"There was definitely something wrong with their feelings."
"Many of them were exceedingly clear-headed. It is not unusual to find ice-cold calculation behind the most callous decisions. Many of the Nazis were convicted after the war, but they were not convicted for being 'unreasonable.' They were convicted for being gruesome murderers. It can happen that people who are not of sound mind can be acquitted of their crimes. We say that they were 'not accountable for their actions.' Nobody has ever been acquitted of a crime they committed for being unfeeling."
"I should hope not."
"But we need not stick to the most grotesque examples. If a flood disaster renders millions of people homeless, it is our feelings that determine whether we come to their aid. If we are callous, and leave the whole thing to 'cold reason,' we might think it was actually quite in order that millions of people die in a world that is threatened by overpopulation."
"It makes me mad that you can even think that."
"And notice it's not your reason that gets mad."
"Okay, I got it."
Berkeley
like a giddy planet round a burning sun
Alberto walked over to the window facing the town. Sophie followed him. While they stood looking out at the old houses, a small plane flew in over the rooftops. Fixed to its tail was a long banner which Sophie guessed would be advertising some product or local event, a rock concert perhaps. But as it approached and turned, she saw quite a different message: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HILDE!
"Gate-crasher," was Alberto's only comment.
Heavy black clouds from the hills to the south were now beginning to gather over the town. The little plane disappeared into the grayness.
"I'm afraid there's going to be a storm," said Alberto.
"So I'll take the bus home."
"I only hope the major isn't behind this, too."
"He's not God Almighty, is he?"
Alberto did not reply. He walked across the room and sat down again by the coffee table.
"We have to talk about Berkeley," he said after a while.
Sophie had already resumed her place. She caught herself biting her nails.
"George Berkeley was an Irish bishop who lived from 1685 to 1753," Alberto began. There was a long silence.
"Berkeley was an Irish bishop ..." Sophie prompted.
"But he was a philosopher as well..."
"Yes?"
"He felt that current philosophies and science were a threat to the Christian way of life, that the all-pervading materialism, not least, represented a threat to the Christian faith in God as creator and preserver of all nature."
"He did?"
"And yet Berkeley was the most consistent of the empiricists."
"He believed we cannot know any more of the world than we can perceive through the senses?"
"More than that. Berkeley claimed that worldly things are indeed as we perceive them, but they are not 'things.' "
"You'll have to explain that."
"You remember that Locke pointed out that we cannot make statements about the 'secondary qualities' of things. We cannot say an apple is green and sour. We can only say we perceive it as being so. But Locke also said that the 'primary qualities' like density, gravity, and weight really do belong to the external reality around us. External reality has, in fact, a material substance."
"I remember that, and I think Locke's division of things was important."
"Yes, Sophie, if only that were all."
"Goon."
"Locke believed--just like Descartes and Spinoza-- that the material world is a reality."
"Yes?"