Part 2

But Mr. Taylor's statement though clear, I think, with regard to the meaning of _percipi_ is highly ambiguous in other respects. I will leave it for the present to consider the next ambiguity in the statement: _Esse_ is _percipi._ What does the copula mean? What can be meant by saying that Esse _is_ percipi? There are just three meanings, one or other of which such a statement _must_ have, if it is to be true; and of these there is only one which it can have, if it is to be important. (1) The statement may be meant to assert that the word 'esse' is used to signify nothing either more or less than the word 'percipi': that the two words are precise synonyms: that they are merely different names for one and the same thing: that what is meant by _esse_ is absolutely identical with what is meant by _percipi._ I think I need not prove that the principle _esse_ is _percipi_ is _not_ thus intended merely to define a word; nor yet that, if it were, it would be an extremely bad definition. But if it does _not_ mean this, only two alternatives remain. The second is (2) that what is meant by _esse,_ though not absolutely identical with what is meant by _percipi_, yet _includes_ the latter as a _part_ of its meaning. If this were the meaning of 'esse is percipi,' then to say that a thing was real would not be the same thing as to say that it was experienced. That it was _real_ would mean that it was experienced and _something else besides_: 'being experienced' would be _analytically essential_ to reality, but would not be the whole meaning of the term. From the fact that a thing was real we should be able to infer, by the law of contradiction, that it was experienced; since the latter would be _part_ of what is meant by the former. But, on the other hand, from the fact a thing was experienced we should _not_ be able to infer that it was real; since it would not follow from the fact that it had one of the attributes essential to reality, that it _also_ had the other or others. Now, if we understand _esse_ is _percipi_ in this second sense, we must distinguish _three_ different things which it asserts. First of all, it gives a definition of the word 'reality,' asserting that word stands for a complex whole, of which what is meant by 'percipi' forms a part. And secondly it asserts that 'being experienced' forms a part of a certain whole. Both these propositions may be true, and at all events I do not wish to dispute them. I do not, indeed, think that the word 'reality' is commonly used to include 'percipi': but I do not wish to argue about the meaning of words. And that many things which are experienced are also something else--that to be experienced forms part of certain wholes, is, of course, indisputable. But what I wish to point out is, that neither of these propositions is of any importance, unless we add to them a _third._ That 'real' is a convenient name for a union of attributes which _sometimes_ occurs, it could not be worth any one's while to assert: no inferences of any importance could be drawn from such an assertion. Our principle could only mean that when a thing happens to have _percipi_ as well as the other qualities included under _esse,_ it has _percipi_: and we should never be able to _infer_ that it was experienced, except from a proposition which already asserted that it was both experienced and something else. Accordingly, if the assertion that _percipi_ forms part of the whole meant by reality is to have any importance, it must mean that the whole is organic, at least in this sense, that the other constituent or constituents of it _cannot_ occur without percipi, even if percipi can occur without them. Let us call these other constituents _x._ The proposition that _esse_ includes _percipi,_ and that therefore from _esse percipi_ can be inferred, can only be important if it is meant to assert that _percipi_ can be inferred from _x._ The only importance of the question whether the whole _esse_ includes the part _percipi_ rests therefore on the question whether the part _x_ is necessarily connected with the part _percipi._ And this is (3) the third possible meaning of the assertion _esse is percipi:_ and, as we now see, the only important one. _Esse_ is _percipi_ asserts that wherever you have _x_ you also have _percipi_ that whatever has the property _x_ also has the property that it is _experienced._ And this being so, it will be convenient if, for the future, I may be allowed to use the term '_esse_' to denote _x alone._ I do not wish thereby to beg the question whether what we commonly mean by the word 'real' does or does not include _percipi_ as well as _x._ I am quite content that my definition of 'esse' to denote _x_, should be regarded merely as an arbitrary verbal definition. Whether it is so or not, the only question of interest is whether from _x percipi_ can be inferred, and I should prefer to be able to express this in the form: can _percipi_ be inferred from _esse?_ Only let it be understood that when I say _esse,_ that term will not for the future _include percipi_: it denotes only that _x,_ which Idealists, perhaps rightly, include _along with percipi_ under _their_ term _esse._ That there is such an _x_ they must admit on pain of making the proposition an _absolute_ tautology; and that from this _x percipi_ can be inferred they must admit, on pain of making it a perfectly barren analytic proposition. Whether _x_ done should or should not be called _esse_ is not worth a dispute: what is worth dispute is whether _percipi_ is necessarily connected with _x._

