CHAPTER II

THE PROBLEM OF MATTER

§ 1. The physical order, because dependent for its perceived qualities on the sense-organs of the percipient, must be the appearance of a more ultimate reality which is non-physical. § 2. Berkeley’s criticism is fatal to the identification of this reality with “material substance.” The logical consequence of Berkeley’s doctrine that the _esse_ of sensible things is _percipi_, would be the subjectivist view that the physical order is _only_ a complex of presentations. § 3. But this is clearly not the case with that part of the physical order which consists of the bodies of my fellow-men. These have an existence, as centres of feeling, over and above their existence as presentations to my senses. § 4. As the bodies of my fellows are connected in one system with the rest of the physical order, that order as a whole must have the same kind of reality which belongs to them. It must be the presentation to our sense of a system or complex of systems of experiencing subjects; the apparent absence of life and purpose from inorganic nature must be due to our inability to enter into a direct communion of interest with its members. § 5. Some consequences of this view 198