Berkeley and Irish Philosophy (PDFDrive)

BERKELEY AND IRISH PHILOSOPHY
Continuum Studies in British Philosophy:

Series Editor: James Fieser, University of Tennessee at Martin
Duncan Richter, Wittgenstein at his Word

Wilfrid E. Rumble, Doing Austin Justice
Maria J. Frapolli (ed.), F. P. Ramsey: Critical Reassessments
William R. Eaton, Boyle on Fire
David Berman, Berkeley and Irish Philosophy
Colin Tyler, Radical Philosophy
Stephen Lalor, Matthew Tindal, Freethinker
Angela M. Coventry, Hume's Theory of Causation
Colin Heydt, Rethinking Mill's Ethics
Stephen J. Finn, Thomas Hobbes: The Politics of Natural Philosophy
J. Mark Lazenby, The Early Wittgenstein on Religion
Dennis Desroches, Francis Bacon and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge
Megan Laverty, Iris Murdoch's Ethics
Talia Mae Bettcher, Berkeley's Philosophy of Spirit
Patricia Sheridan, Locke's Moral Theory
Michael Taylor, The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer
James E. Crimmins, Jeremy Bentham'sFinal Tears
James G. Buickerood, John Locke on Imagination and the Passions
BERKELEY AND IRISH PHILOSOPHY
DAVID BERMAN
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 0-8264-8590-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Berman, David, 1942-

Berkeley and Irish philosophy / David Berman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: George Berkeley-On missing the wrong
target-Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment in Irish philosophy-Francis Hutcheson on Berkeley
and the Molyneux problem-The impact of Irish philosophy on the American Enlightenment-Irish
ideology and philosophy-An account of the life of Berkeley (1776)—Some new Bermuda
Berkeleiana-The good bishop: new letters-Beckett and Berkeley.
ISBN 0-8264-8590-1
1. Berkeley, George, 1685-1753. 2. Philosophy-Ireland. I. Title.
B1348.B458 2005
192-dc22 2005041933
Typeset by Aarontype Limited, Easton, Bristol

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
In memory of my father, Seymour Berman,
and my teachers, A. A. Luce and E. J. J. Furlong
This page intentionally left blank
CONTENTS
Note on the Text viii

AcknowledgementsS ix
Introduction 1
Part I BERKELEY'S PHILOSOPHY 19

1 George Berkeley 21
2 On Missing the Wrong Target 58
Part II THE GOLDEN AGE OF IRISH

PHILOSOPHY 77
3 Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in
Irish Philosophy 79
4 The Culmination and Causation of Irish Philosophy 106
5 Francis Hutcheson on Berkeley and the Molyneux
Problem 138
6 The Impact of Irish Philosophy on the American
Enlightenment 150
7 Irish Ideology and Philosophy 167
Part III NEW BERKELEY LETTERS AND

BERKELEIANA 175
8 An Early Essay concerning Berkeley's Immaterialism 177
9 Mrs Berkeley's Annotations in An Account of the
Life of Berkeley ( 1 7 7 6 ) 186
10 Some New Bermuda Berkeleiana 202
11 The Good Bishop: New Letters 215
12 Beckett and Berkeley 226
Index 231
NOTE ON THE TEXT
Apart from minor changes, the essays, notes and reviews are re-
printed in this volume as they originally appeared between 1968
and 1996. One change is the addition of some new endnotes,
which are indicated in the text by superscript letters, rather than
numbers. Thus every item reprinted here carries an initial note
stating where and when it was first published. A full list of sources
is also given in the Acknowledgements. In two chapters — 3 and
7 - additional material has also been inserted, as mentioned in
the Introduction, from a later publication. These additions, too,
are signalled by additional endnotes. A few stylistic changes have
also been made, as well as the correction of some factual errors.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Chapter 1: 'George Berkeley', was originally published in British

Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment (London: Routledge, 1996),
edited by Stuart Brown, vol. V of the Routledge History of Philo-
sophy, pp. 123-49.
Chapter 2: Section 1 was originally published as 'On Missing
the Wrong Target', a review-article of Jonathan Bennett's Locke,
Berkeley, Hume, in Hermathena cxiii (1972), pp. 54—67; section 2
was originally published as a review of George Pitcher's Berkeley,
in the Journal of the History of Philosophy xviii (1980), pp. 352-3.
Chapters 3 and 4: 'Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment
in Irish Philosophy' and 'The Culmination and Causation of Irish
Philosophy', were originally published in the Archivfiir Geschichte
der Philosophic 64 (1982), pp. 148-65 and 257-79. Also a portion
of Chapter 3 was originally published as part of the Editors' Intro-
duction, by D. Berrnan and P. O'Riordan, to The Irish Enlighten-
ment and Counter-Enlightenment (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002),
vol. 1, pp. xvi-xvii.
Chapter 5: 'Francis Hutcheson on Berkeley and the Molyneux
Problem', was originally published in the Proceedings of the Royal
Irish Academy 74, C (1974), pp. 259-65.
Chapter 6: 'The Impact of Irish Philosophy on the American
Enlightenment' originally appeared as 'Irish Philosophy and the
American Enlightenment during the Eighteenth Century' in
Eire-Ireland, xxxiv (1989), pp. 28-39. Copyright © 1989: Irish
American Institute, 1 Lacawanna Place, Morristown, NJ 07960,
USA. Reproduced by permission of the Irish American Cultural
Institute.
X Acknowledgements
Chapter 7: Section 1 was originally published as 'Irish Philoso-

phy and Ideology' in the Crane Bag, Final Issue (1985), pp. 158-9.
Section 2 was originally published as part of the Editors' Introduc-
tion, by D. Berrnan and P. O'Riordan, to The Irish Enlightenment
and Counter-Enlightenment (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), vol. 1,
pp. xxii-xxiii.
Chapter 8: 'An Early Essay concerning Berkeley's Immaterial-
ism' was originally published in Hermathena cix (1969), pp. 37—43.
Chapter 9: 'Mrs Berkeley's Annotations in An Account of the Life of
Berkeley (1776)' originally appeared as 'Mrs Berkeley's Annota-
tions in her interleaved copy of An Account of the Life of George Berke-
ley (1776)' in Hermathena cxxii (1977), pp. 15-28.
Chapter 10: Section 1 was originally published as 'Some New
Bermuda Berkeleiana' in Hermathena cx (1970), pp. 24—31. Section
2 was originally published in the Berkeley Newsletter 4 (1980),
pp. 14-15.
Chapter 11: 'The Good Bishop: New Letters': section 1 was ori-
ginally published as 'A new letter by Berkeley on Tar-water' in
Hermathena cvii (1968), pp. 45-8; sections 2 and 3 were originally
published in the Berkeley Newsletter 1 (1977), pp. 8-9, and the Ber-
keley Newsletter 3 (1979), pp. 12-13. Section 4 was originally pub-
lished as the Appendix to 'Berkeley, Clayton and An Essay on Spirit'
in the Journal of the History of Ideas XXXII (1971), pp. 376—8.
Chapter 12: 'Beckett and Berkeley', was originally published in
the Irish University Review: A Journal of Irish Studies 14 (1984),
pp. 42-5.
I am grateful for permission to reprint from the above publica-

tions. I am also grateful to Joseph O'Gorman for help with scan-
ning, to Evin Harris for help with proofreading, to William Lyons
for reading a draft of the Introduction, and to Rudi Thoemmes for
suggesting the idea of this book.
INTRODUCTION
1 The collection
The essays, notes and reviews in this volume were originally pub-
lished between 1968 and 1996. To make the collection as informa-
tive and readable as I could, I have grouped the original material
into three parts under the following headings: I 'Berkeley's Philo-
sophy'; II 'The Golden Age of Irish Philosophy'; and III 'New
Berkeley Letters and Berkeleiana'. The third part is the most fac-
tual; it presents a number of uncollected letters by Berkeley as well
as unnoticed comments on his life and work. There are more inter-
pretation and larger themes in part II. It contains an account of
the one great period of Irish philosophy, from the 1690s to the
1750s5 and Berkeley's place in it. Items in part I are more directly
about Berkeley's philosophy and involve philosophical exposition
and critique. The three parts are like three levels in a building:
part III is the lowest and most basic; part I is most ideational and
interpretative, with part II fitting in between the two.
One principle I used in selecting and assembling this collection
was to avoid duplication between this volume and my earlier George
Berkeley: Idealism and the Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1994; paperback 1996 and 2002). This has meant that some of
the story of Berkeley and Irish philosophy is to be found in detail
in the earlier volume — for example, the Irish context of Berkeley's
semantic revolution (in Chapter 1), Berkeley and the political
question of passive resistance (Chapter 4), and (in Chapter 7) the
connection between Berkeley and Robert Clayton. For this rea-
son, these topics are only briefly considered here or adverted to in
notes to the two-part essay on the subject, originally published
2 Berkeley and Irish Philosophy
in 1982, and revised and reprinted here in part II, Chapters 3 and 4.
Work on this classic period of Irish philosophy was also carried
forward in 'The Irish Counter-Enlightenment', a number of arti-
cles I wrote for Thoemmes' Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British
Philosophers (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1999), an essay on John
o
Toland, 'The Irish Freethinker', and another on William King,
'The Irish Pragmatist'. References to these articles have also
been added, where appropriate, in the notes to the two-part essay
of part II, which, I believe, constitutes the nearest thing to a his-
tory of the golden age of Irish philosophy. Work on Berkeley and
Irish philosophy was also importantly advanced in the Editors'
Introduction to The Irish Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment
(Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), a six-volume anthology of writ-
ings of the classic Irish philosophers. A few extracts from this
Introduction, written with Patricia O'Riordan, have been added
to the first and last items of part II.
Much of the material in part III will, it is hoped, be incorpo-
rated into a new edition of Berkeley's correspondence and notes
on it. As it stands, part III can be used as a supplement to vol-
umes viii and ix of The Works of George Berkeley (London: Nelson),
published in 1956 and 1957 respectively, which contain Berkeley's
letters and notes on them, edited by A. A. Luce. Part III adds
some six new or partly new letters, mostly concerning the middle
and final phases of Berkeley's career, his Bermuda project and his
advocacy of tar-water. Their chief interest is the light they throw
on Berkeley's life. This is even more the case with the second item
in part III, Mrs Anne Berkeley's annotations in her copy of the
first separately printed biography of her husband.
Taken as a whole, this book, as its title indicates, can be described
as a work of historical philosophy. It is about the life and work of
a great philosopher, the father of idealism, and an important
national development in philosophy, of which Berkeley was the
outstanding figure. As a work of historical philosophy, it aims to
be scholarly and expository rather than purely philosophical.
Introduction 3
So while it contains some arguments and assessments of argu-

ments, these are largely elucidations of Berkeley's arguments or
those of his countrymen. The main aim was to present or mirror
what Berkeley and others thought.
Going somewhat further is my later volume, Berkeley: Experimen-
f\
tal Philosophy (London: Phoenix, 1997). For though it is generally
expositive and critical in details, its tendency is positive: it recom-
mends Berkeley's psychological approach to philosophy. To be
sure, there are at least two respects in which the expository works
of parts I and II are also positive: (1) in recognizing the historical
importance of Berkeley's philosophy and the ingenuity of his argu-
ments, and (2) in criticizing Berkeley's critics. But these stop short
of positive endorsement.
In the remainder of this Introduction I should like to go further
and continue the more positive approach of my 1997 volume, by
saying something more about Berkeley as a psychological philoso-
pher. By doing so, I shall also be lending additional weight to
part I of the present book.
2 Berkeley and psychological philosophy
In his History of Western Philosophy (1 Oth printing, New York: Simon

& Shuster, 1964), Bertrand Russell suggested that ever since the
time of Pythagoras there have been two strands in philosophy -
one that was influenced by mathematics, the other by the empiri-
cal sciences (p. 828). In my 1997 volume I suggested that there are
two not dissimilar strands in Berkeley's philosophy, which can be
described as the conceptual, analytic and argumentative, on the
one hand, and the psychological, experiential and observational,
on the other. In short, in addition to being a great conceptual ana-
lyst and arguer, Berkeley was also a great psychological philoso-
pher, although this side of his work has been largely eclipsed by
the anti-psychologistic, logico-linguistic revolution that occurred
in philosophy at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was

the revolution led by Russell himself, along with Frege, Moore and
Wittgenstein, among others, and which continues to influence not
just philosophy but the scholarly understanding of philosophers
such as Berkeley. So most twentieth-century commentators focus
almost exclusively on Berkeley as a conceptual analyst and arguer,
and also do so in a conceptual and argumentative way. For that is
regarded as the way to do philosophy and history of philosophy, at
least in the Anglo-American analytic tradition. But there was and
is another way — the psychological or observational way.
As I see it, Berkeley's heart and main concern were with this
other way of doing philosophy. One nineteenth-century commen-
tator who, I think, saw this was James Ferrier, according to whom:
'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 for
facts''. Expressed in more familiar terms, this is the approach of
British empiricism, which goes back to Hobbes and Locke, and
was carried forward by Hutcheson, Hume, the early Burke,
James and J. S. Mill, T. H. Huxley and Francis Galton, among
others. What these thinkers had in common was a concern with
observation in the psychological realm. For Berkeley, this concern
comes out, as I tried to show in my 1997 volume, in his various
experiments, which mainly took the form of armchair psychol-
ogy — armchair psychology being hands-on philosophy. My aim
here is to carry this empirical approach one further step, by direct-
ing attention to the psychological side of Berkeley's philosophy,
focusing on the role of mental images.
3 Berkeley and Galton on images

That images form an important part of Berkeley's philosophy
comes out in the first section of his Principles of Human Knowledge
Introduction 5
(Dublin, 1710), where he says that they, together with ideas of

memory, constitute one of the three objects of human knowledge:
the two others being, first, sense experiences, and second, emotions
and mental acts. However, after that important classificatory
statement, images melt into the background, replaced by the
more general and familiar term idea. But images, more than any-
thing else, are what give ideas their particular character. As Ber-
keley puts it in his philosophical notebooks, no. 657a: 'M properly
speaking Idea is a picture of the Imagination's making ...'.
What I shall be doing, then, is bringing images back from the
periphery of Berkeley's system into the centre where they actually
belong. And the best way of doing this is by drawing on the great
pioneer psychologist who first put images at the centre of psy-
chology. This was Sir Francis Galton, whose work on imaging
in his Inquiries into the Human Faculty and its Development (London:
Macmillan, 1883) marked, as William James put it, an 'era in
descriptive psychology'.
At the basis of Galton's account of imagery was a questionnaire
he developed about the vividness, detail, colouring, etc. of mental
images. This is sometimes called his 'breakfast-table' question-
naire, because that was the specific object that he suggested his
subjects try to imagine. What Galton found, to his astonishment,
was that the range in imaging or visualizing ability was enormous,
which he expressed in terms of percentiles a term he invented -
with the highest imagers being what are now usually called eide-
tics, to the lowest, where a person is unable to produce any images.
The great majority of us, as might be expected, are distributed
somewhere in the middle between these two extremes.
Of course, speaking of little or much ability is somewhat
crude, since, as Galton shows, images appear in various ways. For
our present purpose, I will be concentrating on the following:
(1) their degree of detail, vividness and independence; or, to put it
in other terms, the extent to which they are like actually seen
objects; and (2) the extent to which images can be produced and
controlled by the imager. The first of these combines Galton's

questions 1 and 2; the second is the initial setting of all Gal-
ton's questions and in particular question 12, that is 'Call up
before your imagination ...' and also question 6. Taken together
(1) and (2) come close to Galton's question 9 and are also exempli-
fied in individual cases of strong or eidetic imagers, especially that
of Galton's fellow scientist, Flinders Petrie, who informed Galton
that 'he [Petrie] habitually works out sums by aid of an imaginary
sliding rule, which he sets in the desired way and reads off
mentally' - which, as Galton indicates, puts him into one of the
highest percentiles of visualizers, the eidetic imagers.
Where, then, or in what percentile, would Berkeley fit? Prob-
ably the best way of getting some kind of standard, or grid, is to
see the two extremes. Here, then, are two responses which Galton
received from those in the lowest percentiles:
Extremely dim. The impressions are in all respects so dim,

vague, and transient, that I doubt whether they can reasonably
be called images. They are incomparably less than those of
dreams.
My powers are zero. To my consciousness there is almost no
association of memory with objective visual impressions. I recol-
lect the breakfast-table, but do not see it. (p. 64)
But the most interesting of the low-imagers was, as we now

know, Major John Herschel, FRS, an astronomer and son of the
astronomer Sir John Herschel. In his response to Galton's ques-
tionnaire, he writes:
The questions presuppose assent to some sort of a proposi-

tion regarding 'the mind's eye' and the 'images' which it sees.
The more ... that one tries to settle the preliminaries, so as
to answer conscientiously, the more difficult does it become to
10
answer them at all. This points to some initial fallacy.
Introduction 7
Herschel goes on to say that he thinks the fallacy involves making

an analogy between real seeing and mental seeing, which is like
that between knitting wool and knitting or stitching together an
argument. So the belief in mental images, Herschel thinks, arises
from taking an analogy or metaphor too literally - like thinking
that the terms or premises of an argument are really stitched
together. Thus 'It is only by a figure of speech [he says] that I can
describe my recollection of a scene as a "mental image" ... I do
not see it . . . , any more than a man sees the thousand lines of
Sophocles which under pressure he is ready to repeat' (p. 59). For
Herschel, then, people who believed that they perceived actual
visual images were confusing or deceiving themselves.
In fact, what seems clear is that Herschel himself had no ima-
ging power. As Galton puts it, he was one of those men who 'had
a deficiency of which [he] was [previously] unaware, and natu-
rally enough supposed that those who affirmed they possessed it,
were romancing.' (p. 59). From Herschel's responses to the ques-
tionnaire, it seems that he did not even have the sort of passive
imagery found in dreams, or the imagery - now called hypnogo-
gic - that comes to some people just as they are falling asleep. For
many people, this will seem incredible: that someone could have
no imaging power and no images at all, yet function normally.
Judging from Herschel's detailed responses and his later corre-
spondence with Galton, the questionnaire seems to have caused
him a good deal of agonizing and soul-searching. Apparently
Herschel had never considered that he might be lacking mental
images. He therefore struggled to understand whether he actually
lacked them or whether others were, as Galton puts it, romancing
themselves. Eventually what pretty much convinced him that
other people really did have images was Gallon's allied work on
number forms. These are visual configurations, strikingly specific
and stable, which some people imagine whenever they think of
numbers. As Herschel says in a letter to Galton of 21 February
1880: 'The cases which you have elicited of numerical imagery
reconcile me to the general fact of what you denote by visualiza-

1Q
tion'. Herschel is almost certainly referring here to Galton's arti-
cle published in Mature of January 1880, which sets out in graphic
detail the number form imagery of various individuals. What is
clear is that Herschel was inferring from these cases, which he took
to be genuine and reliable instances of imaging, that some people
do have mental images, i.e. non-physical images, resembling
visual things, that they can see in their minds without the use of
their physical eyes. But though Herschel was 'reconciled', he still
felt uneasy, understandably enough, since he still had no actual
experience of images.
Yet it is not just the poor- or non-imagers that might find Gal-
ton's work on imagery problematic. For so might those on the
other extreme, those in the highest percentiles of imaging ability,
like Flinders Petrie. However, for them the problem might be for-
mulated as: 'Well, what's the problem?' Having such strong ima-
gery, they find it hard to imagine what mental life could be like
without it. That is their blind spot. Although Galton doesn't seem
to mention this, they too can think that the putative non- or weak-
imagers are romancing, perversely denying something which they
must have. This is relevant, because I think that Berkeley was a
strong or eidetic imager, who supposed that everyone else was
basically like him.
Here are two of the responses Galton received from those in the
highest percentiles:
The image once seen is perfectly clear and bright...

I can see my breakfast-table or any equally familiar thing with
my mind's eye quite as well in all particulars as I can do if the
reality is before me.15
Eidetic imaging is usually understood as the extreme end of the

imagery scale. One of its important characteristics is that it is real,
occurrent, i.e. present-tense, seeing, although no physical object
Introduction 9
need be actually present before the eidetic. In this respect it is like
experiencing an after-image or an hallucination. But an eidetic
image differs from an after-image in that, like a normal visual
object, it retains its original colour. It is also more independent of
the imager; for the eyes of an eidetic actually move as the image is
scanned. An after-image, on the other hand, does not show the
same stability or independence; it moves as the imager's eyes
or face moves (presumably because it is imprinted on the retina or
retinas). And an eidetic image differs from an hallucination in that
the eidetic knows that the image is an image and not real.
What present-day psychologists are not so clearly agreed on is
whether eidetic images also need to be highly detailed, or photo-
graphic, and under the close control of the imager - as they are
for the most powerful and extraordinary imagists, most notably
the subject of A. R. Luria's The Mind of a Mnemonist (1968), the
female art teacher in Stromeyer and Psotka's 1970 study and Flin-
ders Petrie. In any case, since there seems to be no other accepted
term for the strongest imagers, I shall continue to use the term
eidetic in that sense.
4 Berkeley: eidetic imager
Why, then, do I think that Berkeley was, like Flinders Petrie, a

strong or eidetic imager? Well, the idea initially occurred to me
when I was working on my 1997 volume, Berkeley: Experimental Phi-
losophy and, more specifically, reflecting on Berkeley's observa-
tional powers in his first extant work, his description of the Cave
of Dunmore. Berkeley explored this unusual cave, which is near
his school in Kilkenny, in 1699, when he was about 14 years old,
but did not write up his account until 1706. My conclusion was
that this 'suggests, given the essay's accurate detail, that he had
considerable capacity for vivid recollection, perhaps even for
eidetic imagery and memory.' That is to say, he could produce
images of considerable detail that could be used for observa-

tional purposes.
Having once considered the hypothesis, it was only a matter of
time before I recalled a passage in Berkeley's Principles of Human
Knowledge that seemed to support it. Here it is:
I find [writes Berkeley] I can excite an idea in my mind at plea-

sure, and vary and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no
more than willing, and straightaway this or that idea arises in
my fancy: and by the same power it is obliterated and makes
way for another. This making and unmaking of ideas doth very
properly denominate the mind active. This much is certain, and
grounded on experience: but when we talk of unthinking agents,
or of exciting ideas exclusive of volition, we only amuse our-
selves with words, (sect. 28)
That Berkeley is thinking of images here is clear from his speak-

ing of ideas arising in his 'fancy', which was another term for the
imagination.
In short, this passage, taken together with the evidence of his
description of the Dunmore cave, strongly enforced my suspicion
that Berkeley was a strong or eidetic imager in being able to pro-
duce at will whatever image he wished, which I supposed would
include images of considerable detail and stability that he could
examine in something like the way that Flinders Petrie used his
slide-rule image. But these were still largely supposals and infer-
ences. I wanted something more first-hand, and I think there is
that evidence in Berkeley's account of imaging in section 10 of the
Introduction to the Principles:
Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their

ideas, they best can tell: for my self I find indeed I have a faculty
of imagining, or representing to my self the ideas of those parti-
cular things I have perceived and of variously compounding
Introduction 11
and dividing them. I can imagine a man with two heads or the
upper parts of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can consider
the hand, the eye, the nose, each by it self abstracted or sepa-
rated from the rest of the body. But then whatever hand or eye
I imagine, it must have some particular shape and colour. Like-
wise the idea of man that I frame to my self, must be either
a white, or black, or tawney, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a
low, or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought
conceive the abstract idea above described. And it is equally
impossible to me to form the abstract idea of motion distinct
from the body moving, and which is neither swift nor slow, cur-
vilinear nor rectilinear; and the like may be said of all other
abstract general ideas whatsoever, (sect. 10)
What we need to focus on here is what Berkeley says he is able and,

even more important, not able to do. As we would expect from sec-
tion 28 and his essay on the Dunmore cave, he can easily produce
all sorts of imagined objects - men with two heads, parts of bodies
imagined on their own - but whatever he imagines must have a
particular, detailed shape and colour. It must, as Berkeley goes
on to explain in the example of a man, be 'either white, or black,
or tawney, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or middle-sized
man.' It must be like a photograph in its specificity or detail.
He could not, it seems, imagine vague, sketchy ideas. In short,
given what he says about his images, I conclude that Berkeley
was in one of the very high percentiles, that he was a strong or eide-
tic imager, able to produce images of extraordinary vividness,
detail and independence.
5 The typical mind fallacy
But why, if this is so evident, has Berkeley's unusual imaging abil-

ity not been seen before now? Berkeley's Principles has been the
object of close study for nearly 300 years. Why has this only been
noticed now? There are a number of reasons. One reason is that
neither the discussion in section 10 of the Introduction nor that in
section 28 is directly concerned with imaging. The aim of section
10, like that of most of the Introduction to the Principles, is nega-
tive - to prove that there are no abstract general ideas. Berkeley's
account of his imaging in section 10 is only one among a number of
arguments to that end. Nor is it his best-known argument, which is
no doubt that in section 13, where Berkeley tries to show that
Locke's abstract general idea of a triangle, that incorporates all
and none of the features of triangles, is contradictory and absurd.
Moreover, in section 10, Berkeley is specifically talking about a
mental ability which he doesn't have — 'this wonderful faculty of
abstracting' - not a wonderful ability that he has. Because the
drift of the passage is downbeat and underplayed, commentators
have failed to see the upbeat message.
More basically, however, I think that we have been prevented
from recognizing his eidetic ability in section 10 by a powerful and
pervasive assumption: that all human minds are, qua cognitive
abilities, essentially the same. But as Galton's work on imaging
shows, this is just not so. Thus the high-imaging respondent who
said that his 'mental image appears to correspond in all respects
with reality . . . [and] is as clear as the actual scene' (Inquiries,
p. 62) had a very different kind of mind from Herschel's or my
own, since I find it difficult to produce even the most sketchy
images. However, it was not until Galton's work of the 1880s that
these huge differences came clearly to light. And even Galton,
as I've noted, was astonished by it. Up to then, it was believed
that the imaging ability was something everyone had in much
the same way. Galton showed that this was false, as false yet as
important as supposing that water comes in one form only, the
watery variety, and that it cannot be either solid (ice) or vapory
(steam). I call this assumption the Typical Mind Fallacy, or
TMF for short.
Introduction 13
Galton and William James are important in their protest
against the TMF. James put the point well in his Principles of Psy-
chology (1890), in the chapter on imagination, where he draws
heavily on Galton's account and quotes long portions from it:
Until very recent years [writes James] it was supposed by all

philosophers that there was a typical human mind which
all individual minds were like, and that propositions of uni-
versal validity could be laid down about such faculties as 'the
Imagination'. Lately, however, a mass of revelations have
poured in, which make us see how false a view this is. There are
imaginations, not 'the Imagination', and they must be studied
in detail, (vol. 2, pp. 49-50).
The rejection of the typical mind became one of the hallmarks of

the newly developing science of experimental psychology, also
forming the basis of the narrower fields of differential psychology
and mental typology.
Indeed, it was partly on this basis that the newly developing
science distinguished itself from the older form of psychological
philosophy, which had been practised by the great philosophers,
such as Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, etc. Because these older
thinkers believed in the typical human mind, or the human mind,
each of them thought he could understand all human minds by
merely attending to his own. Yet, as Galton observed: 'It will
be seen how greatly metaphysicians and psychologists may err,
who assume their own mental operations, instincts, and axioms to
be identical with those of the rest of mankind, instead of being
special to themselves' (p. 32). This, at bottom, was Berkeley's
assumption. He believed that if only others reflected carefully on
their own minds, they would also see that their images had the
same specificity and detail that his had. But here he was mistaken.
This, more than anything, helps to explain why Berkeley's
strong or eidetic imaging has been overlooked. It wasn't seen
because he himself wasn't aware of it as something special. He did

not have the advantage of Galton's descriptive work. But why
have we also overlooked it? At least partly, I suggest, because of
the logico-linguistic revolution in philosophy, mentioned above,
which directed philosophers and their students away from using
psychology in philosophy. What is relevant, it was thought, is the
philosopher's assertions and his arguments. Bringing in psychol-
ogy and especially a philosopher's psychology was committing
the genetic fallacy or being guilty of psychologism. These were
taken to be enormously serious errors for philosophers, especially
from around 1900 until the 1960s, when it began to be challenged,
in some respects, by the emergence of cognitive science and natur-
alized epistemology.
Coming back to Berkeley's specific case, we can see that much of
what I said (above) about section 10 of the Introduction also
applies to section 28. The discussion there is not primarily about
imaging. In sections 28—30 Berkeley is trying to do a number of
things. First he wants to pick out the essential feature of the active
mind, which he takes to be the making and unmaking of ideas,
which is where images come in, since they are for him what the
human mind makes and unmakes. Next he observes that what we
experience of the physical world are also ideas, ideas imprinted
on the senses, which are stronger than our imaginative ideas.
As he puts it in section 33: 'The ideas of sense are allowed to have
more reality in them, that is, to be more strong, orderly, and
coherent than the creatures of the [i.e. human] mind'. But his pri-
mary point is that the strong ideas of sense require a will to pro-
duce them and we do not have such a will; hence they must be
produced by a 'more powerful spirit', the 'Author of Nature'
(sect. 33).
This is Berkeley's main argument for the existence of God. What
is thrown into the background - displaced, as it were — is the
considerable similarity between our - or, as I should say, Berke-
ley's - will and that of God. Once again, however, this is largely
Introduction 15
invisible — to him and to us — if we are not observant. No doubt
part of the difficulty in seeing this lies in the concision of Berkeley's
argument and that the argument involves him in pushing in two
opposing directions. The main and final direction is showing that
ideas of sense are very much more lively, orderly and coherent
than our imaginative ideas, and hence require a proportionately
superior mind to produce them, that is, God's. Hence we lose
sight of where the argument started — with that other direction,
according to which our (or his) images are such that he can excite
this or that one whenever he pleases. His final point is that our
ability and ideas are puny and slight compared to God's -
a point that he is also concerned to make in order to distinguish
real, physical things, the ideas imprinted on our senses, from the
images of our fancy.
Another reason or cause that has hidden Berkeley's unusually
strong imaging ability is that it is a mental abililty and not either
a physical or pathological one. Hence it can be easily overlooked,
just as colour blindness, as Galton notes, can be overlooked by the
oi
subject and also by onlookers. Had Berkeley been talking about
a physical ability, such as being able to juggle ten balls at once,
then it would surely have been recognized as unusual. Similarly,
had he been talking about something that was pathological, say
the phobic fear of spiders, then it would also have been more
noticeable, as something distinguishing him.
A final factor that has obscured what I am taking to be Berke-
ley's eidetic ability is the ambiguity of language itself. If someone
says that he can produce detailed mental images, what does that
really mean? It is like saying that I have a long piece of string. But
how long is a long piece of string? How detailed is a detailed
image? Indeed, it is more than possible - as I know from experi-
ence with students - that even when someone tells you that he has
a detailed image of X, that needn't mean he has any image at all;
for what he might have is the ability to remember and/or correctly
speak about X.
Having established that Berkeley was a strong or eidetic imager,

what I am hoping to show in a future work are the positive impli-
cations of this for Berkeley's idealism: for his account of ideas of
sense but especially for his account of mind.
Notes
1. In Richard Kearney (ed.), The Irish Mind (Dublin: Wolfhound Press,
1985).
2. These are on the following Irish philosophers: Peter Browne (pp. 134—7),
Robert Clayton (pp. 208-10), Henry Dodwell (pp. 281-2), John Ellis
(pp. 309-10), George Ensor (pp. 317-18), Philip Skelton (pp. 799-
800), Edward Synge junior (pp. 864-5), T—r (pp. 892-3), John Tren-
chard (pp. 892-3), Duke Tyrrell (pp. 906-7).
3. In Philip McGuinness, A. Harrison and R. Kearney (eds), John Toland's
Christianity not Mysterious: Text,, Associated Works and Critical Essays
(Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1997).
4. In C.J. Fauske (ed.), Archbishop William King and the Anglican Irish Context
1688-1729 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), pp. 123-34.
5. For a discussion of how these annotations and other recently discovered
material bear on Luce's authoritative Life of George Berkeley (London:
Nelson, 1949), see my Introduction to the Thoemmes/Routledge reissue
of Luce's Life of George Berkeley (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1992).
6. This essay is reprinted in Frederick Raphael and Ray Monk (eds), The
Great Philosophers (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000; paperback
5th printing 2003).
7. See my Berkeley: Experimental Philosophy, pp. 4-5, 50-1, and Gilbert Ryle
(ed.), The Revolution in Philosophy (London: Macmillan, 1965), especially
Ryie's Introduction.
8. See James Ferrier, 'Berkeley and Idealism', Blackwood Magazine (June
1842), p. 813; reprinted in George Pitcher (ed.), Berkeley on Vision:
A Nineteenth-Century Debate (New York: Garland, 1988). Emphasis
in original.
9. All quotations from Berkeley's writings are taken from the standard
nine-volume edition of The Works of George Berkeley (London: Nelson,
1948-57), edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop; see vol. i, p. 80.
Introduction 17
10. See William James, The Principles of Psychology (London: Macmillan,
1890), vol. 2, p. 51.
11. See Gallon, Inquiries into the Human Faculty and its Development (London:
J. M. Dent, 1907), p. 66. All references to Gallon's Inquiries, unless other-
wise stated, are to this 1907 edition, part of the Everyman Library series,
which was the final edition prepared by Gallon himself. Gallon's ques-
tionnaire is prinled as Appendix E, pp. 255-6.
12. See Inquiries, p. 59. I am also here drawing on David Burbridge's fuller
accounl of Herschel's responses in 'Gallon's 100: an exploration of Fran-
cis Gallon's imagery sludies', in ihe British Journal of the History of Science
27 (1994); see p. 461.
13. See Burbridge, 'Gallon's 100: an exploration of Francis Gallon's ima-
gery sludies', pp. 461-2.
14. See Francis Gallon, 'Visualized numerals', Nature 21 (1880), pp. 252~6.
15. Inquiries, p. 64.
16. See E. R. Jaensch, Eidetic Imagery andthe Typological Methods of Investigation
(London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, 1930) and P. W. Sheehan, R. Ashton and
K. While, 'Assessmenl of Menial Imaging', in Anees A. Sheikh (ed.), Ima-
gery: Current Theories (New York: Wiley, 1983), especially pp. 196-200.
17. A. R. Luria, The Mind of a Mnemonist (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2002, 11th printing), Irans. by Lynn Solotaroff; C. F. Slro-
meyer and J. Psolka, 'The detailed texlure of eidelic images', Nature
225 (1970), pp. 347-9. Anolher Olympic-class imager, mentioned by
Gallon, is ihe slalesman, who assured him 'lhat a certain hesilalion in
utterance which he has at times, is due to his being plagued by the
image of his manuscript speech wilh ils original erasures and corrections'
(Inquiries, p. 67).
18. See Berkeley: Experimental Philosophy, p. 13. For Berkeley's description of
ihe Cave of Dunmore, see Works, vol. iv, pp. 257-64.
19. See Daniel Robinson, An Intellectual History of Psychology (3rd edn, Boslon:
Arnold, 1995), chap. 11, especially p. 306.
20. In his 'Fifty Years of Philosophy', H. J. Palon says: 'As to psychology
[at Oxford], every hackle was up at the mere mention of its name . . . and
the prevailing altitude was mirrored in the well-known slory of the
examinee who finished a not loo impressive answer by saying, "Here
Logic ends and piscology and Error begin" '; in H. D. Lewis (ed.), Con-
temporary British Philosophy, (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956), p. 345.
Also see Ryle, The Revolution in Philosophy.
21. Gallon, Inquiries, pp. 58-9.
Parti
BERKELEY'S PHILOSOPHY
1
George Berkeleya
1 Background and early work

George Berkeley was born on 12 March 1685 in Co. Kilkenny,
where he spent his early years. His father was from England, his
mother (very probably) was born in Ireland. After attending
Kilkenny College, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, in March
1700, where he became a Scholar in 1702 and received his BA
in 1704. In 1707 he undertook the examination for a College
Fellowship. In the same year he published his minor mathematical
works, Arithmetica and Miscellanea Mathematica, probably in the
hope of supporting his candidature for Fellowship, to which he
was admitted on 9 June 1707. He then held such College positions
as Librarian, Junior Dean, and Junior Greek Lecturer. In 1710 he
was ordained into the Church of Ireland.
It was as a young Fellow in his early twenties that Berkeley devel-
oped his immaterialist philosophy, which he published in (what are
now) three philosophical classics: An Essay towards a Mew Theory of
Vision (1709), The Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), and Three
Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). Much of his philoso-
phy's complex development can be traced in the two philosophical
notebooks he kept during this creative period, c. 1707—8. The note-
books, first printed in 1871 and now widely known as the Philosophi-
cal Commentaries., also enable us to see the influences on Berkeley's
thinking. This is especially useful in Berkeley's case, since his three
early works contain few references to the writings of other philoso-
phers. It is clear from the Philosophical Commentaries that he was
profoundly inspired by the work of John Locke and the Cartesians,
particularly Nicolas Malebranche. Locke's Essay concerning Human
Understanding (1690) had been put on the course at Trinity College

as early as 1692 (see [5.15], 149). That Berkeley read it carefully
and appreciatively is evident from numerous references in his
notebooks. Berkeley admired Locke's candour and concern for
clarity. In the Essay of Vision, section 125, he describes Locke as
'this celebrated author', who has 'distinguished himself... by the
clearness and significancy of what he says', Berkeley also uses some
of Locke's terminology, for example, when talking of'primary and
secondary qualities'. He also derived important theories from
Locke, although he almost always modifies these in crucial ways.
On certain issues, most notably abstract general ideas, he could be
extremely critical of Locke.
The influence of Malebranche is harder to pin down. But
since the publication of A. A. Luce's Berkeley and Malebranche in
1934, Berkeley's major debt to Malebranche's Search after Truth
(1674/5) has been generally recognized. 'Ideas' play as central a
role in Berkeley's Principles as they do in both Locke's Essay and
Malebranche's Search. All three philosophers describe ideas as
the immediate objects of the mind, when it experiences or thinks.
But Berkeley is closer to Malebranche in characterizing ideas as
having a certain substantial and independent reality. Summing
up Berkeley's intellectual debt, Luce wrote: 'Locke taught him,
but Malebranche inspired him' ([5.18], 7).
There were other philosophers, however, who exerted a power-
ful, although less positive influence on Berkeley. Here Luce singled
out Pierre Bayle, the great sceptic who 'alarmed and alerted' Ber-
keley, making him aware of the sceptical dangers inherent in Gar-
tesianism. But the Philosophical Commentaries show that Berkeley
was also reacting to the irreligious challenge of Hobbes and Spi-
noza — the two philosophers then most vilified by orthodox thin-
kers of Berkeley's theological sympathies. Hobbes's materialism
and Spinoza's pantheism posed a formidable danger to theistic
systems, and Berkeley felt that one great merit of his immaterial-
ism was its effective response to this danger. As he notes in entry
George Berkeley 23
824 of the Commentaries: 'My Doctrine rightly understood all that
Philosophy of Epicurus, Hobbes, Spinoza &c wch has been a
o
declared enemy of religion comes to ye ground'. Of course, as

this entry itself shows, Berkeley's philosophical horizon was not
confined to (then) modern writers of the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries. He was also responding to ancient writers,
notably Epicurus and Lucretius, as well as drawing inspiration
from Plato, Aristotle, and other classic philosophers. Nor was
Berkeley influenced only by philosophers. Like most astute thin-
kers, he was attentive to the revolutionary scientific and mathema-
tical developments of the time, particularly to the mechanistic
corpuscularianism of Isaac Newton, whose Celebrated' Principia
is the only book that Berkeley discussed and mentioned by name
in the body of the Principles.
So far I have tried to situate Berkeley, as most histories of philo-
sophy do, as the foremost philosopher after Locke (and before
David Hume), who was responding to the irreligious, sceptical
and scientific challenges in seventeenth-century thought. Yet it is
also important to see the local, Irish context of Berkeley's writings.
It is probably no accident that Ireland's greatest philosopher
emerged at the centre of Ireland's one great period of philosophical
activity. This is, very briefly, the period that opens in the 1690s with
William Molyneux, Robert Molesworth and John Toland; devel-
ops in the early eighteenth century with Berkeley, Francis Hutche-
son, William King, Peter Browne; and culminates in the late 1750s
with Edmund Burke and Robert Clayton. Neither before this
sixty-year period, nor after it, has Ireland produced such continu-
ous creative philosophy, or a philosopher of Berkeley's stature.
2 The Essay of Vision: limited immaterialism
The importance of the Irish context can be seen straightaway in

Berkeley's first major work, An Essay towards a New Theory of
Vision, published in Dublin in 1709. Here the main influence was

Molyneux, the Dublin polymath and friend of Locke, whose cele-
brated problem pervades much of Berkeley's argument in the
Essay. Molyneux's problem was whether a man blind from birth
would upon gaining his sight be able to distinguish (visually) a
sphere and cube that he formerly knew by touch. Berkeley adverts
again and again to this problem, which was first published in the
second (1694) edition of Locke's Essay, II. ix. 8. Berkeley also
made considerable use of Molyneux's Dioptrica Nova (1692) —
from which, for example, his Essay's key section 2 is drawn - as
well as Molyneux's essay on the moon illusion. Another Irish influ-
ence on Berkeley's Essay was Archbishop King, a philosopher of
European standing, whose criticisms prompted Berkeley to add
an Appendix to the second edition, also published in 1709.
Berkeley's main aim in the Essay was to establish one part of his
immaterialism, namely, that everything we see is mind dependent.
He assumes here what he will deny in his next work, The Principles
of Human Knowledge (1710), that there are tangible things indepen-
dent of the mind. His strategy was to teach or convince his readers
by stages. If he could show that the visual world was mind depen-
dent, then that would be a crucial step towards the acceptance of
full immaterialism: that the whole physical world — including
what we touch - exists in the mind.
Another of Berkeley's objectives in his Essay was to explain how
the mind judges visual distance, magnitude and situation, and
while doing this to solve three notable problems, associated with
these topics, problems that seemed intractable on the (then)
accepted theory of vision. One problem, concerned with the
judgement of size, is why the moon looks larger on the horizon than
in the zenith of the sky. According to the accepted theory, articu-
lated in Descartes's Dioptrics (1637), most of our judgements of size
are accomplished by a natural geometry. In short, rays coming
from objects project onto the eyes angles by means of which the
mind judges an object to be large or small, near or far away. Yet
George Berkeley 25
why, Berkeley asks, do we mistakenly see a large moon on the hor-
izon? How can geometry lead us to false judgements? The moon
illusion, Berkeley concludes, 'is a clear instance of the insufficiency
of lines and angles for explaining the way wherein the mind per-
ceives and estimates the magnitude of outward objects' (sect. 78).
Berkeley's broader argument against the natural geometry theory
is set out earlier in the Essay with reference to judgements of dis-
tance; but it can be reformulated to refer to size. In short:
(1) We do not immediately see the size of an object (sect. 2).

