The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. by George Berkeley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. Yon may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license Title: The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Author: George Berkeley Release Date: May 20, 2012 [Ebook 39746] Eanguage: English ***START OE THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OE GEORGE BERKEEEY. VOE. 1 OE 4 *** The Works of George Berkeley D.D. Formerly Bishop of Cloyne Including his Posthumous Works With Prefaces, Annotations, Appendices, and An Account of his Life, by Alexander Campbell Fraser Hon. D.C.L., Oxford Hon. LL.D. Glasgow and Edinburgh; Emeritus Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh In Four Volumes Vol. 1: Philosophical Works, 1705-21 Oxford At the Clarendon Press 1901 Contents Preface. 2 George Berkeley, By The Editor. 10 Errata. 73 Commonplace Book. Mathematical, Ethical, Physical, And Metaphysical. 74 Editor's Preface To The Commonplace Book. 74 Commonplace Book . 78 An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision .181 Editor's Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision.181 Dedication.202 An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision .206 An Appendix To The Essay On Vision.299 A Treatise Concerning The Principies Of Human Knowledge304 Editor's Preface To The Treatise Concerning The Prin¬ cipies Of Human Knowledge.305 Dedication.324 The Preface.326 Introduction.328 Part Eirst.350 Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous The De- sign Of Which Is Plainly To Demónstrate The Reality And Perfection Of Human Knowledge, The Incorpo- real Nature Of The Soul, And The Immediate Prov- idence Of A Deity, In Opposition To Sceptics And Atheists, Also To Open A Method Por Rendering The Sciences More Easy, Useful, And Compendious .... 452 Editor's Preface.453 Dedication.472 iv The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. The Preface.474 The First Dialogue .478 The Second Dialogue.524 The Third Dialogue.548 De Motu: Sive; De Motus Principio Et Natura, Et De Causa Communicationis Motuum.596 Editor's Preface To De Motu.597 De Motu.607 Eootnotes.639 [V] Preface More than thirty years ago I was honoured by a request to prepare a eomplete edition of the Works of Bishop Berkeley, with Notes, for the Clarendon Press, Oxford. That edition, whieh eontains many of bis writings previously unpublished, appeared in 1871. It was followed in 1874 by a volume of annotated Seleetions from bis philosophieal works; and in 1881 1 prepared a small volume on “Berkeley” for Blaekwood's “Philosophieal Classies.” The 1871 edition of the Works originated, 1 believe, in an essay on “The Real World of Berkeley,” whieh 1 gave to Macmillan's Magazine in 1862, followed by another in 1864, in the North British Review. These essays suggested advantages to eontemporary thought whieh might be gained by a eonsideration of final questions about man and the universe, in the form in whieh they are presented by a philosopher who has suffered more Preface 3 from misunderstanding than almost any other modern thinker. During a part of his lifetime, he was the foremost metaphysician in Europe in an unmetaphysical generation. And in this country, after a revival of philosophy in the later part of the eighteenth century, idea, matter, substance, cause, and other terms which play an important part in his writings, had lost the meaning that he intended; while in Germany the sceptical speculations of [vi] David Hume gave rise to a reconstructive criticism, on the part of Kant and his successors, which seemed at the time to have little concern with the a posteriori methods and the principies of Berkeley. The success of the attempt to recall attention to Berkeley has far exceeded expectation. Nearly twenty thousand copies of the three publications mentioned above have found their way into the hands of readers in Europe and America; and the critical estimates of Berkeley, by eminent writers, which have appeared since 1871, in Britain, Erance, Germany, Denmark, Holland, Italy, America, and India, confirm the opinión that his Works contain a word in season, even for the twentieth century. Among others who have delivered appreciative criticisms of Berkeley within the last thirty years are J.S. Mili, Mansel, Huxley, T.H. Green, Maguire, Collyns Simón, the Right Hon. A.J. Balfour, Mr. Eeslie Stephen, Dr. Hutchison Stirling, Professor T.K. Abbott, Professor Van der Wyck, M. Penjon, Ueberweg, Erederichs, Ulrici, Janitsch, Eugen Meyer, Spicker, Eoewy, Professor Hoffding of Copenhagen, Dr. Eorenz, Noah Porter, and Krauth, besides essays in the chief British, Continental, and American reviews. The text of those Works of Berkeley which were published during his lifetime, enriched with a biographical Introduction by Mr. A.J. Balfour, carefully edited by Mr. George Sampson, appeared in 1897. In 1900 Dr. R. Richter, of the University of Eeipsic, produced a new translation into Germán of the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, with an excellent Introduction and notes, [vü] These estimates form a remarkable contrast to the denunciations. 4 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [viii] founded on misconception, by Warburton and Beattie in the eighteenth century. In 1899 I was unexpectedly again asked by the Delegates of the Oxford University Press to prepare a New Edition of Berkeley's Works, with some account of bis life, as the edition of 1871 was out of print; a circumstance which I had not expected to occur in my lifetime. It seemed presumptuous to undertake what might have been entrusted to some one probably more in touch with living thought; and in one's eighty-second year, time and strength are wanting for remóte research. But the recollection that I was attracted to philosophy largely by Berkeley, in the morning of life more than sixty years ago, combined with the pleasure derived from association in this way with the great University in which he found an academic borne in bis oíd age, moved me in the late evening of life to make the attempt. And now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, I offer these volumes, which still imperfectly realise my ideal of a final Oxford edition of the philosopher who spent his last days in Oxford, and whose mortal remains rest in its Cathedral. Since 1871 materials of biographical and philosophical interest have been discovered, in addition to the invaluable collection of MSS. which Archdeacon Rose then placed at my disposal, and which were included in the supplementary volume of Life and Letters. Through the kindness of the late Earl of Egmont I had access, some years ago, to a large number of letters which passed between his ancestor, Sir John (afterwards Eord) Percival, and Berkeley, between 1709 and 1730. I have availed myself freely of this correspondence. Some interesting letters from and concerning Berkeley, addressed to his friend Dr. Samuel Johnson of Stratford in Connecticut, afterwards President of King's College in New York, appeared in 1874, in Dr. Beardsley's Life of Johnson, Preface 5 illustrating Berkeley's history from 1729 till his death. For these and for further information I am indebted to Dr. Beardsley. In the presen! edition of Berkeley's Works, the Introductions and the annotations have been mostly re-written. A short account of his romantic life is prefixed, intended to trace its progress in the gradual development and application of his initial Principie; and also the external incidents of his life in their continuity, with the help of the new material in the Percival MSS. and the correspondence with Johnson. It forms a key to the whole. This biography is not intended to supersede the Life and Letters of Berkeley that accompanied the 1871 edition, which remains as a magazine of facts for reference. The rearrangement of the Works is a feature in the presen! edition. Much of the new material that was included in the 1871 edition reached me when the book was far advanced in the press, and thus the chronological arrangement, strictly followed in the presen! edition, was not possible. A chronological arrangement is suggested by Berkeley himself. “1 could wish that all the [ix] things 1 have published on these philosophical subjects were read in the order wherein 1 published them,” are his words in one of his letters to Johnson; “and a second time with a critical eye, adding your own thought and observation upon every part as you went along.” The first three volumes in this edition contain the Philosophical Works exclusively; arranged in chronological order, under the three periods of Berkeley's life. The First Volume ineludes those of his early life; the Second those produced in middle life; and the Third those of his later years. The Miscellaneous Works are presented in like manner in the Fourth Volume. The four little treatises in which Berkeley in early life unfolded his new thought about the universe, along with his college Commonplace Book published in 1871, which prepared the way for them, form, along with the Life, the contents of the First 6 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Volume. It is of them that the author writes thus, in another of his letters to Johnson:—“I do not indeed wonder that on first reading what I have written men are not thoroughly convinced. On the contrary, I should very much wonder if prejudices which have been many years taking root should be extirpated in a few hours' reading. I had no inclination to trouble the world with large volumes. What I have done was rather with a view of giving hints to thinking men, who have leisure and curiosity to go to the bottom of things, and pursue them in their own minds. Two or three times reading these small tracts, and making what is read the occasion of thinking, would, I believe, render the whole familiar and easy to the mind, and take off that shocking appearance which hath often been observed to attend speculative truths.” Except Johnson, none of Berkeley's eighteenth-century critics seem to have observed this rule. Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher, with its supplement in the Theory of Visual Language Vindicated, being the philosophical works of his middle life, associated with its American enterprise, form the Second Volume. In them the conception of the universe that was unfolded in the early writings is applied, in vindication of religious morality and Christianity, against the Atheism attributed to those who called themselves Free-thinkers; who were treated by Berkeley as, at least by implication, atheistic. The Third Volume contains the Analyst and Siris, which belong to his later life, Siris being especially characteristic of its serene quiet. In both there is a deepened sense of the mystery of the universe, and in Siris especially a more comprehensive conception of the final problem suggested by human life. But the metaphysics of the one is lost in mathematical controversy; that of the other in medical controversy, and in undigested ancient and mediseval learning. The metaphysical importance of Siris was long unrecognised, although in it Berkeley's thought culminates, not in a paradox about Matter, but in the conception of God as the Preface 7 concatenating principie of the universe; yet this reached through the conception of Matter as real only in and through living Mind. The Miscellaneous Works, after the two juvenile Latin tracts in mathematics, deal with observations of nature and man gathered in his travels, questions of social economy, and lessons in [xi] religious life. Several are posthumous, and were first published in the 1871 edition. Of these, perhaps the most interesting is the Journal in Italy. The Discourse on Passive Obedience is the nearest approach to ethical theory which Berkeley has given to US, and as such it might have taken its place in the First Volume; but on the whole it seemed more appropriately placed in the Fourth, where it is easily accessible for those who prefer to read it immediately after the book of Principies. I have introduced, in an Appendix to the Third Volume, some matter of philosophical interest for which there was no place in the editorial Prefaces or in the annotations. The historical significance of Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards, as pioneers of American philosophy, and also advócales of the new conception of the material world that is associated with Berkeley, is recognised in Appendix C. Illustrations of the misinterpretation of Berkeley by his early critics are presented in Appendix D. A lately discovered tractate by Berkeley forms Appendix E. In the Eourth Volume, numerous quedes contained in the first edition of the Querist, and omitted in the later editions, are given in an Appendix, which enables the reader to reconstruct that interesting tract in the form in which it originally appeared. The presen! edition is thus really a new work, which possesses, I hope, a certain philosophical unity, as well as pervading biographical interest. As Berkeley is the immediate successor of Eocke, and as he was educated by collision with the Essay on Human [xü] Understanding, perhaps Eocke ought to have had more prominence in the editorial portion of this book. Eimitation The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xiii] of space partly accounts for the omission; and I venture instead to refer the reader to the Prolegomena and notes in my edition of Locke's Essay, which was published by the Clarendon Press in 1894.1 may add that an expansión of thoughts which run through the Life and many of the annotations, in this edition of Berkeley, may be found in my Philosophy ofTheism^. The reader need not come to Berkeley in the expectation of finding in his Works an all-comprehensive speculative system like Spinoza's, or a reasoned articulation of the universe of reality such as Hegel is supposed to offer. But no one in the succession of great English philosophers has, I think, proposed in a way more apt to invite reflexión, the final alternative between Unreason, on the one hand, and Moral Reason expressed in Universal Divine Providence, on the other hand, as the root of the unbeginning and endless evolution in which we find ourselves involved; as well as the further question, Whether this tremendous practical alternative can be settled by any means that are within the reach of man? His Philosophical Works, taken collectively, may encourage those who see in a reasonable via media between Omniscience and Nescience the true path of progress, under man's inevitable venture of reasonable Faith. One is therefore not without hope that a fresh impulse may be given to philosophy and religious thought by this reappearance of George Berkeley, under the auspices of the University of Oxford, at the beginning of the twentieth century. His readers will at any rate find themselves in the company of one of the most attractive personalities of English philosophy, who is also among the foremost of those thinkers who are masters in English literature—Erancis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes, George Berkeley and David Hume. * Philosophy ofTheism: The Gifford Lecturas delivered before the University of Edinburgh in 1894-96. (Second Edition, 1899.) Preface A. Campbell Fraser. Gorton, Hawthornden, Midlothian, March, 1901. George Berkeley, By The Editor [xxiv] I. Early Life (1685-1721). Towards the end of the reign of Charles the Second a certain William Berkeley, according to credible tradition, occupied a cottage attached to the ancient Castle of Dysert, in that part of the county of Kilkenny which is watered by the Nore. Little is known about this William Berkeley except that he was Irish by birth and English by descent. It is said that his father went over to Ireland soon after the Restoration, in the suite of his reputed kinsman, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, when he was Lord Lieutenant. William Berkeley's wife seems to have been of Irish blood, and in some remóte way related to the family of Wolfe, the hero of Quebec. It was in the modest abode in the valley of the Nore that George, the eldest of their six sons, was born, on March 12, 1685. There is nothing in the recorded family history of these Dysert Berkeleys that helps to explain the singular personality and career of the eldest son. The parents have left no mark, and make no appearance in any extant records of the family. They probably made their way to the valley of the Nore among families of English connexion who, in the quarter of a century preceding the birth of George Berkeley, were finding settlements in Ireland. The family, as it appears, was not wealthy, but was recognised as of gentle blood. Robert, the fifth son, became rector of Middleton and vicar-general of Cloyne; and another son, William, held a commission in the army. According to the Register of Trinity George Berkeley, By The Editor 11 College, one of the sons was born “near Thurles,” in 1699, and Thomas, the youngest, was born in Tipperary, in 1703, so that the family may have removed from Dysert after the birth of George. In what ean be gleaned of the younger sons, one finds little appearanee of sympathy with the religious and philosophieal genius of the eldest. Regarding this famous eldest son in those early days, we have this signifieant autobiographieal fragment in bis Commonplace Book: “1 was distrustful at eight years oíd, and eonsequently by nature disposed for the new doetrines.” In his twelfth year we find the boy in Kilkenny Sehool. The register reeords his entranee there in the summer of 1696, when he was plaeed at onee in the seeond elass, whieh seems to imply preeoeity, for it is almost a solitary instanee. He spent the four following years in Kilkenny. The Sehool was in high repute for learned masters and famous pupils; among former pupils were the poet Congreve and Swift, nearly twenty years earlier than George Berkeley; among his sehool-fellows was Thomas Prior, his life-long friend and eorrespondent. In the days of Berkeley and Prior the head master was Dr. Hinton, and the Sehool was still suffering from the eonsequenees of “the warre in Ireland” whieh followed the Revolution. Berkeley in Kilkenny Sehool is hardly visible, and we have no means of estimating his mental State when he left it. Tradition says that in his sehool-days he was wont to feed his imagination with airy visions and romanee, a tradition whieh perhaps originated long after in popular miseoneeptions of his idealism. Dimly diseernible at Kilkenny, only a few years later he was a eonspieuous figure in an island that was then beginning to share in the intelleetual movement of the modern world, taking his plaee as a elassie in English literature, and as the most subtle and ardent of eontemporary English-speaking thinkers. [xxv] In Mareh, 1700, at the age of fifteen, George Berkeley entered 12 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxvi] Trinity College, Dublin. This was his home for more than twenty years. He was at first a mystery to the ordinary undergraduate. Some, we are told, pronounced him the greatest dunce, others the greatest genius in the College. To hasty judges he seemed an idle dreamer; the thoughtful admired his subtle intelligence and the beauty of his character. In his undergraduate years, a mild and ingenuous youth, inexperienced in the ways of men, vivacious, humorous, satirical, in unexpected ways inquisitivo, often paradoxical, through misunderstandings he persisted in his own way, full of simplicity and enthusiasm. In 1704 (the year in which Locke died) he passed Bachelor of Arts, and became Master in 1707, when he was admitted to a Fellowship, “the only reward of learning which that kingdom had to bestow.” In Trinity College the youth found himself on the tide of modern thought, for the “new philosophy” of Newton and Locke was then invading the University. Locke's Essay, published in 1690, was already in vogue. This early recognition of Locke in Dublin was chiefly due to William Molyneux, Locke's devoted friend, a lawyer and member of the Irish Parliament, much given to the experimental methods. Descartes, too, with his sceptical criticism of human beliefs, yet disposed to spiritualise powers commonly attributed to matter, was another accepted authority in Trinity College; and Malebranche was not unknown. Hobbes was the familiar representative of a finally materialistic conception of existence, reproducing in modern forms the atomism of Democritus and the ethics of Epicurus. Above all, Newton was acknowledged master in physics, whose Principia, issued three years sooner than Locke's Essay, was transforming the conceptions of educated men regarding their surroundings, like the still more comprehensive law of physical evolution in the nineteenth century. John Toland, an Irishman, one of the earliest and ablest of the new sect of Free-thinkers, made his appearance at Dublin in 1696, as the author of Christianity not Mysterious. The book was George Berkeley, By The Editor 13 condemned by College dignitaries and dignified clergy with even more than Irish fervour. It was the opening of a eontroversy that lasted over half of the eighteenth eentury in England, in whieh Berkeley soon beeame prominent; and it was resumed later on, with greater intelleetual foree and in finer literary form, by David Hume and Voltaire. The eollision with Toland about the time of Berkeley's matrieulation may have awakened bis interest. Toland was supposed to teaeh that matter is eternal, and that motion is its essential property, into whieh all ehanges presented in the outer and inner experienee of man may at last be resolved. Berkeley's life was a eontinual protest against these dogmas. The Provost of Trinity College in 1700 was Dr. Peter Browne, who had already entered the lists against Toland; long after, when Bishop of Cork, he was in eontroversy with Berkeley about the nature of man's knowledge of God. The Arehbishop of Dublin in the early years of the eighteenth eentury was William King, still remembered as a philosophieal theologian, whose book on the Origin ofEvil, published in 1702, was eritieised by Boyle and Eeibniz. Dublin in those years was thus a plaee in whieh a studious youth, who had been “distrustful at eight years oíd,” might be disposed to entertain grave questions about the ultímate meaning of his visible environment, and of the self-eonseious life to whieh he was beeoming awake. Is the universe of existenee eonfined to the visible world, and is matter the really aetive power in existenee? Is God the root and eentre of all that is real, and if so, what is meant by God? Can God be good if the world is a mixture of good and evil? Questions like these were ready to meet the inquisitive Kilkenny youth in his first years at Dublin. One of his earliest interests at College was mathematieal. His first appearanee in print was as the anonymous author of two Eatin traets, Arithmetica and Miscellanea Mathematica, published in 1707. They are interesting as an índex of his intelleetual inelination when he was hardly twenty; for he says they were prepared three years before they were given to the [xxvii] 14 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxviii] World. His disposition to curious questions in geometry and algebra is further shewn in his College Commonplace Book. This lately discovered Commonplace Book throws a flood of light upon Berkeley's State of mind between his twentieth and twenty-fourth year. It is a wonderful revelation; a record under his own hand of his thoughts and feelings when he first carne under the inspiration of a new conception of the nature and office of the material world. It was then struggling to find adequate expression, and in it the sanguine youth seemed to find a spiritual panacea for the errors and confusions of philosophy. It was able to make short work, he believed, with atheistic materialism, and could dispense with arguments against sceptics in vindication of the reality of experience. The mind-dependent existence of the material world, and its true function in the universe of concrete reality, were to be disclosed under the light of a new transforming self-evident Principie. “1 wonder not at my sagacity in discovering the obvious and amazing truth. 1 rather wonder at my stupid inadvertency in not finding it out before—'tis no witchcraft to see.” The pages of the Commonplace Book give vent to rapidly forming thoughts about the things of sense and the “ambient space” of a youth entering into reflective life, in company with Descartes and Malebranche, Bacon and Hobbes, above all, Locke and Newton; who was trying to transíate into reasonableness his faith in the reality of the material world and God. Under the influence of this new conception, he sees the world like one awakening from a confused dream. The revolution which he wanted to inaugúrate he foresaw would be resisted. Men like to think and speak about things as they have been accustomed to do: they are offended when they are asked to exchange this for what appears to them absurdity, or at least when the change seems useless. But in spite of the ridicule and dislike of a world long accustomed to put empty words in place of living thoughts, he resolves to deliver himself of his burden, with the politic conciliation of a skilful advócate however; for he George Berkeley, By The Editor 15 characteristically reminds himself that one who “desires to bring another over to his own opinions must seem to harmonize with him at first, and humour him in his own way of talking.” In 1709, when he was twenty-four years oíd, Berkeley presented himself to the world of empty verbal reasoners as the author of what he ealls modestly An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision. It was dedieated to Sir John Pereival, his eorrespondent afterwards for more than twenty years; but 1 have not diseovered the origin of their friendship. The Essay was a pioneer, meant to open the way for the diselosure of the Seeret with whieh he was burdened, lest the world might be shoeked by an abrupt diselosure. In this prelude he tries to make the reader reeognise that in ordinary seeing we are always interpreting visual signs; so that we have daily presented to our eyes what is virtually an intelligible natural language; so that in all our intereourse with the visible world we are in intereourse with all-pervading aetive Intelligenee. We are reading absent data of toueh and of the other senses in the language of their visual signs. And the visual [xxix] signs themselves, whieh are the immediate objeets of sight, are neeessarily dependent on sentient and pereipient mind; whatever may be the ease with the tangible realities whieh the visual data signify, a faet evident by our experienee when we make use of a looking-glass. The material world, so far at least as it presents itself visibly, is real only in being realised by living and seeing beings. The mind-dependent visual signs of whieh we are eonseious are eontinually speaking to us of an invisible and distan! world of tangible realities; and through the natural eonnexion of the visual signs with their taetual meanings, we are able in seeing praetieally to pereeive, not only what is distan! in spaee, but also to antieipate the future. The Book of Vision is in literal truth a Book of Propheey. The ehief lesson of the tentative Essay on Vision is thus summed up:— “Upon the whole, 1 think we may fairly eonelude that the 16 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxx] proper objects of Vision constitute the Universal Language of Nature; whereby we are instructed how to regúlate our actions in order to attain those things that are necessary to the preservation and well-being of our bodies, as also to avoid whatever may be hurtful and destructive of them. And the manner wherein they signify and mark out unto us the objects which are at a distance is the same with that of languages and signs of human appointment; which do not suggest the things signified by any likeness or identity of nature, but only by an habitual connexion that experience has made us to observe between them. Suppose one who had always continued blind be told by his guide that after he has advanced so many steps he shall come to the brink of a precipice, or be stopped by a wall; must not this to him seem very admirable and surprising? He cannot conceive how it is possible for mortals to frame such predictions as these, which to him would seem as strange and unaccountable as prophecy does to others. Even they who are blessed with the visive faculty may (though familiarity make it less observed) find therein sufficient cause of admiration. The wonderful art and contrivance wherewith it is adj usted to those ends and purposes for which it was apparently designed; the vast extent, number, and variety of objects that are at once, with so much case and quickness and pleasure, suggested by it—all these afford subject for much and pleasing speculation, and may, if anything, give us some glimmering analogous prsenotion of things that are placed beyond the certain discovery and comprehension of our present state^.” Berkeley took orders in the year in which his Essay on Vision was published. On February 1, 1709, he was ordained as deacon, in the chapel of Trinity College, by Dr. George Ashe, Bishop of Clogher. Origen and Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas, Malebranche, Fenelon, and Pascal, Cudworth, Butler, Jonathan ^ Essay on Vision, sect. 147, 148. George Berkeley, By The Editor 17 Edwards, and Schleiermacher, along with Berkeley, are among those who are illustrious at onee in the history of philosophy and of the Christian Chureh. The Chureh, it has been said, has been for nearly two thousand years the great Ethieal Soeiety of the World, and if under its restrietions it has been less eonspieuous on the field of philosophieal eritieism and free inquiry, these ñames remind us of the immense serviee it has rendered to meditative thought. The light of the Pereival eorrespondenee first falls on Berkeley's life in 1709. The earliest extant letters from Berkeley to Sir John Pereival are in September, Oetober, and Deeember of that year, dated at Trinity College. In one of them he pronounees Soerates “the best and most admirable man that the heathen world has produeed.” Another letter, in Mareh, 1710, aeeompanies a eopy of the seeond edition of the Essay on Vision. “1 have made some alterations and additions in the body of the treatise,” he says, “and in the appendix have endeavoured to meet the objeetions of the Arehbishop of Dublin;” whose [xxxi] sermón he proeeeds to depreeate, for “denying that goodness and understanding are more to be affirmed of God than feet or hands,” although all these may, in a metaphorieal sense. How far, or whether at all, God is knowable by man, was, as we shall see, matter of diseussion and eontroversy with Berkeley in later life; but this shews that the subjeet was already in bis thoughts. Returning to the Essay on Vision, he tells Sir John that “there remains one objeetion, that with regard to the uselessness of that book of mine; but in a little time 1 hope to make what is there laid down appear subservient to the ends of morality and religión, in a Treatise 1 have in the press, the design of whieh is to demónstrate the existenee and attributes of God, the immortality of the soul, the reeoneiliation of God's foreknowledge and the freedom of man; and by shewing the emptiness and falsehood of several parts of the speeulative seienees, to induee men to the study of religión and things useful. How far my endeavours will prove 18 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxxii] successful, and whether I have been all this time in a dream or no, time will shew. I do not see how it is possible to demónstrate the being of a God on the principies of the Archbishop—that strictly goodness and understanding can no more be assumed of God than that He has feet or hands; there being no argument that I know for God's existence which does not prove Him at the same time to be an understanding and benevolent being, in the strict, literal, and proper meaning of these words.” He adds, “I have written to Mr. Clarke to give me bis thoughts on the subject of God's existence, but have got no answer.” The Work foreshadowed in this letter appeared in the siimmer of 1710, as the “First part” of a Treatise concerning the Principies of Human Knowledge, wherein the chief causes of error and difficulty in the Sciences, with the grounds ofScepticism, Atheism, and Irreligión, are inquired into. In this fragment of a larger Work, never finished, Berkeley's spiritual conception of matter and cosmos is unfolded, defended, and applied. According to the Essay on Vision, the world, as far as it is visible, is dependen! on living mind. According to this book of Principies the whole material world, as far as it can have any practical concern with the knowings and doings of men, is real only by being realised in like manner in the percipient experience of some living mind. The concrete world, with which alone we have to do, could not exist in its concrete reality if there were no living percipient being in existence to actualise it. To suppose that it could would be to submit to the illusion of a metaphysical abstraction. Matter unrealised in its necessary subordination to some one's percipient experience is the chief among the illusions which philosophers have been too ready to encourage, and which the mass of mankind, who accept words without reflecting on their legitímate meanings, are ready to accept blindly. But we have only to reflect in order to see the absurdity of a material world such as we have experience of existing without ever being realised or made concrete in any sentient Ufe. Try to conceive George Berkeley, By The Editor 19 an eternally dead universo, empty for ever of God and all finito spirits, and yon find yon eannot. Reality ean be real only in a living form. Pereipient Ufe underlies or eonstitutes all that is real. The esse of the eonerete material world is percipi. This was the “New Prineiple” with whieh the young Dublin Fellow was burdened—the Seeret of the universo whieh he had been longing to diseharge upon mankind for their benefit, yet without sign of desire to gain fame for himself as the diseoverer. It is thus that he unfolds it:— “Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only opon bis oyes to see them. Sueh 1 take this important one to be, viz. that all the ehoir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all those bodies whieh eompose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistenee without a Mind; that their being is to be pereeived or known; that eonsequently so long as they are not aetually pereeived by me, or do not exist in my mind, or that of any other ereated spirit, they must either have no existenee at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit: it being perfeetly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraetion, to attribute to any single part of them an existenee independent of a Spirit^.” This does not mean denial of the existenee of the world that is daily presented to our senses and whieh ineludes our own bodies. On the eontrary, it affirms, as intuitively true, the existenee of the only real matter whieh our senses presen! to US. The only material world of whieh we have any experienee eonsists of the appearanees (misleadingly ealled ideas of sense by Berkeley) whieh are eontinually rising as real objeets in a passive proeession of interpretable signs, through means of whieh eaeh finite person realises bis own individual personal!ty; also the existenee of other finite persons; and the sense-symbolism that is more or less interpreted in the natural seienees; all signifieant of ^ Principies, sect. 6. [xxxiii] 20 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxxiv] God. So the material world of concrete experience is presented to US as mind-dependent and in itself powerless: the deepest and truest reality must always be spiritual. Yet this mind-dependent material world is the occasion of innumerable pleasures and pains to human percipients, in so far as they conform to or contradict its customary laws, commonly called the laws of nature. So the sense-symbolism in which we live is found to play an important part in the experience of percipient beings. But it makes us sceptics and atheists when, in its ñame, we put a supposed dead abstract matter in room of the Divine Active Reason of which all natural order is the continuous providential expression. Accordingly, God must exist, because the material world, in order to be a real world, needs to be continually realised and regulated by living Providence; and we have all the certainty of sense and sanity that there is a (mind-dependent) material world, a boundless and endlessly evolving sense-symbolism. In the two years after the disclosure of his New Principie we see Berkeley chiefly through his correspondence with Percival. He was eager to hear the voice of criticism; but the critics were slow to speak, and when they did speak they misconceived the question, and of course his answer to it. “If when you receive my book,” he writes fromDublin, in July, 1710, to Sir John, who was then in London, “you can procure me the opinión of some of your acquaintances who are thinking men, addicted to the study of natural philosophy and mathematics, I shall be extremely obliged to you.” He also asks Percival to present the book of Principies to Lord Pembroke, to whom he had ventured to dedícate it, as Locke had done his Essay. The reply was discouraging. “I did but ñame the subject-matter of your book of Principies to some ingenuous friends of mine,” Percival says, “and they immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same time refusing to read it; which I have not yet got one to do. A physician of my acquaintance undertook to describe your person, and argued George Berkeley, By The Editor 21 you must needs be mad, and that yon ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied you, that a desire and vanity of starting something new should put you upon sueh an undertaking; and when I justified you in that part of your eharaeter, and added other deserving qualities you have, he eould not tell what to think of you. Another told me an ingenious man ought not to be diseouraged from exerting his wit, and said Erasmus was not worse thought of for writing in praise of folly; but that you are not gone as far as a gentleman in town, who asserts not only that there is no sueh thing as Matter, but that we ourselves have no being at all.” It is not surprising that a book whieh was supposed to deny the existenee of all that we see and toueh should be ridieuled, and its author ealled a madman. What vexed the author was, “that men who had never eonsidered my book should eonfound me with the seepties, who doubt the existenee of sensible things, and are not positivo of any one thing, not oven of their own being. But whoever reads my book with attention will see that 1 question not the existenee of anything we pereeive by our senses. Eine spun metaphysies are what on all oeeasions 1 deelaim against, and if any one shall show anything of that sort in my Treatise 1 will willingly eorreet it.” A material world that was real enough to yield physieal seienee, to make known to us the existenee of other persons and of God, and whieh signified in very praetieal ways happiness or misery to sentient beings, seemed to him suffieiently real for human seienee and all other purposes. Nevertheless, in the ardour of youth Berkeley had hardly fathomed the depths into whieh his New Prineiple led, and whieh he hoped to eseape by avoiding the abstraetions of “fine-spun metaphysies.” In Deeember Pereival writes from Eondon that he has “given the book to Eord Pembroke,” who “thought the author an ingenious man, and to be eneouraged”; but for himself he “eannot believe in the non-existenee of Matter”; and he had tried in vain to induee Samuel Clarke, the great English metaphysieian, either [xxxv] 22 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxxvi] to refute or to accept the New Principie. In February Berkeley sends an explanatory letter for Lord Pembroke to Percival's care. In a letter in June he turns to social questions, and suggests that if “some Irish gentlemen of good fortune and generous inclinations would constantly reside in England, there to watch for the interests of Ireland, they might bring far greater advantage than they could by spending their incomes at borne.” And so 1711 passes, with responsos of ignoran! critics; vain endeavours to draw worthy criticism from Samuel Clarke; the author all the while doing work as a Tutor in Trinity College on a modest income; now and then on holidays in Meath or elsewhere in Ireland. Three discourses on Passive Obedience in the College Chapel in 1712, misinterpreted, brought on him the reproach of Jacobitism. Yet they were designed to shew that society rests on a deeper foundation than forcé and calculations of utility, and is at last rooted in principies of an immutable morality. Locke's favourite opinión, that morality is a demonstrable, seems to weigh with him in these Discourses. But Berkeley was not yet done with the exposition and vindication of his new thought, for it seemed to him charged with supreme practical issues for mankind. In the two years which followed the publication of the Principies he was preparing to reproduce his spiritual conception of the universe, in the dramatic form of dialogue, convenient for dealing popularly with plausible objections. The issue was the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in which Philonous argües for the absurdity of an abstrae! matter that is unrealised in the experience of living beings, as against Hylas, who is put forward to justify belief in this abstrae! reality. The design of the Dialogues is to presen! in a familiar form “such principies as, by an easy solution of the perplexities of philosophers, together with their own native evidence, may at once recommend themselves as genuine to the mind, and rescue philosophy from the endless pursuits it is engaged in; which, with a plain demonstration of George Berkeley, By The Editor 23 the Immediate Providence of an all-seeing God, should seem the readiest preparation, as well as the strongest motive to the study and praetiee of virtue^.” When the Dialogues were eompleted, at the end of 1712, Berkeley resolved to visit London, as he told Pereival, “in order to print my new book of Dialogues, and to make aequaintanee [xxxvii] with men of merit.” He got leave of absenee from his College “for the reeovery of his health,” whieh had suffered from study, and perhaps too he remembered that Baeon eommends travel as “to the younger sort a part of edueation.” Berkeley made his appearanee in London in January, 1713. On the 26th of that month he writes to Pereival that he “had erossed the Channel from Dublin a few days before,” deseribes adventures on the road, and enlarges on the beauty of rural England, whieh he liked more than anything he had seen in London. “Mr. Clarke” had already introdueed him to Lord Pembroke. He had also ealled on his eountryman Riehard Steele, “who desired to be aequainted with him. Somebody had given him my Treatise on the Principies of Human Knowledge, and that was the ground of his inelination to my aequaintanee.” He antieipates “mueh satisfaetion in the eonversation of Steele and his friends,” adding that “there is lately published a bold and pernieious book, a Discourse on Free-thinking^ In Lebruary he “diñes often with Steele in his house in Bloomsbury Square,” and tells in Mareh “that you will soon hear of Mr. Steele under the eharaeter of the Guardian-, he designs his paper shall eome out every day as the Spectator.” The night before “a very ingenious new poem upon ‘Windsor Lorest’ had been given to him by the author, Mr. Pope. The gentleman is a Papist, but a man of exeellent wit and learning, one of those Mr. Steele mentions Preface to the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. ^ By Anthony Collins. 24 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xxxviii] in his last paper as having writ some of the Spectator.” A few days later he has met “Mr. Addison, who has the same talents as Steele in a high degree, and is likewise a great philosopher, having applied himself to the speculative studies more than any of the wits I know. I breakfasted with him at Dr. Swift's lodgings. His Corning in while I was there, and the good temper he showed, was construed by me as a sign of the approaching coalition of parties. A play of Mr. Steele's, which was expected, he has now put off till next winter. But Cato, a most noble play of Mr. Addison, is to be acted in Easter week.” Accordingly, on April 18, he writes that “on Tuesday last Cato was acted for the first time. I was present with Mr. Addison and two or three more friends in a side box, where we had a talk and two or three flasks of Burgundy and Champagne, which the author (who is a very sober man) thought necessary to support his spirits, and indeed it was a pleasant refreshment to us all between the Acts. Some parts of the prologue, written by Mr. Pope, a Tory and even a Papist, were hissed, being thought to savour of Whiggism; but the clap got much the better of the hiss. Lord Harley, who sat in the next box to us, was observed to clap as loud as any in the house all the time of the play.” Swift and Pope have described this famous first night of Cato', now for the first time we have Berkeley's report. He adds, “This day I dined at Dr. Arbuthnot's lodging in the Queen's Palace.” His countryman, Swift, was among the first to welcome him to London, where Swift had himself been for four years, “lodging in Bury Street,” and sending the daily Journal to Stella, which records so many incidents of that memorable London life. Mrs. Vanhomrigh and her daughter, the unhappy Vanessa, were living in rooms in the same Street as Swift, and there he “loitered, hot and lazy, after his morning's work,” and “often dined out of mere listlessness.” Berkeley was a frequent visitar at Swift's house, and this Vanhomrigh connexion with Swift had an influence on Berkeley's fortune long afterwards. On a Sunday in April we George Berkeley, By The Editor 25 find him at Kensington, at the Court of Queen Anne, in the company of Swift. “I went to Court to-day,” Swift's Journal records, “on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of the Fellows of Trinity. College, to Lord Berkeley of Stratton. That Mr. [xxxix] Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great philosopher, and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I can.” In this, Swift was as good as his word. “Dr. Swift,” he adds, “is admired hoth hy Steele and Addison, and I think Addison one of the best natured and most agreeable men in the world.” One day about this time, at the instance of Addison, it seems that a meeting was arranged between Berkeley and Samuel Clarke, the metaphysical rector of St. James's in Piccadilly, whose opinión he had in vain tried to draw forth two years before through Sir John Percival. Berkeley's personal charm was felt wherever he went, and even “the fastidious and turbulent Atterbury,” after intercourse with him, is reported to have said: “So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels till I saw this gentleman.” Much was expected from the meeting with Clarke, but Berkeley had again to complain that although Clarke had neither refuted his arguments ñor disproved his premisses, he had not the candour to accept his conclusión. It was thus that Berkeley became known to “men of merit” in that brilliant society. He was also brought among persons on whom he would hardly have conferred this title. He tells Percival that he had attended several free-thinking clubs, in the pretended character of a learner, and that he there heard Anthony Collins, author of “the bold and pernicious book on free-thinking,” boast “that he was able to demónstrate that the existence of God is an impossible supposition.” The promised “demonstration” seems to have been Collins' Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty, which appeared two years later, according to which all that happens in mind and matter is the issue of natural necessity. Steele invited 26 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xi] Berkeley to contribute to the Guardian during its short-lived existence between March and September, 1713. He took the Discourse of Collins for the subject of bis first essay. Three other essays are concerned with man's hope of a future Ufe, and are among the few passages in bis writings in which bis philosophy is a meditation upon Death. In May, Percival writes to him from Dublin that he hears the “new book of Dialogues is printed, though not yet published, and that your opinión has gained ground among the learned; that Mr. Addison has come over to your view; and that what at first seemed shocking is become so familiar that others envy yon the discovery, and make it their own.” In bis reply in June, Berkeley mentions that “a clergyman in Wiltshire has lately published a treatise wherein he advances something published three years ago in my Principies of Human Knowledge.” The clergyman was Arthur Collier, author of the Clavis Universalis, or demonstration of the impossibility of an external world^. Berkeley's Three Dialogues were published in June. In the middle of that same month he was in Oxford, “a most delightful place,” where he spent two months, “witnessed the Act and grand performances at the theatre, and a great concourse from London and the country, amongst whom were several foreigners.” The Drury Lañe Company had gone down to Oxford, and Cato was on the stage for several nights. The Percival correspondence now first discloses this prolonged visit to Oxford in the summer of 1713, that ideal home from whence, forty years after, he departed on a more mysterious journey than any on this planet. In a letter from thence to Percival, he had claimed Arbuthnot as one of the converts to the “new Principie.” Percival replied that Swift demurred to this, on which Berkeley rejoins: “As to what you [xii] say of Dr. Arbuthnot not being of my opinión, it is true there has been some difference between us concerning some notions ® See vol. III, Appendix B. George Berkeley, By The Editor 27 relating to the necessity of the laws of nature; but this does not touch the main points of the non-existenee of what philosophers eall material substanee; against whieh he aeknowledges he ean assert nothing.” One would gladly have got more than this from Berkeley, about what touehed his favourite eoneeption of the “arbitrariness” of law in nature, as distinguished from the “neeessity” whieh some modern physieists are ready vaguely to take for granted. The seene now ehanges. On Oetober 15 Berkeley suddenly writes from London: “I am on the eve of going to Sieily, as ehaplain to Lord Peterborough, who is Ambassador Extraordinary on the eoronation of the new king.” He had been reeommended by Swift to the Ambassador, one of the most extraordinary eharaeters then in Europe, who a few years before had astonished the world in the war of the Sueeession in Spain, and afterwards by his genius as a diplomatist: in Holland, nearly a quarter of a eentury before, he had formed an intimate friendship with John Loeke. Ten months in Eranee and Italy in the suite of Lord Peterborough brought the young Irish metaphysieian, who had lately been introdueed to the wits of London and the dons of Oxford, into a new world. It was to him the beginning of a eareer of wandering and soeial aetivity, whieh lasted, with little interruption, for nearly twenty years, during whieh metaphysies and authorship were in the baekground. On November 25 we find him in Paris, writing letters to Pereival and Prior. “Erom London to Calais”, he tells Prior, “I eame in eompany of a Elamand, a Spaniard, a Erenehman, and three English servants of my Lord. The three gentlemen, being of three different nations, obliged me to speak the Ereneh language (whieh is now familiar), and gave me the opportunity of seeing mueh of the world in little eompass.... On November 1 (O.S.) I embarked in the stage- [xiü] eoaeh, with a eompany that were all perfeet strangers to me. There were two Seoteh, and one English gentleman. One of the 28 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xliii] former happened to be the author of the Voyage to St. Kilda and the Account of the Western Isles^. We were good company on the road; and that day se'ennight carne to París. I have since been taken up in viewing churches, convents, palaces, colleges, &c., which are very numerous and magnificent in this town. The splendour and riches of these things surpasses belief; but it were endless to descend to particulars. I was present at a disputation in the Sorbonne, which indeed had much of the French fire in it. I saw the Irish and the English Colleges. In the latter I saw, enclosed in a coffin, the body of the late King James.... To-morrow I intend to visit Father Malebranche, and discourse him on certain points.” The Abbé D'Aubigné, as he informs Percival, was to introduce him to Malebranche, then the chief philosopher of France, whose Vision of the world in God had some affinity with Berkeley's own thought. Unfortunately we have no record of the intended interview with the French idealist, who fourteen years before had been visited by Addison, also on his way to Italy, when Malebranche expressed great regard for the English nation, and admiration for Newton; but he shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, whom he ventured to disparage as a “poor silly creature.” Malebranche died nearly two years after Berkeley's proposed interview; and according to a story countenanced by Dugald Stewart, Berkeley was the “occasional cause” of his death. He found the venerable Father, we are told, in a cell, cooking, in a pipkin, a medicine for a disorder with which he was troubled. The conversation naturally turned on Berkeley's System, of which Malebranche had received some knowledge from a translation. The issue of the debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of disputation he raised his voice so high, and gave way so freely to the natural impetuosity of a man of genius and a Frenchman, that he brought on a violent increase ’ Murdoch Martin, a native of Skye, author of a Voyage to St. Kilda (1698), and a Description ofthe Western Islands ofScotland (1703). George Berkeley, By The Editor 29 of his disorder, which carried him off a few days after^. This romantic tale is, I suspeet, mythieal. The Pereival eorrespondenee shews that Berkeley was living in London in Oetober, 1715, the month in whieh Malebranehe died, and I find no traee of a short sudden visit to Paris at that time. After a month spent in Paris, another fortnight earried Berkeley and two travelling eompanions to Italy through Savoy. They erossed Mont Genis on New Year's Day in 1714—“one of the most diffieult and formidable parts of the Alps whieh is ever passed over by mortal man,” as he tells Prior in a letter from Turin. “We were earried in open ehairs by men used to seale these roeks and preeipiees, whieh at this season are more slippery and dangerous than at other times, and at the best are high, eraggy, and steep enough to eause the heart of the most valiant man to melt within him.” At the end of other six weeks we find him at Leghorn, where he spent three months, “while my lord was in Sieily.” He “prefers England or Ireland to Italy: the only advantage is in point of air.” Erom Eeghorn he writes in May a eomplimentary letter to Pope, on the oeeasion of the Rape of the Lock: “Style, painting, judgment, spirit, I had already admired in your other writings; but in this I am eharmed with the magie of your invention, with all those images, allusions, and inexplieable beauties whieh yon raise so surprisingly, and at the same time so naturally, out of a trifle.... I remember to have heard yon mention some half-formed design of eoming to Italy. What [xiiv] might we not expeet from a muse that sings so well in the bleak elimate of England, if she felt the same warm sun and breathed the same air with Virgil and Horaee.” In July we find Berkeley in Paris on his way baek to England. He had “parted from Eord Peterborough at Genoa, where my lord took post for Turin, and thenee designed passing over the Alps, and so through Savoy, * See Stewart's Works (ed. Hamilton), vol. I. p. 161. There is a versión of this story by DeQuincey, in his quaint essay on Murder considered as one of the Fine Arls. 30 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xlv] on his way to England.” In August they are in London, where the aspect of English politics was changed by the death of the Queen in that month. He seems to have had a fever soon after his return. In October, Arbuthnot, in one of his chatty letters to Swift, writes thus: “Poor philosopher Berkeley has now the idea of health, which was very hard to produce in him, for he had an idea of a strange fever upon him, so strange that it was very hard to destroy it by introducing a contrary one.” Our record of the two following years is a long blank, first broken by a letter to Percival in July, 1715, dated at Eondon. Whether he spent any time at Eulham with Eord Peterborough after their return from Italy does not appear, ñor whether he visited Ireland in those years, which is not likely. We have no glimpses of brilliant Eondon society as in the preceding year. Steele was now in Parliament. Swift had returned to Dublin, and Addison was the Irish chief secretary. But Pope was still at Binfield, among the glades of Windsor, and Berkeley congratulated him after receiving the first volume of his Homer. Of his own literary pursuits we hear nothing. Perhaps the Second Part of the Principies, which was lost afterwards in his travels, engaged him. In the end of July he wrote to Eord Percival^ from Elaxley^® on the Severn; and in August, September, October, and November he wrote from Eondon, chiefly interested in reports about “the rebels in Scotland,” and “the forces under Eord Mar, which no doubt will languish and disperse in a little time. The Bishop of Bristol assured me the other day that the Court expect that the Duke of Orleans would, in case of need, supply them with forces against the Pretender.” Our next glimpse of him is in May, 1716, when he writes to Eord Percival that he is “like soon to go to Ireland, the Prince of Wales having recommended him to the Eords Justices for the living of St. Paul's in Dublin.” This opening was soon closed, and the visit to Ireland was abandoned. ® Sir John became Lord Percival in that year. A place more than once visited by Berkeley. George Berkeley, By The Editor 31 A groundless suspicion of Jacobitism was not overeóme by the interest of Caroline, Prineess of Wales. In June, 1716, Charles Dering wrote from Dublin, that “the Lords Justiees have made a strong representation against him.” He had to look elsewhere for the immediate future. We find him at Turin in November, 1716, with a fresh leave of absenee for two years from his College. It seems that Ashe, Bishop of Clogher, had engaged him as travelling tutor to his son, a means not then uneommon for enabling young authors of modérate fortune to see new eountries and mix with soeiety. Addison had visited Italy in this way sixteen years before, and Adam Smith long afterwards travelled with the young Duke of Bueeleueh. With young Ashe, Berkeley erossed Mont Genis a seeond time. They reaehed Rome at the beginning of 1717. His Journal in Italy in that year, and oeeasional letters to Percival, Pope, and Arbuthnot, shew ardent interest in nature and art. With the widest views, “this very great though singular sort of man deseended into a minute detail, and begrudged neither pains ñor expense for the means of information. He travelled through a great part of Sieily on foot; elambered over the mountains and erept into the eaverns, to investígate its natural history and diseover the eauses of its voleanoes; and 1 have known him sit for hours in forges and foundries to inspeet their sueeessive [xivi] operations^^” If the Journal had been transformed by his own hand into a book, his letter to Pope from Inarime shews that the book might have rivalled Addison's Remarles on Parts of Italy in grace of style and large human interest. In the summer of 1720 we find the travellers at Florenee, afterwards for some time at Lyons, and in London at the beginning of the next year. On the way home his metaphysieal inspiration was revived. The “Cause of Motion” had been proposed by the Freneh Aeademy as the subjeet of aprize dissertation. The subjeet '* Bakewell's Memoirs ofthe Court of Augustas, vol. II. p. 177. 