence Malbranch proves
nothing, or is mistaken, in asserting there is onely figure & motion.

I can square the circle, &c.; they cannot. Wch goes on the best
principles?

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The Billys(268) use a finite visible line for an 1/m.

(M428) Marsilius Ficinus—his appearing the moment he died solv’d by my
idea of time(269).

(M429) The philosophers lose their abstract or unperceived Matter. The
mathematicians lose their insensible sensations. The profane [lose] their
extended Deity. Pray wt do the rest of mankind lose? As for bodies, &c.,
we have them still(270).

N. B. The future nat. philosoph. & mathem. get vastly by the bargain(271).

(M430) There are men who say there are insensible extensions. There are
others who say the wall is not white, the fire is not hot, &c. We Irishmen
cannot attain to these truths.

The mathematicians think there are insensible lines. About these they
harangue: these cut in a point at all angles: these are divisible _ad
infinitum_. We Irishmen can conceive no such lines.

The mathematicians talk of wt they call a point. This, they say, is not
altogether nothing, nor is it downright something. Now we Irishmen are apt
to think something(272) & nothing are next neighbours.

Engagements to P.(273) on account of ye Treatise that grew up under his
eye; on account also of his approving my harangue. Glorious for P. to be
the protector of usefull tho’ newly discover’d truths.

How could I venture thoughts into the world before I knew they would be of
use to the world? and how could I know that till I had try’d how they
suited other men’s ideas?

I publish not this so much for anything else as to know whether other men
have the same ideas as we Irishmen. This is my end, & not to be inform’d
as to my own particular.

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My speculations have the same effect as visiting foreign countries: in the
end I return where I was before, but my heart at ease, and enjoying life
with new satisfaction.

Passing through all the sciences, though false for the most part, yet it
gives us the better insight and greater knowledge of the truth.

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He that would bring another over to his opinion, must seem to harmonize
with him at first, and humour him in his own way of talking(274).

From my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way.

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It doth not argue a dwarf to have greater strength than a giant, because
he can throw off the molehill which is upon him, while the other struggles
beneath a mountain.

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The whole directed to practise and morality—as appears 1st, from making
manifest the nearness and omnipresence of God; 2dly, from cutting off the
useless labour of sciences, and so forth.





AN ESSAY TOWARDS A NEW THEORY OF VISION


_First published in 1709_




Editor’s Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision


Berkeley’s _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_ was meant to prepare the
way for the exposition and defence of the new theory of the material
world, its natural order, and its relation to Spirit, that is contained in
his book of _Principles_ and in the relative _Dialogues_, which speedily
followed. The _Essay_ was the firstfruits of his early philosophical
studies at Dublin. It was also the first attempt to show that our
apparently immediate Vision of Space and of bodies extended in
three-dimensioned space, is either tacit or conscious inference,
occasioned by constant association of the phenomena of which alone we are
visually percipient with assumed realities of our tactual and locomotive
experience.

The first edition of the _Essay_ appeared early in 1709, when its author
was about twenty-four years of age. A second edition, with a few verbal
changes and an Appendix, followed before the end of that year. Both were
issued in Dublin, “printed by Aaron Rhames, at the back of Dick’s
Coffeehouse, for Jeremy Pepyat, bookseller in Skinner Row.” In March,
1732, a third edition, without the Appendix, was annexed to _Alciphron,_
on account of its relation to the Fourth Dialogue in that book. This was
the author’s last revision.

In the present edition the text of this last edition is adopted, after
collation with those preceding. The Appendix has been restored, and also
the Dedication to Sir John Percival, which appeared only in the first
edition.

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A due appreciation of Berkeley’s theory of seeing, and his conception of
the visible world, involves a study, not merely of this tentative juvenile
_Essay_, but also of its fuller development and application in his more
matured works. This has been commonly forgotten by his critics.

Various circumstances contribute to perplex and even repel the reader of
the _Essay_, making it less fit to be an easy avenue of approach to
Berkeley’s _Principles_.

Its occasion and design, and its connexion with his spiritual conception
of the material world, are suggested in Sections 43 and 44 of the
_Principles_. Those sections are a key to the _Essay_. They inform us that
in the _Essay_ the author intentionally uses language which seems to
attribute a reality independent of all percipient spirit to the ideas or
phenomena presented in Touch; it being beside his purpose, he says, to
“examine and refute” that “vulgar error” in “a work on Vision.” This
studied reticence of a verbally paradoxical conception of Matter, in
reasonings about vision which are fully intelligible only under that
conception, is one cause of a want of philosophical lucidity in the
_Essay_.

Another circumstance adds to the embarrassment of those who approach the
_Principles_ and the three _Dialogues_ through the _Essay on Vision_. The
_Essay_ offers no exception to the lax employment of equivocal words
familiar in the early literature of English philosophy, but which is
particularly inconvenient in the subtle discussions to which we are here
introduced. At the present day we are perhaps accustomed to more precision
and uniformity in the philosophical use of language; at any rate we
connect other meanings than those here intended with some of the leading
words. It is enough to refer to such terms as _idea_, _notion_,
_sensation_, _perception_, _touch_, _externality_, _distance_, and their
conjugates. It is difficult for the modern reader to revive and remember
the meanings which Berkeley intends by _idea_ and _notion_—so significant
in his vocabulary; and _touch_ with him connotes muscular and locomotive
experience as well as the pure sense of contact. Interchange of the terms
_outward_, _outness_, _externality_, _without the mind_, and _without the
eye_ is confusing, if we forget that Berkeley implies that percipient mind
is virtually coextensive with our bodily organism, so that being “without”
or “at a distance from” our bodies is being at a distance from the
percipient mind. I have tried in the annotations to relieve some of these
ambiguities, of which Berkeley himself warns us (cf. sect. 120).

The _Essay_ moreover abounds in repetitions, and interpolations of
antiquated optics and physiology, so that its logical structure and even
its supreme generalisation are not easily apprehended. I will try to
disentangle them.

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The reader must remember that this _Essay on Vision_ is professedly an
introspective appeal to human consciousness. It is an analysis of what
human beings are conscious of when they see, the results being here and
there applied, partly by way of verification, to solve some famous optical
or physiological puzzle. The aim is to present the facts, the whole facts,
and nothing but the facts of our internal visual experience, as
distinguished from supposed facts and empty abstractions, which an
irregular exercise of imagination, or abuse of words, had put in their
place. The investigation, moreover, is not concerned with Space in its
metaphysical infinity, but with finite sections of Space and their
relations, which concern the sciences, physical and mathematical, and with
real or tangible Distance, Magnitude, and Place, in their relation to
seeing.

From the second section onwards the _Essay_ naturally falls into six
Parts, devoted successively to the proof of the six following theses
regarding the relation of Sight to finite spaces and to things extended:—

I. (Sect. 2-51.) Distance, or outness from the eye in the line of vision,
is not seen: it is only suggested to the mind by visible phenomena and by
sensations felt in the eye, all which are somehow its arbitrarily
constituted and non-resembling Signs.

II. (Sect. 52-87.) Magnitude, or the amount of space that objects of sense
occupy, is really invisible: we only see a greater or less quantity of
colour, and colour depends upon percipient mind: our supposed visual
perceptions of real magnitude are only our own interpretations of the
tactual meaning of the colours we see, and of sensations felt in the eye,
which are its Signs.

III. (Sect. 88-120.) Situation of objects of sense, or their real relation
to one another in ambient space, is invisible: what we see is variety in
the relations of colours to one another: our supposed vision of real
tangible locality is only our interpretation of its visual non-resembling
Signs.

IV. (Sect. 121-46.) There is no object that is presented in common to
Sight and Touch: space or extension, which has the best claim to be their
common object, is specifically as well as numerically different in Sight
and in Touch.

V. (Sect. 147-48.) The explanation of the tactual significance of the
visible and visual Signs, upon which human experience proceeds, is offered
in the Theory that all visible phenomena are arbitrary signs in what is
virtually the Language of Nature, addressed by God to the senses and
intelligence of Man.

VI. (Sect. 149-60.) The true object studied in Geometry is the kind of
Extension given in Touch, not that given in Sight: real Extension in all
its phases is tangible, not visible: colour is the only immediate object
of Sight, and colour being mind-dependent sensation, cannot be realised
without percipient mind. These concluding sections are supplementary to
the main argument.

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The fact that distance or outness is invisible is sometimes regarded as
Berkeley’s contribution to the theory of seeing. It is rather the
assumption on which the _Essay_ proceeds (sect. 2). The _Essay_ does not
prove this invisibility, but seeks to shew how, notwithstanding, we learn
to find outness through seeing. That the relation between the visual signs
of outness, on the one hand, and the real distance which they signify, on
the other, is in all cases arbitrary, and discovered through experience,
is the burden of sect. 2-40. The previously recognised signs of
“considerably remote” distances, are mentioned (sect. 3). But _near_
distance was supposed to be inferred by a visual geometry—and to be
“suggested,” not signified by arbitrary signs. The determination of the
visual signs which suggest outness, near and remote, is Berkeley’s
professed discovery regarding vision.

An induction of the visual signs which “suggest” distance, is followed
(sect. 43) by an assertion of the wholly sensuous reality of _colour_,
which is acknowledged to be the only immediate object of sight. Hence
_visible_ extension, consisting in colour, must be dependent for its
realisation upon sentient or percipient mind. It is then argued (sect. 44)
that this mind-dependent visible outness has no resemblance to the
tangible reality (sect. 45). This is the first passage in the _Essay_ in
which Touch and its data are formally brought into view. Tactual or
locomotive experience, it is implied, is needed to infuse true reality
into our conceptions of distance or outness. This cannot be got from
seeing any more than from hearing, or tasting, or smelling. It is as
impossible to see and touch the same object as it is to hear and touch the
same object. Visible objects and ocular sensations can only be _ideal
signs_ of _real things_.

The sections in which Touch is thus introduced are among the most
important in the _Essay_. They represent the outness given in hearing as
wholly sensuous, ideal, or mind-dependent: they recognise as more truly
real that got by contact and locomotion. But if this is all that man can
see, it follows that his _visible_ world, at any rate, becomes real only
in and through percipient mind. The problem of an _Essay on Vision_ is
thus, to explain _how_ the visible world of extended colour can inform us
of tangible realities, which it does not in the least resemble, and with
which it has no _necessary_ connexion. That visible phenomena, or else
certain organic sensations involved in seeing (sect. 3, 16, 21, 27),
gradually _suggest_ the real or tangible outness with which they are
connected in the divinely constituted system of nature, is the explanation
which now begins to dawn upon us.

Here an ambiguity in the _Essay_ appears. It concludes that the _visible_
world cannot be real without percipient realising mind, i.e. not otherwise
than ideally: yet the argument seems to take for granted that we are
percipient of a _tangible_ world that is independent of percipient
realising mind. The reader is apt to say that the tangible world must be
as dependent on percipient mind for its reality as the visible world is
concluded to be, and for the same reason. This difficulty was soon
afterwards encountered in the book of _Principles_, where the worlds of
sight and touch are put on the same level; and the possibility of
unperceived reality in both cases is denied; on the ground that a material
world cannot be realised in the total absence of Spirit—human and divine.
The term “external” may still be applied to tactual and locomotive
phenomena alone, if men choose; but this not because of the ideal
character of what is seen, and the unideal reality of what is touched, but
only because tactual perceptions are found to be more firm and steady than
visual. Berkeley preferred in this way to _insinuate_ his new conception
of the material world by degrees, at the risk of exposing this juvenile
and tentative _Essay on Vision_ to a charge of incoherence.

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The way in which visual ideas or phenomena “suggest” the outness or
distance of things from the organ of sight having been thus explained, in
what I call the First Part of the _Essay_, the Second and Third Parts
(sect. 52-120) argue for the invisibility of real extension in two other
relations, viz. magnitude and locality or situation. An induction of the
visual signs of tangible size and situation is given in those sections.
The result is applied to solve two problems then notable in optics, viz.
(1) the reason for the greater visible size of the horizontal moon than of
the moon in its meridian (sect. 67-87); and (2) the fact that objects are
placed erect in vision only on condition that their images on the retina
are inverted (sect. 88-120). Here the antithesis between the ideal world
of coloured extension, and the real world of resistant extension is
pressed with vigour. The “high” and “low” of the visible world is not the
“high” and “low” of the tangible world (sect. 91-106). There is no
resemblance and no necessary relation, between those two so-called
extensions; not even when the number of visible objects happen to coincide
with the number of tangible objects of which they are the visual signs,
e.g. the visible and tangible fingers on the hand: for the born-blind, on
first receiving sight, could not parcel out the visible phenomena in
correspondence with the tangible.

The next Part of the _Essay_ (sect. 121-45) argues for a specific as well
as a numerical difference between the original data of sight and the data
of touch and locomotion. Sight and touch perceive nothing in common.
Extension in its various relations differs in sight from extension in
touch. Coloured extension, which alone is visible, is found to be
different in kind from resistant extension, which alone is tangible. And
if actually perceived or concrete extensions differ thus, the question is
determined. For all extension with which man can be concerned must be
concrete (sect. 23). Extension in the abstract is meaningless (sect.
124-25). What remains is to marshal the scattered evidence, and to guard
the foregoing conclusions against objections. This is attempted in
sections 128-46.

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The enunciation of the summary generalisation, which forms the “New Theory
of Vision” (sect. 147-8), may be taken as the Fifth and culminating Part
of the _Essay_.

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The closing sections (149-60), as I have said, are supplementary, and
profess to determine the sort of extension—visible or tangible—with which
Geometry is concerned. In concluding that it is tangible, he tries to
picture the mental state of Idominians, or unbodied spirits, endowed with
visual perceptions _only_, and asks what _their_ conception of outness and
solid extension must be. Here further refinements in the interpretation of
visual perception, and its organic conditions, which have not escaped the
attention of latter psychologists and biologists, are hinted at.

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Whether the data of sight consist of non-resembling arbitrary Signs of the
tactual distances, sizes, and situations of things, is a question which
some might prefer to deal with experimentally—by trial of the experience
of persons in circumstances fitted to supply an answer. Of this sort would
be the experience of the born-blind, immediately after their sight has
been restored; the conception of extension and its relations found in
persons who continue from birth unable to see; the experience (if it could
be got) of persons always destitute of all tactual and locomotive
perceptions, but familiar with vision; and the facts of seeing observed in
infants of the human species, and in the lower animals.

Berkeley did not try to verify his conclusions in this way. Here and there
(sect. 41, 42, 79, 92-99, 103, 106, 110, 128, 132-37), he conjectures what
the first visual experience of those rescued from born-blindness is likely
to be; he also speculates, as we have seen, about the experience of
unbodied spirits supposed to be able to see, but unable to touch or move
(sect. 153-59); and in the Appendix he refers, in confirmation of his New
Theory, to a reported case of one born blind who had obtained sight. But
he forms his Theory independently of those delicate and difficult
investigations. His testing facts were sought introspectively. Indeed
those physiologists and mental philosophers who have since tried to
determine what vision in its purity is, by cases either of communicated
sight or of continued born-blindness, have illustrated the truth of
Diderot’s remark—“préparer et interroger un aveugle-né n’eût point été une
occupation indigne des talens réunis de Newton, Des Cartes, Locke, et
Leibniz(275).”

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Berkeley’s _New Theory_ has been quoted as a signal example of discovery
in metaphysics. The subtle analysis which distinguishes _seeing_ strictly
so called, from judgments about extended things, suggested by what we see,
appears to have been imperfectly known to the ancient philosophers.
Aristotle, indeed, speaks of colour as the only proper object of sight;
but, in passages of the _De Anima_(276) where he names properties peculiar
to particular senses, he enumerates others, such as motion, figure, and
magnitude, which belong to all the senses in common. His distinction of
Proper and Common Sensibles appears at first to contradict Berkeley’s
doctrine of the heterogeneity of the ideal visible and the real tangible
worlds. Aristotle, however, seems to question the immediate perceptibility
of Common Sensibles, and to regard them as realised through the activity
of intelligence(277).

Some writers in Optics, in mediaeval times, and in early modern
philosophy, advanced beyond Aristotle, in explaining the relation of our
matured notion of distance to what we originally perceive in seeing, and
in the fifteenth century it was discovered by Maurolyco that the rays of
light from the object converge to a focus in the eye; but I have not been
able to trace even the germ of the _New Theory_ in these speculations.

Excepting some hints by Descartes, Malebranche was among the first dimly
to anticipate Berkeley, in resolving our supposed power of seeing outness
into an interpretation of visual signs which we learn by experience to
understand. The most important part of Malebranche’s account of seeing is
contained in the _Recherche de la Vérité_ (Liv. I. ch. 9), in one of those
chapters in which he discusses the frequent fallaciousness of the senses,
and in particular of our visual perceptions of extension. He accounts for
their inevitable uncertainty by assigning them not to sense but to
misinterpretation of what is seen. He also enumerates various visual signs
of distance.

That the _Recherche_ of Malebranche, published more than thirty years
before the _Essay_, was familiar to Berkeley before the publication of his
_New Theory_, is proved by internal evidence, and by his juvenile
_Commonplace Book_. I am not able to discover signs of a similar connexion
between the _New Theory_ and the chapter on the mystery of sensation in
Glanvill’s _Scepsis Scientifica_ (ch. 5), published some years before the
_Recherche_ of Malebranche, where Glanvill refers to “a secret deduction,”
through which—from motions, &c., of which we are immediately percipient—we
“spell out” figures, distances, magnitudes, and colours, which have no
resemblance to them.

An approach to the _New Theory_ is found in a passage which first appeared
in the second edition of Locke’s _Essay_, published in 1694, to which
Berkeley refers in his own _Essay_ (sect. 132-35), and which, on account
of its relative importance, I shall here transcribe at length:—

“We are further to consider concerning Perception that the ideas we
receive by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by the judgment,
without our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round globe
of any uniform colour, e.g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that
the idea thereby imprinted in our mind is of a flat circle, variously
shadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness coming to our eyes.
But, we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance
convex bodies are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in the
reflection of light by the difference in the sensible figures of
bodies—the judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the
appearances into their causes; so that, from that which is truly variety
of shadow or colour, collecting the figure, it makes it pass for a mark of
figure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure and an
uniform colour, when the idea we receive from them is only a plane
variously coloured, as is evident in painting.

“To which purpose I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and
studious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux,
which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since, and it is
this:—Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to
distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of
the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt the one and the other, which
is the cube and which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and the sphere
placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see: quere, whether, by
his sight, before he touched them, he could not distinguish and tell,
which is the globe and which the cube? To which the acute and judicious
proposer answers: ‘Not.’ For, though he has obtained the experience of how
a globe, how a cube affects his touch; yet he has not obtained the
experience that what affects his touch so and so, must affect his sight so
and so; so that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand
unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube.—I agree with
this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer
to this his problem, and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight,
would not be able to say with certainty which was the globe and which the
cube, whilst he only saw them; though he would unerringly name them by his
touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference in their figures
felt.

“This I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to
consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and
acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help
from them: and the rather because this observing gentleman further adds
that, having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this problem to
divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave
the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they
were convinced.

“But this is not I think usual in any of our ideas but those received by
sight: because sight, the most comprehensive of the senses, conveying to
our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to that
sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and motion, the
several varieties of which change the appearance of its proper object,
i.e. light and colours; we bring ourselves by use to judge of the one by
the other. This, in many cases, by a settled habit, in things whereof we
have frequent experience, is performed so constantly and so quick, that we
take that for the perception of our sensation, which is an idea formed by
our judgment; so that one, i.e. that of sensation, serves only to excite
the other, and is scarce taken notice of itself; as a man who reads or
hears with attention and understanding takes little notice of the
character or sounds, but of the ideas that are excited in him by them.

“Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice, if we
consider how very quick the actions of the mind are performed; for, as
itself is thought to take up no space, to have no extension, so its
actions seem to require no time, but many of them seem to be crowded into
an instant. I speak this in comparison of the actions of the body....
Secondly, we shall not be much surprised that this is done with us in so
little notice, if we consider how the facility we get of doing things, by
a custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without notice. Habits,
especially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions
in us which often escape our observation.... And therefore it is not so
strange that our mind should often change the idea of its sensation into
that of its judgment, and make the one serve only to excite the other,
without our taking notice of it.” (_Essay concerning Human Understanding_,
Book II. ch. 9. § 8.)

This remarkable passage anticipates by implication the view of an
interpretation of materials originally given in the visual sense, which,
under the name of “suggestion,” is the ruling factor in the _New Theory of
Vision_.

The following sentences relative to the invisibility of distances,
contained in the _Treatise of Dioptrics_ (published in 1690) of Locke’s
friend and correspondent William Molyneux, whose son was Berkeley’s pupil,
illustrate Locke’s statements, and may be compared with the opening
sections of the _Essay on Vision_:—

“In plain vision the estimate we make of the distance of objects
(especially when so far removed that the interval between our two eyes
bears no sensible proportion thereto, or when looked upon with one eye
only) is rather the act of our judgment than of sense; and acquired by
exercise, and a faculty of comparing, rather than natural. For, distance
of itself is not to be perceived; for, ’tis a line (or a length) presented
to our eye with its end toward us, which must therefore be only a point,
and that is invisible. Wherefore distance is chiefly perceived by means of
interjacent bodies, as by the earth, mountains, hills, fields, trees,
houses, &c. Or by the estimate we make of the comparative magnitude of
bodies, or of their faint colours, &c. These I say are the chief means of
apprehending the distance of objects that are considerably remote. But as
to nigh objects—to whose distance the interval of the eyes bears a
sensible proportion—their distance is perceived by the turn of the eyes,
or by the angle of the optic axes (_Gregorii Opt. Promot._ prop. 28). This
was the opinion of the ancients, Alhazen, Vitellio, &c. And though the
ingenious Jesuit Tacquet (_Opt. Lib. I._ prop. 2) disapprove thereof, and
objects against it a new notion of Gassendus (of a man’s seeing only with
one eye at a time one and the same object), yet this notion of Gassendus
being absolutely false (as I could demonstrate were it not beside my
present purpose), it makes nothing against this opinion.

“Wherefore, distance being only a line and not of itself perceivable, if
an object were conveyed to the eye by one single ray only, there were no
other means of judging of its distance but by some of those hinted before.
Therefore when we estimate the distance of nigh objects, either we take
the help of both eyes; or else we consider the pupil of one eye as having
breadth, and receiving a parcel of rays from each radiating point. And,
according to the various inclinations of the rays from one point on the
various parts of the pupil, we make our estimate of the distance of the
object. And therefore (as is said before), by one single eye we can only
judge of the distance of such objects to whose distance the breadth of the
pupil has a sensible proportion.... For, it is observed before (prop. 29,
sec. 2, see also _Gregorii Opt. Promot._ prop. 29) that for viewing
objects remote and nigh, there are requisite various conformations of the
eye—the rays from nigh objects that fall on the eye diverging more than
those from more remote objects.” (_Treatise of Dioptrics_, Part I. prop.
31.)

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All this helps to shew the state of science regarding vision about the
time Berkeley’s _Essay_ appeared, especially among those with whose works
he was familiar(278). I shall next refer to illustrations of the change
which the _Essay_ produced.

The _New Theory_ has occasioned some interesting criticism since its
appearance in 1709. At first it drew little attention. For twenty years
after its publication the allusions to it were few. The account of
Cheselden’s experiment upon one born blind, published in 1728, in the
_Philosophical Transactions_, which seemed to bring the Theory to the test
of scientific experiment, recalled attention to Berkeley’s reasonings. The
state of religious thought about the same time confirmed the tendency to
discuss a doctrine which represented human vision as interpretation of a
natural yet divine language, thus suggesting Omnipresent Mind.

Occasional discussions of the _New Theory_ may be found in the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, from 1732 till Berkeley’s death in 1753. Some
criticisms may also be found in Smith’s _Optics_, published in 1738.

Essential parts of Berkeley’s analysis are explained by Voltaire, in his
_Élémens de la Philosophie de Newton_. The following from that work is
here given on its own account, and also as a prominent recognition of the
new doctrine in France, within thirty years from its first promulgation:—


    “Il faut absolument conclure de tout ceci, que les distances, les
    grandeurs, les situations, ne sont pas, à proprement parler, des
    choses visibles, c’est-à-dire, ne sont pas les objets propres et
    immédiats de la vue. L’objet propre et immédiat de la vue n’est
    autre chose que la lumière colorée: tout le reste, nous ne le
    sentons qu’à la longue et par expérience. Nous apprenons à voir
    précisément comme nous apprenons à parler et à lire. La différence
    est, que l’art de voir est plus facile, et que la nature est
    également à tous notre maître.

    “Les jugements soudains, presque uniformes, que toutes nos âmes, à
    un certain âge, portent des distances, des grandeurs, des
    situations, nous font penser qu’il n’y a qu’à ouvrir les yeux pour
    voir la manière dont nous voyons. On se trompe; il y faut le
    secours des autres sens. Si les hommes n’avaient que le sens de la
    vue, ils n’auraient aucun moyen pour connaître l’étendue en
    longueur, largeur et profondeur; et un pur esprit ne la
    connaîtrait pas peutêtre, à moins que Dieu ne la lui révélât. Il
    est très difficile de séparer dans notre entendement l’extension
    d’un objet d’avec les couleurs de cet objet. Nous ne voyons jamais
    rien que d’étendu, et de là nous sommes tous portés à croire que
    nous voyons en effet l’étendue.” (_Élémens de la Philos. de
    Newton_, Seconde Partie, ch. 7.)


Condillac, in his _Essais sur l’Origine des Connaissances Humaines_ (Part
I. sect. 6), published in 1746, combats Berkeley’s _New Theory_, and
maintains that an extension exterior to the eye is immediately discernible
by sight; the eye being naturally capable of judging at once of figures,
magnitudes, situations, and distances. His reasonings in support of this
“prejudice,” as he afterwards allowed it to be, may be found in the
section entitled “De quelques jugemens qu’on a attribués à l’âme sans
fondement, ou solution d’un problème de métaphysique.” Here Locke,
Molyneux, Berkeley, and Voltaire are criticised, and Cheselden’s
experiment is referred to. Condillac’s subsequent recantation is contained
in his _Traité des Sensations_, published in 1754, and in his _L’Art de
Penser_. In the _Traité des Sensations_ (Troisième Partie, ch. 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, &c.) the whole question is discussed at length, and Condillac
vindicates what he allows must appear a marvellous paradox to the
uninitiated—that we only gradually learn to see, hear, smell, taste, and
touch. He argues in particular that the eye cannot originally perceive an
extension that is beyond itself, and that perception of trinal space is
due to what we experience in touch.

Voltaire and Condillac gave currency to the _New Theory_ in France, and it
soon became a commonplace with D’Alembert, Diderot, Buffon, and other
French philosophers. In Germany we have allusions to it in the Berlin
Memoirs and elsewhere; but, although known by name, if not in its
distinctive principle and latent idealism, it has not obtained the
consideration which its author’s developed theory of the material as well
as the visible world has received. The Kantian _a priori_ criticism of our
cognition of Space, and of our mathematical notions, subsequently
indisposed the German mind to the _a posteriori_ reasoning of Berkeley’s
_Essay_.

Its influence is apparent in British philosophy. The following passages in
Hartley’s _Observations on Man_, published in 1749, illustrate the extent
to which some of the distinctive parts of the new doctrine were at that
time received by an eminent English psychologist:—

“Distance is judged of by the quantity of motion, and figure by the
relative quantity of distance.... And, as the sense of sight is much more
extensive and expedite than feeling, we judge of tangible qualities
chiefly by sight, which therefore may be considered, agreeably to Bishop
Berkeley’s remark, as a philosophical language for the ideas of feeling;
being, for the most part, an adequate representative of them, and a
language common to all mankind, and in which they all agree very nearly,
after a moderate degree of experience.

“However, if the informations from touch and sight disagree at any time,
we are always to depend upon touch, as that which, according to the usual
ways of speaking upon these subjects, is the true representation of the
essential properties, i.e. as the earnest and presage of what other
tangible impressions the body under consideration will make upon our
feeling in other circumstances; also what changes it will produce in other
bodies; of which again we are to determine by our feeling, if the visual
language should not happen to correspond to it exactly. And it is from
this difference that we call the touch the reality, light the
representative—also that a person born blind may foretell with certainty,
from his present tangible impressions, what others would follow upon
varying the circumstances; whereas, if we could suppose a person to be
born without feeling, and to arrive at man’s estate, he could not, from
his present visible impressions, judge what others would follow upon
varying the circumstances. Thus the picture of a knife, drawn so well as
to deceive his eye, would not, when applied to another body, produce the
same change of visible impressions as a real knife does, when it separates
the parts of the body through which it passes. But the touch is not liable
to these deceptions. As it is therefore the fundamental source of
information in respect of the essential properties of matter, it may be
considered as our first and principal key to the knowledge of the external
world.” (Prop. 30.)

In other parts of Hartley’s book (e.g. Prop. 58) the relation of our
visual judgments of magnitude, figure, motion, distance, and position to
the laws of association is explained, and the associating circumstances by
which these judgments are formed are enumerated in detail.

Dr. Porterfield of Edinburgh, in his _Treatise on the Eye, or the Manner
and Phenomena of Vision_ (Edinburgh, 1759), is an exception to the consent
which the doctrine had then widely secured. He maintains, in opposition to
Berkeley, that “the judgments we form of the situation and distance of
visible objects, depend not on custom and experience, but on original
instinct, to which mind is subject in our embodied state(279).”

Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, in so far as it resolves our visual
perceptions of distance into interpretation of arbitrary signs, received
the qualified approbation of Reid, in his _Inquiry into the Human Mind on
the Principles of Common Sense_ (1764). He criticises it in the _Inquiry_,
where the doctrine of visual signs, of which Berkeley’s whole philosophy
is a development, is accepted, and to some extent applied. With Reid it is
divorced, however, from the Berkeleian conception of the material world,
although the Theory of Vision was the seminal principle of Berkeley’s
Theory of Matter(280).

This Theory of Matter was imperfectly conceived and then rejected by Reid
and his followers, while the New Theory of Vision obtained the general
consent of the Scottish metaphysicians. Adam Smith refers to it in his
_Essays_ (published in 1795) as “one of the finest examples of
philosophical analysis that is to be found either in our own or in any
other language.” Dugald Stewart characterises it in his _Elements_ as “one
of the most beautiful, and at the same time one of the most important
theories of modern philosophy.” “The solid additions,” he afterwards
remarks in his _Dissertation_, “made by Berkeley to the stock of human
knowledge, were important and brilliant. Among these the first place is
unquestionably due to his _New Theory of Vision_, a work abounding with
ideas so different from those commonly received, and at the same time so
profound and refined, that it was regarded by all but a few accustomed to
deep metaphysical reflection, rather in the light of a philosophical
romance than of a sober inquiry after truth. Such, however, has since been
the progress and diffusion of this sort of knowledge, that the leading and
most abstracted doctrines contained in it form now an essential part of
every elementary treatise on optics, and are adopted by the most
superficial smatterers in science as fundamental articles of their faith.”
The _New Theory_ is accepted by Thomas Brown, who proposes (_Lectures_,
29) to extend the scope of its reasonings. With regard to perceptions of
sight, Young, in his _Lectures on Intellectual Philosophy_ (p. 102), says
that “it has been universally admitted, at least since the days of
Berkeley, that many of those which appear to us at present to be
instantaneous and primitive, can yet be shewn to be acquired; that most of
the adult perceptions of sight are founded on the previous information of
touch; that colour can give us no conception originally of those qualities
of bodies which produce it in us; and that primary vision gives us no
notion of distance, and, as I believe, no notion of magnitude.” Sir James
Mackintosh, in his _Dissertation_, characterises the _New Theory of
Vision_ as “a great discovery in Mental Philosophy.” “Nothing in the
compass of inductive reasoning,” remarks Sir William Hamilton (Reid’s
_Works_, p. 182, note), “appears more satisfactory than Berkeley’s
demonstration of the necessity and manner of our learning, by a slow
process of observation and comparison alone, the connexion between the
perceptions of vision and touch, and, in general, all that relates to the
distance and magnitude of external things(281).”

The New Theory of Vision has in short been generally accepted, so far as
it was understood, alike by the followers of Hartley and by the associates
and successors of Reid. Among British psychologists, it has recommended
itself to rationalists and sensationalists, to the advocates of innate
principles, and to those who would explain by accidental association what
their opponents attribute to reason originally latent in man. But this
wide conscious assent is I think chiefly confined to the proposition that
distance is invisible, and hardly reaches the deeper implicates of the
theory, on its extension to all the senses, leading to a perception of the
final unity of the natural and the supernatural, and the ultimate
spirituality of the universe(282).




Dedication


TO THE RT. HON. SIR JOHN PERCIVALE, BART.(283),

ONE OF HER MAJESTY’S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL

IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND.

Sir,

I could not, without doing violence to myself, forbear upon this occasion
to give some public testimony of the great and well-grounded esteem I have
conceived for you, ever since I had the honour and happiness of your
acquaintance. The outward advantages of fortune, and the early honours
with which you are adorned, together with the reputation you are known to
have amongst the best and most considerable men, may well imprint
veneration and esteem on the minds of those who behold you from a
distance. But these are not the chief motives that inspire me with the
respect I bear you. A nearer approach has given me the view of something
in your person infinitely beyond the external ornaments of honour and
estate. I mean, an intrinsic stock of virtue and good sense, a true
concern for religion, and disinterested love of your country. Add to these
an uncommon proficiency in the best and most useful parts of knowledge;
together with (what in my mind is a perfection of the first rank) a
surpassing goodness of nature. All which I have collected, not from the
uncertain reports of fame, but from my own experience. Within these few
months that I have the honour to be known unto you, the many delightful
hours I have passed in your agreeable and improving conversation have
afforded me the opportunity of discovering in you many excellent
qualities, which at once fill me with admiration and esteem. That one at
those years, and in those circumstances of wealth and greatness, should
continue proof against the charms of luxury and those criminal pleasures
so fashionable and predominant in the age we live in; that he should
preserve a sweet and modest behaviour, free from that insolent and
assuming air so familiar to those who are placed above the ordinary rank
of men; that he should manage a great fortune with that prudence and
inspection, and at the same time expend it with that generosity and
nobleness of mind, as to shew himself equally remote from a sordid
parsimony and a lavish inconsiderate profusion of the good things he is
intrusted with—this, surely, were admirable and praiseworthy. But, that he
should, moreover, by an impartial exercise of his reason, and constant
perusal of the sacred Scriptures, endeavour to attain a right notion of
the principles of natural and revealed religion; that he should with the
concern of a true patriot have the interest of the public at heart, and
omit no means of informing himself what may be prejudicial or advantageous
to his country, in order to prevent the one and promote the other; in
fine, that, by a constant application to the most severe and useful
studies, by a strict observation of the rules of honour and virtue, by
frequent and serious reflections on the mistaken measures of the world,
and the true end and happiness of mankind, he should in all respects
qualify himself bravely to run the race that is set before him, to deserve
the character of great and good in this life, and be ever happy
hereafter—this were amazing and almost incredible. Yet all this, and more
than this, SIR, might I justly say of you, did either your modesty permit,
or your character stand in need of it. I know it might deservedly be
thought a vanity in me to imagine that anything coming from so obscure a
hand as mine could add a lustre to your reputation. But, I am withal
sensible how far I advance the interest of my own, by laying hold on this
opportunity to make it known that I am admitted into some degree of
intimacy with a person of your exquisite judgment. And, with that view, I
have ventured to make you an address of this nature, which the goodness I
have ever experienced in you inclines me to hope will meet with a
favourable reception at your hands. Though I must own I have your pardon
to ask, for touching on what may possibly be offensive to a virtue you are
possessed of in a very distinguishing degree. Excuse me, SIR, if it was
out of my power to mention the name of SIR JOHN PERCIVALE without paying
some tribute to that extraordinary and surprising merit whereof I have so
clear and affecting an idea, and which, I am sure, cannot be exposed in
too full a light for the imitation of others,

Of late I have been agreeably employed in considering the most noble,
pleasant, and comprehensive of all the senses(284). The fruit of that
(labour shall I call it or) diversion is what I now present you with, in
hopes it may give some entertainment to one who, in the midst of business
and vulgar enjoyments, preserves a relish for the more refined pleasures
of thought and reflexion. My thoughts concerning Vision have led me into
some notions so far out of the common road(285) that it had been improper
to address them to one of a narrow and contracted genius. But, you, SIR,
being master of a large and free understanding, raised above the power of
those prejudices that enslave the far greater part of mankind, may
deservedly be thought a proper patron for an attempt of this kind. Add to
this, that you are no less disposed to forgive than qualified to discern
whatever faults may occur in it. Nor do I think you defective in any one
point necessary to form an exact judgment on the most abstract and
difficult things, so much as in a just confidence of your own abilities.
And, in this one instance, give me leave to say, you shew a manifest
weakness of judgment. With relation to the following _Essay_, I shall only
add that I beg your pardon for laying a trifle of that nature in your way,
at a time when you are engaged in the important affairs of the nation, and
desire you to think that I am, with all sincerity and respect,

SIR,

Your most faithful and most humble servant,

GEORGE BERKELEY.




An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision


1. My design is to shew the manner wherein we perceive by Sight the
Distance, Magnitude, and Situation of objects: also to consider the
difference there is betwixt the ideas of Sight and Touch, and whether
there be any idea common to both senses(286).

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2. It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance, of itself and immediately,
cannot be seen(287). For, distance(288) being a line directed endwise to
the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point
remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or
shorter(289).

3. I find it also acknowledged that the estimate we make of the distance
of objects considerably remote is rather an act of judgment grounded on
experience than of sense. For example, when I perceive a great number of
intermediate objects, such as houses, fields, rivers, and the like, which
I have experienced to take up a considerable space, I thence form a
judgment or conclusion, that the object I see beyond them is at a great
distance. Again, when an object appears faint and small which at a near
distance I have experienced to make a vigorous and large appearance, I
instantly conclude it to be far off(290). And this, it is evident, is the
result of experience; without which, from the faintness and littleness, I
should not have inferred anything concerning the distance of objects.

4. But, when an object is placed at so near a distance as that the
interval between the eyes bears any sensible proportion to it(291), the
opinion of speculative men is, that the two optic axes (the fancy that we
see only with one eye at once being exploded), concurring at the object,
do there make an angle, by means of which, according as it is greater or
lesser, the object is perceived to be nearer or farther off(292).

5. Betwixt which and the foregoing manner of estimating distance there is
this remarkable difference:—that, whereas there was no apparent
_necessary_ connexion between small distance and a large and strong
appearance, or between great distance and a little and faint appearance,
there appears a very _necessary_ connexion between an obtuse angle and
near distance, and an acute angle and farther distance. It does not in the
least depend upon experience, but may be evidently known by any one before
he had experienced it, that the nearer the concurrence of the optic axes
the greater the angle, and the remoter their concurrence is, the lesser
will be the angle comprehended by them.

6. There is another way, mentioned by optic writers, whereby they will
have us judge of those distances in respect of which the breadth of the
pupil hath any sensible bigness. And that is the greater or lesser
divergency of the rays which, issuing from the visible point, do fall on
the pupil—that point being judged nearest which is seen by most diverging
rays, and that remoter which is seen by less diverging rays, and so on;
the apparent distance still increasing, as the divergency of the rays
decreases, till at length it becomes infinite, when the rays that fall on
the pupil are to sense parallel. And after this manner it is said we
perceive distance when we look only with one eye.

7. In this case also it is plain we are not beholden to experience: it
being a certain necessary truth that, the nearer the direct rays falling
on the eye approach to a parallelism, the farther off is the point of
their intersection, or the visible point from whence they flow.

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8. (293)Now, though the accounts here given of perceiving _near_ distance
by sight are received for true, and accordingly made use of in determining
the apparent places of objects, they do nevertheless seem to me very
unsatisfactory, and that for these following reasons:—

9. [_First_(294),] It is evident that, when the mind perceives any idea
not immediately and of itself, it must be by the means of some other idea.
Thus, for instance, the passions which are in the mind of another are of
themselves to me invisible. I may nevertheless perceive them by sight;
though not immediately, yet by means of the colours they produce in the
countenance. We often see shame or fear in the looks of a man, by
perceiving the changes of his countenance to red or pale.

10. Moreover, it is evident that no idea which is not itself perceived can
be to me the means of perceiving any other idea. If I do not perceive the
redness or paleness of a man’s face themselves, it is impossible I should
perceive by them the passions which are in his mind.

11. Now, from sect. ii., it is plain that distance is in its own nature
imperceptible, and yet it is perceived by sight(295). It remains,
therefore, that it be brought into view by means of some other idea, that
is itself immediately perceived in the act of vision.

12. But those lines and angles, by means whereof some men(296) pretend to
explain the perception(297) of distance, are themselves not at all
perceived; nor are they in truth ever thought of by those unskilful in
optics. I appeal to any one’s experience, whether, upon sight of an
object, he computes its distance by the bigness of the angle made by the
meeting of the two optic axes? or whether he ever thinks of the greater or
lesser divergency of the rays which arrive from any point to his pupil?
nay, whether it be not perfectly impossible for him to perceive by sense
the various angles wherewith the rays, according to their greater or
lesser divergence, do fall on the eye? Every one is himself the best judge
of what he perceives, and what not. In vain shall any man(298) tell me,
that I perceive certain lines and angles, which introduce into my mind the
various ideas of distance, so long as I myself am conscious of no such
thing.

13. Since therefore those angles and lines are not themselves perceived by
sight, it follows, from sect. x., that the mind does not by them judge of
the distance of objects.

14. [_Secondly_(299),] The truth of this assertion will be yet farther
evident to any one that considers those lines and angles have no real
existence in nature, being only an hypothesis framed by the
mathematicians, and by them introduced into optics, that they might treat
of that science in a geometrical way.

15. The [_third_ and(300)] last reason I shall give for rejecting that
doctrine is, that though we should grant the real existence of those optic
angles, &c., and that it was possible for the mind to perceive them, yet
these principles would not be found sufficient to explain the phenomena of
distance, as shall be shewn hereafter.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

16. Now it being already shewn(301) that distance is _suggested_(302) to
the mind, by the mediation of some other idea which is itself perceived in
the act of seeing, it remains that we inquire, what ideas or sensations
there be that attend vision, unto which we may suppose the ideas of
distance are connected, and by which they are introduced into the mind.

And, _first_, it is certain by experience, that when we look at a near
object with both eyes, according as it approaches or recedes from us, we
alter the disposition of our eyes, by lessening or widening the interval
between the pupils. This disposition or turn of the eyes is attended with
a sensation(303), which seems to me to be that which in this case brings
the idea of greater or lesser distance into the mind.

17. Not that there is any natural or necessary(304) connexion between the
sensation we perceive by the turn of the eyes and greater or lesser
distance. But—because the mind has, by constant experience, found the
different sensations corresponding to the different dispositions of the
eyes to be attended each with a different degree of distance in the
object—there has grown an habitual or customary connexion between those
two sorts of ideas: so that the mind no sooner perceives the sensation
arising from the different turn it gives the eyes, in order to bring the
pupils nearer or farther asunder, but it withal perceives the different
idea of distance which was wont to be connected with that sensation. Just
as, upon hearing a certain sound, the idea is immediately suggested to the
understanding which custom had united with it(305).

18. Nor do I see how I can easily be mistaken in this matter. I know
evidently that distance is not perceived of itself(306); that, by
consequence, it must be perceived by means of some other idea, which is
immediately perceived, and varies with the different degrees of distance.
I know also that the sensation arising from the turn of the eyes is of
itself immediately perceived; and various degrees thereof are connected
with different distances, which never fail to accompany them into my mind,
when I view an object distinctly with both eyes whose distance is so small
that in respect of it the interval between the eyes has any considerable
magnitude.

19. I know it is a received opinion that, by altering the disposition of
the eyes, the mind perceives whether the angle of the optic axes, or the
lateral angles comprehended between the interval of the eyes or the optic
axes, are made greater or lesser; and that, accordingly, by a kind of
natural geometry, it judges the point of their intersection to be nearer
or farther off. But that this is not true I am convinced by my own
experience; since I am not conscious that I make any such use of the
perception I have by the turn of my eyes. And for me to make those
judgments, and draw those conclusions from it, without knowing that I do
so, seems altogether incomprehensible(307).

20. From all which it follows, that the judgment we make of the distance
of an object viewed with both eyes is entirely the result of experience.
If we had not constantly found certain sensations, arising from the
various disposition of the eyes, attended with certain degrees of
distance, we should never make those sudden judgments from them concerning
the distance of objects; no more than we would pretend to judge of a man’s
thoughts by his pronouncing words we had never heard before.

21. _Secondly_, an object placed at a certain distance from the eye, to
which the breadth of the pupil bears a considerable proportion, being made
to approach, is seen more confusedly(308). And the nearer it is brought
the more confused appearance it makes. And this being found constantly to
be so, there arises in the mind an habitual connexion between the several
degrees of confusion and distance; the greater confusion still implying
the lesser distance, and the lesser confusion the greater distance of the
object.

22. This confused appearance of the object doth therefore seem to be the
medium whereby the mind judges of distance, in those cases wherein the
most approved writers of optics will have it judge by the different
divergency with which the rays flowing from the radiating point fall on
the pupil(309). No man, I believe, will pretend to see or feel those
imaginary angles that the rays are supposed to form, according to their
various inclinations on his eye. But he cannot choose seeing whether the
object appear more or less confused. It is therefore a manifest
consequence from what has been demonstrated that, instead of the greater
or lesser divergency of the rays, the mind makes use of the greater or
lesser confusedness of the appearance, thereby to determine the apparent
place of an object.

23. Nor doth it avail to say there is not any necessary connexion between
confused vision and distance great or small. For I ask any man what
necessary connexion he sees between the redness of a blush and shame? And
yet no sooner shall he behold that colour to arise in the face of another
but it brings into his mind the idea of that passion which hath been
observed to accompany it.

24. What seems to have misled the writers of optics in this matter is,
that they imagine men judge of distance as they do of a conclusion in
mathematics; betwixt which and the premises it is indeed absolutely
requisite there be an apparent necessary connexion. But it is far
otherwise in the sudden judgments men make of distance. We are not to
think that brutes and children, or even grown reasonable men, whenever
they perceive an object to approach or depart from them, do it by virtue
of geometry and demonstration.

25. That one idea may suggest another to the mind, it will suffice that
they have been observed to go together, without any demonstration of the
_necessity_ of their coexistence, or without so much as knowing what it is
that makes them so to coexist. Of this there are innumerable instances, of
which no one can be ignorant(310).

26. Thus, greater confusion having been constantly attended with nearer
distance, no sooner is the former idea perceived but it suggests the
latter to our thoughts. And, if it had been the ordinary course of nature
that the farther off an object were placed the more confused it should
appear, it is certain the very same perception that now makes us think an
object approaches would then have made us to imagine it went farther off;
that perception, abstracting from custom and experience, being equally
fitted to produce the idea of great distance, or small distance, or no
distance at all.

27. _Thirdly_, an object being placed at the distance above specified, and
brought nearer to the eye, we may nevertheless prevent, at least for some
time, the appearance’s growing more confused, by straining the eye(311).
In which case that sensation supplies the place of confused vision, in
aiding the mind to judge of the distance of the object; it being esteemed
so much the nearer by how much the effort or straining of the eye in order
to distinct vision is greater.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

28. I have here(312) set down those sensations or ideas(313) that seem to
be the constant and general occasions of introducing into the mind the
different ideas of near distance. It is true, in most cases, that divers
other circumstances contribute to frame our idea of distance, viz. the
particular number, size, kind, &c. of the things seen. Concerning which,
as well as all other the forementioned occasions which suggest distance, I
shall only observe, they have none of them, in their own nature, any
relation or connexion with it: nor is it possible they should ever signify
the various degrees thereof, otherwise than as by experience they have
been found to be connected with them.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

29. I shall proceed upon these principles to account for a phenomenon
which has hitherto strangely puzzled the writers of optics, and is so far
from being accounted for by any of their theories of vision, that it is,
by their own confession, plainly repugnant to them; and of consequence, if
nothing else could be objected, were alone sufficient to bring their
credit in question. The whole difficulty I shall lay before you in the
words of the learned Doctor Barrow, with which he concludes his _Optic
Lectures_(314):—

                              [Illustration]


    “Hæc sunt, quæ circa partem opticæ præcipue mathematicam dicenda
    mihi suggessit meditatio. Circa reliquas (quæ φυσικώτεραι sunt,
    adeoque sæpiuscule pro certis principiis plausibiles conjecturas
    venditare necessum habent) nihil fere quicquam admodum verisimile
    succurrit, a pervulgatis (ab iis, inquam, quæ Keplerus,
    Scheinerus(315), Cartesius, et post illos alii tradiderunt)
    alienum aut diversum. Atqui tacere malo, quam toties oblatam
    cramben reponere. Proinde receptui cano; nee ita tamen ut prorsus
    discedam, anteaquam improbam quandam difficultatem (pro
    sinceritate quam et vobis et veritati debeo minime dissimulandam)
    in medium protulero, quæ doctrinæ nostræ, hactenus inculcatæ, se
    objicit adversam, ab ea saltem nullam admittit solutionem. Illa,
    breviter, talis est. Lenti vel speculo cavo _EBF_ exponatur
    punctum visibile _A_, ita distans, ut radii ex _A_ manantes ex
    inflectione versus axem _AB_ cogantur. Sitque radiationis limes
    (seu puncti _A_ imago, qualem supra passim statuimus) punctum _Z_.
    Inter hoc autem et inflectentis verticem _B_ uspiam positus
    concipiatur oculus. Quæri jam potest, ubi loci debeat punctum _A_
    apparere? Retrorsum ad punctum _Z_ videri non fert natura (cum
    omnis impressio sensum afficiens proveniat a partibus _A_) ac
    experientia reclamat. Nostris autem e placitis consequi videtur,
    ipsum ad partes anticas apparens, ab intervallo longissime dissito
    (quod et maximum sensibile quodvis intervallum quodammodo
    exsuperet), apparere. Cum enim quo radiis minus divergentibus
    attingitur objectum, eo (seclusis utique prænotionibus et
    præjudiciis) longius abesse sentiatur; et quod parallelos ad
    oculum radios projicit, remotissime positum æstimetur: exigere
    ratio videtur, ut quod convergentibus radiis apprehenditur, adhuc
    magis, si fieri posset, quoad apparentiam elongetur. Quin et circa
    casum hunc generatim inquiri possit, quidnam omnino sit, quod
    apparentem puncti _A_ locum determinet, faciatque quod constanti
    ratione nunc propius, nunc remotius appareat? Cui itidem dubio
    nihil quicquam ex hactenus dictorum analogia responderi posse
    videtur, nisi debere punctum _A_ perpetuo longissime semotum
    videri. Verum experientia secus attestatur, illud pro diversa
    oculi inter puncta _B_, _Z_, positione varie distans, nunquam fere
    (si unquam) longinquius ipso _A_ libere spectato, subinde vero
    multo propinquius adparere; quinimo, quo oculum appellentes radii
    magis convergunt, eo speciem objecti propius accedere. Nempe, si
    puncto _B_ admoveatur oculus, suo (ad lentem) fere nativo in loco
    conspicitur punctum _A_ (vel æque distans, ad speculum); ad _O_
    reductus oculus ejusce speciem appropinquantem cernit; ad _P_
    adhuc vicinius ipsum existimat; ac ita sensim, donec alicubi
    tandem, velut ad _Q_, constituto oculo, objectum summe propinquum
    apparens in meram confusionem incipiat evanescere. Quæ sane cuncta
    rationibus atque decretis nostris repugnare videntur, aut cum iis
    saltem parum amice conspirant. Neque nostram tantum sententiam
    pulsat hoc experimentum, at ex æquo cæteras quas norim omnes:
    veterem imprimis ac vulgatam, nostræ præ reliquis affinem, ita
    convellere videtur, ut ejus vi coactus doctissimus A. Tacquetus
    isti principio (cui pene soli totam inædificaverat _Catoptricam_
    suam) ceu infido ac inconstanti renunciarit, adeoque suam ipse
    doctrinam labefactarit? id tamen, opinor, minime facturus, si rem
    totam inspexissit penitius, atque difficultatis fundum attigissit.
    Apud me vero non ita pollet hæc, nec eousque præpollebit ulla
    difficultas, ut ab iis quæ manifeste rationi consentanea video,
    discedam; præsertim quum, ut his accidit, ejusmodi difficultas in
    singularis cujuspiam casus disparitate fundetur. Nimirum in
    præsente casu peculiare quiddam, naturæ subtilitati involutum,
    delitescit, ægre fortassis, nisi perfectius explorato videndi
    modo, detegendum. Circa quod nil, fateor, hactenus excogitare
    potui, quod adblandiretur animo meo, nedum plane satisfaceret.
    Vobis itaque nodum hunc, utinam feliciore conatu, resolvendum
    committo.”


_In English as follows_:


    “I have here delivered what my thoughts have suggested to me
    concerning that part of optics which is more properly
    mathematical. As for the other parts of that science (which, being
    rather physical, do consequently abound with plausible conjectures
    instead of certain principles), there has in them scarce anything
    occurred to my observation different from what has been already
    said by Kepler, Scheinerus, Des Cartes, &c. And methinks I had
    better say nothing at all than repeat that which has been so often
    said by others. I think it therefore high time to take my leave of
    this subject. But, before I quit it for good and all, the fair and
    ingenuous dealing that I owe both to you and to truth obliges me
    to acquaint you with a certain untoward difficulty, which seems
    directly opposite to the doctrine I have been hitherto
    inculcating, at least admits of no solution from it. In short it
    is this. Before the double convex glass or concave speculum _EBF_,
    let the point _A_ be placed at such a distance that the rays
    proceeding from _A_, after refraction or reflection, be brought to
    unite somewhere in the axis _AB_. And suppose the point of union
    (i.e. the image of the point _A_, as hath been already set forth)
    to be _Z_; between which and _B_, the vertex of the glass or
    speculum, conceive the eye to be anywhere placed. The question now
    is, where the point _A_ ought to appear. Experience shews that it
    doth not appear behind at the point _Z_; and it were contrary to
    nature that it should; since all the impression which affects the
    sense comes from towards _A_. But, from our tenets it should seem
    to follow that it would appear before the eye at a vast distance
    off, so great as should in some sort surpass all sensible
    distance. For since, if we exclude all anticipations and
    prejudices, every object appears by so much the farther off by how
    much the rays it sends to the eye are less diverging; and that
    object is thought to be most remote from which parallel rays
    proceed unto the eye; reason would make one think that object
    should appear at yet a greater distance which is seen by
    converging rays. Moreover, it may in general be asked concerning
    this case, what it is that determines the apparent place of the
    point _A_, and maketh it to appear after a constant manner,
    sometimes nearer, at other times farther off? To which doubt I see
    nothing that can be answered agreeable to the principles we have
    laid down, except only that the point _A_ ought always to appear
    extremely remote. But, on the contrary, we are assured by
    experience, that the point _A_ appears variously distant,
    according to the different situations of the eye between the
    points _B_ and _Z_. And that it doth almost never (if at all) seem
    farther off than it would if it were beheld by the naked eye; but,
    on the contrary, it doth sometimes appear much nearer. Nay, it is
    even certain that by how much the rays falling on the eye do more
    converge, by so much the nearer does the object seem to approach.
    For, the eye being placed close to the point _B_, the object _A_
    appears nearly in its own natural place, if the point _B_ is taken
    in the glass, or at the same distance, if in the speculum. The eye
    being brought back to _O_, the object seems to draw near; and,
    being come to _P_, it beholds it still nearer: and so on by little
    and little, till at length the eye being placed somewhere, suppose
    at _Q_, the object appearing extremely near begins to vanish into
    mere confusion. All which doth seem repugnant to our principles;
    at least, not rightly to agree with them. Nor is our tenet alone
    struck at by this experiment, but likewise all others that ever
    came to my knowledge are every whit as much endangered by it. The
    ancient one especially (which is most commonly received, and comes
    nearest to mine) seems to be so effectually overthrown thereby
    that the most learned Tacquet has been forced to reject that
    principle, as false and uncertain, on which alone he had built
    almost his whole _Catoptrics_, and consequently, by taking away
    the foundation, hath himself pulled down the superstructure he had
    raised on it. Which, nevertheless, I do not believe he would have
    done, had he but considered the whole matter more thoroughly, and
    examined the difficulty to the bottom. But as for me, neither this
    nor any other difficulty shall have so great an influence on me,
    as to make me renounce that which I know to be manifestly
    agreeable to reason. Especially when, as it here falls out, the
    difficulty is founded in the peculiar nature of a certain odd and
    particular case. For, in the present case something peculiar lies
    hid, which, being involved in the subtilty of nature, will perhaps
    hardly be discovered till such time as the manner of vision is
    more perfectly made known. Concerning which, I must own I have
    hitherto been able to find out nothing that has the least show of
    probability, not to mention certainty. I shall therefore leave
    this knot to be untied by you, wishing you may have better success
    in it than I have had.”


                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

30. The ancient and received principle, which Dr. Barrow here mentions as
the main foundation of Tacquet’s(316) _Catoptrics_, is, that every
“visible point seen by reflection from a speculum shall appear placed at
the intersection of the reflected ray and the perpendicular of incidence.”
Which intersection in the present case happening to be behind the eye, it
greatly shakes the authority of that principle whereon the aforementioned
author proceeds throughout his whole _Catoptrics_, in determining the
apparent place of objects seen by reflection from any kind of speculum.

31. Let us now see how this phenomenon agrees with our tenets(317). The
eye, the nearer it is placed to the point _B_ in the above figures, the
more distinct is the appearance of the object: but, as it recedes to _O_,
the appearance grows more confused; and at _P_ it sees the object yet more
confused; and so on, till the eye, being brought back to _Z_, sees the
object in the greatest confusion of all. Wherefore, by sect. 21, the
object should seem to approach the eye gradually, as it recedes from the
point _B_; that is, at _O_ it should (in consequence of the principle I
have laid down in the aforesaid section) seem nearer than it did at _B_,
and at _P_ nearer than at _O_, and at _Q_ nearer than at _P_, and so on,
till it quite vanishes at _Z_. Which is the very matter of fact, as any
one that pleases may easily satisfy himself by experiment.

32. This case is much the same as if we should suppose an Englishman to
meet a foreigner who used the same words with the English, but in a direct
contrary signification. The Englishman would not fail to make a wrong
judgment of the ideas annexed to those sounds, in the mind of him that
used them. Just so in the present case, the object speaks (if I may so
say) with words that the eye is well acquainted with, that is, confusions
of appearance; but, whereas heretofore the greatest confusions were always
wont to signify nearer distances, they have in this case a direct contrary
signification, being connected with the greater distances. Whence it
follows that the eye must unavoidably be mistaken, since it will take the
confusions in the sense it has been used to, which is directly opposed to
the true.

33. This phenomenon, as it entirely subverts the opinion of those who will
have us judge of distance by lines and angles, on which supposition it is
altogether inexplicable, so it seems to me no small confirmation of the
truth of that principle whereby it is explained(318). But, in order to a
more full explication of this point, and to shew how far the hypothesis of
the mind’s judging by the various divergency of rays may be of use in
determining the apparent place of an object, it will be necessary to
premise some few things, which are already well known to those who have
any skill in Dioptrics.

34. _First_, Any radiating point is then distinctly seen when the rays
proceeding from it are, by the refractive power of the crystalline,
accurately reunited in the retina or fund of the eye. But if they are
reunited either before they arrive at the retina, or after they have
passed it, then there is confused vision.

                              [Illustration]

                                 Figure 1


                              [Illustration]

                                 Figure 2


                              [Illustration]

                                 Figure 3


35. _Secondly_, Suppose, in the adjacent figures, _NP_ represent an eye
duly framed, and retaining its natural figure. In fig. 1 the rays falling
nearly parallel on the eye, are, by the crystalline _AB_, refracted, so as
their focus, or point of union _F_, falls exactly on the retina. But, if
the rays fall sensibly diverging on the eye, as in fig. 2, then their
focus falls beyond the retina; or, if the rays are made to converge by the
lens _QS_, before they come at the eye, as in fig. 3, their focus _F_ will
fall before the retina. In which two last cases it is evident, from the
foregoing section, that the appearance of the point _Z_ is confused. And,
by how much the greater is the convergency or divergency of the rays
falling on the pupil, by so much the farther will the point of their
reunion be from the retina, either before or behind it, and consequently
the point _Z_ will appear by so much the more confused. And this, by the
bye, may shew us the difference between confused and faint vision.
Confused vision is, when the rays proceeding from each distinct point of
the object are not accurately re-collected in one corresponding point on
the retina, but take up some space thereon—so that rays from different
points become mixed and confused together. This is opposed to a distinct
vision, and attends near objects. Faint vision is when, by reason of the
distance of the object, or grossness of the interjacent medium, few rays
arrive from the object to the eye. This is opposed to vigorous or clear
vision, and attends remote objects. But to return.

36. The eye, or (to speak truly) the mind, perceiving only the confusion
itself, without ever considering the cause from which it proceeds, doth
constantly annex the same degree of distance to the same degree of
confusion. Whether that confusion be occasioned by converging or by
diverging rays it matters not. Whence it follows that the eye, viewing the
object _Z_ through the glass _QS_ (which by refraction causeth the rays
_ZQ_, _ZS_, &c. to converge), should judge it to be at such a nearness, at
which, if it were placed, it would radiate on the eye, with rays diverging
to that degree as would produce the same confusion which is now produced
by converging rays, i.e. would cover a portion of the retina equal to
_DC._ (Vid. fig. 3, _sup._) But then this must be understood (to use Dr.
Barrow’s phrase) “seclusis prænotionibus et præjudiciis,” in case we
abstract from all other circumstances of vision, such as the figure, size,
faintness, &c. of the visible objects—all which do ordinarily concur to
form our idea of distance, the mind having, by frequent experience,
observed their several sorts or degrees to be connected with various
distances.

37. It plainly follows from what has been said, that a person perfectly
purblind (i.e. that could not see an object distinctly but when placed
close to his eye) would not make the same wrong judgment that others do in
the forementioned case. For, to him, greater confusions constantly
suggesting greater distances, he must, as he recedes from the glass, and
the object grows more confused, judge it to be at a farther distance;
contrary to what they do who have had the perception of the objects
growing more confused connected with the idea of approach.

38. Hence also it doth appear, there may be good use of computation, by
lines and angles, in optics(319); not that the mind judges of distance
immediately by them, but because it judges by somewhat which is connected
with them, and to the determination whereof they may be subservient. Thus,
the mind judging of the distance of an object by the confusedness of its
appearance, and this confusedness being greater or lesser to the naked
eye, according as the object is seen by rays more or less diverging, it
follows that a man may make use of the divergency of the rays, in
computing the apparent distance, though not for its own sake, yet on
account of the confusion with which it is connected. But so it is, the
confusion itself is entirely neglected by mathematicians, as having no
necessary relation with distance, such as the greater or lesser angles of
divergency are conceived to have. And these (especially for that they fall
under mathematical computation) are alone regarded, in determining the
apparent places of objects, as though they were the sole and immediate
cause of the judgments the mind makes of distance. Whereas, in truth, they
should not at all be regarded in themselves, or any otherwise than as they
are supposed to be the cause of confused vision.

39. The not considering of this has been a fundamental and perplexing
oversight. For proof whereof, we need go no farther than the case before
us. It having been observed that the most diverging rays brought into the
mind the idea of nearest distance, and that still as the divergency
decreased the distance increased, and it being thought the connexion
between the various degrees of divergency and distance was immediate—this
naturally leads one to conclude, from an ill-grounded analogy, that
converging rays shall make an object appear at an immense distance, and
that, as the convergency increases, the distance (if it were possible)
should do so likewise. That this was the cause of Dr. Barrow’s mistake is
evident from his own words which we have quoted. Whereas had the learned
Doctor observed that diverging and converging rays, how opposite soever
they may seem, do nevertheless agree in producing the same effect, to wit,
confusedness of vision, greater degrees whereof are produced
indifferently, either as the divergency or convergency of the rays
increaseth; and that it is by this effect, which is the same in both, that
either the divergency or convergency is perceived by the eye—I say, had he
but considered this, it is certain he would have made a quite contrary
judgment, and rightly concluded that those rays which fall on the eye with
greater degrees of convergency should make the object from whence they
proceed appear by so much the nearer. But it is plain it was impossible
for any man to attain to a right notion of this matter so long as he had
regard only to lines and angles, and did not apprehend the true nature of
vision, and how far it was of mathematical consideration.

40. Before we dismiss this subject, it is fit we take notice of a query
relating thereto, proposed by the ingenious Mr. Molyneux, in his _Treatise
of Dioptrics_ (par. i. prop. 31. sect. 9), where, speaking of the
difficulty we have been explaining, he has these words: “And so he (i.e.
Dr. Barrow) leaves this difficulty to the solution of others, which I
(after so great an example) shall do likewise; but with the resolution of
the same admirable author, of not quitting the evident doctrine which we
have before laid down, for determining the _locus objecti_, on account of
being pressed by one difficulty, which seems inexplicable till a more
intimate knowledge of the visive faculty be obtained by mortals. In the
meantime I propose it to the consideration of the ingenious, whether the
_locus apparens_ of an object placed as in this ninth section be not as
much before the eye as the distinct base is behind the eye?” To which
query we may venture to answer in the negative. For, in the present case,
the rule for determining the distance of the distinct base, or respective
focus from the glass is this: _As the difference between the distance of
the object and focus is to the focus or focal length, so the distance of
the object from the glass is to the distance of the respective focus or
distinct base from the glass._ (Molyneux, _Dioptr._, par. i. prop. 5.) Let
us now suppose the object to be placed at the distance of the focal
length, and one-half of the focal length from the glass, and the eye close
to the glass. Hence it will follow, by the rule, that the distance of the
distinct base behind the eye is double the true distance of the object
before the eye. If, therefore, Mr. Molyneux’s conjecture held good, it
would follow that the eye should see the object twice as far off as it
really is; and in other cases at three or four times its due distance, or
more. But this manifestly contradicts experience, the object never
appearing, at farthest, beyond its due distance. Whatever, therefore, is
built on this supposition (vid. corol. i. prop. 57. ibid.) comes to the
ground along with it.

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41. From what hath been premised, it is a manifest consequence, that a man
born blind, being made to see, would at first have no idea of distance by
sight: the sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the nearer,
would all seem to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. The objects
intromitted by sight would seem to him (as in truth they are) no other
than a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof is as near to him
as the perceptions of pain or pleasure, or the most inward passions of his
soul. For, our judging objects perceived by sight to be at any distance,
or without the mind, is (vid. sect, xxviii.) entirely the effect of
experience; which one in those circumstances could not yet have attained
to(320).

42. It is indeed otherwise upon the common supposition—that men judge of
distance by the angle of the optic axes, just as one in the dark, or a
blind man by the angle comprehended by two sticks, one whereof he held in
each hand(321). For, if this were true, it would follow that one blind
from his birth, being made to see, should stand in need of no new
experience, in order to perceive distance by sight. But that this is false
has, I think, been sufficiently demonstrated.

43. And perhaps, upon a strict inquiry, we shall not find that even those
who from their birth have grown up in a continued habit of seeing are
irrecoverably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they
see to be at a distance from them. For, at this time it seems agreed on
all hands, by those who have had any thoughts of that matter, that
colours, which are the proper and immediate object of sight, are not
without the mind.—But then, it will be said, by sight we have also the
ideas of extension, and figure, and motion; all which may well be thought
without and at some distance from the mind, though colour should not. In
answer to this, I appeal to any man’s experience, whether the visible
extension of any object do not appear as near to him as the colour of that
object; nay, whether they do not both seem to be in the very same place.
Is not the extension we see coloured, and is it possible for us, so much
as in thought, to separate and abstract colour from extension? Now, where
the extension is, there surely is the figure, and there the motion too. I
speak of those which are perceived by sight(322).

44. But for a fuller explication of this point, and to shew that the
immediate objects of sight are not so much as the ideas or resemblances of
things placed at a distance, it is requisite that we look nearer into the
matter, and carefully observe what is meant in common discourse when one
says, that which he sees is at a distance from him. Suppose, for example,
that looking at the moon I should say it were fifty or sixty semidiameters
of the earth distant from me. Let us see what moon this is spoken of. It
is plain it cannot be the visible moon, or anything like the visible moon,
or that which I see—which is only a round luminous plain, of about thirty
visible points in diameter. For, in case I am carried from the place where
I stand directly towards the moon, it is manifest the object varies still
as I go on; and, by the time that I am advanced fifty or sixty
semidiameters of the earth, I shall be so far from being near a small,
round, luminous flat that I shall perceive nothing like it—this object
having long since disappeared, and, if I would recover it, it must be by
going back to the earth from whence I set out(323). Again, suppose I
perceive by sight the faint and obscure idea of something, which I doubt
whether it be a man, or a tree, or a tower, but judge it to be at the
distance of about a mile. It is plain I cannot mean that what I see is a
mile off, or that it is the image or likeness of anything which is a mile
off; since that every step I take towards it the appearance alters, and
from being obscure, small, and faint, grows clear, large, and vigorous.
And when I come to the mile’s end, that which I saw first is quite lost,
neither do I find anything in the likeness of it(324).

45. In these and the like instances, the truth of the matter, I find,
stands thus:—Having of a long time experienced certain ideas perceivable
by touch(325)—as distance, tangible figure, and solidity—to have been
connected with certain ideas of sight, I do, upon perceiving these ideas
of sight, forthwith conclude what tangible ideas are, by the wonted
ordinary course of nature, like to follow. Looking at an object, I
perceive a certain visible figure and colour, with some degree of
faintness and other circumstances, which, from what I have formerly
observed, determine me to think that if I advance forward so many paces,
miles, &c., I shall be affected with such and such ideas of touch. So
that, in truth and strictness of speech, I neither see distance itself,
nor anything that I take to be at a distance. I say, neither distance nor
things placed at a distance are themselves, or their ideas, truly
perceived by sight. This I am persuaded of, as to what concerns myself.
And I believe whoever will look narrowly into his own thoughts, and
examine what he means by saying he sees this or that thing at a distance,
will agree with me, that what he sees only suggests to his understanding
that, after having passed a certain distance, to be measured by the motion
of his body, which is perceivable by touch(326), he shall come to perceive
such and such tangible ideas, which have been usually connected with such
and such visible ideas. But, that one might be deceived by these
suggestions of sense, and that there is no necessary connexion between
visible and tangible ideas suggested by them, we need go no farther than
the next looking-glass or picture to be convinced. Note that, when I speak
of tangible ideas, I take the word idea for any the immediate object of
sense, or understanding—in which large signification it is commonly used
by the moderns(327).

46. From what we have shewn, it is a manifest consequence that the ideas
of space, outness(328), and things placed at a distance are not, strictly
speaking, the object of sight(329); they are not otherwise perceived by
the eye than by the ear. Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive along
the street; I look through the casement and see it; I walk out and enter
into it. Thus, common speech would incline one to think I heard, saw, and
touched the same thing, to wit, the coach. It is nevertheless certain the
ideas intromitted by each sense are widely different, and distinct from
each other; but, having been observed constantly to go together, they are
spoken of as one and the same thing. By the variation of the noise, I
perceive the different distances of the coach, and know that it approaches
before I look out. Thus, by the ear I perceive distance just after the
same manner as I do by the eye.

47. I do not nevertheless say I hear distance, in like manner as I say
that I see it—the ideas perceived by hearing not being so apt to be
confounded with the ideas of touch as those of sight are. So likewise a
man is easily convinced that bodies and external things are not properly
the object of hearing, but only sounds, by the mediation whereof the idea
of this or that body, or distance, is suggested to his thoughts. But then
one is with more difficulty brought to discern the difference there is
betwixt the ideas of sight and touch(330): though it be certain, a man no
more sees and feels the same thing, than he hears and feels the same
thing.

48. One reason of which seems to be this. It is thought a great absurdity
to imagine that one and the same thing should have any more than one
extension and one figure. But, the extension and figure of a body being
let into the mind two ways, and that indifferently, either by sight or
touch, it seems to follow that we see the same extension and the same
figure which we feel.

49. But, if we take a close and accurate view of the matter, it must be
acknowledged that we never see and feel one and the same object(331). That
which is seen is one thing, and that which is felt is another. If the
visible figure and extension be not the same with the tangible figure and
extension, we are not to infer that one and the same thing has divers
extensions. The true consequence is that the objects of sight and touch
are two distinct things(332). It may perhaps require some thought rightly
to conceive this distinction. And the difficulty seems not a little
increased, because the combination of visible ideas hath constantly the
same name as the combination of tangible ideas wherewith it is
connected—which doth of necessity arise from the use and end of
language(333).

50. In order, therefore, to treat accurately and unconfusedly of vision,
we must bear in mind that there are two sorts of objects apprehended by
the eye—the one primarily and immediately, the other secondarily and by
intervention of the former. Those of the first sort neither are nor appear
to be without the mind, or at any distance off(334). They may, indeed,
grow greater or smaller, more confused, or more clear, or more faint. But
they do not, cannot approach, [or even seem to approach (335)] or recede
from us. Whenever we say an object is at a distance, whenever we say it
draws near, or goes farther off, we must always mean it of the latter
sort, which properly belong to the touch(336), and are not so truly
perceived as suggested by the eye, in like manner as thoughts by the ear.

51. No sooner do we hear the words of a familiar language pronounced in
our ears but the ideas corresponding thereto present themselves to our
minds: in the very same instant the sound and the meaning enter the
understanding: so closely are they united that it is not in our power to
keep out the one except we exclude the other also. We even act in all
respects as if we heard the very thoughts themselves. So likewise the
secondary objects, or those which are only suggested by sight, do often
more strongly affect us, and are more regarded, than the proper objects of
that sense; along with which they enter into the mind, and with which they
have a far more strict connexion than ideas have with words(337). Hence it
is we find it so difficult to discriminate between the immediate and
mediate objects of sight, and are so prone to attribute to the former what
belongs only to the latter. They are, as it were, most closely twisted,
blended, and incorporated together. And the prejudice is confirmed and
riveted in our thoughts by a long tract of time, by the use of language,
and want of reflection. However, I doubt not but anyone that shall
attentively consider what we have already said, and shall say upon this
subject before we have done (especially if he pursue it in his own
thoughts), may be able to deliver himself from that prejudice. Sure I am,
it is worth some attention to whoever would understand the true nature of
vision.

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52. I have now done with Distance, and proceed to shew how it is that we
perceive by sight the Magnitude of objects(338). It is the opinion of some
that we do it by angles, or by angles in conjunction with distance. But,
neither angles nor distance being perceivable by sight(339), and the
things we see being in truth at no distance from us(340), it follows that,
as we have shewn lines and angles not to be the medium the mind makes use
of in apprehending the apparent place, so neither are they the medium
whereby it apprehends the apparent magnitude of objects.

53. It is well known that the same extension at a near distance shall
subtend a greater angle, and at a farther distance a lesser angle. And by
this principle (we are told) the mind estimates the magnitude of an
object(341), comparing the angle under which it is seen with its distance,
and thence inferring the magnitude thereof. What inclines men to this
mistake (beside the humour of making one see by geometry) is, that the
same perceptions or ideas which suggest distance do also suggest
magnitude. But, if we examine it, we shall find they suggest the latter as
immediately as the former. I say, they do not first suggest distance and
then leave it to the judgment to use that as a medium whereby to collect
the magnitude; but they have as close and immediate a connexion with the
magnitude as with the distance; and suggest magnitude as independently of
distance, as they do distance independently of magnitude. All which will
be evident to whoever considers what has been already said and what
follows.

54. It has been shewn there are two sorts of objects apprehended by sight,
each whereof has its distinct magnitude, or extension—the one, properly
tangible, i.e. to be perceived and measured by touch, and not immediately
falling under the sense of seeing; the other, properly and immediately
visible, by mediation of which the former is brought in view. Each of
these magnitudes are greater or lesser, according as they contain in them
more or fewer points, they being made up of points or minimums. For,
whatever may be said of extension in abstract(342), it is certain sensible
extension is not infinitely divisible(343). There is a _minimum
tangibile_, and a _minimum visibile_, beyond which sense cannot perceive.
This every one’s experience will inform him.

55. The magnitude of the object which exists without the mind, and is at a
distance, continues always invariably the same: but, the visible object
still changing as you approach to or recede from the tangible object, it
hath no fixed and determinate greatness. Whenever therefore we speak of
the magnitude of any thing, for instance a tree or a house, we must mean
the tangible magnitude; otherwise there can be nothing steady and free
from ambiguity spoken of it(344). Now, though the tangible and visible
magnitude do in truth belong to two distinct objects(345), I shall
nevertheless (especially since those objects are called by the same name,
and are observed to coexist(346)), to avoid tediousness and singularity of
speech, sometimes speak of them as belonging to one and the same thing.

56. Now, in order to discover by what means the magnitude of tangible
objects is perceived by sight, I need only reflect on what passes in my
own mind, and observe what those things be which introduce the ideas of
greater or lesser into my thoughts when I look on any object. And these I
find to be, _first_, the magnitude or extension of the visible object,
which, being immediately perceived by sight, is connected with that other
which is tangible and placed at a distance: _secondly_, the confusion or
distinctness: and _thirdly_, the vigorousness or faintness of the
aforesaid visible appearance. _Cæteris paribus_, by how much the greater
or lesser the visible object is, by so much the greater or lesser do I
conclude the tangible object to be. But, be the idea immediately perceived
by sight never so large, yet, if it be withal confused, I judge the
magnitude of the thing to be but small. If it be distinct and clear, I
judge it greater. And, if it be faint, I apprehend it to be yet greater.
What is here meant by confusion and faintness has been explained in sect.
35.

57. Moreover, the judgments we make of greatness do, in like manner as
those of distance, depend on the disposition of the eye; also on the
figure, number, and situation(347) of intermediate objects, and other
circumstances that have been observed to attend great or small tangible
magnitudes. Thus, for instance, the very same quantity of visible
extension which in the figure of a tower doth suggest the idea of great
magnitude shall in the figure of a man suggest the idea of much smaller
magnitude. That this is owing to the experience we have had of the usual
bigness of a tower and a man, no one, I suppose, need be told.

58. It is also evident that confusion or faintness have no more a
necessary connexion with little or great magnitude than they have with
little or great distance. As they suggest the latter, so they suggest the
former to our minds. And, by consequence, if it were not for experience,
we should no more judge a faint or confused appearance to be connected
with great or little magnitude than we should that it was connected with
great or little distance.

59. Nor will it be found that great or small visible magnitude hath any
necessary relation to great or small tangible magnitude—so that the one
may certainly and infallibly be inferred from the other. But, before we
come to the proof of this, it is fit we consider the difference there is
betwixt the extension and figure which is the proper object of touch, and
that other which is termed visible; and how the former is principally,
though not immediately, taken notice of when we look at any object. This
has been before mentioned(348), but we shall here inquire into the cause
thereof. We regard the objects that environ us in proportion as they are
adapted to benefit or injure our own bodies, and thereby produce in our
minds the sensations of pleasure or pain. Now, bodies operating on our
organs by an immediate application, and the hurt and advantage arising
therefrom depending altogether on the tangible, and not at all on the
visible, qualities of any object—this is a plain reason why those should
be regarded by us much more than these. And for this end [chiefly(349)]
the visive sense seems to have been bestowed on animals, to wit, that, by
the perception of visible ideas (which in themselves are not capable of
affecting or anywise altering the frame of their bodies), they may be able
to foresee(350) (from the experience they have had what tangible ideas are
connected with such and such visible ideas) the damage or benefit which is
like to ensue upon the application of their own bodies to this or that
body which is at a distance. Which foresight, how necessary it is to the
preservation of an animal, every one’s experience can inform him. Hence it
is that, when we look at an object, the tangible figure and extension
thereof are principally attended to; whilst there is small heed taken of
the visible figure and magnitude, which, though more immediately
perceived, do less sensibly affect us, and are not fitted to produce any
alteration in our bodies.

60. That the matter of fact is true will be evident to any one who
considers that a man placed at ten foot distance is thought as great as if
he were placed at the distance only of five foot; which is true, not with
relation to the visible, but tangible greatness of the object: the visible
magnitude being far greater at one station than it is at the other.

61. Inches, feet, &c. are settled, stated lengths, whereby we measure
objects and estimate their magnitude. We say, for example, an object
appears to be six inches, or six foot long. Now, that this cannot be meant
of visible inches, &c. is evident, because a visible inch is itself no
constant determinate magnitude(351), and cannot therefore serve to mark
out and determine the magnitude of any other thing. Take an inch marked
upon a ruler; view it successively, at the distance of half a foot, a
foot, a foot and a half, &c. from the eye: at each of which, and at all
the intermediate distances, the inch shall have a different visible
extension, i.e. there shall be more or fewer points discerned in it. Now,
I ask which of all these various extensions is that stated determinate one
that is agreed on for a common measure of other magnitudes? No reason can
be assigned why we should pitch on one more than another. And, except
there be some invariable determinate extension fixed on to be marked by
the word inch, it is plain it can be used to little purpose; and to say a
thing contains this or that number of inches shall imply no more than that
it is extended, without bringing any particular idea of that extension
into the mind. Farther, an inch and a foot, from different distances,
shall both exhibit the same visible magnitude, and yet at the same time
you shall say that one seems several times greater than the other. From
all which it is manifest, that the judgments we make of the magnitude of
objects by sight are altogether in reference to their tangible extension.
Whenever we say an object is great or small, of this or that determinate
measure, I say, it must be meant of the tangible and not the visible
extension(352), which, though immediately perceived, is nevertheless
little taken notice of.

62. Now, that there is no necessary connexion between these two distinct
extensions is evident from hence—because our eyes might have been framed
in such a manner as to be able to see nothing but what were less than the
_minimum tangibile_. In which case it is not impossible we might have
perceived all the immediate objects of sight the very same that we do now;
but unto those visible appearances there would not be connected those
different tangible magnitudes that are now. Which shews the judgments we
make of the magnitude of things placed at a distance, from the various
greatness of the immediate objects of sight, do not arise from any
essential or necessary, but only a customary, tie which has been observed
betwixt them.

63. Moreover, it is not only certain that any idea of sight might not have
been connected with this or that idea of touch we now observe to accompany
it, but also that the greater visible magnitudes might have been connected
with and introduced into our minds lesser tangible magnitudes, and the
lesser visible magnitudes greater tangible magnitudes. Nay, that it
actually is so, we have daily experience—that object which makes a strong
and large appearance not seeming near so great as another the visible
magnitude whereof is much less, but more faint,(353) and the appearance
upper, or which is the same thing, painted lower on the retina, which
faintness and situation suggest both greater magnitude and greater
distance.

64. From which, and from sect. 57 and 58, it is manifest that, as we do
not perceive the magnitude of objects immediately by sight, so neither do
we perceive them by the mediation of anything which has a necessary
connexion with them. Those ideas that now suggest unto us the various
magnitudes of external objects before we touch them might possibly have
suggested no such thing; or they might have signified them in a direct
contrary manner, so that the very same ideas on the perception whereof we
judge an object to be small might as well have served to make us conclude
it great;—those ideas being in their own nature equally fitted to bring
into our minds the idea of small or great, or no size at all, of outward
objects(354), just as the words of any language are in their own nature
indifferent to signify this or that thing, or nothing at all.

65. As we see distance so we see magnitude. And we see both in the same
way that we see shame or anger in the looks of a man. Those passions are
themselves invisible; they are nevertheless let in by the eye along with
colours and alterations of countenance which are the immediate object of
vision, and which signify them for no other reason than barely because
they have been observed to accompany them. Without which experience we
should no more have taken blushing for a sign of shame than of gladness.

66. We are nevertheless exceedingly prone to imagine those things which
are perceived only by the mediation of others to be themselves the
immediate objects of sight, or at least to have in their own nature a
fitness to be suggested by them before ever they had been experienced to
coexist with them. From which prejudice every one perhaps will not find it
easy to emancipate himself, by any the clearest convictions of reason. And
there are some grounds to think that, if there was one only invariable and
universal language in the world, and that men were born with the faculty
of speaking it, it would be the opinion of some, that the ideas in other
men’s minds were properly perceived by the ear, or had at least a
necessary and inseparable tie with the sounds that were affixed to them.
All which seems to arise from want of a due application of our discerning
faculty, thereby to discriminate between the ideas that are in our
understandings, and consider them apart from each other; which would
preserve us from confounding those that are different, and make us see
what ideas do, and what do not, include or imply this or that other
idea(355).

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67. There is a celebrated phenomenon(356) the solution whereof I shall
attempt to give, by the principles that have been laid down, in reference
to the manner wherein we apprehend by sight the magnitude of objects.—The
apparent magnitude of the moon, when placed in the horizon, is much
greater than when it is in the meridian, though the angle under which the
diameter of the moon is seen be not observed greater in the former case
than in the latter; and the horizontal moon doth not constantly appear of
the same bigness, but at some times seemeth far greater than at others.

68. Now, in order to explain the reason of the moon’s appearing greater
than ordinary in the horizon, it must be observed that the particles which
compose our atmosphere do intercept the rays of light proceeding from any
object to the eye; and, by how much the greater is the portion of
atmosphere interjacent between the object and the eye, by so much the more
are the rays intercepted, and, by consequence, the appearance of the
object rendered more faint—every object appearing more vigorous or more
faint in proportion as it sendeth more or fewer rays into the eye. Now,
between the eye and the moon when situated in the horizon there lies a far
greater quantity of atmosphere than there does when the moon is in the
meridian. Whence it comes to pass, that the appearance of the horizontal
moon is fainter, and therefore, by sect. 56, it should be thought bigger
in that situation than in the meridian, or in any other elevation above
the horizon.

69. Farther, the air being variously impregnated, sometimes more and
sometimes less, with vapours and exhalations fitted to retund and
intercept the rays of light, it follows that the appearance of the
horizontal moon hath not always an equal faintness, and, by consequence,
that luminary, though in the very same situation, is at one time judged
greater than at another.

70. That we have here given the true account of the phenomena of the
horizontal moon, will, I suppose, be farther evident to any one from the
following considerations:—_First_, it is plain, that which in this case
suggests the idea of greater magnitude, must be something which is itself
perceived; for, that which is unperceived cannot suggest to our perception
any other thing(357). _Secondly_, it must be something that does not
constantly remain the same, but is subject to some change or variation;
since the appearance of the horizontal moon varies, being at one time
greater than at another. [_Thirdly_, it must not lie in the circumjacent
or intermediate objects, such as mountains, houses, fields, &c.; because
that when all those objects are excluded from sight the appearance is as
great as ever(358).] And yet, _thirdly_(359), it cannot be the visible
figure or magnitude; since that remains the same, or is rather lesser, by
how much the moon is nearer to the horizon. It remains therefore, that the
true cause is that affection or alteration of the visible appearance,
which proceeds from the greater paucity of rays arriving at the eye, and
which I term faintness: since this answers all the forementioned
conditions, and I am not conscious of any other perception that does.

71. Add to this that in misty weather it is a common observation, that the
appearance of the horizontal moon is far larger than usual, which greatly
conspires with and strengthens our opinion. Neither would it prove in the
least irreconcilable with what we have said, if the horizontal moon should
chance sometimes to seem enlarged beyond its usual extent, even in more
serene weather. For, we must not only have regard to the mist which
happens to be in the place where we stand; we ought also to take into our
thoughts the whole sum of vapours and exhalations which lie betwixt the
eye and the moon: all which co-operating to render the appearance of the
moon more faint, and thereby increase its magnitude, it may chance to
appear greater than it usually does even in the horizontal position, at a
time when, though there be no extraordinary fog or haziness just in the
place where we stand, yet the air between the eye and the moon, taken
altogether, may be loaded with a greater quantity of interspersed vapours
and exhalations than at other times(360).

72. It may be objected that, in consequence of our principles, the
interposition of a body in some degree opaque, which may intercept a great
part of the rays of light, should render the appearance of the moon in the
meridian as large as when it is viewed in the horizon. To which I answer,
it is not faintness anyhow applied that suggests greater magnitude; there
being no necessary, but only an experimental, connexion between those two
things. It follows that the faintness which enlarges the appearance must
be applied in such sort, and with such circumstances, as have been
observed to attend the vision of great magnitudes. When from a distance we
behold great objects, the particles of the intermediate air and vapours,
which are themselves unperceivable, do interrupt the rays of light, and
thereby render the appearance less strong and vivid. Now, faintness of
appearance, caused in this sort, hath been experienced to co-exist with
great magnitude. But when it is caused by the interposition of an opaque
sensible body, this circumstance alters the case; so that a faint
appearance this way caused does not suggest greater magnitude, because it
hath not been experienced to co-exist with it.

73. Faintness, as well as all other ideas or perceptions which suggest
magnitude or distance, does it in the same way that words suggest the
notions to which they are annexed. Now, it is known a word pronounced with
certain circumstances, or in a certain context with other words, hath not
always the same import and signification that it hath when pronounced in
some other circumstances, or different context of words. The very same
visible appearance, as to faintness and all other respects, if placed on
high, shall not suggest the same magnitude that it would if it were seen
at an equal distance on a level with the eye. The reason whereof is, that
we are rarely accustomed to view objects at a great height; our concerns
lie among things situated rather before than above us; and accordingly our
eyes are not placed on the top of our heads, but in such a position as is
most convenient for us to see distant objects standing in our way. And,
this situation of them being a circumstance which usually attends the
vision of distant objects, we may from hence account for (what is commonly
observed) an object’s appearing of different magnitude, even with respect
to its horizontal extension, on the top of a steeple, e.g. a hundred feet
high, to one standing below, from what it would if placed at a hundred
feet distance, on a level with his eye. For, it hath been shewn that the
judgment we make on the magnitude of a thing depends not on the visible
appearance only, but also on divers other circumstances, any one of which
being omitted or varied may suffice to make some alteration in our
judgment. Hence, the circumstance of viewing a distant object in such a
situation as is usual and suits with the ordinary posture of the head and
eyes, being omitted, and instead thereof a different situation of the
object, which requires a different posture of the head, taking place—it is
not to be wondered at if the magnitude be judged different. But it will be
demanded, why a high object should constantly appear less than an
equidistant low object of the same dimensions; for so it is observed to
be. It may indeed be granted that the variation of some circumstances may
vary the judgment made on the magnitude of high objects, which we are less
used to look at; but it does not hence appear why they should be judged
less rather than greater? I answer, that in case the magnitude of distant
objects was suggested by the extent of their visible appearance alone, and
thought proportional thereto, it is certain they would then be judged much
less than now they seem to be. (Vid. sect. 79.) But, several circumstances
concurring to form the judgment we make on the magnitude of distant
objects, by means of which they appear far larger than others whose
visible appearance hath an equal or even greater extension, it follows
that upon the change or omission of any of those circumstances which are
wont to attend the vision of distant objects, and so come to influence the
judgments made on their magnitude, they shall proportionally appear less
than otherwise they would. For, any of those things that caused an object
to be thought greater than in proportion to its visible extension being
either omitted, or applied without the usual circumstances, the judgment
depends more entirely on the visible extension; and consequently the
object must be judged less. Thus, in the present case the situation of the
thing seen being different from what it usually is in those objects we
have occasion to view, and whose magnitude we observe, it follows that the
very same object being a hundred feet high, should seem less than if it
was a hundred feet off, on (or nearly on) a level with the eye. What has
been here set forth seems to me to have no small share in contributing to
magnify the appearance of the horizontal moon, and deserves not to be
passed over in the explication of it.

74. If we attentively consider the phenomenon before us, we shall find the
not discerning between the mediate and immediate objects of sight to be
the chief cause of the difficulty that occurs in the explication of it.
The magnitude of the visible moon, or that which is the proper and
immediate object of vision(361), is no greater when the moon is in the
horizon than when it is in the meridian. How comes it, therefore, to seem
greater in one situation than the other? What is it can put this cheat on
the understanding? It has no other perception of the moon than what it
gets by sight. And that which is seen is of the same extent—I say, the
visible appearance hath the very same, or rather a less, magnitude, when
the moon is viewed in the horizontal than when in the meridional position.
And yet it is esteemed greater in the former than in the latter. Herein
consists the difficulty; which doth vanish and admit of the most easy
solution, if we consider that as the visible moon is not greater in the
horizon than in the meridian, so neither is it thought to be so. It hath
been already shewn that, in any act of vision, the visible object
absolutely, or in itself, is little taken notice of—the mind still
carrying its view from that to some tangible ideas, which have been
observed to be connected with it, and by that means come to be suggested
by it. So that when a thing is said to appear great or small, or whatever
estimate be made of the magnitude of any thing, this is meant not of the
visible but of the tangible object. This duly considered, it will be no
hard matter to reconcile the seeming contradiction there is, that the moon
should appear of a different bigness, the visible magnitude thereof
remaining still the same. For, by sect. 56, the very same visible
extension, with a different faintness, shall suggest a different tangible
extension. When therefore the horizontal moon is said to appear greater
than the meridional moon, this must be understood, not of a greater
visible extension, but of a greater tangible extension, which, by reason
of the more than ordinary faintness of the visible appearance, is
suggested to the mind along with it.

75. Many attempts have been made by learned men to account for this
appearance(362). Gassendus(363), Des Cartes(364), Hobbes(365), and several
others have employed their thoughts on that subject; but how fruitless and
unsatisfactory their endeavours have been is sufficiently shewn in the
_Philosophical Transactions_(366) (Numb. 187, p. 314), where you may see
their several opinions at large set forth and confuted, not without some
surprise at the gross blunders that ingenious men have been forced into by
endeavouring to reconcile this appearance with the ordinary principles of
optics(367). Since the writing of which there hath been published in the
_Transactions_ (Numb. 187, p. 323) another paper relating to the same
affair, by the celebrated Dr. Wallis, wherein he attempts to account for
that phenomenon; which, though it seems not to contain anything new, or
different from what had been said before by others, I shall nevertheless
consider in this place.

76. His opinion, in short, is this:—We judge not of the magnitude of an
object by the optic angle alone, but by the optic angle in conjunction
with the distance. Hence, though the angle remain the same, or even become
less, yet, if withal the distance seem to have been increased, the object
shall appear greater. Now, one way whereby we estimate the distance of
anything is by the number and extent of the intermediate objects. When
therefore the moon is seen in the horizon, the variety of fields, houses,
&c. together with the large prospect of the wide extended land or sea that
lies between the eye and the utmost limb of the horizon, suggest unto the
mind the idea of greater distance, and consequently magnify the
appearance. And this, according to Dr. Wallis, is the true account of the
extraordinary largeness attributed by the mind to the horizontal moon, at
a time when the angle subtended by its diameter is not one jot greater
than it used to be.

