Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 051.djvu/838

822 these powers are in themselves feeble, but because they have been misdirected against a monument—ære perennius—of solid and everlasting truth. The ability displayed in the execution of his work is immeasurably greater than the success with which it has been crowned.

Therefore, when we say that, in our opinion, Mr Bailey's work has been anything but successful in its main object, we can at the same time conscientiously recommend a careful perusal of it to those who are interested in the studies of which it treats. Its chief merit appears to us to consist in this, that it indicates with sufficient clearness the difference between the entire views advocated by Berkeley himself on the subject of vision, and the partial views which it has suited the purposes or the ability of his more timid but less cautious followers to adopt. We shall immediately have occasion to speak of the respects in which the disciples have deserted the principles of the master; but let us first of all state the precise question at issue. There is not much fault to be found with the terms in which Mr Bailey has stated it, and therefore we cannot do better than make use of his words.

"Outness," (says he, p. 13,) "distance, real magnitude, and real figure, are not perceived (according to Berkeley's theory) immediately by sight; but, in the first place, by the sense of feeling or touch; and it is from experience alone that our visual sensations come to suggest to us these exclusively tangible properties. We, in fact, see originally nothing but various coloured appearances, which are felt as internal sensations; and we learn that they are external, and also what distances, real magnitudes, and real figures these coloured appearances indicate, just as we learn to interpret the meaning of the written characters of a language. Thus a being gifted with sight, but destitute of the sense of touch, would have no perception of outness, distance, real magnitude, and real figure. Such is Berkeley's doctrine stated in the most general terms."

We beg the reader particularly to notice, that the distance and outness here spoken of are the distance and outness of an object from the eye of the beholder; for Mr Bailey imagines, as we shall have occasion to show, that Berkeley holds that another species of outness, namely, the outness of one visible thing from other visible things, is not immediately perceived by sight. This latter opinion, however, is certainly not maintained by Berkeley, and the idea that it is so, is, we think, the origin of the greater part of Mr Bailey's mistakes. The only other remark which we think it necessary to make on this exposition is, that we slightly object to the words, which we have marked in italics—"in the first place"—for they seem to imply that outness, &c., are perceived by sight in the second or in the last place. But Berkeley holds, and in this opinion we agree with him—that they are never perceived at all by the sense of sight, properly so called. The same objection applies to the word "originally," where it is said that we "see originally nothing but various coloured appearances, for it seems to imply that ultimately we come to see more than various coloured appearances. But this, following Berkeley's footsteps, we deny that we ever do. In other respects we think that the statement is perfectly correct and unobjectionable.

As a further statement and abstract of the theory, Mr Bailey proceeds to quote Berkeley's own words, in which he says "that distance or outness" (i.e., outness from the eye) "is neither immediately of itself perceived by sight, nor yet apprehended and judged of by lines and angles, or anything that hath a necessary connexion with it; but that it is only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and sensations attending vision, which, in their own nature, have no manner of similitude or relation either with distance or things placed at a distance. But, by a connexion taught us by experience, they (viz., visible ideas and visual sensations) come to signify and suggest them (viz., distance, and things placed at a distance) to us after the same manner that words of any language suggest the ideas they are made to stand for. Insomuch that a man born blind, and afterwards made to see, would not, at first sight, think the things he saw to be without his mind, or at any distance from him." Such is an outline of the theory which Mr Bailey undertakes to controvert.

In laying the groundwork of his objections, he first of all proceeds—and we think this the most valuable observation in his book—to point out the distinction between two separate opinions which may be entertained with regard to the outness of visible objects. The one opinion is, that sight is unable