e
existence of a Deity, the freedom of the will, or the immortality
of the soul, or with any actual or possible system of theology, than
"idealism," I must declare myself at a loss to divine. But in the
year 1700 all the world appears to have been agreed, Tertullian
notwithstanding, that materialism necessarily leads to very dreadful
consequences. And it was thought that it conduced to the interests of
religion and morality to attack the materialists with all the weapons
that came to hand. Perhaps the most interesting controversy which
arose out of these questions is the wonderful triangular duel between
Dodwell, Clarke, and Anthony Collins, concerning the materiality of
the soul, and--what all the disputants considered to be the necessary
consequence of its materiality--its natural mortality. I do not think
that anyone can read the letters which passed between Clarke and
Collins, without admitting that Collins, who writes with wonderful
power and closeness of reasoning, has by far the best of the argument,
so far as the possible materiality of the soul goes; and that, in this
battle, the Goliath of Freethinking overcame the champion of what was
considered Orthodoxy.

But in Dublin, all this while, there was a little David practising
his youthful strength upon the intellectual lions and bears of Trinity
College. This was George Berkeley, who was destined to give the same
kind of development to the idealistic side of Descartes' philosophy,
that the Freethinkers had given to its sceptical side, and the
Newtonians to its mechanical side.

Berkeley faced the problem boldly. He said to the materialists: "You
tell me that all the phenomena of nature are resolvable into matter
and its affections. I assent to your statement, and now I put to you
the further question, 'What is matter?' In answering this question you
shall be bound by your own conditions; and I demand, in the terms of
the Cartesian axiom, that in turn you give your assent only to such
conclusions as are perfectly clear and obvious."

It is this great argument which is worked out in the "Treatise
concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge," and in those "Dialogues
between Hylas and Philonous," which rank among the most exquisite
examples of English style, as well as among the subtlest of
metaphysical writings; and the final conclusion of which is summed
up in a passage remarkable alike for literary beauty and for calm
audacity of statement.

"Some trut