The theory of vision vindicated and explained / edited, with annotations, by H.V.H. Cowell.

  • Berkeley, George, 1685-1753.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The theory of vision vindicated and explained / edited, with annotations, by H.V.H. Cowell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/208 (page 17)
    fuggefted to the mind by means of thofe proper and immediate objects. Which concerned in the operation, and that this object is immediately perceived; (2) those who maintain that the object of which we are directly conscious is not absolute and simple, but is representative of something else, beyond the sphere of direct cogni- tion : with them the ultimate object of cognition is knowable only through the medium of something intervening between mind and matter, and thus they recognize two objects, one immediate and repre- sentative, the other mediate and actual. Those who are agreed as to there being but one object, and that immediate, greatly differ in their notions of this single object; some believe it to be material, others say that it is ideal. To the latter class Berkeley belongs ; who, while he has greatly served the cause of truth, by exposing the fallacy of the representative theory, seems to have fallen into the more serious error of denying to us the ability to know anything but mind.—(See foot note to note C, appended to Reid's Works by Sir William Hamilton.) It is necessary to remark, that while the objects of perception are immediate and presentative, there are other objects of thought which are not so ; namely, those that are known as not existing now and here. Of past and future objects and c