beautés de la nature, qui se trouve dans le livre, représentent les idées ou objets que l’âme considère, pas le secours des facultes qu’elle a reçues de Dieu; et l’action de l’Étre suprème sur l’âme est figurée par un trait, qui, partant d’un triangle, symbole de la Divinité, et perçant les nuages dont le triangle est environné.
s’étend jusqu’à l’âme pour la vivifier; enfin, on a fait en sorte de rendre le même sentiment par ces mots: _Quæ noscere cumque Deus det,_ _ Esse puta._ “L’objet du troisième Dialogue est de répondre aux difficultés auxquelles le sentiment qu’on a établi dans les Dialogues précédens, peut être sujet, de l’éclaircir en cette sorte de plus, d’en développer toutes les heureuses conséquences, enfin de faire voir, qu’étant bien entendu, il revient aux notions les plus communes. Et comme l’Auteur exprime à la fin du livre cette dernière pensée, en comparant ce qu’il vient de dire, à l’eau que les deux Interlocuteurs sont supposés voir jaillir d’un jet, et qu’il remarque que la même force de la gravité fait élever jusqu’à une certaine hauteur et retomber ensuite dans le bassin d’où elle étoit d’abord partie; on a pris cet emblême pour le sujet de la Vignette de ce Dialogue; on a représenté en conséquence dans cette dernière Vignette les deux Interlocuteurs, se promenant dans le lieu où l’Auteur les suppose, et s’entretenant là-dessus, et pour donner au Lecteur l’explication de l’emblême, on a mis au bas le vers suivant: _Urget aquas vis sursum, eadem flectitque deorsum._” 782 Collier never came fairly in sight of the philosophical public of last century. He is referred to in Germany by Bilfinger, in his _Dilucidationes Philosophicæ_ (1746), and also in the _Ada Eruditorum_, Suppl. VI. 244, &c., and in England by Corry in his _Reflections on Liberty and Necessity_ (1761), as well as in the _Remarks_ on the Reflections, and _Answers_ to the Remarks, pp. 7, 8 (1763), where he is described as “a weak reasoner, and a very dull writer also.” Collier was dragged from his obscurity by Dr. Reid, in his _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, Essay II. ch. 10. He was a subject of correspondence between Sir James Mackintosh, then at Bombay, and Dr. Parr, and an object of curiosity to Dugald Stewart.
A beautiful reprint of the _Clavis_ (of the original edition of which only seven copies were then known to exist) appeared in Edinburgh in 1836; and in the following year it was included in a collection of _Metaphysical Tracts by English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century_, prepared for the press by Dr. Parr.
783 William, fourth Lord Berkeley of Stratton, born about 1663, succeeded his brother in 1697, and died in 1741 at Bruton in Somersetshire. The Berkeleys of Stratton were descended from a younger son of Maurice, Lord Berkeley of Berkeley Castle, who died in 1326. His descendant, Sir John Berkeley of Bruton, a zealous Royalist, was created first Lord Berkeley of Stratton in 1658, and in 1669 became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an office which he held till 1672, when he was succeeded by the Earl of Essex (see Burke’s _Extinct Peerages_). It is said that Bishop Berkeley’s father was related to him. The Bishop himself was introduced by Dean Swift, in 1713, to the Lord Berkeley of Stratton, to whom the _Dialogues_ are dedicated, as “a cousin of his Lordship.” The title of Berkeley of Stratton became extinct on the death of the fifth Lord in 1773.
784 This interesting Preface is omitted in his last edition of the _Dialogues_.
785 The Second Part of the _Principles_ was never published, and only in part written. See Editor’s Preface to the _Principles_.
787 Berkeley’s philosophy is professedly a “revolt” from abstract ideas to an enlightened sense of concrete realities. In these Dialogues _Philonous_ personates the revolt, and represents Berkeley. _Hylas_ vindicates the uncritical conception of independent Matter.
788 Berkeley’s zeal against Matter in the abstract, and all abstract ideas of concrete things, is therefore not necessarily directed against “universal intellectual notions”—“the principles and theorems of sciences.”
789 Here “reason” means reasoning or inference. Cf. _Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 42, including the distinction between 790 “figure” as well as colour, is here included among the original data of sight.
791 “without the mind,” i.e. unrealised by any percipient mind.
794 “Sensible qualities,” i.e. the significant appearances presented in sense.
795 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80-86.
