As in a Looking-Glass- Perceptual Acquaintance in Eighteenth-Century Britain. YOLTON

7/28/2019 As in a Looking-Glass- Perceptual Acquaintance in Eighteenth-Century Britain. YOLTON

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As in a Looking-Glass: Perceptual Acquaintance in Eighteenth-Century BritainAuthor(s): John W. YoltonSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1979), pp. 207-234Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709149

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AS IN A LOOKING-GLASS: PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCEIN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

BY JOHN W. YOLTON

Anyone working within the history of thought appreciates the im-portanceof smallphrases,even single words, for illuminatingthe contextof argumentsand claims. The presence in a particularauthor of somephrasetaken from a prior traditiondoes not, of course, necessarilymeanthat the author has accepted that earlier doctrine or theory, certainlynotwithout modifications.But such words and phrasesdo serve as signals tous of reverberationsof some doctrinewhich it behooves us to trackdown.We can decide later to what extent the prior history of that doctrinedoeshelp us understand its eighteenth-centuryuse.There are threesuch phraseswhich play a role in studyingtheoriesofperception in the eighteenth century. When Hume says, "'tis universallyallow'dby philosophers,and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that noth-ing is everreally presentwith the mind but its perceptions,"'we may thinkof Malebranche's remark: "Je croi que tout le monde tombe d'accord,que nous n'appercevons point les objets qui sont hors de nous par eux-memes."2When Hume links the notion of what is "present with themind" to the further claim that "the very being, which is intimatelypresent to the mind, is the real body or material existence,"3we maythink we hear an echo of Descartes' notion of the objective reality ofideas.Hume'sstruggleswith the single and double existenceviews may beseen as an eighteenth-centuryBritish version of Cartesianism, the no-tion that ideas have a dual reality, as modes of mind and as bearers ofthe reality of objects.That Hume's discussion does reflect this Cartesiandoctrineis, I think,clear,but not quite in the way in which Arnauldand Malebranche (whowere much closer in time to Descartes) reflectedDescartes'formulation.Much other discussion and transformationof the doctrine had occurredbefore Hume wrote his analysis. Philosophical theories hardlyever standstill. They are absorbed but modified almost as soon as the next writerturns his attention to the problems which the theory was to solve. Butthe occurrence of that phrase in Hume, "presentwith the mind," is a

1David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (London, 1739). Quotationsare from the Selby-Bigge edition; here, 67.2 Malebranche, De la recherche de la verite (Paris, 1674). Citations are fromthe edition of Genevieve Rodis-Lewis, in the Oeuvres Completes (Paris, 1972).

The reference here is to I, 413: Book III, Part II, Ch. I. 3 Treatise, 206.207


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208 JOHN W. YOLTON

significantindication of one of the ingredientsin his thought about per-ception and our knowledge of externalobjects. The fact that that phraseruns throughoutthe Treatise (it occurs in the Enquiry also), and is in-voked almost as a litany, suggests that it may have been frequently usedby the writersHume was reading. In fact, that phrasehad an interestinghistory from the Cartesians through the eighteenth century.4 WhenWilliamPorterfieldsays that "Our Mind can never perceive any thing butits own proper Modifications and the various States and Conditions ofthe Sensorium to which it is present,"5he is just repeatinga claim whichhe himself had madeearlier and one which is found in many other writersprior to Hume's Treatise.In many writers, this notion of what is presentto the mind was linked with a dictum about the location of things, bothfor existence andfor knowledge.For example, Porterfieldwrites in 1737:"nothing can Act, or be Acted upon where it is not; and therefore ourMind can neverperceiveany thing but its own properModifications,andthe various States and Conditions of the Sensorium to which it ispresent."6

Optical theories and the languageof optics also played a role in lead-ing some writersto the conclusion that perceptionsare what is present tothe mind. Therearemany optical examplesin Hume. One curious phrase,probably taken from a tradition in optics, is Hume's remark in his sec-tion on space and time: "But my senses convey to me only the impres-sions of colour'd points, dispos'd in a certain manner."7 While Humetalks of physical and mathematicalpoints (he rejects the latter for per-ception) in the rest of this section, he makes no attempt to explain thisremark about the senses and "colouredpoints." We can recall Berkeley'sdiscussion of perceptualminima, of seeing visible points.8 Berkeley alsomentions that Isaac Barrow cited Tacquet's language of visible points.9

4 I have made a start at tracing the history in "On Being Present to the Mind:A Sketch for the History of an Idea," Dialogue, 14(1975), 373-88. For a briefdiscussion of one very recent use of this notion, see my "Pragmatism Revisited:An Examination of Professor Rescher's Conceptual Idealism," Idealistic Studies(1976), 218-38.

5A Treatise on the Eye (London, 1759), II, 356-57.6"An Essay Concerning the Motions of our Eyes," in Medical Essays(Edinburgh, 1737), III, 220. Porterfield cited Newton in support of this principle.Clarke, in his exchange with Leibniz, had given an explicit formulation of it:"How the Soul of a Seeing Man, sees the Images to which it is present, we knownot: But we are sure it cannot perceive what it is not present to; because nothingcan Act, or be Acted upon, where it Is not." A Collection of Papers Whichpassed between the late Learned Mr. Leibniz and Dr. Clarke (London, 1717),83-84. 7 Treatise, 34.

8 New Theory of Vision (Dublin, 1709). Citations are to the Works ofGeorge Berkeley, ed. by A. A. Luce, I. Here, it is Sect. 82, 204-05.9 Ibid., 181, Sect. 30.


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 209These referencesremind us that much of the discussion of vision in opti-cal treatisestalks in terms of the geometry of vision, of rays of light andof points on the retina.Newton's Axiom VI in his Opticksspeaksof raysflowing from points of the object. Axiom VII says that the rays from allthe points of the object meet again after converging by reflection or re-fraction. They "make a Picture of the Object upon any white Body, onwhich they fall."'0Thus, in the eye, light is conveyed "in so many Pointsin the bottom of the Eye, and there to paint the Picture of the Objectupon that skin." These pictures, "propagatedby Motion along the Fibresof the Optick Nerves into the Brain, are the cause of Vision.""

The suspicion that optical theories (not just Berkeley's) play somerole in Hume'sreferenceto "colouredpoints"is furthersupportedby therecognitionthat earlierwriters (in particular,Maurolico and Kepler) ongeometric optics used the same language. In his account of these earlywriters,Vasco Ronchi describes the way in which it was said that an ex-tended object reflects rays on to the retina, there producing a "systemof points,"from which is derived "a luminousand coloured figure."'2Theproblemfor Keplerwas, how we locate this figureor image (Ronchi usesHobbes' term "phantasm") where the object is. Ronchi's fascinatingaccountof optical theorysketches some of the ways in which the apparentworld, built from the details supplied by the sense organs, can supply uswith information about the object world. What we see is the apparentworld, Hobbes' phantasms (perhaps we might suggest, Hume's percep-tions). Sometimes, under precise conditions, we locate the phantasmorperceptionwhere the object is. What is presentto us are our perceptions,our phantasms,but we normally take these to be the objects. "En effet,'voir la table' signifiecreer un phantasme,identiquea la table materielle,et le localiser exactment ou celle-ci se trouve, de fagon a pouvoir y poserles objets et lui trouver,en la touchant,des dimensions et la position quela vue lui donne."'3 Ronchi remarksthat seeing is for Kepler the resultof a physical agent (rays of light), a physiological process (formationof retinal image, impulses along optic nerve), and a psychic or psycho-logical representation(the apparentworld). "Le monde apparent, celuique l'on voit, avec ses figures, sa luminosite et ses couleurs, est donc unproduit psychique, une creation de l'observateur,un ensemble de phan-tasmes, c'est-a-direde figures qui n'ont pas de corps, mais seulement unaspect."'4A collection of phantasms,a psychic entity of light and colors:

10Opticks, 1704. (Dover Reprint, New York, 1952), 15. 1 Ibid.12 See Ronchi'sPrefaceto Paul-MarieMaurin'sFrench translation f Hobbes'sDe Homine (Paris, 1974), 15-16. I am indebted to Professor Jeffrey Barnouwfor callingthis work to my attention.3Vasco Ronchi, L'Optique; Science de la Vision (Paris, 1966), 49. Thisis the French translationof his L'Ottica,scienza della visione (Bologna, 1955).14lbid., 37.


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210 JOHN W. YOLTONfor Ronchi, this feature of Kepler'stheory is most importantfor under-standing perception.

