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777 For the following extracts from previously unpublished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.