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 he 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. 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

1 Principles of Human Knowledge, § 75.

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 exist ence 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.1 Moreover, this philosophy is alone capable of overcoming scepticism. If we assume, with the ancient schools, that a

1 Principles of Human Knowledge, § 86. Berkeley afterwards (§ 89, adds a third group of knowledge: that of relations existing either be tween things or ideas (physical sciences and mathematical sciences).

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.1

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. 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; 3 that space cannot exist without the mind; that minds alone exist; and that these

1 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.

• Cf. our conclusions in § 71.

8 Principles, § 98.

Id., § 116.

perceive ideas either by themselves or through the action of the all-powerful Spirit on which they depend.1

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 2 not only as a theoretical error but as the source of the most serious heresies.8

1 Principles, § 155.

2 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.

8

§§ 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 XVIII'. siècle (Revue phil. vol. 10, 1880). — TR.]

§ 59. Condillac

The philosophy of Locke was introduced into France by Voltaire. Here it found an original follower in the abbot Étienne Bonnot de CONDILLAC, the founder of absolute sensationalism.

Locke distinguishes two sources of ideas: sensation and reflection, while Condillac, in his Traité des sensations recognizes but one, making reflection a product of sensibility. His proof is ingenious. He imagines a statue, which is organized and alive, like ourselves, but hindered by its marble exterior from having sensations. Its intellectual and moral life advances as the various parts of this covering are removed.

Let us first remove the marble covering its olfactory organs. Now the statue has only the sense of smell, and cannot, as yet, perceive anything but odors. It cannot acquire any idea of extension, form, sound, or color. A

1 1694-1778. Lettres sur les Anglais, 1728; Eléments de la philosophie de Newton, mis à la portée de tout le monde, Amsterdam, 1738; La métaphysique de Newton ou parallèle des sentiments de Newton et de Leibniz, Amsterdam, 1740; Candide ou sur l'optimisme, 1757; Le philosophe ignorant, 1767. Simultaneously with these writings of Voltaire, the Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes of Fontenelle (1657-1757), and the works of Maupertuis (1698-1759) made known to the French the labors of Copernicus and Newton, which were continued by Lagrange and Laplace (page 11). [On eighteenth century philosophy in France see Damiron, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la philosophie au XVIII. siècle, 3 vols., Paris, 1858-64; and Bartholmèss (p. 12). On Voltaire see the works of Bersot, Strauss, John Morley, Desnoiresterres, and Mayr. - TR.]

↑ Born at Grenoble, 1715; tutor of the Prince of Parma; abbot of Mureaux; died 1780. Besides the Traité des sensations (1754), he produced the following works: Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines (1746); Traité des systèmes (1749); Traité des animaux, 1755; Logique (posthumous, 1781); Langue des animaux (posthumous). Complete works, Paris, 1798; 1803, 32 vols. in 12mo. F. Réthoré, Condillac ou l'empirisme et le rationalisme, Paris, 1864.