1 74 Ph ilosopliy of the Human Bfind. [C ii a p . X I L 



There \va3 only one step more which was left 

 for the most daring metaphysical revolutionists to 

 take, viz. to deny the existence of a spiritual as 

 well as of a material world. This step was at 

 length ventured upon by Mr. Hume *, a scepti- 

 cal metaphysician, whose acuteness and inge- 

 nuity are Avell known. Adopting Mr. Locke's 

 and bishop Berkeley's opinion, that all the im- 

 mediate objects of human knowledge are ideas 

 in the mind, he traced the consequences of this 

 principle to their utmost extent, and contended 

 that there is neither matter nor mind in the 

 universe ! That what we call body is only an as- 

 semblage of sensations; and what w^ call mind 

 only an assemblage of thoughts, passions, and emo- 

 tions, without any subject. On the opposition in 

 which the doctrines of the Irish ecclesiastic and the 

 Scottish historian stand to the common sense and 

 all the spontaneous and the deepest impressions of 

 mankind, it is needless to remark f . Their authors 



* David Hume, the celebrated metaphysician and historian, 

 was bom at Edinburgh, in the year 171I. He was designed for 

 the law by his friends; but having no inclination himself to that 

 profession, he applied to business, and in 1/34 became a clerk to 

 ji merchant at Bristol. Soon afterward he went to France, where 

 lie wrote his Jnaiise of Human Nature, which was published at 

 London in 1739. Between this period and his death he travelled 

 into Italy, Germany, and again, into France. His Moral Es.saj/s 

 were published in 1/42; his Political Discourses, and his Inquiry 

 concerning the Principles of Morals, in 1/52 j his Natural History 

 of Pension in ]756; and his History of England was completed 

 h\ l/ih. He died in J 7/0. 



t The universal scepticism to which the sophistry of Mr. Hume 

 leads, or rather uhich it directly embraces, cannot, witli pro- 

 priety, be considered here. Nor is it necessary. I'hc extrava- 

 gance and the mischievous tendency, especially of some of his 



