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were built, though they might still continue to stare and to reject his reasoning, all who comprehended him agreed that there were, at least, no symptoms of derangement. The truth is, Berkley's train of reasoning is so ingenious, and his eloquence so fascinating, and the arguments which he presses in support of his opinions so plausible, that it is difficult, for a moment, not to be subdued. Dr. Reid, his great antagonist, acknowledges that he, at one time, had embraced the whole of his theory. And Mr. Stewart, a no less zealous nor less powerful opponent, says (if we mistake not), in another work, that a man can hardly be a philosopher who has not, at some period of his life, doubted of the existence of matter.

Mr. Stewart begins his essay on the Idealism of Berkley, with declaring that it is not his intention to enter at all into the argument with respect to the truth of this theory. To this resolution he has not very scrupulously adhered. The essay before us, contains some very acute and original observations, which the author thinks nearly, or quite, conclusive against the Bishop's opinion. We have not room to enter into a formal analysis of these objections, and shall content ourselves with expressing, as concisely and fairly as we can, the substance of Berkley's theory, and of what has been said in reply to it,

The argument against the exist ence of material things may be thus stated. The whole world around us is composed of visible and tangible objects; that is, of things perceived by the mind through the medium of the senses; that is, of mental perceptions. Is there any thing more than this? If there be, let us know it. What is it like? If like these perceptions, it must be a perception also; for what can resemble an impression upon a sentient being, but some other impression on a

Tastes, sounds, and odours, are so manifestly impressions on the mind, that they are not worth noticing.

sentient being? If it is like none of our preceptions, then it is plain we have not the slightest acquaintance with it. No man ever was able to give any other account of the ma terial world, than that above given. It is then composed entirely of mental perceptions; and if the mind were destroyed, must not its perceptions perish with it? The experimental text to which the Berkleians refer, is dreaming; when the nind (they say) perceives objects exactly similar to those which it perceives when awake, though nobody ever thought of ascribing to the former an independent existence.

The reply to this theory is as fol

lows. What we know of the external world, is undoubtedly known through the medium of the senses; but it is not true that nothing can be known to us by the senses except our sensations; for the fact is, and the concurrent feelings of all men agree respecting it, that by some law of our nature unknown to us*, the impressions made upon the senses are accompanied with an instinctive knowledge of external things, and an indestructible belief of their existence independently of us. The experimental test to which Dr. Reid and Mr. Stewart principally refer, is the idea we have of space; which involves (they say) an irresistible conviction, not only that its existence is external, but that it is everlasting and necessary; so that, though there is no absurdity in supposing all material bodies to

* The following passage is extracted from the works of D'Alembert; it is translated by Mr. Stewart. "The truth is, that as no relation whatever can be discovered between a sensation in the mind, and the object by which it is occasioned, or at least to which we refer it, it does not appear possible to trace, by dint of reasoning, any practicable but a species of instinct more sure in its opepassage from the one to the other. Nothing ration than reason itself, could so forcibly transport us across the gulph by which mind seems to be separated from the material world."

be destroyed by the power of the Creator, the annihilation of space is inconceivable.

Such are the respective theories of Bishop Berkley and Dr. Reid. It is proper however, to add, that neither the speculations of Berkley nor of Reid ought to be regarded as affecting the certainty of our knowledge. Our ideas are exactly the same, our senses and faculties remain unchanged, upon the supposition of either theory being true. Nor ought the question respecting the independent existence of a material world, if rightly stated, in any manner to influence our practical conduct; for a material world is nothing to us except as it is perceived or felt, and our perceptions and feelings are a plain matter of fact, which no speculations can alter. This leads us to notice a pretty general mistake respecting Berkley's opinions, for which Mr. Hume is principally responsible, and which Mr. Stewart, with equal justice and .candour, endeavours to remove. We cannot explain it better than by his own words.