(2) What we judge size by must itself be perceived (sects 10-12).
(3) But we do not perceive projected lines or angles.
(4) Therefore, we do not judge size by a natural geometry.
In asserting (1) Berkeley was not distinguishing himself signifi-

cantly from the received theory. Everyone seemed to agree that
what we immediately see are variable patterns of visible points
that change with the movement of our or other bodies; although
for the accepted theory the visible points were immediately seen
on the eye, whereas for Berkeley they are in the mind. But the
important difference between the two positions is that for Berkeley
the judgement of size is an inference based on what we immedi-
ately see, whereas for the innate-geometry theorist the judgement
arises from the (unconscious) calculation of rays and angles.
Estimating the size of an object is, for Berkeley, like seeing that
someone is angry or embarrassed. Although some people might
say that they can directly see my anger, all they really see, accord-
ing to Berkeley, are signs or expressions of it: my reddish face,
flashing eyes, clenched fist. And if they were not able to see such
perceptible signs, or connect them with the appropriate emotions,
then they would not be able to infer that I am angry. So the innate-
geometry theorist is like someone who claims to know that I am
angry, although he admits that he has not observed any behaviour
expressive of anger.
Berkeley has another way of expressing this thesis which reveals

his ultimate metaphysical position in the Essay: that what we see
constitutes a language by means of which God tells us about the
tangible world. This is the kernel of his so-called optic-language
proof for the existence of God, a proof that Berkeley first presented
in Dialogue Four of Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (1732), to
which he appended a revised (third) edition of the Essay. If his con-
clusion is correct - and I shall be considering his detailed argu-
ment below - then to claim that we can judge the size of an
object by sight alone would be like asserting that we can be aware
of what a sign or utterance signifies on first hearing it, and that
there is a necessary or inner connection between, say, the English
word 'table' and the table it signifies. This is clearly mistaken in
the case of language, and Berkeley tries to show that it is equally
wrong in the case of vision. For, according to him, the visual and
the tangible are entirely different: it is only by correlating them
over time that we learn to judge size, distance or shape by sight.
It is here that we can appreciate the importance of the Moly-
neux problem, mentioned above. For if the newly sighted man
could see straightaway which was the sphere, then this would
show that the visual and tangible sphere have shape in common,
that Tt is no more but introducing into his mind by a new inlet
[sight] an idea he has been already well acquainted with [by
touch]' (sect. 133). Hence a positive answer to the Molyneux pro-
blem consistently goes with the theory that there are common
ideas underlying sight and touch. But Locke - who agreed with
Molyneux's negative answer - also held that the sphere has one
shape or figure, whether it is seen or touched; see, for example,
Locke's Essay II. v. Berkeley's conclusion, then, is: 'We must there-
fore allow either that visible extension and figures are specifically
distinct from tangible extension and figures, or else that the solu-
tion of this problem given by those two thoughtful and ingenious
men is wrong' (sect. 133). Of course, for Berkeley their negative
answer is correct; indeed, if anything, it does not go far enough.
George Berkeley 27
For when the newly sighted man is asked the question - which is
the sphere and cube? - he should be utterly perplexed and baffled,
even by the question. He would be in a position similar to a person
who was asked a question in Chinese, having never before heard
that language spoken.
3 Complete immaterialism: the Principles
The authorative statement of Berkeley's philosophy, generally

called immaterialism, is to be found in The Principles of Human
Knowledge (1710). It contains his most complete defence of his
'immaterialist hypothesis' and its consequences, although it is
supported by his earlier Essay of Vision and his later and more pop-
ular Three Dialogues (1713). Immaterialism has, broadly speaking,
a negative and a positive side. It denies that matter or corporeal
substance exists; it explains all existence in terms of minds and
ideas. Although the Principles and Dialogues are mainly concerned
with the negative side, Berkeley's original plan was to expli-
cate the positive side of immaterialism in a second part of the
Principles. Thus in the Commentaries, 508, he writes: 'The two
great Principles of Morality, the Being of a God & the Freedom of
Man: these to be handled in the beginning of the Second Book.'
And he had, as he informed his American friend, Samuel Johnson,
on 25 November 1729, made considerable progress on Part Two,
'but the manuscript was lost about fourteen years ago [while
travelling in Italy], and I never had leisure since to do so disagree-
able a thing as writing twice on the same subject'. Berkeley never
did publish Part Two of the Principles^ although he made impor-
tant additions in its second edition (1734), which is still described
on the title-page as 'Part One'. He also probably introduced mate-
rial from the projected part (or parts) in his later works, particu-
larly Alciphron (1732) and The Analyst (1734). Thus in a letter of
1 March 1709/10, he mentions that one of the main topics of the
Principles was to be the 'reconciliation of God's foreknowledge

with the freedom of men' — a subject which is not discussed in
the Principles (as we have it), but is examined at length in Alciphron
VII. 16-23.
The negative thrust of the Principles begins in the Introduction,
where Berkeley hopes 'to clear the first principles of knowledge,
from the embarras and delusion of words' (sect. 25). Probably the
two main delusions he has in mind are the dogma that (1) all
meaningful words stand for ideas, from which it seemed to follow
that (2) general words, such as 'extension', 'triangle' and 'motion',
must stand for abstract general ideas. This conclusion was also
based, according to Berkeley, on the nominalistic proposition,
which he accepts, that (3) only particular triangles and specific
instances of motion exist in nature, rather than (as Plato thought)
triangularity or motion as such. The mistake was to infer from (3)
and (1) that the mind must be able to form general ideas by a pro-
cess of abstraction, that is, by eliminating those features which dis-
tinguish particular triangles, say, and retaining that which all
triangles have in common. For Berkeley we can only abstract or
form an idea of things that can exist separately. Thus we can
abstract a lion's head from his body, but not the lion's colour
from his (visual) shape.
Berkeley had previously attacked this influential theory of
abstraction in the Essay of Vision, sections 122—5, as one of the
sources of the (erroneous) view that there were ideas of shape, for
example, in common between touch and sight. His strategy, both
in the Essay and the Introduction, was to show the theory's absurd-
ity by criticizing its most distinguished proponent - namely,
Locke. Berkeley's 'killing blow' was to quote from Locke's Essay
IV. vii. 9, a now well-known passage which describes the difficul-
ties of abstraction:
For example, [writes Locke,] does it not require some pains and
skill to form the general idea of a triangle, (which is yet none of the
George Berkeley 29
most abstract, comprehensive, and difficult) for it must be
neither . . . equilateral, equicrural, nor scalene; but all and
none of these at once. In effect, it is something imperfect, that
cannot exist; an idea wherein some parts of several different and
inconsistent ideas are put together ...
In arguing that no one could have such a contradictory idea,

Berkeley does little more than allow Locke's description to speak
for itself. For Berkeley a word becomes general 'by being made
the sign, not of an abstract general idea but, of several particular
ideas, any of which it indifferently suggests to the mind' (sect. 11);
and this, Berkeley says, is sufficient for communication as well
as demonstration.
Berkeley continues his attack on the dogma that every signifi-
cant name stands for an idea by showing, more positively, how
words can be used meaningfully which do not satisfy this semantic
condition. Thus most of the time we use words like letters in alge-
bra, or counters in a game, not thinking of their particular values
or meanings, although we can do so, when — as in a card game -
we encash the counters. There are also words which are used
meaningfully that never inform or stand for ideas. Berkeley speci-
fies three functions in section 20: non-cognitive words can evoke
(1) emotions, (2) attitudes and (3) actions. I shall be saying more
about this far-reaching thesis below, particularly when I consider
its main deployment in Alciphron. Now we need to consider Berke-
ley's chief claim to fame, his rejection of matter.
Why, then, does Berkeley think that matter does not exist?
Because, very briefly, every apparently feasible conception of it
can be shown, according to him, to be either meaningless or self-
contradictory. This is a very strong claim, which Berkeley tries to
justify throughout the body of the Principles, but especially in sec-
tions 3-24, where he examines various theories of matter. Thus,
matter is sometimes understood to be an inert, senseless substance
in which subsist the so-called primary or intrinsic qualities, such as
extension, solidity, shape, etc. (sect. 9). It is also defined as the sub-
stance that supports qualities, such as extension, where (unlike the
previous case) the qualities are not part of the conception (sect. 16).
Berkeley had many targets, because there were (and probably still
are) many theories of matter. His strategy against matter differs
radically from that against abstract general ideas. For it is not the
case, as many historians of philosophy suppose, that his one target
was Locke's theory of matter. Berkeley does not name his specific
targets, either in the Principles or in the Dialogues. He is intentionally
unspecific, as in section 9, where he speaks of 'some there are',
or in section 16 where he describes the conception of matter con-
sidered there as 'the received opinion'. His aim was to refute all
(seemingly plausible) theories of matter.
As the concept of matter changes, so does Berkeley's criticism.
Thus the conception in section 16 is charged with meaninglessness,
since in what sense can matter (which is supposedly different from
extension) support extension? How can a non-extended thing or
substance literally support anything? In section 9, on the other
hand, matter is understood to be an extended substance, i.e. an
inert substance in which extension, figure, etc., 'do actually sub-
sist'; so this criticism would be inappropriate. Instead, Berkeley
says that the conception is contradictory, since it asserts that qua-
lities like extension inhere in an inert, senseless substance. Why is
this contradictory? Berkeley's answer brings us to his fundamental
positive insight, summed up in his famous axiom 'esse is percipi'
(sect. 3), that the existence of all physical things and qualities —
extension, solidity, etc. — consists in being perceived. Berkeley
traces the contrary belief - that one can separate the being of a
physical thing from its being perceived — to the pernicious doc-
trine of abstraction, castigated in the Introduction.
For Berkeley the physical world is composed entirely of things
perceptible, imprinted on the senses, which he calls variously sen-
sible ideas, sensible objects, sensations, or ideas. As he expresses
this in section 1:
George Berkeley 31
By sight I have the ideas of light and colours with their several
degrees and variations. By touch I perceive, for example, hard
and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance . . . Smelling fur-
nishes me with odours; the palate with tastes, and hearing con-
veys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and
composition.
What else, after all, do we directly perceive? The widely accepted

philosophical and scientific answer was: mind-dependent sensory
states, resulting from the impinging of external bodies (corpuscles)
on the sense organs. Berkeley agreed with the initial part of this
answer, but he rejects the sophisticated causal explanation in
favour of what he calls the 'vulgar' or common view: that the
things immediately perceived are the real things. Putting the two
notions together, he says, constitutes the essence of his position, a
marriage of philosophy and common sense, according to which the
real physical qualities and objects are mind-dependent entities,
idea-things (see [5.3], ii: 262). Hence it follows that neither exten-
sion nor any physical quality can exist in a senseless or mindless
substance any more than a thought or emotion can. However,
materialism, as Berkeley well recognized, takes many forms —
one of the most important of which he confronts in section 8.
This grants that what we immediately perceive are ideas, but it
none the less asserts that these ideas are 'copies or resemblances'
of the physical qualities that exist externally in unthinking
substances. This account, sometimes called the representative
theory of matter, involves these components: (1) mind (2) ideas
(3) physical objects.
Prima facie, this theory seems to evade the difficulties I men-
tioned earlier in connection with the theories of matter in sections
9 and 16. Against this theory, Berkeley brings another of his
principles: that 'an idea can be like nothing but an idea' (sect. 8).
In short, if physical objects are like ideas, then they are mind
dependent; and in that case the theory is contradictory, as was
that in section 16. If, on the other hand, a physical object is not like
an idea, then what is it like? Can the materialist say anything
meaningful? Berkeley thinks he cannot, since everything that he
can say of physical objects must be drawn from what he perceives.
But then the materialist's theory is empty, meaningless - as was
that in section 9. And so Berkeley goes from target to target,
arguing that every putative materialist theory is either meaning-
less or contradictory. As he puts it in section 24, 'Tis on this there-
fore that I chiefly insist, viz. that the absolute existence of
unthinking things are words without a meaning, or which include
a contradiction'. Of course, in saying that the word 'matter' can be
meaningless, Berkeley is not saying that it lacks all meaning. For
while 'matter' has no cognitive meaning, it does have, as he sug-
gests in section 54, an emotive meaning: it makes people act as if
the cause of their sensible ideas was material rather than spiritual.
It also 'strengthened the depraved bent of the mind towards
atheism1 ([5.3], ii: 261). 'Matter' is, in short, a perniciously emotive
word, masquerading as a cognitive one.
Berkeley's positive claim, that there are only two beings in the
world — minds and ideas — is in the dualistic tradition of Des-
cartes; although Berkeley's system is more economical in that
there is only one substance: mind. Apart from sensible ideas,
described above, there are also ideas of memory and imagination,
which are formed by 'either compounding, dividing or barely
representing' sensible ideas (sect. 1), and are fainter and less
orderly than them. But all ideas, according to Berkeley, are
entirely passive or inert. It is the other sort of being, spirits or
minds, that are active. They cause, will, perceive, or 'act about
ideas'; hence Berkeley's more complete formula in Commentaries,,
429: 'Esse ispercipi orpercipere, or velle, i.e. agere\ To be is to be per-
ceived or perceive or will, i.e., act. Minds and ideas are 'entirely
distinct'. As with ideas, there are two species of spirits: finite and
infinite. Section 2 is devoted to finite, human spirits. God, the infi-
nite spirit, is introduced gradually, later in the Principles. As matter
George Berkeley 33
is vanquished so God comes to the fore, as the being which pro-

duces sensible ideas in finite minds.
4 God replaces matter and nature

Berkeley offers a more or less formal proof for the existence of God
in sections 145-9. An even more succinct proof of the immortality
of human spirits is presented in section 141. Neither proof should
be regarded as an afterthought. For, as is generally accepted,
Berkeley's philosophy is directed primarily towards theological
ends, particularly proving the existence of a religiously meaningful
God and awakening his readers to a vivid sense of His presence.
Setting out Berkeley's proof will help us to gain a clearer under-
standing of the philosophical infra-structure upon which it is
based. Briefly then:
(1) Physical objects are collections of inert sensible ideas.

(2) Sensible ideas cannot produce or cause either themselves or
other sensible ideas.
Physical objects must have some cause.
Matter cannot be that cause, since it cannot exist; and, in
any case, matter is defined as an inert thing.
(5) We finite spirits know that, although we can produce ideas of
memory and imagination, we do not produce the world of
physical bodies or collections of sensible ideas.
(6) Hence, such a vast orderly world must be produced by an
Infinite Spirit, God.
Berkeley's proof may be regarded as an immaterialistic version

of the (then) popular argument - used, for example, by Locke in
Essay IV. x - wrhich combined the cosmological proof with the
teleological. However, Berkeley gives his proof a distinctive twist
by bringing to the fore, perhaps for the first time in the history of
philosophy, the problem of other minds. While Descartes had

adverted to the problem in his Meditations, Berkeley accords it
major importance. That is:
(7) We cannot directly perceive another human mind, since a

mind is an active being which perceives and wills rather
than something that can be perceived (sect. 27).
(8) I know that there are other human spirits by inferring their
existence from their orderly physical motions, which are
collections of sensible ideas that I recognize to be similar to
my own.
(9) But these physical motions, which pick out finite spirits, are
very slight compared with the orderly motions of the whole
physical world.
(10) Hence I have greater justification for believing in the exis-
tence of the Infinite Other Mind than in any other finite
mind.
In effect, Berkeley is placing his reader in a dilemma: he must

either accept theism or solipsism. If he demands rigorous proof,
then he must be solipsist, believing, in other words, that only he
and his ideas exist. However, if he does believe in other minds,
then he must also accept that God exists.
God is very much at the centre of Berkeley's philosophy, repla-
cing matter as the cause and orderer of the physical world, which is
only a succession of ideas produced by God in finite minds. The
orderly and regular appearance of sensible ideas displays God's
wisdom and power, not that of matter or the laws of nature. Ber-
keley opposed the increasingly influential view, developed by Des-
cartes and Newton, among others, that the world was a great
machine, created and started by God but then left more or less
to its own devices. Whereas this mechanistic world-view tended to
marginalize God and spirits, Berkeley's idealistic world-view mar-
ginalizes the mechanistic, since for him physical objects are simply
George Berkeley 35
collections of inert sensible ideas. We impute activity to them in a

way not dissimilar to the way that we seem to see action in a film or
moving picture. Just as what we really see at the cinema are many
independent, static frames or pictures; so what we really experi-
ence, according to Berkeley, are a succession of inert sensible
ideas created and ordered in our minds by God.
Hence it is altogether appropriate, Berkeley holds (sect. 107), to
speak of purpose behind nature, since the physical world is con-
stantly being created by a Mind, not unlike our own, in accor-
dance with its own wise rules, generally called the laws of nature.
On the other hand, it is inappropriate, according to Berkeley, to
speak of an autonomous physical world, existing in space and
time. Berkeley opposes Newton's theory of absolute space, time
and motion (in sects 111—17). Minds do not exist in the great
containers, space and time; if anything, it is space and time that
exist in minds. For space and time considered as independent
beings are fictions thrown up by the pernicious tendency to reify
abstractions. So time is only the succession of ideas in minds.
Hence (as against Locke, but in accord with Descartes) minds
always think. Berkeley outlines his philosophy of science in sec-
tions 101-32. Earlier, in sections 34-84, he had examined sixteen
objections to his immaterialist philosophy as well as displaying its
advantages over materialism. Thus he argues that materialism
encourages scepticism, since if we accept matter, we can never
be sure whether or to what extent our sensible ideas resemble the
external material bodies.
Although the Principles is Berkeley's philosophical masterpiece,
it was not well received. On the whole, it was either ignored or
ridiculed. It was even suggested that its author was mentally
unstable. As Berkeley's friend, John Percival, reported from
London on 26 August 1710: 'A physician of my acquaintance
undertook to describe your person, and argued you must needs be
mad, and that you ought to take remedies'.' The New Theory of
Vision had been somewhat more positively received. Believing
that the Principles had failed mainly for reasons of presentation,

Berkeley reformulated his case in the more accessible and elegant
Three Dialogues, where Philonous defends Berkeley's immaterial-
ism against the many-headed materialist enemy, represented by
Hylas. The Three Dialogues was published in 1713. A year earlier
Berkeley had issued his principal work on political theory, Passive
Obedience, originally delivered as three sermons in the Trinity Col-
lege Chapel. Here he tries to show that rebellion against the sover-
eign power is never morally justified, even if it exposes people to
great suffering, hardship and death. Berkeley argues for this abso-
lutist position on theological and utilitarian grounds. He felt
obliged to publish the sermons (which he did by combining them
into one discourse) because of rumours that they constituted an
insidious Jacobite attack on the Glorious Revolution.
5 Varying perspectives
In 1713 Berkeley left Ireland for London, where, in May, he pub-
lished his Three Dialogues. The year 1713 brings to a close what
may be seen as the first phase of his career. Although Berkeley
was to publish other notable works - for example, on philosophi-
cal theology, mathematics, and economics - his fame and place in
the history of philosophy are largely based on the three classics of
this period. Hence it is worth trying to gain a deeper understand-
ing of this work. Perhaps the safest approach here is to survey some
of the major views, since, as with most great philosophers, there
has been considerable disagreement. Although most commenta-
tors recognize that his non-materialist analysis of the physical
world is Berkeley's main contribution, they differ in their inter-
pretation and assessment of it. Thus it was held early on by Hume
that Berkeley's position was sceptical, because his arguments
'admit of no answer and produce no conviction', but only pro-
duce 'momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion'.
George Berkeley 37
Of course, Hume recognized that this was not Berkeley's own

view, indeed, that he was writing against scepticism, as even his
titles show.
Similarly, Thomas Reid maintained that despite Berkeley's
intentions the logic of his position was to undermine not just
matter, but also spirit, and hence that immaterialism represented
an important phase in the disastrous movement towards Hume's
scepticism and agnosticism — although, again, Reid realized that
Berkeley would have been scandalized by such an accusation (see
[5.16], 2: 166-7). But it was an accusation shared by later philoso-
phers, some of whom - e.g. J. S. Mill, George Grote and A. J.
Ayer - welcomed and applauded what they took to be the irreli-
gious tendency of Berkeley's thought, the tendency towards phe-
nomenalism, which one commentator has neatly characterized as
'Berkeley without God' ([5.29]). Probably the more popular view
was (and still is) that immaterialism is essentially untenable,
because it undermines the objectivity of the physical world,
transforming real things into mere appearances, thereby locking
each of us into his or her subjective world. This reading of Berkeley
as a subjective idealist, as it came to be called, was influentially
supported in the eighteenth century by Kant and, in our own cen-
tury, by Lenin.6 Here again it was not supposed that 'the good
Berkeley' actually intended or accepted this 'scandalous' position,
but that this was where his theory logically led.
However, not all commentators have been so hostile, construing
immaterialism as such an extreme form of idealism. Thus Berke-
ley's most distinguished twentieth-century biographer and editor,
A. A. Luce, has argued forcibly that there is no justification for
reading Berkeley either as a sceptic or a subjective idealist.
Indeed, Luce goes so far as to deny that Berkeley has any signifi-
cant kinship with the idealist tradition. 'Today [writes Luce] they
even call him "the father of modern idealism." What a remarkable
accident of birth this is! Berkeley is the putative father of modern
idealism, and the child does not take after its father in the slightest
degree' ([5.47], 26). Rather, according to Luce, Berkeley was a

robust common sense realist, both theoretically and practically.
For Luce not only defended Berkeley's philosophy as commonsen-
sical, but in his masterful biography ([5.13]) also defends Berkeley
the man against the charge that he was a visionary or unbalanced
dreamer. While Luce's picture of Berkeley, the man, as 'sane,
shrewd, efficient', has been almost universally accepted, this is
not the case with his common sense reading of Berkeley's philoso-
phy; although there have been some recent sympathizers here.
Yet even the critics, notably Geoffrey Warnock ([5.29]) and Ian
Tipton ([5.49]), agree with the Luce interpretation in one respect:
that Berkeley was deeply concerned to bring his philosophy into
line with common sense and realism, and that this concern was
perhaps as important to him as his religious aims.
For Luce and Tipton common sense seems to be the main focus.
For Harry Bracken, however, the best way of understanding Ber-
keley is to see him as an Irish Cartesian, rather than as the second
figure in the triumvirate of British empiricists (see [5.22]). For
G. M. Turbayne, however, it is Berkeley's commitment to the lan-
guage model and his rejection of the Cartesian-Newtonian
machine model that makes most sense of Berkeley's work ([5.57]
and [5.36]).
How is one to gain a fair, overall view of Berkeley's philosophy
amidst such diverse perspectives? My general approach, following
Berkeley's own suggestion, is to present his work chronologically,
pointing out its design and connections, and then to criticize it. For
as he writes to Johnson on 24 March 1730: 'I could wish that all
the things I have published on these philosophical subjects were
read in the order wherein I published them; once, to take in the
design and connexion of them, and a second time with a critical
eye'. Let us continue, therefore, where we left off: with Berkeley's
publication at 28 of his Three Dialogues, which marks the end of the
first and heroic phase of his career.
George Berkeley 39
6 Second phase: the 1732~4 synthesis
In London in 1713 Berkeley soon became friendly with many of

the leading literary and intellectual figures, among them Addison,
Steele, Swift and Arbuthnot. For Steele's periodical, the Guardian
(1713), Berkeley wrote a number of essays, mostly attacking
the freethinkers in the interest of religion and morality. He also
(as we now know) collaborated with Steele on the Ladies Library, a
three-volume educational anthology, published in the following
year (see [5.10], iv:4—13). In October 1713, he began his conti-
nental travels, as Chaplain to Lord Peterborough. He visited
Paris
where he probably met Malebranche — as well as Lyons and
Leghorn. This first continental tour lasted about nine months.
A second, more adventurous tour, extending from 1716 to 1720,
was spent almost exclusively in Italy. Some of his travel diaries of
this tour are still extant.
Returning to London in 1721, Berkeley published his De Motu,
a short but searching work in the philosophy of science, in which
he emphasizes the operational or pragmatic value of terms such as
attraction and force. Berkeley had apparently submitted the essay
to the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, which had offered a
prize for the best essay on motion. Although De Motu failed to win
the prize, it has been commended by Sir Karl Popper and others
for anticipating the views of Mach and Einstein (see [5.56] and
[5.54]). By late 1721 Berkeley was again in Dublin, teaching at
Trinity College. He was not, however, to remain there long, since
it was at this time that he conceived his ambitious plan to establish
a missionary College in Bermuda. The College, as he explained in
his Proposal (1724), was to educate the American colonists and
train missionaries to the native Americans, becoming 'a fountain
or reservoir of learning and religion' that would 'purify' the ill-
manners and irreligion of the colonies ([5.3], vii: 358). He spent
most of the period 1723-9 campaigning for his projected College.
He received considerable private contributions; obtained a Royal

Charter and was promised £20,000 by the British government.
His financial position was also helped by his appointment in 1724
as Dean of Derry, one of the richest livings in Ireland. In 1729 Ber-
keley set sail with his newly married wife, Anne, for Rhode Island,
which was to be the American base for his College. Purchasing a
farm near Newport, he spent nearly three years there, waiting in
vain for the promised grant.
In late 1731 he returned to London, having been informed that
the government grant would not be paid. During the next three
years, he published a variety of works on theology and philosophy,
as well as on vision and mathematics. Alciphron (1732), in seven
dialogues, is the central work of this period. It is also Berkeley's
main theological work, directed at what he saw as his principal
enemy — irreligious freethinking. Dialogues Four and Seven are
philosophically most important. Dialogue Four sets out a novel
proof for the existence of God, which, though similar to that in
the Principles, does not draw on immaterialism. Instead, it develops
the position of the Theory of Vision. Having argued that we can
only know other thinking persons by inferring them from their
bodily effects - 'hair, skin . . . outward form' - Berkeley then
states (through his spokesman, Euphranor) that our inference to
God is no less sound. Alciphron, the atheistic freethinker, chal-
lenges this parity of reasoning: 'It is my hearing you talk that, in
strict and philosophical truth, [says Alciphron,] is to me the best
argument for your being' (sect. 6). Euphranor then argues, utiliz-
ing the main lines of the appended Essay of Vision, that God does
indeed talk to us through the language of vision. Since it is
accepted that language is 'the arbitrary use of sensible signs,
which have no similitude or necessary connexion with the things
signified' (sect. 7), Berkeley must prove that visual data and tangi-
ble things are entirely heterogeneous, which he tries to do in at
least four different ways:
George Berkeley 41
(1) He claims that it is confirmed by experimental evidence,

citing, in section 15, the case of a boy made to see, 'who had
been blind from his birth', reported in the Philosophical Trans-
actions ^2 (1728). In the Theory of Vision Vindicated, published
in 1733, Berkeley quotes from this now famous case, reported
by Chesselden, who performed the operation. 'When [the
boy] first saw, he was so far from making any judgement
about distances that he thought all objects whatever touched
his eyes (as he expressed it) as what he felt did his skin . . .
He knew not the shape of anything'. This is quoted in sec-
tion 71, where, it may be noted, Berkeley is more cautious
than in his earlier claim in Alciphron IV. 15.
(2) Berkeley argues for the heterogeneity thesis by conceptual
argument. Thus if two things cannot be added, then they
must be qualitatively different. And while one can add a
line of two colours to make one continuous line; one cannot,
Berkeley maintains, add a visible and a tangible line together
to form a continuous line (see Essay, sect. 131).
(3) Berkeley also, as we have seen above, makes use of an adhomi-
nem argument, namely, that those who wish to return a nega-
tive answer to Molyneux's question — as did Locke and
Molyneux himself — are logically committed to the hetero-
geneity thesis.
(4) Probably his main argument is that we can become aware
that what we immediately perceive by sight are light and col-
ours - a field of minimum visual points - entirely different
from what we touch.
Having established his thesis, at least to his own satisfaction, Ber-

keley then ingeniously points out the correspondences between
vision and a language such as English or French, (a) Both lan-
guages contain a vast variety of signs that can be combined to
inform us about innumerable things, (b) Both languages need
to be learned, although we are less aware of learning the visual

language, mainly because it is a virtually universal language.
(c) As English is ordered and explained by grammar, so there are
God's laws of nature which govern the orderly appearance of
visual data, (d) And violations are possible in each case, (e) One
can also be deceived in both languages: an illusion is like a lie.
(f) Context is important in both languages, as Berkeley shows in
the case of the moon illusion, (g) Both languages usefully direct
our actions, evoke attitudes and emotions, and can be entertain-
ing, (h) In both languages we pay more attention to what the
signs mean than to the signs themselves; thus we are scarcely able
to hear the sounds as such in language we understand, rather than
what the sounds mean. Similarly, it is hard for us to appreciate
that what we see is not the same as what we may touch.
Berkeley's conclusion is that he has proven not merely a creator
of the world, 'but a provident governor actually and intimately
present and attentive to our interests'. For since we know that
God speaks the 'optic language', we can know that He has 'knowl-
edge, wisdom and goodness' (Alciphron IV. 14). In short, Berke-
ley's New Theory of Vision enabled him to go further than the God
of Deism - the distant absentee God whose main function was to
create or activate the world. But this was not evident in the first
two editions of the Essay, where the optic-language theory remains
implicit. The crucial theological conclusion only became clear in
the revised 1732 edition and, particularly, in its reformulation
in Alciphron IV. Thus in the early editions of the Essay, section 147,
Berkeley writes vaguely of 'an universal language of nature',
whereas in the 1732 editions this is changed to 'an universal lan-
guage of the author of nature'; also see section 152. Berkeley
probably had a strategic aim here. He thought that his readers
would be more likely to accept his theories if he revealed them gra-
dually, saving the more radical conclusions till later. We have
already seen how he presented only part of his immaterialism in
the Essay, which he then followed in the next year with the full
George Berkeley 43
immaterialism of the Principles. And the Principles itself was written

with strategic intent, as we learn from Berkeley's revealing letter to
Percival of 6 September 1710:
. . . whatever doctrine contradicts vulgar and settled opinion

had need be introduced with great caution into the world. For
this reason [Berkeley says] I omitted all mention of the non-
existence of matter in the title-page [of the Principles], dedica-
tion, preface and introduction, so that the notion might steal
unawares on the reader.
By 1732, then, Berkeley was ready to reveal fully, or more fully, the
significance of his New Theory of Vision.
Dialogue Four also discusses the status of God's attributes. Here
Berkeley shows himself to be a tough-minded rational theologian,
opposed not only to the vague Deism of freethinkers, such as Shaf-
tesbury, but also to the fideism and negative theology of fellow
Christian philosophers, particularly his countrymen Archbishop
King and Bishop Browne. In short, Berkeley attacked their posi-
tion for basically the same reasons that he attacked materialistic
representation (see [5.15], 162~3). His acute criticisms call into
question the popular accusation, alluded to above, that he was
strong-minded about the material world, but weak-minded
about the spiritual world.
Dialogue Seven is of considerable importance, as it contains
Berkeley's most comprehensive and searching account of lan-
guage. Here he reiterates (in the 1 732 editions) his critique of
abstract general ideas. More innovative, however, is the deploy-
ment of his theory of emotive meaning - that words and utter-
ances can be meaningful even though they do not stand for ideas
or inform, since they can be used to evoke emotions, attitudes
and actions. Although we find little application of the theory in
the Principles, we know from his more elaborate (1708) draft of
the Introduction that he was aware of how it could be significantly
applied in the areas of religious and (probably) moral discourse
(see [5.9]). His recognition that more needed to be published on

this subject also comes out in his letter of 24 March 1730 (when
he was, no doubt, at work on Alciphrori) in which, after asking his
friend Johnson 'to examine well what I have said about abstrac-
tion, and about the true sense and significance of words', he adds:
'though much remains to be said on that subject' (see [5.3],
ii:293). Here again we seem to see Berkeley's strategy of pub-
lishing his more radical theories by degrees or stages. In Alciphron
he uses the emotive theory to show how words standing for
Christian mysteries, such as 'Holy Trinity' are to be understood.
Freethinkers, like John Toland, had argued that since mysteries
do not stand for ideas, they must, according to the received
theory of meaning, be meaningless. Hence, Toland maintained,
Christianity either contained meaningless doctrines, or it was not
mysterious. By showing that the received semantic theory, cham-
pioned most notably by Locke, was narrowly restrictive, Berkeley
was able to argue that doctrines such as the Holy Trinity were
both meaningful and mysterious. For although, as he says in
Alciphron VII. 8, a man can frame no 'distinct ideas of Trinity,
substance or personality', the doctrine can 'make proper impres-
sions on his mind, producing herein, love, hope, gratitude, and
obedience, and thereby becomes a lively operative principle influ-
encing his life and actions'.
It is perhaps ironic (and not generally recognized) that Berke-
ley's emotive account of religious utterances anticipates the simi-
lar account of religious discourse given by the Logical Posivitists
in our own century. The irony is that Logical Posivitists such as
A. J. Ayer - in many respects a modern Toland - used emotivism
to explain away religion (see [5.58], 229). Berkeley, however,
explained only religious mysteries emotively. He was entirely
clear that doctrines of natural theology were to be understood cog-
nitively and justified in a rigorous way. This point, as I noted ear-
lier, is emphasized in the latter part of Dialogue Four, where
Berkeley attacks the theological representationalism of King and
George Berkeley 45
Browne. In the area of natural theology, particularly concerning
the proof of God's existence and nature, Berkeley was a hard-
headed rationalist.
How, then, does Berkeley connect the cognitive statements of
natural theology with the emotive utterances of religious mys-
teries? His approach is in line with the (at least then) orthodox
view that natural religion forms the proper basis for revealed reli-
gion. In short, having accepted Berkeley's proof (or proofs) that
a just and wise God exists, we should also recognize that it is
right to respect Him; because He is good, it is also right to love
Him. And the Christian mysteries, Berkeley believes, are the best
ways of evoking these desirable attitudes and feelings. Thus the
mystery of the future life is an excellent way of evoking fear of
God's justice, and the symbolism of the Trinity of encouraging
people to love God.
The Christian mysteries are also justified, according to Berke-
ley, because they are to be found in the Bible, whose privileged
status he defends in Dialogues Five and Six. More important phi-
losophically is the way that Berkeley defends emotive mysteries in
Dialogue Seven by trying to show that 'there is nothing absurd or
repugnant in our belief of those points' (sect. 33). His method here
is to argue by parity of reasoning that while there may appear to
be difficulties, even perhaps contradictions, in mysteries such as
the Trinity, there are similar difficulties in, for example, the
received (Lockean) theory of personal identity, according to
which personal identity consists in identity of consciousness. For
suppose, Berkeley says in section 8, that we divide a person's con-
scious life into three parts - A, B and C. Suppose also that in B
only half of A is remembered and in C half of B but none of A
is remembered. Then it will follow according to Locke's theory
(in Essay II. xxvii) that A is the same person as B and B is the
same person as C, but A and C are not the same person. Is this any
less mysterious, Berkeley asks, than the Athanasian doctrine of
the Trinity?
Berkeley presses this ad hominem defence of religious mysteries

most effectively in his Analyst (1734), which examines, to quote its
subtitle, 'whether the object, the principles, and inferences of the
modern analysis are more distinctly conceived, or more evidently
deduced, than religious mysteries and points of faith'. Berkeley's
point is that mathematicians have no justification for rejecting
mysteries, since the Newtonian account of infinitesimals can be
shown to be equally obscure and contradictory. As he pointedly
asks towards the end of the Analyst:
Whether mathematicians, who are so delicate in religious

points, are strictly scrupulous in their own science? Whether
they do not submit to authority, take things upon trust, and
believe points inconceivable? Whether they have not their mys-
teries, and what is more, their repugnances and contradictions?
Berkeley had criticized the theory of infinitesimals in the Principles,

sections 126-32, which he alludes to in the Analyst, section 50 as the
critical 'hints' which he is now 'deducing' and applying in detail
against Newton. His earlier claim was that the infinite division
of a finite line, for example, is an absurdity generated by false
abstraction, since we cannot perceive infinitely small points. His
attack now is directed particularly against the consistency and
proof of Newton's account of fluxions.
The synthesis of 1732-4, which rivals that of 1709-13, is also
supported by Berkeley's Theory of Vision Vindicated (1733), which
elucidates the theory of vision that underpins his optic-language
demonstration and also goes some way towards bringing the
1732~4 synthesis into line with the full immaterialism of the Prin-
ciples and Three Dialogues. Two other works of the period, so far not
mentioned, are Berkeley's Defence of Freethinking in Mathematics
(1735) and his letter to Browne (c. 1733) on divine analogy. The
first work responds to critics of the Analyst as well as continuing
Berkeley's ad hominem defence of Christian mysteries. It concludes
George Berkeley 47
(as did the Analyst) with a series of'ensnaring questions', which

look ahead stylistically to Berkeley's next work, The Querist
(1735—7), composed entirely of queries. The letter to Browne
develops points in Alciphron IV against Browne's extensive attack
in his Divine Analogy (1733). Recently identified as by Berkeley -
see [5.63] - it shows his unwillingness to tolerate ambiguity in
theological descriptions: God is either literally wise or (disas-
trously) He is not.
7 Final phase: the good bishop
In 1733 Berkeley was appointed Bishop of Cloyne, and in the fol-

lowing year he travelled with his family to Cloyne, in Co. Cork,
where he was to reside until 1752. His main concerns were now
with the spiritual, but also with the economic and physical needs
of those under his care as well as with the wider population. Thus
his main work on economics, the Querist, deals with the nature of
wealth, the proper role of banks, credit and fashion. Perhaps its
chief theoretical interest is the way Berkeley applies his emotive
theory. For in the Queristhe regards money as a system of operative
signs. And just as he rejected the Lockean theory that every mean-
ingful word stands for an idea, so in the Querist he rejected the mer-
cantilist theory (also championed by Locke), according to which
money had value only if it was made of precious metal or had a
necessary connection with it. For Berkeley it is the efficient record-
ing and manipulation of economic transactions, which facilitate
prosperity, that gives money its value.
From social and economic matters Berkeley turned finally to
medicine. In 1744 he published Siris, his last major work, in
which he championed the drinking of tar-water, a medicine
which he thought would cure or alleviate all physical ills. Siris is
Berkeley's most puzzling and allusive book, moving from practical
medical advice to pharmacology, then to chemistry, philosophy of
science, metaphysics and finally to theology and speculations on

the Trinity. The clear and close reasoning of the 1709-13 works
has here given way to suggestive hints and allusive appeals to
ancient authorities, particularly to Plato. (In this respect, Alciphron
stands in a middle position between the 1709-13 works and Siris.)
Some commentators, notably A. C. Fraser ([5.2]) and John Wild
([5.28]), have suggested that in Siris Berkeley abandoned his ear-
lier empiricism and nominalism in favour of a more Platonic and
pantheistic vision. One piece of evidence Fraser adduces to show
that Berkeley relented on abstract ideas is his omission in the
1752 edition of Alciphron of the three sections (VII. 5-7) arguing
against such ideas. Siris's final section (367) also suggests that Ber-
keley was reassessing his earlier work. Thus he uses the term
'revise' and concludes that 'He that would make a real progress
in knowledge must dedicate his age as well as youth, the later
growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of truth'. Yet, typically,
Berkeley is not specific here. The claim that Berkeley changed his
mind is also vigorously opposed by Luce, who has argued at length
for the unity of Berkeley's work ([5.19]). Probably Siris's main the-
oretical interest, at least for recent commentators, is its statements
on the philosophy of science and corpuscularianism. 8
In late 1752 Berkeley left Gloyne for Oxford, to supervise his
son's education. His two last publications appeared in this year:
A Miscellany, Containing Several Tracts — nearly all previously
published — and a revised edition of Alciphron. Berkeley died in
Oxford on 14 January 1753.
8 Criticisms
Having surveyed Berkeley's work chronologically, with the aim of

seeing its 'design and order', we must now briefly look at his philo-
sophy 'with a critical eye'. In doing so, we will also be able to
appreciate that his immaterialism is deeper and more complex
George Berkeley 49
than my account above might suggest. It is also appropriate to
see its complexity within a context of criticisms, since that is how
Berkeley himself proceeded. Thus his response to the sixteen self-
imposed objections or difficulties - in Principles, sections 34-84 -
fill in essential details of his account.
Probably the chief criticism of Berkeley's immaterialist system
has always been that it obliterates the real, objective, public
world. If all I can perceive are my ideas, then am I not locked
into my own subjective world? Hence - to take the most extreme
and absurd possibility - will it not follow that only I (and my
ideas) exist? That Berkeley would repudiate this solipsistic position
is clear, but it is not so clear that the logic of immaterialism does
not draw him towards it. For Berkeley is certainly and primarily
anxious to prove that what we perceive is mind dependent. But
what can mind dependent mean apart from being subjective in
the way that emotions and pains are? But if all my sensible ideas
are like pains, then am I not living in a world of'mere illusion', as
Kant put it - vivid and orderly, but still subjective? Some of Ber-
keley's best-known arguments lend weight to this subjective inter-
pretation - for example, his assimilation of the experience of heat
and pain in the first of the Three Dialogues•, and his emphasis there
on the relativity of our sensory experiences. His critique (men-
tioned above) of how matter supports qualities can also be turned
against him here. For how can a sensible idea exist in a mind with-
out being in the mind subjectively in the way that a pain is? Berke-
ley's response is to deny that such ideas exist in a mind in this
'gross, literal' sense, by way of mode or attribute, but only as
they are perceived (see [5.3], ii: 250). But he does not clearly spell
this out, or show that such a sense would not either undermine
his arguments for the mind dependence of ideas, or provide the
materialist with an equally vague way of explaining how matter
supports its properties.
Probably no interpretation is as anti-commonsensical as that of
solipsism; but there are a range of less extreme positions with
which Berkeley has been identified. Thus Andrew Baxter sug-

gested as early as 1733 that Berkeley was logically committed to a
world in which there was only me, my ideas and God as their cause
(see [5.41] and [5.17]). Yet even if one allows Berkeley the exis-
tence of other finite minds, it does not follow that a common sense
world is restored. For such a world seems to require independent,
continuous, numerically identical objects. But that is a far cry from
the 'fleeting and variable' sensible ideas which, according to the
usual reading of Berkeley, constitute physical objects. Berkeley
struggles to bridge the gap, particularly in the Three Dialogues,
but it is complicated, uphill work. And the more he succeeds in
showing himself to side with common sense, the more he seems
either to bring his immaterialist thesis into question, or to lose its
vaunted advantages over materialism. Thus he is sometimes
inclined to preserve the independence and permanence of real
physical objects by claiming that they exist archetypally in the
mind of God. Thus, to quote the well-known limerick, the tree in
the quad 'will continue to be, since observed by ... God' (see [5.6],
16). But this solution only raises other problems, most notably the
spectre of scepticism. For if the real, reassuringly permanent
objects in God's mind are different from the fleeting ideas that I
experience, then do I really perceive or know the real world?
Is Berkeley not simply substituting one objectionable form of
representationalism for another? To resist this Berkeley needs to
show that God's archetypal tree is the same as mine. But how,
given esse ispercipi, could God's idea-tree be numerically the same
as mine? In the Dialogues, Berkeley tries to play down this difficulty
by maintaining that it is really verbal ([5.3], ii: 247-8). Yet if this
problem can be dismissed so easily, then why can't the materialist
dismiss esse is percipi itself as merely verbal? Surely there is some-
thing substantive at issue, as Berkeley himself appears to recognize
when he advises us 'to think with the learned and speak with the
vulgar' (Principles, sect. 51). In this mood he does seem to allow (as
does his fellow immaterialist, Arthur Collier) that there is no
George Berkeley 51
(numerically) identical tree, but that each mind perceives a differ-
ent idea-tree. Yet he might still insist that God's archetypal ideas
are preferable to material bodies, because the former are meaning-
fully like human ideas. But are they? That God's idea of fire or
salty food, for example, cannot be even qualitatively like mine
seems to follow from Berkeley's argument in the Dialogues, accord-
ing to which (1) experiencing the fire's heat cannot be separated
from pain, and that (2) God, as a perfect being, does not experi-
ence pain ([5.3], ii:240). Hence God cannot perceive what we
take to be heat. Furthermore, can we conceive what God's idea-
tree could be like, since it must presumably contain all possible
perceptions of 'the' tree - large, small, tube-shaped, circular-
shaped, hard, soft - which makes it sound as incomprehensible as
Locke's (impossible) triangle.
Berkeley's concept of mind or spirit also raises difficulties which,
if anything, are even greater than those afflicting his account of
bodies. Here, prima facie, Berkeley seems to be his own worst
enemy, since he constantly says that we can have no idea or experi-
ence of minds, and that they are altogether different from ideas.
But if we have no idea of mind, then why believe that it exists?
Is it not as indefensible as matter? Berkeley considers this objection
at length in the third edition of the Dialogues, where he states that
his objection to matter is not merely that it is meaningless, but
that it is also contradictory. Yet, as I noted earlier, Berkeley does
attack some materialist theories as simply meaningless - as, for
example, 'the idea of being in general, with the relative notion of
its supporting accidents' (sect. 17). Yet if our grasp of matter is no
different from that of spirit, then are not the two equally plausible
or implausible?
Berkeley's main way of arguing for the greater plausibility of
mind is by showing that it alone can be the source of activity or
causality. (1) A sensible idea cannot cause either itself or other sen-
sible ideas, since ideas are passive. (2) Yet sensible ideas must have
some cause. (3) Imaginative ideas are crucial here; for we know
that by willing we can produce them. (4) In doing so, we gain

some notion of activity, and hence that minds (unlike material
bodies) are active. (5) Thus Berkeley concludes that just as our
(weak) imaginative ideas are caused by finite minds, so it is reason-
able to infer that (vivid) sensible ideas are caused by the Infinite
Mind. (3) and (4) are the decisive steps in this argument, and the
question we need to ask is: how does Berkeley know that he pro-
duces imaginative ideas? There are two possibilities. He knows it
by (a) direct experience, or (b) indirect inference. Although Ber-
keley occasionally seems to accept option (a), it is hardly tenable
since it conflicts with his major principle that we can only directly
experience passive ideas. While option (b) - which he generally
prefers - is not in conflict with his major principles, it does not go
far enough in justifying (4). For if I have no direct experience, then
how do I know that my imaginative ideas are produced by my
mind, rather than by my brain? Here again Berkeley's position
does not seem any more intelligible or tenable than that of his
materialist opponent.
Notes
a. This chapter was originally published in the Routledge History of Philos-

ophy, vol. V, 1996. References in square brackets are to the Bibliography
printed below.
1. The authoritative biography is by Luce, [5.13]; my references are to the
1992 edition, which contains a new Introduction with addenda and corri-
genda; see pp. vi, x, 22.
2. All quotations from Berkeley are from the standard edition, edited by
Luce and Jessop, of his Works, [5.3]; for convenience, I refer to entry or
section number or (in the case of his letters in vol. viii) date.
b. For a fuller discussion of this, see the following chapter, 'On Missing the
Wrong Target'.
3. See B. Rand, Berkeley and Percival (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1914), p. 80.
George Berkeley 53
4 . For useful discussion of Berkeley's moral and political views, see [5.26],
Broad in [5.31], Warnock in [5.39], and also [5.62].
5. See Hume, Inquiry concerning Human Understanding [1777], ed. C. W.
Hendel (Indianapolis: Liberal Arts Press, 1955), p. 163 n.
6. See [5.20] and Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism [1909] (Moscow,
1972), pp. 28 and 38.
7. See, for example, Pappas in [5.48] and [5.38]; also see [5.37] and [5.45].
8. See Garber in [5.36], Wilson in [5.37], and [5.54].
I am grateful to Mr Ian Tipton for reading a draft of this chapter.
Bibliography
Editions: complete and selected works

5.1. The Works of George Berkeley... To which is Added, An Account of His Life, and
Several of his Letters. . . , ed. Joseph Stock, 2 vols (Dublin: John Exshaw,
1784;repr. 1820 and 1837).
5.2. The Works of George Berkeley ... Including his Posthumous Works. With Pre-
faces, Annotations, Appendices, and An Account of his Life, by A. C. Fraser,
4 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901).
5.3. The Works of George Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, 9 vols
(London: Thomas Nelson, 1948-57; repr. 1964 and 1967; Kraus repr.
1979).
5.4. Berkeley's Philosophical Writings, ed. D. M. Armstrong (London: Collier,
1965).
5.5. Berkeley: Philosophical Works including the Works on Vision', introduction
and notes by M. R. Ayers (London: Dent, 1975; repr. 1980, 1983,
1985, and 1989 with revisions and additions). (A useful volume, con-
taining most of Berkeley's important works.)
5.6. Principles and Three Dialogues, ed. R. Woolhouse (London: Penguin,
1988).
Editions: separate works