796 Descartes and Locke for example.
797 On Primary and Secondary Qualities of Matter, and their mutual relations, cf. _Principles_, sect. 9-15. See also Descartes, _Recherche_, Liv. VI. Pt. II. sect. 2; Locke’s _Essay_, Bk. II. ch.
8.
798 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 80.
799 What follows, within brackets, is not contained in the first and second editions.
800 Percipient mind is, in short, the indispensable realising factor of _all_ the qualities of sensible things.
802 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 15.
803 Is “notion” here a synonym for idea?
804 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 16.
805 “Size or figure, or sensible quality”—“size, color &c.,” in the first and second editions.
806 In Berkeley’s later and more exact terminology, the data or implicates of pure intellect are called _notions_, in contrast to his _ideas_, which are concrete or individual sensuous presentations.
807 They need living percipient mind to make them real.
808 So Reid’s _Inquiry_, ch. ii, sect. 8, 9; _Essays on the Intellectual Powers_, II. ch. 16. Cf. _New Theory of Vision Vindicated_, sect. 8, &c.
809 i.e. figured or extended visible colour. Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 43, &c.
811 After maintaining, in the preceding part of this Dialogue, the inevitable dependence of all the qualities of Matter upon percipient Spirit, the argument now proceeds to dispose of the supposition that Matter may still be an unmanifested or unqualified _substratum_, independent of living percipient Spirit.
812 [See the _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_, and its _Vindication_.] Note by the _Author_ in the 1734 edition.
814 Cf. Ibid., sect. 43.
815 “an idea,” i.e. a phenomenon present to our senses.
816 This was Reid’s fundamental question in his criticism of Berkeley.
819 In other words, the percipient activity of a living spirit is the necessary condition of the real existence of all ideas or phenomena immediately present to our senses.
820 An “explanation” afterwards elaborately developed by Hartley, in his _Observations on Man_ (1749). Berkeley has probably Hobbes in view.
821 The brain with the human body in which it is included constitutes a part of the material world, and must equally with the rest of the material world depend for its realisation upon percipient Spirit as the realising factor.
823 “in stones and minerals”—in first and second editions.
thing, during intervals in which it may be unperceived and unimagined by human beings, is here assumed, as a natural conviction.
825 In other words, men are apt to treat the omniscience of God as an inference from the dogmatic assumption that God exists, instead of seeing that our cosmic experience necessarily presupposes omnipotent and omniscient Intelligence at its root.
826 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 90. A permanent material world is grounded on Divine Mind, because it cannot but depend on Mind, while its reality is only partially and at intervals sustained by finite minds.
827 “necessarily inferred from”—rather necessarily presupposed in.
828 The present reality of Something implies the eternal existence of living Mind, if Something _must_ exist eternally, and if real or concrete existence involves living Mind. Berkeley’s conception of material nature presupposes a theistic basis.
829 He refers of course to Malebranche and his Divine Vision.
830 But Malebranche uses _idea_ in a higher meaning than Berkeley does—akin to the Platonic, and in contrast to the sensuous phenomena which Berkeley calls ideas.
831 The passage within brackets first appeared in the third edition.
833 Cf. Ibid., sect. 3-24.
834 I _can_ represent to myself another mind perceiving and conceiving things; because I have an example of this my own conscious life. I _cannot_ represent to myself sensible things existing totally unperceived and unimagined; because I cannot, without a contradiction, have an example of this in my own experience.
836 Berkeley’s _material substance_ is a natural or divinely ordered aggregate of sensible qualities or phenomena.
837 Inasmuch as, according to Berkeley, it must be a living Spirit, and it would be an abuse of language to call this Matter.
839 It is here argued that as _volition_ is the only _originative_ cause implied in our experience, and which consequently alone puts true meaning into the term Cause, to apply that term to what is not volition is to make it meaningless, or at least to misapply it.
840 While thus arguing against the need for independent matter, as an instrument needed by God, Berkeley fails to explain how dependent matter can be a medium of intercourse between persons. It must be more than a subjective dream, however well ordered, if it is available for this purpose. Unless the visible and audible ideas or phenomena presented to me are actually seen and heard by other men, how can they be instrumental in intercommunication?
844 i.e. all Spirits and their dependent ideas or phenomena.
845 This, according to Hume (who takes for granted that Berkeley’s reasonings can produce no conviction), is the natural effect of Berkeley’s philosophy.—“Most of the writings of that very ingenious author (Berkeley) form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted...That all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appear from this—_that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction_. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion, which is the result of scepticism.” (Hume’s _Essays_, vol. II. Note N, p.
