This the materialists themselves acknowledge. It remains, therefore, that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason, inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But I do not

see what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary connexion betwixt them and our ideas. I say it is granted on all hands (and what happens in dreams, frenzies, and the like, puts it beyond dispute) that it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without resembling them. Hence it is evident the supposition of external bodies is not necessary for the producing our ideas, since it is granted they are produced sometimes, and might possibly be produced always, in the same order we see them in at present, without their concurrence. But though we might possibly have all our sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of their production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise, and so it might be at least probable there are such things as bodies that excite their

ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said, for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they, by their own confession, are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced, since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds, can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with, or without this supposition. If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so, must needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.

"But say what we can, some one perhaps might be apt to reply, he will still believe his senses, and never suffer any arguments, how plausible soever, to prevail over the certainty of them. Be it so, assert the evidence of sense as high as you please, we are willing to do the same. That what I see and hear, and feel, doth exist, i. e. is perceived by me, I no more doubt than I do of my own being: but I do not see how

the testimony of sense can be alleged as a proof for the existence of any thing which is not perceived by sense. We are not for having any man turn sceptic, and disbelieve his senses; on the contrary, we give them all the stress and assurance imaginable, nor are there any principles more opposite to scepticism than those we have laid down, as shall be hereafter clearly shown. Secondly, it will be objected that there is a great difference between real fire, for instance, and the idea of fire, betwixt dreaming or imagining oneself burnt and actually being so : if you suspect it to be only the idea of fire which you see, do but put your hand into it, and you'll be convinced with a witness. This and the like may be urged in opposition to our tenets. To all which the answer is evident from what hath been already said, and I shall only add in this place, that if real fire be very different from the idea of fire, so also is the real pain that it occasions very different from the idea of the same pain, and yet nobody will pretend that real pain either is, or can possibly be, in an unperceiving thing or without the mind, any more than its idea.

Now with regard to this system, whatever we may think of the solidity of the foundation, the superstructure is as light and elegant as possi

VOL. I.

X

ble.

There is a peculiar character in the metaphysical writings of Berkeley which is to be found no where else. With all the closeness and subtilty of the deepest reflection, they combine the ease and vivacity of a common essay; so that the most violent paradoxes and elaborate distinctions are rendered familiar by the simplicity of the style. His writings show that he had thought with the utmost intensity on almost every subject, yet he has the same careless freedom of manner as if he had never thought at all. He is never entangled in the labyrinth of his own thoughts, and the buoyancy of his spirit surmounts every objection with a singular felicity, as if his mind had wings. It is perhaps worth remarking that the

Principles of Human Knowledge' were published in 1710, at a time when the author was only five-and-twenty, as was the Essay on Vision,' the greatest by far of all his works, and the most complete example of elaborate analytical reasoning and particular induction joined together that perhaps ever existed. It is also generally free from that air of paradox and fanciful hypothesis which runs through his other writings.* I mention this the more because I

* The two men of the greatest ability in modern times as metaphysicians, that is, with the greatest power of seeing

believe that the greatest efforts of intellect have almost always been made while the passions are in their greatest vigour, and before hope loses its hold on the heart, and is the elastic spring which animates all our thoughts.

On the reasoning I have just quoted I will make one or two remarks without pretending to enter into the real difficulties of the question. First, it seems to me that the argument against the existence of the secondary qualities, drawn from the various effects produced by them on different minds or in different circumstances, which Hume mentions as the only solid one, and which Berkeley thinks more doubtful, is no argument at all. That an object at a distance, for example, does not look like the same object near is in consequence of the interposition of the air, which gives it a different hue; the logical inference merely is that one object has not the same sensible qualities as another, or as Berkeley has remarked, since the effect depends upon the combination and reaction of a number of

things in the abstract, and of pursuing a principle into all its consequences, are in my opinion Hobbes and Berkeley: after them come Hume and Hartley. Compared with these Locke was a mere common practical man: of the four, I think Hobbes was at the head, as the others only worked out the materials with which he furnished them.