° 
Colonel Kenwepy on the Véddnta System. 431 
and depth, and all those properties which we clearly perceive to belong to 
an extended substance, does really exist. It is this substance which we call 
matter or body.”* 
But Mavresrancue and Berketey, in denying the real existence of 
sensible objects, have approached, in some degree, to the Véddénta system. 
A difference of opinion, however, prevails with respect to the nature of the 
union which the former supposed to exist between the human soul and 
God; and in making God the efficient cause of all secondary causes and 
effects, MaLtesrancue differs entirely from the Véddntica. But in Berxe- 
Ley’s “ Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge” occur several 
passages which correspond very nearly with the speculative doctrine of 
the Védanta. For instance: ‘ It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing 
amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and, in a word, all sensible 
objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being per- 
ceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquies- 
cence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever 
shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive 
it to involve a manifest contradiction, for what are the forementioned 
objects but the things we perceive by sense ; and is it not plainly repugnant 
that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unper- 
ceived?’ Sec. 1v.—‘‘ From what has been said, it follows there is not any other 
substance than spirit, or that which perceives,” Sec. vi1.—‘ But it is evident, 
from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion are 
only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but 
another idea, and that, consequently, neither they nor their archetypes can 
exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence it is plain, that the very notion 
of what is called matter, or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in 
it.” Sec. 1x.—But both Matiesrancue and Berxevey admitted the indivi- 
duality of the soul, and its distinctness from the divine nature; for the lat- 
ter remarks, in the same treatise, ‘‘ From what hath been said, it is plain 
that we cannot know the existence of other spirits otherwise than by their 
operations, or the idea excited by them in us. I perceive several motions, 
changes, and combinations of ideas, that inform me there are certain par- 
ticular agents like myself which accompany them, and concur in their 
* Principiorum Philosophiz, Pars Secunda, sect. I. 
