Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/326

 312 J. S. MACKENZIE : What I shall try to do, then, is, first of all, to state Mr. Moore's main point, as I understand it ; then to consider what elements of truth and of falsity are contained in it ; and finally to discuss its significance for those who seek to maintain an idealistic position. Mr. Moore seems to regard all modern Idealism as resting ultimately on Berkeley's ' Esse is percipi ' ; and he conceives that, by finally subverting this position, he makes an end, not indeed of idealism, but of the only basis on which modern idealism has been supported ; and, perhaps he would add, the only basis on which it can be supported. Now, I may say at once that, with regard to British idealism at least, this view seems to me to contain a very large element of truth, though it is by no means the whole truth. Most British idealists begin from the subjective side ; though they usually end even Berkeley does so by, to a considerable extent, renouncing their subjectivity. 3ut, by proceeding in this way, they leave the impression and often, I am afraid, it is a quite correct impression ihat the real basis of their position is subjective, that ' esse is percipi ' is in the end their most fundamental conviction. 'This is, I think, due in the main to the predominant place that has been occupied by introspective psychology in British philosophy. 1 The growth of the more genetic method of .of thinking. If, for instance, we take T. H. Green as a typical repre- sentative of modern British idealism, we find that his basis is in the main a subjective one. I cannot of course enter into any examination of his position here ; and it is difficult to do justice to it in a brief summary. But on the whole it seems true to say that his point of view is not very widely removed from that of Berkeley. The difference is mainly that he begins, where Berkeley leaves off, with an intel- lectual, as distinguished from a perceptual presentation of his case. 2 Now, I admit that this distinction is in the end I 1 The use of ' psychological hedonism ' as the basis for an ethical system might be profitably compared with this. On the other hand, it may be noted that the logic by which Sidgwick sought to show that pleasure is the only ultimate good, is very similar to the logic of Mr. Moore. 2 See especially his Introduction to Hume, 184-185. 'A relation is not contingent with the contingency of feeling. It is permanent with the permanence of the combining and comparing thought which alone con- stitutes it. ... Of such a doctrine Berkeley is rather the unconscious forerunner than the intelligent prophet. ... Is the idea, which is real, according to him a feeling or a conception ? Has it a nature of its own, consisting simply in its being felt, and which we afterwards for purposes
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