Volume 4 / Part 1 — Footnotes (continued 2)

623.

Some philosophers have treated the relation of Matter to Mind in perception as one of cause and effect. This, according to Berkeley, is an illegitimate analysis, which creates a fictitious duality. On his New Principles, philosophy is based on a recognition of the fact, that perception is neither the cause nor the effect of its object, but in a relation to it that is altogether sui generis.

624.

He refers to Descartes, and perhaps Geulinx and Malebranche, who, while they argued for material substance, denied the causal efficiency of sensible things. Berkeley's new Principles are presented as the foundation in reason for this denial, and for the essential spirituality of all active power in the universe.

625.

On the principle, “Entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem.”

626.

“external things,” i.e. things in the abstract.

627.

That the unreflecting part of mankind should have a confused conception of what should be meant by the external reality of matter is not wonderful. It is the office of philosophy to improve their conception, making it deeper and truer, and this was Berkeley's preliminary task; as a mean for shewing the impotence of the things of sense, and conclusive evidence of omnipresent spiritual activity.

628.

Cf. sect. 4, 9, 15, 17, 22, 24.

629.

i.e. their sense-ideas.—Though sense-ideas, i.e. the appearances presented to the senses, are independent of the will of the individual percipient, it does not follow that they are independent of all perception, so that they can be real in the absence of realising percipient experience. Cf. sect. 29-33.

630.

By shewing that what we are percipient of in sense must be idea, or that it is immediately known by us only as sensuous appearance.

631.

i.e. “imprinted” by unperceived Matter, which, on this dogma of a representative sense-perception, was assumed to exist behind the perceived ideas, and to be the cause of their appearance. Cf. Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous.

632.

Hence the difficulty men have in recognising that Divine Reason and Will, and Law in Nature, are coincident. But the advance of scientific discovery of the laws which express Divine Will in nature, instead of narrowing, extends our knowledge of God. And divine or absolutely reasonable “arbitrariness” is not caprice.

633.

“ideas,” i.e. ideas of sense. This “experience” implied an association of sensuous ideas, according to the divine or reasonable order of nature.

634.

Cf. sect. 25-33, and other passages in Berkeley's writings in which he insists upon the arbitrariness—divine or reasonable—of the natural laws and sense-symbolism.

635.

Cf. sect. 3, 4, 6, 22-24, 26, in which he proceeds upon the intuitive certainty of his two leading Principles, concerning Reality and Causation.

636.

In short, what is virtually the language of universal natural order is the divine way of revealing omnipresent Intelligence; nor can we conceive how this revelation could be made through a capricious or chaotic succession of changes.

637.

He here touches on moral purpose in miraculous phenomena, but without discussing their relation to the divine, or perfectly reasonable, order of the universe. Relatively to a fine knowledge of nature, they seem anomalous—exceptions from general rules, which nevertheless express, immediately and constantly, perfect active Reason.

638.

“ideas,” i.e. the phenomena presented to the senses.

639.

“imaginable”—in first edition.

640.

“the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the presence of law or reasonable uniformity in the coexistence and succession of the phenomena of sense; which makes them interpretable signs.

641.

According to Berkeley, it is by an abuse of language that the term “power” is applied to those ideas which are invariable antecedents of other ideas—the prior forms of their existence, as it were.

642.

Berkeley, in meeting this objection, thus implies Universal Natural Symbolism as the essential character of the sensible world, in its relation to man.

643.

See Locke's Essay, Bk. IV, ch. 3, § 25-28, &c., in which he suggests that the secondary qualities of bodies may be the natural issue of the different relations and modifications of their primary qualities.

644.

With Berkeley, material substance is merely the natural combination of sense-presented phenomena, which, under a divine or reasonable “arbitrariness,” constitute a concrete thing. Divine Will, or Active Reason, is the constantly sustaining cause of this combination or substantiation.

645.

i.e. that it is not realised in a living percipient experience.

646.

For “place” is realised only as perceived—percipient experience being its concrete existence. Living perception is, with Berkeley, the condition of the possibility of concrete locality.

647.

So in the Cartesian theory of occasional causes.

648.

So Geulinx and Malebranche.

649.

As known in Divine intelligence, they are accordingly Divine Ideas. And, if this means that the sensible system is the expression of Divine Ideas, which are its ultimate archetype—that the Ideas of God are symbolised to our senses, and then interpreted (or misinterpreted) by human minds, this allies itself with Platonic Idealism.

650.

“It seems to me,” Hume says, “that this theory of the universal energy and operation of the Supreme Being is too bold ever to carry conviction with it to a mind sufficiently apprised of the weakness of human reason, and the narrow limits to which it is confined in all its operations.” But is it not virtually presupposed in the assumed trustworthiness of our experience of the universe?

651.

Accordingly we are led to ask, what the deepest support of their reality must be. Is it found in living Spirit, i.e. Active Reason, or in blind Matter?

652.

e.g. Descartes, Malebranche, Locke, &c.

653.

In short, if we mean by Matter, something unrealised in percipient experience of sense, what is called its reality is something unintelligible.

654.

And if sensible phenomena are sufficiently externalised, when regarded as regulated by Divine Reason.

655.

Twenty years after the publication of the Principles, in a letter to his American friend Johnson, Berkeley says:—“I have no objection against calling the Ideas in the mind of God archetypes of ours. But I object against those archetypes by philosophers supposed to be real things, and so to have an absolute rational existence distinct from their being perceived by any mind whatsoever; it being the opinion of all materialists that an ideal existence in the Divine Mind is one thing, and the real existence of material things another.”

656.

Berkeley's philosophy is not inconsistent with Divine Ideas which receive expression in the laws of nature, and of which human science is the imperfect interpretation. In this view, assertion of the existence of Matter is simply an expression of faith that the phenomenal universe into which we are born is a reasonable and interpretable universe; and that it would be fully interpreted, if our notions could be fully harmonised with the Divine Ideas which it expresses.

657.

Cf. sect. 3-24.

658.

So that superhuman persons, endowed with a million senses, would be no nearer this abstract Matter than man is, with his few senses.

659.

Matter and physical science is relative, so far that we may suppose in other percipients than men, an indefinite number of additional senses, affording corresponding varieties of qualities in things, of course inconceivable by man. Or, we may suppose an intelligence destitute of all our senses, and so in a material world wholly different in its appearances from ours.

660.

The authority of Holy Scripture, added to our natural tendency to believe in external reality, are grounds on which Malebranche and Norris infer a material world. Berkeley's material world claims no logical proof of its reality. His is not to prove the reality of the world, but to shew what we should mean when we affirm its reality, and the basis of its explicability in science.

