o throw contempt upon a system
which he had not taken the trouble to understand, and upon one of the
sanest and noblest of English philosophers, and he does so without a
thought that the absurdity is due to his own ignorance and not to the
theory of Berkeley. The author of the _Minstrel_ was an honest man and a
respectable poet, but he prided himself too much on what he called
common sense, and failed to see that in the search after truth other and
even higher faculties may be also needed. Moreover, Berkeley, so far
from being an enemy to common sense, endeavours, as he says, to
vindicate it, although in so doing, he 'may perhaps be obliged to use
some _ambages_ and ways of speech not common.' A significant passage may
be quoted from the _Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous_ (1713)
in illustration of his method and style so far indeed as a short extract
can illustrate an argument sustained by a long course of reasoning.

'_Phil._ As I am no sceptic with regard to the nature of things,
so neither am I as to their existence. That a thing should be
really perceived by my senses, and at the same time not really
exist is to me a plain contradiction; since I cannot prescind or
abstract even in thought, the existence of a sensible thing from
its being perceived. Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and
the like things, which I name and discourse of, are things that
I know. And I should not have known them but that I perceived
them by my senses; and things perceived by the senses are
immediately perceived; and things immediately perceived are
ideas; and ideas cannot exist without the mind; their existence
therefore consists in being perceived; when therefore they are
actually perceived there can be no doubt of their existence....
I might as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those
things I actually see and feel.

'_Hyl._ Not so fast, _Philonous_; you say you cannot conceive
how sensible things should exist without the mind. Do you not?

'_Phil._ I do.

'_Hyl._ Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive it
possible that things perceivable by sense may still exist?

'_Phil._ I can; but then it must be in another mind. When I deny
sensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my
mind in particular, but all minds. Now, it is plain they have an
existence exterior to my mind; since I find