In developing the notion that what we see is the apparent world,Ronchi makes effectiveuse of the photographicpicture. The action of therays of light on the film or plate is well known. When this film is devel-oped and then projectedonto a screen,what is on the screen is the imageof the building we photographed,having many details similar to thoseof the building. No one, Ronchi remarks, would think of sayirg theimage on the screen is the building. "Pourquoi, au contraire, quand ils'agit de la vision, dit-on que l'image vue est l'objet?"'5He goes on todraw out many analogiesbetween the eye and the film and between theeye as a lens and the cameralens. He also cites a fact about vision whichis relevantto our study: when we look up into the sky, we see a dome,a sort of screen for the objects we see there: clouds, sun, moon, stars.These objects are in fact at varying distances from us and from eachother. Nevertheless,we see all of them on the same surface, they appearto be on a common plane. From these facts about vision and about thedistancesof the objectsseen in the sky, Ronchi concludes that "les figuresvues sur la vouiteceleste ne sont pas les corps celestes, comme ils ne sontpas les nuages reels, ni les etoiles filantes. Ce sont seulement des phan-tasmes que la psyche de l'observateur cr6e et localise oui elle peut etcomme elle peut. Comme elle n'a aucun moyen de sentir des distancesaussi grandes,meme si elles sont aussi variables, elle les localise tous ala distancemaximalepossible, c'est-a-direa cette distance au-dela de la-quelle elle n'a plus aucune information."'6Ronchi'sbook is useful for fixing in our minds how, from facts aboutvision, we might be led to formulate a problem of perception in the wayin whichHumedid, in terms of a double (phantasmand real object) or asingle (real object only) existence. Am I suggesting that Hume, likeBerkeley,had a theoryof vision, even that the problem of perceptionforhim was a problem in optics? Such a suggestion would be too strong,althoughthereare a number of passages in the Treatisewhich show thatHume knew the basic facts about vision, just as there are even more pas-sages where he cites and uses the physiology of animal spirits.But Humewas not writing an "optics." Besides the optical theories of Berkeley,Newton, and several other eighteenth-centurywriters (all of whom Isuspect Hume knew), there were philosophical theories of perception.These were theories about perceptual acquaintance, rather than aboutvision. These perceptualtheoriesstill employed optical language and theymade use of optical examples, e.g., objects seen in mirrors,the eye com-pared to a lens, the understandingcompared to a camera obscura. In

15Ibid., 41.1 Ibid., 45.


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 211varying degrees, these optical examples controlled the analysis of per-ceptual acquaintance.It was only when the optical model was replacedby a cognitive one that writerswere able to point the way aroundskepti-cism with regard to external objects. When perception is considered invisual and optical terms, the question is one of relating or matching theimage seen with the object. Either the image seen is taken to be the verything itself or, in some unexplained manner, we are said to see bothimage and object: "As in a Looking-glass, in which he that looks doesindeed immediatelybehold the Species in the Glass, but does also at thesame time actually behold Peter or Paul whose Image it is.""17he alter-native was to follow Arnauld'slead in distinguishingspatial from cogni-tive presence, to indicate a recognition of the psychic or psychologicalelement in perception, of what one writer in England called the "Appre-hension of the Thing seen or heard."18Ditton carefully distinguishedbetween the physical and physiologicalaspects of perceptionand what henicely characterizedas "thatAcquaintancewhich I have with an Object,in what I call an Act of Perception."It is with the analyses of perceptualacquaintanceand of the act of perception that this paper is concerned.19

1. PerceptualOptics-Comparing the eye to a camera obscura was astandard practice in writings on optics. Robert Hooke remarks thatDella Porta, Kepler, and Galileo, among others, used this way of explain-ing the workingsof the eye. Hooke refersto Descartes' use of this model:He explains then . . . the Organ of Vision the Eye, by the Similitude of it toa darkRoom, into whichno otherLightis admittedbut whatentersby oneroundHole, in whicha convenientConvexrefractingLens is placedso, as tocollectall theRaysfromObjectswithout,and to unitethem n theirdistinctandproperplacesupon a Wallor Sheetof Paperat a convenientDistancewithin;wherebyhePictureof allthoseObjects hatare without heRoom,is madeasit were andplaced upon the Wallor Sheetwithin:This Sheetsays he in the

17John Norris, An Essay Towards the Theory of the Ideal or IntelligibleWorld (London, 1701), I, 166. Norris is here giving a commentary on Christo-pher Scheibler's discussion of the question, "Whether Created things are the Objectof the Divine Understanding of their own Beings, or only as they are Eminently,Ideally or Vertually contain'd in God?" (165). Norris himself insisted that "I donot feel any thing that is out of my self, but I feel my very self otherwiseModified, and Existing after Another manner than I did before" (199).

18 The phrase is Humphrey Ditton's, A Discourse Concerning the Resurrectionof Jesus Christ (London, 1712), 497. Arnauld's distinction is found in his Desvraies et des fausses idees (Paris, 1683) in his Oeuvres completes, XXXVIII, 216.He uses the language of presence locale and presence objective, the latter beingrendered as "known": objects are objectively present to the mind when theyare known by the mind.19This paper is part of a larger study in which I examine theories of percep-tion from Descartes to Reid. The role and nature of ideas in these theoriesare also traced.


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212 JOHN W. YOLTONEye, is the Tunica Retina, on which the Picture of all Objects without the Eyeare as it were painted and described.20In these same lectures, Hooke describes a "PerspectiveBox, in which allthe appearancesthat are made in the Eye are in some manner repre-sented." This box contained a hole "large enough to put one's Faceinto it," as well as the necessaryhole with a lens for letting in light. Withsuch a box, one could look in and "see the Species or Pictures of outwardObjects upon the bottom."'' For Hooke the eyes were not only ourspecial access to the world, they were a "Microcosm, or a little World,"a duplicate of the outer world. The eye, he says, has "a distinct Pointwithin it self, for every distinct Point without it self in the Universe;and when a Hemisphere of the Heavens is open to its view, it has aHemispherewithin it self, wherein there are as many Respective Pointsfor Reception of the Radiations, as there are differing Points for emis-sion of Radiations."22 ince Hooke accepted a plenum, the eye informsus in an instantof what is happening in the world.23 n another passage,he comparesthe action of the eye, in collecting rays, to a lens for collect-ing light from the sun to burn: "Now the Action of the Eye being muchthe same upon the Rays of Light, from any Luminous Object with thisof the Burning Glass; it follows that the Eye does by its Power bring allvisible Objects into the bottom of it, and make an Impression on theretina, the same as if the very Action of the Object were immediatelythere."24The substanceof the Retina "is affected or moved by the verysame Action, as if it touched the Object." These impressions are thencommunicatedto the brain. The eye in fact "becomesas it were a Hand,by which the Brain feels, and touches the Objects, by creating a Motionin the Retina, the same, and at the same Instant, with the Motion of thelucid Object it self."25With his notion of the eyes providing the brain with hands to touchobjects, Hooke's optics give us somethingclose to direct realism.At least,we have a "perfect Picture, or Representation of all outward Objects"preservedpoint by point on the retina. Hooke was unable, however, toexplain our awareness of these little images. We find in his further ac-count a material or corporeal notion of ideas. Memory, he says, is anorgan in the brain. It is "a Repository of Ideas formed partly by the

20 "Lectures on Light" (London, 1680), in The Posthumous Works of RobertHooke (London, 1705), 98.21Ibid., 127-28. 22Ibid., 121.23The notion of the instantaneous propagation of light was a common doc-trine, held by Aristotle, Galen, al-Kindi, Avicenna, Averroes, as well as Gros-seteste, Witelo, Kepler, and Descartes. See A. I. Sabra, Theories of Light fromDescartes to Newton (London, 1967), 46-47. In these lectures, Hooke showsa strong influence from Descartes.24Hooke, op. cit., 123. 25Ibid., 124.


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 213Senses, but chiefly by the Soul it self."26 mpressionsfrom the senses-those impressions being actual motions-are carried to the memorywhere they become powers "sufficient o effect such Formations of Ideasas the Soul does guide and direct them in." The soul's action is necessaryfor the formation of ideas. This action is attention: "the Soul in theAction of Attention does really form some materialPart of the Reposi-tory into such a Shape, and gives it some such a Motion as is from theSenses conveyed thither." He seems to mean this talk quite literally, al-thoughhe proceedsto help us understand t by making "amechanicalandsensible Figure and Picture thereof."27His talk then becomes that ofsupposing, of supposing that ideas have a size and bulk, occupy a place.The soul is incorporeal,but it is "everywhere as it were actuallypresent,in every point of the Sphereof its Radiation, though yet it may be sup-posed to be more immediatelyand forcefully present in the Centre of itsBeing."28He does not understand how the incorporeal soul can act oncorporeal ideas, but he even drops a hint that the sphere of influence ofthe soul may extend "out of the Body, and that to some considerableDistance."29

Locke also did not profess to understandthe transition from brainimpressionto awareness.As he said to Malebranche,"Impressionsmadeon the retina by rays of light, I think I understand;and motions fromthence continued to the brain may be conceived, and that these produceideas in our mind, I am persuaded,but in a manner to me incompre-

26Ibid., 140. 27 Ibid., 141-42. 28Ibid., 146.29 Other writers were stressing the importance of physiology in awareness,some (such as Anthony Collins) even moved towards the theory of Joseph

Priestley, at the end of the century, that thought is a property of the brain. Butit is not easy to find explicit identifications of ideas with brain states. Humeappears to be serious when, in the section on the immateriality of the soul hespeaks of some ideas being extended. Hume may be following Hooke. (For adiscussion of this passage in Hume, see Robert F. Anderson, 'The Location,Extension, Shape, and Size of Hume's Perceptions," in Hume, A Re-evaluation,ed. by Donald W. Livingston and James T. King [New York, 1976], 153-71.)David Hartley might be thought to have come close to making ideas into brainstates, but he always maintained that sensations and ideas are "of a mentalNature," while vibrations of nerve fibres are corporeal. Observations on Man(London, 1749), 34. Even though he does sometimes speak of ideas leavingtraces, more permanent traces than sensations do, he does not explicitly locatethose traces in the brain. Descartes did identify ideas or images with brainimpressions, in some of his early writings. Also, Voltaire says an idea is "uneimage, qui se peint dans mon cerveau" (entry, "Idee", in his Dictionnaire).Charles Bonnet, who was known in Britain, stressed the close links betweenideas and brain impressions but he never drew an identity. See, e.g., his EssaiAnalytique sur les Facultes de I'Ame (Copenhagen, 1760). Bonnet was oftencompared with Hartley.


