what is resolvable into that of consciousness. 4. Consciousness is from time to time suspended in sleeping. 5. The suspension of consciousness does not interfere with the existence of intellect, regarded as a substantial reality. 6. Intellect, as the subject of suspended consciousness, must, in order to the restoration of consciousness, of necessity either arouse itself into conscious activity or be aroused by something out of itself. 7. The influence out of itself, by which intellect is aroused to consciousness, can be ascribed to ideas only, with which alone intellect is immediately conversant. That intellect is conscious only of ideas is the imperative dictum of philosophy, the universal law of our reason. Ideas are the objects of all intellect's thinking. We know of no other objects of consciousness. It has nothing else that we know to be conscious of. 8. Ideas must needs be conditioned forms emanating from and representative of the facts of an external world. 9. The conditions of the external world, with their forms, must be what they are directly represented to our consciousness by the ideas descriptive of the same. "If," to use the words of Kant, who embraced the view of Berkeley to this extent, "the things we see are not what they are taken for," then, upon the principles of irresistible logic, "the root of our nature is a lie," let Sir William Hamilton and his followers say what they may to the contrary. . . . There can be no trusting to our cognition if we perceive things differently from what they actually are.'

§ 19: DR. JAS. M'Cosн, in treating of primitive cognitions concerning body, holds, as involved in this intuitive knowledge, that, '1, we know the object as existing or having being; 2, as having an existence independent of the contemplative mind; 3, as involving a knowledge of outness or externality. We know the object perceived, be it the organism or the object affecting the organism, as not in the mind, as out of the mind. These convictions set aside all forms of idealism in sense-perception.' 'Berkeley is wrong in maintaining that we can perceive nothing more than ideas in our own minds. ... He errs in not unfolding how much is comprised in the object as perceived by us; we perceive body as having being, power, and existence without us and independent of us. Berkeley was misled throughout by following the Lockeian doctrines that the mind perceives immediately only

...

its own ideas, and that substance is to be taken merely as the ' support or substratum of qualities.''

§ 20: SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON (1788-1856) maintains that on his own principles Reid reaches a doctrine which 'even supplies a basis for an idealism like that of Fichte.' Just as Reid 'brings the matter to a short issue' in a doctrine which he thinks shows that the ideal system is a rope of sand,' Hamilton says, 'Nothing is easier than to show that, so far from refuting idealism, this doctrine affords it the best of all possible foundations. . . . Reid (and herein he is followed by Mr. Stewart) ... asserts the very positions on which this (the simpler and more refined) idealism establishes its conclusions. ... The doctrine of our Scottish philosophers is, in fact, the very groundwork on which the egoistical idealism reposes. The argument... from common sense in their hands is unavailing; for if it be good against the conclusions of the idealist, it is good against the premises which they afford him.2

'The general approximation of thorough-going realism and thorough-going idealism . . . may at first sight be startling. On reflection, however, their radical affinity will prove well grounded. Both build upon the same fundamental fact, that the extended object immediately perceived is identical with the extended object actually existing; for the truth of this fact both can appeal to the common sense of mankind; and to the common sense of mankind Berkeley did appeal not less confidently, and perhaps more logically, than Reid.'3

Hamilton held that 'Natural realism and absolute idealism are the only systems worthy of a philosopher; for as they alone have any foundation in consciousness, so they alone have any consistency with themselves.' Natural realism is Hamilton's own view, and of this view Hamilton's successor asks, 'What is the nature of the natural realism by which the ghost of absolute idealism is to be exorcised?' His answer is, 'As matter of consciousness, it is a figment; as matter of consciousness, a dream.' That the Scotch philosophy has not satisfied the entire Scotch mind, is confessed in the sad words in which Fraser closes the brilliant

The Intuitions of the Mind. New York, 1866: 109, 147, 148. See also Dr. M'Cosh on Berkeley's Philosophy: Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, Jan., 1873.

2 Hamilton's edition of Reid, 128, 129. See what is quoted from Brown. Prolegomena. 3 Note C, Reid's Works, 817.

review from which we quote: 'The only conviction which the student of the history of human speculation can regard as necessary is the conviction of our hopeless ignorance of all the mysteries of existence. Truth, like the Deity, is hid in darkness. It is not that we are unable to divine the mysteries of the soul and God; the simplest phenomenon of sense defies our wit. Of the future destinies of philosophy it is in vain to speak. Phenomena we can observe; their laws we are able to ascertain; existence is beyond our ken. The riddle of the Sphynx has never yet been read; the veil of Isis has never yet been drawn; the hieroglyphics of the universe are yet undeciphered.'1

VI. Estimates of Berkeley-his Character, Writings, and

Influence.