77. With reference to this opinion, not to repeat what has been already
said concerning distance(368), I shall only observe, _first_, that if the
prospect of interjacent objects be that which suggests the idea of farther
distance, and this idea of farther distance be the cause that brings into
the mind the idea of greater magnitude, it should hence follow that if one
looked at the horizontal moon from behind a wall, it would appear no
bigger than ordinary. For, in that case, the wall interposing cuts off all
that prospect of sea and land, &c. which might otherwise increase the
apparent distance, and thereby the apparent magnitude of the moon. Nor
will it suffice to say, the memory doth even then suggest all that extent
of land, &c. which lies within the horizon, which suggestion occasions a
sudden judgment of sense, that the moon is farther off and larger than
usual. For, ask any man who from such a station beholding the horizontal
moon shall think her greater than usual, whether he hath at that time in
his mind any idea of the intermediate objects, or long tract of land that
lies between his eye and the extreme edge of the horizon? and whether it
be that idea which is the cause of his making the aforementioned judgment?
He will, without doubt, reply in the negative, and declare the horizontal
moon shall appear greater than the meridional, though he never thinks of
all or any of those things that lie between him and it. [And as for the
absurdity of any idea’s introducing into the mind another, whilst itself
is not perceived, this has already fallen under our observation, and is
too evident to need any farther enlargement on it(369).] _Secondly_, it
seems impossible, by this hypothesis, to account for the moon’s appearing,
in the very same situation, at one time greater than at another; which,
nevertheless, has been shewn to be very agreeable to the principles we
have laid down, and receives a most easy and natural explication from
them. [(370)For the further clearing up of this point, it is to be
observed, that what we immediately and properly see are only lights and
colours in sundry situations and shades, and degrees of faintness and
clearness, confusion and distinctness. All which visible objects are only
in the mind; nor do they suggest aught external(371), whether distance or
magnitude, otherwise than by habitual connexion, as words do things. We
are also to remark, that beside the straining of the eyes, and beside the
vivid and faint, the distinct and confused appearances (which, bearing
some proportion to lines and angles, have been substituted instead of them
in the foregoing part of this Treatise), there are other means which
suggest both distance and magnitude—particularly the situation of visible
points or objects, as upper or lower; the former suggesting a farther
distance and greater magnitude, the latter a nearer distance and lesser
magnitude—all which is an effect only of custom and experience, there
being really nothing intermediate in the line of distance between the
uppermost and the lowermost, which are both equidistant, or rather at no
distance from the eye; as there is also nothing in upper or lower which by
necessary connexion should suggest greater or lesser magnitude. Now, as
these customary experimental means of suggesting distance do likewise
suggest magnitude, so they suggest the one as immediately as the other. I
say, they do not (vide sect. 53) first suggest distance, and then leave
the mind from thence to infer or compute magnitude, but suggest magnitude
as immediately and directly as they suggest distance.]

78. This phenomenon of the horizontal moon is a clear instance of the
insufficiency of lines and angles for explaining the way wherein the mind
perceives and estimates the magnitude of outward objects. There is,
nevertheless, a use of computation by them(372)—in order to determine the
apparent magnitude of things, so far as they have a connexion with and are
proportional to those other ideas or perceptions which are the true and
immediate occasions that suggest to the mind the apparent magnitude of
things. But this in general may, I think, be observed concerning
mathematical computation in optics—that it can never(373) be very precise
and exact(374), since the judgments we make of the magnitude of external
things do often depend on several circumstances which are not proportional
to or capable of being defined by lines and angles.

79. From what has been said, we may safely deduce this consequence, to
wit, that a man born blind, and made to see, would, at first opening of
his eyes, make a very different judgment of the magnitude of objects
intromitted by them from what others do. He would not consider the ideas
of sight with reference to, or as having any connexion with, the ideas of
touch. His view of them being entirely terminated within themselves, he
can no otherwise judge them great or small than as they contain a greater
or lesser number of visible points. Now, it being certain that any visible
point can cover or exclude from view only one other visible point, it
follows that whatever object intercepts the view of another hath an equal
number of visible points with it; and, consequently, they shall both be
thought by him to have the same magnitude. Hence, it is evident one in
those circumstances would judge his thumb, with which he might hide a
tower, or hinder its being seen, equal to that tower; or his hand, the
interposition whereof might conceal the firmament from his view, equal to
the firmament: how great an inequality soever there may, in our
apprehensions, seem to be betwixt those two things, because of the
customary and close connexion that has grown up in our minds between the
objects of sight and touch, whereby the very different and distinct ideas
of those two senses are so blended and confounded together as to be
mistaken for one and the same thing—out of which prejudice we cannot
easily extricate ourselves.

80. For the better explaining the nature of vision, and setting the manner
wherein we perceive magnitudes in a due light, I shall proceed to make
some observations concerning matters relating thereto, whereof the want of
reflection, and duly separating between tangible and visible ideas, is apt
to create in us mistaken and confused notions. And, _first_, I shall
observe, that the _minimum visibile_ is exactly equal in all beings
whatsoever that are endowed with the visive faculty(375). No exquisite
formation of the eye, no peculiar sharpness of sight, can make it less in
one creature than in another; for, it not being distinguishable into
parts, nor in anywise consisting of them, it must necessarily be the same
to all. For, suppose it otherwise, and that the _minimum visibile_ of a
mite, for instance, be less than the _minimum visibile_ of a man; the
latter therefore may, by detraction of some part, be made equal to the
former. It doth therefore consist of parts, which is inconsistent with the
notion of a _minimum visibile_ or point.

81. It will, perhaps, be objected, that the _minimum visibile_ of a man
doth really and in itself contain parts whereby it surpasses that of a
mite, though they are not perceivable by the man. To which I answer, the
_minimum visibile_ having (in like manner as all other the proper and
immediate objects of sight) been shewn not to have any existence without
the mind of him who sees it, it follows there cannot be any part of it
that is not actually perceived and therefore visible. Now, for any object
to contain several distinct visible parts, and at the same time to be a
_minimum visibile_, is a manifest contradiction.

82. Of these visible points we see at all times an equal number. It is
every whit as great when our view is contracted and bounded by near
objects as when it is extended to larger and remoter ones. For, it being
impossible that one _minimum visibile_ should obscure or keep out of sight
more than one other, it is a plain consequence that, when my view is on
all sides bounded by the walls of my study, I see just as many visible
points as I could in case that, by the removal of the study-walls and all
other obstructions, I had a full prospect of the circumjacent fields,
mountains, sea, and open firmament. For, so long as I am shut up within
the walls, by their interposition every point of the external objects is
covered from my view. But, each point that is seen being able to cover or
exclude from sight one only other corresponding point, it follows that,
whilst my sight is confined to those narrow walls, I see as many points,
or _minima visibilia_, as I should were those walls away, by looking on
all the external objects whose prospect is intercepted by them. Whenever,
therefore, we are said to have a greater prospect at one time than
another, this must be understood with relation, not to the proper and
immediate, but the secondary and mediate objects of vision—which, as hath
been shewn, do properly belong to the touch.

83. The visive faculty, considered with reference to its immediate
objects, may be found to labour of two defects. _First_, in respect of the
extent or number of visible points that are at once perceivable by it,
which is narrow and limited to a certain degree. It can take in at one
view but a certain determinate number of _minima visibilia_, beyond which
it cannot extend its prospect. _Secondly_, our sight is defective in that
its view is not only narrow, but also for the most part confused. Of those
things that we take in at one prospect, we can see but a few at once
clearly and unconfusedly; and the more we fix our sight on any one object,
by so much the darker and more indistinct shall the rest appear.

84. Corresponding to these two defects of sight, we may imagine as many
perfections, to wit, 1st. That of comprehending in one view a greater
number of visible points; 2dly, of being able to view them all equally and
at once, with the utmost clearness and distinction. That those perfections
are not actually in some intelligences of a different order and capacity
from ours, it is impossible for us to know(376).

85. In neither of those two ways do microscopes contribute to the
improvement of sight. For, when we look through a microscope, we neither
see more visible points, nor are the collateral points more distinct, than
when we look with the naked eye at objects placed at a due distance. A
microscope brings us, as it were, into a new world. It presents us with a
new scene of visible objects, quite different from what we behold with the
naked eye. But herein consists the most remarkable difference, to wit,
that whereas the objects perceived by the eye alone have a certain
connexion with tangible objects, whereby we are taught to foresee what
will ensue upon the approach or application of distant objects to the
parts of our own body—which much conduceth to its preservation(377)—there
is not the like connexion between things tangible and those visible
objects that are perceived by help of a fine microscope.

86. Hence, it is evident that, were our eyes turned into the nature of
microscopes, we should not be much benefitted by the change. We should be
deprived of the forementioned advantage we at present receive by the
visive faculty, and have left us only the empty amusement of seeing,
without any other benefit arising from it. But, in that case, it will
perhaps be said, our sight would be endued with a far greater sharpness
and penetration than it now hath. But I would fain know wherein consists
that sharpness which is esteemed so great an excellency of sight. It is
certain, from what we have already shewn(378), that the _minimum visibile_
is never greater or lesser, but in all cases constantly the same. And in
the case of microscopical eyes, I see only this difference, to wit, that
upon the ceasing of a certain observable connexion betwixt the divers
perceptions of sight and touch, which before enabled us to regulate our
actions by the eye, it would now be rendered utterly unserviceable to that
purpose.

87. Upon the whole, it seems that if we consider the use and end of sight,
together with the present state and circumstances of our being, we shall
not find any great cause to complain of any defect or imperfection in it,
or easily conceive how it could be mended. With such admirable wisdom is
that faculty contrived, both for the pleasure and convenience of life.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

88. Having finished what I intended to say concerning the Distance and
Magnitude of objects, I come now to treat of the manner wherein the mind
perceives by sight their Situation(379). Among the discoveries of the last
age, it is reputed none of the least, that the manner of vision has been
more clearly explained than ever it had been before. There is, at this
day, no one ignorant that the pictures of external objects are painted on
the retina or fund of the eye; that we can see nothing which is not so
painted; and that, according as the picture is more distinct or confused,
so also is the perception we have of the object(380). But then, in this
explication of vision, there occurs one mighty difficulty, viz. the
objects are painted in an inverted order on the bottom of the eye: the
upper part of any object being painted on the lower part of the eye, and
the lower part of the object on the upper part of the eye; and so also as
to right and left. Since therefore the pictures are thus inverted, it is
demanded, how it comes to pass that we see the objects erect and in their
natural posture?

                              [Illustration]

                                 Figure 4


89. In answer to this difficulty, we are told that the mind, perceiving an
impulse of a ray of light on the upper part of the eye, considers this ray
as coming in a direct line from the lower part of the object; and, in like
manner, tracing the ray that strikes on the lower part of the eye, it is
directed to the upper part of the object. Thus, in the adjacent figure,
_C_, the lower point of the object _ABC_, is projected on _c_ the upper
part of the eye. So likewise, the highest point _A_ is projected on _a_
the lowest part of the eye; which makes the representation _cba_ inverted.
But the mind—considering the stroke that is made on _c_ as coming in the
straight line _Cc_ from the lower end of the object; and the stroke or
impulse on _a_, as coming in the line _Aa_ from the upper end of the
object—is directed to make a right judgment of the situation of the object
_ABC_, notwithstanding the picture of it be inverted. Moreover, this is
illustrated by conceiving a blind man, who, holding in his hands two
sticks that cross each other, doth with them touch the extremities of an
object, placed in a perpendicular situation(381). It is certain this man
will judge that to be the upper part of the object which he touches with
the stick held in the undermost hand, and that to be the lower part of the
object which he touches with the stick in his uppermost hand. This is the
common explication of the erect appearance of objects, which is generally
received and acquiesced in, being (as Mr. Molyneux tells us, _Diopt._ part
ii. ch. vii. p. 289) “allowed by all men as satisfactory.”

90. But this account to me does not seem in any degree true. Did I
perceive those impulses, decussations, and directions of the rays of
light, in like manner as hath been set forth, then, indeed, it would not
at first view be altogether void of probability. And there might be some
pretence for the comparison of the blind man and his cross sticks. But the
case is far otherwise. I know very well that I perceive no such thing.
And, of consequence, I cannot thereby make an estimate of the situation of
objects. Moreover, I appeal to any one’s experience, whether he be
conscious to himself that he thinks on the intersection made by the radius
pencils, or pursues the impulses they give in right lines, whenever he
perceives by sight the position of any object? To me it seems evident that
crossing and tracing of the rays, &c. is never thought on by children,
idiots, or, in truth, by any other, save only those who have applied
themselves to the study of optics. And for the mind to judge of the
situation of objects by those things without perceiving them, or to
perceive them without knowing it(382), take which you please, it is
perfectly beyond my comprehension. Add to this, that the explaining the
manner of vision by the example of cross sticks, and hunting for the
object along the axes of the radius pencils, doth suppose the proper
objects of sight to be perceived at a distance from us, contrary to what
hath been demonstrated(383). [We may therefore venture to pronounce this
opinion, concerning the way wherein the mind perceives the erect
appearance of objects, to be of a piece with those other tenets of writers
in optics, which in the foregoing parts of this treatise we have had
occasion to examine and refute(384).]

91. It remains, therefore, that we look for some other explication of this
difficulty. And I believe it not impossible to find one, provided we
examine it to the bottom, and carefully distinguish between the ideas of
sight and touch; which cannot be too oft inculcated in treating of
vision(385). But, more especially throughout the consideration of this
affair, we ought to carry that distinction in our thoughts; for that from
want of a right understanding thereof, the difficulty of explaining erect
vision seems chiefly to arise.

92. In order to disentangle our minds from whatever prejudices we may
entertain with relation to the subject in hand, nothing seems more
apposite than the taking into our thoughts the case of one born blind, and
afterwards, when grown up, made to see. And—though perhaps it may not be a
task altogether easy and familiar to us, to divest ourselves entirely of
the experiences received from sight, so as to be able to put our thoughts
exactly in the posture of such a one’s—we must, nevertheless, as far as
possible, endeavour to frame true conceptions of what might reasonably be
supposed to pass in his mind(386).

93. It is certain that a man actually blind, and who had continued so from
his birth, would, by the sense of feeling, attain to have ideas of upper
and lower. By the motion of his hand, he might discern the situation of
any tangible object placed within his reach. That part on which he felt
himself supported, or towards which he perceived his body to gravitate, he
would term _lower_, and the contrary to this _upper_; and accordingly
denominate whatsoever objects he touched.

94. But then, whatever judgments he makes concerning the situation of
objects are confined to those only that are perceivable by touch. All
those things that are intangible, and of a spiritual nature—his thoughts
and desires, his passions, and in general all the modifications of his
soul—to these he would never apply the terms upper and lower, except only
in a metaphorical sense. He may perhaps, by way of allusion, speak of high
or low thoughts: but those terms, in their proper signification, would
never be applied to anything that was not conceived to exist without the
mind. For, a man born blind, and remaining in the same state, could mean
nothing else by the words higher and lower than a greater or lesser
distance from the earth; which distance he would measure by the motion or
application of his hand, or some other part of his body. It is, therefore,
evident that all those things which, in respect of each other, would by
him be thought higher or lower, must be such as were conceived to exist
without his mind, in the ambient space(387).

95. Whence it plainly follows, that such a one, if we suppose him made to
see, would not at first sight think that anything he saw was high or low,
erect or inverted. For, it hath been already demonstrated, in sect. 41,
that he would not think the things he perceived by sight to be at any
distance from him, or without his mind. The objects to which he had
hitherto been used to apply the terms up and down, high and low, were such
only as affected, or were some way perceived by his touch. But the proper
objects of vision make a new set of ideas, perfectly distinct and
different from the former, and which can in no sort make themselves
perceived by touch. There is, therefore, nothing at all that could induce
him to think those terms applicable to them. Nor would he ever think it,
till such time as he had observed their connexion with tangible objects,
and the same prejudice(388) began to insinuate itself into his
understanding, which, from their infancy, had grown up in the
understandings of other men.

96. To set this matter in a clearer light, I shall make use of an example.
Suppose the above-mentioned blind person, by his touch, perceives a man to
stand erect. Let us inquire into the manner of this. By the application of
his hand to the several parts of a human body, he had perceived different
tangible ideas; which being collected into sundry complex ones(389) have
distinct names annexed to them. Thus, one combination of a certain
tangible figure, bulk, and consistency of parts is called the head;
another the hand; a third the foot, and so of the rest—all which complex
ideas could, in his understanding, be made up only of ideas perceivable by
touch. He had also, by his touch, obtained an idea of earth or ground,
towards which he perceives the parts of his body to have a natural
tendency. Now—by _erect_ nothing more being meant than that perpendicular
position of a man wherein his feet are nearest to the earth—if the blind
person, by moving his hand over the parts of the man who stands before
him, do perceive the tangible ideas that compose the head to be farthest
from, and those that compose the feet to be nearest to, that other
combination of tangible ideas which he calls earth, he will denominate
that man erect. But, if we suppose him on a sudden to receive his sight,
and that he behold a man standing before him, it is evident, in that case,
he would neither judge the man he sees to be erect nor inverted; for he,
never having known those terms applied to any other save tangible things,
or which existed in the space without him, and what he sees neither being
tangible, nor perceived as existing without, he could not know that, in
propriety of language, they were applicable to it.

97. Afterwards, when, upon turning his head or eyes up and down to the
right and left, he shall observe the visible objects to change, and shall
also attain to know that they are called by the same names, and connected
with the objects perceived by touch; then, indeed, he will come to speak
of them and their situation in the same terms that he has been used to
apply to tangible things: and those that he perceives by turning up his
eyes he will call upper, and those that by turning down his eyes he will
call lower.

98. And this seems to me the true reason why he should think those objects
uppermost that are painted on the lower part of his eye. For, by turning
the eye up they shall be distinctly seen; as likewise they that are
painted on the highest part of the eye shall be distinctly seen by turning
the eye down, and are for that reason esteemed lowest. For we have shewn
that to the immediate objects of sight, considered in themselves, he would
not attribute the terms high and low. It must therefore be on account of
some circumstances which are observed to attend them. And these, it is
plain, are the actions of turning the eye up and down, which suggest a
very obvious reason why the mind should denominate the objects of sight
accordingly high or low. And, without this motion of the eye—this turning
it up and down in order to discern different objects—doubtless _erect_,
_inverse_, and other the like terms relating to the position of tangible
objects, would never have been transferred, or in any degree apprehended
to belong to the ideas of sight, the mere act of seeing including nothing
in it to that purpose; whereas the different situations of the eye
naturally direct the mind to make a suitable judgment of the situation of
objects intromitted by it(390).

99. Farther, when he has by experience learned the connexion there is
between the several ideas of sight and touch, he will be able, by the
perception he has of the situation of visible things in respect of one
another, to make a sudden and true estimate of the situation of outward,
tangible things corresponding to them. And thus it is he shall
perceive(391) by sight the situation of external(392) objects, which do
not properly fall under that sense.

100. I know we are very prone to think that, if just made to see, we
should judge of the situation of visible things as we do now. But, we are
also as prone to think that, at first sight, we should in the same way
apprehend the distance and magnitude of objects, as we do now; which hath
been shewn to be a false and groundless persuasion. And, for the like
reasons, the same censure may be passed on the positive assurance that
most men, before they have thought sufficiently of the matter, might have
of their being able to determine by the eye, at first view, whether
objects were erect or inverse.

101. It will perhaps be objected to our opinion, that a man, for instance,
being thought erect when his feet are next the earth, and inverted when
his head is next the earth, it doth hence follow that, by the mere act of
vision, without any experience or altering the situation of the eye, we
should have determined whether he were erect or inverted. For both the
earth itself, and the limbs of the man who stands thereon, being equally
perceived by sight, one cannot choose seeing what part of the man is
nearest the earth, and what part farthest from it, i.e. whether he be
erect or inverted.

102. To which I answer, the ideas which constitute the tangible earth and
man are entirely different from those which constitute the visible earth
and man. Nor was it possible, by virtue of the visive faculty alone,
without superadding any experience of touch, or altering the position of
the eye, ever to have known, or so much as suspected, there had been any
relation or connexion between them. Hence, a man at first view would not
denominate anything he saw, _earth_, or _head_, or _foot_; and
consequently, he could not tell, by the mere act of vision, whether the
head or feet were nearest the earth. Nor, indeed, would we have thereby
any thought of earth or man, erect or inverse, at all—which will be made
yet more evident, if we nicely observe, and make a particular comparison
between, the ideas of both senses.

103. That which I see is only variety of light and colours. That which I
feel is hard or soft, hot or cold, rough or smooth. What similitude, what
connexion, have those ideas with these? Or, how is it possible that any
one should see reason to give one and the same name(393) to combinations
of ideas so very different, before he had experienced their co-existence?
We do not find there is any necessary connexion betwixt this or that
tangible quality, and any colour whatsoever. And we may sometimes perceive
colours, where there is nothing to be felt. All which doth make it
manifest that no man, at first receiving of his sight(394), would know
there was any agreement between this or that particular object of his
sight and any object of touch he had been already acquainted with. The
colours therefore of the head would to him no more suggest the idea of
head(395) than they would the idea of feet.

104. Farther, we have at large shewn (vid. sect. 63 and 64) there is no
discoverable necessary connexion between any given visible magnitude and
any one particular tangible magnitude; but that it is entirely the result
of custom and experience, and depends on foreign and accidental
circumstances, that we can, by the perception of visible extension, inform
ourselves what may be the extension of any tangible object connected with
it. Hence, it is certain, that neither the visible magnitude of head or
foot would bring along with them into the mind, at first opening of the
eyes, the respective tangible magnitudes of those parts.

105. By the foregoing section, it is plain the visible figure of any part
of the body hath no necessary connexion with the tangible figure thereof,
so as at first sight to suggest it to the mind. For, figure is the
termination of magnitude. Whence it follows that no visible magnitude
having in its own nature an aptness to suggest any one particular tangible
magnitude, so neither can any visible figure be inseparably connected with
its corresponding tangible figure, so as of itself, and in a way prior to
experience, it might suggest it to the understanding. This will be farther
evident, if we consider that what seems smooth and round to the touch may
to sight, if viewed through a microscope, seem quite otherwise.

106. From all which, laid together and duly considered, we may clearly
deduce this inference:—In the first act of vision, no idea entering by the
eye would have a perceivable connexion with the ideas to which the names
earth, man, head, foot, &c. were annexed in the understanding of a person
blind from his birth; so as in any sort to introduce them into his mind,
or make themselves be called by the same names, and reputed the same
things with them, as afterwards they come to be.

107. There doth, nevertheless, remain one difficulty, which to some may
seem to press hard on our opinion, and deserve not to be passed over. For,
though it be granted that neither the colour, size, nor figure of the
visible feet have any necessary connexion with the ideas that compose the
tangible feet, so as to bring them at first sight into my mind, or make me
in danger of confounding them, before I had been used to and for some time
experienced their connexion; yet thus much seems undeniable, namely, that
the number of the visible feet being the same with that of the tangible
feet, I may from hence, without any experience of sight, reasonably
conclude that they represent or are connected with the feet rather than
the head. I say, it seems the idea of two visible feet will sooner suggest
to the mind the idea of two tangible feet than of one head—so that the
blind man, upon first reception of the visive faculty, might know which
were the feet or two, and which the head or one.

108. In order to get clear of this seeming difficulty, we need only
observe that diversity of visible objects does not necessarily infer
diversity of tangible objects corresponding to them. A picture painted
with great variety of colours affects the touch in one uniform manner; it
is therefore evident that I do not, by any necessary consecution,
independent of experience, judge of the number of things tangible from the
number of things visible. I should not therefore at first opening my eyes
conclude that because I see two I shall feel two. How, therefore, can I,
before experience teaches me, know that the visible legs, because two, are
connected with the tangible legs; or the visible head, because one, is
connected with the tangible head? The truth is, the things I see are so
very different and heterogeneous from the things I feel that the
perception of the one would never have suggested the other to my thoughts,
or enabled me to pass the least judgment thereon, until I had experienced
their connexion(396).

109. But, for a fuller illustration of this matter, it ought to be
considered, that number (however some may reckon it amongst the primary
qualities(397)) is nothing fixed and settled, really existing in things
themselves. It is entirely the creature of the mind, considering either a
simple idea by itself, or any combination of simple ideas to which it
gives one name, and so makes it pass for a unit. According as the mind
variously combines its ideas, the unit varies; and as the unit, so the
number, which is only a collection of units, doth also vary. We call a
window one, a chimney one; and yet a house, in which there are many
windows and many chimneys, has an equal right to be called one; and many
houses go to the making of one city. In these and the like instances, it
is evident the _unit_ constantly relates to the particular draughts the
mind makes of its ideas, to which it affixes names, and wherein it
includes more or less, as best suits its own ends and purposes. Whatever
therefore the mind considers as one, that is an unit. Every combination of
ideas is considered as one thing by the mind, and in token thereof is
marked by one name. Now, this naming and combining together of ideas is
perfectly arbitrary, and done by the mind in such sort as experience shews
it to be most convenient—without which our ideas had never been collected
into such sundry distinct combinations as they now are.

110. Hence, it follows that a man born blind, and afterwards, when grown
up, made to see, would not, in the first act of vision, parcel out the
ideas of sight into the same distinct collections that others do who have
experienced which do regularly co-exist and are proper to be bundled up
together under one name. He would not, for example, make into one complex
idea, and thereby esteem and unite all those particular ideas which
constitute the visible head or foot. For, there can be no reason assigned
why he should do so, barely upon his seeing a man stand upright before
him. There crowd into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in
company with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time. But,
all these ideas offered at once to his view he would not distribute into
sundry distinct combinations, till such time as, by observing the motion
of the parts of the man and other experiences, he comes to know which are
to be separated and which to be collected together(398).

111. From what hath been premised, it is plain the objects of sight and
touch make, if I may so say, two sets of ideas, which are widely different
from each other. To objects of either kind we indifferently attribute the
terms high and low, right and left, and such like, denoting the position
or situation of things; but then we must well observe that the position of
any object is determined with respect only to objects of the same sense.
We say any object of touch is high or low, according as it is more or less
distant from the tangible earth: and in like manner we denominate any
object of sight high or low, in proportion as it is more or less distant
from the visible earth. But, to define the situation of visible things
with relation to the distance they bear from any tangible thing, or _vice
versa_, this were absurd and perfectly unintelligible. For all visible
things are equally in the mind, and take up no part of the external space;
and consequently are equidistant from any tangible thing which exists
without the mind(399).

112. Or rather, to speak truly, the proper objects of sight are at no
distance, neither near nor far from any tangible thing. For, if we inquire
narrowly into the matter, we shall find that those things only are
compared together in respect of distance which exist after the same
manner, or appertain unto the same sense. For, by the distance between any
two points, nothing more is meant than the number of intermediate points.
If the given points are visible, the distance between them is marked out
by the number of the interjacent visible points; if they are tangible, the
distance between them is a line consisting of tangible points; but, if
they are one tangible and the other visible, the distance between them
doth neither consist of points perceivable by sight nor by touch, i.e. it
is utterly inconceivable(400). This, perhaps, will not find an easy
admission into all men’s understanding. However, I should gladly be
informed whether it be not true, by any one who will be at the pains to
reflect a little, and apply it home to his thoughts.

113. The not observing what has been delivered in the two last sections,
seems to have occasioned no small part of the difficulty that occurs in
the business of direct appearances. The head, which is painted nearest the
earth, seems to be farthest from it; and on the other hand, the feet,
which are painted farthest from the earth, are thought nearest to it.
Herein lies the difficulty, which vanishes if we express the thing more
clearly and free from ambiguity, thus:—How comes it that, to the eye, the
visible head, which is nearest the tangible earth, seems farthest from the
earth; and the visible feet, which are farthest from the tangible earth,
seem nearest the earth? The question being thus proposed, who sees not the
difficulty is founded on a supposition that the eye or visive faculty, or
rather the soul by means thereof, should judge of the situation of visible
objects with reference to their distance from the tangible earth? Whereas,
it is evident the tangible earth is not perceived by sight. And it hath
been shewn, in the two last preceding sections, that the location of
visible objects is determined only by the distance they bear from one
another, and that it is nonsense to talk of distance, far or near, between
a visible and tangible thing.

114. If we confine our thoughts to the proper objects of sight, the whole
is plain and easy. The head is painted farthest from, and the feet nearest
to, the visible earth; and so they appear to be. What is there strange or
unaccountable in this? Let us suppose the pictures in the fund of the eye
to be the immediate objects of sight(401). The consequence is that things
should appear in the same posture they are painted in; and is it not so?
The head which is seen seems farthest from the earth which is seen; and
the feet which are seen seem nearest to the earth which is seen. And just
so they are painted.

115. But, say you, the picture of the man is inverted, and yet the
appearance is erect. I ask, what mean you by the picture of the man, or,
which is the same thing, the visible man’s being inverted? You tell me it
is inverted, because the heels are uppermost and the head undermost?
Explain me this. You say that by the head’s being undermost, you mean that
it is nearest to the earth; and, by the heels being uppermost, that they
are farthest from the earth. I ask again, what earth you mean? You cannot
mean the earth that is painted on the eye or the visible earth—for the
picture of the head is farthest from the picture of the earth, and the
picture of the feet nearest to the picture of the earth; and accordingly
the visible head is farthest from the visible earth, and the visible feet
nearest to it. It remains, therefore, that you mean the tangible earth;
and so determine the situation of visible things with respect to tangible
things—contrary to what hath been demonstrated in sect. 111 and 112. The
two distinct provinces of sight and touch should be considered apart, and
as though their objects had no intercourse, no manner of relation to one
another, in point of distance or position(402).

116. Farther, what greatly contributes to make us mistake in this matter
is that, when we think of the pictures in the fund of the eye, we imagine
ourselves looking on the fund of another’s eye, or another looking on the
fund of our own eye, and beholding the pictures painted thereon. Suppose
two eyes, _A_ and _B_. _A_ from some distance looking on the pictures in
_B_ sees them inverted, and for that reason concludes they are inverted in
_B_. But this is wrong. There are projected in little on the bottom of _A_
the images of the pictures of, suppose, man, earth, &c., which are painted
on _B_. And, besides these, the eye _B_ itself, and the objects which
environ it, together with another earth, are projected in a larger size on
_A_. Now, by the eye _A_ these larger images are deemed the true objects,
and the lesser only pictures in miniature. And it is with respect to those
greater images that it determines the situation of the smaller images; so
that, comparing the little man with the great earth, _A_ judges him
inverted, or that the feet are farthest from and the head nearest to the
great earth. Whereas, if _A_ compare the little man with the little earth,
then he will appear erect, i.e. his head shall seem farthest from and his
feet nearest to the little earth. But we must consider that _B_ does not
see two earths as _A_ does. It sees only what is represented by the little
pictures in _A_, and consequently shall judge the man erect. For, in
truth, the man in _B_ is not inverted, for there the feet are next the
earth; but it is the representation of it in _A_ which is inverted, for
there the head of the representation of the picture of the man in _B_ is
next the earth, and the feet farthest from the earth—meaning the earth
which is without the representation of the pictures in _B_. For, if you
take the little linages of the pictures in _B_, and consider them by
themselves, and with respect only to one another, they are all erect and
in their natural posture.

117. Farther, there lies a mistake in our imagining that the pictures of
external(403) objects are painted on the bottom of the eye. It has been
shewn there is no resemblance between the ideas of sight and things
tangible. It hath likewise been demonstrated(404), that the proper objects
of sight do not exist without the mind. Whence it clearly follows that the
pictures painted on the bottom of the eye are not the pictures of external
objects. Let any one consult his own thoughts, and then tell me, what
affinity, what likeness, there is between that certain variety and
disposition of colours which constitute the visible man, or picture of a
man, and that other combination of far different ideas, sensible by touch,
which compose the tangible man. But, if this be the case, how come they to
be accounted pictures or images, since that supposes them to copy or
represent some originals or other?

118. To which I answer—In the forementioned instance, the eye _A_ takes
the little images, included within the representation of the other eye
_B_, to be pictures or copies, whereof the archetypes are not things
existing without(405), but the larger pictures(406) projected on its own
fund; and which by _A_ are not thought pictures, but the originals or true
things themselves. Though if we suppose a third eye _C_, from a due
distance, to behold the fund of _A_, then indeed the things projected
thereon shall, to _C_, seem pictures or images, in the same sense that
those projected on _B_ do to _A_.

119. Rightly to conceive the business in hand, we must carefully
distinguish between the ideas of sight and touch, between the visible and
tangible eye; for certainly on the tangible eye nothing either is or seems
to be painted. Again, the visible eye, as well as all other visible
objects, hath been shewn to exist only in the mind(407); which, perceiving
its own ideas, and comparing them together, does call some pictures in
respect to others. What hath been said, being rightly comprehended and
laid together, does, I think, afford a full and genuine explication of the
erect appearance of objects—which phenomenon, I must confess, I do not see
how it can be explained by any theories of vision hitherto made public.

120. In treating of these things, the use of language is apt to occasion
some obscurity and confusion, and create in us wrong ideas. For, language
being accommodated to the common notions and prejudices of men, it is
scarce possible to deliver the naked and precise truth, without great
circumlocution, impropriety, and (to an unwary reader) seeming
contradictions. I do, therefore, once for all, desire whoever shall think
it worth his while to understand what I have written concerning vision,
that he would not stick in this or that phrase or manner of expression,
but candidly collect my meaning from the whole sum and tenor of my
discourse, and, laying aside the words(408) as much as possible, consider
the bare notions themselves, and then judge whether they are agreeable to
truth and his own experience or no.

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121. We have shewn the way wherein the mind, by mediation of visible
ideas(409), doth perceive or apprehend the distance, magnitude, and
situation of tangible objects(410). I come now to inquire more
particularly concerning the difference between the ideas of sight and
touch which are called by the same names, and see whether there be any
idea common to both senses(411). From what we have at large set forth and
demonstrated in the foregoing parts of this treatise, it is plain there is
no one self-same numerical extension, perceived both by sight and touch;
but that the particular figures and extensions perceived by sight, however
they may be called by the same names, and reputed the same things with
those perceived by touch, are nevertheless different, and have an
existence very distinct and separate from them. So that the question is
not now concerning the same numerical ideas, but whether there be any one
and the same sort or species of ideas equally perceivable to both senses?
or, in other words, whether extension, figure, and motion perceived by
sight, are not specifically distinct from extension, figure, and motion
perceived by touch?

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122. But, before I come more particularly to discuss this matter, I find
it proper to take into my thoughts extension in abstract(412). For of this
there is much talk; and I am apt to think that when men speak of extension
as being an idea common to two senses, it is with a secret supposition
that we can single out extension from all other tangible and visible
qualities, and form thereof an abstract idea, which idea they will have
common both to sight and touch. We are therefore to understand by
extension in abstract, an idea(413) of extension—for instance, a line or
surface entirely stripped of all other sensible qualities and
circumstances that might determine it to any particular existence; it is
neither black, nor white, nor red, nor hath it any colour at all, or any
tangible quality whatsoever, and consequently it is of no finite
determinate magnitude(414); for that which bounds or distinguishes one
extension from another is some quality or circumstance wherein they
disagree.

123. Now, I do not find that I can perceive, imagine, or anywise frame in
my mind such an abstract idea as is here spoken of. A line or surface
which is neither black, nor white, nor blue, nor yellow, &c.; nor long,
nor short, nor rough, nor smooth, nor square, nor round, &c. is perfectly
incomprehensible. This I am sure of as to myself; how far the faculties of
other men may reach they best can tell.

124. It is commonly said that the object of geometry is abstract
extension. But geometry contemplates figures: now, figure is the
termination of magnitude(415); but we have shewn that extension in
abstract hath no finite determinate magnitude; whence it clearly follows
that it can have no figure, and consequently is not the object of
geometry. It is indeed a tenet, as well of the modern as the ancient
philosophers, that all general truths are concerning universal abstract
ideas; without which, we are told, there could be no science, no
demonstration of any general proposition in geometry. But it were no hard
matter, did I think it necessary to my present purpose, to shew that
propositions and demonstrations in geometry might be universal, though
they who make them never think of abstract general ideas of triangles or
circles.

125. After reiterated efforts and pangs of thought(416) to apprehend the
general idea of a triangle(417), I have found it altogether
incomprehensible. And surely, if any one were able to let that idea into
my mind, it must be the author(418) of the _Essay concerning Human
Understanding_: he, who has so far distinguished himself from the
generality of writers, by the clearness and significancy of what he says.
Let us therefore see how this celebrated author(419) describes the general
or [which is the same thing, the(420)] abstract idea of a triangle. “It
must be,” says he, “neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral,
equicrural, nor scalenum; but all and none of these at once. In effect it
is somewhat imperfect that cannot exist; an idea, wherein some parts of
several different and inconsistent ideas are put together.” (_Essay on
Human Understanding_, B. iv. ch. 7. s. 9.) This is the idea which he
thinks needful for the enlargement of knowledge, which is the subject of
mathematical demonstration, and without which we could never come to know
any general proposition concerning triangles. [Sure I am, if this be the
case, it is impossible for me to attain to know even the first elements of
geometry: since I have not the faculty to frame in my mind such an idea as
is here described(421).] That author acknowledges it doth “require some
pains and skill to form this general idea of a triangle.” (_Ibid._) But,
had he called to mind what he says in another place, to wit, “that ideas
of mixed modes wherein any inconsistent ideas are put together, cannot so
much as exist in the mind, i.e. be conceived,” (vid. B. iii. ch. 10. s.
33, _ibid._)—I say, had this occurred to his thoughts, it is not
improbable he would have owned it above all the pains and skill he was
master of, to form the above-mentioned idea of a triangle, which is made
up of manifest staring contradictions. That a man [of such a clear
understanding(422)], who thought so much and so well, and laid so great a
stress on clear and determinate ideas, should nevertheless talk at this
rate, seems very surprising. But the wonder will lessen, if it be
considered that the source whence this opinion [of abstract figures and
extension (423)] flows is the prolific womb which has brought forth
innumerable errors and difficulties, in all parts of philosophy, and in
all the sciences. But this matter, taken in its full extent, were a
subject too vast and comprehensive to be insisted on in this place(424).
[I shall only observe that your metaphysicians and men of speculation seem
to have faculties distinct from those of ordinary men, when they talk of
general or abstracted triangles and circles, &c., and so peremptorily
declare them to be the subject of all the eternal, immutable, universal
truths in geometry(425).] And so much for extension in abstract.

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126. Some, perhaps, may think pure space, vacuum, or trine dimension, to
be equally the object of sight and touch(426). But, though we have a very
great propension to think the ideas of outness and space to be the
immediate object of sight, yet, if I mistake not, in the foregoing parts
of this _Essay_, that hath been clearly demonstrated to be a mere
delusion, arising from the quick and sudden suggestion of fancy, which so
closely connects the idea of distance with those of sight, that we are apt
to think it is itself a proper and immediate object of that sense, till
reason corrects the mistake(427).

127. It having been shewn that there are no abstract ideas of figure, and
that it is impossible for us, by any precision of thought, to frame an
idea of extension separate from all other visible and tangible qualities,
which shall be common both to sight and touch—the question now remaining
is(428), whether the particular extensions, figures, and motions perceived
by sight, be of the same kind with the particular extensions, figures, and
motions perceived by touch? In answer to which I shall venture to lay down
the following proposition:—_The extension, figures, and motions perceived
by sight are specifically distinct from the ideas of touch, called by the
same names; nor is there any such thing as one idea, or kind of idea,
common_(429)_ to both senses._ This proposition may, without much
difficulty, be collected from what hath been said in several places of
this Essay. But, because it seems so remote from, and contrary to the
received notions and settled opinion of mankind, I shall attempt to
demonstrate it more particularly and at large by the following arguments:—

128. [_First_(430),] When, upon perception of an idea, I range it under
this or that sort, it is because it is perceived after the same manner, or
because it has a likeness or conformity with, or affects me in the same
way as the ideas of the sort I rank it under. In short, it must not be
entirely new, but have something in it old and already perceived by me. It
must, I say, have so much, at least, in common with the ideas I have
before known and named, as to make me give it the same name with them.
But, it has been, if I mistake not, clearly made out(431) that a man born
blind would not, at first reception of his sight, think the things he saw
were of the same nature with the objects of touch, or had anything in
common with them; but that they were a new set of ideas, perceived in a
new manner, and entirely different from all he had ever perceived before.
So that he would not call them by the same name, nor repute them to be of
the same sort, with anything he had hitherto known. [And surely the
judgment of such an unprejudiced person is more to be relied on in this
case than the sentiments of the generality of men; who, in this as in
almost everything else, suffer themselves to be guided by custom, and the
erroneous suggestions of prejudice, rather than reason and sedate
reflection(432).]

129. _Secondly_, Light and colours are allowed by all to constitute a sort
or species entirely different from the ideas of touch; nor will any man, I
presume, say they can make themselves perceived by that sense. But there
is no other immediate object of sight besides light and colours(433). It
is therefore a direct consequence, that there is no idea common to both
senses.

130. It is a prevailing opinion, even amongst those who have thought and
writ most accurately concerning our ideas, and the ways whereby they enter
into the understanding, that something more is perceived by sight than
barely light and colours with their variations. [The excellent(434)] Mr.
Locke termeth sight “the most comprehensive of all our senses, conveying
to our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to
that sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and
motion.” (_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. iii. ch. 9. s. 9.) Space or
distance(435), we have shewn, is no otherwise the object of sight than of
hearing. (Vid. sect. 46.) And, as for figure and extension, I leave it to
any one that shall calmly attend to his own clear and distinct ideas to
decide whether he has any idea intromitted immediately and properly by
sight save only light and colours: or, whether it be possible for him to
frame in his mind a distinct abstract idea of visible extension, or
figure, exclusive of all colour; and, on the other hand, whether he can
conceive colour without visible extension? For my own part, I must
confess, I am not able to attain so great a nicety of abstraction. I know
very well that, in a strict sense, I see nothing but light and colours,
with their several shades and variations. He who beside these doth also
perceive by sight ideas far different and distinct from them, hath that
faculty in a degree more perfect and comprehensive than I can pretend to.
It must be owned, indeed, that, by the mediation of light and colours,
other far different ideas are suggested to my mind. But so they are by
hearing(436). But then, upon this score, I see no reason why the sight
should be thought more comprehensive than the hearing, which, beside
sounds which are peculiar to that sense, doth, by their mediation, suggest
not only space, figure, and motion, but also all other ideas whatsoever
that can be signified by words.

131. _Thirdly_, It is, I think, an axiom universally received, that
“quantities of the same kind may be added together and make one entire
sum.” Mathematicians add lines together; but they do not add a line to a
solid, or conceive it as making one sum with a surface. These three kinds
of quantity being thought incapable of any such mutual addition, and
consequently of being compared together in the several ways of proportion,
are by them for that reason esteemed entirely disparate and heterogeneous.
Now let any one try in his thoughts to add a visible line or surface to a
tangible line or surface, so as to conceive them making one continued sum
or whole. He that can do this may think them homogeneous; but he that
cannot must, by the foregoing axiom, think them heterogeneous. [I
acknowledge myself to be of the latter sort(437).] A blue and a red line I
can conceive added together into one sum and making one continued line;
but, to make, in my thoughts, one continued line of a visible and tangible
line added together, is, I find, a task far more difficult, and even
insurmountable—and I leave it to the reflection and experience of every
particular person to determine for himself.

132. A farther confirmation of our tenet may be drawn from the solution of
Mr. Molyneux’s problem, published by Mr. Locke in his _Essay_(438): which
I shall set down as it there lies, together with Mr. Locke’s opinion of
it:—“Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to
distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of
the same bigness, so as to tell when he felt one and the other, which is
the cube, and which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on
a table, and the blind man made to see: Quære, Whether by his sight,
before he touched them, he could now distinguish, and tell, which is the
globe, which the cube. To which the acute and judicious proposer answers:
Not. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube
affects his touch; yet he has not yet attained the experience, that what
affects his touch so or so must affect his sight so or so: or that a
protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall
appear to his eye as it doth in the cube. I agree with this thinking
gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this his
problem; and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not
be able with certainty to say, which was the globe, which the cube, whilst
he only saw them.” (_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. ii. ch. 9. s. 8.)

133. Now, if a square surface perceived by touch be of the same sort with
a square surface perceived by sight, it is certain the blind man here
mentioned might know a square surface as soon as he saw it. It is no more
but introducing into his mind, by a new inlet, an idea he has been already
well acquainted with. Since therefore he is supposed to have known by his
touch that a cube is a body terminated by square surfaces; and that a
sphere is not terminated by square surfaces—upon the supposition that a
visible and tangible square differ only _in numero_, it follows that he
might know, by the unerring mark of the square surfaces, which was the
cube, and which not, while he only saw them. We must therefore allow,
either that visible extension and figures are specifically distinct from
tangible extension and figures, or else, that the solution of this
problem, given by those two [very(439)] thoughtful and ingenious men, is
wrong.

134. Much more might be laid together in proof of the proposition I have
advanced. But, what has been said is, if I mistake not, sufficient to
convince any one that shall yield a reasonable attention. And, as for
those that will not be at the pains of a little thought, no multiplication
of words will ever suffice to make them understand the truth, or rightly
conceive my meaning(440).

135. I cannot let go the above-mentioned problem without some reflection
on it. It hath been made evident that a man blind from his birth would
not, at first sight, denominate anything he saw, by the names he had been
used to appropriate to ideas of touch. (Vid. sect. 106.) Cube, sphere,
table are words he has known applied to things perceivable by touch, but
to things perfectly intangible he never knew them applied. Those words, in
their wonted application, always marked out to his mind bodies or solid
things which were perceived by the resistance they gave. But there is no
solidity, no resistance or protrusion, perceived by sight. In short, the
ideas of sight are all new perceptions, to which there be no names annexed
in his mind; he cannot therefore understand what is said to him concerning
them. And, to ask of the two bodies he saw placed on the table, which was
the sphere, which the cube, were to him a question downright bantering and
unintelligible; nothing he sees being able to suggest to his thoughts the
idea of body, distance, or, in general, of anything he had already known.

136. It is a mistake to think the same(441) thing affects both sight and
touch. If the same angle or square which is the object of touch be also
the object of vision, what should hinder the blind man, at first sight,
from knowing it? For, though the manner wherein it affects the sight be
different from that wherein it affected his touch, yet, there being,
beside this manner or circumstance, which is new and unknown, the angle or
figure, which is old and known, he cannot choose but discern it.

137. Visible figure and extension having been demonstrated to be of a
nature entirely different and heterogeneous from tangible figure and
extension, it remains that we inquire concerning motion. Now, that visible
motion is not of the same sort with tangible motion seems to need no
farther proof; it being an evident corollary from what we have shewn
concerning the difference there is betwixt visible and tangible extension.
But, for a more full and express proof hereof, we need only observe that
one who had not yet experienced vision would not at first sight know
motion(442). Whence it clearly follows that motion perceivable by sight is
of a sort distinct from motion perceivable by touch. The antecedent I
prove thus—By touch he could not perceive any motion but what was up or
down, to the right or left, nearer or farther from him; besides these, and
their several varieties or complications, it is impossible he should have
any idea of motion. He would not therefore think anything to be motion, or
give the name motion to any idea, which he could not range under some or
other of those particular kinds thereof. But, from sect. 95, it is plain
that, by the mere act of vision, he could not know motion upwards or
downwards, to the right or left, or in any other possible direction. From
which I conclude, he would not know motion at all at first sight. As for
the idea of motion in abstract, I shall not waste paper about it, but
leave it to my reader to make the best he can of it. To me it is perfectly
unintelligible(443).

138. The consideration of motion may furnish a new field for inquiry(444).
But, since the manner wherein the mind apprehends by sight the motion of
tangible objects, with the various degrees thereof, may be easily
collected from what has been said concerning the manner wherein that sense
doth suggest their various distances, magnitudes, and situations, I shall
not enlarge any farther on this subject, but proceed to inquire what may
be alleged, with greatest appearance of reason, against the proposition we
have demonstrated to be true; for, where there is so much prejudice to be
encountered, a bare and naked demonstration of the truth will scarce
suffice. We must also satisfy the scruples that men may start in favour of
their preconceived notions, shew whence the mistake arises, how it came to
spread, and carefully disclose and root out those false persuasions that
an early prejudice might have implanted in the mind.

139. _First_, therefore, it will be demanded how visible extension and
figures come to be called by the same name with tangible extension and
figures, if they are not of the same kind with them? It must be something
more than humour or accident that could occasion a custom so constant and
universal as this, which has obtained in all ages and nations of the
world, and amongst all ranks of men, the learned as well as the
illiterate.

140. To which I answer, we can no more argue a visible and tangible square
to be of the same species, from their being called by the same name, than
we can that a tangible square, and the monosyllable consisting of six
letters whereby it is marked, are of the same species, because they are
both called by the same name. It is customary to call written words, and
the things they signify, by the same name: for, words not being regarded
in their own nature, or otherwise than as they are marks of things, it had
been superfluous, and beside the design of language, to have given them
names distinct from those of the things marked by them. The same reason
holds here also. Visible figures are the marks of tangible figures; and,
from sect. 59, it is plain that in themselves they are little regarded, or
upon any other score than for their connexion with tangible figures, which
by nature they are ordained to signify. And, because this language of
nature(445) does not vary in different ages or nations, hence it is that
in all times and places visible figures are called by the same names as
the respective tangible figures suggested by them; and not because they
are alike, or of the same sort with them.

141. But, say you, surely a tangible square is liker to a visible square
than to a visible circle: it has four angles, and as many sides; so also
has the visible square—but the visible circle has no such thing, being
bounded by one uniform curve, without right lines or angles, which makes
it unfit to represent the tangible square, but very fit to represent the
tangible circle. Whence it clearly follows, that visible figures are
patterns of, or of the same species with, the respective tangible figures
represented by them; that they are like unto them, and of their own nature
fitted to represent them, as being of the same sort; and that they are in
no respect arbitrary signs, as words.

142. I answer, it must be acknowledged the visible square is fitter than
the visible circle to represent the tangible square, but then it is not
because it is liker, or more of a species with it; but, because the
visible square contains in it several distinct parts, whereby to mark the
several distinct corresponding parts of a tangible square, whereas the
visible circle doth not. The square perceived by touch hath four distinct
equal sides, so also hath it four distinct equal angles. It is therefore
necessary that the visible figure which shall be most proper to mark it
contain four distinct equal parts, corresponding to the four sides of the
tangible square; as likewise four other distinct and equal parts, whereby
to denote the four equal angles of the tangible square. And accordingly we
see the visible figures contain in them distinct visible parts, answering
to the distinct tangible parts of the figures signified or suggested by
them.

143. But, it will not hence follow that any visible figure is like unto or
of the same species with its corresponding tangible figure—unless it be
also shewn that not only the number, but also the kind of the parts be the
same in both. To illustrate this, I observe that visible figures represent
tangible figures much after the same manner that written words do sounds.
Now, in this respect, words are not arbitrary; it not being indifferent
what written word stands for any sound. But, it is requisite that each
word contain in it as many distinct characters as there are variations in
the sound it stands for. Thus, the single letter _a_ is proper to mark one
simple uniform sound; and the word _adultery_ is accommodated to represent
the sound annexed to it—in the formation whereof there being eight
different collisions or modifications of the air by the organs of speech,
each of which produces a difference of sound, it was fit the word
representing it should consist of as many distinct characters, thereby to
mark each particular difference or part of the whole sound. And yet
nobody, I presume, will say the single letter _a_, or the word _adultery_,
are alike unto or of the same species with the respective sounds by them
represented. It is indeed arbitrary that, in general, letters of any
language represent sounds at all; but, when that is once agreed, it is not
arbitrary what combination of letters shall represent this or that
particular sound. I leave this with the reader to pursue, and apply it in
his own thoughts.

144. It must be confessed that we are not so apt to confound other signs
with the things signified, or to think them of the same species, as we are
visible and tangible ideas. But, a little consideration will shew us how
this may well be, without our supposing them of a like nature. These signs
are constant and universal; their connexion with tangible ideas has been
learnt at our first entrance into the world; and ever since, almost every
moment of our lives, it has been occurring to our thoughts, and fastening
and striking deeper on our minds. When we observe that signs are variable,
and of human institution; when we remember there was a time they were not
connected in our minds with those things they now so readily suggest, but
that their signification was learned by the slow steps of experience: this
preserves us from confounding them. But, when we find the same signs
suggest the same things all over the world; when we know they are not of
human institution, and cannot remember that we ever learned their
signification, but think that at first sight they would have suggested to
us the same things they do now: all this persuades us they are of the same
species as the things respectively represented by them, and that it is by
a natural resemblance they suggest them to our minds.

145. Add to this that whenever we make a nice survey of any object,
successively directing the optic axis to each point thereof, there are
certain lines and figures, described by the motion of the head or eye,
which, being in truth perceived by feeling(446), do nevertheless so mix
themselves, as it were, with the ideas of sight that we can scarce think
but they appertain to that sense. Again, the ideas of sight enter into the
mind several at once, more distinct and unmingled than is usual in the
other senses beside the touch. Sounds, for example, perceived at the same
instant, are apt to coalesce, if I may so say, into one sound: but we can
perceive, at the same time, great variety of visible objects, very
separate and distinct from each other. Now, tangible(447) extension being
made up of several distinct coexistent parts, we may hence gather another
reason that may dispose us to imagine a likeness or analogy between the
immediate objects of sight and touch. But nothing, certainly, does more
contribute to blend and confound them together, than the strict and close
connexion(448) they have with each other. We cannot open our eyes but the
ideas of distance, bodies, and tangible figures are suggested by them. So
swift, and sudden, and unperceived is the transit from visible to tangible
ideas that we can scarce forbear thinking them equally the immediate
object of vision.

146. The prejudice(449) which is grounded on these, and whatever other
causes may be assigned thereof, sticks so fast on our understandings, that
it is impossible, without obstinate striving and labour of the mind, to
get entirely clear of it. But then the reluctancy we find in rejecting any
opinion can be no argument of its truth, to whoever considers what has
been already shewn with regard to the prejudices we entertain concerning
the distance, magnitude, and situation of objects; prejudices so familiar
to our minds, so confirmed and inveterate, as they will hardly give way to
the clearest demonstration.

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147. Upon the whole, I think we may fairly conclude(450) that the proper
objects of Vision constitute the Universal Language of Nature; whereby we
are instructed how to regulate our actions, in order to attain those
things that are necessary to the preservation and well-being of our
bodies, as also to avoid whatever may be hurtful and destructive of them.
It is by their information that we are principally guided in all the
transactions and concerns of life. And the manner wherein they signify and
mark out unto us the objects which are at a distance is the same with that
of languages and signs of human appointment; which do not suggest the
things signified by any likeness or identity of nature, but only by an
habitual connexion that experience has made us to observe between
them(451).

148. Suppose one who had always continued blind be told by his guide that
after he has advanced so many steps he shall come to the brink of a
precipice, or be stopped by a wall; must not this to him seem very
admirable and surprising? He cannot conceive how it is possible for
mortals to frame such predictions as these, which to him would seem as
strange and unaccountable as prophecy does to others. Even they who are
blessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make it less
observed) find therein sufficient cause of admiration. The wonderful art
and contrivance wherewith it is adjusted to those ends and purposes for
which it was apparently designed; the vast extent, number, and variety of
objects that are at once, with so much ease, and quickness, and pleasure,
suggested by it—all these afford subject for much and pleasing
speculation, and may, if anything, give us some glimmering analogous
prænotion of things, that are placed beyond the certain discovery and
comprehension of our present state(452).

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149. I do not design to trouble myself much with drawing corollaries from
the doctrine I have hitherto laid down. If it bears the test, others may,
so far as they shall think convenient, employ their thoughts in extending
it farther, and applying it to whatever purposes it may be subservient to.
Only, I cannot forbear making some inquiry concerning the object of
geometry, which the subject we have been upon does naturally lead one to.
We have shewn there is no such idea as that of extension in abstract(453);
and that there are two kinds of sensible extension and figures, which are
entirely distinct and heterogeneous from each other(454). Now, it is
natural to inquire which of these is the object of geometry(455).

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150. Some things there are which, at first sight, incline one to think
geometry conversant about visible extension. The constant use of the eyes,
both in the practical and speculative parts of that science, doth very
much induce us thereto. It would, without doubt, seem odd to a
mathematician to go about to convince him the diagrams he saw upon paper
were not the figures, or even the likeness of the figures, which make the
subject of the demonstration—the contrary being held an unquestionable
truth, not only by mathematicians, but also by those who apply themselves
more particularly to the study of logic; I mean who consider the nature of
science, certainty, and demonstration; it being by them assigned as one
reason of the extraordinary clearness and evidence of geometry, that in
that science the reasonings are free from those inconveniences which
attend the use of arbitrary signs, the very ideas themselves being copied
out, and exposed to view upon paper. But, by the bye, how well this agrees
with what they likewise assert of abstract ideas being the object of
geometrical demonstration I leave to be considered.

151. To come to a resolution in this point, we need only observe what has
been said in sect. 59, 60, 61, where it is shewn that visible extensions
in themselves are little regarded, and have no settled determinate
greatness, and that men measure altogether by the application of tangible
extension to tangible extension. All which makes it evident that visible
extension and figures are not the object of geometry.

152. It is therefore plain that visible figures are of the same use in
geometry that words are. And the one may as well be accounted the object
of that science as the other; neither of them being any otherwise
concerned therein than as they represent or suggest to the mind the
particular tangible figures connected with them. There is, indeed, this
difference betwixt the signification of tangible figures by visible
figures, and of ideas by words—that whereas the latter is variable and
uncertain, depending altogether on the arbitrary appointment of men, the
former is fixed, and immutably the same in all times and places. A visible
square, for instance, suggests to the mind the same tangible figure in
Europe that it doth in America. Hence it is, that the voice of nature,
which speaks to our eyes, is not liable to that misinterpretation and
ambiguity that languages of human contrivance are unavoidably subject
to(456). From which may, in some measure, be derived that peculiar
evidence and clearness of geometrical demonstrations.

153. Though what has been said may suffice to shew what ought to be
determined with relation to the object of geometry, I shall, nevertheless,
for the fuller illustration thereof, take into my thoughts the case of an
intelligence or unbodied spirit, which is supposed to see perfectly well,
i.e. to have a clear perception of the proper and immediate objects of
sight, but to have no sense of touch(457). Whether there be any such being
in nature or no, is beside my purpose to inquire; it suffices, that the
supposition contains no contradiction in it. Let us now examine what
proficiency such a one may be able to make in geometry. Which speculation
will lead us more clearly to see whether the ideas of sight can possibly
be the object of that science.

154. _First_, then, it is certain the aforesaid intelligence could have no
idea of a solid or quantity of three dimensions, which follows from its
not having any idea of distance. We, indeed, are prone to think that we
have by sight the ideas of space and solids; which arises from our
imagining that we do, strictly speaking, see distance, and some parts of
an object at a greater distance than others; which has been demonstrated
to be the effect of the experience we have had what ideas of touch are
connected with such and such ideas attending vision. But the intelligence
here spoken of is supposed to have no experience of touch. He would not,
therefore, judge as we do, nor have any idea of distance, outness, or
profundity, nor consequently of space or body, either immediately or by
suggestion. Whence it is plain he can have no notion of those parts of
geometry which relate to the mensuration of solids, and their convex or
concave surfaces, and contemplate the properties of lines generated by the
section of a solid. The conceiving of any part whereof is beyond the reach
of his faculties.

155. _Farther_, he cannot comprehend the manner wherein geometers describe
a right line or circle; the rule and compass, with their use, being things
of which it is impossible he should have any notion. Nor is it an easier
matter for him to conceive the placing of one plane or angle on another,
in order to prove their equality; since that supposes some idea of
distance, or external space. All which makes it evident our pure
intelligence could never attain to know so much as the first elements of
plain geometry. And perhaps, upon a nice inquiry, it will be found he
cannot even have an idea of plain figures any more than he can of solids;
since some idea of distance is necessary to form the idea of a geometrical
plane, as will appear to whoever shall reflect a little on it.

156. All that is properly perceived by the visive faculty amounts to no
more than colours with their variations, and different proportions of
light and shade—but the perpetual mutability and fleetingness of those
immediate objects of sight render them incapable of being managed after
the manner of geometrical figures; nor is it in any degree useful that
they should. It is true there be divers of them perceived at once; and
more of some, and less of others: but accurately to compute their
magnitude, and assign precise determinate proportions between things so
variable and inconstant, if we suppose it possible to be done, must yet be
a very trifling and insignificant labour.

157. I must confess, it seems to be the opinion of some very ingenious men
that flat or plane figures are immediate objects of sight, though they
acknowledge solids are not. And this opinion of theirs is grounded on what
is observed in painting, wherein (say they) the ideas immediately
imprinted in the mind are only of planes variously coloured, which, by a
sudden act of the judgment, are changed into solids: but, with a little
attention, we shall find the planes here mentioned as the immediate
objects of sight are not visible but tangible planes. For, when we say
that pictures are planes, we mean thereby that they appear to the touch
smooth and uniform. But then this smoothness and uniformity, or, in other
words, this planeness of the picture is not perceived immediately by
vision; for it appeareth to the eye various and multiform.

158. From all which we may conclude that planes are no more the immediate
object of sight than solids. What we strictly see are not solids, nor yet
planes variously coloured—they are only diversity of colours. And some of
these suggest to the mind solids, and others plane figures; just as they
have been experienced to be connected with the one or the other: so that
we see planes in the same way that we see solids—both being equally
suggested by the immediate objects of sight, which accordingly are
themselves denominated planes and solids. But, though they are called by
the same names with the things marked by them, they are, nevertheless, of
a nature entirely different, as hath been demonstrated(458).

159. What has been said is, if I mistake not, sufficient to decide the
question we proposed to examine, concerning the ability of a pure spirit,
such as we have described, to know geometry. It is, indeed, no easy matter
for us to enter precisely into the thoughts of such an intelligence;
because we cannot, without great pains, cleverly separate and disentangle
in our thoughts the proper objects of sight from those of touch which are
connected with them. This, indeed, in a complete degree seems scarce
possible to be performed; which will not seem strange to us, if we
consider how hard it is for any one to hear the words of his native
language, which is familiar to him, pronounced in his ears without
understanding them. Though he endeavour to disunite the meaning from the
sound, it will nevertheless intrude into his thoughts, and he shall find
it extreme difficult, if not impossible, to put himself exactly in the
posture of a foreigner that never learnt the language, so as to be
affected barely with the sounds themselves, and not perceive the
signification annexed to them.

160. By this time, I suppose, it is clear that neither abstract nor
visible extension makes the object of geometry; the not discerning of
which may, perhaps, have created some difficulty and useless labour in
mathematics. [(459)Sure I am that somewhat relating thereto has occurred
to my thoughts; which, though after the most anxious and repeated
examination I am forced to think it true, doth, nevertheless, seem so far
out of the common road of geometry, that I know not whether it may not be
thought presumption if I should make it public, in an age wherein that
science hath received such mighty improvements by new methods; great part
whereof, as well as of the ancient discoveries, may perhaps lose their
reputation, and much of that ardour with which men study the abstruse and
fine geometry be abated, if what to me, and those few to whom I have
imparted it, seems evidently true, should really prove to be so.]




An Appendix To The Essay On Vision


[_This Appendix is contained only in the second edition._]

The censures which, I am informed, have been made on the foregoing _Essay_
inclined me to think I had not been clear and express enough in some
points; and, to prevent being misunderstood for the future, I was willing
to make any necessary alterations or additions in what I had written. But
that was impracticable, the present edition having been almost finished
before I received this information. Wherefore, I think it proper to
consider in this place the principal objections that are come to my
notice.

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In the _first_ place, it is objected, that in the beginning of the Essay I
argue either against all use of lines and angles in optics, and then what
I say is false; or against those writers only who will have it that we can
perceive by sense the optic axes, angles, &c., and then it is
insignificant, this being an absurdity which no one ever held. To which I
answer that I argue only against those who are of opinion that we perceive
the distance of objects by lines and angles, or, as they term it, by a
kind of innate geometry. And, to shew that this is not fighting with my
own shadow, I shall here set down a passage from the celebrated Des
Cartes(460):—

                              [Illustration]

“Distantiam præterea discimus, per mutuam quandam conspirationem oculorum.
Ut enim cæcus noster duo bacilla tenens, _A E_ et _C E_, de quorum
longitudine incertus, solumque intervallum manuum _A_ et _C_, cum
magnitudine angulorum _A C E_, et _C A E_ exploratum habens, inde, ut ex
Geometria quadam omnibus innata, scire potest ubi sit punctum _E_. Sic
quum nostri oculi _R S T_ et _r s t_ ambo, vertuntur ad _X_, magnitudo
lineæ _S s_, et angulorum _X S s_ et _X s S_, certos nos reddunt ubi sit
punctum _X_. Et idem opera alterutrius possumus indagare, loco illum
movendo, ut si versus _X_ illum semper dirigentes, prime sistamus in
puncto _S_, et statim post in puncto _s_, hoc sufficiet ut magnitudo lineæ
_S s_, et duorum angulorum _X S s_ et _X s S_ nostræ imaginationi simul
occurrant, et distantiam puncti _X_ nos edoceant: idque per actionem
mentis, quæ licet simplex judicium esse videatur, ratiocinationem tamen
quandam involutam habet, similem illi, qua Geometræ per duas stationes
diversas, loca inaccessa dimetiuntur.”

                              [Illustration]

I might amass together citations from several authors to the same purpose,
but, this being so clear in the point, and from an author of so great
note, I shall not trouble the reader with any more. What I have said on
this head was not for the sake of rinding fault with other men; but,
because I judged it necessary to demonstrate in the first place that we
neither see distance _immediately_, nor yet perceive it by the mediation
of anything that hath (as lines and angles) a _necessary_ connexion with
it. For on the demonstration of this point the whole theory depends(461).

_Secondly_, it is objected, that the explication I give of the appearance
of the horizontal moon (which may also be applied to the sun) is the same
that Gassendus had given before. I answer, there is indeed mention made of
the grossness of the atmosphere in both; but then the methods wherein it
is applied to solve the phenomenon are widely different, as will be
evident to whoever shall compare what I have said on this subject with the
following words of Gassendus:—

“Heinc dici posse videtur: solem humilem oculo spectatum ideo apparere
majorem, quam dum altius egreditur, quia dum vicinus est horizonti prolixa
est series vaporum, atque adeo corpusculorum quæ solis radios ita
retundunt, ut oculus minus conniveat, et pupilla quasi umbrefacta longe
magis amplificetur, quam dum sole multum elato rari vapores
intercipiuntur, solque ipse ita splendescit, ut pupilla in ipsum spectans
contractissima efficiatur. Nempe ex hoc esse videtur, cur visibilis
species ex sole procedens, et per pupillam amplificatam intromissa in
retinam, ampliorem in illa sedem occupet, majoremque proinde creet solis
apparentiam, quam dum per contractam pupillam eodem intromissa contendit.”
Vid. _Epist. 1. De Apparente Magnitudine Solis Humilis et Sublimis_, p. 6.
This solution of Gassendus proceeds on a false principle, to wit, that the
pupil’s being enlarged augments the species or image on the fund of the
eye.

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_Thirdly_, against what is said in Sect. 80, it is objected, that the same
thing which is so small as scarce to be discerned by a man, may appear
like a mountain to some small insect; from which it follows that the
_minimum visibile_ is not equal in respect of all creatures(462). I
answer, if this objection be sounded to the bottom, it will be found to
mean no more than that the same particle of matter which is marked to a
man by one _minimum visibile_, exhibits to an insect a great number of
_minima visibilia_. But this does not prove that one _minimum visibile_ of
the insect is not equal to one _minimum visibile_ of the man. The not
distinguishing between the mediate and immediate objects of sight is, I
suspect, a cause of misapprehension in this matter.

Some other misinterpretations and difficulties have been made, but, in the
points they refer to, I have endeavoured to be so very plain that I know
not how to express myself more clearly. All I shall add is, that if they
who are pleased to criticise on my _Essay_ would but read the whole over
with some attention, they might be the better able to comprehend my
meaning, and consequently to judge of my mistakes.

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I am informed that, soon after the first edition of this treatise, a man
somewhere near London was made to see, who had been born blind, and
continued so for about twenty years(463). Such a one may be supposed a
proper judge to decide how far some tenets laid down in several places of
the foregoing Essay are agreeable to truth; and if any curious person hath
the opportunity of making proper interrogatories to him thereon, I should
gladly see my notions either amended or confirmed by experience(464).





A TREATISE CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE


[(465)PART I]

WHEREIN THE CHIEF CAUSES OF ERROR AND DIFFICULTY IN THE SCIENCES, WITH THE
GROUNDS OF SCEPTICISM, ATHEISM, AND IRRELIGION, ARE INQUIRED INTO

_First Published in 1710_




Editor’s Preface To The Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human
Knowledge


This book of _Principles_ contains the most systematic and reasoned
exposition of Berkeley’s philosophy, in its early stage, which we possess.
Like the _Essay on Vision_, its tentative pioneer, it was prepared at
Trinity College, Dublin. Its author had hardly completed his twenty-fifth
year when it was published. The first edition of this “First Part” of the
projected Treatise, “printed by Aaron Rhames, for Jeremy Pepyat,
bookseller in Skinner Row, Dublin,” appeared early in 1710. A second
edition, with minor changes, and in which “Part I” was withdrawn from the
title-page, was published in London in 1734, “printed for Jacob Tonson”—on
the eve of Berkeley’s settlement at Cloyne. It was the last in the
author’s lifetime. The projected “Second Part” of the _Principles_ was
never given to the world, and we can hardly conjecture its design. In a
letter in 1729 to his American friend, Samuel Johnson, Berkeley mentions
that he had “made considerable progress on the Second Part,” but “the
manuscript,” he adds, “was lost about fourteen years ago, during my
travels in Italy; and I never had leisure since to do so disagreeable a
thing as writing twice on the same subject(466).”

An edition of the _Principles_ appeared in London in 1776, twenty-three
years after Berkeley’s death, with a running commentary of _Remarks_ by
the anonymous editor, on the pages opposite the text, in which, according
to the editor, Berkeley’s doctrines are “carefully examined, and shewn to
be repugnant to fact, and his principles to be incompatible with the
constitution of human nature and the reason and fitness of things.” In
this volume the _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ are appended to
the _Principles_, and a “Philosophical Discourse concerning the nature of
Human Being” is prefixed to the whole, “being a defence of Mr. Locke’s
principles, and some remarks on Dr. Beattie’s _Essay on Truth_,” by the
author of the _Remarks on Berkeley’s Principles_. The acuteness of the
_Remarks_ is not in proportion to their bulk and diffuseness: many popular
misconceptions of Berkeley are served up, without appreciation of the
impotence of matter, and of natural causation as only passive
sense-symbolism, which is at the root of the theory of the material world
against which the _Remarks_ are directed.

The Kantian and post-Kantian Idealism that is characteristic of the
nineteenth century has recalled attention to Berkeley, who had produced
his spiritual philosophy under the prevailing conditions of English
thought in the preceding age, when Idealism in any form was uncongenial.
In 1869 the book of _Principles_ was translated into German, with
annotations, by Ueberweg, professor of philosophy at Königsberg, the
university of Kant. The Clarendon Press edition of the Collected Works of
Berkeley followed in 1871. In 1874 an edition of the _Principles_, by Dr.
Kranth, Professor of Philosophy in the university of Pennsylvania,
appeared in America, with annotations drawn largely from the Clarendon
Press edition and Ueberweg. In 1878 Dr. Collyns Simon republished the
_Principles_, with discussions based upon the text, followed by an
appendix of remarks on Kant and Hume in their relation to Berkeley.

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The book of _Principles_, as we have it, must be taken as a systematic
fragment of an incompletely developed philosophy. Many years after its
appearance, the author thus describes the conditions:—“It was published
when I was very young, and without doubt hath many defects. For though the
notions should be true (as I verily think they are), yet it is difficult
to express them clearly and consistently, language being framed for common
use and received prejudices. I do not therefore pretend that my books can
teach truth. All I hope for is that they may be an occasion to inquisitive
men of discovering truth(467).” Again:—“I had no inclination to trouble
the world with large volumes. What I have done was rather with the view of
giving hints to thinking men, who have leisure and curiosity to go to the
bottom of things, and pursue them in their own minds. Two or three times
reading these small tracts (_Essay on Vision_, _Principles_, _Dialogues_,
_De Motu_), and making what is read the occasion of thinking, would, I
believe, render the whole familiar and easy to the mind, and take off that
shocking appearance which hath often been observed to attend speculative
truths(468).” The incitements to further and deeper thought thus proposed
have met with a more sympathetic response in this generation than in the
lifetime of Berkeley.

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There is internal evidence in the book of _Principles_ that its author had
been a diligent and critical student of Locke’s _Essay_. Like the _Essay_,
it is dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke. The word _idea_ is not less
characteristic of the _Principles_ than of the _Essay_, although Berkeley
generally uses it with a narrower application than Locke, confining it to
phenomena presented objectively to our senses, and their subjective
reproductions in imagination. With both Berkeley and Locke objective
phenomena (under the name of ideas) are the materials supplied to man for
conversion into natural science. Locke’s reduction of ideas into simple
and complex, as well as some of his subdivisions, reappear with
modifications in the _Principles_. Berkeley’s account of Substance and
Power, Space and Time, while different from Locke’s, still bears marks of
the _Essay_. Concrete Substance, which in its ultimate meaning much
perplexes Locke, is identified with the personal pronouns “I” and “you” by
Berkeley, and is thus spiritualised. Cause proper, or Power, he finds only
in the voluntary activity of persons. Space is presented to us in our
sensuous experience of resistance to organic movements; while it is
symbolised in terms of phenomena presented to sight, as already explained
in the _Essay on Vision_. Time is revealed in our actual experience of
change in the ideas or phenomena of which we are percipient in sense;
length of time being calculated by the changes in the adopted measure of
duration. Infinite space and infinite time, being necessarily incapable of
finite ideation, are dismissed as abstractions that for man must always be
empty of realisable meaning. Indeed, the _Commonplace Book_ shews that
Locke influenced Berkeley as much by antagonism as otherwise. “Such was
the candour of that great man that I persuade myself, were he alive, he
would not be offended that I differed from him, seeing that in so doing I
follow his advice to use my own judgment, see with my own eyes and not
with another’s.” So he argues against Locke’s opinions about the infinity
and eternity of space, and the possibility of matter endowed with power to
think, and urges his inconsistency in treating some qualities of matter as
wholly material, while he insists that others, under the name of
“secondary,” are necessarily dependent on sentient intelligence. Above all
he assails Locke’s “abstract ideas” as germs of scepticism—interpreting
Locke’s meaning paradoxically.

Next to Locke, Descartes and Malebranche are prominent in the
_Principles_. Recognition of the ultimate supremacy of Spirit, or the
spiritual character of active power and the constant agency of God in
nature, suggested by Descartes, was congenial to Berkeley, but he was
opposed to the mechanical conception of the universe found in the
Cartesian physical treatises. That thought is synonymous with existence is
a formula with which the French philosopher might make him familiar, as
well as with the assumption that _ideas only_ are immediate objects of
human perception; an assumption in which Descartes was followed by Locke,
and philosophical thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
but under differing interpretations of the term _idea_.

Malebranche appears less in the _Principles_ than Locke and Descartes. In
early life, at any rate, Berkeley would be less at home in the “divine
vision” of Malebranche than among the “ideas” of Locke. The mysticism of
the _Recherche de la Vérité_ is unlike the transparent lucidity of
Berkeley’s juvenile thought. But the subordinate place and office of the
material world in Malebranche’s system, and his conception of power as
wholly spiritual, approached the New Principles of Berkeley.

Plato and Aristotle hardly appear, either by name or as characteristic
influence, in the book of _Principles_, which in this respect contrasts
with the abundant references to ancient and mediaeval thinkers in _Siris_,
and to a less extent in the _De Motu_ and _Alciphron_.

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The Introduction to the _Principles_ is a proclamation of war against
“abstract ideas,” which is renewed in the body of the work, and again more
than once in the writings of Berkeley’s early and middle life, but is
significantly withdrawn in his old age. In the ardour of youth, his prime
remedy for anarchy in philosophy, and for the sceptical disposition which
philosophy had been apt to generate, was suppression of abstract ideas as
impossible ideas—empty names heedlessly accepted as ideas—an evil to be
counteracted by steady adherence to the concrete experience found in our
senses and inner consciousness. Never to lose our hold of positive facts,
and always to individualise general conceptions, are regulative maxims by
which Berkeley would make us govern our investigation of ultimate
problems. He takes up his position in the actual universe of applied
reason; not in the empty void of abstract reason, remote from particulars
and succession of change, in which no real existence is found. All
realisable ideas must be either concrete data of sense, or concrete data
of inward consciousness. It is relations embodied in particular facts, not
pretended abstract ideas, that give fruitful meaning to common terms.
Abstract matter, abstract substance, abstract power, abstract space,
abstract time—unindividualisable in sense or in imagination—must all be
void of meaning; the issue of unlawful analysis, which pretends to find
what is real without the concrete ideas that make the real, because
percipient spirit is the indispensable factor of all reality. The only
lawful abstraction is _nominal_—the application, that is to say, of a name
in common to an indefinite number of things which resemble one another.
This is Berkeley’s “Nominalism.”

Berkeley takes Locke as the representative advocate of the “abstract
ideas” against which he wages war in the Introduction to the _Principles_.
Under cover of an ambiguity in the term _idea_, he is unconsciously
fighting against a man of straw. He supposes that Locke means by _idea_
only a concrete datum of sense, or of imagination; and he argues that we
cannot without contradiction abstract from all such data, and yet retain
idea. But Locke includes among _his_ ideas intellectual relations—what
Berkeley himself afterwards distinguished as _notions_, in contrast with
ideas. This polemic against Locke is therefore one of verbal confusion. In
later life he probably saw this, as he saw deeper into the whole question
involved. This is suggested by the omission of the argument against
abstract ideas, given in earlier editions of _Alciphron_, from the edition
published a year before he died. In his juvenile attack on abstractions,
his characteristic impetuosity seems to carry him to the extreme of
rejecting rational relations that are involved in the objectivity of
sensible things and natural order, thus resting experience at last only on
phenomena—particular and contingent.

A preparatory draft of the Introduction to the _Principles_, which I found
in the manuscript department of the library of Trinity College, Dublin, is
printed in the appendix to this edition of Berkeley’s Philosophical Works.
The variations are of some interest, biographical and philosophical. It
seems to have been written in the autumn of 1708, and it may with
advantage be compared with the text of the finished Introduction, as well
as with numerous relative entries in the _Commonplace Book_.

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After this Introduction, the New Principles themselves are evolved, in a
corresponding spirit of hostility to empty abstractions. The sections may
be thus divided:—

i. Rationale of the Principles (sect. 1-33).

ii. Supposed Objections to the Principles answered (sect. 34-84).

iii. Consequences and Applications of the Principles (sect. 85-156).



i. Rationale of the Principles.


The reader may remember that one of the entries in the _Commonplace Book_
runs as follows:—“To begin the First Book, not with mention of sensation
and reflexion, but, instead of sensation, to use perception, or thought in
general.” Berkeley seems there to be oscillating between Locke and
Descartes. He now adopts Locke’s account of the materials of which our
concrete experience consists (sect. 1). The data of human knowledge of
existence are accordingly found in the ideas, phenomena, or appearances
(_a_) of which we are percipient in the senses, and (_b_) of which we are
conscious when we attend to our inward passions and operations—all which
make up the original contents of human experience, to be reproduced in new
forms and arrangements, (_c_) in memory and (_d_) imagination and (_e_)
expectation. Those materials are called _ideas_ because living mind or
spirit is the indispensable realising factor: they all presuppose living
mind, spirit, self, or ego to realise and elaborate them (sect. 2). This
is implied in our use of personal pronouns, which signify, not ideas of
any of the preceding kinds, but that which is “entirely distinct from
them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, by which they are
perceived.” In this fundamental presupposition Descartes is more apparent
than Locke, and there is even an unconscious forecast of Kant and Hegel.

Berkeley next faces a New Question which his New Principles are intended
to answer. How is the concrete world that is presented to our senses
related to Mind or Spirit? Is all or any of its reality independent of
percipient experience? Is it true that the phenomena of which we are
percipient in sense are ultimately independent of all percipient and
conscious life, and are even the ultimate basis of all that is real? Must
we recognise in the phenomena of Matter the _substance_ of what we call
Mind? For do we not find, when we examine Body and Spirit mutually related
in our personality, that the latter is more dependent on the former, and
on the physical cosmos of which the former is a part, than our body and
its bodily surroundings are dependent on Spirit? In short, is not the
universe of existence, in its final form, only lifeless Matter?

The claim of Matter to be supreme is what Berkeley produces his Principles
in order to reduce. Concrete reality is self-evidently unreal, he argues,
in the total absence of percipient Spirit, for Spirit is the one realising
factor. Try to imagine the material world unperceived and you are trying
to picture empty abstraction. Wholly material matter is self-evidently an
inconceivable absurdity; a universe emptied of all percipient life is an
impossible universe. The material world becomes real in being perceived:
it depends for its reality upon the spiritual realisation. As colours in a
dark room become real with the introduction of light, so the material
world becomes real in the life and agency of Spirit. It must exist in
terms of sentient life and percipient intelligence, in order to rise into
any degree of reality that human beings at least can be at all concerned
with, either speculatively or practically. Matter totally abstracted from
percipient spirit must go the way of all abstract ideas. It is an
illusion, concealed by confused thought and abuse of words; yet from
obvious causes strong enough to stifle faith in this latent but
self-evident Principle—that the universe of sense-presented phenomena can
have concrete existence only in and by sentient intelligence. It is the
reverse of this Principle that Berkeley takes to have been “the chief
source of all that scepticism and folly, all those contradictions and
inexplicable puzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach
to human reason(469).” And indeed, when it is fully understood, it is seen
in its own light to be the chief of “those truths which are so near and
obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them. For
such I take this important one to be—that all the choir of heaven and
furniture of the Earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the
mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a Mind” (sect.
6). Living Mind or Spirit is the indispensable factor of all realities
that are presented to our senses, including, of course, our own bodies.

Yet this Principle, notwithstanding its intuitive certainty, needs to be
evoked by reflection from the latency in which it lies concealed, in the
confused thought of the unreflecting. It is only gradually, and with the
help of reasoning, that the world presented to the senses is distinctly
recognised in this its deepest and truest reality. And even when we see
that the phenomena _immediately_ presented to our senses need to be
realised in percipient experience, in order to be concretely real, we are
ready to ask whether there may not be substances _like_ the things so
presented, which can exist “without mind,” or in a wholly material way
(sect. 8). Nay, are there not _some_ of the phenomena immediately
presented to our senses which do not need living mind to make them real?
It is allowed by Locke and others that all those qualities of matter which
are called _secondary_ cannot be wholly material, and that living mind is
indispensable for _their_ realisation in nature; but Locke and the rest
argue, that this is not so with the qualities which they call _primary_,
and which they regard as of the essence of matter. Colours, sounds,
tastes, smells are all allowed to be not wholly material; but are not the
size, shape, situation, solidity, and motion of bodies qualities that are
real without need for the realising agency of any Mind or Spirit in the
universe, and which would continue to be what they are now if all Spirit,
divine or human, ceased to exist?

The supposition that some of the phenomena of what is called Matter can be
real, and yet wholly material, is discussed in sections 9-15, in which it
is argued that the things of sense cannot exist really, in _any_ of their
manifestations, unless they are brought into reality in some percipient
life and experience. It is held impossible that any quality of matter can
have the reality which we all attribute to it, unless it is spiritually
realised (sect. 15).

But may Matter not be real apart from all its so-called qualities, these
being allowed to be not wholly material, because real only within
percipient spirit? May not this wholly material Matter be Something that,
as it were, exists _behind_ the ideas, phenomena, or qualities that make
their appearance to human beings? This question, Berkeley would say, is a
meaningless and wholly unpractical one. Material substance that makes and
can make no real appearance—unphenomenal or unideal—stripped of all its
qualities—is only “another name for abstract Being,” and “the abstract
idea of Being appeareth to me the most incomprehensible of all other. When
I consider the two parts or branches which make up the words _material
substance_, I am convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them”
(sect. 17). Neither Sense nor Reason inform us of the existence of real
material substances that exist _abstractly_, or out of all relation to the
secondary and primary qualities of which we are percipient when we
exercise our senses. By our senses we cannot perceive more than ideas or
phenomena, aggregated as individual things that are presented to us: we
cannot perceive substances that make no appearance in sense. Then as for
reason, unrealised substances, abstracted from living Spirit, human or
divine, being altogether meaningless, can in no way explain the concrete
realisations of human experience. In short, if there are wholly
unphenomenal material substances, it is impossible that we should ever
discover them, or have any concern with them, speculative or practical;
and if there are not, we should have the same reason to assert that there
are which we have now (sect. 20). It is impossible to put any meaning into
wholly abstract reality. “To me the words mean either a direct
contradiction, or nothing at all” (sect. 24).

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The Principle that the _esse_ of matter necessarily involves _percipi_,
and its correlative Principle that there is not any other substance than
Spirit, which is thus the indispensable factor of all reality, both lead
on to the more obviously practical Principle—that the material world, _per
se_, is wholly powerless, and that all changes in Nature are the immediate
issue of the agency of Spirit (sect. 25-27). Concrete power, like concrete
substance, is essentially spiritual. To be satisfied that the whole
natural world is only the passive instrument and expression of Spiritual
Power we are asked to analyse the sensuous data of experience. We can find
no reason for attributing inherent power to any of the phenomena and
phenomenal things that are presented to our senses, or for supposing that
_they_ can be active causes, either of the changes that are continuously
in progress among themselves, or of the feelings, perceptions, and
volitions of which spiritual beings are conscious. We find the ideas or
phenomena that pass in procession before our senses related to one another
as signs to their meanings, in a cosmical order that virtually makes the
material world a language and a prophecy: but this cosmical procession is
not found to originate in the ideas or phenomena themselves, and there is
reason for supposing it to be maintained by ever-living Spirit, which thus
not only substantiates the things of sense, but explains their laws of
motion and their movements.

Yet the universe of reality is not exclusively One Spirit. Experience
contradicts the supposition. I find on trial that my personal power to
produce changes in the ideas or phenomena which my senses present to me is
a limited power (sect. 28-33). I can make and unmake my own fancies, but I
cannot with like freedom make and unmake presentations of sense. When in
daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to determine whether I
shall see or not; nor is it in my power to determine what objects I shall
see. The cosmical order of sense-phenomena is independent of my will. When
I employ my senses, I find myself always confronted by sensible signs of
perfect Reason and omnipresent Will. But I also awake in the faith that I
am an individual person. And the sense-symbolism of which the material
world consists, while it keeps me in constant and immediate relation to
the Universal Spirit, whose language it is, keeps me likewise in
intercourse with other persons, akin to myself, who are signified to me by
their overt actions and articulate words, which enter into my sensuous
experience. Sense-given phenomena thus, among their other instrumental
offices, are the medium of communication between human beings, who by this
means can find companions, and make signs to them. So while, at _our_
highest point of view, Nature is Spirit, experience shews that there is
room in the universe for a plurality of persons, individual, and in a
measure free or morally responsible. If Berkeley does not say all this,
his New Principles tend thus.

At any rate, in his reasoned exposition of his Principles he is anxious to
distinguish those phenomena that are presented to the senses of all
mankind from the private ideas or fancies of individual men (sect. 28-33).
The former constitute the world which sentient beings realise in common.
He calls them _ideas_ because they are unrealisable without percipient
mind; but still on the understanding that they are not to be confounded
with the chimeras of imagination. They are more deeply and truly real than
chimeras. The groups in which they are found to coexist are the individual
things of sense, whose fixed order of succession exemplifies what we call
natural law, or natural causation: the correlation of their changes to our
pleasures and pains, desires and aversions, makes scientific knowledge of
their laws practically important to the life of man, in his embodied
state.

Moreover, the real ideas presented to our senses, unlike those of
imagination, Berkeley would imply, cannot be either representative or
misrepresentative. Our imagination may mislead us: the original data of
sense cannot: although we may, and often do, misinterpret their relations
to one another, and to our pleasures and pains and higher faculties. The
divine meaning with which they are charged, of which science is a partial
expression, they may perhaps be said to represent. Otherwise
representative sense-perception is absurdity: the ideas of sense cannot be
representative in the way those of imagination are; for fancies are faint
representations of data of sense. The appearances that sentient
intelligence realises _are_ the things of sense, and we cannot go deeper.
If we prefer accordingly to call the material world a dream or a chimera,
we must understand that it is the _reasonable_ dream in which all sentient
intelligence participates, and by which the embodied life of man must be
regulated.

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Has Berkeley, in his juvenile ardour, and with the impetuosity natural to
him, while seeking to demonstrate the impotence of matter, and the
omnipresent supremacy of Spirit, so spiritualised the material world as to
make it unfit for the symbolical office in the universe of reality which
he supposes it to discharge? Is its potential existence in God, and its
percipient realisation by me, and presumably by innumerable other sentient
beings, an adequate account of the real material world existing in place
and time? Can this universal orderly dream experienced in sense involve
the objectivity implied in its being the reliable medium of social
intercourse? Does _such_ a material world provide me with a means of
escape from absolute solitude? Nay, if Matter cannot rise into reality
without percipient spirit as realising factor, can my individual
percipient spirit realise _myself_ without independent Matter? Without
intelligent life Matter is pronounced unreal. But is it not also true that
without Matter, and the special material organism we call our body,
percipient spirit is unreal? Does not Nature seem as indispensable to
Spirit as Spirit is to Nature? Must we not assume at least their
unbeginning and unending coexistence, even if we recognise in Spirit the
deeper and truer reality? Do the New Principles explain the _final_ ground
of trust and certainty about the universe of change into which I entered
as a stranger when I was born? If they make all that I have believed in as
_outward_ to be in its reality _inward_, do they not disturb the balance
that is necessary to _all_ human certainties, and leave me without any
realities at all?

That Berkeley at the age of twenty-five, and educated chiefly by Locke,
had fathomed or even entertained all these questions was hardly to be
looked for. How far he had gone may be gathered by a study of the sequel
of his book of _Principles_.



ii. Objections to the New Principles answered (sect. 34-84).


The supposed Objections, with Berkeley’s answers, may be thus
interpreted:—

_First objection._ (Sect. 34-40.) The preceding Principles banish all
substantial realities, and substitute a universe of chimeras.

_Answer._ This objection is a play upon the popular meaning of the word
“idea.” That name is appropriate to the phenomena presented in sense,
because they become concrete realities only in the experience of living
Spirit; and so it is not confined to the chimeras of individual fancy,
which may misrepresent the real ideas of sense that are presented in the
natural system independently of our will.

_Second objection._ (Sect. 41.) The preceding Principles abolish the
distinction between Perception and Imagination—between imagining one’s
self burnt and actually being burnt.

_Answer._ Real fire differs from fancied fire: as real pain does from
fancied pain; yet no one supposes that real pain any more than imaginary
pain can exist unfelt by a sentient intelligence.

_Third objection._ (Sect. 42-44.) We actually _see_ sensible things
existing at a distance from our bodies. Now, whatever is seen existing at
a distance must be seen as existing external to us in our bodies, which
contradicts the foregoing Principles.

_Answer._ Distance, or outness, is not visible. It is a conception which
is suggested gradually, by our experience of the connexion between visible
colours and certain visual sensations that accompany seeing, on the one
hand, and our tactual experience, on the other—as was proved in the _Essay
on Vision_, in which the ideality of the _visible_ world is
demonstrated(470).

_Fourth objection._ (Sect. 45-48.) It follows from the New Principles,
that the material world must be undergoing continuous annihilation and
recreation in the innumerable sentient experiences in which it becomes
real.

_Answer_. According to the New Principles a thing may be realised in the
sense-experience of _other_ minds, during intervals of its perception by
_my_ mind; for the Principles do not affirm dependence only on this or
that mind, but on a living Mind. If this implies a constant creation of
the material world, the conception of the universe as in a state of
constant creation is not new, and it signally displays Divine Providence.

_Fifth objection._ (Sect. 49.) If extension and extended Matter can exist
only _in mind_, it follows that extension is an attribute of mind—that
mind is extended.

_Answer._ Extension and other sensible qualities exist in mind, not as
_modes_ of mind, which is unintelligible, but _as ideas_ of which Mind is
percipient; and this is absolutely inconsistent with the supposition that
Mind is itself extended(471).

_Sixth objection._ (Sect. 50.) Natural philosophy proceeds on the
assumption that Matter is independent of percipient mind, and it thus
contradicts the New Principles.

_Answer._ On the contrary, Matter—if it means what exists abstractly, or
in independence of all percipient Mind—is useless in natural philosophy,
which is conversant exclusively with the ideas or phenomena that compose
concrete things, not with empty abstractions.

_Seventh objection._ (Sect. 51.) To refer all change to spiritual agents
alone, and to regard the things of sense as wholly impotent, thus
discharging natural causes as the New Principles do, is at variance with
human language and with good sense.

_Answer._ While we may speak as the multitude do, we should learn to think
with the few who reflect. We may still speak of “natural causes,” even
when, as philosophers, we recognise that all true efficiency must be
spiritual, and that the material world is only a system of sensible
symbols, regulated by Divine Will and revealing Omnipresent Mind.

_Eighth objection._ (Sect. 54, 55.) The natural belief of men seems
inconsistent with the world being mind-dependent.

_Answer._ Not so when we consider that men seldom comprehend the deep
meaning of their practical assumptions; and when we recollect the
prejudices, once dignified as good sense, which have successively
surrendered to philosophy.

_Ninth objection._ (Sect. 56, 57.) Any Principle that is inconsistent with
our common faith in the existence of the material world must be rejected.

_Answer._ The fact that we are conscious of not being ourselves the cause
of changes perpetually going on in our _sense_-ideas, some of which we
gradually learn by experience to foresee, sufficiently accounts for the
common belief in the independence of those ideas, and is what men truly
mean by this.

_Tenth objection._ (Sect. 58, 59.) The foregoing Principles concerning
Matter and Spirit are inconsistent with the laws of motion, and with other
truths in mathematics and natural philosophy.

_Answer._ The laws of motion, and those other truths, may be all conceived
and expressed in consistency with the absence of independent substance and
causation in Matter.

_Eleventh objection._ (Sect. 60-66.) If, according to the foregoing
Principles, the material world is merely phenomena presented by a Power
not-ourselves to our senses, the elaborate contrivances which we find in
Nature are useless; for we might have had all experiences that are needful
without them, by the direct agency of God.

_Answer._ Elaborate contrivances in Nature are relatively necessary as
signs: they express to _us_ the occasional presence and some of the
experience of other men, also the constant presence and power of the
Universal Spirit, while the scientific interpretation of elaborately
constituted Nature is a beneficial moral and intellectual exercise.

_Twelfth objection._ (Sect. 67-79.) Although the impossibility of _active_
Matter may be demonstrable, this does not prove the impossibility of
_inactive_ Matter, _neither solid nor extended_, which may be the occasion
of our having sense-ideas.

_Answer._ This supposition is unintelligible: the words in which it is
expressed convey no meaning.

_Thirteenth objection._ (Sect. 80, 81.) Matter may be _an unknowable
Somewhat_, neither substance nor accident, cause nor effect, spirit nor
idea: all the reasonings against Matter, conceived as something positive,
fail, when this wholly negative notion is maintained.

_Answer._ This is to use the word “Matter” as people use the word
“nothing”: Unknowable Somewhat cannot be distinguished from nothing.

_Fourteenth objection._ (Sect. 82-84.) Although we cannot, in opposition
to the New Principles, infer scientifically the existence of Matter, in
abstraction from all realising percipient life, or form any conception,
positive or negative, of what Matter is; yet Holy Scripture demands the
faith of every Christian in the independent reality of the material world.

_Answer._ The _independent_ reality of the material world is nowhere
affirmed in Scripture.



iii. Consequences and Applications of the New Principles (sect. 85-156).


In this portion of the Treatise, the New Principles, already guarded
against objections, are applied to enlighten and invigorate final faith,
often suffering from the paralysis of the scepticism produced by
materialism; also to improve the sciences, including those which relate to
Mind, in man and in God. They are applied:—


    1. To the refutation of Scepticism as to the reality of the world
    (sect. 85-91) and God (sect. 92-96);

    2. To the liberation of thought from the bondage of unmeaning
    abstractions (sect. 97-100);

    3. To the purification of Natural Philosophy, by making it an
    interpretation of ideas of sense, simply in their relations of
    coexistence and sequence, according to which they constitute the
    Divine Language of Nature (sect. 101-116);

    4. To simplify Mathematics, by eliminating infinites and other
    empty abstractions (sect. 117-134);

    5. To explain and sustain faith in the Immortality of men (sect.
    135-144);

    6. To explain the belief which each man has in the existence of
    other men; as signified to him in and through sense-symbolism
    (sect. 145);

    7. To vindicate faith in God, who is signified in and through the
    sense-symbolism of universal nature (sect. 146-156).


It was only by degrees that Berkeley’s New Principles attracted attention.
A new mode of conceiving the world we live in, by a young and unknown
author, published at a distance from the centre of English intellectual
life, was apt to be overlooked. In connexion with the _Essay on Vision_,
however, it drew enough of regard to make Berkeley an object of interest
to the literary world on his first visit to London, three years after its
publication.




