An Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision
First published in 1709
Editor's Preface To The Essay Towards A New Theory Of Vision
Berkeley's Essay towards a New Theory of Vision was meant to prepare the way for the exposition and defence of the new theory of the material world, its natural order, and its relation to Spirit, that is contained in his book of Principles and in the relative Dialogues, which speedily followed. The Essay was the firstfruits of his early philosophical studies at Dublin. It was also the first attempt to show that our apparently immediate Vision of Space and of bodies extended in three-dimensioned space, is either tacit or conscious inference, occasioned by constant association of the phenomena of which alone we are visually percipient with assumed realities of our tactual and locomotive experience.
The first edition of the Essay appeared early in 1709, when its author was about twenty-four years of age. A second edition, with a few verbal changes and an Appendix, followed before the end of that year. Both were issued in Dublin, “printed by Aaron Rhames, at the back of [pg 096] Dick's Coffeehouse, for Jeremy Pepyat, bookseller in Skinner Row.” In March, 1732, a third edition, without the Appendix, was annexed to Alciphron, on account of its relation to the Fourth Dialogue in that book. This was the author's last revision.
In the present edition the text of this last edition is adopted, after collation with those preceding. The Appendix has been restored, and also the Dedication to Sir John Percival, which appeared only in the first edition.
A due appreciation of Berkeley's theory of seeing, and his conception of the visible world, involves a study, not merely of this tentative juvenile Essay, but also of its fuller development and application in his more matured works. This has been commonly forgotten by his critics.
Various circumstances contribute to perplex and even repel the reader of the Essay, making it less fit to be an easy avenue of approach to Berkeley's Principles.