Berkeley- The principles of human knowledge 2

To me, I say, it is evident that the being
of a spirit infinitely wise, good, and powerful is
abundantly sufficient to explain all the appearances
of nature. But, as for inert, senseless Matter,
nothing that I perceive has any the least connexion
with it, or leads to the thoughts of it.

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From the principles we have laid down it
follows human knowledge may naturally be reduced
to two heads that of ideas and that of
spirits.

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the very existence of an unthinking
being consists in being perceived.

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Ideas imprinted on the senses are real things, or do really exist;
this we do not deny, but we deny they can subsist without the minds
which perceive them, or that they are resemblances of any archetypes existing without the mind; since the very being of a sensation or idea
consists in being perceived,
and an idea can be like nothing but an idea.

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when I shut my eyes, the things I saw may
still exist, but it must be in another mind.

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ETERNAL INVISIBLE MIND which
produces and sustains all things.

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Time, place, and motion, taken in particular or concrete, are
what everybody knows, but, having passed
through the hands of a metaphysician, they become
too abstract and fine to be apprehended by men of ordinary sense.

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Hence, it is a plain consequence that the soul always thinks;
and in truth whoever shall go about to divide in
his thoughts, or abstract the existence of a spirit from its
cogitation, will, I believe, find it no easy task.

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What it is for a man to be happy, or an
object good, every one may think he knows. But
to frame an abstract idea of happiness, prescinded
from all particular pleasure, or of goodness
from everything that is good, this is what few can
pretend to.So likewise a man may be just and
virtuous without having precise ideas of justice
and virtue.

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And in effect the doctrine of abstraction has not a little contributed
towards spoiling the most useful parts of knowledge.

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There is nothing necessary or essential in the case,
but it depends entirely on the will of the Governing Spirit, who
causes certain bodies to cleave together or tend
towards each other according to various laws.

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by a diligent observation of the phenomena
within our view, we may discover the
general laws of nature, and from them deduce
the other phenomena; I do not say demonstrate,
for all deductions of that kind depend on a supposition
that the Author of nature always operates
uniformly, and in a constant observance of
those rules we take for principles: which we cannot evidently know.

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I must confess it does not appear to me that there
can be any motion other than relative; so that to
conceive motion there must be at least conceived
two bodies, whereof the distance or position in
regard to each other is varied. Hence, if there
was one only body in being it could not possibly
be moved. This seems evident, in that the idea I
have ofmotion doth necessarily include relation.

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Nothing can be plainer to me than that the
extensions I have in view are no other than my
own ideas;

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For, by the word spirit we mean
only that which thinks, wills, and perceives;
this, and this alone, constitutes the signification
of the term.

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Which is neither an idea nor like an idea, but that which perceives
ideas, and wills, and reasons about them. What
I am myself, that which I denote by the term I,
is the same with what is meant by soul or spiritual
substance.

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A soul or spirit is an active being, whose, existence
consists not in being perceived, but in
perceiving ideas and thinking.

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Hence, the knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate,
as is the knowledge of my ideas; but depending on the
intervention of ideas, by me referred to agents
or spirits distinct from myself, as effects or concomitant
signs.

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Hence, it is evident that God is known as certainly and immediately as any other mind or spirit whatsoever distinct from ourselves. We
may even assert that the existence of God is far
more evidently perceived than the existence of
men; because the effects of nature are infinitely
more numerous and considerable than those
ascribed to human agents.

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everything we see, hear, feel, or anywise
perceive by sense, being a sign or effect of
the power of God.