Dedication


TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE(472), &c.

KNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, AND ONE OF THE LORDS OF HER
MAJESTY’S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL

MY LORD,

You will perhaps wonder that an obscure person, who has not the honour to
be known to your lordship, should presume to address you in this manner.
But that a man who has written something with a design to promote Useful
Knowledge and Religion in the world should make choice of your lordship
for his patron, will not be thought strange by any one that is not
altogether unacquainted with the present state of the church and learning,
and consequently ignorant how great an ornament and support you are to
both. Yet, nothing could have induced me to make you this present of my
poor endeavours, were I not encouraged by that candour and native goodness
which is so bright a part in your lordship’s character. I might add, my
lord, that the extraordinary favour and bounty you have been pleased to
shew towards our Society(473) gave me hopes you would not be unwilling to
countenance the studies of one of its members. These considerations
determined me to lay this treatise at your lordship’s feet, and the rather
because I was ambitious to have it known that I am with the truest and
most profound respect, on account of that learning and virtue which the
world so justly admires in your lordship,

My Lord,

Your lordship’s most humble
and most devoted servant,

GEORGE BERKELEY.




The Preface


What I here make public has, after a long and scrupulous inquiry(474),
seemed to me evidently true and not unuseful to be known; particularly to
those who are tainted with Scepticism, or want a demonstration of the
existence and immateriality of God, or the natural immortality of the
Soul. Whether it be so or no I am content the reader should impartially
examine; since I do not think myself any farther concerned for the success
of what I have written than as it is agreeable to truth. But, to the end
this may not suffer, I make it my request that the reader suspend his
judgment till he has once at least read the whole through, with that
degree of attention and thought which the subject-matter shall seem to
deserve. For, as there are some passages that, taken by themselves, are
very liable (nor could it be remedied) to gross misinterpretation, and to
be charged with most absurd consequences, which, nevertheless, upon an
entire perusal will appear not to follow from them; so likewise, though
the whole should be read over, yet, if this be done transiently, it is
very probable my sense may be mistaken; but to a thinking reader, I
flatter myself it will be throughout clear and obvious.

As for the characters of novelty and singularity(475) which some of the
following notions may seem to bear, it is, I hope, needless to make any
apology on that account. He must surely be either very weak, or very
little acquainted with the sciences, who shall reject a truth that is
capable of demonstration(476), for no other reason but because it is newly
known, and contrary to the prejudices of mankind.

Thus much I thought fit to premise, in order to prevent, if possible, the
hasty censures of a sort of men who are too apt to condemn an opinion
before they rightly comprehend it(477).




Introduction


1. Philosophy being nothing else but the study of Wisdom and Truth(478),
it may with reason be expected that those who have spent most time and
pains in it should enjoy a greater calm and serenity of mind, a greater
clearness and evidence of knowledge, and be less disturbed with doubts and
difficulties than other men. Yet, so it is, we see the illiterate bulk of
mankind, that walk the high-road of plain common sense, and are governed
by the dictates of nature, for the most part easy and undisturbed. To them
nothing that is familiar appears unaccountable or difficult to comprehend.
They complain not of any want of evidence in their senses, and are out of
all danger of becoming Sceptics. But no sooner do we depart from sense and
instinct to follow the light of a superior principle—to reason, meditate,
and reflect on the nature of things, but a thousand scruples spring up in
our minds, concerning those things which before we seemed fully to
comprehend. Prejudices and errors of sense do from all parts discover
themselves to our view; and, endeavouring to correct these by reason, we
are insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and
inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in
speculation; till at length, having wandered through many intricate mazes,
we find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a
forlorn Scepticism(479).

2. The cause of this is thought to be the obscurity of things, or the
natural weakness and imperfection of our understandings. It is said the
faculties we have are few, and those designed by nature for the support
and pleasure of life, and not to penetrate into the inward essence and
constitution of things: besides, the mind of man being finite, when it
treats of things which partake of Infinity, it is not to be wondered at if
it run into absurdities and contradictions, out of which it is impossible
it should ever extricate itself; it being of the nature of Infinite not to
be comprehended by that which is finite(480).

3. But, perhaps, we may be too partial to ourselves in placing the fault
originally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we make of
them. It is a hard thing to suppose that right deductions from true
principles should ever end in consequences which cannot be maintained or
made consistent. We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully
with the sons of men than to give them a strong desire for that knowledge
which he had placed quite out of their reach. This were not agreeable to
the wonted indulgent methods of Providence, which, whatever appetites it
may have implanted in the creatures, doth usually furnish them with such
means as, if rightly made use of, will not fail to satisfy them. Upon the
whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of
those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up
the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. We have first
raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see.

4. My purpose therefore is, to try if I can discover what those Principles
are which have introduced all that doubtfulness and uncertainty, those
absurdities and contradictions, into the several sects of philosophy;
insomuch that the wisest men have thought our ignorance incurable,
conceiving it to arise from the natural dulness and limitation of our
faculties. And surely it is a work well deserving our pains to make a
strict inquiry concerning the First Principles of Human Knowledge; to sift
and examine them on all sides: especially since there may be some grounds
to suspect that those lets and difficulties, which stay and embarrass the
mind in its search after truth, do not spring from any darkness and
intricacy in the objects, or natural defect in the understanding, so much
as from false Principles which have been insisted on, and might have been
avoided.

5. How difficult and discouraging soever this attempt may seem, when I
consider what a number of very great and extraordinary men have gone
before me in the like designs(481), yet I am not without some hopes; upon
the consideration that the largest views are not always the clearest, and
that he who is short-sighted will be obliged to draw the object nearer,
and may, perhaps, by a close and narrow survey, discern that which had
escaped far better eyes.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

6. In order to prepare the mind of the reader for the easier conceiving
what follows, it is proper to premise somewhat, by way of Introduction,
concerning the nature and abuse of Language. But the unravelling this
matter leads me in some measure to anticipate my design, by taking notice
of what seems to have had a chief part in rendering speculation intricate
and perplexed, and to have occasioned innumerable errors and difficulties
in almost all parts of knowledge. And that is the opinion that the mind
hath a power of framing _abstract_ ideas or notions of things(482). He who
is not a perfect stranger to the writings and disputes of philosophers
must needs acknowledge that no small part of them are spent about abstract
ideas. These are in a more especial manner thought to be the object of
those sciences which go by the name of logic and metaphysics, and of all
that which passes under the notion of the most abstracted and sublime
learning; in all which one shall scarce find any question handled in such
a manner as does not suppose their existence in the mind, and that it is
well acquainted with them.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

7. It is agreed on all hands that the _qualities_ or _modes_ of things do
never really exist each of them apart by itself, and separated from all
others, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several in the
same object. But, we are told, the mind, being able to consider each
quality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is
united, does by that means frame to itself _abstract ideas_. For example,
there is conceived by sight an object extended, coloured, and moved: this
mixed or compound idea the mind resolving into its simple, constituent
parts, and viewing each by itself, exclusive of the rest, does frame the
abstract ideas of extension, colour, and motion. Not that it is possible
for colour or motion to exist without extension; but only that the mind
can frame to itself by abstraction the idea of colour exclusive of
extension, and of motion exclusive of both colour and extension.

8. Again, the mind having observed that in the particular extensions
perceived by sense there is something common and alike in all, and some
other things peculiar, as this or that figure or magnitude, which
distinguish them one from another, it considers apart, or singles out by
itself, that which is common; making thereof a most abstract idea of
extension; which is neither line, surface, nor solid, nor has any figure
or magnitude, but is an idea entirely prescinded from all these. So
likewise the mind, by leaving out of the particular colours perceived by
sense that which distinguishes them one from another, and retaining that
only which is common to all, makes an idea of colour in abstract; which is
neither red, nor blue, nor white, nor any other determinate colour. And,
in like manner, by considering motion abstractedly, not only from the body
moved, but likewise from the figure it describes, and all particular
directions and velocities, the abstract idea of motion is framed; which
equally corresponds to all particular motions whatsoever that may be
perceived by sense.

9. And as the mind frames to itself abstract ideas of _qualities_ or
_modes_, so does it, by the same precision, or mental separation, attain
abstract ideas of the more compounded _beings_ which include several
coexistent qualities. For example, the mind having observed that Peter,
James, and John resemble each other in certain common agreements of shape
and other qualities, leaves out of the complex or compound idea it has of
Peter, James, and any other particular man, that which is peculiar to
each, retaining only what is common to all, and so makes an abstract idea,
wherein all the particulars equally partake; abstracting entirely from and
cutting off all those circumstances and differences which might determine
it to any particular existence. And after this manner it is said we come
by the abstract idea of _man_, or, if you please, humanity, or human
nature; wherein it is true there is included colour, because there is no
man but has some colour, but then it can be neither white, nor black, nor
any particular colour, because there is no one particular colour wherein
all men partake. So likewise there is included stature, but then it is
neither tall stature, nor low stature, nor yet middle stature, but
something abstracted from all these. And so of the rest. Moreover, there
being a great variety of other creatures that partake in some parts, but
not all, of the complex idea of man, the mind, leaving out those parts
which are peculiar to men, and retaining those only which are common to
all the living creatures, frames the idea of _animal_; which abstracts not
only from all particular men, but also all birds, beasts, fishes, and
insects. The constituent parts of the abstract idea of animal are body,
life, sense, and spontaneous motion. By _body_ is meant body without any
particular shape or figure, there being no one shape or figure common to
all animals; without covering, either of hair, or feathers, or scales,
&c., nor yet naked: hair, feathers, scales, and nakedness being the
distinguishing properties of particular animals, and for that reason left
out of the abstract idea. Upon the same account, the spontaneous motion
must be neither walking, nor flying, nor creeping; it is nevertheless a
motion, but what that motion is it is not easy to conceive.

10. Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas,
they best can tell(483). For myself, [(484)I dare be confident I have it
not.] I find indeed I have a faculty of imagining or representing to
myself, the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and of
variously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two
heads; or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can
consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or
separated from the rest of the body. But then whatever hand or eye I
imagine(485), it must have some particular shape and colour. Likewise the
idea of man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a black,
or a tawny, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized
man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above
described. And it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea
of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor
slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear; and the like may be said of all other
abstract general ideas whatsoever. To be plain, I own myself able to
abstract in one sense, as when I consider some particular parts or
qualities separated from others, with which, though they are united in
some object, yet it is possible they may really exist without them. But I
deny that I can abstract from one another, or conceive separately, those
qualities which it is impossible should exist so separated; or that I can
frame a general notion, by abstracting from particulars in the manner
aforesaid—which last are the two proper acceptations of _abstraction_. And
there is ground to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my
case. The generality of men which are simple and illiterate never pretend
to abstract notions(486). It is said they are difficult, and not to be
attained without pains and study. We may therefore reasonably conclude
that, if such there be, they are confined only to the learned.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

11. I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of
abstraction(487), and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the
men of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as
that seems to be. There has been a late [(488)excellent and] deservedly
esteemed philosopher(489) who, no doubt, has given it very much
countenance, by seeming to think the having abstract general ideas is what
puts the widest difference in point of understanding betwixt man and
beast. “The having of general ideas,” saith he, “is that which puts a
perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the
faculties of brutes do by no means attain unto. For it is evident we
observe no foot-steps in them of making use of general signs for universal
ideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not the faculty
of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words,
or any other general signs.” And a little after:—“Therefore, I think, we
may suppose, that it is in this that the species of brutes are
discriminated from man: and it is that proper difference wherein they are
wholly separated, and which at last widens to so wide a distance. For if
they have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines (as some would have
them(490)), we cannot deny them to have some reason. It seems as evident
to me that they do, some of them, in certain instances, reason, as that
they have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just as they receive
them from their senses. They are the best of them tied up within those
narrow bounds, and have not (as I think) the faculty to enlarge them by
any kind of abstraction.”—_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. II. ch. 11. §
10 and 11. I readily agree with this learned author, that the faculties of
brutes can by no means attain to abstraction. But then if this be made the
distinguishing property of that sort of animals, I fear a great many of
those that pass for men must be reckoned into their number. The reason
that is here assigned, why we have no grounds to think brutes have
abstract general ideas, is, that we observe in them no use of words, or
any other general signs; which is built on this supposition, to wit, that
the making use of words implies having general ideas. From which it
follows that men who use language are able to abstract or generalize their
ideas. That this is the sense and arguing of the author will further
appear by his answering the question he in another place puts: “Since all
things that exist are only particulars, how come we by general terms?” His
answer is: “Words become general by being made the signs of general
ideas.”—_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. III. ch. 3. § 6. But it seems
that a word(491) becomes general by being made the sign, not of an
abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which
it indifferently suggests to the mind. For example, when it is said “the
change of motion is proportional to the impressed force,” or that
“whatever has extension is divisible,” these propositions are to be
understood of motion and extension in general; and nevertheless it will
not follow that they suggest to my thoughts an _idea_(492) of motion
without a body moved, or any determinate direction and velocity; or that I
must conceive an _abstract general idea_ of extension, which is neither
line, surface, nor solid, neither great nor small, black, white, nor red,
nor of any other determinate colour. It is only implied that whatever
particular motion I consider, whether it be swift or slow, perpendicular,
horizontal, or oblique, or in whatever object, the axiom concerning it
holds equally true. As does the other of every particular extension; it
matters not whether line, surface, or solid, whether of this or that
magnitude or figure(493).

12. By observing how ideas become general, we may the better judge how
words are made so. And here it is to be noted that I do not deny
absolutely there are _general ideas_, but only that there are any
_abstract general ideas_. For, in the passages we have quoted wherein
there is mention of general ideas, it is always supposed that they are
formed by abstraction, after the manner set forth in sections 8 and
9(494). Now, if we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of
what we can conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea, which
considered in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to
represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort(495).
To make this plain by an example. Suppose a geometrician is demonstrating
the method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a
black line of an inch in length: this, which in itself is a particular
line, is nevertheless _with regard to its signification_ general; since,
as it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever; so
that what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or, in other
words, of a line in general(496). And, as _that particular line_ becomes
general by being made a sign, so the _name_ line, which taken absolutely
is particular, by being a sign, is made general. And as the former owes
its generality, not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line,
but of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter
must be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely, the
various particular lines which it indifferently denotes.

13. To give the reader a yet clearer view of the nature of abstract ideas,
and the uses they are thought necessary to, I shall add one more passage
out of the _Essay on Human Understanding_, which is as follows:—“Abstract
ideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind,
as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only because by
constant and familiar use they are made so. For, when we nicely reflect
upon them, we shall find that general ideas are fictions and contrivances
of the mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily offer
themselves as we are apt to imagine. For example, does it not require some
pains and skill to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none
of the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult); for it must be
neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor
scalenon; but all and none of these at once? In effect, it is something
imperfect, that cannot exist; an idea(497) wherein some parts of several
different and inconsistent ideas are put together. It is true the mind, in
this imperfect state, has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste to
them it can, for the conveniency of communication and enlargement of
knowledge; to both which it is naturally very much inclined. But yet one
has reason to suspect such ideas are marks of our imperfection. At least
this is enough to shew that the most abstract and general ideas are not
those that the mind is first and most easily acquainted with, nor such as
its earliest knowledge is conversant about.”—B. iv. ch. 7. § 9. If any man
has the faculty of framing in his mind such an idea of a triangle as is
here described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him out of it, nor
would I go about it. All I desire is that the reader would fully and
certainly inform himself whether he has such an idea or no. And this,
methinks, can be no hard task for any one to perform. What more easy than
for any one to look a little into his own thoughts, and there try whether
he has, or can attain to have, an idea that shall correspond with the
description that is here given of the general idea of a triangle—which is
neither oblique nor rectangle, equilateral, equicrural nor scalenon, but
all and none of these at once?

14. Much is here said of the difficulty that abstract ideas carry with
them, and the pains and skill requisite to the forming them. And it is on
all hands agreed that there is need of great toil and labour of the mind,
to emancipate our thoughts from particular objects, and raise them to
those sublime speculations that are conversant about abstract ideas. From
all which the natural consequence should seem to be, that so difficult a
thing as the forming abstract ideas was not necessary for _communication_,
which is so easy and familiar to all sorts of men. But, we are told, if
they seem obvious and easy to grown men, it is only because by constant
and familiar use they are made so. Now, I would fain know at what time it
is men are employed in surmounting that difficulty, and furnishing
themselves with those necessary helps for discourse. It cannot be when
they are grown up; for then it seems they are not conscious of any such
painstaking. It remains therefore to be the business of their childhood.
And surely the great and multiplied labour of framing abstract
notions(498) will be found a hard task for that tender age. Is it not a
hard thing to imagine that a couple of children cannot prate together of
their sugar-plums and rattles and the rest of their little trinkets, till
they have first tacked together numberless inconsistencies, and so framed
in their minds abstract general ideas, and annexed them to every common
name they make use of?

15. Nor do I think them a whit more needful for the _enlargement of
knowledge_ than for communication. It is, I know, a point much insisted
on, that all knowledge and demonstration are about universal notions, to
which I fully agree. But then it does not appear to me that those notions
are formed by abstraction in the manner premised—_universality_, so far as
I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, positive nature or
conception of anything, but in the relation it bears to the particulars
signified or represented by it; by virtue whereof it is that things,
names, or notions(499), being in their own nature _particular_, are
_rendered universal_. Thus, when I demonstrate any proposition concerning
triangles, it is supposed that I have in view the universal idea of a
triangle: which ought not to be understood as if I could frame an
_idea_(500) of a triangle which was neither equilateral, nor scalenon, nor
equicrural; but only that the particular triangle I consider, whether of
this or that sort it matters not, doth equally stand for and represent all
rectilinear triangles whatsoever, and is in that sense universal. All
which seems very plain and not to include any difficulty in it(501).

16. But here it will be demanded, how we can know any proposition to be
true of all particular triangles, except we have first seen it
demonstrated of the abstract idea of a triangle which equally agrees to
all? For, because a property may be demonstrated to agree to some one
particular triangle, it will not thence follow that it equally belongs to
any other triangle which in all respects is not the same with it. For
example, having demonstrated that the three angles of an isosceles
rectangular triangle are equal to two right ones, I cannot therefore
conclude this affection agrees to all other triangles which have neither a
right angle nor two equal sides. It seems therefore that, to be certain
this proposition is universally true, we must either make a particular
demonstration for every particular triangle, which is impossible; or once
for all demonstrate it of the abstract idea of a triangle, in which all
the particulars do indifferently partake, and by which they are all
equally represented. To which I answer, that, though the idea I have in
view(502) whilst I make the demonstration be, for instance, that of an
isosceles rectangular triangle whose sides are of a determinate length, I
may nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles,
of what sort or bigness soever. And that because neither the right angle,
nor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned
in the demonstration. It is true the diagram I have in view includes all
these particulars; but then there is not the least mention made of _them_
in the proof of the proposition. It is not said the three angles are equal
to two right ones, because one of them is a right angle, or because the
sides comprehending it are of the same length. Which sufficiently shews
that the right angle might have been oblique, and the sides unequal, and
for all that the demonstration have held good. And for this reason it is
that I conclude that to be true of any obliquangular or scalenon which I
had demonstrated of a particular right-angled equicrural triangle, and not
because I demonstrated the proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle.
[(503)And here it must be acknowledged that a man may _consider_ a figure
merely as triangular; without attending to the particular qualities of the
angles, or relations of the sides. _So far he may abstract._ But this will
never prove that he can frame an abstract, general, inconsistent _idea_ of
a triangle. In like manner we may consider Peter so far forth as man, or
so far forth as animal, without framing the forementioned abstract idea,
either of man or of animal; inasmuch as all that is perceived is not
considered.]

17. It were an endless as well as an useless thing to trace the Schoolmen,
those great masters of abstraction, through all the manifold inextricable
labyrinths of error and dispute which their doctrine of abstract natures
and notions seems to have led them into. What bickerings and
controversies, and what a learned dust have been raised about those
matters, and what mighty advantage has been from thence derived to
mankind, are things at this day too clearly known to need being insisted
on. And it had been well if the ill effects of that doctrine were confined
to those only who make the most avowed profession of it. When men consider
the great pains, industry, and parts that have for so many ages been laid
out on the cultivation and advancement of the sciences, and that
notwithstanding all this the far greater part of them remain full of
darkness and uncertainty, and disputes that are like never to have an end;
and even those that are thought to be supported by the most clear and
cogent demonstrations contain in them paradoxes which are perfectly
irreconcilable to the understandings of men; and that, taking all
together, a very small portion of them does supply any real benefit to
mankind, otherwise than by being an innocent diversion and
amusement(504)—I say, the consideration of all this is apt to throw them
into a despondency and perfect contempt of all study. But this may perhaps
cease upon a view of the false Principles that have obtained in the world;
amongst all which there is none, methinks, hath a more wide influence(505)
over the thoughts of speculative men than this of _abstract general
ideas_.

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18. I come now to consider the _source_ of this prevailing notion, and
that seems to me to be _language_. And surely nothing of less extent than
reason itself could have been the source of an opinion so universally
received. The truth of this appears as from other reasons so also from the
plain confession of the ablest patrons of abstract ideas, who acknowledge
that they are made in order to naming; from which it is clear consequence
that if there had been no such thing as speech or universal signs, there
never had been any thought of abstraction. See B. iii. ch. 6. § 39, and
elsewhere of the _Essay on Human Understanding_.

Let us examine the manner wherein Words have contributed to the origin of
that mistake.—First then, it is thought that every name has, or ought to
have, one only precise and settled signification; which inclines men to
think there are certain abstract determinate ideas that constitute the
true and only immediate signification of each general name; and that it is
by the mediation of these abstract ideas that a general name comes to
signify any particular thing. Whereas, in truth, there is no such thing as
one precise and definite signification annexed to any general name, they
all signifying indifferently a great number of particular ideas. All which
does evidently follow from what has been already said, and will clearly
appear to any one by a little reflexion. To this it will be objected that
every name that has a definition is thereby restrained to one certain
signification. For example, a triangle is defined to be “a plain surface
comprehended by three right lines”; by which that name is limited to
denote one certain idea and no other. To which I answer, that in the
definition it is not said whether the surface be great or small, black or
white, nor whether the sides are long or short, equal or unequal, nor with
what angles they are inclined to each other; in all which there may be
great variety, and consequently there is no one settled idea which limits
the signification of the word triangle. It is one thing for to keep a name
constantly to the same _definition_, and another to make it stand
everywhere for the same _idea_(506): the one is necessary, the other
useless and impracticable.

19. But, to give a farther account how words came to produce the doctrine
of abstract ideas, it must be observed that it is a received opinion that
language has no other end but the communicating ideas, and that every
significant name stands for an idea. This being so, and it being withal
certain that names which yet are not thought altogether insignificant do
not always mark out particular conceivable ideas, it is straightway
concluded that they stand for abstract notions. That there are many names
in use amongst speculative men which do not always suggest to others
determinate, particular ideas, or in truth anything at all, is what nobody
will deny. And a little attention will discover that it is not necessary
(even in the strictest reasonings) that significant names which stand for
ideas should, every time they are used, excite in the understanding the
ideas they are made to stand for: in reading and discoursing, names being
for the most part used as letters are in Algebra, in which, though a
particular quantity be marked by each letter, yet to proceed right it is
not requisite that in every step each letter suggest to your thoughts that
particular quantity it was appointed to stand for(507).

20. Besides, the communicating of ideas marked by words is not the chief
and only end of language, as is commonly supposed. There are other ends,
as the raising of some passion, the exciting to or deterring from an
action, the putting the mind in some particular disposition; to which the
former is in many cases barely subservient, and sometimes entirely
omitted, when these can be obtained without it, as I think doth(508) not
unfrequently happen in the familiar use of language. I entreat the reader
to reflect with himself, and see if it doth not often happen, either in
hearing or reading a discourse, that the passions of fear, love, hatred,
admiration, and disdain, and the like, arise immediately in his mind upon
the perception of certain words, without any ideas(509) coming between. At
first, indeed, the words might have occasioned ideas that were fitting to
produce those emotions; but, if I mistake not, it will be found that, when
language is once grown familiar, the hearing of the sounds or sight of the
characters is oft immediately attended with those passions which at first
were wont to be produced by the intervention of ideas that are now quite
omitted. May we not, for example, be affected with the promise of a _good
thing_, though we have not an idea of what it is? Or is not the being
threatened with danger sufficient to excite a dread, though we think not
of any particular evil likely to befal us, nor yet frame to ourselves an
idea of danger in abstract? If any one shall join ever so little
reflection of his own to what has been said, I believe that it will
evidently appear to him that general names are often used in the propriety
of language without the speakers designing them for marks of ideas in his
own, which he would have them raise in the mind of the hearer. Even proper
names themselves do not seem always spoken with a design to bring into our
view the ideas of those individuals that are supposed to be marked by
them. For example, when a schoolman tells me “Aristotle hath said it,” all
I conceive he means by it is to dispose me to embrace his opinion with the
deference and submission which custom has annexed to that name. And this
effect may be so instantly produced in the minds of those who are
accustomed to resign their judgment to authority of that philosopher, as
it is impossible any idea either of his person, writings, or reputation
should go before. [(510)So close and immediate a connexion may custom
establish betwixt the very word Aristotle(511) and the motions of assent
and reverence in the minds of some men.] Innumerable examples of this kind
may be given, but why should I insist on those things which every one’s
experience will, I doubt not, plentifully suggest unto him?

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21. We have, I think, shewn the impossibility of Abstract Ideas. We have
considered what has been said for them by their ablest patrons; and
endeavoured to shew they are of no use for those ends to which they are
thought necessary. And lastly, we have traced them to the source from
whence they flow, which appears evidently to be Language.

It cannot be denied that words are of excellent use, in that by their
means all that stock of knowledge which has been purchased by the joint
labours of inquisitive men in all ages and nations may be drawn into the
view and made the possession of one single person. But [(512)at the same
time it must be owned that] most parts of knowledge have been [(513)so]
strangely perplexed and darkened by the abuse of words, and general ways
of speech wherein they are delivered, [that it may almost be made a
question whether language has contributed more to the hindrance or
advancement of the sciences(514)]. Since therefore words are so apt to
impose on the understanding, [I am resolved in my inquiries to make as
little use of them as possibly I can(515):] whatever ideas I consider, I
shall endeavour to take them bare and naked into my view; keeping out of
my thoughts, so far as I am able, those names which long and constant use
hath so strictly united with them. From which I may expect to derive the
following advantages:—

22. _First_, I shall be sure to get clear of all controversies purely
verbal, the springing up of which weeds in almost all the sciences has
been a main hindrance to the growth of true and sound knowledge.
_Secondly_, this seems to be a sure way to extricate myself out of that
fine and subtle net of abstract ideas, which has so miserably perplexed
and entangled the minds of men; and that with this peculiar circumstance,
that by how much the finer and more curious was the wit of any man, by so
much the deeper was he likely to be ensnared and faster held therein.
_Thirdly_, so long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas(516), divested
of words, I do not see how I can easily be mistaken. The objects I
consider, I clearly and adequately know. I cannot be deceived in thinking
I have an idea which I have not. It is not possible for me to imagine that
any of my own ideas are alike or unlike that are not truly so. To discern
the agreements or disagreements there are between my ideas, to see what
ideas are included in any compound idea and what not, there is nothing
more requisite than an attentive perception of what passes in my own
understanding.

23. But the attainment of all these advantages does presuppose an entire
deliverance from the deception of words; which I dare hardly promise
myself, so difficult a thing it is to dissolve an union so early begun,
and confirmed by so long a habit as that betwixt words and ideas. Which
difficulty seems to have been very much increased by the doctrine of
_abstraction_. For, so long as men thought _abstract_ ideas were annexed
to their words, it does not seem strange that they should use words for
ideas; it being found an impracticable thing to lay aside the word, and
retain the _abstract_ idea in the mind; which in itself was perfectly
inconceivable. This seems to me the principal cause why those who have so
emphatically recommended to others the laying aside all use of words in
their meditations, and contemplating their bare ideas, have yet failed to
perform it themselves. Of late many have been very sensible of the absurd
opinions and insignificant disputes which grow out of the abuse of words.
And, in order to remedy these evils, they advise well(517), that we attend
to the ideas signified, and draw off our attention from the words which
signify them(518). But, how good soever this advice may be they have given
others, it is plain they could not have a due regard to it themselves, so
long as they thought the only immediate use of words was to signify ideas,
and that the immediate signification of every general name was a
determinate abstract idea.

24. But these being known to be mistakes, a man may with greater ease
prevent his being imposed on by words. He that knows he has no other than
_particular_ ideas, will not puzzle himself in vain to find out and
conceive the _abstract_ idea annexed to any name. And he that knows names
do not always stand for ideas(519) will spare himself the labour of
looking for ideas where there are none to be had. It were, therefore, to
be wished that every one would use his utmost endeavours to obtain a clear
view of the ideas he would consider; separating from them all that dress
and incumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind the judgment
and divide the attention. In vain do we extend our view into the heavens
and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings
of learned men and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity. We need only
draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose
fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand.

25. Unless we take care to clear the First Principles of Knowledge from
the embarras and delusion of Words, we may make infinite reasonings upon
them to no purpose; we may draw consequences from consequences, and be
never the wiser. The farther we go, we shall only lose ourselves the more
irrecoverably, and be the deeper entangled in difficulties and mistakes.
Whoever therefore designs to read the following sheets, I entreat him that
he would make my words the occasion of his own thinking, and endeavour to
attain the same train of thoughts in reading that I had in writing them.
By this means it will be easy for him to discover the truth or falsity of
what I say. He will be out of all danger of being deceived by my words.
And I do not see how he can be led into an error by considering his own
naked, undisguised ideas(520).




Part First


1. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the _objects of human
knowledge_, that they are either _ideas_ actually imprinted on the senses;
or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations
of the mind; or lastly, _ideas_ formed by help of memory and
imagination—either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those
originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of
light and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I
perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance; and of all
these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me
with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the
mind in all their variety of tone and composition(521).

And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to
be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one _thing_. Thus, for
example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having
been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified
by the name apple; other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree,
a book, and the like sensible things; which as they are pleasing or
disagreeable excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so
forth(522).

2. But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge,
there is likewise Something which knows or perceives them; and exercises
divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, about them. This
perceiving, active being is what I call _mind_, _spirit_, _soul_, or
_myself_. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing
entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same
thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists
in being perceived(523).

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3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the
imagination, exist without the mind is what everybody will allow. And to
me it seems no less evident that the various sensations, or ideas
imprinted on the Sense, however blended or combined together (that is,
whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind
perceiving them(524). I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of
this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term _exist_
when applied to sensible things(525). The table I write on I say exists;
that is, I see and feel it: and if I were out of my study I should say it
existed; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or
that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that
is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or
figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can
understand by these and the like expressions(526). For as to what is said
of the _absolute_ existence of unthinking things, without any relation to
their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their
_esse_ is _percipi_; nor is it possible they should have any existence out
of the minds or thinking things which perceive them(527).

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4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses,
mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence,
natural or real(528), distinct from their being perceived by the
understanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever
this Principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in
his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to
involve a manifest contradiction. For, what are the forementioned objects
but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our
own(529) ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one
of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?

5. If we thoroughly examine this tenet(530) it will, perhaps, be found at
bottom to depend on the doctrine of _abstract ideas_. For can there be a
nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible
objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them existing
unperceived(531)? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and
figures—in a word the things we see and feel—what are they but so many
sensations, notions(532), ideas, or impressions on the sense? and is it
possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For
my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I may, indeed,
divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things
which perhaps I never perceived by sense so divided. Thus, I imagine the
trunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose
without thinking on the rose itself. So far, I will not deny, I can
abstract; if that may properly be called _abstraction_ which extends only
to the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may really
exist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or imagining
power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or
perception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything
without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for me to
conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the
sensation or perception of it. [(533)In truth, the object and the
sensation are the same thing, and cannot therefore be abstracted from each
other.]

6. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need
only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz.
that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all
those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any
subsistence without a mind; that their _being_ is to be perceived or
known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me,
or do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must
either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some
Eternal Spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the
absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an
existence independent of a spirit. [(534)To be convinced of which, the
reader need only reflect, and try to separate in his own thoughts the
_being_ of a sensible thing from its _being perceived_.]

7. From what has been said it is evident there is not any other Substance
than _Spirit_, or that which perceives(535). But, for the fuller
proof(536) of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities are
colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, and such like, that is, the ideas
perceived by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is
a manifest contradiction; for to have an idea is all one as to perceive:
that therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist must
perceive them. Hence it is clear there can be no unthinking substance or
_substratum_ of those ideas.

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8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves(537) do not exist without the
mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or
resemblances; which things exist without the mind, in an unthinking
substance(538). I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a
colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we
look but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible
for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask
whether those supposed _originals_, or external things, of which our ideas
are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If
they are, then _they_ are ideas, and we have gained our point: but if you
say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a
colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something
which is intangible; and so of the rest.

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9. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt _primary_ and _secondary_
qualities(539). By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest,
solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all
other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The
ideas we have of these last they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of
anything existing without the mind, or unperceived; but they will have our
ideas of the _primary qualities_ to be patterns or images of things which
exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call Matter.
By Matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert(540), senseless
substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But
it is evident, from what we have already shewn, that extension, figure,
and motion are only ideas existing in the mind(541), and that an idea can
be like nothing but another idea; and that consequently neither they nor
their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is
plain that the very notion of what is called _Matter_ or _corporeal
substance_, involves a contradiction in it. [(542)Insomuch that I should
not think it necessary to spend more time in exposing its absurdity. But,
because the tenet of the existence of Matter(543) seems to have taken so
deep a root in the minds of philosophers, and draws after it so many ill
consequences, I choose rather to be thought prolix and tedious than omit
anything that might conduce to the full discovery and extirpation of that
prejudice.]

10. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or
original qualities(544) do exist without the mind, in unthinking
substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat,
cold, and suchlike secondary qualities, do not; which they tell us are
sensations, existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned
by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of
matter(545). This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can
demonstrate beyond all exception. Now, if it be certain that those
_original_ qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible
qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from
them, it plainly follows that _they_ exist only in the mind. But I desire
any one to reflect, and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought,
conceive the extension and motion of a body without all other sensible
qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to
frame an idea of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it
some colour or other sensible quality, which is acknowledged to exist only
in the mind. In short, extension, figure and motion, abstracted from all
other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible
qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere
else(546).

11. Again, _great_ and _small_, _swift_ and _slow_, are allowed to exist
nowhere without the mind(547); being entirely relative, and changing as
the frame or position of the organs of sense varies. The extension
therefore which exists without the mind is neither great nor small, the
motion neither swift nor slow; that is, they are nothing at all. But, say
you, they are extension in general, and motion in general. Thus we see how
much the tenet of extended moveable substances existing without the mind
depends on that strange doctrine of _abstract ideas_. And here I cannot
but remark how nearly the vague and indeterminate description of Matter,
or corporeal substance, which the modern philosophers are run into by
their own principles, resembles that antiquated and so much ridiculed
notion of _materia prima_, to be met with in Aristotle and his followers.
Without extension solidity cannot be conceived: since therefore it has
been shewn that extension exists not in an unthinking substance, the same
must also be true of solidity(548).

12. That _number_ is entirely the creature of the mind(549), even though
the other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be evident to
whoever considers that the same thing bears a different denomination of
number as the mind views it with different respects. Thus, the same
extension is one, or three, or thirty-six, according as the mind considers
it with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is so visibly
relative, and dependent on men’s understanding, that it is strange to
think how any one should give it an absolute existence without the mind.
We say one book, one page, one line, &c.; all these are equally units,
though some contain several of the others. And in each instance, it is
plain, the unit relates to some particular combination of ideas
_arbitrarily_ put together by the mind(550).

13. Unity I know some(551) will have to be a simple or uncompounded idea,
accompanying all other ideas into the mind. That I have any such idea
answering the word _unity_ I do not find; and if I had, methinks I could
not miss finding it; on the contrary, it should be the most familiar to my
understanding, since it is said to accompany all other ideas, and to be
perceived by all the ways of sensation and reflexion. To say no more, it
is an _abstract idea_.

14. I shall farther add, that, after the same manner as modern
philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence in
Matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all
other sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for instance, it is said that
heat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of
real beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them; for
that the same body which appears cold to one hand seems warm to another.
Now, why may we not as well argue that figure and extension are not
patterns or resemblances of qualities existing in Matter; because to the
same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same
station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of
anything settled and determinate without the mind? Again, it is proved
that sweetness is not really in the sapid thing; because the thing
remaining unaltered the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a
fever or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say that
motion is not without the mind; since if the succession of ideas in the
mind become swifter, the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower,
without any alteration in any external object(552)?

15. In short, let any one consider those arguments which are thought
manifestly to prove that colours and tastes exist only in the mind, and he
shall find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of
extension, figure, and motion. Though it must be confessed this method of
arguing does not so much prove that there is no extension or colour in an
outward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true
extension or colour of the object. But the arguments foregoing(553)
plainly shew it to be impossible that any colour or extension at all, or
other sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an unthinking subject
without the mind, or in truth that there should be any such thing as an
outward object(554).

16. But let us examine a little the received opinion. It is said extension
is a _mode_ or _accident_ of Matter, and that Matter is the _substratum_
that supports it. Now I desire that you would explain to me what is meant
by Matter’s _supporting_ extension. Say you, I have no idea of Matter; and
therefore cannot explain it. I answer, though you have no positive, yet,
if you have any meaning at all, you must at least have a relative idea of
Matter; though you know not what it is, yet you must be supposed to know
what relation it bears to accidents, and what is meant by its supporting
them. It is evident _support_ cannot here be taken in its usual or literal
sense, as when we say that pillars support a building. In what sense
therefore must it be taken? [(555) For my part, I am not able to discover
any sense at all that can be applicable to it.]

17. If we inquire into what the most accurate philosophers declare
themselves to mean by _material substance_, we shall find them acknowledge
they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the idea of Being
in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents.
The general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and
incomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this,
as we have just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of
those words: it must therefore be taken in some other sense, but what that
is they do not explain. So that when I consider the two parts or branches
which make the signification of the words _material substance_, I am
convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them. But why should we
trouble ourselves any farther, in discussing this material _substratum_ or
support of figure and motion and other sensible qualities? Does it not
suppose they have an existence without the mind? And is not this a direct
repugnancy, and altogether inconceivable?

18. But, though it were possible that solid, figured, moveable substances
may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies,
yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by
Sense or by Reason(556). As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge
only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately
perceived by sense, call them what you will: but they do not inform us
that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which
are perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge.—It remains
therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must
be by reason inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived
by sense. But ((557)I do not see) what reason can induce us to believe the
existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the
very patrons of Matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary
connexion betwixt them and our ideas? I say it is granted on all hands
(and what happens in dreams, frensies, and the like, puts it beyond
dispute) that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we
have now, though no bodies existed without resembling them(558). Hence it
is evident the supposition of external bodies(559) is not necessary for
the producing our ideas; since it is granted they are produced sometimes,
and might possibly be produced always, in the same order we see them in at
present, without their concurrence.

19. But, though we might possibly have all our sensations without them,
yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of
their production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather
than otherwise; and so it might be at least probable there are such things
as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be
said. For, though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by
their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are
produced; since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner
body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea
in the mind(560). Hence it is evident the production of ideas or
sensations in our minds(561), can be no reason why we should suppose
Matter or corporeal substances(562); since that is acknowledged to remain
equally inexplicable with or without this supposition. If therefore it
were possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so
must needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without
any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are
entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.

20. In short, if there were external bodies(563), it is impossible we
should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very
same reasons to think there were that we have now. Suppose—what no one can
deny possible—an intelligence, without the help of external bodies, to be
affected with the same train of sensations or ideas that you are,
imprinted in the same order and with like vividness in his mind. I ask
whether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence
of Corporeal Substances, represented by his ideas, and exciting them in
his mind, that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of this
there can be no question. Which one consideration were enough to make any
reasonable person suspect the strength of whatever arguments he may think
himself to have, for the existence of bodies without the mind.

21. Were it necessary to add any farther proof against the existence of
Matter(564), after what has been said, I could instance several of those
errors and difficulties (not to mention impieties) which have sprung from
that tenet. It has occasioned numberless controversies and disputes in
philosophy, and not a few of far greater moment in religion. But I shall
not enter into the detail of them in this place, as well because I think
arguments _a posteriori_ are unnecessary for confirming what has been, if
I mistake not, sufficiently demonstrated _a priori_, as because I shall
hereafter find occasion to speak somewhat of them.

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22. I am afraid I have given cause to think I am needlessly prolix in
handling this subject. For, to what purpose is it to dilate on that which
may be demonstrated with the utmost evidence in a line or two, to any one
that is capable of the least reflexion? It is but looking into your own
thoughts, and so trying whether you can conceive it possible for a sound,
or figure, or motion, or colour to exist without the mind or unperceived.
This easy trial(565) may perhaps make you see that what you contend for is
a downright contradiction. Insomuch that I am content to put the whole
upon this issue:—If you can but conceive it possible for one extended
moveable substance, or in general for any one idea, or anything like an
idea, to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it(566), I shall
readily give up the cause. And, as for all that compages of external
bodies you contend for, I shall grant you its existence, though you cannot
either give me any reason why you believe it exists, or assign any use to
it when it is supposed to exist. I say, the bare possibility of your
opinions being true shall pass for an argument that it is so.

23. But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine
trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody
by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it.
But what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind
certain ideas which you call _books_ and _trees_, and at the same time
omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not
you yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is
nothing to the purpose: it only shews you have the power of imagining, or
forming ideas in your mind; but it does not shew that you can conceive it
possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind(567). To
make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived
or unthought of; which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to
conceive the existence of external bodies(568), we are all the while only
contemplating our own ideas. But the mind, taking no notice of itself, is
deluded to think it can and does conceive bodies existing unthought of, or
without the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended by, or
exist in, itself. A little attention will discover to any one the truth
and evidence of what is here said, and make it unnecessary to insist on
any other proofs against the existence of _material substance_.

24. [(569)Could men but forbear to amuse themselves with words, we should,
I believe, soon come to an agreement in this point.] It is very obvious,
upon the least inquiry into our own thoughts, to know whether it be
possible for us to understand what is meant by the _absolute existence of
sensible objects in themselves_, or _without the mind_(570). To me it is
evident those words mark out either a direct contradiction, or else
nothing at all. And to convince others of this, I know no readier or
fairer way than to entreat they would calmly attend to their own thoughts;
and if by this attention the emptiness or repugnancy of those expressions
does appear, surely nothing more is requisite for their conviction. It is
on this therefore that I insist, to wit, that the _absolute existence of
unthinking things_ are words without a meaning, or which include a
contradiction. This is what I repeat and inculcate, and earnestly
recommend to the attentive thoughts of the reader.

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25. All our ideas, sensations, notions(571), or the things which we
perceive, by whatsoever names they may be distinguished, are visibly
inactive: there is nothing of power or agency included in them. So that
one idea or object of thought cannot produce or make any alteration in
another(572). To be satisfied of the truth of this, there is nothing else
requisite but a bare observation of our ideas. For, since they and every
part of them exist only in the mind, it follows that there is nothing in
them but what is perceived; but whoever shall attend to his ideas, whether
of sense or reflexion, will not perceive in them any power or activity;
there is, therefore, no such thing contained in them. A little attention
will discover to us that the very being of an idea implies passiveness and
inertness in it; insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do
anything, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything: neither can
it be the resemblance or pattern of any active being, as is evident from
sect. 8. Whence it plainly follows that extension, figure, and motion
cannot be the cause of our sensations. To say, therefore, that these are
the effects of powers resulting from the configuration, number, motion,
and size of corpuscles(573), must certainly be false.

26. We perceive a continual succession of ideas; some are anew excited,
others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore _some_ cause
of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes
them(574). That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of
_ideas_, is clear from the preceding section. It must therefore be a
_substance_; but it has been shewn that there is no corporeal or material
substance: it remains therefore that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal
active substance or Spirit(575).

27. A Spirit is one simple, undivided active being—as it perceives ideas
it is called the _understanding_, and as it produces or otherwise operates
about them it is called the _will_. Hence there can be no _idea_ formed of
a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert (vid.
sect. 25), they cannot represent unto us, by way of image or likeness,
that which acts. A little attention will make it plain to any one, that to
have an idea which shall be _like_ that active Principle of motion and
change of ideas is absolutely impossible. Such is the nature of Spirit, or
that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the
effects which it produceth(576). If any man shall doubt of the truth of
what is here delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can frame the
idea of any power or active being; and whether he has ideas of two
principal powers, marked by the names _will_ and _understanding_, distinct
from each other, as well as from a third idea of Substance or Being in
general, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the subject of
the aforesaid powers—which is signified by the name _soul_ or _spirit_.
This is what some hold; but, so far as I can see, the words _will_,
[(577)_understanding_, _mind_,] _soul_, _spirit_, do not stand for
different ideas, or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something
which is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be
like unto, or represented by, any idea whatsoever. [(578)Though it must be
owned at the same time that we have some _notion_ of soul, spirit, and the
operations of the mind, such as willing, loving, hating—inasmuch as we
know or understand the meaning of these words.]

28. I find I can excite ideas(579) in my mind at pleasure, and vary and
shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than _willing_, and
straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it
is obliterated and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of
ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active. Thus much is certain
and grounded on experience: but when we talk of unthinking agents, or of
exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse ourselves with
words(580).

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29. But, whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas
actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on _my_ will. When
in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether
I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present
themselves to my view: and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses;
the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of _my_ will(581). There is
therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them.

30. The ideas of Sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of
the Imagination(582); they have likewise a steadiness, order, and
coherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are the effects
of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series—the admirable
connexion whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its
Author. Now the set rules, or established methods, wherein the Mind we
depend on excites in us the ideas of Sense, are called _the laws of
nature_; and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and
such ideas are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary
course of things.

31. This gives us a sort of foresight, which enables us to regulate our
actions for the benefit of life. And without this we should be eternally
at a loss: we could not know how to act anything that might procure us the
least pleasure, or remove the least pain of sense. That food nourishes,
sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that to sow in the seed-time is the
way to reap in the harvest; and in general that to obtain such or such
ends, such or such means are conducive—all this we know, not by
discovering any _necessary connexion_ between our ideas, but only by the
observation of the _settled laws_ of nature; without which we should be
all in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to
manage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born(583).

32. And yet this consistent uniform working, which so evidently displays
the Goodness and Wisdom of that Governing Spirit whose Will constitutes
the laws of nature, is so far from leading our thoughts to Him, that it
rather sends them wandering after second causes(584). For, when we
perceive certain ideas of Sense constantly followed by other ideas, and we
know this is not of our own doing, we forthwith attribute power and agency
to the ideas themselves, and make one the cause of another, than which
nothing can be more absurd and unintelligible. Thus, for example, having
observed that when we perceive by sight a certain round luminous figure,
we at the same time perceive by touch the idea or sensation called heat,
we do from thence conclude the sun to be the _cause_ of heat. And in like
manner perceiving the motion and collision of bodies to be attended with
sound, we are inclined to think the latter the _effect_ of the
former(585).

33. The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called
_real things_: and those excited in the imagination, being less regular,
vivid, and constant, are more properly termed _ideas_ or _images of_
things, which they copy and represent. But then our _sensations_, be they
never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas(586): that is, they
exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its
own framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality(587) in
them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent than the creatures
of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind.
They are also less dependent on the spirit or thinking substance which
perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more
powerful Spirit; yet still they are _ideas_: and certainly no idea,
whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving
it(588).

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34. Before we proceed any farther it is necessary we spend some time in
answering Objections(589) which may probably be made against the
Principles we have hitherto laid down. In doing of which, if I seem too
prolix to those of quick apprehensions, I desire I may be excused, since
all men do not equally apprehend things of this nature; and I am willing
to be understood by every one.

_First_, then, it will be objected that by the foregoing principles all
that is real and substantial in nature is banished out of the world, and
instead thereof a chimerical scheme of _ideas_ takes place. All things
that exist exist only in the mind; that is, they are purely notional. What
therefore becomes of the sun, moon, and stars? What must we think of
houses, rivers, mountains, trees, stones; nay, even of our own bodies? Are
all these but so many chimeras and illusions on the fancy?—To all which,
and whatever else of the same sort may be objected, I answer, that by the
Principles premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature.
Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains
as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a _rerum natura_, and
the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force.
This is evident from sect. 29, 30, and 33, where we have shewn what is
meant by _real things_, in opposition to _chimeras_ or _ideas of our own
framing_; but then they both equally exist in the mind, and in that
sense(590) are alike _ideas_.

35. I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can
apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my
eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least
question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which
_philosophers_ call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing of this
there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will
never miss it. The Atheist indeed will want the colour of an empty name to
support his impiety; and the Philosophers may possibly find they have lost
a great handle for trifling and disputation. [(591)But that is all the
harm that I can see done.]

36. If any man thinks this detracts from the existence or reality of
things, he is very far from understanding what hath been premised in the
plainest terms I could think of. Take here an abstract of what has been
said:—There are spiritual substances, minds, or human souls, which will or
excite ideas(592) in themselves at pleasure; but these are faint, weak,
and unsteady in respect of others they perceive by sense: which, being
impressed upon them according to certain rules or laws of nature, speak
themselves the effects of a Mind more powerful and wise than human
spirits(593). These latter are said to have _more reality_(594) in them
than the former;—by which is meant that they are more affecting, orderly,
and distinct, and that they are not fictions of the mind perceiving
them(595). And in this sense the sun that I see by day is the real sun,
and that which I imagine by night is the idea of the former. In the sense
here given of _reality_, it is evident that every vegetable, star,
mineral, and in general each part of the mundane system, is as much a
_real being_ by our principles as by any other. Whether others mean
anything by the term _reality_ different from what I do, I entreat them to
look into their own thoughts and see.

37. It will be urged that thus much at least is true, to wit, that we take
away all _corporeal substances_. To this my answer is, that if the word
_substance_ be taken in the vulgar sense, for a _combination_ of sensible
qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like—this we
cannot be accused of taking away: but if it be taken in a philosophic
sense, for the support of accidents or qualities without the mind—then
indeed I acknowledge that we take it away, if one may be said to take away
that which never had any existence, not even in the imagination(596).

38. But after all, say you, it sounds very harsh to say we eat and drink
ideas, and are clothed with ideas. I acknowledge it does so—the word
_idea_ not being used in common discourse to signify the several
combinations of sensible qualities which are called _things_; and it is
certain that any expression which varies from the familiar use of language
will seem harsh and ridiculous. But this doth not concern the truth of the
proposition, which in other words is no more than to say, we are fed and
clothed with those things which we perceive immediately by our
senses(597). The hardness or softness, the colour, taste, warmth, figure,
and suchlike qualities, which combined together(598) constitute the
several sorts of victuals and apparel, have been shewn to exist only in
the mind that perceives them: and this is all that is meant by calling
them _ideas_; which word, if it was as ordinarily used as _thing_, would
sound no harsher nor more ridiculous than it. I am not for disputing about
the propriety, but the truth of the expression. If therefore you agree
with me that we eat and drink and are clad with the immediate objects of
sense, which cannot exist unperceived or without the mind, I shall readily
grant it is more proper or conformable to custom that they should be
called _things_ rather than _ideas_.

39. If it be demanded why I make use of the word _idea_, and do not rather
in compliance with custom call them _things_; I answer, I do it for two
reasons:—First, because the term _thing_, in contradistinction to _idea_,
is generally supposed to denote somewhat existing without the mind:
Secondly, because _thing_ hath a more comprehensive signification than
_idea_, including spirits, or thinking things(599), as well as ideas.
Since therefore the objects of sense exist only in the mind, and are
withal thoughtless and inactive, I chose to mark them by the word _idea_;
which implies those properties(600).

40. But, say what we can, some one perhaps may be apt to reply, he will
still believe his senses, and never suffer any arguments, how plausible
soever, to prevail over the certainty of them. Be it so; assert the
evidence of sense as high as you please, we are willing to do the same.
That what I see, hear, and feel doth exist, that is to say, is perceived
by me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being. But I do not see how the
testimony of sense can be alleged as a proof for the existence of anything
which is _not_ perceived by sense. We are not for having any man turn
sceptic and disbelieve his senses; on the contrary, we give them all the
stress and assurance imaginable; nor are there any principles more
opposite to Scepticism than those we have laid down, as shall be hereafter
clearly shewn(601).

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41. _Secondly_, it will be objected that there is a great difference
betwixt real fire for instance, and the idea of fire, betwixt dreaming or
imagining oneself burnt, and actually being so. [(602)If you suspect it to
be only the idea of fire which you see, do but put your hand into it and
you will be convinced with a witness.] This and the like may be urged in
opposition to our tenets.—To all which the answer is evident from what
hath been already said(603); and I shall only add in this place, that if
real fire be very different from the idea of fire, so also is the real
pain that it occasions very different from the idea of the same pain, and
yet nobody will pretend that real pain either is, or can possibly be, in
an unperceiving thing, or without the mind, any more than its idea(604).

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42. _Thirdly_, it will be objected that we see things actually without or
at a distance from us, and which consequently do not exist in the mind; it
being absurd that those things which are seen at the distance of several
miles should be as near to us as our own thoughts(605).—In answer to this,
I desire it may be considered that in a dream we do oft perceive things as
existing at a great distance off, and yet for all that, those things are
acknowledged to have their existence only in the mind.

43. But, for the fuller clearing of this point, it may be worth while to
consider how it is that we perceive distance, and things placed at a
distance, by sight. For, that we should in truth _see_ external space, and
bodies actually existing in it, some nearer, others farther off, seems to
carry with it some opposition to what hath been said of their existing
nowhere without the mind. The consideration of this difficulty it was that
gave birth to my _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_, which was
published not long since(606). Wherein it is shewn that distance or
outness is neither immediately of itself perceived by sight(607), nor yet
apprehended or judged of by lines and angles, or anything that hath a
necessary connexion with it(608); but that it is only suggested to our
thoughts by certain visible ideas, and sensations attending vision, which
in their own nature have no manner of similitude or relation either with
distance or things placed at a distance(609); but, by a connexion taught
us by experience, they come to signify and suggest them to us, after the
same manner that words of any language suggest the ideas they are made to
stand for(610). Insomuch that a man born blind, and afterwards made to
see, would not, at first sight, think the things he saw to be without his
mind, or at any distance from him. See sect. 41 of the forementioned
treatise.

44. The ideas of sight and touch make two species entirely distinct and
heterogeneous(611). The former are marks and prognostics of the latter.
That the proper objects of sight neither exist without the mind, nor are
the images of external things, was shewn even in that treatise(612).
Though throughout the same the contrary be supposed true of _tangible
objects_;—not that to suppose that vulgar error was necessary for
establishing the notion therein laid down, but because it was beside my
purpose to examine and refute it, in a discourse concerning _Vision_. So
that in strict truth the ideas of sight(613), when we apprehend by them
distance, and things placed at a distance, do not suggest or mark out to
us things actually existing at a distance, but only admonish us what ideas
of touch(614) will be imprinted in our minds at such and such distances of
time, and in consequence of such or such actions. It is, I say, evident,
from what has been said in the foregoing parts of this Treatise, and in
sect. 147 and elsewhere of the Essay concerning Vision, that visible ideas
are the Language whereby the Governing Spirit on whom we depend informs us
what tangible ideas he is about to imprint upon us, in case we excite this
or that motion in our own bodies. But for a fuller information in this
point I refer to the Essay itself.

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45. _Fourthly_, it will be objected that from the foregoing principles it
follows things are every moment annihilated and created anew. The objects
of sense exist only when they are perceived: the trees therefore are in
the garden, or the chairs in the parlour, no longer than while there is
somebody by to perceive them. Upon shutting my eyes all the furniture in
the room is reduced to nothing, and barely upon opening them it is again
created(615).—In answer to all which, I refer the reader to what has been
said in sect. 3, 4, &c.; and desire he will consider whether he means
anything by the actual existence of an idea distinct from its being
perceived. For my part, after the nicest inquiry I could make, I am not
able to discover that anything else is meant by those words; and I once
more entreat the reader to sound his own thoughts, and not suffer himself
to be imposed on by words. If he can conceive it possible either for his
ideas or their archetypes to exist without being perceived, then I give up
the cause. But if he cannot, he will acknowledge it is unreasonable for
him to stand up in defence of he knows not what, and pretend to charge on
me as an absurdity, the not assenting to those propositions which at
bottom have no meaning in them(616).

46. It will not be amiss to observe how far the received principles of
philosophy are themselves chargeable with those pretended absurdities. It
is thought strangely absurd that upon closing my eyelids all the visible
objects around me should be reduced to nothing; and yet is not this what
philosophers commonly acknowledge, when they agree on all hands that light
and colours, which alone are the proper and immediate objects of sight,
are mere sensations that exist no longer than they are perceived? Again,
it may to some perhaps seem very incredible that things should be every
moment creating; yet this very notion is commonly taught in the schools.
For the Schoolmen, though they acknowledge the existence of Matter(617),
and that the whole mundane fabric is framed out of it, are nevertheless of
opinion that it cannot subsist without the divine conservation; which by
them is expounded to be a continual creation(618).

47. Farther, a little thought will discover to us that, though we allow
the existence of Matter or corporeal substance, yet it will unavoidably
follow, from the principles which are now generally admitted, that the
particular bodies, of what kind soever, do none of them exist whilst they
are not perceived. For, it is evident, from sect. 11 and the following
sections, that the Matter philosophers contend for is an incomprehensible
Somewhat, which hath none of those particular qualities whereby the bodies
falling under our senses are distinguished one from another. But, to make
this more plain, it must be remarked that the infinite divisibility of
Matter is now universally allowed, at least by the most approved and
considerable philosophers, who on the received principles demonstrate it
beyond all exception. Hence, it follows there is an infinite number of
parts in each particle of Matter which are not perceived by sense(619).
The reason therefore that any particular body seems to be of a finite
magnitude, or exhibits only a finite number of parts to sense, is, not
because it contains no more, since in itself it contains an infinite
number of parts, but because the sense is not acute enough to discern
them. In proportion therefore as the sense is rendered more acute, it
perceives a greater number of parts in the object, that is, the object
appears greater; and its figure varies, those parts in its extremities
which were before unperceivable appearing now to bound it in very
different lines and angles from those perceived by an obtuser sense. And
at length, after various changes of size and shape, when the sense becomes
infinitely acute, the body shall seem infinite. During all which there is
no alteration in the body, but only in the sense. Each body therefore,
considered in itself, is infinitely extended, and consequently void of all
shape and figure. From which it follows that, though we should grant the
existence of Matter to be never so certain, yet it is withal as certain,
the materialists themselves are by their own principles forced to
acknowledge, that neither the particular bodies perceived by sense, nor
anything like them, exists without the mind. Matter, I say, and each
particle thereof, is according to them infinite and shapeless; and it is
the mind that frames all that variety of bodies which compose the visible
world, any one whereof does not exist longer than it is perceived.

48. But, after all, if we consider it, the objection proposed in sect. 45
will not be found reasonably charged on the Principles we have premised,
so as in truth to make any objection at all against our notions. For,
though we hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing else but ideas
which cannot exist unperceived, yet we may not hence conclude they have no
existence except only while they are perceived by _us_; since there may be
some other spirit that perceives them though we do not. Wherever bodies
are said to have no existence without the mind, I would not be understood
to mean this or that particular mind, but all minds whatsoever. It does
not therefore follow from the foregoing Principles that bodies are
annihilated and created every moment, or exist not at all during the
intervals between _our_ perception of them.

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49. _Fifthly_, it may perhaps be objected that if extension and figure
exist only in the mind, it follows that the mind is extended and figured;
since extension is a mode or attribute which (to speak with the Schools)
is predicated of the subject in which it exists.—I answer, those qualities
are in the mind only as they are perceived by it;—that is, not by way of
_mode_ or _attribute_, but only by way of _idea_(620). And it no more
follows the soul or mind is extended, because extension exists in it
alone, than it does that it is red or blue, because those colours are on
all hands acknowledged to exist in it, and nowhere else. As to what
philosophers say of subject and mode, that seems very groundless and
unintelligible. For instance, in this proposition “a die is hard,
extended, and square,” they will have it that the word _die_ denotes a
subject or substance, distinct from the hardness, extension, and figure
which are predicated of it, and in which they exist. This I cannot
comprehend: to me a die seems to be nothing distinct from those things
which are termed its modes or accidents. And, to say a die is hard,
extended, and square is not to attribute those qualities to a subject
distinct from and supporting them, but only an explication of the meaning
of the word _die_.

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50. _Sixthly_, you will say there have been a great many things explained
by matter and motion; take away these and you destroy the whole
corpuscular philosophy, and undermine those mechanical principles which
have been applied with so much success to account for the phenomena. In
short, whatever advances have been made, either by ancient or modern
philosophers, in the study of nature do all proceed on the supposition
that corporeal substance or Matter doth really exist.—To this I answer
that there is not any one phenomenon explained on that supposition which
may not as well be explained without it, as might easily be made appear by
an induction of particulars. To explain the phenomena, is all one as to
shew why, upon such and such occasions, we are affected with such and such
ideas. But how Matter should operate on a Spirit, or produce any idea in
it, is what no philosopher will pretend to explain; it is therefore
evident there can be no use of Matter(621) in natural philosophy. Besides,
they who attempt to account for things do it, not by corporeal substance,
but by figure, motion, and other qualities; which are in truth no more
than mere ideas, and therefore cannot be the cause of anything, as hath
been already shewn. See sect. 25.

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51. _Seventhly_, it will upon this be demanded whether it does not seem
absurd to take away natural causes(622), and ascribe everything to the
immediate operation of spirits? We must no longer say upon these
principles that fire heats, or water cools, but that a spirit heats, and
so forth. Would not a man be deservedly laughed at, who should talk after
this manner?—I answer, he would so: in such things we ought to think with
the learned and speak with the vulgar. They who to demonstration are
convinced of the truth of the Copernican system do nevertheless say “the
sun rises,” “the sun sets,” or “comes to the meridian”; and if they
affected a contrary style in common talk it would without doubt appear
very ridiculous. A little reflection on what is here said will make it
manifest that the common use of language would receive no manner of
alteration or disturbance from the admission of our tenets(623).

52. In the ordinary affairs of life, any phrases may be retained, so long
as they excite in us proper sentiments, or dispositions to act in such a
manner as is necessary for our well-being, how false soever they may be if
taken in a strict and speculative sense. Nay, this is unavoidable, since,
propriety being regulated by custom, language is suited to the received
opinions, which are not always the truest. Hence it is impossible—even in
the most rigid, philosophic reasonings—so far to alter the bent and genius
of the tongue we speak as never to give a handle for cavillers to pretend
difficulties and inconsistencies. But, a fair and ingenuous reader will
collect the sense from the scope and tenor and connexion of a discourse,
making allowances for those inaccurate modes of speech which use has made
inevitable.

53. As to the opinion that there are no corporeal causes, this has been
heretofore maintained by some of the Schoolmen, as it is of late by others
among the modern philosophers; who though they allow Matter to exist, yet
will have God alone to be the immediate efficient cause of all
things(624). These men saw that amongst all the objects of sense there was
none which had any power or activity included in it; and that by
consequence this was likewise true of whatever bodies they supposed to
exist without the mind, like unto the immediate objects of sense. But
then, that they should suppose an innumerable multitude of created beings,
which they acknowledge are not capable of producing any one effect in
nature, and which therefore are made to no manner of purpose, since God
might have done everything as well without them—this I say, though we
should allow it possible, must yet be a very unaccountable and extravagant
supposition(625).

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54. In the _eighth_ place, the universal concurrent assent of mankind may
be thought by some an invincible argument in behalf of Matter, or the
existence of external things(626). Must we suppose the whole world to be
mistaken? And if so, what cause can be assigned of so widespread and
predominant an error?—I answer, first, that, upon a narrow inquiry, it
will not perhaps be found so many as is imagined do really believe the
existence of Matter or things without the mind(627). Strictly speaking, to
believe that which involves a contradiction, or has no meaning in it(628),
is impossible; and whether the foregoing expressions are not of that sort,
I refer it to the impartial examination of the reader. In one sense,
indeed, men may be said to believe that Matter exists; that is, they act
as if the immediate cause of their sensations, which affects them every
moment, and is so nearly present to them, were some senseless unthinking
being. But, that they should clearly apprehend any meaning marked by those
words, and form thereof a settled speculative opinion, is what I am not
able to conceive. This is not the only instance wherein men impose upon
themselves, by imagining they believe those propositions which they have
often heard, though at bottom they have no meaning in them.

55. But secondly, though we should grant a notion to be never so
universally and stedfastly adhered to, yet this is but a weak argument of
its truth to whoever considers what a vast number of prejudices and false
opinions are everywhere embraced with the utmost tenaciousness, by the
unreflecting (which are the far greater) part of mankind. There was a time
when the antipodes and motion of the earth were looked upon as monstrous
absurdities even by men of learning: and if it be considered what a small
proportion they bear to the rest of mankind, we shall find that at this
day those notions have gained but a very inconsiderable footing in the
world.

56. But it is demanded that we assign a cause of this prejudice, and
account for its obtaining in the world. To this I answer, that men knowing
they perceived several ideas, whereof they themselves were, not the
authors(629), as not being excited from within, nor depending on the
operation of their wills, this made them maintain _those_ ideas or objects
of perception, had an existence independent of and without the mind,
without ever dreaming that a contradiction was involved in those words.
But, philosophers having plainly seen that the immediate objects of
perception do not exist without the mind, they in some degree corrected
the mistake of the vulgar(630); but at the same time run into another,
which seems no less absurd, to wit, that there are certain objects really
existing without the mind, or having a subsistence distinct from being
perceived, of which our ideas are only images or resemblances, imprinted
by those objects on the mind(631). And this notion of the philosophers
owes its origin to the same cause with the former, namely, their being
conscious that _they_ were not the authors of their own sensations; which
they evidently knew were imprinted from without, and which therefore must
have _some_ cause, distinct from the minds on which they are imprinted.

57. But why they should suppose the ideas of sense to be excited in us by
things in their likeness, and not rather have recourse to _Spirit_, which
alone can act, may be accounted for. First, because they were not aware of
the repugnancy there is, as well in supposing things like unto our ideas
existing without, as in attributing to them power or activity. Secondly,
because the Supreme Spirit which excites those ideas in our minds, is not
marked out and limited to our view by any particular finite collection of
sensible ideas, as human agents are by their size, complexion, limbs, and
motions. And thirdly, because His operations are regular and uniform.
Whenever the course of nature is interrupted by a miracle, men are ready
to own the presence of a Superior Agent. But, when we see things go on in
the ordinary course, they do not excite in us any reflexion; their order
and concatenation, though it be an argument of the greatest wisdom, power,
and goodness in their Creator, is yet so constant and familiar to us, that
we do not think them the immediate effects of a _Free Spirit_; especially
since inconsistency and mutability in acting, though it be an
imperfection, is looked on as a mark of _freedom_(632).

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58. _Tenthly_, it will be objected that the notions we advance are
inconsistent with several sound truths in philosophy and mathematics. For
example, the motion of the earth is now universally admitted by
astronomers as a truth grounded on the clearest and most convincing
reasons. But, on the foregoing Principles, there can be no such thing.
For, motion being only an idea, it follows that if it be not perceived it
exists not: but the motion of the earth is not perceived by sense.—I
answer, That tenet, if rightly understood, will be found to agree with the
Principles we have premised: for, the question whether the earth moves or
no amounts in reality to no more than this, to wit, whether we have reason
to conclude, from what has been observed by astronomers, that if we were
placed in such and such circumstances, and such or such a position and
distance both from the earth and sun, we should perceive the former to
move among the choir of the planets, and appearing in all respects like
one of them: and this, by the established rules of nature, which we have
no reason to mistrust, is reasonably collected from the phenomena.

59. We may, from the experience we have had of the train and succession of
ideas(633) in our minds, often make, I will not say uncertain conjectures,
but sure and well-grounded predictions concerning the ideas we shall be
affected with pursuant to a great train of actions; and be enabled to pass
a right judgment of what would have appeared to us, in case we were placed
in circumstances very different from those we are in at present. Herein
consists the knowledge of nature, which may preserve its use and certainty
very consistently with what hath been said. It will be easy to apply this
to whatever objections of the like sort may be drawn from the magnitude of
the stars, or any other discoveries in astronomy or nature.

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60. In the _eleventh_ place, it will be demanded to what purpose serves
that curious organization of plants, and the animal mechanism in the parts
of animals. Might not vegetables grow, and shoot forth leaves and
blossoms, and animals perform all their motions, as well without as with
all that variety of internal parts so elegantly contrived and put
together;—which, being ideas, have nothing powerful or operative in them,
nor have any _necessary_ connexion with the effects ascribed to them? If
it be a Spirit that immediately produces every effect by a _fiat_, or act
of his will(634), we must think all that is fine and artificial in the
works, whether of man or nature, to be made in vain. By this doctrine,
though an artist hath made the spring and wheels, and every movement of a
watch, and adjusted them in such a manner as he knew would produce the
motions he designed; yet he must think all this done to no purpose, and
that it is an Intelligence which directs the index, and points to the hour
of the day. If so, why may not the Intelligence do it, without _his_ being
at the pains of making the movements and putting them together? Why does
not an empty case serve as well as another? And how comes it to pass, that
whenever there is any fault in the going of a watch, there is some
corresponding disorder to be found in the movements, which being mended by
a skilful hand all is right again? The like may be said of all the
Clockwork of Nature, great part whereof is so wonderfully fine and subtle
as scarce to be discerned by the best microscope. In short, it will be
asked, how, upon our Principles, any tolerable account can be given, or
any final cause assigned of an innumerable multitude of bodies and
machines, framed with the most exquisite art, which in the common
philosophy have very apposite uses assigned them, and serve to explain
abundance of phenomena?

61. To all which I answer, first, that though there were some difficulties
relating to the administration of Providence, and the uses by it assigned
to the several parts of nature, which I could not solve by the foregoing
Principles, yet this objection could be of small weight against the truth
and certainty of those things which may be proved _a priori_, with the
utmost evidence and rigour of demonstration(635). Secondly, but neither
are the received principles free from the like difficulties; for, it may
still be demanded to what end God should take those roundabout methods of
effecting things by instruments and machines, which no one can deny might
have been effected by the mere command of His will, without all that
_apparatus_. Nay, if we narrowly consider it, we shall find the objection
may be retorted with greater force on those who hold the existence of
those machines without the mind; for it has been made evident that
solidity, bulk, figure, motion, and the like have no _activity_ or
_efficacy_ in them, so as to be capable of producing any one effect in
nature. See sect. 25. Whoever therefore supposes them to exist (allowing
the supposition possible) when they are not perceived does it manifestly
to no purpose; since the only use that is assigned to them, as they exist
unperceived, is that they produce those perceivable effects which in truth
cannot be ascribed to anything but Spirit.

62. But, to come nigher the difficulty, it must be observed that though
the fabrication of all those parts and organs be not absolutely necessary
to the producing any effect, yet it is necessary to the producing of
things in a constant regular way, according to the laws of nature. There
are certain general laws that run through the whole chain of natural
effects: these are learned by the observation and study of nature, and are
by men applied, as well to the framing artificial things for the use and
ornament of life as to the explaining the various phenomena. Which
explication consists only in shewing the conformity any particular
phenomenon hath to the general laws of nature, or, which is the same
thing, in discovering the _uniformity_ there is in the production of
natural effects; as will be evident to whoever shall attend to the several
instances wherein philosophers pretend to account for appearances. That
there is a great and conspicuous _use_ in these regular constant methods
of working observed by the Supreme Agent hath been shewn in sect. 31. And
it is no less visible that a particular size, figure, motion, and
disposition of parts are necessary, though not absolutely to the producing
any effect, yet to the producing it according to the standing mechanical
laws of nature. Thus, for instance, it cannot be denied that God, or the
Intelligence that sustains and rules the ordinary course of things, might
if He were minded to produce a miracle, cause all the motions on the
dial-plate of a watch, though nobody had ever made the movements and put
them in it. But yet, if He will act agreeably to the rules of mechanism,
by Him for wise ends established and maintained in the creation, it is
necessary that those actions of the watchmaker, whereby _he_ makes the
movements and rightly adjusts them, precede the production of the
aforesaid motions; as also that any disorder in them be attended with the
perception of some corresponding disorder in the movements, which being
once corrected all is right again(636).

63. It may indeed on some occasions be necessary that the Author of nature
display His overruling power in producing some appearance out of the
ordinary series of things. Such exceptions from the general rules of
nature are proper to surprise and awe men into an acknowledgment of the
Divine Being; but then they are to be used but seldom, otherwise there is
a plain reason why they should fail of that effect. Besides, God seems to
choose the convincing our reason of His attributes by the works of nature,
which discover so much harmony and contrivance in their make, and are such
plain indications of wisdom and beneficence in their Author, rather than
to astonish us into a belief of His Being by anomalous and surprising
events(637).

64. To set this matter in a yet clearer light, I shall observe that what
has been objected in sect. 60 amounts in reality to no more than
this:—_ideas_(638) are not anyhow and at random produced, there being a
certain order and connexion between them, like to that of cause and
effect: there are also several combinations of them, made in a very
regular and artificial manner, which seem like so many instruments in the
hand of nature that, being hid as it were behind the scenes, have a secret
operation in producing those appearances which are seen on the theatre of
the world, being themselves discernible only to the curious eye of the
philosopher. But, since one idea cannot be the cause of another, to what
purpose is that connexion? And since those instruments, being barely
_inefficacious_ perceptions in the mind, are not subservient to the
production of natural effects, it is demanded why they are made; or, in
other words, what reason can be assigned why God should make us, upon a
close inspection into His works, behold so great variety of ideas, so
artfully laid together, and so much according to rule; it not being [(639)
credible] that He would be at the expense (if one may so speak) of all
that art and regularity to no purpose?

65. To all which my answer is, first, that the connexion of ideas(640)
does not imply the relation of _cause_ and _effect_, but only of a mark or
_sign_ with the _thing signified_. The fire which I see is not the cause
of the pain I suffer upon my approaching it, but the mark that forewarns
me of it. In like manner the noise that I hear is not the effect of this
or that motion or collision of the ambient bodies, but the sign
thereof(641). Secondly, the reason why ideas are formed into machines,
that is, artificial and regular combinations, is the same with that for
combining letters into words. That a few original ideas may be made to
signify a great number of effects and actions, it is necessary they be
variously combined together. And to the end their use be permanent and
universal, these combinations must be made by _rule_, and with _wise
contrivance_. By this means abundance of information is conveyed unto us,
concerning what we are to expect from such and such actions, and what
methods are proper to be taken for the exciting such and such ideas(642).
Which in effect is all that I conceive to be distinctly meant when it is
said(643) that, by discerning the figure, texture, and mechanism of the
inward parts of bodies, whether natural or artificial, we may attain to
know the several uses and properties depending thereon, or the nature of
the thing.

66. Hence, it is evident that those things which, under the notion of a
cause co-operating or concurring to the production of effects, are
altogether inexplicable and run us into great absurdities, may be very
naturally explained, and have a proper and obvious use assigned to them,
when they are considered only as marks or signs for _our_ information. And
it is the searching after and endeavouring to understand this Language (if
I may so call it) of the Author of Nature, that ought to be the employment
of the natural philosopher; and not the pretending to explain things by
_corporeal_ causes, which doctrine seems to have too much estranged the
minds of men from that Active Principle, that supreme and wise Spirit “in
whom we live, move, and have our being.”

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67. In the _twelfth_ place, it may perhaps be objected that—though it be
clear from what has been said that there can be no such thing as an inert,
senseless, extended, solid, figured, moveable Substance, existing without
the mind, such as philosophers describe Matter; yet, if any man shall
leave out of his idea of Matter the positive ideas of extension, figure,
solidity and motion, and say that he means only by that word an inert,
senseless substance, that exists without the mind, or unperceived, which
is the _occasion_ of our ideas, or at the presence whereof God is pleased
to excite ideas in us—it doth not appear but that Matter taken in this
sense may possibly exist.—In answer to which I say, first, that it seems
no less absurd to suppose a substance without accidents, than it is to
suppose accidents without a substance(644). But secondly, though we should
grant this unknown substance may possibly exist, yet where can it be
supposed to be? That it exists not in the mind(645) is agreed; and that it
exists not in place is no less certain, since all place or extension
exists only in the mind(646), as hath been already proved. It remains
therefore that it exists nowhere at all.

68. Let us examine a little the description that is here given us of
Matter. It neither acts, nor perceives, nor is perceived: for this is all
that is meant by saying it is an inert, senseless, unknown substance;
which is a definition entirely made up of negatives, excepting only the
relative notion of its standing under or supporting. But then it must be
observed that it supports nothing at all, and how nearly this comes to the
description of a _nonentity_ I desire may be considered. But, say you, it
is the _unknown occasion_(647), at the presence of which ideas are excited
in us by the will of God. Now, I would fain know how anything can be
present to us, which is neither perceivable by sense nor reflexion, nor
capable of producing any idea in our minds, nor is at all extended, nor
hath any form, nor exists in any place. The words “to be present,” when
thus applied, must needs be taken in some abstract and strange meaning,
and which I am not able to comprehend.

69. Again, let us examine what is meant by _occasion_. So far as I can
gather from the common use of language, that word signifies either the
agent which produces any effect, or else something that is observed to
accompany or go before it, in the ordinary course of things. But, when it
is applied to Matter, as above described, it can be taken in neither of
those senses; for Matter is said to be passive and inert, and so cannot be
an agent or efficient cause. It is also unperceivable, as being devoid of
all sensible qualities, and so cannot be the occasion of our perceptions
in the latter sense; as when the burning my finger is said to be the
occasion of the pain that attends it. What therefore can be meant by
calling _matter_ an _occasion_? This term is either used in no sense at
all, or else in some very distant from its received signification.

70. You will perhaps say that Matter, though it be not perceived by us, is
nevertheless perceived by God, to whom it is the occasion of exciting
ideas in our minds(648). For, say you, since we observe our sensations to
be imprinted in an orderly and constant manner, it is but reasonable to
suppose there are certain constant and regular occasions of their being
produced. That is to say, that there are certain permanent and distinct
parcels of Matter, corresponding to our ideas, which, though they do not
excite them in our minds, or anywise immediately affect us, as being
altogether passive, and unperceivable to us, they are nevertheless to God,
by whom they _are_ perceived(649), as it were so many occasions to remind
Him when and what ideas to imprint on our minds: that so things may go on
in a constant uniform manner.

71. In answer to this, I observe that, as the notion of Matter is here
stated, the question is no longer concerning the existence of a thing
distinct from _Spirit_ and _idea_, from perceiving and being perceived;
but whether there are not certain Ideas (of I know not what sort) in the
mind of God, which are so many marks or notes that direct Him how to
produce sensations in our minds in a constant and regular method: much
after the same manner as a musician is directed by the notes of music to
produce that harmonious train and composition of sound which is called a
tune; though they who hear the music do not perceive the notes, and may be
entirely ignorant of them. But this notion of Matter (which after all is
the only intelligible one that I can pick from what is said of unknown
occasions) seems too extravagant to deserve a confutation. Besides, it is
in effect no objection against what we have advanced, viz. that there is
no senseless unperceived substance.

72. If we follow the light of reason, we shall, from the constant uniform
method of our sensations, collect the goodness and wisdom of the Spirit
who excites them in our minds; but this is all that I can see reasonably
concluded from thence. To me, I say, it is evident that the being of a
Spirit—infinitely wise, good, and powerful—is abundantly sufficient to
explain all the appearances of nature(650). But, as for _inert, senseless
Matter_, nothing that I perceive has any the least connexion with it, or
leads to the thoughts of it. And I would fain see any one explain any the
meanest phenomenon in nature by it, or shew any manner of reason, though
in the lowest rank of probability, that he can have for its existence; or
even make any tolerable sense or meaning of that supposition. For, as to
its being an occasion, we have, I think, evidently shewn that with regard
to us it is no occasion. It remains therefore that it must be, if at all,
the occasion to God of exciting ideas in us; and what this amounts to we
have just now seen.

73. It is worth while to reflect a little on the motives which induced men
to suppose the existence of _material substance_; that so having observed
the gradual ceasing and expiration of those motives or reasons, we may
proportionably withdraw the assent that was grounded on them. First,
therefore, it was thought that colour, figure, motion, and the rest of the
sensible qualities or accidents, did really exist without the mind; and
for this reason it seemed needful to suppose some unthinking _substratum_
or substance wherein they did exist, since they could not be conceived to
exist by themselves(651). Afterwards, in process of time, men(652) being
convinced that colours, sounds, and the rest of the sensible, secondary
qualities had no existence without the mind, they stripped this
_substratum_ or material substance of _those_ qualities, leaving only the
primary ones, figure, motion, and suchlike; which they still conceived to
exist without the mind, and consequently to stand in need of a material
support. But, it having been shewn that none even of these can possibly
exist otherwise than in a Spirit or Mind which perceives them, it follows
that we have no longer any reason to suppose the being of Matter(653),
nay, that it is utterly impossible there should be any such thing;—so long
as that word is taken to denote an _unthinking substratum_ of qualities or
accidents, wherein they exist without the mind(654).

74. But—though it be allowed by the materialists themselves that Matter
was thought of only for the sake of supporting accidents, and, the reason
entirely ceasing, one might expect the mind should naturally, and without
any reluctance at all, quit the belief of what was solely grounded
thereon: yet the prejudice is riveted so deeply in our thoughts that we
can scarce tell how to part with it, and are therefore inclined, since the
_thing_ itself is indefensible, at least to retain the _name_; which we
apply to I know not what abstracted and indefinite notions of _being_, or
_occasion_, though without any shew of reason, at least so far as I can
see. For, what is there on our part, or what do we perceive, amongst all
the ideas, sensations, notions which are imprinted on our minds, either by
sense or reflexion, from whence may be inferred the existence of an inert,
thoughtless, unperceived occasion? and, on the other hand, on the part of
an All-sufficient Spirit, what can there be that should make us believe or
even suspect He is directed by an inert occasion to excite ideas in our
minds?

75. It is a very extraordinary instance of the force of prejudice, and
much to be lamented, that the mind of man retains so great a fondness,
against all the evidence of reason, for a stupid thoughtless _Somewhat_,
by the interposition whereof it would as it were screen itself from the
Providence of God, and remove it farther off from the affairs of the
world. But, though we do the utmost we can to secure the belief of Matter;
though, when reason forsakes us, we endeavour to support our opinion on
the bare possibility of the thing, and though we indulge ourselves in the
full scope of an imagination not regulated by reason to make out that poor
possibility; yet the upshot of all is—that there are certain _unknown_
Ideas in the mind of God; for this, if anything, is all that I conceive to
be meant by _occasion_ with regard to God. And this at the bottom is no
longer contending for the thing, but for the name(655).

76. Whether therefore there are such Ideas in the mind of God, and whether
_they_ may be called by the name _Matter_, I shall not dispute(656). But,
if you stick to the notion of an unthinking substance or support of
extension, motion, and other sensible qualities, then to me it is most
evidently impossible there should be any such thing; since it is a plain
repugnancy that those qualities should exist in, or be supported by, an
unperceiving substance(657).

77. But, say you, though it be granted that there is no thoughtless
support of extension, and the other qualities or accidents which we
perceive, yet there may perhaps be some inert, unperceiving substance or
_substratum_ of some other qualities, as incomprehensible to us as colours
are to a man born blind, because we have not a sense adapted to them. But,
if we had a new sense, we should possibly no more doubt of _their_
existence than a blind man made to see does of the existence of light and
colours.—I answer, first, if what you mean by the word _Matter_ be only
the unknown support of unknown qualities, it is no matter whether there is
such a thing or no, since it no way concerns us. And I do not see the
advantage there is in disputing about what we know not _what_, and we know
not _why_.

78. But, secondly, if we had a new sense, it could only furnish us with
new ideas or sensations; and then we should have the same reason against
_their_ existing in an unperceiving substance that has been already
offered with relation to figure, motion, colour, and the like.
_Qualities_, as hath been shewn, are nothing else but _sensations_ or
_ideas_, which exist only in a mind perceiving them; and this is true not
only of the ideas we are acquainted with at present, but likewise of all
possible ideas whatsoever(658).

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79. But you will insist, What if I have no reason to believe the existence
of Matter? what if I cannot assign any use to it, or explain anything by
it, or even conceive what is meant by that word? yet still it is no
contradiction to say that Matter _exists_, and that this Matter is _in
general_ a _substance_, or _occasion of ideas_; though indeed to go about
to unfold the meaning, or adhere to any particular explication of those
words may be attended with great difficulties.—I answer, when words are
used without a meaning, you may put them together as you please, without
danger of running into a contradiction. You may say, for example, that
_twice two_ is equal to _seven_; so long as you declare you do not take
the words of that proposition in their usual acceptation, but for marks of
you know not what. And, by the same reason, you may say there is an inert
thoughtless substance without accidents, which is the occasion of our
ideas. And we shall understand just as much by one proposition as the
other.

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80. In the _last_ place, you will say, What if we give up the cause of
material Substance, and stand to it that Matter is an unknown
_Somewhat_—neither substance nor accident, spirit nor idea—inert,
thoughtless, indivisible, immoveable, unextended, existing in no place?
For, say you, whatever may be urged against _substance_ or _occasion_, or
any other positive or relative notion of Matter, hath no place at all, so
long as this negative definition of Matter is adhered to.—I answer, You
may, if so it shall seem good, use the word _matter_ in the same sense as
other men use _nothing_, and so make those terms convertible in your
style. For, after all, this is what appears to me to be the result of that
definition; the parts whereof, when I consider with attention, either
collectively or separate from each other, I do not find that there is any
kind of effect or impression made on my mind, different from what is
excited by the term _nothing_.

81. You will reply, perhaps, that in the foresaid definition is included
what doth sufficiently distinguish it from nothing—the positive abstract
idea of _quiddity_, _entity_, or _existence_. I own, indeed, that those
who pretend to the faculty of framing abstract general ideas do talk as if
they had such an idea, which is, say they, the most abstract and general
notion of all: that is to me the most incomprehensible of all others. That
there are a great variety of spirits of different orders and capacities,
whose faculties, both in number and extent, are far exceeding those the
Author of my being has bestowed on me, I see no reason to deny. And for me
to pretend to determine, by my own few, stinted, narrow inlets of
perception, what ideas the inexhaustible power of the Supreme Spirit may
imprint upon them, were certainly the utmost folly and presumption. Since
there may be, for aught that I know, innumerable sorts of ideas or
sensations, as different from one another, and from all that I have
perceived, as colours are from sounds(659). But, how ready soever I may be
to acknowledge the scantiness of my comprehension, with regard to the
endless variety of spirits and ideas that may possibly exist, yet for any
one to pretend to a _notion_ of Entity or Existence, _abstracted_ from
_spirit_ and _idea_, from perceived and being perceived, is, I suspect, a
downright repugnancy and trifling with words.

It remains that we consider the objections which may possibly be made on
the part of Religion.

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82. Some there are who think that, though the arguments for the real
existence of bodies which are drawn from Reason be allowed not to amount
to demonstration, yet the Holy Scriptures are so clear in the point, as
will sufficiently convince every good Christian, that bodies do really
exist, and are something more than mere ideas; there being in Holy Writ
innumerable facts related which evidently suppose the reality of timber
and stone, mountains and rivers, and cities, and human bodies(660)—To
which I answer that no sort of writings whatever, sacred or profane, which
use those and the like words in the vulgar acceptation, or so as to have a
meaning in them, are in danger of having their truth called in question by
our doctrine. That all those things do really exist; that there are
bodies, even corporeal substances, when taken in the vulgar sense, has
been shewn to be agreeable to our principles: and the difference betwixt
_things_ and _ideas_, _realities_ and _chimeras_, has been distinctly
explained. See sect. 29, 30, 33, 36, &c. And I do not think that either
what philosophers call _Matter_, or the existence of objects without the
mind(661), is anywhere mentioned in Scripture.

83. Again, whether there be or be not external things(662), it is agreed
on all hands that the proper use of words is the marking _our_
conceptions, or things only as they are known and perceived by us: whence
it plainly follows, that in the tenets we have laid down there is nothing
inconsistent with the right use and significancy of language, and that
discourse, of what kind soever, so far as it is intelligible, remains
undisturbed. But all this seems so very manifest, from what has been
largely set forth in the premises, that it is needless to insist any
farther on it.

84. But, it will be urged that miracles do, at least, lose much of their
stress and import by our principles. What must we think of Moses’ rod? was
it not _really_ turned into a serpent? or was there only a change of
_ideas_ in the minds of the spectators? And, can it be supposed that our
Saviour did no more at the marriage-feast in Cana than impose on the
sight, and smell, and taste of the guests, so as to create in them the
appearance or idea only of wine? The same may be said of all other
miracles: which, in consequence of the foregoing principles, must be
looked upon only as so many cheats, or illusions of fancy.—To this I
reply, that the rod was changed into a real serpent, and the water into
real wine. That this does not in the least contradict what I have
elsewhere said will be evident from sect. 34 and 35. But this business of
_real_ and _imaginary_ has been already so plainly and fully explained,
and so often referred to, and the difficulties about it are so easily
answered from what has gone before, that it were an affront to the
reader’s understanding to resume the explication of it in this place. I
shall only observe that if at table all who were present should see, and
smell, and taste, and drink wine, and find the effects of it, with me
there could be no doubt of its reality(663). So that at bottom the scruple
concerning real miracles has no place at all on ours, but only on the
received principles, and consequently makes rather for than against what
has been said.

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85. Having done with the Objections, which I endeavoured to propose in the
clearest light, and gave them all the force and weight I could, we proceed
in the next place to take a view of our tenets in their Consequences(664).
Some of these appear at first sight—as that several difficult and obscure
questions, on which abundance of speculation has been thrown away, are
entirely banished from philosophy. Whether corporeal substance can think?
Whether Matter be infinitely divisible? And how it operates on
spirit?—these and the like inquiries have given infinite amusement to
philosophers in all ages. But, depending on the existence of Matter, they
have no longer any place on our Principles. Many other advantages there
are, as well with regard to religion as the sciences, which it is easy for
any one to deduce from what has been premised. But this will appear more
plainly in the sequel.

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86. From the Principles we have laid down it follows human knowledge may
naturally be reduced to two heads—that of _ideas_ and that of _Spirits_.
Of each of these I shall treat in order.

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And First as to _ideas_, or _unthinking things_. Our knowledge of these
has been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very
dangerous errors, by supposing a two-fold existence of sense—the one
_intelligible_ or in the mind, the other _real_ and without the mind(665).
Whereby unthinking things are thought to have a natural subsistence of
their own, distinct from being perceived by spirits. This, which, if I
mistake not, hath been shewn to be a most groundless and absurd notion, is
the very root of Scepticism; for, so long as men thought that real things
subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth
_real_ as it was _conformable to real things_, it follows they could not
be certain that they had any real knowledge at all. For how can it be
known that the things which are perceived are conformable to those which
are not perceived, or exist without the mind(666)?

87. Colour, figure, motion, extension, and the like, considered only as so
many _sensations_ in the mind, are perfectly known; there being nothing in
them which is not perceived. But, if they are looked on as notes or
images, referred to _things_ or _archetypes existing without the mind_,
then are we involved all in scepticism. We see only the appearances, and
not the real qualities of things. What may be the extension, figure, or
motion of anything really and absolutely, or in itself, it is impossible
for us to know, but only the proportion or relation they bear to our
senses. Things remaining the same, our ideas vary; and which of them, or
even whether any of them at all, represent the true quality really
existing in the thing, it is out of our reach to determine. So that, for
aught we know, all we see, hear, and feel, may be only phantom and vain
chimera, and not at all agree with the real things existing in _rerum
natura_. All this scepticism(667) follows from our supposing a difference
between _things_ and _ideas_, and that the former have a subsistence
without the mind, or unperceived. It were easy to dilate on this subject,
and shew how the arguments urged by sceptics in all ages depend on the
supposition of external objects. [(668)But this is too obvious to need
being insisted on.]

88. So long as we attribute a real existence to unthinking things,
distinct from their being perceived, it is not only impossible for us to
know with evidence the nature of any real unthinking being, but even that
it exists. Hence it is that we see philosophers distrust their senses, and
doubt of the existence of heaven and earth, of everything they see or
feel, even of their own bodies. And after all their labouring and struggle
of thought, they are forced to own we cannot attain to any self-evident or
demonstrative knowledge of the existence of sensible things(669). But, all
this doubtfulness, which so bewilders and confounds the mind and makes
philosophy ridiculous in the eyes of the world, vanishes if we annex a
meaning to our words, and do not amuse ourselves with the terms
_absolute_, _external_, _exist_, and such like, signifying we know not
what. I can as well doubt of my own being as of the being of those things
which I actually perceive by sense: it being a manifest contradiction that
any sensible object should be immediately perceived by sight or touch, and
at the same time have no existence in nature; since the very existence of
an _unthinking being_ consists in _being perceived_.

89. Nothing seems of more importance towards erecting a firm system of
sound and real knowledge, which may be proof against the assaults of
Scepticism, than to lay the beginning in a distinct explication of _what
is meant_ by _thing_, _reality_, _existence_; for in vain shall we dispute
concerning the real existence of things, or pretend to any knowledge
thereof, so long as we have not fixed the meaning of those words. _Thing_
or _being_ is the most general name of all: it comprehends under it two
kinds, entirely distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing common
but the name, viz. _spirits_ and _ideas_. The former are active,
indivisible, [(670)incorruptible] substances: the latter are inert,
fleeting, [(671)perishable passions,] or dependent beings; which subsist
not by themselves(672), but are supported by, or exist in, minds or
spiritual substances.

[(673)We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling or reflection, and
that of other spirits by reason(674). We may be said to have some
knowledge or _notion_(675) of our own minds, of spirits and active beings;
whereof in a strict sense we have not _ideas_. In like manner, we know and
have a _notion_ of relations between things or ideas; which relations are
distinct from the ideas or things related, inasmuch as the latter may be
perceived by us without our perceiving the former. To me it seems that
_ideas_, _spirits_, and _relations_ are all in their respective kinds the
object of human knowledge and subject of discourse; and that the term
_idea_ would be improperly extended to signify _everything_ we know or
have any notion of(676).]

90. Ideas imprinted on the senses are _real_ things, or do really
exist(677): this we do not deny; but we deny they _can_ subsist without
the minds which perceive them, or that they are resemblances of any
archetypes existing without the mind(678); since the very being of a
sensation or idea consists in being perceived, and an idea can be like
nothing but an idea. Again, the things perceived by sense may be termed
_external_, with regard to their origin; in that they are not generated
from within by the mind itself, but imprinted by a Spirit distinct from
that which perceives them. Sensible objects may likewise be said to be
“without the mind” in another sense, namely when they exist in some other
mind. Thus, when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist; but it
must be in another mind(679).

91. It were a mistake to think that what is here said derogates in the
least from the reality of things. It is acknowledged, on the received
principles, that extension, motion, and in a word all sensible qualities,
have need of a support, as not being able to subsist by themselves. But
the objects perceived by sense are allowed to be nothing but combinations
of those qualities, and consequently cannot subsist by themselves(680).
Thus far it is agreed on all hands. So that in denying the things
perceived by sense an existence independent of a substance or support
wherein they may exist, we detract nothing from the received opinion of
their _reality_, and are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the
difference is that, according to us, the unthinking beings perceived by
sense have no existence distinct from being perceived, and cannot
therefore exist in any other substance than those unextended indivisible
substances, or _spirits_, which act, and think and perceive them. Whereas
philosophers vulgarly hold that the sensible qualities do exist in an
inert, extended, unperceiving Substance, which they call _Matter_, to
which they attribute a natural subsistence, exterior to all thinking
beings, or distinct from being perceived by any mind whatsoever, even the
Eternal Mind of the Creator; wherein they suppose only Ideas of the
corporeal substances(681) created by Him: if indeed they allow them to be
at all _created_(682).

