work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4132,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"But for a fuller illustration of this matter, it ought to be considered that number (however some may reckon it amongst the primary qualities) is nothing fixed and settled, really existing in things themselves. It is intirely the creature of the mind, considering, either an idea by it self, or any combination of ideas to which it gives one name, and so makes it pass for an unit. According as the mind variously combines its ideas, the unit varies; and as the unit, so the number, which is only a collection of units, doth also vary. We call a window one, a chimney one, and yet a house in which there are many windows, and many chimneys, hath an equal right to be called one, and many houses go to the making of one city. In these and the like instances, it is evident the unit constantly relates to the particular draughts the mind makes of its ideas, to which it affixes names, and wherein it includes more or less, as best suits its own ends and purposes. Whatever therefore the mind considers as one, that is an unit. Every combination of ideas is considered as one thing by the mind, and in token thereof is marked by one name. Now, this naming and combining together of ideas is perfectly arbitrary, and done by the mind in such sort, as experience shews it to be most convenient: Without which, our ideas had never been collected into such sundry distinct combinations as they now are.
(§109, pp. 214-5)
",,10605,•The editors use the last edition of 1732 (annexed to second edition of Alciphron). ,"""Complex Ideas are the Creatures of the Mind""","",2009-09-14 19:35:07 UTC,""
4132,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"110 Hence it follows, that a man born blind, and afterwards, when grown up, made to see would not in the first act of vision parcel out the ideas of sight into the same distinct collections that others do, who have experienced which do regularly coexist and are proper to be bundled up together under one name. He would not, for example, make into one complex idea, and thereby esteem and unite, all those particular ideas, which constitute the visible head or foot. For there can be no reason assigned why he should do so, barely upon his seeing a man stand upright before him: There croud into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in company with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time: But all these ideas offered at once to his view, he would not distribute into sundry distinct combinations, till such time as by observing the motion of the parts of the man and other experiences, he comes to know which are to be separated, and which to be collected together.
(§110, p. 215)",2011-06-21,10606,"","""There croud into his mind the ideas which compose the visible man, in company with all the other ideas of sight perceived at the same time.""",Inhabitants,2013-09-27 20:48:39 UTC,""
4132,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"The consideration of motion may furnish a new field for inquiry: But since the manner wherein the mind apprehends by sight the motion of tangible objects, with the various degrees thereof, may be easily collected, from what hath been said concerning the manner wherein that sense doth suggest their various distances, magnitudes, and situations, I shall not enlarge any farther on this subject, but proceed to inquire what may be alledged with greatest appearance of reason, against the proposition we have shewn to be true: For where there is so much prejudice to be encountered, a bare and naked demonstration of the truth will scarce suffice. We must also satisfy the scruples that men may raise in favour of their preconceived notions, shew whence the mistake arises, how it came to spread, and carefully disclose and root out those false persuasions that an early prejudice might have implanted in the mind.
(§138 p. 227)
",,10607,•The editors use the last edition of 1732 (annexed to second edition of Alciphron). ,"An ""early prejudice"" may have ""implanted in the mind"" a ""false persuasion""","",2009-09-14 19:35:07 UTC,""
4132,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"The consideration of motion may furnish a new field for inquiry: But since the manner wherein the mind apprehends by sight the motion of tangible objects, with the various degrees thereof, may be easily collected, from what hath been said concerning the manner wherein that sense doth suggest their various distances, magnitudes, and situations, I shall not enlarge any farther on this subject, but proceed to inquire what may be alledged with greatest appearance of reason, against the proposition we have shewn to be true: For where there is so much prejudice to be encountered, a bare and naked demonstration of the truth will scarce suffice. We must also satisfy the scruples that men may raise in favour of their preconceived notions, shew whence the mistake arises, how it came to spread, and carefully disclose and root out those false persuasions that an early prejudice might have implanted in the mind.
(§138 p. 227)
",,10608,•The editors use the last edition of 1732 (annexed to second edition of Alciphron).