554.)
846 Omitted in last edition.
847 “Tell me, Hylas,”—“So Hylas”—in first and second editions.
848 Variously called _noumena_, “things-in-themselves,” absolute substances, &c.—which Berkeley’s philosophy banishes, on the ground of their unintelligibility, and thus annihilates all farther questions concerning them. Questions about existence are thus confined within the concrete or realising experiences of living spirits.
849 Berkeley claims that his doctrine supersedes scepticism, and excludes the possibility of fallacy in sense, in excluding an ultimately representative perception of Matter. He also assumes the reasonableness of faith in the reality and constancy of natural law.
When we see an orange, the visual sense guarantees only colour. The other phenomena, which we associate with this colour—the other “qualities” of the orange—are, when we only _see_ the orange, matter of faith. We believe them to be realisable.
850 He accepts the common belief on which interpretation of sense symbols proceeds—that sensible phenomena are evolved in rational order, under laws that are independent of, and in that respect external to, the individual percipient.
851 Mediately as well as immediately.
852 We can hardly be said to have an _immediate_ sense-perception of an individual “thing”—meaning by “thing” a congeries of sense-ideas or phenomena, presented to different senses. We immediately perceive some of them, and believe in the others, which those suggest. See the last three notes.
853 He probably refers to Descartes, who _argues_ for the trustworthiness of our faculties from the veracity of God; thus apparently arguing in a circle, seeing that the existence of God is manifested to us only through our suspected faculties. But is not confidence in the trustworthiness of the Universal Power at the heart of the universe, the fundamental _presupposition_ of all human experience, and God thus the basis and end of philosophy and of experience?
854 As Locke does. See _Essay_, Bk. IV. ch. 11.
855 Cf. _Principles of Human Knowledge_, sect. 45-48.
856 And to be thus external to individual minds.
857 It is here that Berkeley differs, for example, from Hume and Comte and J.S. Mill; who accept sense-given phenomena, and assume the constancy of their orderly reappearances, _as a matter of fact_, while they confess total ignorance of the _cause_ of natural order.
(Thus ignorant, why do they assume reason or order in nature?) The ground of sensible things, which Berkeley refers to Divine Power, Mill expresses by the term “_permanent possibility_ of sensation.”
(See his _Examination of Hamilton_, ch. 11.) Our belief in the continued existence of a sensible thing _in our absence_ merely means, with him, our conviction, derived from custom, that we should perceive it under inexplicable conditions which determine its appearance.
860 Inasmuch as I am conscious of _myself_, I can gather, through the sense symbolism, the real existence of other minds, external to my own. For I cannot, of course, enter into the very consciousness of another person.
861 “reason,” i.e. reasoning or necessary inference—founded here on our sense of personal dependence; not merely on our faith in sense symbolism and the interpretability of the sensible world. Our belief in the existence of finite minds, external to our own, is, with Berkeley, an application of this faith.
862 “Matter,” i.e. Matter as abstract substance. Cf. _Principles_, sect.
135-138.
863 Does this imply that with Berkeley, _self_, as distinguished from the _phenomena_ of which the material world consists, is not a necessary presuppostion of experience? He says in many places—I am _conscious_ of “my own being,” and that my mind is myself. Cf.
865 Cf. Ibid., sect. 20 866 This important passage, printed within brackets, is not found in the first and second editions of the _Dialogues_. It is, by anticipation, Berkeley’s answer to Hume’s application of the objections to the reality of abstract or unperceived Matter, to the reality of the Ego or Self, of which we are aware through memory, as identical amid the changes of its successive states.
867 See note 4 on preceding page.
869 Cf. Ibid., sect. 2. Does he assume that he exists when he is not conscious of ideas—sensible or other? Or, does he deny that he is ever unconscious?
870 That is of matter supposed to exist independently of any mind.
Berkeley speaks here of a _consciousness_ of matter. Does he mean consciousness of belief in abstract material Substance?
872 Which he does not doubt.
873 This sentence expresses the whole question between Berkeley and his antagonists.
875 The words within brackets are omitted in the third edition.
876 The index pointing to the originative causes in the universe is thus the ethical judgment, which fastens upon the free voluntary agency of _persons_, as absolutely responsible causes, not merely caused causes.