661.

i.e. existing unrealised in any intelligence—human or Divine.

662.

“external things,” i.e. things existing really, yet out of all relation to active living spirit.

663.

Simultaneous perception of the “same” (similar?) sense-ideas, by different persons, as distinguished from purely individual consciousness of feelings and fancies, is here taken as a test of the virtually external reality of the former. Berkeley does not ask whether the change of the rod into a serpent, or of the water into wine, is the issue of divine agency and order, otherwise than as all natural evolution is divinely providential.

664.

Some of the Consequences of adoption of the New Principles, in their application to the physical sciences and mathematics, and then to psychology and theology, are unfolded in the remaining sections of the Principles.

665.

Berkeley disclaims the supposed representative character of the ideas given in sensuous perception, and recognises as the real object only what is ideally presented in consciousness.

666.

So Hume, Reid, and Hamilton, who all see in a wholly representative sense-perception, with its double object, the germ of total scepticism. Berkeley claims that, under his interpretation of what the reality of the material world means, immediate knowledge of mind-dependent matter is given in sense.

667.

“scepticism”—“sceptical cant” in the first edition.

668.

This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

669.

Berkeley's argument against a finally representative perception so far resembles that afterwards employed by Reid and Hamilton. They differ as regards the dependence of the sensible object upon percipient spirit for its reality.

670.

Omitted in second edition.

671.

Omitted in second edition.

672.

But whilst unthinking things depend on being perceived, do not our spirits depend on ideas of some sort for their percipient life?

673.

The important passage within brackets was added in the second edition.

674.

“reason,” i.e. reasoning.

675.

“Notion,” in its stricter meaning, is thus confined by Berkeley to apprehension of the Ego, and intelligence of relations. The term “notion,” in this contrast with his “idea,” becomes important in his vocabulary, although he sometimes uses it vaguely.

676.

Locke uses idea in this wider signification.

677.

Inasmuch as they are real in and through living percipient mind.

678.

i.e. unthinking archetypes.

679.

In this section Berkeley explains what he means by externality. Men cannot act, cannot live, without assuming an external world—in some meaning of the term “external.” It is the business of the philosopher to explicate its true meaning.

680.

i.e. they are not substances in the truest or deepest meaning of the word.

681.

“Ideas of the corporeal substances.” Berkeley might perhaps say—Divine Ideas which are themselves our world of sensible things in its ultimate form.

682.

On the scheme of ideal Realism, “creation” of matter is presenting to finite minds sense-ideas or phenomena, which are, as it were, letters of the alphabet, in that language of natural order which God employs for the expression of His Ideas to us.

683.

The independent eternity of Matter must be distinguished from an unbeginning and endless creation of sensible ideas or phenomena, in percipient spirits, according to divine natural law and order, with implied immanence of God.

684.

Because the question at issue with Atheism is, whether the universe of things and persons is finally substantiated and evolved in unthinking Matter or in the perfect Reason of God.

685.

Of which Berkeley does not predicate a numerical identity. Cf. Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous.

686.

“matter,” i.e. matter abstracted from all percipient life and voluntary activity.

687.

“external”—not in Berkeley's meaning of externality. Cf. sect. 90, note 2.

688.

Si non rogas, intelligo. Berkeley writes long after this to Johnson thus:—“A succession of ideas (phenomena) I take to constitute time, and not to be only the sensible measure thereof, as Mr. Locke and others think. But in these matters every man is to think for himself, and speak as he finds. One of my earliest inquiries was about time; which led me into several paradoxes that I did not think it fit or necessary to publish, particularly into the notion that the resurrection follows the next moment after death. We are confounded and perplexed about time—supposing a succession in God; that we have an abstract idea of time; that time in one mind is to be measured by succession of ideas in another mind: not considering the true use of words, which as often terminate in the will as in the understanding, being employed to excite and direct action rather than to produce clear and distinct ideas.” Cf. Introduction, sect. 20.

689.

As the esse of unthinking things is percipi, according to Berkeley, so the esse of persons is percipere. The real existence of individual Mind thus depends on having ideas of some sort: the real existence of matter depends on a percipient.

690.

This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

691.

Cf. New Theory of Vision, sect. 43.

692.

“objects of sense,” i.e. sensible things, practically external to each person. Cf. sect. 1, on the meaning of thing, as distinct from the distinguishable ideas or phenomena that are naturally aggregated in the form of concrete things.

693.

Omitted in second edition.

694.

Omitted in second edition.

695.

Cf. Introduction, sect. 1-3. With Berkeley, the real essence of sensible things is given in perception—so far as our perceptions carry us.

696.

e.g. Locke's Essay, Bk. IV. ch. 3.

697.

Berkeley advocates a Realism, which eliminates effective causation from the material world, concentrates it in Mind, and in physical research seeks among data of sense for their divinely maintained natural laws.

698.

In interpreting the data of sense, we are obliged to assume that every new phenomenon must have previously existed in some equivalent form—but not necessarily in this or that particular form, for a knowledge of which we are indebted to inductive comparisons of experience.

699.

The preceding forms of new phenomena, being finally determined by Will, are, in that sense, arbitrary; but not capricious, for the Will is perfect Reason. God is the immanent cause of the natural order.

700.

He probably refers to Bacon.

701.

Omitted in second edition.

702.

What we are able to discover in the all-comprehensive order may be subordinate and provisional only. Nature in its deepest meaning explains itself in the Divine Omniscience.

703.

i.e. inductively.

704.

i.e. deductively.

705.

“seem to consider signs,” i.e. to be grammarians rather than philosophers: physical sciences deal with the grammar of the divine language of nature.

706.

“A man may be well read in the language of nature without understanding the grammar of it, or being able to say,” &c.—in first edition.

707.

“extend”—“stretch”—in first edition.

708.

Omitted in second edition.

709.

In the first edition, the section commences thus: “The best grammar of the kind we are speaking of will be easily acknowledged to be a treatise of Mechanics, demonstrated and applied to Nature, by a philosopher of a neighbouring nation, whom all the world admire. I shall not take upon me to make remarks on the performance of that extraordinary person: only some things he has advanced so directly opposite to the doctrine we have hitherto laid down, that we should be wanting in the regard due to the authority of so great a man did we not take some notice of them.” He refers, of course, to Newton. The first edition of Berkeley's Principles was published in Ireland—hence “neighbouring nation.” Newton's Principia appeared in 1687.

710.

“Motion,” in various aspects, is treated specially in the De Motu. An imagination of trinal space presupposes locomotive experience—unimpeded, in contrast with—impeded locomotion. Cf. sect. 116.

