There are cases, then, in which mind may be regarded as a "subject-object;" the case of human consciousness, when the mind takes cognizance of its own states or acts, and the case of the Divine consciousness, while as yet the created universe had not been called into being.

But the question is, whether, _in all cases_, the "subject" and "object" of thought are the same?
or, whether existence and thought are _universally_ identical?
An affirmative answer to this question would imply, that nothing whatever exists except only in the mind that perceives it; that, according to Bishop Berkeley, "the existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived" is an absurd or impossible supposition; that "their _esse_ is _percipi_," that is, that their being consists in their being perceived or known; whence it would follow, as Berkeley himself admits, that we have no reason to believe in the continued existence of the desk at which we write, after we have left the room in which we see it, excepting such as may arise from the supposition, that if we returned to that room we might still see it, or that in our absence it may still be perceived by some other mind.

Existence is identified with thought, and nothing exists save only as it is thought of.

Why?
Simply because it can become known to us only through the medium of consciousness, and that, too, in no other character than as _a phenomenon of our own minds_.
That this doctrine is at direct variance with the universal convictions of mankind, is too evident to require the slightest proof.

That it is _unphilosophical_, as well as _unpopular_, may be made apparent by two very simple considerations.