# Blackwood's Magazine/Volume 51/Issue 320/Berkeley and Idealism

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.
Among all philosophers, ancient or modern, we are acquainted with none who presents fewer vulnerable points than Bishop Berkeley. His language, it is true, has sometimes the appearance of paradox; but there is nothing paradoxical in his thoughts, and time has proved the adamantine solidity of his principles. With less sophistry than the simplest, and with more subtlety than the acutest of his contemporaries, the very perfection of his powers prevented him from being appreciated by the age in which he lived. The philosophy of that period was just sufficiently tinctured with common sense to pass current with the vulgar, while the common sense of the period was just sufficiently coloured by philosophy to find acceptance among the learned. But Berkeley, ingenious beyond the ingenuities of philosophy, and unsophisticated beyond the artlessness of common sense, saw that there was no sincerity in the terms of this partial and unstable compromise; that the popular opinions, which gave currency and credence to the theories of the day, were not the unadulterated convictions of the natural understanding; and that the theories of the day, which professed to give enlightenment to the popular opinions, were not the genuine offspring of the speculative reason. In endeavouring to construct a system in which this spurious coalition should be exposed, and in which our natural convictions and our speculative conclusions should be more firmly and enduringly reconciled, he necessarily offended both parties, even when he appeared to be giving way to the opposite prejudices of each. He overstepped the predilections both of the learned and the unlearned. His extreme subtlety was a stumbling-block in the path of the philosophers; and his extreme simplicity was more than the advocates of common sense were inclined to bargain for.
But the history of philosophy repairs any injustice which may be done to philosophy itself: and the doctrines of Berkeley, incomplete as they appear when viewed as the isolated tenets of an individual, and short as they no doubt fell, in his hands, of their proper and ultimate expression, acquire a fuller and a profounder significance when studied in connexion with the speculations which have since followed in their train. The great problems of humanity have no room to work themselves out within the limits of an individual mind. Time alone weaves a canvas wide enough to do justice to their true proportions; and a few broad strokes is all that the ​genius of any one man, however gifted, is permitted to add to the mighty and illimitable work. It is therefore no reproach to Berkeley to say that he left his labours incomplete; that he was frequently misunderstood, that his reasonings fell short of their aim, and that he perhaps failed to carry with him the unreserved and permanent convictions of any one of his contemporaries. The subsequent progress of philosophy shows how much the science of man is indebted to his researches. He certainly was the first to stamp the indelible impress of his powerful understanding on those principles of our nature, which, since his time, have brightened into imperishable truths in the light of genuine speculation. His genius was the first to swell the current of that mighty stream of tendency towards which all modern meditation flows—the great gulf-stream of Absolute Idealism.
The peculiar endowment by which Berkeley was distinguished, far beyond his predecessors and contemporaries, and far beyond almost every philosopher who has succeeded him, was the eye he had for facts, and the singular pertinacity with which he refused to be dislodged from his hold upon them. The fact, the whole fact, and nothing but the fact, was the clamorous and incessant demand of his intellect, in whatever direction it exercised itself. Nothing else, and nothing less, could satisfy his intellectual cravings. No man ever delighted less to expatiate in the regions of the occult, the abstract, the impalpable, the fanciful, and the unknown. His heart and soul clung with inseparable tenacity to the concrete realities of the universe; and with an eye uninfluenced by spurious theories, and unperverted by false knowledge, he saw directly into the very life of things. Hence he was a speculator in the truest sense of the word; for speculation is not the art of devising ingenious hypotheses, or of drawing subtle conclusions, or of plausibly manœuvring abstractions. Strictly and properly speaking, it is the power of seeing true facts, and of unseeing false ones; a simple enough accomplishment to all appearance, but nevertheless one which, considered in its application to the study of human nature, is probably the rarest, and, at any rate, has been the least successfully cultivated, of all the endowments of intelligence.
What a rare and transcendent gift this faculty is, and how highly Berkeley was endowed with it, will be made more especially apparent when we come to speak of his great discoveries on the subject of vision. In the meantime, we shall take a survey of those broader and more fully developed doctrines of Idealism to which his speculations on the eye were but the tentative herald or preliminary stepping-stone.
People who have no turn for philosophic research are apt to imagine that discussions on the subject of matter are carried on for the purpose of proving something, either pro or con, concerning the existence of this disputed entity. No wonder, then, that they should regard the study of philosophy as a most frivolous and inane pursuit. But we must be permitted to remark, that these discussions have no such object in view. Matter and its existence is a question about which they have no direct concern. They are entirely subservient to the far greater end of making us acquainted with our own nature. This is their sole and single aim; and if such knowledge could be obtained by any other means, these investigations would certainly never have encumbered the pages of legitimate inquiry. But it is not so to be obtained. The laws of thought can be discovered only by vexing, in all its bearings, the problem respecting the existence of matter. Therefore, to those interested in these laws, we need make no further apology for disturbing the dust which has gathered over the researches on this subject of our country's most profound, but most misrepresented, philosopher.
Berkeley is usually said to have denied the existence of matter; and in this allegation there is something which is true, combined with a great deal more that is false. But what is matter? That is matter, said Dr Johnson, once upon a time, kicking his foot against a stone—a rather peremptory explanation, but, at the same time, one for which Berkeley, to use the Doctor's own language, would have hugged him. The great Idealist certainly never denied the existence of matter in the sense in which Johnson understood it. ​As the touched, the seen, the heard, the smelled, and the tasted, he admitted and maintained its existence as readily and completely as the most illiterate and unsophisticated of mankind.
In what sense, then, was it that Berkeley denied the existence of matter? He denied it not in the sense in which the multitude understood it, but solely in the sense in which philosophers understood and explained it. And what was it that philosophers understood by matter? They understood by it an occult something which, in itself, is not touched, not seen, not heard, not smelled, and not tasted; a phantom-world lying behind the visible and tangible universe, and which, though constituting in their estimation the sum and substance of all reality, is yet never itself brought within the sphere or apprehension of the senses. Thus, under the direction of a misguided imagination, they fancied that the sensible qualities which we perceive in things, were copies of other occult qualities of which we have no perception; and that the whole sensible world was the unsubstantial representation of another and real world, hidden entirely from observation, and inaccessible to all our faculties.
Now it was against this metaphysical phantom of the brain, this crotchet-world of philosophers, and against it alone, that all the attacks of Berkeley were directed. The doctrine that the realities of things were not made for man, and that he must rest satisfied with their mere appearances, was regarded, and rightly regarded by him, as the parent of scepticism, with all her desolating train. He saw that philosophy, in giving up the reality immediately within her grasp, in favour of a reality supposed to be less delusive, which lay beyond the limits of experience, resembled the dog in the fable, who, carrying a piece of meat across a river, let the substance slip from his jaws, while, with foolish greed, he snatched at its shadow in the stream. The dog lost his dinner, and philosophy let go her secure hold upon the truth. He therefore sided with the vulgar, who recognise no distinction between the reality and the appearance of objects, and, repudiating the baseless hypothesis of a world existing unknown and unperceived, he resolutely maintained that what are called the sensible shows of things are in truth the very things themselves.
The precise point of this polemic between Berkeley and the philosophers, is so admirably stated in the writings of David Hume, that we feel we cannot do justice to the subject without quoting his simple and perspicuous words—premising, however, that the arch sceptic had his own good reasons for not doing full justice to his great forerunner. Nothing indeed was further from his intention than the wish that the world should know the side which, in this controversy, Berkeley had so warmly espoused. Had he furnished this information, he would have frustrated the whole scope of his own observations.
