The second part of the title of Mr. Thomas Collyns Simon's book is Universal Immaterialism, fully explained and newly demonstrated. London, 1847 (1862). It is accompanied by a prospectus of the terms upon which a prize of one hundred pounds is offered for a conclusive disproof of Universal Immaterialism. He had a correspondence in 1852-53 with Sir William Hamilton, in which he quotes Sir William as saying that he has seen nothing in Berkeley irreconcilable with his own views.' Mr. Simon has written several dissertations for periodicals.2 A discussion between Simon and Ueberweg followed the translation of Berkeley's Principles.3 Mr. Simon has also discussed, from the Berkeleyan point of view, Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy.+ § 10: MILL.-John Stuart Mill ably defended Berkeley's Theory of Vision, of which he says that it has remained, almost from its first promulgation, one of the least disputed doctrines in the most disputed and most disputable of all sciences, the science of man. This is the more remarkable, as no doctrine in mental philosophy is more at variance with first appearances, more contradictory to the natural prejudices of mankind. Yet this apparent paradox was no sooner published than it took its place, almost without contestation, among established opinions. The warfare which has since distracted the world of metaphysics has swept past this insulated position without disturbing it; and while so many of the other conclusions of the analytical school of mental philosophy, the school of Hobbes and Locke, have been repudiated with violence by the antagonist school, that of Common Sense, or innate principles, this one doctrine has been recognized and upheld by the leading thinkers of both schools alike.'5 'Some chapters in Mr. J. S. Mill's Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy, and passages in his other writings, show how much in the new conception of the sensible world is appreciated by a fair and able thinker of phenomenalist tendencies.'" 1 Veitch's Memoir of Hamilton, 344-349. 2 Among these may be mentioned' Berkeley's Doctrine on the Nature of Matter' in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, iii., 4 Dec. 1869. Is Thought the Thinker? Ib., p. 375. 3 Ueberweg's Letter to Simon, Fichte's Z. f. Ph., 1869. Simon's Answer, ib., 1870. A brief closing word by Ueberweg, ib., 1871. 4 Hamilton versus Mill, 3 parts, Edinburgh, 1866-68. 5 Westminster Review, xxviii. 318. 6 Fraser: Berkeley's Works, i., Pref., xvii. § 11: STIRLING.-'Dr. J. H. Stirling, by devoting reflection to fresh aspects of questions which Berkeley raised by implication, has prepared some for looking at the perennial problem with a fresh eye.' § 12: DUBLIN UNIVERSITY.-' Nor must Berkeley's own University be forgotten, where philosophy is now cultivated by men who are not unworthy of its fame, and who, either as expositors or as adverse critics, have not forgotten its greatest names in metaphysics.'' § 13: FRASER.-The admirable and only complete edition of Berkeley's Works, followed by his Life and Letters, we owe to Alexander Campbell Fraser, M. A., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. Professor Fraser regards Berkeley as one of the greatest philosophers of Great Britain. He says that his own love for philosophy was first engaged by Berkeley in the morning of life,' and that he 'regards his writings as among the best in English literature for a refined education. of the heart and intellect.' Berkeley was 'the greatest metaphysician in his own age.' 'The intellectual influence which partly originated in him has since been silently modifying all the deeper thought of the time in physics and in metaphysical philosophy. Is an unknowing and unknown something called matter, or is intelligence, the supreme reality? and are men the transient results of material organization, or are they immortal beings? This is Berkeley's implied question. His answer to it, although in his own works it has not been thought out by him into its primary principles, or sufficiently guarded in some parts, nevertheless marks the beginning of the second great period in modern thought, that in which we are living. The answer was virtually reversed in Hume, whose exclusive phenomenalism, reproduced in the positivism of the nineteenth century, led to the Scotch conservative psychology, and to the great German speculation which Kant inaugurated.'3 § 14: GERMANY.-'I am inclined to believe,' says Fraser, 'that the present state of German speculation is not unfavourable to a more ample and appreciative consideration of Berkeley than he Fraser: Berkeley's Works, i., Pref., xviii. 2 Fraser: Berkeley's Works, i., Pref., xviii. 3 Berkeley's Works, i., Pref., viii. has hitherto received in the occasional allusions made by the philosophers and historians of philosophy of the chief speculative nation of Europe.' He then speaks of Ueberweg's annotated version of the Principles, and adds, 'This translation has, I understand, circulated widely in that country. It has been partly the occasion of recent discussions on Berkeley's philosophy in some of the German periodicals.' § 15: AMERICA.-Among the recent American admirers of Berkeley's system may be mentioned Rowland G. Hazard, author of a work on the Will (1864) and of one on Causation (1869). 'Berkeley's remarkable relations to America, and the adoption of distinctive parts of his philosophy by two of his eminent American contemporaries, Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Edwards, should secure for him a hearing in that great country, whose advancement since he lived in it has almost realized the dream even of his benevolent imagination.'" V. Opponents and Objections. §1: RIDICULE.