that in that passage Berkeley uses the term ‘distance’ not ‘space,’
and though with him the terms are strictly interchangeable, this
may have helped to disguise from him the full monstrosity of the
doctrine, ‘space is a succession of feelings,’ which, stated in that
form, must surely have scandalised him.
If so, it is not space at all; but Berkeley thinks it is only not
‘pure’ space. _Space_ and _pure_ space stand or fall together.
179. Of this result he himself shows no suspicion. He professes to
be able, without violence to his doctrine, to accept the sciences
as they stand, except so far as they rest upon the needless and
unmeaning assumptions (as he reckoned them) of _pure_ space and its
infinite divisibility. The truth seems to be that--at any rate in
the state of mind represented his earlier treatises--he was only
able to work on the lines which Locke had laid. It did not occur
to him to treat the primary qualities as relations constituted by
thought, because Locke had not done so. Locke having treated them as
external to the mind, Berkeley does so likewise, and for that reason
feels that they must be got rid of. The mode of riddance, again,
was virtually determined for him by Locke. Locke having admitted
that they copied themselves in feelings, the untenable element in
this supposition had only to be dropped and they became feelings
simply. It is thus only so far as space is supposed to exist after
a mode of which, according to Locke himself, sense could take no
copy--_i.e._ as exclusive not merely of all colour but of all body,
and as infinitely divisible--that Berkeley becomes aware of its
incompatibility with his doctrine. Pure space, or ‘vacuum,’ to him
means space that can not be touched--a tangible extension that is not
tangible--and is therefore a contradiction in terms. The notion that,
though not touched, it might be seen, he excludes, [1] apparently for
the same reason which prevents him from allowing _visible_ extension
to be space at all; the reason, namely, that there is no ‘outness’
or relation of externality between the parts of such extension.
The fact that there can be no such relation between the successive
feelings which alone, according to him, constitute ‘tangible
extension,’ he did not see to be equally fatal to the latter being
in any true sense space. In other words, he did not see that the
test of reduction to feeling, by which he disposed of the _vacuum_,
disposed of space altogether. If he had, he would have understood
that space and body were intelligible relations, which can be thought
of apart from the feelings which through them become the world that
we know, since it is they that are the conditions of these feelings
becoming a knowledge, not the feelings that are the condition of the
relations being known. Whether they can be thought of apart from
each other--whether the simple relation of externality between parts
of a whole can be thought of without the parts being considered
as solid--is of course a further question, and one which Berkeley
cannot be said properly to discuss at all, since the abstraction of
space from body to him meant its abstraction from feelings of touch.
The answer to it ceases to be difficult as soon as the question is
properly stated.
[1] ‘Principles of Human Knowledge,’ sec. 116.
Berkeley disposes of space for fear of limiting God.
180. As with vacuum, so with infinite divisibility. Once let it
be understood that extension is constituted by the relation of
externality between homogeneous parts, and it follows that there can
be no _least_ part of extension, none that does not itself consist
of parts; in other words, that it is infinitely divisible: just as
conversely it follows that there can be no _last_ part of it, not
having another outside it; in other words, that (to use Locke’s
phrase) it is infinitely addible. Doubtless, as Berkeley held, there
is a ‘minimum visibile’; but this means that there are conditions
under which any seen colour disappears, and disappearing, ceases to
be known under the relation of extension; but it is only through a
confusion of the relation with the colour that the disappearance of
the latter is thought to be a disappearance of so much extension. [1]
It was, in short, the same failure to recognise the true ideality of
space, as a relation constituted by thought, that on the one hand
made its ‘purity’ and infinity unmeaning to Berkeley, and on the
other made him think that, if pure (_sc_. irreducible to feelings)
and infinite, it must limit the Divine perfection, either as being
itself God or as ‘something beside God which is eternal, uncreated,
and infinite’ (‘Principles of Human Knowledge,’ sec. 117). Fear of
this result set him upon that method of resolving space, and with it
the world of nature, into sequent feelings, which, if it had been
really susceptible of logical expression, would at best have given
him nothing but a μέγα ζῶον [2] for God. If he had been in less of
a hurry with his philosophy, he might have found that the current
tendency to ‘bind God in nature or diffuse in space’ required to be
met by a sounder than his boyish idealism--by an idealism which gives
space its due, but reflects that to make space God, or a limitation
on God, is to subject thought itself to the most superficial of the
relations by which it forms the world that it knows.
