Chapter XXVII: Part 27

It is his commonplace book, however, and the other records of his college life, now first published, that show us how the young student employed himself, and what were his favourite studies and opinions. In these early days one sees that he learned mostly by negation. Locke is _not_ right in this particular, Malebranche is wrong in that, More is not to be trusted in a third,--are the most usual entries in the young student's journal. It is curious to look at those imperfect jottings and see as through a window into the eager young soul, sharpening and training itself by living contact with the thoughts of the great thinkers who then ruled the intellectual world, and preparing itself to take rank among them at some future day. Mathematics, metaphysics, optics, physics, and natural theology were all studied. Locke was his great teacher, then Malebranche, then the English Platonists; Barrow, Boyle, Newton, and Molyneux taught him physics and mathematics. He is always independent, perhaps too fond of independence, perhaps scarcely aware that as much is learned from what we find ourselves compelled to deny, as from what we are obliged to affirm. There seems to have been a great deal of intellectual life in the University, when Thomas Prior and Samuel Madden--the two founders of the Royal Irish Society--were fellow-students of Berkeley, when King was translated to the see of Dublin, and Bishop Browne was Provost of Trinity. Berkeley and his young friends formed themselves into a society for the purpose of discussing the problems which life and the new philosophy were presenting to them. We are not told who the members of this society were, but we can guess, from jottings in the commonplace book, that the subjects of discussion were mainly suggested by portions of Locke's essays, and we can fancy the young metaphysicians disputing with great eagerness, ardour, and confusion, all manner of soluble and insoluble questions. It is more than probable that out of the chaos of the thoughts and opinions which must have formed the intellectual outcome of such a society, there gradually arose clearly and more clearly before Berkeley the intellectual insight into the wants and difficulties of modern metaphysics, pure and applied, which at last realized itself in the 'Essay towards a New Theory of Vision,' and in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge.' At all events we know that these two works, on which Berkeley's fame as a metaphysician has rested, were written and published not many years after the date of the founding of the College Society; and that many of the questions discussed are to be found among the list of subjects which Professor Fraser thinks were there debated. Both works everywhere show traces of the reading and thinking which the commonplace book reveals, and the results of the two are the expression of the double tendency to the inductive philosophy and to mysticism, which, we have said, is the distinguishing feature in Berkeley's life and philosophy. 'The Theory of Vision' is Malebranche's seeing all things in God, but on a rational and experimental basis. We see God in all things, and we see all things by means of his continual contrivance. The outcome of the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' is, in the main, the attempt to explain clearly, fully, and in accordance with Baconian principles, the mystical thought of Norris, that God is the immediate author of our sensations, and that we therefore participate in Him when we see, feel, or desire, and the doctrine of providence on which Dr. More delighted to expatiate.

In 1713, we find Berkeley at the court of Queen Anne, in company with Swift. He had come over from Dublin chiefly for the purpose of gaining attention for his metaphysical system. He had endeavoured, while in Dublin, to interest English philosophers in his new principle, but the attempt was not very successful. He now tried by personal intercourse and more popular exposition, in his Essays in the 'Guardian' and in his Dialogues, to gain adherents to those opinions from which he expected so much; and in this he was pretty successful. Swift, writing to Lord Carteret from Dublin some years after, says that 'he (Berkeley) was a Fellow of the University here: and going to England very young about thirteen years ago, he became founder of a sect called the _Immaterialists_, by the force of a very curious book upon that subject. Dr. Smalridge and many other eminent persons were his proselytes.' We have very pleasant glimpses of the young Irish metaphysician among the wits of Queen Anne's court. Then, as afterwards, his amiability and enthusiasm disarmed enmity and gained friends among all factions. He was intimate with Steele and Addison, as well as the companion of Swift and Pope. Swift procured for him the appointment of secretary to Lord Peterborough, and in that capacity, and afterwards as tutor to Mr. St. George Ashe, he spent some years abroad. On his return,

'he found London and all England in the agitation and
misery consequent upon the failure of the South Sea Scheme.
This occasioned one of his most characteristic productions
as an author. He now addressed himself for the first time
publicly to questions of social economy. If I am not
mistaken, the deep impression which the English catastrophe
of 1720 made upon him was connected with the project of
social idealism which, as we shall see, filled and
determined his life in its middle period.'

He was shocked at the tone of social morality and his imaginative enthusiasm perhaps helped to make him fancy the plague more wide-spreading and more incurable than it really was. His thoughts found vent in his 'Essay toward Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,' and he then probably first began to meditate on the romantic scheme of missionary enterprise which filled so much of his life.

