sight as well as touch, and the consequent notion that body, with
its inseparable qualities, revealed itself through both senses,
that Berkeley first fastened. Is it evident, as Locke supposed it
to be, that men ‘perceive by their sight’ not colours merely, but
‘a distance between bodies of different colours and between parts
of the same body’; [1] in other words, situation and magnitude? To
show that they do not is the purpose of Berkeley’s ‘Essay towards a
new Theory of Vision.’ He starts from two principles which he takes
as recognised: one, that the ‘proper and immediate object of sight
is colour’; the other, that distance from the eye, or distance in
the line of vision, is not immediately seen. If, then, situation and
magnitude are ‘properly and immediately’ seen, they must be qualities
of colour. Now in one sense, according to Berkeley, they are so: in
other words, there is such a thing as _visible_ extension. We see
lights and colours in ‘sundry situations’ as well as ‘in degrees
of faintness and clearness, confusion and distinctness.’ (_Theory
of Vision_, sec. 77.) We also see objects as made up of certain
‘quantities of coloured points,’ _i.e._ as having visible magnitude.
(Ibid. sec. 54.) But situation and magnitude _as visible_ are not
external, not ‘qualities of body,’ nor do they represent by any
_necessary_ connection the situation and magnitude that are truly
qualities of body, the mind, ‘without the mind and at a distance.’
These are tangible. Distance in all its forms--as distance from the
eye; as distance between parts of the same body, or magnitude; and
as distance of body from body, or situation--is tangible. What a man
means when he says that ‘he sees this or that thing at a distance’ is
that ‘what he sees suggests to his understanding that after having
passed a certain distance, to be measured by the motion of his body
which is perceivable by touch, he shall come to perceive such and
such tangible ideas which have been usually connected with such and
such visible ideas’ (Ibid. sec. 45). On the same principle we are
said to see the magnitude and situation of bodies. Owing to long
experience of the connection of these tangible ideas with visible
ones, the magnitude of the latter and their degrees of faintness and
clearness, of confusion and distinctness, enable us to form a ‘sudden
and true’ estimate of the magnitude of the former (_i.e._ of bodies);
even as visible situation enables us to form a like estimate of the
‘situation of things outward and tangible’ (Ibid. secs. 56 and 99).
The connection, however, between the two sets of ideas, Berkeley
insists, is habitual only, not necessary. As Hume afterwards said of
the relation of cause and effect, it is not constituted by the nature
of the ideas related. [2] The visible ideas, that as a matter of fact
‘suggest to us the various magnitudes of external objects before we
touch them, might have suggested no such thing.’ That would really
have been the case had our eyes been so framed as that the _maximum
visibile_ should be less than the _minimum tangibile_; and, as a
matter of constant experience, the greater visible extension suggests
sometimes a greater, sometimes a less, tangible extension according
to the degree of its strength or faintness, ‘being in its own nature
equally fitted to bring into our minds the idea of small or great
or no size at all, just as the words of a language are in their own
nature indifferent to signify this or that thing, or nothing at all.’
(Ibid. secs. 62-64.)
[1] Locke, Essay Book II. chap. xiii. sec. 2.
[2] See below, paragraph 283
... nor yet feel them. The ‘esse’ of body is the ‘percipi’.
160. So far, then, the conclusion merely is that body as external,
and space as a relation between bodies or parts of a body, are not
both seen and felt, but felt only; in other words, that it is only
through the organs of touch that we receive, strictly speaking,
impressions from without. This is all that the Essay on Vision goes
to show; but according to the ‘Principles of Human Knowledge’ this
conclusion was merely provisional. The object of touch does not,
any more than the object of sight, ‘exist without the mind,’ nor is
it ‘the image of an external thing.’ ‘In strict truth the ideas of
sight, when by them we apprehend distance and things placed at a
distance, do not suggest or mark out to us things actually existing
at a distance, but only admonish us what ideas of touch will be
imprinted in our minds at such and such distances of time, and in
consequence of such and such actions’ (‘Principles of H. K.’ sec.
