this new acquifition in fcience; he will foon find, it had been better for him to have reafoned, and believed, and acted, like the rest of the world. If he fall down a precipice, or be trampled under foot by horfes, it will avail him little, that he once had the honour to be a difciple of BERKELEY, and to believe that thofe dangerous objects are nothing but ideas in the mind. And yet, if fuch a man be seen to avoid a precipice, or to get out of the way of a coach and fix horfes at full speed, he acts as inconfiftently with his belief, as if he ran away from the picture of an angry man, even while he believed it to be a picture. Supposing his life preferved by the care of friends, or by the ftrength of natural inftinct urging him to act contrary to his belief; yet will this belief coft him dear. For if the plaineft evidence, and fullest conviction, be certainly fallacious, I beg to be informed, what kind of evidence, and what degree of conviction, may reasonably be depended on. If nature be a juggler by trade, is it for us, poor purblind reptiles, to attempt to penetrate the mysteries of her art, and take upon us to decide, when it is the presents a true, and when a false appearance! I will not fay, however, that this man runs a greater risk of univerfal fcepticism, than of univerfal credulity. Either the one or the other, or both, muft be his portion; and either the one or the other would be fufficient to imbitter my whole life, and to difqualify me for every duty of a rational creature. He who can believe against common fenfe, and against the cleareft evidence, and against the fulleft conviction, in any one cafe, may do the fame in any other; confequently he may become the dupe of every wrangler who is more acute than he; and then, if he is not entirely fecluded from mankind, his liberty, and happiness, are gone for ever. Indeed a chearful temper, strong habits of virtue, and the company of the wife and good, may still fave him from perdition, if he have no temptations nor difficulties to encounter. But it is the end of every useful art, to teach us to furmount difficulties, not to difqualify us for attempting them. Men have been known to live many years in a warm chamber, after they were become too delicate to bear the open air; but who will fay, that such a habit of body is defireable? what physician will recommend to the healthy fuch a regimen as would produce it? -- But, that I may no longer fuppofe, what I maintain to be impoffible, that mankind in general, or even one rational being, could, by force of argument, be convinced, that this abfurd doctrine is true; what if all men were in one inftant deprived of their understanding by almighty power, and made to believe, that matter has on exiftence but as an idea in the mind, all other earthly things remaining as they are? -Doubtlefs VOL. I. I i this this catastrophe would, according to our metaphysicians, throw a wonderful light on all the parts of knowledge. I pretend not even to guess at the number, extent, or quality, of astonishing difcoveries that would then start forth into view. But of this I am certain, that, in lefs than a month after, there could not, without another miracle, be one human creature alive on the face of the earth *. BERKELEY forefaw, and has done what he could to obviate, fome of these objections. There are two points which he has taken great pains to prove. The first is, That his fyftem differs not from the belief of the rest of mankind; the fecond, That our conduct cannot be in the leaft affected by our difbelief of the exiftence of a material world. 1. As to the firit, it is certainly falfe. Mr HUME himself feems willing to give it up, I have known many who could not answer BERKELEY'S arguments; I never knew one who believed his doctrine. I have mentioned it to fome who were unacquainted with philofophy, and therefore could not be fup *This, I think, must follow, if we allow that our external fenfes are neceflary to our prefervation. And I do not fee how that can be denied. A blind or deaf man may live not uncomfortably in the fociety of those who fee or hear: but if all mankind were blind and deaf, or deprived of their reafon fo as to difbelieve their eyes and ears, and other percipient faculties, I know not how human life could be preferved without a miracle. pofed pofed to have any bias in favour of either fyftem; they all treated it as moft contemptible jargon, and what no man in his fenfes ever did or could believe. I have carefully attended to the effects produced by it upon my own mind; and it appears to me at this moment, as when I first heard it, incredible and incomprehenfible. I fay incomprehenfible: for though, by reading it over and over, I have got a fet of phrafes and arguments by heart, which would enable me, if I were fo difpofed, to talk, and argue, and write, a "bout it and about it;" yet, when I lay fyftems and fyllogifins afide, when I enter on any part of the bufinefs of life, or when I refer the matter to the unbiaffed decifion of my own mind, I plainly fee, that I had no diftinct meaning to my words when I faid, that the material world has no existence but in the mind that perceives it. In a word, if this author had afferted, that I and all mankind acknowledge and believe the Arabian Nights Entertainment to be a true hiftory, I could not have had any better reafon for contradicting that affertion, than I have for contradicting this, "That BERKE"LEY's principles in regard to the existence "of matter, differ not from the belief of the "reft of mankind." 2. In behalf of the second point he argues, "That nothing gives us an interest in the material world, except the feelings plea"fant or painful which accompany our perceptions I i 2 66 "ceptions; that these perceptions are the "fame, whether we believe the material "world to exift or not to exift; confequent"ly, that our pleasant or painful feelings are "alfo the fame; and therefore, that our conduct, which depends on our feelings "and perceptions, must be the fame, whe"ther we believe or difbelieve the existence " of matter." But if it be certain, that by the law of our nature we are unavoidably determined to believe that matter exists, and to act upon this belief, (and nothing, I think, is more certain), how can it be imagined, that a contrary belief would produce no alteration in our conduct and fentiments? Surely the laws of nature are not fuch trifles, as that it fhould be a matter of perfect indifference, whether we act and think agreeably to them or not? I believe that matter exifts; - I muft believe that matter exifts;-I must continually act upon this belief; fuch is the law of my constitution. Suppose my conftitution changed in this refpect, all other things remaining as they are ; — would there then be no change in my fentiments and conduct? If there would not, then is this law of nature, in the first place, useless, becaufe men could do as well without it; fecondly, inconvenient, because its end is to keep us ignorant of the truth; and, thirdly, abfurd, because infufficient for anfwering its end, the Bishop of Cloyne, and others, having, it seems, |