The Works of George Berkeley Part 50

_Phil._ I see you have no mind to be pressed that way. To return then to your distinction between _sensation_ and _object_; if I take you right, you distinguish in every perception two things, the one an action of the mind, the other not.

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ And this action cannot exist in, or belong to, any unthinking thing(810); but, whatever beside is implied in a perception may?

_Hyl._ That is my meaning.

_Phil._ So that if there was a perception without any act of the mind, it were possible such a perception should exist in an unthinking substance?

_Hyl._ I grant it. But it is impossible there should be such a perception.

_Phil._ When is the mind said to be active?

_Hyl._ When it produces, puts an end to, or changes, anything.

_Phil._ Can the mind produce, discontinue, or change anything, but by an act of the will?

_Hyl._ It cannot.

_Phil._ The mind therefore is to be accounted _active_ in its perceptions so far forth as _volition_ is included in them?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ In plucking this flower I am active; because I do it by the motion of my hand, which was consequent upon my volition; so likewise in applying it to my nose. But is either of these smelling?

_Hyl._ No.

_Phil._ I act too in drawing the air through my nose; because my breathing so rather than otherwise is the effect of my volition. But neither can this be called _smelling_: for, if it were, I should smell every time I breathed in that manner?

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ Smelling then is somewhat consequent to all this?

_Hyl._ It is.

_Phil._ But I do not find my will concerned any farther. Whatever more there is-as that I perceive such a particular smell, or any smell at all-this is independent of my will, and therein I am altogether pa.s.sive.

Do you find it otherwise with you, Hylas?

_Hyl._ No, the very same.

_Phil._ Then, as to seeing, is it not in your power to open your eyes, or keep them shut; to turn them this or that way?

_Hyl._ Without doubt.

_Phil._ But, doth it in like manner depend on _your_ will that in looking on this flower you perceive _white_ rather than any other colour? Or, directing your open eyes towards yonder part of the heaven, can you avoid seeing the sun? Or is light or darkness the effect of your volition?

_Hyl._ No, certainly.

_Phil._ You are then in these respects altogether pa.s.sive?

_Hyl._ I am.

_Phil._ Tell me now, whether _seeing_ consists in perceiving light and colours, or in opening and turning the eyes?

_Hyl._ Without doubt, in the former.

_Phil._ Since therefore you are in the very perception of light and colours altogether pa.s.sive, what is become of that action you were speaking of as an ingredient in every sensation? And, doth it not follow from your own concessions, that the perception of light and colours, including no action in it, may exist in an unperceiving substance? And is not this a plain contradiction?

_Hyl._ I know not what to think of it.

_Phil._ Besides, since you distinguish the _active_ and _pa.s.sive_ in every perception, you must do it in that of pain. But how is it possible that pain, be it as little active as you please, should exist in an unperceiving substance? In short, do but consider the point, and then confess ingenuously, whether light and colours, tastes, sounds, &c. are not all equally pa.s.sions or sensations in the soul. You may indeed call them _external objects_, and give them in words what subsistence you please. But, examine your own thoughts, and then tell me whether it be not as I say?

_Hyl._ I acknowledge, Philonous, that, upon a fair observation of what pa.s.ses in my mind, I can discover nothing else but that I am a thinking being, affected with variety of sensations; neither is it possible to conceive how a sensation should exist in an unperceiving substance.-But then, on the other hand, when I look on sensible things in a different view, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it necessary to suppose a _material substratum_, without which they cannot be conceived to exist(811).

_Phil._ _Material substratum_ call you it? Pray, by which of your senses came you acquainted with that being?

_Hyl._ It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only being perceived by the senses.

_Phil._ I presume then it was by reflexion and reason you obtained the idea of it?

_Hyl._ I do not pretend to any proper positive _idea_ of it. However, I conclude it exists, because qualities cannot be conceived to exist without a support.

_Phil._ It seems then you have only a relative _notion_ of it, or that you conceive it not otherwise than by conceiving the relation it bears to sensible qualities?

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ Be pleased therefore to let me know wherein that relation consists.

_Hyl._ Is it not sufficiently expressed in the term _substratum_, or _substance_?

_Phil._ If so, the word _substratum_ should import that it is spread under the sensible qualities or accidents?

_Hyl._ True.

_Phil._ And consequently under extension?

_Hyl._ I own it.

_Phil._ It is therefore somewhat in its own nature entirely distinct from extension?

_Hyl._ I tell you, extension is only a mode, and Matter is something that supports modes. And is it not evident the thing supported is different from the thing supporting?

_Phil._ So that something distinct from, and exclusive of, extension is supposed to be the _substratum_ of extension?

_Hyl._ Just so.

_Phil._ Answer me, Hylas. Can a thing be spread without extension? or is not the idea of extension necessarily included in _spreading_?