877 That only ideas or phenomena are presented to our senses may be assented to by those who nevertheless maintain that intelligent sensuous experience implies more than the sensuous or empirical data.
880 “without the mind,” i.e. without the mind of each percipient person.
881 This is the gist of the whole question. According to the Materialists, sense-presented phenomena are due to unpresented, unperceived, abstract Matter; according to Berkeley, to living Spirit; according to Hume and Agnostics, their origin is unknowable, yet (incoherently) they claim that we _can_ interpret them—in physical science.
882 A similar objection is urged by Erdmann, in his criticism of Berkeley in the _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_.
885 “order”—“series,” in first and second editions.
886 “Matter,” i.e. when the reality of “matter” is supposed to signify what Berkeley argues cannot be; because really meaningless.
887 “the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the physical coexistences and sequences, maintained in constant order by Power external to the individual, and which are disclosed in the natural sciences.
888 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 38. Berkeley is not for making things _subjective_, but for recognising ideas or phenomena presented to the senses as _objective_.
889 They are not mere illusory appearances but are the very things themselves making their appearance, as far as our limited senses allow them to be realised for us.
890 i.e. abstract Matter.
891 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 49; and _New Theory of Vision 892 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 84-86.
893 “the connexion of ideas,” i.e. the order providentially maintained in nature.
894 Cf. _Principles_, Introduction, sect. 23-25.
896 This difficulty is thus pressed by Reid:—“The ideas in my mind cannot be the same with the ideas in any other mind; therefore, if the objects I perceive be only ideas, it is impossible that two or more such minds can perceive the same thing. Thus there is one unconfutable consequence of Berkeley’s system, which he seems not to have attended to, and from which it will be found difficult, if at all possible, to guard it. The consequence I mean is this—that, although it leaves us sufficient evidence of a Supreme Mind, it seems to take away all the evidence we have of other intelligent beings like ourselves. What I call a father, or a brother, or a friend, is only a parcel of ideas in my own mind; they cannot possibly have that relation to another mind which they have to mine, any more than the pain felt by me can be the _individual pain_ felt by another. I am thus left alone as the only creature of God in the universe” (Hamilton’s _Reid_, pp. 284-285). Implied Solipsism or Panegoism is thus charged against Berkeley, unless his conception of the material world is further guarded.
897 Reid and Hamilton argue in like manner against a fundamentally representative sense-perception.
899 Cf. Ibid., sect. 87-90.
900 Cf. Ibid., sect. 18.
902 “unknown,” i.e. unrealised in percipient life.
who are present at a concert of music may indeed in some measure be said to hear the _same_ notes; yet the sound which the one hears is _not the very same_ with the sound which another hears, _because the souls or persons are supposed to be different_.”
905 Berkeley seems to hold that in _things_ there is no identity other than perfect similarity—only in _persons_. And even as to personal identity he is obscure. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 347, &c.
906 But the question is, whether the very ideas or phenomena that are perceived by me _can_ be also perceived by other persons; and if not, how I can discover that “other persons” exist, or that any finite person except myself is cognizant of the ideal cosmos—if the sort of _sameness_ that Berkeley advocates is all that can be predicated of concrete ideas; which are thus only _similar_, or generically the same. Unless the ideas are _numerically_ the same, can different persons make signs to one another through them?
907 Omitted in author’s last edition.
908 This seems to imply that intercourse between finite persons is maintained through ideas or phenomena presented to the senses, under a tacit faith in divinely guaranteed correspondence between the phenomena of which I am conscious, and the phenomena of which my neighbour is conscious; so that they are _practically_ “the same.”
If we are living in a fundamentally divine, and therefore absolutely trustworthy, universe, the phenomena presented to my senses, which I attribute to the agency of another person, are so attributed rightly. For if not, the so-called cosmos is adapted to mislead me.
909 This explanation is often overlooked by Berkeley’s critics.
911 i.e. if you take the term _idea_ in its wholly subjective and popular meaning.
912 i.e. if you take the term _idea_ in its objective meaning.
913 “philosophic,” i.e. _pseudo_-philosophic, against which he argues.
914 Had this their relative existence—this realisation of the material world through finite percipient and volitional life—any beginning?
May not God have been eternally presenting phenomena to the senses of percipient beings in cosmical order, if not on this planet yet elsewhere, perhaps under other conditions? Has there been any beginning in the succession of finite persons?