"It is well known, to all who have the slightest acquaintance with the history of philosophy, that, among the various topics on which the ancient sceptics exercised their ingenuity, the question concerning the existence of the material world was always a favourite subject of disputation, Some doubts on the same point occur even in the writings of philosophers whose general learning seems to have been to the opposite extreme of dogmatism, Plato himself has given them some countenance, by hinting it as a thing not quite impossible, that human life is a continued sleep, and that all our thoughts are only dreams. This scepticism proceeds on principles totally different from the doctrine of Berkley; who asserts, with the most dogmatical confidence, that the existence of matter is impossible, and that the

very supposition of it is absurd,”......" The existence of bodies out of a mind perceiving them (he tells us), explicitly, is not only impossible, and a contradiction in terms; but were it possible, and even real, it were impossible we should ever know it.'”

"With respect to Mr. Hume, who is generally considered as an advocate for Berkley's system, the remarks which I have of

fered on the latter writer, must be understood with great limitations. For although his fundamental principles lead necessarily to Berkley's conclusion, and although he has frequently drawn from them this conclusion into the language of doubt, and ouly speaks himself, yet on other occasions he relapses of the existence of a material world, as thing of which we have not satisfactory evideuce. The truth is, that whereas Berkley was sincerely and bond fidé an idealist, Hume's leading object in his metaphysical writings plainly was to inculcate an universal scepticism. In this respect, the real scope of his arguments has, 1 think, been misunderstood by most, if not all, of his op to have supposed, to exalt reasoning in preponents. It evidently was not, as they seem ference to our instinctive principles of belief; but, by illustrating the contradictory conclusions to which our different faculties lead, to involve the whole subject in the same suspicious darkness. In other words, his aim was, not to interrogate nature with a view to the discovery 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.

"With respect to Berkley, on the other hand, it appears from his writings, not only

that he considered his scheme of idealism as

resting on demonstrative proof, but as more agreeable to the common apprehensions of mankind, than the prevailing theories of philosophers, concerning the independent existence of the material world."

Nothing can be more complete than this vindication of Berkley from the ordinary charge of sceptihave been accustomed to admire cism. We hope, too, that those who Mr. Hume's genius and acuteness, will learn to receive his opinions on moral and religious subjects with some hesitation, when they see what are the sentiments entertained of his metaphysical writings, by so high an authority as Mr. Stewart. We do not exact of every philosophical writer, that he should depreciate Mr. Hume; but we certainly think it indicates great manliness and integrity of understanding in Mr. Stew art, to have exposed with so much courage, and with so much truth, the pernicious aims of his cele brated countryman. We can for.

⚫ Essay II. chap. i.

give a Scotchman for admiring Mr. Hume: what then must be our feelings towards one who can condemn him?

Mr. Stewart has vindicated Berkley in the above extract, with great success, against a misconception which has pretty generally prevailed; but we think he has himself given some countenance to another. He appears to consider the metaphysical opinions of that writer, as built upon Mr. Locke's theory of ideas, and consequently as standing or falling with it. Berkley, how ever, would, we are persuaded, have strenuously denied both the fact and the inference, He adopted the language then in use among metaphysicians, for the sake of reasoning with them; and was content to consider ideas as images, that he might shew, from the tenets avowed by Mr. Locke's scholars, that the conclusions of their master were erneous. But the truth or inaccuracy of Berkley's opinions does not at all rest on the particular meaning affixed to the word idea; his arguments remaining precisely of the same value whether we retain that word, ar substitute, as he frequently does, the words sensation, notion, or impression, in the room of it.

Besides the schools of Locke, Berkley, and Reid, there is one other, and only one, of British growth; the school of materialism; to which Mr. Stewart has devoted a separate essay. But before we give an account of this, it is necessary to stop for a moment at his third essay, respecting the philosophical systems which prevailed in France during the latter part of the eighteenth century.