His second stay in London brought him the beginning of many of the friendships which lasted through life. He had met in Italy, Benson, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, and now became intimate with Secker, successively Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Oxford, and Archbishop of Canterbury, Rundle, Bishop of Derry, Clarke, and Butler,--all of whom helped him in his attempt to realise the great plan now beginning to take shape in his mind. He had returned to Ireland as Chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant, and had been nominated, in rapid succession, Divinity Lecturer, Senior Greek Lecturer in Trinity College, then Dean of Dromore, then Hebrew Lecturer and Senior Proctor in Trinity College, then Rector of Ardtrea and Arboe, and lastly Dean of Derry; but no sooner had he fairly obtained the church preferment which his position and talents had merited, than he was eager to resign it--'his heart is ready to break if his deanery be not taken from him.' He wished to resign present preferment and future prospects, and to dedicate his life, means, and energies to instruct the youth of America, as the President of an ideally perfect University in the Isles of Bermuda. The old world had grown very evil, and Berkeley wished to make a new one. He had mysticism enough to imagine a new Atlantis, and the practical turn for experimenting which made him eager to attempt to realize it. His thoughts were not content with the patient waiting of the mystical mediæval piety which inspires the beautiful 'Hora Novissima' of Bernard, they must take shape in action. His enthusiasm rises to poetic height, and finds utterance in a few glowing verses prophetic of the dominion which is to come and increase on the other side of the ocean by the diffusion of education, the sciences, and the preaching of the Word:

'Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first Acts already past.
A fifth shall close the Drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last.'

After much anxious waiting and painful pleading at court and with Parliament, Berkeley at last obtained a charter for his college, and was promised an endowment of £20,000:--

'The Charter authorized the erection of a college in the
Bermudas to be called the College of St. Paul, and to be
governed by a President and nine Fellows who were to form
the Corporation. Berkeley was named the first President,
and his three Dublin associates the first Fellows. They
were all allowed to retain their preferments at home for
eighteen months after their arrival in the islands. Other
six Fellows were to be appointed by them within three
years, and the surviving members of the Corporation were to
have power to elect all the future vacancies. The Bishop of
London was named as Visitor, and the Secretary of State for
the Colonies was appointed Chancellor. The College was
declared to be for the instruction of students in
literature and theology, with a view to the promotion of
Christian civilization alike in the English and in the
heathen parts of America.'

He sailed from Gravesend with his newly-married wife and a little company of retainers and friends, and arrived in the Narragansett waters, on the western side of Rhode Island, at the beautiful harbour of Newport. Berkeley had meant to call at Rhode Island on his way to the Bermudas to get information, procure anything needful for the fulfilment of his great scheme, purchase land as an investment for his college, and perhaps gain the good-will and interest of friendly New Englanders. He was not destined to get nearer the Bermudas. The visit, which was originally meant to be a short one, lengthened out from month to month, until at last Berkeley began to like the place so well that he confidentially says to Prior in one of his letters:--'The truth is, if the king's bounty were paid in, and the charter could be removed hither, I should like it better than Bermuda.' And Newport would have made a very good centre for his scheme of educational and evangelical operations. It was the capital of the State of Rhode Island, and was a rich centre of foreign and domestic trade. The State had been colonized by Roger Williams in 1636, and had a constitution which asserted the right of religious freedom while that was still unknown in every other State in America. Its society was accordingly very unlike that met with almost anywhere else. Quakers, Moravians, Jews, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Independents, and Baptists of every sect, all lived together, holding their own beliefs, and tolerating those of their neighbours. The town population was chiefly mercantile, while that of the interior of the island, and that along the Narragansett shore, was pastoral. The inhabitants were famed for their hospitality, and the society was intelligent and well-informed. Great care was taken of the education of the children, and the libraries and pictures which still remain testify to the good taste and culture of the gentlemen of the island:--

'The Rhode Island aristocracy of Berkeley's time maintained
the character of the old English country gentlemen from
whom they were descended. A state of society supported by
slavery produced festivity. Tradition records the genial
life of those days in the colony. Excursions to Hartford to
luxuriate on bloated salmon were annual indulgences in May.
Pace races on the beach for silver tankards were the social
indulgences of summer. When autumn arrived, there were
harvest-home festivities. Large numbers of both sexes
gathered on those occasions--gentlemen in their scarlet
coats and swords, with lace ruffles over their hands, silk
stockings, and shoes ornamented with silver buckles, and
ladies dressed in brocade, with high-heeled shoes and high
head-dresses. These festivities would sometimes continue
for days, and they were shared by the slaves as well as
their masters. Christmas was the great festival of the
year; twelve days were then given to hospitalities. The
wedding, too, was a great gala in the olden time. And the
fox chase, with hounds and horns, as well as fishing and
fowling, were favourite sports in Narragansett.'

While in Newport, Berkeley mingled in the society of the town, and frequently preached in the pulpit of Mr. Honeyman, a missionary of the Church of England. He visited the Narragansett country, and is said to have made some distant excursions to see the condition of the native Indian tribes. A few months after his arrival he bought a farm and built a commodious house, which he called Whitehall. The house is still standing, and is known in the neighbourhood as Bishop Berkeley's house. Few situations could be more adapted to the tastes of a student as fond of nature as of books. It was here that 'Alciphron,' the most elaborate, and, in the lifetime of the author, the most popular, of all Berkeley's writings, was written. Tradition points to a natural alcove in the rocks, commanding a view of the beach and the ocean, as the spot where the beautiful dialogues were composed.

'"Alciphron" is redolent of the fragrance of nature in
Rhode Island and of the invigorating breezes of its ocean
shore. Smith of Philadelphia, in his preface to the London
edition of Johnson of Stratford's philosophical works, says
that one day when visiting him Johnson took up the book,
and reading some of Berkeley's rural descriptions, told him
that they were copied from the charming landscapes in that
delightful island, which lay before him at the time he was
writing.'