5.7. Philosophical Commentaries, ed. G. H. Thomas, with notes by A. A. Luce
(Alliance, Ohio, 1976; repr. New York: Garland, 1989).
5.8. George Berkeley Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher in Focus, ed. D. Berman,
(London: Routledge, 1993). (Contains Dialogues 1, 3, 4 and 7 as well as
critical commentaries from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.)
5.9. George Berkeley's Manuscript Introduction, an editio diplomatica, ed. B. Bel-
frage (Oxford: Doxa Press, 1987).
Bibliographies and biographies

5.10. Berman, D. , Furlong, E. J. and O'Grady, P. (eds), Berkeley Newsletter
(Dublin, 1977-).
5.11. Jessop, T. E. A Bibliography of George Berkeley, with an Inventory of Manu-
script Remains by A. A. Luce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934;
rev. edn 1973).
5.12. Keynes, G. A Bibliography of George Berkeley (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1976).
5.13. Luce, A. A. The Life of George Berkeley (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1949; repr.
1969 and 1992 (with a new introduction by D. Berman)).
5.14. Turbayne, C. M. 'A Bibliography of George Berkeley 1963-1979', in
[5.36].
Influences and reception

5.15. Berman, D. 'Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in Irish Phi-
losophy' and 'The Culmination and Causation of Irish Philosophy',
\nArchivfurGeschichtederPhilosophies^) and 64(3) (1982), pp. 148-65
and 257-79.
5.16. Berman, D. (ed.) George Berkeley: Eighteenth-Century Responses, 2 vols
(New York: Garland, 1989).
5.17. Bracken, H. M. The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism: 1710-1733
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1959; rev. edn 1965).
5.18. Luce, A. A. Berkeley and Malebranche (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934;
repr. 1967 and by Garland 1988).
5.19. Luce, A. A. 'The Alleged Development of Berkeley's Philosophy', Mind
206(1943).
5.20. Walker, R. C. S. (ed.), The Real in the Ideal: Berkeley's Relation to Kant
(New York: Garland, 1989).
5.21. Vesey, G. Berkeley: Reason and Experience (Milton Keynes: Open Univer-
sity Press, 1982).
George Berkeley 55
General surveys
5.22. Bracken, H. M. Berkeley (London: Macmillan, 1974).
5.23. Hicks, G. Berkeley (London: Ernest Benn Ltd, 1932).
5.24. Hone, J. M. and Rossi, M. M. Bishop Berkeley: His Life, Writings and
Philosophy, with an introduction by W. B. Yeats (London: Faber and
Faber, 1931).
5.25. Johnston, G. A. The Development of Berkeley's Philosophy (London:
Macmillan, 1923; repr. New York: Garland, 1988).
5.26. Pitcher, G. Berkeley (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977).
5.27. Urmson, J. O. Berkeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
5.28. Wild, J. George Berkeley. A Study of His Life and Philosophy (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936; repr. 1962).
5.29. Warnock, G. J. Berkeley (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1953; repr. 1969).
Collections of critical essays

5.30. George Berkeley Bicentenary, issue of The British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science 4 ( 1 3 } (1953).
5.31. George Berkeley: 1685-1753, in Revue Internationale de Philosophic 23-4.
5.32. George Berkeley, Lectures Delivered before the University of Californiaa (Berk---
eley, 1957).
5.33. Steinkraus, W. E. (cd.) New Studies in Berkeley's Philosophy (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966).
5.34. Martin, C. B. and Armstrong, D. M. (eds) Locke and Berkeley (Garden
City: Doubleday, 1967; repr. New York: Garland, 1988).
5.35. Turbayne, C. M. (ed.) Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge: Text and
Critical Essays (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970).
5.36. Turbayne, C. M. (ed.) Berkeley: Critical and Interpretative Essays (Minnea-
polis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982).
5.37. Foster, J. and Robinson, H. (eds) Essays on Berkeley: A Tercentennial
Celebration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985).
5.38. Berman, D. (ed.) George Berkeley: Essays and Replies (Dublin: Irish Aca-
demic Press, 1986; repr. from Hermathena cxxxix (1985)).
5.39. Brykman, G. (ed.) George Berkeley: 1685-1985, Special Issue: History of
European Ideas 7(6) (1986).
5.40. Creery, W. (ed.) George Berkeley: Critical Assessments, 3 vols (London:
Routledge, 1991).
Immaterialism
5.41. Baxter, A. An Enquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul (3rd edn, 1745),
vol. 2, sect. 2: 'Dean Berkeley's scheme against the existence of matter
. . . shewn inconclusive', repr. in [5.16].
5.42. Bennett, J. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1971).
5.43. Broad, C. D. 'Berkeley's argument about Material Substance', in
[5.34].
5.44. Dancy, J. Berkeley: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
5.45. Foster, J. A Case for Idealism (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1982) (chap. 2 is on Berkeley).
5.46. Grayling, A. C. Berkeley: the Central Arguments (London: Duckworth,
1986).
5.47. Luce, A. A. Berkeley's Immaterialism: A Commentary on his A 'Treatise ...'
(Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1945; repr. 1967).
5.48. Pappas, G. 'Berkeley, Perception and Commonsense', in [5.36].
5.49. Tipton, I. C. The Philosophy of Immaterialism (London: Methuen, 1974;
repr. New York: Garland, 1988).
5.50. Winkler, K. P. Berkeley: An Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1989).
Vision, science and mathematics

5.51. Armstrong, D. M. Berkeley's Theory of Vision (Melbourne, 1960; repr.
New York: Garland, 1989).
5.52. Atherton, M. Berkeley's Revolution in Vision (Cornell University Press,
1990).
5.53. Brook, R. J. Berkeley's Philosophy of Science (The Hague: Martinus Nijh-
ofF, 1973).
5.54. Moked, G. Particles and Ideas: Bishop Berkeley's Corpuscularian Philosophy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
5.55. Pitcher, G. (ed.) Berkeley on Vision: A Nineteenth-Century Debate (New
York: Garland, 1988).
5.56. Popper, K. 'A Note on Berkeley as Precursor of Mach and Einstein', in
[5.34].
5.57. Turbayne, C. M. The Myth of Metaphor (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1962).
George Berkeley 57
Theology, ethics and language

5.58. Berman, D. 'Cognitive Theology and Emotive Mysteries in Berkeley's
Alciphron\ Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1981).
5.59. Clark, S. R. L. (ed.) Money, Obedience, and Affection: Essays on Berkeley's
Moral and Political Thought (New York: Garland, 1988).
5.60. Flew, A. 'Was Berkeley a Precursor of Wittgenstein?', in W. B. Todd
(ed.) Hume and the Enlightenment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1974).
5.61. Mabbott, J. D. 'The Place of God in Berkeley's Philosophy', in [5.34].
5.62. Olscamp, P. The Moral Philosophy of George Berkeley (The Hague: Marti-
nusNijhoff, 1970).
5.63. Pittion, J.-P. (with A. A. Luce and D. Berman) 'A New Letter by Ber-
keley to Browne on Divine Analogy', Mind (1969).
2
On Missing the Wrong Target
1 Bennett's Locke and Berkeley21
In his brief Preface to Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (1971),

Jonathan Bennett delineates the area covered: 'This book discusses
three topics, in the company of three philosophers: meaning, caus-
ality, objectivity; Locke, Berkeley and Hume.' Bennett also dis-
avows certain other aims: 'By focusing on just these three
philosophers, I do not imply an historical judgement. I need not
care, for instance, whether Hume read Berkeley.'1 But this is not
really true. Bennett does make many historical judgements of just
the type which he disclaims any interest in. While he may not
attempt to forge any historical link between Berkeley and Hume,
he does bring Berkeley into such an association with Locke.
More specifically, Bennett claims that Berkeley misinterpreted
Locke on such central topics as substance and the primary/second-
ary quality distinction. According to Bennett, Locke 'was the
victim of exegetical and philosophical mistakes initiated by Berke-
ley and inherited by many later writers' (p. 58). Chapters 3, 4 and
5 are, to a not inconsiderable extent, concerned with exposing Ber-
keley's misinterpretations of Locke, and explaining how he went
wrong. Although ingeniously defended, Bennett's indictments of
Berkeley are, I shall argue, fundamentally questionable. My gen-
eral reason for claiming this is that it is not at all clear that Berke-
ley was in fact interpreting or attacking Locke on substance or on
the latter's view of primary and secondary qualities. Bennett
assumes that Berkeley was, but I hope to show that this is a doubt-
ful assumption. And if Berkeley was not interpreting Locke, then
he could hardly have been misinterpreting him.
On Missing the Wrong Target 59
Let us first consider Bennett's criticisms of Berkeley on Locke on
substance and reality. According to Bennett, Berkeley mis-
understood Locke's concept of substance because he conflated it
with Locke's theory of reality: 'although these two concerns are
as different as chalk from cheese ...' (p. 70). Briefly, Bennett
claims that the former is a 'theory about what it is for a property
to be instantiated . . . ' (p. 71). In any existential statement, for
example, 'My tie is brown', a property-bearer is required, in
order for us to speak of a thing which . . . is brown. Locke's concept
of substance is the concept of a property-bearer. Substance, on
this reading of Locke, is a purely logical and not a physical
'thing'. On the other hand, Locke's theory of reality, which Ben-
nett names his 'veil-of-perception doctrine', specifies that real
things lie beyond the veil of perception, and are known only
through ideas or sensations. This theory, according to Bennett,
sets 'the entire range of facts about sensory experience against the
entire range of facts about the objective realm and then looks for
empirical links between them' (p. 69). Although these two doc-
trines are separate in Locke, 'Berkeley welds the two together to
form a single view about "material substance". He uses the word
"matter" and its cognates to refer to Locke's purported "real
things" which lie beyond the veil of perception. His use of the
word "substance", on the other hand, connects with Locke only
in respect of the substratum theory about what it is for a property
to be instantiated' (p. 71).
Now, the first point which must be made in dealing with Ben-
nett's charge is that Berkeley does not, either in the Principles or in
the Three Dialogues, refer to Locke in connection with substance,
reality or material substance. Nor does he quote from, advert to,
paraphrase, mention, or even, I believe, allude to Locke's Essay
when discussing these subjects in his two famous works. Locke is
referred to (although not named) and the Essay is quoted, only on
the subject of abstract general ideas (Principles, Introduction, sects
13 and 18). If Berkeley meant to interpret Locke on substance,
60
reality and material substance, why did he not mention or refer to

Locke? Surely this should be considered a prima facie case against
the view that Berkeley had Locke in mind on these subjects; and
this case ought to be strengthened if we find that Locke's theories
and Berkeley's alleged representation of these theories are widely
different. Yet this is just what Bennett claims that he finds (see
especially pp. 71-4).
Berkeley did see a substance theory as fundamentally connected
with a theory about physical reality, and he did attack a union of
these two under the title of 'material substance'. But far from
ascribing this doctrine to a particular philosopher, namely Locke,
he persistently attributes the doctrine to a number of unnamed
philosophers (see Principles, sects 17 and 35; Three Dialogues, in
Works, ii, pp. 172 and 187). Why, however, should he refer to phi-
losophers, if he has only Locke in mind? And why should we think
that he had Locke, among other writers, in mind here, if his state-
ment of the material substance doctrine is not to be found in
Locke? Moreover, if we can find philosophers who wrote before
1710, and who held the view of material substance which Berkeley
attacked, then should we not hold that it is more likely that Berke-
ley was attacking them rather than Locke?
We do not have to search for obscure seventeenth-century phi-
losophers who subscribed to the material substance doctrine which
Berkeley attacked. Descartes subscribed to such a doctrine, and so,
I think, did Hobbes. Descartes's general definition of substance
runs as follows: 'Everything in which there resides immediately,
as in a subject, or by means of which there exists anything that we
perceive, i.e. any property, quality, or attribute, of which we have
a real idea, is called a Substance; neither do we have any other idea
of substance itself, precisely taken, than that it is a thing in which
this something that we perceive or which is present objectively in
o
some of our ideas, exists formally or eminently.' Substance, then,

or the things themselves, lies beyond the veil of perception, and we
perceive only its qualities. Descartes defines bodily substance as
'the immediate subject of extension in space and of the accidents
that presuppose extension, e.g. figure, situation, movement in
space .. .',3 thereby distinguishing extension from its substance.
For Hobbes, bodily substance - for him the only substance - is
'a ground, a base, anything that hath existence or subsist-
ence in itself. But we do not perceive bodily or corporeal sub-
stance; it has 'no dependence upon our thought', we know only its
accidents, these being 'the manner by which any body is con-
ceived'. Bodies lie beyond, and their effects or appearances lie
within, the veil of perception.5 We see then that for Hobbes cor-
poreal substances also lie beyond the veil of perception. Hobbes
and Descartes, philosophers with longer established reputations
than Locke, would seem to be more likely candidates than Locke
for those unnamed 'philosophers' who held the theory of material
substance which Berkeley attacked.
We should, I maintain, take Berkeley at his word when he says
that he is presenting and attacking the views of'philosophers', and
not just a philosopher. Berkeley had targets, and not just a target,
in mind when he attacked material substance. But if he was attack-
ing a number of philosophers, then is it not likely that he was
also attacking different conceptions of matter? I think that he
was. In section 9 of the Principles Berkeley offers this definition of
'matter': 'By matter therefore we are to understand an inert, sen-
seless substance in which extension, figure and motion, do actually
subsist.' In section 17, however, Berkeley offers a different defini-
tion of'material substance', namely, 'the idea of being in general,
together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents'.
In the first definition the qualities are essentially linked to their
substance; in the second, the substance is considered apart from
its qualities. Berkeley seems to attack each definition differently.
The first definition, according to him, involves a contradiction,
because an unthinking thing cannot possess ideas. The second
definition Berkeley charges with unintelligibility, i.e. there 'is no
distinct meaning annexed to those words' (sect. 17).
We have here, then, two distinct notions of matter, though one

may be seen as a development of the other. The fact that Berkeley
had more than one conception of matter, or a shifting notion of
matter in view, becomes explicit in the Principles, sections 67-84.
I think we should see him as attacking at least two conceptions of
matter in the earlier sections of the Principles. Berkeley usually has
his sights on the first, and he may have seen the second primarily as
a defensive reaction to the charge of contradiction in the first
notion. This reading is borne out by sections 67 and 68 where Ber-
keley considers a move from the first definition to a close relation of
the second:
It may perhaps be objected, that though it be clear from what

has been said, that there can be no such thing as an inert, sense-
less, extended, solid, figured, moveable substance, existing with-
out the mind, such as philosophers describe matter: yet if any
man shall leave out of his idea of matter, the positive ideas of
extension, figure, solidity and motion, and say that he means
only by that word, an inert senseless substance, that exists with-
out the mind, or unperceived, which is the occasion of our ideas,
or at the presence whereof God is pleased to excite ideas in us: it
doth not appear, but that matter taken in this sense may possi-
bly exist, (sect. 67)
By divesting material substance of all its sensible qualities this stra-

tagem hopes to avoid the charge of a repugnancy within the con-
cept of material substance, since there can now be nothing to
conflict with bare unqualitied substance.
In Chapter 8 Bennett quotes a passage from the Three Dialogues
(Works, ii, pp. 232~3) which, according to him, shows that
Berkeley was 'retroactively changing the whole structure and
strategy of his attack on "material substance", asking the reader to
ignore the attack on substrata as such [the second conception of
matter] and to take him as having addressed himself solely to the
veil-of-perception doctrine' (p. 218). This passage begins: 'I say in

the first place, I do not deny the existence of material substance,
merely because I have no notion of it, but because the notion of it
is inconsistent...' (Works, ii, p. 232, my emphasis). But it is not at
all apparent that Berkeley is here 'retracting his criticisms of the
substratum analysis as such ...', as Bennett contends (p. 218).
To begin with, it is not clear what Bennett means by Berkeley's
'retracting ...', since the bare-substance doctrine is undoubtedly,
though obliquely, criticized in subsequent passages in the Three
Dialogues (see especially pp.242 and 249 in Works, ii). Bennett
might, however, mean - although he does not say it - that as the
passage he quotes was added in the third edition of the Dialogues
(1734), we should see Berkeley as retracting his views as stated in
the earlier editions. As this is the more plausible reading, let us
read Bennett's remark that way. But even then, only by deleting
the word 'merely' (emphasized above) would we interpret this
passage as Bennett does. For surely Berkeley is only saying that he
has reasons for denying the existence of matter in addition to the
fact that he has no notion of it.
Berkeley may have had either Descartes or Hobbes in mind in
his representations and criticisms of the two conceptions or defini-
tions of matter. Both philosophers are prepared to speak of matter
as an existing something, with modes or accidents. They might
also be interpreted, although with less justice, as holding that this
(bodily) substance can be considered apart from its modes. But, if
we can believe Samuel Clarke and Malebranche, there were, in
fact, philosophers who subscribed to a conception very close to
definition (2) of matter. Clarke says that 'some have . . . meant by
matter... Substance in general, capable of unknown powers or proper-
ties .. .V Malebranche also speaks of 'Many philosophers' who
suppose that extension is 'only a Property of Matter, which
Matter may be divested of as of the rest. Yet [continues Male-
branche] if you make Demand to them, that they would please to
explain that thing which they pretend to perceive in Matter,
besides Extension; they offer to do it several ways, every one of

which makes it apparent, that they have no other Idea of it, than
that of Being, or of Substance in general'.7 Perhaps Berkeley had
some of these philosophers in view in definition (2). But it is diffi-
cult to say with any certainty who Berkeley's target or targets
8
were, since he has not told us in his published works.
He has, however, given us some valuable hints in his private
notebooks, the Philosophical Commentaries. On the whole, the Com-
mentaries support the view that, during the period when he was
writing them, his criticisms of matter or material substance were
aimed primarily at the Cartesians. But it should be noted that Ber-
keley probably completed writing the Commentaries in 1708, about
two years before the Principles was published. Since a thorough dis-
cussion of all the possibly relevant entries would be beyond the
scope of this paper, I shall examine only those entries which Berke-
ley marked 'M', i.e. those concerning matter. Sixteen of these
name Locke, and fifteen name Descartes, Malebranche, or
merely speak of'Cartesians'. Of those which mention Locke there
is not one which conclusively justifies our thinking that Berkeley
had Locke in mind in his published criticisms of material sub-
stance. Three of these entries, and a fourth which alludes to
Locke without mentioning him by name, might indeed seem to
provide some evidence that Locke was Berkeley's target. These
are 89, 601, 700 and 724. Entry 89 reads: 'M Material substance
banter'dby Locke b.2 c.13 s.19.' Now this is the only place in all of
Berkeley's writings, published or unpublished, where Locke is
said to speak about material substance. But in this crucial entry
Berkeley does not say that Locke defended material substance, but
rather that he bantered it. Yet if'to banter' is defined 'to amuse, to
play upon, to jest, to jeer', then surely we should read Berkeley's
remark as: 'Locke makes fun of material substance in Essay, b.2,
c.13, s.19.' This would seem to be the most likely meaning, and
it is supported by Locke's own marginal title, as well as Bishop
10
Stillingfleet's interpretation of that section. But if entry 89 is
merely mentioning Locke's disparagement of material substance,

then how is this to be reconciled with Bennett's view? Entries 601
and 724, it will be seen, must be examined in conjunction.
601 M Incongruous in Locke to fancy we want a sense proper to

see substances withal.
724 M There is a Philosopher who says we can get an idea of

substance by no way of Sensation or Reflection. & seems to
imagine that we want a sense proper for it. Truly if we had a
new sense it could only give us a new Idea, now I suppose he
will not say substance according to him is an Idea: for my
part I own I have no Idea can stand for substance in his or ye
Schoolmen's sense of that word. But take it in the common
vulgar sense & then we see & feel substance.
These entries are puzzling, because it does not appear that Locke
actually claimed that we want a sense to perceive substances.
But supposing that he did and that Berkeley thought that he did,
it would still not follow that these entries point to material sub-
stance. In fact, Berkeley used them on the subject of spiritual
substance, in Principles, section 136. But even more to the point,
these entries seem inconsistent with a theory combining substance
with the veil-of-perception doctrine, which is what Bennett takes
material substance for Berkeley to be about. For if substances can
be the object of some new sense, then their ontological status is on
our side of the veil of perception and not beyond it, as material
substance is supposed to be. This leaves only entry 700, which
runs as follows:
700 M M.S. We have assuredly an Idea of substance, twas

absurd of Locke to think we had a name without a Meaning,
this might prove Acceptable to the Stillingfleetians.
It is difficult to say exactly what Berkeley is telling himself in this

entry; but it would seem that Berkeley is defendingg the idea of sub --
stance against Locke's sceptical treatment of substance: hence it
would be acceptable to a follower of Stillingfleet, who claimed
that Locke 'discarded substances out of the reasonable part of the
world'. Yet if Bennett were correct, the roles should be reversed.11
The great majority of the 'M' entries that mention Descartes,
Malebranche or the Cartesians are, as in the case of Locke,
unhelpful - although they are far more aggressive than those
mentioning Locke. However, the later entries: 785, 795 and 818,
seem to support the view that the doctrine of material substance
which Berkeley was attacking was a Cartesian one. Here are
the entries:
785 M.S. Descartes in Med: 3 Calls himself a thinking substance

& a stone an extended substance & adds that they both agree in
this that they are substances. & in the next paragraph he Calls
extension a Mode of substance.
795 M.S. Descartes owns we know not a substance immediately

by itself but by this alone that it is the subject of several acts.
Answer to 2d objection to Hobbs.
818 M. Say Descartes and Malbranche God hath given us

strong inclinations to think our Ideas proceed from Bodies, or
that Bodies exist. Pray wt mean they by this. Would they have
it that the Ideas of Imagination are images of & proceed from
the Ideas of Sense, this is true but cannot be their meaning for
they speak of Ideas of sense themselves as proceeding from being
like unto I know not wt.
In the last statement of entry 785 we find Berkeley interpreting

Descartes to mean that extension is a mode of (material) sub-
stance, and hence Descartes may be Berkeley's target in Principles,
sections 16 and 17. Entry 818 seems to charge Descartes and Mal-
ebranche with making use of the veil-of-perception doctrine.
Bodies lie beyond the veil of perception, and our ideas of sense
somehow correspond with them because of certain strong inclina-
tions which God has given us to believe this. The middle entry,
795, goes some way towards uniting Descartes's substance and
veil-of-perception doctrine. Substance is not known by itself,
but only as the subject of various activities or accidents, such as
'magnitude and figure' which, presumably, lie within the veil
of perception.
Berkeley uses the expression 'material substance' sparingly in
the Commentaries, he mentions it only twice. The first, no. 89, I
have mentioned; the second entry, no. 17, suggestively mentions
Hobbism:
M fall of Adam, rise of Idolatry, rise of Epicurism & Hobbism
dispute about divisibility of matter &c expounded by material
substances.
We have seen then that Berkeley does not mention Locke in con-
nection with material substance in the Principles or the Three Dialo-
gues, and that the Commentaries offers little or no evidence that he
intended to attack Locke on material substance. Add to this that
Professor Bennett has strenuously argued that Locke had no
theory of material substance, and that we have seen that other
equally prominent philosophers (Descartes and Hobbes) had.
Should we not conclude from this that Berkeley's target in the Prin-
ciples and the Three Dialogues was not Locke, and that his shots at
material substance were not off the target, as Bennett holds, since
they were not directed to that target? The only reason, one would
suppose, for thinking that Locke was Berkeley's target on material
substance would be some evidence that Locke did hold a theory of
material substance such as Berkeley attacked.
At the beginning of Chapter 4, Bennett undertakes to do the fol-
lowing: T shall argue that the distinction [between primary and
secondary qualities] is well-grounded and interesting, that Locke

grasped an important truth about it, and that Berkeley's treat-
ment of this matter is impercipient and unhelpful. Berkeley assimi-
lated the primary/secondary quality distinction to that monolithic
"theory of material substance" which he thought he detected in
Locke's writings; and I shall argue that this is the dominating fact
about his failure to deal competently with the distinction between
primary and secondary qualities' (p. 89).
Allowing Bennett to have succeeded admirably in his first
undertaking - to show that the distinction is an interesting
one - it must be doubted whether he succeeds in the following
ones. For to the extent that Bennett's examination supposes that
Berkeley assimilated Locke's primary/secondary quality distinc-
tion to a theory of material substance which Locke never held,
one must doubt Bennett's claims. For if, as I have maintained
above, Berkeley did not interpret or attack Locke on material sub-
stance, then it must be doubtful whether he assimilated it with a
distinction which Locke did hold. But there is more to be sceptical
about in Bennett's claims, since it is not clear if, or to what extent,
Berkeley had Locke's distinction of primary and secondary quali-
ties in mind at all in his Principles and Three Dialogues. It is also to be
doubted whether Locke grasped the (or a) truth which Bennett
thinks that he detects in Locke's writings. Let us start with this
latter point.
According to Bennett, Locke's '... general thesis [is] that the
raw materials which constitute the concept of Body are to be
found within the realm of primary qualities ...' (p. 90). Bennett
thinks that Locke 'grasps' this, and that it is 'a good point'; he
does think that Locke sometimes expresses it badly. Locke 'ought
not to express it as though it were a prediction about the outcome
of an experiment, for really it is a point about the meaning of the
word body, or about the concept of a body or a physical thing'
(ibid.). Despite the fact that Locke often expresses himself as he
ought not to, according to Bennett, Bennett does produce one
well-expressed quotation to justify our believing that Locke did
grasp his general thesis. Here it is: 'People [mean] by body some-
thing that is solid and extended, whose parts are separable and
movable different ways.' Since this is the only source which is
adduced to prove that Locke held such a thesis, it is obviously cru-
cial and worthy of scrutiny. It should be noted first that this quota-
tion is taken from Locke's Essay II. xiii. 11, and therefore that it is
not from the chapter in which Locke specifically deals with the pri-
mary/secondary quality distinction, namely Essay II. viii. Sec-
ondly, it must be noted that the words quoted by Bennett are
extracted from a sentence and section whose purpose was to
attack the Cartesian view that body and extension are the same
thing. Locke says: 'If therefore they [the Cartesians] mean by
Body and Extension the same that other People do, viz. by Boay, some-
thing that is solid and extended, whose parts are separable and
moveable different Ways; and by Extension ...'. Now, I think it
must be considered somewhat odd that Locke should express his
general thesis only once, in the context of another point, and in a
chapter on a subject other than primary/secondary qualities, if it
were really his general thesis.
But even allowing this, we must still ask whether Locke is one of
those people who believe that the concept of body necessarily
includes 'something that is solid and extended, whose parts are
separable and moveable different ways'. That Locke did not
believe that motion is an essential feature of body is evident from
Essay IV. x. 10: 'Matter [which, in this context, may be read as an
equivalent of "body"] by its own Strength, cannot produce in
itself so much as Motion: the Motion it has must also be from Eter-
nity, or else be produced and added to Matter, by some other
Being more powerful than Matter; Matter, as is evident, having
not Power to produce Motion itself.' (Also see Essay 11. i. 10.) Con-
sequently, for Locke, motion is not essential to the concept of
matter or body. If it has motion this is a contingent fact. That is,
God might not have added it to matter. And if motion is not an
essential feature of the concept of matter then it is hard to see how

'its parts being separable' is. Locke's discussions of primary quali-
ties, then, are expressed just as he ought to have expressed them.
For he cannot know conceptually whether body has motion; he
can only know this from experience or by experiment. I conclude
that Locke did not hold the general thesis, at least in the form that
Bennett claims that he held it.
As in the case of material substance, Bennett reads Berkeley's
critical remarks on primary/secondary qualities as directed
against Locke. The second of the triumvirate of British empiricists
is again at war with the first. But as in the case of material sub-
stance, this historical connection is suspect. Despite Bennett's con-
fident remarks, such as 'When Berkeley approves Locke's saying
that secondary qualities are only in the mind, and deplores his
refusal ...' (p. 114), Berkeley, in fact, never mentions Locke or
refers to the Essay in the Principles'1 or Three Dialogues' discussions
of the topic. In the Three Dialogues the primary/secondary quality
distinction is said to be 'an opinion current among philosophers'
(Works, ii, p. 188). In the Principles Berkeley speaks of'Some there
are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities
...' (sect. 9). As with material substance, he never names names,
and he always refers in the plural to the defenders of the theory.
For Bennett, however, Berkeley's blanks are neatly to be filled in
with the name John Locke: 'Berkeley, then, sees Locke as having a
view about secondary qualities which restricts or partly retracts
the veil-of-perception doctrine, and a thesis about primary quali-
ties which affirms a restricted version of the veil-of-perception doc-
trine' (p. 115). That is, Berkeley is said to interpret Locke's
secondary qualities as sensory states, with no resembling real
things on the other side of the veil of perception; while the primary
qualities are features of real things which lie beyond the veil of
perception.
But, having filled in Berkeley's blanks, Bennett proceeds to cri-
ticize Berkeley for having misunderstood Locke's theory: 'This is a
gravely wrong picture of how Locke's central claim about primary
and secondary qualities relates to his veil-of-perception doctrine
...' (p. 115). But if the picture is a gravely wrong one of Locke's
theory, and if Berkeley has not told us whose theory it is a picture
of, then surely we should conclude that it is not meant to be a pic-
ture of Locke's theory.
If Berkeley was not trying to paint a picture of Locke's theory
then whose theory did he have in mind? Again the Commentaries
must be consulted. The entries marked 'P' for primary and secon-
dary qualities are now central. Dr Luce has summed up the evi-
dence as follows: 'There are some 36 "P" entries. Of these eight
mention Malebranche or the Cartesians, and another 10 or 12
also refer to the Search [after truth, by Malebranche]. Three "P"
entries mention Locke and possibly four others refer to him' (Ber-
keley and Malebranche, p. 62). This alone might incline us to the con-
clusion that Berkeley had Malebranche chiefly in mind on
primary/secondary qualities. I believe that our inclination would
be right, especially since Malebranche's theory resembles Berke-
ley's picture in just those significant respects in which, according
to Bennett, Berkeley's picture differs from Locke's theory, that is,
Bennett thinks that Berkeley misinterprets Locke as holding that
secondary qualities are ideas in the mind, rather than powers
able to cause ideas. But Malebranche unequivocally holds that
secondary qualities are mental states. They are 'modifications of
the mind' (see Berkeley and Malebranche, pp. 63—7). 13 For Male-
branche these modifications or secondary qualities do not resem-
ble anything outside the mind; whereas we do have ideas of
primary qualities and these qualities are independent of our
minds. Consequently, if we are to fill in Berkeley's blanks with
one name then it must, I think, be that of Malebranche. But Ber-
keley probably had other philosophers, perhaps even a composite
target in mind. The question of Berkeley's targets has received less
attention than that of the sources of his ammunition; yet both must
be considered if we are to understand the philosopher.
But what, one might ask, are the factors which have led inter-
preters to think that Berkeley had Locke in mind, and not Male-
branche? Foremost, I imagine, is the fact that Locke speaks of
'primary' and 'secondary' qualities, while Malebranche uses a dif-
ferent terminology to talk about the same things. Berkeley follows
Locke's terminology or, more correctly, Robert Boyle's. But
there is nothing surprising in Berkeley's using the terms of his coun-
trymen, as these terms were used nearly ten years before the Search
(1675), and were probably in fairly common use around 1710.
Before concluding, I should like to make a final point, concerning

the theories of meaning held by Locke and Berkeley. Bennett
claims, I think wrongly, that Locke and Berkeley subscribed to
the following view about meaning.
This is the view that the unit of meaning is the individual word:
not just that one understands a sentence by understanding its
constituent words, but the much stronger, false view that the
whole story about what a word means can be told without
implying anything about how it can be put together with other
words to yield meaningful sentences (p. 148).
That Locke did not consistently hold to such a view is clear from
his chapter on particles, Essay III. vii. Here he claims that particles
such as 'but', 'and', and 'is', which make up a large part of our
language, do not possess any meaning by themselves, but only as
they are used within a certain linguistic context.
A quotation from Berkeley's New Theory of Vision, section 73, will
show that he also did not consistently hold the view attributed to
him by Bennett: 'Now it is known a word pronounced with certain
circumstances, or in a certain context with other words, hath not
always the same import and signification that it hath when pro-
nounced in some other circumstances or different context of
words.' On the whole, however, Bennett's discussions of meaning
in Locke, Berkeley and Hume are illuminating, although I think

that he underestimates Berkeley's liberation from Locke's theory
of meaning and the role of non-cognitive discourse in Berkeley's
philosophy.
b
2 Pitcher on Locke and Berkeley
George Pitcher's Berkeley (1977) is a closely written, workmanlike

study of Berkeley's philosophy. Pitcher is a skilful anatomist of Ber-
keley's arguments and thought, but this does not always make for
engaging reading; indeed, much of the book seems to merit the
title 'Berkeley made difficult.' Readers may also wonder whether
some of Pitcher's fine distinctions and dissections are worth the
fuss and the typographical disruption (see pp. 10—11, 26, 95-6).
But Pitcher's chief weakness is his speculative and cavalier way of
doing history of philosophy. His self-evident axiom is that 'Locke is
the Philosopher for Berkeley .. . [indeed] the Enemy' (p. 90). Time
and again we learn that Berkeley is 'attacking' Locke on matter.
For example: 'Berkeley seeks to rectify the faults he finds in Locke's
system ...' (p. 92), 'Berkeley bluntly contends, against Locke, that
our ideas of sense cannot possibly resemble Lockean material
objects .. .' (p. 115), 'The second of Berkeley's two parting shots
against Locke is aimed .. .' (p. 122). But Berkeley mentions Locke
neither directly nor indirectly in his published statements on
matter and sense perception. (Locke's views on language are, of
course, openly attacked in the Introduction to the Principles.}
When Berkeley names his materialistic opponents, as he does in
the Principles, section 93, and in the second of the Three Dialogues^
it is Hobbes, Spinoza and Vanini (and more generally the Hobb-
ists and Epicureans) that he mentions. Hence Pitcher's expressions
like 'the hated Lockean dualism' (p. 169) are little better than his-
torical romance. Most of his Locke-Berkeley discussions are only
barely based on fact, such as when he sees Berkeley objecting to
Locke's philosophy on account of its (1) atheism and irreligion, (2)

opposition to common sense and (3) scepticism (pp. 91-2, 134 and
142). But what of (1) Hobbes, Spinoza, (2) Malebranche and (3)
Bayle? There is surely 'an air of unreality', to use Pitcher's own
phrase, when Locke is commissioned to be Berkeley's irreligious
and uncommonsensical target in preference to Hobbes or Spinoza.
Unfortunately, Pitcher's historical boxing ring is large enough
for only two contestants. I do not wish to claim, however, that
Pitcher is the worst sinner in this respect, or that his discussions in
Chapters 6 through 11 are fundamentally vitiated by the fictitious
links he forges between Locke and Berkeley. But by artificially
restricting Berkeley's targets, he does oversimplify and distort Ber-
keley's complex critique of materialism, which is not, as the title of
Chapter 7 indicates, an 'attack against Lockean matter.' Rather,
it is a many-sided attack against conceptions of matter drawn from
the ancient materialists, the Schoolmen, Descartes, Hobbes, Spi-
noza, Malebranche and, probably, also from Locke.
Pitcher's high-handed history of philosophy is in marked con-
trast, happily, to his careful and precise analysis of Berkeley's
arguments in the classic works published between 1709 and 1713.
Here he is illuminating; although on some topics, numerical
identity (pp. 144-9) being one, I think he overstates and hence
misrepresents Berkeley's position. Pitcher's concentration on the
earlier works is understandable, but it sometimes leads to the
omission of relevant evidence. Thus in his interesting discussion
of Berkeley's concept of mind (pp. 212-22), he should certainly
have examined Berkeley's assertion in De Motu, section 21, that
we know our soul 'by a certain internal consciousness' (also
see sect. 29). Pitcher's account of mind and time is also, I think,
weakened by his failure to see the theological aims of Berkeley,
whose subjective theory of time is hardly a 'desperate effort'
against 'the spectre of scepticism' (p. 223). It is, in fact, at the
heart of his novel proof for the immortality of the soul, which is
for him an item of rational and not (p. 244) pragmatic theology.
Notes
a. This section originally appeared in Hermathenaiu 1972.
1. Jonathan Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Clarendon
Press, Oxford University Press, 1971J. All page references, unless other-
wise specified, are lo this work. References to Berkeley's Three Dialogues
are to The Works of George Berkeley, vol. ii, ed. Professor T. E. Jessop
(London: Thomas Nelson, 1948-57).
2. Definition 5, of'Arguments demonstrating the existence of God and the
distinction between the soul and the body, drawn up in a geometrical
fashion,' in The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. E. Haldane and
G. R. T. Ross (New York: Dover Books, 1955), vol. ii, p. 53. Also see
Kemp Smith's New Studies in the Philosophy of Descartes (1952), pp. 192-3.
3. The Philosopical Works of Descartes, definition 7.
4. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, ed. Molesworth (1839), vol. iv, p.
308. Also see Richard Peters' Hobbes (London: Penguin, 1967), pp. 88
91, and 99-103.
5. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vol. i, pp. 103 and 389f.; and vol. iii,
p. i.
6. A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes ofGod (sixth edn, 1725), p. 91.
Clarke seems to suggest that 'Mr Hobbs and his followers' may be inter-
preted as asserting this definition of matter.
7. Treatise concerning the Search after Truth (1694), trans. T. Taylor, p. 128
(Bk iii, chap, viii, sect. 2).
8. Compare Berkeley's remarks in his 'Advertisement' to Alciphron (1732).
9. This is the way it is defined by N. Bailey in his An Universal Etymological
English Dictionary, tenth edn (1 742).
10. Locke's marginal title is 'Substance and Accidents, of little use in Philo-
sophy'. Stillingfleet had said that Locke's section was designed to 'ridi-
cule the notion of substance' (quoted in The Works of John Locke (9th edn,
London, 1794), vol. iii. p. 448).
11. Hume, it may be mentioned, saw Locke as sceptical about whether we
mean anything when we talk about substance: see Hume's A Letter from
a Gentleman (1745), p. 30.
12. The term 'corporeal substance' is used in entry 517.
13. On the importance of this point to Malebranche, see Dr Luce's Berkeley
and Malebranche (1967), p. 63; compare this with Bennett, p. 113.
14. Boyle first developed the terminology in The Origin of Forms and Qualities
according to the Corpuscular Philosophy (1666). Boyle, it should be noted,
considers secondary qualities as subjective, unlike Locke, but like Berke-

ley: see Professor R. I. Aaron's John Locke (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1965), pp. 121-3.
b. This section was originally published as a review of Pitcher's Berkeley
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) in the Journal of the History
of Philosophy in 1980.
Part II
THE GOLDEN AGE OF IRISH PHILOSOPHY

3
Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in
Irish Philosophya
About fifty years ago an able historian of philosophy, John Laird,

opened a discourse in Belfast with the following caveat:
I have called this lecture 'Ulster Philosophers', not 'Ulster

Philosophy', because there is no such thing as Ulster Philoso-
phy. That is to say, the red-handed province has no continuing
philosophical tradition in it of any kind — nothing either auto-
1
chthonous or imported that was born, grew and died.
I expect that most historians of philosophy and of Ireland would

not only agree with this judgement, but would be inclined to pass a
similar one on Irish philosophy in general. After all, there is
neither book nor essay, nor even note, on the subject. b
Yet for all that, the judgement is inaccurate: for there was a
'continuing philosophical tradition' in Ireland which flourished
for about sixty years, from the 1690s to the 1750s. It was born
with John Toland, grew with Peter Browne, William King,
George Berkeley and Francis Hutcheson, and died with Robert
Clayton and Edmund Burke. This tradition was largely auto-
chthonous or indigenous, and it engaged most of the outstanding
Irishmen of the time, as well as a host of lesser figures such as
Edward Synge (father and son), Thomas Emlyn, Henry Dodwell
(the elder), Philip Skelton and John Ellis. My aim in this and a
second essay is not, however, to write a history of Irish philosophy,
even less, of Irish philosophers, but to reveal the main themes and
phases, the character and causation, of Irish philosophy.
The primary impulse and bent of philosophy in Ireland is

theological: its character and growth being constituted by the so-
called Deist controversy and the play of Enlightenment and Coun-
ter-Enlightenment forces. In its three score years Irish philosophy
produced works and ideas of considerable originality, influence
and value. It also found lasting expression in the more popular lit-
erature of the period, notably in the writings of Jonathan Swift.
1 Background forces
John Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding (London, 1690)

is, without doubt, the most important external influence on Irish
philosophy. More than any other book, 'the Philosopher's Bible'
as it is sometimes called assumed the role of authority in matters
philosophical. The Essay achieved this position at a very early
date in Ireland through the efforts of William Molyneux. Writing
to his friend Locke on 22 December 1692, Molyneux points out
that he
. . . was the first that recommended and lent to the reverend pro-
vost of our university [of Dublin], Dr Ashe, a most learned and
ingenious man, your essay, with which he was so wonderfully
pleased and satisfied, that he ordered it to be read by the bach-
o
elors in the college, and strictly examines them in their progress.
Trinity College, Dublin was the first institution of learning to ap-

preciate the importance of the Essay, and the character of Irish
philosophy is indelibly stamped by it. Without Locke's Essay
there would hardly have been a Berkeley, Browne, Hutcheson, or
Burke; at least, they could not have been the philosophers we know
them to be. Apart perhaps from Molyneux, no Irish thinker
entirely accepted Locke's philosophy, or described himself as a fol-
lower of Locke. Indeed, the Hibernian contribution was in large
measure to criticize creatively and reinterpret Locke's diverse
Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment 81
philosophical investigations. Irish philosophy, following the lead
of Locke, is essentially concerned with epistemology. And within
this wide domain, its two main problems are the nature of percep-
tion and of language.
Molyneux, Locke's Irish apostle, never wrote any philosophical
work of his own. He did, however, write an influential book on
optics, Dioptrica Nova (London, 1692), and one on Irish political
theory, The Case of Ireland's being Bound (Dublin, 1698). He also set
the most important Irish philosophical problem, rightfully named
after him, and some of his philosophical views may be gathered
from his personal letters to Locke, later to be published in Some
Familiar Letters between Mr. Locke and several of his Friends (London,
1708). However, Molyneux remains in the background of Irish
philosophy. This can also be said of Robert Molesworth, the
author of the anti-clerical Account of Denmark (London, 1694) who
stands beside Molyneux as the second important background
figure. Viscount Molesworth, like Molyneux, was a politician, a
man of practical affairs, who influenced more by his personal rela-
tions than by his writings. Around him gathered in the 1720s in
Dublin the so-called Molesworth Circle. As Molyneux was
Locke's apostle, so Molesworth was the apostle of Lord Shaftes-
bury, author of Characteristics (London, 1711), who was himself a
pupil of Locke.
There are two main tendencies in Irish philosophy: one
liberal, the other traditional. Molesworth and Shaftesbury fol-
low squarely in the former. They represent the Enlightenment,
especially in their sympathy for toleration and in their criticism of
the priestly and dogmatic aspects of religion. Locke, as I shall
try to show, was employed by both tendencies or movements,
but most imaginatively by the forces of tradition. The intri-
cate play of these two tendencies or forces - Enlightenment and
Counter-Enlightment - is essential in the development of Irish
philosophy. Locke stands to Irish philosophy in a relationship
not dissimilar to that which Hegel stands to nineteenth-century
German philosophy. There are, I should like to say, left-wing