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214 JOHN W. YOLTONhensible."30Locke's ideas were not brain impressions. That Locke waswell acquaintedwith the physiology of perception, especially with opticalaccounts of the eye, is indicatedby his detailing the facts about the eyeto Malebranche.He was writingto show how an optical species theory-in distinction from the peripatetic species theory against which Male-branchewrote-explains vision. He spoke of the "visibleappearancesofbodies, being brought into the eye by the rays of light";of how the bot-tom of the eye is far from being a point; of the way in which the raysof light "cause their distinct sensations, by striking on distinct parts ofthe retina";of how the "figures they paint there must be of some con-siderablebigness, since it takes up on the retina an area whose diameteris at least thirty seconds of a circle, whereof the circumferenceis in theretina, and the centre somewhere in the crystaline";and of how "feweyes can perceive an object less than thirty minutes of a circle, whereofthe eye is the centre."31Thus, when Locke compared the understandingof man to a cameraobscura,he did so in full knowledgeof this model forthe eye. In using that model for the understanding,was he unduly in-fluencedby the optical details? When he talks of ideas resemblingprimaryqualities,of ideas conformingto things, of ideas not objectsbeing presentto the mind, was Locke transferringHooke's microcosm notion to theunderstanding?Was there some temptation to think of our awarenessbeing like the face at the Perspective Box scanning the images on thewall of the box?32

Other writers used visual images when talking about perception.Henry Lee, in his careful critique of Locke (Anti-Scepticism, 1702),says that the proper sense of "idea" is "a visible Representation or Re-semblance of the Object, and, in some measure at least, like that thing ofwhich it is the Idea. Thus a man's Face in the Glass is properly theIdea of that Face" (2). John Witty (The First Principles of ModernDeism Confuted, London, 1707) speaks of our eyes as naturalglasses.Arthur Collier (Clavis Universalis,London, 1713) makes heavy appealto the looking-glass: in such a glass, "I see sun, moon, and stars, even awhole expandedworld" (26). But Collier observes that even those whomaintain an external world admit that the objects or images in the look-ing-glassarenot the same as the externalobjects. Collier goes on to applythe parallel to all perception: the images seen in normal vision do not

30Examination of the Opinions of P. Malebranche, Works (London, 1823),IX, Sect. 10, 217.31 Ibid., Sect. 9.32 In his recent discussionof Locke and the representative heory,J. L. Mackiemakes use of a device very much like Hooke's PerspectiveBox. "What f someone

ever since birth had had a largebox attached in front of his eyes, on the inside ofwhich, for him to see, fairly faithful picturesof outside, surroundinghingsweresomehow produced?"(ProblemsFrom Locke [Oxford, 1976], 44).


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 215differ from those seen in the looking-glass.33Vision has alwaysbeen takenas the model for perception and understanding,but the Perspective Boxmodel can raise problems about our knowledge of the external world.Hooke was not bothered by any of those worries,for which philosophersare noted, about our knowledge of the external world. That world forhim was all but presentto the mind in vision.A. Hobbes.-Vasco Ronchi in his preface to Paul-Marie Maurin'stranslationof Hobbes's De Homine, points out how this work sits firmlyin the traditionof explanation of the location of visual images.34Maurinremarksthat in this work Hobbes considersthe rays of light from objectsas "un code qui, analyse instant par instant par l'observateur,donne ace dernier la possibilite de recreer instant par instant un univers dephantasmes qui constitue une bonne imitation de l'univers reel."35 Inchapter II of this treatise, Hobbes speaks of a distinct and figuredvisionoccurring when light (lumen) or color forms a figure of which the partsoriginate from the parts of the object and stand in a one-to-one corre-spondence to those parts of the object. Light thus figured is called animage. By an institution of nature, all animate beings judge that thatvision is the vision of the object. People have not always understoodthatthe sun and stars, for example, are larger than they appear to be. Thatwriters on vision have so far been unable to explain why objects appearnow larger,now smaller, now fartheraway, now closer, does not surpriseHobbes, because no one so far, he says, has had the idea of consideringlight (lux) and color, not as emanationsfrom the object but as phenom-ena of our inner world.36Later chapters of this treatise identify the ap-parent place of the object as the place of the image in direct vision (59).Maurin reads Hobbes as saying all that we are aware of are our images,our phantasms. (55-56, n. 12) He interpretssuch a view as idealism, and

33Arnauldidentifies as one of three reasons for philosophersacceptingideasas real beings (as Malebranchedid) that, havingseen sensible objectsreflectedinmirrorsand in water, they come to believe that they never see bodies themselves,but only their images (op. cit., 190).34Traite de l'homme, Traduction et commentaire par Paul-Marie Maurin.Prefacepar Vasco Ronchi (Paris, 1974). 35Ibid., 29; also 51n.2.36The editor points out that the two different Latin words, lumen and luxdistinguish light as a physical phenomenon from light as a visual appearance.Ronchi stresses the importance of this distinction in the history of vision, adistinctionwhich he lamentshas not always been followed. See ChapterIV in hisbook. Cf. Locke's Essay, 3.4.10, where he distinguishesthe cause of light fromthe idea of light "as it is such a particularperceptionin us." What to us maysoundstrange n this same passageof the Essay-the talk of tennisballsbouncing,as a way of conceiving of light-is anotherindicationof Locke's knowledgeofoptics. For, as Sabra has pointed out, Descartes and earlier writers attemptedto explain refraction and reflectionin terms of impact. They used examples ofballs thrownagainstdifferentsurfaces and reboundingfrom them.


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216 JOHN W. YOLTONhe is puzzled as to how such an idealism can be superimposed upon Hob-bes'smaterialism.Whetherwe can so quickly take the distinction betweenlumen and lux, between physical events and psychological awareness, asidealism, is open to some doubt. It was just this question which is playedout by subsequentwriters in Britain, especially by Berkeley and Hume.But it is importantto appreciatethat Hobbes has not changed his viewsin this late treatise. He never did deny appearances.37Just what theirstatus was may not always be clear, but his use of "thought"or "con-ception"in earlierwritings,as well as of "idea,"reinforces the fact that hewas not saying all is matter and motion.

For example, the Elements of Philosophy speaks of the effects andappearanceof things to sense as "faculties or powers of bodies, whichmake us distinguish them from one another."38Later in this work,Hobbes says that "The first beginnings, therefore, of knowledge are thephantasmsof sense and imagination; and that there be such phantasmswe know well enough by nature" (66). Sometimes, he uses the term"idea" in close conjunction with-sometimes even as a synonym for-"phantasm.""A man that looks upon the sun, has a certain shining ideaof the magnitude of about a foot over, and this he calls the sun, thoughhe knows the sun to be truly a great deal bigger; and, in like manner, thephantasm of the same thing appears sometimes round ... and sometimessquare [i.e., a tower at different distances]."39The question then is,"whether that phantasmbe matter, or some body natural, or only someaccident of body"?As a way of answeringthis question, he assumes thatthe whole world, save man, was annihilated. Man would still have theideas of the world, of bodies, etc.: "that is the memory and imaginationof magnitude, motions, sounds, colours, etc.," as well as their order. Hethen says: "All which things, though they be nothing but ideas andphantasms, happening internally to him that imagineth; yet they willappearas if they were external, and not at all depending upon any powerof the mind." Even when the world does still exist, we work only withour phantasms. "For when we calculate the magnitude and motions ofheaven or earth, we do not ascend into heaven that we may divide it intoparts, or measure the motions thereof, but we do it sitting in our closets

7 See my "Locke and the Seventeenth-CenturyLogic of Ideas," JHI, 16(Oct., 1955), Section 2, 435-39.38 The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. by W. Molesworth, I, 5 (Pt.3, Ch. I). All references to Hobbes will be to this edition, volume and pageindicated in the text.39Other passages where "idea" occurs with "phantasm"are: "As a bodyleaves a phantasmof its magnitudein the mind, so also a moved body leaves aphantasmof its motion, namely, an idea of that body passingout of one spaceinto anotherby continualsuccession" (94). "Now, by space I understand,hereas formerly, an idea or phantasmof a body" (108).