While living this retired life at Whitehall and troubled with anxieties at the delays which prevented him from seeing the actual realization of his great scheme, Berkeley found time to mingle in the intellectual society which Newport afforded, and took the lead in forming a philosophical association for the discussion of speculative questions. One of the objects of this association was to collect books, and it originated the Redwood Library, which still exists in Newport, a memento of the short but interesting stay of Bishop Berkeley.

One American friend, however, is more closely related to Berkeley than any other, and must not be passed over without special mention. This was Dr. Samuel Johnson, the Episcopalian minister of Stratford. He had known the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' before Berkeley's arrival in America, and had become a convert to the metaphysical opinions there set forth. He was one of the first to welcome Berkeley when he landed in Rhode Island, and the friendship and correspondence which then began only ceased with the death of the Bishop. His name, too, possesses special interest to all students of Berkeley's philosophy, and he must be held in honour as one of the earliest and one of the greatest metaphysicians which America has produced. Although his works have been forgotten--obscured, perhaps, by the theological and metaphysical fame of his great pupil, Jonathan Edwards--they still deserve attention. We should like to see a new edition of his 'Elementa Philosophica;' and believe that, if re-published and known, it would be a valuable contribution to American philosophy. This work possesses a special interest for the student of Berkeley. It was written by a professed disciple, was the result of the study of Berkeley's writings, of conversations and correspondence with him on the philosophical subjects it discusses. It was dedicated to the Bishop, and may almost be looked upon as a new and more complete edition of the 'Principles of Human Knowledge.' It treats of the pure intellect and its notions, and of the intuitive intellectual light; and so, to some extent, supplies the place of the second part of that work which was never written, and connects the philosophy of Berkeley's earlier days with the Platonic mysticism of his old age. Johnson's 'Elementa Philosophica' can never be separated from Berkeley's 'Principles of Human Knowledge;' and had the two been always studied together, the continual misapprehension of the Bishop's philosophical system, which has characterized most histories of philosophy, could scarcely have arisen. The philosophical letters to Johnson are also full of interest, and show other sides of Berkeley's system than that most prominent in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge;' and Johnson himself seems to have had no small influence in developing what, in some respects, may be called the idealist,[220] and in others the mystical moment in Berkeley's speculation.

While thus employed in philosophical correspondence and composition, and in social and intellectual intercourse with his friends in and near Newport, Berkeley was harassed with doubts and anxieties about the success of his great scheme. He had embarked in the faith that Sir R. Walpole would fulfil his promise, and that the £20,000 endowment which had been voted by Parliament would be soon handed over to him for his college. But the long months spent in waiting lengthened out to years, and the prospect grew duller and duller, until at length even Berkeley began to despair. Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London, who had been appointed by the charter the Visitor of the new University, did all he could to forward the scheme; and when he found that the ministerial delays were only meant to cover the non-fulfilment of their bargain, he at last got a conclusive answer from Walpole: 'If you put this question to me as a minister,' said he, 'I must and can assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits with public convenience; but if you ask me, as a friend, whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America expecting the payment of £20,000, I advise him by all means to return home to Europe, and give up his present expectations.'

The ten best years of Berkeley's life were given to this scheme of missionary enterprise, and now it ended in what seemed to be utter failure. We have only to read his enthusiastic letters to his friend Prior to see how hopefully he had looked forward to the future, and to realize how crushing the blow must have been which now fell upon him. He bore himself bravely enough, however, outwardly, and his own account of the miscarriage given in 'Alciphron' does not reveal very much depression:--

'I flattered myself, _Theages_, that before this time I
might have been able to have sent you an agreeable account
of the success of the affair which brought me into this
remote corner of the country. But, instead of this, I
should now give you the detail of its miscarriage, if I did
not rather choose to entertain you with some amusing
incidents, which have helped to make me easy under a
circumstance I could neither obviate nor foresee. Events
are not in our power; but it always is, to make a good use
even of the very worst. And I must needs own, the course
and event of this affair gave opportunity for reflections
that make me some amends for a great loss of time, pains,
and expense. A life of action, which takes its issue from
the counsels, passions, and views of other men, if it doth
not draw a man to imitate, will at least teach him to
observe. And a mind at liberty to reflect on its own
observations, if it produce nothing useful in the world,
seldom fails of entertainment to itself. For several months
past I have enjoyed such liberty and leisure in this
distant retreat, far beyond the verge of that great
whirlpool of business, faction, and pleasure which is
called the world. And a retreat in itself agreeable, after
a long scene of trouble and disquiet, was made much more so
by the conversation and good qualities of my host
Euphranor, who unites in his own person the philosopher and
the farmer, two characters not so inconsistent in nature as
by custom they seem to be.'

