BOOK IV. into the stock of real knowledge has been very little, in proportion to the schools disputes, and writings, the world has CHAP. III. been filled with; whilst students, being lost in the great wood of words1, knew not whereabouts they were, how far their discoveries were advanced, or what was wanting in their own, or the general stock of knowledge. Had men, in the discoveries of the material, done as they have in those of the intellectual world, involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful ways of talking, volumes writ of navigation and voyages, theories and stories of zones and tides, multiplied and disputed; nay, ships built, and fleets sent out, would never have taught us the way beyond the line; and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown, as when it was declared heresy to hold there were any. But having spoken sufficiently of words, and the ill or careless use that is commonly made of them 2, I shall not say anything more of it here. Extent of Human Knowledge in 31. Hitherto we have examined the extent of our knowledge, in respect of the several sorts of beings that are. There is another extent of it, in respect of universality, which will also deserve to be considered; and in this regard, our versality. knowledge follows the nature of our ideas. If the ideas are respect to its Uni abstract, whose agreement or disagreement we perceive, our knowledge is universal. For what is known of such general ideas, will be true of every particular thing in whom that essence, i. e. that abstract idea, is to be found: and what is once known of such ideas, will be perpetually and for ever true. So that as to all general knowledge we must search and find it only in our minds; and it is only the examining of our own ideas that furnisheth us with that. Truths belonging to essences of things (that is, to abstract ideas) are eternal; and are to be found out by the contemplation only of those 3 1 The curtain of words'-as Berkeley calls it, in proposing as a remedy, that we should attend to the ideas signified, and draw off our attention from the words which signify them,' directing it to concrete examples of their meaning, i. e. that we should 'individualise our concepts,' separating them from their verbal signs. See Principles, Introd. §§ 23-25. 2 In Bk. III. 36 our own ideas '-i. e. our abstract ideas, signified by abstract terms, the meaning or nominal essence of which may be perfectly known. 144 CHAP. III. essences: as the existence of things is to be known only from BOOK IV. experience1. But having more to say of this in the chapters2 where I shall speak of general and real knowledge, this may here suffice as to the universality of our knowledge in general3. 1 Does this section imply that only (so-called) analytical or explicative judgments can be known by man to be 'necessarily and universally true,'that all synthetical judgments depend upon probability? Here Kant's question rises-Can synthetical judgments in any instance be necessary and universal, consistently with the limits of human experience, and the conditions of human thought? 2 Bk. IV. chh. v-viii. All the knowledge that man can have is thus, according to Locke, of VOL. II. BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. Objection. 'Knowledge placed in our Ideas may be all CHAPTER IV. OF THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE 1. 1. I DOUBT not but my reader, by this time, may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a castle in the air; and be ready to say to me : 'To what purpose all this stir? Knowledge, say you, is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas but who knows what those ideas may be? Is there anything so extravagant as the imaginations of men's brains? chimerical.' Where is the head that has no chimeras in it? Or if there be a sober and a wise man, what difference will there be, by your rules, between his knowledge and that of the most 1 This chapter above all in the Essay was that which Berkeley, in early life, resolved to discuss nicely.' (Commonplace Book, p. 435.) The philosophical enterprise in which he engaged began in an attempt to determine what we should mean when we predicate 'reality' of the things of sense; and whether we could in reason suppose actual reality if there were no percipient or self-conscious mind to sustain it. He complains of Locke's lax use of the terms'existence' and 'reality.' 'Existence,' according to the Essay, is a simple idea, suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every idea within.' Locke gives no express account of the nature and origin of the idea we should have when we use the word 'reality.' So far this can be gathered, e. g. from Bk. II. ch. xxx; also ch. viii, where we are told that the simple ideas or qualities in bodies that are otherwise called primary may be also called real, because they really exist in those bodies'; from the numerous passages about real essences; and from this chapter itself, taken in connection with chh. ix, x, xi which follow -abruptly separated from this one by those which treat of the truth of universal propositions, maxims, and verbal propositions (v, vi, vii, viii). He tells us that in all 'real' know. ledge the ideas that are known 'must answer their archetypes,' but that some of our ideas are their own archetypes, being only subjectively real, and made by man, whilst the archetypes of others can by no means be made by men, but exist as things, independently of the will of man, and imperfectly comprehended by the human understanding. 