Topic > Locke vs. Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge

His conclusion is that sensible ideas, being so remarkably and reliably coordinated, must be the product of nothing other than an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God or an infinite mind. Sensations, then, are created by God's will and conform to what he calls the "Laws of Nature," which provide us with the ability to make predictions and find correlations between these ideas (36; sec. 30). . Berkeley further explains the character of sensory ideas, reassuring the reader that they contain a reality greater than ideas of the imagination and should be thought of as “real things.” Ideas of this latter variety are similar to “pictures of things,” or simple imitations of real things. No class of ideas can exist without being perceived, but nevertheless imagination is under the power of human will, and sensation under that of God. (37; sec..