915 In the first and second editions only.
916 Is “creation” by us distinguishable from continuous evolution, unbeginning and unending, in divinely constituted order; and is there a distinction between creation or evolution of _things_ and creation or evolution of _persons_?
918 “Matter,” i.e. Matter in this pseudo-philosophical meaning of the word.
919 Thus Origen in the early Church. That “Matter” is co-eternal with God would mean that God is eternally making things real in the percipient experience of persons.
920 Cf. _Principles_, sect. 85-156, in which the religious and scientific advantages of the new conception of matter and the material cosmos are illustrated, when it is rightly understood and applied.
921 “substance and accident”—“subjects and adjuncts,”—in the first and the second edition.
335, 359-365, we have glimpses of thought more allied to Platonism, if not to Hegelianism.
923 “Matter,” i.e. matter unrealised in any mind, finite or Divine.
924 These two propositions are a summary of Berkeley’s conception of the material world. With him, the _immediate_ objects of sense, realise in _perception_, are independent of the _will_ of the percipient, and are thus external to his proper personality. Berkeley’s “material world” of enlightened Common Sense, resulting from two factors, Divine and human, is independent of each finite mind; but not independent of all living Mind.
“Introduction,” sect. 6, 23-25, on the abuse of language, especially by abstraction.
926 “veterum philosophorum.” The history of ancient speculations about motion, from the paradoxes of Zeno downwards, is, in some sort, a history of ancient metaphysics. It involves Space, Time, and the material world, with the ultimate causal relation of Nature to Spirit.
927 “hujus ævi philosophos.” As in Bacon on motion, and in the questions raised by Newton, Borelli, Leibniz, and others, discussed in the following sections.
928 Sect. 3-42 are concerned with the principle of Causality, exemplified in the motion, or change of place and state, that is continually going on in the material world, and which was supposed by some to explain all the phenomena of the universe.
929 “vis.” The assumption that _active power_ is an immediate datum of sense is the example here offered of the abase of abstract words. He proceeds to dissolve the assumption by shewing that it is meaningless.
930 “principio”—the ultimate explanation or originating cause. Cf. sect.
36. Metaphors, or indeed empty words, are accepted for explanations, it is argued, when _bodily_ power or force, in any form, e.g.
gravitation, is taken as the real cause of motion. To call these “occult causes” is to say nothing that is intelligible. The perceived sensible effects and their customary sequences are all we know. Physicists are still deluded by words and metaphors.
931 Cf. sect. 53, where _sense_, _imagination_, and _intelligence_ are distinguished.
sect. 8, 17.
933 [La Materia altro non è che un vaso di Circe incantato, il quale serve per ricettacolo della forza et de’ momenti dell’ impeto. La forzae l’impeti sono astratti tanto sottili, sono quintessenze tanto spiritose, che in altre ampolle non si possono racchiudere, fuor che nell’ intima corpulenza de’ solidi naturali, Vide _Lezioni Accademiche_.]—AUTHOR. Torricelli (1608-47), the eminent Italian physicist, and professor of mathematics at Florence, who invented the barometer.
934 Borelli (1608-79), Italian professor of mathematics at Pisa, and then of medicine at Florence; see his _De Vi Percussionis_, cap.
XXIV. prop. 88, and cap. XXVII.
935 “per effectum,” i.e. by its sensible effects—real power or active force not being a datum of the senses, but found in the spiritual efficacy, of which we have an example in our personal agency.
936 “vim mortuam.” The only power we can find is the living power of Mind. Reason is perpetually active in the universe, imperceptible through the senses, and revealed to _them_ only in its sensible distinguished from perceived “motion” only through illusion due to misleading abstraction. There is no _physical_ power, intermediate between spiritual agency, on the one hand, and the sensible changes we see, on the other. Cf. sect. 11.
sect. 35, 70.
938 “distingui.” It is here argued that so-called power within the things of sense is not distinguishable from the sensibly perceived sequences. To the meaningless supposition that it is, he attributes the frivolous verbal controversies among the learned mentioned in the following section. The province of natural philosophy, according to Berkeley, is to inquire what the rules are under which sensible effects are uniformly manifested. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 236, 247, 249.
_ 939 Principia Math._ Def. III.
are held to be convenient in physical reasonings about the _phenomena_ of motion, but worthless as philosophical expressions of the _cause_ of motion, which transcends sense and mechanical science. Cf. _Siris_, sect. 234, 235.
942 Cf. sect. 67.
943 “candem.” So in recent discussions on the conservation of force.
