{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39746/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39746","id":"gutenberg_39746","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39746","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy -- Early works to 1800"],"text":"The Works of George Berkeley D.D.\n\n                        Formerly Bishop of Cloyne\n\n                      Including his Posthumous Works\n\n  With Prefaces, Annotations, Appendices, and An Account of his Life, by\n\n                        Alexander Campbell Fraser\n\n                           Hon. D.C.L., Oxford\n\n    Hon. LL.D. Glasgow and Edinburgh; Emeritus Professor of Logic and\n                Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh\n\n                             In Four Volumes\n\n                   Vol. 1: Philosophical Works, 1705-21\n\n                                  Oxford\n\n                          At the Clarendon Press\n\n                                   1901\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPreface\nGeorge Berkeley, By The Editor\nErrata\nCommonplace Book. Mathematical, Ethical, Physical, And Metaphysical\n   Editor\u2019s Preface To The Commonplace Book\n   Commonplace Book\nAn Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision\n   Editor\u2019s Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision\n   Dedication\n   An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision\n   An Appendix To The Essay On Vision\nA Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human Knowledge\n   Editor\u2019s Preface To The Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human\n   Knowledge\n   Dedication\n   The Preface\n   Introduction\n   Part First\nThree Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous The Design Of Which Is Plainly\nTo Demonstrate The Reality And Perfection Of Human Knowledge, The\nIncorporeal Nature Of The Soul, And The Immediate Providence Of A Deity,\nIn Opposition To Sceptics And Atheists, Also To Open A Method For\nRendering The Sciences More Easy, Useful, And Compendious\n   Editor\u2019s Preface\n   Dedication\n   The Preface\n   The First Dialogue\n   The Second Dialogue\n   The Third Dialogue\nDe Motu: Sive; De Motus Principio Et Natura, Et De Causa Communicationis\nMotuum\n   Editor\u2019s Preface To De Motu\n   De Motu\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n                              [Frontispiece]\n\nMore than thirty years ago I was honoured by a request to prepare a\ncomplete edition of the Works of Bishop Berkeley, with Notes, for the\nClarendon Press, Oxford. That edition, which contains many of his writings\npreviously unpublished, appeared in 1871. It was followed in 1874 by a\nvolume of annotated Selections from his philosophical works; and in 1881 I\nprepared a small volume on \u201cBerkeley\u201d for Blackwood\u2019s \u201cPhilosophical\nClassics.\u201d\n\nThe 1871 edition of the Works originated, I believe, in an essay on \u201cThe\nReal World of Berkeley,\u201d which I gave to _Macmillan\u2019s Magazine_ in 1862,\nfollowed by another in 1864, in the _North British Review_. These essays\nsuggested advantages to contemporary thought which might be gained by a\nconsideration of final questions about man and the universe, in the form\nin which they are presented by a philosopher who has suffered more from\nmisunderstanding than almost any other modern thinker. During a part of\nhis lifetime, he was the foremost metaphysician in Europe in an\nunmetaphysical generation. And in this country, after a revival of\nphilosophy in the later part of the eighteenth century, _idea_, _matter_,\n_substance_, _cause_, and other terms which play an important part in his\nwritings, had lost the meaning that he intended; while in Germany the\nsceptical speculations of David Hume gave rise to a reconstructive\ncriticism, on the part of Kant and his successors, which seemed at the\ntime to have little concern with the _a posteriori_ methods and the\nprinciples of Berkeley.\n\nThe success of the attempt to recall attention to Berkeley has far\nexceeded expectation. Nearly twenty thousand copies of the three\npublications mentioned above have found their way into the hands of\nreaders in Europe and America; and the critical estimates of Berkeley, by\neminent writers, which have appeared since 1871, in Britain, France,\nGermany, Denmark, Holland, Italy, America, and India, confirm the opinion\nthat his Works contain a word in season, even for the twentieth century.\nAmong others who have delivered appreciative criticisms of Berkeley within\nthe last thirty years are J.S. Mill, Mansel, Huxley, T.H. Green, Maguire,\nCollyns Simon, the Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Dr.\nHutchison Stirling, Professor T.K. Abbott, Professor Van der Wyck, M.\nPenjon, Ueberweg, Frederichs, Ulrici, Janitsch, Eugen Meyer, Spicker,\nLoewy, Professor H\u00f6ffding of Copenhagen, Dr. Lorenz, Noah Porter, and\nKrauth, besides essays in the chief British, Continental, and American\nreviews. The text of those Works of Berkeley which were published during\nhis lifetime, enriched with a biographical Introduction by Mr. A.J.\nBalfour, carefully edited by Mr. George Sampson, appeared in 1897. In 1900\nDr. R. Richter, of the University of Leipsic, produced a new translation\ninto German of the _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_, with an\nexcellent Introduction and notes. These estimates form a remarkable\ncontrast to the denunciations, founded on misconception, by Warburton and\nBeattie in the eighteenth century.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn 1899 I was unexpectedly again asked by the Delegates of the Oxford\nUniversity Press to prepare a New Edition of Berkeley\u2019s Works, with some\naccount of his life, as the edition of 1871 was out of print; a\ncircumstance which I had not expected to occur in my lifetime. It seemed\npresumptuous to undertake what might have been entrusted to some one\nprobably more in touch with living thought; and in one\u2019s eighty-second\nyear, time and strength are wanting for remote research. But the\nrecollection that I was attracted to philosophy largely by Berkeley, in\nthe morning of life more than sixty years ago, combined with the pleasure\nderived from association in this way with the great University in which he\nfound an academic home in his old age, moved me in the late evening of\nlife to make the attempt. And now, at the beginning of the twentieth\ncentury, I offer these volumes, which still imperfectly realise my ideal\nof a final Oxford edition of the philosopher who spent his last days in\nOxford, and whose mortal remains rest in its Cathedral.\n\nSince 1871 materials of biographical and philosophical interest have been\ndiscovered, in addition to the invaluable collection of MSS. which\nArchdeacon Rose then placed at my disposal, and which were included in the\nsupplementary volume of _Life and Letters_. Through the kindness of the\nlate Earl of Egmont I had access, some years ago, to a large number of\nletters which passed between his ancestor, Sir John (afterwards Lord)\nPercival, and Berkeley, between 1709 and 1730. I have availed myself\nfreely of this correspondence.\n\nSome interesting letters from and concerning Berkeley, addressed to his\nfriend Dr. Samuel Johnson of Stratford in Connecticut, afterwards\nPresident of King\u2019s College in New York, appeared in 1874, in Dr.\nBeardsley\u2019s _Life of Johnson_, illustrating Berkeley\u2019s history from 1729\ntill his death. For these and for further information I am indebted to Dr.\nBeardsley.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn the present edition of Berkeley\u2019s Works, the Introductions and the\nannotations have been mostly re-written. A short account of his romantic\nlife is prefixed, intended to trace its progress in the gradual\ndevelopment and application of his initial Principle; and also the\nexternal incidents of his life in their continuity, with the help of the\nnew material in the Percival MSS. and the correspondence with Johnson. It\nforms a key to the whole. This biography is not intended to supersede the\n_Life and Letters_ of Berkeley that accompanied the 1871 edition, which\nremains as a magazine of facts for reference.\n\nThe rearrangement of the Works is a feature in the present edition. Much\nof the new material that was included in the 1871 edition reached me when\nthe book was far advanced in the press, and thus the chronological\narrangement, strictly followed in the present edition, was not possible. A\nchronological arrangement is suggested by Berkeley himself. \u201cI could wish\nthat all the things I have published on these philosophical subjects were\nread in the order wherein I published them,\u201d are his words in one of his\nletters to Johnson; \u201cand a second time with a critical eye, adding your\nown thought and observation upon every part as you went along.\u201d\n\nThe first three volumes in this edition contain the Philosophical Works\nexclusively; arranged in chronological order, under the three periods of\nBerkeley\u2019s life. The First Volume includes those of his early life; the\nSecond those produced in middle life; and the Third those of his later\nyears. The Miscellaneous Works are presented in like manner in the Fourth\nVolume.\n\nThe four little treatises in which Berkeley in early life unfolded his new\nthought about the universe, along with his college _Commonplace Book_\npublished in 1871, which prepared the way for them, form, along with the\nLife, the contents of the First Volume. It is of them that the author\nwrites thus, in another of his letters to Johnson:\u2014\u201cI do not indeed wonder\nthat on first reading what I have written men are not thoroughly\nconvinced. On the contrary, I should very much wonder if prejudices which\nhave been many years taking root should be extirpated in a few hours\u2019\nreading. I had no inclination to trouble the world with large volumes.\nWhat I have done was rather with a view of giving hints to thinking men,\nwho have leisure and curiosity to go to the bottom of things, and pursue\nthem in their own minds. Two or three times reading these small tracts,\nand making what is read the occasion of thinking, would, I believe, render\nthe whole familiar and easy to the mind, and take off that shocking\nappearance which hath often been observed to attend speculative truths.\u201d\nExcept Johnson, none of Berkeley\u2019s eighteenth-century critics seem to have\nobserved this rule.\n\n_Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher_, with its supplement in the _Theory\nof Visual Language Vindicated_, being the philosophical works of his\nmiddle life, associated with its American enterprise, form the Second\nVolume. In them the conception of the universe that was unfolded in the\nearly writings is applied, in vindication of religious morality and\nChristianity, against the Atheism attributed to those who called\nthemselves Free-thinkers; who were treated by Berkeley as, at least by\nimplication, atheistic.\n\nThe Third Volume contains the _Analyst_ and _Siris_, which belong to his\nlater life, _Siris_ being especially characteristic of its serene quiet.\nIn both there is a deepened sense of the mystery of the universe, and in\n_Siris_ especially a more comprehensive conception of the final problem\nsuggested by human life. But the metaphysics of the one is lost in\nmathematical controversy; that of the other in medical controversy, and in\nundigested ancient and medi\u00e6val learning. The metaphysical importance of\n_Siris_ was long unrecognised, although in it Berkeley\u2019s thought\nculminates, not in a paradox about Matter, but in the conception of God as\nthe concatenating principle of the universe; yet this reached through the\nconception of Matter as real only in and through living Mind.\n\nThe Miscellaneous Works, after the two juvenile Latin tracts in\nmathematics, deal with observations of nature and man gathered in his\ntravels, questions of social economy, and lessons in religious life.\nSeveral are posthumous, and were first published in the 1871 edition. Of\nthese, perhaps the most interesting is the _Journal in Italy_. The\n_Discourse on Passive Obedience_ is the nearest approach to ethical theory\nwhich Berkeley has given to us, and as such it might have taken its place\nin the First Volume; but on the whole it seemed more appropriately placed\nin the Fourth, where it is easily accessible for those who prefer to read\nit immediately after the book of _Principles_.\n\nI have introduced, in an Appendix to the Third Volume, some matter of\nphilosophical interest for which there was no place in the editorial\nPrefaces or in the annotations. The historical significance of Samuel\nJohnson and Jonathan Edwards, as pioneers of American philosophy, and also\nadvocates of the new conception of the material world that is associated\nwith Berkeley, is recognised in Appendix C. Illustrations of the\nmisinterpretation of Berkeley by his early critics are presented in\nAppendix D. A lately discovered tractate by Berkeley forms Appendix E. In\nthe Fourth Volume, numerous queries contained in the first edition of the\n_Querist_, and omitted in the later editions, are given in an Appendix,\nwhich enables the reader to reconstruct that interesting tract in the form\nin which it originally appeared.\n\nThe present edition is thus really a new work, which possesses, I hope, a\ncertain philosophical unity, as well as pervading biographical interest.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAs Berkeley is the immediate successor of Locke, and as he was educated by\ncollision with the _Essay __ on Human Understanding_, perhaps Locke ought\nto have had more prominence in the editorial portion of this book.\nLimitation of space partly accounts for the omission; and I venture\ninstead to refer the reader to the Prolegomena and notes in my edition of\nLocke\u2019s _Essay_, which was published by the Clarendon Press in 1894. I may\nadd that an expansion of thoughts which run through the Life and many of\nthe annotations, in this edition of Berkeley, may be found in my\n_Philosophy of Theism_(1).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe reader need not come to Berkeley in the expectation of finding in his\nWorks an all-comprehensive speculative system like Spinoza\u2019s, or a\nreasoned articulation of the universe of reality such as Hegel is supposed\nto offer. But no one in the succession of great English philosophers has,\nI think, proposed in a way more apt to invite reflexion, the final\nalternative between Unreason, on the one hand, and Moral Reason expressed\nin Universal Divine Providence, on the other hand, as the root of the\nunbeginning and endless evolution in which we find ourselves involved; as\nwell as the further question, Whether this tremendous practical\nalternative _can_ be settled by any means that are within the reach of\nman? His Philosophical Works, taken collectively, may encourage those who\nsee in a reasonable _via media_ between Omniscience and Nescience the true\npath of progress, under man\u2019s inevitable venture of reasonable Faith.\n\nOne is therefore not without hope that a fresh impulse may be given to\nphilosophy and religious thought by this reappearance of George Berkeley,\nunder the auspices of the University of Oxford, at the beginning of the\ntwentieth century. His readers will at any rate find themselves in the\ncompany of one of the most attractive personalities of English philosophy,\nwho is also among the foremost of those thinkers who are masters in\nEnglish literature\u2014Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley and\nDavid Hume.\n\nA. Campbell Fraser.\n\nGORTON, HAWTHORNDEN, MIDLOTHIAN,\n_March, 1901_.\n\n\n\n\n\nGEORGE BERKELEY, BY THE EDITOR\n\n\n\n\nI. Early Life (1685-1721).\n\n\nTowards the end of the reign of Charles the Second a certain William\nBerkeley, according to credible tradition, occupied a cottage attached to\nthe ancient Castle of Dysert, in that part of the county of Kilkenny which\nis watered by the Nore. Little is known about this William Berkeley except\nthat he was Irish by birth and English by descent. It is said that his\nfather went over to Ireland soon after the Restoration, in the suite of\nhis reputed kinsman, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, when he was Lord\nLieutenant. William Berkeley\u2019s wife seems to have been of Irish blood, and\nin some remote way related to the family of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. It\nwas in the modest abode in the valley of the Nore that George, the eldest\nof their six sons, was born, on March 12, 1685.\n\nThere is nothing in the recorded family history of these Dysert Berkeleys\nthat helps to explain the singular personality and career of the eldest\nson. The parents have left no mark, and make no appearance in any extant\nrecords of the family. They probably made their way to the valley of the\nNore among families of English connexion who, in the quarter of a century\npreceding the birth of George Berkeley, were finding settlements in\nIreland. The family, as it appears, was not wealthy, but was recognised as\nof gentle blood. Robert, the fifth son, became rector of Middleton and\nvicar-general of Cloyne; and another son, William, held a commission in\nthe army. According to the Register of Trinity College, one of the sons\nwas born \u201cnear Thurles,\u201d in 1699, and Thomas, the youngest, was born in\nTipperary, in 1703, so that the family may have removed from Dysert after\nthe birth of George. In what can be gleaned of the younger sons, one finds\nlittle appearance of sympathy with the religious and philosophical genius\nof the eldest.\n\nRegarding this famous eldest son in those early days, we have this\nsignificant autobiographical fragment in his _Commonplace Book_: \u201cI was\ndistrustful at eight years old, and consequently by nature disposed for\nthe new doctrines.\u201d In his twelfth year we find the boy in Kilkenny\nSchool. The register records his entrance there in the summer of 1696,\nwhen he was placed at once in the second class, which seems to imply\nprecocity, for it is almost a solitary instance. He spent the four\nfollowing years in Kilkenny. The School was in high repute for learned\nmasters and famous pupils; among former pupils were the poet Congreve and\nSwift, nearly twenty years earlier than George Berkeley; among his\nschool-fellows was Thomas Prior, his life-long friend and correspondent.\nIn the days of Berkeley and Prior the head master was Dr. Hinton, and the\nSchool was still suffering from the consequences of \u201cthe warre in Ireland\u201d\nwhich followed the Revolution.\n\nBerkeley in Kilkenny School is hardly visible, and we have no means of\nestimating his mental state when he left it. Tradition says that in his\nschool-days he was wont to feed his imagination with airy visions and\nromance, a tradition which perhaps originated long after in popular\nmisconceptions of his idealism. Dimly discernible at Kilkenny, only a few\nyears later he was a conspicuous figure in an island that was then\nbeginning to share in the intellectual movement of the modern world,\ntaking his place as a classic in English literature, and as the most\nsubtle and ardent of contemporary English-speaking thinkers.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn March, 1700, at the age of fifteen, George Berkeley entered Trinity\nCollege, Dublin. This was his home for more than twenty years. He was at\nfirst a mystery to the ordinary undergraduate. Some, we are told,\npronounced him the greatest dunce, others the greatest genius in the\nCollege. To hasty judges he seemed an idle dreamer; the thoughtful admired\nhis subtle intelligence and the beauty of his character. In his\nundergraduate years, a mild and ingenuous youth, inexperienced in the ways\nof men, vivacious, humorous, satirical, in unexpected ways inquisitive,\noften paradoxical, through misunderstandings he persisted in his own way,\nfull of simplicity and enthusiasm. In 1704 (the year in which Locke died)\nhe passed Bachelor of Arts, and became Master in 1707, when he was\nadmitted to a Fellowship, \u201cthe only reward of learning which that kingdom\nhad to bestow.\u201d\n\nIn Trinity College the youth found himself on the tide of modern thought,\nfor the \u201cnew philosophy\u201d of Newton and Locke was then invading the\nUniversity. Locke\u2019s _Essay_, published in 1690, was already in vogue. This\nearly recognition of Locke in Dublin was chiefly due to William Molyneux,\nLocke\u2019s devoted friend, a lawyer and member of the Irish Parliament, much\ngiven to the experimental methods. Descartes, too, with his sceptical\ncriticism of human beliefs, yet disposed to spiritualise powers commonly\nattributed to matter, was another accepted authority in Trinity College;\nand Malebranche was not unknown. Hobbes was the familiar representative of\na finally materialistic conception of existence, reproducing in modern\nforms the atomism of Democritus and the ethics of Epicurus. Above all,\nNewton was acknowledged master in physics, whose _Principia_, issued three\nyears sooner than Locke\u2019s _Essay_, was transforming the conceptions of\neducated men regarding their surroundings, like the still more\ncomprehensive law of physical evolution in the nineteenth century.\n\nJohn Toland, an Irishman, one of the earliest and ablest of the new sect\nof Free-thinkers, made his appearance at Dublin in 1696, as the author of\n_Christianity not Mysterious_. The book was condemned by College\ndignitaries and dignified clergy with even more than Irish fervour. It was\nthe opening of a controversy that lasted over half of the eighteenth\ncentury in England, in which Berkeley soon became prominent; and it was\nresumed later on, with greater intellectual force and in finer literary\nform, by David Hume and Voltaire. The collision with Toland about the time\nof Berkeley\u2019s matriculation may have awakened his interest. Toland was\nsupposed to teach that matter is eternal, and that motion is its essential\nproperty, into which all changes presented in the outer and inner\nexperience of man may at last be resolved. Berkeley\u2019s life was a continual\nprotest against these dogmas. The Provost of Trinity College in 1700 was\nDr. Peter Browne, who had already entered the lists against Toland; long\nafter, when Bishop of Cork, he was in controversy with Berkeley about the\nnature of man\u2019s knowledge of God. The Archbishop of Dublin in the early\nyears of the eighteenth century was William King, still remembered as a\nphilosophical theologian, whose book on the _Origin of Evil_, published in\n1702, was criticised by Boyle and Leibniz.\n\nDublin in those years was thus a place in which a studious youth, who had\nbeen \u201cdistrustful at eight years old,\u201d might be disposed to entertain\ngrave questions about the ultimate meaning of his visible environment, and\nof the self-conscious life to which he was becoming awake. Is the universe\nof existence confined to the visible world, and is matter the really\nactive power in existence? Is God the root and centre of all that is real,\nand if so, what is meant by God? Can God be good if the world is a mixture\nof good and evil? Questions like these were ready to meet the inquisitive\nKilkenny youth in his first years at Dublin.\n\nOne of his earliest interests at College was mathematical. His first\nappearance in print was as the anonymous author of two Latin tracts,\n_Arithmetica_ and _Miscellanea Mathematica_, published in 1707. They are\ninteresting as an index of his intellectual inclination when he was hardly\ntwenty; for he says they were prepared three years before they were given\nto the world. His disposition to curious questions in geometry and algebra\nis further shewn in his College _Commonplace Book_.\n\nThis lately discovered _Commonplace Book_ throws a flood of light upon\nBerkeley\u2019s state of mind between his twentieth and twenty-fourth year. It\nis a wonderful revelation; a record under his own hand of his thoughts and\nfeelings when he first came under the inspiration of a new conception of\nthe nature and office of the material world. It was then struggling to\nfind adequate expression, and in it the sanguine youth seemed to find a\nspiritual panacea for the errors and confusions of philosophy. It was able\nto make short work, he believed, with atheistic materialism, and could\ndispense with arguments against sceptics in vindication of the reality of\nexperience. The mind-dependent existence of the material world, and its\ntrue function in the universe of concrete reality, were to be disclosed\nunder the light of a new transforming self-evident Principle. \u201cI wonder\nnot at my sagacity in discovering the obvious and amazing truth. I rather\nwonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding it out before\u2014\u2019tis no\nwitchcraft to see.\u201d The pages of the _Commonplace Book_ give vent to\nrapidly forming thoughts about the things of sense and the \u201cambient space\u201d\nof a youth entering into reflective life, in company with Descartes and\nMalebranche, Bacon and Hobbes, above all, Locke and Newton; who was trying\nto translate into reasonableness his faith in the reality of the material\nworld and God. Under the influence of this new conception, he sees the\nworld like one awakening from a confused dream. The revolution which he\nwanted to inaugurate he foresaw would be resisted. Men like to think and\nspeak about things as they have been accustomed to do: they are offended\nwhen they are asked to exchange this for what appears to them absurdity,\nor at least when the change seems useless. But in spite of the ridicule\nand dislike of a world long accustomed to put empty words in place of\nliving thoughts, he resolves to deliver himself of his burden, with the\npolitic conciliation of a skilful advocate however; for he\ncharacteristically reminds himself that one who \u201cdesires to bring another\nover to his own opinions must seem to harmonize with him at first, and\nhumour him in his own way of talking.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn 1709, when he was twenty-four years old, Berkeley presented himself to\nthe world of empty verbal reasoners as the author of what he calls\nmodestly _An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_. It was dedicated to\nSir John Percival, his correspondent afterwards for more than twenty\nyears; but I have not discovered the origin of their friendship. The\n_Essay_ was a pioneer, meant to open the way for the disclosure of the\nSecret with which he was burdened, lest the world might be shocked by an\nabrupt disclosure. In this prelude he tries to make the reader recognise\nthat in ordinary seeing we are always interpreting visual signs; so that\nwe have daily presented to our eyes what is virtually an intelligible\nnatural language; so that in all our intercourse with the visible world we\nare in intercourse with all-pervading active Intelligence. We are reading\nabsent data of touch and of the other senses in the language of their\nvisual signs. And the visual signs themselves, which are the immediate\nobjects of sight, are necessarily dependent on sentient and percipient\nmind; whatever may be the case with the tangible realities which the\nvisual data signify, a fact evident by our experience when we make use of\na looking-glass. The material world, so far at least as it presents itself\nvisibly, is _real_ only in being _realised_ by living and seeing beings.\nThe mind-dependent _visual_ signs of which we are conscious are\ncontinually speaking to us of an invisible and distant world of _tangible_\nrealities; and through the natural connexion of the visual signs with\ntheir tactual meanings, we are able in seeing practically to perceive, not\nonly what is distant in space, but also to anticipate the future. The Book\nof Vision is in literal truth a Book of Prophecy. The chief lesson of the\ntentative _Essay on Vision_ is thus summed up:\u2014\n\n\u201cUpon the whole, I think we may fairly conclude that the proper objects of\nVision constitute the Universal Language of Nature; whereby we are\ninstructed how to regulate our actions in order to attain those things\nthat are necessary to the preservation and well-being of our bodies, as\nalso to avoid whatever may be hurtful and destructive of them. And the\nmanner wherein they signify and mark out unto us the objects which are at\na distance is the same with that of languages and signs of human\nappointment; which do not suggest the things signified by any likeness or\nidentity of nature, but only by an habitual connexion that experience has\nmade us to observe between them. Suppose one who had always continued\nblind be told by his guide that after he has advanced so many steps he\nshall come to the brink of a precipice, or be stopped by a wall; must not\nthis to him seem very admirable and surprising? He cannot conceive how it\nis possible for mortals to frame such predictions as these, which to him\nwould seem as strange and unaccountable as prophecy does to others. Even\nthey who are blessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make\nit less observed) find therein sufficient cause of admiration. The\nwonderful art and contrivance wherewith it is adjusted to those ends and\npurposes for which it was apparently designed; the vast extent, number,\nand variety of objects that are at once, with so much ease and quickness\nand pleasure, suggested by it\u2014all these afford subject for much and\npleasing speculation, and may, if anything, give us some glimmering\nanalogous pr\u00e6notion of things that are placed beyond the certain discovery\nand comprehension of our present state(2).\u201d\n\nBerkeley took orders in the year in which his _Essay on Vision_ was\npublished. On February 1, 1709, he was ordained as deacon, in the chapel\nof Trinity College, by Dr. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher. Origen and\nAugustine, Anselm and Aquinas, Malebranche, Fenelon, and Pascal, Cudworth,\nButler, Jonathan Edwards, and Schleiermacher, along with Berkeley, are\namong those who are illustrious at once in the history of philosophy and\nof the Christian Church. The Church, it has been said, has been for nearly\ntwo thousand years the great Ethical Society of the world, and if under\nits restrictions it has been less conspicuous on the field of\nphilosophical criticism and free inquiry, these names remind us of the\nimmense service it has rendered to meditative thought.\n\nThe light of the Percival correspondence first falls on Berkeley\u2019s life in\n1709. The earliest extant letters from Berkeley to Sir John Percival are\nin September, October, and December of that year, dated at Trinity\nCollege. In one of them he pronounces Socrates \u201cthe best and most\nadmirable man that the heathen world has produced.\u201d Another letter, in\nMarch, 1710, accompanies a copy of the second edition of the _Essay on\nVision_. \u201cI have made some alterations and additions in the body of the\ntreatise,\u201d he says, \u201cand in the appendix have endeavoured to meet the\nobjections of the Archbishop of Dublin;\u201d whose sermon he proceeds to\ndeprecate, for \u201cdenying that goodness and understanding are more to be\naffirmed of God than feet or hands,\u201d although all these may, in a\nmetaphorical sense. How far, or whether at all, God is knowable by man,\nwas, as we shall see, matter of discussion and controversy with Berkeley\nin later life; but this shews that the subject was already in his\nthoughts. Returning to the _Essay on Vision_, he tells Sir John that\n\u201cthere remains one objection, that with regard to the uselessness of that\nbook of mine; but in a little time I hope to make what is there laid down\nappear subservient to the ends of morality and religion, in a _Treatise_ I\nhave in the press, the design of which is to demonstrate the existence and\nattributes of God, the immortality of the soul, the reconciliation of\nGod\u2019s foreknowledge and the freedom of man; and by shewing the emptiness\nand falsehood of several parts of the speculative sciences, to induce men\nto the study of religion and things useful. How far my endeavours will\nprove successful, and whether I have been all this time in a dream or no,\ntime will shew. I do not see how it is possible to demonstrate the being\nof a God on the principles of the Archbishop\u2014that strictly goodness and\nunderstanding can no more be assumed of God than that He has feet or\nhands; there being no argument that I know for God\u2019s existence which does\nnot prove Him at the same time to be an understanding and benevolent\nbeing, in the strict, literal, and proper meaning of these words.\u201d He\nadds, \u201cI have written to Mr. Clarke to give me his thoughts on the subject\nof God\u2019s existence, but have got no answer.\u201d\n\nThe work foreshadowed in this letter appeared in the summer of 1710, as\nthe \u201cFirst part\u201d of a _Treatise concerning the Principles of Human\nKnowledge, wherein the chief causes of error and difficulty in the\nSciences, with the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are\ninquired into_. In this fragment of a larger work, never finished,\nBerkeley\u2019s spiritual conception of matter and cosmos is unfolded,\ndefended, and applied. According to the _Essay on Vision_, the world, as\nfar as it is visible, is dependent on living mind. According to this book\nof _Principles_ the whole material world, as far as it can have any\npractical concern with the knowings and doings of men, is real only by\nbeing realised in like manner in the percipient experience of some living\nmind. The concrete world, with which alone we have to do, could not exist\nin its concrete reality if there were no living percipient being in\nexistence to actualise it. To suppose that it could would be to submit to\nthe illusion of a metaphysical abstraction. Matter unrealised in its\nnecessary subordination to some one\u2019s percipient experience is the chief\namong the illusions which philosophers have been too ready to encourage,\nand which the mass of mankind, who accept words without reflecting on\ntheir legitimate meanings, are ready to accept blindly. But we have only\nto reflect in order to see the absurdity of a material world such as we\nhave experience of existing without ever being realised or made concrete\nin any sentient life. Try to conceive an eternally dead universe, empty\nfor ever of God and all finite spirits, and you find you cannot. Reality\ncan be real only in a living form. Percipient life underlies or\nconstitutes all that is real. The _esse_ of the concrete material world is\n_percipi_. This was the \u201cNew Principle\u201d with which the young Dublin Fellow\nwas burdened\u2014the Secret of the universe which he had been longing to\ndischarge upon mankind for their benefit, yet without sign of desire to\ngain fame for himself as the discoverer. It is thus that he unfolds it:\u2014\n\n\u201cSome truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need\nonly open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz.\nthat all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all\nthose bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any\nsubsistence without a Mind; that their _being_ is to be perceived or\nknown; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me,\nor do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must\neither have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some\nEternal Spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the\nabsurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an\nexistence independent of a Spirit(3).\u201d\n\nThis does not mean denial of the existence of the world that is daily\npresented to our senses and which includes our own bodies. On the\ncontrary, it affirms, as intuitively true, the existence of the only real\nmatter which our senses present to us. The only material world of which we\nhave any experience consists of the appearances (misleadingly called\n_ideas_ of sense by Berkeley) which are continually rising as real objects\nin a passive procession of interpretable signs, through means of which\neach finite person realises his own individual personality; also the\nexistence of other finite persons; and the sense-symbolism that is more or\nless interpreted in the natural sciences; all significant of God. So the\nmaterial world of concrete experience is presented to us as mind-dependent\nand in itself powerless: the deepest and truest reality must always be\nspiritual. Yet this mind-dependent material world is the occasion of\ninnumerable pleasures and pains to human percipients, in so far as they\nconform to or contradict its customary laws, commonly called the laws of\nnature. So the sense-symbolism in which we live is found to play an\nimportant part in the experience of percipient beings. But it makes us\nsceptics and atheists when, in its name, we put a supposed dead abstract\nmatter in room of the Divine Active Reason of which all natural order is\nthe continuous providential expression.\n\nAccordingly, God must exist, because the material world, in order to be a\nreal world, needs to be continually realised and regulated by living\nProvidence; and we have all the certainty of sense and sanity that there\n_is_ a (mind-dependent) material world, a boundless and endlessly evolving\nsense-symbolism.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn the two years after the disclosure of his New Principle we see Berkeley\nchiefly through his correspondence with Percival. He was eager to hear the\nvoice of criticism; but the critics were slow to speak, and when they did\nspeak they misconceived the question, and of course his answer to it. \u201cIf\nwhen you receive my book,\u201d he writes from Dublin, in July, 1710, to Sir\nJohn, who was then in London, \u201cyou can procure me the opinion of some of\nyour acquaintances who are thinking men, addicted to the study of natural\nphilosophy and mathematics, I shall be extremely obliged to you.\u201d He also\nasks Percival to present the book of _Principles_ to Lord Pembroke, to\nwhom he had ventured to dedicate it, as Locke had done his _Essay_. The\nreply was discouraging.\n\n\u201cI did but name the subject-matter of your book of _Principles_ to some\ningenuous friends of mine,\u201d Percival says, \u201cand they immediately treated\nit with ridicule, at the same time refusing to read it; which I have not\nyet got one to do. A physician of my acquaintance undertook to describe\nyour person, and argued you must needs be mad, and that you ought to take\nremedies. A bishop pitied you, that a desire and vanity of starting\nsomething new should put you upon such an undertaking; and when I\njustified you in that part of your character, and added other deserving\nqualities you have, he could not tell what to think of you. Another told\nme an ingenious man ought not to be discouraged from exerting his wit, and\nsaid Erasmus was not worse thought of for writing in praise of folly; but\nthat you are not gone as far as a gentleman in town, who asserts not only\nthat there is no such thing as Matter, but that we ourselves have no being\nat all.\u201d\n\nIt is not surprising that a book which was supposed to deny the existence\nof all that we see and touch should be ridiculed, and its author called a\nmadman. What vexed the author was, \u201cthat men who had never considered my\nbook should confound me with the sceptics, who doubt the existence of\nsensible things, and are not positive of any one thing, not even of their\nown being. But whoever reads my book with attention will see that I\nquestion not the existence of anything we perceive by our senses. Fine\nspun metaphysics are what on all occasions I declaim against, and if any\none shall shew anything of that sort in my _Treatise_ I will willingly\ncorrect it.\u201d A material world that was real enough to yield physical\nscience, to make known to us the existence of other persons and of God,\nand which signified in very practical ways happiness or misery to sentient\nbeings, seemed to him sufficiently real for human science and all other\npurposes. Nevertheless, in the ardour of youth Berkeley had hardly\nfathomed the depths into which his New Principle led, and which he hoped\nto escape by avoiding the abstractions of \u201cfine-spun metaphysics.\u201d\n\nIn December Percival writes from London that he has \u201cgiven the book to\nLord Pembroke,\u201d who \u201cthought the author an ingenious man, and to be\nencouraged\u201d; but for himself he \u201ccannot believe in the non-existence of\nMatter\u201d; and he had tried in vain to induce Samuel Clarke, the great\nEnglish metaphysician, either to refute or to accept the New Principle. In\nFebruary Berkeley sends an explanatory letter for Lord Pembroke to\nPercival\u2019s care. In a letter in June he turns to social questions, and\nsuggests that if \u201csome Irish gentlemen of good fortune and generous\ninclinations would constantly reside in England, there to watch for the\ninterests of Ireland, they might bring far greater advantage than they\ncould by spending their incomes at home.\u201d And so 1711 passes, with\nresponses of ignorant critics; vain endeavours to draw worthy criticism\nfrom Samuel Clarke; the author all the while doing work as a Tutor in\nTrinity College on a modest income; now and then on holidays in Meath or\nelsewhere in Ireland. Three discourses on _Passive Obedience_ in the\nCollege Chapel in 1712, misinterpreted, brought on him the reproach of\nJacobitism. Yet they were designed to shew that society rests on a deeper\nfoundation than force and calculations of utility, and is at last rooted\nin principles of an immutable morality. Locke\u2019s favourite opinion, that\nmorality is a demonstrable, seems to weigh with him in these _Discourses_.\n\nBut Berkeley was not yet done with the exposition and vindication of his\nnew thought, for it seemed to him charged with supreme practical issues\nfor mankind. In the two years which followed the publication of the\n_Principles_ he was preparing to reproduce his spiritual conception of the\nuniverse, in the dramatic form of dialogue, convenient for dealing\npopularly with plausible objections. The issue was the _Three Dialogues\nbetween Hylas and Philonous_, in which Philonous argues for the absurdity\nof an abstract matter that is unrealised in the experience of living\nbeings, as against Hylas, who is put forward to justify belief in this\nabstract reality. The design of the _Dialogues_ is to present in a\nfamiliar form \u201csuch principles as, by an easy solution of the perplexities\nof philosophers, together with their own native evidence, may at once\nrecommend themselves as genuine to the mind, and rescue philosophy from\nthe endless pursuits it is engaged in; which, with a plain demonstration\nof the Immediate Providence of an all-seeing God, should seem the readiest\npreparation, as well as the strongest motive to the study and practice of\nvirtue(4).\u201d\n\nWhen the _Dialogues_ were completed, at the end of 1712, Berkeley resolved\nto visit London, as he told Percival, \u201cin order to print my new book of\nDialogues, and to make acquaintance with men of merit.\u201d He got leave of\nabsence from his College \u201cfor the recovery of his health,\u201d which had\nsuffered from study, and perhaps too he remembered that Bacon commends\ntravel as \u201cto the younger sort a part of education.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBerkeley made his appearance in London in January, 1713. On the 26th of\nthat month he writes to Percival that he \u201chad crossed the Channel from\nDublin a few days before,\u201d describes adventures on the road, and enlarges\non the beauty of rural England, which he liked more than anything he had\nseen in London. \u201cMr. Clarke\u201d had already introduced him to Lord Pembroke.\nHe had also called on his countryman Richard Steele, \u201cwho desired to be\nacquainted with him. Somebody had given him my _Treatise on the Principles\nof Human Knowledge_, and that was the ground of his inclination to my\nacquaintance.\u201d He anticipates \u201cmuch satisfaction in the conversation of\nSteele and his friends,\u201d adding that \u201cthere is lately published a bold and\npernicious book, a _Discourse on Free-thinking_(5).\u201d In February he \u201cdines\noften with Steele in his house in Bloomsbury Square,\u201d and tells in March\n\u201cthat you will soon hear of Mr. Steele under the character of the\n_Guardian_; he designs his paper shall come out every day as the\n_Spectator_.\u201d The night before \u201ca very ingenious new poem upon \u2018Windsor\nForest\u2019 had been given to him by the author, Mr. Pope. The gentleman is a\nPapist, but a man of excellent wit and learning, one of those Mr. Steele\nmentions in his last paper as having writ some of the _Spectator_.\u201d A few\ndays later he has met \u201cMr. Addison, who has the same talents as Steele in\na high degree, and is likewise a great philosopher, having applied himself\nto the speculative studies more than any of the wits I know. I breakfasted\nwith him at Dr. Swift\u2019s lodgings. His coming in while I was there, and the\ngood temper he showed, was construed by me as a sign of the approaching\ncoalition of parties. A play of Mr. Steele\u2019s, which was expected, he has\nnow put off till next winter. But _Cato_, a most noble play of Mr.\nAddison, is to be acted in Easter week.\u201d Accordingly, on April 18, he\nwrites that \u201con Tuesday last _Cato_ was acted for the first time. I was\npresent with Mr. Addison and two or three more friends in a side box,\nwhere we had a talk and two or three flasks of Burgundy and Champagne,\nwhich the author (who is a very sober man) thought necessary to support\nhis spirits, and indeed it was a pleasant refreshment to us all between\nthe Acts. Some parts of the prologue, written by Mr. Pope, a Tory and even\na Papist, were hissed, being thought to savour of Whiggism; but the clap\ngot much the better of the hiss. Lord Harley, who sat in the next box to\nus, was observed to clap as loud as any in the house all the time of the\nplay.\u201d Swift and Pope have described this famous first night of _Cato_;\nnow for the first time we have Berkeley\u2019s report. He adds, \u201cThis day I\ndined at Dr. Arbuthnot\u2019s lodging in the Queen\u2019s Palace.\u201d\n\nHis countryman, Swift, was among the first to welcome him to London, where\nSwift had himself been for four years, \u201clodging in Bury Street,\u201d and\nsending the daily journal to Stella, which records so many incidents of\nthat memorable London life. Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her daughter, the unhappy\nVanessa, were living in rooms in the same street as Swift, and there he\n\u201cloitered, hot and lazy, after his morning\u2019s work,\u201d and \u201coften dined out\nof mere listlessness.\u201d Berkeley was a frequent visitor at Swift\u2019s house,\nand this Vanhomrigh connexion with Swift had an influence on Berkeley\u2019s\nfortune long afterwards. On a Sunday in April we find him at Kensington,\nat the Court of Queen Anne, in the company of Swift. \u201cI went to Court\nto-day,\u201d Swift\u2019s journal records, \u201con purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one\nof the Fellows of Trinity. College, to Lord Berkeley of Stratton. That Mr.\nBerkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great philosopher, and I have\nmentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his\nwritings, and I will favour him as much as I can.\u201d In this, Swift was as\ngood as his word. \u201cDr. Swift,\u201d he adds, \u201cis admired both by Steele and\nAddison, and I think Addison one of the best natured and most agreeable\nmen in the world.\u201d\n\nOne day about this time, at the instance of Addison, it seems that a\nmeeting was arranged between Berkeley and Samuel Clarke, the metaphysical\nrector of St. James\u2019s in Piccadilly, whose opinion he had in vain tried to\ndraw forth two years before through Sir John Percival. Berkeley\u2019s personal\ncharm was felt wherever he went, and even \u201cthe fastidious and turbulent\nAtterbury,\u201d after intercourse with him, is reported to have said: \u201cSo much\nunderstanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I\ndid not think had been the portion of any but angels till I saw this\ngentleman.\u201d Much was expected from the meeting with Clarke, but Berkeley\nhad again to complain that although Clarke had neither refuted his\narguments nor disproved his premisses, he had not the candour to accept\nhis conclusion.\n\nIt was thus that Berkeley became known to \u201cmen of merit\u201d in that brilliant\nsociety. He was also brought among persons on whom he would hardly have\nconferred this title. He tells Percival that he had attended several\nfree-thinking clubs, in the pretended character of a learner, and that he\nthere heard Anthony Collins, author of \u201cthe bold and pernicious book on\nfree-thinking,\u201d boast \u201cthat he was able to demonstrate that the existence\nof God is an impossible supposition.\u201d The promised \u201cdemonstration\u201d seems\nto have been Collins\u2019 _Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty_, which appeared\ntwo years later, according to which all that happens in mind and matter is\nthe issue of natural necessity. Steele invited Berkeley to contribute to\nthe _Guardian_ during its short-lived existence between March and\nSeptember, 1713. He took the _Discourse_ of Collins for the subject of his\nfirst essay. Three other essays are concerned with man\u2019s hope of a future\nlife, and are among the few passages in his writings in which his\nphilosophy is a meditation upon Death.\n\nIn May, Percival writes to him from Dublin that he hears the \u201cnew book of\nDialogues is printed, though not yet published, and that your opinion has\ngained ground among the learned; that Mr. Addison has come over to your\nview; and that what at first seemed shocking is become so familiar that\nothers envy you the discovery, and make it their own.\u201d In his reply in\nJune, Berkeley mentions that \u201ca clergyman in Wiltshire has lately\npublished a treatise wherein he advances something published three years\nago in my _Principles of Human Knowledge_.\u201d The clergyman was Arthur\nCollier, author of the _Clavis Universalis_, or demonstration of the\nimpossibility of an external world(6).\n\nBerkeley\u2019s _Three Dialogues_ were published in June. In the middle of that\nsame month he was in Oxford, \u201ca most delightful place,\u201d where he spent two\nmonths, \u201cwitnessed the Act and grand performances at the theatre, and a\ngreat concourse from London and the country, amongst whom were several\nforeigners.\u201d The Drury Lane Company had gone down to Oxford, and _Cato_\nwas on the stage for several nights. The Percival correspondence now first\ndiscloses this prolonged visit to Oxford in the summer of 1713, that ideal\nhome from whence, forty years after, he departed on a more mysterious\njourney than any on this planet. In a letter from thence to Percival, he\nhad claimed Arbuthnot as one of the converts to the \u201cnew Principle.\u201d\nPercival replied that Swift demurred to this, on which Berkeley rejoins:\n\u201cAs to what you say of Dr. Arbuthnot not being of my opinion, it is true\nthere has been some difference between us concerning some notions relating\nto the necessity of the laws of nature; but this does not touch the main\npoints of the non-existence of what philosophers call material substance;\nagainst which he acknowledges he can assert nothing.\u201d One would gladly\nhave got more than this from Berkeley, about what touched his favourite\nconception of the \u201carbitrariness\u201d of law in nature, as distinguished from\nthe \u201cnecessity\u201d which some modern physicists are ready vaguely to take for\ngranted.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe scene now changes. On October 15 Berkeley suddenly writes from London:\n\u201cI am on the eve of going to Sicily, as chaplain to Lord Peterborough, who\nis Ambassador Extraordinary on the coronation of the new king.\u201d He had\nbeen recommended by Swift to the Ambassador, one of the most extraordinary\ncharacters then in Europe, who a few years before had astonished the world\nin the war of the Succession in Spain, and afterwards by his genius as a\ndiplomatist: in Holland, nearly a quarter of a century before, he had\nformed an intimate friendship with John Locke. Ten months in France and\nItaly in the suite of Lord Peterborough brought the young Irish\nmetaphysician, who had lately been introduced to the wits of London and\nthe dons of Oxford, into a new world. It was to him the beginning of a\ncareer of wandering and social activity, which lasted, with little\ninterruption, for nearly twenty years, during which metaphysics and\nauthorship were in the background. On November 25 we find him in Paris,\nwriting letters to Percival and Prior. \u201cFrom London to Calais\u201d, he tells\nPrior, \u201cI came in company of a Flamand, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, and three\nEnglish servants of my Lord. The three gentlemen, being of three different\nnations, obliged me to speak the French language (which is now familiar),\nand gave me the opportunity of seeing much of the world in little\ncompass.... On November 1 (O.S.) I embarked in the stage-coach, with a\ncompany that were all perfect strangers to me. There were two Scotch, and\none English gentleman. One of the former happened to be the author of the\n_Voyage to St. Kilda_ and the _Account of the Western Isles_(7). We were\ngood company on the road; and that day se\u2019ennight came to Paris. I have\nsince been taken up in viewing churches, convents, palaces, colleges, &c.,\nwhich are very numerous and magnificent in this town. The splendour and\nriches of these things surpasses belief; but it were endless to descend to\nparticulars. I was present at a disputation in the Sorbonne, which indeed\nhad much of the French fire in it. I saw the Irish and the English\nColleges. In the latter I saw, enclosed in a coffin, the body of the late\nKing James.... To-morrow I intend to visit Father Malebranche, and\ndiscourse him on certain points.\u201d\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 D\u2019Aubign\u00e9, as he informs Percival, was to introduce him to\nMalebranche, then the chief philosopher of France, whose Vision of the\nworld in God had some affinity with Berkeley\u2019s own thought. Unfortunately\nwe have no record of the intended interview with the French idealist, who\nfourteen years before had been visited by Addison, also on his way to\nItaly, when Malebranche expressed great regard for the English nation, and\nadmiration for Newton; but he shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned,\nwhom he ventured to disparage as a \u201cpoor silly creature.\u201d Malebranche died\nnearly two years after Berkeley\u2019s proposed interview; and according to a\nstory countenanced by Dugald Stewart, Berkeley was the \u201coccasional cause\u201d\nof his death. He found the venerable Father, we are told, in a cell,\ncooking, in a pipkin, a medicine for a disorder with which he was\ntroubled. The conversation naturally turned on Berkeley\u2019s system, of which\nMalebranche had received some knowledge from a translation. The issue of\nthe debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of disputation\nhe raised his voice so high, and gave way so freely to the natural\nimpetuosity of a man of genius and a Frenchman, that he brought on a\nviolent increase of his disorder, which carried him off a few days\nafter(8). This romantic tale is, I suspect, mythical. The Percival\ncorrespondence shews that Berkeley was living in London in October, 1715,\nthe month in which Malebranche died, and I find no trace of a short sudden\nvisit to Paris at that time.\n\nAfter a month spent in Paris, another fortnight carried Berkeley and two\ntravelling companions to Italy through Savoy. They crossed Mont Cenis on\nNew Year\u2019s Day in 1714\u2014\u201cone of the most difficult and formidable parts of\nthe Alps which is ever passed over by mortal man,\u201d as he tells Prior in a\nletter from Turin. \u201cWe were carried in open chairs by men used to scale\nthese rocks and precipices, which at this season are more slippery and\ndangerous than at other times, and at the best are high, craggy, and steep\nenough to cause the heart of the most valiant man to melt within him.\u201d At\nthe end of other six weeks we find him at Leghorn, where he spent three\nmonths, \u201cwhile my lord was in Sicily.\u201d He \u201cprefers England or Ireland to\nItaly: the only advantage is in point of air.\u201d From Leghorn he writes in\nMay a complimentary letter to Pope, on the occasion of the _Rape of the\nLock_: \u201cStyle, painting, judgment, spirit, I had already admired in your\nother writings; but in this I am charmed with the magic of your invention,\nwith all those images, allusions, and inexplicable beauties which you\nraise so surprisingly, and at the same time so naturally, out of a\ntrifle.... I remember to have heard you mention some half-formed design of\ncoming to Italy. What might we not expect from a muse that sings so well\nin the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun and\nbreathed the same air with Virgil and Horace.\u201d In July we find Berkeley in\nParis on his way back to England. He had \u201cparted from Lord Peterborough at\nGenoa, where my lord took post for Turin, and thence designed passing over\nthe Alps, and so through Savoy, on his way to England.\u201d In August they are\nin London, where the aspect of English politics was changed by the death\nof the Queen in that month. He seems to have had a fever soon after his\nreturn. In October, Arbuthnot, in one of his chatty letters to Swift,\nwrites thus: \u201cPoor philosopher Berkeley has now the _idea_ of health,\nwhich was very hard to produce in him, for he had an _idea_ of a strange\nfever upon him, so strange that it was very hard to destroy it by\nintroducing a contrary one.\u201d\n\nOur record of the two following years is a long blank, first broken by a\nletter to Percival in July, 1715, dated at London. Whether he spent any\ntime at Fulham with Lord Peterborough after their return from Italy does\nnot appear, nor whether he visited Ireland in those years, which is not\nlikely. We have no glimpses of brilliant London society as in the\npreceding year. Steele was now in Parliament. Swift had returned to\nDublin, and Addison was the Irish chief secretary. But Pope was still at\nBinfield, among the glades of Windsor, and Berkeley congratulated him\nafter receiving the first volume of his _Homer_. Of his own literary\npursuits we hear nothing. Perhaps the Second Part of the _Principles_,\nwhich was lost afterwards in his travels, engaged him. In the end of July\nhe wrote to Lord Percival(9) from Flaxley(10) on the Severn; and in\nAugust, September, October, and November he wrote from London, chiefly\ninterested in reports about \u201cthe rebels in Scotland,\u201d and \u201cthe forces\nunder Lord Mar, which no doubt will languish and disperse in a little\ntime. The Bishop of Bristol assured me the other day that the Court expect\nthat the Duke of Orleans would, in case of need, supply them with forces\nagainst the Pretender.\u201d Our next glimpse of him is in May, 1716, when he\nwrites to Lord Percival that he is \u201clike soon to go to Ireland, the Prince\nof Wales having recommended him to the Lords Justices for the living of\nSt. Paul\u2019s in Dublin.\u201d This opening was soon closed, and the visit to\nIreland was abandoned. A groundless suspicion of Jacobitism was not\novercome by the interest of Caroline, Princess of Wales. In June, 1716,\nCharles Dering wrote from Dublin, that \u201cthe Lords Justices have made a\nstrong representation against him.\u201d He had to look elsewhere for the\nimmediate future.\n\nWe find him at Turin in November, 1716, with a fresh leave of absence for\ntwo years from his College. It seems that Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, had\nengaged him as travelling tutor to his son, a means not then uncommon for\nenabling young authors of moderate fortune to see new countries and mix\nwith society. Addison had visited Italy in this way sixteen years before,\nand Adam Smith long afterwards travelled with the young Duke of Buccleuch.\nWith young Ashe, Berkeley crossed Mont Cenis a second time. They reached\nRome at the beginning of 1717. His _Journal in Italy_ in that year, and\noccasional letters to Percival, Pope, and Arbuthnot, shew ardent interest\nin nature and art. With the widest views, \u201cthis very great though singular\nsort of man descended into a minute detail, and begrudged neither pains\nnor expense for the means of information. He travelled through a great\npart of Sicily on foot; clambered over the mountains and crept into the\ncaverns, to investigate its natural history and discover the causes of its\nvolcanoes; and I have known him sit for hours in forges and foundries to\ninspect their successive operations(11).\u201d If the _Journal_ had been\ntransformed by his own hand into a book, his letter to Pope from Inarime\nshews that the book might have rivalled Addison\u2019s _Remarks on Parts of\nItaly_ in grace of style and large human interest.\n\nIn the summer of 1720 we find the travellers at Florence, afterwards for\nsome time at Lyons, and in London at the beginning of the next year. On\nthe way home his metaphysical inspiration was revived. The \u201cCause of\nMotion\u201d had been proposed by the French Academy as the subject of a prize\ndissertation. The subject gave an opportunity for further unfolding his\nearly thought. In the _Principles_ and the _Dialogues_ he had argued for\nthe necessary dependence of matter, for its concrete substantial reality,\nupon living percipient mind. He would now shew its powerlessness as it is\npresented to us in sense. The material world, chiefly under the category\nof substance, inspired the _Principles_. The material world, under the\ncategory of cause or power, inspired the _De Motu_. This Latin Essay sums\nup the distinctive thought of Berkeley, as it appears in the authorship of\nhis early life. _Moles evolvit et agitat mentes_ might be taken as the\nformula of the materialism which he sought to dissolve. _Mens percipit et\nagitat molem significantem, cujus esse est percipi_ expresses what\nBerkeley would substitute for the materialistic formula.\n\nThe end of the summer of 1721 found Berkeley still in London. England was\nin the social agitation and misery consequent upon the failure of the\nSouth Sea Company, a gigantic commercial speculation connected with\nBritish trade in America. A new inspiration took possession of him. He\nthought he saw in this catastrophe signs of a decline in public morals\nworse than that which followed the Restoration. \u201cPolitical corruption\u201d,\n\u201cdecay of religion,\u201d \u201cgrowth of atheism,\u201d were descriptive words used by\nthe thoughtful. Berkeley\u2019s eager imagination was apt to exaggerate the\nevil. He became inspired by social idealism, and found vent for his\nfervour in _An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain_, which,\nas well as the _De Motu_, made its appearance in 1721. This _Essay_ is a\nsignificant factor in his career. It was the Cassandra wail of a sorrowful\nand indignant prophet, prepared to shake the dust from his feet, and to\ntransfer his eye of hope to other regions, in which a nearer approach to\nUtopia might be realised. The true personality of the individual is\nunrealisable in selfish isolation. His favourite _non sibi, sed toti\nmundo_ was henceforward more than ever the ruling maxim of his life.\n\n\n\n\nII. Middle Life (1722-34).\n\n\nIn October, 1721, Berkeley was in Dublin. The register of the College\nshews that \u201con November 14, 1721, Mr. Berkeley had the grace of the House\nfor the Degree of Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity.\u201d There is no ground for\nthe report that he returned to Ireland at this time as Chaplain to the\nDuke of Grafton, the Lord Lieutenant(12). But preferment in the Church\nseemed within his reach. \u201cI had no sooner set foot on shore,\u201d he wrote to\nPercival in that October, \u201cthan I heard that the Deanery of Dromore was\nvacant.\u201d Percival used his influence with the Lord Lieutenant, and in\nFebruary, 1722, Berkeley\u2019s patent was \u201cpassing the Seals for the Deanery\nof Dromore.\u201d But the Bishop of Dromore claimed the patronage, and this led\nto a protracted and ineffectual lawsuit, which took Berkeley to London in\nthe following winter, \u201cto see friends and inform himself of points of\nlaw,\u201d and he tells that \u201con the way he was nearly drowned in crossing to\nHolyhead(13).\u201d\n\nBerkeley\u2019s interest in church preferment was not personal. He saw in it\nonly means to an end. In March, 1723, he surprised Lord Percival by\nannouncing, in a letter from London, a project which it seems for some\ntime had occupied his thoughts. \u201cIt is now about ten months,\u201d he says,\n\u201csince I have determined to spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where\nI trust in Providence I may be the mean instrument of doing great good to\nmankind. Whatever happens, go I am resolved, if I live. Half a dozen of\nthe most ingenious and agreeable men in our College are with me in this\nproject, and since I came hither I have got together about a dozen\nEnglishmen of quality, who intend to retire to those islands.\u201d He then\nexplains the project, opening a vision of Christian civilisation radiating\nfrom those fair islands of the West, whose idyllic bliss poets had sung,\ndiffused over the New World, with its magnificent possibilities in the\nfuture history of mankind.\n\nI find no further record of the origin of this bright vision. As it had\nbecome a practical determination \u201cten months\u201d before March, 1723, one is\ncarried back to the first months after his return to Dublin and to the\n_Essay_ that was called forth by the South Sea catastrophe. One may\nconjecture that despair of England and the Old World\u2014\u201csuch as Europe\nbreeds in her decay\u201d\u2014led him to look westward for the hopeful future of\nmankind, moved, perhaps, by the connexion of the catastrophe with America.\nHis active imagination pictured a better Republic than Plato\u2019s, and a\ngrander Utopia than More\u2019s, emanating from a College in the isles of which\nWaller had sung.\n\nIn the meantime a curious fortune unexpectedly favoured him. Swift\u2019s\nunhappy Vanessa, associated with Bury Street in 1713, had settled on her\nproperty at Marley Abbey near Dublin; and Swift had privately married\nStella, as she confessed to Vanessa, who thereafter revoked the bequest of\nher fortune to Swift, and left it to be divided between Berkeley and\nMarshal, afterwards an Irish judge. Vanessa died in May, 1723. A few days\nafter Berkeley wrote thus to Lord Percival: \u201cHere is something that will\nsurprise your lordship as it doth me. Mrs. Hester Vanhomrigh, a lady to\nwhom I was a perfect stranger, having never in the whole course of my life\nexchanged a word with her, died on Sunday. Yesterday her Will was opened,\nby which it appears that I am constituted executor, the advantage whereof\nis computed by those who understand her affairs to be worth \u00a33000.... My\nBermuda scheme is now stronger in my mind than ever; this providential\nevent having made many things easy which were otherwise before.\u201d Lord\nPercival in reply concludes that he would \u201cpersist more than ever in that\nnoble scheme, which may in some time exalt your name beyond that of St.\nXavier and the most famous missionaries abroad.\u201d But he warns him that,\n\u201cwithout the protection of Government,\u201d he would encounter insurmountable\ndifficulties. The Vanessa legacy, and the obstructions in the way of the\nDeanery of Dromore, were the subjects of a tedious correspondence with his\nfriend and business factotum, \u201cTom Prior,\u201d in 1724 and the three following\nyears. In the end, the debts of Vanessa absorbed most of the legacy. And\nas to the Deanery of Dromore, he tells Percival, on September 19, 1723: \u201cI\ndespair of seeing it end to my advantage. The truth is, my fixed purpose\nof going to Bermuda sets me above soliciting anything with earnestness in\nthis part of the world. It can be of no use to me, but as it may enable me\nthe better to prosecute that design; and it must be owned that the present\npossession of something in the Church would make my application for an\nestablishment in those islands more considered.\u201d\n\nNevertheless, he got a Deanery at last. In May, 1724, he informs Lord\nPercival from Trinity College: \u201cYesterday I received my patent for the\nbest Deanery in the kingdom, that of Derry. It is said to be worth \u00a31500\nper annum. But as I do not consider it with an eye to enriching myself, so\nI shall be perfectly contented if it facilitates and recommends my scheme\nof Bermuda, which I am in hopes will meet with a better reception if it\ncomes from one possessed of so great a Deanery.\u201d In September he is on his\nway, not to Derry, but to London, \u201cto raise funds and obtain a Charter for\nthe Bermuda College from George the First,\u201d fortified by a remarkable\nletter from Swift to Lord Carteret, the new Lord Lieutenant, who was then\nin Bath(14). As Swift predicted in this letter, Berkeley\u2019s conquests\nspread far and fast in England, where he organised his resources during\nthe four following years. Nothing shews more signally the magic of his\npersonality than the story of his life in London in those years of\nnegotiation and endeavour. The proposal met with a response wonderful in a\ngeneration represented by Walpole. The subscriptions soon reached five\nthousand pounds, and Walpole was among the subscribers. The Scriblerus\nClub, meeting at Lord Bathurst\u2019s, agreed to rally Berkeley, who was among\nthem, on his Bermuda scheme. He asked to be heard in defence, and\npresented the case with such force of enthusiasm that the company \u201cwere\nstruck dumb, and after a pause simultaneously rose and asked leave to\naccompany him.\u201d Bermuda for a time inspired London.\n\nBerkeley was not satisfied with this. He remembered what Lord Percival had\nsaid about failure without help from Government. Accordingly he obtained a\nCharter from George the First early in 1726, and after canvassing the\nHouse of Commons, secured a grant of \u00a320,000, with only two dissentient\nvotes, in May of that year. This was the beginning of his difficulties.\nPayment was indefinitely delayed, and he was kept negotiating; besides,\nwith the help of Prior, he was unravelling legal perplexities in which the\nVanessa legacy was involved. It was in these years that he was seen at the\nreceptions of Caroline at Leicester Fields, when she was Princess of\nWales, and afterwards at St. James\u2019s or at Kensington, when she became\nQueen in 1727; not, he says, because he loved Courts, but because he loved\nAmerica. Clarke was still rector of St. James\u2019s, and Butler had not yet\nmigrated to his parsonage at Stanhope; so their society was open to him.\nThe Queen liked to listen to a philosophical discussion. Ten years before,\nas Princess of Wales, she had been a royal go-between in the famous\ncorrespondence between Clarke and Leibniz. And now, Berkeley being in\nLondon, he too was asked to her weekly reunions, when she loved to hear\nClarke arguing with Berkeley, or Berkeley arguing with Hoadley. Also in\n1726 Voltaire made his lengthened visit to England, a familiar figure in\nthe circle of Pope\u2019s friends, attracted to the philosophy of Locke and\nNewton; and Voltaire mentions that he met \u201cthe discoverer of the true\ntheory of vision\u201d during his stay in London.\n\nFrom the summer of 1727 until the spring of 1728 there is no extant\ncorrespondence either with Percival or \u201cTom Prior\u201d to throw light on his\nmovements. In February, 1728, he was still in London, but he \u201choped to set\nout for Dublin in March, and to America in May.\u201d There is a mystery about\nthis visit to Dublin. \u201cI propose to set out for Dublin about a month\nhence,\u201d he writes to \u201cdear Tom,\u201d \u201cbut of this you must not give the least\nintimation to anybody. It is of all things my earnest desire (and for very\ngood reasons) not to have it known that I am in Dublin. Speak not,\ntherefore, one syllable of it to any mortal whatsoever. When I formerly\ndesired you to take a place for me near the town, you gave out that you\nwere looking for a retired lodging for a friend of yours; upon which\neverybody surmised me to be the person. I must beg you not to act in the\nlike manner now, but to take for me an entire house in your own name, and\nas for yourself; for, all things considered, I am determined upon a whole\nhouse, with no mortal in it but a maid of your own putting, who is to look\non herself as your servant. Let there be two bed-chambers: one for you,\nanother for me; and, as you like, you may ever and anon lie there. I would\nhave the house, with necessary furniture, taken by the month (or\notherwise, as you can), for I propose staying not beyond that time; and\nyet perhaps I may. Take it as soon as possible.... Let me entreat you to\nsay nothing of this to anybody, but to do the thing directly.... I would\nof all things ... have a proper place in a retired situation, where I may\nhave access to fields and sweet air provided against the moment I arrive.\nI am inclined to think one may be better concealed in the outermost skirt\nof the suburbs, than in the country or within the town.... A house quite\ndetached in the country I should have no objection to, provided you judge\nthat I shall not be liable to discovery in it. The place called Bermuda I\nam utterly against. Dear Tom, do this matter cleanly and cleverly, without\nwaiting for further advice.... To the person from whom you hire it (whom\nalone I would have you speak of it to) it will not seem strange you should\nat this time of the year be desirous, for your own convenience or health,\nto have a place in a free and open air.\u201d This mysterious letter was\nwritten in April. From April till September Berkeley again disappears.\nThere is in all this a curious secretiveness of which one has repeated\nexamples in his life. Whether he went to Dublin in that spring, or why he\nwanted to go, does not appear.\n\nBut in September he emerges unexpectedly at Gravesend, newly married, and\nready to sail for Rhode Island, \u201cin a ship of 250 tons which he had\nhired.\u201d The marriage, according to Stock, took place on August 1, whether\nin Ireland or in England I cannot tell. The lady was Anne, daughter of\nJohn Forster, late Chief Justice, and then Speaker of the Irish House of\nCommons. She shared his fortune when he was about to engage in the most\nromantic, and ideally the grandest, Christian mission of the eighteenth\ncentury. According to tradition she was a devoutly religious mystic:\nF\u00e9nelon and Madame Guyon were among her favourites. \u201cI chose her,\u201d he\ntells Lord Percival, \u201cfor her qualities of mind and her unaffected\ninclination to books. She goes with great thankfulness, to live a plain\nfarmer\u2019s life, and wear stuff of her own spinning. I have presented her\nwith a spinning-wheel.\u201d A letter to Prior, dated \u201cGravesend September 5,\n1728,\u201d thus describes the little party on the eve of their\ndeparture:\u2014\u201cTo-morrow, with God\u2019s blessing, I set sail for Rhode Island,\nwith my wife and a friend of hers, my Lady Handcock\u2019s daughter, who bears\nus company. I am married since I saw you to Miss Forster, whose humour and\nturn of mind pleases me beyond anything that I know in her whole sex. Mr.\nJames(15), Mr. Dalton, and Mr. Smibert(16) go with us on this voyage. We\nare now all together at Gravesend, and are engaged in one view.\u201d We are\nfurther told(17) that they carried stores and goods to a great value, and\nthat the Dean \u201cembarked 20,000 books, besides what the two gentlemen\ncarried. They sailed in September for Rhode Island, where the Dean intends\nto winter, and to purchase an estate, in order to settle a correspondence\nand trade between that island and Bermudas.\u201d Berkeley was in his\nforty-fourth year, when, full of glowing visions of Christian Empire in\nthe West, \u201cTime\u2019s noblest offspring,\u201d he left England, on his way to\nBermuda, with the promise of Sir Robert Walpole that he should receive the\npromised grant after he had made an investment. He bought land in America,\nbut he never reached Bermuda.\n\nTowards the end of January, in 1729, the little party, in the \u201chired ship\nof 250 tons,\u201d made their appearance in Narragansett Bay, on the western\nside of Rhode Island. \u201cBlundering about the ocean,\u201d they had touched at\nVirginia on the way, whence a correspondent, sceptical of the enterprise,\ninforms Lord Percival that the Dean \u201chad dined with the Governor, and\nvisited our College,\u201d but thinks that \u201cwhen the Dean comes to put his\nvisionary scheme into practice, he will find it no better than a religious\nfrenzy,\u201d and that \u201che is as much a Don Quixote in zeal as that renowned\nknight was in chivalry. I wish the good Dean may not find out at last that\nWaller really kidnapt him over to Bermuda, and that the project he has\nbeen drawn into may not prove in every point of it poetical.\u201d\n\nWe have a picture of the landing at Newport, on a winter day early in\n1729. \u201cYesterday arrived here Dean Berkeley of Londonderry, in a pretty\nlarge ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable,\npleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered into the town with a great\nnumber of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant\nmanner. \u2019Tis said he proposes to tarry here with his family about three\nmonths(18).\u201d Newport was then a flourishing town, nearly a century old, an\nemporium of American commerce, in those days the rival of Boston and New\nYork. He was \u201cnever more agreeably surprised,\u201d he says, than \u201cat the size\nof the town and harbour.\u201d Around him was some of the softest rural and\ngrandest ocean scenery in the world, which had fresh charms even for one\nwhose boyhood was spent in the valley of the Nore, who had lingered in the\nBay of Naples, and wandered in Inarime and among the mountains of Sicily.\nHe was seventy miles from Boston, and about as far from Newhaven and Yale\nCollege. A range of hills crosses the centre of the island, whence meadows\nslope to the rocky shore. The Gulf Stream tempers the surrounding sea.\n\u201cThe people,\u201d he tells Percival, \u201care industrious; and though less\northodox have not less virtue, and I am sure they have more regularity,\nthan those I left in Europe. They are indeed a strange medley of different\npersuasions.\u201d The gentry retained the customs of the squires in England:\ntradition tells of a cheerful society: the fox chase, with hounds and\nhorses, was a favourite recreation. The society, for so remote a region,\nwas well informed. The family libraries and pictures which remain argue\nculture and refinement. Smibert, the artist of the missionary party, who\nhad moved to Boston, soon found employment in America, and his pictures\nstill adorn houses in Rhode Island(19).\n\nThe Dean and his young wife lived in Newport for some months after their\narrival. Mr. Honeyman, a missionary of the English Society, had been\nplaced there, in Trinity Church, in 1704. The church is still a\nconspicuous object from the harbour. Berkeley preached in it three days\nafter his arrival, and occasionally afterwards. Notes of his sermons are\nincluded in this edition among his Miscellaneous Works.\n\nIn the summer of 1729 he moved from Newport to a quiet valley in the\ninterior of the island, where he bought a farm, and built a house. In this\nisland-home, named Whitehall, he lived for more than two years\u2014years of\ndomestic happiness, and of resumed study, much interrupted since he left\nDublin in 1713. The house may still be seen, a little aside from the road\nthat runs eastward from Newport, about three miles from the town. It is\nbuilt of wood. The south-west room was probably the library. The ocean is\nseen in the distance, while orchards and groves offer the shade and\nsilence which soothed the thinker in his recluse life. No invitations of\nthe three companions of his voyage(20), who had migrated to Boston, could\nallure him from this retreat, where he diverted his anxieties about\nBermuda by the thoughts which found expression in the dialogues of\n_Alciphron_, redolent of Rhode Island and the invigorating breezes of its\nocean shore. Tradition tells that much of _Alciphron_ was the issue of\nmeditation in the open air, at a favourite retreat, beneath the Hanging\nRocks, which commands an extensive view of the beach and the ocean; and\nthe chair in which he sat in this alcove is still preserved with\nveneration.\n\nWhile Berkeley loved domestic quiet at Whitehall(21) and the \u201cstill air of\ndelightful studies,\u201d he mixed occasionally in the society of Newport. He\nfound it not uncongenial, and soon after he was settled at Whitehall he\nled the way in forming a club, which held occasional meetings, the germ of\nthe Redwood Library, still a useful Newport institution. His own house was\na place of meeting for the New England missionaries.\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n             Whitehall, Berkeley\u2019s Residence in Rhode Island\n\n\nSoon after his arrival in Rhode Island, Berkeley was visited by the\nReverend Samuel Johnson, missionary at Stratford, an acute and independent\nthinker, one of the two contemporary representatives of philosophy in\nAmerica. The other was Jonathan Edwards, at that time Congregational\nminister at Northampton on the Connecticut river. They had both adopted a\nconception of the meaning and office of the material world in the economy\nof existence that was in many respects similar to Berkeley\u2019s(22). It seems\nthat Berkeley\u2019s book of _Principles_ had before this fallen into Johnson\u2019s\nhands. He hastened to visit the author when he heard of his arrival. A\nsuccession of visits and a life-long correspondence followed. The\n\u201cnon-existence of Matter,\u201d interpreted as a whimsical and even insane\nparadox, was found by Johnson to mean the absence of unrealisable\nSubstance behind the real material world that is presented to our senses,\nand of unrealisable Power in the successive sense-presented appearances of\nwhich alone we are percipient. He came to see the real existence of the\nthings of sense in the constant order of the data of sense, through which\nwe gain our knowledge of the existence of our fellow men, and of the\nomnipresent constant Providence of God; whose Ideas are the true\narchetypes of the visible world. He adopted and applied this conception\nwith a lucidity and force which give him a high place among American\nthinkers.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAll the while a cloud darkened the recluse life at Whitehall. In June,\n1729, Berkeley explains to Percival the circumstances and secrecy of his\ndeparture from England:\u2014\n\n\u201cBefore I left England I was reduced to a difficult situation. Had I\ncontinued there, the report would have obtained (which I had found\nbeginning to spread) that I had dropped the design, after it had cost me\nand my friends so much trouble and expense. On the other hand, if I had\ntaken leave of my friends, even those who assisted and approved my\nundertaking would have condemned my coming abroad before the King\u2019s bounty\nwas received. This obliged me to come away in the private manner that I\ndid, and to run the risque of a tedious winter voyage. Nothing less would\nhave convinced the world that I was in earnest, after the report I knew\nwas growing to the contrary.\u201d\n\nMonths passed, and Walpole\u2019s promise was still unfulfilled. \u201cI wait here,\u201d\nhe tells Lord Percival in March, 1730, \u201cwith all the anxiety that attends\nsuspense, until I know what I can depend upon, or what course I am to\ntake. On the one hand I have no notion that the Court would put what men\ncall a _bite_ upon a poor clergyman, who depended upon charters, grants,\nvotes, and the like engagements. On the other hand, I see nothing done\ntowards payment of the money.\u201d Later on he writes\u2014\u201cAs for the raillery of\nEuropean wits, I should not mind it, if I saw my College go on and\nprosper; but I must own the disappointments I have met with in this\nparticular have nearly touched me, not without affecting my health and\nspirits. If the founding a College for the spread of religion and learning\nin America had been a foolish project, it cannot be supposed the Court,\nthe Ministers, and the Parliament would have given such public\nencouragement to it; and if, after all that encouragement, they who\nengaged to endow and protect it let it drop, the disappointment indeed may\nbe to me, but the censure, I think, will light elsewhere.\u201d\n\nThe suspense was at last ended. Gibson, the Bishop of London, pressed\nWalpole for a final answer. \u201cIf,\u201d he replied, \u201cyou put this question to me\nas a Minister, I must, and can, assure you that the money shall most\nundoubtedly be paid, as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you\nask me as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America\nexpecting the payment of twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means\nto return home to Europe, and to give up his present expectations.\u201d It was\nthus that in 1731 the Prime Minister of England crushed the project\nconceived ten years before, and to which the intervening period had, under\nhis encouragement, been devoted by the projector with a singular\nenthusiasm.\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                     Berkeley\u2019s Alcove, Rhode Island\n\n\nA few months after this heavy blow, Berkeley, with his wife, and Henry\ntheir infant child, bade farewell to the island home. They sailed from\nBoston in the late autumn of 1731, and in the following February we find\nthem in London. Thus ended the romantic episode of Rhode Island, with its\nideal of Christian civilisation, which so moves the heart and touches the\nimagination in our retrospect of the eighteenth century. Of all who have\never landed on the American shore, none was ever moved by a purer and more\nself-sacrificing spirit. America still acknowledges that by Berkeley\u2019s\nvisit on this mission it has been invested with the halo of an illustrious\nname, and associated with religious devotion to a magnificent ideal, even\nif it was sought to be realised by impracticable means. To reform the New\nWorld, and mankind at last, by a College on an island in the Atlantic, six\nhundred miles from America, the Indians whom it was intended to civilise\nbeing mostly in the interior of the continent, and none in Bermuda, was\nnot unnaturally considered Quixotic; and that it was at first supported by\nthe British Court and Parliament is a wonderful tribute to the persuasive\ngenius of the projector. Perhaps he was too much influenced by Lord\nPercival\u2019s idea, that it could not be realised by private benevolence,\nwithout the intervention of the Crown. But the indirect influence of\nBerkeley\u2019s American inspiration is apparent in many ways in the\nintellectual and spiritual life of that great continent, during the last\ncentury and a half, especially by the impulse given to academical\neducation. It is the testimony of an American author that, \u201cby methods\ndifferent from those intended by Berkeley, and in ways more manifold than\neven he could have dreamed, he has since accomplished, and through all\ncoming time, by a thousand ineffaceable influences, he will continue to\naccomplish, some portion at least of the results which he had aimed at in\nthe founding of his university. It is the old story over again; the\ntragedy of a Providence wiser than man\u2019s foresight; God giving the victory\nto His faithful servant even through the bitterness of overruling him and\ndefeating him(23).\u201d American Empire, as we now see it with its boundless\nbeneficent influence, is at least an imperfect realisation of Berkeley\u2019s\ndream.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBerkeley\u2019s head quarters were in London, in Green Street, for more than\ntwo years after the return to England in the beginning of 1732. Extant\ncorrespondence with Lord Percival ends in Rhode Island, and our picture of\nthe two years in London is faintly formed by letters to Prior and Johnson.\nThese speak of ill-health, and breathe a less sanguine spirit. The\nbrilliant social life of former visits was less attractive now, even if\nold friends had remained. But Swift had quitted England for ever, and\nSteele had followed Addison to the grave. Gay, the common friend of\nBerkeley and Pope, died soon after the return from Rhode Island, and\nArbuthnot was approaching his end at Hampstead. Samuel Clarke had passed\naway when Berkeley was at Whitehall; but Seeker now held the rectory of\nSt. James\u2019s, and Butler was in studious retirement on the Wear; while Pope\nwas at Twickenham, publishing his _Essay on Man_, receiving visits from\nBolingbroke, or visiting Lord Bathurst at Cirencester Park. Queen\nCaroline, too, was holding her receptions at Kensington; but \u201cthose who\nimagine (as you write),\u201d he tells Prior in January, 1734, \u201cthat I have\nbeen making my court here all this time, would never believe (what is most\ntrue) that I have not been at the Court or at the Minister\u2019s but once\nthese seven years. The care of my health and the love of retirement have\nprevailed over whatsoever ambition might have come to my share.\u201d There is\na hint of a visit to Oxford, at Commemoration in 1733, when his friend\nSeeker received the honorary degree.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nSoon after he had settled in London, the fruit of his studies in Rhode\nIsland was given to the world in the Seven Dialogues of _Alciphron, or The\nMinute Philosopher_. Here the philosophical inspiration of his early years\nis directed to sustain faith in Divine Moral Order, and in the Christian\nRevelation. _Alciphron_ is the longest, and in literary form perhaps the\nmost finished of his works, unsurpassed in lively strokes of irony and\nsatire. Yet if it is to be regarded as a philosophical justification of\nreligion, as against modern agnosticism, one may incline to the judgment\nof Mr. Leslie Stephen, that it is \u201cthe least admirable of all its author\u2019s\nadmirable works.\u201d As we have seen, the sect of free-thinkers was early the\nobject of Berkeley\u2019s ridicule and sarcasm. They claimed for themselves\nwide intellectual vision, yet they were blind to the deep realities of the\nuniverse; they took exclusive credit for freedom of thought, although\ntheir thinking was confined within the narrow compass of our data in\nsense. The book of _Principles_, the _Dialogues_, and the _De Motu_ of his\nearly years, were designed to bring into clear light the absolute\ndependence of the world that is presented to our senses on Omnipresent\nSpirit; and the necessary subjection of all changes in our surroundings to\nthe immediate agency or providence of God. Boasted \u201cfree-thinking\u201d was\nreally a narrow atheism, so he believed, in which meaningless Matter\nusurped the place that belonged in reason to God, and he employed reason\nto disclose Omnipotent Intelligence in and behind the phenomena that are\npresented to the senses in impotent natural sequence.\n\nThe causes of the widespread moral corruption of the Old World, which had\nmoved Berkeley so profoundly, seem to have been pondered anew during his\nrecluse life in Rhode Island. The decline of morals was explained by the\ndeification of Matter: consequent life of sensuous pleasure accounted for\ndecay of religion. That vice is hurtful was argued by free-thinkers like\nMandeville to be a vulgar error, and a fallacious demonstration was\noffered of its utility. That virtue is intrinsically beautiful was taught\nby Shaftesbury; but Berkeley judged the abstract beauty, with which\n\u201cminute philosophers\u201d were contented, unfit to move ordinary human beings\nto self-sacrificing action; for this involves devotion to a Perfect Person\nby whom goodness is finally distributed. Religion alone inspires the\nlarger and higher life, in presenting distributive justice personified on\nthe throne of the universe, instead of abstract virtue.\n\nThe turning-point in _Alciphron_ is in man\u2019s vision of God. This is\npressed in the Fourth Dialogue. The free-thinker asserts that \u201cthe notion\nof a Deity, or some invisible power, is of all prejudices the most\nunconquerable; the most signal example of belief without reason for\nbelieving.\u201d He demands proof\u2014\u201csuch proof as every man of sense requires of\na matter of fact.... Should a man ask, why I believe there is a king of\nGreat Britain? I might answer, Because I had seen him. Or a king of Spain?\nBecause I had seen those who saw him. But as for this King of kings, I\nneither saw Him myself, nor any one else that ever did see Him.\u201d To which\nEuphranor replies, \u201cWhat if it should appear that God really speaks to\nman; would this content you? What if it shall appear plainly that God\nspeaks to men by the intervention and use of arbitrary, outward, sensible\nsigns, having no resemblance or necessary connexion with the things they\nstand for and suggest; if it shall appear that, by innumerable\ncombinations of these signs, an endless variety of things is discovered\nand made known to us; and that we are thereby instructed or informed in\ntheir different natures; that we are taught and admonished what to shun\nand what to pursue; and are directed how to regulate our motions, and how\nto act with respect to things distant from us, as well in time as place:\nwill this content you?\u201d Euphranor accordingly proceeds to shew that\nVisible Nature is a Language, in which the Universal Power that is\ncontinually at work is speaking to us all, in a way similar to that in\nwhich our fellow men speak to us; so that we have as much (even more)\nreason to believe in the existence of the Universal Person who is the\nSpeaker, as we have to believe in the existence of persons around us; who\nbecome known to us, when they too employ sense-symbols, in the words and\nactions by which we discover that we are not alone in the universe. For\nmen are really living spirits: their _bodies_ are only the sign of their\nspiritual personality. And it is so with God, who is also revealed in the\nvisible world as a Spirit. \u201cIn a strict sense,\u201d says Euphranor, \u201cI do not\nsee Alciphron, but only such visible signs and tokens as suggest and infer\nthe being of that invisible thinking principle or soul. Even so, in the\nself-same manner, it seems to me that, though I cannot with eyes of flesh\nbehold the invisible God, yet I do, in the strictest sense, behold and\nperceive, by all my senses, such signs and tokens ... as suggest,\nindicate, and demonstrate an invisible God as certainly, and with the same\nevidence, at least, as any other signs, perceived by sense, do suggest to\nme the existence of _your_ soul, spirit, or thinking principle; which I am\nconvinced of only by a few signs or effects, and the motions of one small\norganised body; whereas I do, at all times, and in all places, perceive\nsensible signs which evince the being of God.\u201d In short, God is the living\nSoul of the Universe; as you and I are the living souls that keep our\nbodies and their organs in significant motion. We can interpret the\ncharacter of God in the history of the universe, even as we can interpret\nthe character of our neighbour by observing his words and outward actions.\n\nThis overwhelmed Alciphron. \u201cYou stare to find that God is not far from\nany one of us, and that in Him we live and move and have our being,\u201d\nrejoins Euphranor. \u201cYou who, in the beginning of this conference, thought\nit strange that God should leave Himself without a witness, do now think\nit strange the witness should be so full and clear.\u201d \u201cI must own I do,\u201d\nwas the reply. \u201cI never imagined it could be pretended that we saw God\nwith our fleshly eyes, as plain as we see any human person whatsoever, and\nthat He daily speaks to our senses in a manifest and clear dialect.\u201d\n\nAlthough this reasoning satisfied Alciphron, others may think it\ninconclusive. How one is able to discover the existence of other persons,\nand even the meaning of finite personality, are themselves questions full\nof speculative difficulty. But, waiving this, the analogy between the\nrelation of a human spirit to its body, and that of the Omnipresent and\nOmnipotent Spirit to the Universe of things and persons, fails in several\nrespects. God is supposed to be continually creating the world by constant\nand continuous Providence, and His Omniscience is supposed to comprehend\nall its concrete relations: a man\u2019s body is not absolutely dependent on\nthe man\u2019s own power and providence; and even his scientific knowledge of\nit, in itself and in its relations, is scanty and imperfect, as his power\nover it is limited and conditioned. Then the little that a man gradually\nlearns of what is going on in the surrounding universe is dependent on his\nsenses: Omniscience comprehends Immensity and Eternity (so we suppose) in\na single intuition. Our bodies, moreover, are visible things: the\nuniverse, this organism of God, is crowded with _persons_, to whom there\nis nothing corresponding within the organism which reveals one man to\nanother.\n\nBut this is not all. After Euphranor has found that the Universal Power is\nUniversal Spirit, this is still an inadequate God; for what we want to\nknow is what _sort_ of Spirit God is. Is God omnipotent or of limited\npower, regarded ethically, fair or unfair in His treatment of persons;\ngood or evil, according to the highest yet attained conception of\ngoodness; a God of love, or a devil omnipotent? I infer the _character_ of\nmy neighbour from his words and actions, patent to sense in the gradual\noutward evolution of his life. I am asked to infer the _character_ of the\nOmnipresent Spirit from _His_ words and actions, manifested in the\nuniverse of things and persons. But we must not attribute to the Cause\nmore than it reveals of itself in its effects. God and men alike are known\nby the effects they produce. The Universal Power is, on this condition,\nrighteous, fair, and loving to the degree in which those conceptions are\nimplied in His visible embodiment: to affirm more or other than this, on\nthe basis of analogy _alone_, is either to indulge in baseless conjecture,\nor to submit blindly to dogma and authority.\n\nNow the universe, as far as it comes within the range of human experience\non this planet, is full of suffering and moral disorder. The \u201creligious\nhypothesis\u201d of a perfectly righteous and benevolent God is here offered to\naccount for the appearances which the universe presents to us. But do\nthese signify exact distributive justice? Is not visible nature apparently\ncruel and unrelenting? If we infer cruelty in the character of a man,\nbecause his bodily actions cause undeserved suffering, must we not, by\nthis analogy, infer in like manner regarding the character of the Supreme\nSpirit, manifested in the progressive evolution of the universal organism?\n\nWe find it impossible to determine with absolute certainty the character\neven of our fellow men, from their imperfectly interpreted words and\nactions, so that each man is more or less a mystery to his fellows. The\nmystery deepens when we try to read the character of animals,\u2014to interpret\nthe motives which determine the overt acts of dogs or horses. And if we\nwere able to communicate by visible signs with the inhabitants of other\nplanets, with how much greater difficulty should we draw conclusions from\ntheir visible acts regarding _their_ character? But if this is so when we\nuse the data of sense for reading the character of finite persons, how\ninfinite must be the difficulty of reading the character of the Eternal\nSpirit, in and through the gradual evolution of the universe of things and\npersons, which in this reasoning is supposed to be His body; and the\nhistory of that universe the facts of His biography, in and by which He is\neternally revealing Himself! For we know nothing about the unbeginning and\nunending. The universe of persons is assumed to have no _end_; and I know\nnot why its evolution must be supposed to have had a _beginning_, or that\nthere ever was a time in which God was unmanifested, to finite persons.\n\nShall we in these circumstances turn with Euphranor, in the Fifth and\nSixth Dialogues, to professed revelation of the character of the Universal\nMind presented in miraculous revelation, by inspired prophets and\napostles, who are brought forward as authorities able to speak infallibly\nto the _character_ of God? If the whole course of nature, or endless\nevolution of events, is the Divine Spirit revealed in omnipresent\nactivity, what room is there for any other less regular revelation? The\nuniverse of common experience, it is implied by Berkeley, is essentially\nmiraculous, and therefore absolutely perfect. Is it consistent with\nfairness, and benevolence, and love of goodness in all moral agents for\nits own sake, that the Christian revelation should have been so long\ndelayed, and be still so incompletely made known? Is not the existence of\nwicked persons on this or any other planet, wicked men or devils, a dark\nspot in the visible life of God? Does not perfect goodness in God mean\nrestoration of goodness in men, for its own sake, apart from their merit;\nand must not Omnipotent Goodness, infinitely opposite to all evil, either\nconvert to goodness all beings in the universe who have made themselves\nbad, or else relieve the universe of their perpetual presence in\never-increasing wickedness?\n\nSceptical criticism of this sort has found expression in the searching\nminute philosophy of a later day than Berkeley\u2019s and Alciphron\u2019s; as in\nDavid Hume and Voltaire, and in the agnosticism of the nineteenth century.\nWas not Euphranor too ready to yield to the demand for a visible God,\nwhose character had accordingly to be determined by what appears in nature\nand man, under the conditions of our limited and contingent experience? Do\nwe not need to look below data of sensuous experience, and among the\npresuppositions which must consciously or unconsciously be taken for\ngranted in all man\u2019s dealings with the environment in which he finds\nhimself, for the root of _trustworthy_ experience? On merely physical\nreasoning, like that of Euphranor, the righteous love of God is an\nunwarranted inference, and it even seems to be contradicted by visible\nfacts presented in the history of the world. But if Omnipotent Goodness\nmust _a priori_ be attributed to the Universal Mind, as an indispensable\ncondition for man\u2019s having reliable intercourse of any sort with nature;\nif this is the primary postulate necessary to the existence of truth of\nany kind\u2014then the \u201creligious hypothesis\u201d that God is Good, according to\nthe highest conception of goodness, is no groundless fancy, but the\nfundamental faith-venture in which man has to live. It _must_ stand in\nreason; unless it can be _demonstrated_ that the mixture of good and evil\nwhich the universe presents, necessarily contradicts this fundamental\npresupposition: and if so, man is lost in pessimistic Pyrrhonism, and can\nassert nothing about anything(24).\n\nThe religious altruism, however inadequate, which Berkeley offered in\n_Alciphron_ made some noise at the time of its appearance, although its\ntheistic argument was too subtle to be popular. The conception of the\nvisible world as Divine Visual Language was \u201creceived with ridicule by\nthose who make ridicule the test of truth,\u201d although it has made way\nsince. \u201cI have not seen Dean Berkeley,\u201d Gay the poet writes to Swift in\nthe May following the Dean\u2019s return, and very soon after the appearance of\n_Alciphron_, \u201cbut I have been reading his book, and like many parts of it;\nbut in general think with you that it is too speculative.\u201d Warburton, with\nadmiration for Berkeley, cannot comprehend his philosophy, and Hoadley\nshewed a less friendly spirit. _A Letter from a Country Clergyman_,\nattributed to Lord Hervey, the \u201cSporus\u201d of Pope, was one of several\nephemeral attacks which the _Minute Philosopher_ encountered in the year\nafter its appearance. Three other critics, more worthy of consideration,\nare mentioned in one of Berkeley\u2019s letters from London to his American\nfriend Johnson at Stratford: \u201cAs to the Bishop of Cork\u2019s book, and the\nother book you allude to, the author of which is one Baxter, they are both\nvery little considered here; for which reason I have taken no public\nnotice of them. To answer objections already answered, and repeat the same\nthings, is a needless as well as disagreeable task. Nor should I have\ntaken notice of that Letter about Vision, had it not been printed in a\nnewspaper, which gave it course, and spread it through the kingdom.\nBesides, the theory of Vision I found was somewhat obscure to most people;\nfor which reason I was not displeased at an opportunity to explain\nit(25).\u201d The explanation was given in _The Theory of Visual Language\nVindicated_, in January, 1733, as a supplement to _Alciphron_. Its blot is\na tone of polemical bitterness directed against Shaftesbury(26).\n\nAlthough Berkeley \u201ctook no public notice\u201d of \u201cthe Bishop of Cork\u2019s\nbook(27)\u201d it touched a great question, which periodically has awakened\ncontroversy, and been the occasion of mutual misunderstanding among the\ncontroversialists in past ages. \u201cIs God knowable by man; or must religion\nbe devotion to an object that is unknowable?\u201d In one of his first letters\nto Lord Percival, as we saw, Berkeley animadverted on a sermon by the\nArchbishop of Dublin, which seemed to deny that there was goodness, or\nunderstanding God, any more than feet or hands. An opinion somewhat\nsimilar had been attributed to Bishop Browne, in his answer to Toland, and\nafterwards in 1728, in his _Procedure and Limits of Human Understanding_.\n\nThis touched to the quick Berkeley\u2019s ultimate conception of the universe,\nas realisable only in, and therefore necessarily dependent on, living\nmind. We are reminded of the famous analogy of Spinoza(28). If the\nomnipresent and omnipotent Mind, on which Euphranor rested, can be called\n\u201cmind\u201d only metaphorically, and can be called \u201cgood\u201d only when the term is\nused without human meaning, it may seem to be a matter of indifference\nwhether we have unknowable Matter or unknowable Mind at the root of things\nand persons. Both are empty words. The Power universally at work is\nequally unintelligible, equally unfit to be the object of worship in the\nfinal venture of faith, whether we use the term Matter or the term Mind.\nThe universe is neither explained nor sustained by a \u201cmind\u201d that is mind\nonly metaphorically. To call this \u201cGod\u201d is to console us with an empty\nabstraction. The minutest philosopher is ready to grant with Alciphron\nthat \u201cthere is a God in this indefinite sense\u201d; since nothing can be\ninferred from such an account of God about conduct or religion.\n\nThe Bishop of Cork replied to the strictures of Euphranor in the _Minute\nPhilosopher_. He qualified and explained his former utterances in some two\nhundred dull pages of his _Divine Analogy_, which hardly touch the root of\nthe matter. The question at issue is the one which underlies modern\nagnosticism. It was raised again in Britain in the nineteenth century,\nwith deeper insight, by Sir William Hamilton; followed by Dean Mansel, in\ncontroversy with F. D. Maurice, at the point of view of Archbishop King\nand Bishop Browne, in philosophical vindication of the mysteries of\nChristian faith; by Mr. Herbert Spencer and by Huxley in a minute\nphilosophy that has been deepened by Hume\u2019s criticism of the rationale of\ntheism in Berkeley(29).\n\nAndrew Baxter\u2019s _Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul_, referred to\nin Berkeley\u2019s letter to Johnson, appeared in 1733. It has a chapter on\n\u201cDean Berkeley\u2019s Scheme against the existence of Matter and a Material\nWorld,\u201d which is worthy of mention because it is the earliest elaborate\ncriticism of the New Principle, although it had then been before the world\nfor more than twenty years. The title of the chapter shews Baxter\u2019s\nimperfect comprehension of the proposition which he attempts to refute. It\nsuggests that Berkeley argued for the non-existence of the things we see\nand touch, instead of for their necessary dependence on, or subordination\nto, realising percipient Mind, so far as they are concrete realities.\nBaxter, moreover, was a Scot; and his criticism is interesting as a\nforetaste of the protracted discussion of the \u201cideal theory\u201d by Reid and\nhis friends, and later on by Hamilton. But Baxter\u2019s book was not the first\nsign of Berkeley\u2019s influence in Scotland. We are told by Dugald Stewart,\nthat \u201cthe novelty of Berkeley\u2019s paradox attracted very powerfully the\nattention of a set of young men who were then prosecuting their studies at\nEdinburgh, who formed themselves into a Society for the express purpose of\nsoliciting from him an explanation of some parts of his theory which\nseemed to them obscurely or equivocally expressed. To this correspondence\nthe amiable and excellent prelate seems to have given every encouragement;\nand I have been told on the best authority that he was accustomed to say\nthat his reasoning had been nowhere better understood than by this club of\nyoung Scotsmen(30).\u201d Thus, and afterwards through Hume and Reid, Berkeley\nis at the root of philosophy in Scotland.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe two years of indifferent health and authorship in London sum up what\nmay be called the American period of Berkeley\u2019s life. Early in 1734\nletters to Prior open a new vista in his history. He was nominated to the\nbishopric of Cloyne in the south of Ireland, and we have now to follow him\nto the remote region which was his home for eighteen years. The interest\nof the philosophic Queen, and perhaps some compensation for the Bermuda\ndisappointment, may explain the appearance of the metaphysical and social\nidealist in the place where he shone as a star of the first magnitude in\nthe Irish Church of the eighteenth century.\n\n\n\n\nIII. Later Years (1734-53).\n\n\nIn May, 1734, Berkeley was consecrated as Bishop of Cloyne, in St. Paul\u2019s\nChurch, Dublin. Except occasional visits, he had been absent from Ireland\nfor more than twenty years. He returned to spend eighteen years of almost\nunbroken seclusion in his remote diocese. It suited a growing inclination\nto a recluse, meditative life, which had been encouraged by circumstances\nin Rhode Island. The eastern and northern part in the county of Cork\nformed his diocese, bounded on the west by Cork harbour, and on the east\nby the beautiful Blackwater and the mountains of Waterford; the sea, which\nwas its southern boundary, approached within two miles of the episcopal\nresidence in the village of Cloyne.\n\nAs soon as he was settled, he resumed study \u201cwith unabated attention,\u201d but\nstill with indifferent health. Travelling had become irksome to him, and\nat Cloyne he was almost as much removed as he had been in Rhode Island\nfrom the thinking world. Cork took the place of Newport; but Cork was\ntwenty miles from Cloyne, while Newport was only three miles from\nWhitehall. His episcopal neighbour at Cork was Bishop Browne, the critic\nof _Alciphron_. Isaac Gervais, afterwards Dean of Tuam, often enlivened\nthe \u201cmanse-house\u201d at Cloyne by his wit and intercourse with the great\nworld. Secker, the Bishop of Bristol, and Benson, the Bishop of\nGloucester, now and then exchanged letters with him, and correspondence\nwas kept up as of old with Prior at Dublin and Johnson at Stratford. But\nthere is no trace of intercourse with Swift, who was wearing out an\nunhappy old age, or with Pope, almost the only survivor of the brilliant\nsociety of other years. We are told, indeed, that the beauty of Cloyne was\nso described to the bard of Twickenham, by the pen which in former days\nhad described Ischia, that Pope was almost moved to visit it. And a letter\nfrom Secker in February, 1735(31), contains this scrap: \u201cYour friend Mr.\nPope is publishing small poems every now and then, full of much wit and\nnot a little keenness(32).\u201d \u201cOur common friend, Dr. Butler,\u201d he adds,\n\u201chath almost completed a set of speculations upon the credibility of\nreligion from its analogy to the constitution and course of nature, which\nI believe in due time you will read with pleasure.\u201d Butler\u2019s _Analogy_\nappeared in the following year. But I have found no remains of\ncorrespondence between Berkeley and their \u201ccommon friend\u201d; the two most\nillustrious religious thinkers of the Anglican communion.\n\nWhen he left London in 1734 Berkeley was on the eve of what sounded like a\nmathematical controversy, although it was in his intention metaphysical,\nand was suggested by the Seventh Dialogue in _Alciphron_. In one of his\nletters to Prior, early in that year, he told him that though he \u201ccould\nnot read, owing to ill health,\u201d yet his thought was as distinct as ever,\nand that for amusement \u201che passed his early hours in thinking of certain\nmathematical matters which may possibly produce something(33).\u201d This\nturned, it seems, upon a form of scepticism among contemporary\nmathematicians, occasioned by the presence of mysteries of religion. The\n_Analyst_ was the issue. It was followed by a controversy in which some of\nthe most eminent mathematicians took part. _Mathematica exeunt in\nmysteria_ might have been the motto of the _Analyst_. The assumptions in\nmathematics, it is argued, are as mysterious as those of theologians and\nmetaphysicians. Mathematicians cannot translate into perfectly\nintelligible thought their own doctrines in fluxions. If man\u2019s knowledge\nof God is rooted in mystery, so too is mathematical analysis. Pure science\nat last loses itself in propositions which usefully regulate action, but\nwhich cannot be comprehended. This is the drift of the argument in the\n_Analyst_; but perhaps Berkeley\u2019s inclination to extreme conclusions, and\nto what is verbally paradoxical, led him into doubtful positions in the\ncontroversy to which the _Analyst_ gave rise. Instead of ultimate\nimperfect comprehensibility, he seems to attribute absolute contradiction\nto the Newtonian fluxions. Baxter, in his _Inquiry_, had asserted that\nthings in Berkeley\u2019s book of _Principles_ forced the author \u201cto suspect\nthat even mathematics may not be very sound knowledge at the bottom.\u201d The\nmetaphysical argument of the _Analyst_ was obscured in a cloud of\nmathematics.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe social condition of Ireland attracted Berkeley almost as soon as he\nwas settled in Cloyne. He was surrounded by a large native Irish\npopulation and a small group of English colonists. The natives, long\ngoverned in the interest of the stranger, had never learned to exert and\ngovern themselves. The self-reliance which Berkeley preached fifteen years\nbefore, as a mean for \u201cpreventing the ruin of Great Britain,\u201d was more\nwanting in Ireland, where the simplest maxims of social economy were\nneglected. It was a state of things fitted to move one who was too\nindependent to permit his aspirations to be confined to the ordinary\nroutine of the Irish episcopate, and who could not forget the favourite\nmoral maxim of his life.\n\nThe social chaos of Ireland was the occasion of what to some may be the\nmost interesting of Berkeley\u2019s writings. His thoughts found vent\ncharacteristically in a series of penetrating practical queries. The First\nPart of the _Querist_ appeared in 1735, anonymously, edited by Dr. Madden\nof Dublin, who along with Prior had lately founded a Society for promoting\nindustrial arts in Ireland. The Second and Third Parts were published in\nthe two following years. _A Discourse to Magistrates occasioned by the\nEnormous Licence and Irreligion of the Times_, which appeared in 1736, was\nanother endeavour, with like philanthropic intention. And the only\nimportant break in his secluded life at Cloyne, in eighteen years of\nresidence, was when he went for some months to Dublin in 1737, to render\nsocial service to Ireland in the Irish House of Lords.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nHis metaphysic, at first encountered by ridicule, was now beginning to\nreceive more serious treatment. A Scotsman had already recognised it. In\n1739 another and more famous Scotsman, David Hume, refers thus to Berkeley\nin one of the opening sections of his _Treatise of Human Nature_: \u201cA very\nmaterial question has been started concerning abstract or general\nideas\u2014whether they be general or particular in the mind\u2019s conception of\nthem. A great philosopher, Dr. Berkeley, has disputed the received opinion\nin this particular, and has asserted that all general ideas are nothing\nbut particular ones, annexed to a certain term which gives them a more\nextensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other\nindividuals which are similar to them. I look upon this to be one of the\ngreatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of late years in\nthe republic of letters.\u201d It does not appear that Berkeley heard of Hume.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nA curious interest began to engage him about this time. The years\nfollowing 1739 were years of suffering in the Irish diocese. It was a time\nof famine followed by widespread disease. His correspondence is full of\nallusions to this. It had consequences of lasting importance. Surrounded\nby disease, he pondered remedies. Experience in Rhode Island and among\nAmerican Indians suggested the healing properties of tar. Further\nexperiments in tar, combined with meditation and much curious reading,\ndeepened and expanded his metaphysical philosophy. Tar seemed to grow\nunder his experiments, and in his thoughts, into a Panacea for giving\nhealth to the organism on which living mind in man is meanwhile dependent.\nThis natural dependence of health upon tar introduced thoughts of the\ninterdependence of all things, and then of the _immediate_ dependence of\nall in nature upon Omnipresent and Omnipotent Mind. The living Mind that\nunderlies the phenomena of the universe began to be conceived under a new\nlight. Since his return to the life of thought in Rhode Island, he had\nbeen immersed in Platonic and Neoplatonic literature, and in books of\nmystical Divinity, encouraged perhaps by the mystical disposition\nattributed to his wife. An eccentric ingenuity connected the scientific\nexperiments and prescriptions with the Idealism of Plato and Plotinus. The\nnatural law according to which tar-water was universally restorative set\nhis mind to work about the immanence of living Mind. He mused about a\nmedicine thus universally beneficial, and the thought occurred that it\nmust be naturally charged with \u2019pure invisible fire, the most subtle and\nelastic of bodies, and the vital element in the universe\u2019; and water might\nbe the natural cause which enables this elementary fire to be drawn out of\ntar and transferred to vegetable and animal organisms. But the vital fire\ncould be only a natural cause; which in truth is no efficient cause at\nall, but only a sign of divine efficiency transmitted through the world of\nsense: the true cause of this and all other natural effects must be the\nimmanent Mind or Reason in which we all participate; for in God we live\nand move and have our being.\n\nIt is thus that Berkeley\u2019s thought culminates in _Siris_, that _Chain of\nPhilosophical Reflexions and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of\nTar-water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one\nfrom another_, which appeared in 1744. This little book made more noise at\nthe time of its appearance than any of his books; but not because of its\nphilosophy, which was lost in its medicinal promise to mankind of immunity\nfrom disease. Yet it was Berkeley\u2019s last attempt to express his ultimate\nconception of the universe in its human and divine relations. When _Siris_\nis compared with the book of _Principles_, the immense difference in tone\nand manner of thought shews the change wrought in the intervening years.\nThe sanguine argumentative gladiatorship of the _Principles_ is exchanged\nfor pensive speculation, which acknowledges the weakness of human\nunderstanding, when it is face to face with the Immensities and\nEternities. Compare the opening sections of the Introduction to the\n_Principles_ with the closing sections of _Siris_. The contingent data of\nour experience are now felt to be insufficient, and there is a more or\nless conscious grounding of the Whole in the eternal and immutable Ideas\nof Reason. \u201cStrictly, the sense knows nothing. We perceive, indeed, sounds\nby hearing and characters by sight. But we are not therefore said to\nunderstand them.... Sense and experience acquaint us with the course and\nanalogy of appearances and natural effects: thought, reason, intellect,\nintroduce us into the knowledge of their causes.... The principles of\nscience are neither objects of sense nor imagination: intellect and reason\nare alone the sure guides to truth.\u201d So the shifting basis of the earlier\nthought is found to need support in the intellectual and moral faith that\nmust be involved in all reasonable human intercourse with the phenomena\npresented in the universe.\n\nThe inadequate thought of God, as only a Spirit or Person supreme among\nthe spirits or persons, in and through whom the material world is\nrealised, a thought which pervades _Alciphron_, makes way in _Siris_ for\nthe thought of God as the infinite omnipresent Ground, or final sustaining\nPower, immanent in Nature and Man, to which Berkeley had become accustomed\nin Neoplatonic and Alexandrian metaphysics. \u201cComprehending God and the\ncreatures in One general notion, we may _say_ that all things together\n(God and the universe of Space and Time) make One Universe, or \u03c4\u1f78 \u03a0\u1fb6\u03bd. But\nif we should say that all things make One God, this would be an erroneous\nnotion of God; but would not amount to atheism, as long as Mind or\nIntellect was admitted to be \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f21\u03b3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd, or the governing part.... It\nwill not seem just to fix the imputation of atheism upon those\nphilosophers who hold the doctrine of \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f1d\u03bd.\u201d It is thus that he now\nregards God. Metaphysics and theology are accordingly one.\n\nNo attempt is made in _Siris_ to articulate the universe in the light of\nunifying Mind or Reason. And we are still apt to ask what the truth and\ngoodness at the heart of all really mean; seeing that, as conceived in\nhuman minds, they vary in the gradual evolution of intellect and\nconscience in men. _Omnia exeunt in mysteria_ is the tone of _Siris_ at\nthe end. The universe of reality is too much for our articulate\nintellectual digestion: it must be left for omniscience; it transcends\nfinite intelligence and the _via media_ of human understanding. Man must\nbe satisfied to pass life, in the infinitesimal interval between birth and\ndeath, as a faith-venture, which he may convert into a growing insight, as\nthe generations roll on, but which can never be converted into complete\nknowledge. \u201cIn this state we must be satisfied to make the best of those\nglimpses within our reach. It is Plato\u2019s remark in his _The\u00e6tetus_, that\nwhile we sit still we are never the wiser; but going into the river, and\nmoving up and down, is the way to discover its depths and shallows. If we\nexercise and bestir ourselves, we may even here discover something. The\neye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern; and there is no\nsubject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring\non it. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly where it\nis the chief passion it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views; nor\nis it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life: a time\nperhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make\na real progress in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as his youth,\nthe later growth as well as the first-fruits, at the altar of Truth.\u201d Such\nwas Berkeley, and such were his last words in philosophy. They may suggest\nthe attitude of Bacon when, at a different view-point, he disclaims\nexhaustive system: \u201cI have made a beginning of the work: the fortune of\nthe human race will give the issue. For the matter in hand is no mere\nfelicity of speculation, but the real business and fortunes of the human\nrace(34).\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWhile Berkeley\u2019s central thought throughout his life is concerned with God\nas the one omnipresent and omnipotent Providential Agent in the universe,\nhe says little about the other final question, of more exclusively human\ninterest, which concerns the destiny of men. That men are born into a\nuniverse which, as the visible expression of Moral Providence, must be\nscientifically and ethically trustworthy; certain not to put man to\nconfusion intellectually or morally, seeing that it could not otherwise be\ntrusted for such in our ultimate venture of faith\u2014this is one thing. That\nall persons born into it are certain to continue living self-consciously\nfor ever, is another thing. This is not obviously implied in the former\npresupposition, whether or not it can be deduced from it, or else\ndiscovered by other means. Although man\u2019s environment is essentially\nDivine, and wholly in its smallest details Providential, may not his body,\nin its living organisation from physical birth until physical death, be\nthe measure of the continuance of his self-conscious personality? Is each\nman\u2019s immortal existence, like God\u2019s, indispensable?\n\nDoubt about the destiny of men after they die is, at the end of the\nnineteenth century, probably more prevalent than doubt about the\nunderlying Providence of God, and His constant creative activity; more\nperhaps than it was in the days of Toland, and Collins, and Tindal. Future\nlife had been made so familiar to the imagination by the early and\nmediaeval Church, and afterwards by the Puritans, as in Milton, Bunyan,\nand Jonathan Edwards, that it then seemed to the religious mind more real\nthan anything that is seen and touched. The habit wholly formed by natural\nscience is apt to dissipate this and to make a human life lived under\nconditions wholly strange to its \u201cminute philosophy\u201d appear illusory.\n\nA section in the book of _Principles_(35) in which the common argument for\nthe \u201cnatural immortality\u201d of the human soul is reproduced, strengthened by\nhis new conception of what the reality of body means, is Berkeley\u2019s\nmetaphysical contribution for determining between the awful alternatives\nof annihilation or continued self-conscious life after physical death. The\nsubject is touched, in a less recondite way, in two of his papers in the\n_Guardian_, and in the _Discourse_ delivered in Trinity College Chapel in\n1708, in which a revelation of the immortality of men is presented as the\nspecial gospel of Jesus Christ. To argue, as Berkeley does in the\n_Principles_, that men cannot be annihilated at death, because they are\nspiritual substances having powers independent of the sequences of nature,\nimplies assumptions regarding finite persons which are open to criticism.\nThe justification in reason for our venture of faith that Omnipotent\nGoodness is at the heart of the universe is\u2014that without this\npresupposition we can have no reasonable intercourse, scientific or\notherwise, with the world of things and persons in which we find\nourselves; for reason and will are then alike paralysed by universal\ndistrust. But it can hardly be maintained _a priori_ that men, or other\nspiritual beings in the universe, are equally with God indispensable to\nits natural order; so that when they have once entered on conscious\nexistence they must _always_ continue to exist consciously. Is not the\nphilosophical justification of man\u2019s hope of endless life ethical rather\nthan metaphysical; founded on that faith in the justice and goodness of\nthe Universal Mind which has to be taken for granted in every attempt to\ninterpret experience, with its mixture of good and evil, in this\nevanescent embodied life? Can a life such as this is be _all_ for men, in\na universe that, because it is essentially Divine, must operate towards\nthe extinction of the wickedness which now makes it a mystery of\nOmnipotent Goodness?\n\nA cheerful optimism appears in Berkeley\u2019s habit of thought about death, as\nwe have it in his essays in the _Guardian_: a sanguine apprehension of a\npresent preponderance of good, and consequent anticipation of greater good\nafter death; unlike those whose pessimistic temperament induces a lurid\npicture of eternal moral disorder. But his otherwise active imagination\nseldom makes philosophy a meditation upon death. He does not seem to have\nexercised himself in the way those do who find in the prospect of being in\nthe twenty-first century as they were in the first, what makes them\nappalled that they have ever come at all into transitory percipient life;\nor as those others who recoil from an unbodied life after physical death,\nas infinitely more appalling than the thought of being transported _in\nthis body_ into another planet, or even to a material world outside our\nsolar system. In one of his letters to Johnson(36) he does approach the\nunbodied life, and in a characteristic way:\u2014\n\n\u201cI see no difficulty in conceiving a change of state, such as is vulgarly\ncalled _death_, as well without as with material substance. It is\nsufficient for that purpose that we allow sensible bodies, i.e. such as\nare immediately perceived by sight and touch; the existence of which I am\nso far from questioning, as philosophers are used to do, that I establish\nit, I think, upon evident principles. Now it seems very easy to conceive\nthe _soul_ to exist in a separate state (i.e. divested from those limits\nand laws of motion and perception with which she is embarrassed here) and\nto exercise herself on new ideas, without the intervention of these\ntangible things we call _bodies_. It is even very possible to apprehend\nhow the soul may have ideas of colour without an eye, or of sounds without\nan ear(37).\u201d\n\nBut while we may thus be supposed to have all our present sensuous\nexperience in an unbodied state, this does not enable one to conceive how\nunbodied persons can communicate with one another in the absence of _all_\nsense signs; whether of the sort derived from our present senses, or from\nother senses of whose data we can in this life have no imagination.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBerkeley\u2019s tar-water enthusiasm lasted throughout the rest of his life,\nand found vent in letters and pamphlets in support of his Panacea, from\n1744 till 1752. Notwithstanding this, he was not forgetful of other\ninterests\u2014ecclesiastical, and the social ones which he included in his\nlarge meaning of \u201cecclesiastical.\u201d The Rising under Charles Edward in 1745\nwas the occasion of a _Letter to the Roman Catholics of Cloyne_,\ncharacteristically humane and liberal. It was followed in 1749 by an\n_Exhortation to the Roman Catholic Clergy of Ireland_ in a similar spirit;\nand this unwonted courtesy of an Irish Protestant bishop was received by\nthose to whom it was addressed in a corresponding temper.\n\nIt is difficult to determine Berkeley\u2019s relation to rival schools or\nparties in Church and State. His disposition was too singular and\nindependent for a partisan. Some of his early writings, as we have seen,\nwere suspected of high Tory and Jacobite leanings; but his arguments in\nthe suspected _Discourse_ were such as ordinary Tories and Jacobites\nfailed to understand, and the tenor of his words and actions was in the\nbest sense liberal. In religious thought _Siris_ might place him among\nlatitudinarians; perhaps in affinity with the Cambridge Platonists. His\ntrue place is foremost among the religious philosophers of the Anglican\nChurch; the first to prepare the religious problem for the light in which\nwe are invited to look at the universe by modern agnostics, and under the\nmodern conception of natural evolution. He is the most picturesque figure\nin that Anglican succession which, in the seventeenth century, includes\nHooker and Cudworth; in the eighteenth, Clarke and Butler; and in the\nnineteenth, may we say Coleridge, in lack of a representative in orders;\nalthough Mansel, Maurice, Mozley, and Jowett are not to be forgotten, nor\nIsaac Taylor among laymen(38): Newman and Arnold, illustrious otherwise,\nare hardly representatives of metaphysical philosophy.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nA more pensive tone runs through the closing years at Cloyne. Attempts\nwere made in vain to withdraw him from the \u201cremote corner\u201d to which he had\nbeen so long confined. His friends urged his claims for the Irish Primacy.\n\u201cI am no man\u2019s rival or competitor in this matter,\u201d were his words to\nPrior. \u201cI am not in love with feasts, and crowds, and visits, and late\nhours, and strange faces, and a hurry of affairs often insignificant. For\nmy own private satisfaction, I had rather be master of my time than wear a\ndiadem.\u201d Letters to his American friends, Johnson and Clap, shew him still\nmoved by the inspiration which carried him over the Atlantic, and record\nhis influence in the development of American colleges(39). The home\neducation of his three sons was another interest. We are told by his widow\nthat \u201che would not trust his sons to mercenary hands. Though old and\nsickly, he performed the constant tedious task himself.\u201d Of the fruit of\nthis home education there is little to tell. The death of William, his\nfavourite boy, in 1751, \u201cwas thought to have struck too close to his\nfather\u2019s heart.\u201d \u201cI am a man,\u201d so he writes, \u201cretired from the amusements,\npolitics, visits, and what the world calls pleasure. I had a little\nfriend, educated always under mine own eye, whose painting delighted me,\nwhose music ravished me, and whose lively gay spirit was a continual\nfeast. It has pleased God to take him hence.\u201d The eldest son, Henry, born\nin Rhode Island, did not long survive his father. George, the third son,\nwas destined for Oxford, and this destiny was connected with a new\nproject. The \u201clife academico-philosophical,\u201d which he sought in vain to\nrealise in Bermuda, he now hoped to find for himself in the city of\ncolleges on the Isis. \u201cThe truth is,\u201d he wrote to Prior as early as\nSeptember 1746, \u201cI have a scheme of my own for this long time past, in\nwhich I propose more satisfaction and enjoyment to myself than I could in\nthat high station(40), which I neither solicited, nor so much as wished\nfor. A greater income would not tempt me to remove from Cloyne, and set\naside my Oxford scheme; which, though delayed by the illness of my\nson(41), yet I am as intent upon it and as much resolved as ever.\u201d\n\nThe last of Berkeley\u2019s letters which we have is to Dean Gervais. It\nexpresses the feeling with which in April, 1752, he was contemplating\nlife, on the eve of his departure from Cloyne.\n\n\u201cI submit to years and infirmities. My views in this world are mean and\nnarrow; it is a thing in which I have small share, and which ought to give\nme small concern. I abhor business, and especially to have to do with\ngreat persons and great affairs. The evening of life I choose to pass in a\nquiet retreat. Ambitious projects, intrigues and quarrels of statesmen,\nare things I have formerly been amused with, but they now seem to be a\nvain, fugitive dream.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nFour months after this, Berkeley saw Cloyne for the last time. In August\nhe quitted it for Oxford, which he had long pictured in imagination as the\nideal home of his old age. When he left Cork in the vessel which carried\nhis wife, his daughter, and himself to Bristol, he was prostrated by\nweakness, and had to be taken from Bristol to Oxford on a horse-litter. It\nwas late in August when they arrived there(42).\n\nOur picture of Berkeley at Oxford is dim. According to tradition he\noccupied a house in Holywell Street, near the gardens of New College and\nnot far from the cloisters of Magdalen. It was a changed world to him.\nWhile he was exchanging Ireland for England, death was removing old\nEnglish friends. Before he left Cloyne he must have heard of the death of\nButler in June, at Bath, where Benson, at the request of Secker,\naffectionately watched the last hours of the author of the _Analogy_.\nBenson followed Butler in August.\n\nWe hear of study resumed in improved health in the home in Holy well\nStreet. In October a _Miscellany, containing several Tracts on various\nSubjects_, \u201cby the Bishop of Cloyne,\u201d appeared simultaneously in London\nand Dublin. The Tracts were reprints, with the exception of _Further\nThoughts on Tar-water_, which may have been written before he left\nIreland. The third edition of _Alciphron_ also appeared in this autumn.\nBut _Siris_ is the latest record of his philosophical thought. A\ncomparison of the _Commonplace Book_ and the _Principles_ with the\n_Analyst_ and _Siris_ gives the measure of his advancement. After the\nsanguine beginning perhaps the comparison leaves a sense of\ndisappointment, when we find metaphysics mixed up with mathematics in the\n_Analyst_, and metaphysics obscurely mixed up with medicine in _Siris_.\n\nIt is curious that, although in 1752 David Hume\u2019s _Treatise of Human\nNature_ had been before the world for thirteen years and his _Inquiry\nconcerning Human Understanding_ for four years, there is no allusion to\nHume by Berkeley. He was Berkeley\u2019s immediate successor in the\neighteenth-century evolution of European thought. The sceptical criticism\nof Hume was applied to the dogmatic religious philosophy of Berkeley, to\nbe followed in its turn by the abstractly rational and the moral\nreconstructive criticism of Kant. _Alciphron_ is, however, expressly\nreferred to by Hume; indirectly, too, throughout the religious agnosticism\nof his _Inquiry_, also afterwards in the _Dialogues on Natural Religion_,\nin a vindication of minute philosophy by profounder reasonings than those\nwhich satisfied Lysicles and Alciphron. Berkeley, Hume, and Kant are the\nthree significant philosophical figures of their century, each holding the\nsupreme place successively in its beginning, middle, and later years.\nPerhaps Reid in Scotland did more than any other in his generation to make\nBerkeley known; not, however, for his true work in constructive religious\nthought, but for his supposed denial of the reality of the things we see\nand touch.(43)\n\nThe ideal life in Oxford did not last long. On the evening of Sunday,\nJanuary 14, 1753, Berkeley was suddenly confronted by the mystery of\ndeath. \u201cAs he was sitting with my mother, my sister, and myself,\u201d so his\nson wrote to Johnson at Stratford, in October, \u201csuddenly, and without the\nleast previous notice or pain, he was removed to the enjoyment of eternal\nrewards; and although all possible means were instantly used, no symptom\nof life ever appeared after; nor could the physicians assign any cause for\nhis death. He arrived at Oxford on August 25, and had received great\nbenefit from the change of air, and by God\u2019s blessing on tar-water,\ninsomuch that for some years he had not been in better health than he was\nthe instant before he left us(44).\u201d\n\nSix days later he was buried in Oxford, in the Cathedral of Christ\nChurch(45), where his tomb bears an appropriate inscription by Dr.\nMarkham, afterwards Archbishop of York.\n\n\n\n\n\nERRATA\n\n\n\n\nVol. I\n\n\nPage 99, line 3 _for_ 149-80 _read_ 149-60.\n\nPage 99, line 22 _for_\u2014and to be \u201csuggested,\u201d not signified _read_\u2014instead\nof being only suggested.\n\nPage 100, line 10 _for_ hearing _read_ seeing.\n\nPage 103, note, lines 5, 6 _for_ pp. 111, 112 _read_ p. 210.\n\nPage 200, note, line 14 _for_ Adam _read_ Robert.\n\nPage 364, line 8 from foot _for_ and _read_ which.\n\nPage 512, note 6, line 3 _for_ imminent _read_ immanent.\n\n\n\n\nVol. II\n\n\nPage 194, note, line 3 _for_ Tyndal _read_ Tindal.\n\nPage 207, line 1, insert 13. before _Alc._.\n\nPage 377, line 6 _for_ antethesis _read_ antithesis.\n\n\n\n\nVol. IV\n\n\nPage 285, lines 4, 5 _for_ Thisus Alus Cujus, &c. _read_ Ursus. Alus.\nCuius. &c. The inscription, strictly speaking, appears on the Palace of\nthe Counts Orsini, and is dated MD.\n\n\n\n\n\nCOMMONPLACE BOOK. MATHEMATICAL, ETHICAL, PHYSICAL, AND METAPHYSICAL\n\n\nWritten At Trinity College, Dublin, In 1705-8\n\n_First published in 1871_\n\n\n\n\nEditor\u2019s Preface To The Commonplace Book\n\n\nBerkeley\u2019s juvenile _Commonplace Book_ is a small quarto volume, in his\nhandwriting, found among the Berkeley manuscripts in possession of the\nlate Archdeacon Rose. It was first published in 1871, in my edition of\nBerkeley\u2019s Works. It consists of occasional thoughts, mathematical,\nphysical, ethical, and metaphysical, set down in miscellaneous fashion,\nfor private use, as they arose in the course of his studies at Trinity\nCollege, Dublin. They are full of the fervid enthusiasm that was natural\nto him, and of sanguine expectations of the issue of the prospective\nauthorship for which they record preparations. On the title-page is\nwritten, \u201cG. B. Trin. Dub. alum.,\u201d with the date 1705, when he was twenty\nyears of age. The entries are the gradual accumulation of the next three\nyears, in one of which the _Arithmetica_ and the _Miscellanea Mathematica_\nmade their appearance. The _New Theory of Vision_, given to the world in\n1709, was evidently much in his mind, as well as the sublime conception of\nthe material world in its necessary subordination to the spiritual world,\nof which he delivered himself in his book of _Principles_, in 1710.\n\nThis disclosure of Berkeley\u2019s thoughts about things, in the years\npreceding the publication of his first essays, is indeed a precious record\nof the initial struggles of ardent philosophical genius. It places the\nreader in intimate companionship with him when he was beginning to awake\ninto intellectual and spiritual life. We hear him soliloquising. We see\nhim trying to translate into reasonableness our crude inherited beliefs\nabout the material world and the natural order of the universe,\nself-conscious personality, and the Universal Power or Providence\u2014all\nunder the sway of a new determining Principle which was taking profound\npossession of his soul. He finds that he has only to look at the concrete\nthings of sense in the light of this great discovery to see the\nartificially induced perplexities of the old philosophers disappear, along\nwith their imposing abstractions, which turn out empty words. The thinking\nis throughout fresh and sincere; sometimes impetuous and one-sided; the\noutcome of a mind indisposed to take things upon trust, resolved to\ninquire freely, a rebel against the tyranny of language, morally burdened\nwith the consciousness of a new world-transforming conception, which duty\nto mankind obliged him to reveal, although his message was sure to offend.\nMen like to regard things as they have been wont. This new conception of\nthe surrounding world\u2014the impotence of Matter, and its subordinate office\nin the Supreme Economy must, he foresees, disturb those accustomed to\ntreat outward things as the only realities, and who do not care to ask\nwhat constitutes reality. Notwithstanding the ridicule and ill-will that\nhis transformed material world was sure to meet with, amongst the many who\naccept empty words instead of genuine insight, he was resolved to deliver\nhimself of his thoughts through the press, but with the politic\nconciliation of a persuasive Irish pleader.\n\nThe _Commonplace Book_ steadily recognises the adverse influence of one\ninsidious foe. Its world-transforming-Principle has been obscured by \u201cthe\nmist and veil of words.\u201d The abstractions of metaphysicians, which poison\nhuman language, had to be driven out of the author\u2019s mind before he could\nsee the light, and must be driven out of the minds of others before they\ncould be got to see it along with him: the concrete world as realisable\nonly in percipient mind is with difficulty introduced into the vacant\nplace. \u201cThe chief thing I pretend to is only to remove the mist and veil\nof words.\u201d He exults in the transformed mental scene that then\nspontaneously rises before him. \u201cMy speculations have had the same effect\nupon me as visiting foreign countries,\u2014in the end I return where I was\nbefore, get my heart at ease, and enjoy myself with more satisfaction. The\nphilosophers lose their abstract matter; the materialists lose their\nabstract extension; the profane lose their extended deity. Pray what do\nthe rest of mankind lose?\u201d This beneficent revolution seemed to be the\nissue of a simple recognition of the fact, that the true way of regarding\nthe world we see and touch is to regard it as consisting of ideas or\nphenomena that are presented to human senses, somehow regularly ordered,\nand the occasions of pleasure or pain to us as we conform to or rebel\nagainst their natural order. This is the surrounding universe\u2014at least in\nits relations to us, and that is all in it that we have to do with. \u201cI\nknow not,\u201d he says, \u201cwhat is meant by things considered in themselves,\ni.e. in abstraction. This is nonsense. Thing and idea are words of much\nabout the same extent and meaning. Existence is not conceivable without\nperception and volition. I only declare the meaning of the word\n_existence_, as far as I can comprehend it.\u201d\n\nIn the _Commonplace Book_ we see the youth at Trinity College forging the\nweapons which he was soon to direct against the materialism and scepticism\nof the generation into which he was born. Here are rough drafts, crude\nhints of intended arguments, probing of unphilosophical\nmathematicians\u2014even Newton and Descartes, memoranda of facts, more or less\nrelevant, on their way into the _Essay on Vision_ and the treatise on\n_Principles_\u2014seeds of the philosophy that was to be gradually unfolded in\nhis life and in his books. We watch the intrepid thinker, notwithstanding\nthe inexperience of youth, more disposed to give battle to mathematicians\nand metaphysicians than to submit even provisionally to any human\nauthority. It does not seem that his scholarship or philosophical learning\nwas extensive. Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke were his intimates;\nHobbes and Spinoza were not unknown to him; Newton and some lesser lights\namong the mathematicians are often confronted. He is more rarely in\ncompany with the ancients or the mediaevalists. No deep study of Aristotle\nappears, and there is even a disposition to disparage Plato. He seeks for\nhis home in the \u201cnew philosophy\u201d of experience; without anticipations of\nKant, as the critic of what is presupposed in the scientific reliability\nof any experience, against whom his almost blind zeal against abstractions\nwould have set him at this early stage. \u201cPure intellect I understand not\nat all,\u201d is one of his entries. He asks himself, \u201cWhat becomes of the\n_aeternae veritates_?\u201d and his reply is, \u201cThey vanish.\u201d When he tells\nhimself that \u201cwe must with the mob place certainty in the senses,\u201d the\nwords are apt to suggest that the senses are our only source of knowledge,\nbut I suppose his meaning is that the senses must be trustworthy, as \u2019the\nmob\u2019 assume. Yet occasionally he uses language which looks like an\nanticipation of David Hume, as when he calls mind \u201ca congeries of\nperceptions. Take away perceptions,\u201d he adds, \u201cand you take away mind. Put\nthe perceptions and you put the mind. The understanding seemeth not to\ndiffer from its perceptions and ideas.\u201d He seems unconscious of the total\nscepticism which such expressions, when strictly interpreted, are found to\ninvolve. But after all, the reader must not apply rigorous rules of\ninterpretation to random entries or provisional memoranda, meant only for\nprivate use, by an enthusiastic student who was preparing to produce\nbooks.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nI have followed the manuscript of the _Commonplace Book_, omitting a few\nrepetitions of thought in the same words. Here and there Berkeley\u2019s\nwriting is almost obliterated and difficult to decipher, apparently\nthrough accident by water in the course of his travels, when, as he\nmentions long after in one of his letters, several of his manuscripts were\nlost and others were injured.\n\nThe letters of the alphabet which are interpreted on the first page, and\nprefixed on the margin to some of the entries, may so far help to bring\nthe apparent chaos of entries under a few articulate heads.\n\nI have added some annotations here and there as they happened to occur,\nand these might have been multiplied indefinitely had space permitted.\n\n\n\n\nCommonplace Book\n\n\nI.  = Introduction.\nM.  = Matter.\nP.  = Primary and Secondary qualities.\nE.  = Existence.\nT.  = Time.\nS.  = Soul\u2014Spirit.\nG.  = God.\nMo. = Moral Philosophy.\nN.  = Natural Philosophy.\n\nQu. If there be not two kinds of visible extension\u2014one perceiv\u2019d by a\nconfus\u2019d view, the other by a distinct successive direction of the optique\naxis to each point?\n\n(M1) No general ideas(46). The contrary a cause of mistake or confusion in\nmathematiques, &c. This to be intimated in ye Introduction(47).\n\nThe Principle may be apply\u2019d to the difficulties of conservation,\nco-operation, &c.\n\n(M2) Trifling for the [natural] philosophers to enquire the cause of\nmagnetical attractions, &c. They onely search after co-existing ideas(48).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M3) Qu\u00e6cunque in Scriptura militant adversus Copernicum, militant pro me.\n\n(M4) All things in the Scripture wch side with the vulgar against the\nlearned, side with me also. I side in all things with the mob.\n\n(M5) I know there is a mighty sect of men will oppose me, but yet I may\nexpect to be supported by those whose minds are not so far overgrown wth\nmadness. These are far the greatest part of mankind\u2014especially Moralists,\nDivines, Politicians; in a word, all but Mathematicians and Natural\nPhilosophers. I mean only the hypothetical gentlemen. Experimental\nphilosophers have nothing whereat to be offended in me.\n\nNewton begs his Principles; I demonstrate mine(49).\n\n(M6) I must be very particular in explaining wt is meant by things\nexisting\u2014in houses, chambers, fields, caves, &c.\u2014wn not perceiv\u2019d as well\nas wn perceived; and shew how the vulgar notion agrees with mine, when we\nnarrowly inspect into the meaning and definition of the word _existence_,\nwh is no simple idea, distinct from perceiving and being perceived(50).\n\nThe Schoolmen have noble subjects, but handle them ill. The mathematicians\nhave trifling subjects, but reason admirably about them. Certainly their\nmethod and arguing are excellent.\n\nGod knows how far our knowledge of intellectual beings may be enlarg\u2019d\nfrom the Principles.\n\n(M7) The reverse of the Principle I take to have been the chief source of\nall that scepticism and folly, all those contradictions and inextricable\npuzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach to human\nreason, as well as of that idolatry, whether of images or of gold, that\nblinds the greatest part of the world, and that shamefull immorality that\nturns us into beasts.\n\n(M8) \u05d4\u05d9\u05d4 Vixit & fuit.\n\n\u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1, the name for substance, used by Aristotle, the Fathers, &c.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIf at the same time we shall make the Mathematiques much more easie and\nmuch more accurate, wt can be objected to us(51)?\n\nWe need not force our imagination to conceive such very small lines for\ninfinitesimals. They may every whit as well be imagin\u2019d big as little,\nsince that the integer must be infinite.\n\nEvident that wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite.\n\nWe cannot imagine a line or space infinitely great\u2014therefore absurd to\ntalk or make propositions about it.\n\nWe cannot imagine a line, space, &c., quovis lato majus. Since yt what we\nimagine must be datum aliquod; a thing can\u2019t be greater than itself.\n\nIf you call infinite that wch is greater than any assignable by another,\nthen I say, in that sense there may be an infinite square, sphere, or any\nother figure, wch is absurd.\n\nQu. if extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of?\n\nNo reasoning about things whereof we have no ideas(52); therefore no\nreasoning about infinitesimals.\n\nNo word to be used without an idea.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M9) If uneasiness be necessary to set the Will at work, Qu. how shall we\nwill in heaven?\n\nBayle\u2019s, Malbranch\u2019s, &c. arguments do not seem to prove against Space,\nbut onely against Bodies.\n\n(M10) I agree in nothing wth the Cartesians as to ye existence of Bodies &\nQualities(53).\n\nAristotle as good a man as Euclid, but he was allowed to have been\nmistaken.\n\nLines not proper for demonstration.\n\n(M11) We see the house itself, the church itself; it being an idea and\nnothing more. The house itself, the church itself, is an idea, i.e. an\nobject\u2014immediate object\u2014of thought(54).\n\nInstead of injuring, our doctrine much benefits geometry.\n\n(M12) Existence is percipi, or percipere, [or velle, i.e. agere(55)]. The\nhorse is in the stable, the books are in the study as before.\n\n(M13) In physiques I have a vast view of things soluble hereby, but have\nnot leisure.\n\n(M14) Hyps and such like unaccountable things confirm my doctrine.\n\nAngle not well defined. See Pardies\u2019 Geometry, by Harris, &c. This one\nground of trifling.\n\n(M15) One idea not the cause of another\u2014one power not the cause of\nanother. The cause of all natural things is onely God. Hence trifling to\nenquire after second causes. This doctrine gives a most suitable idea of\nthe Divinity(56).\n\n(M16) Absurd to study astronomy and other the like doctrines as\nspeculative sciences.\n\n(M17) The absurd account of memory by the brain, &c. makes for me.\n\nHow was light created before man? Even so were Bodies created before\nman(57).\n\n(M18) Impossible anything besides that wch thinks and is thought on should\nexist(58).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThat wch is visible cannot be made up of invisible things.\n\nM.S. is that wherein there are not contain\u2019d distinguishable sensible\nparts. Now how can that wch hath not sensible parts be divided into\nsensible parts? If you say it may be divided into insensible parts, I say\nthese are nothings.\n\nExtension abstract from sensible qualities is no sensation, I grant; but\nthen there is no such idea, as any one may try(59). There is onely a\nconsidering the number of points without the sort of them, & this makes\nmore for me, since it must be in a considering thing.\n\nMem. Before I have shewn the distinction between visible & tangible\nextension, I must not mention them as distinct. I must not mention M. T. &\nM. V., but in general M. S., &c.(60)\n\nQu. whether a M. V. be of any colour? a M. T. of any tangible quality?\n\nIf visible extension be the object of geometry, \u2019tis that which is\nsurvey\u2019d by the optique axis.\n\n(M19) I may say the pain is _in_ my finger, &c., according to my\ndoctrine(61).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMem. Nicely to discuss wt is meant when we say a line consists of a\ncertain number of inches or points, &c.; a circle of a certain number of\nsquare inches, points, &c. Certainly we may think of a circle, or have its\nidea in our mind, without thinking of points or square inches, &c.;\nwhereas it should seem the idea of a circle is not made up of the ideas of\npoints, square inches, &c.\n\nQu. Is any more than this meant by the foregoing expressions, viz. that\nsquares or points may be perceived in or made out of a circle, &c., or\nthat squares, points, &c. are actually in it, i.e. are perceivable in it?\n\nA line in abstract, or Distance, is the number of points between two\npoints. There is also distance between a slave & an emperor, between a\npeasant & philosopher, between a drachm & a pound, a farthing & a crown,\n&c.; in all which Distance signifies the number of intermediate ideas.\n\nHalley\u2019s doctrine about the proportion between infinitely great quantities\nvanishes. When men speak of infinite quantities, either they mean finite\nquantities, or else talk of [that whereof they have(62)] no idea; both\nwhich are absurd.\n\nIf the disputations of the Schoolmen are blam\u2019d for intricacy,\ntriflingness, & confusion, yet it must be acknowledg\u2019d that in the main\nthey treated of great & important subjects. If we admire the method &\nacuteness of the Math[ematicians]\u2014the length, the subtilty, the exactness\nof their demonstrations\u2014we must nevertheless be forced to grant that they\nare for the most part about trifling subjects, and perhaps mean nothing at\nall.\n\nMotion on 2d thoughts seems to be a simple idea.\n\n(M20) Motion distinct from ye thing moved is not conceivable.\n\n(M21) Mem. To take notice of Newton for defining it [motion]; also of\nLocke\u2019s wisdom in leaving it undefin\u2019d(63).\n\nUt ordo partium temporis est immutabilis, sin etiam ordo partium spatii.\nMoveantur h\u00e6 de locis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Truly\nnumber is immensurable. That we will allow with Newton.\n\n(M22) Ask a Cartesian whether he is wont to imagine his globules without\ncolour. Pellucidness is a colour. The colour of ordinary light of the sun\nis white. Newton in the right in assigning colours to the rays of light.\n\nA man born blind would not imagine Space as we do. We give it always some\ndilute, or duskish, or dark colour\u2014in short, we imagine it as visible, or\nintromitted by the eye, wch he would not do.\n\n(M23) Proinde vim inferunt sacris literis qui voces hasce (v. tempus,\nspatium, motus) de quantitatibus mensuratis ibi interpretantur. Newton, p.\n10.\n\n(M24) I differ from Newton, in that I think the recession ab axe motus is\nnot the effect, or index, or measure of motion, but of the vis impressa.\nIt sheweth not wt is truly moved, but wt has the force impressed on it, or\nrather that wch hath an impressed force.\n\n_D_ and _P_ are not proportional in all circles. _d d_ is to 1/4_d p_ as\n_d_ to _p_/4; but _d_ and _p_/4 are not in the same proportion in all\ncircles. Hence \u2019tis nonsense to seek the terms of one general proportion\nwhereby to rectify all peripheries, or of another whereby to square all\ncircles.\n\nN. B. If the circle be squar\u2019d arithmetically, \u2019tis squar\u2019d geometrically,\narithmetic or numbers being nothing but lines & proportions of lines when\napply\u2019d to geometry.\n\nMem. To remark Cheyne(64) & his doctrine of infinites.\n\nExtension, motion, time, do each of them include the idea of succession, &\nso far forth they seem to be of mathematical consideration. Number\nconsisting in succession & distinct perception, wch also consists in\nsuccession; for things at once perceiv\u2019d are jumbled and mixt together in\nthe mind. Time and motion cannot be conceiv\u2019d without succession; and\nextension, qua mathemat., cannot be conceiv\u2019d but as consisting of parts\nwch may be distinctly & successively perceiv\u2019d. Extension perceived at\nonce & _in confuso_ does not belong to math.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe simple idea call\u2019d Power seems obscure, or rather none at all, but\nonely the relation \u2019twixt Cause and Effect. When I ask whether A can move\nB, if A be an intelligent thing, I mean no more than whether the volition\nof A that B move be attended with the motion of B? If A be senseless,\nwhether the impulse of A against B be followed by ye motion of B(65)?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBarrow\u2019s arguing against indivisibles, lect. i. p. 16, is a petitio\nprincipii, for the Demonstration of Archimedes supposeth the circumference\nto consist of more than 24 points. Moreover it may perhaps be necessary to\nsuppose the divisibility _ad infinitum_, in order to demonstrate that the\nradius is equal to the side of the hexagon.\n\nShew me an argument against indivisibles that does not go on some false\nsupposition.\n\nA great number of insensibles\u2014or thus, two invisibles, say you, put\ntogether become visible; therefore that M. V. contains or is made up of\ninvisibles. I answer, the M. V. does not comprise, is not composed of,\ninvisibles. All the matter amounts to this, viz. whereas I had no idea\nawhile agoe, I have an idea now. It remains for you to prove that I came\nby the present idea because there were two invisibles added together. I\nsay the invisibles are nothings, cannot exist, include a\ncontradiction(66).\n\nI am young, I am an upstart, I am a pretender, I am vain. Very well. I\nshall endeavour patiently to bear up under the most lessening, vilifying\nappellations the pride & rage of man can devise. But one thing I know I am\nnot guilty of. I do not pin my faith on the sleeve of any great man. I act\nnot out of prejudice or prepossession. I do not adhere to any opinion\nbecause it is an old one, a reviv\u2019d one, a fashionable one, or one that I\nhave spent much time in the study and cultivation of.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nSense rather than reason or demonstration ought to be employed about lines\nand figures, these being things sensible; for as for those you call\ninsensible, we have proved them to be nonsense, nothing(67).