Some Problems of Philosophy

Berkeley applied the same sort of criticism to the notion of bodily substance. ‘When I consider,’ he says, ‘the two parts (“being” in general, and “supporting accidents”) which make the signification of the words “material substance,” I am convinced there is no distinct meaning annexed to them.... Suppose an intelligence without the help of external bodies to be affected with the same train of sensations that you are, imprinted in the same order, and with like vividness in his mind. I ask whether that intelligence hath not all the reason to believe the existence of corporeal substances, represented by his ideas, and exciting them in his mind, that you can possibly have for believing the same thing.’ Certain grouped sensations, in short, are all that corporeal substances are known-as, therefore the only meaning which the word ‘matter’ can claim is that it denotes such sensations and their groupings. They are the only verifiable aspect of the word.