The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-12-07
UNBELIEF IN 1881.

We sometimes think that many people,
who have not dipped into metaphysical
studies or the philosophical discussions
of the day, would be pleased to know
what are the points in our modern scep-
teal literature-and what it is exactly
that has superseded the old forms of in
fidelity, whose battle has been fought and
lost; what it is that such men as Mill,
and Huxley, and Spencer believe, that
makes them so defiant towards those un-
pretending old-fashioned thinkers who
fancied that Materialism, at least, was
long ago discarded We have thought a
plain statement of the precise position
occupied by this modern school of mate
rialists might also prove serviceable in,
at least, presenting what the issue in our
day between Belief and Unbelief is-for
many are made uneasy by the boastful
talk of our materialistic philosophers and
their lofty pretensions to superior krowl-
edge, and are annoyed with vague ap-
prehension that something new has been
discovered which is very alarming to the
Christian Church.
There are two questions in our day
which characterize the battle between
Belief and Unbelief; the question of the
existence of Personal God, and the ques-
ton of the Inspiration of the Scriptures
these are the great points around which
the conflict RACES, and it is our impression
that when Unbelief shall be worsted in
these issues, the empire of nominal Chris
tianity throughout the world will be as
sured. In the present article, we shall
notice only the first question; and we
shall only have space to state the position
of the atheistic school, without undertak-
ing to reply to it.
Bishop Berkeley, to whom Pope as
cribed "every virtue under heaven, in
his theory of vision, laid it down that
there is no resemblance between the OBJ
ject we see and the real object; that our
eyes give us in fact no correct idea. of the
real properties of objects; and that, if
our eyes delude US as to the external
world, our other senses may do the same
thing. That, in fact, all that we know of
an external world is that certain pictures
are made on the mind This is the ia
nous Idealism of Berkeley.
Hume took the matter up where Berke-
ley left it, and applied the same process
OF reasoning which Berkely had employ
ed with regard to the material world, to
the mental world. If the external world
is dream, why not the world of ideas
also? We are merely conscious, said
Hume, of certain mental impressions
and beyond that we know nothing. The
universe and the beings in it are merely
phantasm, with no reality behind them.
We are painted ships on a painted
ocean,
Hume seems to have propounded all
this half in fun-he was incapable of
serious convictions, and born sceptic,
and he seems merely to have thrown off
these speculations without expecting any
body to receive them seriously. John
Wilkes, it is known, told the king, that
tor his own part he himself had never
been Wilksite-and so Hume does not
seem to have been himself Humist. He
was an avowed believer in the existence
of God. "The whole frame of nature"
he says in his Natural History of Reli-
gion,' bespeaks an intelligent Author"
And, looking upwards on a starry night,
in company with Adam Ferguson, he ex-
claimed; ooh, Adam, can any one con-
template the wonders of that armament,
and not believe that there is Godp
Nevertheless Hume's metaphysical
writings carried the scepticism Of Berke-
ley into the domain of the mental world
and struck in fact at all belief.
Kant wrote his immortal 'Critioue
Of Pure Reason in reply to Hume.
Locke lin which he was followed by
Hume) had argued that all our ideas are
the product Of experience Kant under
took to show, against Locke and Hume,
that behind experience there exist in the
mind certain Unborn necessary and uni
versal beliefs. This he established