84 HISTORT of the SOCIEfr. 



nions maintained by Dr Berkeley concerning the exiftence of 

 matter. The two fyftems do indeed agree in one material point, 

 but differ effentially in the reft. They agree in maintaining, 

 that the conceptions of the mind are not copied from things of 

 the fame kind exifting without it ; but they differ in this, that Dr 

 Berkeley imagined that there is nothing at all external, and 

 that it is by the direct agency of the Deity that fenfation and 

 perception are produced in the mind. Dr Hutton holds, on 

 the other hand, that there is an external exiftence, from which 

 the mind receives its information, and by the action of which, 

 impreflions are made on it ; but impreffions that do not at all 

 refemble the powers by which they are caufed. 



The reafonings alfo by which the two theories are fupported, 

 are very diilimilar, though perhaps they fo far agree, that if Dr 

 Berkeley had been better acquainted with phyfics,and had made 

 it more a rule to exclude all hypothecs, he would have arrived pre- 

 cifely at the fame conclufion with Dr Hutton. Indeed, I cannot 

 help being of opinion, that every one will do fo, who, in invefti- 

 gating the origin of our perceptions, determines to reafon with- 

 out affuming any hypothefis, and without taking for granted 

 any of thofe maxims which the mind is difpofed to receive, ei- 

 ther, as fome philofophers fay, from habit, or, as others main- 

 tain, from an inftinctive determination, (fuch as has been term- 

 ed common fenfe) that admits of no analyfis. Though this may 

 not be the kind of reafoning beft fuited to the fu eject, yet it is fo 

 analogous to what fucceeds in other cafes, that it is good to have 

 an example of it, and, on that account, were it for nothing elfe, the 

 theory we are now fpeaking of certainly merits more attention 

 than it has yet met with *. The great fize of the book, and the 



obfcurity 



* I have hardly found this work of Dr Hutton 's quoted by any writer of 

 eminence, except by Dr Par, in his Spital Sermon, a trad: no lefs remarkable for 

 learning and acutenefs, than for the liberality and candour of the fentiments which, 

 it contains. 



