NOTE:  PHK=Principles of Human Knowledge; 3D=Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
 Any notes below referring to "PHK, Int" and a section number are references to the "Introduction" to  PHK.

1.  Berkeley's position is one of common sense.
 -A purpose - to defeat materialistic explanation in science in opposition to atheism.  See PHK, 92 in which Berkeley argues that materialism is used by atheists to propound their doctrines.  If Berkeley is able to knock the wind out of the sails of materialism, he will have done the same for atheism.

2.  Berkeley's "Empiricist Thesis" - PHK, 1
 "It is evident to anyone who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas (1) actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are (2) perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly (3) ideas formed by the help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways."
 Note that B. adds in PHK, 89, that we comprehend our own existence by feeling or reflection and the existence of other "spirits" by reason.  We have some "notion" of our own minds, but no ideas.  The term 'idea' would be improperly used to stand for everything we "know or have a notion of."  An odd position for an empiricist to take....

3.  Berkeley's position is not skeptical.
 -PHK 86 - Berkeley's claim that it is materialism which leads to skepticism.  Look carefully at the passage where Berkeley uses the phrase "that their knowledge was only so far forth real...." - he is referring to Locke's assertions on the "reality of knowledge."

4.  But the position of the materialist is skeptical.
 3D (quotation):  Hylas:  "How often must I tell you, that I know not the real nature of any one thing in the universe?  I may, indeed, upon occasion, make use of pen, ink, and paper.  But what any one of them is in its own true nature, I declare positively that I know not.  And the same is true with regard to every other corporeal thing.  And what is more, we are not only ignorant of the true and real nature of things, but even of their existence.  I t cannot be denied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas; but it cannot be concluded from thence that bodies really exist.  Nay, now I think on it, I must, agreeably to my former concessions, further declare, that it is impossible any real corporeal thing could exist in nature."  (emphasis added)

5.  What are "sensible things"?
 -The materialist argument
1.  All sensible qualities represent physical objects.
2.  All ideas represent sensible qualities.
3.  Therefore, all ideas represent physical objects.

 -The immaterialist argument
1.  All sensible qualities are ideas.
2.  All "physical objects" are sensible qualities.
3.  Therefore, all "physical objects" are ideas.

 How is the immaterialist's argument to be justified?
See PHK 7, 49 on the claim that qualities can exist only in a mind.
See PHK 7, 9, 10 on the rejection of the PQ/SQ distinction.
See PHK 112 on the relativity of perception.

 -'Sensible thing' - defined - "Those things which are perceived by the senses."  3D.

6. The proof of the principle "esse est percipi aut percipere."
 (Refer also to the "immaterialist" argument, above)
 -The Tree in the Quad Argument - PHK 22-23
 -PHK, 3 - the principle stated
 -PHK, 6 - "To be is to be perceived"
  B. agrees with Descartes and Locke that an idea or thought cannot exist without support or without a cause.  The support for which Berkeley is arguing is a "mind."

7.  That the existence of matter amounts to a contradiction
 PHK, 3, 4, 7
 Why would God create matter?  PHK, 53
  -The use of "matter" for atheists - PHK, 92
 3D - Can heat exist in an unperceiving thing?  Can pain?

8.  The passivity of ideas and the activity of the mind.
 -Active mind - PHK 26; PHK, 2 - we know that there is a mind because it is that which exercises operations such as willing, imagining, and remembering.  The mind is therefore a "perceiving, active being."
 -Passivity of Ideas - PHK 25.  The nature of the argument:
  Ideas are visibly inactive.  They have no causal power or efficacy.  (Compare to Locke on "Tertiary Qualities")
  The mind is visibly active.  There is a continual succession of ideas in the mind and the succession of ideas must be caused by something.  It cannot be an idea (see PHK 25), so it must be a mind, a substance, but not a material substance, because there can be no matter.  (PHK, 26)
  -The lawlike behavior of nature - PHK 31, 105 & 107.  See also PHK 29, 142 & 146 - "close" to an affirmation of God's existence.
  -Change - PHK, 26
 -Does Berkeley's position "destroy" science?  PHK 50
 -That we ought to "think with the learned and speak with the vulgar" - PHK, 51

 -How to distinguish a mind from an idea:  PHK 89:  "The former (minds) are active, indivisible, substances:  the latter (ideas) are inert, fleeting, dependent beings; which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in, minds or spiritual substances."