"Men," says Hume, "are carried by a natural instinct or prepossession to repose faith in their senses. When they follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images presented to the senses to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion that the one are nothing but representations of the other. But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception. So far, then, we are necessitated by reasoning to contradict or depart from the primary instincts of nature, and to embrace a new system with regard to the evidence of our senses. But here philosophy finds herself extremely embarrassed, when she would justify this new system, and obviate the cavils and objections of the sceptics. She can no longer plead the infallible and irresistible instinct of nature, for that led us to a quite different system, which is acknowledged fallible and even erroneous. And to justify this pretended philosophical system by a chain of clear and convincing argument, or even any appearance of argument, exceeds the power of all ​human capacity." Then follows the famous sceptical dilemma which was never, before or since, so clearly and forcibly put. "Do you," he continues (firstly), "follow the instinct and propensities of nature in assenting to the veracity of sense? But these lead you to believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object." (Then, secondly), "Do you disclaim' this principle in order to embrace a more rational opinion, that the perceptions are only representations of something external? You here depart from your natural propensities and more obvious sentiments; and yet are not able to satisfy your reason, which can never find any convincing argument from experience to prove that the perceptions are connected with any external objects."
Now, when a man constructs a dilemma, it is well that he should see that both of its horns are in a condition to gore to the quick any luckless opponent who may throw himself upon either of their points. But Hume had only tried the firmness and sharpness of the second horn of this dilemma; and certainly its power of punishing had been amply proved by the mercilessness with which it had lacerated, during every epoch, the body of speculative science. But he had left untried the temper of the other horn. In the triumph of his overweening scepticism, he forgot to examine this alternative antler, no doubt considering its aspect too menacing to be encountered even by the most foolhardy assailant. But the horn was far less formidable than it looked. Berkeley had already thrown himself upon it, and though he did not find it to be exactly a cushion of down, he was not one whit damaged in the encounter. "I follow," says he, embracing the first of the alternatives, "I follow the instincts and prepossessions of nature. I assent to the veracity of sense, and I believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object, and on no account whatever will I consent 'to disclaim this principle.' Your philosophy—your more rational opinions— representation—your reasonings which, you say, necessitate me to depart from my primary instincts—all these I give, without reservation, to the winds. And now, what do you make of me?" And if he had answered thus, as he would undoubtedly have done had he been alive, for such a reply is in harmony with the whole spirit of his philosophy, we do not, indeed, see what Hume, with all his subtle dialect, could have made of him. But the champion of common sense—he alone who could have foiled the prince of sceptics at his own weapons, was dead, and the cause had fallen into the hands of Dr Reid, a far easier ​customer, who, when he could not avoid both horns of the dilemma, preferred to encounter the second as apparently the less mischievous of the two.
The first great point then, on which Berkeley differed from the ordinary philosophical doctrine, and sided with the vulgar, is that he contended, with the whole force of his intellect, for the inviolable identity of objects and the appearances of objects. The external world in itself, and the external world in relation to us, was a philosophic distinction which he refused to recognise. In his creed, the substantive and the phenomenal were one. And, though he has been accused of sacrificing the substance to the shadow—and though he still continues to be charged, by every philosophical writer, with reducing all things to ideas in the mind, he was guilty of no such absurdity, at least when interpreted by the spirit, if not by the letter of his speculations. Nay, the very letter of his philosophy, in general, forestalls, and bears him up against, all the cavils of his opponents. His own words, in answer to these allegations, are the following. "No," says he, addressing his antagonist Hylas, who is advocating the common opinion of philosophers, and pressing against him the objections we have spoken of—"No, I am not for changing things into ideas, but rather ideas into things; since those immediate objects of perception, which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I take to be the real things themselves."
"Things!" rejoins Hylas; "you may pretend what you please; but it is certain you leave us nothing but the empty forms of things, the outside of which only strikes the senses."
"What you," answers Berkeley, "what you call the empty forms and outside of things, seem to me the very things themselves. . . . We both, therefore, agree in this, that we perceive only sensible forms; but herein we differ, you will have them to be empty appearances, I, real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses, I do."
So far, then, there does not appear to be much justice in the ordinary allegation, that Berkeley discredited the testimony of the senses, and denied the existence of the material universe. He merely denied the distinction between things and their appearances, and maintained that the thing was the appearance, and that the appearance was the thing. But this averment brings us into the very thick of the difficulties of the question. For does it not imply that the external world exists only in so far as it is perceived—that its esse, as Berkeley says, is percipi; that its existence is its being perceived, and that, if it were not perceived, it would not exist? At first sight the averment certainly does imply something very like all this; therefore, we must now be extremely cautious how we proceed.
We have already remarked that Berkeley, in vindicating the cause of common sense, frequently appeared to overshoot the mark, and to give vent to opinions which somewhat staggered even the simplest of the vulgar, and seemed less reconcilable with the obvious sentiments of nature, than the philosophical doctrines themselves which they were brought forward to supplant. And the opinion now stated is the most startling of these tenets, and one which, to all appearance, is calculated rather to endamage than to help the cause which it is intended to support. But, in advancing it, Berkeley knew perfectly well what he was about; and though he is far from having fenced it with all the requisite explanations—and though he did not succeed in putting it in a very clear light, or in giving it an adequate and ultimate form of expression—or in obviating all the cavils and strong objections to which it was exposed—or in sounding the depths of its almost unfathomable significance; still he felt, with the instinct of a prophet, that it was a stronghold of impregnable truth, and that in resting on it he was treading on a firm footing of fact which could never be swept away. Time, and the labours of his successors, have done for him what the span of one man's life,— ​and span too, we may say, of one man's intellect, capacious as his undoubtedly was—prevented him doing for himself.
We shall admit, then, that Berkeley holds that matter has no existence independently of mind—that mind, if entirely removed, would involve in its downfall the absolute annihilation of matter. And admitting this, we think, at the same time, that we can afford a perfectly satisfactory explanation of so strange and difficult a paradox, and resolve a knot which Berkeley was the first to loosen, but which he certainly did not explicitly untie. The question is: supposing ourselves away or annihilated, would the external world continue to exist as heretofore—or would it vanish into nonentity? But the terms of this question involve a preliminary question, which must first of all be disposed of. Mark what these terms are; they are comprised in the words, "supposing ourselves away or annihilated." But can we suppose ourselves away or annihilated? If we can—then we promise to proceed at once to give a categorical answer to the question just put. But if we cannot—then the prime condition of the question not being purified, the question itself has not been intelligibly asked; and therefore it cannot expect to receive a rational or intelligible answer. Should this be found to be the case, it will be obvious that we have been imposing upon ourselves, and have only mistakenly imagined ourselves to be asking a question which in truth we are not asking.
Can we, then, conceive ourselves removed or annihilated? is this thought a possible or conceivable supposition? Let us try it by the test of experience, by hypothetically answering the original question, in the first place, in the affirmative, and by saying that, although we conceive ourselves and all percipient beings annihilated, still the great universe of matter would maintain its place as firmly and as faithfully as before. We believe, then, that were there no eye actually present to behold them, the sky would be as bright, and the grass as green, as if they were gazed upon by ten million witnesses: that, though there were no ear present to hear them, the thunder would roar as loudly, and the sea sound as tempestuously as before; and that the firm-set earth, though now deserted by man, would remain as solid as when she resisted the pressure of all the generations of her children. But do we not see, that, in holding this belief, we have violated, at the very outset, the essential conditions of our question? We bound ourselves to annihilate the percipient in thought, to keep him ideally excluded from the scene, and having done this, we professed ourselves ready to believe and maintain that the universe would preserve its place and discharge its functions precisely the same as heretofore. But in thinking of the bright sky, and of the green grass, and of the loud thunder, and of the solid earth, we have not kept him excluded from the scene, but have brought back in thought the very percipient being whom we supposed, but most erroneously supposed, we had abstracted from his place in the creation. For what is this brightness and this greenness but an ideal vision, which cannot be thought of unless man's eyesight be incarnated with it in one inseparable conception? Nature herself, we may say, has so beaten up together sight and colour, that man's faculty of abstraction is utterly powerless to dissolve the charmed union. The two (supposed) elements are not two, but only one, for they cannot be separated in thought even by the craft of the subtlest analysis. It is God's synthesis, and man cannot analyze it. And further, what is the loud thunder, and what is the sonnding sea, without the ideal restoration of the hearing being whom we professed to have thought of as annihilated? And finally, what is the solidity of the rocks and mountains but that which is conceived to respond to the touch and tread of some human percipient, ideally restored to traverse their unyielding and everlasting heights?