711.

Omitted in second edition.

712.

Added in second edition.

713.

Omitted in second edition.

714.

See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 13, §§ 7-10.

715.

“applied to”—“impressed on”—in first edition.

716.

“applied to”—“impressed on”—in first edition.

717.

“the force causing the change”—which “force,” according to Berkeley, can only be attributed metaphorically to the so-called impelling body; inasmuch as bodies, or the data of sense, can only be signs of their consequent events, not efficient causes of change.

718.

Added in second edition.

719.

What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second edition.

720.

“seems impossible”—“is above my capacity”—in first edition.

721.

In short, empty Space is the sensuous idea of unresisted motion. This is implied in the New Theory of Vision. He minimises Space, treating it as a datum of sense.

722.

He probably refers to Samuel Clarke's Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, which appeared in 1706, and a treatise De Spatio Reali, published in the same year.

723.

Sect. 118-132 are accordingly concerned with the New Principles in their application to Mathematics. The foundation of the mathematical sciences engaged much of Berkeley's thought in early life and in his later years. See his Analyst.

724.

Numerical relations are realised only in concrete experience.

725.

Cf. New Theory of Vision, sect. 107, &c.

726.

Ibid. sect. 122-125, 149-160.

727.

An infinitely divided extension, being unperceived, must be unreal—if its existence is made real only in and through actual perception, or at least imagination. The only possible extension is, accordingly, sensible extension, which could not be infinitely divided without the supposed parts ceasing to be perceived or real.

728.

“converted Gentile”—“pagan convert”—in first edition.

729.

Cf. Locke's Essay, Bk. I, ch. 3, § 25.

730.

“will perhaps in virtue thereof be brought to admit,” &c.—“will not stick to affirm,” &c.—in first edition.

731.

Omitted in second edition. See the Analyst.

732.

“we must mean”—“we mean (if we mean anything)”—in first edition.

733.

Omitted in the second edition.

734.

Does this refer to the intended “Part II” of the Principles?

735.

“men of great abilities and obstinate application,” &c.—“men of the greatest abilities and most obstinate application,” &c.—in first edition.

736.

What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second edition.

737.

“absolute,” i.e. abstract, independent, irrelative existence—as something of which there can be no sensuous perception or conception.

738.

Matter unrealised in perception—not the material world that is realised in percipient experience of sense.

739.

Omitted in second edition.

740.

Sect. 135-156 treat of consequences of the New Principles, in their application to sciences concerned with our notions of Spirit or Mind; as distinguished from sciences of ideas in external Nature, and their mathematical relations. Individual mind, with Berkeley, needs data of sense in order to its realisation in consciousness; while it is dependent on God, in a relation which he does not define distinctly.

741.

e.g. Locke suggests this.

742.

Is this analogy applicable?

743.

Omitted in second edition, as he had previously learned to distinguish notion from idea. Cf. sect. 89, 142.

744.

Ibid. In the omitted passage it will be seen that he makes idea and notion synonymous.

745.

Is the reality of mind as dependent on having ideas (of some sort) as ideas are on mind; although mind is more deeply and truly real than its ideas are?

746.

Introduced in second edition.

747.

We know other finite persons through sense-presented phenomena, but not as themselves phenomena. Cf. sect. 145. It is a mediate knowledge that we have of other persons. The question about the individuality of finite egos, as distinguished from God, Berkeley has not touched.

748.

These sentences are omitted in the second edition.

749.

“the soul,” i.e. the individual Ego.

750.

Cf. sect. 2; 25-27.

751.

This is Berkeley's application of his new conception of the reality of matter, to the final human question of the self-conscious existence of the individual human Ego, after physical death. Philosophers and theologians were accustomed in his generation to ground their argument for a future life on the metaphysical assumption of the physical indivisibility of our self-conscious spirit, and on our contingent connexion with the body. “Our bodies,” says Bishop Butler, “are no more ourselves, or part of ourselves, than any other matter around us.” This train of thought is foreign to us at the present day, when men of science remind us that self-conscious life is found only in correlation with corporeal organisation, whatever may be the abstract possibility. Hope of continued life after physical death seems to depend on ethical considerations more than on metaphysical arguments, and on what is suggested by faith in the final outcome of personal life in a divinely constituted universe.

752.

Mind and the ideas presented to the senses are at opposite poles of existence. But he does not say that, thus opposed, they are each independent of the other.

753.

What follows was introduced in the second edition, in which notion is contrasted with idea.

754.

Here is a germ of Kantism. But Berkeley has not analysed that activity of mind which constitutes relation, nor systematically unfolded the relations involved in the rational constitution of experience. There is more disposition to this in Siris.

755.

As with Locke, for example.

756.

Note this condemnation of the tendency to substantiate “powers of mind.”

757.

Omitted in second edition. Berkeley was after all reluctant to “depart from received modes of speech,” notwithstanding their often misleading associations.

758.

Omitted in second edition.

759.

This is one of the notable sections in the Principles, as it suggests the rationale of Berkeley's rejection of Panegoism or Solipsism. Is this consistent with his conception of the reality of the material world? It is objected (e.g. by Reid) that ideal realism dissolves our faith in the existence of other persons. The difficulty is to shew how appearances presented to my senses, which are sensuous and subjective, can be media of communication between persons. The question carries us back to the theistic presupposition in the trustworthiness of experience—which is adapted to deceive if I am the only person existing. With Berkeley a chief function of ideas of sense is to signify other persons to each person. See Alciphron, Dial. IV; New Theory of Vision Vindicated, and Siris.

760.

“repugnant”—for it would involve thought in incoherence, by paralysis of its indispensable causal presupposition.

761.

Is not God the indispensable presupposition of trustworthy experience, rather than an empirical inference?

762.

This suggests an explanation of the objective reality and significance of ideas of sense; through which they become media of social intercourse in the fundamentally divine universe. God so regulates the sense-given ideas of which human beings are individually percipient, as that, while numerically different, as in each mind, those ideas are nevertheless a sufficient medium for social intercourse, if the Power universally at work is morally trustworthy. Unless our God-given experience is deceiving, Solipsism is not a necessary result of the fact that no one but myself can be percipient of my sensuous experience.

763.

Omitted in second edition.

764.

Malebranche, as understood by Berkeley. See Recherche, Liv. III. p. ii. ch. 6, &c.

765.

For all finite persons somehow live, and move, and have their being “in God.” The existence of eternal living Mind, and the present existence of other men, are both inferences, resting on the same foundation, according to Berkeley.

766.