9.  The rejection of the primary/secondary distinction and the representative theory of perception.
 -What are the things that we perceive?  "....collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and like sensible things...." (PHK, 1) -- Roughly equivalent to Locke's concept of a "complex idea."
 Locke depended on the notion that qualities are different from ideas.  It is with this that he (Locke) could make the claim that material objects exist independently of perceivers.  Berkeley, of course, denies this.  If all we know are ideas (see, for example, Locke's view of knowledge in the Essay, Bk. IV - that only intuition and demonstration are productive of "real" knowledge and sensation produces only "opinion or belief").    Berkeley claims, with regard to this claim, that even if there were objects outside the mind, we could not possibly know that they exist since our knowledge is only about and of ideas.  Descartes also agreed with this claim when he discussed the "thinking thing" and how we know that it exists.  He claimed that we did not know it immediately, through itself, but by means of its being the subject of activities (thinking).  (Note the relation here to section ****** below, on the problem of "mind" - Berkeley claims in the 3D:  "I say . . . that I have a notion of Spirit, though I have not, strictly speaking, an idea of it.  I do not perceive it as an idea, or by means of an idea, but know it by reflection."  (Third Dialogue)

 Problems with the representative theory of perception:
  -PHK, 18 - even if material objects existed, how would we know it?  It would have to be known by sensation or by reason, but sensation only gives us IDEAS and reason cannot show a NECESSARY connection between objects and ideas.
 -PQ and SQ are the same:  PHK, 7:  "if it be certain that these original (primary) qualities are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the mind."  (It is impossible to conceive of extension without some color, for example, and so primary and secondary qualities have the same "ontological status.")
 -PQ and SQ are both mind-dependent:
  -The relativity to the perceiver of PQ and SQ - see PHK 11 for examples such as that a coin looks circular from one perspective and elliptical from another; an object that looks very large from close range looks small from a long distance.  See also 3D, the "problem of the mite's foot".  See also PHK 7, 9, 10 and 14.
  -The relativity of motion PHK, 112

10. that there is no material substratum
 PHK 8, 18 (Why we cannot know that matter is a substratum)
  3D:  Hylas and Philonous discuss the possibility that Hylas can have an idea of a material substratum.  But it is clear that all of which we have ideas are qualities, and it is impossible that qualities could exist in things since all qualities are ideas.  Hylas admits that it (material substratum) "is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only being perceived by the senses."  Philonous asks how Hylas came by this idea.  Philonous replies:  "I do not pretend to any proper positive idea of it.  However, I conclude it exists, because qualities cannot be conceived to exist without support."

11. rejection of the doctrine of abstract ideas
 For a review of Locke's position, see ESSAY, II, xi, 9-11; III, iii, 1-14 and IV, vii, 9.
  Note esp. III, iii, 6:  "Since all things that exist are only particulars (Locke's nominalism, shared by the other empiricists), how come we by general terms; or where find we those general natures they are supposed to stand for?  Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas:  and ideas become general, by separating from them the circumstances of time and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular existence.  By this way of abstraction they are made capable of representing more individuals than one; each of which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea, is (as we call it) of that sort."
 And III, iii, 11:  "Universality belongs not to things themselves...."