\n\n(M25) If in some things I differ from a philosopher I profess to admire,\n\u2019tis for that very thing on account whereof I admire him, namely, the love\nof truth. This &c.\n\n(M26) Whenever my reader finds me talk very positively, I desire he\u2019d not\ntake it ill. I see no reason why certainty should be confined to the\nmathematicians.\n\nI say there are no incommensurables, no surds. I say the side of any\nsquare may be assign\u2019d in numbers. Say you assign unto me the side of the\nsquare 10. I ask wt 10\u201410 feet, inches, &c., or 10 points? If the later, I\ndeny there is any such square, \u2019tis impossible 10 points should compose a\nsquare. If the former, resolve yr 10 square inches, feet, &c. into points,\n& the number of points must necessarily be a square number whose side is\neasily assignable.\n\nA mean proportional cannot be found betwixt any two given lines. It can\nonely be found betwixt those the numbers of whose points multiply\u2019d\ntogether produce a square number. Thus betwixt a line of 2 inches & a line\nof 5 inches a mean geometrical cannot be found, except the number of\npoints contained in 2 inches multiply\u2019d by ye number of points contained\nin 5 inches make a square number.\n\nIf the wit and industry of the Nihilarians were employ\u2019d about the usefull\n& practical mathematiques, what advantage had it brought to mankind!\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M27) You ask me whether the books are in the study now, when no one is\nthere to see them? I answer, Yes. You ask me, Are we not in the wrong for\nimagining things to exist when they are not actually perceiv\u2019d by the\nsenses? I answer, No. The existence of our ideas consists in being\nperceiv\u2019d, imagin\u2019d, thought on. Whenever they are imagin\u2019d or thought on\nthey do exist. Whenever they are mentioned or discours\u2019d of they are\nimagin\u2019d & thought on. Therefore you can at no time ask me whether they\nexist or no, but by reason of yt very question they must necessarily\nexist.\n\n(M28) But, say you, then a chim\u00e6ra does exist? I answer, it doth in one\nsense, i.e. it is imagin\u2019d. But it must be well noted that existence is\nvulgarly restrain\u2019d to actuall perception, and that I use the word\nexistence in a larger sense than ordinary.(68)\n\nN. B.\u2014According to my doctrine all things are _entia rationis_, i.e. solum\nhabent esse in intellectum.\n\n(M29) [(69)According to my doctrine all are not _entia rationis_. The\ndistinction between _ens rationis_ and _ens reale_ is kept up by it as\nwell as any other doctrine.]\n\nYou ask me whether there can be an infinite idea? I answer, in one sense\nthere may. Thus the visual sphere, tho\u2019 ever so small, is infinite, i.e.\nhas no end. But if by infinite you mean an extension consisting of\ninnumerable points, then I ask yr pardon. Points, tho\u2019 never so many, may\nbe numbered. The multitude of points, or feet, inches, &c., hinders not\ntheir numbrableness (i.e. hinders not their being numerable) in the least.\nMany or most are numerable, as well as few or least. Also, if by infinite\nidea you mean an _idea_ too great to be comprehended or perceiv\u2019d all at\nonce, you must excuse me. I think such an infinite is no less than a\ncontradiction(70).\n\n(M30) The sillyness of the current doctrine makes much for me. They\ncommonly suppose a material world\u2014figures, motions, bulks of various\nsizes, &c.\u2014according to their own confession to no purpose. All our\nsensations may be, and sometimes actually are, without them; nor can men\nso much as conceive it possible they should concur in any wise to the\nproduction of them.\n\n(M31) Ask a man, I mean a philosopher, why he supposes this vast\nstructure, this compages of bodies? he shall be at a stand; he\u2019ll not have\none word to say. Wch sufficiently shews the folly of the hypothesis.\n\n(M32) Or rather why he supposes all ys Matter? For bodies and their\nqualities I do allow to exist independently of _our_ mind.\n\n(M33) Qu. How is the soul distinguish\u2019d from its ideas? Certainly if there\nwere no sensible ideas there could be no soul, no perception, remembrance,\nlove, fear, &c.; no faculty could be exerted(71).\n\n(M34) The soul is the Will, properly speaking, and as it is distinct from\nideas.\n\n(M35) The grand puzzling question, whether I sleep or wake, easily solv\u2019d.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nQu. Whether minima or meer minima may not be compar\u2019d by their sooner or\nlater evanescence, as well as by more or less points, so that one sensible\nmay be greater than another, though it exceeds it not by one point?\n\nCircles on several radius\u2019s are not similar figures, they having neither\nall nor any an infinite number of sides. Hence in vain to enquire after 2\nterms of one and ye same proportion that should constantly express the\nreason of the _d_ to the _p_ in all circles.\n\nMem. To remark Wallis\u2019s harangue, that the aforesaid proportion can\nneither be expressed by rational numbers nor surds.\n\nWe can no more have an idea of length without breadth or visibility, than\nof a general figure.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nOne idea may be like another idea, tho\u2019 they contain no common simple\nidea(72). Thus the simple idea red is in some sense like the simple idea\nblue; \u2019tis liker it than sweet or shrill. But then those ideas wch are so\nsaid to be alike, agree both in their connexion with another simple idea,\nviz. extension, & in their being receiv\u2019d by one & the same sense. But,\nafter all, nothing can be like an idea but an idea.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nNo sharing betwixt God & Nature or second causes in my doctrine.\n\n(M36) Materialists must allow the earth to be actually mov\u2019d by the\nattractive power of every stone that falls from the air, with many other\nthe like absurditys.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nEnquire concerning the pendulum clock, &c.; whether those inventions of\nHuygens, &c. be attained to by my doctrine.\n\nThe ... & ... & ... &c. of time are to be cast away and neglected, as so\nmany noughts or nothings.\n\nMem. To make experiments concerning minimums and their colours, whether\nthey have any or no, & whether they can be of that green wch seems to be\ncompounded of yellow and blue.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M37) Qu. Whether it were not better _not_ to call the operations of the\nmind ideas\u2014confining this term to things sensible(73)?\n\n(M38) Mem. diligently to set forth how that many of the ancient\nphilosophers run into so great absurditys as even to deny the existence of\nmotion, and of those other things they perceiv\u2019d actually by their senses.\nThis sprung from their not knowing wt Existence was, and wherein it\nconsisted. This the source of all their folly. \u2019Tis on the discovering of\nthe nature and meaning and import of Existence that I chiefly insist. This\nputs a wide difference betwixt the sceptics &c. & me. This I think wholly\nnew. I am sure this is new to me(74).\n\nWe have learn\u2019d from Mr. Locke that there may be, and that there are,\nseveral glib, coherent, methodical discourses, which nevertheless amount\nto just nothing. This by him intended with relation to the Scholemen. We\nmay apply it to the Mathematicians.\n\nQu. How can all words be said to stand for ideas? The word blue stands for\na colour without any extension, or abstract from extension. But we have\nnot an idea of colour without extension. We cannot imagine colour without\nextension.\n\nLocke seems wrongly to assign a double use of words: one for communicating\n& the other for recording our thoughts. \u2019Tis absurd to use words for\nrecording our thoughts to ourselves, or in our private meditations(75).\n\nNo one abstract simple idea like another. Two simple ideas may be\nconnected with one & the same 3d simple idea, or be intromitted by one &\nthe same sense. But consider\u2019d in themselves they can have nothing common,\nand consequently no likeness.\n\nQu. How can there be any abstract ideas of colours? It seems not so easily\nas of tastes or sounds. But then all ideas whatsoever are particular. I\ncan by no means conceive an abstract general idea. \u2019Tis one thing to\nabstract one concrete idea from another of a different kind, & another\nthing to abstract an idea from all particulars of the same kind(76).\n\n(M39) Mem. Much to recommend and approve of experimental philosophy.\n\n(M40) What means Cause as distinguish\u2019d from Occasion? Nothing but a being\nwch wills, when the effect follows the volition. Those things that happen\nfrom without we are not the cause of. Therefore there is some other Cause\nof them, i.e. there is a Being that wills these perceptions in us(77).\n\n(M41) [(78)It should be said, nothing but a Will\u2014a Being which wills being\nunintelligible.]\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nOne square cannot be double of another. Hence the Pythagoric theorem is\nfalse.\n\nSome writers of catoptrics absurd enough to place the apparent place of\nthe object in the Barrovian case behind the eye.\n\nBlew and yellow chequers still diminishing terminate in green. This may\nhelp to prove the composition of green.\n\nThere is in green 2 foundations of 2 relations of likeness to blew &\nyellow. Therefore green is compounded.\n\nA mixt cause will produce a mixt effect. Therefore colours are all\ncompounded that we see.\n\nMem. To consider Newton\u2019s two sorts of green.\n\nN. B. My abstract & general doctrines ought not to be condemn\u2019d by the\nRoyall Society. \u2019Tis wt their meeting did ultimately intend. V. Sprat\u2019s\nHistory S. R.(79)\n\nMem. To premise a definition of idea(80).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M42) The 2 great principles of Morality\u2014the being of a God & the freedom\nof man. Those to be handled in the beginning of the Second Book(81).\n\nSubvertitur geometria ut non practica sed speculativa.\n\nArchimedes\u2019s proposition about squaring the circle has nothing to do with\ncircumferences containing less than 96 points; & if the circumference\ncontain 96 points it may be apply\u2019d, but nothing will follow against\nindivisibles. V. Barrow.\n\nThose curve lines that you can rectify geometrically. Compare them with\ntheir equal right lines & by a microscope you shall discover an\ninequality. Hence my squaring of the circle as good and exact as the best.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M43) Qu. whether the substance of body or anything else be any more than\nthe collection of concrete ideas included in that thing? Thus the\nsubstance of any particular body is extension, solidity, figure(82). Of\ngeneral abstract body we can have no idea.\n\n(M44) Mem. Most carefully to inculcate and set forth that the endeavouring\nto express abstract philosophic thoughts by words unavoidably runs a man\ninto difficulties. This to be done in the Introduction(83).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMem. To endeavour most accurately to understand what is meant by this\naxiom: Qu\u00e6 sibi mutuo congruunt \u00e6qualia sunt.\n\nQu. what the geometers mean by equality of lines, & whether, according to\ntheir definition of equality, a curve line can possibly be equal to a\nright line?\n\nIf wth me you call those lines equal wch contain an equal number of\npoints, then there will be no difficulty. That curve is equal to a right\nline wch contains the same points as the right one doth.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M45) I take not away substances. I ought not to be accused of discarding\nsubstance out of the reasonable world(84). I onely reject the philosophic\nsense (wch in effect is no sense) of the word substance. Ask a man not\ntainted with their jargon wt he means by corporeal substance, or the\nsubstance of body. He shall answer, bulk, solidity, and such like sensible\nqualitys. These I retain. The philosophic nec quid, nec quantum, nec\nquale, whereof I have no idea, I discard; if a man may be said to discard\nthat which never had any being, was never so much as imagin\u2019d or\nconceiv\u2019d.\n\n(M46) In short, be not angry. You lose nothing, whether real or\nchimerical. Wtever you can in any wise conceive or imagine, be it never so\nwild, so extravagant, & absurd, much good may it do you. You may enjoy it\nfor me. I\u2019ll never deprive you of it.\n\nN. B. I am more for reality than any other philosophers(85). They make a\nthousand doubts, & know not certainly but we may be deceiv\u2019d. I assert the\ndirect contrary.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nA line in the sense of mathematicians is not meer distance. This evident\nin that there are curve lines.\n\nCurves perfectly incomprehensible, inexplicable, absurd, except we allow\npoints.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M47) If men look for a thing where it\u2019s not to be found, be they never so\nsagacious, it is lost labour. If a simple clumsy man knows where the game\nlies, he though a fool shall catch it sooner than the most fleet &\ndexterous that seek it elsewhere. Men choose to hunt for truth and\nknowledge anywhere rather than in their own understanding, where \u2019tis to\nbe found.\n\n(M48) All knowledge onely about ideas. Locke, B. 4. c. 1.\n\n(M49) It seems improper, & liable to difficulties, to make the word person\nstand for an idea, or to make ourselves ideas, or thinking things ideas.\n\n(M50) Abstract ideas cause of much trifling and mistake.\n\nMathematicians seem not to speak clearly and coherently of equality. They\nnowhere define wt they mean by that word when apply\u2019d to lines.\n\nLocke says the modes of simple ideas, besides extension and number, are\ncounted by degrees. I deny there are any modes or degrees of simple ideas.\nWhat he terms such are complex ideas, as I have proved.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWt do the mathematicians mean by considering curves as polygons? Either\nthey are polygons or they are not. If they are, why do they give them the\nname of curves? Why do not they constantly call them polygons, & treat\nthem as such? If they are not polygons, I think it absurd to use polygons\nin their stead. Wt is this but to pervert language? to adapt an idea to a\nname that belongs not to it but to a different idea?\n\nThe mathematicians should look to their axiom, Qu\u00e6 congruunt sunt \u00e6qualia.\nI know not what they mean by bidding me put one triangle on another. The\nunder triangle is no triangle\u2014nothing at all, it not being perceiv\u2019d. I\nask, must sight be judge of this congruentia or not? If it must, then all\nlines seen under the same angle are equal, wch they will not acknowledge.\nMust the touch be judge? But we cannot touch or feel lines and surfaces,\nsuch as triangles, &c., according to the mathematicians themselves. Much\nless can we touch a line or triangle that\u2019s cover\u2019d by another line or\ntriangle.\n\nDo you mean by saying one triangle is equall to another, that they both\ntake up equal spaces? But then the question recurs, what mean you by equal\nspaces? If you mean _spatia congruentia_, answer the above difficulty\ntruly.\n\nI can mean (for my part) nothing else by equal triangles than triangles\ncontaining equal numbers of points.\n\nI can mean nothing by equal lines but lines wch \u2019tis indifferent whether\nof them I take, lines in wch I observe by my senses no difference, & wch\ntherefore have the same name.\n\nMust the imagination be judge in the aforementioned cases? but then\nimagination cannot go beyond the touch and sight. Say you, pure intellect\nmust be judge. I reply that lines and triangles are not operations of the\nmind.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIf I speak positively and with the air of a mathematician in things of\nwhich I am certain, \u2019tis to avoid disputes, to make men careful to think\nbefore they answer, to discuss my arguments before they go to refute them.\nI would by no means injure truth and certainty by an affected modesty &\nsubmission to better judgments. Wt I lay before you are undoubted\ntheorems; not plausible conjectures of my own, nor learned opinions of\nother men. I pretend not to prove them by figures, analogy, or authority.\nLet them stand or fall by their own evidence.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M51) When you speak of the corpuscularian essences of bodys, to reflect\non sect. 11. & 12. b. 4. c. 3. Locke. Motion supposes not solidity. A meer\ncolour\u2019d extension may give us the idea of motion.\n\n(M52) Any subject can have of each sort of primary qualities but one\nparticular at once. Lib. 4. c. 3. s. 15. Locke.\n\n(M53) Well, say you, according to this new doctrine, all is but meer\nidea\u2014there is nothing wch is not an _ens rationis_. I answer, things are\nas real, and exist _in rerum natura_, as much as ever. The difference\nbetween _entia realia_ & _entia rationis_ may be made as properly now as\never. Do but think before you speak. Endeavour rightly to comprehend my\nmeaning, and you\u2019ll agree with me in this.\n\n(M54) Fruitless the distinction \u2019twixt real and nominal essences.\n\nWe are not acquainted with the meaning of our words. Real, extension,\nexistence, power, matter, lines, infinite, point, and many more are\nfrequently in our mouths, when little, clear, and determin\u2019d answers them\nin our understandings. This must be well inculcated.\n\n(M55) Vain is the distinction \u2019twixt intellectual and material world(86).\nV. Locke, lib. 4. c. 3. s. 27, where he says that is far more beautiful\nthan this.\n\n(M56) Foolish in men to despise the senses. If it were not for\n\n(M57) them the mind could have no knowledge, no thought at all. All ... of\nintroversion, meditation, contemplation, and spiritual acts, as if these\ncould be exerted before we had ideas from without by the senses, are\nmanifestly absurd. This may be of great use in that it makes the happyness\nof the life to come more conceivable and agreeable to our present nature.\nThe schoolemen & refiners in philosophy gave the greatest part of mankind\nno more tempting idea of heaven or the joys of the blest.\n\nThe vast, wide-spread, universal cause of our mistakes is, that we do not\nconsider our own notions. I mean consider them in themselves\u2014fix, settle,\nand determine them,\u2014we regarding them with relation to each other only. In\nshort, we are much out in study[ing] the relations of things before we\nstudy them absolutely and in themselves. Thus we study to find out the\nrelations of figures to one another, the relations also of number, without\nendeavouring rightly to understand the nature of extension and number in\nthemselves. This we think is of no concern, of no difficulty; but if I\nmistake not \u2019tis of the last importance,\n\n(M58) I allow not of the distinction there is made \u2019twixt profit and\npleasure.\n\n(M59) I\u2019d never blame a man for acting upon interest. He\u2019s a fool that\nacts on any other principles. The not considering these things has been of\nill consequence in morality.\n\nMy positive assertions are no less modest than those that are introduced\nwith \u201cIt seems to me,\u201d \u201cI suppose,\u201d &c.; since I declare, once for all,\nthat all I write or think is entirely about things as they appear to me.\nIt concerns no man else any further than his thoughts agree with mine.\nThis in the Preface.\n\n(M60) Two things are apt to confound men in their reasonings one with\nanother. 1st. Words signifying the operations of the mind are taken from\nsensible ideas. 2ndly. Words as used by the vulgar are taken in some\nlatitude, their signification is confused. Hence if a man use words in a\ndetermined, settled signification, he is at a hazard either of not being\nunderstood, or of speaking improperly. All this remedyed by studying the\nunderstanding.\n\nUnity no simple idea. I have no idea meerly answering the word one. All\nnumber consists in relations(87).\n\nEntia realia et entia rationis, a foolish distinction of the Schoolemen.\n\n(M61) We have an intuitive knowledge of the existence of other things\nbesides ourselves & order, pr\u00e6cedaneous(88). To the knowledge of our own\nexistence\u2014in that we must have ideas or else we cannot think.\n\n(M62) We move our legs ourselves. \u2019Tis we that will their movement. Herein\nI differ from Malbranch(89).\n\n(M63) Mem. Nicely to discuss Lib. 4. c. 4. Locke(90).\n\n(M64) Mem. Again and again to mention & illustrate the doctrine of the\nreality of things, rerum natura, &c.\n\n(M65) Wt I say is demonstration\u2014perfect demonstration. Wherever men have\nfix\u2019d & determin\u2019d ideas annexed to their words they can hardly be\nmistaken. Stick but to my definition of likeness, and \u2019tis a demonstration\nyt colours are not simple ideas, all reds being like, &c. So also in other\nthings. This to be heartily insisted on.\n\n(M66) The abstract idea of Being or Existence is never thought of by the\nvulgar. They never use those words standing for abstract ideas.\n\n(M67) I must not say the words thing, substance, &c. have been the cause\nof mistakes, but the not reflecting on their meaning. I will be still for\nretaining the words. I only desire that men would think before they speak,\nand settle the meaning of their words.\n\n(M68) I approve not of that which Locke says, viz. truth consists in the\njoining and separating of signs.\n\n(M69) Locke cannot explain general truth or knowledge without treating of\nwords and propositions. This makes for me against abstract general ideas.\nVide Locke, lib. 4. ch. 6.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M70) Men have been very industrious in travelling forward. They have gone\na great way. But none have gone backward beyond the Principles. On that\nside there lies much terra incognita to be travel\u2019d over and discovered by\nme. A vast field for invention.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nTwelve inches not the same idea with a foot. Because a man may perfectly\nconceive a foot who never thought of an inch.\n\nA foot is equal to or the same with twelve inches in this respect, viz.\nthey contain both the same number of points.\n\n[Forasmuch as] to be used.\n\nMem. To mention somewhat wch may encourage the study of politiques, and\ntestify of me yt I am well dispos\u2019d toward them.\n\n(M71) If men did not use words for ideas they would never have thought of\nabstract ideas. Certainly genera and species are not abstract general\nideas. Abstract ideas include a contradiction in their nature. Vide\nLocke(91), lib. 4. c. 7. s. 9.\n\nA various or mixt cause must necessarily produce a various or mixt effect.\nThis demonstrable from the definition of a cause; which way of\ndemonstrating must be frequently made use of in my Treatise, & to that end\ndefinitions often pr\u00e6mis\u2019d. Hence \u2019tis evident that, according to Newton\u2019s\ndoctrine, colours cannot be simple ideas.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M72) I am the farthest from scepticism of any man. I know with an\nintuitive knowledge the existence of other things as well as my own soul.\nThis is wt Locke nor scarce any other thinking philosopher will pretend\nto(92).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M73) Doctrine of abstraction of very evil consequence in all the\nsciences. Mem. Barrow\u2019s remark. Entirely owing to language.\n\nLocke greatly out in reckoning the recording our ideas by words amongst\nthe uses and not the abuses of language.\n\n(M74) Of great use & ye last importance to contemplate a man put into the\nworld alone, with admirable abilitys, and see how after long experience he\nwould know wthout words. Such a one would never think of genera and\nspecies or abstract general ideas.\n\n(M75) Wonderful in Locke that he could, wn advanced in years, see at all\nthro\u2019 a mist; it had been so long a gathering, & was consequently thick.\nThis more to be admir\u2019d than yt he did not see farther.\n\nIdentity of ideas may be taken in a double sense, either as including or\nexcluding identity of circumstances, such as time, place, &c.\n\n(M76) I am glad the people I converse with are not all richer, wiser, &c.\nthan I. This is agreeable to reason; is no sin. \u2019Tis certain that if the\nhappyness of my acquaintance encreases, & mine not proportionably, mine\nmust decrease. The not understanding this & the doctrine about relative\ngood, discuss\u2019d with French, Madden(93), &c., to be noticed as 2 causes of\nmistake in judging of moral matters.\n\nMem. To observe (wn you talk of the division of ideas into simple and\ncomplex) that there may be another cause of the undefinableness of certain\nideas besides that which Locke gives; viz. the want of names.\n\n(M77) Mem. To begin the First Book(94) not with mention of sensation and\nreflection, but instead of sensation to use perception or thought in\ngeneral.\n\n(M78) I defy any man to imagine or conceive perception without an idea, or\nan idea without perception.\n\n(M79) Locke\u2019s very supposition that matter & motion should exist before\nthought is absurd\u2014includes a manifest contradiction.\n\nLocke\u2019s harangue about coherent, methodical discourses amounting to\nnothing, apply\u2019d to the mathematicians.\n\nThey talk of determining all the points of a curve by an equation. Wt mean\nthey by this? Wt would they signify by the word points? Do they stick to\nthe definition of Euclid?\n\n(M80) We think we know not the Soul, because we have no imaginable or\nsensible idea annex\u2019d to that sound. This the effect of prejudice.\n\n(M81) Certainly we do not know it. This will be plain if we examine what\nwe mean by the word knowledge. Neither doth this argue any defect in our\nknowledge, no more than our not knowing a contradiction.\n\nThe very existence of ideas constitutes the Soul(95).\n\n(M82) Consciousness(96), perception, existence of ideas, seem to be all\none.\n\nConsult, ransack yr understanding. Wt find you there besides several\nperceptions or thoughts? Wt mean you by the word mind? You must mean\nsomething that you perceive, or yt you do not perceive. A thing not\nperceived is a contradiction. To mean (also) a thing you do not perceive\nis a contradiction. We are in all this matter strangely abused by words.\n\nMind is a congeries of perceptions(97). Take away perceptions and you take\naway the mind. Put the perceptions and you put the mind.\n\nSay you, the mind is not the perception, not that thing which perceives. I\nanswer, you are abused by the words \u201cthat a thing.\u201d These are vague and\nempty words with us.\n\n(M83) The having ideas is not the same thing with perception. A man may\nhave ideas when he only imagines. But then this imagination presupposeth\nperception.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M84) That wch extreamly strengthens us in prejudice is yt we think we see\nan empty space, which I shall demonstrate to be false in the Third\nBook(98).\n\nThere may be demonstrations used even in Divinity. I mean in revealed\nTheology, as contradistinguish\u2019d from natural; for tho\u2019 the principles may\nbe founded in faith, yet this hinders not but that legitimate\ndemonstrations might be built thereon; provided still that we define the\nwords we use, and never go beyond our ideas. Hence \u2019twere no very hard\nmatter for those who hold episcopacy or monarchy to be established _jure\nDivino_ to demonstrate their doctrines if they are true. But to pretend to\ndemonstrate or reason anything about the Trinity is absurd. Here an\nimplicit faith becomes us.\n\n(M85) Qu. if there be any real difference betwixt certain ideas of\nreflection & others of sensation, e.g. betwixt perception and white,\nblack, sweet, &c.? Wherein, I pray you, does the perception of white\ndiffer from white men....\n\nI shall demonstrate all my doctrines. The nature of demonstration to be\nset forth and insisted on in the Introduction(99). In that I must needs\ndiffer from Locke, forasmuch as he makes all demonstration to be about\nabstract ideas, wch I say we have not nor can have.\n\n(M86) The understanding seemeth not to differ from its perceptions or\nideas. Qu. What must one think of the will and passions?\n\n(M87) A good proof that Existence is nothing without or distinct from\nperception, may be drawn from considering a man put into the world without\ncompany(100).\n\n(M88) There was a smell, i.e. there was a smell perceiv\u2019d. Thus we see\nthat common speech confirms my doctrine.\n\n(M89) No broken intervals of death or annihilation. Those intervals are\nnothing; each person\u2019s time being measured to him by his own ideas.\n\n(M90) We are frequently puzzl\u2019d and at a loss in obtaining clear and\ndetermin\u2019d meanings of words commonly in use, & that because we imagine\nwords stand for abstract general ideas which are altogether inconceivable.\n\n(M91) \u201cA stone is a stone.\u201d This a nonsensical proposition, and such as\nthe solitary man would never think on. Nor do I believe he would ever\nthink on this: \u201cThe whole is equal to its parts,\u201d &c.\n\n(M92) Let it not be said that I take away existence. I only declare the\nmeaning of the word, so far as I can comprehend it.\n\n(M93) If you take away abstraction, how do men differ from beasts? I\nanswer, by shape, by language. Rather by degrees of more and less.\n\nWt means Locke by inferences in words, consequences of words, as something\ndifferent from consequences of ideas? I conceive no such thing.\n\n(M94) N. B. Much complaint about the imperfection of language(101).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M95) But perhaps some man may say, an inert thoughtless Substance may\nexist, though not extended, moved, &c., but with other properties whereof\nwe have no idea. But even this I shall demonstrate to be impossible, wn I\ncome to treat more particularly of Existence.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWill not rightly distinguish\u2019d from Desire by Locke\u2014it seeming to superadd\nnothing to the idea of an action, but the uneasiness for its absence or\nnon-existence.\n\n(M96) Mem. To enquire diligently into that strange mistery, viz. How it is\nthat I can cast about, think of this or that man, place, action, wn\nnothing appears to introduce them into my thoughts, wn they have no\nperceivable connexion with the ideas suggested by my senses at the\npresent?\n\n(M97) \u2019Tis not to be imagin\u2019d wt a marvellous emptiness & scarcity of\nideas that man shall descry who will lay aside all use of words in his\nmeditations.\n\n(M98) Incongruous in Locke to fancy we want a sense proper to see\nsubstances with.\n\n(M99) Locke owns that abstract ideas were made in order to naming.\n\n(M100) The common errour of the opticians, that we judge of distance by\nangles(102), strengthens men in their prejudice that they see things\nwithout and distant from their mind.\n\n(M101) I am persuaded, would men but examine wt they mean by the word\nexistence, they wou\u2019d agree with me.\n\nc. 20. s. 8. b. 4. of Locke makes for me against the mathematicians.\n\n(M102) The supposition that things are distinct from ideas takes away all\nreal truth, & consequently brings in a universal scepticism; since all our\nknowledge and contemplation is confin\u2019d barely to our own ideas(103).\n\n(M103) Qu. whether the solitary man would not find it necessary to make\nuse of words to record his ideas, if not in memory or meditation, yet at\nleast in writing\u2014without which he could scarce retain his knowledge.\n\nWe read in history there was a time when fears and jealousies, privileges\nof parliament, malignant party, and such like expressions of too unlimited\nand doubtful a meaning, were words of much sway. Also the words Church,\nWhig, Tory, &c., contribute very much to faction and dispute.\n\n(M104) The distinguishing betwixt an idea and perception of the idea has\nbeen one great cause of imagining material substances(104).\n\n(M105) That God and blessed spirits have Will is a manifest argument\nagainst Locke\u2019s proofs that the Will cannot be conceiv\u2019d, put into action,\nwithout a previous uneasiness.\n\n(M106) The act of the Will, or volition, is not uneasiness, for that\nuneasiness may be without volition.\n\n(M107) Volition is distinct from the object or idea for the same reason.\n\n(M108) Also from uneasiness and idea together.\n\nThe understanding not distinct from particular perceptions or ideas.\n\nThe Will not distinct from particular volitions.\n\n(M109) It is not so very evident that an idea, or at least uneasiness, may\nbe without all volition or act.\n\nThe understanding taken for a faculty is not really distinct from ye will.\n\nThis allow\u2019d hereafter.\n\n(M110) To ask whether a man can will either side is an absurd question,\nfor the word _can_ presupposes volition.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M111) Anima mundi, substantial form, omniscient radical heat, plastic\nvertue, Hylaschic principle\u2014all these vanish(105).\n\n(M112) Newton proves that gravity is proportional to gravity. I think\nthat\u2019s all(106).\n\nQu. whether it be the vis inerti\u00e6 that makes it difficult to move a stone,\nor the vis attractiv\u00e6, or both, or neither?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMem. To express the doctrines as fully and copiously and clearly as may\nbe. Also to be full and particular in answering objections(107).\n\n(M113) To say ye Will is a power; [therefore] volition is an act. This is\nidem per idem.\n\nWt makes men despise extension, motion, &c., & separate them from the\nessence of the soul, is that they imagine them to be distinct from\nthought, and to exist in unthinking substance.\n\nAn extended may have passive modes of thinking good actions.\n\nThere might be idea, there might be uneasiness, there might be the\ngreatest uneasiness wthout any volition, therefore the....\n\n(M114) Matter once allow\u2019d, I defy any man to prove that God is not\nMatter(108).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M115) Man is free. There is no difficulty in this proposition, if we but\nsettle the signification of the word _free_\u2014if we had an idea annext to\nthe word free, and would but contemplate that idea.\n\n(M116) We are imposed on by the words will, determine, agent, free, can,\n&c.\n\n(M117) Uneasiness precedes not every volition. This evident by experience.\n\n(M118) Trace an infant in the womb. Mark the train & succession of its\nideas. Observe how volition comes into the mind. This may perhaps acquaint\nyou with its nature.\n\n(M119) Complacency seems rather to determine, or precede, or coincide wth\n& constitute the essence of volition, than uneasiness.\n\n(M120) You tell me, according to my doctrine a man is not free. I answer,\ntell me wt you mean by the word free, and I shall resolve you(109).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M121) Qu. Wt do men mean when they talk of one body\u2019s touching another? I\nsay you never saw one body touch, or (rather) I say, I never saw one body\nthat I could say touch\u2019d this or that other; for that if my optiques were\nimprov\u2019d, I should see intervalls and other bodies behind those whch now\nseem to touch.\n\nMem. Upon all occasions to use the utmost modesty\u2014to confute the\nmathematicians wth the utmost civility & respect, not to style them\nNihilarians, &c.\n\nN. B. To rein in ye satyrical nature.\n\nBlame me not if I use my words sometimes in some latitude. \u2019Tis wt cannot\nbe helpt. \u2019Tis the fault of language that you cannot always apprehend the\nclear and determinate meaning of my words.\n\nSay you, there might be a thinking Substance\u2014something unknown\u2014wch\nperceives, and supports, and ties together the ideas(110). Say I, make it\nappear there is any need of it and you shall have it for me. I care not to\ntake away anything I can see the least reason to think should exist.\n\nI affirm \u2019tis manifestly absurd\u2014no excuse in the world can be given why a\nman should use a word without an idea(111). Certainly we shall find that\nwt ever word we make use of in matter of pure reasoning has, or ought to\nhave, a compleat idea, annext to it, i.e. its meaning, or the sense we\ntake it in, must be compleatly known.\n\n\u2019Tis demonstrable a man can never be brought to imagine anything should\nexist whereof he has no idea. Whoever says he does, banters himself with\nwords.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M122) We imagine a great difference & distance in respect of knowledge,\npower, &c., betwixt a man & a worm. The like difference betwixt man and\nGod may be imagin\u2019d; or infinitely greater(112) difference.\n\n(M123) We find in our own minds a great number of different ideas. We may\nimagine in God a greater number, i.e. that ours in number, or the number\nof ours, is inconsiderable in respect thereof. The words difference and\nnumber, old and known, we apply to that wch is unknown. But I am\nembrangled(113) in words\u2014\u2019tis scarce possible it should be otherwise.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe chief thing I do or pretend to do is onely to remove the mist or veil\nof words(114). This has occasion\u2019d ignorance & confusion. This has ruined\nthe schoolmen and mathematicians, lawyers and divines.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M124) The grand cause of perplexity & darkness in treating of the Will,\nis that we imagine it to be an object of thought: (to speak with the\nvulgar), we think we may perceive, contemplate, and view it like any of\nour ideas; whereas in truth \u2019tis no idea, nor is there any idea of it.\n\u2019Tis _toto c\u00e6lo_ different from the understanding, i.e. from all our\nideas. If you say the Will, or rather volition, is something, I answer,\nthere is an homonymy(115) in the word _thing_, wn apply\u2019d to ideas and\nvolition and understanding and will. All ideas are passive(116).\n\n(M125) Thing & idea are much what words of the same extent and meaning.\nWhy, therefore, do I not use the word thing? Ans. Because thing is of\ngreater latitude than idea. Thing comprehends also volitions or actions.\nNow these are no ideas(117).\n\n(M126) There can be perception wthout volition. Qu. whether there can be\nvolition without perception?\n\n(M127) Existence not conceivable without perception or volition\u2014not\ndistinguish\u2019d therefrom.\n\n(M128) N. B. Several distinct ideas can be perceived by sight and touch at\nonce. Not so by the other senses. \u2019Tis this diversity of sensations in\nother senses chiefly, but sometimes in touch and sight (as also diversity\nof volitions, whereof there cannot be more than one at once, or rather, it\nseems there cannot, for of that I doubt), gives us the idea of time\u2014or\n_is_ time itself.\n\nWt would the solitary man think of number?\n\n(M129) There are innate ideas, i.e. ideas created with us(118).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M130) Locke seems to be mistaken wn he says thought is not essential to\nthe mind(119).\n\n(M131) Certainly the mind always and constantly thinks: and we know this\ntoo. In sleep and trances the mind _exists not_\u2014there is no time, no\nsuccession of ideas(120).\n\n(M132) To say the mind exists without thinking is a contradiction,\nnonsense, nothing.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M133) Folly to inquire wt determines the Will. Uneasiness, &c. are ideas,\ntherefore unactive, therefore can do nothing, therefore cannot determine\nthe Will(121).\n\n(M134) Again, wt mean you by determine?\n\n(M135) (M136) For want of rightly understanding time, motion, existence,\n&c., men are forc\u2019d into such absurd contradictions as this, viz. light\nmoves 16 diameters of earth in a second of time.\n\n(M137) \u2019Twas the opinion that ideas could exist unperceiv\u2019d, or before\nperception, that made men think perception(122) was somewhat different\nfrom the idea perceived, i.e. yt it was an idea of reflection; whereas the\nthing perceiv\u2019d was an idea of sensation. I say, \u2019twas this made \u2019em think\nthe understanding took it in, receiv\u2019d it from without; wch could never be\ndid not they think it existed without(123).\n\n(M138) Properly speaking, idea is the picture of the imagination\u2019s making.\nThis is ye likeness of, and refer\u2019d to the real idea, or (if you will)\nthing(124).\n\n(M139) To ask, have we an idea of Will or volition, is nonsense. An idea\ncan resemble nothing but an idea.\n\n(M140) If you ask wt thing it is that wills, I answer, if you mean idea by\nthe word thing, or anything like any idea, then I say, \u2019tis no thing at\nall that wills(125). This how extravagant soever it may seem, yet is a\ncertain truth. We are cheated by these general terms, thing, is, &c.\n\n(M141) Again, if by is you mean is perceived, or does perceive, I say\nnothing wch is perceived or does perceive wills.\n\n(M142) The referring ideas to things wch are not ideas, the using the term\n\u201cidea of(126),\u201d is one great cause of mistake, as in other matters, so\nalso in this.\n\n(M143) Some words there are wch do not stand for ideas, viz. particles,\nwill, &c. Particles stand for volitions and their concomitant ideas.\n\n(M144) There seem to be but two colours wch are simple ideas, viz. those\nexhibited by the most and least refrangible rays; [the others], being the\nintermediate ones, may be formed by composition.\n\n(M145) I have no idea of a volition or act of the mind, neither has any\nother intelligence; for that were a contradiction.\n\nN. B. Simple ideas, viz. colours, are not devoid of all sort of\ncomposition, tho\u2019 it must be granted they are not made up of\ndistinguishable ideas. Yet there is another sort of composition. Men are\nwont to call those things compounded in which we do not actually discover\nthe component ingredients. Bodies are said to be compounded of chymical\nprinciples, which, nevertheless, come not into view till after the\ndissolution of the bodies\u2014wch were not, could not, be discerned in the\nbodies whilst remaining entire.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M146) All our knowledge is about particular ideas, according to Locke.\nAll our sensations are particular ideas, as is evident. Wt use then do we\nmake of abstract general ideas, since we neither know nor perceive them?\n\n(M147) \u2019Tis allow\u2019d that particles stand not for ideas, and yet they are\nnot said to be empty useless sounds. The truth really is, they stand for\noperations of the mind, i.e. volitions.\n\n(M148) Locke says all our knowledge is about particulars. If so, pray wt\nis the following ratiocination but a jumble of words? \u201cOmnis homo est\nanimal; omne animal vivit: ergo omnis homo vivit.\u201d It amounts (if you\nannex particular ideas to the words \u201canimal\u201d and \u201cvivit\u201d) to no more than\nthis: \u201cOmnis homo est homo; omnis homo est homo: ergo, omnis homo est\nhomo.\u201d A mere sport and trifling with sounds.\n\n(M149) We have no ideas of vertues & vices, no ideas of moral\nactions(127). Wherefore it may be question\u2019d whether we are capable of\narriving at demonstration about them(128), the morality consisting in the\nvolition chiefly.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M150) Strange it is that men should be at a loss to find their idea of\nExistence; since that (if such there be distinct from perception) it is\nbrought into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection(129),\nmethinks it should be most familiar to us, and we best acquainted with it.\n\n(M151) This I am sure, I have no idea of Existence(130), or annext to the\nword Existence. And if others have that\u2019s nothing to me; they can never\nmake me sensible of it; simple ideas being incommunicable by language.\n\n(M152) Say you, the unknown substratum of volitions & ideas is something\nwhereof I have no idea. I ask, Is there any other being which has or can\nhave an idea of it? If there be, then it must be itself an idea; which you\nwill think absurd.\n\n(M153) There is somewhat active in most perceptions, i.e. such as ensue\nupon our volitions, such as we can prevent and stop: e.g. I turn my eyes\ntoward the sun: I open them. All this is active.\n\n(M154) Things are twofold\u2014active or inactive. The existence of active\nthings is to act; of inactive to be perceiv\u2019d.\n\n(M155) Distinct from or without perception there is no volition; therefore\nneither is there existence without perception.\n\n(M156) God may comprehend all ideas, even the ideas wch are painfull &\nunpleasant, without being in any degree pained thereby(131). Thus we\nourselves can imagine the pain of a burn, &c. without any misery or\nuneasiness at all.\n\n(M157) Truth, three sorts thereof\u2014natural, mathematical, & moral.\n\n(M158) Agreement of relation onely where numbers do obtain: of\nco-existence, in nature: of signification, by including, in morality.\n\n(M159) Gyant who shakes the mountain that\u2019s on him must be acknowledged.\nOr rather thus: I am no more to be reckon\u2019d stronger than Locke than a\npigmy should be reckon\u2019d stronger than a gyant, because he could throw off\nthe molehill wch lay upon him, and the gyant could onely shake or shove\nthe mountain that oppressed him. This in the Preface.\n\n(M160) Promise to extend our knowledge & clear it of those shamefull\ncontradictions which embarrass it. Something like this to begin the\nIntroduction in a modest way(132).\n\n(M161) Whoever shall pretend to censure any part, I desire he would read\nout the whole, else he may perhaps not understand me. In the Preface or\nIntroduction(133).\n\n(M162) Doctrine of identity best explain\u2019d by taking the Will for\nvolitions, the Understanding for ideas. The difficulty of consciousness of\nwt are never acted surely solv\u2019d thereby.\n\n(M163) I must acknowledge myself beholding to the philosophers who have\ngone before me. They have given good rules, though certainly they do not\nalways observe them. Similitude of adventurers, who, tho\u2019 they attained\nnot the desired port, they by their wrecks have made known the rocks and\nsands, whereby the passage of aftercomers is made more secure & easy.\nPreface or Introduction.\n\n(M164) The opinion that men had ideas of moral actions(134) has render\u2019d\nthe demonstrating ethiques very difficult to them.\n\n(M165) An idea being itself unactive cannot be the resemblance or image of\nan active thing.\n\n(M166) Excuse to be made in the Introduction for using the word _idea_,\nviz. because it has obtain\u2019d. But a caution must be added.\n\nScripture and possibility are the onely proofs(135) with Malbranch. Add to\nthese what he calls a great propension to think so: this perhaps may be\nquestioned. Perhaps men, if they think before they speak, will not be\nfound so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of Matter.\n\n(M167) On second thoughts I am on t\u2019other extream. I am certain of that\nwch Malbranch seems to doubt of, viz. the existence of bodies(136).\n\n(M168) Mem. To bring the killing blow at the last, e.g. in the matter of\nabstraction to bring Locke\u2019s general triangle in the last(137).\n\n(M169) They give good rules, tho\u2019 perhaps they themselves do not always\nobserve them. They speak much of clear and distinct ideas, though at the\nsame time they talk of general abstract ideas, &c. I\u2019ll [instance] in\nLocke\u2019s opinion of abstraction, he being as clear a writer as I have met\nwith.\n\nSuch was the candour of this great man that I perswade myself, were he\nalive(138), he would not be offended that I differ from him: seeing that\neven in so doing I follow his advice, viz. to use my own judgement, see\nwith my own eyes, & not with another\u2019s. Introduction.\n\n(M170) The word thing, as comprising or standing for idea & volition,\nusefull; as standing for idea and archetype without the mind(139),\nmischievous and useless.\n\n(M171) To demonstrate morality it seems one need only make a dictionary of\nwords, and see which included which. At least, this is the greatest part\nand bulk of the work.\n\n(M172) Locke\u2019s instances of demonstration in morality are, according to\nhis own rule, trifling propositions.\n\n(M173) Qu. How comes it that some ideas are confessedly allow\u2019d by all to\nbe onely in the mind(140), and others as generally taken to be without the\nmind(141), if, according to you, all are equally and only in the mind?\nAns. Because that in proportion to pleasure or pain ideas are attended\nwith desire, exertion, and other actions which include volition. Now\nvolition is by all granted to be in spirit.\n\n(M174) If men would lay aside words in thinking, \u2019tis impossible they\nshould ever mistake, save only in matters of fact. I mean it seems\nimpossible they should be positive & secure that anything was true wch in\ntruth is not so. Certainly I cannot err in matter of simple perception. So\nfar as we can in reasoning go without the help of signs, there we have\ncertain knowledge. Indeed, in long deductions made by signs there may be\nslips of memory.\n\n(M175) From my doctrine there follows a cure for pride. We are only to be\npraised for those things which are our own, or of our own doing; natural\nabilitys are not consequences of our volitions.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M176) Mem. Candidly to take notice that Locke holds some dangerous\nopinions; such as the infinity and eternity of Space and the possibility\nof Matter\u2019s thinking(142).\n\n(M177) Once more I desire my reader may be upon his guard against the\nfallacy of words. Let him beware that I do not impose on him by plausible\nempty talk, that common dangerous way of cheating men into absurditys. Let\nhim not regard my words any otherwise than as occasions of bringing into\nhis mind determin\u2019d significations. So far as they fail of this they are\ngibberish, jargon, & deserve not the name of language. I desire & warn him\nnot to expect to find truth in my book, or anywhere but in his own mind.\nWtever I see myself \u2019tis impossible I can paint it out in words.\n\n(M178) N. B. To consider well wt is meant by that wch Locke saith\nconcerning algebra\u2014that it supplys intermediate ideas. Also to think of a\nmethod affording the same use in morals &c. that this doth in\nmathematiques.\n\n(M179) _Homo_ is not proved to be _vivens_ by means of any intermediate\nidea. I don\u2019t fully agree wth Locke in wt he says concerning sagacity in\nfinding out intermediate ideas in matter capable of demonstration & the\nuse thereof; as if that were the onely means of improving and enlarging\ndemonstrative knowledge.\n\n(M180) There is a difference betwixt power & volition. There may be\nvolition without power. But there can be no power without volition. Power\nimplyeth volition, & at the same time a connotation of the effects\nfollowing the volition(143).\n\n(M181) We have assuredly an idea of substance. \u2019Twas absurd of Locke(144)\nto think we had a name without a meaning. This might prove acceptable to\nthe Stillingfleetians.\n\n(M182) The substance of Body we know(145). The substance of Spirit we do\nnot know\u2014it not being knowable, it being a _purus actus_.\n\n(M183) Words have ruin\u2019d and overrun all the sciences\u2014law, physique,\nchymistry, astrology, &c.\n\n(M184) Abstract ideas only to be had amongst the learned. The vulgar never\nthink they have any such, nor truly do they find any want of them. Genera\n& species & abstract ideas are terms unknown to them.\n\n(M185) Locke\u2019s out(146)\u2014the case is different. We can have an idea of body\nwithout motion, but not of soul without thought.\n\n(M186) God ought to be worship\u2019d. This easily demonstrated when once we\nascertain the signification of the words God, worship, ought.\n\n(M187) No perception, according to Locke, is active. Therefore no\nperception (i.e. no idea) can be the image of, or like unto, that which is\naltogether active & not at all passive, i.e. the Will.\n\n(M188) I can will the calling to mind something that is past, tho\u2019 at the\nsame time that wch I call to mind was not in my thoughts before that\nvolition of mine, & consequently I could have had no uneasiness for the\nwant of it.\n\n(M189) The Will & the Understanding may very well be thought two distinct\nbeings.\n\n(M190) Sed quia voluntas raro agit nisi ducente desiderio. V. Locke,\nEpistles, p. 479, ad Limburgum.\n\nYou cannot say the m. t. [minimum tangibile] is like or one with the m. v.\n[minimum visibile], because they be both minima, just perceiv\u2019d, and next\ndoor to nothing. You may as well say the m. t. is the same with or like\nunto a sound, so small that it is scarce perceiv\u2019d.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nExtension seems to be a mode of some tangible or sensible quality\naccording as it is seen or felt.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M191) The spirit\u2014the active thing\u2014that wch is soul, & God\u2014is the Will\nalone. The ideas are effects\u2014impotent things.\n\n(M192) The concrete of the will & understanding I might call mind; not\nperson, lest offence be given. Mem. Carefully to omit defining of person,\nor making much mention of it.\n\n(M193) You ask, do these volitions make _one_ Will? Wt you ask is meerly\nabout a word\u2014unity being no more(147).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nN. B. To use utmost caution not to give the least handle of offence to the\nChurch or Churchmen.\n\n(M194) Even to speak somewhat favourably of the Schoolmen, and shew that\nthey who blame them for jargon are not free of it themselves. Introd.\n\nLocke\u2019s great oversight seems to be that he did not begin with his third\nbook; at least that he had not some thought of it at first. Certainly the\n2d & 4th books don\u2019t agree wth wt he says in ye 3d(148).\n\n(M195) If Matter(149) is once allow\u2019d to exist, clippings of weeds and\nparings of nails may think, for ought that Locke can tell; tho\u2019 he seems\npositive of the contrary.\n\nSince I say men cannot mistake in short reasoning about things\ndemonstrable, if they lay aside words, it will be expected this Treatise\nwill contain nothing but wt is certain & evident demonstration, & in truth\nI hope you will find nothing in it but what is such. Certainly I take it\nall for such. Introd.\n\n(M196) When I say I will reject all propositions wherein I know not fully\nand adequately and clearly, so far as knowable, the thing meant thereby,\nthis is not to be extended to propositions in the Scripture. I speak of\nmatters of Reason and Philosophy\u2014not Revelation. In this I think an\nhumble, implicit faith becomes us (when we cannot comprehend or understand\nthe proposition), such as a popish peasant gives to propositions he hears\nat mass in Latin. This proud men may call blind, popish, implicit,\nirrational. For my part I think it is more irrational to pretend to\ndispute at, cavil, and ridicule holy mysteries, i.e. propositions about\nthings that are altogether above our knowledge, out of our reach. When I\nshall come to plenary knowledge of the meaning of any fact, then I shall\nyield an explicit belief. Introd.\n\nComplexation of ideas twofold. Ys refers to colours being complex ideas.\n\nConsidering length without breadth is considering any length, be the\nbreadth wt it will.\n\n(M197) I may say earth, plants, &c. were created before man\u2014there being\nother intelligences to perceive them, before man was created(150).\n\n(M198) There is a philosopher(151) who says we can get an idea of\nsubstance by no way of sensation or reflection, & seems to imagine that we\nwant a sense proper for it. Truly if we had a new sense it could only give\nus a new idea. Now I suppose he will not say substance, according to him,\nis an idea. For my part, I own I have no idea can stand for substance in\nhis and the Schoolmen\u2019s sense of that word. But take it in the common\nvulgar sense, & then we see and feel substance.\n\n(M199) N. B. That not common usage, but the Schoolmen coined the word\nExistence, supposed to stand for an abstract general idea.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWriters of Optics mistaken in their principles both in judging of\nmagnitudes and distances.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M200) \u2019Tis evident yt wn the solitary man should be taught to speak, the\nwords would give him no other new ideas (save only the sounds, and complex\nideas which, tho\u2019 unknown before, may be signified by language) beside wt\nhe had before. If he had not, could not have, an abstract idea before, he\ncannot have it after he is taught to speak.\n\n(M201) \u201cHomo est homo,\u201d &c. comes at last to Petrus est Petrus, &c. Now,\nif these identical propositions are sought after in the mind, they will\nnot be found. There are no identical mental propositions. \u2019Tis all about\nsounds and terms.\n\n(M202) Hence we see the doctrine of certainty by ideas, and proving by\nintermediate ideas, comes to nothing(152).\n\n(M203) We may have certainty & knowledge without ideas, i.e. without other\nideas than the words, and their standing for one idea, i.e. their being to\nbe used indifferently.\n\n(M204) It seems to me that we have no certainty about ideas, but only\nabout words. \u2019Tis improper to say, I am certain I see, I feel, &c. There\nare no mental propositions form\u2019d answering to these words, & in simple\nperception \u2019tis allowed by all there is no affirmation or negation, and\nconsequently no certainty(153).\n\n(M205) The reason why we can demonstrate so well about signs is, that they\nare perfectly arbitrary & in our power\u2014made at pleasure.\n\n(M206) The obscure ambiguous term _relation_, which is said to be the\nlargest field of knowledge, confounds us, deceives us.\n\n(M207) Let any man shew me a demonstration, not verbal, that does not\ndepend on some false principle; or at best on some principle of nature,\nwhich is ye effect of God\u2019s will, and we know not how soon it may be\nchanged.\n\n(M208) Qu. What becomes of the _\u00e6tern\u00e6 veritates_? Ans. They vanish(154).\n\n(M209) But, say you, I find it difficult to look beneath the words and\nuncover my ideas. Say I, Use will make it easy. In the sequel of my Book\nthe cause of this difficulty shall be more clearly made out.\n\n(M210) To view the deformity of error we need onely undress it.\n\n(M211) \u201cCogito ergo sum.\u201d Tautology. No mental proposition answering\nthereto.\n\n(M212) Knowledge, or certainty, or perception of agreement of ideas\u2014as to\nidentity and diversity, and real existence, vanisheth; of relation,\nbecometh merely nominal; of co-existence, remaineth. Locke thought in this\nlatter our knowledge was little or nothing. Whereas in this only real\nknowledge seemeth to be found(155).\n\n(M213) We must wth the mob place certainty in the senses(156).\n\n\u2019Tis a man\u2019s duty, \u2019tis the fruit of friendship, to speak well of his\nfriend. Wonder not therefore that I do wt I do.\n\n(M214) A man of slow parts may overtake truth, &c. Introd. Even my\nshortsightedness might perhaps be aiding to me in this matter\u2014\u2019twill make\nme bring the object nearer to my thoughts. A purblind person, &c. Introd.\n\n(M215) Locke to Limborch, &c. Talk of _judicium intellectus_ preceding the\nvolition: I think _judicium_ includes volition. I can by no means\ndistinguish these\u2014_judicium_, _intellectus_, _indifferentia_, uneasiness\nto many things accompanying or preceding every volition, as e.g. the\nmotion of my hand.\n\n(M216) Qu. Wt mean you by my perceptions, my volitions? Both all the\nperceptions I perceive or conceive(157), &c. are mine; all the volitions I\nam conscious to are mine.\n\n(M217) Homo est agens liberum. What mean they by _homo_ and _agens_ in\nthis place?\n\n(M218) Will any man say that brutes have ideas of Unity & Existence? I\nbelieve not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensation, \u2019tis\nstrange they should want them(158).\n\n(M219) It is a strange thing and deserves our attention, that the more\ntime and pains men have consum\u2019d in the study of philosophy, by so much\nthe more they look upon themselves to be ignorant & weak creatures. They\ndiscover flaws and imperfections in their faculties wch other men never\nspy out. They find themselves under a necessity of admitting many\ninconsistent, irreconcilable opinions for true. There is nothing they\ntouch with their hand, or behold with their eyes, but has its dark sides\nmuch larger and more numerous than wt is perceived, & at length turn\nscepticks, at least in most things. I imagine all this proceeds from, &c.\nExord. Introd.(159)\n\n(M220) These men with a supercilious pride disdain the common single\ninformation of sense. They grasp at knowledge by sheafs & bundles. (\u2019Tis\nwell if, catching at too much at once, they hold nothing but emptiness &\nair.) They in the depth of their understanding contemplate abstract ideas.\n\nIt seems not improbable that the most comprehensive & sublime intellects\nsee more m.v.\u2019s at once, i.e. that their visual systems are the largest.\n\nWords (by them meaning all sorts of signs) are so necessary that, instead\nof being (wn duly us\u2019d or in their own nature) prejudicial to the\nadvancement of knowledge, or an hindrance to knowledge, without them there\ncould in mathematiques themselves be no demonstration.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, &c., and recalling men to\nCommon Sense(160).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M221) We cannot conceive other minds besides our own but as so many\nselves. We suppose ourselves affected wth such & such thoughts & such and\nsuch sensations(161).\n\n(M222) Qu. whether composition of ideas be not that faculty which chiefly\nserves to discriminate us from brutes? I question whether a brute does or\ncan imagine a blue horse or chimera.\n\nNaturalists do not distinguish betwixt cause and occasion. Useful to\nenquire after co-existing ideas or occasions.\n\n(M223) Morality may be demonstrated as mixt mathematics.\n\n(M224) Perception is passive, but this not distinct from idea. Therefore\nthere can be no idea of volition.\n\nAlgebraic species or letters are denominations of denominations. Therefore\nArithmetic to be treated of before Algebra.\n\n2 crowns are called ten shillings. Hence may appear the value of numbers.\n\nComplex ideas are the creatures of the mind. Hence may appear the nature\nof numbers. This to be deeply discuss\u2019d.\n\nI am better informed & shall know more by telling me there are 10,000 men,\nthan by shewing me them all drawn up. I shall better be able to judge of\nthe bargain you\u2019d have me make wn you tell me how much (i.e. the name of\nye) money lies on the table, than by offering and shewing it without\nnaming. I regard not the idea, the looks, but the names. Hence may appear\nthe nature of numbers.\n\nChildren are unacquainted with numbers till they have made some progress\nin language. This could not be if they were ideas suggested by all the\nsenses.\n\nNumbers are nothing but names\u2014never words.\n\nMem. Imaginary roots\u2014to unravel that mystery.\n\nIdeas of utility are annexed to numbers.\n\nIn arithmetical problems men seek not any idea of number. They only seek a\ndenomination. This is all can be of use to them.\n\nTake away the signs from Arithmetic and Algebra, and pray wt remains?\n\nThese are sciences purely verbal, and entirely useless but for practice in\nsocieties of men. No speculative knowledge, no comparing of ideas in\nthem(162).\n\nQu. whether Geometry may not properly be reckon\u2019d amongst the mixt\nmathematics\u2014Arithmetic & Algebra being the only abstracted pure, i.e.\nentirely nominal\u2014Geometry being an application of these to points(163)?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M225) Locke of Trifling Propositions. [b. 4. c. 8] Mem. Well to observe &\ncon over that chapter.\n\n(M226) Existence, Extension, &c. are abstract, i.e. no ideas. They are\nwords, unknown and useless to the vulgar.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M227) Sensual pleasure is the _summum bonum_. This the great principle of\nmorality. This once rightly understood, all the doctrines, even the\nseverest of the Gospels, may clearly be demonstrated.\n\n(M228) Sensual pleasure, qu\u00e2 pleasure, is good & desirable by a wise\nman(164). But if it be contemptible, \u2019tis not qu\u00e2 pleasure but qu\u00e2 pain,\nor cause of pain, or (which is the same thing) of loss of greater\npleasure.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M229) Wn I consider, the more objects we see at once the more distant\nthey are, and that eye which beholds a great many things can see none of\nthem near.\n\n(M230) By _idea_ I mean any sensible or imaginable thing(165).\n\n(M231) To be sure or certain of wt we do not actually perceive(166) (I say\nperceive, not imagine), we must not be altogether passive; there must be a\ndisposition to act; there must be assent, wch is active. Nay, what do I\ntalk; there must be actual volition.\n\nWhat do we demonstrate in Geometry but that lines are equal or unequal?\ni.e. may not be called by the same name(167).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M232) I approve of this axiom of the Schoolmen, \u201cNihil est in intellectu\nquod non prius fuit in sensu.\u201d(168) I wish they had stuck to it. It had\nnever taught them the doctrine of abstract ideas.\n\n(M233) \u201cNihil dat quod non habet,\u201d or, the effect is contained in the\ncause, is an axiom I do not understand or believe to be true.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M234) Whoever shall cast his eyes on the writings of old or new\nphilosophers, and see the noise is made about formal and objective Being,\nWill, &c.\n\n(M235) Absurd to argue the existence of God from his idea. We have no idea\nof God. \u2019Tis impossible(169).\n\n(M236) Cause of much errour & confusion that men knew not what was meant\nby Reality(170).\n\n(M237) Des Cartes, in Med. 2, says the notion of this particular wax is\nless clear than that of wax in general; and in the same Med., a little\nbefore, he forbears to consider bodies in general, because (says he) these\ngeneral conceptions are usually confused.\n\n(M238) Des Cartes, in Med. 3, calls himself a thinking substance, and a\nstone an extended substance; and adds that they both agree in this, that\nthey are substances. And in the next paragraph he calls extension a mode\nof substance.\n\n(M239) \u2019Tis commonly said by the philosophers, that if the soul of man\nwere self-existent it would have given itself all possible perfection.\nThis I do not understand.\n\n(M240) Mem. To excite men to the pleasures of the eye & the ear, which\nsurfeit not, nor bring those evils after them, as others.\n\n(M241) We see no variety or difference betwixt volitions, only between\ntheir effects. \u2019Tis one Will, one Act\u2014distinguished by the effects. This\nWill, this Act, is the Spirit, i.e. operative principle, soul, &c. No\nmention of fears and jealousies, nothing like a party.\n\n(M242) Locke in his 4th Book(171), and Des Cartes in Med. 6, use the same\nargument for the existence of objects, viz. that sometimes we see, feel,\n&c. against our will.\n\n(M243) While I exist or have any idea, I am eternally, constantly willing;\nmy acquiescing in the present state is willing.\n\n(M244) The existence of any thing imaginable is nothing different from\nimagination or perception(172). Volition or Will, Wch is not imaginable,\nregard must not be had to its existence(?) ... First Book.\n\n(M245) There are four sorts of propositions:\u2014\u201cGold is a metal;\u201d \u201cGold is\nyellow;\u201d \u201cGold is fixt;\u201d \u201cGold is not a stone\u201d\u2014of which the first, second,\nand third are only nominal, and have no mental propositions answering\nthem.\n\n(M246) Mem. In vindication of the senses effectually to confute what Des\nCartes saith in the last par. of the last Med., viz. that the senses\noftener inform him falsely than truely\u2014that sense of pain tells me not my\nfoot is bruised or broken, but I, having frequently observed these two\nideas, viz. of that peculiar pain and bruised foot go together, do\nerroneously take them to be inseparable by a necessity of Nature\u2014as if\nNature were anything but the ordinance of the free will of God(173).\n\n(M247) Des Cartes owns we know not a substance immediately by itself, but\nby this alone, that it is the subject of several acts. Ans. to 2d\nobjection of Hobbs.\n\n(M248) Hobbs in some degree falls in with Locke, saying thought is to the\nmind or himself as dancing to the dancer. Object.\n\n(M249) Hobbs in his Object. 3 ridicules those expressions of the\nscholastiques\u2014\u201cthe will wills,\u201d &c. So does Locke. I am of another\nmind(174).\n\n(M250) Des Cartes, in answer to Object. 3 of Hobbs, owns he is distinct\nfrom thought as a thing from its modus or manner.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M251) Opinion that existence was distinct from perception of horrible\nconsequence. It is the foundation of Hobbs\u2019s doctrine, &c.\n\n(M252) Malbranch in his illustration(175) differs widely from me. He\ndoubts of the existence of bodies. I doubt not in the least of this.\n\n(M253) I differ from Cartesians in that I make extension, colour, &c. to\nexist really in bodies independent of our mind(176). All ye carefully and\nlucidly to be set forth.\n\n(M254) Not to mention the combinations of powers, but to say the\nthings\u2014the effects themselves\u2014do really exist, even wn not actually\nperceived; but still with relation to perception(177).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe great use of the Indian figures above the Roman shews arithmetic to be\nabout signs, not ideas\u2014or at least not ideas different from the characters\nthemselves(178).\n\n(M255) Reasoning there may be about things or ideas, or about actions; but\ndemonstration can be only verbal. I question, no matter &c.\n\n(M256) Quoth Des Cartes, The idea of God is not made by me, for I can\nneither add to nor subtract from it. No more can he add to or take from\nany other idea, even of his own making.\n\n(M257) The not distinguishing \u2019twixt Will and ideas is a grand mistake\nwith Hobbs. He takes those things for nothing which are not ideas(179).\n\n(M258) Say you, At this rate all\u2019s nothing but idea\u2014mere phantasm. I\nanswer, Everything as real as ever. I hope to call a thing idea makes it\nnot the less real. Truly I should perhaps have stuck to the word thing,\nand not mentioned the word idea, were it not for a reason, and I think a\ngood one too, which I shall give in the Second Book(180).\n\n(M259) Idea is the object of thought. Yt I think on, whatever it be, I\ncall idea. Thought itself, or thinking, is no idea. \u2019Tis an act\u2014i.e.\nvolition, i.e. as contradistinguished to effects\u2014the Will.\n\n(M260) Locke, in B. 4. c. 5, assigns not the right cause why mental\npropositions are so difficult. It is not because of complex but because of\nabstract ideas. Ye idea of a horse is as complex as that of fortitude. Yet\nin saying the \u201chorse is white\u201d I form a mental proposition with ease. But\nwhen I say \u201cfortitude is a virtue\u201d I shall find a mental proposition hard,\nor not at all to be come at.\n\n(M261) Pure intellect I understand not(181).\n\nLocke is in ye right in those things wherein he differs from ye\nCartesians, and they cannot but allow of his opinions, if they stick to\ntheir own principles or causes of Existence & other abstract ideas.\n\n(M262) The properties of all things are in God, i.e. there is in the Deity\nUnderstanding as well as Will. He is no blind agent, and in truth a blind\nagent is a contradiction(182).\n\n(M263) I am certain there is a God, tho\u2019 I do not perceive Him\u2014have no\nintuition of Him. This not difficult if we rightly understand wt is meant\nby certainty.\n\n(M264) It seems that the Soul, taken for the Will, is immortal,\nincorruptible.\n\n(M265) Qu. whether perception must of necessity precede volition?\n\n(M266) Error is not in the Understanding, but in the Will. What I\nunderstand or perceive, that I understand. There can be no errour in this.\n\n(M267) Mem. To take notice of Locke\u2019s woman afraid of a wetting, in the\nIntrod., to shew there may be reasoning about ideas or things.\n\n(M268) Say Des Cartes & Malbranch, God hath given us strong inclinations\nto think our ideas proceed from bodies, or that bodies do exist. Pray wt\nmean they by this? Would they have it that the ideas of imagination are\nimages of, and proceed from, the ideas of sense? This is true, but cannot\nbe their meaning; for they speak of ideas of sense as themselves\nproceeding from, being like unto\u2014I know not wt(183).\n\n(M269) Cartesius per ideam vult omne id quod habet esse objectivum in\nintellectu. V. Tract. de Methodo.\n\n(M270) Qu. May there not be an Understanding without a Will?\n\n(M271) Understanding is in some sort an action.\n\n(M272) Silly of Hobbs, &c. to speak of the Will as if it were motion, with\nwhich it has no likeness.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M273) Ideas of Sense are the real things or archetypes. Ideas of\nimagination, dreams, &c. are copies, images, of these.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M274) My doctrines rightly understood, all that philosophy of Epicurus,\nHobbs, Spinosa, &c., which has been a declared enemy of religion, comes to\nthe ground.\n\n(M275) Hobbs & Spinosa make God extended. Locke also seems to do the\nsame(184).\n\n(M276) Ens, res, aliquid dicuntur termini transcendentales. Spinosa, p.\n76, prop. 40, Eth. part 2, gives an odd account of their original. Also of\nthe original of all universals\u2014Homo, Canis, &c.\n\n(M277) Spinosa (vid. Pr\u00e6f. Opera Posthum.) will have God to be \u201comnium\nrerum causa immanens,\u201d and to countenance this produces that of St. Paul,\n\u201cin Him we live,\u201d &c. Now this of St. Paul may be explained by my doctrine\nas well as Spinosa\u2019s, or Locke\u2019s, or Hobbs\u2019s, or Raphson\u2019s(185), &c.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M278) The Will is _purus actus_, or rather pure spirit not imaginable,\nnot sensible, not intelligible, in no wise the object of the\nunderstanding, no wise perceivable.\n\n(M279) Substance of a spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or\nif you please (to avoid the quibble yt may be made of the word \u201cit\u201d) to\nact, cause, will, operate. Its substance is not knowable, not being an\nidea.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M280) Why may we not conceive it possible for God to create things out of\nnothing? Certainly we ourselves create in some wise whenever we imagine.\n\n(M281) \u201cEx nihilo nihil fit.\u201d This (saith Spinoza, Opera Posth. p. 464)\nand the like are called _veritates \u00e6tern\u00e6_, because \u201cnullam fidem habent\nextra mentem.\u201d To make this axiom have a positive signification, one\nshould express it thus: Every idea has a cause, i.e. is produced by a\nWill(186).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M282) The philosophers talk much of a distinction \u2019twixt absolute &\nrelative things, or \u2019twixt things considered in their own nature & the\nsame things considered with respect to us. I know not wt they mean by\n\u201cthings considered in themselves.\u201d This is nonsense, jargon.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M283) It seems there can be no perception\u2014no idea\u2014without Will, seeing\nthere are no ideas so indifferent but one had rather have them than\nannihilation, or annihilation than them. Or if there be such an equal\nbalance, there must be an equal mixture of pleasure and pain to cause it;\nthere being no ideas perfectly void of all pain & uneasiness, but wt are\npreferable to annihilation.\n\nRecipe in animum tuum, per cogitationem vehementem, rerum ipsarum, non\nliterarum aut sonorum imagines. Hobbs against Wallis.\n\n\u2019Tis a perfection we may imagine in superior spirits, that they can see a\ngreat deal at once with the utmost clearness and distinction; whereas we\ncan only see a point(187).\n\nMem. Wn I treat of mathematiques to enquire into the controversy \u2019twixt\nHobbes and Wallis.\n\n(M284) Every sensation of mine, which happens in consequence of the\ngeneral known laws of nature, & is from without, i.e. independent of my\nwill, demonstrates the being of a God, i.e. of an unextended, incorporeal\nspirit, which is omnipresent, omnipotent, &c.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M285) I say not with J.S. [John Sergeant] that we _see_ solids. I reject\nhis \u201csolid philosophy\u201d\u2014solidity being only perceived by touch(188).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M286) It seems to me that will and understanding\u2014volitions and\nideas\u2014cannot be separated, that either cannot be possibly without the\nother.\n\n(M287) Some ideas or other I must have, so long as I exist or will. But no\none idea or sort of ideas being essential(189).\n\n(M288) The distinction between idea and ideatum I cannot otherwise\nconceive than by making one the effect or consequence of dream, reverie,\nimagination\u2014the other of sense and the constant laws of nature.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M289) Dico quod extensio non concipitur in se et per se, contra quam\ndicit Spinoza in Epist. 2a ad Oldenburgium.\n\n(M290) My definition of the word God I think much clearer than those of\nDes Cartes & Spinoza, viz. \u201cEns summe perfectum & absolute infinitum,\u201d or\n\u201cEns constans infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque est\ninfinitum(190).\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n\u2019Tis chiefly the connexion betwixt tangible and visible ideas that\ndeceives, and not the visible ideas themselves.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M291) But the grand mistake is that we know not what we mean by \u201cwe,\u201d or\n\u201cselves,\u201d or \u201cmind,\u201d &c. \u2019Tis most sure & certain that our ideas are\ndistinct from the mind, i.e. the Will, the Spirit(191).\n\n(M292) I must not mention the understanding as a faculty or part of the\nmind. I must include understanding & will in the word Spirit\u2014by which I\nmean all that is active. I must not say that the understanding diners not\nfrom the particular ideas, or the will from particular volitions.\n\n(M293) The Spirit, the Mind, is neither a volition nor an idea.\n\n(M294) I say there are no causes (properly speaking) but spiritual,\nnothing active but Spirit. Say you, This is only verbal; \u2019tis only\nannexing a new sort of signification to the word cause, & why may not\nothers as well retain the old one, and call one idea the cause of another\nwhich always follows it? I answer, If you do so I shall drive you into\nmany absurditys: you cannot avoid running into opinions you\u2019ll be glad to\ndisown, if you stick firmly to that signification of the word Cause.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M295) In valuing good we reckon too much on the present & our own.\n\n(M296) There be two sorts of pleasure. The one is ordained as a spur or\nincitement to somewhat else, & has a visible relation and subordination\nthereto; the other is not. Thus the pleasure of eating is of the former\nsort, of musick of the later sort. These may be used for recreation, those\nnot but in order to their end.\n\n(M297) Three sorts of useful knowledge\u2014that of Coexistence, to be treated\nof in our Principles of Natural Philosophy; that of Relation, in\nMathematiques; that of Definition, or inclusion, or words (which perhaps\ndiffers not from that of relation), in Morality(192).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M298) Will, understanding, desire, hatred, &c., so far forth as they are\nacts or active, differ not. All their difference consists in their\nobjects, circumstances, &c.\n\n(M299) We must carefully distinguish betwixt two sorts of causes\u2014physical\n& spiritual.\n\n(M300) The physical may more properly be called occasions. Yet (to comply)\nwe may call them causes\u2014but then we must mean causes yt do nothing.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M301) According to Locke, we must be in an eternal uneasiness so long as\nwe live, bating the time of sleep or trance, &c.; for he will have even\nthe continuance of an action to be in his sense an action, & so requires a\nvolition, & this an uneasiness.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M302) I must not pretend to promise much of demonstration. I must cancell\nall passages that look like that sort of pride, that raising of\nexpectation in my friend.\n\n(M303) If this be the case, surely a man had better not philosophize at\nall: no more than a deformed person ought to cavil to behold himself by\nthe reflex light of a mirrour.\n\n(M304) Or thus, like deformed persons who, having beheld themselves by the\nreflex light of a mirrour, are displeased with their diseases.\n\n(M305) What can an idea be like but another idea? We can compare it with\nnothing else\u2014a sound like a sound, a colour like a colour.\n\n(M306) Is it not nonsense to say a smell is like a thing which cannot be\nsmelt, a colour is like a thing wh cannot be seen?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M307) Bodies exist without the mind, i.e. are not the mind, but distinct\nfrom it. This I allow, the mind being altogether different therefrom(193).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M308) Certainly we should not see motion if there was no diversity of\ncolours.\n\n(M309) Motion is an abstract idea, i.e. there is no such idea that can be\nconceived by itself.\n\n(M310) Contradictions cannot be both true. Men are obliged to answer\nobjections drawn from consequences. Introd.\n\n(M311) The Will and Volition are words not used by the vulgar. The learned\nare bantered by their meaning abstract ideas.\n\nSpeculative Math, as if a man was all day making hard knots on purpose to\nunty them again.\n\nTho\u2019 it might have been otherwise, yet it is convenient the same thing wch\nis M.V. should be also M.T., or very near it.\n\n(M312) I must not give the soul or mind the scholastique name \u201cpure act,\u201d\nbut rather pure spirit, or active being.\n\n(M313) I must not say the Will or Understanding are all one, but that they\nare both abstract ideas, i.e. none at all\u2014they not being even _ratione_\ndifferent from the Spirit, _qu\u00e2_ faculties, or active.\n\n(M314) Dangerous to make idea & thing terms convertible(194). That were\nthe way to prove spirits are nothing.\n\n(M315) Qu. whether _veritas_ stands not for an abstract idea?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M316) \u2019Tis plain the moderns must by their own principles own there are\nno bodies, i.e. no sort of bodies without the mind, i.e. unperceived.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M317) Qu. whether the Will can be the object of prescience or any\nknowledge?\n\n(M318) If there were only one ball in the world, it could not be moved.\nThere could be no variety of appearance.\n\nAccording to the doctrine of infinite divisibility, there must be some\nsmell of a rose, v. g. at an infinite distance from it.\n\n(M319) Extension, tho\u2019 it exist only in the mind, yet is no property of\nthe mind. The mind can exist without it, tho\u2019 it cannot without the mind.\nBut in Book II. I shall at large shew the difference there is betwixt the\nSoul and Body or extended being.\n\n(M320) \u2019Tis an absurd question wch Locke puts, whether man be free to\nwill?\n\nMem. To enquire into the reason of the rule for determining questions in\nAlgebra.\n\nIt has already been observed by others that names are nowhere of more\nnecessary use than in numbering.\n\n(M321) I will grant you that extension, colour, &c. may be said to be\nwithout the mind in a double respect, i.e. as independent of our will, and\nas distinct from the mind.\n\n(M322) Certainly it is not impossible but a man may arrive at the\nknowledge of all real truth as well without as with signs, had he a memory\nand imagination most strong and capacious. Therefore reasoning & science\ndoth not altogether depend upon words or names(195).\n\n(M323) I think not that things fall out of necessity. The connexion of no\ntwo ideas is necessary; \u2019tis all the result of freedom, i.e. \u2019tis all\nvoluntary(196).\n\n(M324) If a man with his eyes shut imagines to himself the sun &\nfirmament, you will not say _he_ or _his mind_ is the sun, or is extended,\ntho\u2019 neither sun or firmament be without mind.\n\n(M325) \u2019Tis strange to find philosophers doubting & disputing whether they\nhave ideas of spiritual things or no. Surely \u2019tis easy to know. Vid. De\nVries(197), _De Ideis Innatis_, p. 64.\n\n(M326) De Vries will have it that we know the mind agrees with things not\nby idea but sense or conscientia. So will Malbranch. This a vain\ndistinction.\n\nAugust 28th, 1708. The Adventure of the [Shirt?].\n\nIt were to be wished that persons of the greatest birth, honour, &\nfortune, would take that care of themselves, by education, industry,\nliterature, & a love of virtue, to surpass all other men in knowledge &\nall other qualifications necessary for great actions, as far as they do in\nquality & titles; that princes out of them might always chose men fit for\nall employments and high trusts. Clov. B. 7.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nOne eternity greater than another of the same kind.\n\nIn what sense eternity may be limited.\n\n(M327) Whether succession of ideas in the Divine intellect?\n\n(M328) Time is the train of ideas succeeding each other.\n\nDuration not distinguish\u2019d from existence.\n\nSuccession explain\u2019d by before, between, after, & numbering.\n\nWhy time in pain longer than time in pleasure?\n\nDuration infinitely divisible, time not so.\n\n(M329) The same \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd not common to all intelligences.\n\nTime thought infinitely divisible on account of its measure.\n\nExtension not infinitely divisible in one sense.\n\nRevolutions immediately measure train of ideas, mediately duration.\n\n(M330) Time a sensation; therefore onely in ye mind.\n\nEternity is onely a train of innumerable ideas. Hence the immortality of\nye soul easily conceiv\u2019d, or rather the immortality of the person, that of\nye soul not being necessary for ought we can see.\n\nSwiftness of ideas compar\u2019d with yt of motions shews the wisdom of God.\n\nWt if succession of ideas were swifter, wt if slower?\n\n(M331) Fall of Adam, use of idolatry, use of Epicurism & Hobbism, dispute\nabout divisibility of matter, &c. expounded by material substances.\n\nExtension a sensation, therefore not without the mind.\n\n(M332) In the immaterial hypothesis, the wall is white, fire hot, &c.\n\nPrimary ideas prov\u2019d not to exist in matter; after the same manner yt\nsecondary ones are prov\u2019d not to exist therein.\n\nDemonstrations of the infinite divisibility of extension suppose length\nwithout breadth, or invisible length, wch is absurd.\n\n(M333) World wthout thought is _nec quid_, _nec quantum_, _nec quale_, &c.\n\n(M334) \u2019Tis wondrous to contemplate ye World empty\u2019d of all intelligences.\n\nNothing properly but Persons, i.e. conscious things, do exist. All other\nthings are not so much existences as manners of ye existence of\npersons(198).\n\nQu. about the soul, or rather person, whether it be not compleatly known?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nInfinite divisibility of extension does suppose the external existence of\nextension; but the later is false, ergo ye former also.\n\nQu. Blind man made to see, would he know motion at 1st sight?\n\nMotion, figure, and extension perceivable by sight are different from\nthose ideas perceived by touch wch goe by the same name.\n\nDiagonal incommensurable wth ye side. Qu\u00e6re how this can be in my\ndoctrine?\n\n(M335) Qu. how to reconcile Newton\u2019s 2 sorts of motion with my doctrine?\n\nTerminations of surfaces & lines not imaginable _per se_.\n\nMolyneux\u2019s blind man would not know the sphere or cube to be bodies or\nextended at first sight(199).\n\nExtension so far from being incompatible wth, yt \u2019tis impossible it should\nexist without thought.\n\n(M336) Extension itself or anything extended cannot think\u2014these being meer\nideas or sensations, whose essence we thoroughly know.\n\nNo extension but surface perceivable by sight.\n\n(M337) Wn we imagine 2 bowls v. g. moving in vacuo, \u2019tis only conceiving a\nperson affected with these sensations.\n\n(M338) Extension to exist in a thoughtless thing [or rather in a thing\nvoid of perception\u2014thought seeming to imply action], is a contradiction.\n\nQu. if visible motion be proportional to tangible motion?\n\n(M339) In some dreams succession of ideas swifter than at other times.\n\n(M340) If a piece of matter have extension, that must be determined to a\nparticular bigness & figure, but &c.\n\nNothing wthout corresponds to our primary ideas but powers. Hence a direct\n& brief demonstration of an active powerfull Being, distinct from us, on\nwhom we depend.\n\nThe name of colours actually given to tangible qualities, by the relation\nof ye story of the German Count.\n\nQu. How came visible & tangible qualities by the same name in all\nlanguages?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nQu. Whether Being might not be the substance of the soul, or (otherwise\nthus) whether Being, added to ye faculties, compleat the real essence and\nadequate definition of the soul?\n\n(M341) Qu. Whether, on the supposition of external bodies, it be possible\nfor us to know that any body is absolutely at rest, since that supposing\nideas much slower than at present, bodies now apparently moving wd then be\napparently at rest?\n\n(M342) Qu. What can be like a sensation but a sensation?\n\nQu. Did ever any man see any other things besides his own ideas, that he\nshould compare them to these, and make these like unto them?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M343) The age of a fly, for ought that we know, may be as long as yt of a\nman(200).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nVisible distance heterogeneous from tangible distance demonstrated 3\nseveral ways:\u2014\n\n1st. If a tangible inch be equal or in any other reason to a visible inch,\nthence it will follow yt unequals are equals, wch is absurd: for at what\ndistance would the visible inch be placed to make it equal to the tangible\ninch?\n\n2d. One made to see that had not yet seen his own limbs, or any thing he\ntouched, upon sight of a foot length would know it to be a foot length, if\ntangible foot & visible foot were the same idea\u2014sed falsum id, ergo et\nhoc.\n\n3dly. From Molyneux\u2019s problem, wch otherwise is falsely solv\u2019d by Locke\nand him(201).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M344) Nothing but ideas perceivable(202).\n\nA man cannot compare 2 things together without perceiving them each. Ergo,\nhe cannot say anything wch is not an idea is like or unlike an idea.\n\nBodies &c. do exist even wn not perceived\u2014they being powers in the active\nbeing(203).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nSuccession a simple idea, [succession is an abstract, i.e. an\ninconceivable idea,] Locke says(204).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nVisible extension is [proportional to tangible extension, also is]\nencreated & diminish\u2019d by parts. Hence taken for the same.\n\nIf extension be without the mind in bodies. Qu. whether tangible or\nvisible, or both?\n\nMathematical propositions about extension & motion true in a double sense.\n\nExtension thought peculiarly inert, because not accompany\u2019d wth pleasure &\npain: hence thought to exist in matter; as also for that it was conceiv\u2019d\ncommon to 2 senses, [as also the constant perception of \u2019em].\n\nBlind at 1st sight could not tell how near what he saw was to him, nor\neven whether it be wthout him or in his eye(205). Qu. Would he not think\nthe later?\n\nBlind at 1st sight could not know yt wt he saw was extended, until he had\nseen and touched some one self-same thing\u2014not knowing how _minimum\ntangibile_ would look in vision.\n\n(M345) Mem. That homogeneous particles be brought in to answer the\nobjection of God\u2019s creating sun, plants, &c. before animals.\n\nIn every bodie two infinite series of extension\u2014the one of tangible, the\nother of visible.\n\nAll things to a blind [man] at first seen in a point.\n\nIgnorance of glasses made men think extension to be in bodies.\n\n(M346) Homogeneous portions of matter\u2014useful to contemplate them.\n\nExtension if in matter changes its relation wth _minimum visibile_, wch\nseems to be fixt.\n\nQu. whether m.v. be fix\u2019d?\n\n(M347) Each particle of matter if extended must be infinitely extended, or\nhave an infinite series of extension.\n\n(M348) If the world be granted to consist of Matter, \u2019tis the mind gives\nit beauty and proportion.\n\nWt I have said onely proves there is no proportion at all times and in all\nmen between a visible & tangible inch.\n\nTangible and visible extension heterogeneous, because they have no common\nmeasure; also because their simplest constituent parts or elements are\nspecifically different, viz. _punctum visibile & tangibile_. N. B. The\nformer seems to be no good reason.\n\n(M349) By immateriality is solv\u2019d the cohesion of bodies, or rather the\ndispute ceases.\n\nOur idea we call extension neither way capable of infinity, i.e. neither\ninfinitely small or great.\n\nGreatest possible extension seen under an angle wch will be less than 180\ndegrees, the legs of wch angle proceed from the ends of the extension.\n\n(M350) Allowing there be extended, solid, &c. substances without the mind,\n\u2019tis impossible the mind should know or perceive them; the mind, even\naccording to the materialists, perceiving onely the impressions made upon\nits brain, or rather the ideas attending these impressions(206).\n\nUnity _in abstracto_ not at all divisible, it being as it were a point, or\nwith Barrow nothing at all; _in concreto_ not divisible _ad infinitum_,\nthere being no one idea demonstrable _ad infinitum_.\n\n(M351) Any subject can have of each sort of primary qualities but one\nparticular at once. Locke, b. 4. c. 3. s. 15.\n\nQu. whether we have clear ideas of large numbers themselves, or onely of\ntheir relations?\n\n(M352) Of solidity see L. b. 2. c. 4. s. 1, 5, 6. If any one ask wt\nsolidity is, let him put a flint between his hands and he will know.\nExtension of body is continuity of solid, &c.; extension of space is\ncontinuity of unsolid, &c.\n\nWhy may not I say visible extension is a continuity of visible points,\ntangible extension is a continuity of tangible points?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M353) Mem. That I take notice that I do not fall in wth sceptics,\nFardella(207), &c., in that I make bodies to exist certainly, wch they\ndoubt of.\n\n(M354) I am more certain of ye existence & reality of bodies than Mr.\nLocke; since he pretends onely to wt he calls sensitive knowledge(208),\nwhereas I think I have demonstrative knowledge of their existence\u2014by them\nmeaning combinations of powers in an unknown substratum(209).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M355) Our ideas we call figure & extension, not images of the figure and\nextension of matter; these (if such there be) being infinitely divisible,\nthose not so.\n\n\u2019Tis impossible a material cube should exist, because the edges of a cube\nwill appear broad to an acute sense.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMen die, or are in [a] state of annihilation, oft in a day.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M356) Powers. Qu. whether more or one onely?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nLengths abstract from breadths are the work of the mind. Such do intersect\nin a point at all angles. After the same way colour is abstract from\nextension.\n\nEvery position alters the line.\n\nQu. whether ideas of extension are made up of other ideas, v.g. idea of a\nfoot made up of general ideas of an inch?\n\nThe idea of an inch length not one determin\u2019d idea. Hence enquire the\nreason why we are out in judging of extension by the sight; for which\npurpose \u2019tis meet also to consider the frequent & sudden changes of\nextension by position.\n\nNo stated ideas of length without a minimum.\n\n(M357) Material substance banter\u2019d by Locke, b. 2. c. 13. s. 19.\n\n(M358) In my doctrine all absurdities from infinite space &c. cease(210).\n\nQu. whether if (speaking grossly) the things we see were all of them at\nall times too small to be felt, we should have confounded tangible &\nvisible extension and figure?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M359) Qu. whether if succession of ideas in the Eternal Mind, a day does\nnot seem to God a 1000 years, rather than a 1000 years a day?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBut one only colour & its degrees.\n\nEnquiry about a grand mistake in writers of dioptricks in assigning the\ncause of microscopes magnifying objects.\n\nQu. whether a born-blind [man] made to see would at 1st give the name of\ndistance to any idea intromitted by sight; since he would take distance yt\nthat he had perceived by _touch_ to be something existing without his\nmind, but he would certainly think that nothing _seen_ was without his\nmind(211)?\n\n(M360) Space without any bodies existing _in rerum natura_ would not be\nextended, as not having parts\u2014in that parts are assigned to it wth respect\nto body; from whence also the notion of distance is taken. Now without\neither parts or distance or mind, how can there be Space, or anything\nbeside one uniform Nothing?\n\nTwo demonstrations that blind made to see would not take all things he saw\nto be without his mind, or not in a point\u2014the one from microscopic eyes,\nthe other from not perceiving distance, i.e. radius of the visual sphere.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M361) The trees are in the park, i.e. whether I will or no, whether I\nimagine anything about them or no. Let me but go thither and open my eyes\nby day, & I shall not avoid seeing them.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBy extension blind [man] would mean either the perception caused in his\ntouch by something he calls extended, or else the power of raising that\nperception; wch power is without, in the thing termed extended. Now he\ncould not know either of these to be in things visible till he had try\u2019d.\n\nGeometry seems to have for its object tangible extension, figures, &\nmotion\u2014and not visible(212).\n\nA man will say a body will seem as big as before, tho\u2019 the visible idea it\nyields be less than wt it was; therefore the bigness or tangible extension\nof the body is different from the visible extension.\n\nExtension or space no simple idea\u2014length, breadth, & solidity being three\nseveral ideas.\n\nDepth or solidity _now_ perceived by sight(213).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nStrange impotence of men. Man without God wretcheder than a stone or tree;\nhe having onely the power to be miserable by his unperformed wills, these\nhaving no power at all(214).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nLength perceivable by hearing\u2014length & breadth by sight\u2014length, breadth, &\ndepth by touch.\n\n(M362) Wt affects us must be a thinking thing, for wt thinks not cannot\nsubsist.\n\nNumber not in bodies, it being the creature of the mind, depending\nentirely on its consideration, & being more or less as the mind\npleases(215).\n\nMem. Qu\u00e6re whether extension be equally a sensation with colour? The mob\nuse not the word extension. \u2019Tis an abstract term of the Schools.\n\n(M363) Round figure a perception or sensation in the mind, but in the body\nis a power. L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8.\n\nMem. Mark well the later part of the last cited section.\n\nSolids, or any other tangible things, are no otherwise seen than colours\nfelt by the German Count.\n\n(M364) \u201cOf\u201d and \u201cthing\u201d causes of mistake.\n\nThe visible point of he who has microscopical eyes will not be greater or\nless than mine.\n\nQu. Whether the propositions & even axioms of geometry do not divers of\nthem suppose the existence of lines &c. without the mind?\n\n(M365) Whether motion be the measure of duration? Locke, b. 2. c. 14. s.\n19.\n\nLines & points conceiv\u2019d as terminations different ideas from those\nconceiv\u2019d absolutely.\n\nEvery position alters a line.\n\n(M366) Blind man at 1st would not take colours to be without his mind; but\ncolours would seem to be in the same place with the coloured extension:\ntherefore extension wd not seem to be without the mind.\n\nAll visible concentric circles whereof the eye is the centre are\nabsolutely equal.\n\nInfinite number\u2014why absurd\u2014not rightly solv\u2019d by Locke(216).\n\nQu. how \u2019tis possible we should see flats or right lines?\n\nQu. why the moon appears greatest in the horizon(217)?\n\nQu. why we see things erect when painted inverted(218)?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M367) Question put by Mr. Deering touching the thief and paradise.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M368) Matter tho\u2019 allowed to exist may be no greater than a pin\u2019s head.\n\nMotion is proportionable to space described in given time.\n\nVelocity not proportionable to space describ\u2019d in given time.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M369) No active power but the Will: therefore Matter, if it exists,\naffects us not(219).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMagnitude when barely taken for the _ratio partium extra partes_, or\nrather for co-existence & succession, without considering the parts\nco-existing & succeeding, is infinitely, or rather indefinitely, or not at\nall perhaps, divisible, because it is itself infinite or indefinite. But\ndefinite, determined magnitudes, i.e. lines or surfaces consisting of\npoints whereby (together wth distance & position) they are determin\u2019d, are\nresoluble into those points.\n\nAgain. Magnitude taken for co-existence and succession is not all\ndivisible, but is one simple idea.\n\nSimple ideas include no parts nor relations\u2014hardly separated and\nconsidered in themselves\u2014nor yet rightly singled by any author. Instance\nin power, red, extension, &c.\n\n(M370) Space not imaginable by any idea received from sight\u2014not imaginable\nwithout body moving. Not even then necessarily existing (I speak of\ninfinite space)\u2014for wt the body has past may be conceiv\u2019d annihilated.\n\n(M371) Qu. What can we see beside colours? what can we feel beside hard,\nsoft, cold, warm, pleasure, pain?\n\nQu. Why not taste & smell extension?\n\nQu. Why not tangible & visible extensions thought heterogeneous\nextensions, so well as gustable & olefactible perceptions thought\nheterogeneous perceptions? or at least why not as heterogeneous as blue &\nred?\n\nMoon wn horizontal does not appear bigger as to visible extension than at\nother times; hence difficulties and disputes about things seen under equal\nangles &c. cease.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAll _potenti\u00e6_ alike indifferent.\n\nA. B. Wt does he mean by his _potentia_? Is it the will, desire, person,\nor all or neither, or sometimes one, sometimes t\u2019other?\n\nNo agent can be conceiv\u2019d indifferent as to pain or pleasure.\n\n_We_ do not, properly speaking, in a strict philosophical sense, make\nobjects more or less pleasant; but the laws of nature do that.\n\n(M372) A finite intelligence might have foreseen 4 thousand years agoe the\nplace and circumstances, even the most minute & trivial, of my present\nexistence. This true on supposition that uneasiness determines the will.\n\n(M373) Doctrines of liberty, prescience, &c. explained by billiard balls.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWt judgement would he make of uppermost and lowermost who had always seen\nthrough an inverting glass?\n\nAll lines subtending the same optic angle congruent (as is evident by an\neasy experiment); therefore they are equal.\n\nWe have not pure simple ideas of blue, red, or any other colour (except\nperhaps black) because all bodies reflect heterogeneal light.\n\nQu. Whether this be true as to sounds (& other sensations), there being,\nperhaps, rays of air wch will onely exhibit one particular sound, as rays\nof light one particular colour.\n\nColours not definable, not because they are pure unmixt thoughts, but\nbecause we cannot easily distinguish & separate the thoughts they include,\nor because we want names for their component ideas.\n\n(M374) By Soul is meant onely a complex idea, made up of existence,\nwilling, & perception in a large sense. Therefore it is known and it may\nbe defined.\n\nWe cannot possibly conceive any active power but the Will.\n\n(M375) In moral matters men think (\u2019tis true) that they are free; but this\nfreedom is only the freedom of doing as they please; wch freedom is\nconsecutive to the Will, respecting only the operative faculties(220).\n\nMen impute their actions to themselves because they will\u2019d them, and that\nnot out of ignorance, but whereas they have the consequences of them,\nwhether good or bad.\n\nThis does not prove men to be indifferent in respect of desiring.\n\nIf anything is meant by the _potentia_ of A. B. it must be desire; but I\nappeal to any man if his desire be indifferent, or (to speak more to the\npurpose) whether he himself be indifferent in respect of wt he desires\ntill after he has desired it; for as for desire itself, or the faculty of\ndesiring, that is indifferent, as all other faculties are.\n\nActions leading to heaven are in my power if I will them: therefore I will\nwill them.\n\nQu. concerning the procession of Wills _in infinitum_.\n\nHerein mathematiques have the advantage over metaphysiques and morality.\nTheir definitions, being of words not yet known to ye learner, are not\ndisputed; but words in metaphysiques & morality, being mostly known to\nall, the definitions of them may chance to be contraverted.\n\n(M376) The short jejune way in mathematiques will not do in metaphysiques\n& ethiques: for yt about mathematical propositions men have no prejudices,\nno anticipated opinions to be encounter\u2019d; they not having yet thought on\nsuch matters. \u2019Tis not so in the other 2 mentioned sciences. A man must\n[there] not onely demonstrate the truth, he must also vindicate it against\nscruples and established opinions which contradict it. In short, the dry,\nstrigose(221), rigid way will not suffice. He must be more ample &\ncopious, else his demonstration, tho\u2019 never so exact, will not go down\nwith most.\n\nExtension seems to consist in variety of homogeneal thoughts co-existing\nwithout mixture.\n\nOr rather visible extension seems to be the co-existence of colour in the\nmind.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M377) Enquiring and judging are actions which depend on the operative\nfaculties, wch depend on the Will, wch is determin\u2019d by some uneasiness;\nergo &c. Suppose an agent wch is finite perfectly indifferent, and as to\ndesiring not determin\u2019d by any prospect or consideration of good, I say,\nthis agent cannot do an action morally good. Hence \u2019tis evident the\nsuppositions of A. B. are insignificant.\n\nExtension, motion, time, number are no simple ideas, but include\nsuccession to them, which seems to be a simple idea.\n\nMem. To enquire into the angle of contact, & into fluxions, &c.\n\nThe sphere of vision is equal whether I look onely in my hand or on the\nopen firmament, for 1st, in both cases the retina is full; 2d, the\nradius\u2019s of both spheres are equall or rather nothing at all to the sight;\n3dly, equal numbers of points in one & t\u2019other.\n\nIn the Barrovian case purblind would judge aright.\n\nWhy the horizontal moon greater?\n\nWhy objects seen erect?\n\n(M378) To what purpose certain figure and texture connected wth other\nperceptions?\n\nMen estimate magnitudes both by angles and distance. Blind at 1st could\nnot know distance; or by pure sight, abstracting from experience of\nconnexion of sight and tangible ideas, we can\u2019t perceive distance.\nTherefore by pure sight we cannot perceive or judge of extension.\n\nQu. Whether it be possible to enlarge our sight or make us see at once\nmore, or more points, than we do, by diminishing the _punctum visibile_\nbelow 30 minutes?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M379) Speech metaphorical more than we imagine; insensible things, &\ntheir modes, circumstances, &c. being exprest for the most part by words\nborrow\u2019d from things sensible. Hence manyfold mistakes.\n\n(M380) The grand mistake is that we think we have _ideas_ of the\noperations of our minds(222). Certainly this metaphorical dress is an\nargument we have not.\n\nQu. How can our idea of God be complex & compounded, when his essence is\nsimple & uncompounded? V. Locke, b. 2. c. 23. s. 35(223).\n\n(M381) The impossibility of defining or discoursing clearly of such things\nproceeds from the fault & scantiness of language, as much perhaps as from\nobscurity & confusion of thought. Hence I may clearly and fully understand\nmy own soul, extension, &c., and not be able to define them(224).\n\n(M382) The substance _wood_ a collection of simple ideas. See Locke, b. 2.\nc. 26. s. 1.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMem. concerning strait lines seen to look at them through an orbicular\nlattice.\n\nQu. Whether possible that those visible ideas wch are now connected with\ngreater tangible extensions could have been connected with lesser tangible\nextensions,\u2014there seeming to be no _necessary_ connexion between those\nthoughts?\n\nSpeculums seem to diminish or enlarge objects not by altering the optique\nangle, but by altering the apparent distance.\n\nHence Qu. if blind would think things diminish\u2019d by convexes, or enlarg\u2019d\nby concaves?\n\n(M383) Motion not one idea. It cannot be perceived at once.\n\n(M384) Mem. To allow existence to colours in the dark, persons not\nthinking, &c.\u2014but not an actual existence. \u2019Tis prudent to correct men\u2019s\nmistakes without altering their language. This makes truth glide into\ntheir souls insensibly(225).\n\n(M385) Colours in ye dark do exist really, i.e. were there light; or as\nsoon as light comes, we shall see them, provided we open our eyes; and\nthat whether we will or no.\n\nHow the retina is fill\u2019d by a looking-glass?\n\nConvex speculums have the same effect wth concave glasses.\n\nQu. Whether concave speculums have the same effect wth convex glasses?\n\nThe reason why convex speculums diminish & concave magnify not yet fully\nassign\u2019d by any writer I know.\n\nQu. Why not objects seen confus\u2019d when that they seem inverted through a\nconvex lens?\n\nQu. How to make a glass or speculum which shall magnify or diminish by\naltering the distance without altering the angle?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nNo identity (other than perfect likeness) in any individuals besides\npersons(226).\n\n(M386) As well make tastes, smells, fear, shame, wit, virtue, vice, & all\nthoughts move wth local motion as immaterial spirit.\n\nOn account of my doctrine, the identity of finite substances must consist\nin something else than continued existence, or relation to determined time\n& place of beginning to exist\u2014the existence of our thoughts (which being\ncombined make all substances) being frequently interrupted, & they having\ndivers beginnings & endings.\n\n(M387) Qu. Whether identity of person consists not in the Will?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nNo necessary connexion between great or little optique angles and great or\nlittle extension.\n\nDistance is not perceived: optique angles are not perceived. How then is\nextension perceiv\u2019d by sight?\n\nApparent magnitude of a line is not simply as the optique angle, but\ndirectly as the optique angle, & reciprocally as the confusion, &c. (i.e.\nthe other sensations, or want of sensation, that attend near vision).\nHence great mistakes in assigning the magnifying power of glasses. Vid.\nMoly[neux], p. 182.\n\nGlasses or speculums may perhaps magnify or lessen without altering the\noptique angle, but to no purpose.\n\nQu. Whether purblind would think objects so much diminished by a convex\nspeculum as another?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nQu. Wherein consists identity of person? Not in actual consciousness; for\nthen I\u2019m not the same person I was this day twelvemonth but while I think\nof wt I then did. Not in potential; for then all persons may be the same,\nfor ought we know.\n\nMem. Story of Mr. Deering\u2019s aunt.\n\nTwo sorts of potential consciousness\u2014natural & pr\u00e6ternatural. In the last\n\u00a7 but one, I mean the latter.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIf by magnitude be meant the proportion anything bears to a determined\ntangible extension, as inch, foot, &c., this, \u2019tis plain, cannot be\nproperly & _per se_ perceived by sight; & as for determin\u2019d visible\ninches, feet, &c., there can be no such thing obtain\u2019d by the meer act of\nseeing\u2014abstracted from experience, &c.\n\nThe greatness _per se_ perceivable by the sight is onely the proportion\nany visible appearance bears to the others seen at the same time; or\n(which is the same thing) the proportion of any particular part of the\nvisual orb to the whole. But mark that we perceive not it is an orb, any\nmore than a plain, but by reasoning.\n\nThis is all the greatness the pictures have _per se_.\n\nHereby meere seeing cannot at all judge of the extension of any object, it\nnot availing to know the object makes such a part of a sph\u00e6rical surface\nexcept we also know the greatness of the sph\u00e6rical surface; for a point\nmay subtend the same angle wth a mile, & so create as great an image in\nthe retina, i.e. take up as much of the orb.\n\nMen judge of magnitude by faintness and vigorousness, by distinctness and\nconfusion, with some other circumstances, by great & little angles.\n\nHence \u2019tis plain the ideas of sight which are now connected with greatness\nmight have been connected wth smallness, and vice vers\u00e2: there being no\nnecessary reason why great angles, faintness, and distinctness without\nstraining, should stand for great extension, any more than a great angle,\nvigorousness, and confusion(227).\n\nMy end is not to deliver metaphysiques altogether in a general scholastic\nway, but in some measure to accommodate them to the sciences, and shew how\nthey may be useful in optiques, geometry, &c.(228)\n\nQu. Whether _per se_ proportion of visible magnitudes be perceivable by\nsight? This is put on account of distinctness and confusedness, the act of\nperception seeming to be as great in viewing any point of the visual orb\ndistinctly, as in viewing the whole confusedly.\n\nMem. To correct my language & make it as philosophically nice as\npossible\u2014to avoid giving handle.\n\nIf men could without straining alter the convexity of their crystallines,\nthey might magnify or diminish the apparent diameters of objects, the same\noptic angle remaining.\n\nThe bigness in one sense of the pictures in the fund is not determin\u2019d;\nfor the nearer a man views them, the images of them (as well as other\nobjects) will take up the greater room in the fund of his eye.\n\nMem. Introduction to contain the design of the whole, the nature and\nmanner of demonstrating, &c.\n\nTwo sorts of bigness accurately to be distinguished, they being perfectly\nand _toto c\u00e6lo_ different\u2014the one the proportion that any one appearance\nhas to the sum of appearances perceived at the same time wth it, wch is\nproportional to angles, or, if a surface, to segments of sph\u00e6rical\nsurfaces;\u2014the other is tangible bigness.\n\nQu. wt would happen if the sph\u00e6r\u00e6 of the retina were enlarged or\ndiminish\u2019d?\n\nWe think by the meer act of vision we perceive distance from us, yet we do\nnot; also that we perceive solids, yet we do not; also the inequality of\nthings seen under the same angle, yet we do not.\n\nWhy may I not add, We think we see extension by meer vision? Yet we do\nnot.\n\nExtension seems to be perceived by the eye, as thought by the ear.\n\nAs long as the same angle determines the _minimum visibile_ to two\npersons, no different conformation of the eye can make a different\nappearance of magnitude in the same thing. But, it being possible to try\nthe angle, we may certainly know whether the same thing appears\ndifferently big to two persons on account of their eyes.\n\nIf a man could see ... objects would appear larger to him than to another;\nhence there is another sort of purely visible magnitude beside the\nproportion any appearance bears to the visual sphere, viz. its proportion\nto the M. V.\n\nWere there but one and the same language in the world, and did children\nspeak it naturally as soon as born, and were it not in the power of men to\nconceal their thoughts or deceive others, but that there were an\ninseparable connexion between words & thoughts, so yt _posito uno, ponitur\nalterum_ by the laws of nature; Qu. would not men think they heard\nthoughts as much as that they see extension(229)?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAll our ideas are ad\u00e6quate: our knowledge of the laws of nature is not\nperfect & ad\u00e6quate(230).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M388) Men are in the right in judging their simple ideas to be in the\nthings themselves. Certainly heat & colour is as much without the mind as\nfigure, motion, time, &c.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWe know many things wch we want words to express. Great things\ndiscoverable upon this principle. For want of considering wch divers men\nhave run into sundry mistakes, endeavouring to set forth their knowledge\nby sounds; wch foundering them, they thought the defect was in their\nknowledge, while in truth it was in their language.\n\nQu. Whether the sensations of sight arising from a man\u2019s head be liker the\nsensations of touch proceeding from thence or from his legs?\n\nOr, Is it onely the constant & long association of ideas entirely\ndifferent that makes me judge them the same?\n\nWt I see is onely variety of colours & light. Wt I feel is hard or soft,\nhot or cold, rough or smooth, &c. Wt resemblance have these thoughts with\nthose?\n\nA picture painted wth great variety of colours affects the touch in one\nuniform manner. I cannot therefore conclude that because I see 2, I shall\nfeel 2; because I see angles or inequalities, I shall feel angles or\ninequalities. How therefore can I\u2014before experience teaches me\u2014know that\nthe visible leggs are (because 2) connected wth the tangible ones, or the\nvisible head (because one) connected wth the tangible head(231)?\n\n(M389) All things by us conceivable are\u2014\n\n1st, thoughts;\n\n2ndly, powers to receive thoughts;\n\n3rdly, powers to cause thoughts; neither of all wch can possibly exist in\nan inert, senseless thing.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAn object wthout a glass may be seen under as great an angle as wth a\nglass. A glass therefore does not magnify the appearance by the angle.\n\n(M390) Absurd that men should know the soul by idea\u2014ideas being inert,\nthoughtless. Hence Malbranch confuted(232).\n\nI saw gladness in his looks. I saw shame in his face. So I see figure or\ndistance.\n\nQu. Why things seen confusedly thro\u2019 a convex glass are not magnify\u2019d?\n\nTho\u2019 we should judge the horizontal moon to be more distant, why should we\ntherefore judge her to be greater? What connexion betwixt the same angle,\nfurther distant, and greaterness?\n\n(M391) My doctrine affects the essences of the Corpuscularians.\n\nPerfect circles, &c. exist not without (for none can so exist, whether\nperfect or no), but in the mind.\n\nLines thought divisible _ad infinitum_, because they are suppos\u2019d to exist\nwithout. Also because they are thought the same when view\u2019d by the naked\neye, & wn view\u2019d thro\u2019 magnifying glasses.\n\nThey who knew not glasses had not so fair a pretence for the divisibility\n_ad infinitum_.\n\nNo idea of circle, &c. in abstract.\n\nMetaphysiques as capable of certainty as ethiques, but not so capable to\nbe demonstrated in a geometrical way; because men see clearer & have not\nso many prejudices in ethiques.\n\nVisible ideas come into the mind very distinct. So do tangible ideas.\nHence extension seen & felt. Sounds, tastes, &c. are more blended.\n\nQu. Why not extension intromitted by the taste in conjunction with the\nsmell\u2014seeing tastes & smells are very distinct ideas?\n\nBlew and yellow particles mixt, while they exhibit an uniform green, their\nextension is not perceiv\u2019d; but as soon as they exhibit distinct\nsensations of blew and yellow, then their extension is perceiv\u2019d.\n\nDistinct perception of visible ideas not so perfect as of\ntangible\u2014tangible ideas being many at once equally vivid. Hence\nheterogeneous extension.\n\nObject. Why a mist increases not the apparent magnitude of an object, in\nproportion to the faintness(233)?\n\nMem. To enquire touching the squaring of the circle, &c.\n\nThat wch seems smooth & round to the touch may to sight seem quite\notherwise. Hence no _necessary_ connexion betwixt visible ideas and\ntangible ones.\n\nIn geometry it is not prov\u2019d that an inch is divisible _ad infinitum_.\n\nGeometry not conversant about our compleat determined ideas of figures,\nfor these are not divisible _ad infinitum_.\n\nParticular circles may be squar\u2019d, for the circumference being given a\ndiameter may be found betwixt wch & the true there is not any perceivable\ndifference. Therefore there is no difference\u2014extension being a perception;\n& a perception not perceivd is contradiction, nonsense, nothing. In vain\nto alledge the difference may be seen by magnifying-glasses, for in yt\ncase there is (\u2019tis true) a difference perceiv\u2019d, but not between the same\nideas, but others much greater, entirely different therefrom(234).\n\nAny visible circle possibly perceivable of any man may be squar\u2019d, by the\ncommon way, most accurately; or even perceivable by any other being, see\nhe never so acute, i.e. never so small an arch of a circle; this being wt\nmakes the distinction between acute & dull sight, and not the m.v., as men\nare perhaps apt to think.\n\nThe same is true of any tangible circle. Therefore further enquiry of\naccuracy in squaring or other curves is perfectly needless, & time thrown\naway.\n\nMem. To press wt last precedes more homely, & so think on\u2019t again.\n\nA meer line or distance is not made up of points, does not exist, cannot\nbe imagin\u2019d, or have an idea framed thereof,\u2014no more than meer colour\nwithout extension(235).\n\nMem. A great difference between _considering_ length wthout breadth, &\nhaving an _idea_ of, or _imagining_, length without breadth(236).\n\nMalbranch out touching the crystallines diminishing, L. 1. c. 6.\n\n\u2019Tis possible (& perhaps not very improbable, that is, is sometimes so) we\nmay have the greatest pictures from the least objects. Therefore no\nnecessary connexion betwixt visible & tangible ideas. These ideas, viz.\ngreat relation to _sph\u00e6ra visualis_, or to the m. v. (wch is all that I\nwould have meant by having a greater picture) & faintness, might possibly\nhave stood for or signify\u2019d small tangible extensions. Certainly the\ngreater relation to s. v. and m. v. does frequently, in that men view\nlittle objects near the eye.\n\nMalbranch out in asserting we cannot possibly know whether there are 2 men\nin the world that see a thing of the same bigness. V. L. 1. c. 6.\n\nDiagonal of particular square commensurable wth its side, they both\ncontaining a certain number of m. v.\n\nI do not think that surfaces consist of lines, i.e. meer distances. Hence\nperhaps may be solid that sophism wch would prove the oblique line equal\nto the perpendicular between 2 parallels.\n\nSuppose an inch represent a mile. 1/1000 of an inch is nothing, but 1/1000\nof ye mile represented is something: therefore 1/1000 an inch, tho\u2019\nnothing, is not to be neglected, because it represents something, i.e.\n1/1000 of a mile.\n\nParticular determin\u2019d lines are not divisible _ad infinitum_, but lines as\nus\u2019d by geometers are so, they not being determin\u2019d to any particular\nfinite number of points. Yet a geometer (he knows not why) will very\nreadily say he can demonstrate an inch line is divisible _ad infinitum_.\n\nA body moving in the optique axis not perceiv\u2019d to move by sight merely,\nand without experience. There is (\u2019tis true) a successive change of\nideas,\u2014it seems less and less. But, besides this, there is no visible\nchange of place.\n\nMem. To enquire most diligently concerning the incommensurability of\ndiagonale & side\u2014whether it does not go on the supposition of units being\ndivisible _ad infinitum_, i.e. of the extended thing spoken of being\ndivisible _ad infinitum_ (unit being nothing; also v. Barrow, Lect.\nGeom.), & so the infinite indivisibility deduced therefrom is a _petitio\nprincipii_?\n\nThe diagonal is commensurable with the side.\n\n(M392) From Malbranch, Locke, & my first arguings it can\u2019t be prov\u2019d that\nextension is not in matter. From Locke\u2019s arguings it can\u2019t be proved that\ncolours are not in bodies.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMem. That I was distrustful at 8 years old; and consequently by nature\ndisposed for these new doctrines(237).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nQu. How can a line consisting of an unequal number of points be divisible\n[_ad infinitum_] in two equals?\n\nMem. To discuss copiously how & why we do not see the pictures.\n\n(M393) Allowing extensions to exist in matter, we cannot know even their\nproportions\u2014contrary to Malbranch.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M394) I wonder how men cannot see a truth so obvious, as that extension\ncannot exist without a thinking substance.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M395) Species of all sensible things made by the mind. This prov\u2019d either\nby turning men\u2019s eyes into magnifyers or diminishers.\n\nYr m. v. is, suppose, less than mine. Let a 3rd person have perfect ideas\nof both our m. vs. His idea of my m. v. contains his idea of yours, &\nsomewhat more. Therefore \u2019tis made up of parts: therefore his idea of my\nm. v. is not perfect or just, which diverts the hypothesis.\n\nQu. Whether a m. v. or t. be extended?\n\nMem. The strange errours men run into about the pictures. We think them\nsmall because should a man be suppos\u2019d to see them their pictures would\ntake up but little room in the fund of his eye.\n\nIt seems all lines can\u2019t be bisected in 2 equall parts. Mem. To examine\nhow the geometers prove the contrary.\n\n\u2019Tis impossible there should be a m. v. less than mine. If there be, mine\nmay become equal to it (because they are homogeneous) by detraction of\nsome part or parts. But it consists not of parts, ergo &c.\n\nSuppose inverting perspectives bound to ye eyes of a child, & continu\u2019d to\nthe years of manhood\u2014when he looks up, or turns up his head, he shall\nbehold wt we call _under_. Qu. What would he think of _up_ and\n_down_(238)?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M396) I wonder not at my sagacity in discovering the obvious tho\u2019 amazing\ntruth. I rather wonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding it out\nbefore\u2014\u2019tis no witchcraft to see.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M397) Our simple ideas are so many simple thoughts or perceptions; a\nperception cannot exist without a thing to perceive it, or any longer than\nit is perceiv\u2019d; a thought cannot be in an unthinking thing; one uniform\nsimple thought can be like to nothing but another uniform simple thought.\nComplex thoughts or ideas are onely an assemblage of simple ideas, and can\nbe the image of nothing, or like unto nothing, but another assemblage of\nsimple ideas, &c.\n\n(M398) The Cartesian opinion of light & colours &c. is orthodox enough\neven in their eyes who think the Scripture expression may favour the\ncommon opinion. Why may not mine also? But there is nothing in Scripture\nthat can possibly be wrested to make against me, but, perhaps, many things\nfor me.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M399) Bodies &c. do exist whether we think of \u2019em or no, they being taken\nin a twofold sense\u2014\n\n\n    1. Collections of thoughts.\n\n    2. Collections of powers to cause those thoughts.\n\n\nThese later exist; tho\u2019 perhaps _a parte rei_ it may be one simple perfect\npower.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nQu. whether the extension of a plain, look\u2019d at straight and slantingly,\nsurvey\u2019d minutely & distinctly, or in the bulk and confusedly at once, be\nthe same? N. B. The plain is suppos\u2019d to keep the same distance.\n\nThe ideas we have by a successive, curious inspection of ye minute parts\nof a plain do not seem to make up the extension of that plain view\u2019d &\nconsider\u2019d all together.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIgnorance in some sort requisite in ye person that should disown the\nPrinciple.\n\nThoughts do most properly signify, or are mostly taken for the interior\noperations of the mind, wherein the mind is active. Those yt obey not the\nacts of volition, and in wch the mind is passive, are more properly call\u2019d\nsensations or perceptions. But yt is all a case of words.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nExtension being the collection or distinct co-existence of minimums, i.e.\nof perceptions intromitted by sight or touch, it cannot be conceiv\u2019d\nwithout a perceiving substance.\n\n(M400) Malbranch does not prove that the figures & extensions exist not\nwhen they are not perceiv\u2019d. Consequently he does not prove, nor can it be\nprov\u2019d on his principles, that the sorts are the work of the mind, and\nonely in the mind.\n\n(M401) The great argument to prove that extension cannot be in an\nunthinking substance is, that it cannot be conceiv\u2019d distinct from or\nwithout all tangible or visible quality.\n\n(M402) Tho\u2019 matter be extended wth an indefinite extension, yet the mind\nmakes the sorts. They were not before the mind perceiving them, & even now\nthey are not without the mind. Houses, trees, &c., tho\u2019 indefinitely\nextended matter do exist, are not without the mind.\n\n(M403) The great danger of making extension exist without the mind is,\nthat if it does it must be acknowledg\u2019d infinite, immutable, eternal,\n&c.;\u2014wch will be to make either God extended (wch I think dangerous), or\nan eternal, immutable, infinite, increate Being beside God.\n\n(M404) Finiteness of our minds no excuse for the geometers.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M405) The Principle easily proved by plenty of arguments _ad absurdum_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe twofold signification of Bodies, viz.\n\n\n    1. Combinations of thoughts(239);\n\n    2. Combinations of powers to raise thoughts.\n\n\nThese, I say, in conjunction with homogeneous particles, may solve much\nbetter the objections from the creation than the supposition that Matter\ndoes exist. Upon wch supposition I think they cannot be solv\u2019d.\n\nBodies taken for powers do exist wn not perceiv\u2019d; but this existence is\nnot actual(240). Wn I say a power exists, no more is meant than that if in\nthe light I open my eyes, and look that way, I shall see it, i.e. the\nbody, &c.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nQu. whether blind before sight may not have an idea of light and colours &\nvisible extension, after the same manner as we perceive them wth eyes\nshut, or in the dark\u2014not imagining, but seeing after a sort?\n\nVisible extension cannot be conceiv\u2019d added to tangible extension. Visible\nand tangible points can\u2019t make one sum. Therefore these extensions are\nheterogeneous.\n\nA probable method propos\u2019d whereby one may judge whether in near vision\nthere is a greater distance between the crystalline & fund than usual, or\nwhether the crystalline be onely render\u2019d more convex. If the former, then\nthe v. s. is enlarg\u2019d, & the m. v. corresponds to less than 30 minutes, or\nwtever it us\u2019d to correspond to.\n\nStated measures, inches, feet, &c., are tangible not visible extensions.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M406) Locke, More, Raphson, &c. seem to make God extended. \u2019Tis\nnevertheless of great use to religion to take extension out of our idea of\nGod, & put a power in its place. It seems dangerous to suppose extension,\nwch is manifestly inert, in God.\n\n(M407) But, say you, The thought or perception I call extension is not\nitself in an unthinking thing or Matter\u2014but it is like something wch is in\nMatter. Well, say I, Do you apprehend or conceive wt you say extension is\nlike unto, or do you not? If the later, how know you they are alike? How\ncan you compare any things besides your own ideas? If the former, it must\nbe an idea, i.e. perception, thought, or sensation\u2014wch to be in an\nunperceiving thing is a contradiction(241).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M408) I abstain from all flourish & powers of words & figures, using a\ngreat plainness & simplicity of simile, having oft found it difficult to\nunderstand those that use the lofty & Platonic, or subtil & scholastique\nstrain(242).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M409) Whatsoever has any of our ideas in it must perceive; it being that\nvery having, that passive recognition of ideas, that denominates the mind\nperceiving\u2014that being the very essence of perception, or that wherein\nperception consists.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe faintness wch alters the appearance of the horizontal moon, rather\nproceeds from the quantity or grossness of the intermediate atmosphere,\nthan from any change of distance, wch is perhaps not considerable enough\nto be a total cause, but may be a partial of the phenomenon. N. B. The\nvisual angle is less in cause the horizon.\n\nWe judge of the distance of bodies, as by other things, so also by the\nsituation of their pictures in the eye, or (wch is the same thing)\naccording as they appear higher or lower. Those wch seem higher are\nfarther off.\n\nQu. why we see objects greater in ye dark? whether this can be solv\u2019d by\nany but my Principles?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M410) The reverse of ye Principle introduced scepticism.\n\n(M411) N. B. On my Principles there is a reality: there are things: there\nis a _rerum natura_.\n\nMem. The surds, doubling the cube, &c.\n\nWe think that if just made to see we should judge of the distance &\nmagnitude of things as we do now; but this is false. So also wt we think\nso positively of the situation of objects.\n\nHays\u2019s, Keill\u2019s(243), &c. method of proving the infinitesimals of the 3d\norder absurd, & perfectly contradictions.\n\nAngles of contact, & verily all angles comprehended by a right line & a\ncurve, cannot be measur\u2019d, the arches intercepted not being similar.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe danger of expounding the H. Trinity by extension.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M412) Qu. Why should the magnitude seen at a near distance be deem\u2019d the\ntrue one rather than that seen at a farther distance? Why should the sun\nbe thought many 1000 miles rather than one foot in diameter\u2014both being\nequally apparent diameters? Certainly men judg\u2019d of the sun not in\nhimself, but wth relation to themselves.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M413) 4 Principles whereby to answer objections, viz.\n\n\n    1. Bodies do really exist, tho\u2019 not perceiv\u2019d by us.\n\n    2. There is a law or course of nature.\n\n    3. Language & knowledge are all about ideas; words stand for\n    nothing else.\n\n    4. Nothing can be a proof against one side of a contradiction that\n    bears equally hard upon the other(244).\n\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWhat shall I say? Dare I pronounce the admired \u1f00\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03b2\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 mathematica, that\ndarling of the age, a trifle?\n\nMost certainly no finite extension divisible _ad infinitum_.\n\n(M414) Difficulties about concentric circles.\n\n(M415) Mem. To examine & accurately discuss the scholium of the 8th\ndefinition of Mr. Newton\u2019s(245) Principia.\n\nRidiculous in the mathematicians to despise Sense.\n\nQu. Is it not impossible there should be abstract general ideas?\n\nAll ideas come from without. They are all particular. The mind, \u2019tis true,\ncan consider one thing wthout another; but then, considered asunder, they\nmake not 2 ideas. Both together can make but one, as for instance colour &\nvisible extension(246).\n\nThe end of a mathematical line is nothing. Locke\u2019s argument that the end\nof his pen is black or white concludes nothing here.\n\nMem. Take care how you pretend to define extension, for fear of the\ngeometers.\n\nQu. Why difficult to imagine a minimum? Ans. Because we are not used to\ntake notice of \u2019em singly; they not being able singly to pleasure or hurt\nus, thereby to deserve our regard.\n\nMem. To prove against Keill yt the infinite divisibility of matter makes\nthe half have an equal number of equal parts with the whole.\n\nMem. To examine how far the not comprehending infinites may be admitted as\na plea.\n\nQu. Why may not the mathematicians reject all the extensions below the M.\nas well as the dd, &c., wch are allowed to be something, & consequently\nmay be magnify\u2019d by glasses into inches, feet, &c., as well as the\nquantities next below the M.?\n\nBig, little, and number are the works of the mind. How therefore can ye\nextension you suppose in Matter be big or little? How can it consist of\nany number of points?\n\n(M416) Mem. Strictly to remark L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8.\n\nSchoolmen compar\u2019d with the mathematicians.\n\nExtension is blended wth tangible or visible ideas, & by the mind\npr\u00e6scinded therefrom.\n\nMathematiques made easy\u2014the scale does almost all. The scale can tell us\nthe subtangent in ye parabola is double the abscisse.\n\nWt need of the utmost accuracy wn the mathematicians own _in rerum natura_\nthey cannot find anything corresponding wth their nice ideas.\n\nOne should endeavour to find a progression by trying wth the scale.\n\nNewton\u2019s fluxions needless. Anything below an M might serve for Leibnitz\u2019s\nDifferential Calculus.\n\nHow can they hang together so well, since there are in them (I mean the\nmathematiques) so many _contradictori\u00e6 arguti\u00e6_. V. Barrow, Lect.\n\nA man may read a book of Conics with ease, knowing how to try if they are\nright. He may take \u2019em on the credit of the author.\n\nWhere\u2019s the need of certainty in such trifles? The thing that makes it so\nmuch esteem\u2019d in them is that we are thought not capable of getting it\nelsewhere. But we may in ethiques and metaphysiques.\n\nThe not leading men into mistakes no argument for the truth of the\ninfinitesimals. They being nothings may perhaps do neither good nor harm,\nexcept wn they are taken for something, & then the contradiction begets a\ncontradiction.\n\na + 500 nothings = a + 50 nothings\u2014an innocent silly truth.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M417) My doctrine excellently corresponds wth the creation. I suppose no\nmatter, no stars, sun, &c. to have existed before(247).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIt seems all circles are not similar figures, there not being the same\nproportion betwixt all circumferences & their diameters.\n\nWhen a small line upon paper represents a mile, the mathematicians do not\ncalculate the 1/10000 of the paper line, they calculate the 1/10000 of the\nmile. \u2019Tis to this they have regard, \u2019tis of this they think; if they\nthink or have any idea at all. The inch perhaps might represent to their\nimaginations the mile, but ye 1/10000 of the inch cannot be made to\nrepresent anything, it not being imaginable.\n\nBut the 1/10000 of a mile being somewhat, they think the 1/10000 inch is\nsomewhat: wn they think of yt they imagine they think on this.\n\n3 faults occur in the arguments of the mathematicians for divisibility _ad\ninfinitum_\u2014\n\n\n    1. They suppose extension to exist without the mind, or not\n    perceived.\n\n    2. They suppose that we have an idea of length without\n    breadth(248), or that length without breadth does exist.\n\n    3. That unity is divisible _ad infinitum_.\n\n\nTo suppose a M. S. divisible is to say there are distinguishable ideas\nwhere there are no distinguishable ideas.\n\nThe M. S. is not near so inconceivable as the _signum in magnitudine\nindividuum_.\n\nMem. To examine the math, about their _point_\u2014what it is\u2014something or\nnothing; and how it differs from the M. S.\n\nAll might be demonstrated by a new method of indivisibles, easier perhaps\nand juster than that of Cavalierius(249).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M418) Unperceivable perception a contradiction.\n\n(M419) Proprietates reales rerum omnium in Deo, tam corporum quum\nspirituum continentur. Clerici, Log. cap. 8.\n\nLet my adversaries answer any one of mine, I\u2019ll yield. If I don\u2019t answer\nevery one of theirs, I\u2019ll yield.\n\nThe loss of the excuse(250) may hurt Transubstantiation, but not the\nTrinity.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWe need not strain our imaginations to conceive such little things. Bigger\nmay do as well for infinitesimals, since the integer must be an infinite.\n\nEvident yt wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite.\n\nQu. Whether extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of?\n\nNor can it be objected that we reason about numbers, wch are only words &\nnot ideas(251); for these infinitesimals are words of no use, if not\nsupposed to stand for ideas.\n\nAxiom. No reasoning about things whereof we have no idea. Therefore no\nreasoning about infinitesimals.\n\nMuch less infinitesimals of infinitesimals, &c.\n\nAxiom. No word to be used without an idea.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n(M420) Our eyes and senses inform us not of the existence of matter or\nideas existing without the mind(252). They are not to be blam\u2019d for the\nmistake.\n\nI defy any man to assign a right line equal to a paraboloid, but wn look\u2019d\nat thro\u2019 a microscope they may appear unequall.\n\n(M421) Newton\u2019s harangue amounts to no more than that gravity is\nproportional to gravity.\n\nOne can\u2019t imagine an extended thing without colour. V. Barrow, L. G.\n\n(M422) Men allow colours, sounds, &c.(253) not to exist without the mind,\ntho\u2019 they have no demonstration they do not. Why may they not allow my\nPrinciple with a demonstration?\n\n(M423) Qu. Whether I had not better allow colours to exist without the\nmind; taking the mind for the active thing wch I call \u201cI,\u201d \u201cmyself\u201d\u2014yt\nseems to be distinct from the understanding(254)?\n\n(M424) The taking extension to be distinct from all other tangible &\nvisible qualities, & to make an idea by itself, has made men take it to be\nwithout the mind.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nI see no wit in any of them but Newton. The rest are meer triflers, mere\nNihilarians.\n\nThe folly of the mathematicians in not judging of sensations by their\nsenses. Reason was given us for nobler uses.\n\n(M425) Keill\u2019s filling the world with a mite(255). This follows from the\ndivisibility of extension _ad infinitum_.\n\nExtension, or length without breadth, seems to be nothing save the number\nof points that lie betwixt any 2 points(256). It seems to consist in meer\nproportion\u2014meer reference of the mind.\n\nTo what purpose is it to determine the forms of glasses geometrically?\n\nSir Isaac(257) owns his book could have been demonstrated on the\nsupposition of indivisibles.\n\n(M426) Innumerable vessels of matter. V. Cheyne.\n\nI\u2019ll not admire the mathematicians. \u2019Tis wt any one of common sense might\nattain to by repeated acts. I prove it by experience. I am but one of\nhuman sense, and I &c.\n\nMathematicians have some of them good parts\u2014the more is the pity. Had they\nnot been mathematicians they had been good for nothing. They were such\nfools they knew not how to employ their parts.\n\nThe mathematicians could not so much as tell wherein truth & certainty\nconsisted, till Locke told \u2019em(258). I see the best of \u2019em talk of light\nand colours as if wthout the mind.\n\nBy _thing_ I either mean ideas or that wch has ideas(259).\n\nNullum pr\u00e6clarum ingenium unquam fuit magnus mathematicus. Scaliger(260).\n\nA great genius cannot stoop to such trifles & minutenesses as they\nconsider.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n1. (261)All significant words stand for ideas(262).\n\n2. All knowledge about our ideas.\n\n3. All ideas come from without or from within.\n\n4. If from without it must be by the senses, & they are call\u2019d\nsensations(263).\n\n5. If from within they are the operations of the mind, & are called\nthoughts.\n\n6. No sensation can be in a senseless thing.\n\n7. No thought can be in a thoughtless thing.\n\n8. All our ideas are either sensations or thoughts(264), by 3, 4, 5.\n\n9. None of our ideas can be in a thing wch is both thoughtless &\nsenseless(265), by 6, 7, 8.\n\n10. The bare passive recognition or having of ideas is called perception.\n\n11. Whatever has in it an idea, tho\u2019 it be never so passive, tho\u2019 it exert\nno manner of act about it, yet it must perceive. 10.\n\n12. All ideas either are simple ideas, or made up of simple ideas.\n\n13. That thing wch is like unto another thing must agree wth it in one or\nmore simple ideas.\n\n14. Whatever is like a simple idea must either be another simple idea of\nthe same sort, or contain a simple idea of the same sort. 13.\n\n15. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 14. Another\ndemonstration of the same thing.\n\n16. Two things cannot be said to be alike or unlike till they have been\ncompar\u2019d.\n\n17. Comparing is the viewing two ideas together, & marking wt they agree\nin and wt they disagree in.\n\n18. The mind can compare nothing but its own ideas. 17.\n\n19. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 16, 18.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nN. B. Other arguments innumerable, both _a priori_ & _a posteriori_, drawn\nfrom all the sciences, from the clearest, plainest, most obvious truths,\nwhereby to demonstrate the Principle, i.e. that neither our ideas, nor\nanything like our ideas, can possibly be in an unperceiving thing(266).\n\nN. B. Not one argument of any kind wtsoever, certain or probable, _a\npriori_ or _a posteriori_, from any art or science, from either sense or\nreason, against it.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMathematicians have no right idea of angles. Hence angles of contact\nwrongly apply\u2019d to prove extension divisible _ad infinitum_.\n\nWe have got the Algebra of pure intelligences.\n\nWe can prove Newton\u2019s propositions more accurately, more easily, & upon\ntruer principles than himself(267).\n\nBarrow owns the downfall of geometry. However I\u2019ll endeavour to rescue\nit\u2014so far as it is useful, or real, or imaginable, or intelligible. But\nfor _the nothings_, I\u2019ll leave them to their admirers.\n\nI\u2019ll teach any one the whole course of mathematiques in 1/100 part the\ntime that another will.\n\nMuch banter got from the prefaces of the mathematicians.\n\n(M427) Newton says colour is in the subtil matter. Hence Malbranch proves\nnothing, or is mistaken, in asserting there is onely figure & motion.\n\nI can square the circle, &c.; they cannot. Wch goes on the best\nprinciples?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe Billys(268) use a finite visible line for an 1/m.\n\n(M428) Marsilius Ficinus\u2014his appearing the moment he died solv\u2019d by my\nidea of time(269).\n\n(M429) The philosophers lose their abstract or unperceived Matter. The\nmathematicians lose their insensible sensations. The profane [lose] their\nextended Deity. Pray wt do the rest of mankind lose? As for bodies, &c.,\nwe have them still(270).\n\nN. B. The future nat. philosoph. & mathem. get vastly by the bargain(271).\n\n(M430) There are men who say there are insensible extensions. There are\nothers who say the wall is not white, the fire is not hot, &c. We Irishmen\ncannot attain to these truths.\n\nThe mathematicians think there are insensible lines. About these they\nharangue: these cut in a point at all angles: these are divisible _ad\ninfinitum_. We Irishmen can conceive no such lines.\n\nThe mathematicians talk of wt they call a point. This, they say, is not\naltogether nothing, nor is it downright something. Now we Irishmen are apt\nto think something(272) & nothing are next neighbours.\n\nEngagements to P.(273) on account of ye Treatise that grew up under his\neye; on account also of his approving my harangue. Glorious for P. to be\nthe protector of usefull tho\u2019 newly discover\u2019d truths.\n\nHow could I venture thoughts into the world before I knew they would be of\nuse to the world? and how could I know that till I had try\u2019d how they\nsuited other men\u2019s ideas?\n\nI publish not this so much for anything else as to know whether other men\nhave the same ideas as we Irishmen. This is my end, & not to be inform\u2019d\nas to my own particular.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMy speculations have the same effect as visiting foreign countries: in the\nend I return where I was before, but my heart at ease, and enjoying life\nwith new satisfaction.\n\nPassing through all the sciences, though false for the most part, yet it\ngives us the better insight and greater knowledge of the truth.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nHe that would bring another over to his opinion, must seem to harmonize\nwith him at first, and humour him in his own way of talking(274).\n\nFrom my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIt doth not argue a dwarf to have greater strength than a giant, because\nhe can throw off the molehill which is upon him, while the other struggles\nbeneath a mountain.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe whole directed to practise and morality\u2014as appears 1st, from making\nmanifest the nearness and omnipresence of God; 2dly, from cutting off the\nuseless labour of sciences, and so forth.\n\n\n\n\n\nAN ESSAY TOWARDS A NEW THEORY OF VISION\n\n\n_First published in 1709_\n\n\n\n\nEditor\u2019s Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision\n\n\nBerkeley\u2019s _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_ was meant to prepare the\nway for the exposition and defence of the new theory of the material\nworld, its natural order, and its relation to Spirit, that is contained in\nhis book of _Principles_ and in the relative _Dialogues_, which speedily\nfollowed. The _Essay_ was the firstfruits of his early philosophical\nstudies at Dublin. It was also the first attempt to show that our\napparently immediate Vision of Space and of bodies extended in\nthree-dimensioned space, is either tacit or conscious inference,\noccasioned by constant association of the phenomena of which alone we are\nvisually percipient with assumed realities of our tactual and locomotive\nexperience.\n\nThe first edition of the _Essay_ appeared early in 1709, when its author\nwas about twenty-four years of age. A second edition, with a few verbal\nchanges and an Appendix, followed before the end of that year. Both were\nissued in Dublin, \u201cprinted by Aaron Rhames, at the back of Dick\u2019s\nCoffeehouse, for Jeremy Pepyat, bookseller in Skinner Row.\u201d In March,\n1732, a third edition, without the Appendix, was annexed to _Alciphron,_\non account of its relation to the Fourth Dialogue in that book. This was\nthe author\u2019s last revision.\n\nIn the present edition the text of this last edition is adopted, after\ncollation with those preceding. The Appendix has been restored, and also\nthe Dedication to Sir John Percival, which appeared only in the first\nedition.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nA due appreciation of Berkeley\u2019s theory of seeing, and his conception of\nthe visible world, involves a study, not merely of this tentative juvenile\n_Essay_, but also of its fuller development and application in his more\nmatured works. This has been commonly forgotten by his critics.\n\nVarious circumstances contribute to perplex and even repel the reader of\nthe _Essay_, making it less fit to be an easy avenue of approach to\nBerkeley\u2019s _Principles_.\n\nIts occasion and design, and its connexion with his spiritual conception\nof the material world, are suggested in Sections 43 and 44 of the\n_Principles_. Those sections are a key to the _Essay_. They inform us that\nin the _Essay_ the author intentionally uses language which seems to\nattribute a reality independent of all percipient spirit to the ideas or\nphenomena presented in Touch; it being beside his purpose, he says, to\n\u201cexamine and refute\u201d that \u201cvulgar error\u201d in \u201ca work on Vision.\u201d This\nstudied reticence of a verbally paradoxical conception of Matter, in\nreasonings about vision which are fully intelligible only under that\nconception, is one cause of a want of philosophical lucidity in the\n_Essay_.\n\nAnother circumstance adds to the embarrassment of those who approach the\n_Principles_ and the three _Dialogues_ through the _Essay on Vision_. The\n_Essay_ offers no exception to the lax employment of equivocal words\nfamiliar in the early literature of English philosophy, but which is\nparticularly inconvenient in the subtle discussions to which we are here\nintroduced. At the present day we are perhaps accustomed to more precision\nand uniformity in the philosophical use of language; at any rate we\nconnect other meanings than those here intended with some of the leading\nwords. It is enough to refer to such terms as _idea_, _notion_,\n_sensation_, _perception_, _touch_, _externality_, _distance_, and their\nconjugates. It is difficult for the modern reader to revive and remember\nthe meanings which Berkeley intends by _idea_ and _notion_\u2014so significant\nin his vocabulary; and _touch_ with him connotes muscular and locomotive\nexperience as well as the pure sense of contact. Interchange of the terms\n_outward_, _outness_, _externality_, _without the mind_, and _without the\neye_ is confusing, if we forget that Berkeley implies that percipient mind\nis virtually coextensive with our bodily organism, so that being \u201cwithout\u201d\nor \u201cat a distance from\u201d our bodies is being at a distance from the\npercipient mind. I have tried in the annotations to relieve some of these\nambiguities, of which Berkeley himself warns us (cf. sect. 120).\n\nThe _Essay_ moreover abounds in repetitions, and interpolations of\nantiquated optics and physiology, so that its logical structure and even\nits supreme generalisation are not easily apprehended. I will try to\ndisentangle them.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe reader must remember that this _Essay on Vision_ is professedly an\nintrospective appeal to human consciousness. It is an analysis of what\nhuman beings are conscious of when they see, the results being here and\nthere applied, partly by way of verification, to solve some famous optical\nor physiological puzzle. The aim is to present the facts, the whole facts,\nand nothing but the facts of our internal visual experience, as\ndistinguished from supposed facts and empty abstractions, which an\nirregular exercise of imagination, or abuse of words, had put in their\nplace. The investigation, moreover, is not concerned with Space in its\nmetaphysical infinity, but with finite sections of Space and their\nrelations, which concern the sciences, physical and mathematical, and with\nreal or tangible Distance, Magnitude, and Place, in their relation to\nseeing.\n\nFrom the second section onwards the _Essay_ naturally falls into six\nParts, devoted successively to the proof of the six following theses\nregarding the relation of Sight to finite spaces and to things extended:\u2014\n\nI. (Sect. 2-51.) Distance, or outness from the eye in the line of vision,\nis not seen: it is only suggested to the mind by visible phenomena and by\nsensations felt in the eye, all which are somehow its arbitrarily\nconstituted and non-resembling Signs.\n\nII. (Sect. 52-87.) Magnitude, or the amount of space that objects of sense\noccupy, is really invisible: we only see a greater or less quantity of\ncolour, and colour depends upon percipient mind: our supposed visual\nperceptions of real magnitude are only our own interpretations of the\ntactual meaning of the colours we see, and of sensations felt in the eye,\nwhich are its Signs.\n\nIII. (Sect. 88-120.) Situation of objects of sense, or their real relation\nto one another in ambient space, is invisible: what we see is variety in\nthe relations of colours to one another: our supposed vision of real\ntangible locality is only our interpretation of its visual non-resembling\nSigns.\n\nIV. (Sect. 121-46.) There is no object that is presented in common to\nSight and Touch: space or extension, which has the best claim to be their\ncommon object, is specifically as well as numerically different in Sight\nand in Touch.\n\nV. (Sect. 147-48.) The explanation of the tactual significance of the\nvisible and visual Signs, upon which human experience proceeds, is offered\nin the Theory that all visible phenomena are arbitrary signs in what is\nvirtually the Language of Nature, addressed by God to the senses and\nintelligence of Man.\n\nVI. (Sect. 149-60.) The true object studied in Geometry is the kind of\nExtension given in Touch, not that given in Sight: real Extension in all\nits phases is tangible, not visible: colour is the only immediate object\nof Sight, and colour being mind-dependent sensation, cannot be realised\nwithout percipient mind. These concluding sections are supplementary to\nthe main argument.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe fact that distance or outness is invisible is sometimes regarded as\nBerkeley\u2019s contribution to the theory of seeing. It is rather the\nassumption on which the _Essay_ proceeds (sect. 2). The _Essay_ does not\nprove this invisibility, but seeks to shew how, notwithstanding, we learn\nto find outness through seeing. That the relation between the visual signs\nof outness, on the one hand, and the real distance which they signify, on\nthe other, is in all cases arbitrary, and discovered through experience,\nis the burden of sect. 2-40. The previously recognised signs of\n\u201cconsiderably remote\u201d distances, are mentioned (sect. 3). But _near_\ndistance was supposed to be inferred by a visual geometry\u2014and to be\n\u201csuggested,\u201d not signified by arbitrary signs. The determination of the\nvisual signs which suggest outness, near and remote, is Berkeley\u2019s\nprofessed discovery regarding vision.\n\nAn induction of the visual signs which \u201csuggest\u201d distance, is followed\n(sect. 43) by an assertion of the wholly sensuous reality of _colour_,\nwhich is acknowledged to be the only immediate object of sight. Hence\n_visible_ extension, consisting in colour, must be dependent for its\nrealisation upon sentient or percipient mind. It is then argued (sect. 44)\nthat this mind-dependent visible outness has no resemblance to the\ntangible reality (sect. 45). This is the first passage in the _Essay_ in\nwhich Touch and its data are formally brought into view. Tactual or\nlocomotive experience, it is implied, is needed to infuse true reality\ninto our conceptions of distance or outness. This cannot be got from\nseeing any more than from hearing, or tasting, or smelling. It is as\nimpossible to see and touch the same object as it is to hear and touch the\nsame object. Visible objects and ocular sensations can only be _ideal\nsigns_ of _real things_.\n\nThe sections in which Touch is thus introduced are among the most\nimportant in the _Essay_. They represent the outness given in hearing as\nwholly sensuous, ideal, or mind-dependent: they recognise as more truly\nreal that got by contact and locomotion. But if this is all that man can\nsee, it follows that his _visible_ world, at any rate, becomes real only\nin and through percipient mind. The problem of an _Essay on Vision_ is\nthus, to explain _how_ the visible world of extended colour can inform us\nof tangible realities, which it does not in the least resemble, and with\nwhich it has no _necessary_ connexion. That visible phenomena, or else\ncertain organic sensations involved in seeing (sect. 3, 16, 21, 27),\ngradually _suggest_ the real or tangible outness with which they are\nconnected in the divinely constituted system of nature, is the explanation\nwhich now begins to dawn upon us.\n\nHere an ambiguity in the _Essay_ appears. It concludes that the _visible_\nworld cannot be real without percipient realising mind, i.e. not otherwise\nthan ideally: yet the argument seems to take for granted that we are\npercipient of a _tangible_ world that is independent of percipient\nrealising mind. The reader is apt to say that the tangible world must be\nas dependent on percipient mind for its reality as the visible world is\nconcluded to be, and for the same reason. This difficulty was soon\nafterwards encountered in the book of _Principles_, where the worlds of\nsight and touch are put on the same level; and the possibility of\nunperceived reality in both cases is denied; on the ground that a material\nworld cannot be realised in the total absence of Spirit\u2014human and divine.\nThe term \u201cexternal\u201d may still be applied to tactual and locomotive\nphenomena alone, if men choose; but this not because of the ideal\ncharacter of what is seen, and the unideal reality of what is touched, but\nonly because tactual perceptions are found to be more firm and steady than\nvisual. Berkeley preferred in this way to _insinuate_ his new conception\nof the material world by degrees, at the risk of exposing this juvenile\nand tentative _Essay on Vision_ to a charge of incoherence.