Bishop Berkeley

“ When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter,' And proved it—'t was no matter what he said: They say his system 't is in vain to batter, Too subtle for the airiest human head; ”

“ And it is a happy coincidence that a vice Provost of the University of Pennsylvania has given us the first American Annotations on Bishop Berkeley's Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge. Dr. Krauth says "the first place in the Berkeleyan roll of honor is due to Dr. Samuel Johnson," and describes his "Elementa Philosophica as thoroughly Berkeleyan in its main features." [5]
King's College had been less Catholic in its intentions and designs than the Philadelphia Academy, and was without a leading mind to direct its early steps such as the latter was favored with. ”

“ His "Essay on Man" contains much exquisite poetry and finely solemn thought; it abounds in striking passages which, by their felicities of fancy, good sense, music, and extraordinary terseness of diction, have gained a place in the memory of every one.
Among the philosophical writers none holds so prominent a place as Bishop Berkeley (1684-1753) , whose refinement of style and subtlety of thought have seldom been equaled. His philosophical Idealism exercised much influence on the course of metaphysical inquiry. ”

“ Bishop Berkeley's Ideas.—Some philosophers, in their speculations, have denied that there is any such thing in existence as matter. Bishop Berkeley, for example, taught that the impressions which we suppose that we receive from material objects do not come from real substances, but are the "effects of the immediate agency of an ever-present Deity." It is no wonder that the wisdom and learning of a man who could seriously adopt such a belief could not save him from being the dupe of quackery. ”

“ At the same time, we would not homologate every statement which Professor Fraser has made about the philosophy of his author. We are inclined to think that he has not sufficiently recognised the historical position of Bishop Berkeley. He has too much regarded him as occupying a unique place in the history of speculation, and neglected some of those facts of English philosophy which serve to explain Berkeley's position and principles. No thinker, and especially no great thinker, can occupy a position historically inexplicable. ”

“ He proposed to exchange Cloyne for some Oxford headship or canonry. He then proposed to resign his bishopric absolutely. Such a precedent was not to be set. The king declared that Berkeley might live where he pleased, but that he should die a bishop.
Berkeley resolved to retire. He made arrangements about his revenues, including a distribution of 200l. a year, the rent of his demesne lands, amongst poor householders, and at last sailed for England in August 1752. His son George was already matriculated at Christ Church, and the desire to be near him was doubtless one inducement to the change. ”

“ Thomas Burnet kept the Charter House, in London, and his conscience—happier, perhaps, in this than if he had enjoyed the ecclesiastical preferment which King William seemed so anxious to give him. Amongst the clergy, Dr. Burnet was, with the single exception of Dean Swift, the greatest Freethinker of whom we can boast, who held an influential position in the Church. This position is sometimes claimed for Bishop Berkeley, a man of vast talents, a sincere Christian, although an innovator in philosophy. ”

“ What Bishop Berkeley said of them in 1749, in his letter, A Word to the Wise, still holds true, 'That no set of men on earth have it in their power to do good on easier terms, with more advantage to others, and less pains or loss to themselves.' It would be folly to expect that in a mixed community the State should do anything to strengthen or perpetuate this power; but this result will certainly not follow from the more liberal education of the clergy, provided equal advantages are extended to the laity. ”

“ 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 merely 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The poet Pope once assigned to this bishop "every virtue under heaven," and this high reputation a study of the man's character faithfully confirms. As a student at Dublin University, George Berkeley won many friends, because of his handsome face and lovable nature, and many honours by reason of his brilliancy in mathematics. Later he became a fellow of Trinity College, and made the acquaintance of Swift, Steele, and the other members of that brilliant Old World literary circle, by all of whom he seems to have been sincerely beloved. ”

“ Berkeley, and his rhodomontading wife, were not suited to him, and as little her son Monke Berkeley, of whom she gave such an absurd and mendacious memoir, and who had none of his celebrated grandfather Bishop Berkeley's genius. Farmer had some cleverness, but no leading talent. ”

“ It is not necessary to go for examples either to fanatics or quacks. Not to take too modern an instance, there was Bishop Berkeley! He was a true philosopher, an earnest Christian, and withal a man of sense, and yet he was the author of "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar Water, and divers other Subjects connected together, and arising One from Another." It is one of those works which are the cause of wit in other men. It is so learned, so exhaustive, so pious, and the author takes it with such utter seriousness! ”

“ There is wisdom in the selection. Bishop Berkeley, of all English thinkers, is most easily misunderstood when detached portions of his writings are studied by themselves apart from their relation to the whole, and when his philosophy is criticised by those who have no knowledge of his life. ”

“ Bishop Berkeley is one of the very few men who could answer with any plausibility [xxiv] to this last character of Earle's. But the marvellous amenity of his social gifts brings him a little closer to the kindly race of men than Earle thinks is usual with the contemplative student. In every other point it is an accurate piece of portraiture. [R] Nature might well ask approbation of her works and variety from a man who was ever feeding his noble curiosity and never satisfying it. ”

“ Far different was the character of another Protestant bishop, the great Berkeley, of Cloyne, a patriot, a philosopher, and a scholar, who afterwards left money and books for a scholarship, which is still in existence, at the then infant Yale College in New England. He lived in the first half of the eighteenth century, when the whole machinery of government was ruthlessly used to crush the Catholics. ”