The theistic trust in which our experience is rooted remaining latent, or being unintelligent.

767.

Cf. sect. 25-28, 51-53, 60-66. His conception of Divine causation in Nature, as the constant omnipresent agency in all natural law, is the deepest part of his philosophy. It is pursued in the De Motu.

768.

Is not the unbeginning and unending natural evolution, an articulate revelation of Eternal Spirit or Active Reason at the heart of the whole?

769.

Omitted in second edition.

770.

So Pascal in the Pensées.

771.

Divine reason ever active in Nature is the necessary correlate to reason in man; inasmuch as otherwise the changing universe in which we live would be unfit to be reasoned about or acted in.

772.

The existence of moral evil, or what ought not to exist, is the difficulty which besets faith in the fundamental divinity or goodness of the universe. Yet that faith is presupposed in interpretation of nature, which proceeds on the postulate of universal order; and this implies the moral trustworthiness of the world which we begin to realise when we begin to be conscious. That we are living and having our being in omnipotent goodness is thus not an inference, but the implied basis of all real inferences. I have expanded this thought in my Philosophy of Theism. We cannot prove God, for we must assume God, as the basis of all proof. Faith even in the uniformity of nature is virtually faith in omnipotent goodness immanent in the universe.

773.

So Leibniz in his Theodicée, which was published in the same year as Berkeley's Principles.

774.

The divine presupposition, latent in all human reasoning and experience, is hid from the unreflecting, in whom the higher life is dormant, and the ideal in the universe is accordingly undiscerned. Unless the universe is assumed to be physically and morally trustworthy, i.e. unless God is presupposed, even natural science has no adequate foundation.

775.

Our necessarily incomplete knowledge of the Universe in which we find ourselves is apt to disturb the fundamental faith, that the phenomena presented to us are significant of God. Yet we tacitly assume that they are thus significant when we interpret real experience, physical or moral.

776.

Omitted in second edition.

777.

For the following extracts from previously unpublished correspondence of Berkeley and Sir John Percival, I am indebted to the kindness of his descendant, the late Lord Egmont.

778.

What Berkeley seeks to shew is, not that the world of the senses is unreal, but in what its reality consists. Is it inexplicable chaos, or explicable expression of ever active Intelligence, more or less interpreted in natural science?

779.

Leibniz: De modo distinguendi Phenomena Realia ab Imaginariis (1707).

780.

For some information relative to Gua de Malves, see Querard's La France Littéraire, tom. iii. p. 494.

781.

The following is the translator's Prefatory Note, on the objects of the Dialogues, and in explanation of the three illustrative vignettes:— “L'Auteur expose dans le premier Dialogue le sentiment du Vulgaire et celui des Philosophes, sur les qualités secondaires et premieres, la nature et l'existence des corps; et il prétend prouver en même tems l'insuffisance de l'un et de l'autre. La Vignette qu'on voit à la téte du Dialogue, fait allusion à cet objet. Elle représente un Philosophe dans son cabinet, lequel est distrait de son travail par un enfant qu'il appercoit se voyant lui-méme dans un miroir, en tendant les mains pour embrasser sa propre image. Le Philosophe rit de l'erreur où il croit que tombe l'enfant; tandis qu'on lui applique à lui-même ces mots tirés d'Horace: Quid rides?....de te Fabula narratur. “Le second Dialogue est employé à exposer le sentiment de l'Auteur sur le même sujet, sçavoir, que les choses corporelles ont une existence réelle dans les esprits qui les apperçoivent; mais qu'elles ne sçauroient exister hors de tous les esprits à la fois, même de l'esprit infini de Dieu; et que par conséquent la Matière, prise suivant l'acception ordinaire du mot, non seulement n'existe point, mais seroit même absolument impossible. On a taché de représenter aux yeux ce sentiment dans la Vignette du Dialogue. Le mot grec νοῦς qui signifie âme, désigne l'àme: les rayons qui en partent marquent l'attention que l'âme donne à des idées ou objets; les tableaux qu'on a placés aux seuls endroits où les rayons aboutissent, et dont les sujets sont tirés de la description des beautés de la nature, qui se trouve dans le livre, représentent les idées ou objets que l'âme considère, pas le secours des facultes qu'elle a reçues de Dieu; et l'action de l'Étre suprème sur l'âme est figurée par un trait, qui, partant d'un triangle, symbole de la Divinité, et perçant les nuages dont le triangle est environné. s'étend jusqu'à l'âme pour la vivifier; enfin, on a fait en sorte de rendre le même sentiment par ces mots: Quæ noscere cumque Deus det, Esse puta. “L'objet du troisième Dialogue est de répondre aux difficultés auxquelles le sentiment qu'on a établi dans les Dialogues précédens, peut être sujet, de l'éclaircir en cette sorte de plus, d'en développer toutes les heureuses conséquences, enfin de faire voir, qu'étant bien entendu, il revient aux notions les plus communes. Et comme l'Auteur exprime à la fin du livre cette dernière pensée, en comparant ce qu'il vient de dire, à l'eau que les deux Interlocuteurs sont supposés voir jaillir d'un jet, et qu'il remarque que la même force de la gravité fait élever jusqu'à une certaine hauteur et retomber ensuite dans le bassin d'où elle étoit d'abord partie; on a pris cet emblême pour le sujet de la Vignette de ce Dialogue; on a représenté en conséquence dans cette dernière Vignette les deux Interlocuteurs, se promenant dans le lieu où l'Auteur les suppose, et s'entretenant là-dessus, et pour donner au Lecteur l'explication de l'emblême, on a mis au bas le vers suivant: Urget aquas vis sursum, eadem flectitque deorsum.”

782.

Collier never came fairly in sight of the philosophical public of last century. He is referred to in Germany by Bilfinger, in his Dilucidationes Philosophicæ (1746), and also in the Ada Eruditorum, Suppl. VI. 244, &c., and in England by Corry in his Reflections on Liberty and Necessity (1761), as well as in the Remarks on the Reflections, and Answers to the Remarks, pp. 7, 8 (1763), where he is described as “a weak reasoner, and a very dull writer also.” Collier was dragged from his obscurity by Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay II. ch. 10. He was a subject of correspondence between Sir James Mackintosh, then at Bombay, and Dr. Parr, and an object of curiosity to Dugald Stewart. A beautiful reprint of the Clavis (of the original edition of which only seven copies were then known to exist) appeared in Edinburgh in 1836; and in the following year it was included in a collection of Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, prepared for the press by Dr. Parr.

783.

