To this extent Berkeley appears to us, not only to be unanswerable, but to produce conviction. That ' matter' and 'substance,' used in any other sense than that of the idea of resistance derived from the touch, are merely unmeaning sounds, and that the endless disputes to which they have given occasion and of which numerous illustrations are to be found, e.g. in Bayle's Dictionary, are mere unmeaning beatings of the air, appear to us self-evident propositions when they are once fully understood.

They are indeed so clear to those who receive them at all that the minute and patient ingenuity with which Berkeley unravels and refutes every conceivable objection to them becomes at last wearisome. More ingenious writing than is to be found in the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous does not exist anywhere; yet, after all, it all comes down to this: The sum total of our perceptions constitutes the sum total of our knowledge of things without us. There are no

other things that we know of except our perceptions. To be, and to be perceived, are two ways of expressing the same thought, of which one very simple proof is this, that not to be and not to be perceived are obviously identical. What do we mean when we say that there is no money in a purse, except that no one can see or feel any, when they look or put their fingers into it?

There can, we think, be no doubt that, by the vigorous manner in which he preached this doctrine, Berkeley did considerably simplify speculation. At

least he contributed greatly to the growth of the only school of thought which has resolutely turned its mind away from the fantastic and utterly incomprehensible puzzles into which every one may, and indeed must, be driven who supposes that he has some truer and deeper knowledge of things than the aggregate of what his senses tell him.

It appears to us, however, that the great achievement of Berkeley was of this negative kind, and that when he tried to raise a general system of philosophy upon the negative basis which he thus laid down, he failed conspicuously. His great leading doctrine on this subject was that, as esse and percipi are identical, and inasmuch as things exist when I do not perceive them, there must be some other being who does perceive them; and as this applies to every finite creature, there must be an infinite percipient being who always perceives everything, and so gives it existence. The whole world is thus the thought of God.

There is a certain sublimity about this way of viewing the subject, yet it has also its grotesque side. When I leave this room all the furniture in it would cease to be till somebody else came in and looked at it, if the fact that it is perceived by God did not keep it in esse. This might be exactly expressed by saying, in the language of English conveyancing, that Berkeley regarded his Maker as a universal trustee to preserve contingent remainders.

His theory, if worked out consistently, leads,

not to the doctrine that there must be a God to perceive the things which I do not perceive, but that I cannot affirm that the things exist except when I perceive them; and that when I assert that they exist in my absence, all that I mean is that I should perceive them if I were in different circumstances from those in which I actually am. I actually know nothing but my own perceptions. What other people's perceptions may be is only matter of inference, and what God's perceptions may be is matter of remote and difficult inference. Now if it be true that God's perceptions of things differ entirely from man's perceptions, so that where, for instance, man perceives a flat solid piece of wood, God perceives something infinitely more elaborate than any microscope could show to any man, it will follow that as soon as I cease to look at the piece of wood in question the flat solid surface will not be perceived-which is equivalent, in Berkeley's system, to saying it will not exist till I look at it again. It does not exist in God's mind, for that which does exist in God's mind is something altogether different. The idea has to be received into my mind before it can take the particular shape which I perceive before it can be itself. The fact, therefore, that when I come back to the room where it is, I see it where I left it, does not prove that there must have been a God taking care of it for me in the interval, for what God perceives is not my perception, but his.

The substance of what Berkeley established appears

to us to be that the whole of our knowledge of things other than ourselves, is made up of the sum total of our perceptions, and that these perceptions are external to us in the sense of being permanent, or at all events of recurring permanently, and according to fixed rules, and of being altogether independent of our own will, by which they are sufficiently distinguished from mere hallucinations created by disease, or chimeras produced by the voluntary exertions of our own imaginations a sufficient answer, by the way, to the absurdly small wit which has often been levelled at Berkeley, for not getting run over by carts, etc. - and that such words as 'matter' and 'substance,' and such inquiries as the question whether matter is or is not infinitely divisible and the like, are simply unmeaning nonsense, about which people ought not to waste time which might be better employed.

If any one wishes to see how little real extravagance there is in Berkeley's doctrine, and how very much truth there is in his assertion that he was the real enemy of scepticism and also of mystifications of all kinds, and the real friend of common sense, he had better study the three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, in which all the popular objections to his theory are discussed and dissipated with perfectly marvellous ingenuity.

We have seen a copy of this work, the owner of which had attempted to sum up the controversy between Berkeley and Reid in a marginal pencil note

which does state the matter in rather a pointed way: Berkeley: What I perceive is real. Reid: I perceive real things.

By far the most curious of Berkeley's writings is the Siris. It is indeed as strange a book as ever was written by a man of genius. It is, however, not difficult to understand how it came to be written. During the greater part of his life Berkeley lived very much alone, either in America or in his diocese of Cloyne, where he appears, amongst other things, to have done a great deal of amateur doctoring; for he was one of the best and most charitable of men, and left nothing untried which could be of service to the poor of his diocese.

For some reason or other, he fell violently in love with tar-water; and, being possessed of a great amount of strange and recondite learning about ancient philosophy, and also of a considerable knowledge of the physical science of his own time, he seems to have occupied himself in working up into one strange mass all that he had to say about tarwater, physical science, and ancient philosophy.

Siris is emphatically an elderly man's book. It has the fancifulness, the enthusiasm, and the accumulated reading which are often to be found in an elderly man who has lived a good deal alone, and is a little apt to be positive and enthusiastic about his own particular fancies. The virtues of tarwater, in Berkeley's eyes, were almost miraculous.

It would cure foulness of blood, ulceration of bowels,