The Works of George Berkeley Part 86

794 "Sensible qualities," i.e. the significant appearances presented in sense.

795 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80-86.

796 Descartes and Locke for example.

797 On Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter, and their mutual relations, cf. _Principles_, sect. 9-15. See also Descartes, _Meditations_, III, _Principia_, I. sect. 69; Malebranche, _Recherche_, Liv. VI. Pt. II. sect. 2; Locke's _Essay_, Bk. II. ch.

8.

798 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80.

799 What follows, within brackets, is not contained in the first and second editions.

800 Percipient mind is, in short, the indispensable realising factor of _all_ the qualities of sensible things.

801 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 122-126; _Principles_, sect. 123, &c.; _Siris_, sect. 270, &c.

802 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 15.

803 Is "notion" here a synonym for idea?

804 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 16.

805 "Size or figure, or sensible quality"-"size, color &c.," in the first and second editions.

806 In Berkeley's later and more exact terminology, the data or implicates of pure intellect are called _notions_, in contrast to his _ideas_, which are concrete or individual sensuous presentations.

807 They need living percipient mind to make them real.

808 So Reid's _Inquiry_, ch. ii, sect. 8, 9; _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, II. ch. 16. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 8, &c.

809 i.e. figured or extended visible colour. Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 43, &c.

810 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

811 After maintaining, in the preceding part of this Dialogue, the inevitable dependence of all the qualities of Matter upon percipient Spirit, the argument now proceeds to dispose of the supposition that Matter may still be an unmanifested or unqualified _substratum_, independent of living percipient Spirit.

812 [See the _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_, and its _Vindication_.] Note by the _Author_ in the 1734 edition.

813 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 2.

814 Cf. Ibid., sect. 43.

815 "an idea," i.e. a phenomenon present to our senses.

816 This was Reid's fundamental question in his criticism of Berkeley.

817 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 8.

818 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

819 In other words, the percipient activity of a living spirit is the necessary condition of the real existence of all ideas or phenomena immediately present to our senses.

820 An "explanation" afterwards elaborately developed by Hartley, in his _Observations on Man_ (1749). Berkeley has probably Hobbes in view.

821 The brain with the human body in which it is included const.i.tutes a part of the material world, and must equally with the rest of the material world depend for its realisation upon percipient Spirit as the realising factor.

822 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 23.

823 "in stones and minerals"-in first and second editions.

824 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 29-33; also sect. 90.-The _permanence_ of a thing, during intervals in which it may be unperceived and unimagined by human beings, is here a.s.sumed, as a natural conviction.

825 In other words, men are apt to treat the omniscience of G.o.d as an inference from the dogmatic a.s.sumption that G.o.d exists, instead of seeing that our cosmic experience necessarily presupposes omnipotent and omniscient Intelligence at its root.

826 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 90. A permanent material world is grounded on Divine Mind, because it cannot but depend on Mind, while its reality is only partially and at intervals sustained by finite minds.

827 "necessarily inferred from"-rather necessarily presupposed in.

828 The present reality of Something implies the eternal existence of living Mind, if Something _must_ exist eternally, and if real or concrete existence involves living Mind. Berkeley's conception of material nature presupposes a theistic basis.

829 He refers of course to Malebranche and his Divine Vision.

830 But Malebranche uses _idea_ in a higher meaning than Berkeley does-akin to the Platonic, and in contrast to the sensuous phenomena which Berkeley calls ideas.

831 The pa.s.sage within brackets first appeared in the third edition.

832 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25-33.

833 Cf. Ibid., sect. 3-24.

834 I _can_ represent to myself another mind perceiving and conceiving things; because I have an example of this my own conscious life. I _cannot_ represent to myself sensible things existing totally unperceived and unimagined; because I cannot, without a contradiction, have an example of this in my own experience.

835 "reason," i.e. by reasoning.

836 Berkeley's _material substance_ is a natural or divinely ordered aggregate of sensible qualities or phenomena.

837 Inasmuch as, according to Berkeley, it must be a living Spirit, and it would be an abuse of language to call this Matter.

838 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 25, 26.

839 It is here argued that as _volition_ is the only _originative_ cause implied in our experience, and which consequently alone puts true meaning into the term Cause, to apply that term to what is not volition is to make it meaningless, or at least to misapply it.

840 While thus arguing against the need for independent matter, as an instrument needed by G.o.d, Berkeley fails to explain how dependent matter can be a medium of intercourse between persons. It must be more than a subjective dream, however well ordered, if it is available for this purpose. Unless the visible and audible ideas or phenomena presented to me are actually seen and heard by other men, how can they be instrumental in intercommunication?

841 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 68-79.

842 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 20.