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe way in which visual ideas or phenomena \u201csuggest\u201d the outness or\ndistance of things from the organ of sight having been thus explained, in\nwhat I call the First Part of the _Essay_, the Second and Third Parts\n(sect. 52-120) argue for the invisibility of real extension in two other\nrelations, viz. magnitude and locality or situation. An induction of the\nvisual signs of tangible size and situation is given in those sections.\nThe result is applied to solve two problems then notable in optics, viz.\n(1) the reason for the greater visible size of the horizontal moon than of\nthe moon in its meridian (sect. 67-87); and (2) the fact that objects are\nplaced erect in vision only on condition that their images on the retina\nare inverted (sect. 88-120). Here the antithesis between the ideal world\nof coloured extension, and the real world of resistant extension is\npressed with vigour. The \u201chigh\u201d and \u201clow\u201d of the visible world is not the\n\u201chigh\u201d and \u201clow\u201d of the tangible world (sect. 91-106). There is no\nresemblance and no necessary relation, between those two so-called\nextensions; not even when the number of visible objects happen to coincide\nwith the number of tangible objects of which they are the visual signs,\ne.g. the visible and tangible fingers on the hand: for the born-blind, on\nfirst receiving sight, could not parcel out the visible phenomena in\ncorrespondence with the tangible.\n\nThe next Part of the _Essay_ (sect. 121-45) argues for a specific as well\nas a numerical difference between the original data of sight and the data\nof touch and locomotion. Sight and touch perceive nothing in common.\nExtension in its various relations differs in sight from extension in\ntouch. Coloured extension, which alone is visible, is found to be\ndifferent in kind from resistant extension, which alone is tangible. And\nif actually perceived or concrete extensions differ thus, the question is\ndetermined. For all extension with which man can be concerned must be\nconcrete (sect. 23). Extension in the abstract is meaningless (sect.\n124-25). What remains is to marshal the scattered evidence, and to guard\nthe foregoing conclusions against objections. This is attempted in\nsections 128-46.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe enunciation of the summary generalisation, which forms the \u201cNew Theory\nof Vision\u201d (sect. 147-8), may be taken as the Fifth and culminating Part\nof the _Essay_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe closing sections (149-60), as I have said, are supplementary, and\nprofess to determine the sort of extension\u2014visible or tangible\u2014with which\nGeometry is concerned. In concluding that it is tangible, he tries to\npicture the mental state of Idominians, or unbodied spirits, endowed with\nvisual perceptions _only_, and asks what _their_ conception of outness and\nsolid extension must be. Here further refinements in the interpretation of\nvisual perception, and its organic conditions, which have not escaped the\nattention of latter psychologists and biologists, are hinted at.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWhether the data of sight consist of non-resembling arbitrary Signs of the\ntactual distances, sizes, and situations of things, is a question which\nsome might prefer to deal with experimentally\u2014by trial of the experience\nof persons in circumstances fitted to supply an answer. Of this sort would\nbe the experience of the born-blind, immediately after their sight has\nbeen restored; the conception of extension and its relations found in\npersons who continue from birth unable to see; the experience (if it could\nbe got) of persons always destitute of all tactual and locomotive\nperceptions, but familiar with vision; and the facts of seeing observed in\ninfants of the human species, and in the lower animals.\n\nBerkeley did not try to verify his conclusions in this way. Here and there\n(sect. 41, 42, 79, 92-99, 103, 106, 110, 128, 132-37), he conjectures what\nthe first visual experience of those rescued from born-blindness is likely\nto be; he also speculates, as we have seen, about the experience of\nunbodied spirits supposed to be able to see, but unable to touch or move\n(sect. 153-59); and in the Appendix he refers, in confirmation of his New\nTheory, to a reported case of one born blind who had obtained sight. But\nhe forms his Theory independently of those delicate and difficult\ninvestigations. His testing facts were sought introspectively. Indeed\nthose physiologists and mental philosophers who have since tried to\ndetermine what vision in its purity is, by cases either of communicated\nsight or of continued born-blindness, have illustrated the truth of\nDiderot\u2019s remark\u2014\u201cpr\u00e9parer et interroger un aveugle-n\u00e9 n\u2019e\u00fbt point \u00e9t\u00e9 une\noccupation indigne des talens r\u00e9unis de Newton, Des Cartes, Locke, et\nLeibniz(275).\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nBerkeley\u2019s _New Theory_ has been quoted as a signal example of discovery\nin metaphysics. The subtle analysis which distinguishes _seeing_ strictly\nso called, from judgments about extended things, suggested by what we see,\nappears to have been imperfectly known to the ancient philosophers.\nAristotle, indeed, speaks of colour as the only proper object of sight;\nbut, in passages of the _De Anima_(276) where he names properties peculiar\nto particular senses, he enumerates others, such as motion, figure, and\nmagnitude, which belong to all the senses in common. His distinction of\nProper and Common Sensibles appears at first to contradict Berkeley\u2019s\ndoctrine of the heterogeneity of the ideal visible and the real tangible\nworlds. Aristotle, however, seems to question the immediate perceptibility\nof Common Sensibles, and to regard them as realised through the activity\nof intelligence(277).\n\nSome writers in Optics, in mediaeval times, and in early modern\nphilosophy, advanced beyond Aristotle, in explaining the relation of our\nmatured notion of distance to what we originally perceive in seeing, and\nin the fifteenth century it was discovered by Maurolyco that the rays of\nlight from the object converge to a focus in the eye; but I have not been\nable to trace even the germ of the _New Theory_ in these speculations.\n\nExcepting some hints by Descartes, Malebranche was among the first dimly\nto anticipate Berkeley, in resolving our supposed power of seeing outness\ninto an interpretation of visual signs which we learn by experience to\nunderstand. The most important part of Malebranche\u2019s account of seeing is\ncontained in the _Recherche de la V\u00e9rit\u00e9_ (Liv. I. ch. 9), in one of those\nchapters in which he discusses the frequent fallaciousness of the senses,\nand in particular of our visual perceptions of extension. He accounts for\ntheir inevitable uncertainty by assigning them not to sense but to\nmisinterpretation of what is seen. He also enumerates various visual signs\nof distance.\n\nThat the _Recherche_ of Malebranche, published more than thirty years\nbefore the _Essay_, was familiar to Berkeley before the publication of his\n_New Theory_, is proved by internal evidence, and by his juvenile\n_Commonplace Book_. I am not able to discover signs of a similar connexion\nbetween the _New Theory_ and the chapter on the mystery of sensation in\nGlanvill\u2019s _Scepsis Scientifica_ (ch. 5), published some years before the\n_Recherche_ of Malebranche, where Glanvill refers to \u201ca secret deduction,\u201d\nthrough which\u2014from motions, &c., of which we are immediately percipient\u2014we\n\u201cspell out\u201d figures, distances, magnitudes, and colours, which have no\nresemblance to them.\n\nAn approach to the _New Theory_ is found in a passage which first appeared\nin the second edition of Locke\u2019s _Essay_, published in 1694, to which\nBerkeley refers in his own _Essay_ (sect. 132-35), and which, on account\nof its relative importance, I shall here transcribe at length:\u2014\n\n\u201cWe are further to consider concerning Perception that the ideas we\nreceive by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by the judgment,\nwithout our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round globe\nof any uniform colour, e.g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that\nthe idea thereby imprinted in our mind is of a flat circle, variously\nshadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness coming to our eyes.\nBut, we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance\nconvex bodies are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in the\nreflection of light by the difference in the sensible figures of\nbodies\u2014the judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the\nappearances into their causes; so that, from that which is truly variety\nof shadow or colour, collecting the figure, it makes it pass for a mark of\nfigure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure and an\nuniform colour, when the idea we receive from them is only a plane\nvariously coloured, as is evident in painting.\n\n\u201cTo which purpose I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and\nstudious promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux,\nwhich he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since, and it is\nthis:\u2014Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to\ndistinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of\nthe same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt the one and the other, which\nis the cube and which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and the sphere\nplaced on a table, and the blind man be made to see: quere, whether, by\nhis sight, before he touched them, he could not distinguish and tell,\nwhich is the globe and which the cube? To which the acute and judicious\nproposer answers: \u2018Not.\u2019 For, though he has obtained the experience of how\na globe, how a cube affects his touch; yet he has not obtained the\nexperience that what affects his touch so and so, must affect his sight so\nand so; so that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand\nunequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube.\u2014I agree with\nthis thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer\nto this his problem, and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight,\nwould not be able to say with certainty which was the globe and which the\ncube, whilst he only saw them; though he would unerringly name them by his\ntouch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference in their figures\nfelt.\n\n\u201cThis I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to\nconsider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and\nacquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help\nfrom them: and the rather because this observing gentleman further adds\nthat, having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this problem to\ndivers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave\nthe answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they\nwere convinced.\n\n\u201cBut this is not I think usual in any of our ideas but those received by\nsight: because sight, the most comprehensive of the senses, conveying to\nour minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to that\nsense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and motion, the\nseveral varieties of which change the appearance of its proper object,\ni.e. light and colours; we bring ourselves by use to judge of the one by\nthe other. This, in many cases, by a settled habit, in things whereof we\nhave frequent experience, is performed so constantly and so quick, that we\ntake that for the perception of our sensation, which is an idea formed by\nour judgment; so that one, i.e. that of sensation, serves only to excite\nthe other, and is scarce taken notice of itself; as a man who reads or\nhears with attention and understanding takes little notice of the\ncharacter or sounds, but of the ideas that are excited in him by them.\n\n\u201cNor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice, if we\nconsider how very quick the actions of the mind are performed; for, as\nitself is thought to take up no space, to have no extension, so its\nactions seem to require no time, but many of them seem to be crowded into\nan instant. I speak this in comparison of the actions of the body....\nSecondly, we shall not be much surprised that this is done with us in so\nlittle notice, if we consider how the facility we get of doing things, by\na custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without notice. Habits,\nespecially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions\nin us which often escape our observation.... And therefore it is not so\nstrange that our mind should often change the idea of its sensation into\nthat of its judgment, and make the one serve only to excite the other,\nwithout our taking notice of it.\u201d (_Essay concerning Human Understanding_,\nBook II. ch. 9. \u00a7 8.)\n\nThis remarkable passage anticipates by implication the view of an\ninterpretation of materials originally given in the visual sense, which,\nunder the name of \u201csuggestion,\u201d is the ruling factor in the _New Theory of\nVision_.\n\nThe following sentences relative to the invisibility of distances,\ncontained in the _Treatise of Dioptrics_ (published in 1690) of Locke\u2019s\nfriend and correspondent William Molyneux, whose son was Berkeley\u2019s pupil,\nillustrate Locke\u2019s statements, and may be compared with the opening\nsections of the _Essay on Vision_:\u2014\n\n\u201cIn plain vision the estimate we make of the distance of objects\n(especially when so far removed that the interval between our two eyes\nbears no sensible proportion thereto, or when looked upon with one eye\nonly) is rather the act of our judgment than of sense; and acquired by\nexercise, and a faculty of comparing, rather than natural. For, distance\nof itself is not to be perceived; for, \u2019tis a line (or a length) presented\nto our eye with its end toward us, which must therefore be only a point,\nand that is invisible. Wherefore distance is chiefly perceived by means of\ninterjacent bodies, as by the earth, mountains, hills, fields, trees,\nhouses, &c. Or by the estimate we make of the comparative magnitude of\nbodies, or of their faint colours, &c. These I say are the chief means of\napprehending the distance of objects that are considerably remote. But as\nto nigh objects\u2014to whose distance the interval of the eyes bears a\nsensible proportion\u2014their distance is perceived by the turn of the eyes,\nor by the angle of the optic axes (_Gregorii Opt. Promot._ prop. 28). This\nwas the opinion of the ancients, Alhazen, Vitellio, &c. And though the\ningenious Jesuit Tacquet (_Opt. Lib. I._ prop. 2) disapprove thereof, and\nobjects against it a new notion of Gassendus (of a man\u2019s seeing only with\none eye at a time one and the same object), yet this notion of Gassendus\nbeing absolutely false (as I could demonstrate were it not beside my\npresent purpose), it makes nothing against this opinion.\n\n\u201cWherefore, distance being only a line and not of itself perceivable, if\nan object were conveyed to the eye by one single ray only, there were no\nother means of judging of its distance but by some of those hinted before.\nTherefore when we estimate the distance of nigh objects, either we take\nthe help of both eyes; or else we consider the pupil of one eye as having\nbreadth, and receiving a parcel of rays from each radiating point. And,\naccording to the various inclinations of the rays from one point on the\nvarious parts of the pupil, we make our estimate of the distance of the\nobject. And therefore (as is said before), by one single eye we can only\njudge of the distance of such objects to whose distance the breadth of the\npupil has a sensible proportion.... For, it is observed before (prop. 29,\nsec. 2, see also _Gregorii Opt. Promot._ prop. 29) that for viewing\nobjects remote and nigh, there are requisite various conformations of the\neye\u2014the rays from nigh objects that fall on the eye diverging more than\nthose from more remote objects.\u201d (_Treatise of Dioptrics_, Part I. prop.\n31.)\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAll this helps to shew the state of science regarding vision about the\ntime Berkeley\u2019s _Essay_ appeared, especially among those with whose works\nhe was familiar(278). I shall next refer to illustrations of the change\nwhich the _Essay_ produced.\n\nThe _New Theory_ has occasioned some interesting criticism since its\nappearance in 1709. At first it drew little attention. For twenty years\nafter its publication the allusions to it were few. The account of\nCheselden\u2019s experiment upon one born blind, published in 1728, in the\n_Philosophical Transactions_, which seemed to bring the Theory to the test\nof scientific experiment, recalled attention to Berkeley\u2019s reasonings. The\nstate of religious thought about the same time confirmed the tendency to\ndiscuss a doctrine which represented human vision as interpretation of a\nnatural yet divine language, thus suggesting Omnipresent Mind.\n\nOccasional discussions of the _New Theory_ may be found in the\n_Gentleman\u2019s Magazine_, from 1732 till Berkeley\u2019s death in 1753. Some\ncriticisms may also be found in Smith\u2019s _Optics_, published in 1738.\n\nEssential parts of Berkeley\u2019s analysis are explained by Voltaire, in his\n_\u00c9l\u00e9mens de la Philosophie de Newton_. The following from that work is\nhere given on its own account, and also as a prominent recognition of the\nnew doctrine in France, within thirty years from its first promulgation:\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cIl faut absolument conclure de tout ceci, que les distances, les\n    grandeurs, les situations, ne sont pas, \u00e0 proprement parler, des\n    choses visibles, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire, ne sont pas les objets propres et\n    imm\u00e9diats de la vue. L\u2019objet propre et imm\u00e9diat de la vue n\u2019est\n    autre chose que la lumi\u00e8re color\u00e9e: tout le reste, nous ne le\n    sentons qu\u2019\u00e0 la longue et par exp\u00e9rience. Nous apprenons \u00e0 voir\n    pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment comme nous apprenons \u00e0 parler et \u00e0 lire. La diff\u00e9rence\n    est, que l\u2019art de voir est plus facile, et que la nature est\n    \u00e9galement \u00e0 tous notre ma\u00eetre.\n\n    \u201cLes jugements soudains, presque uniformes, que toutes nos \u00e2mes, \u00e0\n    un certain \u00e2ge, portent des distances, des grandeurs, des\n    situations, nous font penser qu\u2019il n\u2019y a qu\u2019\u00e0 ouvrir les yeux pour\n    voir la mani\u00e8re dont nous voyons. On se trompe; il y faut le\n    secours des autres sens. Si les hommes n\u2019avaient que le sens de la\n    vue, ils n\u2019auraient aucun moyen pour conna\u00eetre l\u2019\u00e9tendue en\n    longueur, largeur et profondeur; et un pur esprit ne la\n    conna\u00eetrait pas peut\u00eatre, \u00e0 moins que Dieu ne la lui r\u00e9v\u00e9l\u00e2t. Il\n    est tr\u00e8s difficile de s\u00e9parer dans notre entendement l\u2019extension\n    d\u2019un objet d\u2019avec les couleurs de cet objet. Nous ne voyons jamais\n    rien que d\u2019\u00e9tendu, et de l\u00e0 nous sommes tous port\u00e9s \u00e0 croire que\n    nous voyons en effet l\u2019\u00e9tendue.\u201d (_\u00c9l\u00e9mens de la Philos. de\n    Newton_, Seconde Partie, ch. 7.)\n\n\nCondillac, in his _Essais sur l\u2019Origine des Connaissances Humaines_ (Part\nI. sect. 6), published in 1746, combats Berkeley\u2019s _New Theory_, and\nmaintains that an extension exterior to the eye is immediately discernible\nby sight; the eye being naturally capable of judging at once of figures,\nmagnitudes, situations, and distances. His reasonings in support of this\n\u201cprejudice,\u201d as he afterwards allowed it to be, may be found in the\nsection entitled \u201cDe quelques jugemens qu\u2019on a attribu\u00e9s \u00e0 l\u2019\u00e2me sans\nfondement, ou solution d\u2019un probl\u00e8me de m\u00e9taphysique.\u201d Here Locke,\nMolyneux, Berkeley, and Voltaire are criticised, and Cheselden\u2019s\nexperiment is referred to. Condillac\u2019s subsequent recantation is contained\nin his _Trait\u00e9 des Sensations_, published in 1754, and in his _L\u2019Art de\nPenser_. In the _Trait\u00e9 des Sensations_ (Troisi\u00e8me Partie, ch. 3, 4, 5, 6,\n7, 8, &c.) the whole question is discussed at length, and Condillac\nvindicates what he allows must appear a marvellous paradox to the\nuninitiated\u2014that we only gradually learn to see, hear, smell, taste, and\ntouch. He argues in particular that the eye cannot originally perceive an\nextension that is beyond itself, and that perception of trinal space is\ndue to what we experience in touch.\n\nVoltaire and Condillac gave currency to the _New Theory_ in France, and it\nsoon became a commonplace with D\u2019Alembert, Diderot, Buffon, and other\nFrench philosophers. In Germany we have allusions to it in the Berlin\nMemoirs and elsewhere; but, although known by name, if not in its\ndistinctive principle and latent idealism, it has not obtained the\nconsideration which its author\u2019s developed theory of the material as well\nas the visible world has received. The Kantian _a priori_ criticism of our\ncognition of Space, and of our mathematical notions, subsequently\nindisposed the German mind to the _a posteriori_ reasoning of Berkeley\u2019s\n_Essay_.\n\nIts influence is apparent in British philosophy. The following passages in\nHartley\u2019s _Observations on Man_, published in 1749, illustrate the extent\nto which some of the distinctive parts of the new doctrine were at that\ntime received by an eminent English psychologist:\u2014\n\n\u201cDistance is judged of by the quantity of motion, and figure by the\nrelative quantity of distance.... And, as the sense of sight is much more\nextensive and expedite than feeling, we judge of tangible qualities\nchiefly by sight, which therefore may be considered, agreeably to Bishop\nBerkeley\u2019s remark, as a philosophical language for the ideas of feeling;\nbeing, for the most part, an adequate representative of them, and a\nlanguage common to all mankind, and in which they all agree very nearly,\nafter a moderate degree of experience.\n\n\u201cHowever, if the informations from touch and sight disagree at any time,\nwe are always to depend upon touch, as that which, according to the usual\nways of speaking upon these subjects, is the true representation of the\nessential properties, i.e. as the earnest and presage of what other\ntangible impressions the body under consideration will make upon our\nfeeling in other circumstances; also what changes it will produce in other\nbodies; of which again we are to determine by our feeling, if the visual\nlanguage should not happen to correspond to it exactly. And it is from\nthis difference that we call the touch the reality, light the\nrepresentative\u2014also that a person born blind may foretell with certainty,\nfrom his present tangible impressions, what others would follow upon\nvarying the circumstances; whereas, if we could suppose a person to be\nborn without feeling, and to arrive at man\u2019s estate, he could not, from\nhis present visible impressions, judge what others would follow upon\nvarying the circumstances. Thus the picture of a knife, drawn so well as\nto deceive his eye, would not, when applied to another body, produce the\nsame change of visible impressions as a real knife does, when it separates\nthe parts of the body through which it passes. But the touch is not liable\nto these deceptions. As it is therefore the fundamental source of\ninformation in respect of the essential properties of matter, it may be\nconsidered as our first and principal key to the knowledge of the external\nworld.\u201d (Prop. 30.)\n\nIn other parts of Hartley\u2019s book (e.g. Prop. 58) the relation of our\nvisual judgments of magnitude, figure, motion, distance, and position to\nthe laws of association is explained, and the associating circumstances by\nwhich these judgments are formed are enumerated in detail.\n\nDr. Porterfield of Edinburgh, in his _Treatise on the Eye, or the Manner\nand Phenomena of Vision_ (Edinburgh, 1759), is an exception to the consent\nwhich the doctrine had then widely secured. He maintains, in opposition to\nBerkeley, that \u201cthe judgments we form of the situation and distance of\nvisible objects, depend not on custom and experience, but on original\ninstinct, to which mind is subject in our embodied state(279).\u201d\n\nBerkeley\u2019s Theory of Vision, in so far as it resolves our visual\nperceptions of distance into interpretation of arbitrary signs, received\nthe qualified approbation of Reid, in his _Inquiry into the Human Mind on\nthe Principles of Common Sense_ (1764). He criticises it in the _Inquiry_,\nwhere the doctrine of visual signs, of which Berkeley\u2019s whole philosophy\nis a development, is accepted, and to some extent applied. With Reid it is\ndivorced, however, from the Berkeleian conception of the material world,\nalthough the Theory of Vision was the seminal principle of Berkeley\u2019s\nTheory of Matter(280).\n\nThis Theory of Matter was imperfectly conceived and then rejected by Reid\nand his followers, while the New Theory of Vision obtained the general\nconsent of the Scottish metaphysicians. Adam Smith refers to it in his\n_Essays_ (published in 1795) as \u201cone of the finest examples of\nphilosophical analysis that is to be found either in our own or in any\nother language.\u201d Dugald Stewart characterises it in his _Elements_ as \u201cone\nof the most beautiful, and at the same time one of the most important\ntheories of modern philosophy.\u201d \u201cThe solid additions,\u201d he afterwards\nremarks in his _Dissertation_, \u201cmade by Berkeley to the stock of human\nknowledge, were important and brilliant. Among these the first place is\nunquestionably due to his _New Theory of Vision_, a work abounding with\nideas so different from those commonly received, and at the same time so\nprofound and refined, that it was regarded by all but a few accustomed to\ndeep metaphysical reflection, rather in the light of a philosophical\nromance than of a sober inquiry after truth. Such, however, has since been\nthe progress and diffusion of this sort of knowledge, that the leading and\nmost abstracted doctrines contained in it form now an essential part of\nevery elementary treatise on optics, and are adopted by the most\nsuperficial smatterers in science as fundamental articles of their faith.\u201d\nThe _New Theory_ is accepted by Thomas Brown, who proposes (_Lectures_,\n29) to extend the scope of its reasonings. With regard to perceptions of\nsight, Young, in his _Lectures on Intellectual Philosophy_ (p. 102), says\nthat \u201cit has been universally admitted, at least since the days of\nBerkeley, that many of those which appear to us at present to be\ninstantaneous and primitive, can yet be shewn to be acquired; that most of\nthe adult perceptions of sight are founded on the previous information of\ntouch; that colour can give us no conception originally of those qualities\nof bodies which produce it in us; and that primary vision gives us no\nnotion of distance, and, as I believe, no notion of magnitude.\u201d Sir James\nMackintosh, in his _Dissertation_, characterises the _New Theory of\nVision_ as \u201ca great discovery in Mental Philosophy.\u201d \u201cNothing in the\ncompass of inductive reasoning,\u201d remarks Sir William Hamilton (Reid\u2019s\n_Works_, p. 182, note), \u201cappears more satisfactory than Berkeley\u2019s\ndemonstration of the necessity and manner of our learning, by a slow\nprocess of observation and comparison alone, the connexion between the\nperceptions of vision and touch, and, in general, all that relates to the\ndistance and magnitude of external things(281).\u201d\n\nThe New Theory of Vision has in short been generally accepted, so far as\nit was understood, alike by the followers of Hartley and by the associates\nand successors of Reid. Among British psychologists, it has recommended\nitself to rationalists and sensationalists, to the advocates of innate\nprinciples, and to those who would explain by accidental association what\ntheir opponents attribute to reason originally latent in man. But this\nwide conscious assent is I think chiefly confined to the proposition that\ndistance is invisible, and hardly reaches the deeper implicates of the\ntheory, on its extension to all the senses, leading to a perception of the\nfinal unity of the natural and the supernatural, and the ultimate\nspirituality of the universe(282).\n\n\n\n\nDedication\n\n\nTO THE RT. HON. SIR JOHN PERCIVALE, BART.(283),\n\nONE OF HER MAJESTY\u2019S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL\n\nIN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND.\n\nSir,\n\nI could not, without doing violence to myself, forbear upon this occasion\nto give some public testimony of the great and well-grounded esteem I have\nconceived for you, ever since I had the honour and happiness of your\nacquaintance. The outward advantages of fortune, and the early honours\nwith which you are adorned, together with the reputation you are known to\nhave amongst the best and most considerable men, may well imprint\nveneration and esteem on the minds of those who behold you from a\ndistance. But these are not the chief motives that inspire me with the\nrespect I bear you. A nearer approach has given me the view of something\nin your person infinitely beyond the external ornaments of honour and\nestate. I mean, an intrinsic stock of virtue and good sense, a true\nconcern for religion, and disinterested love of your country. Add to these\nan uncommon proficiency in the best and most useful parts of knowledge;\ntogether with (what in my mind is a perfection of the first rank) a\nsurpassing goodness of nature. All which I have collected, not from the\nuncertain reports of fame, but from my own experience. Within these few\nmonths that I have the honour to be known unto you, the many delightful\nhours I have passed in your agreeable and improving conversation have\nafforded me the opportunity of discovering in you many excellent\nqualities, which at once fill me with admiration and esteem. That one at\nthose years, and in those circumstances of wealth and greatness, should\ncontinue proof against the charms of luxury and those criminal pleasures\nso fashionable and predominant in the age we live in; that he should\npreserve a sweet and modest behaviour, free from that insolent and\nassuming air so familiar to those who are placed above the ordinary rank\nof men; that he should manage a great fortune with that prudence and\ninspection, and at the same time expend it with that generosity and\nnobleness of mind, as to shew himself equally remote from a sordid\nparsimony and a lavish inconsiderate profusion of the good things he is\nintrusted with\u2014this, surely, were admirable and praiseworthy. But, that he\nshould, moreover, by an impartial exercise of his reason, and constant\nperusal of the sacred Scriptures, endeavour to attain a right notion of\nthe principles of natural and revealed religion; that he should with the\nconcern of a true patriot have the interest of the public at heart, and\nomit no means of informing himself what may be prejudicial or advantageous\nto his country, in order to prevent the one and promote the other; in\nfine, that, by a constant application to the most severe and useful\nstudies, by a strict observation of the rules of honour and virtue, by\nfrequent and serious reflections on the mistaken measures of the world,\nand the true end and happiness of mankind, he should in all respects\nqualify himself bravely to run the race that is set before him, to deserve\nthe character of great and good in this life, and be ever happy\nhereafter\u2014this were amazing and almost incredible. Yet all this, and more\nthan this, SIR, might I justly say of you, did either your modesty permit,\nor your character stand in need of it. I know it might deservedly be\nthought a vanity in me to imagine that anything coming from so obscure a\nhand as mine could add a lustre to your reputation. But, I am withal\nsensible how far I advance the interest of my own, by laying hold on this\nopportunity to make it known that I am admitted into some degree of\nintimacy with a person of your exquisite judgment. And, with that view, I\nhave ventured to make you an address of this nature, which the goodness I\nhave ever experienced in you inclines me to hope will meet with a\nfavourable reception at your hands. Though I must own I have your pardon\nto ask, for touching on what may possibly be offensive to a virtue you are\npossessed of in a very distinguishing degree. Excuse me, SIR, if it was\nout of my power to mention the name of SIR JOHN PERCIVALE without paying\nsome tribute to that extraordinary and surprising merit whereof I have so\nclear and affecting an idea, and which, I am sure, cannot be exposed in\ntoo full a light for the imitation of others,\n\nOf late I have been agreeably employed in considering the most noble,\npleasant, and comprehensive of all the senses(284). The fruit of that\n(labour shall I call it or) diversion is what I now present you with, in\nhopes it may give some entertainment to one who, in the midst of business\nand vulgar enjoyments, preserves a relish for the more refined pleasures\nof thought and reflexion. My thoughts concerning Vision have led me into\nsome notions so far out of the common road(285) that it had been improper\nto address them to one of a narrow and contracted genius. But, you, SIR,\nbeing master of a large and free understanding, raised above the power of\nthose prejudices that enslave the far greater part of mankind, may\ndeservedly be thought a proper patron for an attempt of this kind. Add to\nthis, that you are no less disposed to forgive than qualified to discern\nwhatever faults may occur in it. Nor do I think you defective in any one\npoint necessary to form an exact judgment on the most abstract and\ndifficult things, so much as in a just confidence of your own abilities.\nAnd, in this one instance, give me leave to say, you shew a manifest\nweakness of judgment. With relation to the following _Essay_, I shall only\nadd that I beg your pardon for laying a trifle of that nature in your way,\nat a time when you are engaged in the important affairs of the nation, and\ndesire you to think that I am, with all sincerity and respect,\n\nSIR,\n\nYour most faithful and most humble servant,\n\nGEORGE BERKELEY.\n\n\n\n\nAn Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision\n\n\n1. My design is to shew the manner wherein we perceive by Sight the\nDistance, Magnitude, and Situation of objects: also to consider the\ndifference there is betwixt the ideas of Sight and Touch, and whether\nthere be any idea common to both senses(286).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n2. It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance, of itself and immediately,\ncannot be seen(287). For, distance(288) being a line directed endwise to\nthe eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point\nremains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or\nshorter(289).\n\n3. I find it also acknowledged that the estimate we make of the distance\nof objects considerably remote is rather an act of judgment grounded on\nexperience than of sense. For example, when I perceive a great number of\nintermediate objects, such as houses, fields, rivers, and the like, which\nI have experienced to take up a considerable space, I thence form a\njudgment or conclusion, that the object I see beyond them is at a great\ndistance. Again, when an object appears faint and small which at a near\ndistance I have experienced to make a vigorous and large appearance, I\ninstantly conclude it to be far off(290). And this, it is evident, is the\nresult of experience; without which, from the faintness and littleness, I\nshould not have inferred anything concerning the distance of objects.\n\n4. But, when an object is placed at so near a distance as that the\ninterval between the eyes bears any sensible proportion to it(291), the\nopinion of speculative men is, that the two optic axes (the fancy that we\nsee only with one eye at once being exploded), concurring at the object,\ndo there make an angle, by means of which, according as it is greater or\nlesser, the object is perceived to be nearer or farther off(292).\n\n5. Betwixt which and the foregoing manner of estimating distance there is\nthis remarkable difference:\u2014that, whereas there was no apparent\n_necessary_ connexion between small distance and a large and strong\nappearance, or between great distance and a little and faint appearance,\nthere appears a very _necessary_ connexion between an obtuse angle and\nnear distance, and an acute angle and farther distance. It does not in the\nleast depend upon experience, but may be evidently known by any one before\nhe had experienced it, that the nearer the concurrence of the optic axes\nthe greater the angle, and the remoter their concurrence is, the lesser\nwill be the angle comprehended by them.\n\n6. There is another way, mentioned by optic writers, whereby they will\nhave us judge of those distances in respect of which the breadth of the\npupil hath any sensible bigness. And that is the greater or lesser\ndivergency of the rays which, issuing from the visible point, do fall on\nthe pupil\u2014that point being judged nearest which is seen by most diverging\nrays, and that remoter which is seen by less diverging rays, and so on;\nthe apparent distance still increasing, as the divergency of the rays\ndecreases, till at length it becomes infinite, when the rays that fall on\nthe pupil are to sense parallel. And after this manner it is said we\nperceive distance when we look only with one eye.\n\n7. In this case also it is plain we are not beholden to experience: it\nbeing a certain necessary truth that, the nearer the direct rays falling\non the eye approach to a parallelism, the farther off is the point of\ntheir intersection, or the visible point from whence they flow.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n8. (293)Now, though the accounts here given of perceiving _near_ distance\nby sight are received for true, and accordingly made use of in determining\nthe apparent places of objects, they do nevertheless seem to me very\nunsatisfactory, and that for these following reasons:\u2014\n\n9. [_First_(294),] It is evident that, when the mind perceives any idea\nnot immediately and of itself, it must be by the means of some other idea.\nThus, for instance, the passions which are in the mind of another are of\nthemselves to me invisible. I may nevertheless perceive them by sight;\nthough not immediately, yet by means of the colours they produce in the\ncountenance. We often see shame or fear in the looks of a man, by\nperceiving the changes of his countenance to red or pale.\n\n10. Moreover, it is evident that no idea which is not itself perceived can\nbe to me the means of perceiving any other idea. If I do not perceive the\nredness or paleness of a man\u2019s face themselves, it is impossible I should\nperceive by them the passions which are in his mind.\n\n11. Now, from sect. ii., it is plain that distance is in its own nature\nimperceptible, and yet it is perceived by sight(295). It remains,\ntherefore, that it be brought into view by means of some other idea, that\nis itself immediately perceived in the act of vision.\n\n12. But those lines and angles, by means whereof some men(296) pretend to\nexplain the perception(297) of distance, are themselves not at all\nperceived; nor are they in truth ever thought of by those unskilful in\noptics. I appeal to any one\u2019s experience, whether, upon sight of an\nobject, he computes its distance by the bigness of the angle made by the\nmeeting of the two optic axes? or whether he ever thinks of the greater or\nlesser divergency of the rays which arrive from any point to his pupil?\nnay, whether it be not perfectly impossible for him to perceive by sense\nthe various angles wherewith the rays, according to their greater or\nlesser divergence, do fall on the eye? Every one is himself the best judge\nof what he perceives, and what not. In vain shall any man(298) tell me,\nthat I perceive certain lines and angles, which introduce into my mind the\nvarious ideas of distance, so long as I myself am conscious of no such\nthing.\n\n13. Since therefore those angles and lines are not themselves perceived by\nsight, it follows, from sect. x., that the mind does not by them judge of\nthe distance of objects.\n\n14. [_Secondly_(299),] The truth of this assertion will be yet farther\nevident to any one that considers those lines and angles have no real\nexistence in nature, being only an hypothesis framed by the\nmathematicians, and by them introduced into optics, that they might treat\nof that science in a geometrical way.\n\n15. The [_third_ and(300)] last reason I shall give for rejecting that\ndoctrine is, that though we should grant the real existence of those optic\nangles, &c., and that it was possible for the mind to perceive them, yet\nthese principles would not be found sufficient to explain the phenomena of\ndistance, as shall be shewn hereafter.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n16. Now it being already shewn(301) that distance is _suggested_(302) to\nthe mind, by the mediation of some other idea which is itself perceived in\nthe act of seeing, it remains that we inquire, what ideas or sensations\nthere be that attend vision, unto which we may suppose the ideas of\ndistance are connected, and by which they are introduced into the mind.\n\nAnd, _first_, it is certain by experience, that when we look at a near\nobject with both eyes, according as it approaches or recedes from us, we\nalter the disposition of our eyes, by lessening or widening the interval\nbetween the pupils. This disposition or turn of the eyes is attended with\na sensation(303), which seems to me to be that which in this case brings\nthe idea of greater or lesser distance into the mind.\n\n17. Not that there is any natural or necessary(304) connexion between the\nsensation we perceive by the turn of the eyes and greater or lesser\ndistance. But\u2014because the mind has, by constant experience, found the\ndifferent sensations corresponding to the different dispositions of the\neyes to be attended each with a different degree of distance in the\nobject\u2014there has grown an habitual or customary connexion between those\ntwo sorts of ideas: so that the mind no sooner perceives the sensation\narising from the different turn it gives the eyes, in order to bring the\npupils nearer or farther asunder, but it withal perceives the different\nidea of distance which was wont to be connected with that sensation. Just\nas, upon hearing a certain sound, the idea is immediately suggested to the\nunderstanding which custom had united with it(305).\n\n18. Nor do I see how I can easily be mistaken in this matter. I know\nevidently that distance is not perceived of itself(306); that, by\nconsequence, it must be perceived by means of some other idea, which is\nimmediately perceived, and varies with the different degrees of distance.\nI know also that the sensation arising from the turn of the eyes is of\nitself immediately perceived; and various degrees thereof are connected\nwith different distances, which never fail to accompany them into my mind,\nwhen I view an object distinctly with both eyes whose distance is so small\nthat in respect of it the interval between the eyes has any considerable\nmagnitude.\n\n19. I know it is a received opinion that, by altering the disposition of\nthe eyes, the mind perceives whether the angle of the optic axes, or the\nlateral angles comprehended between the interval of the eyes or the optic\naxes, are made greater or lesser; and that, accordingly, by a kind of\nnatural geometry, it judges the point of their intersection to be nearer\nor farther off. But that this is not true I am convinced by my own\nexperience; since I am not conscious that I make any such use of the\nperception I have by the turn of my eyes. And for me to make those\njudgments, and draw those conclusions from it, without knowing that I do\nso, seems altogether incomprehensible(307).\n\n20. From all which it follows, that the judgment we make of the distance\nof an object viewed with both eyes is entirely the result of experience.\nIf we had not constantly found certain sensations, arising from the\nvarious disposition of the eyes, attended with certain degrees of\ndistance, we should never make those sudden judgments from them concerning\nthe distance of objects; no more than we would pretend to judge of a man\u2019s\nthoughts by his pronouncing words we had never heard before.\n\n21. _Secondly_, an object placed at a certain distance from the eye, to\nwhich the breadth of the pupil bears a considerable proportion, being made\nto approach, is seen more confusedly(308). And the nearer it is brought\nthe more confused appearance it makes. And this being found constantly to\nbe so, there arises in the mind an habitual connexion between the several\ndegrees of confusion and distance; the greater confusion still implying\nthe lesser distance, and the lesser confusion the greater distance of the\nobject.\n\n22. This confused appearance of the object doth therefore seem to be the\nmedium whereby the mind judges of distance, in those cases wherein the\nmost approved writers of optics will have it judge by the different\ndivergency with which the rays flowing from the radiating point fall on\nthe pupil(309). No man, I believe, will pretend to see or feel those\nimaginary angles that the rays are supposed to form, according to their\nvarious inclinations on his eye. But he cannot choose seeing whether the\nobject appear more or less confused. It is therefore a manifest\nconsequence from what has been demonstrated that, instead of the greater\nor lesser divergency of the rays, the mind makes use of the greater or\nlesser confusedness of the appearance, thereby to determine the apparent\nplace of an object.\n\n23. Nor doth it avail to say there is not any necessary connexion between\nconfused vision and distance great or small. For I ask any man what\nnecessary connexion he sees between the redness of a blush and shame? And\nyet no sooner shall he behold that colour to arise in the face of another\nbut it brings into his mind the idea of that passion which hath been\nobserved to accompany it.\n\n24. What seems to have misled the writers of optics in this matter is,\nthat they imagine men judge of distance as they do of a conclusion in\nmathematics; betwixt which and the premises it is indeed absolutely\nrequisite there be an apparent necessary connexion. But it is far\notherwise in the sudden judgments men make of distance. We are not to\nthink that brutes and children, or even grown reasonable men, whenever\nthey perceive an object to approach or depart from them, do it by virtue\nof geometry and demonstration.\n\n25. That one idea may suggest another to the mind, it will suffice that\nthey have been observed to go together, without any demonstration of the\n_necessity_ of their coexistence, or without so much as knowing what it is\nthat makes them so to coexist. Of this there are innumerable instances, of\nwhich no one can be ignorant(310).\n\n26. Thus, greater confusion having been constantly attended with nearer\ndistance, no sooner is the former idea perceived but it suggests the\nlatter to our thoughts. And, if it had been the ordinary course of nature\nthat the farther off an object were placed the more confused it should\nappear, it is certain the very same perception that now makes us think an\nobject approaches would then have made us to imagine it went farther off;\nthat perception, abstracting from custom and experience, being equally\nfitted to produce the idea of great distance, or small distance, or no\ndistance at all.\n\n27. _Thirdly_, an object being placed at the distance above specified, and\nbrought nearer to the eye, we may nevertheless prevent, at least for some\ntime, the appearance\u2019s growing more confused, by straining the eye(311).\nIn which case that sensation supplies the place of confused vision, in\naiding the mind to judge of the distance of the object; it being esteemed\nso much the nearer by how much the effort or straining of the eye in order\nto distinct vision is greater.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n28. I have here(312) set down those sensations or ideas(313) that seem to\nbe the constant and general occasions of introducing into the mind the\ndifferent ideas of near distance. It is true, in most cases, that divers\nother circumstances contribute to frame our idea of distance, viz. the\nparticular number, size, kind, &c. of the things seen. Concerning which,\nas well as all other the forementioned occasions which suggest distance, I\nshall only observe, they have none of them, in their own nature, any\nrelation or connexion with it: nor is it possible they should ever signify\nthe various degrees thereof, otherwise than as by experience they have\nbeen found to be connected with them.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n29. I shall proceed upon these principles to account for a phenomenon\nwhich has hitherto strangely puzzled the writers of optics, and is so far\nfrom being accounted for by any of their theories of vision, that it is,\nby their own confession, plainly repugnant to them; and of consequence, if\nnothing else could be objected, were alone sufficient to bring their\ncredit in question. The whole difficulty I shall lay before you in the\nwords of the learned Doctor Barrow, with which he concludes his _Optic\nLectures_(314):\u2014\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n\n    \u201cH\u00e6c sunt, qu\u00e6 circa partem optic\u00e6 pr\u00e6cipue mathematicam dicenda\n    mihi suggessit meditatio. Circa reliquas (qu\u00e6 \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ce\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03b9 sunt,\n    adeoque s\u00e6piuscule pro certis principiis plausibiles conjecturas\n    venditare necessum habent) nihil fere quicquam admodum verisimile\n    succurrit, a pervulgatis (ab iis, inquam, qu\u00e6 Keplerus,\n    Scheinerus(315), Cartesius, et post illos alii tradiderunt)\n    alienum aut diversum. Atqui tacere malo, quam toties oblatam\n    cramben reponere. Proinde receptui cano; nee ita tamen ut prorsus\n    discedam, anteaquam improbam quandam difficultatem (pro\n    sinceritate quam et vobis et veritati debeo minime dissimulandam)\n    in medium protulero, qu\u00e6 doctrin\u00e6 nostr\u00e6, hactenus inculcat\u00e6, se\n    objicit adversam, ab ea saltem nullam admittit solutionem. Illa,\n    breviter, talis est. Lenti vel speculo cavo _EBF_ exponatur\n    punctum visibile _A_, ita distans, ut radii ex _A_ manantes ex\n    inflectione versus axem _AB_ cogantur. Sitque radiationis limes\n    (seu puncti _A_ imago, qualem supra passim statuimus) punctum _Z_.\n    Inter hoc autem et inflectentis verticem _B_ uspiam positus\n    concipiatur oculus. Qu\u00e6ri jam potest, ubi loci debeat punctum _A_\n    apparere? Retrorsum ad punctum _Z_ videri non fert natura (cum\n    omnis impressio sensum afficiens proveniat a partibus _A_) ac\n    experientia reclamat. Nostris autem e placitis consequi videtur,\n    ipsum ad partes anticas apparens, ab intervallo longissime dissito\n    (quod et maximum sensibile quodvis intervallum quodammodo\n    exsuperet), apparere. Cum enim quo radiis minus divergentibus\n    attingitur objectum, eo (seclusis utique pr\u00e6notionibus et\n    pr\u00e6judiciis) longius abesse sentiatur; et quod parallelos ad\n    oculum radios projicit, remotissime positum \u00e6stimetur: exigere\n    ratio videtur, ut quod convergentibus radiis apprehenditur, adhuc\n    magis, si fieri posset, quoad apparentiam elongetur. Quin et circa\n    casum hunc generatim inquiri possit, quidnam omnino sit, quod\n    apparentem puncti _A_ locum determinet, faciatque quod constanti\n    ratione nunc propius, nunc remotius appareat? Cui itidem dubio\n    nihil quicquam ex hactenus dictorum analogia responderi posse\n    videtur, nisi debere punctum _A_ perpetuo longissime semotum\n    videri. Verum experientia secus attestatur, illud pro diversa\n    oculi inter puncta _B_, _Z_, positione varie distans, nunquam fere\n    (si unquam) longinquius ipso _A_ libere spectato, subinde vero\n    multo propinquius adparere; quinimo, quo oculum appellentes radii\n    magis convergunt, eo speciem objecti propius accedere. Nempe, si\n    puncto _B_ admoveatur oculus, suo (ad lentem) fere nativo in loco\n    conspicitur punctum _A_ (vel \u00e6que distans, ad speculum); ad _O_\n    reductus oculus ejusce speciem appropinquantem cernit; ad _P_\n    adhuc vicinius ipsum existimat; ac ita sensim, donec alicubi\n    tandem, velut ad _Q_, constituto oculo, objectum summe propinquum\n    apparens in meram confusionem incipiat evanescere. Qu\u00e6 sane cuncta\n    rationibus atque decretis nostris repugnare videntur, aut cum iis\n    saltem parum amice conspirant. Neque nostram tantum sententiam\n    pulsat hoc experimentum, at ex \u00e6quo c\u00e6teras quas norim omnes:\n    veterem imprimis ac vulgatam, nostr\u00e6 pr\u00e6 reliquis affinem, ita\n    convellere videtur, ut ejus vi coactus doctissimus A. Tacquetus\n    isti principio (cui pene soli totam in\u00e6dificaverat _Catoptricam_\n    suam) ceu infido ac inconstanti renunciarit, adeoque suam ipse\n    doctrinam labefactarit? id tamen, opinor, minime facturus, si rem\n    totam inspexissit penitius, atque difficultatis fundum attigissit.\n    Apud me vero non ita pollet h\u00e6c, nec eousque pr\u00e6pollebit ulla\n    difficultas, ut ab iis qu\u00e6 manifeste rationi consentanea video,\n    discedam; pr\u00e6sertim quum, ut his accidit, ejusmodi difficultas in\n    singularis cujuspiam casus disparitate fundetur. Nimirum in\n    pr\u00e6sente casu peculiare quiddam, natur\u00e6 subtilitati involutum,\n    delitescit, \u00e6gre fortassis, nisi perfectius explorato videndi\n    modo, detegendum. Circa quod nil, fateor, hactenus excogitare\n    potui, quod adblandiretur animo meo, nedum plane satisfaceret.\n    Vobis itaque nodum hunc, utinam feliciore conatu, resolvendum\n    committo.\u201d\n\n\n_In English as follows_:\n\n\n    \u201cI have here delivered what my thoughts have suggested to me\n    concerning that part of optics which is more properly\n    mathematical. As for the other parts of that science (which, being\n    rather physical, do consequently abound with plausible conjectures\n    instead of certain principles), there has in them scarce anything\n    occurred to my observation different from what has been already\n    said by Kepler, Scheinerus, Des Cartes, &c. And methinks I had\n    better say nothing at all than repeat that which has been so often\n    said by others. I think it therefore high time to take my leave of\n    this subject. But, before I quit it for good and all, the fair and\n    ingenuous dealing that I owe both to you and to truth obliges me\n    to acquaint you with a certain untoward difficulty, which seems\n    directly opposite to the doctrine I have been hitherto\n    inculcating, at least admits of no solution from it. In short it\n    is this. Before the double convex glass or concave speculum _EBF_,\n    let the point _A_ be placed at such a distance that the rays\n    proceeding from _A_, after refraction or reflection, be brought to\n    unite somewhere in the axis _AB_. And suppose the point of union\n    (i.e. the image of the point _A_, as hath been already set forth)\n    to be _Z_; between which and _B_, the vertex of the glass or\n    speculum, conceive the eye to be anywhere placed. The question now\n    is, where the point _A_ ought to appear. Experience shews that it\n    doth not appear behind at the point _Z_; and it were contrary to\n    nature that it should; since all the impression which affects the\n    sense comes from towards _A_. But, from our tenets it should seem\n    to follow that it would appear before the eye at a vast distance\n    off, so great as should in some sort surpass all sensible\n    distance. For since, if we exclude all anticipations and\n    prejudices, every object appears by so much the farther off by how\n    much the rays it sends to the eye are less diverging; and that\n    object is thought to be most remote from which parallel rays\n    proceed unto the eye; reason would make one think that object\n    should appear at yet a greater distance which is seen by\n    converging rays. Moreover, it may in general be asked concerning\n    this case, what it is that determines the apparent place of the\n    point _A_, and maketh it to appear after a constant manner,\n    sometimes nearer, at other times farther off? To which doubt I see\n    nothing that can be answered agreeable to the principles we have\n    laid down, except only that the point _A_ ought always to appear\n    extremely remote. But, on the contrary, we are assured by\n    experience, that the point _A_ appears variously distant,\n    according to the different situations of the eye between the\n    points _B_ and _Z_. And that it doth almost never (if at all) seem\n    farther off than it would if it were beheld by the naked eye; but,\n    on the contrary, it doth sometimes appear much nearer. Nay, it is\n    even certain that by how much the rays falling on the eye do more\n    converge, by so much the nearer does the object seem to approach.\n    For, the eye being placed close to the point _B_, the object _A_\n    appears nearly in its own natural place, if the point _B_ is taken\n    in the glass, or at the same distance, if in the speculum. The eye\n    being brought back to _O_, the object seems to draw near; and,\n    being come to _P_, it beholds it still nearer: and so on by little\n    and little, till at length the eye being placed somewhere, suppose\n    at _Q_, the object appearing extremely near begins to vanish into\n    mere confusion. All which doth seem repugnant to our principles;\n    at least, not rightly to agree with them. Nor is our tenet alone\n    struck at by this experiment, but likewise all others that ever\n    came to my knowledge are every whit as much endangered by it. The\n    ancient one especially (which is most commonly received, and comes\n    nearest to mine) seems to be so effectually overthrown thereby\n    that the most learned Tacquet has been forced to reject that\n    principle, as false and uncertain, on which alone he had built\n    almost his whole _Catoptrics_, and consequently, by taking away\n    the foundation, hath himself pulled down the superstructure he had\n    raised on it. Which, nevertheless, I do not believe he would have\n    done, had he but considered the whole matter more thoroughly, and\n    examined the difficulty to the bottom. But as for me, neither this\n    nor any other difficulty shall have so great an influence on me,\n    as to make me renounce that which I know to be manifestly\n    agreeable to reason. Especially when, as it here falls out, the\n    difficulty is founded in the peculiar nature of a certain odd and\n    particular case. For, in the present case something peculiar lies\n    hid, which, being involved in the subtilty of nature, will perhaps\n    hardly be discovered till such time as the manner of vision is\n    more perfectly made known. Concerning which, I must own I have\n    hitherto been able to find out nothing that has the least show of\n    probability, not to mention certainty. I shall therefore leave\n    this knot to be untied by you, wishing you may have better success\n    in it than I have had.\u201d\n\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n30. The ancient and received principle, which Dr. Barrow here mentions as\nthe main foundation of Tacquet\u2019s(316) _Catoptrics_, is, that every\n\u201cvisible point seen by reflection from a speculum shall appear placed at\nthe intersection of the reflected ray and the perpendicular of incidence.\u201d\nWhich intersection in the present case happening to be behind the eye, it\ngreatly shakes the authority of that principle whereon the aforementioned\nauthor proceeds throughout his whole _Catoptrics_, in determining the\napparent place of objects seen by reflection from any kind of speculum.\n\n31. Let us now see how this phenomenon agrees with our tenets(317). The\neye, the nearer it is placed to the point _B_ in the above figures, the\nmore distinct is the appearance of the object: but, as it recedes to _O_,\nthe appearance grows more confused; and at _P_ it sees the object yet more\nconfused; and so on, till the eye, being brought back to _Z_, sees the\nobject in the greatest confusion of all. Wherefore, by sect. 21, the\nobject should seem to approach the eye gradually, as it recedes from the\npoint _B_; that is, at _O_ it should (in consequence of the principle I\nhave laid down in the aforesaid section) seem nearer than it did at _B_,\nand at _P_ nearer than at _O_, and at _Q_ nearer than at _P_, and so on,\ntill it quite vanishes at _Z_. Which is the very matter of fact, as any\none that pleases may easily satisfy himself by experiment.\n\n32. This case is much the same as if we should suppose an Englishman to\nmeet a foreigner who used the same words with the English, but in a direct\ncontrary signification. The Englishman would not fail to make a wrong\njudgment of the ideas annexed to those sounds, in the mind of him that\nused them. Just so in the present case, the object speaks (if I may so\nsay) with words that the eye is well acquainted with, that is, confusions\nof appearance; but, whereas heretofore the greatest confusions were always\nwont to signify nearer distances, they have in this case a direct contrary\nsignification, being connected with the greater distances. Whence it\nfollows that the eye must unavoidably be mistaken, since it will take the\nconfusions in the sense it has been used to, which is directly opposed to\nthe true.\n\n33. This phenomenon, as it entirely subverts the opinion of those who will\nhave us judge of distance by lines and angles, on which supposition it is\naltogether inexplicable, so it seems to me no small confirmation of the\ntruth of that principle whereby it is explained(318). But, in order to a\nmore full explication of this point, and to shew how far the hypothesis of\nthe mind\u2019s judging by the various divergency of rays may be of use in\ndetermining the apparent place of an object, it will be necessary to\npremise some few things, which are already well known to those who have\nany skill in Dioptrics.\n\n34. _First_, Any radiating point is then distinctly seen when the rays\nproceeding from it are, by the refractive power of the crystalline,\naccurately reunited in the retina or fund of the eye. But if they are\nreunited either before they arrive at the retina, or after they have\npassed it, then there is confused vision.\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                                 Figure 1\n\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                                 Figure 2\n\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                                 Figure 3\n\n\n35. _Secondly_, Suppose, in the adjacent figures, _NP_ represent an eye\nduly framed, and retaining its natural figure. In fig. 1 the rays falling\nnearly parallel on the eye, are, by the crystalline _AB_, refracted, so as\ntheir focus, or point of union _F_, falls exactly on the retina. But, if\nthe rays fall sensibly diverging on the eye, as in fig. 2, then their\nfocus falls beyond the retina; or, if the rays are made to converge by the\nlens _QS_, before they come at the eye, as in fig. 3, their focus _F_ will\nfall before the retina. In which two last cases it is evident, from the\nforegoing section, that the appearance of the point _Z_ is confused. And,\nby how much the greater is the convergency or divergency of the rays\nfalling on the pupil, by so much the farther will the point of their\nreunion be from the retina, either before or behind it, and consequently\nthe point _Z_ will appear by so much the more confused. And this, by the\nbye, may shew us the difference between confused and faint vision.\nConfused vision is, when the rays proceeding from each distinct point of\nthe object are not accurately re-collected in one corresponding point on\nthe retina, but take up some space thereon\u2014so that rays from different\npoints become mixed and confused together. This is opposed to a distinct\nvision, and attends near objects. Faint vision is when, by reason of the\ndistance of the object, or grossness of the interjacent medium, few rays\narrive from the object to the eye. This is opposed to vigorous or clear\nvision, and attends remote objects. But to return.\n\n36. The eye, or (to speak truly) the mind, perceiving only the confusion\nitself, without ever considering the cause from which it proceeds, doth\nconstantly annex the same degree of distance to the same degree of\nconfusion. Whether that confusion be occasioned by converging or by\ndiverging rays it matters not. Whence it follows that the eye, viewing the\nobject _Z_ through the glass _QS_ (which by refraction causeth the rays\n_ZQ_, _ZS_, &c. to converge), should judge it to be at such a nearness, at\nwhich, if it were placed, it would radiate on the eye, with rays diverging\nto that degree as would produce the same confusion which is now produced\nby converging rays, i.e. would cover a portion of the retina equal to\n_DC._ (Vid. fig. 3, _sup._) But then this must be understood (to use Dr.\nBarrow\u2019s phrase) \u201cseclusis pr\u00e6notionibus et pr\u00e6judiciis,\u201d in case we\nabstract from all other circumstances of vision, such as the figure, size,\nfaintness, &c. of the visible objects\u2014all which do ordinarily concur to\nform our idea of distance, the mind having, by frequent experience,\nobserved their several sorts or degrees to be connected with various\ndistances.\n\n37. It plainly follows from what has been said, that a person perfectly\npurblind (i.e. that could not see an object distinctly but when placed\nclose to his eye) would not make the same wrong judgment that others do in\nthe forementioned case. For, to him, greater confusions constantly\nsuggesting greater distances, he must, as he recedes from the glass, and\nthe object grows more confused, judge it to be at a farther distance;\ncontrary to what they do who have had the perception of the objects\ngrowing more confused connected with the idea of approach.\n\n38. Hence also it doth appear, there may be good use of computation, by\nlines and angles, in optics(319); not that the mind judges of distance\nimmediately by them, but because it judges by somewhat which is connected\nwith them, and to the determination whereof they may be subservient. Thus,\nthe mind judging of the distance of an object by the confusedness of its\nappearance, and this confusedness being greater or lesser to the naked\neye, according as the object is seen by rays more or less diverging, it\nfollows that a man may make use of the divergency of the rays, in\ncomputing the apparent distance, though not for its own sake, yet on\naccount of the confusion with which it is connected. But so it is, the\nconfusion itself is entirely neglected by mathematicians, as having no\nnecessary relation with distance, such as the greater or lesser angles of\ndivergency are conceived to have. And these (especially for that they fall\nunder mathematical computation) are alone regarded, in determining the\napparent places of objects, as though they were the sole and immediate\ncause of the judgments the mind makes of distance. Whereas, in truth, they\nshould not at all be regarded in themselves, or any otherwise than as they\nare supposed to be the cause of confused vision.\n\n39. The not considering of this has been a fundamental and perplexing\noversight. For proof whereof, we need go no farther than the case before\nus. It having been observed that the most diverging rays brought into the\nmind the idea of nearest distance, and that still as the divergency\ndecreased the distance increased, and it being thought the connexion\nbetween the various degrees of divergency and distance was immediate\u2014this\nnaturally leads one to conclude, from an ill-grounded analogy, that\nconverging rays shall make an object appear at an immense distance, and\nthat, as the convergency increases, the distance (if it were possible)\nshould do so likewise. That this was the cause of Dr. Barrow\u2019s mistake is\nevident from his own words which we have quoted. Whereas had the learned\nDoctor observed that diverging and converging rays, how opposite soever\nthey may seem, do nevertheless agree in producing the same effect, to wit,\nconfusedness of vision, greater degrees whereof are produced\nindifferently, either as the divergency or convergency of the rays\nincreaseth; and that it is by this effect, which is the same in both, that\neither the divergency or convergency is perceived by the eye\u2014I say, had he\nbut considered this, it is certain he would have made a quite contrary\njudgment, and rightly concluded that those rays which fall on the eye with\ngreater degrees of convergency should make the object from whence they\nproceed appear by so much the nearer. But it is plain it was impossible\nfor any man to attain to a right notion of this matter so long as he had\nregard only to lines and angles, and did not apprehend the true nature of\nvision, and how far it was of mathematical consideration.\n\n40. Before we dismiss this subject, it is fit we take notice of a query\nrelating thereto, proposed by the ingenious Mr. Molyneux, in his _Treatise\nof Dioptrics_ (par. i. prop. 31. sect. 9), where, speaking of the\ndifficulty we have been explaining, he has these words: \u201cAnd so he (i.e.\nDr. Barrow) leaves this difficulty to the solution of others, which I\n(after so great an example) shall do likewise; but with the resolution of\nthe same admirable author, of not quitting the evident doctrine which we\nhave before laid down, for determining the _locus objecti_, on account of\nbeing pressed by one difficulty, which seems inexplicable till a more\nintimate knowledge of the visive faculty be obtained by mortals. In the\nmeantime I propose it to the consideration of the ingenious, whether the\n_locus apparens_ of an object placed as in this ninth section be not as\nmuch before the eye as the distinct base is behind the eye?\u201d To which\nquery we may venture to answer in the negative. For, in the present case,\nthe rule for determining the distance of the distinct base, or respective\nfocus from the glass is this: _As the difference between the distance of\nthe object and focus is to the focus or focal length, so the distance of\nthe object from the glass is to the distance of the respective focus or\ndistinct base from the glass._ (Molyneux, _Dioptr._, par. i. prop. 5.) Let\nus now suppose the object to be placed at the distance of the focal\nlength, and one-half of the focal length from the glass, and the eye close\nto the glass. Hence it will follow, by the rule, that the distance of the\ndistinct base behind the eye is double the true distance of the object\nbefore the eye. If, therefore, Mr. Molyneux\u2019s conjecture held good, it\nwould follow that the eye should see the object twice as far off as it\nreally is; and in other cases at three or four times its due distance, or\nmore. But this manifestly contradicts experience, the object never\nappearing, at farthest, beyond its due distance. Whatever, therefore, is\nbuilt on this supposition (vid. corol. i. prop. 57. ibid.) comes to the\nground along with it.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n41. From what hath been premised, it is a manifest consequence, that a man\nborn blind, being made to see, would at first have no idea of distance by\nsight: the sun and stars, the remotest objects as well as the nearer,\nwould all seem to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. The objects\nintromitted by sight would seem to him (as in truth they are) no other\nthan a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof is as near to him\nas the perceptions of pain or pleasure, or the most inward passions of his\nsoul. For, our judging objects perceived by sight to be at any distance,\nor without the mind, is (vid. sect, xxviii.) entirely the effect of\nexperience; which one in those circumstances could not yet have attained\nto(320).\n\n42. It is indeed otherwise upon the common supposition\u2014that men judge of\ndistance by the angle of the optic axes, just as one in the dark, or a\nblind man by the angle comprehended by two sticks, one whereof he held in\neach hand(321). For, if this were true, it would follow that one blind\nfrom his birth, being made to see, should stand in need of no new\nexperience, in order to perceive distance by sight. But that this is false\nhas, I think, been sufficiently demonstrated.\n\n43. And perhaps, upon a strict inquiry, we shall not find that even those\nwho from their birth have grown up in a continued habit of seeing are\nirrecoverably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they\nsee to be at a distance from them. For, at this time it seems agreed on\nall hands, by those who have had any thoughts of that matter, that\ncolours, which are the proper and immediate object of sight, are not\nwithout the mind.\u2014But then, it will be said, by sight we have also the\nideas of extension, and figure, and motion; all which may well be thought\nwithout and at some distance from the mind, though colour should not. In\nanswer to this, I appeal to any man\u2019s experience, whether the visible\nextension of any object do not appear as near to him as the colour of that\nobject; nay, whether they do not both seem to be in the very same place.\nIs not the extension we see coloured, and is it possible for us, so much\nas in thought, to separate and abstract colour from extension? Now, where\nthe extension is, there surely is the figure, and there the motion too. I\nspeak of those which are perceived by sight(322).\n\n44. But for a fuller explication of this point, and to shew that the\nimmediate objects of sight are not so much as the ideas or resemblances of\nthings placed at a distance, it is requisite that we look nearer into the\nmatter, and carefully observe what is meant in common discourse when one\nsays, that which he sees is at a distance from him. Suppose, for example,\nthat looking at the moon I should say it were fifty or sixty semidiameters\nof the earth distant from me. Let us see what moon this is spoken of. It\nis plain it cannot be the visible moon, or anything like the visible moon,\nor that which I see\u2014which is only a round luminous plain, of about thirty\nvisible points in diameter. For, in case I am carried from the place where\nI stand directly towards the moon, it is manifest the object varies still\nas I go on; and, by the time that I am advanced fifty or sixty\nsemidiameters of the earth, I shall be so far from being near a small,\nround, luminous flat that I shall perceive nothing like it\u2014this object\nhaving long since disappeared, and, if I would recover it, it must be by\ngoing back to the earth from whence I set out(323). Again, suppose I\nperceive by sight the faint and obscure idea of something, which I doubt\nwhether it be a man, or a tree, or a tower, but judge it to be at the\ndistance of about a mile. It is plain I cannot mean that what I see is a\nmile off, or that it is the image or likeness of anything which is a mile\noff; since that every step I take towards it the appearance alters, and\nfrom being obscure, small, and faint, grows clear, large, and vigorous.\nAnd when I come to the mile\u2019s end, that which I saw first is quite lost,\nneither do I find anything in the likeness of it(324).\n\n45. In these and the like instances, the truth of the matter, I find,\nstands thus:\u2014Having of a long time experienced certain ideas perceivable\nby touch(325)\u2014as distance, tangible figure, and solidity\u2014to have been\nconnected with certain ideas of sight, I do, upon perceiving these ideas\nof sight, forthwith conclude what tangible ideas are, by the wonted\nordinary course of nature, like to follow. Looking at an object, I\nperceive a certain visible figure and colour, with some degree of\nfaintness and other circumstances, which, from what I have formerly\nobserved, determine me to think that if I advance forward so many paces,\nmiles, &c., I shall be affected with such and such ideas of touch. So\nthat, in truth and strictness of speech, I neither see distance itself,\nnor anything that I take to be at a distance. I say, neither distance nor\nthings placed at a distance are themselves, or their ideas, truly\nperceived by sight. This I am persuaded of, as to what concerns myself.\nAnd I believe whoever will look narrowly into his own thoughts, and\nexamine what he means by saying he sees this or that thing at a distance,\nwill agree with me, that what he sees only suggests to his understanding\nthat, after having passed a certain distance, to be measured by the motion\nof his body, which is perceivable by touch(326), he shall come to perceive\nsuch and such tangible ideas, which have been usually connected with such\nand such visible ideas. But, that one might be deceived by these\nsuggestions of sense, and that there is no necessary connexion between\nvisible and tangible ideas suggested by them, we need go no farther than\nthe next looking-glass or picture to be convinced. Note that, when I speak\nof tangible ideas, I take the word idea for any the immediate object of\nsense, or understanding\u2014in which large signification it is commonly used\nby the moderns(327).\n\n46. From what we have shewn, it is a manifest consequence that the ideas\nof space, outness(328), and things placed at a distance are not, strictly\nspeaking, the object of sight(329); they are not otherwise perceived by\nthe eye than by the ear. Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive along\nthe street; I look through the casement and see it; I walk out and enter\ninto it. Thus, common speech would incline one to think I heard, saw, and\ntouched the same thing, to wit, the coach. It is nevertheless certain the\nideas intromitted by each sense are widely different, and distinct from\neach other; but, having been observed constantly to go together, they are\nspoken of as one and the same thing. By the variation of the noise, I\nperceive the different distances of the coach, and know that it approaches\nbefore I look out. Thus, by the ear I perceive distance just after the\nsame manner as I do by the eye.\n\n47. I do not nevertheless say I hear distance, in like manner as I say\nthat I see it\u2014the ideas perceived by hearing not being so apt to be\nconfounded with the ideas of touch as those of sight are. So likewise a\nman is easily convinced that bodies and external things are not properly\nthe object of hearing, but only sounds, by the mediation whereof the idea\nof this or that body, or distance, is suggested to his thoughts. But then\none is with more difficulty brought to discern the difference there is\nbetwixt the ideas of sight and touch(330): though it be certain, a man no\nmore sees and feels the same thing, than he hears and feels the same\nthing.\n\n48. One reason of which seems to be this. It is thought a great absurdity\nto imagine that one and the same thing should have any more than one\nextension and one figure. But, the extension and figure of a body being\nlet into the mind two ways, and that indifferently, either by sight or\ntouch, it seems to follow that we see the same extension and the same\nfigure which we feel.\n\n49. But, if we take a close and accurate view of the matter, it must be\nacknowledged that we never see and feel one and the same object(331). That\nwhich is seen is one thing, and that which is felt is another. If the\nvisible figure and extension be not the same with the tangible figure and\nextension, we are not to infer that one and the same thing has divers\nextensions. The true consequence is that the objects of sight and touch\nare two distinct things(332). It may perhaps require some thought rightly\nto conceive this distinction. And the difficulty seems not a little\nincreased, because the combination of visible ideas hath constantly the\nsame name as the combination of tangible ideas wherewith it is\nconnected\u2014which doth of necessity arise from the use and end of\nlanguage(333).\n\n50. In order, therefore, to treat accurately and unconfusedly of vision,\nwe must bear in mind that there are two sorts of objects apprehended by\nthe eye\u2014the one primarily and immediately, the other secondarily and by\nintervention of the former. Those of the first sort neither are nor appear\nto be without the mind, or at any distance off(334). They may, indeed,\ngrow greater or smaller, more confused, or more clear, or more faint. But\nthey do not, cannot approach, [or even seem to approach (335)] or recede\nfrom us. Whenever we say an object is at a distance, whenever we say it\ndraws near, or goes farther off, we must always mean it of the latter\nsort, which properly belong to the touch(336), and are not so truly\nperceived as suggested by the eye, in like manner as thoughts by the ear.\n\n51. No sooner do we hear the words of a familiar language pronounced in\nour ears but the ideas corresponding thereto present themselves to our\nminds: in the very same instant the sound and the meaning enter the\nunderstanding: so closely are they united that it is not in our power to\nkeep out the one except we exclude the other also. We even act in all\nrespects as if we heard the very thoughts themselves. So likewise the\nsecondary objects, or those which are only suggested by sight, do often\nmore strongly affect us, and are more regarded, than the proper objects of\nthat sense; along with which they enter into the mind, and with which they\nhave a far more strict connexion than ideas have with words(337). Hence it\nis we find it so difficult to discriminate between the immediate and\nmediate objects of sight, and are so prone to attribute to the former what\nbelongs only to the latter. They are, as it were, most closely twisted,\nblended, and incorporated together. And the prejudice is confirmed and\nriveted in our thoughts by a long tract of time, by the use of language,\nand want of reflection. However, I doubt not but anyone that shall\nattentively consider what we have already said, and shall say upon this\nsubject before we have done (especially if he pursue it in his own\nthoughts), may be able to deliver himself from that prejudice. Sure I am,\nit is worth some attention to whoever would understand the true nature of\nvision.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n52. I have now done with Distance, and proceed to shew how it is that we\nperceive by sight the Magnitude of objects(338). It is the opinion of some\nthat we do it by angles, or by angles in conjunction with distance. But,\nneither angles nor distance being perceivable by sight(339), and the\nthings we see being in truth at no distance from us(340), it follows that,\nas we have shewn lines and angles not to be the medium the mind makes use\nof in apprehending the apparent place, so neither are they the medium\nwhereby it apprehends the apparent magnitude of objects.\n\n53. It is well known that the same extension at a near distance shall\nsubtend a greater angle, and at a farther distance a lesser angle. And by\nthis principle (we are told) the mind estimates the magnitude of an\nobject(341), comparing the angle under which it is seen with its distance,\nand thence inferring the magnitude thereof. What inclines men to this\nmistake (beside the humour of making one see by geometry) is, that the\nsame perceptions or ideas which suggest distance do also suggest\nmagnitude. But, if we examine it, we shall find they suggest the latter as\nimmediately as the former. I say, they do not first suggest distance and\nthen leave it to the judgment to use that as a medium whereby to collect\nthe magnitude; but they have as close and immediate a connexion with the\nmagnitude as with the distance; and suggest magnitude as independently of\ndistance, as they do distance independently of magnitude. All which will\nbe evident to whoever considers what has been already said and what\nfollows.\n\n54. It has been shewn there are two sorts of objects apprehended by sight,\neach whereof has its distinct magnitude, or extension\u2014the one, properly\ntangible, i.e. to be perceived and measured by touch, and not immediately\nfalling under the sense of seeing; the other, properly and immediately\nvisible, by mediation of which the former is brought in view. Each of\nthese magnitudes are greater or lesser, according as they contain in them\nmore or fewer points, they being made up of points or minimums. For,\nwhatever may be said of extension in abstract(342), it is certain sensible\nextension is not infinitely divisible(343). There is a _minimum\ntangibile_, and a _minimum visibile_, beyond which sense cannot perceive.\nThis every one\u2019s experience will inform him.\n\n55. The magnitude of the object which exists without the mind, and is at a\ndistance, continues always invariably the same: but, the visible object\nstill changing as you approach to or recede from the tangible object, it\nhath no fixed and determinate greatness. Whenever therefore we speak of\nthe magnitude of any thing, for instance a tree or a house, we must mean\nthe tangible magnitude; otherwise there can be nothing steady and free\nfrom ambiguity spoken of it(344). Now, though the tangible and visible\nmagnitude do in truth belong to two distinct objects(345), I shall\nnevertheless (especially since those objects are called by the same name,\nand are observed to coexist(346)), to avoid tediousness and singularity of\nspeech, sometimes speak of them as belonging to one and the same thing.\n\n56. Now, in order to discover by what means the magnitude of tangible\nobjects is perceived by sight, I need only reflect on what passes in my\nown mind, and observe what those things be which introduce the ideas of\ngreater or lesser into my thoughts when I look on any object. And these I\nfind to be, _first_, the magnitude or extension of the visible object,\nwhich, being immediately perceived by sight, is connected with that other\nwhich is tangible and placed at a distance: _secondly_, the confusion or\ndistinctness: and _thirdly_, the vigorousness or faintness of the\naforesaid visible appearance. _C\u00e6teris paribus_, by how much the greater\nor lesser the visible object is, by so much the greater or lesser do I\nconclude the tangible object to be. But, be the idea immediately perceived\nby sight never so large, yet, if it be withal confused, I judge the\nmagnitude of the thing to be but small. If it be distinct and clear, I\njudge it greater. And, if it be faint, I apprehend it to be yet greater.\nWhat is here meant by confusion and faintness has been explained in sect.\n35.\n\n57. Moreover, the judgments we make of greatness do, in like manner as\nthose of distance, depend on the disposition of the eye; also on the\nfigure, number, and situation(347) of intermediate objects, and other\ncircumstances that have been observed to attend great or small tangible\nmagnitudes. Thus, for instance, the very same quantity of visible\nextension which in the figure of a tower doth suggest the idea of great\nmagnitude shall in the figure of a man suggest the idea of much smaller\nmagnitude. That this is owing to the experience we have had of the usual\nbigness of a tower and a man, no one, I suppose, need be told.\n\n58. It is also evident that confusion or faintness have no more a\nnecessary connexion with little or great magnitude than they have with\nlittle or great distance. As they suggest the latter, so they suggest the\nformer to our minds. And, by consequence, if it were not for experience,\nwe should no more judge a faint or confused appearance to be connected\nwith great or little magnitude than we should that it was connected with\ngreat or little distance.\n\n59. Nor will it be found that great or small visible magnitude hath any\nnecessary relation to great or small tangible magnitude\u2014so that the one\nmay certainly and infallibly be inferred from the other. But, before we\ncome to the proof of this, it is fit we consider the difference there is\nbetwixt the extension and figure which is the proper object of touch, and\nthat other which is termed visible; and how the former is principally,\nthough not immediately, taken notice of when we look at any object. This\nhas been before mentioned(348), but we shall here inquire into the cause\nthereof. We regard the objects that environ us in proportion as they are\nadapted to benefit or injure our own bodies, and thereby produce in our\nminds the sensations of pleasure or pain. Now, bodies operating on our\norgans by an immediate application, and the hurt and advantage arising\ntherefrom depending altogether on the tangible, and not at all on the\nvisible, qualities of any object\u2014this is a plain reason why those should\nbe regarded by us much more than these. And for this end [chiefly(349)]\nthe visive sense seems to have been bestowed on animals, to wit, that, by\nthe perception of visible ideas (which in themselves are not capable of\naffecting or anywise altering the frame of their bodies), they may be able\nto foresee(350) (from the experience they have had what tangible ideas are\nconnected with such and such visible ideas) the damage or benefit which is\nlike to ensue upon the application of their own bodies to this or that\nbody which is at a distance. Which foresight, how necessary it is to the\npreservation of an animal, every one\u2019s experience can inform him. Hence it\nis that, when we look at an object, the tangible figure and extension\nthereof are principally attended to; whilst there is small heed taken of\nthe visible figure and magnitude, which, though more immediately\nperceived, do less sensibly affect us, and are not fitted to produce any\nalteration in our bodies.\n\n60. That the matter of fact is true will be evident to any one who\nconsiders that a man placed at ten foot distance is thought as great as if\nhe were placed at the distance only of five foot; which is true, not with\nrelation to the visible, but tangible greatness of the object: the visible\nmagnitude being far greater at one station than it is at the other.\n\n61. Inches, feet, &c. are settled, stated lengths, whereby we measure\nobjects and estimate their magnitude. We say, for example, an object\nappears to be six inches, or six foot long. Now, that this cannot be meant\nof visible inches, &c. is evident, because a visible inch is itself no\nconstant determinate magnitude(351), and cannot therefore serve to mark\nout and determine the magnitude of any other thing. Take an inch marked\nupon a ruler; view it successively, at the distance of half a foot, a\nfoot, a foot and a half, &c. from the eye: at each of which, and at all\nthe intermediate distances, the inch shall have a different visible\nextension, i.e. there shall be more or fewer points discerned in it. Now,\nI ask which of all these various extensions is that stated determinate one\nthat is agreed on for a common measure of other magnitudes? No reason can\nbe assigned why we should pitch on one more than another. And, except\nthere be some invariable determinate extension fixed on to be marked by\nthe word inch, it is plain it can be used to little purpose; and to say a\nthing contains this or that number of inches shall imply no more than that\nit is extended, without bringing any particular idea of that extension\ninto the mind. Farther, an inch and a foot, from different distances,\nshall both exhibit the same visible magnitude, and yet at the same time\nyou shall say that one seems several times greater than the other. From\nall which it is manifest, that the judgments we make of the magnitude of\nobjects by sight are altogether in reference to their tangible extension.\nWhenever we say an object is great or small, of this or that determinate\nmeasure, I say, it must be meant of the tangible and not the visible\nextension(352), which, though immediately perceived, is nevertheless\nlittle taken notice of.\n\n62. Now, that there is no necessary connexion between these two distinct\nextensions is evident from hence\u2014because our eyes might have been framed\nin such a manner as to be able to see nothing but what were less than the\n_minimum tangibile_. In which case it is not impossible we might have\nperceived all the immediate objects of sight the very same that we do now;\nbut unto those visible appearances there would not be connected those\ndifferent tangible magnitudes that are now. Which shews the judgments we\nmake of the magnitude of things placed at a distance, from the various\ngreatness of the immediate objects of sight, do not arise from any\nessential or necessary, but only a customary, tie which has been observed\nbetwixt them.\n\n63. Moreover, it is not only certain that any idea of sight might not have\nbeen connected with this or that idea of touch we now observe to accompany\nit, but also that the greater visible magnitudes might have been connected\nwith and introduced into our minds lesser tangible magnitudes, and the\nlesser visible magnitudes greater tangible magnitudes. Nay, that it\nactually is so, we have daily experience\u2014that object which makes a strong\nand large appearance not seeming near so great as another the visible\nmagnitude whereof is much less, but more faint,(353) and the appearance\nupper, or which is the same thing, painted lower on the retina, which\nfaintness and situation suggest both greater magnitude and greater\ndistance.\n\n64. From which, and from sect. 57 and 58, it is manifest that, as we do\nnot perceive the magnitude of objects immediately by sight, so neither do\nwe perceive them by the mediation of anything which has a necessary\nconnexion with them. Those ideas that now suggest unto us the various\nmagnitudes of external objects before we touch them might possibly have\nsuggested no such thing; or they might have signified them in a direct\ncontrary manner, so that the very same ideas on the perception whereof we\njudge an object to be small might as well have served to make us conclude\nit great;\u2014those ideas being in their own nature equally fitted to bring\ninto our minds the idea of small or great, or no size at all, of outward\nobjects(354), just as the words of any language are in their own nature\nindifferent to signify this or that thing, or nothing at all.\n\n65. As we see distance so we see magnitude. And we see both in the same\nway that we see shame or anger in the looks of a man. Those passions are\nthemselves invisible; they are nevertheless let in by the eye along with\ncolours and alterations of countenance which are the immediate object of\nvision, and which signify them for no other reason than barely because\nthey have been observed to accompany them. Without which experience we\nshould no more have taken blushing for a sign of shame than of gladness.\n\n66. We are nevertheless exceedingly prone to imagine those things which\nare perceived only by the mediation of others to be themselves the\nimmediate objects of sight, or at least to have in their own nature a\nfitness to be suggested by them before ever they had been experienced to\ncoexist with them. From which prejudice every one perhaps will not find it\neasy to emancipate himself, by any the clearest convictions of reason. And\nthere are some grounds to think that, if there was one only invariable and\nuniversal language in the world, and that men were born with the faculty\nof speaking it, it would be the opinion of some, that the ideas in other\nmen\u2019s minds were properly perceived by the ear, or had at least a\nnecessary and inseparable tie with the sounds that were affixed to them.\nAll which seems to arise from want of a due application of our discerning\nfaculty, thereby to discriminate between the ideas that are in our\nunderstandings, and consider them apart from each other; which would\npreserve us from confounding those that are different, and make us see\nwhat ideas do, and what do not, include or imply this or that other\nidea(355).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n67. There is a celebrated phenomenon(356) the solution whereof I shall\nattempt to give, by the principles that have been laid down, in reference\nto the manner wherein we apprehend by sight the magnitude of objects.\u2014The\napparent magnitude of the moon, when placed in the horizon, is much\ngreater than when it is in the meridian, though the angle under which the\ndiameter of the moon is seen be not observed greater in the former case\nthan in the latter; and the horizontal moon doth not constantly appear of\nthe same bigness, but at some times seemeth far greater than at others.\n\n68. Now, in order to explain the reason of the moon\u2019s appearing greater\nthan ordinary in the horizon, it must be observed that the particles which\ncompose our atmosphere do intercept the rays of light proceeding from any\nobject to the eye; and, by how much the greater is the portion of\natmosphere interjacent between the object and the eye, by so much the more\nare the rays intercepted, and, by consequence, the appearance of the\nobject rendered more faint\u2014every object appearing more vigorous or more\nfaint in proportion as it sendeth more or fewer rays into the eye. Now,\nbetween the eye and the moon when situated in the horizon there lies a far\ngreater quantity of atmosphere than there does when the moon is in the\nmeridian. Whence it comes to pass, that the appearance of the horizontal\nmoon is fainter, and therefore, by sect. 56, it should be thought bigger\nin that situation than in the meridian, or in any other elevation above\nthe horizon.\n\n69. Farther, the air being variously impregnated, sometimes more and\nsometimes less, with vapours and exhalations fitted to retund and\nintercept the rays of light, it follows that the appearance of the\nhorizontal moon hath not always an equal faintness, and, by consequence,\nthat luminary, though in the very same situation, is at one time judged\ngreater than at another.\n\n70. That we have here given the true account of the phenomena of the\nhorizontal moon, will, I suppose, be farther evident to any one from the\nfollowing considerations:\u2014_First_, it is plain, that which in this case\nsuggests the idea of greater magnitude, must be something which is itself\nperceived; for, that which is unperceived cannot suggest to our perception\nany other thing(357). _Secondly_, it must be something that does not\nconstantly remain the same, but is subject to some change or variation;\nsince the appearance of the horizontal moon varies, being at one time\ngreater than at another. [_Thirdly_, it must not lie in the circumjacent\nor intermediate objects, such as mountains, houses, fields, &c.; because\nthat when all those objects are excluded from sight the appearance is as\ngreat as ever(358).] And yet, _thirdly_(359), it cannot be the visible\nfigure or magnitude; since that remains the same, or is rather lesser, by\nhow much the moon is nearer to the horizon. It remains therefore, that the\ntrue cause is that affection or alteration of the visible appearance,\nwhich proceeds from the greater paucity of rays arriving at the eye, and\nwhich I term faintness: since this answers all the forementioned\nconditions, and I am not conscious of any other perception that does.\n\n71. Add to this that in misty weather it is a common observation, that the\nappearance of the horizontal moon is far larger than usual, which greatly\nconspires with and strengthens our opinion. Neither would it prove in the\nleast irreconcilable with what we have said, if the horizontal moon should\nchance sometimes to seem enlarged beyond its usual extent, even in more\nserene weather. For, we must not only have regard to the mist which\nhappens to be in the place where we stand; we ought also to take into our\nthoughts the whole sum of vapours and exhalations which lie betwixt the\neye and the moon: all which co-operating to render the appearance of the\nmoon more faint, and thereby increase its magnitude, it may chance to\nappear greater than it usually does even in the horizontal position, at a\ntime when, though there be no extraordinary fog or haziness just in the\nplace where we stand, yet the air between the eye and the moon, taken\naltogether, may be loaded with a greater quantity of interspersed vapours\nand exhalations than at other times(360).\n\n72. It may be objected that, in consequence of our principles, the\ninterposition of a body in some degree opaque, which may intercept a great\npart of the rays of light, should render the appearance of the moon in the\nmeridian as large as when it is viewed in the horizon. To which I answer,\nit is not faintness anyhow applied that suggests greater magnitude; there\nbeing no necessary, but only an experimental, connexion between those two\nthings. It follows that the faintness which enlarges the appearance must\nbe applied in such sort, and with such circumstances, as have been\nobserved to attend the vision of great magnitudes. When from a distance we\nbehold great objects, the particles of the intermediate air and vapours,\nwhich are themselves unperceivable, do interrupt the rays of light, and\nthereby render the appearance less strong and vivid. Now, faintness of\nappearance, caused in this sort, hath been experienced to co-exist with\ngreat magnitude. But when it is caused by the interposition of an opaque\nsensible body, this circumstance alters the case; so that a faint\nappearance this way caused does not suggest greater magnitude, because it\nhath not been experienced to co-exist with it.\n\n73. Faintness, as well as all other ideas or perceptions which suggest\nmagnitude or distance, does it in the same way that words suggest the\nnotions to which they are annexed. Now, it is known a word pronounced with\ncertain circumstances, or in a certain context with other words, hath not\nalways the same import and signification that it hath when pronounced in\nsome other circumstances, or different context of words. The very same\nvisible appearance, as to faintness and all other respects, if placed on\nhigh, shall not suggest the same magnitude that it would if it were seen\nat an equal distance on a level with the eye. The reason whereof is, that\nwe are rarely accustomed to view objects at a great height; our concerns\nlie among things situated rather before than above us; and accordingly our\neyes are not placed on the top of our heads, but in such a position as is\nmost convenient for us to see distant objects standing in our way. And,\nthis situation of them being a circumstance which usually attends the\nvision of distant objects, we may from hence account for (what is commonly\nobserved) an object\u2019s appearing of different magnitude, even with respect\nto its horizontal extension, on the top of a steeple, e.g. a hundred feet\nhigh, to one standing below, from what it would if placed at a hundred\nfeet distance, on a level with his eye. For, it hath been shewn that the\njudgment we make on the magnitude of a thing depends not on the visible\nappearance only, but also on divers other circumstances, any one of which\nbeing omitted or varied may suffice to make some alteration in our\njudgment. Hence, the circumstance of viewing a distant object in such a\nsituation as is usual and suits with the ordinary posture of the head and\neyes, being omitted, and instead thereof a different situation of the\nobject, which requires a different posture of the head, taking place\u2014it is\nnot to be wondered at if the magnitude be judged different. But it will be\ndemanded, why a high object should constantly appear less than an\nequidistant low object of the same dimensions; for so it is observed to\nbe. It may indeed be granted that the variation of some circumstances may\nvary the judgment made on the magnitude of high objects, which we are less\nused to look at; but it does not hence appear why they should be judged\nless rather than greater? I answer, that in case the magnitude of distant\nobjects was suggested by the extent of their visible appearance alone, and\nthought proportional thereto, it is certain they would then be judged much\nless than now they seem to be. (Vid. sect. 79.) But, several circumstances\nconcurring to form the judgment we make on the magnitude of distant\nobjects, by means of which they appear far larger than others whose\nvisible appearance hath an equal or even greater extension, it follows\nthat upon the change or omission of any of those circumstances which are\nwont to attend the vision of distant objects, and so come to influence the\njudgments made on their magnitude, they shall proportionally appear less\nthan otherwise they would. For, any of those things that caused an object\nto be thought greater than in proportion to its visible extension being\neither omitted, or applied without the usual circumstances, the judgment\ndepends more entirely on the visible extension; and consequently the\nobject must be judged less. Thus, in the present case the situation of the\nthing seen being different from what it usually is in those objects we\nhave occasion to view, and whose magnitude we observe, it follows that the\nvery same object being a hundred feet high, should seem less than if it\nwas a hundred feet off, on (or nearly on) a level with the eye. What has\nbeen here set forth seems to me to have no small share in contributing to\nmagnify the appearance of the horizontal moon, and deserves not to be\npassed over in the explication of it.\n\n74. If we attentively consider the phenomenon before us, we shall find the\nnot discerning between the mediate and immediate objects of sight to be\nthe chief cause of the difficulty that occurs in the explication of it.\nThe magnitude of the visible moon, or that which is the proper and\nimmediate object of vision(361), is no greater when the moon is in the\nhorizon than when it is in the meridian. How comes it, therefore, to seem\ngreater in one situation than the other? What is it can put this cheat on\nthe understanding? It has no other perception of the moon than what it\ngets by sight. And that which is seen is of the same extent\u2014I say, the\nvisible appearance hath the very same, or rather a less, magnitude, when\nthe moon is viewed in the horizontal than when in the meridional position.\nAnd yet it is esteemed greater in the former than in the latter. Herein\nconsists the difficulty; which doth vanish and admit of the most easy\nsolution, if we consider that as the visible moon is not greater in the\nhorizon than in the meridian, so neither is it thought to be so. It hath\nbeen already shewn that, in any act of vision, the visible object\nabsolutely, or in itself, is little taken notice of\u2014the mind still\ncarrying its view from that to some tangible ideas, which have been\nobserved to be connected with it, and by that means come to be suggested\nby it. So that when a thing is said to appear great or small, or whatever\nestimate be made of the magnitude of any thing, this is meant not of the\nvisible but of the tangible object. This duly considered, it will be no\nhard matter to reconcile the seeming contradiction there is, that the moon\nshould appear of a different bigness, the visible magnitude thereof\nremaining still the same. For, by sect. 56, the very same visible\nextension, with a different faintness, shall suggest a different tangible\nextension. When therefore the horizontal moon is said to appear greater\nthan the meridional moon, this must be understood, not of a greater\nvisible extension, but of a greater tangible extension, which, by reason\nof the more than ordinary faintness of the visible appearance, is\nsuggested to the mind along with it.\n\n75. Many attempts have been made by learned men to account for this\nappearance(362). Gassendus(363), Des Cartes(364), Hobbes(365), and several\nothers have employed their thoughts on that subject; but how fruitless and\nunsatisfactory their endeavours have been is sufficiently shewn in the\n_Philosophical Transactions_(366) (Numb. 187, p. 314), where you may see\ntheir several opinions at large set forth and confuted, not without some\nsurprise at the gross blunders that ingenious men have been forced into by\nendeavouring to reconcile this appearance with the ordinary principles of\noptics(367). Since the writing of which there hath been published in the\n_Transactions_ (Numb. 187, p. 323) another paper relating to the same\naffair, by the celebrated Dr. Wallis, wherein he attempts to account for\nthat phenomenon; which, though it seems not to contain anything new, or\ndifferent from what had been said before by others, I shall nevertheless\nconsider in this place.\n\n76. His opinion, in short, is this:\u2014We judge not of the magnitude of an\nobject by the optic angle alone, but by the optic angle in conjunction\nwith the distance. Hence, though the angle remain the same, or even become\nless, yet, if withal the distance seem to have been increased, the object\nshall appear greater. Now, one way whereby we estimate the distance of\nanything is by the number and extent of the intermediate objects. When\ntherefore the moon is seen in the horizon, the variety of fields, houses,\n&c. together with the large prospect of the wide extended land or sea that\nlies between the eye and the utmost limb of the horizon, suggest unto the\nmind the idea of greater distance, and consequently magnify the\nappearance. And this, according to Dr. Wallis, is the true account of the\nextraordinary largeness attributed by the mind to the horizontal moon, at\na time when the angle subtended by its diameter is not one jot greater\nthan it used to be.\n\n77. With reference to this opinion, not to repeat what has been already\nsaid concerning distance(368), I shall only observe, _first_, that if the\nprospect of interjacent objects be that which suggests the idea of farther\ndistance, and this idea of farther distance be the cause that brings into\nthe mind the idea of greater magnitude, it should hence follow that if one\nlooked at the horizontal moon from behind a wall, it would appear no\nbigger than ordinary. For, in that case, the wall interposing cuts off all\nthat prospect of sea and land, &c. which might otherwise increase the\napparent distance, and thereby the apparent magnitude of the moon. Nor\nwill it suffice to say, the memory doth even then suggest all that extent\nof land, &c. which lies within the horizon, which suggestion occasions a\nsudden judgment of sense, that the moon is farther off and larger than\nusual. For, ask any man who from such a station beholding the horizontal\nmoon shall think her greater than usual, whether he hath at that time in\nhis mind any idea of the intermediate objects, or long tract of land that\nlies between his eye and the extreme edge of the horizon? and whether it\nbe that idea which is the cause of his making the aforementioned judgment?\nHe will, without doubt, reply in the negative, and declare the horizontal\nmoon shall appear greater than the meridional, though he never thinks of\nall or any of those things that lie between him and it. [And as for the\nabsurdity of any idea\u2019s introducing into the mind another, whilst itself\nis not perceived, this has already fallen under our observation, and is\ntoo evident to need any farther enlargement on it(369).] _Secondly_, it\nseems impossible, by this hypothesis, to account for the moon\u2019s appearing,\nin the very same situation, at one time greater than at another; which,\nnevertheless, has been shewn to be very agreeable to the principles we\nhave laid down, and receives a most easy and natural explication from\nthem. [(370)For the further clearing up of this point, it is to be\nobserved, that what we immediately and properly see are only lights and\ncolours in sundry situations and shades, and degrees of faintness and\nclearness, confusion and distinctness. All which visible objects are only\nin the mind; nor do they suggest aught external(371), whether distance or\nmagnitude, otherwise than by habitual connexion, as words do things. We\nare also to remark, that beside the straining of the eyes, and beside the\nvivid and faint, the distinct and confused appearances (which, bearing\nsome proportion to lines and angles, have been substituted instead of them\nin the foregoing part of this Treatise), there are other means which\nsuggest both distance and magnitude\u2014particularly the situation of visible\npoints or objects, as upper or lower; the former suggesting a farther\ndistance and greater magnitude, the latter a nearer distance and lesser\nmagnitude\u2014all which is an effect only of custom and experience, there\nbeing really nothing intermediate in the line of distance between the\nuppermost and the lowermost, which are both equidistant, or rather at no\ndistance from the eye; as there is also nothing in upper or lower which by\nnecessary connexion should suggest greater or lesser magnitude. Now, as\nthese customary experimental means of suggesting distance do likewise\nsuggest magnitude, so they suggest the one as immediately as the other. I\nsay, they do not (vide sect. 53) first suggest distance, and then leave\nthe mind from thence to infer or compute magnitude, but suggest magnitude\nas immediately and directly as they suggest distance.]\n\n78. This phenomenon of the horizontal moon is a clear instance of the\ninsufficiency of lines and angles for explaining the way wherein the mind\nperceives and estimates the magnitude of outward objects. There is,\nnevertheless, a use of computation by them(372)\u2014in order to determine the\napparent magnitude of things, so far as they have a connexion with and are\nproportional to those other ideas or perceptions which are the true and\nimmediate occasions that suggest to the mind the apparent magnitude of\nthings. But this in general may, I think, be observed concerning\nmathematical computation in optics\u2014that it can never(373) be very precise\nand exact(374), since the judgments we make of the magnitude of external\nthings do often depend on several circumstances which are not proportional\nto or capable of being defined by lines and angles.\n\n79. From what has been said, we may safely deduce this consequence, to\nwit, that a man born blind, and made to see, would, at first opening of\nhis eyes, make a very different judgment of the magnitude of objects\nintromitted by them from what others do. He would not consider the ideas\nof sight with reference to, or as having any connexion with, the ideas of\ntouch. His view of them being entirely terminated within themselves, he\ncan no otherwise judge them great or small than as they contain a greater\nor lesser number of visible points. Now, it being certain that any visible\npoint can cover or exclude from view only one other visible point, it\nfollows that whatever object intercepts the view of another hath an equal\nnumber of visible points with it; and, consequently, they shall both be\nthought by him to have the same magnitude. Hence, it is evident one in\nthose circumstances would judge his thumb, with which he might hide a\ntower, or hinder its being seen, equal to that tower; or his hand, the\ninterposition whereof might conceal the firmament from his view, equal to\nthe firmament: how great an inequality soever there may, in our\napprehensions, seem to be betwixt those two things, because of the\ncustomary and close connexion that has grown up in our minds between the\nobjects of sight and touch, whereby the very different and distinct ideas\nof those two senses are so blended and confounded together as to be\nmistaken for one and the same thing\u2014out of which prejudice we cannot\neasily extricate ourselves.\n\n80. For the better explaining the nature of vision, and setting the manner\nwherein we perceive magnitudes in a due light, I shall proceed to make\nsome observations concerning matters relating thereto, whereof the want of\nreflection, and duly separating between tangible and visible ideas, is apt\nto create in us mistaken and confused notions. And, _first_, I shall\nobserve, that the _minimum visibile_ is exactly equal in all beings\nwhatsoever that are endowed with the visive faculty(375). No exquisite\nformation of the eye, no peculiar sharpness of sight, can make it less in\none creature than in another; for, it not being distinguishable into\nparts, nor in anywise consisting of them, it must necessarily be the same\nto all. For, suppose it otherwise, and that the _minimum visibile_ of a\nmite, for instance, be less than the _minimum visibile_ of a man; the\nlatter therefore may, by detraction of some part, be made equal to the\nformer. It doth therefore consist of parts, which is inconsistent with the\nnotion of a _minimum visibile_ or point.\n\n81. It will, perhaps, be objected, that the _minimum visibile_ of a man\ndoth really and in itself contain parts whereby it surpasses that of a\nmite, though they are not perceivable by the man. To which I answer, the\n_minimum visibile_ having (in like manner as all other the proper and\nimmediate objects of sight) been shewn not to have any existence without\nthe mind of him who sees it, it follows there cannot be any part of it\nthat is not actually perceived and therefore visible. Now, for any object\nto contain several distinct visible parts, and at the same time to be a\n_minimum visibile_, is a manifest contradiction.\n\n82. Of these visible points we see at all times an equal number. It is\nevery whit as great when our view is contracted and bounded by near\nobjects as when it is extended to larger and remoter ones. For, it being\nimpossible that one _minimum visibile_ should obscure or keep out of sight\nmore than one other, it is a plain consequence that, when my view is on\nall sides bounded by the walls of my study, I see just as many visible\npoints as I could in case that, by the removal of the study-walls and all\nother obstructions, I had a full prospect of the circumjacent fields,\nmountains, sea, and open firmament. For, so long as I am shut up within\nthe walls, by their interposition every point of the external objects is\ncovered from my view. But, each point that is seen being able to cover or\nexclude from sight one only other corresponding point, it follows that,\nwhilst my sight is confined to those narrow walls, I see as many points,\nor _minima visibilia_, as I should were those walls away, by looking on\nall the external objects whose prospect is intercepted by them. Whenever,\ntherefore, we are said to have a greater prospect at one time than\nanother, this must be understood with relation, not to the proper and\nimmediate, but the secondary and mediate objects of vision\u2014which, as hath\nbeen shewn, do properly belong to the touch.\n\n83. The visive faculty, considered with reference to its immediate\nobjects, may be found to labour of two defects. _First_, in respect of the\nextent or number of visible points that are at once perceivable by it,\nwhich is narrow and limited to a certain degree. It can take in at one\nview but a certain determinate number of _minima visibilia_, beyond which\nit cannot extend its prospect. _Secondly_, our sight is defective in that\nits view is not only narrow, but also for the most part confused. Of those\nthings that we take in at one prospect, we can see but a few at once\nclearly and unconfusedly; and the more we fix our sight on any one object,\nby so much the darker and more indistinct shall the rest appear.\n\n84. Corresponding to these two defects of sight, we may imagine as many\nperfections, to wit, 1st. That of comprehending in one view a greater\nnumber of visible points; 2dly, of being able to view them all equally and\nat once, with the utmost clearness and distinction. That those perfections\nare not actually in some intelligences of a different order and capacity\nfrom ours, it is impossible for us to know(376).\n\n85. In neither of those two ways do microscopes contribute to the\nimprovement of sight. For, when we look through a microscope, we neither\nsee more visible points, nor are the collateral points more distinct, than\nwhen we look with the naked eye at objects placed at a due distance. A\nmicroscope brings us, as it were, into a new world. It presents us with a\nnew scene of visible objects, quite different from what we behold with the\nnaked eye. But herein consists the most remarkable difference, to wit,\nthat whereas the objects perceived by the eye alone have a certain\nconnexion with tangible objects, whereby we are taught to foresee what\nwill ensue upon the approach or application of distant objects to the\nparts of our own body\u2014which much conduceth to its preservation(377)\u2014there\nis not the like connexion between things tangible and those visible\nobjects that are perceived by help of a fine microscope.\n\n86. Hence, it is evident that, were our eyes turned into the nature of\nmicroscopes, we should not be much benefitted by the change. We should be\ndeprived of the forementioned advantage we at present receive by the\nvisive faculty, and have left us only the empty amusement of seeing,\nwithout any other benefit arising from it. But, in that case, it will\nperhaps be said, our sight would be endued with a far greater sharpness\nand penetration than it now hath. But I would fain know wherein consists\nthat sharpness which is esteemed so great an excellency of sight. It is\ncertain, from what we have already shewn(378), that the _minimum visibile_\nis never greater or lesser, but in all cases constantly the same. And in\nthe case of microscopical eyes, I see only this difference, to wit, that\nupon the ceasing of a certain observable connexion betwixt the divers\nperceptions of sight and touch, which before enabled us to regulate our\nactions by the eye, it would now be rendered utterly unserviceable to that\npurpose.\n\n87. Upon the whole, it seems that if we consider the use and end of sight,\ntogether with the present state and circumstances of our being, we shall\nnot find any great cause to complain of any defect or imperfection in it,\nor easily conceive how it could be mended. With such admirable wisdom is\nthat faculty contrived, both for the pleasure and convenience of life.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n88. Having finished what I intended to say concerning the Distance and\nMagnitude of objects, I come now to treat of the manner wherein the mind\nperceives by sight their Situation(379). Among the discoveries of the last\nage, it is reputed none of the least, that the manner of vision has been\nmore clearly explained than ever it had been before. There is, at this\nday, no one ignorant that the pictures of external objects are painted on\nthe retina or fund of the eye; that we can see nothing which is not so\npainted; and that, according as the picture is more distinct or confused,\nso also is the perception we have of the object(380). But then, in this\nexplication of vision, there occurs one mighty difficulty, viz. the\nobjects are painted in an inverted order on the bottom of the eye: the\nupper part of any object being painted on the lower part of the eye, and\nthe lower part of the object on the upper part of the eye; and so also as\nto right and left. Since therefore the pictures are thus inverted, it is\ndemanded, how it comes to pass that we see the objects erect and in their\nnatural posture?\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n                                 Figure 4\n\n\n89. In answer to this difficulty, we are told that the mind, perceiving an\nimpulse of a ray of light on the upper part of the eye, considers this ray\nas coming in a direct line from the lower part of the object; and, in like\nmanner, tracing the ray that strikes on the lower part of the eye, it is\ndirected to the upper part of the object. Thus, in the adjacent figure,\n_C_, the lower point of the object _ABC_, is projected on _c_ the upper\npart of the eye. So likewise, the highest point _A_ is projected on _a_\nthe lowest part of the eye; which makes the representation _cba_ inverted.\nBut the mind\u2014considering the stroke that is made on _c_ as coming in the\nstraight line _Cc_ from the lower end of the object; and the stroke or\nimpulse on _a_, as coming in the line _Aa_ from the upper end of the\nobject\u2014is directed to make a right judgment of the situation of the object\n_ABC_, notwithstanding the picture of it be inverted. Moreover, this is\nillustrated by conceiving a blind man, who, holding in his hands two\nsticks that cross each other, doth with them touch the extremities of an\nobject, placed in a perpendicular situation(381). It is certain this man\nwill judge that to be the upper part of the object which he touches with\nthe stick held in the undermost hand, and that to be the lower part of the\nobject which he touches with the stick in his uppermost hand. This is the\ncommon explication of the erect appearance of objects, which is generally\nreceived and acquiesced in, being (as Mr. Molyneux tells us, _Diopt._ part\nii. ch. vii. p. 289) \u201callowed by all men as satisfactory.\u201d\n\n90. But this account to me does not seem in any degree true. Did I\nperceive those impulses, decussations, and directions of the rays of\nlight, in like manner as hath been set forth, then, indeed, it would not\nat first view be altogether void of probability. And there might be some\npretence for the comparison of the blind man and his cross sticks. But the\ncase is far otherwise. I know very well that I perceive no such thing.\nAnd, of consequence, I cannot thereby make an estimate of the situation of\nobjects. Moreover, I appeal to any one\u2019s experience, whether he be\nconscious to himself that he thinks on the intersection made by the radius\npencils, or pursues the impulses they give in right lines, whenever he\nperceives by sight the position of any object? To me it seems evident that\ncrossing and tracing of the rays, &c. is never thought on by children,\nidiots, or, in truth, by any other, save only those who have applied\nthemselves to the study of optics. And for the mind to judge of the\nsituation of objects by those things without perceiving them, or to\nperceive them without knowing it(382), take which you please, it is\nperfectly beyond my comprehension. Add to this, that the explaining the\nmanner of vision by the example of cross sticks, and hunting for the\nobject along the axes of the radius pencils, doth suppose the proper\nobjects of sight to be perceived at a distance from us, contrary to what\nhath been demonstrated(383). [We may therefore venture to pronounce this\nopinion, concerning the way wherein the mind perceives the erect\nappearance of objects, to be of a piece with those other tenets of writers\nin optics, which in the foregoing parts of this treatise we have had\noccasion to examine and refute(384).]\n\n91. It remains, therefore, that we look for some other explication of this\ndifficulty. And I believe it not impossible to find one, provided we\nexamine it to the bottom, and carefully distinguish between the ideas of\nsight and touch; which cannot be too oft inculcated in treating of\nvision(385). But, more especially throughout the consideration of this\naffair, we ought to carry that distinction in our thoughts; for that from\nwant of a right understanding thereof, the difficulty of explaining erect\nvision seems chiefly to arise.\n\n92. In order to disentangle our minds from whatever prejudices we may\nentertain with relation to the subject in hand, nothing seems more\napposite than the taking into our thoughts the case of one born blind, and\nafterwards, when grown up, made to see. And\u2014though perhaps it may not be a\ntask altogether easy and familiar to us, to divest ourselves entirely of\nthe experiences received from sight, so as to be able to put our thoughts\nexactly in the posture of such a one\u2019s\u2014we must, nevertheless, as far as\npossible, endeavour to frame true conceptions of what might reasonably be\nsupposed to pass in his mind(386).\n\n93. It is certain that a man actually blind, and who had continued so from\nhis birth, would, by the sense of feeling, attain to have ideas of upper\nand lower. By the motion of his hand, he might discern the situation of\nany tangible object placed within his reach. That part on which he felt\nhimself supported, or towards which he perceived his body to gravitate, he\nwould term _lower_, and the contrary to this _upper_; and accordingly\ndenominate whatsoever objects he touched.\n\n94. But then, whatever judgments he makes concerning the situation of\nobjects are confined to those only that are perceivable by touch. All\nthose things that are intangible, and of a spiritual nature\u2014his thoughts\nand desires, his passions, and in general all the modifications of his\nsoul\u2014to these he would never apply the terms upper and lower, except only\nin a metaphorical sense. He may perhaps, by way of allusion, speak of high\nor low thoughts: but those terms, in their proper signification, would\nnever be applied to anything that was not conceived to exist without the\nmind. For, a man born blind, and remaining in the same state, could mean\nnothing else by the words higher and lower than a greater or lesser\ndistance from the earth; which distance he would measure by the motion or\napplication of his hand, or some other part of his body. It is, therefore,\nevident that all those things which, in respect of each other, would by\nhim be thought higher or lower, must be such as were conceived to exist\nwithout his mind, in the ambient space(387).\n\n95. Whence it plainly follows, that such a one, if we suppose him made to\nsee, would not at first sight think that anything he saw was high or low,\nerect or inverted. For, it hath been already demonstrated, in sect. 41,\nthat he would not think the things he perceived by sight to be at any\ndistance from him, or without his mind. The objects to which he had\nhitherto been used to apply the terms up and down, high and low, were such\nonly as affected, or were some way perceived by his touch. But the proper\nobjects of vision make a new set of ideas, perfectly distinct and\ndifferent from the former, and which can in no sort make themselves\nperceived by touch. There is, therefore, nothing at all that could induce\nhim to think those terms applicable to them. Nor would he ever think it,\ntill such time as he had observed their connexion with tangible objects,\nand the same prejudice(388) began to insinuate itself into his\nunderstanding, which, from their infancy, had grown up in the\nunderstandings of other men.\n\n96. To set this matter in a clearer light, I shall make use of an example.\nSuppose the above-mentioned blind person, by his touch, perceives a man to\nstand erect. Let us inquire into the manner of this. By the application of\nhis hand to the several parts of a human body, he had perceived different\ntangible ideas; which being collected into sundry complex ones(389) have\ndistinct names annexed to them. Thus, one combination of a certain\ntangible figure, bulk, and consistency of parts is called the head;\nanother the hand; a third the foot, and so of the rest\u2014all which complex\nideas could, in his understanding, be made up only of ideas perceivable by\ntouch. He had also, by his touch, obtained an idea of earth or ground,\ntowards which he perceives the parts of his body to have a natural\ntendency. Now\u2014by _erect_ nothing more being meant than that perpendicular\nposition of a man wherein his feet are nearest to the earth\u2014if the blind\nperson, by moving his hand over the parts of the man who stands before\nhim, do perceive the tangible ideas that compose the head to be farthest\nfrom, and those that compose the feet to be nearest to, that other\ncombination of tangible ideas which he calls earth, he will denominate\nthat man erect. But, if we suppose him on a sudden to receive his sight,\nand that he behold a man standing before him, it is evident, in that case,\nhe would neither judge the man he sees to be erect nor inverted; for he,\nnever having known those terms applied to any other save tangible things,\nor which existed in the space without him, and what he sees neither being\ntangible, nor perceived as existing without, he could not know that, in\npropriety of language, they were applicable to it.\n\n97. Afterwards, when, upon turning his head or eyes up and down to the\nright and left, he shall observe the visible objects to change, and shall\nalso attain to know that they are called by the same names, and connected\nwith the objects perceived by touch; then, indeed, he will come to speak\nof them and their situation in the same terms that he has been used to\napply to tangible things: and those that he perceives by turning up his\neyes he will call upper, and those that by turning down his eyes he will\ncall lower.\n\n98. And this seems to me the true reason why he should think those objects\nuppermost that are painted on the lower part of his eye. For, by turning\nthe eye up they shall be distinctly seen; as likewise they that are\npainted on the highest part of the eye shall be distinctly seen by turning\nthe eye down, and are for that reason esteemed lowest. For we have shewn\nthat to the immediate objects of sight, considered in themselves, he would\nnot attribute the terms high and low. It must therefore be on account of\nsome circumstances which are observed to attend them. And these, it is\nplain, are the actions of turning the eye up and down, which suggest a\nvery obvious reason why the mind should denominate the objects of sight\naccordingly high or low. And, without this motion of the eye\u2014this turning\nit up and down in order to discern different objects\u2014doubtless _erect_,\n_inverse_, and other the like terms relating to the position of tangible\nobjects, would never have been transferred, or in any degree apprehended\nto belong to the ideas of sight, the mere act of seeing including nothing\nin it to that purpose; whereas the different situations of the eye\nnaturally direct the mind to make a suitable judgment of the situation of\nobjects intromitted by it(390).\n\n99. Farther, when he has by experience learned the connexion there is\nbetween the several ideas of sight and touch, he will be able, by the\nperception he has of the situation of visible things in respect of one\nanother, to make a sudden and true estimate of the situation of outward,\ntangible things corresponding to them. And thus it is he shall\nperceive(391) by sight the situation of external(392) objects, which do\nnot properly fall under that sense.\n\n100. I know we are very prone to think that, if just made to see, we\nshould judge of the situation of visible things as we do now. But, we are\nalso as prone to think that, at first sight, we should in the same way\napprehend the distance and magnitude of objects, as we do now; which hath\nbeen shewn to be a false and groundless persuasion. And, for the like\nreasons, the same censure may be passed on the positive assurance that\nmost men, before they have thought sufficiently of the matter, might have\nof their being able to determine by the eye, at first view, whether\nobjects were erect or inverse.\n\n101. It will perhaps be objected to our opinion, that a man, for instance,\nbeing thought erect when his feet are next the earth, and inverted when\nhis head is next the earth, it doth hence follow that, by the mere act of\nvision, without any experience or altering the situation of the eye, we\nshould have determined whether he were erect or inverted. For both the\nearth itself, and the limbs of the man who stands thereon, being equally\nperceived by sight, one cannot choose seeing what part of the man is\nnearest the earth, and what part farthest from it, i.e. whether he be\nerect or inverted.\n\n102. To which I answer, the ideas which constitute the tangible earth and\nman are entirely different from those which constitute the visible earth\nand man. Nor was it possible, by virtue of the visive faculty alone,\nwithout superadding any experience of touch, or altering the position of\nthe eye, ever to have known, or so much as suspected, there had been any\nrelation or connexion between them. Hence, a man at first view would not\ndenominate anything he saw, _earth_, or _head_, or _foot_; and\nconsequently, he could not tell, by the mere act of vision, whether the\nhead or feet were nearest the earth. Nor, indeed, would we have thereby\nany thought of earth or man, erect or inverse, at all\u2014which will be made\nyet more evident, if we nicely observe, and make a particular comparison\nbetween, the ideas of both senses.\n\n103. That which I see is only variety of light and colours. That which I\nfeel is hard or soft, hot or cold, rough or smooth. What similitude, what\nconnexion, have those ideas with these? Or, how is it possible that any\none should see reason to give one and the same name(393) to combinations\nof ideas so very different, before he had experienced their co-existence?\nWe do not find there is any necessary connexion betwixt this or that\ntangible quality, and any colour whatsoever. And we may sometimes perceive\ncolours, where there is nothing to be felt. All which doth make it\nmanifest that no man, at first receiving of his sight(394), would know\nthere was any agreement between this or that particular object of his\nsight and any object of touch he had been already acquainted with. The\ncolours therefore of the head would to him no more suggest the idea of\nhead(395) than they would the idea of feet.\n\n104. Farther, we have at large shewn (vid. sect. 63 and 64) there is no\ndiscoverable necessary connexion between any given visible magnitude and\nany one particular tangible magnitude; but that it is entirely the result\nof custom and experience, and depends on foreign and accidental\ncircumstances, that we can, by the perception of visible extension, inform\nourselves what may be the extension of any tangible object connected with\nit. Hence, it is certain, that neither the visible magnitude of head or\nfoot would bring along with them into the mind, at first opening of the\neyes, the respective tangible magnitudes of those parts.\n\n105. By the foregoing section, it is plain the visible figure of any part\nof the body hath no necessary connexion with the tangible figure thereof,\nso as at first sight to suggest it to the mind. For, figure is the\ntermination of magnitude. Whence it follows that no visible magnitude\nhaving in its own nature an aptness to suggest any one particular tangible\nmagnitude, so neither can any visible figure be inseparably connected with\nits corresponding tangible figure, so as of itself, and in a way prior to\nexperience, it might suggest it to the understanding. This will be farther\nevident, if we consider that what seems smooth and round to the touch may\nto sight, if viewed through a microscope, seem quite otherwise.\n\n106. From all which, laid together and duly considered, we may clearly\ndeduce this inference:\u2014In the first act of vision, no idea entering by the\neye would have a perceivable connexion with the ideas to which the names\nearth, man, head, foot, &c. were annexed in the understanding of a person\nblind from his birth; so as in any sort to introduce them into his mind,\nor make themselves be called by the same names, and reputed the same\nthings with them, as afterwards they come to be.\n\n107. There doth, nevertheless, remain one difficulty, which to some may\nseem to press hard on our opinion, and deserve not to be passed over. For,\nthough it be granted that neither the colour, size, nor figure of the\nvisible feet have any necessary connexion with the ideas that compose the\ntangible feet, so as to bring them at first sight into my mind, or make me\nin danger of confounding them, before I had been used to and for some time\nexperienced their connexion; yet thus much seems undeniable, namely, that\nthe number of the visible feet being the same with that of the tangible\nfeet, I may from hence, without any experience of sight, reasonably\nconclude that they represent or are connected with the feet rather than\nthe head. I say, it seems the idea of two visible feet will sooner suggest\nto the mind the idea of two tangible feet than of one head\u2014so that the\nblind man, upon first reception of the visive faculty, might know which\nwere the feet or two, and which the head or one.\n\n108. In order to get clear of this seeming difficulty, we need only\nobserve that diversity of visible objects does not necessarily infer\ndiversity of tangible objects corresponding to them. A picture painted\nwith great variety of colours affects the touch in one uniform manner; it\nis therefore evident that I do not, by any necessary consecution,\nindependent of experience, judge of the number of things tangible from the\nnumber of things visible. I should not therefore at first opening my eyes\nconclude that because I see two I shall feel two. How, therefore, can I,\nbefore experience teaches me, know that the visible legs, because two, are\nconnected with the tangible legs; or the visible head, because one, is\nconnected with the tangible head? The truth is, the things I see are so\nvery different and heterogeneous from the things I feel that the\nperception of the one would never have suggested the other to my thoughts,\nor enabled me to pass the least judgment thereon, until I had experienced\ntheir connexion(396).\n\n109. But, for a fuller illustration of this matter, it ought to be\nconsidered, that number (however some may reckon it amongst the primary\nqualities(397)) is nothing fixed and settled, really existing in things\nthemselves. It is entirely the creature of the mind, considering either a\nsimple idea by itself, or any combination of simple ideas to which it\ngives one name, and so makes it pass for a unit. According as the mind\nvariously combines its ideas, the unit varies; and as the unit, so the\nnumber, which is only a collection of units, doth also vary. We call a\nwindow one, a chimney one; and yet a house, in which there are many\nwindows and many chimneys, has an equal right to be called one; and many\nhouses go to the making of one city. In these and the like instances, it\nis evident the _unit_ constantly relates to the particular draughts the\nmind makes of its ideas, to which it affixes names, and wherein it\nincludes more or less, as best suits its own ends and purposes. Whatever\ntherefore the mind considers as one, that is an unit. Every combination of\nideas is considered as one thing by the mind, and in token thereof is\nmarked by one name. Now, this naming and combining together of ideas is\nperfectly arbitrary, and done by the mind in such sort as experience shews\nit to be most convenient\u2014without which our ideas had never been collected\ninto such sundry distinct combinations as they now are.\n\n110. Hence, it follows that a man born blind, and afterwards, when grown\nup, made to see, would not, in the first act of vision, parcel out the\nideas of sight into the same distinct collections that others do who have\nexperienced which do regularly co-exist and are proper to be bundled up\ntogether under one name. He would not, for example, make into one complex\nidea, and thereby esteem and unite all those particular ideas which\nconstitute the visible head or foot. For, there can be no reason assigned\nwhy he should do so, barely upon his seeing a man stand upright before\nhim. There crowd into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in\ncompany with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time. But,\nall these ideas offered at once to his view he would not distribute into\nsundry distinct combinations, till such time as, by observing the motion\nof the parts of the man and other experiences, he comes to know which are\nto be separated and which to be collected together(398).\n\n111. From what hath been premised, it is plain the objects of sight and\ntouch make, if I may so say, two sets of ideas, which are widely different\nfrom each other. To objects of either kind we indifferently attribute the\nterms high and low, right and left, and such like, denoting the position\nor situation of things; but then we must well observe that the position of\nany object is determined with respect only to objects of the same sense.\nWe say any object of touch is high or low, according as it is more or less\ndistant from the tangible earth: and in like manner we denominate any\nobject of sight high or low, in proportion as it is more or less distant\nfrom the visible earth. But, to define the situation of visible things\nwith relation to the distance they bear from any tangible thing, or _vice\nversa_, this were absurd and perfectly unintelligible. For all visible\nthings are equally in the mind, and take up no part of the external space;\nand consequently are equidistant from any tangible thing which exists\nwithout the mind(399).\n\n112. Or rather, to speak truly, the proper objects of sight are at no\ndistance, neither near nor far from any tangible thing. For, if we inquire\nnarrowly into the matter, we shall find that those things only are\ncompared together in respect of distance which exist after the same\nmanner, or appertain unto the same sense. For, by the distance between any\ntwo points, nothing more is meant than the number of intermediate points.\nIf the given points are visible, the distance between them is marked out\nby the number of the interjacent visible points; if they are tangible, the\ndistance between them is a line consisting of tangible points; but, if\nthey are one tangible and the other visible, the distance between them\ndoth neither consist of points perceivable by sight nor by touch, i.e. it\nis utterly inconceivable(400). This, perhaps, will not find an easy\nadmission into all men\u2019s understanding. However, I should gladly be\ninformed whether it be not true, by any one who will be at the pains to\nreflect a little, and apply it home to his thoughts.\n\n113. The not observing what has been delivered in the two last sections,\nseems to have occasioned no small part of the difficulty that occurs in\nthe business of direct appearances. The head, which is painted nearest the\nearth, seems to be farthest from it; and on the other hand, the feet,\nwhich are painted farthest from the earth, are thought nearest to it.\nHerein lies the difficulty, which vanishes if we express the thing more\nclearly and free from ambiguity, thus:\u2014How comes it that, to the eye, the\nvisible head, which is nearest the tangible earth, seems farthest from the\nearth; and the visible feet, which are farthest from the tangible earth,\nseem nearest the earth? The question being thus proposed, who sees not the\ndifficulty is founded on a supposition that the eye or visive faculty, or\nrather the soul by means thereof, should judge of the situation of visible\nobjects with reference to their distance from the tangible earth? Whereas,\nit is evident the tangible earth is not perceived by sight. And it hath\nbeen shewn, in the two last preceding sections, that the location of\nvisible objects is determined only by the distance they bear from one\nanother, and that it is nonsense to talk of distance, far or near, between\na visible and tangible thing.\n\n114. If we confine our thoughts to the proper objects of sight, the whole\nis plain and easy. The head is painted farthest from, and the feet nearest\nto, the visible earth; and so they appear to be. What is there strange or\nunaccountable in this? Let us suppose the pictures in the fund of the eye\nto be the immediate objects of sight(401). The consequence is that things\nshould appear in the same posture they are painted in; and is it not so?\nThe head which is seen seems farthest from the earth which is seen; and\nthe feet which are seen seem nearest to the earth which is seen. And just\nso they are painted.\n\n115. But, say you, the picture of the man is inverted, and yet the\nappearance is erect. I ask, what mean you by the picture of the man, or,\nwhich is the same thing, the visible man\u2019s being inverted? You tell me it\nis inverted, because the heels are uppermost and the head undermost?\nExplain me this. You say that by the head\u2019s being undermost, you mean that\nit is nearest to the earth; and, by the heels being uppermost, that they\nare farthest from the earth. I ask again, what earth you mean? You cannot\nmean the earth that is painted on the eye or the visible earth\u2014for the\npicture of the head is farthest from the picture of the earth, and the\npicture of the feet nearest to the picture of the earth; and accordingly\nthe visible head is farthest from the visible earth, and the visible feet\nnearest to it. It remains, therefore, that you mean the tangible earth;\nand so determine the situation of visible things with respect to tangible\nthings\u2014contrary to what hath been demonstrated in sect. 111 and 112. The\ntwo distinct provinces of sight and touch should be considered apart, and\nas though their objects had no intercourse, no manner of relation to one\nanother, in point of distance or position(402).\n\n116. Farther, what greatly contributes to make us mistake in this matter\nis that, when we think of the pictures in the fund of the eye, we imagine\nourselves looking on the fund of another\u2019s eye, or another looking on the\nfund of our own eye, and beholding the pictures painted thereon. Suppose\ntwo eyes, _A_ and _B_. _A_ from some distance looking on the pictures in\n_B_ sees them inverted, and for that reason concludes they are inverted in\n_B_. But this is wrong. There are projected in little on the bottom of _A_\nthe images of the pictures of, suppose, man, earth, &c., which are painted\non _B_. And, besides these, the eye _B_ itself, and the objects which\nenviron it, together with another earth, are projected in a larger size on\n_A_. Now, by the eye _A_ these larger images are deemed the true objects,\nand the lesser only pictures in miniature. And it is with respect to those\ngreater images that it determines the situation of the smaller images; so\nthat, comparing the little man with the great earth, _A_ judges him\ninverted, or that the feet are farthest from and the head nearest to the\ngreat earth. Whereas, if _A_ compare the little man with the little earth,\nthen he will appear erect, i.e. his head shall seem farthest from and his\nfeet nearest to the little earth. But we must consider that _B_ does not\nsee two earths as _A_ does. It sees only what is represented by the little\npictures in _A_, and consequently shall judge the man erect. For, in\ntruth, the man in _B_ is not inverted, for there the feet are next the\nearth; but it is the representation of it in _A_ which is inverted, for\nthere the head of the representation of the picture of the man in _B_ is\nnext the earth, and the feet farthest from the earth\u2014meaning the earth\nwhich is without the representation of the pictures in _B_. For, if you\ntake the little linages of the pictures in _B_, and consider them by\nthemselves, and with respect only to one another, they are all erect and\nin their natural posture.\n\n117. Farther, there lies a mistake in our imagining that the pictures of\nexternal(403) objects are painted on the bottom of the eye. It has been\nshewn there is no resemblance between the ideas of sight and things\ntangible. It hath likewise been demonstrated(404), that the proper objects\nof sight do not exist without the mind. Whence it clearly follows that the\npictures painted on the bottom of the eye are not the pictures of external\nobjects. Let any one consult his own thoughts, and then tell me, what\naffinity, what likeness, there is between that certain variety and\ndisposition of colours which constitute the visible man, or picture of a\nman, and that other combination of far different ideas, sensible by touch,\nwhich compose the tangible man. But, if this be the case, how come they to\nbe accounted pictures or images, since that supposes them to copy or\nrepresent some originals or other?\n\n118. To which I answer\u2014In the forementioned instance, the eye _A_ takes\nthe little images, included within the representation of the other eye\n_B_, to be pictures or copies, whereof the archetypes are not things\nexisting without(405), but the larger pictures(406) projected on its own\nfund; and which by _A_ are not thought pictures, but the originals or true\nthings themselves. Though if we suppose a third eye _C_, from a due\ndistance, to behold the fund of _A_, then indeed the things projected\nthereon shall, to _C_, seem pictures or images, in the same sense that\nthose projected on _B_ do to _A_.\n\n119. Rightly to conceive the business in hand, we must carefully\ndistinguish between the ideas of sight and touch, between the visible and\ntangible eye; for certainly on the tangible eye nothing either is or seems\nto be painted. Again, the visible eye, as well as all other visible\nobjects, hath been shewn to exist only in the mind(407); which, perceiving\nits own ideas, and comparing them together, does call some pictures in\nrespect to others. What hath been said, being rightly comprehended and\nlaid together, does, I think, afford a full and genuine explication of the\nerect appearance of objects\u2014which phenomenon, I must confess, I do not see\nhow it can be explained by any theories of vision hitherto made public.\n\n120. In treating of these things, the use of language is apt to occasion\nsome obscurity and confusion, and create in us wrong ideas. For, language\nbeing accommodated to the common notions and prejudices of men, it is\nscarce possible to deliver the naked and precise truth, without great\ncircumlocution, impropriety, and (to an unwary reader) seeming\ncontradictions. I do, therefore, once for all, desire whoever shall think\nit worth his while to understand what I have written concerning vision,\nthat he would not stick in this or that phrase or manner of expression,\nbut candidly collect my meaning from the whole sum and tenor of my\ndiscourse, and, laying aside the words(408) as much as possible, consider\nthe bare notions themselves, and then judge whether they are agreeable to\ntruth and his own experience or no.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n121. We have shewn the way wherein the mind, by mediation of visible\nideas(409), doth perceive or apprehend the distance, magnitude, and\nsituation of tangible objects(410). I come now to inquire more\nparticularly concerning the difference between the ideas of sight and\ntouch which are called by the same names, and see whether there be any\nidea common to both senses(411). From what we have at large set forth and\ndemonstrated in the foregoing parts of this treatise, it is plain there is\nno one self-same numerical extension, perceived both by sight and touch;\nbut that the particular figures and extensions perceived by sight, however\nthey may be called by the same names, and reputed the same things with\nthose perceived by touch, are nevertheless different, and have an\nexistence very distinct and separate from them. So that the question is\nnot now concerning the same numerical ideas, but whether there be any one\nand the same sort or species of ideas equally perceivable to both senses?\nor, in other words, whether extension, figure, and motion perceived by\nsight, are not specifically distinct from extension, figure, and motion\nperceived by touch?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n122. But, before I come more particularly to discuss this matter, I find\nit proper to take into my thoughts extension in abstract(412). For of this\nthere is much talk; and I am apt to think that when men speak of extension\nas being an idea common to two senses, it is with a secret supposition\nthat we can single out extension from all other tangible and visible\nqualities, and form thereof an abstract idea, which idea they will have\ncommon both to sight and touch. We are therefore to understand by\nextension in abstract, an idea(413) of extension\u2014for instance, a line or\nsurface entirely stripped of all other sensible qualities and\ncircumstances that might determine it to any particular existence; it is\nneither black, nor white, nor red, nor hath it any colour at all, or any\ntangible quality whatsoever, and consequently it is of no finite\ndeterminate magnitude(414); for that which bounds or distinguishes one\nextension from another is some quality or circumstance wherein they\ndisagree.\n\n123. Now, I do not find that I can perceive, imagine, or anywise frame in\nmy mind such an abstract idea as is here spoken of. A line or surface\nwhich is neither black, nor white, nor blue, nor yellow, &c.; nor long,\nnor short, nor rough, nor smooth, nor square, nor round, &c. is perfectly\nincomprehensible. This I am sure of as to myself; how far the faculties of\nother men may reach they best can tell.\n\n124. It is commonly said that the object of geometry is abstract\nextension. But geometry contemplates figures: now, figure is the\ntermination of magnitude(415); but we have shewn that extension in\nabstract hath no finite determinate magnitude; whence it clearly follows\nthat it can have no figure, and consequently is not the object of\ngeometry. It is indeed a tenet, as well of the modern as the ancient\nphilosophers, that all general truths are concerning universal abstract\nideas; without which, we are told, there could be no science, no\ndemonstration of any general proposition in geometry. But it were no hard\nmatter, did I think it necessary to my present purpose, to shew that\npropositions and demonstrations in geometry might be universal, though\nthey who make them never think of abstract general ideas of triangles or\ncircles.\n\n125. After reiterated efforts and pangs of thought(416) to apprehend the\ngeneral idea of a triangle(417), I have found it altogether\nincomprehensible. And surely, if any one were able to let that idea into\nmy mind, it must be the author(418) of the _Essay concerning Human\nUnderstanding_: he, who has so far distinguished himself from the\ngenerality of writers, by the clearness and significancy of what he says.\nLet us therefore see how this celebrated author(419) describes the general\nor [which is the same thing, the(420)] abstract idea of a triangle. \u201cIt\nmust be,\u201d says he, \u201cneither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral,\nequicrural, nor scalenum; but all and none of these at once. In effect it\nis somewhat imperfect that cannot exist; an idea, wherein some parts of\nseveral different and inconsistent ideas are put together.\u201d (_Essay on\nHuman Understanding_, B. iv. ch. 7. s. 9.) This is the idea which he\nthinks needful for the enlargement of knowledge, which is the subject of\nmathematical demonstration, and without which we could never come to know\nany general proposition concerning triangles. [Sure I am, if this be the\ncase, it is impossible for me to attain to know even the first elements of\ngeometry: since I have not the faculty to frame in my mind such an idea as\nis here described(421).] That author acknowledges it doth \u201crequire some\npains and skill to form this general idea of a triangle.\u201d (_Ibid._) But,\nhad he called to mind what he says in another place, to wit, \u201cthat ideas\nof mixed modes wherein any inconsistent ideas are put together, cannot so\nmuch as exist in the mind, i.e. be conceived,\u201d (vid. B. iii. ch. 10. s.\n33, _ibid._)\u2014I say, had this occurred to his thoughts, it is not\nimprobable he would have owned it above all the pains and skill he was\nmaster of, to form the above-mentioned idea of a triangle, which is made\nup of manifest staring contradictions. That a man [of such a clear\nunderstanding(422)], who thought so much and so well, and laid so great a\nstress on clear and determinate ideas, should nevertheless talk at this\nrate, seems very surprising. But the wonder will lessen, if it be\nconsidered that the source whence this opinion [of abstract figures and\nextension (423)] flows is the prolific womb which has brought forth\ninnumerable errors and difficulties, in all parts of philosophy, and in\nall the sciences. But this matter, taken in its full extent, were a\nsubject too vast and comprehensive to be insisted on in this place(424).\n[I shall only observe that your metaphysicians and men of speculation seem\nto have faculties distinct from those of ordinary men, when they talk of\ngeneral or abstracted triangles and circles, &c., and so peremptorily\ndeclare them to be the subject of all the eternal, immutable, universal\ntruths in geometry(425).] And so much for extension in abstract.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n126. Some, perhaps, may think pure space, vacuum, or trine dimension, to\nbe equally the object of sight and touch(426). But, though we have a very\ngreat propension to think the ideas of outness and space to be the\nimmediate object of sight, yet, if I mistake not, in the foregoing parts\nof this _Essay_, that hath been clearly demonstrated to be a mere\ndelusion, arising from the quick and sudden suggestion of fancy, which so\nclosely connects the idea of distance with those of sight, that we are apt\nto think it is itself a proper and immediate object of that sense, till\nreason corrects the mistake(427).\n\n127. It having been shewn that there are no abstract ideas of figure, and\nthat it is impossible for us, by any precision of thought, to frame an\nidea of extension separate from all other visible and tangible qualities,\nwhich shall be common both to sight and touch\u2014the question now remaining\nis(428), whether the particular extensions, figures, and motions perceived\nby sight, be of the same kind with the particular extensions, figures, and\nmotions perceived by touch? In answer to which I shall venture to lay down\nthe following proposition:\u2014_The extension, figures, and motions perceived\nby sight are specifically distinct from the ideas of touch, called by the\nsame names; nor is there any such thing as one idea, or kind of idea,\ncommon_(429)_ to both senses._ This proposition may, without much\ndifficulty, be collected from what hath been said in several places of\nthis Essay. But, because it seems so remote from, and contrary to the\nreceived notions and settled opinion of mankind, I shall attempt to\ndemonstrate it more particularly and at large by the following arguments:\u2014\n\n128. [_First_(430),] When, upon perception of an idea, I range it under\nthis or that sort, it is because it is perceived after the same manner, or\nbecause it has a likeness or conformity with, or affects me in the same\nway as the ideas of the sort I rank it under. In short, it must not be\nentirely new, but have something in it old and already perceived by me. It\nmust, I say, have so much, at least, in common with the ideas I have\nbefore known and named, as to make me give it the same name with them.