ON ANCIENT AND MODERN SKEPTICS. 



o67 



world, is still abundantly absurd in a philosophical point of view. Yet so 

 fully had Berkeley persuaded himself of its truth, that he had the firmest con- 

 viction that if the world be, as it is said to be, composed of men, women, and 

 children of a corporeal and material make, with ground beneath our feet and 

 a sky over our heads, every body must in his heart believe as he believed, 

 namely, that there are no such women or children, no such ground, sky, or 

 any thing else but mind and mental perception. Nevertheless, whichsoever 

 creed be true, he contended that it could make no difference in the regulation 

 of our moral conduct ; which he endeavours to prove by the following nota- 

 ble strain of argument : " That nothing gives us interest in the material world 

 except the feehngs, pleasant or painful, which accompany our perceptions ; 

 that these perceptions are the same whether we believe the material world to 

 exist or not to exist ; consequently, that our pleasant or painful feelings are 

 also the same ; and therefore that our conduct, which depends on our feelings 

 and perceptions, must be the same whether we believe or disbelieve the ex- 

 istence of matter." 



The more we reflect upon the native vigour and acuteness of Bishop Berke- 

 ley's mind, as well as upon his extensive information and learning, the more 

 we must feel astonished that he could for one moment be serious in the pro- 

 fession of so wild and chimerical a creed. And to those who are not ac- 

 quainted with the subject it may perhaps appear impossible for the utmost 

 stretch of human ingenuity to push such a revery any farther. 



To the possession of such ingenuity, how^ever, the celebrated author of the 

 " Treatise on Human Nature" is fairly and fully entitled. This notable per- 

 formance, though published anonymously, is well known to be the production 

 of Mr. Hume; and though, in the Essays to which his name appears, he 

 makes some scruple of acknowledging it, and hints at its containing a few 

 points which he subseqently thought erroneous, he maintains, in his avowed 

 volumes, the same principles and the consequences of those principles so 

 generally, that it is difficult to understand what errors he would wish the world 

 to suppose he had ever retracted. 



In mounting into the sublime regions of metaphysical absurdity. Bishop 

 Berkeley furnished him with the ladder ; but, as 1 have already hinted, Hume 

 ascended it higher, and consequently, in his own opinion, had a more correct 

 and extensive view of the airy scene before him. 



If, said he, there be nothing in nature but mind and the perceptions of 

 mind, — perceptions diversified, indeed, by being sometimes stronger and some- 

 times weaker, and which may hence be properly distinguished by the names 

 of impressions and ideas, — how do we know that we possess a mind any 

 more than that we possess a body, which no reasonable man or philosopher 

 can possibly think of contending for ] How do we know that there is any 

 thing more than impressions and ideas ? This is the utmost we can know ; 

 and even this we cannot know to a certainty : for nobody but fools will pre- 

 tend certainly to kno'w or to believe any thing. These ideas and impressions 

 follow each other, and are therefore conjoined, but we have no proof that 

 there is any necessary connexion between them. They are " a bundle of 

 perceptions that succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, and are in a 

 perpetual flux ;"* and hence I myself of to-day am no more the I myself of 

 yesterday or to-morrow, than I am Nebuchadnezzar or Cleopatra. 



Now all this nonsense in Bishop Berkeley, even had his lordship gone so 

 far, which, however, he did not do, we could laugh at; for his mind was of 

 too excellent a cast to mean mischief. But it is impossible to make the same 

 allowance to Mr. Hume, since the doctrines he attempts to build upon this 

 nonsense eff"ectually prevent us from doing so. 



If the mind of every man become every moment a different being, all pu- 

 nishment for crime must be absurd ; for you can never hit the culpril, who is 

 every moment slipping through your fingers, and may as well hang the sheriff 

 as the thief. No philosopher, it seems, can even dream of belfeving in an 



* Treat, on Human Nat. vol. i. p. 438, &c. 