Perhaps the reader may here imagine that we are imposing a quibble both on ourselves and him, and that though we may not be able to conceive ourselves ideally removed, yet that we are perfectly able to conceive ourselves actually removed out of the universe, leaving its existence unaltered and entire; but a small degree of reflection may satisfy him that this distinction will not help him in the least. For, what is this universe which the reader, after conceiving himself, as he thinks, actually away from it, has left behind him unmutilated and entire? We ask him to tell us something about it. But when he attempts to do so, he will ​invariably find the constitution of his nature to be such, that, instead of being able to tell us anything about it—he is compelled to revert to a description of his own human perceptions of it, perceptions which, however, ought to be left altogether out of the account; for what he is bound to describe to us is the universe itself, abstracted from all those impressions of it which were supposed to be non-existent. But this is what it is impossible for him to describe. A man declares that if he were annihilated the universe would still exist. But what universe would still exist? The bright, the green, the solid, the sapid, the odoriferous, the extended, and the figured universe would still exist. Certainly it would. But this catalogue comprises the series of your perceptions of the universe, and this is not what we want; this is precisely what you undertook not to give us. In mixing up the thought of these perceptions with the universe, professedly thought to exist independently of them, you have transgressed the stipulated terms of the question—the conclusion from which is, that, in supposing yourself annihilated, you did not suppose yourself annihilated—you took yourself back into being in the very same breath in which you puffed yourself away into nonentity.
We must here beg to guard ourselves most particularly against the imputation of having said, that, in thinking of the external universe, man thinks only of his own perceptions of it; or that, when he has it actually present before him, he is conscious only of the impressions which it makes upon him. This is a doctrine very commonly espoused by the idealistic writers. It is a tempting trap into which they have all been too prone to fall; and Berkeley himself—and a man as great as he—Fichte, have not altogether escaped the snare. But it cuts up the very roots of genuine speculative idealism, and controverts the first and strongest principle on which it rests. This principle, we may remind the reader, is that the thing is the appearance, and that the appearance is the thing; that the object is our perception of it, and that our perception of it is the object; in short, that these two are convertible ideas, or, more properly speaking, are one and the same idea. But this use of the word only implies that we possess a faculty of abstraction, in virtue of which we are able to distinguish between objects and our perceptions of objects, between things and the appearances of things—a doctrine which, if admitted (and admit it we must, if we use the word only in the application alluded to above), would leave this as the distinction between realism and idealism—that whereas the former separates objects from our perceptions of them for the purpose of preserving the objects, the latter separates the two for the purpose of annihilating the objects. And the truth is, that this is precisely the distinction between spurious realism and spurious idealism. They both found upon the assumed capability of making this abstraction, only they differ, as we have said, herein, that the one makes it in order to preserve the objects, and the other in order to destroy them. But genuine idealism, looking only to the fact, and instructed by the unadulterated dictates of common sense, denies altogether the capability of making the abstraction—denies that we can separate in thought objects and perceptions at all; and hence this system has nothing whatever to do either with the preservation or with the destruction of the material universe: and hence, too, it is identical, in its length, and in its breadth, and in its whole significance, with genuine unperverted realism, which just as stoutly refuses to acknowledge the operation of this pretended faculty. Let us beware, then, of maintaining that man, in his intercourse with the external universe, has only his own perceptions or impressions to deal with. It was this unwary averment which gave rise to the systems, on the one hand, of subjective idealism, with all its hampering absurdities; and, on the other hand, of hypothetical realism, with all its unwarrantable and unsatisfying conclusions.
To return to our question. It seems certain, then, that the question—Would matter exist if man were annihilated?—cannot be intelligibly asked, when we consider it as answered in the affirmative, because it is clear that its terms cannot be complied with. Conceiving the universe to remain entire, we cannot conceive ourselves as abstracted or removed from its sphere. We think ourselves back, in the very moment in which we think ourselves away.
But, in the second place, suppose that we attempt to answer the question ​in the negative, and to maintain that the material universe would no longer exist if we and all percipient beings were annihilated: how will this hypothetical conclusion help us out of the difficulty which hampers the very enunciation of the problem? We are aware that this is the favourite conclusion of idealism as commonly understood, and it is a conclusion not altogether uncountenanced by the reasonings of Berkeley himself. But still the form of idealism which espouses any such conclusion, is unguarded and shortsighted in the extreme. The ampler and more wary system refuses to have anything to do with it; for this system sees that, when the question is attempted to be answered in the negative, the conditions of its statement are not one whit more faithfully discharged than they were when a reply was supposed to be given to it in the affirmative. For let us try the point. Let us say that, man being annihilated, there would no longer be any external universe; that is to say, that there would be universal colourlessness, universal silence, universal impalpability, universal tastelessness, and so forth. But universal colourlessness, universal silence, universal impalpability, universal tastelessness, and so forth, are just as much phenomena requiring, in thought, the presence of an ideal percipient endowed with sight and hearing and taste and touch, as their more positive opposites were phenomena requiring such a percipient. Non-existence itself is a phenomenon requiring a percipient present to apprehend it, just as much as existence is. No external world is no more no external world without an ideal percipient, than an external world is an external world without an ideal percipient. Therefore, in saying that there would be no external world if man were annihilated, we involve ourselves in precisely the same incapacity of rationally enunciating the question as we did in the former case. We are compelled to bring back in thought our very percipient selves, whom we declared we had conceived of as annihilated. In neither case can we adhere to the terms of the question; in neither case can we construe it intelligibly to our own minds; and therefore the question is unanswerable—not because it cannot be answered, but because it cannot be asked.
Now for the great truth to which these observations are the precursor. We have already taken occasion to remark that discussions of the kind we are engaged in, are carried on, not for the sake of any conclusion we may arrive at with respect to the existence or the non-existence of the material universe, but solely for the sake of the laws of human thought which may be evolved in the course of the research. Now, the conclusion to which we are led by the train of our present speculation is this—that no question and no proposition whatever can for a moment, be entertained which involves the supposition of our annihilation. It is an irreversible law of human thought, that no such idea can be construed to the mind by any effort of the understanding, or rationally articulated by any power of language. We cannot, and we do not think it; we only think that we think it. And upon the basis of this law, and upon it alone, independently of revelation, rests the great doctrine of our immortality. The fear of death is a salutary fear, and the thought of death is a salutary thought, not because we can really think the thought or really entertain the fear, but only because we imagine that we can do so. This imagination of ours (we say it with the deepest reverence) is a gracious imposition practised upon us by the Author of our nature, for the wisest and most benevolent of purposes. We appear to ourselves to be able to realize the thought and the fear, and this it is which drives us back so irresistibly into the busy press of life, and weds us so passionately to its rosy forms: we are not able to realize the thought or the fear, and this it is which makes us secretly to rejoice "in the sublime attractions of the grave." Wo to us, if we could indeed think of death! In the real thought of it we should be already dead, but in the mere illusive imagination of the thought we are already an immortal race. We have nothing to wait for; eternity is even now within us, and time, with all its vexing troubles, is no more.
