PEOE. EEEEIEE ON KNOWING AND BEING. 119 



sequently, it would be unreasonable to expect that matter in some 

 unknown sense, should be demonstrated to be a contradiction. Such 

 a demonstration is, from the nature of tbe case, impossible ; and just 

 because this is so, it never can be competent for us to affirm matter 

 to be a contradiction. Professor Eerrier, therefore, was right in 

 saying that Berkeley's Ontology, in which necessary conclusions as 

 to Being are drawn from a consideration of the contingent structure 

 of our knowledge, breaks down. The very utmost that Berkeley 

 can be admitted to have made out (even if we subscribe to his Epis- 

 temological doctrine, that the objects of perception are sensible 

 qualities existing in the mind — and allow moreover the conclusive- 

 ness of his reasoning about causes, occasions, and instruments) is, 

 that it is impossible for matter to exist as the substratum of sen- 

 sible qualities, or as the cause, occasion, or instrument of our per- 

 ceptions — a conclusion altogether different from that which he be- 

 lieves himself to have established, viz : that mind is a constituent 

 factor of all existence. 



The affinity between Berkeley and our author plainly consist in two 

 things — first, that both ascribe a subjective character to the objects 

 of our perception (the latter only going further, and maintaining the 

 Ego to be a constituent factor of every object known "i — and secondly, 

 that both reject as absurd, the idea of any thing existing apart from 

 mind. I have endeavored to make it plain that Professor Eerrier's 

 position, that the Ego is an ingredient in every object known; neither 

 has been proved by him, nor (even if true) would admit of being 

 proved. But suppose the enquiry, instead of being extended to all 

 possible knowledge, to be restricted, as it was by Berkeley, to our 

 perceptive cognitions; what shall be said in that case ? Is the 

 object of perception, a synthesis of the Ego and of the JSon-ego ? 

 And if this can be in any sense maintained, how will our conclusions 

 as to what exists be thereby affected ? With a few remarks on these 

 points, I shall bring my paper to a close. 



That both Professor Eerrier and Bishop Berkeley should leave 

 their respective systems not only unproved, but even of an ambiguous 

 import, was an unavoidable result of their having omitted to enter, 

 the one into an exposition of knowledge, and the other into an expo- 

 sition of perception. Berkeley says that sensible qualities are the 

 objects of perception; while, according to Professor Eerrier, the 

 Ego in synthesis with the Non-ego is always the object of perception : 

 but what either statement amounts to, depends on the meaning affixed 

 to the words oljects of perception ; and it is impossible to affix any 

 precise meaning to them until perception itself has been explained. 



