Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

The Theory of Vision, or Visual Language shewing the immediate Presence and Providence of a Deity, Vindicated and Explained

London

1733

"To explain how the mind or soul of man simply sees is one thing, and belongs to philosophy."

To explain how the mind or soul of man simply sees is one thing, and belongs to philosophy. To consider particles as moving in certain lines, rays of light as refracted or reflected, or crossing, or including angles, is quite another thing, and appertaineth to geometry. To account for the sense of vision by the mechanism of the eye is a third thing, which appertaineth to anatomy and experiments. These two latter speculations are of use in practice, to assist the defects and remedy the distempers of sight, agreeably to the natural laws obtaining in this mundane system. But the former theory is that which makes us understand the true nature of vision, considered as a faculty of the soul. Which theory, as I have already observed, may be reduced to this simple question, to wit, How comes it to pass that a set of ideas, altogether different from tangible ideas, should nevertheless suggest them to us, there being no necessary connexion between them? To which the proper answer is, That this is done in virtue of an arbitrary connexion, instituted by the Author of nature.
(§43, p. 266)

Body::Vision

Past Masters

Past Masters electronic version of The Works of George Berkeley. Ed. T. E. Jessop and A. A. Luce. Vol. I. Desirée Park: Thomas Nelson, 1979.

02/18/2004