•See also previous. I've included this entry twice.,"A ""false persuasion"" ""implanted in the mind"" by prejudice may be rooted out","",2009-09-14 19:35:07 UTC,""
4132,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"I must confess, it seems to be the opinion of some ingenious men, that flat or plain figures are immediate objects of sight, though they acknowledge solids are not. And this opinion of theirs is grounded on what is observed in painting, wherein (say they) the ideas immediately imprinted on the mind are only of plains variously coloured, which by a sudden act of the judgment are changed into solids: But, with a little attention we shall find the plains here mentioned, as the immediate objects of sight, are not visible, but tangible plains. For when we say that pictures are plains: we mean thereby, that they appear to the touch smooth and uniform. But then this smoothness and uniformity, or, in other words, this plainness of the picture, is not perceived immediately by vision: For it appeareth to the eye various and multiform.
(§157, p. 234)
",,10609,•The editors use the last edition of 1732 (annexed to second edition of Alciphron).
,"Ideas may be ""immediately imprinted on the mind""",Impression,2009-09-14 19:35:07 UTC,""
4135,"",Reading The Works of George Berkeley,2009-09-14 19:35:07 UTC,"It is the observation of a wise man (Sir Will Temple) that solitude and leisure are the greatest advantages that riches can give those who possess them above all other men; and yet these are what rich men least of all make use of. He that is equally fitted for thought and meditation in his closet, or for business and conversation in the world is certainly the best able to serve his country, and can pass with the greatest evenness through all scenes of life. 'Tis thought which governs the world, and all the states in it, and produces whatever is great and glorious in them. Stirring and action is but the handmaid of thought, without [end page 39] which the former can do no good, but may a great deal of harm. Whatever therefore improves the thinking faculty surely ought to be practised. Now, thought is to the mind what motion is to the body; both are equally improved by exercise and impaired by disuse. In order therefore to obtain health and strength of mind it is useful that we employ our thoughts, though it should be even on useless subjects. How much rather ought we then to exercise them on the grounds and certainty of knowledge, the being and attributes of God, and the nature of our own soul. I mean not by this to persuade you that what I have written deserves much heed, but only to shew you that the subjects I have chosen are worth thinking on.
(Vol. VIII, pp. 39-40)",2007-05-01,10611,See Past Masters collection.,"""Now, thought is to the mind what motion is to the body; both are equally improved by exercise and impaired by disuse""","",2009-09-14 19:35:07 UTC,""
4138,"",Peter Walmsley's The Rhetoric of Berkeley's Philosophy (p. 11),2004-01-09 00:00:00 UTC,(II.38-9),2008-12-03,10627,"•More naked and dress follows in next pages: ""naked, undisguised"" ideas are ""divested"" of thought. Words are the ""dress"" or ""curtain.
• REVISIT and fill in...","Ideas may be brought ""bare and naked"" into one's view, keeping out"" the names.","",2009-09-14 19:35:08 UTC,Introduction
4138,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"It is evident 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, for example, hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, 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, and so forth.
(Part I, §1, p. 41)",,10629,•Republished in 1734 in London. Editor uses this second edition.
,"""It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses""",Impression,2009-09-14 19:35:08 UTC,""
4138,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"That number is entirely the creature of the mind, even though the other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be evident to whoever considers, that the same thing bears a different denomination of number, as the mind views it with different respects. Thus, the same extension is one or three or thirty six, according as the mind considers it with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch. Number is so visibly relative, and dependent on men's understanding, that it is strange to think how any one should give it an absolute existence without the mind. We say one book, one page, one line; all these are equally units, though some contain several of the others. And in each instance it is plain, the unit relates to some particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put together by the mind.
(Part I, §12, p. 46)
",,10630,"•Republished in 1734 in London. Editor uses this second edition.
•Berkeley is fond of this expression. However, it is probably not 'metaphorical' in any important way. INTEREST.
","""That number is entirely the creature of the mind, even though the other qualities be allowed to exist without, will be evident to whoever considers, that the same thing bears a different denomination of number, as the mind views it with different respects.""","",2013-09-27 20:52:46 UTC,""
4138,"",Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,"But though we might possibly have all our sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of their production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise; and so it might be at least probable there are such things as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said; for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced: since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds, can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with, or without this supposition. If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so, must needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.
(Part I, §19, p. 49)",2012-03-02,10631,•Republished in 1734 in London. Editor uses this second edition. ,"""But neither can this be said; for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced: since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind.""",Impressions,2012-03-02 16:21:40 UTC,""