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 217or in the dark."40Hobbes then proceeds to consider the species of ex-ternal things, "not as really existing, but appearingto exist, or [appear-ing] to have a being without us." It is the way the world appearsthat heanalyzes,since that is all that we can analyze.Later, in Part IV on "Physics,or the Phenomena of Nature,"in thechapter on "Sense and Animal Motion," "perception" is linked with"ideas.""In the firstplace, therefore,the causes of our perception,that is,the causes of those ideas and phantasmswhich are perpetuallygeneratedwithin us whilst we make use of our senses, are to be enquired into . .."(389). The act of sense differs from sense "no otherwise . .. than fieri,that is, being a doing, differs from factum esse, that is, being done"(392). Sense is also said to be "thejudgmentwe make of objects by theirphantasms;namely, by comparing and distinguishing those phantasms"(393). In some passages, Hobbes writes "thoughtor phantasm"(398).Leviathan speaks of the thoughts of man, characterizing them as "arepresentationor appearance, of some quality, or other accident of abody without us" (Works, III, 1). Mental discourse is a "train ofthought" (11). The word "conception"is also used. Hobbes's HumanNature;Or, The FundamentalElementsof Policy even speaksof "certainimages or conceptions of the things without us" (Works, IV, 2). Thehaving of images is "that we call our conception, imagination, idea,notice or knowledge of them" (3). The faculty by which we have suchknowledge is the cognitive power. He goes on in the same work to speakof conceptions "proceedingfrom the action of the thing itself."By sight,"we have a conception or image composed of colour and figure." Hecites seeing the sun and othervisible objectsreflected n waterand glasses.These experiences show us that color and images generally "may bethere where the thing seen is not" (4-5). The image seen by reflectionin a glass "is not any thing in or behind the glass."The image and colorare "but an apparitionto us" of the motion of object and nerves. Thusagain, two sensesof light aredistinguished:motion in and from the objectand the appearanceor image.

40Malebrancheused this point about the mind not ascending nto the heavensto draw his conclusion that what is present to the mind are ideas, not things."Nousvoyons le Soleil, les Etoiles, et une infinited'objetshors de nous;et il n'estpas vraisemblableque l'ame sorte du corps, et qu'elle aille, pour ainsi dire, sepromenerdans les cieux pour y contempler ous ces objets.Elle ne les voit doncpoint par eux-memes . . ." (Recherche, I, 413-14). Lord Monboddo, late inthe eighteenthcentury, was convinced that the mind does transport tself to aplacewherethe body is not, for the objects are not presentwith the mind: "Nowas we cannot supposethat the objectscome to the mind, it is I thinkof necessitythat the mind should go to the objects;for, some way or other, they must bepresent together" [William Knight: Lord Monboddo and Some of His Con-temporaries 1900), 231]. The same argumentis found in Monboddo'sAntientMetaphysics,vol. II (Edinburgh, 1782).


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218 JOHN W. YOLTONWe should perhapsbe cautious in crediting too strong a psychologi-cal content to these various words used by Hobbes. What seems certain,

however, is that he did employ differentterms, all of which were his at-tempt to distinguish the way the world appears to us from the worlditself. Leviathan made this point firmly: "And though at some certaindistance, the real and very object seems invested with the fancy it begetsin us; yet still the object is one thing, the image or fancy is another" (2-3). Similarly, in Seven Philosophical Problems, one of the speakers, B,cites as examplesof fancy both "theappearanceof your face in a looking-glass"and an after image, "a spot before the eye that hath stared uponthe sun or fire" (Works, VII, 27). The other speakerthen asks why thatwhich "appearsbefore your eyes" when you look towards the sun ormoon is also not fancy?B replies,"So it is. Though the sun itself be a realbody, yet that bright circle of about a foot diameter cannot be the sun,unless there be two suns .. ." (27-28).The question Hume raised later, of a single or double existence,Hobbes clearly answeredas "double."Moreover, it seems to have beenthe visual image which Hobbes took as his standard,although such termsas "thought"and "conception"indicate his generalizing of the doubleexistence view. It was optics which providedHobbes, certainly in his lastwork, De Homine, with some convincing evidence for his distinction be-tween image and object. We have found that optical examples play a rolein some of his earlierwritingsas well.B. Berkeley.-The most striking case of a perception theory beingbased upon vision is that of Berkeley. His An Essay Towards a NewTheory of Vision (1709) addressed itself to the way in which we deter-mine the distanceof objects. He opens that work with a quick summaryof different theories advanced earlier to explain how we determine theapparentplaces of objects (Sects. 4-8). Insteadof judging distanceby the"bignessof the angle made by the meeting of the two optic axes" (Sect.12), as the geometricalopticians claimed, Berkeley argues that distanceperceptionis based upon (1) the sensations we feel in our eyes when wewiden or lessen the interval between the pupils (Sect. 16) and (2) thedegree of confusion in our vision of the object (Sect. 21).41 Both theseways of determiningor judging distance (or the location of objects) are

41Malebranche notes the role of the sensation felt in the eyes when we tryto focus on objects very near to us. "En effet lorsqu'on force sa vuie pour voir defort pres un petit objet, on sent l'effort des muscles qui compriment les yeux, etqui fait meme de la peine a ceux-la principalement qui n'ont point pris I'habitudede regarder de pres de petits objets" (Eclaircissement XVII, Sect. 32, in OeuvresCompletes, III, 333). For a recent discussion of Berkeley, in the context ofgeometrical theories of optics, see G. Thrane, "Berkeley's 'Proper Object ofVision,'" JHI, 38(1977), 243-60; also G. N. Cantor's "Berkeley, Reid, and theMathematization of Mid-Eighteenth Century Optics," JHI, 38(1977), 429-48.


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 219a function of the coexistence of these experiences: coexistence of thesensations with the discovery of the place of objects, coexistence of de-grees of confusion with varying distances of objects (Sect. 25). Heattempts to explain a problem raised by Dr. Barrow about the locusobjecti and the locus apparens, citing Molyneux's use of these twophrases, and appeals to the second of the ways of judging distance, thedegrees of confusion in vision. But, as he proceeds, his account of thesetwo places becomes more radical. The locus objecti is always near to theperceiver (present with the mind) and the objecta constantly change. Tospeak more accuratelyon this last point, the objecta become a series ofapparentia.We can witness this double change by examining Berkeley'sremarksabout the man born blind who later gains his sight. For such a person,"The objects intromittedby sight would seem to him (as in truth theyare) no other than a new set of thoughts or sensations, each whereof isas near to him as the perceptionsof pain or pleasure,or the most inwardpassions of his soul" (Sect. 41). In Section 43, he asks rhetorically,"whetherthe visible extension of any object doth not appear as near tohim as the colourof thatobject?"Since "thosewho have had anythoughtsof that matter"agree that colors are not "without the mind," and sinceBerkeley here argues that extension, figure, and motion are inseparablefrom color, the suggestion is that what is seen does not exist outside themind at any distance. Section 44 then argues that "the immediateobjectsof sight are not so much as the idea or resemblanceof things, placed at adistance." I understand this phrase "not so much as" to be the sameas "not." Here is the example Berkeley gives to support his conclusion:Suppose, or example, hatlookingat the moon I shouldsay it werefifty orsixtysemi-diametersf theearthdistant romme.Let us seewhatmoon this isspokenof: It is plainit cannotbe thevisiblemoon,or anythingike the visiblemoon, or that whichI see, whichis only a round,luminousplain of aboutthirtyvisiblepointsin diameter.For in case I amcarried romtheplacewhereI standdirectly owards hemoon,it is manifest heobjectvaries,still as I goon; andby the time thatI am advanced ifty or sixty semi-diameters f theearth, shallbe so far frombeingneara small,round, uminous latthatI shallperceivenothing ike it; this object havinglong since disappeared, nd if Iwouldrecover t, it mustbe by goingbackto the earthfromwhenceI set out(187).Berkeley uses other examples to make the same point: a distant tree, atower, a man. What leads me to think I am seeing a distantobject is thatI have found that my seeing has usually been accompanied or followedby touching, after a certain movement of my body. But Berkeley claimseven further that I do not touch what I see. Both seeing and touchingreveal sensations near to me; they reveal both sensations and sensationsnearto me. Thus, "in truthand strictnessof speech, I neither see distance


