Did Berkeley Misunderstand Locke? Winston H. F. Barnes Mind, New Series, Vol. 49, No. 193. (Jan., 1940), pp. 52-57. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-4423%28194001%292%3A49%3A193%3C52%3ADBML%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N Mind is currently published by Oxford University Press.
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DID BERKELEY MISUNDERSTAND LOCKE ?
INa paper published some years ago Mr. Reginald Jackson argued t h a t Locke's doctrine of Primary and Secondary Qualities had been persistently misinterpreted by subsequent philosophers. The real doctrine which Locke expounds is, as the author shows, the doctrine that primary qualities are genuinely qualities of bodies, whereas secondary qualities are ' powers which a body possesses in virtue of the primary qualities of its insensible parts 'r Neither the qualities proper nor the powers are to be confused with the ideas which they respectively cause, whereas the distinction ' which Locke was supposed by Berkeley and Reid to have drawn, is between qualities of bodies (these qualities being supposed to be perceptible) and ideas, sensations, or, in current terminology, sensibilia (supposed not to exist independently of the perception of them and to be the effect of the action of bodies on minds) '.2 Again, the author says : ' Berkeley in The Principles of Huma.n Knowledge understands Locke to mean by primary and secondary qualities not imperceptible qualities and powers but perceptible qualities and mind-dependent ideas '.3 I n this note I wish to refute the charge so far as it concerns Berkeley. I am not concerned with Reid or any later philosophers. It would be a surprising fact, if true, that Berkeley should have misunderstood Locke on this matter. Locke's Essay formed his main philosophical reading, and we know that he paid particular attention to the chapter of the Essay in which the distinction between primary and secondary qualities is discussed by Locke, referring even to the particular section in which Locke most precisely defines his position.4 (i) Let us consider first the assertion that Berkeley held that by primary qualities Locke meant perceptible qualities, i.e., that according to Locke we perceive the extension, motion, etc., of bodies. On &ND, 1929, pp. 56-76, " Locke's ,Distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities ". 0 p cit., p. 57. Op cit., p. 71. Commonplace Book : 114. P. Round figure a perception or sensation in the mind, but in the body is a power. L.b. 2, c. 8, s. 8 ; 115. Mem. Mark well the later part of the last cited section ; 338. P. Mem. Strictly t o remark L.b. 2, c. 8, s. 8. 52
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a number of different occasions Berkeley presents the argument that it is absurd to talk of archetypes or patterns of our ideas existing in bodies : (a) Commolzplace Book, 666, where Berkeley first put forward his contention that ' an idea can resemble nothing but an idea ' ; (b) The Principles, $ 8 ; (c) ibidem, $ 56 ; (d) ibidem, $ 90 ; (e) Three Dialogues-Fraser, vol. 1, p. 465. All these passages are an attack on the theory that the ideas of sensible qualities have corresponding archetypes or originals in matter, and they presuppose that the view they are attacking makes a distinction between ideas and their archetypes, e.g., between the idea of extension and the quality of extension in the body. If it is Locke's views that are under consideration it is clear that Berkeley's argument recognises them to imply a distinction between the ideas of primary qualities and the primary qualities themselves. But there is no very strong evidence that the argument is directed against Locke's theory, though it is usually supposed to be and I am inclined to think it is. Slight evidence, however, there is. In $ 9 of the Principles the subject of primary and secondary qualities is introduced for the first time, and here Locke is obviously the object of criticism. In $ 14, which continues this criticism, Berkeley uses the same argument about the absurdity of supposing archetypes with reference to Locke. If, then, these passages do refer to Locke, Berkeley obviously understood Locke to make a distinction between the primary qualities (which exist in the body and are not perceptible) and the ideas of them (which are perceptible but have no existence in the body). Curiously enough, the best evidence that Berkeley understood perfectly well that Locke by primary qualities meant imperceptible qualities and not perceptible qualities comes from a passage quoted by Mr. Jackson to prove exactly the opposite. It is from § 9 of the Principles. The first two sentences quoted by Mr. Jackson run as follows : " Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secolzdary qualities. By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number ; by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes and so forth." If this passage stood alone I do not think we could have any doubt that Berkeley had misunderstood Locke. For it would then naturally be interpreted to mean that Locke supposed figure, motion, etc., to be sensible qualities. But the next sentence proceeds as follows : " The ideas we have of these last they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of anything existing without the mind, or unperceived ; but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call Matter ". This sentence elucidates the meaning of the previous two sentences. It makes clear that Berkeley understood correctly that, for Locke, our ideas of the primary qualities exist in the mind, whereas the qualities themselves are the archetypes existing in an unthinking substance.