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92. For, as we have shewn the doctrine of Matter or Corporeal Substance to
have been the main pillar and support of Scepticism, so likewise upon the
same foundation have been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and
Irreligion. Nay, so great a difficulty has it been thought to conceive
Matter produced out of nothing, that the most celebrated among the ancient
philosophers, even of those who maintained the being of a God, have
thought Matter to be uncreated and co-eternal with Him(683). How great a
friend _material substance_ has been to Atheists in all ages were needless
to relate. All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a
dependence on it, that when this corner-stone is once removed, the whole
fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground; insomuch that it is no longer
worth while to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of
every wretched sect of Atheists(684).

93. That impious and profane persons should readily fall in with those
systems which favour their inclinations, by deriding _immaterial
substance_, and supposing the soul to be divisible, and subject to
corruption as the body; which exclude all freedom, intelligence, and
design from the formation of things, and instead thereof make a
self-existent, stupid, unthinking substance the root and origin of all
beings; that they should hearken to those who deny a Providence, or
inspection of a Superior Mind over the affairs of the world, attributing
the whole series of events either to blind chance or fatal necessity,
arising from the impulse of one body on another—all this is very natural.
And, on the other hand, when men of better principles observe the enemies
of religion lay so great a stress on _unthinking Matter_, and all of them
use so much industry and artifice to reduce everything to it; methinks
they should rejoice to see them deprived of their grand support, and
driven from that only fortress, without which your Epicureans, Hobbists,
and the like, have not even the shadow of a pretence, but become the most
cheap and easy triumph in the world.

94. The existence of Matter, or bodies unperceived, has not only been the
main support of Atheists and Fatalists, but on the same principle doth
Idolatry likewise in all its various forms depend. Did men but consider
that the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses, are
only so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but
barely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship
_their own ideas_; but rather address their homage to that Eternal
Invisible Mind which produces and sustains all things.

95. The same absurd principle, by mingling itself with the articles of our
faith, hath occasioned no small difficulties to Christians. For example,
about the Resurrection, how many scruples and objections have been raised
by Socinians and others? But do not the most plausible of them depend on
the supposition that a body is denominated the _same_, with regard not to
the form, or that which is perceived by sense(685), but the material
substance, which remains the same under several forms? Take away this
_material substance_—about the identity whereof all the dispute is—and
mean by _body_ what every plain ordinary person means by that word, to
wit, that which is immediately seen and felt, which is only a combination
of sensible qualities or ideas: and then their most unanswerable
objections come to nothing.

96. Matter(686) being once expelled out of nature drags with it so many
sceptical and impious notions, such an incredible number of disputes and
puzzling questions, which have been thorns in the sides of divines as well
as philosophers, and made so much fruitless work for mankind, that if the
arguments we have produced against it are not found equal to demonstration
(as to me they evidently seem), yet I am sure all friends to knowledge,
peace, and religion have reason to wish they were.

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97. Beside the external(687) existence of the objects of perception,
another great source of errors and difficulties with regard to ideal
knowledge is the doctrine of _abstract ideas_, such as it hath been set
forth in the Introduction. The plainest things in the world, those we are
most intimately acquainted with and perfectly know, when they are
considered in an abstract way, appear strangely difficult and
incomprehensible. Time, place, and motion, taken in particular or
concrete, are what everybody knows; but, having passed through the hands
of a metaphysician, they become too abstract and fine to be apprehended by
men of ordinary sense. Bid your servant meet you at such a _time_, in such
a _place_, and he shall never stay to deliberate on the meaning of those
words. In conceiving that particular time and place, or the motion by
which he is to get thither, he finds not the least difficulty. But if
_time_ be taken exclusive of all those particular actions and ideas that
diversify the day, merely for the continuation of existence or duration in
abstract, then it will perhaps gravel even a philosopher to comprehend it.

98. For my own part, whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of _time_,
abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly,
and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in
inextricable difficulties. I have no notion of it at all: only I hear
others say it is infinitely divisible, and speak of it in such a manner as
leads me to harbour odd thoughts of my existence: since that doctrine lays
one under an absolute necessity of thinking, either that he passes away
innumerable ages without a thought, or else that he is annihilated every
moment of his life: both which seem equally absurd(688). Time therefore
being nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds, it
follows that the duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the
number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that same spirit or
mind. Hence, it is a plain consequence that the soul always thinks. And in
truth whoever shall go about to divide in his thoughts or abstract the
_existence_ of a spirit from its _cogitation_, will, I believe, find it no
easy task(689).

99. So likewise when we attempt to abstract _extension_ and _motion_ from
all other qualities, and consider them by themselves, we presently lose
sight of them, and run into great extravagances. [(690) Hence spring those
odd paradoxes, that the fire is not hot, nor the wall white; or that heat
and colour are in the objects nothing but figure and motion.] All which
depend on a twofold abstraction: first, it is supposed that extension, for
example, may be abstracted from all other sensible qualities; and,
secondly, that the entity of extension may be abstracted from its being
perceived. But, whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he
says, will, if I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are
alike _sensations_, and alike _real_; that where the extension is, there
is the colour too, to wit, in his mind(691), and that their archetypes can
exist only in some other _mind_: and that the objects of sense(692) are
nothing but those sensations, combined, blended, or (if one may so speak)
concreted together; none of all which can be supposed to exist
unperceived. [(693) And that consequently the wall is as truly white as it
is extended, and in the same sense.]

100. What it is for a man to be happy, or an object good, every one may
think he knows. But to frame an abstract idea of happiness, prescinded
from all particular pleasure, or of goodness from everything that is good,
this is what few can pretend to. So likewise a man may be just and
virtuous without having precise ideas of justice and virtue. The opinion
that those and the like words stand for general notions, abstracted from
all particular persons and actions, seems to have rendered morality
difficult, and the study thereof of less use to mankind. [(694)And in
effect one may make a great progress in school ethics without ever being
the wiser or better man for it, or knowing how to behave himself in the
affairs of life more to the advantage of himself or his neighbours than he
did before.] And in effect the doctrine of _abstraction_ has not a little
contributed towards spoiling the most useful parts of knowledge.

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101. The two great provinces of speculative science conversant about ideas
received from sense and their relations, are Natural Philosophy and
Mathematics. With regard to each of these I shall make some observations.

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And first I shall say somewhat of Natural Philosophy. On this subject it
is that the sceptics triumph. All that stock of arguments they produce to
depreciate our faculties and make mankind appear ignorant and low, are
drawn principally from this head, namely, that we are under an invincible
blindness as to the _true_ and _real_ nature of things. This they
exaggerate, and love to enlarge on. We are miserably bantered, say they,
by our senses, and amused only with the outside and shew of things. The
real essence, the internal qualities and constitution of every the meanest
object, is hid from our view: something there is in every drop of water,
every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding
to fathom or comprehend(695). But, it is evident from what has been shewn
that all this complaint is groundless, and that we are influenced by false
principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know
nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.

102. One great inducement to our pronouncing ourselves ignorant of the
nature of things is, the current opinion that every thing includes _within
itself_ the cause of its properties: or that there is in each object an
inward essence, which is the source whence its discernible qualities flow,
and whereon they depend. Some have pretended to account for appearances by
occult qualities; but of late they are mostly resolved into mechanical
causes, to wit, the figure, motion, weight, and suchlike qualities, of
insensible particles(696): whereas, in truth, there is no other agent or
efficient cause than _spirit_, it being evident that motion, as well as
all other _ideas_, is perfectly inert. See sect. 25. Hence, to endeavour
to explain the production of colours or sounds, by figure, motion,
magnitude, and the like, must needs be labour in vain. And accordingly we
see the attempts of that kind are not at all satisfactory. Which may be
said in general of those instances wherein one idea or quality is assigned
for the cause of another. I need not say how many hypotheses and
speculations are left out, and how much the study of nature is abridged by
this doctrine(697).

103. The great mechanical principle now in vogue is _attraction_. That a
stone falls to the earth, or the sea swells towards the moon, may to some
appear sufficiently explained thereby. But how are we enlightened by being
told this is done by attraction? Is it that that word signifies the manner
of the tendency, and that it is by the mutual drawing of bodies instead of
their being impelled or protruded towards each other? But nothing is
determined of the manner or action, and it may as truly (for aught we
know) be termed _impulse_, or _protrusion_, as _attraction_. Again, the
parts of steel we see cohere firmly together, and this also is accounted
for by attraction; but, in this, as in the other instances, I do not
perceive that anything is signified besides the effect itself; for as to
the manner of the action whereby it is produced, or the cause which
produces it, these are not so much as aimed at.

104. Indeed, if we take a view of the several phenomena, and compare them
together, we may observe some likeness and conformity between them. For
example, in the falling of a stone to the ground, in the rising of the sea
towards the moon, in cohesion and crystallization, there is something
alike; namely, an union or mutual approach of bodies. So that any one of
these or the like phenomena may not seem strange or surprising to a man
who has nicely observed and compared the effects of nature. For that only
is thought so which is uncommon, or a thing by itself, and out of the
ordinary course of our observation. That bodies should tend towards the
centre of the earth is not thought strange, because it is what we perceive
every moment of our lives. But that they should have a like gravitation
towards the centre of the moon may seem odd and unaccountable to most men,
because it is discerned only in the tides. But a philosopher, whose
thoughts take in a larger compass of nature, having observed a certain
similitude of appearances, as well in the heavens as the earth, that argue
innumerable bodies to have a mutual tendency towards each other, which he
denotes by the general name _attraction_, whatever can be reduced to that,
he thinks justly accounted for. Thus he explains the tides by the
attraction of the terraqueous globe towards the moon; which to him doth
not appear odd or anomalous, but only a particular example of a general
rule or law of nature.

105. If therefore we consider the difference there is betwixt natural
philosophers and other men, with regard to their knowledge of the
phenomena, we shall find it consists, not in an exacter knowledge of the
efficient cause that produces them—for that can be no other than the _will
__ of a spirit_—but only in a greater largeness of comprehension, whereby
analogies, harmonies, and agreements are discovered in the works of
nature, and the particular effects explained, that is, reduced to general
rules, see sect. 62: which rules, grounded on the analogy and uniformness
observed in the production of natural effects, are most agreeable and
sought after by the mind; for that they extend our prospect beyond what is
present and near to us, and enable us to make very probable conjectures
touching things that may have happened at very great distances of time and
place, as well as to predict things to come: which sort of endeavour
towards Omniscience is much affected by the mind.

106. But we should proceed warily in such things: for we are apt to lay
too great a stress on analogies, and, to the prejudice of truth, humour
that eagerness of the mind, whereby it is carried to extend its knowledge
into general theorems. For example, gravitation or mutual attraction,
because it appears in many instances, some are straightway for pronouncing
_universal_; and that to attract and be attracted by every other body is
an essential quality inherent in all bodies whatsoever. Whereas it is
evident the fixed stars have no such tendency towards each other; and, so
far is that gravitation from being _essential_ to bodies that in some
instances a quite contrary principle seems to shew itself; as in the
perpendicular growth of plants, and the elasticity of the air. There is
nothing necessary or essential in the case(698); but it depends entirely
on the will of the Governing Spirit(699), who causes certain bodies to
cleave together or tend towards each other according to various laws,
whilst He keeps others at a fixed distance; and to some He gives a quite
contrary tendency to fly asunder, just as He sees convenient.

107. After what has been premised, I think we may lay down the following
conclusions. First, it is plain philosophers amuse themselves in vain,
when they enquire for any natural efficient cause, distinct from a _mind_
or _spirit_. Secondly, considering the whole creation is the workmanship
of a _wise and good Agent_, it should seem to become philosophers to
employ their thoughts (contrary to what some hold(700)) about the final
causes of things. [(701) For, besides that this would prove a very
pleasing entertainment to the mind, it might be of great advantage, in
that it not only discovers to us the attributes of the Creator, but may
also direct us in several instances to the proper uses and applications of
things.] And I must confess I see no reason why pointing out the various
ends to which natural things are adapted, and for which they were
originally with unspeakable wisdom contrived, should not be thought one
good way of accounting for them, and altogether worthy a philosopher.
Thirdly, from what has been premised, no reason can be drawn why the
history of nature should not still be studied, and observations and
experiments made; which, that they are of use to mankind, and enable us to
draw any general conclusions, is not the result of any immutable habitudes
or relations between things themselves, but only of God’s goodness and
kindness to men in the administration of the world. See sects. 30 and 31.
Fourthly, by a diligent observation of the phenomena within our view, we
may discover the general laws of nature, and from them deduce other
phenomena. I do not say _demonstrate_; for all deductions of that kind
depend on a supposition that the Author of Nature always operates
uniformly, and in a constant observance of those rules _we_ take for
principles, which we cannot evidently know(702).

108. It appears from sect. 66, &c. that the steady consistent methods of
nature may not unfitly be styled the Language of its Author, whereby He
discovers His attributes to our view and directs us how to act for the
convenience and felicity of life. Those men who frame(703) general rules
from the phenomena, and afterwards derive(704) the phenomena from those
rules, seem to consider signs(705) rather than causes. (706)A man may well
understand natural signs without knowing their analogy, or being able to
say by what rule a thing is so or so. And, as it is very possible to write
improperly, through too strict an observance of general grammar-rules; so,
in arguing from general laws of nature, it is not impossible we may
extend(707) the analogy too far, and by that means run into mistakes.

109. [(708) To carry on the resemblance.] As in reading other books a wise
man will choose to fix his thoughts on the sense and apply it to use,
rather than lay them out in grammatical remarks on the language; so, in
perusing the volume of nature, methinks it is beneath the dignity of the
mind to affect an exactness in reducing each particular phenomenon to
general rules, or shewing how it follows from them. We should propose to
ourselves nobler views, such as to recreate and exalt the mind with a
prospect of the beauty, order, extent, and variety of natural things:
hence, by proper inferences, to enlarge our notions of the grandeur,
wisdom, and beneficence of the Creator: and lastly, to make the several
parts of the creation, so far as in us lies, subservient to the ends they
were designed for—God’s glory, and the sustentation and comfort of
ourselves and fellow-creatures.

110. [(709) The best key for the aforesaid analogy, or natural Science,
will be easily acknowledged to be a certain celebrated Treatise of
_Mechanics_.] In the entrance of which justly admired treatise, Time,
Space, and Motion are distinguished into _absolute_ and _relative_, _true_
and _apparent_, _mathematical_ and _vulgar_: which distinction, as it is
at large explained by the author, does suppose those quantities to have an
existence without the mind: and that they are ordinarily conceived with
relation to sensible things, to which nevertheless in their own nature
they bear no relation at all.

III. As for _Time_, as it is there taken in an absolute or abstracted
sense, for the duration or perseverance of the existence of things, I have
nothing more to add concerning it after what has been already said on that
subject. Sects. 97 and 98. For the rest, this celebrated author holds
there is an _absolute Space_, which, being unperceivable to sense, remains
in itself similar and immoveable; and relative space to be the measure
thereof, which, being moveable and defined by its situation in respect of
sensible bodies, is vulgarly taken for immoveable space. _Place_ he
defines to be that part of space which is occupied by any body: and
according as the space is absolute or relative so also is the place.
_Absolute Motion_ is said to be the translation of a body from absolute
place to absolute place, as relative motion is from one relative place to
another. And because the parts of absolute space do not fall under our
senses, instead of them we are obliged to use their sensible measures; and
so define both place and motion with respect to bodies which we regard as
immoveable. But it is said, in philosophical matters we must abstract from
our senses; since it may be that none of those bodies which seem to be
quiescent are truly so; and the same thing which is moved relatively may
be really at rest. As likewise one and the same body may be in relative
rest and motion, or even moved with contrary relative motions at the same
time, according as its place is variously defined. All which ambiguity is
to be found in the apparent motions; but not at all in the true or
absolute, which should therefore be alone regarded in philosophy. And the
true we are told are distinguished from apparent or relative motions by
the following properties. First, in true or absolute motion, all parts
which preserve the same position with respect of the whole, partake of the
motions of the whole. Secondly, the place being moved, that which is
placed therein is also moved: so that a body moving in a place which is in
motion doth participate the motion of its place. Thirdly, true motion is
never generated or changed otherwise than by force impressed on the body
itself. Fourthly, true motion is always changed by force impressed on the
body moved. Fifthly, in circular motion, barely relative, there is no
centrifugal force, which nevertheless, in that which is true or absolute,
is proportional to the quantity of motion.

112. But, notwithstanding what hath been said, I must confess it does not
appear to me that there can be any motion other than _relative_(710): so
that to conceive motion there must be conceived at least two bodies;
whereof the distance or position in regard to each other is varied. Hence,
if there was one only body in being it could not possibly be moved. This
seems evident, in that the idea I have of motion doth necessarily include
relation.—[(711)Whether others can conceive it otherwise, a little
attention may satisfy them.]

113. But, though in every motion it be necessary to conceive more bodies
than one, yet it may be that one only is moved, namely, that on which the
force causing the change in the distance or situation of the bodies is
impressed. For, however some may define relative motion, so as to term
that body _moved_ which changes its distance from some other body, whether
the force [(712)or action] causing that change were impressed on it or no,
yet, as relative motion is that which is perceived by sense, and regarded
in the ordinary affairs of life, it follows that every man of common sense
knows what it is as well as the best philosopher. Now, I ask any one
whether, in his sense of motion as he walks along the streets, the stones
he passes over may be said to _move_, because they change distance with
his feet? To me it appears that though motion includes a relation of one
thing to another, yet it is not necessary that each term of the relation
be denominated from it. As a man may think of somewhat which does not
think, so a body may be moved to or from another body which is not
therefore itself in motion, [(713) I mean relative motion, for other I am
not able to conceive.]

114. As the place happens to be variously defined, the motion which is
related to it varies(714). A man in a ship may be said to be quiescent
with relation to the sides of the vessel, and yet move with relation to
the land. Or he may move eastward in respect of the one, and westward in
respect of the other. In the common affairs of life, men never go beyond
the Earth to define the place of any body; and what is quiescent in
respect of _that_ is accounted _absolutely_ to be so. But philosophers,
who have a greater extent of thought, and juster notions of the system of
things, discover even the Earth itself to be moved. In order therefore to
fix their notions, they seem to conceive the Corporeal World as finite,
and the utmost unmoved walls or shell thereof to be the place whereby they
estimate true motions. If we sound our own conceptions, I believe we may
find all the absolute motion we can frame an idea of to be at bottom no
other than relative motion thus defined. For, as has been already
observed, absolute motion, exclusive of _all_ external relation, is
incomprehensible: and to this kind of relative motion all the
above-mentioned properties, causes, and effects ascribed to absolute
motion will, if I mistake not, be found to agree. As to what is said of
the centrifugal force, that it does not at all belong to circular relative
motion, I do not see how this follows from the experiment which is brought
to prove it. See Newton’s _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
in Schol. Def. VIII_. For the water in the vessel, at that time wherein it
is said to have the greatest relative circular motion, hath, I think, no
motion at all: as is plain from the foregoing section.

115. For, to denominate a body _moved_, it is requisite, first, that it
change its distance or situation with regard to some other body: and
secondly, that the force occasioning that change be applied to(715) it. If
either of these be wanting, I do not think that, agreeably to the sense of
mankind, or the propriety of language, a body can be said to be in motion.
I grant indeed that it is possible for us to think a body, which we see
change its distance from some other, to be moved, though it have no force
applied to(716) it (in which sense there may be apparent motion); but then
it is because the force causing the change(717) of distance is imagined by
us to be [(718)applied or] impressed on that body thought to move. Which
indeed shews we are capable of mistaking a thing to be in motion which is
not, and that is all. [(719)But it does not prove that, in the common
acceptation of motion, a body is moved merely because it changes distance
from another; since as soon as we are undeceived, and find that the moving
force was not communicated to it, we no longer hold it to be moved. So, on
the other hand, when one only body (the parts whereof preserve a given
position between themselves) is imagined to exist, some there are who
think that it can be moved all manner of ways, though without any change
of distance or situation to any other bodies; which we should not deny, if
they meant only that it might have an impressed force, which, upon the
bare creation of other bodies, would produce a motion of some certain
quantity and determination. But that an actual motion (distinct from the
impressed force, or power, productive of change of place in case there
were bodies present whereby to define it) can exist in such a single body,
I must confess I am not able to comprehend.]

116. From what has been said, it follows that the philosophic
consideration of motion doth not imply the being of an _absolute Space_,
distinct from that which is perceived by sense, and related to bodies:
which that it cannot exist without the mind is clear upon the same
principles that demonstrate the like of all other objects of sense. And
perhaps, if we inquire narrowly, we shall find we cannot even frame an
idea of _pure Space exclusive of all body_. This I must confess seems
impossible(720), as being a most abstract idea. When I excite a motion in
some part of my body, if it be free or without resistance, I say there is
_Space_. But if I find a resistance, then I say there is _Body_: and in
proportion as the resistance to motion is lesser or greater, I say the
space is more or less _pure_. So that when I speak of pure or empty space,
it is not to be supposed that the word _space_ stands for an idea distinct
from, or conceivable without, body and motion. Though indeed we are apt to
think every noun substantive stands for a distinct idea that may be
separated from all others; which hath occasioned infinite mistakes. When,
therefore, supposing all the world to be annihilated besides my own body,
I say there still remains _pure Space_; thereby nothing else is meant but
only that I conceive it possible for the limbs of my body to be moved on
all sides without the least resistance: but if that too were annihilated
then there could be no motion, and consequently no Space(721). Some,
perhaps, may think the sense of seeing doth furnish them with the idea of
pure space; but it is plain from what we have elsewhere shewn, that the
ideas of space and distance are not obtained by that sense. See the _Essay
concerning Vision_.

117. What is here laid down seems to put an end to all those disputes and
difficulties that have sprung up amongst the learned concerning the nature
of _pure Space_. But the chief advantage arising from it is that we are
freed from that dangerous dilemma, to which several who have employed
their thoughts on that subject imagine themselves reduced, viz. of
thinking either that Real Space is God, or else that there is something
beside God which is eternal, uncreated, infinite, indivisible, immutable.
Both which may justly be thought pernicious and absurd notions. It is
certain that not a few divines, as well as philosophers of great note,
have, from the difficulty they found in conceiving either limits or
annihilation of space, concluded it must be _divine_. And some of late
have set themselves particularly to shew that the incommunicable
attributes of God agree to it. Which doctrine, how unworthy soever it may
seem of the Divine Nature, yet I must confess I do not see how we can get
clear of it, so long as we adhere to the received opinions(722).

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118. Hitherto of Natural Philosophy. We come now to make some inquiry
concerning that other great branch of speculative knowledge, to wit,
Mathematics(723). These, how celebrated soever they may be for their
clearness and certainty of demonstration, which is hardly anywhere else to
be found, cannot nevertheless be supposed altogether free from mistakes,
if in their principles there lurks some secret error which is common to
the professors of those sciences with the rest of mankind. Mathematicians,
though they deduce their theorems from a great height of evidence, yet
their first principles are limited by the consideration of Quantity. And
they do not ascend into any inquiry concerning those transcendental maxims
which influence all the particular sciences; each part whereof,
Mathematics not excepted, doth consequently participate of the errors
involved in them. That the principles laid down by mathematicians are
true, and their way of deduction from those principles clear and
incontestible, we do not deny. But we hold there may be certain erroneous
maxims of greater extent than the object of Mathematics, and for that
reason not expressly mentioned, though tacitly supposed, throughout the
whole progress of that science; and that the ill effects of those secret
unexamined errors are diffused through all the branches thereof. To be
plain, we suspect the mathematicians are no less deeply concerned than
other men in the errors arising from the doctrine of abstract general
ideas, and the existence of objects without the mind.

119. Arithmetic hath been thought to have for its object abstract ideas of
_number_. Of which to understand the properties and mutual habitudes, is
supposed no mean part of speculative knowledge. The opinion of the pure
and intellectual nature of numbers in abstract has made them in esteem
with those philosophers who seem to have affected an uncommon fineness and
elevation of thought. It hath set a price on the most trifling numerical
speculations, which in practice are of no use, but serve only for
amusement; and hath heretofore so far infected the minds of some, that
they have dreamed of mighty _mysteries_ involved in numbers, and attempted
the explication of natural things by them. But, if we narrowly inquire
into our own thoughts, and consider what has been premised, we may perhaps
entertain a low opinion of those high flights and abstractions, and look
on all inquiries about numbers only as so many _difficiles nugae_, so far
as they are not subservient to practice, and promote the benefit of life.

120. Unity in abstract we have before considered in sect. 13; from which,
and what has been said in the Introduction, it plainly follows there is
not any such idea. But, number being defined a _collection of units_, we
may conclude that, if there be no such thing as unity, or unit in
abstract, there are no _ideas_ of number in abstract, denoted by the
numeral names and figures. The theories therefore in Arithmetic, if they
are abstracted from the names and figures, as likewise from all use and
practice, as well as from the particular things numbered, can be supposed
to have nothing at all for their object. Hence we may see how entirely the
science of numbers is subordinate to practice, and how jejune and trifling
it becomes when considered as a matter of mere speculation(724).

121. However, since there may be some who, deluded by the specious show of
discovering abstracted verities, waste their time in arithmetical theorems
and problems which have not any use, it will not be amiss if we more fully
consider and expose the vanity of that pretence. And this will plainly
appear by taking a view of Arithmetic in its infancy, and observing what
it was that originally put men on the study of that science, and to what
scope they directed it. It is natural to think that at first, men, for
ease of memory and help of computation, made use of counters, or in
writing of single strokes, points, or the like, each whereof was made to
signify an unit, i.e. some one thing of whatever kind they had occasion to
reckon. Afterwards they found out the more compendious ways of making one
character stand in place of several strokes or points. And, lastly, the
notation of the Arabians or Indians came into use; wherein, by the
repetition of a few characters or figures, and varying the signification
of each figure according to the place it obtains, all numbers may be most
aptly expressed. Which seems to have been done in imitation of language,
so that an exact analogy is observed betwixt the notation by figures and
names, the nine simple figures answering the nine first numeral names and
places in the former, corresponding to denominations in the latter. And
agreeably to those conditions of the simple and local value of figures,
were contrived methods of finding, from the given figures or marks of the
parts, what figures and how placed are proper to denote the whole, or
_vice versa_. And having found the sought figures, the same rule or
analogy being observed throughout, it is easy to read them into words; and
so the number becomes perfectly known. For then the number of any
particular things is said to be known, when we know the name or figures
(with their due arrangement) that according to the standing analogy belong
to them. For, these signs being known, we can by the operations of
arithmetic know the signs of any part of the particular sums signified by
them; and thus computing in signs, (because of the connexion established
betwixt them and the distinct multitudes of things, whereof one is taken
for an unit), we may be able rightly to sum up, divide, and proportion the
things themselves that we intend to number.

122. In Arithmetic, therefore, we regard not the _things_ but the _signs_;
which nevertheless are not regarded for their own sake, but because they
direct us how to act with relation to things, and dispose rightly of them.
Now, agreeably to what we have before observed of Words in general (sect.
19, Introd.), it happens here likewise, that abstract ideas are thought to
be signified by numeral names or characters, while they do not suggest
ideas of particular things to our minds. I shall not at present enter into
a more particular dissertation on this subject; but only observe that it
is evident from what has been said, those things which pass for abstract
truths and theorems concerning numbers, are in reality conversant about no
object distinct from particular numerable things; except only names and
characters, which originally came to be considered on no other account but
their being _signs_, or capable to represent aptly whatever particular
things men had need to compute. Whence it follows that to study them for
their own sake would be just as wise, and to as good purpose, as if a man,
neglecting the true use or original intention and subserviency of
language, should spend his time in impertinent criticisms upon words, or
reasonings and controversies purely verbal(725).

123. From numbers we proceed to speak of _extension_(726), which,
considered as relative, is the object of Geometry. The _infinite_
divisibility of _finite_ extension, though it is not expressly laid down
either as an axiom or theorem in the elements of that science, yet is
throughout the same everywhere supposed, and thought to have so
inseparable and essential a connexion with the principles and
demonstrations in Geometry that mathematicians never admit it into doubt,
or make the least question of it. And as this notion is the source from
whence do spring all those amusing geometrical paradoxes which have such a
direct repugnancy to the plain common sense of mankind, and are admitted
with so much reluctance into a mind not yet debauched by learning; so is
it the principal occasion of all that nice and extreme subtilty, which
renders the study of Mathematics so very difficult and tedious. Hence, if
we can make it appear that no _finite_ extension contains innumerable
parts, or is infinitely divisible, it follows that we shall at once clear
the science of Geometry from a great number of difficulties and
contradictions which have ever been esteemed a reproach to human reason,
and withal make the attainment thereof a business of much less time and
pains than it hitherto hath been.

124. Every particular finite extension which may possibly be the object of
our thought is an _idea_ existing only in the mind; and consequently each
part thereof must be perceived. If, therefore, I cannot _perceive_
innumerable parts in any finite extension that I consider, it is certain
they are not contained in it. But it is evident that I cannot distinguish
innumerable parts in any particular line, surface, or solid, which I
either perceive by sense, or figure to myself in my mind. Wherefore I
conclude they are not contained in it. Nothing can be plainer to me than
that the extensions I have in view are no other than my own ideas; and it
is no less plain that I cannot resolve any one of my ideas into an
infinite number of other ideas; that is, that they are not infinitely
divisible(727). If by _finite extension_ be meant something distinct from
a finite idea, I declare I do not know what that is, and so cannot affirm
or deny anything of it. But if the terms _extension_, _parts_, and the
like, are taken in any sense conceivable—that is, for _ideas_,—then to say
a finite quantity or extension consists of parts infinite in number is so
manifest and glaring a contradiction, that every one at first sight
acknowledges it to be so. And it is impossible it should ever gain the
assent of any reasonable creature who is not brought to it by gentle and
slow degrees, as a converted Gentile(728) to the belief of
transubstantiation. Ancient and rooted prejudices do often pass into
principles. And those propositions which once obtain the force and credit
of a _principle_, are not only themselves, but likewise whatever is
deducible from them, thought privileged from all examination. And there is
no absurdity so gross, which, by this means, the mind of man may not be
prepared to swallow(729).

125. He whose understanding is prepossessed with the doctrine of abstract
general ideas may be persuaded that (whatever be thought of the ideas of
sense) _extension in abstract_ is infinitely divisible. And one who thinks
the objects of sense exist without the mind will perhaps, in virtue
thereof, be brought to admit(730) that a line but an inch long may contain
innumerable parts really existing, though too small to be discerned. These
errors are grafted as well in the minds of geometricians as of other men,
and have a like influence on their reasonings; and it were no difficult
thing to shew how the arguments from Geometry made use of to support the
infinite divisibility of extension are bottomed on them. [(731) But this,
if it be thought necessary, we may hereafter find a proper place to treat
of in a particular manner.] At present we shall only observe in general
whence it is the mathematicians are all so fond and tenacious of that
doctrine.

126. It has been observed in another place that the theorems and
demonstrations in Geometry are conversant about universal ideas (sect. 15,
Introd.): where it is explained in what sense this ought to be understood,
to wit, the particular lines and figures included in the diagram are
supposed to stand for innumerable others of different sizes; or, in other
words, the geometer considers them abstracting from their magnitude: which
doth not imply that he forms an abstract idea, but only that he cares not
what the particular magnitude is, whether great or small, but looks on
that as a thing indifferent to the demonstration. Hence it follows that a
line in the scheme but an inch long must be spoken of as though it
contained ten thousand parts, since it is regarded not in itself, but as
it is universal; and it is universal only in its signification, whereby it
_represents_ innumerable lines greater than itself, in which may be
distinguished ten thousand parts or more, though there may not be above an
inch in _it_. After this manner, the properties of the lines signified are
(by a very usual figure) transferred to the sign; and thence, through
mistake, thought to appertain to it considered in its own nature.

127. Because there is no number of parts so great but it is possible there
may be a line containing more, the inch-line is said to contain parts more
than any assignable number; which is true, not of the inch taken
absolutely, but only for the things signified by it. But men, not
retaining that distinction in their thoughts, slide into a belief that the
small particular line described on paper contains in itself parts
innumerable. There is no such thing as the ten thousandth part of an inch;
but there is of a mile or diameter of the earth, which may be signified by
that inch. When therefore I delineate a triangle on paper, and take one
side, not above an inch for example in length, to be the radius, this I
consider as divided into 10,000 or 100,000 parts, or more. For, though the
ten thousandth part of that line considered in itself, is nothing at all,
and consequently may be neglected without any error or inconveniency, yet
these described lines, being only marks standing for greater quantities,
whereof it may be the ten thousandth part is very considerable, it follows
that, to prevent notable errors in practice, the radius must be taken of
10,000 parts, or more.

128. From what has been said the reason is plain why, to the end any
theorem may become universal in its use, it is necessary we speak of the
lines described on paper as though they contained parts which really they
do not. In doing of which, if we examine the matter throughly, we shall
perhaps discover that we cannot conceive an inch itself as consisting of,
or being divisible into, a thousand parts, but only some other line which
is far greater than an inch, and represented by it; and that when we say a
line is _infinitely divisible_, we must mean(732) _a line which is
infinitely great_. What we have here observed seems to be the chief cause,
why to suppose the _infinite_ divisibility of _finite extension_ has been
thought necessary in geometry.

129. The several absurdities and contradictions which flowed from this
false principle might, one would think, have been esteemed so many
demonstrations against it. But, by I know not what logic, it is held that
proofs _a posteriori_ are not to be admitted against propositions relating
to Infinity. As though it were not impossible even for an Infinite Mind to
reconcile contradictions; or as if anything absurd and repugnant could
have a necessary connexion with truth, or flow from it. But whoever
considers the weakness of this pretence, will think it was contrived on
purpose to humour the laziness of the mind, which had rather acquiesce in
an indolent scepticism than be at the pains to go through with a severe
examination of those principles it has ever embraced for true.

130. Of late the speculations about Infinites have run so high, and grown
to such strange notions, as have occasioned no small scruples and disputes
among the geometers of the present age. Some there are of great note who,
not content with holding that finite lines may be divided into an infinite
number of parts, do yet farther maintain, that each of those
Infinitesimals is itself subdivisible into an infinity of other parts, or
Infinitesimals of a second order, and so on _ad infinitum_. These, I say,
assert there are Infinitesimals of Infinitesimals of Infinitesimals,
without ever coming to an end. So that according to them an inch does not
barely contain an infinite number of parts, but an infinity of an infinity
of an infinity _ad infinitum_ of parts. Others there be who hold all
orders of Infinitesimals below the first to be nothing at all; thinking it
with good reason absurd to imagine there is any positive quantity or part
of extension which, though multiplied infinitely, can ever equal the
smallest given extension. And yet on the other hand it seems no less
absurd to think the square, cube, or other power of a positive real root,
should itself be nothing at all; which they who hold Infinitesimals of the
first order, denying all of the subsequent orders, are obliged to
maintain.

131. Have we not therefore reason to conclude they are _both_ in the
wrong, and that there is in effect no such thing as parts infinitely
small, or an infinite number of parts contained in any finite quantity?
But you will say that if this doctrine obtains it will follow the very
foundations of Geometry are destroyed, and those great men who have raised
that science to so astonishing a height, have been all the while building
a castle in the air. To this it may be replied, that whatever is useful in
geometry, and promotes the benefit of human life, does still remain firm
and unshaken on our Principles; that science considered as practical will
rather receive advantage than any prejudice from what has been said. But
to set this in a due light,[(733) and shew how lines and figures may be
measured, and their properties investigated, without supposing finite
extension to be infinitely divisible,] may be the proper business of
another place(734). For the rest, though it should follow that some of the
more intricate and subtle parts of Speculative Mathematics may be pared
off without any prejudice to truth, yet I do not see what damage will be
thence derived to mankind. On the contrary, I think it were highly to be
wished that men of great abilities and obstinate application(735) would
draw off their thoughts from those amusements, and employ them in the
study of such things as lie nearer the concerns of life, or have a more
direct influence on the manners.

132. If it be said that several theorems, undoubtedly true, are discovered
by methods in which Infinitesimals are made use of, which could never have
been if their existence included a contradiction in it:—I answer, that
upon a thorough examination it will not be found that in any instance it
is necessary to make use of or conceive _infinitesimal_ parts of _finite_
lines, or even quantities less than the _minimum sensibile_: nay, it will
be evident this is never done, it being impossible. [(736) And whatever
mathematicians may think of Fluxions, or the Differential Calculus, and
the like, a little reflexion will shew them that, in working by those
methods, they do not conceive or imagine lines or surfaces less than what
are perceivable to sense. They may indeed call those little and almost
insensible quantities Infinitesimals, or Infinitesimals of Infinitesimals,
if they please. But at bottom this is all, they being in truth finite; nor
does the solution of problems require the supposing any other. But this
will be more clearly made out hereafter.]

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133. By what we have hitherto said, it is plain that very numerous and
important errors have taken their rise from those false Principles which
were impugned in the foregoing parts of this Treatise; and the opposites
of those erroneous tenets at the same time appear to be most fruitful
Principles, from whence do flow innumerable consequences, highly
advantageous to true philosophy as well as to religion. Particularly
_Matter_, or _the absolute_(737)_ existence of corporeal objects_, hath
been shewn to be that wherein the most avowed and pernicious enemies of
all knowledge, whether human or divine, have ever placed their chief
strength and confidence. And surely if by distinguishing the real
existence of unthinking things from their being perceived, and allowing
them a subsistence of their own, out of the minds of spirits, no one thing
is explained in nature, but on the contrary a great many inexplicable
difficulties arise; if the supposition of Matter(738) is barely
precarious, as not being grounded on so much as one single reason; if its
consequences cannot endure the light of examination and free inquiry, but
screen themselves under the dark and general pretence of _infinites being
incomprehensible_; if withal the removal of _this_ Matter be not attended
with the least evil consequence; if it be not even missed in the world,
but everything as well, nay much easier conceived without it; if, lastly,
both Sceptics and Atheists are for ever silenced upon supposing only
spirits and ideas, and this scheme of things is perfectly agreeable both
to Reason and Religion: methinks we may expect it should be admitted and
firmly embraced, though it were proposed only as an _hypothesis_, and the
existence of Matter had been allowed possible; which yet I think we have
evidently demonstrated that it is not.

134. True it is that, in consequence of the foregoing Principles, several
disputes and speculations which are esteemed no mean parts of learning are
rejected as useless [(739) and in effect conversant about nothing at all].
But how great a prejudice soever against our notions this may give to
those who have already been deeply engaged, and made large advances in
studies of that nature, yet by others we hope it will not be thought any
just ground of dislike to the principles and tenets herein laid down, that
they abridge the labour of study, and make human sciences more clear,
compendious, and attainable than they were before.

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135. Having despatched what we intended to say concerning the knowledge of
_ideas_, the method we proposed leads us in the next place to treat of
_spirits_(740): with regard to which, perhaps, human knowledge is not so
deficient as is vulgarly imagined. The great reason that is assigned for
our being thought ignorant of the nature of Spirits is our not having an
_idea_ of it. But, surely it ought not to be looked on as a defect in a
human understanding that it does not perceive the idea of Spirit, if it is
manifestly impossible there should be any such idea. And this if I mistake
not has been demonstrated in section 27. To which I shall here add that a
Spirit has been shewn to be the only substance or support wherein
unthinking beings or ideas can exist: but that this _substance_ which
supports or perceives ideas should itself be an idea, or like an idea, is
evidently absurd.

136. It will perhaps be said that we want a _sense_ (as some have
imagined(741)) proper to know substances withal; which, if we had, we
might know our own soul as we do a triangle. To this I answer, that in
case we had a new sense bestowed upon us, we could only receive thereby
some new _sensations_ or _ideas of sense_. But I believe nobody will say
that what he means by the terms _soul_ and _substance_ is only some
particular sort of idea or sensation. We may therefore infer that, all
things duly considered, it is not more reasonable to think our faculties
defective, in that they do not furnish us with an _idea_ of Spirit, or
active thinking substance, than it would be if we should blame them for
not being able to comprehend a _round square_(742).

137. From the opinion that Spirits are to be known after the manner of an
idea or sensation have risen many absurd and heterodox tenets, and much
scepticism about the nature of the soul. It is even probable that this
opinion may have produced a doubt in some whether they had any soul at all
distinct from their body; since upon inquiry they could not find they had
an idea of it. That an _idea_, which is inactive, and the existence
whereof consists in being perceived, should be the image or likeness of an
agent subsisting by itself, seems to need no other refutation than barely
attending to what is meant by those words. But perhaps you will say that
though an idea cannot resemble a Spirit in its thinking, acting, or
subsisting by itself, yet it may in some other respects; and it is not
necessary that an idea or image be in all respects like the original.

138. I answer, If it does not in those mentioned, it is impossible it
should represent it in any other thing. Do but leave out the power of
willing, thinking, and perceiving ideas, and there remains nothing else
wherein the idea can be like a spirit. For, by the word _spirit_ we mean
only that which thinks, wills, and perceives; this, and this alone,
constitutes the signification of that term. If therefore it is impossible
that any degree of those powers should be represented in an idea [(743)or
notion], it is evident there can be no idea [or notion] of a Spirit.

139. But it will be objected that, if there is no _idea_ signified by the
terms _soul_, _spirit_, and _substance_, they are wholly insignificant, or
have no meaning in them. I answer, those words do mean or signify a real
thing; which is neither an idea nor like an idea, but that which perceives
ideas, and wills, and reasons about them. What I am _myself_, that which I
denote by the term _I_, is the same with what is meant by _soul_, or
_spiritual substance_. [(744)But if I should say that _I_ was nothing, or
that _I_ was an _idea_ or _notion_, nothing could be more evidently absurd
than either of these propositions.] If it be said that this is only
quarrelling at a word, and that, since the immediate significations of
other names are by common consent called _ideas_, no reason can be
assigned why that which is signified by the name _spirit_ or _soul_ may
not partake in the same appellation. I answer, all the unthinking objects
of the mind agree in that they are entirely passive, and their existence
consists only in being perceived: whereas a _soul_ or _spirit_ is an
active being, whose existence consists, not in being perceived, but in
perceiving ideas and thinking(745). It is therefore necessary, in order to
prevent equivocation and confounding natures perfectly disagreeing and
unlike, that we distinguish between _spirit_ and _idea_. See sect. 27.

140. In a large sense indeed, we may be said to have an idea [(746)or
rather a notion] of _spirit_. That is, we understand the meaning of the
word, otherwise we could not affirm or deny anything of it. Moreover, as
we conceive the ideas that are in the minds of other spirits by means of
our own, which we suppose to be resemblances of them, so we know other
spirits by means of our own soul: which in that sense is the image or idea
of them; it having a like respect to other spirits that blueness or heat
by me perceived has to those ideas perceived by another(747).

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141. [(748)The natural immortality of the soul is a necessary consequence
of the foregoing doctrine. But before we attempt to prove this, it is fit
that we explain the meaning of that tenet.] It must not be supposed that
they who assert the natural immortality of the soul(749) are of opinion
that it is absolutely incapable of annihilation even by the infinite power
of the Creator who first gave it being, but only that it is not liable to
be broken or dissolved by the ordinary laws of nature or motion They
indeed who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system
of animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body; since
there is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is
naturally impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle wherein it
is inclosed. And this notion hath been greedily embraced and cherished by
the worst part of mankind, as the most effectual antidote against all
impressions of virtue and religion. But it hath been made evident that
bodies, of what frame or texture soever, are barely passive ideas in the
mind, which is more distant and heterogeneous from them than light is from
darkness(750). We have shewn that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal,
unextended; and it is consequently incorruptible. Nothing can be plainer
than that the motions, changes, decays, and dissolutions which we hourly
see befal natural bodies (and which is what we mean by the _course of
nature_) cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance:
such a being therefore is indissoluble by the force of nature; that is to
say, _the soul of man_ is _naturally immortal_(751).

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142. After what has been said, it is, I suppose, plain that our souls are
not to be known in the same manner as senseless, inactive objects, or by
way of _idea_. _Spirits_ and _ideas_ are things so wholly different, that
when we say “they exist,” “they are known,” or the like, these words must
not be thought to signify anything common to both natures(752). There is
nothing alike or common in them; and to expect that by any multiplication
or enlargement of our faculties, we may be enabled to know a spirit as we
do a triangle, seems as absurd as if we should hope to _see a sound_. This
is inculcated because I imagine it may be of moment towards clearing
several important questions, and preventing some very dangerous errors
concerning the nature of the soul.

[(753)We may not, I think, strictly be said to have an _idea_ of an active
being, or of an action; although we may be said to have a _notion_ of
them. I have some knowledge or notion of _my mind_, and its acts about
ideas; inasmuch as I know or understand what is meant by these words. What
I know, that I have some notion of. I will not say that the terms _idea_
and _notion_ may not be used convertibly, if the world will have it so.
But yet it conduceth to clearness and propriety, that we distinguish
things very different by different names. It is also to be remarked that,
all _relations_ including an act of the mind(754), we cannot so properly
be said to have an idea, but rather a notion, of the relations and
habitudes between things. But if, in the modern way(755), the word _idea_
is extended to _spirits_, and _relations_, and _acts_, this is, after all,
an affair of verbal concern.]

143. It will not be amiss to add, that the doctrine of _abstract ideas_
has had no small share in rendering those sciences intricate and obscure
which are particularly conversant about spiritual things. Men have
imagined they could frame abstract notions of the _powers_ and _acts_ of
the mind, and consider them prescinded as well from the mind or spirit
itself, as from their respective objects and effects. Hence a great number
of dark and ambiguous terms, presumed to stand for abstract notions, have
been introduced into metaphysics and morality; and from these have grown
infinite distractions and disputes amongst the learned(756).

144. But, nothing seems more to have contributed towards engaging men in
controversies and mistakes with regard to the nature and operations of the
mind, than the being used to speak of those things in terms borrowed from
sensible ideas. For example, the will is termed the _motion_ of the soul:
this infuses a belief that the mind of man is as a ball in motion,
impelled and determined by the objects of sense, as necessarily as that is
by the stroke of a racket. Hence arise endless scruples and errors of
dangerous consequence in morality. All which, I doubt not, may be cleared,
and truth appear plain, uniform, and consistent, could but philosophers be
prevailed on to [(757)depart from some received prejudices and modes of
speech, and] retire into themselves, and attentively consider their own
meaning. [(758)But the difficulties arising on this head demand a more
particular disquisition than suits with the design of this treatise.]

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145. From what hath been said, it is plain that we cannot know the
existence of _other spirits_ otherwise than by their operations, or the
ideas by them, excited in us. I perceive several motions, changes, and
combinations of ideas, that inform me there are certain particular agents,
like myself, which accompany them, and concur in their production. Hence,
the knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate, as is the
knowledge of my ideas; but depending on the intervention of ideas, by me
referred to agents or spirits distinct from myself, as effects or
concomitant signs(759).

146. But, though there be some things which convince us human agents are
concerned in producing them, yet it is evident to every one that those
things which are called the Works of Nature, that is, the far greater part
of the ideas or sensations perceived by us, are _not_ produced by, or
dependent on, the wills of _men_. There is therefore some other Spirit
that causes them; since it is repugnant(760) that they should subsist by
themselves. See sect. 29. But, if we attentively consider the constant
regularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising
magnificence, beauty and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite
contrivance of the smaller parts of the creation, together with the exact
harmony and correspondence of the whole, but above all the
never-enough-admired laws of pain and pleasure, and the instincts or
natural inclinations, appetites, and passions of animals;—I say if we
consider all these things, and at the same time attend to the meaning and
import of the attributes One, Eternal, Infinitely Wise, Good, and Perfect,
we shall clearly perceive that they belong to the aforesaid Spirit, “who
works all in all” and “by whom all things consist.”

147. Hence, it is evident that God is known as certainly and immediately
as any other mind or spirit whatsoever, distinct from ourselves. We may
even assert that the existence of God is far more evidently perceived than
the existence of men; because the effects of Nature are infinitely more
numerous and considerable than those ascribed to human agents. There is
not any one mark that denotes a man, or effect produced by him, which does
not more strongly evince the being of that Spirit who is the Author of
Nature(761). For it is evident that, in affecting other persons, the will
of man hath no other object than barely the motion of the limbs of his
body; but that such a motion should be attended by, or excite any idea in
the mind of another, depends wholly on the will of the Creator. He alone
it is who, “upholding all things by the word of His power,” maintains that
intercourse between spirits whereby they are able to perceive the
existence of each other(762). And yet this pure and clear Light which
enlightens everyone is itself invisible [(763)to the greatest part of
mankind].

148. It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking herd that they
cannot _see_ God. Could we but see Him, say they, as we see a man, we
should believe that He is, and believing obey His commands. But alas, we
need only open our eyes to see the Sovereign Lord of all things, with a
_more_ full and clear view than we do any one of our fellow-creatures. Not
that I imagine we see God (as some will have it) by a direct and immediate
view; or see corporeal things, not by themselves, but by seeing that which
represents them in the essence of God; which doctrine is, I must confess,
to me incomprehensible(764). But I shall explain my meaning. A human
spirit or person is not perceived by sense, as not being an idea. When
therefore we see the colour, size, figure, and motions of a man, we
perceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own minds; and
these being exhibited to our view in sundry distinct collections, serve to
mark out unto us the existence of finite and created spirits like
ourselves. Hence it is plain we do not see a man, if by _man_ is meant,
that which lives, moves, perceives, and thinks as we do: but only such a
certain collection of ideas, as directs us to think there is a distinct
principle of thought and motion, like to ourselves, accompanying and
represented by it. And after the same manner we see God: all the
difference is that, whereas some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas
denotes a particular human mind, whithersoever we direct our view we do at
all times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of the Divinity:
everything we see, hear, feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign
or effect of the power of God; as is our perception of those very motions
which are produced by men(765).

149. It is therefore plain that nothing can be more evident to any one
that is capable of the least reflexion than the existence of God, or a
Spirit who is intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that
variety of ideas or sensations which continually affect us, on whom we
have an absolute and entire dependence, in short “in whom we live, and
move, and have our being.” That the discovery of this great truth, which
lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason
of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men,
who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the
Deity, are yet so little affected by them that they seem, as it were,
blinded with excess of light(766).

150. But you will say—Hath Nature no share in the production of natural
things, and must they be all ascribed to the immediate and sole operation
of God? I answer, If by _Nature_ is meant only the _visible series_ of
effects or sensations imprinted on our minds according to certain fixed
and general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense,
cannot produce anything at all(767). But if by _Nature_ is meant some
being distinct from God, as well as from the laws of nature and things
perceived by sense, I must confess that word is to me an empty sound,
without any intelligible meaning annexed to it. Nature, in this
acceptation, is a vain chimera, introduced by those heathens who had not
just notions of the omnipresence and infinite perfection of God. But it is
more unaccountable that it should be received among Christians, professing
belief in the Holy Scriptures, which constantly ascribe those effects to
the immediate hand of God that heathen philosophers are wont to impute to
Nature. “The Lord, He causeth the vapours to ascend; He maketh lightnings
with rain; He bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures.” Jerem. x. 13.
“He turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark
with night.” Amos v. 8. “He visiteth the earth, and maketh it soft with
showers: He blesseth the springing thereof, and crowneth the year with His
goodness; so that the pastures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys
are covered over with corn.” See Psal. lxv. But, notwithstanding that this
is the constant language of Scripture, yet we have I know not what
aversion from believing that God concerns Himself so nearly in our
affairs. Fain would we suppose Him at a great distance off, and substitute
some blind unthinking deputy in His stead; though (if we may believe Saint
Paul) “He be not far from every one of us.”

151. It will, I doubt not, be objected that the slow, gradual, and
roundabout methods observed in the production of natural things do not
seem to have for their cause the _immediate_ hand of an Almighty Agent:
besides, monsters, untimely births, fruits blasted in the blossom, rains
falling in desert places, miseries incident to human life, and the like,
are so many arguments that the whole frame of nature is not immediately
actuated and superintended by a Spirit of infinite wisdom and goodness.
But the answer to this objection is in a good measure plain from sect. 62;
it being visible that the aforesaid methods of nature are absolutely
necessary in order to working by the most simple and general rules, and
after a steady and consistent manner; which argues both the wisdom and
goodness of God(768). [(769)For, it doth hence follow that the finger of
God is not so conspicuous to the resolved and careless sinner; which gives
him an opportunity to harden in his impiety and grow ripe for vengeance.
(Vid. sect. 57.)] Such is the artificial contrivance of this mighty
machine of Nature that, whilst its motions and various phenomena strike on
our senses, the Hand which actuates the whole is itself unperceivable to
men of flesh and blood. “Verily” (saith the prophet) “thou art a God that
hidest thyself.” Isaiah xlv. 15. But, though the Lord conceal Himself from
the eyes of the sensual and lazy, who will not be at the least expense of
thought(770), yet to an unbiassed and attentive mind, nothing can be more
plainly legible than the intimate presence of an All-wise Spirit, who
fashions, regulates, and sustains the whole system of Being. It is clear,
from what we have elsewhere observed, that the operating according to
general and stated laws is so necessary for our guidance in the affairs of
life, and letting us into the secret of nature, that without it all reach
and compass of thought, all human sagacity and design, could serve to no
manner of purpose. It were even impossible there should be any such
faculties or powers in the mind. See sect. 31. Which one consideration
abundantly outbalances whatever particular inconveniences may thence
arise(771).

152. We should further consider, that the very blemishes and defects of
nature are not without their use, in that they make an agreeable sort of
variety, and augment the beauty of the rest of the creation, as shades in
a picture serve to set off the brighter and more enlightened parts. We
would likewise do well to examine, whether our taxing the waste of seeds
and embryos, and accidental destruction of plants and animals before they
come to full maturity, as an imprudence in the Author of nature, be not
the effect of prejudice contracted by our familiarity with impotent and
saving mortals. In _man_ indeed a thrifty management of those things which
he cannot procure without much pains and industry may be esteemed wisdom.
But we must not imagine that the inexplicably fine machine of an animal or
vegetable costs the great Creator any more pains or trouble in its
production than a pebble does; nothing being more evident than that an
Omnipotent Spirit can indifferently produce everything by a mere _fiat_ or
act of his will. Hence it is plain that the splendid profusion of natural
things should not be interpreted weakness or prodigality in the Agent who
produces them, but rather be looked on as an argument of the riches of His
power.

153. As for the mixture of pain or uneasiness which is in the world,
pursuant to the general laws of Nature, and the actions of finite,
imperfect Spirits, this, in the state we are in at present, is
indispensably necessary to our well-being. But our prospects are too
narrow. We take, for instance, the idea of some one particular pain into
our thoughts, and account it _evil_. Whereas, if we enlarge our view, so
as to comprehend the various ends, connexions, and dependencies of things,
on what occasions and in what proportions we are affected with pain and
pleasure, the nature of human freedom, and the design with which we are
put into the world; we shall be forced to acknowledge that those
particular things which, considered in themselves, appear to be evil, have
the nature of good, when considered as linked with the whole system of
beings(772).

154. From what hath been said, it will be manifest to any considering
person, that it is merely for want of attention and comprehensiveness of
mind that there are any favourers of Atheism or the Manichean Heresy to be
found. Little and unreflecting souls may indeed burlesque the works of
Providence; the beauty and order whereof they have not capacity, or will
not be at the pains, to comprehend(773). But those who are masters of any
justness and extent of thought, and are withal used to reflect, can never
sufficiently admire the divine traces of Wisdom and Goodness that shine
throughout the economy of Nature. But what truth is there which glares so
strongly on the mind that, by an aversion of thought, a wilful shutting of
the eyes, we may not escape seeing it? Is it therefore to be wondered at,
if the generality of men, who are ever intent on business or pleasure, and
little used to fix or open the eye of their mind, should not have all that
conviction and evidence of the Being of God which might be expected in
reasonable creatures(774)?

155. We should rather wonder that men can be found so stupid as to
neglect, than that neglecting they should be unconvinced of such an
evident and momentous truth(775). And yet it is to be feared that too many
of parts and leisure, who live in Christian countries, are, merely through
a supine and dreadful negligence, sunk into a sort of Atheism. [(776)They
cannot say there is not a God, but neither are they convinced that there
is. For what else can it be but some lurking infidelity, some secret
misgivings of mind with regard to the existence and attributes of God,
which permits sinners to grow and harden in impiety?] Since it is
downright impossible that a soul pierced and enlightened with a thorough
sense of the omnipresence, holiness, and justice of that Almighty Spirit
should persist in a remorseless violation of His laws. We ought,
therefore, earnestly to meditate and dwell on those important points; that
so we may attain conviction without all scruple “that the eyes of the Lord
are in every place, beholding the evil and the good; that He is with us
and keepeth us in all places whither we go, and giveth us bread to eat and
raiment to put on;” that He is present and conscious to our innermost
thoughts; and, that we have a most absolute and immediate dependence on
Him. A clear view of which great truths cannot choose but fill our hearts
with an awful circumspection and holy fear, which is the strongest
incentive to Virtue, and the best guard against Vice.

156. For, after all, what deserves the first place in our studies is, the
consideration of GOD and our DUTY; which to promote, as it was the main
drift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless
and ineffectual if, by what I have said, I cannot inspire my readers with
a pious sense of the Presence of God; and, having shewn the falseness or
vanity of those barren speculations which make the chief employment of
learned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary
truths of the Gospel; which to know and to practise is the highest
perfection of human nature.





THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS THE DESIGN OF WHICH IS PLAINLY
TO DEMONSTRATE THE REALITY AND PERFECTION OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, THE
INCORPOREAL NATURE OF THE SOUL, AND THE IMMEDIATE PROVIDENCE OF A DEITY,
IN OPPOSITION TO SCEPTICS AND ATHEISTS, ALSO TO OPEN A METHOD FOR
RENDERING THE SCIENCES MORE EASY, USEFUL, AND COMPENDIOUS


_First published in 1713_




Editor’s Preface


This work is the gem of British metaphysical literature. Berkeley’s claim
to be the great modern master of Socratic dialogue rests, perhaps, upon
_Alciphron_, which surpasses the conversations between Hylas and Philonous
in expression of individual character, and in dramatic effect. Here
conversation is adopted as a convenient way of treating objections to the
conception of the reality of Matter which had been unfolded systematically
in the book of _Principles_. But the lucid thought, the colouring of
fancy, the glow of human sympathy, and the earnestness that pervade the
subtle reasonings pursued through these dialogues, are unique in English
metaphysical literature. Except perhaps Hume and Ferrier, none approach
Berkeley in the art of uniting metaphysical thought with easy, graceful,
and transparent style. Our surprise and admiration are increased when we
recollect that this charming production of reason and imagination came
from Ireland, at a time when that country was scarcely known in the world
of letters and philosophy.

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The immediate impression produced by the publication of the _Principles_,
is shewn in Berkeley’s correspondence with Sir John Percival. Berkeley was
eager to hear what people had to say for or against what looked like a
paradox apt to shock the reader; but in those days he was not immediately
informed by professional critics. “If when you receive my book”—he wrote
from Dublin in July, 1710, to Sir John Percival(777), then in London,—“you
can procure me the opinion of some of your acquaintances who are thinking
men, addicted to the study of natural philosophy and mathematics, I shall
be extremely obliged to you.” In the following month he was informed by
Sir John that it was “incredible what prejudice can work in the best
geniuses, even in the lovers of novelty. For I did but name the subject
matter of your book of _Principles_ to some ingenious friends of mine and
they immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same time refusing to
read it, which I have not yet got one to do. A physician of my
acquaintance undertook to discover your person, and argued you must needs
be mad, and that you ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied you, that a
desire of starting something new should put you upon such an undertaking.
Another told me that you are not gone so far as a gentleman in town, who
asserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter, but that we
ourselves have no being at all.”

Berkeley’s reply is interesting. “I am not surprised,” he says, “that I
should be ridiculed by those who won’t take the pains to understand me. If
the raillery and scorn of those who criticise what they will not be at the
pains to understand had been sufficient to deter men from making any
attempts towards curing the ignorance and errors of mankind, we should not
have been troubled with some very fair improvements in knowledge. The
common cry’s being against any opinion seems to me, so far from proving
false, that it may with as good reason pass for an argument of its truth.
However, I imagine that whatever doctrine contradicts vulgar and settled
opinion had need be introduced with great caution into the world. For this
reason it was that I omitted all mention of the non-existence of Matter in
the title-page, dedication, preface and introduction to the _Treatise on
the Principles of Human Knowledge_; that so the notion might steal
unawares upon the reader, who probably might never have meddled with the
book if he had known that it contained such paradoxes.”

With characteristic fervour he disclaims “variety and love of paradox” as
motives of the book of _Principles_, and professes faith in the unreality
of abstract unperceived Matter, a faith which he has held for some years,
“the conceit being at first warm in my imagination, but since carefully
examined, both by my own judgment and that of ingenious friends.” What he
especially complained of was “that men who have never considered my book
should confound me with the sceptics, who doubt the existence of sensible
things, and are not positive as to any one truth, no, not so much as their
own being—which I find by your letter is the case of some wild visionist
now in London. But whoever reads my book with attention will see that
there is a direct opposition between the principles that are contained in
it and those of the sceptics, and that I question not the existence of
anything we perceive by our senses. I do not deny the existence of the
sensible things which Moses says were created by God. They existed from
all eternity, in the Divine Intellect; and they became perceptible (i.e.
were created) in the same manner and order as is described in Genesis. For
I take creation to belong to things only as they respect finite spirits;
there being nothing new to God. Hence it follows that the act of creation
consists in God’s willing that those things should become perceptible to
other spirits which before were known only to Himself. Now both reason and
scripture assure us that there _are_ other spirits besides men, who, ’tis
possible, might have perceived this visible world as it was successively
exhibited to their view before man’s creation. Besides, for to agree with
the Mosaic account of the creation, it’s sufficient if we suppose that a
man, in case he was existing at the time of the chaos of sensible things,
might have perceived all things formed out of it, in the very order set
down in scripture; all which is in no way repugnant to my principles.”

Sir John in his next letter, written from London in October, 1716, reports
that the book of _Principles_ had fallen into the hands of the highest
living English authority in metaphysical theology, Samuel Clarke, who had
produced his _Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God_ four years
before. The book had also been read by Whiston, Newton’s successor at
Cambridge. “I can only report at second-hand,” he says, “that they think
you a fair arguer, and a clear writer; but they say your first principles
you lay down are false. They look upon you as an extraordinary genius,
ranking you with Father Malebranche, Norris, and another whose name I
forget, all of whom they think extraordinary men, but of a particular turn
of mind, and their labours of little use to mankind, on account of their
abstruseness. This may arise from these gentlemen not caring to think
after a new manner, which would oblige them to begin their studies anew;
or else it may be the strength of prejudice.”

Berkeley was vexed by this treatment on the part of Clarke and Whiston. He
sent under Sir John’s care a letter to each of them, hoping through him to
discover “their reasons against his notions, as truth is his sole aim.”
“As to what is said of ranking me with Father Malebranche and Mr. Norris,
whose writings are thought to be too fine-spun to be of any great use to
mankind, I have this answer, that I think the notions I embrace are not in
the least agreeing with theirs, but indeed plainly inconsistent with them
in the main points, inasmuch as I know few writers I take myself at bottom
to differ more from than from them. Fine-spun metaphysics are what on all
occasions I declare against, and if any one shall shew anything of that
sort in my Treatise I will willingly correct it.” Sir John delivered the
letters to two friends of Clarke and Whiston, and reported that “Dr.
Clarke told his friend in reply, that he did not care to write you his
thoughts, because he was afraid it might draw him into a dispute upon a
matter which was already clear to him. He thought your first principles
you go on are false; but he was a modest man, his friend said, and
uninclined to shock any one whose opinions on things of this nature
differed from his own.” This was a disappointment to the ardent Berkeley.
“Dr. Clarke’s conduct seems a little surprising,” he replies. “That an
ingenious and candid person (as I take him to be) should refuse to shew me
where my error lies is something unaccountable. I never expected that a
gentleman otherwise so well employed as Dr. Clarke should think it worth
his while to enter into a dispute with me concerning any notions of mine.
But, seeing it was clear to him I went upon false principles, I hoped he
would vouchsafe, in a line or two, to point them out to me, that so I may
more closely review and examine them. If he but once did me this favour,
he need not apprehend I should give him any further trouble. I should be
glad if you have opportunity that you would let his friend know this.
There is nothing that I more desire than to know thoroughly all that can
be said against what I take for truth.” Clarke, however, was not to be
drawn. The incident is thus referred to by Whiston, in his _Memoirs_ of
Clarke. “Mr. Berkeley,” he says, “published in 1710, at Dublin, the
metaphysical notion, that matter was not a real thing(778); nay, that the
common opinion of its reality was groundless, if not ridiculous. He was
pleased to send Mr. Clarke and myself each of us a book. After we had
perused it, I went to Mr. Clarke to discourse with him about it, to this
effect, that I, being not a metaphysician, was not able to answer Mr.
Berkeley’s subtle premises, though I did not believe his absurd
conclusions. I therefore desired that he, who was deep in such subtleties,
but did not appear to believe Mr. Berkeley’s conclusion, would answer him.
_Which task he declined_.”

What Clarke’s criticism of Berkeley might have been is suggested by the
following sentences in his _Remarks on Human Liberty_, published seven
years after this correspondence: “The case as to the proof of our free
agency is exactly the same as in that notable question, whether the
[material] world exists or no? There is no demonstration of it from
experience. There always remains a bare possibility that the Supreme Being
may have so framed my mind, that I shall always be necessarily deceived in
every one of my perceptions as in a dream—though possibly there be no
material world, nor any other creature existing besides myself. And yet no
man in his senses argues from thence, that experience is no proof to us of
the existence of things. The bare physical possibility too of our being so
framed by the Author of Nature as to be unavoidably deceived in this
matter by every experience of every action we perform, is no more any
ground to doubt the truth of our liberty, than the bare natural
possibility of our being all our lifetime in a dream, deceived in our
[natural] belief of the existence of the material world, is any just
ground to doubt the reality of its existence.” Berkeley would hardly have
accepted this analogy. Does the conception of a material world being
dependent on percipient mind for its reality imply _deception_ on the part
of the “Supreme Being”? “Dreams,” in ordinary language, may signify
illusory fancies during sleep, and so understood the term is misapplied to
a universally mind-dependent universe with its steady natural order.
Berkeley disclaims emphatically any doubt of the reality of the sensible
world, and professes only to shew in what its reality consists, or its
dependence upon percipient life as the indispensable realising factor. To
suppose that we can be “necessarily deceived in every one of our
perceptions” is to interpret the universe atheistically, and virtually
obliges us in final nescience to acknowledge that it is wholly
uninterpretable; so that experience is impossible, because throughout
unintelligible. The moral trustworthiness or perfect goodness of the
Universal Power is I suppose the fundamental postulate of science and
human life. If all our temporal experience can be called a dream it must
at any rate be a dream of the sort supposed by Leibniz. “Nullo argumento
absolute demonstrari potest, dari corpora; nec quidquam prohibet _somnia
quædam bene ordinata_ menti nostræ, objecta esse, quæ a nobis vera
judicentur, et ob consensum inter se quoad usum veris equivalent(779).”

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The three _Dialogues_ discuss what Berkeley regarded as the most plausible
Objections, popular and philosophical, to his account of living Mind or
Spirit, as the indispensable factor and final cause of the reality of the
material world.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The principal aim of the _First Dialogue_ is to illustrate the
contradictory or unmeaning character and sceptical tendency of the common
philosophical opinion—that we perceive in sense a material world which is
_real_ only in as far as it can exist in absolute independence of
perceiving mind. The impossibility of any of the qualities in which Matter
is manifested to man—the primary qualities not less than the
secondary—having real existence in a mindless or unspiritual universe is
argued and illustrated in detail. Abstract Matter, unrealised in terms of
percipient life, is meaningless, and the material world becomes real only
in and through living perception. And Matter, as an abstract substance
without qualities, cannot, without a contradiction, it is also argued, be
presented or represented, in sense. What is called _matter_ is thus melted
in a spiritual solution, from which it issues the flexible and
intelligible medium of intercourse for spiritual beings such as men are;
whose faculties moreover are educated in interpreting the cosmical order
of the phenomena presented to their senses.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The _Second Dialogue_ is in the first place directed against modifications
of the scholastic account of Matter, which attributes our knowledge of it
to inference, founded on sense-ideas assumed to be representative, or not
presentative of the reality. The advocates of Matter independent and
supreme, are here assailed in their various conjectures—that this Matter
may be the active Cause, or the Instrument, or the Occasion of our
sense-experience; or that it is an Unknowable Something somehow connected
with that experience. It is argued in this and in the preceding Dialogue,
by _Philonous_ (who personates Berkeley), that unrealised Matter—intending
by that term either a qualified substance, or a Something of which we
cannot affirm anything—is not merely unproved, but a proved impossibility:
it must mean nothing, or it must mean a contradiction, which comes to the
same thing. It is not _perceived_; nor can it be _suggested_ by what we
perceive; nor _demonstrated_ by reasoning; nor _believed in_ as an article
in the fundamental faith of intuitive reason. The only consistent theory
of the universe accordingly implies that concrete realities must all be
either (a) phenomena presented to the senses, or else (b) active spirits
percipient of presented phenomena. And neither of these two sorts of
concrete realities is strictly speaking independent of the other; although
the latter, identical amid the variations of the sensuous phenomena, are
deeper and more real than the mere data of the senses. The _Second
Dialogue_ ends by substituting, as concrete and intelligible Realism, the
universal and constant dependence of the material world upon active living
Spirit, in place of the abstract hypothetical and unintelligible Realism,
which defends Matter unrealised in percipient life, as the type of
reality.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

In the _Third Dialogue_ plausible objections to this conception of what
the reality of the material world means are discussed.

Is it said that the new conception is sceptical, and Berkeley another
Protagoras, on account of it? His answer is, that the _reality_ of
sensible things, as far as man can in any way be concerned with them, does
not consist in what cannot be perceived, suggested, demonstrated, or even
conceived, but in phenomena actually seen and touched, and in the working
faith that future sense-experience may be anticipated by the analogies of
present sense-experience.

But is not this negation of the Matter that is assumed to be real and
independent of Spirit, an unproved conjecture? It is answered, that the
affirmation of this abstract matter is itself a mere conjecture, and one
self-convicted by its implied contradictions, while its negation is only a
simple falling back on the facts of experience, without any attempt to
explain them.

Again, is it objected that the _reality_ of sensible things involves their
continued reality during intervals of our perception of them? It is
answered, that sensible things are indeed permanently dependent on Mind,
but not on this, that, or the other finite embodied spirit.

Is it further alleged that the reality of Spirit or Mind is open to all
the objections against independent Matter; and that, if we deny _this_
Matter, we must in consistency allow that Spirit can be only a succession
of isolated feelings? The answer is, that there is no parity between
self-conscious Spirit, and Matter out of all relation to any Spirit. We
find, in memory, our own personality and identity; that _we_ are not our
ideas, “but somewhat else”—a thinking, active principle, that perceives,
knows, wills, and operates about ideas, and that is revealed as
continuously real. Each person is conscious of himself; and may reasonably
infer the existence of other self-conscious persons, more or less like
what he is conscious of in himself. A universe of self-conscious persons,
with their common sensuous experiences all under cosmical order, is not
open to the contradictions involved in a pretended universe of Matter,
independent of percipient realising Spirit.

Is it still said that sane people cannot help distinguishing between the
_real existence_ of a thing and its _being perceived_? It is answered,
that all they are entitled to mean is, to distinguish between being
perceived exclusively by me, and being independent of the perception of
all sentient or conscious beings.

Does an objector complain that this ideal realism dissolves the
distinction between facts and fancies? He is reminded of the meaning of
the word _idea_. That term is not limited by Berkeley to chimeras of
fancy: it is applied also to the objective phenomena of our
sense-experience.

Is the supposition that Spirit is the only real Cause of all changes in
nature declaimed against as baseless? It is answered, that the supposition
of unthinking Power at the heart of the cosmos of sensible phenomena is
absurd.

Is the negation of Abstract Matter repugnant to the common belief of
mankind? It is argued in reply, that this unrealised Matter is foreign to
common belief, which is incapable of even entertaining the conception; and
which only requires to reflect upon what it does entertain to be satisfied
with a relative or ideal reality for sensible things.

But, if sensible things are the real things, the real moon, for instance,
it is alleged, can be only a foot in diameter. It is maintained, in
opposition to this, that the term _real moon_ is applied only to what is
an inference from the moon, one foot in diameter, which we immediately
perceive; and that the former is a part of our previsive or mediate
inference, due to what is perceived.

The dispute, after all, is merely verbal, it is next objected; and, since
all parties refer the data of the senses and the _things_ which they
compose to _a_ Power external to each finite percipient, why not call that
Power, whatever it may be, Matter, and not Spirit? The reply is, that this
would be an absurd misapplication of language.

But may we not, it is next suggested, assume the possibility of a third
nature—neither idea nor Spirit? Not, replies Philonous, if we are to keep
to the rule of having meaning in the words we use. We know what is meant
by a spirit, for each of us has immediate experience of one; and we know
what is meant by sense-ideas and sensible things, for we have immediate
and mediate experience of them. But we have no immediate, and therefore
can have no mediate, experience of what is neither perceived by our
senses, nor realised in inward consciousness: moreover, “entia non sunt
multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.”

Again, this conception of the realities implies, it is said, imperfection,
because sentient experience, in God. This objection, it is answered,
implies a confusion between being actually sentient and merely conceiving
sensations, and employing them, as God does, as signs for expressing His
conceptions to our minds.

Further, the negation of independent powerful Matter seems to annihilate
the explanations of physical phenomena given by natural philosophers. But,
to be assured that it does not, we have only to recollect what physical
explanation means—that it is the reference of an apparently irregular
phenomenon to some acknowledged general rule of co-existence or succession
among sense-ideas. It is interpretation of sense-signs.

Is the proposed ideal Realism summarily condemned as a novelty? It can be
answered, that all discoveries are novelties at first; and moreover that
this one is not so much a novelty as a deeper interpretation of the common
faith.

Yet it seems, at any rate, it is said, to change real things into mere
ideas. Here consider on the contrary what we mean when we speak of
sensible things as real. The changing appearances of which we are
percipient in sense, united objectively in their cosmical order, are what
is truly meant by the realities of sense.

But this reality is inconsistent with the _continued identity_ of material
things, it is complained, and also with the fact that different persons
can be percipient of the _same_ thing. Not so, Berkeley explains, when we
attend to the true meaning of the word _same_, and dismiss from our
thoughts a supposed abstract idea of identity which is nonsensical.

But some may exclaim against the supposition that the material world
exists in mind, regarding this as an implied assertion that mind is
extended, and therefore material. This proceeds, it is replied, on
forgetfulness of what “existence in mind” means. It is intended to express
the fact that matter is real in being an objective appearance of which a
living mind is sensible.

Lastly, is not the Mosaic account of the creation of Matter inconsistent
with the perpetual dependence of Matter for its reality upon percipient
Spirit? It is answered that the conception of creation being dependent on
the existence of finite minds is in perfect harmony with the Mosaic
account: it is what is seen and felt, not what is unseen and unfelt, that
is created.

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The _Third Dialogue_ closes with a representation of the new principle
regarding Matter being the harmony of two apparently discordant
propositions—the one-sided proposition of ordinary common sense; and the
one-sided proposition of the philosophers. It agrees with the mass of
mankind in holding that the material world is actually presented to our
senses, and with the philosophers in holding that this same material world
is realised only in and through the percipient experience of living
Spirit.

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Most of the objections to Berkeley’s conception of Matter which have been
urged in the last century and a half, by its British, French, and German
critics, are discussed by anticipation in these _Dialogues_. The history
of objections is very much a history of misconceptions. Conceived or
misconceived, it has tacitly simplified and purified the methods of
physical science, especially in Britain and France.

The first elaborate criticism of Berkeley by a British author is found in
Andrew Baxter’s _Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul_, published in
1735, in the section entitled “Dean Berkeley’s Scheme against the
existence of Matter examined, and shewn to be inconclusive.” Baxter
alleges that the new doctrine tends to encourage scepticism. To deny
Matter, for the reasons given, involves, according to this critic, denial
of mind, and so a universal doubt. Accordingly, a few years later, Hume
sought, in his _Treatise of Human Nature_, to work out Berkeley’s negation
of abstract Matter into sceptical phenomenalism—against which Berkeley
sought to guard by anticipation, in a remarkable passage introduced in his
last edition of these _Dialogues_.

In Scotland the writings of Reid, Beattie, Oswald, Dugald Stewart, Thomas
Brown, and Sir W. Hamilton form a magazine of objections. Reid—who
curiously seeks to refute Berkeley by refuting, not more clearly than
Berkeley had done before him, the hypothesis of a wholly representative
sense-perception—urges the spontaneous belief or common sense of mankind,
which obliges us all to recognise a direct presentation of the external
material world to our senses. He overlooks what with Berkeley is the only
question in debate, namely, the meaning of the term _external_; for, Reid
and Berkeley are agreed in holding to the reality of a world regulated
independently of the will of finite percipients, and is sufficiently
objective to be a medium of social intercourse. With Berkeley, as with
Reid, _this_ is practically self-evident. The same objection, more
scientifically defined—that we have a natural belief in the existence of
Matter, and in our own immediate perception of its qualities—is Sir W.
Hamilton’s assumption against Berkeley; but Hamilton does not explain the
reality thus claimed for it. “Men naturally believe,” he says, “that _they
themselves_ exist—because they are conscious of a Self or Ego; they
believe that _something different from themselves_ exists—because they
believe that they are conscious of this Not-self or Non-ego.”
(_Discussions_, p. 193.) Now, the existence of a Power that is independent
of each finite Ego is at the root of Berkeley’s principles. According to
Berkeley and Hamilton alike, we are immediately percipient of solid and
extended phenomena; but with Berkeley the phenomena are dependent on, at
the same time that they are “entirely distinct” from, the percipient. The
Divine and finite spirits, signified by the phenomena that are presented
to our senses in cosmical order, form Berkeley’s external world.

That Berkeley sows the seeds of Universal Scepticism; that his conception
of Matter involves the Panegoism or Solipsism which leaves me in absolute
solitude; that his is virtually a system of Pantheism, inconsistent with
personal individuality and moral responsibility—these are probably the
three most comprehensive objections that have been alleged against it.
They are in a measure due to Berkeley’s imperfect criticism of first
principles, in his dread of a departure from the concrete data of
experience in quest of empty abstractions.

In England and France, Berkeley’s criticism of Matter, taken however only
on its negative side, received a countenance denied to it in Germany.
Hartley and Priestley shew signs of affinity with Berkeley. Also an
anonymous _Essay on the Nature and Existence of the Material World_,
dedicated to Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price, which appeared in 1781, is an
argument, on empirical grounds, which virtually makes the data of the
senses at last a chaos of isolated sensations. The author of the _Essay_
is said to have been a certain Russell, who died in the West Indies in the
end of the eighteenth century. A tendency towards Berkeley’s negations,
but apart from his synthetic principles, appears in James Mill and J.S.
Mill. So too with Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ were published in London in
1713, “printed by G. James, for Henry Clements, at the Half-Moon, in St.
Paul’s churchyard,” unlike the _Essay on Vision_ and the _Principles_,
which first appeared in Dublin. The second edition, which is simply a
reprint, issued in 1725, “printed for William and John Innys, at the West
End of St. Paul’s.” A third, the last in the author’s lifetime, “printed
by Jacob Tonson,” which contains some important additions, was published
in 1734, conjointly with a new edition of the _Principles_. The
_Dialogues_ were reprinted in 1776, in the same volume with the edition of
the _Principles, with Remarks_.

The _Dialogues_ have been translated into French and German. The French
version appeared at Amsterdam in 1750. The translator’s name is not given,
but it is attributed to the Abbé Jean Paul de Gua de Malves(780), by
Barbier, in his _Dictionnaire des Ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes_, tom.
i. p. 283. It contains a Prefatory Note by the translator, with three
curious vignettes (given in the note below) meant to symbolise the leading
thought in each Dialogue(781). A German translation, by John Christopher
Eschenbach, Professor of Philosophy in Rostock, was published at Rostock
in 1756. It forms the larger part of a volume entitled _Sammlung der
vornehmsten Schriftsteller die die Wirklichkeit ihres eignen Körpers und
der ganzen Körperwelt läugnen_. This professed Collection of the most
eminent authors who are supposed to deny the reality of their own bodies
and of the whole material world, consists of Berkeley’s _Dialogues,_ and
Arthur Collier’s _Clavis Universalis_, or _Demonstration of the
Non-existence or Impossibility of an __ External World_. The volume
contains some annotations, and an Appendix in which a
counter-demonstration of the existence of Matter is attempted.
Eschenbach’s principal argument is indirect, and of the nature of a
_reductio ad absurdum_. He argues (as others have done) that the reasons
produced against the independent reality of Matter are equally conclusive
against the independent reality of Spirit.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

An interesting circumstance connected with the _Dialogues between Hylas
and Philonous_ was the appearance, also in 1713, of the _Clavis
Universalis_, or demonstration of the impossibility of Matter, of Arthur
Collier, in which the merely ideal existence of the sensible world is
maintained. The production, simultaneously, without concert, of
conceptions of the material world which verbally at least have much in
common, is a curious coincidence. It shews that the intellectual
atmosphere of the Lockian epoch in England contained elements favourable
to a reconsideration of the ultimate meaning of Matter. They are both the
genuine produce of the age of Locke and Malebranche. Neither Berkeley nor
Collier were, when they published their books, familiar with ancient Greek
speculations; those of modern Germany had only begun to loom in the
distance. Absolute Idealism, the Panphenomenalism of Auguste Comte, and
the modern evolutionary conception of nature, have changed the conditions
under which the universal problem is studied, and are making intelligible
to this generation a manner of conceiving the Universe which, for nearly a
century and a half, the British and French critics of Berkeley were unable
to entertain.

Berkeley’s _Principles_ appeared three years before the _Clavis
Universalis_. Yet Collier tells us that it was “after a ten years’ pause
and deliberation,” that, “rather than the world should finish its course
without once offering to inquire in what manner it exists,” he had
“resolved to put himself upon the trial of the common reader, without
pretending to any better art of gaining him than dry reason and
metaphysical demonstration.” Mr. Benson, his biographer, says that it was
in 1703, at the age of twenty-three, that Collier came to the conclusion
that “there is no such thing as an external world”; and he attributes the
premises from which Collier drew this conclusion to his neighbour, John
Norris. Among Collier’s MSS., there remains the outline of an essay, in
three chapters, dated January, 1708, on the non-externality of the
_visible_ world.

There are several coincidences between Berkeley and Collier. Berkeley
virtually presented his new theory of Vision as the first instalment of
his explanation of the Reality of Matter. The first of the two Parts into
which Collier’s _Clavis_ is divided consists of proofs that the Visible
World is not, and cannot be, external. Berkeley, in the _Principles_ and
the _Dialogues_, explains the reality of Matter. In like manner the Second
Part of the _Clavis_ consists of reasonings in proof of the impossibility
of an external world independent of Spirit. Finally, in his full-blown
theory, as well as in its visual germ, Berkeley takes for granted, as
intuitively known, the existence of sensible Matter; meaning by this, its
relative existence, or dependence on living Mind. The third proposition of
Collier’s system asserts the real existence of visible matter in
particular, and of sensible matter in general.

The invisibility of distances, as well as of real magnitudes and
situations, and their suggestion by interpretation of visual symbols,
propositions which occupy so large a space in Berkeley’s Theory of Vision,
have no counterpart in Collier. His proof of the non-externality of the
visible world consists of an induction of instances of visible objects
that are allowed by all not to be external, although they seem to be as
much so as any that are called external. His Demonstration consists of
nine proofs, which may be compared with the reasonings and analyses of
Berkeley. Collier’s Demonstration concludes with answers to objections,
and an application of his account of the material world to the refutation
of the Roman doctrine of the substantial existence of Christ’s body in the
Eucharist.

The universal sense-symbolism of Berkeley, and his pervading recognition
of the distinction between physical or symbolical, and efficient or
originative causation, are wanting in the narrow reasonings of Collier.
Berkeley’s more comprehensive philosophy, with its human sympathies and
beauty of style, is now recognised as a striking expression and partial
solution of fundamental problems, while Collier is condemned to the
obscurity of the Schools(782).




Dedication


TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD BERKELEY OF STRATTON(783),


    MASTER OF THE ROLLS IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND, CHANCELLOR OF THE
    DUCHY OF LANCASTER, AND ONE OF THE LORDS OF HER MAJESTY’S MOST
    HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.


MY LORD,

The virtue, learning, and good sense which are acknowledged to distinguish
your character, would tempt me to indulge myself the pleasure men
naturally take in giving applause to those whom they esteem and honour:
and it should seem of importance to the subjects of Great Britain that
they knew the eminent share you enjoy in the favour of your sovereign, and
the honours she has conferred upon you, have not been owing to any
application from your lordship, but entirely to her majesty’s own thought,
arising from a sense of your personal merit, and an inclination to reward
it. But, as your name is prefixed to this treatise with an intention to do
honour to myself alone, I shall only say that I am encouraged by the
favour you have treated me with to address these papers to your lordship.
And I was the more ambitious of doing this, because a Philosophical
Treatise could not so properly be addressed to any one as to a person of
your lordship’s character, who, to your other valuable distinctions, have
added the knowledge and relish of Philosophy.

I am, with the greatest respect,

My Lord,

Your lordship’s most obedient and
most humble servant,

GEORGE BERKELEY.




The Preface(784)


Though it seems the general opinion of the world, no less than the design
of nature and providence, that the end of speculation be Practice, or the
improvement and regulation of our lives and actions; yet those who are
most addicted to speculative studies, seem as generally of another mind.
And indeed if we consider the pains that have been taken to perplex the
plainest things, that distrust of the senses, those doubts and scruples,
those abstractions and refinements that occur in the very entrance of the
sciences; it will not seem strange that men of leisure and curiosity
should lay themselves out in fruitless disquisitions, without descending
to the practical parts of life, or informing themselves in the more
necessary and important parts of knowledge.

Upon the common principles of philosophers, we are not assured of the
existence of things from their being perceived. And we are taught to
distinguish their _real_ nature from that which falls under our senses.
Hence arise scepticism and paradoxes. It is not enough that we see and
feel, that we taste and smell a thing: its true nature, its absolute
external entity, is still concealed. For, though it be the fiction of our
own brain, we have made it inaccessible to all our faculties. Sense is
fallacious, reason defective. We spend our lives in doubting of those
things which other men evidently know, and believing those things which
they laugh at and despise.

In order, therefore, to divert the busy mind of man from vain researches,
it seemed necessary to inquire into the source of its perplexities; and,
if possible, to lay down such Principles as, by an easy solution of them,
together with their own native evidence, may at once recommend themselves
for genuine to the mind, and rescue it from those endless pursuits it is
engaged in. Which, with a plain demonstration of the Immediate Providence
of an all-seeing God, and the natural Immortality of the soul, should seem
the readiest preparation, as well as the strongest motive, to the study
and practice of virtue.

This design I proposed in the First Part of a treatise concerning the
_Principles of Human Knowledge_, published in the year 1710. But, before I
proceed to publish the Second Part(785), I thought it requisite to treat
more clearly and fully of certain Principles laid down in the First, and
to place them in a new light. Which is the business of the following
_Dialogues_.

In this Treatise, which does not presuppose in the reader any knowledge of
what was contained in the former, it has been my aim to introduce the
notions I advance into the mind in the most easy and familiar manner;
especially because they carry with them a great opposition to the
prejudices of philosophers, which have so far prevailed against the common
sense and natural notions of mankind.

If the Principles which I here endeavour to propagate are admitted for
true, the consequences which, I think, evidently flow from thence are,
that Atheism and Scepticism will be utterly destroyed, many intricate
points made plain, great difficulties solved, several useless parts of
science retrenched, speculation referred to practice, and men reduced from
paradoxes to common sense.

And although it may, perhaps, seem an uneasy reflexion to some, that when
they have taken a circuit through so many refined and unvulgar notions,
they should at last come to think like other men; yet, methinks, this
return to the simple dictates of nature, after having wandered through the
wild mazes of philosophy, is not unpleasant. It is like coming home from a
long voyage: a man reflects with pleasure on the many difficulties and
perplexities he has passed through, sets his heart at ease, and enjoys
himself with more satisfaction for the future.

As it was my intention to convince Sceptics and Infidels by reason, so it
has been my endeavour strictly to observe the most rigid laws of
reasoning. And, to an impartial reader, I hope it will be manifest that
the sublime notion of a God, and the comfortable expectation of
Immortality, do naturally arise from a close and methodical application of
thought: whatever may be the result of that loose, rambling way, not
altogether improperly termed Free-thinking by certain libertines in
thought, who can no more endure the restraints of logic than those of
religion or government.

It will perhaps be objected to my design that, so far as it tends to ease
the mind of difficult and useless inquiries, it can affect only a few
speculative persons. But if, by their speculations rightly placed, the
study of morality and the law of nature were brought more into fashion
among men of parts and genius, the discouragements that draw to Scepticism
removed, the measures of right and wrong accurately defined, and the
principles of Natural Religion reduced into regular systems, as artfully
disposed and clearly connected as those of some other sciences; there are
grounds to think these effects would not only have a gradual influence in
repairing the too much defaced sense of virtue in the world, but also, by
shewing that such parts of revelation as lie within the reach of human
inquiry are most agreeable to right reason, would dispose all prudent,
unprejudiced persons to a modest and wary treatment of those sacred
mysteries which are above the comprehension of our faculties.

It remains that I desire the reader to withhold his censure of these
_Dialogues_ till he has read them through. Otherwise, he may lay them
aside in a mistake of their design, or on account of difficulties or
objections which he would find answered in the sequel. A Treatise of this
nature would require to be once read over coherently, in order to
comprehend its design, the proofs, solution of difficulties, and the
connexion and disposition of its parts. If it be thought to deserve a
second reading, this, I imagine, will make the entire scheme very plain.
Especially if recourse be had to an Essay I wrote some years since upon
_Vision_, and the Treatise concerning the _Principles of Human Knowledge_;
wherein divers notions advanced in these _Dialogues_ are farther pursued,
or placed in different lights, and other points handled which naturally
tend to confirm and illustrate them.




The First Dialogue


_Philonous._ Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad so
early.

_Hylas._ It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken up
with a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could not
sleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden.

_Phil._ It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeable
pleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a pleasanter time of the
day, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wild
but sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers,
the gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless
beauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its faculties
too being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those meditations,
which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of the morning naturally
dispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt your thoughts: for you seemed
very intent on something.

_Hyl._ It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you will permit
me to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any means deprive myself
of your company, for my thoughts always flow more easily in conversation
with a friend, than when I am alone: but my request is, that you would
suffer me to impart my reflexions to you.

_Phil._ With all my heart, it is what I should have requested myself if
you had not prevented me.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Hyl._ I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages,
through an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or some
unaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing at all,
or to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This however might
be borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them some
consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief lieth
here; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposed to have
spent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing an entire
ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as are repugnant to
plain and commonly received principles, they will be tempted to entertain
suspicions concerning the most important truths, which they had hitherto
held sacred and unquestionable(786).

_Phil._ I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected
doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceits of others. I am even
so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quitted several
of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And
I give it you on my word; since this revolt from metaphysical notions to
the plain dictates of nature and common sense(787), I find my
understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a
great many things which before were all mystery and riddle.

_Hyl._ I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you.

_Phil._ Pray, what were those?

_Hyl._ You were represented, in last night’s conversation, as one who
maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind of
man, to wit, that there is no such thing as _material substance_ in the
world.

_Phil._ That there is no such thing as what _philosophers_ call _material
substance_, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I were made to see anything
absurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to
renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.

_Hyl._ What! can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common
Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no
such thing as _matter_?

_Phil._ Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold
there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain
more paradoxes and repugnances to Common Sense, than I who believe no such
thing?

_Hyl._ You may as soon persuade me, the part is greater than the whole, as
that, in order to avoid absurdity and Scepticism, I should ever be obliged
to give up my opinion in this point.

_Phil._ Well then, are you content to admit that opinion for true, which
upon examination shall appear most agreeable to Common Sense, and remote
from Scepticism?

_Hyl._ With all my heart. Since you are for raising disputes about the
plainest things in nature, I am content for once to hear what you have to
say.

_Phil._ Pray, Hylas, what do you mean by a _sceptic_?

_Hyl._ I mean what all men mean—one that doubts of everything.

_Phil._ He then who entertains no doubt concerning some particular point,
with regard to that point cannot be thought a sceptic.

_Hyl._ I agree with you.

_Phil._ Whether doth doubting consist in embracing the affirmative or
negative side of a question?

_Hyl._ In neither; for whoever understands English cannot but know that
_doubting_ signifies a suspense between both.

_Phil._ He then that denies any point, can no more be said to doubt of it,
than he who affirmeth it with the same degree of assurance.

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ And, consequently, for such his denial is no more to be esteemed a
sceptic than the other.

_Hyl._ I acknowledge it.

_Phil._ How cometh it to pass then, Hylas, that you pronounce me a
_sceptic_, because I deny what you affirm, to wit, the existence of
Matter? Since, for aught you can tell, I am as peremptory in my denial, as
you in your affirmation.

_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous, I have been a little out in my definition; but
every false step a man makes in discourse is not to be insisted on. I said
indeed that a _sceptic_ was one who doubted of everything; but I should
have added, or who denies the reality and truth of things.

_Phil._ What things? Do you mean the principles and theorems of sciences?
But these you know are universal intellectual notions, and consequently
independent of Matter. The denial therefore of this doth not imply the
denying them(788).

_Hyl._ I grant it. But are there no other things? What think you of
distrusting the senses, of denying the real existence of sensible things,
or pretending to know nothing of them. Is not this sufficient to
denominate a man a _sceptic_?

_Phil._ Shall we therefore examine which of us it is that denies the
reality of sensible things, or professes the greatest ignorance of them;
since, if I take you rightly, he is to be esteemed the greatest _sceptic_?

_Hyl._ That is what I desire.

_Phil._ What mean you by Sensible Things?

_Hyl._ Those things which are perceived by the senses. Can you imagine
that I mean anything else?

_Phil._ Pardon me, Hylas, if I am desirous clearly to apprehend your
notions, since this may much shorten our inquiry. Suffer me then to ask
you this farther question. Are those things only perceived by the senses
which are perceived immediately? Or, may those things properly be said to
be _sensible_ which are perceived mediately, or not without the
intervention of others?

_Hyl._ I do not sufficiently understand you.

_Phil._ In reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters;
but mediately, or by means of these, are suggested to my mind the notions
of God, virtue, truth, &c. Now, that the letters are truly sensible
things, or perceived by sense, there is no doubt: but I would know whether
you take the things suggested by them to be so too.

_Hyl._ No, certainly: it were absurd to think _God_ or _virtue_ sensible
things; though they may be signified and suggested to the mind by sensible
marks, with which they have an arbitrary connexion.

_Phil._ It seems then, that by _sensible things_ you mean those only which
can be perceived _immediately_ by sense?

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ Doth it not follow from this, that though I see one part of the
sky red, and another blue, and that my reason doth thence evidently
conclude there must be some cause of that diversity of colours, yet that
cause cannot be said to be a sensible thing, or perceived by the sense of
seeing?

_Hyl._ It doth.

_Phil._ In like manner, though I hear variety of sounds, yet I cannot be
said to hear the causes of those sounds?

_Hyl._ You cannot.

_Phil._ And when by my touch I perceive a thing to be hot and heavy, I
cannot say, with any truth or propriety, that I feel the cause of its heat
or weight?

_Hyl._ To prevent any more questions of this kind, I tell you once for
all, that by _sensible things_ I mean those only which are perceived by
sense; and that in truth the senses perceive nothing which they do not
perceive _immediately_: for they make no inferences. The deducing
therefore of causes or occasions from effects and appearances, which alone
are perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason(789).

