100 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS n 



being distinct from God, as well as from the laws of 

 nature and things perceived by sense, I must confess 

 that word is to me an empty sound, without any 

 intelligible meaning annexed to it.] Nature in this 

 acceptation is a vain Chimcera introduced by those 

 heathens, who had not just notions of the omni 

 presence and infinite perfection of God." 



Compare Seneca (De Beneficiis, iv. 7) : 



" Natura, inquit, hsec mihi prsestat. Non intelligis 

 te, quum hoc dicis, mutare Nomen Deo 1 Quid enim 

 est aliud Natura quam Deus, et divina ratio, toti 

 mundo et partibus ejus inserta ? Quoties voles tibi 

 licet aliter hunc auctorem rerum nostrarum com- 

 pellare, et Jovem ilium optimum et maximum rite 

 dices, et tonantem, et statorem : qui non, ut historic! 

 tradiderunt, ex eo quod post votum susceptum acies 

 Romanorum f ugientum stetit, sed quod stant beneficio 

 ejus omnia, stator, stabilitorque est : hunc eundem et 

 fatum si dixeris, non mentieris, nam quum fatum 

 nihil aliud est, quam series implexa causarum, ille est 

 prima omnium causa, ea qua caeterse pendent." It 

 would appear, therefore, that the good Bishop is 

 somewhat hard upon the 'heathen,' of whose words 

 his own might be a paraphrase. 



There is yet another direction in which Berkeley's 

 philosophy, I will not say agrees with Gautama's, but 

 at any rate helps to make a fundamental dogma of 

 Buddhism intelligible. 



" I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, 

 and vary and shift the scene as often as I think fit. 

 It is no more than willing, and straightway this or 

 that idea arises in my fancy : and by the same power, 



