Page 17, ll. 17, 18, delete 'who was tutor in Trinity College, Dublin, when Berkeley entered the University.' Page 25, omitted on fly-leaf-- FIRST PRINTED IN 1709.' PREFACE. BY THE EDITOR. BERKELEY'S Essay towards a New Theory of Vision is the chronological and also a logical introduction to his metaphysical philosophy. It is virtually an inquiry into the nature and origin of our conception of Extension in Space, that distinctive characteristic of the material world. The Essay was the first fruits of Berkeley's philosophical studies at Dublin. It was also the first elaborate attempt to demonstrate that our apparently immediate visual perceptions of space, and of bodies existing in it apart from our organism, are actually suggestions induced by the constant association of visible ideas, and of certain organic sensations which accompany vision, with objects presented in our tactual experience. The first edition of the Essay appeared early in 1709, when Berkeley was about twenty-five years of age. The second, with a few alterations, and an Appendix (not since reprinted), followed before the end of that year. Both were issued in Dublin, 'printed by Aaron Rhames, for Jeremy Pepyat, bookseller in Skinner Row.' An edition was afterwards annexed to Alciphron, on its first appearance at Dublin and London, in March 1732. It was partly the criticism to which the theological application of the New Theory in the Fourth Dialogue of Alciphron gave rise that drew from Berkeley, early in the following year, his Theory of Vision or Visual Language, shewing the immediate Presence and Providence of a Deity, vindicated and explained. Both works reflect much light upon the Essay. The edition of the Essay published in 1732 was the last in Berkeley's lifetime. In the present edition the text has been corrected according to that of |