32 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xlvii] gave an opportunity for further unfolding his early thought. In the Principies and the Dialogues he had argued for the necessary dependence of matter, for its concrete substantial reality, upon living percipient mind. He would now shew its powerlessness as it is presented to us in sense. The material world, chiefly under the category of substance, inspired the Principies. The material world, under the category of cause or power, inspired the De Motu. This Latin Essay sums up the distinctive thought of Berkeley, as it appears in the authorship of his early life. Moles evolvit et agitat mentes might be taken as the formula of the materialism which he sought to dissolve. Mens percipit et agitat molem significantem, cujas esse estpercipi expresses what Berkeley would substitute for the materialistic formula. The end of the summer of 1721 found Berkeley still in London. England was in the social agitation and misery consequent upon the failure of the South Sea Company, a gigantic commercial speculation connected with British trade in America. A new inspiration took possession of him. He thought he saw in this catastrophe signs of a decline in public moráis worse than that which followed the Restoration. “Political corruption”, “decay of religión,” “growth of atheism,” were descriptive words used by the thoughtful. Berkeley's eager imagination was apt to exaggerate the evil. He became inspired by social idealism, and found vent for his fervour in An Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain, which, as well as the De Motu, made its appearance in 1721. This Essay is a significan! factor in his career. It was the Cassandra wail of a sorrowful and indignan! prophet, prepared to shake the dust from his feet, and to transfer his eye of hope to other regions, in which a nearer approach to Utopia might be realised. The true personality of the individual is unrealisable in selfish isolation. His favourite non sibi, sed toti mundo was henceforward more than ever the ruling maxim of his life. George Berkeley, By The Editor 33 II. Middle Life (1722-34). In October, 1721, Berkeley was in Dublin. The register of the College shews that “on November 14, 1721, Mr. Berkeley had the graee of the House for the Degree of Baehelor and Doetor of Divinity.” There is no ground for the report that he returned to Ireland at this time as Chaplain to the Duke of Grafton, the Lord Lieutenant^^. But preferment in the Chureh seemed within bis reaeh. “1 had no sooner set foot on shore,” he wrote to Pereival in that Oetober, “than 1 heard that the Deanery of Dromore was vaeant.” Pereival used bis influenee with the Lord Lieutenant, and in Lebruary, 1722, Berkeley's patent was “passing the Seáis [xiviü] for the Deanery of Dromore.” But the Bishop of Dromore elaimed the patronage, and this led to a protraeted and ineffeetual lawsuit, whieh took Berkeley to London in the following winter, “to see friends and inform himself of points of law,” and he tells that “on the way he was nearly drowned in erossing to Holyhead^^.” Berkeley's interest in ehureh preferment was not personal. He saw in it only means to an end. In Mareh, 1723, he surprised Lord Pereival by announeing, in a letter from London, a projeet whieh it seems for some time had oeeupied his thoughts. “It is now about ten months,” he says, “sinee 1 have determined to spend the residue of my days in Bermuda, where 1 trust in Providenee 1 may be the mean instrument of doing great good to mankind. Whatever happens, go 1 am resolved, if 1 live. Half a dozen of the most ingenious and agreeable men in our College are with A letter in Berkeley's Life and Letters, p. 93, whieh led me to a different Opinión, I have now reason to believe was not written by him, ñor was it written in 1721. The research of Dr. Lorenz, confirmed by intemal evidence, shews that it was written in October, 1684, before Berkeley the philosopher was born, and when the Duke of Ormond was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The writer was probably the Hon. and Rev. George Berkeley, a Prebendary of Westminster in 1687, who died in 1694. The wife of the “pious Robert Nelson” was a daughter of Earl Berkeley, and this “George” was her younger brother. Pereival MSS. 34 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [xlix] me in this project, and since I carne hither I have got together about a dozen Englishmen of quality, who intend to retire to those islands.” He then explains the project, opening a visión of Christian civilisation radiating from those fair islands of the West, whose idyllic bliss poets had sung, diffused over the New World, with its magnificent possibilities in the future history of mankind. I find no further record of the origin of this bright visión. As it had become a practical determination “ten months” before March, 1723, one is carried back to the first months after his return to Dublin and to the Essay that was called forth by the South Sea catastrophe. One may conjecture that despair of England and the Oíd World—“such as Europe breeds in her decay”—led him to look westward for the hopeful future of mankind, moved, perhaps, by the connexion of the catastrophe with America. His active imagination pictured a better Republic than Plato's, and a grander Utopia than More's, emanating from a College in the isles of which Waller had sung. In the meantime a curious fortune unexpectedly favoured him. Swift's unhappy Vanessa, associated with Bury Street in 1713, had settled on her property at Marley Abbey near Dublin; and Swift had privately married Stella, as she confessed to Vanessa, who thereafter revoked the bequest of her fortune to Swift, and left it to be divided between Berkeley and Marshal, afterwards an Irish judge. Vanessa died in May, 1723. A few days after Berkeley wrote thus to Eord Percival: “Here is something that will surprise your lordship as it doth me. Mrs. Hester Vanhomrigh, a lady to whom I was a perfect stranger, having never in the whole course of my life exchanged a word with her, died on Sunday. Yesterday her Will was opened, by which it appears that I am constituted executor, the advantage whereof is computed by those who understand her affairs to be worth £3000.... My Bermuda scheme is now stronger in my mind than ever; this providential event having made many things easy George Berkeley, By The Editor 35 which were otherwise before.” Lord Percival in reply concludes that he would “persist more than ever in that noble seheme, whieh may in some time exalt your ñame beyond that of St. Xavier and the most famous missionaries abroad.” But he warns him that, “without the proteetion of Government,” he would eneounter insurmountable diffieulties. The Vanessa legaey, and the obstruetions in the way of the Deanery of Dromore, were the subjeets of a tedious eorrespondenee with his friend and business faetotum, “Tom Prior,” in 1724 and the three following years. In the end, the debts of Vanessa absorbed most of the legaey. And as to the Deanery of Dromore, he tells Pereival, on September 19, 1723: “I despair of seeing it end to my advantage. The truth is, my fixed purpose of going to Bermuda sets me above solieiting anything with earnestness in this part of the world. It ean be of no use to me, but as it may enable me the better to proseeute that design; and it must be owned that the present possession of something in the Chureh would make my applieation for an establishment in those islands more eonsidered.” Nevertheless, he got a Deanery at last. In May, 1724, he informs Lord Pereival from Trinity College: “Yesterday I reeeived my patent for the best Deanery in the kingdom, that of Derry. It is said to be worth £1500 per annum. But as I do not eonsider it with an eye to enriehing myself, so I shall be perfeetly eontented if it faeilitates and reeommends my seheme of Bermuda, whieh I am in hopes will meet with a better reeeption if it eomes from one possessed of so great a Deanery.” In September he is on his way, not to Derry, but to London, “to raise funds and obtain a Charter for the Bermuda College from George the Lirst,” fortified by a remarkable letter from Swift to Lord Carteret, the new Lord Lieutenant, who was then in Bath^^. As Swift predieted in this letter, Berkeley's eonquests spread far and fast in England, where he organised his resourees during the For the letter, see Editor's Preface to the Proposalfor a College in Bermuda, vol. IV. pp. 343-44. 36 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. four following years. Nothing shews more signally the magic of his personality than the story of his life in London in those years of negotiation and endeavour. The proposal met with a response wonderful in a generation represented by Walpole. The subscriptions soon reached five thousand pounds, and Walpole was among the subscribers. The Scriblerus Club, meeting at Lord Bathurst's, agreed to rally Berkeley, who was among them, on his Bermuda scheme. He asked to be heard in defence, and presented the case with such forcé of enthusiasm that the company “were struck dumb, and after a pause simultaneously rose and asked leave to accompany him.” Bermuda for a time inspired London. Berkeley was not satisfied with this. He remembered what Lord Percival had said about failure without help from Government. Accordingly he obtained a Charter from George the First early in 1726, and after canvassing the House of Commons, secured a grant of £20,000, with only two dissentient votes, in May of that year. This was the beginning of his difficulties. Payment was indefinitely delayed, and he was kept negotiating; besides, with the help of Prior, he was unravelling legal perplexities in which the Vanessa legacy was involved. It was in these years that he was seen at the receptions of Caroline at Leicester Fields, when she was Princess of Wales, and afterwards at St. James's or at Kensington, when she became Queen in 1727; not, he says, because he loved Courts, but because he loved America. Clarke was still rector of St. James's, and Butler had not yet migrated to his parsonage at Stanhope; so their society was open to him. The Queen liked to listen to a philosophical discussion. Ten years before, as Princess of Wales, she had been a royal go-between in the famous correspondence between Clarke and Leibniz. And now, Berkeley being in London, he too was asked to her weekly reunions, when she loved to hear Clarke arguing with Berkeley, or Berkeley arguing with Hoadley. Also in 1726 Voltaire made his lengthened visit to England, a familiar figure in the circle of Pope's friends, attracted to the philosophy George Berkeley, By The Editor 37 of Locke and Newton; and Voltaire mentions that he met “the diseoverer of the true theory of visión” during his stay in London. From the snmmer of 1727 until the spring of 1728 there is no extant eorrespondenee either with Pereival or “Tom Prior” to throw light on his movements. In Fehruary, 1728, he was still in Fondon, but he “hoped to set out for Dublin in Mareh, and to Ameriea in May.” There is a mystery about this visit to Dublin. “1 propose to set out for Dublin about a month henee,” he writes to “dear Tom,” “but of this you must not give the least intimation to anybody. It is of all things my earnest desire (and for very good reasons) not to have it known that 1 am in Dublin. Speak not, therefore, one syllable of it to any mortal whatsoever. When 1 formerly desired you to take a plaee for me near the town, you gave out that you were looking for a retired lodging for a friend of yours; upon whieh everybody surmised me to be the person. 1 must beg you not to aet in the like manner now, but to take for me an entire house in your own ñame, and as for yourself; for, all things eonsidered, 1 am determined upon a whole house, with no mortal in it but a maid of your own putting, who is to look on herself as your servant. Fet there be two bed-ehambers: one for you, another for me; and, as you like, you may ever and anón lie there. 1 would have the house, with neeessary furniture, taken by the month (or otherwise, as you ean), for 1 propose staying not beyond that time; and yet perhaps 1 may. Take it as soon as possible.... Fet me entreat you to say nothing of this to anybody, but to do the thing direetly.... 1 would of all things ... have a proper plaee in a retired situation, where 1 may have aeeess to fields and sweet air provided against the moment 1 arrive. 1 am inelined to think one may be better eoneealed in the outermost skirt of the suburbs, than in the eountry or within the town.... A house quite detaehed in the eountry 1 should have no objeetion to, provided you judge that 1 shall not be hable to diseovery in it. The plaee ealled Bermuda 1 am utterly against. Dear Tom, do this matter eleanly and eleverly, without waiting for further 38 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. advice.... To the person from whom you hire it (whom alone I would have you speak of it to) it will not seem strange you should at this time of the year be desirous, for your own convenience or health, to have a place in a free and open air.” This mysterious letter was written in April. From April till September Berkeley again disappears. There is in all this a curious secretiveness of which one has repeated examples in his life. Whether he went to Dublin in that spring, or why he wanted to go, does not appear. But in September he emerges unexpectedly at Gravesend, newly married, and ready to sail for Rhode Island, “in a ship of 250 tons which he had hired.” The marriage, according to Stock, took place on August 1, whether in Ireland or in England I cannot tell. The lady was Anne, daughter of John Forster, late Chief Justice, and then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. She shared his fortune when he was about to engage in the most romantic, and ideally the grandest, Christian mission of the eighteenth century. According to tradition she was a devoutly religious mystic: Fénelon and Madame Guyon were among her favourites. “I chose her,” he tells Lord Percival, “for her qualities of mind and her unaffected inclination to books. She goes with great thankfulness, to live a plain farmer's life, and wear stuff of her own spinning. I have presented her with a spinning-wheel.” A letter to Prior, dated “Gravesend September 5, 1728,” thus describes the little party on the eve of their departure:—“To- morrow, with God's blessing, I set sail for Rhode Island, with my wife and a friend of hers, my Lady Handcock's daughter, who bears us company. I am married since I saw you to Miss Lorster, whose humour and turn of mind picases me beyond anything that I know in her whole sex. Mr. James^^, Mr. Dalton, and Mr. Smibert^^ go with us on this voyage. We are now all together at Gravesend, and are engaged in one view.” We are further Afterwards Sir John James. Smibert the artist, who made a picture of Berkeley in 1725, and afterwards in America of the family party then at Gravesend. George Berkeley, By The Editor 39 told^^ that they carried stores and goods to a great valué, and that the Dean “embarked 20,000 books, besides what the two gentlemen earried. They sailed in September for Rhode Island, [liv] where the Dean intends to winter, and to purehase an estáte, in order to settle a eorrespondenee and trade between that island and Bermudas.” Berkeley was in bis forty-fourth year, when, full of glowing visions of Christian Empire in the West, “Time's noblest offspring,” he left England, on bis way to Bermuda, with the promise of Sir Robert Walpole that he should reeeive the promised grant after he had made an investment. He bought land in Ameriea, but he never reaehed Bermuda. Towards the end of January, in 1729, the little party, in the “hired ship of 250 tons,” made their appearanee in Narragansett Bay, on the western side of Rhode Island. “Blundering about the oeean,” they had touehed at Virginia on the way, whenee a eorrespondent, seeptieal of the enterprise, informs Eord Pereival that the Dean “had dined with the Governor, and visited our College,” but thinks that “when the Dean eomes to put his visionary seheme into praetiee, he will find it no better than a religious frenzy,” and that “he is as mueh a Don Quixote in zeal as that renowned knight was in ehivalry. I wish the good Dean may not find out at last that Waller really kidnapt him o ver to Bermuda, and that the projeet he has been drawn into may not prove in every point of it poetieal.” We have a pieture of the landing at Newport, on a winter day early in 1729. “Yesterday arrived here Dean Berkeley of Eondonderry, in a pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and ereet aspeet. He was ushered into the town with a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very eomplaisant manner. 'Tis said he proposes to tarry here with his family about three months ^ ^Newport was then a flourishing town, nearly a eentury Historical Register, vol. XIII, p. 289 (1728). ** New England Weekly Courier, Feb. 3, 1729. 40 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. oíd, an emporium of American commerce, in those days the rival [iv] of Boston and New York. He was “never more agreeably surprised,” he says, than “at the size of the town and harbour.” Around him was some of the softest rural and grandes! ocean scenery in the world, which had fresh charms even for one whose boyhood was spent in the valley of the Nore, who had lingered in the Bay of Naples, and wandered in Inarime and among the mountains of Sicily. He was seventy miles from Boston, and about as far from Newhaven and Yale College. A range of bilis crosses the centre of the island, whence meadows slope to the rocky shore. The Gulf Stream tempers the surrounding sea. “The people,” he tells Percival, “are industrious; and though less orthodox have not less virtue, and I am sure they have more regularity, than those I left in Europe. They are indeed a strange medley of different persuasions.” The gentry retained the customs of the squires in England: tradition tells of a cheerful society: the fox Chase, with hounds and horses, was a favourite recreation. The society, for so remóte a región, was well informed. The family libraries and pictures which remain argüe culture and refinement. Smibert, the artist of the missionary party, who had moved to Boston, soon found employment in America, and his pictures still adorn houses in Rhode Island^^. The Dean and his young wife lived in Newport for some months after their arrival. Mr. Honeyman, a missionary of the English Society, had been placed there, in Trinity Church, in 1704. The church is still a conspicuous object from the harbour. Berkeley preached in it three days after his arrival, and occasionally afterwards. Notes of his sermons are included in this edition among his Miscellaneous Works. In the summer of 1729 he moved from Newport to a quiet [ivi] valley in the interior of the island, where he bought a farm, and For valuable information about Rhode Island, reproduced in Berkeley's Life and Correspondence and here, I am indebted to Colonel Higginson, to whom I desire to make this tardy but grateful acknowledgement. George Berkeley, By The Editor 41 built a house. In this island-home, named Whitehall, he lived for more than two years—years of domestie happiness, and of resumed study, mueh interrupted sinee he left Dublin in 1713. The house may still be seen, a little aside from the road that runs eastward from Newport, about three miles from the town. It is built of wood. The south-west room was probably the library. The oeean is seen in the distanee, while orehards and groves offer the shade and silenee whieh soothed the thinker in bis reeluse life. No invitations of the three eompanions of bis voyage^*^, who had migrated to Boston, eould allure him from this retreat, where he diverted his anxieties about Bermuda by the thoughts whieh found expression in the dialogues of Alciphron, redolent of Rhode Island and the invigorating breezes of its oeean shore. Tradition tells that mueh oí Alciphron was the issue of meditation in the open air, at a favourite retreat, beneath the Hanging Roeks, whieh eommands an extensive view of the beaeh and the oeean; and the ehair in whieh he sat in this aleove is still preserved with veneration. While Berkeley lo ved domestie quiet at Whitehall^ ^ and the “still air of delightful studies,” he mixed oeeasionally in the soeiety of Newport. He found it not uneongenial, and soon after he was settled at Whitehall he led the way in forming a elub, whieh held oeeasional meetings, the germ of the Redwood Library, still a useful Newport institution. His own house was a plaee of meeting for the New England missionaries. James, Dalton, and Smibert. Whitehall, having fallen into decay, has been lately restored by the pious effoits of Mrs. Livingston Masón, in conceit with the Rev. Dr. E. E. Hale, and others. This good work was completed in the summer of 1900; and the house is now as nearly as possible in the State in whieh Berkeley left it. 42 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ivii] Whitehall, Berkeley's Residence in Rhode Island Soon after his arrival in Rhode Island, Berkeley was visited by the Reverend Samuel Johnson, missionary at Stratford, an acute and independen! thinker, one of the two contemporary representatives of philosophy in America. The other was Jonathan Edwards, at that time Congregational minister at Northampton on the Connecticut river. They had both adopted a conception of the meaning and office of the material world in the economy of existence that was in many respects similar to Berkeley's^^. It seems that Berkeley's book of Principies had before this fallen into Johnson's hands. He hastened to visit the author when he heard of his arrival. A succession of visits and a life-long correspondence followed. The “non-existence of Matter,” interpreted as a whimsical and even insane paradox, was found by Johnson to mean the absence of unrealisable Substance behind the real material world that is presented to our senses, and of unrealisable Power in the successive sense-presented appearances of which alone we are percipient. He carne to see the real existence of the things of sense in the constan! order of the data of sense, through which we gain our knowledge of the existence of our fellow men, and of the omnipresent constan! Providence of God; whose Ideas are the true archetypes of the 22 See vol. III, Appendix C. George Berkeley, By The Editor 43 visible World. He adopted and applied this eoneeption with a lueidity and foree whieh give him a high plaee among Ameriean thinkers. All the while a eloud darkened the reeluse Ufe at Whitehall. In June, 1729, Berkeley explains to Pereival the eireumstanees and seereey of bis departure from England:— “Before I left England I was redueed to a diffieult situation. Had I eontinued there, the report would have obtained (whieh I had found beginning to spread) that I had dropped the design, after it had eost me and my friends so mueh trouble and expense. On the other hand, if I had taken leave of my friends, even those who assisted and approved my undertaking would have eondemned my eoming abroad before the King's bounty was reeeived. This obliged me to eome away in the prívate manner that I did, and to run the risque of a tedious winter voyage. Nothing less would have eonvineed the world that I was in earnest, after the report I knew was growing to the eontrary.” Months passed, and Walpole's promise was still unfulfilled. “I wait here,” he tells Eord Pereival in Mareh, 1730, “with all the anxiety that attends suspense, until I know what I ean depend upon, or what eourse I am to take. On the one hand I have no notion that the Court would put what men eall a bite upon a poor elergyman, who depended upon eharters, grants, votes, and the like engagements. On the other hand, I see nothing done towards payment of the money.” Eater on he writes—“As for the raillery of European wits, I should not mind it, if I saw my College go on and prosper; but I must own the disappointments I have met with in this partieular have nearly touehed me, not without affeeting my health and spirits. If the founding a College for the spread of religión and learning in Ameriea had been a foolish projeet, it eannot be supposed the Court, the Ministers, and the Parliament would have given sueh publie eneouragement to it; and if, after all that eneouragement, they who engaged to endow and proteet [Iviii] 44 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. it let it drop, the disappointment indeed may be to me, but the censure, I think, will light elsewhere.” The suspense was at last ended. Gibson, the Bishop of London, pressed Walpole for a final answer. “If,” he replied, “you put this question to me as a Minister, I must, and can, assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid, as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you ask me as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continué in America expecting the payment of twenty thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to return borne to Europe, and to give up bis present expectations.” It was thus that in 1731 the Prime Minister of England crushed the project conceived ten years before, and to which the intervening period had, under bis encouragement, been devoted by the projector with a singular enthusiasm. Berkeley's Alcove, Rhode Island A few months after this heavy blow, Berkeley, with bis wife, and Henry their infant child, bade farewell to the island borne. They sailed from Boston in the late autumn of 1731, and in the following Eebruary we find them in Eondon. Thus ended the romantic episode of Rhode Island, with its ideal of George Berkeley, By The Editor 45 Christian civilisation, which so moves the heart and touches the imagination in our retrospect of the eighteenth eentury. Of all who have ever landed on the Ameriean shore, none was ever moved by a purer and more self-saerifieing spirit. Ameriea still aeknowledges that by Berkeley's visit on this mission it has been invested with the halo of an illustrious ñame, and assoeiated with religious devotion to a magnifieent ideal, even if it was sought to be realised by impraetieable means. To reform the New World, and mankind at last, by a College on an island in the Atlantie, six hundred miles from Ameriea, the Indians whom it was intended to eivilise being mostly in the interior of the eontinent, and none in Bermuda, was not unnaturally eonsidered Quixotie; and that it was at first supported by the British Court and Parliament is a wonderful tribute to the persuasive genius of the projeetor. Perhaps he was too mueh influeneed by Lord Pereival's idea, that it eould not be realised by prívate benevolenee, without the intervention of the Crown. But the indireet influenee of Berkeley's Ameriean inspiration is apparent in many ways in the intelleetual and spiritual life of that great eontinent, during the last eentury and a half, espeeially by the impulse given to aeademieal edueation. It is the testimony of an Ameriean author that, “by methods different from those intended by Berkeley, and in ways more manifold than even he eould have dreamed, he has sinee aeeomplished, and through all eoming time, by a thousand ineffaeeable influenees, he will eontinue to aeeomplish, some [ix] portion at least of the results whieh he had aimed at in the founding of his university. It is the oíd story over again; the tragedy of a Providenee wiser than man's foresight; God giving the vietory to His faithful servant even through the bitterness of overruling him and defeating him^^.” Ameriean Empire, as we now see it with its boundless benefieent influenee, is at least an Three Men of Letters, by Moses Coit Tyler (New York, 1895). He records some of the American aeademieal and other institutions that are directly or indirectly, due to Berkeley. 46 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. imperfect realisation of Berkeley's dream. Berkeley's head quarters were in London, in Green Street, for more than two years after the return to England in the beginning of 1732. Extant correspondence with Eord Percival ends in Rhode Island, and our picture of the two years in Eondon is faintly formed by letters to Prior and Johnson. These speak of ill-health, and breathe a less sanguino spirit. The brilliant social life of former visits was less attractive now, even if oíd friends had remained. But Swift had quitted England for ever, and Steele had followed Addison to the grave. Gay, the common friend of Berkeley and Pope, died soon after the return from Rhode Island, and Arbuthnot was approaching his end at Hampstead. Samuel Clarke had passed away when Berkeley was at Whitehall; but Seeker now held the rectory of St. James's, and Butler was in studious retirement on the Wear; while Pope was at Twickenham, publishing his Essay on Man, receiving visits from Bolingbroke, or visiting Eord Bathurst at Cirencester Park. Queen Caroline, too, was holding her receptions at Kensington; but “those who imagine (as you write),” he tells Prior in January, 1734, “that 1 have been making my court here all this time, would never believe (what is most true) that 1 have not been at the Court or at the Minister's but once these seven years. The care of my health and the love of retirement have prevailed over whatsoever ambition might have come to my share.” There is a hint of a visit to Oxford, at Commemoration in 1733, when his friend Seeker received the honorary degree. Soon after he had settled in Eondon, the fruit of his studies in Rhode Island was given to the world in the Seven Dialogues of Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher. Here the philosophical inspiration of his early years is directed to sustain faith in Divine Moral Order, and in the Christian Revelation. Alciphron is George Berkeley, By The Editor 47 the longest, and in literary form perhaps the most finished of his Works, unsurpassed in lively strokes of irony and satire. Yet if it is to be regarded as a philosophieal justifieation of religión, as against modern agnostieism, one may ineline to the judgment of Mr. Leslie Stephen, that it is “the least admirable of all its author's admirable works.” As we have seen, the seet of free-thinkers was early the objeet of Berkeley's ridieule and sareasm. They elaimed for themselves wide intelleetual visión, yet they were blind to the deep realities of the universe; they took exelusive eredit for freedom of thought, although their thinking was eonfined within the narrow eompass of our data in sense. The book of Principies, the Dialogues, and the De Motu of his early years, were designed to bring into elear light the absolute dependenee of the world that is presented to our senses on Omnipresent Spirit; and the neeessary subjeetion of all ehanges in our surroundings to the immediate ageney or providenee of God. Boasted “free-thinking” was really a narrow atheism, so he believed, in whieh meaningless Matter usurped the plaee that belonged in reason to God, and he employed reason to diselose Omnipotent Intelligenee in and behind the phenomena that are presented to the senses in impotent natural sequenee. The eauses of the widespread moral eorruption of the Oíd World, whieh had moved Berkeley so profoundly, seem to have been pondered anew during his reeluse life in Rhode Island. The deeline of moráis was explained by the deifieation of Matter: eonsequent life of sensuous pleasure aeeounted for deeay of religión. That viee is hurtful was argued by free-thinkers like Mandeville to be a vulgar error, and a fallaeious demonstration was offered of its utility. That virtue is intrinsieally beautiful was taught by Shaftesbury; but Berkeley judged the abstraet beauty, with whieh “minute philosophers” were eontented, unfit to move ordinary human beings to self-saerifieing aetion; for this involves devotion to a Perfeet Person by whom goodness is finally distributed. Religión alone inspires the larger and higher [Ixii] 48 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixiii] Ufe, in presenting distributive justice personified on the throne of the universe, instead of abstract virtue. The turning-point in Alciphron is in man's visión of God. This is pressed in the Fourth Dialogue. The free-thinker asserts that “the notion of a Deity, or some invisible power, is of all prejudices the most unconquerable; the most signal example of belief without reason for believing.” He demands proof—“such proof as every man of sense requires of a matter of fact.... Should a man ask, why I believe there is a king of Great Britain? I might answer, Because I had seen him. Or a king of Spain? Because I had seen those who saw him. But as for this King of kings, I neither saw Him myself, ñor any one else that ever did see Him.” To which Euphranor replies, “What if it should appear that God really speaks to man; would this content yon? What if it shall appear plainly that God speaks to men by the intervention and use of arbitrary, outward, sensible signs, having no resemblance or necessary connexion with the things they stand for and suggest; if it shall appear that, by innumerable combinations of these signs, an endless variety of things is discovered and made known to us; and that we are thereby instructed or informed in their different natures; that we are taught and admonished what to shun and what to pursue; and are directed how to regúlate our motions, and how to act with respect to things distant from us, as well in time as place: will this content you?” Euphranor accordingly proceeds to shew that Visible Nature is a Eanguage, in which the Universal Power that is continually at work is speaking to us all, in a way similar to that in which our fellow men speak to us; so that we have as much (even more) reason to believe in the existence of the Universal Person who is the Speaker, as we have to believe in the existence of persons around us; who become known to us, when they too employ sense-symbols, in the words and actions by which we discover that we are not alone in the universe. Por men are really living spirits: their bodies are only the sign of their spiritual personality. And it is so with God, who George Berkeley, By The Editor 49 is also revealed in the visible world as a Spirit. “In a striet sense,” says Euphranor, “I do not see Aleiphron, but only sueh visible signs and tokens as suggest and infer the being of that invisible thinking prineiple or soul. Even so, in the self-same manner, it seems to me that, though I eannot with eyes of flesh behold the invisible God, yet I do, in the sttietest sense, behold and pereeive, by all my senses, sueh signs and tokens ... as suggest, indieate, and demonsttate an invisible God as eertainly, and with the same evidenee, at least, as any other signs, pereeived by sense, do suggest to me the existenee of your soul, spirit, or thinking prineiple; whieh I am eonvineed of only by a few signs or effeets, and the motions of one small organised body; whereas I do, at all times, and in all plaees, pereeive sensible signs whieh evinee the being of God.” In short, God is the living Soul of the Universe; as you and I are the living souls that keep our bodies and their organs in signifieant motion. We ean interpret the eharaeter of God in the history of the universe, even as we ean interpret the eharaeter of our neighbour by observing bis [ixiv] words and outward aetions. This overwhelmed Aleiphron. “You stare to find that God is not far from any one of us, and that in Him we live and move and have our being,” rejoins Euphranor. “You who, in the beginning of this eonferenee, thought it strange that God should leave Himself without a witness, do now think it strange the witness should be so full and elear.” “I must own I do,” was the reply. “I never imagined it eould be pretended that we saw God with our fleshly eyes, as plain as we see any human person whatsoever, and that He daily speaks to our senses in a manifest and elear dialeet.” Although this reasoning satisfied Aleiphron, others may think it ineonelusive. How one is able to diseover the existenee of other persons, and even the meaning of finite personality, are themselves questions full of speeulative diffieulty. But, waiving this, the analogy between the relation of a human spirit to its 50 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixv] body, and that of the Omnipresent and Omnipotent Spirit to the Universa of things and persons, fails in several respects. God is supposed to be continually creating the world by constant and continuous Providence, and His Omniscience is supposed to comprehend all its concrete relations: a man's body is not absolutely dependent on the man's own power and providence; and even his scientific knowledge of it, in itself and in its relations, is scanty and imperfect, as his power over it is limitad and conditioned. Then the little that a man gradually learns of what is going on in the surrounding universa is dependent on his senses: Omniscience comprehends Immensity and Eternity (so we suppose) in a single intuition. Our bodies, moreover, are visible things: the universa, this organism of God, is crowded with persons, to whom there is nothing corresponding within the organism which reveáis one man to another. But this is not all. After Euphranor has found that the Universal Power is Universal Spirit, this is still an inadequate God; for what we want to know is what sort of Spirit God is. Is God omnipotent or of limited power, regarded ethically, fair or unfair in His treatment of persons; good or evil, according to the highest yet attained conception of goodness; a God of love, or a devil omnipotent? I infer the character of my neighbour from his words and actions, patent to sense in the gradual outward evolution of his life. I am asked to infer the character of the Omnipresent Spirit from His words and actions, manifested in the universe of things and persons. But we must not attribute to the Cause more than it reveáis of itself in its effects. God and men alike are known by the effects they produce. The Universal Power is, on this condition, righteous, fair, and loving to the degree in which those conceptions are implied in His visible embodiment: to affirm more or other than this, on the basis of analogy alone, is either to indulge in baseless conjecture, or to submit blindly to dogma and authority. Now the universe, as far as it comes within the range of George Berkeley, By The Editor 51 human experience on this planet, is full of suffering and moral disorder. The “religious hypothesis” of a perfeetly righteous and benevolent God is here offered to aeeount for the appearanees whieh the universe presents to us. But do these signify exaet distributivo justiee? Is not visible nature apparently eruel and unrelenting? If we infer eruelty in the eharaeter of a man, beeause bis bodily aetions eause undeserved suffering, must we not, by this analogy, infer in like manner regarding the eharaeter of the Supremo Spirit, manifested in the progressive evolution of the universal organism? We find it impossible to determine with absoluto eertainty the eharaeter oven of our fellow men, from their imperfeetly interpreted words and aetions, so that eaeh man is more or less a mystery to his fellows. The mystery deepens when we try to read the eharaeter of animáis,—to interpret the motives whieh determine the overt aets of dogs or horses. And if we were [ixvi] able to eommunieate by visible signs with the inhabitants of other planets, with how mueh greater diffieulty should we draw eonelusions from their visible aets regarding their eharaeter? But if this is so when we use the data of sense for reading the eharaeter of finito persons, how infinite must be the diffieulty of reading the eharaeter of the Eternal Spirit, in and through the gradual evolution of the universe of things and persons, whieh in this reasoning is supposed to be His body; and the history of that universe the faets of His biography, in and by whieh He is eternally revealing Himself! Eor we know nothing about the unbeginning and unending. The universe of persons is assumed to have no end', and 1 know not why its evolution must be supposed to have had a beginning, or that there ever was a time in whieh God was unmanifested, to finito persons. Shall we in these eireumstanees turn with Euphranor, in the Eifth and Sixth Dialogues, to professed revelation of the eharaeter of the Universal Mind presented in miraeulous revelation, by inspired prophets and apostles, who are brought forward as 52 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixvii] authorities able to speak infallibly to the character of God? If the whole course of nature, or endless evolution of events, is the Divine Spirit revealed in omnipresent activity, what room is there for any other less regular revelation? The universe of common experience, it is implied by Berkeley, is essentially miraculous, and therefore absolutely perfect. Is it consistent with fairness, and benevolence, and love of goodness in all moral agents for its own sake, that the Christian revelation should have been so long delayed, and be still so incompletely made known? Is not the existence of wicked persons on this or any other planet, wicked men or devils, a dark spot in the visible life of God? Does not perfect goodness in God mean restoration of goodness in men, for its own sake, apart from their merit; and must not Omnipotent Goodness, infinitely opposite to all evil, either convert to goodness all beings in the universe who have made themselves bad, or else relieve the universe of their perpetual presence in ever-increasing wickedness? Sceptical criticism of this sort has found expression in the searching minute philosophy of a later day than Berkeley's and Alciphron's; as in David Hume and Voltaire, and in the agnosticism of the nineteenth century. Was not Euphranor too ready to yield to the demand for a visible God, whose character had accordingly to be determined by what appears in nature and man, under the conditions of our limited and contingent experience? Do we not need to look below data of sensuous experience, and among the presuppositions which must consciously or unconsciously be taken for granted in all man's dealings with the environment in which he finds himself, for the root of trustworthy experience? On merely physical reasoning, like that of Euphranor, the righteous love of God is an unwarranted inference, and it even seems to be contradicted by visible facts presented in the history of the world. But if Omnipotent Goodness must a priori be attributed to the Universal Mind, as an indispensable condition for man's having George Berkeley, By The Editor 53 reliable intercourse of any sort with nature; if this is the primary postúlate neeessary to the existenee of truth of any kind—then the “religious hypothesis” that God is Good, aeeording to the highest eoneeption of goodness, is no groundless faney, hut the fundamental faith-venture in whieh man has to live. It must stand in reason; unless it ean be demonstrated that the mixture of good and evil whieh the universe presents, neeessarily eontradiets this fundamental presupposition: and if so, man is lost in pessimistie Pyrrhonism, and ean assert nothing about anything^^. The religious altruism, however inadequate, whieh Berkeley [ixviü] offered in Alciphron made some noise at the time of its appearanee, although its theistie argument was too subtle to be popular. The eoneeption of the visible world as Divine Visual Language was “reeeived with ridieule by those who make ridieule the test of truth,” although it has made way sinee. “I have not seen Dean Berkeley,” Gay the poet writes to Swift in the May following the Dean's return, and very soon after the appearanee of Alciphron, “hut I have been reading his book, and like many parts of it; hut in general think with you that it is too speeulative.” Warburton, with admiration for Berkeley, eannot eomprehend his philosophy, and Hoadley shewed a less friendly spirit. A Letter from a Country Clergyman, attributed to Lord Hervey, the “Sporus” of Pope, was one of several ephemeral attaeks whieh the Minute Philosopher eneountered in the year after its appearanee. Three other erities, more worthy of eonsideration, are mentioned in one of Berkeley's letters from London to his Ameriean friend Johnson at Stratford: “As to the Bishop of Cork's book, and the other book you allude to, the author of whieh is one Baxter, they are both very little eonsidered here; The thought implied in this paragraph is pursued in my Philosophy of Theism, in whieh the ethical perfection of the Universal Mind is taken as the fundamental postúlate in all human experience. If the Universal Mind is not ethically perfect, the universe (including our spiritual constitution) is radically untrustworthy. 54 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixix] for which reason I have taken no public notice of them. To answer objections already answered, and repeat the same things, is a needless as well as disagreeable task. Ñor should I have taken notice of that Letter about Vision, had it not been printed in a newspaper, which gave it course, and spread it through the kingdom. Resides, the theory of Vision I found was somewhat obscure to most people; for which reason I was not displeased at an opportunity to explain it^^.” The explanation was given in The Theory of Visual Language Vindicated, in January, 1733, as a supplement to Alciphron. Its blot is a tone of polemical bitterness directed against Shaftesbury^^. Although Berkeley “took no public notice” of “the Bishop of Cork's book^^” it touched a great question, which periodically has awakened controversy, and been the occasion of mutual misunderstanding among the controversialists in past ages. “Is God knowable by man; or must religión be devotion to an object that is iinknowahle?” In one of his first letters to Lord Percival, as we saw, Berkeley animadverted on a sermón by the Archbishop of Dublin, which seemed to deny that there was goodness, or understanding God, any more than feet or hands. An opinión somewhat similar had been attributed to Bishop Browne, in his answer to Toland, and afterwards in 1728, in his Procedure and Limits of Human Understanding. This touched to the quick Berkeley's ultimate conception of Life and Letters of Berkeley, p. 222. The third Earl of Shaftesbury, the pupil of Locke, and author of the Characteristics. In addition to the well-known biography by Dr. Fowler, the present eminent Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, Shaftesbury has been interpreted in two other lately published works—a Life by Benjamin Rand, Ph.D. (1900), and an edition of the Characteristics, with an Introduction and Notes, by John M. Robertson (1900). The title of this book is— Things Divine and Supernatural conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human, by the Author of The Procedure, Extent and Limits ofthe Human Understanding. The Divine Analogy appeared in 1733, and the Procedure in 1728. George Berkeley, By The Editor 55 the universe, as realisable only in, and therefore necessarily dependen! on, living mind. We are reminded of the famous analogy of Spinoza^^. If the omnipresent and omnipotent Mind, on whieh Euphranor rested, ean be ealled “mind” only metaphorieally, and ean be ealled “good” only when the term is used without human meaning, it may seem to be a matter of indifferenee whether we have unknowable Matter or unknowable Mind at the root of things and persons. Both are empty words. The Power universally at work is equally unintelligible, equally unfit to be the objeet of worship in the final venture of faith, whether we use the term Matter or the term Mind. The universe is neither explained ñor sustained by a “mind” that is mind only metaphorieally. To eall this “God” is to eonsole us with an empty abstraetion. The minutes! philosopher is ready to grant with Aleiphron that “there is a God in this indefinito sense”; sinee nothing ean be inferred from sueh an aeeount of God about eonduet or religión. The Bishop of Cork replied to the strietures of Euphranor in the Minute Philosopher. He qualified and explained bis former utteranees in some two hundred dull pagos of his Divine Analogy, whieh hardly toueh the root of the matter. The question at issue is the one whieh underlies modern agnostieism. It was raised again in Britain in the nineteenth eentury, with deeper insight, by Sir William Hamilton; followed by Dean Mansel, in eontroversy with E. D. Mauriee, at the point of view of Arehbishop King and Bishop Browne, in philosophieal vindieation of the mysteries of Christian faith; by Mr. Herbert Speneer and by Huxley in a minute philosophy that has been deepened by Hume's eritieism of the rationale of theism in Berkeley^^. Spinoza argües that what is ealled “understanding” and “will” in God, has no more in common with human understanding and will than the dog-star in the heavens has with the animal we cali a dog. See Spinoza's Ethica, I. 17, Scholium. The question of the knowableness of God, or Omnipotent Moral Perfection [Ixx] 56 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxi] Andrew Baxter's Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, referred to in Berkeley's letter to Johnson, appeared in 1733. It has a chapter on “Dean Berkeley's Scheme against the existence of Matter and a Material World,” which is worthy of mention because it is the earliest elabórate criticism of the New Principie, although it had then been before the world for more than twenty years. The title of the chapter shews Baxter's imperfect comprehension of the proposition which he attempts to refute. It suggests that Berkeley argued for the non-existence of the things we see and touch, instead of for their necessary dependence on, or subordination to, realising percipient Mind, so far as they are concrete realities. Baxter, moreover, was a Scot; and his criticism is interesting as a foretaste of the protracted discussion of the “ideal theory” by Reid and his friends, and later on by Hamilton. But Baxter's book was not the first sign of Berkeley's influence in Scotland. We are told by Dugald Stewart, that “the novelty of Berkeley's paradox attracted very powerfully the attention of a set of young men who were then prosecuting their studies at Edinburgh, who formed themselves into a Society for the express purpose of soliciting from him an explanation of some parts of his theory which seemed to them obscurely or equivocally expressed. To this correspondence the amiable and excellent prelate seems to have given every encouragement; and 1 have been told on the best authority that he was accustomed to say that his reasoning had been nowhere better understood than by this club of young Scotsmen^*’.” Thus, and afterwards through Hume and Reid, Berkeley is at the root of philosophy in Scotland. in the concrete, enters into recent philosophical and theological discussion in Britain. Calderwood, in his Philosophy of the Infinite (1854), was one of the earliest, and not the least acute, of Hamilton's critics in this matter. The subject is lucidly treated by Professor Andrew Seth (Pringle-Pattison) in his Lectures on Theism (1897) and in a supplement to Calderwood's Life (1900). So also Huxley's David Hume and Professor Iverach's Is God Knowable? Stewart's Works, vol. I. pp. 350-1. George Berkeley, By The Editor 57 The two years of indifferent health and authorship in London sum up what may be ealled the Ameriean period of Berkeley's life. Early in 1734 letters to Prior open a new vista in bis history. He was nominated to the bishoprie of Cloyne in the South of Ireland, and we have now to follow him to the remóte región whieh was his home for eighteen years. The interest of the philosophie Queen, and perhaps some eompensation for the Bermuda disappointment, may explain the appearanee of the metaphysieal and soeial idealist in the plaee where he shone as a star of the first magnitude in the Irish Chureh of the eighteenth eentury. [Ixxii] III. Later Years (1734-53). In May, 1734, Berkeley was eonseerated as Bishop of Cloyne, in St. Paul's Chureh, Dublin. Exeept oeeasional visits, he had been absent from Ireland for more than twenty years. He returned to spend eighteen years of almost unbroken seelusion in his remóte dioeese. It suited a growing inelination to a reeluse, meditativo life, whieh had been eneouraged by eireumstanees in Rhode Island. The eastern and northern part in the eounty of Cork formed his dioeese, bounded on the west by Cork harbour, and on the east by the beautiful Blaekwater and the mountains of Waterford; the sea, whieh was its Southern boundary, approaehed within two miles of the episeopal residenee in the village of Cloyne. As soon as he was settled, he resumed study “with unabated attention,” but still with indifferent health. Travelling had become irksome to him, and at Cloyne he was almost as mueh removed as he had been in Rhode Island from the thinking 58 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxiii] World. Cork took the place of Newport; bul Cork was twenty miles from Cloyne, while Newport was only three miles from Whitehall. His episcopal neighbour at Cork was Bishop Browne, the critic of Alciphron. Isaac Gervais, afterwards Dean of Tuam, often enlivened the “manse-house” at Cloyne by his wit and intercourse with the great world. Secker, the Bishop of Bristol, and Benson, the Bishop of Gloucester, now and then exchanged letters with him, and correspondence was kept up as of oíd with Prior at Dublin and Johnson at Stratford. But there is no trace of intercourse with Swift, who was wearing out an unhappy oíd age, or with Pope, almost the only survivor of the brilliant society of other years. We are told, indeed, that the beauty of Cloyne was so described to the bard of Twickenham, by the pen which in former days had described Ischia, that Pope was almost moved to visit it. And a letter from Secker in February, 1735^\ contains this scrap: “Your friend Mr. Pope is publishing small poems every now and then, full of much wit and not a little keenness^^.” “Our common friend, Dr. Butler,” he adds, “hath almost completed a set of speculations upon the credibility of religión from its analogy to the constitution and course of nature, which I believe in due time yon will read with pleasure.” Butler's Analogy appeared in the folio wing year. But I ha ve found no remains of correspondence between Berkeley and their “common friend”; the two most illustrious religious thinkers of Berkeley MSS. possessed by Archdeacon Rose. Pope's poetic tribute to Berkeley belongs to this period— “Even in a bishop I can spy desert; Secker is decent; Rundle has a heart: Manners with candour are to Benson given, To Berkeley—every virtue under heaven.” Epilogue to the Satires. Also his satirical tribute to the critics of Berkeley— “Truth's sacred fort th' exploded laugh shall win; And Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.” Essay on Satire, Part II. George Berkeley, By The Editor 59 the Anglican commiinion. When he left London in 1734 Berkeley was on the eve of what sounded like a mathematieal eontroversy, although it was in his intention metaphysieal, and was suggested by the Seventh Dialogue in Alciphron. In one of his letters to Prior, early in that year, he told him that though he “eould not read, owing to ill health,” yet his thought was as distinet as ever, and that for amusement “he passed his early hours in thinking of eertain mathematieal matters whieh may possibly produee something^^.” This turned, it seems, upon a form of seeptieism among eontemporary mathematieians, oeeasioned by the presenee of mysteries of religión. The Analyst was the issue. It was followed by a eontroversy in whieh some of the [ixxiv] most eminent mathematieians took part. Mathematica exeunt in mysteria might have been the motto of the Analyst. The assumptions in mathematies, it is argued, are as mysterious as those of theologians and metaphysieians. Mathematieians eannot transíate into perfeetly intelligible thought their own doetrines in fluxions. If man's knowledge of God is rooted in mystery, so too is mathematieal analysis. Puré seienee at last loses itself in propositions whieh usefully regúlate aetion, but whieh eannot be eomprehended. This is the drift of the argument in the Analyst, but perhaps Berkeley's inelination to extreme eonelusions, and to what is verbally paradoxieal, led him into doubtful positions in the eontroversy to whieh the Analyst gave rise. Instead of ultímate imperfeet eomprehensibility, he seems to attribute absoluto eontradietion to the Newtonian fluxions. Baxter, in his Inquiry, had asserted that things in Berkeley's book of Principies foreed the author “to suspeet that even mathematies may not be very sound knowledge at the bottom.” The metaphysieal argument of the Analyst was obseured in a eloud of mathematies. 33 Berkeley's Life and Letters, p. 210. 60 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxv] The social condition of Ireland attracted Berkeley almos! as soon as he was settled in Cloyne. He was surrounded by a large native Irish population and a small group of English colonists. The natives, long governed in the Ínteres! of !he stranger, had never learned !o exer! and govern themselves. The self-reliance which Berkeley preached fifteen years before, as a mean for “preventing !he ruin of Grea! Britain,” was more wanting in Ireland, where the simples! maxims of social economy were neglected. l! was a State of things fitted to move one who was too independen! to permit his aspirations to be confined to the ordinary routine of the Irish episcopate, and who could not forget the favourite moral maxim of his life. The social chaos of Ireland was the occasion of what to some may be the most interesting of Berkeley's writings. His thoughts found vent characteristically in a series of penetrating practical quedes. The First Part of the Querist appeared in 1735, anonymously, edited by Dr. Madden of Dublin, who along with Prior had lately founded a Society for promoting industrial arts in Ireland. The Second and Third Parts were published in the two following years. A Discourse to Magistrales occasioned by the Enormous Licence and Irreligión ofthe Times, which appeared in 1736, was another endeavour, with like philanthropic intention. And the only importan! break in his secluded life at Cloyne, in eighteen years of residence, was when he went for some months to Dublin in 1737, to render social Service to Ireland in the Irish House of Lords. His metaphysic, at first encountered by ridicule, was now beginning to receive more serious treatment. A Scotsman had already recognised it. In 1739 another and more famous Scotsman, David Hume, refers thus to Berkeley in one of the opening sections of his Treatise of Human Nature: “A very material question has been started concerning abstrae! or general ideas—whether they be general or particular in the mind's George Berkeley, By The Editor 61 conception of them. A great philosopher, Dr. Berkeley, has disputed the reeeived opinión in this partieular, and has asserted that all general ideas are nothing hut partieular ones, annexed to a eertain term whieh gives them a more extensive signifieation, and makes them reeall upon oeeasion other individuáis whieh are similar to them. I look upon this to he one of the greatest and most valuable diseoveries that has heen made of late years in the repuhlie of letters.” It does not appear that Berkeley heard of Hume. A eurious interest began to engage him about this time. The years foliowing 1739 were years of suffering in the Irish [ixxvi] dioeese. It was a time of famine followed by widespread disease. His eorrespondenee is full of allusions to this. It had eonsequenees of lasting importanee. Surrounded by disease, he pondered remedies. Experienee in Rhode Island and among Ameriean Indians suggested the healing properties of tar. Eurther experiments in tar, eombined with meditation and mueh eurious reading, deepened and expanded his metaphysieal philosophy. Tar seemed to grow under his experiments, and in his thoughts, into a Panaeea for giving health to the organism on whieh living mind in man is meanwhile dependent. This natural dependenee of health upon tar introdueed thoughts of the interdependenee of all things, and then of the immediate dependenee of all in nature upon Omnipresent and Omnipotent Mind. The living Mind that underlies the phenomena of the universe began to be eoneeived under a new light. Sinee his return to the life of thought in Rhode Island, he had heen immersed in Platonie and Neoplatonie literature, and in books of mystieal Divinity, eneouraged perhaps by the mystieal disposition attributed to his wife. An eeeentrie ingenuity eonneeted the seientifie experiments and preseriptions with the Idealism of Plato and Plotinus. The natural law aeeording to whieh tar-water was universally restorative set his mind to Work about the immanenee of living Mind. He mused about a 62 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxvii] medicine thus universally beneficial, and the thought occurred that it must be naturally charged with 'puré invisible fire, the most subtle and elastic of bodies, and the vital element in the universe'; and water might be the natural cause which enables this elementary fire to be drawn out of tar and transferred to vegetable and animal organisms. But the vital fire could be only a natural cause; which in truth is no efficient cause at all, but only a sign of divine efficiency transmitted through the world of sense: the true cause of this and all other natural effects must be the immanent Mind or Reason in which we all particípate; for in God we live and move and have our being. It is thus that Berkeley's thought culminates in Siris, that Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquines conceming the Virtues of Tar-water, and divers other subjects connected together and arising one from another, which appeared in 1744. This little book made more noise at the time of its appearance than any of bis books; but not because of its philosophy, which was lost in its medicinal promise to mankind of immunity from disease. Yet it was Berkeley's last attempt to express his ultímate conception of the universe in its human and divine relations. When Siris is compared with the book of Principies, the immense difference in tone and manner of thought shews the change wrought in the intervening years. The sanguine argumentative gladiatorship of the Principies is exchanged for pensive speculation, which acknowledges the weakness of human understanding, when it is face to face with the Immensities and Eternities. Compare the opening sections of the Introduction to the Principies with the closing sections of Siris. The contingent data of our experience are now felt to be insufficient, and there is a more or less conscious grounding of the Whole in the eternal and immutable Ideas of Reason. “Strictly, the sense knowsnothing. Weperceive, indeed, sounds by hearing and characters by sight. But we are not therefore said to understand them.... Sense and experience acquaint us with the course and analogy of appearances and George Berkeley, By The Editor 63 natural effects: thought, reason, intellect, introduce us into the knowledge of their causes.... The principies of Science are neither objects of sense ñor imagination: intellect and reason are alone the sure guides to truth.” So the shifting basis of the earlier thought is found to need support in the intellectual and moral faith that must be involved in all reasonable human intercourse with the phenomena presented in the universe. The inadequate thought of God, as only a Spirit or Person supreme among the spirits or persons, in and through whom the material world is realised, a thought which pervades Alciphron, makes way in Siris for the thought of God as the infinite omnipresent Ground, or final sustaining Power, immanent in Nature and Man, to which Berkeley had become accustomed in Neoplatonic and Alexandrian metaphysics. “Comprehending God and the creatures in One general notion, we may say that all things together (God and the universe of Space and Time) make One Universe, or tó Bciv. But if we should say that all things make One God, this would be an erroneous notion of God; but would not amount to atheism, as long as Mind or Intellect was admitted to be to fiyepoviKÓv, or the governing part.... It will not seem just to fix the imputation of atheism upon those philosophers who hold the doctrine of tó "Ev.” It is thus that he now regards God. Metaphysics and theology are accordingly one. No attempt is made in Siris to articúlate the universe in the light of unifying Mind or Reason. And we are still apt to ask what the truth and goodness at the heart of all really mean; seeing that, as conceived in human minds, they vary in the gradual evolution of intellect and conscience in men. Omnia exeunt in mysteria is the tone of Siris at the end. The universe of reality is too much for our articúlate intellectual digestión: it must be left for omniscience; it transcends finite intelligence and the via media of human understanding. Man must be satisfied to pass life, in the infinitesimal interval between birth and death, as a [Ixxviii] 64 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxix] faith-venture, which he may convert into a growing insight, as the generations roll on, but which can never be converted into complete knowledge. “In this State we must be satisfied to make the best of those glimpses within our reach. It is Plato's remark in his Thecetetus, that while we sit still we are never the wiser; but going into the river, and moving up and down, is the way to discover its depths and shallows. If we exercise and bestir ourselves, we may even here discover something. The eye by long use comes to see even in the darkest cavern; and there is no subject so obscure but we may discern some glimpse of truth by long poring on it. Truth is the cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly where it is the chief passion it doth not give way to vulgar cares and views; ñor is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life: a time perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make a real progress in knowledge must dedícate his age as well as his youth, the later growth as well as the first-fruits, at the altar of Truth.” Such was Berkeley, and such were his last words in philosophy. They may suggest the attitude of Bacon when, at a different view-point, he disclaims exhaustive system: “I have made a beginning of the Work: the fortune of the human race will give the issue. For the matter in hand is no mere felicity of speculation, but the real business and fortunes of the human race^^.” While Berkeley's central thought throughout his life is concerned with God as the one omnipresent and omnipotent Providential Agent in the universe, he says little about the other final question, of more exclusively human interest, which concerns the destiny of men. That men are born into a universe which, as the visible expression of Moral Providence, must be scientifically and ethically trustworthy; certain not to put man to confusión intellectually or morally, seeing that it could not Bacon's Novuin Organum. Distributio Operis. George Berkeley, By The Editor 65 otherwise be trusted for sueh in our ultímate venture of faith—this is one thing. That all persons born into it are eertain to eontinue living self-eonseiously for ever, is another thing. This is not obviously implied in the former presupposition, whether or not it ean be dedueed from it, or else diseovered by other means. [ixxx] Although man's environment is essentially Divine, and wholly in its smallest details Providential, may not bis body, in its living organisation from physieal birth until physieal death, be the measure of the eontinuanee of bis self-eonseious personality? Is eaeh man's immortal existenee, like God's, indispensable? Doubt about the destiny of men after they die is, at the end of the nineteenth eentury, probably more prevalent than doubt about the underlying Providenee of God, and His eonstant ereative aetivity; more perhaps than it was in the days of Toland, and Collins, and Tindal. Enture life had been made so familiar to the imagination by the early and mediaeval Chureh, and afterwards by the Puritans, as in Milton, Bunyan, and Jonathan Edwards, that it then seemed to the religious mind more real than anything that is seen and touehed. The habit wholly formed by natural seienee is apt to dissipate this and to make a human life lived under eonditions wholly strange to its “minute philosophy” appear illusory. A seetion in the book of Principles^^ in whieh the common argument for the “natural immortality” of the human soul is reprodueed, strengthened by his new eoneeption of what the reality of body means, is Berkeley's metaphysieal eontribution for determining between the awful alternatives of annihilation or eontinued self-eonseious life after physieal death. The subjeet is touehed, in a less reeondite way, in two of his papers in the Guardian, and in the Discourse delivered in Trinity College Chapel in 1708, in whieh a revelation of the immortality of men is presented as the speeial gospel of Jesús Christ. To argüe, as 35 Seetion 141. 