their distance from the eye, is not immediately perceived by sight, but that not even their visible outness or their distance from one another is so perceived. He thinks that, according to Berkeley, the latter kind of outness is suggested by certain "internal feelings"—Heaven knows what they are—no less than the former. He does not see that this "internal feeling," as he calls it, is itself the very sensation of visible outness as above explained. He seems to think that, according to Berkeley, the eye does not even see visible things to be out of one another—out of our visible bodies for example; but that the disintrication of them is accomplished by a process of suggestion. No wonder that he made dreadful havoc with the Bishop's doctrine of association. The following is his statement of that doctrine:—
"Outness is not immediately perceived by sight, but only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and sensations attending vision. Berkeley (he continues) thus in fact represents the visual perception of objects as external, to be an instance of the association of ideas. If, however, he had dearly analyzed the process in question, he would have perceived the fallacy into which he had fallen. It is impossible that the law of mind, by which one thing suggests another, should produce any such effect as the one ascribed to it. Suppose we have an internal feeling A, which has never been attended with any sensation or perception of outness, and that it is experienced at the same time with the external sensation B. After A and B have been thus experienced together, they will, according to the law of association, suggest each other. When the internal feeling occurs, it will bring to mind the external one, and vice versa. But this is all. Let there be a thousand repetitions of the internal feeling with the external sensation, and all that can be effected will be, that the one will invariably suggest the other. Berkeley's theory, however, demands more than this. He maintains that because the internal feeling has been found to be accompanied by the external one, it will when experienced alone, not only suggest the external sensation, but absolutely be regarded as external itself, or rather be converted into the perception of an external object. It may be asserted, without hesitation, that there is nothing in the whole operations of the human mind analogous to such a process."
There certainly is nothing in the mental operations analogous to such a process, and just as little is there anything in the whole writings of Berkeley analogous to such a doctrine. Throughout this statement, the fallacy and the mistake are entirely on the side of Mr Bailey. The "outness" which he here declares Berkeley to hold as suggested, he evidently imagines to be visible outness: whereas Berkeley distinctly holds that visible outness is never suggested by sight at all, or by any "visible ideas or sensations attending vision," and that it is only tangible outness which is so suggested. "Sight" (says Berkeley, Works, vol. i. 147) "doth not suggest or in any way inform us that the visible object we immediately perceive exists at a distance." What Berkeley maintains is, that vision with its accompanying sensations suggests to us another kind of outness and of objects which are invisible, and which always remain invisible, but which may be perceived by touch, provided we go through the process necessary for such a perception. He admits the immediate and unsuggested sensation of visible outness in the sense explained above—that all visible things are directly seen to be external to our visible bodies, only denying (and we think we have assigned good grounds for this denial) that any of them are seen to be external to our own invisible sight. He maintains that this direct sensation of visible outness comes through experience to suggest the perception of a different, namely, of a tangible and invisible, outness. He asserts (we shall here adopt Mr Bailey's language, with some slight variation giving our view of the case,) that in consequence of there having been a thousand repetitions of the sensation of visible outness with the sensation of tangible outness, the one will invariably suggest the other. And his theory demands no more than this. He never maintains that because the sensation of visible outness—already explained, we beg the reader to keep in mind, as the sensation of visible objects as external to one another, but not as external to the sense perceiving them—he never maintains that because this sensation has been found to be accompanied by the sensation of tangible outness, that it will, when experienced alone, not only suggest the tangible outness, but absolutely be regarded as tangible itself, or be converted into the perception of a tangible object. He