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220 JOHN W. YOLTONit self, nor anything that I take to be at a distance" (Sect. 45, p. 188).Nor do I even see the ideas of things at a distance. I have only my ideas,my perceptions, my phantasms.Hooke's microcosm duplicateworld turnsout to be my world. We seem to have a single existence, my perceptions.That dictum about no cognition at a distance, that what is known mustbe present to the mind, is at work here: "the things we see being intruth at no distance from us" (Sect. 52, p. 190), all visible objects "areonly in the mind" (Sect. 77, p. 202).Berkeley's explication, in his Principles and Dialogues, of this notionof objects existing in the mind was summarizedby his dictum, esse estpercipi. This principle was meant to identify two features of his generalaccount: that there is no aspect of objects which is insensible (his nega-tive claim against the materialists) and that objects as known are in themind. This second featureis consistent with those various traditionsfromAristotle to the Schoolmen and to Descartes which said that the object ispresentto the mind. Berkeley was fond of pointing out that the material-ist'sobject, the insensible, corpuscularparticlesof matter,cannot be pres-ent to the mind. Nor does the corpuscularaccount of perception explainhow ideas or perceptions arise. He agreed with many other writers thatcorporealobjectscannot cause awareness.If those physical objects whichwe take to exist in externalspace distant from us can neither cause ideasin us nor be present to our mind, what is present there? Berkeley'sanswer is "visibleobjects"and "ideas,"where these two terms mean anddesignate the same thing. He was quite clear about his analysis of "pres-ent to" and "exist in": it means "perceived,""known,"or "comprehend-ed" (i.e., "understood"). Early in the Principles, where he is explainingwhat he means by "mind," "spirit,""soul," or "my self," he says thesewords denote "athing entirelydistinctfrom them [his ideas], wherein theyexist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived."42 n thethird of his Three Dialogues, Philonous says, "I know what I mean,when I affirmthat there is a spiritual substanceor support of ideas, thatis, that a spirit knows and perceives ideas" (234). To reinforce to Hylasthat "existin" has no literal sense, Philonous tells him that "whenI speakof objects as existing in the mind or imprintedon the senses;I would notbe understoodin the gross literal sense, as when bodies are said to existin a place, or a seal to make an impression upon wax. My meaning is onlythat the mind comprehendsor perceives them; and that it is affectedfromwithout, or by some being distinct from itself" (250). More importantlystill, Berkeley's ideas are not modes of mind: they exist in the mind"not by way of mode or property,but as a thing perceived in that which

42Berkeley, Principles, in Works, II, 42, Principle 2. References to theDialogues are also to this same volume.


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 221perceivesit" (237). For the correspondingpassage in the Principles, seeSect. 49 (61).All these passagesexplicating the meaning of "exist in" indicate thatBerkeley has to this extent escaped the control of the optical model forperception.For "exist in" turnsout to have the samecognitive meaningasit did for Arnauld and Locke.43Berkeley gives the same analysisof "existin" for "ideasin God's mind." For example, in denying that he is follow-ing Malebranche,Philonous says that he does not say "I see things byperceivingthatwhich represents hem in the intelligiblesubstance of God.This I do not understand;but I say, the things by me perceived areknown by the understanding,and produced by the will, of an infinitespirit" (215). It is the "Omnipresenteternal Mind, which knows andcomprehends all things" (231), the "real tree existing without" ourminds "is truly known and comprehended by (that is, exists in) theinfinite mind of God" (235). To reinforce that the "that is" phrase ismeant to explicate by offering a synonym, Philonous a bit later in thesame Dialogue says: "All objects are eternallyknown by God, or whichis the same thing, have an eternal existence in his mind" (252).44

In his recent study of Berkeley, I. C. Tipton recognizes this closelinking of "exist in" with "perceivedby."45He even allows that Luce'sstressingof this linkage (Luce reads"in the mind"as an abbreviation or"in direct cognitive relation to the mind") is "in a way right" (93).Tipton's reluctance to accept this as Berkeley'sfull meaning is not clear.What he says is that "if it is true that Berkeley regardsexistence in themind as amountingto perceptionby the mind it is also true that he thinksof perceptionby the mind as coming down to the existence of an idea inthe mind" (93-94). My troublewith this remarkis that while Berkeley'stranslationof "exist in" by "perceivedor known by" does give us an in-telligible explication, I do not see what we are told by the second part ofTipton's remark,that "perceptionby the mind"means "existencein themind."The troublesomephraseis "existin," not "perceivedby."We needto know, especiallyin the light of the historyof the appealsto "presenttothe mind,"just what Berkeley means by "exists in the mind." The pas-sages I have cited seem to tell us unequivocallywhat that phrasemeans.It means "to be perceivedby." And what is perceivedby the mind is nota mode of mind.43Cf. Arnauld: "Je dis qu'un objet est present a notre esprit, quand notreesprit l'apperqoit et le connoit" (op. cit., 198). This definition appears in Locke'sEssay in 1.2.5: "For if these words (to be in the understanding) have any pro-priety, they signify to be understood."44The comparing of God's knowledge of objects with our knowledge of them,

via God's presence to all things and the presence of the images of things to ourmind, was a frequent occurrence. Clarke and Newton on this point were typical ofmany writers in the century. See Clarke's exchange with Leibniz.45I. C. Tipton, Berkeley, The Philosophy of Immaterialism (1974), 87.


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222 JOHN W. YOLTONIt is this last notion which leads Tipton to hang back from accepting

Berkeley's explication of "exists in"; for Tipton is sure that, not beinga mode, ideas for Berkeley must be things, entities. Berkeley, Tiptonsays, "does want us to think of the appearanceas itself a thing" (187),he "reallydoes hold that each sense datum is an entity" (185). Tiptonhas some good comments earlier about how reifying sensations or ap-pearances leads away from direct to representativerealism.46 deas forMalebranchewere real beings, even though there was no clear categoryin his metaphysicsfor characterizing hese beings. They were substance-like, if not substances.47Berkeley's ideas are clearly not these sorts ofspiritual things; Nor can we say that his ideas are the appearances ofobjects, for there are no other objects on his account. Tipton says "theyare themselves the basic things in the sensible world" (191). As Humewas later to say of the ordinaryview, "thevery image which is present tothe senses, is with us the real body" (Treatise, 205). Berkeley's way ofexpressing this view is succinctly put at the end of his Dialogues: thevulgar opinion is that "those things they immediately perceive are thereal things" (262). His own position combined this vulgar view with theview of the philosophers:"thatthe things immediatelyperceived,are ideaswhich exist only in the mind."In tryingto wed these two opinions, Berkeley never waveredfrom theclaim that with the definitionof "existence"as "percipi"and "percipere,""the horse is in the stable, the Books are in the study as before."48Put-ting an objection to himself-"Well say you according to this new Doc-trine all is but meer Idea, there is nothing wch is not an ens rationis"-he replies: "I answerthings are as real and exist in rerumnatura as muchas ever. The distinction betwixt entia Realia and entia rationis may bemade as properly now as ever."49Similar passages can be found in thePrinciples and the Dialogues.50Nor did he ever follow Malebranche inmaking ideas into special entities. A careful inventory of the many pas-sages on ideas in his writings, together with the statement of those twoopinions which he has combined, yields the following summaryof Berke-ley's account of our knowledgeof objects:

46 See, e.g., 23-24, 35, 66.47In his Examination of Malebranche, Locke discusses this aspect of ideas.An eighteenth-century defender of Malebranche against Locke's attack, P. GerdilBarnabite (Defense du sentiment du P. Malebranche sur la nature, et l'origine desIdees contre l'Examen de M. Locke, 1748) denies that Malebranche's ideas aresubstances, although he characterizes them as spiritual things (61). There were,in eighteenth-century Britain, two main concepts of ideas: ideas as entities andideas as the same as perceptions. The latter was the view of Arnauld againstMalebranche.

48Philosophical Commentaries, 429, in Works, vol. I. 49Ibid., 535.50For example, Principles, 34, 35; Dialogues, 229-30, 244.


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 2231. Ideas are perceptions, ensations,or thoughts.2. Perceptionsor ideasarethe thingsthemselves.3. What s knownor perceiveds present o (nearto) the mind.4. To existin themindmeans o be perceived r knownby the mind.5. To be perceivedby themind s thewaythingsarein the mind.6. Perceptions r ideasdo not (can not?) exist apart rommind.7. Thingsdo not (can not?) exist apart rom mind.Other writers had accepted (1), (3), (4), and (5). What is distinctiveof Berkeley's analysis is (2) and (7). It was easier for people to accept(3), identifying what is present to the mind as our perceptions, whileinsisting (as Porterfielddid) that there is a world of objects independentof our perceptions, to which we ascribe our perceptions, on which welocate our images. It was apparentlyeven easier to accept a veil of per-ception doctrine, as Henry Grove urged, taking ideas or perceptions as ascreen between perceivers and the world.51Skepticism seemed to manyeasier, more intelligible than Berkeley'spropositions (2) and (7).II. Hume on Single and Double Existence.-When Hume beganreadingin preparationfor writing a treatise on the human understanding,there was a number of traditions in philosophy which had been widelyexplored. There was that tradition which invoked the dictum that whatis known must be present to the mind. There were a number of opticaltreatises addressingthe question of where and how the visual image islocated on or near the object. A number of philosophers, such as Hobbesand Berkeley, had adaptedthe knowledge of the structure and workingsof the eye to cognitive theories about perceptualacquaintance.There wasalso a dual concept of ideas, where ideas became separatelyexisting ob-51Grove (An Essay Towards a Demonstration of the Soul's Immateriality)(London, 1718), suggested that ideas are like a "thin Varnish spreadover theFace of Nature,which do not hinder us from passing a Judgmentof it; becausethey express outwardObjects,much as the Varnish takes the Form of the Workupon which it is laid" (11-12). Grove, in his Preface, writes against Collier,but he agreeswith Collier that we see nothing but ideas. What he objectedto inCollier's Clavis Universalis was the claim that there is no external world, eventhat it is impossible. Grove was confident that, were there no external world,God would have made our ideas "appearto be at home in the Mind," ratherthan, as they do, "havingthe appearanceof something External"(16, 19). Heconstructs an interestingmodel to illustratewhat it would be like did our ideashave no suggestions of externality: the Perspective Box turned perceiver."Suppose then a hollow Globe endued with Perception, and painted on theInside with Birds, Beasts and Fishes, and to have the Knowledge of all that isdelineated within it; the whole Delineation being within the Globe, and thePerceptionthe Globe hath of it but one Act, is it not certainthat the Appearancewhich this Representationwould most naturallymake to the Globe must be ofsomething comprehendedwithin itself? And the same it would probablybe withthe Mind, if there were not some externalWorld, to signify and representwhichof our Ideas, by the Rules of Divine Perspective,appearExternal"(16-17).


