nature; which the Supreme Being has been pleased to observe, and from which, in the ordinary course of nature, he does not deviate. In justice to the author, it ought to be recollected, that he was then only twenty-seven years of age; that the science of metaphysics was then more imperfectly understood than at present; and that many theories and doctrines then offered to the world, though less singular, were as little capable of defence. Whatever sceptical inferences may have been drawn from these works, the good intentions of the writer are undoubted; and he intended them to oppose the opinions of sceptics and atheists: and he has attempted to inquire into the cause of error and difficulty in the sciences, with the grounds of scepticism, atheism, and irreligion, which cause and grounds he conceived to be the doctrines of the existence of matter.
He seems persuaded that men would never have been led to believe in the existence of matter, if they had not fancied themselves invested with a power of abstracting substance from the qualities under which it is perceived; and hence he is led to combat an opinion entertained by Locke, and by most metaphysicians since that time, of there being a power in the mind of abstracting general ideas. Other writers, of a sceptical principle, embracing Mr. Berkeley's doctrines, and giving then a different tendency, have endeavoured to sap the foundations of natural and revealed religion. Mr. Hume says, that "these works form the best lessons of scepticism, which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers-Bayle himself not excepted." Dr. Beattie comments on the sceptical tendency of these doctrines; and adds, that if Berkeley's argument be conclusive, it proves that to be false which every one must necessarily believe every moment of bis life to be true, and that to be true, which no man since the foundation of the world was ever capable of believing for a single moment. Berkeley's doctrine attacks the most incontestible dictates of common sense;
