ideas 34 will spare himself the labour of looking for ideas where there are none to be had. It were, therefore, to be wished that every one would use his utmost endeavours to obtain a clear view of the ideas he would consider, separating from them all that dress and incumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind the judgment and divide the attention. In vain do we extend our view into the heavens and pry into the entrails of the earth, in vain do we consult the writings of learned men and trace the dark footsteps of antiquity-we need only draw the curtain of words, to behold the fairest tree of knowledge, whose fruit is excellent, and within the reach of our hand.

25. Unless we take care to clear the First Principles of Knowledge from the embarras and delusion of words, we may make infinite reasonings upon them to no purpose; we may draw consequences from consequences, and be never the wiser. The farther we go, we shall only lose ourselves the more irrecoverably, and be the deeper entangled in difficulties and mistakes. Whoever therefore designs to read the following sheets, I entreat him that he would make my words the occasion of his own thinking, and endeavour to attain the same train of thoughts in reading that I had in writing them. By this means it will be easy for him to discover the truth or falsity of what I say. He will be out of all danger of being deceived by my words, and I do not see how he can be led into an error by considering his own naked, undisguised ideas.

34 Inasmuch as they may stand for relations of ideas, whether in sense or imagination; and for a Mind or Self, as distinguished from any of its particular ideas. Cf. sect.

142. In the state which Leibnitz calls 'symbolical consciousness' we can use words without realizing their meaning.

OF THE

PRINCIPLES

OF

HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

PART I.

1. IT is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects1 of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind; or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination—either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other,

4

1 This threefold division of the objects or phenomena of which we are conscious-viz. (a) Sense-ideas or presentations; (b) the ideas of the passions and operations' of mind, by some called internal presentations; (c) representations, which may be more or less elaborated-nearly corresponds to Locke's simple ideas of sense and reflection, and his complex ideas. The two first are Hume's impressions,' and the last his 'ideas.' But Berkeley raises a question which Locke did not conceive, viz. Do

any of the three classes of objects or ideas of which we are conscious exist independently of a conscious mind; or, if not, do any represent or suggest what exists thus absolutely? Are they, or at any rate do they stand for, things in themselves' -substances from which all perception or consciousness may be abstracted? Can we, in short, find in perception, by any analysis, Mind and Matter existing in a mutually independent duality? This Treatise is an answer to this question. Cf. sect. 86, 89.

they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one
thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure
and consistence having been observed to go together, are ac-
counted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple; other
collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like
sensible things-which as they are pleasing or disagreeable excite
the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.

2. But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of
knowledge, there is likewise something3 which knows or perceives
them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining,
remembering, about them. This perceiving, active being is
what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do
not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from
them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby
they are perceived-for the existence of an idea consists in being
perceived 4.

3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by This restthe imagination, exist without the minds, is what everybody will And to me it is no less evident that the various sensations Contains Berkow. or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined doctrins together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a mind7 perceiving them.-I think an intuitive

2 This is the synthetic or constructive function of names, according to Berkeley. He here and elsewhere distinguishes between sensible things properly so called, and the simple ideas or objects of sense, of which 'things' are composed. Cf. sect. 33, 38.

3 This something' is the Ego or conscious subject, which the object-world implies, through which it is united and becomes intelligible, and by which it is causally regulated. But Berkeley does not affirm of the Ego, any more than of the world of ideas, that it exists absolutely, i. e. independently of being conscious--that the percipient is independent of ideas, any more than that these last are independent of a percipient. For Berkeley's notion of Self, as distinguished from his ideas, cf. sect. 7, where he speaks of the Self or Ego as the only substance;' and sect. 27, 125-140. Though he affirms, in this section and elsewhere, that Self and its ideas are entirely distinct' from one another, he denies that they are distinct substances. The Du

alism of Berkeley-spirits and ideas-does
not underlie perception, but is, so to speak,
co-extensive with it. It is resolvable into
the distinction between the Ego, as perma-
nent or identical, and the phenomena of
which each Ego is conscious, in sense or
otherwise, as changing-with whatever is
implied in this, which, however, he does not
try to analyse.

i.e. by a percipient-but not neces-
sarily by me. Cf. sect. 48. An idea must
now be, or have been, or hereafter become,
part of the experience of a mind, in order
to its present, past, or future actual existence.
Cf. sect. 6.