 -Rejection of the doctrine of abstract ideas - PHK, Intr, esp. 3 (Our philosophical difficulties are produced by philosophers who have "first raised a dust and then complain (they) cannot see."
 PHK, Intr, 10 (We have no capacity to think of an abstract hand - it must have shape or color.  There is no idea of motion without a body moving.)
 PHK,  Intr, 11 (A very good "pick on Locke" session)
 PHK, Intr, 12 (Admits of general ideas, but not abstract ideas.)  Ideas become general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort.
  PHK, Intr, 14 and 15 & 16 (Demonstrating a truth about all triangles is done such that a particular triangle represents all triangles and is in that sense universal.)
 PHK, Intr. 18 - that the source of belief in abstract ideas is in language.
Also main section, 97-99.
 See esp. 98 where Berkeley claims that time is nothing more than the succession of ideas in our minds.  Thus the soul always thinks and there is no means by which to abstract from the mind the thoughts that it has.
 -PHK, 9, 10

12.  The passivity of ideas and the activity of the mind.
 -Active mind - PHK 26; PHK, 2 - we know that there is a mind because it is that which exercises operations such as willing, imagining, and remembering.  The mind is therefore a "perceiving, active being."
 -Passivity of Ideas - PHK 25.  The nature of the argument:
  Ideas are visibly inactive.  They have no causal power or efficacy.  (Compare to Locke on "Tertiary Qualities")
  The mind is visibly active.  There is a continual succession of ideas in the mind and the succession of ideas must be caused by something.  It cannot be an idea (see PHK 25), so it must be a mind, a substance, but not a material substance, because there can be no matter.  (PHK, 26)
  -The lawlike behavior of nature - PHK 31, 105 & 107.  See also PHK 29, 142 & 146 - "close" to an affirmation of God's existence.
  -Change - PHK, 26
  -Causation:  If there are no material objects, what causes changes and successions among ideas?  Even though one may claim that the simplest explanation of the production of our ideas and the changes in them is material objects, we cannot explain how material bodies can explain our ideas.  Minds and ideas have nothing in common.  Minds are active and ideas are passive.  They (ideas) can therefore have no effect on spirits.
 -Does Berkeley's position "destroy" science?  PHK 50
 -That we ought to "think with the learned and speak with the vulgar" - PHK, 51

.13. How God causes perceptions/ an argument for the existence of god.
 -Berkeley denies any causal power to ideas (see previous section).  This means that he denies that physical objects (which, of course, do not exist) could cause ideas.  (See PHK 2, 61).  This position leads to an argument for the existence of God.
 PHK, 146.  "It is evident to everyone that those things which are called works of Nature, that is, the far greater part of the ideas or sensations perceived by us, are not produced by, or dependent on the wills of MEN.  There is therefore some other Spirit that causes them; since it is repugnant that they should subsist by themselves."
 -From this it follows that the Spirit causing them must be related to the passivity of perception.  There are ideas we have in the mind that do not come from acts of our will, or any activity on the part of our minds at all.  Since ideas can only be caused by an active source, there must be a being whose will causes the ideas.  The ideas that come to one's mind without his choosing them to be there must be caused by some being other than himself.

 In essence, since Berkeley rejects causal transactions between ideas (since they are mindless and therefore inert - their existence is in being perceived (passive), it must be the case that the causal transactions we ASSUME to exist in the universe are not what they appear to be.  In PHK, 32, Berkeley claims:  "When we perceive certain ideas of Sense constantly followed by other ideas, and we know this is not of our own doing, we forthwith attribute power and agency to the ideas themselves, and make the cause of another, than which nothing can be more absurd and unimaginable.  Thus, for example, having observed that when we perceive by sight a certain round luminous figure, we at the same time perceive by touch the idea or sensation called heat, we do from thence conclude the sun to be the CAUSE of heat."
 It is not therefore that objects of sense cause changes in each other.  It is instead that God is omnibenevolent and powerful, so he has created the world so that some phenomena follow from others.  (See PHK, 30-31).  This is also the discovery of, and source of confidence in, nature's lawlike behavior.  See PHK, 31, 105, 107.  The world is much like that of Leibniz in the sense that it exhibits harmony and coherence.  See PHK 64-65.
 Berkeley claims that his proof for the necessary existence of God therefore differs from the common conception.  It is not that we infer the existence of God from the fact that we have ideas or that we perceive.  Instead, God knows and produces ideas within us.
 Yet, it is still not clear that Berkeley's argument is as good as he thought it was.  See '"The Problem of Mind and Notional Knowledge" below.

