By comparing this phase of Idealism with the modern doctrine of what is called the "Conditioned," its Theological interest becomes still more obvious. Suppose we naturally know only what is conditioned (i.e. dependent on some Absolute reality to us unknown), what ought, asks Dr. Mansel, to be the inference? The right inference is that the Divine Absolute did not leave our world in ignorance, but did really reveal Himself to Man.

The fate of arguments framed in special interests, however noble those interests may be, is usually the same. Some clever antagonist allows their destructive force, but refuses their affirmative conclusions. Berkeley's denial of the unknown substratum called matter was approved by sceptics, who scoffed at his unknown God. His idealism was pronounced unanswerable, his divinity needed no answer. Thereto them an absolute Subsistence distinct from their being perceived by any Mind whatever, which I do rot. Besides, is there no Difference between saying, There is a God, therefore he perceives all Things: and saying, Sensible Things do really exist: and if they really exist, they are necessarily perceived by an infinite Mind: therefore there is an infinite Mind, or God? This furnishes you with a direct and immediate Demonstration, from a most evident Principle, of the Being of a God.

Hylas. It cannot be denied, there is something highly serviceable to Religion in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like a Notion entertained by some eminent Moderns, of seeing all things in God?

Phil. I would gladly know that Opinion; pray explain it to me. Hylas. They conceive that the Soul, being immaterial, is incapable of being united with material Things, so as to perceive them in themselves, but that she perceives them by her Union with the Substance of God, which being spiritual, is therefore purely intelligible, or capable of being the immediate Object of a Spirit's Thought. Besides, the Divine Essence contains in it Perfections correspondent to each created Being; and which are, for that Reason, proper to exhibit or represent them to the Mind.

Phil. I do not understand how our Ideas, which are Things altogether passive and inert, can be the Essence, or any Part (or like any Part) of the Essence or Substance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible, purely active. Being. Many more Difficulties and Objections there are, which occur at first View against this Hypothesis, but I shall only add, that it is liable to all the Absurdities of the common Hypotheses in making a created World exist otherwise than in the Mind of a Spirit. Beside all which it has this peculiar to itself; that it makes that material World serve to no Purpose. And if it pass for a good Argument against other Hypotheses in the Sciences, that they suppose Nature or the Divine Wisdom to make something in vain, or do that by tedious round-about Methods, which might have been performed in a much more easy and compendious way, what shall we think of that Hypothesis which supposes the whole World made in vain?

Hylas. But what say you, are not you too of Opinion that we see all Things in God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it.

Phil. I entirely agree with what the Holy Scripture saith, That in God we

kind. any

"Most

fore, the Reason remained without satisfaction of of the writings" says Hume "of that very ingenious author form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title-page (and undoubtedly with great truth,) to have composed his book against the sceptics as well as against the atheists i and freethinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are, in reality, merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction." (Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding. Section XII.) And be it remarked that this final clause forms a skilled definition of Scepticism-its essential notion-given by an expert. Dean Mansel himself who left at his death an unfinished article upon Berkeley, suffered under a charge of promoting what he desired to discourage.. So dangerous is it to deal live, and move, and have our Being. But that we see Things in his Essence after the manner above set forth, I am far from believing. Take here in brief my Meaning. It is evident that the Things I perceive are my own Ideas, and that no Idea can exist, unless it be in a Mind. Nor is it less plain that these Ideas or Things by me perceived, either themselves or their Archetypes exist inde. pendently of my Mind, since I know myself not to be their Author, it being out of my Power to determine at Pleasure what particular Ideas I shall be affected with upon opening my Eyes or Ears. They must therefore exist in some other Mind, whose Will it is they should be exhibited to me. The Things, I say, immediately perceived, are Ideas or Sensations, call them which you will. But how can any Idea or Sensation exist in, or be produced by, anything but a Mind or Spirit? This, indeed, is inconceivable: and to assert that which is inconceivable, is to talk Nonsense: Is it not?

Hylas. Without doubt.