44). Whether, then, we speak of visible or tangible objects, the
object _is_ the idea, its ‘esse is the percipi.’ Body is not a thing
separate from the idea of touch, yet revealed by it; so far as it
exists at all, it must either be that idea or be a succession of
ideas of which that idea is suggestive. It follows that the notion of
the real which identifies it with matter, as something external to
and independent of consciousness, and which derives the reality of
ideas from their relation to body as thus outward, must disappear.
Must not, then, the distinction between the real and fantastic,
between dreams and facts, disappear with it? What meaning is there in
asking whether any given idea is real or not, unless a reference is
implied to something other than the idea itself?
[There are no paragraphs 161-169 in any edition or reprint. Tr]
What then becomes of distinction between reality and fancy?
170. Berkeley’s theory, no less than Locke’s, requires such
reference. He insists, as much as Locke does, on the difference
between ideas of imagination which do, and those of sense which
do not, depend on our own will. ‘It is no more than willing, and
straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same
power it is obliterated and makes way for another.’ But ‘when in
broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose
whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects
shall present themselves to my view.’ Moreover ‘the ideas of sense
are more strong, lively and distinct than those of the imagination;
they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not
excited at random as those which are the effects of human wills often
are, but in a regular train and series’ (Ibid. secs. 28-30). These
characteristics of ideas of sense, however, do not with Berkeley, any
more than with Locke, properly speaking, _constitute_ their reality.
This lies in their relation to something else, of which these
characteristics are the tests. The difference between the two writers
lies in their several views as to what this ‘something else’ is. With
Locke it was body or matter, as proximately, though in subordination
to the Divine Will, the ‘imprinter’ of those most lively ideas
which we cannot make for ourselves. His followers insisted on the
proximate, while they ignored the ultimate, reference. Hence, as
Berkeley conceived, their Atheism, which he could cut from under
their feet by the simple plan of eliminating the proximate reference
altogether, and thus showing that God, not matter, is the immediate
‘imprinter’ of ideas on the senses and the suggester of such ideas of
imagination as the ideas of sense, in virtue of habitual association,
constantly introduce (Ibid. sec. 33).
The real = ideas that God causes.
171. To eliminate the reference to matter might seem to be more
easy than to substitute for it a reference to God. If the object
of the idea is only the idea itself, does not all determination by
relation logically disappear from the idea, except (perhaps) such
as consists in the fact of its sequence or antecedence to other
ideas? This issue was afterwards to be tried by Hume--with what
consequences to science and religion we shall see. Berkeley avoids
it by insisting that the ‘percipi,’ to which ‘esse’ is equivalent,
implies reference to a mind. At first sight this reference, as common
to all ideas alike, would not seem to avail much as a basis either
for a distinction between the real and fantastic or for any Theism
except such as would ‘entitle God to all our fancies.’ If it is to
serve Berkeley’s purpose, we must suppose the idea to carry with it
not merely a relation to mind but a relation to it as its effect, and
the conscious subject to carry with him such a distinction between
his own mind and God’s as leads him to refer his ideas to God’s mind
as their cause when they are lively, distinct and coherent, but when
they are otherwise, to his own. And this, in substance, is Berkeley’s
supposition. To show the efficient power of mind he appeals to our
consciousness of ability to produce at will ideas of imagination; to
show that there is a divine mind, distinct from our own, he appeals
to our consciousness of inability to produce ideas of sense.
Is it then a succession of feelings?
