gant, conjecture: and secondly, the process spoken of is itself wholly unknown to us. We are utterly unconscious of such an operation as ideas being imprinted on the senses at all: it is purely fictitious.*

If the doctrine, moreover, were true, the Deity would obviously be at the command of any one who chose to open or shut his eyes; and many other consequences would be deducible, which the reverence due to the subject disinclines me from naming.

And mark the metaphysical result which would inevitably flow from admitting it. When he speaks of imprinting ideas on the senses, in what light does he intend the senses to be regarded? Clearly they can be nothing, on his system, but ideas; and thus his doctrine teaches that what we term external objects are only ideas imprinted on other ideas by the Author of Nature.

The strangeness, not to say absurdity, of the doctrine reaches its climax in the case of recollecting or conceiving objects formerly perceived, or of having in the mind what Berkeley himself denominates representations. This would be having ideas

* Berkeley, in a subsequent stage of the discussion, when he saw it needful to soften or modify some preceding passages, says that, by "being imprinted on the senses," he means only that "the mind is affected from without, or by some being distinct from itself;" but he cannot be supposed by this to relinquish either the senses as the channel, or the direct agency of the Deity as the immediate cause.

of the ideas which had been imprinted on other ideas.

We shall find a similar intermixture of the fictitious or conjectural, if we trace the other attributes or characteristics of the Berkeleian idea as delineated by his own hand.

It is described by him in various, but not always consistent, terms.

To be perceived constitutes its very existence, or, as he himself expresses it, its esse is percipi*: it is a distinct individual entity in the mind; for he tells us that it is not a mode or property of the mind, but it is in the mind that perceives it †: and by saying it is in the mind, he means, as he explains, that it is the immediate object of the understanding. Further, it is independent of the mind, and may become exterior to it §, and when it is not perceived by one mind, it is or may be perceived by another. || Moreover, it is a passive, inert, and unthinking being 4, with a spiritual sub

stratum.

You may, perhaps, suppose its existence to be very precarious, since that existence depends altogether on its being perceived: but this is provided against; for although it is continually quitting individual minds, it by no means ceases to exist; since even should it fail to have a domicile in yours, or

* Works, vol. 1. p. 24. (3 vols. 8vo., Priestley, London, 1820.) † p. 192.

p. 184.

+ p. 208.

§ p. 183.

Ibid. and p. 35.

mine, or any other created mind, it still exists in the mind of the Author of Nature.* Hence, Berkeley's bold position, which has startled many a student, "that all the choir of heaven and furni ture of the earth,—in a word, all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world,- have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being is to be perceived or known†," shrinks, on a close inspection, to a needless flourish of insecurity and precariousness to alarm the imagination, inasmuch as when they are not perceived by any created being (or to be sure whether they are or are not), they are perceived by the Omniscient Creator; and thus their permanent existence, as Berkeley himself indeed points out, is secure.

Such is a brief statement or sketch of the Berkeleian idea. Without troubling you by pointing out particular instances, I will content myself with observing that, where the delineation at all differs from what can be said of an external object, it is imaginary or conjectural.

* Vol. 1.

p.

183.

† p. 26.

LETTER XVI.

THEORIES OF PERCEPTION, CONTINUED.—BERKELEY.

THE discussion, I fear, has already become wearisome, but for the full comprehension of Berkeley's theory, it is necessary to take into view, not only the relation in which it stands to the common opinion of men, but also his own account of that relation; the latter of which is by no means precise and luminous.

When he started on his wild metaphysical enterprise, he very justly considered himself as engaged in proving that mankind were involved in a strange error; that what they mistook for an external, material, independent world, was merely an ideal one, dependent on being perceived; that there was a radical difference between himself and them regarding it.

Accordingly, he at first describes them, in a passage before quoted, as being strangely pervaded with the opinion that mountains and rivers have a natural or real existence, distinct from their being perceived. In the progress of his speculations, however, he veers round, and claims the majority of his fellow-creatures-the vulgar-as concurring in their views with himself.

Thus, in answer to the charge of Hylas, that Philonous is for changing all things into ideas, he makes the latter say:

"You mistake me. I am not for changing things into ideas, but rather ideas into things; since those immediate objects of perception which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I take to be the real things themselves."*

The same speaker afterwards says:-"We both, therefore, agree in this, that we perceive only sensible forms; but herein we differ, you will have them to be empty appearances, I real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses, I do."

Again, he asks his opponent, "Whether, the premises considered, it be not the wisest way to follow nature, trust your senses, and, laying aside all anxious thought about unknown natures and substances, admit, with the vulgar, those for real things which are perceived by the senses."†

In all this, however, there is something scarcely ingenuous. It wears at least that appearance of disingenuousness which is frequently the result of being thoroughly possessed by some favourite theory.

The truth is, that Berkeley's ranging himself with the vulgar in opinion, contrary to his antecedent declarations, is in reference not to the great question "whether there is an independent external world," but to certain subordinate inquiries confined almost * Works, vol. 1. p. 201. † p. 203.