The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 307 “ bears out Western speculation , whether we take the shadowy idealism of Berkeley , or the self -refuted Monism of Haeckel . All these men got our results , and interpreted them in the partial light of their varied intellect , their diverse surroundings and education . But the result is the same physiological phenomenon , from Plato and Christ to Spinoza and Çankaracharya , from Augustine and Abelard , Boehme and Weigel in their Christian communities to Trismegistus and Porphyry , Mohammed and Paracelsus in their mystic palaces of Wisdom , the doctrine is essentially one : and its essence is that existence is one . But to my experience it is certain that in Dhyana the Ego is rejected .” This is absolutely true of Berkeley when in the Dia logues he writes : To know every thing knowable is certainly a perfection ; but to endure , or suffer , or feel anything by sense , is an imperfection . The former , I say , agrees to God , but not the latter . God knows or hath ideas ; but the ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense as ours are . . 2 God to him is a mahayogi . It is absolutely true of Hume , but Hume , studiously avoiding the word God , could find no helpmeet to fill his place : For my part , when I enter most intimately into what I call myself , I always stumble on some particular percep tion or other , of heat or cold , light or shade , love or hatred , pain or pleasure . I never can catch myself at any time without a perception , and never can observe anything but the perception . 3 1 Time , vol . ii, p . 275 . Three Dialogues , p . 106 . : Cited in Huxley's Hume , p . 195 .