698 Hyld-Idealism : a Defence. [December, 
After this I need not seriously controvert any of the argu- 
ments brought forward, more especially as. their premises 
are chiefly of the “ intuitive ” order, and as their logical 
sequence and the language in which they are couched are 
sometimes not very comprehensible to an ordinary intelledt. 
Mr. Billing, however, represents some of them as “ the 
commonest of surface reasoning,” and I will not cavil at 
this description, which, perhaps, is not so completely irre- 
concilable with my own impression as may at first sight 
appear. 
Having thus happily agreed with my adversary, I proceed 
to set forth in some detail a side of the Hylo-Idealist posi- 
tion which has scarcely received the attention it deserves. 
Such misconceptions as that of F. P. L., in your July num- 
ber, are very natural, occur frequently, and therefore deserve 
to be carefully noticed and corrected. Mr. Billing falls into 
a similar mistake in his remarks on the oft-quoted saying that 
“ Man is the measure of all things also when he alleges 
“ analytical dissedtion, observation, and experiment,” which 
“ render Science possible ” ; also the fadts of “ geology and 
astronomy ” as disproving Hylo-Idealism. 
The difficulty is briefly as follows : — If “ things ” are 
“ thinks,” how can they be realities as well ? If matter is 
ideal, how can ideas be the produdts of a material brail? ? I 
hope in the course of this article to dispel the perplexity, 
which really arises from an ambiguity in the use of the 
words “matter” and “things.” I must begin by very briefly 
indicating the position and basis of Universal Scepticism. 
Berkeley (by no means a Universal Sceptic !) argued that 
we have no right to attribute to the objedts about us any 
existence independent of the mind. We ought not to assume 
that they are anything more than groups of our own 
sensations. Matter is a mere fidtion. Byron writes in 
“ Don Juan ” : — 
“ When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter, 
And proved it, ’t was no matter what he said.” 
But we cannot treat the subjedb quite so lightly. Of course 
Berkeley proved no such thing ; he proved only the insuffi- 
ciency of the ordinary grounds for asserting that there is a 
reality underlying material phenomena. 
Hume went a step farther. He showed that if we have 
no reason for believing in the existence of matter as dis- 
tinct from material phenomena, neither have we any reason 
for believing in the existence of mind (or “ spirit ”) as dis- 
tindt from mental phenomena. He saw in the mind simply 
