“The human mind,” said Trollolop, taking off his greatcoat,--
“Sir Christopher Findlater and Mr. Callythorpe, sir,” said the valet.
“Pshaw! What has Sir Christopher Findlater to do with the human mind?” muttered Mr. Trollolop.
Sir Christopher entered with a swagger and a laugh. “Well, old fellow, how do you do? Deuced cold this evening.”
“Though it is an evening in May,” observed Clarence; “but then, this cursed climate.”
“Climate!” interrupted Mr. Callythorpe, “it is the best climate in the world: I am an Englishman, and I never abuse my country.”
“‘England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!’”
“As to climate,” said Trollolop, “there is no climate, neither here nor elsewhere: the climate is in your mind, the chair is in your mind, and the table too, though I dare say you are stupid enough to think the two latter are in the room; the human mind, my dear Findlater--”
“Don’t mind me, Trollolop,” cried the baronet, “I can’t bear your clever heads: give me a good heart; that’s worth all the heads in the world; d--n me if it is not! Eh, Linden?”
“Your good heart,” cried Trollolop, in a passion (for all your self-called philosophers are a little choleric), “your good heart is all cant and nonsense: there is no heart at all; we are all mind.”
“I be hanged if I’m all mind,” said the baronet.
“At least,” quoth Linden, gravely, “no one ever accused you of it before.”
“We are all mind,” pursued the reasoner; “we are all mind, un moulin a raisonnement. Our ideas are derived from two sources, sensation or memory. That neither our thoughts nor passions, nor our ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, everybody will allow; [Berkeley, Sect. iii., “Principles of Human Knowledge.”] therefore, you see, the human mind is--in short, there is nothing in the world but the human mind!”
“Nothing could be better demonstrated,” said Clarence.
“But you do believe it, and you must believe it,” cried Trollolop; “for ‘the Supreme Being has implanted within us the principle of credulity,’ and therefore you do believe it!”
“You are mistaken,” replied the metaphysician, calmly; “because I must speak truth.”
“Because,” answered Trollolop, taking snuff, “there is a principle of veracity implanted in our nature.”