The Works of George Berkeley. Vol. 1 of 4: Philosophical Works, 1705-21

38. Hence also it doth appear, there may be good use of computation, by lines and angles, in optics(319); not that the mind judges of distance immediately by them, but because i...

128. [_First_(430),] When, upon perception of an idea, I range it under this or that sort, it is because it is perceived after the same manner, or because it has a likeness or c...

79. From what has been said, we may safely deduce this consequence, to wit, that a man born blind, and made to see, would, at first opening of his eyes, make a very different ju...

_Phil._ But, are you not sensible, Hylas, that two things must concur to take away all scruple, and work a plenary assent in the mind? Let a visible object be set in never so cl...

12. By observing how ideas become general, we may the better judge how words are made so. And here it is to be noted that I do not deny absolutely there are _general ideas_, but...

105. By the foregoing section, it is plain the visible figure of any part of the body hath no necessary connexion with the tangible figure thereof, so as at first sight to sugge...

From the summer of 1727 until the spring of 1728 there is no extant correspondence either with Percival or “Tom Prior” to throw light on his movements. In February, 1728, he was...

III. As for _Time_, as it is there taken in an absolute or abstracted sense, for the duration or perseverance of the existence of things, I have nothing more to add concerning i...

61. Inches, feet, &c. are settled, stated lengths, whereby we measure objects and estimate their magnitude. We say, for example, an object appears to be six inches, or six foot...

(M103) Qu. whether the solitary man would not find it necessary to make use of words to record his ideas, if not in memory or meditation, yet at least in writing—without which h...

_Phil._ But, allowing that distance was truly and immediately perceived by the mind, yet it would not thence follow it existed out of the mind. For, whatever is immediately perc...

_Phil._ Why the rejecting a notion that has no foundation, either in sense, or in reason, or in Divine authority, should be thought to unsettle the belief of such opinions as ar...

47. Farther, a little thought will discover to us that, though we allow the existence of Matter or corporeal substance, yet it will unavoidably follow, from the principles which...

(M38) Mem. diligently to set forth how that many of the ancient philosophers run into so great absurditys as even to deny the existence of motion, and of those other things they...

_Phil._ I say it is nothing to the purpose. Our discourse proceeded altogether concerning sensible things, which you defined to be, _the things we immediately perceive by our se...

66. Hence, it is evident that those things which, under the notion of a cause co-operating or concurring to the production of effects, are altogether inexplicable and run us int...

Essential parts of Berkeley’s analysis are explained by Voltaire, in his _Élémens de la Philosophie de Newton_. The following from that work is here given on its own account, an...

(M200) ’Tis evident yt wn the solitary man should be taught to speak, the words would give him no other new ideas (save only the sounds, and complex ideas which, tho’ unknown be...

_Phil._ I do not understand how our ideas, which are things altogether passive and inert(830), can be the essence, or any part (or like any part) of the essence or substance of...

This design I proposed in the First Part of a treatise concerning the _Principles of Human Knowledge_, published in the year 1710. But, before I proceed to publish the Second Pa...

And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one _thing_. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste...

The _Commonplace Book_ steadily recognises the adverse influence of one insidious foe. Its world-transforming-Principle has been obscured by “the mist and veil of words.” The ab...

128. From what has been said the reason is plain why, to the end any theorem may become universal in its use, it is necessary we speak of the lines described on paper as though...

This lately discovered _Commonplace Book_ throws a flood of light upon Berkeley’s state of mind between his twentieth and twenty-fourth year. It is a wonderful revelation; a rec...

One day about this time, at the instance of Addison, it seems that a meeting was arranged between Berkeley and Samuel Clarke, the metaphysical rector of St. James’s in Piccadill...

150. But you will say—Hath Nature no share in the production of natural things, and must they be all ascribed to the immediate and sole operation of God? I answer, If by _Nature...

_Phil._ May we not understand it to have been entirely in respect of finite spirits; so that things, with regard to us, may properly be said to begin their existence, or be crea...

_Phil._ To help you out, do but consider that if _extension_ be once acknowledged to have no existence without the mind, the same must necessarily be granted of motion, solidity...

