Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/331

Rh 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.