14.  The permanence of real things/The status of unperceived sensible objects/God
 What is the status of that which exists unperceived? PHK, 35, 46

15. The distinction between the real and the imagined.
 PHK 33:  "The ideas imprinted on the senses by the Author of Nature are called real things; and those excited in the imagination, being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent."
  Ideas of sense differ from ideas of imagination in at least the following ways:
1.  Ideas of sense are more forceful, stronger, and lively.
2.  Ideas of sense are ordered and coherent.
3.  Ideas of sense do not depend on one's will.
 -That Berkeley does NOT deny the reality of things - PHK, 34, 90-91 (Denying the corporeality of things does not detract from the reality of things.)
 -But he does deny the corporeality of things (PHK, 35):  "the only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call material or corporeal substance."

16. The Problem of Mind and Notional Knowledge.
 -The Existence of Mind - PHK, 2
-Can we have knowledge of the mind?
 -PHK, 26:  There is no IDEA of soul or spirit.  Ideas are like nothing other than ideas.  So ideas cannot represent spirit.  Spirit cannot itself be perceived, but only the effects it produces.
 -Notional Knowledge - PHK, 28, 89, 146 & 147; How we "know" other minds - PHK 140
  --From 3D:  "The being of my Self, that is, my own soul, mind, or thinking principle, I evidently know by reflection....  I say, lastly, that I have a notion of Spirit, though I have not, strictly speaking, an idea of it.  I do not perceive it as an idea, or by means of an idea, but know it by reflection.  (This sense of reflection is NOT the same as that which Locke defines in the Essay.)
 -Definition of "spirit" - PHK 27 - and that the mind is MORE than a collection of ideas - PHK 2, 3, 142.
 

61. To all which I answer, first, that though there were some difficulties relating to the administration of providence, and the uses by it assigned to the several parts of nature, which I could not solve by the foregoing principles, yet this objection could be of small weight against the truth and certainty of those things which may be proved a priori, with the utmost evidence. Secondly, but neither are the received principles free from the like difficulties; for it may still be demanded, to what end God should take those round-about methods of effecting things by instruments and machines, which no one can deny might have been effected by the mere command of his will, without all that apparatus: nay, (thirdly,) if we narrowly consider it, we shall find the objection may be retorted with greater force on those who hold the existence of those machines without the mind; for it has been made evident, that solidity, bulk, figure, motion, and the like, have no activity or efficacy in them, so as to be capable of producing any one effect in nature. See Sect. xxv. Whoever therefore supposes them to exist (allowing the supposition possible) when they are not perceived, does it manifestly to no purpose; since the only use that is assigned to them, as they exist unperceived, is that they produce those perceivable effects, which in truth cannot be ascribed to any thing but spirit.

64. To set this matter in a clearer light, I shall observe that what has been objected in Sect. lx. amounts in reality to no more than this: ideas are not any how and at random produced, there being a certain order and connexion between them, like to that of cause and effect: there are also several combinations of them, made in a very regular and artificial manner, which seem like so many instruments in the hand of nature, that being hid, as it were, behind the scenes, have a secret operation in producing those appearances which are seen on the theatre of the world, being themselves discernible only to the curious eye of the philosopher. But since one idea cannot be the cause of another, to what purpose is that connexion? and since those instruments, being barely inefficacious perceptions in the mind, are not subservient to the production of natural effects: it is demanded why they are made, or, in other words, what reason can be assigned why God should make us, upon a close inspection into his works, behold so great variety of ideas, so artfully laid together, and so much according to rule; it not being credible, that he would be at the expense (if one may so speak) of all that art and regularity to no purpose?

65. To all which my answer is, first, that the connexion of ideas does not imply the relation of cause and effect, but only of a mark or sign with the thing signified. The fire I see is not the cause of the pain I suffer upon my approaching it, but the mark that forewarns me of it. In like manner, the noise that I hear is not the effect of this or that motion or collision of the ambient bodies, but the sign thereof. Secondly, the reason why ideas are formed into machines, that is, artificial and regular combinations, is the same with that for combining letters into words. That a few original ideas may be made to signify a great number of effects and actions, it is necessary they be variously combined together: and to the end their use be permanent and universal, these combinations must be made by rule, and with wise contrivance. By this means abundance of information is conveyed unto us concerning what we are to expect from such and such actions, and what methods are proper to be taken, for the exciting such and such ideas: which in effect is all that I conceive to be distinctly meant, when it is said that by discerning the figure, texture, and mechanism of the inward parts of bodies, whether natural or artificial, we may attain to know the several uses and properties depending thereon, or the nature of thething.

