4 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



the operations of the bodies in it upon our fenfes, we could have had 

 mo knowledge at all, not even of our own exiftence. What, there- 

 fore, muft we think of fuch philofophers, as Bifhop Berkeley and 

 Mr David Hume ? The former denied that the material world had 

 any real exiftence ; and maintained that all the appearances in it, 

 which affe£t fo much both our minds and bodies, are mere illufions 

 or phantafms. The Bifhop, I am perfuaded, maintained this ftrange 

 hypothefis with the view of ftriking at the root of materialifm : But 

 he fhould have confidered, that at the fame time he ftruck at the root 

 of all human knowledge, even the knowledge of our own exiftence. 

 But our Scotch philofopher, Mr Hume, has gone ftill farther 

 than the Bifhop, and has maintained that we have no evidence of 

 the exiftence of Mind any more than of Body, not even of our own 

 minds ; though he acknowledges that we have perceptions, and fays, 

 that we are a bundle of perceptions, but have no mind from which 

 they proceed *. This is carrying fcepticifm farther ftill than Bifhop 

 Berkeley has done, and farther, I believe, than ever it was carried 

 before. 



But the reader, I am perfuaded, will think that it would be impro- 

 per to fpend more time in fhewing the abfurdity of thefe dreams, (thefe 

 aegri Jomnia^ as they may be called), proceeding all from the negledt 

 of the antient philolbphy, and from the vain endeavour to fubftitute 

 fomething better in its place. I will therefore proceed in the great 

 work I have undertaken of proving the Being and Attributes of God 

 from his works ; which I fuppofe to have a real exiftence ; for 

 otherwife I think there could be no proof of his Being and Attri- 

 butes. • 



CHAP. 



* See what I hate faid, of Mr Hume's Philofophy on this fubjeiV, in toI i. of this 

 work, p. 4 '8, and 419. 