We have therefore discovered the ambiguity of the copula in _esse_ is _percipi,_ so far as to see that this principle asserts two distinct terms to be so related, that whatever has the _one,_ which I call _esse,_ has _also_ the property that it is experienced. It asserts a necessary connexion between _esse_ on the one hand and _percipi_ on the other; these two words denoting each a distinct term, and _esse_ denoting a term in which that denoted by _percipi_ is not included. We have, then in _esse_ is _percipi,_ a _necessary synthetic_ proposition which I have undertaken to refute. And I may say at once that, understood as such, it cannot be refuted. If the Idealist chooses to assert that it is merely a self-evident truth, I have only to say that it does not appear to me to be so. But I believe that no Idealist ever has maintained it to be so. Although this--that two distinct terms are necessarily related--is the only sense which 'esse is percipi' can have if it is to be true and important, it _can_ have another sense, if it is to be an important falsehood. I believe that Idealists all hold this important falsehood. They do not perceive that _Esse_ is _percipi_ must, if true, be _merely_ a self-evident synthetic truth: they either identify with it or give as a reason for it another proposition which must be false because it is self-contradictory. Unless they did so, they would have to admit that it was a perfectly unfounded assumption; and if they recognised that it was _unfounded,_ I do not think they would maintain its truth to be evident. _Esse_ is _percipi,_ in the sense I have found for it, _may_ indeed be true; I cannot, refute it: but if this sense were clearly apprehended, no one, I think, would _believe_ that it was true.

Idealists, we have seen, must assert that whatever is experienced, is _necessarily_ so. And this doctrine they commonly express by saying that 'the object of experience is inconceivable apart from the subject.' I have hitherto been concerned with pointing out what meaning this assertion must have, if it is to be an important truth. I now propose to show that it may have an important meaning, which must be false, because it is self-contradictory.

It is a well-known fact in the history of philosophy that _necessary_ truths in general, but especially those of which it is said that the opposite is inconceivable, have been commonly supposed to be _analytic,_ in the sense that the proposition denying them was self-contradictory. It was in this way, commonly supposed, before Kant, that many truths could be proved by the law of contradiction alone. This is, therefore, a mistake which it is plainly easy for the best philosophers to make. Even since Kant many have continued to assert it; but I am aware that among those Idealists, who most properly deserve the name, it has become more fashionable to assert that truths are _both_ analytic and synthetic. Now with many of their reasons for asserting this I am not concerned: it is possible that in some connexions the assertion may bear a useful and true sense. But if we understand 'analytic' in the sense just defined, namely, what is proved by the law of contradiction _alone_, it is plain that, if 'synthetic' means what is _not_ proved by this alone, no truth can be both analytic and synthetic. Now it seems to me that those who do maintain truths to be both, do nevertheless maintain that they are so in this as well as in other senses. It is, indeed, extremely unlikely that so essential a part of the historical meaning of 'analytic' and 'synthetic' should have been entirely discarded, especially since we find no express recognition that it is discarded. In that case it is fair to suppose that modern Idealists have been influenced by the view that certain truths can be proved by the law of contradiction alone. I admit they also expressly declare that they can _not:_ but this is by no means sufficient to prove that they do not also think they are; since it is very easy to hold two mutually contradictory opinions. What I suggest then is that Idealists hold the particular doctrine in question, concerning the relation of subject and object in experience, because they think it is an analytic truth in this restricted sense that it is proved by the law of contradiction alone.

I am suggesting that the Idealist maintains that object and subject are necessarily connected, mainly because he fails to see that they are _distinct_, that they are _two,_ at all. When he thinks of 'yellow' and when he thinks of the 'sensation of yellow,' he fails to see that there is anything whatever in the latter which is not in the former. This being so, to deny that yellow can ever _be_ apart from the sensation of yellow is merely to deny that yellow can ever be other than it is; since yellow and the sensation of yellow are absolutely identical. To assert that yellow is necessarily an object of experience is to assert that yellow is necessarily yellow--a purely identical proposition, and therefore proved by the law of contradiction alone. Of course, the proposition also implies that experience is, after all, something distinct from yellow--else there would be no reason for insisting that yellow is a sensation: and that the argument thus both affirms and denies that yellow and sensation of yellow are distinct, is what sufficiently refutes it. But this contradiction can easily be overlooked, because though we are convinced, in other connexions, that 'experience' does mean something and something most important, yet we are never distinctly aware _what_ it means, and thus in every particular case we do not notice its presence. The facts present themselves as a kind of antinomy:

(1) Experience _is_ something unique and different from anything else; (2) Experience of green is entirely indistinguishable from green; two propositions which cannot both be true. Idealists, holding both, can only take refuge in arguing from the one in some connexions and from the other in others.