_Phil._ This point then is agreed between us—That _sensible things are
those only which are immediately perceived by sense_. You will farther
inform me, whether we immediately perceive by sight anything beside light,
and colours, and figures(790); or by hearing, anything but sounds; by the
palate, anything beside tastes; by the smell, beside odours; or by the
touch, more than tangible qualities.

_Hyl._ We do not.

_Phil._ It seems, therefore, that if you take away all sensible qualities,
there remains nothing sensible?

_Hyl._ I grant it.

_Phil._ Sensible things therefore are nothing else but so many sensible
qualities, or combinations of sensible qualities?

_Hyl._ Nothing else.

_Phil._ _Heat_ then is a sensible thing?

_Hyl._ Certainly.

_Phil._ Doth the _reality_ of sensible things consist in being perceived?
or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no
relation to the mind?

_Hyl._ To _exist_ is one thing, and to be _perceived_ is another.

_Phil._ I speak with regard to sensible things only. And of these I ask,
whether by their real existence you mean a subsistence exterior to the
mind, and distinct from their being perceived?

_Hyl._ I mean a real absolute being, distinct from, and without any
relation to, their being perceived.

_Phil._ Heat therefore, if it be allowed a real being, must exist without
the mind(791)?

_Hyl._ It must.

_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, is this real existence equally compatible to all
degrees of heat, which we perceive; or is there any reason why we should
attribute it to some, and deny it to others? And if there be, pray let me
know that reason.

_Hyl._ Whatever degree of heat we perceive by sense, we may be sure the
same exists in the object that occasions it.

_Phil._ What! the greatest as well as the least?

_Hyl._ I tell you, the reason is plainly the same in respect of both. They
are both perceived by sense; nay, the greater degree of heat is more
sensibly perceived; and consequently, if there is any difference, we are
more certain of its real existence than we can be of the reality of a
lesser degree.

_Phil._ But is not the most vehement and intense degree of heat a very
great pain?

_Hyl._ No one can deny it.

_Phil._ And is any unperceiving thing capable of pain or pleasure?

_Hyl._ No, certainly.

_Phil._ Is your material substance a senseless being, or a being endowed
with sense and perception?

_Hyl._ It is senseless without doubt.

_Phil._ It cannot therefore be the subject of pain?

_Hyl._ By no means.

_Phil._ Nor consequently of the greatest heat perceived by sense, since
you acknowledge this to be no small pain?

_Hyl._ I grant it.

_Phil._ What shall we say then of your external object; is it a material
Substance, or no?

_Hyl._ It is a material substance with the sensible qualities inhering in
it.

_Phil._ How then can a great heat exist in it, since you own it cannot in
a material substance? I desire you would clear this point.

_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous, I fear I was out in yielding intense heat to be a
pain. It should seem rather, that pain is something distinct from heat,
and the consequence or effect of it.

_Phil._ Upon putting your hand near the fire, do you perceive one simple
uniform sensation, or two distinct sensations?

_Hyl._ But one simple sensation.

_Phil._ Is not the heat immediately perceived?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ And the pain?

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ Seeing therefore they are both immediately perceived at the same
time, and the fire affects you only with one simple or uncompounded idea,
it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat immediately
perceived, and the pain; and, consequently, that the intense heat
immediately perceived is nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain.

_Hyl._ It seems so.

_Phil._ Again, try in your thoughts, Hylas, if you can conceive a vehement
sensation to be without pain or pleasure.

_Hyl._ I cannot.

_Phil._ Or can you frame to yourself an idea of sensible pain or pleasure
in general, abstracted from every particular idea of heat, cold, tastes,
smells? &c.

_Hyl._—I do not find that I can.

_Phil._ Doth it not therefore follow, that sensible pain is nothing
distinct from those sensations or ideas, in an intense degree?

_Hyl._ It is undeniable; and, to speak the truth, I begin to suspect a
very great heat cannot exist but in a mind perceiving it.

_Phil._ What! are you then in that sceptical state of suspense, between
affirming and denying?

_Hyl._ I think I may be positive in the point. A very violent and painful
heat cannot exist without the mind.

_Phil._ It hath not therefore, according to you, any _real_ being?

_Hyl._ I own it.

_Phil._ Is it therefore certain, that there is no body in nature really
hot?

_Hyl._ I have not denied there is any real heat in bodies. I only say,
there is no such thing as an intense real heat.

_Phil._ But, did you not say before that all degrees of heat were equally
real; or, if there was any difference, that the greater were more
undoubtedly real than the lesser?

_Hyl._ True: but it was because I did not then consider the ground there
is for distinguishing between them, which I now plainly see. And it is
this: because intense heat is nothing else but a particular kind of
painful sensation; and pain cannot exist but in a perceiving being; it
follows that no intense heat can really exist in an unperceiving corporeal
substance. But this is no reason why we should deny heat in an inferior
degree to exist in such a substance.

_Phil._ But how shall we be able to discern those degrees of heat which
exist only in the mind from those which exist without it?

_Hyl._ That is no difficult matter. You know the least pain cannot exist
unperceived; whatever, therefore, degree of heat is a pain exists only in
the mind. But, as for all other degrees of heat, nothing obliges us to
think the same of them.

_Phil._ I think you granted before that no unperceiving being was capable
of pleasure, any more than of pain.

_Hyl._ I did.

_Phil._ And is not warmth, or a more gentle degree of heat than what
causes uneasiness, a pleasure?

_Hyl._ What then?

_Phil._ Consequently, it cannot exist without the mind in an unperceiving
substance, or body.

_Hyl._ So it seems.

_Phil._ Since, therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not
painful, as those that are, can exist only in a thinking substance; may we
not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree
of heat whatsoever?

_Hyl._ On second thoughts, I do not think it so evident that warmth is a
pleasure as that a great degree of heat is a pain.

_Phil._ I do not pretend that warmth is as great a pleasure as heat is a
pain. But, if you grant it to be even a small pleasure, it serves to make
good my conclusion.

_Hyl._ I could rather call it an _indolence_! It seems to be nothing more
than a privation of both pain and pleasure. And that such a quality or
state as this may agree to an unthinking substance, I hope you will not
deny.

_Phil._ If you are resolved to maintain that warmth, or a gentle degree of
heat, is no pleasure, I know not how to convince you otherwise than by
appealing to your own sense. But what think you of cold?

_Hyl._ The same that I do of heat. An intense degree of cold is a pain;
for to feel a very great cold, is to perceive a great uneasiness: it
cannot therefore exist without the mind; but a lesser degree of cold may,
as well as a lesser degree of heat.

_Phil._ Those bodies, therefore, upon whose application to our own, we
perceive a moderate degree of heat, must be concluded to have a moderate
degree of heat or warmth in them; and those, upon whose application we
feel a like degree of cold, must be thought to have cold in them.

_Hyl._ They must.

_Phil._ Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a man into an
absurdity?

_Hyl._ Without doubt it cannot.

_Phil._ Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing should be at
the same time both cold and warm?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that
they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an
intermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to
the other(792)?

_Hyl._ It will.

_Phil._ Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to conclude it is
really both cold and warm at the same time, that is, according to your own
concession, to believe an absurdity?

_Hyl._ I confess it seems so.

_Phil._ Consequently, the principles themselves are false, since you have
granted that no true principle leads to an absurdity.

_Hyl._ But, after all, can anything be more absurd than to say, _there is
no heat in the fire_?

_Phil._ To make the point still clearer; tell me whether, in two cases
exactly alike, we ought not to make the same judgment?

_Hyl._ We ought.

_Phil._ When a pin pricks your finger, doth it not rend and divide the
fibres of your flesh?

_Hyl._ It doth.

_Phil._ And when a coal burns your finger, doth it any more?

_Hyl._ It doth not.

_Phil._ Since, therefore, you neither judge the sensation itself
occasioned by the pin, nor anything like it to be in the pin; you should
not, conformably to what you have now granted, judge the sensation
occasioned by the fire, or anything like it, to be in the fire.

_Hyl._ Well, since it must be so, I am content to yield this point, and
acknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations existing in our minds.
But there still remain qualities enough to secure the reality of external
things.

_Phil._ But what will you say, Hylas, if it shall appear that the case is
the same with regard to all other sensible qualities(793), and that they
can no more be supposed to exist without the mind, than heat and cold?

_Hyl._ Then indeed you will have done something to the purpose; but that
is what I despair of seeing proved.

_Phil._ Let us examine them in order. What think you of _tastes_—do they
exist without the mind, or no?

_Hyl._ Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is sweet, or wormwood
bitter?

_Phil._ Inform me, Hylas. Is a sweet taste a particular kind of pleasure
or pleasant sensation, or is it not?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ And is not bitterness some kind of uneasiness or pain?

_Hyl._ I grant it.

_Phil._ If therefore sugar and wormwood are unthinking corporeal
substances existing without the mind, how can sweetness and bitterness,
that is, pleasure and pain, agree to them?

_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous, I now see what it was deluded me all this time.
You asked whether heat and cold, sweetness and bitterness, were not
particular sorts of pleasure and pain; to which I answered simply, that
they were. Whereas I should have thus distinguished:—those qualities, as
perceived by us, are pleasures or pains; but not as existing in the
external objects. We must not therefore conclude absolutely, that there is
no heat in the fire, or sweetness in the sugar, but only that heat or
sweetness, as perceived by us, are not in the fire or sugar. What say you
to this?

_Phil._ I say it is nothing to the purpose. Our discourse proceeded
altogether concerning sensible things, which you defined to be, _the
things we immediately perceive by our senses_. Whatever other qualities,
therefore, you speak of, as distinct from these, I know nothing of them,
neither do they at all belong to the point in dispute. You may, indeed,
pretend to have discovered certain qualities which you do not perceive,
and assert those insensible qualities exist in fire and sugar. But what
use can be made of this to your present purpose, I am at a loss to
conceive. Tell me then once more, do you acknowledge that heat and cold,
sweetness and bitterness (meaning those qualities which are perceived by
the senses), do not exist without the mind?

_Hyl._ I see it is to no purpose to hold out, so I give up the cause as to
those mentioned qualities. Though I profess it sounds oddly, to say that
sugar is not sweet.

_Phil._ But, for your farther satisfaction, take this along with you: that
which at other times seems sweet, shall, to a distempered palate, appear
bitter. And, nothing can be plainer than that divers persons perceive
different tastes in the same food; since that which one man delights in,
another abhors. And how could this be, if the taste was something really
inherent in the food?

_Hyl._ I acknowledge I know not how.

_Phil._ In the next place, _odours_ are to be considered. And, with regard
to these, I would fain know whether what hath been said of tastes doth not
exactly agree to them? Are they not so many pleasing or displeasing
sensations?

_Hyl._ They are.

_Phil._ Can you then conceive it possible that they should exist in an
unperceiving thing?

_Hyl._ I cannot.

_Phil._ Or, can you imagine that filth and ordure affect those brute
animals that feed on them out of choice, with the same smells which we
perceive in them?

_Hyl._ By no means.

_Phil._ May we not therefore conclude of smells, as of the other
forementioned qualities, that they cannot exist in any but a perceiving
substance or mind?

_Hyl._ I think so.

_Phil._ Then as to _sounds_, what must we think of them: are they
accidents really inherent in external bodies, or not?

_Hyl._ That they inhere not in the sonorous bodies is plain from hence:
because a bell struck in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump sends forth
no sound. The air, therefore, must be thought the subject of sound.

_Phil._ What reason is there for that, Hylas?

_Hyl._ Because, when any motion is raised in the air, we perceive a sound
greater or lesser, according to the air’s motion; but without some motion
in the air, we never hear any sound at all.

_Phil._ And granting that we never hear a sound but when some motion is
produced in the air, yet I do not see how you can infer from thence, that
the sound itself is in the air.

_Hyl._ It is this very motion in the external air that produces in the
mind the sensation of _sound_. For, striking on the drum of the ear, it
causeth a vibration, which by the auditory nerves being communicated to
the brain, the soul is thereupon affected with the sensation called
_sound_.

_Phil._ What! is sound then a sensation?

_Hyl._ I tell you, as perceived by us, it is a particular sensation in the
mind.

_Phil._ And can any sensation exist without the mind?

_Hyl._ No, certainly.

_Phil._ How then can sound, being a sensation, exist in the air, if by the
_air_ you mean a senseless substance existing without the mind?

_Hyl._ You must distinguish, Philonous, between sound as it is perceived
by us, and as it is in itself; or (which is the same thing) between the
sound we immediately perceive, and that which exists without us. The
former, indeed, is a particular kind of sensation, but the latter is
merely a vibrative or undulatory motion in the air.

_Phil._ I thought I had already obviated that distinction, by the answer I
gave when you were applying it in a like case before. But, to say no more
of that, are you sure then that sound is really nothing but motion?

_Hyl._ I am.

_Phil._ Whatever therefore agrees to real sound, may with truth be
attributed to motion?

_Hyl._ It may.

_Phil._ It is then good sense to speak of _motion_ as of a thing that is
_loud, sweet, acute, or grave_.

_Hyl._ I see you are resolved not to understand me. Is it not evident
those accidents or modes belong only to sensible sound, or _sound_ in the
common acceptation of the word, but not to _sound_ in the real and
philosophic sense; which, as I just now told you, is nothing but a certain
motion of the air?

_Phil._ It seems then there are two sorts of sound—the one vulgar, or that
which is heard, the other philosophical and real?

_Hyl._ Even so.

_Phil._ And the latter consists in motion?

_Hyl._ I told you so before.

_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, to which of the senses, think you, the idea of
motion belongs? to the hearing?

_Hyl._ No, certainly; but to the sight and touch.

_Phil._ It should follow then, that, according to you, real sounds may
possibly be _seen_ or _felt_, but never _heard_.

_Hyl._ Look you, Philonous, you may, if you please, make a jest of my
opinion, but that will not alter the truth of things. I own, indeed, the
inferences you draw me into sound something oddly; but common language,
you know, is framed by, and for the use of the vulgar: we must not
therefore wonder if expressions adapted to exact philosophic notions seem
uncouth and out of the way.

_Phil._ Is it come to that? I assure you, I imagine myself to have gained
no small point, since you make so light of departing from common phrases
and opinions; it being a main part of our inquiry, to examine whose
notions are widest of the common road, and most repugnant to the general
sense of the world. But, can you think it no more than a philosophical
paradox, to say that _real sounds are never heard_, and that the idea of
them is obtained by some other sense? And is there nothing in this
contrary to nature and the truth of things?

_Hyl._ To deal ingenuously, I do not like it. And, after the concessions
already made, I had as well grant that sounds too have no real being
without the mind.

_Phil._ And I hope you will make no difficulty to acknowledge the same of
_colours_.

_Hyl._ Pardon me: the case of colours is very different. Can anything be
plainer than that we see them on the objects?

_Phil._ The objects you speak of are, I suppose, corporeal Substances
existing without the mind?

_Hyl._ They are.

_Phil._ And have true and real colours inhering in them?

_Hyl._ Each visible object hath that colour which we see in it.

_Phil._ How! is there anything visible but what we perceive by sight?

_Hyl._ There is not.

_Phil._ And, do we perceive anything by sense which we do not perceive
immediately?

_Hyl._ How often must I be obliged to repeat the same thing? I tell you,
we do not.

_Phil._ Have patience, good Hylas; and tell me once more, whether there is
anything immediately perceived by the senses, except sensible qualities. I
know you asserted there was not; but I would now be informed, whether you
still persist in the same opinion.

_Hyl._ I do.

_Phil._ Pray, is your corporeal substance either a sensible quality, or
made up of sensible qualities?

_Hyl._ What a question that is! who ever thought it was?

_Phil._ My reason for asking was, because in saying, _each visible object
hath that colour which we see in it_, you make visible objects to be
corporeal substances; which implies either that corporeal substances are
sensible qualities, or else that there is something beside sensible
qualities perceived by sight: but, as this point was formerly agreed
between us, and is still maintained by you, it is a clear consequence,
that your _corporeal substance_ is nothing distinct from _sensible
qualities_(794).

_Hyl._ You may draw as many absurd consequences as you please, and
endeavour to perplex the plainest things; but you shall never persuade me
out of my senses. I clearly understand my own meaning.

_Phil._ I wish you would make me understand it too. But, since you are
unwilling to have your notion of corporeal substance examined, I shall
urge that point no farther. Only be pleased to let me know, whether the
same colours which we see exist in external bodies, or some other.

_Hyl._ The very same.

_Phil._ What! are then the beautiful red and purple we see on yonder
clouds really in them? Or do you imagine they have in themselves any other
form than that of a dark mist or vapour?

_Hyl._ I must own, Philonous, those colours are not really in the clouds
as they seem to be at this distance. They are only apparent colours.

_Phil._ _Apparent_ call you them? how shall we distinguish these apparent
colours from real?

_Hyl._ Very easily. Those are to be thought apparent which, appearing only
at a distance, vanish upon a nearer approach.

_Phil._ And those, I suppose, are to be thought real which are discovered
by the most near and exact survey.

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ Is the nearest and exactest survey made by the help of a
microscope, or by the naked eye?

_Hyl._ By a microscope, doubtless.

_Phil._ But a microscope often discovers colours in an object different
from those perceived by the unassisted sight. And, in case we had
microscopes magnifying to any assigned degree, it is certain that no
object whatsoever, viewed through them, would appear in the same colour
which it exhibits to the naked eye.

_Hyl._ And what will you conclude from all this? You cannot argue that
there are really and naturally no colours on objects: because by
artificial managements they may be altered, or made to vanish.

_Phil._ I think it may evidently be concluded from your own concessions,
that all the colours we see with our naked eyes are only apparent as those
on the clouds, since they vanish upon a more close and accurate inspection
which is afforded us by a microscope. Then, as to what you say by way of
prevention: I ask you whether the real and natural state of an object is
better discovered by a very sharp and piercing sight, or by one which is
less sharp?

_Hyl._ By the former without doubt.

_Phil._ Is it not plain from _Dioptrics_ that microscopes make the sight
more penetrating, and represent objects as they would appear to the eye in
case it were naturally endowed with a most exquisite sharpness?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ Consequently the microscopical representation is to be thought
that which best sets forth the real nature of the thing, or what it is in
itself. The colours, therefore, by it perceived are more genuine and real
than those perceived otherwise.

_Hyl._ I confess there is something in what you say.

_Phil._ Besides, it is not only possible but manifest, that there actually
are animals whose eyes are by nature framed to perceive those things which
by reason of their minuteness escape our sight. What think you of those
inconceivably small animals perceived by glasses? Must we suppose they are
all stark blind? Or, in case they see, can it be imagined their sight hath
not the same use in preserving their bodies from injuries, which appears
in that of all other animals? And if it hath, is it not evident they must
see particles less than their own bodies; which will present them with a
far different view in each object from that which strikes our senses(795)?
Even our own eyes do not always represent objects to us after the same
manner. In the jaundice every one knows that all things seem yellow. Is it
not therefore highly probable those animals in whose eyes we discern a
very different texture from that of ours, and whose bodies abound with
different humours, do not see the same colours in every object that we do?
From all which, should it not seem to follow that all colours are equally
apparent, and that none of those which we perceive are really inherent in
any outward object?

_Hyl._ It should.

_Phil._ The point will be past all doubt, if you consider that, in case
colours were real properties or affections inherent in external bodies,
they could admit of no alteration without some change wrought in the very
bodies themselves: but, is it not evident from what hath been said that,
upon the use of microscopes, upon a change happening in the humours of the
eye, or a variation of distance, without any manner of real alteration in
the thing itself, the colours of any object are either changed, or totally
disappear? Nay, all other circumstances remaining the same, change but the
situation of some objects, and they shall present different colours to the
eye. The same thing happens upon viewing an object in various degrees of
light. And what is more known than that the same bodies appear differently
coloured by candle-light from what they do in the open day? Add to these
the experiment of a prism which, separating the heterogeneous rays of
light, alters the colour of any object, and will cause the whitest to
appear of a deep blue or red to the naked eye. And now tell me whether you
are still of opinion that every body hath its true real colour inhering in
it; and, if you think it hath, I would fain know farther from you, what
certain distance and position of the object, what peculiar texture and
formation of the eye, what degree or kind of light is necessary for
ascertaining that true colour, and distinguishing it from apparent ones.

_Hyl._ I own myself entirely satisfied, that they are all equally
apparent, and that there is no such thing as colour really inhering in
external bodies, but that it is altogether in the light. And what confirms
me in this opinion is, that in proportion to the light colours are still
more or less vivid; and if there be no light, then are there no colours
perceived. Besides, allowing there are colours on external objects, yet,
how is it possible for us to perceive them? For no external body affects
the mind, unless it acts first on our organs of sense. But the only action
of bodies is motion; and motion cannot be communicated otherwise than by
impulse. A distant object therefore cannot act on the eye; nor
consequently make itself or its properties perceivable to the soul. Whence
it plainly follows that it is immediately some contiguous substance,
which, operating on the eye, occasions a perception of colours: and such
is light.

_Phil._ How! is light then a substance?

_Hyl._ I tell you, Philonous, external light is nothing but a thin fluid
substance, whose minute particles being agitated with a brisk motion, and
in various manners reflected from the different surfaces of outward
objects to the eyes, communicate different motions to the optic nerves;
which, being propagated to the brain, cause therein various impressions;
and these are attended with the sensations of red, blue, yellow, &c.

_Phil._ It seems then the light doth no more than shake the optic nerves.

_Hyl._ Nothing else.

_Phil._ And consequent to each particular motion of the nerves, the mind
is affected with a sensation, which is some particular colour.

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ And these sensations have no existence without the mind.

_Hyl._ They have not.

_Phil._ How then do you affirm that colours are in the light; since by
_light_ you understand a corporeal substance external to the mind?

_Hyl._ Light and colours, as immediately perceived by us, I grant cannot
exist without the mind. But in themselves they are only the motions and
configurations of certain insensible particles of matter.

_Phil._ Colours then, in the vulgar sense, or taken for the immediate
objects of sight, cannot agree to any but a perceiving substance.

_Hyl._ That is what I say.

_Phil._ Well then, since you give up the point as to those sensible
qualities which are alone thought colours by all mankind beside, you may
hold what you please with regard to those invisible ones of the
philosophers. It is not my business to dispute about _them_; only I would
advise you to bethink yourself, whether, considering the inquiry we are
upon, it be prudent for you to affirm—_the red and blue which we see are
not real colours, but certain unknown motions and figures which no man
ever did or can see are truly so_. Are not these shocking notions, and are
not they subject to as many ridiculous inferences, as those you were
obliged to renounce before in the case of sounds?

_Hyl._ I frankly own, Philonous, that it is in vain to stand out any
longer. Colours, sounds, tastes, in a word all those termed _secondary
qualities_, have certainly no existence without the mind. But by this
acknowledgment I must not be supposed to derogate anything from the
reality of Matter, or external objects; seeing it is no more than several
philosophers maintain(796), who nevertheless are the farthest imaginable
from denying Matter. For the clearer understanding of this, you must know
sensible qualities are by philosophers divided into _Primary_ and
_Secondary_(797). The former are Extension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity,
Motion, and Rest; and these they hold exist really in Bodies. The latter
are those above enumerated; or, briefly, _all sensible qualities beside
the Primary_; which they assert are only so many sensations or ideas
existing nowhere but in the mind. But all this, I doubt not, you are
apprised of. For my part, I have been a long time sensible there was such
an opinion current among philosophers, but was never thoroughly convinced
of its truth until now.

_Phil._ You are still then of opinion that _extension_ and _figures_ are
inherent in external unthinking substances?

_Hyl._ I am.

_Phil._ But what if the same arguments which are brought against Secondary
Qualities will hold good against these also?

_Hyl._ Why then I shall be obliged to think, they too exist only in the
mind.

_Phil._ Is it your opinion the very figure and extension which you
perceive by sense exist in the outward object or material substance?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ Have all other animals as good grounds to think the same of the
figure and extension which they see and feel?

_Hyl._ Without doubt, if they have any thought at all.

_Phil._ Answer me, Hylas. Think you the senses were bestowed upon all
animals for their preservation and well-being in life? or were they given
to men alone for this end?

_Hyl._ I make no question but they have the same use in all other animals.

_Phil._ If so, is it not necessary they should be enabled by them to
perceive their own limbs, and those bodies which are capable of harming
them?

_Hyl._ Certainly.

_Phil._ A mite therefore must be supposed to see his own foot, and things
equal or even less than it, as bodies of some considerable dimension;
though at the same time they appear to you scarce discernible, or at best
as so many visible points(798)?

_Hyl._ I cannot deny it.

_Phil._ And to creatures less than the mite they will seem yet larger?

_Hyl._ They will.

_Phil._ Insomuch that what you can hardly discern will to another
extremely minute animal appear as some huge mountain?

_Hyl._ All this I grant.

_Phil._ Can one and the same thing be at the same time in itself of
different dimensions?

_Hyl._ That were absurd to imagine.

_Phil._ But, from what you have laid down it follows that both the
extension by you perceived, and that perceived by the mite itself, as
likewise all those perceived by lesser animals, are each of them the true
extension of the mite’s foot; that is to say, by your own principles you
are led into an absurdity.

_Hyl._ There seems to be some difficulty in the point.

_Phil._ Again, have you not acknowledged that no real inherent property of
any object can be changed without some change in the thing itself?

_Hyl._ I have.

_Phil._ But, as we approach to or recede from an object, the visible
extension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred times greater
than at another. Doth it not therefore follow from hence likewise that it
is not really inherent in the object?

_Hyl._ I own I am at a loss what to think.

_Phil._ Your judgment will soon be determined, if you will venture to
think as freely concerning this quality as you have done concerning the
rest. Was it not admitted as a good argument, that neither heat nor cold
was in the water, because it seemed warm to one hand and cold to the
other?

_Hyl._ It was.

_Phil._ Is it not the very same reasoning to conclude, there is no
extension or figure in an object, because to one eye it shall seem little,
smooth, and round, when at the same time it appears to the other, great,
uneven, and angular?

_Hyl._ The very same. But does this latter fact ever happen?

_Phil._ You may at any time make the experiment, by looking with one eye
bare, and with the other through a microscope.

_Hyl._ I know not how to maintain it; and yet I am loath to give up
_extension_, I see so many odd consequences following upon such a
concession.

_Phil._ Odd, say you? After the concessions already made, I hope you will
stick at nothing for its oddness. [(799) But, on the other hand, should it
not seem very odd, if the general reasoning which includes all other
sensible qualities did not also include extension? If it be allowed that
no idea, nor anything like an idea, can exist in an unperceiving
substance, then surely it follows that no figure, or mode of extension,
which we can either perceive, or imagine, or have any idea of, can be
really inherent in Matter; not to mention the peculiar difficulty there
must be in conceiving a material substance, prior to and distinct from
extension, to be the _substratum_ of extension. Be the sensible quality
what it will—figure, or sound, or colour, it seems alike impossible it
should subsist in that which doth not perceive it.]

_Hyl._ I give up the point for the present, reserving still a right to
retract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in
my progress to it.

_Phil._ That is a right you cannot be denied. Figures and extension being
despatched, we proceed next to _motion_. Can a real motion in any external
body be at the same time both very swift and very slow?

_Hyl._ It cannot.

_Phil._ Is not the motion of a body swift in a reciprocal proportion to
the time it takes up in describing any given space? Thus a body that
describes a mile in an hour moves three times faster than it would in case
it described only a mile in three hours.

_Hyl._ I agree with you.

_Phil._ And is not time measured by the succession of ideas in our minds?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ And is it not possible ideas should succeed one another twice as
fast in your mind as they do in mine, or in that of some spirit of another
kind?

_Hyl._ I own it.

_Phil._ Consequently the same body may to another seem to perform its
motion over any space in half the time that it doth to you. And the same
reasoning will hold as to any other proportion: that is to say, according
to your principles (since the motions perceived are both really in the
object) it is possible one and the same body shall be really moved the
same way at once, both very swift and very slow. How is this consistent
either with common sense, or with what you just now granted?

_Hyl._ I have nothing to say to it.

_Phil._ Then as for _solidity_; either you do not mean any sensible
quality by that word, and so it is beside our inquiry: or if you do, it
must be either hardness or resistance. But both the one and the other are
plainly relative to our senses: it being evident that what seems hard to
one animal may appear soft to another, who hath greater force and firmness
of limbs. Nor is it less plain that the resistance I feel is not in the
body.

_Hyl._ I own the very _sensation_ of resistance, which is all you
immediately perceive, is not in the body; but the _cause_ of that
sensation is.

_Phil._ But the causes of our sensations are not things immediately
perceived, and therefore are not sensible. This point I thought had been
already determined.

_Hyl._ I own it was; but you will pardon me if I seem a little
embarrassed: I know not how to quit my old notions.

_Phil._ To help you out, do but consider that if _extension_ be once
acknowledged to have no existence without the mind, the same must
necessarily be granted of motion, solidity, and gravity; since they all
evidently suppose extension. It is therefore superfluous to inquire
particularly concerning each of them. In denying extension, you have
denied them all to have any real existence(800).

_Hyl._ I wonder, Philonous, if what you say be true, why those
philosophers who deny the Secondary Qualities any real existence should
yet attribute it to the Primary. If there is no difference between them,
how can this be accounted for?

_Phil._ It is not my business to account for every opinion of the
philosophers. But, among other reasons which may be assigned for this, it
seems probable that pleasure and pain being rather annexed to the former
than the latter may be one. Heat and cold, tastes and smells, have
something more vividly pleasing or disagreeable than the ideas of
extension, figure, and motion affect us with. And, it being too visibly
absurd to hold that pain or pleasure can be in an unperceiving Substance,
men are more easily weaned from believing the external existence of the
Secondary than the Primary Qualities. You will be satisfied there is
something in this, if you recollect the difference you made between an
intense and more moderate degree of heat; allowing the one a real
existence, while you denied it to the other. But, after all, there is no
rational ground for that distinction; for, surely an indifferent sensation
is as truly _a sensation_ as one more pleasing or painful; and
consequently should not any more than they be supposed to exist in an
unthinking subject.

_Hyl._ It is just come into my head, Philonous, that I have somewhere
heard of a distinction between absolute and sensible extension(801). Now,
though it be acknowledged that _great_ and _small_, consisting merely in
the relation which other extended beings have to the parts of our own
bodies, do not really inhere in the substances themselves; yet nothing
obliges us to hold the same with regard to _absolute extension_, which is
something abstracted from _great_ and _small_, from this or that
particular magnitude or figure. So likewise as to motion; _swift_ and
_slow_ are altogether relative to the succession of ideas in our own
minds. But, it doth not follow, because those modifications of motion
exist not without the mind, that therefore absolute motion abstracted from
them doth not.

_Phil._ Pray what is it that distinguishes one motion, or one part of
extension, from another? Is it not something sensible, as some degree of
swiftness or slowness, some certain magnitude or figure peculiar to each?

_Hyl._ I think so.

_Phil._ These qualities, therefore, stripped of all sensible properties,
are without all specific and numerical differences, as the schools call
them.

_Hyl._ They are.

_Phil._ That is to say, they are extension in general, and motion in
general.

_Hyl._ Let it be so.

_Phil._ But it is a universally received maxim that _Everything which
exists is particular_(802). How then can motion in general, or extension
in general, exist in any corporeal substance?

_Hyl._ I will take time to solve your difficulty.

_Phil._ But I think the point may be speedily decided. Without doubt you
can tell whether you are able to frame this or that idea. Now I am content
to put our dispute on this issue. If you can frame in your thoughts a
distinct _abstract idea_ of motion or extension, divested of all those
sensible modes, as swift and slow, great and small, round and square, and
the like, which are acknowledged to exist only in the mind, I will then
yield the point you contend for. But if you cannot, it will be
unreasonable on your side to insist any longer upon what you have no
notion(803) of.

_Hyl._ To confess ingenuously, I cannot.

_Phil._ Can you even separate the ideas of extension and motion from the
ideas of all those qualities which they who make the distinction term
_secondary_?

_Hyl._ What! is it not an easy matter to consider extension and motion by
themselves, abstracted from all other sensible qualities? Pray how do the
mathematicians treat of them?

_Phil._ I acknowledge, Hylas, it is not difficult to form general
propositions and reasonings about those qualities, without mentioning any
other; and, in this sense, to consider or treat of them abstractedly(804).
But, how doth it follow that, because I can pronounce the word _motion_ by
itself, I can form the idea of it in my mind exclusive of body? or,
because theorems may be made of extension and figures, without any mention
of _great_ or _small_, or any other sensible mode or quality, that
therefore it is possible such an abstract idea of extension, without any
particular size or figure, or sensible quality(805), should be distinctly
formed, and apprehended by the mind? Mathematicians treat of quantity,
without regarding what other sensible qualities it is attended with, as
being altogether indifferent to their demonstrations. But, when laying
aside the words, they contemplate the bare ideas, I believe you will find,
they are not the pure abstracted ideas of extension.

_Hyl._ But what say you to _pure intellect_? May not abstracted ideas be
framed by that faculty?

_Phil._ Since I cannot frame abstract ideas at all, it is plain I cannot
frame them by the help of _pure intellect_; whatsoever faculty you
understand by those words(806). Besides, not to inquire into the nature of
pure intellect and its spiritual objects, as _virtue_, _reason_, _God_, or
the like, thus much seems manifest—that sensible things are only to be
perceived by sense, or represented by the imagination. Figures, therefore,
and extension, being originally perceived by sense, do not belong to pure
intellect: but, for your farther satisfaction, try if you can frame the
idea of any figure, abstracted from all particularities of size, or even
from other sensible qualities.

_Hyl._Let me think a little——I do not find that I can.

_Phil._ And can you think it possible that should really exist in nature
which implies a repugnancy in its conception?

_Hyl._ By no means.

_Phil._ Since therefore it is impossible even for the mind to disunite the
ideas of extension and motion from all other sensible qualities, doth it
not follow, that where the one exist there necessarily the other exist
likewise?

_Hyl._ It should seem so.

_Phil._ Consequently, the very same arguments which you admitted as
conclusive against the Secondary Qualities are, without any farther
application of force, against the Primary too. Besides, if you will trust
your senses, is it not plain all sensible qualities coexist, or to them
appear as being in the same place? Do they ever represent a motion, or
figure, as being divested of all other visible and tangible qualities?

_Hyl._ You need say no more on this head. I am free to own, if there be no
secret error or oversight in our proceedings hitherto, that _all_ sensible
qualities are alike to be denied existence without the mind(807). But, my
fear is that I have been too liberal in my former concessions, or
overlooked some fallacy or other. In short, I did not take time to think.

_Phil._ For that matter, Hylas, you may take what time you please in
reviewing the progress of our inquiry. You are at liberty to recover any
slips you might have made, or offer whatever you have omitted which makes
for your first opinion.

_Hyl._ One great oversight I take to be this—that I did not sufficiently
distinguish the _object_ from the _sensation_(808). Now, though this
latter may not exist without the mind, yet it will not thence follow that
the former cannot.

_Phil._ What object do you mean? the object of the senses?

_Hyl._ The same.

_Phil._ It is then immediately perceived?

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ Make me to understand the difference between what is immediately
perceived and a sensation.

_Hyl._ The sensation I take to be an act of the mind perceiving; besides
which, there is something perceived; and this I call the _object_. For
example, there is red and yellow on that tulip. But then the act of
perceiving those colours is in me only, and not in the tulip.

_Phil._ What tulip do you speak of? Is it that which you see?

_Hyl._ The same.

_Phil._ And what do you see beside colour, figure, and extension(809)?

_Hyl._ Nothing.

_Phil._ What you would say then is that the red and yellow are coexistent
with the extension; is it not?

_Hyl._ That is not all; I would say they have a real existence without the
mind, in some unthinking substance.

_Phil._ That the colours are really in the tulip which I see is manifest.
Neither can it be denied that this tulip may exist independent of your
mind or mine; but, that any immediate object of the senses—that is, any
idea, or combination of ideas—should exist in an unthinking substance, or
exterior to _all_ minds, is in itself an evident contradiction. Nor can I
imagine how this follows from what you said just now, to wit, that the red
and yellow were on the tulip _you saw_, since you do not pretend to _see_
that unthinking substance.

_Hyl._ You have an artful way, Philonous, of diverting our inquiry from
the subject.

_Phil._ I see you have no mind to be pressed that way. To return then to
your distinction between _sensation_ and _object_; if I take you right,
you distinguish in every perception two things, the one an action of the
mind, the other not.

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ And this action cannot exist in, or belong to, any unthinking
thing(810); but, whatever beside is implied in a perception may?

_Hyl._ That is my meaning.

_Phil._ So that if there was a perception without any act of the mind, it
were possible such a perception should exist in an unthinking substance?

_Hyl._ I grant it. But it is impossible there should be such a perception.

_Phil._ When is the mind said to be active?

_Hyl._ When it produces, puts an end to, or changes, anything.

_Phil._ Can the mind produce, discontinue, or change anything, but by an
act of the will?

_Hyl._ It cannot.

_Phil._ The mind therefore is to be accounted _active_ in its perceptions
so far forth as _volition_ is included in them?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ In plucking this flower I am active; because I do it by the motion
of my hand, which was consequent upon my volition; so likewise in applying
it to my nose. But is either of these smelling?

_Hyl._ No.

_Phil._ I act too in drawing the air through my nose; because my breathing
so rather than otherwise is the effect of my volition. But neither can
this be called _smelling_: for, if it were, I should smell every time I
breathed in that manner?

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ Smelling then is somewhat consequent to all this?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ But I do not find my will concerned any farther. Whatever more
there is—as that I perceive such a particular smell, or any smell at
all—this is independent of my will, and therein I am altogether passive.
Do you find it otherwise with you, Hylas?

_Hyl._ No, the very same.

_Phil._ Then, as to seeing, is it not in your power to open your eyes, or
keep them shut; to turn them this or that way?

_Hyl._ Without doubt.

_Phil._ But, doth it in like manner depend on _your_ will that in looking
on this flower you perceive _white_ rather than any other colour? Or,
directing your open eyes towards yonder part of the heaven, can you avoid
seeing the sun? Or is light or darkness the effect of your volition?

_Hyl._ No, certainly.

_Phil._ You are then in these respects altogether passive?

_Hyl._ I am.

_Phil._ Tell me now, whether _seeing_ consists in perceiving light and
colours, or in opening and turning the eyes?

_Hyl._ Without doubt, in the former.

_Phil._ Since therefore you are in the very perception of light and
colours altogether passive, what is become of that action you were
speaking of as an ingredient in every sensation? And, doth it not follow
from your own concessions, that the perception of light and colours,
including no action in it, may exist in an unperceiving substance? And is
not this a plain contradiction?

_Hyl._ I know not what to think of it.

_Phil._ Besides, since you distinguish the _active_ and _passive_ in every
perception, you must do it in that of pain. But how is it possible that
pain, be it as little active as you please, should exist in an
unperceiving substance? In short, do but consider the point, and then
confess ingenuously, whether light and colours, tastes, sounds, &c. are
not all equally passions or sensations in the soul. You may indeed call
them _external objects_, and give them in words what subsistence you
please. But, examine your own thoughts, and then tell me whether it be not
as I say?

_Hyl._ I acknowledge, Philonous, that, upon a fair observation of what
passes in my mind, I can discover nothing else but that I am a thinking
being, affected with variety of sensations; neither is it possible to
conceive how a sensation should exist in an unperceiving substance.—But
then, on the other hand, when I look on sensible things in a different
view, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it necessary
to suppose a _material substratum_, without which they cannot be conceived
to exist(811).

_Phil._ _Material substratum_ call you it? Pray, by which of your senses
came you acquainted with that being?

_Hyl._ It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only being
perceived by the senses.

_Phil._ I presume then it was by reflexion and reason you obtained the
idea of it?

_Hyl._ I do not pretend to any proper positive _idea_ of it. However, I
conclude it exists, because qualities cannot be conceived to exist without
a support.

_Phil._ It seems then you have only a relative _notion_ of it, or that you
conceive it not otherwise than by conceiving the relation it bears to
sensible qualities?

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ Be pleased therefore to let me know wherein that relation
consists.

_Hyl._ Is it not sufficiently expressed in the term _substratum_, or
_substance_?

_Phil._ If so, the word _substratum_ should import that it is spread under
the sensible qualities or accidents?

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ And consequently under extension?

_Hyl._ I own it.

_Phil._ It is therefore somewhat in its own nature entirely distinct from
extension?

_Hyl._ I tell you, extension is only a mode, and Matter is something that
supports modes. And is it not evident the thing supported is different
from the thing supporting?

_Phil._ So that something distinct from, and exclusive of, extension is
supposed to be the _substratum_ of extension?

_Hyl._ Just so.

_Phil._ Answer me, Hylas. Can a thing be spread without extension? or is
not the idea of extension necessarily included in _spreading_?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ Whatsoever therefore you suppose spread under anything must have
in itself an extension distinct from the extension of that thing under
which it is spread?

_Hyl._ It must.

_Phil._ Consequently, every corporeal substance, being the _substratum_ of
extension, must have in itself another extension, by which it is qualified
to be a _substratum_: and so on to infinity? And I ask whether this be not
absurd in itself, and repugnant to what you granted just now, to wit, that
the _substratum_ was something distinct from and exclusive of extension?

_Hyl._ Aye but, Philonous, you take me wrong. I do not mean that Matter is
_spread_ in a gross literal sense under extension. The word _substratum_
is used only to express in general the same thing with _substance_.

_Phil._ Well then, let us examine the relation implied in the term
_substance_. Is it not that it stands under accidents?

_Hyl._ The very same.

_Phil._ But, that one thing may stand under or support another, must it
not be extended?

_Hyl._ It must.

_Phil._ Is not therefore this supposition liable to the same absurdity
with the former?

_Hyl._ You still take things in a strict literal sense. That is not fair,
Philonous.

_Phil._ I am not for imposing any sense on your words: you are at liberty
to explain them as you please. Only, I beseech you, make me understand
something by them. You tell me Matter supports or stands under accidents.
How! is it as your legs support your body?

_Hyl._ No; that is the literal sense.

_Phil._ Pray let me know any sense, literal or not literal, that you
understand it in.—How long must I wait for an answer, Hylas?

_Hyl._ I declare I know not what to say. I once thought I understood well
enough what was meant by Matter’s supporting accidents. But now, the more
I think on it the less can I comprehend it: in short I find that I know
nothing of it.

_Phil._ It seems then you have no idea at all, neither relative nor
positive, of Matter; you know neither what it is in itself, nor what
relation it bears to accidents?

_Hyl._ I acknowledge it.

_Phil._ And yet you asserted that you could not conceive how qualities or
accidents should really exist, without conceiving at the same time a
material support of them?

_Hyl._ I did.

_Phil._ That is to say, when you conceive the _real_ existence of
qualities, you do withal conceive Something which you cannot conceive?

_Hyl._ It was wrong, I own. But still I fear there is some fallacy or
other. Pray what think you of this? It is just come into my head that the
ground of all our mistake lies in your treating of each quality by itself.
Now, I grant that each quality cannot singly subsist without the mind.
Colour cannot without extension, neither can figure without some other
sensible quality. But, as the several qualities united or blended together
form entire sensible things, nothing hinders why such things may not be
supposed to exist without the mind.

_Phil._ Either, Hylas, you are jesting, or have a very bad memory. Though
indeed we went through all the qualities by name one after another, yet my
arguments, or rather your concessions, nowhere tended to prove that the
Secondary Qualities did not subsist each alone by itself; but, that they
were not _at all_ without the mind. Indeed, in treating of figure and
motion we concluded they could not exist without the mind, because it was
impossible even in thought to separate them from all secondary qualities,
so as to conceive them existing by themselves. But then this was not the
only argument made use of upon that occasion. But (to pass by all that
hath been hitherto said, and reckon it for nothing, if you will have it
so) I am content to put the whole upon this issue. If you can conceive it
possible for any mixture or combination of qualities, or any sensible
object whatever, to exist without the mind, then I will grant it actually
to be so.

_Hyl._ If it comes to that the point will soon be decided. What more easy
than to conceive a tree or house existing by itself, independent of, and
unperceived by, any mind whatsoever? I do at this present time conceive
them existing after that manner.

_Phil._ How say you, Hylas, can you see a thing which is at the same time
unseen?

_Hyl._ No, that were a contradiction.

_Phil._ Is it not as great a contradiction to talk of _conceiving_ a thing
which is _unconceived_?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ The tree or house therefore which you think of is conceived by
you?

_Hyl._ How should it be otherwise?

_Phil._ And what is conceived is surely in the mind?

_Hyl._ Without question, that which is conceived is in the mind.

_Phil._ How then came you to say, you conceived a house or tree existing
independent and out of all minds whatsoever?

_Hyl._ That was I own an oversight; but stay, let me consider what led me
into it.—It is a pleasant mistake enough. As I was thinking of a tree in a
solitary place, where no one was present to see it, methought that was to
conceive a tree as existing unperceived or unthought of; not considering
that I myself conceived it all the while. But now I plainly see that all I
can do is to frame ideas in my own mind. I may indeed conceive in my own
thoughts the idea of a tree, or a house, or a mountain, but that is all.
And this is far from proving that I can conceive them _existing out of the
minds of all Spirits_.

_Phil._ You acknowledge then that you cannot possibly conceive how any one
corporeal sensible thing should exist otherwise than in a mind?

_Hyl._ I do.

_Phil._ And yet you will earnestly contend for the truth of that which you
cannot so much as conceive?

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Hyl._ I profess I know not what to think; but still there are some
scruples remain with me. Is it not certain I _see things at a distance_?
Do we not perceive the stars and moon, for example, to be a great way off?
Is not this, I say, manifest to the senses?

_Phil._ Do you not in a dream too perceive those or the like objects?

_Hyl._ I do.

_Phil._ And have they not then the same appearance of being distant?

_Hyl._ They have.

_Phil._ But you do not thence conclude the apparitions in a dream to be
without the mind?

_Hyl._ By no means.

_Phil._ You ought not therefore to conclude that sensible objects are
without the mind, from their appearance, or manner wherein they are
perceived.

_Hyl._ I acknowledge it. But doth not my sense deceive me in those cases?

_Phil._ By no means. The idea or thing which you immediately perceive,
neither sense nor reason informs you that _it_ actually exists without the
mind. By sense you only know that you are affected with such certain
sensations of light and colours, &c. And these you will not say are
without the mind.

_Hyl._ True: but, beside all that, do you not think the sight suggests
something of _outness_ or _distance_?

_Phil._ Upon approaching a distant object, do the visible size and figure
change perpetually, or do they appear the same at all distances?

_Hyl._ They are in a continual change.

_Phil._ Sight therefore doth not suggest, or any way inform you, that the
visible object you immediately perceive exists at a distance(812), or will
be perceived when you advance farther onward; there being a continued
series of visible objects succeeding each other during the whole time of
your approach.

_Hyl._ It doth not; but still I know, upon seeing an object, what object I
shall perceive after having passed over a certain distance: no matter
whether it be exactly the same or no: there is still something of distance
suggested in the case.

_Phil._ Good Hylas, do but reflect a little on the point, and then tell me
whether there be any more in it than this: From the ideas you actually
perceive by sight, you have by experience learned to collect what other
ideas you will (according to the standing order of nature) be affected
with, after such a certain succession of time and motion.

_Hyl._ Upon the whole, I take it to be nothing else.

_Phil._ Now, is it not plain that if we suppose a man born blind was on a
sudden made to see, he could at first have no experience of what may be
_suggested_ by sight?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ He would not then, according to you, have any notion of distance
annexed to the things he saw; but would take them for a new set of
sensations, existing only in his mind?

_Hyl._ It is undeniable.

_Phil._ But, to make it still more plain: is not _distance_ a line turned
endwise to the eye(813)?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ And can a line so situated be perceived by sight?

_Hyl._ It cannot.

_Phil._ Doth it not therefore follow that distance is not properly and
immediately perceived by sight?

_Hyl._ It should seem so.

_Phil._ Again, is it your opinion that colours are at a distance(814)?

_Hyl._ It must be acknowledged they are only in the mind.

_Phil._ But do not colours appear to the eye as coexisting in the same
place with extension and figures?

_Hyl._ They do.

_Phil._ How can you then conclude from sight that figures exist without,
when you acknowledge colours do not; the sensible appearance being the
very same with regard to both?

_Hyl._ I know not what to answer.

_Phil._ But, allowing that distance was truly and immediately perceived by
the mind, yet it would not thence follow it existed out of the mind. For,
whatever is immediately perceived is an idea(815): and can any idea exist
out of the mind?

_Hyl._ To suppose that were absurd: but, inform me, Philonous, can we
perceive or know nothing beside our ideas(816)?

_Phil._ As for the rational deducing of causes from effects, that is
beside our inquiry. And, by the senses you can best tell whether you
perceive anything which is not immediately perceived. And I ask you,
whether the things immediately perceived are other than your own
sensations or ideas? You have indeed more than once, in the course of this
conversation, declared yourself on those points; but you seem, by this
last question, to have departed from what you then thought.

_Hyl._ To speak the truth, Philonous, I think there are two kinds of
objects:—the one perceived immediately, which are likewise called _ideas_;
the other are real things or external objects, perceived by the mediation
of ideas, which are their images and representations. Now, I own ideas do
not exist without the mind; but the latter sort of objects do. I am sorry
I did not think of this distinction sooner; it would probably have cut
short your discourse.

_Phil._ Are those external objects perceived by sense, or by some other
faculty?

_Hyl._ They are perceived by sense.

_Phil._ How! Is there anything perceived by sense which is not immediately
perceived?

_Hyl._ Yes, Philonous, in some sort there is. For example, when I look on
a picture or statue of Julius Cæsar, I may be said after a manner to
perceive him (though not immediately) by my senses.

_Phil._ It seems then you will have our ideas, which alone are immediately
perceived, to be pictures of external things: and that these also are
perceived by sense, inasmuch as they have a conformity or resemblance to
our ideas?

_Hyl._ That is my meaning.

_Phil._ And, in the same way that Julius Cæsar, in himself invisible, is
nevertheless perceived by sight; real things, in themselves imperceptible,
are perceived by sense.

_Hyl._ In the very same.

_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, when you behold the picture of Julius Cæsar, do
you see with your eyes any more than some colours and figures, with a
certain symmetry and composition of the whole?

_Hyl._ Nothing else.

_Phil._ And would not a man who had never known anything of Julius Cæsar
see as much?

_Hyl._ He would.

_Phil._ Consequently he hath his sight, and the use of it, in as perfect a
degree as you?

_Hyl._ I agree with you.

_Phil._ Whence comes it then that your thoughts are directed to the Roman
emperor, and his are not? This cannot proceed from the sensations or ideas
of sense by you then perceived; since you acknowledge you have no
advantage over him in that respect. It should seem therefore to proceed
from reason and memory: should it not?

_Hyl._ It should.

_Phil._ Consequently, it will not follow from that instance that anything
is perceived by sense which is not immediately perceived. Though I grant
we may, in one acceptation, be said to perceive sensible things mediately
by sense: that is, when, from a frequently perceived connexion, the
immediate perception of ideas by one sense _suggests_ to the mind others,
perhaps belonging to another sense, which are wont to be connected with
them. For instance, when I hear a coach drive along the streets,
immediately I perceive only the sound; but, from the experience I have had
that such a sound is connected with a coach, I am said to hear the coach.
It is nevertheless evident that, in truth and strictness, nothing can be
_heard_ but _sound_; and the coach is not properly perceived by sense, but
suggested from experience. So likewise when we are said to see a red-hot
bar of iron; the solidity and heat of the iron are not the objects of
sight, but suggested to the imagination by the colour and figure which are
properly perceived by that sense. In short, those things alone are
actually and strictly perceived by any sense, which would have been
perceived in case that same sense had then been first conferred on us. As
for other things, it is plain they are only suggested to the mind by
experience, grounded on former perceptions. But, to return to your
comparison of Cæsar’s picture, it is plain, if you keep to that, you must
hold the real things, or archetypes of our ideas, are not perceived by
sense, but by some internal faculty of the soul, as reason or memory. I
would therefore fain know what arguments you can draw from reason for the
existence of what you call _real things_ or _material objects_. Or,
whether you remember to have seen them formerly as they are in themselves;
or, if you have heard or read of any one that did.

_Hyl._ I see, Philonous, you are disposed to raillery; but that will never
convince me.

_Phil._ My aim is only to learn from you the way to come at the knowledge
of _material beings_. Whatever we perceive is perceived immediately or
mediately: by sense, or by reason and reflexion. But, as you have excluded
sense, pray shew me what reason you have to believe their existence; or
what _medium_ you can possibly make use of to prove it, either to mine or
your own understanding.

_Hyl._ To deal ingenuously, Philonous, now I consider the point, I do not
find I can give you any good reason for it. But, thus much seem pretty
plain, that it is at least possible such things may really exist. And, as
long as there is no absurdity in supposing them, I am resolved to believe
as I did, till you bring good reasons to the contrary.

_Phil._ What! Is it come to this, that you only _believe_ the existence of
material objects, and that your belief is founded barely on the
possibility of its being true? Then you will have me bring reasons against
it: though another would think it reasonable the proof should lie on him
who holds the affirmative. And, after all, this very point which you are
now resolved to maintain, without any reason, is in effect what you have
more than once during this discourse seen good reason to give up. But, to
pass over all this; if I understand you rightly, you say our ideas do not
exist without the mind, but that they are copies, images, or
representations, of certain originals that do?

_Hyl._ You take me right.

_Phil._ They are then like external things(817)?

_Hyl._ They are.

_Phil._ Have those things a stable and permanent nature, independent of
our senses; or are they in a perpetual change, upon our producing any
motions in our bodies—suspending, exerting, or altering, our faculties or
organs of sense?

_Hyl._ Real things, it is plain, have a fixed and real nature, which
remains the same notwithstanding any change in our senses, or in the
posture and motion of our bodies; which indeed may affect the ideas in our
minds, but it were absurd to think they had the same effect on things
existing without the mind.

_Phil._ How then is it possible that things perpetually fleeting and
variable as our ideas should be copies or images of anything fixed and
constant? Or, in other words, since all sensible qualities, as size,
figure, colour, &c., that is, our ideas, are continually changing, upon
every alteration in the distance, medium, or instruments of sensation; how
can any determinate material objects be properly represented or painted
forth by several distinct things, each of which is so different from and
unlike the rest? Or, if you say it resembles some one only of our ideas,
how shall we be able to distinguish the true copy from all the false ones?

_Hyl._ I profess, Philonous, I am at a loss. I know not what to say to
this.

_Phil._ But neither is this all. Which are material objects in
themselves—perceptible or imperceptible?

_Hyl._ Properly and immediately nothing can be perceived but ideas. All
material things, therefore, are in themselves insensible, and to be
perceived only by our ideas.

_Phil._ Ideas then are sensible, and their archetypes or originals
insensible?

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ But how can that which is sensible be _like_ that which is
insensible? Can a real thing, in itself _invisible_, be like a _colour_;
or a real thing, which is not _audible_, be like a _sound_? In a word, can
anything be like a sensation or idea, but another sensation or idea?

_Hyl._ I must own, I think not.

_Phil._ Is it possible there should be any doubt on the point? Do you not
perfectly know your own ideas?

_Hyl._ I know them perfectly; since what I do not perceive or know can be
no part of my idea(818).

_Phil._ Consider, therefore, and examine them, and then tell me if there
be anything in them which can exist without the mind: or if you can
conceive anything like them existing without the mind.

_Hyl._ Upon inquiry, I find it is impossible for me to conceive or
understand how anything but an idea can be like an idea. And it is most
evident that _no idea can exist without the mind_(819).

_Phil._ You are therefore, by your principles, forced to deny the
_reality_ of sensible things; since you made it to consist in an absolute
existence exterior to the mind. That is to say, you are a downright
sceptic. So I have gained my point, which was to shew your principles led
to Scepticism.

_Hyl._ For the present I am, if not entirely convinced, at least silenced.

_Phil._ I would fain know what more you would require in order to a
perfect conviction. Have you not had the liberty of explaining yourself
all manner of ways? Were any little slips in discourse laid hold and
insisted on? Or were you not allowed to retract or reinforce anything you
had offered, as best served your purpose? Hath not everything you could
say been heard and examined with all the fairness imaginable? In a word,
have you not in every point been convinced out of your own mouth? And, if
you can at present discover any flaw in any of your former concessions, or
think of any remaining subterfuge, any new distinction, colour, or comment
whatsoever, why do you not produce it?

_Hyl._ A little patience, Philonous. I am at present so amazed to see
myself ensnared, and as it were imprisoned in the labyrinths you have
drawn me into, that on the sudden it cannot be expected I should find my
way out. You must give me time to look about me and recollect myself.

_Phil._ Hark; is not this the college bell?

_Hyl._ It rings for prayers.

_Phil._ We will go in then, if you please, and meet here again to-morrow
morning. In the meantime, you may employ your thoughts on this morning’s
discourse, and try if you can find any fallacy in it, or invent any new
means to extricate yourself.

_Hyl._ Agreed.




The Second Dialogue


_Hylas._ I beg your pardon, Philonous, for not meeting you sooner. All
this morning my head was so filled with our late conversation that I had
not leisure to think of the time of the day, or indeed of anything else.

_Philonous._ I am glad you were so intent upon it, in hopes if there were
any mistakes in your concessions, or fallacies in my reasonings from them,
you will now discover them to me.

_Hyl._ I assure you I have done nothing ever since I saw you but search
after mistakes and fallacies, and, with that view, have minutely examined
the whole series of yesterday’s discourse: but all in vain, for the
notions it led me into, upon review, appear still more clear and evident;
and, the more I consider them, the more irresistibly do they force my
assent.

_Phil._ And is not this, think you, a sign that they are genuine, that
they proceed from nature, and are conformable to right reason? Truth and
beauty are in this alike, that the strictest survey sets them both off to
advantage; while the false lustre of error and disguise cannot endure
being reviewed, or too nearly inspected.

_Hyl._ I own there is a great deal in what you say. Nor can any one be
more entirely satisfied of the truth of those odd consequences, so long as
I have in view the reasonings that lead to them. But, when these are out
of my thoughts, there seems, on the other hand, something so satisfactory,
so natural and intelligible, in the modern way of explaining things that,
I profess, I know not how to reject it.

_Phil._ I know not what way you mean.

_Hyl._ I mean the way of accounting for our sensations or ideas.

_Phil._ How is that?

_Hyl._ It is supposed the soul makes her residence in some part of the
brain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are thence extended to
all parts of the body; and that outward objects, by the different
impressions they make on the organs of sense, communicate certain
vibrative motions to the nerves; and these being filled with spirits
propagate them to the brain or seat of the soul, which, according to the
various impressions or traces thereby made in the brain, is variously
affected with ideas(820).

_Phil._ And call you this an explication of the manner whereby we are
affected with ideas?

_Hyl._ Why not, Philonous? Have you anything to object against it?

_Phil._ I would first know whether I rightly understand your hypothesis.
You make certain traces in the brain to be the causes or occasions of our
ideas. Pray tell me whether by the _brain_ you mean any sensible thing.

_Hyl._ What else think you I could mean?

_Phil._ Sensible things are all immediately perceivable; and those things
which are immediately perceivable are ideas; and these exist only in the
mind. Thus much you have, if I mistake not, long since agreed to.

_Hyl._ I do not deny it.

_Phil._ The brain therefore you speak of, being a sensible thing, exists
only in the mind(821). Now, I would fain know whether you think it
reasonable to suppose that one idea or thing existing in the mind
occasions all other ideas. And, if you think so, pray how do you account
for the origin of that primary idea or brain itself?

_Hyl._ I do not explain the origin of our ideas by that brain which is
perceivable to sense—this being itself only a combination of sensible
ideas—but by another which I imagine.

_Phil._ But are not things imagined as truly _in the mind_ as things
perceived(822)?

_Hyl._ I must confess they are.

_Phil._ It comes, therefore, to the same thing; and you have been all this
while accounting for ideas by certain motions or impressions of the brain;
that is, by some alterations in an idea, whether sensible or imaginable it
matters not.

_Hyl._ I begin to suspect my hypothesis.

_Phil._ Besides spirits, all that we know or conceive are our own ideas.
When, therefore, you say all ideas are occasioned by impressions in the
brain, do you conceive this brain or no? If you do, then you talk of ideas
imprinted in an idea causing that same idea, which is absurd. If you do
not conceive it, you talk unintelligibly, instead of forming a reasonable
hypothesis.

_Hyl._ I now clearly see it was a mere dream. There is nothing in it.

_Phil._ You need not be much concerned at it; for after all, this way of
explaining things, as you called it, could never have satisfied any
reasonable man. What connexion is there between a motion in the nerves,
and the sensations of sound or colour in the mind? Or how is it possible
these should be the effect of that?

_Hyl._ But I could never think it had so little in it as now it seems to
have.

_Phil._ Well then, are you at length satisfied that no sensible things
have a real existence; and that you are in truth an arrant sceptic?

_Hyl._ It is too plain to be denied.

_Phil._ Look! are not the fields covered with a delightful verdure? Is
there not something in the woods and groves, in the rivers and clear
springs, that soothes, that delights, that transports the soul? At the
prospect of the wide and deep ocean, or some huge mountain whose top is
lost in the clouds, or of an old gloomy forest, are not our minds filled
with a pleasing horror? Even in rocks and deserts is there not an
agreeable wildness? How sincere a pleasure is it to behold the natural
beauties of the earth! To preserve and renew our relish for them, is not
the veil of night alternately drawn over her face, and doth she not change
her dress with the seasons? How aptly are the elements disposed! What
variety and use [(823)in the meanest productions of nature!] What
delicacy, what beauty, what contrivance, in animal and vegetable bodies!
How exquisitely are all things suited, as well to their particular ends,
as to constitute opposite parts of the whole! And, while they mutually aid
and support, do they not also set off and illustrate each other? Raise now
your thoughts from this ball of earth to all those glorious luminaries
that adorn the high arch of heaven. The motion and situation of the
planets, are they not admirable for use and order? Were those (miscalled
_erratic_) globes once known to stray, in their repeated journeys through
the pathless void? Do they not measure areas round the sun ever
proportioned to the times? So fixed, so immutable are the laws by which
the unseen Author of nature actuates the universe. How vivid and radiant
is the lustre of the fixed stars! How magnificent and rich that negligent
profusion with which they appear to be scattered throughout the whole
azure vault! Yet, if you take the telescope, it brings into your sight a
new host of stars that escape the naked eye. Here they seem contiguous and
minute, but to a nearer view immense orbs of light at various distances,
far sunk in the abyss of space. Now you must call imagination to your aid.
The feeble narrow sense cannot descry innumerable worlds revolving round
the central fires; and in those worlds the energy of an all-perfect Mind
displayed in endless forms. But, neither sense nor imagination are big
enough to comprehend the boundless extent, with all its glittering
furniture. Though the labouring mind exert and strain each power to its
utmost reach, there still stands out ungrasped a surplusage immeasurable.
Yet all the vast bodies that compose this mighty frame, how distant and
remote soever, are by some secret mechanism, some Divine art and force,
linked in a mutual dependence and intercourse with each other; even with
this earth, which was almost slipt from my thoughts and lost in the crowd
of worlds. Is not the whole system immense, beautiful, glorious beyond
expression and beyond thought! What treatment, then, do those philosophers
deserve, who would, deprive these noble and delightful scenes of all
_reality_? How should those Principles be entertained that lead us to
think all the visible beauty of the creation a false imaginary glare? To
be plain, can you expect this Scepticism of yours will not be thought
extravagantly absurd by all men of sense?

_Hyl._ Other men may think as they please; but for your part you have
nothing to reproach me with. My comfort is, you are as much a sceptic as I
am.

_Phil._ There, Hylas, I must beg leave to differ from you.

_Hyl._ What! Have you all along agreed to the premises, and do you now
deny the conclusion, and leave me to maintain those paradoxes by myself
which you led me into? This surely is not fair.

_Phil._ I deny that I agreed with you in those notions that led to
Scepticism. You indeed said the _reality_ of sensible things consisted in
an _absolute existence out of the minds of spirits_, or distinct from
their being perceived. And pursuant to this notion of reality, _you_ are
obliged to deny sensible things any real existence: that is, according to
your own definition, you profess yourself a sceptic. But I neither said
nor thought the reality of sensible things was to be defined after that
manner. To me it is evident, for the reasons you allow of, that sensible
things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I conclude,
not that they have no real existence, but that, seeing they depend not on
my thought, and have an existence distinct from being perceived by
me(824), _there must be some other Mind wherein they exist_. As sure,
therefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure is there an
infinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it.

_Hyl._ What! This is no more than I and all Christians hold; nay, and all
others too who believe there is a God, and that He knows and comprehends
all things.

_Phil._ Aye, but here lies the difference. Men commonly believe that all
things are known or perceived by God, because they believe the being of a
God; whereas I, on the other side, immediately and necessarily conclude
the being of a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by
Him(825).

_Hyl._ But, so long as we all believe the same thing, what matter is it
how we come by that belief?

_Phil._ But neither do we agree in the same opinion. For philosophers,
though they acknowledge all corporeal beings to be perceived by God, yet
they attribute to them an absolute subsistence distinct from their being
perceived by any mind whatever; which I do not. Besides, is there no
difference between saying, _There is a God, therefore He perceives all
things_; and saying, _Sensible things do really exist; and, if they really
exist, they are necessarily perceived by an infinite Mind: therefore there
is an infinite Mind, or God_(826)_?_ This furnishes you with a direct and
immediate demonstration, from a most evident principle, of the _being of a
God_. Divines and philosophers had proved beyond all controversy, from the
beauty and usefulness of the several parts of the creation, that it was
the workmanship of God. But that—setting aside all help of astronomy and
natural philosophy, all contemplation of the contrivance, order, and
adjustment of things—an infinite Mind should be necessarily inferred
from(827) the bare _existence of the sensible world_, is an advantage to
them only who have made this easy reflexion: That the sensible world is
that which we perceive by our several senses; and that nothing is
perceived by the senses beside ideas; and that no idea or archetype of an
idea can exist otherwise than in a mind. You may now, without any
laborious search into the sciences, without any subtlety of reason, or
tedious length of discourse, oppose and baffle the most strenuous advocate
for Atheism. Those miserable refuges, whether in an eternal succession of
unthinking causes and effects, or in a fortuitous concourse of atoms;
those wild imaginations of Vanini, Hobbes, and Spinoza: in a word, the
whole system of Atheism, is it not entirely overthrown, by this single
reflexion on the repugnancy included in supposing the whole, or any part,
even the most rude and shapeless, of the visible world, to exist without a
Mind? Let any one of those abettors of impiety but look into his own
thoughts, and there try if he can conceive how so much as a rock, a
desert, a chaos, or confused jumble of atoms; how anything at all, either
sensible or imaginable, can exist independent of a Mind, and he need go no
farther to be convinced of his folly. Can anything be fairer than to put a
dispute on such an issue, and leave it to a man himself to see if he can
conceive, even in thought, what he holds to be true in fact, and from a
notional to allow it a real existence(828)?

_Hyl._ It cannot be denied there is something highly serviceable to
religion in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like a
notion entertained by some eminent moderns(829), of _seeing all things in
God_?

_Phil._ I would gladly know that opinion: pray explain it to me.

_Hyl._ They conceive that the soul, being immaterial, is incapable of
being united with material things, so as to perceive them in themselves;
but that she perceives them by her union with the substance of God, which,
being spiritual, is therefore purely intelligible, or capable of being the
immediate object of a spirit’s thought. Besides, the Divine essence
contains in it perfections correspondent to each created being; and which
are, for that reason, proper to exhibit or represent them to the mind.

_Phil._ I do not understand how our ideas, which are things altogether
passive and inert(830), can be the essence, or any part (or like any part)
of the essence or substance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible,
pure, active being. Many more difficulties and objections there are which
occur at first view against this hypothesis; but I shall only add, that it
is liable to all the absurdities of the common hypothesis, in making a
created world exist otherwise than in the mind of a Spirit. Beside all
which it hath this peculiar to itself; that it makes that material world
serve to no purpose. And, if it pass for a good argument against other
hypotheses in the sciences, that they suppose Nature, or the Divine
wisdom, to make something in vain, or do that by tedious roundabout
methods which might have been performed in a much more easy and
compendious way, what shall we think of that hypothesis which supposes the
whole world made in vain?

_Hyl._ But what say you? Are not you too of opinion that we see all things
in God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it.

_Phil._ [(831)Few men think; yet all have opinions. Hence men’s opinions
are superficial and confused. It is nothing strange that tenets which in
themselves are ever so different, should nevertheless be confounded with
each other, by those who do not consider them attentively. I shall not
therefore be surprised if some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasm
of Malebranche; though in truth I am very remote from it. He builds on the
most abstract general ideas, which I entirely disclaim. He asserts an
absolute external world, which I deny. He maintains that we are deceived
by our senses, and know not the real natures or the true forms and figures
of extended beings; of all which I hold the direct contrary. So that upon
the whole there are no Principles more fundamentally opposite than his and
mine. It must be owned that] I entirely agree with what the holy Scripture
saith, ’That in God we live and move and have our being.’ But that we see
things in His essence, after the manner above set forth, I am far from
believing. Take here in brief my meaning:—It is evident that the things I
perceive are my own ideas, and that no idea can exist unless it be in a
mind: nor is it less plain that these ideas or things by me perceived,
either themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of _my_ mind,
since I know myself not to be their author, it being out of my power to
determine at pleasure what particular ideas I shall be affected with upon
opening my eyes or ears(832): they must therefore exist in some other
Mind, whose Will it is they should be exhibited to me. The things, I say,
immediately perceived are ideas or sensations, call them which you will.
But how can any idea or sensation exist in, or be produced by, anything
but a mind or spirit? This indeed is inconceivable(833). And to assert
that which is inconceivable is to talk nonsense: is it not?

_Hyl._ Without doubt.

_Phil._ But, on the other hand, it is very conceivable that they should
exist in and be produced by a Spirit; since this is no more than I daily
experience in myself(834), inasmuch as I perceive numberless ideas; and,
by an act of my will, can form a great variety of them, and raise them up
in my imagination: though, it must be confessed, these creatures of the
fancy are not altogether so distinct, so strong, vivid, and permanent, as
those perceived by my senses—which latter are called _real things_. From
all which I conclude, _there is a Mind which affects me every moment with
all the sensible impressions I perceive_. And, from the variety, order,
and manner of these, I conclude _the Author of them to be wise, powerful,
and good, beyond comprehension_. Mark it well; I do not say I see things
by perceiving that which represents them in the intelligible Substance of
God. This I do not understand; but I say, the things by me perceived are
known by the understanding, and produced by the will of an infinite
Spirit. And is not all this most plain and evident? Is there any more in
it than what a little observation in our own minds, and that which passeth
in them, not only enables us to conceive, but also obliges us to
acknowledge?

_Hyl._ I think I understand you very clearly; and own proof you give of a
Deity seems no less evident than it is surprising. But, allowing that God
is the supreme and universal Cause of all things, yet, may there not be
still a Third Nature besides Spirits and Ideas? May we not admit a
subordinate and limited cause of our ideas? In a word, may there not for
all that be _Matter_?

_Phil._ How often must I inculcate the same thing? You allow the things
immediately perceived by sense to exist nowhere without the mind; but
there is nothing perceived by sense which is not perceived immediately;
therefore there is nothing sensible that exists without the mind. The
Matter, therefore, which you still insist on is something intelligible, I
suppose; something that may be discovered by reason(835), and not by
sense.

_Hyl._ You are in the right.

_Phil._ Pray let me know what reasoning your belief of Matter is grounded
on; and what this Matter is, in your present sense of it.

_Hyl._ I find myself affected with various ideas whereof I know I am not
the cause; neither are they the cause of themselves, or of one another, or
capable of subsisting by themselves, as being altogether inactive,
fleeting, dependent beings. They have therefore _some_ cause distinct from
me and them: of which I pretend to know no more than that it is _the cause
of my ideas_. And this thing whatever it be, I call Matter.

_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, hath every one a liberty to change the current
proper signification attached to a common name in any language? For
example, suppose a traveller should tell you that in a certain country men
pass unhurt through the fire; and, upon explaining himself, you found he
meant by the word _fire_ that which others call _water_. Or, if he should
assert that there are trees that walk upon two legs, meaning men by the
term _trees_. Would you think this reasonable?

_Hyl._ No; I should think it very absurd. Common custom is the standard of
propriety in language. And for any man to affect speaking improperly is to
pervert the use of speech, and can never serve to a better purpose than to
protract and multiply disputes where there is no difference in opinion.

_Phil._ And doth not _Matter_, in the common current acceptation of the
word, signify an extended solid moveable, unthinking, inactive Substance?

_Hyl._ It doth.

_Phil._ And, hath it not been made evident that no _such_ substance can
possibly exist(836)? And, though it should be allowed to exist, yet how
can that which is _inactive_ be a _cause_; or that which is _unthinking_
be a _cause of thought_? You may, indeed, if you please, annex to the word
_Matter_ a contrary meaning to what is vulgarly received; and tell me you
understand by it, an unextended, thinking, active being, which is the
cause of our ideas. But what else is this than to play with words, and run
into that very fault you just now condemned with so much reason? I do by
no means find fault with your reasoning, in that you collect _a_ cause
from the _phenomena_: but I deny that _the_ cause deducible by reason can
properly be termed Matter(837).

_Hyl._ There is indeed something in what you say. But I am afraid you do
not thoroughly comprehend my meaning. I would by no means be thought to
deny that God, or an infinite Spirit, is the Supreme Cause of all things.
All I contend for is, that, subordinate to the Supreme Agent, there is a
cause of a limited and inferior nature, which _concurs_ in the production
of our ideas, not by any act of will, or spiritual efficiency, but by that
kind of action which belongs to Matter, viz. _motion_.

_Phil._ I find you are at every turn relapsing into your old exploded
conceit, of a moveable, and consequently an extended, substance, existing
without the mind. What! Have you already forgotten you were convinced; or
are you willing I should repeat what has been said on that head? In truth
this is not fair dealing in you, still to suppose the being of that which
you have so often acknowledged to have no being. But, not to insist
farther on what has been so largely handled, I ask whether all your ideas
are not perfectly passive and inert, including nothing of action in
them(838).

_Hyl._ They are.

_Phil._ And are sensible qualities anything else but ideas?

_Hyl._ How often have I acknowledged that they are not.

_Phil._ But is not _motion_ a sensible quality?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ Consequently it is no action?

_Hyl._ I agree with you. And indeed it is very plain that when I stir my
finger, it remains passive; but my will which produced the motion is
active.

_Phil._ Now, I desire to know, in the first place, whether, motion being
allowed to be no action, you can conceive any action besides volition:
and, in the second place, whether to say something and conceive nothing be
not to talk nonsense(839): and, lastly, whether, having considered the
premises, you do not perceive that to suppose any efficient or active
Cause of our ideas, other than _Spirit_, is highly absurd and
unreasonable?

_Hyl._ I give up the point entirely. But, though Matter may not be a
cause, yet what hinders its being an _instrument_, subservient to the
supreme Agent in the production of our ideas?

_Phil._ An instrument say you; pray what may be the figure, springs,
wheels, and motions, of that instrument?

_Hyl._ Those I pretend to determine nothing of, both the substance and its
qualities being entirely unknown to me.

_Phil._ What? You are then of opinion it is made up of unknown parts, that
it hath unknown motions, and an unknown shape?

_Hyl._ I do not believe that it hath any figure or motion at all, being
already convinced, that no sensible qualities can exist in an unperceiving
substance.

_Phil._ But what notion is it possible to frame of an instrument void of
all sensible qualities, even extension itself?

_Hyl._ I do not pretend to have any notion of it.

_Phil._ And what reason have you to think this unknown, this inconceivable
Somewhat doth exist? Is it that you imagine God cannot act as well without
it; or that you find by experience the use of some such thing, when you
form ideas in your own mind?

_Hyl._ You are always teasing me for reasons of my belief. Pray what
reasons have you not to believe it?

_Phil._ It is to me a sufficient reason not to believe the existence of
anything, if I see no reason for believing it. But, not to insist on
reasons for believing, you will not so much as let me know _what it is_
you would have me believe; since you say you have no manner of notion of
it. After all, let me entreat you to consider whether it be like a
philosopher, or even like a man of common sense, to pretend to believe you
know not what, and you know not why.

_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous. When I tell you Matter is an _instrument_, I do
not mean altogether nothing. It is true I know not the particular kind of
instrument; but, however, I have some notion of _instrument in general_,
which I apply to it.

_Phil._ But what if it should prove that there is something, even in the
most general notion of _instrument_, as taken in a distinct sense from
_cause_, which makes the use of it inconsistent with the Divine
attributes?

_Hyl._ Make that appear and I shall give up the point.

_Phil._ What mean you by the general nature or notion of _instrument_?

_Hyl._ That which is common to all particular instruments composeth the
general notion.

_Phil._ Is it not common to all instruments, that they are applied to the
doing those things only which cannot be performed by the mere act of our
wills? Thus, for instance, I never use an instrument to move my finger,
because it is done by a volition. But I should use one if I were to remove
part of a rock, or tear up a tree by the roots. Are you of the same mind?
Or, can you shew any example where an instrument is made use of in
producing an effect _immediately_ depending on the will of the agent?

_Hyl._ I own I cannot.

_Phil._ How therefore can you suppose that an All-perfect Spirit, on whose
Will all things have an absolute and immediate dependence, should need an
instrument in his operations, or, not needing it, make use of it? Thus it
seems to me that you are obliged to own the use of a lifeless inactive
instrument to be incompatible with the infinite perfection of God; that
is, by your own confession, to give up the point.

_Hyl._ It doth not readily occur what I can answer you.

_Phil._ But, methinks you should be ready to own the truth, when it has
been fairly proved to you. We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are
forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth
the agent to be limited by rules of another’s prescription, and that he
cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it
seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited Agent useth no tool
or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner
exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they
are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real
efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but
merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions
prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation
or prescription whatsoever(840).

_Hyl._ I will no longer maintain that Matter is an instrument. However, I
would not be understood to give up its existence neither; since,
notwithstanding what hath been said, it may still be an _occasion_(841).

_Phil._ How many shapes is your Matter to take? Or, how often must it be
proved not to exist, before you are content to part with it? But, to say
no more of this (though by all the laws of disputation I may justly blame
you for so frequently changing the signification of the principal term)—I
would fain know what you mean by affirming that matter is an occasion,
having already denied it to be a cause. And, when you have shewn in what
sense you understand _occasion_, pray, in the next place, be pleased to
shew me what reason induceth you to believe there is such an occasion of
our ideas?

_Hyl._ As to the first point: by _occasion_ I mean an inactive unthinking
being, at the presence whereof God excites ideas in our minds.

_Phil._ And what may be the nature of that inactive unthinking being?

_Hyl._ I know nothing of its nature.

_Phil._ Proceed then to the second point, and assign some reason why we
should allow an existence to this inactive, unthinking, unknown thing.

_Hyl._ When we see ideas produced in our minds, after an orderly and
constant manner, it is natural to think they have some fixed and regular
occasions, at the presence of which they are excited.

_Phil._ You acknowledge then God alone to be the cause of our ideas, and
that He causes them at the presence of those occasions.

_Hyl._ That is my opinion.

_Phil._ Those things which you say are present to God, without doubt He
perceives.

_Hyl._ Certainly; otherwise they could not be to Him an occasion of
acting.

_Phil._ Not to insist now on your making sense of this hypothesis, or
answering all the puzzling questions and difficulties it is liable to: I
only ask whether the order and regularity observable in the series of our
ideas, or the course of nature, be not sufficiently accounted for by the
wisdom and power of God; and whether it doth not derogate from those
attributes, to suppose He is influenced, directed, or put in mind, when
and what He is to act, by an unthinking substance? And, lastly, whether,
in case I granted all you contend for, it would make anything to your
purpose; it not being easy to conceive how the external or absolute
existence of an unthinking substance, distinct from its being perceived,
can be inferred from my allowing that there are certain things perceived
by the mind of God, which are to Him the occasion of producing ideas in
us?

_Hyl._ I am perfectly at a loss what to think, this notion of _occasion_
seeming now altogether as groundless as the rest.

_Phil._ Do you not at length perceive that in all these different
acceptations of _Matter_, you have been only supposing you know not what,
for no manner of reason, and to no kind of use?

_Hyl._ I freely own myself less fond of my notions since they have been so
accurately examined. But still, methinks, I have some confused perception
that there is such a thing as _Matter_.

_Phil._ Either you perceive the being of Matter immediately or mediately.
If immediately, pray inform me by which of the senses you perceive it. If
mediately, let me know by what reasoning it is inferred from those things
which you perceive immediately. So much for the perception. Then for the
Matter itself, I ask whether it is object, _substratum_, cause,
instrument, or occasion? You have already pleaded for each of these,
shifting your notions, and making Matter to appear sometimes in one shape,
then in another. And what you have offered hath been disapproved and
rejected by yourself. If you have anything new to advance I would gladly
hear it.

_Hyl._ I think I have already offered all I had to say on those heads. I
am at a loss what more to urge.

_Phil._ And yet you are loath to part with your old prejudice. But, to
make you quit it more easily, I desire that, beside what has been hitherto
suggested, you will farther consider whether, upon supposition that Matter
exists, you can possibly conceive how you should be affected by it. Or,
supposing it did not exist, whether it be not evident you might for all
that be affected with the same ideas you now are, and consequently have
the very same reasons to believe its existence that you now can have(842).

_Hyl._ I acknowledge it is possible we might perceive all things just as
we do now, though there was no Matter in the world; neither can I
conceive, if there be Matter, how it should produce any idea in our minds.
And, I do farther grant you have entirely satisfied me that it is
impossible there should be such a thing as Matter in any of the foregoing
acceptations. But still I cannot help supposing that there is _Matter_ in
some sense or other. _What that is_ I do not indeed pretend to determine.

_Phil._ I do not expect you should define exactly the nature of that
unknown being. Only be pleased to tell me whether it is a Substance; and
if so, whether you can suppose a Substance without accidents; or, in case
you suppose it to have accidents or qualities, I desire you will let me
know what those qualities are, at least what is meant by Matter’s
supporting them?

_Hyl._ We have already argued on those points. I have no more to say to
them. But, to prevent any farther questions, let me tell you I at present
understand by _Matter_ neither substance nor accident, thinking nor
extended being, neither cause, instrument, nor occasion, but Something
entirely unknown, distinct from all these(843).

_Phil._ It seems then you include in your present notion of Matter nothing
but the general abstract idea of _entity_.

_Hyl._ Nothing else; save only that I superadd to this general idea the
negation of all those particular things, qualities, or ideas, that I
perceive, imagine, or in anywise apprehend.

_Phil._ Pray where do you suppose this unknown Matter to exist?

_Hyl._ Oh Philonous! now you think you have entangled me; for, if I say it
exists in place, then you will infer that it exists in the mind, since it
is agreed that place or extension exists only in the mind. But I am not
ashamed to own my ignorance. I know not where it exists; only I am sure it
exists not in place. There is a negative answer for you. And you must
expect no other to all the questions you put for the future about Matter.

_Phil._ Since you will not tell me where it exists, be pleased to inform
me after what manner you suppose it to exist, or what you mean by its
_existence_?

_Hyl._ It neither thinks nor acts, neither perceives nor is perceived.

_Phil._ But what is there positive in your abstracted notion of its
existence?

_Hyl._ Upon a nice observation, I do not find I have any positive notion
or meaning at all. I tell you again, I am not ashamed to own my ignorance.
I know not what is meant by its _existence_, or how it exists.

_Phil._ Continue, good Hylas, to act the same ingenuous part, and tell me
sincerely whether you can frame a distinct idea of Entity in general,
prescinded from and exclusive of all thinking and corporeal beings(844),
all particular things whatsoever.

_Hyl._ Hold, let me think a little——I profess, Philonous, I do not find
that I can. At first glance, methought I had some dilute and airy notion
of Pure Entity in abstract; but, upon closer attention, it hath quite
vanished out of sight. The more I think on it, the more am I confirmed in
my prudent resolution of giving none but negative answers, and not
pretending to the least degree of any positive knowledge or conception of
Matter, its _where_, its _how_, its _entity_, or anything belonging to it.

_Phil._ When, therefore, you speak of the existence of Matter, you have
not any notion in your mind?

_Hyl._ None at all.

_Phil._ Pray tell me if the case stands not thus:—At first, from a belief
of material substance, you would have it that the immediate objects
existed without the mind; then that they are archetypes; then causes; next
instruments; then occasions: lastly, _something in general_, which being
interpreted proves _nothing_. So Matter comes to nothing. What think you,
Hylas, is not this a fair summary of your whole proceeding?

_Hyl._ Be that as it will, yet I still insist upon it, that _our_ not
being able to conceive a thing is no argument against its existence.

_Phil._ That from a cause, effect, operation, sign, or other circumstance,
there may reasonably be inferred the existence of a thing not immediately
perceived; and that it were absurd for any man to argue against the
existence of that thing, from his having no direct and positive notion of
it, I freely own. But, where there is nothing of all this; where neither
reason nor revelation induces us to believe the existence of a thing;
where we have not even a relative notion of it; where an abstraction is
made from perceiving and being perceived, from Spirit and idea: lastly,
where there is not so much as the most inadequate or faint idea pretended
to—I will not indeed thence conclude against the reality of any notion, or
existence of anything; but my inference shall be, that you mean nothing at
all; that you employ words to no manner of purpose, without any design or
signification whatsoever. And I leave it to you to consider how mere
jargon should be treated.

_Hyl._ To deal frankly with you, Philonous, your arguments seem in
themselves unanswerable; but they have not so great an effect on me as to
produce that entire conviction, that hearty acquiescence, which attends
demonstration(845). I find myself still relapsing into an obscure surmise
of I know not what, _matter_.

_Phil._ But, are you not sensible, Hylas, that two things must concur to
take away all scruple, and work a plenary assent in the mind? Let a
visible object be set in never so clear a light, yet, if there is any
imperfection in the sight, or if the eye is not directed towards it, it
will not be distinctly seen. And though a demonstration be never so well
grounded and fairly proposed, yet, if there is withal a stain of
prejudice, or a wrong bias on the understanding, can it be expected on a
sudden to perceive clearly, and adhere firmly to the truth? No; there is
need of time and pains: the attention must be awakened and detained by a
frequent repetition of the same thing placed oft in the same, oft in
different lights. I have said it already, and find I must still repeat and
inculcate, that it is an unaccountable licence you take, in pretending to
maintain you know not what, for you know not what reason, to you know not
what purpose. Can this be paralleled in any art or science, any sect or
profession of men? Or is there anything _so_ barefacedly groundless and
unreasonable to be met with even in the lowest of common conversation?
But, perhaps you will still say, Matter may exist; though at the same time
you neither know _what is meant_ by _Matter_, or by its _existence_. This
indeed is surprising, and the more so because it is altogether voluntary
[(846) and of your own head], you not being led to it by any one reason;
for I challenge you to shew me that thing in nature which needs Matter to
explain or account for it.

_Hyl._ The _reality_ of things cannot be maintained without supposing the
existence of Matter. And is not this, think you, a good reason why I
should be earnest in its defence?

_Phil._ The reality of things! What things? sensible or intelligible?

_Hyl._ Sensible things.

_Phil._ My glove for example?

_Hyl._ That, or any other thing perceived by the senses.

_Phil._ But to fix on some particular thing. Is it not a sufficient
evidence to me of the existence of this _glove_, that I see it, and feel
it, and wear it? Or, if this will not do, how is it possible I should be
assured of the reality of this thing, which I actually see in this place,
by supposing that some unknown thing, which I never did or can see, exists
after an unknown manner, in an unknown place, or in no place at all? How
can the supposed reality of that which is intangible be a proof that
anything tangible really exists? Or, of that which is invisible, that any
visible thing, or, in general of anything which is imperceptible, that a
perceptible exists? Do but explain this and I shall think nothing too hard
for you.

_Hyl._ Upon the whole, I am content to own the existence of Matter is
highly improbable; but the direct and absolute impossibility of it does
not appear to me.

_Phil._ But granting Matter to be possible, yet, upon that account merely,
it can have no more claim to existence than a golden mountain, or a
centaur.

_Hyl._ I acknowledge it; but still you do not deny it is possible; and
that which is possible, for aught you know, may actually exist.

_Phil._ I deny it to be possible; and have, if I mistake not, evidently
proved, from your own concessions, that it is not. In the common sense of
the word _Matter_, is there any more implied than an extended, solid,
figured, moveable substance, existing without the mind? And have not you
acknowledged, over and over, that you have seen evident reason for denying
the possibility of such a substance?

_Hyl._ True, but that is only one sense of the term _Matter_.

_Phil._ But is it not the only proper genuine received sense? And, if
Matter, in such a sense, be proved impossible, may it not be thought with
good grounds absolutely impossible? Else how could anything be proved
impossible? Or, indeed, how could there be any proof at all one way or
other, to a man who takes the liberty to unsettle and change the common
signification of words?

_Hyl._ I thought philosophers might be allowed to speak more accurately
than the vulgar, and were not always confined to the common acceptation of
a term.

_Phil._ But this now mentioned is the common received sense among
philosophers themselves. But, not to insist on that, have you not been
allowed to take Matter in what sense you pleased? And have you not used
this privilege in the utmost extent; sometimes entirely changing, at
others leaving out, or putting into the definition of it whatever, for the
present, best served your design, contrary to all the known rules of
reason and logic? And hath not this shifting, unfair method of yours spun
out our dispute to an unnecessary length; Matter having been particularly
examined, and by your own confession refuted in each of those senses? And
can any more be required to prove the absolute impossibility of a thing,
than the proving it impossible in every particular sense that either you
or any one else understands it in?

_Hyl._ But I am not so thoroughly satisfied that you have proved the
impossibility of Matter, in the last most obscure abstracted and
indefinite sense.

_Phil._ When is a thing shewn to be impossible?

_Hyl._ When a repugnancy is demonstrated between the ideas comprehended in
its definition.

_Phil._ But where there are no ideas, there no repugnancy can be
demonstrated between ideas?

_Hyl._ I agree with you.

_Phil._ Now, in that which you call the obscure indefinite sense of the
word _Matter_, it is plain, by your own confession, there was included no
idea at all, no sense except an unknown sense; which is the same thing as
none. You are not, therefore, to expect I should prove a repugnancy
between ideas, where there are no ideas; or the impossibility of Matter
taken in an _unknown_ sense, that is, no sense at all. My business was
only to shew you meant _nothing_; and this you were brought to own. So
that, in all your various senses, you have been shewed either to mean
nothing at all, or, if anything, an absurdity. And if this be not
sufficient to prove the impossibility of a thing, I desire you will let me
know what is.

_Hyl._ I acknowledge you have proved that Matter is impossible; nor do I
see what more can be said in defence of it. But, at the same time that I
give up this, I suspect all my other notions. For surely none could be
more seemingly evident than this once was: and yet it now seems as false
and absurd as ever it did true before. But I think we have discussed the
point sufficiently for the present. The remaining part of the day I would
willingly spend in running over in my thoughts the several heads of this
morning’s conversation, and to-morrow shall be glad to meet you here again
about the same time.

_Phil._ I will not fail to attend you.




The Third Dialogue


_Philonous._ (847)Tell me, Hylas, what are the fruits of yesterday’s
meditation? Has it confirmed you in the same mind you were in at parting?
or have you since seen cause to change your opinion?

_Hylas._ Truly my opinion is that all our opinions are alike vain and
uncertain. What we approve to-day, we condemn to-morrow. We keep a stir
about knowledge, and spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas! we
know nothing all the while: nor do I think it possible for us ever to know
anything in this life. Our faculties are too narrow and too few. Nature
certainly never intended us for speculation.

_Phil._ What! Say you we can know nothing, Hylas?

_Hyl._ There is not that single thing in the world whereof we can know the
real nature, or what it is in itself.

_Phil._ Will you tell me I do not really know what fire or water is?

_Hyl._ You may indeed know that fire appears hot, and water fluid; but
this is no more than knowing what sensations are produced in your own
mind, upon the application of fire and water to your organs of sense.
Their internal constitution, their true and real nature, you are utterly
in the dark as to _that_.

_Phil._ Do I not know this to be a real stone that I stand on, and that
which I see before my eyes to be a real tree?

_Hyl._ _Know?_ No, it is impossible you or any man alive should know it.
All you know is, that you have such a certain idea or appearance in your
own mind. But what is this to the real tree or stone? I tell you that
colour, figure, and hardness, which you perceive, are not the real natures
of those things, or in the least like them. The same may be said of all
other real things, or corporeal substances, which compose the world. They
have none of them anything of themselves, like those sensible qualities by
us perceived. We should not therefore pretend to affirm or know anything
of them, as they are in their own nature.

_Phil._ But surely, Hylas, I can distinguish gold, for example, from iron:
and how could this be, if I knew not what either truly was?

_Hyl._ Believe me, Philonous, you can only distinguish between your own
ideas. That yellowness, that weight, and other sensible qualities, think
you they are really in the gold? They are only relative to the senses, and
have no absolute existence in nature. And in pretending to distinguish the
species of real things, by the appearances in your mind, you may perhaps
act as wisely as he that should conclude two men were of a different
species, because their clothes were not of the same colour.

_Phil._ It seems, then, we are altogether put off with the appearances of
things, and those false ones too. The very meat I eat, and the cloth I
wear, have nothing in them like what I see and feel.

_Hyl._ Even so.

_Phil._ But is it not strange the whole world should be thus imposed on,
and so foolish as to believe their senses? And yet I know not how it is,
but men eat, and drink, and sleep, and perform all the offices of life, as
comfortably and conveniently as if they really knew the things they are
conversant about.

_Hyl._ They do so: but you know ordinary practice does not require a
nicety of speculative knowledge. Hence the vulgar retain their mistakes,
and for all that make a shift to bustle through the affairs of life. But
philosophers know better things.

_Phil._ You mean, they _know_ that they _know nothing_.

_Hyl._ That is the very top and perfection of human knowledge.

_Phil._ But are you all this while in earnest, Hylas; and are you
seriously persuaded that you know nothing real in the world? Suppose you
are going to write, would you not call for pen, ink, and paper, like
another man; and do you not know what it is you call for?

_Hyl._ How often must I tell you, that I know not the real nature of any
one thing in the universe? I may indeed upon occasion make use of pen,
ink, and paper. But what any one of them is in its own true nature, I
declare positively I know not. And the same is true with regard to every
other corporeal thing. And, what is more, we are not only ignorant of the
true and real nature of things, but even of their existence. It cannot be
denied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas; but it cannot
be concluded from thence that bodies really exist. Nay, now I think on it,
I must, agreeably to my former concessions, farther declare that it is
impossible any _real_ corporeal thing should exist in nature.

_Phil._ You amaze me. Was ever anything more wild and extravagant than the
notions you now maintain: and is it not evident you are led into all these
extravagances by the belief of _material substance_? This makes you dream
of those unknown natures(848) in everything. It is this occasions your
distinguishing between the reality and sensible appearances of things. It
is to this you are indebted for being ignorant of what everybody else
knows perfectly well. Nor is this all: you are not only ignorant of the
true nature of everything, but you know not whether anything really
exists, or whether there are any true natures at all; forasmuch as you
attribute to your material beings an absolute or external existence,
wherein you suppose their reality consists. And, as you are forced in the
end to acknowledge such an existence means either a direct repugnancy, or
nothing at all, it follows that you are obliged to pull down your own
hypothesis of material Substance, and positively to deny the real
existence of any part of the universe. And so you are plunged into the
deepest and most deplorable scepticism that ever man was(849). Tell me,
Hylas, is it not as I say?

_Hyl._ I agree with you. _Material substance_ was no more than an
hypothesis; and a false and groundless one too. I will no longer spend my
breath in defence of it. But whatever hypothesis you advance, or
whatsoever scheme of things you introduce in its stead, I doubt not it
will appear every whit as false: let me but be allowed to question you
upon it. That is, suffer me to serve you in your own kind, and I warrant
it shall conduct you through as many perplexities and contradictions, to
the very same state of scepticism that I myself am in at present.