86. From the principles we have laid down, it follows, human knowledge may naturally be reduced to two heads, that of ideas, and that of spirits. Of each of these I shall treat in order. And first, as to ideas or unthinking things, our knowledge of these hath been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very dangerous errors, by supposing a two-fold existence of the objects of sense, the one intelligible, or in the mind, the other real and without the mind: whereby unthinking things are thought to have a natural subsistence of their own, distinct from being perceived by spirits. This, which, if I mistake not, hath been shown to be a most groundless and absurd notion, is the very root of scepticism; for so long as men thought that real things subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth real as it was conformable to real things, it follows, they could not be certain that they had any real knowledge at all. For how can it be known, that the things which are perceived are conformable to those which are not perceived, or exist without the mind?

89. Nothing seems of more importance, towards erecting a firm system of sound and real knowledge, which may be proof against the assaults of scepticism, than to lay the beginning in a distinct explication of what is meant by thing, reality, existence: for in vain shall we dispute concerning the real existence of things, or pretend to any knowledge thereof, so long as we have not fixed the meaning of those words. Thing or being is the most general name of all; it comprehends under it two kinds entirely distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing common but the name, to wit, spirits and ideas. The former are active, indivisible (incorruptible) substances: the latter are inert, fleeting, (perishable passions,) or dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in minds or spiritual substances. ^n [We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling or reflection, and that of other spirits by reason. We may be said to have some knowledge or notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings, whereof, in a strict sense, we have not ideas. In like manner we know and have a notion of relations between things or ideas, which relations are distinct from the ideas or things related, inasmuch as the latter may be perceived by us without our perceiving the former. To me it seems that ideas, spirits, and relations, are all, in their respective kinds, the object of human knowledge and subject of discourse: and that the term idea would be improperly extended to signify every thing we know or have any notion of.]

90. Ideas imprinted on the senses are real things, or do really exist; this we do not deny, but we deny they can subsist without the minds which perceive them, or that they are resemblances of any archetypes existing without the mind: since the very being of a sensation or idea consists in being perceived, and an idea can be like nothing but an idea. Again, the things perceived by sense may be termed external, with regard to their origin, in that they are not generated from within, by the mind itself, but imprinted by a spirit distinct from that which perceives them. Sensible objects may likewise be said to be without the mind, in another sense, namely, when they exist in some other mind. Thus when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but it must be in another mind.

91. It were a mistake to think, that what is here said derogates in the least from the reality of things. It is acknowledged, on the received principles, that extension, motion, and, in a word, all sensible qualities, have need of a support, as not being able to subsist by themselves. But the objects perceived by sense are allowed to benothing but combinations of those qualities, and, consequently, cannot subsist by themselves. Thus far it is agreed on all hands. So that in denying the things perceived by sense, an existence independent of a substance, or support wherein they may exist, we detract nothing from the received opinion of their reality, and are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the difference is, that according to us the unthinking beings perceived by sense have no existence distinct from being perceived, and cannot therefore exist in any other substance, than those unextended, indivisible substances, or spirits, which act, and think, and perceive them: whereas philosophers vulgarly hold, that the sensible qualities exist in an inert, extended, unperceiving substance, which they call matter, to which they attribute a natural subsistence, exterior to all thinking beings, or distinct from being perceived by any mind whatsoever, even the eternal mind of the Creator, wherein they suppose only ideas of the corporeal substances created by him: if indeed they allow them to be at all created.

