Date: 1710, 1734
"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 i...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
There are ideas in the mind of God, "which are so many marks or notes that direct him how to produce sensations in our minds" just as a musician uses notes to produce a tune.
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
Parcels of matter may be "so many occasions to remind" God "when and what ideas to imprint on our minds"
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
A prejudice may be "riveted so deeply in our thoughts, that we can scarce tell how to part with it"
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
"Ancient and rooted prejudices do often pass into principles: and those propositions which once obtain the force and credit of a principle, are not only themselves, but likewise whatever is deducible from them, thought privileged from all examination. And there is no absurdity so gross, which by ...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
"They indeed, who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system of animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body, since there is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is naturally impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle, wherein it...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
Bodies are "barely passive ideas in the mind", and the mind is "more distant and heterogenous from them, than light is from darkness"
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
"For example, the will is termed the motion of the soul: this infuses a belief, that the mind of man is as a ball in motion, impelled and determined by the objects of sense, as necessarily as that is by the stroke of a racket."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710, 1734
"Is it therefore to be wondered at, if the generality of men, who are ever intent on business or pleasure, and little used to fix or open the eye of their mind, should not have all that conviction and evidence of the being of God, which might be expected in reasonable creatures?"
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]
"The Mind no nobler Wisdom can attain, / Than to inspect and study all the Man: / His awful Looks confess the Race Divine; / In him the Beauties of the Godhead shine: / With Majesty he fills great Reason's Throne, / The Subject World their rightful Monarch own."
preview | full record— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)