6

and professional sympathies. Always acutely sensitive on the subject of the clergy, he must have heartily approved of the resolute stand made by the Irish Church against their assailant. As a natural result, he decided to take part in the deepening conflict, though of course this would be done in his own way, and from his own special point of view. From his refinement and elevation of nature, he could not indeed have much sympathy with the more vulgar denunciations and appeals of sectarian bigotry, or adopt the coarser forms of party warfare. Still, he was a thorough Irishman in his love of conflict, and a thorough Churchman in his resolute defence of the ecclesiastical organisation with which he was identified. And when acutely touched on these points, he could at times be incisive and bitter enough. He thus reflects under more ideal conditions and in a somewhat removed sphere the essential features of Irish Protestantism, its unwavering selfconfidence, its somewhat bristling, but at the same time genial individuality, its narrow and unfruitful but eager, vigorous, and eloquent polemical life, its extraordinary promptitude and dexterity in employing the lighter arts and readier weapons of theological warfare. All Berkeley's greater works, The Principles of Human Knowledge,' The Minute Philosopher,' and The Analyst,' are polemical, and they are all the polemics of a Churchman against those whom he regards, often without sufficient knowledge or inquiry, as enemies of the Church, and therefore, in his view, of religion also. The first is directed against the undevout, or to adopt the trenchant language Berkeley is fond of using, the infidel metaphysician; the second against the undevout or infidel moralist; and the third against the undevout or infidel mathematician. They are all, strictly speaking, apologetics, and they all have marked features in common. Each springs from some strong personal or local impression which acting sympathetically on all the powers of his mind, especially on the imagination and moral sensibilities, calls his intellect into active exercise and supports its efforts till the end suggested by the original feeling is realised. Berkeley required indeed the spur of strong feeling and the stimulus of a practical object to bring his powers fully into play. The local excitement about Toland and his associates supplied both. It gave definiteness of aim, a practical moral purpose to his new studies. The materialistic philosopher, or infidel metaphysician, became the grand object of attack, and he is full of excitement as to the best means of assailing his position. Henceforth the new studies instead of being dry and jejune are full

of life, animation, and interest. He is busy forging weapons and selecting vantage grounds for the grand assault. In the Commonplace Book we see him ranging over the whole scientific and metaphysical field with the keen eye of a captain experienced in the art of moral warfare. We see him reconnoitring the enemy's position, discovering the weak places in his defences, and the points from which they may be most successfully attacked, constructing masked batteries, and exulting at the prospect of uncovering their fire at the critical moment to the consternation and discomfiture of the foe.

Curiously enough, Berkeley found in Cartesianism both the weapons and objects of attack. It supplied in a concentrated form what was to him at once the bane and antidote of speculation. On their mental side the leading Cartesian principles gratified the strongest sympathies of his nature, being eminently spiritual and theistic in their basis as well as in their wider scope and aim. But on their physical side these principles roused his keenest apprehensions and antipathies, as they appeared to him, in tendency at all events, materialistic. Any mechanical theory of the universe was in his view to be rejected as supplying the sceptic and materialist with the theoretical basis of his reasoning. And Descartes' mechanical theory, notwithstanding its supplementary theism, came under this general condemnation. It assumed a physical universe, a world of matter and motion, of bodies and qualities, of natural powers and products, governed in an orderly manner by laws of its own without the direct and incessant intervention of intelligence and will. Descartes' mechanical theory was therefore to be rejected, and, on the same grounds, that of Newton also. In this particular, Berkeley was perfectly impartial, being equally opposed to vortices and gravitation, to any and every theory indeed of matter and motion apart from the direct causal activity of mind. Amongst the earliest entries in the Commonplace Book, we accordingly find I agree in nothing with the Cartesians as to the 'existence of bodies and qualities;' and again, on the first page, Newton begs his principles, I demonstrate mine.' The book abounds with entries of a similar kind all pointing in the same direction. The separation of the physical universe from any immediate dependence on mind was, indeed, in Berkeley's view, the root of all speculative evil. In the un-ideal world resulting from this separation, in the spaces beyond the immediate activity of intelligence and volition, the sceptic escaped as it were from the irresistible presence and power of the Deity, and was able to elaborate at will his atheistic theories

of matter and force equally eternal, and revolving together through endless Epicurean cycles of sensible birth and death, physical renovation and decay. Berkeley's great aim was to extirpate this atheistical conception by destroying the philosophical ground on which it rested, the notions of an independent material substance, and of unmoral or purely physical force. In the Commonplace Book, we see him conning with restless scrutiny the physics and metaphysics of the time, exploring the standard authors of the new philosophy in search of principles that may be made available for his purpose. Whatever promised to be of service in his crusade against matter, or seemed likely to strengthen his position as to the volitional basis of all real power or effective causation in the universe, was at once adopted, and whatever appeared to conflict with these aims, as promptly rejected. This seems to have been the solitary test applied by the eager theist to the principles and details of the new philosophy.

