If there were, indeed, any sceptic as to the existence of an external world, who could seriously profess that his practical conduct was in accordance with his speculative disbelief, we might very justly exercise, with respect to his own profession, that philosophic doubt or disbelief, which he recommends. Pyrrho, the great founder of this philosophy, is, indeed, said to have acted so truly on his principles, that if a cart ran against him, or a dog attacked him, or if he came upon a precipice he would not stir a foot to avoid the danger. “But his attendants,” says Dr Reid, “who happily for him, were not so great sceptics, took care to keep him out of harm's way, so that he lived till he was ninety years of age.”[88] 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,”[89]—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 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.”[90]
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 termed 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, 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 notion 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 is not in those, or in principles of direct intuition, in that species of internal revolution 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 idolism, 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 idolism in our Western World, are to be found, we are told, in the corresponding systems of the East.[91]
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 recognize 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 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,
Now graves of vanish'd empire, once gleam'd o'er
From flames on hallow'd altars, hail'd by hymns