Lockeans, such as Molesworth, Toland, Emlyn, Hutcheson and
Clayton and right-wing Lockeans, such as Browne, Dodwell,
King, Skelton and Burke. The left-wingers tend to be in favour of
natural religion, rationalism and toleration; the right-wingers
of extreme empiricism and fideism and intolerance. As with any
such schema, there are exceptions and problem-cases. Berkeley,
the greatest genius of Irish philosophy, is the major exception.
He does not fit neatly into either group, for his philosophy contains
important rationalistic and empiricistic elements; thus, while
he has little or no sympathy for fideism, neither does he have
much for religious toleration. Still, our schema is important and
useful. Indeed, it serves to bring out the uniqueness of Berkeley's
thought which is the centrepiece of Irish philosophy.
Of course, there are other forces in the background of this excep-
tional flowering of philosophy, one of these being the Dublin Phi-
losophical Society, which flourished intermittently between 1683
and 1708, and encouraged interest in the new learning and
science. Some of those who were to make significant contributions
in philosophy were, like King and Berkeley, active members of the
Society, one of whose founders was Molyneux.
Even more formative, however, were the extraordinary politi-
cal, social and economic developments of the last two decades of
the seventeenth century. It would be difficult to overestimate the
significance of the victory of William III over James II, and
the subsequent establishment of Ascendancy rule, based on the
Penal Laws against the Roman Catholics. But this is a subject
that I shall be dealing with in the sequel.0
2 The birth
It is appropriate that Irish philosophy should be born with John
Toland, for he brings together nearly every one of its strands.
Born a Roman Catholic in Co. Donegal — it was alleged that his
father was a Popish priest — Toland became a Dissenter at the age
of fifteen or sixteen years. He then left Ireland and became a pro-
tege of Shaftesbury, Molesworth and Locke. The publication of
Toland's Christianity not Mysterious (London) in 1696 was the great
seminal act in Irish philosophy. Indeed it brought Irish philosophy
into being, and continued to haunt it until its demise in the
late 1750s. If anyone can be described as the father of Irish philo-
sophy, it is Toland; but he was, as we shall see, its hated and
illegitimate father.
In Christianity not Mysterious Toland applied the Lockean theory
of meaning to religious mysteries. Toland argued that since mys-
teries such as the Holy Trinity do not stand for distinct ideas,
Christianity must either employ meaningless doctrines, or else be
non-mysterious. This radical line of argument is fairly evident
even from the subtitle of Toland's book: 'a treatise showing, that
there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason, nor above it: and
that no Christian doctrine can properly be call'd a mystery'. The
Christian mysteries were for Toland meaningless 'Blictri' words —
as he called them - because like 'Blictri' they did not stand for any
distinct ideas.
Reason is supreme for Toland. There are no dark spots or mys-
teries. Toland is a militant rationalist. But he is not a rationalist in
the manner of Spinoza or Leibniz. He is not a metaphysical but
rather an epistemological rationalist. It is not that the world, or
being, has no cognitive dark spots, but that our understanding
need have none. We can be absolutely certain about our ideas or
how things appear to us. Our assent, and its degrees, are a function
of the evidence. And while our understanding does not know all
that can be known of what is, we can be certain of what we per-
ceive and conceive. We do not know the real inner nature of
bodies, but we do know what we perceive of them - their nominal
essence, as Locke called it. Hence there is no reason for scepticism
or for regarding our understanding of the world as in any way
mysterious. We must give our assent to that which we know, and

that which we do not know is meaningless and should be of no
concern to us. Hence Toland's epistemological rationalism van-
quishes all mysteries or things above the understanding. His posi-
tion is based on Locke's theories of meaning and nominal essence
and his epistemological standpoint. But the synthesis and the
shocking conclusion that Christianity is not mysterious are distinc-
tively Toland's. As Pope put it in a suppressed couplet from the
Essay on Man:
What partly pleases, totally will shock:

d
I question much if Toland would be Locke.
The reaction to Toland's book was fierce, and nowhere more so

than in Ireland. In 1697 Toland paid a visit to the country of his
birth, and within a short time, as we are informed by Molyneux,
he had 'raised against him the clamour of all parties'; the clergy,
especially, being 'alarmed to a mighty degree against him'.4 His
book was burnt by the common hangman, and it was moved by
someone in the Committee on religion in the Irish House of Com-
mons 'that Mr. Toland himself should be burnt ...'. It was
decided, however, that he should be taken into custody and prose-
cuted and that no more copies of that book be brought into the
Kingdom. Toland fled to England in order to escape his Irish per-
secuters, who were applauded by Robert South for making the
country too hot for him. There can be no doubt that Toland's
effect on Ireland was traumatic, and I shall later attempt to
explain why this was so.
It is indicative of the fierceness of the traditional or right-wing
tendency that the next person to express views similar to Toland's
was not permitted to escape so easily. This was Thomas Emlyn,
a dissenting minister in Dublin, who was imprisoned for more
than two years for his rationalistic approach to the Holy Trinity.
In 1702 he was indicted for his Humble Inquiry into the Scripture
Account of Jesus Christ (1702), having made an unsuccessful attempt
to flee to England. Archbishop King, we are told, 'gave warmth to
the proceedings', which were 'severe and cruel', so much so that -
as Emlyn tells us - 'My case seem'd so odious, that I found it hard
to get counsel'. Emlyn heard one person say that 'he had never
seen such a persecution since he had been at the bar'. I think this
'rage and violence', this 'Dublin zeal' as Emlyn nicely put it
was connected with the Toland escapade. In short, Toland waved
the red flag in 1697 and five years later poor Emlyn was gored.
A rationalistic clergyman was not to be tolerated, even though his
views were more modest and Christian than Toland's. Emlyn is a
moderate left-wing Lockean. This comes out not only in his speci-
fic rationalistic rejection of the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity,
but also in his statement of general principles. Thus he expressly
opposes the basis of the answers to Toland's challenge, offered
by Peter Browne and others - that as finite we cannot know the
meaning of a term standing for an infinite object. Emlyn's succinct
response is:'. . . at this rate [one will] believe nothing of God'. And
again: 'No man can believe explicitly what he does not under-
stand, for faith is an act of the understanding.'
I want now to consider three of the most important Irish replies
to Toland's challenge, for in their different ways they represent the
other main tendency in Irish thought: that of the right-wing Lock-
cans. In 1697 appeared A Letter in Answer to . . . Christianity not Mys-
terious. As to all those who set up for Reason and Evidence in opposition to
Revelation and Mysteries (Dublin) by Peter Browne who may be
regarded as a leader of the right-Lockeans. In the following year
Edward Synge published an Appendix (1698) to his urbane Gentle-
man's Religion, in which he criticized Toland from the viewpoint of
the moderate right wing. Both Browne and Synge were to become
prelates of the Irish Church; they were also to differ on fundamen-
tal issues embodied in their replies to Toland. Indeed, in an
anonymous pamphlet of 1716, Browne accused Synge of giving
in to Toland.7
In responding to Toland's challenge that Christianity is not

mysterious, both Synge and Browne employ a key illustration: a
man born blind who is told about light and colours. About other-
worldly objects we have, says Browne, 'no more notion than a
blind man hath of light. And now that I am fallen into this meta-
phor [later changed to "similitude"] which seems well to explain
the nature of the thing, let us pursue it a little ...' (Letter, p. 50).
This Browne does, pointing out that the blind man must under-
stand light in terms of some other sense; thus he might think that
light is 'wonderous soft and smooth'. For Browne, we must trust
that such representations are answerable to the things they are
supposed to represent, even though we know that the two are of
totally different natures.
Browne was clearly taken with the similitude of the blind man,
for in the General Introduction to his major work, The Procedure,
Extent and Limits of Human Understanding (London, 1728), he quotes
the above passage as containing the essence of his position. It is also
central to Synge. In the 1698 Appendix he tells us of a conversation
he had with a blind man who at one time did not believe that there
were colours and light. The blind man initially thought that those
who spoke of colours were imposing on him, just as Toland thought
that priests were imposing their mysteries on the laity. But after cer-
tain simple experiments, Synge informs us, the blind man became
convinced that other people could see light and colours. For exam-
ple, the blind man was put at a distance from someone, who was
able to tell him, without the use of touch, what he was doing. In
this way he came to believe that there were indeed things existing
8
of which he had no direct or proper ideas.
Synge and Browne have much in common in their use of the
illustration. They both emphasize that it is reasonable to believe
in things of which we have no direct ideas. They play on the fact
that knowledge of colours is inaccessible to the blind man,
although we know that colours do exist. Hence we feel that the
blind man should believe that colours exist. The difference in their
deployment of the illustration is that, whereas Synge tries to pro-
vide rational justification for the blind man's assent, for Browne it
is largely a matter of trust and authority. For Browne we have evi-
dence that the mysterious doctrines of Christianity are divinely
inspired, are the words of God, but we have no direct or literal
knowledge of what the words or doctrines mean. Whereas for
Synge, our knowing that they are divine does also seem to reveal
some hint of what the mysteries are in themselves.
This constitutes an important but subtle difference, because
both men must retain a very delicate balance in their use of the
metaphor. The blind man must have no idea of colours as they
actually are, because we have no understanding of religious mys-
teries. If we had, they would cease to be mysteries. But colours
must in some way be knowable, for if they were not they would be
mere Blictris. Toland's razor cuts both ways, and in the end
Synge tends to make mysteries perhaps too rational and Browne
tends to make them unintelligible. For although the blind man
does not have an internal conception of colours - for Synge - he
does know the effects of colours and light. The blind man can
employ colour words in a more or less literal way, because he has
an 'imperfect sort of representation': his concept of colour is imper-
fect but not vacuous, as it tends to be for Browne's blind man. Had
Toland replied to Synge and Browne, he would no doubt have said
that mysteries for Browne are meaningless, while for Synge they
are faintly or slightly meaningful, and should (or could) to that
extent be affirmed.
The similitude of the blind man is more than a mere illustration.
It is the root metaphor, as it were, of Irish philosophy. And it is
hardly an accident that the Molyneux problem, with which it
is clearly associated, was very much an Irish problem. It was the
Irishman Molyneux who first asked whether a blind man made to
see would recognize by sight alone objects which he had formerly
known only by touch. Molyneux answered no; and two of the
earliest known affirmative answers were given also by Irishmen,
namely, by Synge and Francis Hutcheson. But the most important

(negative) answer is given in Berkeley's New Theory of Vision
(Dublin, 1709), which makes extensive use of Molyneux's problem
and Dioptrica Nova. Be that as it may, in the critical account of our
knowledge of God (not however of God's mysterious nature) Ber-
keley uses the root metaphor as a touchstone. Clearly alluding to
Browne (and perhaps to Synge) he entreats those holding views
like Browne's to
. . . return to speak of God and his attributes in the style of other

Christians, allowing that knowledge and wisdom do, in the
proper sense of the words, belong to God, and that we have
some notion, though infinitely inadequate, of those divine attri-
butes, yet still more than a man born blind from his birth can
10
have of light and colours.
In 1709 Archbishop William King preached a Sermon on Predestina-

tion and Fore-Knowledge in which he too employed the key similitude
(sects XII—XIII); his Sermon must be seen, in part at least, as a de-
layed response to Toland's rationalist challenge and the more
recent one of Emlyn.e King's position is similar to that of Synge
and Browne. Indeed, Browne called attention to this similarity,
in order to rebuke King for not having given him credit for the
first formulation in 1697. I have described their common theory
as theological representationalism, and it will be necessary to
dwell on it in some detail, since it is the most widespread, influen-
11
tial and central theory in Irish philosophy. From this theory
issued by reaction or extension most of the significant contribu-
tions of Hibernian philosophy.
3 Theological representationalism and pragmatism

Browne, Synge and King should be seen, I suggest, as presenting
the traditional fideistic negative theology (which goes back to
Tertullian and the Pseudo-Dionysius) through a theory of percep-
tion drawn from the New Learning, namely, the representative
theory of perception. This theory or model had been and was
being developed by Descartes, Boyle and, most notably, Locke;
and one of its main purposes was to explain how and why certain
experiences of objects, e.g. pains, illusions and odours do not ade-
quately (or at all) reflect actual qualities of the objects, while
accounting for how these experiences allow us, nonetheless, to
deal successfully with physical objects.
Now the representative model supposes that our perception of
the physical world involves three terms: (1) the mind, (2) its
immediate experiences, called ideas, or perceptions and (3) the
physical object and its qualities. Furthermore, the mind's ex-
periences of (2) are caused by (3). Perception is the effect of a phy-
sical cause. Hence, in experiencing the fire as painful, we are not
obliged to attribute pain to the object (3), the fire, but only to our
immediate idea or experience (2), the pain. In a realist account, on
the other hand, we seem obliged to locate pains, odours, colours in
the object. But this was contrary to the theory of the physical
world - developed by Descartes, Newton and Boyle, which held
that physical objects really only possessed quantitative qualities,
such as extension, solidity, motion and weight.
This is not to say that, according to the representative theory
or model of perception, the non-quantitative qualities — some-
times called secondary qualities - are not connected with the
physical world. According to this model, the quantitative quali-
ties — called primary qualities — are powers in the object which
cause the secondary qualities. So solid and extended particles
cause in sentient beings ideas, such as pains, colours and odours.
And experiencing secondary qualities can help us to deal with the
actual physical objects, which are composed of primary qualities.
For example, smelling gas will probably make me leave the
room before the primary qualities of the gas produce changes in
my heart and lungs, thereby terminating my life. Furthermore,
my ideas of the quantitative qualities, such as solidity and exten-

sion, may provide me with more or less adequate representations
of those qualities, depending on how precise my instruments for
detecting the qualities are.
This, in short, is representationalism. I am not, of course, claim-
ing that this composite outline captures the whole or most of the
representative model; nor would I claim that any one thinker
developed it in just this way. But the outline does, I believe, iden-
tify the new model of perception developed by Locke; and it is this
model which King, Browne and Synge use to explain the nature of
man's knowledge of God. For this reason, I argue that their
common theory should be described as theological representation-
alism. Like that of the physical representationalists, this theologi-
cal theory has three terms: (1) the mind, (2) what it knows of
God's attributes, and (3) God's attributes as they are in God.
Like that of the physical representationalists, it supposes that
(3) is known through (2), and that (2) represents (3); and it
also tends to see a causal relationship between (3) and (1), which
is productive of (2). Again, like physical representationalism,
there is a problematic relationship, qua resemblance, between (2)
and (3). But, nonetheless, our knowledge of (2) can help us to
deal with (3). Browne and King emphasize the problematic and
tenuous relationship between the second and third terms: they
cast doubt on whether there is any sort of resemblance between
(2), our conceptions of the divine attributes and (3), the attributes
in themselves. On the other hand, Synge and King magnify the
utility of (2) as a surrogate for (3), suggesting also that such utility
is sufficient.
In his 1709 Sermon King takes the particular case of gravity and
compares it with divine anger:
We all of us feel a Tendency to the Earth, which we call Gravity.,

but none ever yet was able to give any satisfactory Account of its
Nature or Cause: Yet inasmuch as we know, that falling down a
Precipice will crush us to Pieces, the Sense we have of this Effect
of it is sufficient to make us careful to avoid such a Fall, and in
like Manner, if we know, that breaking God's Commands, will
provoke him to destroy us, will not this he sufficient to oblige us
to Obedience, though we be ignorant what it is we call Anger in
him? (xvii)
Our knowledge of gravity, like our knowledge of the divine anger,

is different from the thing itself. The thing itself, in both cases, is
unknown at least according to King. Our conceptions of the
divine anger and of gravity are inferred from the effects of each.
Although our conception differs from the thing itself, the two are
often called by the same name. And although our conception does
not resemble but only represents the real thing, this conception is
extremely useful for this life; and our representations of the divine
attributes may, in addition, be useful for the life to come,
King uses this representative model with some ingenuity, and
our ideas of secondary qualities provide him with a particularly
fruitful way of explaining and justifying our knowledge of God.
Our idea of colour, for example, is unlike colour as it is in an exter-
nal body, but we nonetheless say that a body is coloured. In the
same way, King maintains, it is permissible to use the term
'wisdom' in speaking of the divine attribute; although our concep-
tion of it and the thing in itself are entirely different, w;e may say
that God is wise or has foreknowledge.
I think it is agreed by most Writers of Natural Philosophy;, [says

King] that Light and Colours are but the Effects of certain Bodies
and Motions on our Sense of seeing, and that there are no such
Things at all in Nature, but only in our Minds; [and] of this at
least we may be sure, that Light in the Sun or Air, are very differ-
ent Things from what they are in our Sensations of them, yet we
call both by the same Names, and term what is only perhaps a
Motion in the Air, Light, because it begets in us that conception
[i.e. sensation] which is truly Light. But it would seem very

strange to the Generality of Men, if we should tell them there is
no Light in the Sun, or Colours in the Rain-Bow. And yet strictly
speaking, it is certain, that which in the Sun causes the Concep-
tion of Light in us, is as truly different in Nature from the Repre-
sentation we have of it in our Mind, as our Fore-know ledge, is
from what we call so in God. (xv)
Because God's attributes are entirely different from what we

can understand, our theological statements cannot be true in the
sense of correspondency. This impossibility is, as we have seen,
built on traditional negative theology and is illustrated or con-
firmed by a problematic or sceptical interpretation of representa-
tionalism. But if we cannot know that any of our theological
statements are true, qua correspondence or cognitively, it does
not follow that they are false, or in no sense true. There is just no
point in talking about them as true (or false) in the cognitive sense.
When we say that we have knowledge of God we mean, King
holds, such 'Knowledge [as] is sufficient to all [the] Intents and
Purposes of Religion. The Design whereof is to lead us in the Way
to eternal Happiness, and in Order thereunto, to teach and oblige
us to live reasonably, to perform our Duty to God, our Neigh-
bours, and our selves, to conquer ... our Passions, and Lusts, to
make us beneficient and charitable to Men...' (xiv). If theological
statements can effect these things, i.e. produce practical theism,
then they are true. They are not cognitively, but pragmatically
true which is the valid sense of true for human beings in this life.
It is upon this basis that King argues that God has fore-
knowledge. It is not that we cognitively know this to be the case.
We do not. But our faith that it is so generates the right sort of
results. Believing that God does possess foreknowledge 'at once
stops our Mouths, and silences our Objections, obliges us to an
absolute Submission and dependance ...' (xxiv); and King goes
on to say that 'This is plainly the design and effect of this terrible
Representation ...'. That is, the meaning of foreknowledge or
predestination lies in its capacity to produce feelings and actions
expressive of a complete dependence on God. If such desirable
results can best be brought about by apparently contradictory
descriptions of God, then they are to be welcomed. For it is the
pragmatic and not the logical success of religious descriptions
that matters. It is in this way that King justifies apparent contra-
dictions not only in Scripture but also in mysteries such as the Holy
Trinity, and, of course in foreknowledge and free will. Although
divine foreknowledge and human free will are not logically compa-
tible, they are pragmatically compatible: and that is what matters.
Our conceptions of the former 'are not so much designed to give us
Notions of God as he is in himself, as to make us sensible of our
Duty to him, and to oblige us to perform it.' (xxviii). Again,
'When we hear these Things [e.g. that God foreknows] we are
not so much to enquire, whether this Representation exactly
suits, with what really passeth in the Mind of God, as how we
ought to behave ourselves in such a Case ...' (xxviii).
King's sensitivity to models appears also in his own use of them
to justify his general thesis that our knowledge does not reflect the
world but enables us to deal with it. So a map is different from
the land it represents (viii); a line is used to represent time but
is different from time (ix); we speak of the mind and its opera-
tions by means of sensible things — e.g. we say someone is bright,
depressed, buoyant — but the mind is not sensible, i.e., it is not
bright, depressable, etc. (xxii). Yet in all these cases the models or
representations are highly useful. King tries to put his readers into
the state of mind of someone who is confronted with a representa-
tion that appears to him totally different from what it is supposed
to represent. He wants us to appreciate that the incredulous
person, who does not try to see the utility of the theological repre-
sentation or model, is only standing in his own way. Thus King
deserves credit for his pragmatic or conventionalist interpreta-
tion of the representationalist model of perception and for its
application to theology and, to a lesser extent, science. And as an

anticipator of pragmatism, King's claim is at least as strong as
Locke's, Berkeley's or Hume's.
4 Browne's sensationalism
Where King and Synge stressed the pragmatic aspect of our theo-
logical representations, Browne emphasizes what he calls their
'analogical' aspect, their unknown correspondence to the divine
archetypes. It was for this reason that Browne accused King of
transforming analogy into metaphor and Synge of changing the
analogical into the literal and thereby assimilating faith to
reason. Browne's main contribution, however, is his sensational-
ism. More than Locke, he deserves credit for being the first full-
blooded sensationalist with regard to the mind and its acts. In the
Procedure, he attempts to prove, by means of his sensationalism,
that we have no direct, proper or literal knowledge of anything
purely mental or spiritual. King largely takes this for granted,
that is, he assumes the truth of negative theology although there
are some hints of sensationalism in his Sermon (especially in xxii).
Browne argues that all our ideas are derived from sensation.
Thus our ideas of the emotions and operations of our minds are
not essentially different from our ideas of colours and odours.
There are not, as Locke and others claimed, two original sources
of experience — sensation and reflection — but only sensation. For
Browne, anger is not something which we experience or know
directly and distinctly from a source other than sensation, as
Locke held; rather it is composed of sensations, such as a feeling of
warmth, gritting of teeth, reddish face, increased pulse, scowling
face, etc. We conceive 'sorrow by a down look and contraction of
our features' (Procedure, p. 389), and these ideas are clearly 'bor-
rowed from sensation' (p. 388). Also important for our idea of
emotion is the 'object which occasioned' the feeling (p. 389).
Having provided what he considers to be an adequate account
which does not resort to ideas of reflection, Browne challenges his
(Lockean) opponents to produce or find a mental idea which is not
sensational. (See pp.64, 387, 414.) Having issued the empiricist
challenge, Browne musters the following specific arguments.
He criticizes the Lockean theory for postulating an unnecessary
entity: we do not require both the mental acts and the ideas of
these mental acts, particularly since we can never, by hypothesis,
perceive the mental acts (or emotions) themselves. Occam's razor
demands, therefore, that they be cut (pp. 413-14).
But the theory is not just uneconomical, it is also incoherent,
according to Browne, for it supposes that 'The same thing shall be
an idea, and the operation of the mind upon an idea at the same time;
and thus we have a new idea for another second operation, and so
on
about an idea, there will be an idea of that operation, and an idea
of that operation, and so on. The theory leads to an infinite multi-
plication of ideas and operations.
Browne also uses what might be called the familiarity argument
against Locke: 'Had we simple original ideas [of reflection] of other
objects beyond that of sensation, we should all indifferently and
readily acquiesce in our opinions about them; a peasant would
have as clear and distinct ideas of them, of the intellect for instance
. . . [as a psychologist]' (p. 416). There is a certain irony in Brow-
ne's use of this (familiarity) argument against Locke, for it is likely
that he borrowed it from Book I of the Essay, where Locke uses it
against the doctrine of innate ideas (see chap, ii, sect. 27).
The mind is, therefore, incapable of any 'such unnatural squint,
or distorted turn upon itself (Procedure, p. 97). 'An idea of reflection is
an empty sound, without any intelligible and determinate mean-
ing' (p. 412). '. . . all the ideas we attempt to form of the manner of
its [the mind's] acting, and the expressions we use for it, are bor-
rowed from sensation' (p. 67). And this applies also to the mind's
knowledge of mind as such. For Browne, we have no idea of a
purely mental mind in a corporeal body. He was one of the first

philosophers to react against what Gilbert Ryle has called the
dogma of the ghost in the machine. Thus he writes that 'Men com-
monly speak of [spirit] as of something within us, and not of us;
as if it thought and reasoned in the body, and not together with any
part of it; as if the body were a mere box, or case, or place of resi-
dence for it' (p. 149, also see pp. 77, 153, 367—8). For Browne, it is
the man, and not some immaterial substance, which thinks
(pp. 150, 153). If it were really a soul (independent of the body)
that thought, then our thinking should be instantaneous, nor
should it tire us.
Browne's concept of mind may well owe something to Henry
Dodwell the elder, who in 1706 issued his Epistolary Discourse Drov-
ing ,.. that the soul is a principle naturally mortal,.. (London), in which
he denied the natural or philosophical immortality of the soul and
inclined to a materialistic account of it. Both King and Browne
were on friendly terms with the Irish born Dodwell, who was a stu-
dent and fellow of Trinity College Dublin. According to King,
Dodwell had held the theory of conditional immortality for more
than thirty years prior to publishing it. Dodwell was a scholar
and theologian of considerable European stature in the early part
of the eighteenth century. It is noteworthy that William Warbur-
ton speaks of him and of Toland as 'two Hibernians, the heroes of
their several parties.' * The anti-dualistic accounts of mind offered
by Dodwell and Browne are, in many respects, in advance of their
time. Yet although the theories were progressive, their end or pur-
pose was traditional, even reactionary. By arguing that the mind
neither is nor can be known to be immaterial, or naturally immor-
tal, they hoped to force theologians to return to Scriptural and
fideistic ideas of the afterlife.
Thus Browne's sensationalism provides the philosophical
justification for the negative side of theological representational-
ism - its denial that we can literally understand things divine
and supernatural. In his Sermon, King develops the pragmatic
aspect of the representationalist model, as well as providing the
most succinct and articulate statement of theological representa-
tionalism itself. Synge's contribution — the slightest of the three —
is his collateral experiment which helps to knit together the
approaches of Browne and King as well as a specific application
of the model to the Trinity. In this way did the three prelates inge-
niously argue, against Toland (and perhaps Emlyn), that Chris-
tianity was indeed mysterious, and that it was reasonable to hold
that it was.
5 Berkeley
The most formidable opponent of theological representational-

ism was another Irish bishop, namely Berkeley, who was well
acquainted with the triumvirate: King, Browne and Synge. Berke-
ley first expressed his disapproval of the theory (in its Kingian
form) in a private letter of 1709, and then publicly in Alciphron,
or the Minute Philosopher (London, 1732), IV. 16—22. Believing
(wrongly, I think) that Berkeley's criticisms were aimed at him,
Browne responded in the long and often harsh eighth chapter of
Things Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Natural
Things and Human (London, 1733); to which Berkeley replied in a
restrained but forceful letter which was sent to Browne 'soon after
14
the publication of his Divine Analogy\
Berkeley's firm and persistent criticism of theological represen-
tationalism is not at all surprising, although it may appear so to
those who accept the popular image of him as a philosopher who
was strong-minded against the material world, but weak-minded
about the spiritual world. He opposed representationalism in its
materialistic form in his masterpiece, The Principles of Human
Knowledge (Dublin, 1710), for essentially the same reasons as
those which led him to attack it in its theological form. For the prel-
atal triumvirate had assigned to God the same epistemological
position to which Berkeley endeavoured to assign matter. Thus,
our (supposedly representative) notions either do or do not resem-
ble their objects. If they do, then they give us proper knowledge of
God. If they do not, then it is contradictory to say that the one is
like the other. There is, Berkeley urges, no third possibility, no
medium between likeness and non-likeness. As Berkeley saw it,
the prelates had 'protected' God's mysterious nature from attack
by transforming Him into an unintelligible being. Their theory
amounted to saying that God is an 'unknown subject of Attributes
absolutely unknown* (Alciphron IV. 17), a position which is hardly
very different from that into which he had driven the materialists
in Principles, section 77, where matter is shown to be 'an unknown
support of unknown qualities'.
I am not claiming that Berkeley came to his immaterialism (or
sensationalism applied to the physical world) by way of reaction to
the writings of Browne, King or Synge. The main influences here,
it is generally agreed, are Locke, Malebranche and Descartes. Yet
it is, I think, worth bearing in mind that in the formative years
(c. 1707) when Berkeley was working out his immaterialist episte-
mology the most prominent philosophical writers in his vicinity
were committed representationalists. Browne was his provost,
King his archbishop, and Synge the father of a friend. (We know
that Berkeley read and commented upon King's De Origine Mali
(London, 1702) and that he added an Appendix to his New
Theory of Vision (Dublin, 1709) to meet certain of King's objec-
tions.) Thus it is not out of the question that his concerted opposi-
tion to materialistic representationalism was, in some measure,
influenced by Browne, Synge or King. And his positive account of
mind as a purely immaterial and naturally immortal substance
may also have been reached, at least partly, by way of reaction to
Browne, Dodwell and King; see especially Principles', sections 141
and 144.
6 Materialism not mysterious f

One way that Berkeley can be seen to be answering Toland's chal-
lenge concerns the real essence of physical things. Whereas for
Locke and Toland as well as Browne and King, physical things
have a real essence that we don't know; for Berkeley physical
things have no real essence, since they are only appearances, only
ideas. This, in other words, is Berkeley's main contribution to phi-
losophy, namely, his immaterialism, according to which lesse is
percipi\ the being of physical things consists in being perceived
(Principles, sect. 3). In effect, then, immaterialism undermines
Toland's second philosophical support, since Toland would no
longer be in a position to argue, by parity of reasoning, that the
afterlife, for example, is no more mysterious than a blade of grass.
For if immaterialism is true, a blade of grass has no inner constitu-
16
tion; it is only what is perceived — its green colour, shape, etc.
In this respect, Berkeley can be seen as going further in the process
of demystification than Toland, for what Berkeley is saying is that
material things are utterly non-mysterious, since matter has no
inner, hidden nature, no cognitive dark spots.
Here, too, a caveat is in order. In offering this latter interpreta-
tion, we are not claiming that it captures how Berkeley actually
moved to immaterialism. That would require a textual examina-
tion that is beyond the scope of this essay. However, it is worth
mentioning that when the young scholar Berkeley was discovering
and working out his immaterialism at Trinity College, around the
years 1706 to 1708, his provost was Browne, whose reputation was
based on his 1697 Letter against Toland. 18
For Berkeley, then, Toland and Browne were both fundamen-
tally wrong. They were both locked into the same false presuppo-
sitions, especially concerning real and nominal essence. Berkeley's
strategy, we suggest, was to attack their common Lockean core,
while preserving what was valuable in the two positions. Toland
vanquishes mysteries, either as meaningless or non-pragmatic.
Browne and King think that there are mysteries, indeed that vir-
tually all religion is intractably mysterious (at least in this life),
and that the best approach is to use pragmatic representations
(King) or analogies drawn from Revelation (Browne) to grasp
them. Berkeley agrees with Browne and King that there are mys-
teries, but not that all our understanding of God is mysterious.
Here he is closer to Synge, who though a theological representa-
tionalist with regard to mysteries, such as the Holy Trinity, did
not extend it (as Browne and King did) to our entire understand-
ing of God - as, for example, to His wisdom and justice.
7 Emotive mysteries
What was Berkeley's distinctive answer to Toland's challenge that

Christianity is not mysterious? How, in short, does he explain reli-
gious mysteries? Here, too, I shall argue that the best way of
appreciating Berkeley's position is to see it as mediating between
the left-wing Lockeanism of Toland and Emlyn and the right-
wing Lockeanism of Browne and King. Whereas the latter had
converted all knowledge of God into representational knowledge
(ultimately, for Berkeley, into no knowledge), the former had
assimilated and transformed all religion into rational theology.
So for King, God's wisdom became mysterious, and for Toland,
God's incarnation became scientific. As a committed Christian,
Berkeley of course agreed with the bishops that Christianity was
meaningfully mysterious, but he was not prepared to treat all talk
of God as mysterious. For this would lead, he urged, to atheism -
a position which King and Browne did not really take seriously.
To use Swift's image in the Tale of a Tub (London, 1704): it was
feasible that some should be overdressed (Roman Catholics), and
others underdressed (Dissenters), but it was not feasible that some
should go naked (be atheists). Berkeley, however, was strong-
minded enough to see that both atheism and immaterialism were
feasible (although the former was, in his view, false). But if theolo-
gical representationalism is accepted, then, he believes, it will logi-
cally end in atheism; just as the acceptance of materialistic
representationalism truly led, as he argued in the Principles, to
immaterialism.
Now a fundamental assumption of both sides in the mysteries
dispute - among the left- as well as among the right-wing Lock-
cans - was that the cognitive is the only legitimate kind of mean-
ing. This assumption Berkeley brilliantly criticizes in section 20 of
the Introduction to the Principles:
,.. the communicating of ideas marked by words is not the chief

and only end of language, as is commonly supposed. There are
other ends, as the raising of some passion, the exciting to, or
deterring from an action, the putting the mind in some particu-
lar disposition . . . I entreat the reader to reflect with himself,
and see if it does not oft happen either in hearing or reading a
discourse, that the passions of fear, love, hatred . . . arise imme-
diately in his mind upon the perception of certain words, with-
out any ideas coming between . . . May we not, for example, be
affected with the promise of a. good thing, tho' we have not an idea
of what it is?
In Alciphron VII. 5—16 Berkeley restated and applied this insight to

theology. Mysteries, he maintained, are to be understood emotive-
ly.8 Talk of the Holy Trinity, for example, is designed to foster feel-
ings or dispositions of piety, devotion and awe; it is not meant to
communicate ideas or to describe.19 Thus Berkeley reinterprets
the traditional division between rational theology and mysterious
or revealed religion as the distinction between cognitive state-
ments (which are informative) and emotive utterances (which
are not). Faith, therefore, is not as Emlyn claimed, an 'act of
the understanding'; it is an emotional act. But neither is God's
wisdom unknowable in itself, as Browne had argued. We know
that God is wise, according to Berkeley, in the same way as we

know that our fellow humans are wise: by an analogical inference
from their associated sensible effects. For just as orderly human
effects imply a human mind, so the infinite orderliness of nature
implies an infinite, divine mind. And this Mind is required to
both cause and perceive the sensible ideas; for as they are entirely
inert, they could not exist without a mind to produce and sustain
them. Nor does the crucial fact of language distinguish our knowl-
edge of human minds from our knowledge of the divine mind. For
God, too, Berkeley argues, speaks a language: vision being a
system of conventional signs which help us to grasp the tactile
world (see especially Alciphron IV. 3-15). In this way did Berkeley
answer Toland by mediating and synthesizing left- and right-
Lockeanism; thus he accepts the rationalism of the former in the
area of rational theology, and the pragmatism of the latter in mys-
terious religion. 20
^ $ *
Clearly there is a great deal more that might be said about

Berkeley, but I have focused on his place in the fabric of Irish phi-
losophy. With Berkeley's works of the 1730s the most creative
period may be said to end. In the 1740s or 1750s we find nothing
as inventive as Browne's sensationalism, or Berkeley's immaterial-
ism and emotivism. Yet the culmination of Hibernian philosophy
in the 1740s and 1750s was, as I hope to show, attended with
exciting developments, particularly in the splendid synthesis of
Edmund Burke.
Notes
a. This essay was first published in the Archivfur Geschichte der Philosophic in
1982.
1. Proceedings of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophy Society (1923),
pp. 4-26.
b. Since the original publication of this essay in 1982 a number of works

have been published on Irish philosophy, most recently A Dictionary of
Irish Philosophers (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004) edited by
Thomas Buddy, who has also published A History of Irish Thought
(London: Routledge, 2002). For other publications on Irish philosophy
since 1982, see Chapter 7, below, note 10.
2. In An Essay on the Ancient and Modern State of Ireland (Dublin, 1760), the
anonymous writer states that 'The Newtonian Philosophy; the excellent
Boyle's experimental Philosophy, and Mr. Locke's metaphysics, prevail
much in the college of Dublin . . .' (p. 62). For literary evidence of the
importance of Locke's Essay at Trinity College, see Thomas Amory,
The Life of John Buncle (London, 1770), pp. 67-8.
3. The Works of John Locke (9th edn London, 1794), vol. viii, pp. 298-9.
c. See the following chapter, 'The Culmination and Causation of Irish Phi-
losophy', section 3.
d. Works of Alexander Pope, ed. William Warburton (London, 1757),
vol. 3, p. 32.
4. Works of Locke, vol. viii, p. 421.
5. John Toland, An Apology for Mr. Toland, in a Letterfrom Himself. .. to which
is Prefixed a Narrative (London, 1697).
6. The Works of Air. Thomas Emlyn (London, 1746); see Memoirs of Emlyn,
in vol. 1, p. 29; also see pp. 30-9.
7. Faith Distinguished from Reason (n.p., 1716), pp. 48-9; Browne was attack-
ing Synge's Plain and Easy Method (Dublin, 1715), sects xxxiii-xlvi.
8. Gentleman's Religion: in three parts . . . (6th edn, Dublin, 1730), especially
pp. 229-31.
9. See my 'Francis Hutcheson on Berkeley and the Molyneux problem', Pro -
ceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 74, sect. C, no. 8 (1974), pp. 259-65.
10. The Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained (London, 1733), sect. 6.
With regard to religious mystery, however, we are in a position similar
to Molyneux's blind man, according to Berkeley; for we cannot under-
stand what the signs mean: they are like words 'wholly new or unknown'
(sect. 45); see below, section 5. The metaphor of the man born blind was
also at the centre of a theological debate between Thomas Emlyn and
Charles Leslie; see especially Emlyn's Vindication of the Remarks upon
Mr. Cha. Leslie's First Dialogue on Socinianism (c. 1707), p. 13, and Leslie's
Reply to the Vindication (London, 1708), pp. 4-8.
e. Thus in a revealing letter to Henry Dodwell, the elder, dated January
1710, King writes: T did expect that the Deists and Socinians would be
alarmed at the [ 1709] Sermon, for it seemed to me to take away the foun-
dations of their objections against the mysteries of religion ...'; Trinity
College Dublin, ms. no. 2531.
11. See my Introduction to Archbishop King's Sermon on Predestination (Dublin,
1976). Much of the following section is taken from this Introduction.
12. See King's letter to Dodwell of 17 August 1709, Trinity College Dublin,
ms. no. 2531. King, I should note, strongly disapproved of DodwelPs
book on immortality; although Dodwell expressed a high regard for
King's 1709 Sermon. On Browne and Dodwell, see A. R. Winnett, Peter
Browne: Provost,Bishop, Metaphysician (London, 1974), p. 220, note 25.
13. The Divine Legation of Moses (3rd edn, London, 1742), vol. 1, p. 8. In his
Diary of 1711, Thomas Hearne wrote of 'the great' Mr. Dodwell:
T take him to be the greatest scholar in Europe when he died ...',
Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne, ed. C. E. Doble (Oxford, 1889),
vol. 3, p. 176.
14. A Literary Journal ed. J.-P. Droz (Dublin, 1745), vol. 2, pt. 1,
pp. 153-67. The letter is reprinted in Mind (July 1969), pp. 385-92,
with an introduction by A. A. Luce, J.-P. Pittion and D. Berman,
pp. 375-85.
15. For a detailed discussion of the similarities between Berkeley's criticism
of material and theological representationalism, see my George Berkeley:
Idealism and the Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), chap. 6.
f. This section is taken from the Introduction by D. Berman and
P. O'Riordan to The Irish Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment (Bristol:
Thoemmes Press, 2002), pp. xvi—xvii.
16. See Berkeley's Philosophical Commentaries, no. 34: 'Extension it self or any-
thing extended cannot think these being meer ideas or sensations whose
essence we thoroughly know' (emphasis added).
17. We don't know exactly when or how Berkeley first came to the theory
that matter does not exist. In his Philosophical Commentaries, c. 1707—8,
our most relevant extant document, the theory seems already to have
been reached by entry 19, where he speaks of'ye immaterial hypoth-
esis'. One early suggestion, offered by James Oswald in 1766, was that
'It is probable, that the disproving the reality of matter, was first enter-
tained by the Bishop of Cloyne, in the gayety of his heart, and with a view
to burlesque the refinements of infidels' (An Appeal to Common Sense in
Behalf of Religion, vol. 1, p. 96). Now one way of developing Oswald's
suggestion is to imagine that Berkeley's original idea was to write a
work with something like the title Materialism not Mysterious, which was
meant to go further than Toland, in the way typical of satires in the

Swiftean mode, but that in the course of working it out, Berkeley actu-
ally became convinced by it.
18. About Browne, Swift wrote: 'you must flatter him monstrously upon his
learning and his writings; that you have read his book against Toland a
hundred times'. Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, ed. Harold Williams
(Oxford, 1963), vol. Ill, p. 66.
g. For an examination of how Berkeley first reached this position, see my
George Berkeley: Idealism and the Man, chap. 1.
19. See my 'Cognitive theology and emotive mysteries in Berkeley's Alci-
phrorf, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 81, sect. C (1981),
pp. 223-7.
20. There are also instructive points of agreement in the wider philosophical
positions of Berkeley and Browne, the most striking of which is their
remarkably similar attacks on the received Lockean theory of abstrac-
tion. Berkeley's critique of abstraction is to be found in the Introduction
(sects 6-20) to the Principles, Browne's is in the Procedure, Bk. II, chap. 4.
Both men also employ the empiricist familiarity argument to defend free
will; here Browne precedes Berkeley; see Procedure, pp. 226—7 and Alci-
phronV11.2l-2.
4
The Culmination and Causation of Irish Philosophy'
The two main forces in Irish philosophy, as I have argued in the

previous chapter, were those of the Enlightenment and Counter-
Enlightenment, or left- and right-wing Lockeanism. Having
exhibited the genesis of these opposing forces, most notably in the
thought of Toland and Browne as well as in Berkeley's masterly
via media, I shall now consider their culmination.
1 Later rationalism
After Thomas Emlyn's incarceration in 1704 there seems to have

been little or no freethought in Ireland until the 1720s, when it
revives with the Molesworth Circle. The most important joint pro-
duction of this group, which included James Duncan, Francis
Hutcheson, James Arbuckle and Edward Synge the younger, is
the collection of essays and letters originally published in the
Dublin Journal in 1726, and reprinted by James Arbuckle in A Col-
lection of Letters and Essays (London, 1729). Here we find numerous
Spectator-like essays on ethics, politics, aesthetics, manners, reli-
gion, written in the Shaftesburian spirit and manner, reflecting
his moderate anti-clericalism and sympathy for natural religion
and religious toleration - in short, Enlightenment values.
Earlier in the 1720s, the leading figure of the group, Molesworth,
issued a pamphlet Some Considerations for the Promoting of Agriculture
and Employing the Poor (Dublin, 1723), which may be taken as repre-
sentative of the views of the Circle. His sympathy for liberty and
latitude in religion is apparent; thus he remarks: 'to expect to have
a numerous people, without allowing the exercise of a religion, is
Culmination and Causation 107
both tyrannical and unpolitick ...' (p. 30). He proposes schools for
teaching agriculture, but notes that 'In these schools, I would not
have any precepts, differences or distinctions of religion taken
notice of, and nothing taught, but only husbandry and good man-
ners, and . . . the children should daily serve God, according to their
own religions . . . ' (p. 31). Molesworth was a cautious man in print,
and we are entitled, I think, to believe that the friend and patron of
Toland would have been happy to apply the principles of his agri-
cultural school to society at large. The conversation of the Moles-
worth Circle is bound to have been more radical than its published
utterances. Yet even these were warmly attacked, as we can see
from the reception given to Edward Synge's 1725 Sermon The
Case of Toleration Considered with Respect both to Religion and Civil Govern-
ment (Dublin) which advocated a very limited toleration. The
orthodox reacted so violently against it that, apart from a 1726 Vin-
dication of his position, Synge refrained from any further liberal pro-
nouncements. Not surprisingly, his Sermon was defended by a
member of the Circle in the Dublin Journal of 29 October 1726. Syn-
ge's unexpressed views were, as we are told, very close to those of
Francis Hutcheson, the most important philosophical member of
the Circle. Hutcheson, a son of Irish philosophy who left Ireland
around 1730 to become father of Scottish philosophy, wrote and
published most of his notable philosophical works while he was
teaching in a Dissenting Academy in Dublin in the 1720s. He also
published in Arbuckle's Collection three essays attacking Mandevil-
le's Fable of the Bees (2nd edn, 1723) as well as three essays on laugh-
ter. (As Hutcheson's distinctive views are in the area of ethics and
aesthetics, they will be discussed below in section 4.)
Between the demise of the Molesworth Circle in the late 1720s
and the last notable effort of Irish freethought with Robert Clay-
ton in the 1750s, one finds almost no published freethought or
left-wing Lockeanism in Ireland. There is, however, much rumour
of extreme freethinkers, even of atheists. Thus in a curious book by
Wetenhall Wilkes we find an intriguing account of an alleged
atheist, called J--h T--r, and his 'dissolute associates', who are said
to have been active around 1729. It is interesting that two of these
'gentlemen', according to Wilkes, 'had taken their degrees in the
College of Dublin', since Lord Orrery, writing in the late 1740s,
also tells of Trinity freethinkers and atheists:
Blasphemy reigns triumphantly at Dublin College . . . One
young gentleman is banished from the Society, two or three
more are admonished. Some have publicly denied the belief of
Jesus Christ, others have abjured the being of a God: but pru-
dence, or want of sufficient testimony against the offenders, has
Q
hindered any violent proceedings upon the occasion.

