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Berkeley can only be confuted, or answered, by one sentence. So it is with Spinoza. His premiss granted, the deduction is a chain of adamant.-COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR, 1827, Table Talk, ed. Ashe, July 23, p. 56.

Berkeley, the strongest, the honestest thinker among our English metaphysicians --Berkeley, who loved truth with his whole heart and soul, and who, in pursuing it, was as humble as he was courageous Berkeley, who, though he reasoned from narrow premises, and therefore never discovered the whole breadth and universal

ity of the principles which he sought after, yet was able, such was the spirituality of his intellect, even out of that narrow system, which conducted every one else who reasoned from it to materialism, to bring the other and far more important side of truth-Berkeley, whose understanding, indeed, missed the "circumference," but who found the "centre" in his heart. MAURICE, FREDERICK DENISON, 1828, Life by Maurice, vol, I, p. 82.

Among all philosophers, ancient or modern, we are acquainted with none who presents fewer vulnerable points than Bishop Berkeley. His language, it is true, has sometimes the appearance of paradox; but there is nothing paradoxical in his thoughts, and time has proved the adamantine solidity of his principles. With less sophistry than the simplest, and with more subtlety than the acutest of his contemporaries, the very perfection of his powers prevented him from being appreciated by the age in which he lived. The philosophy of that period was just sufficiently tinctured with common sense to pass current with the vulgar, while the common sense of the period was just sufficiently coloured by philosophy to find acceptance among the learned. But Berkeley, ingenious beyond the ingenuities of philosophy, and unsophisticated beyond the artlessness of common sense, saw that there was no sincerity in the terms of this partial and unstable compromise; that the popular opinions, which gave currency and credence to the theories of the day, were not the unadulterated convictions of the natural understanding; and that the theories of the day, which professed to give enlightenment to the popular opinions, were not the genuine offspring of the speculative reason. In endeavouring to

construct a system in which this spurious coalition should be exposed, and in which our natural convictions and our speculative conclusions should be more firmly and enduringly reconciled, he necessarily offended both parties, even when he appeared to be giving way to the opposite prejudices of each. He overstepped the predilections both of the learned and the unlearned. His extreme subtlety was a stumbling-block in the path of the philosophers; and his extreme simplicity was more than the advocates of common sense were inclined to bargain for. The peculiar endowment by which Berkeley was distinguished, far beyond his predecessors and contemporaries, and far beyond almost every philosopher who has succeeded him, was the eye he had for facts, and the singular pertinacity with which he refused to be dislodged from his hold upon them.-FERRIER, JAMES FREDERICK, 1842-6, Berkeley and Idealism, Lectures, vol. II, pp. 291, 293.

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Although the several treatises of the author in defence of Christianity,-in support of the diffusion of knowledge, -on discovering new means for the alleviation of human suffering, and on promoting the study of metaphysics and mathematics, have obtained the applause of the learned, yet their association with his new and difficult theory in pneumatology militated so far against their reception with the public in general, that one perfect edition only of his works has hitherto ever appeared. This was a circumstance much to be regretted, since no other writer, of the literary age in which he flourished, has left more able, original, or useful advice, in religion, philosophy, and politics. -WRIGHT, G. N., 1843, ed., The Works of George Berkeley, Preface, vol. 1, p. iii.

If, then, Berkeley is more rigorous in his analysis of facts, and more ingenious and plausible in his hypothesis, than his antagonists suppose, shall we pronounce his Idealism satisfactory and true? Hume said of it, that it admitted of no answer, but produced no conviction. And we

have met with no final refutation of it. Yet, inasmuch as it is the irresistible belief of mankind that objects are not dependent either upon our perception of them, or upon the perception of any other mind, for their existence that objects exist per se, and would continue to exist

if all minds were annihiliated-Berkeley's theory never can produce conviction. Reid, therefore, was right in standing by this universal and irresistible belief. He was egregiously wrong, however, in supposing that he answered Berkeley by an appeal to this irresistible belief. It does not follow that a belief which is irresistible must be true. This maxim, so loudly proclaimed by the Scotch school, is refuted by several well-known facts in philosophy. Thus to take the most striking example -the belief that the sun revolved round the earth, was for many centuries irresistible, and false. Why may not Berkeley have been a metaphysical Copernicus, who, by rigorous demonstration, proved the belief of mankind in the existence of matter to be irresistible and false? Reid has no answer to give. He can merely say, "I side with the vulgar;" but he might have given the same answer to Copernicus. Many illustrious men (Bacon among them) ridiculed the Copernican theory; but all the dogmatism, ridicule, and common sense in the world could not affect that theory. Why, we repeat, may not Berkeley have been a metaphysical Copernicus? To prove that he was not, you must prove his reasoning defective; to prove this, you must show wherein his error lies, and not wherein his theory is at variance with your belief.

