Berkeley: Qualities and Matter

„Some there are who make a distinction betwixt Primary and Secondary 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, &c. the Ideas we have of these they acknowlege not to be the Resemblances, of any thing existing without the Mind or unperceiv’d, 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. By Matter, therefore, we are to understand an Inert, Senseless Substance, in which Extension, Figure, Motion, &c. do actually subsist, But it is evident from what we have already shewn, that Extension, Figure and Notion are only Ideas existing in the Mind, and that an Idea can be like nothing but another Idea. and that consequently neither They nor their Archetypes can Exist in an unperceiving Substance.“ (Of the Principles of Human Knowledge, §9) #Berkeley #Qualities #Matter

Berkeley, George, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowlege: Part I. Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the Grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are Inquir’d Into. Dublin 1710.