But I am well aware that there are many Idealists who would repel it as an utterly unfounded charge that they fail to distinguish between a sensation or idea and what I will call its object. And there are, I admit, many who not only imply, as we all do, that green is distinct from the sensation of green, but expressly insist upon the distinction as an important part of their system. They would perhaps only assert that the two form an inseparable unity. But I wish to point out that many, who use this phrase, and who do admit the distinction, are not thereby absolved from the charge that they deny it. For there is a certain doctrine, very prevalent among philosophers nowadays, which by a very simple reduction may be seen to assert that two distinct things both are and are not distinct. A distinction is asserted; but it is _also_ asserted that the things distinguished form an 'organic unity,' But, forming such a unity, it is held, each would not be what it is _apart from its relation to the other._ Hence to consider either by itself is to make an _illegitimate abstraction._ The recognition that there are 'organic unities' and 'illegitimate abstractions' in this sense is regarded as one of the chief conquests of modern philosophy. But what is the sense attached to these terms? An abstraction is illegitimate, when and only when we attempt to assert of _a part_--of something abstracted--that which is true only of the _whole_ to which it belongs: and it may perhaps be useful to point out that this should not be done. But the application actually made of this principle, and what perhaps would be expressly acknowledged as its meaning, is something much the reverse of useful. The principle is used to assert that certain abstractions are _in all cases_ illegitimate; that whenever you try to assert _anything whatever_ of that which is _part_ of an organic whole, what you assert can only be true of the whole. And this principle, so far from being a useful truth, is necessarily false. For if the whole can, nay _must,_ be substituted for the part in all propositions and for all purposes, this can only be because the whole is absolutely identical with the part. When, therefore, we are told that green and the sensation of green are certainly distinct but yet are not separable, or that it is an illegitimate abstraction to consider the one apart from the other, what these provisos are used to assert is, that though the two things are distinct yet you not only can but must treat them as if they were not. Many philosophers, therefore, when they admit a distinction, yet (following the lead of Hegel) boldly assert their right, in a slightly more obscure form of words, _also_ to deny it. The principle of organic unities, like that of combined analysis and synthesis, is mainly used to defend the practice of holding _both_ of two contradictory propositions, wherever this may seem convenient. In this, as in other matters, Hegel's main service to philosophy has consisted in giving a name to and erecting into a principle, a type of fallacy to which experience had shown philosophers, along with the rest of mankind, to be addicted. No wonder that he has followers and admirers.

I have shown then, so far, that when the Idealist asserts the important principle 'Esse is _percipi'_ he must, if it is to be true, mean by this that: Whatever is experienced also _must_ be experienced. And I have also shown that he _may_ identify with, or give as a reason for, this proposition, one which must be false, because it is self contradictory. But at this point I propose to make a complete break in my argument. '_Esse_ is _percipi_,' we have seen, asserts of two terms, as distinct from one another as 'green' and 'sweet,' that whatever has the one has also the other: it asserts that 'being' and 'being experienced' are necessarily connected: that whatever _is_ is _also_ experienced. And this, I admit, cannot be directly refuted. But I believe it to be false; and I have asserted that anybody who saw that '_esse_ and _percipi_' _were_ as distinct as 'green' and 'sweet' would be no more ready to believe that whatever _is_ is _also_ experienced, than to believe that whatever is green is also sweet. I have asserted that no one would believe that '_esse_ is _percipi_' if they saw how different _esse_ is from _percipi:_ but _this_ I shall not try to prove. I have asserted that all who do believe that '_esse_ is _percipi_' identify with it or take as a reason for it a self-contradictory proposition: but this I shall not try to prove. I shall only try to show that certain propositions which I assert to be believed, are false. That they are believed, and that without this belief '_esse_ is _percipi'_ would not be believed either, I must leave without a proof.

I pass, then, from the uninteresting question 'Is _'esse percipi?'_ to the still more uninteresting and apparently irrelevant question 'What is a sensation or idea?'

We all know that the sensation of blue differs from that of green. But it is plain that if both are _sensations_ they also have some point in common. What is it that they have in common? And how is this common element related to the points in which they differ?

I will call the common element 'consciousness' without yet attempting to say what the thing I so call _is._ We have then in every sensation two distinct terms, (1) 'consciousness,' in respect of which all sensations are alike; and (2) something else, in respect of which one sensation differs from another. It will be convenient if I may be allowed to call this second term the 'object' of a sensation: this also without yet attempting to say what I mean by the word.