One great result of Berkeley's labors was the lesson he taught of the vanity of ontological speculations. He paved the way to that skepticism which, gulf-like, yawns as the terminal road of all consistent Metaphysics.-LEWES, GEORGE HENRY, 1845-46, Biographical History of Philosophy, pp. 563, 568.

The only metaphysical writer of the time, besides Locke and Hume, who has maintained a very high name in philosophical history. He forms a solitary--it might seem a singular-exception to what has been said of the prosaic and unmetaphysical character of this moralizing age. The two peculiar metaphysical notions which are connected with Berkeley's name, and which, though he did not originate, he propounded with a novelty and distinctness equal to originality, have always ranked as being on the extreme verge of rational speculation, if not actually within the region of unfruitful paradox and metaphysical romance. These

two memorable speculations, as propounded by Berkeley in the "Alciphron," come before us not as a Utopian dream, or an ingenious play of reason, but interwoven in a polemic against the prevailing unbelief. They are made to bend to a most practical purpose, and are Berkeley's contributions to the Deistical controversy. The character of the man, too, was more in harmony with the plain utilitarian spirit of his time than with his own refining intellect. He was not a closet-thinker, like his master Malebranche, but a man of the world and of society, inquisitive and well informed in many branches of practical science. Practical schemes, social and philanthropic, occupied his mind more than abstract thinking. In pushing the received metaphysical creed to its paradoxical consequences, as much as in prescribing "tar-water," he was thinking only of an immediate "benefit to mankind." He seems to have thought nothing of his argument until he had brought it to bear on the practical questions of the day. PATTISON, MARK, 1860-89, Religious Thought in England, Essays, ed. Nettleship, vol. II, p. 110.

The most subtle metaphysician who has ever written in English.-BUCKLE, HENRY THOMAS, 1861, History of Civilization in England, vol. II, p. 217.

As to Berkeley, it is of the less consequence, because I was early lent a good three-volume edition of his works by a noble friend, who was formerly a pupil of mine, and who, after about twenty-five years, reclaimed the loan not very long ago; so that I had leisure to become sufficiently impregnated with Berkeley's teaching, for one who has never aspired to be himself a teacher of Philosophy. In fact, when I was rather young, namely, in 1832, I allowed Coleridge (at Highgate) to see that I was at that time a regular Berkeleyan; and he was pleased to sayfor our several interviews, of that year and the following, of which some were long, were not all monologues on his part

he allowed me to make a remark now and then, and actually modified his discourse to meet it: "Oh, sir, you will grow out of that!" In some respects that prophecy has been since fulfilled; but out of love and reverence for the great and good Bishop, I trust that I shall never grow.-HAMILTON, SIR WILLIAM ROWAN,

1864, Letter, Life, ed. Graves, vol. III, p. 177.

The greatest modern master of the Socratic dialogue.-LECKY, WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE, 1865, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, vol. II, ch. iv.

His claim to the name of metaphysician transcends those of most of his countrymen. He, first of his nation, dealt face to face with ideas as distinguished from scholastic fancies and common notions, and thus gave them their place in the order of mind; and this to exhaustive issues, as his English predecessors in thought had failed to do. His idealism is the purest which the British Isles have produced.-ALCOTT, A. BRONSON, 1869, Concord Days, p. 236.

The whole of Berkeley's doctrine on the nature of the Material Substance and of the External Universe is contained in the single proposition, that "Matter is a Phenomenon," i. e. that its Esse is Percipi. This discovery respecting the essential constitution of the Material Substance, first made by Berkeley and never afterwards abandoned by deep-thinking men, is now, under some one expression or another part and parcel of every metaphysical system and of the convictions of every metaphysician, whether he happens. to be aware that it is Berkeley's doctrine or not. Indeed many, we may even say most, of those who hold the doctrine in foreign countries, are not aware that it is

so.

The hardest work of the Berkeleian advocate is often to make people aware that what they hold is Berkeley's doctrine. The tenet itself never presented any real difficulty to the metaphysician except as the disturber of something preconceived, and it is entirely a mistake which leads one or two writers to fancy that the doctrine, after it was once promulgated, was ever a neglected one. Such is never the fate of what is true. The ablest metaphysicians held the doctrine even before it was recognized as a discovery of science. Does it not seem frivolous to say that they abandoned it after they discovered it to be a scientific fact? -SIMON, T. COLLYNS, 1869, Berkeley's Doctrine on the Nature of Matter, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. III, p. 336.