But to return to Berkeley. What then is the precise position in which he ​has left the question respecting man and the material universe? He maintains, as we have said, that matter depends entirely for its existence upon mind. And in this opinion we cordially agree with him. But we must be allowed to widen very amply the basis of his principle, otherwise, on account of the doctrine thus professed, we feel well assured that our friends would be disposed to call our sanity in question. Berkeley's doctrine amounts to this, that there are trees, for instance, and houses in the world, because they are either seen, and so forth, or thought of as seen, and so forth. But here his groundwork is far too narrow, for it seems to imply this, that there would be no trees and no houses unless they were seen, or thought of as seen. It is therefore exposed to strong objections and misconstructions. The realist may laugh it to scorn by saying, "Then, I suppose, there are no trees and no houses when there is no man's mind either seeing or thinking of them!" But broaden the basis of the idealistic principle, and see how innocuous this objection falls to the ground; affirm that in the case of every phenomenon, that is, even in the case of the phenomenon of the absence of all phenomena, a subject-mind must be thought of as incarnated with the phenomenon, and the cavil is at once obviated and disarmed. The realist expects the idealist, in virtue of his principle, taken in its narrower significance, to admit that when the percipient neither sees, nor thinks of seeing, trees and houses, there would be no such thing as these objects. But the idealist, instructed by his principle in its wider significance, replies, "No, my good sir; no-trees and no-houses i.e., space empty of trees and houses is a phenomenon, just as much as trees and houses themselves are phenomena: and as such it can no more exist without being seen or thought of as seen than any other phenomenon can. Therefore, if I were to admit that, in the total absence and oblivion of the percipient, there would be no-trees and no-houses in a particular place, I should be guilty of the very error I am most anxious to avoid, and which it is the aim of my whole system to guard people against committing—I should merely be substituting other phenomena in lieu of those which had disappeared—I should merely be placing the phenomenon of no-object in the room of the phenomenon of object, and, in maintaining (as you seem to expect I should) that the former might exist without being seen or thought of as seen, while the latter might not so exist, I should be giving a direct contradiction to my whole speculation: I should be chargeable with holding that some phenomena are independent and irrespective of a percipient mind either really or ideally present to them, and that others are not; whereas my great doctrine is, that no phenomena, not even, as I have said, the phenomenon of the absence of all phenomena, are thus independent or irrespective." It appears to us that Berkeley's principle requires to be enlarged in some such terms as these; and being so, we think that it is then proof against all cavils and objections whatsoever. It is perfectly true, that the existence of matter depends entirely on the presence, that is, either the real or the ideal presence, of a conscious mind. But it does not follow from this that there would be no-matter if no such conscious mind were present, or thought of as present, because no-matter depends just as much upon the real or the ideal presence of a conscious mind. Thus are spiked all the cannon of false realism; thus all her trenches are obliterated, all her supplies cut off, and all her resources rendered unserviceable. Thus, too, we may add, is the flank of false idealism turned, and her forces driven from their ground, while absolute real idealism, or the complete conciliation of common sense and philosophy, remains in triumphant possession of the field.
Now we think that this mode of meeting the question respecting mind and matter, and of clearing its difficulties, is infinitely preferable to that resorted to by some philosophers, in which they make a distinction between what they call the primary, and what they call the secondary qualities of matter; holding that the latter are purely subjective affections, or impressions existing only in ourselves; and that the former are purely objective elements, constituting the very existence of things. As this is a very prevalent and powerfully supported opinion, we cannot pass it by without some notice. But in our exposure of its futility, we shall be very brief. All the secondary qualities, colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat, hardness, everything, in short, which is an affection of sense, may be generalized at one sweep into our mere knowledge of things. But the primary qualities, which are usually ​restricted to extension and figure, and which constitute, it is said, the objective or real essence of things, and which are entirely independent of us, into what shall they be generalized? Into what but into this? into the knowledge of something, which exists in things over and above our mere knowledge of things. It is plain enough that we cannot generalize them into pure objective existence in itself; we can only generalize them into a knowledge of pure objective existence. But such a knowledge, that is to say, a knowledge of something existing in things, over and above our mere knowledge of them, is not one whit less our knowledge—and is not one whit more their existence, than the other more subjective knowledge designated by the word mere. Our knowledge of extension and figure is just as little these real qualities themselves, as our affection of colour is objective colour itself. Just as little we say, and just as much. You—(we suppose ourselves addressing an imaginary antagonist,) you hold that our knowledge of the secondary qualities is not these qualities themselves; but we ask you—Is, then, our knowledge of the primary qualities these qualities themselves? This you will scarcely maintain; but perhaps, you will say, take away the affection of colour, and the colour no longer exists; and we retort upon you—take away the knowledge of extension, and the extension no longer exists. This you will peremptorily deny, and we deny it just as peremptorily; but why do both of us deny it? Just because both of us have subreptitiously restored the knowledge of extension in denying that extension itself would be annihilated. The knowledge of extension is extension, and extension is the knowledge of extension. Perhaps, in continuation, you will say, we have our own ideas, the secondary qualities are in truth our own ideas—but that besides these we have an idea of something existing externally to us which is not an idea—and that this something forms the aggregate of the primary qualities: Admitted. But is this idea of something which is not an idea, in any degree less an idea than the other ideas spoken of? We should like to be informed in what respect it is so. Depend upon it, the primary qualities must be held to stand on precisely the same footing as the secondary, in so far as they give us any information respecting real objective existences. In accepting the one class the mind may be passive, and in accepting the other class she may be active; but that distinction will not bring us one hair's-breadth nearer to our mark. If the one class is subjective, so is the other; if the one class is objective, so is the other; and the conciliating truth is, that both classes are at once subjective and objective. In fine, we thus break the neck of the distinction. There is a world as it exists in relation to us: true. And there is the same world as it exists in itself, and in non-relation to us: true also. But the world as it exists in relation to us, is just one relation in which the world exists in relation to us; and the world as it exists in itself, and in non-relation to us, is just another relation in which the world exists in relation to us.
Some readers may perhaps imagine, that in making this strong statement we are denying the real objective existence, the primary qualities, the noumena, as they are sometimes called, of things. But we are doing no such thing. Such a denial would lead us at once into the clueless labyrinths of subjective idealism, which is a system we altogether repudiate. All that we deny is the distinction between the primary and the secondary qualities, between the noumena and the phenomena; and we deny this distinction, because we deny the existence of the faculty (the faculty of abstraction) by means of which we are supposed to be capable of making it. This certainly is no denial, but rather an affirmation, of the primary qualities of real objective existence, and it places us upon the secure and impregnable ground of real objective idealism—a system in which knowledge and existence are identical and convertible ideas.
We shall now proceed to make a few remarks on the work which stands at the head of the present article, Mr Bailey's "Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision," in which he endeavours "to show the unsoundness of that celebrated speculation."
Mr Bailey is favourably known to the literary portion of the community as the author of some ingenious "Essays on the formation and publication of opinions;" and he is doubtless a very clever man. But in the work before us, we must say that he has undertaken a task far beyond his powers, and that he has most signally failed—not because ​these powers are in themselves feeble, but because they have been misdirected against a monument—ære perennius—of solid and everlasting truth. The ability displayed in the execution of his work is immeasurably greater than the success with which it has been crowned.
Therefore, when we say that, in our opinion, Mr Bailey's work has been anything but successful in its main object, we can at the same time conscientiously recommend a careful perusal of it to those who are interested in the studies of which it treats. Its chief merit appears to us to consist in this, that it indicates with sufficient clearness the difference between the entire views advocated by Berkeley himself on the subject of vision, and the partial views which it has suited the purposes or the ability of his more timid but less cautious followers to adopt. We shall immediately have occasion to speak of the respects in which the disciples have deserted the principles of the master; but let us first of all state the precise question at issue. There is not much fault to be found with the terms in which Mr Bailey has stated it, and therefore we cannot do better than make use of his words.
"Outness," (says he, p. 13,) "distance, real magnitude, and real figure, are not perceived (according to Berkeley's theory) immediately by sight; but, in the first place, by the sense of feeling or touch; and it is from experience alone that our visual sensations come to suggest to us these exclusively tangible properties. We, in fact, see originally nothing but various coloured appearances, which are felt as internal sensations; and we learn that they are external, and also what distances, real magnitudes, and real figures these coloured appearances indicate, just as we learn to interpret the meaning of the written characters of a language. Thus a being gifted with sight, but destitute of the sense of touch, would have no perception of outness, distance, real magnitude, and real figure. Such is Berkeley's doctrine stated in the most general terms."
