The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4 · George Berkeley
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64 George Cheyne, the physician (known afterwards as author of the _English Malady_), published in 1705 a work on Fluxions, which procured him admission to the Royal Society. He was born in 1670. 65 This reminds us of Hume, and inclines towards the empirical notion of Causation, as merely constancy in sequence—not even continuous metamorphosis. 66 This is Berkeley’s objection to abstract, i.e. unperceived, quantities and infinitesimals—important in the sequel. 67 The “lines and figures” of pure mathematics, that is to say; which he rejects as meaningless, in his horror unrealisable abstractions. M25 I. M26 I. M27 M. E. M28 E. 68 Things really exist, that is to say, in degrees, e.g. in a lesser degree, when they are imagined than when they are actually perceived by our senses; but, in this wide meaning of existence, they may in both cases be said to exist. 69 Added on blank page of the MS. 70 In Berkeley’s limitation of the term _idea_ to what is presented objectively in sense, or represented concretely in imagination. Accordingly “an infinite idea” would be an idea which transcends ideation—an express contradiction. 71 Does the _human_ spirit depend on _sensible_ ideas as much as they depend on spirit? Other orders of spiritual beings may be percipient of other sorts of phenomena than those presented in those few senses to which man is confined, although self-conscious activity abstracted from _all_ sorts of presented phenomena seems impossible. But a self-conscious spirit is not necessarily dependent on _our_ material world or _our_ sense experience.
72 [This I do not altogether approve of.]—AUTHOR, on margin. 73 He afterwards guarded the difference, by contrasting _notion_ and _idea_, confining the latter to phenomena presented objectively to our senses, or represented in sensuous imagination, and applying the former to intellectual apprehension of “operations of the mind,” and of “relations” among ideas. 74 See _Principles_, sect. 89. 75 Is thought, then, independent of language? Can we realise thought worthy of the name without use of words? This is Berkeley’s excessive juvenile reaction against verbal abstractions. 76 Every general notion is _ideally realisable_ in one or other of its possible concrete or individual applications. 77 This is the germ of Berkeley’s notion of the objectivity of the material world to individual percipients and so of the rise of individual self-consciousness. 78 Added by Berkeley on blank page of the MS. 79 Cf. p. 420, note 2. Bishop Sprat’s _History of the Royal Society_ appeared in 1667. 80 Much need; for what he means by _idea_ has not been attended to by his critics. M42 I. Mo. 81 What “Second Book” is this? Does he refer to the “Second Part” of the _Principles_, which never appeared? God is the culmination of his philosophy, in _Siris_. 82 This is Berkeley’s material substance. Individual material substances are for him, steady aggregates of sense-given phenomena, having the efficient and final cause of their aggregation in eternally active Mind—active mind, human and Divine, being essential to their realisation for man.
83 Cf. Introduction to the _Principles_, especially sect. 18-25. 84 Stillingfleet charges Locke with “discarding substance out of the reasonable part of the world.” 85 The philosophers supposed the real things to exist behind our ideas, in concealment: Berkeley was now beginning to think that the objective ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, the existence of which needs no proof, were _themselves_ the significant and interpretable realities of physical science. M47 I. M48 M. M49 S. M50 I. M51 N. M52 P. M53 M. M54 N. M55 M. 86 If the material world can be _real_ only in and through a percipient intelligence, as the realising factor. M56 S. M57 Mo. M58 Mo. M59 Mo. M60 I. 87 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 13, 119-122, which deny the possibility of an idea or mental picture corresponding to abstract number. 88 “Præcedaneous,” i.e. precedent. 89 Who refunds human as well as natural causation into Divine agency. M63 Mo. 90 In which Locke treats “Of the Reality of Knowledge,” including questions apt to lead Berkeley to inquire, Whether we could in reason suppose reality in the absence of all realising mind. M64 M. M65 M. M66 E. M67 M. M68 Mo. M69 I. M70 I. M71 I. 91 Locke’s “abstract idea” is misconceived and caricatured by Berkeley in his impetuosity. 92 This and other passages refer to the scepticism, that is founded on the impossibility of our comparing our ideas of things with unperceived real things; so that we can never escape from the circle of subjectivity. Berkeley intended to refute this scepticism.
M73 I. M74 I. M75 I. M76 Mo. 93 Probably Samuel Madden, who afterwards edited the _Querist_. 94 This “First Book” seems to be “Part I” of the projected _Principles_—the only Part ever published. Here he inclines to “perception or thought in general,” in the language of Descartes; but in the end he approximates to Locke’s “sensation and reflection.” See _Principles_, sect. 1, and notes. 95 Does he mean, like Hume afterwards, that ideas or phenomena constitute the ego, so that I am only the transitory conscious state of each moment? 96 “Consciousness”—a term rarely used by Berkeley or his contemporaries. 97 This too, if strictly interpreted, looks like an anticipation of Hume’s reduction of the ego into successive “impressions”—“nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed one another with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” See Hume’s _Treatise_, Part IV. sect. 6. 98 What “Third Book” is here projected? Was a “Third Part” of the _Principles_ then in embryo? 99 This is scarcely done in the “Introduction” to the _Principles_. 100 Berkeley, as we find in the _Commonplace Book_, is fond of conjecturing how a man all alone in the world, freed from the abstractions of language, would apprehend the realities of existence, which he must then face directly, without the use or abuse of verbal symbols.