Even more elusive is the so-called 'impious society of Blasters',
who created a stir in the late 1730s, and provoked Berkeley's one
appearance in the Irish House of Lords as well as his Discourse
Addressed to the Magistrates (Dublin, 1738).
It seems clear that most of those described and alluded to by
Orrery, Berkeley and (perhaps) Wilkes were less theoretical free-
thinkers than libertines and blasphemers, and their groups more
Hell-fire clubs than freethinking debating societies. However, it is
certainly likely that there were strong-minded Irish infidels in the
1730s and 1740s who were too prudent to put their freethought
into print; and there are even a few very mildly deistic letters in
A Literary Journal (Dublin), between 1746 and 1749. Irish free-
thinking was timid and slight when compared with that in Eng-
land, Scotland and France; but there was plainly a continuing
spectre of freethought which frightened Irish philosophers into
producing some of the most inventive and weighty defences of reli-
gion published in the eighteenth century.
Robert Clayton may be called the Irish counterpart of Benja-
min Hoadly, a man whom Leslie Stephen has aptly described
as 'the best-hated clergyman of the [18th] century amongst his
own order. [He is, Stephen continues, like] a trade-unionist who
should defend the masters, or a country squire who should protect
poachers' (English Thought X. 27). As Hoadly was an English
bishop writing against sacerdotal power, so Clayton was an Irish
bishop writing against orthodoxy. When his Essay on Spirit (1750)
was first published, Clayton held one of the richest bishoprics in
Ireland, that of Clogher, and he had been an Irish bishop for
nearly thirty years. This may partly explain the furious reaction
to the Essay, which advocated substantial changes in the Thirty-
nine Articles of subscription.
The Essay was originally printed in a small edition of about
thirty copies, each of which was sent to a fellow bishop or leading
A
Irish statesman. In the Essay Clayton advances a curious theory

of spirits. He accepts the dualism of active mind or spirit and pas-
sive body or matter. In his view every piece of matter has — united
to it - a spirit, which governs and effects its movements. This fol-
lows because 'nothing can act where it is not, [hence] that power
whereby any body continues in [or resists] motion is ... the effect
of some concomitant spirit'. The degree of intelligence and power
of a spirit depends, it would seem, on the kind of material system to
which it is united. It is even possible, Clayton thinks, that all the
innumerable created spirits are 'equally perfect'. The difference in
their actual degree of intellect and power may only be the result of
the particular 'formation of their bodily organs'. But, although it is
possible that the spirit associated with a speck of dust is as perfect
as that of a man or angel, it is certain that not even God can 'pro-
duce any being, equal in power to, or independent on, himself;
because two All-powerful, two Supremes, would imply a Contra-
diction.' (sect. XXVIII).
I have called Clayton's system a pluralistic version of occasion-
alism, because like the occasionalist writers, Clayton makes much
of our (supposed) total ignorance of how our bodily organs move
(see sect. XXIII). However, his imaginative metaphysical system
was probably of less importance to him than his Arian conclusions
and his plea for religious toleration, a plea that is eloquently made
in the Essay's long Dedication to the Primate of Ireland.
Irish left-wing Lockeanism culminates in Clayton, and there is

much that is admirable in him - e.g. his broad range of interests,
his intellectual honesty and (what may be called) his ecumenism.
Thus he wrote pamphlets in a tolerant and reconciliatory spirit,
not only to those of his own Church, but to the Quakers, Jews
and Roman Catholics. But there is also much that is half-hearted
and unoriginal in him. He embraces Toland's rationalism, Emlyn's
Arianism, and the polished aestheticism and toleration of the
Molesworth Circle; yet he also clings to some of the weakest and
most naive parts of Revelation. With Clayton we have the impres-
sion (in more than one way) of history's repeating itself, and there
is a sense (as Marx has put it) of tragi-comedy in such repetitions:
the new Toland is no brilliant enfant terrible but a wealthy bon vivant,
perhaps grown bored with too much comfort. The Clayton con-
troversy strongly recalls the two earlier heresy hunts - of Toland
and of Emlyn. As the victims were becoming more and more
respectable, they were also suffering more acutely. Dublin zeal
frightened Toland, imprisoned Emlyn and killed Clayton.
In 1756 [as Stephen reports] Clayton tried to carry his princi-

ples into effect by moving in the Irish House of Lords for an
omission of the Athanasian and Nicene Creeds from the Liturgy
of the Church of Ireland. 5 ... a prosecution was commenced
against him in 1757. A meeting of the Irish prelates was sum-
moned; but before the appointed time he died of a nervous
fever; his illness being universally attributed to the excitement
by the prosecution.6
Clayton's rationalism comes out clearly in his 1753-6 defences

of the Essay, and especially in (1) his employment of an equiv-
alent to Toland's 'Blictri' and (2) his stand against theological
representationalism. (1) In his Vindication ... of the Old and Mew Tes-
tament (pt. Ill, Dublin, 1757), against Bolingbroke Clayton intro-
duced the nonsense word 'Abdolubeden', telling us that if an
Culmination and Causation Ill
accredited angel informed us that there was an Abdolubeden in
Heaven, we should believe that the angel said it and that it is so,
'but our belief cannot reach the mystery any more than our knowl-
edge can' (pp. 23-6). Talk of mysteries above our reason, or of
Abdolubeden, is like talk of absolute secrets, Clayton acutely
remarks. And 'while anything continues to be an absolute secret,
it is impossible for any one to believe anything about it' (p. 26). (2)
One of Clayton's many critics was Thomas McDonnell, formerly a
Fellow of Trinity College (1737) and then Rector of Derryvullen
(1744), a parish in Clayton's own diocese of Clogher. In two
pamphlets McDonnell sought to defend the Athanasian doctrine
of the Trinity against Clayton by means of theological representa-
tionalism. Clayton replied in Some Remarks on McDonnell's Essay
..., published in the year of Berkeley's death; and in some respects
his criticisms are similar to Berkeley's (see pp. 39-45). But Berke-
ley by no means approved of his old friend and former associate in
the Bermuda project; for in a letter to McDonnell (his last extant),
he speaks of'the weakness and presumption' of the Essay. In his
Essay (sect. IX) Clayton had mildly criticized Berkeley's Siris
(1744), as well as distinguishing his own pluralistic version of occa-
sionalism from what he took to be Berkeley's monistic position
(sect. I). The philosophical connection between Clayton and Ber-
keley is of some literary interest, since for his notorious novel Chry-
sal: or, the Adventures of a Guinea (London, 1762), Charles Johnston
quotes and uses the theories in Clayton's Essay and Berkeley's Siris
as scaffolding. There is a spirit associated with the bit of gold that
becomes a guinea, is passed from person to person, and narrates his
(sometimes blasphemous) experiences.
2 Later theological representationalism
Clayton opposed the theological representationalism of McDon-

nell, rightly seeing it as a threat to rational religion. He also
seems to have been aware that in the 1740s and 1750s a school of
theological representationalism had developed which was inspired
by Browne's sensationalism. For in his Some Thoughts on Self-love
(Dublin, 1753), Clayton writes that
. . . some late Writers* had asserted that we have no ideas but of

sensible objects, which alone are capable of making any impres-
sions on our minds . . .
* Brown on the Procedure, Extent, and Limits of human Understand-
ing. And from him the Authors of the Natural State of Man', and of
Deism revealed, (p. 9)
The author of An Enquiry into the Natural State of Man (Dublin,

1743), was William Thompson, who dedicated his handsomely
printed but rather dull book to the Provost and Fellows of Trinity
College. Thompson himself had been a Fellow (1713) and Arch-
bishop King Lecturer (1728), before becoming Rector of Aghal-
wicker in 1729. Clayton certainly knew of Thompson's book,
since from the List of Subscribers it appears that he ordered ten
copies. (Clayton was a generous patron of Irish printed books.)
Thompson's allegiance to Browne's theological representational-
ism is most noticeable in the Introduction, which contains a
number of sensationalist dicta: e.g. 'all human knowledge is origin-
ally derived from sensation ...' and 'what, therefore, are usually
called ideas of reflection, can only, if they mean anything, be
reflex acts of the intellect upon ideas of sensation ...'.
Of considerably more interest is Philip Skelton, the author of
Ophiomaches: or Deism Revealed (London, 1749), who like McDon-
nell, held a living in Clayton's diocese of Clogher. Apart from his
many theological tracts, Skelton also wrote works of more general
literary interest. Although he was not an original thinker, he was a
vigorous, independent writer, and, at the same time, somehow
representative of the right-wing Irish philosopher. Skelton had
not always been unreservedly partial to Browne. As a relatively
young man, in 1733, he issued A Letter to the Authors ofAlciphron and
Divine Analogy (Dublin) in the guise of an old soldier, attempting to
conciliate the dispute between Berkeley and Browne in the inter-
ests of Christian solidarity against the infidel enemy. When he
wrote Ophiomaches, however, he had firmly committed himself to
the author of the Divine Analogy. His endorsement of Browne's sen-
sationalism and theological representationalism is typical of his
confident and peremptory manner:
It is vain to say we have any proper or immediate idea of

spirit, and its operations, or that we have any other source
of notions than sensation. If Brown's [sic] Procedure and Extent
of the understanding had not clearly demonstrated this, the trials
every man may make in his own mind would do it effectually.
When we look into ourselves with a sharp and unprejudiced
eye, we plainly perceive spirit represented there analogically
by our idea of subtil matter, its operations by those of body . . .
(vol. l,p.83)
In the British Library there is a copy of Skelton's collected works

(1824), which were formerly owned by S. T. Coleridge. On the
blank page opposite the title-page of volume one, Coleridge has
written the following perceptive character-sketch of Skelton (and
perhaps of Irish right-wing Lockeanism in general): 'By the bye,
the Rev. Phil. Skelton is of the true Irish Breed - i.e. a brave
fellow but a Bit of a Bully. "E.g. by Patrick but I shall make cold
mutton of you, Mister Arian".'
Skelton employs theological representationalism in an interest-
ing little pamphlet entitled The Censor Censured (Dublin, 1750,
p. 14), in which he defends his Ophiomaches against a critical
review by the editor of A Literary Journal (Dublin, 1749, vol. 5,
pt. 2, art. 3), John Peter Droz, a moderate left-winger, who pub-
lished the first limited edition of Clayton's Essay in 1750. On the
whole, Skelton accepts theological representationalism without
bothering to justify it; but he is blunter in his use of it, e.g. on

the question of the immortality of the soul. Theologians like
Samuel Clarke and Berkeley had laboured to prove that because
the soul is immaterial and indivisible, it is therefore impossible
to conceive its dissolution. Skelton on the other hand, uses theolo-
gical representationalism to argue that the soul may (in some
way inconceivable to us) dissolve. In this he is aligning himself
with the earlier Dodwellian position; but he also comes danger-
ously close to the freethinking position of those like Anthony
Collins and David Hume who effectively denied immortality alto-
gether. Here extreme right-wing fideism meets extreme left-wing
scepticism.
This is even more apparent in the case of John Ellis, a Dublin
clergyman, who may be called the Irish fideistic Hume. In his
Knowledge of Divine Things from Revelation and not from Reason or
Mature (London, 1743), Ellis pushes theological representational-
ism to its boldest and most logical conclusion. Like Browne, he is a
rigorous sensationalist with regard to the mind: 'our senses ... are
the entire ground-work of our knowledge both human and divine'
(p. 86). But his main influence is Locke, whom he takes to be the
greatest philosophical authority. At the centre of Ellis's thought is
a linguistic argument for the truth of Relevation and the God of
Revelation. The argument moves as follows:
(1) There is no natural way in which we could come to a

knowledge of God or things spiritual. Ellis carefully goes
through such sources as (a) innate ideas, which he rejects on
Lockean lines, (b) instinct, (c) sensation, (d) ideas of reflec-
tion and (e) reason. Because we have only sensationalist
knowledge we could never naturally come to 'a notion of an
immaterial object' (p. 300). Reason can or would never have
suggested that the world was created, 'because the inter-
mediate relations between a created effect and a creative
cause, are no way apparent or discernible by us ...' (p. 99).
We cannot move from a creature to creator because they
'are infinitely distant'.
(2) But it is plainly the case that we do know of God and things
spiritual.
(3) But if we could not have come by this knowledge naturally,
then we must have derived it supernaturally, i.e. from Reve-
lation. Ellis ingeniously drives his point home with an (often)
acute examination of the question of how man first learned
language. He takes it that 'we cannot think but by the help
of language' (p. 105). But without language, he maintains,
we could not think. 'It is by the help of words, at least in
great measure, that we even reason and discourse within
ourselves ...' (p. 106). Therefore language could not have
developed naturally. Just as language is imparted by parents
and teachers, so man must have been taught language super-
naturally at the beginning, and this is indeed confirmed by
the book of Genesis, where we learn that God instructed
Adam and Eve in language. Therefore the God of Revela-
stion exists.
-+-10
This may appear a crude argument (and in some respects it is), but
Ellis's keen grasp of the alternatives catapults him from the
Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. For example, he writes:
Man could not of himself have discovered the knowledge of
fixing sounds to signify objects, ideas, or conceptions, so as to
be signs... Or, if this were possible, ... it must have been the
work of many ages, during which time man had been neither
an intelligent nor sociable creature, and so sent into the world
to no purpose . . . (p. 104)
Thus ' . . . men without language would be a species of apes, than

rational creatures...' (p. 107).
There is a comparison to be drawn between Ellis's linguistic
argument for the existence of God and that of Berkeley. Both
make use of language for a theological conclusion; both see God as

talking, or having talked, to man; but whereas Berkeley's sophisti-
cated argument depends on an appreciation of the wide range of
meaning and language, Ellis's argument requires a narrow con-
ception of language. The two philosophers are worlds apart in
their method but united in their end. They are both anxious to jus-
tify belief in a God that is less distant and more personal than the
God of Deism. It is interesting to note that Berkeley's son George
became a follower of Ellis. 11
There is almost total agreement between Ellis and Skelton, not
merely in their commitment to theological representationalism,
but on its application to such matters as our knowledge of immor-
tality and the creation of the world. There was, I believe, a definite
school or movement of theological representationalists in Ireland
in the 1740s and 1750s. In addition to Skelton, Thompson, Ellis
1 C\
and McDonnell (already considered), I might mention an anon-

ymous writer on Analogy in the Dublin Supplement to Chamber's
Cyclopaedia (1753), who is sympathetic to King. And of the three
original proponents, Synge (who became Archbishop of Tuam in
1716), was still alive and still defending his version of theological
i O
representationalism in 1734. The vigour and popularity of the

school can be seen also in the statements of its critics. Thus a
writer in A Literary Journal (Dublin, 1745, vol. 2, pt. 1) speaks of
'the Dangers I apprehend to all religion, either natural or reveal'd,
if the Bishop's [Browne's] system of analogy should be received,
and from the intelligence I have ... it is by many industriously defended.'
(p. 146, my emphasis).
The fact of there being in the 1740s and 1750s a school of
theological representationalists grounded on sensationalism is
important both in itself and also for an appreciation of Edmund
Burke. Burke was a student at Trinity College in the 1740s and he
wrote his chief philosophical works in the late 1740s and early
1750s. I shall now briefly show that he also was sympathetic to
this dominant school; then in section 4 I shall consider how his
work on aesthetics is deeply indebted to this school of Trinity
College sensationalists.
Burke's commitment to theological representationalism can
be detected in his earliest work, the periodical paper called the
Reformer, published in 1747 and 1748 in thirteen numbers. Reli-
gion, he writes in no. 12 (14 April 1748), 'exceeds all systems of
philosophy . . . by fastening our thoughts on something indeed
past our comprehension, but not our hopes'1 (my emphasis). Like Skelton
and Ellis, Burke lashes the freethinkers and Deists (in no. 11, of
7 April 1748), whom he describes as 'a set of men not infrequent in
this city' (Dublin).
It is, however, in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas
of the Sublime and Beautifu(
logical allegiance to the School of Browne, King, Ellis and Skelton:
'the Scripture alone [he writes] can supply ideas answerable to the
15
Majesty of this subject'. Burke's use of the term 'answerable'
is important, in that along with 'represents' and 'analogy', it is the
favourite term of the theological representationalists.
3 A causal account of Irish philosophy

Why was there such a unique flowering of Irish philosophy
between 1696 and 1757? Why did it happen then, and not before
or after? No doubt this is a complex question, part of whose answer
will be that extraordinary individuals, like Toland, King, Browne,
Berkeley, Hutcheson and Burke, produce extraordinary results.
But I should like to propose a deeper and less facile answer, which
will at the same time add another dimension to our study.
Let us first briefly consider the political and economic back-
ground. By 1691 the Glorious Revolution had been concluded.
Irish Anglicans were thereby saved from the dominance of James
II and their Roman Catholic countrymen. The previous fifty
years had been stormy indeed. First the Irish Anglicans were
buffeted by the Roman Catholics during the 1641 Rebellion, then

by Cromwell and the Presbyterians, and again by the Roman
Catholics under Tyrconnell and James II. There was now to be a
period of political stability and calm, which would last for more
than a century.
Initially, at least, the Irish Anglicans were in an insecure and
precarious position. They were faced with a hostile dispossessed
majority, and a treaty (of Limerick) that did not seem to go far
enough in restricting the Catholic majority. The Presbyterians
also seemed a dangerous minority, as William III was known to
favour them.
Yet from this insecure position the Irish Anglicans developed a
remarkably successful modus operandi, whose foundation was the
Penal Legislation against both Catholics and Presbyterians. This
legislation, which came into being in the 1690s and 1700s, estab-
lished the Ascendancy, just as it repressed the two other religious
classes politically, economically and socially.
Consider now the birth of Irish philosophy in Toland. He was
christened Janus Junius, and appropriately enough, for his back-
ground posed a two-faced threat to the Ascendancy. Born a
Roman Catholic, he became a Dissenter at sixteen. But Toland's
most threatening face was shown in Christianity not Mysterious. His
attack on Christian mysteries and his defence of natural or deistic
religion represented a fundamental challenge to the Ascendancy
establishment. For if there were no Christian mysteries, then
there could be nothing to separate the rival Christian religions or
sects. And then there could be no basis for the Penal Laws. The
success of Deism or natural religion would be fatal to the Ascen-
dancy. Deism's belief in a few fundamental religious doctrines
and little or no ritual, and its emphasis on morality and toleration,
could hardly fail to soften or erode the Penal Code. At any rate,
historians have agreed that this is what did happen, but that it
happened late in the eighteenth century in Ireland. 'An attitude
of scepticism was fatal to the Penal Code'. 16 6 6 6 6 6 6m
If we suppose that Toland's deistic thinking represented a
threat to the material well-being of the Ascendancy, then we can
explain the fury unleashed against him. The same applies to the
persecution of Emlyn and Clayton. Dublin zeal was an expres-
sion of Dublin dominance and a reaction against the danger of
deistic and latitudinarian thinking. This also explains why Irish
philosophy is so massively and distinctively opposed to Deism:
why an Irish writer, John Leland, wrote the first extensive, critical
history of Deism, i.e. the View of the Principal Deistical Writers
(3 vols., London, 1754-7), and why Berkeley and Skelton also
composed in Alciphron and Ophiomaches encyclopaedic refutations
of Deism; and why one of the briefest, but most popular and
effective anti-Deistic works, A Short and Easy Method with the
Deists, wherein the certainty of the Christian Religion is demonstrated by
infallible proof from four rules ... (London, 1699) was written by
the Irish non-juror, Charles Leslie, who converted thereby the
notorious freethinker, Charles Gildon. There were also numer-
ous anti-deistical pamphlets by Irish writers of less philosophical
distinction, e.g. by Skelton's Trinity College tutor, Dean Patrick
Delany, and by William Doyle of Narraghmore, who wrote
against Thomas Woolston.
The picture I am painting is, it must be admitted, neither
attractive nor pleasant. But as Hegel has said: 'The history of
the world is not the theatre of happiness. Periods of happiness are
blank pages in it . . .'. The years 1696-1757 in Ireland were in
the history of philosophy very far from being blank pages, but they
must have been most unhappy years for the Roman Catholics and
Dissenters. (No doubt thinking of his fellow-Catholics, Eamonn
De Valera once described 'the eighteenth century [as] the most
terrible period that Ireland has ever known'. ) My thesis is that
much of Irish philosophy was an indirect expression and justifica-
tion of the Irish Anglican Ascendancy. The case of Archbishop
King is especially instructive. Seven years before King delivered
his 1709 Sermon he had published De Origine Mali, a work which
earned him considerable reputation, as it was criticized by Leibniz

and used by Pope for the Essay on Man. In his Preface to the English
translation (1739), Edmund Law published King's summary of
the treatise (pp. XVIII-XXIV). Two of King's principles for
explaining evil are of interest here:
(1) 'An equality of perfection in the creatures is impossible ...'

(p. XIX); therefore, even granting an all good and wise
God, it is not possible that everyone or thing can be in a
superior position. However, since there are a limited
number of superior positions in the great chain of being, this
does not cast doubt on God's justice or goodness.
(2) If man has lost a superior position, then it must have
been lost through some folly of the agent. One's fall is not
God's, but one's own, fault. God 'is not to be blamed for suf-
fering one to degrade himself by his own act ...' (p. XXII).
Therefore 'He that is in a less convenient situation has no
room for complaint ...' (p. XXIV). Consequently, to move
from a superior to an inferior position implies that one has
committed some folly. So King tried to justify the ways of
God to man, that is, to explain the existence of apparent
evil in a world said to be created by an all good and power-
ful God.
Now ten years earlier King had published another influ-

ential work called the State of the Protestants of Ireland (London,
1691). It, too, was a work of vindication. As King puts it in the
Conclusion:
[What has] moved me to say what I have said [is] that I might
vindicate ourselves [the Irish Anglicans] by speaking Truth in a
matter that so nearly concern'd us, both in our temporal and
eternal interest, (p. 239)
That is, the Irish Anglicans were justified in rebelling against
James II and justified, too, in trying to gain and then maintain a
superior position over the Roman Catholics.
Upon the whole, the Irish [Catholics] may justly blame them-
selves and their Idol, the Earl of Tyrconnel, as King James may
them both, for whatever they have, or shall suffer in the issue of
this matter, since it is apparent that the necessity was brought
about by them, that either they or we must be ruin'd. (p. 239)
In the course of his work, King details the acts of folly committed
by the Catholic supporters ofJames.
Either the Irish Catholics or the Irish Anglicans were going to
occupy the dominant position in Ireland. It could not be both.
Again, either James II or William III was to be King. This does
not detract from God's justice. The fact that a monarch was
deposed is a regrettable and an apparent evil, but it should not
reflect on God or His Protestant Church. And the fact that it is
William III and the Irish Anglicans who are in the superior posi-
tion implies that James and the Catholics have committed follies:
they deserved to change places. Thus the Origin of Evil provides the
theoretical framework for the State of the Protestants: the justification
for the justification of the Protestants.
As the Origin seeks to vindicate God's ways, so the State seeks
to vindicate the ways of the Protestants. But as the Origin provides
the basis for the State, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that its
origin was also ideological. That is, it was prompted in part as a
justification of the ruling elite in Ireland, of which King was to be
such a prominent member. King was indeed a bulwark of the
Ascendancy.
The Christian mysteries were needed by the Irish Anglicans to
divide, explain or (as some would say) mystify. I am not claiming,
however, that the Irish philosophers were clearly aware of this, or
that this genetic analysis in any way invalidates the truth of their
philosophical writings. It merely reveals the underlying cause or
occasion. Sometimes, in an impulsive writer like Skelton, the ideo-
logical motivation comes out in a most disarming manner.
Arguing against Droz's liberal and tolerant Christian position,
Skelton asks in the Censor Censured: 'If your latitude is allowed of,
why may not a Papist subscribe and take orders with us, as well
as a Socinian?' (p. 21). The unstated absurdity is 'Would not
your sort of latitudinarianism destroy our privileged position?'
I do not believe that Skelton actually thought, or clearly thought,
in these terms; rather it was at the very back of his mind and that of
the Ascendancy.
Perhaps the most suggestive and compelling evidence for my
genetic thesis is to be found in An Argument against Abolishing the
Christian Religion (London, 1711), where Swift gives as his last
reason that abolishing the Christian religion 'will be the readiest
course we can take to introduce Popery'. Swift suggests that the
freethinkers are really disguised 'Popish missionaries'. He men-
tions Matthew Tindal who was for a time a convert to Catholicism
and, not surprisingly, Toland 'the great Oracle of the Anti-Chris-
tians . . . an Irish Priest, [and], the son of an Irish Priest'. Not
only the biographies of freethinkers but also their 'reasoning'
shows that freethinking is bound to lead to Popery: 'For supposing
Christianity to be extinguished the People will never be at ease till
they find out some other Method of worship; which will as infall-
ibly produce Superstition, as this will end in Popery.'
It is difficult to say how seriously Swift took this conspiracy
theory. But the inner meaning of it should be clear. Deism or
freethought will, if it is successful, favour the Irish Catholics, by
undermining the privileged position of the Protestant Ascen-
dancy. In accordance with the then accepted idea of historical
causation the freethinkers are seen as intending, or aiming at,
a certain goal. But what goal? This perplexed Skelton, who
also believed that the freethinkers were really disguised Catholic
missionaries. In Ophiomaches he provides us with the most elaborate
account of the conspiracy theory. Since the freethinkers do not
seem to be aiming at any open end or purpose, their purpose
must be hidden: it must be conspiratorial. He then musters in
detail various kinds of circumstantial evidence, and most inge-
niously answers apparent difficulties in the theory (see vol. 2,
pp. 400—10). This conspiracy theory is even presented by Berkeley
(in Aldphron II. 26), whose account is more detailed than Swift's
but less so than Skelton's. It is plain from verbal parallels that he
was influenced by Swift. Thus, where Swift mentions 'the constant
practice of the Jesuits to send Emissaries, with instructions to
personate themselves members of the several prevailing sects
amongst us', Berkeley says that 'The Emissaries of Rome are
known to have personated several other sects, which from time to
18k mnknknkbk
time have sprung up amongst us ...'. A slighter and less conspir-
atorial version also appeared in an anonymous Dublin pamphlet
A Protestant's Address to the Protestants of Ireland (1757, p. 53). The
earliest statement, curiously, is given in An Apology for Mr, Toland.
Here the writer details the Irish campaign of vilification against
Toland around the time of his visit to Dublin in 1697:
At length comes from the North [of Ireland?] a finish'd

master of such [slavish or devious] politics, and he doubts
not but Mr. Toland after all is a Jesuit. But his Book utterly
destroys all the Principles of Popery and Superstition. That's noth-
ing; for Jesuits to unsettle us will preach against their own
Religion, (p. 14)
The same writer also notes that 'the last effort ... to blast him
[Toland], was to make him pass for a rigid Nonconformist' (p. 16).
Toland's Deism or freethought was, in a sense, the reconciliation
or cancellation of his being an 'Irish Priest' and a 'rigid Noncon-
formist'. The Irish Anglicans could happily tolerate one or the
other, but not both, and not Deism. Hence it is understandable
that Toland 'was dreaded in Ireland as a ... second Goliath' - as

P. Des Maizeaux put it in his 1726 memoir of Toland (p. XXII).
Whether or not Swift took his conspiracy theory from An Apology
for Mr. Toland, or from the Northerner, or whether he himself was
the Northerner, is not known. What we have is a fantastic theory
expressed at various times between 1698 and 1757 by at least three
writers of repute, all suggesting that the purpose and drift of
the writings of Toland and his followers were to advance the
cause of the Roman Catholics. In my opinion, the conspiracy
theory reveals as fantasy the very real fear of the ruling class that
freethought, as a tolerant, de-mystifying and counter-divisive
force, could insidiously undermine the privileged status of the
Ascendancy.
It would be wrong, however, to suggest that there are no diffi-
culties in this psycho-historical explanation. Thus it might be
asked why the Dissenters were so active in persecuting Toland
and Emlyn, since, according to our explanation, they stood to
gain little or nothing by such persecution. My brief and general
response to this is two-fold: (1) the Dissenters were afraid of being
associated with Toland, and so over-reacted against him in order
to show that he was not one of them, and (2) they were simply mys-
tified into accepting the authenticity of the distinctions by which
they were tyrannized; they were, to use Marx's metaphor, mysti-
fied into accepting the reality of the ideological chains that
restricted them.
With the Christian mysteries intact, the division between Angli-
can and Catholic, Anglican and Dissenter, could be maintained.
The Ascendancy did not wish to eliminate Irish Catholicism or
Presbyterianism, for '... the essential purpose of the penal laws
... was not to destroy Roman Catholicism, but to make sure that
its adherents were kept in a position of social, economic, and poli-
tical inferiority'.1 96j Then the Irish Anglicans could - to use Swift's
image in the Tale of a Tub - suffocate the Catholics and freeze the
Dissenters. Theological representationalism, supported by King's
pragmatism and Browne's sensationalism, provided a plausible
and coherent justification for Christian mysteries as did Berkeley's
emotive theory of language.
Swift seemed to remain aloof from these theological specula-
tions. He did, however, use his own admirable skills against free-
thought in his vigorous satire on Anthony Collins's Discourse of
Freethinking (London, 1713). Swift's lack of sympathy for theologi-
cal representationalism may be gathered from his remarks on
Browne and also, perhaps, from his comments on what I have
called the root metaphor of Irish philosophy, the blind man
trying to cope with visual shapes and colours. In Gulliver's Travels
(part III, chap. 5) Swift ridicules the idea that a blind man can
effectively deal with colours by means of touch or smell. 'There
was [in the Academy of Lagado] a man born blind, who had sev-
eral apprentices in his own condition; their employment was to
mix colours for painters, which their master taught them to distin-
guish by feeling and smelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find
them at that time not very perfect in their lessons . . . . Similarly in
the Memoirs ofScriblerus (written partly by Swift) the hero-pedant,
Martinus, is said to have 'first found out the Palpability of Colours',
and by the delicacy of his Touch, [he] could distinguish the differ-
ent Vibrations of the heterogeneous Rays of Light.' If Swift fol-
lowed Berkeley in regarding the colour ability of a blind man as a
touchstone for distinguishing the two opposed theological posi-
tions, then we may infer that he also sided with Berkeley against
King, Browne and Synge on our knowledge of God. Whether he
was sympathetic to Berkeley's emotive account of mysteries is not
clear, but there is some evidence in Gulliver's Travels III that he
shared Berkeley's opposition to the restrictive referential theory
of meaning - that a word is essentially a name which stands for a
particular idea, which is the full meaning of the word. Thus
another of the absurd Lagado projects was the 'leaving out of
verbs and participles, because, in reality, all things imaginable
are but nouns'. This noun-theory is developed at length by Locke
in Essay III, and was wholeheartedly accepted by nearly all theo-

logical representationalists, but it is rejected by Berkeley in his
emotive and operational theories of meaning. Another Irish philo-
sopher who followed Berkeley's non-restrictive theory of meaning,
and Swift's approach to the Deists, was Edmund Burke, to whom I
shall now turn. 0
4 Ethics and aesthetics
Burke's two most important philosophical works are A Vindication

of Natural Society: or a view of the miseries and evils arising to mankind from
every species of artificial society (London, 1756) and the even more
remarkable A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful; with an Introductory Discourse concerning Taste
(London, 1757). The later work was begun while Burke was still
in Ireland, and he published it at the precocious age of twenty-
seven. (Compare Toland and Berkeley, who published their great-
est works at twenty-six and twenty-five years, respectively.) The
Vindication and especially the Philosophical Enquiry should be
viewed, I shall argue, in the Irish context, as the culmination, if
not the consummation, of Hibernian philosophy. The Vindication
was meant to be taken as a posthumous work of Lord Bolingbro-
ke's. Its apparent thesis is that the natural state of man is virtuous
and that government is a corrupting force. Burke's satire is at least
two-sided, in that it is directed not only at the political doctrine
that exalted natural man, but also at the deistic doctrine that
exalted natural religion. Both the form and content of the satire
are similar to Swift's Mr. Collins's Discourse ... put into plain English
by way of Abstract for the Use of the Poor (London, 1713). Both Swift
and Burke speak as if freethinkers and in the words, or the alleged
words, of their real antagonists, in order to crystallize the sophistry
and weakness of the originals. The irony in both is at times
exquisite. Compare, for example, the way that Collins opens his
Discourse of Freethinking with Swift's parody: 'Apologys for self-
evident truths can never have any effect on those who have so little
sense as to deny them? (Collins). 'I send you this apology for free-
thinking, without the least hopes of doing good, but purely to
comply with your request; For those truths which nobody can
deny, will do no good to those who deny them.' (Swift).
In one way, Burke seems to take irony one step further than
Swift. For he ironically has Bolingbroke ironically denying the
actual purpose and drift of his reasoning:
. . . far am I from proposing in the least to reflect on our most

wise Form of Government; no more than I would in the freer
Parts of my philosophical Writings, mean to object to the
Piety, Truth, and Perfection of our most excellent Church.
Both I am sensible have their Foundations on a Rock. No Dis-
covery of Truth can prejudice them. On the contrary, the more
closely the Origin of Religion and Government are examined,
the more clearly their Excellencies must appear. They come
purified from the Fire. My Business is not with them. Having
entered a Protest against all Objections from these Quarters, I
may the more freely . . . (p. 10)
It is not surprising that such subtle irony within irony was

misunderstood by many in England. The moral of Burke's Vindica-
tion is that man stands in need of help from both religion and gov-
ernment. Thus Burke asks: Tf you say, that natural religion is a
sufficient guide without the foreign aid of revelation, on what prin-
ciple should political laws become necessary?' Remove political
laws or revelation and anarchy will ensue; for the 'professors of
artificial law have always walked hand in hand with the pro-
fessors of artificial theology'. Because of man's flawed nature he
cannot be self-sufficient. The religious part of this theme is repeat-
edly emphasized in Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things and also in
Thompson's Natural State of Man (as, indeed, its title suggests) and
in Skelton's Ophiomaches. Skelton stressed this also in his Proposals

for the Revival of Christianity (Dublin, 1736), a pamphlet written
in the manner of Swift's Argument, whose programme Skelton
(i.e., the putative freethinking author) says that he wishes to
C\ 1
improve and extend.

The right-wing Lockeans all fervently subscribed to what may
be called the orthodox position with regard to religion and moral-
ity: that solid morality requires religion. Of course, this was a
position accepted by most thinkers of the time, but it is noticeable
that Irish philosophers held it in its most extreme forms. Thus Ber-
keley believed that not only do morality and social order depend
on a belief in God and otherworldly sanctions, but that if there
were no God, there would be no real distinction between good
and bad.
It is against this background that we must see Hutcheson's
works on ethics, most of which were written and published while
he was teaching in Dublin. By means of the Shaftesburian moral-
sense theory, Hutcheson went some way towards making morality
autonomous, naturalistic and non-theological. For him, as for
most of the Molesworth Circle, a man could be moral without reli-
gious belief. For we act virtuously because virtue is seen to be the
right or beautiful thing; and we see this very much as we see that a
painting is beautiful.
In Alciphron III, Berkeley reacted strongly against these ethical
views (although it is not clear whether he had Hutcheson in mind).
He attacked the moral sense by means of what I have called the
familiarity argument, an argument that Skelton also used against
the same target in Ophiomaches. 'This is most amazing', writes the
pugnacious Skelton, 'that every man should have a clear and
powerful light within himself; and yet . . . there should be contro-
versy about [its] source ...' (vol. I, p. 138) Later in Ophiomaches
Skelton bemoans the fact that many allegedly Christian clergy-
men edify 'their hearers, not with a discourse founded on the
Scriptures . . . but with a fine philosophical essay about moral
beauty, and the internal senses, wire-drawn from the writings

of Mr. Hutcheson, who only refines on those of Lord Shaftesbury'
(vol. II, p. 304)
In the fourth edition (London, 1738) of his An Inquiry into the Ori-
ginal of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, Hutcheson made some response
to Berkeley's criticism of his ethical views in Alciphron. However,
his primary concern was to answer Berkeley's objections to his
views on aesthetics. Irish aesthetics begins in the 1720s with
Hutcheson, and it may be said to end in 1757 with Burke. But in
its brief thirty or so years its performance is impressive indeed.
For Hutcheson the aesthetic sense immediately and passively
perceives proportions in works of art. As the eye immediately sees
colour so the inner aesthetic sense instantly appreciates the sym-
metry and balance of a statue - its uniformity in diversity - and
thereby, or therein, its beauty. The estimation of beauty is not a
matter of reasoning or training, nor is it connected with the utility
of the art object.
Berkeley criticized this theory in Alciphron III. 8-9, again with-
out naming Hutcheson. Berkeley tries to show that the beauty of
proportion is not a matter of immediate experience, as is the per-
ception of an odour or patch of colour. Rather, our appreciation of
proportion depends on our awareness of its utility. Thus a chair
which was not a suitable height for sitting on would not be
regarded as beautiful, whatever its proportions. Neither would a
door be admired if it were inverted 'making its breadth become
the height, and its height the breadth . . .' Here 'the figure would
still be the same, but without that beauty in one situation, which it
had in another'. Thus the appreciation of beauty is not perceived
by an inner sense, rather it is 'the work of reason' (III. 9).
In 'Additions and Corrections' to the 1738 edition of his Inquiry
Hutcheson responded to 'the ingenious author of Alciphron',23
Beauty, Hutcheson argued, is not a matter of utility perceived;
for 'the feet of a chair would be of the same use, tho' unlike, were
they equally long'. But we should hardly regard as beautiful a
chair with one leg straight, one bent inwards, and two bent out-
wards. Similarly a 'coffin-shape for a door would bear a more
manifest aptitude to the human shape', but we should hardly find
such a door beautiful. And why, asks Hutcheson, do we find such
useless objects as flowers beautiful, but such useful animals as oxen
ugly, if, as Berkeley thought, '... beauty riseth from the appear-
ance of use ...' (Alciphron III. 9)?
Burke's Philosophical Enquiry is the last great work of Irish philo-
sophy. There is much that is fitting in this, for it draws heavily on
what is distinctively Irish in philosophy. Thus it makes notable use
of the Molyneux-type problem in part III, section xxiv, where
Burke emphasizes the intrinsic connections between the senses of
sight and touch, and the role this synaesthesia plays in aesthetic
appreciation:
. . . there is such a similitude in the pleasures of these senses, that
I am apt to fancy, if it were possible that one might discern
colour by feeling, (as it is said some blind men have done) that
the same colours, and the same disposition of colouring, which
are found beautiful to the sight, would be found likewise most
grateful to the touch.
Even more important for the achievement of the Philosophical
Enquiry is its deployment of two of the most novel theories of the
earlier Irish philosophy, namely, Browne's sensationalism and
Berkeley's emotivism. In part III, section xii, on 'the real cause of
beauty', Burke writes: 'we must conclude that beauty is some
merely sensible quality in bodies ...'. Beauty is not for Burke, as it
was for Hutcheson, a matter of proportion or harmony; rather it
concerns the sensible features, the secondary rather than the pri-
mary qualities of the objects. Nor is beauty something immedi-
ately perceived by an inner sense. Burke is, like Berkeley, opposed
to both the moral and aesthetic sense theories; and he agrees
with Berkeley that we reason ourselves into judgements of beauty.
But this is not to say that Berkeley and Burke concur in what
constitutes beauty; for Burke is even more scornful than Hutche-
son of the utilitarian theory of beauty. (See part III, sect, vi.) It is
interesting that a number of Burke's counter-examples are drawn
from ugly but useful domestic animals. Thus he notes that if the
utility theory were correct 'the wedge-like snout of a swine, with
its tough cartilage at the end, the little sunk eyes, and the whole
make of the head, so well adapted to its office of digging and root-
ing, would be extremely beautiful'. For Hutcheson, as we have
seen, also used such a counter-example (the ox) against Berkeley's
utilitarian theory of beauty.
Neither Hutcheson nor Berkeley was very far from the mind of
Burke in his first years in England. In 1752/3 he thought of follow-
ing in Hutcheson's footsteps by trying for the Professorship of
Logic at the University of Glasgow; and he sought to strengthen
his chances by composing a refutation of Berkeley's metaphysics;
indeed, we are told that he 'had at the time sketched the outline of
,i
the essay, . 24
Writers on Burke have looked everywhere but to his country-
men for likely sources of his sensationalism, which J. T. Boulton
sees as the first of Burke's three important departures from the
orthodox aesthetics. Burke, he asserts, 'is alone in his uncompro-
mising sensationalism'. (Editor's Introduction, p. Ixxii.) But
Burke was far from being the only sensationalist in Ireland, where
there was, as we have seen, an active school inspired by Browne.
There was Ellis, Skelton, Thompson and McDonnell, most of
whom were closely associated with Burke's College. And the fact
that Burke was sympathetic to theological representationalism in
the Reformer and Enquiry further compels us to see his sensational-
ism as derived (at least partly) from Browne or some other Trinity
sensationalist.
Burke's debt to Berkeley's emotive theory of language has been
recognized, at least since Dixon Wecter's 'Burke's theory of
words, images and emotion' (PMLA, 55). In applying the emotive
theory to aesthetics in Part V, Burke anticipates the work of
I. A. Richards. Indeed, it is appropriate that the future inspiring

orator should be the one to declare how 'little does poetry depend
for its effect on the power of raising sensible images', and how
much it depends on 'affecting words' and 'the contagion of our
passions'. Like Berkeley, Burke defends by appeals to experience
the thesis that our 'passions are affected by words from whence
[we] have no ideas'. Burke even justifies the non-cognitive emotive
theory by means of religious words. He writes: 'Besides, many
ideas have never been at all presented to the senses of any men
but by words, as God, angels, devils, heaven, and hell, all of
which have however a great influence over the passions' (sect.
vii). This strongly recalls Berkeley's own application of the emo-
tive theory to religious utterances (although Berkeley would have
stressed that the term God is fundamentally a cognitive and not an
emotive word).
Wecter sees Burke as having derived his emotive theory from
section 20 of the Introduction to the Principles, and he may well
be right; yet I think it is more likely that Alciphron VII was Burke's
source. First, the emotive theory is developed at greater length
there, and it is applied specifically to religious language. Secondly,
Wecter himself notes that Burke's ideas about optics in IV. ix were
probably influenced by Berkeley's New Theory of Vision. Now
although the New Theory was published in 1709, it was also
appended to the first three (1732) editions of Alciphron. And the
Dublin edition of 1732, with the New Theory appended, was offered
as a Trinity College premium prize in the 1730s. By 1757 Alci-
phron had gone through no less than half a dozen editions; whereas
the Principles had passed through only two. Finally, in Alciphron,
particularly III and VII, Burke would have found much of inter-
est on aesthetics, and indeed most of the elements which make his
aesthetic theory that unique departure from classical formalism
to romanticism. 26lfjkgkmhbl;fdsa
A last Irish aesthetical act may be noted. In his review of Burke's
Philosophical Enquiry in the Monthly Review (May 1757, XVI,
pp. 473-80), Oliver Goldsmith criticized Burke's criticism of the
utility theory, thus casting his lot with Berkeley, whose life he was
to write some two years later.
The Golden Age of Irish philosophy comes to a decisive end in

1757. Why? It is difficult to say with certainty. But times had
plainly changed when Irish philosophy's two last important repre-
sentatives - Clayton and Burke - were both sympathetic to reli-
gious toleration, and when Clayton, the last significant left-wing
Lockean, was a Bishop of the Established Church, and the last
great right-winger (Burke) particularly well-disposed to his Catho-
lic countrymen. It is probably no accident that at this time the
Penal Laws were becoming less viable and the Irish Catholics
were reviving from a sleep of nearly sixty years, during which Irish
philosophy blossomed for the first and only time. In 1757 the
first Roman Catholic Committee was formed by Burke's friends,
Charles O'Conor and John Curry, who in the following year pub-
lished Historical Memoirs of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 (London), the
first important Catholic work to question the Protestant version
of Irish history and justification of the Penal Laws. Curry was
later to complete this process of historical revision in his An Histor-
ical and Critical Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland (Dublin, 1775), in
which he subjects Archbishop King's 1691 Vindication of the Pro-
testants to extensive and forceful criticism. 27
I shall conclude this account of Irish philosophy with a final com-

ment on the great ally and friend of Curry and O'Conor -
Edmund Burke. I have described Burke as a right-wing Lockean
because of his commitment to sensationalism, theological repre-
sentationalism as well as revealed (and established) religion; and
his hostility to freethinkers is also typically right-wing. But Burke,
like Berkeley, does not fit neatly into the schema of left- and right-
wing Lockeans. Thus, as a right-wing empiricist, he should have
given a negative answer to the Molyneux problem; but he does

not. Nor should he have been so sympathetic to his Catholic coun-
trymen. However, one must, I suppose, expect extraordinary
developments at the end of an age. A fascinating indication of the
typical but unique nature of Burke's right-wing Lockeanism can
be seen in his distinctive use of the conspiracy theory developed
by Swift and used by Berkeley and Skelton. In Burke's account
most of the familiar elements appear; but in a very different form
or whole. Freethought is to be most feared because 'some uncouth,
pernicious, and degrading superstition might take place of it.'
(p. 135). In this, Burke is in entire agreement with Swift, Berkeley
and Skelton. But he does not associate this superstition with 'the
Roman system of religion' (to which he refers with respect). And
while he is prepared to accept that there is a (French) freethinking
'cabal' (p. 132), he does not believe that it is inspired by Roman
Catholics. However, we are now far away from the end of Irish
philosophy; indeed, we are almost in another era, for the book in
which this transformation of the old Swiftean conspiracy theory
appears is Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (8th edn,
Dublin, 1791).
Notes
a. This essay originally appeared in Archiv fiir Geschichte der Philosophic

in 1982.
b. On Synge, see my article in the Thoemmes Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century
British Philosophers, ed. J. W. Yolton, J. V. Price andj. Stephens (Bristol:
Thoemmes Press, 1999).
1. See W. R. Scott, Hutcheson: his Life, Teaching and Position in the History of
Philosophy (Cambridge, 1900), pp. 28~9. J. M. Robertson, History of Free-
thought (London, 1936), runs into difficulty by conflating the father and
son; see p. 768, note 4. According to Anthony Collins's Library Catalo-
gue (in King's College, Cambridge), Molesworth was the author of
'Extraordinary Free-thinker f° London 1717' — a publication which I
have been unable to locate.
2. An Essay on the Existence of God, particularly in Answer to two atheistical letters of
Mrl—T-- (Belfast, 1730). I have not been able to identify T--r, and it is
possible that he is an impious fiction.
3. The Orrery Papers, ed. the Countess of Cork and Orrery (London: Duck-
worth, 1903), vol. 2, p. 34.
4. See my 'Berkeley, Clayton and An Essay on Spirit', Journal of the History of
Ideas (July-September 1971), pp. 367-78.
5. The only Bishop to speak in Clayton's favour was Edward Synge, now of
Elphin, formerly of the Molesworth Circle. It is not known whether
Clayton was directly associated with Molesworth or Hutcheson or
other members of the Circle in the 1720s.
6. See English Thought in the Eighteenth Century viii. 53. For a somewhat differ-
ent and more dramatic version of Clayton's death, see S. Burdy, The Life
of Philip Skelton (Oxford, 1914), reprinted from the 1792 edition; p. 138.
7. An Essay towards an Answer to the Essay on Spirit (Dublin, 1753), pp. 256-60,
and A Short Vindication of the Essay towards an Answer .. . (Dublin, 1754),
pp. 43-54.
8. Clayton succeeded Browne as Bishop of Cork and Rosse in 1735. In a
letter of 20 March 1736/7, Lord Orrery nicely contrasts the styles of the
two bishops: 'Under the reign of Dr Browne . . . we were strangers to
mirth even by Analogy. Under the reign of Dr Clayton we sing catches,
read Pastor Eido, and talk of love. Thus if one road does not lead to Para-
dise, we try another'. Orrery Papers, vol. 1, p. 207.
9. Ellis was born in England, but came to Dublin in his twenty-sixth year to
become Vicar of St James'; he held this position from 1 716 to 1752, when
he became Vicar of St Catherine's; he remained at St Catherine's until
his death in 1 764. Little is known of Ellis's life.
10. Much of Ellis's position is summarized in a work published in 1 757 with
the informative title: An Enquiry whence cometh wisdom and understanding to
man? in which it is attempted to shew, 1 that religion entered the world by Revelation,
and that language was from the same original. 2 that without the aid of Revela-
tion, man had not been a rational, or a religious creature. 3 that nothing can oblige the
conscience, but the revealed word of God. 4 that a state religion, or law of nature,
never existed but in the human imagination (London).
11. From a letter of the American Samuel Johnson to George (dated 10
December 1756), it appears that the Bishop's son had expressed his
great admiration for Ellis's sensationalist position. Johnson, who was
one of the Bishop's earliest philosophical followers, advised the son
to reconsider his father's writings; see Samuel Johnson: His Career and
Writings, ed. H. and C. Schneider (New York, 1929), vol. II, p. 338.
It seems likely that after the Bishop's death, young George lent Ellis
some of the Bishop's papers, and that it was Ellis who 'revised' Berkeley's
1751 Sermon on the will of God. For the person who did the revising
wrote the note: 'mem. Leave out all those passages wch relate to the
light of reason', and just above this is a rather illegible signature, which
I am confident is 'J Ellis DD' (British Library, add. ms. 39306, p. 200).
Certainly the fideistic revisions are entirely from Ellis's point of view.
I mention this, partly because of the debate on the source and signifi-
cance of the revisions between John Wild and A. A. Luce; see the for-
mer's George Berkeley (Cambridge, Mass., 1936) Appendix and the
latter's 'Two sermons by Bishop Berkeley', in Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy, vol. xlii, sect. C, no. 8 (1936).
12. From Burdy's Life of Philip Skelton, it appears that Skelton was on friendly
terms with Thompson and McDonnell; see pp. 98, 101 and 118.
13. Synge was almost certainly the author of the anonymous 'Sober
thoughts of analogy in thinking and speaking of God', Gentleman's Maga-
zine (London, 1734), p. 441. The title 'Sober' and frequent use of the
term 'internally' are entirely in his manner.
14. A. P. I. Samuels, The Early Life and Correspondence and Writings of ...
Edmund Burke ... (Cambridge, 1923). The Reformer essays are reprinted
in Appendix II, pp. 297-329.
15. I shall be using J. T. Boulton's scholarly edition of the Philosophical
Enquiry (London, 1958), which contains an extensive (130 page) intro-
ductory essay as well as notes on Burke's text; see p. 69.
16. R. Dunlop, Cambridge Modern History (1934), vol. vi, p. 486; also seej. C.
Beckett's Making of Modern Ireland (London: Faber, 1972), p. 213, and
Robertson's History ofFreethought, pp. 747—8.
17. President De Valera: Recent Speeches and Broadcasts (Dublin, 1933), p. 51. De
Valera's attitude to eighteenth-century Ireland may help to explain why
eighteenth-century Irish philosophy has not been given the recognition
it deserves.
18. On Swift and Berkeley's common attitude to the freethinkers, see T. E.
Jessop, Appendix 2 to his edition of Alciphron, in vol. iii of The Works of
George Berkeley (Edinburgh, 1950), pp. 336-7.
19. Beckett, Making of Modern Ireland, p. 159; also see I. Ehrenpreis, Swift, the
Man,his Works,and Age (London, 1967), vol. 2, p. 155.
20. Chapter XIV; see the Works of Alexander Pope (London, 1751), vol. VI,
pp. 157-8.
c. For further discussion of Swift's connection with Irish philosophy, see
R. Kearney (eel.), The Irish Mind (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1985),
pp. 135-6.
21. See Works of Skelton (London, 1824), vol. 5, pp. 265-7.
22. See my 'The theoretical/practical distinction as applied to the existence
of God from Locke to Kant', in Trivium 12 (1977); pp. 96-8 are on Ber-
keley.
23. Hutcheson had referred to 'our' Dr Berkeley in a letter written in Dublin
ten years earlier, which comments on Berkeley's immaterialism and
answer to the Molyneux problem; see my 'Francis Hutcheson on Berke-
ley . ..', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy (1974), p. 263.
24. J. Prior, Life of. . . Edmund Burke (5th edn, London, 1854), p. 47. Burke
never published a critique of Berkeley's philosophy; although it is possi-
ble that the essay 'Concerning the perceptive faculty' is by him, for it
appeared in the Annual Register in 1763 (pp. 182-5), at a time when
Burke was writing for the Annual. The essay is signed 'A. B.', and criti-
cizes Berkeley's rejection of external bodies.
25. For one such copy, see Peter Murray Hill (Rare Books), Catalogue
no. 139 (London, 1977), item 6.
26. It is worth noting that Berkeley's emotive theory elicited virtually no
response in the eighteenth century; and that one of the only writers to
take any notice of it was Burke's College friend, Thomas Leland (best
known as a historian), who in his Dissertation on the Principles of Human Elo-
quence (2nd edn, Dublin, 1765) quotes from section 20 of Berkeley's
Introduction, and with evident approval (p. 9).
27. See Book 10, especially Chapters 1 and 13 and my 'David Hume on the
1641 Rebellion in Ireland', in Studies (1976), especially pp. 101—2.
5
Francis Hutcheson on Berkeley and the Molyneux Problema
Introduction
If a philosophical problem can be assigned a nationality, then the

