312 Dean Berkeley ’sscheme exaffii ^ 1

made D. B.’s scheme appear so impregnable, and in eff e &not altogether absurd ; whereas in truth, no one appMs an ^in nature can be explained, nor any one proposition Mftract geometry demonstrated without supposing the 0jects of our ideas, instead of our ideas themselves. ^As this is the main difficulty, I shall endeavour toit plain by an instance or two. It hath been shewn 11117. that our ideas, as they are in the mind, h aVe ^parts nor magnitude; and our Author’s scheme supp 0or rather asserts this. A want of extension in rerun 1turd is the great principle. Let us then take this p r °Plion, In a right angled triangle , the square of the hyPnuse is bigger than either of the squares of the other J 1 ^(as being really equal to them both.) Now this pr°P° ■.tion is directly false, if you substitute the idea of _ £ ^square instead of the square itself, which is the ob)^

■nit u °

fay

of the idea; for this idea hath no parts nor mag 1whereby to exceed the other ideas; and it is absurd toit is either greater or less than another idea, or cqu^ _two or more, or to institute my proportion betweenfor all such proportion is in respect of dimensions of n,a ^ n __tude, which can never be applicable to ideas, either tOality, or on the Author’s Scheme. And the argum ent _the fame in respect of all lines, surfaces, solids, an ^f’ severy thing about which geometry is conversant. An

hat

to philosophy, I need not give an instance in it, after vv ■hath been said in N° 20. If we apply this propom 1[ 7 he spaces run over by a body, falling by its own grtP 11 ^(ire as the squares of the times j to our ideas, instead ofobjects, it is downright nonsense and contradidlton •short, ;t is as trifling and sophistical, because all d elT ^^