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224 JOHN W. YOLTON

jects; or they were used either interchangeablyor in close connectionwith perceptions. Almost all writers talked in terms of ideas or percep-tions, not objects, being present to the mind.Confrontedwith the difficultiesin the attempts to accept perceptionsas what is present to the mind and yet hold fast to a realism of objects,Berkeleywith one deft stroke cut a path out to a resolution: he said ideasare the very things themselves. Both Berkeley and Hume took seriouslythis notion that our ideasor perceptionsare the objects. Berkeleydid notflinch in the face of the one difficultywith his account: that objects be-come dependent upon mind, albeit ultimatelyGod's mind. But no matterhow hard he tried, Berkeleycould not convince his readers (or us) thatmind-dependencyis part of our ordinary belief about the world of ob-jects. Hume saw that, if sense could be made of this ordinary view, wewould have to find an explanation for how we come to consider percep-tions, which are discontinuousand mind-dependent, o be objects, whichwe believe to be continuous and mind-independent.Hume meets thatproblem by saying (a) perceptions are not necessarily related to otherperceptions, each can exist apart, and (b) we feign their continuedexistence when not perceived. Thus, Hume accepts the esse est percipidictum for perceptionsbut suggests that we (or our imagination) waivethat dictum when we take our perceptions for the objects themselves.Hume was not entirely satisfiedwith his account of the way of viewingperceptions,and his view of the ordinary,vulgar opinion. But in Hume'sdiscussion of that opinion, and of the philosophical view of perceptionsand objects, we find the most systematic analysis in the century of bothpoints of view.

Berkeley provided his contemporarieswith a clear statement of thetwo points of view, the single and double existence view. In Principle56, he says that:men knowing hey perceived everalideas,whereofthey themselveswere nottheauthors,as not beingexcitedfromwithin,nordepending n the operationof theirwills, this madethemmaintain, hose ideas or objectsof perceptionhadan existence ndependentf, andwithout hemind,withouteverdreamingthat a contradictionwas involvedin those words. But philosophershavingplainlyseen,that the immediate bjectsof perceptiondo not exist without hemind, they in some degreecorrected he mistakeof the vulgar,but at thesametimerun into anotherwhichseemsno less absurd, o wit, thatthere arecertainobjectsreally existingwithout he mind,or havinga subsistencedis-tinctfrombeingperceived, f whichourideasareonlyimagesor resemblances,imprinted y thoseobjectson the mind (64-65).That Hume accepts the identificationof objects and perceptions is sug-gested by his reminder (in I.IV.II of the Treatise) that he has shownearlier that "the notion of external existence, when taken for somethingspecificallydifferentfrom our perceptions"is absurd (188). The nature


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 225or kind of identification between perceptions and objects is revealed inHume's phrase,"specificallydifferent."To fail of specific differencedoesnot rule out numerical difference. In the earlier passage (I.II.VI), heconsideredthe idea of existence: is this an ideadistinct and differentfromthe idea of any particularthing? If so, there would need to be an im-pression just of existence, not of any particular existing thing (66).Such an idea would be an instance of those abstractideas against whichBerkeleywrote. The alternative s that the idea of existence is the same asthe idea of whateverwe conceive to be existent. "Whateverwe conceive,we conceive to be existent," or, "Any idea we please to form is the ideaof a being" (67). The reverse is equally true: "the idea of a being isany idea we please to form." To oppose what Hume says here would beto show that the idea of entity, of thing, can be derived from some im-pressionof entity, just of entity. There are no such impressions.Anotherway of puttingHume'spoint is to show how two objectsdifferjust in thatone exists, the other does not. "Butno object can be presentedresemblingsome object with respect to its existence, and different from others inthe sameparticular" 67).

When Hume applies this reasoning to the idea of external existence,we see how the applicationof the principle about what is presentto themind yields his conclusion of no specific differencebetween perceptionsand external existence: "We may observe that 'tis universallyallow'd byphilosophers,and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is everreally presentwith the mind but its perceptionsor impressionsand ideas,and that externalobjects become known to us only by those perceptionsthey occasion" (67). To be able to conceive of something specificallydifferent from ideas and impressions, something other than ideas andimpressions (i.e., objects) would have to be present to the mind, fromwhich we could then derive an idea. We never "canconceive any kind ofexistence, but those perceptions, which have appear'd in that narrowcompass"of our mind (67-68).It was because of this strong belief about what we cannot conceivewith respect to existence that Hume so firmly rejected Malebranche'sdouble existence view, in which ideas are essentially differentfrom ob-jects. On Malebranche'sview, ideas become anotherkind of object. Thisphilosophy, Hume says (I.IV.V), holds that "no external object canmake itself known to the mind immediately, and without the interposi-tion of an imageor perception"(Treatise, 242). Perceptions are proper-ties of mind, either of finite minds or of an infinite mind. Mind was asubstance, immaterial, simple and indivisible. Hume achieves the rejec-tion of this view by comparing it with the materialistaccount found inSpinoza. The materialist talks of a system of objects. The immaterialist(whom Hume is satirizingin this section) talksof the system of thoughts


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226 JOHN W. YOLTONand ideas. The materialist tells us that all the objects I observe-thesun, moon, stars, earth, seas, plants, men, ships, houses-are not reallyobjects (that is, are not really substances), but are only modes or modi-ficationsof a substance n which all these modesinhere,a substance whichis simple, uncompounded,and indivisible. The other system, the systemof thoughts, is, Hume says, a "system of beings, viz. the universe ofthought, or my impressions and ideas." Impressions and ideas becomereal beings. When Hume examines this system of beings, what does hefind? "ThereI observe another sun, moon, and stars;an earth, and seas,cover'd and inhabitedby plants and animals; towns, houses, mountains,rivers; and in short, every thing I can discover or conceive in the firstsystem" (242).While Hume does not name Malebranche, it seems clear that it isMalebranchewho is being attacked in this passage.Malebrancheacceptedthe dictum that the mind cannot know what is distant from it, that itcan know only what is intimately united to the mind. In cognizing dis-tant objects, then, we must see those objects where they are not located.What we see are other objects, other stars, moon, houses which are inti-mately united to our mind.52There are, Malebranchesaid, "deux sortesd'etre," those which our mind sees immediately, and others which themind knows only by means of the first sort of beings.53There were notmany writers in Britain who took this extreme double existence view.Hooke, as we have seen, suggestssomething like a double existence view,without appealing to immaterial substance. Henry Grove and WilliamPorterfieldmay also be taken as accepting such a view. Isaac Watts citedMalebranche'sdoctrine of intelligible sun, moon, and stars, and he hadhis own version of seeing things in the mind of God.s4 The extreme ver-sion depicted by Hume reveals the inherent logic of the approach:

52 "I1est donc necessaire,que n6treame voye les maisonset les etoiles oui llesne sont pas, puisqu'ellene sort point du corps ou elle est et qu'elle ne laisse pasde les voir hors de lui. Or comme les etoiles qui sont immediatementunies al'ame, lesquellessont les seules que l'ame puisse voir, ne sont pas dans les Cieux.il s'ensuit que tous les hommes qui voyent les etoiles dans les Cieux, et quijugentensuite volontairementqu'elles y sont,"make a false judgment Recherche,I, 156).53There is a similar remark in Berkeley'sNew Theory of Vision, but hemakes it about the ideas of sight and touch: "there are two sorts of objectsap-prehendedby the eye, the one primarilyand immediately,the other secondarilyand by interventionof the former"(Sect. 50, 189). Hume was not alone in find-ing Malebranche'sdoctrinea duplicationof the world of ordinaryobjects. In hisExaminationof Malebranche,Locke questioned the same point, chargingMale-branche with skepticism of real objects. See also Arnauld, op. cit., 227-28:Malebranchetransportsus into an unknown country where we no longer seemen, bodies, sun, stars but only intelligible objects.54I. Watts, Philosophical Essays (London, 1733).


