Chapter 4

From The Principlesof Human Knowledge

GeorgeBerkeley
It is evident to anyone who takesa survey of the objectsof humanknowledge, that they
are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses
; or else such as are perceived by
to
the
and
of
the
mind
; or lastly, ideasformed by help of
attending
passions
operations
memory and imagination either compounding, dividing , or barely representingthose
originally perceivedin the aforesaidways. By sight I have the ideasof light and colours,
with their severaldegreesand variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and
cold, motion and resistance
, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or
degree. Smellingfurnishes me with odours; the palatewith tastes; and hearingconveys
soundsto the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as severalof these
areobservedto accompanyeachother, they cometo be markedby one name, and so to
be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and
consistencehaving been observed to go together, are accountedone distinct thing,
signified by the nameapple; other collectionsof ideasconstitute a stone, a tree, a book,
and the like sensiblethings- which as they are pleasing or disagreeableexcite the
passionsof love, hatred, joy , grief, and so forth.
But, besidesall that endlessvariety of ideasor objectsof knowledge, there is likewise
somethingwhich knows or perceivesthem, and exercisesdivers operations, as willing ,
imagining, remembering
, about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind,
spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote anyone of my ideas, but a thing
entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the samething, whereby
they are perceived- for the existenceof an ideaconsistsin being perceived.
That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideasformed by the imagination, exist
without the mind, is what everybody will allow. And to me it is no lessevident that the
various sensationsor ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined
together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a
mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this by any
one that shallattend to what is meantby the term existwhen applied to sensiblethings.
The table I write on I say exists, that is, I seeand feel it ; and if I were out of my study I
should say it existed- meaningthereby that if I was in my study I might perceiveit , or
that someother spirit actually doesperceiveit . Therewas an odour, that is, it was smelt;
there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceivedby sight
or touch. This is all that I can understandby theseand the like expressions.For as to
what is saidof the absoluteexistenceof unthinking things without any relation to their
being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their esseis perripi, nor is it
possible they should have any existenceout of the minds or thinking things which
perceivethem.
It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains,
rivers, and in a word all sensibleobjects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from
their being perceived by the understanding. But, with how great an assuranceand

16

George Berkeley

acquiescencesoever this principle may be entertainedin the world , yet whoever shall
And in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a
manifest contradiction. For, what are the forementioned objects but the things we
? and is
perceiveby sense? and what do we perceivebesidesour own ideasor sensations
it not plainly repugnantthat anyone of these, or any combinationof them, should exist
unperceived?
If we throughly examine this tenet it will , perhaps, be found at bottom to depend
on the doctrine of abstractideas. For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than
to distinguish the existenceof sensibleobjects from their being perceived, so as to
? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and
conceive them existing unperceived
in
a
word
the
we
see
and feel- what are they but so many sensations
,
figures
things
notions, ideas, or impressionson the sense
? and is it possible to separate
, even in
thought, any of these from perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing
from itself. I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from eachother,
those things which, perhaps, I never perceivedby senseso divided. Thus, I imaginethe
trunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without
thinking on the rose itself. So far, I will not deny, I can abstract if that may properly
be calledabstractionwhich extendsonly to the conceiving separatelysuchobjectsas it
is possible may really exist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or
imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existenceor perception
. Hence, asit is impossiblefor me to seeor feel anything without an actualsensation
of that thing, so is it impossiblefor me to conceivein my thoughts any sensiblething or
object distinct from the sensationor perception of it. [In truth , the object and the
sensationare the samething, and cannot thereforebe abstractedfrom eachother.]
Sometruths there are so nearand obvious to the mind that a man needonly open his
eyesto seethem. SuchI take this important one to be, viz. that all the choir of heaven
and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which composethe mighty frame
of the world , have not any subsistencewithout a mind, that their beingis to be perceived
or known; that consequentlyso long asthey arenot actually perceivedby me, or
do not exist in my mind or that of any other createdspirit, they must either have no
existenceat all, or else subsistin the mind of some Eternal Spirit- it being perfectly
unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single
part of them an existenceindependentof a spirit. [ To be convincedof which, the reader
need only reflect, and try to separatein his own thoughts the beingof a sensiblething
from its beingperceived
.]
From what hasbeensaid it is evident there is not any other Substancethan Spirit, or
that which perceives. But, for the fuller demonstrationof this point, let it be considered
the sensiblequalitiesarecolour, figure, motion, smell, taste, etc., i.e., the ideasperceived
by sense.Now , for an idea to exist in an unperceivingthing is a manifestcontradiction,
for to have an idea is all one as to perceive; that therefore wherein colour, figure, etc.
exist must perceive them; hence it is clear there can be no unthinking substanceor
substratumof those ideas.
But, say you, though the ideasthemselvesdo not exist without the mind, yet there
, which things exist
may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances
. I answer, an idea can be like nothing but
without the mind in an unthinking substance
an idea; a colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we look
but never so little into our thought, we shall And it impossible for us to conceive a
likenessexcept only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposedoriginals
or external things, of which our ideasare the picturesor representations
, be themselves
perceivableor no? If they are, then they are ideasand we have gained our point; but if

FromThI Principles
RnKnow/edge 17
ofHUm
to anyone whether it be senseto asserta colour is like
appeaJ
invi
~
ible
; hard or soft, like somethingwhich is intangible; and so of

you say they are not , I

something which is

the rest.
Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondaryqualities. By
the fonner they mean extension, -. ,- -', motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and
number; by the latter they denote -" other sensiblequalities, as colours, sounds, tastes,
and so forth. The ideaswe have of thesethey acknowledgenot to be the resemblances
of anything existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have our ideasof
the primary qualitiesto be patternsor imagesof things which exist without the mind, in
an unthinking substancewhich they call Matter. By Matter , therefore, we are to understand
an inert, senselesssubstance
, in which extension, &sure, and motion do actually
subsist. But it is evident, Horn what we have already shewn
, that extension, figure, and
motion are only ideasexisting in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but
another idea, and that consequentlyneither they nor their archetypescan exist in an
. Hence, it is plain that the very notion of what is calledMatter
unperceivingsubstance
or corporealsubstance
involves
a contradiction in it . [Insomuchthat I should not think it
,
necessaryto spendmore time in exposing its absurdity. But, becausethe tenet of the
existenceof Matter seemsto have taken so deep a root in the minds of philosophers,
and draws after it so many ill consequences
, I chooserather to be thought prolix and
tedious than omit anything that might conduceto the full discovery and extirpation of
that prejudice.]

,
figure
aU