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Materialism & Idealism: Hobbes
& Berkeley |
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The Leviathan (1660) |
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Thomas Hobbes |
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From “The First Part:
Of Man” |
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I: Of sense |
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CONCERNING
the thoughts of man, I will consider them first singly, and afterwards in
train or dependence upon one another. Singly, they are every one a
representation or appearance of some quality, or other accident of a body
without us, which is commonly called an object. Which object worketh on the
eyes, ears, and other parts of man's body, and by diversity of working
produceth diversity of appearances. |
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The
original of them all is that which we call sense, (for there is no conception
in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or by parts, been begotten
upon the organs of sense). The rest are derived from that original. |
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To know the
natural cause of sense is not very necessary to the business now in hand; and
I have elsewhere written of the same at large. Nevertheless, to fill each
part of my present method, I will briefly deliver the same in this place. |
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The cause
of sense is the external body, or object, which presseth the organ proper to
each sense, either immediately, as in the taste and touch; or mediately, as
in seeing, hearing, and smelling: which pressure, by the mediation of nerves
and other strings and membranes of the body, continued inwards to the brain
and heart, causeth there a resistance, or counter-pressure, or endeavour of
the heart to deliver itself: which endeavour, because outward, seemeth to be
some matter without. And this seeming, or fancy, is that which men call
sense; and consisteth, as to the eye, in a light, or colour figured; to the
ear, in a sound; to the nostril, in an odour; to the tongue and palate, in a
savour; and to the rest of the body, in heat, cold, hardness, softness, and
such other qualities as we discern by feeling. All which qualities called
sensible are in the object that causeth them but so many several motions of
the matter, by which it presseth our organs diversely. Neither in us that are
pressed are they anything else but diverse motions (for motion produceth
nothing but motion). But their appearance to us is fancy, the same waking
that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the eye makes us fancy a
light, and pressing the ear produceth a din; so do the bodies also we see, or
hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action. For if
those colours and sounds were in the bodies or objects that cause them, they
could not be severed from them, as by glasses and in echoes by reflection we
see they are: where we know the thing we see is in one place; the appearance,
in another. And though at some certain distance the real and very object seem
invested with the fancy it begets in us; yet still the object is one thing,
the image or fancy is another. So that sense in all cases is nothing else but
original fancy caused (as I have said) by the pressure that is, by the motion
of external things upon our eyes, ears, and other organs, thereunto ordained. |
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But the
philosophy schools, through all the universities of Christendom, grounded
upon certain texts of Aristotle, teach another doctrine; and say, for the
cause of vision, that the thing seen sendeth forth on every side a visible
species, (in English) a visible show, apparition, or aspect, or a being seen;
the receiving whereof into the eye is seeing. And for the cause of hearing,
that the thing heard sendeth forth an audible species, that is, an audible
aspect, or audible being seen; which, entering at the ear, maketh hearing.
Nay, for the cause of understanding also, they say the thing understood
sendeth forth an intelligible species, that is, an intelligible being seen;
which, coming into the understanding, makes us understand. I say not this, as
disapproving the use of universities: but because I am to speak hereafter of
their office in a Commonwealth, I must let you see on all occasions by the
way what things would be amended in them; amongst which the frequency of
insignificant speech is one. |
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II: Of Imagination |
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THAT when a
thing lies still, unless somewhat else stir it, it will lie still for ever,
is a truth that no man doubts of. But that when a thing is in motion, it will
eternally be in motion, unless somewhat else stay it, though the reason be
the same (namely, that nothing can change itself), is not so easily assented
to. For men measure, not only other men, but all other things, by themselves:
and because they find themselves subject after motion to pain and lassitude,
think everything else grows weary of motion, and seeks repose of its own
accord; little considering whether it be not some other motion wherein that
desire of rest they find in themselves consisteth. From hence it is that the
schools say, heavy bodies fall downwards out of an appetite to rest, and to
conserve their nature in that place which is most proper for them; ascribing
appetite, and knowledge of what is good for their conservation (which is more
than man has), to things inanimate, absurdly. |
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When a body
is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinder it) eternally; and
whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time, and by degrees,
quite extinguish it: and as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the
waves give not over rolling for a long time after; so also it happeneth in
that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then, when he sees,
dreams, etc. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still
retain an image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it.