Berkeley has suffered more than perhaps any other great modern philosopher from misunderstanding. He lived through

the most prosaic and least metaphysical age since the revival of letters: he was himself the greatest metaphysician in his own age. When reflection returned to the springs of thought and feeling, his philosophical language had in some measure lost the meaning which he intended, and no adequate attempt has since been made to recover his point of view, or to recognise the intellectual influence which, partly originating in him, has since been silently modifying all the deeper thought of the time in physics and in metaphysical philosophy. Is an unknowing and unknown something called Matter, or is Intelligence the supreme reality; and are men the transient results of material organization, or are they immortal beings? This is Berkeley's implied question. His answer to it, although, in his own works, it has not been thought out by him into its primary principles, or sufficiently guarded in some parts, nevertheless marks the beginning of the second great period in modern thought, that in which we are living. The answer was virtually reversed in Hume, whose exclusive phenomenalism, reproduced in the Positivism of the nineteenth century, led to the Scotch conservative psychology, and to the great German speculation which Kant inaugurated. It is as a spiritual philosopher, having warm and true sympathy in all human life, that Bishop Berkeley must be looked at, and not at all as a professional ecclesiastic. His writings and his life centre in speculative philosophy. But they radiate from it in various practical and fruitful directions; for his inclination was to what is concrete, at first in a more polemical, but afterwards in a meditative spirit. In their form, his works are numerous and occasional, not individually bulky or systematic. - FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, 1871, ed., The Works of George Berkeley, Preface, vol. I, p. vii.

He believed in truth, and sought it in independent thought, not in tradition. He had no narrow or dogmatic creed, and no ecclesiastical spirit, but sought good and truth everywhere, and recognized. them wherever he found them. The key to his philosophy is to be found in an instinctive revolt against the abstractions of scholastic tradition.-SUMNER, WILLIAM G., 1871, The Life and Works of Bishop Berkeley, The Nation, vol. 13, p. 59.

It may surprise those who have imbibed the popular prejudice against Berkeley as a paradoxical visionary, to hear him described as an advocate of common sense. But in truth, as his editor has observed, Berkeley has suffered more perhaps than any other great modern philosopher from misunderstanding.-MANSEL, HENRY LONGUEVILLE, 1871, On the Idealism of Berkeley; Letters, Lectures and Reviews, p. 382.

Of what is called "the philosophy of Berkeley," it is enough to say here, that, in a phase and a mode of statement suited to his own time and to the shape in which materialism found acceptance, it was an adequate antagonistic presentment of the claims of a high and pure spiritualism. The absurd popular apprehension of his philosophy found expression in the facile assertion that Berkeley denied the existence of the material world, and referred our idea of it to a simple illusion of the senses. So far was he from such an absurdity as this, that he maintained that he was proving the actual existence of the material world by a new and positive method, when he affirmed that we must primarily and equally allow for the fidelity and reality of those intellectual and spiritual faculties of our own, by which we take cognizance of it and apprehend it.-ELLIS, GEORGE E., 1871, Life of Bishop Berkeley, Old and New, vol. 4, p. 597.

If the facilities afforded by Professor Fraser's labours induce those who are interested in philosophy or in the history of philosophy to study Berkeley's speculations as they issued from his own mind, we think it will be recognised that of all who, from the earliest times, have applied the powers of their minds to metaphysical inquiries, he is the one of greatest philosophic genius: though among these are included Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Hartley, and Hume; Descrates, Spinoza, Leibnitz, and Kant. For, greatly as all these have helped the progress of philosophy, and important as are the contributions of several of them to its positive truths, of no one of them can it be said as of Berkeley, that we owe to him three first-rate philosophical discoveries, each sufficient to have constituted a revolution in psychology, and which by their combination have determined the whole course of subsequent

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of abstract ideas. 3. The true nature and meaning of the externality which we attribute to the objects of our senses. MILL, JOHN STUART, 1871, Berkeley's Life and Writings, The Fortnightly Review, vol. 16, pp. 505, 506.

To me it appears that idealism has retrograded, not advanced, since Berkeley; and that if we want to study the system at its best, we must go back to the fountain-head of it. For his system there is a great deal to be said; for systems derived from it very much less.-NOEL, RODEN, 1872, The Philosophy of Perception, The Contemporary Review, vol. 20, p. 72.