But Berkeley felt that his life-work was done. He felt himself to be a broken man, so far as action was concerned. The practical-working experimental side of his nature falls into the shade; and the calm mystical enthusiasm which spends itself in study and in reverie, and can turn from the vexations and disturbances and wrongs of the real world to find repose and quietude in the contemplation of the world of ideal perfection visioned in the dreams of genius, grows stronger and stronger. He returned to England in the end of 1731, and soon found himself among old acquaintances. Church preferment awaited him. He was nominated to the rich deanery of Down, and when the nomination was from accidental circumstances cancelled, was soon afterwards nominated and consecrated Bishop of Cloyne. But he did not mingle much in society, nor take a very active part in the business of life. He more and more preferred to live in quiet seclusion. A wealthier bishopric was within his reach, but he contented himself with Cloyne. The offer of the Primacy of Ireland failed to draw him from his retirement. A growing feebleness, a love for quietness, and increasing and constant ill-health, all show how heavily the great disappointment of his life pressed upon him. He was not fifty when he was made Bishop of Cloyne, but all that he did afterwards bears the stamp of old age.

The American enterprise, however, was not such a failure as it seemed to Berkeley. His one great practical enterprise bears a curious analogy to his philosophical system. His life-work and his life-thought are strangely parallel. In both there is the combination of shrewd, practical judgment, with almost visionary enthusiasm. Both were thought by his contemporaries to be more suitable for a dream-life than for waking reality. Both fail in completeness of development and adequacy of expression; and yet both contain in them germs of life to be long afterwards developed. Berkeley's American scheme did not entirely break down at his return to England. The farm of Whitehall, which he had bought near Newport, he bequeathed to Yale College for the purpose of encouraging Greek and Latin scholarship, and the list of Berkeleian scholars--a list containing more than two hundred names, among them some of the most eminent in America--shows how far the designs of the founder were thus unexpectedly fulfilled:--

'"It is a fact of no slight significance," the writer
remarks, "taken in connection with the original purpose of
Berkeley, that of this list nearly one hundred are marked
as ministers of the Gospel, foremost among whom is
President Wheelock, who founded an Indian school, the germ
of Dartmouth College; while hundreds more, not here
enumerated, have been recipients of this bounty, in the
shape of smaller premiums, among whom may be named David
Brainerd, the 'Apostle to the Indians.'"'

Berkeley's gifts to Yale College did not cease with the bequest of his farm. He so interested some of his Bermuda subscribers in the American College that, with their aid, he was able to send over from England a large donation of books to its library. Harvard College, as well as Yale, received gifts of books, and, to the end of his life, Berkeley's constant references in his letters to Johnson, and his continual kindnesses and recommendations of young American students who from time to time came over to England, showed the deep interest which he took in the cause of religion and education in the Western hemisphere.

The Cloyne life was a very retired one, and Berkeley was almost as much, if not more out of the world there than he had been at Newport. His intercourse with old friends was mostly by letter. Secker, the Bishop of Bristol, and Benson, Bishop of Gloucester, are still the most valued correspondents among the friends of his later life. Gibson, Bishop of London, writes in dignified style about public events, and about the analyst controversy. Prior, his old school and college companion, is still his most useful friend, eager and ready as ever to take up and defend any one of his theories or fancies. Dean Gervais writes and receives beautiful letters about Cloyne and foreign politics. These were stirring times abroad. Frederick the Great was in Silesia, and even a student recluse cannot help thinking that 'We live in an age of revolutions so sudden and surprising in all parts of Europe, that I question whether the like has been ever known before.' Protestant clergymen were very much afraid of France governed by old Cardinal Fleury, but the excitement did not last long, and only reawakened when the next post-bag arrived. The letters from Cloyne give us beautiful glimpses into Berkeley's home-life. There are musical parties, and country visits, village charities, and small attempts at the introduction of manufactures, and his student life in his diocese was not entirely that of a recluse. Even at this period of his life, Berkeley's sympathies were active enough to lead him to undertake a somewhat long and tedious study of the causes of Irish distress and poverty, and more particularly of the famine and epidemic of 1741-2. The results of his investigations were published in the 'Querist' and in 'Siris.'

The 'Querist' was originally published in three parts. It consists of a series of queries concerning the state of Ireland and the remedies suggested. It is a remarkable book, and very little known; still more remarkable when we consider that it was written in 1735 by a bishop of the Irish Church Establishment. The central thought is expressed in the pregnant query, 'Whether a scheme for the welfare of the Irish nation should not take in the whole inhabitants; and whether it be not a vain attempt to project the flourishing of our Protestant gentry, exclusive of the bulk of the natives?'--and the introduction of manufactures, a national bank, the admission of Roman Catholics into Trinity College, Dublin, without compelling them to attend chapel or divinity lectures, and the election of Roman Catholics as justices of the peace, are some of the means of realizing such a scheme. Berkeley's belief in the healing powers of tar-water is better known, and his efforts to get it recognised as a panacea scarcely require mention. They occupied no small part of his last years in Cloyne.

During these last years we hear occasionally of an 'Oxford Scheme,' and there are traces in Berkeley's correspondence of efforts made to give up his bishopric for the sake of some minor preferment not requiring residence. The education of his sons and his own imaginative desire for a 'life academico-philosophical' seem to have been the motives. In August, 1752, he left Cloyne, and was not destined to see it again. The journey was more than his weakened body could bear. 'He was so much reduced by suffering that he had to be carried from his landing on the English shore, in a horse litter to Oxford.' He did not linger long in the beautiful University city in the enjoyment of a life to which he had so often looked forward, and during the months of his residence was almost withdrawn from society by disease and suffering. He was not altogether idle, however.