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 227thoughts, ideas, perceptions become modifications of one simple, un-compounded, and indivisible substance: an exact parallel, Hume wantsus to note, with Spinoza'saccount of modes and one substance.Spinoza'saccount is treated with "detestation and scorn, and the second with ap-plause and veneration" (243). Both accounts are, Hume insists, equallyunintelligible.For Hume the route to intelligibilityclearly lies through his principleof no specific difference between perceptions and objects, as well asthrough his acceptance of that feature of the ordinary view which saidthat what is present with the mind are its own perceptions (Treatise,197). There are various formulations given of this latter feature. Thegenerality of mankind perceive, Hume says, only one being, and "cannever assent to the opinion of a double existence and representation.Those very sensations . . . are with them the true objects, nor can theyreadily conceive that this pen or paper, which is immediatelyperceiv'd.represents another, which is different from, but resembling it" (202).What is required is an explication of what "any common man meansby a hat, or shoe, or stone, or any other impression,convey'd to him byhis senses." The general principle is repeated: "all the unthinking andunphilosophicalpartof mankind (that is, all of us, at one time or other). . . suppose their perceptionsto be their only objects and never think ofa double existence internal and external, representingand represented"(205). He adds, "the very image which is present to the senses, is withus the realbody";and again (206), he repeatsthis account: "'Tiscertain,that almost all mankind,and even philosophersthemselves,for the great-est part of their lives, take their perceptions to be their only objects,and suppose that the very being, which is intimately present to the mind,is the real body or material existence."It is thatordinaryview which is clearlymore acceptableto Hume;butmakingthat view intelligibledependsupon findinga sense of "present o"which will enable us (in the language of Norris's example) to beholdboth the image and the object, and will thus explain our acquaintancewith objects in the act of perception. Hume faces this question directly:"After what manner we conceive an object to become present to themind, without some new creationof a perceptionor image"?(207). Thisphrase, "without some new creation of a perception or image," is, Ithink, most important.Is it asking "how can an object be present to themind without a perception,"a direct realism by-passing perceptions;or,is it indicating(what I will be suggesting) that, to be presentto the mind,something more than sense perceptions are required?Hume goes on toask the question, "what we mean by this seeing, and feeling, and perceiv-ing." The referenceof "this"can only be, the presence of an object tothe mind without a perceptionor image. To answerthis question, Hume


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says first that what we call a mind is just "a heapor collection of differentperceptions, united together by certain relations."55Since every percep-tion is distinguishable, t can be separatedfrom this collection and hencebe considered as existing independently.He then uses this account of themind to answer the question about how an object can be present to themind without a perception,that is, without the additionof a new percep-tion over and above the object. His answergives, I take it, an analysisofpresent to the mind. "External objects are seen, and felt, and becomepresent to the mind; that is, they acquire such a relation to a connectedheap of perceptions,as to influence them very considerablyin augment-ing their number by present reflexions and passions, and in storing thememory with ideas" (207). Hume might be taken to be saying thesame perception can be thought of as separating itself from the heap(and hence becoming an independent object) and rejoining the heap.It would not be a new perception added to the heap, but an old one re-turned. But Hume seems to me very carefully not to say that the objectbeing presentto the mindis an old perception rejoiningthe heap. He talksof the external object influencing the heap by augmenting the numberof perceptions through reflexions and passions. It is as if his accounthere is that objects can be present to the mind in the effects they bringabout, not effects in the form of new sense perceptions but effects instimulatingreflectionon the contents of the mind. It is presentreflectionsand passions which augment the number of perceptions in the heap.An exampleof presentreflectionsand passions occasioned by objectsbeing present to the mind is given in Treatise, II.II.VIII. There he saysthat there is a "generalmaxim, that no object is presentedto the senses,nor image form'd in the fancy, but what is accompany'dwith some emo-tion or movement of spirits proportion'dto it" (373). He is there dis-cussing such emotions as the admirationof large objects, lesser emotionscoming with smaller objects. The degree of emotion which "commonlyattends every magnitudeof an object" influences our perception of theobject: "when the emotion encreases, we naturally imagine that theobject has likewise encreas'd" (374). The transferof the judgment ofmagnitude due to the accompanying emotion is just an instance of ageneral trait of applying "the judgments and conclusions of the under-standingto the senses" (374-75). This general trait is disclosed by whatHume calls "the metaphysical part of optics." The factual part of opticstells us that the retinalimage does not vary.

55 It is interesting, as indicating the general context from which Hume's dis-cussion arose, to note those Philosophical Commentaries entries where Berkeleysays the mind or the understanding is a congeries of perceptions (entries 580, 587,and 614).


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 229When an object augmentsor diminishes o the eye or imagination rom acomparisonwith others,the imageand idea of the objectare still the same,and are equally extended in the retina, and in the brain or organ of perception.The eyes refract he raysof light, and the opticnervesconveythe imagestothe brain in the very same manner,whethera great or small object haspreceded;nor does even the imagination lterthe dimensionsof its objectonaccountof a comparisonwith others.The questionthen is, how from thesameimpression nd thesame dea we canformsuchdifferentudgmentson-cerningthe same object, and at one time admireits bulk, and at anotherdespiseits littleness.This variation n our judgmentsmust certainlyproceedfrom a variation n some perception;but as the variation ies not in the im-mediate mpression r ideaof the object, t mustlie in someotherimpression,that accompanies it56 (373).It is the impressionof reflection to which Hume refers.

It is importantto note in these later passages that Hume is relatingthe sensing of objects (retinal image, brain impression) to the conceivingor judgingof objects: "Everypart, then, of extension, and every unite ofnumberhas a separateemotion attendingit, when conceiv'dby the mind"(373). For an object to be present to the mind, it is not enough that animpression is made on the retina and conveyed to the brain. What isnecessaryin addition is that a judgment be made, a judgment which isthen transferred(or as Porterfieldsaid, traced back to) the senses. Nordo we usually "judgeof objects from their intrinsic value, but form ournotions of them from a comparison with other objects" and from theemotion which "secretly attends every idea" (375). There are otherplaces in the Treatisewhere Hume makes use of optics in order to showthe differencebetween what is sensed and what is perceived or judged.He accepts Berkeley's claim in New Theory of Vision that "our sightinforms us not of distance or outness (so to speak) immediatelyand with-out a certain reasoning and experience" (191). Earlier, Hume drew thesame conclusion from the fact that "all bodies which discover themselvesto the eye, appearas if paintedon a plain surface, and that theirdifferentdegreesof remotenessfrom ourselves are discover'dmore by reason thanby the senses"(56).57Thereare other optical passageswhere Hume showsthat the phenomena, the appearances, do not justify some judgment:for example, that the idea of extension without visible or tangibleobjectsstanding between other objects (i.e., the idea of a vacuum) cannot begiven from any of the usual distance cues. "The angles, which the raysof light flowing from them, form with each other; the motion that isrequir'd n the eye, in its passagefrom one to the other; and the different

56This passage was called to my attention by reading Anderson's interestingarticle, op. cit.57Cf. Vasco Ronchi's discussion of the "voute celeste." (Supra, n. 16).


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230 JOHN W. YOLTONparts of the organs, which are affected by them; these produce the onlyperceptions, from which we can judge of the distance. But as these per-ceptions are each of them simple and indivisible, they can never give usthe idea of extension" (58). He offers the example of looking at twoluminous objects against a dark background, or the blue sky seen be-tween the fingers,as possible cases where the idea of empty space mightbe derived (56-58). He gives a careful analysisof these visual examples,and of some similar tangible ones, to show that the sensations experi-enced are the same whethervisible objects are interposedbetween otherobjects (showing the distance between them, a filled distance) or not.In this way, Hume explains how "an invisible and intangible distanceis converted into a visible and tangible one, without any change on thedistant objects" (59). Similarly,working from the informationfound inmost optical treatises, about rays of light being reflected or refractedfrom points on the surfaces of objects and being collected in points onthe retina,Hume arguesthat since "my senses convey to me only the im-pressions of colour'd points, dispos'd in a certain manner" (34), ouridea of extension "is nothing but a copy of these colour'd points, and ofthe manner of their appearance."He uses this account of our idea ofextension to argue against infinite divisibility of matter and againstmathematicalpoints. As with his analysis of our idea of time, so withspace and extension, Hume wants to show what is and is not conceivable,given the sensations and appearanceswe have. Color and tangibility arenot only necessary for sensation, they are necessaryfor our conceivingof space and time. "Upon the removal of the idea of these sensible qual-ities, they [the parts that make up our impressions of extension] areutterly annihilated to the thought or imagination" (38-39).The same careful discussion of appearances, of our perceptions, ismade in the section "Scepticismwith regardto the Senses."There, work-ing from the ordinarybelief that we see objects, that our perceptions arethe objects, Hume wants to discover what it is about these perceptionswhich leads us to take them to be the objects, where objects are believedto be continuous and independent.What, then, is the presence of objectsto mind, what is it to see objects? Hume's answer is that an object ispresent to the mind, is seen or felt, when the perceptions which we taketo be those objects themselvesare augmentedby reflectionsand passions.The sorts of reflections necessary for externality are those involvingcontinuityand independence.How, out of resemblanceof perceptionscanwe or do we conceive of continued existence when not present to us?How is it that given specific sensations and perceptions of knocks, foot-steps, etc., we reach the idea of unseen doors, intervalsof space and timefilled with unperceivedobjects? The phenomena of perceptions are, bythemselves, insufficient for giving us the idea of externality, of inde-


