Atwater, L: Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, 187

Excerpt from The Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, 1873, Vol. 2

The present state and wants Of certain schools of philosophy tend in the same direction. It is a curious, though by no means an inexplicable circumstance, that not a few of those trained by the teaching and writings of Hamilton, especially those who have also felt the in¿uence of Mill, are to be found, if we can catch them any where, on the borders of Berkeley's upland of mist and sunshine. Hamilton himself always Spoke of Berkeley in a mere appreciative tone than most of his predecessors in the Scottish school had done. His more discerning pupils have felt that their great master has left them in a somewhat unsatisfac tory position a professing realist, he is in fact the great relativ ist, and he ends by declaring that man can know nothing of the nature of things. Those who feel that they have no comfortable standing in such a quivering quagmire, look with a fond eye towards Berkeley, who, in taking away gross matter, leaves them substantial mind. Mansel, so acute and erudite in undermining rationalism, and so feeble in building up realism, ended by com ing very Close to Berkeley in his view of matter. Though the Scottish professor does not profess to be a believer in Berkeley, it is clear that there is no other philosophy which helps him so effectually in those perplexities he is so skilful in discovering in this mysterious world, in this curious life of ours if it does not support him on terrafivn'za, it at least lifts him above the sinking marshes into a pleasant though somewhat fogg aerial.

A third circumstance has contributed powerfully to the same end. The schools of nescience and nihilism have seized on the negative positions of Berkeley and are turning them to their own purposes. Grote and Mill and Bain all rejoice in the thought that the idealist has delivered them from so many ghosts in the shape of sub stances; and they do for the admirers of Berkeley in our day what Hume did for Berkeley himself, that is, having got rid of so much they insist that they must in logical consis teney abandon much more. In particular Mr. Mill, in a charac teristic review of Berkeley in the Fort-nightly Review, has dexter onely used the weapons put into his hands to improve his doctrine, that matter is the mere possibility of sensations, and mind a series of feelings aware of itself with a back-ground of possibilities of feeling.

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