\nBut, it has been, if I mistake not, clearly made out(431) that a man born\nblind would not, at first reception of his sight, think the things he saw\nwere of the same nature with the objects of touch, or had anything in\ncommon with them; but that they were a new set of ideas, perceived in a\nnew manner, and entirely different from all he had ever perceived before.\nSo that he would not call them by the same name, nor repute them to be of\nthe same sort, with anything he had hitherto known. [And surely the\njudgment of such an unprejudiced person is more to be relied on in this\ncase than the sentiments of the generality of men; who, in this as in\nalmost everything else, suffer themselves to be guided by custom, and the\nerroneous suggestions of prejudice, rather than reason and sedate\nreflection(432).]\n\n129. _Secondly_, Light and colours are allowed by all to constitute a sort\nor species entirely different from the ideas of touch; nor will any man, I\npresume, say they can make themselves perceived by that sense. But there\nis no other immediate object of sight besides light and colours(433). It\nis therefore a direct consequence, that there is no idea common to both\nsenses.\n\n130. It is a prevailing opinion, even amongst those who have thought and\nwrit most accurately concerning our ideas, and the ways whereby they enter\ninto the understanding, that something more is perceived by sight than\nbarely light and colours with their variations. [The excellent(434)] Mr.\nLocke termeth sight \u201cthe most comprehensive of all our senses, conveying\nto our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to\nthat sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and\nmotion.\u201d (_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. iii. ch. 9. s. 9.) Space or\ndistance(435), we have shewn, is no otherwise the object of sight than of\nhearing. (Vid. sect. 46.) And, as for figure and extension, I leave it to\nany one that shall calmly attend to his own clear and distinct ideas to\ndecide whether he has any idea intromitted immediately and properly by\nsight save only light and colours: or, whether it be possible for him to\nframe in his mind a distinct abstract idea of visible extension, or\nfigure, exclusive of all colour; and, on the other hand, whether he can\nconceive colour without visible extension? For my own part, I must\nconfess, I am not able to attain so great a nicety of abstraction. I know\nvery well that, in a strict sense, I see nothing but light and colours,\nwith their several shades and variations. He who beside these doth also\nperceive by sight ideas far different and distinct from them, hath that\nfaculty in a degree more perfect and comprehensive than I can pretend to.\nIt must be owned, indeed, that, by the mediation of light and colours,\nother far different ideas are suggested to my mind. But so they are by\nhearing(436). But then, upon this score, I see no reason why the sight\nshould be thought more comprehensive than the hearing, which, beside\nsounds which are peculiar to that sense, doth, by their mediation, suggest\nnot only space, figure, and motion, but also all other ideas whatsoever\nthat can be signified by words.\n\n131. _Thirdly_, It is, I think, an axiom universally received, that\n\u201cquantities of the same kind may be added together and make one entire\nsum.\u201d Mathematicians add lines together; but they do not add a line to a\nsolid, or conceive it as making one sum with a surface. These three kinds\nof quantity being thought incapable of any such mutual addition, and\nconsequently of being compared together in the several ways of proportion,\nare by them for that reason esteemed entirely disparate and heterogeneous.\nNow let any one try in his thoughts to add a visible line or surface to a\ntangible line or surface, so as to conceive them making one continued sum\nor whole. He that can do this may think them homogeneous; but he that\ncannot must, by the foregoing axiom, think them heterogeneous. [I\nacknowledge myself to be of the latter sort(437).] A blue and a red line I\ncan conceive added together into one sum and making one continued line;\nbut, to make, in my thoughts, one continued line of a visible and tangible\nline added together, is, I find, a task far more difficult, and even\ninsurmountable\u2014and I leave it to the reflection and experience of every\nparticular person to determine for himself.\n\n132. A farther confirmation of our tenet may be drawn from the solution of\nMr. Molyneux\u2019s problem, published by Mr. Locke in his _Essay_(438): which\nI shall set down as it there lies, together with Mr. Locke\u2019s opinion of\nit:\u2014\u201cSuppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to\ndistinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of\nthe same bigness, so as to tell when he felt one and the other, which is\nthe cube, and which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on\na table, and the blind man made to see: Qu\u00e6re, Whether by his sight,\nbefore he touched them, he could now distinguish, and tell, which is the\nglobe, which the cube. To which the acute and judicious proposer answers:\nNot. For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube\naffects his touch; yet he has not yet attained the experience, that what\naffects his touch so or so must affect his sight so or so: or that a\nprotuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall\nappear to his eye as it doth in the cube. I agree with this thinking\ngentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this his\nproblem; and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not\nbe able with certainty to say, which was the globe, which the cube, whilst\nhe only saw them.\u201d (_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. ii. ch. 9. s. 8.)\n\n133. Now, if a square surface perceived by touch be of the same sort with\na square surface perceived by sight, it is certain the blind man here\nmentioned might know a square surface as soon as he saw it. It is no more\nbut introducing into his mind, by a new inlet, an idea he has been already\nwell acquainted with. Since therefore he is supposed to have known by his\ntouch that a cube is a body terminated by square surfaces; and that a\nsphere is not terminated by square surfaces\u2014upon the supposition that a\nvisible and tangible square differ only _in numero_, it follows that he\nmight know, by the unerring mark of the square surfaces, which was the\ncube, and which not, while he only saw them. We must therefore allow,\neither that visible extension and figures are specifically distinct from\ntangible extension and figures, or else, that the solution of this\nproblem, given by those two [very(439)] thoughtful and ingenious men, is\nwrong.\n\n134. Much more might be laid together in proof of the proposition I have\nadvanced. But, what has been said is, if I mistake not, sufficient to\nconvince any one that shall yield a reasonable attention. And, as for\nthose that will not be at the pains of a little thought, no multiplication\nof words will ever suffice to make them understand the truth, or rightly\nconceive my meaning(440).\n\n135. I cannot let go the above-mentioned problem without some reflection\non it. It hath been made evident that a man blind from his birth would\nnot, at first sight, denominate anything he saw, by the names he had been\nused to appropriate to ideas of touch. (Vid. sect. 106.) Cube, sphere,\ntable are words he has known applied to things perceivable by touch, but\nto things perfectly intangible he never knew them applied. Those words, in\ntheir wonted application, always marked out to his mind bodies or solid\nthings which were perceived by the resistance they gave. But there is no\nsolidity, no resistance or protrusion, perceived by sight. In short, the\nideas of sight are all new perceptions, to which there be no names annexed\nin his mind; he cannot therefore understand what is said to him concerning\nthem. And, to ask of the two bodies he saw placed on the table, which was\nthe sphere, which the cube, were to him a question downright bantering and\nunintelligible; nothing he sees being able to suggest to his thoughts the\nidea of body, distance, or, in general, of anything he had already known.\n\n136. It is a mistake to think the same(441) thing affects both sight and\ntouch. If the same angle or square which is the object of touch be also\nthe object of vision, what should hinder the blind man, at first sight,\nfrom knowing it? For, though the manner wherein it affects the sight be\ndifferent from that wherein it affected his touch, yet, there being,\nbeside this manner or circumstance, which is new and unknown, the angle or\nfigure, which is old and known, he cannot choose but discern it.\n\n137. Visible figure and extension having been demonstrated to be of a\nnature entirely different and heterogeneous from tangible figure and\nextension, it remains that we inquire concerning motion. Now, that visible\nmotion is not of the same sort with tangible motion seems to need no\nfarther proof; it being an evident corollary from what we have shewn\nconcerning the difference there is betwixt visible and tangible extension.\nBut, for a more full and express proof hereof, we need only observe that\none who had not yet experienced vision would not at first sight know\nmotion(442). Whence it clearly follows that motion perceivable by sight is\nof a sort distinct from motion perceivable by touch. The antecedent I\nprove thus\u2014By touch he could not perceive any motion but what was up or\ndown, to the right or left, nearer or farther from him; besides these, and\ntheir several varieties or complications, it is impossible he should have\nany idea of motion. He would not therefore think anything to be motion, or\ngive the name motion to any idea, which he could not range under some or\nother of those particular kinds thereof. But, from sect. 95, it is plain\nthat, by the mere act of vision, he could not know motion upwards or\ndownwards, to the right or left, or in any other possible direction. From\nwhich I conclude, he would not know motion at all at first sight. As for\nthe idea of motion in abstract, I shall not waste paper about it, but\nleave it to my reader to make the best he can of it. To me it is perfectly\nunintelligible(443).\n\n138. The consideration of motion may furnish a new field for inquiry(444).\nBut, since the manner wherein the mind apprehends by sight the motion of\ntangible objects, with the various degrees thereof, may be easily\ncollected from what has been said concerning the manner wherein that sense\ndoth suggest their various distances, magnitudes, and situations, I shall\nnot enlarge any farther on this subject, but proceed to inquire what may\nbe alleged, with greatest appearance of reason, against the proposition we\nhave demonstrated to be true; for, where there is so much prejudice to be\nencountered, a bare and naked demonstration of the truth will scarce\nsuffice. We must also satisfy the scruples that men may start in favour of\ntheir preconceived notions, shew whence the mistake arises, how it came to\nspread, and carefully disclose and root out those false persuasions that\nan early prejudice might have implanted in the mind.\n\n139. _First_, therefore, it will be demanded how visible extension and\nfigures come to be called by the same name with tangible extension and\nfigures, if they are not of the same kind with them? It must be something\nmore than humour or accident that could occasion a custom so constant and\nuniversal as this, which has obtained in all ages and nations of the\nworld, and amongst all ranks of men, the learned as well as the\nilliterate.\n\n140. To which I answer, we can no more argue a visible and tangible square\nto be of the same species, from their being called by the same name, than\nwe can that a tangible square, and the monosyllable consisting of six\nletters whereby it is marked, are of the same species, because they are\nboth called by the same name. It is customary to call written words, and\nthe things they signify, by the same name: for, words not being regarded\nin their own nature, or otherwise than as they are marks of things, it had\nbeen superfluous, and beside the design of language, to have given them\nnames distinct from those of the things marked by them. The same reason\nholds here also. Visible figures are the marks of tangible figures; and,\nfrom sect. 59, it is plain that in themselves they are little regarded, or\nupon any other score than for their connexion with tangible figures, which\nby nature they are ordained to signify. And, because this language of\nnature(445) does not vary in different ages or nations, hence it is that\nin all times and places visible figures are called by the same names as\nthe respective tangible figures suggested by them; and not because they\nare alike, or of the same sort with them.\n\n141. But, say you, surely a tangible square is liker to a visible square\nthan to a visible circle: it has four angles, and as many sides; so also\nhas the visible square\u2014but the visible circle has no such thing, being\nbounded by one uniform curve, without right lines or angles, which makes\nit unfit to represent the tangible square, but very fit to represent the\ntangible circle. Whence it clearly follows, that visible figures are\npatterns of, or of the same species with, the respective tangible figures\nrepresented by them; that they are like unto them, and of their own nature\nfitted to represent them, as being of the same sort; and that they are in\nno respect arbitrary signs, as words.\n\n142. I answer, it must be acknowledged the visible square is fitter than\nthe visible circle to represent the tangible square, but then it is not\nbecause it is liker, or more of a species with it; but, because the\nvisible square contains in it several distinct parts, whereby to mark the\nseveral distinct corresponding parts of a tangible square, whereas the\nvisible circle doth not. The square perceived by touch hath four distinct\nequal sides, so also hath it four distinct equal angles. It is therefore\nnecessary that the visible figure which shall be most proper to mark it\ncontain four distinct equal parts, corresponding to the four sides of the\ntangible square; as likewise four other distinct and equal parts, whereby\nto denote the four equal angles of the tangible square. And accordingly we\nsee the visible figures contain in them distinct visible parts, answering\nto the distinct tangible parts of the figures signified or suggested by\nthem.\n\n143. But, it will not hence follow that any visible figure is like unto or\nof the same species with its corresponding tangible figure\u2014unless it be\nalso shewn that not only the number, but also the kind of the parts be the\nsame in both. To illustrate this, I observe that visible figures represent\ntangible figures much after the same manner that written words do sounds.\nNow, in this respect, words are not arbitrary; it not being indifferent\nwhat written word stands for any sound. But, it is requisite that each\nword contain in it as many distinct characters as there are variations in\nthe sound it stands for. Thus, the single letter _a_ is proper to mark one\nsimple uniform sound; and the word _adultery_ is accommodated to represent\nthe sound annexed to it\u2014in the formation whereof there being eight\ndifferent collisions or modifications of the air by the organs of speech,\neach of which produces a difference of sound, it was fit the word\nrepresenting it should consist of as many distinct characters, thereby to\nmark each particular difference or part of the whole sound. And yet\nnobody, I presume, will say the single letter _a_, or the word _adultery_,\nare alike unto or of the same species with the respective sounds by them\nrepresented. It is indeed arbitrary that, in general, letters of any\nlanguage represent sounds at all; but, when that is once agreed, it is not\narbitrary what combination of letters shall represent this or that\nparticular sound. I leave this with the reader to pursue, and apply it in\nhis own thoughts.\n\n144. It must be confessed that we are not so apt to confound other signs\nwith the things signified, or to think them of the same species, as we are\nvisible and tangible ideas. But, a little consideration will shew us how\nthis may well be, without our supposing them of a like nature. These signs\nare constant and universal; their connexion with tangible ideas has been\nlearnt at our first entrance into the world; and ever since, almost every\nmoment of our lives, it has been occurring to our thoughts, and fastening\nand striking deeper on our minds. When we observe that signs are variable,\nand of human institution; when we remember there was a time they were not\nconnected in our minds with those things they now so readily suggest, but\nthat their signification was learned by the slow steps of experience: this\npreserves us from confounding them. But, when we find the same signs\nsuggest the same things all over the world; when we know they are not of\nhuman institution, and cannot remember that we ever learned their\nsignification, but think that at first sight they would have suggested to\nus the same things they do now: all this persuades us they are of the same\nspecies as the things respectively represented by them, and that it is by\na natural resemblance they suggest them to our minds.\n\n145. Add to this that whenever we make a nice survey of any object,\nsuccessively directing the optic axis to each point thereof, there are\ncertain lines and figures, described by the motion of the head or eye,\nwhich, being in truth perceived by feeling(446), do nevertheless so mix\nthemselves, as it were, with the ideas of sight that we can scarce think\nbut they appertain to that sense. Again, the ideas of sight enter into the\nmind several at once, more distinct and unmingled than is usual in the\nother senses beside the touch. Sounds, for example, perceived at the same\ninstant, are apt to coalesce, if I may so say, into one sound: but we can\nperceive, at the same time, great variety of visible objects, very\nseparate and distinct from each other. Now, tangible(447) extension being\nmade up of several distinct coexistent parts, we may hence gather another\nreason that may dispose us to imagine a likeness or analogy between the\nimmediate objects of sight and touch. But nothing, certainly, does more\ncontribute to blend and confound them together, than the strict and close\nconnexion(448) they have with each other. We cannot open our eyes but the\nideas of distance, bodies, and tangible figures are suggested by them. So\nswift, and sudden, and unperceived is the transit from visible to tangible\nideas that we can scarce forbear thinking them equally the immediate\nobject of vision.\n\n146. The prejudice(449) which is grounded on these, and whatever other\ncauses may be assigned thereof, sticks so fast on our understandings, that\nit is impossible, without obstinate striving and labour of the mind, to\nget entirely clear of it. But then the reluctancy we find in rejecting any\nopinion can be no argument of its truth, to whoever considers what has\nbeen already shewn with regard to the prejudices we entertain concerning\nthe distance, magnitude, and situation of objects; prejudices so familiar\nto our minds, so confirmed and inveterate, as they will hardly give way to\nthe clearest demonstration.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n147. Upon the whole, I think we may fairly conclude(450) that the proper\nobjects of Vision constitute the Universal Language of Nature; whereby we\nare instructed how to regulate our actions, in order to attain those\nthings that are necessary to the preservation and well-being of our\nbodies, as also to avoid whatever may be hurtful and destructive of them.\nIt is by their information that we are principally guided in all the\ntransactions and concerns of life. And the manner wherein they signify and\nmark out unto us the objects which are at a distance is the same with that\nof languages and signs of human appointment; which do not suggest the\nthings signified by any likeness or identity of nature, but only by an\nhabitual connexion that experience has made us to observe between\nthem(451).\n\n148. Suppose one who had always continued blind be told by his guide that\nafter he has advanced so many steps he shall come to the brink of a\nprecipice, or be stopped by a wall; must not this to him seem very\nadmirable and surprising? He cannot conceive how it is possible for\nmortals to frame such predictions as these, which to him would seem as\nstrange and unaccountable as prophecy does to others. Even they who are\nblessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make it less\nobserved) find therein sufficient cause of admiration. The wonderful art\nand contrivance wherewith it is adjusted to those ends and purposes for\nwhich it was apparently designed; the vast extent, number, and variety of\nobjects that are at once, with so much ease, and quickness, and pleasure,\nsuggested by it\u2014all these afford subject for much and pleasing\nspeculation, and may, if anything, give us some glimmering analogous\npr\u00e6notion of things, that are placed beyond the certain discovery and\ncomprehension of our present state(452).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n149. I do not design to trouble myself much with drawing corollaries from\nthe doctrine I have hitherto laid down. If it bears the test, others may,\nso far as they shall think convenient, employ their thoughts in extending\nit farther, and applying it to whatever purposes it may be subservient to.\nOnly, I cannot forbear making some inquiry concerning the object of\ngeometry, which the subject we have been upon does naturally lead one to.\nWe have shewn there is no such idea as that of extension in abstract(453);\nand that there are two kinds of sensible extension and figures, which are\nentirely distinct and heterogeneous from each other(454). Now, it is\nnatural to inquire which of these is the object of geometry(455).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n150. Some things there are which, at first sight, incline one to think\ngeometry conversant about visible extension. The constant use of the eyes,\nboth in the practical and speculative parts of that science, doth very\nmuch induce us thereto. It would, without doubt, seem odd to a\nmathematician to go about to convince him the diagrams he saw upon paper\nwere not the figures, or even the likeness of the figures, which make the\nsubject of the demonstration\u2014the contrary being held an unquestionable\ntruth, not only by mathematicians, but also by those who apply themselves\nmore particularly to the study of logic; I mean who consider the nature of\nscience, certainty, and demonstration; it being by them assigned as one\nreason of the extraordinary clearness and evidence of geometry, that in\nthat science the reasonings are free from those inconveniences which\nattend the use of arbitrary signs, the very ideas themselves being copied\nout, and exposed to view upon paper. But, by the bye, how well this agrees\nwith what they likewise assert of abstract ideas being the object of\ngeometrical demonstration I leave to be considered.\n\n151. To come to a resolution in this point, we need only observe what has\nbeen said in sect. 59, 60, 61, where it is shewn that visible extensions\nin themselves are little regarded, and have no settled determinate\ngreatness, and that men measure altogether by the application of tangible\nextension to tangible extension. All which makes it evident that visible\nextension and figures are not the object of geometry.\n\n152. It is therefore plain that visible figures are of the same use in\ngeometry that words are. And the one may as well be accounted the object\nof that science as the other; neither of them being any otherwise\nconcerned therein than as they represent or suggest to the mind the\nparticular tangible figures connected with them. There is, indeed, this\ndifference betwixt the signification of tangible figures by visible\nfigures, and of ideas by words\u2014that whereas the latter is variable and\nuncertain, depending altogether on the arbitrary appointment of men, the\nformer is fixed, and immutably the same in all times and places. A visible\nsquare, for instance, suggests to the mind the same tangible figure in\nEurope that it doth in America. Hence it is, that the voice of nature,\nwhich speaks to our eyes, is not liable to that misinterpretation and\nambiguity that languages of human contrivance are unavoidably subject\nto(456). From which may, in some measure, be derived that peculiar\nevidence and clearness of geometrical demonstrations.\n\n153. Though what has been said may suffice to shew what ought to be\ndetermined with relation to the object of geometry, I shall, nevertheless,\nfor the fuller illustration thereof, take into my thoughts the case of an\nintelligence or unbodied spirit, which is supposed to see perfectly well,\ni.e. to have a clear perception of the proper and immediate objects of\nsight, but to have no sense of touch(457). Whether there be any such being\nin nature or no, is beside my purpose to inquire; it suffices, that the\nsupposition contains no contradiction in it. Let us now examine what\nproficiency such a one may be able to make in geometry. Which speculation\nwill lead us more clearly to see whether the ideas of sight can possibly\nbe the object of that science.\n\n154. _First_, then, it is certain the aforesaid intelligence could have no\nidea of a solid or quantity of three dimensions, which follows from its\nnot having any idea of distance. We, indeed, are prone to think that we\nhave by sight the ideas of space and solids; which arises from our\nimagining that we do, strictly speaking, see distance, and some parts of\nan object at a greater distance than others; which has been demonstrated\nto be the effect of the experience we have had what ideas of touch are\nconnected with such and such ideas attending vision. But the intelligence\nhere spoken of is supposed to have no experience of touch. He would not,\ntherefore, judge as we do, nor have any idea of distance, outness, or\nprofundity, nor consequently of space or body, either immediately or by\nsuggestion. Whence it is plain he can have no notion of those parts of\ngeometry which relate to the mensuration of solids, and their convex or\nconcave surfaces, and contemplate the properties of lines generated by the\nsection of a solid. The conceiving of any part whereof is beyond the reach\nof his faculties.\n\n155. _Farther_, he cannot comprehend the manner wherein geometers describe\na right line or circle; the rule and compass, with their use, being things\nof which it is impossible he should have any notion. Nor is it an easier\nmatter for him to conceive the placing of one plane or angle on another,\nin order to prove their equality; since that supposes some idea of\ndistance, or external space. All which makes it evident our pure\nintelligence could never attain to know so much as the first elements of\nplain geometry. And perhaps, upon a nice inquiry, it will be found he\ncannot even have an idea of plain figures any more than he can of solids;\nsince some idea of distance is necessary to form the idea of a geometrical\nplane, as will appear to whoever shall reflect a little on it.\n\n156. All that is properly perceived by the visive faculty amounts to no\nmore than colours with their variations, and different proportions of\nlight and shade\u2014but the perpetual mutability and fleetingness of those\nimmediate objects of sight render them incapable of being managed after\nthe manner of geometrical figures; nor is it in any degree useful that\nthey should. It is true there be divers of them perceived at once; and\nmore of some, and less of others: but accurately to compute their\nmagnitude, and assign precise determinate proportions between things so\nvariable and inconstant, if we suppose it possible to be done, must yet be\na very trifling and insignificant labour.\n\n157. I must confess, it seems to be the opinion of some very ingenious men\nthat flat or plane figures are immediate objects of sight, though they\nacknowledge solids are not. And this opinion of theirs is grounded on what\nis observed in painting, wherein (say they) the ideas immediately\nimprinted in the mind are only of planes variously coloured, which, by a\nsudden act of the judgment, are changed into solids: but, with a little\nattention, we shall find the planes here mentioned as the immediate\nobjects of sight are not visible but tangible planes. For, when we say\nthat pictures are planes, we mean thereby that they appear to the touch\nsmooth and uniform. But then this smoothness and uniformity, or, in other\nwords, this planeness of the picture is not perceived immediately by\nvision; for it appeareth to the eye various and multiform.\n\n158. From all which we may conclude that planes are no more the immediate\nobject of sight than solids. What we strictly see are not solids, nor yet\nplanes variously coloured\u2014they are only diversity of colours. And some of\nthese suggest to the mind solids, and others plane figures; just as they\nhave been experienced to be connected with the one or the other: so that\nwe see planes in the same way that we see solids\u2014both being equally\nsuggested by the immediate objects of sight, which accordingly are\nthemselves denominated planes and solids. But, though they are called by\nthe same names with the things marked by them, they are, nevertheless, of\na nature entirely different, as hath been demonstrated(458).\n\n159. What has been said is, if I mistake not, sufficient to decide the\nquestion we proposed to examine, concerning the ability of a pure spirit,\nsuch as we have described, to know geometry. It is, indeed, no easy matter\nfor us to enter precisely into the thoughts of such an intelligence;\nbecause we cannot, without great pains, cleverly separate and disentangle\nin our thoughts the proper objects of sight from those of touch which are\nconnected with them. This, indeed, in a complete degree seems scarce\npossible to be performed; which will not seem strange to us, if we\nconsider how hard it is for any one to hear the words of his native\nlanguage, which is familiar to him, pronounced in his ears without\nunderstanding them. Though he endeavour to disunite the meaning from the\nsound, it will nevertheless intrude into his thoughts, and he shall find\nit extreme difficult, if not impossible, to put himself exactly in the\nposture of a foreigner that never learnt the language, so as to be\naffected barely with the sounds themselves, and not perceive the\nsignification annexed to them.\n\n160. By this time, I suppose, it is clear that neither abstract nor\nvisible extension makes the object of geometry; the not discerning of\nwhich may, perhaps, have created some difficulty and useless labour in\nmathematics. [(459)Sure I am that somewhat relating thereto has occurred\nto my thoughts; which, though after the most anxious and repeated\nexamination I am forced to think it true, doth, nevertheless, seem so far\nout of the common road of geometry, that I know not whether it may not be\nthought presumption if I should make it public, in an age wherein that\nscience hath received such mighty improvements by new methods; great part\nwhereof, as well as of the ancient discoveries, may perhaps lose their\nreputation, and much of that ardour with which men study the abstruse and\nfine geometry be abated, if what to me, and those few to whom I have\nimparted it, seems evidently true, should really prove to be so.]\n\n\n\n\nAn Appendix To The Essay On Vision\n\n\n[_This Appendix is contained only in the second edition._]\n\nThe censures which, I am informed, have been made on the foregoing _Essay_\ninclined me to think I had not been clear and express enough in some\npoints; and, to prevent being misunderstood for the future, I was willing\nto make any necessary alterations or additions in what I had written. But\nthat was impracticable, the present edition having been almost finished\nbefore I received this information. Wherefore, I think it proper to\nconsider in this place the principal objections that are come to my\nnotice.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn the _first_ place, it is objected, that in the beginning of the Essay I\nargue either against all use of lines and angles in optics, and then what\nI say is false; or against those writers only who will have it that we can\nperceive by sense the optic axes, angles, &c., and then it is\ninsignificant, this being an absurdity which no one ever held. To which I\nanswer that I argue only against those who are of opinion that we perceive\nthe distance of objects by lines and angles, or, as they term it, by a\nkind of innate geometry. And, to shew that this is not fighting with my\nown shadow, I shall here set down a passage from the celebrated Des\nCartes(460):\u2014\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n\u201cDistantiam pr\u00e6terea discimus, per mutuam quandam conspirationem oculorum.\nUt enim c\u00e6cus noster duo bacilla tenens, _A E_ et _C E_, de quorum\nlongitudine incertus, solumque intervallum manuum _A_ et _C_, cum\nmagnitudine angulorum _A C E_, et _C A E_ exploratum habens, inde, ut ex\nGeometria quadam omnibus innata, scire potest ubi sit punctum _E_. Sic\nquum nostri oculi _R S T_ et _r s t_ ambo, vertuntur ad _X_, magnitudo\nline\u00e6 _S s_, et angulorum _X S s_ et _X s S_, certos nos reddunt ubi sit\npunctum _X_. Et idem opera alterutrius possumus indagare, loco illum\nmovendo, ut si versus _X_ illum semper dirigentes, prime sistamus in\npuncto _S_, et statim post in puncto _s_, hoc sufficiet ut magnitudo line\u00e6\n_S s_, et duorum angulorum _X S s_ et _X s S_ nostr\u00e6 imaginationi simul\noccurrant, et distantiam puncti _X_ nos edoceant: idque per actionem\nmentis, qu\u00e6 licet simplex judicium esse videatur, ratiocinationem tamen\nquandam involutam habet, similem illi, qua Geometr\u00e6 per duas stationes\ndiversas, loca inaccessa dimetiuntur.\u201d\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\nI might amass together citations from several authors to the same purpose,\nbut, this being so clear in the point, and from an author of so great\nnote, I shall not trouble the reader with any more. What I have said on\nthis head was not for the sake of rinding fault with other men; but,\nbecause I judged it necessary to demonstrate in the first place that we\nneither see distance _immediately_, nor yet perceive it by the mediation\nof anything that hath (as lines and angles) a _necessary_ connexion with\nit. For on the demonstration of this point the whole theory depends(461).\n\n_Secondly_, it is objected, that the explication I give of the appearance\nof the horizontal moon (which may also be applied to the sun) is the same\nthat Gassendus had given before. I answer, there is indeed mention made of\nthe grossness of the atmosphere in both; but then the methods wherein it\nis applied to solve the phenomenon are widely different, as will be\nevident to whoever shall compare what I have said on this subject with the\nfollowing words of Gassendus:\u2014\n\n\u201cHeinc dici posse videtur: solem humilem oculo spectatum ideo apparere\nmajorem, quam dum altius egreditur, quia dum vicinus est horizonti prolixa\nest series vaporum, atque adeo corpusculorum qu\u00e6 solis radios ita\nretundunt, ut oculus minus conniveat, et pupilla quasi umbrefacta longe\nmagis amplificetur, quam dum sole multum elato rari vapores\nintercipiuntur, solque ipse ita splendescit, ut pupilla in ipsum spectans\ncontractissima efficiatur. Nempe ex hoc esse videtur, cur visibilis\nspecies ex sole procedens, et per pupillam amplificatam intromissa in\nretinam, ampliorem in illa sedem occupet, majoremque proinde creet solis\napparentiam, quam dum per contractam pupillam eodem intromissa contendit.\u201d\nVid. _Epist. 1. De Apparente Magnitudine Solis Humilis et Sublimis_, p. 6.\nThis solution of Gassendus proceeds on a false principle, to wit, that the\npupil\u2019s being enlarged augments the species or image on the fund of the\neye.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n_Thirdly_, against what is said in Sect. 80, it is objected, that the same\nthing which is so small as scarce to be discerned by a man, may appear\nlike a mountain to some small insect; from which it follows that the\n_minimum visibile_ is not equal in respect of all creatures(462). I\nanswer, if this objection be sounded to the bottom, it will be found to\nmean no more than that the same particle of matter which is marked to a\nman by one _minimum visibile_, exhibits to an insect a great number of\n_minima visibilia_. But this does not prove that one _minimum visibile_ of\nthe insect is not equal to one _minimum visibile_ of the man. The not\ndistinguishing between the mediate and immediate objects of sight is, I\nsuspect, a cause of misapprehension in this matter.\n\nSome other misinterpretations and difficulties have been made, but, in the\npoints they refer to, I have endeavoured to be so very plain that I know\nnot how to express myself more clearly. All I shall add is, that if they\nwho are pleased to criticise on my _Essay_ would but read the whole over\nwith some attention, they might be the better able to comprehend my\nmeaning, and consequently to judge of my mistakes.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nI am informed that, soon after the first edition of this treatise, a man\nsomewhere near London was made to see, who had been born blind, and\ncontinued so for about twenty years(463). Such a one may be supposed a\nproper judge to decide how far some tenets laid down in several places of\nthe foregoing Essay are agreeable to truth; and if any curious person hath\nthe opportunity of making proper interrogatories to him thereon, I should\ngladly see my notions either amended or confirmed by experience(464).\n\n\n\n\n\nA TREATISE CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE\n\n\n[(465)PART I]\n\nWHEREIN THE CHIEF CAUSES OF ERROR AND DIFFICULTY IN THE SCIENCES, WITH THE\nGROUNDS OF SCEPTICISM, ATHEISM, AND IRRELIGION, ARE INQUIRED INTO\n\n_First Published in 1710_\n\n\n\n\nEditor\u2019s Preface To The Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human\nKnowledge\n\n\nThis book of _Principles_ contains the most systematic and reasoned\nexposition of Berkeley\u2019s philosophy, in its early stage, which we possess.\nLike the _Essay on Vision_, its tentative pioneer, it was prepared at\nTrinity College, Dublin. Its author had hardly completed his twenty-fifth\nyear when it was published. The first edition of this \u201cFirst Part\u201d of the\nprojected Treatise, \u201cprinted by Aaron Rhames, for Jeremy Pepyat,\nbookseller in Skinner Row, Dublin,\u201d appeared early in 1710. A second\nedition, with minor changes, and in which \u201cPart I\u201d was withdrawn from the\ntitle-page, was published in London in 1734, \u201cprinted for Jacob Tonson\u201d\u2014on\nthe eve of Berkeley\u2019s settlement at Cloyne. It was the last in the\nauthor\u2019s lifetime. The projected \u201cSecond Part\u201d of the _Principles_ was\nnever given to the world, and we can hardly conjecture its design. In a\nletter in 1729 to his American friend, Samuel Johnson, Berkeley mentions\nthat he had \u201cmade considerable progress on the Second Part,\u201d but \u201cthe\nmanuscript,\u201d he adds, \u201cwas lost about fourteen years ago, during my\ntravels in Italy; and I never had leisure since to do so disagreeable a\nthing as writing twice on the same subject(466).\u201d\n\nAn edition of the _Principles_ appeared in London in 1776, twenty-three\nyears after Berkeley\u2019s death, with a running commentary of _Remarks_ by\nthe anonymous editor, on the pages opposite the text, in which, according\nto the editor, Berkeley\u2019s doctrines are \u201ccarefully examined, and shewn to\nbe repugnant to fact, and his principles to be incompatible with the\nconstitution of human nature and the reason and fitness of things.\u201d In\nthis volume the _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ are appended to\nthe _Principles_, and a \u201cPhilosophical Discourse concerning the nature of\nHuman Being\u201d is prefixed to the whole, \u201cbeing a defence of Mr. Locke\u2019s\nprinciples, and some remarks on Dr. Beattie\u2019s _Essay on Truth_,\u201d by the\nauthor of the _Remarks on Berkeley\u2019s Principles_. The acuteness of the\n_Remarks_ is not in proportion to their bulk and diffuseness: many popular\nmisconceptions of Berkeley are served up, without appreciation of the\nimpotence of matter, and of natural causation as only passive\nsense-symbolism, which is at the root of the theory of the material world\nagainst which the _Remarks_ are directed.\n\nThe Kantian and post-Kantian Idealism that is characteristic of the\nnineteenth century has recalled attention to Berkeley, who had produced\nhis spiritual philosophy under the prevailing conditions of English\nthought in the preceding age, when Idealism in any form was uncongenial.\nIn 1869 the book of _Principles_ was translated into German, with\nannotations, by Ueberweg, professor of philosophy at K\u00f6nigsberg, the\nuniversity of Kant. The Clarendon Press edition of the Collected Works of\nBerkeley followed in 1871. In 1874 an edition of the _Principles_, by Dr.\nKranth, Professor of Philosophy in the university of Pennsylvania,\nappeared in America, with annotations drawn largely from the Clarendon\nPress edition and Ueberweg. In 1878 Dr. Collyns Simon republished the\n_Principles_, with discussions based upon the text, followed by an\nappendix of remarks on Kant and Hume in their relation to Berkeley.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe book of _Principles_, as we have it, must be taken as a systematic\nfragment of an incompletely developed philosophy. Many years after its\nappearance, the author thus describes the conditions:\u2014\u201cIt was published\nwhen I was very young, and without doubt hath many defects. For though the\nnotions should be true (as I verily think they are), yet it is difficult\nto express them clearly and consistently, language being framed for common\nuse and received prejudices. I do not therefore pretend that my books can\nteach truth. All I hope for is that they may be an occasion to inquisitive\nmen of discovering truth(467).\u201d Again:\u2014\u201cI had no inclination to trouble\nthe world with large volumes. What I have done was rather with the view of\ngiving hints to thinking men, who have leisure and curiosity to go to the\nbottom of things, and pursue them in their own minds. Two or three times\nreading these small tracts (_Essay on Vision_, _Principles_, _Dialogues_,\n_De Motu_), and making what is read the occasion of thinking, would, I\nbelieve, render the whole familiar and easy to the mind, and take off that\nshocking appearance which hath often been observed to attend speculative\ntruths(468).\u201d The incitements to further and deeper thought thus proposed\nhave met with a more sympathetic response in this generation than in the\nlifetime of Berkeley.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThere is internal evidence in the book of _Principles_ that its author had\nbeen a diligent and critical student of Locke\u2019s _Essay_. Like the _Essay_,\nit is dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke. The word _idea_ is not less\ncharacteristic of the _Principles_ than of the _Essay_, although Berkeley\ngenerally uses it with a narrower application than Locke, confining it to\nphenomena presented objectively to our senses, and their subjective\nreproductions in imagination. With both Berkeley and Locke objective\nphenomena (under the name of ideas) are the materials supplied to man for\nconversion into natural science. Locke\u2019s reduction of ideas into simple\nand complex, as well as some of his subdivisions, reappear with\nmodifications in the _Principles_. Berkeley\u2019s account of Substance and\nPower, Space and Time, while different from Locke\u2019s, still bears marks of\nthe _Essay_. Concrete Substance, which in its ultimate meaning much\nperplexes Locke, is identified with the personal pronouns \u201cI\u201d and \u201cyou\u201d by\nBerkeley, and is thus spiritualised. Cause proper, or Power, he finds only\nin the voluntary activity of persons. Space is presented to us in our\nsensuous experience of resistance to organic movements; while it is\nsymbolised in terms of phenomena presented to sight, as already explained\nin the _Essay on Vision_. Time is revealed in our actual experience of\nchange in the ideas or phenomena of which we are percipient in sense;\nlength of time being calculated by the changes in the adopted measure of\nduration. Infinite space and infinite time, being necessarily incapable of\nfinite ideation, are dismissed as abstractions that for man must always be\nempty of realisable meaning. Indeed, the _Commonplace Book_ shews that\nLocke influenced Berkeley as much by antagonism as otherwise. \u201cSuch was\nthe candour of that great man that I persuade myself, were he alive, he\nwould not be offended that I differed from him, seeing that in so doing I\nfollow his advice to use my own judgment, see with my own eyes and not\nwith another\u2019s.\u201d So he argues against Locke\u2019s opinions about the infinity\nand eternity of space, and the possibility of matter endowed with power to\nthink, and urges his inconsistency in treating some qualities of matter as\nwholly material, while he insists that others, under the name of\n\u201csecondary,\u201d are necessarily dependent on sentient intelligence. Above all\nhe assails Locke\u2019s \u201cabstract ideas\u201d as germs of scepticism\u2014interpreting\nLocke\u2019s meaning paradoxically.\n\nNext to Locke, Descartes and Malebranche are prominent in the\n_Principles_. Recognition of the ultimate supremacy of Spirit, or the\nspiritual character of active power and the constant agency of God in\nnature, suggested by Descartes, was congenial to Berkeley, but he was\nopposed to the mechanical conception of the universe found in the\nCartesian physical treatises. That thought is synonymous with existence is\na formula with which the French philosopher might make him familiar, as\nwell as with the assumption that _ideas only_ are immediate objects of\nhuman perception; an assumption in which Descartes was followed by Locke,\nand philosophical thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,\nbut under differing interpretations of the term _idea_.\n\nMalebranche appears less in the _Principles_ than Locke and Descartes. In\nearly life, at any rate, Berkeley would be less at home in the \u201cdivine\nvision\u201d of Malebranche than among the \u201cideas\u201d of Locke. The mysticism of\nthe _Recherche de la V\u00e9rit\u00e9_ is unlike the transparent lucidity of\nBerkeley\u2019s juvenile thought. But the subordinate place and office of the\nmaterial world in Malebranche\u2019s system, and his conception of power as\nwholly spiritual, approached the New Principles of Berkeley.\n\nPlato and Aristotle hardly appear, either by name or as characteristic\ninfluence, in the book of _Principles_, which in this respect contrasts\nwith the abundant references to ancient and mediaeval thinkers in _Siris_,\nand to a less extent in the _De Motu_ and _Alciphron_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe Introduction to the _Principles_ is a proclamation of war against\n\u201cabstract ideas,\u201d which is renewed in the body of the work, and again more\nthan once in the writings of Berkeley\u2019s early and middle life, but is\nsignificantly withdrawn in his old age. In the ardour of youth, his prime\nremedy for anarchy in philosophy, and for the sceptical disposition which\nphilosophy had been apt to generate, was suppression of abstract ideas as\nimpossible ideas\u2014empty names heedlessly accepted as ideas\u2014an evil to be\ncounteracted by steady adherence to the concrete experience found in our\nsenses and inner consciousness. Never to lose our hold of positive facts,\nand always to individualise general conceptions, are regulative maxims by\nwhich Berkeley would make us govern our investigation of ultimate\nproblems. He takes up his position in the actual universe of applied\nreason; not in the empty void of abstract reason, remote from particulars\nand succession of change, in which no real existence is found. All\nrealisable ideas must be either concrete data of sense, or concrete data\nof inward consciousness. It is relations embodied in particular facts, not\npretended abstract ideas, that give fruitful meaning to common terms.\nAbstract matter, abstract substance, abstract power, abstract space,\nabstract time\u2014unindividualisable in sense or in imagination\u2014must all be\nvoid of meaning; the issue of unlawful analysis, which pretends to find\nwhat is real without the concrete ideas that make the real, because\npercipient spirit is the indispensable factor of all reality. The only\nlawful abstraction is _nominal_\u2014the application, that is to say, of a name\nin common to an indefinite number of things which resemble one another.\nThis is Berkeley\u2019s \u201cNominalism.\u201d\n\nBerkeley takes Locke as the representative advocate of the \u201cabstract\nideas\u201d against which he wages war in the Introduction to the _Principles_.\nUnder cover of an ambiguity in the term _idea_, he is unconsciously\nfighting against a man of straw. He supposes that Locke means by _idea_\nonly a concrete datum of sense, or of imagination; and he argues that we\ncannot without contradiction abstract from all such data, and yet retain\nidea. But Locke includes among _his_ ideas intellectual relations\u2014what\nBerkeley himself afterwards distinguished as _notions_, in contrast with\nideas. This polemic against Locke is therefore one of verbal confusion. In\nlater life he probably saw this, as he saw deeper into the whole question\ninvolved. This is suggested by the omission of the argument against\nabstract ideas, given in earlier editions of _Alciphron_, from the edition\npublished a year before he died. In his juvenile attack on abstractions,\nhis characteristic impetuosity seems to carry him to the extreme of\nrejecting rational relations that are involved in the objectivity of\nsensible things and natural order, thus resting experience at last only on\nphenomena\u2014particular and contingent.\n\nA preparatory draft of the Introduction to the _Principles_, which I found\nin the manuscript department of the library of Trinity College, Dublin, is\nprinted in the appendix to this edition of Berkeley\u2019s Philosophical Works.\nThe variations are of some interest, biographical and philosophical. It\nseems to have been written in the autumn of 1708, and it may with\nadvantage be compared with the text of the finished Introduction, as well\nas with numerous relative entries in the _Commonplace Book_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAfter this Introduction, the New Principles themselves are evolved, in a\ncorresponding spirit of hostility to empty abstractions. The sections may\nbe thus divided:\u2014\n\ni. Rationale of the Principles (sect. 1-33).\n\nii. Supposed Objections to the Principles answered (sect. 34-84).\n\niii. Consequences and Applications of the Principles (sect. 85-156).\n\n\n\ni. Rationale of the Principles.\n\n\nThe reader may remember that one of the entries in the _Commonplace Book_\nruns as follows:\u2014\u201cTo begin the First Book, not with mention of sensation\nand reflexion, but, instead of sensation, to use perception, or thought in\ngeneral.\u201d Berkeley seems there to be oscillating between Locke and\nDescartes. He now adopts Locke\u2019s account of the materials of which our\nconcrete experience consists (sect. 1). The data of human knowledge of\nexistence are accordingly found in the ideas, phenomena, or appearances\n(_a_) of which we are percipient in the senses, and (_b_) of which we are\nconscious when we attend to our inward passions and operations\u2014all which\nmake up the original contents of human experience, to be reproduced in new\nforms and arrangements, (_c_) in memory and (_d_) imagination and (_e_)\nexpectation. Those materials are called _ideas_ because living mind or\nspirit is the indispensable realising factor: they all presuppose living\nmind, spirit, self, or ego to realise and elaborate them (sect. 2). This\nis implied in our use of personal pronouns, which signify, not ideas of\nany of the preceding kinds, but that which is \u201centirely distinct from\nthem, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, by which they are\nperceived.\u201d In this fundamental presupposition Descartes is more apparent\nthan Locke, and there is even an unconscious forecast of Kant and Hegel.\n\nBerkeley next faces a New Question which his New Principles are intended\nto answer. How is the concrete world that is presented to our senses\nrelated to Mind or Spirit? Is all or any of its reality independent of\npercipient experience? Is it true that the phenomena of which we are\npercipient in sense are ultimately independent of all percipient and\nconscious life, and are even the ultimate basis of all that is real? Must\nwe recognise in the phenomena of Matter the _substance_ of what we call\nMind? For do we not find, when we examine Body and Spirit mutually related\nin our personality, that the latter is more dependent on the former, and\non the physical cosmos of which the former is a part, than our body and\nits bodily surroundings are dependent on Spirit? In short, is not the\nuniverse of existence, in its final form, only lifeless Matter?\n\nThe claim of Matter to be supreme is what Berkeley produces his Principles\nin order to reduce. Concrete reality is self-evidently unreal, he argues,\nin the total absence of percipient Spirit, for Spirit is the one realising\nfactor. Try to imagine the material world unperceived and you are trying\nto picture empty abstraction. Wholly material matter is self-evidently an\ninconceivable absurdity; a universe emptied of all percipient life is an\nimpossible universe. The material world becomes real in being perceived:\nit depends for its reality upon the spiritual realisation. As colours in a\ndark room become real with the introduction of light, so the material\nworld becomes real in the life and agency of Spirit. It must exist in\nterms of sentient life and percipient intelligence, in order to rise into\nany degree of reality that human beings at least can be at all concerned\nwith, either speculatively or practically. Matter totally abstracted from\npercipient spirit must go the way of all abstract ideas. It is an\nillusion, concealed by confused thought and abuse of words; yet from\nobvious causes strong enough to stifle faith in this latent but\nself-evident Principle\u2014that the universe of sense-presented phenomena can\nhave concrete existence only in and by sentient intelligence. It is the\nreverse of this Principle that Berkeley takes to have been \u201cthe chief\nsource of all that scepticism and folly, all those contradictions and\ninexplicable puzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach\nto human reason(469).\u201d And indeed, when it is fully understood, it is seen\nin its own light to be the chief of \u201cthose truths which are so near and\nobvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them. For\nsuch I take this important one to be\u2014that all the choir of heaven and\nfurniture of the Earth, in a word, all those bodies which compose the\nmighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a Mind\u201d (sect.\n6). Living Mind or Spirit is the indispensable factor of all realities\nthat are presented to our senses, including, of course, our own bodies.\n\nYet this Principle, notwithstanding its intuitive certainty, needs to be\nevoked by reflection from the latency in which it lies concealed, in the\nconfused thought of the unreflecting. It is only gradually, and with the\nhelp of reasoning, that the world presented to the senses is distinctly\nrecognised in this its deepest and truest reality. And even when we see\nthat the phenomena _immediately_ presented to our senses need to be\nrealised in percipient experience, in order to be concretely real, we are\nready to ask whether there may not be substances _like_ the things so\npresented, which can exist \u201cwithout mind,\u201d or in a wholly material way\n(sect. 8). Nay, are there not _some_ of the phenomena immediately\npresented to our senses which do not need living mind to make them real?\nIt is allowed by Locke and others that all those qualities of matter which\nare called _secondary_ cannot be wholly material, and that living mind is\nindispensable for _their_ realisation in nature; but Locke and the rest\nargue, that this is not so with the qualities which they call _primary_,\nand which they regard as of the essence of matter. Colours, sounds,\ntastes, smells are all allowed to be not wholly material; but are not the\nsize, shape, situation, solidity, and motion of bodies qualities that are\nreal without need for the realising agency of any Mind or Spirit in the\nuniverse, and which would continue to be what they are now if all Spirit,\ndivine or human, ceased to exist?\n\nThe supposition that some of the phenomena of what is called Matter can be\nreal, and yet wholly material, is discussed in sections 9-15, in which it\nis argued that the things of sense cannot exist really, in _any_ of their\nmanifestations, unless they are brought into reality in some percipient\nlife and experience. It is held impossible that any quality of matter can\nhave the reality which we all attribute to it, unless it is spiritually\nrealised (sect. 15).\n\nBut may Matter not be real apart from all its so-called qualities, these\nbeing allowed to be not wholly material, because real only within\npercipient spirit? May not this wholly material Matter be Something that,\nas it were, exists _behind_ the ideas, phenomena, or qualities that make\ntheir appearance to human beings? This question, Berkeley would say, is a\nmeaningless and wholly unpractical one. Material substance that makes and\ncan make no real appearance\u2014unphenomenal or unideal\u2014stripped of all its\nqualities\u2014is only \u201canother name for abstract Being,\u201d and \u201cthe abstract\nidea of Being appeareth to me the most incomprehensible of all other. When\nI consider the two parts or branches which make up the words _material\nsubstance_, I am convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them\u201d\n(sect. 17). Neither Sense nor Reason inform us of the existence of real\nmaterial substances that exist _abstractly_, or out of all relation to the\nsecondary and primary qualities of which we are percipient when we\nexercise our senses. By our senses we cannot perceive more than ideas or\nphenomena, aggregated as individual things that are presented to us: we\ncannot perceive substances that make no appearance in sense. Then as for\nreason, unrealised substances, abstracted from living Spirit, human or\ndivine, being altogether meaningless, can in no way explain the concrete\nrealisations of human experience. In short, if there are wholly\nunphenomenal material substances, it is impossible that we should ever\ndiscover them, or have any concern with them, speculative or practical;\nand if there are not, we should have the same reason to assert that there\nare which we have now (sect. 20). It is impossible to put any meaning into\nwholly abstract reality. \u201cTo me the words mean either a direct\ncontradiction, or nothing at all\u201d (sect. 24).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe Principle that the _esse_ of matter necessarily involves _percipi_,\nand its correlative Principle that there is not any other substance than\nSpirit, which is thus the indispensable factor of all reality, both lead\non to the more obviously practical Principle\u2014that the material world, _per\nse_, is wholly powerless, and that all changes in Nature are the immediate\nissue of the agency of Spirit (sect. 25-27). Concrete power, like concrete\nsubstance, is essentially spiritual. To be satisfied that the whole\nnatural world is only the passive instrument and expression of Spiritual\nPower we are asked to analyse the sensuous data of experience. We can find\nno reason for attributing inherent power to any of the phenomena and\nphenomenal things that are presented to our senses, or for supposing that\n_they_ can be active causes, either of the changes that are continuously\nin progress among themselves, or of the feelings, perceptions, and\nvolitions of which spiritual beings are conscious. We find the ideas or\nphenomena that pass in procession before our senses related to one another\nas signs to their meanings, in a cosmical order that virtually makes the\nmaterial world a language and a prophecy: but this cosmical procession is\nnot found to originate in the ideas or phenomena themselves, and there is\nreason for supposing it to be maintained by ever-living Spirit, which thus\nnot only substantiates the things of sense, but explains their laws of\nmotion and their movements.\n\nYet the universe of reality is not exclusively One Spirit. Experience\ncontradicts the supposition. I find on trial that my personal power to\nproduce changes in the ideas or phenomena which my senses present to me is\na limited power (sect. 28-33). I can make and unmake my own fancies, but I\ncannot with like freedom make and unmake presentations of sense. When in\ndaylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to determine whether I\nshall see or not; nor is it in my power to determine what objects I shall\nsee. The cosmical order of sense-phenomena is independent of my will. When\nI employ my senses, I find myself always confronted by sensible signs of\nperfect Reason and omnipresent Will. But I also awake in the faith that I\nam an individual person. And the sense-symbolism of which the material\nworld consists, while it keeps me in constant and immediate relation to\nthe Universal Spirit, whose language it is, keeps me likewise in\nintercourse with other persons, akin to myself, who are signified to me by\ntheir overt actions and articulate words, which enter into my sensuous\nexperience. Sense-given phenomena thus, among their other instrumental\noffices, are the medium of communication between human beings, who by this\nmeans can find companions, and make signs to them. So while, at _our_\nhighest point of view, Nature is Spirit, experience shews that there is\nroom in the universe for a plurality of persons, individual, and in a\nmeasure free or morally responsible. If Berkeley does not say all this,\nhis New Principles tend thus.\n\nAt any rate, in his reasoned exposition of his Principles he is anxious to\ndistinguish those phenomena that are presented to the senses of all\nmankind from the private ideas or fancies of individual men (sect. 28-33).\nThe former constitute the world which sentient beings realise in common.\nHe calls them _ideas_ because they are unrealisable without percipient\nmind; but still on the understanding that they are not to be confounded\nwith the chimeras of imagination. They are more deeply and truly real than\nchimeras. The groups in which they are found to coexist are the individual\nthings of sense, whose fixed order of succession exemplifies what we call\nnatural law, or natural causation: the correlation of their changes to our\npleasures and pains, desires and aversions, makes scientific knowledge of\ntheir laws practically important to the life of man, in his embodied\nstate.\n\nMoreover, the real ideas presented to our senses, unlike those of\nimagination, Berkeley would imply, cannot be either representative or\nmisrepresentative. Our imagination may mislead us: the original data of\nsense cannot: although we may, and often do, misinterpret their relations\nto one another, and to our pleasures and pains and higher faculties. The\ndivine meaning with which they are charged, of which science is a partial\nexpression, they may perhaps be said to represent. Otherwise\nrepresentative sense-perception is absurdity: the ideas of sense cannot be\nrepresentative in the way those of imagination are; for fancies are faint\nrepresentations of data of sense. The appearances that sentient\nintelligence realises _are_ the things of sense, and we cannot go deeper.\nIf we prefer accordingly to call the material world a dream or a chimera,\nwe must understand that it is the _reasonable_ dream in which all sentient\nintelligence participates, and by which the embodied life of man must be\nregulated.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nHas Berkeley, in his juvenile ardour, and with the impetuosity natural to\nhim, while seeking to demonstrate the impotence of matter, and the\nomnipresent supremacy of Spirit, so spiritualised the material world as to\nmake it unfit for the symbolical office in the universe of reality which\nhe supposes it to discharge? Is its potential existence in God, and its\npercipient realisation by me, and presumably by innumerable other sentient\nbeings, an adequate account of the real material world existing in place\nand time? Can this universal orderly dream experienced in sense involve\nthe objectivity implied in its being the reliable medium of social\nintercourse? Does _such_ a material world provide me with a means of\nescape from absolute solitude? Nay, if Matter cannot rise into reality\nwithout percipient spirit as realising factor, can my individual\npercipient spirit realise _myself_ without independent Matter? Without\nintelligent life Matter is pronounced unreal. But is it not also true that\nwithout Matter, and the special material organism we call our body,\npercipient spirit is unreal? Does not Nature seem as indispensable to\nSpirit as Spirit is to Nature? Must we not assume at least their\nunbeginning and unending coexistence, even if we recognise in Spirit the\ndeeper and truer reality? Do the New Principles explain the _final_ ground\nof trust and certainty about the universe of change into which I entered\nas a stranger when I was born? If they make all that I have believed in as\n_outward_ to be in its reality _inward_, do they not disturb the balance\nthat is necessary to _all_ human certainties, and leave me without any\nrealities at all?\n\nThat Berkeley at the age of twenty-five, and educated chiefly by Locke,\nhad fathomed or even entertained all these questions was hardly to be\nlooked for. How far he had gone may be gathered by a study of the sequel\nof his book of _Principles_.\n\n\n\nii. Objections to the New Principles answered (sect. 34-84).\n\n\nThe supposed Objections, with Berkeley\u2019s answers, may be thus\ninterpreted:\u2014\n\n_First objection._ (Sect. 34-40.) The preceding Principles banish all\nsubstantial realities, and substitute a universe of chimeras.\n\n_Answer._ This objection is a play upon the popular meaning of the word\n\u201cidea.\u201d That name is appropriate to the phenomena presented in sense,\nbecause they become concrete realities only in the experience of living\nSpirit; and so it is not confined to the chimeras of individual fancy,\nwhich may misrepresent the real ideas of sense that are presented in the\nnatural system independently of our will.\n\n_Second objection._ (Sect. 41.) The preceding Principles abolish the\ndistinction between Perception and Imagination\u2014between imagining one\u2019s\nself burnt and actually being burnt.\n\n_Answer._ Real fire differs from fancied fire: as real pain does from\nfancied pain; yet no one supposes that real pain any more than imaginary\npain can exist unfelt by a sentient intelligence.\n\n_Third objection._ (Sect. 42-44.) We actually _see_ sensible things\nexisting at a distance from our bodies. Now, whatever is seen existing at\na distance must be seen as existing external to us in our bodies, which\ncontradicts the foregoing Principles.\n\n_Answer._ Distance, or outness, is not visible. It is a conception which\nis suggested gradually, by our experience of the connexion between visible\ncolours and certain visual sensations that accompany seeing, on the one\nhand, and our tactual experience, on the other\u2014as was proved in the _Essay\non Vision_, in which the ideality of the _visible_ world is\ndemonstrated(470).\n\n_Fourth objection._ (Sect. 45-48.) It follows from the New Principles,\nthat the material world must be undergoing continuous annihilation and\nrecreation in the innumerable sentient experiences in which it becomes\nreal.\n\n_Answer_. According to the New Principles a thing may be realised in the\nsense-experience of _other_ minds, during intervals of its perception by\n_my_ mind; for the Principles do not affirm dependence only on this or\nthat mind, but on a living Mind. If this implies a constant creation of\nthe material world, the conception of the universe as in a state of\nconstant creation is not new, and it signally displays Divine Providence.\n\n_Fifth objection._ (Sect. 49.) If extension and extended Matter can exist\nonly _in mind_, it follows that extension is an attribute of mind\u2014that\nmind is extended.\n\n_Answer._ Extension and other sensible qualities exist in mind, not as\n_modes_ of mind, which is unintelligible, but _as ideas_ of which Mind is\npercipient; and this is absolutely inconsistent with the supposition that\nMind is itself extended(471).\n\n_Sixth objection._ (Sect. 50.) Natural philosophy proceeds on the\nassumption that Matter is independent of percipient mind, and it thus\ncontradicts the New Principles.\n\n_Answer._ On the contrary, Matter\u2014if it means what exists abstractly, or\nin independence of all percipient Mind\u2014is useless in natural philosophy,\nwhich is conversant exclusively with the ideas or phenomena that compose\nconcrete things, not with empty abstractions.\n\n_Seventh objection._ (Sect. 51.) To refer all change to spiritual agents\nalone, and to regard the things of sense as wholly impotent, thus\ndischarging natural causes as the New Principles do, is at variance with\nhuman language and with good sense.\n\n_Answer._ While we may speak as the multitude do, we should learn to think\nwith the few who reflect. We may still speak of \u201cnatural causes,\u201d even\nwhen, as philosophers, we recognise that all true efficiency must be\nspiritual, and that the material world is only a system of sensible\nsymbols, regulated by Divine Will and revealing Omnipresent Mind.\n\n_Eighth objection._ (Sect. 54, 55.) The natural belief of men seems\ninconsistent with the world being mind-dependent.\n\n_Answer._ Not so when we consider that men seldom comprehend the deep\nmeaning of their practical assumptions; and when we recollect the\nprejudices, once dignified as good sense, which have successively\nsurrendered to philosophy.\n\n_Ninth objection._ (Sect. 56, 57.) Any Principle that is inconsistent with\nour common faith in the existence of the material world must be rejected.\n\n_Answer._ The fact that we are conscious of not being ourselves the cause\nof changes perpetually going on in our _sense_-ideas, some of which we\ngradually learn by experience to foresee, sufficiently accounts for the\ncommon belief in the independence of those ideas, and is what men truly\nmean by this.\n\n_Tenth objection._ (Sect. 58, 59.) The foregoing Principles concerning\nMatter and Spirit are inconsistent with the laws of motion, and with other\ntruths in mathematics and natural philosophy.\n\n_Answer._ The laws of motion, and those other truths, may be all conceived\nand expressed in consistency with the absence of independent substance and\ncausation in Matter.\n\n_Eleventh objection._ (Sect. 60-66.) If, according to the foregoing\nPrinciples, the material world is merely phenomena presented by a Power\nnot-ourselves to our senses, the elaborate contrivances which we find in\nNature are useless; for we might have had all experiences that are needful\nwithout them, by the direct agency of God.\n\n_Answer._ Elaborate contrivances in Nature are relatively necessary as\nsigns: they express to _us_ the occasional presence and some of the\nexperience of other men, also the constant presence and power of the\nUniversal Spirit, while the scientific interpretation of elaborately\nconstituted Nature is a beneficial moral and intellectual exercise.\n\n_Twelfth objection._ (Sect. 67-79.) Although the impossibility of _active_\nMatter may be demonstrable, this does not prove the impossibility of\n_inactive_ Matter, _neither solid nor extended_, which may be the occasion\nof our having sense-ideas.\n\n_Answer._ This supposition is unintelligible: the words in which it is\nexpressed convey no meaning.\n\n_Thirteenth objection._ (Sect. 80, 81.) Matter may be _an unknowable\nSomewhat_, neither substance nor accident, cause nor effect, spirit nor\nidea: all the reasonings against Matter, conceived as something positive,\nfail, when this wholly negative notion is maintained.\n\n_Answer._ This is to use the word \u201cMatter\u201d as people use the word\n\u201cnothing\u201d: Unknowable Somewhat cannot be distinguished from nothing.\n\n_Fourteenth objection._ (Sect. 82-84.) Although we cannot, in opposition\nto the New Principles, infer scientifically the existence of Matter, in\nabstraction from all realising percipient life, or form any conception,\npositive or negative, of what Matter is; yet Holy Scripture demands the\nfaith of every Christian in the independent reality of the material world.\n\n_Answer._ The _independent_ reality of the material world is nowhere\naffirmed in Scripture.\n\n\n\niii. Consequences and Applications of the New Principles (sect. 85-156).\n\n\nIn this portion of the Treatise, the New Principles, already guarded\nagainst objections, are applied to enlighten and invigorate final faith,\noften suffering from the paralysis of the scepticism produced by\nmaterialism; also to improve the sciences, including those which relate to\nMind, in man and in God. They are applied:\u2014\n\n\n    1. To the refutation of Scepticism as to the reality of the world\n    (sect. 85-91) and God (sect. 92-96);\n\n    2. To the liberation of thought from the bondage of unmeaning\n    abstractions (sect. 97-100);\n\n    3. To the purification of Natural Philosophy, by making it an\n    interpretation of ideas of sense, simply in their relations of\n    coexistence and sequence, according to which they constitute the\n    Divine Language of Nature (sect. 101-116);\n\n    4. To simplify Mathematics, by eliminating infinites and other\n    empty abstractions (sect. 117-134);\n\n    5. To explain and sustain faith in the Immortality of men (sect.\n    135-144);\n\n    6. To explain the belief which each man has in the existence of\n    other men; as signified to him in and through sense-symbolism\n    (sect. 145);\n\n    7. To vindicate faith in God, who is signified in and through the\n    sense-symbolism of universal nature (sect. 146-156).\n\n\nIt was only by degrees that Berkeley\u2019s New Principles attracted attention.\nA new mode of conceiving the world we live in, by a young and unknown\nauthor, published at a distance from the centre of English intellectual\nlife, was apt to be overlooked. In connexion with the _Essay on Vision_,\nhowever, it drew enough of regard to make Berkeley an object of interest\nto the literary world on his first visit to London, three years after its\npublication.\n\n\n\n\nDedication\n\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE\n\nTHOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE(472), &c.\n\nKNIGHT OF THE MOST NOBLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, AND ONE OF THE LORDS OF HER\nMAJESTY\u2019S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL\n\nMY LORD,\n\nYou will perhaps wonder that an obscure person, who has not the honour to\nbe known to your lordship, should presume to address you in this manner.\nBut that a man who has written something with a design to promote Useful\nKnowledge and Religion in the world should make choice of your lordship\nfor his patron, will not be thought strange by any one that is not\naltogether unacquainted with the present state of the church and learning,\nand consequently ignorant how great an ornament and support you are to\nboth. Yet, nothing could have induced me to make you this present of my\npoor endeavours, were I not encouraged by that candour and native goodness\nwhich is so bright a part in your lordship\u2019s character. I might add, my\nlord, that the extraordinary favour and bounty you have been pleased to\nshew towards our Society(473) gave me hopes you would not be unwilling to\ncountenance the studies of one of its members. These considerations\ndetermined me to lay this treatise at your lordship\u2019s feet, and the rather\nbecause I was ambitious to have it known that I am with the truest and\nmost profound respect, on account of that learning and virtue which the\nworld so justly admires in your lordship,\n\nMy Lord,\n\nYour lordship\u2019s most humble\nand most devoted servant,\n\nGEORGE BERKELEY.\n\n\n\n\nThe Preface\n\n\nWhat I here make public has, after a long and scrupulous inquiry(474),\nseemed to me evidently true and not unuseful to be known; particularly to\nthose who are tainted with Scepticism, or want a demonstration of the\nexistence and immateriality of God, or the natural immortality of the\nSoul. Whether it be so or no I am content the reader should impartially\nexamine; since I do not think myself any farther concerned for the success\nof what I have written than as it is agreeable to truth. But, to the end\nthis may not suffer, I make it my request that the reader suspend his\njudgment till he has once at least read the whole through, with that\ndegree of attention and thought which the subject-matter shall seem to\ndeserve. For, as there are some passages that, taken by themselves, are\nvery liable (nor could it be remedied) to gross misinterpretation, and to\nbe charged with most absurd consequences, which, nevertheless, upon an\nentire perusal will appear not to follow from them; so likewise, though\nthe whole should be read over, yet, if this be done transiently, it is\nvery probable my sense may be mistaken; but to a thinking reader, I\nflatter myself it will be throughout clear and obvious.\n\nAs for the characters of novelty and singularity(475) which some of the\nfollowing notions may seem to bear, it is, I hope, needless to make any\napology on that account. He must surely be either very weak, or very\nlittle acquainted with the sciences, who shall reject a truth that is\ncapable of demonstration(476), for no other reason but because it is newly\nknown, and contrary to the prejudices of mankind.\n\nThus much I thought fit to premise, in order to prevent, if possible, the\nhasty censures of a sort of men who are too apt to condemn an opinion\nbefore they rightly comprehend it(477).\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\n\n1. Philosophy being nothing else but the study of Wisdom and Truth(478),\nit may with reason be expected that those who have spent most time and\npains in it should enjoy a greater calm and serenity of mind, a greater\nclearness and evidence of knowledge, and be less disturbed with doubts and\ndifficulties than other men. Yet, so it is, we see the illiterate bulk of\nmankind, that walk the high-road of plain common sense, and are governed\nby the dictates of nature, for the most part easy and undisturbed. To them\nnothing that is familiar appears unaccountable or difficult to comprehend.\nThey complain not of any want of evidence in their senses, and are out of\nall danger of becoming Sceptics. But no sooner do we depart from sense and\ninstinct to follow the light of a superior principle\u2014to reason, meditate,\nand reflect on the nature of things, but a thousand scruples spring up in\nour minds, concerning those things which before we seemed fully to\ncomprehend. Prejudices and errors of sense do from all parts discover\nthemselves to our view; and, endeavouring to correct these by reason, we\nare insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and\ninconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in\nspeculation; till at length, having wandered through many intricate mazes,\nwe find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a\nforlorn Scepticism(479).\n\n2. The cause of this is thought to be the obscurity of things, or the\nnatural weakness and imperfection of our understandings. It is said the\nfaculties we have are few, and those designed by nature for the support\nand pleasure of life, and not to penetrate into the inward essence and\nconstitution of things: besides, the mind of man being finite, when it\ntreats of things which partake of Infinity, it is not to be wondered at if\nit run into absurdities and contradictions, out of which it is impossible\nit should ever extricate itself; it being of the nature of Infinite not to\nbe comprehended by that which is finite(480).\n\n3. But, perhaps, we may be too partial to ourselves in placing the fault\noriginally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we make of\nthem. It is a hard thing to suppose that right deductions from true\nprinciples should ever end in consequences which cannot be maintained or\nmade consistent. We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully\nwith the sons of men than to give them a strong desire for that knowledge\nwhich he had placed quite out of their reach. This were not agreeable to\nthe wonted indulgent methods of Providence, which, whatever appetites it\nmay have implanted in the creatures, doth usually furnish them with such\nmeans as, if rightly made use of, will not fail to satisfy them. Upon the\nwhole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of\nthose difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up\nthe way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. We have first\nraised a dust, and then complain we cannot see.\n\n4. My purpose therefore is, to try if I can discover what those Principles\nare which have introduced all that doubtfulness and uncertainty, those\nabsurdities and contradictions, into the several sects of philosophy;\ninsomuch that the wisest men have thought our ignorance incurable,\nconceiving it to arise from the natural dulness and limitation of our\nfaculties. And surely it is a work well deserving our pains to make a\nstrict inquiry concerning the First Principles of Human Knowledge; to sift\nand examine them on all sides: especially since there may be some grounds\nto suspect that those lets and difficulties, which stay and embarrass the\nmind in its search after truth, do not spring from any darkness and\nintricacy in the objects, or natural defect in the understanding, so much\nas from false Principles which have been insisted on, and might have been\navoided.\n\n5. How difficult and discouraging soever this attempt may seem, when I\nconsider what a number of very great and extraordinary men have gone\nbefore me in the like designs(481), yet I am not without some hopes; upon\nthe consideration that the largest views are not always the clearest, and\nthat he who is short-sighted will be obliged to draw the object nearer,\nand may, perhaps, by a close and narrow survey, discern that which had\nescaped far better eyes.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n6. In order to prepare the mind of the reader for the easier conceiving\nwhat follows, it is proper to premise somewhat, by way of Introduction,\nconcerning the nature and abuse of Language. But the unravelling this\nmatter leads me in some measure to anticipate my design, by taking notice\nof what seems to have had a chief part in rendering speculation intricate\nand perplexed, and to have occasioned innumerable errors and difficulties\nin almost all parts of knowledge. And that is the opinion that the mind\nhath a power of framing _abstract_ ideas or notions of things(482). He who\nis not a perfect stranger to the writings and disputes of philosophers\nmust needs acknowledge that no small part of them are spent about abstract\nideas. These are in a more especial manner thought to be the object of\nthose sciences which go by the name of logic and metaphysics, and of all\nthat which passes under the notion of the most abstracted and sublime\nlearning; in all which one shall scarce find any question handled in such\na manner as does not suppose their existence in the mind, and that it is\nwell acquainted with them.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n7. It is agreed on all hands that the _qualities_ or _modes_ of things do\nnever really exist each of them apart by itself, and separated from all\nothers, but are mixed, as it were, and blended together, several in the\nsame object. But, we are told, the mind, being able to consider each\nquality singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is\nunited, does by that means frame to itself _abstract ideas_. For example,\nthere is conceived by sight an object extended, coloured, and moved: this\nmixed or compound idea the mind resolving into its simple, constituent\nparts, and viewing each by itself, exclusive of the rest, does frame the\nabstract ideas of extension, colour, and motion. Not that it is possible\nfor colour or motion to exist without extension; but only that the mind\ncan frame to itself by abstraction the idea of colour exclusive of\nextension, and of motion exclusive of both colour and extension.\n\n8. Again, the mind having observed that in the particular extensions\nperceived by sense there is something common and alike in all, and some\nother things peculiar, as this or that figure or magnitude, which\ndistinguish them one from another, it considers apart, or singles out by\nitself, that which is common; making thereof a most abstract idea of\nextension; which is neither line, surface, nor solid, nor has any figure\nor magnitude, but is an idea entirely prescinded from all these. So\nlikewise the mind, by leaving out of the particular colours perceived by\nsense that which distinguishes them one from another, and retaining that\nonly which is common to all, makes an idea of colour in abstract; which is\nneither red, nor blue, nor white, nor any other determinate colour. And,\nin like manner, by considering motion abstractedly, not only from the body\nmoved, but likewise from the figure it describes, and all particular\ndirections and velocities, the abstract idea of motion is framed; which\nequally corresponds to all particular motions whatsoever that may be\nperceived by sense.\n\n9. And as the mind frames to itself abstract ideas of _qualities_ or\n_modes_, so does it, by the same precision, or mental separation, attain\nabstract ideas of the more compounded _beings_ which include several\ncoexistent qualities. For example, the mind having observed that Peter,\nJames, and John resemble each other in certain common agreements of shape\nand other qualities, leaves out of the complex or compound idea it has of\nPeter, James, and any other particular man, that which is peculiar to\neach, retaining only what is common to all, and so makes an abstract idea,\nwherein all the particulars equally partake; abstracting entirely from and\ncutting off all those circumstances and differences which might determine\nit to any particular existence. And after this manner it is said we come\nby the abstract idea of _man_, or, if you please, humanity, or human\nnature; wherein it is true there is included colour, because there is no\nman but has some colour, but then it can be neither white, nor black, nor\nany particular colour, because there is no one particular colour wherein\nall men partake. So likewise there is included stature, but then it is\nneither tall stature, nor low stature, nor yet middle stature, but\nsomething abstracted from all these. And so of the rest. Moreover, there\nbeing a great variety of other creatures that partake in some parts, but\nnot all, of the complex idea of man, the mind, leaving out those parts\nwhich are peculiar to men, and retaining those only which are common to\nall the living creatures, frames the idea of _animal_; which abstracts not\nonly from all particular men, but also all birds, beasts, fishes, and\ninsects. The constituent parts of the abstract idea of animal are body,\nlife, sense, and spontaneous motion. By _body_ is meant body without any\nparticular shape or figure, there being no one shape or figure common to\nall animals; without covering, either of hair, or feathers, or scales,\n&c., nor yet naked: hair, feathers, scales, and nakedness being the\ndistinguishing properties of particular animals, and for that reason left\nout of the abstract idea. Upon the same account, the spontaneous motion\nmust be neither walking, nor flying, nor creeping; it is nevertheless a\nmotion, but what that motion is it is not easy to conceive.\n\n10. Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their ideas,\nthey best can tell(483). For myself, [(484)I dare be confident I have it\nnot.] I find indeed I have a faculty of imagining or representing to\nmyself, the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, and of\nvariously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two\nheads; or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can\nconsider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or\nseparated from the rest of the body. But then whatever hand or eye I\nimagine(485), it must have some particular shape and colour. Likewise the\nidea of man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a black,\nor a tawny, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized\nman. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above\ndescribed. And it is equally impossible for me to form the abstract idea\nof motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor\nslow, curvilinear nor rectilinear; and the like may be said of all other\nabstract general ideas whatsoever. To be plain, I own myself able to\nabstract in one sense, as when I consider some particular parts or\nqualities separated from others, with which, though they are united in\nsome object, yet it is possible they may really exist without them. But I\ndeny that I can abstract from one another, or conceive separately, those\nqualities which it is impossible should exist so separated; or that I can\nframe a general notion, by abstracting from particulars in the manner\naforesaid\u2014which last are the two proper acceptations of _abstraction_. And\nthere is ground to think most men will acknowledge themselves to be in my\ncase. The generality of men which are simple and illiterate never pretend\nto abstract notions(486). It is said they are difficult, and not to be\nattained without pains and study. We may therefore reasonably conclude\nthat, if such there be, they are confined only to the learned.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n11. I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of\nabstraction(487), and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the\nmen of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as\nthat seems to be. There has been a late [(488)excellent and] deservedly\nesteemed philosopher(489) who, no doubt, has given it very much\ncountenance, by seeming to think the having abstract general ideas is what\nputs the widest difference in point of understanding betwixt man and\nbeast. \u201cThe having of general ideas,\u201d saith he, \u201cis that which puts a\nperfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the\nfaculties of brutes do by no means attain unto. For it is evident we\nobserve no foot-steps in them of making use of general signs for universal\nideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not the faculty\nof abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words,\nor any other general signs.\u201d And a little after:\u2014\u201cTherefore, I think, we\nmay suppose, that it is in this that the species of brutes are\ndiscriminated from man: and it is that proper difference wherein they are\nwholly separated, and which at last widens to so wide a distance. For if\nthey have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines (as some would have\nthem(490)), we cannot deny them to have some reason. It seems as evident\nto me that they do, some of them, in certain instances, reason, as that\nthey have sense; but it is only in particular ideas, just as they receive\nthem from their senses. They are the best of them tied up within those\nnarrow bounds, and have not (as I think) the faculty to enlarge them by\nany kind of abstraction.\u201d\u2014_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. II. ch. 11. \u00a7\n10 and 11. I readily agree with this learned author, that the faculties of\nbrutes can by no means attain to abstraction. But then if this be made the\ndistinguishing property of that sort of animals, I fear a great many of\nthose that pass for men must be reckoned into their number. The reason\nthat is here assigned, why we have no grounds to think brutes have\nabstract general ideas, is, that we observe in them no use of words, or\nany other general signs; which is built on this supposition, to wit, that\nthe making use of words implies having general ideas. From which it\nfollows that men who use language are able to abstract or generalize their\nideas. That this is the sense and arguing of the author will further\nappear by his answering the question he in another place puts: \u201cSince all\nthings that exist are only particulars, how come we by general terms?\u201d His\nanswer is: \u201cWords become general by being made the signs of general\nideas.\u201d\u2014_Essay on Human Understanding_, B. III. ch. 3. \u00a7 6. But it seems\nthat a word(491) becomes general by being made the sign, not of an\nabstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which\nit indifferently suggests to the mind. For example, when it is said \u201cthe\nchange of motion is proportional to the impressed force,\u201d or that\n\u201cwhatever has extension is divisible,\u201d these propositions are to be\nunderstood of motion and extension in general; and nevertheless it will\nnot follow that they suggest to my thoughts an _idea_(492) of motion\nwithout a body moved, or any determinate direction and velocity; or that I\nmust conceive an _abstract general idea_ of extension, which is neither\nline, surface, nor solid, neither great nor small, black, white, nor red,\nnor of any other determinate colour. It is only implied that whatever\nparticular motion I consider, whether it be swift or slow, perpendicular,\nhorizontal, or oblique, or in whatever object, the axiom concerning it\nholds equally true. As does the other of every particular extension; it\nmatters not whether line, surface, or solid, whether of this or that\nmagnitude or figure(493).\n\n12. By observing how ideas become general, we may the better judge how\nwords are made so. And here it is to be noted that I do not deny\nabsolutely there are _general ideas_, but only that there are any\n_abstract general ideas_. For, in the passages we have quoted wherein\nthere is mention of general ideas, it is always supposed that they are\nformed by abstraction, after the manner set forth in sections 8 and\n9(494). Now, if we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of\nwhat we can conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea, which\nconsidered in itself is particular, becomes general, by being made to\nrepresent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort(495).\nTo make this plain by an example. Suppose a geometrician is demonstrating\nthe method of cutting a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a\nblack line of an inch in length: this, which in itself is a particular\nline, is nevertheless _with regard to its signification_ general; since,\nas it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever; so\nthat what is demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or, in other\nwords, of a line in general(496). And, as _that particular line_ becomes\ngeneral by being made a sign, so the _name_ line, which taken absolutely\nis particular, by being a sign, is made general. And as the former owes\nits generality, not to its being the sign of an abstract or general line,\nbut of all particular right lines that may possibly exist, so the latter\nmust be thought to derive its generality from the same cause, namely, the\nvarious particular lines which it indifferently denotes.\n\n13. To give the reader a yet clearer view of the nature of abstract ideas,\nand the uses they are thought necessary to, I shall add one more passage\nout of the _Essay on Human Understanding_, which is as follows:\u2014\u201cAbstract\nideas are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind,\nas particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only because by\nconstant and familiar use they are made so. For, when we nicely reflect\nupon them, we shall find that general ideas are fictions and contrivances\nof the mind, that carry difficulty with them, and do not so easily offer\nthemselves as we are apt to imagine. For example, does it not require some\npains and skill to form the general idea of a triangle (which is yet none\nof the most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult); for it must be\nneither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor\nscalenon; but all and none of these at once? In effect, it is something\nimperfect, that cannot exist; an idea(497) wherein some parts of several\ndifferent and inconsistent ideas are put together. It is true the mind, in\nthis imperfect state, has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste to\nthem it can, for the conveniency of communication and enlargement of\nknowledge; to both which it is naturally very much inclined. But yet one\nhas reason to suspect such ideas are marks of our imperfection. At least\nthis is enough to shew that the most abstract and general ideas are not\nthose that the mind is first and most easily acquainted with, nor such as\nits earliest knowledge is conversant about.\u201d\u2014B. iv. ch. 7. \u00a7 9. If any man\nhas the faculty of framing in his mind such an idea of a triangle as is\nhere described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him out of it, nor\nwould I go about it. All I desire is that the reader would fully and\ncertainly inform himself whether he has such an idea or no. And this,\nmethinks, can be no hard task for any one to perform. What more easy than\nfor any one to look a little into his own thoughts, and there try whether\nhe has, or can attain to have, an idea that shall correspond with the\ndescription that is here given of the general idea of a triangle\u2014which is\nneither oblique nor rectangle, equilateral, equicrural nor scalenon, but\nall and none of these at once?\n\n14. Much is here said of the difficulty that abstract ideas carry with\nthem, and the pains and skill requisite to the forming them. And it is on\nall hands agreed that there is need of great toil and labour of the mind,\nto emancipate our thoughts from particular objects, and raise them to\nthose sublime speculations that are conversant about abstract ideas. From\nall which the natural consequence should seem to be, that so difficult a\nthing as the forming abstract ideas was not necessary for _communication_,\nwhich is so easy and familiar to all sorts of men. But, we are told, if\nthey seem obvious and easy to grown men, it is only because by constant\nand familiar use they are made so. Now, I would fain know at what time it\nis men are employed in surmounting that difficulty, and furnishing\nthemselves with those necessary helps for discourse. It cannot be when\nthey are grown up; for then it seems they are not conscious of any such\npainstaking. It remains therefore to be the business of their childhood.\nAnd surely the great and multiplied labour of framing abstract\nnotions(498) will be found a hard task for that tender age. Is it not a\nhard thing to imagine that a couple of children cannot prate together of\ntheir sugar-plums and rattles and the rest of their little trinkets, till\nthey have first tacked together numberless inconsistencies, and so framed\nin their minds abstract general ideas, and annexed them to every common\nname they make use of?\n\n15. Nor do I think them a whit more needful for the _enlargement of\nknowledge_ than for communication. It is, I know, a point much insisted\non, that all knowledge and demonstration are about universal notions, to\nwhich I fully agree. But then it does not appear to me that those notions\nare formed by abstraction in the manner premised\u2014_universality_, so far as\nI can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute, positive nature or\nconception of anything, but in the relation it bears to the particulars\nsignified or represented by it; by virtue whereof it is that things,\nnames, or notions(499), being in their own nature _particular_, are\n_rendered universal_. Thus, when I demonstrate any proposition concerning\ntriangles, it is supposed that I have in view the universal idea of a\ntriangle: which ought not to be understood as if I could frame an\n_idea_(500) of a triangle which was neither equilateral, nor scalenon, nor\nequicrural; but only that the particular triangle I consider, whether of\nthis or that sort it matters not, doth equally stand for and represent all\nrectilinear triangles whatsoever, and is in that sense universal. All\nwhich seems very plain and not to include any difficulty in it(501).\n\n16. But here it will be demanded, how we can know any proposition to be\ntrue of all particular triangles, except we have first seen it\ndemonstrated of the abstract idea of a triangle which equally agrees to\nall? For, because a property may be demonstrated to agree to some one\nparticular triangle, it will not thence follow that it equally belongs to\nany other triangle which in all respects is not the same with it. For\nexample, having demonstrated that the three angles of an isosceles\nrectangular triangle are equal to two right ones, I cannot therefore\nconclude this affection agrees to all other triangles which have neither a\nright angle nor two equal sides. It seems therefore that, to be certain\nthis proposition is universally true, we must either make a particular\ndemonstration for every particular triangle, which is impossible; or once\nfor all demonstrate it of the abstract idea of a triangle, in which all\nthe particulars do indifferently partake, and by which they are all\nequally represented. To which I answer, that, though the idea I have in\nview(502) whilst I make the demonstration be, for instance, that of an\nisosceles rectangular triangle whose sides are of a determinate length, I\nmay nevertheless be certain it extends to all other rectilinear triangles,\nof what sort or bigness soever. And that because neither the right angle,\nnor the equality, nor determinate length of the sides are at all concerned\nin the demonstration. It is true the diagram I have in view includes all\nthese particulars; but then there is not the least mention made of _them_\nin the proof of the proposition. It is not said the three angles are equal\nto two right ones, because one of them is a right angle, or because the\nsides comprehending it are of the same length. Which sufficiently shews\nthat the right angle might have been oblique, and the sides unequal, and\nfor all that the demonstration have held good. And for this reason it is\nthat I conclude that to be true of any obliquangular or scalenon which I\nhad demonstrated of a particular right-angled equicrural triangle, and not\nbecause I demonstrated the proposition of the abstract idea of a triangle.\n[(503)And here it must be acknowledged that a man may _consider_ a figure\nmerely as triangular; without attending to the particular qualities of the\nangles, or relations of the sides. _So far he may abstract._ But this will\nnever prove that he can frame an abstract, general, inconsistent _idea_ of\na triangle. In like manner we may consider Peter so far forth as man, or\nso far forth as animal, without framing the forementioned abstract idea,\neither of man or of animal; inasmuch as all that is perceived is not\nconsidered.]\n\n17. It were an endless as well as an useless thing to trace the Schoolmen,\nthose great masters of abstraction, through all the manifold inextricable\nlabyrinths of error and dispute which their doctrine of abstract natures\nand notions seems to have led them into. What bickerings and\ncontroversies, and what a learned dust have been raised about those\nmatters, and what mighty advantage has been from thence derived to\nmankind, are things at this day too clearly known to need being insisted\non. And it had been well if the ill effects of that doctrine were confined\nto those only who make the most avowed profession of it. When men consider\nthe great pains, industry, and parts that have for so many ages been laid\nout on the cultivation and advancement of the sciences, and that\nnotwithstanding all this the far greater part of them remain full of\ndarkness and uncertainty, and disputes that are like never to have an end;\nand even those that are thought to be supported by the most clear and\ncogent demonstrations contain in them paradoxes which are perfectly\nirreconcilable to the understandings of men; and that, taking all\ntogether, a very small portion of them does supply any real benefit to\nmankind, otherwise than by being an innocent diversion and\namusement(504)\u2014I say, the consideration of all this is apt to throw them\ninto a despondency and perfect contempt of all study. But this may perhaps\ncease upon a view of the false Principles that have obtained in the world;\namongst all which there is none, methinks, hath a more wide influence(505)\nover the thoughts of speculative men than this of _abstract general\nideas_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n18. I come now to consider the _source_ of this prevailing notion, and\nthat seems to me to be _language_. And surely nothing of less extent than\nreason itself could have been the source of an opinion so universally\nreceived. The truth of this appears as from other reasons so also from the\nplain confession of the ablest patrons of abstract ideas, who acknowledge\nthat they are made in order to naming; from which it is clear consequence\nthat if there had been no such thing as speech or universal signs, there\nnever had been any thought of abstraction. See B. iii. ch. 6. \u00a7 39, and\nelsewhere of the _Essay on Human Understanding_.\n\nLet us examine the manner wherein Words have contributed to the origin of\nthat mistake.\u2014First then, it is thought that every name has, or ought to\nhave, one only precise and settled signification; which inclines men to\nthink there are certain abstract determinate ideas that constitute the\ntrue and only immediate signification of each general name; and that it is\nby the mediation of these abstract ideas that a general name comes to\nsignify any particular thing. Whereas, in truth, there is no such thing as\none precise and definite signification annexed to any general name, they\nall signifying indifferently a great number of particular ideas. All which\ndoes evidently follow from what has been already said, and will clearly\nappear to any one by a little reflexion. To this it will be objected that\nevery name that has a definition is thereby restrained to one certain\nsignification. For example, a triangle is defined to be \u201ca plain surface\ncomprehended by three right lines\u201d; by which that name is limited to\ndenote one certain idea and no other. To which I answer, that in the\ndefinition it is not said whether the surface be great or small, black or\nwhite, nor whether the sides are long or short, equal or unequal, nor with\nwhat angles they are inclined to each other; in all which there may be\ngreat variety, and consequently there is no one settled idea which limits\nthe signification of the word triangle. It is one thing for to keep a name\nconstantly to the same _definition_, and another to make it stand\neverywhere for the same _idea_(506): the one is necessary, the other\nuseless and impracticable.\n\n19. But, to give a farther account how words came to produce the doctrine\nof abstract ideas, it must be observed that it is a received opinion that\nlanguage has no other end but the communicating ideas, and that every\nsignificant name stands for an idea. This being so, and it being withal\ncertain that names which yet are not thought altogether insignificant do\nnot always mark out particular conceivable ideas, it is straightway\nconcluded that they stand for abstract notions. That there are many names\nin use amongst speculative men which do not always suggest to others\ndeterminate, particular ideas, or in truth anything at all, is what nobody\nwill deny. And a little attention will discover that it is not necessary\n(even in the strictest reasonings) that significant names which stand for\nideas should, every time they are used, excite in the understanding the\nideas they are made to stand for: in reading and discoursing, names being\nfor the most part used as letters are in Algebra, in which, though a\nparticular quantity be marked by each letter, yet to proceed right it is\nnot requisite that in every step each letter suggest to your thoughts that\nparticular quantity it was appointed to stand for(507).\n\n20. Besides, the communicating of ideas marked by words is not the chief\nand only end of language, as is commonly supposed. There are other ends,\nas the raising of some passion, the exciting to or deterring from an\naction, the putting the mind in some particular disposition; to which the\nformer is in many cases barely subservient, and sometimes entirely\nomitted, when these can be obtained without it, as I think doth(508) not\nunfrequently happen in the familiar use of language. I entreat the reader\nto reflect with himself, and see if it doth not often happen, either in\nhearing or reading a discourse, that the passions of fear, love, hatred,\nadmiration, and disdain, and the like, arise immediately in his mind upon\nthe perception of certain words, without any ideas(509) coming between. At\nfirst, indeed, the words might have occasioned ideas that were fitting to\nproduce those emotions; but, if I mistake not, it will be found that, when\nlanguage is once grown familiar, the hearing of the sounds or sight of the\ncharacters is oft immediately attended with those passions which at first\nwere wont to be produced by the intervention of ideas that are now quite\nomitted. May we not, for example, be affected with the promise of a _good\nthing_, though we have not an idea of what it is? Or is not the being\nthreatened with danger sufficient to excite a dread, though we think not\nof any particular evil likely to befal us, nor yet frame to ourselves an\nidea of danger in abstract? If any one shall join ever so little\nreflection of his own to what has been said, I believe that it will\nevidently appear to him that general names are often used in the propriety\nof language without the speakers designing them for marks of ideas in his\nown, which he would have them raise in the mind of the hearer. Even proper\nnames themselves do not seem always spoken with a design to bring into our\nview the ideas of those individuals that are supposed to be marked by\nthem. For example, when a schoolman tells me \u201cAristotle hath said it,\u201d all\nI conceive he means by it is to dispose me to embrace his opinion with the\ndeference and submission which custom has annexed to that name. And this\neffect may be so instantly produced in the minds of those who are\naccustomed to resign their judgment to authority of that philosopher, as\nit is impossible any idea either of his person, writings, or reputation\nshould go before. [(510)So close and immediate a connexion may custom\nestablish betwixt the very word Aristotle(511) and the motions of assent\nand reverence in the minds of some men.] Innumerable examples of this kind\nmay be given, but why should I insist on those things which every one\u2019s\nexperience will, I doubt not, plentifully suggest unto him?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n21. We have, I think, shewn the impossibility of Abstract Ideas. We have\nconsidered what has been said for them by their ablest patrons; and\nendeavoured to shew they are of no use for those ends to which they are\nthought necessary. And lastly, we have traced them to the source from\nwhence they flow, which appears evidently to be Language.\n\nIt cannot be denied that words are of excellent use, in that by their\nmeans all that stock of knowledge which has been purchased by the joint\nlabours of inquisitive men in all ages and nations may be drawn into the\nview and made the possession of one single person. But [(512)at the same\ntime it must be owned that] most parts of knowledge have been [(513)so]\nstrangely perplexed and darkened by the abuse of words, and general ways\nof speech wherein they are delivered, [that it may almost be made a\nquestion whether language has contributed more to the hindrance or\nadvancement of the sciences(514)]. Since therefore words are so apt to\nimpose on the understanding, [I am resolved in my inquiries to make as\nlittle use of them as possibly I can(515):] whatever ideas I consider, I\nshall endeavour to take them bare and naked into my view; keeping out of\nmy thoughts, so far as I am able, those names which long and constant use\nhath so strictly united with them. From which I may expect to derive the\nfollowing advantages:\u2014\n\n22. _First_, I shall be sure to get clear of all controversies purely\nverbal, the springing up of which weeds in almost all the sciences has\nbeen a main hindrance to the growth of true and sound knowledge.\n_Secondly_, this seems to be a sure way to extricate myself out of that\nfine and subtle net of abstract ideas, which has so miserably perplexed\nand entangled the minds of men; and that with this peculiar circumstance,\nthat by how much the finer and more curious was the wit of any man, by so\nmuch the deeper was he likely to be ensnared and faster held therein.\n_Thirdly_, so long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas(516), divested\nof words, I do not see how I can easily be mistaken. The objects I\nconsider, I clearly and adequately know. I cannot be deceived in thinking\nI have an idea which I have not. It is not possible for me to imagine that\nany of my own ideas are alike or unlike that are not truly so. To discern\nthe agreements or disagreements there are between my ideas, to see what\nideas are included in any compound idea and what not, there is nothing\nmore requisite than an attentive perception of what passes in my own\nunderstanding.\n\n23. But the attainment of all these advantages does presuppose an entire\ndeliverance from the deception of words; which I dare hardly promise\nmyself, so difficult a thing it is to dissolve an union so early begun,\nand confirmed by so long a habit as that betwixt words and ideas. Which\ndifficulty seems to have been very much increased by the doctrine of\n_abstraction_. For, so long as men thought _abstract_ ideas were annexed\nto their words, it does not seem strange that they should use words for\nideas; it being found an impracticable thing to lay aside the word, and\nretain the _abstract_ idea in the mind; which in itself was perfectly\ninconceivable. This seems to me the principal cause why those who have so\nemphatically recommended to others the laying aside all use of words in\ntheir meditations, and contemplating their bare ideas, have yet failed to\nperform it themselves. Of late many have been very sensible of the absurd\nopinions and insignificant disputes which grow out of the abuse of words.\nAnd, in order to remedy these evils, they advise well(517), that we attend\nto the ideas signified, and draw off our attention from the words which\nsignify them(518). But, how good soever this advice may be they have given\nothers, it is plain they could not have a due regard to it themselves, so\nlong as they thought the only immediate use of words was to signify ideas,\nand that the immediate signification of every general name was a\ndeterminate abstract idea.\n\n24. But these being known to be mistakes, a man may with greater ease\nprevent his being imposed on by words. He that knows he has no other than\n_particular_ ideas, will not puzzle himself in vain to find out and\nconceive the _abstract_ idea annexed to any name. And he that knows names\ndo not always stand for ideas(519) will spare himself the labour of\nlooking for ideas where there are none to be had. It were, therefore, to\nbe wished that every one would use his utmost endeavours to obtain a clear\nview of the ideas he would consider; separating from them all that dress\nand incumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind the judgment\nand divide the attention. In vain do we extend our view into the heavens\nand pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings\nof learned men and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity. We need only\ndraw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose\nfruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand.\n\n25. Unless we take care to clear the First Principles of Knowledge from\nthe embarras and delusion of Words, we may make infinite reasonings upon\nthem to no purpose; we may draw consequences from consequences, and be\nnever the wiser. The farther we go, we shall only lose ourselves the more\nirrecoverably, and be the deeper entangled in difficulties and mistakes.\nWhoever therefore designs to read the following sheets, I entreat him that\nhe would make my words the occasion of his own thinking, and endeavour to\nattain the same train of thoughts in reading that I had in writing them.\nBy this means it will be easy for him to discover the truth or falsity of\nwhat I say. He will be out of all danger of being deceived by my words.\nAnd I do not see how he can be led into an error by considering his own\nnaked, undisguised ideas(520).\n\n\n\n\nPart First\n\n\n1. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the _objects of human\nknowledge_, that they are either _ideas_ actually imprinted on the senses;\nor else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations\nof the mind; or lastly, _ideas_ formed by help of memory and\nimagination\u2014either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those\noriginally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of\nlight and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I\nperceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance; and of all\nthese more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me\nwith odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the\nmind in all their variety of tone and composition(521).\n\nAnd as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to\nbe marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one _thing_. Thus, for\nexample, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having\nbeen observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified\nby the name apple; other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree,\na book, and the like sensible things; which as they are pleasing or\ndisagreeable excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so\nforth(522).\n\n2. But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge,\nthere is likewise Something which knows or perceives them; and exercises\ndivers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, about them. This\nperceiving, active being is what I call _mind_, _spirit_, _soul_, or\n_myself_. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing\nentirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same\nthing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists\nin being perceived(523).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the\nimagination, exist without the mind is what everybody will allow. And to\nme it seems no less evident that the various sensations, or ideas\nimprinted on the Sense, however blended or combined together (that is,\nwhatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind\nperceiving them(524). I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of\nthis, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term _exist_\nwhen applied to sensible things(525). The table I write on I say exists;\nthat is, I see and feel it: and if I were out of my study I should say it\nexisted; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or\nthat some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that\nis, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or\nfigure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can\nunderstand by these and the like expressions(526). For as to what is said\nof the _absolute_ existence of unthinking things, without any relation to\ntheir being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their\n_esse_ is _percipi_; nor is it possible they should have any existence out\nof the minds or thinking things which perceive them(527).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses,\nmountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence,\nnatural or real(528), distinct from their being perceived by the\nunderstanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever\nthis Principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in\nhis heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to\ninvolve a manifest contradiction. For, what are the forementioned objects\nbut the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our\nown(529) ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one\nof these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?\n\n5. If we thoroughly examine this tenet(530) it will, perhaps, be found at\nbottom to depend on the doctrine of _abstract ideas_. For can there be a\nnicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible\nobjects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them existing\nunperceived(531)? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and\nfigures\u2014in a word the things we see and feel\u2014what are they but so many\nsensations, notions(532), ideas, or impressions on the sense? and is it\npossible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For\nmy part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I may, indeed,\ndivide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things\nwhich perhaps I never perceived by sense so divided. Thus, I imagine the\ntrunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose\nwithout thinking on the rose itself. So far, I will not deny, I can\nabstract; if that may properly be called _abstraction_ which extends only\nto the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may really\nexist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or imagining\npower does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or\nperception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything\nwithout an actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for me to\nconceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the\nsensation or perception of it. [(533)In truth, the object and the\nsensation are the same thing, and cannot therefore be abstracted from each\nother.]\n\n6. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need\nonly open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz.\nthat all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all\nthose bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any\nsubsistence without a mind; that their _being_ is to be perceived or\nknown; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me,\nor do not exist in my mind, or that of any other created spirit, they must\neither have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some\nEternal Spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the\nabsurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an\nexistence independent of a spirit. [(534)To be convinced of which, the\nreader need only reflect, and try to separate in his own thoughts the\n_being_ of a sensible thing from its _being perceived_.]\n\n7. From what has been said it is evident there is not any other Substance\nthan _Spirit_, or that which perceives(535). But, for the fuller\nproof(536) of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities are\ncolour, figure, motion, smell, taste, and such like, that is, the ideas\nperceived by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is\na manifest contradiction; for to have an idea is all one as to perceive:\nthat therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist must\nperceive them. Hence it is clear there can be no unthinking substance or\n_substratum_ of those ideas.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves(537) do not exist without the\nmind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or\nresemblances; which things exist without the mind, in an unthinking\nsubstance(538). I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a\ncolour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we\nlook but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible\nfor us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask\nwhether those supposed _originals_, or external things, of which our ideas\nare the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If\nthey are, then _they_ are ideas, and we have gained our point: but if you\nsay they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a\ncolour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something\nwhich is intangible; and so of the rest.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n9. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt _primary_ and _secondary_\nqualities(539). By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest,\nsolidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all\nother sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The\nideas we have of these last they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of\nanything existing without the mind, or unperceived; but they will have our\nideas of the _primary qualities_ to be patterns or images of things which\nexist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call Matter.\nBy Matter, therefore, we are to understand an inert(540), senseless\nsubstance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But\nit is evident, from what we have already shewn, that extension, figure,\nand motion are only ideas existing in the mind(541), and that an idea can\nbe like nothing but another idea; and that consequently neither they nor\ntheir archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is\nplain that the very notion of what is called _Matter_ or _corporeal\nsubstance_, involves a contradiction in it. [(542)Insomuch that I should\nnot think it necessary to spend more time in exposing its absurdity. But,\nbecause the tenet of the existence of Matter(543) seems to have taken so\ndeep a root in the minds of philosophers, and draws after it so many ill\nconsequences, I choose rather to be thought prolix and tedious than omit\nanything that might conduce to the full discovery and extirpation of that\nprejudice.]\n\n10. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or\noriginal qualities(544) do exist without the mind, in unthinking\nsubstances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat,\ncold, and suchlike secondary qualities, do not; which they tell us are\nsensations, existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned\nby the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of\nmatter(545). This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can\ndemonstrate beyond all exception. Now, if it be certain that those\n_original_ qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible\nqualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from\nthem, it plainly follows that _they_ exist only in the mind. But I desire\nany one to reflect, and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought,\nconceive the extension and motion of a body without all other sensible\nqualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to\nframe an idea of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it\nsome colour or other sensible quality, which is acknowledged to exist only\nin the mind. In short, extension, figure and motion, abstracted from all\nother qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible\nqualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere\nelse(546).\n\n11. Again, _great_ and _small_, _swift_ and _slow_, are allowed to exist\nnowhere without the mind(547); being entirely relative, and changing as\nthe frame or position of the organs of sense varies. The extension\ntherefore which exists without the mind is neither great nor small, the\nmotion neither swift nor slow; that is, they are nothing at all. But, say\nyou, they are extension in general, and motion in general. Thus we see how\nmuch the tenet of extended moveable substances existing without the mind\ndepends on that strange doctrine of _abstract ideas_. And here I cannot\nbut remark how nearly the vague and indeterminate description of Matter,\nor corporeal substance, which the modern philosophers are run into by\ntheir own principles, resembles that antiquated and so much ridiculed\nnotion of _materia prima_, to be met with in Aristotle and his followers.\nWithout extension solidity cannot be conceived: since therefore it has\nbeen shewn that extension exists not in an unthinking substance, the same\nmust also be true of solidity(548).\n\n12. That _number_ is entirely the creature of the mind(549), even though\nthe other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be evident to\nwhoever considers that the same thing bears a different denomination of\nnumber as the mind views it with different respects. Thus, the same\nextension is one, or three, or thirty-six, according as the mind considers\nit with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is so visibly\nrelative, and dependent on men\u2019s understanding, that it is strange to\nthink how any one should give it an absolute existence without the mind.\nWe say one book, one page, one line, &c.; all these are equally units,\nthough some contain several of the others. And in each instance, it is\nplain, the unit relates to some particular combination of ideas\n_arbitrarily_ put together by the mind(550).\n\n13. Unity I know some(551) will have to be a simple or uncompounded idea,\naccompanying all other ideas into the mind. That I have any such idea\nanswering the word _unity_ I do not find; and if I had, methinks I could\nnot miss finding it; on the contrary, it should be the most familiar to my\nunderstanding, since it is said to accompany all other ideas, and to be\nperceived by all the ways of sensation and reflexion. To say no more, it\nis an _abstract idea_.\n\n14. I shall farther add, that, after the same manner as modern\nphilosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence in\nMatter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all\nother sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for instance, it is said that\nheat and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of\nreal beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them; for\nthat the same body which appears cold to one hand seems warm to another.\nNow, why may we not as well argue that figure and extension are not\npatterns or resemblances of qualities existing in Matter; because to the\nsame eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same\nstation, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of\nanything settled and determinate without the mind? Again, it is proved\nthat sweetness is not really in the sapid thing; because the thing\nremaining unaltered the sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a\nfever or otherwise vitiated palate. Is it not as reasonable to say that\nmotion is not without the mind; since if the succession of ideas in the\nmind become swifter, the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower,\nwithout any alteration in any external object(552)?\n\n15. In short, let any one consider those arguments which are thought\nmanifestly to prove that colours and tastes exist only in the mind, and he\nshall find they may with equal force be brought to prove the same thing of\nextension, figure, and motion. Though it must be confessed this method of\narguing does not so much prove that there is no extension or colour in an\noutward object, as that we do not know by sense which is the true\nextension or colour of the object. But the arguments foregoing(553)\nplainly shew it to be impossible that any colour or extension at all, or\nother sensible quality whatsoever, should exist in an unthinking subject\nwithout the mind, or in truth that there should be any such thing as an\noutward object(554).\n\n16. But let us examine a little the received opinion. It is said extension\nis a _mode_ or _accident_ of Matter, and that Matter is the _substratum_\nthat supports it. Now I desire that you would explain to me what is meant\nby Matter\u2019s _supporting_ extension. Say you, I have no idea of Matter; and\ntherefore cannot explain it. I answer, though you have no positive, yet,\nif you have any meaning at all, you must at least have a relative idea of\nMatter; though you know not what it is, yet you must be supposed to know\nwhat relation it bears to accidents, and what is meant by its supporting\nthem. It is evident _support_ cannot here be taken in its usual or literal\nsense, as when we say that pillars support a building. In what sense\ntherefore must it be taken? [(555) For my part, I am not able to discover\nany sense at all that can be applicable to it.]\n\n17. If we inquire into what the most accurate philosophers declare\nthemselves to mean by _material substance_, we shall find them acknowledge\nthey have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the idea of Being\nin general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents.\nThe general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and\nincomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this,\nas we have just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of\nthose words: it must therefore be taken in some other sense, but what that\nis they do not explain. So that when I consider the two parts or branches\nwhich make the signification of the words _material substance_, I am\nconvinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them. But why should we\ntrouble ourselves any farther, in discussing this material _substratum_ or\nsupport of figure and motion and other sensible qualities? Does it not\nsuppose they have an existence without the mind? And is not this a direct\nrepugnancy, and altogether inconceivable?\n\n18. But, though it were possible that solid, figured, moveable substances\nmay exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies,\nyet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by\nSense or by Reason(556). As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge\nonly of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately\nperceived by sense, call them what you will: but they do not inform us\nthat things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which\nare perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge.\u2014It remains\ntherefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must\nbe by reason inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived\nby sense. But ((557)I do not see) what reason can induce us to believe the\nexistence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the\nvery patrons of Matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary\nconnexion betwixt them and our ideas? I say it is granted on all hands\n(and what happens in dreams, frensies, and the like, puts it beyond\ndispute) that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we\nhave now, though no bodies existed without resembling them(558). Hence it\nis evident the supposition of external bodies(559) is not necessary for\nthe producing our ideas; since it is granted they are produced sometimes,\nand might possibly be produced always, in the same order we see them in at\npresent, without their concurrence.\n\n19. But, though we might possibly have all our sensations without them,\nyet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of\ntheir production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather\nthan otherwise; and so it might be at least probable there are such things\nas bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be\nsaid. For, though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by\ntheir own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are\nproduced; since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner\nbody can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea\nin the mind(560). Hence it is evident the production of ideas or\nsensations in our minds(561), can be no reason why we should suppose\nMatter or corporeal substances(562); since that is acknowledged to remain\nequally inexplicable with or without this supposition. If therefore it\nwere possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so\nmust needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without\nany reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are\nentirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.\n\n20. In short, if there were external bodies(563), it is impossible we\nshould ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very\nsame reasons to think there were that we have now. Suppose\u2014what no one can\ndeny possible\u2014an intelligence, without the help of external bodies, to be\naffected with the same train of sensations or ideas that you are,\nimprinted in the same order and with like vividness in his mind. I ask\nwhether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence\nof Corporeal Substances, represented by his ideas, and exciting them in\nhis mind, that you can possibly have for believing the same thing? Of this\nthere can be no question. Which one consideration were enough to make any\nreasonable person suspect the strength of whatever arguments he may think\nhimself to have, for the existence of bodies without the mind.\n\n21. Were it necessary to add any farther proof against the existence of\nMatter(564), after what has been said, I could instance several of those\nerrors and difficulties (not to mention impieties) which have sprung from\nthat tenet. It has occasioned numberless controversies and disputes in\nphilosophy, and not a few of far greater moment in religion. But I shall\nnot enter into the detail of them in this place, as well because I think\narguments _a posteriori_ are unnecessary for confirming what has been, if\nI mistake not, sufficiently demonstrated _a priori_, as because I shall\nhereafter find occasion to speak somewhat of them.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n22. I am afraid I have given cause to think I am needlessly prolix in\nhandling this subject. For, to what purpose is it to dilate on that which\nmay be demonstrated with the utmost evidence in a line or two, to any one\nthat is capable of the least reflexion? It is but looking into your own\nthoughts, and so trying whether you can conceive it possible for a sound,\nor figure, or motion, or colour to exist without the mind or unperceived.\nThis easy trial(565) may perhaps make you see that what you contend for is\na downright contradiction. Insomuch that I am content to put the whole\nupon this issue:\u2014If you can but conceive it possible for one extended\nmoveable substance, or in general for any one idea, or anything like an\nidea, to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it(566), I shall\nreadily give up the cause. And, as for all that compages of external\nbodies you contend for, I shall grant you its existence, though you cannot\neither give me any reason why you believe it exists, or assign any use to\nit when it is supposed to exist. I say, the bare possibility of your\nopinions being true shall pass for an argument that it is so.\n\n23. But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine\ntrees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody\nby to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it.\nBut what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind\ncertain ideas which you call _books_ and _trees_, and at the same time\nomitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not\nyou yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is\nnothing to the purpose: it only shews you have the power of imagining, or\nforming ideas in your mind; but it does not shew that you can conceive it\npossible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind(567). To\nmake out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived\nor unthought of; which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to\nconceive the existence of external bodies(568), we are all the while only\ncontemplating our own ideas. But the mind, taking no notice of itself, is\ndeluded to think it can and does conceive bodies existing unthought of, or\nwithout the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended by, or\nexist in, itself. A little attention will discover to any one the truth\nand evidence of what is here said, and make it unnecessary to insist on\nany other proofs against the existence of _material substance_.\n\n24. [(569)Could men but forbear to amuse themselves with words, we should,\nI believe, soon come to an agreement in this point.] It is very obvious,\nupon the least inquiry into our own thoughts, to know whether it be\npossible for us to understand what is meant by the _absolute existence of\nsensible objects in themselves_, or _without the mind_(570). To me it is\nevident those words mark out either a direct contradiction, or else\nnothing at all. And to convince others of this, I know no readier or\nfairer way than to entreat they would calmly attend to their own thoughts;\nand if by this attention the emptiness or repugnancy of those expressions\ndoes appear, surely nothing more is requisite for their conviction. It is\non this therefore that I insist, to wit, that the _absolute existence of\nunthinking things_ are words without a meaning, or which include a\ncontradiction. This is what I repeat and inculcate, and earnestly\nrecommend to the attentive thoughts of the reader.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n25. All our ideas, sensations, notions(571), or the things which we\nperceive, by whatsoever names they may be distinguished, are visibly\ninactive: there is nothing of power or agency included in them. So that\none idea or object of thought cannot produce or make any alteration in\nanother(572). To be satisfied of the truth of this, there is nothing else\nrequisite but a bare observation of our ideas. For, since they and every\npart of them exist only in the mind, it follows that there is nothing in\nthem but what is perceived; but whoever shall attend to his ideas, whether\nof sense or reflexion, will not perceive in them any power or activity;\nthere is, therefore, no such thing contained in them. A little attention\nwill discover to us that the very being of an idea implies passiveness and\ninertness in it; insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do\nanything, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything: neither can\nit be the resemblance or pattern of any active being, as is evident from\nsect. 8. Whence it plainly follows that extension, figure, and motion\ncannot be the cause of our sensations. To say, therefore, that these are\nthe effects of powers resulting from the configuration, number, motion,\nand size of corpuscles(573), must certainly be false.\n\n26. We perceive a continual succession of ideas; some are anew excited,\nothers are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore _some_ cause\nof these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and changes\nthem(574). That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination of\n_ideas_, is clear from the preceding section. It must therefore be a\n_substance_; but it has been shewn that there is no corporeal or material\nsubstance: it remains therefore that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal\nactive substance or Spirit(575).\n\n27. A Spirit is one simple, undivided active being\u2014as it perceives ideas\nit is called the _understanding_, and as it produces or otherwise operates\nabout them it is called the _will_. Hence there can be no _idea_ formed of\na soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert (vid.\nsect. 25), they cannot represent unto us, by way of image or likeness,\nthat which acts. A little attention will make it plain to any one, that to\nhave an idea which shall be _like_ that active Principle of motion and\nchange of ideas is absolutely impossible. Such is the nature of Spirit, or\nthat which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the\neffects which it produceth(576). If any man shall doubt of the truth of\nwhat is here delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can frame the\nidea of any power or active being; and whether he has ideas of two\nprincipal powers, marked by the names _will_ and _understanding_, distinct\nfrom each other, as well as from a third idea of Substance or Being in\ngeneral, with a relative notion of its supporting or being the subject of\nthe aforesaid powers\u2014which is signified by the name _soul_ or _spirit_.\nThis is what some hold; but, so far as I can see, the words _will_,\n[(577)_understanding_, _mind_,] _soul_, _spirit_, do not stand for\ndifferent ideas, or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something\nwhich is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be\nlike unto, or represented by, any idea whatsoever. [(578)Though it must be\nowned at the same time that we have some _notion_ of soul, spirit, and the\noperations of the mind, such as willing, loving, hating\u2014inasmuch as we\nknow or understand the meaning of these words.]\n\n28. I find I can excite ideas(579) in my mind at pleasure, and vary and\nshift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than _willing_, and\nstraightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it\nis obliterated and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of\nideas doth very properly denominate the mind active. Thus much is certain\nand grounded on experience: but when we talk of unthinking agents, or of\nexciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse ourselves with\nwords(580).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n29. But, whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas\nactually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on _my_ will. When\nin broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether\nI shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present\nthemselves to my view: and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses;\nthe ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of _my_ will(581). There is\ntherefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them.\n\n30. The ideas of Sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of\nthe Imagination(582); they have likewise a steadiness, order, and\ncoherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are the effects\nof human wills often are, but in a regular train or series\u2014the admirable\nconnexion whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its\nAuthor. Now the set rules, or established methods, wherein the Mind we\ndepend on excites in us the ideas of Sense, are called _the laws of\nnature_; and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and\nsuch ideas are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary\ncourse of things.\n\n31. This gives us a sort of foresight, which enables us to regulate our\nactions for the benefit of life. And without this we should be eternally\nat a loss: we could not know how to act anything that might procure us the\nleast pleasure, or remove the least pain of sense. That food nourishes,\nsleep refreshes, and fire warms us; that to sow in the seed-time is the\nway to reap in the harvest; and in general that to obtain such or such\nends, such or such means are conducive\u2014all this we know, not by\ndiscovering any _necessary connexion_ between our ideas, but only by the\nobservation of the _settled laws_ of nature; without which we should be\nall in uncertainty and confusion, and a grown man no more know how to\nmanage himself in the affairs of life than an infant just born(583).\n\n32. And yet this consistent uniform working, which so evidently displays\nthe Goodness and Wisdom of that Governing Spirit whose Will constitutes\nthe laws of nature, is so far from leading our thoughts to Him, that it\nrather sends them wandering after second causes(584). For, when we\nperceive certain ideas of Sense constantly followed by other ideas, and we\nknow this is not of our own doing, we forthwith attribute power and agency\nto the ideas themselves, and make one the cause of another, than which\nnothing can be more absurd and unintelligible. Thus, for example, having\nobserved that when we perceive by sight a certain round luminous figure,\nwe at the same time perceive by touch the idea or sensation called heat,\nwe do from thence conclude the sun to be the _cause_ of heat. And in like\nmanner perceiving the motion and collision of bodies to be attended with\nsound, we are inclined to think the latter the _effect_ of the\nformer(585).\n\n33. The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called\n_real things_: and those excited in the imagination, being less regular,\nvivid, and constant, are more properly termed _ideas_ or _images of_\nthings, which they copy and represent. But then our _sensations_, be they\nnever so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas(586): that is, they\nexist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its\nown framing. The ideas of Sense are allowed to have more reality(587) in\nthem, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent than the creatures\nof the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind.\nThey are also less dependent on the spirit or thinking substance which\nperceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more\npowerful Spirit; yet still they are _ideas_: and certainly no idea,\nwhether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving\nit(588).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n34. Before we proceed any farther it is necessary we spend some time in\nanswering Objections(589) which may probably be made against the\nPrinciples we have hitherto laid down. In doing of which, if I seem too\nprolix to those of quick apprehensions, I desire I may be excused, since\nall men do not equally apprehend things of this nature; and I am willing\nto be understood by every one.\n\n_First_, then, it will be objected that by the foregoing principles all\nthat is real and substantial in nature is banished out of the world, and\ninstead thereof a chimerical scheme of _ideas_ takes place. All things\nthat exist exist only in the mind; that is, they are purely notional. What\ntherefore becomes of the sun, moon, and stars? What must we think of\nhouses, rivers, mountains, trees, stones; nay, even of our own bodies? Are\nall these but so many chimeras and illusions on the fancy?\u2014To all which,\nand whatever else of the same sort may be objected, I answer, that by the\nPrinciples premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature.\nWhatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains\nas secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a _rerum natura_, and\nthe distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force.\nThis is evident from sect. 29, 30, and 33, where we have shewn what is\nmeant by _real things_, in opposition to _chimeras_ or _ideas of our own\nframing_; but then they both equally exist in the mind, and in that\nsense(590) are alike _ideas_.\n\n35. I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can\napprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my\neyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least\nquestion. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which\n_philosophers_ call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing of this\nthere is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will\nnever miss it. The Atheist indeed will want the colour of an empty name to\nsupport his impiety; and the Philosophers may possibly find they have lost\na great handle for trifling and disputation. [(591)But that is all the\nharm that I can see done.]\n\n36. If any man thinks this detracts from the existence or reality of\nthings, he is very far from understanding what hath been premised in the\nplainest terms I could think of. Take here an abstract of what has been\nsaid:\u2014There are spiritual substances, minds, or human souls, which will or\nexcite ideas(592) in themselves at pleasure; but these are faint, weak,\nand unsteady in respect of others they perceive by sense: which, being\nimpressed upon them according to certain rules or laws of nature, speak\nthemselves the effects of a Mind more powerful and wise than human\nspirits(593). These latter are said to have _more reality_(594) in them\nthan the former;\u2014by which is meant that they are more affecting, orderly,\nand distinct, and that they are not fictions of the mind perceiving\nthem(595). And in this sense the sun that I see by day is the real sun,\nand that which I imagine by night is the idea of the former. In the sense\nhere given of _reality_, it is evident that every vegetable, star,\nmineral, and in general each part of the mundane system, is as much a\n_real being_ by our principles as by any other. Whether others mean\nanything by the term _reality_ different from what I do, I entreat them to\nlook into their own thoughts and see.\n\n37. It will be urged that thus much at least is true, to wit, that we take\naway all _corporeal substances_. To this my answer is, that if the word\n_substance_ be taken in the vulgar sense, for a _combination_ of sensible\nqualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like\u2014this we\ncannot be accused of taking away: but if it be taken in a philosophic\nsense, for the support of accidents or qualities without the mind\u2014then\nindeed I acknowledge that we take it away, if one may be said to take away\nthat which never had any existence, not even in the imagination(596).\n\n38. But after all, say you, it sounds very harsh to say we eat and drink\nideas, and are clothed with ideas. I acknowledge it does so\u2014the word\n_idea_ not being used in common discourse to signify the several\ncombinations of sensible qualities which are called _things_; and it is\ncertain that any expression which varies from the familiar use of language\nwill seem harsh and ridiculous. But this doth not concern the truth of the\nproposition, which in other words is no more than to say, we are fed and\nclothed with those things which we perceive immediately by our\nsenses(597). The hardness or softness, the colour, taste, warmth, figure,\nand suchlike qualities, which combined together(598) constitute the\nseveral sorts of victuals and apparel, have been shewn to exist only in\nthe mind that perceives them: and this is all that is meant by calling\nthem _ideas_; which word, if it was as ordinarily used as _thing_, would\nsound no harsher nor more ridiculous than it. I am not for disputing about\nthe propriety, but the truth of the expression. If therefore you agree\nwith me that we eat and drink and are clad with the immediate objects of\nsense, which cannot exist unperceived or without the mind, I shall readily\ngrant it is more proper or conformable to custom that they should be\ncalled _things_ rather than _ideas_.\n\n39. If it be demanded why I make use of the word _idea_, and do not rather\nin compliance with custom call them _things_; I answer, I do it for two\nreasons:\u2014First, because the term _thing_, in contradistinction to _idea_,\nis generally supposed to denote somewhat existing without the mind:\nSecondly, because _thing_ hath a more comprehensive signification than\n_idea_, including spirits, or thinking things(599), as well as ideas.\nSince therefore the objects of sense exist only in the mind, and are\nwithal thoughtless and inactive, I chose to mark them by the word _idea_;\nwhich implies those properties(600).\n\n40. But, say what we can, some one perhaps may be apt to reply, he will\nstill believe his senses, and never suffer any arguments, how plausible\nsoever, to prevail over the certainty of them. Be it so; assert the\nevidence of sense as high as you please, we are willing to do the same.\nThat what I see, hear, and feel doth exist, that is to say, is perceived\nby me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being. But I do not see how the\ntestimony of sense can be alleged as a proof for the existence of anything\nwhich is _not_ perceived by sense. We are not for having any man turn\nsceptic and disbelieve his senses; on the contrary, we give them all the\nstress and assurance imaginable; nor are there any principles more\nopposite to Scepticism than those we have laid down, as shall be hereafter\nclearly shewn(601).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n41. _Secondly_, it will be objected that there is a great difference\nbetwixt real fire for instance, and the idea of fire, betwixt dreaming or\nimagining oneself burnt, and actually being so. [(602)If you suspect it to\nbe only the idea of fire which you see, do but put your hand into it and\nyou will be convinced with a witness.] This and the like may be urged in\nopposition to our tenets.\u2014To all which the answer is evident from what\nhath been already said(603); and I shall only add in this place, that if\nreal fire be very different from the idea of fire, so also is the real\npain that it occasions very different from the idea of the same pain, and\nyet nobody will pretend that real pain either is, or can possibly be, in\nan unperceiving thing, or without the mind, any more than its idea(604).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n42. _Thirdly_, it will be objected that we see things actually without or\nat a distance from us, and which consequently do not exist in the mind; it\nbeing absurd that those things which are seen at the distance of several\nmiles should be as near to us as our own thoughts(605).\u2014In answer to this,\nI desire it may be considered that in a dream we do oft perceive things as\nexisting at a great distance off, and yet for all that, those things are\nacknowledged to have their existence only in the mind.\n\n43. But, for the fuller clearing of this point, it may be worth while to\nconsider how it is that we perceive distance, and things placed at a\ndistance, by sight. For, that we should in truth _see_ external space, and\nbodies actually existing in it, some nearer, others farther off, seems to\ncarry with it some opposition to what hath been said of their existing\nnowhere without the mind. The consideration of this difficulty it was that\ngave birth to my _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_, which was\npublished not long since(606). Wherein it is shewn that distance or\noutness is neither immediately of itself perceived by sight(607), nor yet\napprehended or judged of by lines and angles, or anything that hath a\nnecessary connexion with it(608); but that it is only suggested to our\nthoughts by certain visible ideas, and sensations attending vision, which\nin their own nature have no manner of similitude or relation either with\ndistance or things placed at a distance(609); but, by a connexion taught\nus by experience, they come to signify and suggest them to us, after the\nsame manner that words of any language suggest the ideas they are made to\nstand for(610). Insomuch that a man born blind, and afterwards made to\nsee, would not, at first sight, think the things he saw to be without his\nmind, or at any distance from him. See sect. 41 of the forementioned\ntreatise.\n\n44. The ideas of sight and touch make two species entirely distinct and\nheterogeneous(611). The former are marks and prognostics of the latter.\nThat the proper objects of sight neither exist without the mind, nor are\nthe images of external things, was shewn even in that treatise(612).\nThough throughout the same the contrary be supposed true of _tangible\nobjects_;\u2014not that to suppose that vulgar error was necessary for\nestablishing the notion therein laid down, but because it was beside my\npurpose to examine and refute it, in a discourse concerning _Vision_. So\nthat in strict truth the ideas of sight(613), when we apprehend by them\ndistance, and things placed at a distance, do not suggest or mark out to\nus things actually existing at a distance, but only admonish us what ideas\nof touch(614) will be imprinted in our minds at such and such distances of\ntime, and in consequence of such or such actions. It is, I say, evident,\nfrom what has been said in the foregoing parts of this Treatise, and in\nsect. 147 and elsewhere of the Essay concerning Vision, that visible ideas\nare the Language whereby the Governing Spirit on whom we depend informs us\nwhat tangible ideas he is about to imprint upon us, in case we excite this\nor that motion in our own bodies. But for a fuller information in this\npoint I refer to the Essay itself.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n45. _Fourthly_, it will be objected that from the foregoing principles it\nfollows things are every moment annihilated and created anew. The objects\nof sense exist only when they are perceived: the trees therefore are in\nthe garden, or the chairs in the parlour, no longer than while there is\nsomebody by to perceive them. Upon shutting my eyes all the furniture in\nthe room is reduced to nothing, and barely upon opening them it is again\ncreated(615).\u2014In answer to all which, I refer the reader to what has been\nsaid in sect. 3, 4, &c.; and desire he will consider whether he means\nanything by the actual existence of an idea distinct from its being\nperceived. For my part, after the nicest inquiry I could make, I am not\nable to discover that anything else is meant by those words; and I once\nmore entreat the reader to sound his own thoughts, and not suffer himself\nto be imposed on by words. If he can conceive it possible either for his\nideas or their archetypes to exist without being perceived, then I give up\nthe cause. But if he cannot, he will acknowledge it is unreasonable for\nhim to stand up in defence of he knows not what, and pretend to charge on\nme as an absurdity, the not assenting to those propositions which at\nbottom have no meaning in them(616).\n\n46. It will not be amiss to observe how far the received principles of\nphilosophy are themselves chargeable with those pretended absurdities. It\nis thought strangely absurd that upon closing my eyelids all the visible\nobjects around me should be reduced to nothing; and yet is not this what\nphilosophers commonly acknowledge, when they agree on all hands that light\nand colours, which alone are the proper and immediate objects of sight,\nare mere sensations that exist no longer than they are perceived? Again,\nit may to some perhaps seem very incredible that things should be every\nmoment creating; yet this very notion is commonly taught in the schools.