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280 



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I I, 1 751, while lying on lux couch listening to one of Bishop 

 Sherlock's sermons which his lu<ly was reading to him. 

 lie wa* seised with what 1m physicians called a palsy of the 

 hrarl, and expired so suddenly and quietly that it was only 

 \> hen his daughter went to give him a cup or tea that she 

 |icixvi\ ed he was quite dead. His remains were interred in 

 Christ Church. Oxford, and an elegant monument wax 

 1 to hi* memory by his widow. He had Utrce sons 

 and a daughter. In person he was stout and well-made, 

 his face was benignant and expressive, and his manners 

 elegant, engaging, and enthusiastic. The information with 

 which his mind was stored embraced not merely profes- 

 sional and philosophical learning, hut trade, agriculture, 

 and the common arts of life. Besides the works already 

 mentioned he wrote gome smaller pieces, which appeared in 

 a collection printed in Dublin in 1752 under the title of 

 Miscellanies.' 



It shows the enthusiastic character of Berkeley, that, 

 when accused of fancying he had discovered a panacea in 

 tar-water, he replied, that ' to speak out, he freely owns he 

 suspects tar-water is a panacea.' * 



The writings of Berkeley, which contain his peculiar 

 opinions, consist in an attack upon the anti-ehristian tenets 

 winch began to prevail before his time. To look upon his 

 literary labours as a whole, it will be necessary to remem- 

 ber, 1, the consequences of the court of Charles II. 2, the 

 shock which had been given to all prevailing notions of 

 mental philosophy by the introduction of the writings of 

 Locke. 3. The new view of the power of natural philo- 

 sophy consequent upon the mathematical discoveries of 

 Newton. 4. The extensive remnants of the old philosophy, 

 which insinuated themselves, more or less, into the newly 

 cultivated branches of science. The Minute Philosopher' 

 is addressed to the infidel man of pleasure; the ' Analyst' 

 to the infidel mathematician; the 'Principles of Human 

 Knowledge,' and the ' Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous' 

 to the infidel metaphysician. We shall take them in order 

 of publication. 



Principle! of Human Knowledge Dialogues of Hyhis 

 and Philunou*. The prevailing notion of matter, from the 

 earliest a-jes downwards, had been that of a substance 

 possessing an existence independent of faculties capable of 

 perceiving it. The atheism of several ancient sects was 

 entirely based upon a notion that matter might exist 

 without a God, or in conjunction with, though independently 

 of, a God. The argument of Berkeley may be divided into 

 two parts. In the first he attacks the common notion of 

 matter by the assertion that there is no proof of its exist- 

 ence anywhere but in our own perceptions ; in the second 

 he asserts the impossibility of any such independent exist- 

 ence. The first point is, and always will be, misunderstood 

 by those who do not pay the closest attention to the 

 meaning of his terms. For instance, Dr. Samuel Johnson, 

 who was frequently happy in perceiving verbal distinc- 

 tions, said he refuted Berkeley's theory by stamping with 

 his foot upon the ground. That is, he imagined that 

 Berkeley denied the existence of the perception of solidity, 

 w hii-h of course was not the case. 



The existence of matter sevms so bound up with our 

 notions of ourselves, and so completely demonstrated by 

 our senses, that the question raised by Berkeley will be 

 better understood by referring to something in which there 

 is the same question in a more open form. Let the reader 

 turn to the article ATTRACTION (v. iii. p. 69), in which it is 

 asserted that Berkeley's attack on matter is the same as 

 that of a certain class of speculators on attraction. The 

 connexion is as follows ; the earth moves exactly as it 

 would move if the sun attracted it physically (see v. iii. 

 p. 6S). To any one who should assert jihytical attraction (as 

 there defined) it might be justly answered that the mere 

 phenomenon only proves that the Creator wills that sort of 

 effect to take place which does take place; but whether by 

 what our imperfect ideas would express by direct agency, 

 or whether by subordinate agency (or by means of angels 

 as in Milton), or whether by means of a positive attracting 

 quality which is made a constituent part of the essence of 

 matter, ai much as extension or impenetrability, and 

 therefore as much beyond the reach of further inquiry ; or 

 whether by means of any intermediate physical agent, 

 such as a fluid or other distinct kind of matter cannot bo 

 known. For it is little more than a verbal truism to say that 

 on effect which may arise from twenty different species of 

 pauses must not be positively assigned to any one of them. 



