[1] Appearance and Reality (2nd edn.), p. 35. The Italics are mine.
[2] Op. cit. pp. 131-2.
[SOME JUDGMENTS OF PERCEPTION]
I want to raise some childishly simple questions as to what we are doing when we make judgments of a certain kind, which we all do in fact exceedingly commonly make. The kind of judgments I mean are those which we make when, with regard to something which we are seeing, we judge such things as '"That is an inkstand," "That is a tablecloth," "That is a door," etc., etc.; or when, with regard to something which we are feeling with our hands, we judge such things as "This is cloth," "This is a finger," "This is a coin," etc., etc.
It is scarcely possible, I think, to exaggerate the frequency with which we make such judgments as these, nor yet the certainty with which we are able to make vast numbers of them. Any man, who is not blind, can, at almost any moment of his waking life, except when he is in the dark, make a large number of judgments of the first kind, with the greatest certainty. He has only to look about him, if he is indoors, to judge with regard to various things which he is seeing, such things as "That is a window," "That is a chair," "This is a book"; or, if he is out-of-doors, such things as "That is a house," "That is a motor-car," "That is a man," or "That is a stone," "That is a tree," "That is a cloud." And all of us, who are not blind, do in fact constantly make such judgments, even if, as a rule, we only make them as parts of more complicated judgments. What I mean is that, when we make such judgments as "Hullo! that clock has stopped," or "This chair is more comfortable than that one," or "That man looks like a foreigner," judgments of the simpler kind with which I am concerned are, so far as I can see, actually a part of what we are judging. In judging "That clock has stopped," part of what I am actually judging is, so far as I can see, "That is a clock;" and similarly if I judge "That tree is taller than this one," my judgment actually contains the two simpler judgments "That is a tree," and "This is a tree." Perhaps most judgments which we make, of the kind I mean, are, in this way, only parts of more complicated judgments: I do not know whether this is so or not. But in any case there can be no doubt that we make them exceedingly commonly. And even a blind man, or a man in the dark, can and does, very frequently, make judgments of the second kind—judgments about things which he is feeling with his hands. All of us, for instance, at almost any moment of our waking life, whether we are in the dark or not, have only to feel certain parts of our own bodies or of our clothes, in order to make, with great certainty, such judgments as "This is a finger," "This is a nose," "This is cloth." And similarly I have only to feel in my pockets to judge, with regard to objects which I meet with there, such things as "This is a coin," "This is a pencil," "This is a pipe."
Judgments of this kind would, I think, commonly, and rightly, be taken to be judgments, the truth of which involves the existence of material things or physical objects. If I am right in judging that this is an inkstand, it follows that there is at least one inkstand in the Universe; and if there is an inkstand in the Universe, it follows that there is in it at least one material thing or physical object. This may, of course, be disputed. Berkeley, if I understand him rightly, was clearly of opinion that there was no inconsistency in maintaining that there were in the Universe thousands of inkstands and trees and stones and stars, and that yet there was in it no such thing as matter. And perhaps the definition of matter, which he adopted, was such that there really was no inconsistency in maintaining this. Perhaps, similarly, other philosophers have sometimes adopted definitions of the expressions "material things" and "physical objects," which were such that all the judgments of this kind that we make might quite well be true, without its being true that there are in the Universe any material things whatever. Perhaps, even, there may be some justification for adopting definitions of those terms which would yield the surprising result that we may, with perfect consistency, maintain that the world is full of minerals and vegetables and animals, of all sorts of different kinds, and that yet there is not to be found in it a single material thing. I do not know whether there is or is not any utility in using the terms "material thing" or "physical object" in such a sense as this. But, whether there is or not, I cannot help thinking that there is ample justification for using them in another sense—a sense in which from the proposition that there are in the Universe such things as inkstands or fingers or clouds, it strictly follows that there are in it at least as many material things, and in which, therefore, we can not consistently maintain the existence of inkstands, fingers, and clouds, while denying that of material things. The kinds of judgment which I have mentioned, and thousands of others which might easily be mentioned, are obviously all of the same sort in one very important respect—a respect in which, for instance, such judgments as "This is an emotion," "This is a judgment," "This is a colour," are not of the same sort as they are. And it seems to me that we are certainly using the term "material thing" in a correct and useful way, if we express this important common property which they have, by saying that of each of them the same can truly be said as was said of the judgment "That is an inkstand": that, just as from the proposition "There is an inkstand" it follows that there is at least one material thing, so from the proposition "There is a tablecloth," it follows that there is at least one material thing; and similarly in all the other cases. We can certainly use the expression "Things such as inkstands, tablecloths, fingers, clouds, stars, etc.," to mean things such as these in a certain very important respect, which we all understand, though we may not be able to define it. And the term "material thing" certainly is and can be correctly used to mean simply things such as these in that respect—whatever it may be. Some term is certainly required to mean merely things such as these in that important respect; and, so far as I can see, there is no term which can be naturally used in this sense except the term "material things" and its equivalents. Thus understood, the term "material thing" certainly does stand for an important notion, which requires a name.