William, fourth Lord Berkeley of Stratton, born about 1663, succeeded his brother in 1697, and died in 1741 at Bruton in Somersetshire. The Berkeleys of Stratton were descended from a younger son of Maurice, Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle, who died in 1326. His descendant, Sir John Berkeley of Bruton, a zealous Royalist, was created first Lord Berkeley of Stratton in 1658, and in 1669 became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an office which he held till 1672, when he was succeeded by the Earl of Essex (see Burke's Extinct Peerages). It is said that Bishop Berkeley's father was related to him. The Bishop himself was introduced by Dean Swift, in 1713, to the Lord Berkeley of Stratton, to whom the Dialogues are dedicated, as “a cousin of his Lordship.” The title of Berkeley of Stratton became extinct on the death of the fifth Lord in 1773.

784.

This interesting Preface is omitted in his last edition of the Dialogues.

785.

The Second Part of the Principles was never published, and only in part written. See Editor's Preface to the Principles.

786.

Principles, Introduction, sect. 1.

787.

Berkeley's philosophy is professedly a “revolt” from abstract ideas to an enlightened sense of concrete realities. In these Dialogues Philonous personates the revolt, and represents Berkeley. Hylas vindicates the uncritical conception of independent Matter.

788.

Berkeley's zeal against Matter in the abstract, and all abstract ideas of concrete things, is therefore not necessarily directed against “universal intellectual notions”—“the principles and theorems of sciences.”

789.

Here “reason” means reasoning or inference. Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 42, including the distinction between “suggestion” and “inference.”

790.

“figure” as well as colour, is here included among the original data of sight.

791.

“without the mind,” i.e. unrealised by any percipient mind.

792.

Cf. Principles, sect. 14.

793.

Cf. Principles, sect. 14, 15.

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 constitutes 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 assumed, as a natural conviction.

825.

In other words, men are apt to treat the omniscience of God as an inference from the dogmatic assumption that God 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 passage 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 God, 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.

843.

Cf. Principles, sect. 80, 81.

844.

i.e. all Spirits and their dependent ideas or phenomena.

845.

This, according to Hume (who takes for granted that Berkeley's reasonings can produce no conviction), is the natural effect of Berkeley's philosophy.—“Most of the writings of that very ingenious author (Berkeley) form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted.... That all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appear from this—that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of scepticism.” (Hume's Essays, vol. II. Note N, p. 554.)

846.

Omitted in last edition.

847.

“Tell me, Hylas,”—“So Hylas”—in first and second editions.

848.

Variously called noumena, “things-in-themselves,” absolute substances, &c.—which Berkeley's philosophy banishes, on the ground of their unintelligibility, and thus annihilates all farther questions concerning them. Questions about existence are thus confined within the concrete or realising experiences of living spirits.

849.

Berkeley claims that his doctrine supersedes scepticism, and excludes the possibility of fallacy in sense, in excluding an ultimately representative perception of Matter. He also assumes the reasonableness of faith in the reality and constancy of natural law. When we see an orange, the visual sense guarantees only colour. The other phenomena, which we associate with this colour—the other “qualities” of the orange—are, when we only see the orange, matter of faith. We believe them to be realisable.

850.

He accepts the common belief on which interpretation of sense symbols proceeds—that sensible phenomena are evolved in rational order, under laws that are independent of, and in that respect external to, the individual percipient.

851.

Mediately as well as immediately.

852.

We can hardly be said to have an immediate sense-perception of an individual “thing”—meaning by “thing” a congeries of sense-ideas or phenomena, presented to different senses. We immediately perceive some of them, and believe in the others, which those suggest. See the last three notes.

853.

He probably refers to Descartes, who argues for the trustworthiness of our faculties from the veracity of God; thus apparently arguing in a circle, seeing that the existence of God is manifested to us only through our suspected faculties. But is not confidence in the trustworthiness of the Universal Power at the heart of the universe, the fundamental presupposition of all human experience, and God thus the basis and end of philosophy and of experience?

854.

As Locke does. See Essay, Bk. IV. ch. 11.

855.

Cf. Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 45-48.

856.

And to be thus external to individual minds.

857.

It is here that Berkeley differs, for example, from Hume and Comte and J.S. Mill; who accept sense-given phenomena, and assume the constancy of their orderly reappearances, as a matter of fact, while they confess total ignorance of the cause of natural order. (Thus ignorant, why do they assume reason or order in nature?) The ground of sensible things, which Berkeley refers to Divine Power, Mill expresses by the term “permanent possibility of sensation.” (See his Examination of Hamilton, ch. 11.) Our belief in the continued existence of a sensible thing in our absence merely means, with him, our conviction, derived from custom, that we should perceive it under inexplicable conditions which determine its appearance.

858.

Cf. Principles, sect. 25, 26.

859.

Cf. Ibid., sect. 2, 27, 135-142.

860.

Inasmuch as I am conscious of myself, I can gather, through the sense symbolism, the real existence of other minds, external to my own. For I cannot, of course, enter into the very consciousness of another person.

861.

“reason,” i.e. reasoning or necessary inference—founded here on our sense of personal dependence; not merely on our faith in sense symbolism and the interpretability of the sensible world. Our belief in the existence of finite minds, external to our own, is, with Berkeley, an application of this faith.

862.

“Matter,” i.e. Matter as abstract substance. Cf. Principles, sect. 135-138.

863.

Does this imply that with Berkeley, self, as distinguished from the phenomena of which the material world consists, is not a necessary presuppostion of experience? He says in many places—I am conscious of “my own being,” and that my mind is myself. Cf. Principles, sect, 2.

864.

Cf. Principles, sect. 8.

865.

Cf. Ibid., sect. 20

866.

This important passage, printed within brackets, is not found in the first and second editions of the Dialogues. It is, by anticipation, Berkeley's answer to Hume's application of the objections to the reality of abstract or unperceived Matter, to the reality of the Ego or Self, of which we are aware through memory, as identical amid the changes of its successive states.

867.

See note 4 on preceding page.

868.

Cf. Principles, sect. 142.

869.

Cf. Ibid., sect. 2. Does he assume that he exists when he is not conscious of ideas—sensible or other? Or, does he deny that he is ever unconscious?

870.

That is of matter supposed to exist independently of any mind. Berkeley speaks here of a consciousness of matter. Does he mean consciousness of belief in abstract material Substance?

871.

Cf. Principles, sect. 54-57.

872.

Which he does not doubt.

873.

This sentence expresses the whole question between Berkeley and his antagonists.

874.

Cf. Principles, sect. 29-41.

875.

The words within brackets are omitted in the third edition.

876.

The index pointing to the originative causes in the universe is thus the ethical judgment, which fastens upon the free voluntary agency of persons, as absolutely responsible causes, not merely caused causes.