We have then in every sensation two distinct elements, one which I call consciousness, and another which I call the object of consciousness. This must be so if the sensation of blue and the sensation of green, though different in one respect, are alike in another: blue is one object of sensation and green is another, and consciousness, which both sensations have in common, is different from either.

But, further, sometimes the sensation of blue exists in my mind and sometimes it does not; and knowing, as we now do, that the sensation of blue includes two different elements, namely consciousness and blue, the question arises whether, when the sensation of blue exists, it is the consciousness which exists, or the blue which exists, or both. And one point at least is plain: namely that these three alternatives are all different from one another. So that, if any one tells us that to say 'Blue exists' is the _same_ thing as to say that 'Both blue and consciousness exist,' he makes a mistake and a self-contradictory mistake.

But another point is also plain, namely, that when the sensation exists, the consciousness, at least, certainly does exist; for when I say that the sensations of blue and of green both exist, I certainly mean that what is common to both and in virtue of which both are called sensations, exists in each case. The only alternative left, then, is that _either_ both exist or the consciousness exists alone. If, therefore, any one tells us that the existence of blue is the same thing as the existence of the sensation of blue he makes a mistake and a self-contradictory mistake, for he asserts _either_ that blue is the same thing as blue together with consciousness, _or_ that it is the same thing as consciousness alone.

Accordingly to identify either "blue" or any other of what I have called "_objects_" of sensation, with the corresponding sensation is in every case, a self-contradictory error. It is to identify a part either with the whole of which it is a part or else with the other part of the same whole. If we are told that the assertion "Blue exists" is _meaningless_ unless we mean by it that "The sensation of blue exists," we are told what is certainly false and self-contradictory. If we are told that the existence of blue is inconceivable apart from the existence of the sensation, the speaker _probably_ means to convey to us, by this ambiguous expression, what is a self-contradictory error. For we can and must conceive the existence of blue as something quite distinct from the existence of the sensation. We can and must conceive that blue might exist and yet the sensation of blue not exist. For my own part I not only conceive this, but conceive it to be true. Either therefore this terrific assertion of inconceivability means what is false and self-contradictory or else it means only that _as a matter of fact_ blue never can exist unless the sensation of it exists also.

And at this point I need not conceal my opinion that no philosopher has ever yet succeeded in avoiding this self-contradictory error: that the most striking results both of Idealism and of Agnosticism are only obtained by identifying blue with the sensation of blue: that _esse_ is held to be _percipi,_ solely because _what is experienced_ is held to be identical with _the experience of it._ That Berkeley and Mill committed this error will, perhaps, be granted: that modern Idealists make it will, I hope, appear more probable later. But that my opinion is plausible, I will now offer two pieces of evidence. The first is that language offers us no means of referring to such objects as "blue" and "green" and "sweet," except by calling them sensations: it is an obvious violation of language to call them "things" or "objects" or "terms." And similarly we have no natural means of referring to such objects as "causality" or "likeness" or "identity," except by calling them "ideas" or "notions" or "conceptions." But it is hardly likely that if philosophers had clearly distinguished in the past between a sensation or idea and what I have called its object, there should have been no separate name for the latter. They have always used the same name for these two different "things" (if I may call them so): and hence there is some probability that they have supposed these "things" _not_ to be two and different, but one and the same. And, secondly, there is a very good reason why they should have supposed so, in the fact that when we refer to introspection and try to discover what the sensation of blue is, it is very easy to suppose that we have before us only a single term. The term "blue" is easy enough to distinguish, but the other element which I have called "consciousness"--that which sensation of blue has in common with sensation of green--is extremely difficult to fix. That many people fail to distinguish it at all is sufficiently shown by the fact that there are materialists. And, in general, that which makes the sensation of blue a mental fact seems to escape us: it seems, if I may use a metaphor, to be transparent--we look through it and see nothing but the blue; we may be convinced that there _is something_ but _what_ it is no philosopher, I think, has yet clearly recognised.

But this was a digression. The point I had established so far was that in every sensation or idea we must distinguish two elements, (1) the "object," or that in which one differs from another; and (2) "consciousness," or that which all have in common--that which makes them sensations or mental facts. This being so, it followed that when a sensation or idea exists, we have to choose between the alternatives that either object alone, or consciousness alone, or both, exist; and I showed that of these alternatives one, namely that the object only exists, is excluded by the fact that what we mean to assert is certainly the existence of a mental fact. There remains the question: Do both exist? Or does the consciousness alone? And to this question one answer has hitherto been given universally: That both exist.