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(ii) Did Berkeley misunderstand Locke's view as to the nature of secondary qualities ? Did he think Locke meant by them minddependent ideas, and fail to grasp that Locke's doctrine was in fact that the secondary qualities are powers in bodies ? In the Principles, $ 10, Berkeley says : " They who assert that figure, motion and the rest of the primary or original qualities do exist without the mind, in unthinking substances, do a t the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat, cold and suchlike secondary qualities, do not ; which they tell us are sensations, existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter." I do not think it possible to deny that Berkeley here uses the term ' secondary qualities ' in a misleading way. But even here it seems to me that what Berkeley does is not to misunderstand Locke's theory, but to give to the term ' secondary qualities ' a meaning other than that which Locke, when he is speaking exactly, gives to it. This is certainly regrettable, considering that it occurs in a passage which is a statement of Locke's doctrine, but i t does not necessarily mean that the doctrine has' been misunderstood. Berkeley, I think, is here using the terms ' primary qualities ' and ' secondary qualities ' simply as shorthand expressions for two groups of phenomena, figure, etc., on the one hand, colour, etc., on the other, to save the trouble of enumerating the whole group. Read in this way the passage is a fairly good account of Locke's views. For it attributes to Locke the view that figure, motion, etc., exist without the mind (i.e., as qualities in bodies as well as ideas in the mind) ; whereas colour, sound, etc., exist only as ideas in the mind, being caused by the figure, motion, etc., in the body. This seems the obvious meaning of the passage taken as a whole ; and i t represents quite fairly what Locke himself says. (iii) There is, however, one further point which requires further defence. Locke, when he speaks exactly, applies the term ' secondary qualities ' to powers in bodies to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities. It is not easy to see what importance should be attached to the distinction between the statement that ideas of colour, etc., are caused by powers a body possesses in virtue of its primary qualities and the statement that they are caused by the primary qualities. But such as it is, Locke, in his exacter moments, made the distinction. Although Berkeley is not guilty of attributing to Locke the view that secondary qualities are mind-dependent ideas, he does seem to have failed to make this distinction in the Principles, $ 10, between the qualities bodies possess and the powers they possess in virtue of those qualities. How venial the offence is may be judged by considering that Locke himself slips into committing it immediately after he has made the distinction between powers and qua1ities.l Essay, 11, 8, 3 15 : On secondary qualities Locke writes : "They are in the bodies we denominate from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us : and what is sweet, blue or warm in idea, i s but the certain bulk, Jigure and motion of the insensible parts in the bodies themselves which we call so". My italics.
