Metals

We even think that Mr. Stewart, the most candid of all philosophers, has scarcely given a fair view of Ber keley's system, When comparing it with that of the Vc danti school among the Hindoos. " The difficulties," says Sir NVilliam Jones, " attending the vulgar notion of material substances, induced many of the wisest among the ancients, and some of the most enlightened among the moderns, as well as the Hindoo philosophers, to believe that the whole creation was rather an energy than a work, by which the infinite mind, who is pre sent at all times, and in all places, exhibits to his crea tures a set of perceptions like a wonderful picture, or piece of music, always vatic:A, but always uniform." And again, " The Vedantis, unable to form a distinct idea of brute matter independent of mind, or to con ceive that the work of supreme goodness was left a mo ment to itself, imagine that the Deity is ever present to 'his work, and constantly supports a series of per ceptions, 'Avhich in one sense they call illusory, though they cannot but admit the reality of all created forms, as far as the happiness of creatures can be affected by them." Mr. Stewart says, that this creed of the Hindoos has not the most distant affinity, in its origin or tendency, to the system of idealism, as it is now commonly un derstood in this part of the world ; the former taking its rise from a high theological speculation ; the latter being deduced as a sceptical consequence from a parti cular hypothesis concerning the origin of our know ledge, inculcated by the schoolmen, and adopted by Locke and his followers. Whatever difference there may be as to the origin of the ideal system and that of the Hindoos, there can be little doubt that Berkeley's principles led him to nearly the same conclusions. The passage already quoted seems clearly to prove this; for he says, " It necessarily follows, that there is an om nipotent eternal mind, which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a man ner, and according to such rules, as he himself bath ordained, and are by us termed the laws of nature." On this system of Berkeley was founded the con temptible scepticism of Hume. We could respect an honest sceptic who erred in his researches after truth. But Hume was not an honest sceptic: he had as little faith in his scepticism as in the creed of his country, and was actuated solely by vanity, in the attempt which he made to unhinge the belief of mankind. It has been beautifully observed by Mr. Stewart, that his aim was, not to interrogate nature with a view to the dis covery of truth, but, by a cross-examination of nature, to involve her in such contradictions as might set aside the whole of her evidence as good for nothing." (Phil. .Essays.) Berkeley having said, that matter and all its qualities have no existence but in the ideas which are in our own minds, Hume proceeded a step farther, and endeavoured to spew that nothing could exist but the impressions of our own minds; by which argument he wished to sweep away the wol Id of spirits, and the Fa ther of spirits. This is a pitiful sophism, which Ber keley foresaw and obviated. He introduces one of the interlocutors in his dialogues as drawing these very consequences from his principles : " In consequence of your own principles, it should follow, that you arc only a system of floating ideas, without any substance to support them ; and as there is no more meaning in spi ritual substance than in material substance, the one is to be exploded as well as the other." To this the other speaker, who supports Berkeley's principles, answci s : " I low often must I repeat, that I know or ant con scious of my own being, and that I myself ant not my ideas, but something else ; a thinking, active principle, that perceives, knows, wills, and operates about ideas I know that I, and the same self, perceive both colours and sounds ; and that a colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound a colour; that I. am therefore one inde pendent principle, distinct from colour and sound ; and, for the same reason, from all other sensible things and inert ideas. Farther, I know what I mean when I af firm, that there is a spiritual substance, or support of ideas, that is, that a spirit knows and perceives ideas. But I do not know what is meant when it is said, that an unperceiving substance path inherent in it, and sup ports either ideas, or the archetypes of ideas." And afterwards he says, " My own mind and my own ideas I have an immediate knowledge of; and, by the help of these, do immediately apprehend the possibility of the existence of other spirits and ideas. Farther, from my being, and from the dependency I feel in myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of all created things in the mind of God." Dr. Reid (whom we have heard called the Newton of pneumatology) admits, that Berkeley's system was perfectly incontrovertible, according to the received doctrines respecting the origin of our ideas. He em ploys a distinction which Berkeley himself had intro duced, and says, that although we cannot have an idea of matter, as an idea can exist only in the mind, yet we may have a notion of it ; as Berkeley himself ad mits, that though he cannot have an idea of God, yet he can have a notion of his existence. But Reid says this only to combat Berkeley's pretended demonstra tion of the impossibility of the existence of material substances : lie does not attempt to prove the actual existence of matter, but assumes it as an axiom which cannot be proved, because there is no truth plainer than itself. Now, though we do not pretend to say that Descartes was completely successful in his attempt to demonstrate the existence of a material world, yet we certainly do think him completely successful in de monstrating the possibility of its existence. He admits the possibility of Berkeley's system, though no one had then promulgated it to the world ; for he says he con ceived it possible, that his waking thoughts and sensa tions might he of the same nature with those which passed through the mind in sleep, which he knew could not proceed front external objects. His maxim being to doubt of every thing till it was proved by demon stration, his first ground of douht as to the existence of the external world is stated in these words : Quod nulla unquanz duo vigilo me sentire crediderim, qua non etiam inter dormiendum possim aliquando putare me sen tire : cunique ilia qua eentire mihi videor in somnis, non credam a rebus ex'ra me positis milli advenirc, non a dyer tebanz. pare id potzus crederem de its que sentire niihi

vidcur vigilando. dlrditatio sexta." This is cc! tainly gil mg all due advantage to the system which he was to oppose. He then proceeds to state the arguments which induced him to believe that matter might exist. He says, that whatever we can clearly conceive is possi ble ; that we are conscious of certain faculties of the mind, such as sensation, imagination, and the like ; but that we cannot conceive these to exist except in an intelligent substance. In the same manner, we are forced to recognize certain powers, such as motion, change of shape, and the like, which we must also consider as belonging to some substance, otherwise they would be inconceivable. But it is evident these powers, of which he have such a clear conception, must belong to corporeal or extended substance; for they are incon ceivable as applied to mind.