66 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxxi] Berkeley does in the Principies, that men cannot be annihilated at death, because they are spiritual substances having powers independent of the sequences of nature, implies assumptions regarding finite persons which are open to criticism. The justification in reason for our venture of faith that Omnipotent Goodness is at the heart of the universe is—that without this presupposition we can have no reasonable intercourse, scientific or otherwise, with the world of things and persons in which we find ourselves; for reason and will are then alike paralysed by universal distrust. But it can hardly be maintained a priori that men, or other spiritual beings in the universe, are equally with God indispensable to its natural order; so that when they have once entered on conscious existence they must always continué to exist consciously. Is not the philosophical justification of man's hope of endless life ethical rather than metaphysical; founded on that faith in the justice and goodness of the Universal Mind which has to be taken for granted in every attempt to interpret experience, with its mixture of good and evil, in this evanescent embodied life? Can a life such as this is be all for men, in a universe that, because it is essentially Divine, must opérate towards the extinction of the wickedness which now makes it a mystery of Omnipotent Goodness? A cheerful optimism appears in Berkeley's habit of thought about death, as we have it in his essays in the Guardian: a sanguine apprehension of a present preponderance of good, and consequent anticipation of greater good after death; unlike those whose pessimistic temperament induces a lurid picture of eternal moral disorder. But his otherwise active imagination seldom makes philosophy a meditation upon death. He does not seem to have exercised himself in the way those do who find in the prospect of being in the twenty-first century as they were in the first, what makes them appalled that they have ever come at all into transitory percipient life; or as those others who recoil from an unbodied life after physical death, as infinitely more appalling George Berkeley, By The Editor 67 than the thought of being transported in this body into another planet, or even to a material world outside our solar system. In one of his letters to Johnson^^ he does approaeh the unbodied life, and in a eharaeteristie way:— “I see no diffieulty in eoneeiving a ehange of State, sueh as is vulgarly ealled death, as well without as with material substanee. It is suffieient for that purpose that we allow sensible bodies, i.e. sueh as are immediately pereeived by sight and toueh; the existenee of whieh I am so far from questioning, as philosophers are used to do, that I establish it, I think, upon evident prineiples. Now it seems very easy to eoneeive the soul to exist in a sepárate State (i.e. divested from those limits and laws of motion and perception with whieh she is embarrassed here) and to exereise herself on new ideas, without the intervention of these tangible things we eall bodies. It is even very possible to apprehend how the soul may have ideas of eolour without an eye, or of sounds without an ear^’.” But while we may thus be supposed to have all our present sensuous experienee in an unbodied State, this does not enable one to eoneeive how unbodied persons ean eommunieate with one another in the absenee of all sense signs; whether of the sort derived from our present senses, or from other senses of whose data we ean in this life have no imagination. Berkeley's tar-water enthusiasm lasted throughout the rest of his life, and found vent in letters and pamphlets in support of his Panaeea, from 1744 till 1752. Notwithstanding this, he was not forgetful of other interests—eeelesiastieal, and the soeial ones whieh he ineluded in his large meaning of “eeelesiastieal.” The Rising under Charles Edward in 1745 was the oeeasion of a Letter to the Román Catholics ofCloyne, eharaeteristieally humane and See “Editor's Preface to Alciphron.” Compare Essay II in the Guardian with this. [Ixxxii] [Ixxxiii] 68 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxxiv] liberal. It was followed in 1749 by an Exhortation to the Román Catholic Clergy ofireland in a similar spirit; and Ibis unwonted courtesy of an Irish Protestan! bishop was received by those to whom it was addressed in a corresponding temper. It is difficult to determine Berkeley's relation to rival schools or partios in Church and State. His disposition was too singular and independen! for a partisan. Some of his early writings, as we have seen, were suspected of high Tory and Jacobite leanings; but his arguments in the suspected Discourse were such as ordinary Tories and Jacobites failed to understand, and the tenor of his words and actions was in the best sense liberal. In religious thought Siris might place him among latitudinarians; perhaps in affinity with the Cambridge Platonists. His true place is foremost among the religious philosophers of the Anglican Church; the first to prepare the religious problem for the light in which we are invited to look at the universo by modern agnostics, and under the modern conception of natural evolution. He is the most picturesque figure in that Anglican succession which, in the seventeenth century, ineludes Hooker and Cudworth; in the eighteenth, Clarke and Butler; and in the nineteenth, may we say Coleridge, in lack of a representative in orders; although Mansel, Maurice, Mozley, and Jowett are not to be forgotten, ñor Isaac Taylor among laymen^^: Newman and Arnold, illustrious otherwise, are hardly representatives of metaphysical philosophy. A more pensive tone runs through the closing years at Cloyne. Attempts were made in vain to withdraw him from the “remóte córner” to which he had been so long confined. His friends urged his claims for the Irish Primacy. “I am no man's rival or competitor in this matter,” were his words to Prior. “I am not in love with feasts, and crowds, and visits, and late hours, and strange faces, and a hurry of affairs often insignificant. For my Taylor, in later lite, conformed to the Anglican Church. George Berkeley, By The Editor 69 own prívate satisfaetion, I had rather be master of my time than wear a diadem.” Letters to his Ameriean friends, Johnson and Clap, shew him still moved by the inspiration whieh earried him over the Atlantie, and reeord his influenee in the development of Ameriean eolleges^^. The borne edueation of his three sons was another interest. We are told by his widow that “he would not trust his sons to mereenary hands. Though oíd and siekly, he performed the eonstant tedious task himself.” Of the fruit of this borne edueation there is little to tell. The death of William, his favourite boy, in 1751, “was thought to have struek too elose to his father's heart.” “I am a man,” so he writes, “retired from the amusements, polities, visits, and what the world ealls pleasure. I had a little friend, edueated always under mine own eye, whose painting delighted me, whose musie ravished me, and whose lively gay spirit was a eontinual feast. It has pleased God to take him henee.” The eldest son, Henry, born in Rhode Island, did not long survive his father. George, the third son, was destined for Oxford, and this destiny was eonneeted with a new projeet. The “life aeademieo-philosophieal,” whieh he sought in vain to realise in Bermuda, he now hoped to find for himself in the eity of eolleges on the Isis. “The truth is,” he wrote to Prior as early as September 1746, “I have a seheme of my own for this long time past, in whieh I propose more satisfaetion and enjoyment to myself than I eould in that high station^°, whieh I neither solieited, ñor so mueh as wished for. A greater ineome would not tempt me to remove from Cloyne, and set aside my Oxford seheme; whieh, though delayed by the illness of my son^\ yet I am as intent upon it and as mueh resolved as ever.” The last of Berkeley's letters whieh we have is to Dean Gervais. It expresses the feeling with whieh in April, 1752, he was eontemplating life, on the eve of his departure from Cloyne. See Berkeley's Life and Letters, chap. viii. The Primacy. This seems to have been his eldest son, Henry. [Ixxxv] 70 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [Ixxxvi] “I submit to years and infirmities. My views in this world are mean and narrow; it is a thing in which I ha ve small share, and which ought to give me small concern. I abhor business, and especially to have to do with great persons and great affairs. The evening of life I choose to pass in a quiet retreat. Ambitious projects, intrigues and quarrels of statesmen, are things I have formerly been amused with, but they now seem to be a vain, fugitive dream.” Four months after this, Berkeley saw Cloyne for the last time. In August he quitted it for Oxford, which he had long pictured in imagination as the ideal borne of his oíd age. When he left Cork in the vessel which carried his wife, his daughter, and himself to Bristol, he was prostrated by weakness, and had to be taken from Bristol to Oxford on a horse-litter. It was late in August when they arrived there^^. Our picture of Berkeley at Oxford is dim. According to tradition he occupied a house in Holywell Street, near the gardens of New College and not far from the cloisters of Magdalen. It was a changed world to him. While he was exchanging Ireland for England, death was removing oíd English friends. Before he left Cloyne he must have heard of the death of Butler in June, at Bath, where Benson, at the request of Secker, affectionately watched the last hours of the author of the Analogy. Benson followed Butler in August. We hear of study resumed in improved health in the borne in Holy well Street. In October a Miscellany, containing several Tracts on various Subjects, “by the Bishop of Cloyne,” appeared simultaneously in Eondon and Dublin. The Tracts were reprints, with the exception of Further Thoughts on Tar-water, which His son George was already settled at Christ Church. Henry, the eldest son, bom in Rhode Island, was then “abroad in the south of France for his health,” as one of his brother George's letters tells us, found among the Johnson MSS. George Berkeley, By The Editor 71 may have been written before he left Ireland. The third edition of Alciphron also appeared in this autumn. But Siris is the latest reeord of his philosophieal thought. A eomparison of the Commonplace Book and the Principies with the Analyst and Siris gives the measure of his advaneement. After the sanguine beginning perhaps the eomparison leaves a sense of disappointment, when we find metaphysies mixed up with mathematies in the Analyst, and metaphysies obseurely mixed up with medieine in Siris. It is eurious that, although in 1752 David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature had been before the world for thirteen years and his Inquiry concerning Human Understanding for four years, there is no abusión to Hume by Berkeley. He was Berkeley's immediate sueeessor in the eighteenth-eentury evolution of European thought. The seeptieal eritieism of Hume was applied to the dogmatie religious philosophy of Berkeley, to be followed in its turn by the abstraetly rational and the moral reeonstruetive eritieism of Kant. Alciphron is, however, expressly referred to by Hume; indireetly, too, throughout the religious agnostieism of his Inquiry, also afterwards in the Dialogues on Natural Religión, in a vindieation of minute philosophy by profounder reasonings than those whieh satisfied Eysieles and Aleiphron. Berkeley, Hume, and Kant are the three signifieant philosophieal figures of their eentury, eaeh holding the supreme plaee sueeessively in its beginning, middle, and later years. Perhaps Reid in Seotland did more than any other in his generation to make Berkeley known; not, however, for his true work in eonstruetive religious thought, but for his supposed denial of the reality of the things we see and toueh.^^ See Appendix D. Reid, like Berkeley, held that “matter cannot be the cause of anything,” but this not as a consequence of the new conception of the world presented to the senses, through which alone Berkeley opens his way to its powerlessness; although Reid supposes that in his youth he followed Berkeley in this too. See Thomas Reid (1898), in “Famous Scots Series,” where I have [Ixxxvii] 72 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. The ideal life in Oxford did not last long. On the evening of Sunday, January 14, 1753, Berkeley was suddenly confronted by the mystery of death. “As he was sitting with my mother, my sister, and myself,” so his son wrote to Johnson at Stratford, in October, “suddenly, and without the least previous notice or pain, he was removed to the enjoyment of eternal rewards; and although all possible means were instantly used, no symptom of life ever appeared after; ñor could the physicians assign any cause for his death. He arrived at Oxford on August 25, and had received great benefit from the change of air, and by God's blessing on tar-water, insomuch that for some years he had not been in better health than he was the instant before he left us^^.” Six days later he was buried in Oxford, in the Cathedral of Christ Church^^, where his tomb bears an appropriate inscription by Dr. Markham, afterwards Archbishop of York. [Ixxxviii] enlarged on this. Johnson MSS. That Berkeley was huried in Oxford is mentioned in his son's letter to Johnson, in which he says : “His remains are interred in the Cathedral of Christ Church, and next week a monument to his memory will he erected with an inscription by Dr. Markham, a Student of this College.” As the son was present at, and superintended the arrangements for his father's funeral, it can be no stretch of credulity to believe that he knew where his father was buried. It may be added that Berkeley himself had provided in his Will “that my body be buried in the churchyard of the parish in which I die.” The Will, dated July 31, 1752, is given in extenso in my Life and Letters of Berkeley, p. 345. We have also the record of burial in the Register of Christ Church Cathedral, which shews that “on January ye 20^^ 1753, ye Right Reverend John {sic) Berkley, Bishop of Cloyne, was buryed” there. This disposes of the statement on p. 17 of Diprose's Account of the Parish of Saint Clement Danés (1868), that Berkeley was buried in that church. I may add that a beautiful memorial of Berkeley has lately been placed in the Cathedral of Cloyne, by subscriptions in this country and largely in America. Errata Vol. I Page 99, Une 3for 149-80 read 149-60. Page 99, Une 22 for —and to be “suggested,” not signified read —instead of being only suggested. Page 100, Une 10/or hearing read seeing. Page 103, note. Unes 5, 6/orpp. 111, 112 readp. 210. Page 200, note. Une 14/or Adam read Robert. Page 364, Une 8 from foot for and read whieh. Page 512, note 6, Une 3 for imminent read immanent. Vol. II Page 194, note. Une 3 for Tyndal read Tindal. Page 207, Une 1, insert 13. before Ale.. Page 377, Une 6 for antethesis read antithesis. Vol. IV Page 285, Unes 4, 5 for Thisus Alus Cujus, &e. read Ursus. Alus. Cuius. &e. The inseription, strietly speaking, appears on the Palaee of the Counts Orsini, and is dated MD. [ 001 ] Commonplace Book. Mathematical, Ethical, Physical, And Metaphysical [ 002 ] Written At Trinity College, Dublin, In 1705-8 First published in 1871 Editor's Preface To The Commonplace Book Berkeley's juvenile Commonplace Book is a small quarto volume, in bis handwriting, found among the Berkeley manuscripts in possession of the late Arehdeaeon Rose. It was first published in 1871, in my edition of Berkeley's Works. It consists of occasional thoughts, mathematical, physical, ethical, and metaphysical, set down in miscellaneous fashion, for prívate use, as they aróse in the course of his studies at Trinity College, Dublin. They are full of the fervid enthusiasm that was natural to him, and of sanguino expectations of the issue of the prospective authorship for which they record preparations. On the title-page is written, “G. B. Trin. Dub. alum.,” with the date 1705, when he was twenty years of age. The entries are the gradual accumulation of the next three years, in one of which the Arithmetica and the Miscellanea Mathematica made their appearance. The New Theory of Vision, given to the world in 1709, was evidently much in his mind, as well as the sublime conception of the material world in its necessary subordination to the spiritual world, of which he delivered himself in his book of Principies, in 1710. Editor's Preface To The Commonplace Book 75 This disclosure of Berkeley's thoughts about things, in the years preceding the publication of his first essays, is indeed a precious record of the initial struggles of ardent philosophical genius. It places the reader in intímate companionship with him when he was beginning to awake into intellectual and spiritual life. We hear him soliloquising. We see him trying to transíate into reasonableness our crude inherited beliefs about the material World and the natural order of the universe, self-conscious personality, and the Universal Power or Providence—all under the sway of a new determining Principie which was taking profound possession of his soul. He finds that he has only to look at the concrete things of sense in the light of this great discovery to see the artificially induced perplexities of the oíd philosophers disappear, along with their imposing abstractions, which turn out empty words. The thinking is throughout fresh and sincere; sometimes impetuous and one-sided; the outcome of a mind indisposed to take things upon trust, resolved to inquire freely, a rebel against the tyranny of language, morally burdened with the consciousness of a new world-transforming conception, which duty to mankind obliged him to reveal, although his message was sure to offend. Men like to regard things as they have been wont. This new conception of the surrounding world—the impotence of Matter, and its subordínate office in the Supreme Economy must, he foresees, disturb those accustomed to treat outward things as the only realities, and who do not care to ask what constitutes reality. Notwithstanding the ridicule and ill-will that his transformed material world was sure to meet with, amongst the many who accept empty words instead of genuine insight, he was resolved to deliver himself of his thoughts through the press, but with the politic conciliation of a persuasivo Irish pleader. The Commonplace Book steadily recognises the adverse influence of one insidious foe. Its world-transforming-Principle has been obscured by “the mist and veil of words.” The abstractions of metaphysicians, which poison human language. [ 003 ] 76 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 004 ] had to be driven out of the author's mind before he could see the light, and must be driven out of the minds of others before they could be got to see it along with him: the concrete world as realisable only in percipient mind is with difficulty introduced into the vacant place. “The chief thing I pretend to is only to remove the mist and veil of words.” He exults in the transformed mental scene that then spontaneously rises before him. “My speculations have had the same effect upon me as visiting foreign countries,—in the end I return where I was before, get my heart at case, and enjoy myself with more satisfaction. The philosophers lose their abstrae! matter; the materialists lose their abstrae! extensión; the profane lose their extended deity. Fray what do the rest of mankind lose?” This beneficent revolution seemed to be the issue of a simple recognition of the fact, that the true way of regarding the world we see and touch is to regard it as consisting of ideas or phenomena that are presented to human senses, somehow regularly ordered, and the occasions of pleasure or pain to us as we conform to or rebel against their natural order. This is the surrounding universe—at least in its relations to us, and that is all in it that we have to do with. “I know not,” he says, “what is meant by things considered in themselves, i.e. in abstraction. This is nonsense. Thing and idea are words of much about the same extent and meaning. Existence is not conceivable without perception and volition. I only declare the meaning of the Word existence, as far as I can comprehend it.” In the Commonplace Book we see the youth at Trinity College forging the weapons which he was soon to direct against the materialism and scepticism of the generation into which he was born. Here are rough drafts, crude hints of intended arguments, probing of unphilosophical mathematicians—even Newton and Descartes, memoranda of facts, more or less relevan!, on their way into the Essay on Vision and the treatise on Principies —seeds of the philosophy that was to be gradually unfolded in his life and in his books. We watch the Editor's Preface To The Commonplace Book 77 intrepid thinker, notwithstanding the inexperience of youth, more disposed to give battle to mathematicians and metaphysicians than to submit even provisionally to any human authority. It does not seem that bis scholarship or philosophical learning was extensive. Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke were bis intimates; Hobbes and Spinoza were not unknown to him; Newton and some lesser lights among the mathematicians are often confronted. He is more rarely in company with the ancients or the mediaevalists. No deep study of Aristotle appears, and there is even a disposition to disparage Plato. He seeks for his home in the “new philosophy” of experience; without anticipations of Kant, as the critic of what is presupposed in the scientific reliability of any experience, against whom his almost blind zeal against abstractions would have set him at this early stage. “Puré intellect I understand not at all,” is one of his entries. He asks himself, “What becomes of the aetemae veritatesT and his reply is, “They vanish.” When he tells himself that “we must with the mob place certainty in the senses,” the words are apt to suggest that the senses are our only source of knowledge, but I suppose his meaning is that the senses must be trustworthy, as 'the mob' assume. Yet occasionally he uses language which looks like an anticipation of David Hume, as when he calis mind “a congeries of perceptions. Take away perceptions,” he adds, “and you take away mind. Put the perceptions and you put the mind. The understanding seemeth not to differ from its perceptions and ideas.” He seems unconscious of the total scepticism which such expressions, when strictly interpreted, are found to involve. But after all, the reader must not apply rigorous rules of interpretation to random entries or provisional memoranda, meant only for [005] prívate use, by an enthusiastic student who was preparing to produce books. I have followed the manuscript of the Commonplace Book, omitting a few repetitions of thought in the same words. Here 78 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. and there Berkeley's writing is almost obliterated and difficult to decipher, apparently through accident by water in the course of his travels, when, as he mentions long after in one of his letters, several of his manuscripts were lost and others were injured. The letters of the alphabet which are interpreted on the first page, and prefixed on the margin to some of the entries, may so far help to bring the apparent chaos of entries under a few articúlate heads. I have added some annotations here and there as they happened to occur, and these might have been multiplied indefinitely had space permitted. [007] Commonplace Book I. = Introduction. M. = Matter. P. = Primary and Secondary qualities. E. = Existence. T. = Time. S. = Soul—Spirit. G. = God. Mo. = Moral Philosophy. N. = Natural Philosophy. Commonplace Book 79 Qu. If there be not two kinds of visible extensión—one perceiv'd by a confus'd view, the other by a distinct successive direction of the optique axis to each point? No general ideas^^. The contrary a cause of mistake or confusión in mathematiques, &c. This to be intimated in y® Introduction"*^. The Principie may be apply'd to the difficulties of conservation, co-operation, &c. Trifling for the [natural] philosophers to enquire the cause of n. magnetical attractions, &c. They onely search after co-existing ideas^^. Qusecunque in Scriptura militant adversus Copernicum, m. p. militant pro me. ch All things in the Scripture w side with the vulgar against the m. p. learned, side with me also. I side in all things with the mob. [oos] I know there is a mighty sect of men will oppose me, but yet m. I may expect to be supported by those whose minds are not so far overgrown w* madness. These are far the greatest part of mankind—especially Moralists, Divines, Politicians; in a word, all but Mathematicians and Natural Philosophers. I mean only the hypothetical gentlemen. Experimental philosophers have nothing whereat to be offended in me. Newton begs his Principies; I demónstrate mine^^. I must be very particular in explaining w*^ is meant by e. “General ideas,” i.e. abstract general ideas, distinguished, in Berkeley's nominalism, from concrete general ideas, or from general ñames, which are signs of any one of an indefinite number of individual objects. Cf. Principies, Introduction, sect. 16. Introduction to the Principies of Human Knowledge. “co-existing ideas,” i.e. phenomena presented in uniform order to the senses. Newton postulates a world of matter and motion, govemed mechanically by laws within itself: Berkeley finds himself charged with New Principies, demanded by reason, with which Newton's postúlate is inconsistent. 80 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. things existing—in houses, chambers, fields, caves, &c.—w“ not perceiv'd as well as w" perceived; and shew how the vulgar notion agrees with mine, when we narrowly inspect into the meaning and definition of the word existence, is no simple idea, distinct from perceiving and being perceived^*^. The Schoolmen have noble subjects, but handle them ill. The mathematicians have trifling subjects, but reason admirably about them. Certainly their method and arguing are excellent. God knows how far our knowledge of intellectual beings may be enlarg'd from the Principies. M. The reverse of the Principie I take to have been the chief source of all that scepticism and folly, all those contradictions and inextricable puzzling absurdities, that have in all ages been a reproach to human reason, as well as of that idolatry, whether of images or of gold, that blinds the greatest part of the world, and that shamefull immorality that turns us into beasts. E. ^^^Ivixit & fuit. oüaía, the ñame for substance, used by Aristotle, the Fathers, &c. If at the same time we shall make the Mathematiques much [009] more easie and much more accurate, w^ can be objected to us^^ ? We need not forcé our imagination to conceive such very small lines for infinitesimals. They may every whit as well be imagin'd big as little, since that the integer must be infinite. Evident that w has an infinite number of parts must be infinite. We cannot imagine a line or space infinitely great—therefore absurd to talk or make propositions about it. He attempts this in many parts of the Principies and Dialogues. He recognises the difficulty of reconciling his New Principies with the identity and permanence of sensible things. He contemplated thus early applications of his New Principies to Mathematics, afterwards made in his book of Principies, sect. 118-32. Commonplace Book 81 We cannot imagine a Une, spaee, &e., quovis lato majus. Since what we imagine must be datum aliquod; a thing can't be greater than itself. If yon cali infinite that w is greater than any assignable by another, then 1 say, in that sense there may be an infinite square, sphere, or any other figure, w is absurd. Qu. if extensión be resoluble into points it does not consist of? No reasoning about things whereof we have no ideas^^; therefore no reasoning about infinitesimals. No Word to be used without an idea. If uneasiness be necessary to set the Will at work, Qu. how shall we will in heaven? Bayle's, Malbranch's, &c. arguments do not seem to pro ve against Spaee, but onely against Bodies. 1 agree in nothing w the Cartesians as to y existence of Bodies & Qualities^^. Aristotle as good a man as Euclid, but he was allowed to have been mistaken. Lines not proper for demonstration. We see the house itself, the church itself; it being an idea and nothing more. The house itself, the church itself, is an idea, i.e. an object—immediate object—of thought^"*. Instead of injuring, our doctrine much benefits geometry. Existence is percipi, or percipere, [or velle, i.e. agere^^]. The What Berkeley calis ideas are either perceptible by the senses or imagined: either way they are concrete: abstract ideas are empty words. i.e. the existence of bodies and qualities independently of—in abstraction from—all percipient mind. While the spiritual theism of Descartes is acceptable, he rejects his mechanical conception of the material world. But a “house” or a “church” ineludes more than visible ideas, so that we cannot, strictly speaking, be said to see it. We see immediately only visible signs of its invisible qualities. S. M. P. M. [ 010 ] E. 82 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. horse is in the stable, the books are in the study as before. N. In physiques I have a vast view of things soluble hereby, but have not leisure. N. Hyps and such like unaccountable things confirm my doctrine. Angle not well defined. See Pardies' Geometry, by Harris, &c. This one ground of trifling. N. One idea not the cause of another—one power not the cause of another. The cause of all natural things is onely God. Henee trifling to enquire after second causes. This doctrine gives a most suitable idea of the Divinity^^. N. Absurd to study astronomy and other the like doctrines as speculative Sciences. N. The absurd account of memory by the brain, &c. makes for me. How was light created before man? Even so were Bodies created before man^’. ch E. Impossible anything besides that w thinks and is thought on should exist^*. ch That w is visible cannot be made up of invisible things. M.S. is that wherein there are not contain'd distinguishable sensible parts. Now how can that w hath not sensible parts be divided into sensible parts? If you say it may be divided into insensible parts, I say these are nothings. This is added in the margin. The total impotence of Matter, and the omnipotence of Mind or Spirit in Nature, is thus early becoming the dominant thought with Berkeley. This refers to an objection to the New Principies that is apparently reinforced by recent discoveries in geology. But if these contradict the Principies, so does the existence of a table while I am only seeing it. Existence, in short, can be realised only in the form of living percipient mind. Commonplace Book 83 Extensión abstract from sensible qualities is no sensation, I grant; but then there is no sueh idea, as any one may try^^. There is onely a eonsidering the number of points without the sort of them, & this makes more for me, sinee it must be in a eonsidering thing. [ 011 ] Mem. Before I have shewn the distinetion between visible & tangible extensión, I must not mention them as distinet. I must not mention M. T. & M. V., but in general M. S., &c.^^ Qu. whether a M. V. be of any eolour? a M. T. of any tangible quality? If visible extensión be the objeet of geometry, 'tis that whieh is survey'd by the optique axis. I may say the pain is in my finger, &e., aeeording to my p. doetrine^^ Mem. Nieely to diseuss is meant when we say a Une eonsists of a eertain number of inehes or points, &e.; a eirele of a eertain number of square inehes, points, &e. Certainly we may think of a eirele, or have its idea in our mind, without thinking of points or square inehes, &e.; whereas it should seem the idea of a eirele is not made up of the ideas of points, square inehes, &e. Qu. Is any more than this meant by the foregoing expressions, viz. that squares or points may be pereeived in or made out of a eirele, &e., or that squares, points, &e. are aetually in it, i.e. are perceivable in it? Berkeley hardly distinguishes uncontingent mathematical relations, to which the sensible ideas or phenomena in which the relations are concretely manifested must conform. M. T. = matter tangible; M. V. = matter visible; M. . = matter sensible. The distinctions n question were made prominent in the Essay on Vision. See sect. 1, 121-45. Which the common supposition regarding primary qualities seems to contradict. 84 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. A line in abstract, or Distance, is the number of points between two points. There is also distance between a slave & an emperor, between a peasant & philosopher, between a drachm & a pound, a farthing & a crown, &c.; in all which Distance signifies the number of intermediate ideas. Halley's doctrine about the proportion between infinitely great quantities vanishes. When men speak of infinite quantities, either they mean finite quantities, or else talk of [that whereof they have®^] no idea; both which are absurd. If the disputations of the Schoolmen are blam'd for intricacy, [ 012 ] triflingness, & confusión, yet it must be acknowledg'd that in the main they treated of great & important subjects. If we admire the method & acuteness of the Math[ematicians]—the length, the subtilty, the exactness of their demonstrations—we must nevertheless be forced to grant that they are for the most part about trifling subjects, and perhaps mean nothing at all. Motion on 2d thoughts seems to be a simple idea, p. Motion distinct from y® thing moved is not conceivable. N. Mem. To take notice of Newton for defining it [motion]; also of Locke's wisdom in leaving it undefin'd^^. Ut ordo partium temporis est immutabilis, sin etiam ordo partium spatii. Moveantur hse de loéis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Truly number is immensurable. That we will allow with Newton. p. Ask a Cartesian whether he is wont to imagine his globules without colour. Pellucidness is a colour. The colour of ordinary light of the sun is white. Newton in the right in assigning colours to the rays of light. A man born blind would not imagine Space as we do. We give it always some dilute, or duskish, or dark colour—in short, [That need not have been blotted out—'tis good sense, if we do but determine w'' we mean by thing and idea.] —AUTHORfFNS, on blank page of the MS. See Locke's Essay, Bk. III. ch. 4, § 8, where he criticises attempts to define motion, as involving a petitio. Commonplace Book 85 ch we imagine it as visible, or intromitted by the eye, w he would not do. Proinde vim inferunt saeris literis qui voees hasee (v. tempus, n. spatium, motus) de quantitatibus mensuratis ibi interpretantur. Newton, p. 10. I differ from Newton, in that I think the reeession ab axe motus n. is not the effeet, or Índex, or measure of motion, but of the vis impressa. It sheweth not is truly moved, but has the foree impressed on it, or rather that w hath an impressed foree. D and P are not proportional in all eireles. d disto l/4d p as d to p/4; but d and p/4 are not in the same proportion in all eireles. Henee 'tis nonsense to seek the terms of one general proportion whereby to reetify all peripheries, or of another whereby to square all eireles. N. B. If the eirele be squar'd arithmetieally, 'tis squar'd geometrieally, arithmetie or numbers being nothing but lines & proportions of lines when apply'd to geometry. [0i3] Mem. To remark Cheyne^^ & bis doetrine of infinites. Extensión, motion, time, do eaeh of them inelude the idea of sueeession, & so far forth they seem to be of mathematieal eonsideration. Number eonsisting in sueeession & distinet pereeption, w also eonsists in sueeession; for things at onee pereeiv'd are jumbled and mixt together in the mind. Time and motion cannot be eoneeiv'd without sueeession; and extensión, ch qua mathemat., eannot be eoneeiv'd but as eonsisting of parts w may be distinetly & sueeessively pereeiv'd. Extensión pereeived at onee & in confuso does not belong to math. The simple idea eall'd Power seems obseure, or rather none at all, but onely the relation 'twixt Cause and Effeet. When I ask ^ George Cheyne, the physician (known afterwards as author of the English Malady), published in 1705 a work on Fluxions, which procured him admission to the Royal Society. Fie was born in 1670. 86 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [014] whether A can move B, if A be an intelligent thing, I mean no more than whether the volition of A that B move be attended with the motion of B? If A be senseless, whether the impulse of A against B be followed by y® motion of B^^? Barrow's arguing against indivisibles, lect. i. p. 16, is a petitio principii, for the Demonstration of Archimedes supposeth the circumference to consist of more than 24 points. Moreover it may perhaps be necessary to suppose the divisibility ad infinitum, in order to demónstrate that the radius is equal to the side of the hexagon. Shew me an argument against indivisibles that does not go on some false supposition. A great number of insensibles—or thus, two invisibles, say you, put together become visible; therefore that M. V. contains or is made up of invisibles. I answer, the M. V. does not comprise, is not composed of, invisibles. All the matter amounts to this, viz. whereas I had no idea awhile agoe, I have an idea now. It remains for you to prove that I carne by the present idea because there were two invisibles added together. I say the invisibles are nothings, cannot exist, inelude a contradiction^^. I am young, I am an upstart, I am a pretender, I am vain. Very well. I shall endeavour patiently to bear up under the most lessening, vilifying appellations the pride & rage of man can devise. But one thing I know I am not guilty of. I do not pin my faith on the sleeve of any great man. I act not out of prejudice or prepossession. I do not adhere to any opinión because it is an oíd one, a reviv'd one, a fashionable one, or one that I have spent much time in the study and cultivation of. This reminds us of Hume, and inclines towards the empirical notion of Causation, as merely constaney in sequence—not even continuous metamorphosis. ^ This is Berkeley's objection to abstract, i.e. unperceived, quantities and infinitesimals—important in the sequel. Commonplace Book 87 Sense rather than reason or demonstration ought to be employed about Unes and figures, these being things sensible; for as for those you eall insensible, we have pro ved them to be nonsense, nothing^^. If in some things I differ from a philosopher I profess to admire, 'tis for that very thing on aeeount whereof I admire him, namely, the love of truth. This &e. Whenever my reader finds me talk very positively, I desire he'd not take it ill. I see no reason why eertainty should be eonfined to the mathematieians. I say there are no ineommensurables, no surds. I say the side of any square may be assign'd in numbers. Say you assign unto me the side of the square 10. I ask 10—10 feet, inehes, &e., or 10 points? If the later, I deny there is any sueh square, 'tis impossible 10 points should eompose a square. If the former, resolve y*^ 10 square inehes, feet, &e. into points, & the number of points must neeessarily be a square number whose side is easily assignable. A mean proportional eannot be found betwixt any two given Unes. It ean onely be found betwixt those the numbers of whose points multiply'd together produee a square number. Thus betwixt a Une of 2 inehes & a Une of 5 inehes a mean geometrieal eannot be found, exeept the number of points eontained in 2 inehes multiply'd by y® number of points eontained in 5 inehes make a square number. If the wit and industry of the Nihilarians were employ'd about the usefull & praetieal mathematiques, what advantage had it brought to mankind! You ask me whether the books are in the study now, when The “lines and figures” of puré mathematics, that is to say; which he rejects as meaningless, in his horror unrealisable abstractions. I. I. [015] M. E. 88 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. no one is there to see them? I answer, Yes. Yon ask me, Are we not in the wrong for imagining things to exist when they are not actually perceiv'd by the senses? I answer, No. The existence of our ideas consists in being perceiv'd, imagin'd, thought on. Whenever they are imagin'd or thought on they do exist. Whenever they are mentioned or discours'd of they are imagin'd & thought on. Therefore yon can at no time ask me whether they exist or no, but by reason of y^ very question they must necessarily exist. E. But, say yon, then a chimara does exist? I answer, it doth in one sense, i.e. it is imagin'd. But it must be well noted that existence is vulgarly restrain'd to actuall perception, and that I use the word existence in a larger sense than ordinary.^^ N. B.—According to my doctrine all things are entia rationis, i.e. solum habent esse in intellectum. E. According to my doctrine all are not entia rationis. The distinction between ens rationis and ens reale is kept up by it as well as any other doctrine.] You ask me whether there can be an infinite idea? I answer, in one sense there may. Thus the visual sphere, tho' ever so small, is infinite, i.e. has no end. But if by infinite you mean an extensión consisting of innumerable points, then I ask y*^ pardon. Points, tho' never so many, may be numbered. The multitude of points, or feet, inches, &c., hinders not their numbrableness (i.e. hinders not their being numerable) in the least. Many or most are numerable, as well as few or least. Also, if by infinite idea you mean an idea too great to be comprehended or perceiv'd all at once, you must excuse me. I think such an infinite is no less [ 016 ] than a contradiction™. Things really exist, that is to say, in degrees, e.g. in a lesser degree, when they are imagined than when they are actually perceived by our senses; but, in this wide meaning of existence, they may in both cases be said to exist. Added on blank page of the MS. In Berkeley's limitation of the term idea to what is presented objectively in sense, or represented concretely in imagination. Accordingly “an infinite idea” Commonplace Book 89 The sillyness of the current doctrine makes much for me. They m. commonly suppose a material world—figures, motions, bulks of various sizes, &c.—according to their own confession to no purpose. All our sensations may be, and sometimes actually are, without them; ñor can men so much as conceive it possible they should concur in any wise to the production of them. Ask a man, I mean a philosopher, why he supposes this vast m. structure, this compages of bodies? he shall be at a stand; he'll ch not have one word to say. W sufficiently shews the folly of the hypothesis. Or rather why he supposes all y® Matter? For bodies and their m. qualities I do allow to exist independently of our mind. Qu. How is the soul distinguish'd from its ideas? Certainly if s. there were no sensible ideas there could be no soul, no perception, remembrance, love, fear, &c.; no faculty could be exerted^^ The soul is the Will, properly speaking, and as it is distinct s. from ideas. The grand puzzling question, whether I sleep or wake, easily s. solv'd. Qu. Whether minima or meer minima may not be compar'd by their sooner or later evanescence, as well as by more or less points, so that one sensible may be greater than another, though it exceeds it not by one point? Circles on several radius's are not similar figures, they having neither all ñor any an infinite number of sides. Henee in vain to would be an idea which transcends ideation—an express contradiction. Does the human spirit depend on sensible ideas as much as they depend on spirit? Other orders of spiritual beings may be percipient of other sorts of phenomena than those presented in those few senses to which man is confined, although self-conscious activity abstracted from all sorts of presented phenomena seems impossible. But a self-conscious spirit is not necessarily dependent on our material world or our sense experience. 90 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. enquire after 2 terms of one and y® same proportion that should constantly express the reason of the d to the p in all circles. Mem. To remark Wallis's harangue, that the aforesaid proportion can neither be expressed by rational numbers ñor [017] surds. We can no more have an idea of length without breadth or visibility, than of a general figure. One idea may be like another idea, tho' they contain no common simple idea’^. Thus the simple idea red is in some sense like the simple idea bine; 'tis liker it than sweet or shrill. But then those ideas w are so said to be alike, agree both in their connexion with another simple idea, viz. extensión, & in their being receiv'd by one & the same sense. But, after all, nothing can be like an idea but an idea. No sharing betwixt God & Nature or second causes in my doctrine. M. Materialists must allow the earth to be actually mov'd by the attractive power of every stone that falls from the air, with many other the like absurditys. Enquire concerning the pendulum dock, &c.; whether those inventions of Huygens, &c. be attained to by my doctrine. The ... & ... & ... &c. of time are to be cast away and neglected, as so many noughts or nothings. Mem. To make experiments concerning minimums and their colours, whether they have any or no, & whether they can be of ch that green w seems to be compounded of yellow and blue. s. Qu. Whether it were not better not to cali the operations of the 72 [This I do not altogether approve of.]—AUTHORfFNS, on margin. Commonplace Book 91 mind ideas—confining this term to things sensible’^? Mem. diligenüy to set forth how that many of the aneient e. philosophers run into so great absurditys as even to deny the existenee of motion, and of those other things they pereeiv'd aetually by their senses. This sprung from their not knowing Existenee was, and wherein it eonsisted. This the souree of all their folly. 'Tis on the diseovering of the nature and meaning and import of Existenee that I ehiefly insist. This puts a wide differenee betwixt the seepties &e. & me. This I think wholly [ 0 i 8 ] new. I am sure this is new to me^^. We have learn'd from Mr. Eoeke that there may be, and that there are, several glib, eoherent, methodieal diseourses, whieh nevertheless amount to just nothing. This by him intended with relation to the Seholemen. We may apply it to the Mathematieians. Qu. How ean all words be said to stand for ideas? The word bine stands for a eolour without any extensión, or abstraet from extensión. But we have not an idea of eolour without extensión. We eannot imagine eolour without extensión. Eoeke seems wrongly to assign a double use of words: one for eommunieating & the other for reeording our thoughts. 'Tis absurd to use words for reeording our thoughts to ourselves, or in our prívate meditations^^. No one abstraet simple idea like another. Two simple ideas may be eonneeted with one & the same 3^^ simple idea, or be intromitted by one & the same sense. But eonsider'd in He afterwards guarded the differenee, by contrasting notion and idea, confining the latter to phenomena presented objectively to our senses, or represented in sensuous imagination, and applying the former to intellectual apprehension of “operations of the mind,” and of “relations” among ideas. See Principies, sect. 89. Is thought, then, independent of language? Can we realise thought worthy of the ñame without use of words? This is Berkeley's excessive juvenile reaction against verbal abstractions. 92 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. themselves they can have nothing common, and consequently no likeness. Qu. How can there be any abstract ideas of colours? It seems not so easily as of tastes or sounds. But then all ideas whatsoever are particular. I can by no means conceive an abstract general idea. 'Tis one thing to abstract one concrete idea from another of a different kind, & another thing to abstract an idea from all particulars of the same kind’^. N. Mem. Much to recommend and approve of experimental philosophy. s. What means Cause as distinguish'd from Occasion? Nothing but a being w wills, when the effect follows the volition. Those things that happen from without we are not the cause of. Therefore there is some other Cause of them, i.e. there is a Being [019] that wills these perceptions in us^’. s. [’^It should be said, nothing but a Will—a Being which wills being unintelligible.] One square cannot be double of another. Henee the Pythagoric theorem is false. Some writers of catoptrics absurd enough to place the apparent place of the object in the Barrovian case behind the eye. Blew and yellow chequers still diminishing termínate in green. This may help to prove the composition of green. There is in green 2 foundations of 2 relations of likeness to blew & yellow. Therefore green is compounded. A mixt cause will produce a mixt effect. Therefore colours are all compounded that we see. Mem. To consider Newton's two sorts of green. Every general notion is ideally realisable in one or other of its possible concrete or individual applications. This is the germ of Berkeley's notion of the objectivity of the material world to individual percipients and so of the rise of individual self-consciousness. Added by Berkeley on blank page of the MS. Commonplace Book 93 N. B. My abstract & general doetrines ought not to be eondemn'd by the Royall Soeiety. 'Tis their meeting did ultimately intend. V. Sprat's History S. Mem. To premise a definiüon of idea^°. The 2 great prineiples of Morality—the being of a God & the freedom of man. Those to be handled in the beginning of the Seeond Book*^ Subvertitur geometría ut non praetiea sed speeulativa. Archimedes's proposition about squaring the eirele has nothing to do with eireumferenees eontaining less than 96 points; & if the eireumferenee eontain 96 points it may be apply'd, but nothing will follow against indivisibles. V. Barrow. Those eurve Unes that yon ean reetify geometrieally. Compare them with their equal right Unes & by a mieroseope yon shall diseover an inequality. Henee my squaring of the eirele as good and exaet as the best. Qu. whether the substanee of body or anything else be any more than the eolleetion of eonerete ideas ineluded in that thing? Thus the substanee of any partieular body is extensión, solidity, figure^^. Of general abstrae! body we ean have no idea. Mem. Most earefully to ineuleate and set forth that the Cf. p. 420, note 2. Bishop Sprat's History ofthe Royal Soeiety appeared in 1667. Much need; for what he means by idea has not been attended to by his critics. What “Seeond Book” is this? Does he refer to the “Seeond Part” of the Principies, whieh never appeared? God is the eulmination of his philosophy, in Siris. This is Berkeley's material substanee. Individual material substanees are for him, steady aggregates of sense-given phenomena, having the effieient and final eause of their aggregation in eternally aetive Mind—aetive mind, human and Divine, being essential to their realisation for man. I. Mo. M. [ 020 ] I. 94 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. endeavouring to express abstract philosophic thoughts by words unavoidably runs a man into difficulties. This to be done in the Introduction^^. Mem. To endeavour most accurately to understand what is meant by this axiom: Quse sibi mutuo congruunt sequalia sunt. Qu. what the geometers mean by equality of lines, & whether, according to their definition of equality, a curve line can possibly be equal to a right line? If w* me you cali those lines equal contain an equal number of points, then there will be no difficulty. That curve is equal to a right line w contains the same points as the right one doth. M. I take not away substances. I ought not to be accused of discarding substance out of the reasonable world*^. I onely reject the philosophic sense (w in effect is no sense) of the Word substance. Ask a man not tainted with their j argón w^ he means by corporeal substance, or the substance of body. He shall answer, bulk, solidity, and such like sensible qualitys. These I retain. The philosophic nec quid, nec quantum, nec quale, whereof I have no idea, I discard; if a man may be said to discard that which never had any being, was never so much as imagin'd or conceiv'd. M. In short, be not angry. You lose nothing, whether real or chimerical. w'^ever you can in any wise conceive or imagine, be it never so wild, so extravagant, & absurd, much good may it do [ 021 ] you. You may enjoy it for me. I'll never deprive you of it. Cf. Introduction to the Principies, especially sect. 18-25. Stillingfleet charges Locke with “discarding substance out of the reasonable part of the world.” Commonplace Book 95 N. B. I am more for reality than any other philosophers*^. They make a thousand doubts, & know not certainly but we may be deeeiv'd. I assert the direet eontrary. A line in the sense of mathematieians is not meer distanee. This evident in that there are eurve Unes. Curves perfeetly ineomprehensible, inexplieable, absurd, exeept we allow points. If men look for a thing where it's not to be found, be they never i. so sagaeious, it is lost labour. If a simple elumsy man knows where the game lies, he though a fool shall eateh it sooner than the most fleet & dexterous that seek it elsewhere. Men ehoose to hunt for truth and knowledge anywhere rather than in their own understanding, where 'tis to be found. Ah knowledge onely about ideas. Loeke, B. 4. e. 1. m. It seems improper, & hable to diffieulties, to make the word s. person stand for an idea, or to make ourselves ideas, or thinking things ideas. Abstraet ideas eause of mueh trifling and mistake. i. Mathematieians seem not to speak elearly and eoherently of equality. They nowhere define w^ they mean by that word when apply'd to lines. Loeke says the modes of simple ideas, besides extensión and number, are eounted by degrees. I deny there are any modes or degrees of simple ideas. What he terms sueh are eomplex ideas, as I have proved. The philosophers supposed the real things to exist hehind our ideas, in concealment: Berkeley was now beginning to think that the objective ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, the existence of which needs no proof, were themselves the significant and interpretable realities of physical Science. 96 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 022 ] do the mathematicians mean by considering curves as polygons? Either they are polygons or they are not. If they are, why do they give them the ñame of curves? Why do not they constantly cali them polygons, & treat them as such? If they are not polygons, I think it absurd to use polygons in their stead. is this but to pervert language? to adapt an idea to a ñame that belongs not to it but to a different idea? The mathematicians should look to their axiom, Quse congruunt sunt sequalia. I know not what they mean by bidding me put one triangle on another. The under triangle is no triangle—nothing at all, it not being perceiv'd. I ask, must sight be judge of this congruentia or not? If it must, then all lines seen under the same angle are equal, w they will not acknowledge. Must the touch be judge? But we cannot touch or feel lines and surfaces, such as triangles, &c., according to the mathematicians themselves. Much less can we touch a line or triangle that's cover'd by another line or triangle. Do you mean by saying one triangle is equall to another, that they both take up equal spaces? But then the question recurs, what mean you by equal spaces? If you mean spatia congruentia, answer the above difficulty truly. I can mean (for my part) nothing else by equal triangles than triangles containing equal numbers of points. I can mean nothing by equal lines but lines w ’tis indifferent ch whether of them I take, lines in w I observe by my senses no difference, & w therefore have the same ñame. Must the imagination be judge in the aforementioned cases? but then imagination cannot go beyond the touch and sight. Say you, puré intellect must be judge. I reply that lines and triangles are not operations of the mind. If I speak positively and with the air of a mathematician in things of which I am certain, 'tis to avoid disputes, to make men careful to think before they answer, to discuss my arguments Commonplace Book 97 before they go to refute them. I would by no means injure truth and eertainty by an affeeted modesty & submission to better judgments. I lay before you are undoubted theorems; not plausible eonjeetures of my own, ñor learned opinions of other men. I pretend not to prove them by figures, analogy, or authority. Let them stand or fall by their own evidenee. When you speak of the eorpuseularian essenees of bodys, to n. refleet on seet. 11. & 12. b. 4. e. 3. Loeke. Motion supposes not solidity. A meer eolour'd extensión may give us the idea of motion. [ 023 ] Any subjeet ean have of eaeh sort of primary qualities but one p. partieular at onee. Lib. 4. e. 3. s. 15. Loeke. Well, say you, aeeording to this new doetrine, all is but meer m. idea—there is nothing w is not an ens rationis. I answer, things are as real, and exist in rerum natura, as mueh as ever. The differenee between entia realia & entia rationis may be made as properly now as ever. Do but think before you speak. Endeavour rightly to eomprehend my meaning, and you'll agree with me in this. Fruitless the distinetion ’twixt real and nominal essenees. n. We are not aequainted with the meaning of our words. Real, extensión, existenee, power, matter. Unes, infinite, point, and many more are frequently in our mouths, when little, elear, and determin'd answers them in our understandings. This must be well ineuleated. Vain is the distinetion 'twixt intelleetual and material world^^. m. V. Loeke, lib. 4. e. 3. s. 27, where he says that is far more beautiful than this. Foolish in men to despise the senses. If it were not for s. them the mind eould have no knowledge, no thought at all. All Mo. If the material world can be real only in and through a percipient intelligence, as the realising factor. 98 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. ... of introversión, meditation, contemplation, and spiritual acts, as if these could be exerted before we had ideas from without by the senses, are manifestly absurd. This may be of great use in that it makes the happyness of the Ufe to come more conceivable and agreeable to our present nature. The schoolemen & refiners in philosophy gave the greatest part of mankind no more tempting idea of heaven or the joys of the blest. The vast, wide-spread, universal cause of our mistakes is, that we do not consider our own notions. I mean consider them in themselves—fix, settle, and determine them,—we regarding them with relation to each other only. In short, we are much out in study[ing] the relations of things before we study them absolutely and in themselves. Thus we study to find out the relations of figures to one another, the relations also of number, without endeavouring rightly to understand the nature of extensión and number in themselves. This we think is of no concern, of no difficulty; but if I mistake not 'tis of the last importance, I allow not of the distinction there is made 'twixt profit and pleasure. I'd never blame a man for acting upon interest. He's a fool that acts on any other principies. The not considering these things has been of ill consequence in morality. My positivo assertions are no less modest than those that are introduced with “It seems to me,” “I suppose,” &c.; since I declare, once for all, that all I write or think is entirely about things as they appear to me. It concerns no man else any further than his thoughts agree with mine. This in the Preface. Two things are apt to confound men in their reasonings one with another. Ist. Words signifying the operations of the mind are taken from sensible ideas. 2ndly. Words as used by the vulgar are taken in some latitude, their signification is confused. Henee if a man use words in a determined, settled signification, he is at a hazard either of not being understood, or of speaking improperly. All this remedyed by studying the understanding. Commonplace Book 99 Unity no simple idea. I have no idea meerly answering the Word one. All number eonsists in relations^^. Entia realia et entia rationis, a foolish distinetion of the Sehoolemen. We have an intuitive knowledge of the existenee of other things m. p. besides ourselves & order, príeeedaneous*^. To the knowledge of our own existenee—in that we must have ideas or else we eannot think. We move our legs ourselves. 