Berkeley advocated an idealism which came very near to that of Malebranche. As against the metaphysic of the understanding, we have the point of view that all existence and its determinations arise from feeling, and are constituted by self-consciousness. Berkeley's first and fundamental thought is consequently this: “The Being of whatever is called by us a thing consists alone in its being perceived,” i.e., our determinations are the objects of our knowledge. “All objects of human knowledge are ideas” (so called by Berkeley as by Locke), “which arise either from the impressions of the outward senses, or from perceptions of the inward states and activities of the mind, or finally, they are such as are constituted by means of memory and imagination through their separation and rearrangement. A union of different sensuous feelings appears to us to be a particular thing, e.g., the feeling of colour, taste, smell, figure, &c.; for by colours, smells, sounds, something of which we have a sensation is always understood.”(2) This is the matter and the object of knowledge; the knower is the percipient “I,” which reveals itself in relation to those feelings in various activities, such as imagination, remembrance, and will.
Berkeley thus indeed acknowledges the distinction between Being-for-self and Other-Being, which in his case, however, itself falls within the “I.” Of the matter on which activity is directed, it is no doubt in regard to one portion allowed that it does not exist outside of mind - that is to say, so far as our thoughts, inward feelings and states, or the operations of our imaginary powers are concerned. But in like manner the manifold sensuous conceptions and feelings can only exist in a mind. Locke certainly distinguished extension and movement, for example, as fundamental qualities, i.e., as qualities which pertain to the objects in themselves. But Berkeley very pertinently points out inconsistency here from the point of view that great and small, quick and slow, hold good as something relative; thus were extension and movement to be inherent or implicit, they could not be either large or small, quick or slow; that is, they could not be, for these determinations rest in the conception(3) of such qualities. In Berkeley the relation of things to consciousness is alone dealt with, and beyond this relationship they do not in his view come. From this it follows that it is only self-consciousness that possesses them; for a perception which is not in a conceiving mind is nothing: it is a direct contradiction. There can be no substance, he says, which neither conceives nor perceives, and which is yet the substratum of perceptions and conceptions.
If it is represented that there is something outside of consciousness which is similar to the conceptions, this is likewise contradictory; a conception can alone be similar to a conception, the idea to the idea alone.(4)Thus, while Locke's ultimate point is abstract substance, Being generally with the real determination of a substratum of accidents, Berkeley declares this substance to be the most incomprehensible assumption of all; but the incomprehensibility does not make this Being into an absolute nullity, nor does it make it in itself incomprehensible.(5) For Berkeley brings forward against the present existence of external objects only the inconceivability of the relation of a Being to mind. This inconceivability, however, is destroyed in the Notion, for the Notion is the negative of things; and this moved Berkeley and Leibnitz to shut up the two sides in themselves. There nevertheless remains a relationship of what is “other” to us; these feelings do not develop from us as Leibnitz represents, but are determined through somewhat else. When Leibnitz speaks of development within the monads, it is nothing but empty talk; for the monads as they follow in succession have no inward connection. Each individual is thus determined through another, and not through us; and it does not matter what this external is, since it remains a contingent. Now in relation to the two sides of Leibnitz which are indifferent to one another, Berkeley says that such an “other” is quite superfluous. Berkeley calls the other the objects; but these, he says, cannot be what we call matter, for spirit and matter cannot come together.(6) But the necessity of conceptions directly contradicts this Being-within-self of the conceiver; for the Being-within-self is the freedom of the conceiver; the latter does not, however, produce the conceptions with freedom; they have for him the form and determinateness of an independent “other.” Berkeley likewise does not accept idealism in the subjective sense, but only in respect that there are spirits which impart themselves (in the other case the subject forms his own conceptions), and consequently, that it is God alone who brings to pass such conceptions; thus the imaginations or conceptions which are produced by us with our individual activity remain separate from these others,(7) i.e. from the implicit.
