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 dispcusion, 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 " per- 

 ceiving 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 " perceiv- 

 ing 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 actu- 

 ally 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 knowl- 

 edge of substance. " Matter " having been resolved 

 into mere affections of " spirit," " spirit " melts 

 away into an admittedly inconceivable and unknow- 