'Tis we that will their movement. s. Herein I differ from Malbraneh^^. Mem. Nieely to diseuss Lib. 4. e. 4. Loeke^*^. Mo. Mem. Again and again to mention & illustrate the doetrine of m. the reality of things, rerum natura, &e. I say is demonstration—^perfeet demonstration. Wherever m. men have fix'd & determin'd ideas annexed to their words they [025] ean hardly be mistaken. Stiek but to my definition of likeness, and 'tis a demonstration y^ eolours are not simple ideas, all reds being like, &e. So also in other things. This to be heartily insisted on. The abstraet idea of Being or Existenee is never thought of e. by the vulgar. They never use those words standing for abstraet ideas. I must not say the words thing, substanee, &e. have been the m. eause of mistakes, but the not refleeting on their meaning. I will be still for retaining the words. I only desire that men would think before they speak, and settle the meaning of their words. I approve not of that whieh Eoeke says, viz. truth eonsists in Mo. Cf. Principies, sect. 13, 119-122, which deny the possibility of an idea or mental picture corresponding to abstraet number. ** “Praecedaneous,” i.e. precedent. ** Who refunds human as well as natural causation into Divine ageney. In which Locke treats “Of the Reality of Knowledge,” including questions apt to lead Berkeley to inquire, Whether we could in reason suppose reality in the absence of all realising mind. 100 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. the joining and separating of signs. I. Locke cannot explain general truth or knowledge without treating of words and propositions. This makes for me against abstrae! general ideas. Vide Locke, lib. 4. ch. 6. I. Men have been very industrious in travelling forward. They have gone a great way. But none have gone backward beyond the Principies. On that side there lies much térra incógnita to be travel'd over and discovered by me. A vast field for invention. Twelve inches not the same idea with a foot. Because a man may perfectly conceive a foot who never thought of an inch. A foot is equal to or the same with twelve inches in this respect, viz. they contain both the same number of points. [Forasmuch as] to be used. Mem. To mention somewhat w may encourage the study of politiques, and testify of me y*^ I am well dispos'd toward them. If men did not use words for ideas they would never have thought of abstrae! ideas. Certainly genera and species are not abstrae! general ideas. Abstrae! ideas inelude a contradiction in their nature. Vide Locke^^ lib. 4. c. 7. s. 9. A various or mixt cause must necessarily produce a various or mixt effect. This demonstrable from the definition of a cause; which way of demonstrating must be frequently made use of in my Treatise, & to that end definitions often prsemis'd. Henee 'tis evident that, according to Newton's doctrine, colours cannot be simple ideas. M. I am the farthest from scepticism of any man. I know with an intuitivo knowledge the existence of other things as well as Locke's “abstract idea” is misconceived and caricatured by Berkeley in bis impetuosity. [ 026 ] Commonplace Book 101 my own soul. This is Locke ñor scarce any other thinking philosopher will pretend to^^. Doctrine of abstraction of very evil consequence in all the i. Sciences. Mem. Barrow's remark. Entirely owing to language. Locke greatly out in reckoning the recording our ideas by words amongst the uses and not the abuses of language. Of great use & y® last importance to contémplate a man put i. into the world alone, with admirable abilitys, and see how after long experience he would know w*out words. Such a one would never think of genera and species or abstrae! general ideas. Wonderful in Locke that he could, w" advanced in years, i. see at all thro' a mist; it had been so long a gathering, & was consequently thick. This more to be admir'd than y^ he did not see farther. Identity of ideas may be taken in a double sense, either as including or excluding identity of circumstances, such as time, place, &c. I am glad the people I converse with are not all richer, wiser, Mo. &c. than I. This is agreeable to reason; is no sin. 'Tis certain that if the happyness of my acquaintance encreases, & mine not proportionably, mine must decrease. The not understanding this & the doctrine about relative good, discuss'd with Lrench, Madden^^, &c., to be noticed as 2 causes of mistake in judging of moral matters. Mem. To observe (w“ you talk of the división of ideas into simple and complex) that there may be another cause of the [ 027 ] undefinableness of certain ideas besides that which Locke gives; viz. the want of ñames. This and other passages refer to the scepticism, that is founded on the impossibility of our comparing our ideas of things with unperceived real things; so that we can never escape from the circle of subjectivity. Berkeley intended to refute this scepticism. Probably Samuel Madden, who afterwards edited the Querist. 102 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. M. Mem. To begin the First Book^^ not with mention of sensation and reflection, but instead of sensation to use perception or thought in general. I. I defy any man to imagine or conceive perception without an idea, or an idea without perception. E. Locke's very supposition that matter & motion should exist before thought is absurd—ineludes a manifest contradiction. Locke's harangue about coherent, methodical discourses amounting to nothing, apply'd to the mathematicians. They talk of determining all the points of a curve by an equation. mean they by this? would they signify by the Word points? Do they stick to the definition of Euclid? s. We think we know not the Soul, because we have no imaginable or sensible idea annex'd to that sound. This the effect of prejudice. s. Certainly we do not know it. This will be plain if we examine what we mean by the word knowledge. Neither doth this argüe any defect in our knowledge, no more than our not knowing a contradiction. The very existence of ideas constitutes the Soul^^. s. Consciousness^^, perception, existence of ideas, seem to be all one. r t Consult, ransack y understanding. W find you there besides several perceptions or thoughts? mean you by the word mind? You must mean something that you perceive, or y^ you do not perceive. A thing not perceived is a contradiction. To mean (also) a thing you do not perceive is a contradiction. We are in all this matter strangely abused by words. This “First Book” seems to be “Part I” of the projected Principies —the only Part ever published. Here he inclines to “perception or thought in general,” in the language of Descartes; but in the end he approximates to Locke's “sensation and reflection.” See Principies, sect. 1, and notes. Does he mean, like Flume afterwards, that ideas or phenomena constitute the ego, so that I am only the transitory conscious State of each moment? “Consciousness”—a term rarely used by Berkeley or his contemporaries. Commonplace Book 103 Mind is a congeries of perceptions^^. Take away perceptions [ 028 ] and yon take away the mind. Put the perceptions and yon put the mind. Say yon, the mind is not the perception, not that thing which perceives. I answer, yon are abused by the words “that a thing.” These are vague and empty words with us. The having ideas is not the same thing with perception. A man s. may have ideas when he only imagines. But then this imagination presupposeth perception. oh t That w extreamly strengthens us in prejudice is y we think m. we see an empty space, which I shall demónstrate to be false in the Third Book^^. There may be demonstrations used even in Divinity. I mean in revealed Theology, as contradistinguish'd from natural; for tho' the principies may be founded in faith, yet this hinders not but that legitimate demonstrations might be built thereon; provided still that we define the words we use, and never go beyond our ideas. Henee 'twere no very hard matter for those who hold episcopacy or monarchy to be establishedjnre Divino to demónstrate their doctrines if they are true. But to pretend to demónstrate or reason anything about the Trinity is absurd. Here an implicit faith becomes us. Qu. if there be any real difference betwixt certain ideas s. of reñection & others of sensation, e.g. betwixt perception and white, black, sweet, &c.? Wherein, 1 pray you, does the perception of white differ from white men.... This too, if strictly interpreted, looks like an anticipation of Hume's reduction of the ego into successive “impressions”—“nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed one another with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” See Hume's Treatise, Part IV. sect. 6 . What “Third Book” is here projected? Was a “Third Part” of the Principies then in embryo? 104 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. I shall demónstrate all my doctrines. The nature of demonstration to be set forth and insisted on in the Introduction^^. In that I must needs differ from Locke, forasmuch as he makes all demonstration to be about abstract ideas, w 1 say we have not ñor can have. s. The understanding seemeth not to differ from its perceptions or ideas. Qu. What must one think of the will and passions? E. A good proof that Existence is nothing without or distinct from perception, may be drawn from considering a man put into the World without company^®*’. E. There was a smell, i.e. there was a smell perceiv'd. Thus we see that common speech confirms my doctrine. T. No broken intervals of death or annihilation. Those intervals are nothing; each person's time being measured to him by bis own ideas. I. We are frequently puzzl'd and at a loss in obtaining olear and determin'd meanings of words commonly in use, & that because we imagine words stand for abstract general ideas which are altogether inconceivable. I. “A stone is a stone.” This a nonsensical proposition, and such as the solitary man would never think on. Ñor do 1 believe he would ever think on this: “The whole is equal to its parts,” &c. E. Let it not be said that 1 take away existence. 1 only declare the meaning of the word, so far as 1 can comprehend it. I. If you take away abstraction, how do men differ from beasts? 1 answer, by shape, by language. Rather by degrees of more and less. W^ means Locke by inferences in words, consequences of words, as something different from consequences of ideas? 1 This is scarcely done in the “Introduction” to the Principies. Berkeley, as we find in the Commonplace Book, is fond of conjecturing how a man all alone in the world, freed from the abstractions of language, would apprehend the realities of existence, which he must then face directly, without the use or abuse of verbal symbols. Commonplace Book 105 conceive no such thing. N. B. Much complaint about the imperfection of language^®^ i. But perhaps some man may say, an inert thoughtless Substance m. may exist, though not extended, moved, &c., but with other properties whereof we have no idea. But even this I shall demónstrate to be impossible, w“ I come to treat more particularly of Existence. Will not rightly distinguish'd from Desire by Locke—it seeming to superadd nothing to the idea of an action, but the uneasiness for its absence or non-existence. Mem. To enquire diligently into that strange mistery, viz. s. How it is that I can cast about, think of this or that man, place, action, w“ nothing appears to introduce them into my thoughts, w" they have no perceivable connexion with the ideas suggested by my senses at the present? 'Tis not to be imagin'd a marvellous emptiness & scarcity i. of ideas that man shall descry who will lay aside all use of words in his meditations. Incongruous in Locke to fancy we want a sense proper to see m. substances with. Locke owns that abstract ideas were made in order to naming. i. The common errour of the opticians, that we judge of distance m. by angles^*’^, strengthens men in their prejudice that they see things without and distant from their mind. I am persuaded, would men but examine w^ they mean by the e. Word existence, they wou'd agree with me. c. 20. s. 8. b. 4. of Locke makes for me against the mathematicians. The supposition that things are distinct from ideas takes away m. **** This “N. B.” is expanded in the Introduction to the Principies. Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 4. 106 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. all real truth, & consequently brings in a universal scepticism; since all our knowledge and contemplation is confin'd barely to our own ideas I. Qu. whether the solitary man would not find it necessary to make use of words to record bis ideas, if not in memory or meditation, yet at least in writing—without which he could scarce retain his knowledge. We read in history there was a time when fears and jealousies, privileges of parliament, malignant party, and such like expressions of too unlimited and doubtful a meaning, were words of much sway. Also the words Church, Whig, Tory, &c., contribute very much to faction and dispute, s. The distinguishing betwixt an idea and perception of the idea has been one great cause of imagining material substances^®^. s. That God and blessed spirits have Will is a manifest argument against Locke's proofs that the Will cannot be conceiv'd, put into action, without a previous uneasiness. s. The act of the Will, or volition, is not uneasiness, for that uneasiness may be without volition. s. Volition is distinct from the object or idea for the same reason. s. Also from uneasiness and idea together. The understanding not distinct from particular perceptions or ideas. The Will not distinct from particular volitions. s. It is not so very evident that an idea, or at least uneasiness, may be without all volition or act. The understanding taken for a faculty is not really distinct from y® will. This allow'd hereafter. What is immediately realised in our percipient experience must be presumed or trusted in as real, if we have any hold of reality, or the moral right to postúlate that our universe is fundamentally trustworthy. But he distinguishes, in the Principies and elsewhere, between an idea of sense and a percipient ego. Commonplace Book 107 To ask whether a man can will either side is an absurd question, s. for the Word can presupposes volition. Anima mundi, substantial form, omniscient radical heat, n. plástic vertue, Hylaschic principie—all these vanish^*’^. Newton proves that gravity is proportional to gravity. I think m. that's all^*’^. Qu. whether it be the vis inertise that makes it difficult to move a stone, or the vis attractivEe, or both, or neither? Mem. To express the doctrines as fully and copiously and clearly as may be. Also to be full and particular in answering objections^*’^. To say y® Will is a power; [therefore] volition is an act. This s. is Ídem per ídem. makes men despise extensión, motion, &c., & sepárate them from the essence of the soul, is that they imagine them to be distinct from thought, and to exist in unthinking substance. [032] An extended may have passive modes of thinking good actions. There might be idea, there might be uneasiness, there might be the greatest uneasiness w*out any volition, therefore the.... Matter once allow'd, I defy any man to prove that God is not m. Matter^°^ They reappear in Siris. **** In one of Berkeley's letters to Johnson, a quarter of a century after the Commonplace Book, when he was in America, he observes that “the mechanical philosophers pretend to demónstrate that matter is proportional to gravity. But their argument concludes nothing, and is a mere circle”—as he proceeds to show. ***’ In the Principies, sect. 1-33, he seeks to fulfil the expository part of this intention; in sect. 33-84, also in the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, he is “particular in answering objections.” **** If Matter is arbitrarily credited with omnipotence. 108 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. s. Man is free. There is no difficulty in this proposition, if we but settle the signification of the word/ree—if we had an idea annext to the word free, and would but contémplate that idea, s. We are imposed on by the words will, determine, agent, free, can, &c. s. Uneasiness precedes not every volition. This evident by experience. s. Trace an infant in the womb. Mark the train & succession of its ideas. Observe how volition comes into the mind. This may perhaps acquaint you with its nature. s. Complacency seems rather to determine, or precede, or coincide w* & constitute the essence of volition, than uneasiness. s. You tell me, according to my doctrine a man is not free. I answer, tell me you mean by the word free, and I shall resolve N. Qu. W^ do men mean when they talk of one body's touching another? I say you never saw one body touch, or (rather) I say, I never saw one body that I could say touch'd this or that other; for that if my optiques were improv'd, I should see intervalls and ch other bodies behind those wh now seem to touch. Mem. Upon all occasions to use the utmost modesty—to confute the mathematicians w* the utmost civility & respect, not to style them Nihilarians, &c. N. B. To rein in y® satyrical nature. Blame me not if I use my words sometimes in some latitude. [033] 'Tis w^ cannot be helpt. 'Tis the fault of language that you cannot always apprehend the olear and determínate meaning of my words. Say you, there might be a thinking Substance—something ch unknown—w perceives, and supports, and ties together the On freedom as implied in a moral and responsible agent, cf. Siris, sect. 257 and note. Commonplace Book 109 ideas^^*’. Say I, make it appear there is any need of it and yon shall have it for me. I care not to take away anything I can see the least reason to think should exist. I affirm 'tis manifestly absurd—no excuse in the world can be given why a man should use a word without an idea^^^ Certainly we shall find that ever word we make use of in matter of puré reasoning has, or ought to have, a compleat idea, annext to it, i.e. its meaning, or the sense we take it in, must be compleatly known. 'Tis demonstrable a man can never be brought to imagine anything should exist whereof he has no idea. Whoever says he does, banters himself with words. We imagine a great difference & distance in respect of G. knowledge, power, &c., betwixt a man & a worm. The like difference betwixt man and God may be imagin'd; or infinitely greater^^^ difference. We find in our own minds a great number of different ideas. G. We may imagine in God a greater number, i.e. that ours in number, or the number of ours, is inconsiderable in respect thereof. The words difference and number, oíd and known, we apply to that w^^^ is unknown. But I am embrangled^^^ in words—'tis scarce possible it should be otherwise. The chief thing I do or pretend to do is onely to remove the mist or veil of words^^^. This has occasion'd ignorance & confusión. This has ruined the schoolmen and mathematicians, lawyers and divines. Is not this one way of expressing the Universal Providence and constant uniting agency of God in the material world? Here idea seems to be used in its wider signification, including notion. “infinitely greater”—Does infinity admit of imaginable degrees? ’embrangled'—perplexed—involved in disputes. * See Principies, Introduction, sect. 24. lio The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. s. The grand cause of perplexity & darkness in treating of the Will, is that we imagine it to be an object of thought: (to speak with the vulgar), we think we may perceive, contémplate, [034] and view it like any of our ideas; whereas in truth 'tis no idea, ñor is there any idea of it. 'Tis toto ccelo different from the understanding, i.e. from all our ideas. If you say the Will, or rather volition, is something, 1 answer, there is an homonymy^^^ in the Word thing, w" apply'd to ideas and volition and understanding and will. All ideas are passive^^^. s. Thing & idea are much what words of the same extent and meaning. Why, therefore, do 1 not use the word thing? Ans. Because thing is of greater latitude than idea. Thing comprehends also volitions or actions. Now these are no ideas^'^. s. There can be perception w*out volition. Qu. whether there can be volition without perception? E. Existence not conceivable without perception or volition—not distinguish'd therefrom. T. N. B. Several distinct ideas can be perceived by sight and touch at once. Not so by the other senses. 'Tis this diversity of sensations in other senses chiefly, but sometimes in touch and sight (as also diversity of volitions, whereof there cannot be more than one at once, or rather, it seems there cannot, for of that 1 doubt), gives us the idea of time—or is time itself. W^ would the solitary man think of number? s. There are innate ideas, i.e. ideas created with us^'^. “homonymy,” i.e. equivocation. Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense, ñor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses “thing” in the wide meaning which comprehends persons. Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense, ñor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses “thing” in the wide meaning which comprehends persons. *** Is this consistent with other entries? Commonplace Book 111 Locke seems to be mistaken he says thought is not essential s. to the mind'^^. Certainly the mind always and eonstantly thinks: and we know s. this too. In sleep and tranees the mind exists not —there is no time, no sueeession of ideas To say the mind exists without thinking is a eontradietion, s. nonsense, nothing. Folly to inquire determines the Will. Uneasiness, &e. are s. ideas, therefore unaetive, therefore ean do nothing, therefore eannot determine the Will^^^. [035] Again, w* mean yon by determine? s. For want of rightly understanding time, motion, existenee, n. &e., men are fore'd into sueh absurd eontradietions as this, viz. ^ light moves 16 diameters of earth in a seeond of time. ’Twas the opinión that ideas eould exist unpereeiv'd, or before s. perception, that made men think pereeption^^^ was somewhat different from the idea pereeived, i.e. y^ it was an idea of refleetion; whereas the thing pereeiv'd was an idea of sensation. 1 say, 'twas this made 'em think the understanding took it in, reeeiv'd it from without; w eould never be did not they think it existed without^^^. Properly speaking, idea is the pieture of the imagination's m. making. This is y® likeness of, and refer'd to the real idea, or (if you will) thing Essay, Bk. II. ch. i. sect. 9-19. This is one way of meeting the difficulty of supposed interruptions of conscious or percipient activity. This seems to imply that voluntary action is mysteriously self-originated. “perception.” He does not inelude the percipient. “without,” i.e. unrealised by any percipient. This would make idea the term only for what is imagined, as distinguished from what is pereeived in sense. 112 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. s. To ask, have we an idea of Will or volition, is nonsense. An idea can resemble nothing but an idea. s. If yon ask thing it is that wills, 1 answer, if yon mean idea by the word thing, or anything like any idea, then 1 say, 'tis no thing at all that wills^^^. This how extravagant soever it may seem, yet is a certain truth. We are cheated by these general terms, thing, is, &c. s. Again, if by is yon mean is perceived, or does perceive, 1 say nothing w is perceived or does perceive wills. ch s. The referring ideas to things w are not ideas, the using the term “idea of^^^,” is one great cause of mistake, as in other matters, so also in this. s. Some words there are w do not stand for ideas, viz. partióles, will, &c. Partióles stand for volitions and their concomitant ideas. s. There seem to be but two colours w are simple ideas, viz. those exhibited by the most and least refrangible rays; [the others], being the intermedíate ones, may be formed by [036] composition. s. 1 have no idea of a volition or act of the mind, neither has any other intelligence; for that were a contradiction. N. B. Simple ideas, viz. colours, are not devoid of all sort of composition, tho' it must be granted they are not made up of distinguishable ideas. Yet there is another sort of composition. Men are wont to cali those things compounded in which we do not actually discover the component ingredients. Bodies are said to be compounded of chymical principies, which, nevertheless, ch come not into view till after the dissolution of the bodies—w were not, could not, be discerned in the bodies whilst remaining entire. I. All our knowledge is about particular ideas, according to In a strict use of words, only persons exercise will—not things. As we must do in imagination, which (unlike sense) is representativo; for Commonplace Book 113 Locke. All our sensations are particular ideas, as is evident. use then do we make of abstract general ideas, since we neither know ñor perceive them? 'Tis allow'd that partióles stand not for ideas, and yet they are s. not said to be empty useless sounds. The truth really is, they stand for operations of the mind, i.e. volitions. Locke says all our knowledge is about particulars. If so, pray Mo. is the following ratiocination but a jumble of words? “Omnis homo est animal; omne animal vivit: ergo omnis homo vivit.” It amounts (if you annex particular ideas to the words “animal” and “vivit”) to no more than this: “Omnis homo est homo; omnis homo est homo: ergo, omnis homo est homo.” A mere sport and trifling with sounds. We have no ideas of vertues & vices, no ideas of moral Mo. actions^^^. Wherefore it may be question'd whether we are capable of arriving at demonstration about them^^*, the morality consisting in the volition chiefly. Strange it is that men should be at a loss to find their idea of e. Existence; since that (if such there be distinct from perception) it is brought into the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection^^^, methinks it should be most familiar to us, and we best acquainted with it. [037] This 1 am sure, 1 have no idea of Existence^^*^, or annext to the e. Word Existence. And if others have that's nothing to me; they can the mental images represent original data of sense-perception. ™ Does he not allow that we have meaning, if not ideas, when we use the terms virtue and vice and moral action? As Locke says we are. “Existence and unity are ideas that are suggested to the understanding by every object without and every idea within. When ideas are in our minds, we consider that they exist.” Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 7. sect. 7. i.e. of Existence in the abstract—unperceived and unperceiving—realised neither in percipient life ñor in moral action. 114 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. s. s. S. E. G. N. Mo. Mo. I. I. [038] I. never make me sensible of it; simple ideas being incommunicable by language. Say yon, the unknown substtatum of volitions & ideas is something whereof 1 have no idea. 1 ask, Is there any other being which has or can have an idea of it? If there be, then it must be itself an idea; which yon will think absurd. There is somewhat active in most perceptions, i.e. such as ensue upon our volitions, such as we can prevent and stop: e.g. 1 turn my eyes toward the sun: 1 open them. All this is active. Things are twofold—active or inactive. The existence of active things is to act; of inactive to be perceiv'd. Distinct from or without perception there is no volition; therefore neither is there existence without perception. ch God may comprehend all ideas, even the ideas w are painfull & unpleasant, without being in any degree pained thereby'^^ Thus we ourselves can imagine the pain of a burn, &c. without any misery or uneasiness at all. Truth, three sorts thereof—natural, mathematical, & moral. Agreement of relation onely where numbers do obtain: of co- existence, in nature: of signification, by including, in morality. Gyant who shakes the mountain that's on him must be acknowledged. Or rather thus: 1 am no more to be reckon'd stronger than Locke than a pigmy should be reckon'd stronger than a gyant, because he could throw off the molehill w lay upon him, and the gyant could onely shake or shove the mountain that oppressed him. This in the Preface. Promise to extend our knowledge & olear it of those shamefull contradictions which embarrass it. Something like this to begin the Introduction in a modest way^^^. Whoever shall pretend to censure any part, 1 desire he would This suggests that God knows sensible things without being sentient of any. Cf. Principies, Introd., sect. 1-5. Commonplace Book 115 read out the whole, else he may perhaps not understand me. In the Prefaee or Introduetion^^^. Doetrine of identity best explain'd by taking the Will for volitions, the Understanding for ideas. The difficulty of consciousness of are never aeted surely solv'd thereby. 1 must aeknowledge myself beholding to the philosophers who have gone before me. They have given good rules, though eertainly they do not always observe them. Similitude of adventurers, who, tho' they attained not the desired port, they by their wreeks have made known the roeks and sands, whereby the passage of aftercomers is made more seeure & easy. Preface or Introduction. The opinión that men had ideas of moral actions^^^ has render'd the demonstrating ethiques very difficult to them. An idea being itself unactive cannot be the resemblance or image of an active thing. Excuse to be made in the Introduction for using the word idea, viz. because it has obtain'd. But a caution must be added. Scripture and possibility are the onely proofs^^^ with Malbranch. Add to these what he calis a great propensión to think so: this perhaps may be questioned. Perhaps men, if they think before they speak, will not be found so thoroughly persuaded of the existence of Matter. On second thoughts 1 am on t'other extream. 1 am certain of that w Malbranch seems to doubt of, viz. the existence of bodies^^^. Mem. To bring the killing blow at the last, e.g. in the matter of abstraction to bring Locke's general triangle in the last^^^. They give good rules, tho' perhaps they themselves do not Cf. Preface to Principies', also to Dialogues. i.e. that ethics was a Science of phenomena or ideas. i.e. of the independen! existence of Matter. ’bodies'—i.e. sensible things—not unrealised Matter. Cf. Principies, Introduction, sect. 13. S. I. Mo. S. I. M. I. &c. I. 116 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. always observe them. They speak much of olear and distinct ideas, though at the same time they talk of general abstrae! ideas, &c. ni [instance] in Locke's opinión of abstraction, he being as [039] olear a writer as 1 have met with. Such was the candour of this great man that 1 perswade myself, were he alive^^^, he would not be offended that 1 differ from him: seeing that even in so doing 1 follow his advice, viz. to use my own judgement, see with my own eyes, & not with another's. Introduction. s. The Word thing, as comprising or standing for idea & volition, usefull; as standing for idea and archetype without the mind^^^, mischievous and useless. Mo. To demónstrate morality it seems one need only make a dictionary of words, and see which included which. At least, this is the greatest part and bulk of the work. Mo. Locke's instances of demonstration in morality are, according to his own rule, trifling propositions. p. s. Qu. How comes it that some ideas are confessedly allow'd by all to be onely in the mind^^*’, and others as generally taken to be without the mind'^^, if, according to you, all are equally and only in the mind? Ans. Because that in proportion to pleasure or pain ideas are attended with desire, exertion, and other actions which inelude volition. Now volition is by all granted to be in spirit. I. If men would lay aside words in thinking, 'tis impossible they should ever mistake, save only in matters of fact. 1 mean it seems impossible they should be positive & secure that anything was true w in truth is not so. Certainly 1 cannot err in matter of simple perception. So far as we can in reasoning go without the Locke died in October, 1704. “without the mind,” i.e. abstracted from all active percipient life. e.g. secondary qualities of sensible things, in which pleasure and pain are prominent. e.g. primary qualities, in which pleasure and pain are latent. Commonplace Book 117 help of signs, there we have certain knowledge. Indeed, in long deductions made by signs there may be slips of memory. From my doetrine there follows a eure for pride. We are only Mo. to be praised for those things whieh are our own, or of our own doing; natural abilitys are not eonsequenees of our volitions. Mem. Candidly to take notiee that Loeke holds some m. dangerous opinions; sueh as the infinity and eternity of Spaee and the possibility of Matter's thinking^^^. [ 040 ] Onee more 1 desire my reader may be upon bis guard against i. the fallaey of words. Let him beware that 1 do not impose on him by plausible empty talk, that eommon dangerous way of eheating men into absurditys. Let him not regard my words any otherwise than as oeeasions of bringing into bis mind determin'd signifieations. So far as they fail of this they are gibberish, jargon, & deserve not the ñame of language. 1 desire & warn him not to expeet to find truth in my book, or anywhere but in bis own mind. w'^ever 1 see myself 'tis impossible 1 ean paint it out in words. N. B. To eonsider well w is meant by that w Loeke saith Mo. eoneerning algebra—that it supplys intermediate ideas. Also to think of a method affording the same use in moráis &e. that this doth in mathematiques. Homo is not proved to be vivens by means of any intermediate Mo. idea. 1 don't fully agree w* Loeke in w^ he says eoneerning sagaeity in finding out intermediate ideas in matter eapable of demonstration & the use thereof; as if that were the onely means of improving and enlarging demonstrative knowledge. There is a differenee betwixt power & volition. There s. may be volition without power. But there ean be no power See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 13. § 21, ch. 17. § 4; also Bk. IV. ch. 3. § 6; also his controversy with Bishop Stillingfleet regarding the possibility of Matter thinking. With Berkeley real space is a finite creature, dependen! for realisation on living percipient Spirit. 118 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. M. S. M. S. I. I. [041] S. Mo. S. S. S. S. without volition. Power implyeth volition, & at the same time a connotation of the effects following the volition^^^. We have assuredly an idea of substance. 'Twas absurd of Locke^^^ to think we had a ñame without a meaning. This might prove acceptable to the Stillingfleetians. The substance of Body we know^^^. The substance of Spirit we do not know—it not being knowable, it being a puras actas. Words have ruin'd and overrun all the Sciences—law, physique, chymistry, astrology, &c. Abstract ideas only to be had amongst the learned. The vulgar never think they have any such, ñor truly do they find any want of them. Genera & species & abstract ideas are terms unknown to them. Locke's out^^^—the case is different. We can have an idea of body without motion, but not of soul without thought. God ought to be worship'd. This easily demonstrated when once we ascertain the signification of the words God, worship, ought. No perception, according to Locke, is active. Therefore no perception (i.e. no idea) can be the image of, or like unto, that which is altogether active & not at all passive, i.e. the Will. I can will the calling to mind something that is past, tho' at the same time that w I cali to mind was not in my thoughts before that volition of mine, & consequently I could have had no uneasiness for the want of it. The Will & the Understanding may very well be thought two distinct beings. Sed quia voluntas raro agit nisi ducente desiderio. V. Locke, But what of the origination of the volition itself? Essay, Bk. I. ch. iv. § 18. See also Locke's Letters to Stillingfleet. It is, according to Berkeley, the steady unión or co-existence of a group of sense-phenomena. Essay, Bk. II. ch. i. § 10—where he argües for interruptions of consciousness. “Men think not always.” Commonplace Book 119 Epistles, p. 479, ad Limburgum. You cannot say the m. t. [minimum tangibile] is like or one with the m. v. [minimum visibile], because they be both minima, just pereeiv'd, and next door to nothing. You may as well say the m. t. is the same with or like unto a sound, so small that it is searee pereeiv'd. Extensión seems to be a mode of some tangible or sensible quality aeeording as it is seen or felt. ch The spirit—the aetive thing—that w is soul, & God—is the s. Will alone. The ideas are effeets—impotent things. The eonerete of the will & understanding 1 might eall mind; s. not person, lest offenee be given. Mem. Carefully to omit defining of person, or making mueh mention of it. You ask, do these volitions make one Will? you ask is s. meerly about a word—unity being no more^^^. N. B. To use utmost eaution not to give the least handle of offenee to the Chureh or Churehmen. [ 042 ] Even to speak somewhat favourably of the Sehoolmen, and i. shew that they who blame them for j argón are not free of it themselves. Introd. Eoeke's great oversight seems to be that he did not begin with his third book; at least that he had not some thought of it at first. Certainly the & 4* books don't agree w* w*^ he says in y® If Matter^^^ is onee allow'd to exist, elippings of weeds and m. In other words, the material world is wholly impotent: all activity in the universe is spiritual. On the order of its four books and the structure of Locke's Essay, see the Prolegomena in my edition of the Essay, pp. liv-lviii. 120 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. parings of nails may think, for ought that Locke can tell; tho' he seems positive of the contrary. Since I say men cannot mistake in short reasoning about things demonstrable, if they lay aside words, it will be expected this Treatise will contain nothing but is certain & evident demonsfration, & in truth I hope yon will find nothing in it but what is such. Certainly I take it all for such. Introd. I. When I say I will reject all propositions wherein I know not fully and adequately and clearly, so far as knowable, the thing meant thereby, this is not to be extended to propositions in the Scripture. I speak of matters of Reason and Philosophy—not Revelation. In this I think an humble, implicit faith becomes US (when we cannot comprehend or understand the proposition), such as a popish peasant gives to propositions he hears at mass in Latin. This proud men may cali blind, popish, implicit, irrational. For my part I think it is more irrational to pretend to dispute at, cavil, and ridicule holy mysteries, i.e. propositions about things that are altogether above our knowledge, out of our reach. When I shall come to plenary knowledge of the meaning of any fact, then I shall yield an explicit belief. Introd. Complexation of ideas twofold. refers to colours being complex ideas. Considering length without breadth is considering any length, be the breadth w^ it will. M. I may say earth, plants, &c. were created before man—there being other intelligences to perceive them, before man was [043] created M. There is a philosopher^^^ who says we can get an idea of i.e. independent imperceptible Matter. What of the earliest geological periods, asks Ueherweg? But is there greater difficulty in such instances than in explaining the existence of a table or a house, while one is merely seeing, without touching? Locke explains “suhstance” as “an uncertain supposition of we know not what.” Essay, Bk. I. ch. 4. § 18. Commonplace Book 121 substance by no way of sensation or reflection, & seems to imagine that we want a sense proper for it. Truly if we had a new sense it eould only give us a new idea. Now 1 suppose he will not say substanee, aeeording to him, is an idea. For my part, 1 own 1 have no idea ean stand for substanee in bis and the Sehoolmen's sense of that word. But take it in the eommon vulgar sense, & then we see and feel substanee. N. B. That not eommon usage, but the Sehoolmen eoined the e. word Existenee, supposed to stand for an abstraet general idea. Writers of Opties mistaken in their prineiples both in judging of magnitudes and distanees. 'Tis evident y^ w" the solitary man should be taught to speak, i. the words would give him no other new ideas (save only the sounds, and eomplex ideas whieh, tho' unknown before, may be signified by language) beside w*^ he had before. If he had not, eould not have, an abstraet idea before, he eannot have it after he is taught to speak. “Homo est homo,” &e. eomes at last to Petrus est Petrus, Mo. &e. Now, if these identieal propositions are sought after in the mind, they will not be found. There are no identieal mental propositions. 'Tis all about sounds and terms. Henee we see the doetrine of eertainty by ideas, and proving Mo. by intermediate ideas, eomes to nothing^^^. We may have eertainty & knowledge without ideas, i.e. Mo. without other ideas than the words, and their standing for one idea, i.e. their being to be used indifferently. It seems to me that we have no eertainty about ideas, but only Mo. Locke makes eertainty consist in the agreement of “our ideas with the reality of things.” See Essay, Bk. IV. ch. 4. § 18. Here the sceptical difficulty arises, which Berkeley meets under his Principie. If we have no perception of reality, we eannot compare our ideas with it, and so eannot have any criterion 122 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [044] Mo. Mo. Mo. I. I. I. E. N. Mo. about words. 'Tis improper to say, I am certain I see, I feel, &c. There are no mental propositions form'd answering to these words, & in simple perception 'tis allowed by all there is no affirmation or negation, and consequently no certainty^^^. The reason why we can demónstrate so well about signs is, that they are perfectly arbitrary & in our power—made at pleasure. The obscure ambiguous term relation, which is said to be the largest field of knowledge, confounds us, deceives us. Let any man shew me a demonstration, not verbal, that does not depend on some false principie; or at best on some principie of nature, which is y® effect of God's will, and we know not how soon it may be changed. Qu. What becomes of the cetemcB veritates? Ans. They vanish^^"*. But, say yon, 1 find it difficult to look beneath the words and uncover my ideas. Say 1, Use will make it easy. In the sequel of my Book the cause of this difficulty shall be more clearly made out. To view the deformity of error we need onely undress it. “Cogito ergo sum.” Tautology. No mental proposition answering thereto. Knowledge, or certainty, or perception of agreement of ideas—as to identity and diversity, and real existence, vanisheth; of relation, becometh merely nominal; of co-existence, remaineth. Locke thought in this latter our knowledge was little or nothing. Whereas in this only real knowledge seemeth to be foundi55. of reality. [This seems wrong. Certainty, real certainty, is of sensible ideas. I may be certain without affirmation or negation.—AUTHOR.fFNS] This needs further explanation. This entry and the preceding tends to resolve all judgments which are not what Kant calis analytical into contingent. See Locke's Essay, Bk. IV. ch. 1, §§ 3-7, and ch. 3. §§ 7-21. The stress Berkeley lays on “co-existence” is significant. Commonplace Book 123 We must w* the mob place certainty in the senses^^^. p. 'Tis a man's duty, 'tis the fruit of friendship, to speak well of bis friend. Wonder not therefore that 1 do 1 do. A man of slow parts may overtake truth, &c. Introd. Even i. my shortsightedness might perhaps be aiding to me in this matter—'twill make me bring the object nearer to my thoughts. A purblind person, &c. Introd. [045] Locke to Limborch, &c. Talk oíjudicium intellectus preceding s. the volition: 1 thmkjudicium ineludes volition. 1 can by no means distinguish these— -judicium, intellectus, indijferentia, uneasiness to many things accompanying or preceding every volition, as e.g. the motion of my hand. Qu. mean you by my perceptions, my volitions? Both all s. the perceptions 1 perceive or conceive'^^, &c. are mine; all the volitions 1 am conscious to are mine. Homo est agens liberum. What mean they by homo and agens s. in this place? Will any man say that brutes have ideas of Unity & Existence? e. 1 believe not. Yet if they are suggested by all the ways of sensation, 'tis strange they should want them^^^. It is a strange thing and deserves our attention, that the more i. time and pains men have consum'd in the study of philosophy, by so much the more they look upon themselves to be ignorant & weak creatures. They discover flaws and imperfections in their faculties w other men never spy out. They find themselves under a necessity of admitting many inconsistent, irreconcilable opinions for true. There is nothing they touch with their hand, or behold with their eyes, but has its dark sides much larger and more numerous than is perceived, & at length turn scepticks, i.e. we must not doubt the reality of the immediate data of sense but accept it, as “the mob” do. But is imagination different from actual perception only in degree of reality? Cf. Principies, sect. 13, 120; also Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 7. sect. 7. 124 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. at least in most things. I imagine all this proceeds from, &c. Exord. Introd.^^^ I. These men with a supercilious pride disdain the common single Information of sense. They grasp at knowledge by sheafs & bundles. ('Tis well if, catching at too much at once, they hold nothing but emptiness & air.) They in the depth of their understanding contémplate abstract ideas. It seems not improbable that the most comprehensive & sublime intellects see more m.v.'s at once, i.e. that their visual Systems are the largest. Words (by them meaning all sorts of signs) are so necessary that, instead of being (w" duly us'd or in their own nature) [046] prejudicial to the advancement of knowledge, or an hindrance to knowledge, without them there could in mathematiques themselves be no demonstration. Mem. To be eternally banishing Metaphisics, &c., and recalling men to Common Sense^^*’. s. We cannot conceive other minds besides our own but as so many selves. We suppose ourselves affected w* such & such thoughts & such and such sensations^^'. s. Qu. whether composition of ideas be not that faculty which chiefly serves to discriminate us from brutes? 1 question whether a brute does or can imagine a blue horse or chimera. Naturalists do not distinguish betwixt cause and occasion. Useful to enquire after co-existing ideas or occasions. Mo. Morality may be demonstrated as mixt mathematics. Cf. Principies, Introduction, sect. 1. Berkeley's aim evidently is to deliver men from empty abstractions, by a return to more reasonably interpreted common-sense. The sort of external world that is intelligible to us is that of which another person is percipient, and which is objective to me, in a percipient experience foreign to mine. Commonplace Book 125 Perception is passive, but this not distinct from idea. Therefore s. there can be no idea of volition. Algebraic species or letters are denominations of denominations. Therefore Arithmetic to be treated of before Algebra. 2 crowns are called ten shillings. Henee may appear the valué of numbers. Complex ideas are the creatures of the mind. Henee may appear the nature of numbers. This to be deeply discuss'd. 1 am better informed & shall know more by telling me there are 10,000 men, than by shewing me them all drawn up. 1 shall better be able to judge of the bargain you'd have me make w" you tell me how much (i.e. the ñame of y®) money lies on the table, than by offering and shewing it without naming. 1 regard not the idea, the looks, but the ñames. Henee may appear the nature of numbers. Children are unacquainted with numbers till they have made some progress in language. This could not be if they were ideas suggested by all the senses. [047] Numbers are nothing but ñames—never words. Mem. Imaginary roots—to unravel that mystery. Ideas of utility are annexed to numbers. In arithmetical problems men seek not any idea of number. They only seek a denomination. This is all can be of use to them. Take away the signs from Arithmetic and Algebra, and pray remains? These are Sciences purely verbal, and entirely useless but for practice in societies of men. No speculative knowledge, no comparing of ideas in them^^^. Qu. whether Geometry may not properly be reckon'd amongst the mixt mathematics—Arithmetic & Algebra being the only Cf. Berkeley's Arithmetica and Miscellanea Mathematica, published while he was making his entries in this Commonplace Book. 126 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. abstracted puré, i.e. entirely nominal—Geometry being an application of these to points^^^? Mo. Locke of Trifling Propositions. [b. 4. c. 8] Mem. Well to observe & con over that chapter. E. Existence, Extensión, &c. are abstract, i.e. no ideas. They are words, unknown and useless to the vulgar. Mo. Sensual pleasure is the summum bonum. This the great principie of morality. This once rightly understood, all the doctrines, even the severest of the Gospels, may clearly be demonstrated. Mo. Sensual pleasure, quá pleasure, is good & desirable by a wise man^^^. But if it be contemptible, 'tis not quá pleasure but quá pain, or cause of pain, or (which is the same thing) of loss of greater pleasure. I. W“ I consider, the more objects we see at once the more distant they are, and that eye which beholds a great many things can see none of them near. I. By idea I mean any sensible or imaginable thing M. s. To be sure or certain of we do not actually perceive^®^ (I [048] say perceive, not imagine), we must not be altogether passive; there must be a disposition to act; there must be assent, w is active. Nay, what do I talk; there must be actual volition. Mínima sensibilia? Pleasures, quá pleasures, are natural causes of correlative desires, as pains or uneasinesses are of correlative aversions. This is implied in the very nature of pleasure and pain. Here we have his explanation of idea. Absent things. Commonplace Book 127 What do we demónstrate in Geometry but that Unes are equal or unequal? i.e. may not be ealled by the same name^^^. I approve of this axiom of the Sehoolmen, “Nihil est in intelleetu quod non prius fuit in sensu.”^^^ I wish they had stuek to it. It had never taught them the doetrine of abstraet ideas. “Nihil dat quod non habet,” or, the effeet is eontained in the eause, is an axiom 1 do not understand or believe to be true. Whoever shall east his eyes on the writings of oíd or new philosophers, and see the noise is made about formal and objeetive Being, Will, &e. Absurd to argüe the existenee of God from his idea. We have no idea of God. 'Tis impossible^®. Cause of mueh errour & eonfusion that men knew not what was meant by Reality^™. Des Cartes, in Med. 2, says the notion of this partieular wax is less elear than that of wax in general; and in the same Med., a little before, he forbears to eonsider bodies in general, beeause (says he) these general eoneeptions are usually eonfused. Des Cartes, in Med. 3, ealls himself a thinking substanee, and a stone an extended substanee; and adds that they both agree in this, that they are substanees. And in the next paragraph he ealls extensión a mode of substanee. 'Tis eommonly said by the philosophers, that if the soul of Here, as elsewhere, he resolves geometry, as strictly demonstrable, into a reasoned system of analytical or verbal propositions. Compare this with note 3, p. 34; also with the contrast between Sense and Reason, in Siris. Is the statement consistent with implied assumptions even in the Principies, apart from which they could not cohere? To have an idea of God—as Berkeley uses idea—would imply that God is an immediately perceptible, or at least an imaginable object. Cf. Principies, sect. 89. I. M. S. G. E. G. M. E. I. M. S. S. 128 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. man were self-existent it would have given itself all possible [049] perfection. This I do not understand. Mo. Mem. To excite men to the pleasures of the eye & the ear, which surfeit not, ñor bring those evils after them, as others. s. We see no variety or difference betwixt volitions, only between their effects. 'Tis one Will, one Act—distinguished by the effects. This Will, this Act, is the Spirit, i.e. operative principie, soul, &c. No mention of fears and jealousies, nothing like a party. M. Locke in his 4* Book^’^, and Des Caries in Med. 6, use the same argument for the existence of objects, viz. that sometimes we see, feel, &c. against our will. s. While I exist or have any idea, I am eternally, constantly willing; my acquiescing in the presen! State is willing. E. The existence of any thing imaginable is nothing different from imagination or perception^^^. Volition or Will, W^^^ is not imaginable, regard must not be had to its existence(?) ... First Book. Mo. There are four sorts of propositions:—“Gold is a metal;” “Gold is yellow;” “Gold is fixt;” “Gold is not a stone”—of which the first, second, and third are only nominal, and have no mental propositions answering them. M. Mem. In vindication of the senses effectually to confute what Des Cartes saith in the last par. of the last Med., viz. that the senses oftener inform him falsely than truely—that sense of pain tells me not my foot is bruised or broken, but I, having frequently observed these two ideas, viz. of that peculiar pain and bruised foot go together, do erroneously take them to be inseparable by a necessity of Nature—as if Nature were anything but the ordinance of the free will of God^’^. M. s. Des Cartes owns we know not a substance immediately by Ch. ll.§5. Why add—“or perception”? Here we have Berkeley's favourite thought of the divine arhitrariness of the constitution of Nature, and of its laws of change. Commonplace Book 129 itself, but by this alone, that it is the subject of several acts. Ans. to 2^ objection of Hobbs. Hobbs in some degree falls in with Locke, saying thought is to the mind or himself as dancing to the dancer. Object. Hobbs in bis Object. 3 ridicules those expressions of the scholastiques—“the will wills,” &c. So does Locke. 1 am of another mind^’^. Des Cartes, in answer to Object. 3 of Hobbs, owns he is distinct from thought as a thing from its modus or manner. Opinión that existence was distinct from perception of horrible consequence. It is the foundation of Hobbs's doctrine, &c. Malbranch in bis illustration^^^ differs widely from me. He doubts of the existence of bodies. 1 doubt not in the least of this. 1 differ from Cartesians in that 1 make extensión, colour, &c. to exist really in bodies independent of our mind^^^. All y® carefully and lucidly to be set forth. Not to mention the combinations of powers, but to say the things—the effects themselves—do really exist, even w" not actually perceived; but still with relation to perception The great use of the Indian figures above the Román shews arithmetic to be about signs, not ideas—or at least not ideas different from the characters themselves'’^. Reasoning there may be about things or ideas, or about actions; but demonstration can be only verbal. 1 question, no matter &c. This suggests the puzzle, that the cause of every volition must be a preceding volition, and so on ad infinitum. Recherche, I. 19. i.e. of his own individual mind. i.e. to a percipient mind, but not necessarily to mine\ for natural laws are independent of individual will, although the individual participates in perception of the ordered changes. Cf. the Arithmetica. S. S. [050] S. E. S. M. P. E. P. M. P. M. N. 130 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. G. Quoth Des Caries, The idea of God is not made by me, for I can neither add lo ñor subtract from it. No more can he add lo or take from any other idea, even of his own making. s. The not distinguishing 'twixt Will and ideas is a grand mistake with Hobbs. He takes those things for nothing which are not ideas M. Say yon, At this rate all's nothing but idea—mere phantasm. I answer, Everything as real as ever. I hope to cali a thing idea makes it not the less real. Truly I should perhaps have stuck to [051] the Word thing, and not mentioned the word idea, were it not for a reason, and I think a good one too, which I shall give in the Second Book^^°. I. s. Idea is the object of thought. I think on, whatever it be, I cali idea. Thought itself, or thinking, is no idea. 'Tis an act—i.e. volition, i.e. as contradistinguished to effects—the Will. I. Mo. Locke, in B. 4. c. 5, assigns not the right cause why mental propositions are so difficult. It is not because of complex but because of abstrae! ideas. Y® idea of a horse is as complex as that of fortitude. Yet in saying the “horse is white” I form a mental proposition with case. But when I say “fortitude is a virtue” I shall find a mental proposition hard, or not at all to be come at. s. Puré intellect I understand not^^^. Locke is in y® right in those things wherein he differs from y® Cartesians, and they cannot but allow of his opinions, if they stick to their own principies or causes of Existence & other abstrae! ideas. G. s. The properties of all things are in God, i.e. there is in the Deity i.e. which are not phenomena. This recognition of originative Will even then distinguished Berkeley. Is this Part II of the Principies, which was lost in Italy? *** The thought of articúlate relations to which real existence must conform, was not then at least in Berkeley's mind. Henee the empiricism and sensationalism into which he occasionally seems to rush in the Commonplace Book, in his repulsión from empty abstractions. Commonplace Book 131 Understanding as well as Will. He is no blind agent, and in truth a blind agent is a eontradiction^^^. 1 am certain there is a God, tho' 1 do not perceive Him—have no intuition of Him. This not diffieult if we rightly understand is meant by certainty. It seems that the Soul, taken for the Will, is immortal, ineorruptible. Qu. whether pereeption must of necessity precede volition? Error is not in the Understanding, but in the Will. What 1 understand or perceive, that 1 understand. There can be no errour in this. Mem. To take notice of Locke's woman afraid of a wetting, in the Introd., to shew there may be reasoning about ideas or things. Say Des Caries & Malbranch, God hath given us strong inclinations to think our ideas proceed from bodies, or that bodies do exist. Fray mean they by this? Would they have it that the ideas of imagination are images of, and proceed from, the ideas of sense? This is true, but cannot be their meaning; for they speak of ideas of sense as themselves proceeding from, being like unto—1 know not Cartesius per ideam vult omne id quod habet esse objectivum in intellectu. V. Tract. de Methodo. Qu. May there not be an Understanding without a Will? Understanding is in some sort an action. Silly of Hobbs, &c. to speak of the Will as if it were motion, with which it has no likeness. Ideas of Sense are the real things or archetypes. Ideas of imagination, dreams, &c. are copies, images, of these. This is the essence of Berkeley's philosophy—“a blind agent is a contradiction.” This is thebasis of Berkeley's reasoning for the necessarily unrepresentative character of the ideas or phenomena that are presented to our senses. They are the origináis. G. S. S. S. Mo. Mo. N. M. 1052] M. S. S. S. S. M. 132 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. M. My doctrines rightly understood, all that philosophy of Epicurus, Hobbs, Spinosa, &c., which has been a declared enemy of religión, comes to the ground. G. Hobbs & Spinosa make God extended. Locke also seems to do the same^*^. I. E. Ens, res, aliquid dicuntur termini transcendentales. Spinosa, p. 76, prop. 40, Eth. part 2, gives an odd account of their original. Also of the original of all universals—Homo, Canis, &c. G. Spinosa (vid. Prsef. Opera Posthum.) will have God to be “omnium rerum causa immanens,” and to countenance this produces that of St. Paul, “in Him we live,” &c. Now this of St. Paul may be explained by my doctrine as well as Spinosa's, or Eocke's, or Hobbs's, or Raphson's^^^, &c. The Will is purus actus, or rather puré spirit not imaginable, not sensible, not intelligible, in no wise the object of the understanding, no wise perceivable. Substance of a spirit is that it acts, causes, wills, operates, or if you picase (to avoid the quibble y*^ may be made of the word “it”) to act, cause, will, opérate. Its substance is not knowable, not being an idea. G. Why may we not conceive it possible for God to create things out of nothing? Certainly we ourselves create in some wise whenever we imagine. Berkeley's horror of abstrae! or unperceived space and atoms is partly explained by dogmas in natural philosophy that are now antiquated. Ralph [?] Raphson, author of Demonstratio de Deo (1710), and also of De Spatio Reali, seu ente Infinito: conamen mathematico-metaphysicum (1697), to which Berkeley refers in one of his letters to Johnson. See also Green's Principies of Natural Philosophy (1712). The immanence of omnipotent goodness in the material world was unconsciously Berkeley's presupposition. In God we have our being. S. [053] S. Commonplace Book 133 “Ex nihilo nihil fit.” This (saith Spinoza, Opera Posth. p. e. n. 464) and the like are ealled veritates cetemcB, beeause “nullam fidem habent extra mentem.” To make this axiom have a positive signifieation, one should express it thus: Every idea has a eause, i.e. is produeed by a Will^^^. The philosophers talk mueh of a distinetion 'twixt absolute & p. relative things, or 'twixt things eonsidered in their own nature & the same things eonsidered with respeet to us. I know not they mean by “things eonsidered in themselves.” This is nonsense, j argón. It seems there ean be no pereeption—no idea—without Will, s. seeing there are no ideas so indifferent but one had rather have them than annihilation, or annihilation than them. Or if there be sueh an equal batanee, there must be an equal mixture of pleasure and pain to eause it; there being no ideas perfeetly void of all pain & uneasiness, but are preferable to annihilation. Reeipe in animum tuum, per eogitationem vehementem, rerum ipsarum, non literarum aut sonorum imagines. Hobbs against Wallis. 'Tis a perfeetion we may imagine in superior spirits, that they ean see a great deal at onee with the utmost elearness and distinetion; whereas we ean only see a point'^’. Mem. W" I treat of mathematiques to enquire into the eontroversy 'twixt Hobbes and Wallis. [054] Every sensation of mine, whieh happens in eonsequenee of the g. general known laws of nature, & is from without, i.e. independent Note here Berkeley's versión of the causal principie, which is really the central presupposition of his whole philosophy—viz. every event in the material world must be the issue of acting Will. So Locke on an ideally perfect memory. Essay, Bk. II. ch. x. § 9. 134 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. of my will, demónstrales the being of a God, i.e. of an unextended, incorporeal spirit, which is omnipresent, omnipotent, &c. M. I say not with J.S. [John Sergeant] that we see solids. I reject his “solid philosophy”—solidity being only perceived by touch^^^. s. It seems to me that will and understanding—volitions and ideas—cannot be separated, that either cannot be possibly without the other. E. s. Some ideas or other I must have, so long as I exist or will. But no one idea or sort of ideas being essential^^^. M. The distinction between idea and ideatum I cannot otherwise conceive than by making one the effect or consequence of dream, reverte, imagination—the other of sense and the constan! laws of nature. p. Dico quod extensio non concipitur in se et per se, contra quam dicit Spinoza in Epist. 2^ ad Oldenburgium. G. My definition of the word God I think much clearer than those of Des Garles & Spinoza, viz. “Ens siimme perfectum & absoluto infinitum,” or “Ens constans infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque est infinitum^^°.” *** John Sergeant was the author of Solid Philosophy asserted against the Pandes ofthe Ideists (London, 1697); also of the Method to Sríence (1696). He was a deserter from the Church of England to the Church of Rome, and wrote several pieces in defence of Román theology—some of them in controversy with Tillotson. *** Spirit and Matter are mutually dependent; but Spirit is the realising factor and real agent in the universe. See Descartes, Meditations, III; Spinoza, Epist. II, ad Oldenburgium. Commonplace Book 135 'Tis chiefly the connexion betwixt tangible and visible ideas that deeeives, and not the visible ideas themselves. But the grand mistake is that we know not what we mean by “we,” or “selves,” or “mind,” &e. 'Tis most sure & eertain that our ideas are distinet from the mind, i.e. the Will, the Spirit'^^ 1 must not mention the understanding as a faeulty or part of the mind. 1 must inelude understanding & will in the word Spirit—by whieh 1 mean all that is aetive. 