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Berkeley says the stimulus may be God; so does Descartes. I shall maintain there is truth in this and that amongst all the objects that any given hypothesis at any given moment asserts to be constantly conjoined there is always the element that is that aspect which ‘God’ presents. Thus if I say I see a table, I am stating that this is an empirical experience in which my hypothesis that certain elements are constantly conjoined – those elements in fact whose constant conjunction I have decided to call, ‘a table’ – are again conjoined; furthermore, that amongst these elements (hardness, shape, etc.) is an element that is ‘God's’ contribution, a presenting in me the awareness of certain sensations. In this context I regard God, or Descartes' evil spirit or Demon (in his first ‘Meditation’) as being interchangeable views of the same thing.
What is this God or Demon? In my view it is none other than the social component, ‘Vox populi, vox dei’, of the instinctual equipment. Or, looked at from another point of view, it helps to convince me that these conjoined sensory experiences are, or are proof of the existence of, a table. In the instance of the table this may not be of moment, but throughout the history of scientific endeavour we find evidence of acceptance by the scientist of beliefs that are supposed by him to be ideas corresponding to an objective reality, but which, in the light of later knowledge, we can see to correspond to that special or particular reality that we now see to be the common sense of the time. Such evidence is not proof but is at least not incompatible with the view I am proposing: that certain perceptions of the individual are not so much qualities under investigation as impositions on the individual's outlook by common sense (in my terminology) or God's idea (in Berkeley's) or the deceptions by God and Demon (in Descartes').