Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/314

304 very clear light, or in giving it an adequate and ultimate form of expression, or in obviating all the cavils and strong objections to which it was exposed, or in sounding the depths of its almost unfathomable significance; still he felt, with the instinct of a prophet, that it was a stronghold of impregnable truth, and that in resting on it he was treading on a firm footing of fact which could never be swept away. Time, and the labours of his successors, have done for him what the span of one man's life—and span too, we may say, of one man's intellect, capacious as his undoubtedly was—prevented him doing for himself.

We shall admit, then, that Berkeley holds that matter has no existence independently of mind, that mind, if entirely removed, would involve in its downfall the absolute annihilation of matter. And admitting this, we think, at the same time, that we can afford a perfectly satisfactory explanation of so strange and difficult a paradox, and resolve a knot which Berkeley was the first to loosen, but which he certainly did not explicitly untie. The question is, Supposing ourselves away or annihilated, would the external world continue to exist as heretofore, or would it vanish into nonentity? But the terms of this question involve a preliminary question, which must first of all be disposed of. Mark what these terms are; they are comprised in the words, "supposing ourselves away or annihilated." But can we suppose ourselves away or annihilated? If we