172. Even those least disposed to ‘vanquish Berkeley with a grin’
have found his doctrine of the real, which is also his doctrine of
God, ‘unsatisfactory.’ By the real world they are accustomed to
understand something which--at least in respect of its ‘elements’
or ‘conditions’ or ‘laws’--permanently is; though the combinations
of the elements, the events which flow from the conditions, the
manifestations of the laws, may never be at one time what they
will be at the next. But according to the Berkeleian doctrine the
permanent seems to disappear: the ‘is’ gives place to a ‘has been’
and ‘will be.’ If I say (δεικτικῶς) [1] ‘there is a body,’ I must
mean according to it that a feeling has just occurred to me, which
has been so constantly followed by certain other feelings that it
suggests a lively expectation of these. The suggestive feeling
alone _is_, and it is ceasing to be. If this is the true account of
propositions suggested by everyone’s constantly-recurrent experience,
what are we to make of scientific truths, _e.g._ ‘a body will change
its place sooner than let another enter it,’ ‘planets move in
ellipses,’ ‘the square on the hypotheneuse is equal to the squares on
the sides.’ In these cases, too, does the present reality lie merely
in a feeling experienced by this or that scientific man, and to him
suggestive of other feelings? Does the proposition that ‘planets move
in ellipses’ mean that to some watcher of the skies, who understands
Kepler’s laws, a certain perception of ‘visible extension’ (_i.e._
of colour or light and shade) not only suggests, as to others, a
particular expectation of other feelings, which expectation is called
a planet, but a further expectation, not shared by the multitude, of
feelings suggesting successive situations of the visible extension,
which further expectation is called elliptical motion? Such an
explanation of general propositions would be a form of the doctrine
conveniently named after Protagoras--‘ἀληθὲς ὃ ἑκάστῳ ἑκάστοτε δοκεῖ’
[2]--a doctrine which the vindicators of Berkeley are careful to
tell us we must not confound with his. The question, however, is not
whether Berkeley himself admits the doctrine, but whether or no it is
the logical consequence of the method which he uses for the overthrow
of materialists and ‘mathematical Atheists’?
[1] [Greek δεικτικῶς (deiktikos) = “affirmatively” or “capable of
being proven” _i.e._ not merely hypothetically. Tr.]
[2] [Greek ἀληθὲς ὃ ἑκάστῳ ἑκάστοτε δοκεῖ (alethes ho hekasto
hekastote dokei) = the truth for each man is as it appears to him.
Tr.]
Berkeley goes wrong from confusion between thought and feeling. For
Locke’s ‘idea of a thing’ he substitutes ‘idea’ simply.
173. His purpose was the maintenance of Theism, and a true instinct
told him that pure Theism, as distinct from nature-worship and
daemonism, has no philosophical foundation, unless it can be shown
that there is nothing real apart from thought. But in the hurry
of theological advocacy, and under the influence of a misleading
terminology, he failed to distinguish this true proposition--there
is nothing real apart from thought--from this false one, its virtual
contradictory--there is nothing other than feeling. The confusion
was covered, if not caused, by the ambiguity, often noticed, in
the use of the term ‘idea.’ This to Berkeley’s generation stood
alike for feeling proper, which to the subject that merely feels
is neither outer nor inner, because not referring itself to either
mind or thing, and for conception, or an object thought of under
relations. According to Locke, pain, colour, solidity, are all ideas
equally with each other and equally with the _idea of_ pain, _idea
of_ colour, _idea of_ solidity. If all alike, however, were feelings
proper, there would be no world either to exist or be spoken of.
Locke virtually saves it by two suppositions, each incompatible with
the equivalence of idea to feeling, and implying the conversion of
it into conception as above defined. One is that there are abstract
ideas; the other that there are primary qualities of which ideas
are copies, but which do not come and go with our feelings. The
latter supposition gives a world that ‘really exists,’ the former
a world that may be known and spoken of; but neither can maintain
itself without a theory of conception which is not forthcoming in
Locke himself. We need not traverse again the contradictions which
according to his statement they involve--contradictions which, under
whatever disguise, must attach to every philosophy that admits a
reality either in things as apart from thought or in thought as apart
from things, and only disappear when the thing as thought of, and
through thought individualised by the relations which constitute
its community with the universe, is recognised as alone the real.
