A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge — John Shaqi
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human KnowledgeBerkeley, George
Philosophy
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
Berkeley, George
Idealism; Knowledge, Theory of; Soul
7. SECOND ARGUMENT.[Note.]--From what has been said it follows there is
NOT ANY OTHER SUBSTANCE THAN SPIRIT, or that which perceives. But, for the
fuller proof of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities
are colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, etc., i.e. the ideas perceived
by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a
manifest contradiction, for TO HAVE AN IDEA IS ALL ONE AS TO PERCEIVE;
that therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist must
perceive them; hence it is clear there can be no UNTHINKING substance or
SUBSTRATUM of those ideas.
[Note: Vide sect. iii. and xxv.]
8. OBJECTION.--ANSWER.--But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not
exist without the mind, yet there may be things LIKE them, whereof they
are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an
unthinking substance. I ANSWER, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a
colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we
look but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible
for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask
whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas
are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If
they are, THEN THEY ARE IDEAS and we have gained our point; but if you say
they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a colour
is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which
is intangible; and so of the rest.
9. THE PHILOSOPHICAL NOTION OF MATTER INVOLVES A CONTRADICTION.--Some
there are who make a DISTINCTION betwixt PRIMARY and SECONDARY
qualities. By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest,
solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all
other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The
ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of
anything existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have
our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things
which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call
MATTER. By MATTER, therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless
substance, in which extension, figure, and motion DO ACTUALLY SUBSIST.
But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension,
figure, and motion are ONLY IDEAS EXISTING IN THE MIND, and that an idea
can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they
nor their archetypes can exist in an UNPERCEIVING substance. Hence, it is
plain that the very notion of what is called MATTER or CORPOREAL
SUBSTANCE, involves a contradiction in it.[Note.]
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