'In October, 1752, "A Miscellany containing several Tracts
on various Subjects, by the Bishop of Cloyne," was
published simultaneously in London and Dublin. With one
exception, the Miscellany was a reprint of works previously
published. But the old ardour was not extinguished. It
contains also, "Further Thoughts on Tar-water," written
probably during his last months at Cloyne; and prefixed to
the Miscellany is a copy of Latin verses addressed to him
by an English prelate on that absorbing enthusiasm of his
old age.

'A third edition of "Alciphron," of which I have given a
minute account elsewhere, was also published at this time.
It is chiefly remarkable for its omission of those sections
in the Seventh Dialogue which contain a defence of what has
been called his Nominalism.'

The end was drawing near, and came almost unexpectedly. Professor Fraser tells us that

'The autumn and winter of 1752 wore passing away, as we may
fancy, in that enjoyment of academic repose which was
possible in weakness of body more or less disturbed by
acute suffering. We are here left to fancy. One actual
scene has alone been preserved. On the evening of Sunday,
the 14th of January, 1753, Berkeley was resting on a couch,
in his house in Holywell-street, surrounded by his family.
His wife had been reading aloud to the little family party
the lesson in the Burial Service, taken from the fifteenth
chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, and he had
been making remarks upon that sublime passage. His daughter
soon after went to offer him some tea. She found him, as it
seemed, asleep, but his body was already cold; for it was
the last sleep--the mystery of death; and the world of the
senses had suddenly ceased to be a medium of intercourse
between his spirit and those who remained. "Although all
possible means," we are told, "were used, not the least
symptom of life ever afterwards appeared."'

And so one of the greatest and of the purest thinkers that England has ever seen passed away to his rest.

The philosophy of Berkeley is not so much a theory of matter as a philosophy of causality; and the great service which Professor Fraser has done to the history of philosophy is that he has so far made it clear that the one important contribution which Berkeley has brought to the stock of knowledge, the one doctrine of his which has been most fruitful, and most pregnant with results to after-philosophy, is his explanation of the word cause, and the place which he assigns to causality. Berkeley's polemic against abstract ideas, his theories of vision, and his discussions about the nature of ideas, are all subsidiary to this one great doctrine of the meaning and place of causality. It does occur to us that Professor Fraser, while keeping this clearly before him in his admirable elucidations, by prefaces and notes, has somewhat obscured it by dwelling at such length on the points of similarity between Berkeley and Reid and Hamilton. These Scottish philosophers struggled after a theory of matter from the beginning to the end; the reality of the external world, as if anybody ever questioned it, was their alpha and omega. They could think and write of scarcely anything else. But Berkeley's philosophy was a great deal deeper and wider. It was free from what we may perhaps call the provincialism of the Scottish school, which clung with tenacity to what was after all a very small strip in the wide dominion of philosophy, and could never free itself from the narrowness which such exclusiveness was sure to beget. His philosophical writings, containing new and striking thoughts, some of them only now bearing fruit, upon the great metaphysical problems of universals, substance, causality, and the organism of the universe, cannot without danger of misconception be compared at length with a system which thinks itself competent to classify all metaphysical systems according as they contain some one or other theory of perception. We repeat, then, Berkeley's philosophy is by no means merely a theory of matter or a doctrine of sense-perception--it is a philosophy of causality--of substance and causality if you will, but of substance as subordinate to causality.

We are quite aware that these views regarding Berkeley's philosophy have not met with general acceptance. The great proportion of Berkeley's critics, roughly speaking, may be set in two classes: those who believe that his theory is utter scepticism, which the first breath of common sense dissipates, and those who believe the Bishop's opinions to be harmless, because quite unimportant. Dr. Johnson kicks a stone, and Berkeley's theory is disproved. Dr. Reid runs his head against a lamp-post, and with the same important philosophical result.

'Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin.'

And Hood depicts the terror of the alderman at a system which would

'For mock-turtle make me sup sensations.'

The grave criticisms and arguments of many of Berkeley's opponents rest on the same basis. On the other hand, Hegel looks down loftily upon the whole affair, and pronounces the philosophy and its criticism a mere play upon words. Berkeley says _without_ is _within_. Be it so. He has done nothing to settle the problem of philosophy, which remains as before. It may help to bring out more clearly what we believe to be a juster estimate of the nature and value of the speculations of Bishop Berkeley, if we shortly summarize these two different modes of criticizing his system as they appear in their latest form.

