THOUGHTS ON THE IDEALISM OF BERKELEY. 469 



to grasp fully and appreciate the grand conceptions and hypotheses of that extra- 

 ordinary intellect. This is shown by the insufficiency of many of the objections 

 which have been made to his theory of sense-perception. Let us consider some 

 of them. Does not the Berkelerian theory imply deception on the part of the 

 deity ? The very fact that our common sense tells us that we can only be certain 

 of a sensation in the mind, apparently produced by a sensation of the bodily or- 

 ganism, and that we are able to know that our perception of an object may be 

 a result produced by the Divine Will acting upon our minds, proves the contrary. 

 As well charge the Deity with deception because the intuitive convictions of the 

 ancients rendered it impossible for them to believe in the existence of the anti- 

 podes ! 



The Scottish school urge against the Idealists that the Ideal theory is con- 

 tradictory to the intuitive convictions of the unperverted mind, and that Idealists 

 are opponents of intuitive truth, whose actions betray that their intuitive convic- 

 tions tell them differently from their theory. 



The late Chauncy Wright, in one of his philosophical discussions, pubUshed 

 in the Nation, once showed the weakness of the objection that the Ideal theory is 

 contradictory to the intuitive convictions of the unperverted mind, by showing 

 that the difficulty which even educated men among the ancients felt in conceiv- 

 ing the antipodes was not a difficulty of conceiving the rotundity of the earth, 

 but a difficulty of conceiving men standing on the opposite side of the round 

 earth, without having their feet stuck on, like flies to a ceiling ; and this difficulty 

 was such that these philosophere could not be made to credit its possibility ; in 

 other words, they had one of Dr. McCosh's intuitions on the matter." 



He continues, "The antipodes were incredible to the ancients because they 

 conceived the fact as a simple and unconditional one, and in contradiction of the 

 the equally simple and unconditional fact of their own standing on the earth. 

 And it is because we in modern times are able to resolve both facts into the con- 

 ditions on which they depend, that they are seen not to be contradictory. So 

 long as ' down ' was conceived as an absolute direction in the universe, depend- 

 ent on nothing but its own nature, so long were ti:te antipodes incredible and 

 stood in contradiction of as simple, original, and necessary a belief as ' that two 

 straight lines cannot inclose a space.' In short, the ancients had in this case all 

 the tests which the Scottish school apply as ultimate in the ascertainment of 

 truth." The Idealist does not deny that there is an existence properly enough 

 call the external world, and he questions not about the reality of this existence, 

 but about the kind of reality it has. As Mr. Wright adds, "The existence of 

 undisputed and indisputable facts is denied by no philosopher, and every true 

 philosopher seeks for such facts ; the ' idealists ' and ' sensationalists ' as well as 

 the rest. But idealism was ever a stumbling block to the Scottish school, so 

 much so that their intuitions seem to spring directly from an innate inability in 

 the thinkers of that nation to understand this doctrine. They appear unable to 