Phil. But on the other hand, it is very conceivable that they should exist in, and be produced by, a Spirit; since this is no more than I daily experience in myself, inasmuch as I perceive numberless Ideas; and by an Act of my Will can form a great Variety of them, and raise them up in my Imagination: Tho' it must be confessed, these Creatures of the Fancy are not altogether so distinct, so strong, vivid, and permanent, as those perceived by my Senses, which latter are called Real Things. From all which I conclude, there is a Mind which affects me every Moment with all the sensible Impressions I perceive. And from the Variety, Order, and Manner of these, I conclude the Author of them to be wise, powerful, and good, beyond comprehension. Mark it well, I do not say, I see Things by perceiving that which represents them in the intelligible Substance of God. This I do not understand; but I say, The Things by me perceived are known by the Understanding, and produced by the Will, of an infinite Spirit. And is not all this most plain and evident? Is there any more in it, than what a little Observation of our own Minds, and that which passes in them not only enables us to conceive, but also obliges us to acknowledge?" Numberless charming quotations might be added from the "Principles" as well as the Dialogues, but those already given may suffice, and they have been chosen now because not very commonly quoted.

with wide questions by narrowing their sweep to a point; yet on the other hand how few students are prepared to read and think widely ?

Shall we attribute to a growing width of Thought, the increased breadth of view under which Idealism has of late years been represented? The German Philosopher, with whom Schwegler closes his philosophic history writes "This ideality or non-substantiality of the finite is the chief maxim of philosophy; and for that reason every true philosophy is idealistic" (Idealismus).* In England Mr. Green of Balliol signalises Berkeley's "true proposition-there is nothing real apart from thought-" and carefully distinguishes it from the one so often substituted for it-the fatal flaw of the Berkeleian argument.† Another influential thinker, Mr. Herbert Spencer,-who, like Professor Huxley, uses materialistic symbols treating them as symbols only, has been for some time labouring after a reconciliation of Realism and Idealism," which again is considered by an able critic,

66

*Hegel Encyklopädie T. i. S. 95. (Werke VI. 189.) The quotation above is from Mr. Wallace's translation p. 153. Compare his Index.

In the just published Edition of Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, I. p. 140. We must all regret the loss of Dean Mansel's ultimate thoughts on "The real error of Berkeley's Idealism." Letters &c. p. 391. But more than a dozen years earlier, he wrote, (Prolegomena Logica, Chap. V.) "The fault of Berkeley did not consist in doubting the existence of matter, but in asserting its non-existence." How far Mansel himself went in the direction of this same doubt may be judged from the following passage, which occurs in the Prolegomena one page before. "Beyond the range of conscious beings, we can have only a negative idea of substance. The name is applied in relation to certain collections of sensible phenomena, natural or artificial, connected with each other in various ways; by locomotion, by vegetation, by contributing to a common end, by certain positions in space. But here we have no positive notion of substance distinct from phenomena. I do not attribute to the billiard ball a consciousness of its own figure, colour, and motion; but, in denying consciousness, I deny the only form in which unity and substance have been presented to me. I have therefore no data for thinking one way or the other on the question. Some kind of unity between the several phenomena may exist, or it may not; but if it does exist, it exists in a manner of which I can form no conception; and if it does not exist, my faculties do not enable me to detect its absence." In other words (as Mr. O' Hanlon might have phrased it)" My friend Smith is I know a person,-therefore a substance. But Smith's hat and coat, being unconscious, lack the only forms in which unity and substance have been presented to me. Smith's coat is, blue, its fabric woollen; his hat black, and of silken texture;-there may or may not be unities in which these phenomena of colour and structural appearance cohere; my faculties do not, however, enable me to decide whether hat and coat are or are not positively substantial unifications.

It would appear from all this, that hats and coats and other familiar so-called substances, are as little essentially known to us as that vast territory of supernatural Being which has been named the " Unknowable."

