History of Philosophy
by
Alfred Weber§ 58. Berkeley
After what has been said of the agreement existing between Locke and Spinoza, it will hardly surprise us to see a disciple of the English philosopher offering the hand of friendship to Leibniz and Malebranche, the champions of intellectualism and innate ideas across the sea. Although Locke and his opponents differ on several essential points, they reach practically the same conclusions concerning the world of sense. Malebranche and Leibniz spiritualize matter; they explain it as a confused idea, and ultimately assume a principle endowed with desire and perception, that is, mind. Locke's criticism, on the other hand, does not wholly reject the material world; one half of it is retained. Extension, form, and motion exist outside of us; but neither colors, nor sounds, nor tastes, nor smells exist independently of our sensations. Moreover, Locke attacks the traditional notion of substance, or substratum, and defines real substance as a combination of qualities. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that the idea of corporeal substance or matter is as remote from our conceptions and apprehensions as that of spiritual substance or spirit! (1) Hence, all that was needed to arrive at the negation of matter or absolute spiritualism was to efface the distinction which he had drawn between primary and secondary qualities, and to call all sensible qualities, without exception, secondary.
This is done by GEORGE BERKELEY, who thus enters upon a course against which Locke had advised in vain. Berkeley was born in Ireland, 1685, of English ancestors, became Bishop of Cloyne, 1734, and died at Oxford, 1753. The following are his most important works: Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, (2) Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge, (3) Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, (4) Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher. (5)
Locke recognizes, with Descartes and Hobbes, that color is nothing apart from the sensation of the person seeing it, that sound exists only for the hearing, that taste and smell are mere sensations, and do not inhere in the things themselves. But in addition to such secondary qualities, which do not inhere in the objects but in the perceiving subject, he assumes primary qualities existing without the mind and belonging to an unthinking substance: extension, figure, and motion. And that is where he is wrong. Just as color, smell, and taste exist only for the person perceiving them, so extension, form, and motion exist only in a mind that perceives them. Take away the perceiving subject, and you take away the sensible world. Existence consists in perceiving or being perceived. That which is not perceived and does not perceive does not exist. The objects do not exist apart from the subjects perceiving them. According to the common view, these objects -- houses, mountains, and rivers -- have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding, and our ideas of them are copies or resemblances of all these things without us. Now, says Berkeley, (6) either those external objects or originals of our ideas are perceivable, or they are not perceivable. If they are, then they are ideas (for an idea = something perceived). In that case, there is no difference between objects assumed to be without us and our ideas of them; and "we have gained our point." "If you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a color is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest." Hence, there is no real difference between things and our ideas of them. The words sensible thing and idea are synonymous.
Our ideas, or the things which we perceive, are visibly inactive. It is impossible for an idea to do anything, or to be the cause of anything. Hence, spirit or thinking substance alone can be the cause of ideas (sensible things). A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being, -- as it perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them, it is called will. Now all ideas (perceived things) being essentially passive, and spirit eminently active, it follows that we cannot, strictly speaking, have an idea of spirit, will, or soul; at any rate, we cannot form as clear an idea of it as of a triangle, for example. Inasmuch as the idea is absolutely passive and spirit the very essence of activity, the idea of spirit is a contradiction in terms, and no more like spirit than night is like the day. (7)
In so far as mind perceives ideas it produces things; and these are not two distinct operations: to perceive signifies to produce, and the ideas are the things themselves. Nevertheless, the objects which I perceive have not a like dependence on my will. Nay, very many of them do not depend on it at all. "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." There is therefore -- thus Berkeley proves the existence of God--some other will that produces them, a more powerful spirit that imprints them upon us. "Now the set rules or established methods wherein the Mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of sense, are called the laws of nature; and these we learn by experience. . . . The ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of nature are commonly called real things; and those excited in the imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed ideas or images of things. The ideas of sense are allowed to have more in them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and coherent, than the creatures of the mind; but this is no argument that they exist without the mind."
To the objection that this makes the sensible world, with its sun, stars, mountains, and rivers, a chimera or an illusion, Berkeley answers that he does not in the least doubt the existence of things. He is even willing to accept the term corporeal substance if we mean by it a combination of sensible qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the like. But be utterly repudiates the scholastic notion which conceives matter as a substratum or support of accidents or qualities without the mind perceiving them, as a stupid, thoughtless somewhat, which can neither perceive nor be perceived, existing alongside of, and independent of, the thinking substance. (8) The objection that, according to his principles, we eat and drink ideas, and are clothed with ideas, is not more serious than the preceding one. It overlooks the fact that he employs the word idea, not in its usual signification, but in the sense of perceived thing. But it is certain that our victuals and our apparel are things which we perceive immediately by our senses, that is, ideas. Finally, it is held that, according to his teaching, the sun, moon, and trees exist only when they are perceived, and are annihilated when we no longer perceive them. They would undoubtedly cease to exist if there were no one to perceive them; for existence consists in being perceived or in perceiving. But if our mind cannot perceive them, an other spirit can perceive them or continue their existence so to speak; for though Berkeley denies the objective existence of bodies, he assumes a plurality of spiritual beings.
It is true, mankind and even philosophers steadfastly assume the existence of matter. The explanation is simple. They are conscious that they are not the authors of their own sensations, and evidently know that they are imprinted from without. They have recourse to the hypothesis of matter as the external origin of their ideas, instead of deriving them directly from the Creative Spirit which alone can produce them, (1) because they are not aware of the contradiction involved "in supposing things like unto our ideas existing without; (2) because the Supreme Spirit, which excites those ideas in our minds, is not marked out and limited to our view by any particular finite collection of sensible ideas, as human agents are by their size, complexion, limbs, and motions; and (3) because his operations are regular and uniform. Whenever the course of nature is interrupted by a miracle, men are ready to own the presence of a superior agent. But when we see things go on in the ordinary course they do not excite in us any reflection."