877.

That only ideas or phenomena are presented to our senses may be assented to by those who nevertheless maintain that intelligent sensuous experience implies more than the sensuous or empirical data.

878.

Cf. Principles, sect. 49.

879.

Cf. Principles, sect. 58.

880.

“without the mind,” i.e. without the mind of each percipient person.

881.

This is the gist of the whole question. According to the Materialists, sense-presented phenomena are due to unpresented, unperceived, abstract Matter; according to Berkeley, to living Spirit; according to Hume and Agnostics, their origin is unknowable, yet (incoherently) they claim that we can interpret them—in physical science.

882.

A similar objection is urged by Erdmann, in his criticism of Berkeley in the Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie.

883.

Cf. Principles, sect. 50; Siris, sect. 319.

884.

Cf. Principles, sect. 58.

885.

“order”—“series,” in first and second editions.

886.

“Matter,” i.e. when the reality of “matter” is supposed to signify what Berkeley argues cannot be; because really meaningless.

887.

“the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the physical coexistences and sequences, maintained in constant order by Power external to the individual, and which are disclosed in the natural sciences.

888.

Cf. Principles, sect. 38. Berkeley is not for making things subjective, but for recognising ideas or phenomena presented to the senses as objective.

889.

They are not mere illusory appearances but are the very things themselves making their appearance, as far as our limited senses allow them to be realised for us.

890.

i.e. abstract Matter.

891.

Cf. New Theory of Vision, sect. 49; and New Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 9, 10, 15, &c.

892.

Cf. New Theory of Vision, sect. 84-86.

893.

“the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the order providentially maintained in nature.

894.

Cf. Principles, Introduction, sect. 23-25.

895.

Cf. Principles, sect. 8-10, 86, 87.

896.

This difficulty is thus pressed by Reid:—“The ideas in my mind cannot be the same with the ideas in any other mind; therefore, if the objects I perceive be only ideas, it is impossible that two or more such minds can perceive the same thing. Thus there is one unconfutable consequence of Berkeley's system, which he seems not to have attended to, and from which it will be found difficult, if at all possible, to guard it. The consequence I mean is this—that, although it leaves us sufficient evidence of a Supreme Mind, it seems to take away all the evidence we have of other intelligent beings like ourselves. What I call a father, or a brother, or a friend, is only a parcel of ideas in my own mind ; they cannot possibly have that relation to another mind which they have to mine, any more than the pain felt by me can be the individual pain felt by another. I am thus left alone as the only creature of God in the universe” (Hamilton's Reid, pp. 284-285). Implied Solipsism or Panegoism is thus charged against Berkeley, unless his conception of the material world is further guarded.

897.

Reid and Hamilton argue in like manner against a fundamentally representative sense-perception.

898.

Cf. Principles, sect. 6.

899.

Cf. Ibid., sect. 87-90.

900.

Cf. Ibid., sect. 18.

901.

Cf. Principles, sect. 24.

902.

“unknown,” i.e. unrealised in percipient life.

903.

Cf. Principles, sect. 28-33.

904.

See also Collier's Clavis Universalis, p. 6: “Two or more persons who are present at a concert of music may indeed in some measure be said to hear the same notes; yet the sound which the one hears is not the very same with the sound which another hears, because the souls or persons are supposed to be different.”

905.

Berkeley seems to hold that in things there is no identity other than perfect similarity—only in persons. And even as to personal identity he is obscure. Cf. Siris, sect. 347, &c.

906.

But the question is, whether the very ideas or phenomena that are perceived by me can be also perceived by other persons; and if not, how I can discover that “other persons” exist, or that any finite person except myself is cognizant of the ideal cosmos—if the sort of sameness that Berkeley advocates is all that can be predicated of concrete ideas; which are thus only similar, or generically the same. Unless the ideas are numerically the same, can different persons make signs to one another through them?

907.

Omitted in author's last edition.

908.

This seems to imply that intercourse between finite persons is maintained through ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, under a tacit faith in divinely guaranteed correspondence between the phenomena of which I am conscious, and the phenomena of which my neighbour is conscious; so that they are practically “the same.” If we are living in a fundamentally divine, and therefore absolutely trustworthy, universe, the phenomena presented to my senses, which I attribute to the agency of another person, are so attributed rightly. For if not, the so-called cosmos is adapted to mislead me.

909.

This explanation is often overlooked by Berkeley's critics.

910.

Cf. Principles, sect. 82-84.

911.

i.e. if you take the term idea in its wholly subjective and popular meaning.

912.

i.e. if you take the term idea in its objective meaning.

913.

“philosophic,” i.e. pseudo-philosophic, against which he argues.

914.

Had this their relative existence—this realisation of the material world through finite percipient and volitional life—any beginning? May not God have been eternally presenting phenomena to the senses of percipient beings in cosmical order, if not on this planet yet elsewhere, perhaps under other conditions? Has there been any beginning in the succession of finite persons?

915.

In the first and second editions only.

916.

Is “creation” by us distinguishable from continuous evolution, unbeginning and unending, in divinely constituted order; and is there a distinction between creation or evolution of things and creation or evolution of persons?

917.

Cf. Siris, sect. 347-349.

918.

“Matter,” i.e. Matter in this pseudo-philosophical meaning of the word.

919.

Thus Origen in the early Church. That “Matter” is co-eternal with God would mean that God is eternally making things real in the percipient experience of persons.

920.

Cf. Principles, sect. 85-156, in which the religious and scientific advantages of the new conception of matter and the material cosmos are illustrated, when it is rightly understood and applied.

921.

“substance and accident”—“subjects and adjuncts,”—in the first and the second edition.

922.

Cf. Principles, sect. 28-42. In Siris, sect. 294-297, 300-318, 335, 359-365, we have glimpses of thought more allied to Platonism, if not to Hegelianism.

923.

“Matter,” i.e. matter unrealised in any mind, finite or Divine.

924.

These two propositions are a summary of Berkeley's conception of the material world. With him, the immediate objects of sense, realise in perception, are independent of the will of the percipient, and are thus external to his proper personality. Berkeley's “material world” of enlightened Common Sense, resulting from two factors, Divine and human, is independent of each finite mind; but not independent of all living Mind.

925.

“voces male intellectæ.” Cf. Principles of Human Knowledge, “Introduction,” sect. 6, 23-25, on the abuse of language, especially by abstraction.

926.

“veterum philosophorum.” The history of ancient speculations about motion, from the paradoxes of Zeno downwards, is, in some sort, a history of ancient metaphysics. It involves Space, Time, and the material world, with the ultimate causal relation of Nature to Spirit.