1 must not say that the understanding diners not from the partieular ideas, or the will from partieular volitions. The Spirit, the Mind, is neither a volition ñor an idea. 1 say there are no eauses (properly speaking) but spiritual, nothing aetive but Spirit. Say you, This is only verbal; 'tis only annexing a new sort of signifieation to the word eause, & why may not others as well retain the oíd one, and eall one idea the eause of another whieh always follows it? 1 answer, If you do so 1 shall drive you into many absurditys: you eannot avoid running into opinions you'll be glad to disown, if you stiek firmly to that signifieation of the word Cause. In valuing good we reekon too mueh on the present & our own. There be two sorts of pleasure. The one is ordained as a spur or ineitement to somewhat else, & has a visible relation and subordination thereto; the other is not. Thus the pleasure of eating is of the former sort, of musiek of the later sort. These may be used for reereation, those not but in order to their end. Three sorts of useful knowledge—that of Coexistenee, to be treated of in our Prineiples of Natural Philosophy; that of Relation, in Mathematiques; that of Definition, or inelusion, Cf. Principies, sect. 2. S. S. [055] S. N. S, Mo. Mo. Mo. N. 136 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. or words (which perhaps differs not from that of relation), in Morality^^^. s. Will, understanding, desire, hatred, &c., so far forth as they are acts or active, differ not. All their difference consists in their objects, circumstances, &c. N. We must carefully distinguish betwixt two sorts of causes—^physical & spiritual. N. The physical may more properly be cabed occasions. Yet (to comply) we may cali them causes—but then we must mean causes y^ do nothing. According to Locke, we must be in an eternal uneasiness so long as we Uve, bating the time of sleep or trance, &c.; for he will have even the continuance of an action to be in bis sense an action, & so requires a volition, & this an uneasiness. I. I must not pretend to promise much of demonstration. I must cancell all passages that look like that sort of pride, that raising of expectation in my friend. I. If this be the case, surely a man had better not philosophize at all: no more than a deformed person ought to cavil to behold himself by the reflex light of a mirrour. I. Or thus, like deformed persons who, having beheld themselves by the reflex light of a mirrour, are displeased with their diseases. M. What can an idea be like but another idea? We can compare it with nothing else—a sound like a sound, a colour like a colour. M. Is it not nonsense to say a smell is like a thing which cannot be smelt, a colour is like a thing w^ cannot be seen? M. s. Bodies exist without the mind, i.e. are not the mind, but Is “inclusión” here virtually a synonym for verbal definition? S. [056] Commonplace Book 137 distinct from it. This I allow, the mind being altogether different therefrom^^^. Certainly we should not see motion if there was no diversity p. of colours. Motion is an abstract idea, i.e. there is no sueh idea that ean p. be eoneeived by itself. Contradietions eannot be both true. Men are obliged to answer i. objeetions drawn from eonsequenees. Introd. The Will and Volition are words not used by the vulgar. The s. learned are bantered by their meaning abstrae! ideas. Speeulative Math, as if a man was all day making hard knots on purpose to unty them again. Tho' it might have been otherwise, yet it is eonvenient the same thing w is M.V. should be also M.T., or very near it. 1 must not give the soul or mind the scholastique ñame “puré s. aet,” but rather puré spirit, or aetive being. [057] 1 must not say the Will or Understanding are all one, but that s. they are both abstrae! ideas, i.e. none at all—they not being even ratione different from the Spirit, quá faeulties, or aetive. Dangerous to make idea & thing terms eonvertible^^^. That s. were the way to prove spirits are nothing. Qu. whether ventas stands not for an abstrae! idea? Mo. 'Tis plain the moderns must by their own prineiples own there m. are no bodies, i.e. no sort of bodies without the mind, i.e. unpereeived. See Principies, sect. 2. The universe of Berkeley consists of Active Spirits that perceive and produce motion in impotent ideas or phenomena, realised in the percipient experience of persons. All supposed powers in Matter are refunded into Spirit. When self-conscious agents are included among “things.” We can have no sensuous image, i.e. idea, of spirit, although he maintains we can use the word intelligently. 138 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. s.G. p. M. S. M. P. Mo. N. [058] N. Qu. whether the Will can be the object of prescience or any knowledge? If there were only one ball in the world, it could not be moved. There could be no variety of appearance. According to the doctrine of infinite divisibility, there must be some smell of a rose, v. g. at an infinite distance from it. Extensión, tho' it exist only in the mind, yet is no property of the mind. The mind can exist without it, tho' it cannot without the mind. But in Book II. I shall at large shew the difference there is betwixt the Soul and Body or extended being. ch 'Tis an absurd question w Locke puts, whether man be free to will? Mem. To enquire into the reason of the rule for determining questions in Algebra. It has already been observed by others that ñames are nowhere of more necessary use than in numbering. I will grant you that extensión, colour, &c. may be said to be without the mind in a double respect, i.e. as independent of our will, and as distinct from the mind. Certainly it is not impossible but a man may arrive at the knowledge of all real truth as well without as with signs, had he a memory and imagination most strong and capacious. Therefore reasoning & Science doth not altogether depend upon words or ñames I think not that things fall out of necessity. The connexion of Berkeley insists that we should individualise our thinking—“ipsis consuescere rebus,” as Bacon says,—to escape the dangers of artificial signs. This is the drift of his assault on abstract ideas, and his repulsión from what is not concrete. He would even dispense with words in his meditations in case of being sophisticated by abstractions. Commonplace Book 139 no two ideas is necessary; 'tis all the result of freedom, i.e. 'tis all voluntary^^^. If a man with his eyes shut imagines to himself the sun & m. s. firmament, yon will not say he or his mind is the sun, or is extended, tho' neither sun or firmament be without mind. 'Tis strange to find philosophers doubting & disputing whether s. they have ideas of spiritual things or no. Surely 'tis easy to know. Vid. De Vries^^^, De Ideis Innatis, p. 64. De Vries will have it that we know the mind agrees with things s. not by idea but sense or eonseientia. So will Malbraneh. This a vain distinetion. August 28th, 1708. The Adventure of the [Shirt?]. It were to be wished that persons of the greatest birth, honour, & fortune, would take that eare of themselves, by edueation, industry, literature, & a love of virtue, to surpass all other men in knowledge & all other qualifieations neeessary for great aetions, as far as they do in quality & titles; that prinees out of them might always ehose men fit for all employments and high trusts. Clov. B. 7. One eternity greater than another of the same kind. In what sense eternity may be limited. Whether sueeession of ideas in the Divine intelleet? Time is the train of ideas sueeeeding eaeh other. Duration not distinguish'd from existenee. Sueeession explain'd by before, between, after, & numbering. Why time in pain longer than time in pleasure? Duration infinitely divisible, time not so. The same tó vüv not eommon to all intelligenees. Time thought infinitely divisible on aeeount of its mensure. Nature or the phenomenal world in shoit is the revelation of perfectly reasonable Will. Gerard De Vries, the Cartesian. G. T. T. [059] T. 140 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Extensión not infinitely divisible in one sense. Revolutions immediately mensure train of ideas, mediately duration. T. Time a sensation; therefore onely in y® mind. Eternity is onely a train of innumerable ideas. Henee the immortality of y® soul easily conceiv'd, or rather the immortality of the person, that of y® soul not being necessary for ought we can see. Swiftness of ideas compar'd with y^ of motions shews the wisdom of God. if succession of ideas were swifter, if slower? M. Eall of Adam, use of idolatry, use of Epicurism & Hobbism, dispute about divisibility of matter, &c. expounded by material substances. Extensión a sensation, therefore not without the mind. M. In the immaterial hypothesis, the wall is white, fire hot, &c. Primary ideas prov'd not to exist in matter; after the same manner y^ secondary ones are prov'd not to exist therein. Demonstrations of the infinite divisibility of extensión suppose length without breadth, or invisible length, w is absurd. M. World w*out thought is nec quid, nec quantum, nec quale, &c. M. 'Tis wondrous to contémplate y® World empty'd of all intelligences. Nothing properly but Persons, i.e. conscious things, do exist. All other things are not so much existences as manners of y® existence of persons^^^. Qu. about the soul, or rather person, whether it be not compleatly known? 198 Are the things of sense only modes in which percipient persons exist? Commonplace Book 141 Infinite divisibility of extensión does suppose the external existenee of extensión; but the later is false, ergo y® former also. st Qu. Blind man made to see, would he know motion at 1 sight? Motion, figure, and extensión pereeivable by sight are [ 060 ] different from those ideas pereeived by toueh w goe by the same ñame. Diagonal ineommensurable w* y® side. Qusere how this ean be in my doetrine? Qu. how to reeoneile Newton's 2 sorts of motion with my n. doetrine? Terminations of surfaees & Unes not imaginable per se. Molyneux's blind man would not know the sphere or eube to be bodies or extended at first sight^^^. Extensión so far from being ineompatible w*, y* 'tis impossible it should exist without thought. Extensión itself or anything extended eannot think—these m. s. being meer ideas or sensations, whose essenee we thoroughly know. No extensión but surfaee pereeivable by sight. W" we imagine 2 bowls v. g. moving in vaeuo, 'tis only m. eoneeiving a person affeeted with these sensations. Extensión to exist in a thoughtless thing [or rather in a thing m. void of pereeption—thought seeming to imply aetion], is a eontradietion. Qu. if visible motion be proportional to tangible motion? In some dreams sueeession of ideas swifter than at other times, t. If a pieee of matter have extensión, that must be determined m. to a partieular bigness & figure, but &e. Nothing w*out eorresponds to our primary ideas but powers. Henee a direet & brief demonstration of an aetive powerfull Being, distinet from us, on whom we depend. See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 9. § 8. 142 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. The ñame of colours actually given to tangible qualities, by the relation of y® story of the Germán Count. Qu. How carne visible & tangible qualities by the same ñame in all languages? Qu. Whether Being might not be the substance of the soul, or (otherwise thus) whether Being, added to y® faculties, compleat the real essence and adequate definition of the soul? N. Qu. Whether, on the supposition of external bodies, it be [ 061 ] possible for us to know that any body is absolutely at rest, since that supposing ideas much slower than at present, bodies now apparently moving then be apparently at rest? M. Qu. What can be like a sensation but a sensation? Qu. Did ever any man see any other things besides bis own ideas, that he should compare them to these, and make these like unto them? T. The age of a fly, for ought that we know, may be as long as y*^ of a man^*’®. Visible distance heterogeneous from tangible distance demonstrated 3 several ways:— 1 . If a tangible inch be equal or in any other reason to a visible inch, thence it will follow y^ unequals are equals, w^^^ is absurd: for at what distance would the visible inch be placed to make it equal to the tangible inch? 2^^. One made to see that had not yet seen bis own limbs, or any thing he touched, upon sight of a foot length would know it to be a foot length, if tangible foot & visible foot were the same idea—sed falsum id, ergo et hoc. Time being relative to the capacity of the percipient. Commonplace Book 143 From Molyneux's problem, otherwise is falsely solv'd by Locke and . Nothing but ideas perceivable^*’^. A man cannot compare 2 things together without perceiving them each. Ergo, he cannot say anything w is not an idea is like or unlike an idea. Bodies &c. do exist even w" not perceived—they being powers in the active being^*^^. Succession a simple idea, [succession is an abstrae!, i.e. an inconceivable idea,] Locke says^*^^. Visible extensión is [proportional to tangible extensión, also is] encreated & diminish'd by parts. Henee taken for the same. If extensión be without the mind in bodies. Qu. whether tangible or visible, or both? Mathematical propositions about extensión & motion true in a double sense. Extensión thought peculiarly inert, because not accompany'd w* pleasure & pain: henee thought to exist in matter; as also for that it was conceiv'd common to 2 senses, [as also the constan! perception of ’em]. Blind at 1 sight could not tell how near what he saw was to him, ñor even whether it be w*out him or in bis eye^*’^. Qu. Would he not think the later? ™ See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 9. § 8. To perceive what is not an idea (as Berkeley uses idea) is to perceive what is not realised, and therefore not real. So things have a potential objective existence in the Divine Will. With Berkeley, change is time, and time, abstracted from all changes, is meaningless. Could he know, by seeing only, even that he had a body? 144 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. st t t Blind at 1 sight could not know y w he saw was extended, until he had seen and touched some one self-same thing—not knowing how minimum tangibile would look in visión. M. Mem. That homogeneous partióles be brought in to answer the objection of God's creating sun, plants, &c. before animáis. In every bodie two infinite series of extensión—the one of tangible, the other of visible. All things to a blind [man] at first seen in a point. Ignorance of glasses made men think extensión to be in bodies. M. Homogeneous portions of matter—useful to contémplate them. Extensión if in matter changos its relation w* minimum visibile, w seems to be fixt. Qu. whether m.v. be fix'd? M. Each partióle of matter if extended must be infinitely extended, or have an infinite series of extensión. M. If the World be granted to consist of Matter, 'tis the mind gives it beauty and proportion. 1 have said onely proves there is no proportion at all times and in all men between a visible & tangible inch. Tangible and visible extensión heterogeneous, because they have no common measure; also because their simplest constituent parts or elements are specifically different, viz. punctum visibile [063] & tangibile. N. B. The former seems to be no good reason. M. N. By immateriality is solv'd the cohesión of bodies, or rather the dispute ceases. Our idea we cali extensión neither way capable of infinity, i.e. neither infinitely small or great. ch Greatest possible extensión seen under an angle w will be ch less than 180 degrees, the legs of w angle proceed from the ends of the extensión. N. Allowing there be extended, solid, &c. substances without the mind, 'tis impossible the mind should know or perceive them; the mind, even according to the materialists, perceiving onely Commonplace Book 145 the impressions made upon its brain, or rather the ideas attending these impressions^*’^. Unity in abstracto not at all divisible, it being as it were a point, or with Barrow nothing at all; in concreto not divisible ad infmitum, there being no one idea demonstrable ad infinitum. Any subjeet can have of each sort of primary qualities but one m. particular at once. Locke, b. 4. c. 3. s. 15. Qu. whether we have olear ideas of large numbers themselves, or onely of their relations? Of solidity see L. b. 2. c. 4. s. 1, 5, 6. If any one ask m. w* solidity is, let him put a flint between bis hands and he will know. Extensión of body is continuity of solid, &c.; extensión of space is continuity of unsolid, &c. Why may not 1 say visible extensión is a continuity of visible points, tangible extensión is a continuity of tangible points? Mem. That 1 take notice that 1 do not fall in w* sceptics, m. Fardella^*’^, &c., in that 1 make bodies to exist certainly, they doubt of. 1 am more certain of y® existence & reality of bodies than m. Mr. Locke; since he pretends onely to w* he calis sensitive knowledge^°^, whereas 1 think 1 have demonstrative knowledge [064] of their existence—by them meaning combinations of powers in an unknown substratum^°^. “the ideas attending these impressions,” i.e. the ideas that are correlatives of the (by us unperceived) organic impressions. ™ The Italian physical and metaphysical philosopher Fardella (1650-1718) maintained, by reasonings akin to those of Malebranche, that the existence of the material world could not be scientifically proved, and could only be maintained by faith in authoritative revelation. See his Universíe Philosophice Systema (1690), and especially his Lógica (1696). ™ Locke's Essay, Bk. IV. ch. 11. What does he mean by “unknown substratum”? 146 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. M. Our ideas we cali figure & extensión, not images of the figure and extensión of matter; these (if such there be) being infinitely divisible, those not so. 'Tis impossible a material cube should exist, because the edges of a cube will appear broad to an acute sense. Men die, or are in [a] State of annihilation, oft in a day. s. Powers. Qu. whether more or one onely? Lengths abstract from breadths are the work of the mind. Such do intersect in a point at all angles. After the same way colour is abstract from extensión. Every position alters the line. Qu. whether ideas of extensión are made up of other ideas, v.g. idea of a foot made up of general ideas of an inch? The idea of an inch length not one determin'd idea. Henee enquire the reason why we are out in judging of extensión by the sight; for which purpose 'tis meet also to consider the frequent & sudden changes of extensión by position. No stated ideas of length without a mínimum. M. Material substance banter'd by Locke, b. 2. c. 13. s. 19. M. In my doctrine all absurdities from infinite space &c. cease^^*’. Qu. whether if (speaking grossly) the things we see were all of them at all times too small to be felt, we should have confounded tangible & visible extensión and figure? T. Qu. whether if succession of ideas in the Eternal Mind, a day He gets rid of the infinite in quantity, because it is incapable of concrete manifestation to the senses. When a phenomenon given in sense reaches the minimum sensibile, it reaches what is for us the margin of realisable existence: it cannot be infinitely little and still a phenomenon: insensible phenomena of sense involve a contradiction. And so too of the infinitely large. Commonplace Book 147 does not seem to God a 1000 years, rather than a 1000 years a day? But one only colour & its degrees. [ 065 ] Enquiry about a grand mistake in writers of dioptricks in assigning the cause of microscopes magnifying objects. Qu. whether a born-blind [man] made to see would at 1^^ give the ñame of distance to any idea intromitted by sight; since he would take distance y*^ that he had perceived by touch to be something existing without bis mind, but he would certainly think that nothing seen was without bis mind^^^? Space without any bodies existing in rerum natura would not s. be extended, as not having parts—in that parts are assigned to it w* respect to body; from whence also the notion of distance is taken. Now without either parts or distance or mind, how can there be Space, or anything beside one uniform Nothing? Two demonstrations that blind made to see would not take all things he saw to be without his mind, or not in a point—the one from microscopic eyes, the other from not perceiving distance, i.e. radius of the visual sphere. The trees are in the park, i.e. whether 1 will or no, whether 1 m. imagine anything about them or no. Let me but go thither and open my eyes by day, & 1 shall not avoid seeing them. By extensión blind [man] would mean either the perception caused in his touch by something he calis extended, or else the power of raising that perception; w power is without, in the thing termed extended. Now he could not know either of these to be in things visible till he had try'd. In short he would idealise the visible world but not the tangible world. In the Principies, Berkeley idealises both. 148 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Geometry seems to have for its object tangible extensión, figures, & motion—and not visible^^^. A man will say a body will seem as big as before, tho' the visible idea it yields be less than it was; therefore the bigness or tangible extensión of the body is different from the visible extensión. Extensión or space no simple idea—length, breadth, & solidity [ 066 ] being three several ideas. Depth or solidity now perceived by sight^^^. Strange impotence of men. Man without God wretcheder than a stone or tree; he having onely the power to be miserable by bis unperformed wills, these having no power at all^^^. Length perceivable by hearing—length & breadth by sight—length, breadth, & depth by touch. G. affects US must be a thinking thing, for thinks not cannot subsist. Number not in bodies, it being the creature of the mind, depending entirely on its consideration, & being more or less as the mind pleases^^^. Mem. Quiere whether extensión be equally a sensation with colour? The mob use not the word extensión. 'Tis an abstract term of the Schools. p. Round figure a perception or sensation in the mind, but in the body is a power. L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8. Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 149-59, where he concludes that “neither abstract ñor visible extensión makes the object of geometry.” By the adult, who has leamed to interpret its visual signs. Inasmuch as no physical consequences/o/Zow the volition; which however is still self-originated. “A succession of ideas I take to constitute time, and not to be only the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think.” (Berkeley's letter to Johnson.) Commonplace Book 149 Mem. Mark well the later part of the last cited section. Solids, or any other tangible things, are no otherwise seen than eolours felt by the Germán Count. “Of ’ and “thing” eauses of mistake. m. The visible point of he who has mieroseopieal eyes will not be greater or less than mine. Qu. Whether the propositions & even axioms of geometry do not divers of them suppose the existenee of lines &e. without the mind? Whether motion be the measure of duration? Loeke, b. 2. e. t. 14. s. 19. Lines & points eoneeiv'd as terminations different ideas from those eoneeiv'd absolutely. Every position alters a Une. st Blind man at 1 would not take eolours to be without his mind; s. but eolours would seem to be in the same plaee with the eoloured extensión: therefore extensión w^^ not seem to be without the mind. [ 067 ] All visible eoneentrie eireles whereof the eye is the eentre are absolutely equal. Infinite number—why absurd—notrightly solv'dby Loeke^^^. Qu. how 'tis possible we should see fíats or right lines? Qu. why the moon appears greatest in the horizon^^^? Qu. why we see things ereet when painted inverted^^^? Question put by Mr. Deering touehing the thief and paradise. t. Matter tho' allowed to exist may be no greater than a pin's m. head. Motion is proportionable to spaee deseribed in given time. Cf. Essay, Bk. II. ch. 16, sect. 8. ™ Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 61-11. Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 88-120. 150 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Velocity not proportionable to space describ'd in given time. M. No active power but the Will: therefore Matter, if it exists, affects US not^^^. Magnitude when barely taken for the ratio partium extra partes, or rather for co-existence & succession, without considering the parts co-existing & succeeding, is infinitely, or rather indefinitely, or not at all perhaps, divisible, because it is itself infinite or indefinite. But definite, determined magnitudes, i.e. Unes or surfaces consisting of points whereby (together w* distance & position) they are determin'd, are resoluble into those points. Again. Magnitude taken for co-existence and succession is not all divisible, but is one simple idea. Simple ideas inelude no parts ñor relations—^hardly separated and considered in themselves—ñor yet rightly singled by any author. Instance in power, red, extensión, &c. M. Space not imaginable by any idea received from sight—not imaginable without body moving. Not even then necessarily existing (I speak of infinite space)—for w^ the body has past may [ 068 ] be conceiv'd annihilated. M. Qu. What can we see beside colours? what can we feel beside hard, soft, coid, warm, pleasure, pain? Qu. Why not taste & smell extensión? Qu. Why not tangible & visible extensions thought heterogeneous extensions, so well as gustable & olefactible perceptions thought heterogeneous perceptions? or at least why not as heterogeneous as blue & red? Moon w“ horizontal does not appear bigger as to visible extensión than at other times; henee difficulties and disputes about things seen under equal angles &c. cease. This is of the essence of Berkeley's philosophy. Commonplace Book 151 All patentice alike indifferent. A. B. W* does he mean by his potential Is it the will, desire, person, or all or neither, or sometimes one, sometimes t'other? No agent ean be eoneeiv'd indifferent as to pain or pleasure. We do not, properly speaking, in a sttiet philosophieal sense, make objeets more or less pleasant; but the laws of nature do that. A finite intelligenee might have foreseen 4 thousand years agoe the plaee and eireumstanees, even the most minute & trivial, of my presen! existenee. This true on supposition that uneasiness determines the will. Doetrines of liberty, preseienee, &e. explained by billiard balls. judgement would he make of uppermost and lowermost who had always seen through an inverting glass? All lines subtending the same optie angle eongruent (as is evident by an easy experiment); therefore they are equal. We have not puré simple ideas of blue, red, or any other eolour (exeept perhaps blaek) beeause all bodies refleet heterogeneal light. Qu. Whether this be true as to sounds (& other sensations), there being, perhaps, rays of air w will onely exhibit one partieular sound, as rays of light one partieular eolour. Colours not definable, not beeause they are puré iinmixt thoughts, but beeause we eannot easily distinguish & sepárate the thoughts they inelude, or beeause we want ñames for their eomponent ideas. By Soul is meant onely a eomplex idea, made up of existenee, willing, & pereeption in a large sense. Therefore it is known and it may be defined. We eannot possibly eoneeive any aetive power but the Will. Mo. S. S. [ 069 ] S. 152 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. s. In moral matters men think ('tis true) that they are free; but ch this freedom is only the freedom of doing as they please; w freedom is consecutive to the Will, respecting only the operative faculties^^*^. Men impute their actions to themselves because they will'd them, and that not out of ignorance, but whereas they have the consequences of them, whether good or bad. This does not prove men to be indifferent in respect of desiring. If anything is meant by the potentia of A. B. it must be desire; but 1 appeal to any man if his desire be indifferent, or (to speak more to the purpose) whether he himself be indifferent in respect of he desires till after he has desired it; for as for desire itself, or the faculty of desiring, that is indifferent, as all other faculties are. Actions leading to heaven are in my power if 1 will them: therefore 1 will will them. Qu. concerning the procession of Wills in infmitum. Herein mathematiques have the advantage over metaphysiques and morality. Their definitions, being of words not yet known to y® learner, are not disputed; but words in metaphysiques & morality, being mostly known to all, the definitions of them may chance to be contraverted. M. The short jejune way in mathematiques will not do in metaphysiques & ethiques: for y^ about mathematical propositions men have no prejudices, no anticipated opinions to be encounter'd; they not having yet thought on such matters. 'Tis not so in the other 2 mentioned Sciences. A man must [there] not onely demónstrate the truth, he must also vindicate it against surupíes and established opinions which contradict it. In short, the dry, strigose^^^, rigid way will not suffice. He must be more But in moral freedom originales in the agent, instead of being “consecutive” to his voluntary acts or found only in their consequences. “Strigose” (strigosus)—meagre. Commonplace Book 153 ampie & copious, else his demonstration, tho' never so exact, will not go down with most. [ 070 ] Extensión seems to eonsist in variety of homogeneal thoughts eo-existing without mixture. Or rather visible extensión seems to be the eo-existenee of eolour in the mind. Enquiring and judging are aetions which depend on the s. Mo. operative faculties, depend on the Will, is determin'd by some uneasiness; ergo &c. Suppose an agent w is finite perfectly indifferent, and as to desiring not determin'd by any prospeet or eonsideration of good, 1 say, this agent cannot do an aetion morally good. Henee 'tis evident the suppositions of A. B. are insignificant. Extensión, motion, time, number are no simple ideas, but inelude succession to them, which seems to be a simple idea. Mem. To enquire into the angle of contact, & into fluxions, &c. The sphere of visión is equal whether 1 look onely in my hand st or on the open firmament, for 1 , in both cases the retina is full; the radius's of both spheres are equall or rather nothing at all to the sight; equal numbers of points in one & t'other. In the Barrovian case purblind would judge aright. Why the horizontal moon greater? Why objeets seen erect? To what purpose certain figure and texture connected w* n. other perceptions? Men estimate magnitudes both by angles and distance. Blind at 1 could not know distance; or by puré sight, abstracting from experience of connexion of sight and tangible ideas, we can't perceive distance. Therefore by puré sight we cannot perceive or judge of extensión. 154 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Qu. Whether it be possible to enlarge our sight or make us see at once more, or more points, than we do, by diminishing the punctum visibile below 30 minutes? I. s. Speech metaphorical more than we imagine; insensible things, & their modes, circumstances, &c. being exprest for the most part by words borrow'd from things sensible. Henee manyfold mistakes. s. The grand mistake is that we think we have ideas of the operations of our minds^^^. Certainly this metaphorical dress is an argument we have not. Qu. How can our idea of God be complex & compounded, when bis essence is simple & uncompounded? V. Locke, b. 2. c. 23. s. 35223 . G. The impossibility of defining or discoursing clearly of such things proceeds from the fault & scantiness of language, as much perhaps as from obscurity & confusión of thought. Henee 1 may clearly and fully understand my own soul, extensión, &c., and not be able to define them22^. M. The substance wood a collection of simple ideas. See Locke, b. 2. c. 26. s. 1. Mem. concerning strait lines seen to look at them through an orbicular lattice. Qu. Whether possible that those visible ideas w are now connected with greater tangible extensions could have been connected with lesser tangible extensions,—there seeming to be no necessary connexion between those thoughts? As he afterwards expresses it, we have intelligible notions, but not ideas —sensuous pictures—of the States or acts of our minds. [“Omnes reales rerum proprietates continentur in Deo.” What means Le Clerc &c. by this? Log. I. ch. 8.]—AUTHORfFNS, on margin. “Si non rogas intelligo.” Commonplace Book 155 Speculums seem to diminish or enlarge objects not by altering the optique angle, but by altering the apparent distance. Henee Qu. if blind would think things diminish'd by eonvexes, or enlarg'd by eoneaves? Motion not one idea. It eannot be pereeived at onee. p.n. Mem. To allow existenee to eolours in the dark, persons not m. p. thinking, &e.—but not an aetual existenee. 'Tis prudent to eorreet men's mistakes without altering their language. This makes truth glide into their souls insensibly^^^. Colours in y® dark do exist really, i.e. were there light; or as m. p. soon as light eomes, we shall see them, provided we open our eyes; and that whether we will or no. How the retina is fill'd by a looking-glass? Convex speeulums have the same effeet w* eoneave glasses. [ 072 ] Qu. Whether eoneave speeulums have the same effeet w* eonvex glasses? The reason why eonvex speeulums diminish & eoneave magnify not yet fully assign'd by any writer 1 know. Qu. Why not objeets seen eonfus'd when that they seem inverted through a eonvex lens? Qu. How to make a glass or speeulum whieh shall magnify or diminish by altering the distanee without altering the angle? No identity (other than perfeet likeness) in any individuáis besides persons^^^. As well make tastes, smells, fear, shame, wit, virtue, viee, & n. all thoughts move w* loeal motion as immaterial spirit. On aeeount of my doetrine, the identity of finite substanees must eonsist in something else than eontinued existenee, or relation to determined time & plaee of beginning to exist—the This way of winning others to his own opinions is very characteristic of Berkeley. See p. 92 and note. See Third Dialogue, on sameness in things and sameness in persons, which it puzzles him to reconcile with his New Principies. 156 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. existence of our thoughts (which being combined make all substances) being frequently interrupted, & they having divers beginnings & endings. Qu. Whether identity of person consists not in the Will? No necessary connexion between great or little optique angles and great or little extensión. Distance is not perceived: optique angles are not perceived. How then is extensión perceiv'd by sight? Apparent magnitude of a Une is not simply as the optique angle, but directly as the optique angle, & reciprocally as the confusión, &c. (i.e. the other sensations, or want of sensation, that attend near visión). Henee great mistakes in assigning the magnifying power of glasses. Vid. Moly[neux], p. 182. Glasses or speculums may perhaps magnify or lessen without altering the optique angle, but to no purpose. Qu. Whether purblind would think objects so much diminished by a convex speculum as another? Qu. Wherein consists identity of person? Not in actual consciousness; for then Tm not the same person I was this day twelvemonth but while I think of I then did. Not in potential; for then all persons may be the same, for ought we know. Mem. Story of Mr. Deering's aunt. Two sorts of potential consciousness—natural & prEeternatural. In the last § but one, I mean the latter. If by magnitude be meant the proportion anything bears to a determined tangible extensión, as inch, foot, &c., this, 'tis plain, cannot be properly & per se perceived by sight; & as for determin'd visible inches, feet, &c., there can be no such thing obtain'd by the meer act of seeing—abstracted from experience, &c. Commonplace Book 157 The greatness per se perceivable by the sight is onely the proportion any visible appearanee bears to the others seen at the same time; or (which is the same thing) the proportion of any partieular part of the visual orb to the whole. But mark that we pereeive not it is an orb, any more than a plain, but by reasoning. This is all the greatness the pietures have per se. Hereby meere seeing cannot at all judge of the extensión of any object, it not availing to know the objeet makes sueh a part of a sphserieal surfaee exeept we also know the greatness of the sphserical surfaee; for a point may subtend the same angle w* a mile, & so create as great an image in the retina, i.e. take up as much of the orb. Men judge of magnitude by faintness and vigorousness, by distinctness and eonfusion, with some other cireumstances, by great & little angles. Henee 'tis plain the ideas of sight which are now connected with greatness might have been connected w* smallness, and vice versa: there being no necessary reason why great angles, faintness, and distinctness without straining, should stand for great extensión, any more than a great angle, vigorousness, and confusion^^^. My end is not to deliver metaphysiques altogether in a general scholastic way, but in some measure to accommodate them to the Sciences, and shew how they may be useful in optiques, geometry, Qu. Whether per se proportion of visible magnitudes be perceivable by sight? This is put on account of distinctness and confusedness, the act of perception seeming to be as great in [074] viewing any point of the visual orb distinctly, as in viewing the whole confusedly. Mem. To correct my language & make it as philosophically nice as possible—to avoid giving handle. ™ Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 52-61. Cf. Principies, sect. 101-134. 158 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. If men could without straining alter the convexity of their crystallines, they might magnify or diminish the apparent diameters of objects, the same optic angle remaining. The bigness in one sense of the pictures in the fund is not determin'd; for the nearer a man views them, the images of them (as well as other objects) will take up the greater room in the fund of his eye. Mem. Introduction to contain the design of the whole, the nature and manner of demonstrating, &c. Two sorts of bigness accurately to be distinguished, they being perfectly and toto ccelo different—the one the proportion that any one appearance has to the sum of appearances perceived at the same time w* it, is proportional to angles, or, if a surface, to segments of sphserical surfaces;—the other is tangible bigness. Qu. would happen if the sphseríe of the retina were enlarged or diminish'd? We think by the meer act of visión we perceive distance from US, yet we do not; also that we perceive solids, yet we do not; also the inequality of things seen under the same angle, yet we do not. Why may I not add, We think we see extensión by meer visión? Yet we do not. Extensión seems to be perceived by the eye, as thought by the ear. As long as the same angle determines the minimum visibile to two persons, no different conformation of the eye can make a different appearance of magnitude in the same thing. But, it being possible to try the angle, we may certainly know whether the same thing appears differently big to two persons on account of their eyes. If a man could see ... objects would appear larger to him than to another; henee there is another sort of purely visible magnitude beside the proportion any appearance bears to the visual sphere, viz. its proportion to the M. V. Commonplace Book 159 Were there but one and the same language in the world, and did children speak it naturally as soon as born, and were it not in the power of men to eoneeal their thoughts or deceive others, but that there were an inseparable eonnexion between words & thoughts, so posito uno, ponitur alterum by the laws of nature; Qu. would not men think they heard thoughts as much as that they see extension^^^? All our ideas are adsequate: our knowledge of the laws of nature is not perfeet & adsequate^^*’. Men are in the right in judging their simple ideas to be in the things themselves. Certainly heat & colour is as mueh without the mind as figure, motion, time, &e. ch We know many things w we want words to express. Great things diseoverable upon this principie. For want of considering w divers men have run into sundry mistakes, endeavouring to set forth their knowledge by sounds; w foundering them, they thought the defect was in their knowledge, while in truth it was in their language. Qu. Whether the sensations of sight arising from a man's head be liker the sensations of touch proceeding from thence or from his legs? Or, Is it onely the constant & long association of ideas entirely different that makes me judge them the same? 1 see is onely variety of colours & light. 1 feel is hard or Soft, hot or coid, rough or smooth, &c. resemblance have these thoughts with those? “distance”—on opposite page in the MS. Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 140. Direct perception of phenomena is adequate to the perceived phenomena; indirect or scientific perception is inadequate, leaving room for faith and trust. [ 075 ] M. P. 160 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. A picture painted w* great variety of colours affects the touch in one uniform manner. I cannot therefore conclude that because I see 2, I shall feel 2; because I see angles or inequalities, I shall feel angles or inequalities. How therefore can I—^before experience teaches me—^know that the visible leggs are (because 2 ) connected w* the tangible ones, or the visible head (because [ 076 ] one) connected w* the tangible head^^^ ? M. All things by us conceivable are— Ist, thoughts; 2 ndly, powers to receive thoughts; ch 3rdly, powers to cause thoughts; neither of all w can possibly exist in an inert, senseless thing. An object w*out a glass may be seen under as great an angle as w* a glass. A glass therefore does not magnify the appearance by the angle. s. Absurd that men should know the soul by idea—ideas being inert, thoughtless. Henee Malbranch confuted^^^. I saw gladness in his looks. I saw shame in his face. So I see figure or distance. Qu. Why things seen confusedly thro' a convex glass are not magnify'd? Tho' we should judge the horizontal moon to be more distant, why should we therefore judge her to be greater? What connexion betwixt the same angle, further distant, and greaterness? N. My doctrine affects the essences of the Corpuscularians. Perfect circles, &c. exist not without (for none can so exist, whether perfect or no), but in the mind. Lines thought divisible ad infinitum, because they are suppos'd to exist without. Also because they are thought the same when view'd by the naked eye, & w“ view'd thro' magnifying glasses. Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 107-8. The Divine Ideas of Malebranche and the sensuous ideas of Berkeley differ. Commonplace Book 161 They who knew not glasses had not so fair a pretence for the divisibility ad infinitum. No idea of circle, &c. in abstrae!. Metaphysiques as eapable of eertainty as ethiques, but not so eapable to be demonstrated in a geometrieal way; beeause men see elearer & have not so many prejudiees in ethiques. Visible ideas eome into the mind very distinet. So do tangible ideas. Henee extensión seen & felt. Sounds, tastes, &e. are more blended. Qu. Why not extensión intromitted by the tas te in eonjunetion with the smell—seeing tastes & smells are very distinet ideas? Blew and yellow partieles mixt, while they exhibit an uniform green, their extensión is not pereeiv'd; but as soon as they exhibit distinet sensations of blew and yellow, then their extensión is pereeiv'd. Distinet pereeption of visible ideas not so perfeet as of tangible—tangible ideas being many at onee equally vivid. Henee heterogeneous extensión. Objeet. Why a mist inereases not the apparent magnitude of an objeet, in proportion to the faintness^^^? Mem. To enquire touehing the squaring of the eirele, &e. That w seems smooth & round to the toueh may to sight seem quite otherwise. Henee no necessary eonnexion betwixt visible ideas and tangible ones. In geometry it is not prov'd that an ineh is divisible ad infinitum. Geometry not eonversant about our eompleat determined ideas of figures, for these are not divisible ad infinitum. Partieular eireles may be squar'd, for the eireumferenee being given a diameter may be found betwixt w & the true there is not any pereeivable differenee. Therefore there is no differenee—extensión being a pereeption; & a pereeption not 233 [ 077 ] Cf. Essay on Vision, sect. 71. 162 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 078 ] perceivd is contradiction, nonsense, nothing. In vain to alledge the difference may be seen by magnifying-glasses, for in y*^ case there is ('tis ttue) a difference perceiv'd, but not between the same ideas, but others much greater, entirely different therefrom^^^. Any visible circle possibly perceivable of any man may be squar'd, by the common way, most accurately; or even perceivable by any other being, see he never so acute, i.e. never so small an arch of a circle; this being makes the distinction between acute & dull sight, and not the m.v., as men are perhaps apt to think. The same is true of any tangible circle. Therefore further enquiry of accuracy in squaring or other curves is perfectly needless, & time thrown away. Mem. To press last precedes more homely, & so think on't again. A meer Une or distance is not made up of points, does not exist, cannot be imagin'd, or have an idea framed thereof,—no more than meer colour without extension^^^. Mem. A great difference between considering length w*out breadth, & having an idea of, or imagining, length without breadth^^^. Malbranch out touching the crystallines diminishing, L. 1. c. 6 . 'Tis possible (& perhaps not very improbable, that is, is sometimes so) we may have the greatest pictures from the least objects. Therefore no necessary connexion betwixt visible & tangible ideas. These ideas, viz. great relation to sphcera visualis, or to the m. v. (w is all that I would have meant by having Cf. Malebranche, Recherche, Bk. I. c. 6. That and the following chapters seem to have been in Berkeley's mind. He here assumes that extensión (visible) is implied in the visible idea we cali colour. This strikingly illustrates Berkeley's use of “idea,” and what he intends when he argües against “abstrae!” ideas. Commonplace Book 163 a greater picture) & faintness, might possibly have stood for or signify'd small tangible extensions. Certainly the greater relation to s. V. and m. v. does frequently, in that men view little objects near the eye. Malbranch out in asserting we cannot possibly know whether there are 2 men in the world that see a thing of the same bigness. V. L. 1. c. 6. Diagonal of particular square commensurable w* its side, they both containing a certain number of m. v. 1 do not think that surfaces consist of Unes, i.e. meer distances. ch Henee perhaps may be solid that sophism w would prove the oblique Une equal to the perpendicular between 2 parallels. Suppose an inch represen! a mile. 1/1000 of an inch is nothing, but 1/1000 of y® mile represented is something: therefore 1/1000 an inch, tho' nothing, is not to be neglected, because it represents something, i.e. 1/1000 of a mile. Particular determin'd Unes are not divisible ad infinitum, but Unes as us'd by geometers are so, they not being determin'd to any particular finite number of points. Yet a geometer (he knows not why) will very readily say he can demónstrate an inch Une is divisible ad infinitum. A body moving in the optique axis not perceiv'd to move by sight merely, and without experience. There is ('tis true) a [079] successive change of ideas,—it seems less and less. But, besides this, there is no visible change of place. Mem. To enquire most diligently concerning the incommensurability of diagonale & side—whether it does not go on the supposition of units being divisible ad infinitum, i.e. of the extended thing spoken of being divisible ad infinitum (unit being nothing; also v. Barrow, Lect. Geom.), & so the infinite indivisibility deduced therefrom is a petitio principii? The diagonal is commensurable with the side. From Malbranch, Locke, & my first arguings it can't be prov'd m. p. 164 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. M. P. M. M. [ 080 ] that extensión is not in matter. From Locke's arguings it can't be proved that colours are not in bodies. Mem. That I was distrustful at 8 years oíd; and consequently by nature disposed for these new doctrines^^^. Qu. How can a line consisting of an unequal number of points be divisible {ad infinitum] in two equals? Mem. To discuss copiously how & why we do not see the pictures. Allowing extensions to exist in matter, we cannot know even their proportions—contrary to Malbranch. I wonder how men cannot see a truth so obvious, as that extensión cannot exist without a thinking substance. Species of all sensible things made by the mind. This prov'd either by turning men's eyes into magnifyers or diminishers. m. V. is, suppose, less than mine. Let a 3^^^ person have perfect ideas of both our m. v®. His idea of my m. v. contains bis idea of yours, & somewhat more. Therefore 'tis made up of parts: therefore his idea of my m. v. is not perfect or just, which diverts the hypothesis. Qu. Whether a m. v. or t. be extended? Mem. The strange errours men run into about the pictures. We think them small because should a man be suppos'd to see them their pictures would take up but little room in the fund of his eye. It seems all Unes can't be bisected in 2 equall parts. Mem. To examine how the geometers pro ve the contrary. An interesting autobiographical fact. From childhood he was indisposed to take things on trust. Commonplace Book 165 'Tis impossible there should be a m. v. less than mine. If there be, mine may beeome equal to it (beeause they are homogeneous) by detraetion of some part or parts. But it eonsists not of parts, ergo &e. Suppose inverting perspeetives bound to y® eyes of a ehild, & eontinu'd to the years of manhood—when he looks up, or turns up bis head, he shall behold we eall under. Qu. What would he think of up and dowrP'^^l I wonder not at my sagaeity in diseovering the obvious tho' m. amazing truth. I rather wonder at my stupid inadverteney in not finding it out before—'tis no witeheraft to see. Our simple ideas are so many simple thoughts or pereeptions; m. a pereeption eannot exist without a thing to pereeive it, or any longer than it is pereeiv'd; a thought eannot be in an unthinking thing; one uniform simple thought ean be like to nothing but another uniform simple thought. Complex thoughts or ideas are onely an assemblage of simple ideas, and ean be the image of nothing, or like unto nothing, but another assemblage of simple ideas, &e. The Cartesian opinión of light & eolours &e. is orthodox m. enough even in their eyes who think the Seripture expression may favour the eommon opinión. Why may not mine also? But there is nothing in Seripture that ean possibly be wrested to make against me, but, perhaps, many things for me. Bodies &e. do exist whether we think of 'em or no, they being m. taken in a twofold sense— 1. Collections of thoughts. 2. Collections of powers to cause those thoughts. Essay on Vision, sect. 88-119. 166 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 081 ] P. M. P. M. These later exist; tho' perhaps a parte rei it may be one simple perfect power. Qu. whether the extensión of a plain, look'd at straight and slantingly, survey'd minutely & distinctly, or in the bulk and confusedly at once, be the same? N. B. The plain is suppos'd to keep the same distance. The ideas we have by a successive, curious inspection of y® minute parts of a plain do not seem to make up the extensión of that plain view'd & consider'd all together. Ignorance in some sort requisito in y® person that should disown the Principie. Thoughts do most properly signify, or are mostly taken for the interior operations of the mind, wherein the mind is active. Those y^ obey not the acts of volition, and in the mind is passive, are more properly call'd sensations or perceptions. But y^ is all a case of words. Extensión being the collection or distinct co-existence of minimums, i.e. of perceptions intromitted by sight or touch, it cannot be conceiv'd without a perceiving substance. Malbranch does not prove that the figures & extensions exist not when they are not perceiv'd. Consequently he does not prove, ñor can it be prov'd on his principies, that the sorts are the work of the mind, and onely in the mind. The great argument to prove that extensión cannot be in an unthinking substance is, that it cannot be conceiv'd distinct from or without all tangible or visible quality. Tho' matter be extended w* an indefinite extensión, yet the mind makes the sorts. They were not before the mind perceiving them, & even now they are not without the mind. Houses, trees. Commonplace Book 167 &c., tho' indefinitely extended matter do exist, are not without the mind. The great danger of making extensión exist without the mind m. is, that if it does it must be aeknowledg'd infinite, immutable, eternal, &c.;—will be to make either God extended I think dangerous), or an eternal, immutable, infinite, increate Being beside God. Finiteness of our minds no excuse for the geometers. i. The Principie easily proved by plenty of arguments ad m. absurdum. The twofold signification of Bodies, viz. 1. Combinations of thoughts^^^; 2. Combinations of powers to raise thoughts. [ 082 ] These, 1 say, in conjunction with homogeneous partióles, may solve much better the objections from the creation than the supposition that Matter does exist. Upon w supposition 1 think they cannot be solv'd. Bodies taken for powers do exist w“ not perceiv'd; but this existence is not actual^^*’. W" 1 say a power exists, no more is meant than that if in the light 1 open my eyes, and look that way, 1 shall see it, i.e. the body, &c. “thoughts,” i.e. ideas of sense? This, in a crude way, is the distinction of 5úvapt<; and évépyeta. It helps to explain Berkeley's meaning, when he occasionally speaks of the ideas or phenomena that appear in the sense experience of different persons as if they were absolutely independent entities. 168 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Qu. whether blind before sight may not have an idea of light and colours & visible extensión, after the same manner as we perceive them w* eyes shut, or in the dark—not imagining, but seeing after a sort? Visible extensión cannot be conceiv'd added to tangible extensión. Visible and tangible points can't make one sum. Therefore these extensions are heterogeneous. A probable method propos'd whereby one may judge whether in near visión there is a greater distance between the crystalline & fund than usual, or whether the crystalline be onely render'd more convex. If the former, then the v. s. is enlarg'd, & the m. V. corresponds to less than 30 minutes, or w'^ever it us'd to correspond to. Stated measures, inches, feet, &c., are tangible not visible extensions. M. Locke, More, Raphson, &c. seem to make God extended. 'Tis nevertheless of great use to religión to take extensión out of our idea of God, & put a power in its place. It seems dangerous to ch suppose extensión, w is manifestly inert, in God. M. But, say you, The thought or perception I cali extensión is not itself in an unthinking thing or Matter—but it is like something w is in Matter. Well, say I, Do you apprehend or conceive w*^ you say extensión is like unto, or do you not? If the later, how know you they are alike? How can you compare any things besides your own ideas? If the former, it must be an idea, i.e. [ 083 ] perception, thought, or sensation—w to be in an unperceiving thing is a contradiction^^^ I. I abstain from all flourish & powers of words & figures, using To be “in an unperceiving thing,” i.e. to be real, yet unperceived. Whatever is perceived is, because realised only through a percipient act, an idea —in Berkeley's use of the word. Commonplace Book 169 a great plainness & simplicity of simile, having oft found it difficult to understand those that use the lofty & Platonic, or subtil & scholastique strain^^^. Whatsoever has any of our ideas in it must perceive; it m. being that very having, that passive recognition of ideas, that denominates the mind perceiving—that being the very essence of perception, or that wherein perception consists. ch The faintness w alters the appearance of the horizontal moon, rather proceeds from the quantity or grossness of the intermedíate atmosphere, than from any change of distance, w is perhaps not considerable enough to be a total cause, but may be a pardal of the phenomenon. N. B. The visual angle is less in cause the horizon. We judge of the distance of bodies, as by other things, so also ch by the situation of their pictures in the eye, or (w is the same thing) according as they appear higher or lower. Those w seem higher are farther off. Qu. why we see objects greater in y® dark? whether this can be solv'd by any but my Principies? The reverse of y® Principie introduced scepticism. m. N. B. On my Principies there is a reality: there are things: m. there is a rerum natura. Mem. The surds, doubling the cube, &c. We think that if just made to see we should judge of the distance & magnitude of things as we do now; but this is false. So also w*^ we think so positively of the situation of objects. Hays's, Keill's^^^, &c. method of proving the infinitesimals of the 3^^ order absurd, & perfectly contradictions. [ 084 ] This as to the “Platonic strain” is not in the tone of Siris. John Keill (1671-1721), an eminent mathematician, educated at the 170 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Angles of contad, & verily all angles comprehended by a right line & a curve, cannot be measur'd, the arches intercepted not being similar. The danger of expounding the H. Trinity by extensión. M. p. Qu. Why should the magnitude seen at a near distance be deem'd the true one rather than that seen at a farther distance? Why should the sun be thought many 1000 miles rather than one foot in diameter—^both being equally apparent diameters? Certainly men judg'd of the sun not in himself, but w* relation to themselves. M. 4 Principies whereby to answer objections, viz. 1. Bodies do really exist, tho' not perceiv'd by us. 2. There is a law or course of nature. 3. Language & knowledge are all about ideas; words stand for nothing else. 4. Nothing can be a proof against one side of a contradiction that bears equally hard upon the olber^”*^. What shall 1 say? Daré 1 pronounce the admired áKpí(36ia mathematica, that darling of the age, a trifle? Most certainly no finite extensión divisible ad infinitum. M. Difficulties about concentric circles. N. Mem. To examine & accurately discuss the scholium of the University of Edinburgh; in 1710 Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, and the first to teach the Newtonian philosophy in that University. In 1708 he was engaged in a controversy in support of Newton's claims to the discovery of the method of fluxions. This suggests a negativo argument for Kanf s antinomies, and for Hamilton's law of the conditioned. Commonplace Book 171 8 * definition of Mr. Newton's^^^ Principia. Ridiculous in the mathematicians to despise Sense. Qu. Is it not impossible there should be abstract general ideas? All ideas come from without. They are all particular. The mind, 'tis true, can consider one thing w*out another; but then, considered asunder, they make not 2 ideas. Both together can make but one, as for instance colour & visible extension^^^. [ 085 ] The end of a mathematical Une is nothing. Locke's argument that the end of bis pen is black or white concludes nothing here. Mem. Take care how you pretend to define extensión, for fear of the geometers. Qu. Why difficult to imagine a minimum? Ans. Because we are not used to take no tice of 'em singly; they not being able singly to pleasure or hurt us, thereby to deserve our regard. Mem. To prove against Keill y^ the infinite divisibility of matter makes the half have an equal number of equal parts with the whole. Mem. To examine how far the not comprehending infinites may be admitted as a plea. Qu. Why may not the mathematicians reject all the extensions below the M. as well as the dd, &c., w are allowed to be something, & consequently may be magnify'd by glasses into inches, feet, &c., as well as the quantities next below the M.? Big, little, and number are the works of the mind. How therefore can y® extensión you suppose in Matter be big or little? How can it consist of any number of points? Mem. Strictly to remark L[ocke], b. 2. c. 8. s. 8. p. Schoolmen compar'd with the mathematicians. Extensión is blended w* tangible or visible ideas, & by the mind prsescinded therefrom. Newton became Sir Isaac on April 16, 1705. Was this written before that date? These may be considered separately, but not pictured as such. 172 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Mathematiques made easy—the scale does almost all. The scale can tell us the subtangent in y® parabola is double the abscisse. need of the utmost accuracy w" the mathematicians own in rerum natura they cannot find anything corresponding w* their nice ideas. One should endeavour to find a progression by trying the scale. Newton's fluxions needless. Anything below an M might serve for Leibnitz's Differential Calculus. How can they hang together so well, since there are in them (1 mean the mathematiques) so many contradictorice argutice. V. Barrow, Lect. A man may read a book of Conics with case, knowing how to [ 086 ] try if they are right. He may take 'em on the credit of the author. Where's the need of certainty in such trifles? The thing that makes it so much esteem'd in them is that we are thought not capable of getting it elsewhere. But we may in ethiques and metaphysiques. The not leading men into mistakes no argument for the truth of the infinitesimals. They being nothings may perhaps do neither good ñor harm, except w" they are taken for something, & then the contradiction begets a contradiction. a + 500 nothings = a + 50 nothings—an innocent silly truth. M. My doctrine excellently corresponds w* the creation. 1 suppose no matter, no stars, sun, &c. to have existed before^^’. It seems all circles are not similar figures, there not being the same proportion betwixt all circumferences & their diameters. When a small line upon paper represents a mile, the mathematicians do not calcúlate the 1/10000 of the paper line, In as far as they have not been sensibly realised in finite percipient mind. Commonplace Book 173 they calcúlate the 1/10000 of the mile. 'Tis to this they have regard, 'tis of this they think; if they think or have any idea at all. The inch perhaps might represent to their imaginations the mile, but y® 1/10000 of the inch cannot be made to represent anything, it not being imaginable. But the 1/10000 of a mile being somewhat, they think the 1/10000 inch is somewhat: w” they think of y^ they imagine they think on this. 3 faults occur in the arguments of the mathematicians for divisibility ad infinitum — 1. They suppose extensión to exist without the mind, or not perceived. 2. They suppose that we have an idea of length without breadth^^®, or that length without breadth does exist. 3. That unity is divisible ad infinitum. To suppose a M. S. divisible is to say there are distinguishable ideas where there are no distinguishable ideas. [087] The M. S. is not near so inconceivable as the signum in magnitudine individuum. Mem. To examine the math, about their point —what it is—something or nothing; and how it differs from the M. S. All might be demonstrated by a new method of indivisibles, easier perhaps and juster than that of Cavalierius^"*^. Unperceivable perception a contradiction. m. Proprietates reales rerum omnium in Deo, tam corporum quum p. g. spirituum continentur. Clerici, Log. cap. 8. Let my adversarios answer any one of mine, l'll yield. If 1 don't answer every one of theirs, l'll yield. [Or rather that invisible length does exist.]—AUTH0R{FNS, on margin. Bonaventura Cavalieri (1598-1647), the Italian mathematician. His Geometry of Indivisibles (1635) prepared the way for the Calculus. 