The Works of George Berkeley Part 84

705 "seem to consider signs," i.e. to be grammarians rather than philosophers: physical sciences deal with the grammar of the divine language of nature.

706 "A man may be well read in the language of nature without understanding the grammar of it, or being able to say," &c.-in first edition.

707 "extend"-"stretch"-in first edition.

708 Omitted in second edition.

709 In the first edition, the section commences thus: "The best grammar of the kind we are speaking of will be easily acknowledged to be a treatise of _Mechanics_, demonstrated and applied to Nature, by a philosopher of a neighbouring nation, whom all the world admire. I shall not take upon me to make remarks on the performance of that extraordinary person: only some things he has advanced so directly opposite to the doctrine we have hitherto laid down, that we should be wanting in the regard due to the authority of so great a man did we not take some notice of them." He refers, of course, to Newton.

The first edition of Berkeley's _Principles_ was published in Ireland-hence "neighbouring nation." Newton's _Principia_ appeared in 1687.

710 "Motion," in various aspects, is treated specially in the _De Motu_.

An imagination of trinal s.p.a.ce presupposes locomotive experience-unimpeded, in contrast with-impeded locomotion. Cf. sect.

116.

711 Omitted in second edition.

712 Added in second edition.

713 Omitted in second edition.

714 See Locke's _Essay_, Bk. II. ch. 13, ---- 7-10.

715 "applied to"-"impressed on"-in first edition.

716 "applied to"-"impressed on"-in first edition.

717 "the _force_ causing the change"-which "force," according to Berkeley, can only be attributed metaphorically to the so-called impelling body; inasmuch as _bodies_, or the data of sense, can only be signs of their consequent events, not efficient causes of change.

718 Added in second edition.

719 What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second edition.

720 "seems impossible"-"is above my capacity"-in first edition.

721 In short, empty s.p.a.ce _is_ the sensuous idea of unresisted motion.

This is implied in the _New Theory of Vision_. He minimises s.p.a.ce, treating it as a datum of sense.

722 He probably refers to Samuel Clarke's _Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of G.o.d_, which appeared in 1706, and a treatise _De Spatio Reali_, published in the same year.

723 Sect. 118-132 are accordingly concerned with the New Principles in their application to Mathematics. The foundation of the mathematical sciences engaged much of Berkeley's thought in early life and in his later years. See his _a.n.a.lyst_.

724 Numerical relations are _realised_ only in concrete experience.

725 Cf. _New Theory of Vision_, sect. 107, &c.

726 Ibid. sect. 122-125, 149-160.

727 An infinitely divided extension, being unperceived, must be unreal-if its existence is made real only in and through actual perception, or at least imagination. The only possible extension is, accordingly, sensible extension, which could not be infinitely divided without the supposed parts ceasing to be perceived or real.

728 "converted Gentile"-"pagan convert"-in first edition.

729 Cf. Locke's _Essay_, Bk. I, ch. 3, -- 25.

730 "will perhaps in virtue thereof be brought to admit," &c.-"will not stick to affirm," &c.-in first edition.

731 Omitted in second edition. See the _a.n.a.lyst_.

732 "we must mean"-"we mean (if we mean anything)"-in first edition.

733 Omitted in the second edition.

734 Does this refer to the intended "Part II" of the _Principles_?

735 "men of great abilities and obstinate application," &c.-"men of the greatest abilities and most obstinate application," &c.-in first edition.

736 What follows to the end of this section is omitted in the second edition.

737 "absolute," i.e. abstract, independent, irrelative existence-as something of which there can be no sensuous perception or conception.

738 Matter unrealised in perception-not the material world that is realised in percipient experience of sense.

739 Omitted in second edition.

740 Sect. 135-156 treat of consequences of the New Principles, in their application to sciences concerned with our notions of _Spirit_ or _Mind_; as distinguished from sciences of ideas in external Nature, and their mathematical relations. Individual mind, with Berkeley, needs data of sense in order to its realisation in consciousness; while it is dependent on G.o.d, in a relation which he does not define distinctly.

741 e.g. Locke suggests this.

742 Is this a.n.a.logy applicable?

743 Omitted in second edition, as he had previously learned to distinguish _notion_ from _idea_. Cf. sect. 89, 142.

744 Ibid. In the omitted pa.s.sage it will be seen that he makes _idea_ and _notion_ synonymous.

745 Is the reality of mind as dependent on having ideas (of some sort) as ideas are on mind; although mind is more deeply and truly real than its ideas are?

746 Introduced in second edition.

747 We know _other finite persons_ through sense-presented phenomena, but not as themselves phenomena. Cf. sect. 145. It is a mediate knowledge that we have of other persons. The question about the individuality of finite egos, as distinguished from G.o.d, Berkeley has not touched.

748 These sentences are omitted in the second edition.

749 "the soul," i.e. the individual Ego.

750 Cf. sect. 2; 25-27.

751 This is Berkeley's application of his new conception of the reality of matter, to the final human question of the self-conscious existence of the individual human Ego, after physical death.

Philosophers and theologians were accustomed in his generation to ground their argument for a future life on the metaphysical a.s.sumption of the physical indivisibility of our self-conscious spirit, and on our contingent connexion with the body. "Our bodies,"

says Bishop Butler, "are no more _ourselves_, or _part of ourselves_, than any other matter around us." This train of thought is foreign to us at the present day, when men of science remind us that self-conscious life is found only in correlation with corporeal organisation, whatever may be the abstract possibility. Hope of continued life after physical death seems to depend on ethical considerations more than on metaphysical arguments, and on what is suggested by faith in the final outcome of personal life in a _divinely_ const.i.tuted universe.