Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/325

no-object in the room of the phenomenon of object, and, in maintaining (as you seem to expect I should) that the former might exist without being seen or thought of as seen, while the latter might not so exist, I should be giving a direct contradiction to my whole speculation: I should be chargeable with holding that some phenomena are independent and irrespective of a percipient mind either really or ideally present to them, and that others are not; whereas my great doctrine is, that no phenomena, not even, as I have said, the phenomenon of the absence of all phenomena, are thus independent or irrespective." It appears to us that Berkeley's principle requires to be enlarged in some such terms as these; and being so, we think that it is then proof against all cavils and objections whatsoever. It is perfectly true that the existence of matter depends entirely on the presence, that is, either the real or the ideal presence, of a conscious mind. But it does not follow from this that there would be no-matter if no such conscious mind were present or thought of as present, because no-matter depends just as much upon the real or the ideal presence of a conscious mind. Thus are spiked all the cannon of false realism; thus all her trenches are obliterated, all her supplies cut off, and all her resources rendered unserviceable. This, too, we may add, is the flank of false idealism turned, and her forces driven from their ground, while absolute real idealism, or the complete conciliation of common sense and philo-