Misled by the phrase ‘idea of a thing,’ we fancy that idea and thing
have each a separate reality of their own, and then puzzle ourselves
with questions as to how the idea can represent the thing--how the
ideas of primary qualities can be copies of them, and how, if the
real thing of experience be merely individual, a general idea can
be abstracted from it. These questions Berkeley asked and found
unanswerable. There were then two ways of dealing with them before
him. One was to supersede them by a truer view of thought and its
object, as together in essential correlation constituting the real;
but this way he did not take. The other was to avoid them by merging
both thing and idea in the indifference of simple feeling. For a
merely sentient being, it is true--for one who did not think upon
his feelings--the oppositions of inner and outer, of subjective
and objective, of fantastic and real, would not exist; but neither
would knowledge or a world to be known. That such oppositions,
misunderstood, may be a heavy burden on the human spirit, the
experience of current controversy and its spiritual effects might
alone suffice to convince us; but the philosophical deliverance can
only lie in the recognition of thought as their author, not in the
attempt to obliterate them by the reduction of thought and its world
to feeling--an attempt which contradicts itself, since it virtually
admits their existence while it renders them unaccountable.
Which, if idea = feeling, does away with space and body.
174. That Berkeley’s was such an attempt, looking merely to his
treatment of primary qualities and abstract ideas, we certainly could
not doubt: though, since language does not allow of its consistent
statement, and Berkeley was quite ready to turn the exigencies of
language to account, passages logically incompatible with it may
easily be found in him. The hasty reader, when he is told that body
or distance are suggested by feelings of sight and touch rather than
immediately seen, accepts the doctrine without scruple, because he
supposes that which is suggested to be a present reality, though
not at present felt. But if not at present felt it is not according
to Berkeley an idea, therefore ‘without the mind,’ therefore an
impossibility. [1] That which is suggested, then, must itself be
a feeling which consists in the expectation of other feelings.
Distance, and body, _as suggested_, can be no more than such an
expectation; and as _actually existing_, no more than the actual
succession of the expected feelings--a succession of which, as of
every succession, ‘no two parts exist together.’ [2] There is no
time, then, at which it can be said that distance and body exist.
[1] Reference is here merely made to the doctrine by which Berkeley
disposes of ‘matter,’ the consideration of its reconcilability with
his doctrine of ‘spirits’ and ‘relations’ as objects of knowledge
being postponed.
[2] Locke, Book II. chap. xv. sec. 1.
He does not even retain them as ‘abstract ideas’.
175. This, it may seem, however inconsistent with the doctrine of
primary qualities, is little more than the result which Locke himself
comes to in his Fourth Book; since, if ‘actual present succession’
forms our only knowledge of real existence, there could be no time
at which distance and body might be _known_ as really existing. But
Locke, as we have seen, is able to save mathematical, though not
physical, knowledge from the consequences of this admission by his
doctrine of abstract ideas--‘ideas removed in our thoughts from
particular existence’--whose agreement or disagreement is stated
in propositions which ‘concern not existence,’ and for that reason
may be general without becoming either uncertain or uninstructive.
This doctrine Berkeley expressly rejects on the ground that he
could not perceive separately that which could not exist separately
(‘Principles of Human Knowledge,’ Introduction, sec. 10); a ground
which to the ordinary reader seems satisfactory because he has no
doubt, and Berkeley’s instances do not suggest a doubt, as to the
present existence of ‘individual objects’--this man, this horse,
this body. But with Berkeley to exist means to be felt (‘Principles
of Human Knowledge,’ sec. 3), and the feelings, which I name a body,
being successive, its existence must be in succession likewise. The
limitation, then, of possibility of ‘conception’ by possibility of
existence, means that ‘conception,’ too, is reduced to a succession
of feelings.
On the same principle all permanent relations should disappear.
176. Berkeley, then, as a consequence of the methods by which he
disposes at once of the ‘real existence’ and ‘abstract idea of
matter,’ has to meet the following questions:--How are either reality
or knowledge possible without permanent relations? and, How can
feelings, of which one is over before the next begins, constitute
or represent a world of permanent relations? The difficulty becomes
more obvious, though not more serious, when the relations in question
are not merely themselves permanent, as are those between natural
phenomena, but are relations between permanent parts like those of
space. It is for this reason that its doctrine of geometry is the
most easily assailable point of the ‘sensational’ philosophy. Locke
distinguishes the ideas of space and of duration as got, the one
from the permanent parts of space, the other ‘from the fleeting and
perpetually perishing parts of succession.’ [1] He afterwards prefers
to oppose the term ‘expansion’ to ‘duration,’ as bringing out more
clearly than ‘space’ the opposition of relation between permanent
facts to that between ‘fleeting successive facts which never exist
together.’ How, then, can a consciousness, consisting simply of
‘fleeting successive facts,’ either be or represent that of which the
differentia is that its facts are permanent and co-exist?