\nFor the Schoolmen, though they acknowledge the existence of Matter(617),\nand that the whole mundane fabric is framed out of it, are nevertheless of\nopinion that it cannot subsist without the divine conservation; which by\nthem is expounded to be a continual creation(618).\n\n47. Farther, a little thought will discover to us that, though we allow\nthe existence of Matter or corporeal substance, yet it will unavoidably\nfollow, from the principles which are now generally admitted, that the\nparticular bodies, of what kind soever, do none of them exist whilst they\nare not perceived. For, it is evident, from sect. 11 and the following\nsections, that the Matter philosophers contend for is an incomprehensible\nSomewhat, which hath none of those particular qualities whereby the bodies\nfalling under our senses are distinguished one from another. But, to make\nthis more plain, it must be remarked that the infinite divisibility of\nMatter is now universally allowed, at least by the most approved and\nconsiderable philosophers, who on the received principles demonstrate it\nbeyond all exception. Hence, it follows there is an infinite number of\nparts in each particle of Matter which are not perceived by sense(619).\nThe reason therefore that any particular body seems to be of a finite\nmagnitude, or exhibits only a finite number of parts to sense, is, not\nbecause it contains no more, since in itself it contains an infinite\nnumber of parts, but because the sense is not acute enough to discern\nthem. In proportion therefore as the sense is rendered more acute, it\nperceives a greater number of parts in the object, that is, the object\nappears greater; and its figure varies, those parts in its extremities\nwhich were before unperceivable appearing now to bound it in very\ndifferent lines and angles from those perceived by an obtuser sense. And\nat length, after various changes of size and shape, when the sense becomes\ninfinitely acute, the body shall seem infinite. During all which there is\nno alteration in the body, but only in the sense. Each body therefore,\nconsidered in itself, is infinitely extended, and consequently void of all\nshape and figure. From which it follows that, though we should grant the\nexistence of Matter to be never so certain, yet it is withal as certain,\nthe materialists themselves are by their own principles forced to\nacknowledge, that neither the particular bodies perceived by sense, nor\nanything like them, exists without the mind. Matter, I say, and each\nparticle thereof, is according to them infinite and shapeless; and it is\nthe mind that frames all that variety of bodies which compose the visible\nworld, any one whereof does not exist longer than it is perceived.\n\n48. But, after all, if we consider it, the objection proposed in sect. 45\nwill not be found reasonably charged on the Principles we have premised,\nso as in truth to make any objection at all against our notions. For,\nthough we hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing else but ideas\nwhich cannot exist unperceived, yet we may not hence conclude they have no\nexistence except only while they are perceived by _us_; since there may be\nsome other spirit that perceives them though we do not. Wherever bodies\nare said to have no existence without the mind, I would not be understood\nto mean this or that particular mind, but all minds whatsoever. It does\nnot therefore follow from the foregoing Principles that bodies are\nannihilated and created every moment, or exist not at all during the\nintervals between _our_ perception of them.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n49. _Fifthly_, it may perhaps be objected that if extension and figure\nexist only in the mind, it follows that the mind is extended and figured;\nsince extension is a mode or attribute which (to speak with the Schools)\nis predicated of the subject in which it exists.\u2014I answer, those qualities\nare in the mind only as they are perceived by it;\u2014that is, not by way of\n_mode_ or _attribute_, but only by way of _idea_(620). And it no more\nfollows the soul or mind is extended, because extension exists in it\nalone, than it does that it is red or blue, because those colours are on\nall hands acknowledged to exist in it, and nowhere else. As to what\nphilosophers say of subject and mode, that seems very groundless and\nunintelligible. For instance, in this proposition \u201ca die is hard,\nextended, and square,\u201d they will have it that the word _die_ denotes a\nsubject or substance, distinct from the hardness, extension, and figure\nwhich are predicated of it, and in which they exist. This I cannot\ncomprehend: to me a die seems to be nothing distinct from those things\nwhich are termed its modes or accidents. And, to say a die is hard,\nextended, and square is not to attribute those qualities to a subject\ndistinct from and supporting them, but only an explication of the meaning\nof the word _die_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n50. _Sixthly_, you will say there have been a great many things explained\nby matter and motion; take away these and you destroy the whole\ncorpuscular philosophy, and undermine those mechanical principles which\nhave been applied with so much success to account for the phenomena. In\nshort, whatever advances have been made, either by ancient or modern\nphilosophers, in the study of nature do all proceed on the supposition\nthat corporeal substance or Matter doth really exist.\u2014To this I answer\nthat there is not any one phenomenon explained on that supposition which\nmay not as well be explained without it, as might easily be made appear by\nan induction of particulars. To explain the phenomena, is all one as to\nshew why, upon such and such occasions, we are affected with such and such\nideas. But how Matter should operate on a Spirit, or produce any idea in\nit, is what no philosopher will pretend to explain; it is therefore\nevident there can be no use of Matter(621) in natural philosophy. Besides,\nthey who attempt to account for things do it, not by corporeal substance,\nbut by figure, motion, and other qualities; which are in truth no more\nthan mere ideas, and therefore cannot be the cause of anything, as hath\nbeen already shewn. See sect. 25.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n51. _Seventhly_, it will upon this be demanded whether it does not seem\nabsurd to take away natural causes(622), and ascribe everything to the\nimmediate operation of spirits? We must no longer say upon these\nprinciples that fire heats, or water cools, but that a spirit heats, and\nso forth. Would not a man be deservedly laughed at, who should talk after\nthis manner?\u2014I answer, he would so: in such things we ought to think with\nthe learned and speak with the vulgar. They who to demonstration are\nconvinced of the truth of the Copernican system do nevertheless say \u201cthe\nsun rises,\u201d \u201cthe sun sets,\u201d or \u201ccomes to the meridian\u201d; and if they\naffected a contrary style in common talk it would without doubt appear\nvery ridiculous. A little reflection on what is here said will make it\nmanifest that the common use of language would receive no manner of\nalteration or disturbance from the admission of our tenets(623).\n\n52. In the ordinary affairs of life, any phrases may be retained, so long\nas they excite in us proper sentiments, or dispositions to act in such a\nmanner as is necessary for our well-being, how false soever they may be if\ntaken in a strict and speculative sense. Nay, this is unavoidable, since,\npropriety being regulated by custom, language is suited to the received\nopinions, which are not always the truest. Hence it is impossible\u2014even in\nthe most rigid, philosophic reasonings\u2014so far to alter the bent and genius\nof the tongue we speak as never to give a handle for cavillers to pretend\ndifficulties and inconsistencies. But, a fair and ingenuous reader will\ncollect the sense from the scope and tenor and connexion of a discourse,\nmaking allowances for those inaccurate modes of speech which use has made\ninevitable.\n\n53. As to the opinion that there are no corporeal causes, this has been\nheretofore maintained by some of the Schoolmen, as it is of late by others\namong the modern philosophers; who though they allow Matter to exist, yet\nwill have God alone to be the immediate efficient cause of all\nthings(624). These men saw that amongst all the objects of sense there was\nnone which had any power or activity included in it; and that by\nconsequence this was likewise true of whatever bodies they supposed to\nexist without the mind, like unto the immediate objects of sense. But\nthen, that they should suppose an innumerable multitude of created beings,\nwhich they acknowledge are not capable of producing any one effect in\nnature, and which therefore are made to no manner of purpose, since God\nmight have done everything as well without them\u2014this I say, though we\nshould allow it possible, must yet be a very unaccountable and extravagant\nsupposition(625).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n54. In the _eighth_ place, the universal concurrent assent of mankind may\nbe thought by some an invincible argument in behalf of Matter, or the\nexistence of external things(626). Must we suppose the whole world to be\nmistaken? And if so, what cause can be assigned of so widespread and\npredominant an error?\u2014I answer, first, that, upon a narrow inquiry, it\nwill not perhaps be found so many as is imagined do really believe the\nexistence of Matter or things without the mind(627). Strictly speaking, to\nbelieve that which involves a contradiction, or has no meaning in it(628),\nis impossible; and whether the foregoing expressions are not of that sort,\nI refer it to the impartial examination of the reader. In one sense,\nindeed, men may be said to believe that Matter exists; that is, they act\nas if the immediate cause of their sensations, which affects them every\nmoment, and is so nearly present to them, were some senseless unthinking\nbeing. But, that they should clearly apprehend any meaning marked by those\nwords, and form thereof a settled speculative opinion, is what I am not\nable to conceive. This is not the only instance wherein men impose upon\nthemselves, by imagining they believe those propositions which they have\noften heard, though at bottom they have no meaning in them.\n\n55. But secondly, though we should grant a notion to be never so\nuniversally and stedfastly adhered to, yet this is but a weak argument of\nits truth to whoever considers what a vast number of prejudices and false\nopinions are everywhere embraced with the utmost tenaciousness, by the\nunreflecting (which are the far greater) part of mankind. There was a time\nwhen the antipodes and motion of the earth were looked upon as monstrous\nabsurdities even by men of learning: and if it be considered what a small\nproportion they bear to the rest of mankind, we shall find that at this\nday those notions have gained but a very inconsiderable footing in the\nworld.\n\n56. But it is demanded that we assign a cause of this prejudice, and\naccount for its obtaining in the world. To this I answer, that men knowing\nthey perceived several ideas, whereof they themselves were, not the\nauthors(629), as not being excited from within, nor depending on the\noperation of their wills, this made them maintain _those_ ideas or objects\nof perception, had an existence independent of and without the mind,\nwithout ever dreaming that a contradiction was involved in those words.\nBut, philosophers having plainly seen that the immediate objects of\nperception do not exist without the mind, they in some degree corrected\nthe mistake of the vulgar(630); but at the same time run into another,\nwhich seems no less absurd, to wit, that there are certain objects really\nexisting without the mind, or having a subsistence distinct from being\nperceived, of which our ideas are only images or resemblances, imprinted\nby those objects on the mind(631). And this notion of the philosophers\nowes its origin to the same cause with the former, namely, their being\nconscious that _they_ were not the authors of their own sensations; which\nthey evidently knew were imprinted from without, and which therefore must\nhave _some_ cause, distinct from the minds on which they are imprinted.\n\n57. But why they should suppose the ideas of sense to be excited in us by\nthings in their likeness, and not rather have recourse to _Spirit_, which\nalone can act, may be accounted for. First, because they were not aware of\nthe repugnancy there is, as well in supposing things like unto our ideas\nexisting without, as in attributing to them power or activity. Secondly,\nbecause the Supreme Spirit which excites those ideas in our minds, is not\nmarked out and limited to our view by any particular finite collection of\nsensible ideas, as human agents are by their size, complexion, limbs, and\nmotions. And thirdly, because His operations are regular and uniform.\nWhenever the course of nature is interrupted by a miracle, men are ready\nto own the presence of a Superior Agent. But, when we see things go on in\nthe ordinary course, they do not excite in us any reflexion; their order\nand concatenation, though it be an argument of the greatest wisdom, power,\nand goodness in their Creator, is yet so constant and familiar to us, that\nwe do not think them the immediate effects of a _Free Spirit_; especially\nsince inconsistency and mutability in acting, though it be an\nimperfection, is looked on as a mark of _freedom_(632).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n58. _Tenthly_, it will be objected that the notions we advance are\ninconsistent with several sound truths in philosophy and mathematics. For\nexample, the motion of the earth is now universally admitted by\nastronomers as a truth grounded on the clearest and most convincing\nreasons. But, on the foregoing Principles, there can be no such thing.\nFor, motion being only an idea, it follows that if it be not perceived it\nexists not: but the motion of the earth is not perceived by sense.\u2014I\nanswer, That tenet, if rightly understood, will be found to agree with the\nPrinciples we have premised: for, the question whether the earth moves or\nno amounts in reality to no more than this, to wit, whether we have reason\nto conclude, from what has been observed by astronomers, that if we were\nplaced in such and such circumstances, and such or such a position and\ndistance both from the earth and sun, we should perceive the former to\nmove among the choir of the planets, and appearing in all respects like\none of them: and this, by the established rules of nature, which we have\nno reason to mistrust, is reasonably collected from the phenomena.\n\n59. We may, from the experience we have had of the train and succession of\nideas(633) in our minds, often make, I will not say uncertain conjectures,\nbut sure and well-grounded predictions concerning the ideas we shall be\naffected with pursuant to a great train of actions; and be enabled to pass\na right judgment of what would have appeared to us, in case we were placed\nin circumstances very different from those we are in at present. Herein\nconsists the knowledge of nature, which may preserve its use and certainty\nvery consistently with what hath been said. It will be easy to apply this\nto whatever objections of the like sort may be drawn from the magnitude of\nthe stars, or any other discoveries in astronomy or nature.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n60. In the _eleventh_ place, it will be demanded to what purpose serves\nthat curious organization of plants, and the animal mechanism in the parts\nof animals. Might not vegetables grow, and shoot forth leaves and\nblossoms, and animals perform all their motions, as well without as with\nall that variety of internal parts so elegantly contrived and put\ntogether;\u2014which, being ideas, have nothing powerful or operative in them,\nnor have any _necessary_ connexion with the effects ascribed to them? If\nit be a Spirit that immediately produces every effect by a _fiat_, or act\nof his will(634), we must think all that is fine and artificial in the\nworks, whether of man or nature, to be made in vain. By this doctrine,\nthough an artist hath made the spring and wheels, and every movement of a\nwatch, and adjusted them in such a manner as he knew would produce the\nmotions he designed; yet he must think all this done to no purpose, and\nthat it is an Intelligence which directs the index, and points to the hour\nof the day. If so, why may not the Intelligence do it, without _his_ being\nat the pains of making the movements and putting them together? Why does\nnot an empty case serve as well as another? And how comes it to pass, that\nwhenever there is any fault in the going of a watch, there is some\ncorresponding disorder to be found in the movements, which being mended by\na skilful hand all is right again? The like may be said of all the\nClockwork of Nature, great part whereof is so wonderfully fine and subtle\nas scarce to be discerned by the best microscope. In short, it will be\nasked, how, upon our Principles, any tolerable account can be given, or\nany final cause assigned of an innumerable multitude of bodies and\nmachines, framed with the most exquisite art, which in the common\nphilosophy have very apposite uses assigned them, and serve to explain\nabundance of phenomena?\n\n61. To all which I answer, first, that though there were some difficulties\nrelating to the administration of Providence, and the uses by it assigned\nto the several parts of nature, which I could not solve by the foregoing\nPrinciples, yet this objection could be of small weight against the truth\nand certainty of those things which may be proved _a priori_, with the\nutmost evidence and rigour of demonstration(635). Secondly, but neither\nare the received principles free from the like difficulties; for, it may\nstill be demanded to what end God should take those roundabout methods of\neffecting things by instruments and machines, which no one can deny might\nhave been effected by the mere command of His will, without all that\n_apparatus_. Nay, if we narrowly consider it, we shall find the objection\nmay be retorted with greater force on those who hold the existence of\nthose machines without the mind; for it has been made evident that\nsolidity, bulk, figure, motion, and the like have no _activity_ or\n_efficacy_ in them, so as to be capable of producing any one effect in\nnature. See sect. 25. Whoever therefore supposes them to exist (allowing\nthe supposition possible) when they are not perceived does it manifestly\nto no purpose; since the only use that is assigned to them, as they exist\nunperceived, is that they produce those perceivable effects which in truth\ncannot be ascribed to anything but Spirit.\n\n62. But, to come nigher the difficulty, it must be observed that though\nthe fabrication of all those parts and organs be not absolutely necessary\nto the producing any effect, yet it is necessary to the producing of\nthings in a constant regular way, according to the laws of nature. There\nare certain general laws that run through the whole chain of natural\neffects: these are learned by the observation and study of nature, and are\nby men applied, as well to the framing artificial things for the use and\nornament of life as to the explaining the various phenomena. Which\nexplication consists only in shewing the conformity any particular\nphenomenon hath to the general laws of nature, or, which is the same\nthing, in discovering the _uniformity_ there is in the production of\nnatural effects; as will be evident to whoever shall attend to the several\ninstances wherein philosophers pretend to account for appearances. That\nthere is a great and conspicuous _use_ in these regular constant methods\nof working observed by the Supreme Agent hath been shewn in sect. 31. And\nit is no less visible that a particular size, figure, motion, and\ndisposition of parts are necessary, though not absolutely to the producing\nany effect, yet to the producing it according to the standing mechanical\nlaws of nature. Thus, for instance, it cannot be denied that God, or the\nIntelligence that sustains and rules the ordinary course of things, might\nif He were minded to produce a miracle, cause all the motions on the\ndial-plate of a watch, though nobody had ever made the movements and put\nthem in it. But yet, if He will act agreeably to the rules of mechanism,\nby Him for wise ends established and maintained in the creation, it is\nnecessary that those actions of the watchmaker, whereby _he_ makes the\nmovements and rightly adjusts them, precede the production of the\naforesaid motions; as also that any disorder in them be attended with the\nperception of some corresponding disorder in the movements, which being\nonce corrected all is right again(636).\n\n63. It may indeed on some occasions be necessary that the Author of nature\ndisplay His overruling power in producing some appearance out of the\nordinary series of things. Such exceptions from the general rules of\nnature are proper to surprise and awe men into an acknowledgment of the\nDivine Being; but then they are to be used but seldom, otherwise there is\na plain reason why they should fail of that effect. Besides, God seems to\nchoose the convincing our reason of His attributes by the works of nature,\nwhich discover so much harmony and contrivance in their make, and are such\nplain indications of wisdom and beneficence in their Author, rather than\nto astonish us into a belief of His Being by anomalous and surprising\nevents(637).\n\n64. To set this matter in a yet clearer light, I shall observe that what\nhas been objected in sect. 60 amounts in reality to no more than\nthis:\u2014_ideas_(638) are not anyhow and at random produced, there being a\ncertain order and connexion between them, like to that of cause and\neffect: there are also several combinations of them, made in a very\nregular and artificial manner, which seem like so many instruments in the\nhand of nature that, being hid as it were behind the scenes, have a secret\noperation in producing those appearances which are seen on the theatre of\nthe world, being themselves discernible only to the curious eye of the\nphilosopher. But, since one idea cannot be the cause of another, to what\npurpose is that connexion? And since those instruments, being barely\n_inefficacious_ perceptions in the mind, are not subservient to the\nproduction of natural effects, it is demanded why they are made; or, in\nother words, what reason can be assigned why God should make us, upon a\nclose inspection into His works, behold so great variety of ideas, so\nartfully laid together, and so much according to rule; it not being [(639)\ncredible] that He would be at the expense (if one may so speak) of all\nthat art and regularity to no purpose?\n\n65. To all which my answer is, first, that the connexion of ideas(640)\ndoes not imply the relation of _cause_ and _effect_, but only of a mark or\n_sign_ with the _thing signified_. The fire which I see is not the cause\nof the pain I suffer upon my approaching it, but the mark that forewarns\nme of it. In like manner the noise that I hear is not the effect of this\nor that motion or collision of the ambient bodies, but the sign\nthereof(641). Secondly, the reason why ideas are formed into machines,\nthat is, artificial and regular combinations, is the same with that for\ncombining letters into words. That a few original ideas may be made to\nsignify a great number of effects and actions, it is necessary they be\nvariously combined together. And to the end their use be permanent and\nuniversal, these combinations must be made by _rule_, and with _wise\ncontrivance_. By this means abundance of information is conveyed unto us,\nconcerning what we are to expect from such and such actions, and what\nmethods are proper to be taken for the exciting such and such ideas(642).\nWhich in effect is all that I conceive to be distinctly meant when it is\nsaid(643) that, by discerning the figure, texture, and mechanism of the\ninward parts of bodies, whether natural or artificial, we may attain to\nknow the several uses and properties depending thereon, or the nature of\nthe thing.\n\n66. Hence, it is evident that those things which, under the notion of a\ncause co-operating or concurring to the production of effects, are\naltogether inexplicable and run us into great absurdities, may be very\nnaturally explained, and have a proper and obvious use assigned to them,\nwhen they are considered only as marks or signs for _our_ information. And\nit is the searching after and endeavouring to understand this Language (if\nI may so call it) of the Author of Nature, that ought to be the employment\nof the natural philosopher; and not the pretending to explain things by\n_corporeal_ causes, which doctrine seems to have too much estranged the\nminds of men from that Active Principle, that supreme and wise Spirit \u201cin\nwhom we live, move, and have our being.\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n67. In the _twelfth_ place, it may perhaps be objected that\u2014though it be\nclear from what has been said that there can be no such thing as an inert,\nsenseless, extended, solid, figured, moveable Substance, existing without\nthe mind, such as philosophers describe Matter; yet, if any man shall\nleave out of his idea of Matter the positive ideas of extension, figure,\nsolidity and motion, and say that he means only by that word an inert,\nsenseless substance, that exists without the mind, or unperceived, which\nis the _occasion_ of our ideas, or at the presence whereof God is pleased\nto excite ideas in us\u2014it doth not appear but that Matter taken in this\nsense may possibly exist.\u2014In answer to which I say, first, that it seems\nno less absurd to suppose a substance without accidents, than it is to\nsuppose accidents without a substance(644). But secondly, though we should\ngrant this unknown substance may possibly exist, yet where can it be\nsupposed to be? That it exists not in the mind(645) is agreed; and that it\nexists not in place is no less certain, since all place or extension\nexists only in the mind(646), as hath been already proved. It remains\ntherefore that it exists nowhere at all.\n\n68. Let us examine a little the description that is here given us of\nMatter. It neither acts, nor perceives, nor is perceived: for this is all\nthat is meant by saying it is an inert, senseless, unknown substance;\nwhich is a definition entirely made up of negatives, excepting only the\nrelative notion of its standing under or supporting. But then it must be\nobserved that it supports nothing at all, and how nearly this comes to the\ndescription of a _nonentity_ I desire may be considered. But, say you, it\nis the _unknown occasion_(647), at the presence of which ideas are excited\nin us by the will of God. Now, I would fain know how anything can be\npresent to us, which is neither perceivable by sense nor reflexion, nor\ncapable of producing any idea in our minds, nor is at all extended, nor\nhath any form, nor exists in any place. The words \u201cto be present,\u201d when\nthus applied, must needs be taken in some abstract and strange meaning,\nand which I am not able to comprehend.\n\n69. Again, let us examine what is meant by _occasion_. So far as I can\ngather from the common use of language, that word signifies either the\nagent which produces any effect, or else something that is observed to\naccompany or go before it, in the ordinary course of things. But, when it\nis applied to Matter, as above described, it can be taken in neither of\nthose senses; for Matter is said to be passive and inert, and so cannot be\nan agent or efficient cause. It is also unperceivable, as being devoid of\nall sensible qualities, and so cannot be the occasion of our perceptions\nin the latter sense; as when the burning my finger is said to be the\noccasion of the pain that attends it. What therefore can be meant by\ncalling _matter_ an _occasion_? This term is either used in no sense at\nall, or else in some very distant from its received signification.\n\n70. You will perhaps say that Matter, though it be not perceived by us, is\nnevertheless perceived by God, to whom it is the occasion of exciting\nideas in our minds(648). For, say you, since we observe our sensations to\nbe imprinted in an orderly and constant manner, it is but reasonable to\nsuppose there are certain constant and regular occasions of their being\nproduced. That is to say, that there are certain permanent and distinct\nparcels of Matter, corresponding to our ideas, which, though they do not\nexcite them in our minds, or anywise immediately affect us, as being\naltogether passive, and unperceivable to us, they are nevertheless to God,\nby whom they _are_ perceived(649), as it were so many occasions to remind\nHim when and what ideas to imprint on our minds: that so things may go on\nin a constant uniform manner.\n\n71. In answer to this, I observe that, as the notion of Matter is here\nstated, the question is no longer concerning the existence of a thing\ndistinct from _Spirit_ and _idea_, from perceiving and being perceived;\nbut whether there are not certain Ideas (of I know not what sort) in the\nmind of God, which are so many marks or notes that direct Him how to\nproduce sensations in our minds in a constant and regular method: much\nafter the same manner as a musician is directed by the notes of music to\nproduce that harmonious train and composition of sound which is called a\ntune; though they who hear the music do not perceive the notes, and may be\nentirely ignorant of them. But this notion of Matter (which after all is\nthe only intelligible one that I can pick from what is said of unknown\noccasions) seems too extravagant to deserve a confutation. Besides, it is\nin effect no objection against what we have advanced, viz. that there is\nno senseless unperceived substance.\n\n72. If we follow the light of reason, we shall, from the constant uniform\nmethod of our sensations, collect the goodness and wisdom of the Spirit\nwho excites them in our minds; but this is all that I can see reasonably\nconcluded from thence. To me, I say, it is evident that the being of a\nSpirit\u2014infinitely wise, good, and powerful\u2014is abundantly sufficient to\nexplain all the appearances of nature(650). But, as for _inert, senseless\nMatter_, nothing that I perceive has any the least connexion with it, or\nleads to the thoughts of it. And I would fain see any one explain any the\nmeanest phenomenon in nature by it, or shew any manner of reason, though\nin the lowest rank of probability, that he can have for its existence; or\neven make any tolerable sense or meaning of that supposition. For, as to\nits being an occasion, we have, I think, evidently shewn that with regard\nto us it is no occasion. It remains therefore that it must be, if at all,\nthe occasion to God of exciting ideas in us; and what this amounts to we\nhave just now seen.\n\n73. It is worth while to reflect a little on the motives which induced men\nto suppose the existence of _material substance_; that so having observed\nthe gradual ceasing and expiration of those motives or reasons, we may\nproportionably withdraw the assent that was grounded on them. First,\ntherefore, it was thought that colour, figure, motion, and the rest of the\nsensible qualities or accidents, did really exist without the mind; and\nfor this reason it seemed needful to suppose some unthinking _substratum_\nor substance wherein they did exist, since they could not be conceived to\nexist by themselves(651). Afterwards, in process of time, men(652) being\nconvinced that colours, sounds, and the rest of the sensible, secondary\nqualities had no existence without the mind, they stripped this\n_substratum_ or material substance of _those_ qualities, leaving only the\nprimary ones, figure, motion, and suchlike; which they still conceived to\nexist without the mind, and consequently to stand in need of a material\nsupport. But, it having been shewn that none even of these can possibly\nexist otherwise than in a Spirit or Mind which perceives them, it follows\nthat we have no longer any reason to suppose the being of Matter(653),\nnay, that it is utterly impossible there should be any such thing;\u2014so long\nas that word is taken to denote an _unthinking substratum_ of qualities or\naccidents, wherein they exist without the mind(654).\n\n74. But\u2014though it be allowed by the materialists themselves that Matter\nwas thought of only for the sake of supporting accidents, and, the reason\nentirely ceasing, one might expect the mind should naturally, and without\nany reluctance at all, quit the belief of what was solely grounded\nthereon: yet the prejudice is riveted so deeply in our thoughts that we\ncan scarce tell how to part with it, and are therefore inclined, since the\n_thing_ itself is indefensible, at least to retain the _name_; which we\napply to I know not what abstracted and indefinite notions of _being_, or\n_occasion_, though without any shew of reason, at least so far as I can\nsee. For, what is there on our part, or what do we perceive, amongst all\nthe ideas, sensations, notions which are imprinted on our minds, either by\nsense or reflexion, from whence may be inferred the existence of an inert,\nthoughtless, unperceived occasion? and, on the other hand, on the part of\nan All-sufficient Spirit, what can there be that should make us believe or\neven suspect He is directed by an inert occasion to excite ideas in our\nminds?\n\n75. It is a very extraordinary instance of the force of prejudice, and\nmuch to be lamented, that the mind of man retains so great a fondness,\nagainst all the evidence of reason, for a stupid thoughtless _Somewhat_,\nby the interposition whereof it would as it were screen itself from the\nProvidence of God, and remove it farther off from the affairs of the\nworld. But, though we do the utmost we can to secure the belief of Matter;\nthough, when reason forsakes us, we endeavour to support our opinion on\nthe bare possibility of the thing, and though we indulge ourselves in the\nfull scope of an imagination not regulated by reason to make out that poor\npossibility; yet the upshot of all is\u2014that there are certain _unknown_\nIdeas in the mind of God; for this, if anything, is all that I conceive to\nbe meant by _occasion_ with regard to God. And this at the bottom is no\nlonger contending for the thing, but for the name(655).\n\n76. Whether therefore there are such Ideas in the mind of God, and whether\n_they_ may be called by the name _Matter_, I shall not dispute(656). But,\nif you stick to the notion of an unthinking substance or support of\nextension, motion, and other sensible qualities, then to me it is most\nevidently impossible there should be any such thing; since it is a plain\nrepugnancy that those qualities should exist in, or be supported by, an\nunperceiving substance(657).\n\n77. But, say you, though it be granted that there is no thoughtless\nsupport of extension, and the other qualities or accidents which we\nperceive, yet there may perhaps be some inert, unperceiving substance or\n_substratum_ of some other qualities, as incomprehensible to us as colours\nare to a man born blind, because we have not a sense adapted to them. But,\nif we had a new sense, we should possibly no more doubt of _their_\nexistence than a blind man made to see does of the existence of light and\ncolours.\u2014I answer, first, if what you mean by the word _Matter_ be only\nthe unknown support of unknown qualities, it is no matter whether there is\nsuch a thing or no, since it no way concerns us. And I do not see the\nadvantage there is in disputing about what we know not _what_, and we know\nnot _why_.\n\n78. But, secondly, if we had a new sense, it could only furnish us with\nnew ideas or sensations; and then we should have the same reason against\n_their_ existing in an unperceiving substance that has been already\noffered with relation to figure, motion, colour, and the like.\n_Qualities_, as hath been shewn, are nothing else but _sensations_ or\n_ideas_, which exist only in a mind perceiving them; and this is true not\nonly of the ideas we are acquainted with at present, but likewise of all\npossible ideas whatsoever(658).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n79. But you will insist, What if I have no reason to believe the existence\nof Matter? what if I cannot assign any use to it, or explain anything by\nit, or even conceive what is meant by that word? yet still it is no\ncontradiction to say that Matter _exists_, and that this Matter is _in\ngeneral_ a _substance_, or _occasion of ideas_; though indeed to go about\nto unfold the meaning, or adhere to any particular explication of those\nwords may be attended with great difficulties.\u2014I answer, when words are\nused without a meaning, you may put them together as you please, without\ndanger of running into a contradiction. You may say, for example, that\n_twice two_ is equal to _seven_; so long as you declare you do not take\nthe words of that proposition in their usual acceptation, but for marks of\nyou know not what. And, by the same reason, you may say there is an inert\nthoughtless substance without accidents, which is the occasion of our\nideas. And we shall understand just as much by one proposition as the\nother.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n80. In the _last_ place, you will say, What if we give up the cause of\nmaterial Substance, and stand to it that Matter is an unknown\n_Somewhat_\u2014neither substance nor accident, spirit nor idea\u2014inert,\nthoughtless, indivisible, immoveable, unextended, existing in no place?\nFor, say you, whatever may be urged against _substance_ or _occasion_, or\nany other positive or relative notion of Matter, hath no place at all, so\nlong as this negative definition of Matter is adhered to.\u2014I answer, You\nmay, if so it shall seem good, use the word _matter_ in the same sense as\nother men use _nothing_, and so make those terms convertible in your\nstyle. For, after all, this is what appears to me to be the result of that\ndefinition; the parts whereof, when I consider with attention, either\ncollectively or separate from each other, I do not find that there is any\nkind of effect or impression made on my mind, different from what is\nexcited by the term _nothing_.\n\n81. You will reply, perhaps, that in the foresaid definition is included\nwhat doth sufficiently distinguish it from nothing\u2014the positive abstract\nidea of _quiddity_, _entity_, or _existence_. I own, indeed, that those\nwho pretend to the faculty of framing abstract general ideas do talk as if\nthey had such an idea, which is, say they, the most abstract and general\nnotion of all: that is to me the most incomprehensible of all others. That\nthere are a great variety of spirits of different orders and capacities,\nwhose faculties, both in number and extent, are far exceeding those the\nAuthor of my being has bestowed on me, I see no reason to deny. And for me\nto pretend to determine, by my own few, stinted, narrow inlets of\nperception, what ideas the inexhaustible power of the Supreme Spirit may\nimprint upon them, were certainly the utmost folly and presumption. Since\nthere may be, for aught that I know, innumerable sorts of ideas or\nsensations, as different from one another, and from all that I have\nperceived, as colours are from sounds(659). But, how ready soever I may be\nto acknowledge the scantiness of my comprehension, with regard to the\nendless variety of spirits and ideas that may possibly exist, yet for any\none to pretend to a _notion_ of Entity or Existence, _abstracted_ from\n_spirit_ and _idea_, from perceived and being perceived, is, I suspect, a\ndownright repugnancy and trifling with words.\n\nIt remains that we consider the objections which may possibly be made on\nthe part of Religion.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n82. Some there are who think that, though the arguments for the real\nexistence of bodies which are drawn from Reason be allowed not to amount\nto demonstration, yet the Holy Scriptures are so clear in the point, as\nwill sufficiently convince every good Christian, that bodies do really\nexist, and are something more than mere ideas; there being in Holy Writ\ninnumerable facts related which evidently suppose the reality of timber\nand stone, mountains and rivers, and cities, and human bodies(660)\u2014To\nwhich I answer that no sort of writings whatever, sacred or profane, which\nuse those and the like words in the vulgar acceptation, or so as to have a\nmeaning in them, are in danger of having their truth called in question by\nour doctrine. That all those things do really exist; that there are\nbodies, even corporeal substances, when taken in the vulgar sense, has\nbeen shewn to be agreeable to our principles: and the difference betwixt\n_things_ and _ideas_, _realities_ and _chimeras_, has been distinctly\nexplained. See sect. 29, 30, 33, 36, &c. And I do not think that either\nwhat philosophers call _Matter_, or the existence of objects without the\nmind(661), is anywhere mentioned in Scripture.\n\n83. Again, whether there be or be not external things(662), it is agreed\non all hands that the proper use of words is the marking _our_\nconceptions, or things only as they are known and perceived by us: whence\nit plainly follows, that in the tenets we have laid down there is nothing\ninconsistent with the right use and significancy of language, and that\ndiscourse, of what kind soever, so far as it is intelligible, remains\nundisturbed. But all this seems so very manifest, from what has been\nlargely set forth in the premises, that it is needless to insist any\nfarther on it.\n\n84. But, it will be urged that miracles do, at least, lose much of their\nstress and import by our principles. What must we think of Moses\u2019 rod? was\nit not _really_ turned into a serpent? or was there only a change of\n_ideas_ in the minds of the spectators? And, can it be supposed that our\nSaviour did no more at the marriage-feast in Cana than impose on the\nsight, and smell, and taste of the guests, so as to create in them the\nappearance or idea only of wine? The same may be said of all other\nmiracles: which, in consequence of the foregoing principles, must be\nlooked upon only as so many cheats, or illusions of fancy.\u2014To this I\nreply, that the rod was changed into a real serpent, and the water into\nreal wine. That this does not in the least contradict what I have\nelsewhere said will be evident from sect. 34 and 35. But this business of\n_real_ and _imaginary_ has been already so plainly and fully explained,\nand so often referred to, and the difficulties about it are so easily\nanswered from what has gone before, that it were an affront to the\nreader\u2019s understanding to resume the explication of it in this place. I\nshall only observe that if at table all who were present should see, and\nsmell, and taste, and drink wine, and find the effects of it, with me\nthere could be no doubt of its reality(663). So that at bottom the scruple\nconcerning real miracles has no place at all on ours, but only on the\nreceived principles, and consequently makes rather for than against what\nhas been said.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n85. Having done with the Objections, which I endeavoured to propose in the\nclearest light, and gave them all the force and weight I could, we proceed\nin the next place to take a view of our tenets in their Consequences(664).\nSome of these appear at first sight\u2014as that several difficult and obscure\nquestions, on which abundance of speculation has been thrown away, are\nentirely banished from philosophy. Whether corporeal substance can think?\nWhether Matter be infinitely divisible? And how it operates on\nspirit?\u2014these and the like inquiries have given infinite amusement to\nphilosophers in all ages. But, depending on the existence of Matter, they\nhave no longer any place on our Principles. Many other advantages there\nare, as well with regard to religion as the sciences, which it is easy for\nany one to deduce from what has been premised. But this will appear more\nplainly in the sequel.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n86. From the Principles we have laid down it follows human knowledge may\nnaturally be reduced to two heads\u2014that of _ideas_ and that of _Spirits_.\nOf each of these I shall treat in order.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAnd First as to _ideas_, or _unthinking things_. Our knowledge of these\nhas been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very\ndangerous errors, by supposing a two-fold existence of sense\u2014the one\n_intelligible_ or in the mind, the other _real_ and without the mind(665).\nWhereby unthinking things are thought to have a natural subsistence of\ntheir own, distinct from being perceived by spirits. This, which, if I\nmistake not, hath been shewn to be a most groundless and absurd notion, is\nthe very root of Scepticism; for, so long as men thought that real things\nsubsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth\n_real_ as it was _conformable to real things_, it follows they could not\nbe certain that they had any real knowledge at all. For how can it be\nknown that the things which are perceived are conformable to those which\nare not perceived, or exist without the mind(666)?\n\n87. Colour, figure, motion, extension, and the like, considered only as so\nmany _sensations_ in the mind, are perfectly known; there being nothing in\nthem which is not perceived. But, if they are looked on as notes or\nimages, referred to _things_ or _archetypes existing without the mind_,\nthen are we involved all in scepticism. We see only the appearances, and\nnot the real qualities of things. What may be the extension, figure, or\nmotion of anything really and absolutely, or in itself, it is impossible\nfor us to know, but only the proportion or relation they bear to our\nsenses. Things remaining the same, our ideas vary; and which of them, or\neven whether any of them at all, represent the true quality really\nexisting in the thing, it is out of our reach to determine. So that, for\naught we know, all we see, hear, and feel, may be only phantom and vain\nchimera, and not at all agree with the real things existing in _rerum\nnatura_. All this scepticism(667) follows from our supposing a difference\nbetween _things_ and _ideas_, and that the former have a subsistence\nwithout the mind, or unperceived. It were easy to dilate on this subject,\nand shew how the arguments urged by sceptics in all ages depend on the\nsupposition of external objects. [(668)But this is too obvious to need\nbeing insisted on.]\n\n88. So long as we attribute a real existence to unthinking things,\ndistinct from their being perceived, it is not only impossible for us to\nknow with evidence the nature of any real unthinking being, but even that\nit exists. Hence it is that we see philosophers distrust their senses, and\ndoubt of the existence of heaven and earth, of everything they see or\nfeel, even of their own bodies. And after all their labouring and struggle\nof thought, they are forced to own we cannot attain to any self-evident or\ndemonstrative knowledge of the existence of sensible things(669). But, all\nthis doubtfulness, which so bewilders and confounds the mind and makes\nphilosophy ridiculous in the eyes of the world, vanishes if we annex a\nmeaning to our words, and do not amuse ourselves with the terms\n_absolute_, _external_, _exist_, and such like, signifying we know not\nwhat. I can as well doubt of my own being as of the being of those things\nwhich I actually perceive by sense: it being a manifest contradiction that\nany sensible object should be immediately perceived by sight or touch, and\nat the same time have no existence in nature; since the very existence of\nan _unthinking being_ consists in _being perceived_.\n\n89. Nothing seems of more importance towards erecting a firm system of\nsound and real knowledge, which may be proof against the assaults of\nScepticism, than to lay the beginning in a distinct explication of _what\nis meant_ by _thing_, _reality_, _existence_; for in vain shall we dispute\nconcerning the real existence of things, or pretend to any knowledge\nthereof, so long as we have not fixed the meaning of those words. _Thing_\nor _being_ is the most general name of all: it comprehends under it two\nkinds, entirely distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing common\nbut the name, viz. _spirits_ and _ideas_. The former are active,\nindivisible, [(670)incorruptible] substances: the latter are inert,\nfleeting, [(671)perishable passions,] or dependent beings; which subsist\nnot by themselves(672), but are supported by, or exist in, minds or\nspiritual substances.\n\n[(673)We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling or reflection, and\nthat of other spirits by reason(674). We may be said to have some\nknowledge or _notion_(675) of our own minds, of spirits and active beings;\nwhereof in a strict sense we have not _ideas_. In like manner, we know and\nhave a _notion_ of relations between things or ideas; which relations are\ndistinct from the ideas or things related, inasmuch as the latter may be\nperceived by us without our perceiving the former. To me it seems that\n_ideas_, _spirits_, and _relations_ are all in their respective kinds the\nobject of human knowledge and subject of discourse; and that the term\n_idea_ would be improperly extended to signify _everything_ we know or\nhave any notion of(676).]\n\n90. Ideas imprinted on the senses are _real_ things, or do really\nexist(677): this we do not deny; but we deny they _can_ subsist without\nthe minds which perceive them, or that they are resemblances of any\narchetypes existing without the mind(678); since the very being of a\nsensation or idea consists in being perceived, and an idea can be like\nnothing but an idea. Again, the things perceived by sense may be termed\n_external_, with regard to their origin; in that they are not generated\nfrom within by the mind itself, but imprinted by a Spirit distinct from\nthat which perceives them. Sensible objects may likewise be said to be\n\u201cwithout the mind\u201d in another sense, namely when they exist in some other\nmind. Thus, when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist; but it\nmust be in another mind(679).\n\n91. It were a mistake to think that what is here said derogates in the\nleast from the reality of things. It is acknowledged, on the received\nprinciples, that extension, motion, and in a word all sensible qualities,\nhave need of a support, as not being able to subsist by themselves. But\nthe objects perceived by sense are allowed to be nothing but combinations\nof those qualities, and consequently cannot subsist by themselves(680).\nThus far it is agreed on all hands. So that in denying the things\nperceived by sense an existence independent of a substance or support\nwherein they may exist, we detract nothing from the received opinion of\ntheir _reality_, and are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the\ndifference is that, according to us, the unthinking beings perceived by\nsense have no existence distinct from being perceived, and cannot\ntherefore exist in any other substance than those unextended indivisible\nsubstances, or _spirits_, which act, and think and perceive them. Whereas\nphilosophers vulgarly hold that the sensible qualities do exist in an\ninert, extended, unperceiving Substance, which they call _Matter_, to\nwhich they attribute a natural subsistence, exterior to all thinking\nbeings, or distinct from being perceived by any mind whatsoever, even the\nEternal Mind of the Creator; wherein they suppose only Ideas of the\ncorporeal substances(681) created by Him: if indeed they allow them to be\nat all _created_(682).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n92. For, as we have shewn the doctrine of Matter or Corporeal Substance to\nhave been the main pillar and support of Scepticism, so likewise upon the\nsame foundation have been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and\nIrreligion. Nay, so great a difficulty has it been thought to conceive\nMatter produced out of nothing, that the most celebrated among the ancient\nphilosophers, even of those who maintained the being of a God, have\nthought Matter to be uncreated and co-eternal with Him(683). How great a\nfriend _material substance_ has been to Atheists in all ages were needless\nto relate. All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a\ndependence on it, that when this corner-stone is once removed, the whole\nfabric cannot choose but fall to the ground; insomuch that it is no longer\nworth while to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of\nevery wretched sect of Atheists(684).\n\n93. That impious and profane persons should readily fall in with those\nsystems which favour their inclinations, by deriding _immaterial\nsubstance_, and supposing the soul to be divisible, and subject to\ncorruption as the body; which exclude all freedom, intelligence, and\ndesign from the formation of things, and instead thereof make a\nself-existent, stupid, unthinking substance the root and origin of all\nbeings; that they should hearken to those who deny a Providence, or\ninspection of a Superior Mind over the affairs of the world, attributing\nthe whole series of events either to blind chance or fatal necessity,\narising from the impulse of one body on another\u2014all this is very natural.\nAnd, on the other hand, when men of better principles observe the enemies\nof religion lay so great a stress on _unthinking Matter_, and all of them\nuse so much industry and artifice to reduce everything to it; methinks\nthey should rejoice to see them deprived of their grand support, and\ndriven from that only fortress, without which your Epicureans, Hobbists,\nand the like, have not even the shadow of a pretence, but become the most\ncheap and easy triumph in the world.\n\n94. The existence of Matter, or bodies unperceived, has not only been the\nmain support of Atheists and Fatalists, but on the same principle doth\nIdolatry likewise in all its various forms depend. Did men but consider\nthat the sun, moon, and stars, and every other object of the senses, are\nonly so many sensations in their minds, which have no other existence but\nbarely being perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship\n_their own ideas_; but rather address their homage to that Eternal\nInvisible Mind which produces and sustains all things.\n\n95. The same absurd principle, by mingling itself with the articles of our\nfaith, hath occasioned no small difficulties to Christians. For example,\nabout the Resurrection, how many scruples and objections have been raised\nby Socinians and others? But do not the most plausible of them depend on\nthe supposition that a body is denominated the _same_, with regard not to\nthe form, or that which is perceived by sense(685), but the material\nsubstance, which remains the same under several forms? Take away this\n_material substance_\u2014about the identity whereof all the dispute is\u2014and\nmean by _body_ what every plain ordinary person means by that word, to\nwit, that which is immediately seen and felt, which is only a combination\nof sensible qualities or ideas: and then their most unanswerable\nobjections come to nothing.\n\n96. Matter(686) being once expelled out of nature drags with it so many\nsceptical and impious notions, such an incredible number of disputes and\npuzzling questions, which have been thorns in the sides of divines as well\nas philosophers, and made so much fruitless work for mankind, that if the\narguments we have produced against it are not found equal to demonstration\n(as to me they evidently seem), yet I am sure all friends to knowledge,\npeace, and religion have reason to wish they were.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n97. Beside the external(687) existence of the objects of perception,\nanother great source of errors and difficulties with regard to ideal\nknowledge is the doctrine of _abstract ideas_, such as it hath been set\nforth in the Introduction. The plainest things in the world, those we are\nmost intimately acquainted with and perfectly know, when they are\nconsidered in an abstract way, appear strangely difficult and\nincomprehensible. Time, place, and motion, taken in particular or\nconcrete, are what everybody knows; but, having passed through the hands\nof a metaphysician, they become too abstract and fine to be apprehended by\nmen of ordinary sense. Bid your servant meet you at such a _time_, in such\na _place_, and he shall never stay to deliberate on the meaning of those\nwords. In conceiving that particular time and place, or the motion by\nwhich he is to get thither, he finds not the least difficulty. But if\n_time_ be taken exclusive of all those particular actions and ideas that\ndiversify the day, merely for the continuation of existence or duration in\nabstract, then it will perhaps gravel even a philosopher to comprehend it.\n\n98. For my own part, whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of _time_,\nabstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly,\nand is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in\ninextricable difficulties. I have no notion of it at all: only I hear\nothers say it is infinitely divisible, and speak of it in such a manner as\nleads me to harbour odd thoughts of my existence: since that doctrine lays\none under an absolute necessity of thinking, either that he passes away\ninnumerable ages without a thought, or else that he is annihilated every\nmoment of his life: both which seem equally absurd(688). Time therefore\nbeing nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds, it\nfollows that the duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the\nnumber of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that same spirit or\nmind. Hence, it is a plain consequence that the soul always thinks. And in\ntruth whoever shall go about to divide in his thoughts or abstract the\n_existence_ of a spirit from its _cogitation_, will, I believe, find it no\neasy task(689).\n\n99. So likewise when we attempt to abstract _extension_ and _motion_ from\nall other qualities, and consider them by themselves, we presently lose\nsight of them, and run into great extravagances. [(690) Hence spring those\nodd paradoxes, that the fire is not hot, nor the wall white; or that heat\nand colour are in the objects nothing but figure and motion.] All which\ndepend on a twofold abstraction: first, it is supposed that extension, for\nexample, may be abstracted from all other sensible qualities; and,\nsecondly, that the entity of extension may be abstracted from its being\nperceived. But, whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he\nsays, will, if I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are\nalike _sensations_, and alike _real_; that where the extension is, there\nis the colour too, to wit, in his mind(691), and that their archetypes can\nexist only in some other _mind_: and that the objects of sense(692) are\nnothing but those sensations, combined, blended, or (if one may so speak)\nconcreted together; none of all which can be supposed to exist\nunperceived. [(693) And that consequently the wall is as truly white as it\nis extended, and in the same sense.]\n\n100. What it is for a man to be happy, or an object good, every one may\nthink he knows. But to frame an abstract idea of happiness, prescinded\nfrom all particular pleasure, or of goodness from everything that is good,\nthis is what few can pretend to. So likewise a man may be just and\nvirtuous without having precise ideas of justice and virtue. The opinion\nthat those and the like words stand for general notions, abstracted from\nall particular persons and actions, seems to have rendered morality\ndifficult, and the study thereof of less use to mankind. [(694)And in\neffect one may make a great progress in school ethics without ever being\nthe wiser or better man for it, or knowing how to behave himself in the\naffairs of life more to the advantage of himself or his neighbours than he\ndid before.] And in effect the doctrine of _abstraction_ has not a little\ncontributed towards spoiling the most useful parts of knowledge.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n101. The two great provinces of speculative science conversant about ideas\nreceived from sense and their relations, are Natural Philosophy and\nMathematics. With regard to each of these I shall make some observations.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAnd first I shall say somewhat of Natural Philosophy. On this subject it\nis that the sceptics triumph. All that stock of arguments they produce to\ndepreciate our faculties and make mankind appear ignorant and low, are\ndrawn principally from this head, namely, that we are under an invincible\nblindness as to the _true_ and _real_ nature of things. This they\nexaggerate, and love to enlarge on. We are miserably bantered, say they,\nby our senses, and amused only with the outside and shew of things. The\nreal essence, the internal qualities and constitution of every the meanest\nobject, is hid from our view: something there is in every drop of water,\nevery grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding\nto fathom or comprehend(695). But, it is evident from what has been shewn\nthat all this complaint is groundless, and that we are influenced by false\nprinciples to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know\nnothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.\n\n102. One great inducement to our pronouncing ourselves ignorant of the\nnature of things is, the current opinion that every thing includes _within\nitself_ the cause of its properties: or that there is in each object an\ninward essence, which is the source whence its discernible qualities flow,\nand whereon they depend. Some have pretended to account for appearances by\noccult qualities; but of late they are mostly resolved into mechanical\ncauses, to wit, the figure, motion, weight, and suchlike qualities, of\ninsensible particles(696): whereas, in truth, there is no other agent or\nefficient cause than _spirit_, it being evident that motion, as well as\nall other _ideas_, is perfectly inert. See sect. 25. Hence, to endeavour\nto explain the production of colours or sounds, by figure, motion,\nmagnitude, and the like, must needs be labour in vain. And accordingly we\nsee the attempts of that kind are not at all satisfactory. Which may be\nsaid in general of those instances wherein one idea or quality is assigned\nfor the cause of another. I need not say how many hypotheses and\nspeculations are left out, and how much the study of nature is abridged by\nthis doctrine(697).\n\n103. The great mechanical principle now in vogue is _attraction_. That a\nstone falls to the earth, or the sea swells towards the moon, may to some\nappear sufficiently explained thereby. But how are we enlightened by being\ntold this is done by attraction? Is it that that word signifies the manner\nof the tendency, and that it is by the mutual drawing of bodies instead of\ntheir being impelled or protruded towards each other? But nothing is\ndetermined of the manner or action, and it may as truly (for aught we\nknow) be termed _impulse_, or _protrusion_, as _attraction_. Again, the\nparts of steel we see cohere firmly together, and this also is accounted\nfor by attraction; but, in this, as in the other instances, I do not\nperceive that anything is signified besides the effect itself; for as to\nthe manner of the action whereby it is produced, or the cause which\nproduces it, these are not so much as aimed at.\n\n104. Indeed, if we take a view of the several phenomena, and compare them\ntogether, we may observe some likeness and conformity between them. For\nexample, in the falling of a stone to the ground, in the rising of the sea\ntowards the moon, in cohesion and crystallization, there is something\nalike; namely, an union or mutual approach of bodies. So that any one of\nthese or the like phenomena may not seem strange or surprising to a man\nwho has nicely observed and compared the effects of nature. For that only\nis thought so which is uncommon, or a thing by itself, and out of the\nordinary course of our observation. That bodies should tend towards the\ncentre of the earth is not thought strange, because it is what we perceive\nevery moment of our lives. But that they should have a like gravitation\ntowards the centre of the moon may seem odd and unaccountable to most men,\nbecause it is discerned only in the tides. But a philosopher, whose\nthoughts take in a larger compass of nature, having observed a certain\nsimilitude of appearances, as well in the heavens as the earth, that argue\ninnumerable bodies to have a mutual tendency towards each other, which he\ndenotes by the general name _attraction_, whatever can be reduced to that,\nhe thinks justly accounted for. Thus he explains the tides by the\nattraction of the terraqueous globe towards the moon; which to him doth\nnot appear odd or anomalous, but only a particular example of a general\nrule or law of nature.\n\n105. If therefore we consider the difference there is betwixt natural\nphilosophers and other men, with regard to their knowledge of the\nphenomena, we shall find it consists, not in an exacter knowledge of the\nefficient cause that produces them\u2014for that can be no other than the _will\n__ of a spirit_\u2014but only in a greater largeness of comprehension, whereby\nanalogies, harmonies, and agreements are discovered in the works of\nnature, and the particular effects explained, that is, reduced to general\nrules, see sect. 62: which rules, grounded on the analogy and uniformness\nobserved in the production of natural effects, are most agreeable and\nsought after by the mind; for that they extend our prospect beyond what is\npresent and near to us, and enable us to make very probable conjectures\ntouching things that may have happened at very great distances of time and\nplace, as well as to predict things to come: which sort of endeavour\ntowards Omniscience is much affected by the mind.\n\n106. But we should proceed warily in such things: for we are apt to lay\ntoo great a stress on analogies, and, to the prejudice of truth, humour\nthat eagerness of the mind, whereby it is carried to extend its knowledge\ninto general theorems. For example, gravitation or mutual attraction,\nbecause it appears in many instances, some are straightway for pronouncing\n_universal_; and that to attract and be attracted by every other body is\nan essential quality inherent in all bodies whatsoever. Whereas it is\nevident the fixed stars have no such tendency towards each other; and, so\nfar is that gravitation from being _essential_ to bodies that in some\ninstances a quite contrary principle seems to shew itself; as in the\nperpendicular growth of plants, and the elasticity of the air. There is\nnothing necessary or essential in the case(698); but it depends entirely\non the will of the Governing Spirit(699), who causes certain bodies to\ncleave together or tend towards each other according to various laws,\nwhilst He keeps others at a fixed distance; and to some He gives a quite\ncontrary tendency to fly asunder, just as He sees convenient.\n\n107. After what has been premised, I think we may lay down the following\nconclusions. First, it is plain philosophers amuse themselves in vain,\nwhen they enquire for any natural efficient cause, distinct from a _mind_\nor _spirit_. Secondly, considering the whole creation is the workmanship\nof a _wise and good Agent_, it should seem to become philosophers to\nemploy their thoughts (contrary to what some hold(700)) about the final\ncauses of things. [(701) For, besides that this would prove a very\npleasing entertainment to the mind, it might be of great advantage, in\nthat it not only discovers to us the attributes of the Creator, but may\nalso direct us in several instances to the proper uses and applications of\nthings.] And I must confess I see no reason why pointing out the various\nends to which natural things are adapted, and for which they were\noriginally with unspeakable wisdom contrived, should not be thought one\ngood way of accounting for them, and altogether worthy a philosopher.\nThirdly, from what has been premised, no reason can be drawn why the\nhistory of nature should not still be studied, and observations and\nexperiments made; which, that they are of use to mankind, and enable us to\ndraw any general conclusions, is not the result of any immutable habitudes\nor relations between things themselves, but only of God\u2019s goodness and\nkindness to men in the administration of the world. See sects. 30 and 31.\nFourthly, by a diligent observation of the phenomena within our view, we\nmay discover the general laws of nature, and from them deduce other\nphenomena. I do not say _demonstrate_; for all deductions of that kind\ndepend on a supposition that the Author of Nature always operates\nuniformly, and in a constant observance of those rules _we_ take for\nprinciples, which we cannot evidently know(702).\n\n108. It appears from sect. 66, &c. that the steady consistent methods of\nnature may not unfitly be styled the Language of its Author, whereby He\ndiscovers His attributes to our view and directs us how to act for the\nconvenience and felicity of life. Those men who frame(703) general rules\nfrom the phenomena, and afterwards derive(704) the phenomena from those\nrules, seem to consider signs(705) rather than causes. (706)A man may well\nunderstand natural signs without knowing their analogy, or being able to\nsay by what rule a thing is so or so. And, as it is very possible to write\nimproperly, through too strict an observance of general grammar-rules; so,\nin arguing from general laws of nature, it is not impossible we may\nextend(707) the analogy too far, and by that means run into mistakes.\n\n109. [(708) To carry on the resemblance.] As in reading other books a wise\nman will choose to fix his thoughts on the sense and apply it to use,\nrather than lay them out in grammatical remarks on the language; so, in\nperusing the volume of nature, methinks it is beneath the dignity of the\nmind to affect an exactness in reducing each particular phenomenon to\ngeneral rules, or shewing how it follows from them. We should propose to\nourselves nobler views, such as to recreate and exalt the mind with a\nprospect of the beauty, order, extent, and variety of natural things:\nhence, by proper inferences, to enlarge our notions of the grandeur,\nwisdom, and beneficence of the Creator: and lastly, to make the several\nparts of the creation, so far as in us lies, subservient to the ends they\nwere designed for\u2014God\u2019s glory, and the sustentation and comfort of\nourselves and fellow-creatures.\n\n110. [(709) The best key for the aforesaid analogy, or natural Science,\nwill be easily acknowledged to be a certain celebrated Treatise of\n_Mechanics_.] In the entrance of which justly admired treatise, Time,\nSpace, and Motion are distinguished into _absolute_ and _relative_, _true_\nand _apparent_, _mathematical_ and _vulgar_: which distinction, as it is\nat large explained by the author, does suppose those quantities to have an\nexistence without the mind: and that they are ordinarily conceived with\nrelation to sensible things, to which nevertheless in their own nature\nthey bear no relation at all.\n\nIII. As for _Time_, as it is there taken in an absolute or abstracted\nsense, for the duration or perseverance of the existence of things, I have\nnothing more to add concerning it after what has been already said on that\nsubject. Sects. 97 and 98. For the rest, this celebrated author holds\nthere is an _absolute Space_, which, being unperceivable to sense, remains\nin itself similar and immoveable; and relative space to be the measure\nthereof, which, being moveable and defined by its situation in respect of\nsensible bodies, is vulgarly taken for immoveable space. _Place_ he\ndefines to be that part of space which is occupied by any body: and\naccording as the space is absolute or relative so also is the place.\n_Absolute Motion_ is said to be the translation of a body from absolute\nplace to absolute place, as relative motion is from one relative place to\nanother. And because the parts of absolute space do not fall under our\nsenses, instead of them we are obliged to use their sensible measures; and\nso define both place and motion with respect to bodies which we regard as\nimmoveable. But it is said, in philosophical matters we must abstract from\nour senses; since it may be that none of those bodies which seem to be\nquiescent are truly so; and the same thing which is moved relatively may\nbe really at rest. As likewise one and the same body may be in relative\nrest and motion, or even moved with contrary relative motions at the same\ntime, according as its place is variously defined. All which ambiguity is\nto be found in the apparent motions; but not at all in the true or\nabsolute, which should therefore be alone regarded in philosophy. And the\ntrue we are told are distinguished from apparent or relative motions by\nthe following properties. First, in true or absolute motion, all parts\nwhich preserve the same position with respect of the whole, partake of the\nmotions of the whole. Secondly, the place being moved, that which is\nplaced therein is also moved: so that a body moving in a place which is in\nmotion doth participate the motion of its place. Thirdly, true motion is\nnever generated or changed otherwise than by force impressed on the body\nitself. Fourthly, true motion is always changed by force impressed on the\nbody moved. Fifthly, in circular motion, barely relative, there is no\ncentrifugal force, which nevertheless, in that which is true or absolute,\nis proportional to the quantity of motion.\n\n112. But, notwithstanding what hath been said, I must confess it does not\nappear to me that there can be any motion other than _relative_(710): so\nthat to conceive motion there must be conceived at least two bodies;\nwhereof the distance or position in regard to each other is varied. Hence,\nif there was one only body in being it could not possibly be moved. This\nseems evident, in that the idea I have of motion doth necessarily include\nrelation.\u2014[(711)Whether others can conceive it otherwise, a little\nattention may satisfy them.]\n\n113. But, though in every motion it be necessary to conceive more bodies\nthan one, yet it may be that one only is moved, namely, that on which the\nforce causing the change in the distance or situation of the bodies is\nimpressed. For, however some may define relative motion, so as to term\nthat body _moved_ which changes its distance from some other body, whether\nthe force [(712)or action] causing that change were impressed on it or no,\nyet, as relative motion is that which is perceived by sense, and regarded\nin the ordinary affairs of life, it follows that every man of common sense\nknows what it is as well as the best philosopher. Now, I ask any one\nwhether, in his sense of motion as he walks along the streets, the stones\nhe passes over may be said to _move_, because they change distance with\nhis feet? To me it appears that though motion includes a relation of one\nthing to another, yet it is not necessary that each term of the relation\nbe denominated from it. As a man may think of somewhat which does not\nthink, so a body may be moved to or from another body which is not\ntherefore itself in motion, [(713) I mean relative motion, for other I am\nnot able to conceive.]\n\n114. As the place happens to be variously defined, the motion which is\nrelated to it varies(714). A man in a ship may be said to be quiescent\nwith relation to the sides of the vessel, and yet move with relation to\nthe land. Or he may move eastward in respect of the one, and westward in\nrespect of the other. In the common affairs of life, men never go beyond\nthe Earth to define the place of any body; and what is quiescent in\nrespect of _that_ is accounted _absolutely_ to be so. But philosophers,\nwho have a greater extent of thought, and juster notions of the system of\nthings, discover even the Earth itself to be moved. In order therefore to\nfix their notions, they seem to conceive the Corporeal World as finite,\nand the utmost unmoved walls or shell thereof to be the place whereby they\nestimate true motions. If we sound our own conceptions, I believe we may\nfind all the absolute motion we can frame an idea of to be at bottom no\nother than relative motion thus defined. For, as has been already\nobserved, absolute motion, exclusive of _all_ external relation, is\nincomprehensible: and to this kind of relative motion all the\nabove-mentioned properties, causes, and effects ascribed to absolute\nmotion will, if I mistake not, be found to agree. As to what is said of\nthe centrifugal force, that it does not at all belong to circular relative\nmotion, I do not see how this follows from the experiment which is brought\nto prove it. See Newton\u2019s _Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica,\nin Schol. Def. VIII_. For the water in the vessel, at that time wherein it\nis said to have the greatest relative circular motion, hath, I think, no\nmotion at all: as is plain from the foregoing section.\n\n115. For, to denominate a body _moved_, it is requisite, first, that it\nchange its distance or situation with regard to some other body: and\nsecondly, that the force occasioning that change be applied to(715) it. If\neither of these be wanting, I do not think that, agreeably to the sense of\nmankind, or the propriety of language, a body can be said to be in motion.\nI grant indeed that it is possible for us to think a body, which we see\nchange its distance from some other, to be moved, though it have no force\napplied to(716) it (in which sense there may be apparent motion); but then\nit is because the force causing the change(717) of distance is imagined by\nus to be [(718)applied or] impressed on that body thought to move. Which\nindeed shews we are capable of mistaking a thing to be in motion which is\nnot, and that is all. [(719)But it does not prove that, in the common\nacceptation of motion, a body is moved merely because it changes distance\nfrom another; since as soon as we are undeceived, and find that the moving\nforce was not communicated to it, we no longer hold it to be moved. So, on\nthe other hand, when one only body (the parts whereof preserve a given\nposition between themselves) is imagined to exist, some there are who\nthink that it can be moved all manner of ways, though without any change\nof distance or situation to any other bodies; which we should not deny, if\nthey meant only that it might have an impressed force, which, upon the\nbare creation of other bodies, would produce a motion of some certain\nquantity and determination. But that an actual motion (distinct from the\nimpressed force, or power, productive of change of place in case there\nwere bodies present whereby to define it) can exist in such a single body,\nI must confess I am not able to comprehend.]\n\n116. From what has been said, it follows that the philosophic\nconsideration of motion doth not imply the being of an _absolute Space_,\ndistinct from that which is perceived by sense, and related to bodies:\nwhich that it cannot exist without the mind is clear upon the same\nprinciples that demonstrate the like of all other objects of sense. And\nperhaps, if we inquire narrowly, we shall find we cannot even frame an\nidea of _pure Space exclusive of all body_. This I must confess seems\nimpossible(720), as being a most abstract idea. When I excite a motion in\nsome part of my body, if it be free or without resistance, I say there is\n_Space_. But if I find a resistance, then I say there is _Body_: and in\nproportion as the resistance to motion is lesser or greater, I say the\nspace is more or less _pure_. So that when I speak of pure or empty space,\nit is not to be supposed that the word _space_ stands for an idea distinct\nfrom, or conceivable without, body and motion. Though indeed we are apt to\nthink every noun substantive stands for a distinct idea that may be\nseparated from all others; which hath occasioned infinite mistakes. When,\ntherefore, supposing all the world to be annihilated besides my own body,\nI say there still remains _pure Space_; thereby nothing else is meant but\nonly that I conceive it possible for the limbs of my body to be moved on\nall sides without the least resistance: but if that too were annihilated\nthen there could be no motion, and consequently no Space(721). Some,\nperhaps, may think the sense of seeing doth furnish them with the idea of\npure space; but it is plain from what we have elsewhere shewn, that the\nideas of space and distance are not obtained by that sense. See the _Essay\nconcerning Vision_.\n\n117. What is here laid down seems to put an end to all those disputes and\ndifficulties that have sprung up amongst the learned concerning the nature\nof _pure Space_. But the chief advantage arising from it is that we are\nfreed from that dangerous dilemma, to which several who have employed\ntheir thoughts on that subject imagine themselves reduced, viz. of\nthinking either that Real Space is God, or else that there is something\nbeside God which is eternal, uncreated, infinite, indivisible, immutable.\nBoth which may justly be thought pernicious and absurd notions. It is\ncertain that not a few divines, as well as philosophers of great note,\nhave, from the difficulty they found in conceiving either limits or\nannihilation of space, concluded it must be _divine_. And some of late\nhave set themselves particularly to shew that the incommunicable\nattributes of God agree to it. Which doctrine, how unworthy soever it may\nseem of the Divine Nature, yet I must confess I do not see how we can get\nclear of it, so long as we adhere to the received opinions(722).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n118. Hitherto of Natural Philosophy. We come now to make some inquiry\nconcerning that other great branch of speculative knowledge, to wit,\nMathematics(723). These, how celebrated soever they may be for their\nclearness and certainty of demonstration, which is hardly anywhere else to\nbe found, cannot nevertheless be supposed altogether free from mistakes,\nif in their principles there lurks some secret error which is common to\nthe professors of those sciences with the rest of mankind. Mathematicians,\nthough they deduce their theorems from a great height of evidence, yet\ntheir first principles are limited by the consideration of Quantity. And\nthey do not ascend into any inquiry concerning those transcendental maxims\nwhich influence all the particular sciences; each part whereof,\nMathematics not excepted, doth consequently participate of the errors\ninvolved in them. That the principles laid down by mathematicians are\ntrue, and their way of deduction from those principles clear and\nincontestible, we do not deny. But we hold there may be certain erroneous\nmaxims of greater extent than the object of Mathematics, and for that\nreason not expressly mentioned, though tacitly supposed, throughout the\nwhole progress of that science; and that the ill effects of those secret\nunexamined errors are diffused through all the branches thereof. To be\nplain, we suspect the mathematicians are no less deeply concerned than\nother men in the errors arising from the doctrine of abstract general\nideas, and the existence of objects without the mind.\n\n119. Arithmetic hath been thought to have for its object abstract ideas of\n_number_. Of which to understand the properties and mutual habitudes, is\nsupposed no mean part of speculative knowledge. The opinion of the pure\nand intellectual nature of numbers in abstract has made them in esteem\nwith those philosophers who seem to have affected an uncommon fineness and\nelevation of thought. It hath set a price on the most trifling numerical\nspeculations, which in practice are of no use, but serve only for\namusement; and hath heretofore so far infected the minds of some, that\nthey have dreamed of mighty _mysteries_ involved in numbers, and attempted\nthe explication of natural things by them. But, if we narrowly inquire\ninto our own thoughts, and consider what has been premised, we may perhaps\nentertain a low opinion of those high flights and abstractions, and look\non all inquiries about numbers only as so many _difficiles nugae_, so far\nas they are not subservient to practice, and promote the benefit of life.\n\n120. Unity in abstract we have before considered in sect. 13; from which,\nand what has been said in the Introduction, it plainly follows there is\nnot any such idea. But, number being defined a _collection of units_, we\nmay conclude that, if there be no such thing as unity, or unit in\nabstract, there are no _ideas_ of number in abstract, denoted by the\nnumeral names and figures. The theories therefore in Arithmetic, if they\nare abstracted from the names and figures, as likewise from all use and\npractice, as well as from the particular things numbered, can be supposed\nto have nothing at all for their object. Hence we may see how entirely the\nscience of numbers is subordinate to practice, and how jejune and trifling\nit becomes when considered as a matter of mere speculation(724).\n\n121. However, since there may be some who, deluded by the specious show of\ndiscovering abstracted verities, waste their time in arithmetical theorems\nand problems which have not any use, it will not be amiss if we more fully\nconsider and expose the vanity of that pretence. And this will plainly\nappear by taking a view of Arithmetic in its infancy, and observing what\nit was that originally put men on the study of that science, and to what\nscope they directed it. It is natural to think that at first, men, for\nease of memory and help of computation, made use of counters, or in\nwriting of single strokes, points, or the like, each whereof was made to\nsignify an unit, i.e. some one thing of whatever kind they had occasion to\nreckon. Afterwards they found out the more compendious ways of making one\ncharacter stand in place of several strokes or points. And, lastly, the\nnotation of the Arabians or Indians came into use; wherein, by the\nrepetition of a few characters or figures, and varying the signification\nof each figure according to the place it obtains, all numbers may be most\naptly expressed. Which seems to have been done in imitation of language,\nso that an exact analogy is observed betwixt the notation by figures and\nnames, the nine simple figures answering the nine first numeral names and\nplaces in the former, corresponding to denominations in the latter. And\nagreeably to those conditions of the simple and local value of figures,\nwere contrived methods of finding, from the given figures or marks of the\nparts, what figures and how placed are proper to denote the whole, or\n_vice versa_. And having found the sought figures, the same rule or\nanalogy being observed throughout, it is easy to read them into words; and\nso the number becomes perfectly known. For then the number of any\nparticular things is said to be known, when we know the name or figures\n(with their due arrangement) that according to the standing analogy belong\nto them. For, these signs being known, we can by the operations of\narithmetic know the signs of any part of the particular sums signified by\nthem; and thus computing in signs, (because of the connexion established\nbetwixt them and the distinct multitudes of things, whereof one is taken\nfor an unit), we may be able rightly to sum up, divide, and proportion the\nthings themselves that we intend to number.\n\n122. In Arithmetic, therefore, we regard not the _things_ but the _signs_;\nwhich nevertheless are not regarded for their own sake, but because they\ndirect us how to act with relation to things, and dispose rightly of them.\nNow, agreeably to what we have before observed of Words in general (sect.\n19, Introd.), it happens here likewise, that abstract ideas are thought to\nbe signified by numeral names or characters, while they do not suggest\nideas of particular things to our minds. I shall not at present enter into\na more particular dissertation on this subject; but only observe that it\nis evident from what has been said, those things which pass for abstract\ntruths and theorems concerning numbers, are in reality conversant about no\nobject distinct from particular numerable things; except only names and\ncharacters, which originally came to be considered on no other account but\ntheir being _signs_, or capable to represent aptly whatever particular\nthings men had need to compute. Whence it follows that to study them for\ntheir own sake would be just as wise, and to as good purpose, as if a man,\nneglecting the true use or original intention and subserviency of\nlanguage, should spend his time in impertinent criticisms upon words, or\nreasonings and controversies purely verbal(725).\n\n123. From numbers we proceed to speak of _extension_(726), which,\nconsidered as relative, is the object of Geometry. The _infinite_\ndivisibility of _finite_ extension, though it is not expressly laid down\neither as an axiom or theorem in the elements of that science, yet is\nthroughout the same everywhere supposed, and thought to have so\ninseparable and essential a connexion with the principles and\ndemonstrations in Geometry that mathematicians never admit it into doubt,\nor make the least question of it. And as this notion is the source from\nwhence do spring all those amusing geometrical paradoxes which have such a\ndirect repugnancy to the plain common sense of mankind, and are admitted\nwith so much reluctance into a mind not yet debauched by learning; so is\nit the principal occasion of all that nice and extreme subtilty, which\nrenders the study of Mathematics so very difficult and tedious. Hence, if\nwe can make it appear that no _finite_ extension contains innumerable\nparts, or is infinitely divisible, it follows that we shall at once clear\nthe science of Geometry from a great number of difficulties and\ncontradictions which have ever been esteemed a reproach to human reason,\nand withal make the attainment thereof a business of much less time and\npains than it hitherto hath been.\n\n124. Every particular finite extension which may possibly be the object of\nour thought is an _idea_ existing only in the mind; and consequently each\npart thereof must be perceived. If, therefore, I cannot _perceive_\ninnumerable parts in any finite extension that I consider, it is certain\nthey are not contained in it. But it is evident that I cannot distinguish\ninnumerable parts in any particular line, surface, or solid, which I\neither perceive by sense, or figure to myself in my mind. Wherefore I\nconclude they are not contained in it. Nothing can be plainer to me than\nthat the extensions I have in view are no other than my own ideas; and it\nis no less plain that I cannot resolve any one of my ideas into an\ninfinite number of other ideas; that is, that they are not infinitely\ndivisible(727). If by _finite extension_ be meant something distinct from\na finite idea, I declare I do not know what that is, and so cannot affirm\nor deny anything of it. But if the terms _extension_, _parts_, and the\nlike, are taken in any sense conceivable\u2014that is, for _ideas_,\u2014then to say\na finite quantity or extension consists of parts infinite in number is so\nmanifest and glaring a contradiction, that every one at first sight\nacknowledges it to be so. And it is impossible it should ever gain the\nassent of any reasonable creature who is not brought to it by gentle and\nslow degrees, as a converted Gentile(728) to the belief of\ntransubstantiation. Ancient and rooted prejudices do often pass into\nprinciples. And those propositions which once obtain the force and credit\nof a _principle_, are not only themselves, but likewise whatever is\ndeducible from them, thought privileged from all examination. And there is\nno absurdity so gross, which, by this means, the mind of man may not be\nprepared to swallow(729).\n\n125. He whose understanding is prepossessed with the doctrine of abstract\ngeneral ideas may be persuaded that (whatever be thought of the ideas of\nsense) _extension in abstract_ is infinitely divisible. And one who thinks\nthe objects of sense exist without the mind will perhaps, in virtue\nthereof, be brought to admit(730) that a line but an inch long may contain\ninnumerable parts really existing, though too small to be discerned. These\nerrors are grafted as well in the minds of geometricians as of other men,\nand have a like influence on their reasonings; and it were no difficult\nthing to shew how the arguments from Geometry made use of to support the\ninfinite divisibility of extension are bottomed on them. [(731) But this,\nif it be thought necessary, we may hereafter find a proper place to treat\nof in a particular manner.] At present we shall only observe in general\nwhence it is the mathematicians are all so fond and tenacious of that\ndoctrine.\n\n126. It has been observed in another place that the theorems and\ndemonstrations in Geometry are conversant about universal ideas (sect. 15,\nIntrod.): where it is explained in what sense this ought to be understood,\nto wit, the particular lines and figures included in the diagram are\nsupposed to stand for innumerable others of different sizes; or, in other\nwords, the geometer considers them abstracting from their magnitude: which\ndoth not imply that he forms an abstract idea, but only that he cares not\nwhat the particular magnitude is, whether great or small, but looks on\nthat as a thing indifferent to the demonstration. Hence it follows that a\nline in the scheme but an inch long must be spoken of as though it\ncontained ten thousand parts, since it is regarded not in itself, but as\nit is universal; and it is universal only in its signification, whereby it\n_represents_ innumerable lines greater than itself, in which may be\ndistinguished ten thousand parts or more, though there may not be above an\ninch in _it_. After this manner, the properties of the lines signified are\n(by a very usual figure) transferred to the sign; and thence, through\nmistake, thought to appertain to it considered in its own nature.\n\n127. Because there is no number of parts so great but it is possible there\nmay be a line containing more, the inch-line is said to contain parts more\nthan any assignable number; which is true, not of the inch taken\nabsolutely, but only for the things signified by it. But men, not\nretaining that distinction in their thoughts, slide into a belief that the\nsmall particular line described on paper contains in itself parts\ninnumerable. There is no such thing as the ten thousandth part of an inch;\nbut there is of a mile or diameter of the earth, which may be signified by\nthat inch. When therefore I delineate a triangle on paper, and take one\nside, not above an inch for example in length, to be the radius, this I\nconsider as divided into 10,000 or 100,000 parts, or more. For, though the\nten thousandth part of that line considered in itself, is nothing at all,\nand consequently may be neglected without any error or inconveniency, yet\nthese described lines, being only marks standing for greater quantities,\nwhereof it may be the ten thousandth part is very considerable, it follows\nthat, to prevent notable errors in practice, the radius must be taken of\n10,000 parts, or more.\n\n128. From what has been said the reason is plain why, to the end any\ntheorem may become universal in its use, it is necessary we speak of the\nlines described on paper as though they contained parts which really they\ndo not. In doing of which, if we examine the matter throughly, we shall\nperhaps discover that we cannot conceive an inch itself as consisting of,\nor being divisible into, a thousand parts, but only some other line which\nis far greater than an inch, and represented by it; and that when we say a\nline is _infinitely divisible_, we must mean(732) _a line which is\ninfinitely great_. What we have here observed seems to be the chief cause,\nwhy to suppose the _infinite_ divisibility of _finite extension_ has been\nthought necessary in geometry.\n\n129. The several absurdities and contradictions which flowed from this\nfalse principle might, one would think, have been esteemed so many\ndemonstrations against it. But, by I know not what logic, it is held that\nproofs _a posteriori_ are not to be admitted against propositions relating\nto Infinity. As though it were not impossible even for an Infinite Mind to\nreconcile contradictions; or as if anything absurd and repugnant could\nhave a necessary connexion with truth, or flow from it. But whoever\nconsiders the weakness of this pretence, will think it was contrived on\npurpose to humour the laziness of the mind, which had rather acquiesce in\nan indolent scepticism than be at the pains to go through with a severe\nexamination of those principles it has ever embraced for true.\n\n130. Of late the speculations about Infinites have run so high, and grown\nto such strange notions, as have occasioned no small scruples and disputes\namong the geometers of the present age. Some there are of great note who,\nnot content with holding that finite lines may be divided into an infinite\nnumber of parts, do yet farther maintain, that each of those\nInfinitesimals is itself subdivisible into an infinity of other parts, or\nInfinitesimals of a second order, and so on _ad infinitum_. These, I say,\nassert there are Infinitesimals of Infinitesimals of Infinitesimals,\nwithout ever coming to an end. So that according to them an inch does not\nbarely contain an infinite number of parts, but an infinity of an infinity\nof an infinity _ad infinitum_ of parts. Others there be who hold all\norders of Infinitesimals below the first to be nothing at all; thinking it\nwith good reason absurd to imagine there is any positive quantity or part\nof extension which, though multiplied infinitely, can ever equal the\nsmallest given extension. And yet on the other hand it seems no less\nabsurd to think the square, cube, or other power of a positive real root,\nshould itself be nothing at all; which they who hold Infinitesimals of the\nfirst order, denying all of the subsequent orders, are obliged to\nmaintain.\n\n131. Have we not therefore reason to conclude they are _both_ in the\nwrong, and that there is in effect no such thing as parts infinitely\nsmall, or an infinite number of parts contained in any finite quantity?\nBut you will say that if this doctrine obtains it will follow the very\nfoundations of Geometry are destroyed, and those great men who have raised\nthat science to so astonishing a height, have been all the while building\na castle in the air. To this it may be replied, that whatever is useful in\ngeometry, and promotes the benefit of human life, does still remain firm\nand unshaken on our Principles; that science considered as practical will\nrather receive advantage than any prejudice from what has been said. But\nto set this in a due light,[(733) and shew how lines and figures may be\nmeasured, and their properties investigated, without supposing finite\nextension to be infinitely divisible,] may be the proper business of\nanother place(734). For the rest, though it should follow that some of the\nmore intricate and subtle parts of Speculative Mathematics may be pared\noff without any prejudice to truth, yet I do not see what damage will be\nthence derived to mankind. On the contrary, I think it were highly to be\nwished that men of great abilities and obstinate application(735) would\ndraw off their thoughts from those amusements, and employ them in the\nstudy of such things as lie nearer the concerns of life, or have a more\ndirect influence on the manners.\n\n132. If it be said that several theorems, undoubtedly true, are discovered\nby methods in which Infinitesimals are made use of, which could never have\nbeen if their existence included a contradiction in it:\u2014I answer, that\nupon a thorough examination it will not be found that in any instance it\nis necessary to make use of or conceive _infinitesimal_ parts of _finite_\nlines, or even quantities less than the _minimum sensibile_: nay, it will\nbe evident this is never done, it being impossible. [(736) And whatever\nmathematicians may think of Fluxions, or the Differential Calculus, and\nthe like, a little reflexion will shew them that, in working by those\nmethods, they do not conceive or imagine lines or surfaces less than what\nare perceivable to sense. They may indeed call those little and almost\ninsensible quantities Infinitesimals, or Infinitesimals of Infinitesimals,\nif they please. But at bottom this is all, they being in truth finite; nor\ndoes the solution of problems require the supposing any other. But this\nwill be more clearly made out hereafter.]\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n133. By what we have hitherto said, it is plain that very numerous and\nimportant errors have taken their rise from those false Principles which\nwere impugned in the foregoing parts of this Treatise; and the opposites\nof those erroneous tenets at the same time appear to be most fruitful\nPrinciples, from whence do flow innumerable consequences, highly\nadvantageous to true philosophy as well as to religion. Particularly\n_Matter_, or _the absolute_(737)_ existence of corporeal objects_, hath\nbeen shewn to be that wherein the most avowed and pernicious enemies of\nall knowledge, whether human or divine, have ever placed their chief\nstrength and confidence. And surely if by distinguishing the real\nexistence of unthinking things from their being perceived, and allowing\nthem a subsistence of their own, out of the minds of spirits, no one thing\nis explained in nature, but on the contrary a great many inexplicable\ndifficulties arise; if the supposition of Matter(738) is barely\nprecarious, as not being grounded on so much as one single reason; if its\nconsequences cannot endure the light of examination and free inquiry, but\nscreen themselves under the dark and general pretence of _infinites being\nincomprehensible_; if withal the removal of _this_ Matter be not attended\nwith the least evil consequence; if it be not even missed in the world,\nbut everything as well, nay much easier conceived without it; if, lastly,\nboth Sceptics and Atheists are for ever silenced upon supposing only\nspirits and ideas, and this scheme of things is perfectly agreeable both\nto Reason and Religion: methinks we may expect it should be admitted and\nfirmly embraced, though it were proposed only as an _hypothesis_, and the\nexistence of Matter had been allowed possible; which yet I think we have\nevidently demonstrated that it is not.\n\n134. True it is that, in consequence of the foregoing Principles, several\ndisputes and speculations which are esteemed no mean parts of learning are\nrejected as useless [(739) and in effect conversant about nothing at all].\nBut how great a prejudice soever against our notions this may give to\nthose who have already been deeply engaged, and made large advances in\nstudies of that nature, yet by others we hope it will not be thought any\njust ground of dislike to the principles and tenets herein laid down, that\nthey abridge the labour of study, and make human sciences more clear,\ncompendious, and attainable than they were before.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n135. Having despatched what we intended to say concerning the knowledge of\n_ideas_, the method we proposed leads us in the next place to treat of\n_spirits_(740): with regard to which, perhaps, human knowledge is not so\ndeficient as is vulgarly imagined. The great reason that is assigned for\nour being thought ignorant of the nature of Spirits is our not having an\n_idea_ of it. But, surely it ought not to be looked on as a defect in a\nhuman understanding that it does not perceive the idea of Spirit, if it is\nmanifestly impossible there should be any such idea. And this if I mistake\nnot has been demonstrated in section 27. To which I shall here add that a\nSpirit has been shewn to be the only substance or support wherein\nunthinking beings or ideas can exist: but that this _substance_ which\nsupports or perceives ideas should itself be an idea, or like an idea, is\nevidently absurd.\n\n136. It will perhaps be said that we want a _sense_ (as some have\nimagined(741)) proper to know substances withal; which, if we had, we\nmight know our own soul as we do a triangle. To this I answer, that in\ncase we had a new sense bestowed upon us, we could only receive thereby\nsome new _sensations_ or _ideas of sense_. But I believe nobody will say\nthat what he means by the terms _soul_ and _substance_ is only some\nparticular sort of idea or sensation. We may therefore infer that, all\nthings duly considered, it is not more reasonable to think our faculties\ndefective, in that they do not furnish us with an _idea_ of Spirit, or\nactive thinking substance, than it would be if we should blame them for\nnot being able to comprehend a _round square_(742).\n\n137. From the opinion that Spirits are to be known after the manner of an\nidea or sensation have risen many absurd and heterodox tenets, and much\nscepticism about the nature of the soul. It is even probable that this\nopinion may have produced a doubt in some whether they had any soul at all\ndistinct from their body; since upon inquiry they could not find they had\nan idea of it. That an _idea_, which is inactive, and the existence\nwhereof consists in being perceived, should be the image or likeness of an\nagent subsisting by itself, seems to need no other refutation than barely\nattending to what is meant by those words. But perhaps you will say that\nthough an idea cannot resemble a Spirit in its thinking, acting, or\nsubsisting by itself, yet it may in some other respects; and it is not\nnecessary that an idea or image be in all respects like the original.\n\n138. I answer, If it does not in those mentioned, it is impossible it\nshould represent it in any other thing. Do but leave out the power of\nwilling, thinking, and perceiving ideas, and there remains nothing else\nwherein the idea can be like a spirit. For, by the word _spirit_ we mean\nonly that which thinks, wills, and perceives; this, and this alone,\nconstitutes the signification of that term. If therefore it is impossible\nthat any degree of those powers should be represented in an idea [(743)or\nnotion], it is evident there can be no idea [or notion] of a Spirit.\n\n139. But it will be objected that, if there is no _idea_ signified by the\nterms _soul_, _spirit_, and _substance_, they are wholly insignificant, or\nhave no meaning in them. I answer, those words do mean or signify a real\nthing; which is neither an idea nor like an idea, but that which perceives\nideas, and wills, and reasons about them. What I am _myself_, that which I\ndenote by the term _I_, is the same with what is meant by _soul_, or\n_spiritual substance_. [(744)But if I should say that _I_ was nothing, or\nthat _I_ was an _idea_ or _notion_, nothing could be more evidently absurd\nthan either of these propositions.] If it be said that this is only\nquarrelling at a word, and that, since the immediate significations of\nother names are by common consent called _ideas_, no reason can be\nassigned why that which is signified by the name _spirit_ or _soul_ may\nnot partake in the same appellation. I answer, all the unthinking objects\nof the mind agree in that they are entirely passive, and their existence\nconsists only in being perceived: whereas a _soul_ or _spirit_ is an\nactive being, whose existence consists, not in being perceived, but in\nperceiving ideas and thinking(745). It is therefore necessary, in order to\nprevent equivocation and confounding natures perfectly disagreeing and\nunlike, that we distinguish between _spirit_ and _idea_. See sect. 27.\n\n140. In a large sense indeed, we may be said to have an idea [(746)or\nrather a notion] of _spirit_. That is, we understand the meaning of the\nword, otherwise we could not affirm or deny anything of it. Moreover, as\nwe conceive the ideas that are in the minds of other spirits by means of\nour own, which we suppose to be resemblances of them, so we know other\nspirits by means of our own soul: which in that sense is the image or idea\nof them; it having a like respect to other spirits that blueness or heat\nby me perceived has to those ideas perceived by another(747).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n141. [(748)The natural immortality of the soul is a necessary consequence\nof the foregoing doctrine. But before we attempt to prove this, it is fit\nthat we explain the meaning of that tenet.] It must not be supposed that\nthey who assert the natural immortality of the soul(749) are of opinion\nthat it is absolutely incapable of annihilation even by the infinite power\nof the Creator who first gave it being, but only that it is not liable to\nbe broken or dissolved by the ordinary laws of nature or motion They\nindeed who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system\nof animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body; since\nthere is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is\nnaturally impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle wherein it\nis inclosed. And this notion hath been greedily embraced and cherished by\nthe worst part of mankind, as the most effectual antidote against all\nimpressions of virtue and religion. But it hath been made evident that\nbodies, of what frame or texture soever, are barely passive ideas in the\nmind, which is more distant and heterogeneous from them than light is from\ndarkness(750). We have shewn that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal,\nunextended; and it is consequently incorruptible. Nothing can be plainer\nthan that the motions, changes, decays, and dissolutions which we hourly\nsee befal natural bodies (and which is what we mean by the _course of\nnature_) cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance:\nsuch a being therefore is indissoluble by the force of nature; that is to\nsay, _the soul of man_ is _naturally immortal_(751).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n142. After what has been said, it is, I suppose, plain that our souls are\nnot to be known in the same manner as senseless, inactive objects, or by\nway of _idea_. _Spirits_ and _ideas_ are things so wholly different, that\nwhen we say \u201cthey exist,\u201d \u201cthey are known,\u201d or the like, these words must\nnot be thought to signify anything common to both natures(752). There is\nnothing alike or common in them; and to expect that by any multiplication\nor enlargement of our faculties, we may be enabled to know a spirit as we\ndo a triangle, seems as absurd as if we should hope to _see a sound_. This\nis inculcated because I imagine it may be of moment towards clearing\nseveral important questions, and preventing some very dangerous errors\nconcerning the nature of the soul.\n\n[(753)We may not, I think, strictly be said to have an _idea_ of an active\nbeing, or of an action; although we may be said to have a _notion_ of\nthem. I have some knowledge or notion of _my mind_, and its acts about\nideas; inasmuch as I know or understand what is meant by these words. What\nI know, that I have some notion of. I will not say that the terms _idea_\nand _notion_ may not be used convertibly, if the world will have it so.\nBut yet it conduceth to clearness and propriety, that we distinguish\nthings very different by different names. It is also to be remarked that,\nall _relations_ including an act of the mind(754), we cannot so properly\nbe said to have an idea, but rather a notion, of the relations and\nhabitudes between things. But if, in the modern way(755), the word _idea_\nis extended to _spirits_, and _relations_, and _acts_, this is, after all,\nan affair of verbal concern.]\n\n143. It will not be amiss to add, that the doctrine of _abstract ideas_\nhas had no small share in rendering those sciences intricate and obscure\nwhich are particularly conversant about spiritual things. Men have\nimagined they could frame abstract notions of the _powers_ and _acts_ of\nthe mind, and consider them prescinded as well from the mind or spirit\nitself, as from their respective objects and effects. Hence a great number\nof dark and ambiguous terms, presumed to stand for abstract notions, have\nbeen introduced into metaphysics and morality; and from these have grown\ninfinite distractions and disputes amongst the learned(756).\n\n144. But, nothing seems more to have contributed towards engaging men in\ncontroversies and mistakes with regard to the nature and operations of the\nmind, than the being used to speak of those things in terms borrowed from\nsensible ideas. For example, the will is termed the _motion_ of the soul:\nthis infuses a belief that the mind of man is as a ball in motion,\nimpelled and determined by the objects of sense, as necessarily as that is\nby the stroke of a racket. Hence arise endless scruples and errors of\ndangerous consequence in morality. All which, I doubt not, may be cleared,\nand truth appear plain, uniform, and consistent, could but philosophers be\nprevailed on to [(757)depart from some received prejudices and modes of\nspeech, and] retire into themselves, and attentively consider their own\nmeaning. [(758)But the difficulties arising on this head demand a more\nparticular disquisition than suits with the design of this treatise.]\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n145. From what hath been said, it is plain that we cannot know the\nexistence of _other spirits_ otherwise than by their operations, or the\nideas by them, excited in us. I perceive several motions, changes, and\ncombinations of ideas, that inform me there are certain particular agents,\nlike myself, which accompany them, and concur in their production. Hence,\nthe knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate, as is the\nknowledge of my ideas; but depending on the intervention of ideas, by me\nreferred to agents or spirits distinct from myself, as effects or\nconcomitant signs(759).\n\n146. But, though there be some things which convince us human agents are\nconcerned in producing them, yet it is evident to every one that those\nthings which are called the Works of Nature, that is, the far greater part\nof the ideas or sensations perceived by us, are _not_ produced by, or\ndependent on, the wills of _men_. There is therefore some other Spirit\nthat causes them; since it is repugnant(760) that they should subsist by\nthemselves. See sect. 29. But, if we attentively consider the constant\nregularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising\nmagnificence, beauty and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite\ncontrivance of the smaller parts of the creation, together with the exact\nharmony and correspondence of the whole, but above all the\nnever-enough-admired laws of pain and pleasure, and the instincts or\nnatural inclinations, appetites, and passions of animals;\u2014I say if we\nconsider all these things, and at the same time attend to the meaning and\nimport of the attributes One, Eternal, Infinitely Wise, Good, and Perfect,\nwe shall clearly perceive that they belong to the aforesaid Spirit, \u201cwho\nworks all in all\u201d and \u201cby whom all things consist.\u201d\n\n147. Hence, it is evident that God is known as certainly and immediately\nas any other mind or spirit whatsoever, distinct from ourselves. We may\neven assert that the existence of God is far more evidently perceived than\nthe existence of men; because the effects of Nature are infinitely more\nnumerous and considerable than those ascribed to human agents. There is\nnot any one mark that denotes a man, or effect produced by him, which does\nnot more strongly evince the being of that Spirit who is the Author of\nNature(761). For it is evident that, in affecting other persons, the will\nof man hath no other object than barely the motion of the limbs of his\nbody; but that such a motion should be attended by, or excite any idea in\nthe mind of another, depends wholly on the will of the Creator. He alone\nit is who, \u201cupholding all things by the word of His power,\u201d maintains that\nintercourse between spirits whereby they are able to perceive the\nexistence of each other(762). And yet this pure and clear Light which\nenlightens everyone is itself invisible [(763)to the greatest part of\nmankind].\n\n148. It seems to be a general pretence of the unthinking herd that they\ncannot _see_ God. Could we but see Him, say they, as we see a man, we\nshould believe that He is, and believing obey His commands. But alas, we\nneed only open our eyes to see the Sovereign Lord of all things, with a\n_more_ full and clear view than we do any one of our fellow-creatures. Not\nthat I imagine we see God (as some will have it) by a direct and immediate\nview; or see corporeal things, not by themselves, but by seeing that which\nrepresents them in the essence of God; which doctrine is, I must confess,\nto me incomprehensible(764). But I shall explain my meaning. A human\nspirit or person is not perceived by sense, as not being an idea. When\ntherefore we see the colour, size, figure, and motions of a man, we\nperceive only certain sensations or ideas excited in our own minds; and\nthese being exhibited to our view in sundry distinct collections, serve to\nmark out unto us the existence of finite and created spirits like\nourselves. Hence it is plain we do not see a man, if by _man_ is meant,\nthat which lives, moves, perceives, and thinks as we do: but only such a\ncertain collection of ideas, as directs us to think there is a distinct\nprinciple of thought and motion, like to ourselves, accompanying and\nrepresented by it. And after the same manner we see God: all the\ndifference is that, whereas some one finite and narrow assemblage of ideas\ndenotes a particular human mind, whithersoever we direct our view we do at\nall times and in all places perceive manifest tokens of the Divinity:\neverything we see, hear, feel, or anywise perceive by sense, being a sign\nor effect of the power of God; as is our perception of those very motions\nwhich are produced by men(765).\n\n149. It is therefore plain that nothing can be more evident to any one\nthat is capable of the least reflexion than the existence of God, or a\nSpirit who is intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that\nvariety of ideas or sensations which continually affect us, on whom we\nhave an absolute and entire dependence, in short \u201cin whom we live, and\nmove, and have our being.\u201d That the discovery of this great truth, which\nlies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason\nof so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men,\nwho, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the\nDeity, are yet so little affected by them that they seem, as it were,\nblinded with excess of light(766).\n\n150. But you will say\u2014Hath Nature no share in the production of natural\nthings, and must they be all ascribed to the immediate and sole operation\nof God? I answer, If by _Nature_ is meant only the _visible series_ of\neffects or sensations imprinted on our minds according to certain fixed\nand general laws, then it is plain that Nature, taken in this sense,\ncannot produce anything at all(767). But if by _Nature_ is meant some\nbeing distinct from God, as well as from the laws of nature and things\nperceived by sense, I must confess that word is to me an empty sound,\nwithout any intelligible meaning annexed to it. Nature, in this\nacceptation, is a vain chimera, introduced by those heathens who had not\njust notions of the omnipresence and infinite perfection of God. But it is\nmore unaccountable that it should be received among Christians, professing\nbelief in the Holy Scriptures, which constantly ascribe those effects to\nthe immediate hand of God that heathen philosophers are wont to impute to\nNature. \u201cThe Lord, He causeth the vapours to ascend; He maketh lightnings\nwith rain; He bringeth forth the wind out of His treasures.\u201d Jerem. x. 13.\n\u201cHe turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark\nwith night.\u201d Amos v. 8. \u201cHe visiteth the earth, and maketh it soft with\nshowers: He blesseth the springing thereof, and crowneth the year with His\ngoodness; so that the pastures are clothed with flocks, and the valleys\nare covered over with corn.\u201d See Psal. lxv. But, notwithstanding that this\nis the constant language of Scripture, yet we have I know not what\naversion from believing that God concerns Himself so nearly in our\naffairs. Fain would we suppose Him at a great distance off, and substitute\nsome blind unthinking deputy in His stead; though (if we may believe Saint\nPaul) \u201cHe be not far from every one of us.\u201d\n\n151. It will, I doubt not, be objected that the slow, gradual, and\nroundabout methods observed in the production of natural things do not\nseem to have for their cause the _immediate_ hand of an Almighty Agent:\nbesides, monsters, untimely births, fruits blasted in the blossom, rains\nfalling in desert places, miseries incident to human life, and the like,\nare so many arguments that the whole frame of nature is not immediately\nactuated and superintended by a Spirit of infinite wisdom and goodness.\nBut the answer to this objection is in a good measure plain from sect. 62;\nit being visible that the aforesaid methods of nature are absolutely\nnecessary in order to working by the most simple and general rules, and\nafter a steady and consistent manner; which argues both the wisdom and\ngoodness of God(768). [(769)For, it doth hence follow that the finger of\nGod is not so conspicuous to the resolved and careless sinner; which gives\nhim an opportunity to harden in his impiety and grow ripe for vengeance.\n(Vid. sect. 57.)] Such is the artificial contrivance of this mighty\nmachine of Nature that, whilst its motions and various phenomena strike on\nour senses, the Hand which actuates the whole is itself unperceivable to\nmen of flesh and blood. \u201cVerily\u201d (saith the prophet) \u201cthou art a God that\nhidest thyself.\u201d Isaiah xlv. 15. But, though the Lord conceal Himself from\nthe eyes of the sensual and lazy, who will not be at the least expense of\nthought(770), yet to an unbiassed and attentive mind, nothing can be more\nplainly legible than the intimate presence of an All-wise Spirit, who\nfashions, regulates, and sustains the whole system of Being. It is clear,\nfrom what we have elsewhere observed, that the operating according to\ngeneral and stated laws is so necessary for our guidance in the affairs of\nlife, and letting us into the secret of nature, that without it all reach\nand compass of thought, all human sagacity and design, could serve to no\nmanner of purpose. It were even impossible there should be any such\nfaculties or powers in the mind. See sect. 31. Which one consideration\nabundantly outbalances whatever particular inconveniences may thence\narise(771).\n\n152. We should further consider, that the very blemishes and defects of\nnature are not without their use, in that they make an agreeable sort of\nvariety, and augment the beauty of the rest of the creation, as shades in\na picture serve to set off the brighter and more enlightened parts. We\nwould likewise do well to examine, whether our taxing the waste of seeds\nand embryos, and accidental destruction of plants and animals before they\ncome to full maturity, as an imprudence in the Author of nature, be not\nthe effect of prejudice contracted by our familiarity with impotent and\nsaving mortals. In _man_ indeed a thrifty management of those things which\nhe cannot procure without much pains and industry may be esteemed wisdom.\nBut we must not imagine that the inexplicably fine machine of an animal or\nvegetable costs the great Creator any more pains or trouble in its\nproduction than a pebble does; nothing being more evident than that an\nOmnipotent Spirit can indifferently produce everything by a mere _fiat_ or\nact of his will. Hence it is plain that the splendid profusion of natural\nthings should not be interpreted weakness or prodigality in the Agent who\nproduces them, but rather be looked on as an argument of the riches of His\npower.\n\n153. As for the mixture of pain or uneasiness which is in the world,\npursuant to the general laws of Nature, and the actions of finite,\nimperfect Spirits, this, in the state we are in at present, is\nindispensably necessary to our well-being. But our prospects are too\nnarrow. We take, for instance, the idea of some one particular pain into\nour thoughts, and account it _evil_. Whereas, if we enlarge our view, so\nas to comprehend the various ends, connexions, and dependencies of things,\non what occasions and in what proportions we are affected with pain and\npleasure, the nature of human freedom, and the design with which we are\nput into the world; we shall be forced to acknowledge that those\nparticular things which, considered in themselves, appear to be evil, have\nthe nature of good, when considered as linked with the whole system of\nbeings(772).\n\n154. From what hath been said, it will be manifest to any considering\nperson, that it is merely for want of attention and comprehensiveness of\nmind that there are any favourers of Atheism or the Manichean Heresy to be\nfound. Little and unreflecting souls may indeed burlesque the works of\nProvidence; the beauty and order whereof they have not capacity, or will\nnot be at the pains, to comprehend(773). But those who are masters of any\njustness and extent of thought, and are withal used to reflect, can never\nsufficiently admire the divine traces of Wisdom and Goodness that shine\nthroughout the economy of Nature. But what truth is there which glares so\nstrongly on the mind that, by an aversion of thought, a wilful shutting of\nthe eyes, we may not escape seeing it? Is it therefore to be wondered at,\nif the generality of men, who are ever intent on business or pleasure, and\nlittle used to fix or open the eye of their mind, should not have all that\nconviction and evidence of the Being of God which might be expected in\nreasonable creatures(774)?\n\n155. We should rather wonder that men can be found so stupid as to\nneglect, than that neglecting they should be unconvinced of such an\nevident and momentous truth(775). And yet it is to be feared that too many\nof parts and leisure, who live in Christian countries, are, merely through\na supine and dreadful negligence, sunk into a sort of Atheism. [(776)They\ncannot say there is not a God, but neither are they convinced that there\nis. For what else can it be but some lurking infidelity, some secret\nmisgivings of mind with regard to the existence and attributes of God,\nwhich permits sinners to grow and harden in impiety?] Since it is\ndownright impossible that a soul pierced and enlightened with a thorough\nsense of the omnipresence, holiness, and justice of that Almighty Spirit\nshould persist in a remorseless violation of His laws. We ought,\ntherefore, earnestly to meditate and dwell on those important points; that\nso we may attain conviction without all scruple \u201cthat the eyes of the Lord\nare in every place, beholding the evil and the good; that He is with us\nand keepeth us in all places whither we go, and giveth us bread to eat and\nraiment to put on;\u201d that He is present and conscious to our innermost\nthoughts; and, that we have a most absolute and immediate dependence on\nHim. A clear view of which great truths cannot choose but fill our hearts\nwith an awful circumspection and holy fear, which is the strongest\nincentive to Virtue, and the best guard against Vice.\n\n156. For, after all, what deserves the first place in our studies is, the\nconsideration of GOD and our DUTY; which to promote, as it was the main\ndrift and design of my labours, so shall I esteem them altogether useless\nand ineffectual if, by what I have said, I cannot inspire my readers with\na pious sense of the Presence of God; and, having shewn the falseness or\nvanity of those barren speculations which make the chief employment of\nlearned men, the better dispose them to reverence and embrace the salutary\ntruths of the Gospel; which to know and to practise is the highest\nperfection of human nature.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS THE DESIGN OF WHICH IS PLAINLY\nTO DEMONSTRATE THE REALITY AND PERFECTION OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, THE\nINCORPOREAL NATURE OF THE SOUL, AND THE IMMEDIATE PROVIDENCE OF A DEITY,\nIN OPPOSITION TO SCEPTICS AND ATHEISTS, ALSO TO OPEN A METHOD FOR\nRENDERING THE SCIENCES MORE EASY, USEFUL, AND COMPENDIOUS\n\n\n_First published in 1713_\n\n\n\n\nEditor\u2019s Preface\n\n\nThis work is the gem of British metaphysical literature. Berkeley\u2019s claim\nto be the great modern master of Socratic dialogue rests, perhaps, upon\n_Alciphron_, which surpasses the conversations between Hylas and Philonous\nin expression of individual character, and in dramatic effect. Here\nconversation is adopted as a convenient way of treating objections to the\nconception of the reality of Matter which had been unfolded systematically\nin the book of _Principles_. But the lucid thought, the colouring of\nfancy, the glow of human sympathy, and the earnestness that pervade the\nsubtle reasonings pursued through these dialogues, are unique in English\nmetaphysical literature. Except perhaps Hume and Ferrier, none approach\nBerkeley in the art of uniting metaphysical thought with easy, graceful,\nand transparent style. Our surprise and admiration are increased when we\nrecollect that this charming production of reason and imagination came\nfrom Ireland, at a time when that country was scarcely known in the world\nof letters and philosophy.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe immediate impression produced by the publication of the _Principles_,\nis shewn in Berkeley\u2019s correspondence with Sir John Percival. Berkeley was\neager to hear what people had to say for or against what looked like a\nparadox apt to shock the reader; but in those days he was not immediately\ninformed by professional critics. \u201cIf when you receive my book\u201d\u2014he wrote\nfrom Dublin in July, 1710, to Sir John Percival(777), then in London,\u2014\u201cyou\ncan procure me the opinion of some of your acquaintances who are thinking\nmen, addicted to the study of natural philosophy and mathematics, I shall\nbe extremely obliged to you.\u201d In the following month he was informed by\nSir John that it was \u201cincredible what prejudice can work in the best\ngeniuses, even in the lovers of novelty. For I did but name the subject\nmatter of your book of _Principles_ to some ingenious friends of mine and\nthey immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same time refusing to\nread it, which I have not yet got one to do. A physician of my\nacquaintance undertook to discover your person, and argued you must needs\nbe mad, and that you ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied you, that a\ndesire of starting something new should put you upon such an undertaking.\nAnother told me that you are not gone so far as a gentleman in town, who\nasserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter, but that we\nourselves have no being at all.\u201d\n\nBerkeley\u2019s reply is interesting. \u201cI am not surprised,\u201d he says, \u201cthat I\nshould be ridiculed by those who won\u2019t take the pains to understand me. If\nthe raillery and scorn of those who criticise what they will not be at the\npains to understand had been sufficient to deter men from making any\nattempts towards curing the ignorance and errors of mankind, we should not\nhave been troubled with some very fair improvements in knowledge. The\ncommon cry\u2019s being against any opinion seems to me, so far from proving\nfalse, that it may with as good reason pass for an argument of its truth.\nHowever, I imagine that whatever doctrine contradicts vulgar and settled\nopinion had need be introduced with great caution into the world. For this\nreason it was that I omitted all mention of the non-existence of Matter in\nthe title-page, dedication, preface and introduction to the _Treatise on\nthe Principles of Human Knowledge_; that so the notion might steal\nunawares upon the reader, who probably might never have meddled with the\nbook if he had known that it contained such paradoxes.\u201d\n\nWith characteristic fervour he disclaims \u201cvariety and love of paradox\u201d as\nmotives of the book of _Principles_, and professes faith in the unreality\nof abstract unperceived Matter, a faith which he has held for some years,\n\u201cthe conceit being at first warm in my imagination, but since carefully\nexamined, both by my own judgment and that of ingenious friends.\u201d What he\nespecially complained of was \u201cthat men who have never considered my book\nshould confound me with the sceptics, who doubt the existence of sensible\nthings, and are not positive as to any one truth, no, not so much as their\nown being\u2014which I find by your letter is the case of some wild visionist\nnow in London. But whoever reads my book with attention will see that\nthere is a direct opposition between the principles that are contained in\nit and those of the sceptics, and that I question not the existence of\nanything we perceive by our senses. I do not deny the existence of the\nsensible things which Moses says were created by God. They existed from\nall eternity, in the Divine Intellect; and they became perceptible (i.e.\nwere created) in the same manner and order as is described in Genesis. For\nI take creation to belong to things only as they respect finite spirits;\nthere being nothing new to God. Hence it follows that the act of creation\nconsists in God\u2019s willing that those things should become perceptible to\nother spirits which before were known only to Himself. Now both reason and\nscripture assure us that there _are_ other spirits besides men, who, \u2019tis\npossible, might have perceived this visible world as it was successively\nexhibited to their view before man\u2019s creation. Besides, for to agree with\nthe Mosaic account of the creation, it\u2019s sufficient if we suppose that a\nman, in case he was existing at the time of the chaos of sensible things,\nmight have perceived all things formed out of it, in the very order set\ndown in scripture; all which is in no way repugnant to my principles.\u201d\n\nSir John in his next letter, written from London in October, 1716, reports\nthat the book of _Principles_ had fallen into the hands of the highest\nliving English authority in metaphysical theology, Samuel Clarke, who had\nproduced his _Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God_ four years\nbefore. The book had also been read by Whiston, Newton\u2019s successor at\nCambridge. \u201cI can only report at second-hand,\u201d he says, \u201cthat they think\nyou a fair arguer, and a clear writer; but they say your first principles\nyou lay down are false. They look upon you as an extraordinary genius,\nranking you with Father Malebranche, Norris, and another whose name I\nforget, all of whom they think extraordinary men, but of a particular turn\nof mind, and their labours of little use to mankind, on account of their\nabstruseness. This may arise from these gentlemen not caring to think\nafter a new manner, which would oblige them to begin their studies anew;\nor else it may be the strength of prejudice.\u201d\n\nBerkeley was vexed by this treatment on the part of Clarke and Whiston. He\nsent under Sir John\u2019s care a letter to each of them, hoping through him to\ndiscover \u201ctheir reasons against his notions, as truth is his sole aim.\u201d\n\u201cAs to what is said of ranking me with Father Malebranche and Mr. Norris,\nwhose writings are thought to be too fine-spun to be of any great use to\nmankind, I have this answer, that I think the notions I embrace are not in\nthe least agreeing with theirs, but indeed plainly inconsistent with them\nin the main points, inasmuch as I know few writers I take myself at bottom\nto differ more from than from them. Fine-spun metaphysics are what on all\noccasions I declare against, and if any one shall shew anything of that\nsort in my Treatise I will willingly correct it.\u201d Sir John delivered the\nletters to two friends of Clarke and Whiston, and reported that \u201cDr.\nClarke told his friend in reply, that he did not care to write you his\nthoughts, because he was afraid it might draw him into a dispute upon a\nmatter which was already clear to him. He thought your first principles\nyou go on are false; but he was a modest man, his friend said, and\nuninclined to shock any one whose opinions on things of this nature\ndiffered from his own.\u201d This was a disappointment to the ardent Berkeley.\n\u201cDr. Clarke\u2019s conduct seems a little surprising,\u201d he replies. \u201cThat an\ningenious and candid person (as I take him to be) should refuse to shew me\nwhere my error lies is something unaccountable. I never expected that a\ngentleman otherwise so well employed as Dr. Clarke should think it worth\nhis while to enter into a dispute with me concerning any notions of mine.\nBut, seeing it was clear to him I went upon false principles, I hoped he\nwould vouchsafe, in a line or two, to point them out to me, that so I may\nmore closely review and examine them. If he but once did me this favour,\nhe need not apprehend I should give him any further trouble. I should be\nglad if you have opportunity that you would let his friend know this.\nThere is nothing that I more desire than to know thoroughly all that can\nbe said against what I take for truth.\u201d Clarke, however, was not to be\ndrawn. The incident is thus referred to by Whiston, in his _Memoirs_ of\nClarke. \u201cMr. Berkeley,\u201d he says, \u201cpublished in 1710, at Dublin, the\nmetaphysical notion, that matter was not a real thing(778); nay, that the\ncommon opinion of its reality was groundless, if not ridiculous. He was\npleased to send Mr. Clarke and myself each of us a book. After we had\nperused it, I went to Mr. Clarke to discourse with him about it, to this\neffect, that I, being not a metaphysician, was not able to answer Mr.\nBerkeley\u2019s subtle premises, though I did not believe his absurd\nconclusions. I therefore desired that he, who was deep in such subtleties,\nbut did not appear to believe Mr. Berkeley\u2019s conclusion, would answer him.\n_Which task he declined_.\u201d\n\nWhat Clarke\u2019s criticism of Berkeley might have been is suggested by the\nfollowing sentences in his _Remarks on Human Liberty_, published seven\nyears after this correspondence: \u201cThe case as to the proof of our free\nagency is exactly the same as in that notable question, whether the\n[material] world exists or no? There is no demonstration of it from\nexperience. There always remains a bare possibility that the Supreme Being\nmay have so framed my mind, that I shall always be necessarily deceived in\nevery one of my perceptions as in a dream\u2014though possibly there be no\nmaterial world, nor any other creature existing besides myself. And yet no\nman in his senses argues from thence, that experience is no proof to us of\nthe existence of things. The bare physical possibility too of our being so\nframed by the Author of Nature as to be unavoidably deceived in this\nmatter by every experience of every action we perform, is no more any\nground to doubt the truth of our liberty, than the bare natural\npossibility of our being all our lifetime in a dream, deceived in our\n[natural] belief of the existence of the material world, is any just\nground to doubt the reality of its existence.\u201d Berkeley would hardly have\naccepted this analogy. Does the conception of a material world being\ndependent on percipient mind for its reality imply _deception_ on the part\nof the \u201cSupreme Being\u201d? \u201cDreams,\u201d in ordinary language, may signify\nillusory fancies during sleep, and so understood the term is misapplied to\na universally mind-dependent universe with its steady natural order.\nBerkeley disclaims emphatically any doubt of the reality of the sensible\nworld, and professes only to shew in what its reality consists, or its\ndependence upon percipient life as the indispensable realising factor. To\nsuppose that we can be \u201cnecessarily deceived in every one of our\nperceptions\u201d is to interpret the universe atheistically, and virtually\nobliges us in final nescience to acknowledge that it is wholly\nuninterpretable; so that experience is impossible, because throughout\nunintelligible. The moral trustworthiness or perfect goodness of the\nUniversal Power is I suppose the fundamental postulate of science and\nhuman life. If all our temporal experience can be called a dream it must\nat any rate be a dream of the sort supposed by Leibniz. \u201cNullo argumento\nabsolute demonstrari potest, dari corpora; nec quidquam prohibet _somnia\nqu\u00e6dam bene ordinata_ menti nostr\u00e6, objecta esse, qu\u00e6 a nobis vera\njudicentur, et ob consensum inter se quoad usum veris equivalent(779).\u201d\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe three _Dialogues_ discuss what Berkeley regarded as the most plausible\nObjections, popular and philosophical, to his account of living Mind or\nSpirit, as the indispensable factor and final cause of the reality of the\nmaterial world.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe principal aim of the _First Dialogue_ is to illustrate the\ncontradictory or unmeaning character and sceptical tendency of the common\nphilosophical opinion\u2014that we perceive in sense a material world which is\n_real_ only in as far as it can exist in absolute independence of\nperceiving mind. The impossibility of any of the qualities in which Matter\nis manifested to man\u2014the primary qualities not less than the\nsecondary\u2014having real existence in a mindless or unspiritual universe is\nargued and illustrated in detail. Abstract Matter, unrealised in terms of\npercipient life, is meaningless, and the material world becomes real only\nin and through living perception. And Matter, as an abstract substance\nwithout qualities, cannot, without a contradiction, it is also argued, be\npresented or represented, in sense. What is called _matter_ is thus melted\nin a spiritual solution, from which it issues the flexible and\nintelligible medium of intercourse for spiritual beings such as men are;\nwhose faculties moreover are educated in interpreting the cosmical order\nof the phenomena presented to their senses.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe _Second Dialogue_ is in the first place directed against modifications\nof the scholastic account of Matter, which attributes our knowledge of it\nto inference, founded on sense-ideas assumed to be representative, or not\npresentative of the reality. The advocates of Matter independent and\nsupreme, are here assailed in their various conjectures\u2014that this Matter\nmay be the active Cause, or the Instrument, or the Occasion of our\nsense-experience; or that it is an Unknowable Something somehow connected\nwith that experience. It is argued in this and in the preceding Dialogue,\nby _Philonous_ (who personates Berkeley), that unrealised Matter\u2014intending\nby that term either a qualified substance, or a Something of which we\ncannot affirm anything\u2014is not merely unproved, but a proved impossibility:\nit must mean nothing, or it must mean a contradiction, which comes to the\nsame thing. It is not _perceived_; nor can it be _suggested_ by what we\nperceive; nor _demonstrated_ by reasoning; nor _believed in_ as an article\nin the fundamental faith of intuitive reason. The only consistent theory\nof the universe accordingly implies that concrete realities must all be\neither (a) phenomena presented to the senses, or else (b) active spirits\npercipient of presented phenomena. And neither of these two sorts of\nconcrete realities is strictly speaking independent of the other; although\nthe latter, identical amid the variations of the sensuous phenomena, are\ndeeper and more real than the mere data of the senses. The _Second\nDialogue_ ends by substituting, as concrete and intelligible Realism, the\nuniversal and constant dependence of the material world upon active living\nSpirit, in place of the abstract hypothetical and unintelligible Realism,\nwhich defends Matter unrealised in percipient life, as the type of\nreality.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn the _Third Dialogue_ plausible objections to this conception of what\nthe reality of the material world means are discussed.\n\nIs it said that the new conception is sceptical, and Berkeley another\nProtagoras, on account of it? His answer is, that the _reality_ of\nsensible things, as far as man can in any way be concerned with them, does\nnot consist in what cannot be perceived, suggested, demonstrated, or even\nconceived, but in phenomena actually seen and touched, and in the working\nfaith that future sense-experience may be anticipated by the analogies of\npresent sense-experience.\n\nBut is not this negation of the Matter that is assumed to be real and\nindependent of Spirit, an unproved conjecture? It is answered, that the\naffirmation of this abstract matter is itself a mere conjecture, and one\nself-convicted by its implied contradictions, while its negation is only a\nsimple falling back on the facts of experience, without any attempt to\nexplain them.\n\nAgain, is it objected that the _reality_ of sensible things involves their\ncontinued reality during intervals of our perception of them? It is\nanswered, that sensible things are indeed permanently dependent on Mind,\nbut not on this, that, or the other finite embodied spirit.\n\nIs it further alleged that the reality of Spirit or Mind is open to all\nthe objections against independent Matter; and that, if we deny _this_\nMatter, we must in consistency allow that Spirit can be only a succession\nof isolated feelings? The answer is, that there is no parity between\nself-conscious Spirit, and Matter out of all relation to any Spirit. We\nfind, in memory, our own personality and identity; that _we_ are not our\nideas, \u201cbut somewhat else\u201d\u2014a thinking, active principle, that perceives,\nknows, wills, and operates about ideas, and that is revealed as\ncontinuously real. Each person is conscious of himself; and may reasonably\ninfer the existence of other self-conscious persons, more or less like\nwhat he is conscious of in himself. A universe of self-conscious persons,\nwith their common sensuous experiences all under cosmical order, is not\nopen to the contradictions involved in a pretended universe of Matter,\nindependent of percipient realising Spirit.\n\nIs it still said that sane people cannot help distinguishing between the\n_real existence_ of a thing and its _being perceived_? It is answered,\nthat all they are entitled to mean is, to distinguish between being\nperceived exclusively by me, and being independent of the perception of\nall sentient or conscious beings.\n\nDoes an objector complain that this ideal realism dissolves the\ndistinction between facts and fancies? He is reminded of the meaning of\nthe word _idea_. That term is not limited by Berkeley to chimeras of\nfancy: it is applied also to the objective phenomena of our\nsense-experience.\n\nIs the supposition that Spirit is the only real Cause of all changes in\nnature declaimed against as baseless? It is answered, that the supposition\nof unthinking Power at the heart of the cosmos of sensible phenomena is\nabsurd.\n\nIs the negation of Abstract Matter repugnant to the common belief of\nmankind? It is argued in reply, that this unrealised Matter is foreign to\ncommon belief, which is incapable of even entertaining the conception; and\nwhich only requires to reflect upon what it does entertain to be satisfied\nwith a relative or ideal reality for sensible things.\n\nBut, if sensible things are the real things, the real moon, for instance,\nit is alleged, can be only a foot in diameter. It is maintained, in\nopposition to this, that the term _real moon_ is applied only to what is\nan inference from the moon, one foot in diameter, which we immediately\nperceive; and that the former is a part of our previsive or mediate\ninference, due to what is perceived.\n\nThe dispute, after all, is merely verbal, it is next objected; and, since\nall parties refer the data of the senses and the _things_ which they\ncompose to _a_ Power external to each finite percipient, why not call that\nPower, whatever it may be, Matter, and not Spirit? The reply is, that this\nwould be an absurd misapplication of language.\n\nBut may we not, it is next suggested, assume the possibility of a third\nnature\u2014neither idea nor Spirit? Not, replies Philonous, if we are to keep\nto the rule of having meaning in the words we use. We know what is meant\nby a spirit, for each of us has immediate experience of one; and we know\nwhat is meant by sense-ideas and sensible things, for we have immediate\nand mediate experience of them. But we have no immediate, and therefore\ncan have no mediate, experience of what is neither perceived by our\nsenses, nor realised in inward consciousness: moreover, \u201centia non sunt\nmultiplicanda praeter necessitatem.\u201d\n\nAgain, this conception of the realities implies, it is said, imperfection,\nbecause sentient experience, in God. This objection, it is answered,\nimplies a confusion between being actually sentient and merely conceiving\nsensations, and employing them, as God does, as signs for expressing His\nconceptions to our minds.\n\nFurther, the negation of independent powerful Matter seems to annihilate\nthe explanations of physical phenomena given by natural philosophers. But,\nto be assured that it does not, we have only to recollect what physical\nexplanation means\u2014that it is the reference of an apparently irregular\nphenomenon to some acknowledged general rule of co-existence or succession\namong sense-ideas. It is interpretation of sense-signs.\n\nIs the proposed ideal Realism summarily condemned as a novelty? It can be\nanswered, that all discoveries are novelties at first; and moreover that\nthis one is not so much a novelty as a deeper interpretation of the common\nfaith.\n\nYet it seems, at any rate, it is said, to change real things into mere\nideas. Here consider on the contrary what we mean when we speak of\nsensible things as real. The changing appearances of which we are\npercipient in sense, united objectively in their cosmical order, are what\nis truly meant by the realities of sense.\n\nBut this reality is inconsistent with the _continued identity_ of material\nthings, it is complained, and also with the fact that different persons\ncan be percipient of the _same_ thing. Not so, Berkeley explains, when we\nattend to the true meaning of the word _same_, and dismiss from our\nthoughts a supposed abstract idea of identity which is nonsensical.\n\nBut some may exclaim against the supposition that the material world\nexists in mind, regarding this as an implied assertion that mind is\nextended, and therefore material. This proceeds, it is replied, on\nforgetfulness of what \u201cexistence in mind\u201d means. It is intended to express\nthe fact that matter is real in being an objective appearance of which a\nliving mind is sensible.\n\nLastly, is not the Mosaic account of the creation of Matter inconsistent\nwith the perpetual dependence of Matter for its reality upon percipient\nSpirit? It is answered that the conception of creation being dependent on\nthe existence of finite minds is in perfect harmony with the Mosaic\naccount: it is what is seen and felt, not what is unseen and unfelt, that\nis created.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe _Third Dialogue_ closes with a representation of the new principle\nregarding Matter being the harmony of two apparently discordant\npropositions\u2014the one-sided proposition of ordinary common sense; and the\none-sided proposition of the philosophers. It agrees with the mass of\nmankind in holding that the material world is actually presented to our\nsenses, and with the philosophers in holding that this same material world\nis realised only in and through the percipient experience of living\nSpirit.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nMost of the objections to Berkeley\u2019s conception of Matter which have been\nurged in the last century and a half, by its British, French, and German\ncritics, are discussed by anticipation in these _Dialogues_. The history\nof objections is very much a history of misconceptions. Conceived or\nmisconceived, it has tacitly simplified and purified the methods of\nphysical science, especially in Britain and France.\n\nThe first elaborate criticism of Berkeley by a British author is found in\nAndrew Baxter\u2019s _Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul_, published in\n1735, in the section entitled \u201cDean Berkeley\u2019s Scheme against the\nexistence of Matter examined, and shewn to be inconclusive.\u201d Baxter\nalleges that the new doctrine tends to encourage scepticism. To deny\nMatter, for the reasons given, involves, according to this critic, denial\nof mind, and so a universal doubt. Accordingly, a few years later, Hume\nsought, in his _Treatise of Human Nature_, to work out Berkeley\u2019s negation\nof abstract Matter into sceptical phenomenalism\u2014against which Berkeley\nsought to guard by anticipation, in a remarkable passage introduced in his\nlast edition of these _Dialogues_.\n\nIn Scotland the writings of Reid, Beattie, Oswald, Dugald Stewart, Thomas\nBrown, and Sir W. Hamilton form a magazine of objections. Reid\u2014who\ncuriously seeks to refute Berkeley by refuting, not more clearly than\nBerkeley had done before him, the hypothesis of a wholly representative\nsense-perception\u2014urges the spontaneous belief or common sense of mankind,\nwhich obliges us all to recognise a direct presentation of the external\nmaterial world to our senses. He overlooks what with Berkeley is the only\nquestion in debate, namely, the meaning of the term _external_; for, Reid\nand Berkeley are agreed in holding to the reality of a world regulated\nindependently of the will of finite percipients, and is sufficiently\nobjective to be a medium of social intercourse. With Berkeley, as with\nReid, _this_ is practically self-evident. The same objection, more\nscientifically defined\u2014that we have a natural belief in the existence of\nMatter, and in our own immediate perception of its qualities\u2014is Sir W.\nHamilton\u2019s assumption against Berkeley; but Hamilton does not explain the\nreality thus claimed for it. \u201cMen naturally believe,\u201d he says, \u201cthat _they\nthemselves_ exist\u2014because they are conscious of a Self or Ego; they\nbelieve that _something different from themselves_ exists\u2014because they\nbelieve that they are conscious of this Not-self or Non-ego.\u201d\n(_Discussions_, p. 193.) Now, the existence of a Power that is independent\nof each finite Ego is at the root of Berkeley\u2019s principles. According to\nBerkeley and Hamilton alike, we are immediately percipient of solid and\nextended phenomena; but with Berkeley the phenomena are dependent on, at\nthe same time that they are \u201centirely distinct\u201d from, the percipient. The\nDivine and finite spirits, signified by the phenomena that are presented\nto our senses in cosmical order, form Berkeley\u2019s external world.\n\nThat Berkeley sows the seeds of Universal Scepticism; that his conception\nof Matter involves the Panegoism or Solipsism which leaves me in absolute\nsolitude; that his is virtually a system of Pantheism, inconsistent with\npersonal individuality and moral responsibility\u2014these are probably the\nthree most comprehensive objections that have been alleged against it.\nThey are in a measure due to Berkeley\u2019s imperfect criticism of first\nprinciples, in his dread of a departure from the concrete data of\nexperience in quest of empty abstractions.\n\nIn England and France, Berkeley\u2019s criticism of Matter, taken however only\non its negative side, received a countenance denied to it in Germany.\nHartley and Priestley shew signs of affinity with Berkeley. Also an\nanonymous _Essay on the Nature and Existence of the Material World_,\ndedicated to Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price, which appeared in 1781, is an\nargument, on empirical grounds, which virtually makes the data of the\nsenses at last a chaos of isolated sensations. The author of the _Essay_\nis said to have been a certain Russell, who died in the West Indies in the\nend of the eighteenth century. A tendency towards Berkeley\u2019s negations,\nbut apart from his synthetic principles, appears in James Mill and J.S.\nMill. So too with Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ were published in London in\n1713, \u201cprinted by G. James, for Henry Clements, at the Half-Moon, in St.\nPaul\u2019s churchyard,\u201d unlike the _Essay on Vision_ and the _Principles_,\nwhich first appeared in Dublin. The second edition, which is simply a\nreprint, issued in 1725, \u201cprinted for William and John Innys, at the West\nEnd of St. Paul\u2019s.\u201d A third, the last in the author\u2019s lifetime, \u201cprinted\nby Jacob Tonson,\u201d which contains some important additions, was published\nin 1734, conjointly with a new edition of the _Principles_. The\n_Dialogues_ were reprinted in 1776, in the same volume with the edition of\nthe _Principles, with Remarks_.\n\nThe _Dialogues_ have been translated into French and German. The French\nversion appeared at Amsterdam in 1750. The translator\u2019s name is not given,\nbut it is attributed to the Abb\u00e9 Jean Paul de Gua de Malves(780), by\nBarbier, in his _Dictionnaire des Ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes_, tom.\ni. p. 283. It contains a Prefatory Note by the translator, with three\ncurious vignettes (given in the note below) meant to symbolise the leading\nthought in each Dialogue(781). A German translation, by John Christopher\nEschenbach, Professor of Philosophy in Rostock, was published at Rostock\nin 1756. It forms the larger part of a volume entitled _Sammlung der\nvornehmsten Schriftsteller die die Wirklichkeit ihres eignen K\u00f6rpers und\nder ganzen K\u00f6rperwelt l\u00e4ugnen_. This professed Collection of the most\neminent authors who are supposed to deny the reality of their own bodies\nand of the whole material world, consists of Berkeley\u2019s _Dialogues,_ and\nArthur Collier\u2019s _Clavis Universalis_, or _Demonstration of the\nNon-existence or Impossibility of an __ External World_. The volume\ncontains some annotations, and an Appendix in which a\ncounter-demonstration of the existence of Matter is attempted.\nEschenbach\u2019s principal argument is indirect, and of the nature of a\n_reductio ad absurdum_. He argues (as others have done) that the reasons\nproduced against the independent reality of Matter are equally conclusive\nagainst the independent reality of Spirit.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nAn interesting circumstance connected with the _Dialogues between Hylas\nand Philonous_ was the appearance, also in 1713, of the _Clavis\nUniversalis_, or demonstration of the impossibility of Matter, of Arthur\nCollier, in which the merely ideal existence of the sensible world is\nmaintained. The production, simultaneously, without concert, of\nconceptions of the material world which verbally at least have much in\ncommon, is a curious coincidence. It shews that the intellectual\natmosphere of the Lockian epoch in England contained elements favourable\nto a reconsideration of the ultimate meaning of Matter. They are both the\ngenuine produce of the age of Locke and Malebranche. Neither Berkeley nor\nCollier were, when they published their books, familiar with ancient Greek\nspeculations; those of modern Germany had only begun to loom in the\ndistance. Absolute Idealism, the Panphenomenalism of Auguste Comte, and\nthe modern evolutionary conception of nature, have changed the conditions\nunder which the universal problem is studied, and are making intelligible\nto this generation a manner of conceiving the Universe which, for nearly a\ncentury and a half, the British and French critics of Berkeley were unable\nto entertain.\n\nBerkeley\u2019s _Principles_ appeared three years before the _Clavis\nUniversalis_. Yet Collier tells us that it was \u201cafter a ten years\u2019 pause\nand deliberation,\u201d that, \u201crather than the world should finish its course\nwithout once offering to inquire in what manner it exists,\u201d he had\n\u201cresolved to put himself upon the trial of the common reader, without\npretending to any better art of gaining him than dry reason and\nmetaphysical demonstration.\u201d Mr. Benson, his biographer, says that it was\nin 1703, at the age of twenty-three, that Collier came to the conclusion\nthat \u201cthere is no such thing as an external world\u201d; and he attributes the\npremises from which Collier drew this conclusion to his neighbour, John\nNorris. Among Collier\u2019s MSS., there remains the outline of an essay, in\nthree chapters, dated January, 1708, on the non-externality of the\n_visible_ world.\n\nThere are several coincidences between Berkeley and Collier. Berkeley\nvirtually presented his new theory of Vision as the first instalment of\nhis explanation of the Reality of Matter. The first of the two Parts into\nwhich Collier\u2019s _Clavis_ is divided consists of proofs that the Visible\nWorld is not, and cannot be, external. Berkeley, in the _Principles_ and\nthe _Dialogues_, explains the reality of Matter. In like manner the Second\nPart of the _Clavis_ consists of reasonings in proof of the impossibility\nof an external world independent of Spirit. Finally, in his full-blown\ntheory, as well as in its visual germ, Berkeley takes for granted, as\nintuitively known, the existence of sensible Matter; meaning by this, its\nrelative existence, or dependence on living Mind. The third proposition of\nCollier\u2019s system asserts the real existence of visible matter in\nparticular, and of sensible matter in general.\n\nThe invisibility of distances, as well as of real magnitudes and\nsituations, and their suggestion by interpretation of visual symbols,\npropositions which occupy so large a space in Berkeley\u2019s Theory of Vision,\nhave no counterpart in Collier. His proof of the non-externality of the\nvisible world consists of an induction of instances of visible objects\nthat are allowed by all not to be external, although they seem to be as\nmuch so as any that are called external. His Demonstration consists of\nnine proofs, which may be compared with the reasonings and analyses of\nBerkeley. Collier\u2019s Demonstration concludes with answers to objections,\nand an application of his account of the material world to the refutation\nof the Roman doctrine of the substantial existence of Christ\u2019s body in the\nEucharist.