A writer in the “Encyclopædia Metropolitana” describes him as “the one, perhaps, whose heart was most free from scepticism, and whose understanding was most prone to it.” Berkeley is here dealt with as one specially contributing to the growth of sceptical thought, and not as an Idealist only. Arthur Collier published, about the same time as Berkeley, several works in which absolute Idealism is advocated. Collier and Berkeley were mouthpieces for the expression of an effort at resistance against the growing Spinozistic school. They wrote against substance assumed as the “noumenon lying underneath all phenomena—the substratum supporting all qualities—the something in which all accidents inhere.” Collier and his writings are almost unknown; Berkeley’s name has become famous, and his arguments have served to excite far wider scepticism than have those of any other Englishman of his age. Most religious men who read him misunderstand him, and nearly all misrepresent his theory. Hume, speaking of Berkeley, says: “Most of the writings of that very ingenious philosopher form the best lessons of scepticism which are to be found, either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted. He professes, however, in his title page (and undoubtedly with great truth) to have composed his book against the sceptics, as well as against the Atheists and Freethinkers. But that all his arguments, though otherwise intended, are in reality merely sceptical, appears from this, that they admit of no answer, and produce no conviction.”