Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/313

Rh justice in the ordinary allegation, that Berkeley discredited the testimony of the senses, and denied the existence of the material universe. He merely denied the distinction between things and their appearances, and maintained that the thing was the appearance, and that the appearance was the thing. But this averment brings us into the very thick of the difficulties of the question. For does it not imply that the external world exists only in so far as it is perceived, that its esse, as Berkeley says, is percipi; that its existence is its being perceived, and that, if it were not perceived, it would not exist? At first sight the averment certainly does imply something very like all this; therefore, we must now be extremely cautious how we proceed.

We have already remarked that Berkeley, in vindicating the cause of common sense, frequently appeared to overshoot the mark, and to give vent to opinions which somewhat staggered even the simplest of the vulgar, and seemed less reconcilable with the obvious sentiments of nature than the philosophical doctrines themselves which they were brought forward to supplant. And the opinion now stated is the most startling of these tenets, and one which, to all appearance, is calculated rather to endamage than to help the cause which it is intended to support. But, in advancing it, Berkeley knew perfectly well what he was about; and though he is far from having fenced it with all the requisite explanations, and though he did not succeed in putting it in a