was there only a change of ideas in the minds of the spectators? And, can it be supposed that our Saviour did no more at the marriage-feast in Cana than impose on the sight, and smell, and taste of the guests, so as to create in them the appearance or idea only of wine? The same may be said of all other miracles; [88] which, in consequence of the foregoing principles, must be looked upon only as so many cheats, or illusions of fancy.— To this I reply, that the rod was changed into a real serpent, and the water into real wine. That this does not in the least contradict what I have elsewhere said will be evident from sect. 34 and 35. But this business of real and imaginary has been already so plainly and fully explained, and so often referred to, and the difficulties about it are so easily answered from what has gone before, that it were an affront to the reader's understanding to resume the explication of it in this place. [9] I shall only observe that if at table all who were present should see, and smell, and taste, and drink wine, and find the effects of it, with me there could be no doubt of its reality 42;—so that at bottom the scruple concerning real miracles has no place at all on ours, but only on the received principles, and consequently makes rather for than against what has been said.

85. Having done with the Objections, which I endeavoured to propose in the clearest light, and gave them all the force and weight I could, we proceed in the next place to take a view of our tenets in their Consequences 43. Some of these appear at first sight-as that several difficult and obscure questions, on which abundance of speculation has been thrown away, are entirely banished from philosophy. Whether corporeal substance can think,' 'whether Matter be infinitely divisible,' and 'how it operates on spirit'-these and the like inquiries have given infinite amusement to philosophers in all ages; but, depending on the

42 The simultaneous consciousness of, or participation in, the 'same' sense-ideas, by different persons, as distinguished from the purely individual or personal consciousness of imaginary objects and emotions, is here referred to as a test of the reality of the former.

43 They are unfolded in the remaining sections of the Treatise, sect. 85-156: those which apply to ideas and sensible things in sect. 86-134; what belongs to spirits, or subjective substances and powers, in the remainder of the Treatise.

existence of Matter, they have no longer any place on our principles. Many other advantages there are, as well with regard to religion as the sciences, which it is easy for any one to deduce from what has been premised; but this will appear more plainly in the sequel.

86. From the principles we have laid down it follows human knowledge may naturally be reduced to two heads-that of IDEAS and that of SPIRITS. Of each of these I shall treat in order.

(And first as to ideas or unthinking things. Our knowledge

of these has been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very dangerous errors, by supposing a twofold existence of the objects of sense 44-the one intelligible or in the mind, the other real and without the mind; [9] whereby unthinking things are thought to have a natural subsistence of their own distinct from being perceived by spirits. This, which, if I mistake not, hath been shewn to be a most groundless and absurd notion, is the very root of Scepticism 45 for, so long as men thought that real things subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth real as it was conformable to real things, it follows they could not be certain that they had any real knowledge at all. For how can it be known that the things which are perceived are conformable to those which are not perceived, or exist without the mind? [9]

87. Colour, figure, motion, extension, and the like, considered only as so many sensations in the mind, are perfectly known, there being nothing in them which is not perceived. But, if they are looked on as notes or images, referred to things or archetypes existing without the mind, then are we involved all in scepticism. We see only the appearances, and not the real qualities of things. What may be the extension, figure, or motion of anything really and absolutely, or in itself, it is impossible for us to know, but only the proportion or relation they bear to our senses. Things

44 Berkeley's 'principles' abo`ish this representative idea in perception, and recognise as the real object only what we are sensibly conscious of-not any uncognised archetype. 45 So Hume, Reid, and Hamilton, who see in the hypothesis of a representative perception, implying 'a twofold existence of the objects of sense,' the germ of scepticism. Berkeley claims that under his interpretation of what reality, externality, and existence mean, an intuitive knowledge of the real existence of sensible things is given to us.

remaining the same, our ideas vary, and which of them, or even whether any of them at all, represent the true quality really existing in the thing, it is out of our reach to determine. So that, for aught we know, all we see, hear, and feel, may be only phantom and vain chimera, and not at all agree with the real things existing in rerum natura. All this sceptical cant follows from our supposing a difference between things and ideas, and that the former have a subsistence without the mind or unperceived. It were easy to dilate on this subject, and shew how the arguments urged by sceptics in all ages depend on the supposition of external objects. [ But this is too obvious to need being insisted on.] 88. So long as we attribute a real existence to unthinking things, distinct from their being perceived, it is not only impossible for us to know with evidence the nature of any real unthinking being, but even that it exists. Hence it is that we see philosophers distrust their senses, and doubt of the existence of heaven and earth, of everything they see or feel, even of their own bodies. And, after all their labouring and struggle of thought, they are forced to own we cannot attain to any self-evident or demonstrative knowledge of the existence of sensible things 47. But, all this doubtfulness, which so bewilders and confounds the mind and makes philosophy ridiculous in the eyes of the world, vanishes if we annex a meaning to our words, and do not amuse ourselves with the terms' absolute,' 'external,' 'exist,' &c.-signifying we know not what. For my part, I can as well doubt of my own being as of the being of those things which I actually perceive by sense; it being a manifest contradiction that any sensible object should be immediately perceived by sight or touch, and at the same time have no existence in nature, since the very existence of an unthinking being consists in being perceived 48.