174 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. M. P. [ 088 ] M. P. The loss of the excuse^^*^ may hurt Transubstantiation, but not the Trinity. We need not strain our imaginations to conceive such little things. Bigger may do as well for infinitesimals, since the integer must be an infinite. Evident y^ has an infinite number of parts must be infinite. Qu. Whether extensión be resoluble into points it does not consist of? Ñor can it be objected that we reason about numbers, w are only words & not ideas^^^; for these infinitesimals are words of no use, if not supposed to stand for ideas. Axiom. No reasoning about things whereof we have no idea. Therefore no reasoning about infinitesimals. Much less infinitesimals of infinitesimals, &c. Axiom. No Word to be used without an idea. Our eyes and senses inform us not of the existence of matter or ideas existing without the mind^^^. They are not to be blam'd for the mistake. 1 defy any man to assign a right Une equal to a paraboloid, but w" look'd at thro' a microscope they may appear unequall. Newton's harangue amounts to no more than that gravity is proportional to gravity. One can't imagine an extended thing without colour. V. Barrow, L. G. Men allow colours, sounds, not to exist without the [By “the excuse” is meant the finiteness of our mind—making it possible for contradictions to appear true to us.]—AUTHORfFNS, on margin. He allows elsewhere that words with meanings not realisable in imagination, i.e. in the form of idea, may discharge a useful office. See Principies, Introduction, sect. 20. We do not perceive unperceived matter, but only matter realised in living perception—the percipient act being the factor of its reality. Commonplace Book 175 mind, tho' they have no demonstration they do not. Why may they not allow my Principie with a demonstration? Qu. Whether 1 had not better allow colours to exist without m. p. the mind; taking the mind for the active thing w 1 cali “1,” “myself ’—y^ seems to be distinct from the understanding^^^? The taking extensión to be distinct from all other tangible & p. visible qualities, & to make an idea by itself, has made men take it to be without the mind. 1 see no wit in any of them but Newton. The rest are meer triflers, mere Nihilarians. The folly of the mathematicians in not judging of sensations by their senses. Reason was given us for nobler uses. Keill's filling the world with a mite^^^. This follows from the m. divisibility of extensión ad infmitum. Extensión, or length without breadth, seems to be nothing save the number of points that lie betwixt any 2 points^^^. It seems to consist in meer proportion—meer reference of the mind. To what purpose is it to determine the forms of glasses geometrically? Sir Isaac^^^ owns his book could have been demonstrated on the supposition of indivisibles. Innumerable vessels of matter. V. Cheyne. m. ni not admire the mathematicians. 'Tis w^ any one of common [089] sense might attain to by repeated acts. 1 prove it by experience. 1 am but one of human sense, and 1 &c. The secondary qualities of things. Because, while dependent on percipient sense, they are independent of my personal will, being determined to appear under natural law, by Divine agency. Keill's Introductio ad veram Physicam (Oxon. 1702)—Lectio 5—a curious Work, dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke. [Extensión without breadth—i. e. insensible, intangible length—is not conceivable. ’Tis a mistake we are led into by the doctrine of abstraction.]—AUTHORfFNS, on margin of MS. Here “Sir Isaac.” Henee written after April, 1705. 176 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Mathematicians have some of them good parts—the more is the pity. Had they not been mathematicians they had been good for nothing. They were such fools they knew not how to employ their parts. The mathematicians could not so much as tell wherein truth & certainty consisted, till Locke told 'em^^^. I see the best of 'em talk of light and colours as if w*out the mind. By ihing I either mean ideas or that has ideas^^^. Nullum prEeclarum ingenium unquam fuit magnus mathematicus. Scaliger^^*^. A great genius cannot stoop to such trifles & minutenesses as they consider. 1 . significant words stand for ideas^^^. 2. All knowledge about our ideas. 3. All ideas come from without or from within. 4. If from without it must be by the senses, & they are call'd sensations^^^. 5. If from within they are the operations of the mind, & are cabed thoughts. 6 . No sensation can be in a senseless thing. 7. No thought can be in a thoughtless thing. 8 . All our ideas are either sensations or thoughts^^^, by 3, 4, 5. Essay, Bk. IV. ch. iv. sect. 18; ch. v. sect. 3, &c. He applies thing to self-conscious persons as well as to passive objects of sense. Scaligerana Secunda, p. 270. [These arguments must be proposed shorter and more sepárate in the Treatise.]—AUTH0R{FNS, on margin. “Idea” here used in its wider meaning—for “operations of mind,” as well as for sense presented phenomena that are independent of individual will. Cf. Principies, sect. 1. “sensations,” i.e. objective phenomena presented in sense. See Principies, sect. 1. Commonplace Book 177 ch 9. None of our ideas can be in a thing w is both thoughtless & senseless^^^, by 6, 7, 8. 10. The bare passive recognition or having of ideas is called perception. 11. Whatever has in it an idea, tho' it be never so passive, tho' it exert no manner of act about it, yet it must perceive. 10. 12. All ideas either are simple ideas, or made up of simple ideas. 13. That thing is like unto another thing must agree w* it in one or more simple ideas. 14. Whatever is like a simple idea must either be another simple idea of the same sort, or contain a simple idea of the same sort. 13. 15. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 14. Another demonstration of the same thing. 16. Two things cannot be said to be alike or unlike till they have been compar'd. 17. Comparing is the viewing two ideas together, & marking they agree in and they disagree in. 18. The mind can compare nothing but its own ideas. 17. 19. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 16, 18. N. B. Other arguments innumerable, both a priori & a posteriori, drawn from all the Sciences, from the clearest, plainest, most obvious truths, whereby to demónstrate the Principie, i.e. that neither our ideas, ñor anything like our ideas, can possibly be in an unperceiving thing^^^. N. B. Not one argument of any kind w’^soever, certain or probable, a priori or a posteriori, from any art or Science, from either sense or reason, against it. See Principies, sect. 2. An “unperceiving thing” cannot be the factor of material reality. [090] 178 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Mathematicians have no right idea of angles. Henee angles of contact wrongly apply'd to prove extensión divisible ad infinitum. We have got the Algebra of puré intelligences. We can prove Newton's propositions more accurately, more easily, & upon truer principies than himself^^’. Barrow owns the downfall of geometry. However l'll endeavour to reseñe it—so far as it is useful, or real, or imaginable, or intelligible. But for the nothings, l'll leave [091] them to their admirers. ni teach any one the whole course of mathematiques in 1/100 part the time that another will. Much banter got from the prefaces of the mathematicians. p. Newton says colour is in the subtil matter. Henee Malbranch proves nothing, or is mistaken, in asserting there is onely figure & motion. ch 1 can square the circle, &c.; they cannot. W goes on the best principies? The Billys^^^ use a finite visible line for an 1/m. T. Marsilius Ficinus—bis appearing the moment he died solv'd by my idea of time^^^. M. The philosophers lose their abstract or unperceived Matter. The mathematicians lose their insensible sensations. The profane [To the utmost accuracy, wanting nothing of perfection. Their Solutions of problems, themselves must own to fall infinitely short of perfection.]—AUTHORfFNS, on margin. lean de Billy and René de Billy, French mathematicians—the former author of Nova Geometrice Clavis and other mathematical works. According to Baronius, in the fifth volume of his “Annals,” Ficinus appeared after death to Michael Mercatus—agreeably to a promise he made when he was alive—to assure him of the life of the human spirit after the death of the body. Commonplace Book 179 [lose] their extended Deity. Fray do the rest of mankind lose? As for bodies, &e., we have them still^^*’. N. B. The future nat. philosoph. & mathem. get vastly by the bargain^^^. There are men who say there are insensible extensions. There p. are others who say the wall is not white, the fire is not hot, &e. We Irishmen eannot attain to these truths. The mathematieians think there are insensible Unes. About these they harangue: these eut in a point at all angles: these are divisible ad infmitum. We Irishmen ean eoneeive no sueh Unes. The mathematieians talk of they eall a point. This, they say, is not altogether nothing, ñor is it downright something. Now we Irishmen are apt to think something^’^ & nothing are next neighbours. Engagements to on aeeount of y® Treatise that grew up under his eye; on aeeount also of his approving my harangue. [092] Glorious for P. to be the proteetor of usefull tho' newly diseover'd truths. How eould 1 venturo thoughts into the world before 1 knew they would be of use to the world? and how eould 1 know that till 1 had try'd how they suited other men's ideas? 1 publish not this so mueh for anything else as to know whether other men have the same ideas as we Irishmen. This is my end, & not to be inform'd as to my own partieular. My speeulations have the same effeet as visiting foreign eountries: in the end 1 return where 1 was before, but my heart at case, and enjoying Ufe with new satisfaetion. So far as we are factors of their reality, in sense and in Science, or can be any practical way concerned with them. Cf. Principies, sect. 101-34. “something,” i.e. abstract something. Lord Pemhroke (?)—to whom the Principies were dedicated, and to whom Locke dedicated his Essay. 180 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Passing through all the Sciences, though false for the most part, yet it gives us the better insight and greater knowledge of the truth. He that would bring another over to bis opinión, must seem to harmonize with him at first, and humour him in his own way of talking™. From my childhood I had an unaccountable turn of thought that way. It doth not argüe a dwarf to have greater strength than a giant, because he can throw off the molehill which is upon him, while the other struggles beneath a mountain. st The whole directed to practise and morality—as appears 1 , from making manifest the nearness and omnipresence of God; from cutting off the useless labour of Sciences, and so forth. [095] This is an interesting example of a feature that is conspicuous in Berkeley—the art of “humoring an opponent in his own way of thinking,” which it seems was an early habit. It is thus that he insinuates his New Principies in the Essay on Vision, and so prepares to unfold and defend them in the book of Principies and the three Dialogues —straining language to reconcile them with ordinary modes of speech. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision First published in 1709 Editor's Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision Berkeley's Essay towards a New Theory of Vision was meant to prepare the way for the exposition and defenee of the new theory of the material world, its natural order, and its relation to Spirit, that is eontained in his book of Principies and in the relative Dialogues, whieh speedily followed. The Essay was the firstfruits of his early philosophieal studies at Dublin. It was also the first attempt to show that our apparently immediate Vision of Spaee and of bodies extended in three-dimensioned spaee, is either taeit or eonseious inferenee, oeeasioned by eonstant assoeiation of the phenomena of whieh alone we are visually percipient with assumed realities of our taetual and loeomotive experienee. The first edition of the Essay appeared early in 1709, when its author was about twenty-four years of age. A seeond edition, with a few verbal ehanges and an Appendix, followed before the end of that year. Both were issued in Dublin, “printed by Aaron Rhames, at the baek of Diek's Coffeehouse, for Jeremy Pepyat, [ 096 ] bookseller in Skinner Row.” In Mareh, 1732, a third edition, without the Appendix, was annexed to Alciphron, on aeeount of 182 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 097 ] its relation to the Fourth Dialogue in that book. This was the author's last revisión. In the present edition the text of this last edition is adopted, after collation with those preceding. The Appendix has been restored, and also the Dedication to Sir John Percival, which appeared only in the first edition. A due appreciation of Berkeley's theory of seeing, and his conception of the visible world, involves a study, not merely of this tentativo juvenile Essay, but also of its fuller development and application in his more matured works. This has been commonly forgotten by his critics. Various circumstances contribute to perplex and even repel the reader of the Essay, making it less fit to be an easy avenue of approach to Berkeley's Principies. Its occasion and design, and its connexion with his spiritual conception of the material world, are suggested in Sections 43 and 44 of the Principies. Those sections are a key to the Essay. They inform us that in the Essay the author intentionally uses language which seems to attribute a reality independent of all percipient spirit to the ideas or phenomena presented in Touch; it being beside his purpose, he says, to “examine and refute” that “vulgar error” in “a work on Vision.” This studied reticence of a verbally paradoxical conception of Matter, in reasonings about visión which are fully intelligible only under that conception, is one cause of a want of philosophical lucidity in the Essay. Another circumstance adds to the embarrassment of those who approach the Principies and the three Dialogues through the Essay on Vision. The Essay offers no exception to the lax employment of equivocal words familiar in the early literature of English philosophy, but which is particularly inconvenient in the subtle discussions to which we are here introduced. At the present day we are perhaps accustomed to more precisión and uniformity in the philosophical use of language; at any rate we 183 connect other meanings than those here intended with some of the leading words. It is enough to refer to sueh terms as idea, notion, sensation, perception, touch, externality, distance, and their eonjugates. It is diffieult for the modern reader to revive and remember the meanings whieh Berkeley intends by idea and notion —so signifieant in his voeabulary; and touch with him eonnotes museular and loeomotive experienee as well as the puré sense of eontaet. Interehange of the terms outward, outness, externality, without the mind, and without the eye is eonfusing, if we forget that Berkeley implies that pereipient mind is virtually eoextensive with our bodily organism, so that being “without” or “at a distanee from” our bodies is being at a distanee from the pereipient mind. I have tried in the annotations to relieve some of these ambiguities, of whieh Berkeley himself warns us (ef. seet. 120). The Essay moreover abounds in repetitions, and interpolations of antiquated opties and physiology, so that its logieal strueture and even its supremo generalisation are not easily apprehended. I will try to disentangle them. The reader must remember that this Essay on Vision is professedly an introspeetive appeal to human eonseiousness. It is an analysis of what human beings are eonseious of when they see, the results being here and there applied, partly by way of verifieation, to solve some famous optieal or physiologieal puzzle. The aim is to present the faets, the whole faets, and nothing but the faets of our internal visual experienee, as distinguished from supposed faets and empty abstraetions, whieh an irregular exereise of imagination, or abuse of words, had put in their plaee. The investigation, moreover, is not eoneerned [ 098 ] with Spaee in its metaphysieal infinity, but with finito seetions of Spaee and their relations, whieh eoneern the seienees, physieal and mathematieal, and with real or tangible Distanee, Magnitude, and Plaee, in their relation to seeing. 184 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 099 ] From the second section onwards the Essay naturally falls into six Parts, devoted successively to the proof of the six following theses regarding the relation of Sight to finite spaces and to things extended:— I. (Sect. 2-51.) Distance, or outness from the eye in the line of visión, is not seen: it is only suggested to the mind by visible phenomena and by sensations felt in the eye, all which are somehow its arbitrarily constituted and non-resembling Signs. II. (Sect. 52-87.) Magnitude, or the amount of space that objects of sense occupy, is really invisible: we only see a greater or less quantity of colour, and colour depends upon percipient mind: our supposed visual perceptions of real magnitude are only our own interpretations of the tactual meaning of the colours we see, and of sensations felt in the eye, which are its Signs. III. (Sect. 88-120.) Situation of objects of sense, or their real relation to one another in ambient space, is invisible: what we see is variety in the relations of colours to one another: our supposed visión of real tangible locality is only our interpretation of its visual non-resembling Signs. IV. (Sect. 121-46.) There is no object that is presented in common to Sight and Touch: space or extensión, which has the best claim to be their common object, is specifically as well as numerically different in Sight and in Touch. V. (Sect. 147-48.) The explanation of the tactual significance of the visible and visual Signs, upon which human experience proceeds, is offered in the Theory that all visible phenomena are arbitrary signs in what is virtually the Language of Nature, addressed by God to the senses and intelligence of Man. VI. (Sect. 149-60.) The true object studied in Geometry is the kind of Extensión given in Touch, not that given in Sight: real Extensión in all its phases is tangible, not visible: colour is the only immediate object of Sight, and colour being mind-dependent sensation, cannot be realised without percipient 185 mind. These concluding sections are supplementary to the main argument. The faet that distanee or outness is invisible is sometimes regarded as Berkeley's eontribution to the theory of seeing. It is rather the assumption on whieh the Essay proeeeds (seet. 2). The Essay does not prove this invisibility, but seeks to shew how, notwithstanding, we learn to find outness through seeing. That the relation between the visual signs of outness, on the one hand, and the real distanee whieh they signify, on the other, is in all eases arbitrary, and diseovered through experienee, is the burden of seet. 2-40. The previously reeognised signs of “eonsiderably remóte” distanees, are mentioned (seet. 3). But near distanee was supposed to be inferred by a visual geometry—and to be “suggested,” not signified by arbitrary signs. The determination of the visual signs whieh suggest outness, near and remóte, is Berkeley's professed diseovery regarding visión. An induetion of the visual signs whieh “suggest” distanee, is followed (seet. 43) by an assertion of the wholly sensuous reality of colour, whieh is aeknowledged to be the only immediate objeet of sight. Henee visible extensión, eonsisting in eolour, must be dependent for its realisation upon sentient or pereipient mind. It is then argued (seet. 44) that this mind-dependent visible outness has no resemblanee to the tangible reality (seet. 45). This is the first passage in the Essay in whieh Toueh and its data are formally brought into view. Taetual or loeomotive experienee, [loo] it is implied, is needed to infuse true reality into our eoneeptions of distanee or outness. This eannot be got from seeing any more than from hearing, or tasting, or smelling. It is as impossible to see and toueh the same objeet as it is to hear and toueh the same objeet. Visible objeets and oeular sensations ean only be ideal signs of real things. The seetions in whieh Toueh is thus introdueed are among the most important in the Essay. They represent the outness given 186 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 101 ] in hearing as wholly sensuous, ideal, or mind-dependent: they recognise as more truly real that got by contact and locomotion. But if this is all that man can see, it follows that his visible World, at any rate, becomes real only in and through percipient mind. The problem of an Essay on Vision is thus, to explain how the visible world of extended colour can inform us of tangible realities, which it does not in the least resemble, and with which it has no necessary connexion. That visible phenomena, or else certain organic sensations involved in seeing (sect. 3, 16, 21, 27), gradually suggest the real or tangible outness with which they are connected in the divinely constituted system of nature, is the explanation which now begins to dawn upon us. Here an ambiguity in the Essay appears. It concludes that the visible world cannot be real without percipient realising mind, i.e. not otherwise than ideally: yet the argument seems to take for granted that we are percipient of a tangible world that is independent of percipient realising mind. The reader is apt to say that the tangible world must be as dependen! on percipient mind for its reality as the visible world is concluded to be, and for the same reason. This difficulty was soon afterwards encountered in the book of Principies, where the worlds of sight and touch are put on the same level; and the possibility of unperceived reality in both cases is denied; on the ground that a material world cannot be realised in the total absence of Spirit—human and divine. The term “external” may still be applied to tactual and locomotive phenomena alone, if men choose; but this not because of the ideal character of what is seen, and the unideal reality of what is touched, but only because tactual perceptions are found to be more firm and steady than visual. Berkeley preferred in this way to insinúate his new conception of the material world by degrees, at the risk of exposing this juvenile and tentativo Essay on Vision to a charge of incoherence. The way in which visual ideas or phenomena “suggest” the 187 outness or distance of things from the organ of sight having been thus explained, in what I cali the First Part of the Essay, the Second and Third Parts (sect. 52-120) argüe for the invisibility of real extensión in two other relations, viz. magnitude and locality or situation. An induction of the visual signs of tangible size and situation is given in those sections. The result is applied to solve two problems then notable in optics, viz. (1) the reason for the greater visible size of the horizontal moon than of the moon in its meridian (sect. 67-87); and (2) the fact that objects are placed erect in visión only on condition that their images on the retina are inverted (sect. 88-120). Here the antithesis between the ideal world of coloured extensión, and the real world of resistan! extensión is pressed with vigour. The “high” and “low” of the visible world is not the “high” and “low” of the tangible world (sect. 91-106). There is no resemblance and no necessary relation, between those two so-called extensions; not even when the number of visible objects happen to coincide with the number of tangible objects of which they are the visual signs, e.g. the visible and tangible fingers on the hand: for the born-blind, on first receiving sight, could not parcel out the visible phenomena in correspondence with the tangible. The next Part of the Essay (sect. 121-45) argües for a specific as well as a numerical difference between the original data of sight and the data of touch and locomotion. Sight and touch perceive nothing in common. Extensión in its various relations differs in sight from extensión in touch. Coloured extensión, which alone is visible, is found to be different in kind from resistan! extensión, which alone is tangible. And if actually perceived or concrete extensions differ thus, the question is determined. For all extensión with which man can be concerned must be concrete (sect. 23). Extensión in the abstrae! is meaningless (sect. 124-25). What remains is to marshal the scattered evidence, and to guard the foregoing conclusions against objections. This is attempted in sections 128-46. [ 102 ] 188 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [103] The enunciation of the summary generalisation, which forms the “New Theory of Vision” (sect. 147-8), may be taken as the Fifth and culminating Part of the Essay. The closing sections (149-60), as I have said, are supplementary, and profess to determine the sort of extensión—visible or tangible—with which Geometry is concerned. In concluding that it is tangible, he tries to picture the mental State of Idominians, or unbodied spirits, endowed with visual perceptions only, and asks what their conception of outness and solid extensión must be. Here further refinements in the interpretation of visual perception, and its organic conditions, which have not escaped the attention of latter psychologists and biologists, are hinted at. Whether the data of sight consist of non-resembling arbitrary Signs of the tactual distances, sizes, and situations of things, is a question which some might prefer to deal with experimentally—by trial of the experience of persons in circumstances fitted to supply an answer. Of this sort would be the experience of the born-blind, immediately after their sight has been restored; the conception of extensión and its relations found in persons who continué from birth unable to see; the experience (if it could be got) of persons always destitute of all tactual and locomotive perceptions, but familiar with visión; and the facts of seeing observed in infants of the human species, and in the lower animáis. Berkeley did not try to verify his conclusions in this way. Here and there (sect. 41, 42, 79, 92-99, 103, 106, 110, 128, 132-37), he conjectures what the first visual experience of those rescued from born-blindness is likely to be; he also speculates, as we have seen, about the experience of unbodied spirits supposed to 189 be able to see, but unable to touch or move (sect. 153-59); and in the Appendix he refers, in confirmation of bis New Theory, to a reported case of one born blind who had obtained sight. But he forms bis Theory independently of those delicate and difficult investigations. His testing facts were sought introspectively. Indeed those physiologists and mental philosophers who have since tried to determine what visión in its purity is, by cases either of communicated sight or of continued born-blindness, have illustrated the truth of Diderot's remark—“préparer et interroger un aveugle-né n'eüt point été une occupation indigne des talens réunis de Newton, Des Cartes, Locke, et Leibniz^^^.” Berkeley's New Theory has been quoted as a signal example of discovery in metaphysics. The subtle analysis which distinguishes seeing strictly so called, from judgments about extended things, suggested by what we see, appears to have [104] been imperfectly known to the ancient philosophers. Aristotle, indeed, speaks of colour as the only proper object of sight; but, in passages of the De Anima^^^ where he ñames properties peculiar to particular senses, he enumerates others, such as motion, figure, and magnitude, which belong to all the senses in common. His distinction of Proper and Common Sensibles appears at first to contradict Berkeley's doctrine of the heterogeneity of the ideal visible and the real tangible worlds. Aristotle, however, seems to question the immediate perceptibility of Common Sensibles, and to regard them as realised through the activity of intelligence^’^. In Diderot's Lettre sur les aveugles, á l'usage de ceux qui voient, where Berkeley, Molyneux, Condillac, and others are mentioned. Cf. also Appendix, pp. 111, 112; and Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 71, with the note, in which some recorded experiments are alluded to. De Anima, II. 6, III. 1, &c. Aristotle assigns a pre-eminent intellectual valué to the sense of sight. See, for instance, his Metaphysics, I. 1. Sir A. Grant, [Ethics of Aristotle, vol. II. p. 172) remarks, as to the doctrine that the Common Sensibles are apprehended concomitantly by the senses, that: 190 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [105] Some writers in Optics, in mediaeval times, and in early modern philosophy, advanced beyond Aristotle, in explaining the relation of our matured notion of distance to what we originally perceive in seeing, and in the fifteenth century it was discovered by Maurolyco that the rays of light from the object converge to a focus in the eye; but I have not been able to trace even the germ of the New Theory in these speculations. Excepting some hints by Descartes, Malebranche was among the first dimly to anticipate Berkeley, in resolving our supposed power of seeing outness into an interpretation of visual signs which we learn by experience to understand. The most important part of Malebranche's account of seeing is contained in the Recherche de la Vérité (Liv. I. ch. 9), in one of those chapters in which he discusses the frequent fallaciousness of the senses, and in particular of our visual perceptions of extensión. He accounts for their inevitable uncertainty by assigning them not to sense but to misinterpretation of what is seen. He also enumerates various visual signs of distance. That the Recherche of Malebranche, published more than thirty years before the Essay, was familiar to Berkeley before the publication of his New Theory, is proved by internal evidence, and by his juvenile Commonplace Book. I am not able to discover signs of a similar connexion between the New Theory “this is surely the true view; we see in the apprehension of number, figure, and the like, not an operation of sense, but the mind putting its own forms and categories, i.e. itself, on the external object. It would follow then that the senses cannot really be separated from the mind; the senses and the mind each contribute an element to every knowledge. Aristotle's doctrine of KOtvf] ata0r|at<; would go far, if carried out, to modify his doctrine of the simple and innate character of the senses, e.g. sight (cf. Eth. II. 1, 4), and would preven! its collision with Berkeley's Theory of Vision .”—See also Sir W. Hamilton, Reid's Works, pp. 828-830. Dugald Stewart (Collected Works, vol. I. p. 341, note) quotes Aristotle's Ethics, II. 1, as evidence that Berkeley's doctrine, “with respect to the acquired perceptions of sight, was quite unknown to the best metaphysicians of antiquity.” 191 and the chapter on the mystery of sensation in Glanvill's Scepsis Scientifica (ch. 5), published some years before the Recherche of Malebranche, where Glanvill refers to “a secret deduction,” through which—from motions, &c., of which we are immediately percipient—we “spell out” figures, distances, magnitudes, and colours, which have no resemblance to them. An approach to the New Theory is found in a passage which first appeared in the second edition of Locke's Essay, published in 1694, to which Berkeley refers in his own Essay (sect. 132-35), and which, on account of its relativo importance, I shall here transcribe at length:— “We are further to consider concerning Perception that the ideas we receive by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by the judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round globe of any uniform colour, e.g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted in our mind is of a flat circle, variously shadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness coming to our eyes. But, we having by use been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us, what alterations are made in [ 106 ] the reflection of light by the difference in the sensible figures of bodies—the judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the appearances into their causes; so that, from that which is truly variety of shadow or colour, collecting the figure, it makes it pass for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure and an uniform colour, when the idea we receive from them is only a plañe variously coloured, as is evident in painting. “To which purpose I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and studious promotor of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molyneux, which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since, and it is this:—Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the 192 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [107] same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt the one and the other, which is the cube and which the sphere. Suppose then the cube and the sphere placed on a table, and the blind man be made to see: quere, whether, by his sight, before he touched them, he could not distinguish and tell, which is the globe and which the cube? To which the acute and judicious proposer answers: ‘Not.’ For, though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, how a cube affects his touch; yet he has not obtained the experience that what affects his touch so and so, must affect his sight so and so; so that a protuberant angle in the cube, that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does in the cube.—I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to cali my friend, in his answer to this his problem, and am of opinión that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able to say with certainty which was the globe and which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he would unerringly ñame them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference in their figures felt. “This I have set down, and leave with my reader, as an occasion for him to consider how much he may be beholden to experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks he had not the least use of, or help from them: and the rather because this observing gentleman further adds that, having, upon the occasion of my book, proposed this problem to divers very ingenious men, he hardly ever met with one that at first gave the answer to it which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they were convinced. “But this is not I think usual in any of our ideas but those received by sight: because sight, the most comprehensive of the senses, conveying to our minds the ideas of light and colours, which are peculiar only to that sense; and also the far different ideas of space, figure, and motion, the several varieties of which change the appearance of its proper object, i.e. light and colours; we bring ourselves by use to judge of the one by the other. This, 193 in many cases, by a settled habit, in things whereof we have frequent experience, is performed so constantly and so quick, that we take that for the perception of our sensation, which is an idea formed by our judgment; so that one, i.e. that of sensation, serves only to excite the other, and is scarce taken notice of itself; as a man who reads or hears with attention and understanding takes little notice of the character or sounds, but of the ideas that are excited in him by them. “Ñor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice, if we consider how very quick the actions of the mind are performed; for, as itself is thought to take up no space, to have no extensión, so its actions seem to require no time, but many of them seem to be crowded into an instant. I speak this in comparison of the actions of the body.... Secondly, we shall not be much surprised that this is done with us in so little notice, if we consider how the facility we get of doing things, by a custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without notice. Habits, especially such as are begun very early, come at last to produce actions in us which often escape our observation.... And therefore it is not so strange that our mind should often change the idea of its sensation into that of its judgment, and make the one serve only to excite the other, without our taking notice of it.” {Essay concerning Human Understanding, Book II. ch. 9. § 8.) This remarkable passage anticipates by implication the view of an interpretation of materials originally given in the visual sense, which, under the ñame of “suggestion,” is the ruling factor in the New Theory of Vision. The following sentences relative to the invisibility of distances, contained in the Treatise of Dioptrics (published in 1690) of Locke's friend and corresponden! William Molyneux, whose son was Berkeley's pupil, illustrate Locke's statements, and may be compared with the opening sections of the Essay on Vision :— “In plain visión the estimate we make of the distance of objects (especially when so far removed that the interval between our two [ 108 ] 194 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [109] eyes bears no sensible proportion thereto, or when looked upon with one eye only) is rather the act of our judgment than of sense; and acquired by exercise, and a faculty of comparing, rather than natural. For, distance of itself is not to be perceived; for, 'tis a Une (or a length) presented to our eye with its end toward us, which must therefore be only a point, and that is invisible. Wherefore distance is chiefly perceived by means of interj acent bodies, as by the earth, mountains, hills, fields, trees, houses, &c. Or by the estimate we make of the comparative magnitude of bodies, or of their faint colours, &c. These I say are the chief means of apprehending the distance of objects that are considerably remóte. But as to nigh objects—to whose distance the interval of the eyes bears a sensible proportion—their distance is perceived by the turn of the eyes, or by the angle of the optic axes {Gregorii Opt. Promot. prop. 28). This was the opinión of the ancients, Alhazen, Vitellio, &c. And though the ingenious Jesuit Tacquet (Opt. Lib. I. prop. 2) disapprove thereof, and objects against it a new notion of Gassendus (of a man's seeing only with one eye at a time one and the same object), yet this notion of Gassendus being absolutely false (as I could demónstrate were it not beside my present purpose), it makes nothing against this opinión. “Wherefore, distance being only a line and not of itself perceivable, if an object were conveyed to the eye by one single ray only, there were no other means of judging of its distance but by some of those hinted before. Therefore when we estimate the distance of nigh objects, either we take the help of both eyes; or else we consider the pupil of one eye as having breadth, and receiving a parcel of rays from each radiating point. And, according to the various inclinations of the rays from one point on the various parts of the pupil, we make our estimate of the distance of the object. And therefore (as is said before), by one single eye we can only judge of the distance of such objects to whose distance the breadth of the pupil has a sensible proportion.... For, it is observed before (prop. 29, sec. 2, see also Gregorii Opt. 195 Promot. prop. 29) that for viewing objects remóte and nigh, there are requisite various eonformations of the eye—the rays from nigh objeets that fall on the eye diverging more than those from more remóte objeets.” {Treatise of Dioptrics, Part I. prop. 31.) All this helps to shew the State of seienee regarding visión about the time Berkeley's Essay appeared, espeeially among those with whose works he was familiar^^*. I shall next refer to illustrations of the ehange whieh the Essay produeed. The New Theory has oeeasioned some interesting eritieism sinee its appearanee in 1709. At first it drew little attention. For twenty years after its publieation the allusions to it were few. The aeeount of Cheselden's experiment upon one born blind, published in 1728, in the Philosophical Transactions, whieh seemed to bring the Theory to the test of seientifie experiment, reealled attention to Berkeley's reasonings. The State of religious thought about the same time eonfirmed the tendeney to diseuss a doetrine whieh represented human visión as interpretation of a natural yet divine language, thus suggesting Omnipresent Mind. Occasional diseussions of the New Theory may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, from 1732 till Berkeley's death in 1753. Some eritieisms may also be found in Smith's Optics, published in 1738. Essentialparts of Berkeley's analysis are explainedby Voltaire, in his Elémens de la Philosophie de Newton. The following from that Work is here given on its own aeeount, and also as a prominent reeognition of the new doetrine in Franee, within thirty years from its first promulgation:— “11 faut absolument conclure de tout ceci, que les distances, les grandeurs, les situations, ne sont pas, á proprement parler, A Work resembling Berkeley's in its title, but in little else, appeared more than twenty years before the Essay —the Nova Visionis Theoria of Dr. Briggs, published in 1685. [ 110 ] 196 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 111 ] des choses visibles, c'est-á-dire, ne sont pas les objets propres et immédiats de la vue. L'objet propre et immédiat de la vue n'est autre chose que la lumiére colorée; tout le reste, nous ne le sentons qu'á la longue et par expérience. Nous apprenons á voir précisément comme nous apprenons á parler et á lire. La différence est, que l'art de voir est plus facile, et que la nature est également á tous notre maitre. “Les jugements soudains, presque uniformes, que toutes nos ames, á un certain age, portent des distances, des grandeurs, des situations, nous font penser qu'il n'y a qu'á ouvrir les yeux pour voir la maniere dont nous voyons. On se trompe; il y faut le secours des autres sens. Si les hommes n'avaient que le sens de la vue, ils n'auraient aucun moyen pour connaitre l'étendue en longueur, largeur et profondeur; et un pur esprit ne la connaitrait pas peutétre, á moins que Dieu ne la lui révélát. 11 est tres difficile de séparer dans notre entendement ¡'extensión d'un objet d'avec les couleurs de cet objet. Nous ne voyons jamais rien que d'étendu, et de la nous sommes tous portés á croire que nous voyons en effet l'étendue.” (Élémens de la Philos. de Newton, Seconde Partie, ch. 7.) Condillac, in his Essais sur VOrigine des Connaissances Humaines (Part I. sect. 6), published in 1746, combats Berkeley's New Theory, and maintains that an extensión exterior to the eye is immediately diseernible by sight; the eye being naturally eapable of judging at onee of figures, magnitudes, situations, and distanees. His reasonings in support of this “prejudiee,” as he afterwards allowed it to be, may be found in the seetion entitled “De quelques jugemens qu'on a attribués á l'áme sans fondement, ou solution d'un probléme de métaphysique.” Here Loeke, Molyneux, Berkeley, and Voltaire are eritieised, and Cheselden's experiment is referred to. Condillae's subsequent reeantation is eontained in his Traité des Sensations, published in 1754, and in his L'Art de Penser. In the Traité des Sensations 197 (Troisiéme Partie, ch. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, &c.) the whole question is discussed at length, and Condillac vindicates what he allows must appear a marvellous paradox to the uninitiated—that we only gradually learn to see, hear, smell, taste, and toueh. He argües in partieular that the eye eannot originally pereeive an extensión that is beyond itself, and that pereeption of trinal spaee is due to what we experienee in toueh. Voltaire and Condillae gave eurreney to the New Theory in Franee, and it soon beeame a eommonplaee with D'Alembert, Diderot, Buffon, and other Freneh philosophers. In Germany we have allusions to it in the Berlin Memoirs and elsewhere; but, although known by ñame, if not in its distinetive prineiple and latent idealism, it has not obtained the eonsideration whieh [ii 2 ] its author's developed theory of the material as well as the visible World has reeeived. The Kantian a priori eritieism of our eognition of Spaee, and of our mathematieal notions, subsequently indisposed the Germán mind to the a posteriori reasoning of Berkeley's Essay. Its influenee is apparent in British philosophy. The following passages in Hartley's Observations on Man, published in 1749, illustrate the extent to whieh some of the distinetive parts of the new doetrine were at that time reeeived by an eminent English psyehologist:— “Distanee is judged of by the quantity of motion, and figure by the relative quantity of distanee.... And, as the sense of sight is mueh more extensive and expedite than feeling, we judge of tangible qualities ehiefly by sight, whieh therefore may be eonsidered, agreeably to Bishop Berkeley's remark, as a philosophieal language for the ideas of feeling; being, for the most part, an adequate representative of them, and a language eommon to all mankind, and in whieh they all agree very nearly, after a modérate degree of experienee. “However, if the informations from toueh and sight disagree at any time, we are always to depend upon toueh, as that whieh. 198 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 113 ] according to the usual ways of speaking upon these subjects, is the true representation of the essential properties, i.e. as the earnest and presage of what other tangible impressions the body under consideration will make upon our feeling in other circumstances; also what changes it will produce in other bodies; of which again we are to determine by our feeling, if the visual language should not happen to correspond to it exactly. And it is from this difference that we cali the touch the reality, light the representative—also that a person born blind may foretell with certainty, from his present tangible impressions, what others would follow upon varying the circumstances; whereas, if we could suppose a person to be born without feeling, and to arrive at man's estáte, he could not, from his present visible impressions, judge what others would follow upon varying the circumstances. Thus the picture of a knife, drawn so well as to deceive his eye, would not, when applied to another body, produce the same change of visible impressions as a real knife does, when it separates the parts of the body through which it passes. But the touch is not hable to these deceptions. As it is therefore the fundamental source of Information in respect of the essential properties of matter, it may be considered as our first and principal key to the knowledge of the external world.” (Prop. 30.) In other parts of Hartley's book (e.g. Prop. 58) the relation of our visual judgments of magnitude, figure, motion, distance, and position to the laws of association is explained, and the associating circumstances by which these judgments are formed are enumerated in detail. Dr. Porterfield of Edinburgh, in his Treatise on the Eye, or the Manner and Phenomena of Vision (Edinburgh, 1759), is an exception to the consent which the doctrine had then widely secured. He maintains, in opposition to Berkeley, that “the judgments we form of the situation and distance of visible objects, depend not on custom and experience, but on original 199 instinct, to which mind is subject in our embodied state^’^.” Berkeley's Theory of Vision, in so far as it resolves our visual perceptions of distance into interpretation of arbitrary signs, received the qualified approbation of Reid, in bis Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principies of Common Sense (1764). He eritieises it in the Inquiry, where the doetrine of visual signs, of whieh Berkeley's whole philosophy is a development, is aeeepted, and to some extent applied. With Reid it is divoreed, however, from the Berkeleian eoneeption of the material world, although the Theory of Vision was the seminal prineiple of [ii4] Berkeley's Theory of Matter^^*’. This Theory of Matter was imperfeetly eoneeived and then rejeeted by Reid and his followers, while the New Theory of Vision obtained the general eonsent of the Seottish metaphysieians. Adam Smith refers to it in his Essays (published in 1795) as “one of the finest examples of philosophieal analysis that is to be found either in our own or in any other language.” Dugald Stewart eharaeterises it in his Elements as “one of the most beautiful, and at the same time one of the most important theories of modern philosophy.” “The solid additions,” he afterwards remarks in his Dissertation, “made by Berkeley to the stoek of human knowledge, were important and brilliant. Among these the first plaee is unquestionably due to his New Theory of Vision, a Work abounding with ideas so different from those eommonly reeeived, and at the same time so profound and refined, that it was regarded by all but a few aeeustomed to deep metaphysieal refleetion, rather in the light of a philosophieal romanee than of a sober inquiry after truth. Sueh, however, has sinee been the progress and diffusion of this sort of knowledge, that the leading and most abstraeted doetrines eontained in it form now an essential part of every elementary treatise on opties, and See Treatise on the Eye, vol. II. pp. 299, &c. See Reid's Inquiry, ch. v. §§ 3, 5, 6, 7; ch. vi. § 24, and Essays on the Intellectual Powers, II. ch. 10 and 19. 200 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [115] are adopted by the most superficial smatterers in Science as fundamental articles of their faith.” The New Theory is accepted by Thomas Brown, who proposes {Lectures, 29) to extend the scope of its reasonings. With regard to perceptions of sight, Young, in his Lectures on Intellectual Philosophy (p. 102), says that “it has been universally admitted, at least since the days of Berkeley, that many of those which appear to us at present to be instantaneous and primitive, can yet be shewn to be acquired; that most of the adult perceptions of sight are founded on the previous information of touch; that colour can give us no conception originally of those qualities of bodies which produce it in us; and that primary visión gives us no notion of distance, and, as I believe, no notion of magnitude.” Sir James Mackintosh, in his Dissertation, characterises the New Theory of Vision as “a great discovery in Mental Philosophy.” “Nothing in the compass of inductivo reasoning,” remarks Sir William Hamilton (Reid's Works, p. 182, note), “appears more satisfactory than Berkeley's demonstration of the necessity and manner of our learning, by a slow process of observation and comparison alone, the connexion between the perceptions of visión and touch, and, in general, all that relates to the distance and magnitude of external things^^'.” The New Theory of Vision has in short been generally accepted, so far as it was understood, alike by the followers of Hartley and by the associates and successors of Reid. Among British psychologists, it has recommended itself to rationalists and sensationalists, to the advocates of innate principies, and to those who would explain by accidental association what their While Sir W. Hamilton {Lectures on Metaphysics, Ixxviii) acknowledges the scientific validity of Berkeley's conclusions, as to the way we judge of distances, he complains, in the same lecture, that “the whole question is thrown into doubt hy the analogy of the lower animáis,” i.e. by their probable visual instinct of distances; and elsewhere (Reid's Works, p. 137, note) he seems to hesitate about Locke's Solution of Molyneux's Problem, at least in its application to Cheselden's case. Cf. Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, Liv. II. ch. 9, in connexion with this last. 201 opponents attribute to reason originally latent in man. But this wide conscious assent is I think chiefly confined to the proposition that distance is invisible, and hardly reaches the deeper implieates of the theory, on its extensión to all the senses, leading to a pereeption of the final unity of the natural and the [ii6] supernatural, and the ultímate spirituality of the universe^^^. [117] An almost solitary exception in Britain to this unusual uniformity on a subtle question in psychology is found in Samuel Bailey's Review ofBerkeley's Theory of Vision, designed to show the unsoundness of that celebrated Speculation, which appeared in 1842. It was the subject of two interesting rejoinders—a well- weighed criticism, in the Westminster Review, by J.S. Mili, since republished in his Discussions; and an ingenious Essay by Professor Ferrier, in Blackwood’s Magazine, republished in his Philosophical Remains. The controversy ended on that occasion with Bailey's Letter to a Philosopher in reply to some recent attenipts to vindicóte Berkeley's Theory of Vision, and infurther elucidation of its unsoundness, and a reply to it by each of his critics. It was revived in 1864 by Mr. Abbott of Trinity College, Dublin, whose essay on Sight and Touch is “an attempt to disprove the received (or Berkeleian) Theory of Vision.” Dedication [ 118 ] TO THE RT. HON. SIR JOHN PERCIVALE, BART.283, ONE OE HER MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABEE PRIVY COUNCIE IN THE KINGDOM OE IREEAND. Sir, I could not, without doing violence to myself, forbear upon this occasion to give some public testimony of the great and well-grounded esteem I have conceived for yon, ever since I had the honour and happiness of your acquaintance. The outward advantages of fortune, and the early honours with which you are adorned, together with the reputation you are known to have amongst the best and most considerable men, may well imprint veneration and esteem on the minds of those who behold you from a distance. But these are not the chief motives that inspire me with the respect I bear you. A nearer approach has given me the view of something in your person infinitely beyond the external ornaments of honour and estáte. I mean, an intrinsic stock of virtue and good sense, a true concern for religión, and disinterested love of your country. Add to these an uncommon proficiency in the best and most useful parts of knowledge; together with (what in my mind is a perfection of the first rank) a surpassing goodness of nature. All which I have collected, not from the uncertain reports of fame, but from my own experience. Within these few months that I have the honour to be known unto you, the many delightful hours I have passed in your agreeable Afterwards (in 1733) Earl of Egmont. Born about 1683, he succeeded to the baronetcy in 1691, and, after sitting for a few years in the Irish House of Commons, was in 1715 created Barón Percival, in the Irish peerage. In 1732 he obtained a charter to colonise the province of Georgia in North America. His ñame appears in the list of subscribers to Berkeley's Bermuda Scheme in 1726. He died in 1748. He corresponded frequently with Berkeley from 1709 onwards. Dedication 203 and improving conversation have afforded me the opportunity of discovering in yon many excellent qualities, which at once fill me with admiration and esteem. That one at those years, and in those circumstances of wealth and greatness, should continué proof against the charms of luxury and those criminal pleasures so fashionable and predominant in the age we live in; that he should preserve a sweet and modest behaviour, free from that insolent and assuming air so familiar to those who are placed above the ordinary rank of men; that he should manage a great fortune with that prudence and inspection, and at the same time expend it with that generosity and nobleness of mind, as to shew himself equally remóte from a sordid parsimony and a lavish inconsiderate profusión of the good things he is intrusted with—this, surely, were admirable and praiseworthy. But, that he should, moreover, by an impartial exercise of bis reason, and constan! perusal of the sacred Scriptures, endeavour to attain a right notion of the principies of natural and revealed religión; that he should with the concern of a true patrio! have the interest of the public at heart, and omit no means of informing himself what may be prejudicial or advantageous to bis country, in order to preven! the one and promote the other; in fine, that, by a constan! application to the most severe and useful studies, by a strict observation of the rules of honour and virtue, by frequent and serious reflections on the mistaken mensures of the world, and the true end and happiness of mankind, he should in all respects qualify himself bravely to run the race that is set before him, to deserve the character of great and good in this life, and be ever happy hereafter—this were amazing and almos! incredible. Yet all this, and more than this, SiR, might I justly say of you, did either your modesty permit, or your character stand in need of it. I know it might deservedly be thought a vanity in me to imagine that anything coming from so obscure a hand as mine could add a lustre to your reputation. But, I am withal sensible how far I advance the interest of my own, by laying hold on [ii9] 204 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. this opportunity to make it known that I am admitted into some degree of intimacy with a person of your exquisite judgment. And, with that view, I have ventured to make yon an address of this nature, which the goodness I have ever experienced in yon inclines me to hope will meet with a favourable reception at your hands. Though I must own I have your pardon to ask, for touching on what may possibly be offensive to a virtue you are possessed of in a very distinguishing degree. Excuse me, SiR, if it was out of my power to mention the ñame of SiR John Percivale without paying some tribute to that extraordinary and surprising merit whereof I have so olear and affecting an idea, and which, I am sure, cannot be exposed in too full a light for the imitation of others, Of late I have been agreeably employed in considering the most noble, pleasant, and comprehensive of all the senses^^^. The fruit of that (labour shall I cali it or) diversión is what I now present you with, in hopes it may give some entertainment to one who, in the midst of business and vulgar enjoyments, preserves a relish for the more refined pleasures of thought and reflexión. My thoughts concerning Vision have led me into some notions so far out of the common road^^^ that it had been improper to address them to one of a narrow and contracted genius. But, you, SiR, being master of a large and free understanding, raised above the power of those prejudices that enslave the far greater part Similar terms are applied to the sense of seeing by writers with whom Berkeley was familiar. Thus Locke (Essay, II. ix. 9) refers to sight as “the most comprehensive of all our senses.” Descartes opens his Dioptrique by designating it as “le plus universal et le plus noble de nos sens;” and he alludes to it elsewhere (Princip. TV. 195) as “le plus subtil de tous les sens.” Malebranche begins his analysis of sight (Recherche, I. 6) by describing it as “le premier, le plus noble, et le plus étendu de tous les sens.” The high place assigned to this sense by Aristotle has been already alluded to. Its office, as the chief organ through which a conception of the material universe as placed in ambient space is given to us, is recognised by a multitude of psychologists and metaphysicians. On Berkeley's originality in his Theory of Vision see the Editor's Preface. Dedication 205 of mankind, may deservedly be thought a proper patrón for an attempt of this kind. Add to this, that yon are no less disposed to forgive than qualified to diseern whatever faults may oeeur in it. Ñor do I think yon defeetive in any one point neeessary to form [ 120 ] an exaet judgment on the most abstraet and diffieult things, so mueh as in a just eonfidenee of your own abilities. And, in this one instanee, give me leave to say, yon shew a manifest weakness of judgment. With relation to the following Essay, I shall only add that I beg your pardon for laying a trifle of that nature in your way, at a time when you are engaged in the important affairs of the nation, and desire you to think that I am, with all sineerity and respeet, SiR, Your most faithful and most humble servant, GEORGE BERKEEEY. [ 127 ] An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision [ 128 ] 1. My design is to shew the manner wherein we perceive by Sight the Distance, Magnitude, and Situation of objects: also to consider the differenee there is betwixt the ideas of Sight and Toueh, and whether there be any idea eommon to both senses^^^. 2. It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance, of itself and immediately, cannot be seen^*^. For, distance^^* being a Une directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye, which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter^^^. 3. I find it also acknowledged that the estimate we make of the distance of objects considerably remóte is rather an act of judgment grounded on experience than of sense. For example, when I perceive a great number of intermediate objects, such In the first edition alone this sentence followed:—“In treating of all which, it seems to me, the writers of Optics have proceeded on wrong principies.” Sect. 2-51 explain the way in which we leam in seeing to judge of Distance or Outness, and of objects as existing remóte from our organism, viz. by their association with what we see, and with certain muscular and other sensations in the eye which accompany visión. Sect. 2 assumes, as granted, the invisibility of distance in the line of sight. Cf. sect. 11 and 88 —First Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous — Alciphron, TV. 8 —Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained, sect. 62-69. i.e. outness, or distance outward from the point of visión—distance in the line of sight—the third dimensión of space. Visible distance is visible space or interval between two points (see sect. 112). We can be sensibly percipient of it only when both points are seen. This section is adduced by some of Berkeley's critics as if it were the evidence discovered by him for his Theory, instead of being, as it is, a passing reference to the scientific ground of the already acknowledged invisibility of outness, or distance in the line of sight. See, for example, Bailey's Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, pp. 38-43, also his Theory of Reasoning, p. 179 and pp. 200-7—Mill's Discussions, vol. II. p. 95—Abbott's Sight and Toueh, p. 10, where this sentence is presented as “the solé positive argument advanced by Berkeley.” The invisibility of outness is not Berkeley's discovery, but the An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 207 as houses, fields, rivers, and the like, which I have experienced to take up a considerable space, I thence form a judgment or conclusión, that the object I see beyond them is at a great distance. Again, when an object appears faint and small which at a near distance I have experienced to make a vigorous and large appearance, I instantly conclude it to be far off^^°. And this, it is evident, is the result of experience; without which, from the faintness and littleness, I should not have inferred anything concerning the distance of objects. 4. But, when an object is placed at so near a distance as that the interval between the eyes bears any sensible proportion to it^^\ the opinión of speculative men is, that the two optic axes (the fancy that we see only with one eye at once being exploded), concurring at the object, do there make an angle, by means of which, according as it is greater or lesser, the object is perceived to be nearer or farther off^^^. 