Molyneux problem, more than any other, can be called an Irish
problem. It is true that it first saw the light in the second edition
of John Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding (London,
1694). But Locke was only the editor or publicizer of the prob-
lem. It was devised by an Irishman, William Molyneux, the
founder of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Molyneux also gave
the first negative answer to his question, an answer with which
Locke concurred.
Locke, as we can see, added very little to either the problem or
its solution:
. . . I shall here insert a Problem [he says] of that very ingenious

and studious Promoter of real Knowledge, the learned and
worthy Mr Molineux, which he was pleased to send me in a
Letter some Months since; and it is this; Suppose a man born blind,
and now adult, and taught by his Touch to distinguish between a Cube and
a Sphere of the same Metal, and nighly of the same Bigness, so as to tell,
when he felt one and t'other, which is the Cube, which the Sphere. Suppose
then the Cube and Sphere placed on a Table, and the blind Man to be made
to see; Quaere, Whether by his Sight, before he touched them, he could
now distinguish and tell which is the Globe, which the Cube? To which
the acute and judicious Proposer answered, Not. For tho' he has
obtained the Experience of how a Globe, how a Cube affects his Touch;
yet he has not yet attained the Experience, that what affects his Touch so
Francis Hutcheson 139
or so, must affect his Sight so or so; or that a protuberant Angle in Cube,
that pressed his Hand unequally, shall appear to his Eye as it does in the
Cube. I agree with this thinking Gentleman, whom I am proud
to call my Friend, in his Answer to this his Problem; and am of
Opinion, that the blind Man, at first Sight, would not be able
with Certainty to say which was the Globe, which the Cube,
whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name
them by his Touch, and certainly distinguish them by the Dif-
ference of their Figures felt. This I have set down, and leave with
my Reader as an Occasion for him to consider how much he
may be beholden to Experience, Improvement, and acquired
Notions, where he thinks he has not the least Use of, or Help
from them; and the rather, because this observing Gentleman
farther adds, that having, upon the Occasion of my Book, proposed this
to divers very ingenious Men, he hardly ever met with one, that at first
gave the Answer to it, which he thinks true, till by hearing his reasons they
26 545
were convinced.
It would be interesting to know who these 'divers very ingenious

men' were (one supposes that some of them must have been fellow-
members of the Dublin Philosophical Society), and also to know
more of Molyneux's reasons for answering his question as he does.
But, despite his having both a practical concern with blindness —
his wife became blind shortly after their marriage — and a strong
theoretical interest in vision, which can be seen in his influential
Dioptrica Nova (London, 1692), we have no evidence that Moly-
neux went any further into his 'jocose problem', as he refers to it.
The first positive answer was also given by an Irishman, i.e.
Edward Synge, author of the Gentleman's Religion (Dublin, 1693)
and later Archbishop of Tuam (1716). Synge's answer appears
in a letter dated 6 September 1695, which was transmitted by
Molyneux to Locke and published in Some Familiar Letters between
Mr. Locke and several of his Friends (London, 1708). Synge supposes
that the man made to see will immediately identify the globe he
sees as different from the cube in one respect: the globe will be seen
as 'alike on all sides'. And as this is just the idea of the globe which
the man formed by touch alone, he 'might be able to know [Synge
suggests] which was the globe, and which the cube' (my italics).
Hence Synge's affirmative answer depends on there being a
common feature in what we see and touch.
The outstanding negative answer, however, and the answer
which is of the widest philosophical importance, was given by
Berkeley in his Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (Dublin, 1709).
Indeed, Berkeley goes even further than a negative answer.
He thinks the blind man made to see will be unable even to under-
stand what is being asked of him, because he will not be able to
refer his familiar tangible ideas of the globe and cube to his new,
365 6
and entirely different, visual ideas.
Admittedly, the famous early positive answer was returned by a
non-Irishman, namely Leibniz;4 but even this brief account shows
the considerable Irish part in the early history of the problem. And
the early Irish participation does not end there. Unnoticed by
scholars, there is another prominent eighteenth-century Irish phi-
losopher who also tackled — and in a manner remarkably similar
to Leibniz's — the problem: this is Ulster-born Francis Hutcheson,
the exponent of the moral sense.
Hutcheson's answer occurs in a letter addressed to a Mr Wil-
liam Mace, of Gresham College; it is dated 6 September 1727.
It was written in Dublin where Hutcheson had been, since 1722,
conducting an academy for Dissenters. It was published in the Eur-
opean Magazine and London Review of September 1788, pp. 158-60,
with the editorial comment that it was 'never before printed'.
As far as I am aware, it has never been reprinted. I reprint here
only about two-thirds of the letter, i.e. those three paragraphs on
Berkeley and the Molyneux problem. The letter also deals with
such topics as volitions, desire and activity.
Hutcheson's answer to the Molyneux problem follows some
remarks touching on Berkeley and immaterialism. The remarks
are of interest because they throw some light on questions raised by

Hutcheson's biographer, W. R. Scott, about the relationship
between Hutcheson and Berkeley.5 These are: (1) did the two phi-
losophers meet in Dublin between 1722 and 1724, and (2) did
Hutcheson study Berkeley's works during the period he was teach-
ing at the Dublin Academy, i.e. until 1730? No concrete evidence
was available to Scott, but our letter suggests a probable 'no' to the
first question and a nearly certain 'yes' to the second. For Hutch-
eson says that he knows Berkeley's doctrines from his books and
from conversations with certain friends - and this seems to imply
that Berkeley was not of this group.
It is not, however, only the first paragraph printed below which
concerns Berkeley; for Hutcheson's solution to the Molyneux pro-
blem is, I believe, at least in part a reaction against Berkeley's
negative answer. For Hutcheson, perhaps surprisingly, gives an
affirmative answer. Although he does not mention Berkeley by
name, Hutcheson is clearly replying to the New Theory of Visio,
especially section 133. In this section Berkeley sums up his answer
to the Molyneux problem with the following challenge: 'We must
therefore allow, either that visible extension and figures are speci-
fically distinct from tangible extension and figures, or else that the
solution of this problem given by those two thoughtful and inge-
nious men [Locke and Molyneux] is wrong'. In Hutcheson's
letter the challenge is taken up: 'Messrs Locke and Molyneux are
both wrong about the cube and sphere ...'. For Hutcheson will not
accept that visible and tangible extension are distinct: 'visible and
tangible extension', he says, are 'really the same idea, or have one
idea common'.
A second indirect reference to Berkeley runs as follows:
If one should allege that the two extensions, abstracted from the
colours, are different ideas, but that by long observation we find
what changes in the visible arise from any change of the tangible
extension, and vice vera; and hence from groping a figure we
know what its visible extension shall be; I think upon this
scheme, it would be impossible . . .
This 'one' must surely be Berkeley; for this is just what he holds, as
we can see from the following:
. . . there is no discoverable necessary connexion between any

given visible magnitude and any one particular tangible magni-
tude; but that it is intirely the result of custom and experience,
and depends on foreign and accidental circumstances that we
can by the perception of visible extension inform our selves
what may be the extension of any tangible object connected
with it.7
For Berkeley the connection between visual extension and tactile

extension is contingent. Hence our being able to predict 'by our
touch, with our eyes shut . . . what the visual extension of a body
shall be when we shall see it' cannot, in Berkeley's view, prove
that they have 'an idea common', as Hutcheson claims, because
the relationship might be otherwise; nor does experience reveal
an intrinsic connection. And although Berkeley would accept
Hutcheson's twice-repeated assertion that a blind man can learn
mathematics or geometry, he would deny that this can be
achieved by someone with the sense of sight (or smell) alone; see
New Theory of Vision,ections 153-9, where, "for the fuller illustra-
tion' of his thesis, Berkeley considers 'the case of an unbodied spirit'
who can see but not touch.
Hutcheson's solution to the problem is remarkably similar to
that of Leibniz. (1) They both answer it affirmatively, while allow-
ing that the man made to see will not, at first view, be able to
recognize the sphere and cube. (2) They both hold that a side
view is important for the affirmative answer. (3) They both hold
that a negative answer implies that blind men could not learn
geometry, and that this implication is untenable. (4) They both
introduce a thought-experiment involving a paralytic person for
the same purpose: to show that there are common ideas provided
by the different senses, which form the basis of geometry. From
these similarities one might almost suspect imitation; but that is
out of the question. Both solutions were published posthumously,
Leibniz's in 1765, almost twenty years after Hutcheson's death,
and Hutcheson's seventy-two years after Leibniz's death in 1716.
The last paragraph of Hutcheson's letter, as printed below,
might seem to be unconnected with the Molyneux problem; but
this is not really the case. The theory of duration and number
briefly considered there explains Hutcheson's imaginative,
although rather too compactly expressed, thought-experiments
in the previous paragraph. The reason why someone with only a
keen sense of smell would be able to talk about mathematics with
someone with the sense of sight is because duration and number
accompany all senses, including smell and sight. So the two per
sons can have mathematics in common, because they have
number in common. 8
One would like to know more about Hutcheson's correspondent
Mace, who was appointed Gresham lecturer on civil law and who
died in 1767/ He seems to have been not only a very early follower
of Berkeley, but even something of a Humean before Hume.1
Unfortunately he never published his philosophical views, at least
not in any book in his own name.
Francis Hutcheson to William Mace,

6 September 1727
From the European Magazine, September 1788, pp. 158-9
I was well apprized of the scheme of thinking you are fallen into,
not only by our Dr Berkly's[sic] books, and by some of the old acq-
demics, but by frequent conversation with some few speculative
friends in Dublin. As to your notion of our mind as only a system

of perceptions, I imagine you'll find that every one has an immedi-
ate simple perception of self\ to which all his other perceptions ar
some way connected, otherwise I cannot conceive how I could be
any way affected with pleasure or pain from any past action, affec-
tion, or perception, or have any present uneasiness or concern
about any future event or perception; or how there could be any
unity of person, or any desire of future happiness or aversion to
misery. My past perceptions or future ones are not my present,
but would be as distinct as your perceptions are from mine: that it
is otherwise I believe every one is conscious. As to material sub-
strata, I own I am a sceptic; all the phenomena might be as they
are, were there nothing but perceptions, for the phenomena are
perceptions. And yet, were there external objects, I cannot ima-
gine how we could be better informed of them than we are. I own I
cannot see the force of the arguments against external objects, i.e.
something like, or proportional, to our concomitant ideas, as I call
extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity.
Figureand bounde colur are not to me the same. Figureaccom--
panies bounded colour, but the same or perfectly like idea may
arise by touch, without any idea of colour, along with the ideas of
hard, cold, smooth. A man born blind might learn mathematics
with a little more trouble than one who saw, had he figures artfully
cut in wood. Messrs. Locke and Molyneux are both wrong about
the cube and sphere proposed to a blind man restored to sight. He
would not at first view know the sphere from a shaded plain sur-
face by a view from above; but a side view would discover the
equal uniform round relievo in one, and the cubic one in the
other. We can all by touch, with our eyes shut, judge what the visi-
ble extension of a body felt shall be when we shall open our eyes;
but cannot by feeling judge what the colour shall be when we shall
see it; which shews visible and tangible extension to be really the
same idea, or to have one idea common, viz. the extension; though
the purely tangible and visible perceptions are quite disparate.
If one should allege that the two extensions, abstracted from the
colours, are different ideas, but that by long observation we find
what changes in the visible arise from any change of the tangible
extension, and vice versa]nd hence from groupingafigure we know
what its visible extension shall be; I think upon this scheme, it
would be impossible that one who had only the idea of tangible
extension could ever apprehend any reasonings formed by one
who argued about the visible; whereas blind men may understand
mathematics. To illustrate this, suppose a person paralytic and
blind, with an acute smell, who had no idea of either extension;
suppose there were a body whose smell continually altered with
every change of its figure; one man seeing the several figures chan-
ging in a regular course foresees which shall come next, so the
other knows the course of smells; he agrees with the blind man
about names; the one noting by them the various figures, the
other the various smells. The seer reasons about the figures, or
forms one of Euclid's propositions concerning the proportion of
the sides; is it possible the blind man could ever assent to this,
y sonow his meaning from the smell?13andd yet men may so
far agree, one of whom had only the idea of tangible extension.
Or suppose a man had never seen sounding strings, but heard the
several sounds, not knowing anything of length or tension, that he
was taught names for notes, such as dupla, sesquialtera: should one
who saw the strings say, 'the square of the cause of the octave was
but a quarter of the square of the other cause,' could the other ever
apprehend him in this point from his ideas of sounds? And yet a
man born blind could perceive this point, and agree with one
who only had ideas of sight.
Duration and number seem to me as real perceptions as any;
and I can have no other idea of your words for explaining dura-
tion, [viz. the order of our ideas}14than this, a perception of
the connexion or relation of our several ideas to several parts of
duration. What is order or succession of our ideas, unless duration
be a real distinct idea accompanying them all? or how could the
succession of ideas give us ideas of duration, if a part of duration

were not connected with each of them? Number is also a real
idea; the words are artificial symbols about which different nations
differ, but agree in all their reasonings about the ideas of number,
which are really the same. Numbers are the clearest ideas we have,
and their relations are the most distinct, but often have nothing to
do with wholes or parts, and are alike applicable to heterogeneous
as homogeneous quantities.
Notes
a. This paper originally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acade
in 1974.
1. Essay II. ix. 8. Locke does add the additional qualification to Molyneux's
formulation, that the man made to see should identify the cube and
sphere 'at first sight'. John W. Davis in his useful article 'The Molyneux
problem' (Journal of the History of Ideas, xxi (I960)), takes Locke to mea
by this qualification that the man made to see should not be allowed to
walk and view the sphere and cube from different sides (p. 394). Locke
also, with typical caution, qualifies his negative answer to a considerable
extent by stipulating that the man made to see would not distinguish the
sphere and cube 'with certainty'. It is hard to imagine that immediately
after such an extraordinary alteration and new experience, the patient
would be certain of anything. Two recent accounts of the problem that
print Molyneux's earlier formulation of it, as sent to Locke in 1688, are
K. T. Hoppen's The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century (Londo
1970), pp 172-5, and D. Park's 'Locke and Berkeley on the Molyneux
problem', Journal of the History of Ideas, xxx (1969), pp. 253-60.
2. See The Works of John Locke (London, 1794), viii, 371-3. The problem
which put Synge's 'brains in such a ferment', as he puts it, seems to have
had at least an indirect influence on his ideas of faith and mystery. In the
Appendix to the Gentleman's Religion he considers the case of a blind ma
who for a time did not believe that there was anything answering to the
words 'colour' and 'light'. But after certain simple experiments the blind
man became convinced that other people could see light and colours. For
example, he was put at a distance from someone, who was able to tell
him, without touching him, what he was doing. So the blind man came
to believe that there were things existing of which he had no ideas.

By means of his sense of touch he was able to gain some notion of things
visible. In the same way we can believe in mysteries, Synge holds, even
though we have no idea of them; see the Gentleman's Religion: in three par
. . (6th edn, Dublin, 1730), especially pp. 229 31. The Appendix was
first published in 1698; it is primarily an attack on John Toland's Chris-
tianity not Mysterious (1696).
3. See the New Theory of Vision, especially sects 135—6. For references to te
Molyneux problem, see the general index to The Works of George Berkele
Bishop ofCloyne, vol. ix, edited by Luce and Jessop, under 'sight - Moly-
neux problem'.
4. In G. W. Leibniz, New Essays concerning Human Understanding,ix. 8.
b. The entire letter is reprinted in D. Berman and A. Carpenter (eds),
'Eighteenth-Century Irish Philosophy', in The Field Day Anthology of
Irish Writings, gen. ed. S. Deane, vol. 1.
5. W. R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson, his Life, Teaching and Position in the Hist
Philosophy (Cambridge, 1900), pp. 29-30, 99.
6. I say 'surprisingly' because Hutcheson is usually thought to be an
empiricist, and not a rationalist; but those who give an affirmative
answer are, on the whole, supposed to be rationalists; see Davis, 'The
Molyneux problem', pp. 392—3; also however see David F. Norton's
valuable article 'Francis Hutcheson on perception and moral percep-
tion', Archivfur Geschichte derPhilosophic (1977), pp. 181-97.
7. See New Theory of Vision, sect. 104, also see sects 46-51 and 127—36, and
see Dr Luce's introduction to the New Theory of Vision in The Works of
George Berkeley,lkhfakjhfdjhklhf
8. Number and duration Hutcheson elsewhere calls 'universal concomi-
tant ideas'; see An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions ...
(London, 1728), p. 3 note. One might depict Hutcheson's theory as fol-
lows: whichever sense-windows we look out of (whether inner or outer),
the thing that we see will always be numerated. While the different
sense-windows affect the thing of sensation differently, they all depict
the thing quantitatively. For Berkeley, however, the sense-windows do
not give us a view of a thing; looking through them we see nothing in
common, not even number; see New Theory of Vision,esfgdgbfdfxbh
9. DNB (1908-9) article on Daniel Mace. In the European Magazine of
October 1788, pp. 245 6, there is another letter to Mace, this one from
Dr Colson, dated February 1725-6. From it we learn of Mace's interest
in mathematics, and also of his association with Ephraim Chambers,
compiler of the Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences

(London, 1728). This is of some interest in that the Cyclopaedia was one of
the earliest English works to show an interest in Berkeley's philosophy.
For a careful examination of the use made of Berkeley's writings in the
Cyclopaedia, see H . M. Bracken's Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1965), chap. iv.
10. Compare Hutcheson's characterization of Mace's 'notion of our mind
as only a system of perceptions' with Hume's view on the same subject as
stated, e.g. in the Appendix to his Treatise of Human Mature: 'When I tur
my reflexion on myself [writes Hume], I never perceive this self without
some one or more perceptions; nor can I ever perceive anything but the
perceptions. 'Tis the composition of these, therefore, which forms the
self (Selby-Bigge edition, Oxford, 1967, p. 634).
11. This would be the Molesworth Circle, consisting of Lord Molesworth
and, among others, James Arbuckle, Edward Synge, the son of the Arch-
bishop of Tuam, James Duncan, William Bruce and, of course, Hutche-
son himself; see Scott's Francis Hutcheson,dgbfkjl
12. Compare Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge (Dublin, 1710) se
18: ' . . . it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have
now, though there were no bodies existing'.
13. Swift ridicules a somewhat similar idea in Gulliver's Travels (part hi,
chap. 5): 'There was [in the Academy of Lagado] a man born blind,
who had several apprentices in his own condition: their employment
was to mix colours for painters, which their master taught them to distin-
guish by feeling and smelling. It was indeed my misfortune to find them
at that time not very perfect in their lessons ...'. There is, of course, an
important difference between this and Hutcheson's thought-experi-
ment. Hutcheson is not saying that a blind man will be able to deal with
colours by means of odours (or touch); but rather that odours necessarily
suggest something of a quantitative nature, which is also suggested by
the visible.
In the Memoirs of Martinus Scrib ler us (written partly by Swift) the hero
pedant, Martinus, is said to have 'first found out the Palpability of Colours
and by the delicacy of his Touch, [he] could distinguish the different
Vibrations of the heterogeneous Rays of Light' (Works of Alexander Pop
(London, 1751) VI, 157-8). It is quite likely that this satirical shaft,
and the above from Gulliver's Travels, were directed - at least in part -
against William Derham's popular Physico-theology... (the Boyle lecture
of 1711 and 1712). In book IV, chap. 6, Derham claims that 'Although
the Eye be the usual Judge of Colours, yet some have been able to distin-
guish them by their Feeling'. He supports this claim with the story of
someone who was able to determine, by his touch alone, colours uni-
formly woven in silk. But the theoretical basis for Derham's claim
would seem to be that ' . . . the other Senses (performed by the Nerves)
are a Kind of Feeling'; hence someone may feel colours. (Physico-theolo
(4th edn, London, 1716), p. 144.)
14. The square brackets are Hutcheson's.
6
The Impact of Irish Philosophy on the
American Enlightenment21
My primary aim in this essay is to examine the impact of Irish phi-

losophy on the American Enlightenment. But first a caveat. The
phrase 'Irish philosophy' is not meant to suggest 'Celtic twilight'
but something hard-edged; for Ireland, as I have elsewhere
argued, did have one especially great age of philosophy.l It was
born in the 1690s with John Toland, William Molyneux and
Robert Molesworth; grew into adulthood in the early eighteenth
century with George Berkeley, Francis Hutcheson, William King,
Peter Browne; and died in the late 1750s with Edmund Burke and
Robert Clayton. Neither before this sixty-year period, nor after,
has Ireland produced such continuous creative philosophy.
Having briefly countered those who may doubt whether there
has been any notable Irish philosophy, I should also say a word
to those who may take offence at the idea that Ireland has had
only one flowering of philosophy. To these I would point out that
many countries, for example, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Hungary,
most of Africa and South America, have not even had one. What is
extraordinary is not that Ireland had only one golden age of phi-
losophy, but that (given its size) it managed to have one period
when its ideas were at the cutting edge of history. Although I
cannot hope to justify this point here, I do hope to defend it on a
limited front as I describe the Irish impact on, for example,
Jonathan Edwards and the American revolutionary ideology.
First, however, I must fill in my genealogy of Irish philosophers.
Briefly, then, there were two main tendencies in Irish philos-
ophy: one liberal, the other traditional. Irish philosophy begins in
The American Enlightenment 151
earnest with one of the most radical works of the Enlightenment:

Christianity not Mysteriousdjkghskjgfslkfghkhgksfgsgflkhkhksgdsxs
native of Go. Donegal. In this book, Toland argued for a liberal
Deism by showing that alleged Christian mysteries are non-
sense - 'Blictris', as he put it. Toland's subversive work produced,
by way of reaction, some of the most original ideas in Irish philo-
sophy, including Berkeley's emotive theory of language, Peter
Browne's sensationalism, William King's pragmatism and, less
directly, Burke's theory of the sublime and beautiful. In Ireland,
Enlightenment called forth creative Counter-Enlightenment.
Irish philosophy is largely constituted by the play of the Enlight-
enment left-wingers and Counter-Enlightenment right-wingers:
those on the left (such as Toland and Hutcheson) favouring nat-
ural religion, rationalism, toleration, secular ethics and political
revolution; those on the right (for example, King and Browne)
favouring revealed religion of a fideistic and fundamentalist vari-
ety, empiricism, intolerance, religious ethics and unqualified obe-
dience to the supreme political power.
In the background of Toland's classic deistic work are two other
Irish Enlightenment figures: William Molyneux, author of The
Case of Ireland (1698), inventor of the Molyneux problem, and cele
brated friend of John Locke; and Robert Molesworth, author of
The Account of Denmark (1694), and friend of Lord Shaftesbury.
Molesworth and Molyneux are background figures of both the
Irish and American Enlightenments. In America, we find appre-
ciative references to Molesworth's Account and Molyneuxscase in
writers such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Dick-
inson and Arthur Lee. Yet the influence of Molyneux and Moles-
worth lies more in the tone they set and the encouragement they
gave to others. Such indirect influence is difficult to delineate,
particularly in a short space; fortunately, it has been examined
by Caroline Robbins, J. G. Simms and Bernard Bailyn, among
others. A hint of Molyneux's influence may be gleaned from the
Belfast 1776 edition of his Case,kjsfkjafds gg fgfsfggfgfgfgfgfgsdfd
linking the cases of Ireland and America against Britain's 'lust of

domination', a connection which would not have been lost on
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who, we know, owned
copies of this edition.2
Molesworth's inspiration is evident in such Enlightenment fig-
ures as Toland, John Trenchard - whom I shall speak about
later — and Francis Hutcheson. Hutcheson was the most distin
guished member of the so-called Molesworth Circle which flour-
ished in Dublin in the 1720s. It is generally recognized that
Hutcheson had an important influence on American colonial
thought, but what is not recognized is that Hutcheson was pri-
marily an Irish thinker. Nearly all historians classify him as either
English or Scottish. But Hutcheson was, after all, born in Ireland,
in Co. Down. He taught in Dublin in the 1720s; he wrote nearly all
Q
of his famous books in Ireland; and he died in Ireland. It seems

that no man is a hero in his own country, and Hutcheson achieved
fame while teaching in Scotland in the 1730s and 1740s. It is also
true that Hutcheson's main inspiration comes from Lord Shaftes-
bury; yet the Irish influence is also evident. Thus, in the Preface
to his Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue (1725), Hutcheson's first and
probably most famous work, he stresses his debt to Molesworth
(p. xviii) and to Edward Synge (p. xix), another member of the
Molesworth Circle, whose moderate liberalism is evident in the
sermon he delivered before the Irish Parliament in 1724, calling
for limited religious toleration.13
Hutcheson's impact on Colonial America was wide-ranging,
and I shall limit my discussion to two effects: first, Jona-
than Edwards, unquestionably the most eminent philosopher of
the period, and, secondly, the Declaration of Independence.
Edwards' moral and aesthetic philosophy is developed in his
'highly important' Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue (1765), a
work, according to his editors, which 'is directly built upon . . .
Hutcheson's (1725) Inquiry', which Edwards paraphrases, men-
tioning its author three times by name,4 more important still,
Edwards accepts Hutcheson's identification of virtue with disin-
terested benevolence and his contention that virtue is the highest
type of beauty. But unlike Hutcheson, Edwards combines these
optimistic Hutchesonian components with a pessimistic belief
in the essential depravity and self-interest of natural man. Like
his Irish counterparts - Berkeley, Browne and King - Edwards
uses Enlightenment theories for Counter-Enlightenment ends.
By depicting virtue as a naturally - i.e. without grace — unattain-
able ideal, Edwards hopes to engender Christian conversion and
regeneration.
Edwards also seems to be exploiting the debate between Berke-
ley and Hutcheson on utility and beauty, a central question in
Irish aesthetics, which also engaged the attention of Burke and
Goldsmith. In Alciphron (1732), Dialogue Three, Berkeley had
argued that 'beauty ariseth from the appearance of use', in short,
that aesthetic delight depends upon our perception of an object's
utility. Hutcheson, whose Inquiry may have been Berkeley's target
here, then criticized 'the ingenious author of Alciphron"'dfbhc
fourth edition of his Inquiry (1738). For Hutcheson an object's uti-
lity detracts from its beauty.
Now in the Dissertation Concerning Virtue Edwards accepts the
idea of beauty which 'Mr. Hutchinson [sic] in his Treatise on
Beauty expresses by [the phrase] uniformity in the midst of vari-
ety'. However, Edwards then comments: 'The beauty which con-
sists in the visible fitness of a thing to its use, and unity of design, is
not a distinct sort of beauty from this'.6
Professor Aldridge, in his helpful article, 'Edwards and Hutch-
eson,' is perplexed by this comment which he calls 'misleading, if
not absolutely mistaken'. Yet, I suggest that it ceases to be either
perplexing or misleading if we see it as Edwards' way of combining
Berkeley and Hutcheson in order to use the former against the
latter. By showing that the beauty of physical things involves uti-
lity, Edwards is able to prove that such beauty is (by Hutcheson's
own standards) adulterated and secondary. The only true beauty
(and virtue) for Edwards is to be found in love being itself -

God - which involves no utility or interest.
One of Edwards' main (negative) arguments for this position
seems, on both stylistic and conceptual grounds, to be drawn
directly from Dialogue Three, section 8, of Berkeley's Alciphron,
where Berkeley argues that proportion is only aesthetically pleas-
ing when the parts are 'so related and adjusted to one another, as
they may best conspire to the use and operation of the whole'.
Similarly, Edwards argues in Chapter 3 of the Dissertation tha
what 'contributes to the beauty of . . . proportion of various
things, is their relation to one another . . . [the] adaptedness of
a variety of things, to promote one intended effect ...' (Works,
i, p. 128). Edwards' one example may well be continuing the
Berkeley/Hutcheson debate. In Alciphron Berkeley had used th
example of a chair which, he maintained, would not 'be reakoned
well proportioned or handsome' if its parts were not perceived to
be directed to making it 'a convenient seat' (Dialogue III, sect. 8).
Against this Hutcheson pointed out that 'the feet of a chair would
be of the same use, tho' unlike, were they equally long'; but we
should hardly regard as beautiful a chair with one leg straight,
one bent inwards, one made of wood, the other of metal. Edwards'
example involves pillars rather than chair-legs. He writes:
Thus the uniformity of two or more pillars, as they may happen

to be found in different places, is not an equal degree of beauty, a
that uniformity in so many pillars in the corresponding parts of
the same building. So means and an intended effect are related to
one another, (p. 127)
Berkeley would have welcomed this defence of functional beauty

and also Edwards' opposition to those 'writers on morality', who,
like Hutcheson, 'do not wholly exclude a regard to the Deity out of
their schemes of morality, but yet mention it so slightly, that they
leave me room . . . to suspect they esteem i t . . . a subordinate part
of true mortality .. .' {Works, i, p. 125). For the humanist Hutche-

son, the primary part of morality is benevolence to mankind.
Edwards brings his morality into theocentric line with Berkeley's
not by accepting Berkeley's theological utilitarianism, but by
pushing Hutcheson's idea of disinterested benevolence to the
breaking-point. Therefore, only benevolence or love towards exis-
tence itself (which is largely composed of God) can, according to
Edwards, be truly virtuous, truly disinterested. On the other hand,
the Hutchesonian moral sense underpins disinterested benevo-
lence towards only limited parts of being, not to being itself.
Edwards does not refer to Alciphron or directly to Berkeley in th
Dissertation, but we know from Edwards' Catalogue that he hada
copy of Alciphron. Correspondingly, he would have come acros
Hutcheson's criticisms of Berkeley in the 1738 and later editions
of the Inquiry. I might also mention that Edwards' opposition to
Hutcheson's this-worldly, optimistic view of human nature would
have been enforced, if it needed enforcing, by a number of Irish
right-wingers, among them Philip Skelton, whose ophiomaches
(2nd edn, 1751) Edwards approvingly quotes in his Miscellanies.
Like his mentor, Molesworth, Hutcheson was a zealous oppo-
nent of passive obedience and a defender of rebellion. Writing in
1725, Hutcheson's justification of rebellion is based partly on nat-
ural rights (probably inspired by Locke) and partly on the idea of
the general well-being of society (possibly derived from Arch-
bishop King's State of the Protestants in Ireland (1692). Thus, 'wh
ever any invasion is made upon unalienable Rights, [writes
Hutcheson], there must arise either a perfect, or external Right t
resistance'; and when a need 'to avoid Ruin requires it, the Subjec
may justly resume the Powers ordinarily lodged in the Governors,
or may counteract them'. 10
Hutcheson's eloquent defence of revolution emerged, fairly
plainly, from the English Glorious Revolution of 1688/9, but it
would be used nearly a century later for the American Revolution,
particularly through the mediation of Hutcheson's disciple, the
Ulster-born Francis Alison, who preached and taught Hutche-
son's views to students at his New London and Philadelphia Aca-
demies in the 1760s. Working with a sample of 46 known students,
one Hutcheson scholar, David Fate Norton, has summarized the
evidence as follows:
Of these 46 [students] five signed the Declaration of Indepen-

dence [and one of these was] the President of the Continental
Congress in 1781; [and another designed] the American flag
. . . Included in the 46, in addition, were: Charles Thomson,
the Secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774-1789,
whom John Adams called the . . . 'life of the cause of liberty';
John Dickinson, author of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylva
and his equally prominent patriot brother, Philemon Dickin-
son; General John Cadwalader, who dueled with General
Conway when the latter sought to supplant Washington as
Commander-in-Chief; Thomas Mifflin, President of the Conti-
nental Congress when the war ended in 1783; three Chaplains
to the Continental Congress; the first Director-General of the
Medical Service of the Continental Army; the Secretary of
the Continental Board of War in 1776; at least four generals
of the Continental Army. In summary, 15 of the 46 served in
the Continental Congress between 1776 and 1783; 25 served
in the Continental Army; 16 held office in the newly indepen-
dent states; five received important executive appointments
from the Continental Congress. On the other hand, only five of
the 46 were loyalists. 11
Norton's conclusion is that 'Hutcheson's political philosophy pro-

vided the foundation for revolution and independence, and that,
through . . . Alison, he was a contributory cause of the American
war of independence'. Berkeley, I might mention, was Hutche-
son's antithesis with regard to rebellion; for, according to Berke-
ley, there is never any justification for rebellion, even if a tyrant
were guilty of the most heinous acts. Berkeley would therefore

have condemned the American Revolution unreservedly. Indeed,
there is evidence that he hoped his projected American missionary
college would strengthen the British hold on the Colonies; for, in
the first biography of Berkeley published in 1776, the author says
that had Berkeley's project been successful it 'would have planted
such principles of religion and loyalty among [the colonists], as
might have gone a good way towards preventing the present
unhappy troubles in that part of the world'. Stirring words in
the year 1776!
Having examined two different spheres of Hutcheson's influence

and one sphere of Berkeley's non-influence, I shall now consider a
notable American figure, Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, and, in
this case, work from the American effect to its intellectual causes.
Although by no means a philosopher of the first or even second
order, Johnson had an acute and active mind and a passion for
synthesis. He was also an important cultural influence as the first
President of King's College, now Columbia University; as
Jonathan Edwards' tutor at Yale; as a leading Anglican intellec-
tual after his conversion from Congregationalism in the 1720s; as
the author of Elementa Philosophica,hgitpykmvjkgfjkfkfgjhsghjhsfl
textbook in America, printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1752.
There is abundant evidence of Berkeley's deep and wide-ran-
ging influence on Johnson. Thus in his Autobiographyqualityyy
written in the third person, Johnson states:
In the year 1729 in February came that very extraordinary

genius Bishop Berkeley, then Dean of Derry, into America, and
resided two years and a half at Rhode Island . . . he wrote many
letters which were kindly answered and made him several visits
... This was of vast use to Mr. Johnson and cleared up many
difficulties in his mind. 14
This judgement is amply supported by Johnson's extant reading

list for the years 1719 to 1756, which, from 1727, is dominated by
15
Berkeley's works.
But the most interesting evidence is in Johnson's published
works. Beginning with his 'Introduction to the Study of Philoso-
phy', published in 1731, which shows the clear influence of Berke-
ley's De Motu, Johnson became one of Berkeley's earliest
philosophical supporters. In his Short System of Morality (1746, a
work that draws heavily on Berkeley's Three Dialogues (1713),
Johnson uses Berkeley's distinctive argument for God's existence,
namely, that the passivity and orderliness of sensible things
requires an almighty and intelligent cause, as well as Berkeley's
even more novel, optic-language argument, although Johnson's
statement of this argument is more guarded than his mentor's.
It is by means of vision, says Johnson, that 'the great Author
of nature appears to be continually present with me, discoverin
his mind and will . . . and, as it were, speaking to me' (II, p. 466;
my emphasis).
Six years later Johnson published the Element his main work, ,
containing his most whole-hearted endorsement of Berkeley's
immaterialism. Here Johnson supports Berkeley's views on repre-
sentationalism (p. 375), the heterogeneity of sight and touch (p.
376), and Molyneux's famous problem (p. 423); and he refers to
nearly all of Berkeley's published works. Johnson was encouraged
to publish the Elementa, as he tells Berkeley in a letter of 12 August
1752, by Benjamin Franklin, who wished it to be used as a text-
book in the new College of Philadelphia (on whose formation Ber-
keley gave advice in 1750).16theee elementawas dedicated to
Berkeley 'from the [author's] deepest sense of gratitude'; and in
the Advertisement, Johnson says that 'whoever is versed in the
writings of Bishop Berkeley, will be sensible that I am in particular
manner beholden to that excellent philosopher' (II, p. 360).
Although the influence of Berkeley (here briefly reviewed) has
been generally appreciated by scholars, the wider Irish influence
has not. But consider the section in the Elementa on 'Signs, meta
phors and analogy', where Johnson refers approvingly to Berke-
ley's Alciphron and also to the Procedure, Extent, and Limits of Huma
Understanding1728) by VBgbsffsss sdfgdfg ggggffdfffffrtgrwrhrtdd
later Bishop of Cork, whose theological position Berkeley attacks
in Alciphron, an attack which led to a heated debate between th
two Irishmen. Later in the Elementa, Johnson refers with approva
to Hutcheson's 'moral sense' theory (p. 449) which, once again,
Berkeley had attacked in Alciphron.
Even before Johnson met Berkeley in 1727, his life and thought
had been profoundly influenced by another Irish philosopher, this
time Archbishop King of Dublin. Thus in his Autobiography, Joh-
son tells how
In 1715 [he] happened to light on Archbishop King's book of

the Inventions of Man in the Worship of God, which . . . seemed to
carry demonstration with it that the extempore [Congregationa
ist] way in which he had been brought up was very wrong,
and preconceived, well-composed forms were infinitely best...
[Mr. Johnson] had also been bred up in much prejudice against
the Church of England but next year 1716 [the influence of]
a good religious man (one Mr. Smithson) of that Church . . .
together with Bishop King caused all his prejudices against the
church to vanish like smoke, (p. 11)
The Irish influence on American thought shows itself in strange

ways. There has been considerable scholarly debate as to whether
the youthful idealistic system of Jonathan Edwards was inspired
by Berkeley. Edwards confided his idealistic views to his private
notebooks around the year 1718; and although, as I have men-
tioned, Johnson was Edwards' tutor at Yale in 1716, Johnson him-
self did not become acquainted with Berkeley's works until the
1720s, and, as D. J. Elwood states in his The Philosophical Theolo
of Jonathan Edwards (1960): 'It has been rather firmly established
that there is no trace of Berkeley's writings in New England prior

to 1719' (p. 169). But this judgement, although endorsed by all
recent Edwards scholars, is not quite true. Indeed, there is now
very firm evidence, which emerged only a few years ago, that in
1718 or 1719 Edwards read and was confessedly influenced by a
work published by Berkeley. For on the cover of Edwards' 'Notes
on Natural Science', there is the following stylistic note: 'In writ-
ing, let there be much compliance with the reader's weakness,
and according to the rules laid down in the Ladies Library vol. 1
p. 340 and sequel ...' . Although the Ladies Library (1714) is
signed 'By a Lady' and was thought to be the work of Mary
Wray, granddaughter ofjeremy Taylor, we now know that Berke-
1
ley was responsible for it. Of course, I should mention that
the Ladies Library does not include any of Berkeley's philosophic
views. It was an educational miscellany. Still I would claim that
Edwards was indirectly influenced by Berkeley without even
knowing it.
So far, I have been trying to indicate the impact of Irish philoso-

phy by tracing its effects on American thinkers. I have, perforce,
said little about the views of the Irish philosophers themselves. Yet
there is one Anglo-Irish philosopher, John Trenchard, who was
not included in my previous surveys, but who deserves to be men-
tioned here because his Cato's Letters (1720) played a major part i
the ideology of the American Revolution. Bernard Bailyn
describes Cato's Letters as 'colorful, slashing, superbly readable ...:
. . . a searing indictment of eighteenth-century English politics

and society . . . [its] libertarian [essays] . . . left an indelible
imprint on the 'country' mind everywhere in the English-speak-
ing world. In America, where they were republished entire or
in part again and again, 'quoted in every colonial newspaper
from Boston to Savannah,' and referred to repeatedly in the
pamphlet literature, the writings of Trenchard and [his colla-

borator Thomas] Gordon ranked with the treatises of Locke as
the most authoritative statement of the nature of political lib-
erty and above Locke as an exposition of the social sources of
the threats it faced. 19
I have another reason for discussing Trenchard here, namely, that

an early American interpretation of Cato's Letters can, I shall argue
help us to appreciate their deep and subversive meaning, which
has been overlooked by scholars.
First a brief word on the man. Although John Trenchard was
born in England, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. The
Dictionary of National Biography (1908-9) gives his birth year as 16
but this is an error as one can see from the Trinity College Entrance
Book, which shows that he entered College in 1685 at the age of six-
teen. His tutor was Dr Edward Smith, later Bishop of Down, who,
we are told, 'used to say, that "Mr. Trenchard's talent of reasoning
was owing to his having been so good a Logician"; a character for
which his was eminent at the University [of Dublin]'. It is note-
worthy that among Trenchard's College contemporaries were
three prominent right-wingers: Peter Browne, Jonathan Swift
and, also, Thomas Wilson who, as Bishop of Sodor and Man, pub-
licly attacked Trenchard's views. After leaving Trinity College,
Trenchard became a commissioner for forfeited estates in Ireland.
According to his biographer:
He is said to have thought too much, and with too much solici-
tude, to have done what he did too intensely, and with too much
vigour and activity of the head, which caused him many bodily
disorders, and is supposed at last to have worn out the springs
oflife.22
If Hutcheson was a moderate Enlightenment figure, Trenchard

was a radical, who, not surprisingly, left Ireland (as did Toland,
Thomas Emlyn and Hutcheson). In 1719 Trenchard met Thomas

Gordon, a Scotsman, who assisted him with some of Cato's
Letters. However, the letters that I shall be examining were written
by Trenchard alone. They were published in 1723, the year he
died, and probably contain his most extreme views. Like most
eighteenth-century irreligious writers, though, Trenchard was
obliged to disguise his true meaning - to what extent, however, is
a matter of debate. For J. M. Robertson, he was a Deist; for
Samuel Johnson, he was a crypto-atheist. By way of concluding
this discussion, I shall try to use Johnson's interpretation to illumi-
nate Trenchard's position.
Johnson's gloss occurs in A Letter to Mr. Dickinson (1747), in th
context of Johnson's criticisms of Mr Dickinson's Galvinistic deter-
minism. Johnson had heard from Berkeley that Anthony Collins, a
friend of Trenchard's, had said 'in conversation . . . that he had
found out a demonstration against the being of a God'. Johnson
connects this demonstration with Gollins's well-known determin-
ism. By demonstrating, writes Johnson,
that there is no liberty, and all is fate . . . [Collins shows] sure

enough that there is no God; for by a God we must mean, if we
mean any thing, an infinitely free, intelligent active being, who
is the great creator and moral governor of the world. You may
find the same absurd cause pleaded in the celebrated Cato's let-
ters, written by Mr. Trenchard, another of those famous
authors of the Independent Whig, [who] uses just the same argu
ments as you [Dickinson] do . . . , and with the same inconsis-
tency and self-contradiction. (Ill, p. 192)
In short, an unfree God can be no God. Of course, Trenchard does

not openly say this. Prima facie, he is an orthodox Christian. Thus
in no. 110 of Cato's Letters which, with no. I l l , develops his deter
minism, he writes:
We cannot enter into the Rationale of God's punishing all Man

kind for the Sin of their first Parents, which they could not help;
nor for his punishing all Israel with a Pestilence for the private
sin of David, which, without doubt, many of them condemned;
nor for [God's] bringing Plagues upon the Egyptians, because h
had hardened Pharaoh's Heart; no more than for his destroyin
all Mankind at the Deluge, for Crimes which he could have pre-
vented; and [there are] Multitudes of the like Instances in holy
Writ besides, which we cannot account for by our weak Reason-
ings, . . . But we are very sure that these Things were done,
and rightly done; and all conduced to some superior, wise and
just End. 25
Now given Trenchard's other published statements, particularly

in no. 120 (which is virtually an abstract of Toland's Christianit
not Mysterious) and his known freethinking associates, I find it diff
cult to believe that this choice catalogue of Biblical puzzles was
meant to be taken literally rather than ironically. It was designed
to suggest (to put it bluntly) that the God of the Bible is absurd.
Trenchard was a skilful practictioner of what I have called the ar
26
of theological lying.
The theological liar aimed to do three things in his writings:
(1) signal his true irreligious position to other knowing unbelie-
vers, (2) insinuate this position to open-minded and unwary
believers while, at the same time, (3) protecting himself against
legal prosecution. But the crucial question is: to what extent did
Trenchard lie theologically? Was he a Deist, the opinion of his
contemporaries and most modern scholars; or was he an atheist,
as Johnson claimed? The question is worth addressing, given -
as Bernard Bailyn notes - how very 'popular and influential
had Cato's Letters become in the colonies within a decade and a ha
of their first appearances ...' (p. 44). To be sure, most of the Amer-
ican colonists read Cato's Letters for their political philosophy
or, as in the case of Benjamin Franklin, for their style. Still,

they read them.
My point is that once we accept Johnson's suggestion that Tren-
chard was an atheistic determinist, we will be able to account not
only for many of Trenchard's most curious assertions but also for
the excitement and hostility his writings generated. Central to
Trenchard's theological position is the denial that we can know
anything about God except that he exists necessarily; this comes
out clearly in Trenchard's most interesting essays, no. I l l and
no. 137. This negative-theological view, that God is 'incompre-
hensible' (p. 298), was probably drawn from Hobbes's Leviathan,
from which Trenchard may also have derived his determinism.
Of course, Spinoza was also a notorious determinist. There is
much in Trenchard which may be traced to Spinoza, particularly
the naturalistic remarks on animals in essay no. 108 where Tren-
chard presents an amusing dialogue between a lion and the Pope.
Trenchard's unwillingness to limit the power of matter (pp. 89f.) is
also reminiscent of Spinoza {Ethics III. 1) as are his acute criticisms
of teleology in no. 110 (compare Ethics I Appendix). The theoreti-
cal picture that emerges from these elements is of a pantheistic
materialist. Although Trenchard flourished in the eighteenth cen-
tury, his roots lie in the radical soil of the seventeenth century.
Like most Irish philosophers, Trenchard strongly adhered to
the Lockean theory of meaning: 'A word not standing for an
idea', he states, 'is only a bare sound' (p. 118). But the word
'God', Trenchard holds, stands for no idea but existence: 'As to
the substance, Essence, the manner or sensorium of his Existence
we neither know . . . nor can have any conception about it'
(p. 275). Hence Trenchard's attentive reader may infer either
that God (taken in the usual theistic sense) does not exist or that
the necessary being that does exist is probably matter rigorously
determined. Such an inference is in line with Trenchard's hints
about the efficacy of matter (see pp. 89f.) and with his statement
of what we can safely say about God, namely, 'that He has existed
from all Eternity, and must for ever exist; and that He has made or
produced everything else' (p. 275).
If we accept this idea of God, then, says Trenchard, 'there
are very few, if there be one atheist, in the world' (p. 275). Tren-
chard likes this conclusion because he is against those who
call others by the odious name 'atheist' (p. 276). Trenchard is on
of many freethinkers, including David Hume, who try to show
there are no atheists, that no one can or should be vilified as
an atheist. The aim of this denial, however - as I have argued
following Berkeley - was in fact to reveal, protect and insinuate
27
atheism.
Notes
a. This essay originally appeared in Eire-Ireland in 1989.
1. See my 'Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment in Irish Philoso-
phy' and 'The Culmination and Causation of Irish Philosophy', in
Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophic 64 (1982), 2, pp. 148-65, and,
pp. 257^79. For an examination of the political dimension, see my 'The
Jacobitism of Berkeley's Passive Obedience' ithee fournal of the historyof
IdeasXL (1986), pp. 309-19.
2. J. G. Simms, Colonial Nationalism: 1698-1776 (Cork, 1976), pp. 70-1.
3. See W. R. Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in thes-
tory of Philosophy (Cambridge, 1900), chaps 1-2.
b. See my article on Synge in the Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Ph
losophers (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2002), pp. 864-5.
4. C. H. Faust and T. H.Johnson, Jonathan Edwards: Selections (New York,
1962), Introduction, p. civ.
5. See my 'Culmination and Causation', section 3.
6. Works of Jonathan Edwards, with a memoir by S. E. Dwight, revised and
corrected by E. Hickman (Edinburgh, 1974), vol. I; p. 127.
7. A. Owen Aldridge, 'Edwards and Hutcheson', Harvard Theologicial
Review (1951), p . 44.
8. See Douglas J. Elwood, The Philosophical Theology of Jonathan Edwar
(New York, 1960), pp. 29, 167-8.
9. See my 'Jacobitism of Berkeley's Passive Obedience', pp. 315-16.

10. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue (3rd edn, London, 1729), pp. 294, 298.
11. D. F. Norton, 'Francis Hutcheson in America,' Studies on Voltaire and th
Eighteenth Century CLI-CLV (1976), pp. 1567-8.
12. See my 'Jacobitism of Berkeley's Passive Obedience1', pp. 312-13.
13. [Joseph Stock], An Account of the Life of George Berkeley (London, 1776
pp. 22-3.
14. See Samuel Johnson: His Career and Writings, ed. H. and C. Schneider (Ne
York, 1929) vol. I, p. 24.
15. Ibid., vol. I, pp. 506-24; all quotations from Johnson's writings are from
the edition of H. and C. Schneider.
16. Ibid., vol. II, p. 329, and vol. I, p. 136.
17. See Faust and Johnson, p. cii.
18. See E. J. Furlong and D. Berman, 'George Berkeley and The Ladies
Library', Berkeley Newsletter (1980), pp. 4-7.
19. Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (16th
printing, Cambridge, Mass., 1982), p. 36.
20. See Thomas Gordon's memoir of John Trenchard in Cato's Letters (5th
edn, London, 1748), vol. I, p. xlix.
21. See Independent Whig (8th edn, London, 1753), vol. 1, pp. xxxv-lxxii.
22. New and General Biographical Dictionary (London, 1762), vol. XI, p. 227.
23. J. M. Robertson, A History of Freethought (London, 1936), p. 719; also see
J. McCabe, A Rationalist Encyclopedia (London, 1948), p. 591.
24. See my 'Anthony Collins and the Question of Atheism in the Early Part
of the 18th Century,' Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 75 (1975)
pp. 87-9.
25. Cato's Letters (1748), vol. IV, pp. 38-9. All further references to Tren-
chard will be to this volume.
26. See 'Deism, Immortality and the Art of Theological Lying', in J. A. Leo
Lemay (ed.), Deism, Masonry and the Enlightenment: Essays Honoring Alfr
OwenAldridge (Delaware, 1987), pp. 61-78.
27. 'David Hume and the Supression of "Atheism",' Journal of the History of
Philosophy (1983), pp. 375-87.
7
Irish Ideology and Philosophy
1 Philosophy and ideologya
In an address widely reported in the Irish media, Bishop Jeremiah

Newman of Limerick expressed indignation at 'what is going on
at present in our country by way of changing or trying to change
our Catholic inheritance'. The first of Bishop Newman's exam-
ples was The Irish Mind: Exploring Intellectual Traditions (Dublin:
Wolfhound Press, 1985), edited by Richard Kearney, and, in par-
ticular, a chapter that I contributed entitled 'The Irish Counter-
Enlightenment'. If by 'ideology' is meant 'false ideas that direct
social action', then, I suppose, the Bishop would see my chapter as
ideological. Of course, that is how I see his statement. Whose
ideas, then, are false? Here are the Bishop's own words:
It [The Irish Mind] purports to explore the intellectual tradi-

tions of the Irish people, that is us - yes us. Who else could
claim to be Irish? But, apart from one chapter on the medieval
Catholic scholar, John Scotus Erigena, this book is devoted
almost entirely to a type of thinking that is anything but typi-
cally and traditionally Irish. In the sphere of philosophy, it
manages to concentrate on figures with names such as Moles-
worth, Hutcheson, Clayton, Dodwell, Skelton and Toland.
One has only to consult any thorough history of English philo-
sophy to find most of these names included in it, which means or
should mean that they do not exactly represent the Irish mind as
such. Indeed, I could not but find annoying as well as quite
unscholarly, the statement by a non-Irish contributor to the
book to the effect that the 18th century rationalist John Toland
3
is, quote, 'the father of modern Irish Philosophy'.
In my chapter I not merely stated but tried to show in detail how

John Toland's Christianity not Mysterious (1696) initiated the on
and only epoch of Irish philosophy. Here I can give only the
barest genealogy. Briefly, Toland's rationalist rejection of Chris-
tian mysteries was promptly attacked in Dublin by Peter Browne,
whose Letter (1697) contains the first formulation of what I have
called theological representationalism, a theory around which
the dominant School of Irish philosophy developed. Among the
leading theological representationalists were Edward Synge —
whose reply to Toland appeared in 1698 — William King, John
Ellis, Philip Skelton, William Thompson, Thomas McDonnell
and, finally, Edmund Burke. Against Toland's claim that we can
only believe what we can literally understand, they argued that
our theological conceptions represent but do not resemble God's
real but unknowable nature. To justify this thesis, members of the
School developed such important theories as, for example, Brow-
ne's sensationalist account of mind (pp. 126—8) and King's prag-
matic theory of theological truth (pp. 124—6).
Although the theological representationalists dominated the
sixty years of Irish philosophy, there were also Irish philosophers,
notably Thomas Emlyn, Francis Hutcheson and Robert Clayton,
who followed in the rationalistic tradition of Toland, without,
understandably enough, acknowledging the Donegal heretic; for
as I noted in my chapter: 'Though the father of Irish philosophy
Toland was neither beloved nor gratefully acknowledged'
(p. 120). I argued, too, that Berkeley's precocious emotive theory
of meaning was developed by way of reaction to the Toland chal-
lenge. Christian mysteries, Berkeley argued in Alciphrongggggg
are emotive, not cognitive. Edmund Burke (who, typically, sneers
at Toland) used Berkeley's emotive theory and Browne's sensa-
tionalism in his Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful
Irish Ideology and Philosophy 169
(1757), arguably the last great work of Irish philosophy. Neither
before 1696, nor after 1757, has Ireland seen such continuous crea-
tive philosophy. During this period her ideas were at the cutting
edge of history. How did it happen? I suggest that much of Irish
philosophy was not merely a response to Toland, but a theoretical
expression of the Penal Laws against the Catholics and Dis-
senters. In short, Toland's non-mysterious, tolerant Deism threa-
tened the sectarian basis of the Ascendancy (pp. 136—40); hence
Dean Swift vilified Toland as 'the son of an Irish priest' and 'the
great Oracle of the Anti-Christians'. And he continues to attract
odium theologicum.
Bishop Newman objects not only to my description of Toland as
'the father of modern Irish philosophy' but also to my concentrat-
ing on 'Molesworth, Hutcheson, Clayton, Dodwell, Skelton and
Toland'. Why? Because 'most of the names', the Bishop says, are
included in 'any thorough history of English philosophy', and this
'means or should mean that they [Molesworth, Hutcheson, etc.]
do not exa&tly represent the Irish mind as such'. Yet is Bishop
Newman really prepared to allow English histories to determine
who is and who is not Irish? I hope not.
But, then, how shall we decide whether the thinkers I examined
'represent the Irish mind as such' and are 'typically and tradition-
ally Irish'? Although my first impulse is to dismiss such ques-
tions as either transparently ideological or spurious, I should
like to press the modest claim that a philosopher may be Irish
(or Swedish, or Chinese) without being typically or traditionally
so. Indeed most important philosophers are, almost by definition,
atypical; that is why they make a mark on the history of philoso-
phy. (Can Bishop Newman seriously believe that 'the medieval
Catholic scholar, John Scotus Erigena' was typically either Irish
or Catholic?) In fact, the thinkers the Bishop names were all born
and raised in Ireland: Henry Dodwell, Robert Molesworth and
Robert Clayton in Dublin; Philip Skelton in Co. Antrim. The
case of Francis Hutcheson, who was born in Co. Down, illustrates
how exclusivist Catholic nationalism can go hand in hand with

English cultural expropriation. Thus in Thomas Fowler's Shaftes-
bury and Hutcheson (1882), Hutcheson is described in the first se
tence as an 'English' philosopher, while later Fowler blithely
states that 'Hutcheson's philosophical reputation rests on the four
essays, and perhaps the letters, all published during his residence
in Dublin'. As that plain fact did not make Hutcheson an Irish
philosopher for Fowler, neither, it would seem, did Toland's
being a Gaelic speaker and scholar from Donegal redeem his Irish-
ness in the eyes of Bishop Newman. 6
Something more was needed, and that brings us to the real
cause of the Bishop's annoyance, namely, that none of the figures
I concentrated on were part of'our Catholic inheritance'. Most of
them were Irish Anglicans; some, like Hutcheson, were Presbyter-
ians; Toland was even worse — an apostate Catholic. What th
Bishop wished his listeners to believe, in short, is that to be 'typi-
cally and traditionally' Irish a man must necessarily be Roman
Catholic. That is the ideological import of his statement, and it is
worth exposing because it helps to explain why eighteenth-century
Irish philosophy - unlike Scottish philosophy — has been s
neglected. For if being Irish means being Roman Catholic and if
Hutcheson, Toland, Clayton, etc., were really English, as the
Bishop and his supposed English authorities suggest, then Ireland
has had little or no philosophy. 'Whose fault is it if poor Ireland
o
still continues poor?'
b
2 A tale of two treaties
Having given a sketch of the main lines of the Irish Enlighten-

ment/Counter-Enlightenment, it may be useful to ask: why, if
this really was the one period that Ireland was at the cutting
edge of world thought, is this not widely known and accepted, or
why is it only in recent years that this has gained any degree of
acceptance? The question is of scholarly significance, but it may

also be of wider interest, as possibly throwing light on the impor-
tant political changes that are now taking place in Ireland and
especially in Northern Ireland. One way of posing the question is
to ask: why has Irish philosophy been submerged but not German,
Scottish or American philosophy? The answer, we think, is the
fundamental break that occurred in Ireland in 1922, when
Ireland ceased to be part of the United Kingdom, when a new
regime was established, Gaelic Catholic Ireland — at least for th
26 counties — which represented the final and decisive defeat o
the old regime, the Protestant Ascendancy, which, we suggest,
had started dying by the 1750s.
And yet it was not until the 1798 Rebellion that the Ascendancy
was seriously challenged by arms. Although that Rebellion was
put down, the following century, beginning with the Union of Ire-
land and England in 1801, can be compared to the seventeenth
century as a time of upheaval and militant protest — from Fenians
Land Leaguers, etc., as well as attempts at appeasement in the
form of Catholic emancipation, Disestablishment, etc. The Catho-
lic majority were becoming increasingly more militant. By the end
of the nineteenth century, it was clear that British/Ascendancy
rule was going to end.
The question was would the change be violent or peaceful, revo-
lutionary or evolutionary. In the event it was largely violent and
revolutionary, which was consequential for Irish thought. Why?
Because the new regime had little or no sympathy with either the
Irish Enlightenment or the Counter-Enlightenment. It had no
sympathy with the Enlighteners, because its ideology was conser-
vative Catholic. So Toland, as we have seen above, even though a
Catholic by birth, as well as an Irish speaker and scholar, was
unacceptable because he was a freethinker. But neither were the
heroes of the Counter-Enlightenment any more acceptable,
because although they were religious and conservative, they were
seen as Anglicans or British and still remembered, even in the
1960s, as the hated overlords of the downtrodden Catholics.

In short, because of the sharp political/cultural break of 1922 there
was little or no sympathy in Ireland for its golden philosophical
age — the natural place one would expect to find such sympath.
When Eamonn De Valera described 'the eighteenth century [as]
the most terrible period that Ireland has ever known' he was
giving expression to this feeling. To be sure, all the important fig-
ures — Berkeley, Burke, Hutcheson, Toland, Molyneux, King an
Browne — had since the nineteenth century figured in philosoph
books. But then they were either seen as rootless, free-floating indi-
viduals, or incorporated into the history of English or Scottish phi-
losophy or the history of idealism, Deism, or of ideas. It is only in
recent times that they have been seen to be part of an Irish story. 10
Notes
a. This section originally appeared in the Crane Bag in 1985.
1. Address at Mass for the Youth of the Diocese of Limerick ... on the occasion of the
International Year of Youth (Sunday, 12 May 1985), nine-page typescript
distributed to the press; for a published report, see the Irish Independent
13 May 1985, p. 7.1 shall be quoting from the typescript Address; see p. 5.
2. See Irish Mind, pp. 119—140, 335—7; all references, unless otherwise
stated, are to this chapter, which was largely a reworking of parts of
chaps 3 and 4 above, originally published in the Archivfur Geschiche d
Philosophie in 1982.
3. Address, pp. 5-6. A forceful 'Defence of the Irish Mind', by Richard
Kearney against Bishop Newman's Address, appeared in the Sunday Ind
pendent, 26 May 1985, p. 16.
4. See Swift's Argument [against] the Abolishing Christianity (1711), in Works
Swift (1883), vol. VIII, p. 75.
5. Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, p. 181. Nowadays Hutcheson would be mo
likely to be (mis)described as Scottish.
6. For Toland's work as a Gaelic scholar, see his 'The Relation of an Irish
manuscript of the Four Gospels, and likewise a summary of the Ancient
Irish Christianity, and the reality of the Keldees . . . ' in Nazarenus (1718),
and 'A specimen of the . . . history of the Celtic Religion and Learning . . .
in three letters to . . . Lord Molesworth' in A Collection of Several Pie
of Mr. Toland (1726). Also see A. Harrison and D. Berman, 'John Toland
and Keating's History of Ireland (1723)', in Donegal Annual (1984),
pp. 25-9.
7. Father Gopleston errs when he states that Toland 'was for a short time a
convert to Catholicism' [A History of Philosophy (1964) vol. 5, pt. 1,
p. 175). In the Preface to Christianity not Mysterious, Toland himself
writes that he was 'educated from my cradle in the grossest superstition
and idolatry'.
8. This is the last question of Berkeley's The Querist (1735-7).
b. The following section is reprinted from the Introduction to The Irish
Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 200
9. President De Valera: Recent Speeches and Broadcasts (Dublin, 1933), p.
10. Probably the first major work to see a history of Irish thought was The
Irish Mind (Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1985), edited by Richard Kearney.
For other recent interest, see Seamus Deane, 'Swift and the Anglo-
Irish Intellect', Eighteenth-Century Ireland, vol. 1 (1986), pp. 9—22; Kev
Barry, 'James Usher (1720-72) and the Irish Intellect', Eighteenth-
Century Ireland, vol. 3 (1988), pp. 115—22; D. Berman and A. Carpent
(eds), 'Eighteenth-Century Irish Philosophy', in The Field Day Anthology
of Irish Writings (Derry: Field Day, 1991), gen. ed. S. Deane, vol. 1;
Richard Kearney, Postnationalist Ireland: Politics, Culture, Philosop
(London, 1997), chaps 9 and 10; Terry Eagleton, Crazy John and the
Bishop and Other Essays in Irish Culture (Cork, 1998), pp. 17-67.
Part III
NEW BERKELEY LETTERS

AND BERKELEIANA
8
An Early Essay Concerning Berkeley's Immaterialism'
The item, which I shall describe and comment on here, constitutes

an interesting event in the early reception of Berkeley's immater-
ialism. It has not been noticed by Berkeley scholars. It is the third
of five unrelated articles in an anonymous pamphlet entitled:
The Touchstone: or Paradoxes brought to the Test of a Rigorous and Fair
Examination, for the Settling of Dubious Points to the Satisfaction of the
1
Curious and Conscientiousinted for j . Noon in chheapside, 1732)
The titles of these articles — the fourth of which I will say a wor
about later — are as follows:
1. Lord's Supper to whom to be administer'd?
2. Washing one another's feet a sacrament instituted by Christ.
3. Body exists in the mind only.
4. Sailing in the air not impracticable.
5. The deluge occasion'd by the world's rejecting the Govern-
ment of God.
The pamphlet also contains an introductory dedication to a
'John White Jun. Esq.; of Walling-Well' and a concluding adver-
tisement. In the former, the writer of the pamphlet signs himself
'An honest free-thinker', and, for the most part, expands on the
pamphlet's full title; in the latter, he invites 'any gentleman to
join issue' with him. Though the title-page announces the pamph-
let to be only part one, I have not been able to find other parts, nor
do I know of any writing which took up the challenge of this, pur-
ported, first part.
As its title indicates, the third article — which I shall refer to a
'the essay' - is concerned with proving the central proposition of
Berkeley's immaterialism; though I must clarify this description

below. The essay consists of fourteen pages - more than half
of the whole pamphlet - and is arranged in a loose dialogue form.
I have described it as an essay concerning Berkeley's immaterial-
ism, but this description requires qualification for two reasons.
First, because Berkeley is neither mentioned by name, nor even
alluded to, in the essay. Second, because one of the arguments of
the essay is taken from Arthur Collier's Clavis Universalis (1713)
In Clavis, Collier rejected matter along somewhat similar lines as
did Berkeley in his Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) anhis
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). Collier, like Ber-
keley, is not acknowledged in the essay.
In spite of these two qualifications, I have called the third article
an essay concerning Berkeley's immaterialism, because it is com-
posed almost entirely of extracts, from Berkeley's Principles and to
lesser extent his New Theory of Vision (1709), stitched together wit
some occasional paraphrasing (see list below). And the single
argument drawn from Claviskdhdajkgakjhgsfgjkhllkjhsfggflkhjsgl
significance. It is one argument of a number, by which Collier
tries to prove that the ' . . . visible or apparent externeity of an
object, is no argument of its real externeity'. It may be of interest
to quote this argument, as a sample of the essay's plagiarism, since
it is the only one from Clavis, a work not as readily available as
the writings of Berkeley (see also note 3). The first quotation is
taken from Clavis', the second version is taken from the essay i
Touchstone.
Let a man whilst he looks upon any object, as suppose the moon,
press or distort one of his eyes with his finger; this done, he will
perceive or see two moons, at some distance from each other;
one, as it were, proceeding or sliding off from the other.
Now both of these moons are equally external, or seen by us as
external; there being but one external; and yet one at least of
these is not external, there being but one moon supposed to be
An Early Essay 179
in the heavens, or without us. Therefore an object is seen as exter
nal, which is not indeed external, which is again the thing to be
shewn. (Clavis, p. 24)
Again let a man, while he looks upon any object, as suppose the
moon, press or distort one of his eyes with his finger; and he will
perceive two moons, some distance from each other. Now, both
of these moons are equally external, or seen by us as external;
and yet one, at least of these, is allowedly not external, there
being but one moon supposed to be in the heavens, or without
us. And hence, indeed it follows that neither of them are exter-
nal; since there is not any one mark or sign of the externeity of
3
the one, which is not in the other. (Touchstone, p. 18)
Though the writer of the essay presumably had Clavis before

him, it is notable how little he drew from it, in proportion to what
he took from Berkeley. The contents of the essay, even though
plagiarized, are of some interest. Indeed, the essay might be
described as the first and perhaps not the worst abridged edition
of Berkeley's writings. It can also be considered as an early
abstract of Berkeley's immaterialism; though, as an abridged
text, the essay presents only a certain aspect of Berkeley's thought,
filtered, as it were, through the editor. And an editor's selection
can be influential.
Apart from the essay, there is one other early statement of Ber-
keley's immaterialism, besides his writings themselves. In Cham-
bers' Cyclopaedia, or an Universal Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences
(1728), Berkeley is quoted at length, with proper, if not always
accurate, acknowledgement. Professor H. M. Bracken has called
attention to the misleading presentation of Berkeley's position
in some of the Cyclopaedia's articles. Chambers' quotations fro
the Principles contain virtually no mention of the role of God i
Berkeley's philosophy, and as a consequence, Bracken asserts,
'initiated a pattern which has persisted in English philosophy of
emasculating the Principles'. This sin of omission, however, the

essay does not commit; see the table given below, sections 2, 3, 16
and especially section 14. Bracken notes that in Chambers' article
'External', 'there is one interesting omission, the last sentence in
section 19 [of Berkeley's Principles]vcxmzxfglkjxblkjh cbcjkldsf in
any of the sections from which this article is made up that contains
the word "God" '. 7 But the essay includes this sentence.8
The one outstanding omission in the essay is Berkeley's criticism
of abstract ideas. Yet on the whole, the selection is not, I think, a
bad one. It shows that the plagiarist did some work in choosing
9
and arranging his extracts.
The essay is made up of sixteen numbered sections. The follow-
ing list shows the corresponding places in the writings of Berkeley
and Collier, which were drawn on for these sections.
1.
2. Berkeley, Principles, sect. 30
3. sects 18, 19, 20
4. sect. 8
5. sect. 73
6. sect. 10
7. sect. 14
8. sect. 3
9.
10. sects 34, 35
11. sect. 37
12. sect. 38
13. sects 58, 59
14. sects 60, 61,62, 65, 66
15. Collier, Clavis, p. 24; Berkeley, New Theory of Vision, sects
44-51
16. Principles, sects 92, 94
The only two sections, it will be observed, which do not draw on

material from Berkeley are one and nine. Section nine, however,
An Early Essay 181
contains the phrase 'delusion of words', which appears in the
Introduction to the Principles, section 25; and nine is largely a tran
sitional section. The case of section one, I think, provides a clue to
what most likely prompted the composition of the essay.
On 20 January 1731, the Grub-Street Journaprintedd some
doggerel verses 'On the Reverend Mr Arthur Collier's Clavis Uni-
versalis\ The poem was accompanied by an anonymous cover-
ing letter, which linked Berkeley with Collier. I suspect that this
letter evoked the essay. Here are the first two of the letter's three
paragraphs.
Mr Bavius,
Some years ago, Mr Berkeley of Trinity College, Dublin and

Mr Collier of Langford-Magna, near Sarum; without having
communicated their thoughts to each other, hit upon a new
scheme of the principles of philosophy: which, notwithstanding the
character of the authors, and the importance of the thing, has
not yet been publickly canvass'd.
The titles of the essays are, The principles of human knowledge

and The impossibility of an external world [part of the subtitle of
of the cursors pray just informClavis].to engage the attentiorm
the Public, that the great point they advance, is, that IN
NATURE THERE IS, THERE CAN BE, NOTHING BUT
SPIRIT AND IDEAS.
From this letter the writer of Touchstone would have bee

supplied with two of the three sources of his essay, as well as the
names of the two authors he plagiarized. And I take it that
the plagiarist was acquainted with the Grub-Street Journal, becaus
Touchstone was advertised in that journal on 22 June 1732. Furthe
the statement t h a t ' . . . the thing, has not yet been publickly can-
vass'd' (i.e., examined or discussed) fits in well with the title of
Touchstone and the manner of the essay. But what seems to me th
most conclusive reason for thinking that the Grub -Streetiece occa-
sioned the appearance of the essay is the striking similarity
between the conclusion of the letter as I quoted it and the first sec-
tion of the essay. The 'great point', in the Grub-Street letter, whic
was calculated 'to engage the attention of the curious', is just the
note on which the essay opens; and the wording in both is nearly
identical. Section one of the essay reads: ' 1 . What is that you say?
Is there nothing in nature but spirit and ideas? Nothin
If the Grub-Street letter did evoke the essay, then such a conne
tion raises a question about the seriousness of the essay. The Grub-
Street Journal was a humorous periodical, that ran from 1730 t
1733. Whether or not the essay was composed 'tongue in cheek',
I am inclined to believe that it would be taken that way by a con-
temporary reader, if only on account of the curious article which
followed it. The fourth article tries to show how flying in the air, by
means of a brass balloon, is possible. As in the case of the essay on
immaterialism, it is plagiarized, almost certainly from Francesco
Lana's Prodromo overo Saggio di alcune inventione nuove premesso aW
maestro (1670). n
Now, in fact, Lana is credited with being one of the fore-fathers
of aeronautics; but for the informed reading public of the middle
eighteenth century - and indeed until the first successful balloon
flight in 1783 — flying in the air was a popular subject for ridi-
cule. It seems likely that a reader, 'in an age of so much ludicrous
humour' would take the essay and the article on flying as written
in the same comical vein. And if he missed the essay's asso-
ciation with flying, and consequently with satire, one of its few
original passages would make him suspect that the essay was a
piece of badinage. The closing words of the essay are: ' . . . and,
for the better fixing the principles of knowledge, I wish you
A SOUND MIND IN A SOUND BODY; or to speak more acc
rately, A SOUND BODY IN A SOUND MIND'.
As Professor Bracken has clearly shown, the first twenty-two
years in the reception of Berkeley's immaterialism were not
An Early Essay 183
'doldrum years'; but neither were they appreciative years. As far
as I am aware, the Touchstone essay was the first published 'defenc
of Berkeley's rejection of matter, though, as we have seen, it is less a
defence than a conflated, plagiarized anthology of extracts. Still,
the essay reads as a defence of immaterialism. And I have sug-
gested that it would also be read with suspicions about its serious-
ness. Pretending to be a defence yet looking like a satire, the essay
might well have made a contemporary reader wonder whether the
denial of matter was not a tour de force of irony. Indeed, such a
surprising opinion concerning the inception of Berkeley's imma-
terialism was seriously held. In his Appeal to Common Sense (176
James Oswald solemnly reported: 'It is probable, that the disprov-
ing the reality of matter, was first entertained by the Bishop of
Cloyne, in the gayety of his heart, and with a view to burlesque
the refinements of infidels'. The essay in Touchstone probably d
not start such rumours, but I believe that it would be likely to sup-
port them.
Notes
a. This essay originally appeared in Hermathena in 1969.
1. It is not listed in Halkett and Laing, Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseu
nymous English Literature (Edinburgh, 1926—62).
2. Clavis Universalis, or a New Inquiry after Truth. Being a Demonstration of the
Non -Existence or Impossibility of an External World (London, 1713), p. 27.
In chap. 1, Collier again employs the 'double image argument', this
time to prove the more far-reaching thesis 'that a visible world is not,
cannot be external', pp. 29f.
3. Hume, in his Treatise of Human Nature, book 1 (1739) makes use of a very
similar argument, to 'convince us, that our perceptions are not possest of
any independent existence' (Selby-Bigge's edition, p. 210). His argu-
ment, which should be compared with Collier's, is as follows:
When we press one eye with a finger, we immediately perceive all the
objects to become double, and one half of them to be remov'd from
their common and natural position. But as we do not attribute a

continu'd existence to both these perceptions, and as they are both of
the same nature, we clearly perceive, that all our perceptions are
dependent on our organs, and the disposition of our nerves and
animal spirits.
The same argument, much abbreviated, reappears in the Enquiry concer

ing Human Understanding (1748), where Hume introduces it, and a fe
others of the same type, as ' . . . the more trite topics employed by the
skeptics in all ages against the evidence of sense . . . ' (Hendel's edition
p. 159). In his note to this passage (p. 160), Hendel states: 'This is a
reference to arguments discussed by George Berkeley in his Principls
and Three Dialogues.' But this is not quite correct. The 'double imag
argument' does not appear in either of those two works. (Did Hume
read Collier?)
4. See, for example, A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.
By Dr Berkley [sic] since Bishop of Cloyne. With remarks on each section
(London, 1776).
5. H a r r y M . Bracken, The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism 1710—
1733 (1965), chap. iv.
6. Ibid., pp. 57f.
7. Ibid., p. 56.
8. I must note a coincidence (if indeed it is a coincidence) between Cham-
bers' abridgement of section 3 of the Principles and the essay's treatmen
of that section. After quoting part of Chambers' version of section 3,
Bracken remarks that 'Berkeley's text, however, reads: "minds or think-
ing things" rather than "Mind" [and] Chambers also omits the phrase,
" . . . or that some other spirit does perceive it" ' [op. cit., p. 54). The essay
makes identical deletions.
9. Regarded, however, as an abstract of Berkeley's principal philosophical
work, the essay must be judged greatly inferior to Sir G. Gilbert's Abstract
o/[Locke's] Essay of Human Understanding (1728) and, of course, Hume
own Abstract o/[his] Treatise of Human Nature (1740).
10. A portion of the poem together with part of the covering letter (see
below) was reprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine (1732), p. 567.
11. The relevant chapters are translated in the Aeronautical Classics, edi
by Hubbard and Ledebber (London: Aeronautical Society of Great
Britain, 1910-11); see no. 4, 'The aerial ship'.
An Early Essay 185
12. See, for example, Richard Steele's Guardian (1713), no. 112, The Memoirs
of Martinus Scriblerus (1741), book 1, chap. 17, Pope's Dunciad (1743),
book iv, lines 451-2 and note, a n d j . E. Hodgson's The History of Aeronau-
tics in Great Britain, p. 81.
13. Berkeley, Reasons fornot replying to Mr Walton'sfull answer (1735), section 2.
14. Bracken, op. cit., especially pp. 8 1 - 4 .
15. An Appeal to Common Sense in Behalf of Religion, vol. 1, p. 96.
9
Mrs Berkeley's Annotations in
An Account of the Life of Berkeley (1776) a
1 Introduction
The Library of Trinity College, Dublin has recently purchased,

with the help of a generous contribution from Dr Luce, an impor-
tant new source for the life of George Berkeley: an interleaved copy
of An Account of the Life of George Berkeley (London, 1776), with
manuscript corrections and additions by Berkeley's wife, Mrs
Anne Berkeley. To be sure, some of Mrs Berkeley's comments
have long been known from her 'corrigenda and addenda' in the
third volume of Andrew Kippis's Biographia Britannica (2nd ed
London, 1784) to the memoir of Berkeley that appeared in the
previous, second volume (1780). However, even in the case of
the comments duplicated, there are variations. Still more interest-
ing, some of Mrs Berkeley's manuscript notes were not published
by Kippis at all, and a few of these seem to contain hitherto
unknown information relating, for example, to Berkeley's Ber-
muda scheme. We also learn that Berkeley's father was from Staf-
fordshire, and that Berkeley first heard about tar-water from a
letter he received while at Cloyne.
According to a note prefaced to the 'corrigenda and addenda',
Mrs Berkeley communicated her comments through the Rev Mr
J. Duncombe, one of Kippis's helpers. Duncombe also seems to
have been a friend of the Berkeley family, for among the Berkeley
papers (in the British Museum) there is a letter by Mrs Duncombe
to Mrs Berkeley in which she says: 'The life of Bp Berkeley is also
inserted in Kippis, ye materials communicated chiefly by ye Bps
Mrs Berkeley's Annotations 187
brother and one of ye fellows of Dublin College: We wish to see the
said life from the hands and heart of Dr. B-', i.e., the bishop's son,
George.4 In the same letter - of 12 February 1780 - Mrs Dun-
combe mentions that her husband has 'contributed some materi-
als' to the Biographia. It is more than likely that Kippis compose
the corrigenda and addenda from material provided by Dun-
combe and drawn primarily from Mrs Berkeley's annotated
volume. But it is also likely that there was a fourth party involved.
From inscriptions inside our copy we find that on 23 June 1777
Mrs Berkeley gave her annotated copy to one Elizabeth Ketcher-
syde, who wrote her name at the top of the first blank page. From
a comparison of handwritings it seems that this lady also wrote -
probably at the dictation of Mrs Berkeley - the comment on the
verso of page 39 (see below), as well as the following note on
the second blank page: 'Had Bishop Berkeley's Biographer con-
sulted Mm Berkeley or Dr. Berkeley, this work would have been
more copious & correct than it is'. It is probable that Mrs Berke-
ley's annotations were originally written for Elizabeth Ketcher-
syde; since in her note on the bottom of verso 19 and the top of
recto 20, Mrs Berkeley addresses someone on the subject of Berke-
ley's plans for the proposed town and college of St Paul. She says:
'You should have the plans I mention had they not unfortunately
been lost'. °
The fellow of'Dublin College', mentioned above, was Joseph
Stock, FTCD (1763) and Bishop of Killala (1798), who, it is gen-
erally agreed, wrote the Account of the Life of George Berkeley, whic
was reprinted in the second volume of Kippis's Biographia. Hence
Mrs Berkeley's annotations could be considered as addenda and
corrigenda to either the Account or the memoir in volume two o
the Biographia. As I have suggested above, most of the publishe
comments were probably drawn by Duncombe (and, perhaps, by
Elizabeth Ketchersyde) from our annotated copy, although the
others must have come from some other source, or directly from
Mrs Berkeley in response to the appearance of the memoir in
volume two. This suggestion is supported by the fact that most of

the printed comments are to be found in our ms. volume less ele-
gantly expressed, and some others nearly verbatim. I assume that
Mrs Berkeley annotated her interleaf copy of the Account sometim
between late 1776, its publication date, and 23 June 1777, when
she gave the volume to her friend Elizabeth. This dating is also
confirmed by internal evidence. In her annotations, Mrs Berkeley
refers to W. S. Johnson, the son of Berkeley's American friend,
Samuel Johnson, as having been in England five or six years ago.
Hence, as Johnson left England in 1771, we may assume that
1776/7 is the period in which Mrs Berkeley annotated her copy
of the Account. She was at the time about 76 years of age. In hi
Life of George Berkeley, Dr Luce quotes two contemporary descr
tions of Mrs Berkeley in old age. In 1767, W. S.Johnson wrote to
his father that 'She [Mrs Berkeley] is the finest old lady I ever saw,
sensible, lively, facetious and benevolent...'; and Tn 1780 her son
wrote that her powers of mind were "as great as ever, and few per-
sons have exceeded her in this respect" '. To these may be added
as a final bit of testimony Bishop Home's remark to this same son,
George, in a letter of 24 July 1784: 'I have just read her [Mrs Ber-
keley's] sensible and excellent remarks, in Kippis's addenda to the
2d vol. of ye Biographid }10
Some problems arise concerning this new source: for example,
(1) why were some of Mrs Berkeley's comments omitted from the
Biographia, (2) how are we to explain the discrepancies between
her annotations and the published addenda in the Biographia, an
(3) where there is a discrepancy, which source is to be given pri-
macy? I have drawn attention to omissions and discrepancies in
the notes, where I have also attempted (in some measure) to deal
with these problems. (But since the printed comments are rela-
tively well-known, it is the ms. deviations that I have described in
detail.) While specific problems must, no doubt, be dealt with spe-
cifically, it is not out of the question that some of Mrs Berkeley's
comments were omitted because Duncombe (or someone else)
found them difficult to decipher, and that some of the discrepan-
cies arose from the same cause.
In this transcription I have tried to follow Mrs Berkeley as
closely as possible, although I have not reproduced her erasures.
In most cases, her comments can be appreciated apart from what
they are a comment on; but in a few instances - e.g., in the first
note it was necessary to place her remarks in the context of
Stock's statements. This has been done by means of, and within,
square brackets, which at all times enclose words not by Mrs Ber-
keley. For the most part, the square brackets contain references
to the page and position of her annotations. I have tried, how-
ever, to confine any clarification to the notes. I am grateful to the
Board of Trinity College for permission to publish Mrs Berkeley's
annotations. I am also grateful to Dr Jill Berman for reading
over my transcriptions and notes, and making helpful suggestions
about both.
2 Mrs Berkeley's annotations
[bottom of p. 1 ]
[Stock had written that Bishop Berkeley was the 'son of William
Berkeley . ..' to which Mrs B. adds] Esqr formerly of Salt in
Staffordshire.
[verso of p. 3]
The Bishop of Cloyne pursues Mr Locks own way of reasoning -

& thereby proves that the first qualities of matter must from th
mutability be rejected as well as the secondary qualities - And he
saith that if Matter hath neither first or secondary qualities it is
nothing. He only presses his (Locks) Argument as far as truth and
experience leads[ ] -
And yet what two of the Bps friends said on this subject see-
meth to be true — This is what can neither be believed or co
futed — it therefore shows the shortness of mans knowledge evn
in what is sensible was Necessary there must Revelation be to
reason in regard unto things Spiritual.
[right margin of p. 3 ]
the Bp of Gloyne could not endure Romances —
[recto of p. 4 ]
I have heard the Bp say that his Idea of passive Obedience, was
obedience to the lawful power. There must be lawful power som
where) and passive obedience to that power is a duty, when noth
required contrary to duty —
[recto of p. 6 (but intended for p. 5) ]
The Bp of Gloyne thought Sr Richard Steele the best Mature

man, & the most witty in Conversation, he had ever met with - b
he did not Celebrate him as Learned and great -
[recto of p. 14 (but intended for verso of p. 13 ]
he never dined with Mrs Vanhomrig, or saw her but once -
7
[recto of p. 14 }
I have heard the Bp of Cloyne say — that all Swifts letters whic
came into his hands did the highest honor to the Dean - as they
all tended to damp — not to encrease the flame of Vanessa--
the poem of Cadenus and Vanessa he never would have
published - ; & its consequence justified his delicacy on that
subject, for that poem caused the death of Stella — as Dr. Delany
informed me — but Mr Marshal published it unknown to him.
[recto of p. 18 ]
I have seen the plan of the College & town of Bermuda drawn
by the Dean - in the Midst of a large Circle stood the College -
and this circle was formed by the houses of the fellows at proper
distances to allow a good garden to each house -
Another circle without this one was formed of houses for
gentleman who had requested of the Dean to build such &
such housesfor them the models of these houses I have also seen in
various tastes of truest architecture — An Outward circle was
composed of shops & houses for artificers of various denomina-
tions - he had a great dislike to the contaminating Churches
with dead bodies - & for this reason a walk called the walk
of Death planted with Cypress trees was appropriated for
the purpose of internment, where Monuments & urns might
be erected -
The private subscriptions had this scheme [verso of p. 19]
succeeded were vastly greater than what the houses of Lords &
Commons had twice granted with only one dissenting voice —
but Sr Robert Walpole would not suffer the money to be
paid - Numbers of the first quality & fortunes in England unto
whom the Bp was personally known for that reason had chose to
have villas in those little islands where in a fine climate they
might renew their lives & pass the remnant of their time in an
Elegant & Learned and a Religious society where the fine arts
were to have flourished - and where Luxury & enriching trade
could not be practised for the small stipend of the President &
Fellows forbad the first & these little islands were chiefly pitched
upon by the Bp because the fellows could never in after times turn
traders^ * — You should have the plans I mention had [recto of

p. 20] they not unfortunately been lost'-10-' - it may be thought
that the great & rich who retired to Bermuda would have
brought their Luxury with them - but they retired from luxury
to true taste - it likewise may be supposed that fine arts could
not thrive where luxury by reason & fashion & religion were ex-
cluded - but in proof of the contrary an eminent Painter of the
first Note went to America with the Bp^ ^ & one of the first
composers & performers in Music of that time had engaged
to come there so soon as he was settled ^ J - This place was
therefore to be the retreat for Men of fine taste & Learning
who had seen much of the world & therefore was tired of it
And yet intended to carry everything laudable & lovely with
them & do as much good as they could both to themselves
& others -
1 *-?
[right margin of p. 19 ]
the sum granted [for the Bermuda project] was £20000 —
[verso of p. 21 ]
it seems to be a very poor Account of the Deans usefulness in

