Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/241

 BERKELEY. 219 Berkeley. Everything exists only in virtue of its participa- tion in the one, permanent, all-comprehensive spirit ; indi- vidual spirits are of the same nature with the universal reason, only they are less perfect, limited, and not pure activity, while God is passionless intelligence. But if, in the last analysis, God is the cause of all, this does not hold of the free actions of men, least of all of wicked ones. The free- dom of the will must not be rejected because of the contra- dictions which its acceptance involves; motion, also, and mathematical infinity imply incomprehensible elements. In the philosophy of nature Berkeley prefers the teleological to the mechanical view, since the latter is able to discover the laws of phenomena only, but not their efficient and final causes. Sense and experience acquaint us merely with the course of phenomenal effects; the reason, which opens up to us the realm of causation, of the spiritual, is the only sure guide to science and truth. The understanding does not feel, the senses do not know. We have no (sensuous) idea of other spirits, but only a notion of them ; instead of themselves we perceive their activities merely, from which we argue to souls like ourselves, while we know our own mind by immediate self-consciousness.* In contrast to the fearlessness with which Berkeley pro- pounds his spiritualism, his anxious endeavors to take away the appearance of paradox from his immaterialistic doc- trine, and to show its complete agreement with common sense, excite surprise. Even the common man, he argues, desires nothing more than that his perceptions be real ; the distinction between idea and object is an invention of philosophers. Here Berkeley cannot be acquitted of a certain sophistical play upon the term "idea," which, in fact, is ambiguous. He understands by it tJiat zvhich the soul perceives (its immediate, inner object), but the popular and the arguments are the same : Existence is equivalent to being perceived by God ; the creation of a real world of matter apart from the ideal world in God and from sensuous perceptions in us would have been a superfluous device, etc. selves is also " not after the manner of an idea or sensation." Our knowledge of spirits is always mediated by "notions " not by " ideas " in the strict sense, that is, not by "images." Cf. Principles, §§ 27, 135 j^^., especially in the second edition. — Tr.
 * It should be remembered, however, that this immediate knowledge of our-