[168] Speculatively considered, what can the weapon commonly called argument do against Idealism? Both sides allow that man can neither cause nor annihilate sensible impressions. But they are supposably ideal phrases of susceptibility, which may be explained in more ways than one. On the inability of most men--(particularly Scotchmen,) to comprehend Berkeley's position, see _Fraser's Ed._, IV. 366, 7, 8, note. It gave rise to notably absurd rejoinders: "With the witty Voltaire ten thousand cannon balls, and ten thousand dead men, were ten thousand ideas, according to Berkeley. There is as much subtlety of thought, and more humour, in the Irish story of Berkeley's visit to Swift on a rainy day, when, by the Dean's orders, he was left to stand before the unopened door, because, if his philosophy was true, he could as easily enter with the door shut as open." [169] "We cannot possibly identify the perception of _expanded colour_, which is all that originally constitutes seeing, with the perception of _felt resistance_, which is all that originally constitutes touching. Coloured extension is antithetical to felt extension. In fact, we do not see, we never saw, and we never can see the orange of mere touch; we do not touch, we never touched, and we never can touch the orange of mere sight." _Ibid._ p. 394. [170] "From floating elements in chaos hurl'd, Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world: No great _First Cause_ inspired the happy plot, But all was matter--and no matter what. Atoms, attracted by some law occult, Settling in spheres, the globe was the result: Pure child of _Chance_, which still directs the ball, As rotatory atoms rise or fall. In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats, A mass of particles, and confluent motes, "So nicely poised, that if one atom flings Its weight away, aloft the planet springs, And wings its course through realms of boundless space, Outstripping comets in eccentric race. Add but one atom more, it sinks outright Down to the realms of Tartarus and night." "_Rejected Addresses_," pp. 115, 116. [171] "What are the core and essence of this hypothesis? Strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena--were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation." Tyndall, _Fragments of Science_, p. 163. [172] Mr. Mill speaks thus of the Design argument. "It is the best; and besides, it is by far the most persuasive. It would be difficult to find a stronger argument in favour of Theism, than that the eye must have been made by one who sees, and the ear by one who hears." Mill _On Hamilton_, p. 551.