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 231pendentobjects being presentto the mind. When Hume shows how, outof the constancy and coherence of our sense perceptions,we come to theidea of externalobjects, he is showing what it must mean, on the vulgarview, for an object to become present to the mind "without some newcreation of a perceptionor image."Just having more perceptions wouldnot make objects present to the mind, would not enable the mind toconceive of objects, to be perceptually acquainted with them; for per-ceptions by themselves are not objects, they lack the two importantcharacteristicsof objects, continuity and independence.In this account of objects being present to us, given that in factonly perceptionsareimmediatelypresentto the mind, Hume thinkshe hasdescribed"the naturalpropensityof the imagination,"given the appear-ances of our perceptions.58But reason and a few simple experimentstellus that "the doctrine of the independentexistenceof our sensiblepercep-tions is" in fact false, "contrary o the plainestexperience."When philos-ophers reflect on phenomenasuch as double vision, they draw a distinc-tion between "perceptionsand objects, of which the former are suppos'dto be interrupted,and perishing, and different at every different return;the latter to be uninterrupted,and to preservea continu'd existence andidentity" (211). Such a distinction is, however, only a temporary "pal-liative remedy,"it does not cure the disease. The concept of an objectnot only distinct but different from our perceptions is not intelligible.It is a desperatemove made in the face of the phenomenological factthat perceptions are mind-dependent and are fleeting though similar.Hume thinks that this move would never be made, were we not first con-vinced "that our perceptions are our only objects";so the philosophicalview of a double existence is an attemptto patch up the difficulties n thevulgar, single existence view. But the notion of objects differentin kind,specificallydifferent,from perceptionsis incoherent. Thus, the palliative

58In his account of how the imagination carries the mind beyond what isgiven to the senses, Hume exemplifies what Eric Rothstein has identified as aneighteenth-century response: creating in the imagination aspects of scenes, partsof figures not presented in poetry or painting. See his "'Ideal Presence' and the'Non Finito' in Eighteenth-Century Aesthetics," in Eighteenth-Century Studies,9(1976), 307-32. Illusory realism, or what Lord Kames called "ideal presence,"was practiced by artists and poets: the spectator was expected to fill out whatwas only hinted or suggested. Rothstein quotes a remark by Jean Starobinski(The Invention of Liberty, Geneva, 1964) that the eighteenth-century observer'spleasure "lay in completing mentally, in a complicity of the imagination, the workthat the artist had abandoned" (308). Using the art historian's notion of nonfinito - "a work which the artist intended to leave unfinished, like a torso orsketch" - Rothstein's discussion suggests to me some fascinating parallels tothis notion in Hume. It is as if nature has presented us with an unfinished sensorysketch, which we are expected to complete. From what is present to us, we findthat we naturally fill out, extend, and complete those perceptions.


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remedyreduces to an arbitrary nvention of "a new set of perceptions"towhich the attributes of objects are ascribed (218). The remedy turnsout to double our perceptions,unlike the double existence view of thoseimmaterialistswhom Hume satirized which doubles objects, by turningperceptionsinto objects.59Hume was looking for a conceptual resolution of the tensions be-tween the ordinaryand the philosophicalviews, a way of conceiving ex-ternalitywhich would avoid Berkeley'sconclusion thatperceptionsare theobjects. Such a conceptual resolution was prevented by Hume's accept-ance of the Berkeleianprincipleabout our being unable to conceive any-thing specifically different from our perceptions. Hume returns to thispoint on severaloccasions in the Treatise. A passage in the section on theimmaterialityof the soul, where he is discussing that double existenceview, is especiallyinteresting,for it stronglysupports the conclusion thatHume does accept the existence of objects as well as perceptions.Repeat-ing his claim that we cannot conceive of an "objector externalexistence"specificallydifferentfrom our perceptions,Hume says: "Whateverdiffer-ence we may suppose betwixt them, 'tis still incomprehensibleto us; andwe are oblig'd either to conceive an external object merely as a relationwithout a relative, or to make it the-very same with a perception or im-pression."That odd suggestion of conceiving "an external object merelyas a relation without a relative," I take to mean that this alternativewould be the concept of an object related to our perceptions (it occasionsthem) but we are unable to fill in any other content for that relatum.Such an alternative s not very acceptable,but the other, Berkeleianrouteof making the object "the very same with a perception"is both unsatis-factory and false. The next paragraph n that passage even suggests thatwe may suppose, even if we cannot conceive, a specificdifferencebetweenobject and perception. It is because such a supposal is possible that "anyconclusion we form concerning the connexion and repugnance of im-

59The Enquiry discussion of the single and double existence views is muchless detailed but is essentially the same. Men are said to be carried by instinct totrust their senses and to suppose an external universe, "which depends not on ourperception." Men also always suppose "the very images, presented by the senses,to be the external object, and never entertain any suspicion, that the one arenothing but representations of the other" (152). He cites as an example "thisvery table." But "the slightest philosophy . . . teaches us, that nothing can everbe present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are onlythe inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produceany immediate intercourse between the mind and the object." Reason leads us tosay this house, this tree, "are nothing but perceptions in the mind, and fleetingcopies or representations of other existences." This "pretended philosophicalsystem" cannot, however, be justified, since "the mind has never anything presentto it but the perceptions, and cannot possibly reach any experience of theirconnexionwith objects" (153).


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PERCEPTUAL ACQUAINTANCE IN 18TH-CENTURY BRITAIN 233pressions,will not be known certainlyto be applicableto objects" (241).The supposalof a specificdifferencerules out moving from impressionorperception to objects, since the conclusion we draw may be based uponjust those ways in which objects differ from impressions: "'Tis still pos-sible, that the object may differ from it in that particular" (242). Wecan, however, go the other way: "whateverconclusion of this kind [of aconnection or repugnance]we form concerning objects, will most cer-tainly be applicable to impressions."Whatever reasoning or conclusionwe reach about the object must be based upon our conception of theobject; and that conception is, as we have seen, limited by not being ableto go as far as our supposal. The "qualityof the object, upon which theargument is founded, must at least be conceiv'd by the mind" (242).Even more interesting is Hume's remark in this passage about hisI.IV.II. attempts to show how, from the coherence of our perceptions,we come to ascribe continuity and independence to those perceptions.Hume calls this attempt"anirregularkind of reasoningfrom experience."Thus, he allows that it may not be true that "all the discoverablerelationsof impressionsare common to objects."

A certainamount of caution is in order, in what we take to be Hume'sown serious views in this section on the immaterialityof the soul, sincehe is so obviously satirizing,even parodying, the immaterialist's laims.60Has he drawn the supposal-conceptiondistinctiononly to be able to apply(as he does, 243-44) the repugnanciesof the materialist to the imma-terialist account? He does not use this distinction in any other place, sofar as I can discover. Moreover, the whole of Part IV of the Treatisehas a dialecticalquality to it. On each of the topics discussed in that part,Hume takes two extremes, shows the difficultiesin each, suggests goodreasons for our accepting both, but ends by saying neither is quite satis-factory. Usually this opposition is presentedas between reason and sense,or between philosophy and common sense, or between reflection andunreflection.The structureof this partseems to be such that, while Humeinvokes some of his basic principles,and while he seems somewhat morepartialto common sense than to reason,he does not entirely accept eitherside of the dialecticaloppositions.Nevertheless, there seems sufficient warrant from the Treatise to saythat the view of external existence Hume himself accepted was neitherBerkeley'ssingle existence theory that perceptionsare the object, nor theduplicateworld double existence theory he ascribes to the immaterialists.

60There is much obvious good fun in this section. At a time when all seriouswriters are arguing the possibilities of thinking matter (Locke's suggestion hadunleashed a storm of reactions), when most people are defending immaterialismagainst the atheism of materialism, Hume devotes a section of his Treatiseto arguing the thesis that immaterialism is an atheism! (I.IV.V.)


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234 JOHN W. YOLTONThe double existence view, which emerges when the philosopher tries todeal with the problems of the vulgar view that what we see are indepen-dent objects, seems closer to the view Hume is trying to articulate. Forthis double existence view ends by making objects numerically differentbut specifically similar to perceptions. But that philosophical account isstill not quite what Hume accepts, for it is a view of the world limitedby what is conceivable for us. Nothing Hume wrote in the Treatise eversupportssaying he took the limits of human understandingas an accountof the nature of the world. He simply did not think we could penetrateto the secret springsand powers of nature;but that nature works in waysunavailableto us was a conviction he shared with most of his other con-temporaries.He took seriously the injunction of Locke and most mem-bers of the Royal Society, to pay close attention to the observable fea-tures of the world. The frequent use he makes of visual and tactualphenomena, in his account of space and time and of external objects, re-veals both an acquaintance with optical writings and a concern to dis-cover what we can and cannot say on the basis of the way the worldappearsto us. He was reluctant to say external objects cause perceptions(for reasons found in his phenomenological analysis of causal phenom-ena), but he was able to say they occasion our perceptions. It is throughthatoccasioning of sense perceptionsthatexternalobjects become presentto the mind, not sensorilypresent,but present to cognition. That passagein the Treatise which I have suggestedrevealsHume's analysisof "presentto the mind" for objects, through the thoughts and passions aroused bythe sense perceptions occasioned by objects, is also found in a briefEnquiry passage. Excessive skepticism, Hume there says, is subvertedby "thepresenceof the real objects, which actuateour passions and senti-ments" (159). Real, external objects become present to the mind, notthrough the sense perceptions they occasion (though that is a necessarycondition)

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