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Nevertheless there are reasons for supposing that Berkeley was perfectly well aware of Locke's doctrine of 'powers '. He seems, in fact, to have proceeded from a modification of Locke's view concerning the external causes of our ideas to his own doctrine of " esse is percipi " ; and, in doing so, to have reflected earnestly upon the doctrine of powers. Although he early realised that there could be no knowledge of the particular nature of the qualities or powers that cause our ideas he did not a t once scrap the notion of powers. An early entry in the Commonplace Book reads :41. "Nothing corresponds to our primary ideas without but powers. Hence a direct and brief demonstration of an active powerful1 being distinct from us, on whom we depend, etc." . It is worth noticing that Berkeley here refers to primary ideas, showing that he recognises a distinction between the ideas of extension, motion, etc., and their causes. But he has given up the notion that the causes in any way resemble the ideas and so calls them powers, not qualities. The same distinction between the ideas and the powers is found in : 52. " Bodies, etc., do exist even when not perceived-they being powers in the active being." Yet another entry is obviously important in its reference to Locke, but is very difficult to interpret :81. " I am more certain of ye existence and reality of bodies than Mr. Locke ; since he pretends onely to what he calls sensitive knowledge, whereas I think I have demonstrative knowledge of their existence-by them meaning combinations of powers in an unknown substratum." It appears that the last phrase refers to an early view which Berkeley held, viz., that an object is a combination of powers inhering in a substance of which we can know n0thing.l If this interpretation is correct it seems that he later came to think that the notion of an unknown substratum was ridiculous ; that there was no reason to suppose a special power to produce such idea, but that only one power, God, was necessary. It is perhaps significant that the fourth entry after the one quoted immediately above reads :85. " Powers. Qzcaere whether more or one onely ? " The development of Berkeley's thought is perhaps to be seen in the following entries of the Commonplace Book :-
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I This is the interpretation of the passage adopted by Mr. G. H. Johnston in his edition of the Commonplace Book (p. 121). Another possible interpretation is that the last phrase refers to Locke's doctrine, not Berkeley's. But if this is so and Berkeley was at this time believhg that the ideas are the object, it is difficult to see why he should claim that we have demonstrative knowledge of objects. He ought to claim, on Locke's terminology, that we have intuitive knowledge of objects. (The reference, in these terms is to Locke's Essay, IV, 2, where intuitive, demonstrative and sensitive knowledge are compared.)
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130. " M. Matter tho' allowed to exist may be no greater than a pin's head." 133. " M. No active power but the Will : therefore Matter, if it exists, affects us not." However, the notion of powers did not disappear very easily from Berkeley's thought, for a later entry reads : 290. " M. Bodies &c. do exist whether we think of them or no, they being taken in twofold sense-collections of thoughts and collections of powers to cause those thoughts. These later exist; tho' perhaps a parte rei it may be one simple perfect power." Again in another entry :302. " The twofold signification of Bodies, viz., Combinations of thoughts and Combinations of powers to raise thoughts." In Entry 515 Berkeley is moving away from the twofold signification of bodies, for he writes :515. " Qu. whether the substance of body or anything else be any more than the collection of ideas included in that thing ? "
And finally : 814. " Not to mention the combination of powers, but to say the things-the effects themselves-to really exist, even when not actually perceived ; but still with relation to perception." The ' twofold signification ' is Berkeley's attempt to make explicit Locke's doctrine concerning white, cold and round, which " as they are in the snowball, I call qualities, and as they are sensations or perceptions in our understandings, I call them ideas ". All these entries make it abundantly clear that Berkeley was well aware of the distinction which Locke drew between imperceptible powers and mind-dependent ideas. He was himself elaborating the distinction only to find that it had to be scrapped in the end. Mr. Jackson attempts to clinch the matter by the contention that "the argument that the primary qualities ' are inseparably united with the other sensible qualities ' . . . is valid only if secondary qualities are taken to mean mind-dependent ideas ".l If this contention were sound it would be shattering to my defence of Berkeley. The whole passage in Berkeley is as follows :" Now, if it be certain that these original qualities are inseparably united with the sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they exist only in the mind." 2 Berkeley's use of the terms ' original qualities ' and ' other sensible qualities ' is, once again, a shorthand one. He is not using ' other sensible qualities ' as Locke, when he speaks exactly, would use the term. But this difference in usage is not a misunderstanding of Locke. When Berkeley says that colour, taste, etc., exist only in the mind this is his way of saying that there is nothing like our ideas of colour, taste, etc., in the body. This still allows of the existence '
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MIND, 1929, p. 72.
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Principles, $ 10.
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in the body of powers which cause ideas of colour, etc., and is in harmony with Locke. But, of course, when Berkeley concludes in the course of developing his own theory that figure, motion, etc., exist only in the mind, this carries with it an implication concerning colours, tastes, etc., viz., that there are no qualities of body at all and consequently no powers to cause ideas of colour, etc., and this separates him from Locke. WINSTONH. I?. BARNES.