"The account given by Locke," says Mr. Stewart," of the origin of our ideas, which furnished the chief subject of one of the foregoing essays, has for many years past been adopted implicitly, and almost universally, as a fundamental and unquestionable truth, by the philosophers of France. It was early sanctioned in that country by the

authority of Fontenelle, whose mind was probably prepared for its reception by some similar discussions in the works of Gassendi. At a later period, it acquired much additional celebrity from the vague and exaggerated encomiums of Voltaire; and it has since been assumed, as the common basis of their respective conclusions, concerning the history of the human understanding, by Condillac, Turgot, Helvetius, Diderot, D'Alembert, Condorcet, Destrutt, Tracy, De Gerando, and many other writers of the highest reputation, at complete variance with each other in the general spirit of their philosophical systems".

"But although all these ingenious men have laid hold eagerly of this common principle of reasoning, and have vied with each other in extolling Locke for the sagacity which he has displayed in unfolding it, hardly two of them can be named, who have understood it exactly in the same sense; and perhaps not one who has understood it precisely in the sense annexed to it by the author. What is still more remarkable, the praise of Locke has been loudest from those who seem to have taken the least pains to ascertain the import of his conclusions." pp. 101-103.

What Mr. Stewart considers, in the above extract, as a remarkable circumstance, admits, we believe, of an explanation sufficiently simple and satisfactory. The French philosophers, who, during the latter part of the eighteenth century, exerted themselves to enlighten their own countrymen and the world on the subject of religion, had some favourite topics of speculation. Among these, none appears to have been thought more generally agreeable, than the question of the mortality of the soul; or rather, of man, what' ever materials compose him. Con

Tous les philosophies François de ce siécle ont fait gloire de se ranger au nombre des disciples de Locke, et d'admettre ses principes.-De Gerando de la Generation des Connoissances Humaines. p. 81.

Be

Had the doctrine of the materialists been earlier established in this

dorcet informs us, that the great to notice. Perhaps they thought Voltaire, though he believed in a it unworthy of so great a man: First Cause, notwithstanding the perhaps it was a mere oversight; difficulties attending that doctrine, not much for a foreigner. (could more than this be in reason that as it may, the fact is indisexpected from any man!) did not putable; and our readers may possibelieve in any existence after death. bly think it tends to explain the reNow the sage Locke (as they loved to markable circumstance mentioned call him) had discovered something by Mr. Stewart, that, among the that seemed to be very important in ingenious" men whom he names, this respect. Helvetius's account "the praise of Locke has been loudof his theory is; "that every thing est from those who seem to have in man resolves ultimately into sen- taken the least pains to ascertain sation, or the operation of feeling*." the import of his conclusions." Condorcet says, "Locke proved by his analysis, that all our ideas are compounded of sensations +;" and Diderot, who professed a perfect allegiance to the same master, observes, Every idea must necessarily, when brought to its state of ultimate decomposition, resolve itself into a sensible representation, or picture; and, hence," he adds, " an important rule in philosophy, that every expression which cannot find an external and a sensible object to which it can thus establish its affinity, is destitute of signification ." The manifest result, then, from Locke's discoveries, must be, that man is a mere bundle of perceptions; and who ever dreamed of attributing to perceptions more than a dependant and momentary existence?

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To be sure, it cannot well be denied, that the great men abovementioned are chargeable with a trifling oversight in their statement of this matter. The sage Locke (as our English readers may perhaps recollect), in addition to what he says respecting ideas of sensation, speaks of another class, which he calls ideas of reflection, and which he represents us as acquiring by contemplating the operations of a certain living, sentient, active, and immaterial thing, called mind. This part of his work, the French philosophers by some accident, omitted

De l'Esprit, Disc. IV. Ap. Stewart. + Outlines of Historic View, &c. English translation. p. 108. Ap. Stewart.

*Cuvres de Diderot, Tom. VI. Ap.Stewart.

island, it is probable the writers above alluded to would have preferred it to the opinions of Mr. Locke; as it certainly falls in more naturally with the great moral and religious points which they laboured to establish. Of this school Dr. Hartley was the founder; and his principal disciples, whom, together with their master, Mr Stewart happily terms " alchemists in the science of the mind," have been Dr. Priestley, Dr. Darwin, Mr. Belsham, and Mr. Horne Tooke.

