sight, which, from the name of its author, is known as Berkeley's "Theory of Vision," has remained, almost from its first promulgation, one of the least disputed doctrines in the most disputed and most disputable of all sciences, the Science of Man. This is the more remarkable, as no doctrine in mental philosophy is more at variance with first appearances, more contradictory to the natural prejudices of mankind. Yet this apparent paradox was no sooner published, than it took its place, almost without contestation, among established opinions; the warfare which has since distracted the world of metaphysics, has swept past this insulated position without disturbing it; and while so many of the other conclusions of the analytical school of mental philosophy, the school of Hobbes and Locke, have been repudiated with violence by the antagonist school, that of Common Sense or innate principles, this one doctrine has been recognised and upheld by the leading thinkers of both schools alike. Adam Smith, Reid, Stewart, and Whewell (not to go beyond our own island) have made the doctrine as much their own, and have taken as much pains to enforce and illustrate it, as Hartley, Brown, or James Mill.-MILL, JOHN STUART, 184250, Bailey on Berkeley's Theory of Vision, Dissertations and Discussions, vol. II, p.

84.

Berkeley's "Essay towards a New Theory of Vision" is the chronological and also a logical introduction to his metaphysical philosophy. It is virtually an inquiry into the nature and origin of our conception of Extension in Space, that distinctive characteristic of the material world. The "Essay" was the first fruits of Berkeley's philosophical studies at Dublin. It was also the first elaborate attempt to demonstrate that our apparently immediate visual perceptions of space, and of bodies existing in it apart from our organism, are actually suggestions induced by the constant association of visible ideas, and of certain organic sensations which accompany vision, with objects presented in our tactual experience. Various circumstances contribute to make this "Essay" more perplexing to the reader than any of Berkeley's other works. FRASER, A. C., 1871, ed., The Works of George Berkeley, vol. 1, pp. 1, 4.

THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN

KNOWLEDGE 1710

It was only by degrees that this scheme. of Berkeley's philosophy attracted the attention due to so original and ingenious a mode of conceiving the Universe. A fragment of metaphysics, by a young and almost unknown author, published at a distance from the centre of English intellectual life, was apt to be overlooked. In connection with the "Essay on Vision," however, it drew enough of regard to carry its author with éclat on his first visit to London, three years after the publication. of the "Principles." He then published the immortal "Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous," in which the absurdity of Absolute Matter is illustrated, and the doctrine defended against objections, in

manner meant to recommend to popular acceptance what, on the first statement, seemed an unpopular paradox.-FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, 1871, ed. The Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, p. 130.

Which rank among the most exquisite examples of English style, as well as among the subtlest of metaphysical writings; and the final conclusion of which is summed up in a passage remarkable alike for literary beauty and for calm audacity of statement.-HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY, 1871, Bishop Berkeley on the Metaphysics of Sensation, Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 24, p. 149.

The treatise, "Of the Principles of Human Knowledge," is probably the most entertaining metaphysical work in the English language, and many men who turn away disgusted from ordinary presentations of philosophical doctrines, have read it with amusement if not with satisfaction. -ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD, 1885, The Idealism of Bishop Berkeley, The Presbyterian Review, vol. 6, p. 307.

HYLAS AND PHILONOUS
1713

In this work Berkeley first displayed his wonderful skill as a manipulator of the English language, which had never been employed for the discussion of philosophical ideas with anything like so much grace and refinement.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 198.

A book marked by that consummate beauty of style for which he is distinguished. DENNIS, JOHN, 1894, The Age of Pope, p. 222.

ALCIPHRON, OR THE MINUTE
PHILOSOPHER

1732

The style and manner of this work are built on the model of Plato, and may be justly deemed one of the most happy imitations of the Grecian philosopher, of which our language can boast. There was in Berkeley, indeed, much of the sublimity, the imagination, and enthusiasm, which characterize the genius of Plato.-DRAKE, NATHAN, 1804, Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian, vol. III, p. 69.

Now, I want you, and pray you to read Berkeley's "Minute Philosopher;" I want you to learn that the religious belief which Wordsworth and I hold, and which -I am sure you know in my case, and will not doubt in his no earthly considerations. would make us profess if we did not hold it, is as reasonable as it is desirable; is in its historical grounds as demonstrable as any thing can be which rests upon human evidence; and is, in its life and spirit, the only divine philosophy, the perfection of wisdom; in which, and in which alone, the understanding and the heart can rest. --SOUTHEY, ROBERT, 1829, Letter, Oct., Life and Correspondence by C. C. Southey, ch. xxxii.

