FALLACIES OF CONFUSION. 471 



dant capital there may be a greater population without 

 any increase of poverty, or even with a diminution 

 of it. 



The favourite argument against Berkeley's theory 

 of the non-existence of matter, and the most popularly 

 effective, next to a " grin*" an argument, moreover, 

 which is not confined to " coxcombs," nor to men 

 like Samuel Johnson, of practical understanding, 

 without any particular turn for metaphysical specula- 

 tion, but is the stock argument of the Scotch school 

 of metaphysicians, is a palpable ignoratio elenchi. The 

 argument is perhaps as frequently expressed by ges- 

 ture as by words, and one of its commonest forms 

 consists in knocking a stick against the ground. This 

 short and easy confutation overlooks the fact, that in 

 denying matter, Berkeley did not deny anything to 

 which our senses bear witness, and therefore cannot 

 be answered by any appeal to them. His scepticism 

 related to the supposed substratum, or hidden cause 

 of the appearances perceived by our senses : the 

 evidence of which, whatever may be its conclusive- 

 ness, is certainly not the evidence of sense. And it 

 will always remain a signal proof of the want of meta- 

 physical profundity of Reid, Stewart, and, I am sorry 

 to add, of Brown, that they should have persisted in 

 asserting that Berkeley, if he believed his own doc- 

 trine, was bound to walk into the kennel, or run his 

 head against a post. As if men who do not recog- 

 nise an occult cause of their sensations could not 

 possibly believe that a fixed order subsists among the 

 sensations themselves. Such a want of comprehen- 

 sion of the distinction between a thing and its sensible 

 manifestation, or, in transcendental language, between 



And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin. (POPE), 