M88 E. M89 T. M90 I. M91 I. M92 E. M93 I. M94 I. 101 This “N. B.” is expanded in the Introduction to the _Principles_. M95 M. M96 S. M97 I. M98 M. M99 I. M100 M. 102 Cf. _Essay on Vision_, sect. 4. 103 What is immediately realised in our percipient experience must be presumed or trusted in as real, if we have any hold of reality, or the moral right to postulate that our universe is fundamentally trustworthy. 104 But he distinguishes, in the _Principles_ and elsewhere, between an idea of sense and a percipient ego. M105 S. M106 S. M107 S. M108 S. M109 S. M110 S. M111 N. 105 They reappear in _Siris_. 106 In one of Berkeley’s letters to Johnson, a quarter of a century after the _Commonplace Book_, when he was in America, he observes that “the mechanical philosophers pretend to demonstrate that matter is proportional to gravity. But their argument concludes nothing, and is a mere circle”—as he proceeds to show. 107 In the _Principles_, sect. 1-33, he seeks to fulfil the expository part of this intention; in sect. 33-84, also in the _Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_, he is “particular in answering objections.” 108 If Matter is arbitrarily credited with omnipotence. M115 S. M116 S. M117 S. M118 S. M119 S. M120 S.
109 On freedom as implied in a moral and responsible agent, cf. _Siris_, sect. 257 and note. 110 Is not this one way of expressing the Universal Providence and constant uniting agency of God in the material world? 111 Here _idea_ seems to be used in its wider signification, including _notion_. 112 “infinitely greater”—Does infinity admit of imaginable degrees? 113 ’embrangled’—perplexed—involved in disputes. 114 See _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 24. 115 “homonymy,” i.e. equivocation. 116 Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense, nor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses “thing” in the wide meaning which comprehends persons. 117 Voluntary or responsible activity is not an idea or datum of sense, nor can it be realised in sensuous imagination. He uses “thing” in the wide meaning which comprehends persons. 118 Is this consistent with other entries? _ 119 Essay_, Bk. II. ch. i. sect. 9-19. 120 This is one way of meeting the difficulty of supposed interruptions of conscious or percipient activity. 121 This seems to imply that voluntary action is mysteriously self-originated. 122 “perception.” He does not include the percipient. 123 “without,” i.e. unrealised by any percipient. 124 This would make _idea_ the term only for what is imagined, as distinguished from what is perceived in sense. 125 In a strict use of words, only _persons_ exercise will—not _things_.
126 As we must do in imagination, which (unlike sense) is representative; for the mental images represent original data of sense-perception. M143 S. M144 S. M145 S. M146 I. M147 S. M148 Mo. M149 Mo. 127 Does he not allow that we have _meaning_, if not _ideas_, when we use the terms virtue and vice and moral action? 128 As Locke says we are. 129 “_Existence_ and _unity_ are ideas that are suggested to the understanding by every object without and every idea within. When ideas are in our minds, we consider that _they_ exist.” Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 7. sect. 7. 130 i.e. of Existence in the abstract—unperceived and unperceiving—realised neither in percipient life nor in moral action. M152 S. M153 S. M154 S. M155 S. E. M156 G. 131 This suggests that God knows sensible things without being sentient of any. M157 N. Mo. M158 Mo. M159 I. M160 I. 132 Cf. _Principles_, Introd., sect. 1-5. 133 Cf. Preface to _Principles_; also to _Dialogues_. M162 S. M163 I. M164 Mo. 134 i.e. that ethics was a science of phenomena or ideas. 135 i.e. of the _independent_ existence of Matter. 136 ’bodies’—i.e. sensible things—not unrealised Matter. M168 I. &c. 137 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 13. 138 Locke died in October, 1704. 139 “without the mind,” i.e. abstracted from all active percipient life.
M171 Mo. M172 Mo. M173 P. S. 140 e.g. secondary qualities of sensible things, in which pleasure and pain are prominent. 141 e.g. primary qualities, in which pleasure and pain are latent. M174 I. M175 Mo. M176 M. 142 See Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13. § 21, ch. 17. § 4; also Bk. IV. ch. 3. § 6; also his controversy with Bishop Stillingfleet regarding the possibility of Matter thinking. With Berkeley real space is a finite creature, dependent for realisation on living percipient Spirit. M177 I. M178 Mo. M179 Mo. M180 S. 143 But what of the origination of the volition itself? _ 144 Essay_, Bk. I. ch. iv. § 18. See also Locke’s _Letters_ to Stillingfleet. 145 It is, according to Berkeley, the steady union or co-existence of a group of sense-phenomena. _ 146 Essay_, Bk. II. ch. i. § 10—where he argues for interruptions of consciousness. “Men think not always.” M186 Mo. M187 S. M188 S. M189 S. M190 S. M191 S. M192 S. M193 S. 147 In other words, the material world is wholly impotent: all activity in the universe is spiritual. 148 On the order of its four books and the structure of Locke’s _Essay_, see the Prolegomena in my edition of the _Essay_, pp. liv-lviii. 149 i.e. independent imperceptible Matter. 150 What of the earliest geological periods, asks Ueberweg? But is there greater difficulty in such instances than in explaining the existence of a table or a house, while one is merely seeing, without touching?
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