And this is it the Latins call imagination, from the image made in seeing,
and apply the same, though improperly, to all the other senses. But the
Greeks call it fancy, which signifies appearance, and is as proper to one
sense as to another. Imagination, therefore, is nothing but decaying sense;
and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as
waking. |
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The decay
of sense in men waking is not the decay of the motion made in sense, but an
obscuring of it, in such manner as the light of the sun obscureth the light
of the stars; which stars do no less exercise their virtue by which they are
visible in the day than in the night. But because amongst many strokes which
our eyes, ears, and other organs receive from external bodies, the
predominant only is sensible; therefore the light of the sun being
predominant, we are not affected with the action of the stars. And any object
being removed from our eyes, though the impression it made in us remain, yet
other objects more present succeeding, and working on us, the imagination of
the past is obscured and made weak, as the voice of a man is in the noise of
the day. From whence it followeth that the longer the time is, after the
sight or sense of any object, the weaker is the imagination. For the
continual change of man's body destroys in time the parts which in sense were
moved: so that distance of time, and of place, hath one and the same effect
in us. For as at a great distance of place that which we look at appears dim,
and without distinction of the smaller parts, and as voices grow weak and
inarticulate: so also after great distance of time our imagination of the
past is weak; and we lose, for example, of cities we have seen, many
particular streets; and of actions, many particular circumstances. This
decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself),
we call imagination, as I said before. But when we would express the decay,
and signify that the sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So
that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse
considerations hath diverse names. |
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Much
memory, or memory of many things, is called experience. Again, imagination
being only of those things which have been formerly perceived by sense,
either all at once, or by parts at several times; the former (which is the
imagining the whole object, as it was presented to the sense) is simple
imagination, as when one imagineth a man, or horse, which he hath seen
before. The other is compounded, when from the sight of a man at one time,
and of a horse at another, we conceive in our mind a centaur. So when a man
compoundeth the image of his own person with the image of the actions of
another man, as when a man imagines himself a Hercules or an Alexander (which
happeneth often to them that are much taken with reading of romances), it is
a compound imagination, and properly but a fiction of the mind. There be also
other imaginations that rise in men, though waking, from the great impression
made in sense: as from gazing upon the sun, the impression leaves an image of
the sun before our eyes a long time after; and from being long and vehemently
attent upon geometrical figures, a man shall in the dark, though awake, have
the images of lines and angles before his eyes; which kind of fancy hath no
particular name, as being a thing that doth not commonly fall into men's
discourse. |
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The
imaginations of them that sleep are those we call dreams. And these also (as
all other imaginations) have been before, either totally or by parcels, in
the sense. And because in sense, the brain and nerves, which are the
necessary organs of sense, are so benumbed in sleep as not easily to be moved
by the action of external objects, there can happen in sleep no imagination,
and therefore no dream, but what proceeds from the agitation of the inward
parts of man's body; which inward parts, for the connexion they have with the
brain and other organs, when they be distempered do keep the same in motion;
whereby the imaginations there formerly made, appear as if a man were waking;
saving that the organs of sense being now benumbed, so as there is no new
object which can master and obscure them with a more vigorous impression, a
dream must needs be more clear, in this silence of sense, than are our waking
thoughts. And hence it cometh to pass that it is a hard matter, and by many
thought impossible, to distinguish exactly between sense and dreaming. For my
part, when I consider that in dreams I do not often nor constantly think of
the same persons, places, objects, and actions that I do waking, nor remember
so long a train of coherent thoughts dreaming as at other times; and because waking
I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdities
of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that, being awake, I know I dream
not; though when I dream, I think myself awake. |
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And seeing
dreams are caused by the distemper of some of the inward parts of the body,
diverse distempers must needs cause different dreams. And hence it is that
lying cold breedeth dreams of fear, and raiseth the thought and image of some
fearful object, the motion from the brain to the inner parts, and from the
inner parts to the brain being reciprocal; and that as anger causeth heat in
some parts of the body when we are awake, so when we sleep the overheating of
the same parts causeth anger, and raiseth up in the brain the imagination of
an enemy. In the same manner, as natural kindness when we are awake causeth
desire, and desire makes heat in certain other parts of the body; so also too
much heat in those parts, while we sleep, raiseth in the brain an imagination
