The Works of George Berkeley Part 35

_Answer._ This objection is a play upon the popular meaning of the word "idea." That name is appropriate to the phenomena presented in sense, because they become concrete realities only in the experience of living Spirit; and so it is not confined to the chimeras of individual fancy, which may misrepresent the real ideas of sense that are presented in the natural system independently of our will.

_Second objection._ (Sect. 41.) The preceding Principles abolish the distinction between Perception and Imagination-between imagining one's self burnt and actually being burnt.

_Answer._ Real fire differs from fancied fire: as real pain does from fancied pain; yet no one supposes that real pain any more than imaginary pain can exist unfelt by a sentient intelligence.

_Third objection._ (Sect. 42-44.) We actually _see_ sensible things existing at a distance from our bodies. Now, whatever is seen existing at a distance must be seen as existing external to us in our bodies, which contradicts the foregoing Principles.

_Answer._ Distance, or outness, is not visible. It is a conception which is suggested gradually, by our experience of the connexion between visible colours and certain visual sensations that accompany seeing, on the one hand, and our tactual experience, on the other-as was proved in the _Essay on Vision_, in which the ideality of the _visible_ world is demonstrated(470).

_Fourth objection._ (Sect. 45-48.) It follows from the New Principles, that the material world must be undergoing continuous annihilation and recreation in the innumerable sentient experiences in which it becomes real.

_Answer_. According to the New Principles a thing may be realised in the sense-experience of _other_ minds, during intervals of its perception by _my_ mind; for the Principles do not affirm dependence only on this or that mind, but on a living Mind. If this implies a constant creation of the material world, the conception of the universe as in a state of constant creation is not new, and it signally displays Divine Providence.

_Fifth objection._ (Sect. 49.) If extension and extended Matter can exist only _in mind_, it follows that extension is an attribute of mind-that mind is extended.

_Answer._ Extension and other sensible qualities exist in mind, not as _modes_ of mind, which is unintelligible, but _as ideas_ of which Mind is percipient; and this is absolutely inconsistent with the supposition that Mind is itself extended(471).

_Sixth objection._ (Sect. 50.) Natural philosophy proceeds on the a.s.sumption that Matter is independent of percipient mind, and it thus contradicts the New Principles.

_Answer._ On the contrary, Matter-if it means what exists abstractly, or in independence of all percipient Mind-is useless in natural philosophy, which is conversant exclusively with the ideas or phenomena that compose concrete things, not with empty abstractions.

_Seventh objection._ (Sect. 51.) To refer all change to spiritual agents alone, and to regard the things of sense as wholly impotent, thus discharging natural causes as the New Principles do, is at variance with human language and with good sense.

_Answer._ While we may speak as the mult.i.tude do, we should learn to think with the few who reflect. We may still speak of "natural causes," even when, as philosophers, we recognise that all true efficiency must be spiritual, and that the material world is only a system of sensible symbols, regulated by Divine Will and revealing Omnipresent Mind.

_Eighth objection._ (Sect. 54, 55.) The natural belief of men seems inconsistent with the world being mind-dependent.

_Answer._ Not so when we consider that men seldom comprehend the deep meaning of their practical a.s.sumptions; and when we recollect the prejudices, once dignified as good sense, which have successively surrendered to philosophy.

_Ninth objection._ (Sect. 56, 57.) Any Principle that is inconsistent with our common faith in the existence of the material world must be rejected.

_Answer._ The fact that we are conscious of not being ourselves the cause of changes perpetually going on in our _sense_-ideas, some of which we gradually learn by experience to foresee, sufficiently accounts for the common belief in the independence of those ideas, and is what men truly mean by this.

_Tenth objection._ (Sect. 58, 59.) The foregoing Principles concerning Matter and Spirit are inconsistent with the laws of motion, and with other truths in mathematics and natural philosophy.

_Answer._ The laws of motion, and those other truths, may be all conceived and expressed in consistency with the absence of independent substance and causation in Matter.

_Eleventh objection._ (Sect. 60-66.) If, according to the foregoing Principles, the material world is merely phenomena presented by a Power not-ourselves to our senses, the elaborate contrivances which we find in Nature are useless; for we might have had all experiences that are needful without them, by the direct agency of G.o.d.