The negation of matter as a substance without the mind silences a number of difficult and obscure questions: Can a corporeal substance think? Is matter infinitely divisible? How does it operate on spirit? These and the like inquiries are entirely banished from philosophy. The division of sciences is simplified, and human knowledge reduced to two great classes: knowledge of ideas and knowledge of spirits. (9) Moreover, this philosophy is alone capable of overcoming scepticism. If we assume, with the ancient schools, that a substance exists without the mind, and that our ideas are images of it, then scepticism is inevitable. On that hypothesis, we see only the appearances, and not the real qualities of things. What may be the extension, figure, or motion of anything really and absolutely, or in itself, it is impossible for us to know; we know only the relations which things bear to our senses. All we see, hear, and feel is but a phantom. All these doubts are inevitable as soon as we distinguish between ideas and things. (10)
The absolute spiritualism of Berkeley is a unitary, homogeneous system, unquestionably superior to the hybrid philosophies of Descartes and Wolff. Nay, it is, in my opinion, the only metaphysic that may be successfully opposed to materialism, for it alone takes into consideration the partial truth of its objections. (11) It overcomes the dualism of substances, and thus satisfies the most fundamental demand of the philosophical spirit, -- the demand for unity. In this respect it has all the advantages of radical materialism without being hampered by its difficulties. It greatly resembles the system of Leibniz, but excels it in clearness, consistency, boldness, and decision. Leibniz's opinions on matter, space, and time are undecided, conciliatory, and even obscure. Berkeley shows no sign of hesitation. An earnest and profoundly honest thinker, he tells us, in a straightforward manner, that the existence of matter is an illusion; that time is nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds; (12) that space cannot exist without the mind; (13) that minds alone exist; and that these perceive ideas either by themselves or through the action of the all-powerful Spirit on which they depend. (14)
But besides these advantages, his philosophy also possesses disadvantages. We need not repeat the petty objection of his supposed adversaries, who make him say that we eat and drink ideas and are clothed with ideas. We may, however, ask, What, on his theory, becomes of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, which the more realistic Leibniz regards as having objective existence? If it be true that unperceiving and unperceived things do not exist, what becomes of the soul in deep sleep? If the picture opposite to my bed exists only because I see it, what minds perceive it after I have gone to sleep, and thus hinder it from ceasing to exist? How shall we picture to ourselves a plurality of human individuals, if space exists in the mind only? How does Berkeley know that there are other minds than his own? How, moreover, does the creative Spirit produce sensible ideas in us? All these points and many others remain unexplained; for his deus ex machina explains nothing, and his theory of intervention is of no more avail than occasionalism and pre-established harmony. He is both a thorough-going theologian and a philosopher; his interests are both scientific and religious, and he attacks materialism (15) not only as a theoretical error but as the source of the most serious heresies. (16)
1. Essay concerning Human Understanding, II., ch. XXIII., 5.
2. Dublin, 1709. This remarkable treatise clearly anticipates the modern principles of the physiology of sensation.
3. Dublin, 1710. [Krauth's ed., 1874.]
4. London, 1713. [Calcutta, 1893.] French, Amsterdam, 1750; German, Rostock, 1756.
5. London, 1732; French, The Hague, 1734; German, Lemgo, 1737. The works of G. Berkeley, London, 1784, 1820, 1843, 1871. This last edition, published in 4 vols., by A. Campbell Fraser, is the most complete. [Selections from Berkeley, with introduction and notes, by A. Campbell Fraser, 4th ed. (Revised), 1891. Cf. T. C. Simon, Universal Immaterialism, London, 1862; Controversy between Ueberweg and Simon, in Fichte's Z. f. Ph., vol. 55, 1869; vol. 57, 1870; vol. 59, 1871; A. C. Fraser, Berkeley (Philosophical Classics), Edinburgh and London, 1881. - Tr.]
6. Principles of Human Knowledge, § 8.
7. Berkeley repeatedly points out the impossibility of forming an adequate idea of spiritual things, such as spirit, soul, or will, and he explains this by the radical difference existing between spirit, the essentially active thing, and idea, the essentially passive thing (Principles of Human Knowledge, §§ 27, 89, 135). He likewise insists on the necessity of clearly distinguishing between spirit and idea, thus contradicting Spinoza, who regards them as synonyms (id., § 139).
8. Principles of Human Knowledge, § 75.
9. Principles of Human Knowledge, § 86. Berkeley afterwards (§ 89), adds a third group of knowledge: that of relations existing either between things or ideas (physical sciences and mathematical sciences).
10. Kant's conclusions fully confirm these profound remarks of Berkeley (Principles, §§ 85 ff.). It was because the Critique of Pure Reason asserted the dogma combated by the Irish philosopher (the thing-in-itself considered as existing independently of the phenomenon) that it became involved in scepticism.
11. Cf. our conclusions in § 71.
12. Principles, § 98.
13. Id., § 116.
14. Principles, § 155.
15. By materialism Berkeley understands not only the negation of spiritual substance, but the view that there exists, independently of the mind, a substance, or substratum, of sensible qualities, which it perceives. To assume the reality of matter is enough to stamp one as a materialist in the Berkeleyan sense.
16. §§ 133 ff.--A system wholly similar to that of Berkeley was taught by his contemporary and colleague, the churchman Arthur Collier (1680-1732), a disciple of Malebranche and author of Clavis universalis, or a New Inquiry after Truth, Being a Demonstration of the Non-existence or Impossibility of an External World, London, 1713. [See G. Lyon, Un idéaliste Anglais au XV111c. siècle (Revue phil. vol. 10, 1880), -- Tr.]