Or on the other hand if I sacrifice consistency and substitute 'actually' for 'potentially,' "I thereby reject the validity of the Psychological method" which asserts "that the belief in an external cause of our sensations" is not original but "generated 'so early as to have become inseparable from our consciousness before the time at which memory commences.' ... Nevertheless, it afterwards admits that the belief in the case of persons, has an external cause. Hereby the method commits suicide, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus."
Finally, he remarks, "the psychological method professes very little regard for our natural beliefs. Now I can, by a vigorous effort, regard matter as mere states or possible states of my consciousness (at least I can do so for the moment), but I can also look on other persons in the same light. Why should one natural belief be treated more tenderly than another?... In short, if I refuse to postulate a non ego, and if I hold that, supposing the states of consciousness I call the ego can be shewn capable of producing the notion of the non ego, then they did produce it, and if I hold that they can be shewn to be so capable, such a theory is equally applicable to external consciousnesses as to external matter. In both cases, I cannot get out of the sphere of my own feelings; there may be something beyond or there may not, but if there is, it is at all events incognisable by me, and to all intents and purposes I am alone in the universe."[128]
In drift and true meaning Bishop Berkeley's Idealism differed toto cælo from Mill's, as well as from Hume's idealistic Scepticism. His belief in a world outside us all was as firm as that of the firmest Realist, and by a world outside us he meant a world which neither we nor our conceptions can alter. His reasoning was also of the most common-sense description. Sensation is (as before said) a sign between us and things outside. But the sign tells us nothing of any substratum on which the things signified depend for their sign-giving powers. Matter (as commonly understood[129]) is a figment devised by certain philosophers;—the true subsistence of the outward world is in and for mind, and apart from thought it does not subsist at all. But my mind, nay the human mind, is limited. There is One whose thoughts are not as our thoughts;—in Him the world subsists, and in Him we also have our Being continually. The world is what it is to us, in and through Him, and it appeals not to our so-called material frames but to our minds.
Berkeley's argument was simply this. Take away gross matter—and the world is still perfectly Real. It is real because God is real. Real for us, real in Him; and by this we know His Reality.[130]
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. Therefore, the Reason remained without satisfaction of any kind, "Most 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 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 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).[131] 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.[132] 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, 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.