Berkeley's "Minute Philosopher" is the least admirable performance of that admirable writer. The most characteristic part is the attempt to erect a proof of theology upon his own peculiar metaphysical theory. The remainder consists for the most part of familiar commonplaces, expressed in a style of exquisite grace and lucidity, but not implying any great originality. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, p. 43.

In this noble composition the author

combats, through his own method, the different types of infidelity current at the time. Berkeley's conception of the nature of religion was more spiritual than that which was prevalent in his day.-FISHER, GEORGE PARK, 1896, History of Christian Doctrine, p. 386.

The elegance and easiness of the style, and the freshness and beauty of the descriptions of natural scenery by which the tedium of the controversy is relieved, render this not only a readable, but a fascinating book; but Berkeley falls into the usual error of men who write on controversial subjects in the dialogistic form. He makes his adversaries state their case much more weakly than they would really have done; the giants he raises, only to knock down, are weak-kneed giants. Certainly the same may be said of Tindal, the chief of the Deists; but faults on one side do not justify similar faults on the other.-OVERTON, JOHN HENRY, 1897, The Church in England, vol. II, p. 225.

"Alciphron" was, and is likely to be, the most generally enjoyed of Berkeley's volumes. It is simply and variously entertaining with merits that far out-balance its defects. It has to be remembered that "Alciphron" is not directed against the specific doctrines of Deists or Atheists, so much as against the general influence of such writers on people unwilling to think for themselves, yet willing because of their more doubtful lives to deny the existence of God. Deep and close argument throughout would have helped his special object but little; and those who

condemn the work as shallow seem to forget this. The "Analogy" of Butler and the "Alciphron" of Berkeley are as different in special aim as any two works on one subject can possibly be; and to expect the same result from each is strangely perverse and unreasonable. Were its philosophical value even less, it would still be eagerly read, for in an age of delicate and symmetrical prose, it stands distinguished by its delicacy and its symmetry.-SAMPSON, GEORGE, 1898, ed., Works of George Berkeley, vol. II, p. 148.

GAUDENTIO DI LUCCA
1737

"Gaudentio di Lucca" is generally, and I believe, on good grounds, supposed to be the work of the celebrated Berkeley,

Bishop of Cloyne, one of the most profound philosophers and virtuous visionaries of his age. The style of this work is extremely pure, and some of the incidents, especially that of the Grand Vizier's daughter, who was afterwards sultana, exceedingly well managed. The portrait of the English Freethinker, towards the end of the work, is skillfully drawn and the absurdity of the arguments of Hobbes very humorously displayed. DUNLOP, JOHN, 1814-42, The History of Fiction, vol. II, pp. 421, 422.

This well-known fiction, which has long been erroneously ascribed to Bishop Berkeley, was in fact the work of Simon Berington, a Catholic priest. The statement in the Gent. Mag. which assigns to him the authorship of this work, is confirmed by the traditions of his family in Herefordshire, as I have ascertained from authentic information. LEWIS, SIR GEORGE CORNEWALL, 1852, On the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, vol. II, p. 273, note.

Berkeley's Bermuda enterprise, his former connection with Italy, his fondness for Plato, some vague resemblance in the ingenuity of the fancy, and the amiable. spirit of "Gaudentio di Lucca," may have given rise to the supposition that he was the author. There is not sufficient ground in the qualities of the work, in the absence of any definite testimony, to justify this conjecture.-FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, 1871, Life and Letters of George Berkeley, vol. IV, p. 252.

SIRIS

1744-47

Though we are so backward in some sorts of intelligence, we are perfectly acquainted with the virtues of tar-water; some have been cured as they think, and some made sick by it; and I do think it is a defect in the good bishop's recommendation of it, that he makes it a Catholicon; but I daresay he is confident he believes it such.-HERRING, THOMAS, 1744, Letter to Duncombe.

It is impossible to write a letter now without tincturing the ink with tar-water. This is the common topic of discourse, both among the rich and poor, high and low; and the Bishop of Cloyne has made it as fashionable as going to Vauxhall or Ranelagh. . . . However, the faculty

in general, and the whole posse of apothecaries are very angry both with the author and the book, which makes many people suspect it is a good thing.DUNCOMBE, WILLIAM, 1744, Letter to Archbishop Herring, June.

