98 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS n 



do not stand for different ideas or, in truth, for any 

 idea at all, but for something which is very different 

 from ideas, and which, being an agent, cannot be like 

 unto or represented by any idea whatever [though it 

 must be owned at the same time, that we have some 

 notion of soul, spirit, and the operations of the mind, 

 such as willing, loving, hating, inasmuch as we know 

 or understand the meaning of these words "]. (The 

 Principles of Human Knowledge, Ixxvi. See also 

 Ixxxix., cxxxv., cxlv.) 



It is open to discussion, I think, whether it is 

 possible to have ' some notion ' of that of which we 

 can form no ' idea.' 



Berkeley attaches several predicates to the 

 " perceiving active being mind, spirit, soul or myself " 

 (Parts I. II.) It is said, for example, to be " indi- 

 visible, incorporeal, unextended, and incorruptible." 

 The predicate indivisible, though negative in form, 

 has highly positive consequences. For, if ' perceiving 

 active being ' is strictly indivisible, man's soul must 

 be one with the Divine spirit : which is good Hindu 

 or Stoical doctrine, but hardly orthodox Christian 

 philosophy. If, on the other hand, the ' substance ' 

 of active perceiving ' being ' is actually divided into 

 the one Divine and innumerable human entities, 

 how can the predicate ' indivisible ' be rigorously 

 applicable to it? 



Taking the words cited, as they stand, they amount 

 to the denial of the possibility of any knowledge of 

 substance. ' Matter ' having been resolved into mere 

 affections of ' spirit,' ' spirit ' melts away into an 

 admittedly inconceivable and unknowable hypostasis 



