Thomas Berkeley

“ It seemed to leave him alone in the universe of his own mind. The ideal matter of Berkeley cannot, he argued, inform me of the existence of other living persons: what I have supposed to be other persons must be, like the rest, only some of my own ideas. If I allow that my own sensations and ideas are my only possible original data, I cannot from such transitory phantoms infer the real existence of other persons. ”

“ Berkeley, in a moment of candour, inadvertently confesses what is very damaging to the reputation of his own pursuits: ‘Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Robert, the fifth son, [pg xxiv] became rector of Middleton and vicar-general of Cloyne; and another son, William, held a commission in the army. According to the Register of Trinity College, one of the sons was born “near Thurles,” in 1699, and Thomas, the youngest, was born in Tipperary, in 1703, so that the family may have removed from Dysert after the birth of George. In what can be gleaned of the younger sons, one finds little appearance of sympathy with the religious and philosophical genius of the eldest. ”

“ Whitelocke characterises Berkeley as 'a very learned man in our laws, and a good orator and judge, moderate in his views except in his desire for court favour.' Lloyd, in much more eulogistic terms, as was to be expected refers to him as 'the greatest master of maxims in his time,' and 'a person whose worth was set in his pedigree as a rich diamond in a fair ring.' The founder of the hospital in Worcester, in Foregate Street, was not Judge Berkeley, as is frequently stated, but a grandson of the same name. ”

“ I have enlarged on Turnbull, because by him Reid was first attracted to the study of the human mind. But Blackwell, the Professor of Greek, must not be forgotten. Blackwell, as well as Turnbull, was connected with Berkeley. It was when Reid was at Marischal College that Berkeley was engaged in the most romantic missionary enterprise of that age, for spreading Christian civilisation in America by a College in the Bermudas. ”

“ Berkeley is a very ingenious man, and great philosopher, and I have mentioned him to all the Ministers, and given them some of his writings; and I will favour him as much as I can. This I think I am bound to, in honour and conscience, to use all my little credit toward helping forward men of worth in the world. The Queen was at chapel to-day, and looks well. I dined at Lord Orkney’s with the Duke of Ormond, Lord Arran, and Sir Thomas Hanmer. Mr. St. John, Secretary at Utrecht, expects every moment to return there with the ratification p. ”

“ Berkeley was well enough to meet with in men's society, at mess, on parade, on the turf, or in the hunting-field; but though handsome and perfectly well-bred, for his manners were generally unexceptionable, he was not a man for the drawing-room. He was master of a splendid fortune, which was left him by his father, a plain old Scotchman, who had begun life as a drayman, and whose patronymic was simply John Dewar Barclay. ”

“ And if he did, how long d' ye think the walls of the gaol at Jamestown would keep him from the rabble—and the nearest tree? No, no, William Berkeley does but his duty. And yet—and yet—"
He began to pace the rocks again, frowning heavily, and pulling at the curls of his periwig. "You are a brave man," he said at last, stopping before Landless and speaking with energy, "and from my soul I wish I could save you. ”

“ Anyone can find them in a good history of philosophy, or better still, in Berkeley's own books, which are excellent reading and by no means difficult. And those who desire really to feel the discovery of Berkeley in all its ecstatic completeness, should read by preference the obscure and hurried notes of the Commonplace Book, in which, amid ingenuous remarks and ill-expressed revelations of the pride of discovery, one can witness the unfolding, or rather the explosion, of the theory of immaterialism. It is not a treatise fairly adorned and skillfully arranged, like a French garden ”

“ He did so; and because he did so, he begins the second period of modern philosophy. However we regard Berkeley—whether as a man, as a Christian philanthropist, or as a metaphysician—we find the same unconscious combination of practical sagacity and of refined enthusiasm, a keen eye for fact, and a deep mind for theory, along with a continual incapacity to combine adequately or express fully, either by action or speech, the double tendency which is the secret of his power. ”

“ His idealism is the purest which the British Isles have produced. Platonic as were Cudworth, Norris, Henry More, in cast of thought less scholastic than Taylor of Norwich,—who was an exotic, rather, transplanted from Alexandrian gardens,—Berkeley's thinking is indigenous, strong in native sense and active manliness. His works are magazines of rare and admirable learning, subtleties of speculation, noble philanthropies. They deserve a place in every scholar's library, were it but to mark the fortunes of thought, and accredit the poet's admiring line:—
"To Berkeley every virtue under heaven." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus in the forty-fourth year of his life, in deep devotion to his Ideal, and full of glowing visions of a Fifth Empire in the West, Berkeley sailed for Rhode Island in a "hired ship of two hundred and fifty tons."
The New England Courier of that time gives this picture of his disembarkation at Newport: "Yesterday there arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry. He is a gentleman of middle stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He [Pg 31] was ushered into the town with a great number of gentlemen, to whom he behaved himself after a very complaisant manner." ”

