The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4: Philosophical Works, 1705-21Berkeley, George
Philosophy
The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4: Philosophical Works, 1705-21
Berkeley, George
Philosophy -- Early works to 1800
9. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt _primary_ and _secondary_
qualities(539). 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 last 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(540), senseless
substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But
it is evident, from what we have already shewn, that extension, figure,
and motion are only ideas existing in the mind(541), 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. [(542)Insomuch that I should
not think it necessary to spend more time in exposing its absurdity. But,
because the tenet of the existence of Matter(543) seems to have taken so
deep a root in the minds of philosophers, and draws after it so many ill
consequences, I choose rather to be thought prolix and tedious than omit
anything that might conduce to the full discovery and extirpation of that
prejudice.]
10. They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or
original qualities(544) do exist without the mind, in unthinking
substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat,
cold, and suchlike secondary qualities, do not; which they tell us are
sensations, existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned
by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of
matter(545). This they take for an undoubted truth, which they can
demonstrate beyond all exception. Now, if it be certain that those
_original_ qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible
qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from
them, it plainly follows that _they_ exist only in the mind. But I desire
any one to reflect, and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought,
conceive the extension and motion of a body without all other sensible
qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to
frame an idea of a body extended and moving, but I must withal give it
some colour or other sensible quality, which is acknowledged to exist only
in the mind. In short, extension, figure and motion, abstracted from all
other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible
qualities are, there must these be also, to wit, in the mind and nowhere
else(546).
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