We are not sure that any thing more satisfactory has been written in answer to Berkeley, than these argu ments of Descartes, which were written so long before he was horn. In fact, they appear to us to give exact ly the same evidence for the existence of matter, as we have for our own existence ; and this is, on all hands, admitted not to need a proof. Grant the existence of mind, then, and we think Descartes has approached as near as possible to a demonstration of the existence of matter. We think it proper that he should speak for himself on this subject. " Preeterea invenio in me fa cultates specialibus quibusdam modis cogitandi praditas, puta facultates imaginandi et sentiendi, sine quibus to tum me possum dare et distincte intelligere, sed non vice versa illas sine me, hoc est, sine substantia intelligente cui insint : intellectionenzeninz nonnullam in suo formali con celitu includunt, uncle percipio Was a me, ur modos a re distingui. ?lgizosco etiam quasdam alias facultates, ut locunz mutandi, varias figura& induendi, et similes, que quidern non magis quarn priecrdentes. absque alzgua sub stantia cui insint possum intelligi ; nee proinde ettain abs /rue illa existere. Srd manifesrum est has, si guider,: ex istant,inesse drbere substantive corporec sive extens&e. non autem ; quia nempe aliqua extensio non autem ulla plane intellectio in earunz claro et distrneto coneeptu continetur." Or ills argument may be put thus: If we can form an idea of extension, motion, fat m, See. which undoubtedly we can, then they may exist ; and as they cannot exist in a spiritual substance, they must be attributes of some thing else ; and the only other substance of which we have any knowledge, is that which we call matter. We think this completely oversets Berkeley's argument as to the iznpossibility of material existence.

We admit. however, that it does not amount to a de monstration that matter actually e.xists, except on Des cartes' principle, that every thing which can conceive must, somewhere or other, have an archetype. They who would wish to retain their belief in the existence of the material world, had better not bring it to the hazard of a proof, or we fear Berkeley will be too much for them. Dr. Reid, the most strenuous impugner of Berke ley's system, was once a decided Berkeleian. " I once believed this doctrine of ideas so firmly," says he, " as to adopt the whole of Bcrkeley's system in consequence of it ; till finding some consequences to follow from it, which gave me more uneasiness than the want of a ma terial world, it came into my mind, more than forty years ago, to put the question, what evidence have 1 for the doctrine, that all the objects of my knowledge are ideas in my own mind ?" The truth is, if the existence of matter is not admitted as an intuitive perception, it will be impossible to prove it. Certainly nothing is more incomprehensible than the mode in which material ob jects communicate sensations to our minds. We rather think Berkeley's system more intelligible than the or thodox opinion ; and we would gladly embrace it if we could. But it presents this formidable objection, that, if we are deceived as to the existence of matter, we may be deceived in every thing else ; for nothing is more certain.

The fate of Descartes' celebrated axiom to prove his own existence, should teach us to beware of attempting to explain ultimate principles. Cogito, ergo sum, he considered as incontrovertible ; but it involves a perisio principii in the very first step. Cogito is equivalent to, I am a thinking being, and ergo sum, to therefore I am in being. Here it is evident that every thing is assumed. The premises imply, that he exists as a thinking being ; and then he employs them to prove that he exists at all. The syllogism to which his proposition may be reduced has been justly compared to that ridiculed by Cicero : Si lucet, lucet : lucet autem : lucet igitur.

•nus we have seen, that one consequence of Locke's philosophy has been, the denial of the existence of the material world by Berkeley and his followers. This consequence naturally enough arose out of the received doctrine concerning ideas, and particularly from Locke's assertion, that the ideas of the primary qualities of mat ter were actual resemblances; whilst he admitted, that the ideas of the secondary qualities were only sensations in our own minds. Berkeley easily perceived, that there could be no more resemblance between extension and the idea it produced In the mind, than between the sen sation of smell and the object which excited it ; and on this he built his system. D'Alembert, though a disciple of Locke, had much more cnrrect views on this subject: he says, that the sensation, by means of which we arrive at the knowledge of extension, is, in its nature, as in comprehensible as extension itself. And, in the preli minary Discourse to the Encyclopedic, he says, that as there is no relation whatever between a sensation and the object which excites it, or to which we refer it, we can not trace, by reasoning, any possible passage from the one to the other ; and therefore he thinks, that it is by a species of instinct that we are forced across the gulf which separates mind from matter ; a mode of reasoning very nearly coinciding with that of Dr. Reid.