“ It is hard to see how words could be clearer than those in which Berkeley repudiates all nonsense of this sort. "I do not argue," says he, "against the existence of any one thing that we apprehend, either by sense or by reflection. That the things I see with my eves and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to believe my own senses, and to take things as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real things are the very things that I see and feel, and perceive by my senses. ”

“ Berkeley remained in America till the autumn of 1731. He bought a farm of ninety-six acres and built a small house, still standing, which he called Whitehall. Here he read and meditated ; a projecting rock near the sea is shown as the place where he wrote much of 'Alciphron,' and a chair in which he sat in the ' natural alcove ' is still preserved. The descriptions of scenery in ' Alciphron ' clearly represent his impressions. Berkeley saw something of the intelligent and educated colonists; he helped to found a philosophical society at Newport ”

“ The philosophy of Berkeley, to my mind, has not received quite the attention and respect that it deserves—not that I agree with it, but that I think it ingenious and harder to refute than is often supposed. Berkeley, as everyone knows, denied the reality of matter, and maintained that everything is mental. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The elements of his immaterialism, then, were ready for his hand, but to Berkeley himself belongs the credit of having extended and developed the theories of his fathers in philosophy, the credit of setting forth as a dominant idea, clear, central, and in full light, the great principle that the world consists of naught save spirit and spiritual activity.
Even here, to be sure, one may discern Berkeley's theological preoccupations. Matter is an ancient enemy. ”

“ His cruelty and barbarity in punishing the rebels did not meet with the approval of Charles II., who is said to have remarked that “the old fool has put to death more people in that naked country than I did here for the murder of my father.” Berkeley was called to England in 1677 ostensibly to report on the condition of affairs in the colony, and a lieutenant-governor (Herbert Jeffreys) was put in his place. Berkeley sailed in May, but died soon after his arrival, at Twickenham, and was buried there on the 13th of July 1677. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So that to a piety inspired by conventional theology and a psychology that refused to pass, except grudgingly and unintelligently, beyond the sensuous stratum, Berkeley had nothing to add by way of philosophy. An insignificant repetition of the truism that ideas are all “in the mind” constituted his total wisdom. To be was to be perceived. ”

“ Outness is not immediately perceived by sight, but only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and sensations attending vision. Berkeley (he continues) thus in fact represents the visual perception of objects as external, to be an instance of the association of ideas. If, however, he had dearly analysed the process in question, he would have perceived the fallacy into which he had fallen. It is impossible that the law of mind, by which one thing suggests another, should produce any such effect as the one ascribed to it. ”

“ Time alone weaves a canvas wide enough to do justice to their true proportions; and a few broad strokes is all that the genius of any one man, however gifted, is permitted to add to the mighty and illimitable work. It is therefore no reproach to Berkeley to say that he left his labours incomplete; that he was frequently misunderstood, that his reasonings fell short of their aim, and that he perhaps failed to carry with him the unreserved and permanent convictions of any one of his contemporaries. ”

“ It will surprise many readers to find with what authenticity some of our great packs can carry back their history to bygone centuries. Of these the Berkeley bears the palm, for did not a Lord of Berkeley so far back as the fourteenth century establish a metropolitan pack with kennels at Charing Cross? His descendants had so fostered and spread their hunting that in 1770 the then Lord Berkeley held all the country from London to Berkeley Castle, in Gloucestershire, a distance of 124 miles, with kennels at Cranford, Gerrard’s Cross in Bucks, Nettlebed in Oxon, and at Berkeley Castle. ”

“ Beri, a town in the Punjab, 40 m. NW. of Delhi, in a trading centre.
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 ”

“ The possibility that hereafter this exaltation of spirit might lead to a denial of any Being higher than man—that the universe might appear to him his own creation—scarcely presented itself to the mind of Berkley. It was not the peril of his time. A creator was not denied by any of the minute philosophers with whom Berkeley contended. What he desired to impress them with was, the belief that the Being who made the outward world was a Spirit, who took cognizance of the thoughts and intents of the heart ”

“ 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. ”