CHAPTER II. The Problem of Matter

THE PROBLEM OF MATTER

§ 1. The physical order, because dependent for its perceived qualities on the sense-organs of the percipient, must be the appearance of a more ultimate reality which is non-physical. § 2. Berkeley’s criticism is fatal to the identification of this reality with “material substance.” The logical consequence of Berkeley’s doctrine that the esse of sensible things is percipi, would be the subjectivist view that the physical order is only a complex of presentations. § 3. But this is clearly not the case with that part of the physical order which consists of the bodies of my fellow-men. These have an existence, as centres of feeling, over and above their existence as presentations to my senses. § 4. As the bodies of my fellows are connected in one system with the rest of the physical order, that order as a whole must have the same kind of reality which belongs to them. It must be the presentation to our sense of a system or complex of systems of experiencing subjects; the apparent absence of life and purpose from inorganic nature must be due to our inability to enter into a direct communion of interest with its members. § 5. Some consequences of this view 198