His ac count of the relation between visible and tangible reality all that such fiction constitutes, and what remains to be real? These questions, however, though their effect on his mind appears in the later sections of his 'Siris,' he never systematically pursued. He thus missed the true method of attack on materialism-the only one that does not build again that which it destroys-the method which allows that matter is real but only so in virtue of that intellectual superinduction upon feeling without which there could be for us no reality at all: that thus it is indeed opposed to thought, but only by a position which is thought's own act. For the development of such views Berkeley had not patience in his youth nor leisure in his middle life. Whatever he may have suggested, all that he logically achieved was an exposure of the equivocation between feeling and felt body; and of this the next result, as appears in Hume, was a doctrine which indeed delivers mind from dependence on matter, but only by reducing it in effect to a succession of feelings which cannot know themselves. 159. It was upon the extension of the metaphor of impression to sight as well as touch, and the consequent notion that body, with its inseparable qualities, revealed itself through both senses, that Berkeley first fastened. Is it evident, as Locke supposed it to be, that men 'perceive by their sight' not colours merely, but a distance between bodies of different colours and between parts of the same body'; in other words, situation and magnitude? To show that they do not is the purpose of Berkeley's 'Essay towards a new Theory of Vision.' He starts from two principles which he takes as recognised: one, that the 'proper and immediate object of sight is colour'; the other, that distance from the eye, or distance in the line of vision, is not immediately seen. If, then, situation and magnitude are properly and immediately' seen, they must be qualities of colour. Now in one sense, according to Berkeley, they are so in other words, there is such a thing as visible extension. We see lights and colours in 'sundry situations' as well as in degrees of faintness and clearness, confusion and distinctness.' (Theory of Vision, sec. 77.) We also see objects as made up of certain quantities of coloured points,' i.e. as having visible magnitude. (Ibid. sec. 54.) But situation Locke, Essay II. chap. xiii. sec. 2. see bodies without and magnitude as visible are not external, not 'qualities of We do not body,' nor do they represent by any necessary connection the situation and magnitude that are truly qualities of body, the mind, without the mind and at a distance.' These are tangible. Distance in all its forms-as distance from the eye; as distance between parts of the same body, or magnitude; and as distance of body from body, or situation-is tangible. What a man means when he says that he sees this or that thing at a distance' is that 'what he sees suggests to his understanding that after having passed a certain distance, to be measured by the motion of his body which is perceivable by touch, he shall come to perceive such and such tangible ideas which have been usually connected with such and such visible ideas' (Ibid. sec. 45). On the same principle we are said to see the magnitude and situation of bodies. Owing to long experience of the connection of these tangible ideas. with visible ones, the magnitude of the latter and their degrees of faintness and clearness, of confusion and distinctness, enable us to form a sudden and true' estimate of the magnitude of the former (i.e. of bodies); even as visible situation enables us to form a like estimate of the situation of things outward and tangible' (Ibid. secs. 56 and 99). The connection, however, between the two sets of ideas, Berkeley insists, is habitual only, not necessary. As Hume afterwards said of the relation of cause and effect, it is not constituted by the nature of the ideas related.' The visible ideas, that as a matter of fact suggest to us the various magnitudes of external objects before we touch them, might have suggested no such thing.' That would really have been the case had our eyes been so framed as that the maximum visibile should be less than the minimum tangibile; and, as a matter of constant experience, the greater visible extension suggests sometimes a greater, sometimes a less, tangible extension according to the degree of its strength or faintness, 'being in its own nature equally fitted to bring into our minds the idea of small or great or no size at all, just as the words of a language are in their own nature indifferent to signify this or that thing, or nothing at all.' (Ibid. secs. 62-64.) 160. So far, then, the conclusion merely is that body as nor yet external, and space as a relation between bodies or parts of feel them. a body, are not both seen and felt, but felt only; in other 1 See below, paragraph 283. What then distinction between reality and fancy? words, that it is only through the organs of touch that we receive, strictly speaking, impressions from without. This is all that the Essay on Vision goes to show; but according to the Principles of Human Knowledge' this conclusion. was merely provisional. The object of touch does not, any more than the object of sight, 'exist without the mind,' nor is it the image of an external thing.' 'In strict truth the ideas of sight, when by them we apprehend distance and things placed at a distance, do not suggest or mark out to us things actually existing at a distance, but only admonish us what ideas of touch will be imprinted in our minds at such and such distances of time, and in consequence of such and such actions' (Principles of H. K.' sec. 44). Whether, then, we speak of visible or tangible objects, the object is the idea, its esse is the percipi.' Body is not a thing separate from the idea of touch, yet revealed by it; so far as it exists. at all, it must either be that idea or be a succession of ideas of which that idea is suggestive. It follows that the notion of the real which identifies it with matter, as something external to and independent of consciousness, and which derives the reality of ideas from their relation to body as thus outward, must disappear. Must not, then, the distinction between the real and fantastic, between dreams and facts, disappear with it? What meaning is there in asking whether any given idea is real or not, unless a reference is implied to something other than the idea itself? 