\n\nThe universal sense-symbolism of Berkeley, and his pervading recognition\nof the distinction between physical or symbolical, and efficient or\noriginative causation, are wanting in the narrow reasonings of Collier.\nBerkeley\u2019s more comprehensive philosophy, with its human sympathies and\nbeauty of style, is now recognised as a striking expression and partial\nsolution of fundamental problems, while Collier is condemned to the\nobscurity of the Schools(782).\n\n\n\n\nDedication\n\n\nTO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD BERKELEY OF STRATTON(783),\n\n\n    MASTER OF THE ROLLS IN THE KINGDOM OF IRELAND, CHANCELLOR OF THE\n    DUCHY OF LANCASTER, AND ONE OF THE LORDS OF HER MAJESTY\u2019S MOST\n    HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL.\n\n\nMY LORD,\n\nThe virtue, learning, and good sense which are acknowledged to distinguish\nyour character, would tempt me to indulge myself the pleasure men\nnaturally take in giving applause to those whom they esteem and honour:\nand it should seem of importance to the subjects of Great Britain that\nthey knew the eminent share you enjoy in the favour of your sovereign, and\nthe honours she has conferred upon you, have not been owing to any\napplication from your lordship, but entirely to her majesty\u2019s own thought,\narising from a sense of your personal merit, and an inclination to reward\nit. But, as your name is prefixed to this treatise with an intention to do\nhonour to myself alone, I shall only say that I am encouraged by the\nfavour you have treated me with to address these papers to your lordship.\nAnd I was the more ambitious of doing this, because a Philosophical\nTreatise could not so properly be addressed to any one as to a person of\nyour lordship\u2019s character, who, to your other valuable distinctions, have\nadded the knowledge and relish of Philosophy.\n\nI am, with the greatest respect,\n\nMy Lord,\n\nYour lordship\u2019s most obedient and\nmost humble servant,\n\nGEORGE BERKELEY.\n\n\n\n\nThe Preface(784)\n\n\nThough it seems the general opinion of the world, no less than the design\nof nature and providence, that the end of speculation be Practice, or the\nimprovement and regulation of our lives and actions; yet those who are\nmost addicted to speculative studies, seem as generally of another mind.\nAnd indeed if we consider the pains that have been taken to perplex the\nplainest things, that distrust of the senses, those doubts and scruples,\nthose abstractions and refinements that occur in the very entrance of the\nsciences; it will not seem strange that men of leisure and curiosity\nshould lay themselves out in fruitless disquisitions, without descending\nto the practical parts of life, or informing themselves in the more\nnecessary and important parts of knowledge.\n\nUpon the common principles of philosophers, we are not assured of the\nexistence of things from their being perceived. And we are taught to\ndistinguish their _real_ nature from that which falls under our senses.\nHence arise scepticism and paradoxes. It is not enough that we see and\nfeel, that we taste and smell a thing: its true nature, its absolute\nexternal entity, is still concealed. For, though it be the fiction of our\nown brain, we have made it inaccessible to all our faculties. Sense is\nfallacious, reason defective. We spend our lives in doubting of those\nthings which other men evidently know, and believing those things which\nthey laugh at and despise.\n\nIn order, therefore, to divert the busy mind of man from vain researches,\nit seemed necessary to inquire into the source of its perplexities; and,\nif possible, to lay down such Principles as, by an easy solution of them,\ntogether with their own native evidence, may at once recommend themselves\nfor genuine to the mind, and rescue it from those endless pursuits it is\nengaged in. Which, with a plain demonstration of the Immediate Providence\nof an all-seeing God, and the natural Immortality of the soul, should seem\nthe readiest preparation, as well as the strongest motive, to the study\nand practice of virtue.\n\nThis design I proposed in the First Part of a treatise concerning the\n_Principles of Human Knowledge_, published in the year 1710. But, before I\nproceed to publish the Second Part(785), I thought it requisite to treat\nmore clearly and fully of certain Principles laid down in the First, and\nto place them in a new light. Which is the business of the following\n_Dialogues_.\n\nIn this Treatise, which does not presuppose in the reader any knowledge of\nwhat was contained in the former, it has been my aim to introduce the\nnotions I advance into the mind in the most easy and familiar manner;\nespecially because they carry with them a great opposition to the\nprejudices of philosophers, which have so far prevailed against the common\nsense and natural notions of mankind.\n\nIf the Principles which I here endeavour to propagate are admitted for\ntrue, the consequences which, I think, evidently flow from thence are,\nthat Atheism and Scepticism will be utterly destroyed, many intricate\npoints made plain, great difficulties solved, several useless parts of\nscience retrenched, speculation referred to practice, and men reduced from\nparadoxes to common sense.\n\nAnd although it may, perhaps, seem an uneasy reflexion to some, that when\nthey have taken a circuit through so many refined and unvulgar notions,\nthey should at last come to think like other men; yet, methinks, this\nreturn to the simple dictates of nature, after having wandered through the\nwild mazes of philosophy, is not unpleasant. It is like coming home from a\nlong voyage: a man reflects with pleasure on the many difficulties and\nperplexities he has passed through, sets his heart at ease, and enjoys\nhimself with more satisfaction for the future.\n\nAs it was my intention to convince Sceptics and Infidels by reason, so it\nhas been my endeavour strictly to observe the most rigid laws of\nreasoning. And, to an impartial reader, I hope it will be manifest that\nthe sublime notion of a God, and the comfortable expectation of\nImmortality, do naturally arise from a close and methodical application of\nthought: whatever may be the result of that loose, rambling way, not\naltogether improperly termed Free-thinking by certain libertines in\nthought, who can no more endure the restraints of logic than those of\nreligion or government.\n\nIt will perhaps be objected to my design that, so far as it tends to ease\nthe mind of difficult and useless inquiries, it can affect only a few\nspeculative persons. But if, by their speculations rightly placed, the\nstudy of morality and the law of nature were brought more into fashion\namong men of parts and genius, the discouragements that draw to Scepticism\nremoved, the measures of right and wrong accurately defined, and the\nprinciples of Natural Religion reduced into regular systems, as artfully\ndisposed and clearly connected as those of some other sciences; there are\ngrounds to think these effects would not only have a gradual influence in\nrepairing the too much defaced sense of virtue in the world, but also, by\nshewing that such parts of revelation as lie within the reach of human\ninquiry are most agreeable to right reason, would dispose all prudent,\nunprejudiced persons to a modest and wary treatment of those sacred\nmysteries which are above the comprehension of our faculties.\n\nIt remains that I desire the reader to withhold his censure of these\n_Dialogues_ till he has read them through. Otherwise, he may lay them\naside in a mistake of their design, or on account of difficulties or\nobjections which he would find answered in the sequel. A Treatise of this\nnature would require to be once read over coherently, in order to\ncomprehend its design, the proofs, solution of difficulties, and the\nconnexion and disposition of its parts. If it be thought to deserve a\nsecond reading, this, I imagine, will make the entire scheme very plain.\nEspecially if recourse be had to an Essay I wrote some years since upon\n_Vision_, and the Treatise concerning the _Principles of Human Knowledge_;\nwherein divers notions advanced in these _Dialogues_ are farther pursued,\nor placed in different lights, and other points handled which naturally\ntend to confirm and illustrate them.\n\n\n\n\nThe First Dialogue\n\n\n_Philonous._ Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad so\nearly.\n\n_Hylas._ It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken up\nwith a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could not\nsleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden.\n\n_Phil._ It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeable\npleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a pleasanter time of the\nday, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wild\nbut sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers,\nthe gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless\nbeauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its faculties\ntoo being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those meditations,\nwhich the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of the morning naturally\ndispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt your thoughts: for you seemed\nvery intent on something.\n\n_Hyl._ It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you will permit\nme to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any means deprive myself\nof your company, for my thoughts always flow more easily in conversation\nwith a friend, than when I am alone: but my request is, that you would\nsuffer me to impart my reflexions to you.\n\n_Phil._ With all my heart, it is what I should have requested myself if\nyou had not prevented me.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n_Hyl._ I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages,\nthrough an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or some\nunaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing at all,\nor to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This however might\nbe borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them some\nconsequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief lieth\nhere; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposed to have\nspent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing an entire\nignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as are repugnant to\nplain and commonly received principles, they will be tempted to entertain\nsuspicions concerning the most important truths, which they had hitherto\nheld sacred and unquestionable(786).\n\n_Phil._ I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected\ndoubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceits of others. I am even\nso far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quitted several\nof the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And\nI give it you on my word; since this revolt from metaphysical notions to\nthe plain dictates of nature and common sense(787), I find my\nunderstanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a\ngreat many things which before were all mystery and riddle.\n\n_Hyl._ I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you.\n\n_Phil._ Pray, what were those?\n\n_Hyl._ You were represented, in last night\u2019s conversation, as one who\nmaintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind of\nman, to wit, that there is no such thing as _material substance_ in the\nworld.\n\n_Phil._ That there is no such thing as what _philosophers_ call _material\nsubstance_, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I were made to see anything\nabsurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to\nrenounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.\n\n_Hyl._ What! can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common\nSense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no\nsuch thing as _matter_?\n\n_Phil._ Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold\nthere is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain\nmore paradoxes and repugnances to Common Sense, than I who believe no such\nthing?\n\n_Hyl._ You may as soon persuade me, the part is greater than the whole, as\nthat, in order to avoid absurdity and Scepticism, I should ever be obliged\nto give up my opinion in this point.\n\n_Phil._ Well then, are you content to admit that opinion for true, which\nupon examination shall appear most agreeable to Common Sense, and remote\nfrom Scepticism?\n\n_Hyl._ With all my heart. Since you are for raising disputes about the\nplainest things in nature, I am content for once to hear what you have to\nsay.\n\n_Phil._ Pray, Hylas, what do you mean by a _sceptic_?\n\n_Hyl._ I mean what all men mean\u2014one that doubts of everything.\n\n_Phil._ He then who entertains no doubt concerning some particular point,\nwith regard to that point cannot be thought a sceptic.\n\n_Hyl._ I agree with you.\n\n_Phil._ Whether doth doubting consist in embracing the affirmative or\nnegative side of a question?\n\n_Hyl._ In neither; for whoever understands English cannot but know that\n_doubting_ signifies a suspense between both.\n\n_Phil._ He then that denies any point, can no more be said to doubt of it,\nthan he who affirmeth it with the same degree of assurance.\n\n_Hyl._ True.\n\n_Phil._ And, consequently, for such his denial is no more to be esteemed a\nsceptic than the other.\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge it.\n\n_Phil._ How cometh it to pass then, Hylas, that you pronounce me a\n_sceptic_, because I deny what you affirm, to wit, the existence of\nMatter? Since, for aught you can tell, I am as peremptory in my denial, as\nyou in your affirmation.\n\n_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous, I have been a little out in my definition; but\nevery false step a man makes in discourse is not to be insisted on. I said\nindeed that a _sceptic_ was one who doubted of everything; but I should\nhave added, or who denies the reality and truth of things.\n\n_Phil._ What things? Do you mean the principles and theorems of sciences?\nBut these you know are universal intellectual notions, and consequently\nindependent of Matter. The denial therefore of this doth not imply the\ndenying them(788).\n\n_Hyl._ I grant it. But are there no other things? What think you of\ndistrusting the senses, of denying the real existence of sensible things,\nor pretending to know nothing of them. Is not this sufficient to\ndenominate a man a _sceptic_?\n\n_Phil._ Shall we therefore examine which of us it is that denies the\nreality of sensible things, or professes the greatest ignorance of them;\nsince, if I take you rightly, he is to be esteemed the greatest _sceptic_?\n\n_Hyl._ That is what I desire.\n\n_Phil._ What mean you by Sensible Things?\n\n_Hyl._ Those things which are perceived by the senses. Can you imagine\nthat I mean anything else?\n\n_Phil._ Pardon me, Hylas, if I am desirous clearly to apprehend your\nnotions, since this may much shorten our inquiry. Suffer me then to ask\nyou this farther question. Are those things only perceived by the senses\nwhich are perceived immediately? Or, may those things properly be said to\nbe _sensible_ which are perceived mediately, or not without the\nintervention of others?\n\n_Hyl._ I do not sufficiently understand you.\n\n_Phil._ In reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters;\nbut mediately, or by means of these, are suggested to my mind the notions\nof God, virtue, truth, &c. Now, that the letters are truly sensible\nthings, or perceived by sense, there is no doubt: but I would know whether\nyou take the things suggested by them to be so too.\n\n_Hyl._ No, certainly: it were absurd to think _God_ or _virtue_ sensible\nthings; though they may be signified and suggested to the mind by sensible\nmarks, with which they have an arbitrary connexion.\n\n_Phil._ It seems then, that by _sensible things_ you mean those only which\ncan be perceived _immediately_ by sense?\n\n_Hyl._ Right.\n\n_Phil._ Doth it not follow from this, that though I see one part of the\nsky red, and another blue, and that my reason doth thence evidently\nconclude there must be some cause of that diversity of colours, yet that\ncause cannot be said to be a sensible thing, or perceived by the sense of\nseeing?\n\n_Hyl._ It doth.\n\n_Phil._ In like manner, though I hear variety of sounds, yet I cannot be\nsaid to hear the causes of those sounds?\n\n_Hyl._ You cannot.\n\n_Phil._ And when by my touch I perceive a thing to be hot and heavy, I\ncannot say, with any truth or propriety, that I feel the cause of its heat\nor weight?\n\n_Hyl._ To prevent any more questions of this kind, I tell you once for\nall, that by _sensible things_ I mean those only which are perceived by\nsense; and that in truth the senses perceive nothing which they do not\nperceive _immediately_: for they make no inferences. The deducing\ntherefore of causes or occasions from effects and appearances, which alone\nare perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason(789).\n\n_Phil._ This point then is agreed between us\u2014That _sensible things are\nthose only which are immediately perceived by sense_. You will farther\ninform me, whether we immediately perceive by sight anything beside light,\nand colours, and figures(790); or by hearing, anything but sounds; by the\npalate, anything beside tastes; by the smell, beside odours; or by the\ntouch, more than tangible qualities.\n\n_Hyl._ We do not.\n\n_Phil._ It seems, therefore, that if you take away all sensible qualities,\nthere remains nothing sensible?\n\n_Hyl._ I grant it.\n\n_Phil._ Sensible things therefore are nothing else but so many sensible\nqualities, or combinations of sensible qualities?\n\n_Hyl._ Nothing else.\n\n_Phil._ _Heat_ then is a sensible thing?\n\n_Hyl._ Certainly.\n\n_Phil._ Doth the _reality_ of sensible things consist in being perceived?\nor, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears no\nrelation to the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ To _exist_ is one thing, and to be _perceived_ is another.\n\n_Phil._ I speak with regard to sensible things only. And of these I ask,\nwhether by their real existence you mean a subsistence exterior to the\nmind, and distinct from their being perceived?\n\n_Hyl._ I mean a real absolute being, distinct from, and without any\nrelation to, their being perceived.\n\n_Phil._ Heat therefore, if it be allowed a real being, must exist without\nthe mind(791)?\n\n_Hyl._ It must.\n\n_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, is this real existence equally compatible to all\ndegrees of heat, which we perceive; or is there any reason why we should\nattribute it to some, and deny it to others? And if there be, pray let me\nknow that reason.\n\n_Hyl._ Whatever degree of heat we perceive by sense, we may be sure the\nsame exists in the object that occasions it.\n\n_Phil._ What! the greatest as well as the least?\n\n_Hyl._ I tell you, the reason is plainly the same in respect of both. They\nare both perceived by sense; nay, the greater degree of heat is more\nsensibly perceived; and consequently, if there is any difference, we are\nmore certain of its real existence than we can be of the reality of a\nlesser degree.\n\n_Phil._ But is not the most vehement and intense degree of heat a very\ngreat pain?\n\n_Hyl._ No one can deny it.\n\n_Phil._ And is any unperceiving thing capable of pain or pleasure?\n\n_Hyl._ No, certainly.\n\n_Phil._ Is your material substance a senseless being, or a being endowed\nwith sense and perception?\n\n_Hyl._ It is senseless without doubt.\n\n_Phil._ It cannot therefore be the subject of pain?\n\n_Hyl._ By no means.\n\n_Phil._ Nor consequently of the greatest heat perceived by sense, since\nyou acknowledge this to be no small pain?\n\n_Hyl._ I grant it.\n\n_Phil._ What shall we say then of your external object; is it a material\nSubstance, or no?\n\n_Hyl._ It is a material substance with the sensible qualities inhering in\nit.\n\n_Phil._ How then can a great heat exist in it, since you own it cannot in\na material substance? I desire you would clear this point.\n\n_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous, I fear I was out in yielding intense heat to be a\npain. It should seem rather, that pain is something distinct from heat,\nand the consequence or effect of it.\n\n_Phil._ Upon putting your hand near the fire, do you perceive one simple\nuniform sensation, or two distinct sensations?\n\n_Hyl._ But one simple sensation.\n\n_Phil._ Is not the heat immediately perceived?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ And the pain?\n\n_Hyl._ True.\n\n_Phil._ Seeing therefore they are both immediately perceived at the same\ntime, and the fire affects you only with one simple or uncompounded idea,\nit follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat immediately\nperceived, and the pain; and, consequently, that the intense heat\nimmediately perceived is nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain.\n\n_Hyl._ It seems so.\n\n_Phil._ Again, try in your thoughts, Hylas, if you can conceive a vehement\nsensation to be without pain or pleasure.\n\n_Hyl._ I cannot.\n\n_Phil._ Or can you frame to yourself an idea of sensible pain or pleasure\nin general, abstracted from every particular idea of heat, cold, tastes,\nsmells? &c.\n\n_Hyl._\u2014I do not find that I can.\n\n_Phil._ Doth it not therefore follow, that sensible pain is nothing\ndistinct from those sensations or ideas, in an intense degree?\n\n_Hyl._ It is undeniable; and, to speak the truth, I begin to suspect a\nvery great heat cannot exist but in a mind perceiving it.\n\n_Phil._ What! are you then in that sceptical state of suspense, between\naffirming and denying?\n\n_Hyl._ I think I may be positive in the point. A very violent and painful\nheat cannot exist without the mind.\n\n_Phil._ It hath not therefore, according to you, any _real_ being?\n\n_Hyl._ I own it.\n\n_Phil._ Is it therefore certain, that there is no body in nature really\nhot?\n\n_Hyl._ I have not denied there is any real heat in bodies. I only say,\nthere is no such thing as an intense real heat.\n\n_Phil._ But, did you not say before that all degrees of heat were equally\nreal; or, if there was any difference, that the greater were more\nundoubtedly real than the lesser?\n\n_Hyl._ True: but it was because I did not then consider the ground there\nis for distinguishing between them, which I now plainly see. And it is\nthis: because intense heat is nothing else but a particular kind of\npainful sensation; and pain cannot exist but in a perceiving being; it\nfollows that no intense heat can really exist in an unperceiving corporeal\nsubstance. But this is no reason why we should deny heat in an inferior\ndegree to exist in such a substance.\n\n_Phil._ But how shall we be able to discern those degrees of heat which\nexist only in the mind from those which exist without it?\n\n_Hyl._ That is no difficult matter. You know the least pain cannot exist\nunperceived; whatever, therefore, degree of heat is a pain exists only in\nthe mind. But, as for all other degrees of heat, nothing obliges us to\nthink the same of them.\n\n_Phil._ I think you granted before that no unperceiving being was capable\nof pleasure, any more than of pain.\n\n_Hyl._ I did.\n\n_Phil._ And is not warmth, or a more gentle degree of heat than what\ncauses uneasiness, a pleasure?\n\n_Hyl._ What then?\n\n_Phil._ Consequently, it cannot exist without the mind in an unperceiving\nsubstance, or body.\n\n_Hyl._ So it seems.\n\n_Phil._ Since, therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not\npainful, as those that are, can exist only in a thinking substance; may we\nnot conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any degree\nof heat whatsoever?\n\n_Hyl._ On second thoughts, I do not think it so evident that warmth is a\npleasure as that a great degree of heat is a pain.\n\n_Phil._ I do not pretend that warmth is as great a pleasure as heat is a\npain. But, if you grant it to be even a small pleasure, it serves to make\ngood my conclusion.\n\n_Hyl._ I could rather call it an _indolence_! It seems to be nothing more\nthan a privation of both pain and pleasure. And that such a quality or\nstate as this may agree to an unthinking substance, I hope you will not\ndeny.\n\n_Phil._ If you are resolved to maintain that warmth, or a gentle degree of\nheat, is no pleasure, I know not how to convince you otherwise than by\nappealing to your own sense. But what think you of cold?\n\n_Hyl._ The same that I do of heat. An intense degree of cold is a pain;\nfor to feel a very great cold, is to perceive a great uneasiness: it\ncannot therefore exist without the mind; but a lesser degree of cold may,\nas well as a lesser degree of heat.\n\n_Phil._ Those bodies, therefore, upon whose application to our own, we\nperceive a moderate degree of heat, must be concluded to have a moderate\ndegree of heat or warmth in them; and those, upon whose application we\nfeel a like degree of cold, must be thought to have cold in them.\n\n_Hyl._ They must.\n\n_Phil._ Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a man into an\nabsurdity?\n\n_Hyl._ Without doubt it cannot.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing should be at\nthe same time both cold and warm?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that\nthey are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an\nintermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to\nthe other(792)?\n\n_Hyl._ It will.\n\n_Phil._ Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to conclude it is\nreally both cold and warm at the same time, that is, according to your own\nconcession, to believe an absurdity?\n\n_Hyl._ I confess it seems so.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently, the principles themselves are false, since you have\ngranted that no true principle leads to an absurdity.\n\n_Hyl._ But, after all, can anything be more absurd than to say, _there is\nno heat in the fire_?\n\n_Phil._ To make the point still clearer; tell me whether, in two cases\nexactly alike, we ought not to make the same judgment?\n\n_Hyl._ We ought.\n\n_Phil._ When a pin pricks your finger, doth it not rend and divide the\nfibres of your flesh?\n\n_Hyl._ It doth.\n\n_Phil._ And when a coal burns your finger, doth it any more?\n\n_Hyl._ It doth not.\n\n_Phil._ Since, therefore, you neither judge the sensation itself\noccasioned by the pin, nor anything like it to be in the pin; you should\nnot, conformably to what you have now granted, judge the sensation\noccasioned by the fire, or anything like it, to be in the fire.\n\n_Hyl._ Well, since it must be so, I am content to yield this point, and\nacknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations existing in our minds.\nBut there still remain qualities enough to secure the reality of external\nthings.\n\n_Phil._ But what will you say, Hylas, if it shall appear that the case is\nthe same with regard to all other sensible qualities(793), and that they\ncan no more be supposed to exist without the mind, than heat and cold?\n\n_Hyl._ Then indeed you will have done something to the purpose; but that\nis what I despair of seeing proved.\n\n_Phil._ Let us examine them in order. What think you of _tastes_\u2014do they\nexist without the mind, or no?\n\n_Hyl._ Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is sweet, or wormwood\nbitter?\n\n_Phil._ Inform me, Hylas. Is a sweet taste a particular kind of pleasure\nor pleasant sensation, or is it not?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ And is not bitterness some kind of uneasiness or pain?\n\n_Hyl._ I grant it.\n\n_Phil._ If therefore sugar and wormwood are unthinking corporeal\nsubstances existing without the mind, how can sweetness and bitterness,\nthat is, pleasure and pain, agree to them?\n\n_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous, I now see what it was deluded me all this time.\nYou asked whether heat and cold, sweetness and bitterness, were not\nparticular sorts of pleasure and pain; to which I answered simply, that\nthey were. Whereas I should have thus distinguished:\u2014those qualities, as\nperceived by us, are pleasures or pains; but not as existing in the\nexternal objects. We must not therefore conclude absolutely, that there is\nno heat in the fire, or sweetness in the sugar, but only that heat or\nsweetness, as perceived by us, are not in the fire or sugar. What say you\nto this?\n\n_Phil._ I say it is nothing to the purpose. Our discourse proceeded\naltogether concerning sensible things, which you defined to be, _the\nthings we immediately perceive by our senses_. Whatever other qualities,\ntherefore, you speak of, as distinct from these, I know nothing of them,\nneither do they at all belong to the point in dispute. You may, indeed,\npretend to have discovered certain qualities which you do not perceive,\nand assert those insensible qualities exist in fire and sugar. But what\nuse can be made of this to your present purpose, I am at a loss to\nconceive. Tell me then once more, do you acknowledge that heat and cold,\nsweetness and bitterness (meaning those qualities which are perceived by\nthe senses), do not exist without the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ I see it is to no purpose to hold out, so I give up the cause as to\nthose mentioned qualities. Though I profess it sounds oddly, to say that\nsugar is not sweet.\n\n_Phil._ But, for your farther satisfaction, take this along with you: that\nwhich at other times seems sweet, shall, to a distempered palate, appear\nbitter. And, nothing can be plainer than that divers persons perceive\ndifferent tastes in the same food; since that which one man delights in,\nanother abhors. And how could this be, if the taste was something really\ninherent in the food?\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge I know not how.\n\n_Phil._ In the next place, _odours_ are to be considered. And, with regard\nto these, I would fain know whether what hath been said of tastes doth not\nexactly agree to them? Are they not so many pleasing or displeasing\nsensations?\n\n_Hyl._ They are.\n\n_Phil._ Can you then conceive it possible that they should exist in an\nunperceiving thing?\n\n_Hyl._ I cannot.\n\n_Phil._ Or, can you imagine that filth and ordure affect those brute\nanimals that feed on them out of choice, with the same smells which we\nperceive in them?\n\n_Hyl._ By no means.\n\n_Phil._ May we not therefore conclude of smells, as of the other\nforementioned qualities, that they cannot exist in any but a perceiving\nsubstance or mind?\n\n_Hyl._ I think so.\n\n_Phil._ Then as to _sounds_, what must we think of them: are they\naccidents really inherent in external bodies, or not?\n\n_Hyl._ That they inhere not in the sonorous bodies is plain from hence:\nbecause a bell struck in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump sends forth\nno sound. The air, therefore, must be thought the subject of sound.\n\n_Phil._ What reason is there for that, Hylas?\n\n_Hyl._ Because, when any motion is raised in the air, we perceive a sound\ngreater or lesser, according to the air\u2019s motion; but without some motion\nin the air, we never hear any sound at all.\n\n_Phil._ And granting that we never hear a sound but when some motion is\nproduced in the air, yet I do not see how you can infer from thence, that\nthe sound itself is in the air.\n\n_Hyl._ It is this very motion in the external air that produces in the\nmind the sensation of _sound_. For, striking on the drum of the ear, it\ncauseth a vibration, which by the auditory nerves being communicated to\nthe brain, the soul is thereupon affected with the sensation called\n_sound_.\n\n_Phil._ What! is sound then a sensation?\n\n_Hyl._ I tell you, as perceived by us, it is a particular sensation in the\nmind.\n\n_Phil._ And can any sensation exist without the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ No, certainly.\n\n_Phil._ How then can sound, being a sensation, exist in the air, if by the\n_air_ you mean a senseless substance existing without the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ You must distinguish, Philonous, between sound as it is perceived\nby us, and as it is in itself; or (which is the same thing) between the\nsound we immediately perceive, and that which exists without us. The\nformer, indeed, is a particular kind of sensation, but the latter is\nmerely a vibrative or undulatory motion in the air.\n\n_Phil._ I thought I had already obviated that distinction, by the answer I\ngave when you were applying it in a like case before. But, to say no more\nof that, are you sure then that sound is really nothing but motion?\n\n_Hyl._ I am.\n\n_Phil._ Whatever therefore agrees to real sound, may with truth be\nattributed to motion?\n\n_Hyl._ It may.\n\n_Phil._ It is then good sense to speak of _motion_ as of a thing that is\n_loud, sweet, acute, or grave_.\n\n_Hyl._ I see you are resolved not to understand me. Is it not evident\nthose accidents or modes belong only to sensible sound, or _sound_ in the\ncommon acceptation of the word, but not to _sound_ in the real and\nphilosophic sense; which, as I just now told you, is nothing but a certain\nmotion of the air?\n\n_Phil._ It seems then there are two sorts of sound\u2014the one vulgar, or that\nwhich is heard, the other philosophical and real?\n\n_Hyl._ Even so.\n\n_Phil._ And the latter consists in motion?\n\n_Hyl._ I told you so before.\n\n_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, to which of the senses, think you, the idea of\nmotion belongs? to the hearing?\n\n_Hyl._ No, certainly; but to the sight and touch.\n\n_Phil._ It should follow then, that, according to you, real sounds may\npossibly be _seen_ or _felt_, but never _heard_.\n\n_Hyl._ Look you, Philonous, you may, if you please, make a jest of my\nopinion, but that will not alter the truth of things. I own, indeed, the\ninferences you draw me into sound something oddly; but common language,\nyou know, is framed by, and for the use of the vulgar: we must not\ntherefore wonder if expressions adapted to exact philosophic notions seem\nuncouth and out of the way.\n\n_Phil._ Is it come to that? I assure you, I imagine myself to have gained\nno small point, since you make so light of departing from common phrases\nand opinions; it being a main part of our inquiry, to examine whose\nnotions are widest of the common road, and most repugnant to the general\nsense of the world. But, can you think it no more than a philosophical\nparadox, to say that _real sounds are never heard_, and that the idea of\nthem is obtained by some other sense? And is there nothing in this\ncontrary to nature and the truth of things?\n\n_Hyl._ To deal ingenuously, I do not like it. And, after the concessions\nalready made, I had as well grant that sounds too have no real being\nwithout the mind.\n\n_Phil._ And I hope you will make no difficulty to acknowledge the same of\n_colours_.\n\n_Hyl._ Pardon me: the case of colours is very different. Can anything be\nplainer than that we see them on the objects?\n\n_Phil._ The objects you speak of are, I suppose, corporeal Substances\nexisting without the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ They are.\n\n_Phil._ And have true and real colours inhering in them?\n\n_Hyl._ Each visible object hath that colour which we see in it.\n\n_Phil._ How! is there anything visible but what we perceive by sight?\n\n_Hyl._ There is not.\n\n_Phil._ And, do we perceive anything by sense which we do not perceive\nimmediately?\n\n_Hyl._ How often must I be obliged to repeat the same thing? I tell you,\nwe do not.\n\n_Phil._ Have patience, good Hylas; and tell me once more, whether there is\nanything immediately perceived by the senses, except sensible qualities. I\nknow you asserted there was not; but I would now be informed, whether you\nstill persist in the same opinion.\n\n_Hyl._ I do.\n\n_Phil._ Pray, is your corporeal substance either a sensible quality, or\nmade up of sensible qualities?\n\n_Hyl._ What a question that is! who ever thought it was?\n\n_Phil._ My reason for asking was, because in saying, _each visible object\nhath that colour which we see in it_, you make visible objects to be\ncorporeal substances; which implies either that corporeal substances are\nsensible qualities, or else that there is something beside sensible\nqualities perceived by sight: but, as this point was formerly agreed\nbetween us, and is still maintained by you, it is a clear consequence,\nthat your _corporeal substance_ is nothing distinct from _sensible\nqualities_(794).\n\n_Hyl._ You may draw as many absurd consequences as you please, and\nendeavour to perplex the plainest things; but you shall never persuade me\nout of my senses. I clearly understand my own meaning.\n\n_Phil._ I wish you would make me understand it too. But, since you are\nunwilling to have your notion of corporeal substance examined, I shall\nurge that point no farther. Only be pleased to let me know, whether the\nsame colours which we see exist in external bodies, or some other.\n\n_Hyl._ The very same.\n\n_Phil._ What! are then the beautiful red and purple we see on yonder\nclouds really in them? Or do you imagine they have in themselves any other\nform than that of a dark mist or vapour?\n\n_Hyl._ I must own, Philonous, those colours are not really in the clouds\nas they seem to be at this distance. They are only apparent colours.\n\n_Phil._ _Apparent_ call you them? how shall we distinguish these apparent\ncolours from real?\n\n_Hyl._ Very easily. Those are to be thought apparent which, appearing only\nat a distance, vanish upon a nearer approach.\n\n_Phil._ And those, I suppose, are to be thought real which are discovered\nby the most near and exact survey.\n\n_Hyl._ Right.\n\n_Phil._ Is the nearest and exactest survey made by the help of a\nmicroscope, or by the naked eye?\n\n_Hyl._ By a microscope, doubtless.\n\n_Phil._ But a microscope often discovers colours in an object different\nfrom those perceived by the unassisted sight. And, in case we had\nmicroscopes magnifying to any assigned degree, it is certain that no\nobject whatsoever, viewed through them, would appear in the same colour\nwhich it exhibits to the naked eye.\n\n_Hyl._ And what will you conclude from all this? You cannot argue that\nthere are really and naturally no colours on objects: because by\nartificial managements they may be altered, or made to vanish.\n\n_Phil._ I think it may evidently be concluded from your own concessions,\nthat all the colours we see with our naked eyes are only apparent as those\non the clouds, since they vanish upon a more close and accurate inspection\nwhich is afforded us by a microscope. Then, as to what you say by way of\nprevention: I ask you whether the real and natural state of an object is\nbetter discovered by a very sharp and piercing sight, or by one which is\nless sharp?\n\n_Hyl._ By the former without doubt.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not plain from _Dioptrics_ that microscopes make the sight\nmore penetrating, and represent objects as they would appear to the eye in\ncase it were naturally endowed with a most exquisite sharpness?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently the microscopical representation is to be thought\nthat which best sets forth the real nature of the thing, or what it is in\nitself. The colours, therefore, by it perceived are more genuine and real\nthan those perceived otherwise.\n\n_Hyl._ I confess there is something in what you say.\n\n_Phil._ Besides, it is not only possible but manifest, that there actually\nare animals whose eyes are by nature framed to perceive those things which\nby reason of their minuteness escape our sight. What think you of those\ninconceivably small animals perceived by glasses? Must we suppose they are\nall stark blind? Or, in case they see, can it be imagined their sight hath\nnot the same use in preserving their bodies from injuries, which appears\nin that of all other animals? And if it hath, is it not evident they must\nsee particles less than their own bodies; which will present them with a\nfar different view in each object from that which strikes our senses(795)?\nEven our own eyes do not always represent objects to us after the same\nmanner. In the jaundice every one knows that all things seem yellow. Is it\nnot therefore highly probable those animals in whose eyes we discern a\nvery different texture from that of ours, and whose bodies abound with\ndifferent humours, do not see the same colours in every object that we do?\nFrom all which, should it not seem to follow that all colours are equally\napparent, and that none of those which we perceive are really inherent in\nany outward object?\n\n_Hyl._ It should.\n\n_Phil._ The point will be past all doubt, if you consider that, in case\ncolours were real properties or affections inherent in external bodies,\nthey could admit of no alteration without some change wrought in the very\nbodies themselves: but, is it not evident from what hath been said that,\nupon the use of microscopes, upon a change happening in the humours of the\neye, or a variation of distance, without any manner of real alteration in\nthe thing itself, the colours of any object are either changed, or totally\ndisappear? Nay, all other circumstances remaining the same, change but the\nsituation of some objects, and they shall present different colours to the\neye. The same thing happens upon viewing an object in various degrees of\nlight. And what is more known than that the same bodies appear differently\ncoloured by candle-light from what they do in the open day? Add to these\nthe experiment of a prism which, separating the heterogeneous rays of\nlight, alters the colour of any object, and will cause the whitest to\nappear of a deep blue or red to the naked eye. And now tell me whether you\nare still of opinion that every body hath its true real colour inhering in\nit; and, if you think it hath, I would fain know farther from you, what\ncertain distance and position of the object, what peculiar texture and\nformation of the eye, what degree or kind of light is necessary for\nascertaining that true colour, and distinguishing it from apparent ones.\n\n_Hyl._ I own myself entirely satisfied, that they are all equally\napparent, and that there is no such thing as colour really inhering in\nexternal bodies, but that it is altogether in the light. And what confirms\nme in this opinion is, that in proportion to the light colours are still\nmore or less vivid; and if there be no light, then are there no colours\nperceived. Besides, allowing there are colours on external objects, yet,\nhow is it possible for us to perceive them? For no external body affects\nthe mind, unless it acts first on our organs of sense. But the only action\nof bodies is motion; and motion cannot be communicated otherwise than by\nimpulse. A distant object therefore cannot act on the eye; nor\nconsequently make itself or its properties perceivable to the soul. Whence\nit plainly follows that it is immediately some contiguous substance,\nwhich, operating on the eye, occasions a perception of colours: and such\nis light.\n\n_Phil._ How! is light then a substance?\n\n_Hyl._ I tell you, Philonous, external light is nothing but a thin fluid\nsubstance, whose minute particles being agitated with a brisk motion, and\nin various manners reflected from the different surfaces of outward\nobjects to the eyes, communicate different motions to the optic nerves;\nwhich, being propagated to the brain, cause therein various impressions;\nand these are attended with the sensations of red, blue, yellow, &c.\n\n_Phil._ It seems then the light doth no more than shake the optic nerves.\n\n_Hyl._ Nothing else.\n\n_Phil._ And consequent to each particular motion of the nerves, the mind\nis affected with a sensation, which is some particular colour.\n\n_Hyl._ Right.\n\n_Phil._ And these sensations have no existence without the mind.\n\n_Hyl._ They have not.\n\n_Phil._ How then do you affirm that colours are in the light; since by\n_light_ you understand a corporeal substance external to the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ Light and colours, as immediately perceived by us, I grant cannot\nexist without the mind. But in themselves they are only the motions and\nconfigurations of certain insensible particles of matter.\n\n_Phil._ Colours then, in the vulgar sense, or taken for the immediate\nobjects of sight, cannot agree to any but a perceiving substance.\n\n_Hyl._ That is what I say.\n\n_Phil._ Well then, since you give up the point as to those sensible\nqualities which are alone thought colours by all mankind beside, you may\nhold what you please with regard to those invisible ones of the\nphilosophers. It is not my business to dispute about _them_; only I would\nadvise you to bethink yourself, whether, considering the inquiry we are\nupon, it be prudent for you to affirm\u2014_the red and blue which we see are\nnot real colours, but certain unknown motions and figures which no man\never did or can see are truly so_. Are not these shocking notions, and are\nnot they subject to as many ridiculous inferences, as those you were\nobliged to renounce before in the case of sounds?\n\n_Hyl._ I frankly own, Philonous, that it is in vain to stand out any\nlonger. Colours, sounds, tastes, in a word all those termed _secondary\nqualities_, have certainly no existence without the mind. But by this\nacknowledgment I must not be supposed to derogate anything from the\nreality of Matter, or external objects; seeing it is no more than several\nphilosophers maintain(796), who nevertheless are the farthest imaginable\nfrom denying Matter. For the clearer understanding of this, you must know\nsensible qualities are by philosophers divided into _Primary_ and\n_Secondary_(797). The former are Extension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity,\nMotion, and Rest; and these they hold exist really in Bodies. The latter\nare those above enumerated; or, briefly, _all sensible qualities beside\nthe Primary_; which they assert are only so many sensations or ideas\nexisting nowhere but in the mind. But all this, I doubt not, you are\napprised of. For my part, I have been a long time sensible there was such\nan opinion current among philosophers, but was never thoroughly convinced\nof its truth until now.\n\n_Phil._ You are still then of opinion that _extension_ and _figures_ are\ninherent in external unthinking substances?\n\n_Hyl._ I am.\n\n_Phil._ But what if the same arguments which are brought against Secondary\nQualities will hold good against these also?\n\n_Hyl._ Why then I shall be obliged to think, they too exist only in the\nmind.\n\n_Phil._ Is it your opinion the very figure and extension which you\nperceive by sense exist in the outward object or material substance?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ Have all other animals as good grounds to think the same of the\nfigure and extension which they see and feel?\n\n_Hyl._ Without doubt, if they have any thought at all.\n\n_Phil._ Answer me, Hylas. Think you the senses were bestowed upon all\nanimals for their preservation and well-being in life? or were they given\nto men alone for this end?\n\n_Hyl._ I make no question but they have the same use in all other animals.\n\n_Phil._ If so, is it not necessary they should be enabled by them to\nperceive their own limbs, and those bodies which are capable of harming\nthem?\n\n_Hyl._ Certainly.\n\n_Phil._ A mite therefore must be supposed to see his own foot, and things\nequal or even less than it, as bodies of some considerable dimension;\nthough at the same time they appear to you scarce discernible, or at best\nas so many visible points(798)?\n\n_Hyl._ I cannot deny it.\n\n_Phil._ And to creatures less than the mite they will seem yet larger?\n\n_Hyl._ They will.\n\n_Phil._ Insomuch that what you can hardly discern will to another\nextremely minute animal appear as some huge mountain?\n\n_Hyl._ All this I grant.\n\n_Phil._ Can one and the same thing be at the same time in itself of\ndifferent dimensions?\n\n_Hyl._ That were absurd to imagine.\n\n_Phil._ But, from what you have laid down it follows that both the\nextension by you perceived, and that perceived by the mite itself, as\nlikewise all those perceived by lesser animals, are each of them the true\nextension of the mite\u2019s foot; that is to say, by your own principles you\nare led into an absurdity.\n\n_Hyl._ There seems to be some difficulty in the point.\n\n_Phil._ Again, have you not acknowledged that no real inherent property of\nany object can be changed without some change in the thing itself?\n\n_Hyl._ I have.\n\n_Phil._ But, as we approach to or recede from an object, the visible\nextension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred times greater\nthan at another. Doth it not therefore follow from hence likewise that it\nis not really inherent in the object?\n\n_Hyl._ I own I am at a loss what to think.\n\n_Phil._ Your judgment will soon be determined, if you will venture to\nthink as freely concerning this quality as you have done concerning the\nrest. Was it not admitted as a good argument, that neither heat nor cold\nwas in the water, because it seemed warm to one hand and cold to the\nother?\n\n_Hyl._ It was.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not the very same reasoning to conclude, there is no\nextension or figure in an object, because to one eye it shall seem little,\nsmooth, and round, when at the same time it appears to the other, great,\nuneven, and angular?\n\n_Hyl._ The very same. But does this latter fact ever happen?\n\n_Phil._ You may at any time make the experiment, by looking with one eye\nbare, and with the other through a microscope.\n\n_Hyl._ I know not how to maintain it; and yet I am loath to give up\n_extension_, I see so many odd consequences following upon such a\nconcession.\n\n_Phil._ Odd, say you? After the concessions already made, I hope you will\nstick at nothing for its oddness. [(799) But, on the other hand, should it\nnot seem very odd, if the general reasoning which includes all other\nsensible qualities did not also include extension? If it be allowed that\nno idea, nor anything like an idea, can exist in an unperceiving\nsubstance, then surely it follows that no figure, or mode of extension,\nwhich we can either perceive, or imagine, or have any idea of, can be\nreally inherent in Matter; not to mention the peculiar difficulty there\nmust be in conceiving a material substance, prior to and distinct from\nextension, to be the _substratum_ of extension. Be the sensible quality\nwhat it will\u2014figure, or sound, or colour, it seems alike impossible it\nshould subsist in that which doth not perceive it.]\n\n_Hyl._ I give up the point for the present, reserving still a right to\nretract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover any false step in\nmy progress to it.\n\n_Phil._ That is a right you cannot be denied. Figures and extension being\ndespatched, we proceed next to _motion_. Can a real motion in any external\nbody be at the same time both very swift and very slow?\n\n_Hyl._ It cannot.\n\n_Phil._ Is not the motion of a body swift in a reciprocal proportion to\nthe time it takes up in describing any given space? Thus a body that\ndescribes a mile in an hour moves three times faster than it would in case\nit described only a mile in three hours.\n\n_Hyl._ I agree with you.\n\n_Phil._ And is not time measured by the succession of ideas in our minds?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ And is it not possible ideas should succeed one another twice as\nfast in your mind as they do in mine, or in that of some spirit of another\nkind?\n\n_Hyl._ I own it.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently the same body may to another seem to perform its\nmotion over any space in half the time that it doth to you. And the same\nreasoning will hold as to any other proportion: that is to say, according\nto your principles (since the motions perceived are both really in the\nobject) it is possible one and the same body shall be really moved the\nsame way at once, both very swift and very slow. How is this consistent\neither with common sense, or with what you just now granted?\n\n_Hyl._ I have nothing to say to it.\n\n_Phil._ Then as for _solidity_; either you do not mean any sensible\nquality by that word, and so it is beside our inquiry: or if you do, it\nmust be either hardness or resistance. But both the one and the other are\nplainly relative to our senses: it being evident that what seems hard to\none animal may appear soft to another, who hath greater force and firmness\nof limbs. Nor is it less plain that the resistance I feel is not in the\nbody.\n\n_Hyl._ I own the very _sensation_ of resistance, which is all you\nimmediately perceive, is not in the body; but the _cause_ of that\nsensation is.\n\n_Phil._ But the causes of our sensations are not things immediately\nperceived, and therefore are not sensible. This point I thought had been\nalready determined.\n\n_Hyl._ I own it was; but you will pardon me if I seem a little\nembarrassed: I know not how to quit my old notions.\n\n_Phil._ To help you out, do but consider that if _extension_ be once\nacknowledged to have no existence without the mind, the same must\nnecessarily be granted of motion, solidity, and gravity; since they all\nevidently suppose extension. It is therefore superfluous to inquire\nparticularly concerning each of them. In denying extension, you have\ndenied them all to have any real existence(800).\n\n_Hyl._ I wonder, Philonous, if what you say be true, why those\nphilosophers who deny the Secondary Qualities any real existence should\nyet attribute it to the Primary. If there is no difference between them,\nhow can this be accounted for?\n\n_Phil._ It is not my business to account for every opinion of the\nphilosophers. But, among other reasons which may be assigned for this, it\nseems probable that pleasure and pain being rather annexed to the former\nthan the latter may be one. Heat and cold, tastes and smells, have\nsomething more vividly pleasing or disagreeable than the ideas of\nextension, figure, and motion affect us with. And, it being too visibly\nabsurd to hold that pain or pleasure can be in an unperceiving Substance,\nmen are more easily weaned from believing the external existence of the\nSecondary than the Primary Qualities. You will be satisfied there is\nsomething in this, if you recollect the difference you made between an\nintense and more moderate degree of heat; allowing the one a real\nexistence, while you denied it to the other. But, after all, there is no\nrational ground for that distinction; for, surely an indifferent sensation\nis as truly _a sensation_ as one more pleasing or painful; and\nconsequently should not any more than they be supposed to exist in an\nunthinking subject.\n\n_Hyl._ It is just come into my head, Philonous, that I have somewhere\nheard of a distinction between absolute and sensible extension(801). Now,\nthough it be acknowledged that _great_ and _small_, consisting merely in\nthe relation which other extended beings have to the parts of our own\nbodies, do not really inhere in the substances themselves; yet nothing\nobliges us to hold the same with regard to _absolute extension_, which is\nsomething abstracted from _great_ and _small_, from this or that\nparticular magnitude or figure. So likewise as to motion; _swift_ and\n_slow_ are altogether relative to the succession of ideas in our own\nminds. But, it doth not follow, because those modifications of motion\nexist not without the mind, that therefore absolute motion abstracted from\nthem doth not.\n\n_Phil._ Pray what is it that distinguishes one motion, or one part of\nextension, from another? Is it not something sensible, as some degree of\nswiftness or slowness, some certain magnitude or figure peculiar to each?\n\n_Hyl._ I think so.\n\n_Phil._ These qualities, therefore, stripped of all sensible properties,\nare without all specific and numerical differences, as the schools call\nthem.\n\n_Hyl._ They are.\n\n_Phil._ That is to say, they are extension in general, and motion in\ngeneral.\n\n_Hyl._ Let it be so.\n\n_Phil._ But it is a universally received maxim that _Everything which\nexists is particular_(802). How then can motion in general, or extension\nin general, exist in any corporeal substance?\n\n_Hyl._ I will take time to solve your difficulty.\n\n_Phil._ But I think the point may be speedily decided. Without doubt you\ncan tell whether you are able to frame this or that idea. Now I am content\nto put our dispute on this issue. If you can frame in your thoughts a\ndistinct _abstract idea_ of motion or extension, divested of all those\nsensible modes, as swift and slow, great and small, round and square, and\nthe like, which are acknowledged to exist only in the mind, I will then\nyield the point you contend for. But if you cannot, it will be\nunreasonable on your side to insist any longer upon what you have no\nnotion(803) of.\n\n_Hyl._ To confess ingenuously, I cannot.\n\n_Phil._ Can you even separate the ideas of extension and motion from the\nideas of all those qualities which they who make the distinction term\n_secondary_?\n\n_Hyl._ What! is it not an easy matter to consider extension and motion by\nthemselves, abstracted from all other sensible qualities? Pray how do the\nmathematicians treat of them?\n\n_Phil._ I acknowledge, Hylas, it is not difficult to form general\npropositions and reasonings about those qualities, without mentioning any\nother; and, in this sense, to consider or treat of them abstractedly(804).\nBut, how doth it follow that, because I can pronounce the word _motion_ by\nitself, I can form the idea of it in my mind exclusive of body? or,\nbecause theorems may be made of extension and figures, without any mention\nof _great_ or _small_, or any other sensible mode or quality, that\ntherefore it is possible such an abstract idea of extension, without any\nparticular size or figure, or sensible quality(805), should be distinctly\nformed, and apprehended by the mind? Mathematicians treat of quantity,\nwithout regarding what other sensible qualities it is attended with, as\nbeing altogether indifferent to their demonstrations. But, when laying\naside the words, they contemplate the bare ideas, I believe you will find,\nthey are not the pure abstracted ideas of extension.\n\n_Hyl._ But what say you to _pure intellect_? May not abstracted ideas be\nframed by that faculty?\n\n_Phil._ Since I cannot frame abstract ideas at all, it is plain I cannot\nframe them by the help of _pure intellect_; whatsoever faculty you\nunderstand by those words(806). Besides, not to inquire into the nature of\npure intellect and its spiritual objects, as _virtue_, _reason_, _God_, or\nthe like, thus much seems manifest\u2014that sensible things are only to be\nperceived by sense, or represented by the imagination. Figures, therefore,\nand extension, being originally perceived by sense, do not belong to pure\nintellect: but, for your farther satisfaction, try if you can frame the\nidea of any figure, abstracted from all particularities of size, or even\nfrom other sensible qualities.\n\n_Hyl._Let me think a little\u2014\u2014I do not find that I can.\n\n_Phil._ And can you think it possible that should really exist in nature\nwhich implies a repugnancy in its conception?\n\n_Hyl._ By no means.\n\n_Phil._ Since therefore it is impossible even for the mind to disunite the\nideas of extension and motion from all other sensible qualities, doth it\nnot follow, that where the one exist there necessarily the other exist\nlikewise?\n\n_Hyl._ It should seem so.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently, the very same arguments which you admitted as\nconclusive against the Secondary Qualities are, without any farther\napplication of force, against the Primary too. Besides, if you will trust\nyour senses, is it not plain all sensible qualities coexist, or to them\nappear as being in the same place? Do they ever represent a motion, or\nfigure, as being divested of all other visible and tangible qualities?\n\n_Hyl._ You need say no more on this head. I am free to own, if there be no\nsecret error or oversight in our proceedings hitherto, that _all_ sensible\nqualities are alike to be denied existence without the mind(807). But, my\nfear is that I have been too liberal in my former concessions, or\noverlooked some fallacy or other. In short, I did not take time to think.\n\n_Phil._ For that matter, Hylas, you may take what time you please in\nreviewing the progress of our inquiry. You are at liberty to recover any\nslips you might have made, or offer whatever you have omitted which makes\nfor your first opinion.\n\n_Hyl._ One great oversight I take to be this\u2014that I did not sufficiently\ndistinguish the _object_ from the _sensation_(808). Now, though this\nlatter may not exist without the mind, yet it will not thence follow that\nthe former cannot.\n\n_Phil._ What object do you mean? the object of the senses?\n\n_Hyl._ The same.\n\n_Phil._ It is then immediately perceived?\n\n_Hyl._ Right.\n\n_Phil._ Make me to understand the difference between what is immediately\nperceived and a sensation.\n\n_Hyl._ The sensation I take to be an act of the mind perceiving; besides\nwhich, there is something perceived; and this I call the _object_. For\nexample, there is red and yellow on that tulip. But then the act of\nperceiving those colours is in me only, and not in the tulip.\n\n_Phil._ What tulip do you speak of? Is it that which you see?\n\n_Hyl._ The same.\n\n_Phil._ And what do you see beside colour, figure, and extension(809)?\n\n_Hyl._ Nothing.\n\n_Phil._ What you would say then is that the red and yellow are coexistent\nwith the extension; is it not?\n\n_Hyl._ That is not all; I would say they have a real existence without the\nmind, in some unthinking substance.\n\n_Phil._ That the colours are really in the tulip which I see is manifest.\nNeither can it be denied that this tulip may exist independent of your\nmind or mine; but, that any immediate object of the senses\u2014that is, any\nidea, or combination of ideas\u2014should exist in an unthinking substance, or\nexterior to _all_ minds, is in itself an evident contradiction. Nor can I\nimagine how this follows from what you said just now, to wit, that the red\nand yellow were on the tulip _you saw_, since you do not pretend to _see_\nthat unthinking substance.\n\n_Hyl._ You have an artful way, Philonous, of diverting our inquiry from\nthe subject.\n\n_Phil._ I see you have no mind to be pressed that way. To return then to\nyour distinction between _sensation_ and _object_; if I take you right,\nyou distinguish in every perception two things, the one an action of the\nmind, the other not.\n\n_Hyl._ True.\n\n_Phil._ And this action cannot exist in, or belong to, any unthinking\nthing(810); but, whatever beside is implied in a perception may?\n\n_Hyl._ That is my meaning.\n\n_Phil._ So that if there was a perception without any act of the mind, it\nwere possible such a perception should exist in an unthinking substance?\n\n_Hyl._ I grant it. But it is impossible there should be such a perception.\n\n_Phil._ When is the mind said to be active?\n\n_Hyl._ When it produces, puts an end to, or changes, anything.\n\n_Phil._ Can the mind produce, discontinue, or change anything, but by an\nact of the will?\n\n_Hyl._ It cannot.\n\n_Phil._ The mind therefore is to be accounted _active_ in its perceptions\nso far forth as _volition_ is included in them?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ In plucking this flower I am active; because I do it by the motion\nof my hand, which was consequent upon my volition; so likewise in applying\nit to my nose. But is either of these smelling?\n\n_Hyl._ No.\n\n_Phil._ I act too in drawing the air through my nose; because my breathing\nso rather than otherwise is the effect of my volition. But neither can\nthis be called _smelling_: for, if it were, I should smell every time I\nbreathed in that manner?\n\n_Hyl._ True.\n\n_Phil._ Smelling then is somewhat consequent to all this?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ But I do not find my will concerned any farther. Whatever more\nthere is\u2014as that I perceive such a particular smell, or any smell at\nall\u2014this is independent of my will, and therein I am altogether passive.\nDo you find it otherwise with you, Hylas?\n\n_Hyl._ No, the very same.\n\n_Phil._ Then, as to seeing, is it not in your power to open your eyes, or\nkeep them shut; to turn them this or that way?\n\n_Hyl._ Without doubt.\n\n_Phil._ But, doth it in like manner depend on _your_ will that in looking\non this flower you perceive _white_ rather than any other colour? Or,\ndirecting your open eyes towards yonder part of the heaven, can you avoid\nseeing the sun? Or is light or darkness the effect of your volition?\n\n_Hyl._ No, certainly.\n\n_Phil._ You are then in these respects altogether passive?\n\n_Hyl._ I am.\n\n_Phil._ Tell me now, whether _seeing_ consists in perceiving light and\ncolours, or in opening and turning the eyes?\n\n_Hyl._ Without doubt, in the former.\n\n_Phil._ Since therefore you are in the very perception of light and\ncolours altogether passive, what is become of that action you were\nspeaking of as an ingredient in every sensation? And, doth it not follow\nfrom your own concessions, that the perception of light and colours,\nincluding no action in it, may exist in an unperceiving substance? And is\nnot this a plain contradiction?\n\n_Hyl._ I know not what to think of it.\n\n_Phil._ Besides, since you distinguish the _active_ and _passive_ in every\nperception, you must do it in that of pain. But how is it possible that\npain, be it as little active as you please, should exist in an\nunperceiving substance? In short, do but consider the point, and then\nconfess ingenuously, whether light and colours, tastes, sounds, &c. are\nnot all equally passions or sensations in the soul. You may indeed call\nthem _external objects_, and give them in words what subsistence you\nplease. But, examine your own thoughts, and then tell me whether it be not\nas I say?\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge, Philonous, that, upon a fair observation of what\npasses in my mind, I can discover nothing else but that I am a thinking\nbeing, affected with variety of sensations; neither is it possible to\nconceive how a sensation should exist in an unperceiving substance.\u2014But\nthen, on the other hand, when I look on sensible things in a different\nview, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it necessary\nto suppose a _material substratum_, without which they cannot be conceived\nto exist(811).\n\n_Phil._ _Material substratum_ call you it? Pray, by which of your senses\ncame you acquainted with that being?\n\n_Hyl._ It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only being\nperceived by the senses.\n\n_Phil._ I presume then it was by reflexion and reason you obtained the\nidea of it?\n\n_Hyl._ I do not pretend to any proper positive _idea_ of it. However, I\nconclude it exists, because qualities cannot be conceived to exist without\na support.\n\n_Phil._ It seems then you have only a relative _notion_ of it, or that you\nconceive it not otherwise than by conceiving the relation it bears to\nsensible qualities?\n\n_Hyl._ Right.\n\n_Phil._ Be pleased therefore to let me know wherein that relation\nconsists.\n\n_Hyl._ Is it not sufficiently expressed in the term _substratum_, or\n_substance_?\n\n_Phil._ If so, the word _substratum_ should import that it is spread under\nthe sensible qualities or accidents?\n\n_Hyl._ True.\n\n_Phil._ And consequently under extension?\n\n_Hyl._ I own it.\n\n_Phil._ It is therefore somewhat in its own nature entirely distinct from\nextension?\n\n_Hyl._ I tell you, extension is only a mode, and Matter is something that\nsupports modes. And is it not evident the thing supported is different\nfrom the thing supporting?\n\n_Phil._ So that something distinct from, and exclusive of, extension is\nsupposed to be the _substratum_ of extension?\n\n_Hyl._ Just so.\n\n_Phil._ Answer me, Hylas. Can a thing be spread without extension? or is\nnot the idea of extension necessarily included in _spreading_?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ Whatsoever therefore you suppose spread under anything must have\nin itself an extension distinct from the extension of that thing under\nwhich it is spread?\n\n_Hyl._ It must.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently, every corporeal substance, being the _substratum_ of\nextension, must have in itself another extension, by which it is qualified\nto be a _substratum_: and so on to infinity? And I ask whether this be not\nabsurd in itself, and repugnant to what you granted just now, to wit, that\nthe _substratum_ was something distinct from and exclusive of extension?\n\n_Hyl._ Aye but, Philonous, you take me wrong. I do not mean that Matter is\n_spread_ in a gross literal sense under extension. The word _substratum_\nis used only to express in general the same thing with _substance_.\n\n_Phil._ Well then, let us examine the relation implied in the term\n_substance_. Is it not that it stands under accidents?\n\n_Hyl._ The very same.\n\n_Phil._ But, that one thing may stand under or support another, must it\nnot be extended?\n\n_Hyl._ It must.\n\n_Phil._ Is not therefore this supposition liable to the same absurdity\nwith the former?\n\n_Hyl._ You still take things in a strict literal sense. That is not fair,\nPhilonous.\n\n_Phil._ I am not for imposing any sense on your words: you are at liberty\nto explain them as you please. Only, I beseech you, make me understand\nsomething by them. You tell me Matter supports or stands under accidents.\nHow! is it as your legs support your body?\n\n_Hyl._ No; that is the literal sense.\n\n_Phil._ Pray let me know any sense, literal or not literal, that you\nunderstand it in.\u2014How long must I wait for an answer, Hylas?\n\n_Hyl._ I declare I know not what to say. I once thought I understood well\nenough what was meant by Matter\u2019s supporting accidents. But now, the more\nI think on it the less can I comprehend it: in short I find that I know\nnothing of it.\n\n_Phil._ It seems then you have no idea at all, neither relative nor\npositive, of Matter; you know neither what it is in itself, nor what\nrelation it bears to accidents?\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge it.\n\n_Phil._ And yet you asserted that you could not conceive how qualities or\naccidents should really exist, without conceiving at the same time a\nmaterial support of them?\n\n_Hyl._ I did.\n\n_Phil._ That is to say, when you conceive the _real_ existence of\nqualities, you do withal conceive Something which you cannot conceive?\n\n_Hyl._ It was wrong, I own. But still I fear there is some fallacy or\nother. Pray what think you of this? It is just come into my head that the\nground of all our mistake lies in your treating of each quality by itself.\nNow, I grant that each quality cannot singly subsist without the mind.\nColour cannot without extension, neither can figure without some other\nsensible quality. But, as the several qualities united or blended together\nform entire sensible things, nothing hinders why such things may not be\nsupposed to exist without the mind.\n\n_Phil._ Either, Hylas, you are jesting, or have a very bad memory. Though\nindeed we went through all the qualities by name one after another, yet my\narguments, or rather your concessions, nowhere tended to prove that the\nSecondary Qualities did not subsist each alone by itself; but, that they\nwere not _at all_ without the mind. Indeed, in treating of figure and\nmotion we concluded they could not exist without the mind, because it was\nimpossible even in thought to separate them from all secondary qualities,\nso as to conceive them existing by themselves. But then this was not the\nonly argument made use of upon that occasion. But (to pass by all that\nhath been hitherto said, and reckon it for nothing, if you will have it\nso) I am content to put the whole upon this issue. If you can conceive it\npossible for any mixture or combination of qualities, or any sensible\nobject whatever, to exist without the mind, then I will grant it actually\nto be so.\n\n_Hyl._ If it comes to that the point will soon be decided. What more easy\nthan to conceive a tree or house existing by itself, independent of, and\nunperceived by, any mind whatsoever? I do at this present time conceive\nthem existing after that manner.\n\n_Phil._ How say you, Hylas, can you see a thing which is at the same time\nunseen?\n\n_Hyl._ No, that were a contradiction.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not as great a contradiction to talk of _conceiving_ a thing\nwhich is _unconceived_?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ The tree or house therefore which you think of is conceived by\nyou?\n\n_Hyl._ How should it be otherwise?\n\n_Phil._ And what is conceived is surely in the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ Without question, that which is conceived is in the mind.\n\n_Phil._ How then came you to say, you conceived a house or tree existing\nindependent and out of all minds whatsoever?\n\n_Hyl._ That was I own an oversight; but stay, let me consider what led me\ninto it.\u2014It is a pleasant mistake enough. As I was thinking of a tree in a\nsolitary place, where no one was present to see it, methought that was to\nconceive a tree as existing unperceived or unthought of; not considering\nthat I myself conceived it all the while. But now I plainly see that all I\ncan do is to frame ideas in my own mind. I may indeed conceive in my own\nthoughts the idea of a tree, or a house, or a mountain, but that is all.\nAnd this is far from proving that I can conceive them _existing out of the\nminds of all Spirits_.\n\n_Phil._ You acknowledge then that you cannot possibly conceive how any one\ncorporeal sensible thing should exist otherwise than in a mind?\n\n_Hyl._ I do.\n\n_Phil._ And yet you will earnestly contend for the truth of that which you\ncannot so much as conceive?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n_Hyl._ I profess I know not what to think; but still there are some\nscruples remain with me. Is it not certain I _see things at a distance_?\nDo we not perceive the stars and moon, for example, to be a great way off?\nIs not this, I say, manifest to the senses?\n\n_Phil._ Do you not in a dream too perceive those or the like objects?\n\n_Hyl._ I do.\n\n_Phil._ And have they not then the same appearance of being distant?\n\n_Hyl._ They have.\n\n_Phil._ But you do not thence conclude the apparitions in a dream to be\nwithout the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ By no means.\n\n_Phil._ You ought not therefore to conclude that sensible objects are\nwithout the mind, from their appearance, or manner wherein they are\nperceived.\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge it. But doth not my sense deceive me in those cases?\n\n_Phil._ By no means. The idea or thing which you immediately perceive,\nneither sense nor reason informs you that _it_ actually exists without the\nmind. By sense you only know that you are affected with such certain\nsensations of light and colours, &c. And these you will not say are\nwithout the mind.\n\n_Hyl._ True: but, beside all that, do you not think the sight suggests\nsomething of _outness_ or _distance_?\n\n_Phil._ Upon approaching a distant object, do the visible size and figure\nchange perpetually, or do they appear the same at all distances?\n\n_Hyl._ They are in a continual change.\n\n_Phil._ Sight therefore doth not suggest, or any way inform you, that the\nvisible object you immediately perceive exists at a distance(812), or will\nbe perceived when you advance farther onward; there being a continued\nseries of visible objects succeeding each other during the whole time of\nyour approach.\n\n_Hyl._ It doth not; but still I know, upon seeing an object, what object I\nshall perceive after having passed over a certain distance: no matter\nwhether it be exactly the same or no: there is still something of distance\nsuggested in the case.\n\n_Phil._ Good Hylas, do but reflect a little on the point, and then tell me\nwhether there be any more in it than this: From the ideas you actually\nperceive by sight, you have by experience learned to collect what other\nideas you will (according to the standing order of nature) be affected\nwith, after such a certain succession of time and motion.\n\n_Hyl._ Upon the whole, I take it to be nothing else.\n\n_Phil._ Now, is it not plain that if we suppose a man born blind was on a\nsudden made to see, he could at first have no experience of what may be\n_suggested_ by sight?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ He would not then, according to you, have any notion of distance\nannexed to the things he saw; but would take them for a new set of\nsensations, existing only in his mind?\n\n_Hyl._ It is undeniable.\n\n_Phil._ But, to make it still more plain: is not _distance_ a line turned\nendwise to the eye(813)?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ And can a line so situated be perceived by sight?\n\n_Hyl._ It cannot.\n\n_Phil._ Doth it not therefore follow that distance is not properly and\nimmediately perceived by sight?\n\n_Hyl._ It should seem so.\n\n_Phil._ Again, is it your opinion that colours are at a distance(814)?\n\n_Hyl._ It must be acknowledged they are only in the mind.\n\n_Phil._ But do not colours appear to the eye as coexisting in the same\nplace with extension and figures?\n\n_Hyl._ They do.\n\n_Phil._ How can you then conclude from sight that figures exist without,\nwhen you acknowledge colours do not; the sensible appearance being the\nvery same with regard to both?\n\n_Hyl._ I know not what to answer.\n\n_Phil._ But, allowing that distance was truly and immediately perceived by\nthe mind, yet it would not thence follow it existed out of the mind. For,\nwhatever is immediately perceived is an idea(815): and can any idea exist\nout of the mind?\n\n_Hyl._ To suppose that were absurd: but, inform me, Philonous, can we\nperceive or know nothing beside our ideas(816)?\n\n_Phil._ As for the rational deducing of causes from effects, that is\nbeside our inquiry. And, by the senses you can best tell whether you\nperceive anything which is not immediately perceived. And I ask you,\nwhether the things immediately perceived are other than your own\nsensations or ideas? You have indeed more than once, in the course of this\nconversation, declared yourself on those points; but you seem, by this\nlast question, to have departed from what you then thought.\n\n_Hyl._ To speak the truth, Philonous, I think there are two kinds of\nobjects:\u2014the one perceived immediately, which are likewise called _ideas_;\nthe other are real things or external objects, perceived by the mediation\nof ideas, which are their images and representations. Now, I own ideas do\nnot exist without the mind; but the latter sort of objects do. I am sorry\nI did not think of this distinction sooner; it would probably have cut\nshort your discourse.\n\n_Phil._ Are those external objects perceived by sense, or by some other\nfaculty?\n\n_Hyl._ They are perceived by sense.\n\n_Phil._ How! Is there anything perceived by sense which is not immediately\nperceived?\n\n_Hyl._ Yes, Philonous, in some sort there is. For example, when I look on\na picture or statue of Julius C\u00e6sar, I may be said after a manner to\nperceive him (though not immediately) by my senses.\n\n_Phil._ It seems then you will have our ideas, which alone are immediately\nperceived, to be pictures of external things: and that these also are\nperceived by sense, inasmuch as they have a conformity or resemblance to\nour ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ That is my meaning.\n\n_Phil._ And, in the same way that Julius C\u00e6sar, in himself invisible, is\nnevertheless perceived by sight; real things, in themselves imperceptible,\nare perceived by sense.\n\n_Hyl._ In the very same.\n\n_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, when you behold the picture of Julius C\u00e6sar, do\nyou see with your eyes any more than some colours and figures, with a\ncertain symmetry and composition of the whole?\n\n_Hyl._ Nothing else.\n\n_Phil._ And would not a man who had never known anything of Julius C\u00e6sar\nsee as much?\n\n_Hyl._ He would.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently he hath his sight, and the use of it, in as perfect a\ndegree as you?\n\n_Hyl._ I agree with you.\n\n_Phil._ Whence comes it then that your thoughts are directed to the Roman\nemperor, and his are not? This cannot proceed from the sensations or ideas\nof sense by you then perceived; since you acknowledge you have no\nadvantage over him in that respect. It should seem therefore to proceed\nfrom reason and memory: should it not?\n\n_Hyl._ It should.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently, it will not follow from that instance that anything\nis perceived by sense which is not immediately perceived. Though I grant\nwe may, in one acceptation, be said to perceive sensible things mediately\nby sense: that is, when, from a frequently perceived connexion, the\nimmediate perception of ideas by one sense _suggests_ to the mind others,\nperhaps belonging to another sense, which are wont to be connected with\nthem. For instance, when I hear a coach drive along the streets,\nimmediately I perceive only the sound; but, from the experience I have had\nthat such a sound is connected with a coach, I am said to hear the coach.\nIt is nevertheless evident that, in truth and strictness, nothing can be\n_heard_ but _sound_; and the coach is not properly perceived by sense, but\nsuggested from experience. So likewise when we are said to see a red-hot\nbar of iron; the solidity and heat of the iron are not the objects of\nsight, but suggested to the imagination by the colour and figure which are\nproperly perceived by that sense. In short, those things alone are\nactually and strictly perceived by any sense, which would have been\nperceived in case that same sense had then been first conferred on us. As\nfor other things, it is plain they are only suggested to the mind by\nexperience, grounded on former perceptions. But, to return to your\ncomparison of C\u00e6sar\u2019s picture, it is plain, if you keep to that, you must\nhold the real things, or archetypes of our ideas, are not perceived by\nsense, but by some internal faculty of the soul, as reason or memory. I\nwould therefore fain know what arguments you can draw from reason for the\nexistence of what you call _real things_ or _material objects_. Or,\nwhether you remember to have seen them formerly as they are in themselves;\nor, if you have heard or read of any one that did.\n\n_Hyl._ I see, Philonous, you are disposed to raillery; but that will never\nconvince me.\n\n_Phil._ My aim is only to learn from you the way to come at the knowledge\nof _material beings_. Whatever we perceive is perceived immediately or\nmediately: by sense, or by reason and reflexion. But, as you have excluded\nsense, pray shew me what reason you have to believe their existence; or\nwhat _medium_ you can possibly make use of to prove it, either to mine or\nyour own understanding.\n\n_Hyl._ To deal ingenuously, Philonous, now I consider the point, I do not\nfind I can give you any good reason for it. But, thus much seem pretty\nplain, that it is at least possible such things may really exist. And, as\nlong as there is no absurdity in supposing them, I am resolved to believe\nas I did, till you bring good reasons to the contrary.\n\n_Phil._ What! Is it come to this, that you only _believe_ the existence of\nmaterial objects, and that your belief is founded barely on the\npossibility of its being true? Then you will have me bring reasons against\nit: though another would think it reasonable the proof should lie on him\nwho holds the affirmative. And, after all, this very point which you are\nnow resolved to maintain, without any reason, is in effect what you have\nmore than once during this discourse seen good reason to give up. But, to\npass over all this; if I understand you rightly, you say our ideas do not\nexist without the mind, but that they are copies, images, or\nrepresentations, of certain originals that do?\n\n_Hyl._ You take me right.\n\n_Phil._ They are then like external things(817)?\n\n_Hyl._ They are.\n\n_Phil._ Have those things a stable and permanent nature, independent of\nour senses; or are they in a perpetual change, upon our producing any\nmotions in our bodies\u2014suspending, exerting, or altering, our faculties or\norgans of sense?\n\n_Hyl._ Real things, it is plain, have a fixed and real nature, which\nremains the same notwithstanding any change in our senses, or in the\nposture and motion of our bodies; which indeed may affect the ideas in our\nminds, but it were absurd to think they had the same effect on things\nexisting without the mind.\n\n_Phil._ How then is it possible that things perpetually fleeting and\nvariable as our ideas should be copies or images of anything fixed and\nconstant? Or, in other words, since all sensible qualities, as size,\nfigure, colour, &c., that is, our ideas, are continually changing, upon\nevery alteration in the distance, medium, or instruments of sensation; how\ncan any determinate material objects be properly represented or painted\nforth by several distinct things, each of which is so different from and\nunlike the rest? Or, if you say it resembles some one only of our ideas,\nhow shall we be able to distinguish the true copy from all the false ones?\n\n_Hyl._ I profess, Philonous, I am at a loss. I know not what to say to\nthis.\n\n_Phil._ But neither is this all. Which are material objects in\nthemselves\u2014perceptible or imperceptible?\n\n_Hyl._ Properly and immediately nothing can be perceived but ideas. All\nmaterial things, therefore, are in themselves insensible, and to be\nperceived only by our ideas.\n\n_Phil._ Ideas then are sensible, and their archetypes or originals\ninsensible?\n\n_Hyl._ Right.\n\n_Phil._ But how can that which is sensible be _like_ that which is\ninsensible? Can a real thing, in itself _invisible_, be like a _colour_;\nor a real thing, which is not _audible_, be like a _sound_? In a word, can\nanything be like a sensation or idea, but another sensation or idea?\n\n_Hyl._ I must own, I think not.\n\n_Phil._ Is it possible there should be any doubt on the point? Do you not\nperfectly know your own ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ I know them perfectly; since what I do not perceive or know can be\nno part of my idea(818).\n\n_Phil._ Consider, therefore, and examine them, and then tell me if there\nbe anything in them which can exist without the mind: or if you can\nconceive anything like them existing without the mind.\n\n_Hyl._ Upon inquiry, I find it is impossible for me to conceive or\nunderstand how anything but an idea can be like an idea. And it is most\nevident that _no idea can exist without the mind_(819).\n\n_Phil._ You are therefore, by your principles, forced to deny the\n_reality_ of sensible things; since you made it to consist in an absolute\nexistence exterior to the mind. That is to say, you are a downright\nsceptic. So I have gained my point, which was to shew your principles led\nto Scepticism.\n\n_Hyl._ For the present I am, if not entirely convinced, at least silenced.\n\n_Phil._ I would fain know what more you would require in order to a\nperfect conviction. Have you not had the liberty of explaining yourself\nall manner of ways? Were any little slips in discourse laid hold and\ninsisted on? Or were you not allowed to retract or reinforce anything you\nhad offered, as best served your purpose? Hath not everything you could\nsay been heard and examined with all the fairness imaginable? In a word,\nhave you not in every point been convinced out of your own mouth? And, if\nyou can at present discover any flaw in any of your former concessions, or\nthink of any remaining subterfuge, any new distinction, colour, or comment\nwhatsoever, why do you not produce it?\n\n_Hyl._ A little patience, Philonous. I am at present so amazed to see\nmyself ensnared, and as it were imprisoned in the labyrinths you have\ndrawn me into, that on the sudden it cannot be expected I should find my\nway out. You must give me time to look about me and recollect myself.\n\n_Phil._ Hark; is not this the college bell?\n\n_Hyl._ It rings for prayers.\n\n_Phil._ We will go in then, if you please, and meet here again to-morrow\nmorning. In the meantime, you may employ your thoughts on this morning\u2019s\ndiscourse, and try if you can find any fallacy in it, or invent any new\nmeans to extricate yourself.\n\n_Hyl._ Agreed.\n\n\n\n\nThe Second Dialogue\n\n\n_Hylas._ I beg your pardon, Philonous, for not meeting you sooner. All\nthis morning my head was so filled with our late conversation that I had\nnot leisure to think of the time of the day, or indeed of anything else.\n\n_Philonous._ I am glad you were so intent upon it, in hopes if there were\nany mistakes in your concessions, or fallacies in my reasonings from them,\nyou will now discover them to me.\n\n_Hyl._ I assure you I have done nothing ever since I saw you but search\nafter mistakes and fallacies, and, with that view, have minutely examined\nthe whole series of yesterday\u2019s discourse: but all in vain, for the\nnotions it led me into, upon review, appear still more clear and evident;\nand, the more I consider them, the more irresistibly do they force my\nassent.\n\n_Phil._ And is not this, think you, a sign that they are genuine, that\nthey proceed from nature, and are conformable to right reason? Truth and\nbeauty are in this alike, that the strictest survey sets them both off to\nadvantage; while the false lustre of error and disguise cannot endure\nbeing reviewed, or too nearly inspected.\n\n_Hyl._ I own there is a great deal in what you say. Nor can any one be\nmore entirely satisfied of the truth of those odd consequences, so long as\nI have in view the reasonings that lead to them. But, when these are out\nof my thoughts, there seems, on the other hand, something so satisfactory,\nso natural and intelligible, in the modern way of explaining things that,\nI profess, I know not how to reject it.\n\n_Phil._ I know not what way you mean.\n\n_Hyl._ I mean the way of accounting for our sensations or ideas.\n\n_Phil._ How is that?\n\n_Hyl._ It is supposed the soul makes her residence in some part of the\nbrain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are thence extended to\nall parts of the body; and that outward objects, by the different\nimpressions they make on the organs of sense, communicate certain\nvibrative motions to the nerves; and these being filled with spirits\npropagate them to the brain or seat of the soul, which, according to the\nvarious impressions or traces thereby made in the brain, is variously\naffected with ideas(820).\n\n_Phil._ And call you this an explication of the manner whereby we are\naffected with ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ Why not, Philonous? Have you anything to object against it?\n\n_Phil._ I would first know whether I rightly understand your hypothesis.\nYou make certain traces in the brain to be the causes or occasions of our\nideas. Pray tell me whether by the _brain_ you mean any sensible thing.\n\n_Hyl._ What else think you I could mean?\n\n_Phil._ Sensible things are all immediately perceivable; and those things\nwhich are immediately perceivable are ideas; and these exist only in the\nmind. Thus much you have, if I mistake not, long since agreed to.\n\n_Hyl._ I do not deny it.\n\n_Phil._ The brain therefore you speak of, being a sensible thing, exists\nonly in the mind(821). Now, I would fain know whether you think it\nreasonable to suppose that one idea or thing existing in the mind\noccasions all other ideas. And, if you think so, pray how do you account\nfor the origin of that primary idea or brain itself?\n\n_Hyl._ I do not explain the origin of our ideas by that brain which is\nperceivable to sense\u2014this being itself only a combination of sensible\nideas\u2014but by another which I imagine.\n\n_Phil._ But are not things imagined as truly _in the mind_ as things\nperceived(822)?\n\n_Hyl._ I must confess they are.\n\n_Phil._ It comes, therefore, to the same thing; and you have been all this\nwhile accounting for ideas by certain motions or impressions of the brain;\nthat is, by some alterations in an idea, whether sensible or imaginable it\nmatters not.\n\n_Hyl._ I begin to suspect my hypothesis.\n\n_Phil._ Besides spirits, all that we know or conceive are our own ideas.\nWhen, therefore, you say all ideas are occasioned by impressions in the\nbrain, do you conceive this brain or no? If you do, then you talk of ideas\nimprinted in an idea causing that same idea, which is absurd. If you do\nnot conceive it, you talk unintelligibly, instead of forming a reasonable\nhypothesis.\n\n_Hyl._ I now clearly see it was a mere dream. There is nothing in it.\n\n_Phil._ You need not be much concerned at it; for after all, this way of\nexplaining things, as you called it, could never have satisfied any\nreasonable man. What connexion is there between a motion in the nerves,\nand the sensations of sound or colour in the mind? Or how is it possible\nthese should be the effect of that?\n\n_Hyl._ But I could never think it had so little in it as now it seems to\nhave.\n\n_Phil._ Well then, are you at length satisfied that no sensible things\nhave a real existence; and that you are in truth an arrant sceptic?\n\n_Hyl._ It is too plain to be denied.\n\n_Phil._ Look! are not the fields covered with a delightful verdure? Is\nthere not something in the woods and groves, in the rivers and clear\nsprings, that soothes, that delights, that transports the soul? At the\nprospect of the wide and deep ocean, or some huge mountain whose top is\nlost in the clouds, or of an old gloomy forest, are not our minds filled\nwith a pleasing horror? Even in rocks and deserts is there not an\nagreeable wildness? How sincere a pleasure is it to behold the natural\nbeauties of the earth! To preserve and renew our relish for them, is not\nthe veil of night alternately drawn over her face, and doth she not change\nher dress with the seasons? How aptly are the elements disposed! What\nvariety and use [(823)in the meanest productions of nature!] What\ndelicacy, what beauty, what contrivance, in animal and vegetable bodies!\nHow exquisitely are all things suited, as well to their particular ends,\nas to constitute opposite parts of the whole! And, while they mutually aid\nand support, do they not also set off and illustrate each other? Raise now\nyour thoughts from this ball of earth to all those glorious luminaries\nthat adorn the high arch of heaven. The motion and situation of the\nplanets, are they not admirable for use and order? Were those (miscalled\n_erratic_) globes once known to stray, in their repeated journeys through\nthe pathless void? Do they not measure areas round the sun ever\nproportioned to the times? So fixed, so immutable are the laws by which\nthe unseen Author of nature actuates the universe. How vivid and radiant\nis the lustre of the fixed stars! How magnificent and rich that negligent\nprofusion with which they appear to be scattered throughout the whole\nazure vault! Yet, if you take the telescope, it brings into your sight a\nnew host of stars that escape the naked eye. Here they seem contiguous and\nminute, but to a nearer view immense orbs of light at various distances,\nfar sunk in the abyss of space. Now you must call imagination to your aid.\nThe feeble narrow sense cannot descry innumerable worlds revolving round\nthe central fires; and in those worlds the energy of an all-perfect Mind\ndisplayed in endless forms. But, neither sense nor imagination are big\nenough to comprehend the boundless extent, with all its glittering\nfurniture. Though the labouring mind exert and strain each power to its\nutmost reach, there still stands out ungrasped a surplusage immeasurable.\nYet all the vast bodies that compose this mighty frame, how distant and\nremote soever, are by some secret mechanism, some Divine art and force,\nlinked in a mutual dependence and intercourse with each other; even with\nthis earth, which was almost slipt from my thoughts and lost in the crowd\nof worlds. Is not the whole system immense, beautiful, glorious beyond\nexpression and beyond thought! What treatment, then, do those philosophers\ndeserve, who would, deprive these noble and delightful scenes of all\n_reality_? How should those Principles be entertained that lead us to\nthink all the visible beauty of the creation a false imaginary glare? To\nbe plain, can you expect this Scepticism of yours will not be thought\nextravagantly absurd by all men of sense?\n\n_Hyl._ Other men may think as they please; but for your part you have\nnothing to reproach me with. My comfort is, you are as much a sceptic as I\nam.\n\n_Phil._ There, Hylas, I must beg leave to differ from you.\n\n_Hyl._ What! Have you all along agreed to the premises, and do you now\ndeny the conclusion, and leave me to maintain those paradoxes by myself\nwhich you led me into? This surely is not fair.\n\n_Phil._ I deny that I agreed with you in those notions that led to\nScepticism. You indeed said the _reality_ of sensible things consisted in\nan _absolute existence out of the minds of spirits_, or distinct from\ntheir being perceived. And pursuant to this notion of reality, _you_ are\nobliged to deny sensible things any real existence: that is, according to\nyour own definition, you profess yourself a sceptic. But I neither said\nnor thought the reality of sensible things was to be defined after that\nmanner. To me it is evident, for the reasons you allow of, that sensible\nthings cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I conclude,\nnot that they have no real existence, but that, seeing they depend not on\nmy thought, and have an existence distinct from being perceived by\nme(824), _there must be some other Mind wherein they exist_. As sure,\ntherefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure is there an\ninfinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it.\n\n_Hyl._ What! This is no more than I and all Christians hold; nay, and all\nothers too who believe there is a God, and that He knows and comprehends\nall things.\n\n_Phil._ Aye, but here lies the difference. Men commonly believe that all\nthings are known or perceived by God, because they believe the being of a\nGod; whereas I, on the other side, immediately and necessarily conclude\nthe being of a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by\nHim(825).\n\n_Hyl._ But, so long as we all believe the same thing, what matter is it\nhow we come by that belief?\n\n_Phil._ But neither do we agree in the same opinion. For philosophers,\nthough they acknowledge all corporeal beings to be perceived by God, yet\nthey attribute to them an absolute subsistence distinct from their being\nperceived by any mind whatever; which I do not. Besides, is there no\ndifference between saying, _There is a God, therefore He perceives all\nthings_; and saying, _Sensible things do really exist; and, if they really\nexist, they are necessarily perceived by an infinite Mind: therefore there\nis an infinite Mind, or God_(826)_?_ This furnishes you with a direct and\nimmediate demonstration, from a most evident principle, of the _being of a\nGod_. Divines and philosophers had proved beyond all controversy, from the\nbeauty and usefulness of the several parts of the creation, that it was\nthe workmanship of God. But that\u2014setting aside all help of astronomy and\nnatural philosophy, all contemplation of the contrivance, order, and\nadjustment of things\u2014an infinite Mind should be necessarily inferred\nfrom(827) the bare _existence of the sensible world_, is an advantage to\nthem only who have made this easy reflexion: That the sensible world is\nthat which we perceive by our several senses; and that nothing is\nperceived by the senses beside ideas; and that no idea or archetype of an\nidea can exist otherwise than in a mind. You may now, without any\nlaborious search into the sciences, without any subtlety of reason, or\ntedious length of discourse, oppose and baffle the most strenuous advocate\nfor Atheism. Those miserable refuges, whether in an eternal succession of\nunthinking causes and effects, or in a fortuitous concourse of atoms;\nthose wild imaginations of Vanini, Hobbes, and Spinoza: in a word, the\nwhole system of Atheism, is it not entirely overthrown, by this single\nreflexion on the repugnancy included in supposing the whole, or any part,\neven the most rude and shapeless, of the visible world, to exist without a\nMind? Let any one of those abettors of impiety but look into his own\nthoughts, and there try if he can conceive how so much as a rock, a\ndesert, a chaos, or confused jumble of atoms; how anything at all, either\nsensible or imaginable, can exist independent of a Mind, and he need go no\nfarther to be convinced of his folly. Can anything be fairer than to put a\ndispute on such an issue, and leave it to a man himself to see if he can\nconceive, even in thought, what he holds to be true in fact, and from a\nnotional to allow it a real existence(828)?\n\n_Hyl._ It cannot be denied there is something highly serviceable to\nreligion in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like a\nnotion entertained by some eminent moderns(829), of _seeing all things in\nGod_?\n\n_Phil._ I would gladly know that opinion: pray explain it to me.\n\n_Hyl._ They conceive that the soul, being immaterial, is incapable of\nbeing united with material things, so as to perceive them in themselves;\nbut that she perceives them by her union with the substance of God, which,\nbeing spiritual, is therefore purely intelligible, or capable of being the\nimmediate object of a spirit\u2019s thought. Besides, the Divine essence\ncontains in it perfections correspondent to each created being; and which\nare, for that reason, proper to exhibit or represent them to the mind.\n\n_Phil._ I do not understand how our ideas, which are things altogether\npassive and inert(830), can be the essence, or any part (or like any part)\nof the essence or substance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible,\npure, active being. Many more difficulties and objections there are which\noccur at first view against this hypothesis; but I shall only add, that it\nis liable to all the absurdities of the common hypothesis, in making a\ncreated world exist otherwise than in the mind of a Spirit. Beside all\nwhich it hath this peculiar to itself; that it makes that material world\nserve to no purpose. And, if it pass for a good argument against other\nhypotheses in the sciences, that they suppose Nature, or the Divine\nwisdom, to make something in vain, or do that by tedious roundabout\nmethods which might have been performed in a much more easy and\ncompendious way, what shall we think of that hypothesis which supposes the\nwhole world made in vain?\n\n_Hyl._ But what say you? Are not you too of opinion that we see all things\nin God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it.\n\n_Phil._ [(831)Few men think; yet all have opinions. Hence men\u2019s opinions\nare superficial and confused. It is nothing strange that tenets which in\nthemselves are ever so different, should nevertheless be confounded with\neach other, by those who do not consider them attentively. I shall not\ntherefore be surprised if some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasm\nof Malebranche; though in truth I am very remote from it. He builds on the\nmost abstract general ideas, which I entirely disclaim. He asserts an\nabsolute external world, which I deny. He maintains that we are deceived\nby our senses, and know not the real natures or the true forms and figures\nof extended beings; of all which I hold the direct contrary. So that upon\nthe whole there are no Principles more fundamentally opposite than his and\nmine. It must be owned that] I entirely agree with what the holy Scripture\nsaith, \u2019That in God we live and move and have our being.\u2019 But that we see\nthings in His essence, after the manner above set forth, I am far from\nbelieving. Take here in brief my meaning:\u2014It is evident that the things I\nperceive are my own ideas, and that no idea can exist unless it be in a\nmind: nor is it less plain that these ideas or things by me perceived,\neither themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of _my_ mind,\nsince I know myself not to be their author, it being out of my power to\ndetermine at pleasure what particular ideas I shall be affected with upon\nopening my eyes or ears(832): they must therefore exist in some other\nMind, whose Will it is they should be exhibited to me. The things, I say,\nimmediately perceived are ideas or sensations, call them which you will.\nBut how can any idea or sensation exist in, or be produced by, anything\nbut a mind or spirit? This indeed is inconceivable(833). And to assert\nthat which is inconceivable is to talk nonsense: is it not?\n\n_Hyl._ Without doubt.\n\n_Phil._ But, on the other hand, it is very conceivable that they should\nexist in and be produced by a Spirit; since this is no more than I daily\nexperience in myself(834), inasmuch as I perceive numberless ideas; and,\nby an act of my will, can form a great variety of them, and raise them up\nin my imagination: though, it must be confessed, these creatures of the\nfancy are not altogether so distinct, so strong, vivid, and permanent, as\nthose perceived by my senses\u2014which latter are called _real things_. From\nall which I conclude, _there is a Mind which affects me every moment with\nall the sensible impressions I perceive_. And, from the variety, order,\nand manner of these, I conclude _the Author of them to be wise, powerful,\nand good, beyond comprehension_. Mark it well; I do not say I see things\nby perceiving that which represents them in the intelligible Substance of\nGod. This I do not understand; but I say, the things by me perceived are\nknown by the understanding, and produced by the will of an infinite\nSpirit. And is not all this most plain and evident? Is there any more in\nit than what a little observation in our own minds, and that which passeth\nin them, not only enables us to conceive, but also obliges us to\nacknowledge?\n\n_Hyl._ I think I understand you very clearly; and own proof you give of a\nDeity seems no less evident than it is surprising. But, allowing that God\nis the supreme and universal Cause of all things, yet, may there not be\nstill a Third Nature besides Spirits and Ideas? May we not admit a\nsubordinate and limited cause of our ideas? In a word, may there not for\nall that be _Matter_?\n\n_Phil._ How often must I inculcate the same thing? You allow the things\nimmediately perceived by sense to exist nowhere without the mind; but\nthere is nothing perceived by sense which is not perceived immediately;\ntherefore there is nothing sensible that exists without the mind. The\nMatter, therefore, which you still insist on is something intelligible, I\nsuppose; something that may be discovered by reason(835), and not by\nsense.\n\n_Hyl._ You are in the right.\n\n_Phil._ Pray let me know what reasoning your belief of Matter is grounded\non; and what this Matter is, in your present sense of it.\n\n_Hyl._ I find myself affected with various ideas whereof I know I am not\nthe cause; neither are they the cause of themselves, or of one another, or\ncapable of subsisting by themselves, as being altogether inactive,\nfleeting, dependent beings. They have therefore _some_ cause distinct from\nme and them: of which I pretend to know no more than that it is _the cause\nof my ideas_. And this thing whatever it be, I call Matter.\n\n_Phil._ Tell me, Hylas, hath every one a liberty to change the current\nproper signification attached to a common name in any language? For\nexample, suppose a traveller should tell you that in a certain country men\npass unhurt through the fire; and, upon explaining himself, you found he\nmeant by the word _fire_ that which others call _water_. Or, if he should\nassert that there are trees that walk upon two legs, meaning men by the\nterm _trees_. Would you think this reasonable?\n\n_Hyl._ No; I should think it very absurd. Common custom is the standard of\npropriety in language. And for any man to affect speaking improperly is to\npervert the use of speech, and can never serve to a better purpose than to\nprotract and multiply disputes where there is no difference in opinion.\n\n_Phil._ And doth not _Matter_, in the common current acceptation of the\nword, signify an extended solid moveable, unthinking, inactive Substance?\n\n_Hyl._ It doth.\n\n_Phil._ And, hath it not been made evident that no _such_ substance can\npossibly exist(836)? And, though it should be allowed to exist, yet how\ncan that which is _inactive_ be a _cause_; or that which is _unthinking_\nbe a _cause of thought_? You may, indeed, if you please, annex to the word\n_Matter_ a contrary meaning to what is vulgarly received; and tell me you\nunderstand by it, an unextended, thinking, active being, which is the\ncause of our ideas. But what else is this than to play with words, and run\ninto that very fault you just now condemned with so much reason? I do by\nno means find fault with your reasoning, in that you collect _a_ cause\nfrom the _phenomena_: but I deny that _the_ cause deducible by reason can\nproperly be termed Matter(837).\n\n_Hyl._ There is indeed something in what you say. But I am afraid you do\nnot thoroughly comprehend my meaning. I would by no means be thought to\ndeny that God, or an infinite Spirit, is the Supreme Cause of all things.\nAll I contend for is, that, subordinate to the Supreme Agent, there is a\ncause of a limited and inferior nature, which _concurs_ in the production\nof our ideas, not by any act of will, or spiritual efficiency, but by that\nkind of action which belongs to Matter, viz. _motion_.\n\n_Phil._ I find you are at every turn relapsing into your old exploded\nconceit, of a moveable, and consequently an extended, substance, existing\nwithout the mind. What! Have you already forgotten you were convinced; or\nare you willing I should repeat what has been said on that head? In truth\nthis is not fair dealing in you, still to suppose the being of that which\nyou have so often acknowledged to have no being. But, not to insist\nfarther on what has been so largely handled, I ask whether all your ideas\nare not perfectly passive and inert, including nothing of action in\nthem(838).\n\n_Hyl._ They are.\n\n_Phil._ And are sensible qualities anything else but ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ How often have I acknowledged that they are not.\n\n_Phil._ But is not _motion_ a sensible quality?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently it is no action?\n\n_Hyl._ I agree with you. And indeed it is very plain that when I stir my\nfinger, it remains passive; but my will which produced the motion is\nactive.\n\n_Phil._ Now, I desire to know, in the first place, whether, motion being\nallowed to be no action, you can conceive any action besides volition:\nand, in the second place, whether to say something and conceive nothing be\nnot to talk nonsense(839): and, lastly, whether, having considered the\npremises, you do not perceive that to suppose any efficient or active\nCause of our ideas, other than _Spirit_, is highly absurd and\nunreasonable?\n\n_Hyl._ I give up the point entirely. But, though Matter may not be a\ncause, yet what hinders its being an _instrument_, subservient to the\nsupreme Agent in the production of our ideas?\n\n_Phil._ An instrument say you; pray what may be the figure, springs,\nwheels, and motions, of that instrument?\n\n_Hyl._ Those I pretend to determine nothing of, both the substance and its\nqualities being entirely unknown to me.\n\n_Phil._ What? You are then of opinion it is made up of unknown parts, that\nit hath unknown motions, and an unknown shape?\n\n_Hyl._ I do not believe that it hath any figure or motion at all, being\nalready convinced, that no sensible qualities can exist in an unperceiving\nsubstance.\n\n_Phil._ But what notion is it possible to frame of an instrument void of\nall sensible qualities, even extension itself?\n\n_Hyl._ I do not pretend to have any notion of it.\n\n_Phil._ And what reason have you to think this unknown, this inconceivable\nSomewhat doth exist? Is it that you imagine God cannot act as well without\nit; or that you find by experience the use of some such thing, when you\nform ideas in your own mind?\n\n_Hyl._ You are always teasing me for reasons of my belief. Pray what\nreasons have you not to believe it?\n\n_Phil._ It is to me a sufficient reason not to believe the existence of\nanything, if I see no reason for believing it. But, not to insist on\nreasons for believing, you will not so much as let me know _what it is_\nyou would have me believe; since you say you have no manner of notion of\nit. After all, let me entreat you to consider whether it be like a\nphilosopher, or even like a man of common sense, to pretend to believe you\nknow not what, and you know not why.\n\n_Hyl._ Hold, Philonous. When I tell you Matter is an _instrument_, I do\nnot mean altogether nothing. It is true I know not the particular kind of\ninstrument; but, however, I have some notion of _instrument in general_,\nwhich I apply to it.\n\n_Phil._ But what if it should prove that there is something, even in the\nmost general notion of _instrument_, as taken in a distinct sense from\n_cause_, which makes the use of it inconsistent with the Divine\nattributes?\n\n_Hyl._ Make that appear and I shall give up the point.\n\n_Phil._ What mean you by the general nature or notion of _instrument_?\n\n_Hyl._ That which is common to all particular instruments composeth the\ngeneral notion.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not common to all instruments, that they are applied to the\ndoing those things only which cannot be performed by the mere act of our\nwills? Thus, for instance, I never use an instrument to move my finger,\nbecause it is done by a volition. But I should use one if I were to remove\npart of a rock, or tear up a tree by the roots. Are you of the same mind?\nOr, can you shew any example where an instrument is made use of in\nproducing an effect _immediately_ depending on the will of the agent?\n\n_Hyl._ I own I cannot.\n\n_Phil._ How therefore can you suppose that an All-perfect Spirit, on whose\nWill all things have an absolute and immediate dependence, should need an\ninstrument in his operations, or, not needing it, make use of it? Thus it\nseems to me that you are obliged to own the use of a lifeless inactive\ninstrument to be incompatible with the infinite perfection of God; that\nis, by your own confession, to give up the point.\n\n_Hyl._ It doth not readily occur what I can answer you.\n\n_Phil._ But, methinks you should be ready to own the truth, when it has\nbeen fairly proved to you. We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are\nforced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth\nthe agent to be limited by rules of another\u2019s prescription, and that he\ncannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it\nseems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited Agent useth no tool\nor instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner\nexerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they\nare employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real\nefficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but\nmerely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions\nprescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation\nor prescription whatsoever(840).\n\n_Hyl._ I will no longer maintain that Matter is an instrument. However, I\nwould not be understood to give up its existence neither; since,\nnotwithstanding what hath been said, it may still be an _occasion_(841).\n\n_Phil._ How many shapes is your Matter to take? Or, how often must it be\nproved not to exist, before you are content to part with it? But, to say\nno more of this (though by all the laws of disputation I may justly blame\nyou for so frequently changing the signification of the principal term)\u2014I\nwould fain know what you mean by affirming that matter is an occasion,\nhaving already denied it to be a cause. And, when you have shewn in what\nsense you understand _occasion_, pray, in the next place, be pleased to\nshew me what reason induceth you to believe there is such an occasion of\nour ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ As to the first point: by _occasion_ I mean an inactive unthinking\nbeing, at the presence whereof God excites ideas in our minds.\n\n_Phil._ And what may be the nature of that inactive unthinking being?\n\n_Hyl._ I know nothing of its nature.\n\n_Phil._ Proceed then to the second point, and assign some reason why we\nshould allow an existence to this inactive, unthinking, unknown thing.\n\n_Hyl._ When we see ideas produced in our minds, after an orderly and\nconstant manner, it is natural to think they have some fixed and regular\noccasions, at the presence of which they are excited.\n\n_Phil._ You acknowledge then God alone to be the cause of our ideas, and\nthat He causes them at the presence of those occasions.\n\n_Hyl._ That is my opinion.\n\n_Phil._ Those things which you say are present to God, without doubt He\nperceives.\n\n_Hyl._ Certainly; otherwise they could not be to Him an occasion of\nacting.\n\n_Phil._ Not to insist now on your making sense of this hypothesis, or\nanswering all the puzzling questions and difficulties it is liable to: I\nonly ask whether the order and regularity observable in the series of our\nideas, or the course of nature, be not sufficiently accounted for by the\nwisdom and power of God; and whether it doth not derogate from those\nattributes, to suppose He is influenced, directed, or put in mind, when\nand what He is to act, by an unthinking substance? And, lastly, whether,\nin case I granted all you contend for, it would make anything to your\npurpose; it not being easy to conceive how the external or absolute\nexistence of an unthinking substance, distinct from its being perceived,\ncan be inferred from my allowing that there are certain things perceived\nby the mind of God, which are to Him the occasion of producing ideas in\nus?\n\n_Hyl._ I am perfectly at a loss what to think, this notion of _occasion_\nseeming now altogether as groundless as the rest.\n\n_Phil._ Do you not at length perceive that in all these different\nacceptations of _Matter_, you have been only supposing you know not what,\nfor no manner of reason, and to no kind of use?\n\n_Hyl._ I freely own myself less fond of my notions since they have been so\naccurately examined. But still, methinks, I have some confused perception\nthat there is such a thing as _Matter_.\n\n_Phil._ Either you perceive the being of Matter immediately or mediately.\nIf immediately, pray inform me by which of the senses you perceive it. If\nmediately, let me know by what reasoning it is inferred from those things\nwhich you perceive immediately. So much for the perception. Then for the\nMatter itself, I ask whether it is object, _substratum_, cause,\ninstrument, or occasion? You have already pleaded for each of these,\nshifting your notions, and making Matter to appear sometimes in one shape,\nthen in another. And what you have offered hath been disapproved and\nrejected by yourself. If you have anything new to advance I would gladly\nhear it.\n\n_Hyl._ I think I have already offered all I had to say on those heads. I\nam at a loss what more to urge.\n\n_Phil._ And yet you are loath to part with your old prejudice. But, to\nmake you quit it more easily, I desire that, beside what has been hitherto\nsuggested, you will farther consider whether, upon supposition that Matter\nexists, you can possibly conceive how you should be affected by it. Or,\nsupposing it did not exist, whether it be not evident you might for all\nthat be affected with the same ideas you now are, and consequently have\nthe very same reasons to believe its existence that you now can have(842).\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge it is possible we might perceive all things just as\nwe do now, though there was no Matter in the world; neither can I\nconceive, if there be Matter, how it should produce any idea in our minds.\nAnd, I do farther grant you have entirely satisfied me that it is\nimpossible there should be such a thing as Matter in any of the foregoing\nacceptations. But still I cannot help supposing that there is _Matter_ in\nsome sense or other. _What that is_ I do not indeed pretend to determine.\n\n_Phil._ I do not expect you should define exactly the nature of that\nunknown being. Only be pleased to tell me whether it is a Substance; and\nif so, whether you can suppose a Substance without accidents; or, in case\nyou suppose it to have accidents or qualities, I desire you will let me\nknow what those qualities are, at least what is meant by Matter\u2019s\nsupporting them?\n\n_Hyl._ We have already argued on those points. I have no more to say to\nthem. But, to prevent any farther questions, let me tell you I at present\nunderstand by _Matter_ neither substance nor accident, thinking nor\nextended being, neither cause, instrument, nor occasion, but Something\nentirely unknown, distinct from all these(843).\n\n_Phil._ It seems then you include in your present notion of Matter nothing\nbut the general abstract idea of _entity_.\n\n_Hyl._ Nothing else; save only that I superadd to this general idea the\nnegation of all those particular things, qualities, or ideas, that I\nperceive, imagine, or in anywise apprehend.\n\n_Phil._ Pray where do you suppose this unknown Matter to exist?\n\n_Hyl._ Oh Philonous! now you think you have entangled me; for, if I say it\nexists in place, then you will infer that it exists in the mind, since it\nis agreed that place or extension exists only in the mind. But I am not\nashamed to own my ignorance. I know not where it exists; only I am sure it\nexists not in place. There is a negative answer for you. And you must\nexpect no other to all the questions you put for the future about Matter.\n\n_Phil._ Since you will not tell me where it exists, be pleased to inform\nme after what manner you suppose it to exist, or what you mean by its\n_existence_?\n\n_Hyl._ It neither thinks nor acts, neither perceives nor is perceived.\n\n_Phil._ But what is there positive in your abstracted notion of its\nexistence?\n\n_Hyl._ Upon a nice observation, I do not find I have any positive notion\nor meaning at all. I tell you again, I am not ashamed to own my ignorance.\nI know not what is meant by its _existence_, or how it exists.\n\n_Phil._ Continue, good Hylas, to act the same ingenuous part, and tell me\nsincerely whether you can frame a distinct idea of Entity in general,\nprescinded from and exclusive of all thinking and corporeal beings(844),\nall particular things whatsoever.\n\n_Hyl._ Hold, let me think a little\u2014\u2014I profess, Philonous, I do not find\nthat I can. At first glance, methought I had some dilute and airy notion\nof Pure Entity in abstract; but, upon closer attention, it hath quite\nvanished out of sight. The more I think on it, the more am I confirmed in\nmy prudent resolution of giving none but negative answers, and not\npretending to the least degree of any positive knowledge or conception of\nMatter, its _where_, its _how_, its _entity_, or anything belonging to it.\n\n_Phil._ When, therefore, you speak of the existence of Matter, you have\nnot any notion in your mind?\n\n_Hyl._ None at all.\n\n_Phil._ Pray tell me if the case stands not thus:\u2014At first, from a belief\nof material substance, you would have it that the immediate objects\nexisted without the mind; then that they are archetypes; then causes; next\ninstruments; then occasions: lastly, _something in general_, which being\ninterpreted proves _nothing_. So Matter comes to nothing. What think you,\nHylas, is not this a fair summary of your whole proceeding?\n\n_Hyl._ Be that as it will, yet I still insist upon it, that _our_ not\nbeing able to conceive a thing is no argument against its existence.\n\n_Phil._ That from a cause, effect, operation, sign, or other circumstance,\nthere may reasonably be inferred the existence of a thing not immediately\nperceived; and that it were absurd for any man to argue against the\nexistence of that thing, from his having no direct and positive notion of\nit, I freely own. But, where there is nothing of all this; where neither\nreason nor revelation induces us to believe the existence of a thing;\nwhere we have not even a relative notion of it; where an abstraction is\nmade from perceiving and being perceived, from Spirit and idea: lastly,\nwhere there is not so much as the most inadequate or faint idea pretended\nto\u2014I will not indeed thence conclude against the reality of any notion, or\nexistence of anything; but my inference shall be, that you mean nothing at\nall; that you employ words to no manner of purpose, without any design or\nsignification whatsoever. And I leave it to you to consider how mere\njargon should be treated.\n\n_Hyl._ To deal frankly with you, Philonous, your arguments seem in\nthemselves unanswerable; but they have not so great an effect on me as to\nproduce that entire conviction, that hearty acquiescence, which attends\ndemonstration(845). I find myself still relapsing into an obscure surmise\nof I know not what, _matter_.\n\n_Phil._ But, are you not sensible, Hylas, that two things must concur to\ntake away all scruple, and work a plenary assent in the mind? Let a\nvisible object be set in never so clear a light, yet, if there is any\nimperfection in the sight, or if the eye is not directed towards it, it\nwill not be distinctly seen. And though a demonstration be never so well\ngrounded and fairly proposed, yet, if there is withal a stain of\nprejudice, or a wrong bias on the understanding, can it be expected on a\nsudden to perceive clearly, and adhere firmly to the truth? No; there is\nneed of time and pains: the attention must be awakened and detained by a\nfrequent repetition of the same thing placed oft in the same, oft in\ndifferent lights. I have said it already, and find I must still repeat and\ninculcate, that it is an unaccountable licence you take, in pretending to\nmaintain you know not what, for you know not what reason, to you know not\nwhat purpose. Can this be paralleled in any art or science, any sect or\nprofession of men? Or is there anything _so_ barefacedly groundless and\nunreasonable to be met with even in the lowest of common conversation?\nBut, perhaps you will still say, Matter may exist; though at the same time\nyou neither know _what is meant_ by _Matter_, or by its _existence_. This\nindeed is surprising, and the more so because it is altogether voluntary\n[(846) and of your own head], you not being led to it by any one reason;\nfor I challenge you to shew me that thing in nature which needs Matter to\nexplain or account for it.\n\n_Hyl._ The _reality_ of things cannot be maintained without supposing the\nexistence of Matter. And is not this, think you, a good reason why I\nshould be earnest in its defence?\n\n_Phil._ The reality of things! What things? sensible or intelligible?\n\n_Hyl._ Sensible things.\n\n_Phil._ My glove for example?\n\n_Hyl._ That, or any other thing perceived by the senses.\n\n_Phil._ But to fix on some particular thing. Is it not a sufficient\nevidence to me of the existence of this _glove_, that I see it, and feel\nit, and wear it? Or, if this will not do, how is it possible I should be\nassured of the reality of this thing, which I actually see in this place,\nby supposing that some unknown thing, which I never did or can see, exists\nafter an unknown manner, in an unknown place, or in no place at all? How\ncan the supposed reality of that which is intangible be a proof that\nanything tangible really exists? Or, of that which is invisible, that any\nvisible thing, or, in general of anything which is imperceptible, that a\nperceptible exists? Do but explain this and I shall think nothing too hard\nfor you.\n\n_Hyl._ Upon the whole, I am content to own the existence of Matter is\nhighly improbable; but the direct and absolute impossibility of it does\nnot appear to me.\n\n_Phil._ But granting Matter to be possible, yet, upon that account merely,\nit can have no more claim to existence than a golden mountain, or a\ncentaur.\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge it; but still you do not deny it is possible; and\nthat which is possible, for aught you know, may actually exist.\n\n_Phil._ I deny it to be possible; and have, if I mistake not, evidently\nproved, from your own concessions, that it is not. In the common sense of\nthe word _Matter_, is there any more implied than an extended, solid,\nfigured, moveable substance, existing without the mind? And have not you\nacknowledged, over and over, that you have seen evident reason for denying\nthe possibility of such a substance?\n\n_Hyl._ True, but that is only one sense of the term _Matter_.\n\n_Phil._ But is it not the only proper genuine received sense? And, if\nMatter, in such a sense, be proved impossible, may it not be thought with\ngood grounds absolutely impossible? Else how could anything be proved\nimpossible? Or, indeed, how could there be any proof at all one way or\nother, to a man who takes the liberty to unsettle and change the common\nsignification of words?\n\n_Hyl._ I thought philosophers might be allowed to speak more accurately\nthan the vulgar, and were not always confined to the common acceptation of\na term.\n\n_Phil._ But this now mentioned is the common received sense among\nphilosophers themselves. But, not to insist on that, have you not been\nallowed to take Matter in what sense you pleased? And have you not used\nthis privilege in the utmost extent; sometimes entirely changing, at\nothers leaving out, or putting into the definition of it whatever, for the\npresent, best served your design, contrary to all the known rules of\nreason and logic? And hath not this shifting, unfair method of yours spun\nout our dispute to an unnecessary length; Matter having been particularly\nexamined, and by your own confession refuted in each of those senses? And\ncan any more be required to prove the absolute impossibility of a thing,\nthan the proving it impossible in every particular sense that either you\nor any one else understands it in?\n\n_Hyl._ But I am not so thoroughly satisfied that you have proved the\nimpossibility of Matter, in the last most obscure abstracted and\nindefinite sense.\n\n_Phil._ When is a thing shewn to be impossible?\n\n_Hyl._ When a repugnancy is demonstrated between the ideas comprehended in\nits definition.\n\n_Phil._ But where there are no ideas, there no repugnancy can be\ndemonstrated between ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ I agree with you.\n\n_Phil._ Now, in that which you call the obscure indefinite sense of the\nword _Matter_, it is plain, by your own confession, there was included no\nidea at all, no sense except an unknown sense; which is the same thing as\nnone. You are not, therefore, to expect I should prove a repugnancy\nbetween ideas, where there are no ideas; or the impossibility of Matter\ntaken in an _unknown_ sense, that is, no sense at all. My business was\nonly to shew you meant _nothing_; and this you were brought to own. So\nthat, in all your various senses, you have been shewed either to mean\nnothing at all, or, if anything, an absurdity. And if this be not\nsufficient to prove the impossibility of a thing, I desire you will let me\nknow what is.\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge you have proved that Matter is impossible; nor do I\nsee what more can be said in defence of it. But, at the same time that I\ngive up this, I suspect all my other notions. For surely none could be\nmore seemingly evident than this once was: and yet it now seems as false\nand absurd as ever it did true before. But I think we have discussed the\npoint sufficiently for the present. The remaining part of the day I would\nwillingly spend in running over in my thoughts the several heads of this\nmorning\u2019s conversation, and to-morrow shall be glad to meet you here again\nabout the same time.\n\n_Phil._ I will not fail to attend you.\n\n\n\n\nThe Third Dialogue\n\n\n_Philonous._ (847)Tell me, Hylas, what are the fruits of yesterday\u2019s\nmeditation? Has it confirmed you in the same mind you were in at parting?\nor have you since seen cause to change your opinion?\n\n_Hylas._ Truly my opinion is that all our opinions are alike vain and\nuncertain. What we approve to-day, we condemn to-morrow. We keep a stir\nabout knowledge, and spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas! we\nknow nothing all the while: nor do I think it possible for us ever to know\nanything in this life. Our faculties are too narrow and too few. Nature\ncertainly never intended us for speculation.\n\n_Phil._ What! Say you we can know nothing, Hylas?\n\n_Hyl._ There is not that single thing in the world whereof we can know the\nreal nature, or what it is in itself.\n\n_Phil._ Will you tell me I do not really know what fire or water is?\n\n_Hyl._ You may indeed know that fire appears hot, and water fluid; but\nthis is no more than knowing what sensations are produced in your own\nmind, upon the application of fire and water to your organs of sense.\nTheir internal constitution, their true and real nature, you are utterly\nin the dark as to _that_.\n\n_Phil._ Do I not know this to be a real stone that I stand on, and that\nwhich I see before my eyes to be a real tree?\n\n_Hyl._ _Know?_ No, it is impossible you or any man alive should know it.\nAll you know is, that you have such a certain idea or appearance in your\nown mind. But what is this to the real tree or stone? I tell you that\ncolour, figure, and hardness, which you perceive, are not the real natures\nof those things, or in the least like them. The same may be said of all\nother real things, or corporeal substances, which compose the world. They\nhave none of them anything of themselves, like those sensible qualities by\nus perceived. We should not therefore pretend to affirm or know anything\nof them, as they are in their own nature.\n\n_Phil._ But surely, Hylas, I can distinguish gold, for example, from iron:\nand how could this be, if I knew not what either truly was?\n\n_Hyl._ Believe me, Philonous, you can only distinguish between your own\nideas. That yellowness, that weight, and other sensible qualities, think\nyou they are really in the gold? They are only relative to the senses, and\nhave no absolute existence in nature. And in pretending to distinguish the\nspecies of real things, by the appearances in your mind, you may perhaps\nact as wisely as he that should conclude two men were of a different\nspecies, because their clothes were not of the same colour.\n\n_Phil._ It seems, then, we are altogether put off with the appearances of\nthings, and those false ones too. The very meat I eat, and the cloth I\nwear, have nothing in them like what I see and feel.\n\n_Hyl._ Even so.\n\n_Phil._ But is it not strange the whole world should be thus imposed on,\nand so foolish as to believe their senses? And yet I know not how it is,\nbut men eat, and drink, and sleep, and perform all the offices of life, as\ncomfortably and conveniently as if they really knew the things they are\nconversant about.\n\n_Hyl._ They do so: but you know ordinary practice does not require a\nnicety of speculative knowledge. Hence the vulgar retain their mistakes,\nand for all that make a shift to bustle through the affairs of life. But\nphilosophers know better things.\n\n_Phil._ You mean, they _know_ that they _know nothing_.\n\n_Hyl._ That is the very top and perfection of human knowledge.\n\n_Phil._ But are you all this while in earnest, Hylas; and are you\nseriously persuaded that you know nothing real in the world? Suppose you\nare going to write, would you not call for pen, ink, and paper, like\nanother man; and do you not know what it is you call for?\n\n_Hyl._ How often must I tell you, that I know not the real nature of any\none thing in the universe? I may indeed upon occasion make use of pen,\nink, and paper. But what any one of them is in its own true nature, I\ndeclare positively I know not. And the same is true with regard to every\nother corporeal thing. And, what is more, we are not only ignorant of the\ntrue and real nature of things, but even of their existence. It cannot be\ndenied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas; but it cannot\nbe concluded from thence that bodies really exist. Nay, now I think on it,\nI must, agreeably to my former concessions, farther declare that it is\nimpossible any _real_ corporeal thing should exist in nature.\n\n_Phil._ You amaze me. Was ever anything more wild and extravagant than the\nnotions you now maintain: and is it not evident you are led into all these\nextravagances by the belief of _material substance_? This makes you dream\nof those unknown natures(848) in everything. It is this occasions your\ndistinguishing between the reality and sensible appearances of things. It\nis to this you are indebted for being ignorant of what everybody else\nknows perfectly well. Nor is this all: you are not only ignorant of the\ntrue nature of everything, but you know not whether anything really\nexists, or whether there are any true natures at all; forasmuch as you\nattribute to your material beings an absolute or external existence,\nwherein you suppose their reality consists. And, as you are forced in the\nend to acknowledge such an existence means either a direct repugnancy, or\nnothing at all, it follows that you are obliged to pull down your own\nhypothesis of material Substance, and positively to deny the real\nexistence of any part of the universe. And so you are plunged into the\ndeepest and most deplorable scepticism that ever man was(849). Tell me,\nHylas, is it not as I say?\n\n_Hyl._ I agree with you. _Material substance_ was no more than an\nhypothesis; and a false and groundless one too. I will no longer spend my\nbreath in defence of it. But whatever hypothesis you advance, or\nwhatsoever scheme of things you introduce in its stead, I doubt not it\nwill appear every whit as false: let me but be allowed to question you\nupon it. That is, suffer me to serve you in your own kind, and I warrant\nit shall conduct you through as many perplexities and contradictions, to\nthe very same state of scepticism that I myself am in at present.\n\n_Phil._ I assure you, Hylas, I do not pretend to frame any hypothesis at\nall(850). I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to believe my senses, and\nleave things as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real\nthings are those very things I see, and feel, and perceive(851) by my\nsenses. These I know; and, finding they answer all the necessities and\npurposes of life, have no reason to be solicitous about any other unknown\nbeings. A piece of sensible bread, for instance, would stay my stomach\nbetter than ten thousand times as much of that insensible, unintelligible,\nreal bread you speak of. It is likewise my opinion that colours and other\nsensible qualities are on the objects. I cannot for my life help thinking\nthat snow is white, and fire hot. You indeed, who by _snow_ and _fire_\nmean certain external, unperceived, unperceiving substances, are in the\nright to deny whiteness or heat to be affections inherent in _them_. But\nI, who understand by those words the things I see and feel, am obliged to\nthink like other folks. And, as I am no sceptic with regard to the nature\nof things, so neither am I as to their existence. That a thing should be\nreally perceived by my senses(852), and at the same time not really exist,\nis to me a plain contradiction; since I cannot prescind or abstract, even\nin thought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being perceived.\nWood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the like things, which I name\nand discourse of, are things that I know. And I should not have known them\nbut that I perceived them by my senses; and things perceived by the senses\nare immediately perceived; and things immediately perceived are ideas; and\nideas cannot exist without the mind; their existence therefore consists in\nbeing perceived; when, therefore, they are actually perceived there can be\nno doubt of their existence. Away then with all that scepticism, all those\nridiculous philosophical doubts. What a jest is it for a philosopher to\nquestion the existence of sensible things, till he hath it proved to him\nfrom the veracity of God(853); or to pretend our knowledge in this point\nfalls short of intuition or demonstration(854)! I might as well doubt of\nmy own being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.\n\n_Hyl._ Not so fast, Philonous: you say you cannot conceive how sensible\nthings should exist without the mind. Do you not?\n\n_Phil._ I do.\n\n_Hyl._ Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive it possible\nthat things perceivable by sense may still exist(855)?\n\n_Phil._ I can; but then it must be in another mind. When I deny sensible\nthings an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind in particular,\nbut all minds. Now, it is plain they have an existence exterior to my\nmind; since I find them by experience to be independent of it(856). There\nis therefore some other Mind wherein they exist, during the intervals\nbetween the times of my perceiving them: as likewise they did before my\nbirth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is\ntrue with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily\nfollows there is an _omnipresent eternal Mind_, which knows and\ncomprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner,\nand according to such rules, as He Himself hath ordained, and are by us\ntermed the _laws of nature_(857).\n\n_Hyl._ Answer me, Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly inert beings? Or\nhave they any agency included in them?\n\n_Phil._ They are altogether passive and inert(858).\n\n_Hyl._ And is not God an agent, a being purely active?\n\n_Phil._ I acknowledge it.\n\n_Hyl._ No idea therefore can be like unto, or represent the nature of God?\n\n_Phil._ It cannot.\n\n_Hyl._ Since therefore you have no _idea_ of the mind of God, how can you\nconceive it possible that things should exist in His mind? Or, if you can\nconceive the mind of God, without having an idea of it, why may not I be\nallowed to conceive the existence of Matter, notwithstanding I have no\nidea of it?\n\n_Phil._ As to your first question: I own I have properly no _idea_, either\nof God or any other spirit; for these being active, cannot be represented\nby things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I do nevertheless know that\nI, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my\nideas exist(859). Farther, I know what I mean by the terms _I_ and\n_myself_; and I know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not\nperceive it as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound. The Mind,\nSpirit, or Soul is that indivisible unextended thing which thinks, acts,\nand perceives. I say _indivisible_, because unextended; and _unextended_,\nbecause extended, figured, moveable things are ideas; and that which\nperceives ideas, which thinks and wills, is plainly itself no idea, nor\nlike an idea. Ideas are things inactive, and perceived. And Spirits a sort\nof beings altogether different from them. I do not therefore say my soul\nis an idea, or like an idea. However, taking the word _idea_ in a large\nsense, my soul may be said to furnish me with an idea, that is, an image\nor likeness of God\u2014though indeed extremely inadequate. For, all the notion\nI have of God is obtained by reflecting on my own soul, heightening its\npowers, and removing its imperfections. I have, therefore, though not an\ninactive idea, yet in _myself_ some sort of an active thinking image of\nthe Deity. And, though I perceive Him not by sense, yet I have a notion of\nHim, or know Him by reflexion and reasoning. My own mind and my own ideas\nI have an immediate knowledge of; and, by the help of these, do mediately\napprehend the possibility of the existence of other spirits and\nideas(860). Farther, from my own being, and from the dependency I find in\nmyself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason(861), necessarily infer the\nexistence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God. So much\nfor your first question. For the second: I suppose by this time you can\nanswer it yourself. For you neither perceive Matter(862) objectively, as\nyou do an inactive being or idea; nor know it, as you do yourself, by a\nreflex act(863); neither do you mediately apprehend it by similitude of\nthe one or the other(864); nor yet collect it by reasoning from that which\nyou know immediately(865). All which makes the case of _Matter_ widely\ndifferent from that of the _Deity_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n[(866)_Hyl._ You say your own soul supplies you with some sort of an idea\nor image of God. But, at the same time, you acknowledge you have, properly\nspeaking, no _idea_ of your own soul. You even affirm that spirits are a\nsort of beings altogether different from ideas. Consequently that no idea\ncan be like a spirit. We have therefore no idea of any spirit. You admit\nnevertheless that there is spiritual Substance, although you have no idea\nof it; while you deny there can be such a thing as material Substance,\nbecause you have no notion or idea of it. Is this fair dealing? To act\nconsistently, you must either admit Matter or reject Spirit. What say you\nto this?\n\n_Phil._ I say, in the first place, that I do not deny the existence of\nmaterial substance, merely because I have no notion of it, but because the\nnotion of it is inconsistent; or, in other words, because it is repugnant\nthat there should be a notion of it. Many things, for aught I know, may\nexist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have any idea or\nnotion whatsoever. But then those things must be possible, that is,\nnothing inconsistent must be included in their definition. I say,\nsecondly, that, although we believe things to exist which we do not\nperceive, yet we may not believe that any particular thing exists, without\nsome reason for such belief: but I have no reason for believing the\nexistence of Matter. I have no immediate intuition thereof: neither can I\nimmediately from my sensations, ideas, notions, actions, or passions,\ninfer an unthinking, unperceiving, inactive Substance\u2014either by probable\ndeduction, or necessary consequence. Whereas the being of my Self, that\nis, my own soul, mind, or thinking principle, I evidently know by\nreflexion(867). You will forgive me if I repeat the same things in answer\nto the same objections. In the very notion or definition of _material\nSubstance_, there is included a manifest repugnance and inconsistency. But\nthis cannot be said of the notion of Spirit. That ideas should exist in\nwhat doth not perceive, or be produced by what doth not act, is repugnant.\nBut, it is no repugnancy to say that a perceiving thing should be the\nsubject of ideas, or an active thing the cause of them. It is granted we\nhave neither an immediate evidence nor a demonstrative knowledge of the\nexistence of other finite spirits; but it will not thence follow that such\nspirits are on a foot with material substances: if to suppose the one be\ninconsistent, and it be not inconsistent to suppose the other; if the one\ncan be inferred by no argument, and there is a probability for the other;\nif we see signs and effects indicating distinct finite agents like\nourselves, and see no sign or symptom whatever that leads to a rational\nbelief of Matter. I say, lastly, that I have a notion of Spirit, though I\nhave not, strictly speaking, an idea of it(868). I do not perceive it as\nan idea, or by means of an idea, but know it by reflexion.\n\n_Hyl._ Notwithstanding all you have said, to me it seems that, according\nto your own way of thinking, and in consequence of your own principles, it\nshould follow that _you_ are only a system of floating ideas, without any\nsubstance to support them. Words are not to be used without a meaning.\nAnd, as there is no more meaning in _spiritual Substance_ than in\n_material Substance_, the one is to be exploded as well as the other.\n\n_Phil._ How often must I repeat, that I know or am conscious of my own\nbeing; and that I _myself_ am not my ideas, but somewhat else(869), a\nthinking, active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates\nabout ideas. I know that I, one and the same self, perceive both colours\nand sounds: that a colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound a colour:\nthat I am therefore one individual principle, distinct from colour and\nsound; and, for the same reason, from all other sensible things and inert\nideas. But, I am not in like manner conscious either of the existence or\nessence of Matter(870). On the contrary, I know that nothing inconsistent\ncan exist, and that the existence of Matter implies an inconsistency.\nFarther, I know what I mean when I affirm that there is a spiritual\nsubstance or support of ideas, that is, that a spirit knows and perceives\nideas. But, I do not know what is meant when it is said that an\nunperceiving substance hath inherent in it and supports either ideas or\nthe archetypes of ideas. There is therefore upon the whole no parity of\ncase between Spirit and Matter.]\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n_Hyl._ I own myself satisfied in this point. But, do you in earnest think\nthe real existence of sensible things consists in their being actually\nperceived? If so; how comes it that all mankind distinguish between them?\nAsk the first man you meet, and he shall tell you, _to be perceived_ is\none thing, and _to exist_ is another.\n\n_Phil._ I am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense of the world\nfor the truth of my notion. Ask the gardener why he thinks yonder\ncherry-tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell you, because he sees\nand feels it; in a word, because he perceives it by his senses. Ask him\nwhy he thinks an orange-tree not to be there, and he shall tell you,\nbecause he does not perceive it. What he perceives by sense, that he terms\na real being, and saith it _is_ or _exists;_ but, that which is not\nperceivable, the same, he saith, hath no being.\n\n_Hyl._ Yes, Philonous, I grant the existence of a sensible thing consists\nin being perceivable, but not in being actually perceived.\n\n_Phil._ And what is perceivable but an idea? And can an idea exist without\nbeing actually perceived? These are points long since agreed between us.\n\n_Hyl._ But, be your opinion never so true, yet surely you will not deny it\nis shocking, and contrary to the common sense of men(871). Ask the fellow\nwhether yonder tree hath an existence out of his mind: what answer think\nyou he would make?\n\n_Phil._ The same that I should myself, to wit, that it doth exist out of\nhis mind. But then to a Christian it cannot surely be shocking to say, the\nreal tree, existing without his mind, is truly known and comprehended by\n(that is _exists in_) the infinite mind of God. Probably he may not at\nfirst glance be aware of the direct and immediate proof there is of this;\ninasmuch as the very being of a tree, or any other sensible thing, implies\na mind wherein it is. But the point itself he cannot deny. The question\nbetween the Materialists and me is not, whether things have a _real_\nexistence out of the mind of this or that person(872), but, whether they\nhave an _absolute_ existence, distinct from being perceived by God, and\nexterior to _all_ minds(873). This indeed some heathens and philosophers\nhave affirmed, but whoever entertains notions of the Deity suitable to the\nHoly Scriptures will be of another opinion.\n\n_Hyl._ But, according to your notions, what difference is there between\nreal things, and chimeras formed by the imagination, or the visions of a\ndream\u2014since they are all equally in the mind(874)?\n\n_Phil._ The ideas formed by the imagination are faint and indistinct; they\nhave, besides, an entire dependence on the will. But the ideas perceived\nby sense, that is, real things, are more vivid and clear; and, being\nimprinted on the mind by a spirit distinct from us, have not the like\ndependence on our will. There is therefore no danger of confounding these\nwith the foregoing: and there is as little of confounding them with the\nvisions of a dream, which are dim, irregular, and confused. And, though\nthey should happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, by their not\nbeing connected, and of apiece with the preceding and subsequent\ntransactions of our lives, they might easily be distinguished from\nrealities. In short, by whatever method you distinguish _things_ from\n_chimeras_ on your scheme, the same, it is evident, will hold also upon\nmine. For, it must be, I presume, by some perceived difference; and I am\nnot for depriving you of any one thing that you perceive.\n\n_Hyl._ But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in the world but\nspirits and ideas. And this, you must needs acknowledge, sounds very\noddly.\n\n_Phil._ I own the word _idea_, not being commonly used for _thing_, sounds\nsomething out of the way. My reason for using it was, because a necessary\nrelation to the mind is understood to be implied by that term; and it is\nnow commonly used by philosophers to denote the immediate objects of the\nunderstanding. But, however oddly the proposition may sound in words, yet\nit includes nothing so very strange or shocking in its sense; which in\neffect amounts to no more than this, to wit, that there are only things\nperceiving, and things perceived; or that every unthinking being is\nnecessarily, and from the very nature of its existence, perceived by some\nmind; if not by a finite created mind, yet certainly by the infinite mind\nof God, in whom \u2019we live, and move, and have our being.\u2019 Is this as\nstrange as to say, the sensible qualities are not on the objects: or that\nwe cannot be sure of the existence of things, or know anything of their\nreal natures\u2014though we both see and feel them, and perceive them by all\nour senses?\n\n_Hyl._ And, in consequence of this, must we not think there are no such\nthings as physical or corporeal causes; but that a Spirit is the immediate\ncause of all the phenomena in nature? Can there be anything more\nextravagant than this?\n\n_Phil._ Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say\u2014a thing which is\ninert operates on the mind, and which is unperceiving is the cause of our\nperceptions, [(875)without any regard either to consistency, or the old\nknown axiom, _Nothing can give to another that which it hath not itself_].\nBesides, that which to you, I know not for what reason, seems so\nextravagant is no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundred\nplaces. In them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author of all\nthose effects which some heathens and philosophers are wont to ascribe to\nNature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthinking principle. This is so much\nthe constant language of Scripture that it were needless to confirm it by\ncitations.\n\n_Hyl._ You are not aware, Philonous, that, in making God the immediate\nAuthor of all the motions in nature, you make Him the Author of murder,\nsacrilege, adultery, and the like heinous sins.\n\n_Phil._ In answer to that, I observe, first, that the imputation of guilt\nis the same, whether a person commits an action with or without an\ninstrument. In case therefore you suppose God to act by the mediation of\nan instrument, or occasion, called _Matter_, you as truly make Him the\nauthor of sin as I, who think Him the immediate agent in all those\noperations vulgarly ascribed to Nature. I farther observe that sin or\nmoral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion,\nbut in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and\nreligion. This is plain, in that the killing an enemy in a battle, or\nputting a criminal legally to death, is not thought sinful; though the\noutward act be the very same with that in the case of murder. Since,\ntherefore, sin doth not consist in the physical action, the making God an\nimmediate cause of all such actions is not making Him the Author of sin.\nLastly, I have nowhere said that God is the only agent who produces all\nthe motions in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any other agents\nbesides spirits; but this is very consistent with allowing to thinking\nrational beings, in the production of motions, the use of limited powers,\nultimately indeed derived from God, but immediately under the direction of\ntheir own wills, which is sufficient to entitle them to all the guilt of\ntheir actions(876).\n\n_Hyl._ But the denying Matter, Philonous, or corporeal Substance; there is\nthe point. You can never persuade me that this is not repugnant to the\nuniversal sense of mankind. Were our dispute to be determined by most\nvoices, I am confident you would give up the point, without gathering the\nvotes.\n\n_Phil._ I wish both our opinions were fairly stated and submitted to the\njudgment of men who had plain common sense, without the prejudices of a\nlearned education. Let me be represented as one who trusts his senses, who\nthinks he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of\ntheir existence; and you fairly set forth with all your doubts, your\nparadoxes, and your scepticism about you, and I shall willingly acquiesce\nin the determination of any indifferent person. That there is no substance\nwherein ideas can exist beside spirit is to me evident. And that the\nobjects immediately perceived are ideas, is on all hands agreed(877). And\nthat sensible qualities are objects immediately perceived no one can deny.\nIt is therefore evident there can be no _substratum_ of those qualities\nbut spirit; _in_ which they exist, not by way of mode or property, but as\na thing perceived in that which perceives it(878). I deny therefore that\nthere is any unthinking _substratum_ of the objects of sense, and _in that\nacceptation_ that there is any material substance. But if by _material\nsubstance_ is meant only _sensible body_\u2014that which is seen and felt (and\nthe unphilosophical part of the world, I dare say, mean no more)\u2014then I am\nmore certain of matter\u2019s existence than you or any other philosopher\npretend to be. If there be anything which makes the generality of mankind\naverse from the notions I espouse: it is a misapprehension that I deny the\nreality of sensible things. But, as it is you who are guilty of that, and\nnot I, it follows that in truth their aversion is against your notions and\nnot mine. I do therefore assert that I am as certain as of my own being,\nthat there are bodies or corporeal substances (meaning the things I\nperceive by my senses); and that, granting this, the bulk of mankind will\ntake no thought about, nor think themselves at all concerned in the fate\nof those unknown natures, and philosophical quiddities, which some men are\nso fond of.\n\n_Hyl._ What say you to this? Since, according to you, men judge of the\nreality of things by their senses, how can a man be mistaken in thinking\nthe moon a plain lucid surface, about a foot in diameter; or a square\ntower, seen at a distance, round; or an oar, with one end in the water,\ncrooked?\n\n_Phil._ He is not mistaken with regard to the ideas he actually perceives,\nbut in the inferences he makes from his present perceptions. Thus, in the\ncase of the oar, what he immediately perceives by sight is certainly\ncrooked; and so far he is in the right. But if he thence conclude that\nupon taking the oar out of the water he shall perceive the same\ncrookedness; or that it would affect his touch as crooked things are wont\nto do: in that he is mistaken. In like manner, if he shall conclude from\nwhat he perceives in one station, that, in case he advances towards the\nmoon or tower, he should still be affected with the like ideas, he is\nmistaken. But his mistake lies not in what he perceives immediately, and\nat present, (it being a manifest contradiction to suppose he should err in\nrespect of that) but in the wrong judgment he makes concerning the ideas\nhe apprehends to be connected with those immediately perceived: or,\nconcerning the ideas that, from what he perceives at present, he imagines\nwould be perceived in other circumstances. The case is the same with\nregard to the Copernican system. We do not here perceive any motion of the\nearth: but it were erroneous thence to conclude, that, in case we were\nplaced at as great a distance from that as we are now from the other\nplanets, we should not then perceive its motion(879).\n\n_Hyl._ I understand you; and must needs own you say things plausible\nenough. But, give me leave to put you in mind of one thing. Pray,\nPhilonous, were you not formerly as positive that Matter existed, as you\nare now that it does not?\n\n_Phil._ I was. But here lies the difference. Before, my positiveness was\nfounded, without examination, upon prejudice; but now, after inquiry, upon\nevidence.\n\n_Hyl._ After all, it seems our dispute is rather about words than things.\nWe agree in the thing, but differ in the name. That we are affected with\nideas _from without_ is evident; and it is no less evident that there must\nbe (I will not say archetypes, but) Powers without the mind(880),\ncorresponding to those ideas. And, as these Powers cannot subsist by\nthemselves, there is some subject of them necessarily to be admitted;\nwhich I call _Matter_, and you call _Spirit_. This is all the difference.\n\n_Phil._ Pray, Hylas, is that powerful Being, or subject of powers,\nextended?\n\n_Hyl._ It hath not extension; but it hath the power to raise in you the\nidea of extension,\n\n_Phil._ It is therefore itself unextended?\n\n_Hyl._ I grant it.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not also active?\n\n_Hyl._ Without doubt. Otherwise, how could we attribute powers to it?\n\n_Phil._ Now let me ask you two questions: _First_, Whether it be agreeable\nto the usage either of philosophers or others to give the name _Matter_ to\nan unextended active being? And, _Secondly_, Whether it be not\nridiculously absurd to misapply names contrary to the common use of\nlanguage?