Chapter II: 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