We are now mad about tar-water, on the publication of a book that I will send you, written by Dr. Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. The book contains every subject from tar-water to the Trinity; however, all the women read and understand it no more than they would if it were intelligible. A man came into an apothecary's shop the other day, "Do you sell tar-water?" "Tar-water!" replied the apothecary, "why I sell nothing else!"

WALPOLE, HORACE, 1744, Letter to Sir Horace Mann, May 2d; Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. 1, p. 303.

Was an enthusiast in many affairs of life, not confined to religion and the education of youth. He invaded another of the learned professions, Medicine. He published a book called "Siris, or Tar-Water." . . He ought to have checked this officious genius (unless in his own profession-way he had acquired this nostrum by inspiration) from intruding into the affairs of a distinct profession. --DOUGLASS, WILLIAM, 1748-53, Summary, Historical and Political of the British Setlements in North America.

From a pedestal so low and abject, so preparing it, and its medicinal effects, culinary, as Tar Water, the method of

the dissertation ascends, like Jacob's ladder, by just gradations, into the Heaven of Heavens and the thrones of the Trinity. -DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1834-54, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Collected Works, ed. Masson, vol. II, p. 153.

Whenever his feelings were enlisted in behalf of a theory or an enterprise, he derived an argument or a charm from the most distant associations. One of the last of his favorite ideas was a faith in the curative qualities of tar-water, which had proved useful in a malady under which he suffered. His treatise on the subject deserves no mean rank among the curiosities of literature. The research, ingenuity, and scholarship, elicited by his ardent plea for this specific, evince a patient and elaborate contemplation seldom manifest in the discussion of the

most comprehensive questions. He analyzes the different balsams, from the balm of Gilead to amber; he quotes Leo Africanus to describe the process of making tar on Mount Atlas, and compares it with that used in New England; he cites Herodotus and Pliny, Theophrastus and Plato, Boerhaave and Evelyn; he surveys the whole domain of vegetable physiology, points out the relation of volatile salts to the economy of the blood, and discusses natural history, the science of medicine, chemistry, and the laws of life, space, light, and the soul itself,-all with ostensible reference to the virtues of tar-water. He enumerates every conceivable disease as a legitimate subject of its efficacy; and, while thus prolix and irrelevant, fuses the whole with good sense, fine rhetoric, and graceful zeal.-TUCKERMAN, HENRY T., 1857, Essays Biographical and Critical, p. 248.

On the whole, the scanty speculative

literature of these islands in the last century contains no other work nearly so remarkable; although curiously it has been much overlooked even by those curious in the history and bibliography of British philosophy. Every time we open its pages we find fresh seeds of thought. There is the unexpectedness of genius in its whole movement. It breathes the spirit of Plato and the Neoplatonists, in the least Platonic generation of English history since the revival of letters, and it draws this Platonic spirit from a thing of sense so commonplace as Tar. It connects tar with the highest thoughts in metaphysics and theology, by links which involve some of the most subtle botanical, chemical, physiological, optical, and mechanical speculations of its time.-FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, 1871, ed., The Works of George Berkeley, vol. 11, p. 343.

"Siris' is one of the most extraordinary books ever written; certainly the most amazing work in the literature of British philosophy. "Siris" is among the greatest of Berkeley's works; yet it is not to be numbered with the more closely reasoned works of his earlier years. It is rather the unstudied murmurings of a cultured and persuasive philosopher who in the evening of his life has fallen a-musing. One would as soon turn to Sir Thomas Browne for exact science as to "Siris;" but who seeks in "Siris" delicate food for

meditation will not seek in vain. The actual value of its speculation may not be great; yet the whole range of Berkeley's works contains nothing more completely characteristic of its author; more subtle and suggestive in matter and more harmonious and splendid in style.-SAMPSON, GEORGE, 1898, ed., Works of George Berkeley, vol. III, p. 198.

GENERAL

And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin. -BROWN, JOHN, 1746? Essay on Satire, pt. ii, l. 224.

Doctor Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, a very worthy, ingenious, and learned man, has written a book to prove that there is no such thing as Matter, and that nothing exists but in idea: that you and I only fancy ourselves eating, drinking, and sleeping; you at Leipsig, and I at London: that we think we have flesh and blood, legs, arms, &c., but that we are only spirit. His arguments are, strictly speaking, unanswerable; but yet I am so far from being convinced by them, that I am determined to go on to eat and drink, and walk and ride, in order to keep that matter, which I so mistakenly imagine my body at present to consist of, in as good plight as possible.-CHESTERFIELD, PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE EARL, 1748, Letters to his Son, Sept. 27, No. 132.