\n\n_Hyl._ Well then, let it not be called Matter, since you will have it so,\nbut some _Third Nature_ distinct from Matter and Spirit. For what reason\nis there why you should call it Spirit? Does not the notion of spirit\nimply that it is thinking, as well as active and unextended?\n\n_Phil._ My reason is this: because I have a mind to have some notion of\nmeaning in what I say: but I have no notion of any action distinct from\nvolition, neither can I conceive volition to be anywhere but in a spirit:\ntherefore, when I speak of an active being, I am obliged to mean a Spirit.\nBeside, what can be plainer than that a thing which hath no ideas in\nitself cannot impart them to me; and, if it hath ideas, surely it must be\na Spirit. To make you comprehend the point still more clearly if it be\npossible. I assert as well as you that, since we are affected from\nwithout, we must allow Powers to be without, in a Being distinct from\nourselves. So far we are agreed. But then we differ as to the kind of this\npowerful Being(881). I will have it to be Spirit, you Matter, or I know\nnot what (I may add too, you know not what) Third Nature. Thus, I prove it\nto be Spirit. From the effects I see produced, I conclude there are\nactions; and, because actions, volitions; and, because there are\nvolitions, there must be a _will_. Again, the things I perceive must have\nan existence, they or their archetypes, out of _my_ mind: but, being\nideas, neither they nor their archetypes can exist otherwise than in an\nunderstanding; there is therefore an _understanding_. But will and\nunderstanding constitute in the strictest sense a mind or spirit. The\npowerful cause, therefore, of my ideas is in strict propriety of speech a\n_Spirit_.\n\n_Hyl._ And now I warrant you think you have made the point very clear,\nlittle suspecting that what you advance leads directly to a contradiction.\nIs it not an absurdity to imagine any imperfection in God?\n\n_Phil._ Without a doubt.\n\n_Hyl._ To suffer pain is an imperfection?\n\n_Phil._ It is.\n\n_Hyl._ Are we not sometimes affected with pain and uneasiness by some\nother Being?\n\n_Phil._ We are.\n\n_Hyl._ And have you not said that Being is a Spirit, and is not that\nSpirit God?\n\n_Phil._ I grant it.\n\n_Hyl._ But you have asserted that whatever ideas we perceive from without\nare in the mind which affects us. The ideas, therefore, of pain and\nuneasiness are in God; or, in other words, God suffers pain: that is to\nsay, there is an imperfection in the Divine nature: which, you\nacknowledged, was absurd. So you are caught in a plain contradiction(882).\n\n_Phil._ That God knows or understands all things, and that He knows, among\nother things, what pain is, even every sort of painful sensation, and what\nit is for His creatures to suffer pain, I make no question. But, that God,\nthough He knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can Himself\nsuffer pain, I positively deny. We, who are limited and dependent spirits,\nare liable to impressions of sense, the effects of an external Agent,\nwhich, being produced against our wills, are sometimes painful and uneasy.\nBut God, whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by sense\nas we do; whose will is absolute and independent, causing all things, and\nliable to be thwarted or resisted by nothing: it is evident, such a Being\nas this can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful sensation, or\nindeed any sensation at all. We are chained to a body: that is to say, our\nperceptions are connected with corporeal motions. By the law of our\nnature, we are affected upon every alteration in the nervous parts of our\nsensible body; which sensible body, rightly considered, is nothing but a\ncomplexion of such qualities or ideas as have no existence distinct from\nbeing perceived by a mind. So that this connexion of sensations with\ncorporeal motions means no more than a correspondence in the order of\nnature, between two sets of ideas, or things immediately perceivable. But\nGod is a Pure Spirit, disengaged from all such sympathy, or natural ties.\nNo corporeal motions are attended with the sensations of pain or pleasure\nin His mind. To know everything knowable, is certainly a perfection; but\nto endure, or suffer, or feel anything by sense, is an imperfection. The\nformer, I say, agrees to God, but not the latter. God knows, or hath\nideas; but His ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense, as ours are. Your\nnot distinguishing, where there is so manifest a difference, makes you\nfancy you see an absurdity where there is none.\n\n_Hyl._ But, all this while you have not considered that the quantity of\nMatter has been demonstrated to be proportioned to the gravity of\nbodies(883). And what can withstand demonstration?\n\n_Phil._ Let me see how you demonstrate that point.\n\n_Hyl._ I lay it down for a principle, that the moments or quantities of\nmotion in bodies are in a direct compounded reason of the velocities and\nquantities of Matter contained in them. Hence, where the velocities are\nequal, it follows the moments are directly as the quantity of Matter in\neach. But it is found by experience that all bodies (bating the small\ninequalities, arising from the resistance of the air) descend with an\nequal velocity; the motion therefore of descending bodies, and\nconsequently their gravity, which is the cause or principle of that\nmotion, is proportional to the quantity of Matter; which was to be\ndemonstrated.\n\n_Phil._ You lay it down as a self-evident principle that the quantity of\nmotion in any body is proportional to the velocity and _Matter_ taken\ntogether; and this is made use of to prove a proposition from whence the\nexistence of _Matter_ is inferred. Pray is not this arguing in a circle?\n\n_Hyl._ In the premise I only mean that the motion is proportional to the\nvelocity, jointly with the extension and solidity.\n\n_Phil._ But, allowing this to be true, yet it will not thence follow that\ngravity is proportional to _Matter_, in your philosophic sense of the\nword; except you take it for granted that unknown _substratum_, or\nwhatever else you call it, is proportional to those sensible qualities;\nwhich to suppose is plainly begging the question. That there is magnitude\nand solidity, or resistance, perceived by sense, I readily grant; as\nlikewise, that gravity may be proportional to those qualities I will not\ndispute. But that either these qualities as perceived by us, or the powers\nproducing them, do exist in a _material substratum_; this is what I deny,\nand you indeed affirm, but, notwithstanding your demonstration, have not\nyet proved.\n\n_Hyl._ I shall insist no longer on that point. Do you think, however, you\nshall persuade me the natural philosophers have been dreaming all this\nwhile? Pray what becomes of all their hypotheses and explications of the\nphenomena, which suppose the existence of Matter(884)?\n\n_Phil._ What mean you, Hylas, by the _phenomena_?\n\n_Hyl._ I mean the appearances which I perceive by my senses.\n\n_Phil._ And the appearances perceived by sense, are they not ideas?\n\n_Hyl._ I have told you so a hundred times.\n\n_Phil._ Therefore, to explain the phenomena is, to shew how we come to be\naffected with ideas, in that manner and(885) order wherein they are\nimprinted on our senses. Is it not?\n\n_Hyl._ It is.\n\n_Phil._ Now, if you can prove that any philosopher has explained the\nproduction of any one idea in our minds by the help of _Matter_(886), I\nshall for ever acquiesce, and look on all that hath been said against it\nas nothing; but, if you cannot, it is vain to urge the explication of\nphenomena. That a Being endowed with knowledge and will should produce or\nexhibit ideas is easily understood. But that a Being which is utterly\ndestitute of these faculties should be able to produce ideas, or in any\nsort to affect an intelligence, this I can never understand. This I say,\nthough we had some positive conception of Matter, though we knew its\nqualities, and could comprehend its existence, would yet be so far from\nexplaining things, that it is itself the most inexplicable thing in the\nworld. And yet, for all this, it will not follow that philosophers have\nbeen doing nothing; for, by observing and reasoning upon the connexion of\nideas(887), they discover the laws and methods of nature, which is a part\nof knowledge both useful and entertaining.\n\n_Hyl._ After all, can it be supposed God would deceive all mankind? Do you\nimagine He would have induced the whole world to believe the being of\nMatter, if there was no such thing?\n\n_Phil._ That every epidemical opinion, arising from prejudice, or passion,\nor thoughtlessness, may be imputed to God, as the Author of it, I believe\nyou will not affirm. Whatsoever opinion we father on Him, it must be\neither because He has discovered it to us by supernatural revelation; or\nbecause it is so evident to our natural faculties, which were framed and\ngiven us by God, that it is impossible we should withhold our assent from\nit. But where is the revelation? or where is the evidence that extorts the\nbelief of Matter? Nay, how does it appear, that Matter, _taken for\nsomething distinct from what we perceive by our senses_, is thought to\nexist by all mankind; or, indeed, by any except a few philosophers, who do\nnot know what they would be at? Your question supposes these points are\nclear; and, when you have cleared them, I shall think myself obliged to\ngive you another answer. In the meantime, let it suffice that I tell you,\nI do not suppose God has deceived mankind at all.\n\n_Hyl._ But the novelty, Philonous, the novelty! There lies the danger. New\nnotions should always be discountenanced; they unsettle men\u2019s minds, and\nnobody knows where they will end.\n\n_Phil._ Why the rejecting a notion that has no foundation, either in\nsense, or in reason, or in Divine authority, should be thought to unsettle\nthe belief of such opinions as are grounded on all or any of these, I\ncannot imagine. That innovations in government and religion are dangerous,\nand ought to be discountenanced, I freely own. But is there the like\nreason why they should be discouraged in philosophy? The making anything\nknown which was unknown before is an innovation in knowledge: and, if all\nsuch innovations had been forbidden, men would have made a notable\nprogress in the arts and sciences. But it is none of my business to plead\nfor novelties and paradoxes. That the qualities we perceive are not on the\nobjects: that we must not believe our senses: that we know nothing of the\nreal nature of things, and can never be assured even of their existence:\nthat real colours and sounds are nothing but certain unknown figures and\nmotions: that motions are in themselves neither swift nor slow: that there\nare in bodies absolute extensions, without any particular magnitude or\nfigure: that a thing stupid, thoughtless, and inactive, operates on a\nspirit: that the least particle of a body contains innumerable extended\nparts:\u2014these are the novelties, these are the strange notions which shock\nthe genuine uncorrupted judgment of all mankind; and being once admitted,\nembarrass the mind with endless doubts and difficulties. And it is against\nthese and the like innovations I endeavour to vindicate Common Sense. It\nis true, in doing this, I may perhaps be obliged to use some _ambages_,\nand ways of speech not common. But, if my notions are once thoroughly\nunderstood, that which is most singular in them will, in effect, be found\nto amount to no more than this:\u2014that it is absolutely impossible, and a\nplain contradiction, to suppose any unthinking Being should exist without\nbeing perceived by a Mind. And, if this notion be singular, it is a shame\nit should be so, at this time of day, and in a Christian country.\n\n_Hyl._ As for the difficulties other opinions may be liable to, those are\nout of the question. It is your business to defend your own opinion. Can\nanything be plainer than that you are for changing all things into ideas?\nYou, I say, who are not ashamed to charge me with _scepticism_. This is so\nplain, there is no denying it.\n\n_Phil._ You mistake me. I am not for changing things into ideas, but\nrather ideas into things(888); since those immediate objects of\nperception, which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I\ntake to be the real things themselves(889).\n\n_Hyl._ Things! You may pretend what you please; but it is certain you\nleave us nothing but the empty forms of things, the outside only which\nstrikes the senses.\n\n_Phil._ What you call the empty forms and outside of things seem to me the\nvery things themselves. Nor are they empty or incomplete, otherwise than\nupon your supposition\u2014that Matter(890) is an essential part of all\ncorporeal things. We both, therefore, agree in this, that we perceive only\nsensible forms: but herein we differ\u2014you will have them to be empty\nappearances, I real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses, I do.\n\n_Hyl._ You say you believe your senses; and seem to applaud yourself that\nin this you agree with the vulgar. According to you, therefore, the true\nnature of a thing is discovered by the senses. If so, whence comes that\ndisagreement? Why is not the same figure, and other sensible qualities,\nperceived all manner of ways? and why should we use a microscope the\nbetter to discover the true nature of a body, if it were discoverable to\nthe naked eye?\n\n_Phil._ Strictly speaking, Hylas, we do not see the same object that we\nfeel(891); neither is the same object perceived by the microscope which\nwas by the naked eye(892). But, in case every variation was thought\nsufficient to constitute a new kind or individual, the endless number or\nconfusion of names would render language impracticable. Therefore, to\navoid this, as well as other inconveniences which are obvious upon a\nlittle thought, men combine together several ideas, apprehended by divers\nsenses, or by the same sense at different times, or in different\ncircumstances, but observed, however, to have some connexion in nature,\neither with respect to co-existence or succession; all which they refer to\none name, and consider as one thing. Hence it follows that when I examine,\nby my other senses, a thing I have seen, it is not in order to understand\nbetter the same object which I had perceived by sight, the object of one\nsense not being perceived by the other senses. And, when I look through a\nmicroscope, it is not that I may perceive more clearly what I perceived\nalready with my bare eyes; the object perceived by the glass being quite\ndifferent from the former. But, in both cases, my aim is only to know what\nideas are connected together; and the more a man knows of the connexion of\nideas(893), the more he is said to know of the nature of things. What,\ntherefore, if our ideas are variable; what if our senses are not in all\ncircumstances affected with the same appearances? It will not thence\nfollow they are not to be trusted; or that they are inconsistent either\nwith themselves or anything else: except it be with your preconceived\nnotion of (I know not what) one single, unchanged, unperceivable, real\nNature, marked by each name. Which prejudice seems to have taken its rise\nfrom not rightly understanding the common language of men, speaking of\nseveral distinct ideas as united into one thing by the mind. And, indeed,\nthere is cause to suspect several erroneous conceits of the philosophers\nare owing to the same original: while they began to build their schemes\nnot so much on notions as on words, which were framed by the vulgar,\nmerely for conveniency and dispatch in the common actions of life, without\nany regard to speculation(894).\n\n_Hyl_. Methinks I apprehend your meaning.\n\n_Phil._ It is your opinion the ideas we perceive by our senses are not\nreal things, but images or copies of them. Our knowledge, therefore, is no\nfarther real than as our ideas are the true _representations_ of those\n_originals_. But, as these supposed originals are in themselves unknown,\nit is impossible to know how far our ideas resemble them; or whether they\nresemble them at all(895). We cannot, therefore, be sure we have any real\nknowledge(896). Farther, as our ideas are perpetually varied, without any\nchange in the supposed real things, it necessarily follows they cannot all\nbe true copies of them: or, if some are and others are not, it is\nimpossible to distinguish the former from the latter. And this plunges us\nyet deeper in uncertainty(897). Again, when we consider the point, we\ncannot conceive how any idea, or anything like an idea, should have an\nabsolute existence out of a mind: nor consequently, according to you, how\nthere should be any real thing in nature(898). The result of all which is\nthat we are thrown into the most hopeless and abandoned scepticism. Now,\ngive me leave to ask you, First, Whether your referring ideas to certain\nabsolutely existing unperceived substances, as their originals, be not the\nsource of all this scepticism(899)? Secondly, whether you are informed,\neither by sense or reason(900), of the existence of those unknown\noriginals? And, in case you are not, whether it be not absurd to suppose\nthem? Thirdly, Whether, upon inquiry, you find there is anything\ndistinctly conceived or meant by the _absolute or external existence of\nunperceiving substances_(901)? Lastly, Whether, the premises considered,\nit be not the wisest way to follow nature, trust your senses, and, laying\naside all anxious thought about unknown natures or substances(902), admit\nwith the vulgar those for real things which are perceived by the senses?\n\n_Hyl._ For the present, I have no inclination to the answering part. I\nwould much rather see how you can get over what follows. Pray are not the\nobjects perceived by the _senses_ of one, likewise perceivable to others\npresent? If there were a hundred more here, they would all see the garden,\nthe trees, and flowers, as I see them. But they are not in the same manner\naffected with the ideas I frame in my _imagination_. Does not this make a\ndifference between the former sort of objects and the latter?\n\n_Phil._ I grant it does. Nor have I ever denied a difference between the\nobjects of sense and those of imagination(903). But what would you infer\nfrom thence? You cannot say that sensible objects exist unperceived,\nbecause they are perceived by many.\n\n_Hyl._ I own I can make nothing of that objection: but it hath led me into\nanother. Is it not your opinion that by our senses we perceive only the\nideas existing in our minds?\n\n_Phil._ It is.\n\n_Hyl._ But the _same_ idea which is in my mind cannot be in yours, or in\nany other mind. Doth it not therefore follow, from your principles, that\nno two can see the same thing(904)? And is not this highly absurd?\n\n_Phil._ If the term _same_ be taken in the vulgar acceptation, it is\ncertain (and not at all repugnant to the principles I maintain) that\ndifferent persons may perceive the same thing; or the same thing or idea\nexist in different minds. Words are of arbitrary imposition; and, since\nmen are used to apply the word _same_ where no distinction or variety is\nperceived, and I do not pretend to alter their perceptions, it follows\nthat, as men have said before, _several saw the same thing_, so they may,\nupon like occasions, still continue to use the same phrase, without any\ndeviation either from propriety of language, or the truth of things. But,\nif the term _same_ be used in the acceptation of philosophers, who pretend\nto an abstracted notion of identity, then, according to their sundry\ndefinitions of this notion (for it is not yet agreed wherein that\nphilosophic identity consists), it may or may not be possible for divers\npersons to perceive the same thing(905). But whether philosophers shall\nthink fit to _call_ a thing the _same_ or no, is, I conceive, of small\nimportance. Let us suppose several men together, all endued with the same\nfaculties, and consequently affected in like sort by their senses, and who\nhad yet never known the use of language; they would, without question,\nagree in their perceptions. Though perhaps, when they came to the use of\nspeech, some regarding the uniformness of what was perceived, might call\nit the _same_ thing: others, especially regarding the diversity of persons\nwho perceived, might choose the denomination of _different_ things. But\nwho sees not that all the dispute is about a word? to wit, whether what is\nperceived by different persons may yet have the term _same_ applied to\nit(906)? Or, suppose a house, whose walls or outward shell remaining\nunaltered, the chambers are all pulled down, and new ones built in their\nplace; and that you should call this the _same_, and I should say it was\nnot the _same_ house:\u2014would we not, for all this, perfectly agree in our\nthoughts of the house, considered in itself? And would not all the\ndifference consist in a sound? If you should say, We differed in our\nnotions; for that you superadded to your idea of the house the simple\nabstracted idea of identity, whereas I did not; I would tell you, I know\nnot what you mean by the _abstracted idea of identity_; and should desire\nyou to look into your own thoughts, and be sure you understood\nyourself.\u2014\u2014Why so silent, Hylas? Are you not yet satisfied men may dispute\nabout identity and diversity, without any real difference in their\nthoughts and opinions, abstracted from names? Take this farther reflexion\nwith you\u2014that whether Matter be allowed to exist or no, the case is\nexactly the same as to the point in hand. For the Materialists themselves\nacknowledge what we immediately perceive by our senses to be our own\nideas. Your difficulty, therefore, that no two see the same thing, makes\nequally against the Materialists and me.\n\n_Hyl._ [(907)Ay, Philonous,] But they suppose an external archetype, to\nwhich referring their several ideas they may truly be said to perceive the\nsame thing.\n\n_Phil._ And (not to mention your having discarded those archetypes) so may\nyou suppose an external archetype on my principles;\u2014_external, I mean, to\nyour own mind_: though indeed it must be supposed to exist in that Mind\nwhich comprehends all things; but then, this serves all the ends of\n_identity,_ as well as if it existed out of a mind(908). And I am sure you\nyourself will not say it is less intelligible.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n_Hyl._ You have indeed clearly satisfied me\u2014either that there is no\ndifficulty at bottom in this point; or, if there be, that it makes equally\nagainst both opinions.\n\n_Phil._ But that which makes equally against two contradictory opinions\ncan be a proof against neither.\n\n_Hyl._ I acknowledge it.\n\nBut, after all, Philonous, when I consider the substance of what you\nadvance against _Scepticism_, it amounts to no more than this:\u2014We are sure\nthat we really see, hear, feel; in a word, that we are affected with\nsensible impressions.\n\n_Phil._ And how are _we_ concerned any farther? I see this cherry, I feel\nit, I taste it: and I am sure _nothing_ cannot be seen, or felt, or\ntasted: it is therefore _real_. Take away the sensations of softness,\nmoisture, redness, tartness, and you take away the cherry, since it is not\na being distinct from sensations. A cherry, I say, is nothing but a\ncongeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses:\nwhich ideas are united into one thing (or have one name given them) by the\nmind, because they are observed to attend each other. Thus, when the\npalate is affected with such a particular taste, the sight is affected\nwith a red colour, the touch with roundness, softness, &c. Hence, when I\nsee, and feel, and taste, in such sundry certain manners, I am sure the\ncherry exists, or is real; its reality being in my opinion nothing\nabstracted from those sensations. But if by the word _cherry_ you mean an\nunknown nature, distinct from all those sensible qualities, and by its\n_existence_ something distinct from its being perceived; then, indeed, I\nown, neither you nor I, nor any one else, can be sure it exists.\n\n_Hyl._ But, what would you say, Philonous, if I should bring the very same\nreasons against the existence of sensible things _in a mind_ which you\nhave offered against their existing _in a material substratum_?\n\n_Phil._ When I see your reasons, you shall hear what I have to say to\nthem.\n\n_Hyl._ Is the mind extended or unextended?\n\n_Phil._ Unextended, without doubt.\n\n_Hyl._ Do you say the things you perceive are in your mind?\n\n_Phil._ They are.\n\n_Hyl._ Again, have I not heard you speak of sensible impressions?\n\n_Phil._ I believe you may.\n\n_Hyl._ Explain to me now, O Philonous! how it is possible there should be\nroom for all those trees and houses to exist in your mind. Can extended\nthings be contained in that which is unextended? Or, are we to imagine\nimpressions made on a thing void of all solidity? You cannot say objects\nare in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on\nit, as the figure of a seal upon wax. In what sense, therefore, are we to\nunderstand those expressions? Explain me this if you can: and I shall then\nbe able to answer all those queries you formerly put to me about my\n_substratum_.\n\n_Phil._ Look you, Hylas, when I speak of objects as existing in the mind,\nor imprinted on the senses, I would not be understood in the gross literal\nsense; as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an\nimpression upon wax. My meaning is only that the mind comprehends or\nperceives them; and that it is affected from without, or by some being\ndistinct from itself(909). This is my explication of your difficulty; and\nhow it can serve to make your tenet of an unperceiving material\n_substratum_ intelligible, I would fain know.\n\n_Hyl._ Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use can be made of\nit. But are you not guilty of some abuse of language in this?\n\n_Phil._ None at all. It is no more than common custom, which you know is\nthe rule of language, hath authorised: nothing being more usual, than for\nphilosophers to speak of the immediate objects of the understanding as\nthings existing in the mind. Nor is there anything in this but what is\nconformable to the general analogy of language; most part of the mental\noperations being signified by words borrowed from sensible things; as is\nplain in the terms _comprehend_, _reflect_, _discourse_, &c., which, being\napplied to the mind, must not be taken in their gross, original sense.\n\n_Hyl._ You have, I own, satisfied me in this point. But there still\nremains one great difficulty, which I know not how you will get over. And,\nindeed, it is of such importance that if you could solve all others,\nwithout being able to find a solution for this, you must never expect to\nmake me a proselyte to your principles.\n\n_Phil._ Let me know this mighty difficulty.\n\n_Hyl._ The Scripture account of the creation is what appears to me utterly\nirreconcilable with your notions(910). Moses tells us of a creation: a\ncreation of what? of ideas? No, certainly, but of things, of real things,\nsolid corporeal substances. Bring your principles to agree with this, and\nI shall perhaps agree with you.\n\n_Phil._ Moses mentions the sun, moon, and stars, earth and sea, plants and\nanimals. That all these do really exist, and were in the beginning created\nby God, I make no question. If by _ideas_ you mean fictions and fancies of\nthe mind(911), then these are no ideas. If by _ideas_ you mean immediate\nobjects of the understanding, or sensible things, which cannot exist\nunperceived, or out of a mind(912), then these things are ideas. But\nwhether you do or do not call them _ideas_, it matters little. The\ndifference is only about a name. And, whether that name be retained or\nrejected, the sense, the truth, and reality of things continues the same.\nIn common talk, the objects of our senses are not termed _ideas_, but\n_things_. Call them so still: provided you do not attribute to them any\nabsolute external existence, and I shall never quarrel with you for a\nword. The creation, therefore, I allow to have been a creation of things,\nof _real_ things. Neither is this in the least inconsistent with my\nprinciples, as is evident from what I have now said; and would have been\nevident to you without this, if you had not forgotten what had been so\noften said before. But as for solid corporeal substances, I desire you to\nshew where Moses makes any mention of them; and, if they should be\nmentioned by him, or any other inspired writer, it would still be\nincumbent on you to shew those words were not taken in the vulgar\nacceptation, for things falling under our senses, but in the\nphilosophic(913) acceptation, for Matter, or _an unknown __ quiddity, with\nan absolute existence_. When you have proved these points, then (and not\ntill then) may you bring the authority of Moses into our dispute.\n\n_Hyl._ It is in vain to dispute about a point so clear. I am content to\nrefer it to your own conscience. Are you not satisfied there is some\npeculiar repugnancy between the Mosaic account of the creation and your\nnotions?\n\n_Phil._ If all possible sense which can be put on the first chapter of\nGenesis may be conceived as consistently with my principles as any other,\nthen it has no peculiar repugnancy with them. But there is no sense you\nmay not as well conceive, believing as I do. Since, besides spirits, all\nyou conceive are ideas; and the existence of these I do not deny. Neither\ndo you pretend they exist without the mind.\n\n_Hyl._ Pray let me see any sense you can understand it in.\n\n_Phil._ Why, I imagine that if I had been present at the creation, I\nshould have seen things produced into being\u2014that is become perceptible\u2014in\nthe order prescribed by the sacred historian. I ever before believed the\nMosaic account of the creation, and now find no alteration in my manner of\nbelieving it. When things are said to begin or end their existence, we do\nnot mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All objects are\neternally known by God, or, which is the same thing, have an eternal\nexistence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures,\nare, by a decree of God, perceptible to them, then are they said to begin\na relative existence, with respect to created minds. Upon reading\ntherefore the Mosaic account of the creation, I understand that the\nseveral parts of the world became gradually perceivable to finite spirits,\nendowed with proper faculties; so that, whoever such were present, they\nwere in truth perceived by them(914). This is the literal obvious sense\nsuggested to me by the words of the Holy Scripture: in which is included\nno mention, or no thought, either of _substratum_, instrument, occasion,\nor absolute existence. And, upon inquiry, I doubt not it will be found\nthat most plain honest men, who believe the creation, never think of those\nthings any more than I. What metaphysical sense you may understand it in,\nyou only can tell.\n\n_Hyl._ But, Philonous, you do not seem to be aware that you allow created\nthings, in the beginning, only a relative, and consequently hypothetical\nbeing: that is to say, upon supposition there were _men_ to perceive them;\nwithout which they have no actuality of absolute existence, wherein\ncreation might terminate. Is it not, therefore, according to you, plainly\nimpossible the creation of any inanimate creatures should precede that of\nman? And is not this directly contrary to the Mosaic account?\n\n_Phil._ In answer to that, I say, first, created beings might begin to\nexist in the mind of other created intelligences, beside men. You will not\ntherefore be able to prove any contradiction between Moses and my notions,\nunless you first shew there was no other order of finite created spirits\nin being, before man. I say farther, in case we conceive the creation, as\nwe should at this time, a parcel of plants or vegetables of all sorts\nproduced, by an invisible Power, in a desert where nobody was present\u2014that\nthis way of explaining or conceiving it is consistent with my principles,\nsince they deprive you of nothing, either sensible or imaginable; that it\nexactly suits with the common, natural, and undebauched notions of\nmankind; that it manifests the dependence of all things on God; and\nconsequently hath all the good effect or influence, which it is possible\nthat important article of our faith should have in making men humble,\nthankful, and resigned to their [(915)great] Creator. I say, moreover,\nthat, in this naked conception of things, divested of words, there will\nnot be found any notion of what you call the _actuality of absolute\nexistence_. You may indeed raise a dust with those terms, and so lengthen\nour dispute to no purpose. But I entreat you calmly to look into your own\nthoughts, and then tell me if they are not a useless and unintelligible\njargon.\n\n_Hyl._ I own I have no very clear notion annexed to them. But what say you\nto this? Do you not make the existence of sensible things consist in their\nbeing in a mind? And were not all things eternally in the mind of God? Did\nthey not therefore exist from all eternity, according to you? And how\ncould that which was eternal be created in time? Can anything be clearer\nor better connected than this?\n\n_Phil._ And are not you too of opinion, that God knew all things from\neternity?\n\n_Hyl._ I am.\n\n_Phil._ Consequently they always had a being in the Divine intellect.\n\n_Hyl._ This I acknowledge.\n\n_Phil._ By your own confession, therefore, nothing is new, or begins to\nbe, in respect of the mind of God. So we are agreed in that point.\n\n_Hyl._ What shall we make then of the creation?\n\n_Phil._ May we not understand it to have been entirely in respect of\nfinite spirits; so that things, with regard to us, may properly be said to\nbegin their existence, or be created, when God decreed they should become\nperceptible to intelligent creatures, in that order and manner which He\nthen established, and we now call the laws of nature? You may call this a\n_relative_, or _hypothetical existence_ if you please. But, so long as it\nsupplies us with the most natural, obvious, and literal sense of the\nMosaic history of the creation; so long as it answers all the religious\nends of that great article; in a word, so long as you can assign no other\nsense or meaning in its stead; why should we reject this? Is it to comply\nwith a ridiculous sceptical humour of making everything nonsense and\nunintelligible? I am sure you cannot say it is for the glory of God. For,\nallowing it to be a thing possible and conceivable that the corporeal\nworld should have an absolute existence extrinsical to the mind of God, as\nwell as to the minds of all created spirits; yet how could this set forth\neither the immensity or omniscience of the Deity, or the necessary and\nimmediate dependence of all things on Him? Nay, would it not rather seem\nto derogate from those attributes?\n\n_Hyl._ Well, but as to this decree of God\u2019s, for making things\nperceptible, what say you, Philonous? Is it not plain, God did either\nexecute that decree from all eternity, or at some certain time began to\nwill what He had not actually willed before, but only designed to will? If\nthe former, then there could be no creation, or beginning of existence, in\nfinite things(916). If the latter, then we must acknowledge something new\nto befall the Deity; which implies a sort of change: and all change argues\nimperfection.\n\n_Phil._ Pray consider what you are doing. Is it not evident this objection\nconcludes equally against a creation in any sense; nay, against every\nother act of the Deity, discoverable by the light of nature? None of which\ncan _we_ conceive, otherwise than as performed in time, and having a\nbeginning. God is a Being of transcendent and unlimited perfections: His\nnature, therefore, is incomprehensible to finite spirits. It is not,\ntherefore, to be expected, that any man, whether Materialist or\nImmaterialist, should have exactly just notions of the Deity, His\nattributes, and ways of operation. If then you would infer anything\nagainst me, your difficulty must not be drawn from the inadequateness of\nour conceptions of the Divine nature, which is unavoidable on any scheme;\nbut from the denial of Matter, of which there is not one word, directly or\nindirectly, in what you have now objected.\n\n_Hyl._ I must acknowledge the difficulties you are concerned to clear are\nsuch only as arise from the non-existence of Matter, and are peculiar to\nthat notion. So far you are in the right. But I cannot by any means bring\nmyself to think there is no such peculiar repugnancy between the creation\nand your opinion; though indeed where to fix it, I do not distinctly know.\n\n_Phil._ What would you have? Do I not acknowledge a twofold state of\nthings\u2014the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal? The\nformer was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in the\nmind of God(917). Is not this agreeable to the common notions of divines?\nor, is any more than this necessary in order to conceive the creation? But\nyou suspect some peculiar repugnancy, though you know not where it lies.\nTo take away all possibility of scruple in the case, do but consider this\none point. Either you are not able to conceive the creation on any\nhypothesis whatsoever; and, if so, there is no ground for dislike or\ncomplaint against any particular opinion on that score: or you are able to\nconceive it; and, if so, why not on my Principles, since thereby nothing\nconceivable is taken away? You have all along been allowed the full scope\nof sense, imagination, and reason. Whatever, therefore, you could before\napprehend, either immediately or mediately by your senses, or by\nratiocination from your senses; whatever you could perceive, imagine, or\nunderstand, remains still with you. If, therefore, the notion you have of\nthe creation by other Principles be intelligible, you have it still upon\nmine; if it be not intelligible, I conceive it to be no notion at all; and\nso there is no loss of it. And indeed it seems to me very plain that the\nsupposition of Matter, that is a thing perfectly unknown and\ninconceivable, cannot serve to make us conceive anything. And, I hope it\nneed not be proved to you that if the existence of Matter(918) doth not\nmake the creation conceivable, the creation\u2019s being without it\ninconceivable can be no objection against its non-existence.\n\n_Hyl._ I confess, Philonous, you have almost satisfied me in this point of\nthe creation.\n\n_Phil._ I would fain know why you are not quite satisfied. You tell me\nindeed of a repugnancy between the Mosaic history and Immaterialism: but\nyou know not where it lies. Is this reasonable, Hylas? Can you expect I\nshould solve a difficulty without knowing what it is? But, to pass by all\nthat, would not a man think you were assured there is no repugnancy\nbetween the received notions of Materialists and the inspired writings?\n\n_Hyl._ And so I am.\n\n_Phil._ Ought the historical part of Scripture to be understood in a plain\nobvious sense, or in a sense which is metaphysical and out of the way?\n\n_Hyl._ In the plain sense, doubtless.\n\n_Phil._ When Moses speaks of herbs, earth, water, &c. as having been\ncreated by God; think you not the sensible things commonly signified by\nthose words are suggested to every unphilosophical reader?\n\n_Hyl._ I cannot help thinking so.\n\n_Phil._ And are not all ideas, or things perceived by sense, to be denied\na real existence by the doctrine of the Materialist?\n\n_Hyl._ This I have already acknowledged.\n\n_Phil._ The creation, therefore, according to them, was not the creation\nof things sensible, which have only a relative being, but of certain\nunknown natures, which have an absolute being, wherein creation might\nterminate?\n\n_Hyl._ True.\n\n_Phil._ Is it not therefore evident the assertors of Matter destroy the\nplain obvious sense of Moses, with which their notions are utterly\ninconsistent; and instead of it obtrude on us I know not what; something\nequally unintelligible to themselves and me?\n\n_Hyl._ I cannot contradict you.\n\n_Phil._ Moses tells us of a creation. A creation of what? of unknown\nquiddities, of occasions, or _substratum_? No, certainly; but of things\nobvious to the senses. You must first reconcile this with your notions, if\nyou expect I should be reconciled to them.\n\n_Hyl._ I see you can assault me with my own weapons.\n\n_Phil._ Then as to _absolute existence_; was there ever known a more\njejune notion than that? Something it is so abstracted and unintelligible\nthat you have frankly owned you could not conceive it, much less explain\nanything by it. But allowing Matter to exist, and the notion of absolute\nexistence to be as clear as light; yet, was this ever known to make the\ncreation more credible? Nay, hath it not furnished the atheists and\ninfidels of all ages with the most plausible arguments against a creation?\nThat a corporeal substance, which hath an absolute existence without the\nminds of spirits, should be produced out of nothing, by the mere will of a\nSpirit, hath been looked upon as a thing so contrary to all reason, so\nimpossible and absurd, that not only the most celebrated among the\nancients, but even divers modern and Christian philosophers have thought\nMatter co-eternal with the Deity(919). Lay these things together, and then\njudge you whether Materialism disposes men to believe the creation of\nthings.\n\n_Hyl._ I own, Philonous, I think it does not. This of the _creation_ is\nthe last objection I can think of; and I must needs own it hath been\nsufficiently answered as well as the rest. Nothing now remains to be\novercome but a sort of unaccountable backwardness that I find in myself\ntowards your notions.\n\n_Phil._ When a man is swayed, he knows not why, to one side of the\nquestion, can this, think you, be anything else but the effect of\nprejudice, which never fails to attend old and rooted notions? And indeed\nin this respect I cannot deny the belief of Matter to have very much the\nadvantage over the contrary opinion, with men of a learned education.\n\n_Hyl._ I confess it seems to be as you say.\n\n_Phil._ As a balance, therefore, to this weight of prejudice, let us throw\ninto the scale the great advantages(920) that arise from the belief of\nImmaterialism, both in regard to religion and human learning. The being of\na God, and incorruptibility of the soul, those great articles of religion,\nare they not proved with the clearest and most immediate evidence? When I\nsay the being of a God, I do not mean an obscure general Cause of things,\nwhereof we have no conception, but God, in the strict and proper sense of\nthe word. A Being whose spirituality, omnipresence, providence,\nomniscience, infinite power and goodness, are as conspicuous as the\nexistence of sensible things, of which (notwithstanding the fallacious\npretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there is no more reason to\ndoubt than of our own being.\u2014Then, with relation to human sciences. In\nNatural Philosophy, what intricacies, what obscurities, what\ncontradictions hath the belief of Matter led men into! To say nothing of\nthe numberless disputes about its extent, continuity, homogeneity,\ngravity, divisibility, &c.\u2014do they not pretend to explain all things by\nbodies operating on bodies, according to the laws of motion? and yet, are\nthey able to comprehend how one body should move another? Nay, admitting\nthere was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert being with a\ncause, or in conceiving how an accident might pass from one body to\nanother; yet, by all their strained thoughts and extravagant suppositions,\nhave they been able to reach the _mechanical_ production of any one animal\nor vegetable body? Can they account, by the laws of motion, for sounds,\ntastes, smells, or colours; or for the regular course of things? Have they\naccounted, by physical principles, for the aptitude and contrivance even\nof the most inconsiderable parts of the universe? But, laying aside Matter\nand corporeal causes, and admitting only the efficiency of an All-perfect\nMind, are not all the effects of nature easy and intelligible? If the\n_phenomena_ are nothing else but _ideas_; God is a _spirit_, but Matter an\nunintelligent, unperceiving being. If they demonstrate an unlimited power\nin their cause; God is active and omnipotent, but Matter an inert mass. If\nthe order, regularity, and usefulness of them can never be sufficiently\nadmired; God is infinitely wise and provident, but Matter destitute of all\ncontrivance and design. These surely are great advantages in _Physics_.\nNot to mention that the apprehension of a distant Deity naturally disposes\nmen to a negligence in their moral actions; which they would be more\ncautious of, in case they thought Him immediately present, and acting on\ntheir minds, without the interposition of Matter, or unthinking second\ncauses.\u2014Then in _Metaphysics_: what difficulties concerning entity in\nabstract, substantial forms, hylarchic principles, plastic natures,(921)\nsubstance and accident, principle of individuation, possibility of\nMatter\u2019s thinking, origin of ideas, the manner how two independent\nsubstances so widely different as _Spirit_ and _Matter_, should mutually\noperate on each other? what difficulties, I say, and endless\ndisquisitions, concerning these and innumerable other the like points, do\nwe escape, by supposing only Spirits and ideas?\u2014Even the _Mathematics_\nthemselves, if we take away the absolute existence of extended things,\nbecome much more clear and easy; the most shocking paradoxes and intricate\nspeculations in those sciences depending on the infinite divisibility of\nfinite extension; which depends on that supposition.\u2014But what need is\nthere to insist on the particular sciences? Is not that opposition to all\nscience whatsoever, that frenzy of the ancient and modern Sceptics, built\non the same foundation? Or can you produce so much as one argument against\nthe reality of corporeal things, or in behalf of that avowed utter\nignorance of their natures, which doth not suppose their reality to\nconsist in an external absolute existence? Upon this supposition, indeed,\nthe objections from the change of colours in a pigeon\u2019s neck, or the\nappearance of the broken oar in the water, must be allowed to have weight.\nBut these and the like objections vanish, if we do not maintain the being\nof absolute external originals, but place the reality of things in ideas,\nfleeting indeed, and changeable;\u2014however, not changed at random, but\naccording to the fixed order of nature. For, herein consists that\nconstancy and truth of things which secures all the concerns of life, and\ndistinguishes that which is _real_ from the _irregular visions_ of the\nfancy(922).\n\n_Hyl._ I agree to all you have now said, and must own that nothing can\nincline me to embrace your opinion more than the advantages I see it is\nattended with. I am by nature lazy; and this would be a mighty abridgment\nin knowledge. What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement,\nwhat fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be\navoided by that single notion of _Immaterialism_!\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n_Phil._ After all, is there anything farther remaining to be done? You may\nremember you promised to embrace that opinion which upon examination\nshould appear most agreeable to Common Sense and remote from Scepticism.\nThis, by your own confession, is that which denies Matter, or the\n_absolute_ existence of corporeal things. Nor is this all; the same notion\nhas been proved several ways, viewed in different lights, pursued in its\nconsequences, and all objections against it cleared. Can there be a\ngreater evidence of its truth? or is it possible it should have all the\nmarks of a true opinion and yet be false?\n\n_Hyl._ I own myself entirely satisfied for the present in all respects.\nBut, what security can I have that I shall still continue the same full\nassent to your opinion, and that no unthought-of objection or difficulty\nwill occur hereafter?\n\n_Phil._ Pray, Hylas, do you in other cases, when a point is once evidently\nproved, withhold your consent on account of objections or difficulties it\nmay be liable to? Are the difficulties that attend the doctrine of\nincommensurable quantities, of the angle of contact, of the asymptotes to\ncurves, or the like, sufficient to make you hold out against mathematical\ndemonstration? Or will you disbelieve the Providence of God, because there\nmay be some particular things which _you_ know not how to reconcile with\nit? If there are difficulties attending _Immaterialism_, there are at the\nsame time direct and evident proofs of it. But for the existence of\nMatter(923) there is not one proof, and far more numerous and\ninsurmountable objections lie against it. But where are those mighty\ndifficulties you insist on? Alas! you know not where or what they are;\nsomething which may possibly occur hereafter. If this be a sufficient\npretence for withholding your full assent, you should never yield it to\nany proposition, how free soever from exceptions, how clearly and solidly\nsoever demonstrated.\n\n_Hyl._ You have satisfied me, Philonous.\n\n_Phil._ But, to arm you against all future objections, do but consider:\nThat which bears equally hard on two contradictory opinions can be proof\nagainst neither. Whenever, therefore, any difficulty occurs, try if you\ncan find a solution for it on the hypothesis of the _Materialists_. Be not\ndeceived by words; but sound your own thoughts. And in case you cannot\nconceive it easier by the help of _Materialism_, it is plain it can be no\nobjection against _Immaterialism_. Had you proceeded all along by this\nrule, you would probably have spared yourself abundance of trouble in\nobjecting; since of all your difficulties I challenge you to shew one that\nis explained by Matter: nay, which is not more unintelligible with than\nwithout that supposition; and consequently makes rather _against_ than\n_for_ it. You should consider, in each particular, whether the difficulty\narises from the _non-existence of Matter_. If it doth not, you might as\nwell argue from the infinite divisibility of extension against the Divine\nprescience, as from such a difficulty against _Immaterialism_. And yet,\nupon recollection, I believe you will find this to have been often, if not\nalways, the case. You should likewise take heed not to argue on a _petitio\nprincipii_. One is apt to say\u2014The unknown substances ought to be esteemed\nreal things, rather than the ideas in our minds: and who can tell but the\nunthinking external substance may concur, as a cause or instrument, in the\nproductions of our ideas? But is not this proceeding on a supposition that\nthere are such external substances? And to suppose this, is it not begging\nthe question? But, above all things, you should beware of imposing on\nyourself by that vulgar sophism which is called _ignoratio clenchi_. You\ntalked often as if you thought I maintained the non-existence of Sensible\nThings. Whereas in truth no one can be more thoroughly assured of their\nexistence than I am. And it is you who doubt; I should have said,\npositively deny it. Everything that is seen, felt, heard, or any way\nperceived by the senses, is, on the principles I embrace, a real being;\nbut not on yours. Remember, the Matter you contend for is an Unknown\nSomewhat (if indeed it may be termed _somewhat_), which is quite stripped\nof all sensible qualities, and can neither be perceived by sense, nor\napprehended by the mind. Remember, I say, that it is not any object which\nis hard or soft, hot or cold, blue or white, round or square, &c. For all\nthese things I affirm do exist. Though indeed I deny they have an\nexistence distinct from being perceived; or that they exist out of all\nminds whatsoever. Think on these points; let them be attentively\nconsidered and still kept in view. Otherwise you will not comprehend the\nstate of the question; without which your objections will always be wide\nof the mark, and, instead of mine, may possibly be directed (as more than\nonce they have been) against your own notions.\n\n_Hyl._ I must needs own, Philonous, nothing seems to have kept me from\nagreeing with you more than this same _mistaking the question_. In denying\nMatter, at first glimpse I am tempted to imagine you deny the things we\nsee and feel: but, upon reflexion, find there is no ground for it. What\nthink you, therefore, of retaining the name _Matter_, and applying it to\n_sensible things_? This may be done without any change in your sentiments:\nand, believe me, it would be a means of reconciling them to some persons\nwho may be more shocked at an innovation in words than in opinion.\n\n_Phil._ With all my heart: retain the word _Matter,_ and apply it to the\nobjects of sense, if you please; provided you do not attribute to them any\nsubsistence distinct from their being perceived. I shall never quarrel\nwith you for an expression. _Matter_, or _material substance_, are terms\nintroduced by philosophers; and, as used by them, imply a sort of\nindependency, or a subsistence distinct from being perceived by a mind:\nbut are never used by common people; or, if ever, it is to signify the\nimmediate objects of sense. One would think, therefore, so long as the\nnames of all particular things, with the terms _sensible_, _substance_,\n_body_, _stuff_, and the like, are retained, the word _Matter_ should be\nnever missed in common talk. And in philosophical discourses it seems the\nbest way to leave it quite out: since there is not, perhaps, any one thing\nthat hath more favoured and strengthened the depraved bent of the mind\ntowards Atheism than the use of that general confused term.\n\n_Hyl._ Well but, Philonous, since I am content to give up the notion of an\nunthinking substance exterior to the mind, I think you ought not to deny\nme the privilege of using the word _Matter_ as I please, and annexing it\nto a collection of sensible qualities subsisting only in the mind. I\nfreely own there is no other substance, in a strict sense, than _Spirit_.\nBut I have been so long accustomed to the _term Matter_ that I know not\nhow to part with it: to say, there is no _Matter_ in the world, is still\nshocking to me. Whereas to say\u2014There is no _Matter_, if by that term be\nmeant an unthinking substance existing without the mind; but if by\n_Matter_ is meant some sensible thing, whose existence consists in being\nperceived, then there is _Matter_:\u2014this distinction gives it quite another\nturn; and men will come into your notions with small difficulty, when they\nare proposed in that manner. For, after all, the controversy about\n_Matter_ in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between you and\nthe philosophers: whose principles, I acknowledge, are not near so\nnatural, or so agreeable to the common sense of mankind, and Holy\nScripture, as yours. There is nothing we either desire or shun but as it\nmakes, or is apprehended to make, some part of our happiness or misery.\nBut what hath happiness or misery, joy or grief, pleasure or pain, to do\nwith Absolute Existence; or with unknown entities, _abstracted from all\nrelation to us_? It is evident, things regard us only as they are pleasing\nor displeasing: and they can please or displease only so far forth as they\nare perceived. Farther, therefore, we are not concerned; and thus far you\nleave things as you found them. Yet still there is something new in this\ndoctrine. It is plain, I do not now think with the philosophers; nor yet\naltogether with the vulgar. I would know how the case stands in that\nrespect; precisely, what you have added to, or altered in my former\nnotions.\n\n_Phil._ I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions. My endeavours\ntend only to unite, and place in a clearer light, that truth which was\nbefore shared between the vulgar and the philosophers:\u2014the former being of\nopinion, that _those things they immediately perceive are the real\nthings_; and the latter, that _the things immediately perceived are ideas,\nwhich exist only in the mind_(924). Which two notions put together, do, in\neffect, constitute the substance of what I advance.\n\n_Hyl._ I have been a long time distrusting my senses: methought I saw\nthings by a dim light and through false glasses. Now the glasses are\nremoved and a new light breaks in upon my understanding. I am clearly\nconvinced that I see things in their native forms, and am no longer in\npain about their _unknown natures_ or _absolute existence_. This is the\nstate I find myself in at present; though, indeed, the course that brought\nme to it I do not yet thoroughly comprehend. You set out upon the same\nprinciples that Academics, Cartesians, and the like sects usually do; and\nfor a long time it looked as if you were advancing their philosophical\nScepticism: but, in the end, your conclusions are directly opposite to\ntheirs.\n\n_Phil._ You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forced\nupwards, in a round column, to a certain height; at which it breaks, and\nfalls back into the basin from whence it rose: its ascent, as well as\ndescent, proceeding from the same uniform law or principle of gravitation.\nJust so, the same Principles which, at first view, lead to Scepticism,\npursued to a certain point, bring men back to Common Sense.\n\n\n\n\n\nDE MOTU: SIVE; DE MOTUS PRINCIPIO ET NATURA, ET DE CAUSA COMMUNICATIONIS\nMOTUUM\n\n\n_First published in 1721_\n\n\n\n\nEditor\u2019s Preface To De Motu\n\n\nThis Latin dissertation on Motion, or change of place in the component\natoms of the material world, was written in 1720, when Berkeley was\nreturning to Ireland, after he had spent some years in Italy, on leave of\nabsence from Trinity College. A prize for an essay on the \u201cCause of\nMotion,\u201d had, it seems, been offered in that year by the Paris Academy of\nSciences. The subject suggested an advance on the line of thought pursued\nin Berkeley\u2019s _Principles_ and _Dialogues_. The mind-dependent reality of\nthe material world, prominent in those works, was in them insisted on, not\nas a speculative paradox, but mainly in order to shew the spiritual\ncharacter of the Power that is continually at work throughout the\nuniverse. This essay on what was thus a congenial subject was finished at\nLyons, and published early in 1721, soon after Berkeley arrived in London.\nIt was reprinted in his _Miscellany_ in 1752. I have not found evidence\nthat it was ever submitted to the French Academy. At any rate the prize\nwas awarded to Crousaz, the well-known logician and professor of\nphilosophy at Lausanne.\n\nThe _De Motu_ is interesting biographically as well as philosophically, as\na revelation of Berkeley\u2019s way of thinking about the causal relations of\nMatter and Spirit seven years after the publication of the _Dialogues_. In\n1713 his experience of life was confined to Ireland. Now, after months in\nLondon, in the society of Swift, and Pope, and Addison, he had observed\nnature and men in France and Italy. His eager temperament and\nextraordinary social charm opened the way in those years of travel to\nfrequent intercourse with famous men. This, for the time, superseded\ncontroversy with materialism and scepticism, and diverted his enthusiasm\nto nature and high art. One likes to see how he handles the old questions\nas they now arise in the philosophical treatment of motion in space, which\nwas regarded by many as the key to all other phenomena presented in the\nmaterial world.\n\nFor one thing, the unreality of the data of sense after total abstraction\nof living mind, the chief Principle in the earlier works, lies more in the\nbackground in the _De Motu_. Yet it is tacitly assumed, as the basis of an\nargument for the powerlessness of all sensible things, and for refunding\nall active power in the universe into conscious agency. _Mens agitat\nmolem_ might be taken as a motto for the _De Motu_. Then there is more\nfrequent reference to scientific and philosophical authorities than in his\nmore juvenile treatises. Plato and Aristotle are oftener in view. Italy\nseems to have introduced him to the physical science of Borelli and\nTorricelli. Leibniz, who died in 1716, when Berkeley was in Italy, is\nnamed by him for the first time in the _De Motu_. Perhaps he had learned\nsomething when he was abroad about the most illustrious philosopher of the\ntime. And it is interesting by the way to find in one of those years what\nis, I think, the only allusion to Berkeley by Leibniz. It is contained in\none of the German philosopher\u2019s letters to Des Bosses, in 1715. \u201cQui in\nHybernia corporum realitatem impugnat,\u201d Leibniz writes, \u201cvidetur nec\nrationes afferre idoneas, nee mentem suam satis explicare. Suspicor esse\nex eo hominum genere qui per Paradoxa cognosci volunt.\u201d This sentence is\ninteresting on account of the writer, although it suggests vague, and\nperhaps second-hand knowledge of the Irishman and his principles. The name\nof Hobbes does not appear in the _De Motu_. Yet one might have expected\nit, in consideration of the supreme place which motion takes in his\nsystem, which rests upon the principle that all changes in the universe\nmay be resolved into change of place.\n\nIn the _De Motu_ the favourite language of ideal realism is abandoned for\nthe most part. \u201cBodies,\u201d not \u201cideas of sense,\u201d are contrasted with mind or\nspirit, although body still means significant appearance presented to the\nsenses. Indeed the term _idea_ occurs less often in this and the\nsubsequent writings of Berkeley.\n\nI will now give some account of salient features in the _De Motu_.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nLike the _Principles_ the tract opens with a protest against the empty\nabstractions, and consequent frivolous discussions, which even mechanical\nscience had countenanced although dealing with matters so obvious to sense\nas the phenomena of motion. _Force_, _effort_, _solicitation of gravity_,\n_nisus_, are examples of abstract terms connected with motion, to which\nnothing in what is presented to the senses is found to correspond. Yet\ncorporeal power is spoken of as if it were something perceptible by sense,\nand so found _within_ the bodies we see and touch (sect. 1-3).\n\nBut it turns out differently when philosophers and naturalists try to\nimagine the _physical force_ that is supposed to inhabit bodies, and to\nexplain their motions. The conception of motion has been the parent of\ninnumerable paradoxes and seeming contradictions among ancient Greek\nthinkers; for it presents, in a striking form, the metaphysical\ndifficulties in the way of a reconciliation of the One and the\nMany\u2014difficulties which Berkeley had already attributed to perverse\nabstractions, with which philosophers amused themselves and blocked up the\nway to concrete knowledge; first wantonly raising a dust, and then\ncomplaining that they could not see. Nor has modern mechanical science in\nthis respect fared better than the old philosophies. Even its leaders,\nTorricelli, for instance, and Leibniz, offer us scholastic shadows\u2014empty\nmetaphysical abstractions\u2014when they speak about an active power that is\nsupposed to be lodged within the things of sense. Torricelli tells us that\nthe forces within the things around us, and within our own bodies, are\n\u201csubtle quintessences, enclosed in a corporeal substance as in the\nenchanted vase of Circe\u201d; and Leibniz speaks of their active powers as\ntheir \u201csubstantial form,\u201d whatever that can be conceived to mean. Others\ncall the power to which change of place is due, the hylarchic principle,\nan appetite in bodies, a spontaneity inherent in them; or they assume\nthat, besides their extension, solidity, and other qualities which appear\nin sense, there is also something named force, latent in them if not\npatent\u2014in all which we have a flood of words, empty of concrete thought.\nAt best the language is metaphorical (sect. 2-9).\n\nFor showing the active cause at work in the production of motion in\nbodies, it is of no avail to name, as if it were a datum of sense, what is\nnot presentable to our senses. Let us, instead, turn to the only other\nsort of data in realised experience. For we find only two sorts of\nrealities in experience, the one sort revealed by our senses, the other by\ninward consciousness. We can affirm nothing about the contents of _bodies_\nexcept what our senses present, namely, concrete things, extended,\nfigured, solid, having also innumerable other qualities, which seem all to\ndepend upon change of place in the things, or in their constituent\nparticles. The contents of _mind_ or _spirit_, on the other hand, are\ndisclosed to inner consciousness, which reveals a sentient Ego that is\nactively percipient and exertive. And it must be in the second of these\ntwo concrete revelations of reality, that active causation, on which\nmotion and all other change depends, is to be found\u2014not in empty\nabstractions, covered by words like _power_, _cause_, _force_, or _nisus_,\nwhich correspond to nothing perceived by the senses (sect. 21).\n\nSo that which we call body presents _within itself_ nothing in which\nchange of place or state can originate causally. Extension, figure,\nsolidity, and all the other perceptible constituents of bodies are\nappearances only\u2014passive phenomena, which succeed one another in an\norderly cosmical procession, on which doubtless our pains and pleasures\nlargely depend. But there is no sensibly perceptible power found among\nthose sensuous appearances. They can only be _caused causes_, adapted, as\nwe presuppose, to signify to us what we may expect to follow that\nappearance. The reason of their significance, i.e. of the constancy of\ntheir sequences and coexistences, must be sought for _outside of\nthemselves_. Experimental research may discover new terms among the\ncorrelated cosmical sequences or coexistences, but the newly discovered\nterms must still be only passive phenomena previously unperceived. Body\nmeans only what is presentable to the senses. Those who attribute to it\nsomething not perceptible by sense, which they call the force or power in\nwhich its motions originate, say in other words that the origin of motion\nis unknowable by sense (sect. 22-24).\n\nTurn now from things of sense, the data of perception, to Mind or Spirit,\nas revealed in inner consciousness. Here we have a deeper and more real\nrevelation of what underlies, or is presupposed in, the passive cosmical\nprocession that is presented to the senses. Our inward consciousness\nplainly shews the thinking being actually _exercising_ power to move its\nanimated body. We find that we can, by a causal exertion of which we are\ndistinctly conscious, either excite or arrest movements in bodies. In\nvoluntary exertion we have thus a concrete example of force or power,\n_producing_ and not merely _followed by_ motion. In the case of human\nvolition this is no doubt conditioned power; nevertheless it exemplifies\nPower on a greater scale than human, even Divine power, universally and\ncontinuously operative, in all natural motions, and in the cosmical laws\naccording to which they proceed (sect. 25-30).\n\nThus those who pretend to find force or active causation _within_ bodies,\npretend to find what their sensuous experience does not support, and they\nhave to sustain their pretence by unintelligible language. On the other\nhand, those who explain motion by referring it to conscious exertion of\npersonal agents, say what is supported by their own consciousness, and\nconfirmed by high authorities, including Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle,\nDescartes, and Newton, demonstrating that in Spirit only do we find power\nto change its own state, as well as the states and mutual relations of\nbodies. Motion in nature is God continuously acting (sect. 31-34). But\nphysical science is conveniently confined to the order of the passive\nprocession of sensuous appearances, including experiments in quest of the\nrules naturally exemplified in the motions of bodies: reasoning on\nmathematical and mechanical principles, it leaves the contemplation of\nactive causation to a more exalted science (sect. 35-42).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nIn all this it can hardly be said that Berkeley has in this adequately\nsounded the depths of Causation. He proclaims inability to find through\nhis senses more than sequence of significant sensuous appearances, which\nare each and all empty of active power; while he apparently insists that\nhe _has_ found active power in the mere _feeling __ of exertion_; which\nafter all, as such, is only one sort of antecedent sign of the motion that\nis found to follow it. This is still only sequence of phenomena; not\nactive power. But is not causation a relation that cannot be truly\npresented empirically, either in outer or inner consciousness? And is not\nthe Divine order that is presupposed by us in all change, a presupposition\nthat is inevitable in trustworthy intercourse with a changing universe;\nunless we are to confess _atheistically_, that our whole sensuous\nexperience may in the end put us to utter confusion? The passive, uneasy\nfeeling of strain, more or less involved in the effort to move our bodies\nand their surroundings, is no doubt apt to be confused with active\ncausation; for as David Hume remarks, \u201cthe animal _nisus_ which we\nexperience, though it can afford no accurate precise idea of power, enters\nvery much into the vulgar, inaccurate idea which is formed of it.\u201d So when\nBerkeley supposes that he has found a concrete example of originating\npower in the _nisus_ of which we are conscious when we move our bodies, he\nis surely too easily satisfied. The _nisus_ followed by motion is, _per\nse_, only a natural sequence, a caused cause, which calls for an\noriginating cause that is _absolutely_ responsible for the movement. Is\nnot the index to this absolutely responsible agency an ethical one, which\npoints to a free moral agent as alone necessarily connected with, or\nresponsible for, the changes which _he can_ control? Persons are causally\nresponsible for their own actions; and are accordingly pronounced good or\nevil on account of acts of will that are not mere caused causes\u2014passively\ndependent terms in the endless succession of cosmical change. They must\noriginate in self, be absolutely self-referable, in a word supernatural\nissues of the personality. Moral reason implies that they are not\ndetermined _ab extra_, and so points to moral agents as our only concrete\nexamples of independent power; but this only so far as those issues go for\nwhich they are morally responsible. Is not faith in the Universal Power\nnecessarily faith-venture in the absolutely perfect and trustworthy moral\nagency of God?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nWhile the principle of Causation, in its application to change of place on\nthe part of bodies and their constituent atoms, is the leading thought in\nthe _De Motu_, this essay also investigates articulately the nature of the\nphenomenon which we call _motion_ (sect. 43-66). It assumes that motion is\nonly an effect, seeing that no one who reflects can doubt that what is\npresented to our senses in the case of motion is altogether passive: there\nis nothing in the successive appearance of the same body in different\nplaces that involves action on the part of either of the moving or the\nmoved body, or that can be more than inert effect (sect. 49). And all\nconcrete motion, it is assumed, must be something that can be perceived by\nour senses. Accordingly it must be a perceptible _relation between\nbodies_, as far as it is bodily: it could make no appearance at all if\nspace contained only one solitary body: a plurality of bodies is\nindispensable to its appearance. Absolute motion of a solitary body, in\notherwise absolutely empty space, is an unmeaning abstraction, a\ncollocation of empty words. This leads into an inquiry about relative\nspace as well as relative place, and the intelligibility of absolute\nspace, place, and motion (sect. 52-64).\n\nLocal motion is unintelligible unless we understand the meaning of\n_space_. Now some philosophers distinguish between absolute space, which\nwith them is ultimately the only real space, and that which is conditioned\nby the senses, or relative. The former is said to be boundless, pervading\nand embracing the material world, but not itself presentable to our\nsenses; the other is the space marked out or differentiated by bodies\ncontained in it, and it is in this way exposed to our senses (sect. 52).\nWhat must remain after the annihilation of all bodies in the universe is\nrelativeless, undifferentiated, absolute space, of which all attributes\nare denied, even its so-called extension being neither divisible nor\nmeasurable; necessarily imperceptible by sense, unimaginable, and\nunintelligible, in every way unrealisable in experience; so that the words\nemployed about it denote _nothing_ (sect. 53).\n\nIt follows that we must not speak of the real space which a body occupies\nas part of a space that is necessarily abstracted from all sentient\nexperience; nor of real motion as change within absolute space, without\nany relation between bodies, either perceived or conceived. All change of\nplace in one body must be relative to other bodies, among which the moving\nbody is supposed to change its place\u2014our own bodies which we animate being\nof course recognised among the number. Motion, it is argued, is\nunintelligible, as well as imperceptible and unimaginable, without some\nrelation between the moving body and at least one other body: the truth of\nthis is tested when we try to suppose the annihilation of all other\nbodies, our own included, and retain only a solitary globe: absolute\nmotion is found unthinkable. So that, on the whole, to see what motion\nmeans we must rise above the mathematical postulates that are found\nconvenient in mechanical science; we must beware of empty abstractions; we\nmust treat motion as something that is real only so far as it is presented\nto our senses, and remain modestly satisfied with the perceived relations\nunder which it then appears (sect. 65-66).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nFinally, is motion, thus explained, something that can be spoken of as an\nentity communicable from one body to another body? May we think of it as a\ndatum of sense existing in the striking body, and then passing from it\ninto the struck body, the one losing exactly as much as the other\nreceives? (sect. 67). Deeper thought finds in those questions only a\nrevival of the previously exploded postulate of \u201cforce\u201d as _something\nsensible_, yet distinct from all the significant appearances sense\npresents. The language used may perhaps be permitted in mathematical\nhypotheses, or postulates of mechanical science, in which we do not intend\nto go to the root of things. But the obvious fact is, that the moving body\nshews less perceptible motion, and the moved body more. To dispute whether\nthe perceptible motion acquired is numerically the same with that lost\nleads into frivolous verbal controversy about Identity and Difference, the\nOne and the Many, which it was Berkeley\u2019s aim to expel from science, and\nso to simplify its procedure and result. Whether we say that motion passes\nfrom the striking body into the struck, or that it is generated anew\nwithin the struck body and annihilated in the striking, we make virtually\nthe same statement. In each way of expression the facts remain, that the\none body presents perceptible increase of its motion and the other\ndiminution. Mind or Spirit is the active cause of all that we then see.\nYet in mechanical science\u2014which explains things only physically, by\nshewing the significant connexion of events with their mechanical\nrules\u2014terms which seem to imply the conveyance of motion out of one body\ninto another may be pardoned, in consideration of the limits within which\nphysical science is confined, and its narrower point of view. In physics\nwe confine ourselves to the sensuous signs which arise in experience, and\ntheir natural interpretation, in all which mathematical hypotheses are\nfound convenient; so that gravitation, for example, and other natural\nrules of procedure, are spoken of as _causes_ of the events which conform\nto them, no account being taken of the Active Power that is ultimately\nresponsible for the rules. For the Active Power in which we live, move,\nand have our being, is not a datum of sense; meditation brings it into\nlight. But to pursue this thought would carry us beyond the physical laws\nof Motion (sect. 69-72).\n\nThe _De Motu_ may be compared with what we found in the _Principles_,\nsect. 25-28 and 101-117. The total powerlessness of the significant\nappearances presented to the senses, and the omnipotence of Mind in the\neconomy of external nature, is its chief philosophical lesson.\n\n\n\n\nDe Motu\n\n\n1. Ad veritatem inveniendam pr\u00e6cipuum est cavisse ne voces males\nintellect\u00e6(925) nobis officiant: quod omnes fere monent philosophi, pauci\nobservant. Quanquam id quidem haud adeo difficile videtur, in rebus\npr\u00e6sertim physicis tractandis, ubi locum habent sensus, experientia, et\nratiocinium geometricum. Seposito igitur, quantum licet, omni pr\u00e6judicio,\ntam a loquendi consuetudine quam a philosphorum auctoritate nato, ipsa\nrerum natura diligenter inspicienda. Neque enim cujusquam auctoritatem\nusque adeo valere oportet, ut verba ejus et voces in pretio sint, dummodo\nnihil clari et certi iis subesse comperiatur.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n2. Motus contemplatio mire torsit veterum philosophorum(926) mentes, unde\nnat\u00e6 sunt vari\u00e6 opiniones supra modem difficiles, ne dicam absurd\u00e6; qu\u00e6,\nquum jam fere in desuetudinem abierint, haud merentur ut iis discutiendis\nnimio studio immoremur. Apud recentiores autem et saniores hujus \u00e6vi\nphilosophos(927), ubi de Motu agitur, vocabula haud pauca abstract\u00e6 nimium\net obscur\u00e6 significationis occurrunt, cujusmodi sunt _solicitatio\ngravitatis_, _conatus_, _vires mortu\u00e6_, &c., qu\u00e6 scriptis, alioqui\ndoctissimis, tenebras offundunt, sententiisque non minus a vero, quam a\nsensu hominum communi abhorrentibus, ortum pr\u00e6bent. H\u00e6c vero necesse est\nut, veritatis gratia, non alios refellendi studio, accurate discutiantur.\n\n3. _Solicitatio_ et _nisus_, sive _conatus_, rebus solummodo animatis\nrevera competunt(928). Cum aliis rebus tribuuntur, sensu metaphorico\naccipiantur necesse est. A metaphoris autem abstinendum philosopho. Porro,\nseclusa omni tarn anim\u00e6 affectione quam corporis motione, nihil clari ac\ndistincti iis vocibus significari, cuilibet constabit qui modo rem serio\nperpenderit.\n\n4. Quamdiu corpora gravia a nobis sustinentur, sentimus in nobismet ipsis\nnisum, fatigationem, et molestiam. Percipimus etiam in gravibus cadentibus\nmotum acceleratum versus centrum telluris; ope sensuum pr\u00e6terea nihil.\nRatione tamen colligitur causam esse aliquam vel principium horum\nph\u00e6nomenon; illud autem _gravitas_ vulgo nuncupatur. Quoniam vero causa\ndescensus gravium c\u00e6ca sit et incognita, gravitas ea acceptione proprie\ndici nequit qualitas sensibilis; est igitur qualitas occulta. Sed vix, et\nne vix quidem, concipere licet quid sit qualitas occulta, aut qua ratione\nqualitas ulla agere aut operari quidquam possit. Melius itaque foret, si,\nmissa qualitate occulta, homines attenderent solummodo ad effectus\nsensibiles; vocibusque abstractis (quantumvis ill\u00e6 ad disserendum utiles\nsint) in meditatione omissis, mens in particularibus et concretis, hoc est\nin ipsis rebus, defigeretur.\n\n5. _Vis_(929) similiter corporibus tribuitur: usurpatur autem vocabulum\nillud, tanquam significaret qualitatem cognitam, distinctamque tarn a\nmotu, figura, omnique alia re sensibili, quam ab omni animalis affectione:\nid vero nihil aliud esse quam qualitatem _occultam_, rem acrius rimanti\nconstabit. Nisus animalis et motus corporeus vulgo spectantur tanquam\nsymptomata et mensur\u00e6 hujus qualitatis occult\u00e6.\n\n6. Patet igitur gravitatem aut vim frustra poni pro principio(930) motus:\nnunquid enim principium illud clarius cognosci potest ex eo quod dicatur\nqualitas occulta? Quod ipsum occultum est, nihil explicat: ut omittamus\ncausam agentem incognitam rectius dici posse substantiam quam qualitatem.\nPorro _vis_, _gravitas_, et istiusmodi voces, s\u00e6pius, nec inepte, in\nconcreto usurpantur; ita ut connotent corpus motum, difficultatem\nresistendi, &c. Ubi vero a philosophis adhibentur ad significandas naturas\nquasdam, ab hisce omnibus pr\u00e6cisas et abstractas, qu\u00e6 nec sensibus\nsubjiciuntur, nec ulla mentis vi intelligi nec imaginatione effingi(931)\npossunt, turn demum errores et confusionem pariunt.\n\n7. Multos autem in errorem ducit, quod voces generales et abstractas in\ndisserendo utiles esse videant, nec tamen earum vim satis capiant. Partim\nvero a consuetudine vulgari invent\u00e6 sunt ill\u00e6 ad sermonem abbreviandum,\npartim a philosophis ad docendum excogitat\u00e6; non quod ad naturas rerum\naccommodatas sint, qu\u00e6 quidem singulares et concret\u00e6 existunt; sed quod\nidone\u00e6 ad tradendas disciplinas, propterea quod faciant notiones, vel\nsaltem propositiones, universales(932).\n\n8. _Vim corpoream_ esse aliquid conceptu facile plerumque existimamus. Ii\ntamen qui rem accuratius inspexerunt in diversa sunt opinione; uti apparet\nex mira verborum obscuritate qua laborant, ubi illam explicare conantur.\nTorricellius ait vim et impetum esse res quasdam abstractas subtilesque et\nquintessentias, qu\u00e6 includuntur in substantia corporea, tanquam in vase\nmagico Circes(933). Leibnitius item in natur\u00e6 vi explicanda h\u00e6c habet\u2014_Vis\nactiva, primitiva, qu\u00e6 est \u1f10\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b7, anim\u00e6 vel form\u00e6 substantiali\n__ respondet_. Vide _Acta Erudit. Lips._ Usque adeo necesse est ut vel\nsummi viri, quamdiu abstractionibus indulgent, voces nulla certa\nsignificatione pr\u00e6ditas, et meras scholasticorum umbras sectentur. Alia ex\nneotericorum scriptis, nec pauca quidem ea, producere liceret; quibus\nabunde constaret, metaphysicas abstractiones non usquequaque cessisse\nmechanic\u00e6 et experimentis, sed negotium inane philosophis etiamnum\nfacessere.\n\n9. Ex illo fonte derivantur varia absurda, cujus generis est illud, _vim\npercussionis, utcunque exigu\u00e6, esse infinite magnam_. Quod sane supponit,\ngravitatem esse qualitatem quandam realem ab aliis omnibus diversam; et\ngravitationem esse quasi actum hujus qualitatis, a motu realiter\ndistinctum: minima autem percussio producit effectum majorem quam maxima\ngravitatio sine motu; ilia scilicet motum aliquem edit, h\u00e6c nullum. Unde\nsequitur, vim percussionis ratione infinita excedere vim gravitationis,\nhoc est, esse infinite magnam(934). Videantur experimenta Galil\u00e6i, et qu\u00e6\nde definita vi percussionis scripserunt Torricellius, Borellus, et alii.\n\n10. Veruntamen fatendum est vim nullam per se immediate sentiri; neque\naliter quam per effectum(935) cognosci et mensurari. Sed vis mortu\u00e6, seu\ngravitationis simplicis, in corpore quiescente subjecto, nulla facta\nmutatione, effectus nullus est; percussionis autem, effectus aliquis.\nQuoniam, ergo, vires sunt effectibus proportionales, concludere licet vim\nmortuam(936) esse nullam. Neque tamen propterea vim percussionis esse\ninfinitam: non enim oportet quantitatem ullam positivam habere pro\ninfinita, propterea quod ratione infinita superet quantitatem nullam sive\nnihil.\n\n11. Vis gravitationis a momento secerni nequit; momentum autem sine\nceleritate nullum est, quum sit moles in celeritatem ducta: porro\nceleritas sine motu intelligi non potest; ergo nec vis gravitationis.\nDeinde vis nulla nisi per actionem innotescit, et per eandem mensuratur;\nactionem autem corporis a motu pr\u00e6scindere non possumus; ergo quamdiu\ncorpus grave plumbi subjecti vel chord\u00e6 figuram mutat, tamdiu movetur; ubi\nvero quiescit, nihil agit, vel, quod idem est, agere prohibetur. Breviter,\nvoces ist\u00e6 _vis mortua_ et _gravitatio_, etsi per abstractionem\nmetaphysicam aliquid significare supponuntur diversum a movente, moto,\nmotu et quiete, revera tamen id totum nihil est.\n\n12. Siquis diceret pondus appensum vel impositum agere in chordam, quoniam\nimpedit quominus se restituat vi elastica: dico, pari ratione corpus\nquodvis inferum agere in superius incumbens, quoniam illud descendere\nprohibet: dici vero non potest actio corporis, quod prohibeat aliud corpus\nexistere in eo loco quern occupat.\n\n13. Pressionem corporis gravitantis quandoque sentimus. Verum sensio ista\nmolesta oritur ex motu corporis istius gravis fibris nervisque nostri\ncorporis communicato, et eorundem situm immutante; adeoque percussioni\naccepta referri debet. In hisce rebus multis et gravibus pr\u00e6judiciis\nlaboramus, sed illa acri atque iterata meditatione subigenda sunt(937),\nvel potius penitus averruncanda.\n\n14. Quo probetur quantitatem ullam esse infinitam, ostendi oportet partem\naliquam finitam homogeneam in ea infinities contineri. Sed vis mortua se\nhabet ad vim percussionis, non ut pars ad totum, sed ut punctum ad lineam,\njuxta ipsos vis infinit\u00e6 percussionis auctores. Multa in hanc rem adjicere\nliceret, sed vereor ne prolixus sim.\n\n15. Ex principiis pr\u00e6missis lites insignes solvi possunt, qu\u00e6 viros doctos\nmultum exercuerunt. Hujus rei exemplum sit controversia illa de\nproportione virium. Una pars dum concedit, momenta, motus, impetus, data\nmole, esse simpliciter ut velocitates, affirmat vires esse ut quadrata\nvelocitatum. Hanc autem sententiam supponere vim corporis distingui(938) a\nmomento, motu, et impetu; eaque suppositione sublata corruere, nemo non\nvidet.\n\n16. Quo clarius adhuc appareat, confusionem quandam miram per\nabstractiones metaphysicas in doctrinam de motu introductam esse, videamus\nquantum intersit inter notiones virorum celebrium de vi et impetu.\nLeibnitius impetum cum motu confundit. Juxta Newtonum(939) impetus revera\nidem est cum vi inerti\u00e6. Borellus(940) asserit impetum non aliud esse quam\ngradum velocitatis. Alii impetum et conatum inter se differre, alii non\ndifferre volunt. Plerique vim motricem motui proportionalem intelligunt.\nNonnulli aliam aliquam vim pr\u00e6ter motricem, et diversimode mensurandam,\nutpote per quadrata velocitatum in moles, intelligere _pr\u00e6_ se ferunt. Sed\ninfinitum esset h\u00e6c prosequi.\n\n17. _Vis_, _gravitas_, _attractio_, et hujusmodi voces, utiles(941) sunt\nad ratiocinia et computationes de motu et corporibus motis; sed non ad\nintelligendam simplicem ipsius motus naturam, vel ad qualitates totidem\ndistinctas designandas. Attractionem certe quod attinet, patet illam ab\nNewtono adhiberi, non tanquam qualitatem veram et physicam, sed solummodo\nut hypothesin mathematicam(942). Quinetiam Leibnitius, nisum elementarem\nseu solicitationem ab impetu distinguens, fatetur illa entia non re ipsa\ninveniri in rerum natura, sed abstractione facienda esse.\n\n18. Similis ratio est compositionis et resolutionis virium quarumcunque\ndirectarum in quascunque obliquas, per diagonalem et latera\nparallelogrammi. H\u00e6c mechanic\u00e6 et computationi inserviunt: sed aliud est\ncomputationi et demonstrationibus mathematicis inservire, aliud rerum\nnaturam exhibere.\n\n19. Ex recentioribus multi sunt in ea opinione, ut putent motum neque\ndestrui nec de novo gigni, sed eandem(943) semper motus quantitatem\npermanere. Aristoteles etiam dubium illud olim proposuit\u2014utrum motus\nfactus sit et corruptus, an vero ab \u00e6terno? _Phys._ lib. viii. Quod vero\nmotus sensibilis pereat, patet sensibus: illi autem eundem impetum, nisum,\naut summam virium eandem manere velle videntur. Unde affirmat Borellus,\nvim in percussione non imminui, sed expandi; impetus etiam contrarios\nsuscipi et retineri in eodem corpore. Item Leibnitius nisum ubique et\nsemper esse in materia, et ubi non patet sensibus, ratione intelligi\ncontendit.\u2014H\u00e6c autem nimis abstracta esse et obscura, ejusdemque fere\ngeneris cum formis substantialibus et entelechiis, fatendum.\n\n20. Quotquot ad explicandam motus causam atque originem, vel principio\nhylarchico, vel natur\u00e6 indigentia, vel appetitu, aut denique instinctu\nnaturali utuntur, dixisse aliquid potius quam cogitasse censendi sunt.\nNeque ab hisce multum absunt qui supposuerint(944) _partes terr\u00e6 esse se\nmoventes, aut etiam spiritus iis implantatos ad instar form\u00e6_, ut\nassignent causam accelerationis gravium cadentium: aut qui dixerit(945),\n_in corpore pr\u00e6ter solidam extensionem debere etiam poni aliquid unde\nvirium consideratio oriatur_. Siquidem hi omnes vel nihil particulare et\ndeterminatum enuntiant; vel, si quid sit, tarn difficile erit illud\nexplicare, quam id ipsum cujus explicandi causa adducitur(946).\n\n21. Frustra ad naturam illustrandam adhibentur ea qu\u00e6 nec sensibus patent,\nnec ratione intelligi possunt. Videndum ergo quid sensus, quid\nexperientia, quid demum ratio iis innixa, suadeat. Duo sunt summa rerum\ngenera\u2014_corpus_ et _anima_. Rem extensam, solidam, mobilem, figuratam,\naliisque qualitatibus qu\u00e6 sensibus occurrunt pr\u00e6ditam, ope sensuum; rem\nvero sentientem, percipientem, intelligentem, conscientia quadam interna\ncognovimus. Porro, res istas plane inter se diversas esse, longeque\nheterogeneas, cernimus. Loquor autem de rebus cognitis: de incognitis enim\ndisserere nil juvat(947).\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n22. Totum id quod novimus, cui nomen _corpus_ indidimus, nihil _in se_\ncontinet quod motus principium seu causa efficiens esse possit. Etenim\nimpenetrabilitas, extensio, figura nullam includunt vel connotant\npotentiam producendi motum; quinimo e contrario non modo illas, verum\netiam alias, quotquot sint, corporis qualitates sigillatim percurrentes,\nvidebimus omnes esse revera passivas, nihilque iis activum inesse, quod\nullo modo intelligi possit tanquam fons et principium motus(948).\nGravitatem quod attinet, voce illa nihil cognitum et ab ipso effectu\nsensibili, cujus causa qu\u00e6ritur, diversum significari jam ante ostendimus.\nEt sane quando corpus grave dicimus, nihil aliud intelligimus, nisi quod\nferatur deorsum; de causa hujus effectus sensibilis nihil omnino\ncogitantes.\n\n23. De corpore itaque audacter pronunciare licet, utpote de re comperta,\nquod non sit principium motus. Quod si quisquam, pr\u00e6ter solidam\nextensionem ejusque modificationes, vocem _corpus_ qualitatem etiam\n_occultam_, virtutem, formam, essentiam complecti sua significatione\ncontendat; licet quidem illi inutili negotio sine ideis disputare, et\nnominibus nihil distincte exprimentibus abuti. C\u00e6terum sanior\nphilosophandi ratio videtur ab notionibus abstractis et generalibus (si\nmodo notiones dici debent qu\u00e6 intelligi nequeunt) quantum fieri potest\nabstinuisse.\n\n24. Quicquid continetur in idea corporis novimus; quod vero novimus in\ncorpore, id non esse principium motus constat(949). Qui pr\u00e6terea aliquid\nincognitum in corpore, cujus ideam nullam habent, comminiscuntur, quod\nmotus principium dicant, ii revera nihil aliud quam _principium motus esse\nincognitum_ dicunt. Sed hujusmodi subtilitatibus diutius immorari piget.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n25. Pr\u00e6ter res corporeas alterum est _genus rerum cogitantium_(950). In\niis autem potentiam inesse corpora movendi, propria experientia\ndidicimus(951); quandoquidem anima nostra pro lubitu possit ciere et\nsistere membrorum motus, quacunque tandem ratione id fiat. Hoc certe\nconstat, corpora moveri ad nutum anim\u00e6; eamque proinde haud inepte dici\nposse principium motus: particulare quidem et subordinatum, quodque ipsum\ndependeat a primo et universali Principio(952).\n\n26. Corpora gravia feruntur deorsum, etsi nullo impulsu apparente agitata;\nnon tamen existimandum propterea in iis contineri principium motus: cujus\nrei hanc rationem assignat Aristoteles(953);\u2014_Gravia et levia_ (inquit)\n_non moventur a seipsis; id enim vitale esset, et se sistere possent_.\nGravia omnia una eademque certa et constanti lege centrum telluris petunt,\nneque in ipsis animadvertitur principium vel facultas ulla motum istum\nsistendi, minuendi, vel, nisi pro rata proportione, augendi, aut denique\nullo modo immutandi: habent adeo se passive. Porro idem, stricte et\naccurate loquendo, dicendum de corporibus percussivis. Corpora ista\nquamdiu moventur, ut et in ipso percussionis momento, si gerunt passive,\nperinde scilicet atque cum quiescunt. Corpus iners tam agit quam corpus\nmotum, si res ad verum exigatur: id quod agnoscit Newtonus, ubi ait, vim\ninerti\u00e6 esse eandem cum impetu(954). Corpus autem iners et quietum nihil\nagit, ergo nee motum.\n\n27. Revera corpus \u00e6que perseverat in utrovis statu, vel motus vel quietis.\nIsta vero perseverantia non magis dicenda est actio corporis, quam\nexistentia ejusdem actio diceretur. Perseverantia nihil aliud est quam\ncontinuatio in eodem modo existendi, qu\u00e6 proprie dici actio non potest.\nC\u00e6terum resistentiam, quam experimur in sistendo corpore moto, ejus\nactionem esse fingimus vana specie delusi. Revera enim ista resistentia\nquam sentimus(955), passio est in nobis, neque arguit corpus agere, sed\nnos pati: constat utique nos idem passuros fuisse, sive corpus illud a se\nmoveatur, sive ab alio principio impellatur.\n\n28. Actio et reactio dicuntur esse in corporibus: nec incommode ad\ndemonstrationes mechanicas(956). Sed cavendum, ne propterea supponamus\nvirtutem aliquam realem, qu\u00e6 motus causa sive principium sit, esse in iis.\nEtenim voces ill\u00e6 eodem modo intelligend\u00e6 sunt ac vox _attractio_; et\nquemadmodum h\u00e6c est hypothesis solummodo mathematica(957), non autem\nqualitas physica: idem etiam de illis intelligi debet, et ob eandem\nrationem. Nam sicut veritas et usus theorematum de mutua corporum\nattractione in philosophia mechanica stabiles manent, utpote unice fundati\nin motu corporum, sive motus iste causari supponatur per actionem corporum\nse mutuo attrahentium, sive per actionem agentis alicujus a corporibus\ndiversi impellentis et moderantis corpora; pari ratione, qu\u00e6cunque tradita\nsunt de regulis et legibus motuum, simul ac theoremata inde deducta,\nmanent inconcussa, dum modo concedantur effectus sensibiles, et ratiocinia\niis innixa; sive supponamus actionem ipsam, aut vim horum effectuum\ncausatricem, esse in corpore, sive in agente incorporeo.\n\n29. Auferantur ex idea corporis extensio, soliditas, figura, remanebit\nnihil(958). Sed qualitates ist\u00e6 sunt ad motum indifferentes, nec in se\nquidquam habent quod motus principium dici possit. Hoc ex ipsis ideis\nnostris perspicuum est. Si igitur voce _corpus_ significatur id quod\nconcipimus, plane constat inde non peti posse principium motus: pars\nscilicet nulla aut attributum illius causa efficiens vera est, qu\u00e6 motum\nproducat. Vocem autem proferre, et nihil concipere, id demum indignum\nesset philosopho.\n\n30. Datur res cogitans, activa, quam principium motus ... in nobis\nexperimur(959). Hanc _animam_, _mentem_, _spiritum_ ... Datur etiam res\nextensa, iners, impenetrabilis, ... qu\u00e6 a priori toto c\u0153lo differt,\nnovumque genus(960) ... Quantum intersit inter res cogitantes et extensas,\nprimus omnium deprehendens Anaxagoras, vir longe sapientissimus, asserebat\nmentem nihil habere cum corporibus commune, id quod constat ex primo libro\nAristotelis _De Anima_(961). Ex neotericis idem optime animadvertit\nCartesius(962). Ab eo alii(963) rem satis claram vocibus obscuris\nimpeditam ac difficilem reddiderunt.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n31. Ex dictis manifestum est eos qui vim activam, actionem, motus\nprincipium, in _corporibus_ revera inesse affirmant, sententiam nulla\nexperientia fundatam amplecti, eamque terminis obscuris et generalibus\nadstruere, nec quid sibi velint satis intelligere. E contrario, qui\n_mentem_ esse principium motus volunt, sententiam propria experientia\nmunitam proferunt, hominumque omni \u00e6vo doctissimorum suffragiis\ncomprobatam.\n\n32. Primus Anaxagoras(964) \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd introduxit, qui motum inerti materi\u00e6\nimprimeret. Quam quidem sententiam probat etiam Aristoteles(965),\npluribusque confirmat, aperto pronuncians primum movens esse immobile,\nindivisibile, et nullam habens magnitudinem. Dicere autem, omne me vum\nesse mobile, recte animadvertit idem esse ac s diceret, omne \u00e6dificativum\nesse \u00e6dificabile, _Physic_, lib Plato insuper in Tim\u00e6o(966) tradit\nmachinam hanc corpo seu mundum visibilem, agitari et animari a mente,\nsensum omnem fugiat. Quinetiam hodie philosophi siani(967) principium\nmotuum naturalium Deum agnoscun. Et Newtonus(968) passim nec obscure\ninnuit, non solummodo motum ab initio a numine profectum esse, verum adhuc\nsystema mundanum ab eodem actu moveri. Hoc sacris literis consonum est:\nhoc scholasticorum calculo comprobatur. Nam etsi Peripatetici naturam\ntradant esse principium motus et quietis, interpretantur tamen naturam\nnaturantem esse Deum(969). Intelligunt nimirum corpora omnia systematis\nhujusce mundani a mente pr\u00e6potenti juxta certam et constantem\nrationem(970) moveri.\n\n33. C\u00e6terum qui principium vitale corporibus tribuunt, obscurum aliquid et\nrebus parum conveniens fingunt. Quid enim aliud est vitali principio\npr\u00e6ditum esse quam vivere? aut vivere quam se movere, sistere, et statum\nsuum mutare? Philosophi autem hujus s\u00e6culi doctissimi pro principio\nindubitato ponunt, omne corpus perseverare in statu suo, vel quietis vel\nmotus uniformis in directum, nisi quatenus aliunde cogitur statum ilium\nmutare: e contrario, in anima sentimus esse facultatem tam statum suum\nquam aliarum rerum mutandi; id quod proprie dicitur vitale, animamque a\ncorporibus longe discriminat.\n\n34. Motum et quietem in corporibus recentiores considerant velut duos\nstatus existendi, in quorum utrovis corpus omne sua natura iners\npermaneret(971), nulla vi externa urgente. Unde colligere licet, eandem\nesse causam motus et quietis, qu\u00e6 est existenti\u00e6 corporum. Neque enim\nqu\u00e6renda videtur alia causa existenti\u00e6 corporis successiv\u00e6 in diversis\npartibus spatii, quam illa unde derivatur existentia ejusdem corporis\nsuccessiva in diversis partibus temporis. De Deo autem Optimo Maximo rerum\nomnium Conditore et Conservatore tractare, et qua ratione res cunct\u00e6 a\nsummo et vero Ente pendeant demonstrare, quamvis pars sit scienti\u00e6 human\u00e6\npr\u00e6cellentissima, spectat tamen potius ad philosophiam primam(972), seu\nmetaphysicam et theologiam, quam ad philosophiam naturalem, qu\u00e6 hodie fere\nomnis continetur in experimentis et mechanica. Itaque cognitionem de Deo\nvel supponit philosophia naturalis, vel mutuatur ab aliqua scientia\nsuperiori. Quanquam verissimum sit, natur\u00e6 investigationem scientiis\naltioribus argumenta egregia ad sapientiam, bonitatem, et potentiam Dei\nillustrandam et probandam undequaque subministrare.\n\n35. Quod h\u00e6c minus intelligantur, in causa est, cur nonnulli immerito\nrepudient physic\u00e6 principia mathematica, eo scilicet nomine quod illa\ncausas rerum efficientes non assignant: quum tamen revera ad physicam aut\nmechanicam spectet regulas(973) solummodo, non causas efficientes,\nimpulsionum attractionumve, et ut verbo dicam, motuum leges tradere; ex\niis vero positis ph\u00e6nomenon particularium solutionem, non autem causam\nefficientem assignare.\n\n36. Multum intererit considerasse quid proprie sit principium, et quo\nsensu intelligenda sit vox illa apud philosophos(974). Causa quidem vera\nefficiens et conservatrix rerum omnium jure optimo appellatur fons et\nprincipium earundem. Principia vero philosophi\u00e6 experimentalis proprie\ndicenda sunt fundamenta quibus illa innititur, seu fontes unde derivatur,\n(non dico existentia, sed) cognitio rerum corporearum, sensus utique ex\nexperientia. Similiter, in philosophia mechanica, principia dicenda sunt,\nin quibus fundatur et continetur universa disciplina, leges ill\u00e6 motuum\nprimari\u00e6, qu\u00e6 experimentis comprobat\u00e6, ratiocinio etiam excult\u00e6 sunt et\nreddit\u00e6 universales(975). H\u00e6 motuum leges commode dicuntur principia,\nquoniam ab iis tam theoremata mechanica generalia quam particulares \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\n\u03c6\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd explicationes derivantur.\n\n37. Tum nimirum dici potest quidpiam explicari mechanice, cum reducitur ad\nista principia simplicissima et universalissima, et per accuratum\nratiocinium, cum iis consentaneum et connexum esse ostenditur. Nam\ninventis semel natur\u00e6 legibus, deinceps monstrandum est philosopho, ex\nconstanti harum legum observatione, hoc est, ex iis principiis ph\u00e6nomenon\nquodvis necessario consequi: id quod est ph\u00e6nomena explicare et solvere,\ncausamque, id est rationem cur fiant, assignare.\n\n38. Mens humana gaudet scientiam suam extendere et dilatare. Ad hoc autem\nnotiones et propositiones generales efformand\u00e6 sunt, in quibus quodam modo\ncontinentur propositiones et cognitiones particulares, qu\u00e6 turn demum\nintelligi creduntur cum ex primis illis continuo nexu deducuntur. Hoc\ngeometris notissimum est. In mechanica etiam pr\u00e6mittuntur notiones, hoc\nest definitiones, et enunciationes de motu prim\u00e6 et generales, ex quibus\npostmodum methodo mathematica conclusiones magis remot\u00e6 et minus generales\ncolliguntur. Et sicut per applicationem theorematum geometricorum,\ncorporum particularium magnitudines mensurantur; ita etiam per\napplicationem theorematum mechanices universalium, systematis mundani\npartium quarumvis motus, et ph\u00e6nomena inde pendentia, innotescunt et\ndeterminantur: ad quem scopum unice collineandum physico.\n\n39. Et quemadmodum geometr\u00e6, disciplin\u00e6 causa, multa comminiscuntur, qu\u00e6\nnec ipsi describere possunt, nec in rerum natura invenire; simili prorsus\nratione mechanicus voces quasdam abstractas et generales adhibet,\nfingitque in corporibus _vim_, _actionem_, _attractionem_,\n_solicitationem_, &c. qu\u00e6 ad theorias et enunciationes, ut et\ncomputationes de motu apprime utiles sunt, etiamsi in ipsa rerum veritate\net corporibus actu existentibus frustra qu\u00e6rerentur, non minus quam qu\u00e6 a\ngeometris per abstractionem mathematicam finguntur.\n\n40. Revera ope sensuum nil nisi effectus seu qualitates sensibiles, et res\ncorporeas omnino passivas, sive in motu sint sive in quiete, percipimus:\nratioque et experientia activum nihil pr\u00e6ter mentem aut animam esse\nsuadet. Quidquid ultra fingitur, id ejusdem generis esse cum aliis\nhypothesibus et abstractionibus mathematicis existimandum: quod penitu\nsanimo infigere oportet. Hoc ni fiat, facile in obscuram scholasticorum\nsubtilitatem, qu\u00e6 per tot s\u00e6cula, tanquam dira qu\u00e6dam pestis, philosophiam\ncorrupit, relabi possumus.\n\n41. Principia mechanica legesque motuum aut natur\u00e6 universales, s\u00e6culo\nultimo feliciter invent\u00e6, et subsidio geometri\u00e6 tractat\u00e6 et applicat\u00e6,\nmiram lucem in philosophiam intulerunt. Principia vero metaphysica\ncaus\u00e6que reales efficientes motus et existenti\u00e6 corporum attributorumve\ncorporeorum nullo modo ad mechanicam aut experimenta pertinent; neque eis\nlucem dare possunt, nisi quatenus, velut pr\u00e6cognita, inserviant ad limites\nphysic\u00e6 pr\u00e6finiendos, eaque ratione ad tollendas difficultates\nqu\u00e6stionesque peregrinas.\n\n42. Qui a spiritibus motus principium petunt, ii vel rem corpoream vel\nincorpoream voce _spiritus_ intelligunt. Si rem corpoream, quantumvis\ntenuem, tamen redit difficultas: si incorpoream, quantumvis id verum sit,\nattamen ad physicam non proprie pertinet. Quod si quis philosophiam\nnaturalem ultra limites experimentorum et mechanic\u00e6 extenderit, ita ut\nrerum etiam incorporearum, et inextensarum cognitionem complectatur,\nlatior quidem illa vocis acceptio tractationem de anima, mente, seu\nprincipio vitali admittit. C\u00e6terum commodius erit, juxta usum jam fere\nreceptum, ita distinguere inter scientias, ut singul\u00e6 propriis\ncircumscribantur cancellis, et philosophus naturalis totus sit in\nexperimentis, legibusque motuum, et principiis mechanicis, indeque\ndepromptis ratiociniis; quidquid autem de aliis rebus protulerit, id\nsuperiori alicui scienti\u00e6 acceptum referat. Etenim ex cognitis natur\u00e6\nlegibus pulcherrim\u00e6 theori\u00e6, praxes etiam mechanic\u00e6 ad vitam utiles\nconsequuntur. Ex cognitione autem ipsius natur\u00e6 Auctoris considerationes\nlonge pr\u00e6stantissim\u00e6 quidem ill\u00e6, sed metaphysic\u00e6, theologic\u00e6, morales\noriuntur.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n43. De _principiis_ hactenus: nunc dicendum de _natura_ motus(976). Atque\nis quidem, cum sensibus clare percipiatur, non tam natura sua, quam doctis\nphilosophorum commentis obscuratus est. Motus nunquam in sensus nostros\nincurrit sine mole corporea, spatio, et tempore. Sunt tamen qui motum,\ntanquam ideam quandam simplicem et abstractam, atque ab omnibus aliis\nrebus sejunctam, contemplari student. Verum idea illa tenuissima et\nsubtilissima(977) intellectus aciem eludit: id quod quilibet secum\nmeditando experiri potest. Hinc nascuntur magn\u00e6 difficultates de natura\nmotus, et definitiones, ipsa re quam illustrare debent longe obscuriores.\nHujusmodi sunt definitiones ill\u00e6 Aristotelis et Scholasticorum(978), qui\nmotum dicunt esse _actum mobilis quatenus est mobile, vel actum entis in\npotentia quatenus in potentia_. Hujusmodi etiam est illud viri(979) inter\nrecentiores celebris, qut asserit _nihil in motu esse reale pr\u00e6ter\nmomentaneum illud quod in vi ad mutationem nitente constitui debet_. Porro\nconstat, horum et similium definitionum auctores in animo habuisse\nabstractam motus naturam, seclusa omni temporis et spatii consideratione,\nexplicare: sed qua ratione abstracta ilia motus quintessentia (ut ita\ndicam) intelligi possit, non video.\n\n44. Neque hoc contenti, ulterius pergunt, partesque ipsius motus a se\ninvicem dividunt et secernunt, quarum ideas distinctas, tanquam entium\nrevera distinctorum, efformare conantur. Etenim sunt qui motionem a motu\ndistinguant, illam velut instantaneum motus elementum spectantes.\nVelocitatem insuper, conatum, vim, impetum totidem res essentia diversas\nesse volunt, quarum qu\u00e6que per propriam atque ab aliis omnibus segregatam\net abstractam ideam intellectui objiciatur. Sed in hisce rebus\ndiscutiendis, stantibus iis qu\u00e6 supra disseruimus(980), non est cur\ndiutius immoremur.\n\n45. Multi etiam per _transitum_(981) motum definiunt, obliti, scilicet,\ntransitum ipsum sine motu intelligi non posse, et per motum definiri\noportere. Verissimum adeo est definitiones, sicut nonnullis rebus lucem,\nita vicissim aliis tenebras afferre. Et profecto, quascumque res sensu\npercipimus, eas clariores aut notiores definiendo efficere vix quisquam\npotuerit. Cujus rei vana spe allecti res faciles difficillimas(982)\nreddiderunt philosophi, mentesque suas difficultatibus, quas ut plurimum\nipsi peperissent, implicavere. Ex hocce definiendi, simul ac abstrahendi\nstudio, mult\u00e6 tam de motu quam de aliis rebus nat\u00e6 subtilissim\u00e6\nqu\u00e6stiones, e\u00e6demque nullius utilitatis, hominum ingenia frustra\ntorserunt; adeo ut Aristoteles ultro et s\u00e6pius fateatur motum esse _actum\nquendam cognitu difficilem_(983), et nonnulli ex veteribus usque eo nugis\nexercitati deveniebant, ut motum omnino esse negarent(984).\n\n46. Sed hujusmodi minutiis distineri piget. Satis sit fontes solutionum\nindicasse: ad quos etiam illud adjungere libet: quod ea qu\u00e6 de infinita\ndivisione temporis et spatii in mathesi traduntur, ob congenitam rerum\nnaturam paradoxa et theorias spinosas (quales sunt ill\u00e6 omnes in quibus\nagitur de infinito(985)) in speculationes de motu intulerunt. Quidquid\nautem hujus generis sit, id omne motus commune habet cum spatio et\ntempore, vel potius ad ea refert acceptum.\n\n47. Et quemadmodum ex una parte nimia abstractio seu divisio rerum vere\ninseparabilium, ita ab altera parte compositio seu potius confusio rerum\ndiversissimarum motus naturam perplexam reddidit. Usitatum enim est motum\ncum causa motus efficiente confundere(986). Unde accidit ut motus sit\nquasi biformis, unam faciem sensibus obviam, alteram caliginosa nocte\nobvolutam habens. Inde obscuritas et confusio, et varia de motu paradoxa\noriginem trahunt, dum effectui perperam tribuitur id quod revera caus\u00e6\nsolummodo competit.\n\n48. Hinc oritur opinio illa, _eandem_ semper motus quantitatem\nconservari(987). Quod, nisi intelligatur de vi et potentia caus\u00e6, sive\ncausa ilia dicatur natura, sive \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2, vel quodcunque tandem agens sit,\nfalsum esse cuivis facile constabit. Aristoteles(988) quidem l. viii.\n_Physicorum_, ubi qu\u00e6rit utrum motus factus sit et corruptus, an vero ab\n\u00e6terno tanquam vita immortalis insit rebus omnibus, vitale principium\npotius, quam effectum externum, sive mutationem loci(989), intellexisse\nvidetur.\n\n49. Hinc etiam est, quod multi suspicantur motum non esse meram passionem\nin corporibus. Quod si intelligamus id quod in motu corporis sensibus\nobjicitur, quin omnino passivum sit nemo dubitare potest. Ecquid enim in\nse habet successiva corporis existentia in diversis locis, quod actionem\nreferat, aut aliud sit quam nuduset iners effectus?\n\n50. Peripatetici, qui dicunt motum esse actum unum utriusque, moventis et\nmoti(990), non satis discriminant causam ab effectu. Similiter, qui nisum\naut conatum in motu fingunt, aut idem corpus simul in contrarias partes\nferri putant, eadem idearum confusione, eadem vocum ambiguitate ludificari\nvidentur.\n\n51. Juvat multum, sicut in aliis omnibus, ita in scientia de motu\naccuratam diligentiam adhibere, tam ad aliorum conceptus intelligendos\nquam ad suos enunciandos: in qua re nisi peccatum esset, vix credo in\ndisputationem trahi potuisse, utrum corpus indifferens sit ad motum et ad\nquietem, necne. Quoniam enim experientia constat, esse legem natur\u00e6\nprimariam, ut corpus perinde perseveret in _statu motus ac quietis,\nquamdiu aliunde nihil accidat ad statum istum mutandum_; et propterea vim\ninerti\u00e6 sub diverso respectu esse vel resistentiam, vel impetum,\ncolligitur: hoc sensu profecto corpus dici potest sua natura indifferens\nad motum vel quietem. Nimirum tam difficile est quietem in corpus motum,\nquam motum in quiescens inducere: cum vero corpus pariter conservet statum\nutrumvis, quidni dicatur ad utrumvis se habere indifferenter?\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n52. Peripatetici pro varietate mutationum, quas res aliqua subire potest,\nvaria motus genera distinguebant. Hodie de motu agentes intelligunt\nsolummodo _motum localem_(991). Motus autem localis intelligi nequit nisi\nsimul intelligatur quid sit _locus_: is vero a neotericis(992) definitur\n_pars spatii quam corpus occupat_: unde dividitur in relativum et\nabsolutum pro ratione spatii. Distinguunt enim inter spatium absolutum\nsive verum, ac relativum sive apparens. Volunt scilicet dari spatium\nundequaque immensum, immobile, insensibile, corpora universa permeans et\ncontinens, quod vocant spatium absolutum. Spatium autem a corporibus\ncomprehensum vel definitum, sensibusque adeo subjectum, dicitur spatium\nrelativum, apparens, vulgare.\n\n53. Fingamus itaque corpora cuncta destrui, et in nihilum redigi. Quod\nreliquum est vocant spatium absolutum, omni relatione qu\u00e6 a situ et\ndistantiis corporum oriebatur, simul cum ipsis corporibus, sublata. Porro\nspatium illud est infinitum, immobile, indivisibile, insensibile, sine\nrelatione et sine distinctione. Hoc est, omnia ejus attributa sunt\nprivativa vel negativa: videtur igitur esse merum nihil(993). Parit\nsolummmodo difficultatem aliquam quod extensum sit. Extensio autem est\nqualitas positiva. Verum qualis tandem extensio est illa qu\u00e6 nec dividi\npotest, nec mensurari, cujus nullam partem, nec sensu percipere, nec\nimaginatione depingere possumus? Etenim nihil in imaginationem cadit,\nquod, ex natura rei, non possibile est ut sensu percipiatur; siquidem\n_imaginatio_(994) nihil aliud est quam facultas representatrix rerum\nsensibilium, vel actu existentium, vel saltem possibilium. Fugit insuper\n_intellectum purum_, quum facultas illa versetur tantum circa res\nspirituales et inextensas, cujusmodi sunt mentes nostr\u00e6, earumque habitus,\npassiones, virtutes, et similia. Ex spatio igitur absoluto auferamus modo\nvocabula, et nihil remanebit in sensu, imaginatione, aut intellectu: nihil\naliud ergo iis designatur, quam pura privatio aut negatio, hoc est, merum\nnihil.\n\n54. Confitendum omnino est nos circa hanc rem gravissimis pr\u00e6judiciis\nteneri, a quibus ut liberemur, omnis animi vis exercenda. Etenim multi,\ntantum abest quod spatium absolutum pro nihilo ducant, ut rem esse ex\nomnibus (Deo excepto) unicam existiment, qu\u00e6 annihilari non possit:\nstatuantque illud suapte natura necessario existere, \u00e6ternumque esse et\nincreatum, atque adeo attributorum divinorum particeps(995). Verum\nenimvero quum certissimum sit, res omnes, quas nominibus designamus, per\nqualitates aut relationes, vel aliqua saltem ex parte cognosci (ineptum\nenim foret vocabulis uti quibus cogniti nihil, nihil notionis, ide\u00e6 vel\nconceptus subjiceretur), inquiramus diligenter, utrum formare liceat\n_ideam_ ullam spatii illius puri, realis, absoluti, quod post omnium\ncorporum annihilationem perseveret existere. Ideam porro talem paulo\nacrius intuens, reperio ideam esse nihili purissimam, si modo idea\nappellanda sit. Hoc ipse summa adhibita diligentia expertus sum: hoc alios\npari adhibita diligentia experturos reor.\n\n55. Decipere nos nonnunquam solet, quod aliis omnibus corporibus\nimaginatione sublatis, _nostrum_(996) tamen manere supponimus. Quo\nsupposito, motum membrorum ab omni parte liberrimum imaginamur. Motus\nautem sine spatio concipi non potest. Nihilominus si rem attento animo\nrecolamus, constabit primo concipi spatium relativum partibus nostri\ncorporis definitum: 2\u00b0. movendi membra potestatem liberrimam nullo\nobstaculo retusam: et pr\u00e6ter h\u00e6c duo nihil. Falso tamen credimus tertium\naliquod, spatium videlicet immensum, realiter existere, quod liberam\npotestatem nobis faciat movendi corpus nostrum: ad hoc enim requiritur\nabsentia solummodo aliorum corporum. Quam absentiam, sive privationem\ncorporum, nihil esse positivum fateamur necesse est(997).\n\n56. C\u00e6terum hasce res nisi quis libero et acri examine perspexerit, verba\net voces parum valent. Meditanti vero, et rationes secum reputanti, ni\nfallor, manifestum erit, qu\u00e6cunque de spatio puro et absoluto pr\u00e6dicantur,\nea omnia de nihilo pr\u00e6dicari posse. Qua ratione mens humana facillime\nliberatur a magnis difficultatibus simulque ab ea absurditate tribuendi\nexistentiam necessariam(998) ulli rei pr\u00e6terquam soli Deo optimo maximo.\n\n57. In proclivi esset sententiam nostram argumentis a posteriori (ut\nloquuntur) ductis confirmare, qu\u00e6stiones de spatio absoluto proponendo;\nexempli gratia, utrum sit substantia vel accidens? utrum creatum vel\nincreatum? et absurditates ex utravis parte consequentes demonstrando. Sed\nbrevitati consulendum. Illud tamen omitti non debet, quod sententiam\nhancce Democritus olim calculo suo comprobavit, uti auctor est Aristoteles\n1. i. _Phys._(999) ubi h\u00e6c habet: _Democritus solidum et inane ponit\nprincipia, quorum aliud quidem ut quod est, aliud ut quod non est esse\ndicit._ Scrupulum si forte injiciat, quod distinctio illa inter spatium\nabsolutum et relativum a magni nominis philosophis usurpetur, eique quasi\nfundamento in\u00e6dificentur multa pr\u00e6clara theoremata, scrupulum istum vanum\nesse, ex iis qu\u00e6 secutura sunt, apparebit.\n\n58. Ex pr\u00e6missis patet, non convenire ut definiamus locum verum corporis\nesse partem spatii absoluti quam occupat corpus, motumque verum seu\nabsolutum esse mutationem loci veri et absoluti. Siquidem omnis locus est\nrelativus, ut et omnis motus. Veruntamen ut hoc clarius appareat,\nanimadvertendum est, motum nullum intelligi posse sine determinatione\naliqua seu directione, qu\u00e6 quidem intelligi nequit, nisi praeter corpus\nmotum, nostrum etiam corpus, aut aliud aliquod, simul intelligatur\nexistere. Nam sursum, deorsum, sinistrorsum, dextrorsum, omnesque plag\u00e6 et\nregiones in relatione aliqua fundantur, et necessario corpus a moto\ndiversum connotant et supponunt. Adeo ut, si reliquis corporibus in\nnihilum redactis, globus, exempli gratia, unicus existere supponatur; in\nillo motus nullus concipi possit: usque adeo necesse est, ut detur aliud\ncorpus, cujus situ motus determinari intelligatur. Hujus sententi\u00e6 veritas\nclarissime elucebit, modo corporum omnium tam nostri quam aliorum, pr\u00e6ter\nglobum istum unicum, annihilationem recte supposuerimus.\n\n59. Concipiantur porro duo globi, et pr\u00e6terea nil corporeum, existere.\nConcipiantur deinde vires quomodocunque applicari: quicquid tandem per\napplicationem virium intelligamus, motus circularis duorum globorum circa\ncommune centrum nequit per imaginationem concipi. Supponamus deinde c\u0153lum\nfixarum creari: subito ex concepto appulsu globorum ad diversas c\u0153li\nistius partes motus concipietur. Scilicet cum motus natura sua sit\nrelativus, concipi non potuit priusquam darentur corpora correlata.\nQuemadmodum nec ulla relatio alia sine correlatis concipi potest.\n\n60. Ad motum circularem quod attinet, putant multi, crescente motu vero\ncirculari, corpus necessario magis semper magisque ab axe niti. Hoc autem\nex eo provenit, quod, cum motus circularis spectari possit tanquam in omni\nmomento a duabus directionibus ortum trahens, una secundum radium, altera\nsecundum tangentem; si in hac ultima tantum directione impetus augeatur,\ntum a centro recedet corpus motum, orbita vero desinet esse circularis.\nQuod si \u00e6qualiter augeantur vires in utraque directione, manebit motus\ncircularis, sed acceleratus conatu, qui non magis arguet vires recedendi\nab axe, quam accedendi ad eundem, auctas esse. Dicendum igitur, aquam in\nsitula circumactam ascendere ad latera vasis, propterea quod, applicatis\nnovis viribus in directione tangentis ad quamvis particulam aqu\u00e6, eodem\ninstanti non applicentur nov\u00e6 vires \u00e6quales centripet\u00e6. Ex quo experimento\nnullo modo sequitur, motum absolutum circularem per vires recedendi ab axe\nmotus necessario dignosci. Porro qua ratione intelligend\u00e6 sunt voces ist\u00e6,\n_vires corporum et conatus_, ex pr\u00e6missis satis superque innotescit.\n\n61. Quo modo curva considerari potest tanquam constans ex rectis\ninfinitis, etiamsi revera ex illis non constet, sed quod ea hypothesis ad\ngeometriam utilis sit, eodem modo motus circularis spectari potest tanquam\na directionibus rectilineis infinitis ortum ducens, qu\u00e6 suppositio utilis\nest in philosophia mechanica. Non tamen ideo affirmandum, impossibile\nesse, ut centrum gravitatis corporis cujusvis successive existat in\nsingulis punctis peripheriae circularis, nulla ratione habita directionis\nullius rectiline\u00e6, sive in tangente sive in radio.\n\n62. Haud omittendum est, motum lapidis in funda, aut aqu\u00e6 in situla\ncircumacta, dici non posse motum vere circularem, juxta mentem eorum qui\nper partes spatii absoluti definiunt loca vera corporum; cum sit mire\ncompositus ex motibus non solum situl\u00e6 vel fund\u00e6, sed etiam telluris\ndiurno circa proprium axem, menstruo circa commune centrum gravitatis\nterr\u00e6 et lun\u00e6, et annuo circa solem: et propterea particula qu\u00e6vis lapidis\nvel aqu\u00e6 describat lineam a circulari longe abhorrentem. Neque revera est,\nqui creditur, conatus axifugus, quoniam non respicit unum aliquem axem\nratione spatii absoluti, supposito quod detur tale spatium: proinde non\nvideo quomodo appellari possit conatus unicus, cui motus vere circularis\ntanquam proprio et adaequato effectui respondet.\n\n63. Motus nullus dignosci potest, aut mensurari, nisi per res sensibiles.\nCum ergo spatium absolutum nullo modo in sensus incurrat, necesse est ut\ninutile prorsus sit ad distinctionem motuum. Pr\u00e6terea determinatio sive\ndirectio motui essentialis est, ilia vero in relatione consistit. Ergo\nimpossibile est ut motus absolutus concipiatur.\n\n64. Porro quoniam pro diversitate loci relativi varius sit motus ejusdem\ncorporis, quinimo uno respectu moveri, altero quiescere dici quidpiam\npossit(1000); ad determinandum motum verum et quietem veram, quo scilicet\ntollatur ambiguitas, et consulatur mechanic\u00e6 philosophorum, qui systema\nrerum latius contemplantur, satis fuerit spatium relativum fixarum c\u0153lo,\ntanquam quiescente spectato, conclusum adhibere, loco spatii absoluti.\nMotus autem et quies tali spatio relativo definiti, commode adhiberi\npossunt loco absolutorum, qui ab illis nullo symptomate discerni possunt.\nEtenim imprimantur utcunque vires, sint quicunque conatus, concedamus\nmotum distingui per actiones in corpora exercitas; nunquam tamen inde\nsequetur, dari spatium illud et locum absolutum, ejusque mutationem esse\nlocum verum.\n\n65. Leges motuum, effectusque, et theoremata eorundem proportiones et\ncalculos continentia, pro diversis viarum figuris, accelerationibus itidem\net directionibus diversis, mediisque plus minusve resistentibus, h\u00e6c omnia\nconstant sine calculatione motus absoluti. Uti vel ex eo patet quod, quum\nsecundum illorum principia qui motum absolutum inducunt, nullo symptomate\nscire liceat, utrum integra rerum compages quiescat, an moveatur\nuniformiter in directum, perspicuum sit motum absolutum nullius corporis\ncognosci posse.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n66. Ex dictis patet ad veram motus naturam perspiciendam summopere\njuvaturum, 1\u00b0. Distinguere inter hypotheses mathematicas et naturas rerum:\n2\u00b0. Cavere ab abstractionibus: 3\u00b0. Considerare motum tanquam aliquid\nsensibile, vel saltem imaginabile; mensurisque relativis esse contentos.\nQu\u00e6 si fecerimus, simul clarissima qu\u00e6que philosophi\u00e6 mechanic\u00e6\ntheoremata, quibus reserantur natur\u00e6 recessus, mundique systema calculis\nhumanis subjicitur, manebunt intemerata, et motus contemplatio a mille\nminutiis, subtilitatibus, ideisque abstractis libera evadet. Atque h\u00e6c de\nnatura motus dicta sufficiant.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\n67. Restat, ut disseramus de causa communicationis motuum(1001). Esse\nautem vim impressam in corpus mobile causam motus in eo, plerique\nexistimant. Veruntamen illos non assignare causam motus cognitam, et a\ncorpore motuque distinctam, ex pr\u00e6missis constat. Patet insuper vim non\nesse rem certam et determinatam, ex eo quod viri summi de ilia multum\ndiversa, immo contraria, proferant, salva tamen in consequentiis veritate.\nSiquidem Newtonus(1002) ait vim impressam consistere in actione sola,\nesseque actionem exercitam in corpus ad statum ejus mutandum, nee post\nactionem manere. Torricellius(1003) cumulum quendam sive aggregatum virium\nimpressarum per percussionem in corpus mobile recipi, ibidemque manere\natque impetum constituere contendit. Idem fere Borellus(1004) aliique\npr\u00e6dicant. At vero, tametsi inter se pugnare videantur Newtonus et\nTorricellius, nihilominus, dum singuli sibi consentanea proferunt, res\nsatis commode ab utrisque explicatur. Quippe vires omnes corporibus\nattribut\u00e6 tam sunt hypotheses mathematic\u00e6 quam vires attractiv\u00e6 in\nplanetis et sole. C\u00e6terum entia mathematica in rerum natura stabilem\nessentiam non habent: pendent autem a notione definientis; unde eadem res\ndiversimode explicari potest.\n\n68. Statuamus motum novum in corpore percusso conservari, sive per vim\ninsitam, qua corpus quodlibet perseverat in statu suo vel motus vel\nquietis uniformis in directum; sive per vim impressam, durante percussione\nin corpus percussum receptam ibidemque permanentem; idem erit quoad rem,\ndifferentia existente in nominibus tantum. Similiter, ubi mobile\npercutiens perdit, et percussum acquirit motum, parum refert disputare,\nutrum motus acquisitus sit idem numero cum motu perdito, ducit enim in\nminutias metaphysicas et prorsus nominales de identitate. Itaque sive\ndicamus motum transire a percutiente in percussum, sive in percusso motum\nde novo generari, destrui autem in percutiente, res eodem recidit.\nUtrobique intelligitur unum corpus motum perdere, alterum acquirere, et\npr\u00e6terea nihil.\n\n69. Mentem, qu\u00e6 agitat et continet universam hancce molem corpoream,\nestque causa vera efficiens motus, eandem esse, proprie et stricte\nloquendo, causam communicationis ejusdem haud negaverim. In philosophia\ntamen physica, causas et solutiones ph\u00e6nomenon a principiis mechanicis\npetere oportet. Physice igitur res explicatur non assignando ejus causam\nvere agentem et incorpoream, sed demonstrando ejus connexionem cum\nprincipiis mechanicis: cujusmodi est illud, _actionem et reactionem esse\nsemper contrarias et \u00e6quales_(1005), a quo, tanquam fonte et principio\nprimario, eruuntur regul\u00e6 de motuum communicatione, qu\u00e6 a neotericis,\nmagno scientiarum bono, jam ante repert\u00e6 sunt et demonstrat\u00e6.\n\n70. Nobis satis fuerit, si innuamus principium illud alio modo declarari\npotuisse. Nam si vera rerum natura potius quam abstracta mathesis\nspectetur, videbitur rectius dici, in attractione vel percussione\npassionem corporum, quam actionem, esse utrobique \u00e6qualem. Exempli gratia,\nlapis fune equo alligatus tantum trahitur versus equum, quantum equus\nversus lapidem: corpus etiam motum in aliud quiescens impactum, patitur\neandem mutationem cum corpore quiescente. Et quoad effectum realem,\npercutiens est item percussum, percussumque percutiens. Mutatio autem illa\nest utrobique, tam in corpore equi quam in lapide, tam in moto quam in\nquiescente, passio mera. Esse autem vim, virtutem, aut actionem corpoream\ntalium effectuum vere et proprie causatricem non constat. Corpus motum in\nquiescens impingitur; loquimur tamen active, dicentes illud hoc impellere:\nnec absurde in mechanicis, ubi ide\u00e6 mathematic\u00e6 potius quam ver\u00e6 rerum\nnatur\u00e6 spectantur.\n\n71. In physica, sensus et experientia, qu\u00e6 ad effectus apparentes\nsolummodo pertingunt, locum habent; in mechanica, notiones abstract\u00e6\nmathematicorum admittuntur. In philosophia prima, seu metaphysica, agitur\nde rebus incorporeis, de causis, veritate, et existentia rerum. Physicus\nseries sive successiones rerum sensibilium contemplatur, quibus legibus\nconnectuntur, et quo ordine, quid pr\u00e6cedit tanquam causa, quid sequitur\ntanquam effectus, animadvertens.(1006) Atque hac ratione dicimus corpus\nmotum esse causam motus in altero, vel ei motum imprimere, trahere etiam,\naut impellere. Quo sensu caus\u00e6 secund\u00e6 corpore\u00e6 intelligi debent, nulla\nratione habita ver\u00e6 sedis virium, vel potentiarum actricum, aut caus\u00e6\nrealis cui insunt. Porro dici possunt caus\u00e6 vel principia mechanica, ultra\ncorpus, figuram, motum, etiam axiomata scienti\u00e6 mechanic\u00e6 primaria,\ntanquam caus\u00e6 consequentium spectata.\n\n72. Caus\u00e6 vere activ\u00e6 meditatione tantum et ratiocinio e tenebris erui\nquibus involvuntur possunt, et aliquatenus cognosci. Spectat autem ad\nphilosophiam primam, seu metaphysicam, de iis agere. Quodsi cuique\nscienti\u00e6 provincia sua(1007) tribuatur, limites assignentur, principia et\nobjecta accurate distinguantur, qu\u00e6 ad singulas pertinent, tractare\nlicuerit majore, cum facilitate, tum perspicuitate.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n_    1 Philosophy of Theism_: The Gifford Lectures delivered before the\n      University of Edinburgh in 1894-96. (Second Edition, 1899.)\n\n_    2 Essay on Vision_, sect. 147, 148.\n\n_    3 Principles_, sect. 6.\n\n    4 Preface to the _Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_.\n\n    5 By Anthony Collins.\n\n    6 See vol. III, Appendix B.\n\n    7 Murdoch Martin, a native of Skye, author of a _Voyage to St. Kilda_\n      (1698), and a _Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_\n      (1703).\n\n    8 See Stewart\u2019s _Works_ (ed. Hamilton), vol. I. p. 161. There is a\n      version of this story by DeQuincey, in his quaint essay on _Murder\n      considered as one of the Fine Arts._\n\n    9 Sir John became Lord Percival in that year.\n\n   10 A place more than once visited by Berkeley.\n\n   11 Bakewell\u2019s _Memoirs of the Court of Augustus_, vol. II. p. 177.\n\n   12 A letter in Berkeley\u2019s _Life and Letters_, p. 93, which led me to a\n      different opinion, I have now reason to believe was not written by\n      him, nor was it written in 1721. The research of Dr. Lorenz,\n      confirmed by internal evidence, shews that it was written in\n      October, 1684, before Berkeley the philosopher was born, and when\n      the Duke of Ormond was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The writer was\n      probably the Hon. and Rev. George Berkeley, a Prebendary of\n      Westminster in 1687, who died in 1694. The wife of the \u201cpious Robert\n      Nelson\u201d was a daughter of Earl Berkeley, and this \u201cGeorge\u201d was her\n      younger brother.\n\n   13 Percival MSS.\n\n   14 For the letter, see Editor\u2019s Preface to the _Proposal for a College\n      in Bermuda_, vol. IV. pp. 343-44.\n\n   15 Afterwards Sir John James.\n\n   16 Smibert the artist, who made a picture of Berkeley in 1725, and\n      afterwards in America of the family party then at Gravesend.\n\n_   17 Historical Register_, vol. XIII, p. 289 (1728).\n\n_   18 New England Weekly Courier_, Feb. 3, 1729.\n\n   19 For valuable information about Rhode Island, reproduced in\n      _Berkeley\u2019s Life and Correspondence_ and here, I am indebted to\n      Colonel Higginson, to whom I desire to make this tardy but grateful\n      acknowledgement.\n\n   20 James, Dalton, and Smibert.\n\n   21 Whitehall, having fallen into decay, has been lately restored by the\n      pious efforts of Mrs. Livingston Mason, in concert with the Rev. Dr.\n      E. E. Hale, and others. This good work was completed in the summer\n      of 1900; and the house is now as nearly as possible in the state in\n      which Berkeley left it.\n\n   22 See vol. III, Appendix C.\n\n_   23 Three Men of Letters_, by Moses Coit Tyler (New York, 1895). He\n      records some of the American academical and other institutions that\n      are directly or indirectly, due to Berkeley.\n\n   24 The thought implied in this paragraph is pursued in my _Philosophy\n      of Theism_, in which the ethical perfection of the Universal Mind is\n      taken as the fundamental postulate in all human experience. If the\n      Universal Mind is not ethically perfect, the universe (including our\n      spiritual constitution) is radically untrustworthy.\n\n_   25 Life and Letters of Berkeley_, p. 222.\n\n   26 The third Earl of Shaftesbury, the pupil of Locke, and author of the\n      _Characteristics_. In addition to the well-known biography by Dr.\n      Fowler, the present eminent Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Shaftesbury\n      has been interpreted in two other lately published works\u2014a _Life_ by\n      Benjamin Rand, Ph.D. (1900), and an edition of the\n      _Characteristics_, with an Introduction and Notes, by John M.\n      Robertson (1900).\n\n   27 The title of this book is\u2014_Things Divine and Supernatural conceived\n      by Analogy with Things Natural and Human_, by the Author of _The\n      Procedure, Extent and Limits of the Human Understanding_. The\n      _Divine Analogy_ appeared in 1733, and the _Procedure_ in 1728.\n\n   28 Spinoza argues that what is _called_ \u201cunderstanding\u201d and \u201cwill\u201d in\n      God, has no more in common with human understanding and will than\n      the dog-star in the heavens has with the animal we call a dog. See\n      Spinoza\u2019s _Ethica_, I. 17, _Scholium_.\n\n   29 The question of the knowableness of God, or Omnipotent Moral\n      Perfection in the concrete, enters into recent philosophical and\n      theological discussion in Britain. Calderwood, in his _Philosophy of\n      the Infinite_ (1854), was one of the earliest, and not the least\n      acute, of Hamilton\u2019s critics in this matter. The subject is lucidly\n      treated by Professor Andrew Seth (Pringle-Pattison) in his _Lectures\n      on Theism_ (1897) and in a supplement to Calderwood\u2019s _Life_ (1900).\n      So also Huxley\u2019s _David Hume_ and Professor Iverach\u2019s _Is God\n      Knowable?_\n\n   30 Stewart\u2019s _Works_. vol. I. pp. 350-1.\n\n   31 Berkeley MSS. possessed by Archdeacon Rose.\n\n   32 Pope\u2019s poetic tribute to Berkeley belongs to this period\u2014\n\n      \u201cEven in a bishop I can spy desert;\n      Secker is decent; Rundle has a heart:\n      Manners with candour are to Benson given,\n      To Berkeley\u2014every virtue under heaven.\u201d\n\n      _Epilogue to the Satires._\n\n      Also his satirical tribute to the critics of Berkeley\u2014\n\n      \u201cTruth\u2019s sacred fort th\u2019 exploded laugh shall win;\n      And Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.\u201d\n\n      _Essay on Satire, _Part II.\n\n   33 Berkeley\u2019s _Life and Letters_, p. 210.\n\n   34 Bacon\u2019s _Novuin Organum_. Distributio Operis.\n\n   35 Section 141.\n\n   36 See \u201cEditor\u2019s Preface to Alciphron.\u201d\n\n   37 Compare Essay II in the _Guardian_ with this.\n\n   38 Taylor, in later life, conformed to the Anglican Church.\n\n   39 See Berkeley\u2019s _Life and Letters_, chap. viii.\n\n   40 The Primacy.\n\n   41 This seems to have been his eldest son, Henry.\n\n   42 His son George was already settled at Christ Church. Henry, the\n      eldest son, born in Rhode Island, was then \u201cabroad in the south of\n      France for his health,\u201d as one of his brother George\u2019s letters tells\n      us, found among the Johnson MSS.\n\n   43 See Appendix D. Reid, like Berkeley, held that \u201cmatter cannot be the\n      cause of anything,\u201d but this not as a consequence of the new\n      conception of the world presented to the senses, through which alone\n      Berkeley opens _his_ way to its powerlessness; although Reid\n      supposes that in his youth he followed Berkeley in this too. See\n      _Thomas Reid_ (1898), in \u201cFamous Scots Series,\u201d where I have\n      enlarged on this.\n\n   44 Johnson MSS.\n\n   45 That Berkeley was buried in Oxford is mentioned in his son\u2019s letter\n      to Johnson, in which he says : \u201cHis remains are interred in the\n      Cathedral of Christ Church, and next week a monument to his memory\n      will be erected with an inscription by Dr. Markham, a Student of\n      this College.\u201d As the son was present at, and superintended the\n      arrangements for his father\u2019s funeral, it can be no stretch of\n      credulity to believe that he knew where his father was buried. It\n      may be added that Berkeley himself had provided in his Will \u201cthat my\n      body be buried in the churchyard of the parish in which I die.\u201d The\n      Will, dated July 31, 1752, is given _in extenso_ in my _Life and\n      Letters_ of Berkeley, p. 345. We have also the record of burial in\n      the Register of Christ Church Cathedral, which shews that \u201con\n      January ye 20th 1753, ye Right Reverend John (_sic_) Berkley, Ld\n      Bishop of Cloyne, was buryed\u201d there. This disposes of the statement\n      on p. 17 of Diprose\u2019s _Account of the Parish of Saint Clement Danes_\n      (1868), that Berkeley was buried in that church.\n\n      I may add that a beautiful memorial of Berkeley has lately been\n      placed in the Cathedral of Cloyne, by subscriptions in this country\n      and largely in America.\n\n   M1 I.\n\n   46 \u201cGeneral ideas,\u201d i.e. _abstract_ general ideas, distinguished, in\n      Berkeley\u2019s nominalism, from _concrete_ general ideas, or from\n      general names, which are signs of any one of an indefinite number of\n      individual objects. Cf. _Principles,_ Introduction, sect. 16.\n\n   47 Introduction to the _Principles of Human Knowledge_.\n\n   M2 N.\n\n   48 \u201cco-existing ideas,\u201d i.e. phenomena presented in uniform order to\n      the senses.\n\n   M3 M. P.\n   M4 M. P.\n   M5 M.\n\n   49 Newton postulates a world of matter and motion, governed\n      mechanically by laws within itself: Berkeley finds himself charged\n      with New Principles, demanded by reason, with which Newton\u2019s\n      postulate is inconsistent.\n\n   M6 E.\n\n   50 He attempts this in many parts of the _Principles_ and _Dialogues_.\n      He recognises the difficulty of reconciling his New Principles with\n      the _identity_ and _permanence_ of sensible things.\n\n   M7 M.\n   M8 E.\n\n   51 He contemplated thus early applications of his New Principles to\n      Mathematics, afterwards made in his book of _Principles_, sect.\n      118-32.\n\n   52 What Berkeley calls _ideas_ are either perceptible by the senses or\n      imagined: either way they are concrete: _abstract ideas_ are empty\n      words.\n\n   M9 S.\n  M10 M. P.\n\n   53 i.e. the existence of bodies and qualities independently of\u2014in\n      abstraction from\u2014all percipient mind. While the spiritual theism of\n      Descartes is acceptable, he rejects his mechanical conception of the\n      material world.\n\n  M11 M.\n\n   54 But a \u201chouse\u201d or a \u201cchurch\u201d includes more than _visible_ ideas, so\n      that we cannot, strictly speaking, be said to see it. We see\n      immediately only visible signs of its invisible qualities.\n\n  M12 E.\n\n   55 This is added in the margin.\n\n  M13 N.\n  M14 N.\n  M15 N.\n\n   56 The total impotence of Matter, and the omnipotence of Mind or Spirit\n      in Nature, is thus early becoming the dominant thought with\n      Berkeley.\n\n  M16 N.\n  M17 N.\n\n   57 This refers to an objection to the New Principles that is apparently\n      reinforced by recent discoveries in geology. But if these contradict\n      the Principles, so does the existence of a table while I am only\n      seeing it.\n\n  M18 E.\n\n   58 Existence, in short, can be realised only in the form of living\n      percipient mind.\n\n   59 Berkeley hardly distinguishes uncontingent mathematical _relations_,\n      to which the sensible ideas or phenomena in which the relations are\n      concretely manifested must conform.\n\n   60 M. T. = matter tangible; M. V. = matter visible; M. . = matter\n      sensible. The distinctions n question were made prominent in the\n      _Essay on Vision_. See sect. 1, 121-45.\n\n  M19 P.\n\n   61 Which the common supposition regarding primary qualities seems to\n      contradict.\n\n   62 [That need not have been blotted out\u2014\u2019tis good sense, if we do but\n      determine wt we mean by _thing_ and _idea_.]\u2014AUTHOR, on blank page\n      of the MS.\n\n  M20 P.\n  M21 N.\n\n   63 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. III. ch. 4, \u00a7 8, where he criticises\n      attempts to define motion, as involving a _petitio_.\n\n  M22 P.\n  M23 N.\n  M24 N.\n\n   64 George Cheyne, the physician (known afterwards as author of the\n      _English Malady_), published in 1705 a work on Fluxions, which\n      procured him admission to the Royal Society. He was born in 1670.\n\n   65 This reminds us of Hume, and inclines towards the empirical notion\n      of Causation, as merely constancy in sequence\u2014not even continuous\n      metamorphosis.\n\n   66 This is Berkeley\u2019s objection to abstract, i.e. unperceived,\n      quantities and infinitesimals\u2014important in the sequel.\n\n   67 The \u201clines and figures\u201d of pure mathematics, that is to say; which\n      he rejects as meaningless, in his horror unrealisable abstractions.\n\n  M25 I.\n  M26 I.\n  M27 M. E.\n  M28 E.\n\n   68 Things really exist, that is to say, in degrees, e.g. in a lesser\n      degree, when they are imagined than when they are actually perceived\n      by our senses; but, in this wide meaning of existence, they may in\n      both cases be said to exist.\n\n  M29 E.\n\n   69 Added on blank page of the MS.\n\n   70 In Berkeley\u2019s limitation of the term _idea_ to what is presented\n      objectively in sense, or represented concretely in imagination.\n      Accordingly \u201can infinite idea\u201d would be an idea which transcends\n      ideation\u2014an express contradiction.\n\n  M30 M.\n  M31 M.\n  M32 M.\n  M33 S.\n\n   71 Does the _human_ spirit depend on _sensible_ ideas as much as they\n      depend on spirit? Other orders of spiritual beings may be percipient\n      of other sorts of phenomena than those presented in those few senses\n      to which man is confined, although self-conscious activity\n      abstracted from _all_ sorts of presented phenomena seems impossible.\n      But a self-conscious spirit is not necessarily dependent on _our_\n      material world or _our_ sense experience.\n\n  M34 S.\n  M35 S.\n\n   72 [This I do not altogether approve of.]\u2014AUTHOR, on margin.\n\n  M36 M.\n  M37 S.\n\n   73 He afterwards guarded the difference, by contrasting _notion_ and\n      _idea_, confining the latter to phenomena presented objectively to\n      our senses, or represented in sensuous imagination, and applying the\n      former to intellectual apprehension of \u201coperations of the mind,\u201d and\n      of \u201crelations\u201d among ideas.\n\n  M38 E.\n\n   74 See _Principles_, sect. 89.\n\n   75 Is thought, then, independent of language? Can we realise thought\n      worthy of the name without use of words? This is Berkeley\u2019s\n      excessive juvenile reaction against verbal abstractions.\n\n   76 Every general notion is _ideally realisable_ in one or other of its\n      possible concrete or individual applications.\n\n  M39 N.\n  M40 S.\n\n   77 This is the germ of Berkeley\u2019s notion of the objectivity of the\n      material world to individual percipients and so of the rise of\n      individual self-consciousness.\n\n  M41 S.\n\n   78 Added by Berkeley on blank page of the MS.\n\n   79 Cf. p. 420, note 2. Bishop Sprat\u2019s _History of the Royal Society_\n      appeared in 1667.\n\n   80 Much need; for what he means by _idea_ has not been attended to by\n      his critics.\n\n  M42 I. Mo.\n\n   81 What \u201cSecond Book\u201d is this? Does he refer to the \u201cSecond Part\u201d of\n      the _Principles_, which never appeared? God is the culmination of\n      his philosophy, in _Siris_.\n\n  M43 M.\n\n   82 This is Berkeley\u2019s material substance. Individual material\n      substances are for him, steady aggregates of sense-given phenomena,\n      having the efficient and final cause of their aggregation in\n      eternally active Mind\u2014active mind, human and Divine, being essential\n      to their realisation for man.\n\n  M44 I.\n\n   83 Cf. Introduction to the _Principles_, especially sect. 18-25.\n\n  M45 M.\n\n   84 Stillingfleet charges Locke with \u201cdiscarding substance out of the\n      reasonable part of the world.\u201d\n\n  M46 M.\n\n   85 The philosophers supposed the real things to exist behind our ideas,\n      in concealment: Berkeley was now beginning to think that the\n      objective ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, the existence\n      of which needs no proof, were _themselves_ the significant and\n      interpretable realities of physical science.\n\n  M47 I.\n  M48 M.\n  M49 S.\n  M50 I.\n  M51 N.\n  M52 P.\n  M53 M.\n  M54 N.\n  M55 M.\n\n   86 If the material world can be _real_ only in and through a percipient\n      intelligence, as the realising factor.\n\n  M56 S.\n  M57 Mo.\n  M58 Mo.\n  M59 Mo.\n  M60 I.\n\n   87 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 13, 119-122, which deny the possibility of\n      an idea or mental picture corresponding to abstract number.\n\n  M61 M. P.\n\n   88 \u201cPr\u00e6cedaneous,\u201d i.e. precedent.\n\n  M62 S.\n\n   89 Who refunds human as well as natural causation into Divine agency.\n\n  M63 Mo.\n\n   90 In which Locke treats \u201cOf the Reality of Knowledge,\u201d including\n      questions apt to lead Berkeley to inquire, Whether we could in\n      reason suppose reality in the absence of all realising mind.\n\n  M64 M.\n  M65 M.\n  M66 E.\n  M67 M.\n  M68 Mo.\n  M69 I.\n  M70 I.\n  M71 I.\n\n   91 Locke\u2019s \u201cabstract idea\u201d is misconceived and caricatured by Berkeley\n      in his impetuosity.\n\n  M72 M.\n\n   92 This and other passages refer to the scepticism, that is founded on\n      the impossibility of our comparing our ideas of things with\n      unperceived real things; so that we can never escape from the circle\n      of subjectivity. Berkeley intended to refute this scepticism.\n\n  M73 I.\n  M74 I.\n  M75 I.\n  M76 Mo.\n\n   93 Probably Samuel Madden, who afterwards edited the _Querist_.\n\n  M77 M.\n\n   94 This \u201cFirst Book\u201d seems to be \u201cPart I\u201d of the projected\n      _Principles_\u2014the only Part ever published. Here he inclines to\n      \u201cperception or thought in general,\u201d in the language of Descartes;\n      but in the end he approximates to Locke\u2019s \u201csensation and\n      reflection.\u201d See _Principles_, sect. 1, and notes.\n\n  M78 I.\n  M79 E.\n  M80 S.\n  M81 S.\n\n   95 Does he mean, like Hume afterwards, that ideas or phenomena\n      constitute the ego, so that I am only the transitory conscious state\n      of each moment?\n\n  M82 S.\n\n   96 \u201cConsciousness\u201d\u2014a term rarely used by Berkeley or his\n      contemporaries.\n\n   97 This too, if strictly interpreted, looks like an anticipation of\n      Hume\u2019s reduction of the ego into successive \u201cimpressions\u201d\u2014\u201cnothing\n      but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed\n      one another with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux\n      and movement.\u201d See Hume\u2019s _Treatise_, Part IV. sect. 6.\n\n  M83 S.\n  M84 M.\n\n   98 What \u201cThird Book\u201d is here projected? Was a \u201cThird Part\u201d of the\n      _Principles_ then in embryo?\n\n  M85 S.\n\n   99 This is scarcely done in the \u201cIntroduction\u201d to the _Principles_.\n\n  M86 S.\n  M87 E.\n\n  100 Berkeley, as we find in the _Commonplace Book_, is fond of\n      conjecturing how a man all alone in the world, freed from the\n      abstractions of language, would apprehend the realities of\n      existence, which he must then face directly, without the use or\n      abuse of verbal symbols.\n\n  M88 E.\n  M89 T.\n  M90 I.\n  M91 I.\n  M92 E.\n  M93 I.\n  M94 I.\n\n  101 This \u201cN. B.\u201d is expanded in the Introduction to the _Principles_.\n\n  M95 M.\n  M96 S.\n  M97 I.\n  M98 M.\n  M99 I.\n M100 M.\n\n  102 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 4.\n\n M101 E.\n M102 M.\n\n  103 What is immediately realised in our percipient experience must be\n      presumed or trusted in as real, if we have any hold of reality, or\n      the moral right to postulate that our universe is fundamentally\n      trustworthy.\n\n M103 I.\n M104 S.\n\n  104 But he distinguishes, in the _Principles_ and elsewhere, between an\n      idea of sense and a percipient ego.\n\n M105 S.\n M106 S.\n M107 S.\n M108 S.\n M109 S.\n M110 S.\n M111 N.\n\n  105 They reappear in _Siris_.\n\n M112 M.\n\n  106 In one of Berkeley\u2019s letters to Johnson, a quarter of a century\n      after the _Commonplace Book_, when he was in America, he observes\n      that \u201cthe mechanical philosophers pretend to demonstrate that matter\n      is proportional to gravity. But their argument concludes nothing,\n      and is a mere circle\u201d\u2014as he proceeds to show.\n\n  107 In the _Principles_, sect. 1-33, he seeks to fulfil the expository\n      part of this intention; in sect. 33-84, also in the _Dialogues\n      between Hylas and Philonous_, he is \u201cparticular in answering\n      objections.\u201d\n\n M113 S.\n M114 M.\n\n  108 If Matter is arbitrarily credited with omnipotence.\n\n M115 S.\n M116 S.\n M117 S.\n M118 S.\n M119 S.\n M120 S.\n\n  109 On freedom as implied in a moral and responsible agent, cf. _Siris_,\n      sect. 257 and note.\n\n M121 N.\n\n  110 Is not this one way of expressing the Universal Providence and\n      constant uniting agency of God in the material world?\n\n  111 Here _idea_ seems to be used in its wider signification, including\n      _notion_.\n\n M122 G.\n\n  112 \u201cinfinitely greater\u201d\u2014Does infinity admit of imaginable degrees?\n\n M123 G.\n\n  113 \u2019embrangled\u2019\u2014perplexed\u2014involved in disputes.\n\n  114 See _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 24.\n\n M124 S.\n\n  115 \u201chomonymy,\u201d i.e. equivocation.\n\n  116 Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense,\n      nor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses \u201cthing\u201d in\n      the wide meaning which comprehends persons.\n\n M125 S.\n\n  117 Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense,\n      nor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses \u201cthing\u201d in\n      the wide meaning which comprehends persons.\n\n M126 S.\n M127 E.\n M128 T.\n M129 S.\n\n  118 Is this consistent with other entries?\n\n M130 S.\n\n_  119 Essay_, Bk. II. ch. i. sect. 9-19.\n\n M131 S.\n\n  120 This is one way of meeting the difficulty of supposed interruptions\n      of conscious or percipient activity.\n\n M132 S.\n M133 S.\n\n  121 This seems to imply that voluntary action is mysteriously\n      self-originated.\n\n M134 S.\n M135 N.\n M136 T.\n M137 S.\n\n  122 \u201cperception.\u201d He does not include the percipient.\n\n  123 \u201cwithout,\u201d i.e. unrealised by any percipient.\n\n M138 M.\n\n  124 This would make _idea_ the term only for what is imagined, as\n      distinguished from what is perceived in sense.\n\n M139 S.\n M140 S.\n\n  125 In a strict use of words, only _persons_ exercise will\u2014not _things_.\n\n M141 S.\n M142 S.\n\n  126 As we must do in imagination, which (unlike sense) is\n      representative; for the mental images represent original data of\n      sense-perception.\n\n M143 S.\n M144 S.\n M145 S.\n M146 I.\n M147 S.\n M148 Mo.\n M149 Mo.\n\n  127 Does he not allow that we have _meaning_, if not _ideas_, when we\n      use the terms virtue and vice and moral action?\n\n  128 As Locke says we are.\n\n M150 E.\n\n  129 \u201c_Existence_ and _unity_ are ideas that are suggested to the\n      understanding by every object without and every idea within. When\n      ideas are in our minds, we consider that _they_ exist.\u201d Locke\u2019s\n      _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 7. sect. 7.\n\n M151 E.\n\n  130 i.e. of Existence in the abstract\u2014unperceived and\n      unperceiving\u2014realised neither in percipient life nor in moral\n      action.\n\n M152 S.\n M153 S.\n M154 S.\n M155 S. E.\n M156 G.\n\n  131 This suggests that God knows sensible things without being sentient\n      of any.\n\n M157 N. Mo.\n M158 Mo.\n M159 I.\n M160 I.\n\n  132 Cf. _Principles_, Introd., sect. 1-5.\n\n M161 I.\n\n  133 Cf. Preface to _Principles_; also to _Dialogues_.\n\n M162 S.\n M163 I.\n M164 Mo.\n\n  134 i.e. that ethics was a science of phenomena or ideas.\n\n M165 S.\n M166 I.\n\n  135 i.e. of the _independent_ existence of Matter.\n\n M167 M.\n\n  136 \u2019bodies\u2019\u2014i.e. sensible things\u2014not unrealised Matter.\n\n M168 I. &c.\n\n  137 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 13.\n\n M169 I.\n\n  138 Locke died in October, 1704.\n\n M170 S.\n\n  139 \u201cwithout the mind,\u201d i.e. abstracted from all active percipient life.\n\n M171 Mo.\n M172 Mo.\n M173 P. S.\n\n  140 e.g. secondary qualities of sensible things, in which pleasure and\n      pain are prominent.\n\n  141 e.g. primary qualities, in which pleasure and pain are latent.\n\n M174 I.\n M175 Mo.\n M176 M.\n\n  142 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13. \u00a7 21, ch. 17. \u00a7 4; also Bk. IV.\n      ch. 3. \u00a7 6; also his controversy with Bishop Stillingfleet regarding\n      the possibility of Matter thinking. With Berkeley real space is a\n      finite creature, dependent for realisation on living percipient\n      Spirit.\n\n M177 I.\n M178 Mo.\n M179 Mo.\n M180 S.\n\n  143 But what of the origination of the volition itself?\n\n M181 M. S.\n\n_  144 Essay_, Bk. I. ch. iv. \u00a7 18. See also Locke\u2019s _Letters_ to\n      Stillingfleet.\n\n M182 M. S.\n\n  145 It is, according to Berkeley, the steady union or co-existence of a\n      group of sense-phenomena.\n\n M183 I.\n M184 I.\n M185 S.\n\n_  146 Essay_, Bk. II. ch. i. \u00a7 10\u2014where he argues for interruptions of\n      consciousness. \u201cMen think not always.\u201d\n\n M186 Mo.\n M187 S.\n M188 S.\n M189 S.\n M190 S.\n M191 S.\n M192 S.\n M193 S.\n\n  147 In other words, the material world is wholly impotent: all activity\n      in the universe is spiritual.\n\n M194 I.\n\n  148 On the order of its four books and the structure of Locke\u2019s _Essay_,\n      see the Prolegomena in my edition of the _Essay_, pp. liv-lviii.\n\n M195 M.\n\n  149 i.e. independent imperceptible Matter.\n\n M196 I.\n M197 M.\n\n  150 What of the earliest geological periods, asks Ueberweg? But is there\n      greater difficulty in such instances than in explaining the\n      existence of a table or a house, while one is merely seeing, without\n      touching?\n\n M198 M.\n\n  151 Locke explains \u201csubstance\u201d as \u201can uncertain supposition of we know\n      not what.\u201d _Essay_, Bk. I. ch. 4. \u00a7 18.\n\n M199 E.\n M200 I.\n M201 Mo.\n M202 Mo.\n\n  152 Locke makes certainty consist in the agreement of \u201cour ideas with\n      the reality of things.\u201d See _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 4. \u00a7 18. Here the\n      sceptical difficulty arises, which Berkeley meets under his\n      Principle. If we have no perception of reality, we cannot compare\n      our ideas with it, and so cannot have any criterion of reality.\n\n M203 Mo.\n M204 Mo.\n\n  153 [This seems wrong. Certainty, real certainty, is of sensible ideas.\n      I may be certain without affirmation or negation.\u2014AUTHOR.] This\n      needs further explanation.\n\n M205 Mo.\n M206 Mo.\n M207 Mo.\n M208 I.\n\n  154 This entry and the preceding tends to resolve all judgments which\n      are not what Kant calls analytical into contingent.\n\n M209 I.\n M210 I.\n M211 E.\n M212 N. Mo.\n\n  155 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 1, \u00a7\u00a7 3-7, and ch. 3. \u00a7\u00a7 7-21. The\n      stress Berkeley lays on \u201cco-existence\u201d is significant.\n\n M213 P.\n\n  156 i.e. we must not doubt the reality of the immediate data of sense\n      but accept it, as \u201cthe mob\u201d do.\n\n M214 I.\n M215 S.\n M216 S.\n\n  157 But is imagination different from actual perception only in _degree_\n      of reality?\n\n M217 S.\n M218 E.\n\n  158 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 13, 120; also Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch.\n      7. sect. 7.\n\n M219 I.\n\n  159 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 1.\n\n M220 I.\n\n  160 Berkeley\u2019s aim evidently is to deliver men from empty abstractions,\n      by a return to more reasonably interpreted common-sense.\n\n M221 S.\n\n  161 The sort of _external_ world that is intelligible to us is that of\n      which _another person_ is percipient, and which is _objective_ to\n      me, in a percipient experience foreign to mine.\n\n M222 S.\n M223 Mo.\n M224 S.\n\n  162 Cf. Berkeley\u2019s _Arithmetica_ and _Miscellanea Mathematica_,\n      published while he was making his entries in this _Commonplace\n      Book_.\n\n  163 Minima sensibilia?\n\n M225 Mo.\n M226 E.\n M227 Mo.\n M228 Mo.\n\n  164 Pleasures, _qu\u00e2_ pleasures, are natural causes of correlative\n      desires, as pains or uneasinesses are of correlative aversions. This\n      is implied in the very nature of pleasure and pain.\n\n M229 I.\n M230 I.\n\n  165 Here we have his explanation of _idea_.\n\n M231 M. S.\n\n  166 Absent things.\n\n  167 Here, as elsewhere, he resolves geometry, as strictly demonstrable,\n      into a reasoned system of analytical or verbal propositions.\n\n M232 I. M.\n\n  168 Compare this with note 3, p. 34; also with the contrast between\n      Sense and Reason, in _Siris_. Is the statement consistent with\n      implied assumptions even in the _Principles_, apart from which they\n      could not cohere?\n\n M233 S. G.\n M234 E.\n M235 G.\n\n  169 To have an _idea_ of God\u2014as Berkeley uses idea\u2014would imply that God\n      is an immediately perceptible, or at least an imaginable object.\n\n M236 M. E.\n\n  170 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 89.\n\n M237 I.\n M238 M. S.\n M239 S.\n M240 Mo.\n M241 S.\n M242 M.\n\n  171 Ch. 11. \u00a7 5.\n\n M243 S.\n M244 E.\n\n  172 Why add\u2014\u201cor perception\u201d?\n\n M245 Mo.\n M246 M.\n\n  173 Here we have Berkeley\u2019s favourite thought of the divine\n      arbitrariness of the constitution of Nature, and of its laws of\n      change.\n\n M247 M. S.\n M248 S.\n M249 S.\n\n  174 This suggests the puzzle, that the cause of every volition must be a\n      preceding volition, and so on _ad infinitum_.\n\n M250 S.\n M251 E. S.\n M252 M. P. E.\n\n_  175 Recherche_, I. 19.\n\n M253 P.\n\n  176 i.e. of his own individual mind.\n\n M254 M. P.\n\n  177 i.e. to _a_ percipient mind, but not necessarily to _mine_; for\n      natural laws are independent of individual will, although the\n      individual participates in perception of the ordered changes.\n\n  178 Cf. the _Arithmetica_.\n\n M255 M. N.\n M256 G.\n M257 S.\n\n  179 i.e. which are not phenomena. This recognition of originative Will\n      even then distinguished Berkeley.\n\n M258 M.\n\n  180 Is this Part II of the _Principles_, which was lost in Italy?\n\n M259 I. S.\n M260 I. Mo.\n M261 S.\n\n  181 The thought of articulate _relations_ to which real existence must\n      conform, was not then at least in Berkeley\u2019s mind. Hence the\n      empiricism and sensationalism into which he occasionally seems to\n      rush in the _Commonplace Book_, in his repulsion from empty\n      abstractions.\n\n M262 G. S.\n\n  182 This is the essence of Berkeley\u2019s philosophy\u2014\u201ca blind agent is a\n      contradiction.\u201d\n\n M263 G.\n M264 S.\n M265 S.\n M266 S. Mo.\n M267 Mo. N.\n M268 M.\n\n  183 This is the basis of Berkeley\u2019s reasoning for the necessarily\n      _unrepresentative_ character of the ideas or phenomena that are\n      presented to our senses. _They_ are the originals.\n\n M269 M. S.\n M270 S.\n M271 S.\n M272 S.\n M273 M.\n M274 M.\n M275 G.\n\n  184 Berkeley\u2019s horror of abstract or unperceived space and atoms is\n      partly explained by dogmas in natural philosophy that are now\n      antiquated.\n\n M276 I. E.\n M277 G.\n\n  185 Ralph [?] Raphson, author of _Demonstratio de Deo_ (1710), and also\n      of _De Spatio Reali, seu ente Infinito: conamen\n      mathematico-metaphysicum_ (1697), to which Berkeley refers in one of\n      his letters to Johnson. See also Green\u2019s _Principles of Natural\n      Philosophy_ (1712). The immanence of omnipotent goodness in the\n      material world was unconsciously Berkeley\u2019s presupposition. In God\n      we have our being.\n\n M278 S.\n M279 S.\n M280 G.\n M281 E. N.\n\n  186 Note here Berkeley\u2019s version of the causal principle, which is\n      really the central presupposition of his whole philosophy\u2014viz. every\n      event in the material world must be the issue of acting Will.\n\n M282 P.\n M283 S.\n\n  187 So Locke on an ideally perfect memory. _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. x. \u00a7 9.\n\n M284 G.\n M285 M.\n\n  188 John Sergeant was the author of _Solid Philosophy asserted against\n      the Fancies of the Ideists_ (London, 1697); also of _the Method to\n      Science_ (1696). He was a deserter from the Church of England to the\n      Church of Rome, and wrote several pieces in defence of Roman\n      theology\u2014some of them in controversy with Tillotson.\n\n M286 S.\n M287 E. S.\n\n  189 Spirit and Matter are mutually dependent; but Spirit is the\n      realising factor and real agent in the universe.\n\n M288 M.\n M289 P.\n M290 G.\n\n  190 See Descartes, _Meditations_, III; Spinoza, _Epist._ II, ad\n      Oldenburgium.\n\n M291 S.\n\n  191 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 2.\n\n M292 S.\n M293 S.\n M294 N. S.\n M295 Mo.\n M296 Mo.\n M297 Mo. N.\n\n  192 Is \u201cinclusion\u201d here virtually a synonym for verbal definition?\n\n M298 S.\n M299 N.\n M300 N.\n M301 S.\n M302 I.\n M303 I.\n M304 I.\n M305 M.\n M306 M.\n M307 M. S.\n\n  193 See _Principles_, sect. 2. The universe of Berkeley consists of\n      Active Spirits that perceive and produce motion in impotent ideas or\n      phenomena, realised in the percipient experience of persons. All\n      supposed powers in Matter are refunded into Spirit.\n\n M308 P.\n M309 P.\n M310 I.\n M311 S.\n M312 S.\n M313 S.\n M314 S.\n\n  194 When self-conscious agents are included among \u201cthings.\u201d We can have\n      no sensuous image, i.e. idea, of _spirit_, although he maintains we\n      can use the word intelligently.\n\n M315 Mo.\n M316 M.\n M317 S. G.\n M318 P.\n M319 M.\n M320 S.\n M321 M. P.\n M322 Mo. N.\n\n  195 Berkeley insists that we should individualise our thinking\u2014\u201cipsis\n      consuescere rebus,\u201d as Bacon says,\u2014to escape the dangers of\n      artificial signs. This is the drift of his assault on abstract\n      ideas, and his repulsion from what is not concrete. He would even\n      dispense with words in his meditations in case of being\n      sophisticated by abstractions.\n\n M323 N.\n\n  196 Nature or the phenomenal world in short is the revelation of\n      perfectly reasonable Will.\n\n M324 M. S.\n M325 S.\n\n  197 Gerard De Vries, the Cartesian.\n\n M326 S.\n M327 G. T.\n M328 T.\n M329 T.\n M330 T.\n M331 M.\n M332 M.\n M333 M.\n M334 M.\n\n  198 Are the things of sense only modes in which percipient persons\n      exist?\n\n M335 N.\n\n  199 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 9. \u00a7 8.\n\n M336 M. S.\n M337 M.\n M338 M.\n M339 T.\n M340 M.\n M341 N.\n M342 M.\n M343 T.\n\n  200 Time being relative to the capacity of the percipient.\n\n  201 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 9. \u00a7 8.\n\n M344 M.\n\n  202 To perceive what is not an idea (as Berkeley uses idea) is to\n      perceive what is not realised, and therefore not real.\n\n  203 So things have a _potential_ objective existence in the Divine Will.\n\n  204 With Berkeley, change is time, and time, abstracted from all\n      changes, is meaningless.\n\n  205 Could he know, by seeing only, even that he _had_ a body?\n\n M345 M.\n M346 M.\n M347 M.\n M348 M.\n M349 M. N.\n M350 N.