For

we are not apt to think them the effects of those primary qualities which appear not to our senses to operate in their production, and with which they have not any apparent congruity or conceivable connexion. Hence it is that we are so forward to imagine that those ideas are the resemblances of something really existing in the objects themselves. But in the other case, in the operation of bodies, changing the qualities, one of another, we plainly discover that the quality produced hath commonly no resemblance with any thing in the thing producing it; wherefore we look on it as a bare effect of power. though receiving the idea of heat or light from the sun, we are apt to think it is a perception and resemblance of such a quality in the sun, yet when we see wax or a fair face receive change of colour from the sun, we cannot imagine that to be the perception or resemblance of any thing in the sun, because we find not those different colours in the sun itself. For our senses being able to observe a likeness or unlikeness of sensible qualities in two different external objects, we forwardly enough conclude the production of any sensible quality in any subject to be an effect of bare power, and not the communication of any quality, which was really in the efficient, when we find no such sensible

But

quality in the thing that produced it. ourselves not being able to discover any unlikeness between the idea produced in us and the quality of the object producing it, we are apt to imagine that our ideas are resemblances of some thing in the objects, and not the effects of certain powers placed in the modification of their primary qualities, with which primary qualities the ideas produced in us have no resemblance." Vol. i. page 127.

From the secondary qualities later writers, as Hume and Berkeley, have proceeded to the primary ones, and have endeavoured to shew that they have not a real existence out of the mind, any more than the others. Hume says, "The fundamental principle of the modern philosophy is the opinion concerning colours, sounds, tastes, smells, heat and cold," &c.; and Bishop Berkeley has made use of the same principle to banish the least particle of matter out of the universe. What Hume has said is merely taken from Berkeley, from whom his opinions are generally borrowed. As I do

not know that I shall have a better opportunity, I will here state Berkeley's arguments against the existence of these primary qualities, or his ideal system, in his own words. I will only first observe, on the argument against the existence

VOL. I.

U

of the secondary qualities of things, from their different effects in different circumstances and on different persons, which Hume considers as the only solid one, but which Berkeley thinks more doubtful, seems to me no argument at all; for that an object changes its colour, or food its taste, is in consequence of distance or of the interposition of another object, or of the indisposition of the organ, and does not prove that the object has not a particular colour, or the food a particular taste, but that colour is combined with and altered by the colour of the air, and that taste is combined with and altered by another taste in the mouth or stomach. The logical inference is merely that one object has not the same sensible qualities as another, or, as Berkeley has remarked, that we do not know what the true or natural qualities of any object are.

"It is evident," says Bishop Berkeley, "to any one who takes a survey of the objects of Human Knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or, lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination; either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways.

By sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, &c. and of all these more and less, either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and consistence, having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which, as they are pleasing or disagreeable, excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, &c.

"2. But besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows and perceives them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, &c. about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist,

or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived, for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

"3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow; and to me it is no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together, (that is, whatever objects they compose,) cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exist, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on, I say, exists; i. e. I see and feel it, and if I were out of my study, I should say it existed, meaning thereby, that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, i. e. it was smelt; there was a sound, i. e. it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should