Mr. Henry Sidgwick, "an impossible compromise."-Mr. Spencer's answer to Mr. Sidgwick, on this particular point, will be found in his recently published volume of "Essays" (III. 282 seq.). A very instructive sentence occurs on p. 290. "Should it be said that this regarding of everything constituting experience and thought as symbolic, has a very shadowy aspect; I reply that these which I speak of as symbols, are real relatively to our consciousness; and are symbolic only in their relation to the Ultimate Reality."

So much then for a question which in a variety of shapes has exercised the human intellect throughout countless generations, and in all countries from India to the United States. It has also pervaded all spheres of Thought from physical science, (on which compare further, Additional Note I., and our next chapter), to the great philosophico-theological domain as we have already seen in certain specimens of Western thought. It would be easy to illustrate its empire far more extensively from those wonderful Eastern systems brought home to English readers thirty-six years ago by the translation of Ritters' Ancient Philosophy, but very imperfectly comprehended even now, notwithstanding the agreeable reception which Professor Max Müller has provided for them. To his writings we will gladly refer the curious student.

E. ON THE RELATIONS OF FACT AND THEORY.

"The distinction between Theory (that is, true Theory) and Fact is this that in Theory the Ideas are considered as distinct from the Facts in Facts, though Ideas may be involved, they are not, in our apprehension, separated from the sensations. In a Fact, the Ideas are applied so readily and familiarly, and incorporated with the sensations so entirely, that we do not see them, we see through them. A person who carefully notes the motion of a star all night, sees the circle which it describes as he sees the star, though the circle is, in fact, a result of his own Ideas. A person who has in his mind the measures of different lines and countries on the earth's surface, and who can put them together into one conception, finds that they can make no figure but a globular one: to him, the earth's globular form is a Fact, as much as the square form of his chamber. A person to whom the grounds of believing the earth to travel round the sun are as familiar as the grounds for believing the movements of the mail coaches in this country, looks upon the former event as a Fact, just

as he looks upon the latter events as Facts. And a person who, knowing the Fact of the earth's annual motion, refers it distinctly to its mechanical cause, conceives the sun's attraction as a Fact, just as he conceives as a Fact, the action of the wind which turns the sails of a mill. He cannot see the force in either case; he supplies it out of his own Ideas. And thus, a true Theory is a Fact; a Fact is a familiar Theory. That which is a Fact under one aspect, is a Theory under another. The most recondite Theories when firmly established are Facts; the simplest Facts involve something of the nature of Theory. Theory and Fact correspond, in a certain degree, with Ideas and Sensations, as to the nature of their opposition. But the Facts are Facts, so far as the Ideas have been combined with the Sensations and absorbed in them: the Theories are Theories, so far as the Ideas are kept distinct from the Sensations, and so far as it is considered still a question whether those can be made to agree with these.

"We may, as I have said, illustrate this matter by considering man as interpreting the phenomena which he sees. He often interprets without being aware that he does so. Thus when we see the needle move towards the magnet, we assert that the magnet exercises an attractive force on the needle. But it is only by an interpretative act of our own minds that we ascribe this motion to attraction. That, in this case, a force is exerted-something of the nature of the pull which we could apply by our own volition-is our interpretation of the phenomena; although we may be conscious of the act of interpretation, and may then regard the attraction as a Fact.

"Nor is it in such cases only that we interpret phenomena in our own way, without being conscious of what we do. We see a tree at a distance, and judge it to be a chestnut or a lime; yet this is only an inference from the colour or form of the mass according to preconceived classifications of our own. Our lives are full of such unconscious interpretations. The farmer recognizes a good or a bad soil; the artist a picture of a favourite master; the geologist a rock of a known locality, as we recognize the faces and voices of our friends; that is, by judgments formed on what we see and hear; but judgments in which we do not analyze the steps, or distinguish the inference from the appearance. And in these mixtures of observation and inference, we speak of the judgment thus formed, as a Fact directly observed.

"Even in the case in which our perceptions appear to be most direct, and least to involve any interpretations of our own,-in the simple process of seeing,-who does not know how much we, by an