The Works of George Berkeley Part 5

??s?a, the name for substance, used by Aristotle, the Fathers, &c.

If at the same time we shall make the Mathematiques much more easie and much more accurate, wt can be objected to us(51)?

We need not force our imagination to conceive such very small lines for infinitesimals. They may every whit as well be imagin'd big as little, since that the integer must be infinite.

Evident that wch has an infinite number of parts must be infinite.

We cannot imagine a line or s.p.a.ce infinitely great-therefore absurd to talk or make propositions about it.

We cannot imagine a line, s.p.a.ce, &c., quovis lato majus. Since yt what we imagine must be datum aliquod; a thing can't be greater than itself.

If you call infinite that wch is greater than any a.s.signable by another, then I say, in that sense there may be an infinite square, sphere, or any other figure, wch is absurd.

Qu. if extension be resoluble into points it does not consist of?

No reasoning about things whereof we have no ideas(52); therefore no reasoning about infinitesimals.

No word to be used without an idea.

(M9) If uneasiness be necessary to set the Will at work, Qu. how shall we will in heaven?

Bayle's, Malbranch's, &c. arguments do not seem to prove against s.p.a.ce, but onely against Bodies.

(M10) I agree in nothing wth the Cartesians as to ye existence of Bodies & Qualities(53).

Aristotle as good a man as Euclid, but he was allowed to have been mistaken.

Lines not proper for demonstration.

(M11) We see the house itself, the church itself; it being an idea and nothing more. The house itself, the church itself, is an idea, i.e. an object-immediate object-of thought(54).

Instead of injuring, our doctrine much benefits geometry.

(M12) Existence is percipi, or percipere, [or velle, i.e. agere(55)]. The horse is in the stable, the books are in the study as before.

(M13) In physiques I have a vast view of things soluble hereby, but have not leisure.

(M14) Hyps and such like unaccountable things confirm my doctrine.

Angle not well defined. See Pardies' Geometry, by Harris, &c. This one ground of trifling.

(M15) One idea not the cause of another-one power not the cause of another. The cause of all natural things is onely G.o.d. Hence trifling to enquire after second causes. This doctrine gives a most suitable idea of the Divinity(56).

(M16) Absurd to study astronomy and other the like doctrines as speculative sciences.

(M17) The absurd account of memory by the brain, &c. makes for me.

How was light created before man? Even so were Bodies created before man(57).

(M18) Impossible anything besides that wch thinks and is thought on should exist(58).

That wch is visible cannot be made up of invisible things.

M.S. is that wherein there are not contain'd distinguishable sensible parts. Now how can that wch hath not sensible parts be divided into sensible parts? If you say it may be divided into insensible parts, I say these are nothings.

Extension abstract from sensible qualities is no sensation, I grant; but then there is no such idea, as any one may try(59). There is onely a considering the number of points without the sort of them, & this makes more for me, since it must be in a considering thing.

Mem. Before I have shewn the distinction between visible & tangible extension, I must not mention them as distinct. I must not mention M. T. & M. V., but in general M. S., &c.(60)

Qu. whether a M. V. be of any colour? a M. T. of any tangible quality?

If visible extension be the object of geometry, 'tis that which is survey'd by the optique axis.

(M19) I may say the pain is _in_ my finger, &c., according to my doctrine(61).

Mem. Nicely to discuss wt is meant when we say a line consists of a certain number of inches or points, &c.; a circle of a certain number of square inches, points, &c. Certainly we may think of a circle, or have its idea in our mind, without thinking of points or square inches, &c.; whereas it should seem the idea of a circle is not made up of the ideas of points, square inches, &c.

Qu. Is any more than this meant by the foregoing expressions, viz. that squares or points may be perceived in or made out of a circle, &c., or that squares, points, &c. are actually in it, i.e. are perceivable in it?

A line in abstract, or Distance, is the number of points between two points. There is also distance between a slave & an emperor, between a peasant & philosopher, between a drachm & a pound, a farthing & a crown, &c.; in all which Distance signifies the number of intermediate ideas.

Halley's doctrine about the proportion between infinitely great quant.i.ties vanishes. When men speak of infinite quant.i.ties, either they mean finite quant.i.ties, or else talk of [that whereof they have(62)] no idea; both which are absurd.

If the disputations of the Schoolmen are blam'd for intricacy, triflingness, & confusion, yet it must be acknowledg'd that in the main they treated of great & important subjects. If we admire the method & acuteness of the Math[ematicians]-the length, the subtilty, the exactness of their demonstrations-we must nevertheless be forced to grant that they are for the most part about trifling subjects, and perhaps mean nothing at all.

Motion on 2d thoughts seems to be a simple idea.

(M20) Motion distinct from ye thing moved is not conceivable.

(M21) Mem. To take notice of Newton for defining it [motion]; also of Locke's wisdom in leaving it undefin'd(63).

Ut ordo partium temporis est immutabilis, sin etiam ordo partium spatii.

Moveantur hae de locis suis, et movebuntur (ut ita dicam) de seipsis. Truly number is immensurable. That we will allow with Newton.

(M22) Ask a Cartesian whether he is wont to imagine his globules without colour. Pellucidness is a colour. The colour of ordinary light of the sun is white. Newton in the right in a.s.signing colours to the rays of light.

A man born blind would not imagine s.p.a.ce as we do. We give it always some dilute, or duskish, or dark colour-in short, we imagine it as visible, or intromitted by the eye, wch he would not do.

(M23) Proinde vim inferunt sacris literis qui voces hasce (v. tempus, spatium, motus) de quant.i.tatibus mensuratis ibi interpretantur. Newton, p.

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