At length the search is rewarded, and he becomes confident of success. He has found, as he thinks, the speculative fulcrum and lever required to dislodge matter from its philosophical position, and topple the sceptical asylum it afforded into the abyss. His new principle will effectually destroy the hateful limbo of heresy and error, and force its unhappy denizens-the whole tribe of infidels, materialists, and atheists-back into the moral and spiritual universe from which they had temporarily escaped. In the Commonplace Book, we see him exulting in the great discovery and filled with intense enthusiasm at the prospect of the mighty revolution it will effect. His pulse evidently beats with a fuller throb as he thinks of the mine he is about to explode beneath the chosen fortress of his foes. As he dwells on the prospect his exultation becomes expansive and almost self-forgetful. He contemplates the glory that will redound to others from their indirect connexion with discoveries so great and beneficent. Thus amongst his jottings is one referring to the Earl of Pembroke, to whom The Principles of Human Knowledge' was dedicated. 'Glorious for P. to be the protector of useful though newly discovered 'truths.' His patriotic feelings even were aroused, and he rejoices in the thought that it is an Irishman who will expose the absurdities and errors of contemporary mathematical and metaphysical reasonings. Referring to what the mathematicians say about insensible extensions, insensible lines and points, he says, 'We Irishmen cannot attain to these truths: we Irishmen can conceive no such lines.' And in special reference to the forthcoming treatise on the Principles of

VOL. CXXXVI. NO. CCLXXVII.

с

6

Knowledge, he says explicitly: I publish not this so much for anything else as to know whether other men have the same ideas as we Irishmen. This is my end, and not to be in'formed as to my own particular.' There is no doubt a touch of humorous irony here. He was perfectly confident as to the truth and value of his discoveries, but he is curious to see how the philosophical world would receive the correction of its numerous and dominant errors by means of Irish ideas.

After all, however, in his crusade against matter, Berkeley derived far more help than hindrance from Cartesianism. So far as his reasonings tell against Descartes' physics, they are only a fresh illustration of the engineer being hoist by his own petard. For he owed to Descartes not only the general impulse to metaphysical study, and many important psychological details, but the very groundwork of his system. His new principle is indeed only a dogmatic development of Descartes' fundamental axiom as to thought and existence. Descartes insisted, as no one had ever done before, that thinking is existing, that thinking cannot even be conceived apart from being, and that in this sense all thought is existencethe only existence of which we have any immediate knowledge; the type and criterion, therefore, of all certainty and truth. This is the well-known starting point of his philosophy: I think, therefore I am; I perceive, remember and imagine, compare, combine and decide; I have sensations and emotions, appetites and passions, desires and volitions: therefore I exist. In other words, thought in all its various manifestations is a reality, is actual being, every state of which I am conscious exists, and in this sense thought is existence. Berkeley seizes intuitively on this central principle, and with characteristic eagerness carries it a step farther. Not content with saying that thought of every kind is existence, he went on to affirm that existence of every kind is thought. If all thought is existence, all existence, said this impetuous logician, must be thought. Nothing could more vividly illustrate Berkeley's whole mind and manner as a thinker and reasoner than this single step in advance. As a rule, he borrowed his fundamental principles from existing philosophies. But not possessing the breadth and balance of mind of the great thinkers from whom he took them, he usually pushed them to extremes. Descartes is satisfied with pronouncing on what lay clearly within the field of his knowledge, that mind as manifested in its various operations is a reality, that thought is, in this sense, existence. But he did not dogmatise about the unknown, did not deny the existence of anything besides

thought. Berkeley, however, has no such hesitation. Heedless of the missing link in the reasoning, he rushes on to the desired conclusion. And the great argument against the existence of any external or material reality, reduced to its simplest form comes to be, Thought is existence, Matter is not thought, therefore Matter has no existence; or to give the same form of reasoning in a more concrete and obvious example, Horses are animals, Sheep are not horses, therefore Sheep are not animals. To this familiar fallacy does Berkeley's reasoning as to the non-existence of an external world come at last. According to his custom, he carried the principle he borrowed one step farther, and this step is, as usual, an illicit one.

Again Berkeley was indebted to Descartes for the highest canon or criterion, as well as for the fundamental principle of his reasoning. This is the celebrated test with regard to the clearness and distinctness of ideas embodied in the well-known Cartesian rule that whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive is true. Berkeley continually employs this test in its Cartesian breadth and universality. It is the ground of his continual appeals to the reader to look into his own mind, and ascertain whether he clearly and distinctly perceives the ideas on which the arguments submitted to him rest, or which the positions assailed involve. This principle, moreover, supplies the basis of his interested quarrel with the mathematicians, the whole force of his retort upon them lying in the alleged inability of the mind to form a clear and distinct idea, which in his language means a mental image or picture, of the fluent and infinitesimal quantities which they assume in their reasonings, and virtually affirm to be real.

Then again, the Cartesian maxim, that we know directly only our own thoughts, the knowledge of anything beyond them being of a secondary, obscure, and doubtful character, is the very corner-stone of Berkeley's idealism. Many passages in Descartes' writings, indeed, state Berkeley's whole theory as a probable if not a necessary hypothesis. The following extract from the Third Meditation will show how completely Berkeley's main line of argument is indicated and even insisted on by Descartes :

'I formerly received and admitted many things as wholly certain and manifest, which yet I afterwards found to be doubtful. What, then, were those? They were the earth, the sky, the stars, and all the other objects which I was in the habit of perceiving by the senses. But what was it that I clearly perceived in them? Nothing more than that the ideas and the thoughts of those objects were presented to my mind.