_Phil._ I assure you, Hylas, I do not pretend to frame any hypothesis at
all(850). I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to believe my senses, and
leave things as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real
things are those very things I see, and feel, and perceive(851) by my
senses. These I know; and, finding they answer all the necessities and
purposes of life, have no reason to be solicitous about any other unknown
beings. A piece of sensible bread, for instance, would stay my stomach
better than ten thousand times as much of that insensible, unintelligible,
real bread you speak of. It is likewise my opinion that colours and other
sensible qualities are on the objects. I cannot for my life help thinking
that snow is white, and fire hot. You indeed, who by _snow_ and _fire_
mean certain external, unperceived, unperceiving substances, are in the
right to deny whiteness or heat to be affections inherent in _them_. But
I, who understand by those words the things I see and feel, am obliged to
think like other folks. And, as I am no sceptic with regard to the nature
of things, so neither am I as to their existence. That a thing should be
really perceived by my senses(852), and at the same time not really exist,
is to me a plain contradiction; since I cannot prescind or abstract, even
in thought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being perceived.
Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the like things, which I name
and discourse of, are things that I know. And I should not have known them
but that I perceived them by my senses; and things perceived by the senses
are immediately perceived; and things immediately perceived are ideas; and
ideas cannot exist without the mind; their existence therefore consists in
being perceived; when, therefore, they are actually perceived there can be
no doubt of their existence. Away then with all that scepticism, all those
ridiculous philosophical doubts. What a jest is it for a philosopher to
question the existence of sensible things, till he hath it proved to him
from the veracity of God(853); or to pretend our knowledge in this point
falls short of intuition or demonstration(854)! I might as well doubt of
my own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.

_Hyl._ Not so fast, Philonous: you say you cannot conceive how sensible
things should exist without the mind. Do you not?

_Phil._ I do.

_Hyl._ Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive it possible
that things perceivable by sense may still exist(855)?

_Phil._ I can; but then it must be in another mind. When I deny sensible
things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind in particular,
but all minds. Now, it is plain they have an existence exterior to my
mind; since I find them by experience to be independent of it(856). There
is therefore some other Mind wherein they exist, during the intervals
between the times of my perceiving them: as likewise they did before my
birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is
true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily
follows there is an _omnipresent eternal Mind_, which knows and
comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner,
and according to such rules, as He Himself hath ordained, and are by us
termed the _laws of nature_(857).

_Hyl._ Answer me, Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly inert beings? Or
have they any agency included in them?

_Phil._ They are altogether passive and inert(858).

_Hyl._ And is not God an agent, a being purely active?

_Phil._ I acknowledge it.

_Hyl._ No idea therefore can be like unto, or represent the nature of God?

_Phil._ It cannot.

_Hyl._ Since therefore you have no _idea_ of the mind of God, how can you
conceive it possible that things should exist in His mind? Or, if you can
conceive the mind of God, without having an idea of it, why may not I be
allowed to conceive the existence of Matter, notwithstanding I have no
idea of it?

_Phil._ As to your first question: I own I have properly no _idea_, either
of God or any other spirit; for these being active, cannot be represented
by things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I do nevertheless know that
I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my
ideas exist(859). Farther, I know what I mean by the terms _I_ and
_myself_; and I know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not
perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound. The Mind,
Spirit, or Soul is that indivisible unextended thing which thinks, acts,
and perceives. I say _indivisible_, because unextended; and _unextended_,
because extended, figured, moveable things are ideas; and that which
perceives ideas, which thinks and wills, is plainly itself no idea, nor
like an idea. Ideas are things inactive, and perceived. And Spirits a sort
of beings altogether different from them. I do not therefore say my soul
is an idea, or like an idea. However, taking the word _idea_ in a large
sense, my soul may be said to furnish me with an idea, that is, an image
or likeness of God—though indeed extremely inadequate. For, all the notion
I have of God is obtained by reflecting on my own soul, heightening its
powers, and removing its imperfections. I have, therefore, though not an
inactive idea, yet in _myself_ some sort of an active thinking image of
the Deity. And, though I perceive Him not by sense, yet I have a notion of
Him, or know Him by reflexion and reasoning. My own mind and my own ideas
I have an immediate knowledge of; and, by the help of these, do mediately
apprehend the possibility of the existence of other spirits and
ideas(860). Farther, from my own being, and from the dependency I find in
myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason(861), necessarily infer the
existence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God. So much
for your first question. For the second: I suppose by this time you can
answer it yourself. For you neither perceive Matter(862) objectively, as
you do an inactive being or idea; nor know it, as you do yourself, by a
reflex act(863); neither do you mediately apprehend it by similitude of
the one or the other(864); nor yet collect it by reasoning from that which
you know immediately(865). All which makes the case of _Matter_ widely
different from that of the _Deity_.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

[(866)_Hyl._ You say your own soul supplies you with some sort of an idea
or image of God. But, at the same time, you acknowledge you have, properly
speaking, no _idea_ of your own soul. You even affirm that spirits are a
sort of beings altogether different from ideas. Consequently that no idea
can be like a spirit. We have therefore no idea of any spirit. You admit
nevertheless that there is spiritual Substance, although you have no idea
of it; while you deny there can be such a thing as material Substance,
because you have no notion or idea of it. Is this fair dealing? To act
consistently, you must either admit Matter or reject Spirit. What say you
to this?

_Phil._ I say, in the first place, that I do not deny the existence of
material substance, merely because I have no notion of it, but because the
notion of it is inconsistent; or, in other words, because it is repugnant
that there should be a notion of it. Many things, for aught I know, may
exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or
notion whatsoever. But then those things must be possible, that is,
nothing inconsistent must be included in their definition. I say,
secondly, that, although we believe things to exist which we do not
perceive, yet we may not believe that any particular thing exists, without
some reason for such belief: but I have no reason for believing the
existence of Matter. I have no immediate intuition thereof: neither can I
immediately from my sensations, ideas, notions, actions, or passions,
infer an unthinking, unperceiving, inactive Substance—either by probable
deduction, or necessary consequence. Whereas the being of my Self, that
is, my own soul, mind, or thinking principle, I evidently know by
reflexion(867). You will forgive me if I repeat the same things in answer
to the same objections. In the very notion or definition of _material
Substance_, there is included a manifest repugnance and inconsistency. But
this cannot be said of the notion of Spirit. That ideas should exist in
what doth not perceive, or be produced by what doth not act, is repugnant.
But, it is no repugnancy to say that a perceiving thing should be the
subject of ideas, or an active thing the cause of them. It is granted we
have neither an immediate evidence nor a demonstrative knowledge of the
existence of other finite spirits; but it will not thence follow that such
spirits are on a foot with material substances: if to suppose the one be
inconsistent, and it be not inconsistent to suppose the other; if the one
can be inferred by no argument, and there is a probability for the other;
if we see signs and effects indicating distinct finite agents like
ourselves, and see no sign or symptom whatever that leads to a rational
belief of Matter. I say, lastly, that I have a notion of Spirit, though I
have not, strictly speaking, an idea of it(868). I do not perceive it as
an idea, or by means of an idea, but know it by reflexion.

_Hyl._ Notwithstanding all you have said, to me it seems that, according
to your own way of thinking, and in consequence of your own principles, it
should follow that _you_ are only a system of floating ideas, without any
substance to support them. Words are not to be used without a meaning.
And, as there is no more meaning in _spiritual Substance_ than in
_material Substance_, the one is to be exploded as well as the other.

_Phil._ How often must I repeat, that I know or am conscious of my own
being; and that I _myself_ am not my ideas, but somewhat else(869), a
thinking, active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates
about ideas. I know that I, one and the same self, perceive both colours
and sounds: that a colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound a colour:
that I am therefore one individual principle, distinct from colour and
sound; and, for the same reason, from all other sensible things and inert
ideas. But, I am not in like manner conscious either of the existence or
essence of Matter(870). On the contrary, I know that nothing inconsistent
can exist, and that the existence of Matter implies an inconsistency.
Farther, I know what I mean when I affirm that there is a spiritual
substance or support of ideas, that is, that a spirit knows and perceives
ideas. But, I do not know what is meant when it is said that an
unperceiving substance hath inherent in it and supports either ideas or
the archetypes of ideas. There is therefore upon the whole no parity of
case between Spirit and Matter.]

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Hyl._ I own myself satisfied in this point. But, do you in earnest think
the real existence of sensible things consists in their being actually
perceived? If so; how comes it that all mankind distinguish between them?
Ask the first man you meet, and he shall tell you, _to be perceived_ is
one thing, and _to exist_ is another.

_Phil._ I am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense of the world
for the truth of my notion. Ask the gardener why he thinks yonder
cherry-tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell you, because he sees
and feels it; in a word, because he perceives it by his senses. Ask him
why he thinks an orange-tree not to be there, and he shall tell you,
because he does not perceive it. What he perceives by sense, that he terms
a real being, and saith it _is_ or _exists;_ but, that which is not
perceivable, the same, he saith, hath no being.

_Hyl._ Yes, Philonous, I grant the existence of a sensible thing consists
in being perceivable, but not in being actually perceived.

_Phil._ And what is perceivable but an idea? And can an idea exist without
being actually perceived? These are points long since agreed between us.

_Hyl._ But, be your opinion never so true, yet surely you will not deny it
is shocking, and contrary to the common sense of men(871). Ask the fellow
whether yonder tree hath an existence out of his mind: what answer think
you he would make?

_Phil._ The same that I should myself, to wit, that it doth exist out of
his mind. But then to a Christian it cannot surely be shocking to say, the
real tree, existing without his mind, is truly known and comprehended by
(that is _exists in_) the infinite mind of God. Probably he may not at
first glance be aware of the direct and immediate proof there is of this;
inasmuch as the very being of a tree, or any other sensible thing, implies
a mind wherein it is. But the point itself he cannot deny. The question
between the Materialists and me is not, whether things have a _real_
existence out of the mind of this or that person(872), but, whether they
have an _absolute_ existence, distinct from being perceived by God, and
exterior to _all_ minds(873). This indeed some heathens and philosophers
have affirmed, but whoever entertains notions of the Deity suitable to the
Holy Scriptures will be of another opinion.

_Hyl._ But, according to your notions, what difference is there between
real things, and chimeras formed by the imagination, or the visions of a
dream—since they are all equally in the mind(874)?

_Phil._ The ideas formed by the imagination are faint and indistinct; they
have, besides, an entire dependence on the will. But the ideas perceived
by sense, that is, real things, are more vivid and clear; and, being
imprinted on the mind by a spirit distinct from us, have not the like
dependence on our will. There is therefore no danger of confounding these
with the foregoing: and there is as little of confounding them with the
visions of a dream, which are dim, irregular, and confused. And, though
they should happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, by their not
being connected, and of apiece with the preceding and subsequent
transactions of our lives, they might easily be distinguished from
realities. In short, by whatever method you distinguish _things_ from
_chimeras_ on your scheme, the same, it is evident, will hold also upon
mine. For, it must be, I presume, by some perceived difference; and I am
not for depriving you of any one thing that you perceive.

_Hyl._ But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in the world but
spirits and ideas. And this, you must needs acknowledge, sounds very
oddly.

_Phil._ I own the word _idea_, not being commonly used for _thing_, sounds
something out of the way. My reason for using it was, because a necessary
relation to the mind is understood to be implied by that term; and it is
now commonly used by philosophers to denote the immediate objects of the
understanding. But, however oddly the proposition may sound in words, yet
it includes nothing so very strange or shocking in its sense; which in
effect amounts to no more than this, to wit, that there are only things
perceiving, and things perceived; or that every unthinking being is
necessarily, and from the very nature of its existence, perceived by some
mind; if not by a finite created mind, yet certainly by the infinite mind
of God, in whom ’we live, and move, and have our being.’ Is this as
strange as to say, the sensible qualities are not on the objects: or that
we cannot be sure of the existence of things, or know anything of their
real natures—though we both see and feel them, and perceive them by all
our senses?

_Hyl._ And, in consequence of this, must we not think there are no such
things as physical or corporeal causes; but that a Spirit is the immediate
cause of all the phenomena in nature? Can there be anything more
extravagant than this?

_Phil._ Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say—a thing which is
inert operates on the mind, and which is unperceiving is the cause of our
perceptions, [(875)without any regard either to consistency, or the old
known axiom, _Nothing can give to another that which it hath not itself_].
Besides, that which to you, I know not for what reason, seems so
extravagant is no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundred
places. In them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author of all
those effects which some heathens and philosophers are wont to ascribe to
Nature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthinking principle. This is so much
the constant language of Scripture that it were needless to confirm it by
citations.

_Hyl._ You are not aware, Philonous, that, in making God the immediate
Author of all the motions in nature, you make Him the Author of murder,
sacrilege, adultery, and the like heinous sins.

_Phil._ In answer to that, I observe, first, that the imputation of guilt
is the same, whether a person commits an action with or without an
instrument. In case therefore you suppose God to act by the mediation of
an instrument, or occasion, called _Matter_, you as truly make Him the
author of sin as I, who think Him the immediate agent in all those
operations vulgarly ascribed to Nature. I farther observe that sin or
moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion,
but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and
religion. This is plain, in that the killing an enemy in a battle, or
putting a criminal legally to death, is not thought sinful; though the
outward act be the very same with that in the case of murder. Since,
therefore, sin doth not consist in the physical action, the making God an
immediate cause of all such actions is not making Him the Author of sin.
Lastly, I have nowhere said that God is the only agent who produces all
the motions in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any other agents
besides spirits; but this is very consistent with allowing to thinking
rational beings, in the production of motions, the use of limited powers,
ultimately indeed derived from God, but immediately under the direction of
their own wills, which is sufficient to entitle them to all the guilt of
their actions(876).

_Hyl._ But the denying Matter, Philonous, or corporeal Substance; there is
the point. You can never persuade me that this is not repugnant to the
universal sense of mankind. Were our dispute to be determined by most
voices, I am confident you would give up the point, without gathering the
votes.

_Phil._ I wish both our opinions were fairly stated and submitted to the
judgment of men who had plain common sense, without the prejudices of a
learned education. Let me be represented as one who trusts his senses, who
thinks he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of
their existence; and you fairly set forth with all your doubts, your
paradoxes, and your scepticism about you, and I shall willingly acquiesce
in the determination of any indifferent person. That there is no substance
wherein ideas can exist beside spirit is to me evident. And that the
objects immediately perceived are ideas, is on all hands agreed(877). And
that sensible qualities are objects immediately perceived no one can deny.
It is therefore evident there can be no _substratum_ of those qualities
but spirit; _in_ which they exist, not by way of mode or property, but as
a thing perceived in that which perceives it(878). I deny therefore that
there is any unthinking _substratum_ of the objects of sense, and _in that
acceptation_ that there is any material substance. But if by _material
substance_ is meant only _sensible body_—that which is seen and felt (and
the unphilosophical part of the world, I dare say, mean no more)—then I am
more certain of matter’s existence than you or any other philosopher
pretend to be. If there be anything which makes the generality of mankind
averse from the notions I espouse: it is a misapprehension that I deny the
reality of sensible things. But, as it is you who are guilty of that, and
not I, it follows that in truth their aversion is against your notions and
not mine. I do therefore assert that I am as certain as of my own being,
that there are bodies or corporeal substances (meaning the things I
perceive by my senses); and that, granting this, the bulk of mankind will
take no thought about, nor think themselves at all concerned in the fate
of those unknown natures, and philosophical quiddities, which some men are
so fond of.

_Hyl._ What say you to this? Since, according to you, men judge of the
reality of things by their senses, how can a man be mistaken in thinking
the moon a plain lucid surface, about a foot in diameter; or a square
tower, seen at a distance, round; or an oar, with one end in the water,
crooked?

_Phil._ He is not mistaken with regard to the ideas he actually perceives,
but in the inferences he makes from his present perceptions. Thus, in the
case of the oar, what he immediately perceives by sight is certainly
crooked; and so far he is in the right. But if he thence conclude that
upon taking the oar out of the water he shall perceive the same
crookedness; or that it would affect his touch as crooked things are wont
to do: in that he is mistaken. In like manner, if he shall conclude from
what he perceives in one station, that, in case he advances towards the
moon or tower, he should still be affected with the like ideas, he is
mistaken. But his mistake lies not in what he perceives immediately, and
at present, (it being a manifest contradiction to suppose he should err in
respect of that) but in the wrong judgment he makes concerning the ideas
he apprehends to be connected with those immediately perceived: or,
concerning the ideas that, from what he perceives at present, he imagines
would be perceived in other circumstances. The case is the same with
regard to the Copernican system. We do not here perceive any motion of the
earth: but it were erroneous thence to conclude, that, in case we were
placed at as great a distance from that as we are now from the other
planets, we should not then perceive its motion(879).

_Hyl._ I understand you; and must needs own you say things plausible
enough. But, give me leave to put you in mind of one thing. Pray,
Philonous, were you not formerly as positive that Matter existed, as you
are now that it does not?

_Phil._ I was. But here lies the difference. Before, my positiveness was
founded, without examination, upon prejudice; but now, after inquiry, upon
evidence.

_Hyl._ After all, it seems our dispute is rather about words than things.
We agree in the thing, but differ in the name. That we are affected with
ideas _from without_ is evident; and it is no less evident that there must
be (I will not say archetypes, but) Powers without the mind(880),
corresponding to those ideas. And, as these Powers cannot subsist by
themselves, there is some subject of them necessarily to be admitted;
which I call _Matter_, and you call _Spirit_. This is all the difference.

_Phil._ Pray, Hylas, is that powerful Being, or subject of powers,
extended?

_Hyl._ It hath not extension; but it hath the power to raise in you the
idea of extension,

_Phil._ It is therefore itself unextended?

_Hyl._ I grant it.

_Phil._ Is it not also active?

_Hyl._ Without doubt. Otherwise, how could we attribute powers to it?

_Phil._ Now let me ask you two questions: _First_, Whether it be agreeable
to the usage either of philosophers or others to give the name _Matter_ to
an unextended active being? And, _Secondly_, Whether it be not
ridiculously absurd to misapply names contrary to the common use of
language?

_Hyl._ Well then, let it not be called Matter, since you will have it so,
but some _Third Nature_ distinct from Matter and Spirit. For what reason
is there why you should call it Spirit? Does not the notion of spirit
imply that it is thinking, as well as active and unextended?

_Phil._ My reason is this: because I have a mind to have some notion of
meaning in what I say: but I have no notion of any action distinct from
volition, neither can I conceive volition to be anywhere but in a spirit:
therefore, when I speak of an active being, I am obliged to mean a Spirit.
Beside, what can be plainer than that a thing which hath no ideas in
itself cannot impart them to me; and, if it hath ideas, surely it must be
a Spirit. To make you comprehend the point still more clearly if it be
possible. I assert as well as you that, since we are affected from
without, we must allow Powers to be without, in a Being distinct from
ourselves. So far we are agreed. But then we differ as to the kind of this
powerful Being(881). I will have it to be Spirit, you Matter, or I know
not what (I may add too, you know not what) Third Nature. Thus, I prove it
to be Spirit. From the effects I see produced, I conclude there are
actions; and, because actions, volitions; and, because there are
volitions, there must be a _will_. Again, the things I perceive must have
an existence, they or their archetypes, out of _my_ mind: but, being
ideas, neither they nor their archetypes can exist otherwise than in an
understanding; there is therefore an _understanding_. But will and
understanding constitute in the strictest sense a mind or spirit. The
powerful cause, therefore, of my ideas is in strict propriety of speech a
_Spirit_.

_Hyl._ And now I warrant you think you have made the point very clear,
little suspecting that what you advance leads directly to a contradiction.
Is it not an absurdity to imagine any imperfection in God?

_Phil._ Without a doubt.

_Hyl._ To suffer pain is an imperfection?

_Phil._ It is.

_Hyl._ Are we not sometimes affected with pain and uneasiness by some
other Being?

_Phil._ We are.

_Hyl._ And have you not said that Being is a Spirit, and is not that
Spirit God?

_Phil._ I grant it.

_Hyl._ But you have asserted that whatever ideas we perceive from without
are in the mind which affects us. The ideas, therefore, of pain and
uneasiness are in God; or, in other words, God suffers pain: that is to
say, there is an imperfection in the Divine nature: which, you
acknowledged, was absurd. So you are caught in a plain contradiction(882).

_Phil._ That God knows or understands all things, and that He knows, among
other things, what pain is, even every sort of painful sensation, and what
it is for His creatures to suffer pain, I make no question. But, that God,
though He knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can Himself
suffer pain, I positively deny. We, who are limited and dependent spirits,
are liable to impressions of sense, the effects of an external Agent,
which, being produced against our wills, are sometimes painful and uneasy.
But God, whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by sense
as we do; whose will is absolute and independent, causing all things, and
liable to be thwarted or resisted by nothing: it is evident, such a Being
as this can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful sensation, or
indeed any sensation at all. We are chained to a body: that is to say, our
perceptions are connected with corporeal motions. By the law of our
nature, we are affected upon every alteration in the nervous parts of our
sensible body; which sensible body, rightly considered, is nothing but a
complexion of such qualities or ideas as have no existence distinct from
being perceived by a mind. So that this connexion of sensations with
corporeal motions means no more than a correspondence in the order of
nature, between two sets of ideas, or things immediately perceivable. But
God is a Pure Spirit, disengaged from all such sympathy, or natural ties.
No corporeal motions are attended with the sensations of pain or pleasure
in His mind. To know everything knowable, is certainly a perfection; but
to endure, or suffer, or feel anything by sense, is an imperfection. The
former, I say, agrees to God, but not the latter. God knows, or hath
ideas; but His ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense, as ours are. Your
not distinguishing, where there is so manifest a difference, makes you
fancy you see an absurdity where there is none.

_Hyl._ But, all this while you have not considered that the quantity of
Matter has been demonstrated to be proportioned to the gravity of
bodies(883). And what can withstand demonstration?

_Phil._ Let me see how you demonstrate that point.

_Hyl._ I lay it down for a principle, that the moments or quantities of
motion in bodies are in a direct compounded reason of the velocities and
quantities of Matter contained in them. Hence, where the velocities are
equal, it follows the moments are directly as the quantity of Matter in
each. But it is found by experience that all bodies (bating the small
inequalities, arising from the resistance of the air) descend with an
equal velocity; the motion therefore of descending bodies, and
consequently their gravity, which is the cause or principle of that
motion, is proportional to the quantity of Matter; which was to be
demonstrated.

_Phil._ You lay it down as a self-evident principle that the quantity of
motion in any body is proportional to the velocity and _Matter_ taken
together; and this is made use of to prove a proposition from whence the
existence of _Matter_ is inferred. Pray is not this arguing in a circle?

_Hyl._ In the premise I only mean that the motion is proportional to the
velocity, jointly with the extension and solidity.

_Phil._ But, allowing this to be true, yet it will not thence follow that
gravity is proportional to _Matter_, in your philosophic sense of the
word; except you take it for granted that unknown _substratum_, or
whatever else you call it, is proportional to those sensible qualities;
which to suppose is plainly begging the question. That there is magnitude
and solidity, or resistance, perceived by sense, I readily grant; as
likewise, that gravity may be proportional to those qualities I will not
dispute. But that either these qualities as perceived by us, or the powers
producing them, do exist in a _material substratum_; this is what I deny,
and you indeed affirm, but, notwithstanding your demonstration, have not
yet proved.

_Hyl._ I shall insist no longer on that point. Do you think, however, you
shall persuade me the natural philosophers have been dreaming all this
while? Pray what becomes of all their hypotheses and explications of the
phenomena, which suppose the existence of Matter(884)?

_Phil._ What mean you, Hylas, by the _phenomena_?

_Hyl._ I mean the appearances which I perceive by my senses.

_Phil._ And the appearances perceived by sense, are they not ideas?

_Hyl._ I have told you so a hundred times.

_Phil._ Therefore, to explain the phenomena is, to shew how we come to be
affected with ideas, in that manner and(885) order wherein they are
imprinted on our senses. Is it not?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ Now, if you can prove that any philosopher has explained the
production of any one idea in our minds by the help of _Matter_(886), I
shall for ever acquiesce, and look on all that hath been said against it
as nothing; but, if you cannot, it is vain to urge the explication of
phenomena. That a Being endowed with knowledge and will should produce or
exhibit ideas is easily understood. But that a Being which is utterly
destitute of these faculties should be able to produce ideas, or in any
sort to affect an intelligence, this I can never understand. This I say,
though we had some positive conception of Matter, though we knew its
qualities, and could comprehend its existence, would yet be so far from
explaining things, that it is itself the most inexplicable thing in the
world. And yet, for all this, it will not follow that philosophers have
been doing nothing; for, by observing and reasoning upon the connexion of
ideas(887), they discover the laws and methods of nature, which is a part
of knowledge both useful and entertaining.

_Hyl._ After all, can it be supposed God would deceive all mankind? Do you
imagine He would have induced the whole world to believe the being of
Matter, if there was no such thing?

_Phil._ That every epidemical opinion, arising from prejudice, or passion,
or thoughtlessness, may be imputed to God, as the Author of it, I believe
you will not affirm. Whatsoever opinion we father on Him, it must be
either because He has discovered it to us by supernatural revelation; or
because it is so evident to our natural faculties, which were framed and
given us by God, that it is impossible we should withhold our assent from
it. But where is the revelation? or where is the evidence that extorts the
belief of Matter? Nay, how does it appear, that Matter, _taken for
something distinct from what we perceive by our senses_, is thought to
exist by all mankind; or, indeed, by any except a few philosophers, who do
not know what they would be at? Your question supposes these points are
clear; and, when you have cleared them, I shall think myself obliged to
give you another answer. In the meantime, let it suffice that I tell you,
I do not suppose God has deceived mankind at all.

_Hyl._ But the novelty, Philonous, the novelty! There lies the danger. New
notions should always be discountenanced; they unsettle men’s minds, and
nobody knows where they will end.

_Phil._ Why the rejecting a notion that has no foundation, either in
sense, or in reason, or in Divine authority, should be thought to unsettle
the belief of such opinions as are grounded on all or any of these, I
cannot imagine. That innovations in government and religion are dangerous,
and ought to be discountenanced, I freely own. But is there the like
reason why they should be discouraged in philosophy? The making anything
known which was unknown before is an innovation in knowledge: and, if all
such innovations had been forbidden, men would have made a notable
progress in the arts and sciences. But it is none of my business to plead
for novelties and paradoxes. That the qualities we perceive are not on the
objects: that we must not believe our senses: that we know nothing of the
real nature of things, and can never be assured even of their existence:
that real colours and sounds are nothing but certain unknown figures and
motions: that motions are in themselves neither swift nor slow: that there
are in bodies absolute extensions, without any particular magnitude or
figure: that a thing stupid, thoughtless, and inactive, operates on a
spirit: that the least particle of a body contains innumerable extended
parts:—these are the novelties, these are the strange notions which shock
the genuine uncorrupted judgment of all mankind; and being once admitted,
embarrass the mind with endless doubts and difficulties. And it is against
these and the like innovations I endeavour to vindicate Common Sense. It
is true, in doing this, I may perhaps be obliged to use some _ambages_,
and ways of speech not common. But, if my notions are once thoroughly
understood, that which is most singular in them will, in effect, be found
to amount to no more than this:—that it is absolutely impossible, and a
plain contradiction, to suppose any unthinking Being should exist without
being perceived by a Mind. And, if this notion be singular, it is a shame
it should be so, at this time of day, and in a Christian country.

_Hyl._ As for the difficulties other opinions may be liable to, those are
out of the question. It is your business to defend your own opinion. Can
anything be plainer than that you are for changing all things into ideas?
You, I say, who are not ashamed to charge me with _scepticism_. This is so
plain, there is no denying it.

_Phil._ You mistake me. I am not for changing things into ideas, but
rather ideas into things(888); since those immediate objects of
perception, which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I
take to be the real things themselves(889).

_Hyl._ Things! You may pretend what you please; but it is certain you
leave us nothing but the empty forms of things, the outside only which
strikes the senses.

_Phil._ What you call the empty forms and outside of things seem to me the
very things themselves. Nor are they empty or incomplete, otherwise than
upon your supposition—that Matter(890) is an essential part of all
corporeal things. We both, therefore, agree in this, that we perceive only
sensible forms: but herein we differ—you will have them to be empty
appearances, I real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses, I do.

_Hyl._ You say you believe your senses; and seem to applaud yourself that
in this you agree with the vulgar. According to you, therefore, the true
nature of a thing is discovered by the senses. If so, whence comes that
disagreement? Why is not the same figure, and other sensible qualities,
perceived all manner of ways? and why should we use a microscope the
better to discover the true nature of a body, if it were discoverable to
the naked eye?

_Phil._ Strictly speaking, Hylas, we do not see the same object that we
feel(891); neither is the same object perceived by the microscope which
was by the naked eye(892). But, in case every variation was thought
sufficient to constitute a new kind or individual, the endless number or
confusion of names would render language impracticable. Therefore, to
avoid this, as well as other inconveniences which are obvious upon a
little thought, men combine together several ideas, apprehended by divers
senses, or by the same sense at different times, or in different
circumstances, but observed, however, to have some connexion in nature,
either with respect to co-existence or succession; all which they refer to
one name, and consider as one thing. Hence it follows that when I examine,
by my other senses, a thing I have seen, it is not in order to understand
better the same object which I had perceived by sight, the object of one
sense not being perceived by the other senses. And, when I look through a
microscope, it is not that I may perceive more clearly what I perceived
already with my bare eyes; the object perceived by the glass being quite
different from the former. But, in both cases, my aim is only to know what
ideas are connected together; and the more a man knows of the connexion of
ideas(893), the more he is said to know of the nature of things. What,
therefore, if our ideas are variable; what if our senses are not in all
circumstances affected with the same appearances? It will not thence
follow they are not to be trusted; or that they are inconsistent either
with themselves or anything else: except it be with your preconceived
notion of (I know not what) one single, unchanged, unperceivable, real
Nature, marked by each name. Which prejudice seems to have taken its rise
from not rightly understanding the common language of men, speaking of
several distinct ideas as united into one thing by the mind. And, indeed,
there is cause to suspect several erroneous conceits of the philosophers
are owing to the same original: while they began to build their schemes
not so much on notions as on words, which were framed by the vulgar,
merely for conveniency and dispatch in the common actions of life, without
any regard to speculation(894).

_Hyl_. Methinks I apprehend your meaning.

_Phil._ It is your opinion the ideas we perceive by our senses are not
real things, but images or copies of them. Our knowledge, therefore, is no
farther real than as our ideas are the true _representations_ of those
_originals_. But, as these supposed originals are in themselves unknown,
it is impossible to know how far our ideas resemble them; or whether they
resemble them at all(895). We cannot, therefore, be sure we have any real
knowledge(896). Farther, as our ideas are perpetually varied, without any
change in the supposed real things, it necessarily follows they cannot all
be true copies of them: or, if some are and others are not, it is
impossible to distinguish the former from the latter. And this plunges us
yet deeper in uncertainty(897). Again, when we consider the point, we
cannot conceive how any idea, or anything like an idea, should have an
absolute existence out of a mind: nor consequently, according to you, how
there should be any real thing in nature(898). The result of all which is
that we are thrown into the most hopeless and abandoned scepticism. Now,
give me leave to ask you, First, Whether your referring ideas to certain
absolutely existing unperceived substances, as their originals, be not the
source of all this scepticism(899)? Secondly, whether you are informed,
either by sense or reason(900), of the existence of those unknown
originals? And, in case you are not, whether it be not absurd to suppose
them? Thirdly, Whether, upon inquiry, you find there is anything
distinctly conceived or meant by the _absolute or external existence of
unperceiving substances_(901)? Lastly, Whether, the premises considered,
it be not the wisest way to follow nature, trust your senses, and, laying
aside all anxious thought about unknown natures or substances(902), admit
with the vulgar those for real things which are perceived by the senses?

_Hyl._ For the present, I have no inclination to the answering part. I
would much rather see how you can get over what follows. Pray are not the
objects perceived by the _senses_ of one, likewise perceivable to others
present? If there were a hundred more here, they would all see the garden,
the trees, and flowers, as I see them. But they are not in the same manner
affected with the ideas I frame in my _imagination_. Does not this make a
difference between the former sort of objects and the latter?

_Phil._ I grant it does. Nor have I ever denied a difference between the
objects of sense and those of imagination(903). But what would you infer
from thence? You cannot say that sensible objects exist unperceived,
because they are perceived by many.

_Hyl._ I own I can make nothing of that objection: but it hath led me into
another. Is it not your opinion that by our senses we perceive only the
ideas existing in our minds?

_Phil._ It is.

_Hyl._ But the _same_ idea which is in my mind cannot be in yours, or in
any other mind. Doth it not therefore follow, from your principles, that
no two can see the same thing(904)? And is not this highly absurd?

_Phil._ If the term _same_ be taken in the vulgar acceptation, it is
certain (and not at all repugnant to the principles I maintain) that
different persons may perceive the same thing; or the same thing or idea
exist in different minds. Words are of arbitrary imposition; and, since
men are used to apply the word _same_ where no distinction or variety is
perceived, and I do not pretend to alter their perceptions, it follows
that, as men have said before, _several saw the same thing_, so they may,
upon like occasions, still continue to use the same phrase, without any
deviation either from propriety of language, or the truth of things. But,
if the term _same_ be used in the acceptation of philosophers, who pretend
to an abstracted notion of identity, then, according to their sundry
definitions of this notion (for it is not yet agreed wherein that
philosophic identity consists), it may or may not be possible for divers
persons to perceive the same thing(905). But whether philosophers shall
think fit to _call_ a thing the _same_ or no, is, I conceive, of small
importance. Let us suppose several men together, all endued with the same
faculties, and consequently affected in like sort by their senses, and who
had yet never known the use of language; they would, without question,
agree in their perceptions. Though perhaps, when they came to the use of
speech, some regarding the uniformness of what was perceived, might call
it the _same_ thing: others, especially regarding the diversity of persons
who perceived, might choose the denomination of _different_ things. But
who sees not that all the dispute is about a word? to wit, whether what is
perceived by different persons may yet have the term _same_ applied to
it(906)? Or, suppose a house, whose walls or outward shell remaining
unaltered, the chambers are all pulled down, and new ones built in their
place; and that you should call this the _same_, and I should say it was
not the _same_ house:—would we not, for all this, perfectly agree in our
thoughts of the house, considered in itself? And would not all the
difference consist in a sound? If you should say, We differed in our
notions; for that you superadded to your idea of the house the simple
abstracted idea of identity, whereas I did not; I would tell you, I know
not what you mean by the _abstracted idea of identity_; and should desire
you to look into your own thoughts, and be sure you understood
yourself.——Why so silent, Hylas? Are you not yet satisfied men may dispute
about identity and diversity, without any real difference in their
thoughts and opinions, abstracted from names? Take this farther reflexion
with you—that whether Matter be allowed to exist or no, the case is
exactly the same as to the point in hand. For the Materialists themselves
acknowledge what we immediately perceive by our senses to be our own
ideas. Your difficulty, therefore, that no two see the same thing, makes
equally against the Materialists and me.

_Hyl._ [(907)Ay, Philonous,] But they suppose an external archetype, to
which referring their several ideas they may truly be said to perceive the
same thing.

_Phil._ And (not to mention your having discarded those archetypes) so may
you suppose an external archetype on my principles;—_external, I mean, to
your own mind_: though indeed it must be supposed to exist in that Mind
which comprehends all things; but then, this serves all the ends of
_identity,_ as well as if it existed out of a mind(908). And I am sure you
yourself will not say it is less intelligible.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Hyl._ You have indeed clearly satisfied me—either that there is no
difficulty at bottom in this point; or, if there be, that it makes equally
against both opinions.

_Phil._ But that which makes equally against two contradictory opinions
can be a proof against neither.

_Hyl._ I acknowledge it.

But, after all, Philonous, when I consider the substance of what you
advance against _Scepticism_, it amounts to no more than this:—We are sure
that we really see, hear, feel; in a word, that we are affected with
sensible impressions.

_Phil._ And how are _we_ concerned any farther? I see this cherry, I feel
it, I taste it: and I am sure _nothing_ cannot be seen, or felt, or
tasted: it is therefore _real_. Take away the sensations of softness,
moisture, redness, tartness, and you take away the cherry, since it is not
a being distinct from sensations. A cherry, I say, is nothing but a
congeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses:
which ideas are united into one thing (or have one name given them) by the
mind, because they are observed to attend each other. Thus, when the
palate is affected with such a particular taste, the sight is affected
with a red colour, the touch with roundness, softness, &c. Hence, when I
see, and feel, and taste, in such sundry certain manners, I am sure the
cherry exists, or is real; its reality being in my opinion nothing
abstracted from those sensations. But if by the word _cherry_ you mean an
unknown nature, distinct from all those sensible qualities, and by its
_existence_ something distinct from its being perceived; then, indeed, I
own, neither you nor I, nor any one else, can be sure it exists.

_Hyl._ But, what would you say, Philonous, if I should bring the very same
reasons against the existence of sensible things _in a mind_ which you
have offered against their existing _in a material substratum_?

_Phil._ When I see your reasons, you shall hear what I have to say to
them.

_Hyl._ Is the mind extended or unextended?

_Phil._ Unextended, without doubt.

_Hyl._ Do you say the things you perceive are in your mind?

_Phil._ They are.

_Hyl._ Again, have I not heard you speak of sensible impressions?

_Phil._ I believe you may.

_Hyl._ Explain to me now, O Philonous! how it is possible there should be
room for all those trees and houses to exist in your mind. Can extended
things be contained in that which is unextended? Or, are we to imagine
impressions made on a thing void of all solidity? You cannot say objects
are in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on
it, as the figure of a seal upon wax. In what sense, therefore, are we to
understand those expressions? Explain me this if you can: and I shall then
be able to answer all those queries you formerly put to me about my
_substratum_.

_Phil._ Look you, Hylas, when I speak of objects as existing in the mind,
or imprinted on the senses, I would not be understood in the gross literal
sense; as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an
impression upon wax. My meaning is only that the mind comprehends or
perceives them; and that it is affected from without, or by some being
distinct from itself(909). This is my explication of your difficulty; and
how it can serve to make your tenet of an unperceiving material
_substratum_ intelligible, I would fain know.

_Hyl._ Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use can be made of
it. But are you not guilty of some abuse of language in this?

_Phil._ None at all. It is no more than common custom, which you know is
the rule of language, hath authorised: nothing being more usual, than for
philosophers to speak of the immediate objects of the understanding as
things existing in the mind. Nor is there anything in this but what is
conformable to the general analogy of language; most part of the mental
operations being signified by words borrowed from sensible things; as is
plain in the terms _comprehend_, _reflect_, _discourse_, &c., which, being
applied to the mind, must not be taken in their gross, original sense.

_Hyl._ You have, I own, satisfied me in this point. But there still
remains one great difficulty, which I know not how you will get over. And,
indeed, it is of such importance that if you could solve all others,
without being able to find a solution for this, you must never expect to
make me a proselyte to your principles.

_Phil._ Let me know this mighty difficulty.

_Hyl._ The Scripture account of the creation is what appears to me utterly
irreconcilable with your notions(910). Moses tells us of a creation: a
creation of what? of ideas? No, certainly, but of things, of real things,
solid corporeal substances. Bring your principles to agree with this, and
I shall perhaps agree with you.

_Phil._ Moses mentions the sun, moon, and stars, earth and sea, plants and
animals. That all these do really exist, and were in the beginning created
by God, I make no question. If by _ideas_ you mean fictions and fancies of
the mind(911), then these are no ideas. If by _ideas_ you mean immediate
objects of the understanding, or sensible things, which cannot exist
unperceived, or out of a mind(912), then these things are ideas. But
whether you do or do not call them _ideas_, it matters little. The
difference is only about a name. And, whether that name be retained or
rejected, the sense, the truth, and reality of things continues the same.
In common talk, the objects of our senses are not termed _ideas_, but
_things_. Call them so still: provided you do not attribute to them any
absolute external existence, and I shall never quarrel with you for a
word. The creation, therefore, I allow to have been a creation of things,
of _real_ things. Neither is this in the least inconsistent with my
principles, as is evident from what I have now said; and would have been
evident to you without this, if you had not forgotten what had been so
often said before. But as for solid corporeal substances, I desire you to
shew where Moses makes any mention of them; and, if they should be
mentioned by him, or any other inspired writer, it would still be
incumbent on you to shew those words were not taken in the vulgar
acceptation, for things falling under our senses, but in the
philosophic(913) acceptation, for Matter, or _an unknown __ quiddity, with
an absolute existence_. When you have proved these points, then (and not
till then) may you bring the authority of Moses into our dispute.

_Hyl._ It is in vain to dispute about a point so clear. I am content to
refer it to your own conscience. Are you not satisfied there is some
peculiar repugnancy between the Mosaic account of the creation and your
notions?

_Phil._ If all possible sense which can be put on the first chapter of
Genesis may be conceived as consistently with my principles as any other,
then it has no peculiar repugnancy with them. But there is no sense you
may not as well conceive, believing as I do. Since, besides spirits, all
you conceive are ideas; and the existence of these I do not deny. Neither
do you pretend they exist without the mind.

_Hyl._ Pray let me see any sense you can understand it in.

_Phil._ Why, I imagine that if I had been present at the creation, I
should have seen things produced into being—that is become perceptible—in
the order prescribed by the sacred historian. I ever before believed the
Mosaic account of the creation, and now find no alteration in my manner of
believing it. When things are said to begin or end their existence, we do
not mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All objects are
eternally known by God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal
existence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures,
are, by a decree of God, perceptible to them, then are they said to begin
a relative existence, with respect to created minds. Upon reading
therefore the Mosaic account of the creation, I understand that the
several parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits,
endowed with proper faculties; so that, whoever such were present, they
were in truth perceived by them(914). This is the literal obvious sense
suggested to me by the words of the Holy Scripture: in which is included
no mention, or no thought, either of _substratum_, instrument, occasion,
or absolute existence. And, upon inquiry, I doubt not it will be found
that most plain honest men, who believe the creation, never think of those
things any more than I. What metaphysical sense you may understand it in,
you only can tell.

_Hyl._ But, Philonous, you do not seem to be aware that you allow created
things, in the beginning, only a relative, and consequently hypothetical
being: that is to say, upon supposition there were _men_ to perceive them;
without which they have no actuality of absolute existence, wherein
creation might terminate. Is it not, therefore, according to you, plainly
impossible the creation of any inanimate creatures should precede that of
man? And is not this directly contrary to the Mosaic account?

_Phil._ In answer to that, I say, first, created beings might begin to
exist in the mind of other created intelligences, beside men. You will not
therefore be able to prove any contradiction between Moses and my notions,
unless you first shew there was no other order of finite created spirits
in being, before man. I say farther, in case we conceive the creation, as
we should at this time, a parcel of plants or vegetables of all sorts
produced, by an invisible Power, in a desert where nobody was present—that
this way of explaining or conceiving it is consistent with my principles,
since they deprive you of nothing, either sensible or imaginable; that it
exactly suits with the common, natural, and undebauched notions of
mankind; that it manifests the dependence of all things on God; and
consequently hath all the good effect or influence, which it is possible
that important article of our faith should have in making men humble,
thankful, and resigned to their [(915)great] Creator. I say, moreover,
that, in this naked conception of things, divested of words, there will
not be found any notion of what you call the _actuality of absolute
existence_. You may indeed raise a dust with those terms, and so lengthen
our dispute to no purpose. But I entreat you calmly to look into your own
thoughts, and then tell me if they are not a useless and unintelligible
jargon.

_Hyl._ I own I have no very clear notion annexed to them. But what say you
to this? Do you not make the existence of sensible things consist in their
being in a mind? And were not all things eternally in the mind of God? Did
they not therefore exist from all eternity, according to you? And how
could that which was eternal be created in time? Can anything be clearer
or better connected than this?

_Phil._ And are not you too of opinion, that God knew all things from
eternity?

_Hyl._ I am.

_Phil._ Consequently they always had a being in the Divine intellect.

_Hyl._ This I acknowledge.

_Phil._ By your own confession, therefore, nothing is new, or begins to
be, in respect of the mind of God. So we are agreed in that point.

_Hyl._ What shall we make then of the creation?

_Phil._ May we not understand it to have been entirely in respect of
finite spirits; so that things, with regard to us, may properly be said to
begin their existence, or be created, when God decreed they should become
perceptible to intelligent creatures, in that order and manner which He
then established, and we now call the laws of nature? You may call this a
_relative_, or _hypothetical existence_ if you please. But, so long as it
supplies us with the most natural, obvious, and literal sense of the
Mosaic history of the creation; so long as it answers all the religious
ends of that great article; in a word, so long as you can assign no other
sense or meaning in its stead; why should we reject this? Is it to comply
with a ridiculous sceptical humour of making everything nonsense and
unintelligible? I am sure you cannot say it is for the glory of God. For,
allowing it to be a thing possible and conceivable that the corporeal
world should have an absolute existence extrinsical to the mind of God, as
well as to the minds of all created spirits; yet how could this set forth
either the immensity or omniscience of the Deity, or the necessary and
immediate dependence of all things on Him? Nay, would it not rather seem
to derogate from those attributes?

_Hyl._ Well, but as to this decree of God’s, for making things
perceptible, what say you, Philonous? Is it not plain, God did either
execute that decree from all eternity, or at some certain time began to
will what He had not actually willed before, but only designed to will? If
the former, then there could be no creation, or beginning of existence, in
finite things(916). If the latter, then we must acknowledge something new
to befall the Deity; which implies a sort of change: and all change argues
imperfection.

_Phil._ Pray consider what you are doing. Is it not evident this objection
concludes equally against a creation in any sense; nay, against every
other act of the Deity, discoverable by the light of nature? None of which
can _we_ conceive, otherwise than as performed in time, and having a
beginning. God is a Being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: His
nature, therefore, is incomprehensible to finite spirits. It is not,
therefore, to be expected, that any man, whether Materialist or
Immaterialist, should have exactly just notions of the Deity, His
attributes, and ways of operation. If then you would infer anything
against me, your difficulty must not be drawn from the inadequateness of
our conceptions of the Divine nature, which is unavoidable on any scheme;
but from the denial of Matter, of which there is not one word, directly or
indirectly, in what you have now objected.

_Hyl._ I must acknowledge the difficulties you are concerned to clear are
such only as arise from the non-existence of Matter, and are peculiar to
that notion. So far you are in the right. But I cannot by any means bring
myself to think there is no such peculiar repugnancy between the creation
and your opinion; though indeed where to fix it, I do not distinctly know.

_Phil._ What would you have? Do I not acknowledge a twofold state of
things—the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal? The
former was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in the
mind of God(917). Is not this agreeable to the common notions of divines?
or, is any more than this necessary in order to conceive the creation? But
you suspect some peculiar repugnancy, though you know not where it lies.
To take away all possibility of scruple in the case, do but consider this
one point. Either you are not able to conceive the creation on any
hypothesis whatsoever; and, if so, there is no ground for dislike or
complaint against any particular opinion on that score: or you are able to
conceive it; and, if so, why not on my Principles, since thereby nothing
conceivable is taken away? You have all along been allowed the full scope
of sense, imagination, and reason. Whatever, therefore, you could before
apprehend, either immediately or mediately by your senses, or by
ratiocination from your senses; whatever you could perceive, imagine, or
understand, remains still with you. If, therefore, the notion you have of
the creation by other Principles be intelligible, you have it still upon
mine; if it be not intelligible, I conceive it to be no notion at all; and
so there is no loss of it. And indeed it seems to me very plain that the
supposition of Matter, that is a thing perfectly unknown and
inconceivable, cannot serve to make us conceive anything. And, I hope it
need not be proved to you that if the existence of Matter(918) doth not
make the creation conceivable, the creation’s being without it
inconceivable can be no objection against its non-existence.

_Hyl._ I confess, Philonous, you have almost satisfied me in this point of
the creation.

_Phil._ I would fain know why you are not quite satisfied. You tell me
indeed of a repugnancy between the Mosaic history and Immaterialism: but
you know not where it lies. Is this reasonable, Hylas? Can you expect I
should solve a difficulty without knowing what it is? But, to pass by all
that, would not a man think you were assured there is no repugnancy
between the received notions of Materialists and the inspired writings?

_Hyl._ And so I am.

_Phil._ Ought the historical part of Scripture to be understood in a plain
obvious sense, or in a sense which is metaphysical and out of the way?

_Hyl._ In the plain sense, doubtless.

_Phil._ When Moses speaks of herbs, earth, water, &c. as having been
created by God; think you not the sensible things commonly signified by
those words are suggested to every unphilosophical reader?

_Hyl._ I cannot help thinking so.

_Phil._ And are not all ideas, or things perceived by sense, to be denied
a real existence by the doctrine of the Materialist?

_Hyl._ This I have already acknowledged.

_Phil._ The creation, therefore, according to them, was not the creation
of things sensible, which have only a relative being, but of certain
unknown natures, which have an absolute being, wherein creation might
terminate?

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ Is it not therefore evident the assertors of Matter destroy the
plain obvious sense of Moses, with which their notions are utterly
inconsistent; and instead of it obtrude on us I know not what; something
equally unintelligible to themselves and me?

_Hyl._ I cannot contradict you.

_Phil._ Moses tells us of a creation. A creation of what? of unknown
quiddities, of occasions, or _substratum_? No, certainly; but of things
obvious to the senses. You must first reconcile this with your notions, if
you expect I should be reconciled to them.

_Hyl._ I see you can assault me with my own weapons.

_Phil._ Then as to _absolute existence_; was there ever known a more
jejune notion than that? Something it is so abstracted and unintelligible
that you have frankly owned you could not conceive it, much less explain
anything by it. But allowing Matter to exist, and the notion of absolute
existence to be as clear as light; yet, was this ever known to make the
creation more credible? Nay, hath it not furnished the atheists and
infidels of all ages with the most plausible arguments against a creation?
That a corporeal substance, which hath an absolute existence without the
minds of spirits, should be produced out of nothing, by the mere will of a
Spirit, hath been looked upon as a thing so contrary to all reason, so
impossible and absurd, that not only the most celebrated among the
ancients, but even divers modern and Christian philosophers have thought
Matter co-eternal with the Deity(919). Lay these things together, and then
judge you whether Materialism disposes men to believe the creation of
things.

_Hyl._ I own, Philonous, I think it does not. This of the _creation_ is
the last objection I can think of; and I must needs own it hath been
sufficiently answered as well as the rest. Nothing now remains to be
overcome but a sort of unaccountable backwardness that I find in myself
towards your notions.

_Phil._ When a man is swayed, he knows not why, to one side of the
question, can this, think you, be anything else but the effect of
prejudice, which never fails to attend old and rooted notions? And indeed
in this respect I cannot deny the belief of Matter to have very much the
advantage over the contrary opinion, with men of a learned education.

_Hyl._ I confess it seems to be as you say.

_Phil._ As a balance, therefore, to this weight of prejudice, let us throw
into the scale the great advantages(920) that arise from the belief of
Immaterialism, both in regard to religion and human learning. The being of
a God, and incorruptibility of the soul, those great articles of religion,
are they not proved with the clearest and most immediate evidence? When I
say the being of a God, I do not mean an obscure general Cause of things,
whereof we have no conception, but God, in the strict and proper sense of
the word. A Being whose spirituality, omnipresence, providence,
omniscience, infinite power and goodness, are as conspicuous as the
existence of sensible things, of which (notwithstanding the fallacious
pretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there is no more reason to
doubt than of our own being.—Then, with relation to human sciences. In
Natural Philosophy, what intricacies, what obscurities, what
contradictions hath the belief of Matter led men into! To say nothing of
the numberless disputes about its extent, continuity, homogeneity,
gravity, divisibility, &c.—do they not pretend to explain all things by
bodies operating on bodies, according to the laws of motion? and yet, are
they able to comprehend how one body should move another? Nay, admitting
there was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert being with a
cause, or in conceiving how an accident might pass from one body to
another; yet, by all their strained thoughts and extravagant suppositions,
have they been able to reach the _mechanical_ production of any one animal
or vegetable body? Can they account, by the laws of motion, for sounds,
tastes, smells, or colours; or for the regular course of things? Have they
accounted, by physical principles, for the aptitude and contrivance even
of the most inconsiderable parts of the universe? But, laying aside Matter
and corporeal causes, and admitting only the efficiency of an All-perfect
Mind, are not all the effects of nature easy and intelligible? If the
_phenomena_ are nothing else but _ideas_; God is a _spirit_, but Matter an
unintelligent, unperceiving being. If they demonstrate an unlimited power
in their cause; God is active and omnipotent, but Matter an inert mass. If
the order, regularity, and usefulness of them can never be sufficiently
admired; God is infinitely wise and provident, but Matter destitute of all
contrivance and design. These surely are great advantages in _Physics_.
Not to mention that the apprehension of a distant Deity naturally disposes
men to a negligence in their moral actions; which they would be more
cautious of, in case they thought Him immediately present, and acting on
their minds, without the interposition of Matter, or unthinking second
causes.—Then in _Metaphysics_: what difficulties concerning entity in
abstract, substantial forms, hylarchic principles, plastic natures,(921)
substance and accident, principle of individuation, possibility of
Matter’s thinking, origin of ideas, the manner how two independent
substances so widely different as _Spirit_ and _Matter_, should mutually
operate on each other? what difficulties, I say, and endless
disquisitions, concerning these and innumerable other the like points, do
we escape, by supposing only Spirits and ideas?—Even the _Mathematics_
themselves, if we take away the absolute existence of extended things,
become much more clear and easy; the most shocking paradoxes and intricate
speculations in those sciences depending on the infinite divisibility of
finite extension; which depends on that supposition.—But what need is
there to insist on the particular sciences? Is not that opposition to all
science whatsoever, that frenzy of the ancient and modern Sceptics, built
on the same foundation? Or can you produce so much as one argument against
the reality of corporeal things, or in behalf of that avowed utter
ignorance of their natures, which doth not suppose their reality to
consist in an external absolute existence? Upon this supposition, indeed,
the objections from the change of colours in a pigeon’s neck, or the
appearance of the broken oar in the water, must be allowed to have weight.
But these and the like objections vanish, if we do not maintain the being
of absolute external originals, but place the reality of things in ideas,
fleeting indeed, and changeable;—however, not changed at random, but
according to the fixed order of nature. For, herein consists that
constancy and truth of things which secures all the concerns of life, and
distinguishes that which is _real_ from the _irregular visions_ of the
fancy(922).

_Hyl._ I agree to all you have now said, and must own that nothing can
incline me to embrace your opinion more than the advantages I see it is
attended with. I am by nature lazy; and this would be a mighty abridgment
in knowledge. What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement,
what fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be
avoided by that single notion of _Immaterialism_!

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Phil._ After all, is there anything farther remaining to be done? You may
remember you promised to embrace that opinion which upon examination
should appear most agreeable to Common Sense and remote from Scepticism.
This, by your own confession, is that which denies Matter, or the
_absolute_ existence of corporeal things. Nor is this all; the same notion
has been proved several ways, viewed in different lights, pursued in its
consequences, and all objections against it cleared. Can there be a
greater evidence of its truth? or is it possible it should have all the
marks of a true opinion and yet be false?

_Hyl._ I own myself entirely satisfied for the present in all respects.
But, what security can I have that I shall still continue the same full
assent to your opinion, and that no unthought-of objection or difficulty
will occur hereafter?

_Phil._ Pray, Hylas, do you in other cases, when a point is once evidently
proved, withhold your consent on account of objections or difficulties it
may be liable to? Are the difficulties that attend the doctrine of
incommensurable quantities, of the angle of contact, of the asymptotes to
curves, or the like, sufficient to make you hold out against mathematical
demonstration? Or will you disbelieve the Providence of God, because there
may be some particular things which _you_ know not how to reconcile with
it? If there are difficulties attending _Immaterialism_, there are at the
same time direct and evident proofs of it. But for the existence of
Matter(923) there is not one proof, and far more numerous and
insurmountable objections lie against it. But where are those mighty
difficulties you insist on? Alas! you know not where or what they are;
something which may possibly occur hereafter. If this be a sufficient
pretence for withholding your full assent, you should never yield it to
any proposition, how free soever from exceptions, how clearly and solidly
soever demonstrated.

_Hyl._ You have satisfied me, Philonous.

_Phil._ But, to arm you against all future objections, do but consider:
That which bears equally hard on two contradictory opinions can be proof
against neither. Whenever, therefore, any difficulty occurs, try if you
can find a solution for it on the hypothesis of the _Materialists_. Be not
deceived by words; but sound your own thoughts. And in case you cannot
conceive it easier by the help of _Materialism_, it is plain it can be no
objection against _Immaterialism_. Had you proceeded all along by this
rule, you would probably have spared yourself abundance of trouble in
objecting; since of all your difficulties I challenge you to shew one that
is explained by Matter: nay, which is not more unintelligible with than
without that supposition; and consequently makes rather _against_ than
_for_ it. You should consider, in each particular, whether the difficulty
arises from the _non-existence of Matter_. If it doth not, you might as
well argue from the infinite divisibility of extension against the Divine
prescience, as from such a difficulty against _Immaterialism_. And yet,
upon recollection, I believe you will find this to have been often, if not
always, the case. You should likewise take heed not to argue on a _petitio
principii_. One is apt to say—The unknown substances ought to be esteemed
real things, rather than the ideas in our minds: and who can tell but the
unthinking external substance may concur, as a cause or instrument, in the
productions of our ideas? But is not this proceeding on a supposition that
there are such external substances? And to suppose this, is it not begging
the question? But, above all things, you should beware of imposing on
yourself by that vulgar sophism which is called _ignoratio clenchi_. You
talked often as if you thought I maintained the non-existence of Sensible
Things. Whereas in truth no one can be more thoroughly assured of their
existence than I am. And it is you who doubt; I should have said,
positively deny it. Everything that is seen, felt, heard, or any way
perceived by the senses, is, on the principles I embrace, a real being;
but not on yours. Remember, the Matter you contend for is an Unknown
Somewhat (if indeed it may be termed _somewhat_), which is quite stripped
of all sensible qualities, and can neither be perceived by sense, nor
apprehended by the mind. Remember, I say, that it is not any object which
is hard or soft, hot or cold, blue or white, round or square, &c. For all
these things I affirm do exist. Though indeed I deny they have an
existence distinct from being perceived; or that they exist out of all
minds whatsoever. Think on these points; let them be attentively
considered and still kept in view. Otherwise you will not comprehend the
state of the question; without which your objections will always be wide
of the mark, and, instead of mine, may possibly be directed (as more than
once they have been) against your own notions.

_Hyl._ I must needs own, Philonous, nothing seems to have kept me from
agreeing with you more than this same _mistaking the question_. In denying
Matter, at first glimpse I am tempted to imagine you deny the things we
see and feel: but, upon reflexion, find there is no ground for it. What
think you, therefore, of retaining the name _Matter_, and applying it to
_sensible things_? This may be done without any change in your sentiments:
and, believe me, it would be a means of reconciling them to some persons
who may be more shocked at an innovation in words than in opinion.

_Phil._ With all my heart: retain the word _Matter,_ and apply it to the
objects of sense, if you please; provided you do not attribute to them any
subsistence distinct from their being perceived. I shall never quarrel
with you for an expression. _Matter_, or _material substance_, are terms
introduced by philosophers; and, as used by them, imply a sort of
independency, or a subsistence distinct from being perceived by a mind:
but are never used by common people; or, if ever, it is to signify the
immediate objects of sense. One would think, therefore, so long as the
names of all particular things, with the terms _sensible_, _substance_,
_body_, _stuff_, and the like, are retained, the word _Matter_ should be
never missed in common talk. And in philosophical discourses it seems the
best way to leave it quite out: since there is not, perhaps, any one thing
that hath more favoured and strengthened the depraved bent of the mind
towards Atheism than the use of that general confused term.

_Hyl._ Well but, Philonous, since I am content to give up the notion of an
unthinking substance exterior to the mind, I think you ought not to deny
me the privilege of using the word _Matter_ as I please, and annexing it
to a collection of sensible qualities subsisting only in the mind. I
freely own there is no other substance, in a strict sense, than _Spirit_.
But I have been so long accustomed to the _term Matter_ that I know not
how to part with it: to say, there is no _Matter_ in the world, is still
shocking to me. Whereas to say—There is no _Matter_, if by that term be
meant an unthinking substance existing without the mind; but if by
_Matter_ is meant some sensible thing, whose existence consists in being
perceived, then there is _Matter_:—this distinction gives it quite another
turn; and men will come into your notions with small difficulty, when they
are proposed in that manner. For, after all, the controversy about
_Matter_ in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between you and
the philosophers: whose principles, I acknowledge, are not near so
natural, or so agreeable to the common sense of mankind, and Holy
Scripture, as yours. There is nothing we either desire or shun but as it
makes, or is apprehended to make, some part of our happiness or misery.
But what hath happiness or misery, joy or grief, pleasure or pain, to do
with Absolute Existence; or with unknown entities, _abstracted from all
relation to us_? It is evident, things regard us only as they are pleasing
or displeasing: and they can please or displease only so far forth as they
are perceived. Farther, therefore, we are not concerned; and thus far you
leave things as you found them. Yet still there is something new in this
doctrine. It is plain, I do not now think with the philosophers; nor yet
altogether with the vulgar. I would know how the case stands in that
respect; precisely, what you have added to, or altered in my former
notions.

_Phil._ I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions. My endeavours
tend only to unite, and place in a clearer light, that truth which was
before shared between the vulgar and the philosophers:—the former being of
opinion, that _those things they immediately perceive are the real
things_; and the latter, that _the things immediately perceived are ideas,
which exist only in the mind_(924). Which two notions put together, do, in
effect, constitute the substance of what I advance.

_Hyl._ I have been a long time distrusting my senses: methought I saw
things by a dim light and through false glasses. Now the glasses are
removed and a new light breaks in upon my understanding. I am clearly
convinced that I see things in their native forms, and am no longer in
pain about their _unknown natures_ or _absolute existence_. This is the
state I find myself in at present; though, indeed, the course that brought
me to it I do not yet thoroughly comprehend. You set out upon the same
principles that Academics, Cartesians, and the like sects usually do; and
for a long time it looked as if you were advancing their philosophical
Scepticism: but, in the end, your conclusions are directly opposite to
theirs.

_Phil._ You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forced
upwards, in a round column, to a certain height; at which it breaks, and
falls back into the basin from whence it rose: its ascent, as well as
descent, proceeding from the same uniform law or principle of gravitation.
Just so, the same Principles which, at first view, lead to Scepticism,
pursued to a certain point, bring men back to Common Sense.





DE MOTU: SIVE; DE MOTUS PRINCIPIO ET NATURA, ET DE CAUSA COMMUNICATIONIS
MOTUUM


_First published in 1721_




Editor’s Preface To De Motu


This Latin dissertation on Motion, or change of place in the component
atoms of the material world, was written in 1720, when Berkeley was
returning to Ireland, after he had spent some years in Italy, on leave of
absence from Trinity College. A prize for an essay on the “Cause of
Motion,” had, it seems, been offered in that year by the Paris Academy of
Sciences. The subject suggested an advance on the line of thought pursued
in Berkeley’s _Principles_ and _Dialogues_. The mind-dependent reality of
the material world, prominent in those works, was in them insisted on, not
as a speculative paradox, but mainly in order to shew the spiritual
character of the Power that is continually at work throughout the
universe. This essay on what was thus a congenial subject was finished at
Lyons, and published early in 1721, soon after Berkeley arrived in London.
It was reprinted in his _Miscellany_ in 1752. I have not found evidence
that it was ever submitted to the French Academy. At any rate the prize
was awarded to Crousaz, the well-known logician and professor of
philosophy at Lausanne.

The _De Motu_ is interesting biographically as well as philosophically, as
a revelation of Berkeley’s way of thinking about the causal relations of
Matter and Spirit seven years after the publication of the _Dialogues_. In
1713 his experience of life was confined to Ireland. Now, after months in
London, in the society of Swift, and Pope, and Addison, he had observed
nature and men in France and Italy. His eager temperament and
extraordinary social charm opened the way in those years of travel to
frequent intercourse with famous men. This, for the time, superseded
controversy with materialism and scepticism, and diverted his enthusiasm
to nature and high art. One likes to see how he handles the old questions
as they now arise in the philosophical treatment of motion in space, which
was regarded by many as the key to all other phenomena presented in the
material world.

For one thing, the unreality of the data of sense after total abstraction
of living mind, the chief Principle in the earlier works, lies more in the
background in the _De Motu_. Yet it is tacitly assumed, as the basis of an
argument for the powerlessness of all sensible things, and for refunding
all active power in the universe into conscious agency. _Mens agitat
molem_ might be taken as a motto for the _De Motu_. Then there is more
frequent reference to scientific and philosophical authorities than in his
more juvenile treatises. Plato and Aristotle are oftener in view. Italy
seems to have introduced him to the physical science of Borelli and
Torricelli. Leibniz, who died in 1716, when Berkeley was in Italy, is
named by him for the first time in the _De Motu_. Perhaps he had learned
something when he was abroad about the most illustrious philosopher of the
time. And it is interesting by the way to find in one of those years what
is, I think, the only allusion to Berkeley by Leibniz. It is contained in
one of the German philosopher’s letters to Des Bosses, in 1715. “Qui in
Hybernia corporum realitatem impugnat,” Leibniz writes, “videtur nec
rationes afferre idoneas, nee mentem suam satis explicare. Suspicor esse
ex eo hominum genere qui per Paradoxa cognosci volunt.” This sentence is
interesting on account of the writer, although it suggests vague, and
perhaps second-hand knowledge of the Irishman and his principles. The name
of Hobbes does not appear in the _De Motu_. Yet one might have expected
it, in consideration of the supreme place which motion takes in his
system, which rests upon the principle that all changes in the universe
may be resolved into change of place.

In the _De Motu_ the favourite language of ideal realism is abandoned for
the most part. “Bodies,” not “ideas of sense,” are contrasted with mind or
spirit, although body still means significant appearance presented to the
senses. Indeed the term _idea_ occurs less often in this and the
subsequent writings of Berkeley.

I will now give some account of salient features in the _De Motu_.

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Like the _Principles_ the tract opens with a protest against the empty
abstractions, and consequent frivolous discussions, which even mechanical
science had countenanced although dealing with matters so obvious to sense
as the phenomena of motion. _Force_, _effort_, _solicitation of gravity_,
_nisus_, are examples of abstract terms connected with motion, to which
nothing in what is presented to the senses is found to correspond. Yet
corporeal power is spoken of as if it were something perceptible by sense,
and so found _within_ the bodies we see and touch (sect. 1-3).

But it turns out differently when philosophers and naturalists try to
imagine the _physical force_ that is supposed to inhabit bodies, and to
explain their motions. The conception of motion has been the parent of
innumerable paradoxes and seeming contradictions among ancient Greek
thinkers; for it presents, in a striking form, the metaphysical
difficulties in the way of a reconciliation of the One and the
Many—difficulties which Berkeley had already attributed to perverse
abstractions, with which philosophers amused themselves and blocked up the
way to concrete knowledge; first wantonly raising a dust, and then
complaining that they could not see. Nor has modern mechanical science in
this respect fared better than the old philosophies. Even its leaders,
Torricelli, for instance, and Leibniz, offer us scholastic shadows—empty
metaphysical abstractions—when they speak about an active power that is
supposed to be lodged within the things of sense. Torricelli tells us that
the forces within the things around us, and within our own bodies, are
“subtle quintessences, enclosed in a corporeal substance as in the
enchanted vase of Circe”; and Leibniz speaks of their active powers as
their “substantial form,” whatever that can be conceived to mean. Others
call the power to which change of place is due, the hylarchic principle,
an appetite in bodies, a spontaneity inherent in them; or they assume
that, besides their extension, solidity, and other qualities which appear
in sense, there is also something named force, latent in them if not
patent—in all which we have a flood of words, empty of concrete thought.
At best the language is metaphorical (sect. 2-9).

For showing the active cause at work in the production of motion in
bodies, it is of no avail to name, as if it were a datum of sense, what is
not presentable to our senses. Let us, instead, turn to the only other
sort of data in realised experience. For we find only two sorts of
realities in experience, the one sort revealed by our senses, the other by
inward consciousness. We can affirm nothing about the contents of _bodies_
except what our senses present, namely, concrete things, extended,
figured, solid, having also innumerable other qualities, which seem all to
depend upon change of place in the things, or in their constituent
particles. The contents of _mind_ or _spirit_, on the other hand, are
disclosed to inner consciousness, which reveals a sentient Ego that is
actively percipient and exertive. And it must be in the second of these
two concrete revelations of reality, that active causation, on which
motion and all other change depends, is to be found—not in empty
abstractions, covered by words like _power_, _cause_, _force_, or _nisus_,
which correspond to nothing perceived by the senses (sect. 21).

So that which we call body presents _within itself_ nothing in which
change of place or state can originate causally. Extension, figure,
solidity, and all the other perceptible constituents of bodies are
appearances only—passive phenomena, which succeed one another in an
orderly cosmical procession, on which doubtless our pains and pleasures
largely depend. But there is no sensibly perceptible power found among
those sensuous appearances. They can only be _caused causes_, adapted, as
we presuppose, to signify to us what we may expect to follow that
appearance. The reason of their significance, i.e. of the constancy of
their sequences and coexistences, must be sought for _outside of
themselves_. Experimental research may discover new terms among the
correlated cosmical sequences or coexistences, but the newly discovered
terms must still be only passive phenomena previously unperceived. Body
means only what is presentable to the senses. Those who attribute to it
something not perceptible by sense, which they call the force or power in
which its motions originate, say in other words that the origin of motion
is unknowable by sense (sect. 22-24).

Turn now from things of sense, the data of perception, to Mind or Spirit,
as revealed in inner consciousness. Here we have a deeper and more real
revelation of what underlies, or is presupposed in, the passive cosmical
procession that is presented to the senses. Our inward consciousness
plainly shews the thinking being actually _exercising_ power to move its
animated body. We find that we can, by a causal exertion of which we are
distinctly conscious, either excite or arrest movements in bodies. In
voluntary exertion we have thus a concrete example of force or power,
_producing_ and not merely _followed by_ motion. In the case of human
volition this is no doubt conditioned power; nevertheless it exemplifies
Power on a greater scale than human, even Divine power, universally and
continuously operative, in all natural motions, and in the cosmical laws
according to which they proceed (sect. 25-30).

Thus those who pretend to find force or active causation _within_ bodies,
pretend to find what their sensuous experience does not support, and they
have to sustain their pretence by unintelligible language. On the other
hand, those who explain motion by referring it to conscious exertion of
personal agents, say what is supported by their own consciousness, and
confirmed by high authorities, including Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle,
Descartes, and Newton, demonstrating that in Spirit only do we find power
to change its own state, as well as the states and mutual relations of
bodies. Motion in nature is God continuously acting (sect. 31-34). But
physical science is conveniently confined to the order of the passive
procession of sensuous appearances, including experiments in quest of the
rules naturally exemplified in the motions of bodies: reasoning on
mathematical and mechanical principles, it leaves the contemplation of
active causation to a more exalted science (sect. 35-42).

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In all this it can hardly be said that Berkeley has in this adequately
sounded the depths of Causation. He proclaims inability to find through
his senses more than sequence of significant sensuous appearances, which
are each and all empty of active power; while he apparently insists that
he _has_ found active power in the mere _feeling __ of exertion_; which
after all, as such, is only one sort of antecedent sign of the motion that
is found to follow it. This is still only sequence of phenomena; not
active power. But is not causation a relation that cannot be truly
presented empirically, either in outer or inner consciousness? And is not
the Divine order that is presupposed by us in all change, a presupposition
that is inevitable in trustworthy intercourse with a changing universe;
unless we are to confess _atheistically_, that our whole sensuous
experience may in the end put us to utter confusion? The passive, uneasy
feeling of strain, more or less involved in the effort to move our bodies
and their surroundings, is no doubt apt to be confused with active
causation; for as David Hume remarks, “the animal _nisus_ which we
experience, though it can afford no accurate precise idea of power, enters
very much into the vulgar, inaccurate idea which is formed of it.” So when
Berkeley supposes that he has found a concrete example of originating
power in the _nisus_ of which we are conscious when we move our bodies, he
is surely too easily satisfied. The _nisus_ followed by motion is, _per
se_, only a natural sequence, a caused cause, which calls for an
originating cause that is _absolutely_ responsible for the movement. Is
not the index to this absolutely responsible agency an ethical one, which
points to a free moral agent as alone necessarily connected with, or
responsible for, the changes which _he can_ control? Persons are causally
responsible for their own actions; and are accordingly pronounced good or
evil on account of acts of will that are not mere caused causes—passively
dependent terms in the endless succession of cosmical change. They must
originate in self, be absolutely self-referable, in a word supernatural
issues of the personality. Moral reason implies that they are not
determined _ab extra_, and so points to moral agents as our only concrete
examples of independent power; but this only so far as those issues go for
which they are morally responsible. Is not faith in the Universal Power
necessarily faith-venture in the absolutely perfect and trustworthy moral
agency of God?

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While the principle of Causation, in its application to change of place on
the part of bodies and their constituent atoms, is the leading thought in
the _De Motu_, this essay also investigates articulately the nature of the
phenomenon which we call _motion_ (sect. 43-66). It assumes that motion is
only an effect, seeing that no one who reflects can doubt that what is
presented to our senses in the case of motion is altogether passive: there
is nothing in the successive appearance of the same body in different
places that involves action on the part of either of the moving or the
moved body, or that can be more than inert effect (sect. 49). And all
concrete motion, it is assumed, must be something that can be perceived by
our senses. Accordingly it must be a perceptible _relation between
bodies_, as far as it is bodily: it could make no appearance at all if
space contained only one solitary body: a plurality of bodies is
indispensable to its appearance. Absolute motion of a solitary body, in
otherwise absolutely empty space, is an unmeaning abstraction, a
collocation of empty words. This leads into an inquiry about relative
space as well as relative place, and the intelligibility of absolute
space, place, and motion (sect. 52-64).

Local motion is unintelligible unless we understand the meaning of
_space_. Now some philosophers distinguish between absolute space, which
with them is ultimately the only real space, and that which is conditioned
by the senses, or relative. The former is said to be boundless, pervading
and embracing the material world, but not itself presentable to our
senses; the other is the space marked out or differentiated by bodies
contained in it, and it is in this way exposed to our senses (sect. 52).
What must remain after the annihilation of all bodies in the universe is
relativeless, undifferentiated, absolute space, of which all attributes
are denied, even its so-called extension being neither divisible nor
measurable; necessarily imperceptible by sense, unimaginable, and
unintelligible, in every way unrealisable in experience; so that the words
employed about it denote _nothing_ (sect. 53).

It follows that we must not speak of the real space which a body occupies
as part of a space that is necessarily abstracted from all sentient
experience; nor of real motion as change within absolute space, without
any relation between bodies, either perceived or conceived. All change of
place in one body must be relative to other bodies, among which the moving
body is supposed to change its place—our own bodies which we animate being
of course recognised among the number. Motion, it is argued, is
unintelligible, as well as imperceptible and unimaginable, without some
relation between the moving body and at least one other body: the truth of
this is tested when we try to suppose the annihilation of all other
bodies, our own included, and retain only a solitary globe: absolute
motion is found unthinkable. So that, on the whole, to see what motion
means we must rise above the mathematical postulates that are found
convenient in mechanical science; we must beware of empty abstractions; we
must treat motion as something that is real only so far as it is presented
to our senses, and remain modestly satisfied with the perceived relations
under which it then appears (sect. 65-66).

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Finally, is motion, thus explained, something that can be spoken of as an
entity communicable from one body to another body? May we think of it as a
datum of sense existing in the striking body, and then passing from it
into the struck body, the one losing exactly as much as the other
receives? (sect. 67). Deeper thought finds in those questions only a
revival of the previously exploded postulate of “force” as _something
sensible_, yet distinct from all the significant appearances sense
presents. The language used may perhaps be permitted in mathematical
hypotheses, or postulates of mechanical science, in which we do not intend
to go to the root of things. But the obvious fact is, that the moving body
shews less perceptible motion, and the moved body more. To dispute whether
the perceptible motion acquired is numerically the same with that lost
leads into frivolous verbal controversy about Identity and Difference, the
One and the Many, which it was Berkeley’s aim to expel from science, and
so to simplify its procedure and result. Whether we say that motion passes
from the striking body into the struck, or that it is generated anew
within the struck body and annihilated in the striking, we make virtually
the same statement. In each way of expression the facts remain, that the
one body presents perceptible increase of its motion and the other
diminution. Mind or Spirit is the active cause of all that we then see.
Yet in mechanical science—which explains things only physically, by
shewing the significant connexion of events with their mechanical
rules—terms which seem to imply the conveyance of motion out of one body
into another may be pardoned, in consideration of the limits within which
physical science is confined, and its narrower point of view. In physics
we confine ourselves to the sensuous signs which arise in experience, and
their natural interpretation, in all which mathematical hypotheses are
found convenient; so that gravitation, for example, and other natural
rules of procedure, are spoken of as _causes_ of the events which conform
to them, no account being taken of the Active Power that is ultimately
responsible for the rules. For the Active Power in which we live, move,
and have our being, is not a datum of sense; meditation brings it into
light. But to pursue this thought would carry us beyond the physical laws
of Motion (sect. 69-72).

The _De Motu_ may be compared with what we found in the _Principles_,
sect. 25-28 and 101-117. The total powerlessness of the significant
appearances presented to the senses, and the omnipotence of Mind in the
economy of external nature, is its chief philosophical lesson.




De Motu


1. Ad veritatem inveniendam præcipuum est cavisse ne voces males
intellectæ(925) nobis officiant: quod omnes fere monent philosophi, pauci
observant. Quanquam id quidem haud adeo difficile videtur, in rebus
præsertim physicis tractandis, ubi locum habent sensus, experientia, et
ratiocinium geometricum. Seposito igitur, quantum licet, omni præjudicio,
tam a loquendi consuetudine quam a philosphorum auctoritate nato, ipsa
rerum natura diligenter inspicienda. Neque enim cujusquam auctoritatem
usque adeo valere oportet, ut verba ejus et voces in pretio sint, dummodo
nihil clari et certi iis subesse comperiatur.

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2. Motus contemplatio mire torsit veterum philosophorum(926) mentes, unde
natæ sunt variæ opiniones supra modem difficiles, ne dicam absurdæ; quæ,
quum jam fere in desuetudinem abierint, haud merentur ut iis discutiendis
nimio studio immoremur. Apud recentiores autem et saniores hujus ævi
philosophos(927), ubi de Motu agitur, vocabula haud pauca abstractæ nimium
et obscuræ significationis occurrunt, cujusmodi sunt _solicitatio
gravitatis_, _conatus_, _vires mortuæ_, &c., quæ scriptis, alioqui
doctissimis, tenebras offundunt, sententiisque non minus a vero, quam a
sensu hominum communi abhorrentibus, ortum præbent. Hæc vero necesse est
ut, veritatis gratia, non alios refellendi studio, accurate discutiantur.

3. _Solicitatio_ et _nisus_, sive _conatus_, rebus solummodo animatis
revera competunt(928). Cum aliis rebus tribuuntur, sensu metaphorico
accipiantur necesse est. A metaphoris autem abstinendum philosopho. Porro,
seclusa omni tarn animæ affectione quam corporis motione, nihil clari ac
distincti iis vocibus significari, cuilibet constabit qui modo rem serio
perpenderit.

4. Quamdiu corpora gravia a nobis sustinentur, sentimus in nobismet ipsis
nisum, fatigationem, et molestiam. Percipimus etiam in gravibus cadentibus
motum acceleratum versus centrum telluris; ope sensuum præterea nihil.
Ratione tamen colligitur causam esse aliquam vel principium horum
phænomenon; illud autem _gravitas_ vulgo nuncupatur. Quoniam vero causa
descensus gravium cæca sit et incognita, gravitas ea acceptione proprie
dici nequit qualitas sensibilis; est igitur qualitas occulta. Sed vix, et
ne vix quidem, concipere licet quid sit qualitas occulta, aut qua ratione
qualitas ulla agere aut operari quidquam possit. Melius itaque foret, si,
missa qualitate occulta, homines attenderent solummodo ad effectus
sensibiles; vocibusque abstractis (quantumvis illæ ad disserendum utiles
sint) in meditatione omissis, mens in particularibus et concretis, hoc est
in ipsis rebus, defigeretur.

5. _Vis_(929) similiter corporibus tribuitur: usurpatur autem vocabulum
illud, tanquam significaret qualitatem cognitam, distinctamque tarn a
motu, figura, omnique alia re sensibili, quam ab omni animalis affectione:
id vero nihil aliud esse quam qualitatem _occultam_, rem acrius rimanti
constabit. Nisus animalis et motus corporeus vulgo spectantur tanquam
symptomata et mensuræ hujus qualitatis occultæ.

6. Patet igitur gravitatem aut vim frustra poni pro principio(930) motus:
nunquid enim principium illud clarius cognosci potest ex eo quod dicatur
qualitas occulta? Quod ipsum occultum est, nihil explicat: ut omittamus
causam agentem incognitam rectius dici posse substantiam quam qualitatem.
Porro _vis_, _gravitas_, et istiusmodi voces, sæpius, nec inepte, in
concreto usurpantur; ita ut connotent corpus motum, difficultatem
resistendi, &c. Ubi vero a philosophis adhibentur ad significandas naturas
quasdam, ab hisce omnibus præcisas et abstractas, quæ nec sensibus
subjiciuntur, nec ulla mentis vi intelligi nec imaginatione effingi(931)
possunt, turn demum errores et confusionem pariunt.

7. Multos autem in errorem ducit, quod voces generales et abstractas in
disserendo utiles esse videant, nec tamen earum vim satis capiant. Partim
vero a consuetudine vulgari inventæ sunt illæ ad sermonem abbreviandum,
partim a philosophis ad docendum excogitatæ; non quod ad naturas rerum
accommodatas sint, quæ quidem singulares et concretæ existunt; sed quod
idoneæ ad tradendas disciplinas, propterea quod faciant notiones, vel
saltem propositiones, universales(932).

8. _Vim corpoream_ esse aliquid conceptu facile plerumque existimamus. Ii
tamen qui rem accuratius inspexerunt in diversa sunt opinione; uti apparet
ex mira verborum obscuritate qua laborant, ubi illam explicare conantur.
Torricellius ait vim et impetum esse res quasdam abstractas subtilesque et
quintessentias, quæ includuntur in substantia corporea, tanquam in vase
magico Circes(933). Leibnitius item in naturæ vi explicanda hæc habet—_Vis
activa, primitiva, quæ est ἐντελέχεια πρώτη, animæ vel formæ substantiali
__ respondet_. Vide _Acta Erudit. Lips._ Usque adeo necesse est ut vel
summi viri, quamdiu abstractionibus indulgent, voces nulla certa
significatione præditas, et meras scholasticorum umbras sectentur. Alia ex
neotericorum scriptis, nec pauca quidem ea, producere liceret; quibus
abunde constaret, metaphysicas abstractiones non usquequaque cessisse
mechanicæ et experimentis, sed negotium inane philosophis etiamnum
facessere.

9. Ex illo fonte derivantur varia absurda, cujus generis est illud, _vim
percussionis, utcunque exiguæ, esse infinite magnam_. Quod sane supponit,
gravitatem esse qualitatem quandam realem ab aliis omnibus diversam; et
gravitationem esse quasi actum hujus qualitatis, a motu realiter
distinctum: minima autem percussio producit effectum majorem quam maxima
gravitatio sine motu; ilia scilicet motum aliquem edit, hæc nullum. Unde
sequitur, vim percussionis ratione infinita excedere vim gravitationis,
hoc est, esse infinite magnam(934). Videantur experimenta Galilæi, et quæ
de definita vi percussionis scripserunt Torricellius, Borellus, et alii.

10. Veruntamen fatendum est vim nullam per se immediate sentiri; neque
aliter quam per effectum(935) cognosci et mensurari. Sed vis mortuæ, seu
gravitationis simplicis, in corpore quiescente subjecto, nulla facta
mutatione, effectus nullus est; percussionis autem, effectus aliquis.
Quoniam, ergo, vires sunt effectibus proportionales, concludere licet vim
mortuam(936) esse nullam. Neque tamen propterea vim percussionis esse
infinitam: non enim oportet quantitatem ullam positivam habere pro
infinita, propterea quod ratione infinita superet quantitatem nullam sive
nihil.

11. Vis gravitationis a momento secerni nequit; momentum autem sine
celeritate nullum est, quum sit moles in celeritatem ducta: porro
celeritas sine motu intelligi non potest; ergo nec vis gravitationis.
Deinde vis nulla nisi per actionem innotescit, et per eandem mensuratur;
actionem autem corporis a motu præscindere non possumus; ergo quamdiu
corpus grave plumbi subjecti vel chordæ figuram mutat, tamdiu movetur; ubi
vero quiescit, nihil agit, vel, quod idem est, agere prohibetur. Breviter,
voces istæ _vis mortua_ et _gravitatio_, etsi per abstractionem
metaphysicam aliquid significare supponuntur diversum a movente, moto,
motu et quiete, revera tamen id totum nihil est.

12. Siquis diceret pondus appensum vel impositum agere in chordam, quoniam
impedit quominus se restituat vi elastica: dico, pari ratione corpus
quodvis inferum agere in superius incumbens, quoniam illud descendere
prohibet: dici vero non potest actio corporis, quod prohibeat aliud corpus
existere in eo loco quern occupat.

13. Pressionem corporis gravitantis quandoque sentimus. Verum sensio ista
molesta oritur ex motu corporis istius gravis fibris nervisque nostri
corporis communicato, et eorundem situm immutante; adeoque percussioni
accepta referri debet. In hisce rebus multis et gravibus præjudiciis
laboramus, sed illa acri atque iterata meditatione subigenda sunt(937),
vel potius penitus averruncanda.

14. Quo probetur quantitatem ullam esse infinitam, ostendi oportet partem
aliquam finitam homogeneam in ea infinities contineri. Sed vis mortua se
habet ad vim percussionis, non ut pars ad totum, sed ut punctum ad lineam,
juxta ipsos vis infinitæ percussionis auctores. Multa in hanc rem adjicere
liceret, sed vereor ne prolixus sim.

15. Ex principiis præmissis lites insignes solvi possunt, quæ viros doctos
multum exercuerunt. Hujus rei exemplum sit controversia illa de
proportione virium. Una pars dum concedit, momenta, motus, impetus, data
mole, esse simpliciter ut velocitates, affirmat vires esse ut quadrata
velocitatum. Hanc autem sententiam supponere vim corporis distingui(938) a
momento, motu, et impetu; eaque suppositione sublata corruere, nemo non
videt.

16. Quo clarius adhuc appareat, confusionem quandam miram per
abstractiones metaphysicas in doctrinam de motu introductam esse, videamus
quantum intersit inter notiones virorum celebrium de vi et impetu.
Leibnitius impetum cum motu confundit. Juxta Newtonum(939) impetus revera
idem est cum vi inertiæ. Borellus(940) asserit impetum non aliud esse quam
gradum velocitatis. Alii impetum et conatum inter se differre, alii non
differre volunt. Plerique vim motricem motui proportionalem intelligunt.
Nonnulli aliam aliquam vim præter motricem, et diversimode mensurandam,
utpote per quadrata velocitatum in moles, intelligere _præ_ se ferunt. Sed
infinitum esset hæc prosequi.

17. _Vis_, _gravitas_, _attractio_, et hujusmodi voces, utiles(941) sunt
ad ratiocinia et computationes de motu et corporibus motis; sed non ad
intelligendam simplicem ipsius motus naturam, vel ad qualitates totidem
distinctas designandas. Attractionem certe quod attinet, patet illam ab
Newtono adhiberi, non tanquam qualitatem veram et physicam, sed solummodo
ut hypothesin mathematicam(942). Quinetiam Leibnitius, nisum elementarem
seu solicitationem ab impetu distinguens, fatetur illa entia non re ipsa
inveniri in rerum natura, sed abstractione facienda esse.

18. Similis ratio est compositionis et resolutionis virium quarumcunque
directarum in quascunque obliquas, per diagonalem et latera
parallelogrammi. Hæc mechanicæ et computationi inserviunt: sed aliud est
computationi et demonstrationibus mathematicis inservire, aliud rerum
naturam exhibere.

19. Ex recentioribus multi sunt in ea opinione, ut putent motum neque
destrui nec de novo gigni, sed eandem(943) semper motus quantitatem
permanere. Aristoteles etiam dubium illud olim proposuit—utrum motus
factus sit et corruptus, an vero ab æterno? _Phys._ lib. viii. Quod vero
motus sensibilis pereat, patet sensibus: illi autem eundem impetum, nisum,
aut summam virium eandem manere velle videntur. Unde affirmat Borellus,
vim in percussione non imminui, sed expandi; impetus etiam contrarios
suscipi et retineri in eodem corpore. Item Leibnitius nisum ubique et
semper esse in materia, et ubi non patet sensibus, ratione intelligi
contendit.—Hæc autem nimis abstracta esse et obscura, ejusdemque fere
generis cum formis substantialibus et entelechiis, fatendum.

20. Quotquot ad explicandam motus causam atque originem, vel principio
hylarchico, vel naturæ indigentia, vel appetitu, aut denique instinctu
naturali utuntur, dixisse aliquid potius quam cogitasse censendi sunt.
Neque ab hisce multum absunt qui supposuerint(944) _partes terræ esse se
moventes, aut etiam spiritus iis implantatos ad instar formæ_, ut
assignent causam accelerationis gravium cadentium: aut qui dixerit(945),
_in corpore præter solidam extensionem debere etiam poni aliquid unde
virium consideratio oriatur_. Siquidem hi omnes vel nihil particulare et
determinatum enuntiant; vel, si quid sit, tarn difficile erit illud
explicare, quam id ipsum cujus explicandi causa adducitur(946).

21. Frustra ad naturam illustrandam adhibentur ea quæ nec sensibus patent,
nec ratione intelligi possunt. Videndum ergo quid sensus, quid
experientia, quid demum ratio iis innixa, suadeat. Duo sunt summa rerum
genera—_corpus_ et _anima_. Rem extensam, solidam, mobilem, figuratam,
aliisque qualitatibus quæ sensibus occurrunt præditam, ope sensuum; rem
vero sentientem, percipientem, intelligentem, conscientia quadam interna
cognovimus. Porro, res istas plane inter se diversas esse, longeque
heterogeneas, cernimus. Loquor autem de rebus cognitis: de incognitis enim
disserere nil juvat(947).

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22. Totum id quod novimus, cui nomen _corpus_ indidimus, nihil _in se_
continet quod motus principium seu causa efficiens esse possit. Etenim
impenetrabilitas, extensio, figura nullam includunt vel connotant
potentiam producendi motum; quinimo e contrario non modo illas, verum
etiam alias, quotquot sint, corporis qualitates sigillatim percurrentes,
videbimus omnes esse revera passivas, nihilque iis activum inesse, quod
ullo modo intelligi possit tanquam fons et principium motus(948).
Gravitatem quod attinet, voce illa nihil cognitum et ab ipso effectu
sensibili, cujus causa quæritur, diversum significari jam ante ostendimus.
Et sane quando corpus grave dicimus, nihil aliud intelligimus, nisi quod
feratur deorsum; de causa hujus effectus sensibilis nihil omnino
cogitantes.

23. De corpore itaque audacter pronunciare licet, utpote de re comperta,
quod non sit principium motus. Quod si quisquam, præter solidam
extensionem ejusque modificationes, vocem _corpus_ qualitatem etiam
_occultam_, virtutem, formam, essentiam complecti sua significatione
contendat; licet quidem illi inutili negotio sine ideis disputare, et
nominibus nihil distincte exprimentibus abuti. Cæterum sanior
philosophandi ratio videtur ab notionibus abstractis et generalibus (si
modo notiones dici debent quæ intelligi nequeunt) quantum fieri potest
abstinuisse.

24. Quicquid continetur in idea corporis novimus; quod vero novimus in
corpore, id non esse principium motus constat(949). Qui præterea aliquid
incognitum in corpore, cujus ideam nullam habent, comminiscuntur, quod
motus principium dicant, ii revera nihil aliud quam _principium motus esse
incognitum_ dicunt. Sed hujusmodi subtilitatibus diutius immorari piget.

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25. Præter res corporeas alterum est _genus rerum cogitantium_(950). In
iis autem potentiam inesse corpora movendi, propria experientia
didicimus(951); quandoquidem anima nostra pro lubitu possit ciere et
sistere membrorum motus, quacunque tandem ratione id fiat. Hoc certe
constat, corpora moveri ad nutum animæ; eamque proinde haud inepte dici
posse principium motus: particulare quidem et subordinatum, quodque ipsum
dependeat a primo et universali Principio(952).

26. Corpora gravia feruntur deorsum, etsi nullo impulsu apparente agitata;
non tamen existimandum propterea in iis contineri principium motus: cujus
rei hanc rationem assignat Aristoteles(953);—_Gravia et levia_ (inquit)
_non moventur a seipsis; id enim vitale esset, et se sistere possent_.
Gravia omnia una eademque certa et constanti lege centrum telluris petunt,
neque in ipsis animadvertitur principium vel facultas ulla motum istum
sistendi, minuendi, vel, nisi pro rata proportione, augendi, aut denique
ullo modo immutandi: habent adeo se passive. Porro idem, stricte et
accurate loquendo, dicendum de corporibus percussivis. Corpora ista
quamdiu moventur, ut et in ipso percussionis momento, si gerunt passive,
perinde scilicet atque cum quiescunt. Corpus iners tam agit quam corpus
motum, si res ad verum exigatur: id quod agnoscit Newtonus, ubi ait, vim
inertiæ esse eandem cum impetu(954). Corpus autem iners et quietum nihil
agit, ergo nee motum.

27. Revera corpus æque perseverat in utrovis statu, vel motus vel quietis.
Ista vero perseverantia non magis dicenda est actio corporis, quam
existentia ejusdem actio diceretur. Perseverantia nihil aliud est quam
continuatio in eodem modo existendi, quæ proprie dici actio non potest.
Cæterum resistentiam, quam experimur in sistendo corpore moto, ejus
actionem esse fingimus vana specie delusi. Revera enim ista resistentia
quam sentimus(955), passio est in nobis, neque arguit corpus agere, sed
nos pati: constat utique nos idem passuros fuisse, sive corpus illud a se
moveatur, sive ab alio principio impellatur.

28. Actio et reactio dicuntur esse in corporibus: nec incommode ad
demonstrationes mechanicas(956). Sed cavendum, ne propterea supponamus
virtutem aliquam realem, quæ motus causa sive principium sit, esse in iis.
Etenim voces illæ eodem modo intelligendæ sunt ac vox _attractio_; et
quemadmodum hæc est hypothesis solummodo mathematica(957), non autem
qualitas physica: idem etiam de illis intelligi debet, et ob eandem
rationem. Nam sicut veritas et usus theorematum de mutua corporum
attractione in philosophia mechanica stabiles manent, utpote unice fundati
in motu corporum, sive motus iste causari supponatur per actionem corporum
se mutuo attrahentium, sive per actionem agentis alicujus a corporibus
diversi impellentis et moderantis corpora; pari ratione, quæcunque tradita
sunt de regulis et legibus motuum, simul ac theoremata inde deducta,
manent inconcussa, dum modo concedantur effectus sensibiles, et ratiocinia
iis innixa; sive supponamus actionem ipsam, aut vim horum effectuum
causatricem, esse in corpore, sive in agente incorporeo.

29. Auferantur ex idea corporis extensio, soliditas, figura, remanebit
nihil(958). Sed qualitates istæ sunt ad motum indifferentes, nec in se
quidquam habent quod motus principium dici possit. Hoc ex ipsis ideis
nostris perspicuum est. Si igitur voce _corpus_ significatur id quod
concipimus, plane constat inde non peti posse principium motus: pars
scilicet nulla aut attributum illius causa efficiens vera est, quæ motum
producat. Vocem autem proferre, et nihil concipere, id demum indignum
esset philosopho.