To the believer in an intelligent Creator (and it is only 

 t.i such that the negative part of Berkelcv s argument 

 applies) the case may be thus put. You admit that your 

 existence and your power of perceiving, as well as the per- 

 ceptions by which the second makes you know the fiiM, are 

 ultimately (.whatever may be the intermediate steps) to be 

 traced to the will of the Creator. You r.iiinut figure to 

 yourself the uniform nature of the | which you 



receive as coming directly from the Creator, but \ou suppose 

 a power of imparting them to be made inherent in a certain 

 nil>*!rnturn (toil is Berkeley's won') which you call mutter? 

 But if you admit that it is in the power of the Creator t,> 

 furnish vou directly with those ideas of sp> 

 colour, iic. which to you constitute the material 

 without any intervention of which you can form a positive 

 conception; how do you know that he has not done so? 

 The answer must be that there is no such knowledge ; and 

 this is the point on which Berkeley has never been, and it 

 is not too bold an assertion to say never can lie, refuted. 



The positive part of Berkeley's theory, in which he asserts 

 the impossibility of matter, lays him open to precisely the 

 same answer which those may receive who actually assert 

 its existence. We cannot in our limits show the several 

 grounds on which he supposes he has established his 

 point. He has a notion that what he calls an i.lm (we 



should soy pfrftftinn) cannot be imparted unless there be 

 something resembling the idea in that which cotnniuiii- 

 It is very dillicult to abbreviate an argument which handles 

 the nature of ideas, but the leading notions seem to u.- to 

 be contained in the following quotation (7J ;'... \. i. p. 

 26), with which we shall rinse this part. The reader will 

 observe that axioms are assumed as doubtful at least, and 

 by no means so convenient as that of the existence of 

 matter; also that the first paragraph assumes the point in 

 question. 



' Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind 

 that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such 1 

 take this important one to be, t-> wit, that all the choir of 

 heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word, all 

 bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have 

 not any subsistence without a mind; that their being is to 

 be perceived or known ; that consequently so long as they 

 are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in mv 

 mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either 

 have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some 

 eternal spirit.' 



' There is not any other substance than spirit, or that 

 which perceives.' ' For an idea to exist in an unperceiving 

 thing, is a manifest contradiction; for to have an idea is 

 all one as to perceive; that therefore wherein colour, figure, 

 and the like qualities exist, must perceive them : hence it 

 is clear there can be no unthinking substance or substratum 

 of these ideas.' 



' But say you. though the ideas themselves do not exist 

 without the mind, yet there may be things like them whereof 

 they arc copies or .resemblances, which things exist without 

 the mind, in an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea 

 ran be like nothing but an idea ; a colour or figure can be 

 like nothing but another colour or figure.' 



Alciphrun.ar the Minute PMotqphtr. This is a series 

 of dialogues between two athri-ts and two Christian il 

 The former are of the class of ' good company ' philosophers 

 who have disappeared with ' wit' and ' verses.' The follow- 

 ing caricature of them is in the dialogues. 



' I'.iijihninur. Where doth he pick up all hit improve 

 incut ': 



' Crito. Where our grave ancestors would never have 

 looked for it, in a drawing-room, a coffee-house, a chocolate- 

 house, at the tavern, or groom-porter's. In these and the 

 like fashionable places of resort, it is the custom for polite 

 persons to speak freely on all subjects, religious, moral, or 

 political. So that u young gentleman who frequents them 

 is in the way of hearing many instructive lectures, seasoned 

 with wit and raillery, and uttered with spirit. Three or |.,ur 

 sentences from a man of quality, spoke with a good air. 

 make more impression and convey more knowledge than a 

 dozen dissertations in a dry academical way. You may 

 now coinui' '.it no former age ever saw) a young 



lady or a /'< lit .M,iitn- ii"ii|>iu~ a dn me or an old-fashioned 

 gentle man who hath read many a (ircck and l^utin author, 

 ami spent much time in hard methodical studj.' 



Thi- .I'M/y*/, and Defence of Freethinkiii a; in Mathe 

 The object of Uigsc tracts (the second of which is 