§ 1: Swift (1667–1745).—' He is an absolute philosopher with regard to money, titles, and power. . . . He most exorbitantly proposeth a whole hundred pounds a year for himself. . . . His heart will break if his deanery be not taken from him. One of the first men in this kingdom for learning and virtue.' 2

Swift is said to have introduced Berkeley to Earl Berkeley with the words, 'My lord, here is a young gentleman of your family. I can assure your lordship it is a much greater honour to you to be related to him, than to him to be related to you.' 'Berkeley,' he says in the Journal, to Stella, 'is a very ingenious man and great philosopher.' 3

§ 2: WARBURTON (1698-1779).-'He is indeed a great man, and the only visionary I ever knew that was.'4

§3: BLACKWELL (1701-1737), who was to have been one of the professors in the Bermuda University, says, 'I scarce remember to have conversed with him on that art, liberal or mechanic, of which he knew not more than the ordinary practitioners. With the widest views, he descended into a minute detail, and begrudged neither pains nor expense for the means of information. ... I admire the extensive genius of the man.... Many such

I North British Review, xxxiv. 479.

a Letter to Lord Carteret, in Fraser's Life, 102. See Christian Examiner, July, 1838, 313. 3 Fraser Life, vi, 54.

4 Letters. London, 1809. See article in Retrospective Review, vol. xi. (1825) 239.

spirits in our country would quickly make learning wear another face.'

§4: HUME (1711-1766).—' Most of the writings of that very ingenious author (Berkeley) form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. That all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely sceptical, appears from this: that they admit of no answer and produce no conviction. Their only effect is to cause that momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion which is the result of scepticism.'2

§ 5: JOHNSON (1709–1784).—′ Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine imagination.' 3

§6: ADAM SMITH (1723–1790) says of the New Theory of Vision' that it is one of the finest examples of philosophical analysis that is to be found in our own or any other language.'

§7: TIEDEMANN (1748-1803).- His noble and great heart glowed with zeal for the good and for the promotion of the welfare of mankind.... He left behind him the renown of a man devoid of selfishness, of one full of ardour for the interest not alone of his native land, but of the human race, strict in the performance of the duties of his see, and full of magnanimity. . . . Few have equalled him in acuteness and profundity.... He has filled up an important break in human thought. . . . To attempt to thunder down idealism by a dictum of the popular understanding is unphilosophical, not to say irrational. . . . Berkeley merits the warmest gratitude of all genuine philosophers.' +

§8: PLATNER (1744-1818).- Berkeley was the first to render idealism demonstrative and to show that the Deity does not deceive us, though matter does not exist.'5

$9: REID (1710-1796).—' Supposing this principle [that all the objects of our knowledge are ideas] to be true, Berkeley's system is impregnable. No demonstration can be more evident than his reasoning from it.' 'He is acknowledged universally to have great merit as an excellent writer and a very acute and clear

Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, ii. 277.

2 Essays. Note N.

3 Boswell, New York, 1850, i. 173.

4 Geist d. spekulativen Philosophie, 1797, vol. vi. 621, 623, 624. 5 Aphorismen, i. 413.

reasoner on the most abstract subjects, not to speak of his virtues as a man, which were very conspicuous.' 'The new philosophy had been making gradual approaches towards Berkeley's opinion, and whatever others might do, the philosophers had no right to look upon it as absurd or unworthy of a fair examination. Several authors attempted to answer his arguments, but with little success, and others acknowledged that they could neither answer them nor assent to them.' "The "Theory of Vision"... contains very important discoveries and marks of great genius.' He possessed uncommon penetration and judgment.' 'The principle laid down in the first sentence of his Principles of Knowledge... has always been acknowledged by philosophers.... This is the foundation on which the whole system rests. If this be true, then indeed the existence of a material world must be a dream.'

I

§ 10: DUGALD STEWART (1753-1828).- Possessed of a mind which was fully equal to that of Locke in logical acuteness and invention, and in learning, fancy, and taste far its superior, Berkeley was singularly fitted to promote that reunion of philosophy and the fine arts which is so essential to the prosperity of both. ... Pope's admiration of him seems to have risen to a sort of enthusiasm.... On his moral qualities he has bestowed the highest and most unqualified eulogy to be found in his writings:

"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven."

'With these intellectual and moral endowments, admired and blazoned as they were by the most distinguished wits of his age, it is not surprising that Berkeley should have given a popularity and fashion to metaphysical pursuits which they had never before acquired in England. Nor was this popularity diminished by the boldness of some of his paradoxes. The solid additions, however, made by Berkeley to the stock of human knowledge, were important and brilliant. . . . His New Theory of Vision [is] a work abounding with ideas so different from those commonly received, and at the same time so profound and refined, that it was regarded, by all but a few accustomed to deep metaphysical

Works (Hamilton), i. 280, 281, 283.