being perceived, then, of course, solidity, extension, movement, 

 can have no existence apart from perception, and the distinction 

 between primary and secondary qualities breaks down. If it be 

 objected that in calling all things ideas, Berkeley is destroying the 

 reality and substantiality of nature, he answers, not so. What- 

 ever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains 

 as secure as ever and is as real as ever. To apply the word, idea, to 

 that which we eat and to that with which we are clothed, in no way 

 alters these, and, if it were not for the traditionary use of the word, 

 thing, as denoting something existing without the mind, the same 

 word, thing, might still be retained and applied. The objects of 

 science, on such a view, are not transcendent objects, -as they must 

 be on Locke's view. Science is concerned, Berkeley would hold, 

 with ideas or things which are known. Another objection might 

 be urged against this "idealistic theory", viz., that since objects 

 exist only when they are perceived, therefore, at almost every 

 moment, they must be annihilated and created anew; the trees 

 in the garden, the chairs in the parlour, are no longer existent when 

 there is no individual to perceive them. But Berkeley does not 

 hold any such view. He believes that trees and chairs have an 

 existence apart from his own particular mind, apart, indeed, from 

 all finite minds, but this apparently independent existence is not 

 an existence apart from mind after all, for the world of nature 

 exists, then, he believes in the mind of God. To be is to be perceived. 

 There is no existence apart from perceiving spirit, though that spirit 

 may be finite or infinite. 



To the teaching of Berkeley, as outlined above, modern philos- 

 ophy "and modern psychology are greatly indebted. And yet 

 Berkeley is not without his mistakes, though the one that is most 

 commonly urged against him does not seem to be at all well-sub- 

 stantiated. Locke held explicitly that simple ideas come into the 

 mind and are then compounded by it into complex ideas. That 

 Berkeley and Hume, likewise, accepted the simple-idea theory of 

 Locke has generally been supposed, but a careful reading of each 

 by no means bears out any such criticism. They both classify ideas 

 into simple and complex, but nowhere do they say that simple 

 ideas enter the mind and are afterwards combined into complex 

 ideas. Berkeley clearly holds no such doctrine. He says in the 



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