100 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. ii 



meant some being distinct from God, as well as from 

 the laws of nature and things perceived by sense, I 

 must confess that word is to me an empty sound, 

 without any intelligible meaning annexed to it.] 

 Nature in this acceptation is a vain Chimcera intro- 

 duced by those heathens, who had not just notions of 

 the omnipresence and infinite perfection of God." 



Compare Seneca (De Beneficiis, iv. 7) : 



" Natura, inquit, hsec mihi praestat. Non intelli- 

 gis te, quum hoc dicis, mutare Nomen Deo? Quid 

 enim est aliud Natura quam Deus, et divina ratio, 

 toti mundo et partibus ejus inserta? Quoties voles 

 tibi licet aliter hunc auctorem rerum nostrarum com- 

 pellare, et Jovem ilium optimum et maximum rite 

 dices, et tonantem, et statorem : qui non, ut historici 

 tradiderunt, ex eo quod post votum susceptum acies 

 Romanorum fugientum stetit, sed quod stant bene- 

 ficio ejus omnia, stator, stabilitorque est : hunc eun- 

 dem et fatum si dixeris, non mentieris, nam quum 

 f atum nihil aliud est, quam series implexa causarum, 

 ille est prima omnium causa, ea qua cseterae pen- 

 dent." It would appear, therefore, that the good 

 Bishop is somewhat hard upon the " heathen," of 

 whose words his own might be a paraphrase. 



There is yet another direction in which Berke- 

 ley's philosophy, I will not say agrees with Gau- 

 tama's, but at any rate helps to make a fundamental 

 dogma of Buddhism intelligible. 



" I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, 

 and vary and shift the scene as often as I think fit. 

 It is no more than willing, and straightway this or 

 that idea arises in my fancy : and by the same power 