927.

“hujus ævi philosophos.” As in Bacon on motion, and in the questions raised by Newton, Borelli, Leibniz, and others, discussed in the following sections.

928.

Sect. 3-42 are concerned with the principle of Causality, exemplified in the motion, or change of place and state, that is continually going on in the material world, and which was supposed by some to explain all the phenomena of the universe.

929.

“vis.” The assumption that active power is an immediate datum of sense is the example here offered of the abase of abstract words. He proceeds to dissolve the assumption by shewing that it is meaningless.

930.

“principio”—the ultimate explanation or originating cause. Cf. sect. 36. Metaphors, or indeed empty words, are accepted for explanations, it is argued, when bodily power or force, in any form, e.g. gravitation, is taken as the real cause of motion. To call these “occult causes” is to say nothing that is intelligible. The perceived sensible effects and their customary sequences are all we know. Physicists are still deluded by words and metaphors.

931.

Cf. sect. 53, where sense, imagination, and intelligence are distinguished.

932.

Cf. Principles, Introd. 16, 20, 21; also Alciphron, Dial. VII. sect. 8, 17.

933.

[La Materia altro non è che un vaso di Circe incantato, il quale serve per ricettacolo della forza et de' momenti dell' impeto. La forzae l'impeti sono astratti tanto sottili, sono quintessenze tanto spiritose, che in altre ampolle non si possono racchiudere, fuor che nell' intima corpulenza de' solidi naturali, Vide Lezioni Accademiche.]—Author. Torricelli (1608-47), the eminent Italian physicist, and professor of mathematics at Florence, who invented the barometer.

934.

Borelli (1608-79), Italian professor of mathematics at Pisa, and then of medicine at Florence; see his De Vi Percussionis, cap. XXIV. prop. 88, and cap. XXVII.

935.

“per effectum,” i.e. by its sensible effects—real power or active force not being a datum of the senses, but found in the spiritual efficacy, of which we have an example in our personal agency.

936.

“vim mortuam.” The only power we can find is the living power of Mind. Reason is perpetually active in the universe, imperceptible through the senses, and revealed to them only in its sensible effects. “Power,” e.g. “gravitation,” in things, per se, is distinguished from perceived “motion” only through illusion due to misleading abstraction. There is no physical power, intermediate between spiritual agency, on the one hand, and the sensible changes we see, on the other. Cf. sect. 11.

937.

“meditatione subigenda sunt.” Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 35, 70.

938.

“distingui.” It is here argued that so-called power within the things of sense is not distinguishable from the sensibly perceived sequences. To the meaningless supposition that it is, he attributes the frivolous verbal controversies among the learned mentioned in the following section. The province of natural philosophy, according to Berkeley, is to inquire what the rules are under which sensible effects are uniformly manifested. Cf. Siris, sect. 236, 247, 249.

939.

Principia Math. Def. III.

940.

De Vi Percussionis, cap. I.

941.

“utiles.” Such words as “force,” “power,” “gravity,” “attraction,” are held to be convenient in physical reasonings about the phenomena of motion, but worthless as philosophical expressions of the cause of motion, which transcends sense and mechanical science. Cf. Siris, sect. 234, 235.

942.

Cf. sect. 67.

943.

“candem.” So in recent discussions on the conservation of force.

944.

[Borellus.]—Author. See De Vi Percussionis, cap. XXIII.

945.

[Leibnitius.]—Author.

946.

On Berkeley's reasoning all terms which involve the assumption that real causality is something presentable to the senses are a cover for meaninglessness. Only through self-conscious experience of personal activity does real meaning enter into the portion of language which deals with active causation. This is argued in detail in sect. 21-35.

947.

Our concrete experience is assumed to be confined to (a) bodies, i.e. the data of the senses, and (b) mind or spirit—sentient, intelligent, active—revealed by internal consciousness. Cf. Principles, sect. 1, 2, in which experience is resolved into ideas and the active intelligence which they presuppose. Here the word idea disappears, but, in accordance with its signification, “bodies” is still regarded as aggregates of external phenomena, the passive subjects of changes of place and state: the idealisation of the material world is tacitly implied, but not obtruded.

948.

“nihilque,” &c. Cf. Principles of Human Knowledge, e.g. sect. 26, 65, 66. where the essential passivity of the ideas presented to the senses, i.e. the material world, is maintained as a cardinal principle—on the positive ground of our percipient experience of sensible things. To speak of the cause of motion as something sensible, he argues (sect. 24), is merely to shew that we know nothing about it. Cf. sect. 28, 29, infra.

949.

The phenomena that can be presented to the senses are taken as the measure of what can be attributed to the material world; and as the senses present only conditioned change of place in bodies, we must look for the active cause in the invisible world which internal consciousness presents to us.

950.

“genus rerum cogitantium.” Cf. Principles, sect. 2.

951.

“experientia didicimus.” Can the merely empirical data even of internal consciousness reveal this causal connexion between volition and bodily motions, without the venture of theistic faith?

952.

“a primo et universali Principio” i.e. God, or the Universal Spirit, in whom the universe of bodies and spirits finds explanation; in a way which Berkeley does not attempt to unfold articulately and exhaustively in philosophical system.

953.

Phys. θ. 4. 255 a 5-7.

954.

Princip. Math. Def. III.

955.

“resistentia.” Our muscular sensation of resistance is apt to be accepted empirically as itself active power in the concrete, entering very much, as has been said, into the often inaccurate idea of power which is formed. See Editor's Preface.

956.

“nec incommode.” Cf. sect. 17, and note.

957.

“hypothesis mathematica.” Cf. sect. 17, 35, 36-41, 66, 67; also Siris, sect. 250-251.

958.

“nihil.” This section sums up Berkeley's objections to crediting matter with real power; the senses being taken as the test of what is contained in matter. It may be compared with David Hume, Thomas Brown, and J.S. Mill on Causation. Berkeley differs from them in recognising active power in spirit, while with them he resolves causation among bodies into invariable sequence.

959.

Can the data presented to us reveal more than sequence, in the relation between our volitions and the corresponding movements of our bodies? Is not the difference found in the moral presupposition, which supernaturalises man in his voluntary or morally responsible activity? This obliges us to see ourselves as absolutely original causes of all bodily and mental states for which we can be morally approved or blamed.

960.

“novumque genus.” Cf. sect. 21. We have here Berkeley's antithesis of mind and matter—spirits and external phenomena presented to the senses—persons in contrast to passive ideas.

961.

De Anima, I. ii. 13, 22, 24.