of some kindness shown. In sum, our dreams are the reverse of our waking
imaginations; the motion when we are awake beginning at one end, and when we
dream, at another. |
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The most
difficult discerning of a man's dream from his waking thoughts is, then, when
by some accident we observe not that we have slept: which is easy to happen
to a man full of fearful thoughts; and whose conscience is much troubled; and
that sleepeth without the circumstances of going to bed, or putting off his
clothes, as one that noddeth in a chair. For he that taketh pains, and
industriously lays himself to sleep, in case any uncouth and exorbitant fancy
come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a dream. We read of Marcus
Brutus (one that had his life given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his
favorite, and notwithstanding murdered him), how at Philippi, the night
before he gave battle to Augustus Caesar, he saw a fearful apparition, which
is commonly related by historians as a vision, but, considering the
circumstances, one may easily judge to have been but a short dream. For
sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horror of his rash act, it
was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most
affrighted him; which fear, as by degrees it made him wake, so also it must
needs make the apparition by degrees to vanish: and having no assurance that
he slept, he could have no cause to think it a dream, or anything but a
vision. And this is no very rare accident: for even they that be perfectly
awake, if they be timorous and superstitious, possessed with fearful tales,
and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see
spirits and dead men's ghosts walking in churchyards; whereas it is either
their fancy only, or else the knavery of such persons as make use of such superstitious
fear to pass disguised in the night to places they would not be known to
haunt. |
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From this
ignorance of how to distinguish dreams, and other strong fancies, from vision
and sense, did arise the greatest part of the religion of the Gentiles in time
past, that worshipped satyrs, fauns, nymphs, and the like; and nowadays the
opinion that rude people have of fairies, ghosts, and goblins, and of the
power of witches. For, as for witches, I think not that their witchcraft is
any real power, but yet that they are justly punished for the false belief
they have that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to do it
if they can, their trade being nearer to a new religion than to a craft or
science. And for fairies, and walking ghosts, the opinion of them has, I
think, been on purpose either taught, or not confuted, to keep in credit the
use of exorcism, of crosses, of holy water, and other such inventions of
ghostly men. Nevertheless, there is no doubt but God can make unnatural
apparitions: but that He does it so often as men need to fear such things
more than they fear the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he
also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian faith. But evil men,
under pretext that God can do anything, are so bold as to say anything when
it serves their turn, though they think it untrue; it is the part of a wise
man to believe them no further than right reason makes that which they say
appear credible. If this superstitious fear of spirits were taken away, and with
it prognostics from dreams, false prophecies, and many other things depending
thereon, by which crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would
be would be much more fitted than they are for civil obedience. |
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And this
ought to be the work of the schools, but they rather nourish such doctrine.
For (not knowing what imagination, or the senses are) what they receive, they
teach: some saying that imaginations rise of themselves, and have no cause;
others that they rise most commonly from the will; and that good thoughts are
blown (inspired) into a man by God, and evil thoughts, by the Devil; or that
good thoughts are poured (infused) into a man by God, and evil ones by the
Devil. Some say the senses receive the species of things, and deliver them to
the common sense; and the common sense delivers them over to the fancy, and
the fancy to the memory, and the memory to the judgement, like handing of
things from one to another, with many words making nothing understood. |
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The
imagination that is raised in man (or any other creature endued with the
faculty of imagining) by words, or other voluntary signs, is that we
generally call understanding, and is common to man and beast. For a dog by
custom will understand the call or the rating of his master; and so will many
other beasts. That understanding which is peculiar to man is the
understanding not only his will, but his conceptions and thoughts, by the
sequel and contexture of the names of things into affirmations, negations,
and other forms of speech: and of this kind of understanding I shall speak
hereafter. |
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III: Of the consequence or train of
imaginations |
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BY
CONSEQUENCE, or train of thoughts, I understand that succession of one
thought to another which is called, to distinguish it from discourse in
words, mental discourse. |
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When a man
thinketh on anything whatsoever, his next thought after is not altogether so
casual as it seems to be. Not every thought to every thought succeeds
indifferently. But as we have no imagination, whereof we have not formerly
had sense, in whole or in parts; so we have no transition from one
imagination to another, whereof we never had the like before in our senses.
