he _existence_ of matter and mind as real entities.

The bearing of this doctrine of Idealism upon Theism and Theology will
be instantly apparent to the reader. If I am necessarily ignorant of the
existence of the external world, and of the personal _ego_, or real
self, I must be equally ignorant of the existence of God. If one is a
mere supposition, an illusion, so the other must be. Mr. Mill, however,
is one of those courteous and affable writers who are always conscious,
as it were, of the presence of their readers, and extremely careful not
to shock their feelings or prejudices; besides, he has too much
conscious self-respect to avow himself an atheist. As a speculative
philosopher, he would rather regard Theism and Theology as "open
questions," and he satisfies himself with saying, if you believe in the
existence of God, or in Christianity, I do not interfere with you. "As a
theory," he tells us that his doctrine leaves the evidence of the
existence of God exactly as it was before. Supposing me to believe that
the Divine mind is simply the series of the Divine thoughts and feelings
prolonged through eternity, that would be, at any rate, believing God's
existence to be _as real as my own_[235]. And as for evidence, the
argument of Paley's 'Natural Theology,' or, for that matter, of his
'Evidences of Christianity,' would stand exactly as it does.

The design argument is drawn from the analogies of human experience.
From the relation which human works bear to human thoughts and feelings,
it infers a corresponding relation between works more or less similar,
but superhuman, and superhuman thoughts and feelings. _If_ it prove
these, nobody but a metaphysician needs care whether or not it proves a
mysterious _substratum_ for them.[236] The argument from design, it
seems to us, however, would have no validity if there be no external
world offering marks of design. If the external world is only a mode of
feeling, a series of mental states, then our notion of the Divine
Existence may be only "an association of feelings"--a mode of Self. And
if we have no positive knowledge of a real self as existing, and God's
existence is no more "real than our own," then the Divine existence
stands on a very dubious and uncertain foundation. It can have no very
secure hold upon the human mind, and certainly has no claim to be
regarded as a fundamental and necessary belief. That it has a very
precarious hold upon the mind of Mr. Mill, is e