5 without the mind,' i.e. unperceived and unimagined.

" Here 'objects' = sensible things. This is the popular meaning of the term object, as distinguished from its more extensive or philosophical meaning. Cf. Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 9—11.

7 in a mind,' i. e. as phenomena of which a mind is conscious. The main pro

knowledge may be obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exist when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed-meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any? relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unin-* telligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.

4. It is indeed an opinion 10 strangely prevailing amongst men, 4-24 evritain that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For, what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived1?

blem of the book is, To determine whether those objects or ideas which constitute what are commonly called real or sensible things are independent of a conscious mind, in a way that thoughts and passions and fancies are not-whether, in short, the presented world of the senses is non-egoistic, in another manner than the presented world of our own feelings, or than the representative world of imagination; and, if so, what that manner may be. What should we mean when we say that sense-ideas-in other words, objects of sense-are 'external?' Is it that they exist independently of a percipient mind; or merely of my mind, they being my medium of intercourse with other minds, and of other minds with me? Berkeley's solution, here given by anticipation, is that sense-ideas, like all other objects of consciousness, cannot exist actually, otherwise than in a mind perceiving them (i.e. as

objects immediately present to an intelli-
gence). He afterwards enumerates marks
by which real or sensible are distinguishable
from merely imaginary objects. See sect.
29-33.

8 This is part of Berkeley's interpretation
of our belief in the distinct and permanent
existence of sensible things. It is a belief
that they are conditionally presentable in
sense-permanent possibilities of sensation,'
as Mr. J. S. Mill would say. See Examina-
tion of Hamilton's Philosophy, pp. 220-33,
third edition.

Sect. 4-24 contain Berkeley's proof of his doctrine, contained in sect. 3, about sensible ideas and things.

10 He does not mean to say that this opinion can be held intelligently by those to whom he here attributes it. Cf. sect. 54, 56. 11 That all the objects of which we are actually percipient are ideas or sensations

5. If we throughly examine this tenet it will, perhaps, be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures-in a word the things we see and feel-what are they but so many sensations, notions 12, ideas, or impressions on the sense? and is it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself. I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things which, perhaps, I never perceived by sense so divided. Thus, I imagine the trunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking on the rose itself. So far, I will not deny, I can abstract-if that may properly be called abstraction which extends only to the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may really exist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or perception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct 18 from the sensation or perception of it. [In truth, the object and the sensation are the same thing 15, and cannot therefore be abstracted from each other.]

6. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important one to be, viz. that all the choir of heaven and furniture

(in Berkeley's meaning of the words) during the percipient act, inasmuch as they are then objects - perceived,-whatever besides and in other circumstances they may be,is self-evident. They are at least ideas, i.e. perceived-objects, while a mind is in the act of being sensibly percipient of them. Whether they ever exist otherwise; or whether, if not, they represent what is existing otherwise, are two questions which Berkeley proceeds to answer in the negative. He argues that their uncognised existence is not merely unproved but involves a contradiction in terms, or, at least, can mean nothing.

12 The term notion, elsewhere either restricted to minds or applied to concepts,

seems to be here applied to the immediate object-world of the senses. Locke uses it with similar looseness.

13 i.e. existing distinct from perception. 14 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

15 With Berkeley object,' 'idea,' or 'sensation,' with reference to our senseexperience, signify what is assumed to be numerically the same, and which cannot therefore be distinguished from itself by abstraction. An absolute negation of meaning, or else a contradiction in terms-which are virtually equivalent-alone remain, when an attempt is made to disentangle 'sensible things' from a perception of them.