The reason whereof is this. All fancies are motions within us, relics of
those made in the sense; and those motions that immediately succeeded one
another in the sense continue also together after sense: in so much as the
former coming again to take place and be predominant, the latter followeth,
by coherence of the matter moved, in such manner as water upon a plain table
is drawn which way any one part of it is guided by the finger. But because in
sense, to one and the same thing perceived, sometimes one thing, sometimes
another, succeedeth, it comes to pass in time that in the imagining of
anything, there is no certainty what we shall imagine next; only this is
certain, it shall be something that succeeded the same before, at one time or
another. |
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This train
of thoughts, or mental discourse, is of two sorts. The first is unguided,
without design, and inconstant; wherein there is no passionate thought to
govern and direct those that follow to itself as the end and scope of some
desire, or other passion; in which case the thoughts are said to wander, and
seem impertinent one to another, as in a dream. Such are commonly the
thoughts of men that are not only without company, but also without care of
anything; though even then their thoughts are as busy as at other times, but
without harmony; as the sound which a lute out of tune would yield to any
man; or in tune, to one that could not play. And yet in this wild ranging of
the mind, a man may oft-times perceive the way of it, and the dependence of
one thought upon another. For in a discourse of our present civil war, what
could seem more impertinent than to ask, as one did, what was the value of a
Roman penny? Yet the coherence to me was manifest enough. For the thought of
the war introduced the thought of the delivering up the King to his enemies;
the thought of that brought in the thought of the delivering up of Christ; and
that again the thought of the 30 pence, which was the price of that treason:
and thence easily followed that malicious question; and all this in a moment
of time, for thought is quick. |
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The second
is more constant, as being regulated by some desire and design. For the
impression made by such things as we desire, or fear, is strong and
permanent, or (if it cease for a time) of quick return: so strong it is
sometimes as to hinder and break our sleep. From desire ariseth the thought
of some means we have seen produce the like of that which we aim at; and from
the thought of that, the thought of means to that mean; and so continually,
till we come to some beginning within our own power. And because the end, by
the greatness of the impression, comes often to mind, in case our thoughts
begin to wander they are quickly again reduced into the way: which, observed
by one of the seven wise men, made him give men this precept, which is now
worn out: respice finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon
what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way
to attain it. … |
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A Treatise
Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) |
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George Berkeley |
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1. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of
the objects 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,
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 accounted 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. |
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2. But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or
objects of knowledge, there is likewise something 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. |
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4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing
amongst men, 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
fore-mentioned 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 unperceived? |
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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 of the
earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the
world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being is to be perceived or known;
that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not
exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have
no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit- it
being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of
abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent
of a spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect, and try
to separate in his own thoughts the being
of a sensible thing from its being
perceived. |
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7. From what has been said it follows there is not
any other Substance than Spirit, or that which perceives. But, for the fuller
proof of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities are colour,
figure, motion, smell, taste, etc., i.e. the ideas perceived by sense. Now,
for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a manifest contradiction,
for to have an idea is all one as to perceive; that therefore wherein colour,
figure, and the like qualities exist must perceive them; hence it is clear
there can be no unthinking substance or substratum
of those ideas. |
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8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not
exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are
copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an unthinking
substance. I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a colour or
figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we look but never
so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a
likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposed
originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or
representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If they are, then they are
ideas and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to
any one whether it be sense to assert a colour is like something which is
invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the
rest. |
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9. Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities. 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 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, senseless substance, in