5. Betwixt which and the foregoing manner of estimating distance there is this remarkable difference:—that, whereas there was no apparent necessary connexion between small distance and a large and strong appearance, or between great distance and a little and faint appearance, there appears a very necessary connexion between an obtuse angle and near distance, and an acute angle and farther distance. It does not in the least depend upon experience, but may be evidently known by any one before he had experienced it, that the nearer the concurrence of the optic way we learn to interpret its visual signs, and what these are. i.e. aerial and linear perspective are acknowledged signs of remóte distances. But the question, in this and the thirty-six following sections, concems the visibility of near distances only—a few yards in front of us. It was “agreed by all” that beyond this limit distances are suggested by our experience of their signs. Cf. this and the four following sections with the quotations in the Editor's Preface, from Molyneux's Treatise of Dioptrics. In the author's last edition we have this annotation: “See what Des Cartes and others have written upon the subject.” [129] 208 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. axes the greater the angle, and the remeter their concurrence is, the lesser will be the angle comprehended by them. 6. There is another way, mentioned by optic writers, whereby they will have us judge of those distances in respect of which the breadth of the pupil hath any sensible bigness. And that is the greater or lesser divergeney of the rays which, issuing from the visible point, do fall on the pupil—that point being judged nearest which is seen by most diverging rays, and that remeter which is seen by less diverging rays, and so on; the apparent distance still increasing, as the divergeney of the rays decreases, till at length it becomes infinite, when the rays that fall on the pupil are to sense parallel. And after this manner it is said we perceive distance when we look only with ene eye. 7. In this case also it is plain we are not beholden to experience: it being a certain necessary truth that, the nearer the direct rays falling on the eye approach to a parallelism, the farther off is the point of their intersection, or the visible point from whence they flow. 8. ^^^Now, though the accounts here given of perceiving near distance by sight are received for true, and accordingly made use of in determining the apparent places of objeets, they do nevertheless seem to me very unsatisfactory, and that for these foliowing reasons:— 9. It is evident that, when the mind perceives any idea not immediately and of itself, it must be by the means of some other idea. Thus, for instance, the passions which are in the mind of another are of themselves to me invisible. I may In the first edition this section opens thus: “I have here set down the common current accounts that are given of our perceiving near distances by sight, which, though they are unquestionably received for true by mathematicians, and accordingly made use of by them in determining the apparent places of objeets, do nevertheless,” &c. Omitted in the author's last edition. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 209 nevertheless perceive them by sight; though not immediately, [ 130 ] yet by means of the colours they produce in the countenance. We often see shame or fear in the looks of a man, by perceiving the changes of bis countenance to red or palé. 10. Moreover, it is evident that no idea which is not itself perceived can be to me the means of perceiving any other idea. If I do not perceive the redness or paleness of a man's face themselves, it is impossible I should perceive by them the passions which are in his mind. 11. Now, from sect. ii., it is plain that distance is in its own nature imperceptible, and yet it is perceived by sight^^^. It remains, therefore, that it be brought into view by means of some other idea, that is itself immediately perceived in the act of visión. 12. But those lines and angles, by means whereof some men^^^ pretend to explain the perception^^^ of distance, are themselves not at all perceived; ñor are they in truth ever thought of by those unskilful in optics. I appeal to any one's experience, whether, upon sight of an object, he computes its distance by the bigness of the angle made by the meeting of the two optic axes? or whether he ever thinks of the greater or lesser divergency of the rays which arrive from any point to his pupil? nay, whether it be not perfectly impossible for him to perceive by sense the various angles wherewith the rays, according to their greater or lesser divergence, do fall on the eye? Every one is himself the best judge of what he perceives, and what not. In vain shall any i.e. although immediately invisible, it is mediately seen. Mark, here and elsewhere, the ambiguity of the term perception, which now signifies the act of being conscious of sensuous phenomena, and again the act of inferring phenomena of which we are at the time insentient; while it is also applied to the object perceived instead of to the percipient act; and sometimes to imagination, and the higher acts of intelligence. “Some men”—“mathematicians,” in first edition. i.e. the medíate perception. 210 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 131 ] tell me, that I perceive certain Unes and angles, which introduce into my mind the various ideas of distance, so long as I myself am conscious of no such thing. 13. Since therefore those angles and Unes are not themselves perceived by sight, it follows, from sect. x., that the mind does not by them judge of the distance of objects. 14. [Secondly^'^^,] The truth of this assertion will be yet farther evident to any one that considers those Unes and angles have no real existence in nature, being only an hypothesis framed by the mathematicians, and by them introduced into optics, that they might treat of that Science in a geometrical way. 15. The [third and^*’*’] last reason 1 shall give for rejecting that doctrine is, that though we should grant the real existence of those optic angles, &c., and that it was possible for the mind to perceive them, yet these principies would not be found sufficient to explain the phenomena of distance, as shall be shewn hereafter. 16. Now it being already shewn^°^ that distance is suggested^^^ to the mind, by the mediation of some other idea which is itself perceived in the act of seeing, it remains that we inquire, what ideas or sensations there be that attend visión, unto which we “any man”—“all the mathematicians in the world,” in first edition. Omitted in the author's last edition. Omitted in the author's last edition. Sect. 3, 9. Observe the first introduction by Berkeley of the term suggestion, used by him to express a leading factor in his account of the visible world, and again in his more comprehensive account of our knowledge of the material universe in the Principies. It had been employed occasionally, among others, by Hobbes and Locke. There are three ways in which the objects we have an immediate perception of in sight may be supposed to conduct us to what we do not immediately perceive: (1) Instinct, or what Reid calis “original suggestion” {Inquiry, ch. VI. sect. 20-24); (2) Custom; (3) Reasoning from accepted premisses. Berkeley's “suggestion” corresponds to the second. (Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 42.) An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 211 may suppose the ideas of distanee are eonneeted, and by whieh they are introdueed into the mind. And, first, it is eertain by experienee, that when we look at a near objeet with both eyes, aeeording as it approaehes or reeedes from US, we alter the disposition of our eyes, by lessening or widening the interval between the pupils. This disposition or turn of the eyes is attended with a sensation^*^^, whieh seems to me to be that whieh in this ease brings the idea of greater or lesser distanee into the mind. 17. Not that there is any natural or neeessary^*^^ eonnexion between the sensation we pereeive by the turn of the eyes and greater or lesser distanee. But—^beeause the mind has, by eonstant experienee, found the different sensations eorresponding to the different dispositions of the eyes to be attended eaeh with a different degree of distanee in the objeet—there has grown an habitual or eustomary eonnexion between those two sorts of ideas: so that the mind no sooner pereeives the sensation arising from the different turn it gives the eyes, in order to bring the pupils nearer or farther asunder, but it withal pereeives the different idea of distanee whieh was wont to be eonneeted with that sensation. Just as, upon hearing a eertain sound, the idea is immediately suggested to the understanding whieh eustom had United with it^*^^. 18. Ñor do 1 see how 1 ean easily be mistaken in this matter. 1 know evidently that distanee is not pereeived of itself^°^; that, by eonsequenee, it must be pereeived by means of some other idea, whieh is immediately pereeived, and varies with the different In the Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 66, it is added that this “sensation” belongs properly to the sense of touch. Cf. also sect. 145 of this Essay. Here “natural”=“necessary”: elsewhere=divinely arhitrary eonnexion. That our medióte visión of outness and of objeets as thus external, is due to media whieh have a contingent or arhitrary, instead of a necessary, eonnexion with the distances whieh they enable us to see, or of whieh they are the signs, is a cardinal part of his argument. [ 132 ] 212 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 133 ] degrees of distance. I know also that the sensation arising from the turn of the eyes is of itself immediately perceived; and various degrees thereof are connected with different distances, which never fail to accompany them into my mind, when I view an object distinctly with both eyes whose distance is so small that in respect of it the interval between the eyes has any considerable magnitude. 19. 1 know it is a received opinión that, by altering the disposition of the eyes, the mind perceives whether the angle of the optic axes, or the lateral angles comprehended between the interval of the eyes or the optic axes, are made greater or lesser; and that, accordingly, by a kind of natural geometry, it judges the point of their intersection to be nearer or farther off. But that this is not true 1 am convinced by my own experience; since 1 am not conscious that 1 make any such use of the perception 1 have by the turn of my eyes. And for me to make those judgments, and draw those conclusions from it, without knowing that 1 do so, seems altogether incomprehensible^*’^. 20. From all which it follows, that the judgment we make of the distance of an object viewed with both eyes is entirely the result of experience. If we had not constantly found certain sensations, arising from the various disposition of the eyes, attended with certain degrees of distance, we should never make those sudden judgments from them concerning the distance of objects; no more than we would pretend to judge of a man's thoughts by his pronouncing words we had never heard before. 21. Secondly, an object placed at a certain distance from the eye, to which the breadth of the pupil bears a considerable proportion, being made to approach, is seen more confusedly^*’^. And the nearer it is brought the more confused appearance it Here, as generally in the Essay, the appeal is to our inward experience, not to phenomena observed by our senses in the organism. See sect. 35 for the difference between confused and faint visión. Cf. sect. 32-38 with this section. Also Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 68. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 213 makes. And this being found constanüy to be so, there arises in the mind an habitual eonnexion between the several degrees of eonfusion and distanee; the greater eonfusion still implying the lesser distanee, and the lesser eonfusion the greater distanee of the objeet. 22. This eonfused appearanee of the objeet doth therefore seem to be the médium whereby the mind judges of distanee, in those eases wherein the most approved writers of opties will have it judge by the different divergeney with whieh the rays flowing from the radiating point fall on the pupil^*^^. No man, 1 believe, will pretend to see or feel those imaginary angles that the rays are supposed to form, aeeording to their various inelinations on his eye. But he eannot ehoose seeing whether the objeet appear more or less eonfused. It is therefore a manifest eonsequenee from what has been demonstrated that, instead of the greater or lesser divergeney of the rays, the mind makes use of the greater [ 134 ] or lesser eonfusedness of the appearanee, thereby to determine the apparent plaee of an objeet. 23. Ñor doth it avail to say there is not any neeessary eonnexion between eonfused visión and distanee great or small. For 1 ask any man what neeessary eonnexion he sees between the redness of a blush and shame? And yet no sooner shall he behold that eolour to arise in the faee of another but it brings into his mind the idea of that passion whieh hath been observed to aeeompany it. 24. What seems to have misled the writers of opties in this matter is, that they imagine men judge of distanee as they do of a eonelusion in mathematies; betwixt whieh and the premises it is indeed absolutely requisite there be an apparent neeessary eonnexion. But it is far otherwise in the sudden judgments men make of distanee. We are not to think that brutes and ehildren, or even grown reasonable men, whenever they pereeive an objeet 309 See sect. 6. 214 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [135] to approach or depart from them, do it by virtue of geometry and demonstration. 25. That one idea may suggest another to the mind, it will suffice that they have been observed to go together, without any demonstration of the necessity of their coexistence, or without so much as knowing what it is that makes them so to coexist. Of this there are innumerable instances, of which no one can be ignoran!^'*’. 26. Thus, greater confusión having been constantly attended with nearer distance, no sooner is the former idea perceived but it suggests the latter to our thoughts. And, if it had been the ordinary course of nature that the farther off an object were placed the more confused it should appear, it is certain the very same perception that now makes us think an object approaches would then have made us to imagine it went farther off; that perception, abstracting from custom and experience, being equally fitted to produce the idea of great distance, or small distance, or no distance at all. 27. Thirdly, an object being placed at the distance above specified, and brought nearer to the eye, we may nevertheless prevent, at least for some time, the appearance's growing more confused, by straining the eye^'^ In which case that sensation supplies the place of confused visión, in aiding the mind to judge of the distance of the object; it being esteemed so much the nearer by how much the effort or straining of the eye in order to distinct visión is greater. 28. 1 have here^^^ set down those sensations or ideas^^^ that These sections presuppose previous contiguity as an associative law of mental phenomena. See Reid's Inquiry, ch. vi. sect. 22. Sect. 16-27.—For the signs of remóte distances, see sect. 3. These are muscular sensations felt in the organ, and degrees of confusión in a visible idea. Berkeley's “arbitrary” signs of distance, near and remóte, are An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 215 seem to be the eonstant and general oeeasions of introdueing into the mind the different ideas of near distanee. It is true, in most eases, that divers other eireumstanees eontribute to frame our idea of distanee, viz. the partieular number, size, kind, &e. of the things seen. Coneerning whieh, as well as all other the forementioned oeeasions whieh suggest distanee, 1 shall only observe, they have none of them, in their own nature, any relation or eonnexion with it: ñor is it possible they should ever signify the various degrees thereof, otherwise than as by experienee they have been found to be eonneeted with them. 29. 1 shall proeeed upon these prineiples to aeeount for a phenomenon whieh has hitherto strangely puzzled the writers of opties, and is so far from being aeeounted for by any of their theories of visión, that it is, by their own eonfession, plainly repugnant to them; and of eonsequenee, if nothing else eould be objeeted, were alone suffieient to bring their eredit in question. The whole diffieulty 1 shall lay before yon in the words of the learned Doetor Barrow, with whieh he eoneludes his Optic Lectures^^^: — either (a) invisible States of the visual organ, or (b) visible appearances. In Molyneux's Treatise of Dioptrics, Pt. I. prop. 31, sect. 9, Barrow's diffieulty is stated. Cf. sect. 40 below. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 217 qjuaiKWTepai sunt, adeoque saepiuscule pro certis principiis plausibiles conjecturas venditare necessum habent) nihil fere quicquam admodum verisimile succuirit, a pervulgatis (ab iis, inquam, quae Keplems, Scheinems^*^, Cartesius, et post dios alii tradiderunt) alienum aut diversum. Atqui lacere malo, quam toties oblatam cramben reponere. Proinde receptui cano; nee ita lamen ul prorsus discedam, anleaquam improbam quandam difficullalem (pro sincerilale quam el vobis el verilali debeo minime dissimulandam) in médium prolulero, quae doclrinae noslrae, haclenus incúlcate, se objicil adversam, ab ea sallem nullam admillil solulionem. Illa, breviler, lalis esl. Lenli vel speculo cavo EBF exponalur punclum visibile A, ila dislans, ul radii ex A manantes ex infleclione versus axem AB coganlur. Silque radialionis limes (seu puncli A imago, qualem supra passim slaluimus) punclum Z. Inter hoc aulem el infleclenlis verticem B uspiam posilus concipialur oculus. Quaeri jam polesl, ubi loci debeal punclum A apparere? Relrorsum ad punclum Z videri non ferl nalura (cum omnis impressio sensum afficiens provenial a parlibus A) ac experienlia reclamal. Noslris aulem e placilis consequi videlur, ipsum ad partes anlicas apparens, ab intervallo longissime dissilo (quod el máximum sensibile quodvis inlervallum quodammodo exsuperel), apparere. Cum enim quo radiis minus divergenlibus allingilur objeclum, eo (seclusis ulique praenolionibus el praejudiciis) longius abesse senlialur; el quod parallelos ad oculum radios projicil, remolissime posilum aeslimelur; exigere rallo videlur, ul quod convergenlibus radiis apprehendilur, adhuc magis, si fien possel, quoad apparenliam elongelur. Quin el circa casum hunc generalim inquirí possil, quidnam omnino sil, quod apparenlem puncli A locum delerminel, facialque quod conslanli ralione nunc propius, nunc remolius appareal? Cui ilidem dubio nihil quicquam ex haclenus diclomm Chrislopher Scheiner, a Germán aslronomer, and opponenl of Ihe Copernican syslem, bom 1575, died 1650. [ 136 ] 218 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 137 ] analogía responden posse videtur, nisi debere punctum A perpetuo longissime semotum videri. Verum experientia secus attestatur, illud pro diversa oculi ínter puncta B, Z, positione varíe distans, nunquam fere (si unquam) longinquius ipso A libere spectato, subinde vero multo propinquius adparere; quinimo, quo oculum appellentes radii magis convergunt, eo speciem objecti propius accedere. Nempe, si puncto B admoveatur oculus, suo (ad lentem) fere nativo in loco conspicitur punctum A (vel aeque distans, ad speculum); ad O reductus oculus ejusce speciem appropinquantem cernit; ad P adhuc vicinius ipsum existimat; ac ita sensim, doñee alicubi tándem, velut ad Q, constituto oculo, objectum summe propinquum apparens in meram confusionem incipiat evanescere. Quae sane cuneta rationibus atque decretis nostris repugnare videntur, aut cum iis saltem parum amice conspirant. Ñeque nostram tantum sententiam pulsat hoc experimentum, at ex sequo eseteras quas norim omnes; veterem imprimís ac vulgatam, nostrse prse reliquis affinem, ita conveliere videtur, ut ejus vi coactus doctissimus A. Tacquetus isti principio (cui pene soli totam insedificaverat Catoptricam suam) ceu infido ac inconstanti renunciarit, adeoque suam ipse doctrinam labefactarit? id tamen, opinor, minime facturas, si rem totam inspexissit penitius, atque difficultatis fundum attigissit. Apud me vero non ita pollet haec, nec eousque prsepollebit ulla difficultas, ut ab iis quse manifesté rationi consentanea video, discedam; prsesertim quum, ut bis accidit, ejusmodi difficultas in singularis cujuspiam casus disparitate fundetur. Nimirum in prsesente casu peculiare quiddam, naturas subtilitati involutum, delitescit, aegre fortassis, nisi perfectius explórate videndi modo, detegendum. Circa quod nil, fateor, hactenus excogitare potui, quod adblandiretur animo meo, nedum plañe satisfaceret. Vobis itaque nodum hunc, utinam feliciore conatu, resolvendum committo.” In English asfollows: An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 219 “I have here delivered what my thoughts have suggested to me concerning that part of optics which is more properly mathematical. As for the other parís of that Science (which, being rather physical, do consequently abound with plausible conjectures instead of certain principies), there has in them scarce anything occurred to my observation different from what has been already said by Kepler, Scheinerus, Des Caries, ífec. And methinks I had better say nothing at all than repeat that which has been so often said by others. I think it therefore high time to take my leave of this subject. But, before I quit it for good and all, the fair and ingenuous dealing that I owe both to you and to truth obliges me to acquaint you with a certain untoward difficulty, which seems directly opposite to the doctrine I have been hitherto inculcating, at least admits of no solution from it. In short it is this. Before the double convex glass or concave speculum EBF, let the point A be placed at such a distance that the rays proceeding from A, after refraction or reflection, be brought to unite somewhere in the axis AB. And suppose the point of unión (i.e. the image of the point A, as hath been already set forth) to be Z; between which and B, the vertex of the glass or speculum, conceive the eye to be anywhere placed. The question now is, where the point A ought to appear. Experience shews that it doth not appear behind at the point Z; and it were contrary to nature that it should; since all the impression which affects the sense comes from towards A. But, from our tenets it should seem to follow that it would appear before the eye at a vast distance off, so great as should in some sort surpass all sensible distance. For since, if we exelude all anticipations and prejudices, every object appears by so much the farther off by how much the rays it sends to the eye are less diverging; and that object is thought to be most remóte from which parallel rays proceed unto the eye; reason would make one think that object should appear at yet a greater distance which is seen by converging rays. Moreover, it may in general be asked concerning this case, what it is that determines the apparent place of the point [ 138 ] 220 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [139] A, and maketh it to appear after a constan! manner, sometimes nearer, at other times farther off? To which doubt I see nothing that can be answered agreeable to the principies we have laid down, except only that the point A ought always to appear extremely remóte. But, on the contrary, we are assured by experience, that the point A appears variously distan!, according to the difieren! situations of the eye between the points B and Z. And that it doth almos! never (if at all) seem farther off than it would if it were beheld by the naked eye; but, on the contrary, it doth sometimes appear much nearer. Nay, it is even certain that by how much the rays falling on the eye do more converge, by so much the nearer does the object seem to approach. Por, the eye being placed cióse to the point B, the object A appears nearly in its own natural place, if the point B is taken in the glass, or at the same distance, if in the speculum. The eye being brought back to O, the object seems to draw near; and, being come to P, it beholds it still nearer; and so on by little and little, till at length the eye being placed somewhere, suppose at Q, the object appearing extremely near begins to vanish into mere confusión. All which doth seem repugnan! to our principies; at leas!, not rightly to agree with them. Ñor is our tenet alone stmck at by this experiment, but likewise all others that ever carne to my knowledge are every whit as much endangered by it. The ancient one especially (which is most commonly received, and comes nearest to mine) seems to be so effectually overthrown thereby that the most learned Tacquet has been forced to reject that principie, as false and uncertain, on which alone he had built almos! his whole Catoptrics, and consequently, by taking away the foundation, hath himself pulled down the superstructure he had raised on it. Which, nevertheless, I do not believe he would have done, had he but considered the whole matter more thoroughly, and examined the difficulty to the bottom. But as for me, neither this ñor any other difficulty shall have so great an influence on me, as to make me renounce that which I know to be manifestly agreeable to reason. Especially when. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 221 as it here falls out, the difficulty is founded in the peculiar nature of a certain odd and particular case. Por, in the present case something peculiar lies hid, which, being involved in the subtilty of nature, will perhaps hardly be discovered till such time as the manner of visión is more perfectly made known. Concerning which, I must own I have hitherto been able to find out nothing that has the least show of probability, not to mention certainty. I shall therefore leave this knot to be untied by you, wishing you may have better success in it than I have had.” 30. The aneient and reeeived prineiple, whieh Dr. Barrow here mentions as the main foundation of Taequet's^'^ Catoptrics, is, that every “visible point seen by refleetion from a speeulum shall appear plaeed at the interseetion of the refleeted ray and the perpendieular of ineidenee.” Whieh interseetion in the present ease happening to be behind the eye, it greatly shakes the authority of that prineiple whereon the aforementioned author proeeeds throughout bis whole Catoptrics, in determining the apparent plaee of objeets seen by refleetion from any kind of speeulum. 31. Let US now see how this phenomenon agrees with our tenets^^^. The eye, the nearer it is plaeed to the point B in the above figures, the more distinet is the appearanee of the objeet: but, as it reeedes to O, the appearanee grows more eonfused; and at P it sees the objeet yet more eonfused; and so on, till the eye, being brought baek to Z, sees the objeet in the greatest eonfusion of all. Wherefore, by seet. 21, the objeet should seem Andrea Tacquet, a mathematician, bom at Antwerp in 1611, and referred to by Molyneux as “the ingenious Jesuit.” He published a number of scientific treatises, most of which appeared after his death, in a collected form, at Antwerp in 1669. ™ In what follows Berkeley tries to explain by his visual theory seeming contradictions which puzzled the mathematicians. [ 140 ] 222 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 141 ] to approach the eye gradually, as it recedes from the point fi; that is, at O it should (in consequence of the principie I have laid down in the aforesaid section) seem nearer than it did at B, and at P nearer than at O, and at Q nearer than at P, and so on, till it quite vanishes at Z. Which is the very matter of fact, as any one that picases may easily satisfy himself by experiment. 32. This case is much the same as if we should suppose an Englishman to meet a foreigner who used the same words with the English, but in a direct contrary signification. The Englishman would not fail to make a wrong judgment of the ideas annexed to those sounds, in the mind of him that used them. Just so in the present case, the object speaks (if I may so say) with words that the eye is well acquainted with, that is, confusions of appearance; but, whereas heretofore the greatest confusions were always wont to signify nearer distances, they have in this case a direct contrary signification, being connected with the greater distances. Whence it follows that the eye must unavoidably be mistaken, since it will take the confusions in the sense it has been used to, which is directly opposed to the true. 33. This phenomenon, as it entirely subverts the opinión of those who will have us judge of distance by lines and angles, on which supposition it is altogether inexplicable, so it seems to me no small confirmation of the truth of that principie whereby it is explained^^^. But, in order to a more full explication of this point, and to shew how far the hypothesis of the mind's judging by the various divergency of rays may be of use in determining the apparent place of an object, it will be necessary to premise some few things, which are already well known to those who have any skill in Dioptries. 34. First, Any radiating point is then distinctly seen when the rays proceeding from it are, by the refractive power of the This is offered as a verification of the theory that near distances are suggested, according to the order of nature, by non-resembling visual signs, contingently connected with real distance. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 223 crystalline, accurately reunited in the retina or fund of the eye. But if they are reunited either before they arrive at the retina, or after they have passed it, then there is eonfused visión. Figure 1 224 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 225 Figure 2 Ti C 226 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. Figure 3 35. Secondly, Suppose, in the adjacent figures, NP represent an eye duly framed, and retaining its natural figure. In fig. 1 the rays falling nearly parallel on the eye, are, by the crystalline AB, refracted, so as their focus, or point of unión F, falls exactly on the retina. But, if the rays fall sensibly diverging on the eye, as in fig. 2, then their focus falls beyond the retina; or, if the rays are made to converge by the lens QS, before they come at the eye, as in fig. 3, their focus F will fall before the retina. In which [ 142 ] two last cases it is evident, from the foregoing section, that the appearance of the point Z is confused. And, by how much the greater is the convergency or divergency of the rays falling on the pupil, by so much the farther will the point of their reunión be from the retina, either before or behind it, and consequently the point Z will appear by so much the more confused. And this, by the bye, may shew us the difference between confused and faint visión. Confused visión is, when the rays proceeding from each distinct point of the object are not accurately re-collected in one corresponding point on the retina, but take up some space thereon—so that rays from different points become mixed and confused together. This is opposed to a distinct visión, and attends near objects. Faint visión is when, by reason of the distance of the object, or grossness of the interj acent médium, [ 143 ] few rays arrive from the object to the eye. This is opposed to vigorous or olear visión, and attends remóte objects. But to return. 36. The eye, or (to speak truly) the mind, perceiving only the confusión itself, without ever considering the cause from which it proceeds, doth constantly annex the same degree of distance to the same degree of confusión. Whether that confusión be occasioned by converging or by diverging rays it matters not. Whence it follows that the eye, viewing the object Z through the glass QS (which by refraction causeth the rays ZQ, ZS, &c. to converge), should judge it to be at such a nearness, at An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 227 which, if it were placed, it would radiate on the eye, with rays diverging to that degree as would produce the same confusión which is now produced by converging rays, i.e. would cover a portion of the retina equal to DC. (Vid. fig. 3, sup.) But then this must be understood (to use Dr. Barrow's phrase) “seclusis prsenotionibus et príejudiciis,” in case we abstract from all other circumstances of visión, such as the figure, size, faintness, &c. of the visible objects—all which do ordinarily concur to form our idea of distance, the mind having, by frequent experience, observed their several sorts or degrees to be connected with various distances. 37. It plainly follows from what has been said, that a person perfectly purblind (i.e. that could not see an object distinctly but when placed cióse to his eye) would not make the same wrong judgment that others do in the forementioned case. For, to him, greater confusions constantly suggesting greater distances, he must, as he recedes from the glass, and the object grows more confused, judge it to be at a farther distance; contrary to what they do who have had the perception of the objects growing more confused connected with the idea of approach. 38. Henee also it doth appear, there may be good use of computation, by lines and angles, in optics^^^; not that the mind judges of distance immediately by them, but because it judges by somewhat which is connected with them, and to the determination whereof they may be subservient. Thus, the mind judging of the distance of an object by the confusedness of its appearance, [ 144 ] and this confusedness being greater or lesser to the naked eye, according as the object is seen by rays more or less diverging, it follows that a man may make use of the divergency of the rays, in computing the apparent distance, though not for its own sake, yet on account of the confusión with which it is connected. But so it is, the confusión itself is entirely neglected by mathematicians, Cf. sect. 78; also New Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 31. 228 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 145 ] as having no necessary relation with distance, such as the greater or lesser angles of divergency are conceived to have. And these (especially for that they fall under mathemaücal computation) are alone regarded, in determining the apparent places of objects, as though they were the solé and immediate cause of the judgments the mind makes of distance. Whereas, in truth, they should not at all be regarded in themselves, or any otherwise than as they are supposed to be the cause of confused visión. 39. The not considering of this has been a fundamental and perplexing oversight. For proof whereof, we need go no farther than the case before us. It having been observed that the most diverging rays brought into the mind the idea of nearest distance, and that still as the divergency decreased the distance increased, and it being thought the connexion between the various degrees of divergency and distance was immediate—this naturally leads one to conclude, from an ill-grounded analogy, that converging rays shall make an object appear at an immense distance, and that, as the convergency increases, the distance (if it were possible) should do so likewise. That this was the cause of Dr. Barrow's mistake is evident from his own words which we have quoted. Whereas had the learned Doctor observed that diverging and converging rays, how opposite soever they may seem, do nevertheless agree in producing the same effect, to wit, confusedness of visión, greater degrees whereof are produced indifferently, either as the divergency or convergency of the rays increaseth; and that it is by this effect, which is the same in both, that either the divergency or convergency is perceived by the eye—I say, had he but considered this, it is certain he would have made a quite contrary judgment, and rightly concluded that those rays which fall on the eye with greater degrees of convergency should make the object from whence they proceed appear by so much the nearer. But it is plain it was impossible for any man to attain to a right notion of this matter so long as he had regard only to lines and angles, and did not apprehend the true nature of An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 229 visión, and how far it was of mathematical consideration. 40. Before we dismiss this subject, it is fit we take notice of a query relating thereto, proposed by the ingenious Mr. Molyneux, in bis Treatise of Dioptrics (par. i. prop. 31. sect. 9), where, speaking of the diffieulty we have been explaining, he has these words: “And so he (i.e. Dr. Barrow) leaves this diffieulty to the solution of others, whieh 1 (after so great an example) shall do likewise; but with the resolution of the same admirable author, of not quitting the evident doetrine whieh we have before laid down, for determining the locus objecti, on aeeount of being pressed by one diffieulty, whieh seems inexplieable till a more intímate knowledge of the visive faeulty be obtained by mortals. In the meantime 1 propose it to the eonsideration of the ingenious, whether the locus apparens of an objeet plaeed as in this ninth seetion be not as mueh before the eye as the distinet base is behind the eye?” To whieh query we may venture to answer in the negative. For, in the present ease, the rule for determining the distanee of the distinet base, or respeetive foeus from the glass is this: Aí the difference between the distanee of the objeet and foeus is to the foeus or focal length, so the distanee of the objeet from the glass is to the distanee of the respective foeus or distinet base from the glass. (Molyneux, Dioptr., par. i. prop. 5.) Let US now suppose the objeet to be plaeed at the distanee of the foeal length, and one-half of the foeal length from the glass, and the eye elose to the glass. Henee it will follow, by the rule, that the distanee of the distinet base behind the eye is double the true distanee of the objeet before the eye. If, therefore, Mr. Molyneux's eonjeeture held good, it would follow that the eye should see the objeet twiee as far off as it really is; and in other eases at three or four times its due distanee, or more. But this manifestly eontradiets experienee, the objeet never appearing, at farthest, beyond its due distanee. Whatever, therefore, is built on this supposition (vid. eorol. i. prop. 57. ibid.) eomes to the [ 146 ] ground along with it. 230 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. 41. From what hath been premised, it is a manifest consequence, that a man born blind, being made to see, would at first have no idea of distance by sight: the sun and stars, the remo test objects as well as the nearer, would all seem to be in bis eye, or rather in bis mind. The objects intromitted by sight would seem to him (as in truth they are) no other than a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof is as near to him as the perceptions of pain or pleasure, or the most inward passions of his soul. For, our judging objects perceived by sight to be at any distance, or without the mind, is (vid. sect, xxviii.) entirely the effect of experience; which one in those circumstances could not yet have attained to^^°. 42. It is indeed otherwise upon the common supposition—that men judge of distance by the angle of the optic axes, just as one in the dark, or a blind man by the angle comprehended by two sticks, one whereof he held in each hand^^^ For, if this were true, it would follow that one blind from his birth, being made to see, should stand in need of no new experience, in order to perceive distance by sight. But that this is false has, 1 think, been sufficiently demonstrated. 43. And perhaps, upon a strict inquiry, we shall not find that even those who from their birth have grown up in a continued habit of seeing are irrecoverably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they see to be at a distance from them. For, at this time it seems agreed on all hands, by those who have had any thoughts of that matter, that colours, which are the proper Berkeley here passes from his proof of visual “suggestion” of all outward distances—i.e. intervals between extremes in the line of sight—by means of arbitrary signs, and considers the nature of visible extemality. See note in Hamilton's Reid, p. 177, on the distinction between perception of the external World and perception of distance through the eye. See Descartes, Dioptrique, VI—Malebranche, Recherche, Liv. I. ch. 9, 3—Reid's Inquiry, VI. II. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 231 and immediate object of sight, are not without the mind.—But then, it will be said, by sight we have also the ideas of extensión, and figure, and motion; all whieh may well be thought without and at some distanee from the mind, though eolour should not. In answer to this, I appeal to any man's experienee, whether the visible extensión of any objeet do not appear as near to him as the eolour of that objeet; nay, whether they do not both seem to be in the very same plaee. Is not the extensión we see eoloured, and is it possible for us, so mueh as in thought, to sepárate and abstraet eolour from extensión? Now, where the extensión is, there surely is the figure, and there the motion too. 1 speak of those whieh are pereeived by sight^^^. 44. But for a fuller explieation of this point, and to shew that the immediate objeets of sight are not so mueh as the ideas or resemblanees of things plaeed at a distanee, it is requisite that we look nearer into the matter, and earefully observe what is meant in common diseourse when one says, that whieh he sees is at a distanee from him. Suppose, for example, that looking at the moon 1 should say it were fifty or sixty semidiameters of the earth distant from me. Let us see what moon this is spoken of. It is plain it eannot be the visible moon, or anything like the visible moon, or that whieh 1 see—whieh is only a round luminous plain, of about thirty visible points in diameter. For, in ease 1 am earried from the plaee where 1 stand direetly towards the moon, it is manifest the objeet varíes still as 1 go on; and, by the time that 1 am advaneed fifty or sixty semidiameters of the earth, 1 shall be so far from being near a small, round, luminous flat that 1 shall pereeive nothing like it—this objeet having long Berkeley here begins to found, on the experienced connexion between extensión and eolour, and between visible and tangible extensión, a proof that outness is invisible. From Aristotle onwards it has been assumed that eolour is the only phenomenon of whieh we are immediately pereipient in seeing. Visible extensión, visible figure, and visible motion are aecordingly taken to be dependent on the sensation of eolour. [ 147 ] 232 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 148 ] since disappeared, and, if I would recover it, it must be by going back to the earth from whence I set out^^^. Again, suppose I perceive by sight the faint and obscure idea of something, which I doubt whether it be a man, or a tree, or a tower, but judge it to be at the distance of about a mile. It is plain I cannot mean that what I see is a mile off, or that it is the image or likeness of anything which is a mile off; since that every step I take towards it the appearance alters, and from being obscure, small, and faint, grows olear, large, and vigorous. And when I come to the mile's end, that which I saw first is quite lost, neither do I find anything in the likeness of it^^^. 45. In these and the like instances, the truth of the matter, I find, stands thus:—Having of a long time experienced certain ideas perceivable by touch^^^—as distance, tangible figure, and solidity—to have been connected with certain ideas of sight, I do, upon perceiving these ideas of sight, forthwith conclude what tangible ideas are, by the wonted ordinary course of nature, like to follow. Looking at an object, I perceive a certain visible In connexion with this and the next illustration, Berkeley seems to argüe that we are not only unable to see distance in the line of sight, but also that we do not see a distant object in its real visible magnitude. But elsewhere he affirms that only tangible magnitude is entitled to be called real. Cf. sect. 55, 59,61. The sceptical objections to the trustworthiness of the senses, proposed by the Eleatics and others, referred to by Descartes in his Meditations, and by Malebranche in the First Book of his Recherche, may have suggested the illustrations in this section. Cf. also Hume's Essay On the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy. The sceptical difficulty is founded on the assumption that the object seen at different distances is the same visible object. it is really different, and so the difficulty vanishes. Here Berkeley expressly introduces “touch”—a term which with him ineludes, not merely organic sense of contact, but also muscular and locomotive sense-experience. After this he begins to unfold the antithesis of visual and tactual phenomena, whose subsequent synthesis it is the aim of the New Theory to explain. Cf. Principies of Human Knowledge, sect. 43— Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 22 and 25. Note here Berkeley's reticence of his idealization of Matter—tangible as well as visible. Cf. Principies, sect. 44. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 233 figure and eolour, with some degree of faintness and other eireumstanees, whieh, from what I have formerly observed, determine me to think that if I advanee forward so many paees, miles, &e., I shall be affeeted with sueh and sueh ideas of toueh. So that, in truth and strietness of speeeh, I neither see distanee itself, ñor anything that I take to be at a distanee. I say, neither distanee ñor things plaeed at a distanee are themselves, or their ideas, truly pereeived by sight. This I am persuaded of, as to what eoneerns myself. And I believe whoever will look narrowly into his own thoughts, and examine what he means by saying he sees this or that thing at a distanee, will agree with me, that what he sees only suggests to his understanding that, after having passed [ 149 ] a eertain distanee, to be measured by the motion of his body, whieh is pereeivable by toueh^^^, he shall eome to pereeive sueh and sueh tangible ideas, whieh have been usually eonneeted with sueh and sueh visible ideas. But, that one might be deeeived by these suggestions of sense, and that there is no neeessary eonnexion between visible and tangible ideas suggested by them, we need go no farther than the next looking-glass or pieture to be eonvineed. Note that, when I speak of tangible ideas, I take the word idea for any the immediate objeet of sense, or understanding—in whieh large signifieation it is eommonly used by the moderns^^^. 46. From what we have shewn, it is a manifest eonsequenee that the ideas of spaee, outness^^^, and things plaeed at a distanee This eonnexion of our knowledge of distanee with our loeomotive experienee points to a theory whieh ultimately resolves spaee into experienee of unimpeded loeomotion. ™ Loeke (Essay, Introduetion, § 8) takes idea vaguely as “the term whieh serves best to stand whatsoever is the objeet of the understanding when a man thinks.” Oversight of what Berkeley intends the term idea has made his whole eoneeption of nature and the material universe a riddle to many, of whieh afterwards. The expressive term “outness,” favoured by Berkeley, is here first used. 234 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 150 ] are not, strictly speaking, the object of sight^^^; they are not otherwise perceived by the eye than by the ear. Sitting in my study I hear a coach drive along the Street; I look through the casement and see it; I walk out and enter into it. Thus, common speech would incline one to think I heard, saw, and touched the same thing, to wit, the coach. It is nevertheless certain the ideas intromitted by each sense are widely different, and distinct from each other; but, having been observed constantly to go together, they are spoken of as one and the same thing. By the variation of the noise, I perceive the different distances of the coach, and know that it approaches before I look out. Thus, by the ear I perceive distance just after the same manner as I do by the eye. 47. I do not nevertheless say I hear distance, in like manner as I say that I see it—the ideas perceived by hearing not being so apt to be confounded with the ideas of touch as those of sight are. So likewise a man is easily convinced that bodies and external things are not properly the object of hearing, but only sounds, by the mediation whereof the idea of this or that body, or distance, is suggested to his thoughts. But then one is with more difficulty brought to discern the difference there is betwixt the ideas of sight and touch^^°: though it be certain, a man no more sees and feels the same thing, than he hears and feels the same thing. 48. One reason of which seems to be this. It is thought a great absurdity to imagine that one and the same thing should have any more than one extensión and one figure. But, the extensión and figure of a body being let into the mind two ways, and that indifferently, either by sight or touch, it seems to follow that we see the same extensión and the same figure which we feel. 49. But, if we take a cióse and accurate view of the matter, “We get the idea of Space,” says Locke, “both by our sight and touch” (Essay, II. 13. § 2). Locke did not contémplate Berkeley's antithesis of visible and tangible extensión, and the consequent ambiguity of the term extensión; which sometimes signifies coloured, and at others resistant experience in sense. For an explanation of this difficulty, see sect. 144. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 235 it must be aeknowledged that we never see and feel one and the same objeet^^^ That whieh is seen is one thing, and that whieh is felt is another. If the visible figure and extensión be not the same with the tangible figure and extensión, we are not to infer that one and the same thing has divers extensions. The true eonsequenee is that the objeets of sight and toueh are two distinet things^^^. It may perhaps require some thought rightly to eoneeive this distinetion. And the diffieulty seems not a little inereased, beeause the eombination of visible ideas hath eonstantly the same ñame as the eombination of tangible ideas wherewith it is eonneeted—whieh doth of neeessity arise from the use and end of language^^^. 50. In order, therefore, to treat aeeurately and uneonfusedly of visión, we must bear in mind that there are two sorts of objeets apprehended by the eye—the one primarily and immediately, the other seeondarily and by intervention of the former. Those of the first sort neither are ñor appear to be without the mind, or at any distanee off^^^. They may, indeed, grow greater or smaller, [i5i] more eonfused, or more elear, or more faint. But they do not, eannot approaeh, [or even seem to approaeh or reeede from US. Whenever we say an objeet is at a distanee, whenever we say it draws near, or goes farther off, we must always mean it of the latter sort, whieh properly belong to the toueh^^^, and are not so truly pereeived as suggested by the eye, in like manner as “objeet”—“thing,” in the earlier editions. This is the issue of the analytical portion of the Essay. Cf. sect. 139-40. Here the question of externality, signifying independence of all percipient life, is again mixed up with that of the invisibility of distanee outwards in the line of sight. Omitted in author's last edition. i.e. ineluding muscular and locomotive experience as well as sense of contact. But what are the tangibilia themselves? Are they also significant, like visibilia, of a still ulterior reality? This is the problem of the Principies of Human Knowledge. 236 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 152 ] thoughts by the ear. 51. No sooner do we hear the words of a familiar language pronounced in our ears but the ideas corresponding thereto present themselves to our minds: in the very same instant the sound and the meaning enter the understanding: so closely are they United that it is not in our power to keep out the one except we exelude the other also. We even act in all respeets as if we heard the very thoughts themselves. So likewise the secondary objeets, or those which are only suggested by sight, do often more strongly affect us, and are more regarded, than the proper objeets of that sense; along with which they enter into the mind, and with which they have a far more strict connexion than ideas have with words^^’. Henee it is we find it so difficult to discriminate between the immediate and mediate objeets of sight, and are so prone to attribute to the former what belongs only to the latter. They are, as it were, most closely twisted, blended, and incorporated together. And the prejudice is confirmed and riveted in our thoughts by a long tract of time, by the use of language, and want of reflection. However, I doubt not but anyone that shall attentively consider what we have already said, and shall say upon this subject before we have done (especially if he pursue it in his own thoughts), may be able to deliver himself from that prejudice. Sure I am, it is worth some attention to whoever would understand the true nature of visión. 52. I have now done with Distance, and proceed to shew how it is that we perceive by sight the Magnitude of objeets^^^. It is the opinión of some that we do it by angles, or by angles In this section the conception of a natural Visual Language, makes its appearance, with its implication that Nature is (for us) virtually Spirit. Cf. sect. 140, 147— Principies, sect. 44— Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous — Alciphron, IV. 8, 11—and Theory of Vision Vindicated, passim. Sect. 52-87 treat of the invisibility of real, i.e. tactual, Magnitude. Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 54-61. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 237 in conjunction with distance. But, neither angles ñor distance being perceivable by sight^^^, and the things we see being in truth at no distance from it follows that, as we have shewn Unes and angles not to be the médium the mind makes use of in apprehending the apparent place, so neither are they the médium whereby it apprehends the apparent magnitude of objects. 53. It is weh known that the same extensión at a near distance shah subtend a greater angle, and at a farther distance a lesser angle. And by this principie (we are told) the mind estimates the magnitude of an object^^', comparing the angle under which it is seen with its distance, and thence inferring the magnitude thereof. What inclines men to this mistake (beside the humour of making one see by geometry) is, that the same perceptions or ideas which suggest distance do also suggest magnitude. But, if we examine it, we shah find they suggest the latter as immediately as the former. I say, they do not first suggest distance and then leave it to the judgment to use that as a médium whereby to cohect the magnitude; but they have as cióse and immediate a connexion with the magnitude as with the distance; and suggest magnitude as independently of distance, as they do distance independently of magnitude. All which will be evident to whoever considers what has been already said and what follows. 54. It has been shewn there are two sorts of objects apprehended by sight, each whereof has its distinct magnitude, or extensión—the one, properly tangible, i.e. to be perceived and measured by touch, and not immediately falling under the sense of seeing; the other, properly and immediately visible, by mediation of which the former is brought in view. Each of these magnitudes are greater or lesser, according as they contain [ 153 ] in them more or fewer points, they being made up of points or 339 340 341 Sect. 8-15. Sect. 41, &c. See Molyneux's Treatise on Dioptrics, B. I. prop. 28. 238 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. minimums. For, whatever may be said of extensión in abstract^'*^, it is certain sensible extensión is not infinitely divisible^^^. There is a minimum tangibile, and a minimum visibile, beyond which sense cannot perceive. This every one's experience will inform him. 55. The magnitude of the object which exists without the mind, and is at a distance, continúes always invariably the same: but, the visible object still changing as yon approach to or recede from the tangible object, it hath no fixed and determinate greatness. Whenever therefore we speak of the magnitude of any thing, for instance a tree or a house, we must mean the tangible magnitude; otherwise there can be nothing steady and free from ambiguity spoken of it^^^. Now, though the tangible and visible magnitude do in truth belong to two distinct objects^^^, I shall nevertheless (especially since those objects are called by the same ñame, and are observed to coexist^^^), to avoid tediousness and singularity of speech, sometimos speak of them as belonging to one and the same thing. 56. Now, in order to discover by what means the magnitude of tangible objects is perceived by sight, I need only reflect on what passes in my own mind, and observe what those things be which introduce the ideas of greater or lesser into my thoughts when I See sect. 122-126. In short there is a point at which, with our limited sense, we cease to he percipient of colour, in seeing; and of resistance, in locomotion. Though Berkeley regards all visible extensions as sensible, and therefore dependent for their reality on being realised by sentient mind, he does not mean that mind or consciousness is extended. With him, extensión, though it exists only in mind,—i.e. as an idea seen, in the case of visible extensión, and as an idea touched, in the case of tangible extensión,—is yet no property of mind. Mind can exist without being percipient of extensión, although extensión cannot be realised without mind. But this is true, though less obviously, of tangible as well as of visible objects. Sect. 49. Cf. sect. 139, 140, &c. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 239 look on any object. And these I find to be, first, the magnitude or extensión of the visible objeet, whieh, being immediately pereeived by sight, is eonneeted with that other whieh is tangible and plaeed at a distanee: secondly, the eonfusion or distinetness: and thirdly, the vigorousness or faintness of the aforesaid visible [ 154 ] appearanee. Cceteris paribus, by how mueh the greater or lesser the visible objeet is, by so mueh the greater or lesser do I eonelude the tangible objeet to be. But, be the idea immediately pereeived by sight never so large, yet, if it be withal eonfused, I judge the magnitude of the thing to be but small. If it be distinet and elear, I judge it greater. And, if it be faint, I apprehend it to be yet greater. What is here meant by eonfusion and faintness has been explained in seet. 35. 57. Moreover, the judgments we make of greatness do, in like manner as those of distanee, depend on the disposition of the eye; also on the figure, number, and situation^^^ of intermediate objeets, and other eireumstanees that have been observed to attend great or small tangible magnitudes. Thus, for instanee, the very same quantity of visible extensión whieh in the figure of a tower doth suggest the idea of great magnitude shall in the figure of a man suggest the idea of mueh smaller magnitude. That this is owing to the experienee we have had of the usual bigness of a tower and a man, no one, I suppose, need be told. 58. It is also evident that eonfusion or faintness have no more a neeessary eonnexion with little or great magnitude than they have with little or great distanee. As they suggest the latter, so they suggest the former to our minds. And, by eonsequenee, if it were not for experienee, we should no more judge a faint or eonfused appearanee to be eonneeted with great or little magnitude than we should that it was eonneeted with great or little distanee. 59. Ñor will it be found that great or small visible magnitude hath any neeessary relation to great or small tangible “situation”—not in the earlier editions. 240 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 155 ] magnitude—so that the one may certainly and infallibly be inferred from the other. But, before we come to the proof of this, it is fit we consider the difference there is betwixt the extensión and figure which is the proper object of touch, and that other which is termed visible; and how the former is principally, though not immediately, taken notice of when we look at any object. This has been before mentioned^^^, but we shall here inquire into the cause thereof. We regard the objects that environ US in proportion as they are adapted to benefit or injure our own bodies, and thereby produce in our minds the sensations of pleasure or pain. Now, bodies operating on our organs by an immediate application, and the hurt and advantage arising therefrom depending altogether on the tangible, and not at all on the visible, qualities of any object—this is a plain reason why those should be regarded by us much more than these. And for this end [chiefly^^^] the visive sense seems to have been bestowed on animáis, to wit, that, by the perception of visible ideas (which in themselves are not capable of affecting or anywise altering the frame of their bodies), they may be able to foresee^^*^ (from the experience they have had what tangible ideas are connected with such and such visible ideas) the damage or benefit which is like to ensue upon the application of their own bodies to this or that body which is at a distance. Which foresight, how necessary it is to the preservation of an animal, every one's experience can inform him. Henee it is that, when we look at an object, the tangible figure and extensión thereof are principally attended to; whilst there is small heed taken of the visible figure and magnitude, which, though more immediately perceived, do less Omitted in the author's last edition. Ordinary sight is virtually foresight. Cf. sect. 85.—See also Malebranche on the external senses, as given primarily for the urgent needs of embodied life, not to immediately convey scientific knowledge, Recherche, Liv. I. ch. 5, 6, 9, &c. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 241 sensibly affect us, and are not fitted to produee any alteration in our bodies. 60. That the matter of faet is true will be evident to any one who eonsiders that a man plaeed at ten foot distanee is thought as great as if he were plaeed at the distanee only of five foot; whieh is true, not with relation to the visible, but tangible greatness of the objeet: the visible magnitude being far greater at one station than it is at the other. 61. Inehes, feet, &e. are settled, stated lengths, whereby we measure objeets and estímate their magnitude. We say, for example, an objeet appears to be six inehes, or six foot long. Now, that this eannot be meant of visible inehes, &e. is evident, beeause a visible ineh is itself no eonstant determínate magnitude^^^ and eannot therefore serve to mark out and determine the magnitude of any other thing. Take an ineh marked upon a ruler; view it sueeessively, at the distanee of half a foot, a foot, a foot and a half, &e. from the eye: at eaeh of whieh, and at all the intermedíate distanees, the ineh shall have a different visible extensión, i.e. there shall be more or fewer points diseerned in it. Now, 1 ask whieh of all these various extensions is that stated determínate one that is agreed on for a common measure of other magnitudes? No reason ean be assigned why we should piteh on one more than another. And, exeept there be some invariable determínate extensión fixed on to be marked by the word ineh, it is plain it ean be used to little purpose; and to say a thing eontains this or that number of inehes shall imply no more than that it is extended, without bringing any partieular idea of that extensión into the mind. Farther, an ineh and a foot, from different distanees, shall both exhibit the same visible magnitude, and yet at the same time you shall say that one seems several times greater than the other. From all whieh it is manifest, that the judgments we make of the magnitude of objeets by sight are altogether in referenee to Sect. 44.