[1] The same remark of course applies, _mutatis mutandis_, to the
‘minimum tangibile.’ See below, paragraphs 265 and 260.
[2] [Greek μέγα ζῶον (mega zoon) = great being. Tr.]
How he deals with possibility of general knowledge.
181. So far we have only considered Berkeley’s reduction of primary
qualities, supposed to be sensible, to sensations as it affects the
qualities themselves, rather than as it affects the possibility
of universal judgments about them. If, indeed, as we have found,
such reduction really amounts to the absolute obliteration of the
qualities, no further question can remain as to the possibility of
general knowledge concerning them. As Berkeley, however, did not
admit the obliteration, the further question did remain for him:
and the condition of his plausibly answering it was that he should
recognise in the ‘idea,’ as subject of predication, that intelligible
qualification by relation which he did not recognise in it simply as
‘idea,’ and which essentially differences it from feeling proper. If
any particular ‘tangible extension,’ _e.g._ a right-angled triangle,
is only a feeling, or in Berkeley’s own language, ‘a fleeting
perishable passion’ [1] not existing at all, even as an ‘abstract
idea,’ except when some one’s tactual organs are being affected in
a certain way--what are we to make of such a general truth as that
the square on its base is always equal to the squares on its sides?
Omitting all difficulties about the convertibility of a figure with
a feeling, we find two questions still remain--How such separation
can be made of the figure from the other conditions of the tactual
experience as that propositions should be possible which concern the
figure simply; and how a single case of tactual experience--that
in which the mathematician finds a feeling called a right-angled
triangle followed by another which he calls equality between the
squares, &c.--leads in the absence of any ‘necessary connexion’
to the expectation that the sequence will always be the same. [2]
The difficulty becomes the more striking when it is remembered
that though the geometrical proposition in question, according to
Berkeley, concerns the tangible, the experience which suggests it is
merely visual.
[1] ‘Principles of Human Knowledge,’ sec. 89.
[2] See above, paragraph 122.
His theory of universals ...
182. Berkeley’s answer to these questions must be gathered from his
theory of general names. ‘It is, I know,’ he says, ‘a point much
insisted on, that all knowledge and demonstration are about universal
notions, to which I fully agree: but then it does not appear to me
that those notions are formed by abstraction--_universality_, so
far as I can comprehend, not consisting in the absolute positive
nature or conception of anything, but in the relation it bears to
the particulars signified or represented by it; by virtue whereof
it is that things, names, or notions, being in their own nature
_particular_, are rendered universal. Thus, when I demonstrate any
proposition concerning triangles, it is to be supposed that I have in
view the universal idea of a triangle; which is not to be understood
as if I could frame an idea of a triangle which was neither
equilateral nor scalene nor equicrural; but only that the particular
triangle I considered, whether of this or that sort it matters not,
doth equally stand for and represent all rectilinear triangles
whatsoever, and is in that sense universal.’ Thus it is that ‘a man
may consider a figure merely as triangular.’ (‘Principles of Human
Knowledge,’ Introd. secs. 15 and 16.)
... of value, as implying that universality of ideas lies in relation.
