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By Root 3331 0

of everything to a man who has jaundice. And very small insects, he says, must be able to see much smaller objects than we can see. Hylas thereupon says that colour is not in the objects, but in the light; it is, he says, a thin fluid substance. Philonous points out, as in the case of sound, that, according to Hylas, 'real' colours are something different from the red and blue that we see, and that this won't do.

Hereupon Hylas gives way about all secondary qualities, but continues to say that primary qualities, notably figure and motion, are inherent in external unthinking substances. To this Philonous replies that things look big when we are near them and small when we are far off, and that a movement may seem quick to one man and slow to another.

At this point Hylas attempts a new departure. He made a mistake, he says, in not distinguishing the object from the sensation; the act of perceiving he admits to be mental, but not what is perceived; colours, for example, 'have a real existence without the mind, in some unthinking substance'. To this Philonous replies: 'That any immediate object of the senses—that is, any idea or combination of ideas—should exist in an unthinking substance, or exterior to all minds, is in itself an evident contradiction.' It will be observed that, at this point, the argument becomes logical and is no longer empirical. A few pages later, Philonous says: 'Whatever is immediately perceived is an idea; and can any idea exist out of the mind?'

After a metaphysical discussion of substance, Hylas returns to the discussion of visual sensations, with the argument that he sees things at a distance. To this Philonous replies that this is equally true of things seen in dreams, which everyone admits to be mental; further, that distance is not perceived by sight, but judged as the result of experience, and that, to a man born blind but now for the first time able to see, visual objects would not appear distant.

At the beginning of the second Dialogue, Hylas urges that certain traces in the brain are the causes of sensations, but Philonous retorts that 'the brain, being a sensible thing, exists only in the mind'.

The remainder of the Dialogues is less interesting, and need not be considered.

Let us now make a critical analysis of Berkeley's contentions.

Berkeley's argument consists of two parts. On the one hand, he argues that we do not perceive material things, but only colours, sounds, etc., and that these are 'mental' or 'in the mind'. His reasoning is completely cogent as to the first point, but as to the second it suffers from the absence of any definition of the word 'mental'. He relies, in fact, upon the received view that everything must be either material or mental, and that nothing is both.

When he says that we perceive qualities, not 'things' or 'material substances', and that there is no reason to suppose that the different qualities which common sense regards as all belonging to one 'thing' inhere in a substance distinct from each and all of them, his reasoning may be accepted. But when he goes on to say that sensible qualities—including primary qualities—are 'mental', the arguments are of very different kinds, and of very different degrees of validity. There are some attempting to prove logical necessity, while others are more empirical. Let us take the former first.

Philonous says: 'Whatever is immediately perceived is an idea: and can any idea exist out of the mind?' This would require a long discussion of the word 'idea'. If it were held that thought and perception consist of a relation between subject and object, it would be possible to identify the mind with the subject, and to maintain that there is nothing 'in' the mind, but only objects 'before' it. Berkeley discusses the view that we must distinguish the act of perceiving from the object perceived, and that the former is mental while the latter is not. His argument against this view is obscure, and necessarily so, since, for one who believes in mental substance, as Berkeley does, there is no valid means of refuting it. He says: