material phenomena. Now there is another side to all this. The
great lesson which Berkeley taught mankind was that what we call
material phenomena are really the products of consciousness
co-operating with some Unknown Power (not material) existing
beyond consciousness. We do very well to speak of "matter" in
common parlance, but all that the word really means is a group of
qualities which have no existence apart from our minds. Modern
philosophers have quite generally accepted this conclusion, and
every attempt to overturn Berkeley's reasoning has hitherto
resulted in complete and disastrous failure. In admitting this,
we do not admit the conclusion of Absolute Idealism, that nothing
exists outside of consciousness. What we admit as existing
independently of our own consciousness is the Power that causes
in us those conscious states which we call the perception of
material qualities. We have no reason for regarding this Power as
in itself material: indeed, we cannot do so, since by the theory
material qualities have no existence apart from our minds. I have
elsewhere sought to show that less difficulty is involved in
regarding this Power outside of us as quasi-psychical, or in some
measure similar to the mental part of ourselves; and I have gone
on to conclude that this Power may be identical with what men
have, in all times and by the aid of various imperfect symbols,
endeavoured to apprehend as Deity.[12] We are thus led to a view
of things not very unlike the views entertained by Spinoza and
Berkeley. We are led to the inference that what we call the
material universe is but the manifestation of infinite Deity to
our finite minds. Obviously, on this view, Matter--the only thing
to which materialists concede real existence--is simply an
orderly phantasmagoria; and God and the Soul--which materialists
regard as mere fictions of the imagination--are the only