harm than good. A careful study of Herrick could only do you good-and that in the best of all directions, in the study of daintiness of feeling united with perfect simplicity and clearness of expression.

CHAPTER VIII

BERKELEY

SOME knowledge, however slight, of the great eighteenth century thinker, George Berkeley, ought to be of some use to the student of English literature, who is obliged to be also a student of English thought. He belongs, both by his literary qualities and his philosophical powers, to the very first place among the men of his age; and this would be - a sufficient reason to make him the subject of a separate lecture. Besides, at this time, when the charge of materialism is being foolishly made by many thoughtless people against the rising generation of Japan, and the tendency of our time is said to be towards the destruction of all religion, it is especially important that every student should know the relation between Berkeley and the great oriental philosophers whom Berkeley never read. Exactly the same charges were brought against the views of this great man that have since been brought against other thinkers too profound for the ignorant to understand. Every one who does not express his assent to commonplace ideas about the nature of man and of the universe, is likely to be thought either irreligious or heretical. Berkeley had to meet this kind of opposition, and he met it after a fashion that still commands the respect of thinkers, but necessarily calls forth the ridicule of ignorant people. Even Byron, liberal as he was in other matters, proved too shallow to appreciate the greatness of Berkeley, as he showed by the jesting lines

When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter,

It was no matter what he said.

But on the contrary, what Berkeley said proved to be of the very greatest importance to western thought; and he must

scarcely need remind you that in some forms of terrible insanity the sufferer continually laughs, laughs horribly, but never smiles. The smile, the natural smile, is a sign of gentle happiness. Now if you read the poem over again, bearing these similes in mind, you will see what a terrible thing it is, and how original the fancy of likening the brain of a mad person to a house haunted by ghosts and goblins. There is immense power in these verses, and it is not wonderful that they should have created a terrible sensation.

Now the elements of fear and beauty, as the Greeks anciently established, are essential to great tragedy, and are among the oldest forces of successful literature. Whoever knows how to play upon these two feelings with power, can always be sure of influencing a public. In our own day temporary success has been obtained by relying upon these elements only to make little plays or stories. I suppose that you have heard the name of Maeterlinck. Maurice Maeterlinck is a Belgian writer who has been writing little dramatic romances, which he calls "plays," but which are scarcely long enough or elaborate enough to deserve the title. Some day I shall speak to you more fully about his methods. They are very simple. He does nothing more than excite our fear and pity by placing children or women in terrible situations, often of a ghostly kind. In one play, "Aglavaine and Selysette," he has indeed depended chiefly upon the emotions of love and jealousy, and this is the best; but generally he takes only fear and pity for his motives. These are also the motives in Poe's "Haunted Palace." But Poe's "Haunted Palace" chiefly appeals to terror, ghostly fear; the pity is far off, clouded by the method of the description. With one feeling only, Poe could do more than Maeterlinck can accomplish with several passions. That is the sign of his power. Properly speaking, the more complex an emotion is made, the more powerful it ought to be. Maeterlinck made combinations; Poe did not. Like the great musician Paganini, he could play any tune upon

earnestness. As for himself, he determined to go to America in any event. Perhaps he wanted to be left alone, in order to study, and felt that America was the best place for this, because in England or Ireland society wanted him -wanted to pet him, caress him, to make him rich, to give him great positions of honour which would have allowed him no opportunity to think or to write. He went to America in 1729, to the neighbourhood of Rhode Island, where he remained for three years. Even there he interested himself in education; and he was one of the first to assist in the prosperity of the now famous Yale College. After returning to England, he hoped to obtain the quiet which he needed, and expressed his wish to live in some very retired place. King George II loved him, and sent him word that he must become a bishop whether he liked it or not, but that otherwise he might live wherever he pleased. In 1753 he died one of those painless and beautiful deaths to which we give the name of euthanasia. The whole of his life was without blame of any sort, and few men have been so universally regretted.

Now we shall turn to the subject of this man's philosophy. His great work was the destruction of materialism. Since the day of Berkeley, there has been no real materialism among thinkers. He made that impossible. He made mistakes undoubtedly; but he also made great discoveries— which may not seem discoveries to you, because Berkeley's views had been anticipated by thousands of years in India, but which were very new to Englishmen in the time when he made them.

What materialism did he destroy? Let us consider what materialism means. In the first place, it may be argued that we know the world only as matter, and that everything which we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste is matter. This can be granted, provisionally. Then it can be argued that we know nothing about mind except in its relation to matter; that we have no evidence of an immaterial man or

ghost; that all phenomena can be explained by material facts. This, again, may be provisionally accepted. Granting that we know, outside of ourselves, nothing but matter, there can be very little question as to what becomes of religious faith. For a long time in England and in France cultivated men had been content with this position. They never suspected that they were stopping short in their investigation. Eighteenth century scepticism rested upon the assumption that everything must be explained by matter and by the forces inherent in matter. But it was rather startling to be asked all of a sudden, "What is matter? What do you know about it?”

Even while a student at the university, Berkeley had perceived that if you carry out the materialistic argument to its full conclusion, materialism itself must disappear. The great strength of the materialistic argument was that men should rely for evidence of any belief upon the testimony of their senses. Nobody had then seriously questioned the value of the testimony of the senses, except Locke, about whom we shall have more to say presently. Berkeley was the first to deny boldly all the testimony of the senses, while Locke denied only a part of it; and this position of Berkeley is, in the main, very powerfully sustained by the science of our own time. To quote Huxley's words, the great discovery of Berkeley was "that the honest and rigorous following up of the argument which leads us to materialism, invariably carries us beyond it." In short Berkeley proved to the world, as Schopenhauer would say, that under every physical fact there is a metaphysical fact.

Before Berkeley, Locke had been examining the theory of sensation, and had been treating it after a fashion decidedly remarkable for the eighteenth century. A short quotation will serve to show what I mean. He says: "Flame is denominated hot and light; snow, white and cold; and manna, white and sweet, from the ideas they produce in us;-which qualities are commonly thought to be the same