183. In this passage appear the beginnings of a process of thought
which, if it had been systematically pursued by Berkeley, might have
brought him to understand by the ‘percipi,’ to which he pronounced
‘esse’ equivalent, definitely the ‘intelligi.’ As it stands, the
result of the passage merely is that the triangle (for instance)
‘in its own nature,’ because ‘particular,’ is not a possible
subject of general predication or reasoning: that it is so only as
‘considered’ under a relation of resemblance to other triangles and
by such consideration universalized. ‘In its own nature,’ or as a
‘particular idea,’ the triangle, we must suppose, is so much tangible
(or visible, as symbolical of tangible) extension, and therefore
according to Berkeley a feeling. But a relation, as he virtually
admits, [1] is neither a feeling nor felt. The triangle, then, as
considered under relation and thus a possible subject of general
propositions, is quite other than the triangle in its own nature.
This, of course, is so far merely a virtual repetition of Locke’s
embarrassing doctrine that real things are not the things which we
speak of, and which are the subject of our sciences; but it is a
repetition with two fruitful differences--one, that the thing in
its ‘absolute positive nature’ is more explicitly identified with
feeling; the other, that the process, by which the thing thought and
spoken of is supposed to be derived from the real thing, is no longer
one of ‘abstraction,’ but consists in consideration of relation.
It is true that with Berkeley the mere feeling has a ‘positive
nature’ apart from considered relations, [2] and that the considered
relation, by which the feeling is universalised, is only that of
resemblance between properties supposed to exist independently of it.
The ‘particular triangle,’ reducible to feelings of touch, has its
triangularity (we must suppose) simply as a feeling. It is only the
resemblance between the triangularity in this and other figures--not
the triangularity itself--that is a relation, and, as a relation, not
felt but considered; or in Berkeley’s language, something of which we
have not properly an ‘idea’ but a ‘notion.’ [3]
[1] See ‘Principles of Human Knowledge,’ sec. 89. (2nd edit.)
[2] See below, paragraph 298.
[3] ‘Principles of Human Knowledge,’ Ibid. This perhaps is the
best place for saying that it is not from any want of respect for
Dr. Stirling that I habitually use ‘notion’ in the loose popular
way which he counts ‘barbarous,’ but because the barbarism is so
prevalent that it seems best to submit to it, and to use ‘conception’
as the equivalent of the German ‘Begriff.’
But he fancies that each idea has a positive nature apart from
relation.
184. But though Berkeley only renders explicit the difficulties
implicit in Locke’s doctrine of ideas, that is itself a great step
taken towards disposing of them. Once let the equivocation between
sensible qualities and sensations be got rid of--once let it be
admitted that the triangle in its absolute nature, as opposed to
the triangle considered, is merely a feeling, and that relations
are not feelings or felt--and the question must soon arise, What
in the absence of all relation remains to be the absolute nature
of the triangle? It is a question which ultimately admits of but
one answer. The triangularity of the given single figure must
be allowed to be just as much a relation as the resemblance,
consisting in triangularity, between it and other figures; and if a
relation, then not properly felt, but understood. The ‘particular’
triangle, if by that is meant the triangle as subject of a singular
proposition, is no more ‘particular in time,’ no more constituted
by the occurrence of a feeling, than is the triangle as subject of
a general proposition. It really exists as constituted by relation,
and therefore only as ‘considered’ or understood. In its existence,
as in the consideration of it, the relations indicated by the terms
‘equilateral, equicrural and scalene,’ presuppose the relation of
triangularity, not it them; and for that reason it can be considered
apart from them, though not they apart from it, without any breach
between that which is considered and that which really exists. Thus,
too, it becomes explicable that a single experiment should warrant
a universal affirmation; that the mathematician, having once found
as the result of a certain comparison of magnitudes that the square
on the hypothenuse is equal to the square on the sides, without
waiting for repeated experience at once substitutes for the singular
proposition, which states his discovery, a general one. If the
singular proposition stated a sensible event or the occurrence of a
feeling, such substitution would be inexplicable: for if that were
the true account of the singular proposition, a general one could but
express such expectation of the recurrence of the event as repeated
experience of it can alone give. But a relation is not contingent
with the contingency of feeling. It is permanent with the permanence
of the combining and comparing thought which alone constitutes it;
and for that reason, whether it be recognised as the result of a
mathematical construction or of a crucial experiment in physics, the
proposition which states it must already be virtually universal.
