4 JO ON ANCIENT AND MCTDEEN SKEPTICS. 



I agree witii M. Des Cartes : but this propensity, natural as it is, does not 

 force our belief by evidence ; it only inclines us to believe by impression. 

 Now we ought not to be determined in our judgments by any thing but 

 light and evidence-: if w€ suffer ourselves to be guided by the sensible 

 impression, we shall be almost always mistaken."* 



Thus stood the question when the very learned and excellent Bishop of 

 Cloyne, Dr. George Berkeley, entered upon its investigation. For Locke, 

 as we have already seen, boldly overleaped the Cartesian toll-gate of 

 doubting, and was content to take the knowledge of our own existence 

 upon the authority of intuition, that of a God upon the authority of demon- 

 stration, and that of external objects upon the authority of our senses. 

 Berkeley had minutely studied the rival systems of Des Cartes and Locke. 

 With the latter he agreed, that there is no such thing as innate ideas, and 

 with the former, that the creed of a philosopher should be founded upon 

 proof. But Locke had not proved the existence of an external world : he 

 had only sent us to our senses, and had left the questions between our- 

 selves and the evidence they offer ; and though this is an evidence which 

 Locke had assented to, Bishop Berkeley conceives it is an evidence that 

 every man ought to examine and sift for himself Upon this point, then, 

 he deserted Locke for his rival, and commenced a chase for proofs : 



He would not, with a peremptory tone, 

 Assert the nose upon his face his own ; 



and looked around him for demonstrative evidence whether there be any 

 thing in nature besides the Creator and a created mind. And the well- » 

 known result of the chase was that he could discover nothing else : he 

 could discover neither a material world nor matter of any kind ; neither 

 corporeal objects nor corporeal senses, with which to feel about for objects ; 

 he could not even discover his own head and ears, his own hands, feet, or 

 voice, as substantive existences ; and the whole that he could discover was 

 proofs to demonstrate not onjy that these things have no substantive exist- 

 ence, but that it is impossible they could have any such existence ; or in 

 other words, that it is impossible that there can be any such thing as matter 

 under any modification whatever, cognizable by mental faculties. 



Let us, however, attend to the limitation that external objects can have 

 no substantive or material existence, for otherwise we shall give a carica- 

 ture view of this hypothesis, (which it by no means stands in need of,) and 

 ascribe to it doctrines and mischievous results which, if it be candily ex- 

 aminq^, will not be found chargeable to it. Dr. Beattie, from not adverting 

 to this limitation, appears, in his humorous description of the Bishop of 

 Cloyne's principles, to have been mistaken upon several points ; and it is 

 but justice to the memory of a most excellent and exemplary prelate, as 

 well as enlightened philosopher, to correct the errors into which his equally 

 excellent and enlightened opponent has fallen. When Berkeley asserts 

 that he can prove that there is nothing in existence but a Creator and created 

 mind, and that matter, and, consequently, material objects and material 

 organs have not, and cannot have a being, he does not mean, as Dr. Beattie 

 has represented him to mean, that he liimself, or his own mind, is the 

 only created being in the universe ;t not that external objects and external 

 quj^lities do not and cannot exist independent of, and distinct from, created 



* Recherche de la Verite, torn. iii. pp. 30. 39, 

 t Beattie on Truth, Sre.p, 159. 