We beg the reader particularly to notice, that the distance and outness here spoken of are the distance and outness of an object from the eye of the beholder; for Mr Bailey imagines, as we shall have occasion to show, that Berkeley holds that another species of outness, namely, the outness of one visible thing from other visible things, is not immediately perceived by sight. This latter opinion, however, is certainly not maintained by Berkeley, and the idea that it is so, is, we think, the origin of the greater part of Mr Bailey's mistakes. The only other remark which we think it necessary to make on this exposition is, that we slightly object to the words, which we have marked in italics—"in the first place"—for they seem to imply that outness, &c., are perceived by sight in the second or in the last place. But Berkeley holds, and in this opinion we agree with him—that they are never perceived at all by the sense of sight, properly so called. The same objection applies to the word "originally," where it is said that we "see originally nothing but various coloured appearances, for it seems to imply that ultimately we come to see more than various coloured appearances. But this, following Berkeley's footsteps, we deny that we ever do. In other respects we think that the statement is perfectly correct and unobjectionable.
As a further statement and abstract of the theory, Mr Bailey proceeds to quote Berkeley's own words, in which he says "that distance or outness" (i.e., outness from the eye) "is neither immediately of itself perceived by sight, nor yet apprehended and judged of by lines and angles, or anything that hath a necessary connexion with it; but that it is only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and sensations attending vision, which, in their own nature, have no manner of similitude or relation either with distance or things placed at a distance. But, by a connexion taught us by experience, they (viz., visible ideas and visual sensations) come to signify and suggest them (viz., distance, and things placed at a distance) to us after the same manner that words of any language suggest the ideas they are made to stand for. Insomuch that a man born blind, and afterwards made to see, would not, at first sight, think the things he saw to be without his mind, or at any distance from him." Such is an outline of the theory which Mr Bailey undertakes to controvert.
In laying the groundwork of his objections, he first of all proceeds—and we think this the most valuable observation in his book—to point out the distinction between two separate opinions which may be entertained with regard to the outness of visible objects. The one opinion is, that sight is unable ​to determine that visible objects are external, or at any distance at all from the eye: the other opinion is, that sight, though gifted with the capacity of determining that all visible objects are at some distance from the eye, is yet unable to determine the relative distances at which they stand towards it and towards one another. In the words of Mr Bailey, "Whether objects are seen to be external, or at some distance, is one question altogether distinct from the inquiry—whether objects are seen by the unassisted vision to be at different distances from the percipient." He then adds, "yet Berkeley uniformly assumes them to be the same, or, at least, takes it for granted that they are to be determined by the same arguments." This is true enough in one sense, but Mr Bailey should have considered, that if Berkeley did not make the discrimination, it was because he conceived that the opinion which maintained the absolute non-externality of visible objects, i.e., of objects in relation to the organ of sight, was the only question properly at issue. The remark, however, is valuable, because Berkeley's followers, Reid, Stewart, and others, have supposed that the other question was the one to be grappled with; and, accordingly, they have not ventured beyond maintaining that the eye is unable to judge of the different degrees of distance at which objects may be placed from it. But the thoroughgoing opinion is the true one, and the followers have deserted their leader only to err, or to discover truths of no scientific value or significance whatever.
Let us now consider the general object which Berkeley had in view, and determine the proper point of sight from which his "theory of vision" should be regarded. We have already remarked that it was but the stepping-stone or prelude to those maturer and more extended doctrines of idealism in which his genius afterwards expatiated, and which have made his name famous throughout every corner of the philosophic world; and which we have endeavoured to do justice to in the preceding pages, giving a more enlarged and unobjectionable construction to their principle, and clearing, we think, at least some of the difficulties which beset his statement of it. His theory of vision may be called an essay on the idealism of the eye, and of the eye alone. It is idealism restricted to the consideration of this sense, and is the first attempt that ever was made to embody a systematic and purely speculative critique of the facts of seeing. We use the words purely speculative in contradistinction from geometrical and physiological critiques of the same sense; of which there were abundance in all languages, but which, proceeding on mathematical or anatomical data, which are entirely tactual, had, in Berkeley's opinion, nothing whatever to do with the science of optics, properly so called. Optics, as hitherto treated, that is to say, as established on mathematical principles, appeared to him to be a false science of vision; for this reason, that the blind were found to be just as capable of understanding and appreciating it, as those were who could see. Hence he concluded, and most justly, that the true facts of sight had been left out of the estimate, because these were, and necessarily must be, facts which no blind person could form any conception of. He accordingly determined to construct, or at least to pave the way towards the construction of, a truer theory of vision, in which these—the proper and peculiar facts of the sense—should be taken exclusively into account: and hence, passing from the mathematical and physiological method, he took up a different, and what we have called a purely speculative ground—a ground which cannot be rendered intelligible or conceivable to the blind, inasmuch as they are deficient in the sense which alone furnishes the data that are to be dealt with. The test by which Berkeley tried optical science was—can the blind be brought to understand, or to form any conception of it? If they can, then the science must be false, for it ought to be a science of experiences from which they are entirely debarred. We should bear in mind then, first of all, that his object in constructing his theory of vision was, leaving all geometrical and anatomical considerations out of the question, to apprehend the proper and peculiar facts of sight—the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts, of that particular and isolated sense.
Now we think that Mr Bailey's leading error consists in his not having remarked the unswerving devotedness with which Berkeley follows out this aim; and hence, having failed to appreciate the singleness and unrelaxing perseverance of his purpose, he has consequently failed to appreciate the ​great success which has attended his endeavours. He has not duly attended or done justice to the pertinacity with which Berkeley adheres to the facts of vision cut off from all the other knowledge of which our other senses are the inlets. In studying the science of vision, the eye of his mind has not been "single;" and hence his mind has not been "full of light." He does not himself appear to have experimentally verified the pure facts of the virgin eye as yet unwedded to the touch. He has not formed to himself a clear conception of the absolute distinction between these two senses and their respective objects—a distinction upon the clear apprehension of which the whole intelligibility of Berkeley's assertions and reasonings depends.
In proof of what we aver, let us turn to the consideration of one fact which Berkeley has largely insisted on as the fundamental fact of the science. Colour, says the Bishop, is the proper and only object of vision, and the outness of this object (i.e., its outness from the eye) is not perceived by sight. Upon which Mr Bailey, disputing the truth of the latter fact, remarks, "on turning to Berkeley's essay, we find literally no arguments which specifically apply to this question; nothing but bare assertion repeated in various phrases." This is undoubtedly too true—and perhaps Berkeley is to be condemned for having left his assertion so destitute of the support of reasoning. But he saw that he had stated a fact which he himself had verified, and perhaps he did not think it necessary to prove it to those who had eyes to see it for themselves; perhaps he was unable to prove it. But, at any rate, Mr Bailey's complaint shows that he is deficient in that speculative sense which enables a man to see that to be a fact which is a fact, and to explicate its reason, even when no rationale of it has been given by him who originally promulgated it. This reason we shall now endeavour to supply. Let us ask, then—what do we mean when we say that a colour is seen to be external? We mean that it is seen to be external to some other colour which is before us. Thus we say that white is external to black, because we see it to be so. It is only when we can make a comparison between two or more colours that we can say that they are seen to be external—i.e., external to each other. But if there were no colour but one before us, not being able to make any comparison, we should be unable by sight to form any judgment at all about its outness, or to say that we saw it to be out of anything. For what would it be seen to be out of? Out of the eye or the mind, you say. But you do not see the colour of the eye or of the mind—and therefore you have no ground whatever afforded you on which, instructed by the sense of sight, you can form your judgment. You have no other colour with which to compare it, and therefore, as a comparison with other colours is necessary before you can say that any one of them is seen to be external, you cannot predicate visible outness of it at all. Nor does it make any difference how numerous soever the colours before you may be. You can predicate outness of them all in relation to each other; but you can predicate nothing of the sort with regard to any of them in relation to your eye or to your mind, for you have no colour of your eye or mind before you with which you can compare them, and aid of which, in virtue of that comparison, you can say that they visibly exist. Doubtless, if you saw the colour of your own eye, you could then say that other visible objects, that is, other colours, were seen to be external to it. But, as you never see this, you have nothing left for it but even now to accept the fact as Berkeley laid it down, coupled with the reasoning by which we have endeavoured to explain and expiscate it. But the touch! Does not the touch enable us to form a judgment with respect to the outness of objects from the eye? Undoubtedly it does—as Berkeley everywhere contends. But the only question at present at issue is: does the sight?—and the fact established beyond all question by the foregoing reasoning is, that it does not.