which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But it is evident
from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas
existing in the mind, 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 that the very notion of what
is called Matter or corporeal substance, involves a
contradiction in it. |
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11. Again, great
and small, swift and slow, are
allowed to exist nowhere without the mind, being entirely relative, and
changing as the frame or position of the organs of sense varies. The
extension therefore which exists without the mind is neither great nor small,
the motion neither swift nor slow, that is, they are nothing at all. But, say
you, they are extension in general, and motion in general: thus we see how
much the tenet of extended movable substances existing without the mind
depends on the strange doctrine of abstract
ideas. And here I cannot but remark how nearly the vague and
indeterminate description of Matter or corporeal substance, which the modern
philosophers are run into by their own principles, resembles that antiquated
and so much ridiculed notion of materia
prima, to be met with in Aristotle and his followers. Without extension
solidity cannot be conceived; since therefore it has been shewn that
extension exists not in an unthinking substance, the same must also be true
of solidity. |
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12. That number is entirely the creature of the
mind, even though the other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be
evident to whoever considers that the same thing bears a different
denomination of number as the mind views it with different respects. Thus,
the same extension is one, or three, or thirty-six, according as the mind
considers it with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is so
visibly relative, and dependent on men's understanding, that it is strange to
think how any one should give it an absolute existence without the mind. We
say one book, one page, one line, etc.; all these are equally units, though
some contain several of the others. And in each instance, it is plain, the
unit relates to some particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put together
by the mind. 13. Unity I know some will have to be a simple or uncompounded
idea, accompanying all other ideas into the mind. That I have any such idea
answering the word unity I do not find; and if I had, methinks I could not
miss finding it: on the contrary, it should be the most familiar to my
understanding, since it is said to accompany all other ideas, and to be
perceived by all the ways of sensation and reflexion. To say no more, it is
an abstract idea. |
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14. I shall farther add, that, after the same manner
as modern philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence
in Matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all
other sensible qualities whatsoever. Thus, for instance, it is said that heat
and cold are affections only of the mind, and not at all patterns of real
beings, existing in the corporeal substances which excite them, for that the
same body which appears cold to one hand seems warm to another. Now, why may
we not as well argue that figure and extension are not patterns or
resemblances of qualities existing in Matter, because to the same eye at
different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they
appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of anything settled and
determinate without the mind? Again, it is proved that sweetness is not
really in the sapid thing, because the thing remaining unaltered the
sweetness is changed into bitter, as in case of a fever or otherwise vitiated
palate. Is it not as reasonable to say that motion is not without the mind,
since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter, the motion, it
is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any alteration in any external
object? |
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16. But let us examine a little the received
opinion.- It is said extension is a mode or accident of Matter, and that
Matter is the substratum that supports it. Now I desire that you would
explain to me what is meant by Matter's supporting extension. Say you, I have
no idea of Matter and therefore cannot explain it. I answer, though you have
no positive, yet, if you have any meaning at all, you must at least have a
relative idea of Matter; though you know not what it is, yet you must be
supposed to know what relation it bears to accidents, and what is meant by
its supporting them. It is evident "support" cannot here be taken
in its usual or literal sense- as when we say that pillars support a
building; in what sense therefore must it be taken? |
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17. If we inquire into what the most accurate
philosophers declare themselves to mean by material substance, we shall find
them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the
idea of Being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting
accidents. The general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and
incomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this, as
we have just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of those
words; it must therefore be taken in some other sense, but what that is they
do not explain. So that when I consider the two parts or branches which make
the signification of the words material substance, I am convinced there is no
distinct meaning annexed to them. But why should we trouble ourselves any
farther, in discussing this material substratum or support of figure and
motion, and other sensible qualities? Does it not suppose they have an
existence without the mind? And is not this a direct repugnancy, and
altogether inconceivable? |
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18. But, though it were possible that solid,
figured, movable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the
ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either
we must know it by sense or by reason. As for our senses, by them we have the
knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately
perceived by sense, call them what you will: but they do not inform us that
things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are
perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge. It remains therefore
that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by
reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense.