[1] Book II. chap. xiv. sec. 1.
By making colour = relations of coloured points, Berkeley represents
relation as seen.
177. This crucial question in regard to extension does not seem even
to have suggested itself to Berkeley. The reason why is not far to
seek. Professor Fraser, in his valuable edition, represents him as
meaning by visible extension ‘coloured experience in sense,’ and by
tangible extension ‘resistent experience in sense.’ [1] No fault can
be found with this interpretation, but the essential question, which
Berkeley does not fairly meet, is whether the experience in each
case is complete in a single feeling or consists in a succession of
feelings. If in a single feeling, it clearly is not extension, as a
relation between parts, at all; if in a succession of feelings, it
is only extension because a synthetic principle, which is not itself
one of the feelings, but equally present to them all, transforms
them into permanent parts of which each qualifies the other by
outwardness to it. Berkeley does not see the necessity of such a
principle, because he allows himself to suppose extension--at any
rate visible extension--to be constituted by a single feeling.
Having first pronounced that the proper object of sight is colour,
he quietly substitutes for this _situations_ of colour, degrees of
strength and faintness in colour, and quantities of coloured points,
as if these, interchangeably with mere colour, were properly objects
of sight and perceived in single acts of vision. Now if by object of
sight were meant something other than the sensation itself--something
which to a thinking being it suggests as its cause--there would be
no harm in this language, but neither would there be any ground for
saying that the proper object of sight is colour, for distinguishing
visible from tangible extension, or for denying that the outwardness
of body to body is seen. Such restrictions and distinctions have
no meaning, unless by sight is meant the nervous irritation, the
affection of the visual organ, as it is to a merely feeling subject;
yet in the very passages where he makes them, by saying that we see
situations and degrees of colour, and quantities of coloured points,
Berkeley converts sight into a judgment of extensive and intensive
quantity. He thus fails to discern that the transition from colour
to coloured extension cannot be made without on the one hand either
the presentation of successive pictures or (which comes to the
same) successive acts of attention to a single picture, and on the
other hand a synthesis of the successive presentations as mutually
qualified parts of a whole. In other words, he ignores the work of
thought involved in the constitution alike of coloured and tangible
extension, and in virtue of which alone either is extension at all.
[1] See Fraser’s Berkeley, ‘Theory of Vision,’ note 42. I may here
say that I have gone into less detail in my account of Berkeley’s
system than I should otherwise have thought necessary, because
Professor Fraser has supplied, in the way of explanation of it, all
that a student can require.
Still he admits that space is constituted by a succession of feelings.
178. But though he does not scruple to substitute for colour
situations and quantities of coloured points, these do not with him
constitute space, which he takes according to Locke’s account of it
to be ‘distance between bodies or parts of the same body.’ This,
according to his ‘Theory of Vision,’ is tangible extension, and
this again is alone the object of geometry. As in that treatise a
difference is still supposed between _tangible_ extension and the
feeling of touch, the question does not there necessarily arise
whether the tactual experience, that constitutes this extension, is
complete in a single feeling or only in a succession of feelings;
but when in the subsequent treatise the difference is effaced, it is
decided by implication that the experience is successive: [1] and all
received modifications of the theory, which assign to a locomotive or
muscular sense the office which Berkeley roughly assigned to touch,
make the same implication still more clearly. Now in the absence of
any recognition of a synthetic principle, in relation to which the
successive experience becomes what it is not in itself, this means
nothing else than that space is a succession of feelings, which again
means that space is not space, not a qualification of bodies or parts
of body by mutual externality, since to such qualification it is
necessary that bodies or their parts coexist. Thus, in his hurry to
get rid of externality as independence of the mind, he has really got
rid of it as a relation between bodies, and in so doing (however the
result may be disguised) has logically made a clean sweep of geometry
and physics.