30. Datur res cogitans, activa, quam principium motus ... in nobis
experimur(959). Hanc _animam_, _mentem_, _spiritum_ ... Datur etiam res
extensa, iners, impenetrabilis, ... quæ a priori toto cœlo differt,
novumque genus(960) ... Quantum intersit inter res cogitantes et extensas,
primus omnium deprehendens Anaxagoras, vir longe sapientissimus, asserebat
mentem nihil habere cum corporibus commune, id quod constat ex primo libro
Aristotelis _De Anima_(961). Ex neotericis idem optime animadvertit
Cartesius(962). Ab eo alii(963) rem satis claram vocibus obscuris
impeditam ac difficilem reddiderunt.

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31. Ex dictis manifestum est eos qui vim activam, actionem, motus
principium, in _corporibus_ revera inesse affirmant, sententiam nulla
experientia fundatam amplecti, eamque terminis obscuris et generalibus
adstruere, nec quid sibi velint satis intelligere. E contrario, qui
_mentem_ esse principium motus volunt, sententiam propria experientia
munitam proferunt, hominumque omni ævo doctissimorum suffragiis
comprobatam.

32. Primus Anaxagoras(964) τὸν νοῦν introduxit, qui motum inerti materiæ
imprimeret. Quam quidem sententiam probat etiam Aristoteles(965),
pluribusque confirmat, aperto pronuncians primum movens esse immobile,
indivisibile, et nullam habens magnitudinem. Dicere autem, omne me vum
esse mobile, recte animadvertit idem esse ac s diceret, omne ædificativum
esse ædificabile, _Physic_, lib Plato insuper in Timæo(966) tradit
machinam hanc corpo seu mundum visibilem, agitari et animari a mente,
sensum omnem fugiat. Quinetiam hodie philosophi siani(967) principium
motuum naturalium Deum agnoscun. Et Newtonus(968) passim nec obscure
innuit, non solummodo motum ab initio a numine profectum esse, verum adhuc
systema mundanum ab eodem actu moveri. Hoc sacris literis consonum est:
hoc scholasticorum calculo comprobatur. Nam etsi Peripatetici naturam
tradant esse principium motus et quietis, interpretantur tamen naturam
naturantem esse Deum(969). Intelligunt nimirum corpora omnia systematis
hujusce mundani a mente præpotenti juxta certam et constantem
rationem(970) moveri.

33. Cæterum qui principium vitale corporibus tribuunt, obscurum aliquid et
rebus parum conveniens fingunt. Quid enim aliud est vitali principio
præditum esse quam vivere? aut vivere quam se movere, sistere, et statum
suum mutare? Philosophi autem hujus sæculi doctissimi pro principio
indubitato ponunt, omne corpus perseverare in statu suo, vel quietis vel
motus uniformis in directum, nisi quatenus aliunde cogitur statum ilium
mutare: e contrario, in anima sentimus esse facultatem tam statum suum
quam aliarum rerum mutandi; id quod proprie dicitur vitale, animamque a
corporibus longe discriminat.

34. Motum et quietem in corporibus recentiores considerant velut duos
status existendi, in quorum utrovis corpus omne sua natura iners
permaneret(971), nulla vi externa urgente. Unde colligere licet, eandem
esse causam motus et quietis, quæ est existentiæ corporum. Neque enim
quærenda videtur alia causa existentiæ corporis successivæ in diversis
partibus spatii, quam illa unde derivatur existentia ejusdem corporis
successiva in diversis partibus temporis. De Deo autem Optimo Maximo rerum
omnium Conditore et Conservatore tractare, et qua ratione res cunctæ a
summo et vero Ente pendeant demonstrare, quamvis pars sit scientiæ humanæ
præcellentissima, spectat tamen potius ad philosophiam primam(972), seu
metaphysicam et theologiam, quam ad philosophiam naturalem, quæ hodie fere
omnis continetur in experimentis et mechanica. Itaque cognitionem de Deo
vel supponit philosophia naturalis, vel mutuatur ab aliqua scientia
superiori. Quanquam verissimum sit, naturæ investigationem scientiis
altioribus argumenta egregia ad sapientiam, bonitatem, et potentiam Dei
illustrandam et probandam undequaque subministrare.

35. Quod hæc minus intelligantur, in causa est, cur nonnulli immerito
repudient physicæ principia mathematica, eo scilicet nomine quod illa
causas rerum efficientes non assignant: quum tamen revera ad physicam aut
mechanicam spectet regulas(973) solummodo, non causas efficientes,
impulsionum attractionumve, et ut verbo dicam, motuum leges tradere; ex
iis vero positis phænomenon particularium solutionem, non autem causam
efficientem assignare.

36. Multum intererit considerasse quid proprie sit principium, et quo
sensu intelligenda sit vox illa apud philosophos(974). Causa quidem vera
efficiens et conservatrix rerum omnium jure optimo appellatur fons et
principium earundem. Principia vero philosophiæ experimentalis proprie
dicenda sunt fundamenta quibus illa innititur, seu fontes unde derivatur,
(non dico existentia, sed) cognitio rerum corporearum, sensus utique ex
experientia. Similiter, in philosophia mechanica, principia dicenda sunt,
in quibus fundatur et continetur universa disciplina, leges illæ motuum
primariæ, quæ experimentis comprobatæ, ratiocinio etiam excultæ sunt et
redditæ universales(975). Hæ motuum leges commode dicuntur principia,
quoniam ab iis tam theoremata mechanica generalia quam particulares τῶν
φαινομένων explicationes derivantur.

37. Tum nimirum dici potest quidpiam explicari mechanice, cum reducitur ad
ista principia simplicissima et universalissima, et per accuratum
ratiocinium, cum iis consentaneum et connexum esse ostenditur. Nam
inventis semel naturæ legibus, deinceps monstrandum est philosopho, ex
constanti harum legum observatione, hoc est, ex iis principiis phænomenon
quodvis necessario consequi: id quod est phænomena explicare et solvere,
causamque, id est rationem cur fiant, assignare.

38. Mens humana gaudet scientiam suam extendere et dilatare. Ad hoc autem
notiones et propositiones generales efformandæ sunt, in quibus quodam modo
continentur propositiones et cognitiones particulares, quæ turn demum
intelligi creduntur cum ex primis illis continuo nexu deducuntur. Hoc
geometris notissimum est. In mechanica etiam præmittuntur notiones, hoc
est definitiones, et enunciationes de motu primæ et generales, ex quibus
postmodum methodo mathematica conclusiones magis remotæ et minus generales
colliguntur. Et sicut per applicationem theorematum geometricorum,
corporum particularium magnitudines mensurantur; ita etiam per
applicationem theorematum mechanices universalium, systematis mundani
partium quarumvis motus, et phænomena inde pendentia, innotescunt et
determinantur: ad quem scopum unice collineandum physico.

39. Et quemadmodum geometræ, disciplinæ causa, multa comminiscuntur, quæ
nec ipsi describere possunt, nec in rerum natura invenire; simili prorsus
ratione mechanicus voces quasdam abstractas et generales adhibet,
fingitque in corporibus _vim_, _actionem_, _attractionem_,
_solicitationem_, &c. quæ ad theorias et enunciationes, ut et
computationes de motu apprime utiles sunt, etiamsi in ipsa rerum veritate
et corporibus actu existentibus frustra quærerentur, non minus quam quæ a
geometris per abstractionem mathematicam finguntur.

40. Revera ope sensuum nil nisi effectus seu qualitates sensibiles, et res
corporeas omnino passivas, sive in motu sint sive in quiete, percipimus:
ratioque et experientia activum nihil præter mentem aut animam esse
suadet. Quidquid ultra fingitur, id ejusdem generis esse cum aliis
hypothesibus et abstractionibus mathematicis existimandum: quod penitu
sanimo infigere oportet. Hoc ni fiat, facile in obscuram scholasticorum
subtilitatem, quæ per tot sæcula, tanquam dira quædam pestis, philosophiam
corrupit, relabi possumus.

41. Principia mechanica legesque motuum aut naturæ universales, sæculo
ultimo feliciter inventæ, et subsidio geometriæ tractatæ et applicatæ,
miram lucem in philosophiam intulerunt. Principia vero metaphysica
causæque reales efficientes motus et existentiæ corporum attributorumve
corporeorum nullo modo ad mechanicam aut experimenta pertinent; neque eis
lucem dare possunt, nisi quatenus, velut præcognita, inserviant ad limites
physicæ præfiniendos, eaque ratione ad tollendas difficultates
quæstionesque peregrinas.

42. Qui a spiritibus motus principium petunt, ii vel rem corpoream vel
incorpoream voce _spiritus_ intelligunt. Si rem corpoream, quantumvis
tenuem, tamen redit difficultas: si incorpoream, quantumvis id verum sit,
attamen ad physicam non proprie pertinet. Quod si quis philosophiam
naturalem ultra limites experimentorum et mechanicæ extenderit, ita ut
rerum etiam incorporearum, et inextensarum cognitionem complectatur,
latior quidem illa vocis acceptio tractationem de anima, mente, seu
principio vitali admittit. Cæterum commodius erit, juxta usum jam fere
receptum, ita distinguere inter scientias, ut singulæ propriis
circumscribantur cancellis, et philosophus naturalis totus sit in
experimentis, legibusque motuum, et principiis mechanicis, indeque
depromptis ratiociniis; quidquid autem de aliis rebus protulerit, id
superiori alicui scientiæ acceptum referat. Etenim ex cognitis naturæ
legibus pulcherrimæ theoriæ, praxes etiam mechanicæ ad vitam utiles
consequuntur. Ex cognitione autem ipsius naturæ Auctoris considerationes
longe præstantissimæ quidem illæ, sed metaphysicæ, theologicæ, morales
oriuntur.

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43. De _principiis_ hactenus: nunc dicendum de _natura_ motus(976). Atque
is quidem, cum sensibus clare percipiatur, non tam natura sua, quam doctis
philosophorum commentis obscuratus est. Motus nunquam in sensus nostros
incurrit sine mole corporea, spatio, et tempore. Sunt tamen qui motum,
tanquam ideam quandam simplicem et abstractam, atque ab omnibus aliis
rebus sejunctam, contemplari student. Verum idea illa tenuissima et
subtilissima(977) intellectus aciem eludit: id quod quilibet secum
meditando experiri potest. Hinc nascuntur magnæ difficultates de natura
motus, et definitiones, ipsa re quam illustrare debent longe obscuriores.
Hujusmodi sunt definitiones illæ Aristotelis et Scholasticorum(978), qui
motum dicunt esse _actum mobilis quatenus est mobile, vel actum entis in
potentia quatenus in potentia_. Hujusmodi etiam est illud viri(979) inter
recentiores celebris, qut asserit _nihil in motu esse reale præter
momentaneum illud quod in vi ad mutationem nitente constitui debet_. Porro
constat, horum et similium definitionum auctores in animo habuisse
abstractam motus naturam, seclusa omni temporis et spatii consideratione,
explicare: sed qua ratione abstracta ilia motus quintessentia (ut ita
dicam) intelligi possit, non video.

44. Neque hoc contenti, ulterius pergunt, partesque ipsius motus a se
invicem dividunt et secernunt, quarum ideas distinctas, tanquam entium
revera distinctorum, efformare conantur. Etenim sunt qui motionem a motu
distinguant, illam velut instantaneum motus elementum spectantes.
Velocitatem insuper, conatum, vim, impetum totidem res essentia diversas
esse volunt, quarum quæque per propriam atque ab aliis omnibus segregatam
et abstractam ideam intellectui objiciatur. Sed in hisce rebus
discutiendis, stantibus iis quæ supra disseruimus(980), non est cur
diutius immoremur.

45. Multi etiam per _transitum_(981) motum definiunt, obliti, scilicet,
transitum ipsum sine motu intelligi non posse, et per motum definiri
oportere. Verissimum adeo est definitiones, sicut nonnullis rebus lucem,
ita vicissim aliis tenebras afferre. Et profecto, quascumque res sensu
percipimus, eas clariores aut notiores definiendo efficere vix quisquam
potuerit. Cujus rei vana spe allecti res faciles difficillimas(982)
reddiderunt philosophi, mentesque suas difficultatibus, quas ut plurimum
ipsi peperissent, implicavere. Ex hocce definiendi, simul ac abstrahendi
studio, multæ tam de motu quam de aliis rebus natæ subtilissimæ
quæstiones, eædemque nullius utilitatis, hominum ingenia frustra
torserunt; adeo ut Aristoteles ultro et sæpius fateatur motum esse _actum
quendam cognitu difficilem_(983), et nonnulli ex veteribus usque eo nugis
exercitati deveniebant, ut motum omnino esse negarent(984).

46. Sed hujusmodi minutiis distineri piget. Satis sit fontes solutionum
indicasse: ad quos etiam illud adjungere libet: quod ea quæ de infinita
divisione temporis et spatii in mathesi traduntur, ob congenitam rerum
naturam paradoxa et theorias spinosas (quales sunt illæ omnes in quibus
agitur de infinito(985)) in speculationes de motu intulerunt. Quidquid
autem hujus generis sit, id omne motus commune habet cum spatio et
tempore, vel potius ad ea refert acceptum.

47. Et quemadmodum ex una parte nimia abstractio seu divisio rerum vere
inseparabilium, ita ab altera parte compositio seu potius confusio rerum
diversissimarum motus naturam perplexam reddidit. Usitatum enim est motum
cum causa motus efficiente confundere(986). Unde accidit ut motus sit
quasi biformis, unam faciem sensibus obviam, alteram caliginosa nocte
obvolutam habens. Inde obscuritas et confusio, et varia de motu paradoxa
originem trahunt, dum effectui perperam tribuitur id quod revera causæ
solummodo competit.

48. Hinc oritur opinio illa, _eandem_ semper motus quantitatem
conservari(987). Quod, nisi intelligatur de vi et potentia causæ, sive
causa ilia dicatur natura, sive νοῦς, vel quodcunque tandem agens sit,
falsum esse cuivis facile constabit. Aristoteles(988) quidem l. viii.
_Physicorum_, ubi quærit utrum motus factus sit et corruptus, an vero ab
æterno tanquam vita immortalis insit rebus omnibus, vitale principium
potius, quam effectum externum, sive mutationem loci(989), intellexisse
videtur.

49. Hinc etiam est, quod multi suspicantur motum non esse meram passionem
in corporibus. Quod si intelligamus id quod in motu corporis sensibus
objicitur, quin omnino passivum sit nemo dubitare potest. Ecquid enim in
se habet successiva corporis existentia in diversis locis, quod actionem
referat, aut aliud sit quam nuduset iners effectus?

50. Peripatetici, qui dicunt motum esse actum unum utriusque, moventis et
moti(990), non satis discriminant causam ab effectu. Similiter, qui nisum
aut conatum in motu fingunt, aut idem corpus simul in contrarias partes
ferri putant, eadem idearum confusione, eadem vocum ambiguitate ludificari
videntur.

51. Juvat multum, sicut in aliis omnibus, ita in scientia de motu
accuratam diligentiam adhibere, tam ad aliorum conceptus intelligendos
quam ad suos enunciandos: in qua re nisi peccatum esset, vix credo in
disputationem trahi potuisse, utrum corpus indifferens sit ad motum et ad
quietem, necne. Quoniam enim experientia constat, esse legem naturæ
primariam, ut corpus perinde perseveret in _statu motus ac quietis,
quamdiu aliunde nihil accidat ad statum istum mutandum_; et propterea vim
inertiæ sub diverso respectu esse vel resistentiam, vel impetum,
colligitur: hoc sensu profecto corpus dici potest sua natura indifferens
ad motum vel quietem. Nimirum tam difficile est quietem in corpus motum,
quam motum in quiescens inducere: cum vero corpus pariter conservet statum
utrumvis, quidni dicatur ad utrumvis se habere indifferenter?

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52. Peripatetici pro varietate mutationum, quas res aliqua subire potest,
varia motus genera distinguebant. Hodie de motu agentes intelligunt
solummodo _motum localem_(991). Motus autem localis intelligi nequit nisi
simul intelligatur quid sit _locus_: is vero a neotericis(992) definitur
_pars spatii quam corpus occupat_: unde dividitur in relativum et
absolutum pro ratione spatii. Distinguunt enim inter spatium absolutum
sive verum, ac relativum sive apparens. Volunt scilicet dari spatium
undequaque immensum, immobile, insensibile, corpora universa permeans et
continens, quod vocant spatium absolutum. Spatium autem a corporibus
comprehensum vel definitum, sensibusque adeo subjectum, dicitur spatium
relativum, apparens, vulgare.

53. Fingamus itaque corpora cuncta destrui, et in nihilum redigi. Quod
reliquum est vocant spatium absolutum, omni relatione quæ a situ et
distantiis corporum oriebatur, simul cum ipsis corporibus, sublata. Porro
spatium illud est infinitum, immobile, indivisibile, insensibile, sine
relatione et sine distinctione. Hoc est, omnia ejus attributa sunt
privativa vel negativa: videtur igitur esse merum nihil(993). Parit
solummmodo difficultatem aliquam quod extensum sit. Extensio autem est
qualitas positiva. Verum qualis tandem extensio est illa quæ nec dividi
potest, nec mensurari, cujus nullam partem, nec sensu percipere, nec
imaginatione depingere possumus? Etenim nihil in imaginationem cadit,
quod, ex natura rei, non possibile est ut sensu percipiatur; siquidem
_imaginatio_(994) nihil aliud est quam facultas representatrix rerum
sensibilium, vel actu existentium, vel saltem possibilium. Fugit insuper
_intellectum purum_, quum facultas illa versetur tantum circa res
spirituales et inextensas, cujusmodi sunt mentes nostræ, earumque habitus,
passiones, virtutes, et similia. Ex spatio igitur absoluto auferamus modo
vocabula, et nihil remanebit in sensu, imaginatione, aut intellectu: nihil
aliud ergo iis designatur, quam pura privatio aut negatio, hoc est, merum
nihil.

54. Confitendum omnino est nos circa hanc rem gravissimis præjudiciis
teneri, a quibus ut liberemur, omnis animi vis exercenda. Etenim multi,
tantum abest quod spatium absolutum pro nihilo ducant, ut rem esse ex
omnibus (Deo excepto) unicam existiment, quæ annihilari non possit:
statuantque illud suapte natura necessario existere, æternumque esse et
increatum, atque adeo attributorum divinorum particeps(995). Verum
enimvero quum certissimum sit, res omnes, quas nominibus designamus, per
qualitates aut relationes, vel aliqua saltem ex parte cognosci (ineptum
enim foret vocabulis uti quibus cogniti nihil, nihil notionis, ideæ vel
conceptus subjiceretur), inquiramus diligenter, utrum formare liceat
_ideam_ ullam spatii illius puri, realis, absoluti, quod post omnium
corporum annihilationem perseveret existere. Ideam porro talem paulo
acrius intuens, reperio ideam esse nihili purissimam, si modo idea
appellanda sit. Hoc ipse summa adhibita diligentia expertus sum: hoc alios
pari adhibita diligentia experturos reor.

55. Decipere nos nonnunquam solet, quod aliis omnibus corporibus
imaginatione sublatis, _nostrum_(996) tamen manere supponimus. Quo
supposito, motum membrorum ab omni parte liberrimum imaginamur. Motus
autem sine spatio concipi non potest. Nihilominus si rem attento animo
recolamus, constabit primo concipi spatium relativum partibus nostri
corporis definitum: 2°. movendi membra potestatem liberrimam nullo
obstaculo retusam: et præter hæc duo nihil. Falso tamen credimus tertium
aliquod, spatium videlicet immensum, realiter existere, quod liberam
potestatem nobis faciat movendi corpus nostrum: ad hoc enim requiritur
absentia solummodo aliorum corporum. Quam absentiam, sive privationem
corporum, nihil esse positivum fateamur necesse est(997).

56. Cæterum hasce res nisi quis libero et acri examine perspexerit, verba
et voces parum valent. Meditanti vero, et rationes secum reputanti, ni
fallor, manifestum erit, quæcunque de spatio puro et absoluto prædicantur,
ea omnia de nihilo prædicari posse. Qua ratione mens humana facillime
liberatur a magnis difficultatibus simulque ab ea absurditate tribuendi
existentiam necessariam(998) ulli rei præterquam soli Deo optimo maximo.

57. In proclivi esset sententiam nostram argumentis a posteriori (ut
loquuntur) ductis confirmare, quæstiones de spatio absoluto proponendo;
exempli gratia, utrum sit substantia vel accidens? utrum creatum vel
increatum? et absurditates ex utravis parte consequentes demonstrando. Sed
brevitati consulendum. Illud tamen omitti non debet, quod sententiam
hancce Democritus olim calculo suo comprobavit, uti auctor est Aristoteles
1. i. _Phys._(999) ubi hæc habet: _Democritus solidum et inane ponit
principia, quorum aliud quidem ut quod est, aliud ut quod non est esse
dicit._ Scrupulum si forte injiciat, quod distinctio illa inter spatium
absolutum et relativum a magni nominis philosophis usurpetur, eique quasi
fundamento inædificentur multa præclara theoremata, scrupulum istum vanum
esse, ex iis quæ secutura sunt, apparebit.

58. Ex præmissis patet, non convenire ut definiamus locum verum corporis
esse partem spatii absoluti quam occupat corpus, motumque verum seu
absolutum esse mutationem loci veri et absoluti. Siquidem omnis locus est
relativus, ut et omnis motus. Veruntamen ut hoc clarius appareat,
animadvertendum est, motum nullum intelligi posse sine determinatione
aliqua seu directione, quæ quidem intelligi nequit, nisi praeter corpus
motum, nostrum etiam corpus, aut aliud aliquod, simul intelligatur
existere. Nam sursum, deorsum, sinistrorsum, dextrorsum, omnesque plagæ et
regiones in relatione aliqua fundantur, et necessario corpus a moto
diversum connotant et supponunt. Adeo ut, si reliquis corporibus in
nihilum redactis, globus, exempli gratia, unicus existere supponatur; in
illo motus nullus concipi possit: usque adeo necesse est, ut detur aliud
corpus, cujus situ motus determinari intelligatur. Hujus sententiæ veritas
clarissime elucebit, modo corporum omnium tam nostri quam aliorum, præter
globum istum unicum, annihilationem recte supposuerimus.

59. Concipiantur porro duo globi, et præterea nil corporeum, existere.
Concipiantur deinde vires quomodocunque applicari: quicquid tandem per
applicationem virium intelligamus, motus circularis duorum globorum circa
commune centrum nequit per imaginationem concipi. Supponamus deinde cœlum
fixarum creari: subito ex concepto appulsu globorum ad diversas cœli
istius partes motus concipietur. Scilicet cum motus natura sua sit
relativus, concipi non potuit priusquam darentur corpora correlata.
Quemadmodum nec ulla relatio alia sine correlatis concipi potest.

60. Ad motum circularem quod attinet, putant multi, crescente motu vero
circulari, corpus necessario magis semper magisque ab axe niti. Hoc autem
ex eo provenit, quod, cum motus circularis spectari possit tanquam in omni
momento a duabus directionibus ortum trahens, una secundum radium, altera
secundum tangentem; si in hac ultima tantum directione impetus augeatur,
tum a centro recedet corpus motum, orbita vero desinet esse circularis.
Quod si æqualiter augeantur vires in utraque directione, manebit motus
circularis, sed acceleratus conatu, qui non magis arguet vires recedendi
ab axe, quam accedendi ad eundem, auctas esse. Dicendum igitur, aquam in
situla circumactam ascendere ad latera vasis, propterea quod, applicatis
novis viribus in directione tangentis ad quamvis particulam aquæ, eodem
instanti non applicentur novæ vires æquales centripetæ. Ex quo experimento
nullo modo sequitur, motum absolutum circularem per vires recedendi ab axe
motus necessario dignosci. Porro qua ratione intelligendæ sunt voces istæ,
_vires corporum et conatus_, ex præmissis satis superque innotescit.

61. Quo modo curva considerari potest tanquam constans ex rectis
infinitis, etiamsi revera ex illis non constet, sed quod ea hypothesis ad
geometriam utilis sit, eodem modo motus circularis spectari potest tanquam
a directionibus rectilineis infinitis ortum ducens, quæ suppositio utilis
est in philosophia mechanica. Non tamen ideo affirmandum, impossibile
esse, ut centrum gravitatis corporis cujusvis successive existat in
singulis punctis peripheriae circularis, nulla ratione habita directionis
ullius rectilineæ, sive in tangente sive in radio.

62. Haud omittendum est, motum lapidis in funda, aut aquæ in situla
circumacta, dici non posse motum vere circularem, juxta mentem eorum qui
per partes spatii absoluti definiunt loca vera corporum; cum sit mire
compositus ex motibus non solum situlæ vel fundæ, sed etiam telluris
diurno circa proprium axem, menstruo circa commune centrum gravitatis
terræ et lunæ, et annuo circa solem: et propterea particula quævis lapidis
vel aquæ describat lineam a circulari longe abhorrentem. Neque revera est,
qui creditur, conatus axifugus, quoniam non respicit unum aliquem axem
ratione spatii absoluti, supposito quod detur tale spatium: proinde non
video quomodo appellari possit conatus unicus, cui motus vere circularis
tanquam proprio et adaequato effectui respondet.

63. Motus nullus dignosci potest, aut mensurari, nisi per res sensibiles.
Cum ergo spatium absolutum nullo modo in sensus incurrat, necesse est ut
inutile prorsus sit ad distinctionem motuum. Præterea determinatio sive
directio motui essentialis est, ilia vero in relatione consistit. Ergo
impossibile est ut motus absolutus concipiatur.

64. Porro quoniam pro diversitate loci relativi varius sit motus ejusdem
corporis, quinimo uno respectu moveri, altero quiescere dici quidpiam
possit(1000); ad determinandum motum verum et quietem veram, quo scilicet
tollatur ambiguitas, et consulatur mechanicæ philosophorum, qui systema
rerum latius contemplantur, satis fuerit spatium relativum fixarum cœlo,
tanquam quiescente spectato, conclusum adhibere, loco spatii absoluti.
Motus autem et quies tali spatio relativo definiti, commode adhiberi
possunt loco absolutorum, qui ab illis nullo symptomate discerni possunt.
Etenim imprimantur utcunque vires, sint quicunque conatus, concedamus
motum distingui per actiones in corpora exercitas; nunquam tamen inde
sequetur, dari spatium illud et locum absolutum, ejusque mutationem esse
locum verum.

65. Leges motuum, effectusque, et theoremata eorundem proportiones et
calculos continentia, pro diversis viarum figuris, accelerationibus itidem
et directionibus diversis, mediisque plus minusve resistentibus, hæc omnia
constant sine calculatione motus absoluti. Uti vel ex eo patet quod, quum
secundum illorum principia qui motum absolutum inducunt, nullo symptomate
scire liceat, utrum integra rerum compages quiescat, an moveatur
uniformiter in directum, perspicuum sit motum absolutum nullius corporis
cognosci posse.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

66. Ex dictis patet ad veram motus naturam perspiciendam summopere
juvaturum, 1°. Distinguere inter hypotheses mathematicas et naturas rerum:
2°. Cavere ab abstractionibus: 3°. Considerare motum tanquam aliquid
sensibile, vel saltem imaginabile; mensurisque relativis esse contentos.
Quæ si fecerimus, simul clarissima quæque philosophiæ mechanicæ
theoremata, quibus reserantur naturæ recessus, mundique systema calculis
humanis subjicitur, manebunt intemerata, et motus contemplatio a mille
minutiis, subtilitatibus, ideisque abstractis libera evadet. Atque hæc de
natura motus dicta sufficiant.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

67. Restat, ut disseramus de causa communicationis motuum(1001). Esse
autem vim impressam in corpus mobile causam motus in eo, plerique
existimant. Veruntamen illos non assignare causam motus cognitam, et a
corpore motuque distinctam, ex præmissis constat. Patet insuper vim non
esse rem certam et determinatam, ex eo quod viri summi de ilia multum
diversa, immo contraria, proferant, salva tamen in consequentiis veritate.
Siquidem Newtonus(1002) ait vim impressam consistere in actione sola,
esseque actionem exercitam in corpus ad statum ejus mutandum, nee post
actionem manere. Torricellius(1003) cumulum quendam sive aggregatum virium
impressarum per percussionem in corpus mobile recipi, ibidemque manere
atque impetum constituere contendit. Idem fere Borellus(1004) aliique
prædicant. At vero, tametsi inter se pugnare videantur Newtonus et
Torricellius, nihilominus, dum singuli sibi consentanea proferunt, res
satis commode ab utrisque explicatur. Quippe vires omnes corporibus
attributæ tam sunt hypotheses mathematicæ quam vires attractivæ in
planetis et sole. Cæterum entia mathematica in rerum natura stabilem
essentiam non habent: pendent autem a notione definientis; unde eadem res
diversimode explicari potest.

68. Statuamus motum novum in corpore percusso conservari, sive per vim
insitam, qua corpus quodlibet perseverat in statu suo vel motus vel
quietis uniformis in directum; sive per vim impressam, durante percussione
in corpus percussum receptam ibidemque permanentem; idem erit quoad rem,
differentia existente in nominibus tantum. Similiter, ubi mobile
percutiens perdit, et percussum acquirit motum, parum refert disputare,
utrum motus acquisitus sit idem numero cum motu perdito, ducit enim in
minutias metaphysicas et prorsus nominales de identitate. Itaque sive
dicamus motum transire a percutiente in percussum, sive in percusso motum
de novo generari, destrui autem in percutiente, res eodem recidit.
Utrobique intelligitur unum corpus motum perdere, alterum acquirere, et
præterea nihil.

69. Mentem, quæ agitat et continet universam hancce molem corpoream,
estque causa vera efficiens motus, eandem esse, proprie et stricte
loquendo, causam communicationis ejusdem haud negaverim. In philosophia
tamen physica, causas et solutiones phænomenon a principiis mechanicis
petere oportet. Physice igitur res explicatur non assignando ejus causam
vere agentem et incorpoream, sed demonstrando ejus connexionem cum
principiis mechanicis: cujusmodi est illud, _actionem et reactionem esse
semper contrarias et æquales_(1005), a quo, tanquam fonte et principio
primario, eruuntur regulæ de motuum communicatione, quæ a neotericis,
magno scientiarum bono, jam ante repertæ sunt et demonstratæ.

70. Nobis satis fuerit, si innuamus principium illud alio modo declarari
potuisse. Nam si vera rerum natura potius quam abstracta mathesis
spectetur, videbitur rectius dici, in attractione vel percussione
passionem corporum, quam actionem, esse utrobique æqualem. Exempli gratia,
lapis fune equo alligatus tantum trahitur versus equum, quantum equus
versus lapidem: corpus etiam motum in aliud quiescens impactum, patitur
eandem mutationem cum corpore quiescente. Et quoad effectum realem,
percutiens est item percussum, percussumque percutiens. Mutatio autem illa
est utrobique, tam in corpore equi quam in lapide, tam in moto quam in
quiescente, passio mera. Esse autem vim, virtutem, aut actionem corpoream
talium effectuum vere et proprie causatricem non constat. Corpus motum in
quiescens impingitur; loquimur tamen active, dicentes illud hoc impellere:
nec absurde in mechanicis, ubi ideæ mathematicæ potius quam veræ rerum
naturæ spectantur.

71. In physica, sensus et experientia, quæ ad effectus apparentes
solummodo pertingunt, locum habent; in mechanica, notiones abstractæ
mathematicorum admittuntur. In philosophia prima, seu metaphysica, agitur
de rebus incorporeis, de causis, veritate, et existentia rerum. Physicus
series sive successiones rerum sensibilium contemplatur, quibus legibus
connectuntur, et quo ordine, quid præcedit tanquam causa, quid sequitur
tanquam effectus, animadvertens.(1006) Atque hac ratione dicimus corpus
motum esse causam motus in altero, vel ei motum imprimere, trahere etiam,
aut impellere. Quo sensu causæ secundæ corporeæ intelligi debent, nulla
ratione habita veræ sedis virium, vel potentiarum actricum, aut causæ
realis cui insunt. Porro dici possunt causæ vel principia mechanica, ultra
corpus, figuram, motum, etiam axiomata scientiæ mechanicæ primaria,
tanquam causæ consequentium spectata.

72. Causæ vere activæ meditatione tantum et ratiocinio e tenebris erui
quibus involvuntur possunt, et aliquatenus cognosci. Spectat autem ad
philosophiam primam, seu metaphysicam, de iis agere. Quodsi cuique
scientiæ provincia sua(1007) tribuatur, limites assignentur, principia et
objecta accurate distinguantur, quæ ad singulas pertinent, tractare
licuerit majore, cum facilitate, tum perspicuitate.






FOOTNOTES


_    1 Philosophy of Theism_: The Gifford Lectures delivered before the
      University of Edinburgh in 1894-96. (Second Edition, 1899.)

_    2 Essay on Vision_, sect. 147, 148.

_    3 Principles_, sect. 6.

    4 Preface to the _Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_.

    5 By Anthony Collins.

    6 See vol. III, Appendix B.

    7 Murdoch Martin, a native of Skye, author of a _Voyage to St. Kilda_
      (1698), and a _Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_
      (1703).

    8 See Stewart’s _Works_ (ed. Hamilton), vol. I. p. 161. There is a
      version of this story by DeQuincey, in his quaint essay on _Murder
      considered as one of the Fine Arts._

    9 Sir John became Lord Percival in that year.

   10 A place more than once visited by Berkeley.

   11 Bakewell’s _Memoirs of the Court of Augustus_, vol. II. p. 177.

   12 A letter in Berkeley’s _Life and Letters_, p. 93, which led me to a
      different opinion, I have now reason to believe was not written by
      him, nor was it written in 1721. The research of Dr. Lorenz,
      confirmed by internal evidence, shews that it was written in
      October, 1684, before Berkeley the philosopher was born, and when
      the Duke of Ormond was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The writer was
      probably the Hon. and Rev. George Berkeley, a Prebendary of
      Westminster in 1687, who died in 1694. The wife of the “pious Robert
      Nelson” was a daughter of Earl Berkeley, and this “George” was her
      younger brother.

   13 Percival MSS.

   14 For the letter, see Editor’s Preface to the _Proposal for a College
      in Bermuda_, vol. IV. pp. 343-44.

   15 Afterwards Sir John James.

   16 Smibert the artist, who made a picture of Berkeley in 1725, and
      afterwards in America of the family party then at Gravesend.

_   17 Historical Register_, vol. XIII, p. 289 (1728).

_   18 New England Weekly Courier_, Feb. 3, 1729.

   19 For valuable information about Rhode Island, reproduced in
      _Berkeley’s Life and Correspondence_ and here, I am indebted to
      Colonel Higginson, to whom I desire to make this tardy but grateful
      acknowledgement.

   20 James, Dalton, and Smibert.

   21 Whitehall, having fallen into decay, has been lately restored by the
      pious efforts of Mrs. Livingston Mason, in concert with the Rev. Dr.
      E. E. Hale, and others. This good work was completed in the summer
      of 1900; and the house is now as nearly as possible in the state in
      which Berkeley left it.

   22 See vol. III, Appendix C.

_   23 Three Men of Letters_, by Moses Coit Tyler (New York, 1895). He
      records some of the American academical and other institutions that
      are directly or indirectly, due to Berkeley.

   24 The thought implied in this paragraph is pursued in my _Philosophy
      of Theism_, in which the ethical perfection of the Universal Mind is
      taken as the fundamental postulate in all human experience. If the
      Universal Mind is not ethically perfect, the universe (including our
      spiritual constitution) is radically untrustworthy.

_   25 Life and Letters of Berkeley_, p. 222.

   26 The third Earl of Shaftesbury, the pupil of Locke, and author of the
      _Characteristics_. In addition to the well-known biography by Dr.
      Fowler, the present eminent Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Shaftesbury
      has been interpreted in two other lately published works—a _Life_ by
      Benjamin Rand, Ph.D. (1900), and an edition of the
      _Characteristics_, with an Introduction and Notes, by John M.
      Robertson (1900).

   27 The title of this book is—_Things Divine and Supernatural conceived
      by Analogy with Things Natural and Human_, by the Author of _The
      Procedure, Extent and Limits of the Human Understanding_. The
      _Divine Analogy_ appeared in 1733, and the _Procedure_ in 1728.

   28 Spinoza argues that what is _called_ “understanding” and “will” in
      God, has no more in common with human understanding and will than
      the dog-star in the heavens has with the animal we call a dog. See
      Spinoza’s _Ethica_, I. 17, _Scholium_.

   29 The question of the knowableness of God, or Omnipotent Moral
      Perfection in the concrete, enters into recent philosophical and
      theological discussion in Britain. Calderwood, in his _Philosophy of
      the Infinite_ (1854), was one of the earliest, and not the least
      acute, of Hamilton’s critics in this matter. The subject is lucidly
      treated by Professor Andrew Seth (Pringle-Pattison) in his _Lectures
      on Theism_ (1897) and in a supplement to Calderwood’s _Life_ (1900).
      So also Huxley’s _David Hume_ and Professor Iverach’s _Is God
      Knowable?_

   30 Stewart’s _Works_. vol. I. pp. 350-1.

   31 Berkeley MSS. possessed by Archdeacon Rose.

   32 Pope’s poetic tribute to Berkeley belongs to this period—

      “Even in a bishop I can spy desert;
      Secker is decent; Rundle has a heart:
      Manners with candour are to Benson given,
      To Berkeley—every virtue under heaven.”

      _Epilogue to the Satires._

      Also his satirical tribute to the critics of Berkeley—

      “Truth’s sacred fort th’ exploded laugh shall win;
      And Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.”

      _Essay on Satire, _Part II.

   33 Berkeley’s _Life and Letters_, p. 210.

   34 Bacon’s _Novuin Organum_. Distributio Operis.

   35 Section 141.

   36 See “Editor’s Preface to Alciphron.”

   37 Compare Essay II in the _Guardian_ with this.

   38 Taylor, in later life, conformed to the Anglican Church.

   39 See Berkeley’s _Life and Letters_, chap. viii.

   40 The Primacy.

   41 This seems to have been his eldest son, Henry.

   42 His son George was already settled at Christ Church. Henry, the
      eldest son, born in Rhode Island, was then “abroad in the south of
      France for his health,” as one of his brother George’s letters tells
      us, found among the Johnson MSS.

   43 See Appendix D. Reid, like Berkeley, held that “matter cannot be the
      cause of anything,” but this not as a consequence of the new
      conception of the world presented to the senses, through which alone
      Berkeley opens _his_ way to its powerlessness; although Reid
      supposes that in his youth he followed Berkeley in this too. See
      _Thomas Reid_ (1898), in “Famous Scots Series,” where I have
      enlarged on this.

   44 Johnson MSS.

   45 That Berkeley was buried in Oxford is mentioned in his son’s letter
      to Johnson, in which he says : “His remains are interred in the
      Cathedral of Christ Church, and next week a monument to his memory
      will be erected with an inscription by Dr. Markham, a Student of
      this College.” As the son was present at, and superintended the
      arrangements for his father’s funeral, it can be no stretch of
      credulity to believe that he knew where his father was buried. It
      may be added that Berkeley himself had provided in his Will “that my
      body be buried in the churchyard of the parish in which I die.” The
      Will, dated July 31, 1752, is given _in extenso_ in my _Life and
      Letters_ of Berkeley, p. 345. We have also the record of burial in
      the Register of Christ Church Cathedral, which shews that “on
      January ye 20th 1753, ye Right Reverend John (_sic_) Berkley, Ld
      Bishop of Cloyne, was buryed” there. This disposes of the statement
      on p. 17 of Diprose’s _Account of the Parish of Saint Clement Danes_
      (1868), that Berkeley was buried in that church.

      I may add that a beautiful memorial of Berkeley has lately been
      placed in the Cathedral of Cloyne, by subscriptions in this country
      and largely in America.

   M1 I.

   46 “General ideas,” i.e. _abstract_ general ideas, distinguished, in
      Berkeley’s nominalism, from _concrete_ general ideas, or from
      general names, which are signs of any one of an indefinite number of
      individual objects. Cf. _Principles,_ Introduction, sect. 16.

   47 Introduction to the _Principles of Human Knowledge_.

   M2 N.

   48 “co-existing ideas,” i.e. phenomena presented in uniform order to
      the senses.

   M3 M. P.
   M4 M. P.
   M5 M.

   49 Newton postulates a world of matter and motion, governed
      mechanically by laws within itself: Berkeley finds himself charged
      with New Principles, demanded by reason, with which Newton’s
      postulate is inconsistent.

   M6 E.

   50 He attempts this in many parts of the _Principles_ and _Dialogues_.
      He recognises the difficulty of reconciling his New Principles with
      the _identity_ and _permanence_ of sensible things.

   M7 M.
   M8 E.

   51 He contemplated thus early applications of his New Principles to
      Mathematics, afterwards made in his book of _Principles_, sect.
      118-32.

   52 What Berkeley calls _ideas_ are either perceptible by the senses or
      imagined: either way they are concrete: _abstract ideas_ are empty
      words.

   M9 S.
  M10 M. P.

   53 i.e. the existence of bodies and qualities independently of—in
      abstraction from—all percipient mind. While the spiritual theism of
      Descartes is acceptable, he rejects his mechanical conception of the
      material world.

  M11 M.

   54 But a “house” or a “church” includes more than _visible_ ideas, so
      that we cannot, strictly speaking, be said to see it. We see
      immediately only visible signs of its invisible qualities.

  M12 E.

   55 This is added in the margin.

  M13 N.
  M14 N.
  M15 N.

   56 The total impotence of Matter, and the omnipotence of Mind or Spirit
      in Nature, is thus early becoming the dominant thought with
      Berkeley.

  M16 N.
  M17 N.

   57 This refers to an objection to the New Principles that is apparently
      reinforced by recent discoveries in geology. But if these contradict
      the Principles, so does the existence of a table while I am only
      seeing it.

  M18 E.

   58 Existence, in short, can be realised only in the form of living
      percipient mind.

   59 Berkeley hardly distinguishes uncontingent mathematical _relations_,
      to which the sensible ideas or phenomena in which the relations are
      concretely manifested must conform.

   60 M. T. = matter tangible; M. V. = matter visible; M. . = matter
      sensible. The distinctions n question were made prominent in the
      _Essay on Vision_. See sect. 1, 121-45.

  M19 P.

   61 Which the common supposition regarding primary qualities seems to
      contradict.

   62 [That need not have been blotted out—’tis good sense, if we do but
      determine wt we mean by _thing_ and _idea_.]—AUTHOR, on blank page
      of the MS.

  M20 P.
  M21 N.

   63 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. III. ch. 4, § 8, where he criticises
      attempts to define motion, as involving a _petitio_.

  M22 P.
  M23 N.
  M24 N.

   64 George Cheyne, the physician (known afterwards as author of the
      _English Malady_), published in 1705 a work on Fluxions, which
      procured him admission to the Royal Society. He was born in 1670.

   65 This reminds us of Hume, and inclines towards the empirical notion
      of Causation, as merely constancy in sequence—not even continuous
      metamorphosis.

   66 This is Berkeley’s objection to abstract, i.e. unperceived,
      quantities and infinitesimals—important in the sequel.

   67 The “lines and figures” of pure mathematics, that is to say; which
      he rejects as meaningless, in his horror unrealisable abstractions.

  M25 I.
  M26 I.
  M27 M. E.
  M28 E.

   68 Things really exist, that is to say, in degrees, e.g. in a lesser
      degree, when they are imagined than when they are actually perceived
      by our senses; but, in this wide meaning of existence, they may in
      both cases be said to exist.

  M29 E.

   69 Added on blank page of the MS.

   70 In Berkeley’s limitation of the term _idea_ to what is presented
      objectively in sense, or represented concretely in imagination.
      Accordingly “an infinite idea” would be an idea which transcends
      ideation—an express contradiction.

  M30 M.
  M31 M.
  M32 M.
  M33 S.

   71 Does the _human_ spirit depend on _sensible_ ideas as much as they
      depend on spirit? Other orders of spiritual beings may be percipient
      of other sorts of phenomena than those presented in those few senses
      to which man is confined, although self-conscious activity
      abstracted from _all_ sorts of presented phenomena seems impossible.
      But a self-conscious spirit is not necessarily dependent on _our_
      material world or _our_ sense experience.

  M34 S.
  M35 S.

   72 [This I do not altogether approve of.]—AUTHOR, on margin.

  M36 M.
  M37 S.

   73 He afterwards guarded the difference, by contrasting _notion_ and
      _idea_, confining the latter to phenomena presented objectively to
      our senses, or represented in sensuous imagination, and applying the
      former to intellectual apprehension of “operations of the mind,” and
      of “relations” among ideas.

  M38 E.

   74 See _Principles_, sect. 89.

   75 Is thought, then, independent of language? Can we realise thought
      worthy of the name without use of words? This is Berkeley’s
      excessive juvenile reaction against verbal abstractions.

   76 Every general notion is _ideally realisable_ in one or other of its
      possible concrete or individual applications.

  M39 N.
  M40 S.

   77 This is the germ of Berkeley’s notion of the objectivity of the
      material world to individual percipients and so of the rise of
      individual self-consciousness.

  M41 S.

   78 Added by Berkeley on blank page of the MS.

   79 Cf. p. 420, note 2. Bishop Sprat’s _History of the Royal Society_
      appeared in 1667.

   80 Much need; for what he means by _idea_ has not been attended to by
      his critics.

  M42 I. Mo.

   81 What “Second Book” is this? Does he refer to the “Second Part” of
      the _Principles_, which never appeared? God is the culmination of
      his philosophy, in _Siris_.

  M43 M.

   82 This is Berkeley’s material substance. Individual material
      substances are for him, steady aggregates of sense-given phenomena,
      having the efficient and final cause of their aggregation in
      eternally active Mind—active mind, human and Divine, being essential
      to their realisation for man.

  M44 I.

   83 Cf. Introduction to the _Principles_, especially sect. 18-25.

  M45 M.

   84 Stillingfleet charges Locke with “discarding substance out of the
      reasonable part of the world.”

  M46 M.

   85 The philosophers supposed the real things to exist behind our ideas,
      in concealment: Berkeley was now beginning to think that the
      objective ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, the existence
      of which needs no proof, were _themselves_ the significant and
      interpretable realities of physical science.

  M47 I.
  M48 M.
  M49 S.
  M50 I.
  M51 N.
  M52 P.
  M53 M.
  M54 N.
  M55 M.

   86 If the material world can be _real_ only in and through a percipient
      intelligence, as the realising factor.

  M56 S.
  M57 Mo.
  M58 Mo.
  M59 Mo.
  M60 I.

   87 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 13, 119-122, which deny the possibility of
      an idea or mental picture corresponding to abstract number.

  M61 M. P.

   88 “Præcedaneous,” i.e. precedent.

  M62 S.

   89 Who refunds human as well as natural causation into Divine agency.

  M63 Mo.

   90 In which Locke treats “Of the Reality of Knowledge,” including
      questions apt to lead Berkeley to inquire, Whether we could in
      reason suppose reality in the absence of all realising mind.

  M64 M.
  M65 M.
  M66 E.
  M67 M.
  M68 Mo.
  M69 I.
  M70 I.
  M71 I.

   91 Locke’s “abstract idea” is misconceived and caricatured by Berkeley
      in his impetuosity.

  M72 M.

   92 This and other passages refer to the scepticism, that is founded on
      the impossibility of our comparing our ideas of things with
      unperceived real things; so that we can never escape from the circle
      of subjectivity. Berkeley intended to refute this scepticism.

  M73 I.
  M74 I.
  M75 I.
  M76 Mo.

   93 Probably Samuel Madden, who afterwards edited the _Querist_.

  M77 M.

   94 This “First Book” seems to be “Part I” of the projected
      _Principles_—the only Part ever published. Here he inclines to
      “perception or thought in general,” in the language of Descartes;
      but in the end he approximates to Locke’s “sensation and
      reflection.” See _Principles_, sect. 1, and notes.

  M78 I.
  M79 E.
  M80 S.
  M81 S.

   95 Does he mean, like Hume afterwards, that ideas or phenomena
      constitute the ego, so that I am only the transitory conscious state
      of each moment?

  M82 S.

   96 “Consciousness”—a term rarely used by Berkeley or his
      contemporaries.

   97 This too, if strictly interpreted, looks like an anticipation of
      Hume’s reduction of the ego into successive “impressions”—“nothing
      but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed
      one another with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux
      and movement.” See Hume’s _Treatise_, Part IV. sect. 6.

  M83 S.
  M84 M.

   98 What “Third Book” is here projected? Was a “Third Part” of the
      _Principles_ then in embryo?

  M85 S.

   99 This is scarcely done in the “Introduction” to the _Principles_.

  M86 S.
  M87 E.

  100 Berkeley, as we find in the _Commonplace Book_, is fond of
      conjecturing how a man all alone in the world, freed from the
      abstractions of language, would apprehend the realities of
      existence, which he must then face directly, without the use or
      abuse of verbal symbols.

  M88 E.
  M89 T.
  M90 I.
  M91 I.
  M92 E.
  M93 I.
  M94 I.

  101 This “N. B.” is expanded in the Introduction to the _Principles_.

  M95 M.
  M96 S.
  M97 I.
  M98 M.
  M99 I.
 M100 M.

  102 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 4.

 M101 E.
 M102 M.

  103 What is immediately realised in our percipient experience must be
      presumed or trusted in as real, if we have any hold of reality, or
      the moral right to postulate that our universe is fundamentally
      trustworthy.

 M103 I.
 M104 S.

  104 But he distinguishes, in the _Principles_ and elsewhere, between an
      idea of sense and a percipient ego.

 M105 S.
 M106 S.
 M107 S.
 M108 S.
 M109 S.
 M110 S.
 M111 N.

  105 They reappear in _Siris_.

 M112 M.

  106 In one of Berkeley’s letters to Johnson, a quarter of a century
      after the _Commonplace Book_, when he was in America, he observes
      that “the mechanical philosophers pretend to demonstrate that matter
      is proportional to gravity. But their argument concludes nothing,
      and is a mere circle”—as he proceeds to show.

  107 In the _Principles_, sect. 1-33, he seeks to fulfil the expository
      part of this intention; in sect. 33-84, also in the _Dialogues
      between Hylas and Philonous_, he is “particular in answering
      objections.”

 M113 S.
 M114 M.

  108 If Matter is arbitrarily credited with omnipotence.

 M115 S.
 M116 S.
 M117 S.
 M118 S.
 M119 S.
 M120 S.

  109 On freedom as implied in a moral and responsible agent, cf. _Siris_,
      sect. 257 and note.

 M121 N.

  110 Is not this one way of expressing the Universal Providence and
      constant uniting agency of God in the material world?

  111 Here _idea_ seems to be used in its wider signification, including
      _notion_.

 M122 G.

  112 “infinitely greater”—Does infinity admit of imaginable degrees?

 M123 G.

  113 ’embrangled’—perplexed—involved in disputes.

  114 See _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 24.

 M124 S.

  115 “homonymy,” i.e. equivocation.

  116 Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense,
      nor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses “thing” in
      the wide meaning which comprehends persons.

 M125 S.

  117 Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense,
      nor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses “thing” in
      the wide meaning which comprehends persons.

 M126 S.
 M127 E.
 M128 T.
 M129 S.

  118 Is this consistent with other entries?

 M130 S.

_  119 Essay_, Bk. II. ch. i. sect. 9-19.

 M131 S.

  120 This is one way of meeting the difficulty of supposed interruptions
      of conscious or percipient activity.

 M132 S.
 M133 S.

  121 This seems to imply that voluntary action is mysteriously
      self-originated.

 M134 S.
 M135 N.
 M136 T.
 M137 S.

  122 “perception.” He does not include the percipient.

  123 “without,” i.e. unrealised by any percipient.

 M138 M.

  124 This would make _idea_ the term only for what is imagined, as
      distinguished from what is perceived in sense.

 M139 S.
 M140 S.

  125 In a strict use of words, only _persons_ exercise will—not _things_.

 M141 S.
 M142 S.

  126 As we must do in imagination, which (unlike sense) is
      representative; for the mental images represent original data of
      sense-perception.

 M143 S.
 M144 S.
 M145 S.
 M146 I.
 M147 S.
 M148 Mo.
 M149 Mo.

  127 Does he not allow that we have _meaning_, if not _ideas_, when we
      use the terms virtue and vice and moral action?

  128 As Locke says we are.

 M150 E.

  129 “_Existence_ and _unity_ are ideas that are suggested to the
      understanding by every object without and every idea within. When
      ideas are in our minds, we consider that _they_ exist.” Locke’s
      _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 7. sect. 7.

 M151 E.

  130 i.e. of Existence in the abstract—unperceived and
      unperceiving—realised neither in percipient life nor in moral
      action.

 M152 S.
 M153 S.
 M154 S.
 M155 S. E.
 M156 G.

  131 This suggests that God knows sensible things without being sentient
      of any.

 M157 N. Mo.
 M158 Mo.
 M159 I.
 M160 I.

  132 Cf. _Principles_, Introd., sect. 1-5.

 M161 I.

  133 Cf. Preface to _Principles_; also to _Dialogues_.

 M162 S.
 M163 I.
 M164 Mo.

  134 i.e. that ethics was a science of phenomena or ideas.

 M165 S.
 M166 I.

  135 i.e. of the _independent_ existence of Matter.

 M167 M.

  136 ’bodies’—i.e. sensible things—not unrealised Matter.

 M168 I. &c.

  137 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 13.

 M169 I.

  138 Locke died in October, 1704.

 M170 S.

  139 “without the mind,” i.e. abstracted from all active percipient life.

 M171 Mo.
 M172 Mo.
 M173 P. S.

  140 e.g. secondary qualities of sensible things, in which pleasure and
      pain are prominent.

  141 e.g. primary qualities, in which pleasure and pain are latent.

 M174 I.
 M175 Mo.
 M176 M.

  142 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13. § 21, ch. 17. § 4; also Bk. IV.
      ch. 3. § 6; also his controversy with Bishop Stillingfleet regarding
      the possibility of Matter thinking. With Berkeley real space is a
      finite creature, dependent for realisation on living percipient
      Spirit.

 M177 I.
 M178 Mo.
 M179 Mo.
 M180 S.

  143 But what of the origination of the volition itself?

 M181 M. S.

_  144 Essay_, Bk. I. ch. iv. § 18. See also Locke’s _Letters_ to
      Stillingfleet.

 M182 M. S.

  145 It is, according to Berkeley, the steady union or co-existence of a
      group of sense-phenomena.

 M183 I.
 M184 I.
 M185 S.

_  146 Essay_, Bk. II. ch. i. § 10—where he argues for interruptions of
      consciousness. “Men think not always.”

 M186 Mo.
 M187 S.
 M188 S.
 M189 S.
 M190 S.
 M191 S.
 M192 S.
 M193 S.

  147 In other words, the material world is wholly impotent: all activity
      in the universe is spiritual.

 M194 I.

  148 On the order of its four books and the structure of Locke’s _Essay_,
      see the Prolegomena in my edition of the _Essay_, pp. liv-lviii.

 M195 M.

  149 i.e. independent imperceptible Matter.

 M196 I.
 M197 M.

  150 What of the earliest geological periods, asks Ueberweg? But is there
      greater difficulty in such instances than in explaining the
      existence of a table or a house, while one is merely seeing, without
      touching?

 M198 M.

  151 Locke explains “substance” as “an uncertain supposition of we know
      not what.” _Essay_, Bk. I. ch. 4. § 18.

 M199 E.
 M200 I.
 M201 Mo.
 M202 Mo.

  152 Locke makes certainty consist in the agreement of “our ideas with
      the reality of things.” See _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 4. § 18. Here the
      sceptical difficulty arises, which Berkeley meets under his
      Principle. If we have no perception of reality, we cannot compare
      our ideas with it, and so cannot have any criterion of reality.

 M203 Mo.
 M204 Mo.

  153 [This seems wrong. Certainty, real certainty, is of sensible ideas.
      I may be certain without affirmation or negation.—AUTHOR.] This
      needs further explanation.

 M205 Mo.
 M206 Mo.
 M207 Mo.
 M208 I.

  154 This entry and the preceding tends to resolve all judgments which
      are not what Kant calls analytical into contingent.

 M209 I.
 M210 I.
 M211 E.
 M212 N. Mo.

  155 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 1, §§ 3-7, and ch. 3. §§ 7-21. The
      stress Berkeley lays on “co-existence” is significant.

 M213 P.

  156 i.e. we must not doubt the reality of the immediate data of sense
      but accept it, as “the mob” do.

 M214 I.
 M215 S.
 M216 S.

  157 But is imagination different from actual perception only in _degree_
      of reality?

 M217 S.
 M218 E.

  158 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 13, 120; also Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch.
      7. sect. 7.

 M219 I.

  159 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 1.

 M220 I.

  160 Berkeley’s aim evidently is to deliver men from empty abstractions,
      by a return to more reasonably interpreted common-sense.

 M221 S.

  161 The sort of _external_ world that is intelligible to us is that of
      which _another person_ is percipient, and which is _objective_ to
      me, in a percipient experience foreign to mine.

 M222 S.
 M223 Mo.
 M224 S.

  162 Cf. Berkeley’s _Arithmetica_ and _Miscellanea Mathematica_,
      published while he was making his entries in this _Commonplace
      Book_.

  163 Minima sensibilia?

 M225 Mo.
 M226 E.
 M227 Mo.
 M228 Mo.

  164 Pleasures, _quâ_ pleasures, are natural causes of correlative
      desires, as pains or uneasinesses are of correlative aversions. This
      is implied in the very nature of pleasure and pain.

 M229 I.
 M230 I.

  165 Here we have his explanation of _idea_.

 M231 M. S.

  166 Absent things.

  167 Here, as elsewhere, he resolves geometry, as strictly demonstrable,
      into a reasoned system of analytical or verbal propositions.

 M232 I. M.

  168 Compare this with note 3, p. 34; also with the contrast between
      Sense and Reason, in _Siris_. Is the statement consistent with
      implied assumptions even in the _Principles_, apart from which they
      could not cohere?

 M233 S. G.
 M234 E.
 M235 G.

  169 To have an _idea_ of God—as Berkeley uses idea—would imply that God
      is an immediately perceptible, or at least an imaginable object.

 M236 M. E.

  170 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 89.

 M237 I.
 M238 M. S.
 M239 S.
 M240 Mo.
 M241 S.
 M242 M.

  171 Ch. 11. § 5.

 M243 S.
 M244 E.

  172 Why add—“or perception”?

 M245 Mo.
 M246 M.

  173 Here we have Berkeley’s favourite thought of the divine
      arbitrariness of the constitution of Nature, and of its laws of
      change.

 M247 M. S.
 M248 S.
 M249 S.

  174 This suggests the puzzle, that the cause of every volition must be a
      preceding volition, and so on _ad infinitum_.

 M250 S.
 M251 E. S.
 M252 M. P. E.

_  175 Recherche_, I. 19.

 M253 P.

  176 i.e. of his own individual mind.

 M254 M. P.

  177 i.e. to _a_ percipient mind, but not necessarily to _mine_; for
      natural laws are independent of individual will, although the
      individual participates in perception of the ordered changes.

  178 Cf. the _Arithmetica_.

 M255 M. N.
 M256 G.
 M257 S.

  179 i.e. which are not phenomena. This recognition of originative Will
      even then distinguished Berkeley.

 M258 M.

  180 Is this Part II of the _Principles_, which was lost in Italy?

 M259 I. S.
 M260 I. Mo.
 M261 S.

  181 The thought of articulate _relations_ to which real existence must
      conform, was not then at least in Berkeley’s mind. Hence the
      empiricism and sensationalism into which he occasionally seems to
      rush in the _Commonplace Book_, in his repulsion from empty
      abstractions.

 M262 G. S.

  182 This is the essence of Berkeley’s philosophy—“a blind agent is a
      contradiction.”

 M263 G.
 M264 S.
 M265 S.
 M266 S. Mo.
 M267 Mo. N.
 M268 M.

  183 This is the basis of Berkeley’s reasoning for the necessarily
      _unrepresentative_ character of the ideas or phenomena that are
      presented to our senses. _They_ are the originals.

 M269 M. S.
 M270 S.
 M271 S.
 M272 S.
 M273 M.
 M274 M.
 M275 G.

  184 Berkeley’s horror of abstract or unperceived space and atoms is
      partly explained by dogmas in natural philosophy that are now
      antiquated.

 M276 I. E.
 M277 G.

  185 Ralph [?] Raphson, author of _Demonstratio de Deo_ (1710), and also
      of _De Spatio Reali, seu ente Infinito: conamen
      mathematico-metaphysicum_ (1697), to which Berkeley refers in one of
      his letters to Johnson. See also Green’s _Principles of Natural
      Philosophy_ (1712). The immanence of omnipotent goodness in the
      material world was unconsciously Berkeley’s presupposition. In God
      we have our being.

 M278 S.
 M279 S.
 M280 G.
 M281 E. N.

  186 Note here Berkeley’s version of the causal principle, which is
      really the central presupposition of his whole philosophy—viz. every
      event in the material world must be the issue of acting Will.

 M282 P.
 M283 S.

  187 So Locke on an ideally perfect memory. _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. x. § 9.

 M284 G.
 M285 M.

  188 John Sergeant was the author of _Solid Philosophy asserted against
      the Fancies of the Ideists_ (London, 1697); also of _the Method to
      Science_ (1696). He was a deserter from the Church of England to the
      Church of Rome, and wrote several pieces in defence of Roman
      theology—some of them in controversy with Tillotson.

 M286 S.
 M287 E. S.

  189 Spirit and Matter are mutually dependent; but Spirit is the
      realising factor and real agent in the universe.

 M288 M.
 M289 P.
 M290 G.

  190 See Descartes, _Meditations_, III; Spinoza, _Epist._ II, ad
      Oldenburgium.

 M291 S.

  191 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 2.

 M292 S.
 M293 S.
 M294 N. S.
 M295 Mo.
 M296 Mo.
 M297 Mo. N.

  192 Is “inclusion” here virtually a synonym for verbal definition?

 M298 S.
 M299 N.
 M300 N.
 M301 S.
 M302 I.
 M303 I.
 M304 I.
 M305 M.
 M306 M.
 M307 M. S.

  193 See _Principles_, sect. 2. The universe of Berkeley consists of
      Active Spirits that perceive and produce motion in impotent ideas or
      phenomena, realised in the percipient experience of persons. All
      supposed powers in Matter are refunded into Spirit.

 M308 P.
 M309 P.
 M310 I.
 M311 S.
 M312 S.
 M313 S.
 M314 S.

  194 When self-conscious agents are included among “things.” We can have
      no sensuous image, i.e. idea, of _spirit_, although he maintains we
      can use the word intelligently.

 M315 Mo.
 M316 M.
 M317 S. G.
 M318 P.
 M319 M.
 M320 S.
 M321 M. P.
 M322 Mo. N.

  195 Berkeley insists that we should individualise our thinking—“ipsis
      consuescere rebus,” as Bacon says,—to escape the dangers of
      artificial signs. This is the drift of his assault on abstract
      ideas, and his repulsion from what is not concrete. He would even
      dispense with words in his meditations in case of being
      sophisticated by abstractions.

 M323 N.

  196 Nature or the phenomenal world in short is the revelation of
      perfectly reasonable Will.

 M324 M. S.
 M325 S.

  197 Gerard De Vries, the Cartesian.

 M326 S.
 M327 G. T.
 M328 T.
 M329 T.
 M330 T.
 M331 M.
 M332 M.
 M333 M.
 M334 M.

  198 Are the things of sense only modes in which percipient persons
      exist?

 M335 N.

  199 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 9. § 8.

 M336 M. S.
 M337 M.
 M338 M.
 M339 T.
 M340 M.
 M341 N.
 M342 M.
 M343 T.

  200 Time being relative to the capacity of the percipient.

  201 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 9. § 8.

 M344 M.

  202 To perceive what is not an idea (as Berkeley uses idea) is to
      perceive what is not realised, and therefore not real.

  203 So things have a _potential_ objective existence in the Divine Will.

  204 With Berkeley, change is time, and time, abstracted from all
      changes, is meaningless.

  205 Could he know, by seeing only, even that he _had_ a body?

 M345 M.
 M346 M.
 M347 M.
 M348 M.
 M349 M. N.
 M350 N.

  206 “the ideas attending these impressions,” i.e. the ideas that are
      correlatives of the (by us unperceived) organic impressions.

 M351 M.
 M352 M.
 M353 M.

  207 The Italian physical and metaphysical philosopher Fardella
      (1650-1718) maintained, by reasonings akin to those of Malebranche,
      that the existence of the material world could not be scientifically
      proved, and could only be maintained by faith in authoritative
      revelation. See his _Universæ Philosophiæ Systema_ (1690), and
      especially his _Logica_ (1696).

 M354 M.

  208 Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 11.

  209 What does he mean by “unknown substratum”?

 M355 M.
 M356 S.
 M357 M.
 M358 M.

  210 He gets rid of the infinite in quantity, because it is incapable of
      concrete manifestation to the senses. When a phenomenon given in
      sense reaches the _minimum sensibile_, it reaches what is for us the
      margin of realisable existence: it cannot be infinitely little and
      still a phenomenon: insensible phenomena of sense involve a
      contradiction. And so too of the infinitely large.

 M359 T.

  211 In short he would idealise the visible world but not the tangible
      world. In the _Principles_, Berkeley idealises both.

 M360 S.
 M361 M.

  212 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 149-59, where he concludes that
      “neither abstract nor visible extension makes the object of
      geometry.”

  213 By the adult, who has learned to interpret its visual signs.

  214 Inasmuch as no physical consequences _follow_ the volition; which
      however is still self-originated.

 M362 G.

  215 “A succession of ideas I take to _constitute_ time, and not to be
      only the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think.”
      (Berkeley’s letter to Johnson.)

 M363 P.
 M364 M.
 M365 T.
 M366 S.

  216 Cf. _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 16, sect. 8.

  217 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 67-77.

  218 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 88-120.

 M367 T.
 M368 M.
 M369 M.

  219 This is of the essence of Berkeley’s philosophy.

 M370 M.
 M371 M.
 M372 Mo. S.
 M373 S.
 M374 S.
 M375 S.

  220 But in moral freedom originates in the agent, instead of being
      “consecutive” to his voluntary acts or found only in their
      consequences.

 M376 M.

  221 “Strigose” (strigosus)—meagre.

 M377 S. Mo.
 M378 N.
 M379 I. S.
 M380 S.

  222 As he afterwards expresses it, we have intelligible _notions_, but
      not _ideas_—sensuous pictures—of the states or acts of our minds.

  223 [“Omnes reales rerum proprietates continentur in Deo.” What means Le
      Clerc &c. by this? Log. I. ch. 8.]—AUTHOR, on margin.

 M381 G.

  224 “Si non rogas intelligo.”

 M382 M.
 M383 P.N.
 M384 M. P.

  225 This way of winning others to his own opinions is very
      characteristic of Berkeley. See p. 92 and note.

 M385 M. P.

  226 See _Third Dialogue_, on _sameness_ in things and _sameness_ in
      persons, which it puzzles him to reconcile with his New Principles.

 M386 N.
 M387 S.

  227 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 52-61.

  228 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 101-134.

  229 “distance”—on opposite page in the MS. Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect.
      140.

  230 Direct perception of phenomena is adequate to the perceived
      phenomena; indirect or scientific perception is inadequate, leaving
      room for faith and trust.

 M388 M. P.

  231 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 107-8.

 M389 M.
 M390 S.

  232 The Divine Ideas of Malebranche and the sensuous ideas of Berkeley
      differ.

 M391 N.

  233 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 71.

  234 Cf. Malebranche, _Recherche_, Bk. I. c. 6. That and the following
      chapters seem to have been in Berkeley’s mind.

  235 He here assumes that extension (visible) is implied in the visible
      idea we call colour.

  236 This strikingly illustrates Berkeley’s use of “idea,” and what he
      intends when he argues against “abstract” ideas.

 M392 M. P.

  237 An interesting autobiographical fact. From childhood he was
      indisposed to take things on trust.

 M393 M. P.
 M394 M.
 M395 M.

_  238 Essay on Vision_, sect. 88-119.

 M396 M.
 M397 M.
 M398 M.
 M399 M.
 M400 P.
 M401 M. P.
 M402 M.
 M403 M.
 M404 I.
 M405 M.

  239 “thoughts,” i.e. ideas of sense?

  240 This, in a crude way, is the distinction of δύναμις and ἐνέργεια. It
      helps to explain Berkeley’s meaning, when he occasionally speaks of
      the ideas or phenomena that appear in the sense experience of
      different persons as if they were absolutely independent entities.

 M406 M.
 M407 M.

  241 To be “in an unperceiving thing,” i.e. to be real, yet unperceived.
      Whatever is perceived is, because realised only through a percipient
      act, an _idea_—in Berkeley’s use of the word.

 M408 I.

  242 This as to the “Platonic strain” is not in the tone of _Siris_.

 M409 M.
 M410 M.
 M411 M.

  243 John Keill (1671-1721), an eminent mathematician, educated at the
      University of Edinburgh; in 1710 Savilian Professor of Astronomy at
      Oxford, and the first to teach the Newtonian philosophy in that
      University. In 1708 he was engaged in a controversy in support of
      Newton’s claims to the discovery of the method of fluxions.

 M412 M. P.
 M413 M.

  244 This suggests a negative argument for Kant’s antinomies, and for
      Hamilton’s law of the conditioned.

 M414 M.
 M415 N.

  245 Newton became Sir Isaac on April 16, 1705. Was this written before
      that date?

  246 These may be _considered_ separately, but not _pictured_ as such.

 M416 P.
 M417 M.

  247 In as far as they have not been sensibly realised in finite
      percipient mind.

  248 [Or rather that invisible length does exist.]—AUTHOR, on margin.

  249 Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598-1647), the Italian mathematician. His
      _Geometry of Indivisibles_ (1635) prepared the way for the Calculus.

 M418 M.
 M419 P. G.

  250 [By “the excuse” is meant the finiteness of our mind—making it
      possible for contradictions to appear true to us.]—AUTHOR, on
      margin.

  251 He allows elsewhere that words with meanings not realisable in
      imagination, i.e. in the form of idea, may discharge a useful
      office. See _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 20.

 M420 M. P.

  252 We do not perceive unperceived matter, but only matter realised in
      living perception—the percipient act being the factor of its
      reality.

 M421 M.
 M422 P.

  253 The secondary qualities of things.

 M423 M. P.

  254 Because, while dependent on percipient sense, they are independent
      of _my_ personal will, being determined to appear under natural law,
      by Divine agency.

 M424 P.
 M425 M.

  255 Keill’s _Introductio ad veram Physicam_ (Oxon. 1702)—Lectio 5—a
      curious work, dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke.

  256 [Extension without breadth—i. e. insensible, intangible length—is
      not conceivable. ’Tis a mistake we are led into by the doctrine of
      abstraction.]—AUTHOR, on margin of MS.

  257 Here “Sir Isaac.” Hence written after April, 1705.

 M426 M.

_  258 Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. iv. sect. 18; ch. v. sect. 3, &c.

  259 He applies _thing_ to self-conscious persons as well as to passive
      objects of sense.

_  260 Scaligerana Secunda_, p. 270.

  261 [These arguments must be proposed shorter and more separate in the
      Treatise.]—AUTHOR, on margin.

  262 “Idea” here used in its wider meaning—for “operations of mind,” as
      well as for sense presented phenomena that are independent of
      individual will. Cf. _Principles_, sect. 1.

  263 “sensations,” i.e. objective phenomena presented in sense.

  264 See _Principles_, sect. 1.

  265 See _Principles_, sect. 2.

  266 An “unperceiving thing” cannot be the factor of material reality.

  267 [To the utmost accuracy, wanting nothing of perfection. _Their_
      solutions of problems, themselves must own to fall infinitely short
      of perfection.]—AUTHOR, on margin.

 M427 P.

  268 Jean de Billy and René de Billy, French mathematicians—the former
      author of _Nova Geometriæ Clavis_ and other mathematical works.

 M428 T.

  269 According to Baronius, in the fifth volume of his “Annals,” Ficinus
      appeared after death to Michael Mercatus—agreeably to a promise he
      made when he was alive—to assure him of the life of the human spirit
      after the death of the body.

 M429 M.

  270 So far as we are factors of their reality, in sense and in science,
      or can be any practical way concerned with them.

  271 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 101-34.

 M430 P.

  272 “something,” i.e. _abstract_ something.

  273 Lord Pembroke (?)—to whom the _Principles_ were dedicated, and to
      whom Locke dedicated his _Essay_.

  274 This is an interesting example of a feature that is conspicuous in
      Berkeley—the art of “humoring an opponent in his own way of
      thinking,” which it seems was an early habit. It is thus that he
      insinuates his New Principles in the _Essay on Vision_, and so
      prepares to unfold and defend them in the book of _Principles_ and
      the three _Dialogues_—straining language to reconcile them with
      ordinary modes of speech.

  275 In Diderot’s _Lettre sur les aveugles, à l’usage de ceux qui
      voient_, where Berkeley, Molyneux, Condillac, and others are
      mentioned. Cf. also Appendix, pp. 111, 112; and _Theory of Vision
      Vindicated_, sect. 71, with the note, in which some recorded
      experiments are alluded to.

_  276 De Anima_, II. 6, III. 1, &c. Aristotle assigns a pre-eminent
      intellectual value to the sense of sight. See, for instance, his
      _Metaphysics_, I. 1.

  277 Sir A. Grant, (_Ethics of Aristotle_, vol. II. p. 172) remarks, as
      to the doctrine that the Common Sensibles are apprehended
      concomitantly by the senses, that: “this is surely the true view; we
      see in the apprehension of number, figure, and the like, not an
      operation of sense, but the mind putting its own forms and
      categories, i.e. itself, on the external object. It would follow
      then that the senses cannot really be separated from the mind; the
      senses and the mind each contribute an element to every knowledge.
      Aristotle’s doctrine of κοινὴ αἴσθησις would go far, if carried out,
      to modify his doctrine of the simple and innate character of the
      senses, e.g. sight (cf. _Eth._ II. 1, 4), and would prevent its
      collision with Berkeley’s _Theory of Vision_.”—See also Sir W.
      Hamilton, _Reid’s Works_, pp. 828-830.

      Dugald Stewart (_Collected Works_, vol. I. p. 341, note) quotes
      Aristotle’s _Ethics_, II. 1, as evidence that Berkeley’s doctrine,
      “with respect to the acquired perceptions of sight, was quite
      unknown to the best metaphysicians of antiquity.”

  278 A work resembling Berkeley’s in its title, but in little else,
      appeared more than twenty years before the _Essay_—the _Nova
      Visionis Theoria_ of Dr. Briggs, published in 1685.

  279 See _Treatise on the Eye_, vol. II. pp. 299, &c.

  280 See Reid’s _Inquiry_, ch. v. §§ 3, 5, 6, 7; ch. vi. § 24, and
      _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, II. ch. 10 and 19.

  281 While Sir W. Hamilton (_Lectures on Metaphysics_, lxxviii)
      acknowledges the scientific validity of Berkeley’s conclusions, as
      to the way we judge of distances, he complains, in the same lecture,
      that “the whole question is thrown into doubt by the analogy of the
      lower animals,” i.e. by their probable _visual instinct_ of
      distances; and elsewhere (Reid’s _Works_, p. 137, note) he seems to
      hesitate about Locke’s Solution of Molyneux’s Problem, at least in
      its application to Cheselden’s case. Cf. Leibniz, _Nouveaux Essais_,
      Liv. II. ch. 9, in connexion with this last.

  282 An almost solitary exception in Britain to this unusual uniformity
      on a subtle question in psychology is found in Samuel Bailey’s
      _Review of Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, designed to show the
      unsoundness of that celebrated Speculation_, which appeared in 1842.
      It was the subject of two interesting rejoinders—a well-weighed
      criticism, in the _Westminster Review_, by J.S. Mill, since
      republished in his _Discussions_; and an ingenious Essay by
      Professor Ferrier, in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, republished in his
      _Philosophical Remains_. The controversy ended on that occasion with
      Bailey’s _Letter to a Philosopher in reply to some recent attempts
      to vindicate Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, and in further elucidation
      of its unsoundness_, and a reply to it by each of his critics. It
      was revived in 1864 by Mr. Abbott of Trinity College, Dublin, whose
      essay on _Sight and Touch_ is “an attempt to disprove the received
      (or Berkeleian) Theory of Vision.”

  283 Afterwards (in 1733) Earl of Egmont. Born about 1683, he succeeded
      to the baronetcy in 1691, and, after sitting for a few years in the
      Irish House of Commons, was in 1715 created Baron Percival, in the
      Irish peerage. In 1732 he obtained a charter to colonise the
      province of Georgia in North America. His name appears in the list
      of subscribers to Berkeley’s Bermuda Scheme in 1726. He died in
      1748. He corresponded frequently with Berkeley from 1709 onwards.

  284 Similar terms are applied to the sense of seeing by writers with
      whom Berkeley was familiar. Thus Locke (_Essay_, II. ix. 9) refers
      to sight as “the most comprehensive of all our senses.” Descartes
      opens his _Dioptrique_ by designating it as “le plus universal et le
      plus noble de nos sens;” and he alludes to it elsewhere (_Princip._
      IV. 195) as “le plus subtil de tous les sens.” Malebranche begins
      his analysis of sight (_Recherche_, I. 6) by describing it as “le
      premier, le plus noble, et le plus étendu de tous les sens.” The
      high place assigned to this sense by Aristotle has been already
      alluded to. Its office, as the chief organ through which a
      conception of the material universe as placed in ambient space is
      given to us, is recognised by a multitude of psychologists and
      metaphysicians.

  285 On Berkeley’s originality in his Theory of Vision see the Editor’s
      Preface.

  286 In the first edition alone this sentence followed:—“In treating of
      all which, it seems to me, the writers of Optics have proceeded on
      wrong principles.”

  287 Sect. 2-51 explain the way in which we learn in seeing to judge of
      Distance or Outness, and of objects as existing remote from our
      organism, viz. by their association with what we see, and with
      certain muscular and other sensations in the eye which accompany
      vision. Sect. 2 assumes, as granted, the invisibility of distance in
      the line of sight. Cf. sect. 11 and 88—_First Dialogue between Hylas
      and Philonous—Alciphron_, IV. 8—_Theory of Vision Vindicated and
      Explained_, sect. 62-69.

  288 i.e. outness, or distance outward from the point of vision—distance
      in the line of sight—the third dimension of space. Visible distance
      is visible space or interval between two points (see sect. 112). We
      can be sensibly percipient of it only when _both_ points are seen.

  289 This section is adduced by some of Berkeley’s critics as if it were
      the evidence discovered by him for his _Theory_, instead of being,
      as it is, a passing reference to the scientific ground of the
      already acknowledged invisibility of outness, or distance in the
      line of sight. See, for example, Bailey’s _Review of Berkeley’s
      Theory of Vision_, pp. 38-43, also his _Theory of Reasoning_, p. 179
      and pp. 200-7—Mill’s _Discussions_, vol. II. p. 95—Abbott’s _Sight
      and Touch_, p. 10, where this sentence is presented as “the sole
      positive argument advanced by Berkeley.” The invisibility of outness
      is not Berkeley’s discovery, but the way we learn to interpret its
      visual signs, and what these are.

  290 i.e. aerial and linear perspective are acknowledged signs of remote
      distances. But the question, in this and the thirty-six following
      sections, concerns the visibility of _near_ distances only—a few
      yards in front of us. It was “agreed by all” that beyond this limit
      distances are suggested by our experience of their signs.

  291 Cf. this and the four following sections with the quotations in the
      Editor’s Preface, from Molyneux’s _Treatise of Dioptrics_.

  292 In the author’s last edition we have this annotation: “See what Des
      Cartes and others have written upon the subject.”

  293 In the first edition this section opens thus: “I have here set down
      the common current accounts that are given of our perceiving near
      distances by sight, which, though they are unquestionably received
      for true by mathematicians, and accordingly made use of by them in
      determining the apparent places of objects, do nevertheless,” &c.

  294 Omitted in the author’s last edition.

  295 i.e. although immediately invisible, it is mediately seen. Mark,
      here and elsewhere, the ambiguity of the term _perception_, which
      now signifies the act of being conscious of sensuous phenomena, and
      again the act of inferring phenomena of which we are at the time
      insentient; while it is also applied to the object perceived instead
      of to the percipient act; and sometimes to imagination, and the
      higher acts of intelligence.

  296 “Some men”—“mathematicians,” in first edition.

  297 i.e. the _mediate_ perception.

  298 “any man”—“all the mathematicians in the world,” in first edition.

  299 Omitted in the author’s last edition.

  300 Omitted in the author’s last edition.

  301 Sect. 3, 9.

  302 Observe the first introduction by Berkeley of the term _suggestion_,
      used by him to express a leading factor in his account of the
      visible world, and again in his more comprehensive account of our
      knowledge of the material universe in the _Principles_. It had been
      employed occasionally, among others, by Hobbes and Locke. There are
      three ways in which the objects we have an immediate perception of
      in sight may be supposed to conduct us to what we do not immediately
      perceive: (1) Instinct, or what Reid calls “_original suggestion_”
      (_Inquiry_, ch. VI. sect. 20-24); (2) Custom; (3) Reasoning from
      accepted premisses. Berkeley’s “suggestion” corresponds to the
      second. (Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 42.)

  303 In the _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 66, it is added that
      this “sensation” belongs properly to the sense of touch. Cf. also
      sect. 145 of this _Essay_.

  304 Here “natural”=“necessary”: elsewhere=divinely arbitrary connexion.

  305 That our _mediate_ vision of outness and of objects as thus
      external, is due to media which have a contingent or arbitrary,
      instead of a necessary, connexion with the distances which they
      enable us to see, or of which they are the signs, is a cardinal part
      of his argument.

  306 Sect. 2.

  307 Here, as generally in the _Essay_, the appeal is to our inward
      experience, not to phenomena observed by our senses in the organism.

  308 See sect. 35 for the difference between confused and faint vision.
      Cf. sect. 32-38 with this section. Also _Theory of Vision
      Vindicated_, sect. 68.

  309 See sect. 6.

  310 These sections presuppose previous contiguity as an associative law
      of mental phenomena.

  311 See Reid’s _Inquiry_, ch. vi. sect. 22.

  312 Sect. 16-27.—For the signs of remote distances, see sect. 3.

  313 These are muscular sensations felt in the organ, and degrees of
      confusion in a visible idea. Berkeley’s “arbitrary” signs of
      distance, near and remote, are either (_a_) invisible states of the
      visual organ, or (_b_) visible appearances.

  314 In Molyneux’s _Treatise of Dioptrics_, Pt. I. prop. 31, sect. 9,
      Barrow’s difficulty is stated. Cf. sect. 40 below.

  315 Christopher Scheiner, a German astronomer, and opponent of the
      Copernican system, born 1575, died 1650.

  316 Andrea Tacquet, a mathematician, born at Antwerp in 1611, and
      referred to by Molyneux as “the ingenious Jesuit.” He published a
      number of scientific treatises, most of which appeared after his
      death, in a collected form, at Antwerp in 1669.

  317 In what follows Berkeley tries to explain by his visual theory
      seeming contradictions which puzzled the mathematicians.

  318 This is offered as a verification of the theory that near distances
      are suggested, according to the order of nature, by non-resembling
      visual signs, contingently connected with real distance.

  319 Cf. sect. 78; also _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 31.

  320 Berkeley here passes from his proof of visual “suggestion” of all
      outward distances—i.e. intervals between extremes in the line of
      sight—by means of arbitrary signs, and considers the nature of
      visible externality. See note in Hamilton’s _Reid_, p. 177, on the
      distinction between perception of the external world and perception
      of distance through the eye.

  321 See Descartes, _Dioptrique_, VI—Malebranche, _Recherche_, Liv. I.
      ch. 9, 3—Reid’s _Inquiry_, VI. 11.

  322 Berkeley here begins to found, on the experienced connexion between
      extension and colour, and between visible and tangible extension, a
      proof that _outness_ is invisible. From Aristotle onwards it has
      been assumed that colour is the only phenomenon of which we are
      immediately percipient in seeing. Visible extension, visible figure,
      and visible motion are accordingly taken to be dependent on the
      sensation of colour.

  323 In connexion with this and the next illustration, Berkeley seems to
      argue that we are not only unable to see distance in the line of
      sight, but also that we do not see a distant object in its _real
      visible_ magnitude. But elsewhere he affirms that only _tangible_
      magnitude is entitled to be called _real_. Cf. sect. 55, 59, 61.

  324 The sceptical objections to the trustworthiness of the senses,
      proposed by the Eleatics and others, referred to by Descartes in his
      _Meditations_, and by Malebranche in the First Book of his
      _Recherche_, may have suggested the illustrations in this section.
      Cf. also Hume’s Essay _On the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy_.
      The sceptical difficulty is founded on the assumption that the
      object seen at different distances is the _same visible object_: it
      is really different, and so the difficulty vanishes.

  325 Here Berkeley expressly introduces “touch”—a term which with him
      includes, not merely organic sense of contact, but also muscular and
      locomotive sense-experience. After this he begins to unfold the
      antithesis of visual and tactual phenomena, whose subsequent
      synthesis it is the aim of the _New Theory_ to explain. Cf.
      _Principles of Human Knowledge_, sect. 43—_Theory of Vision
      Vindicated_, sect. 22 and 25. Note here Berkeley’s reticence of his
      idealization of Matter—tangible as well as visible. Cf.
      _Principles_, sect. 44.

  326 This connexion of our knowledge of distance with our locomotive
      experience points to a theory which ultimately resolves space into
      experience of unimpeded locomotion.

  327 Locke (_Essay_, Introduction, § 8) takes _idea_ vaguely as “the term
      which serves best to stand whatsoever is the object of the
      understanding when a man thinks.” Oversight of what Berkeley intends
      the term idea has made his whole conception of nature and the
      material universe a riddle to many, of which afterwards.

  328 The expressive term “outness,” favoured by Berkeley, is here first
      used.

  329 “We get the idea of Space,” says Locke, “both by our sight and
      touch” (_Essay_, II. 13. § 2). Locke did not contemplate Berkeley’s
      antithesis of visible and tangible extension, and the consequent
      ambiguity of the term extension; which sometimes signifies
      _coloured_, and at others _resistant_ experience in sense.

  330 For an explanation of this difficulty, see sect. 144.

  331 “object”—“thing,” in the earlier editions.

  332 This is the issue of the analytical portion of the _Essay_.

  333 Cf. sect. 139-40.

  334 Here the question of externality, signifying independence of all
      percipient life, is again mixed up with that of the invisibility of
      distance outwards in the line of sight.

  335 Omitted in author’s last edition.

  336 i.e. including muscular and locomotive experience as well as sense
      of contact. But what are the _tangibilia_ themselves? Are they also
      significant, like _visibilia_, of a still ulterior reality? This is
      the problem of the _Principles of Human Knowledge_.

  337 In this section the conception of a natural Visual Language, makes
      its appearance, with its implication that Nature is (for us)
      virtually Spirit. Cf. sect. 140, 147—_Principles_, sect.
      44—_Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous_—_Alciphron_, IV. 8, 11—and
      _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, passim.

  338 Sect. 52-87 treat of the invisibility of real, i.e. tactual,
      Magnitude. Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 54-61.

  339 Sect. 8-15.

  340 Sect. 41, &c.

  341 See Molyneux’s _Treatise on Dioptrics_, B. I. prop. 28.

  342 See sect. 122-126.

  343 In short there is a point at which, with our limited sense, we cease
      to be percipient of colour, in seeing; and of resistance, in
      locomotion. Though Berkeley regards all visible extensions as
      sensible, and therefore dependent for their reality on being
      realised by sentient mind, he does not mean that mind or
      consciousness is extended. With him, extension, though it exists
      only in mind,—i.e. as an idea seen, in the case of visible
      extension, and as an idea touched, in the case of tangible
      extension,—is yet no _property_ of mind. Mind can exist without
      being percipient of extension, although extension cannot be realised
      without mind.

  344 But this is true, though less obviously, of tangible as well as of
      visible objects.

  345 Sect. 49.

  346 Cf. sect. 139, 140, &c.

  347 “situation”—not in the earlier editions.

  348 Sect. 55.

  349 Omitted in the author’s last edition.

  350 Ordinary sight is virtually foresight. Cf. sect. 85.—See also
      Malebranche on the external senses, as given primarily for the
      urgent needs of embodied life, not to immediately convey scientific
      knowledge, _Recherche_, Liv. I. ch. 5, 6, 9, &c.

  351 Sect. 44.—See also sect. 55, and note.

  352 This supposes “settled” _tangibilia_, but not “settled” _visibilia_.
      Yet the sensible extension given in touch and locomotive experience
      is also relative—an object being _felt_ as larger or smaller
      according to the state of the organism, and the other conditions of
      our embodied perception.

  353 What follows, to end of sect. 63, added in the author’s last
      edition.

  354 “outward objects,” i.e. objects of which we are percipient in
      tactual experience, taken in this _Essay_ provisionally as the real
      external objects. See _Principles_, sect. 44.

  355 Cf. sect. 144. Note, in this and the three preceding sections, the
      stress laid on the _arbitrariness_ of the connexion between the
      signs which suggest magnitudes, or other modes of extension, and
      their significates. This is the foundation of the _New Theory_;
      which thus resolves _physical_ causality into a relation of signs to
      what they signify and predict—analogous to the relation between
      words and their accepted meanings.

  356 In sect. 67-78, Berkeley attempts to verify the foregoing account of
      the natural signs of Size, by applying it to solve a phenomenon, the
      cause of which had been long debated among men of science—the
      visible magnitude of heavenly bodies when seen in the horizon.

  357 Cf. sect. 10.

  358 Omitted in the author’s last edition. Cf sect. 76, 77.—The
      explanation in question is attributed to Alhazen, and by Bacon to
      Ptolemy, while it is sanctioned by eminent scientific names before
      and since Berkeley.

  359 “Fourthly” in the second edition. Cf. what follows with sect. 74.
      Why “lesser”?

  360 When Berkeley, some years afterwards, visited Italy, he remarked
      that distant objects appeared to him much nearer than they really
      were—a phenomenon which he attributed to the comparative purity of
      the southern air.

  361 i.e. the original perception, apart from any synthetic operation of
      suggestion and inferential thought, founded on visual signs.

  362 In Riccioli’s _Almagest_, II. lib. X. sect. 6. quest. 14, we have an
      account of many hypotheses then current, in explanation of the
      apparent magnitude of the horizontal moon.

  363 Gassendi’s “Epistolæ quatuor de apparente magnitudine solis humilis
      et sublimis.”—_Opera_, tom. III pp. 420-477. Cf. Appendix to this
      _Essay_, p. 110.

  364 See _Dioptrique_, VI.

_  365 Opera Latina_, vol. I, p. 376, vol. II, pp. 26-62; _English Works_,
      vol. I. p. 462. (Molesworth’s Edition.)

  366 The paper in the Transactions is by Molyneux.

  367 See Smith’s _Optics_, pp. 64-67, and _Remarks_, pp. 48, &c. At p. 55
      Berkeley’s _New Theory_ is referred to, and pronounced to be at
      variance with experience. Smith concludes by saying, that in “the
      second edition of Berkeley’s _Essay_, and also in a Vindication and
      Explanation of it (called the _Visual Language_), very lately
      published, the author has made some additions to his solution of the
      said phenomenon; but seeing it still involves and depends on the
      principle of faintness, I may leave the rest of it to the reader’s
      consideration.” This, which appeared in 1738, is one of the very few
      early references to Berkeley’s _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_.

  368 Sect. 2-51.

  369 This sentence is omitted in the author’s last edition.

  370 What follows to the end of this section is not contained in the
      first edition.

  371 i.e. tangible.

  372 Cf. sect. 38; and _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 31.

  373 “Never”—“hardly,” in first edition.

  374 Cf. Appendix, p. 208.—See Smith’s _Optics_, B. I. ch. v, and
      _Remarks_, p. 56, in which he “leaves it to be considered, whether
      the said phenomenon is not as clear an instance of the insufficiency
      of faintness” as of mathematical computation.

  375 A favourite doctrine with Berkeley, according to whose theory of
      visibles there can be no absolute visible magnitude, the _minimum_
      being the least that is _perceivable_ by each seeing subject, and
      thus relative to his visual capacity. This section is thus
      criticised, in January, 1752, in a letter signed “Anti-Berkeley,” in
      the _Gent. Mag._ (vol. XXII, p. 12): “Upon what his lordship asserts
      with respect to the _minimum visibile_, I would observe that it is
      certain that there are infinite numbers of animals which are
      imperceptible to the naked eye, and cannot be perceived but by the
      help of a microscope; consequently there are animals whose whole
      bodies are far less than the _minimum visibile_ of a man. Doubtless
      these animals have eyes, and, if their _minimum visibile_ were equal
      to that of a man, it would follow that they cannot perceive anything
      but what is much larger than their whole body; and therefore their
      own bodies must be invisible to them, because we know they are so to
      men, whose _minimum visibile_ is asserted by his lordship to be
      equal to theirs.” There is some misconception in this. Cf. Appendix
      to _Essay_, p. 209.

  376 Those two defects belong to human consciousness. See Locke’s
      _Essay_, II. 10, on the defects of human memory. It is this
      imperfection which makes reasoning needful—to assist finite
      intuition. Reasoning is the sign at once of our dignity and our
      weakness.

  377 Sect. 59.

  378 Sect. 80-82.

  379 Sect. 88-119 relate to the nature, invisibility, and arbitrary
      visual signs of Situation, or of the localities of tangible things.
      Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 44-53.

  380 Cf. sect. 2, 114, 116, 118.

  381 This illustration is taken from Descartes. See Appendix.

  382 Sect. 10 and 19.

  383 Sect. 2-51.

  384 Omitted in author’s last edition.

  385 This is Berkeley’s universal solvent of the psychological
      difficulties involved in visual-perception.

  386 Cf. sect. 103, 106, 110, 128, &c. Berkeley treats this case
      hypothetically in the _Essay_, in defect of actual experiments upon
      the born-blind, since accumulated from Cheselden downwards. See
      however the Appendix, and _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 71.

  387 i.e. tangible things. Cf. _Principles_, sect. 44.

  388 The “prejudice,” to wit, which Berkeley would dissolve by his
      introspective analysis of vision. Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_,
      sect. 35.

  389 Thus forming individual concrete things out of what is perceived
      separately through different senses.

  390 This briefly is Berkeley’s solution of “the knot about inverted
      images,” which long puzzled men of science.

  391 i.e. perceive _mediately_—visible objects, _per se_, having no
      tactual situation. Pure vision, he would say, has nothing to do with
      “high” and “low,” “great” and “inverted,” in the real or tactual
      meaning of those terms.

  392 i.e. tangible.

  393 e.g. “extension,” which, according to Berkeley, is an equivocal
      term, common (in its different meanings) to _visibilia_ and
      _tangibilia_. Cf. sect. 139, 140.

  394 Cf. sect. 93, 106, 110, 128.

  395 i.e. real or tangible head.

  396 Cf. sect. 140, 143. In the _Gent. Mag._ (vol. XXII. p. 12),
      “Anti-Berkeley” thus argues the case of one born blind. “This man,”
      he adds, “would, by being accustomed to feel one hand with the
      other, have perceived that the extremity of the hand was divided
      into fingers—that the extremities of these fingers were
      distinguished by certain hard, smooth surfaces, of a different
      texture from the rest of the fingers—and that each finger had
      certain joints or flexures. Now, if this man was restored to sight,
      and immediately viewed his hand before he touched it again, it is
      manifest that the divisions of the extremity of the hand into
      fingers would be visibly perceived. He would note too the small
      spaces at the extremity of each finger, which affected his sight
      differently from the rest of the fingers; upon moving his fingers he
      would see the joints. Though therefore, by means of this lately
      acquired sense of seeing, the object affected his mind in a new and
      different manner from what it did before, yet, as by _touch_ he had
      acquired the knowledge of these several divisions, marks, and
      distinctions of the hand, and, as the new object of _sight_ appeared
      to be divided, marked, and distinguished in a similar manner, I
      think he would certainly conclude, _before he touched his hand_,
      that the thing which he now saw was _the same_ which he had felt
      before and called his hand.”

