v.] " MODERN SYMPOSIUM." 63 



truth, calculated to promote, in many ways, the 

 welfare of mankind. The science of such a writer is 

 very likely to be sound and valuable, and what he 

 tells us about woorara-poison and frogs' legs, and 

 acute mania, will probably be worthy of serious 

 attention. But with his philosophy it is quite other- 

 wise. When he has proceeded as far in subjective 

 analysis as he has in the study of nerves, our 

 materialist will find that it was demonstrated, a 

 century ago, that the group of phenomena consti- 

 tuting the table has no real existence whatever in a 

 philosophical sense. For by " reality " in philosophy 

 is meant "persistence irrespective of particular con- 

 ditions," and the group of phenomena constituting a 

 table persists only in so far as it is held together in 

 cognition. Take away the cognising mind, and the 

 colour, form, position, and hardness of the table all 

 the attributes, in short, that characterise it as matter 

 at once disappear. That something remains we 

 may grant, but this something is unknown and un- 

 knowable : it is certainly not the group of phenomena 

 constituting the table. Apart from consciousness 

 there are no such things as colour, form, position, or 

 hardness, and there is no such thing as matter. 

 This great truth, established by Berkeley, is the very 

 foundation of modern scientific philosophy ; and, 