What makes people so reluctant and unwilling to accept this fact is, that they suppose we are requiring them to believe that visible objects, that is, colours, are not seen to be external to their own visible bodies; that, for instance, a colour, at the other end of the room, is not seen to be external to their hand, or the point of their own nose. They think that when such a colour is said not to be seen to be external to the eye, that we are maintaining that they must see it to be in close proximity to their own visible nose or eyebrows. But, in truth, we are maintaining no position so completely at variance with the fact, and ​we are requiring of them no such extravagant and impossible belief. As well might they conceive that we are inclined to maintain that the chairs are not seen to be external to the table. Now, on the contrary, we hold it to be an undeniable fact (and so does Berkeley,) that all visible objects are seen to be external, and at a distance from one another; that objects at the end of the street, or at the end of the great ranges of astronomy, are all seen to be very far removed from the visible features of our own faces; but we deny that these objects, and our own noses among the number, are seen to be external, or at any distance at all from our own sight; simply for this reason, that our sight is unable to see itself. How can we see a thing to be at any distance whatsoever from a thing which we don't see? Suppose a person were privately to bury a guinea somewhere, and then, pointing to St Paul's, were to ask a friend, "how far is my guinea buried from that cathedral?" What judgment could the person so interrogated form—what answer could he give? obviously none. The guinea might be buried under St Paul's foundation—it might be buried at Timbuctoo. There are no data furnished, from which a judgment may be formed, and a reply given. In the same way, with regard to sight and its objects; the requisite data for a judgment are not supplied to this sense. One datum is given, the visible object; but the other necessary datum is withheld, namely, the visibleness of the organ itself. Therefore, by sight, we can form no judgment at all with respect to the distance at which objects may be placed from the organ; or perhaps it would be more proper to say, that we do form an obscure judgment, to the effect that all visible objects lie within the sphere of the eye; and that where the object is, there also is the organ which apprehends it. Or, to repeat the proof in somewhat different words, we `affirm, that before sight can judge of the distance of objects from itself, or that they are distant at all, it must first localize both itself and the object. But it can only localize these two by seeing them, for sight can do nothing except by seeing. But it cannot see both of them; it can only see one of them. Therefore, it cannot localize both of them, and hence the conclusion is driven irresistibly home, that it can form no judgment that they are in any degree distant from one another.
Touching this point Mr Bailey puts forth an averment, which really makes us blush for the speculative capacity of our country. Speaking of the case of the young man who was couched by Cheselden, he remarks, in support of his own doctrine, that visible objects are seen to be external to the sight; and in commenting on the young man's statement, that "he thought all objects whatever touched his eyes as what he felt did his skin," he remarks, we say, upon this, that it clearly proves "visible objects appeared external even to his body, to say nothing of his mind." External even to his body! Surely Mr Bailey did not expect that the young man was to perceive visible things to be in his visible body. Surely he does not think that the hands of Berkeley's argument would have been strengthened by any such preposterous revelation. Surely he is not such a crude speculator as to imagine that the mind is in the body, like the brain, the liver, or the lungs; and that to bear out Berkeley's theory, it was necessary that the visible universe, of which the visible body is a part, should be seen to be in this mind internal again in its turn to the visible body. Truly this is ravelling the hank of thought with a vengeance.
Berkeley's doctrine with regard to the outness of visible objects, we would state to be this:—All these objects are directly seen to be external to each other, but none of them are seen or can be seen, for the reason above given, to be external to the eye itself. He holds that the knowledge that they are external to the eye—that they possess a real and tangible outness independent of the sight—is entirely brought about by the operation of another sense—the sense of touch. He further maintains that the tactual sensations having been repeatedly experienced along with the visual sensations, which yield no such judgment, these visual sensations come at length of themselves, and in the absence of the tactual impressions, to suggest objects as external to the eye, that is, as endowed with real and tangible outness; and so perfect is the association, that the seer seems to originate out of his own native powers, a knowledge for which he is wholly indebted to his brother the toucher.
Now Mr Bailey views the doctrine in a totally different light. According to him Berkeley's doctrine is, that not only the tangible outness of objects, or ​their distance from the eye, is not immediately perceived by sight, but that not even their visible outness or their distance from one another is so perceived. He thinks that, according to Berkeley, the latter kind of outness is suggested by certain "internal feelings"—Heaven knows what they are—no less than the former. He does not see that this "internal feeling," as he calls it, is itself the very sensation of visible outness as above explained. He seems to think that, according to Berkeley, the eye does not even see visible things to be out of one another—out of our visible bodies for example; but that the disintrication of them is accomplished by a process of suggestion. No wonder that he made dreadful havoc with the Bishop's doctrine of association. The following is his statement of that doctrine:—
"Outness is not immediately perceived by sight, but only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and sensations attending vision. Berkeley (he continues) thus in fact represents the visual perception of objects as external, to be an instance of the association of ideas. If, however, he had dearly analyzed the process in question, he would have perceived the fallacy into which he had fallen. It is impossible that the law of mind, by which one thing suggests another, should produce any such effect as the one ascribed to it. Suppose we have an internal feeling A, which has never been attended with any sensation or perception of outness, and that it is experienced at the same time with the external sensation B. After A and B have been thus experienced together, they will, according to the law of association, suggest each other. When the internal feeling occurs, it will bring to mind the external one, and vice versa. But this is all. Let there be a thousand repetitions of the internal feeling with the external sensation, and all that can be effected will be, that the one will invariably suggest the other. Berkeley's theory, however, demands more than this. He maintains that because the internal feeling has been found to be accompanied by the external one, it will when experienced alone, not only suggest the external sensation, but absolutely be regarded as external itself, or rather be converted into the perception of an external object. It may be asserted, without hesitation, that there is nothing in the whole operations of the human mind analogous to such a process."
There certainly is nothing in the mental operations analogous to such a process, and just as little is there anything in the whole writings of Berkeley analogous to such a doctrine. Throughout this statement, the fallacy and the mistake are entirely on the side of Mr Bailey. The "outness" which he here declares Berkeley to hold as suggested, he evidently imagines to be visible outness: whereas Berkeley distinctly holds that visible outness is never suggested by sight at all, or by any "visible ideas or sensations attending vision," and that it is only tangible outness which is so suggested. "Sight" (says Berkeley, Works, vol. i. 147) "doth not suggest or in any way inform us that the visible object we immediately perceive exists at a distance." What Berkeley maintains is, that vision with its accompanying sensations suggests to us another kind of outness and of objects which are invisible, and which always remain invisible, but which may be perceived by touch, provided we go through the process necessary for such a perception. He admits the immediate and unsuggested sensation of visible outness in the sense explained above—that all visible things are directly seen to be external to our visible bodies, only denying (and we think we have assigned good grounds for this denial) that any of them are seen to be external to our own invisible sight. He maintains that this direct sensation of visible outness comes through experience to suggest the perception of a different, namely, of a tangible and invisible, outness. He asserts (we shall here adopt Mr Bailey's language, with some slight variation giving our view of the case,) that in consequence of there having been a thousand repetitions of the sensation of visible outness with the sensation of tangible outness, the one will invariably suggest the other. And his theory demands no more than this. He never maintains that because the sensation of visible outness—already explained, we beg the reader to keep in mind, as the sensation of visible objects as external to one another, but not as external to the sense perceiving them—he never maintains that because this sensation has been found to be accompanied by the sensation of tangible outness, that it will, when experienced alone, not only suggest the tangible outness, but absolutely be regarded as tangible itself, or be converted into the perception of a tangible object. He ​never, we say, maintains anything like this, as Mr Bailey represents him to do. It may therefore be asserted with hesitation, that there is nothing in the whole history of philosophical criticism analogous to the blunder of his reviewer. Nothing is easier than to answer a disputant when we confute, as his, a theory of our making.
