lived till he was ninety years of age.' 19* In all these cases, we may safely take for granted, that this venerable sceptic, when he exhibited himself with his domestics, knew, at least as well as the spectator, the nature of the comedy which he was acting, for their entertainment and his own imagined glory; that he could discriminate, with perfect accuracy, the times when it would be safe, and the times when it would be unsafe, for him to be consistent; and that he would never feel, in so strong and lively a manner, the force of his own principles, as when he was either absolutely alone, or with attendants within a very few inches of the ground on which he was philosophizing. We are told, accordingly, that when his passions were too strongly roused, to allow him to remember the part which he was acting, he entered with sufficient readiness into his native character of a mere human being. Of this, one ludicrous instance is recorded, in which his anger against his cook so completely got the better, both of his moral and physical philosophy, that, with the spit in his hand, and the meat on it, which had been roasting, he pursued him to the very market-place. Many stories of this sort, however, we may well suppose, would be invented against philosophers of a class that at once challenged the opposition of the whole mob of mankind, and afforded subjects of that obvious and easy ridicule which the mob of mankind, even without the provocation of such a challenge, are always sufficiently ready to seize. Into a detail of the sceptical system of Berkeley, it is unnecessary to enter at any length; since, notwithstanding the general acuteness which its truly illustrious author has displayed in this, and in all his works, I cannot but consider his ideal system as presenting a very imperfect and inaccurate view, not merely of the real phenomena of the mind, but even of the sceptical argument against the existence of matter. It was not as a sceptic, however, that this most devout and amiable of philosophers, to whom Pope scarcely paid a higher compliment than was strictly due, in ascribing to him "every virtue under heaven,"t-it was not as a sceptic that he was desirous of being ranked. On the contrary, I have, no doubt that his system seemed to him valuable, chiefly for being, as he, conceived, an antidote to scepticism, and that he was far less anxious to display acuteness, than to expose the sophistry of materialism, and to present, as he thought, an additional argument for the existence of a divine omnipresent mind, which unquestionably it would have afforded, and an argument too, it must be owned, completely irresistible, if our mere ideas were what he conceived them to be. These, he evidently considered, not as states of the individual mind, but as separate things existing in it, and capable of existing in other minds, but in them alone; and it is in consequence of these assumptions that his system, if it were to be considered as a system of scepticism, is chiefly defective. But having, as he supposed, these ideas, and conceiving that they did not perish when they ceased to exist in his mind, since the same ideas recurred at intervals, he deduced, from the necessity which there seemed for some omnipresent mind, in which they might exist during the intervals of recurrence, the necessary existence of the Deity; and if, indeed, as he supposed, ideas be something different from the mind itself, recurring only at intervals to created minds, and incapable of existing but in mind, the demonstration of some infinite omnipresent mind, in which they exist during these intervals of recurrence to * Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, chap. i. sect. 5. + Epilogue to the Satires, Dial. II. v. 73. finite minds, must be allowed to be perfect. The precise nature of the argument, and its demonstrative force, if the hypothetical circumstances, which Berkeley himself was far from considering as hypothetical, be admitted, have not been sufficiently regarded by philosophers, when they express their astonishment that a system, which, if not scepticism, is at least so much akin to it, or so favourable, at least, to the general sceptical spirit, should yet have been brought forward, as its truly pious author informs us, for the express purpose of combating scepticism. He is not, indeed, always a very perspicuous unfolder of his own opinions; but in a passage of his third Dialogue, the series of propositions which I have now stated as constituting his demonstration, are delivered by himself with great distinctness and brevity. "When I deny," says Philonous to Hylas, "when I deny sensible things, an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind in particular, but all minds. Now, it is plain they have an existence exterior to my mind, since I find them, by experience, to be independent of it. There is, therefore, some other mind wherein they exist during the intervals between the times of my perceiving them as likewise they did before my birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it necessarily follows there is an Omnipresent Eternal Mind, which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner, and according to such rules, as he himself hath ordained, and are by us all termed the Laws of Nature."