metaphysician of the century. He
took for his starting point the conclusions of a contemporary
philosopher, George Berkeley (1685-1753).

Berkeley had said that ideas are the only real existing entities, that
matter is merely another term for the ideas in the Mind of the
Infinite and has no existence outside of mind. He maintained that if
every quality should be taken away from matter, no matter would
remain; _e.g._, if color, sweetness, sourness, form, and all other
qualities should be taken away from an apple, there would be no apple.
Now, a quality is a mental representation based on a sensation, and
this quality varies as the sensation varies; in other words, the
object is not a stable immutable thing. It is only a thing as I
perceive it. Berkeley's idealistic position was taken to crush
atheistic materialism.

Hume attempted to rear on Berkeley's position an impregnable citadel
of skepticism. He accepted Berkeley's conclusion that we know nothing
of matter, and then attempted to show that inferences based on ideas
might be equally illusory. Hume attacked the validity of the reasoning
process itself. He endeavored to show that there is no such thing as
cause and effect in either the mental or the material world.

Hume's _Treatise of Human Nature_ (1739-1740), in which these views
are stated, is one of the world's epoch-making works in philosophy.
Its conclusion startled the great German metaphysician Kant and roused
him to action. The questions thus raised by Hume have never been
answered to the satisfaction of all philosophers.

Hume's skepticism is the most thoroughgoing that the world has ever
seen; for he attacks the certainty of our knowledge of both mind and
matter. But he dryly remarks that his own doubts disappear when he
leaves his study. He avoids a runaway horse and inquires of a friend
the way to a certain house in Edinburgh, relying as much on the
evidence of his eyes and on the directions of his friend as if these
philosophic doubts had never been raised.

Historical Prose.--In carefully elaborated and highly finished works
of history, the eighteenth century surpasses its predecessors. _The
History of England_ by David Hume, the philosopher, is the first work
of the kind to add to the history of politics and the affairs of state
an account of the people and their manners. This _History_ is
distinguished for its polished ease and clearness. Unfortunately, the
work is written from a partisan point