Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/347

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berkeley and idealism.
337

"Berkeley's theory demands more than this; for the internal feeling not only suggests the idea of the external object, but by doing so suggests the idea, or, if I may use figure, infuses the perception of its own externality." And he cannot understand how this result should be produced by any process of association. But neither does Berkeley's theory demand that it should, for this "internal feeling" is itself, as we have already remarked, the direct perception of visible outness—that is to say, the outness of objects in relation, for instance, to our own visible bodies—and so far there is no suggestion at all in the case, nor any occasion for any suggestion. Suggestion comes into play when we judge that, over and above the outness of objects viewed in relation to themselves and our visible bodies, there is another kind of outness connected with these objects, namely, their outness in relation to the organ itself which perceives them; and this suggestion takes place only after we have learned, through the experience of touch, to localise that organ. Having thus indicated the leading mistake which lies at the root of Mr Bailey's attempted refutation, we shall bid adieu both to him and Berkeley, and shall conclude by hazarding one or two speculations of our own, in support of the conclusions of the latter.

How do we come to judge that objects are external to the eye as distinguished from our perception, that they are external to one another, and how do we come to judge that they possess a real magnitude