Thus it is said, on the one hand, when we look at any object we feel compelled to assert that we see it to be of a certain colour; but this assertion, we afterwards find, must be compatible with two facts--that the same object has different colours as seen by the same person from different points of view, and also as seen by different persons at the same time. Yet we stand by our conviction, that we do see the same thing, because it is our conviction that we do see it. If we were not to stand by it under these circumstances, we could never stand by such natural convictions at any time. The whole evidence for the system is that visible objects look of different sizes and colours at different distances, and in different lights; while the arguments against the theory are the primary convictions of men.[221]

On the other hand, a recent German critic says that the reason why Berkeley's theory has been so little approved of, not only by the great public of those who are capable of reflection, but also by those who are philosophers by profession, is that it is not at all in advance of common opinion; for Berkeley was not the first to declare that the apple which is seen and felt, is only seen and felt, or is phenomenal. This assertion is as old as philosophy. Most philosophers, however, in opposition to Berkeley, have thought, and still think, that the fundamental cause of the phenomena which brings it about is not merely phenomenal, but something quite different. This hypothesis is not without its difficulties. We cannot explain how a motion in the nerves becomes a sensation which we are conscious of. But Berkeley's theory does not better the position. He cannot show how it happens that the divine objective 'ideas' become one human subjective perception or intuition; he does not tell us how God enables us to share or represent His thoughts, since He neither speaks to us nor writes to us. Berkeley cannot, from his point of view, show with any certainty where the truth lies in the different opinions of men upon the orderly coherence of the phenomenal world, the relation of phenomenal things to each other, upon the ground and purpose of human existence, &c. In short, he is as little able to found a scientific knowledge and a theory of knowledge upon his hypothesis as the common opinion of man can on its presupposition. His whole system is only a change of position without result. It explains nothing, helps us in nothing--it is no philosophy.[222]

We have chosen these two representations, not because they are the best, but simply because they are the latest.

All such criticisms proceed upon the supposition that the whole of the philosophy of Berkeley is summed up in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge,' and do not even take the trouble to investigate the history of the opinions advanced in that unfinished and imperfect treatise. They do not know the philosophical importance of the Theory of Vision, the correspondence between Johnson and Berkeley, nor the Platonism or Neo-Platonism of 'Siris.' The publication of a complete edition of Berkeley's writings ought itself to render such criticism impossible, and the elucidations supplied by Professor Fraser should make them less excusable. A philosophical critic can scarcely now proceed on the presupposition that the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' and the Dialogues are the full and finished results of Berkeley's speculations, and take it upon him to neglect all else in his critique.[223] He must now recognise that it is not so easy to sum up Berkeley's principles; that we are in the same position for judging him as we would be with regard to Leibnitz if the 'Monadologie' and the 'Nouveaux Essais' had never been written; that we have a series of treatises, each more unfinished than the other, from which the latent developing thoughts have to be gathered as much by reference to history and life as by actual reference to their pages. He must recognise that there is a discernible unity in his life and speculations--a unity which may be traced throughout all Berkeley's writings, and which reconciles the Theory of Vision with 'Siris,' the Preface to the 'Principles,' &c., with the cancelling of the pages on Nominalism in the last edition of the 'Alciphron.'

Berkeley's whole philosophy is a combination of two currents of speculation--that of Locke on the one hand, and that of the English mystics on the other. In his earlier writings the influence of Locke is predominant, but gradually loses power until at last it almost succumbs to the influence of the Platonists; but, from first to last, we have the attempt to combine what is real and deep and true in the old spiritual philosophy with the clearness, consistency, and relation to physical science which Nominalism and the Baconian method can bring.

Berkeley seeks, in metaphysics, direct spiritual intuition; in physics, to abolish what would prevent this intuition. The mystics from whom Berkeley had learned so much had built their system of philosophy upon such an intuition, and made it their one thing needful. But their spiritual intuition was an intuition which was said to be enjoyed in meditations and trances, not in life and work. The world of things seen and handled did not bring them into direct communion with spirit; it was rather a veil to cloud the vision, a clog to hinder the endeavour of the human spirit ever trying to get beyond it. The senses and sense-knowledge were despised, and only behind the veil which it hung athwart the soul was there that universe of things unseen and eternal which More and Norris delighted to expatiate upon; or, if the senses did in any dim and uncertain way reveal the invisible spiritual realities longed for, it was because the soul, rising above them, put a divine meaning into them, and revelled in the 'lusciousness of this inward sense.' Such a hazy, unreal way of conceiving the spirit-life which he believed to be the true reality, was distasteful to Berkeley. He wished to keep to the spiritual intuition, which was the one good thing in these mystical doctrines, but he wished to bring it out of dreamland, and make it serviceable for every-day work and endeavour. Both More and Norris dreamt of an Atlantis, and celebrated its praises in prose and verse; Berkeley set sail for America to create the Utopia he had visioned. More and Norris could only realise the spiritual intuition on which they based their philosophy in an ecstatic contemplation, when the soul is borne on the wings of meditation far beyond this world of sensible things; Berkeley employs his spiritual intuition to account for puzzles in vision, errors in mathematics, and the virtues of tar-water. He wishes to mould and fashion, to give clearness and distinctness of outline to the spiritual beliefs and intuitions of the mystics by applying to them the _method_ of Locke and Bacon. He wishes to conserve and give value to the fundamental truths which lie unshaped in the scholastic Realism, by applying to them the clearness and methods of Nominalism. This is, we believe, the key to Berkeley's life and philosophy.

Let us try to show its application.

