on the spirit, or thinking substance which perceives them, in that they are excited by the will of another and more powerful spirit; yet still they are ideas; and certainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can exist, otherwise than in a mind perceiving it." Principles, § 33.

It were to be wished that this ingenious author had explained what he means by ideas, as distinguished from notions. The word notion, being a word in common language, is well understood. All men mean by it, the conception, the apprehension, or thought which we have of any object of thought. A notion, therefore, is an act of the mind conceiving or thinking of some object. The object of thought may be either something that is in the mind, or something that is not in the mind.

It may be something that has no existence, or something that did, or does, or shall exist. But the notion which I have of that object, is an act of my mind which really exists while I think of the object; but has no existence when I do not think of it. The word idea, in popular language, has precisely the same meaning as the word notion. But philosophers have another meaning to the word idea; and what that meaning is, I think, is very difficult to say. The whole of Bishop Berkeley's system depends upon the distinction between notions and ideas; and, therefore, it is worth while to find, if we are able, what those things are which he calls ideas, as distinguished from notions.

66

are

For this purpose, we may observe, that he takes notice of two kinds of ideas-the ideas of sense, and the ideas of imagination. "The ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature," he says, called real things; and those excited in the imagination, being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent. [178] But then our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas; that is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it as truly as the ideas of its own framing. The ideas of sense are allowed to have more reality in them-that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent-than the creatures of

Does Reid mean to surrender his doctrine, that perception is a conception-that extension and figure are not known by sense, but are notions suggested on the occasion of sensation? If he does not, his lan. guage in the text is inaccurate,-H.

From this passage we see that, by the ideas of sense, the author means sensations; and this, indeed, is evident from many other passages, of which I shall mention a few.-Principles, § 5. "Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figurein a word, the things we see and feel-what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense?-and is it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself." § 18. "As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will;-but they do not inform us that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived." § 25. "All our ideas, sensations, or the things which we perceive, by whatever names they may be distinguished, are visibly inactive; there is nothing of power or agency included in them."

This, therefore, appears certain—that, by the ideas of sense, the author meant the sensations we have by means of our senses. I have endeavoured to explain the meaning of the word sensation, Essay I., chap. 1, [p. 229,] and refer to the explication there given of it, which appears to me to be perfectly agreeable to the sense in which Bishop Berkeley uses it.*

As there can be no notion or thought but in a thinking being; so there can be no sensation but in a sentient being. [179] It is the act or feeling of a sentient being; its very essence consists in its being felt. Nothing can resemble a sensation, but a similar sensation in the same or in some other mind. To think that any quality in a thing that is inanimate can resemble a sensation, is a great absurdity. In all this, I cannot but agree perfectly with Bishop Berkeley; and I think his notions of sensa

How it can be.asserted that by ideas of sense

Berkeley meant only what Reid did by sensations, I cannot comprehend. That the former used ideas of sense and sensations as convertible expressions, is true. But then Berkeley's sensation was equivalent to Reid's sensation plus his perception. This is mani fest even by the passages adduced in the text. In that from § v. of the "Principles," Berkeley ex. pressly calls extension and figure sensations. But it is a fundamental principle of Reid's philosophy, not only that neither extension nor figure, but that none of the primary qualities, are sensations. make a single quotation-"The primary qualities," he says, "are, cither sensations, nor are they the resemblances of sensations."-Infra, p. 238.-H.

Το

tion much more distinct and accurate than Locke's, who thought that the primary qualities of body are resemblances of our sensations, but that the secondary are not. That we have many sensations by means of our external senses, there can be no doubt; and, if he is pleased to call those ideas, there ought to be no dispute about the meaning of a word. But, says Bishop Berkeley, by our senses, we have the knowledge only of our sensations or ideas, call them which you will. I allow him to call them which he will; but I would have the word only in this sentence to be well weighed, because a great deal depends upon it.

