66

From this important concession of a most impartial and competent judge, it may be assumed as a fact, that, till the refutation of the ideal theory in his own Inquiry into the "Human Mind," the partizans of Berkeley's system remained complete masters of the controversial field; and yet, during the long period which intervened, it is well known how little impression that system made on the belief of our soundest philosophers. Many answers to it were attempted, in the meantime, by various authors, both in this country and on the Continent; and by one or other of these, the generality of the learned professed themselves to be convinced of its futility; the evidence of the conclusion (as in many other cases) supporting the premises, and not the premises the conclusion *. A very curious anecdote, in illustration of

thought that Mr Hume had clearly shown, by turning Berkeley's weapons against himself, that this theory was equally subversive of the existence of mind. The ultimate object of Berkeley and of Reid was precisely the same; the one asserting the existence of matter from the very same motive which led the other to deny it.

When I speak of Reid's asserting the existence of matter, I do not allude to any new proofs which he has produced of the fact. This he rests on the evidence of sense, as he rests the existence of the mind on the evidence of consciousness. All that he professes to have done is, to show the inconclusiveness of Berkeley's argument against the former, and that of Hume against the latter, by refuting the ideal hypothesis which is the common foundation of both.

The impotent, though ingenious attempt of Berkeley (not many years after the date of his metaphysical publications) to shake the foundations of the newly-invented method of Fluxions, created, in the public mind, a strong prejudice against him, as a sophistical and paradoxical disputant; and operated as a more powerful antidote to the scheme of immaterialism, than all the reasonings which his contemporaries were able to oppose to it. This unfavourable impression was afterwards not a little confirmed, by the ridicule which he incurred in consequence of his pamphlet on the Virtues of Tar-water;

After the

this, is mentioned in the life of Dr Berkeley. publication of his book, it appears that he had an interview with Dr Clarke; in the course of which, Clarke (it is said) discovered a manifest unwillingness to enter into the discussion, and was accused by Berkeley of a want of candour*. -The story (which, if I recollect right, rests on the authority of Whiston) has every appearance of authenticity; for as Clarke, 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. In such circumstances, would it have been unphilosophical in Clarke to have defended himself, by saying: " Your conclusion not only contra"dicts those perceptions of my senses, the evidence of which itself as "I feel to be irresistible; but, by annihilating space “an external existence, bids defiance to a conviction insepa"rable from the human understanding; and, therefore, although "I cannot point out the precise oversight which has led you a"stray, there must necessarily be some error, either in your origi"nal data, or in your subsequent reasoning." Or, supposing Clarke to have perceived, as clearly as Reid, that Berkeley's

a performance, however, of which it is but justice to add, that it contains a great deal more, both of sound philosophy and of choice learning, than could have been expected from the subject.

* Philosophical Essays, Note E.

That Clarke would look upon the Berkeleian theory with more than common feelings of suspicion and alarm, may be easily conceived, when it is recollected that, by denying the independent existence both of space and of time, it put an end at once to his celebrated argument a priori, for the existence of God.

reasoning was perfectly unexceptionable, might he not have added;" The conclusion which it involves is a demonstration in "the form of a reductio ad absurdum, of the unsoundness of "the ideal theory, on which the whole of your argument is "built?"

I am far from supposing that Berkeley would have admitted this consideration as decisive of the point in dispute. On the contrary, it appears from his writings, that the scheme of immaterialism was, in his opinion, more agreeable to popular belief, than the received theories of philosophers concerning the independent existence of the external world; nay, that he considered it as one of the many advantages likely to result from the universal adoption of his system, that

* I acknowledge, very readily, that the force of this indirect mode of reasoning is essentially different in mathematics, from what it is in the other branches of knowledge; for the object of mathematics (as will afterwards more fully appear) not being truth, but systematical connection and consistency, whenever two contradictory propositions occur, embracing evidently the only possible suppositions on the point in question, if the one can be shown to be incompatible with the definitions or hypotheses on which the science is founded, this may be regarded as perfectly equivalent to a direct proof of the legitimacy of the opposite conclusion. In the other sciences, the force of a reductio ad absurdum depends entirely on the maxim, "That truth is always consistent "with itself;" a maxim which, however certain, rests evidently on grounds of a more abstract and metaphysical nature than the indirect demonstrations of geometry. It is a maxim, at the same time, to which the most sceptical writers have not been able to refuse their testimony. "Truth (says Mr Hume himself) is one thing, but errors are "numberless, and every man has a different one."

The unity, or systematical consistency of truth, is a subject which well deserves to be farther prosecuted. It involves many important consequences, of which Mr Hume does not, from the general spirit of his philosophy, seem to have been sufficiently aware.

"men would thereby be reduced from paradoxes to common "sense."

The question, however, if not decided by this discussion, would at least have been brought to a short and simple issue; for the paramount authority of the common sense or common reason of mankind being equally recognized by both parties, all that remained for their examination was,-whether the belief of the existence, or that of the non-existence of matter, was sanctioned by this supreme tribunal? For ascertaining this point, nothing more was necessary than an accurate analysis of the meaning annexed to the word existence: which analysis would have at once shown, not only that we are irresistibly led to ascribe to the material world all the independent reality which this word expresses, but that it is from the material world that our first and most satisfactory notions of existence are drawn. The mathematical affections of matter (extension and figure) to which the constitution of the mind imperiously forces us to ascribe an existence, not only independent of our perceptions, but necessary and eternal, might more particularly have been pressed upon Berkeley, as proofs how incompatible his notions were with those laws of belief, to which the learned and the unlearned must in common submit *,

But farther (in order to prevent any cavil about the foregoing illustration), we shall suppose that Clarke had anticipated Hume in perceiving that the ideal theory went to the anni

See Note (B).

hilation of mind as well as of matter; and that he had succeeded in proving, to the satisfaction of Berkeley, that nothing existed in the universe but impressions and ideas. Is it possible to imagine that Berkeley would not immediately have seen and acknowledged, that a theory which led to a conclusion directly contradicted by the evidence of consciousness, ought not, out of respect to ancient authority, to be rashly admitted ; and that, in the present instance, it was much more philosophical to argue from the conclusion against the hypothesis, than to argue from the hypothesis in proof of the conclusion? No middle course, it is evident, was left him between such an acknowledgement, and an unqualified acquiescence in those very doctrines which it was the great aim of his system to tear up by the roots.

The two chief objections which I have heard urged against this mode of defence, are not perfectly consistent with each other. The one represents it as a presumptuous and dangerous innovation in the established rules of philosophical controversy, calculated to stifle entirely a spirit of liberal inquiry; while the other charges its authors with all the meanness and guilt of literary plagiarism. I shall offer a few slight remarks upon each of these accusations.

1. That the doctrine in question is not a new one, nor even the language in which it has been recently stated an innovation in the received phraseology of logical science, has been shown by Dr Reid, in a collection of very interesting quotations, which may be found in different parts of his Essays on the