The English mystics were the reaction against a phase of the new philosophy which had been so developed by Hobbes as to create a strong counter opinion. This phase was the doctrine of an inert matter which is so prominent in the writings of Descartes and Geulinx--matter, whose distinguishing characteristic was extension, which was entirely void of all power to act or to influence, and which was set up in opposition to spirit, whose distinguishing characteristic or property was consciousness. This theory of matter was so void of all real meaning that the existence and properties of material substance became gradually of less importance in a system of philosophy, and at length, as in Malebranche and Norris, ceased to have any influence on their speculations. It was outside their system, and of little or no account in its explanation. Yet the very semblance of its presence prevented a thorough-going attempt to explain the real meaning of reality, power, and causality, and recourse is had to meditation and ecstasy instead of to philosophical explanation and analysis. Locke's philosophy, on the other hand, with its calm, experimental analysis of the facts of knowledge, and its concentration of effort upon the senses and the knowledge they supplied, had brought the mind of man back to facts, and pointed to another path than that of vision or ecstasy, by which one might ascend to the understanding of what is meant by the world of things known and knowable. But if Locke is always judicious, he is never deep. He solved the theory of substance more by ignoring than by explaining it; and his Atomism, if one may call it so--his assertion that all knowledge is of particulars, and particulars only--not only turned him aside from any complete statement of causality, but forced him into theories of abstract ideas or conceptions that seem inconsistent with his own principles. When Locke had to account for the fact that this, that, and the other, sensation of colour were felt to be the same, he explains away this seeming contradiction to his favourite doctrine that all knowledge is of particulars, by saying that there is an abstract idea of whiteness framed from the particular ideas or sensations. But the necessities of language, thought, and science require that this abstract idea of whiteness must be as often, if not oftener, before the mind than any one of the particular ideas out of which it has been constructed, and thus the abstract idea is much more important than the particular sensation. When Locke is called on to give an account of our knowledge and its origin, his Atomism is always brought forward; when he wishes to speak of truth, certainty, &c., he cannot help paying more attention to abstract ideas. He thus figures two worlds just as the mystics had done, the sensible and intelligible, and while elevating the worth of the former, is inclined to make certainty, demonstration, &c., belong to the latter.

Locke's theory of abstract ideas was an hypothesis to account for and explain a really objective knowledge--that is, a knowledge which is true for others as well as for the individual. Objectivity, in this simple sense of the word, was a great difficulty in Locke's system. He had reduced all our ideas to ideas of sense and of reflection. He had insisted on the purely subjective origin of whatever is known. And at the same time he had insisted that what was known in this way were particular things and particulars only. He seems both in his account of the origin of knowledge, and in his description of the things known, to exclude the possibility of a knowledge common to several individuals at once. Each man seems rather to be shut within the sphere of his own ideas of sense and reflection about certain particular objects. But a subjective theory of knowledge and things known cannot be maintained. It would render all social intercourse impossible. There could be neither language, propositions, nor even common nouns. And the theory of abstract ideas is the way out of the difficulty. Now Berkeley, with his strong spiritual intuition, regarded Locke's system of abstract ideas very much as Aristotle, with his strong faith in progressive motion towards a final end ([Greek: telos]), looked at Plato's ideal theory. It was only reproduction, a shadowy reflection, a cold crystallization of the world of sense ideas, and really did nothing to explain the life, motion, and order of the sense-world, nor furnished us with a basis for our real common or objective knowledge. We do not think that Berkeley altogether appreciated Locke, nor fully recognised the use which he, as well as Hobbes, had made of the doctrine of association of ideas, to explain community of knowledge and objective certainty. For in Hobbes and Locke we see the beginnings of that modern psychological theory which, under the names of association of ideas and relativity of knowledge, explain the existence, permanence, and objectivity of things and classes of things by a manifold flow of phenomena. Ideas or sensations, by rubbing themselves against consciousness, in various ways coalesce into things, and things into those possibilities of reproduction, intercourse, and communion which are represented by common nouns. But Berkeley had been taught by the mystics to associate motion, cause, and sensation with spirit or mind, and he could not see that Locke's doctrine of association, so void of conscious life or personal activity, might at least prove so nearly allied to his own doctrine of causality that it might be called its external wrapping. And even if Berkeley had seen this, we may excuse him from acknowledging what he owed to Locke in this matter, and forcing into prominence, in opposition to Locke's teaching, his intuition of direct spiritual agency, when we find how the association theory has not freed us from the abstractions which Berkeley dreaded, but still gives us such shadowy conceptions as the 'unconditioned' of Hamilton, or the 'unknown cause' of Mill. Berkeley admired Locke, and studied him carefully. His great aim was to keep Locke's results, to retain Locke's philosophy, but to give it new life. His philosophy was to be Lockianism stript of its notionalism, and inspired in all its parts by that direct spiritual intuition which was never absent from his mind. It was to be Locke's philosophy, with these differences: the starting-point of the system was to be the human self--the conscious _ego_--the type of all subsistence: and an association theory producing a second world of abstract ideas was to be supplanted by the continuous active causality of personal spirits; or, more shortly, it was to be Locke's philosophy, with living personal causality put instead of abstract ideas.[224]