92. For as we have shown the doctrine of matter, or corporeal substance, to have been the main pillar and support of scepticism, so likewise upon the same foundation have been raised all the impious schemes of atheism and irreligion. Nay, so great a difficulty hath it been thought, to conceive matter produced out of nothing, that the most celebrated among the ancient philosophers, even of these who maintained the being of a God, have thought matter to be uncreated and coeternal with him. How great a friend material substance hath been to atheists in all ages, were needless to relate. All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a dependence on it, that when this corner-stone is once removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground; insomuch that it is no longer worth while to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of every wretched sect of atheists.

97. Beside the external existence of the objects of perception, another great source of errors and difficulties, with regard to ideal knowledge, is the doctrine of abstract ideas, such as it hath been set forth in the introduction. The plainest things in the world, those we are most intimately acquainted with, and perfectly know, when they are considered in an abstract way, appear strangely difficult and incomprehensible. Time, place, and motion, taken in particular or concrete, are what every body knows; but having passed through the hands of a metaphysician, they become too abstract and fine, to be apprehended by men of ordinary sense. Bid your servant meet you at such a time, in such a place, and he shall never stay to deliberate on the meaning of those words: in conceiving that particular time and place, or the motion by which he is to get thither, he finds not the least difficulty. But if time be taken, exclusive of all those particular actions and ideas that diversify the day, merely for the continuation of existence, or duration in abstract, then it will perhaps gravel even a philosopher to comprehend it.

98. (For my own part,) whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly, and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties. I have no notion of it at all, only I hear others say, it is infinitely divisible, and speak of it in such a manner as leads me to entertain odd thoughts of my existence; since that doctrine lays one under an absolute necessity of thinking, either that he passes away innumerable ages without a thought, or else that he is annihilated every moment of his life: both which seem equally absurd. Time therefore being nothing, abstracted from the succession of ideas in our minds, it follows that the duration of any finite spirit must be estimated by the number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that spirit or mind. Hence it is a plain consequence that the soul always thinks: andin truth, whoever shall go about to divide in his thoughts, or abstract the existence of a spirit from its cogitation, will, I believe, find it no easy task.

99. So likewise, when we attempt to abstract extension and motion from all other qualities, and consider them by themselves, we presently lose sight of them, and run into great extravagancies.^o All which depend on a twofold abstraction: first, it is supposed that extension, for example, may be abstracted from all other sensible qualities; and secondly, that the entity of extension may be abstracted from its being perceived. But whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he says, will, if I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are alike sensations, and alike real; that where the extension is, there is the colour too, to wit, in his mind, and that their archetypes can exist only in some other mind: and that the objects of sense are nothing but those sensations combined, blended, or (if one may so speak) concreted together: none of all which can be supposed to exist unperceived.

105. If therefore we consider the difference there is betwixt natural philosophers and other men, with regard to their knowledge of the phenomena, we shall find it consists, not in an exacter knowledge of the efficient cause that produces them, for that can be no other than the will of a spirit, but only in a greater largeness of comprehension, whereby analogies, harmonies, and agreements are discovered in the works of nature, and the particular effects explained, that is, reduced to general rules (see Sect. lxii.), which rules, grounded on the analogy and uniformness observed in the production of natural effects, are most agreeable, and sought after by the mind; for that they extend our prospect beyond what is present, and near to us, and enable us to make very probable conjectures, touching things that may have happened at very great distances of time and place, as well as to predict things to come; which sort of endeavour towards omniscience is much affected by the mind.

106. But we should proceed warily in such things for we are apt to lay too great a stress on analogies, and to the prejudice of truth, humour that eagerness of the mind, whereby it is carried to extend its knowledge into general theorems. For example, gravitation, or mutual attraction, because it appears in many instances, some are straightway for pronouncing universal; and that to attract, and be attracted by every other body, is an essential quality inherent in all bodies whatsoever. Whereas it appears the fixed stars have no such tendency towards each other: and so far is that gravitation from being essential to bodies, that in some instances a quite contrary principle seems to show itself; as in the perpendicular growth of plants, and the elasticity of the air. There is nothing necessary or essential in the case, but it depends entirely on the will of the governing spirit, who causes certain bodies to cleave together, or tend towards each other, according to various laws, whilst he keeps others at a fixed distance; and to some he gives a quite contrary tendency to fly asunder, just as he sees convenient.