But what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the
mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of Matter themselves do
not pretend there is any necessary connexion betwixt them and our ideas? I
say it is granted on all hands (and what happens in dreams, phrensies, and
the like, puts it beyond dispute) that it is possible we might be affected
with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without
resembling them. Hence, it is evident the supposition of external bodies is
not necessary for the producing our ideas; since it is granted they are
produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always in the same order,
we see them in at present, without their concurrence. |
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19. But, though we might possibly have all our
sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and
explain the manner of their production, by supposing external bodies in their
likeness rather than otherwise; and so it might be at least probable there
are such things as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither
can this be said; for, though we give the materialists their external bodies,
they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are
produced; since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body
can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the
mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds
can be no reason why we should suppose Matter or corporeal substances, since
that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with or without this
supposition. If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the
mind, yet to hold they do so, must needs be a very precarious opinion; since
it is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable
beings that are entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose. |
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21. Were it necessary to add any farther proof
against the existence of Matter after what has been said, I could instance
several of those errors and difficulties (not to mention impieties) which
have sprung from that tenet. It has occasioned numberless controversies and
disputes in philosophy, and not a few of far greater moment in religion. But
I shall not enter into the detail of them in this place, as well because I
think arguments a posteriori are
unnecessary for confirming what has been, if I mistake not, sufficiently
demonstrated a priori, as because I
shall hereafter find occasion to speak somewhat of them. |
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22. I am afraid I have given cause to think I am
needlessly prolix in handling this subject. For, to what purpose is it to
dilate on that which may be demonstrated with the utmost evidence in a line
or two, to any one that is capable of the least reflexion? It is but looking
into your own thoughts, and so trying whether you can conceive it possible
for a sound, or figure, or motion, or colour to exist without the mind or
unperceived. This easy trial may perhaps make you see that what you contend
for is a downright contradiction. Insomuch that I am content to put the whole
upon this issue:- If you can but conceive it possible for one extended
movable substance, or, in general, for any one idea, or anything like an
idea, to exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it, I shall readily give
up the cause. And, as for all that compages [complex system] of external
bodies you contend for, I shall grant you its existence, though you cannot
either give me any reason why you believe it exists, or assign any use to it
when it is supposed to exist. I say, the bare possibility of your opinions
being true shall pass for an argument that it is so. |
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23. But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than
for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a
closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no
difficulty in it; but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in
your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and the same time
omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you
yourself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing
to the purpose; it only shews you have the power of imagining or forming
ideas in your mind: but it does not shew that you can conceive it possible
the objects of your thought may exist without the mind. To make out this, it
is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of,
which is a manifest repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the
existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own
ideas. But the mind taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can
and does conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind, though at
the same time they are apprehended by or exist in itself. A little attention
will discover to any one the truth and evidence of what is here said, and
make it unnecessary to insist on any other proofs against the existence of material substance. |
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24. It is very obvious, upon the least inquiry into
our thoughts, to know whether it is possible for us to understand what is
meant by the absolute existence of
sensible objects in themselves, or without the mind. To me it is evident
those words mark out either a direct contradiction, or else nothing at all.
And to convince others of this, I know no readier or fairer way than to
entreat they would calmly attend to their own thoughts; and if by this
attention the emptiness or repugnancy of those expressions does appear,
surely nothing more is requisite for the conviction. It is on this therefore
that I insist, to wit, that the absolute existence of unthinking things are
words without a meaning, or which include a contradiction. This is what I
repeat and inculcate, and earnestly recommend to the attentive thoughts of
the reader. |
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26. We perceive a continual succession of ideas,
some are anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is
therefore some cause of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces
and changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or
combination of ideas, is clear from the preceding section. I must therefore
be a substance; but it has been shewn that there is no corporeal or material
substance: it remains therefore that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal
active substance or Spirit. |
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27. 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 the will. Hence there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for
all ideas whatever, being passive and inert (vide sect. 25), they cannot represent unto us, by way of
image or likeness, that which acts. A little attention will make it plain to
any one, that to have an idea which shall be like that active principle of
motion and change of ideas is absolutely impossible. Such is the nature of spirit, or that which acts, that it
cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the effects which it produceth. If
any man shall doubt of the truth of what is here delivered, let him but
reflect and try if he can frame the idea of any power or active being, and
whether he has ideas of two principal powers, marked by the names will and understanding, distinct from each other as well as from a third
idea of Substance or Being in general, with a relative notion of its
supporting or being the subject of the aforesaid powers- which is signified
by the name soul or spirit. This is what some hold; but,
so far as I can see, the words will,
soul, spirit, do not stand for
different ideas, or, in truth, for any idea at all, but for something which
is very different from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be like unto,
or represented by, any idea whatsoever. Though it must be owned at the same
time that we have some notion of
soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind: such as willing, loving,
hating- inasmuch as we know or understand the meaning of these words. |
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28. I find I can excite
ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think
fit. It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in
my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another.
This making and unmaking of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind
active. Thus much is certain and grounded on experience; but when we think of
unthinking agents or of exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse
ourselves with words. |
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