e human consciousness,
conceived as occupied solely with certain subjective mental states, when
the mind may be said to be at once the "subject" and the "object" of its
own thought. There are cases, then, in which mind may be regarded as a
"subject-object;" the case of human consciousness, when the mind takes
cognizance of its own states or acts, and the case of the Divine
consciousness, while as yet the created universe had not been called
into being. But the question is, whether, _in all cases_, the "subject"
and "object" of thought are the same? or, whether existence and thought
are _universally_ identical? An affirmative answer to this question
would imply, that nothing whatever exists except only in the mind that
perceives it; that, according to Bishop Berkeley, "the existence of
unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived" is an
absurd or impossible supposition; that "their _esse_ is _percipi_," that
is, that their being consists in their being perceived or known; whence
it would follow, as Berkeley himself admits, that we have no reason to
believe in the continued existence of the desk at which we write, after
we have left the room in which we see it, excepting such as may arise
from the supposition, that if we returned to that room we might still
see it, or that in our absence it may still be perceived by some other
mind. Existence is identified with thought, and nothing exists save only
as it is thought of. Why? Simply because it can become known to us only
through the medium of consciousness, and that, too, in no other
character than as _a phenomenon of our own minds_.

That this doctrine is at direct variance with the universal convictions
of mankind, is too evident to require the slightest proof. That it is
_unphilosophical_, as well as _unpopular_, may be made apparent by two
very simple considerations. The _first_ is, that it assumes without
proof the only point in question, namely, that the objects of our
knowledge are nothing but the ideas of our own minds; whereas it is
affirmed, on the other side, and surely with at least an equal amount of
apparent reason, that we are so constituted as to have a direct
perception of external objects as well as of internal mental states. The
_second_ is, that the very formula of Idealism, which represents the
"Non-ego" as a mere modification of the conscious "Ego," seems to
involve a palpable contradiction; since it recognizes, in a certain
sense, _