The Works of George Berkeley Part 26

Sir Isaac(257) owns his book could have been demonstrated on the supposition of indivisibles.

(M426) Innumerable vessels of matter. V. Cheyne.

I'll not admire the mathematicians. 'Tis wt any one of common sense might attain to by repeated acts. I prove it by experience. I am but one of human sense, and I &c.

Mathematicians have some of them good parts-the more is the pity. Had they not been mathematicians they had been good for nothing. They were such fools they knew not how to employ their parts.

The mathematicians could not so much as tell wherein truth & certainty consisted, till Locke told 'em(258). I see the best of 'em talk of light and colours as if wthout the mind.

By _thing_ I either mean ideas or that wch has ideas(259).

Nullum praeclarum ingenium unquam fuit magnus mathematicus. Scaliger(260).

A great genius cannot stoop to such trifles & minutenesses as they consider.

1. (261)All significant words stand for ideas(262).

2. All knowledge about our ideas.

3. All ideas come from without or from within.

4. If from without it must be by the senses, & they are call'd sensations(263).

5. If from within they are the operations of the mind, & are called thoughts.

6. No sensation can be in a senseless thing.

7. No thought can be in a thoughtless thing.

8. All our ideas are either sensations or thoughts(264), by 3, 4, 5.

9. None of our ideas can be in a thing wch is both thoughtless & senseless(265), by 6, 7, 8.

10. The bare pa.s.sive recognition or having of ideas is called perception.

11. Whatever has in it an idea, tho' it be never so pa.s.sive, tho' it exert no manner of act about it, yet it must perceive. 10.

12. All ideas either are simple ideas, or made up of simple ideas.

13. That thing wch is like unto another thing must agree wth it in one or more simple ideas.

14. Whatever is like a simple idea must either be another simple idea of the same sort, or contain a simple idea of the same sort. 13.

15. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 14. Another demonstration of the same thing.

16. Two things cannot be said to be alike or unlike till they have been compar'd.

17. Comparing is the viewing two ideas together, & marking wt they agree in and wt they disagree in.

18. The mind can compare nothing but its own ideas. 17.

19. Nothing like an idea can be in an unperceiving thing. 11, 16, 18.

N. B. Other arguments innumerable, both _a priori_ & _a posteriori_, drawn from all the sciences, from the clearest, plainest, most obvious truths, whereby to demonstrate the Principle, i.e. that neither our ideas, nor anything like our ideas, can possibly be in an unperceiving thing(266).

N. B. Not one argument of any kind wtsoever, certain or probable, _a priori_ or _a posteriori_, from any art or science, from either sense or reason, against it.

Mathematicians have no right idea of angles. Hence angles of contact wrongly apply'd to prove extension divisible _ad infinitum_.

We have got the Algebra of pure intelligences.

We can prove Newton's propositions more accurately, more easily, & upon truer principles than himself(267).

Barrow owns the downfall of geometry. However I'll endeavour to rescue it-so far as it is useful, or real, or imaginable, or intelligible. But for _the nothings_, I'll leave them to their admirers.

I'll teach any one the whole course of mathematiques in 1/100 part the time that another will.

Much banter got from the prefaces of the mathematicians.

(M427) Newton says colour is in the subtil matter. Hence Malbranch proves nothing, or is mistaken, in a.s.serting there is onely figure & motion.

I can square the circle, &c.; they cannot. Wch goes on the best principles?

The Billys(268) use a finite visible line for an 1/m.

(M428) Marsilius Ficinus-his appearing the moment he died solv'd by my idea of time(269).

(M429) The philosophers lose their abstract or unperceived Matter. The mathematicians lose their insensible sensations. The profane [lose] their extended Deity. Pray wt do the rest of mankind lose? As for bodies, &c., we have them still(270).

N. B. The future nat. philosoph. & mathem. get vastly by the bargain(271).

(M430) There are men who say there are insensible extensions. There are others who say the wall is not white, the fire is not hot, &c. We Irishmen cannot attain to these truths.

The mathematicians think there are insensible lines. About these they harangue: these cut in a point at all angles: these are divisible _ad infinitum_. We Irishmen can conceive no such lines.

The mathematicians talk of wt they call a point. This, they say, is not altogether nothing, nor is it downright something. Now we Irishmen are apt to think something(272) & nothing are next neighbours.

Engagements to P.(273) on account of ye Treatise that grew up under his eye; on account also of his approving my harangue. Glorious for P. to be the protector of usefull tho' newly discover'd truths.

How could I venture thoughts into the world before I knew they would be of use to the world? and how could I know that till I had try'd how they suited other men's ideas?