Selections from Berkeley; with an introduction and notes, for the use of students in the universities - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1874 edition. Excerpt: ... AN ESSAY TOWABDS A NEW THEORY OF VISION. '/1. My design is to shew the manner wherein we perceive by sight the Distance, Magnitude, and Situation of objects; also to consider the difference there is betwixt the ideas of Sight and Touch, and whether there be any idea common to both senses. 2. It is, I think, agreed by all that Distance of itself, and immediately, cannot be seen. For distance being a line directed endwise to the eye, it projects only one point in the fund of the eye--which point remains invariably the same, whether the distance be longer or shorter 1 Sect. 2--51 explain how we learn to judge of Distance, or an interval between two visible points. (Cf. Vindication, sect. 626--9.) Sect. 2 takes for granted that distance is necessarily invisible. It must be noted, however, that the 'distance' of which this is assumed is distance in the line of vision, or space in its third dimension--depth or thickness; not space in two dimensions, or plane superficial extension. In relation to distance in the line of vision, the percipient is at the end of a straight line, the interval between the two points of which must be invisible, because only one of them can in that case be seen. When we see superficial distance, on the other hand, we are at the side, and not at the end of the line,--at a point where it forms a larger or smaller angle with the eye, so that this sort of distance is called lateral, tramverse, or angular. Any distance that is in the line of sight must, in order to become visible, be transformed into lateral distance--from a relation in the third dimension of space into one of plane superficial extension. But it is then no longer the distance or depth here assumed to be invisible. Some of Berkeley's critics have referred...
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About the Author
George Berkeley (1685-1753) was one of the three great British empiricist philosophers; his best known works include An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision and A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.
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