ut is
there any reason to suppose that the thing apprehended is in any sense
mental? Our previous arguments concerning the colour did not prove it to
be mental; they only proved that its existence depends upon the relation
of our sense organs to the physical object--in our case, the table. That
is to say, they proved that a certain colour will exist, in a certain
light, if a normal eye is placed at a certain point relatively to
the table. They did not prove that the colour is in the mind of the
percipient.

Berkeley's view, that obviously the colour must be in the mind, seems
to depend for its plausibility upon confusing the thing apprehended
with the act of apprehension. Either of these might be called an 'idea';
probably either would have been called an idea by Berkeley. The act
is undoubtedly in the mind; hence, when we are thinking of the act,
we readily assent to the view that ideas must be in the mind. Then,
forgetting that this was only true when ideas were taken as acts of
apprehension, we transfer the proposition that 'ideas are in the mind'
to ideas in the other sense, i.e. to the things apprehended by our acts
of apprehension. Thus, by an unconscious equivocation, we arrive at the
conclusion that whatever we can apprehend must be in our minds. This
seems to be the true analysis of Berkeley's argument, and the ultimate
fallacy upon which it rests.

This question of the distinction between act and object in our
apprehending of things is vitally important, since our whole power of
acquiring knowledge is bound up with it. The faculty of being acquainted
with things other than itself is the main characteristic of a mind.
Acquaintance with objects essentially consists in a relation between the
mind and something other than the mind; it is this that constitutes the
mind's power of knowing things. If we say that the things known must be
in the mind, we are either unduly limiting the mind's power of knowing,
or we are uttering a mere tautology. We are uttering a mere tautology if
we mean by '_in_ the mind' the same as by '_before_ the mind', i.e. if
we mean merely being apprehended by the mind. But if we mean this, we
shall have to admit that what, _in this sense_, is in the mind,
may nevertheless be not mental. Thus when we realize the nature of
knowledge, Berkeley's argument is seen to be wrong in substance as well
as in form, and his grounds for supposing that 'ideas'--i.e. the objects
apprehended--must be mental