Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/332

322 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 connection 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 connection 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 to determine that visible objects are external, or at any distance at all from the eye: the other opinion is, that sight, though gifted with the capacity of determining that