The last touch that finishes does not always turn out of hand for, but often out of hand from, use; and it is just possible that this perfect edition of the works of Berkeley appears precisely at the moment that the work of Berkeley ceases to function anywhere-orbis terrarum anywhere. The course of Berkeleianism has been this. It functioned historically according to power, in its own day, upon a few; but was soon almost entirely neglected. The revival of poetry in England gradually restored in every larger heart the feeling of religion, and, where this feeling could not at the same time reconcile itself with all the elements of positive religion, Berkeleianism was felt to supply an intellectual want. Such want, though with considerable modification of form, it may be said, to some extent, still to supply. But, side by side with it, as equal companion of the nurture, this want must now be content to accept its own opposite; for the entire matter with which Messrs. Mill and Bain seek to indoctrinate their readers at present is to to be found in the earliest writings of Berkeley, and especially in his very first, the "New Theory of Vision." -STIRLING, JAMES HUTCHISON, 1873, Professor Fraser's Berkeley, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, vol. 7, p. 3.

One of the most subtle and original

English metaphysicians. Berkeley's new conception marks a distinct stage of progress in human thought. His true place in the history of speculation may be seen from the simple observation that the difficulties or obscurities in his scheme are really the points on which later philosophy has turned. He once for all lifted the problem of metaphysics to a higher level, and, in conjunction with his great successor, Hume, determined the form into which later metaphysical questions have been thrown.-ADAMSON, ROBERT, 1875, Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth edition, vol. III.

Acutest of English metaphysicians and most graceful of philosophic writers. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. I, p. 86.

Berkeley had no hesitation in preferring a sensationalist theory of knowing to a materialistic theory of being indeed, the former recommended itself to him mainly as a weapon against the latter.

Berkeley, no doubt, thought that if he could rid the world of material substance, he would thus establish the absolute reality of spirit. He did not observe that the weapon he had so hastily taken up was double-edged, and that in rejecting Locke's materialistic ontology, he was rejecting all ontology whatever and reducing reality to a series of feelings, which by this reduction were emptied of all intelligible meaning. CAIRD, EDWARD, — 1877, A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant, p. 61.

The above sentences from Edwards, avowing Idealism, were written nine or ten years before Berkeley came to America. Moreover, Edwards was not the man to conceal his intellectual obligations; and the name of Berkeley nowhere occurs, as far as I can discover, in all the ten volumes of Edwards's printed writings. It seems more probable that the peculiar opinions which Edwards held in common with Berkeley, were reached by him through an independent process of reasoning and somewhat in the same way that they were reached by Berkeley, who, as Professor Fraser says, "proceeded in his intellectual work on the basis of postulates which he partly borrowed from Locke, and partly assumed in antagonism to him."-TYLER, MOSES COIT, 1878, A

History of American Literature, 16761765, vol. II, p. 183, note.

Berkeleian Idealism is of all speculative theories concerning the external world the one which, perhaps, most quickly and easily commends itself to the philosophic enquirer. The greater number of persons who dabble in such subjects have been idealists at one period of their lives if they have not remained so; and many more, who would not call themselves idealists, are nevertheless of opinion that though the existence of matter is a thing to be believed in, it is not a thing which it is possible to prove. The causes of this popularity are, no doubt, in part, the extreme simplicity of the reasoning on which the theory rests, in part its extreme plausibility, in part, perhaps, the nature of the result which is commonly thought to be speculatively interesting without being For it has to be practically inconvenient. observed, that the true idealist is not necessarily of opinion that his system properly understood, in any way contradicts It destroys, no doubt, a belief in substance; but then substance is a metaphysical phantom conjured up by a vain philosophy: the Matter of ordinary life it supposes itself to leave untouched.

common sense.

BALFOUR, ARTHUR JAMES, 1879, A Defence of Philosophic Doubt, p. 178.

The truest, acutest philosopher that Great Britain has ever known.—MORRIS, GEORGE S., 1880, British Thought and Thinkers, p. 233.

Whether Berkeley's doctrine be true or false, it is certain that he has an important place in the development of English thought, and that his opinions have reappeared in different forms, embodied in the systems of men who are ordinarily thought to be entirely opposed to the philosophy which he defended. Some who have begun with materialism have ended by reproducing the doctrines contained in the "Principles of Human Knowledge," and the University of Edinburgh, which at one time learned philosophy from Berkeley's most able opponent, is now favored with the teaching of Berkeley's most sympathetic expounder.-ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD, 1885, The Idealism of Bishop Berkeley, The Presbyterian Review, vol. 6, p. 301.

The absolute spiritualism of Berkeley is a unitary, homogeneous system, unquestionably superior to the hybrid

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