The reader must remember that this _Essay on Vision_ is professedly an introspective appeal to human consciousness. It is an analysis of what human beings are conscious of when...

It is thus that Berkeley’s thought culminates in _Siris_, that _Chain of Philosophical Reflexions and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water, and divers other subjects co...

89. Nothing seems of more importance towards erecting a firm system of sound and real knowledge, which may be proof against the assaults of Scepticism, than to lay the beginning...

Herein mathematiques have the advantage over metaphysiques and morality. Their definitions, being of words not yet known to ye learner, are not disputed; but words in metaphysiq...

(M313) I must not say the Will or Understanding are all one, but that they are both abstract ideas, i.e. none at all—they not being even _ratione_ different from the Spirit, _qu...

24. [(569)Could men but forbear to amuse themselves with words, we should, I believe, soon come to an agreement in this point.] It is very obvious, upon the least inquiry into o...

_Hyl._ I own myself satisfied in this point. But, do you in earnest think the real existence of sensible things consists in their being actually perceived? If so; how comes it t...

_Eleventh objection._ (Sect. 60-66.) If, according to the foregoing Principles, the material world is merely phenomena presented by a Power not-ourselves to our senses, the elab...

(M403) The great danger of making extension exist without the mind is, that if it does it must be acknowledg’d infinite, immutable, eternal, &c.;—wch will be to make either God...

17. Not that there is any natural or necessary(304) connexion between the sensation we perceive by the turn of the eyes and greater or lesser distance. But—because the mind has,...

The Introduction to the _Principles_ is a proclamation of war against “abstract ideas,” which is renewed in the body of the work, and again more than once in the writings of Ber...

Although this reasoning satisfied Alciphron, others may think it inconclusive. How one is able to discover the existence of other persons, and even the meaning of finite persona...

The _Second Dialogue_ is in the first place directed against modifications of the scholastic account of Matter, which attributes our knowledge of it to inference, founded on sen...

152. It is therefore plain that visible figures are of the same use in geometry that words are. And the one may as well be accounted the object of that science as the other; nei...

26 The third Earl of Shaftesbury, the pupil of Locke, and author of the _Characteristics_. In addition to the well-known biography by Dr. Fowler, the present eminent Vice-Chance...

This Latin dissertation on Motion, or change of place in the component atoms of the material world, was written in 1720, when Berkeley was returning to Ireland, after he had spe...

181 The thought of articulate _relations_ to which real existence must conform, was not then at least in Berkeley’s mind. Hence the empiricism and sensationalism into which he o...

Preface George Berkeley, By The Editor Errata Commonplace Book. Mathematical, Ethical, Physical, And Metaphysical Editor’s Preface To The Commonplace Book Commonplace Book An Es...

451 A suggestion thus due to natural laws of association. The explanation of the fact that we apprehend, by those ideas or phenomena which are objects of sight, certain other id...

682 On the scheme of ideal Realism, “creation” of matter is presenting to finite minds sense-ideas or phenomena, which are, as it were, letters of the alphabet, in that language...

567 This implies that the material world may be realised in imagination as well as in sensuous perception, but in a less degree of reality; for reality, he assumes, admits of de...

797 On Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter, and their mutual relations, cf. _Principles_, sect. 9-15. See also Descartes, _Meditations_, III, _Principia_, I. sect. 69; Mal...

305 That our _mediate_ vision of outness and of objects as thus external, is due to media which have a contingent or arbitrary, instead of a necessary, connexion with the distan...

44. Neque hoc contenti, ulterius pergunt, partesque ipsius motus a se invicem dividunt et secernunt, quarum ideas distinctas, tanquam entium revera distinctorum, efformare conan...

8. _Vim corpoream_ esse aliquid conceptu facile plerumque existimamus. Ii tamen qui rem accuratius inspexerunt in diversa sunt opinione; uti apparet ex mira verborum obscuritate...

941 “utiles.” Such words as “force,” “power,” “gravity,” “attraction,” are held to be convenient in physical reasonings about the _phenomena_ of motion, but worthless as philoso...