“ After this decisive testimony of Bishop Berkeley's son, accompanied by the candid confession of error on the part of the editor of the Biographia Britannica, the rumour as to Berkeley's authorship of Gaudentio ought to have been finally discredited. ”

“ A man who was not a professed sceptic needed to be both more unprejudiced and more courageous than his neighbours, to speak of Roman Catholics with tolerable charity. In this, as in many other points, Bishop Berkeley was superior to his age. He ventured to propose that Roman Catholics should be admitted to the Dublin College without being obliged to attend chapel or divinity lectures. ”

“ Berkeley, on the other hand, creates a God who is primarily ethical, and tends toward a system of morality which is primarily religious. He appeals to utility to induce men to believe in God; he appeals to divinity to compel them to goodness.
This conception may seem to have been dictated primarily by practical exigencies; but those who have followed the latest developments of Christian apologetics will realize that in this respect also Berkeley was a precursor of the moderns. The religious pragmatism of certain Anglo-Saxon thinkers is to be found in germ in the works of the Bishop of Cloyne ”

“ In one of his first letters to Lord Percival, as we saw, Berkeley animadverted on a sermon by the Archbishop of Dublin, which seemed to deny that there was goodness, or understanding God, any more than feet or hands. An opinion somewhat similar had been attributed to Bishop Browne, in his answer to Toland, and afterwards in 1728, in his Procedure and Limits of Human Understanding. ”

“ Berkeley, afterward bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, owed his fortune wholly to him, as he placed him in the road which led to his promotion. In his Journal of April 7, 1713, he says, "I went to court to day, on purpose to present Mr. Berkeley, one of your fellows of Dublin college, to lord Berkeley of Stratton. That Mr. Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and a great philosopher; and I have mentioned him to all the ministers, and have given them some of his writings, and I will favour him as much as I can. ”

“ Perhaps in the present case we shall be able to thread a labyrinth where our reviewer has lost his clue, and, in spite of the apparent contradiction by which Mr Bailey has been gravelled, we shall, perhaps, be more successful than he in "collecting Berkeley's meaning from the whole sum and tenour of his discourse."
First, with regard to the contradiction charged upon the bishop. When we open our eyes, what do we behold? We behold points—minima visibilia—out of one another. Do we see these points to be in the same plane? ”

“ Most of our greatest philosophers and of their followers seem to lead two lives, one as it ought to be, the other as it is. One of our 166greatest philosophers, Berkeley, knew quite well what the world is, but he lived as a bishop, unconcerned about the unreal character of all with which he had to deal. ”

“ After staying for some time at his father's seat at Oxenhall, near Gloucester, he entered his diocese, and was installed on the octave of the Assumption (22 Aug.) . As his predecessor, James Berkeley, had held the bishopric only four months, and the bishop before him, Walter Stapledon, had been slain in London, the possessions of the see had suffered considerably. Money was urgently needed, for the rebuilding of the cathedral church was half done, the whole eastern part was new, the nave still remained as it was in the twelfth century. ”

“ He has not formed to himself a clear conception of the absolute distinction between these two senses and their respective objects—a distinction upon the clear apprehension of which the whole intelligibility of Berkeley's assertions and reasonings depends.
In proof of what we aver, let us turn to the consideration of one fact which Berkeley has largely insisted on as the fundamental fact of the science. Colour, says the Bishop, is the proper and only object of vision, and the outness of this object (i.e., its outness from the eye) is not perceived by sight. ”

“ A bishop pitied you, that a desire of starting something new should put you upon such an undertaking. Another told me that you are not gone so far as a gentleman in town, who asserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter, but that we ourselves have no being at all. ”

“ The second translation is reprinted in the collection of Voyages Imaginaires, Amsterdam et Paris, 1787, tom. vi.
An anonymous writer in the Gent. Mag. for Jan. 1777, vol. xlvii., p. 13., speaking of Bishop Berkeley, says that "the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca have been generally attributed to him." The writer of the note added to the Life of Berkeley in Kippis's Biogr. Brit., 1780, vol. ii. p. 261., quotes this statement, and adds that the work is ascribed to him by the booksellers in their printed catalogues. This writer thinks that the authorship of Bp. ”

“ Berkeley, a town in Gloucestershire, famous for its cattle.
Berkeley, George, bishop of Cloyne, born in Kilkenny; a philanthropic man, who conducted in a self-sacrificing spirit practical schemes for the good of humanity, which failed, but the interest in whom has for long centred, and still centres, in his philosophic teaching, his own interest in which was that it contributed to clear up our idea of God and consolidate our faith in Him, and it is known in philosophy as Idealism ”

“ Episcopacy would have been established in America by a succession from the English Church, unattended by any invidious temporal rank or power."
No doubt the question thus proposed to the Scottish bishops was carefully considered, but the result was unfavorable to Dr. Berkeley's wishes. Bishop Skinner wrote: "Nothing can be done in the affair with safety on our side, till the independence of America be fully and irrevocably recognized by the government of Britain ”

“ He accepted the doctrines of the Reformation, and during the reign of Mary was in exile at Frankfort. No notice exists of his having held any ecclesiastical preferment before his consecration. After the deprivation of Bourne, bishop of Bath and Wells, license of election was granted 11 Jan. 1560. Berkeley was elected to the see 29 Jan., the royal assent was given 20 March, he was consecrated at Lambeth 24 March, and received the temporalities 10 July (Le Neve; Rymer, Foedera, xv. 598) . ”