EPICURUS, BERKELEY, HUME. 7 



thing as Matter. Hume's philosophy was founded on this 

 basis, and was rendered further preposterous and extrava- 

 gant by his plunging at once into the dark, as far as sceptii 

 cism could possibly go, with the wild and spectral inference 

 that : Because the existence of Matter could not be 

 demonstrated, therefore the existence of no Reality could 

 be demonstrated, and hence there is no such thing as 

 Reality. Now if human reasoning leads men of intellect 

 to conclusions like these, leaving the disciples of the phy- 

 sicists, on the one hand, with the proposition that there 

 is nothing but Matter as their creed ; and, on the other, 

 arrays the metaphysicians round the counter-proposition, 

 that Matter cannot be demonstrated, and hence there is no 

 such thing as Matter, and the sceptics at the back of these 

 to draw their wild and wide conclusion from both sides 

 of the controversy, and, if they have a mind, state it in 

 a syllogistic negative thus : As nothing but matter can 

 touch or be touched, and the existence of matter cannot be 

 demonstrated, there can be no other tangible reality than matter, 

 and the existence of no tangible reality can be demonstrated 

 the result is surely disastrous only to man's intelligence. 



It is melancholy to find men of thought and unquestion- 

 able power contented thus to pervert the great qualities 

 of Godlike intellect, and, in deference to their own pet and 

 favourite theories, leave the grand questions of eternal 

 truth in this state. It is so easy in such directions to 

 reason a little way above the average intellectual energy 

 of mankind, that it becomes just the more deeply and 

 indelibly reprehensible to stir up mere sediment into the 

 fountain of truth, and leave the common mind to grope in 

 the darkness of its muddled and inky waters. And yet 

 such is the condition in which partizan philosophy has 

 left this noble department of inquiry and thought. 



In the preceding summary we have condensed this 

 subject, and stated its substance rather than its detail, that 