-The favourite weapon against Berkeleyanism from the beginning has been ridicule; Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.' There is but one point to all the jesting, and the variation of form is not very marked. Arbuthnot's joke is the first on record.3 Swift is said to have left Berkeley standing at the door in the rain, on the ground that if his philosophy were true he could as easily enter with the door shut as open. Dr. Johnson's confutation by kicking a large stone, ‘striking his foot with mighty force against it,' as Boswell happily phrases it, is one for which Ferrier says 'Berkeley would have hugged him.' It embodied the popular common sense unreservedly, and so was superior to the philosophy which accepts that common sense but half way. There is as much argument and more wit in a less-quoted anecdote. When a gentleman who had been defending Berkeley's view was about going away, Johnson said, Pray, sir, don't leave us, for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.' I Berkeley's Works, i., Pref., xviii. 2 Fraser: Berkeley's Works, i., Pref., xviii. 3 See Prolegomena, I. Byron linked a well-worn college pun with a versification of Hume's estimate: 'When Bishop Berkeley said, "There was no matter," And proved it, 'twas no matter what he said. They say his system 'tis in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head: And yet who can believe it?' Sydney Smith says, 'Bishop Berkeley destroyed the world in one volume octavo, and nothing remained after his time but mind, which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.' It is not to the credit of the metaphysicians who have combated Berkeley that so much they have written is but a prosy elaboration of the jocose misrepresentation of his views. Had Burke carried out his purpose of anwering Berkeley, the world would have had a brilliant book,—a brilliant success or a brilliant failure. § 2: SAMUEL CLarke (1675-1729) declined to discuss Berkeley's principles in regard to the existence of matter. As Clarke,' says Stewart, 'in common with his antagonist, regarded the principles of the ideal theory as incontrovertible, it was perfectly impossible for him, with all his acuteness, to detect the flaw to which Berkeley's paradox owed its plausibility.' Not only so, but Clarke approaches at times very closely to the Berkeleyan construction of the relation of the universe to mind: 'All things that are done are done either immediately by God himself or by created intelligent beings, Matter being evidently not capable of any laws or powers whatsoever, any more than it is capable of intelligence, excepting only this one negative power, that every part of it will of itself always and necessarily continue in that state, whether of rest or motion, wherein it at present is. So that all those things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, of gravitation, attraction, or the like, are indeed (if we will speak strictly and properly) the effects of God's acting upon matter continually and every moment, either immediately by himself or mediately by some created intelligent beings. . . . Consequently there is no such thing Works, iii. 53, v. 4, 18. as what we commonly call the course of nature or the power of nature. The course of nature, truly and properly speaking, is nothing else but the will of God producing certain effects in a continued, regular, constant, and uniform manner, which course or manner of acting being in every moment perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be preserved.'1 §3: ANDREW BAXTER (1687-1750), in his 'Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul,' has a section (2d ed., pp. 256344) entitled 'Dean Berkeley's Scheme against the Existence of Matter and a Material World examined and shown inconclusive.' It is the first extended review of Berkeley. Warburton says of the Inquiry, 'He who would see the justest and precisest notions of God and the soul may read this book, one of the most finished of the kind, in my humble opinion, that the present times, greatly advanced in true philosophy, have produced.'* Stewart pronounces this 'splendid eulogy' as beyond the merit of the Inquiry, though he acknowledges 'that it displays considerable ingenuity as well as learning.'3 Fraser says of the Inquiry, 'Its comparative bulk is almost the only circumstance which entitles Baxter's work to consideration. ... At the best, he is ingenious and acute in the construction of a man of straw.' The truth in regard to Baxter is perhaps midway between these estimates. His examination of Berkeley's scheme is fully equal to the best of the later replies in the Scotch school, and in fact anticipates nearly everything that is important in them. 'We perceive, besides our sensations themselves, the objects of them; or we perceive objects existing from without, by the mediation of sensation or motion produced, since we are conscious not only of sensation excited, but that it is excited by some cause beside ourself.... This cause we call Matter.' 'Our ideas cannot exist without the mind, but their objects may, and do. And they are still sensible objects, though they fall not under the senses at all times and in all places.' ... 'The perception of a picture shows not only that the soul is immaterial, but that it is united to a material sensory, where the picture is impressed, and to which it applies for the perception of it, or that matter I Works, fol. ed., ii. 697. 3 Works, i. 429, 430. 2 Divine Legation, 1st ed., 395. |