PHENOMENON AND NOUMENON 



denied the Noumenon. " It is a mere abstrac- 

 tion," he says. " If it is unknown, unknowable, 

 it is a figment, and I will have none of it; for it 

 is a figment worse than useless ; it is pernicious, 

 as the basis of all atheism. If by matter you 

 understand that which is seen, felt, tasted, and 

 touched, then I say matter exists : I am as firm 

 a believer in its existence as any one can be, and 

 herein I agree with the vulgar. If, on the con- 

 trary, you understand by matter that occult 

 substratum which is not seen, not felt, not tasted, 

 not touched, — that of which the senses do not, 

 cannot inform you, — then I say I believe not 

 in the existence of matter, and herein I differ 

 from the philosophers^ and agree with the vul- 

 gar!^ ^ The " grin," therefore, with which " cox- 

 combs " sought to " vanquish Berkeley " re- 

 vealed only their incapacity to understand him. 

 Nevertheless, the antagonism between Idealism 

 and common sense remains, though its position 

 is shifted ; as appears from the expressions of a 

 very able idealist, the late Professor Ferrier, 

 when he says that Berkeley sided with those 

 " who recognize no distinction between the real- 

 ity and the appearance of objects, and repudi- 

 ating the baseless hypothesis of a world existing 



mental error, — an error which has been adopted by Positiv- 

 ism, and which vitiates that system of philosophy from begin- 

 ning to end. 



^ Lewes, History of Philosophy, 3d edition, vol. ii. p. 284. 

 109 



