BERKELEY. 



or external space, but would imagine all 

 objects to be in his eye, or rather in his 

 mind. 



In 1710 appeared " The Principles of 

 Human Knowledge ;" and in 1713 " Dia- 

 logues between Hylas and Philonous:" 

 the object of both which pieces is, to 

 prove that the commonly received notion 

 of the existence of matter is false ; that 

 sensible material objects, as they are call- 

 ed, are not external to the mind,but exist 

 in it, and are nothing more than impres- 

 sions made upon it by the immediate act 

 of God, according to certain rules, term- 

 ed laws of nature. 



Acuteness of parts and beauty of ima- 

 gination were so conspicuous in Berke- 

 ley's writings, that his reputation was now 

 established, and his company courted ; 

 men of opposite parties concurred in re- 

 commending him. For Steele he wrote 

 several papers in the Guardian, and at his 

 house became acquainted with Pope,with 

 whom he always lived in friendship. Swift 

 recommended him to the celebrated Earl 

 of Peterborough, who, being appointed 

 ambassador to the King of Sicily and the 

 Italian States, took Berkeley with him as 

 ch aplain and secretary in 1713, with whom 

 he returned to England the year follow- 

 ing. 



His hopes of preferment expiring with 

 the fall of Queen Anne's ministry, he 

 some time after embraced an offer made 

 him by Ashe, bishop of Clogher, of accom- 

 panying his son in a tour through Europe. 

 In this he employed four years ; and be- 

 sides those places which fall within the 

 grand tour, he visited some that are less 

 frequented, and with great industry col- 

 lected materials for a natural history of 

 those parts,but which were unfortunately 

 lost in the passage to Naples. He arriv- 

 ed at London in 1721 ; ^and being much 

 affected with the miseries of the nation, 

 occasioned by the South-sea scheme in 

 1720, he published the same year " An 

 Essay towards preventing the ruin of 

 Great Britain ;" reprinted in his " Mis- 

 cellaneous Tracts." 



His way was now open in*o the first 

 company. Pope introduced him to Lord 

 Burlington, by whom he was recommend- 

 ed to the Duke of Graf ton, then appoint- 

 ed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who took 

 Berkeley over as one of his chaplains in 

 1731. The latter part of this year he ac- 

 cumulated the degrees of bachelor and 

 doctor of divinity; and the year following 

 he had a very unexpected increase of 

 fortune from the death of Mrs. Vanhom- 

 righ, the celebrated Vanessa, to whom he 



had been introduced by Swift. This lady 

 had intended Swift for her heir; but per- 

 ceiving herself to be slighted by him, she 

 left her fortune of 8,OOOJ. between her 

 two executors, of whom Berkeley was 

 one. In 17^4, he was promoted to the 

 deanery of Deny, worth 1,100/. a year. 



In 173^ he published " The Minute 

 Philosopher," in two volumes 8vo., 

 against Freethinkers. In 1733 he was 

 made bishop of Cloyne ; and might have 

 been removed in 1745, by Lord Chester- 

 field, to Clogher, but declined it. He 

 resided constantly at Cloyne ; where he 

 faithfully discharged all the offices of a 

 good bishop, yet continued his studies 

 with unabated attention. 



About this time he engaged in a con- 

 troversy with the mathematicians, which 

 excited much debate in the literary 

 world ; and the occasion of it was this : 

 Addison had given the Bishop an account 

 of the behaviour of their common friend 

 Dr. Garth, in his last illness, which was 

 equally unpleasing to both these advo- 

 cates of revealed religion. For when 

 Addison went to see the Doctor, and be- 

 gan to discourse with him seriously about 

 another world, ' Surely, Addison," re- 

 plied he, " I have good reason not to be- 

 lieve those trifles,since my friend Dr. Hal- 

 ley, who has dealt so much in demonstra- 

 tion, has assured me, that the doctrines 

 of Christianity are incomprehensible, and 

 the religion "itself an imposture." The 

 Bishop, therefore, took up arms against 

 Halley, and addressed to him, as to an in- 

 fidel mathematician, a discourse called 

 " The Analyst ;" with a view of shewing 

 that mysteries in faith were unjustly ob- 

 jected to by mathematicians, who he 

 thought admitted much greater myste- 

 ries, and even falsehoods in science, of 

 which he endeavoured to prove that the 

 doctrine of fluxions furnished a clear ex- 

 ample. This occasioned a long contro- 

 versy between himself and some eminent 

 mathematicians. 



In 173G Bishop Berkeley published 

 " The Querist," a discourse addressed to 

 magistrates, occasioned by the enormous 

 licence and irreligion of the times ; and 

 many other things afterwards of a smaller 

 kind. In 1744 came out his celebrated 

 and curious book, " Siris; a Chain of Phi- 

 losophical Reflections and Inquiries con- 

 cerning the virtues of Tar-water." July 

 the same year he removed, with his lady 

 and family, to Oxford, partly to superin- 

 tend the education of a son, but chiefly 

 to indulge the passion for learned retire- 

 ment, which had always strongly possess- 

 ed him. lie would have resigned his 