Berkeley informs us, that visual sensation—that is, the direct perception of the outness of visible things with regard to one another, having been frequently accompanied with sensations of their tactual outness and tactual magnitudes, comes at length, through the law of association, to suggest to us that they are external also to the eye, although we never see them to be so; and to suggest this to us, of course as the word suggestion implies—in the absence of the tactual sensations. Thus the visual sensations, which, in the absence of the tactual sensations, call up the tactual sensations, resemble a language, the words of which, in the absence of things, call up the ideas of things. Thus the word rose, in the absence of a rose, suggests the idea of that flower; and thus a visible rose, not seen as external to the eye, does, in the absence of a tangible or touched rose, suggest a tangible or touched rose as an object external to the eye. "But," says Mr Bailey, "this comparison completely fails. To make it tally we must suppose that the audible name, by suggesting the visible flower, becomes itself a visible object." What! does he then suppose that Berkeley holds that the visible flower, by suggesting the tangible flower, becomes itself a tangible object? To make Mr Bailey's objection tell, Berkeley must be represented as holding this monstrous opinion, which he most assuredly never did.
Our limits prevent us from following either Berkeley or his reviewer through the further details of this speculation. But we think that we have pointed out with sufficient distinctness Mr Bailey's fundamental blunder, upon which the whole of his supposed refutation of Berkeley is built, and which consists in this: that he conceives the Bishop to maintain that the perception of visible outness, or the distance of objects among themselves, is as much the result of suggestion as the knowledge of tangible outness, or the distance of objects from the organ of sight. He seems to think Berkeley's doctrine to be this: that our visual sensations are mere internal feelings, in which there is originally and directly no kind of outness at all involved, not even the outness of one visible thing from another visible thing; and that this outness is in some way or other suggested to the mind by these internal feelings. But, says he, Berkeley's theory demands more than this: for the internal feeling not only suggests the idea of the external object, but by doing so suggests the idea, or, if I may use figure, infuses the perception of its own externality." And he cannot understand how this result should be produced by any process of association. But neither does Berkeley's theory demand that it should; for this "internal feeling" is itself, as we have already remarked, the direct perception of visible outness,—that is to say, the outness of objects in relation, for instance, to our own visible bodies; and so far there is no suggestion at all in the case, nor any occasion for any suggestion. Suggestion comes into play when we judge that, over and above the outness of objects viewed in relation to themselves and our visible bodies, there is another kind of outness connected with these objects, namely, their outness in relation to the organ itself which perceives them; and this suggestion takes place only after we have learned, through the experience of touch, to localize that organ. Having thus indicated the leading mistake which lies at the root of Mr Bailey's attempted refutation, we shall bid adieu both to him and Berkeley, and shall conclude by hazarding one or two speculations of our own, in support of the conclusions of the latter.
How do we come to judge that objects are external to the eye as distinguished from our perception, that they are external to one another—and how do we come to judge that they possess a real magnitude quite different from their visible magnitude? These are the two fundamental questions of the Berkeleian optics; and in endeavouring to answer them, we must go to work experimentally, and strive to apprehend the virgin facts of seeing, uncombined with any other facts we may have become acquainted with from other sources. Let us suppose, then, that we are merely an eye, which, however, as it is not yet either tangible or localized, we shall call the soul the seer. Let this seer be provided with a due complement of objects, which are mere ​colours in the form of houses, clouds, rivers, woods, and mountains. Everything is excluded but sight and colours. Nothing but pure seeing is the order of the day. Now, here it is obvious that the seer must pronounce itself or its organ to be precisely commensurate in extent with the things seen. It may either suppose the diameter of the landscape to be conformed to the size of its diameter, or it may suppose its diameter conformed to the size of the landscape. It is quite immaterial which it does, but one or other of these judgments it must form. The seer and the seen must be pronounced to be coextensive with one another. No judgment to a contrary effect—no judgment that the organ is infinitely disproportioned to its objects, is as yet possible. Well, we shall suppose that these objects keep shifting up and down within the sphere of the organ, growing larger and smaller, fainter and brighter in colour, and so forth. Still no new result takes place: there is still nothing but simple seeing. Until at length one particular bifurcated phenomenon, with black extremities at one end and lateral appendages, each of them terminating in a somewhat broad instrument, with five points of rather a pinky hue, begins to stir. Ha! what's this? This is something new—this is something very different from seeing. One of the objects within the sight, one of our own visual phenomena has evolved, by all that's wonderful! a new set of sensations entirely different from anything connected with vision. We will call them muscular sensations. As this is the only one of all the visual phenomena which has evolved these new sensations, the attention of the seer is naturally directed to its operations. Let us then attend to it particularly. It moves into close proximity with other visual objects, and here another new and startling series of sensations ensues—sensations which our seer never found to arise when any of the other visual phenomena came together. We will call these our sensations of touch. The attention is now directed more particularly than ever to the proceedings of this bifurcated phenomenon. It raises one of the aforesaid lateral appendages, and with one of the points in which it terminates, it feels its way over the other portions of its surface. Certain portions of this touched surface are not visible; but the seer, by calling into play the muscular sensations, that is, by moving the upper part of this phenomenon, can bring many of them within its sphere, and hence the seer concludes that all of the felt portions would become visible, were no limit put to these movements and muscular sensations. Very well. This point, which occupies an infinitely small space among the visual phenomena, continues its manipulating progress, until it at length happens to rest upon a very sensitive and orbed surface, about its own size, situated in the upper part of the bifurcated object. And now what ensues? Speaking out of the information and experience which we have as yet acquired, we should naturally say that merely this can ensue—that if the point (let us now call it our finger) and the orbed surface on which it rests are out of the sphere of sight, the seer has nothing to do with it—that it is simply a case of touch: or if the finger and the surface are within the sphere of sight, that then the finger will merely hide from our view a surface coextensive with itself, as it does in other similar instances—and that in either case, all the other objects of sight will be left as visible and entire as ever. But no; neither of these two results is what ensues. What then does ensue? This astounding and almost inconceivable result ensues, that the whole visual phenomena are suddenly obliterated as completely as if they had never been. One very small visible point, performing certain operations within the eye, and coming in contact with a certain surface as small as itself, and which must also be conceived as lying within the eye, not only obliterates that small surface, but extinguishes a whole landscape which is visibly many million times larger than itself. If this result were not the fact, it would be altogether incredible. From this moment, then, a new world is revealed to us, in which we find that instead of the man: and all visible objects being in the eye, the eye is in the man; and that these objects being visibly external to the bifurcated phenomenon, whose operations we have been superintending, and which we shall now call ourselves—they must consequently be external (although even yet they are never visibly so) to the eye also. The seer, the great eye, within which we supposed all this to be transacted, breaks, as it were, and falls away; while the little ​surface to which the forefinger was applied, and which it covered, becomes, and from this time henceforward continues, to be our true eye. Thus, by a very singular process, do we find ourselves, as it were, within our own eye—a procedure which is rescued from absurdity by this consideration, that our eye itself—our tangible eye, is also found within the primary eye, as we may call it, which latter eye falling away when the experience of touch commences, the man and the universe which surrounds him start forth into their true place as external to the seer, and the new secondary eye, revealed by touch, becoming localized, shrinks into its true proportions, now very limited when tactually compared with the objects which fall under its inspection. And all this magical creation—all our knowledge that objects are out of the eye, and that the size of this organ bears an infinitely small proportion to the real magnitude of objects—all this is the work of the touch, and of the touch alone.
Perhaps the following consideration may help the reader to understand how the sight becomes instructed by the touch. Our natural visual judgment undoubtedly is, as we have said, that the eye and the landscape which it sees are precisely coextensive with each other; and the natural conclusion must be, that whatever surface is sufficient to cover the one, must be sufficient to cover the other also. But is this found to be the case? By no means. You lay your finger on your eye, and it completely covers it. You then lay the same finger on the landscape, and it does not cover, perhaps, the hundred millionth part of its surface. Thus are the judgments and conclusions of the eye corrected and refuted by the experience of the finger, until, at length, the eye actually believes that it sees things to be larger than itself—a total mistake, however, on its part, as Berkeley was the first to show; for the object which it seems to see as greatly larger than itself, is only suggested by another object which is always smaller than itself. The small visible object suggests the thought of a large tangible object, and the latter it is which chiefly occupies the mind; but still it is never seen—it is merely suggested by the other object which alone is presented to the vision.