Traces of progress in his idealism.
185. Of such a doctrine Berkeley is rather the unconscious forerunner
than the intelligent prophet. It is precisely upon the question
whether, or how far, he recognised the constitution of things by
intelligible relations, that the interpretation of his early (which
is his only developed) idealism rests. Is it such idealism as Hume’s,
or such idealism as that adumbrated in some passages of his own
‘Siris’? Is the idea, which is real, according to him a feeling or
a conception? Has it a nature of its own, consisting simply in its
being felt, and which we afterwards for purposes of our own consider
in various relations; or does the nature consist only in relations,
which again imply the action of a mind that is eternal--present
to that which is in succession, but not in succession itself? The
truth seems to be that this question in its full significance never
presented itself to Berkeley, at least during the period represented
by his philosophical treatises. His early idealism, as we learn
from the commonplace-book brought to light by Professor Fraser, was
merely a cruder form of Hume’s. By the time of the publication of
the ‘Principles of Human Knowledge’ he had learnt that, unless this
doctrine was to efface ‘spirit’ as well as ‘matter,’ he must modify
it by the admission of a ‘thing’ that was not an ‘idea,’ and of which
the ‘esse’ was ‘percipere’ not ‘percipi.’ This admission carried with
it the distinction between the object felt and the object known,
between ‘idea’ and ‘notion’--a distinction which was more clearly
marked in the ‘Dialogues.’ Of ‘spirit’ we could have a ‘notion,’
though not an ‘idea.’ But it was only in the second edition of the
‘Principles’ that ‘relation’ was put along with ‘spirit,’ as that
which could be known but which was no ‘idea:’ and then without any
recognition of the fact that the whole reduction of primary qualities
to mere ideas was thereby invalidated. The objects, with which the
mathematician deals, are throughout treated as in their own nature
‘particular ideas,’ into the constitution of which relation does not
enter at all; in other words, as successive feelings.
His way of dealing with physical truths.
186. If the truths of mathematics seemed to Berkeley explicable on
this supposition, those of the physical sciences were not likely to
seem less so. As long as the relations with which these sciences deal
are relations between ‘sensible objects,’ he does not notice that
they _are_ relations, and therefore not feelings or felt, at all.
He treats felt things as if the same as feelings, and ignores the
relations altogether. Thus a so-called ‘sensible’ motion causes him
no difficulty. He would be content to say that it was a succession
of ideas, not perceiving that motion implies a relation between
spaces or moments as successively occupied by something that remains
one with itself--a relation which a mere sequence of feelings could
neither constitute nor of itself suggest. It is only about a motion
which does not profess to be ‘seen,’ such as the motion of the earth,
that any question is raised--a question easily disposed of by the
consideration that in a different position we should see it. ‘The
question whether the earth moves or not amounts in reality to no more
than this, to wit, whether we have reason to conclude from what hath
been observed by astronomers, that if we were placed in such and such
circumstances, and such or such a position and distance both from the
earth and sun, we should perceive the former to move among the choir
of the planets, and appearing in all respects like one of them: and
this by the established rules of nature, which we have no reason to
mistrust, is reasonably collected from the phenomena’ (‘Principles of
Human Knowledge,’ sec. 58). [1]
[1] Cf. ‘Dialogues,’ page 147, in Prof. Fraser’s edition.
If they imply permanent relations, his theory properly excludes them.
He supposes a divine decree that one feeling shall follow another.
187. Now this passage clearly does not mean--as it ought to mean
if the ‘_esse_’ of the motion were the ‘_percipi_’ by us--that the
motion of the earth would begin as soon as we were there to see it.
It means that it is now going on as an ‘established law of nature,’
which may be ‘collected from the phenomena.’ In other words, it
means that our successive feelings are so related to each other as
determined by one present and permanent system, on which not they
only but all possible feelings depend, that by a certain set of
them we are led--not to expect a recurrence of them in like order
according to the laws of association, but, what is the exact reverse
of this--to infer that certain other feelings, of which we have no
experience, would now occur to us if certain conditions of situation
on our part were fulfilled, because the ‘ordo ad universum,’ of
which these feelings would be the ‘ordo ad nos,’ does now obtain.