For, if it be true that, by our senses, we have the knowledge of our sensations only, then his system must be admitted, and the existence of a material world must be given. up as a dream. No demonstration can be more invincible than this. If we have any knowledge of a material world, it must be by the senses: but, by the senses, we have no knowledge but of our sensations only; and our sensations have no resemblance of anything that can be in a material world.† The only proposition in this demonstration which admits of doubt is, that, by our senses, we have the knowledge of our sensations only, and of nothing else. If there are objects of the senses which are not sensations, his arguments do not touch them: they may be things which do not exist in the mind, as all sensations do; they may be things of which, by our senses, we have notions, though no ideas; just as, by consciousness and reflection, we have notions of spirits and of their operations, without ideas or sensations. [180]

Shall we say, then, that, by our senses, we have the knowledge of our sensations only; and that they give us no notion of anything but of our sensations? Perhaps this has been the doctrine of philosophers, and not of Bishop Berkeley alone, otherwise he would have supported it by arguments. Mr Locke calls all the notions we have by our senses, ideas of sensation; and in this has been very generally followed. Hence it seems a very natural inference, that ideas

Here again we have a criticism which proceeds on the erroneous implication, that Locke meant by sensation what teid himself did. If for sensation we substitute perception, (and by sensation Locke denoted both sensation proper and perception proper,) there remains nothing to censure; for Reid main tains that " our senses give us a direct and a distinct notion of the primary qualities, and inform us what they are in themselves "(infra, p. 237 ;) which is only Locke's meaning in other words. The same observation applies to many of the following passages.-H. See the last note.-H.

But, unless that be admitted, which the natural conviction of mankind certifics, that we have an immediate perception-a consciousness-of external and extended existences, it makes no difference, in regard to the conclusion of the Idealist, whether what we are conscious of in perception be supposed an entity in the mind, (an idea in Reid s meaning,) or a modification of the mind, (a notion or conception.) See above, p. 128, notes *.-H.

of sensation are sensations. But philosophers may err: let us hear the dictates of common sense upon this point.

Suppose I am pricked with a pin, I ask, Is the pain I feel, a sensation? Undoubtedly it is. There can be nothing that resembles pain in any inanimate being. But I ask again, Is the pin a sensation? To this question I find myself under a necessity of answering, that the pin is not a sensation, nor can have the least resemblance to any sensation. The pin has length and thickness, and figure and weight. A sensation can have none of those qualities. I am not more certain that the pain I feel is a sensation, than that the pin is not a sensation; yet the pin is an object of sense; and I am as certain that I perceive its figure and hardness by my senses, as that I feel pain when pricked by it.'

Having said so much of the ideas of sense in Berkeley's system, we are next to consider the account he gives of the ideas of imagination. Of these he says, Principles, § 28-" I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than willing; and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated, and makes way for another. This making and unmaking of ideas, doth very properly denominate the mind active. Thus much is certain, and grounded on experience. Our sensations," he says, “are called real things; the ideas of imagination are more properly termed ideas, or images of things" that is, as I apprehend, they are the images of our sensations. [181] It might surely be expected that we should be well acquainted with the ideas of imagination, as they are of our making; yet, after all the Bishop has said about them, I am at a loss to know what they are.

I would observe, in the first place, with regard to these ideas of imagination-that they are not sensations; for surely sensation is the work of the senses, and not of imagination; and, though pain be a sensation, the thought of pain, when I am not pained, is no sensation.

I observe, in the second place-that I can find no distinction between ideas of imagination and notions, which the author says are not ideas. I can easily distinguish be

This illustration is taken from Des Cartes. In this paragraph, the term sensation is again not used in the extension given to it by the philosophers in question.-H.

+ Berkeley's real words are- The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of Nature are called real things, and those excited in the Imagination being less regular, vivid and constant, are more properly termed ideas or images of things, which they copy and represent. But then our Sensations, be they never so vivid and, distinct, are nevertheless ideasthat is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own franiing." Sect. xxxiii.-H.

tween a notion and a sensation. It is one thing to say, I have the sensation of pain. It is another thing to say, I have a notion of pain. The last expression signifies no more than that I understand what is meant by the word pain. The first signifies that I really feel pain. But I can find no distinction between the notion of pain and the imagination of it, or indeed between the notion of anything else, and the imagination of it. I can, therefore, give no account of the distinction which Berkeley makes between ideas of imagination and notions, which, he says, are not ideas. They seem to me perfectly to coincide.*