  397 Locke, _Essay_, II. 8, 16. Aristotle regards number as a Common
      Sensible.—_De Anima_, II. 6, III. 1.

  398 “If the visible appearance of two shillings had been found connected
      from the beginning with the tangible idea of one shilling, that
      appearance would as naturally and readily have signified the unity
      of the (tangible) object as it now signifies its duplicity.” Reid,
      _Inquiry_, VI. 11.

  399 Here again note Berkeley’s inconvenient reticence of his full theory
      of matter, as dependent on percipient life for its reality. Tangible
      things are meantime granted to be real “without mind.” Cf.
      _Principles_, sect. 43, 44. “Without the mind”—in contrast to
      sensuous phenomenon only.

  400 Cf. sect. 131.

  401 Sect. 2, 88, 116, 118.

  402 In short, we _see_ only _quantities of colour_—the real or tactual
      distance, size, shape, locality, up and down, right and left, &c.,
      being gradually associated with the various visible modifications of
      colour.

  403 i.e. tangible.

  404 Sect. 41-44.

  405 i.e. tangible things.

  406 i.e. visible.

  407 Cf. sect. 41-44. The “eyes”—visible and tangible—are themselves
      objects of sense.

  408 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 21-25.

  409 “Visible ideas”—including sensations muscular and locomotive, _felt_
      in the organ of vision. Sect. 16, 27, 57.

  410 i.e. objects which, in this tentative _Essay_, are granted, for
      argument’s sake, to be external, or independent of percipient mind.

  411 i.e. to inquire whether there are, in this instance, Common
      Sensibles; and, in particular, whether an _extension_ of the same
      kind at least, if not numerically the same, is presented in each.
      The Kantian theory of an _a priori_ intuition of space, the common
      condition of tactual and visual experience, because implied in
      sense-experience as such, is not conceived by Berkeley. Cf. _Theory
      of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 15.

  412 In the following reasoning against abstract, as distinguished from
      concrete or sense presented (visible or tangible) extension,
      Berkeley urges some of his favourite objections to “abstract ideas,”
      fully unfolded in his _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 6-20.—See
      also _Alciphron_, VII. 5-8.—_Defence of Free Thinking in
      Mathematics_, sect. 45-48.

  413 Berkeley’s _ideas_ are concrete or particular—immediate data of
      sense or imagination.

  414 i.e. it cannot be individualized, either as a perceived or an
      imagined object.

  415 Sect. 105.

  416 “Endeavours” in first edition.

  417 i.e. a mental image of an abstraction, an impossible image, in which
      the extension and comprehension of the notion must be adequately
      pictured.

  418 “deservedly admired author,” in the first edition.

  419 “this celebrated author,”—“that great man” in second edition. In
      assailing Locke’s “abstract idea,” he discharges the meaning which
      Locke intended by the term, and then demolishes his own figment.

  420 Omitted in the author’s last edition.

  421 Omitted in last edition.

  422 Omitted in last edition.

  423 Omitted in last edition.

  424 See _Principles_, passim.

  425 Omitted in author’s last edition.

  426 He probably has Locke in his eye.

  427 On Berkeley’s theory, space without relation to bodies (i.e.
      insensible or abstract space) would not be extended, as not having
      parts; inasmuch as parts can be assigned to it only with relation to
      bodies. Berkeley does not distinguish space from sensible extension.
      Cf. Reid’s _Works_, p. 126, note—in which Sir W. Hamilton suggests
      that one may have an _a priori_ conception of pure space, and _also_
      an _a posteriori_ perception of finite, concrete space.

  428 Sect. 121. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 15.

  429 i.e. there are no Common Sensibles: from which it follows that we
      can reason from the one sense to the other only by founding on the
      constant connexion of their respective phenomena, under a natural
      yet (for us) contingent law. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_,
      sect. 27, 28.

  430 Omitted in last edition.

  431 Cf. sect. 93, 103, 106, 110.

  432 Omitted in last edition.

  433 Cf. sect. 43, 103, &c. A plurality of co-existent _minima_ of
      coloured points constitutes Berkeley’s visible extension; while a
      plurality of successively experienced _minima_ of resistant points
      constitutes his tactual extension. Whether we can perceive visible
      extension without experience of muscular movement at least in the
      eye, he does not here say.

  434 Omitted in last edition.

  435 Real distance belongs originally, according to the _Essay_, to our
      tactual experience only—in the wide meaning of touch, which includes
      muscular and locomotive perceptions, as well as the simple
      perception of contact.

  436 Added in second edition.

  437 Omitted in last edition.

  438 See also Locke’s “Correspondence” with Molyneux, in Locke’s _Works_,
      vol. IX. p. 34.—Leibniz, _Nouveaux Essais_, Liv. II. ch. 9, who, so
      far granting the fact, disputes the heterogeneity.—Smith’s
      _Optics._—_Remarks_, §§ 161-170.—Hamilton’s Reid, p. 137, note, and
      _Lect. Metaph._ II. p. 176.

  439 Omitted in last edition.

  440 Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 70.

  441 Cf. sect. 49, 146, &c. Here “same” includes “similar.”

  442 i.e. visible and tangible motions being absolutely heterogeneous,
      and the former, _at man’s point of view_, only contingent signs of
      the latter, we should not, at first sight, be able to interpret the
      visual signs of tactual phenomena.

  443 Cf. sect. 122-125.

  444 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 111-116; also _Analyst_, query 12. On
      Berkeley’s system space in its three dimensions is unrealisable
      without experience of motion.

  445 Here the term “language of nature” makes its appearance, as
      applicable to the ideas or visual signs of tactual realities.

  446 Cf. sect. 16, 27, 97.

  447 Is “tangible” here used in its narrow meaning—excluding muscular and
      locomotive experience?

  448 i.e. as natural signs, divinely associated with their thus implied
      meanings.

  449 Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 35.

  450 Berkeley, in this section, enunciates the principal conclusion in
      the _Essay_, which conclusion indeed forms his new theory of Vision.

  451 A suggestion thus due to natural laws of association. The
      explanation of the fact that we apprehend, by those ideas or
      phenomena which are objects of sight, certain other ideas, which
      neither resemble them, nor efficiently cause them, nor are so caused
      by them, nor have any necessary connexion with them, comprehends,
      according to Berkeley, the whole Theory of Vision. “The imagination
      of every thinking person,” remarks Adam Smith, “will supply him with
      instances to prove that the ideas received by any one of the senses
      do readily excite such other ideas, either of the same sense or of
      any other, as have habitually been associated with them. So that if,
      on this account, we are to suppose, with a late ingenious writer,
      that the ideas of sight constitute a Visual Language, because they
      readily suggest the corresponding ideas of touch—as the terms of a
      language excite the ideas answering to them—I see not but we may,
      for the same reason, allow of a tangible, audible, gustatory, and
      olefactory language; though doubtless the Visual Language will be
      abundantly more copious than the rest.” Smith’s _Optics_.—_Remarks_,
      p. 29.—And into this conception of a universal sense symbolism,
      Berkeley’s theory of Vision ultimately rises.

  452 Cf. _Alciphron_, Dialogue IV. sect. 11-15.

  453 Sect. 122-125.

  454 Sect. 127-138.

  455 Some modern metaphysicians would say, that neither tangible nor
      visible extension is the object geometry, but abstract extension;
      and others that space is a necessary implicate of sense-experience,
      rather than, _per se_, an object of any single sense. Cf. Kant’s
      explanation of the origin of our mathematical knowledge, _Kritik der
      reinen Vernunft_. Elementarlehre, I.

  456 Cf. sect. 51-66, 144.

  457 This is a conjecture, not as to the probable ideas of one born
      blind, but as to the ideas of an “unbodied” intelligence, whose
      _only_ sense was that of seeing. See Reid’s speculation (_Inquiry_,
      VI. 9) on the “Geometry of Visibles,” and the mental experience of
      Idomenians, or imaginary beings supposed to have no ideas of the
      material world except those got by seeing.

  458 Cf. sect. 130, and _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 57. Does
      Berkeley, in this and the two preceding sections, mean to hint that
      the only proper object of sight is _unextended_ colour; and that,
      apart from muscular movement in the eye or other locomotion,
      _visibilia_ resolve into unextended mathematical points? This
      question has not escaped more recent British psychologists,
      including Stewart, Brown, Mill, and Bain, who seem to hold that
      unextended colour is perceivable and imaginable.

  459 The bracketed sentence is not retained in the author’s last edition,
      in which the first sentence of sect. 160 is the concluding one of
      sect. 159, and of the _Essay_.

  460 This passage is contained in the _Dioptrices_ of Descartes, VI. 13;
      see also VI. 11.

  461 The arbitrariness or contingency—as far as our knowledge carries
      us—of the connexion between the visual phenomena, as signs, on the
      one hand, and actual distance, as perceived through this means, on
      the other.

  462 Cf. sect. 80-83.

  463 The reference here seems to be to the case described in the _Tatler_
      (No. 55) of August 16, 1709, in which William Jones, born blind, had
      received sight after a surgical operation, at the age of twenty, on
      the 29th of June preceding. A medical narrative of this case
      appeared, entitled _A full and true account of a miraculous cure of
      a Young Man in Newington, who was born blind, and was in five
      minutes brought to perfect sight, by Mr. Roger Grant, oculist_.
      London, 1709.

  464 Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 71, with the relative
      note.

  465 Omitted on the title-page in the second edition, but retained in the
      body of the work.

  466 Beardsley’s _Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D., First
      President of King’s College, New York_, p. 72 (1874).

  467 Beardsley’s _Life of Johnson_, pp. 71, 72.

  468 Chandler’s _Life of Johnson_, Appendix, p. 161.

_  469 Commonplace Book._

  470 Moreover, even if the outness or distance of things _were_ visible,
      it would not follow that either they or their distances could be
      real if unperceived. On the contrary, Berkeley implies that they
      _are_ perceived _visually_.

  471 It is also to be remembered that sensible things exist “in mind,”
      without being exclusively _mine_, as creatures of _my will_. In one
      sense, that only is mine in which my will exerts itself. But, in
      another view, my involuntary states of feeling and imagination are
      _mine_, because their existence depends on my consciousness of them;
      and even sensible things are so far _mine_, because, though present
      in many minds in common, they are, for me, dependent on _my_
      percipient mind.

  472 Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke and fifth Earl of
      Montgomery, was the correspondent and friend of Locke—who dedicated
      his famous _Essay_ to him, as a work “having some little
      correspondence with some parts of that nobler and vast system of the
      sciences your lordship has made so new, exact, and instructive a
      draft of.” He represents a family renowned in English political and
      literary history. He was born in 1656; was a nobleman of Christ
      Church, Oxford, in 1672; succeeded to his titles in 1683; was sworn
      of the Privy Council in 1689; and made a Knight of the Garter in
      1700. He filled some of the highest offices in the state, in the
      reigns of William and Mary, and of Anne. He was Lord Lieutenant of
      Ireland in 1707, having previously been one of the Commissioners by
      whom the union between England and Scotland was negotiated. He died
      in January 1733.

  473 Trinity College, Dublin.

  474 In his _Commonplace Book_ Berkeley seems to refer his speculations
      to his boyhood. The conception of the material world propounded in
      the following Treatise was in his view before the publication of the
      _New Theory of Vision_, which was intended to prepare the way for
      it.

  475 Cf. Locke, in the “Epistle Dedicatory” of his _Essay_.
      Notwithstanding the “novelty” of the New Principles, viz. _negation_
      of abstract or unperceived Matter, Space, Time, Substance, and
      Power; and _affirmation_ of Mind, as the Synthesis, Substance, and
      Cause of all—much in best preceding philosophy, ancient and modern,
      was a dim anticipation of it.

  476 Cf. sect. 6, 22, 24, &c., in illustration of the demonstrative claim
      of Berkeley’s initial doctrine.

  477 Berkeley entreats his reader, here and throughout, to take pains to
      understand his meaning, and especially to avoid confounding the
      ordered ideas or phenomena, objectively presented to our senses,
      with capricious chimeras of imagination.

  478 “Philosophy is nothing but the true knowledge of things.” Locke.

  479 The purpose of those early essays of Berkeley was to reconcile
      philosophy with common sense, by employing reflection to make
      _latent_ common sense, or common reason, reveal itself in its
      genuine integrity. Cf. the closing sentences in the _Third Dialogue
      between Hylas and Philonous_.

  480 Cf. Locke’s _Essay_, Introduction, sect. 4-7; Bk. II. ch. 23, § 12,
      &c. Locke (who is probably here in Berkeley’s eye) attributes the
      perplexities of philosophy to our narrow faculties, which are meant
      to regulate our lives, not to remove all mysteries. See also
      Descartes, _Principia_, I. 26, 27, &c.; Malebranche, _Recherche_,
      III. 2.

  481 His most significant forerunners were Descartes in his _Principia_,
      and Locke in his _Essay_.

  482 Here “idea” and “notion” seem to be used convertibly. See sect. 142.
      Cf. with the argument against _abstract ideas_, unfolded in the
      remainder of the Introduction, _Principles_, sect. 97-100, 118-132,
      143; _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 122-125; _Alciphron_, Dial. vii.
      5-7; _Defence of Free Thinking in Mathematics_, sect. 45-48. Also
      _Siris_, sect. 323, 335, &c., where he distinguishes Idea in a
      higher meaning from his sensuous ideas. As mentioned in my Preface,
      the third edition of _Alciphron_, published in 1752, the year before
      Berkeley died, omits the three sections of the Seventh Dialogue
      which repeat the following argument against abstract ideas.

  483 As in Derodon’s _Logica_, Pt. II. c. 6, 7; _Philosophia Contracta_,
      I. i. §§ 7-11; and Gassendi, _Leg. Instit._, I. 8; also Cudworth,
      _Eternal and Immutable Morality_, Bk. IV.

  484 Omitted in second edition.

  485 We must remember that what Berkeley intends by an _idea_ is either a
      percept of sense, or a sensuous imagination; and his argument is
      that none of _these_ can be an abstraction. We can neither perceive
      nor imagine what is not concrete and part of a succession.

  486 “abstract notions”—here used convertibly with “abstract ideas.” Cf.
      _Principles_, sect. 89 and 142, on the special meaning of _notion_.

  487 Supposed by Berkeley to mean, that we can imagine, in abstraction
      from all phenomena presented in concrete experience, e.g. imagine
      _existence_, in abstraction from all phenomena in which it manifests
      itself to us; or _matter_, stripped of all the phenomena in which it
      is realised in sense.

  488 Omitted in second edition.

  489 Locke.

  490 Descartes, who regarded brutes as (sentient?) machines.

  491 “To this I cannot assent, being of opinion that a word,” &c.—in
      first edition.

  492 “an idea,” i.e. a concrete mental picture.

  493 So that “generality” in an idea is our “consideration” of a
      particular idea (e.g. a “particular motion” or a “particular
      extension”) not _per se_, but under general relations, which that
      particular idea exemplifies, and which, as he shews, may be
      signified by a corresponding word. All ideas (in Berkeley’s confined
      meaning of “idea”) are particular. We rise above particular ideas by
      an intellectual apprehension of their relations; not by forming
      _abstract pictures_, which are contradictory absurdities.

  494 Locke is surely misconceived. He does not say, as Berkeley seems to
      suppose, that in forming “abstract ideas,” we are forming abstract
      mental images—pictures in the mind that are not individual pictures.

  495 Does Locke intend more than this, although he expresses his meaning
      in ambiguous words?

  496 It is a particular idea, but considered relatively—a _significant_
      particular idea, in other words. We realise our notions in examples,
      and these must be concrete.

  497 i.e. “ideas” in Locke’s meaning of idea, under which he comprehends,
      not only the particular ideas of sense and imagination—Berkeley’s
      “ideas”—but these considered relatively, and so seen intellectually,
      when Locke calls them abstract, general, or universal. Omniscience
      in its all-comprehensive intuition may not require, or even admit,
      such general ideas.

  498 Here and in what follows, “abstract _notion_,” “universal _notion_,”
      instead of abstract _idea_. Notion seems to be here a synonym for
      idea, and not taken in the special meaning which he afterwards
      attached to the term, when he contrasted it with idea.

  499 “notions,” again synonymous with ideas, which are all particular or
      concrete, in his meaning of _idea_, when he uses it strictly.

_  500 idea_, i.e. individual mental picture.

  501 In all this he takes no account of the intellectual relations
      necessarily embodied in concrete knowledge, and without which
      experience could not cohere.

  502 “have in view,” i.e. actually realise in imagination.

  503 What follows, to the end of this section, was added in the second or
      1734 edition.

  504 So Bacon in many passages of his _De Augmentis Scientiarium_ and
      _Novum Organum_.

  505 “wide influence,”—“wide and extended sway”—in first edition.

  506 “idea,” i.e. individual datum of sense or of imagination.

  507 See Leibniz on Symbolical Knowledge (_Opera Philosophica_, pp. 79,
      80, Erdmann), and Stewart in his _Elements_, vol. I. ch. 4, § 1, on
      our habit of using language without realising, in individual
      examples or ideas, the meanings of the common terms used.

  508 “doth”—“does,” here and elsewhere in first edition.

  509 “ideas,” i.e. representations in imagination of _any_ of the
      individual objects to which the names are applicable. The sound or
      sight of a verbal sign may do duty for the concrete idea in which
      the notion signified by the word might be exemplified.

  510 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

  511 Elsewhere he mentions Aristotle as “certainly a great admirer and
      promoter of the doctrine of abstraction,” and quotes his statement
      that there is hardly anything so incomprehensible to men as notions
      of the utmost universality; for they are the most remote from sense.
      _Metaph._, Bk. I. ch. 2.

  512 Added in second edition.

  513 Omitted in second edition.

  514 Omitted in second edition.

  515 Omitted in second edition.

  516 “my own ideas,” i.e. the concrete phenomena which I can realise as
      perceptions of sense, or in imagination.

  517 He probably refers to Locke.

  518 According to Locke, “that which has most contributed to hinder the
      due tracing of our ideas, and finding out their relations, and
      agreements or disagreements one with another, has been, I suppose,
      the ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ever truly
      seek, or certainly discover, the agreement or disagreement of ideas
      themselves, whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only in
      sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations. Mathematicians,
      abstracting their thoughts from names, and accustoming themselves to
      set before their minds the ideas themselves that they would
      consider, and not sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a
      great part of that perplexity, puddering, and confusion which has so
      much hindered men’s progress in other parts of knowledge.” _Essay_,
      Bk. IV. ch. 3, § 30. See also Bk. III. ch. 10, 11.

  519 General names involve in their signification intellectual relations
      among ideas or phenomena; but the relations, _per se_, are
      unimaginable.

  520 The rough draft of the Introduction, prepared two years before the
      publication of the _Principles_ (see Appendix, vol. III), should be
      compared with the published version. He there tells that “there was
      a time when, being bantered and abused by words,” he “did not in the
      least doubt” that he was “able to abstract his ideas”; adding that
      “after a strict survey of my abilities, I not only discovered my own
      deficiency on this point, but also cannot conceive it possible that
      such a power should be even in the most perfect and exalted
      understanding.” What he thus pronounces “impossible,” is a
      _sensuous_ perception or imagination of an intellectual relation, as
      to which most thinkers would agree with him. But in so arguing, he
      seems apt to discard the intellectual relations themselves that are
      necessarily embodied in experience.

      David Hume refers thus to Berkeley’s doctrine about “abstract
      ideas”:—“A great philosopher has asserted that all general ideas are
      nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives
      them a more extensive signification. I look upon this to be one of
      the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of
      late years in the republic of letters.” (_Treatise of H. N._ Pt. I,
      sect. 7.)

  521 This resembles Locke’s account of the ideas with which human
      knowledge is concerned. They are all originally presented to the
      senses, or got by reflexion upon the passions and acts of the mind;
      and the materials contributed in this external and internal
      experience are, with the help of memory and imagination, elaborated
      by the human understanding in ways innumerable, true and false. See
      Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II, ch. 1, §§ 1-5; ch. 10, 11, 12.

  522 The ideas or phenomena of which we are percipient in our five senses
      make their appearance, not isolated, but in individual masses,
      constituting the things, that occupy their respective places in
      perceived ambient space. It is as _qualities_ of _things_ that the
      ideas or phenomena of sense arise in human experience.

  523 This is an advance upon the language of the _Commonplace Book_, in
      which “mind” is spoken of as only a “congeries of perceptions.” Here
      it is something “entirely distinct” from ideas or perceptions, in
      which they exist and are perceived, and on which they ultimately
      depend. Spirit, intelligent and active, presupposed with its
      implicates in ideas, thus becomes the basis of Berkeley’s
      philosophy. Is this subjective idealism only? Locke appears in sect.
      1, Descartes, if not Kant by anticipation, in sect. 2.

  524 This sentence expresses Berkeley’s New Principle, which filled his
      thoughts in the _Commonplace Book_. Note “in _a_ mind,” not
      necessarily in _my_ mind.

  525 That is to say, one has only to put concrete meaning into the terms
      _existence_ and _reality_, in order to have “an intuitive knowledge”
      that matter depends for its real existence on percipient spirit.

  526 In other words, the things of sense become real, only in the
      concrete experience of living mind, which gives them the only
      reality we can conceive or have any sort of concern with. Extinguish
      Spirit and the material world necessarily ceases to be real.

  527 That _esse_ is _percipi_ is Berkeley’s initial Principle, called
      “intuitive” or self-evident.

  528 Mark that it is the “natural or real existence” of the material
      world, in the absence of all realising Spirit, that Berkeley insists
      is impossible—meaningless.

  529 “our own”—yet not exclusively _mine_. They depend for their reality
      upon _a_ percipient, not on _my_ perception.

  530 “this tenet,” i.e. that the concrete material world could still be a
      reality after the annihilation of all realising spiritual life in
      the universe—divine or other.

  531 “existing unperceived,” i.e. existing without being realised in any
      living percipient experience—existing in a totally abstract
      existence, whatever that can mean.

  532 “notions”—a term elsewhere (see sect. 27, 89, 142) restricted, is
      here applied to the immediate data of the senses—the ideas of sense.

  533 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

  534 In the first edition, instead of this sentence, we have the
      following: “To make this appear with all the light and evidence of
      an Axiom, it seems sufficient if I can but awaken the reflexion of
      the reader, that he may take an impartial view of his own meaning,
      and turn his thoughts upon the subject itself; free and disengaged
      from all embarras of words and prepossession in favour of received
      mistakes.”

  535 In other words, active percipient Spirit is at the root of all
      intelligible trustworthy experience.

  536 ’proof’—“demonstration” in first edition; yet he calls it
      “intuitive.”

  537 “the ideas themselves,” i.e. the phenomena immediately presented in
      sense, and that are thus realised in and through the percipient
      experience of living mind, as their factor.

  538 As those say who assume that perception is ultimately only
      representative of the material reality, the very things themselves
      not making their appearance to us at all.

  539 He refers especially to Locke, whose account of Matter is
      accordingly charged with being incoherent.

  540 “inert.” See the _De Motu_.

  541 “ideas existing in the mind,” i.e. phenomena of which _some_ mind is
      percipient; which are realised in the sentient experience of a
      living spirit, human or other.

  542 What follows to the end of the section is omitted in the second
      edition.

  543 “the existence of Matter,” i.e. the existence of the material world,
      regarded as a something that does not need to be perceived in order
      to be real.

  544 Sometimes called _objective_ qualities, because they are supposed to
      be realised in an abstract objectivity, which Berkeley insists is
      meaningless.

  545 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II, ch. 8, §§ 13, 18; ch. 23, § 11; Bk. IV,
      ch. 3, § 24-26. Locke suggests this relation between the secondary
      and the primary qualities of matter only hypothetically.

  546 “in the mind, and nowhere else,” i.e. perceived or conceived, but in
      no other manner can they be real or concrete.

  547 “without the mind,” i.e. independently of all percipient experience.

  548 Extension is thus the distinguishing characteristic of the material
      world. Geometrical and physical solidity, as well as motion, imply
      extension.

  549 “number is the creature of the mind,” i.e. is dependent on being
      realised in percipient experience. This dependence is here
      illustrated by the relation of concrete number to the point of view
      of each mind; as the dependence of the other primary qualities was
      illustrated by their dependence on the organisation of the
      percipient. In this, the preceding, and the following sections,
      Berkeley argues the inconsistency of the abstract reality attributed
      to the primary qualities with their acknowledged dependence on the
      necessary conditions of sense perception.

  550 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 109.

  551 e.g. Locke, _Essay_, Bk. II, ch. 7, § 7; ch. 16, § 1.

  552 “without any alteration in any external object”—“without any
      external alteration”—in first edition.

  553 These arguments, founded on the mind-dependent nature of _all_ the
      qualities of matter, are expanded in the _First Dialogue between
      Hylas and Philonous_.

  554 “an outward object,” i.e. an object wholly abstract from living
      Mind.

  555 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

  556 “reason,” i.e. reasoning. It is argued, in this and the next
      section, that a reality unrealised in percipient experience cannot
      be proved, either by our senses or by reasoning.

  557 Omitted in the second edition, and the sentence converted into a
      question.

  558 But the ideas of which we are cognizant in waking dreams, and dreams
      of sleep, differ in important characteristics from the external
      ideas of which we are percipient in sense. Cf. sect. 29-33.

  559 “external bodies,” i.e. bodies supposed to be real independently of
      all percipients in the universe.

  560 i.e. they cannot shew how their unintelligible hypothesis of Matter
      accounts for the experience we have, or expect to have; or which we
      believe other persons have, or to be about to have.

  561 “the production,” &c., i.e. the fact that we and others have
      percipient experience.

  562 Mind-dependent Matter he not only allows to exist, but maintains its
      reality to be intuitively evident.

  563 i.e. bodies existing in abstraction from living percipient spirit.

  564 “Matter,” i.e. abstract Matter, unrealised in sentient intelligence.

  565 The appeal here and elsewhere is to consciousness—directly in each
      person’s experience, and indirectly in that of others.

  566 i.e. otherwise than in the form of an idea or actual appearance
      presented to our senses.

  567 This implies that the material world may be realised in imagination
      as well as in sensuous perception, but in a less degree of reality;
      for reality, he assumes, admits of degrees.

  568 “to conceive the existence of external bodies,” i.e. to conceive
      bodies that are not conceived—that are not ideas at all, but which
      exist in abstraction. To suppose what we conceive to be unconceived,
      is to suppose a contradiction.

  569 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

  570 “The existence of things without mind,” or in the absence of all
      spiritual life and perception, is what Berkeley argues against, as
      _meaningless_, if not _contradictory_; not the existence of a
      material world, when this means the realised order of nature,
      regulated independently of individual will, and to which our actions
      must conform if we are to avoid physical pain.

  571 Here again _notion_ is undistinguished from _idea_.

  572 This and the three following sections argue for the essential
      impotence of matter, and that, as far as we are concerned, so-called
      “natural causes” are only _signs_ which foretell the appearance of
      their so-called effects. The material world is presented to our
      senses as a procession of orderly, and therefore interpretable, yet
      in themselves powerless, ideas or phenomena: motion is always an
      effect, never an originating active cause.

  573 As Locke suggests.

  574 This tacitly presupposes the necessity in reason of the Principle of
      Causality, or the ultimate need for an efficient cause of every
      change. To determine the sort of Causation that constitutes and
      pervades the universe is the aim of his philosophy.

  575 In other words, the material world is not only real in and through
      percipient spirit, but the changing forms which its phenomena
      assume, in the natural evolution, are the issue of the perpetual
      activity of in-dwelling Spirit. The argument in this section
      requires a deeper criticism of its premisses.

  576 In other words, an agent cannot, as such, be perceived or imagined,
      though its effects can. The spiritual term _agent_ is not
      meaningless; yet we have no _sensuous idea_ of its meaning.

  577 Omitted in second edition.

  578 This sentence is not contained in the first edition. It is
      remarkable for first introducing the term _notion_, to signify
      _idealess meaning_, as in the words soul, active power, &c. Here he
      says that “the operations of the mind” belong to notions, while, in
      sect. 1, he speaks of “_ideas_ perceived by attending to the
      ‘operations’ of the mind.”

  579 “ideas,” i.e. fancies of imagination; as distinguished from the more
      real ideas or phenomena that present themselves objectively to our
      senses.

  580 With Berkeley the world of external ideas is distinguished from
      Spirit by its essential passivity. Active power is with him the
      essence of Mind, distinguishing me from the changing ideas of which
      I am percipient. We must not attribute free agency to phenomena
      presented to our senses.

  581 In this and the four following sections, Berkeley mentions _marks_
      by which the ideas or phenomena that present themselves to the
      senses may be distinguished from all other ideas, in consequence of
      which they may be termed “external,” while those of feeling and
      imagination are wholly subjective or individual.

  582 This mark—the superior strength and liveliness of the ideas or
      phenomena that are presented to the senses—was afterwards noted by
      Hume. See _Inquiry concerning Human Understanding_, sect. II.

  583 Berkeley here and always insists on the _arbitrary_ character of
      “settled laws” of change in the world, as contrasted with “necessary
      connexions” discovered in mathematics. The material world is thus
      virtually an interpretable natural language, constituted in what, at
      our point of view, is _arbitrariness_ or _contingency_.

  584 Under this conception of the universe, “second causes” are _divinely
      established signs_ of impending changes, and are only metaphorically
      called “causes.”

  585 So Schiller, in _Don Carlos_, Act III, where he represents sceptics
      as failing to see the God who veils Himself in everlasting laws. But
      in truth God is eternal law or order vitalised and moralised.

  586 “_sensations_,” with Berkeley, are not mere feelings, but in a sense
      external appearances.

  587 “_more_ reality.” This implies that reality admits of degrees, and
      that the difference between the phenomena presented to the senses
      and those which are only imagined is a difference in degree of
      reality.

  588 In the preceding sections, two relations should be carefully
      distinguished—that of the material world to percipient mind, in
      which it becomes _real_; and that between changes in the world and
      spiritual agency. These are Berkeley’s two leading Principles. The
      first conducts to and vindicates the second—inadequately, however,
      apart from explication of their root in moral reason. The former
      gives a relation _sui generis_. The latter gives our only example of
      active causality—the natural order of phenomena being the outcome of
      the causal energy of intending Will.

  589 Sect. 34-84 contain Berkeley’s answers to supposed _objections_ to
      the foregoing Principles concerning Matter and Spirit in their
      mutual relations.

  590 To be an “idea” is, with Berkeley, to be the imaginable object of a
      percipient spirit. But he does not define precisely the relation of
      ideas to mind. “Existence in mind” is existence _in this relation_.
      His question (which he determines in the negative) is, the
      possibility of concrete phenomena, naturally presented to sense,
      _yet out of all relation to living mind_.

  591 Omitted in second edition.

  592 i.e. of imagination. Cf. sect. 28-30.

  593 Cf. sect. 29.

  594 “more reality.” This again implies that reality admits of degrees.
      What is perceived in sense is more real than what is imagined, and
      eternal realities are more deeply real than the transitory things of
      sense.

  595 Cf. sect. 33. “Not fictions,” i.e. they are presentative, and
      therefore cannot misrepresent.

  596 With Berkeley _substance_ is either (_a_) active reason, i.e.
      spirit—substance proper, or (_b_) an aggregate of sense-phenomena,
      called a “sensible thing”—substance conventionally and
      superficially.

  597 And which, because realised in living perception, are called
      _ideas_—to remind us that reality is attained in and through
      percipient mind.

  598 “combined together,” i.e. in the form of “sensible things,”
      according to natural laws. Cf. sect. 33.

  599 “thinking things”—more appropriately called _persons_.

  600 Berkeley uses the word idea to mark the fact, that sensible things
      are real only as they manifest themselves in the form of passive
      objects, presented to sense-percipient mind; but he does not, as
      popularly supposed, regard “sensible things” as created and
      regulated by the activity of his own individual mind. They are
      perceived, but are neither created nor regulated, by the individual
      percipient, and are thus _practically external_ to each person.

  601 Cf. sect. 87-91, against the scepticism which originates in alleged
      fallacy of sense.

  602 Omitted in second edition.

  603 It is always to be remembered that with Berkeley ideas or phenomena
      presented to sense are _themselves_ the real things, whilst ideas of
      imagination are representative (or misrepresentative).

  604 Here feelings of pleasure or pain are spoken of, without
      qualification, as in like relation to living mind as sensible things
      or ideas are.

  605 That the ideas of sense should be seen “at a distance of several
      miles” seems not inconsistent with their being dependent on a
      percipient, if ambient space is _itself_ (as Berkeley asserts)
      dependent on percipient experience. Cf. sect. 67.

  606 In the preceding year.

_  607 Essay_, sect. 2.

  608 Ibid. sect. 11-15.

  609 Ibid. sect. 16-28.

  610 Ibid. sect. 51.

  611 Ibid. sect. 47-49, 121-141.

  612 Ibid. sect. 43.

  613 i.e. what we are _immediately_ percipient of in seeing.

  614 Touch is here and elsewhere taken in its wide meaning, and includes
      our muscular and locomotive experience, all which Berkeley included
      in the “tactual” meaning of distance.

  615 To explain the condition of sensible things _during the intervals of
      our perception of them_, consistently with the belief of all sane
      persons regarding the material world, is a challenge which has been
      often addressed to the advocates of ideal Realism. According to
      Berkeley, there are no intervals in the existence of sensible
      things. They are permanently perceivable, under the laws of nature,
      though not always perceived by this, that or the other individual
      percipient. Moreover they always exist _really_ in the Divine Idea,
      and _potentially_, in relation to finite minds, in the Divine Will.

  616 Berkeley allows to bodies unperceived by me potential, but (for me)
      not real existence. When I say a body exists thus conditionally, I
      mean that if, in the light, I open my eyes, I shall see it, and that
      if I move my hand, I must feel it.

  617 i.e. unperceived material substance.

  618 Berkeley remarks, in a letter to the American Samuel Johnson, that
      “those who have contended for a material world have yet acknowledged
      that _natura naturans_ (to use the language of the Schoolmen) is
      God; and that the Divine conservation of things is equipollent to,
      and in fact the same thing with, a continued repeated creation;—in a
      word, that conservation and creation differ only as the _terminus a
      quo_. These are the common opinions of Schoolmen; and Durandus, who
      held the world to be a machine, like a clock made up and put in
      motion by God, but afterwards continued to go of itself, was therein
      particular, and had few followers. The very poets teach a doctrine
      not unlike the Schools—_mens agitat molem_ (Virgil, Æneid, VI). The
      Stoics and Platonists are everywhere full of the same notion. I am
      not therefore singular in this point itself, so much as in my way of
      proving it.” Cf. _Alciphron_, Dial. IV. sect. 14; _Vindication of
      New Theory of Vision_, sect. 8, 17, &c.; _Siris_, _passim_, but
      especially in the latter part. See also _Correspondence between
      Clarke and Leibniz_ (1717). Is it not possible that the universe of
      things and persons is in continuous natural creation, unbeginning
      and unending?

  619 Cf. sect. 123-132.

  620 He distinguishes “idea” from “mode or attribute.” With Berkeley, the
      “substance” of _matter_ (if the term is still to be applied to
      sensible things) is the naturally constituted aggregate of phenomena
      of which each particular thing consists. Now extension, and the
      other qualities of sensible things, are not, Berkeley argues, “in
      mind” either (_a_) according to the abstract relation of substance
      and attribute of which philosophers speak; nor (_b_) as one idea or
      phenomenon is related to another idea or phenomenon, in the natural
      aggregation of sense-phenomena which constitute, with him, the
      _substance_ of a _material_ thing. Mind and its “ideas” are, on the
      contrary, related as percipient to perceived—in whatever “otherness”
      that altogether _sui generis_ relation implies.

  621 “Matter,” i.e. abstract material Substance, as distinguished from
      the concrete things that are realised in living perceptions.

  622 “take away natural causes,” i.e. empty the material world of all
      originative power, and refer the supposed powers of bodies to the
      constant and omnipresent agency of God.

  623 Some philosophers have treated the relation of Matter to Mind in
      _perception_ as one of cause and effect. This, according to
      Berkeley, is an illegitimate analysis, which creates a fictitious
      duality. On his New Principles, philosophy is based on a recognition
      of the fact, that perception is neither the cause nor the effect of
      its object, but in a relation to it that is altogether _sui
      generis_.

  624 He refers to Descartes, and perhaps Geulinx and Malebranche, who,
      while they argued for material _substance_, denied the _causal
      efficiency_ of sensible things. Berkeley’s new Principles are
      presented as the foundation in reason for this denial, and for the
      essential spirituality of all active power in the universe.

  625 On the principle, “Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter
      necessitatem.”

  626 “external things,” i.e. things in the abstract.

  627 That the unreflecting part of mankind should have a confused
      conception of what should be meant by the _external reality_ of
      matter is not wonderful. It is the office of philosophy to improve
      their conception, making it deeper and truer, and this was
      Berkeley’s preliminary task; as a mean for shewing the impotence of
      the things of sense, and conclusive evidence of omnipresent
      spiritual activity.

  628 Cf. sect. 4, 9, 15, 17, 22, 24.

  629 i.e. their _sense-ideas_.—Though sense-ideas, i.e. the appearances
      presented to the senses, are independent of the _will_ of the
      individual percipient, it does not follow that they are independent
      of _all perception_, so that they can be real in the absence of
      realising percipient experience. Cf. sect. 29-33.

  630 By shewing that what we are percipient of in sense must be _idea_,
      or that it is immediately known by us only as sensuous appearance.

  631 i.e. “imprinted” by unperceived Matter, which, on this dogma of a
      representative sense-perception, was assumed to exist behind the
      perceived ideas, and to be the _cause_ of their appearance. Cf.
      _Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous_.

  632 Hence the difficulty men have in recognising that Divine Reason and
      Will, and Law in Nature, are coincident. But the advance of
      scientific discovery of the laws which express Divine Will in
      nature, instead of narrowing, extends our knowledge of God. And
      _divine_ or _absolutely reasonable_ “arbitrariness” is not caprice.

  633 “ideas,” i.e. ideas of _sense_. This “experience” implied an
      association of sensuous ideas, according to the divine or reasonable
      order of nature.

  634 Cf. sect. 25-33, and other passages in Berkeley’s writings in which
      he insists upon the _arbitrariness_—divine or reasonable—of the
      natural laws and sense-symbolism.

  635 Cf. sect. 3, 4, 6, 22-24, 26, in which he proceeds upon the
      intuitive certainty of his two leading Principles, concerning
      _Reality_ and _Causation_.

  636 In short, what is virtually the language of universal natural order
      is the divine way of revealing omnipresent Intelligence; nor can we
      conceive how this revelation could be made through a capricious or
      chaotic succession of changes.

  637 He here touches on moral purpose in miraculous phenomena, but
      without discussing their relation to the divine, or perfectly
      reasonable, order of the universe. Relatively to a fine knowledge of
      nature, they seem anomalous—exceptions from general rules, which
      nevertheless express, immediately and constantly, perfect active
      Reason.

  638 “ideas,” i.e. the phenomena presented to the senses.

  639 “imaginable”—in first edition.

  640 “the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the presence of law or reasonable
      uniformity in the coexistence and succession of the phenomena of
      sense; which makes them interpretable signs.

  641 According to Berkeley, it is by an abuse of language that the term
      “power” is applied to those ideas which are invariable antecedents
      of other ideas—the prior forms of their existence, as it were.

  642 Berkeley, in meeting this objection, thus implies Universal Natural
      Symbolism as the essential character of the sensible world, in its
      relation to man.

  643 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. IV, ch. 3, § 25-28, &c., in which he
      suggests that the secondary qualities of bodies may be the natural
      issue of the different relations and modifications of their primary
      qualities.

  644 With Berkeley, _material substance_ is merely the natural
      combination of sense-presented phenomena, which, under a _divine_ or
      _reasonable_ “arbitrariness,” constitute a concrete thing. Divine
      Will, or Active Reason, is the constantly sustaining cause of this
      combination or substantiation.

  645 i.e. that it is not realised in a living percipient experience.

  646 For “place” is realised only as perceived—percipient experience
      being its concrete existence. Living perception is, with Berkeley,
      the condition of the possibility of concrete locality.

  647 So in the Cartesian theory of occasional causes.

  648 So Geulinx and Malebranche.

  649 As known in Divine intelligence, they are accordingly _Divine
      Ideas_. And, if this means that the sensible system is the
      expression of Divine Ideas, which are its ultimate archetype—that
      the Ideas of God are symbolised to our senses, and then interpreted
      (or misinterpreted) by human minds, this allies itself with Platonic
      Idealism.

  650 “It seems to me,” Hume says, “that this theory of the universal
      energy and operation of the Supreme Being is _too bold_ ever to
      carry conviction with it to a mind sufficiently apprised of the
      weakness of human reason, and the narrow limits to which it is
      confined in all its operations.” But is it not virtually presupposed
      in the assumed trustworthiness of our experience of the universe?

  651 Accordingly we are led to ask, what the deepest support of their
      reality must be. Is it found in living Spirit, i.e. Active Reason,
      or in blind Matter?

  652 e.g. Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, &c.

  653 In short, if we mean by Matter, something unrealised in percipient
      experience of sense, what is called its _reality_ is something
      unintelligible.

  654 And if sensible phenomena are _sufficiently_ externalised, when
      regarded as regulated by Divine Reason.

  655 Twenty years after the publication of the _Principles_, in a letter
      to his American friend Johnson, Berkeley says:—“I have no objection
      against calling the Ideas in the mind of God _archetypes_ of ours.
      But I object against those archetypes by philosophers supposed to be
      real things, and so to have an absolute rational existence distinct
      from their being perceived by any mind whatsoever; it being the
      opinion of all materialists that an ideal existence in the Divine
      Mind is one thing, and the real existence of material things
      another.”

  656 Berkeley’s philosophy is not inconsistent with Divine Ideas which
      receive expression in the laws of nature, and of which human science
      is the imperfect interpretation. In this view, assertion of the
      existence of Matter is simply an expression of faith that the
      phenomenal universe into which we are born is a reasonable and
      interpretable universe; and that it would be fully interpreted, if
      our notions could be fully harmonised with the Divine Ideas which it
      expresses.

  657 Cf. sect. 3-24.

  658 So that superhuman persons, endowed with a million senses, would be
      no nearer this abstract Matter than man is, with his few senses.

  659 Matter and physical science is _relative_, so far that we may
      suppose in other percipients than men, an indefinite number of
      additional senses, affording corresponding varieties of qualities in
      things, of course inconceivable by man. Or, we may suppose an
      intelligence destitute of _all our_ senses, and so in a material
      world wholly different in its appearances from ours.

  660 The authority of Holy Scripture, added to our natural tendency to
      believe in external reality, are grounds on which Malebranche and
      Norris infer a material world. Berkeley’s material world claims no
      logical proof of its reality. His is not to prove the reality of the
      world, but to shew what we should mean when we affirm its reality,
      and the basis of its explicability in science.

  661 i.e. existing unrealised in any intelligence—human or Divine.

  662 “external things,” i.e. things existing really, yet out of all
      relation to active living spirit.

  663 Simultaneous perception of the “same” (similar?) _sense_-ideas, _by
      different persons_, as distinguished from purely individual
      consciousness of feelings and fancies, is here taken as a test of
      the _virtually external reality_ of the former.

      Berkeley does not ask whether the change of the rod into a serpent,
      or of the water into wine, is the issue of divine agency and order,
      otherwise than as all natural evolution is divinely providential.

  664 Some of the Consequences of adoption of the New Principles, in their
      application to the physical sciences and mathematics, and then to
      psychology and theology, are unfolded in the remaining sections of
      the _Principles_.

  665 Berkeley disclaims the supposed _representative_ character of the
      ideas given in sensuous perception, and recognises as the real
      object only what is ideally presented in consciousness.

  666 So Hume, Reid, and Hamilton, who all see in a wholly representative
      sense-perception, with its double object, the germ of total
      scepticism. Berkeley claims that, under _his_ interpretation of what
      the reality of the material world means, immediate knowledge of
      mind-dependent matter is given in sense.

  667 “scepticism”—“sceptical cant” in the first edition.

  668 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

  669 Berkeley’s argument against a _finally representative_ perception so
      far resembles that afterwards employed by Reid and Hamilton. They
      differ as regards the dependence of the sensible object upon
      percipient spirit for its reality.

  670 Omitted in second edition.

  671 Omitted in second edition.

  672 But whilst unthinking things depend on being perceived, do not our
      spirits depend on ideas of some sort for their percipient life?

  673 The important passage within brackets was added in the second
      edition.

  674 “reason,” i.e. reasoning.

  675 “Notion,” in its stricter meaning, is thus confined by Berkeley to
      apprehension of the _Ego_, and intelligence of _relations_. The term
      “notion,” in this contrast with _his_ “idea,” becomes important in
      his vocabulary, although he sometimes uses it vaguely.

  676 Locke uses _idea_ in this wider signification.

  677 Inasmuch as they are _real_ in and through living percipient mind.

  678 i.e. _unthinking_ archetypes.

  679 In this section Berkeley explains what he means by _externality_.
      Men cannot act, cannot live, without assuming an external world—in
      some meaning of the term “external.” It is the business of the
      philosopher to explicate its true meaning.

  680 i.e. they are not _substances_ in the truest or deepest meaning of
      the word.

  681 “Ideas of the corporeal substances.” Berkeley might perhaps
      say—Divine Ideas which are _themselves_ our world of sensible things
      in its ultimate form.

  682 On the scheme of ideal Realism, “creation” of matter is presenting
      to finite minds sense-ideas or phenomena, which are, as it were,
      letters of the alphabet, in that language of natural order which God
      employs for the expression of _His_ Ideas to us.

  683 The _independent_ eternity of Matter must be distinguished from an
      unbeginning and endless _creation_ of sensible ideas or phenomena,
      in percipient spirits, according to divine natural law and order,
      with implied immanence of God.

  684 Because the question at issue with Atheism is, whether the universe
      of things and persons is finally substantiated and evolved in
      unthinking Matter or in the perfect Reason of God.

  685 Of which Berkeley does _not_ predicate a _numerical_ identity. Cf.
      _Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous_.

  686 “matter,” i.e. matter abstracted from all percipient life and
      voluntary activity.

  687 “external”—not in Berkeley’s meaning of externality. Cf. sect. 90,
      note 2.

_  688 Si non rogas, intelligo._ Berkeley writes long after this to
      Johnson thus:—“A succession of ideas (phenomena) I take to
      _constitute_ time, and not to be only the sensible measure thereof,
      as Mr. Locke and others think. But in these matters every man is to
      think for himself, and speak as he finds. One of my earliest
      inquiries was about _time_; which led me into several paradoxes that
      I did not think it fit or necessary to publish, particularly into
      the notion that the resurrection follows the next moment after
      death. We are confounded and perplexed about time—supposing a
      succession in God; that we have an abstract idea of time; that time
      in one mind is to be measured by succession of ideas in another
      mind: not considering the true use of words, which as often
      terminate in the will as in the understanding, being employed to
      excite and direct action rather than to produce clear and distinct
      ideas.” Cf. Introduction, sect. 20.

  689 As the _esse_ of unthinking things is _percipi_, according to
      Berkeley, so the _esse_ of persons is _percipere_. The real
      existence of individual Mind thus depends on having ideas of some
      sort: the real existence of matter depends on a percipient.

  690 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

  691 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 43.

  692 “objects of sense,” i.e. sensible things, practically external to
      each person. Cf. sect. 1, on the meaning of _thing_, as distinct
      from the distinguishable ideas or phenomena that are naturally
      aggregated in the form of concrete things.

  693 Omitted in second edition.

  694 Omitted in second edition.

  695 Cf. Introduction, sect. 1-3. With Berkeley, the real essence of
      sensible things is given in perception—so far as our perceptions
      carry us.

  696 e.g. Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 3.

  697 Berkeley advocates a Realism, which eliminates effective causation
      from the material world, concentrates it in Mind, and in physical
      research seeks among data of sense for their divinely maintained
      natural laws.

  698 In interpreting the data of sense, we are obliged to assume that
      every _new_ phenomenon must have previously existed in some
      equivalent form—but not necessarily in this or that particular form,
      for a knowledge of which we are indebted to inductive comparisons of
      experience.

  699 The preceding forms of new phenomena, being finally determined by
      Will, are, in that sense, arbitrary; but not capricious, for the
      Will is perfect Reason. God is the immanent cause of the natural
      order.

  700 He probably refers to Bacon.

  701 Omitted in second edition.

  702 What we are able to discover in the all-comprehensive order may be
      subordinate and provisional only. Nature in its deepest meaning
      explains itself in the Divine Omniscience.

  703 i.e. inductively.

  704 i.e. deductively.

  705 “seem to consider signs,” i.e. to be grammarians rather than
      philosophers: physical sciences deal with the grammar of the divine
      language of nature.

  706 “A man may be well read in the language of nature without
      understanding the grammar of it, or being able to say,” &c.—in first
      edition.

  707 “extend”—“stretch”—in first edition.

  708 Omitted in second edition.

  709 In the first edition, the section commences thus: “The best grammar
      of the kind we are speaking of will be easily acknowledged to be a
      treatise of _Mechanics_, demonstrated and applied to Nature, by a
      philosopher of a neighbouring nation, whom all the world admire. I
      shall not take upon me to make remarks on the performance of that
      extraordinary person: only some things he has advanced so directly
      opposite to the doctrine we have hitherto laid down, that we should
      be wanting in the regard due to the authority of so great a man did
      we not take some notice of them.” He refers, of course, to Newton.
      The first edition of Berkeley’s _Principles_ was published in
      Ireland—hence “neighbouring nation.” Newton’s _Principia_ appeared
      in 1687.

  710 “Motion,” in various aspects, is treated specially in the _De Motu_.
      An imagination of trinal space presupposes locomotive
      experience—unimpeded, in contrast with—impeded locomotion. Cf. sect.
      116.

  711 Omitted in second edition.

  712 Added in second edition.

  713 Omitted in second edition.

  714 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, §§ 7-10.

  715 “applied to”—“impressed on”—in first edition.

  716 “applied to”—“impressed on”—in first edition.

  717 “the _force_ causing the change”—which “force,” according to
      Berkeley, can only be attributed metaphorically to the so-called
      impelling body; inasmuch as _bodies_, or the data of sense, can only
      be signs of their consequent events, not efficient causes of change.

  718 Added in second edition.

  719 What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second
      edition.

  720 “seems impossible”—“is above my capacity”—in first edition.

  721 In short, empty Space _is_ the sensuous idea of unresisted motion.
      This is implied in the _New Theory of Vision_. He minimises Space,
      treating it as a datum of sense.

  722 He probably refers to Samuel Clarke’s _Demonstration of the Being
      and Attributes of God_, which appeared in 1706, and a treatise _De
      Spatio Reali_, published in the same year.

  723 Sect. 118-132 are accordingly concerned with the New Principles in
      their application to Mathematics. The foundation of the mathematical
      sciences engaged much of Berkeley’s thought in early life and in his
      later years. See his _Analyst_.

  724 Numerical relations are _realised_ only in concrete experience.

  725 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 107, &c.

  726 Ibid. sect. 122-125, 149-160.

  727 An infinitely divided extension, being unperceived, must be
      unreal—if its existence is made real only in and through actual
      perception, or at least imagination. The only possible extension is,
      accordingly, sensible extension, which could not be infinitely
      divided without the supposed parts ceasing to be perceived or real.

  728 “converted Gentile”—“pagan convert”—in first edition.

  729 Cf. Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. I, ch. 3, § 25.

  730 “will perhaps in virtue thereof be brought to admit,” &c.—“will not
      stick to affirm,” &c.—in first edition.

  731 Omitted in second edition. See the _Analyst_.

  732 “we must mean”—“we mean (if we mean anything)”—in first edition.

  733 Omitted in the second edition.

  734 Does this refer to the intended “Part II” of the _Principles_?

  735 “men of great abilities and obstinate application,” &c.—“men of the
      greatest abilities and most obstinate application,” &c.—in first
      edition.

  736 What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second
      edition.

  737 “absolute,” i.e. abstract, independent, irrelative existence—as
      something of which there can be no sensuous perception or
      conception.

  738 Matter unrealised in perception—not the material world that is
      realised in percipient experience of sense.

  739 Omitted in second edition.

  740 Sect. 135-156 treat of consequences of the New Principles, in their
      application to sciences concerned with our notions of _Spirit_ or
      _Mind_; as distinguished from sciences of ideas in external Nature,
      and their mathematical relations. Individual mind, with Berkeley,
      needs data of sense in order to its realisation in consciousness;
      while it is dependent on God, in a relation which he does not define
      distinctly.

  741 e.g. Locke suggests this.

  742 Is this analogy applicable?

  743 Omitted in second edition, as he had previously learned to
      distinguish _notion_ from _idea_. Cf. sect. 89, 142.

  744 Ibid. In the omitted passage it will be seen that he makes _idea_
      and _notion_ synonymous.

  745 Is the reality of mind as dependent on having ideas (of some sort)
      as ideas are on mind; although mind is more deeply and truly real
      than its ideas are?

  746 Introduced in second edition.

  747 We know _other finite persons_ through sense-presented phenomena,
      but not as themselves phenomena. Cf. sect. 145. It is a mediate
      knowledge that we have of other persons. The question about the
      individuality of finite egos, as distinguished from God, Berkeley
      has not touched.

  748 These sentences are omitted in the second edition.

  749 “the soul,” i.e. the individual Ego.

  750 Cf. sect. 2; 25-27.

  751 This is Berkeley’s application of his new conception of the reality
      of matter, to the final human question of the self-conscious
      existence of the individual human Ego, after physical death.
      Philosophers and theologians were accustomed in his generation to
      ground their argument for a future life on the metaphysical
      assumption of the physical indivisibility of our self-conscious
      spirit, and on our contingent connexion with the body. “Our bodies,”
      says Bishop Butler, “are no more _ourselves_, or _part of
      ourselves_, than any other matter around us.” This train of thought
      is foreign to us at the present day, when men of science remind us
      that self-conscious life is found only in correlation with corporeal
      organisation, whatever may be the abstract possibility. Hope of
      continued life after physical death seems to depend on ethical
      considerations more than on metaphysical arguments, and on what is
      suggested by faith in the final outcome of personal life in a
      _divinely_ constituted universe.

  752 Mind and the ideas presented to the senses are at opposite poles of
      existence. But he does not say that, thus opposed, they are each
      independent of the other.

  753 What follows was introduced in the second edition, in which _notion_
      is contrasted with _idea_.

  754 Here is a germ of Kantism. But Berkeley has not analysed that
      activity of mind which constitutes _relation_, nor systematically
      unfolded the relations involved in the rational constitution of
      experience. There is more disposition to this in _Siris_.

  755 As with Locke, for example.

  756 Note this condemnation of the tendency to substantiate “powers of
      mind.”

  757 Omitted in second edition. Berkeley was after all reluctant to
      “depart from received modes of speech,” notwithstanding their often
      misleading associations.

  758 Omitted in second edition.

  759 This is one of the notable sections in the _Principles_, as it
      suggests the _rationale_ of Berkeley’s rejection of Panegoism or
      Solipsism. Is this consistent with his conception of the reality of
      the material world? It is objected (e.g. by Reid) that ideal realism
      dissolves our faith in the existence of other persons. The
      difficulty is to shew how appearances presented to my senses, which
      are sensuous and subjective, can be media of communication between
      persons. The question carries us back to the theistic presupposition
      in the trustworthiness of experience—which is adapted to deceive if
      I am the only person existing. With Berkeley a chief function of
      ideas of sense is to signify other persons to each person. See
      _Alciphron_, Dial. IV; _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, and
      _Siris_.

  760 “repugnant”—for it would involve thought in incoherence, by
      paralysis of its indispensable causal presupposition.

  761 Is not God the indispensable presupposition of trustworthy
      experience, rather than an empirical inference?

  762 This suggests an explanation of the objective reality and
      significance of _ideas of sense_; through which they become media of
      social intercourse in the fundamentally divine universe. God so
      regulates the sense-given ideas of which human beings are
      individually percipient, as that, _while numerically different, as
      in each mind_, those ideas are nevertheless a sufficient medium for
      social intercourse, if the Power universally at work is morally
      trustworthy. Unless our God-given experience is deceiving, Solipsism
      is not a necessary result of the fact that no one but myself can be
      percipient of my sensuous experience.

  763 Omitted in second edition.

  764 Malebranche, as understood by Berkeley. See _Recherche_, Liv. III.
      p. ii. ch. 6, &c.

  765 For all finite persons _somehow_ live, and move, and have their
      being “in God.” The existence of _eternal_ living Mind, and the
      _present_ existence of other men, are both _inferences_, resting on
      the same foundation, according to Berkeley.

  766 The theistic trust in which our experience is rooted remaining
      latent, or being unintelligent.

  767 Cf. sect. 25-28, 51-53, 60-66. His conception of Divine causation in
      Nature, as the constant omnipresent agency in all natural law, is
      the deepest part of his philosophy. It is pursued in the _De Motu_.

  768 Is not the unbeginning and unending natural evolution, an articulate
      revelation of Eternal Spirit or Active Reason at the heart of the
      whole?

  769 Omitted in second edition.

  770 So Pascal in the _Pensées_.

  771 Divine reason ever active in Nature is the necessary correlate to
      reason in man; inasmuch as otherwise the changing universe in which
      we live would be unfit to be reasoned about or acted in.

  772 The existence of _moral_ evil, or what ought not to exist, is _the_
      difficulty which besets faith in the fundamental divinity or
      goodness of the universe. Yet that faith is presupposed in
      interpretation of nature, which proceeds on the _postulate_ of
      universal order; and this implies the moral trustworthiness of the
      world which we begin to realise when we begin to be conscious. That
      we are living and having our being in omnipotent goodness is thus
      not an inference, but the implied basis of all real inferences. I
      have expanded this thought in my _Philosophy of Theism_. We cannot
      _prove_ God, for we must assume God, as the basis of all proof.
      Faith even in the uniformity of nature is virtually faith in
      omnipotent goodness immanent in the universe.

  773 So Leibniz in his _Theodicée_, which was published in the same year
      as Berkeley’s _Principles_.

  774 The divine presupposition, latent in all human reasoning and
      experience, is hid from the unreflecting, in whom the higher life is
      dormant, and the ideal in the universe is accordingly undiscerned.
      Unless the universe is assumed to be physically and morally
      trustworthy, i.e. unless God is presupposed, even natural science
      has no adequate foundation.

  775 Our necessarily incomplete knowledge of the Universe in which we
      find ourselves is apt to disturb the fundamental faith, that the
      phenomena presented to us are significant of God. Yet we _tacitly
      assume_ that they are thus significant when we interpret real
      experience, physical or moral.

  776 Omitted in second edition.

  777 For the following extracts from previously unpublished
      correspondence of Berkeley and Sir John Percival, I am indebted to
      the kindness of his descendant, the late Lord Egmont.

  778 What Berkeley seeks to shew is, not that the world of the senses is
      unreal, but in what its reality consists. Is it inexplicable chaos,
      or explicable expression of ever active Intelligence, more or less
      interpreted in natural science?

  779 Leibniz: _De modo distinguendi Phenomena Realia ab Imaginariis_
      (1707).

  780 For some information relative to Gua de Malves, see Querard’s _La
      France Littéraire,_ tom. iii. p. 494.

  781 The following is the translator’s Prefatory Note, on the objects of
      the _Dialogues,_ and in explanation of the three illustrative
      vignettes:—

      “L’Auteur expose dans le premier Dialogue le sentiment du Vulgaire
      et celui des Philosophes, sur les qualités secondaires et premieres,
      la nature et l’existence des corps; et il prétend prouver en même
      tems l’insuffisance de l’un et de l’autre. La Vignette qu’on voit à
      la téte du Dialogue, fait allusion à cet objet. Elle représente un
      Philosophe dans son cabinet, lequel est distrait de son travail par
      un enfant qu’il appercoit se voyant lui-méme dans un miroir, en
      tendant les mains pour embrasser sa propre image. Le Philosophe rit
      de l’erreur où il croit que tombe l’enfant; tandis qu’on lui
      applique à lui-même ces mots tirés d’Horace:

      _Quid rides?....de te_
      _ Fabula narratur._

      “Le second Dialogue est employé à exposer le sentiment de l’Auteur
      sur le même sujet, sçavoir, que les choses corporelles ont une
      existence réelle dans les esprits qui les apperçoivent; mais
      qu’elles ne sçauroient exister hors de tous les esprits à la fois,
      même de l’esprit infini de Dieu; et que par conséquent la Matière,
      prise suivant l’acception ordinaire du mot, non seulement n’existe
      point, mais seroit même absolument impossible. On a taché de
      représenter aux yeux ce sentiment dans la Vignette du Dialogue. Le
      mot grec νοῦς qui signifie _âme_, désigne l’àme: les rayons qui en
      partent marquent l’attention que l’âme donne à des idées ou objets;
      les tableaux qu’on a placés aux seuls endroits où les rayons
      aboutissent, et dont les sujets sont tirés de la description des
      beautés de la nature, qui se trouve dans le livre, représentent les
      idées ou objets que l’âme considère, pas le secours des facultes
      qu’elle a reçues de Dieu; et l’action de l’Étre suprème sur l’âme
      est figurée par un trait, qui, partant d’un triangle, symbole de la
      Divinité, et perçant les nuages dont le triangle est environné.
      s’étend jusqu’à l’âme pour la vivifier; enfin, on a fait en sorte de
      rendre le même sentiment par ces mots:

      _Quæ noscere cumque Deus det,_
      _ Esse puta._

      “L’objet du troisième Dialogue est de répondre aux difficultés
      auxquelles le sentiment qu’on a établi dans les Dialogues précédens,
      peut être sujet, de l’éclaircir en cette sorte de plus, d’en
      développer toutes les heureuses conséquences, enfin de faire voir,
      qu’étant bien entendu, il revient aux notions les plus communes. Et
      comme l’Auteur exprime à la fin du livre cette dernière pensée, en
      comparant ce qu’il vient de dire, à l’eau que les deux
      Interlocuteurs sont supposés voir jaillir d’un jet, et qu’il
      remarque que la même force de la gravité fait élever jusqu’à une
      certaine hauteur et retomber ensuite dans le bassin d’où elle étoit
      d’abord partie; on a pris cet emblême pour le sujet de la Vignette
      de ce Dialogue; on a représenté en conséquence dans cette dernière
      Vignette les deux Interlocuteurs, se promenant dans le lieu où
      l’Auteur les suppose, et s’entretenant là-dessus, et pour donner au
      Lecteur l’explication de l’emblême, on a mis au bas le vers suivant:

      _Urget aquas vis sursum, eadem flectitque deorsum._”

  782 Collier never came fairly in sight of the philosophical public of
      last century. He is referred to in Germany by Bilfinger, in his
      _Dilucidationes Philosophicæ_ (1746), and also in the _Ada
      Eruditorum_, Suppl. VI. 244, &c., and in England by Corry in his
      _Reflections on Liberty and Necessity_ (1761), as well as in the
      _Remarks_ on the Reflections, and _Answers_ to the Remarks, pp. 7, 8
      (1763), where he is described as “a weak reasoner, and a very dull
      writer also.” Collier was dragged from his obscurity by Dr. Reid, in
      his _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, Essay II. ch. 10. He was a
      subject of correspondence between Sir James Mackintosh, then at
      Bombay, and Dr. Parr, and an object of curiosity to Dugald Stewart.
      A beautiful reprint of the _Clavis_ (of the original edition of
      which only seven copies were then known to exist) appeared in
      Edinburgh in 1836; and in the following year it was included in a
      collection of _Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the
      Eighteenth Century_, prepared for the press by Dr. Parr.

  783 William, fourth Lord Berkeley of Stratton, born about 1663,
      succeeded his brother in 1697, and died in 1741 at Bruton in
      Somersetshire. The Berkeleys of Stratton were descended from a
      younger son of Maurice, Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle, who died
      in 1326. His descendant, Sir John Berkeley of Bruton, a zealous
      Royalist, was created first Lord Berkeley of Stratton in 1658, and
      in 1669 became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an office which he held
      till 1672, when he was succeeded by the Earl of Essex (see Burke’s
      _Extinct Peerages_). It is said that Bishop Berkeley’s father was
      related to him. The Bishop himself was introduced by Dean Swift, in
      1713, to the Lord Berkeley of Stratton, to whom the _Dialogues_ are
      dedicated, as “a cousin of his Lordship.” The title of Berkeley of
      Stratton became extinct on the death of the fifth Lord in 1773.

  784 This interesting Preface is omitted in his last edition of the
      _Dialogues_.

  785 The Second Part of the _Principles_ was never published, and only in
      part written. See Editor’s Preface to the _Principles_.

_  786 Principles_, Introduction, sect. 1.

  787 Berkeley’s philosophy is professedly a “revolt” from abstract ideas
      to an enlightened sense of concrete realities. In these Dialogues
      _Philonous_ personates the revolt, and represents Berkeley. _Hylas_
      vindicates the uncritical conception of independent Matter.

  788 Berkeley’s zeal against Matter in the abstract, and all abstract
      ideas of concrete things, is therefore not necessarily directed
      against “universal intellectual notions”—“the principles and
      theorems of sciences.”

  789 Here “reason” means reasoning or inference. Cf. _Theory of Vision
      Vindicated_, sect. 42, including the distinction between
      “suggestion” and “inference.”

  790 “figure” as well as colour, is here included among the original data
      of sight.

  791 “without the mind,” i.e. unrealised by any percipient mind.

  792 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 14.

  793 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 14, 15.

  794 “Sensible qualities,” i.e. the significant appearances presented in
      sense.

  795 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80-86.

  796 Descartes and Locke for example.

  797 On Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter, and their mutual
      relations, cf. _Principles_, sect. 9-15. See also Descartes,
      _Meditations_, III, _Principia_, I. sect. 69; Malebranche,
      _Recherche_, Liv. VI. Pt. II. sect. 2; Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch.
      8.

  798 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80.

  799 What follows, within brackets, is not contained in the first and
      second editions.

  800 Percipient mind is, in short, the indispensable realising factor of
      _all_ the qualities of sensible things.

  801 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 122-126; _Principles_, sect. 123,
      &c.; _Siris_, sect. 270, &c.

  802 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 15.

  803 Is “notion” here a synonym for idea?

  804 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 16.

  805 “Size or figure, or sensible quality”—“size, color &c.,” in the
      first and second editions.

  806 In Berkeley’s later and more exact terminology, the data or
      implicates of pure intellect are called _notions_, in contrast to
      his _ideas_, which are concrete or individual sensuous
      presentations.

  807 They need living percipient mind to make them real.

  808 So Reid’s _Inquiry_, ch. ii, sect. 8, 9; _Essays on the Intellectual
      Powers_, II. ch. 16. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 8,
      &c.

  809 i.e. figured or extended visible colour. Cf. _New Theory of Vision_,
      sect. 43, &c.

  810 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

  811 After maintaining, in the preceding part of this Dialogue, the
      inevitable dependence of all the qualities of Matter upon percipient
      Spirit, the argument now proceeds to dispose of the supposition that
      Matter may still be an unmanifested or unqualified _substratum_,
      independent of living percipient Spirit.

  812 [See the _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_, and its
      _Vindication_.] Note by the _Author_ in the 1734 edition.

  813 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 2.

  814 Cf. Ibid., sect. 43.

  815 “an idea,” i.e. a phenomenon present to our senses.

  816 This was Reid’s fundamental question in his criticism of Berkeley.

  817 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8.

  818 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

  819 In other words, the percipient activity of a living spirit is the
      necessary condition of the real existence of all ideas or phenomena
      immediately present to our senses.

  820 An “explanation” afterwards elaborately developed by Hartley, in his
      _Observations on Man_ (1749). Berkeley has probably Hobbes in view.

  821 The brain with the human body in which it is included constitutes a
      part of the material world, and must equally with the rest of the
      material world depend for its realisation upon percipient Spirit as
      the realising factor.

  822 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 23.

  823 “in stones and minerals”—in first and second editions.

  824 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 29-33; also sect. 90.—The _permanence_ of a
      thing, during intervals in which it may be unperceived and
      unimagined by human beings, is here assumed, as a natural
      conviction.

  825 In other words, men are apt to treat the omniscience of God as an
      inference from the dogmatic assumption that God exists, instead of
      seeing that our cosmic experience necessarily presupposes omnipotent
      and omniscient Intelligence at its root.

  826 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 90. A permanent material world is grounded
      on Divine Mind, because it cannot but depend on Mind, while its
      reality is only partially and at intervals sustained by finite
      minds.

  827 “necessarily inferred from”—rather necessarily presupposed in.

  828 The present reality of Something implies the eternal existence of
      living Mind, if Something _must_ exist eternally, and if real or
      concrete existence involves living Mind. Berkeley’s conception of
      material nature presupposes a theistic basis.

  829 He refers of course to Malebranche and his Divine Vision.

  830 But Malebranche uses _idea_ in a higher meaning than Berkeley
      does—akin to the Platonic, and in contrast to the sensuous phenomena
      which Berkeley calls ideas.

  831 The passage within brackets first appeared in the third edition.

  832 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25-33.

  833 Cf. Ibid., sect. 3-24.

  834 I _can_ represent to myself another mind perceiving and conceiving
      things; because I have an example of this my own conscious life. I
      _cannot_ represent to myself sensible things existing totally
      unperceived and unimagined; because I cannot, without a
      contradiction, have an example of this in my own experience.

  835 “reason,” i.e. by reasoning.

  836 Berkeley’s _material substance_ is a natural or divinely ordered
      aggregate of sensible qualities or phenomena.

  837 Inasmuch as, according to Berkeley, it must be a living Spirit, and
      it would be an abuse of language to call this Matter.

  838 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

  839 It is here argued that as _volition_ is the only _originative_ cause
      implied in our experience, and which consequently alone puts true
      meaning into the term Cause, to apply that term to what is not
      volition is to make it meaningless, or at least to misapply it.

  840 While thus arguing against the need for independent matter, as an
      instrument needed by God, Berkeley fails to explain how dependent
      matter can be a medium of intercourse between persons. It must be
      more than a subjective dream, however well ordered, if it is
      available for this purpose. Unless the visible and audible ideas or
      phenomena presented to me are actually seen and heard by other men,
      how can they be instrumental in intercommunication?

  841 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 68-79.

  842 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 20.

  843 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 80, 81.

  844 i.e. all Spirits and their dependent ideas or phenomena.

  845 This, according to Hume (who takes for granted that Berkeley’s
      reasonings can produce no conviction), is the natural effect of
      Berkeley’s philosophy.—“Most of the writings of that very ingenious
      author (Berkeley) form the best lessons of scepticism which are to
      be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not
      excepted.... That all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are,
      in reality, merely sceptical, appear from this—_that they admit of
      no answer, and produce no conviction_. Their only effect is to cause
      that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is
      the result of scepticism.” (Hume’s _Essays_, vol. II. Note N, p.
      554.)

  846 Omitted in last edition.

  847 “Tell me, Hylas,”—“So Hylas”—in first and second editions.

  848 Variously called _noumena_, “things-in-themselves,” absolute
      substances, &c.—which Berkeley’s philosophy banishes, on the ground
      of their unintelligibility, and thus annihilates all farther
      questions concerning them. Questions about existence are thus
      confined within the concrete or realising experiences of living
      spirits.

  849 Berkeley claims that his doctrine supersedes scepticism, and
      excludes the possibility of fallacy in sense, in excluding an
      ultimately representative perception of Matter. He also assumes the
      reasonableness of faith in the reality and constancy of natural law.
      When we see an orange, the visual sense guarantees only colour. The
      other phenomena, which we associate with this colour—the other
      “qualities” of the orange—are, when we only _see_ the orange, matter
      of faith. We believe them to be realisable.

  850 He accepts the common belief on which interpretation of sense
      symbols proceeds—that sensible phenomena are evolved in rational
      order, under laws that are independent of, and in that respect
      external to, the individual percipient.

  851 Mediately as well as immediately.

  852 We can hardly be said to have an _immediate_ sense-perception of an
      individual “thing”—meaning by “thing” a congeries of sense-ideas or
      phenomena, presented to different senses. We immediately perceive
      some of them, and believe in the others, which those suggest. See
      the last three notes.

  853 He probably refers to Descartes, who _argues_ for the
      trustworthiness of our faculties from the veracity of God; thus
      apparently arguing in a circle, seeing that the existence of God is
      manifested to us only through our suspected faculties. But is not
      confidence in the trustworthiness of the Universal Power at the
      heart of the universe, the fundamental _presupposition_ of all human
      experience, and God thus the basis and end of philosophy and of
      experience?

  854 As Locke does. See _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 11.

  855 Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_, sect. 45-48.

  856 And to be thus external to individual minds.

  857 It is here that Berkeley differs, for example, from Hume and Comte
      and J.S. Mill; who accept sense-given phenomena, and assume the
      constancy of their orderly reappearances, _as a matter of fact_,
      while they confess total ignorance of the _cause_ of natural order.
      (Thus ignorant, why do they assume reason or order in nature?) The
      ground of sensible things, which Berkeley refers to Divine Power,
      Mill expresses by the term “_permanent possibility_ of sensation.”
      (See his _Examination of Hamilton_, ch. 11.) Our belief in the
      continued existence of a sensible thing _in our absence_ merely
      means, with him, our conviction, derived from custom, that we should
      perceive it under inexplicable conditions which determine its
      appearance.

  858 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

  859 Cf. Ibid., sect. 2, 27, 135-142.

  860 Inasmuch as I am conscious of _myself_, I can gather, through the
      sense symbolism, the real existence of other minds, external to my
      own. For I cannot, of course, enter into the very consciousness of
      another person.

  861 “reason,” i.e. reasoning or necessary inference—founded here on our
      sense of personal dependence; not merely on our faith in sense
      symbolism and the interpretability of the sensible world. Our belief
      in the existence of finite minds, external to our own, is, with
      Berkeley, an application of this faith.

  862 “Matter,” i.e. Matter as abstract substance. Cf. _Principles_, sect.
      135-138.

  863 Does this imply that with Berkeley, _self_, as distinguished from
      the _phenomena_ of which the material world consists, is not a
      necessary presuppostion of experience? He says in many places—I am
      _conscious_ of “my own being,” and that my mind is myself. Cf.
      _Principles_, sect, 2.

  864 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8.

  865 Cf. Ibid., sect. 20

  866 This important passage, printed within brackets, is not found in the
      first and second editions of the _Dialogues_. It is, by
      anticipation, Berkeley’s answer to Hume’s application of the
      objections to the reality of abstract or unperceived Matter, to the
      reality of the Ego or Self, of which we are aware through memory, as
      identical amid the changes of its successive states.

  867 See note 4 on preceding page.

  868 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 142.

  869 Cf. Ibid., sect. 2. Does he assume that he exists when he is not
      conscious of ideas—sensible or other? Or, does he deny that he is
      ever unconscious?

  870 That is of matter supposed to exist independently of any mind.
      Berkeley speaks here of a _consciousness_ of matter. Does he mean
      consciousness of belief in abstract material Substance?

  871 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 54-57.

  872 Which he does not doubt.

  873 This sentence expresses the whole question between Berkeley and his
      antagonists.

  874 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 29-41.

  875 The words within brackets are omitted in the third edition.

  876 The index pointing to the originative causes in the universe is thus
      the ethical judgment, which fastens upon the free voluntary agency
      of _persons_, as absolutely responsible causes, not merely caused
      causes.

  877 That only ideas or phenomena are presented to our senses may be
      assented to by those who nevertheless maintain that intelligent
      sensuous experience implies more than the sensuous or empirical
      data.

  878 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 49.

  879 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 58.

  880 “without the mind,” i.e. without the mind of each percipient person.

  881 This is the gist of the whole question. According to the
      Materialists, sense-presented phenomena are due to unpresented,
      unperceived, abstract Matter; according to Berkeley, to living
      Spirit; according to Hume and Agnostics, their origin is unknowable,
      yet (incoherently) they claim that we _can_ interpret them—in
      physical science.

  882 A similar objection is urged by Erdmann, in his criticism of
      Berkeley in the _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_.

  883 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 50; _Siris_, sect. 319.

  884 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 58.

  885 “order”—“series,” in first and second editions.

  886 “Matter,” i.e. when the reality of “matter” is supposed to signify
      what Berkeley argues cannot be; because really meaningless.

  887 “the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the physical coexistences and
      sequences, maintained in constant order by Power external to the
      individual, and which are disclosed in the natural sciences.

  888 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 38. Berkeley is not for making things
      _subjective_, but for recognising ideas or phenomena presented to
      the senses as _objective_.

  889 They are not mere illusory appearances but are the very things
      themselves making their appearance, as far as our limited senses
      allow them to be realised for us.

  890 i.e. abstract Matter.

  891 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 49; and _New Theory of Vision
      Vindicated_, sect. 9, 10, 15, &c.

  892 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 84-86.

  893 “the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the order providentially maintained
      in nature.

  894 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 23-25.

  895 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8-10, 86, 87.

  896 This difficulty is thus pressed by Reid:—“The ideas in my mind
      cannot be the same with the ideas in any other mind; therefore, if
      the objects I perceive be only ideas, it is impossible that two or
      more such minds can perceive the same thing. Thus there is one
      unconfutable consequence of Berkeley’s system, which he seems not to
      have attended to, and from which it will be found difficult, if at
      all possible, to guard it. The consequence I mean is this—that,
      although it leaves us sufficient evidence of a Supreme Mind, it
      seems to take away all the evidence we have of other intelligent
      beings like ourselves. What I call a father, or a brother, or a
      friend, is only a parcel of ideas in my own mind ; they cannot
      possibly have that relation to another mind which they have to mine,
      any more than the pain felt by me can be the _individual pain_ felt
      by another. I am thus left alone as the only creature of God in the
      universe” (Hamilton’s _Reid_, pp. 284-285). Implied Solipsism or
      Panegoism is thus charged against Berkeley, unless his conception of
      the material world is further guarded.

  897 Reid and Hamilton argue in like manner against a fundamentally
      representative sense-perception.

  898 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 6.

  899 Cf. Ibid., sect. 87-90.

  900 Cf. Ibid., sect. 18.

  901 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 24.

  902 “unknown,” i.e. unrealised in percipient life.

  903 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 28-33.

  904 See also Collier’s _Clavis Universalis_, p. 6: “Two or more persons
      who are present at a concert of music may indeed in some measure be
      said to hear the _same_ notes; yet the sound which the one hears is
      _not the very same_ with the sound which another hears, _because the
      souls or persons are supposed to be different_.”

  905 Berkeley seems to hold that in _things_ there is no identity other
      than perfect similarity—only in _persons_. And even as to personal
      identity he is obscure. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 347, &c.

  906 But the question is, whether the very ideas or phenomena that are
      perceived by me _can_ be also perceived by other persons; and if
      not, how I can discover that “other persons” exist, or that any
      finite person except myself is cognizant of the ideal cosmos—if the
      sort of _sameness_ that Berkeley advocates is all that can be
      predicated of concrete ideas; which are thus only _similar_, or
      generically the same. Unless the ideas are _numerically_ the same,
      can different persons make signs to one another through them?

  907 Omitted in author’s last edition.

  908 This seems to imply that intercourse between finite persons is
      maintained through ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, under
      a tacit faith in divinely guaranteed correspondence between the
      phenomena of which I am conscious, and the phenomena of which my
      neighbour is conscious; so that they are _practically_ “the same.”
      If we are living in a fundamentally divine, and therefore absolutely
      trustworthy, universe, the phenomena presented to my senses, which I
      attribute to the agency of another person, are so attributed
      rightly. For if not, the so-called cosmos is adapted to mislead me.

  909 This explanation is often overlooked by Berkeley’s critics.

  910 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 82-84.

  911 i.e. if you take the term _idea_ in its wholly subjective and
      popular meaning.

  912 i.e. if you take the term _idea_ in its objective meaning.

  913 “philosophic,” i.e. _pseudo_-philosophic, against which he argues.

  914 Had this their relative existence—this realisation of the material
      world through finite percipient and volitional life—any beginning?
      May not God have been eternally presenting phenomena to the senses
      of percipient beings in cosmical order, if not on this planet yet
      elsewhere, perhaps under other conditions? Has there been any
      beginning in the succession of finite persons?

  915 In the first and second editions only.

  916 Is “creation” by us distinguishable from continuous evolution,
      unbeginning and unending, in divinely constituted order; and is
      there a distinction between creation or evolution of _things_ and
      creation or evolution of _persons_?

  917 Cf. _Siris_, sect. 347-349.

  918 “Matter,” i.e. Matter in this pseudo-philosophical meaning of the
      word.

  919 Thus Origen in the early Church. That “Matter” is co-eternal with
      God would mean that God is eternally making things real in the
      percipient experience of persons.

  920 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 85-156, in which the religious and
      scientific advantages of the new conception of matter and the
      material cosmos are illustrated, when it is rightly understood and
      applied.

  921 “substance and accident”—“subjects and adjuncts,”—in the first and
      the second edition.

  922 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 28-42. In _Siris_, sect. 294-297, 300-318,
      335, 359-365, we have glimpses of thought more allied to Platonism,
      if not to Hegelianism.

  923 “Matter,” i.e. matter unrealised in any mind, finite or Divine.

  924 These two propositions are a summary of Berkeley’s conception of the
      material world. With him, the _immediate_ objects of sense, realise
      in _perception_, are independent of the _will_ of the percipient,
      and are thus external to his proper personality. Berkeley’s
      “material world” of enlightened Common Sense, resulting from two
      factors, Divine and human, is independent of each finite mind; but
      not independent of all living Mind.

  925 “voces male intellectæ.” Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_,
      “Introduction,” sect. 6, 23-25, on the abuse of language, especially
      by abstraction.

  926 “veterum philosophorum.” The history of ancient speculations about
      motion, from the paradoxes of Zeno downwards, is, in some sort, a
      history of ancient metaphysics. It involves Space, Time, and the
      material world, with the ultimate causal relation of Nature to
      Spirit.

  927 “hujus ævi philosophos.” As in Bacon on motion, and in the questions
      raised by Newton, Borelli, Leibniz, and others, discussed in the
      following sections.

  928 Sect. 3-42 are concerned with the principle of Causality,
      exemplified in the motion, or change of place and state, that is
      continually going on in the material world, and which was supposed
      by some to explain all the phenomena of the universe.

  929 “vis.” The assumption that _active power_ is an immediate datum of
      sense is the example here offered of the abase of abstract words. He
      proceeds to dissolve the assumption by shewing that it is
      meaningless.

  930 “principio”—the ultimate explanation or originating cause. Cf. sect.
      36. Metaphors, or indeed empty words, are accepted for explanations,
      it is argued, when _bodily_ power or force, in any form, e.g.
      gravitation, is taken as the real cause of motion. To call these
      “occult causes” is to say nothing that is intelligible. The
      perceived sensible effects and their customary sequences are all we
      know. Physicists are still deluded by words and metaphors.

  931 Cf. sect. 53, where _sense_, _imagination_, and _intelligence_ are
      distinguished.

  932 Cf. _Principles_, Introd. 16, 20, 21; also _Alciphron_, Dial. VII.
      sect. 8, 17.

  933 [La Materia altro non è che un vaso di Circe incantato, il quale
      serve per ricettacolo della forza et de’ momenti dell’ impeto. La
      forzae l’impeti sono astratti tanto sottili, sono quintessenze tanto
      spiritose, che in altre ampolle non si possono racchiudere, fuor che
      nell’ intima corpulenza de’ solidi naturali, Vide _Lezioni
      Accademiche_.]—AUTHOR. Torricelli (1608-47), the eminent Italian
      physicist, and professor of mathematics at Florence, who invented
      the barometer.

  934 Borelli (1608-79), Italian professor of mathematics at Pisa, and
      then of medicine at Florence; see his _De Vi Percussionis_, cap.
      XXIV. prop. 88, and cap. XXVII.

  935 “per effectum,” i.e. by its sensible effects—real power or active
      force not being a datum of the senses, but found in the spiritual
      efficacy, of which we have an example in our personal agency.

  936 “vim mortuam.” The only power we can find is the living power of
      Mind. Reason is perpetually active in the universe, imperceptible
      through the senses, and revealed to _them_ only in its sensible
      effects. “Power,” e.g. “gravitation,” in things, _per se_, is
      distinguished from perceived “motion” only through illusion due to
      misleading abstraction. There is no _physical_ power, intermediate
      between spiritual agency, on the one hand, and the sensible changes
      we see, on the other. Cf. sect. 11.

  937 “meditatione subigenda sunt.” Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_,
      sect. 35, 70.

  938 “distingui.” It is here argued that so-called power within the
      things of sense is not distinguishable from the sensibly perceived
      sequences. To the meaningless supposition that it is, he attributes
      the frivolous verbal controversies among the learned mentioned in
      the following section. The province of natural philosophy, according
      to Berkeley, is to inquire what the rules are under which sensible
      effects are uniformly manifested. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 236, 247, 249.

_  939 Principia Math._ Def. III.

_  940 De Vi Percussionis_, cap. I.

  941 “utiles.” Such words as “force,” “power,” “gravity,” “attraction,”
      are held to be convenient in physical reasonings about the
      _phenomena_ of motion, but worthless as philosophical expressions of
      the _cause_ of motion, which transcends sense and mechanical
      science. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 234, 235.

  942 Cf. sect. 67.

  943 “candem.” So in recent discussions on the conservation of force.

  944 [Borellus.]—AUTHOR. See _De Vi Percussionis_, cap. XXIII.

  945 [Leibnitius.]—AUTHOR.

  946 On Berkeley’s reasoning all terms which involve the assumption that
      real causality is something presentable to the senses are a cover
      for meaninglessness. Only through self-conscious experience of
      personal activity does real meaning enter into the portion of
      language which deals with active causation. This is argued in detail
      in sect. 21-35.

  947 Our concrete experience is assumed to be confined to (_a_) _bodies_,
      i.e. the data of the senses, and (_b_) _mind_ or _spirit_—sentient,
      intelligent, active—revealed by internal consciousness. Cf.
      _Principles_, sect. 1, 2, in which experience is resolved into
      _ideas_ and the _active intelligence_ which they presuppose. Here
      the word idea disappears, but, in accordance with its signification,
      “bodies” is still regarded as aggregates of external phenomena, the
      passive subjects of changes of place and state: the idealisation of
      the material world is tacitly implied, but not obtruded.

  948 “nihilque,” &c. Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_, e.g. sect. 26,
      65, 66. where the essential passivity of the _ideas_ presented to
      the senses, i.e. the material world, is maintained as a cardinal
      principle—on the positive ground of our percipient experience of
      sensible things. To speak of the cause of motion as _something
      sensible_, he argues (sect. 24), is merely to shew that we know
      nothing about it. Cf. sect. 28, 29, infra.

  949 The phenomena that can be presented to the senses are taken as the
      measure of what can be attributed to the material world; and as the
      senses present _only_ conditioned change of place in bodies, we must
      look for the active cause in the invisible world which internal
      consciousness presents to us.

  950 “_genus rerum cogitantium._” Cf. _Principles_, sect. 2.

  951 “experientia didicimus.” Can the merely empirical data even of
      internal consciousness reveal this causal connexion between volition
      and bodily motions, without the venture of theistic faith?

  952 “a primo et universali Principio” i.e. God, or the Universal Spirit,
      in whom the universe of bodies and spirits finds explanation; in a
      way which Berkeley does not attempt to unfold articulately and
      exhaustively in philosophical system.

_  953 Phys._ θ. 4. 255 a 5-7.

_  954 Princip. Math._ Def. III.

  955 “resistentia.” Our muscular _sensation_ of resistance is apt to be
      accepted empirically as itself _active power in the concrete_,
      entering very much, as has been said, into the often inaccurate idea
      of power which is formed. See Editor’s Preface.

  956 “nec incommode.” Cf. sect. 17, and note.

  957 “hypothesis mathematica.” Cf. sect. 17, 35, 36-41, 66, 67; also
      _Siris_, sect. 250-251.

  958 “nihil.” This section sums up Berkeley’s objections to crediting
      _matter_ with real power; the senses being taken as the test of what
      is contained in matter. It may be compared with David Hume, Thomas
      Brown, and J.S. Mill on Causation. Berkeley differs from them in
      recognising active power in spirit, while with them he resolves
      causation among bodies into invariable sequence.

  959 Can the data presented to us reveal more than sequence, in the
      relation between our volitions and the corresponding movements of
      our bodies? Is not the difference found in the moral presupposition,
      which _supernaturalises_ man in his voluntary or morally responsible
      activity? This obliges us to see _ourselves_ as absolutely original
      causes of all bodily and mental states for which we can be morally
      approved or blamed.

  960 “novumque genus.” Cf. sect. 21. We have here Berkeley’s antithesis
      of mind and matter—spirits and external phenomena presented to the
      senses—persons in contrast to passive ideas.

_  961 De Anima_, I. ii. 13, 22, 24.

  962 “Cartesius.” The antithesis of extended things and thinking things
      pervades Descartes; but not, as with Berkeley, on the foundation of
      the new conception of what is truly meant by matter or sensible
      things. See e.g. _Principia_, P. I. §§ 63, 64.

  963 “alii.” Does he refer to Locke, who suggests the possibility of
      matter thinking?

  964 See Aristotle, _De Anima_, I. ii. 5, 13; Diogenes Laertius, Lib. VI.
      i. 6.

_  965 Nat. Ausc._ VIII. 15; also _De Anima_, III, x. 7.

  966 Hardly any passage in the _Timæus_ exactly corresponds to this. The
      following is, perhaps, the most pertinent:—Κίνησιν γὰρ ἀπένειμεν
      αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ σώματος οἰκείαν, τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν
      μάλιστα οὖσαν (p. 34 a). Aristotle quotes the _Timæus_ in the same
      connexion, _De Anima_, I. iii. ii.

  967 “philosophi Cartesiani.” Secundum Cartesium causa generalis omnium
      motuum et quietum est Deus.—Derodon, _Physica_, I. ix. 30.

_  968 Principia Mathematica_—Scholium Generale.

  969 “naturam naturantem esse Deum”—as we might say, God considered as
      imminent cause in the universe. See St. Thomas Aquinas, _Opera_,
      vol. XXII. Quest. 6, p. 27.

  970 “juxta certam et constantem rationem.” While all changes in Nature
      are determined by Will, it is not capricious but rational Will. The
      so-called arbitrariness of the Language of Nature is relative to us,
      and from our point of view. In itself, the universe of reality
      expresses Perfect Reason.

  971 “permaneret.” Cf. sect. 51.

  972 “spectat potius ad philosophiam primam.” The drift of the _De Motu_
      is to distinguish the physical sequences of molecular motion, which
      the physical sciences articulate, from the Power with which
      metaphysics and theology are concerned, and which we approach
      through consciousness.

  973 “regulas.” Cf. _Siris_, sect. 231-235.

  974 Having, in the preceding sections, contrasted perceived motions and
      their immanent originating Power—matter and mind—physics and
      metaphysics—he proceeds in this and the seven following sections to
      explain more fully what ha means by _principium_ and also the two
      meanings (metaphysical and mechanical) of _solutio_. By
      _principium_, in philosophy, he understands universally efficient
      supersensible Power. In natural philosophy the term is applied to
      the orderly sequences manifested to our senses, not to the active
      cause of the order.

  975 “ratiocinio ... redditæ universales.” Relations of the data of sense
      to universalising reason are here recognised.

  976 “natura motus.” Sect. 43-66 treat of the nature of the _effect_—i.e.
      perceptible motion, as distinguished from its true causal origin
      (_principium_) in mind or spirit. The origin of motion belongs to
      metaphysics; its nature, as dependent on percipient experience,
      belongs to physics. Is motion independent of a plurality of bodies;
      or does it involve bodies in relation to other bodies, so that
      absolute motion is meaningless? Cf. _Principles_, sect. 111-116.

  977 “idea illa tenuissima et subtilissima.” The difficulty as to
      definition of motion is attributed to abstractions, and the
      inclination of the scholastic mind to prefer these to concrete
      experience.

  978 Motion is thus defined by Aristotle:—Διὸ ἡ κίνησις ἐντελέχεια τοῦ
      κινητοῦ, ᾗ κινητόν. Nat. Ausc. III. ii; see also i. and iii. Cf.
      Derodon, _Physica_, I. ix.

  979 Newton.

  980 Cf. sect. 3-42.

  981 Descartes, _Principia_, P. II. § 25; also Borellus, _De Vi
      Percussionis_, p. 1.

  982 “res faciles difficillimas.” Cf. _Principles_, “Introduction,” sect.
      1.

  983 Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο δὴ χαλεπὸν αὐτὴν λαβεῖν τί ἐστίν. _Nat. Ausc._ III.
      ii.

  984 e.g. Zeno, in his noted argument against the possibility of motion,
      referred to as a signal example of fallacy.

  985 “de infinite, &c.” Cf. _Principles_, sect. 130-132, and the
      _Analyst_ passim, for Berkeley’s treatment of infinitesimals.

  986 “confundere.” Cf. sect. 3-42 for illustrations of this confusion.

  987 The modern conception of the “conservation of force.”

  988 Aristotle states the question in _Nat. Ausc._ VIII. cap. i, and
      solves it in cap. iv.

  989 “mutatio loci” is the effect, i.e. motion perceived by sense;
      “vitale principium” the real cause, i.e. vital rational agency.

  990 “moventis et moti,” i.e. as concauses.

  991 “motum localem.” Sect. 52-65 discuss the reality of absolute or
      empty space, in contrast with concrete space realised in perception
      of the local relations of bodies. The meaninglessness of absolute
      space and motion is argued. Cf. _Principles_, sect. 116, 117. See
      Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, 15, 17; also _Papers which passed
      between Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. Clarke in 1715-16_, pp. 55-59; 73-81;
      97-103, &c. Leibniz calls absolute space “an ideal of some modern
      Englishman.”

  992 Newton’s _Principia_, Def. Sch. III. See also Derodon, _Physica_, P.
      I. cap. vi. § 1.

  993 Cf. Locke on a vacuum, and the “possibility of space existing
      without matter,” _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13.

  994 Note the account here given of _imagination_ and _intellect_, as
      distinguished from _sense_, which may be compared with αἴσθησις,
      φαντασία, and νοῦς in Aristotelian psychology.

  995 “attributorum divinorum particeps.” See Samuel Clarke, in his
      _Demonstration_, and in the _Papers between Clarke and Leibnitz_.

  996 “nostrum,” sc. corpus. When we imagine space emptied of bodies, we
      are apt to forget that our own bodies are part of the material
      world.

  997 [Vide quæ contra spatium absolutum disseruntur in libro _De
      Principiis Cognitionis Humanæ_, idiomate anglicano decem abhine
      annis edito.]—AUTHOR. He refers to sect. 116 of the _Principles_.

  998 He treats absolute space as nothing, and relative space as dependent
      on Perception and Will.

_  999 Phys._ α. 5. 188a. 22, 23.

 1000 See Locke, _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, §§ 7-10.

 1001 Sect. 67-72 treat of the supposed ejection of motion from the
      striking body into the body struck. Is this only metaphorical? Is
      the motion received by the latter to be supposed identical with, or
      equivalent to, that given forth by the former?

_ 1002 Principia_, Def. IV.

_ 1003 Lezioni Accademiche._

_ 1004 De Vi Percussionis_, cap. IX.

 1005 Newton’s third law of motion.

 1006 Berkeley sees in motion only a link in the chain which connects the
      sensible and intelligible worlds—a conception unfolded in his
      _Siris_, more than twenty years later.

 1007 “provincia sua.” The _De Motu_, so far as it treats of motion
      perceptible to the senses, is assigned to physics; in contrast to
      theology or metaphysics, alone concerned with active causation.