If we take this as the fundamental thought in Berkeley's speculation we find three stages of development in his philosophy. In his 'Common-place Book,' and in the 'Principles,' he fancies, in his youthful fervour, that he has only to strip Locke's philosophy of its notionalism and the true system of metaphysics will appear. Hence his speculation in this first period is mainly negative. It is a war against abstractions, and his positive theories are more hinted at than explained. The second period is revealed in his philosophical letters to Dr. Samuel Johnson. He begins to find that there is more to be done in philosophy than to extirpate abstract ideas, and inquires into the archetypes of things. The third period is given us in 'Siris.' His philosophy has got deeper and perhaps less dogmatic. He was won to the grand thought of an organic universe of things, in which their whole is made for all the parts, and every part for the whole, and for the other parts; so that the virtues of tar-water are intimately connected by a multiform concatenation with the constant presence and continual agency of the God in whom we live and move and have our being. The first period in Berkeley's speculation is, as we have said, mainly negative. It is a polemic against abstract ideas in their various forms. The attack is earnest, eager, but also impatient and inadequate. We have only hints at construction. It seems as if he thought he had only to deny false modes of explanation in order to state the right one, and his discussion throughout bears the stamp of eagerness and impetuosity. It represents the man who could say of those who doubted the success of his American enterprise, 'that small-minded persons had a talent for objections.' This period is represented in the 'New Theory of Vision,' 'The Principles of Human Knowledge,' and 'The Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.' Its negative character may be due to accident. These three works are confessedly an imperfect sketch of Berkeley's principles. The 'Theory of Vision' is a mere tentative introduction; the 'Principles,' as we have them, are only the first part of a work which, if we are to trust 'The Common-place Book,' was meant to include three parts, and was published as Part I. The 'Dialogues' are only the 'reproduction of the first part of the 'Principles of Human Knowledge.' They are all of them imperfect expositions of Berkeley's speculative opinion. Taking them as they are, however, let us endeavour to discover the fundamental thoughts in each.

It has been for some time acknowledged that the essay towards A New Theory of Vision is not to be summed up in the dictum that distance is invisible. The invisibility of distance is the psychological basis of the theory.[225] The work is rather the first blow in the attack upon Locke's 'Doctrine of Abstract Ideas':--

'The treatise is, in short, a professed account count of
the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts, of
which we are visually conscious, as distinguished from
pretended facts and metaphysical abstractions, which
confused thought, an irregular exercise of imagination, or
an abuse of words had substituted for them.'

The question which Berkeley really asks is--How do we universalize our ideas of sight? The proper objects of sight are light and colours. How, then, do we see distance, figure, size, situation, magnitude and solidity? How can the sensation of green colour peculiar to my mind stand for, not the mere sense-blur of vague green colour, but an oval leaf fluttering in the wind some twenty feet above me, attached to the twig of a beech tree! and, moreover, how can this sensation which belongs to me so far belong to others that the same knowledge conveyed to me is also given to them? How can the vague subjective sensation be universalized so that it stands for several things not felt, and more especially for sensations of touch? What is the link between these various qualities? What is the bridge by which the mind passes over from the one to the other? This link is _not_, says Berkeley, an _abstract idea_ of extension, in which the visible and tangible sensations unite, for there is no such idea. The sensations of sight and of touch are on their side quite heterogeneous:--

'The extension, figures, and motions perceived by sight are
specifically distinct from the ideas of touch, called by
the same names; nor is there any such thing as one idea, or
kind of idea, common to both senses.'

Light and colour are the immediate objects of sight, and they constitute a species entirely distinct from the ideas of touch. No one would think of adding a visible foot to a tangible foot; and the experience of persons born blind and recovering their sight points to a certain confusedness in apprehending the connection between the two sets of ideas which would not occur if they belonged to one and the same abstract idea of extension. If we would explain the fact that ideas may so be universalized that they stand for ideas of touch, we must rather bring them under the living power of mind which, grasping the two together, makes the one the sign of the other. When we have the sensation of the colour greenness, we see a green leaf of a small oval shape, not because the colour is necessarily connected with the size and shape, nor because all three inhere as qualities in an abstract idea of extension, but because:--

'Light and colours, with their several shades and degrees,
all which being infinitely diversified and combined, deform
a language wonderfully adapted to suggest and exhibit to us
the distances, figures, situations, dimensions, and various
qualities of tangible objects--not by similitude, nor yet
by inference of necessary connection, but by the arbitrary
imposition of Providence, just as words suggest the things
signified by them.'

There is no abstract idea which corresponds now to the sensations of sight, now to the sensations of touch; the connecting link is supplied by the unifying action of the human mind, which seizes upon the one idea and makes it the sign of the others, and this one idea is fitted to be the sign of the others not by any similarity or peculiar fitness on its side, but because of its position in the flow of phenomena given to it and preserved for it by the living spiritual causality which creates and arranges everything. The ideas of sense are universalized, scientific and objective knowledge is possible, we can go from ideas of sight to those of touch, and back again from those of touch to those of sight, because of a double spiritual influence--the active living influence of mind outside, permeating, creating, and associating all things, and the partly passive, partly active ingathering influence of the individual human mind within, interpreting, arranging, according to the associations imposed upon them and lying undeveloped in them, the vague _blurs_ of sensation. Berkeley's thought is almost the same as Schleiermacher's, that all scientific knowledge is the joint product of an internal and an external factor--organic function and the external world,--which factors are universally related to each other; only, according to Berkeley's spiritual intuition, everywhere present; the living centre of organic function is the partly passive, partly active influence of the human self, while the living centre of the external factor is the supreme mind without us continuously creating and arranging.