He seems, indeed, to say, that the ideas of imagination differ not in kind from those of the senses, but only in the degree of their regularity, vivacity, and constancy. They are," says he, "less regular, vivid, and constant." This doctrine was afterwards greedily embraced by Mr Hume, and makes a main pillar of his system; but it cannot be reconciled to common sense, to which Bishop Berkeley professes a great regard. For, according to this doctrine, if we compare the state of a man racked with the gout, with his state when, being at perfect ease, he relates what he has suffered, the difference of these two states is only this-that, in the last, the pain is less regular, vivid, and constant, than in the first. [182] We cannot possibly assent to this. Every man knows that he can relate the pain he suffered, not only without pain, but with pleasure; and that to suffer pain, and to think of it, are things which totally differ in kind, and not in degree only.+

We see, therefore, upon the whole, that, according to this system, of the most important objects of knowledge—that is, of

Yet the distinction of ideas, strictly so called, and notions, is one of the most common and important in the philosophy of mind. Nor do we owe it, as has been asserted, to Berkeley. It was virtually taken by Des Cartes and the Cartesians, in their discrimination of

ideas of imagination and ide s.of intelligence; it was in terms vindicated against Locke, by Serjeant, Stil. lingfleet, Norris, Z. Mayne, Bishop Brown, and others; Bonnet signalized it; and, under the contrast of Anschauungen -and Begriffe, it has long been an established and classical discrimination with the philosophers of Germany. Nay, Reid himself suggests it in the distinction he requires between ima. gination and conception, a distinction which he unfor

tunately did not carry out, and which Mr Stewart stilh more unhappily again perverted. See below, p. 371. The terms notion and conception, (or more correctly concept in this sense,) should be reserved to express what we comprehend but cannot picture in imagination, such as, à relation, a general term, &c. The word idea, as one prostituted to all mean. ings, it were perhaps better altogether to discard. As for the representations of imagination or phantasy, I would employ the terms image or phantasm, it being distinctly understood that these terms are ap plied to denote the re-presentations, not of our visible perceptions merely, as the terms taken literally would indicate, but of our sensible perceptions in general.

H.

There is here a confusion between pain considered as a feeling, and as the cognition of a feeling, to which the philosophers would object.-H.

He

spirits, of their operations, and of the relations of things-we have no ideas at all;" we have notions of them, but not ideas; the ideas we have are those of sense, and those of imagination. The first are the sensations we have by means of our senses, whose existence no man can deny, because he is conscious of them; and whose nature hath been explained by this author with great accuracy. As to the ideas of imagination, he hath left us much in the dark. He makes them images of our sensations; though, according to his own doctrine, nothing can resemble a sensation but a sensation.† seems to think that they differ from sensations only in the degree of their regularity, vivacity, and constancy. But this cannot be reconciled to the experience of mankind; and, besides this mark, which cannot be admitted, he hath given us no other mark by which they may be distinguished from notions. Nay, it may be observed, that the very reason he gives why we can have no ideas of the acts of the mind about its ideas, nor of the relations of things, is applicable to what he calls ideas of imagination. Principles, § 142. "We may not, I think, strictly be said to have an idea of an active being, or of an action, although we may be said to have a notion of them. I have some knowledge or notion of my mind, and its acts about ideas, in as much as I know or understand what is meant by these words. [I will not say that the terms Idea and Notion may not be used convertibly, if the world will have it so. But yet it conduces to clearness and propriety that we distinguish things very different by different names.] It is also to be remarked, that all relations including an act of the mind, we cannot so properly be said to have an idea, but rather a notion of the relations and habitudes between things." From this it follows, that our imaginations are not properly ideas, but notions, because they include an act of the mind. [183] For he tells us, in a passage already quoted, that they are creatures of the mind, of its own framing, and that it makes and unmakes them as it thinks fit, and from this is properly denominated active. If it be a good reason why we have not ideas, but notions only of relations, because they include an act of the mind, the same reason must lead us to conclude, that our imagina tions are notions and not ideas, since they are made and unmade by the mind as it thinks fit: and, from this, it is properly denominated active.+

That is, no images of them in the phantasy Reid himself would not say that such could be imagined.--H.

† Berkeley does not say so in the meaning sup. posed.-H.

t Imagination 18 an ambiguous word; it means either the act of imagining, or the product-ie, the image imagined. Of the former, Berkeley held, we can form a notion, but not an idea, in the sense he