* The existence of ideas as separate from the mind, and the permanent existence of these, when they have ceased to exist in the individual mind, are evidently assumptions as gratuitous as the assumption of the external existence of matter itself could have been; or rather, the permanent and independent ideas are truly matter, under another name; and to believe that these foreign independent substances, which pass from mind to mind, exist in the mind, is not to intellectualize matter, but to materialize intellect. A mind containing, or capable of containing, something foreign within itself, and not merely one foreign substance, but a multitude of foreign substances, at the same moment, is no longer that simple indivisible existence, which we term spirit. Any of the elementary atoms of matter is, indeed, more truly spiritual; the very notion of recipiency of any kind being as little consistent with our notion of mind as the notion of hardness or squareness. The whole force of the pious demonstration, therefore, which Berkeley flattered himself with having urged irresistibly, is completely obviated, by the simple denial that ideas are any thing more than the mind itself affected in a certain manner; since, in this case, our ideas exist no longer than our mind is affected, in that particular manner, which constitutes each particular idea; and, to say that our ideas exist in the divine mind, would thus be to say, only, that our mind itself exists in the divine mind. There is not the sensation of colour, in addition to the mind, nor the sensation of fragrance in addition to the mind; but, according to that juster view of the mental phenomena, which I have repeatedly endeavoured to impress on you, the sensation of colour is the mind existing in a certain state, and the sensation of fragrance is the mind existing in a different state. The most philosophic scepticism, as to the existence of external things, is unquestionably that which is founded on this very view of the phenomena of the mind. All the terms, which we use to express our knowledge, sensations, Three Dialogues, &c. p. 109, 110. * perceptions, ideas, notions, propositions, judgments, intuitions, conclusions,or whatever other terms we may employ to express particular varieties of thought, are significant, it may be said, and truly said, of states or affections of the mind, and of nothing more. What I term my perception of the colour, or softness, or shape, or fragrance, or taste of a peach, is a certain state of my own mind, for my mind surely can be conscious only of its own feelings; or rather, as the consciousness of present feelings is a redundancy of language, my mind, affected in a certain manner, whether it be with what is termed sensation or knowledge, or belief, can still be nothing more than my mind itself affected in a certain manner,—my mind itself existing in a certain state. Against this argument, I confess that I know no mere argument which can be adduced in opposition,-any more, than I know any mere argument which can be adduced against the strange conclusions that are most legitimately drawn from the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter, and various other physical and mathematical applications of the notions of infinity. In no one of these cases, however, do we feel our belief shaken; because it is founded either on associations so early, and strong, and indissoluble, as those which we have been endeavouring to trace, or, if not in those, in principles of direct intuition, in that species of internal revelation which gives to reason itself, in the primary truths on which every argument proceeds, its divine authority; and we only smile at conclusions, in which it is impossible for us to find a single logical error, but which, from the constitution of our nature, it is physically impossible for us to admit, or to admit at least, without an instant dissent, which renders our momentary logical admission as nugatory as if the direct existence of an external world had been established by the clearest logical demonstration. In one of the Anniversary Orations of Sir William Jones, of which the subject is the philosophy of the Asiatics, he informs us that a system of idealism, very similar to that of Berkeley, is to be found in the metaphysics of Hindostan. The fundamental tenet of one great school of the philosophers of that ancient land of philosophy, is the disbelief of the existence of matter-the phenomena of the seeming material universe being conceived by them to be only an illusive representation which the Deity presents to the mind, (and which they distinguish by the name of Maja :)-while the opposite species of scepticism is to be found in another sect of the philosophers, who disbelieve the existence of mind, and reduce all the phenomena of thought to material organization. The same subtilty and refinement of scepticism, which have led to the systems of materialism and idealism in our Western World, are to be found, we are told, in the corresponding systems of the East.* Why is it that we are struck with no common emotion on finding, in the metaphysics of that distant country, systems of opinions so similar to our own? Is it that the notion of the immense space which separates us, unites with our conception, and impresses us, as it were, with the omnipresence of our own intellectual nature,-when we recognise, on scenes so remote, and in circumstances of society so different, the same thoughts and doubts, and errors, which have perplexed, and occupied, and delighted ourselves? This recognition, in whatever circumstances it may occur, gives to us a feeling of more than kindred,—a sort of identity with the universal nature of *The substance of this reference occurs in the Eleventh Anniversary Discourse.—Works, v. i. p. 165. 