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162 “Perhaps, upon a strict inquiry, we shall not find, that even those who, from their birth, have grown up in a continued habit of seeing, are still irrevocably prejudiced on the other side, to wit, in thinking what they see to be at a distance from them. For, at this time, it seems agreed on all hands, that colours, which are the proper and immediate objects of sight, are not without the mind. But then, it will be said, by sight we have also the ideas of extension, and figure, and motion; all which may well be thought without, and at some distance from the mind, though colour should not. In answer to this, I appeal to any man’s experience, whether the visible extension of any object doth not appear as near to him as the colour of that object; nay, whether they do not both seem to be in the same place. Is not the extension we see coloured; and is it possible for us, so much as in thought, to separate and abstract colour from extension? Now, where the extension is, there surely is the figure, and there the motion too. I speak of those which are perceived by sight.”

Among the multitude of arguments advanced by Berkeley, in support of his favourite theory, I do not recollect any that strikes me more with the appearance of a wilful sophism than the foregoing. It is difficult to conceive, how so very acute a reasoner should not have perceived that his premises, in this instance, lead to a conclusion directly opposite to what he has drawn from them. Supposing all mankind to have an irresistible conviction of the outness and distance of extension and figure, it is very easy to explain, from the association of ideas, and from our early habits of inattention to the phenomena of consciousness, how the sensations of colour should appear to the imagination to be transported out of the mind. But if, according to Berkeley’s doctrines, the constitution of human nature leads men to believe that extension and figure, and every other quality of the material universe, exists only within themselves, whence the ideas of external and of internal; of remote, or of near? When Berkeley says, “I appeal to any man’s experience, whether the visible extension of any object doth not appear as near to him as the colour of that object;” how much more reasonable would it have been to have stated the indisputable fact, that the colour of the object appears as remote as its extension and figure? Nothing, in my opinion, can afford a more conclusive proof, that the natural judgment of the mind is against the inference just quoted from Berkeley, than the problem of D’Alembert, which has given occasion to this discussion.

, p. 104.

It is observed by Dr Reid, that “the system which is now generally received with regard to the mind and its operations, derives not only its spirit from Descartes, but its fundamental principles; and that, after all the improvements made by Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, it may still be called the Cartesian system.” Conclusion of the Inquiry into the Human Mind.

The part of the Cartesian system here alluded to is the hypothesis, that the communication between the mind and external objects is carried on by means of ideas or images;—not, indeed, transmitted from without (as the Aristotelians supposed) through the channel of the senses, but nevertheless bearing a relation to the qualities perceived, analogous to that of an impression on wax to the seal by which it was stamped. In this last assumption, Aristotle and Descartes agreed perfectly; and the chief difference between them was, that Descartes palliated, or rather kept out of view, the more obvious absurdities of the old theory, by rejecting the unintelligible supposition of intentional species, and by substituting, instead of the word image, the more indefinite and ambiguous word idea.