The Works of George Berkeley Part 53

_Hyl._ They are.

_Phil._ Have those things a stable and permanent nature, independent of our senses; or are they in a perpetual change, upon our producing any motions in our bodies-suspending, exerting, or altering, our faculties or organs of sense?

_Hyl._ Real things, it is plain, have a fixed and real nature, which remains the same notwithstanding any change in our senses, or in the posture and motion of our bodies; which indeed may affect the ideas in our minds, but it were absurd to think they had the same effect on things existing without the mind.

_Phil._ How then is it possible that things perpetually fleeting and variable as our ideas should be copies or images of anything fixed and constant? Or, in other words, since all sensible qualities, as size, figure, colour, &c., that is, our ideas, are continually changing, upon every alteration in the distance, medium, or instruments of sensation; how can any determinate material objects be properly represented or painted forth by several distinct things, each of which is so different from and unlike the rest? Or, if you say it resembles some one only of our ideas, how shall we be able to distinguish the true copy from all the false ones?

_Hyl._ I profess, Philonous, I am at a loss. I know not what to say to this.

_Phil._ But neither is this all. Which are material objects in themselves-perceptible or imperceptible?

_Hyl._ Properly and immediately nothing can be perceived but ideas. All material things, therefore, are in themselves insensible, and to be perceived only by our ideas.

_Phil._ Ideas then are sensible, and their archetypes or originals insensible?

_Hyl._ Right.

_Phil._ But how can that which is sensible be _like_ that which is insensible? Can a real thing, in itself _invisible_, be like a _colour_; or a real thing, which is not _audible_, be like a _sound_? In a word, can anything be like a sensation or idea, but another sensation or idea?

_Hyl._ I must own, I think not.

_Phil._ Is it possible there should be any doubt on the point? Do you not perfectly know your own ideas?

_Hyl._ I know them perfectly; since what I do not perceive or know can be no part of my idea(818).

_Phil._ Consider, therefore, and examine them, and then tell me if there be anything in them which can exist without the mind: or if you can conceive anything like them existing without the mind.

_Hyl._ Upon inquiry, I find it is impossible for me to conceive or understand how anything but an idea can be like an idea. And it is most evident that _no idea can exist without the mind_(819).

_Phil._ You are therefore, by your principles, forced to deny the _reality_ of sensible things; since you made it to consist in an absolute existence exterior to the mind. That is to say, you are a downright sceptic. So I have gained my point, which was to shew your principles led to Scepticism.

_Hyl._ For the present I am, if not entirely convinced, at least silenced.

_Phil._ I would fain know what more you would require in order to a perfect conviction. Have you not had the liberty of explaining yourself all manner of ways? Were any little slips in discourse laid hold and insisted on? Or were you not allowed to retract or reinforce anything you had offered, as best served your purpose? Hath not everything you could say been heard and examined with all the fairness imaginable? In a word, have you not in every point been convinced out of your own mouth? And, if you can at present discover any flaw in any of your former concessions, or think of any remaining subterfuge, any new distinction, colour, or comment whatsoever, why do you not produce it?

_Hyl._ A little patience, Philonous. I am at present so amazed to see myself ensnared, and as it were imprisoned in the labyrinths you have drawn me into, that on the sudden it cannot be expected I should find my way out. You must give me time to look about me and recollect myself.

_Phil._ Hark; is not this the college bell?

_Hyl._ It rings for prayers.

_Phil._ We will go in then, if you please, and meet here again to-morrow morning. In the meantime, you may employ your thoughts on this morning's discourse, and try if you can find any fallacy in it, or invent any new means to extricate yourself.

_Hyl._ Agreed.

The Second Dialogue

_Hylas._ I beg your pardon, Philonous, for not meeting you sooner. All this morning my head was so filled with our late conversation that I had not leisure to think of the time of the day, or indeed of anything else.

_Philonous._ I am glad you were so intent upon it, in hopes if there were any mistakes in your concessions, or fallacies in my reasonings from them, you will now discover them to me.

_Hyl._ I a.s.sure you I have done nothing ever since I saw you but search after mistakes and fallacies, and, with that view, have minutely examined the whole series of yesterday's discourse: but all in vain, for the notions it led me into, upon review, appear still more clear and evident; and, the more I consider them, the more irresistibly do they force my a.s.sent.

_Phil._ And is not this, think you, a sign that they are genuine, that they proceed from nature, and are conformable to right reason? Truth and beauty are in this alike, that the strictest survey sets them both off to advantage; while the false l.u.s.tre of error and disguise cannot endure being reviewed, or too nearly inspected.

_Hyl._ I own there is a great deal in what you say. Nor can any one be more entirely satisfied of the truth of those odd consequences, so long as I have in view the reasonings that lead to them. But, when these are out of my thoughts, there seems, on the other hand, something so satisfactory, so natural and intelligible, in the modern way of explaining things that, I profess, I know not how to reject it.

_Phil._ I know not what way you mean.

_Hyl._ I mean the way of accounting for our sensations or ideas.

_Phil._ How is that?

_Hyl._ It is supposed the soul makes her residence in some part of the brain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are thence extended to all parts of the body; and that outward objects, by the different impressions they make on the organs of sense, communicate certain vibrative motions to the nerves; and these being filled with spirits propagate them to the brain or seat of the soul, which, according to the various impressions or traces thereby made in the brain, is variously affected with ideas(820).

_Phil._ And call you this an explication of the manner whereby we are affected with ideas?

_Hyl._ Why not, Philonous? Have you anything to object against it?

_Phil._ I would first know whether I rightly understand your hypothesis.

You make certain traces in the brain to be the causes or occasions of our ideas. Pray tell me whether by the _brain_ you mean any sensible thing.

_Hyl._ What else think you I could mean?

_Phil._ Sensible things are all immediately perceivable; and those things which are immediately perceivable are ideas; and these exist only in the mind. Thus much you have, if I mistake not, long since agreed to.

_Hyl._ I do not deny it.

_Phil._ The brain therefore you speak of, being a sensible thing, exists only in the mind(821). Now, I would fain know whether you think it reasonable to suppose that one idea or thing existing in the mind occasions all other ideas. And, if you think so, pray how do you account for the origin of that primary idea or brain itself?

_Hyl._ I do not explain the origin of our ideas by that brain which is perceivable to sense-this being itself only a combination of sensible ideas-but by another which I imagine.

_Phil._ But are not things imagined as truly _in the mind_ as things perceived(822)?

_Hyl._ I must confess they are.

_Phil._ It comes, therefore, to the same thing; and you have been all this while accounting for ideas by certain motions or impressions of the brain; that is, by some alterations in an idea, whether sensible or imaginable it matters not.

_Hyl._ I begin to suspect my hypothesis.

_Phil._ Besides spirits, all that we know or conceive are our own ideas.

When, therefore, you say all ideas are occasioned by impressions in the brain, do you conceive this brain or no? If you do, then you talk of ideas imprinted in an idea causing that same idea, which is absurd. If you do not conceive it, you talk unintelligibly, instead of forming a reasonable hypothesis.

_Hyl._ I now clearly see it was a mere dream. There is nothing in it.