4to. Edit. man, in all its times and places. The belief which others share with us seems to be our own belief, which has passed from each to each, or is present to all, like those permanent ideas of which Berkeley speaks, that quit one intellect to exist in another. We cannot separate the thought which we remember from the notion of the mind which we remember to have conceived it; and it seems to us, therefore, not as if similar doubts and errors, but almost as if the very doubts and errors of our own mind, and its ardour of inquiry, and frequent disappointments, and occasional, but rare felicities of discovery, had spread and renewed themselves in a remote existence. It is this recognition of our common nature, which gives the chief interest to scenes that have been occupied with the passions of beings like ourselves. The mountains, which the Titans were fabled to have heaped up in their war against Jupiter, must have excited, even in the most devout believers of Grecian mythology, emotions far less ardent and immediate, than the sight of the humbler cliffs, at which the small Spartan host, and their gallant leader, devoted themselves in the defensive war against the Persian invader. The races of men may perish, but the remembrance of them still lives imperishable, and seems to claim kindred with us, as often as we tread the same soil, or merely think of those who have trod it. "Turn thy sight eastward, o'er the time-hush'd plains, Where is the grove-crown'd Baal, to whose stern frown The very gods of all these countries have perished, but the mortals who bent the knee before them still survive them in the immortality of our common nature, in that universal interest which gives to us a sort of intellectual existence in scenes and times the most remote, and makes the thoughts and emotions of others as it were a part of our own being,-uniting the past, the present, and the future, and blending man with man wherever he is to be found. LECTURE XXIV. THE SAME SUBJECT, CONTINUED. GENTLEMEN, having stated in a former Lecture, the reasons which seemed to show, that the origin of our notion of extension, and of the notions, which it involves, of figure, magnitude, divisibility, is not to be found in our sense of touch, I endeavoured, in my last Lecture, to trace these to their real * Aaron Hill's Free Thoughts on Faith, 220-227. source, cautioning you at the same time, with respect to the great difficulty of the inquiry, and the very humble reliance, therefore, which we can have any title to put on the results of our investigation of a subject so very obscure. In our present circumstances, when we attempt such an investigation, it is impossible for us to derive even the slightest aid, from remembrance of our original feelings; since memory,-which afterwards can look back through so many long and busy years, and comprehend all of life, but the very commencement of it, sees yet, in this dawn of being, a darkness which it cannot penetrate. We have already formed, spontaneously, and without the aid of any one, our little system of physical science, and have, in truth, enriched ourselves with acquisitions, far more important than any which we are afterwards to form, with all the mature vigour of our faculties, and all the splendid aids of traditionary philosophy,-at a time, when we seem scarcely capable of more than of breathing and moving, and taking our aliment, and when the faculties, that leave us so much invaluable knowledge, are to leave us no knowledge of the means, by which we have acquired it. To the period of our first sensations, therefore, we cannot look back; and, hence, all which remains for us, in an inquiry of this kind, is to consider the circumstances in which the infant is placed, and to guess, as nearly as general analogy will allow us, the nature and the order of the feelings, which, in such circumstances, would arise, in a being possessing the powers and susceptibilities of man, but destitute of all the knowledge which man possesses. In these first circumstances of life, the infant, of course, cannot know that he has a bodily frame, or a single organ of that frame, more than he can know, that there are other bodies in nature, that act upon his own; and we are not entitled to suppose, however difficult it may be for us to accommodate our supposition to the true circumstances of the case, that because we, the inquirers, know, that external bodies are pressing on his organ of touch, the little sensitive being is to have any knowledge, but of the mental affections, which these external bodies excite. How the knowledge of any thing more than his own mind is acquired, is, in truth, the very difficulty, which it is our labour to solve. In conformity with this view, then,-when we look on the infant,-one of the most remarkable circumstances, which strike us, is its tendency to use its muscles, with almost incessant exercise, particularly the muscles of those parts, which are afterwards its principal organs of measurement. Its little fingers are continually closing and opening, and its little arms extending and contracting. The feelings, therefore, whatever these may be,-which attend the progressive contraction of those parts,—and some feeling unquestionably attends the contraction in all its stages,-must be continually arising in its mind, beginning and finishing, in regular series, and varying exactly, with the quantity of the contraction. A succession of feelings, however, when remembered by the mind, which looks back upon them, we found to involve, necessarily, the notion of divisibility into separate parts, and, therefore, of length, which is only another name for continued divisibility. Time, in short, is to our conception, a series in constant onward progress, and cannot be conceived by us, but as a progressive series, of which our separate feelings are parts; the remembrance of the events of our life, whenever we take any distant retrospect of them, being like the remembrance of the space, which we have traversed in VOL. I. 30 |