But though Berkeley’s words mean this for us, they did not mean it
for him. That such relation--merely intelligible, or according to
his phraseology not an idea or object of an idea at all, as he must
have admitted it to be--gives to our successive feelings the only
‘nature’ that they possess, he never recognised. By the relation of
idea to idea, as he repeatedly tells us, he meant not a ‘necessary
connexion,’ _i.e._ not a relation without which, neither idea would
be what it is, but such _de facto_ sequence of one upon the other
as renders the occurrence of one the unfailing but arbitrary sign
that the other is coming. It is thus according to him (and here Hume
merely followed suit) that feelings are symbolical--symbolical not
of an order other than the feelings and which accounts for them, but
simply of feelings to follow. To Berkeley, indeed, unlike Hume, the
sequence of feelings symbolical of each other is also symbolical of
something farther, viz. the mind of God: but when we examine what
this ‘mind’ means, we find that it is not an intelligible order by
which our feelings may be interpreted, or the spiritual subject of
such an order, but simply the arbitrary will of a creator that this
feeling shall follow that.
Locke had explained reality by relation of ideas to outward body.
Liveliness in the idea evidence of this relation.
188. Such a doctrine could not help being at once confused in its
account of reality, and insecure in its doctrine alike of the human
spirit and of God. On the recognition of relations as constituting
the _nature_ of ideas rests the possibility of any tenable theory of
their reality. An isolated idea could be neither real nor unreal.
Apart from a definite order of relation we may suppose (if we like)
that it would _be_, but it would certainly not be real; and as
little could it be unreal, since unreality can only result from the
confusion in our consciousness of one order of relation with another.
It is diversity of relations that distinguishes, for instance, these
letters as they now appear on paper from the same as I imagine them
with my eyes shut, giving each sort its own reality: just as upon
confusion with the other each alike becomes unreal. Thus, though
with Locke simple ideas are necessarily real, we soon find that even
according to him they are not truly so in their simplicity, but only
as related to an external thing producing them. He is right enough,
however inconsistent with himself, in making relation constitute
reality; wrong in limiting this prerogative to the one relation of
externality. When he afterwards, in virtual contradiction to this
limitation, finds the reality of moral and mathematical ideas just
in that sole relation to the mind, as its products, which he had
previously made the source of all unreality, he forces upon us the
explanation which he does not himself give, that unreality does not
lie in either relation as opposed to the other, but in the confusion
of any relation with another. It is for lack of this explanation
that Locke himself, as we have seen, finds in the liveliness
and involuntariness of ideas the sole and sufficient tests (not
_constituents_) of their reality; though they are obviously tests
which put the dreams of a man in a fever upon the same footing with
the ‘impressions’ of a man awake, and would often prove that unreal
after dinner which had been proved real before. There is a well-known
story of a man who in a certain state of health commonly saw a
particular gory apparition, but who, knowing its origin, used to have
himself bled till it disappeared. The reality of the apparition lay,
he knew, in some relation between the circulation of his blood and
his organs of sight, in distinction from the reality existing in the
normal relations of his visual organs to the light: and in his idea,
accordingly, there was nothing unreal, because he did not confuse the
one relation with the other. Locke’s doctrine, however, would allow
of no distinction between the apparition as it was for such a man
and as it would be for one who interpreted it as an actual ‘ghost.’
However interpreted, the liveliness and the involuntariness of the
idea remain the same, as does its relation to an efficient cause. If
in order to its reality the cause must be an ‘outward body,’ then it
is no more real when rightly, than when wrongly, interpreted; while
on the ground of liveliness and involuntariness it is as real when
taken for a ghost as when referred to an excess of blood in the head.
Berkeley retains this notion, only substituting ‘God’ for ‘body’.