Si HISTORT of the SOCIETY. 



tion from fome external power. But though, according to this 

 reafoning, there be no refemblance between the world without 

 us, and the notions that we form of it, though magnitude and 

 figure, though fpace, time and motion, have no exiftence but in 

 the mind ; yet our perceptions being confiftent, and regu- 

 lated by conftant and uniform laws, are as much realities 

 to us, as if they were the exact copies of things really exifting ; 

 they equally intereft our happinefs, and mufl equally determine 

 our conduct. They form a fyftem, not dependent on the mind 

 alone, but dependent on the action which certain external caufes 

 have upon it. The whole doctrine, therefore, of moral obliga- 

 tion, remains the fame in this fyftem, and in that which main- 

 tains the perfect refemblance of our ideas to the caufes by which 

 they are produced. 



Many philofophers have regarded our ideas as very imper- 

 fect reprefentations of external things ; but Dr Hutton consi- 

 ders their perfect dimmilitude as completely proved. Plato 

 has likened the mind to an eye, fo fituated, as to fee nothing 

 but the faint images of objects projected on the bottom of a dark 

 cave, while the objects themfelves are entirely concealed ; but he 

 thinks, that by help of philofophy, the mental eye may be di- 

 rected toward the mouth of the cave, and may perceive the ob- 

 jects in their true figure and dimensions. But, with Dr Hut- 

 ton, the figures feen at the bottom of the cave have no refem- 

 blance to the originals without ; nor can man, by any contri- 

 vance, hold communication with thofe originals, nor ever know 

 any thing about them, except that they are not what they feem 

 to be, and have no property in common with the figures which 

 denote their exiftence. In a word, external things are no more 

 like the perceptions they give rife to, than wine is fimilar to in- 

 toxication, or opium to the delirium which it produces. 



It has been already remarked, that this fyftem, however pe- 

 culiar in other refpects, involves in it the fame principles of mo- 

 rals 