\n\n  206 \u201cthe ideas attending these impressions,\u201d i.e. the ideas that are\n      correlatives of the (by us unperceived) organic impressions.\n\n M351 M.\n M352 M.\n M353 M.\n\n  207 The Italian physical and metaphysical philosopher Fardella\n      (1650-1718) maintained, by reasonings akin to those of Malebranche,\n      that the existence of the material world could not be scientifically\n      proved, and could only be maintained by faith in authoritative\n      revelation. See his _Univers\u00e6 Philosophi\u00e6 Systema_ (1690), and\n      especially his _Logica_ (1696).\n\n M354 M.\n\n  208 Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 11.\n\n  209 What does he mean by \u201cunknown substratum\u201d?\n\n M355 M.\n M356 S.\n M357 M.\n M358 M.\n\n  210 He gets rid of the infinite in quantity, because it is incapable of\n      concrete manifestation to the senses. When a phenomenon given in\n      sense reaches the _minimum sensibile_, it reaches what is for us the\n      margin of realisable existence: it cannot be infinitely little and\n      still a phenomenon: insensible phenomena of sense involve a\n      contradiction. And so too of the infinitely large.\n\n M359 T.\n\n  211 In short he would idealise the visible world but not the tangible\n      world. In the _Principles_, Berkeley idealises both.\n\n M360 S.\n M361 M.\n\n  212 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 149-59, where he concludes that\n      \u201cneither abstract nor visible extension makes the object of\n      geometry.\u201d\n\n  213 By the adult, who has learned to interpret its visual signs.\n\n  214 Inasmuch as no physical consequences _follow_ the volition; which\n      however is still self-originated.\n\n M362 G.\n\n  215 \u201cA succession of ideas I take to _constitute_ time, and not to be\n      only the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think.\u201d\n      (Berkeley\u2019s letter to Johnson.)\n\n M363 P.\n M364 M.\n M365 T.\n M366 S.\n\n  216 Cf. _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 16, sect. 8.\n\n  217 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 67-77.\n\n  218 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 88-120.\n\n M367 T.\n M368 M.\n M369 M.\n\n  219 This is of the essence of Berkeley\u2019s philosophy.\n\n M370 M.\n M371 M.\n M372 Mo. S.\n M373 S.\n M374 S.\n M375 S.\n\n  220 But in moral freedom originates in the agent, instead of being\n      \u201cconsecutive\u201d to his voluntary acts or found only in their\n      consequences.\n\n M376 M.\n\n  221 \u201cStrigose\u201d (strigosus)\u2014meagre.\n\n M377 S. Mo.\n M378 N.\n M379 I. S.\n M380 S.\n\n  222 As he afterwards expresses it, we have intelligible _notions_, but\n      not _ideas_\u2014sensuous pictures\u2014of the states or acts of our minds.\n\n  223 [\u201cOmnes reales rerum proprietates continentur in Deo.\u201d What means Le\n      Clerc &c. by this? Log. I. ch. 8.]\u2014AUTHOR, on margin.\n\n M381 G.\n\n  224 \u201cSi non rogas intelligo.\u201d\n\n M382 M.\n M383 P.N.\n M384 M. P.\n\n  225 This way of winning others to his own opinions is very\n      characteristic of Berkeley. See p. 92 and note.\n\n M385 M. P.\n\n  226 See _Third Dialogue_, on _sameness_ in things and _sameness_ in\n      persons, which it puzzles him to reconcile with his New Principles.\n\n M386 N.\n M387 S.\n\n  227 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 52-61.\n\n  228 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 101-134.\n\n  229 \u201cdistance\u201d\u2014on opposite page in the MS. Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect.\n      140.\n\n  230 Direct perception of phenomena is adequate to the perceived\n      phenomena; indirect or scientific perception is inadequate, leaving\n      room for faith and trust.\n\n M388 M. P.\n\n  231 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 107-8.\n\n M389 M.\n M390 S.\n\n  232 The Divine Ideas of Malebranche and the sensuous ideas of Berkeley\n      differ.\n\n M391 N.\n\n  233 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 71.\n\n  234 Cf. Malebranche, _Recherche_, Bk. I. c. 6. That and the following\n      chapters seem to have been in Berkeley\u2019s mind.\n\n  235 He here assumes that extension (visible) is implied in the visible\n      idea we call colour.\n\n  236 This strikingly illustrates Berkeley\u2019s use of \u201cidea,\u201d and what he\n      intends when he argues against \u201cabstract\u201d ideas.\n\n M392 M. P.\n\n  237 An interesting autobiographical fact. From childhood he was\n      indisposed to take things on trust.\n\n M393 M. P.\n M394 M.\n M395 M.\n\n_  238 Essay on Vision_, sect. 88-119.\n\n M396 M.\n M397 M.\n M398 M.\n M399 M.\n M400 P.\n M401 M. P.\n M402 M.\n M403 M.\n M404 I.\n M405 M.\n\n  239 \u201cthoughts,\u201d i.e. ideas of sense?\n\n  240 This, in a crude way, is the distinction of \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b9\u03c2 and \u1f10\u03bd\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1. It\n      helps to explain Berkeley\u2019s meaning, when he occasionally speaks of\n      the ideas or phenomena that appear in the sense experience of\n      different persons as if they were absolutely independent entities.\n\n M406 M.\n M407 M.\n\n  241 To be \u201cin an unperceiving thing,\u201d i.e. to be real, yet unperceived.\n      Whatever is perceived is, because realised only through a percipient\n      act, an _idea_\u2014in Berkeley\u2019s use of the word.\n\n M408 I.\n\n  242 This as to the \u201cPlatonic strain\u201d is not in the tone of _Siris_.\n\n M409 M.\n M410 M.\n M411 M.\n\n  243 John Keill (1671-1721), an eminent mathematician, educated at the\n      University of Edinburgh; in 1710 Savilian Professor of Astronomy at\n      Oxford, and the first to teach the Newtonian philosophy in that\n      University. In 1708 he was engaged in a controversy in support of\n      Newton\u2019s claims to the discovery of the method of fluxions.\n\n M412 M. P.\n M413 M.\n\n  244 This suggests a negative argument for Kant\u2019s antinomies, and for\n      Hamilton\u2019s law of the conditioned.\n\n M414 M.\n M415 N.\n\n  245 Newton became Sir Isaac on April 16, 1705. Was this written before\n      that date?\n\n  246 These may be _considered_ separately, but not _pictured_ as such.\n\n M416 P.\n M417 M.\n\n  247 In as far as they have not been sensibly realised in finite\n      percipient mind.\n\n  248 [Or rather that invisible length does exist.]\u2014AUTHOR, on margin.\n\n  249 Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598-1647), the Italian mathematician. His\n      _Geometry of Indivisibles_ (1635) prepared the way for the Calculus.\n\n M418 M.\n M419 P. G.\n\n  250 [By \u201cthe excuse\u201d is meant the finiteness of our mind\u2014making it\n      possible for contradictions to appear true to us.]\u2014AUTHOR, on\n      margin.\n\n  251 He allows elsewhere that words with meanings not realisable in\n      imagination, i.e. in the form of idea, may discharge a useful\n      office. See _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 20.\n\n M420 M. P.\n\n  252 We do not perceive unperceived matter, but only matter realised in\n      living perception\u2014the percipient act being the factor of its\n      reality.\n\n M421 M.\n M422 P.\n\n  253 The secondary qualities of things.\n\n M423 M. P.\n\n  254 Because, while dependent on percipient sense, they are independent\n      of _my_ personal will, being determined to appear under natural law,\n      by Divine agency.\n\n M424 P.\n M425 M.\n\n  255 Keill\u2019s _Introductio ad veram Physicam_ (Oxon. 1702)\u2014Lectio 5\u2014a\n      curious work, dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke.\n\n  256 [Extension without breadth\u2014i. e. insensible, intangible length\u2014is\n      not conceivable. \u2019Tis a mistake we are led into by the doctrine of\n      abstraction.]\u2014AUTHOR, on margin of MS.\n\n  257 Here \u201cSir Isaac.\u201d Hence written after April, 1705.\n\n M426 M.\n\n_  258 Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. iv. sect. 18; ch. v. sect. 3, &c.\n\n  259 He applies _thing_ to self-conscious persons as well as to passive\n      objects of sense.\n\n_  260 Scaligerana Secunda_, p. 270.\n\n  261 [These arguments must be proposed shorter and more separate in the\n      Treatise.]\u2014AUTHOR, on margin.\n\n  262 \u201cIdea\u201d here used in its wider meaning\u2014for \u201coperations of mind,\u201d as\n      well as for sense presented phenomena that are independent of\n      individual will. Cf. _Principles_, sect. 1.\n\n  263 \u201csensations,\u201d i.e. objective phenomena presented in sense.\n\n  264 See _Principles_, sect. 1.\n\n  265 See _Principles_, sect. 2.\n\n  266 An \u201cunperceiving thing\u201d cannot be the factor of material reality.\n\n  267 [To the utmost accuracy, wanting nothing of perfection. _Their_\n      solutions of problems, themselves must own to fall infinitely short\n      of perfection.]\u2014AUTHOR, on margin.\n\n M427 P.\n\n  268 Jean de Billy and Ren\u00e9 de Billy, French mathematicians\u2014the former\n      author of _Nova Geometri\u00e6 Clavis_ and other mathematical works.\n\n M428 T.\n\n  269 According to Baronius, in the fifth volume of his \u201cAnnals,\u201d Ficinus\n      appeared after death to Michael Mercatus\u2014agreeably to a promise he\n      made when he was alive\u2014to assure him of the life of the human spirit\n      after the death of the body.\n\n M429 M.\n\n  270 So far as we are factors of their reality, in sense and in science,\n      or can be any practical way concerned with them.\n\n  271 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 101-34.\n\n M430 P.\n\n  272 \u201csomething,\u201d i.e. _abstract_ something.\n\n  273 Lord Pembroke (?)\u2014to whom the _Principles_ were dedicated, and to\n      whom Locke dedicated his _Essay_.\n\n  274 This is an interesting example of a feature that is conspicuous in\n      Berkeley\u2014the art of \u201chumoring an opponent in his own way of\n      thinking,\u201d which it seems was an early habit. It is thus that he\n      insinuates his New Principles in the _Essay on Vision_, and so\n      prepares to unfold and defend them in the book of _Principles_ and\n      the three _Dialogues_\u2014straining language to reconcile them with\n      ordinary modes of speech.\n\n  275 In Diderot\u2019s _Lettre sur les aveugles, \u00e0 l\u2019usage de ceux qui\n      voient_, where Berkeley, Molyneux, Condillac, and others are\n      mentioned. Cf. also Appendix, pp. 111, 112; and _Theory of Vision\n      Vindicated_, sect. 71, with the note, in which some recorded\n      experiments are alluded to.\n\n_  276 De Anima_, II. 6, III. 1, &c. Aristotle assigns a pre-eminent\n      intellectual value to the sense of sight. See, for instance, his\n      _Metaphysics_, I. 1.\n\n  277 Sir A. Grant, (_Ethics of Aristotle_, vol. II. p. 172) remarks, as\n      to the doctrine that the Common Sensibles are apprehended\n      concomitantly by the senses, that: \u201cthis is surely the true view; we\n      see in the apprehension of number, figure, and the like, not an\n      operation of sense, but the mind putting its own forms and\n      categories, i.e. itself, on the external object. It would follow\n      then that the senses cannot really be separated from the mind; the\n      senses and the mind each contribute an element to every knowledge.\n      Aristotle\u2019s doctrine of \u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f74 \u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 would go far, if carried out,\n      to modify his doctrine of the simple and innate character of the\n      senses, e.g. sight (cf. _Eth._ II. 1, 4), and would prevent its\n      collision with Berkeley\u2019s _Theory of Vision_.\u201d\u2014See also Sir W.\n      Hamilton, _Reid\u2019s Works_, pp. 828-830.\n\n      Dugald Stewart (_Collected Works_, vol. I. p. 341, note) quotes\n      Aristotle\u2019s _Ethics_, II. 1, as evidence that Berkeley\u2019s doctrine,\n      \u201cwith respect to the acquired perceptions of sight, was quite\n      unknown to the best metaphysicians of antiquity.\u201d\n\n  278 A work resembling Berkeley\u2019s in its title, but in little else,\n      appeared more than twenty years before the _Essay_\u2014the _Nova\n      Visionis Theoria_ of Dr. Briggs, published in 1685.\n\n  279 See _Treatise on the Eye_, vol. II. pp. 299, &c.\n\n  280 See Reid\u2019s _Inquiry_, ch. v. \u00a7\u00a7 3, 5, 6, 7; ch. vi. \u00a7 24, and\n      _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, II. ch. 10 and 19.\n\n  281 While Sir W. Hamilton (_Lectures on Metaphysics_, lxxviii)\n      acknowledges the scientific validity of Berkeley\u2019s conclusions, as\n      to the way we judge of distances, he complains, in the same lecture,\n      that \u201cthe whole question is thrown into doubt by the analogy of the\n      lower animals,\u201d i.e. by their probable _visual instinct_ of\n      distances; and elsewhere (Reid\u2019s _Works_, p. 137, note) he seems to\n      hesitate about Locke\u2019s Solution of Molyneux\u2019s Problem, at least in\n      its application to Cheselden\u2019s case. Cf. Leibniz, _Nouveaux Essais_,\n      Liv. II. ch. 9, in connexion with this last.\n\n  282 An almost solitary exception in Britain to this unusual uniformity\n      on a subtle question in psychology is found in Samuel Bailey\u2019s\n      _Review of Berkeley\u2019s Theory of Vision, designed to show the\n      unsoundness of that celebrated Speculation_, which appeared in 1842.\n      It was the subject of two interesting rejoinders\u2014a well-weighed\n      criticism, in the _Westminster Review_, by J.S. Mill, since\n      republished in his _Discussions_; and an ingenious Essay by\n      Professor Ferrier, in _Blackwood\u2019s Magazine_, republished in his\n      _Philosophical Remains_. The controversy ended on that occasion with\n      Bailey\u2019s _Letter to a Philosopher in reply to some recent attempts\n      to vindicate Berkeley\u2019s Theory of Vision, and in further elucidation\n      of its unsoundness_, and a reply to it by each of his critics. It\n      was revived in 1864 by Mr. Abbott of Trinity College, Dublin, whose\n      essay on _Sight and Touch_ is \u201can attempt to disprove the received\n      (or Berkeleian) Theory of Vision.\u201d\n\n  283 Afterwards (in 1733) Earl of Egmont. Born about 1683, he succeeded\n      to the baronetcy in 1691, and, after sitting for a few years in the\n      Irish House of Commons, was in 1715 created Baron Percival, in the\n      Irish peerage. In 1732 he obtained a charter to colonise the\n      province of Georgia in North America. His name appears in the list\n      of subscribers to Berkeley\u2019s Bermuda Scheme in 1726. He died in\n      1748. He corresponded frequently with Berkeley from 1709 onwards.\n\n  284 Similar terms are applied to the sense of seeing by writers with\n      whom Berkeley was familiar. Thus Locke (_Essay_, II. ix. 9) refers\n      to sight as \u201cthe most comprehensive of all our senses.\u201d Descartes\n      opens his _Dioptrique_ by designating it as \u201cle plus universal et le\n      plus noble de nos sens;\u201d and he alludes to it elsewhere (_Princip._\n      IV. 195) as \u201cle plus subtil de tous les sens.\u201d Malebranche begins\n      his analysis of sight (_Recherche_, I. 6) by describing it as \u201cle\n      premier, le plus noble, et le plus \u00e9tendu de tous les sens.\u201d The\n      high place assigned to this sense by Aristotle has been already\n      alluded to. Its office, as the chief organ through which a\n      conception of the material universe as placed in ambient space is\n      given to us, is recognised by a multitude of psychologists and\n      metaphysicians.\n\n  285 On Berkeley\u2019s originality in his Theory of Vision see the Editor\u2019s\n      Preface.\n\n  286 In the first edition alone this sentence followed:\u2014\u201cIn treating of\n      all which, it seems to me, the writers of Optics have proceeded on\n      wrong principles.\u201d\n\n  287 Sect. 2-51 explain the way in which we learn in seeing to judge of\n      Distance or Outness, and of objects as existing remote from our\n      organism, viz. by their association with what we see, and with\n      certain muscular and other sensations in the eye which accompany\n      vision. Sect. 2 assumes, as granted, the invisibility of distance in\n      the line of sight. Cf. sect. 11 and 88\u2014_First Dialogue between Hylas\n      and Philonous\u2014Alciphron_, IV. 8\u2014_Theory of Vision Vindicated and\n      Explained_, sect. 62-69.\n\n  288 i.e. outness, or distance outward from the point of vision\u2014distance\n      in the line of sight\u2014the third dimension of space. Visible distance\n      is visible space or interval between two points (see sect. 112). We\n      can be sensibly percipient of it only when _both_ points are seen.\n\n  289 This section is adduced by some of Berkeley\u2019s critics as if it were\n      the evidence discovered by him for his _Theory_, instead of being,\n      as it is, a passing reference to the scientific ground of the\n      already acknowledged invisibility of outness, or distance in the\n      line of sight. See, for example, Bailey\u2019s _Review of Berkeley\u2019s\n      Theory of Vision_, pp. 38-43, also his _Theory of Reasoning_, p. 179\n      and pp. 200-7\u2014Mill\u2019s _Discussions_, vol. II. p. 95\u2014Abbott\u2019s _Sight\n      and Touch_, p. 10, where this sentence is presented as \u201cthe sole\n      positive argument advanced by Berkeley.\u201d The invisibility of outness\n      is not Berkeley\u2019s discovery, but the way we learn to interpret its\n      visual signs, and what these are.\n\n  290 i.e. aerial and linear perspective are acknowledged signs of remote\n      distances. But the question, in this and the thirty-six following\n      sections, concerns the visibility of _near_ distances only\u2014a few\n      yards in front of us. It was \u201cagreed by all\u201d that beyond this limit\n      distances are suggested by our experience of their signs.\n\n  291 Cf. this and the four following sections with the quotations in the\n      Editor\u2019s Preface, from Molyneux\u2019s _Treatise of Dioptrics_.\n\n  292 In the author\u2019s last edition we have this annotation: \u201cSee what Des\n      Cartes and others have written upon the subject.\u201d\n\n  293 In the first edition this section opens thus: \u201cI have here set down\n      the common current accounts that are given of our perceiving near\n      distances by sight, which, though they are unquestionably received\n      for true by mathematicians, and accordingly made use of by them in\n      determining the apparent places of objects, do nevertheless,\u201d &c.\n\n  294 Omitted in the author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  295 i.e. although immediately invisible, it is mediately seen. Mark,\n      here and elsewhere, the ambiguity of the term _perception_, which\n      now signifies the act of being conscious of sensuous phenomena, and\n      again the act of inferring phenomena of which we are at the time\n      insentient; while it is also applied to the object perceived instead\n      of to the percipient act; and sometimes to imagination, and the\n      higher acts of intelligence.\n\n  296 \u201cSome men\u201d\u2014\u201cmathematicians,\u201d in first edition.\n\n  297 i.e. the _mediate_ perception.\n\n  298 \u201cany man\u201d\u2014\u201call the mathematicians in the world,\u201d in first edition.\n\n  299 Omitted in the author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  300 Omitted in the author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  301 Sect. 3, 9.\n\n  302 Observe the first introduction by Berkeley of the term _suggestion_,\n      used by him to express a leading factor in his account of the\n      visible world, and again in his more comprehensive account of our\n      knowledge of the material universe in the _Principles_. It had been\n      employed occasionally, among others, by Hobbes and Locke. There are\n      three ways in which the objects we have an immediate perception of\n      in sight may be supposed to conduct us to what we do not immediately\n      perceive: (1) Instinct, or what Reid calls \u201c_original suggestion_\u201d\n      (_Inquiry_, ch. VI. sect. 20-24); (2) Custom; (3) Reasoning from\n      accepted premisses. Berkeley\u2019s \u201csuggestion\u201d corresponds to the\n      second. (Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 42.)\n\n  303 In the _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 66, it is added that\n      this \u201csensation\u201d belongs properly to the sense of touch. Cf. also\n      sect. 145 of this _Essay_.\n\n  304 Here \u201cnatural\u201d=\u201cnecessary\u201d: elsewhere=divinely arbitrary connexion.\n\n  305 That our _mediate_ vision of outness and of objects as thus\n      external, is due to media which have a contingent or arbitrary,\n      instead of a necessary, connexion with the distances which they\n      enable us to see, or of which they are the signs, is a cardinal part\n      of his argument.\n\n  306 Sect. 2.\n\n  307 Here, as generally in the _Essay_, the appeal is to our inward\n      experience, not to phenomena observed by our senses in the organism.\n\n  308 See sect. 35 for the difference between confused and faint vision.\n      Cf. sect. 32-38 with this section. Also _Theory of Vision\n      Vindicated_, sect. 68.\n\n  309 See sect. 6.\n\n  310 These sections presuppose previous contiguity as an associative law\n      of mental phenomena.\n\n  311 See Reid\u2019s _Inquiry_, ch. vi. sect. 22.\n\n  312 Sect. 16-27.\u2014For the signs of remote distances, see sect. 3.\n\n  313 These are muscular sensations felt in the organ, and degrees of\n      confusion in a visible idea. Berkeley\u2019s \u201carbitrary\u201d signs of\n      distance, near and remote, are either (_a_) invisible states of the\n      visual organ, or (_b_) visible appearances.\n\n  314 In Molyneux\u2019s _Treatise of Dioptrics_, Pt. I. prop. 31, sect. 9,\n      Barrow\u2019s difficulty is stated. Cf. sect. 40 below.\n\n  315 Christopher Scheiner, a German astronomer, and opponent of the\n      Copernican system, born 1575, died 1650.\n\n  316 Andrea Tacquet, a mathematician, born at Antwerp in 1611, and\n      referred to by Molyneux as \u201cthe ingenious Jesuit.\u201d He published a\n      number of scientific treatises, most of which appeared after his\n      death, in a collected form, at Antwerp in 1669.\n\n  317 In what follows Berkeley tries to explain by his visual theory\n      seeming contradictions which puzzled the mathematicians.\n\n  318 This is offered as a verification of the theory that near distances\n      are suggested, according to the order of nature, by non-resembling\n      visual signs, contingently connected with real distance.\n\n  319 Cf. sect. 78; also _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 31.\n\n  320 Berkeley here passes from his proof of visual \u201csuggestion\u201d of all\n      outward distances\u2014i.e. intervals between extremes in the line of\n      sight\u2014by means of arbitrary signs, and considers the nature of\n      visible externality. See note in Hamilton\u2019s _Reid_, p. 177, on the\n      distinction between perception of the external world and perception\n      of distance through the eye.\n\n  321 See Descartes, _Dioptrique_, VI\u2014Malebranche, _Recherche_, Liv. I.\n      ch. 9, 3\u2014Reid\u2019s _Inquiry_, VI. 11.\n\n  322 Berkeley here begins to found, on the experienced connexion between\n      extension and colour, and between visible and tangible extension, a\n      proof that _outness_ is invisible. From Aristotle onwards it has\n      been assumed that colour is the only phenomenon of which we are\n      immediately percipient in seeing. Visible extension, visible figure,\n      and visible motion are accordingly taken to be dependent on the\n      sensation of colour.\n\n  323 In connexion with this and the next illustration, Berkeley seems to\n      argue that we are not only unable to see distance in the line of\n      sight, but also that we do not see a distant object in its _real\n      visible_ magnitude. But elsewhere he affirms that only _tangible_\n      magnitude is entitled to be called _real_. Cf. sect. 55, 59, 61.\n\n  324 The sceptical objections to the trustworthiness of the senses,\n      proposed by the Eleatics and others, referred to by Descartes in his\n      _Meditations_, and by Malebranche in the First Book of his\n      _Recherche_, may have suggested the illustrations in this section.\n      Cf. also Hume\u2019s Essay _On the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy_.\n      The sceptical difficulty is founded on the assumption that the\n      object seen at different distances is the _same visible object_: it\n      is really different, and so the difficulty vanishes.\n\n  325 Here Berkeley expressly introduces \u201ctouch\u201d\u2014a term which with him\n      includes, not merely organic sense of contact, but also muscular and\n      locomotive sense-experience. After this he begins to unfold the\n      antithesis of visual and tactual phenomena, whose subsequent\n      synthesis it is the aim of the _New Theory_ to explain. Cf.\n      _Principles of Human Knowledge_, sect. 43\u2014_Theory of Vision\n      Vindicated_, sect. 22 and 25. Note here Berkeley\u2019s reticence of his\n      idealization of Matter\u2014tangible as well as visible. Cf.\n      _Principles_, sect. 44.\n\n  326 This connexion of our knowledge of distance with our locomotive\n      experience points to a theory which ultimately resolves space into\n      experience of unimpeded locomotion.\n\n  327 Locke (_Essay_, Introduction, \u00a7 8) takes _idea_ vaguely as \u201cthe term\n      which serves best to stand whatsoever is the object of the\n      understanding when a man thinks.\u201d Oversight of what Berkeley intends\n      the term idea has made his whole conception of nature and the\n      material universe a riddle to many, of which afterwards.\n\n  328 The expressive term \u201coutness,\u201d favoured by Berkeley, is here first\n      used.\n\n  329 \u201cWe get the idea of Space,\u201d says Locke, \u201cboth by our sight and\n      touch\u201d (_Essay_, II. 13. \u00a7 2). Locke did not contemplate Berkeley\u2019s\n      antithesis of visible and tangible extension, and the consequent\n      ambiguity of the term extension; which sometimes signifies\n      _coloured_, and at others _resistant_ experience in sense.\n\n  330 For an explanation of this difficulty, see sect. 144.\n\n  331 \u201cobject\u201d\u2014\u201cthing,\u201d in the earlier editions.\n\n  332 This is the issue of the analytical portion of the _Essay_.\n\n  333 Cf. sect. 139-40.\n\n  334 Here the question of externality, signifying independence of all\n      percipient life, is again mixed up with that of the invisibility of\n      distance outwards in the line of sight.\n\n  335 Omitted in author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  336 i.e. including muscular and locomotive experience as well as sense\n      of contact. But what are the _tangibilia_ themselves? Are they also\n      significant, like _visibilia_, of a still ulterior reality? This is\n      the problem of the _Principles of Human Knowledge_.\n\n  337 In this section the conception of a natural Visual Language, makes\n      its appearance, with its implication that Nature is (for us)\n      virtually Spirit. Cf. sect. 140, 147\u2014_Principles_, sect.\n      44\u2014_Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous_\u2014_Alciphron_, IV. 8, 11\u2014and\n      _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, passim.\n\n  338 Sect. 52-87 treat of the invisibility of real, i.e. tactual,\n      Magnitude. Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 54-61.\n\n  339 Sect. 8-15.\n\n  340 Sect. 41, &c.\n\n  341 See Molyneux\u2019s _Treatise on Dioptrics_, B. I. prop. 28.\n\n  342 See sect. 122-126.\n\n  343 In short there is a point at which, with our limited sense, we cease\n      to be percipient of colour, in seeing; and of resistance, in\n      locomotion. Though Berkeley regards all visible extensions as\n      sensible, and therefore dependent for their reality on being\n      realised by sentient mind, he does not mean that mind or\n      consciousness is extended. With him, extension, though it exists\n      only in mind,\u2014i.e. as an idea seen, in the case of visible\n      extension, and as an idea touched, in the case of tangible\n      extension,\u2014is yet no _property_ of mind. Mind can exist without\n      being percipient of extension, although extension cannot be realised\n      without mind.\n\n  344 But this is true, though less obviously, of tangible as well as of\n      visible objects.\n\n  345 Sect. 49.\n\n  346 Cf. sect. 139, 140, &c.\n\n  347 \u201csituation\u201d\u2014not in the earlier editions.\n\n  348 Sect. 55.\n\n  349 Omitted in the author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  350 Ordinary sight is virtually foresight. Cf. sect. 85.\u2014See also\n      Malebranche on the external senses, as given primarily for the\n      urgent needs of embodied life, not to immediately convey scientific\n      knowledge, _Recherche_, Liv. I. ch. 5, 6, 9, &c.\n\n  351 Sect. 44.\u2014See also sect. 55, and note.\n\n  352 This supposes \u201csettled\u201d _tangibilia_, but not \u201csettled\u201d _visibilia_.\n      Yet the sensible extension given in touch and locomotive experience\n      is also relative\u2014an object being _felt_ as larger or smaller\n      according to the state of the organism, and the other conditions of\n      our embodied perception.\n\n  353 What follows, to end of sect. 63, added in the author\u2019s last\n      edition.\n\n  354 \u201coutward objects,\u201d i.e. objects of which we are percipient in\n      tactual experience, taken in this _Essay_ provisionally as the real\n      external objects. See _Principles_, sect. 44.\n\n  355 Cf. sect. 144. Note, in this and the three preceding sections, the\n      stress laid on the _arbitrariness_ of the connexion between the\n      signs which suggest magnitudes, or other modes of extension, and\n      their significates. This is the foundation of the _New Theory_;\n      which thus resolves _physical_ causality into a relation of signs to\n      what they signify and predict\u2014analogous to the relation between\n      words and their accepted meanings.\n\n  356 In sect. 67-78, Berkeley attempts to verify the foregoing account of\n      the natural signs of Size, by applying it to solve a phenomenon, the\n      cause of which had been long debated among men of science\u2014the\n      visible magnitude of heavenly bodies when seen in the horizon.\n\n  357 Cf. sect. 10.\n\n  358 Omitted in the author\u2019s last edition. Cf sect. 76, 77.\u2014The\n      explanation in question is attributed to Alhazen, and by Bacon to\n      Ptolemy, while it is sanctioned by eminent scientific names before\n      and since Berkeley.\n\n  359 \u201cFourthly\u201d in the second edition. Cf. what follows with sect. 74.\n      Why \u201clesser\u201d?\n\n  360 When Berkeley, some years afterwards, visited Italy, he remarked\n      that distant objects appeared to him much nearer than they really\n      were\u2014a phenomenon which he attributed to the comparative purity of\n      the southern air.\n\n  361 i.e. the original perception, apart from any synthetic operation of\n      suggestion and inferential thought, founded on visual signs.\n\n  362 In Riccioli\u2019s _Almagest_, II. lib. X. sect. 6. quest. 14, we have an\n      account of many hypotheses then current, in explanation of the\n      apparent magnitude of the horizontal moon.\n\n  363 Gassendi\u2019s \u201cEpistol\u00e6 quatuor de apparente magnitudine solis humilis\n      et sublimis.\u201d\u2014_Opera_, tom. III pp. 420-477. Cf. Appendix to this\n      _Essay_, p. 110.\n\n  364 See _Dioptrique_, VI.\n\n_  365 Opera Latina_, vol. I, p. 376, vol. II, pp. 26-62; _English Works_,\n      vol. I. p. 462. (Molesworth\u2019s Edition.)\n\n  366 The paper in the Transactions is by Molyneux.\n\n  367 See Smith\u2019s _Optics_, pp. 64-67, and _Remarks_, pp. 48, &c. At p. 55\n      Berkeley\u2019s _New Theory_ is referred to, and pronounced to be at\n      variance with experience. Smith concludes by saying, that in \u201cthe\n      second edition of Berkeley\u2019s _Essay_, and also in a Vindication and\n      Explanation of it (called the _Visual Language_), very lately\n      published, the author has made some additions to his solution of the\n      said phenomenon; but seeing it still involves and depends on the\n      principle of faintness, I may leave the rest of it to the reader\u2019s\n      consideration.\u201d This, which appeared in 1738, is one of the very few\n      early references to Berkeley\u2019s _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_.\n\n  368 Sect. 2-51.\n\n  369 This sentence is omitted in the author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  370 What follows to the end of this section is not contained in the\n      first edition.\n\n  371 i.e. tangible.\n\n  372 Cf. sect. 38; and _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 31.\n\n  373 \u201cNever\u201d\u2014\u201chardly,\u201d in first edition.\n\n  374 Cf. Appendix, p. 208.\u2014See Smith\u2019s _Optics_, B. I. ch. v, and\n      _Remarks_, p. 56, in which he \u201cleaves it to be considered, whether\n      the said phenomenon is not as clear an instance of the insufficiency\n      of faintness\u201d as of mathematical computation.\n\n  375 A favourite doctrine with Berkeley, according to whose theory of\n      visibles there can be no absolute visible magnitude, the _minimum_\n      being the least that is _perceivable_ by each seeing subject, and\n      thus relative to his visual capacity. This section is thus\n      criticised, in January, 1752, in a letter signed \u201cAnti-Berkeley,\u201d in\n      the _Gent. Mag._ (vol. XXII, p. 12): \u201cUpon what his lordship asserts\n      with respect to the _minimum visibile_, I would observe that it is\n      certain that there are infinite numbers of animals which are\n      imperceptible to the naked eye, and cannot be perceived but by the\n      help of a microscope; consequently there are animals whose whole\n      bodies are far less than the _minimum visibile_ of a man. Doubtless\n      these animals have eyes, and, if their _minimum visibile_ were equal\n      to that of a man, it would follow that they cannot perceive anything\n      but what is much larger than their whole body; and therefore their\n      own bodies must be invisible to them, because we know they are so to\n      men, whose _minimum visibile_ is asserted by his lordship to be\n      equal to theirs.\u201d There is some misconception in this. Cf. Appendix\n      to _Essay_, p. 209.\n\n  376 Those two defects belong to human consciousness. See Locke\u2019s\n      _Essay_, II. 10, on the defects of human memory. It is this\n      imperfection which makes reasoning needful\u2014to assist finite\n      intuition. Reasoning is the sign at once of our dignity and our\n      weakness.\n\n  377 Sect. 59.\n\n  378 Sect. 80-82.\n\n  379 Sect. 88-119 relate to the nature, invisibility, and arbitrary\n      visual signs of Situation, or of the localities of tangible things.\n      Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 44-53.\n\n  380 Cf. sect. 2, 114, 116, 118.\n\n  381 This illustration is taken from Descartes. See Appendix.\n\n  382 Sect. 10 and 19.\n\n  383 Sect. 2-51.\n\n  384 Omitted in author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  385 This is Berkeley\u2019s universal solvent of the psychological\n      difficulties involved in visual-perception.\n\n  386 Cf. sect. 103, 106, 110, 128, &c. Berkeley treats this case\n      hypothetically in the _Essay_, in defect of actual experiments upon\n      the born-blind, since accumulated from Cheselden downwards. See\n      however the Appendix, and _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 71.\n\n  387 i.e. tangible things. Cf. _Principles_, sect. 44.\n\n  388 The \u201cprejudice,\u201d to wit, which Berkeley would dissolve by his\n      introspective analysis of vision. Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_,\n      sect. 35.\n\n  389 Thus forming individual concrete things out of what is perceived\n      separately through different senses.\n\n  390 This briefly is Berkeley\u2019s solution of \u201cthe knot about inverted\n      images,\u201d which long puzzled men of science.\n\n  391 i.e. perceive _mediately_\u2014visible objects, _per se_, having no\n      tactual situation. Pure vision, he would say, has nothing to do with\n      \u201chigh\u201d and \u201clow,\u201d \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cinverted,\u201d in the real or tactual\n      meaning of those terms.\n\n  392 i.e. tangible.\n\n  393 e.g. \u201cextension,\u201d which, according to Berkeley, is an equivocal\n      term, common (in its different meanings) to _visibilia_ and\n      _tangibilia_. Cf. sect. 139, 140.\n\n  394 Cf. sect. 93, 106, 110, 128.\n\n  395 i.e. real or tangible head.\n\n  396 Cf. sect. 140, 143. In the _Gent. Mag._ (vol. XXII. p. 12),\n      \u201cAnti-Berkeley\u201d thus argues the case of one born blind. \u201cThis man,\u201d\n      he adds, \u201cwould, by being accustomed to feel one hand with the\n      other, have perceived that the extremity of the hand was divided\n      into fingers\u2014that the extremities of these fingers were\n      distinguished by certain hard, smooth surfaces, of a different\n      texture from the rest of the fingers\u2014and that each finger had\n      certain joints or flexures. Now, if this man was restored to sight,\n      and immediately viewed his hand before he touched it again, it is\n      manifest that the divisions of the extremity of the hand into\n      fingers would be visibly perceived. He would note too the small\n      spaces at the extremity of each finger, which affected his sight\n      differently from the rest of the fingers; upon moving his fingers he\n      would see the joints. Though therefore, by means of this lately\n      acquired sense of seeing, the object affected his mind in a new and\n      different manner from what it did before, yet, as by _touch_ he had\n      acquired the knowledge of these several divisions, marks, and\n      distinctions of the hand, and, as the new object of _sight_ appeared\n      to be divided, marked, and distinguished in a similar manner, I\n      think he would certainly conclude, _before he touched his hand_,\n      that the thing which he now saw was _the same_ which he had felt\n      before and called his hand.\u201d\n\n  397 Locke, _Essay_, II. 8, 16. Aristotle regards number as a Common\n      Sensible.\u2014_De Anima_, II. 6, III. 1.\n\n  398 \u201cIf the visible appearance of two shillings had been found connected\n      from the beginning with the tangible idea of one shilling, that\n      appearance would as naturally and readily have signified the unity\n      of the (tangible) object as it now signifies its duplicity.\u201d Reid,\n      _Inquiry_, VI. 11.\n\n  399 Here again note Berkeley\u2019s inconvenient reticence of his full theory\n      of matter, as dependent on percipient life for its reality. Tangible\n      things are meantime granted to be real \u201cwithout mind.\u201d Cf.\n      _Principles_, sect. 43, 44. \u201cWithout the mind\u201d\u2014in contrast to\n      sensuous phenomenon only.\n\n  400 Cf. sect. 131.\n\n  401 Sect. 2, 88, 116, 118.\n\n  402 In short, we _see_ only _quantities of colour_\u2014the real or tactual\n      distance, size, shape, locality, up and down, right and left, &c.,\n      being gradually associated with the various visible modifications of\n      colour.\n\n  403 i.e. tangible.\n\n  404 Sect. 41-44.\n\n  405 i.e. tangible things.\n\n  406 i.e. visible.\n\n  407 Cf. sect. 41-44. The \u201ceyes\u201d\u2014visible and tangible\u2014are themselves\n      objects of sense.\n\n  408 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 21-25.\n\n  409 \u201cVisible ideas\u201d\u2014including sensations muscular and locomotive, _felt_\n      in the organ of vision. Sect. 16, 27, 57.\n\n  410 i.e. objects which, in this tentative _Essay_, are granted, for\n      argument\u2019s sake, to be external, or independent of percipient mind.\n\n  411 i.e. to inquire whether there are, in this instance, Common\n      Sensibles; and, in particular, whether an _extension_ of the same\n      kind at least, if not numerically the same, is presented in each.\n      The Kantian theory of an _a priori_ intuition of space, the common\n      condition of tactual and visual experience, because implied in\n      sense-experience as such, is not conceived by Berkeley. Cf. _Theory\n      of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 15.\n\n  412 In the following reasoning against abstract, as distinguished from\n      concrete or sense presented (visible or tangible) extension,\n      Berkeley urges some of his favourite objections to \u201cabstract ideas,\u201d\n      fully unfolded in his _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 6-20.\u2014See\n      also _Alciphron_, VII. 5-8.\u2014_Defence of Free Thinking in\n      Mathematics_, sect. 45-48.\n\n  413 Berkeley\u2019s _ideas_ are concrete or particular\u2014immediate data of\n      sense or imagination.\n\n  414 i.e. it cannot be individualized, either as a perceived or an\n      imagined object.\n\n  415 Sect. 105.\n\n  416 \u201cEndeavours\u201d in first edition.\n\n  417 i.e. a mental image of an abstraction, an impossible image, in which\n      the extension and comprehension of the notion must be adequately\n      pictured.\n\n  418 \u201cdeservedly admired author,\u201d in the first edition.\n\n  419 \u201cthis celebrated author,\u201d\u2014\u201cthat great man\u201d in second edition. In\n      assailing Locke\u2019s \u201cabstract idea,\u201d he discharges the meaning which\n      Locke intended by the term, and then demolishes his own figment.\n\n  420 Omitted in the author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  421 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  422 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  423 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  424 See _Principles_, passim.\n\n  425 Omitted in author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  426 He probably has Locke in his eye.\n\n  427 On Berkeley\u2019s theory, space without relation to bodies (i.e.\n      insensible or abstract space) would not be extended, as not having\n      parts; inasmuch as parts can be assigned to it only with relation to\n      bodies. Berkeley does not distinguish space from sensible extension.\n      Cf. Reid\u2019s _Works_, p. 126, note\u2014in which Sir W. Hamilton suggests\n      that one may have an _a priori_ conception of pure space, and _also_\n      an _a posteriori_ perception of finite, concrete space.\n\n  428 Sect. 121. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 15.\n\n  429 i.e. there are no Common Sensibles: from which it follows that we\n      can reason from the one sense to the other only by founding on the\n      constant connexion of their respective phenomena, under a natural\n      yet (for us) contingent law. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_,\n      sect. 27, 28.\n\n  430 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  431 Cf. sect. 93, 103, 106, 110.\n\n  432 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  433 Cf. sect. 43, 103, &c. A plurality of co-existent _minima_ of\n      coloured points constitutes Berkeley\u2019s visible extension; while a\n      plurality of successively experienced _minima_ of resistant points\n      constitutes his tactual extension. Whether we can perceive visible\n      extension without experience of muscular movement at least in the\n      eye, he does not here say.\n\n  434 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  435 Real distance belongs originally, according to the _Essay_, to our\n      tactual experience only\u2014in the wide meaning of touch, which includes\n      muscular and locomotive perceptions, as well as the simple\n      perception of contact.\n\n  436 Added in second edition.\n\n  437 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  438 See also Locke\u2019s \u201cCorrespondence\u201d with Molyneux, in Locke\u2019s _Works_,\n      vol. IX. p. 34.\u2014Leibniz, _Nouveaux Essais_, Liv. II. ch. 9, who, so\n      far granting the fact, disputes the heterogeneity.\u2014Smith\u2019s\n      _Optics._\u2014_Remarks_, \u00a7\u00a7 161-170.\u2014Hamilton\u2019s Reid, p. 137, note, and\n      _Lect. Metaph._ II. p. 176.\n\n  439 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  440 Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 70.\n\n  441 Cf. sect. 49, 146, &c. Here \u201csame\u201d includes \u201csimilar.\u201d\n\n  442 i.e. visible and tangible motions being absolutely heterogeneous,\n      and the former, _at man\u2019s point of view_, only contingent signs of\n      the latter, we should not, at first sight, be able to interpret the\n      visual signs of tactual phenomena.\n\n  443 Cf. sect. 122-125.\n\n  444 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 111-116; also _Analyst_, query 12. On\n      Berkeley\u2019s system space in its three dimensions is unrealisable\n      without experience of motion.\n\n  445 Here the term \u201clanguage of nature\u201d makes its appearance, as\n      applicable to the ideas or visual signs of tactual realities.\n\n  446 Cf. sect. 16, 27, 97.\n\n  447 Is \u201ctangible\u201d here used in its narrow meaning\u2014excluding muscular and\n      locomotive experience?\n\n  448 i.e. as natural signs, divinely associated with their thus implied\n      meanings.\n\n  449 Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 35.\n\n  450 Berkeley, in this section, enunciates the principal conclusion in\n      the _Essay_, which conclusion indeed forms his new theory of Vision.\n\n  451 A suggestion thus due to natural laws of association. The\n      explanation of the fact that we apprehend, by those ideas or\n      phenomena which are objects of sight, certain other ideas, which\n      neither resemble them, nor efficiently cause them, nor are so caused\n      by them, nor have any necessary connexion with them, comprehends,\n      according to Berkeley, the whole Theory of Vision. \u201cThe imagination\n      of every thinking person,\u201d remarks Adam Smith, \u201cwill supply him with\n      instances to prove that the ideas received by any one of the senses\n      do readily excite such other ideas, either of the same sense or of\n      any other, as have habitually been associated with them. So that if,\n      on this account, we are to suppose, with a late ingenious writer,\n      that the ideas of sight constitute a Visual Language, because they\n      readily suggest the corresponding ideas of touch\u2014as the terms of a\n      language excite the ideas answering to them\u2014I see not but we may,\n      for the same reason, allow of a tangible, audible, gustatory, and\n      olefactory language; though doubtless the Visual Language will be\n      abundantly more copious than the rest.\u201d Smith\u2019s _Optics_.\u2014_Remarks_,\n      p. 29.\u2014And into this conception of a universal sense symbolism,\n      Berkeley\u2019s theory of Vision ultimately rises.\n\n  452 Cf. _Alciphron_, Dialogue IV. sect. 11-15.\n\n  453 Sect. 122-125.\n\n  454 Sect. 127-138.\n\n  455 Some modern metaphysicians would say, that neither tangible nor\n      visible extension is the object geometry, but abstract extension;\n      and others that space is a necessary implicate of sense-experience,\n      rather than, _per se_, an object of any single sense. Cf. Kant\u2019s\n      explanation of the origin of our mathematical knowledge, _Kritik der\n      reinen Vernunft_. Elementarlehre, I.\n\n  456 Cf. sect. 51-66, 144.\n\n  457 This is a conjecture, not as to the probable ideas of one born\n      blind, but as to the ideas of an \u201cunbodied\u201d intelligence, whose\n      _only_ sense was that of seeing. See Reid\u2019s speculation (_Inquiry_,\n      VI. 9) on the \u201cGeometry of Visibles,\u201d and the mental experience of\n      Idomenians, or imaginary beings supposed to have no ideas of the\n      material world except those got by seeing.\n\n  458 Cf. sect. 130, and _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 57. Does\n      Berkeley, in this and the two preceding sections, mean to hint that\n      the only proper object of sight is _unextended_ colour; and that,\n      apart from muscular movement in the eye or other locomotion,\n      _visibilia_ resolve into unextended mathematical points? This\n      question has not escaped more recent British psychologists,\n      including Stewart, Brown, Mill, and Bain, who seem to hold that\n      unextended colour is perceivable and imaginable.\n\n  459 The bracketed sentence is not retained in the author\u2019s last edition,\n      in which the first sentence of sect. 160 is the concluding one of\n      sect. 159, and of the _Essay_.\n\n  460 This passage is contained in the _Dioptrices_ of Descartes, VI. 13;\n      see also VI. 11.\n\n  461 The arbitrariness or contingency\u2014as far as our knowledge carries\n      us\u2014of the connexion between the visual phenomena, as signs, on the\n      one hand, and actual distance, as perceived through this means, on\n      the other.\n\n  462 Cf. sect. 80-83.\n\n  463 The reference here seems to be to the case described in the _Tatler_\n      (No. 55) of August 16, 1709, in which William Jones, born blind, had\n      received sight after a surgical operation, at the age of twenty, on\n      the 29th of June preceding. A medical narrative of this case\n      appeared, entitled _A full and true account of a miraculous cure of\n      a Young Man in Newington, who was born blind, and was in five\n      minutes brought to perfect sight, by Mr. Roger Grant, oculist_.\n      London, 1709.\n\n  464 Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 71, with the relative\n      note.\n\n  465 Omitted on the title-page in the second edition, but retained in the\n      body of the work.\n\n  466 Beardsley\u2019s _Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D., First\n      President of King\u2019s College, New York_, p. 72 (1874).\n\n  467 Beardsley\u2019s _Life of Johnson_, pp. 71, 72.\n\n  468 Chandler\u2019s _Life of Johnson_, Appendix, p. 161.\n\n_  469 Commonplace Book._\n\n  470 Moreover, even if the outness or distance of things _were_ visible,\n      it would not follow that either they or their distances could be\n      real if unperceived. On the contrary, Berkeley implies that they\n      _are_ perceived _visually_.\n\n  471 It is also to be remembered that sensible things exist \u201cin mind,\u201d\n      without being exclusively _mine_, as creatures of _my will_. In one\n      sense, that only is mine in which my will exerts itself. But, in\n      another view, my involuntary states of feeling and imagination are\n      _mine_, because their existence depends on my consciousness of them;\n      and even sensible things are so far _mine_, because, though present\n      in many minds in common, they are, for me, dependent on _my_\n      percipient mind.\n\n  472 Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke and fifth Earl of\n      Montgomery, was the correspondent and friend of Locke\u2014who dedicated\n      his famous _Essay_ to him, as a work \u201chaving some little\n      correspondence with some parts of that nobler and vast system of the\n      sciences your lordship has made so new, exact, and instructive a\n      draft of.\u201d He represents a family renowned in English political and\n      literary history. He was born in 1656; was a nobleman of Christ\n      Church, Oxford, in 1672; succeeded to his titles in 1683; was sworn\n      of the Privy Council in 1689; and made a Knight of the Garter in\n      1700. He filled some of the highest offices in the state, in the\n      reigns of William and Mary, and of Anne. He was Lord Lieutenant of\n      Ireland in 1707, having previously been one of the Commissioners by\n      whom the union between England and Scotland was negotiated. He died\n      in January 1733.\n\n  473 Trinity College, Dublin.\n\n  474 In his _Commonplace Book_ Berkeley seems to refer his speculations\n      to his boyhood. The conception of the material world propounded in\n      the following Treatise was in his view before the publication of the\n      _New Theory of Vision_, which was intended to prepare the way for\n      it.\n\n  475 Cf. Locke, in the \u201cEpistle Dedicatory\u201d of his _Essay_.\n      Notwithstanding the \u201cnovelty\u201d of the New Principles, viz. _negation_\n      of abstract or unperceived Matter, Space, Time, Substance, and\n      Power; and _affirmation_ of Mind, as the Synthesis, Substance, and\n      Cause of all\u2014much in best preceding philosophy, ancient and modern,\n      was a dim anticipation of it.\n\n  476 Cf. sect. 6, 22, 24, &c., in illustration of the demonstrative claim\n      of Berkeley\u2019s initial doctrine.\n\n  477 Berkeley entreats his reader, here and throughout, to take pains to\n      understand his meaning, and especially to avoid confounding the\n      ordered ideas or phenomena, objectively presented to our senses,\n      with capricious chimeras of imagination.\n\n  478 \u201cPhilosophy is nothing but the true knowledge of things.\u201d Locke.\n\n  479 The purpose of those early essays of Berkeley was to reconcile\n      philosophy with common sense, by employing reflection to make\n      _latent_ common sense, or common reason, reveal itself in its\n      genuine integrity. Cf. the closing sentences in the _Third Dialogue\n      between Hylas and Philonous_.\n\n  480 Cf. Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Introduction, sect. 4-7; Bk. II. ch. 23, \u00a7 12,\n      &c. Locke (who is probably here in Berkeley\u2019s eye) attributes the\n      perplexities of philosophy to our narrow faculties, which are meant\n      to regulate our lives, not to remove all mysteries. See also\n      Descartes, _Principia_, I. 26, 27, &c.; Malebranche, _Recherche_,\n      III. 2.\n\n  481 His most significant forerunners were Descartes in his _Principia_,\n      and Locke in his _Essay_.\n\n  482 Here \u201cidea\u201d and \u201cnotion\u201d seem to be used convertibly. See sect. 142.\n      Cf. with the argument against _abstract ideas_, unfolded in the\n      remainder of the Introduction, _Principles_, sect. 97-100, 118-132,\n      143; _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 122-125; _Alciphron_, Dial. vii.\n      5-7; _Defence of Free Thinking in Mathematics_, sect. 45-48. Also\n      _Siris_, sect. 323, 335, &c., where he distinguishes Idea in a\n      higher meaning from his sensuous ideas. As mentioned in my Preface,\n      the third edition of _Alciphron_, published in 1752, the year before\n      Berkeley died, omits the three sections of the Seventh Dialogue\n      which repeat the following argument against abstract ideas.\n\n  483 As in Derodon\u2019s _Logica_, Pt. II. c. 6, 7; _Philosophia Contracta_,\n      I. i. \u00a7\u00a7 7-11; and Gassendi, _Leg. Instit._, I. 8; also Cudworth,\n      _Eternal and Immutable Morality_, Bk. IV.\n\n  484 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  485 We must remember that what Berkeley intends by an _idea_ is either a\n      percept of sense, or a sensuous imagination; and his argument is\n      that none of _these_ can be an abstraction. We can neither perceive\n      nor imagine what is not concrete and part of a succession.\n\n  486 \u201cabstract notions\u201d\u2014here used convertibly with \u201cabstract ideas.\u201d Cf.\n      _Principles_, sect. 89 and 142, on the special meaning of _notion_.\n\n  487 Supposed by Berkeley to mean, that we can imagine, in abstraction\n      from all phenomena presented in concrete experience, e.g. imagine\n      _existence_, in abstraction from all phenomena in which it manifests\n      itself to us; or _matter_, stripped of all the phenomena in which it\n      is realised in sense.\n\n  488 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  489 Locke.\n\n  490 Descartes, who regarded brutes as (sentient?) machines.\n\n  491 \u201cTo this I cannot assent, being of opinion that a word,\u201d &c.\u2014in\n      first edition.\n\n  492 \u201can idea,\u201d i.e. a concrete mental picture.\n\n  493 So that \u201cgenerality\u201d in an idea is our \u201cconsideration\u201d of a\n      particular idea (e.g. a \u201cparticular motion\u201d or a \u201cparticular\n      extension\u201d) not _per se_, but under general relations, which that\n      particular idea exemplifies, and which, as he shews, may be\n      signified by a corresponding word. All ideas (in Berkeley\u2019s confined\n      meaning of \u201cidea\u201d) are particular. We rise above particular ideas by\n      an intellectual apprehension of their relations; not by forming\n      _abstract pictures_, which are contradictory absurdities.\n\n  494 Locke is surely misconceived. He does not say, as Berkeley seems to\n      suppose, that in forming \u201cabstract ideas,\u201d we are forming abstract\n      mental images\u2014pictures in the mind that are not individual pictures.\n\n  495 Does Locke intend more than this, although he expresses his meaning\n      in ambiguous words?\n\n  496 It is a particular idea, but considered relatively\u2014a _significant_\n      particular idea, in other words. We realise our notions in examples,\n      and these must be concrete.\n\n  497 i.e. \u201cideas\u201d in Locke\u2019s meaning of idea, under which he comprehends,\n      not only the particular ideas of sense and imagination\u2014Berkeley\u2019s\n      \u201cideas\u201d\u2014but these considered relatively, and so seen intellectually,\n      when Locke calls them abstract, general, or universal. Omniscience\n      in its all-comprehensive intuition may not require, or even admit,\n      such general ideas.\n\n  498 Here and in what follows, \u201cabstract _notion_,\u201d \u201cuniversal _notion_,\u201d\n      instead of abstract _idea_. Notion seems to be here a synonym for\n      idea, and not taken in the special meaning which he afterwards\n      attached to the term, when he contrasted it with idea.\n\n  499 \u201cnotions,\u201d again synonymous with ideas, which are all particular or\n      concrete, in his meaning of _idea_, when he uses it strictly.\n\n_  500 idea_, i.e. individual mental picture.\n\n  501 In all this he takes no account of the intellectual relations\n      necessarily embodied in concrete knowledge, and without which\n      experience could not cohere.\n\n  502 \u201chave in view,\u201d i.e. actually realise in imagination.\n\n  503 What follows, to the end of this section, was added in the second or\n      1734 edition.\n\n  504 So Bacon in many passages of his _De Augmentis Scientiarium_ and\n      _Novum Organum_.\n\n  505 \u201cwide influence,\u201d\u2014\u201cwide and extended sway\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  506 \u201cidea,\u201d i.e. individual datum of sense or of imagination.\n\n  507 See Leibniz on Symbolical Knowledge (_Opera Philosophica_, pp. 79,\n      80, Erdmann), and Stewart in his _Elements_, vol. I. ch. 4, \u00a7 1, on\n      our habit of using language without realising, in individual\n      examples or ideas, the meanings of the common terms used.\n\n  508 \u201cdoth\u201d\u2014\u201cdoes,\u201d here and elsewhere in first edition.\n\n  509 \u201cideas,\u201d i.e. representations in imagination of _any_ of the\n      individual objects to which the names are applicable. The sound or\n      sight of a verbal sign may do duty for the concrete idea in which\n      the notion signified by the word might be exemplified.\n\n  510 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.\n\n  511 Elsewhere he mentions Aristotle as \u201ccertainly a great admirer and\n      promoter of the doctrine of abstraction,\u201d and quotes his statement\n      that there is hardly anything so incomprehensible to men as notions\n      of the utmost universality; for they are the most remote from sense.\n      _Metaph._, Bk. I. ch. 2.\n\n  512 Added in second edition.\n\n  513 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  514 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  515 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  516 \u201cmy own ideas,\u201d i.e. the concrete phenomena which I can realise as\n      perceptions of sense, or in imagination.\n\n  517 He probably refers to Locke.\n\n  518 According to Locke, \u201cthat which has most contributed to hinder the\n      due tracing of our ideas, and finding out their relations, and\n      agreements or disagreements one with another, has been, I suppose,\n      the ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ever truly\n      seek, or certainly discover, the agreement or disagreement of ideas\n      themselves, whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only in\n      sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations. Mathematicians,\n      abstracting their thoughts from names, and accustoming themselves to\n      set before their minds the ideas themselves that they would\n      consider, and not sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a\n      great part of that perplexity, puddering, and confusion which has so\n      much hindered men\u2019s progress in other parts of knowledge.\u201d _Essay_,\n      Bk. IV. ch. 3, \u00a7 30. See also Bk. III. ch. 10, 11.\n\n  519 General names involve in their signification intellectual relations\n      among ideas or phenomena; but the relations, _per se_, are\n      unimaginable.\n\n  520 The rough draft of the Introduction, prepared two years before the\n      publication of the _Principles_ (see Appendix, vol. III), should be\n      compared with the published version. He there tells that \u201cthere was\n      a time when, being bantered and abused by words,\u201d he \u201cdid not in the\n      least doubt\u201d that he was \u201cable to abstract his ideas\u201d; adding that\n      \u201cafter a strict survey of my abilities, I not only discovered my own\n      deficiency on this point, but also cannot conceive it possible that\n      such a power should be even in the most perfect and exalted\n      understanding.\u201d What he thus pronounces \u201cimpossible,\u201d is a\n      _sensuous_ perception or imagination of an intellectual relation, as\n      to which most thinkers would agree with him. But in so arguing, he\n      seems apt to discard the intellectual relations themselves that are\n      necessarily embodied in experience.\n\n      David Hume refers thus to Berkeley\u2019s doctrine about \u201cabstract\n      ideas\u201d:\u2014\u201cA great philosopher has asserted that all general ideas are\n      nothing but particular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives\n      them a more extensive signification. I look upon this to be one of\n      the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made of\n      late years in the republic of letters.\u201d (_Treatise of H. N._ Pt. I,\n      sect. 7.)\n\n  521 This resembles Locke\u2019s account of the ideas with which human\n      knowledge is concerned. They are all originally presented to the\n      senses, or got by reflexion upon the passions and acts of the mind;\n      and the materials contributed in this external and internal\n      experience are, with the help of memory and imagination, elaborated\n      by the human understanding in ways innumerable, true and false. See\n      Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II, ch. 1, \u00a7\u00a7 1-5; ch. 10, 11, 12.\n\n  522 The ideas or phenomena of which we are percipient in our five senses\n      make their appearance, not isolated, but in individual masses,\n      constituting the things, that occupy their respective places in\n      perceived ambient space. It is as _qualities_ of _things_ that the\n      ideas or phenomena of sense arise in human experience.\n\n  523 This is an advance upon the language of the _Commonplace Book_, in\n      which \u201cmind\u201d is spoken of as only a \u201ccongeries of perceptions.\u201d Here\n      it is something \u201centirely distinct\u201d from ideas or perceptions, in\n      which they exist and are perceived, and on which they ultimately\n      depend. Spirit, intelligent and active, presupposed with its\n      implicates in ideas, thus becomes the basis of Berkeley\u2019s\n      philosophy. Is this subjective idealism only? Locke appears in sect.\n      1, Descartes, if not Kant by anticipation, in sect. 2.\n\n  524 This sentence expresses Berkeley\u2019s New Principle, which filled his\n      thoughts in the _Commonplace Book_. Note \u201cin _a_ mind,\u201d not\n      necessarily in _my_ mind.\n\n  525 That is to say, one has only to put concrete meaning into the terms\n      _existence_ and _reality_, in order to have \u201can intuitive knowledge\u201d\n      that matter depends for its real existence on percipient spirit.\n\n  526 In other words, the things of sense become real, only in the\n      concrete experience of living mind, which gives them the only\n      reality we can conceive or have any sort of concern with. Extinguish\n      Spirit and the material world necessarily ceases to be real.\n\n  527 That _esse_ is _percipi_ is Berkeley\u2019s initial Principle, called\n      \u201cintuitive\u201d or self-evident.\n\n  528 Mark that it is the \u201cnatural or real existence\u201d of the material\n      world, in the absence of all realising Spirit, that Berkeley insists\n      is impossible\u2014meaningless.\n\n  529 \u201cour own\u201d\u2014yet not exclusively _mine_. They depend for their reality\n      upon _a_ percipient, not on _my_ perception.\n\n  530 \u201cthis tenet,\u201d i.e. that the concrete material world could still be a\n      reality after the annihilation of all realising spiritual life in\n      the universe\u2014divine or other.\n\n  531 \u201cexisting unperceived,\u201d i.e. existing without being realised in any\n      living percipient experience\u2014existing in a totally abstract\n      existence, whatever that can mean.\n\n  532 \u201cnotions\u201d\u2014a term elsewhere (see sect. 27, 89, 142) restricted, is\n      here applied to the immediate data of the senses\u2014the ideas of sense.\n\n  533 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.\n\n  534 In the first edition, instead of this sentence, we have the\n      following: \u201cTo make this appear with all the light and evidence of\n      an Axiom, it seems sufficient if I can but awaken the reflexion of\n      the reader, that he may take an impartial view of his own meaning,\n      and turn his thoughts upon the subject itself; free and disengaged\n      from all embarras of words and prepossession in favour of received\n      mistakes.\u201d\n\n  535 In other words, active percipient Spirit is at the root of all\n      intelligible trustworthy experience.\n\n  536 \u2019proof\u2019\u2014\u201cdemonstration\u201d in first edition; yet he calls it\n      \u201cintuitive.\u201d\n\n  537 \u201cthe ideas themselves,\u201d i.e. the phenomena immediately presented in\n      sense, and that are thus realised in and through the percipient\n      experience of living mind, as their factor.\n\n  538 As those say who assume that perception is ultimately only\n      representative of the material reality, the very things themselves\n      not making their appearance to us at all.\n\n  539 He refers especially to Locke, whose account of Matter is\n      accordingly charged with being incoherent.\n\n  540 \u201cinert.\u201d See the _De Motu_.\n\n  541 \u201cideas existing in the mind,\u201d i.e. phenomena of which _some_ mind is\n      percipient; which are realised in the sentient experience of a\n      living spirit, human or other.\n\n  542 What follows to the end of the section is omitted in the second\n      edition.\n\n  543 \u201cthe existence of Matter,\u201d i.e. the existence of the material world,\n      regarded as a something that does not need to be perceived in order\n      to be real.\n\n  544 Sometimes called _objective_ qualities, because they are supposed to\n      be realised in an abstract objectivity, which Berkeley insists is\n      meaningless.\n\n  545 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II, ch. 8, \u00a7\u00a7 13, 18; ch. 23, \u00a7 11; Bk. IV,\n      ch. 3, \u00a7 24-26. Locke suggests this relation between the secondary\n      and the primary qualities of matter only hypothetically.\n\n  546 \u201cin the mind, and nowhere else,\u201d i.e. perceived or conceived, but in\n      no other manner can they be real or concrete.\n\n  547 \u201cwithout the mind,\u201d i.e. independently of all percipient experience.\n\n  548 Extension is thus the distinguishing characteristic of the material\n      world. Geometrical and physical solidity, as well as motion, imply\n      extension.\n\n  549 \u201cnumber is the creature of the mind,\u201d i.e. is dependent on being\n      realised in percipient experience. This dependence is here\n      illustrated by the relation of concrete number to the point of view\n      of each mind; as the dependence of the other primary qualities was\n      illustrated by their dependence on the organisation of the\n      percipient. In this, the preceding, and the following sections,\n      Berkeley argues the inconsistency of the abstract reality attributed\n      to the primary qualities with their acknowledged dependence on the\n      necessary conditions of sense perception.\n\n  550 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 109.\n\n  551 e.g. Locke, _Essay_, Bk. II, ch. 7, \u00a7 7; ch. 16, \u00a7 1.\n\n  552 \u201cwithout any alteration in any external object\u201d\u2014\u201cwithout any\n      external alteration\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  553 These arguments, founded on the mind-dependent nature of _all_ the\n      qualities of matter, are expanded in the _First Dialogue between\n      Hylas and Philonous_.\n\n  554 \u201can outward object,\u201d i.e. an object wholly abstract from living\n      Mind.\n\n  555 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.\n\n  556 \u201creason,\u201d i.e. reasoning. It is argued, in this and the next\n      section, that a reality unrealised in percipient experience cannot\n      be proved, either by our senses or by reasoning.\n\n  557 Omitted in the second edition, and the sentence converted into a\n      question.\n\n  558 But the ideas of which we are cognizant in waking dreams, and dreams\n      of sleep, differ in important characteristics from the external\n      ideas of which we are percipient in sense. Cf. sect. 29-33.\n\n  559 \u201cexternal bodies,\u201d i.e. bodies supposed to be real independently of\n      all percipients in the universe.\n\n  560 i.e. they cannot shew how their unintelligible hypothesis of Matter\n      accounts for the experience we have, or expect to have; or which we\n      believe other persons have, or to be about to have.\n\n  561 \u201cthe production,\u201d &c., i.e. the fact that we and others have\n      percipient experience.\n\n  562 Mind-dependent Matter he not only allows to exist, but maintains its\n      reality to be intuitively evident.\n\n  563 i.e. bodies existing in abstraction from living percipient spirit.\n\n  564 \u201cMatter,\u201d i.e. abstract Matter, unrealised in sentient intelligence.\n\n  565 The appeal here and elsewhere is to consciousness\u2014directly in each\n      person\u2019s experience, and indirectly in that of others.\n\n  566 i.e. otherwise than in the form of an idea or actual appearance\n      presented to our senses.\n\n  567 This implies that the material world may be realised in imagination\n      as well as in sensuous perception, but in a less degree of reality;\n      for reality, he assumes, admits of degrees.\n\n  568 \u201cto conceive the existence of external bodies,\u201d i.e. to conceive\n      bodies that are not conceived\u2014that are not ideas at all, but which\n      exist in abstraction. To suppose what we conceive to be unconceived,\n      is to suppose a contradiction.\n\n  569 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.\n\n  570 \u201cThe existence of things without mind,\u201d or in the absence of all\n      spiritual life and perception, is what Berkeley argues against, as\n      _meaningless_, if not _contradictory_; not the existence of a\n      material world, when this means the realised order of nature,\n      regulated independently of individual will, and to which our actions\n      must conform if we are to avoid physical pain.\n\n  571 Here again _notion_ is undistinguished from _idea_.\n\n  572 This and the three following sections argue for the essential\n      impotence of matter, and that, as far as we are concerned, so-called\n      \u201cnatural causes\u201d are only _signs_ which foretell the appearance of\n      their so-called effects. The material world is presented to our\n      senses as a procession of orderly, and therefore interpretable, yet\n      in themselves powerless, ideas or phenomena: motion is always an\n      effect, never an originating active cause.\n\n  573 As Locke suggests.\n\n  574 This tacitly presupposes the necessity in reason of the Principle of\n      Causality, or the ultimate need for an efficient cause of every\n      change. To determine the sort of Causation that constitutes and\n      pervades the universe is the aim of his philosophy.\n\n  575 In other words, the material world is not only real in and through\n      percipient spirit, but the changing forms which its phenomena\n      assume, in the natural evolution, are the issue of the perpetual\n      activity of in-dwelling Spirit. The argument in this section\n      requires a deeper criticism of its premisses.\n\n  576 In other words, an agent cannot, as such, be perceived or imagined,\n      though its effects can. The spiritual term _agent_ is not\n      meaningless; yet we have no _sensuous idea_ of its meaning.\n\n  577 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  578 This sentence is not contained in the first edition. It is\n      remarkable for first introducing the term _notion_, to signify\n      _idealess meaning_, as in the words soul, active power, &c. Here he\n      says that \u201cthe operations of the mind\u201d belong to notions, while, in\n      sect. 1, he speaks of \u201c_ideas_ perceived by attending to the\n      \u2018operations\u2019 of the mind.\u201d\n\n  579 \u201cideas,\u201d i.e. fancies of imagination; as distinguished from the more\n      real ideas or phenomena that present themselves objectively to our\n      senses.\n\n  580 With Berkeley the world of external ideas is distinguished from\n      Spirit by its essential passivity. Active power is with him the\n      essence of Mind, distinguishing me from the changing ideas of which\n      I am percipient. We must not attribute free agency to phenomena\n      presented to our senses.\n\n  581 In this and the four following sections, Berkeley mentions _marks_\n      by which the ideas or phenomena that present themselves to the\n      senses may be distinguished from all other ideas, in consequence of\n      which they may be termed \u201cexternal,\u201d while those of feeling and\n      imagination are wholly subjective or individual.\n\n  582 This mark\u2014the superior strength and liveliness of the ideas or\n      phenomena that are presented to the senses\u2014was afterwards noted by\n      Hume. See _Inquiry concerning Human Understanding_, sect. II.\n\n  583 Berkeley here and always insists on the _arbitrary_ character of\n      \u201csettled laws\u201d of change in the world, as contrasted with \u201cnecessary\n      connexions\u201d discovered in mathematics. The material world is thus\n      virtually an interpretable natural language, constituted in what, at\n      our point of view, is _arbitrariness_ or _contingency_.\n\n  584 Under this conception of the universe, \u201csecond causes\u201d are _divinely\n      established signs_ of impending changes, and are only metaphorically\n      called \u201ccauses.\u201d\n\n  585 So Schiller, in _Don Carlos_, Act III, where he represents sceptics\n      as failing to see the God who veils Himself in everlasting laws. But\n      in truth God is eternal law or order vitalised and moralised.\n\n  586 \u201c_sensations_,\u201d with Berkeley, are not mere feelings, but in a sense\n      external appearances.\n\n  587 \u201c_more_ reality.\u201d This implies that reality admits of degrees, and\n      that the difference between the phenomena presented to the senses\n      and those which are only imagined is a difference in degree of\n      reality.\n\n  588 In the preceding sections, two relations should be carefully\n      distinguished\u2014that of the material world to percipient mind, in\n      which it becomes _real_; and that between changes in the world and\n      spiritual agency. These are Berkeley\u2019s two leading Principles. The\n      first conducts to and vindicates the second\u2014inadequately, however,\n      apart from explication of their root in moral reason. The former\n      gives a relation _sui generis_. The latter gives our only example of\n      active causality\u2014the natural order of phenomena being the outcome of\n      the causal energy of intending Will.\n\n  589 Sect. 34-84 contain Berkeley\u2019s answers to supposed _objections_ to\n      the foregoing Principles concerning Matter and Spirit in their\n      mutual relations.\n\n  590 To be an \u201cidea\u201d is, with Berkeley, to be the imaginable object of a\n      percipient spirit. But he does not define precisely the relation of\n      ideas to mind. \u201cExistence in mind\u201d is existence _in this relation_.\n      His question (which he determines in the negative) is, the\n      possibility of concrete phenomena, naturally presented to sense,\n      _yet out of all relation to living mind_.\n\n  591 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  592 i.e. of imagination. Cf. sect. 28-30.\n\n  593 Cf. sect. 29.\n\n  594 \u201cmore reality.\u201d This again implies that reality admits of degrees.\n      What is perceived in sense is more real than what is imagined, and\n      eternal realities are more deeply real than the transitory things of\n      sense.\n\n  595 Cf. sect. 33. \u201cNot fictions,\u201d i.e. they are presentative, and\n      therefore cannot misrepresent.\n\n  596 With Berkeley _substance_ is either (_a_) active reason, i.e.\n      spirit\u2014substance proper, or (_b_) an aggregate of sense-phenomena,\n      called a \u201csensible thing\u201d\u2014substance conventionally and\n      superficially.\n\n  597 And which, because realised in living perception, are called\n      _ideas_\u2014to remind us that reality is attained in and through\n      percipient mind.\n\n  598 \u201ccombined together,\u201d i.e. in the form of \u201csensible things,\u201d\n      according to natural laws. Cf. sect. 33.\n\n  599 \u201cthinking things\u201d\u2014more appropriately called _persons_.\n\n  600 Berkeley uses the word idea to mark the fact, that sensible things\n      are real only as they manifest themselves in the form of passive\n      objects, presented to sense-percipient mind; but he does not, as\n      popularly supposed, regard \u201csensible things\u201d as created and\n      regulated by the activity of his own individual mind. They are\n      perceived, but are neither created nor regulated, by the individual\n      percipient, and are thus _practically external_ to each person.\n\n  601 Cf. sect. 87-91, against the scepticism which originates in alleged\n      fallacy of sense.\n\n  602 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  603 It is always to be remembered that with Berkeley ideas or phenomena\n      presented to sense are _themselves_ the real things, whilst ideas of\n      imagination are representative (or misrepresentative).\n\n  604 Here feelings of pleasure or pain are spoken of, without\n      qualification, as in like relation to living mind as sensible things\n      or ideas are.\n\n  605 That the ideas of sense should be seen \u201cat a distance of several\n      miles\u201d seems not inconsistent with their being dependent on a\n      percipient, if ambient space is _itself_ (as Berkeley asserts)\n      dependent on percipient experience. Cf. sect. 67.\n\n  606 In the preceding year.\n\n_  607 Essay_, sect. 2.\n\n  608 Ibid. sect. 11-15.\n\n  609 Ibid. sect. 16-28.\n\n  610 Ibid. sect. 51.\n\n  611 Ibid. sect. 47-49, 121-141.\n\n  612 Ibid. sect. 43.\n\n  613 i.e. what we are _immediately_ percipient of in seeing.\n\n  614 Touch is here and elsewhere taken in its wide meaning, and includes\n      our muscular and locomotive experience, all which Berkeley included\n      in the \u201ctactual\u201d meaning of distance.\n\n  615 To explain the condition of sensible things _during the intervals of\n      our perception of them_, consistently with the belief of all sane\n      persons regarding the material world, is a challenge which has been\n      often addressed to the advocates of ideal Realism. According to\n      Berkeley, there are no intervals in the existence of sensible\n      things. They are permanently perceivable, under the laws of nature,\n      though not always perceived by this, that or the other individual\n      percipient. Moreover they always exist _really_ in the Divine Idea,\n      and _potentially_, in relation to finite minds, in the Divine Will.\n\n  616 Berkeley allows to bodies unperceived by me potential, but (for me)\n      not real existence. When I say a body exists thus conditionally, I\n      mean that if, in the light, I open my eyes, I shall see it, and that\n      if I move my hand, I must feel it.\n\n  617 i.e. unperceived material substance.\n\n  618 Berkeley remarks, in a letter to the American Samuel Johnson, that\n      \u201cthose who have contended for a material world have yet acknowledged\n      that _natura naturans_ (to use the language of the Schoolmen) is\n      God; and that the Divine conservation of things is equipollent to,\n      and in fact the same thing with, a continued repeated creation;\u2014in a\n      word, that conservation and creation differ only as the _terminus a\n      quo_. These are the common opinions of Schoolmen; and Durandus, who\n      held the world to be a machine, like a clock made up and put in\n      motion by God, but afterwards continued to go of itself, was therein\n      particular, and had few followers. The very poets teach a doctrine\n      not unlike the Schools\u2014_mens agitat molem_ (Virgil, \u00c6neid, VI). The\n      Stoics and Platonists are everywhere full of the same notion. I am\n      not therefore singular in this point itself, so much as in my way of\n      proving it.\u201d Cf. _Alciphron_, Dial. IV. sect. 14; _Vindication of\n      New Theory of Vision_, sect. 8, 17, &c.; _Siris_, _passim_, but\n      especially in the latter part. See also _Correspondence between\n      Clarke and Leibniz_ (1717). Is it not possible that the universe of\n      things and persons is in continuous natural creation, unbeginning\n      and unending?\n\n  619 Cf. sect. 123-132.\n\n  620 He distinguishes \u201cidea\u201d from \u201cmode or attribute.\u201d With Berkeley, the\n      \u201csubstance\u201d of _matter_ (if the term is still to be applied to\n      sensible things) is the naturally constituted aggregate of phenomena\n      of which each particular thing consists. Now extension, and the\n      other qualities of sensible things, are not, Berkeley argues, \u201cin\n      mind\u201d either (_a_) according to the abstract relation of substance\n      and attribute of which philosophers speak; nor (_b_) as one idea or\n      phenomenon is related to another idea or phenomenon, in the natural\n      aggregation of sense-phenomena which constitute, with him, the\n      _substance_ of a _material_ thing. Mind and its \u201cideas\u201d are, on the\n      contrary, related as percipient to perceived\u2014in whatever \u201cotherness\u201d\n      that altogether _sui generis_ relation implies.\n\n  621 \u201cMatter,\u201d i.e. abstract material Substance, as distinguished from\n      the concrete things that are realised in living perceptions.\n\n  622 \u201ctake away natural causes,\u201d i.e. empty the material world of all\n      originative power, and refer the supposed powers of bodies to the\n      constant and omnipresent agency of God.\n\n  623 Some philosophers have treated the relation of Matter to Mind in\n      _perception_ as one of cause and effect. This, according to\n      Berkeley, is an illegitimate analysis, which creates a fictitious\n      duality. On his New Principles, philosophy is based on a recognition\n      of the fact, that perception is neither the cause nor the effect of\n      its object, but in a relation to it that is altogether _sui\n      generis_.\n\n  624 He refers to Descartes, and perhaps Geulinx and Malebranche, who,\n      while they argued for material _substance_, denied the _causal\n      efficiency_ of sensible things. Berkeley\u2019s new Principles are\n      presented as the foundation in reason for this denial, and for the\n      essential spirituality of all active power in the universe.\n\n  625 On the principle, \u201cEntia non sunt multiplicanda pr\u00e6ter\n      necessitatem.\u201d\n\n  626 \u201cexternal things,\u201d i.e. things in the abstract.\n\n  627 That the unreflecting part of mankind should have a confused\n      conception of what should be meant by the _external reality_ of\n      matter is not wonderful. It is the office of philosophy to improve\n      their conception, making it deeper and truer, and this was\n      Berkeley\u2019s preliminary task; as a mean for shewing the impotence of\n      the things of sense, and conclusive evidence of omnipresent\n      spiritual activity.\n\n  628 Cf. sect. 4, 9, 15, 17, 22, 24.\n\n  629 i.e. their _sense-ideas_.\u2014Though sense-ideas, i.e. the appearances\n      presented to the senses, are independent of the _will_ of the\n      individual percipient, it does not follow that they are independent\n      of _all perception_, so that they can be real in the absence of\n      realising percipient experience. Cf. sect. 29-33.\n\n  630 By shewing that what we are percipient of in sense must be _idea_,\n      or that it is immediately known by us only as sensuous appearance.\n\n  631 i.e. \u201cimprinted\u201d by unperceived Matter, which, on this dogma of a\n      representative sense-perception, was assumed to exist behind the\n      perceived ideas, and to be the _cause_ of their appearance. Cf.\n      _Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous_.\n\n  632 Hence the difficulty men have in recognising that Divine Reason and\n      Will, and Law in Nature, are coincident. But the advance of\n      scientific discovery of the laws which express Divine Will in\n      nature, instead of narrowing, extends our knowledge of God. And\n      _divine_ or _absolutely reasonable_ \u201carbitrariness\u201d is not caprice.\n\n  633 \u201cideas,\u201d i.e. ideas of _sense_. This \u201cexperience\u201d implied an\n      association of sensuous ideas, according to the divine or reasonable\n      order of nature.\n\n  634 Cf. sect. 25-33, and other passages in Berkeley\u2019s writings in which\n      he insists upon the _arbitrariness_\u2014divine or reasonable\u2014of the\n      natural laws and sense-symbolism.\n\n  635 Cf. sect. 3, 4, 6, 22-24, 26, in which he proceeds upon the\n      intuitive certainty of his two leading Principles, concerning\n      _Reality_ and _Causation_.\n\n  636 In short, what is virtually the language of universal natural order\n      is the divine way of revealing omnipresent Intelligence; nor can we\n      conceive how this revelation could be made through a capricious or\n      chaotic succession of changes.\n\n  637 He here touches on moral purpose in miraculous phenomena, but\n      without discussing their relation to the divine, or perfectly\n      reasonable, order of the universe. Relatively to a fine knowledge of\n      nature, they seem anomalous\u2014exceptions from general rules, which\n      nevertheless express, immediately and constantly, perfect active\n      Reason.\n\n  638 \u201cideas,\u201d i.e. the phenomena presented to the senses.\n\n  639 \u201cimaginable\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  640 \u201cthe connexion of ideas,\u201d i.e. the presence of law or reasonable\n      uniformity in the coexistence and succession of the phenomena of\n      sense; which makes them interpretable signs.\n\n  641 According to Berkeley, it is by an abuse of language that the term\n      \u201cpower\u201d is applied to those ideas which are invariable antecedents\n      of other ideas\u2014the prior forms of their existence, as it were.\n\n  642 Berkeley, in meeting this objection, thus implies Universal Natural\n      Symbolism as the essential character of the sensible world, in its\n      relation to man.\n\n  643 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. IV, ch. 3, \u00a7 25-28, &c., in which he\n      suggests that the secondary qualities of bodies may be the natural\n      issue of the different relations and modifications of their primary\n      qualities.\n\n  644 With Berkeley, _material substance_ is merely the natural\n      combination of sense-presented phenomena, which, under a _divine_ or\n      _reasonable_ \u201carbitrariness,\u201d constitute a concrete thing. Divine\n      Will, or Active Reason, is the constantly sustaining cause of this\n      combination or substantiation.\n\n  645 i.e. that it is not realised in a living percipient experience.\n\n  646 For \u201cplace\u201d is realised only as perceived\u2014percipient experience\n      being its concrete existence. Living perception is, with Berkeley,\n      the condition of the possibility of concrete locality.\n\n  647 So in the Cartesian theory of occasional causes.\n\n  648 So Geulinx and Malebranche.\n\n  649 As known in Divine intelligence, they are accordingly _Divine\n      Ideas_. And, if this means that the sensible system is the\n      expression of Divine Ideas, which are its ultimate archetype\u2014that\n      the Ideas of God are symbolised to our senses, and then interpreted\n      (or misinterpreted) by human minds, this allies itself with Platonic\n      Idealism.\n\n  650 \u201cIt seems to me,\u201d Hume says, \u201cthat this theory of the universal\n      energy and operation of the Supreme Being is _too bold_ ever to\n      carry conviction with it to a mind sufficiently apprised of the\n      weakness of human reason, and the narrow limits to which it is\n      confined in all its operations.\u201d But is it not virtually presupposed\n      in the assumed trustworthiness of our experience of the universe?\n\n  651 Accordingly we are led to ask, what the deepest support of their\n      reality must be. Is it found in living Spirit, i.e. Active Reason,\n      or in blind Matter?\n\n  652 e.g. Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, &c.\n\n  653 In short, if we mean by Matter, something unrealised in percipient\n      experience of sense, what is called its _reality_ is something\n      unintelligible.\n\n  654 And if sensible phenomena are _sufficiently_ externalised, when\n      regarded as regulated by Divine Reason.\n\n  655 Twenty years after the publication of the _Principles_, in a letter\n      to his American friend Johnson, Berkeley says:\u2014\u201cI have no objection\n      against calling the Ideas in the mind of God _archetypes_ of ours.\n      But I object against those archetypes by philosophers supposed to be\n      real things, and so to have an absolute rational existence distinct\n      from their being perceived by any mind whatsoever; it being the\n      opinion of all materialists that an ideal existence in the Divine\n      Mind is one thing, and the real existence of material things\n      another.\u201d\n\n  656 Berkeley\u2019s philosophy is not inconsistent with Divine Ideas which\n      receive expression in the laws of nature, and of which human science\n      is the imperfect interpretation. In this view, assertion of the\n      existence of Matter is simply an expression of faith that the\n      phenomenal universe into which we are born is a reasonable and\n      interpretable universe; and that it would be fully interpreted, if\n      our notions could be fully harmonised with the Divine Ideas which it\n      expresses.\n\n  657 Cf. sect. 3-24.\n\n  658 So that superhuman persons, endowed with a million senses, would be\n      no nearer this abstract Matter than man is, with his few senses.\n\n  659 Matter and physical science is _relative_, so far that we may\n      suppose in other percipients than men, an indefinite number of\n      additional senses, affording corresponding varieties of qualities in\n      things, of course inconceivable by man. Or, we may suppose an\n      intelligence destitute of _all our_ senses, and so in a material\n      world wholly different in its appearances from ours.\n\n  660 The authority of Holy Scripture, added to our natural tendency to\n      believe in external reality, are grounds on which Malebranche and\n      Norris infer a material world. Berkeley\u2019s material world claims no\n      logical proof of its reality. His is not to prove the reality of the\n      world, but to shew what we should mean when we affirm its reality,\n      and the basis of its explicability in science.\n\n  661 i.e. existing unrealised in any intelligence\u2014human or Divine.\n\n  662 \u201cexternal things,\u201d i.e. things existing really, yet out of all\n      relation to active living spirit.\n\n  663 Simultaneous perception of the \u201csame\u201d (similar?) _sense_-ideas, _by\n      different persons_, as distinguished from purely individual\n      consciousness of feelings and fancies, is here taken as a test of\n      the _virtually external reality_ of the former.\n\n      Berkeley does not ask whether the change of the rod into a serpent,\n      or of the water into wine, is the issue of divine agency and order,\n      otherwise than as all natural evolution is divinely providential.\n\n  664 Some of the Consequences of adoption of the New Principles, in their\n      application to the physical sciences and mathematics, and then to\n      psychology and theology, are unfolded in the remaining sections of\n      the _Principles_.\n\n  665 Berkeley disclaims the supposed _representative_ character of the\n      ideas given in sensuous perception, and recognises as the real\n      object only what is ideally presented in consciousness.\n\n  666 So Hume, Reid, and Hamilton, who all see in a wholly representative\n      sense-perception, with its double object, the germ of total\n      scepticism. Berkeley claims that, under _his_ interpretation of what\n      the reality of the material world means, immediate knowledge of\n      mind-dependent matter is given in sense.\n\n  667 \u201cscepticism\u201d\u2014\u201csceptical cant\u201d in the first edition.\n\n  668 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.\n\n  669 Berkeley\u2019s argument against a _finally representative_ perception so\n      far resembles that afterwards employed by Reid and Hamilton. They\n      differ as regards the dependence of the sensible object upon\n      percipient spirit for its reality.\n\n  670 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  671 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  672 But whilst unthinking things depend on being perceived, do not our\n      spirits depend on ideas of some sort for their percipient life?\n\n  673 The important passage within brackets was added in the second\n      edition.\n\n  674 \u201creason,\u201d i.e. reasoning.\n\n  675 \u201cNotion,\u201d in its stricter meaning, is thus confined by Berkeley to\n      apprehension of the _Ego_, and intelligence of _relations_. The term\n      \u201cnotion,\u201d in this contrast with _his_ \u201cidea,\u201d becomes important in\n      his vocabulary, although he sometimes uses it vaguely.\n\n  676 Locke uses _idea_ in this wider signification.\n\n  677 Inasmuch as they are _real_ in and through living percipient mind.\n\n  678 i.e. _unthinking_ archetypes.\n\n  679 In this section Berkeley explains what he means by _externality_.\n      Men cannot act, cannot live, without assuming an external world\u2014in\n      some meaning of the term \u201cexternal.\u201d It is the business of the\n      philosopher to explicate its true meaning.\n\n  680 i.e. they are not _substances_ in the truest or deepest meaning of\n      the word.\n\n  681 \u201cIdeas of the corporeal substances.\u201d Berkeley might perhaps\n      say\u2014Divine Ideas which are _themselves_ our world of sensible things\n      in its ultimate form.\n\n  682 On the scheme of ideal Realism, \u201ccreation\u201d of matter is presenting\n      to finite minds sense-ideas or phenomena, which are, as it were,\n      letters of the alphabet, in that language of natural order which God\n      employs for the expression of _His_ Ideas to us.\n\n  683 The _independent_ eternity of Matter must be distinguished from an\n      unbeginning and endless _creation_ of sensible ideas or phenomena,\n      in percipient spirits, according to divine natural law and order,\n      with implied immanence of God.\n\n  684 Because the question at issue with Atheism is, whether the universe\n      of things and persons is finally substantiated and evolved in\n      unthinking Matter or in the perfect Reason of God.\n\n  685 Of which Berkeley does _not_ predicate a _numerical_ identity. Cf.\n      _Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous_.\n\n  686 \u201cmatter,\u201d i.e. matter abstracted from all percipient life and\n      voluntary activity.\n\n  687 \u201cexternal\u201d\u2014not in Berkeley\u2019s meaning of externality. Cf. sect. 90,\n      note 2.\n\n_  688 Si non rogas, intelligo._ Berkeley writes long after this to\n      Johnson thus:\u2014\u201cA succession of ideas (phenomena) I take to\n      _constitute_ time, and not to be only the sensible measure thereof,\n      as Mr. Locke and others think. But in these matters every man is to\n      think for himself, and speak as he finds. One of my earliest\n      inquiries was about _time_; which led me into several paradoxes that\n      I did not think it fit or necessary to publish, particularly into\n      the notion that the resurrection follows the next moment after\n      death. We are confounded and perplexed about time\u2014supposing a\n      succession in God; that we have an abstract idea of time; that time\n      in one mind is to be measured by succession of ideas in another\n      mind: not considering the true use of words, which as often\n      terminate in the will as in the understanding, being employed to\n      excite and direct action rather than to produce clear and distinct\n      ideas.\u201d Cf. Introduction, sect. 20.\n\n  689 As the _esse_ of unthinking things is _percipi_, according to\n      Berkeley, so the _esse_ of persons is _percipere_. The real\n      existence of individual Mind thus depends on having ideas of some\n      sort: the real existence of matter depends on a percipient.\n\n  690 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.\n\n  691 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 43.\n\n  692 \u201cobjects of sense,\u201d i.e. sensible things, practically external to\n      each person. Cf. sect. 1, on the meaning of _thing_, as distinct\n      from the distinguishable ideas or phenomena that are naturally\n      aggregated in the form of concrete things.\n\n  693 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  694 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  695 Cf. Introduction, sect. 1-3. With Berkeley, the real essence of\n      sensible things is given in perception\u2014so far as our perceptions\n      carry us.\n\n  696 e.g. Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 3.\n\n  697 Berkeley advocates a Realism, which eliminates effective causation\n      from the material world, concentrates it in Mind, and in physical\n      research seeks among data of sense for their divinely maintained\n      natural laws.\n\n  698 In interpreting the data of sense, we are obliged to assume that\n      every _new_ phenomenon must have previously existed in some\n      equivalent form\u2014but not necessarily in this or that particular form,\n      for a knowledge of which we are indebted to inductive comparisons of\n      experience.\n\n  699 The preceding forms of new phenomena, being finally determined by\n      Will, are, in that sense, arbitrary; but not capricious, for the\n      Will is perfect Reason. God is the immanent cause of the natural\n      order.\n\n  700 He probably refers to Bacon.\n\n  701 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  702 What we are able to discover in the all-comprehensive order may be\n      subordinate and provisional only. Nature in its deepest meaning\n      explains itself in the Divine Omniscience.\n\n  703 i.e. inductively.\n\n  704 i.e. deductively.\n\n  705 \u201cseem to consider signs,\u201d i.e. to be grammarians rather than\n      philosophers: physical sciences deal with the grammar of the divine\n      language of nature.\n\n  706 \u201cA man may be well read in the language of nature without\n      understanding the grammar of it, or being able to say,\u201d &c.\u2014in first\n      edition.\n\n  707 \u201cextend\u201d\u2014\u201cstretch\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  708 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  709 In the first edition, the section commences thus: \u201cThe best grammar\n      of the kind we are speaking of will be easily acknowledged to be a\n      treatise of _Mechanics_, demonstrated and applied to Nature, by a\n      philosopher of a neighbouring nation, whom all the world admire. I\n      shall not take upon me to make remarks on the performance of that\n      extraordinary person: only some things he has advanced so directly\n      opposite to the doctrine we have hitherto laid down, that we should\n      be wanting in the regard due to the authority of so great a man did\n      we not take some notice of them.\u201d He refers, of course, to Newton.\n      The first edition of Berkeley\u2019s _Principles_ was published in\n      Ireland\u2014hence \u201cneighbouring nation.\u201d Newton\u2019s _Principia_ appeared\n      in 1687.\n\n  710 \u201cMotion,\u201d in various aspects, is treated specially in the _De Motu_.\n      An imagination of trinal space presupposes locomotive\n      experience\u2014unimpeded, in contrast with\u2014impeded locomotion. Cf. sect.\n      116.\n\n  711 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  712 Added in second edition.\n\n  713 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  714 See Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, \u00a7\u00a7 7-10.\n\n  715 \u201capplied to\u201d\u2014\u201cimpressed on\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  716 \u201capplied to\u201d\u2014\u201cimpressed on\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  717 \u201cthe _force_ causing the change\u201d\u2014which \u201cforce,\u201d according to\n      Berkeley, can only be attributed metaphorically to the so-called\n      impelling body; inasmuch as _bodies_, or the data of sense, can only\n      be signs of their consequent events, not efficient causes of change.\n\n  718 Added in second edition.\n\n  719 What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second\n      edition.\n\n  720 \u201cseems impossible\u201d\u2014\u201cis above my capacity\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  721 In short, empty Space _is_ the sensuous idea of unresisted motion.\n      This is implied in the _New Theory of Vision_. He minimises Space,\n      treating it as a datum of sense.\n\n  722 He probably refers to Samuel Clarke\u2019s _Demonstration of the Being\n      and Attributes of God_, which appeared in 1706, and a treatise _De\n      Spatio Reali_, published in the same year.\n\n  723 Sect. 118-132 are accordingly concerned with the New Principles in\n      their application to Mathematics. The foundation of the mathematical\n      sciences engaged much of Berkeley\u2019s thought in early life and in his\n      later years. See his _Analyst_.\n\n  724 Numerical relations are _realised_ only in concrete experience.\n\n  725 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 107, &c.\n\n  726 Ibid. sect. 122-125, 149-160.\n\n  727 An infinitely divided extension, being unperceived, must be\n      unreal\u2014if its existence is made real only in and through actual\n      perception, or at least imagination. The only possible extension is,\n      accordingly, sensible extension, which could not be infinitely\n      divided without the supposed parts ceasing to be perceived or real.\n\n  728 \u201cconverted Gentile\u201d\u2014\u201cpagan convert\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  729 Cf. Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. I, ch. 3, \u00a7 25.\n\n  730 \u201cwill perhaps in virtue thereof be brought to admit,\u201d &c.\u2014\u201cwill not\n      stick to affirm,\u201d &c.\u2014in first edition.\n\n  731 Omitted in second edition. See the _Analyst_.\n\n  732 \u201cwe must mean\u201d\u2014\u201cwe mean (if we mean anything)\u201d\u2014in first edition.\n\n  733 Omitted in the second edition.\n\n  734 Does this refer to the intended \u201cPart II\u201d of the _Principles_?\n\n  735 \u201cmen of great abilities and obstinate application,\u201d &c.\u2014\u201cmen of the\n      greatest abilities and most obstinate application,\u201d &c.\u2014in first\n      edition.\n\n  736 What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second\n      edition.\n\n  737 \u201cabsolute,\u201d i.e. abstract, independent, irrelative existence\u2014as\n      something of which there can be no sensuous perception or\n      conception.\n\n  738 Matter unrealised in perception\u2014not the material world that is\n      realised in percipient experience of sense.\n\n  739 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  740 Sect. 135-156 treat of consequences of the New Principles, in their\n      application to sciences concerned with our notions of _Spirit_ or\n      _Mind_; as distinguished from sciences of ideas in external Nature,\n      and their mathematical relations. Individual mind, with Berkeley,\n      needs data of sense in order to its realisation in consciousness;\n      while it is dependent on God, in a relation which he does not define\n      distinctly.\n\n  741 e.g. Locke suggests this.\n\n  742 Is this analogy applicable?\n\n  743 Omitted in second edition, as he had previously learned to\n      distinguish _notion_ from _idea_. Cf. sect. 89, 142.\n\n  744 Ibid. In the omitted passage it will be seen that he makes _idea_\n      and _notion_ synonymous.\n\n  745 Is the reality of mind as dependent on having ideas (of some sort)\n      as ideas are on mind; although mind is more deeply and truly real\n      than its ideas are?\n\n  746 Introduced in second edition.\n\n  747 We know _other finite persons_ through sense-presented phenomena,\n      but not as themselves phenomena. Cf. sect. 145. It is a mediate\n      knowledge that we have of other persons. The question about the\n      individuality of finite egos, as distinguished from God, Berkeley\n      has not touched.\n\n  748 These sentences are omitted in the second edition.\n\n  749 \u201cthe soul,\u201d i.e. the individual Ego.\n\n  750 Cf. sect. 2; 25-27.\n\n  751 This is Berkeley\u2019s application of his new conception of the reality\n      of matter, to the final human question of the self-conscious\n      existence of the individual human Ego, after physical death.\n      Philosophers and theologians were accustomed in his generation to\n      ground their argument for a future life on the metaphysical\n      assumption of the physical indivisibility of our self-conscious\n      spirit, and on our contingent connexion with the body. \u201cOur bodies,\u201d\n      says Bishop Butler, \u201care no more _ourselves_, or _part of\n      ourselves_, than any other matter around us.\u201d This train of thought\n      is foreign to us at the present day, when men of science remind us\n      that self-conscious life is found only in correlation with corporeal\n      organisation, whatever may be the abstract possibility. Hope of\n      continued life after physical death seems to depend on ethical\n      considerations more than on metaphysical arguments, and on what is\n      suggested by faith in the final outcome of personal life in a\n      _divinely_ constituted universe.\n\n  752 Mind and the ideas presented to the senses are at opposite poles of\n      existence. But he does not say that, thus opposed, they are each\n      independent of the other.\n\n  753 What follows was introduced in the second edition, in which _notion_\n      is contrasted with _idea_.\n\n  754 Here is a germ of Kantism. But Berkeley has not analysed that\n      activity of mind which constitutes _relation_, nor systematically\n      unfolded the relations involved in the rational constitution of\n      experience. There is more disposition to this in _Siris_.\n\n  755 As with Locke, for example.\n\n  756 Note this condemnation of the tendency to substantiate \u201cpowers of\n      mind.\u201d\n\n  757 Omitted in second edition. Berkeley was after all reluctant to\n      \u201cdepart from received modes of speech,\u201d notwithstanding their often\n      misleading associations.\n\n  758 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  759 This is one of the notable sections in the _Principles_, as it\n      suggests the _rationale_ of Berkeley\u2019s rejection of Panegoism or\n      Solipsism. Is this consistent with his conception of the reality of\n      the material world? It is objected (e.g. by Reid) that ideal realism\n      dissolves our faith in the existence of other persons. The\n      difficulty is to shew how appearances presented to my senses, which\n      are sensuous and subjective, can be media of communication between\n      persons. The question carries us back to the theistic presupposition\n      in the trustworthiness of experience\u2014which is adapted to deceive if\n      I am the only person existing. With Berkeley a chief function of\n      ideas of sense is to signify other persons to each person. See\n      _Alciphron_, Dial. IV; _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, and\n      _Siris_.\n\n  760 \u201crepugnant\u201d\u2014for it would involve thought in incoherence, by\n      paralysis of its indispensable causal presupposition.\n\n  761 Is not God the indispensable presupposition of trustworthy\n      experience, rather than an empirical inference?\n\n  762 This suggests an explanation of the objective reality and\n      significance of _ideas of sense_; through which they become media of\n      social intercourse in the fundamentally divine universe. God so\n      regulates the sense-given ideas of which human beings are\n      individually percipient, as that, _while numerically different, as\n      in each mind_, those ideas are nevertheless a sufficient medium for\n      social intercourse, if the Power universally at work is morally\n      trustworthy. Unless our God-given experience is deceiving, Solipsism\n      is not a necessary result of the fact that no one but myself can be\n      percipient of my sensuous experience.\n\n  763 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  764 Malebranche, as understood by Berkeley. See _Recherche_, Liv. III.\n      p. ii. ch. 6, &c.\n\n  765 For all finite persons _somehow_ live, and move, and have their\n      being \u201cin God.\u201d The existence of _eternal_ living Mind, and the\n      _present_ existence of other men, are both _inferences_, resting on\n      the same foundation, according to Berkeley.\n\n  766 The theistic trust in which our experience is rooted remaining\n      latent, or being unintelligent.\n\n  767 Cf. sect. 25-28, 51-53, 60-66. His conception of Divine causation in\n      Nature, as the constant omnipresent agency in all natural law, is\n      the deepest part of his philosophy. It is pursued in the _De Motu_.\n\n  768 Is not the unbeginning and unending natural evolution, an articulate\n      revelation of Eternal Spirit or Active Reason at the heart of the\n      whole?\n\n  769 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  770 So Pascal in the _Pens\u00e9es_.\n\n  771 Divine reason ever active in Nature is the necessary correlate to\n      reason in man; inasmuch as otherwise the changing universe in which\n      we live would be unfit to be reasoned about or acted in.\n\n  772 The existence of _moral_ evil, or what ought not to exist, is _the_\n      difficulty which besets faith in the fundamental divinity or\n      goodness of the universe. Yet that faith is presupposed in\n      interpretation of nature, which proceeds on the _postulate_ of\n      universal order; and this implies the moral trustworthiness of the\n      world which we begin to realise when we begin to be conscious. That\n      we are living and having our being in omnipotent goodness is thus\n      not an inference, but the implied basis of all real inferences. I\n      have expanded this thought in my _Philosophy of Theism_. We cannot\n      _prove_ God, for we must assume God, as the basis of all proof.\n      Faith even in the uniformity of nature is virtually faith in\n      omnipotent goodness immanent in the universe.\n\n  773 So Leibniz in his _Theodic\u00e9e_, which was published in the same year\n      as Berkeley\u2019s _Principles_.\n\n  774 The divine presupposition, latent in all human reasoning and\n      experience, is hid from the unreflecting, in whom the higher life is\n      dormant, and the ideal in the universe is accordingly undiscerned.\n      Unless the universe is assumed to be physically and morally\n      trustworthy, i.e. unless God is presupposed, even natural science\n      has no adequate foundation.\n\n  775 Our necessarily incomplete knowledge of the Universe in which we\n      find ourselves is apt to disturb the fundamental faith, that the\n      phenomena presented to us are significant of God. Yet we _tacitly\n      assume_ that they are thus significant when we interpret real\n      experience, physical or moral.\n\n  776 Omitted in second edition.\n\n  777 For the following extracts from previously unpublished\n      correspondence of Berkeley and Sir John Percival, I am indebted to\n      the kindness of his descendant, the late Lord Egmont.\n\n  778 What Berkeley seeks to shew is, not that the world of the senses is\n      unreal, but in what its reality consists. Is it inexplicable chaos,\n      or explicable expression of ever active Intelligence, more or less\n      interpreted in natural science?\n\n  779 Leibniz: _De modo distinguendi Phenomena Realia ab Imaginariis_\n      (1707).\n\n  780 For some information relative to Gua de Malves, see Querard\u2019s _La\n      France Litt\u00e9raire,_ tom. iii. p. 494.\n\n  781 The following is the translator\u2019s Prefatory Note, on the objects of\n      the _Dialogues,_ and in explanation of the three illustrative\n      vignettes:\u2014\n\n      \u201cL\u2019Auteur expose dans le premier Dialogue le sentiment du Vulgaire\n      et celui des Philosophes, sur les qualit\u00e9s secondaires et premieres,\n      la nature et l\u2019existence des corps; et il pr\u00e9tend prouver en m\u00eame\n      tems l\u2019insuffisance de l\u2019un et de l\u2019autre. La Vignette qu\u2019on voit \u00e0\n      la t\u00e9te du Dialogue, fait allusion \u00e0 cet objet. Elle repr\u00e9sente un\n      Philosophe dans son cabinet, lequel est distrait de son travail par\n      un enfant qu\u2019il appercoit se voyant lui-m\u00e9me dans un miroir, en\n      tendant les mains pour embrasser sa propre image. Le Philosophe rit\n      de l\u2019erreur o\u00f9 il croit que tombe l\u2019enfant; tandis qu\u2019on lui\n      applique \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame ces mots tir\u00e9s d\u2019Horace:\n\n      _Quid rides?....de te_\n      _ Fabula narratur._\n\n      \u201cLe second Dialogue est employ\u00e9 \u00e0 exposer le sentiment de l\u2019Auteur\n      sur le m\u00eame sujet, s\u00e7avoir, que les choses corporelles ont une\n      existence r\u00e9elle dans les esprits qui les apper\u00e7oivent; mais\n      qu\u2019elles ne s\u00e7auroient exister hors de tous les esprits \u00e0 la fois,\n      m\u00eame de l\u2019esprit infini de Dieu; et que par cons\u00e9quent la Mati\u00e8re,\n      prise suivant l\u2019acception ordinaire du mot, non seulement n\u2019existe\n      point, mais seroit m\u00eame absolument impossible. On a tach\u00e9 de\n      repr\u00e9senter aux yeux ce sentiment dans la Vignette du Dialogue. Le\n      mot grec \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 qui signifie _\u00e2me_, d\u00e9signe l\u2019\u00e0me: les rayons qui en\n      partent marquent l\u2019attention que l\u2019\u00e2me donne \u00e0 des id\u00e9es ou objets;\n      les tableaux qu\u2019on a plac\u00e9s aux seuls endroits o\u00f9 les rayons\n      aboutissent, et dont les sujets sont tir\u00e9s de la description des\n      beaut\u00e9s de la nature, qui se trouve dans le livre, repr\u00e9sentent les\n      id\u00e9es ou objets que l\u2019\u00e2me consid\u00e8re, pas le secours des facultes\n      qu\u2019elle a re\u00e7ues de Dieu; et l\u2019action de l\u2019\u00c9tre supr\u00e8me sur l\u2019\u00e2me\n      est figur\u00e9e par un trait, qui, partant d\u2019un triangle, symbole de la\n      Divinit\u00e9, et per\u00e7ant les nuages dont le triangle est environn\u00e9.\n      s\u2019\u00e9tend jusqu\u2019\u00e0 l\u2019\u00e2me pour la vivifier; enfin, on a fait en sorte de\n      rendre le m\u00eame sentiment par ces mots:\n\n      _Qu\u00e6 noscere cumque Deus det,_\n      _ Esse puta._\n\n      \u201cL\u2019objet du troisi\u00e8me Dialogue est de r\u00e9pondre aux difficult\u00e9s\n      auxquelles le sentiment qu\u2019on a \u00e9tabli dans les Dialogues pr\u00e9c\u00e9dens,\n      peut \u00eatre sujet, de l\u2019\u00e9claircir en cette sorte de plus, d\u2019en\n      d\u00e9velopper toutes les heureuses cons\u00e9quences, enfin de faire voir,\n      qu\u2019\u00e9tant bien entendu, il revient aux notions les plus communes. Et\n      comme l\u2019Auteur exprime \u00e0 la fin du livre cette derni\u00e8re pens\u00e9e, en\n      comparant ce qu\u2019il vient de dire, \u00e0 l\u2019eau que les deux\n      Interlocuteurs sont suppos\u00e9s voir jaillir d\u2019un jet, et qu\u2019il\n      remarque que la m\u00eame force de la gravit\u00e9 fait \u00e9lever jusqu\u2019\u00e0 une\n      certaine hauteur et retomber ensuite dans le bassin d\u2019o\u00f9 elle \u00e9toit\n      d\u2019abord partie; on a pris cet embl\u00eame pour le sujet de la Vignette\n      de ce Dialogue; on a repr\u00e9sent\u00e9 en cons\u00e9quence dans cette derni\u00e8re\n      Vignette les deux Interlocuteurs, se promenant dans le lieu o\u00f9\n      l\u2019Auteur les suppose, et s\u2019entretenant l\u00e0-dessus, et pour donner au\n      Lecteur l\u2019explication de l\u2019embl\u00eame, on a mis au bas le vers suivant:\n\n      _Urget aquas vis sursum, eadem flectitque deorsum._\u201d\n\n  782 Collier never came fairly in sight of the philosophical public of\n      last century. He is referred to in Germany by Bilfinger, in his\n      _Dilucidationes Philosophic\u00e6_ (1746), and also in the _Ada\n      Eruditorum_, Suppl. VI. 244, &c., and in England by Corry in his\n      _Reflections on Liberty and Necessity_ (1761), as well as in the\n      _Remarks_ on the Reflections, and _Answers_ to the Remarks, pp. 7, 8\n      (1763), where he is described as \u201ca weak reasoner, and a very dull\n      writer also.\u201d Collier was dragged from his obscurity by Dr. Reid, in\n      his _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, Essay II. ch. 10. He was a\n      subject of correspondence between Sir James Mackintosh, then at\n      Bombay, and Dr. Parr, and an object of curiosity to Dugald Stewart.\n      A beautiful reprint of the _Clavis_ (of the original edition of\n      which only seven copies were then known to exist) appeared in\n      Edinburgh in 1836; and in the following year it was included in a\n      collection of _Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the\n      Eighteenth Century_, prepared for the press by Dr. Parr.\n\n  783 William, fourth Lord Berkeley of Stratton, born about 1663,\n      succeeded his brother in 1697, and died in 1741 at Bruton in\n      Somersetshire. The Berkeleys of Stratton were descended from a\n      younger son of Maurice, Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle, who died\n      in 1326. His descendant, Sir John Berkeley of Bruton, a zealous\n      Royalist, was created first Lord Berkeley of Stratton in 1658, and\n      in 1669 became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an office which he held\n      till 1672, when he was succeeded by the Earl of Essex (see Burke\u2019s\n      _Extinct Peerages_). It is said that Bishop Berkeley\u2019s father was\n      related to him. The Bishop himself was introduced by Dean Swift, in\n      1713, to the Lord Berkeley of Stratton, to whom the _Dialogues_ are\n      dedicated, as \u201ca cousin of his Lordship.\u201d The title of Berkeley of\n      Stratton became extinct on the death of the fifth Lord in 1773.\n\n  784 This interesting Preface is omitted in his last edition of the\n      _Dialogues_.\n\n  785 The Second Part of the _Principles_ was never published, and only in\n      part written. See Editor\u2019s Preface to the _Principles_.\n\n_  786 Principles_, Introduction, sect. 1.\n\n  787 Berkeley\u2019s philosophy is professedly a \u201crevolt\u201d from abstract ideas\n      to an enlightened sense of concrete realities. In these Dialogues\n      _Philonous_ personates the revolt, and represents Berkeley. _Hylas_\n      vindicates the uncritical conception of independent Matter.\n\n  788 Berkeley\u2019s zeal against Matter in the abstract, and all abstract\n      ideas of concrete things, is therefore not necessarily directed\n      against \u201cuniversal intellectual notions\u201d\u2014\u201cthe principles and\n      theorems of sciences.\u201d\n\n  789 Here \u201creason\u201d means reasoning or inference. Cf. _Theory of Vision\n      Vindicated_, sect. 42, including the distinction between\n      \u201csuggestion\u201d and \u201cinference.\u201d\n\n  790 \u201cfigure\u201d as well as colour, is here included among the original data\n      of sight.\n\n  791 \u201cwithout the mind,\u201d i.e. unrealised by any percipient mind.\n\n  792 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 14.\n\n  793 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 14, 15.\n\n  794 \u201cSensible qualities,\u201d i.e. the significant appearances presented in\n      sense.\n\n  795 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80-86.\n\n  796 Descartes and Locke for example.\n\n  797 On Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter, and their mutual\n      relations, cf. _Principles_, sect. 9-15. See also Descartes,\n      _Meditations_, III, _Principia_, I. sect. 69; Malebranche,\n      _Recherche_, Liv. VI. Pt. II. sect. 2; Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch.\n      8.\n\n  798 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80.\n\n  799 What follows, within brackets, is not contained in the first and\n      second editions.\n\n  800 Percipient mind is, in short, the indispensable realising factor of\n      _all_ the qualities of sensible things.\n\n  801 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 122-126; _Principles_, sect. 123,\n      &c.; _Siris_, sect. 270, &c.\n\n  802 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 15.\n\n  803 Is \u201cnotion\u201d here a synonym for idea?\n\n  804 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 16.\n\n  805 \u201cSize or figure, or sensible quality\u201d\u2014\u201csize, color &c.,\u201d in the\n      first and second editions.\n\n  806 In Berkeley\u2019s later and more exact terminology, the data or\n      implicates of pure intellect are called _notions_, in contrast to\n      his _ideas_, which are concrete or individual sensuous\n      presentations.\n\n  807 They need living percipient mind to make them real.\n\n  808 So Reid\u2019s _Inquiry_, ch. ii, sect. 8, 9; _Essays on the Intellectual\n      Powers_, II. ch. 16. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 8,\n      &c.\n\n  809 i.e. figured or extended visible colour. Cf. _New Theory of Vision_,\n      sect. 43, &c.\n\n  810 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.\n\n  811 After maintaining, in the preceding part of this Dialogue, the\n      inevitable dependence of all the qualities of Matter upon percipient\n      Spirit, the argument now proceeds to dispose of the supposition that\n      Matter may still be an unmanifested or unqualified _substratum_,\n      independent of living percipient Spirit.\n\n  812 [See the _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_, and its\n      _Vindication_.] Note by the _Author_ in the 1734 edition.\n\n  813 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 2.\n\n  814 Cf. Ibid., sect. 43.\n\n  815 \u201can idea,\u201d i.e. a phenomenon present to our senses.\n\n  816 This was Reid\u2019s fundamental question in his criticism of Berkeley.\n\n  817 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8.\n\n  818 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.\n\n  819 In other words, the percipient activity of a living spirit is the\n      necessary condition of the real existence of all ideas or phenomena\n      immediately present to our senses.\n\n  820 An \u201cexplanation\u201d afterwards elaborately developed by Hartley, in his\n      _Observations on Man_ (1749). Berkeley has probably Hobbes in view.\n\n  821 The brain with the human body in which it is included constitutes a\n      part of the material world, and must equally with the rest of the\n      material world depend for its realisation upon percipient Spirit as\n      the realising factor.\n\n  822 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 23.\n\n  823 \u201cin stones and minerals\u201d\u2014in first and second editions.\n\n  824 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 29-33; also sect. 90.\u2014The _permanence_ of a\n      thing, during intervals in which it may be unperceived and\n      unimagined by human beings, is here assumed, as a natural\n      conviction.\n\n  825 In other words, men are apt to treat the omniscience of God as an\n      inference from the dogmatic assumption that God exists, instead of\n      seeing that our cosmic experience necessarily presupposes omnipotent\n      and omniscient Intelligence at its root.\n\n  826 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 90. A permanent material world is grounded\n      on Divine Mind, because it cannot but depend on Mind, while its\n      reality is only partially and at intervals sustained by finite\n      minds.\n\n  827 \u201cnecessarily inferred from\u201d\u2014rather necessarily presupposed in.\n\n  828 The present reality of Something implies the eternal existence of\n      living Mind, if Something _must_ exist eternally, and if real or\n      concrete existence involves living Mind. Berkeley\u2019s conception of\n      material nature presupposes a theistic basis.\n\n  829 He refers of course to Malebranche and his Divine Vision.\n\n  830 But Malebranche uses _idea_ in a higher meaning than Berkeley\n      does\u2014akin to the Platonic, and in contrast to the sensuous phenomena\n      which Berkeley calls ideas.\n\n  831 The passage within brackets first appeared in the third edition.\n\n  832 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25-33.\n\n  833 Cf. Ibid., sect. 3-24.\n\n  834 I _can_ represent to myself another mind perceiving and conceiving\n      things; because I have an example of this my own conscious life. I\n      _cannot_ represent to myself sensible things existing totally\n      unperceived and unimagined; because I cannot, without a\n      contradiction, have an example of this in my own experience.\n\n  835 \u201creason,\u201d i.e. by reasoning.\n\n  836 Berkeley\u2019s _material substance_ is a natural or divinely ordered\n      aggregate of sensible qualities or phenomena.\n\n  837 Inasmuch as, according to Berkeley, it must be a living Spirit, and\n      it would be an abuse of language to call this Matter.\n\n  838 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.\n\n  839 It is here argued that as _volition_ is the only _originative_ cause\n      implied in our experience, and which consequently alone puts true\n      meaning into the term Cause, to apply that term to what is not\n      volition is to make it meaningless, or at least to misapply it.\n\n  840 While thus arguing against the need for independent matter, as an\n      instrument needed by God, Berkeley fails to explain how dependent\n      matter can be a medium of intercourse between persons. It must be\n      more than a subjective dream, however well ordered, if it is\n      available for this purpose. Unless the visible and audible ideas or\n      phenomena presented to me are actually seen and heard by other men,\n      how can they be instrumental in intercommunication?\n\n  841 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 68-79.\n\n  842 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 20.\n\n  843 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 80, 81.\n\n  844 i.e. all Spirits and their dependent ideas or phenomena.\n\n  845 This, according to Hume (who takes for granted that Berkeley\u2019s\n      reasonings can produce no conviction), is the natural effect of\n      Berkeley\u2019s philosophy.\u2014\u201cMost of the writings of that very ingenious\n      author (Berkeley) form the best lessons of scepticism which are to\n      be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not\n      excepted.... That all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are,\n      in reality, merely sceptical, appear from this\u2014_that they admit of\n      no answer, and produce no conviction_. Their only effect is to cause\n      that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is\n      the result of scepticism.\u201d (Hume\u2019s _Essays_, vol. II. Note N, p.\n      554.)\n\n  846 Omitted in last edition.\n\n  847 \u201cTell me, Hylas,\u201d\u2014\u201cSo Hylas\u201d\u2014in first and second editions.\n\n  848 Variously called _noumena_, \u201cthings-in-themselves,\u201d absolute\n      substances, &c.\u2014which Berkeley\u2019s philosophy banishes, on the ground\n      of their unintelligibility, and thus annihilates all farther\n      questions concerning them. Questions about existence are thus\n      confined within the concrete or realising experiences of living\n      spirits.\n\n  849 Berkeley claims that his doctrine supersedes scepticism, and\n      excludes the possibility of fallacy in sense, in excluding an\n      ultimately representative perception of Matter. He also assumes the\n      reasonableness of faith in the reality and constancy of natural law.\n      When we see an orange, the visual sense guarantees only colour. The\n      other phenomena, which we associate with this colour\u2014the other\n      \u201cqualities\u201d of the orange\u2014are, when we only _see_ the orange, matter\n      of faith. We believe them to be realisable.\n\n  850 He accepts the common belief on which interpretation of sense\n      symbols proceeds\u2014that sensible phenomena are evolved in rational\n      order, under laws that are independent of, and in that respect\n      external to, the individual percipient.\n\n  851 Mediately as well as immediately.\n\n  852 We can hardly be said to have an _immediate_ sense-perception of an\n      individual \u201cthing\u201d\u2014meaning by \u201cthing\u201d a congeries of sense-ideas or\n      phenomena, presented to different senses. We immediately perceive\n      some of them, and believe in the others, which those suggest. See\n      the last three notes.\n\n  853 He probably refers to Descartes, who _argues_ for the\n      trustworthiness of our faculties from the veracity of God; thus\n      apparently arguing in a circle, seeing that the existence of God is\n      manifested to us only through our suspected faculties. But is not\n      confidence in the trustworthiness of the Universal Power at the\n      heart of the universe, the fundamental _presupposition_ of all human\n      experience, and God thus the basis and end of philosophy and of\n      experience?\n\n  854 As Locke does. See _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 11.\n\n  855 Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_, sect. 45-48.\n\n  856 And to be thus external to individual minds.\n\n  857 It is here that Berkeley differs, for example, from Hume and Comte\n      and J.S. Mill; who accept sense-given phenomena, and assume the\n      constancy of their orderly reappearances, _as a matter of fact_,\n      while they confess total ignorance of the _cause_ of natural order.\n      (Thus ignorant, why do they assume reason or order in nature?) The\n      ground of sensible things, which Berkeley refers to Divine Power,\n      Mill expresses by the term \u201c_permanent possibility_ of sensation.\u201d\n      (See his _Examination of Hamilton_, ch. 11.) Our belief in the\n      continued existence of a sensible thing _in our absence_ merely\n      means, with him, our conviction, derived from custom, that we should\n      perceive it under inexplicable conditions which determine its\n      appearance.\n\n  858 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.\n\n  859 Cf. Ibid., sect. 2, 27, 135-142.\n\n  860 Inasmuch as I am conscious of _myself_, I can gather, through the\n      sense symbolism, the real existence of other minds, external to my\n      own. For I cannot, of course, enter into the very consciousness of\n      another person.\n\n  861 \u201creason,\u201d i.e. reasoning or necessary inference\u2014founded here on our\n      sense of personal dependence; not merely on our faith in sense\n      symbolism and the interpretability of the sensible world. Our belief\n      in the existence of finite minds, external to our own, is, with\n      Berkeley, an application of this faith.\n\n  862 \u201cMatter,\u201d i.e. Matter as abstract substance. Cf. _Principles_, sect.\n      135-138.\n\n  863 Does this imply that with Berkeley, _self_, as distinguished from\n      the _phenomena_ of which the material world consists, is not a\n      necessary presuppostion of experience? He says in many places\u2014I am\n      _conscious_ of \u201cmy own being,\u201d and that my mind is myself. Cf.\n      _Principles_, sect, 2.\n\n  864 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8.\n\n  865 Cf. Ibid., sect. 20\n\n  866 This important passage, printed within brackets, is not found in the\n      first and second editions of the _Dialogues_. It is, by\n      anticipation, Berkeley\u2019s answer to Hume\u2019s application of the\n      objections to the reality of abstract or unperceived Matter, to the\n      reality of the Ego or Self, of which we are aware through memory, as\n      identical amid the changes of its successive states.\n\n  867 See note 4 on preceding page.\n\n  868 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 142.\n\n  869 Cf. Ibid., sect. 2. Does he assume that he exists when he is not\n      conscious of ideas\u2014sensible or other? Or, does he deny that he is\n      ever unconscious?\n\n  870 That is of matter supposed to exist independently of any mind.\n      Berkeley speaks here of a _consciousness_ of matter. Does he mean\n      consciousness of belief in abstract material Substance?\n\n  871 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 54-57.\n\n  872 Which he does not doubt.\n\n  873 This sentence expresses the whole question between Berkeley and his\n      antagonists.\n\n  874 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 29-41.\n\n  875 The words within brackets are omitted in the third edition.\n\n  876 The index pointing to the originative causes in the universe is thus\n      the ethical judgment, which fastens upon the free voluntary agency\n      of _persons_, as absolutely responsible causes, not merely caused\n      causes.\n\n  877 That only ideas or phenomena are presented to our senses may be\n      assented to by those who nevertheless maintain that intelligent\n      sensuous experience implies more than the sensuous or empirical\n      data.\n\n  878 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 49.\n\n  879 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 58.\n\n  880 \u201cwithout the mind,\u201d i.e. without the mind of each percipient person.\n\n  881 This is the gist of the whole question. According to the\n      Materialists, sense-presented phenomena are due to unpresented,\n      unperceived, abstract Matter; according to Berkeley, to living\n      Spirit; according to Hume and Agnostics, their origin is unknowable,\n      yet (incoherently) they claim that we _can_ interpret them\u2014in\n      physical science.\n\n  882 A similar objection is urged by Erdmann, in his criticism of\n      Berkeley in the _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_.\n\n  883 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 50; _Siris_, sect. 319.\n\n  884 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 58.\n\n  885 \u201corder\u201d\u2014\u201cseries,\u201d in first and second editions.\n\n  886 \u201cMatter,\u201d i.e. when the reality of \u201cmatter\u201d is supposed to signify\n      what Berkeley argues cannot be; because really meaningless.\n\n  887 \u201cthe connexion of ideas,\u201d i.e. the physical coexistences and\n      sequences, maintained in constant order by Power external to the\n      individual, and which are disclosed in the natural sciences.\n\n  888 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 38. Berkeley is not for making things\n      _subjective_, but for recognising ideas or phenomena presented to\n      the senses as _objective_.\n\n  889 They are not mere illusory appearances but are the very things\n      themselves making their appearance, as far as our limited senses\n      allow them to be realised for us.\n\n  890 i.e. abstract Matter.\n\n  891 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 49; and _New Theory of Vision\n      Vindicated_, sect. 9, 10, 15, &c.\n\n  892 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 84-86.\n\n  893 \u201cthe connexion of ideas,\u201d i.e. the order providentially maintained\n      in nature.\n\n  894 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 23-25.\n\n  895 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8-10, 86, 87.\n\n  896 This difficulty is thus pressed by Reid:\u2014\u201cThe ideas in my mind\n      cannot be the same with the ideas in any other mind; therefore, if\n      the objects I perceive be only ideas, it is impossible that two or\n      more such minds can perceive the same thing. Thus there is one\n      unconfutable consequence of Berkeley\u2019s system, which he seems not to\n      have attended to, and from which it will be found difficult, if at\n      all possible, to guard it. The consequence I mean is this\u2014that,\n      although it leaves us sufficient evidence of a Supreme Mind, it\n      seems to take away all the evidence we have of other intelligent\n      beings like ourselves. What I call a father, or a brother, or a\n      friend, is only a parcel of ideas in my own mind ; they cannot\n      possibly have that relation to another mind which they have to mine,\n      any more than the pain felt by me can be the _individual pain_ felt\n      by another. I am thus left alone as the only creature of God in the\n      universe\u201d (Hamilton\u2019s _Reid_, pp. 284-285). Implied Solipsism or\n      Panegoism is thus charged against Berkeley, unless his conception of\n      the material world is further guarded.\n\n  897 Reid and Hamilton argue in like manner against a fundamentally\n      representative sense-perception.\n\n  898 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 6.\n\n  899 Cf. Ibid., sect. 87-90.\n\n  900 Cf. Ibid., sect. 18.\n\n  901 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 24.\n\n  902 \u201cunknown,\u201d i.e. unrealised in percipient life.\n\n  903 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 28-33.\n\n  904 See also Collier\u2019s _Clavis Universalis_, p. 6: \u201cTwo or more persons\n      who are present at a concert of music may indeed in some measure be\n      said to hear the _same_ notes; yet the sound which the one hears is\n      _not the very same_ with the sound which another hears, _because the\n      souls or persons are supposed to be different_.\u201d\n\n  905 Berkeley seems to hold that in _things_ there is no identity other\n      than perfect similarity\u2014only in _persons_. And even as to personal\n      identity he is obscure. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 347, &c.\n\n  906 But the question is, whether the very ideas or phenomena that are\n      perceived by me _can_ be also perceived by other persons; and if\n      not, how I can discover that \u201cother persons\u201d exist, or that any\n      finite person except myself is cognizant of the ideal cosmos\u2014if the\n      sort of _sameness_ that Berkeley advocates is all that can be\n      predicated of concrete ideas; which are thus only _similar_, or\n      generically the same. Unless the ideas are _numerically_ the same,\n      can different persons make signs to one another through them?\n\n  907 Omitted in author\u2019s last edition.\n\n  908 This seems to imply that intercourse between finite persons is\n      maintained through ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, under\n      a tacit faith in divinely guaranteed correspondence between the\n      phenomena of which I am conscious, and the phenomena of which my\n      neighbour is conscious; so that they are _practically_ \u201cthe same.\u201d\n      If we are living in a fundamentally divine, and therefore absolutely\n      trustworthy, universe, the phenomena presented to my senses, which I\n      attribute to the agency of another person, are so attributed\n      rightly. For if not, the so-called cosmos is adapted to mislead me.\n\n  909 This explanation is often overlooked by Berkeley\u2019s critics.\n\n  910 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 82-84.\n\n  911 i.e. if you take the term _idea_ in its wholly subjective and\n      popular meaning.\n\n  912 i.e. if you take the term _idea_ in its objective meaning.\n\n  913 \u201cphilosophic,\u201d i.e. _pseudo_-philosophic, against which he argues.\n\n  914 Had this their relative existence\u2014this realisation of the material\n      world through finite percipient and volitional life\u2014any beginning?\n      May not God have been eternally presenting phenomena to the senses\n      of percipient beings in cosmical order, if not on this planet yet\n      elsewhere, perhaps under other conditions? Has there been any\n      beginning in the succession of finite persons?\n\n  915 In the first and second editions only.\n\n  916 Is \u201ccreation\u201d by us distinguishable from continuous evolution,\n      unbeginning and unending, in divinely constituted order; and is\n      there a distinction between creation or evolution of _things_ and\n      creation or evolution of _persons_?\n\n  917 Cf. _Siris_, sect. 347-349.\n\n  918 \u201cMatter,\u201d i.e. Matter in this pseudo-philosophical meaning of the\n      word.\n\n  919 Thus Origen in the early Church. That \u201cMatter\u201d is co-eternal with\n      God would mean that God is eternally making things real in the\n      percipient experience of persons.\n\n  920 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 85-156, in which the religious and\n      scientific advantages of the new conception of matter and the\n      material cosmos are illustrated, when it is rightly understood and\n      applied.\n\n  921 \u201csubstance and accident\u201d\u2014\u201csubjects and adjuncts,\u201d\u2014in the first and\n      the second edition.\n\n  922 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 28-42. In _Siris_, sect. 294-297, 300-318,\n      335, 359-365, we have glimpses of thought more allied to Platonism,\n      if not to Hegelianism.\n\n  923 \u201cMatter,\u201d i.e. matter unrealised in any mind, finite or Divine.\n\n  924 These two propositions are a summary of Berkeley\u2019s conception of the\n      material world. With him, the _immediate_ objects of sense, realise\n      in _perception_, are independent of the _will_ of the percipient,\n      and are thus external to his proper personality. Berkeley\u2019s\n      \u201cmaterial world\u201d of enlightened Common Sense, resulting from two\n      factors, Divine and human, is independent of each finite mind; but\n      not independent of all living Mind.\n\n  925 \u201cvoces male intellect\u00e6.\u201d Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_,\n      \u201cIntroduction,\u201d sect. 6, 23-25, on the abuse of language, especially\n      by abstraction.\n\n  926 \u201cveterum philosophorum.\u201d The history of ancient speculations about\n      motion, from the paradoxes of Zeno downwards, is, in some sort, a\n      history of ancient metaphysics. It involves Space, Time, and the\n      material world, with the ultimate causal relation of Nature to\n      Spirit.\n\n  927 \u201chujus \u00e6vi philosophos.\u201d As in Bacon on motion, and in the questions\n      raised by Newton, Borelli, Leibniz, and others, discussed in the\n      following sections.\n\n  928 Sect. 3-42 are concerned with the principle of Causality,\n      exemplified in the motion, or change of place and state, that is\n      continually going on in the material world, and which was supposed\n      by some to explain all the phenomena of the universe.\n\n  929 \u201cvis.\u201d The assumption that _active power_ is an immediate datum of\n      sense is the example here offered of the abase of abstract words. He\n      proceeds to dissolve the assumption by shewing that it is\n      meaningless.\n\n  930 \u201cprincipio\u201d\u2014the ultimate explanation or originating cause. Cf. sect.\n      36. Metaphors, or indeed empty words, are accepted for explanations,\n      it is argued, when _bodily_ power or force, in any form, e.g.\n      gravitation, is taken as the real cause of motion. To call these\n      \u201coccult causes\u201d is to say nothing that is intelligible. The\n      perceived sensible effects and their customary sequences are all we\n      know. Physicists are still deluded by words and metaphors.\n\n  931 Cf. sect. 53, where _sense_, _imagination_, and _intelligence_ are\n      distinguished.\n\n  932 Cf. _Principles_, Introd. 16, 20, 21; also _Alciphron_, Dial. VII.\n      sect. 8, 17.\n\n  933 [La Materia altro non \u00e8 che un vaso di Circe incantato, il quale\n      serve per ricettacolo della forza et de\u2019 momenti dell\u2019 impeto. La\n      forzae l\u2019impeti sono astratti tanto sottili, sono quintessenze tanto\n      spiritose, che in altre ampolle non si possono racchiudere, fuor che\n      nell\u2019 intima corpulenza de\u2019 solidi naturali, Vide _Lezioni\n      Accademiche_.]\u2014AUTHOR. Torricelli (1608-47), the eminent Italian\n      physicist, and professor of mathematics at Florence, who invented\n      the barometer.\n\n  934 Borelli (1608-79), Italian professor of mathematics at Pisa, and\n      then of medicine at Florence; see his _De Vi Percussionis_, cap.\n      XXIV. prop. 88, and cap. XXVII.\n\n  935 \u201cper effectum,\u201d i.e. by its sensible effects\u2014real power or active\n      force not being a datum of the senses, but found in the spiritual\n      efficacy, of which we have an example in our personal agency.\n\n  936 \u201cvim mortuam.\u201d The only power we can find is the living power of\n      Mind. Reason is perpetually active in the universe, imperceptible\n      through the senses, and revealed to _them_ only in its sensible\n      effects. \u201cPower,\u201d e.g. \u201cgravitation,\u201d in things, _per se_, is\n      distinguished from perceived \u201cmotion\u201d only through illusion due to\n      misleading abstraction. There is no _physical_ power, intermediate\n      between spiritual agency, on the one hand, and the sensible changes\n      we see, on the other. Cf. sect. 11.\n\n  937 \u201cmeditatione subigenda sunt.\u201d Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_,\n      sect. 35, 70.\n\n  938 \u201cdistingui.\u201d It is here argued that so-called power within the\n      things of sense is not distinguishable from the sensibly perceived\n      sequences. To the meaningless supposition that it is, he attributes\n      the frivolous verbal controversies among the learned mentioned in\n      the following section. The province of natural philosophy, according\n      to Berkeley, is to inquire what the rules are under which sensible\n      effects are uniformly manifested. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 236, 247, 249.\n\n_  939 Principia Math._ Def. III.\n\n_  940 De Vi Percussionis_, cap. I.\n\n  941 \u201cutiles.\u201d Such words as \u201cforce,\u201d \u201cpower,\u201d \u201cgravity,\u201d \u201cattraction,\u201d\n      are held to be convenient in physical reasonings about the\n      _phenomena_ of motion, but worthless as philosophical expressions of\n      the _cause_ of motion, which transcends sense and mechanical\n      science. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 234, 235.\n\n  942 Cf. sect. 67.\n\n  943 \u201ccandem.\u201d So in recent discussions on the conservation of force.\n\n  944 [Borellus.]\u2014AUTHOR. See _De Vi Percussionis_, cap. XXIII.\n\n  945 [Leibnitius.]\u2014AUTHOR.\n\n  946 On Berkeley\u2019s reasoning all terms which involve the assumption that\n      real causality is something presentable to the senses are a cover\n      for meaninglessness. Only through self-conscious experience of\n      personal activity does real meaning enter into the portion of\n      language which deals with active causation. This is argued in detail\n      in sect. 21-35.\n\n  947 Our concrete experience is assumed to be confined to (_a_) _bodies_,\n      i.e. the data of the senses, and (_b_) _mind_ or _spirit_\u2014sentient,\n      intelligent, active\u2014revealed by internal consciousness. Cf.\n      _Principles_, sect. 1, 2, in which experience is resolved into\n      _ideas_ and the _active intelligence_ which they presuppose. Here\n      the word idea disappears, but, in accordance with its signification,\n      \u201cbodies\u201d is still regarded as aggregates of external phenomena, the\n      passive subjects of changes of place and state: the idealisation of\n      the material world is tacitly implied, but not obtruded.\n\n  948 \u201cnihilque,\u201d &c. Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_, e.g. sect. 26,\n      65, 66. where the essential passivity of the _ideas_ presented to\n      the senses, i.e. the material world, is maintained as a cardinal\n      principle\u2014on the positive ground of our percipient experience of\n      sensible things. To speak of the cause of motion as _something\n      sensible_, he argues (sect. 24), is merely to shew that we know\n      nothing about it. Cf. sect. 28, 29, infra.\n\n  949 The phenomena that can be presented to the senses are taken as the\n      measure of what can be attributed to the material world; and as the\n      senses present _only_ conditioned change of place in bodies, we must\n      look for the active cause in the invisible world which internal\n      consciousness presents to us.\n\n  950 \u201c_genus rerum cogitantium._\u201d Cf. _Principles_, sect. 2.\n\n  951 \u201cexperientia didicimus.\u201d Can the merely empirical data even of\n      internal consciousness reveal this causal connexion between volition\n      and bodily motions, without the venture of theistic faith?\n\n  952 \u201ca primo et universali Principio\u201d i.e. God, or the Universal Spirit,\n      in whom the universe of bodies and spirits finds explanation; in a\n      way which Berkeley does not attempt to unfold articulately and\n      exhaustively in philosophical system.\n\n_  953 Phys._ \u03b8. 4. 255 a 5-7.\n\n_  954 Princip. Math._ Def. III.\n\n  955 \u201cresistentia.\u201d Our muscular _sensation_ of resistance is apt to be\n      accepted empirically as itself _active power in the concrete_,\n      entering very much, as has been said, into the often inaccurate idea\n      of power which is formed. See Editor\u2019s Preface.\n\n  956 \u201cnec incommode.\u201d Cf. sect. 17, and note.\n\n  957 \u201chypothesis mathematica.\u201d Cf. sect. 17, 35, 36-41, 66, 67; also\n      _Siris_, sect. 250-251.\n\n  958 \u201cnihil.\u201d This section sums up Berkeley\u2019s objections to crediting\n      _matter_ with real power; the senses being taken as the test of what\n      is contained in matter. It may be compared with David Hume, Thomas\n      Brown, and J.S. Mill on Causation. Berkeley differs from them in\n      recognising active power in spirit, while with them he resolves\n      causation among bodies into invariable sequence.\n\n  959 Can the data presented to us reveal more than sequence, in the\n      relation between our volitions and the corresponding movements of\n      our bodies? Is not the difference found in the moral presupposition,\n      which _supernaturalises_ man in his voluntary or morally responsible\n      activity? This obliges us to see _ourselves_ as absolutely original\n      causes of all bodily and mental states for which we can be morally\n      approved or blamed.\n\n  960 \u201cnovumque genus.\u201d Cf. sect. 21. We have here Berkeley\u2019s antithesis\n      of mind and matter\u2014spirits and external phenomena presented to the\n      senses\u2014persons in contrast to passive ideas.\n\n_  961 De Anima_, I. ii. 13, 22, 24.\n\n  962 \u201cCartesius.\u201d The antithesis of extended things and thinking things\n      pervades Descartes; but not, as with Berkeley, on the foundation of\n      the new conception of what is truly meant by matter or sensible\n      things. See e.g. _Principia_, P. I. \u00a7\u00a7 63, 64.\n\n  963 \u201calii.\u201d Does he refer to Locke, who suggests the possibility of\n      matter thinking?\n\n  964 See Aristotle, _De Anima_, I. ii. 5, 13; Diogenes Laertius, Lib. VI.\n      i. 6.\n\n_  965 Nat. Ausc._ VIII. 15; also _De Anima_, III, x. 7.\n\n  966 Hardly any passage in the _Tim\u00e6us_ exactly corresponds to this. The\n      following is, perhaps, the most pertinent:\u2014\u039a\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u1f00\u03c0\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\n      \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c3\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd, \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f11\u03c0\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd\n      \u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bf\u1f56\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd (p. 34 a). Aristotle quotes the _Tim\u00e6us_ in the same\n      connexion, _De Anima_, I. iii. ii.\n\n  967 \u201cphilosophi Cartesiani.\u201d Secundum Cartesium causa generalis omnium\n      motuum et quietum est Deus.\u2014Derodon, _Physica_, I. ix. 30.\n\n_  968 Principia Mathematica_\u2014Scholium Generale.\n\n  969 \u201cnaturam naturantem esse Deum\u201d\u2014as we might say, God considered as\n      imminent cause in the universe. See St. Thomas Aquinas, _Opera_,\n      vol. XXII. Quest. 6, p. 27.\n\n  970 \u201cjuxta certam et constantem rationem.\u201d While all changes in Nature\n      are determined by Will, it is not capricious but rational Will. The\n      so-called arbitrariness of the Language of Nature is relative to us,\n      and from our point of view. In itself, the universe of reality\n      expresses Perfect Reason.\n\n  971 \u201cpermaneret.\u201d Cf. sect. 51.\n\n  972 \u201cspectat potius ad philosophiam primam.\u201d The drift of the _De Motu_\n      is to distinguish the physical sequences of molecular motion, which\n      the physical sciences articulate, from the Power with which\n      metaphysics and theology are concerned, and which we approach\n      through consciousness.\n\n  973 \u201cregulas.\u201d Cf. _Siris_, sect. 231-235.\n\n  974 Having, in the preceding sections, contrasted perceived motions and\n      their immanent originating Power\u2014matter and mind\u2014physics and\n      metaphysics\u2014he proceeds in this and the seven following sections to\n      explain more fully what ha means by _principium_ and also the two\n      meanings (metaphysical and mechanical) of _solutio_. By\n      _principium_, in philosophy, he understands universally efficient\n      supersensible Power. In natural philosophy the term is applied to\n      the orderly sequences manifested to our senses, not to the active\n      cause of the order.\n\n  975 \u201cratiocinio ... reddit\u00e6 universales.\u201d Relations of the data of sense\n      to universalising reason are here recognised.\n\n  976 \u201cnatura motus.\u201d Sect. 43-66 treat of the nature of the _effect_\u2014i.e.\n      perceptible motion, as distinguished from its true causal origin\n      (_principium_) in mind or spirit. The origin of motion belongs to\n      metaphysics; its nature, as dependent on percipient experience,\n      belongs to physics. Is motion independent of a plurality of bodies;\n      or does it involve bodies in relation to other bodies, so that\n      absolute motion is meaningless? Cf. _Principles_, sect. 111-116.\n\n  977 \u201cidea illa tenuissima et subtilissima.\u201d The difficulty as to\n      definition of motion is attributed to abstractions, and the\n      inclination of the scholastic mind to prefer these to concrete\n      experience.\n\n  978 Motion is thus defined by Aristotle:\u2014\u0394\u03b9\u1f78 \u1f21 \u03ba\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\n      \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6, \u1f97 \u03ba\u03b9\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd. Nat. Ausc. III. ii; see also i. and iii. Cf.\n      Derodon, _Physica_, I. ix.\n\n  979 Newton.\n\n  980 Cf. sect. 3-42.\n\n  981 Descartes, _Principia_, P. II. \u00a7 25; also Borellus, _De Vi\n      Percussionis_, p. 1.\n\n  982 \u201cres faciles difficillimas.\u201d Cf. _Principles_, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d sect.\n      1.\n\n  983 \u039a\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c4\u03bf \u03b4\u1f74 \u03c7\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u03c0\u1f78\u03bd \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03c4\u03af \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03af\u03bd. _Nat. Ausc._ III.\n      ii.\n\n  984 e.g. Zeno, in his noted argument against the possibility of motion,\n      referred to as a signal example of fallacy.\n\n  985 \u201cde infinite, &c.\u201d Cf. _Principles_, sect. 130-132, and the\n      _Analyst_ passim, for Berkeley\u2019s treatment of infinitesimals.\n\n  986 \u201cconfundere.\u201d Cf. sect. 3-42 for illustrations of this confusion.\n\n  987 The modern conception of the \u201cconservation of force.\u201d\n\n  988 Aristotle states the question in _Nat. Ausc._ VIII. cap. i, and\n      solves it in cap. iv.\n\n  989 \u201cmutatio loci\u201d is the effect, i.e. motion perceived by sense;\n      \u201cvitale principium\u201d the real cause, i.e. vital rational agency.\n\n  990 \u201cmoventis et moti,\u201d i.e. as concauses.\n\n  991 \u201cmotum localem.\u201d Sect. 52-65 discuss the reality of absolute or\n      empty space, in contrast with concrete space realised in perception\n      of the local relations of bodies. The meaninglessness of absolute\n      space and motion is argued. Cf. _Principles_, sect. 116, 117. See\n      Locke\u2019s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, 15, 17; also _Papers which passed\n      between Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. Clarke in 1715-16_, pp. 55-59; 73-81;\n      97-103, &c. Leibniz calls absolute space \u201can ideal of some modern\n      Englishman.\u201d\n\n  992 Newton\u2019s _Principia_, Def. Sch. III. See also Derodon, _Physica_, P.\n      I. cap. vi. \u00a7 1.\n\n  993 Cf. Locke on a vacuum, and the \u201cpossibility of space existing\n      without matter,\u201d _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13.\n\n  994 Note the account here given of _imagination_ and _intellect_, as\n      distinguished from _sense_, which may be compared with \u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2,\n      \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03b1, and \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 in Aristotelian psychology.\n\n  995 \u201cattributorum divinorum particeps.\u201d See Samuel Clarke, in his\n      _Demonstration_, and in the _Papers between Clarke and Leibnitz_.\n\n  996 \u201cnostrum,\u201d sc. corpus. When we imagine space emptied of bodies, we\n      are apt to forget that our own bodies are part of the material\n      world.\n\n  997 [Vide qu\u00e6 contra spatium absolutum disseruntur in libro _De\n      Principiis Cognitionis Human\u00e6_, idiomate anglicano decem abhine\n      annis edito.]\u2014AUTHOR. He refers to sect. 116 of the _Principles_.\n\n  998 He treats absolute space as nothing, and relative space as dependent\n      on Perception and Will.\n\n_  999 Phys._ \u03b1. 5. 188a. 22, 23.\n\n 1000 See Locke, _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, \u00a7\u00a7 7-10.\n\n 1001 Sect. 67-72 treat of the supposed ejection of motion from the\n      striking body into the body struck. Is this only metaphorical? Is\n      the motion received by the latter to be supposed identical with, or\n      equivalent to, that given forth by the former?\n\n_ 1002 Principia_, Def. IV.\n\n_ 1003 Lezioni Accademiche._\n\n_ 1004 De Vi Percussionis_, cap. IX.\n\n 1005 Newton\u2019s third law of motion.\n\n 1006 Berkeley sees in motion only a link in the chain which connects the\n      sensible and intelligible worlds\u2014a conception unfolded in his\n      _Siris_, more than twenty years later.\n\n 1007 \u201cprovincia sua.\u201d The _De Motu_, so far as it treats of motion\n      perceptible to the senses, is assigned to physics; in contrast to\n      theology or metaphysics, alone concerned with active causation.","title":"The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4: Philosophical Works, 1705-21","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":210280}