His account of the relation between visible and tangible extension.
We do not see bodies without the mind …
159. It was upon the extension of the metaphor of impression to sight as well as touch, and the consequent notion that body, with its inseparable qualities, revealed itself through both senses, that Berkeley first fastened. Is it evident, as Locke supposed it to be, that men ‘perceive by their sight’ not colours merely, but ‘a distance between bodies of different colours and between parts of the same body’; [1] in other words, situation and magnitude? To show that they do not is the purpose of Berkeley’s ‘Essay towards a new Theory of Vision.’ He starts from two principles which he takes as recognised: one, that the ‘proper and immediate object of sight is colour’; the other, that distance from the eye, or distance in the line of vision, is not immediately seen. If, then, situation and magnitude are ‘properly and immediately’ seen, they must be qualities of colour. Now in one sense, according to Berkeley, they are so: in other words, there is such a thing as visible extension. We see lights and colours in ‘sundry situations’ as well as ‘in degrees of faintness and clearness, confusion and distinctness.’ (Theory of Vision, sec. 77.) We also see objects as made up of certain ‘quantities of coloured points,’ i.e. as having visible magnitude. (Ibid. sec. 54.) But situation and magnitude as visible are not external, not ‘qualities of body,’ nor do they represent by any necessary connection the situation and magnitude that are truly qualities of body, the mind, ‘without the mind and at a distance.’ These are tangible. Distance in all its forms—as distance from the eye; as distance between parts of the same body, or magnitude; and as distance of body from body, or situation—is tangible. What a man means when he says that ‘he sees this or that thing at a distance’ is that ‘what he sees suggests to his understanding that after having passed a certain distance, to be measured by the motion of his body which is perceivable by touch, he shall come to perceive such and such tangible ideas which have been usually connected with such and such visible ideas’ (Ibid. sec. 45). On the same principle we are said to see the magnitude and situation of bodies. Owing to long experience of the connection of these tangible ideas with visible ones, the magnitude of the latter and their degrees of faintness and clearness, of confusion and distinctness, enable us to form a ‘sudden and true’ estimate of the magnitude of the former (i.e. of bodies); even as visible situation enables us to form a like estimate of the ‘situation of things outward and tangible’ (Ibid. secs. 56 and 99). The connection, however, between the two sets of ideas, Berkeley insists, is habitual only, not necessary. As Hume afterwards said of the relation of cause and effect, it is not constituted by the nature of the ideas related. [2] The visible ideas, that as a matter of fact ‘suggest to us the various magnitudes of external objects before we touch them, might have suggested no such thing.’ That would really have been the case had our eyes been so framed as that the maximum visibile should be less than the minimum tangibile; and, as a matter of constant experience, the greater visible extension suggests sometimes a greater, sometimes a less, tangible extension according to the degree of its strength or faintness, ‘being in its own nature equally fitted to bring into our minds the idea of small or great or no size at all, just as the words of a language are in their own nature indifferent to signify this or that thing, or nothing at all.’ (Ibid. secs. 62-64.)
[1] Locke, Essay Book II. chap. xiii. sec. 2.
[2] See below, paragraph 283
… nor yet feel them. The ‘esse’ of body is the ‘percipi’.
160. So far, then, the conclusion merely is that body as external, and space as a relation between bodies or parts of a body, are not both seen and felt, but felt only; in other words, that it is only through the organs of touch that we receive, strictly speaking, impressions from without. This is all that the Essay on Vision goes to show; but according to the ‘Principles of Human Knowledge’ this conclusion was merely provisional. The object of touch does not, any more than the object of sight, ‘exist without the mind,’ nor is it ‘the image of an external thing.’ ‘In strict truth the ideas of sight, when by them we apprehend distance and things placed at a distance, do not suggest or mark out to us things actually existing at a distance, but only admonish us what ideas of touch will be imprinted in our minds at such and such distances of time, and in consequence of such and such actions’ (‘Principles of H. K.’ sec. 44). Whether, then, we speak of visible or tangible objects, the object is the idea, its ‘esse is the percipi.’ Body is not a thing separate from the idea of touch, yet revealed by it; so far as it exists at all, it must either be that idea or be a succession of ideas of which that idea is suggestive. It follows that the notion of the real which identifies it with matter, as something external to and independent of consciousness, and which derives the reality of ideas from their relation to body as thus outward, must disappear. Must not, then, the distinction between the real and fantastic, between dreams and facts, disappear with it? What meaning is there in asking whether any given idea is real or not, unless a reference is implied to something other than the idea itself?
[There are no paragraphs 161-169 in any edition or reprint. Tr]
What then becomes of distinction between reality and fancy?
170. Berkeley’s theory, no less than Locke’s, requires such reference. He insists, as much as Locke does, on the difference between ideas of imagination which do, and those of sense which do not, depend on our own will. ‘It is no more than willing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way for another.’ But ‘when in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view.’ Moreover ‘the ideas of sense are more strong, lively and distinct than those of the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at random as those which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train and series’ (Ibid. secs. 28-30). These characteristics of ideas of sense, however, do not with Berkeley, any more than with Locke, properly speaking, constitute their reality. This lies in their relation to something else, of which these characteristics are the tests. The difference between the two writers lies in their several views as to what this ‘something else’ is. With Locke it was body or matter, as proximately, though in subordination to the Divine Will, the ‘imprinter’ of those most lively ideas which we cannot make for ourselves. His followers insisted on the proximate, while they ignored the ultimate, reference. Hence, as Berkeley conceived, their Atheism, which he could cut from under their feet by the simple plan of eliminating the proximate reference altogether, and thus showing that God, not matter, is the immediate ‘imprinter’ of ideas on the senses and the suggester of such ideas of imagination as the ideas of sense, in virtue of habitual association, constantly introduce (Ibid. sec. 33).
The real = ideas that God causes.