944 [Borellus.]—AUTHOR. See _De Vi Percussionis_, cap. XXIII.
946 On Berkeley’s reasoning all terms which involve the assumption that real causality is something presentable to the senses are a cover for meaninglessness. Only through self-conscious experience of personal activity does real meaning enter into the portion of language which deals with active causation. This is argued in detail in sect. 21-35.
947 Our concrete experience is assumed to be confined to (_a_) _bodies_, i.e. the data of the senses, and (_b_) _mind_ or _spirit_—sentient, intelligent, active—revealed by internal consciousness. Cf.
_Principles_, sect. 1, 2, in which experience is resolved into _ideas_ and the _active intelligence_ which they presuppose. Here the word idea disappears, but, in accordance with its signification, “bodies” is still regarded as aggregates of external phenomena, the passive subjects of changes of place and state: the idealisation of the material world is tacitly implied, but not obtruded.
65, 66. where the essential passivity of the _ideas_ presented to the senses, i.e. the material world, is maintained as a cardinal principle—on the positive ground of our percipient experience of sensible things. To speak of the cause of motion as _something sensible_, he argues (sect. 24), is merely to shew that we know nothing about it. Cf. sect. 28, 29, infra.
949 The phenomena that can be presented to the senses are taken as the measure of what can be attributed to the material world; and as the senses present _only_ conditioned change of place in bodies, we must look for the active cause in the invisible world which internal consciousness presents to us.
951 “experientia didicimus.” Can the merely empirical data even of internal consciousness reveal this causal connexion between volition and bodily motions, without the venture of theistic faith?
952 “a primo et universali Principio” i.e. God, or the Universal Spirit, in whom the universe of bodies and spirits finds explanation; in a way which Berkeley does not attempt to unfold articulately and exhaustively in philosophical system.
_ 954 Princip. Math._ Def. III.
955 “resistentia.” Our muscular _sensation_ of resistance is apt to be accepted empirically as itself _active power in the concrete_, entering very much, as has been said, into the often inaccurate idea of power which is formed. See Editor’s Preface.
956 “nec incommode.” Cf. sect. 17, and note.
958 “nihil.” This section sums up Berkeley’s objections to crediting _matter_ with real power; the senses being taken as the test of what is contained in matter. It may be compared with David Hume, Thomas Brown, and J.S. Mill on Causation. Berkeley differs from them in recognising active power in spirit, while with them he resolves causation among bodies into invariable sequence.
959 Can the data presented to us reveal more than sequence, in the relation between our volitions and the corresponding movements of our bodies? Is not the difference found in the moral presupposition, which _supernaturalises_ man in his voluntary or morally responsible activity? This obliges us to see _ourselves_ as absolutely original causes of all bodily and mental states for which we can be morally approved or blamed.
960 “novumque genus.” Cf. sect. 21. We have here Berkeley’s antithesis of mind and matter—spirits and external phenomena presented to the senses—persons in contrast to passive ideas.
962 “Cartesius.” The antithesis of extended things and thinking things pervades Descartes; but not, as with Berkeley, on the foundation of the new conception of what is truly meant by matter or sensible 963 “alii.” Does he refer to Locke, who suggests the possibility of matter thinking?
964 See Aristotle, _De Anima_, I. ii. 5, 13; Diogenes Laertius, Lib. VI.
i. 6.
966 Hardly any passage in the _Timæus_ exactly corresponds to this. The following is, perhaps, the most pertinent:—Κίνησιν γὰρ ἀπένειμεν αὐτῷ τὴν τοῦ σώματος οἰκείαν, τῶν ἑπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν μάλιστα οὖσαν (p. 34 a). Aristotle quotes the _Timæus_ in the same connexion, _De Anima_, I. iii. ii.
967 “philosophi Cartesiani.” Secundum Cartesium causa generalis omnium motuum et quietum est Deus.—Derodon, _Physica_, I. ix. 30.
969 “naturam naturantem esse Deum”—as we might say, God considered as imminent cause in the universe. See St. Thomas Aquinas, _Opera_, vol. XXII. Quest. 6, p. 27.
970 “juxta certam et constantem rationem.” While all changes in Nature are determined by Will, it is not capricious but rational Will. The so-called arbitrariness of the Language of Nature is relative to us, and from our point of view. In itself, the universe of reality expresses Perfect Reason.
972 “spectat potius ad philosophiam primam.” The drift of the _De Motu_