962.

“Cartesius.” The antithesis of extended things and thinking things pervades Descartes; but not, as with Berkeley, on the foundation of the new conception of what is truly meant by matter or sensible things. See e.g. Principia, P. I. §§ 63, 64.

963.

“alii.” Does he refer to Locke, who suggests the possibility of matter thinking?

964.

See Aristotle, De Anima, I. ii. 5, 13; Diogenes Laertius, Lib. VI. i. 6.

965.

Nat. Ausc. VIII. 15; also De Anima, III, x. 7.

966.

Hardly any passage in the Timæus exactly corresponds to this. The following is, perhaps, the most pertinent:—Κίνησιν γὰρ ἀπένειμεν αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ σώματος οἰκείαν, τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν μάλιστα οὖσαν (p. 34 a). Aristotle quotes the Timæus in the same connexion, De Anima, I. iii. ii.

967.

“philosophi Cartesiani.” Secundum Cartesium causa generalis omnium motuum et quietum est Deus.—Derodon, Physica, I. ix. 30.

968.

Principia Mathematica—Scholium Generale.

969.

“naturam naturantem esse Deum”—as we might say, God considered as imminent cause in the universe. See St. Thomas Aquinas, Opera, vol. XXII. Quest. 6, p. 27.

970.

“juxta certam et constantem rationem.” While all changes in Nature are determined by Will, it is not capricious but rational Will. The so-called arbitrariness of the Language of Nature is relative to us, and from our point of view. In itself, the universe of reality expresses Perfect Reason.

971.

“permaneret.” Cf. sect. 51.

972.

“spectat potius ad philosophiam primam.” The drift of the De Motu is to distinguish the physical sequences of molecular motion, which the physical sciences articulate, from the Power with which metaphysics and theology are concerned, and which we approach through consciousness.

973.

“regulas.” Cf. Siris, sect. 231-235.

974.

Having, in the preceding sections, contrasted perceived motions and their immanent originating Power—matter and mind—physics and metaphysics—he proceeds in this and the seven following sections to explain more fully what ha means by principium and also the two meanings (metaphysical and mechanical) of solutio. By principium, in philosophy, he understands universally efficient supersensible Power. In natural philosophy the term is applied to the orderly sequences manifested to our senses, not to the active cause of the order.

975.

“ratiocinio ... redditæ universales.” Relations of the data of sense to universalising reason are here recognised.

976.

“natura motus.” Sect. 43-66 treat of the nature of the effect—i.e. perceptible motion, as distinguished from its true causal origin (principium) in mind or spirit. The origin of motion belongs to metaphysics; its nature, as dependent on percipient experience, belongs to physics. Is motion independent of a plurality of bodies; or does it involve bodies in relation to other bodies, so that absolute motion is meaningless? Cf. Principles, sect. 111-116.

977.

“idea illa tenuissima et subtilissima.” The difficulty as to definition of motion is attributed to abstractions, and the inclination of the scholastic mind to prefer these to concrete experience.

978.

Motion is thus defined by Aristotle:—Διὸ ἡ κίνησις ἐντελέχεια τοῦ κινητοῦ, ᾗ κινητόν. Nat. Ausc. III. ii; see also i. and iii. Cf. Derodon, Physica, I. ix.

979.

Newton.

980.

Cf. sect. 3-42.

981.

Descartes, Principia, P. II. § 25; also Borellus, De Vi Percussionis, p. 1.

982.

“res faciles difficillimas.” Cf. Principles, “Introduction,” sect. 1.

983.

Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο δὴ χαλεπὸν αὐτὴν λαβεῖν τί ἐστίν. Nat. Ausc. III. ii.

984.

e.g. Zeno, in his noted argument against the possibility of motion, referred to as a signal example of fallacy.

985.

“de infinite, &c.” Cf. Principles, sect. 130-132, and the Analyst passim, for Berkeley's treatment of infinitesimals.

986.

“confundere.” Cf. sect. 3-42 for illustrations of this confusion.

987.

The modern conception of the “conservation of force.”

988.

Aristotle states the question in Nat. Ausc. VIII. cap. i, and solves it in cap. iv.

989.

“mutatio loci” is the effect, i.e. motion perceived by sense; “vitale principium” the real cause, i.e. vital rational agency.

990.

“moventis et moti,” i.e. as concauses.

991.

“motum localem.” Sect. 52-65 discuss the reality of absolute or empty space, in contrast with concrete space realised in perception of the local relations of bodies. The meaninglessness of absolute space and motion is argued. Cf. Principles, sect. 116, 117. See Locke's Essay, Bk. II. ch. 13, 15, 17; also Papers which passed between Mr. Leibnitz and Dr. Clarke in 1715-16, pp. 55-59; 73-81; 97-103, &c. Leibniz calls absolute space “an ideal of some modern Englishman.”

992.

Newton's Principia, Def. Sch. III. See also Derodon, Physica, P. I. cap. vi. § 1.

993.

Cf. Locke on a vacuum, and the “possibility of space existing without matter,” Essay, Bk. II. ch. 13.

994.

Note the account here given of imagination and intellect, as distinguished from sense, which may be compared with αἴσθησις, φαντασία, and νοῦς in Aristotelian psychology.

995.

“attributorum divinorum particeps.” See Samuel Clarke, in his Demonstration, and in the Papers between Clarke and Leibnitz.

996.

“nostrum,” sc. corpus. When we imagine space emptied of bodies, we are apt to forget that our own bodies are part of the material world.

997.

[Vide quæ contra spatium absolutum disseruntur in libro De Principiis Cognitionis Humanæ, idiomate anglicano decem abhine annis edito.]—Author. He refers to sect. 116 of the Principles.

998.

He treats absolute space as nothing, and relative space as dependent on Perception and Will.

999.

Phys. α. 5. 188a. 22, 23.

1000.

See Locke, Essay, Bk. II. ch. 13, §§ 7-10.

1001.

Sect. 67-72 treat of the supposed ejection of motion from the striking body into the body struck. Is this only metaphorical? Is the motion received by the latter to be supposed identical with, or equivalent to, that given forth by the former?

1002.

Principia, Def. IV.

1003.

Lezioni Accademiche.

1004.

De Vi Percussionis, cap. IX.

1005.

Newton's third law of motion.

1006.

Berkeley sees in motion only a link in the chain which connects the sensible and intelligible worlds—a conception unfolded in his Siris, more than twenty years later.

1007.

“provincia sua.” The De Motu, so far as it treats of motion perceptible to the senses, is assigned to physics; in contrast to theology or metaphysics, alone concerned with active causation.