By looking through a pair of spectacles, any one may convince himself of the impossibility of our seeing the real and tangible magnitude of things—or of our seeing anything which exceeds the expansion of the retina. A lofty tower, you will say, exceeds the expansion of the retina, certainly a tangible, a suggested tower, does so: but does a visible, a seen tower, ever do so? Make the experiment, good reader, and you will find that it never does. Look, then, at this tower from a small distance, through a pair of spectacles, which form a sort of projected retina, not much, if at all, larger than your real retina. At first sight you will probably say that it looks about a hundred feet high, and, at any rate, that you see it to be infinitely larger than your own eye. But look again, attending in some degree to the size of your spectacle glasses, and you shall see that it does not stretch across one half, or perhaps one fourth, of their diameter. And if a fairy pencil, as Adam Smith supposes, were to come between your eye and the glass, the picture sketched by it thereon, answering in the exactest conformity to the dimensions of the tower you see, would be an image, probably not the third of an inch high, or the hundredth part of an inch broad. This is certainly not what you seem to see, but this is certainly what you do see. These are the dimensions into which your lofty tower has shrunk. Now is this tower, seen to be one-third of an inch high, and very much smaller than the retina, represented by the spectacles—is this tower another tower, seen to be a hundred feet high, and infinitely larger than the retina, and existing out of the mind in rerum natura? or is not the latter tower merely suggested by the former ideal one, in consequence of the great disparity which touch, and touch alone, has proved to exist between the thing seeing and the thing seen? Unquestionably the latter view of the matter is the true one; seen objects are always ideal, and always remain ideal; they have no existence in rerum natura. They merely suggest other objects of a real, or at least of a tangible kind, ​with which they have no necessary, but merely an arbitrary connexion, established by custom and experience. So much upon the idealism of the eye.
In conclusion, we wish to hazard one remark on the subject of inverted images depicted on the retina. External objects, we are told, are represented on the retina in an inverted position, or with their upper parts pointing downwards. Now, in one sense this may be true, but in another sense it appears to us to be unanswerably false. Every visible object must be conceived as made up of a great number of minima visibilia, or smallest visible points. From each of these a cone of rays proceeds, with its base falling on the pupil of the eye. Here the rays are refracted by the humours so as to form other cones, the apices of which are projected on the retina. The cones of rays proceeding from the upper minima visibilia of the, object are refracted into foci on the lower part of the retina, while those coming from the lower minima of the object are refracted into foci on the upper part of the retina. So far the matter is perfectly demonstrable; so far we have an image on the retina, the lower parts of which correspond with the upper parts of the object. But what kind of image is it—what is the nature of the inversion which here takes place? We answer that it is an image in which not one single minimum is in itself reversed, but in which all the minima are transposed merely in relation to one another. The inversion regards merely the relative position of the minima, and not the minima themselves. Thus, the upward part of each minimum in the object must also point upwards in the image on the retina. For what principle is there in optics or in geometry, in physiology or in the humours of the eye, to reverse it? We do not see how opticians can dispute this fact, except by saying that these minima have no extension, and consequently have neither an up nor a down; but that is a position which we think they will hardly venture to maintain. We can make our meaning perfectly plain by the following illustrative diagram—In the lines of figures,
Let the line A be a string of six beads, each of which is a minimum visibile, or smallest point from which a cone of rays can come. Now, the ordinary optical doctrine, as we understand it, is, that this string of beads A falls upon the retina in an image in the form of the row of figures B; that is to say, in an image in which the bead 1 is thrown with its head downwards on the retina, and all the other beads in the same way with their heads downwards. Now, on the contrary, it appears to us demonstrable, that the beads A must fall upon the retina in an image in the form of the row of figures C; that is to say, in an image in which each particular bead or minimum lies with its head upwards upon the retina. In the annexed scheme our meaning, and the difference between the two views, are made perfectly plain; and it is evident, that if the object were reduced to only one minimum—the bead 2, for instance—there would be no inversion, but a perfectly erect image of it thrown upon the retina.
Now, there are just five different ways in which the fact we have now stated may be viewed. It is either a fact notoriously announced in all or in most optical works; and if it is so, we are surprised (though our reading has not been very extensive in that way) that we should never have come across it. Or else it is a fact so familiar to all optical writers, and so obvious and commonplace in itself, that they never have thought it necessary or worth their while to announce it. But if this be the case, we cannot agree with them; we think that it is a fact as recondite and as worthy of being stated as many others that are emphatically insisted on in the science. Or else, though neither notorious nor familiar, it may have been stated by some one or by some few optical writers. If so, we should thank any one who would be kind enough to refer us to the works in which it is to be found. Or else, fourthly, it is a false fact, and admits of being demonstrably disproved. If so, we should like to see it done. Or else, lastly, it is true, and a new, and a demonstrable fact; and if so, we now call upon all optical writers, from this time henceforward, to adopt it. We do not pretend to decide which of these views is the true one. We look to Dr Brewster for a reply; for neither his, nor any other man's rationale of the inverted images, appears to us to be at all complete or satisfactorily made out without its admission.
* ↑ "A Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, designed to show the unsoundness of that celebrated speculation." By Samuel Bailey, author of "Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions," &c. London: Ridgway. 1842.
* ↑ Berkeley's Works: Of the Principles of Human Knowledge, sec. 35, 37, 56. First Dialogue, vol. i. pp. 110, 111. Second Dialogue, vol. i. p. 159. Third Dialogue, vol. i. p. 199, 222. Ed. 1820.
* ↑ Principles of Human Knowledge, sec. 86, 87.
* ↑ Hume's Philosophical Works, vol. iv. pp. 177, 178, 179. Ed. 1826. We have abridged the passage, but have altered none of Hume's expressions.
* ↑ Vide Berkeley's Works, vol. i. pp. 182, 200, 203.—If the anachronism were no objection, a very happy and appropriate motto for Berkeley's works would be— "Spernit Humum fugiente penna." —Horace, Od. iii. 2, 24. Which we would thus translate—"He sets Hume at defiance with a pen, which the sceptic cannot trip." David Hume, however, was a very great man—great as a historian, as every one admits; but greater still as a philosopher: for it is impossible to calculate what a blank, but for him, the whole speculative science of Europe for the last seventy years would have been. If the reader wishes to see the character of his writings, and the scope of the sceptical philosophy fairly appreciated, we beg to refer him to an article in the Edinburgh Review (Vol. LII. p. 196 et seq., Art. Philosophy of Perception), written by Sir William Hamilton, and which, in our opinion, contains more condensed thought and more condensed learning than are to be found in any similar number of pages in our language, on any subject whatever. It gives us great pleasure to see that the writings of this distinguished philosopher, extracted from the Edinburgh Review, have been translated into French (Paris, 1840) by M. Peisse, a very competent translator, who has prefixed to the work an introduction of his own, not unworthy of the profound disquisitions that follow.
* ↑ Was dead. This is not precisely true, for Hume's 'Treatise of Human Nature,' from which the above extract is taken, was published in 1739, and Berkeley did not die until 1753. But we explain it by saying that Hume's work fell dead-born from the press, and did not attract any degree of attention until long after its publication; and when at length, after a lapse of many years, the proper time for answering it arrived, on account of the general notoriety which it had suddenly obtained, that then Berkeley was no more.
* ↑ Berkeley's Works; vol. i. p. 201. Ed. 1820.
* ↑ Wordsworth's little poem, entitled 'We are Seven,' illustrates this great law of human thought—the natural inconceivability of death; and hence, simple as its character may be, it is rooted in the most profound and recondite psychological truth.
* ↑ It may, perhaps, be thought that all this information might be acquired by the simple act of closing our eyelids. But here the tactual sensations are so faint that we might be doubtful whether the veil was drawn over our eye or over the face of things. Our limits prevent us from stating other objections to which this explanation is exposed.