MATTER AND "MIND-STUFF" 345 



questions, the theme of themes that the greatest 

 of intellects have always delighted to dwell upon. 



Huxley to some extent, of course, was a follower 

 of Hume. And Tyndall, if his studies had gone 

 far enough, would, we think, have been a Humist 

 too. We owe much to Hume for having cleared 

 the atmosphere. And yet " this insubstantial 

 pageant," a series of perceptions, must be in 

 something or some things that can perceive. 



That seems to have been Hume's error. The 

 perceptions imply something that perceives and 

 " the baseless fabric of this vision," though base- 

 less in so far as it is nothing more than a series 

 of perceptions, yet bears testimony to the perci- 

 pient mind. 



We may regard nature as perceptions, bearing a 

 certain and invariable relationship to each other, 

 the mind-stuff of which it is composed being in 

 fact perception in the universal mind which con- 

 stitutes the " great ocean of thought " in which we 

 live and move and have our being. The eternal 

 laws which govern it, the universal rhythm which 

 prevails throughout its ever-changing forms : the all- 

 pervading harmony that operates throughout it, 

 from the infinitely great to the infinitely small, and 

 in the future as well as in the past, enables us to 

 perceive more clearly than we have ever done before 

 the universal principles that govern, that regulate, 

 or that constitute that intelligence, and which 

 enables us to perceive that Nature is only a per- 

 ception or a mode of mind. This was Berkeley's 



