1803.] 
Some maintain, with Thomas Cooper, 
that there is but one fubftance, and that, 
matter. Some maintain, with Price, that 
there are.two fubftances, fpirit and mat- 
ter. 
Among the continental fpeculators the 
fyftem of Berkeley finds many advocates, 
and is efpoufed under the name Ideali/m 
by writers of reputation in Germany. 
‘Fhis name is well-chofen ; for the charac- 
teriftic tenet of the fyftem is that the mind 
having accefs only to ideas, can have no 
evidence of the exiftence of any thing 
elfe. Itis next maintained, that there is 
no fubftratum of thofe ideas, that nothing 
exits but what is ideal, and even that 
the very notion of matter, or corporeal 
fubftance, involves a contradiction in it. 
For the proof of thefe dogmas, it is ufual 
to appeal to that difquifition of Berkeley’s, 
intitled §* The Principles of Human 
Knowledge.” 
Of this work, the nine firft paragraphs 
comprehend ail the fundamental prepo- 
tions, and the hundred and forty-{even re- 
maining paragraphs contain the applica- 
tion, or illuftration in detail, of the doc- 
trine. An examination then of thefe nine 
paragraphs will fufice to afcertain, whe- 
ther, in the prefent ftate of metaphyfical 
dialectic, the idealifts can claim the rank 
of a rational and confiftent fe&. This 
may bef be done by tranfcribing exaftly 
the paragraphs in queltion, and accompa- 
nying each with critical animadverfion. 
I, It is evident to any one, who takes 
a furvey of the objects of human know- 
ledge, that they are either ideas actually 
imprinted on the fenfes, or elfe -fuch as 
are perceived by attending to the paffions 
and operations of the mind, or, lafly, 
ideas formed by help of memory and ima- 
gination, either compounding, dividing, 
or barely reprefenting thofe originally per- 
ceived in the aforefaid ways. 
By fight I have the ideas of light and 
colours, with their feveral degrees and va- 
riations. By touch I perceive, for exam- 
ple, hard and foft, heat and cold, motion 
and refiltance, and of all thefe more or 
Jefs, either as to quantity or degree. 
Smelling furnifhes me with odours; the 
palate with taftes; and hearing conveys 
founds to the mind in all their variety of 
tone and compofition. And, as feveral 
of thefe are obferved to accompany each 
other, they come to be marked by one 
naine, and fo to be reputed as one thing. 
Thus, for example, a certain colour, tatte, 
fmeil, figure, and confiftence, having been 
obferved to go together, are accounted one 
ailing thing, fignified by the name apple. 
$ 
Enquirer, No. XX1V. 487 
Other colle€tions of ideas confit:te a 
ftone, a tree, a book, and the like tenfible 
things; which, as they are pleafing or 
difagreeable, excite the paffions of love, 
hatred, joy, grief, and fo forth. 
I. The objecis of human knowledge are cither 
ideas. ' 
Human knowledge may be faid to confitt 
of ideas; but that the objeés of human 
knowledge are ideas, and not things, is the 
very point indifpute. It muft not be {muggled 
into an axiom or a definition, 
Ideas aftually imprinted on the fenfes. — 
How can ideas be imprinted on the fenfes ? 
I thut my eyes, and call up the idea of a fun- 
fhiny landfcape 5; but I do not thereby excite 
the fenfation of light or verdure. I do not 
hear the tune I think of. It is a charatte- 
riftic difference between ideas and fenfations ; 
that, whereas fenfations can imprint ideas, 
ideas cannot imprint fenfations. The percep- 
tions which in dreams we miftake for fene 
fations, are ideas. 
Ideas imprinted on the fenfes, or perceived by 
attending to the pafjions, or formed by help of me- 
my. 
What difference can there be in kind bee 
-tween thefe claffes? Ideas of fenfible objeé&ts 
may be aflociated with paffionate movements, 
and diftant time or place: fuch ideas, a tyrans 
nicide may ferve for example, would be of all 
three clafles at once. Ideas may differ in 
vividnefs and in complexity. Terms or words 
may differ, in that forme characterife objects 
of fenfe, fome charaterife paffions and ope- 
rations of mind, fome charaéterife the re- 
liques of memory, or the combinatiuns @f 
imagination, and in many other refpeéts ; 
but fuch fub-divifion is neither difcretive nor 
exhauftive.” The imprecifion of this lan- 
guage arifes from Berkeley’s not having in- 
veitigated what ideas are. Let us enquire. 
The organs of fenfe appear to confift of 
bundles of tubulated fibres, of which one ex- 
‘tremity communicates with external furfaces, 
and the other with the feat of the mind. A 
fenfation is a motion at the external extremi- 
ty, *an idea, a motion at the internal extre- 
* The antients, inftead of confidering 
ideas as perceptions of an Interior organ,’ 
mere fenfations of the common fenforium, 
feem to have fuppofed, that, as wind eludes 
the fight, warmth the hearing, and light the 
tafte, fo there are fubftances which elude all 
the fenfes; and that among thefe objects 
beyond fenfe, thefe metaphyfical things, were to 
be fought the caufes of all being, the ele- 
mental fhapes of objeéts, the embryo of the 
univerfe. Such imaginary germs of things 
they called /deas,and talk of archetypal ideas or 
forims, in correfpondence with, or by the evo- 
lution of which, they fuppofe the world to 
have been made, or to have grown forth. Te 
this ftrange notion of idea Berkeley, from his 
claflical reading, was familiarifed; and hence 
the confuSon of his mind on the fubje&. 
ty 