—See also sect. 55, and note. [ 156 ] 242 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 157 ] their tangible extensión. Whenever we say an object is great or small, of this or that determinate measure, I say, it must be meant of the tangible and not the visible extension^^^, which, though immediately perceived, is nevertheless little taken notice of. 62. Now, that there is no necessary connexion between these two distinct extensions is evident from henee—because our eyes might have been framed in such a manner as to be able to see nothing but what were less than the minimum tangibile. In which case it is not impossible we might have perceived all the immediate objects of sight the very same that we do now; but unto those visible appearances there would not be connected those different tangible magnitudes that are now. Which shews the judgments we make of the magnitude of things placed at a distance, from the various greatness of the immediate objects of sight, do not arise from any essential or necessary, but only a customary, tie which has been observed betwixt them. 63. Morco ver, it is not only certain that any idea of sight might not have been connected with this or that idea of touch we now observe to accompany it, but also that the greater visible magnitudes might have been connected with and introduced into our minds lesser tangible magnitudes, and the lesser visible magnitudes greater tangible magnitudes. Nay, that it actually is so, we have daily experience—that object which makes a strong and large appearance not seeming near so great as another the visible magnitude whereof is much less, but more faint,^^^ and the appearance upper, or which is the same thing, painted lower on the retina, which faintness and situation suggest both greater magnitude and greater distance. 64. From which, and from sect. 57 and 58, it is manifest This supposes “settled” tangibilia, but not “settled” visibilia. Yet the sensible extensión given in touch and locomotive experience is also relativo—an object being/e/í as larger or smaller according to the State of the organism, and the other conditions of our embodied perception. What follows, to end of sect. 63, added in the author's last edition. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 243 that, as we do not perceive the magnitude of objects immediately by sight, so neither do we pereeive them by the mediation of anything whieh has a neeessary eonnexion with them. Those ideas that now suggest unto us the various magnitudes of external objeets before we toueh them might possibly have suggested no sueh thing; or they might have signified them in a direet eontrary manner, so that the very same ideas on the pereeption whereof we judge an objeet to be small might as well have served to make us eonelude it great;—those ideas being in their own nature equally fitted to bring into our minds the idea of small or great, or no size at all, of outward objeets^^^, just as the words of any language are in their own nature indifferent to signify this or that thing, or nothing at all. 65. As we see distanee so we see magnitude. And we see both in the same way that we see shame or anger in the looks of a man. Those passions are themselves invisible; they are nevertheless let in by the eye along with eolours and alterations of eountenanee whieh are the immediate objeet of visión, and whieh signify them for no other reason than barely beeause they have been observed to aeeompany them. Without whieh experienee we should no [158] more have taken blushing for a sign of shame than of gladness. 66. We are nevertheless exeeedingly prone to imagine those things whieh are pereeived only by the mediation of others to be themselves the immediate objeets of sight, or at least to have in their own nature a fitness to be suggested by them before ever they had been experieneed to eoexist with them. From whieh prejudiee every one perhaps will not find it easy to emaneipate himself, by any the elearest eonvietions of reason. And there are some grounds to think that, if there was one only invariable and universal language in the world, and that men were born with the faeulty of speaking it, it would be the opinión of some, “outward objeets,” i.e. objeets of whieh we are pereipient in taetual experienee, taken in this Essay provisionally as the real external objeets. See Principies, sect. 44. 244 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [159] that the ideas in other men's minds were properly perceived by the ear, or had at least a necessary and inseparable tie with the sounds that were affixed to them. All which seems to arise from want of a due application of our discerning faculty, thereby to discriminate between the ideas that are in our understandings, and consider them apart from each other; which would preserve US from confounding those that are different, and make us see what ideas do, and what do not, inelude or imply this or that other idea^^^. 67. There is a celebrated phenomenon^^^ the solution whereof I shall attempt to give, by the principies that have been laid down, in reference to the manner wherein we apprehend by sight the magnitude of objeets.—The apparent magnitude of the moon, when placed in the horizon, is much greater than when it is in the meridian, though the angle under which the diameter of the moon is seen be not observed greater in the former case than in the latter; and the horizontal moon doth not constantly appear of the same bigness, but at some times seemeth far greater than at others. 68. Now, in order to explain the reason of the moon's appearing greater than ordinary in the horizon, it must be observed that the partióles which compose our atmosphere do intercept the rays of light proceeding from any object to the eye; and, by how much the greater is the portion of atmosphere interj acent between the Cf. sect. 144. Note, in this and the three preceding sections, the stress laid on the arbitrariness of the connexion between the signs which suggest magnitudes, or other modes of extensión, and their significates. This is the foundation of the New Theory, which thus resolves physical causality into a relation of signs to what they signify and predict—analogous to the relation between words and their accepted meanings. In sect. 67-78, Berkeley attempts to verify the foregoing account of the natural signs of Size, by applying it to solve a phenomenon, the cause of which had been long debated among men of Science—the visible magnitude of heavenly bodies when seen in the horizon. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 245 object and the eye, by so much the more are the rays intereepted, and, by eonsequenee, the appearanee of the objeet rendered more faint—every objeet appearing more vigorous or more faint in proportion as it sendeth more or fewer rays into the eye. Now, between the eye and the moon when situated in the horizon there lies a far greater quantity of atmosphere than there does when the moon is in the meridian. Whenee it eomes to pass, that the appearanee of the horizontal moon is fainter, and therefore, by seet. 56, it should be thought bigger in that situation than in the meridian, or in any other elevation above the horizon. 69. Farther, the air being variously impregnated, sometimes more and sometimes less, with vapours and exhalations fitted to retund and intereept the rays of light, it follows that the appearanee of the horizontal moon hath not always an equal faintness, and, by eonsequenee, that luminary, though in the very same situation, is at one time judged greater than at another. 70. That we have here given the true aeeount of the phenomena of the horizontal moon, will, I suppose, be farther evident to any one from the following eonsiderations:— First, it is plain, that whieh in this ease suggests the idea of greater magnitude, must be something whieh is itself pereeived; for, that whieh is unpereeived eannot suggest to our pereeption any other thing^^^. Secondly, it must be something that does not eonstantly remain the same, but is subjeet to some ehange or variation; sinee the appearanee of the horizontal moon varíes, being at one time greater than at another. [Thirdly, it must not lie in the eireumjaeent or intermedíate objeets, sueh as mountains, houses, fields, &e.; beeause that when all those objeets are exeluded [ 160 ] from sight the appearanee is as great as ever^^^.] And yet. Cf. sect. 10. Omitted in the author's last edition. Cf sect. 76, 77.—The explanation in question is attributed to Alhazen, and by Bacon to Ptolemy, while it is sanctioned by eminent scientific ñames before and since Berkeley. 246 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. thirdly^^'^, it cannot be the visible figure or magnitude; since that remains the same, or is rather lesser, by how much the moon is nearer to the horizon. It remains therefore, that the true cause is that affection or alteration of the visible appearance, which proceeds from the greater paucity of rays arriving at the eye, and which I term faintness: since this answers all the forementioned conditions, and I am not conscious of any other perception that does. 71. Add to this that in misty weather it is a common observation, that the appearance of the horizontal moon is far larger than usual, which greatly conspires with and strengthens our opinión. Neither would it prove in the least irreconcilable with what we have said, if the horizontal moon should chance sometimes to seem enlarged beyond its usual extent, even in more serene weather. For, we must not only have regard to the mist which happens to be in the place where we stand; we ought also to take into our thoughts the whole sum of vapours and exhalations which lie betwixt the eye and the moon: all which co-operating to render the appearance of the moon more faint, and thereby increase its magnitude, it may chance to appear greater than it usually does even in the horizontal position, at a time when, though there be no extraordinary fog or haziness just in the place where we stand, yet the air between the eye and the moon, taken altogether, may be loaded with a greater quantity of interspersed vapours and exhalations than at other times^^°. 72. It may be objected that, in consequence of our principies, the interposition of a body in some degree opaque, which may intercept a great part of the rays of light, should render the “Fourthly” in the second edition. Cf. what follows with sect. 74. Why “lesser”? When Berkeley, some years afterwards, visited Italy, he remarked that distant objects appeared to him much nearer than they really were—a phenomenon which he attributed to the comparative purity of the Southern air. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 247 appearance of the moon in the meridian as large as when it is viewed in the horizon. To whieh I answer, it is not faintness anyhow applied that suggests greater magnitude; there being [i6i] no neeessary, but only an experimental, eonnexion between those two things. It follows that the faintness whieh enlarges the appearanee must be applied in sueh sort, and with sueh eireumstanees, as have been observed to attend the visión of great magnitudes. When from a distanee we behold great objeets, the partieles of the intermediate air and vapours, whieh are themselves unpereeivable, do interrupt the rays of light, and thereby render the appearanee less strong and vivid. Now, faintness of appearanee, eaused in this sort, hath been experieneed to eo-exist with great magnitude. But when it is eaused by the interposition of an opaque sensible body, this eireumstanee alters the ease; so that a faint appearanee this way eaused does not suggest greater magnitude, beeause it hath not been experieneed to eo-exist with it. 73. Faintness, as well as all other ideas or pereeptions whieh suggest magnitude or distanee, does it in the same way that words suggest the notions to whieh they are annexed. Now, it is known a word pronouneed with eertain eireumstanees, or in a eertain eontext with other words, hath not always the same import and signifieation that it hath when pronouneed in some other eireumstanees, or different eontext of words. The very same visible appearanee, as to faintness and all other respeets, if plaeed on high, shall not suggest the same magnitude that it would if it were seen at an equal distanee on a level with the eye. The reason whereof is, that we are rarely aeeustomed to view objeets at a great height; our eoneerns lie among things situated rather before than above us; and aeeordingly our eyes are not plaeed on the top of our heads, but in sueh a position as is most eonvenient for us to see distant objeets standing in our way. And, this situation of them being a eireumstanee whieh usually attends the visión of distant objeets, we may from henee aeeount for 248 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 162 ] (what is commonly observed) an object's appearing of different magnitude, even with respect to its horizontal extensión, on the top of a steeple, e.g. a hundred feet high, to one standing below, from what it would if placed at a hundred feet distance, on a level with his eye. For, it hath been shewn that the judgment we make on the magnitude of a thing depends not on the visible appearance only, but also on divers other circumstances, any one of which being omitted or varied may suffice to make some alteration in our judgment. Henee, the circumstance of viewing a distant object in such a situation as is usual and suits with the ordinary posture of the head and eyes, being omitted, and instead thereof a different situation of the object, which requires a different posture of the head, taking place—it is not to be wondered at if the magnitude be judged different. But it will be demanded, why a high object should constantly appear less than an equidistant low object of the same dimensions; for so it is observed to be. It may indeed be granted that the variation of some circumstances may vary the judgment made on the magnitude of high objects, which we are less used to look at; but it does not henee appear why they should be judged less rather than greater? I answer, that in case the magnitude of distant objects was suggested by the extent of their visible appearance alone, and thought proportional thereto, it is certain they would then be judged much less than now they seem to be. (Vid. sect. 79.) But, several circumstances concurring to form the judgment we make on the magnitude of distant objects, by means of which they appear far larger than others whose visible appearance hath an equal or even greater extensión, it follows that upon the change or omission of any of those circumstances which are wont to attend the visión of distant objects, and so come to influence the judgments made on their magnitude, they shall proportionally appear less than otherwise they would. For, any of those things that caused an object to be thought greater than in proportion to its visible extensión being either omitted, or applied without the usual circumstances, the An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 249 judgment depends more entirely on the visible extensión; and eonsequently the objeet must be judged less. Thus, in the present ease the situation of the thing seen being different from what it usually is in those objeets we have oeeasion to view, and whose magnitude we observe, it follows that the very same objeet being a hundred feet high, should seem less than if it was a hundred feet off, on (or nearly on) a level with the eye. What has been here set forth seems to me to have no small share in eontributing to magnify the appearanee of the horizontal moon, and deserves not to be passed over in the explieation of it. 74. If we attentively eonsider the phenomenon before us, we shall find the not diseerning between the medíate and immediate objeets of sight to be the ehief eause of the diffieulty that oeeurs in the explieation of it. The magnitude of the visible moon, or that whieh is the proper and immediate objeet of vision^^\ is no greater when the moon is in the horizon than when it is in the meridian. How eomes it, therefore, to seem greater in one situation than the other? What is it ean put this eheat on the understanding? It has no other pereeption of the moon than what it gets by sight. And that whieh is seen is of the same extent—I say, the visible appearanee hath the very same, or rather a less, magnitude, when the moon is viewed in the horizontal than when in the meridional position. And yet it is esteemed greater in the former than in the latter. Herein eonsists the diffieulty; whieh doth vanish and admit of the most easy solution, if we eonsider that as the visible moon is not greater in the horizon than in the meridian, so neither is it thought to be so. It hath been already shewn that, in any aet of visión, the visible objeet absolutely, or in itself, is little taken notiee of—the mind still earrying its view from that to some tangible ideas, whieh have been observed to be eonneeted with it, and by that means eome to be suggested by it. So that when a thing is said to appear great or small, or whatever i.e. the original pereeption, apart from any synthetic operation of suggestion and inferential thought, founded on visual signs. 1163] 250 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 164 ] estímate be made of the magnitude of any thing, this is meant not of the visible but of the tangible object. This duly considered, it will be no hard matter to reconcile the seeming contradiction there is, that the moon should appear of a different bigness, the visible magnitude thereof remaining still the same. For, by sect. 56, the very same visible extensión, with a different faintness, shall suggest a different tangible extensión. When therefore the horizontal moon is said to appear greater than the meridional moon, this must be understood, not of a greater visible extensión, but of a greater tangible extensión, which, by reason of the more than ordinary faintness of the visible appearance, is suggested to the mind along with it. 75. Many attempts have been made by learned men to account for this appearance^^^. Gassendus^^^, Des Cartes^^^, Hobbes^^^, and several others have employed their thoughts on that subject; but how fruitless and unsatisfactory their endeavours have been is sufficiently shewn in the Philosophical Transactions^^^ (Numb. 187, p. 314), where you may see their several opinions at large set forth and confuted, not without some surprise at the gross blunders that ingenious men have been forced into by endeavouring to reconcile this appearance with the ordinary principies of optics^^’. Since the writing of which there hath In Riccioli's Almagest, II. lib. X. sect. 6. quest. 14, we have an account of many hypotheses then current, in explanation of the apparent magnitude of the horizontal moon. Gassendi's “Epistolte quatuor de apparente magnitudine solis humilis et sublimis.”— Opera, tom. III pp. 420-477. Cf. Appendix to this Essay, p. 110. See Dioptrique, VI. Opera Latina, vol. I, p. 376, vol. II, pp. 26-62; English Works, vol. I. p. 462. (Molesworth's Edition.) The paper in the Transactions is by Molyneux. See Smith's Optics, pp. 64-67, aLnáRemarks, pp. 48, &c. Atp. 55 Berkeley's New Theory is referred to, and pronounced to be at variance with experience. Smith concludes by saying, that in “the second edition of Berkeley's Essay, and also in a Vindication and Explanation of it (called the Visual Language), very lately published, the author has made some additions to his solution of the An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 251 been published in the Transactions (Numb. 187, p. 323) another paper relating to the same affair, by the eelebrated Dr. Wallis, wherein he attempts to aeeount for that phenomenon; whieh, though it seems not to eontain anything new, or different from what had been said before by others, 1 shall nevertheless eonsider in this plaee. 76. His opinión, in short, is this:—We judge not of the magnitude of an objeet by the optie angle alone, but by the optie angle in eonjunetion with the distanee. Henee, though the angle remain the same, or even beeome less, yet, if withal the distanee seem to have been inereased, the objeet shall appear greater. Now, one way whereby we estímate the distanee of anything is by the number and extent of the intermediate objeets. When therefore the moon is seen in the horizon, the variety of fields, [ 165 ] houses, &e. together with the large prospeet of the wide extended land or sea that lies between the eye and the utmost limb of the horizon, suggest unto the mind the idea of greater distanee, and eonsequently magnify the appearanee. And this, aeeording to Dr. Wallis, is the true aeeount of the extraordinary largeness attributed by the mind to the horizontal moon, at a time when the angle subtended by its diameter is not one jot greater than it used to be. 77. With referenee to this opinión, not to repeat what has been already said eoneerning distanee^^^, 1 shall only observe, first, that if the prospeet of interjaeent objeets be that whieh suggests the idea of farther distanee, and this idea of farther distanee be the eause that brings into the mind the idea of greater magnitude, it should henee follow that if one looked at the horizontal moon from behind a wall, it would appear no bigger said phenomenon; but seeing it still involves and depends on the principie of faintness, I may leave the rest of it to the reader's consideration.” This, whieh appeared in 1738, is one of the very few early references to Berkeley's New Theory of Vision Vindicated. Sect. 2-51. 252 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 166 ] than ordinary. For, in that case, the wall interposing cuts off all that prospect of sea and land, &c. which might otherwise increase the apparent distance, and thereby the apparent magnitude of the moon. Ñor will it suffice to say, the memory doth even then suggest all that extent of land, &c. which lies within the horizon, which suggestion occasions a sudden judgment of sense, that the moon is farther off and larger than usual. For, ask any man who from such a station beholding the horizontal moon shall think her greater than usual, whether he hath at that time in his mind any idea of the intermediate objects, or long tract of land that lies between his eye and the extreme edge of the horizon? and whether it be that idea which is the cause of his making the aforementioned judgment? He will, without doubt, reply in the negative, and declare the horizontal moon shall appear greater than the meridional, though he never thinks of all or any of those things that lie between him and it. [And as for the absurdity of any idea's introducing into the mind another, whilst itself is not perceived, this has already fallen under our observation, and is too evident to need any farther enlargement on it^^^.] Secondly, it seems impossible, by this hypothesis, to account for the moon's appearing, in the very same situation, at one time greater than at another; which, nevertheless, has been shewn to be very agreeable to the principies we have laid down, and receives a most easy and natural explication from them. [^^‘^For the further clearing up of this point, it is to be observed, that what we immediately and properly see are only lights and colours in sundry situations and shades, and degrees of faintness and clearness, confusión and distinctness. All which visible objects are only in the mind; ñor do they suggest aught external^^^, whether distance or magnitude, otherwise than by habitual connexion, as words do things. We are also to remark, This sentence is omitted in the author's last edition. What follows to the end of this section is not contained in the first edition. i.e. tangible. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 253 that beside the straining of the eyes, and beside the vivid and faint, the distinet and eonfused appearanees (whieh, bearing some proportion to Unes and angles, have been substituted instead of them in the foregoing part of this Treatise), there are other means whieh suggest both distanee and magnitude—partieularly the situation of visible points or objeets, as upper or lower; the former suggesting a farther distanee and greater magnitude, the latter a nearer distanee and lesser magnitude—all whieh is an effeet only of eustom and experienee, there being really nothing intermediate in the line of distanee between the uppermost and the lowermost, whieh are both equidistant, or rather at no distanee from the eye; as there is also nothing in upper or lower whieh by neeessary eonnexion should suggest greater or lesser magnitude. Now, as these eustomary experimental means of suggesting distanee do likewise suggest magnitude, so they suggest the one as immediately as the other. I say, they do not (vide seet. 53) first suggest distanee, and then leave the mind from thenee to infer or eompute magnitude, but suggest magnitude as immediately and directly as they suggest distanee.] 78. This phenomenon of the horizontal moon is a elear instanee of the insuffieieney of lines and angles for explaining the way wherein the mind pereeives and estimates the magnitude of outward objeets. There is, nevertheless, a use of eomputation by them^^^—in order to determine the apparent magnitude of [ 167 ] things, so far as they have a eonnexion with and are proportional to those other ideas or pereeptions whieh are the true and immediate oeeasions that suggest to the mind the apparent magnitude of things. But this in general may, I think, be observed eoneerning mathematieal eomputation in opties—that it ean never^^^ be very preeise and exaet^^^, sinee the judgments Cf. sect. 38; and Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 31. “Never”—“hardly,” in first edition. Cf. Appendix, p. 208.—See Smith's Opties, B. I. ch. v, and Remarks, p. 56, in whieh he “leaves it to be considered, whether the said phenomenon is 254 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [168] we make of the magnitude of external things do often depend on several circumstances which are not proportional to or capable of being defined by Unes and angles. 79. From what has been said, we may safely deduce this consequence, to wit, that a man born blind, and made to see, would, at first opening of his eyes, make a very different judgment of the magnitude of objects intromitted by them from what others do. He would not consider the ideas of sight with reference to, or as having any connexion with, the ideas of touch. His view of them being entirely terminated within themselves, he can no otherwise judge them great or small than as they contain a greater or lesser number of visible points. Now, it being certain that any visible point can cover or exelude from view only one other visible point, it follows that whatever object intercepts the view of another hath an equal number of visible points with it; and, consequently, they shall both be thought by him to have the same magnitude. Henee, it is evident one in those circumstances would judge his thumb, with which he might hide a tower, or hinder its being seen, equal to that tower; or his hand, the interposition whereof might conceal the firmament from his view, equal to the firmament: how great an inequality soever there may, in our apprehensions, seem to be betwixt those two things, because of the customary and cióse connexion that has grown up in our minds between the objects of sight and touch, whereby the very different and distinct ideas of those two senses are so blended and confounded together as to be mistaken for one and the same thing—out of which prejudice we cannot easily extricate ourselves. 80. For the better explaining the nature of visión, and setting the manner wherein we perceive magnitudes in a due light, I shall proceed to make some observations concerning matters relating thereto, whereof the want of reflection, and duly separating not as clear an instance of the insufficieney of faintness” as of mathematical computation. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 255 between tangible and visible ideas, is apt to ereate in us mistaken and eonfused notions. And, first, I shall observe, that the minimum visibile is exaetly equal in all beings whatsoever that are endowed with the visive faeulty^^^. No exquisito formation of the eye, no peeuliar sharpness of sight, ean make it less in one ereature than in another; for, it not being distinguishable into parts, ñor in anywise eonsisting of them, it must neeessarily be the same to all. For, suppose it otherwise, and that the minimum visibile of a mite, for instanee, be less than the minimum visibile of a man; the latter therefore may, by detraetion of some part, be made equal to the former. It doth therefore eonsist of parts, whieh is ineonsistent with the notion of a minimum visibile or point. 81. It will, perhaps, be objeeted, that the minimum visibile of a man doth really and in itself eontain parts whereby it surpasses that of a mite, though they are not pereeivable by the man. To whieh I answer, the minimum visibile having (in like manner as all other the proper and immediate objeets of sight) been shewn not to have any existenee without the mind of him who sees it, it follows there eannot be any part of it that is not aetually pereeived and therefore visible. Now, for any objeet to eontain A favourite doctrine with Berkeley, according to whose theory of visibles there can be no absoluto visible magnitude, the minimum being the least that is pereeivable by each seeing subject, and thus relative to his visual capacity. This section is thus criticised, in January, 1752, in a letter signed “Anti-Berkeley,” in the Gent. Mag. (vol. XXII, p. 12): “Upon what his lordship asserts with respect to the minimum visibile, I would observe that it is certain that there are infinite numbers of animáis whieh are imperceptible to the naked eye, and eannot be pereeived but by the help of a microscope; consequently there are animáis whose whole bodies are far less than the minimum visibile of a man. Doubtless these animáis have eyes, and, if their minimum visibile were equal to that of a man, it would follow that they eannot perceive anything but what is much larger than their whole body; and therefore their own bodies must be invisible to them, because we know they are so to men, whose minimum visibile is asserted by his lordship to be equal to theirs.” There is some misconception in this. Cf. Appendix to Essay, p. 209. 256 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 169 ] several distinct visible parts, and at the same time to be a minimum visibile, is a manifest contradiction. 82. Of these visible points we see at all times an equal number. It is every whit as great when our view is contracted and bounded by near objects as when it is extended to larger and remoter ones. For, it being impossible that one minimum visibile should obscure or keep out of sight more than one other, it is a plain consequence that, when my view is on all sides bounded by the walls of my study, I see just as many visible points as I could in case that, by the removal of the study-walls and all other obstructions, I had a full prospect of the circumjacent fields, mountains, sea, and open firmament. For, so long as I am shut up within the walls, by their interposition every point of the external objects is covered from my view. But, each point that is seen being able to cover or exelude from sight one only other corresponding point, it follows that, whilst my sight is confined to those narrow walls, I see as many points, or minima visibilia, as I should were those walls away, by looking on all the external objects whose prospect is intercepted by them. Whenever, therefore, we are said to have a greater prospect at one time than another, this must be understood with relation, not to the proper and immediate, but the secondary and mediate objects of visión—which, as hath been shewn, do properly belong to the touch. 83. The visive faculty, considered with reference to its immediate objects, may be found to labour of two defeets. First, in respect of the extent or number of visible points that are at once perceivable by it, which is narrow and limited to a certain degree. It can take in at one view but a certain determinate number of minima visibilia, beyond which it cannot extend its prospect. Secondly, our sight is defectivo in that its view is not only narrow, but also for the most part confused. Of those things that we take in at one prospect, we can see but a few at once clearly and unconfusedly; and the more we fix our sight on any one object, by so much the darker and more indistinct shall the An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 257 rest appear. 84. Corresponding to these two defects of sight, we may imagine as many perfeetions, to wit, Ist. That of eomprehending in one view a greater number of visible points; 2dly, of being [ 170 ] able to view them all equally and at onee, with the utmost elearness and distinetion. That those perfeetions are not aetually in some intelligenees of a different order and eapaeity from ours, it is impossible for us to know^^^. 85. In neither of those two ways do mieroseopes eontribute to the improvement of sight. For, when we look through a mieroseope, we neither see more visible points, ñor are the eollateral points more distinet, than when we look with the naked eye at objeets plaeed at a due distanee. A mieroseope brings US, as it were, into a new world. It presents us with a new seene of visible objeets, quite different from what we behold with the naked eye. But herein eonsists the most remarkable differenee, to wit, that whereas the objeets pereeived by the eye alone have a eertain eonnexion with tangible objeets, whereby we are taught to foresee what will ensue upon the approaeh or applieation of distant objeets to the parts of our own body—whieh mueh eondueeth to its preservation^^^—there is not the like eonnexion between things tangible and those visible objeets that are pereeived by help of a fine mieroseope. 86. Henee, it is evident that, were our eyes turned into the nature of mieroseopes, we should not be mueh benefitted by the ehange. We should be deprived of the forementioned advantage we at present reeeive by the visive faeulty, and have left us only the empty amusement of seeing, without any other benefit arising from it. But, in that ease, it will perhaps be said, our sight would Those two defects belong to human consciousness. See Locke's Essay, II. 10, on the defects of human memory. It is this imperfection which makes reasoning needful—to assist finite intuition. Reasoning is the sign at once of our dignity and our weakness. Sect. 59. 258 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 171 ] be endued with a far greater sharpness and penetration than it now hath. But I would fain know wherein consists that sharpness which is esteemed so great an excellency of sight. It is certain, from what we have already shewn^^*, that the minimum visibile is never greater or lesser, but in all cases constantly the same. And in the case of microscopical eyes, I see only this difference, to wit, that upon the ceasing of a certain observable connexion betwixt the divers perceptions of sight and touch, which before enabled us to regúlate our actions by the eye, it would now be rendered utterly unserviceable to that purpose. 87. Upon the whole, it seems that if we consider the use and end of sight, together with the present State and circumstances of our being, we shall not find any great cause to complain of any defect or imperfection in it, or easily conceive how it could be mended. With such admirable wisdom is that faculty contrived, both for the pleasure and convenience of life. 88. Having finished what I intended to say concerning the Distance and Magnitude of objects, I come now to treat of the manner wherein the mind perceives by sight their Situation^^^. Among the discoveries of the last age, it is reputed none of the least, that the manner of visión has been more clearly explained than ever it had been before. There is, at this day, no one ignorant that the pictures of external objects are painted on the retina or fund of the eye; that we can see nothing which is not so painted; and that, according as the picture is more distinct or confused, so also is the perception we have of the object^^*^. But then, in this explication of visión, there occurs one mighty difficulty, viz. the objects are painted in an inverted order on the bottom of the eye: Sect. 80-82. Sect. 88-119 relate to the nature, invisibility, and arbitrary visual signs of Situation, or of the localities of tangible things. Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 44-53. Cf. sect. 2, 114, 116, 118. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 259 the upper part of any object being painted on the lower part of the eye, and the lower part of the objeet on the upper part of the eye; and so also as to right and left. Sinee therefore the pietures are thus inverted, it is demanded, how it eomes to pass that we see the objeets ereet and in their natural posture? Figure 4 89. In answer to this diffieulty, we are told that the mind, pereeiving an impulse of a ray of light on the upper part of the eye, eonsiders this ray as eoming in a direet line from the lower part of the objeet; and, in like manner, traeing the ray that strikes on the lower part of the eye, it is direeted to the upper part of the objeet. Thus, in the adjaeent figure, C, the lower point of the objeet ABC, is projeeted on c the upper part of the eye. So likewise, the highest point A is projeeted on a the lowest part of the eye; whieh makes the representation cba inverted. But the mind—eonsidering the stroke that is made on c as eoming in the straight line Ce from the lower end of the objeet; and the stroke or impulse on a, as eoming in the line Aa from the upper end of the objeet—is direeted to make a right judgment of the situation of the objeet ABC, notwithstanding the pieture of it be inverted. Moreover, this is illustrated by eoneeiving a blind man, who, holding in his hands two stieks that eross eaeh other, doth with them toueh the extremities of an objeet, plaeed in a perpendieular situation^^^. It is eertain this man will judge that to be the upper part of the objeet whieh he touehes with the This illustration is taken from Descartes. See Appendix. [ 172 ] 260 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 173 ] stick held in the undermost hand, and that to be the lower part of the object which he touches with the stick in his uppermost hand. This is the common explication of the erect appearance of objects, which is generally received and acquiesced in, being (as Mr. Molyneux tells us, Diopt. part ii. ch. vii. p. 289) “allowed by all men as satisfactory.” 90. But this account to me does not seem in any degree true. Did I perceive those impulses, decussations, and directions of the rays of light, in like manner as hath been set forth, then, indeed, it would not at first view be altogether void of probability. And there might be some pretence for the comparison of the blind man and his cross sticks. But the case is far otherwise. I know very well that I perceive no such thing. And, of consequence, I cannot thereby make an estimate of the situation of objects. Moreover, I appeal to any one's experience, whether he be conscious to himself that he thinks on the intersection made by the radius pencils, or pursues the impulses they give in right lines, whenever he perceives by sight the position of any object? To me it seems evident that Crossing and tracing of the rays, &c. is never thought on by children, idiots, or, in truth, by any other, save only those who have applied themselves to the study of optics. And for the mind to judge of the situation of objects by those things without perceiving them, or to perceive them without knowing it^*^, take which you picase, it is perfectly beyond my comprehension. Add to this, that the explaining the manner of visión by the example of cross sticks, and hunting for the object along the axes of the radius pencils, doth suppose the proper objects of sight to be perceived at a distance from us, contrary to what hath been demonstrated^*^. [We may therefore venture to pronounce this opinión, concerning the way wherein the mind perceives the erect appearance of objects, to be of a piece with those other tenets of writers in optics, which in the Sect. 10 and 19. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 261 foregoing parts of this treatise we have had occasion to examine and refute^^^.] 91. It remains, therefore, that we look for some other explieation of this diffieulty. And 1 believe it not impossible to find one, provided we examine it to the bottom, and earefully distinguish between the ideas of sight and toueh; whieh eannot be too oft ineuleated in treating of vision^^^. But, more espeeially throughout the eonsideration of this affair, we ought to earry that distinetion in our thoughts; for that from want of a right understanding thereof, the diffieulty of explaining ereet visión seems ehiefly to arise. 92. In order to disentangle our minds from whatever prejudiees we may entertain with relation to the subjeet in hand, nothing seems more apposite than the taking into our thoughts the ease of one born blind, and afterwards, when grown up, made to see. And—though perhaps it may not be a task altogether easy and familiar to us, to divest ourselves entirely of the experienees reeeived from sight, so as to be able to put our thoughts exaetly in the posture of sueh a one's—we must, nevertheless, as far as possible, endeavour to frame true eoneeptions of what might reasonably be supposed to pass in bis mind^^^. 93. It is eertain that a man aetually blind, and who had eontinued so from his birth, would, by the sense of feeling, attain to have ideas of upper and lower. By the motion of his hand, he might diseern the situation of any tangible objeet plaeed within his reaeh. That part on whieh he felt himself supported, or towards whieh he pereeived his body to gravitate, he would Omitted in author's last edition. This is Berkeley's universal solvent of the psychological difficulties involved in visual-perception. Cf. sect. 103, 106, 110, 128, &c. Berkeley treats this case hypothetically in the Essay, in defect of actual experiments upon the born-blind, since accumulated from Cheselden downwards. See however the Appendix, and Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 71. [ 174 ] 262 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 175 ] term lower, and the contrary to this upper, and accordingly denomínate whatsoever objects he touched. 94. But then, whatever judgments he makes concerning the situation of objects are confined to those only that are perceivable by touch. All those things that are intangible, and of a spiritual nature—^his thoughts and desires, his passions, and in general all the modifications of his soul—to these he would never apply the terms upper and lower, except only in a metaphorical sense. He may perhaps, by way of abusión, speak of high or low thoughts: but those terms, in their proper signification, would never be applied to anything that was not conceived to exist without the mind. For, a man born blind, and remaining in the same State, could mean nothing else by the words higher and lower than a greater or lesser distance from the earth; which distance he would measure by the motion or application of his hand, or some other part of his body. It is, therefore, evident that all those things which, in respect of each other, would by him be thought higher or lower, must be such as were conceived to exist without his mind, in the ambient space^^’. 95. Whence it plainly follows, that such a one, if we suppose him made to see, would not at first sight think that anything he saw was high or low, erect or inverted. For, it hath been already demonstrated, in sect. 41, that he would not think the things he perceived by sight to be at any distance from him, or without his mind. The objects to which he had hitherto been used to apply the terms up and down, high and low, were such only as affected, or were some way perceived by his touch. But the proper objects of visión make a new set of ideas, perfectly distinct and different from the former, and which can in no sort make themselves perceived by touch. There is, therefore, nothing at all that could induce him to think those terms applicable to them. Ñor would he ever think it, till such time as he had observed i.e. tangible things. Cf. Principies, sect. 44. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 263 their connexion with tangible objeets, and the same prejudiee^*^ began to insinúate itself into bis understanding, whieh, from their infaney, had grown up in the understandings of other men. 96. To set this matter in a elearer light, I shall make use of an example. Suppose the above-mentioned blind person, by bis toueh, pereeives a man to stand ereet. Let us inquire into the manner of this. By the applieation of bis hand to the several parts of a human body, he had pereeived different tangible ideas; whieh being eolleeted into sundry eomplex ones^^^ have distinet ñames annexed to them. Thus, one eombination of a eertain tangible figure, bulk, and eonsisteney of parts is ealled the head; another the hand; a third the foot, and so of the rest—all whieh eomplex ideas eould, in his understanding, be made up only of ideas pereeivable by toueh. He had also, by his toueh, obtained an idea of earth or ground, towards whieh he pereeives the parts of his body to have a natural tendeney. Now—^by ereet nothing more being meant than that perpendieular position of a man wherein his feet are nearest to the earth—if the blind person, by moving his hand over the parts of the man who stands before him, do pereeive the tangible ideas that eompose the head to be farthest from, and those that eompose the feet to be nearest to, that other eombination of tangible ideas whieh he ealls earth, he will denominate that man ereet. But, if we suppose him on a sudden to reeeive his sight, and that he behold a man standing before him, it is evident, in that ease, he would neither judge the man he sees to be ereet ñor inverted; for he, never having known those terms applied to any other save tangible things, or whieh existed in the spaee without him, and what he sees neither being tangible, ñor pereeived as existing without, he eould not know that, in propriety of language, they were applieable to it. The “prejudice,” to wit, whieh Berkeley would dissolve by his introspective analysis of visión. Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 35. Thus forming individual concrete things out of what is pereeived separately through different senses. [ 176 ] 264 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. 97. Afterwards, when, upon turning his head or eyes up and down to the right and left, he shall observe the visible objects to change, and shall also attain to know that they are called by the same ñames, and connected with the objects perceived by touch; then, indeed, he will come to speak of them and their situation in the same terms that he has been used to apply to tangible things: and those that he perceives by turning up his eyes he will cali upper, and those that by turning down his eyes he will cali lower. 98. And this seems to me the true reason why he should think those objects uppermost that are painted on the lower part of his eye. For, by turning the eye up they shall be distinctly seen; as likewise they that are painted on the highest part of the eye shall be distinctly seen by turning the eye down, and are for that reason esteemed lowest. For we have shewn that to the immediate objects of sight, considered in themselves, he would not attribute the terms high and low. It must therefore be on account of some circumstances which are observed to attend them. And these, it is plain, are the actions of turning the eye up and down, which suggest a very obvious reason why the mind should denomínate the objects of sight accordingly high or low. And, without this motion of the eye—this turning it up and down in order to discern different objects—doubtless erect, inverse, and other the like terms relating to the position of tangible objects, would never have been transferred, or in any degree apprehended to belong to the ideas of sight, the mere act of seeing including nothing in it to that purpose; whereas the different situations of the eye naturally direct the mind to make a suitable judgment of the situation of objects intromitted by it^^°. 99. Farther, when he has by experience learned the connexion there is between the several ideas of sight and touch, he will be able, by the perception he has of the situation of visible things in respect of one another, to make a sudden and true estímate of the This briefly is Berkeley's solution of “the knot about inverted images,” which long puzzled men of Science. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 265 situation of outward, tangible things eorresponding to them. And thus it is he shall pereeive^^' by sight the situation of externaP^^ objeets, whieh do not properly fall under that sense. 100. I know we are very prone to think that, if just made to see, we should judge of the situation of visible things as we do now. But, we are also as prone to think that, at first sight, we should in the same way apprehend the distanee and magnitude of objeets, as we do now; whieh hath been shewn to be a false and groundless persuasión. And, for the like reasons, the same eensure may be passed on the positive assuranee that most men, before they have thought suffieiently of the matter, might have of their being able to determine by the eye, at first view, whether objeets were ereet or inverse. 101. It will perhaps be objeeted to our opinión, that a man, for instanee, being thought ereet when his feet are next the earth, and inverted when his head is next the earth, it doth henee follow that, by the mere aet of visión, without any experienee or altering the situation of the eye, we should have determined whether he were ereet or inverted. For both the earth itself, and the limbs of the man who stands thereon, being equally pereeived by sight, one eannot ehoose seeing what part of the man is nearest the earth, and what part farthest from it, i.e. whether he be ereet or inverted. 102. To whieh I answer, the ideas whieh eonstitute the tangible earth and man are entirely different from those whieh eonstitute the visible earth and man. Ñor was it possible, by virtue of the visive faeulty alone, without superadding any experienee of toueh, or altering the position of the eye, ever to have known, or so mueh as suspeeted, there had been any relation or eonnexion between them. Henee, a man at first view would not denominate i.e. perceive mediately —visible objeets, per se, having no tactual situation. Puré visión, he would say, has nothing to do with “high” and “low,” “great” and “inverted,” in the real or tactual meaning of those terms. i.e. tangible. [ 177 ] 266 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 178 ] anything he saw, earth, or head, or foof, and consequently, he could not tell, by the mere act of visión, whether the head or feet were nearest the earth. Ñor, indeed, would we have thereby any thought of earth or man, erect or inverse, at all—which will be made yet more evident, if we nicely observe, and make a particular comparison between, the ideas of both senses. 103. That which I see is only variety of light and colours. That which I feel is hard or soft, hot or coid, rough or smooth. What similitude, what connexion, have those ideas with these? Or, how is it possible that any one should see reason to give one and the same name^^^ to combinations of ideas so very different, before he had experienced their co-existence? We do not find there is any necessary connexion betwixt this or that tangible quality, and any colour whatsoever. And we may sometimes perceive colours, where there is nothing to be felt. All which doth make it manifest that no man, at first receiving of his sight^^^, would know there was any agreement between this or that particular object of his sight and any object of touch he had been already acquainted with. The colours therefore of the head would to him no more suggest the idea of head^^^ than they would the idea of feet. 104. Farther, we have at large shewn (vid. sect. 63 and 64) there is no discoverable necessary connexion between any given visible magnitude and any one particular tangible magnitude; but that it is entirely the result of custom and experience, and depends on foreign and accidental circumstances, that we can, by the perception of visible extensión, inform ourselves what may be the extensión of any tangible object connected with it. Henee, it is certain, that neither the visible magnitude of head or foot e.g. “extensión,” which, according to Berkeley, is an equivocal term, common (in its different meanings) to visibilia and tangibilia. Cf. sect. 139, 140. Cf. sect. 93, 106, 110, 128. i.e. real or tangible head. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 267 would bring along with them into the mind, at first opening of the eyes, the respeetive tangible magnitudes of those parts. 105. By the foregoing seetion, it is plain the visible figure of any part of the body hath no neeessary eonnexion with the tangible figure thereof, so as at first sight to suggest it to the mind. For, figure is the termination of magnitude. Whenee it follows that no visible magnitude having in its own nature an aptness to suggest any one partieular tangible magnitude, so neither ean any visible figure be inseparably eonneeted with its eorresponding tangible figure, so as of itself, and in a way prior to experienee, it might suggest it to the understanding. This will [ 179 ] be farther evident, if we eonsider that what seems smooth and round to the toueh may to sight, if viewed through a mieroseope, seem quite otherwise. 106. From all whieh, laid together and duly eonsidered, we may elearly deduee this inferenee:—In the first aet of visión, no idea entering by the eye would have a pereeivable eonnexion with the ideas to whieh the ñames earth, man, head, foot, &e. were annexed in the understanding of a person blind from his birth; so as in any sort to introduee them into his mind, or make themselves be ealled by the same ñames, and reputed the same things with them, as afterwards they eome to be. 107. There doth, nevertheless, remain one diffieulty, whieh to some may seem to press hard on our opinión, and deserve not to be passed over. For, though it be granted that neither the eolour, size, ñor figure of the visible feet have any neeessary eonnexion with the ideas that eompose the tangible feet, so as to bring them at first sight into my mind, or make me in danger of eonfounding them, before I had been used to and for some time experieneed their eonnexion; yet thus mueh seems undeniable, namely, that the number of the visible feet being the same with that of the tangible feet, I may from henee, without any experienee of sight, reasonably eonelude that they represent or are eonneeted with the feet rather than the head. I say, it seems the idea of two visible 268 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 180 ] feet will sooner suggest to the mind the idea of two tangible feet than of one head—so that the blind man, upon first reception of the visive faculty, might know which were the feet or two, and which the head or one. 108. In order to get olear of this seeming difficulty, we need only observe that diversity of visible objects does not necessarily infer diversity of tangible objects corresponding to them. A picture painted with great variety of colours affects the touch in one uniform manner; it is therefore evident that I do not, by any necessary consecution, independent of experience, judge of the number of things tangible from the number of things visible. I should not therefore at first opening my eyes conclude that because I see two I shall feel two. How, therefore, can I, before experience teaches me, know that the visible legs, because two, are connected with the tangible legs; or the visible head, because one, is connected with the tangible head? The truth is, the things I see are so very different and heterogeneous from the things I feel that the perception of the one would never have suggested the other to my thoughts, or enabled me to pass the least judgment thereon, until I had experienced their connexion^^^. Cf. sect. 140, 143. In the Gent. Mag. (vol. XXII. p. 12), “Anti-Berkeley” thus argües the case of one bom blind. “This man,” he adds, “would, by being accustomed to feel one hand with the other, have perceived that the extremity of the hand was divided into fingers—that the extremities of these fingers were distinguished by certain hard, smooth surfaces, of a different texture from the rest of the fingers—and that each finger had certain joints or fiexures. Now, if this man was restored to sight, and immediately viewed his hand before he touched it again, it is manifest that the divisions of the extremity of the hand into fingers would be visibly perceived. He would note too the small spaces at the extremity of each finger, which affected his sight differently from the rest of the fingers; upon moving his fingers he would see the joints. Though therefore, by means of this lately acquired sense of seeing, the object affected his mind in a new and different manner from what it did before, yet, as by touch he had acquired the knowledge of these several divisions, marks, and distinctions of the hand, and, as the new object of sight appeared to be divided, marked, and distinguished in a similar manner, I think he would certainly conclude, before An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 269 109. But, for a fuller illustration of this matter, it ought to be eonsidered, that number (however some may reekon it amongst the primary qualities^^^) is nothing fixed and settled, really existing in things themselves. It is entirely the ereature of the mind, eonsidering either a simple idea by itself, or any eombination of simple ideas to whieh it gives one ñame, and so makes it pass for a unit. Aeeording as the mind variously eombines its ideas, the unit varies; and as the unit, so the number, whieh is only a eolleetion of units, doth also vary. We eall a window one, a ehimney one; and yet a house, in whieh there are many Windows and many ehimneys, has an equal right to be ealled one; and many houses go to the making of one eity. In these and the like instanees, it is evident the unit eonstantly relates to the partieular draughts the mind makes of its ideas, to whieh it affixes ñames, and wherein it ineludes more or less, [i8i] as best suits its own ends and purposes. Whatever therefore the mind eonsiders as one, that is an unit. Every eombination of ideas is eonsidered as one thing by the mind, and in token thereof is marked by one ñame. Now, this naming and eombining together of ideas is perfeetly arbitrary, and done by the mind in sueh sort as experienee shews it to be most eonvenient—without whieh our ideas had never been eolleeted into sueh sundry distinet eombinations as they now are. 110. Henee, it follows that a man born blind, and afterwards, when grown up, made to see, would not, in the first aet of visión, pareel out the ideas of sight into the same distinet eolleetions that others do who have experieneed whieh do regularly eo-exist and are proper to be bundled up together under one ñame. He would not, for example, make into one eomplex idea, and thereby esteem and unite all those partieular ideas whieh eonstitute the he touched his hand, that the thing whieh he now saw was the same whieh he had felt before and ealled his hand.” Loeke, Essay, II. 8, 16. Aristotle regards number as a Common Sensible .—De Anima, II. 6, III. 1. 270 The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4. [ 182 ] visible head or foot. For, there can be no reason assigned why he should do so, barely upon his seeing a man stand upright before him. There crowd into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in company with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time. But, all these ideas offered at once to his view he would not distribute into sundry distinct combinations, till such time as, by observing the motion of the parts of the man and other experiences, he comes to know which are to be separated and which to be collected together^^^. 111. From what hath been premised, it is plain the objects of sight and touch make, if I may so say, two sets of ideas, which are widely different from each other. To objects of either kind we indifferently attribute the terms high and low, right and left, and such like, denoting the position or situation of things; but then we must well observe that the position of any object is determined with respect only to objects of the same sense. We say any object of touch is high or low, according as it is more or less distant from the tangible earth: and in like manner we denominate any object of sight high or low, in proportion as it is more or less distant from the visible earth. But, to define the situation of visible things with relation to the distance they bear from any tangible thing, or vice versa, this were absurd and perfectly unintelligible. For all visible things are equally in the mind, and take up no part of the external space; and consequently are equidistant from any tangible thing which exists without the mind^^^. 112. Or rather, to speak truly, the proper objects of sight “If the visible appearance of two shillings had been found connected from the beginning with the tangible idea of one shilling, that appearance would as naturally and readily have signified the unity of the (tangible) object as it now signifies its duplicity.” Reid, Inquiry, VI. 11. Here again note Berkeley's inconvenient reticence of his full theory of matter, as dependent on percipient life for its reality. Tangible things are meantime granted to be real “without mind.” Cf. Principies, sect. 43, 44. “Without the mind”—in contrast to sensuous phenomenon only. An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision 271 are at no distanee, neither near ñor far from any tangible thing. For, if we inquire narrowly into the matter, we shall find that those things only are eompared together in respeet of distanee whieh exist after the same manner, or appertain unto the same sense. For, by the distanee between any two points, nothing more is meant than the number of intermediate points. If the given points are visible, the distanee between them is marked out by the number of the interjaeent visible points; if they are tangible, the distanee between them is a line eonsisting of tangible points; but, if they are one tangible and the other visible, the distanee between them doth neither eonsist of points pereeivable by sight ñor by toueh, i.e. it is utterly ineoneeivable^®**. This, perhaps, will not find an easy admission into all men's understanding. However, 1 should gladly be informed whether it be not true, by any one who will be at the pains to refleet a little, and apply it borne to bis thoughts. 113. The not observing what has been delivered in the two last seetions, seems to have oeeasioned no small part of the diffieulty that oeeurs in the business of direet appearanees. The head, whieh is painted nearest the earth, seems to be farthest from it; and on the other hand, the feet, whieh are painted farthest from the earth, are thought nearest to it. Herein lies the diffieulty, whieh vanishes if we express the thing more elearly and free from ambiguity, thus:—How eomes it that, to the eye, the visible head, whieh is nearest the tangible earth, seems farthest from the earth; and the visible feet, whieh are farthest from the tangible [183] earth, seem nearest the earth? The question being thus proposed, who sees not the diffieulty is founded on a supposition that the eye or visive faeulty, or rather the soul by means thereof, should judge of the