107. After what has been premised, I think we may lay down the following conclusions. First, it is plain philosophers amuse themselves in vain, when they inquire for any natural efficient cause distinct from a mind or spirit. Secondly, considering the whole creation is the workmanship of a wise and good agent, it should seem to become philosophers to employ their thoughts (contrary to what some hold) about the final causes of things: and I must confess, I see no reason why pointing out the various ends to which natural things are adapted, and for which they were originally with unspeakable wisdom contrived, should not be thought one good way of accounting for them, and altogether worthy a philosopher. Thirdly, from what hath been premised no reason can be drawn, why the history of natureshould not still be studied, and observations and experiments made, which, that they are of use to mankind, and enable us to draw any general conclusions, is not the result of any immutable habitudes, or relations between things themselves, but only of God's goodness and kindness to men in the administration of the world. See Sect. xxx., xxxi. Fourthly, by a diligent observation of the phenomena within our view, we may discover the general laws of nature, and from them deduce the other phenomena, I do not say demonstrate; for all deductions of that kind depend on a supposition that the Author of nature always operates uniformly, and in a constant observance of those rules we take for principles: which we cannot evidently know.

112. But notwithstanding what hath been said, it doth not appear to me, that there can be any motion other than relative: so that to conceive motion, there must be at least conceived two bodies, whereof the distance or position in regard to each other is varied. Hence if there was one only body in being, it could not possibly be moved. This seems evident, in that the idea I have of motion doth necessarily include relation.^s

140. In a large sense indeed, we may be said to have an idea, or rather a notion of spirit, that is, we understand the meaning of the word, otherwise we could not affirm or deny any thing of it. Moreover, as we conceive the ideas that are in the minds of other spirits by means of our own, which we suppose to be resemblances of them: so we know other spirits by means of our own soul, which in that sense is the image or idea of them, it having a like respect to other spirits, that blueness or heat by me perceived hath to those ideas perceived by another.

142. After what hath been said, it is I suppose plain, that our souls are not to be known in the same manner as senseless, inactive objects, or by way of idea. Spirits and ideas are things so wholly different, that when we say they exist, they are known, or the like, these words must not be thought to signify any thing common to both natures. There is nothing alike or common in them: and to expect that by any multiplication or enlargement of our faculties, we may be enabled to know a spirit as we do a triangle, seems as absurd as if we should hope to see a sound. This is inculcated because I imagine it may be of moment towards clearing several important questions, and preventing some very dangerous errors concerning the nature of the soul. We may not, I think, strictly be said to have an idea of an active being, or of an action, although we may be said to have a notion of them. I have some knowledge or notion of my mind, and its acts about ideas, inasmuch as I know or understand what is meant by those words. What I know, that I have some notion of. I will not say that the terms idea and notion may not be used convertibly, if the world will have it so. But yet it conduceth to clearness and propriety, that we distinguish things very different by different names. It is also to be remarked, that, all relations including an act of the mind, we cannot so properly be said to have an idea, but rather a notion of the relations or habitudes between things. But if, in the modern way, the word idea is extended to spirits, and relations, and acts; this is, after all, an affair of verbal concern.

146. But though there be some things which convince us human agents are concerned in producing them; yet it is evident to every one, that those things which are called the works of nature, that is, the far greater part of the ideas or sensations perceived by us, are not produced by, or dependent on, the wills of men. There is therefore some other spirit that causes them, since it is repugnant that they should subsist by themselves. See Sect. xxix. But if we attentively consider the constant regularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising magnificence, beauty, and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite contrivance of the smallerparts of the creation, together with the exact harmony and correspondence of the whole, but, above all, the never enough admired laws of pain and pleasure, and the instincts or natural inclinations, appetites, and passions of animals; I say if we consider all these things, and at the same time attend to the meaning and import of the attributes, one, eternal, infinitely wise, good, and perfect, we shall clearly perceive that they belong to the aforesaid spirit, who works all in all, and by whom all things consist.