_Answer._ Elaborate contrivances in Nature are relatively necessary as signs: they express to _us_ the occasional presence and some of the experience of other men, also the constant presence and power of the Universal Spirit, while the scientific interpretation of elaborately const.i.tuted Nature is a beneficial moral and intellectual exercise.

_Twelfth objection._ (Sect. 67-79.) Although the impossibility of _active_ Matter may be demonstrable, this does not prove the impossibility of _inactive_ Matter, _neither solid nor extended_, which may be the occasion of our having sense-ideas.

_Answer._ This supposition is unintelligible: the words in which it is expressed convey no meaning.

_Thirteenth objection._ (Sect. 80, 81.) Matter may be _an unknowable Somewhat_, neither substance nor accident, cause nor effect, spirit nor idea: all the reasonings against Matter, conceived as something positive, fail, when this wholly negative notion is maintained.

_Answer._ This is to use the word "Matter" as people use the word "nothing": Unknowable Somewhat cannot be distinguished from nothing.

_Fourteenth objection._ (Sect. 82-84.) Although we cannot, in opposition to the New Principles, infer scientifically the existence of Matter, in abstraction from all realising percipient life, or form any conception, positive or negative, of what Matter is; yet Holy Scripture demands the faith of every Christian in the independent reality of the material world.

_Answer._ The _independent_ reality of the material world is nowhere affirmed in Scripture.

iii. Consequences and Applications of the New Principles (sect. 85-156).

In this portion of the Treatise, the New Principles, already guarded against objections, are applied to enlighten and invigorate final faith, often suffering from the paralysis of the scepticism produced by materialism; also to improve the sciences, including those which relate to Mind, in man and in G.o.d. They are applied:-

1. To the refutation of Scepticism as to the reality of the world (sect. 85-91) and G.o.d (sect. 92-96);

2. To the liberation of thought from the bondage of unmeaning abstractions (sect. 97-100);

3. To the purification of Natural Philosophy, by making it an interpretation of ideas of sense, simply in their relations of coexistence and sequence, according to which they const.i.tute the Divine Language of Nature (sect. 101-116);

4. To simplify Mathematics, by eliminating infinites and other empty abstractions (sect. 117-134);

5. To explain and sustain faith in the Immortality of men (sect.

135-144);

6. To explain the belief which each man has in the existence of other men; as signified to him in and through sense-symbolism (sect. 145);

7. To vindicate faith in G.o.d, who is signified in and through the sense-symbolism of universal nature (sect. 146-156).

It was only by degrees that Berkeley's New Principles attracted attention.

A new mode of conceiving the world we live in, by a young and unknown author, published at a distance from the centre of English intellectual life, was apt to be overlooked. In connexion with the _Essay on Vision_, however, it drew enough of regard to make Berkeley an object of interest to the literary world on his first visit to London, three years after its publication.

Dedication

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THOMAS, EARL OF PEMBROKE(472), &c.

KNIGHT OF THE MOST n.o.bLE ORDER OF THE GARTER, AND ONE OF THE LORDS OF HER MAJESTY'S MOST HONOURABLE PRIVY COUNCIL

MY LORD,

You will perhaps wonder that an obscure person, who has not the honour to be known to your lords.h.i.+p, should presume to address you in this manner.

But that a man who has written something with a design to promote Useful Knowledge and Religion in the world should make choice of your lords.h.i.+p for his patron, will not be thought strange by any one that is not altogether unacquainted with the present state of the church and learning, and consequently ignorant how great an ornament and support you are to both. Yet, nothing could have induced me to make you this present of my poor endeavours, were I not encouraged by that candour and native goodness which is so bright a part in your lords.h.i.+p's character. I might add, my lord, that the extraordinary favour and bounty you have been pleased to shew towards our Society(473) gave me hopes you would not be unwilling to countenance the studies of one of its members. These considerations determined me to lay this treatise at your lords.h.i.+p's feet, and the rather because I was ambitious to have it known that I am with the truest and most profound respect, on account of that learning and virtue which the world so justly admires in your lords.h.i.+p,

My Lord,