46 This sentence is omitted in the second edition.

47 This is admitted by Des Cartes, Malebranche, and Locke.

48 On Berkeley's own principles, there is no contradiction in the non-existence in sense of these qualities' of a material substance which we are not at the moment sensibly percipient of which we merely infer we should be percipient of on certain conditions, e. g. the smell, &c. of an orange whilst we are only looking at it. Their non-existence in imagination, when they are suggested by what we are sensibly conscious of, is indeed, on his principles, contradictory.

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 in a distinct explication of what is meant by thing, reality, existence; for in vain shall we dispute concerning the real existence of things, or pretend to any knowledge thereof, so long as we have not fixed the meaning of those words 49. Thing or Being is the most general name of all; it comprehends under it two kinds entirely distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing common but the name, viz. spirits and ideas. The former are active, indivisible, [5° incorruptible] substances: the latter are inert, fleeting, [5° perishable passions,] or dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in minds or spiritual substances. [52 We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling or reflection, and that of other spirits by reason 53. We may be said to have some knowledge or notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings, whereof in a strict sense we have not ideas 54. In like manner, we know and have a notion of relations55 between things or ideas-which relations are distinct from the ideas or things related, inasmuch as the latter may be perceived by us without our perceiving the former. To me it seems that ideas, spirits, and relations are all in their

49 The chief end of the Berkeleian philosophy is to reach an intelligible conception of Being, Existence, or Thing, (favourite terms with philosophers); which, according to Berkeley, are not, as Locke would have it, simple ideas, but general names. Being or Existence, as explained by Berkeley, may be viewed either in relation to its permanent or to its variable element. In the former aspect it is the spiritual substance or self; in the latter, when manifested in the sense-given co-existences of simple ideas or objects, it is what we call material or sensible existence. Spirits and also syntheses of sense-given objects may be called 'things.' With Berkeley the word 'thing' stands, not for an archetype of the associated groups of phenomena of which a mind is percipient, but either for the groups themselves, or for the minds cognizant of them, and who cause the changes which they manifest.

50 Omitted in second edition.

51 But whilst ideas or objects depend on being perceived, do not spirits depend on ideas in order to be percipient?

52 What follows to the end of this section was added in the second edition.

53 reason, 'i. e. reasoning or inference, from the changes in the sense-ideas or phenomena of which we are conscious.

54 Cf. sect. 139–142.

55 Notion' is thus applied by Berkeley to our knowledge of minds, and to our knowledge of relations among ideas.

respective kinds the object of human knowledge and 56 subject of discourse; and that the term idea would be improperly extended to signify everything we know or have any notion of.]

90. Ideas imprinted on the senses are real things, or do really exist 57; this we do not deny, but we deny they can subsist without the minds which perceive them, or that they are resemblances of any archetypes existing without the mind 58: since the very being of a sensation or idea consists in being perceived, and an idea can be like nothing but an idea. Again, the things perceived by sense may be termed external, with regard to their originin that they are not generated from within by the mind itself, but imprinted by a Spirit distinct from that which perceives them. Sensible objects may likewise be said to be 'without the mind' in another sense, namely when they exist in some other mind; thus, when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but it must be in another mind 59.

91. It were a mistake to think that what is here said derogates in the least from the reality of things. It is acknowledged, on the received principles, that extension, motion, and in a word all sensible qualities, have need of a support, as not being able to subsist by themselves. But the objects perceived by sense are allowed to be nothing but combinations of those qualities, and consequently cannot subsist by themselves.6% Thus far it is agreed on all hands. So that in denying the things perceived

56 'and' = or (?),-unless 'object' is used in a vague meaning, including more than idea. Cf. sect. I; also New Theory of Vision Vindicated, sect. 11, 12; Siris, sect. 297, 308.

57 Cf. sect. 33, for the meaning of the term 'real.'

58 i. e. without or unperceived by any mind, human or Divine; which is quite consistent with their being external' to a finite percipient, i. e. independent of his will, and determined by the conceptions of a higher mind than his-consistent also with the existence of archetypal Ideas in the Divine Mind.

59 Berkeley here explains what he regards as the legitimate meanings of the term externality. Men cannot act, cannot live, without assuming an external world-in some conception of the term 'external.' It is the business of the philosopher to say what that conception ought to be. Berkeley here acknowledges (a) an externality in our own possible experience, past and future, as determined by natural laws, which are independent of the will of the percipient; and (b) an externality to our own conscious experience, in the contemporaneous, as well as in the past or future, experience of other minds, finite or Divine.

60 i. e. they are not properly substances, though Berkeley sometimes speaks of them as such. Cf. sect. 37.