And indeed most of the writings of that very ingenious author form the best lessons of skepticism which are to be found among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted.-HUME, DAVID, 1758, Academical or Sceptical Philosophy, note.

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is simply ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus." This was a stout exemplification of the first truths of Père Bouffier, or the original principles of Reid and of Beattie; without admitting which we can no more argue in metaphysicks, than we can argue in mathematicks without

axioms. To me it is not conceivable how Berkeley can be answered by pure reasoning; but I know that the nice and difficult task was to have been undertaken by one of the most luminous minds of the present age (Edmund Burke), had not politicks "turned him from calm philosophy aside." What an admirable display of subtilty, united with brilliance, might his contending with Berkeley have afforded us! JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1763, Life by Boswell, ed. Hill, vol. 1, p. 545.

It has often given me great pain to see Bishop Berkeley, a most pious and learned man, overturn the main foundations of all religion and all knowledge, by the most extravagant scepticism concerning the the real existence of matter, in some of his writings; and then fancy, that in others he could, by any force of argument, establish the evidences of Christianity, which are a perpetual appeal to the truth of our senses, and grounded on a supposition, that they cannot deceive us in those things which are the proper and natural objects of them, within their due limits. one wonder, that the sceptics should lay hold of the former in answer to the latter? And can any more useful service be done to Christianity, than to shew the fallacy of such whimsies as would make the body of Christ, which his disciples saw and felt, no body at all? and the proof of his resurrection, from the testimony of their senses, a mere delusive idea?-LYTTELTON, GEORGE LORD, 1770, Letter to Beattie, Oct. 6; Forbes, Life of Beattie, vol. 1, p. 228.

Can

The substance, or at least the foundation, of Berkeley's argument against the existence of matter, may be found in Locke's essay, and in the "Principia" of Descartes. And if this be conclusive, it proves that to be false which every man must necessarily believe every moment of his life to be true, and that to be true which no man since the foundation of the world was ever capable of believing for a single moment.-BEATTIE, JAMES, 1773, Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, pt. ii, ch. ii.

Of the intellectual powers of the Bishop, it may be observed, that, though strong and acute in no common degree, they were frequently mingled with too much enthusiasm and imagination for the purposes of strict philosophical ratiocination. His knowledge, however, was of great

compass, and extended to all the useful arts and occupations of life; of which, it has been said, that there was scarcely one, liberal or mechanic, of which he knew not more than the ordinary practitioners.— DRAKE, NATHAN, 1804, Essays Illustrative of the Tatler, Spectator and Guardian, vol. III, p. 75.

A man uniformly so amiable as to be ranked among the first of human beings; a writer sometimes so absurd that it has been doubted whether it was possible he could be serious in the principles he laid down. His actions manifested the warmest zeal for the interests of Christianity, while some of his writings seemed intended to assist the cause of infidelity. Yet the respect which all who knew Dr. Berkeley have felt for his excellent character, has rescued him in some measure from this imputation, and he will deservedly be handed down to posterity as an able champion of religion, although with a love of paradox, and somewhat of the pride of philosophy, which his better sense could restrain.-CHALMERS, ALEXANDER, 180823, ed., The British Essayists, Preface to the Guardian, p. 17.

Possessing a mind which, however inferior to that of Locke in depth of reflection and in soundness of judgment, was fully its equal in logical acuteness and invention, and in learning, fancy, and taste far its superior. Berkeley was singularly fitted to promote that reunion of Philosophy and of the Fine Arts which is so essential to the prosperity of both. . With these intellectual and moral endowments, admired and blazoned as they were by the most distinguished wits of his age, it is not surprising that Berkeley should have given a popularity and fashion to metaphysical pursuits which they had never before acquired in England. - STEWART, DUGALD, 1815-21, First Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopædia Britannica. When Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter,

And prov'd it-'twas no matter what he said:

They say his system 'tis in vain to batter,

Too subtle for the airiest human head. And yet who can believe it? I would shatter Gladly all matters down to stone or lead, Or adamant, to find the world a spirit, And wear my head, denying that I wear it. -BYRON, LORD, 1823, Don Juan, canto xi, s. i.