Of the theories of these writers we would gladly give an account, having really every disposition to treat them handsomely; but after making some efforts to render a detailed exposition of their doctrines intelligible, we have been compelled to give up the undertaking as hopeless. The sum, however, of their creed appears to be, that the medullary substance of the brain is of such a nature, that objects striking upon it through the senses, excite therein little undulatory motions or vibrations, which of course communicate rapidly to the right and left: a prodigious number and variety of undulations follow; and so the whole of the brain being set a shaking, all sorts of ideas, simple and complex, including those which Locke calls ideas of reflection, and, as it should seem, all the faculties of the understanding also, are gradually

shaken out.

The difficulties which attend this

theory are only two. First, that nobody ever yet knew any thing about these marvellous undulations of the brain, or is able even to prove their existence. Secondly, that all the undulations in the world can never produce an idea; a vibration having exactly as much connection with an intellectual phenomenon, as gravitation, cohesion, repulsion, or any thing else imaginable. The history of the progress of materialism is curious. Hartley, who first introduced the theory of vibrations, saw plainly enough whither it led. But he was afraid of his own conclusions. After observing, that "his theory must be allowed to overturn all the arguments which are usually brought for the immateriality of the soul, from the subtlety of the internal senses, and of the rational faculty;" he acknowledges candidly his own conviction, that "matter and motion, however subtilly divided or reasoned upon, yield nothing but matter and motion still;" and therefore requests "that he may not be in any way interpreted, so as to oppose the immateriality of the soul." Dr. Priestley, Hartley's great apostle, appears, like his master, to have been a little timid. At one period of his life, he was the advocate of what he calls" the immateriality of matter, or rather, the mutual penetration of matter;" a doctrine which he expounds in an inimitably original and unintelligible passage, which is extracted from his "History of Discoveries relating to Vision," by Mr. Stewart. At another period of his life, he inclined to the materiality of mind. But the only opinion, in which he uniformly persevered, was, that "man does not consist of two principles, so essentially different from one another as matter and spirit; but that the whole man is of some uniform compositiont." At last came Dr. Darwin Hartley's Observations, pp. 511, 512.

Ap. Stewart.

Preface to Disquisitions, p. 7. Ap.

Stewart.

(who never embarrassed himself with little difficulties), and declared, in the very outset of his work, that "the word idea, which has various meanings in metaphysical writers, may be defined to be a contraction, or motion, or configuration, of the fibres which constitute the immediate organ of sense." So that, according to this writer, the idea which a man has of his father, is a contraction of one of his own fibres; and that which he possesses of the universe, is a configuration of another. In an Addendum to the Zoonomia, the same learned author compares "the universal prepossession, that ideas are immaterial beings, to the stories of ghosts and apparitions, which have so long amused the credulous, without any foundation in nature."

Mr. Horne Tooke's title to be considered as a materialist, is rather more questionable than that of Dr. Darwin, or any of his predecessors; but he is so loudly claimed by the followers of that sect, and his services are considered as so great, that it would be a sort of cruelty to attempt to rob them of an authority they prize so highly. His labours, in their cause, have been entirely philological; but they are not, on that account, valued the less by his metaphysical allies, and seem to be considered as a beautiful instance of the lights which sister sciences may throw upon one common truth. The leading principle of Mr. Tooke's work is, that the true meaning of words is to be sought in their roots, and that men talk at randoin, or, as he expresses it, "gabble like things most brutish," when they use terms in any other than that which may be shewn to be their proper historic sense. Now it so happens (and from the nature of things it could not happen otherwise), that the basis of a language is principally to be found in words expressing sensible objects; for these obviously were the first, the most necessary, and most intelligible.ideas; and when, afterwards, it, was requisite to speak

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