6 170. Berkeley's theory, no less than Locke's, requires such becomes of reference. He insists, as much as Locke does, on the difference between ideas of imagination which do, and those of sense which do not, depend on our own will. It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another.' But when in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view.' Moreover the ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at random as those which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train and series' (Ibid. secs. 28-30). These characteristics of ideas of sense, however, do not with Berkeley, any more than with Locke, properly speaking, constitute their reality. This lies in their relation to something else, of which these characteristics are the tests. The difference between the two writers lies in their several views as to what this something else' is. With Locke it was body or matter, as proximately, though in subordination to the Divine Will, the 'imprinter' of those most lively ideas which we cannot make for ourselves. His followers insisted on the proximate, while they ignored the ultimate, reference. Hence, as Berkeley conceived, their Atheism, which he could cut from under their feet by the simple plan of eliminating the proximate reference altogether, and thus showing that God, not matter, is the immediate imprinter' of ideas on the senses and the suggester of such ideas of imagination as the ideas of sense, in virtue of habitual association, constantly introduce (Ibid. sec. 33). ideas that God 171. To eliminate the reference to matter might seem to The real = be more easy than to substitute for it a reference to God. If the object of the idea is only the idea itself, does not all causes. determination by relation logically disappear from the idea, except (perhaps) such as consists in the fact of its sequence or antecedence to other ideas? This issue was afterwards to be tried by Hume-with what consequences to science and religion we shall see. Berkeley avoids it by insisting that the percipi,' to which 'esse' is equivalent, implies reference to a mind. At first sight this reference, as common to all ideas alike, would not seem to avail much as a basis either for a distinction between the real and fantastic or for any Theism except such as would 'entitle God to all our fancies.' If it is to serve Berkeley's purpose, we must suppose the idea carry with it not merely a relation to mind but a relation to it as its effect, and the conscious subject to carry with him such a distinction between his own mind and God's as leads him to refer his ideas to God's mind as their cause when they are lively, distinct and coherent, but when they are otherwise, to his own. And this, in substance, is Berkeley's supposition. To show the efficient power of mind he appeals to our consciousness of ability to produce at will ideas of imagination; to show that there is a divine mind, distinct from our own, he appeals to our consciousness of inability to produce ideas of sense. to 172. Even those least disposed to vanquish Berkeley with a grin have found his doctrine of the real, which is also his Is it then a succes sion of feelings? from con 6 doctrine of God, unsatisfactory.' By the real world they are accustomed to understand something which—at least in respect of its elements' or 'conditions' or 'laws '-permanently is; though the combinations of the elements, the events which flow from the conditions, the manifestations of the laws, may never be at one time what they will be at the next. But according to the Berkeleian doctrine the permanent seems to disappear: the 'is' gives place to a 'has been' and 'will be.' If I say (SELKTIKOS) 'there is a body,' I must mean according to it that a feeling has just occurred to me, which has been so constantly followed by certain other feelings that it suggests a lively expectation of these. The suggestive feeling alone is, and it is ceasing to be. If this is the true account of propositions suggested by everyone's constantly-recurrent experience, what are we to make of scientific truths, e.g. a body will change its place sooner than let another enter it,' 'planets move in ellipses,' 'the square on the hypotheneuse is equal to the squares on the sides.' In these cases, too, does the present reality lie merely in a feeling experienced by this or that scientific man, and to him suggestive of other feelings? Does the proposition that 'planets move in ellipses' mean that to some watcher of the skies, who understands Kepler's laws, a certain perception of visible extension' (i.e. of colour or light and shade) not only suggests, as to others, a particular expectation of other feelings, which expectation is called a planet, but a further expectation, not shared by the multitude, of feelings suggesting successive situations of the visible extension, which further expectation is called elliptical motion? Such an explanation of general propositions would be a form of the doctrine conveniently named after Protagoras-'ȧλnès Ὁ ἑκάστῳ ἑκάστοτε δοκεῖ'a doctrine which the vindicators of Berkeley are careful to tell us we must not confound with his. The question, however, is not whether Berkeley himself admits the doctrine, but whether or no it is the logical consequence of the method which he uses for the overthrow of materialists and mathematical Atheists'? Berkeley 173. His purpose was the maintenance of Theism, and a goes wrong true instinct told him that pure Theism, as distinct from nature-worship and dæmonism, has no philosophical foundation, unless it can be shown that there is nothing real apart from thought. But in the hurry of theological advocacy, fusion between thought and feel ing. |