We shall now say a few words on the _relevancy_ of the question, for Mr
Bailey denies that this question, concerning the reciprocal outness of
visible objects, ought to form any element in the controversy. We shall
show, however, that one of his most important arguments depends entirely
on the view that may be taken of this question; and that while the
argument alluded to would be utterly fatal to Berkeley's theory, if the
perception of reciprocal outness were denied, it is perfectly harmless
if the perception in question be admitted.
Mr Bailey's fundamental and reiterated objection to Berkeley's theory
is, that it requires us to hold that conceptions or past impressions,
derived from one sense, (the touch,) are not merely recalled when
another sense (the sight) executes its functions, but are themselves
absolutely converted into the present intuitions of that other sense. In
his own words, (_Review_, p. 69,) the theory is said to require "a
transmutation of the conceptions derived from touch into the perceptions
of sight." "According to Berkeley, (says he, _Review_, p. 22,) an
internal feeling (i.e. a visual sensation) and an external sensation
(i.e. a tactual sensation) having been experienced at the same time: the
internal feeling, when it afterwards occurs, not only suggests the idea,
but, by doing so, suggests the idea, or, if I may use the figure,
infuses the perception of its own externality. Berkeley thus attributes
to suggestion an effect contrary to its nature, which, as in the case of
language, is simply to revive in our conception what has been previously
perceived by the sense."
Now, this objection would be altogether insurmountable if it were true,
or if it were a part of Berkeley's doctrine, that the sight has no
original intuition of space, or of the reciprocal outness of its
objects--in other words, of colours out of colours; for it being
admitted that the sight has ultimately such a perception, it would be
incumbent on the Berkeleian to show how conceptions derived from another
sense, or how perceptions belonging to another sense, could be converted
into that perception. We agree with Mr Bailey, in thinking that no
process of association could effect this conversion; that if we did not
originally see colours to be out of each other, and the points of the
same colour to be out of each other, we could never so see them; and
that his argument, when thus based on the negation of all original
visual extension, and on the supposition that the touch is the sole
organ of every species of externality, would remain invulnerable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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