147 CHAP. IV. extravagant fancy in the world? They both have their ideas, BOOK IV. and perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another. If there be any difference between them, the advantage will be on the warm-headed man's side, as having the more ideas, and the more lively1. And so, by your rules, he will be the more knowing. If it be true, that all knowledge lies only in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas, the visions of an enthusiast and the reasonings of a sober man will be equally certain. It is no matter how things are so a man observe but the agreement of his own imaginations, and talk conformably, it is all truth, all certainty. Such castles in the air 2 will be as strongholds of truth, as the demonstrations of Euclid. That an harpy is not a centaur is by this way as certain knowledge, and as much a truth, as that a square is not a circle. But of what use is all this fine knowledge of men's own imaginations, to a man that inquires after the reality of things? It matters not what men's fancies are, it is the knowledge of things that is only to be prized: it is this alone gives a value to our reasonings, and preference to one man's knowledge over another's, that it is of things as they really are, and not of dreams and fancies 3.' 2. To which I answer, That if our knowledge of our ideas Answer. terminate in them, and reach no further, where there is some 1 Hume afterwards made their superior 'liveliness' or 'vivacity' the distinguishing character of the impressions of sense, in contrast to our ideas of memory and imagination. 2 castles in the air.' Cf. Bk. I. ch. iii. § 25. 3 Modern thought, inaugurated by the tentative doubt of Descartes, and re-inaugurated by the criticism of human knowledge shared in, at opposite points of view, by Locke and Kant, is in antithesis to the ages of faith in authority, which preceded, and by reaction produced it. By abstracting ideas from the substances of which they are the appearances, the question of their reality was raised, and the certainty of knowledge seemed to be suspended in doubt, without abso- Doubt, it must be remembered, is a BOOK IV. CHAP. IV. Objection. 'Knowledge CHAPTER IV. OF THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE 1. 1. I DOUBT not but my reader, by this time, may be apt to think that I have been all this while only building a castle in the air; and be ready to say to me : 'To what purpose all this stir? Knowledge, say you, is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own placed in our Ideas ideas: but who knows what those ideas may be? Is there may be all unreal or anything so extravagant as the imaginations of men's brains? chimerical.' Where is the head that has no chimeras in it? Or if there be a sober and a wise man, what difference will there be, by your rules, between his knowledge and that of the most 1 This chapter above all in the Essay was that which Berkeley, in early life, resolved to discuss nicely.' (Commonplace Book, p. 435.) The philosophical enterprise in which he engaged began in an attempt to determine what we should mean when we predicate 'reality' of the things of sense; and whether we could in reason suppose actual reality if there were no percipient or self-conscious mind to sustain it. He complains of Locke's lax use of the terms'existence' and 'reality.' 'Existence,' according to the Essay, is a simple idea, suggested to the understanding by every object without, and every idea within.' Locke gives no express account of the nature and origin of the idea we should have when we use the word 'reality.' So far this can be gathered, e. g. from Bk. II. ch. xxx; also ch. viii, where we are told that the simple ideas 6 or qualities in bodies that are otherwise called primary may be also called real, because they really exist in those bodies'; from the numerous passages about real essences; and from this chapter itself, taken in connection with chh. ix, x, xi which follow -abruptly separated from this one by those which treat of the truth of universal propositions, maxims, and verbal propositions (v, vi, vii, viii). He tells us that in all 'real' knowledge the ideas that are known 'must answer their archetypes,' but that some of our ideas are their own archetypes, being only subjectively real, and made by man, whilst the archetypes of others can by no means be made by men, but exist as things, independently of the will of man, and imperfectly comprehended by the human understanding. |