America, that he assisted the Minister of New Port — he
preached every Sunday either in the Church of New Port in
Rhode Island, or on the Continent and the Missionaries for 70
miles around agreed amongst themselves to meet at his house
twice a year & receive his instructions - which they did for the
two years he resided in that Island - part of these instructions I
have heard — and they were, that by all the offices of Kindness
they should conciliate Men of different sects unto themselves:
And never begin to argue upon controverted points, but
preach upon those in wch all must agree, for the love of God
& men - and not provoke by trifles of no moment - such as
walking about in Pudding Sleeve Gowns - which they detested -
but dress in black or grey except when they went into Church — to
hear all men patiently — and answer them from Scripture —
[recto of p. 2215]
When D- Berkeley left Rhode Island - he gave an hundred

acres of land on wch there was an house, to keep 4 Scholars at
the two Colleges of Tale & Harvard.
he avoided going to Boston because at that time there was a dis-

pute between the governor & people — and when he did go
there in order to embark for England he was received with
every mark of honor & distinction And Unknown to him all
things provided for him and stowed in the ship that was neces-
sary for his voyage at the public expense —
When he put into Virginia by stress of weather - the Gover-
nor & principal inhabitants showed every mark of concern in
their power —
[verso of p. 2316]
The College of Bermuda would have been chose preferrably to

the Universities in Old England — because the price was to have
been very moderate for Education there & the morals of the
youth there educated as well as secured as care & situation
could preserve them besides the Bp had so far gained the love
& respect of the Americans that it was not posible to shew
greater signs of both than he met with everywhere he went from
his personal merit & noble disinterested views - this would have
been the way to have removed their prejudices against the
Church of England by nipping & not tearing them away And
the fact is certain that where there was one church when the Bp
[top margin of p. 23] went to America there were 21 before the

civil war began of this I was informed by an Agent for the Colo-
nies who was in England six years ago — a man of learning &
great parts & veracity.
[right margin of p. 2317] £20000
[recto of p. 24]
The Bp had taken his whole Library to Rhode Island out of

which he gave £500 of Greek & Latin Books to a Disenting Col-
lege — and disposed of £500 more wch had been given him to lay
out in charity in presenting the other disenting College with as
many books — probably he was the only man of whom these
presents would have been accepted by the members of these col-
leges — for they tended to reunite all disenters unto the Church
of England as the Bps maxim was to nip - & not to snatch and
tare-away mens prejudices — and this was the consequence of
these presents for Dr. Johnson the agent for the Collonies [sic]
who was in England about five years ago - informed us that
where there was one Church in America when Dean By was
there — at present there were twenty — One Scotch man (a Dis-
enter) said to me: I do no much like the present of the Deans —
methinks it will prove a Trojan Horse^- * —
Out of this money he sent a very fine organ to the Church
at Newport in Rhode Island in order to draw people to
Church[19] -
[verso of p. 2520]
And Numbers came wherever he preached — he spoke freely &

clearly & without Books & I may add kindly to them — For his
Rule was to Conciliate men to the preacher by every friendly
Christian art as St. Paul became all things unto all Men that he
might gain some — he drew them by the Cord of Love & esteem
& ever continued his Love to them & they returned their venera-
tion for him & for his memory —
[bottom of p. 2521]
No man courted the great so little as did Bp Berkeley. The

Honor here mentioned was tiresome to him & if he could he
would have avoided it.
[recto of p. 2622]
His maxim was that nothing very good or very bad could be
done until a man entirely got the better of fear of the que dira
ton — but when a Man has overcome himself he overcomes the
world & then is fitted for his Masters use —
[recto of p. 3223]
The Bp of Cloyne had no high Idea of the beauties of Cloyne; nor

did it proceed from warmth of temper that he declined accepting of
the see of Glogher - he told his wife that as she shared his For-
tune he would not refuse the Bprick of Glogher without her con-
sent, but said he was desirous to shew the world, a Clergyman
superior to Covetousness & ambition [verso of p. 33] it is not
surprising that the Author of the Bps life should mistake his
motive for not accepting of the Bpick of Clogher — for probably
he had not told thiis reason to his brothers [24 - nor would he
he had not told this reason to his Brothers^ * — nor would he
the least ostentatious man alive —
[recto of p. 3425]
It was owing to a letter from Rhode Island to the Bp at Cloyne

that he thought of tar Water in this letter his Correspondent said
yr neighbor Clarke is entirely cured of a Cancer in his Mouth by
a strange medicine Tar & water —
This made the Bp suppose that tar water might be of use in

several other disorders he made experiments of various kinds
first to proportion the quantity of tar unto the water — so to be
effectual & not offend the stomach & to this purpose he found
1 quart of Tar to five of water and stirred five minutes was suffi-
cient then let it stand 24 hours and filter it off for use — after
having tried this innocent medicine for three years in his family
& neighbourhood with a success that surprised him - he recom-
mended this medicine to the public — and [verso of p. 35] the
Siris hath never been answered or any one of the cases mentioned
by Mr. Prior in his Narrative confuted —
[recto of p. 3626]
[Stock had said that Berkeley's bishopric was worth 'at least
£1400' in 1752; Mrs Berkeley puts the figure at] 1800 £
[verso of p. 3927]
The Biographer is mistaken as to hour of the Bps levee, & of

his concert — after tea, to keep out cards, he had a concert: & his
Hour for rising was generally two hours later than that here
mentioned
[verso of p. 8028]
he took great Pains to settle the linen manufacture in Cloyne

supplying the inhabitants with flax and paying for all they
spun how bad so ever he gave an house for this purpose hired a
mistress to teach the girls to spin and brought a linen weaver but
all to no purpose - they chose to spin wool - and thought he
meant to raise a great fortune by their works -
during the time of the hard frost he gave £20 a week for a
considerable time to the poor^ -* -
Notes to the Introduction

a. This article originally appeared in Hermathena in 1977.
1. In the company of Dr Luce I have compared the handwriting in this
volume (now ms. 5936) with manuscripts known to be in Mrs Berkeley's
hand, and there can be little doubt that the comments — with the excep-
tion of that on the verso of p. 39 — are in her handwriting.
2. On Mrs Berkeley's printed comments, see Dr Luce's Life of George Berkeley
(1949), pp. 8-9; on Mrs Berkeley herself, see pp. 180-2.
3. 'Mr. Buncombe, by permission of Mrs. Berkeley, the worthy relict of the
Bishop of Gloyne, has favoured us with that Lady's remarks on his arti-
cle, and with some fresh anecdotes concerning him' (Biographia, vol. iii).
In the preface to volume i of the Biographia (1778), 'the Rev. Mr. Dun-
combe . . . [is mentioned as one of those to whom] we stand obliged on
various accounts'; p. xx.
4. Additional ms. 39312 f. 17.
5. What we know of the provenance of the book and notes is derived from
the various inscriptions in our copy. On the second blank page Mrs Ber-
keley wrote: 'A Madamoiselle Madamoiselle [sic] Ketchersyde — de Son
Amie tres [sic] AfFectionee Anne Berkeley-Peckham Juin 23 1777'.
On the inside front cover is the signature 'J. Elsambier', with the date
'1812'. The College purchased the book from Dawson's of Pall Mall
in 1972.
b. In the British Library, add. ms. 46688, there is a note by Mrs Berkeley,
21 December 1776: 'My dear M—K: this vol: having amused me, I send
it to amuse you'.
6. See Dr Luce's The Life of George Berkeley, p. 7; referred to hereafter as Life.
7. The Account is mentioned in the Gentleman's Magazine and the London
Magazine in their issues of December 1776.
8. See Samuel Johnson: His Career and Writings, ed. H. and C. Schneider (New
York, 1929), vol. I, p. 482.
9. See Life, pp. 111-12.
10. Berkeley papers, in the British Museum, add. ms. 39312 f. 27.
Notes to Mrs Berkeley's annotations

1. Not in Biographia; of Berkeley's father Dr Luce says that he 'may have
been born in England' (Life, p. 22). See also 'Berkeleian studies in
America and France, with an appendix on a new letter about Berkeley's

father', by Dr Luce; HermathenaQ^ (1960), pp. 53-5.
2. The Biographia prints only to this point. The order of clauses in the rest of
her note is not certain. I do not know who the bishop's two friends were;
but Mrs Berkeley's point - in the latter part of this note - seems to be
that, as we cannot be certain whether matter exists, we must recognize
that our knowledge is very limited and especially in need of revelation in
religious matters. Berkeley uses a similar approach in the Analyst (1734),
where he calls attention to mysteries in science to support mysteries in
religion; but he never, I think, uses the question of the existence of
matter to cast doubts on human knowledge.
3. Substantially the same in the Biographia.
4. Not in Biographia. On Berkeley's Passive Obedience (1712) adverted to
here, see Prof Jessop's editorial introduction, in Works of George Berkeley,
vol. vi, pp. 3-11.
5. Substantially the same.
6. Substantially the same but somewhat enlarged. On Berkeley's connec-
tion with Swift's Vanessa and the legacy, see
7. There is a curious difference here. In the Biographia this comment reads:
'All Dr. Swift's letters to this lady Vanessa tended greatly to her honour.
Dr Berkeley disapproved extremely of the publication of "Cadenus and
Vanessa"; which step, however, was resolved upon, and executed, by Mr
Marshall, the other executor. Dr Delany said, that this publication put
an end to poor Stella's life'. Se
8. First two paragraphs are substantially the same. The rest, apart from the
fact that the scheme was passed with only one opposing vote, is not
in Biographia; and some of this is not to be found in any other source.
The Biographia does, however, contain additional material relating
to the Bermuda scheme and its passage through Parliament.
9. This was the English Dr Johnson's objection to Berkeley's scheme, i.e.,
'the fellows of St. Paul's College would soon have degenerated into farm-
ers or merchants; the love of money would have proved too strong for the
love of learning.' (See my 'Some new Bermuda Berkeleiana', Hermathena
(1970), p. 29.)
10. Berkeley's plan of the City of Bermuda was reproduced in the first
collected edition of his works (1784, vol. ii, p. 419). But the plan of the
College seems to have been lost. In the extant plan, the College is said
to be situated 'in a peninsula a quarter of a mile from the town'. This
description seems at variance with Mrs Berkeley's claim that the College
was in 'the midst of a large circle'. It is possible that she was confusing the
steeple and church which are, roughly, in the centre of the town (in the
extant plan). It is also possible that there were a number of plans.
11. This is John Smibert, the 'pioneer of portrait painting in America' (see
Life, p. 113).
12. This is no doubt John Christopher Pepusch, who composed the music to
Gay's Beggar's Opera. In the early 'Some original memoirs of the late
famous Bishop of Cloyne', published in the Weekly Magazine in 1759/60,
the writer states: 'Doctor Pepusch, an excellent Musician, and some
others of great ability were engaged in this design to establish a College
in Bermuda, and actually embarked in order to put it into execution, but
the ship being cast away the design unhappily was discontinued and Ber-
keley was left to contrive something else to the advantage of his country'
(the 'Memoirs' are reprinted in the Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith
(Oxford, 1966), edited by Arthur Friedman; see vol. iii, p. 37). Because
the latter part of this statement was known to be untrue, the first part has
also been dismissed. But in the light of Mrs Berkeley's information the
first part must, I think, be accepted; and the 'Memoirs', as a whole,
must now be taken to be a somewhat more reliable source. The 'Mem-
oirs' were thought to be the work of Dr Johnson. They have recently
been attributed to Goldsmith by his editor; see Collected Works, p. 35,
and my 'Some new Bermuda Berkeleiana', pp. 28-31.
13. In Biographia.
14. Although largely the same there are a few minor variations; in the
printed account the distance is given as 100 miles, and the 'pudding
sleeve gowns' are not mentioned.
15. No mention of the four scholars, nor anything below the line.
16. Not in Biographia.
17. See above text to note 13.
18. The printed version of this paragraph runs as follows: 'He gave of his
own property to one of these colleges [Harvard or Yale] and to several
Missionaries, books to the amount of five hundred pounds. To the other
College he made a large donation of books purchased by others, and
trusted to his disposal.'
19. The printed account does not mention for what purpose the organ was
given.
21. In Biographia as follows: Tt was from a hope of advancing the interest of
this college, that Dr Berkeley submitted to the drudgery (for such he
esteemed it) of bearing a part in the fruitless weekly debates with Clarke
and Hoadly, in the presence of the Princess Catherine.'
2 2. No tin Biographia.
23. Substantially the same, although the printed account is more extensive.
In the Biographia Berkeley's remark to his wife is said to be: 'I desire to
add one more to the list of Churchmen who are evidently dead to ambi-
tion and avarice'; and the last phrase - he was the least ostentatious man
alive' - is omitted.
24. One brother was Robert Berkeley, Rector of Middleton in the Diocese of
Cloyne. He is referred to in the Biographia memoir as the 'brother,
yet living [who communicated] most of the following particulars ...'
(vol. ii, p. 247). Little is known of Robert, or his relationship with his
famous brother. We have, e.g., none of the letters which must undoubt-
edly have passed between them. Hence it is worth quoting the following
unnoticed obituary of Robert, from the Dublin Chronicle, 30 Aug.-
1 Sept. 1787: 'The late Dr [Robert] Berkeley was upwards of 87 years of
age - he had been more than forty years Rector of the Union of Middle-
ton. He was bred at the school of Kilkenny under the same master with
Tho. Prior, Congreve, and others eminent in literature and nobility.
He had been twice a candidate for Fellowship: at his first sitting, his
brother George (the Bishop) who was then a senior Fellow, would not
vote for his election, on account of his youth. The second sitting there
were six vacancies in the year 1724, when Clarke, Cartwright, Grafton,
Bacon and Dobbs, were elected with him.'
25. This addition, which was not included in the Biographia, may help to
answer one of the questions Mr Ian Tipton asks in his 'Two questions
on Bishop Berkeley's panacea', namely, when and how did Berkeley
find out about tar-water as a medicine? Mrs. Berkeley's remarks confirm
Tipton's suggestion that, despite popular opinion, Berkeley did not dis-
cover tar-water while he was in America, in 1728—1731 (see Journal of the
History oj'Ideas30 (1969), pp. 204-7). However, as Tipton pointed out to
me, Mrs Berkeley's statement that Berkeley heard about tar-water from
a Rhode Island correspondent, and as a cure for a cancer, 'presents a bit
of a puzzle because in his letter to Linden, Berkeley says quite explicitly
that he never heard of tar-water as being used in any part of America he
had visited and that it was its use in Carolina against smallpox which
encouraged him to try it, cf. Siris 2' (from a private letter). For Berkeley's
letter to Linden, see Works, vol. viii, pp. 274-5.
How the puzzle is to be resolved, I am not certain; but it is to be noted
that Berkeley first mentions tar-water in a letter to Thomas Prior dated
8 February 1740/41 (in Works, vol. viii, pp. 248-9). Here he speaks of
tar-water as a medicine which might prevent or cure a 'phlegmon',
i.e., a tumour. There is no mention of smallpox. Consequently, if Berke-
ley heard of tar-water within a month or two of that letter, and the letter
indicates that he had heard of it some months previously, and if he
understood a phlegmon to be similar to a cancer, then we seem to have
some evidence in support of Mrs Berkeley's claims. But this still does not
explain Berkeley's remarks to Linden. It should be noted also that Ber-
keley in his letter to Linden was remembering something which had hap-
pened at the most some ten years earlier; while Mrs Berkeley is
remembering something which has happened at least thirty-five years
earlier. The question also arises as to why her comment on tar-water
was not printed in the Biographia.
26. Not in Biographia. See Life, p. 218, where Dr Luce quotes and criticizes
the passage in which Stock states the value of the bishopric of Cloyne.
27. Stock had written: 'At Cloyne he constantly rose between three and four
in the morning ...'. In the Biographia his hours of rising are given as 'six
or seven'. As noted above, this comment was probably written by Eliza-
beth Ketchersyde, to whom Mrs Berkeley gave her annotated copy (see
my Introduction, note 5).
29.
following two addenda by Mrs Berkeley are to be found in the Biographia
but not in our volume: (i) that Berkeley died while listening to a pas-
sage from Corinthians, and (ii) that his favourite authors were Plato
and Hooker.
10
Some New Bermuda Berkeleiana
1 Berkeley's Bermuda projecta
Berkeley's attempt to plant 'a seminary of religion and learning'

in Bermuda, even though it was unsuccessful, still impressed many
of his contemporaries. 'His eminent talents, by which he shines
in the learned world, will not give him so much lustre and distinc-
tion in the annals of future times, as that apostolical zeal with
which he is so confessedly endowed.' This prediction about Berke-
ley's fame was made in 1734, in the Gentleman's Magazine (vol. iii,
p. 443). It has not been fulfilled. But Berkeley's Bermuda project
has by no means been ignored by 'future times', as the number of
academic institutions in America, which are named after Berke-
ley, bears witness.
I have three new items to present, relating to that project.
Through them, we are able to glimpse the Bermuda project in
process, miscarriage and retrospect. The first item is a petition
addressed by Berkeley to King George I. The second is a previously
unpublished letter, written by Berkeley to Edmund Gibson, Bishop
of London. The third is a letter written by Berkeley's son, recount-
ing a conversation which he had with Dr Johnson about his
father's proposed college. I deal with these three items seriatim.
Berkeley's petition to the King records the steps already taken,

and asks for the issue of a warrant to make provision for the
Mew Bermuda Berkeleiana 203
President and Fellows of St Paul's College, Bermuda, The petition
is in the Public Records Office in London, among the Treasury
Papers, vol. cclvii (1727), no. 2. It was published, in part, in the
Calendar of Treasury Papers 1720—1728 (London, 1889). But it has
never been reprinted, either in part or whole, in any collection of
Berkeley's writings. The petition is written in a fair hand - prob-
ably not Berkeley's; it is however signed by him. A portion of the
manuscript is defective. Where there is any doubt about the read-
ing, I have enclosed the doubtful words in brackets.
To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble petition of George Berkeley
Doctor of Divinity Dean of Derry and President
of Saint Pauls College in Bermuda.
Sheweth
That your Majesty was graciously pleas'd by your Letters

Patent bearing Date the third day of June in the Eleventh Year
of your Majesties Reign to Erect and found a College in Ber-
muda consisting of a President and Nine Fellows for the Educa-
tion of American Missionaries and supplying the British
Plantations with Clergy.
That your Majesties Pious Intentions having been communi-
cated to the Commons of Great Britain, they did in the last Ses-
sions of Parliament humbly Address Your Majesty That Your
Majesty would be graciously pleased to make [such] Provision
for the Maintenance of the said President and Fellows as your
Majesty shou'd think proper out of the Lands in the Island of
Saint Christophers yielded by France to Great Britain by the
Treaty of Utrecht, to which Address Your Majesty was pleased
to return [a most] Gracious Answer.
May it [please your] Majesty to give Directions for the pas-
sing of [a warrant for such provision out of the said Lands as
Your [Majesties Honjour Grfaciousness] and Goodness shall

think fit for the [Maintenance of the [President and Fellows
And your Petitioner as in Duty bound shall ever pray &c
George Berkeley
This seems to be the only extant document in which Berkeley

used the title 'President of Saint Pauls College'. The petition is
not dated; but it must have been written between 16 May 1726
and 12 June 1727. It could not have been written before 16 May
1726, because on that date the King returned his 'Gracious
Answer' (see above); and the death of George I on 12 June 1727
fixes the latest date.
Although I have placed the words 'a warrant for such provi' in
brackets, I think that we can be reasonably certain that these are
the correct words. This is the reading given in the Calendar of Treas-
ury Papers', and indirect support for this reading can be drawn from
Berkeley's letter of 1 December 1726. In this informative letter to
his friend Thomas Prior, Berkeley writes:
. . . his Majesty hath ordered the warrant for passing the said grant to be
drawn. The persons appointed to contrive the draught of the
warrant are the Solicitor-General, Baron Scroop of the Treas-
ury, and (my very good friend) Mr. Hutchenson. . . . The
method agreed on is by a rent-charge on the whole crown
lands [in St Christopher's] redeemable upon the crown's
paying twenty thousand pounds, for the use of the President
and Fellows of St. Paul's and their successors. Sir Robert Wai-
pole hath signified that he hath no objection to this method; and
I doubt not Baron Scroop will agree to it; by which means the
grant may be passed before the meeting of Parliament, after which
o
we may prepare to set out on our voyage in April, [italics mine]
The warrant, referred to in this letter, Tor passing the said

grant', was almost certainly what Berkeley requested the King
New Bermuda Berkeleiana 205
'to give directions for the passing of ...', in the petition printed
above. This particular warrant, however, was never in fact
passed, apparently because of the death of George I. A new war-
Q
rant was eventually passed under Georg
//
We pass on now three or four years, and come to Berkeley's letter

to Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London. The letter was written in
Rhode Island, and is now among the Fulham papers (vol. xvii, ff.
19-20) in Lambeth Palace Library. I am obliged to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and the Trustees of Lambeth Palace
Library for permission to publish it. The circumstances surround-
ing the letter are briefly these.
By May 1730, Berkeley had been in the New World for well over
a year, and was anxiously awaiting payment of the £20,000 grant,
which had been promised him, for establishing St Paul's College in
Bermuda. His anxiety is revealed in a letter to Prior, dated 7 May
1730: ' . . . I wait only the King's grant to transport myself thither
[to Bermuda]. I am now employing the interest of my friends in
England for that purpose; and have wrote in the most pressing
manner either to get the money paid, or at least to get a positive
answer that may direct me what course I am to take'. Edmund
Gibson would have been the most likely person to obtain 'a posi-
tive answer'. He was Sir Robert Walpole's friend, as well as Wai-
pole's adviser on ecclesiastical matters; he was also Berkeley's
friend, and, as Bishop of London, his diocese included the West
Indies and also Bermuda.
It has long been known that Gibson was successful in obtaining
this positive answer for Berkeley. In An Account of the Life of George
Berkeley ... (London, 1776), we are informed that Gibson applied
to Sir Robert Walpole,
then at the head of the treasury [and] was favoured at length
with the following very honest answer: Tf you put this question
to me', says Sir Robert, 'as minister, 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 pay-
ment of 20,000^ I advise him by all means, to return home to
Europe, and to give up his present expectations.' The Dean
being informed of this conference by his good friend the bishop,
and thereby fully convinced that the bad policy of one great
man had rendered abortive a scheme, whereon he had
expended much of his private fortune, and more than seven
years of the prime of his life, he returned to Eur
Before returning to England, Berkeley wrote Gibson the following

letter. It is undoubtedly a reply to the one alluded to above by
which Berkeley was 'informed of this conference'.
My Lord,
I beg leave to return my humble thanks to your Lordship for
the favour of a letter just come to my hands wherein you have
been pleased to send me Sir Robert Walpole's answer which
leaves no room to deliberate what I have to do. I shall therefore
prepare to get back as soon as possible. I was prepared for this
event by advices from other hands particularly some from Ire-
land which informed me that all my associates to a man had
absolutely abandoned the design upon which I came and beta-
ken themselves to other views having been tired out with
discouragement and delay which hath proved as fatal to our
College as an absolute refusal.
I have waited these two months in expectation that vessel
from Bermuda might possibly have touched at this island
which wou'd have better enabled me to send your Lordship an
account of the present state of the Church and Clergy there: But
none having come I can only say what I formerly had upon the
information of some credible persons, viz: that there are eight
Mew Bermuda Berkeleiana 207
churches in those islands that are alternately served by three
clergymen who have each of them a small glebe and two forty
pds pannum, the third who is minister in the town of St. Georges
having fifty pds pannum in that countrys mony which I think is
thirty per cent worse than English. I had heard that one of these
three clergyman had left Bermuda for a living on the Continent
but if I mistake not his place hath been since supplied by
another provided by the present Governor. Some years ago
there was a Conventicle set up there by a very troublesome
man one Smith who brought a dissenting Teacher from Caro-
lina, but it seems upon the rumour of our College they both
thought fit to leave those Islands. So that I believe the people
there are now generally well affected to the Church. Your Lord-
ship will please to accept of this which is the best account can be
given by
My Lord
Yr Lordship's
Most dutiful &
Most obedient servt.
Geor. Berkeley
Rhode Island March 15. 1730-1
It should be noticed that Berkeley's opening statement in the

second paragraph of the letter suggests that the first paragraph
was written about January 1730/1, that is, two months before the
date at the end of the letter.7
///
We now take a long leap of some fifty years and look at the Ber-
muda scheme in retrospect. The following letter by George Berke-
ley Jr, the Bishop's second son, was addressed to George Gleig,
who printed it in the general preface to his edition of A Voyage to
Abyssinia, by Father Jerome Lobo ... translated by Samuel Johnson . . .

to which are added other tracts by the same author ... (London, 1789),
pp. 4-6. The letter may be termed a new item, in that it has
received little or no notice. It is a lively piece of writing, bringing
two great names together, and throwing light on an early source
for Berkeley's life, namely, 'Memoirs of Bishop Berkeley'.8 This
short composition had been printed by John Stockdale in The
Works oj'Samuel Johnson LL.D. (London, 1788), vol. xiv. Gleig, sus-
pecting from internal evidence that Johnson was not, in fact, the
author of the 'Memoirs', wrote to his friend George Berkeley Jr,
now Canon Berkeley, 'for information' on the question. Here is
Canon Berkeley's answer to Gleig's letter.
Cookham, Berks, 19th Nov. 1788

My dear Sir,
Your letter having lain at my house in town, it reached me
only this morning: and I delay not a day to inform you, that the
wonderfully absurd thing in Stockdale's fourteenth volume,
called Memoirs of Bishop Berkeley., was not written by Dr Johnson.
That great man had a wish to be my father's biographer; but
when applied to long after these memoirs had made their first
appearance, I declined to furnish him with materials for the pur-
pose. You may be sure I had some cogent reason for acting thus:
it was as follows. At the chambers of the worthy master of Uni-
versity College, I had spent an evening with Johnson, the present
Dean of Canterbury, Dr Vansittart, and Sir Robert Chambers.
Johnson brought upon the carpet the subject of my father's plan
for erecting St Paul's College on the island of Bermuda; and lamen-
ted, in his grand-iloquous style, that so pious and beneficent
a design had not been concerted with more prudence. 'For (said
he) had not a corrupt administration defeated the bishop's
design, it must in a short time have defeated itself. The fellows
of St Paul's College would soon have degenerated into farmers or
merchants", the love of money would have proved too strong for
the love of learning.' Young as I was, and prepossessed with the
highest veneration for Johnson, to whom I had just been intro-
duced for the first time, I instantly threw behind me every con-
sideration, which regarded not truth and my father's fair fame,
and asked my antagonist, Whether he had ever read Bishop Ber-
keley's proposal for founding that American university? and
whether he was accurately acquainted with the extent, produce,
and situation of Bermuda? To the former part of rny question
he replied in the negative; to the latter he answered nothing.
On this I admonished him to be in future less ready to censure
venerable characters, or to impute his own nescience to others as
imprudence; for that had he read the pamphlet published thrice
on this subject, he must have seen the bishop's consummate
wisdom guarding against every inconvenience which commerce
or agriculture might occasion. Farmers the fellows could hardly
have become, as their estates were all of them to be purchased
on the continent of North America, at the distance of a week's
voyage; and the island of Bermuda, blessed as it may be with
a fine climate, is so begirt with rocks, and its harbours so
ill calculated for shipping, that it could never be the seat of
such commerce as to call the minds of tutors from the nobler
pursuits. Johnson was surprised and silenced; and on my leaving
the room, being asked why he so rudely attacked my father's
scheme? he replied, / thought the young man might be vain, as well he
may, of such a father; and so I resolved to keep him humble by discussing
the plan in that manner. When Mr Allen, late vice-principal of Mag-
dalene-hall, Oxford, applied to me for materials to enable his
friend Johnson to write the life of a man who did honour to
human nature, I gave this relation of that rough conversation
as my reason for declining to comply with his request. I have
often wished that I had acted otherwise, as Johnson, in the pro-
gress of his biography, might have been led to examine, and give
a fair view7 of some of my father's works, which I am persuaded
he never read, and which have been strangely misrepresented
by many who have read them, especially among your country-

men. My grandfather Berkeley was no clergyman; nor is there
any truth in that strange anecdote of my father when at college,
and which I remember to have read in these fictitious memoirs
when first published. As you say you are to send your miscellany
to the press by the end of next week, I write to you currente calamo',
and you may make what use you like of the intelligence now sent
you by,
Dear Sir,
Your affectionate and obedient Servant,
GEO. BERKELEY
On (Bishop) Berkeley's precautions against the fellows 'degenerat-

ing into farmers or merchants', see A Proposal for the Better Supplying
of Churches in our Foreign Plantations (1725), in Works, vol. vii, espe-
cially pp. 349 and 353. By 'that strange anecdote of my father
when at college', Berkeley is apparently alluding to the story that
his father (with the help of his student friend, Thomas Contarine)
went through the motions of hanging himself, in order to experi-
ence 'the pains and symptoms... felt upon such an occasio
Gleig, it should be noted, was Scottish; and so Canon Berkeley's
remark, that 'my father's works . . . have been strangely misrepre-
sented by many who have read them, especially among jour country-
men' (italics mine) alludes, no doubt, to philosophers of the
Scottish Commonsense School, of which James Beattie and
Thomas Reid were prominent member
Canon Berkeley's letter gives us little indication about when
his confrontation with Dr Johnson took place. We learn only that
he was a young man at the time. I am, however, almost certain
that the meeting took place in the summer of 1754. My reasons are
these. (1) We know from Boswell that Johnson was visiting Oxford
during the months of July and August (1754). -i r (2) There is
in the British Museum a short diary kept by (Canon) Berkeley,
which shows that he was also staying at Oxford in July and
August of 1754.14 (3) Finally, according to Canon Berkeley's
widow, the meeting occurred when he 'a little turned twenty
on my July/August 1754 dating, young Berkeley was twenty
years old. This would put the meeting just nine years before John-
son's famous stone-kicking refutation of Bishop Berkeley's imma-
terialism, which Boswell witnessed on 6 August 1763.
2 Berkeley's departure for America: a new letter
The letter printed below was on 10 May 1979 auctioned by Swann

Galleries of New York City, who printed part of it in their catalo-
gue, item 28, and kindly allowed me to make a transcript of the
whole. The ALS, which has never been published in any work on
Berkeley, outlines his plans and reasons for going to Rhode Island
rather than to Bermuda. It was probably written to Edmund
Gibson, Bishop of London and Visitor of Berkeley's projected
College of St Paul's. We have two similar epistolary farewells —
to Percival and to Prior (Works, vol. viii, pp. 190-2) - but neither
of them is as informative. It confirms, for example, that Berkeley
planned to use Rhode Island as his base on the American main-
land; but it does not suggest that he thought of changing the loca-
tion of his College from Bermuda to Rhode Island.
Gravesend, Sept: 5, 1728.
My Lord
The small time I have been in London since my return from Ire-
land was Spent in such hurry of business, that I could wait on
none of my patrons or friends, which must be my apology for
taking this method of paying my duty to your Lordship whom
I beg leave to inform that to morrow with the blessing of God I
shall set sail to Rhode Island near new England. It is a place
abounding in provisions where I design to purchase a piece of
land with my own mony in order to supply our college with such
necessaries as are not the product of Bermuda, which will in
good measure remove one principal objection to the success
of our design. The mony contributed by Subscribers is left in
Mr Hoare the Banker's hands and made payable to Dr Clayton
with whom I have also left the patent for receiving the 20,000
[pounds] from St. Christopher's. I propose to continue at
Rhode Island till such time as Dr Clayton hath received that
mony and is come to Bermuda with the rest of my associates
where I intend to join them. Going to Bermuda without either
mony or associates I cou'd not think of. I shou'd have made a
bad figure and done no good. Staying here wou'd have been no
less disagreeable and to as little purpose, since all I could do here
was finished except receiving the mony which may be done by
others. It shou'd seem therefore that the intermediate time may
be passed with more advantage in America where I can see
things with my own eyes and prepare matters for the rendering
our college more useful. I humbly recommend the undertaking
& my self to your Lordship's protection & prayers and remain
with all duty and respect,
My Lord
Yr. Lordship's most
obedient & most devoted humble
Servt
G. Berkeley
Notes
a. This section was originally published in Hermathena in 1970.

1. 1725.
2. The Works of George Berkeley, edited by Luce and Jessop (referred to as
Works], vol. viii, pp. 174—5.
3. Ibid., vol. viii, p. 182.
4. Ibid., vol. iii,p. 208.
5. Gibson is alluded to in Berkeley's A Proposal for the Better Supplying of
Churches in our Foreign Plantations (London, 1725) as 'that great Prelate'
(Works, vol. vii, p. 347). Gibson took a particular interest in Berkeley's
project. A letter of 23 September 1725 (Fulham papers, vol. xvii, ff. 9-
10) addressed to Gibson and signed 'G X G', is a fairly detailed critique
of Berkeley's Proposal. Gibson's correspondent argues that 'the fittest
place in America for this design [Berkeley's proposed college], and that
in my opinion is the garrison of Albany up hudsons [sic] River more than
100 miles from the City of New York.... Albany is the center of his
Majesties Dominions on that Continent...'.
6. See pp. 23^4; Dr Luce attributes this work to Joseph Stock; see Luce's
The Life of George Berkeley (referred to as Life), p. 6. Stock had access to
many of Berkeley's letters, and he may therefore have learned of this con-
ference, between Gibson and Walpole, from Gibson's letter to Berkeley.
7. Writing to his friend, Lord Percival, on 2 March 1730/1, Berkeley says:
'I am fairly given to understand that the money will never be paid.'
Works, vol. viii, p. 211.
8. The 'Memoirs' was first published anonymously in the Weekly Magazine,
29 December 1759 and 5 January 1760, with the title, 'Some original
memoirs of the late famous Bishop of Cloyne'. It was then reprinted,
with a few changes, in the British Plutarch (London, 1762), vol. xii,
pp. 160—71. The 'Memoirs' has been attributed to Goldsmith by his
editor Arthur Friedman; see Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith (Oxford,
1966), vol. iii, p. 35.
9. This letter by Gleig, who became Bishop of Brechin in 1808, is among
the Berkeley papers in the British Museum, add. ms. 39312, pp. 84—6.
In replying to Gleig, Canon Berkeley made use of some of the informa-
tion in this letter. For example, Gleig writes: ' . . . a strange anecdote is
told [in the 'Memoirs'] of your father, when at College, which, if true,
should have been suppressed, though among thinking men it would not
lessen his character; and if not true, should be publickly denied'.
10. See Life, p. 34.
11. But I suspect that Canon Berkeley is also alluding to David Hume. This
suspicion arises from an interesting letter by Gleig to Canon Berkeley,
dated to December 1785. The letter begins as follows:
Your packet found me plunged in the depth of metaphysics, . . .

I had acquired what I believe to be a clear and just view of Bishop
Berkeley's philosophy, and was just preparing to study the treatise of

human nature to discover if possible by what art Mr Hume had
extracted poison from such a system. Dr Beattie and his followers
have misrepresented the principles of human knowledge, because
they do not comprehend those principles, Mr Hume misrepresented
the same principles not because he did not understand them (for I sus-
pect that few readers understood them so well) but because he wanted
such a support to his own system.
This letter is also among the Berkeley papers in the British Museum, ms.
39312, p. 43.1 have not been able to trace Canon Berkeley's reply.
12. He was born on 28 September 1733.
13. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (Dublin, 1792), vol. i, pp. 22 If.
14. This diary is in add ms. 46688.
15. Eliza Berkeley, Preface to Poems by the Late George Monck Berkeley
Esq. (London, 1797), p. ccl. In this Preface, Mrs Berkeley gives a some-
what different account of her husband's meeting with Johnson; see
pp. ccl—ccliii.
b. This section originally appeared in the Berkeley Newsletter in 1980.
11
The Good Bishop: New Letters
1 A new letter on tar-water a
This letter, or more probably an extract from a letter, is to

be found in the Newcastle Journal, no. 292, 10 November 1744.
It has escaped the notice of Berkeley's editors. The Journal attri-
butes the letter to Berkeley, and its style and contents confirm the
attribution. On 8 September 1744, the Journal carried an article
entitled: 'Remarks by a gentleman in Dublin on a late advertise-
ment concerning the effects of tar-water in Stephens Hospital'; an
editorial note appended to the article provides the fullest account
of the circumstances surrounding the letter's publication:
N.B. The above remarks [states the editor] are extracted from
the Dublin Journal, lately sent over to Mr. William Ward, esq;
of Cockerton, by the Bishop of Cloyne; who observes, in his letter
to Mr. Ward, that the gentleman has set the affair of the affida-
vits in a fair light. Mr. Ward has long been afflicted with a most
grievous hereditary asthma, and having lately tried the effects of
tar-water, and found considerable benefit by it, is willing, for the
good of the publick, that his literal correspondence with the
Bishop should be printed; which, therefore, by his leave, we
shall insert in our next; containing the state of his case, by him-
self, with the Bishop's answer; in which he gives his opinion of it,
and full directions for using tar-water in so remarkable a case.
Ward's letter was not, however, published till 3 November; Berke-
ley's answer appeared in the following number: both are reprinted,
verbatim, in the Scots Magazine, November 1744, pp. 515—16.
Neither Ward's letter nor Berkeley's reply is dated in the above

publications. However, Thomas Prior, Berkeley's life-long friend,
prints portions of four letters by Ward, in his Authentick Narrative of
the Success of Tar-Water (Dublin, 1746). The first of these letters is,
with minor variations, identical with that in the Newcastle Journal;
it is dated 8 June [1744]. The following three are dated respec-
o
tively, 27 July, 18 September and 16 January, and deal with
Ward's improving health resulting from his steady use of tar-
water. It seems very likely therefore that Berkeley's letter is to be
dated some time in July, since it is, we are informed, an answer to
Ward's first letter of 8 June.
In his first letter to Berkeley, Ward enumerates his ailments; for
which, he says. T have had and followed the advice of many of the
most eminent physicians: the methods I have been put into, and
the medicines I have taken, are innumerable; and all without ben-
efit'. He concludes his account by mentioning that 'For a fortnight
past I have been induced to try the virtues of tar-water ... but my
fits visit me as often and as violently as ever'. Much of what Berke-
ley says is in response to Ward's letter; for example, Ward writes:
T have not the least ease when I do not smoak'. Berkeley prescribes
tar-water and gives instructions for its use, but also makes broader
medical recommendations. As we have it, the letter might not
inaptly be described as a kind of medical prescription. In this
respect, it resembles two other extant letters, one to Sir Thomas
Hanmer, 21 August 1744, the other to the Duke of Newcastle,
5 March 1746/1747; in The Works of George Berkeley, edited by Luce
and Jessop, vol. viii, pp. 272~3 and 294-5. I have been unable to
find any other link between Berkeley and Ward who is, according
to Prior, from Durham than tar-water. All three of these letters by
Berkeley (see also note 3), as well as the editorial note quoted
above, clearly bear out his remark to his American friend Samuel
Johnson, that 'My correspondence with patients who drink tar-
water obliges me to be less punctual in corresponding with my
friends', ibid. p. 302.
The Good Bishop 217
This 'meddling out of my profession', to use Berkeley's phrase in
the 'Advertisement' to The Querist, won for him a good deal of ani-
mosity amongst the profession trespassed on. As a contemporary
couplet (1744) entitled 'Tit for tat, or divinity and physick at
war', amusingly relates:
The bishop's book annoys the learned tribe,

They threaten hard; we'll preach, if you prescribe.
But in the war of verse about tar-water, there was a ready

defence:^
[For] if he is a soul's director,

Be of the body no protector?
as well as a more sustained one, in a larger compass:
Is B-rkel-y's reas'ning, sense and diction,

To pass for nought but cant and fiction,
And 'cause thou can'st not understand him,
Do'st thou with incoherence brand him?
I have printed Berkeley's letter without modernizing either spel-

ling or capitalization; 'matelas', it may be noted, is a mattress.
Paragraph three contains, as Dr Luce has pointed out to me, an
echo of Berkeley's words in Siris, sect. 217, ' ... to warm without
heating, to cheer but not inebriate . ..', which, when applied to
tea, were made famous by Cowper.
Text
In common Asthmas Tar-water hath been very successful; but
so old, hereditary, and violent a Case as yours, is extremely dif-
ficult to cure: And yet I am not without Hopes of your being
relieved by it, if the Tar-water be regularly and constantly

taken for a length of Time.
Drink it copiously, little and often; for this will less offend
your Stomach, and mix better with your Blood. For a few
Weeks take a Pint a day, at four Glasses, and at such Distance
from your Meals, as not to create a nauseating; and as soon as
your Stomach is reconciled to it, proceed to drink more, till you
arrive at 8 Glasses, or a Quart, in 24 Hours; which you must
continue or lessen as your Stomach can bear. See your Tar-
water made, cover it close till it is quite clear, keep it bottled
and well cork'd for Use. Take no other Medicines along with
it. Tobacco is an Anodyne, I would not dissuade the Use of it.
Be temperate in Meats and Drinks, both in Quantity and
Quality. I believe you should beware of Salt Meats, or enflam-
ing Sauces or Liquors. I apprehend, that Food which warms,
but not enflames, may be good, viz. Onions, Celery, and the
like, dress'd; particularly eat Garlick, and season your Meat
with it. Beware of Evening or Night Air. Go to bed betimes;
and rise early. I imagine it may be worth your Trial to get
made a sloping or steep Bedstead, from the Head towards the
Foot, with a Foot-board at the lower End; and also to provide
a Leathern Matelas, stuffed with curled Hair, to lie on, as being
much cooler than a Feather Bed.
2 Berkeley's letter to H. Clarke0
The following letter by Berkeley to Dr Henry Clarke, Vice Provost

of Trinity College, Dublin, has never been completely published.
It was first published in part - from 'I would not suppose ...' to
' . . . being with sincere regard' — by J. H. Bernard in Peplographia
Dublinensis (London, 1902), p. 77 note, and reprinted by Dr Luce
in volume viii of The Works of George Berkeley, p. 276. According to
Bernard the letter was 'in the possession of the Bishop of Ripon and
The Good Bishop 219
was written in 1745 . . .'. From the precise date of this letter (now
available) we can see that the intended visit to Dublin, discussed in
our letter, is the same as that alluded to by Berkeley in a letter to
Isaac Gervais of 24 February 1746 (Works, vol. viii, pp. 283-4).
The autograph letter to Clarke is now in the Lambeth Palace
Library (ms. 1719, f. 67). I am grateful to the Archbishop of Can-
terbury and Trustees of the Library for permission to publish it.
Text
Cloyne March 24 1745-6
Revd Sir,
It is now several weeks since I received a letter from you which
supposed my going to Dublin. I had indeed for some time past
projected such a journey. But an illness gotten by cold had left
me so tender that I could not venture my self on the road. The
same cause still renders my journey doubtful. But I would not
suppose your affairs are at all the worse for my not being in
towne; for, to speak the truth, I could have been of no use with
my Lord Lieutenant, unless he had given me a decent opportu-
nity of speaking to the point, by consulting or advising with me
about it: a thing which I had no right to expect. I have been told
his excellency expressed a particular esteem for you publickly at
the castle, on occasion of the compliment you made him on his
first arrival. This personal prepossession in your favour,
grounded on his own sense of your merit, is in my opinion worth
twenty recommendations, even to those great men in power who
alone have a right to make them. To conclude I wish you all suc-
cess in your undertakings being with sincere regard
Revd Sir,
Your faithful &
Obedient Servt
George Cloyne.
3 Berkeley's letter to Lord Orrery

This letter by Berkeley was addressed to John Boyle, Lord Orrery
(1707-1762), the friend and biographer of Swift. It has never been
included in any collection of Berkeley's correspondence, although
about two-thirds of it was printed by the Countess of Cork and
Orrery in The Orrery Papers (London: Duckworth, 1903), vol. 2,
pp. 4-5. A copy of the whole letter is at Harvard University,
among the Orrery papers, and is here printed by permission of
the Houghton Library. I have enclosed in square brackets the por-
tions of the letter omitted by the Countess of Cork and Orrery.
Text
Cloyne, July llth, 1747
MY LORD,
A letter should be natural and easy, and yet I must confess I
write with no small concern, since your Lordsp is pleased to say
you expect improvement from my letters, that same improve-
ment which in good earnest I should myself have hoped for
from corresponding with a person so conversant in the classics
as well as the grand monde, did not my years, and the nature of
my studies, stand in the way.
Your Lordsps lott is fallen in a pleasant land. For my part, I
admire the belles letres without possessing them (A truth I need
not mention), my studies having been of the dry and crabbed
kind, which give a certain gouty stiffness to the style.
[Give me leave to say, your Lordsp is a little unreasonable,
who, not content with the management of an ample fortune,
and a share in the great councils of both Kingdoms, must needs
invade the provinces of private men, and be at once, the best
husbandman, and the politest scholar, in the nation.
In hopes your children will take after you, I do most sincerely
congratulate your Lordship on their recovery, from a distemper
The Good Bishop 221
so often fatal, and, that hangs like a general doom, over all that
come into the world.]
I have just now read over Mr. West's book, a performance
worthy your Lordsps recommendation, and in the reading
thereof I have been much edified, instructed and entertained.
To me it seems extremely well wrote, and if it had been worse
wrote, it could not have failed of doing good among many who
do not consider what is said so much as who it is that said it.
Certainly, men of the world, courtiers and fine gentlemen, are
more easily wrought on by those of their own sort, than by
recluse and professed divines.
[The Christian religion, since its first planting in these islands,
hath been never so openly and profanely insulted, as in these our
days, which call loudly for information or for punishment.] But
it is to be hoped the public, by a timely and serious reflexion
(whereof I take this gentleman's attempt to be a noble specimen
and leading step), will recover their lost sense of duty, so far as to
avert that vengeance which the posture of our affairs abroad and
the plague hovering round our coasts, do threaten. But, come
what will, that your Lordsp and family may safely ride out the
storm is the sincere wish of my Lord, your Lordsps most obedient,
GEORGE CLOYNE
The work by Gilbert West to which Berkeley refers is Observa-

tions on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
(London, 1747). West's 'excellent book' - as Berkeley calls it in a
letter to Percival of 10 October 1747 — was prompted by Peter
Annet's notorious The Resurrection of Jesus considered (London,
1744); hence Berkeley may have had Annet in mind as someone
who 'openly and profanely insulted' the Christian religion.
In the Dictionary of National Biography (1908-9) article on Lord
Orrery it is stated that 'He was filled with literary aspirations,
and, as Berkeley said of him, "would have been a man of genius
had he known how to set about it." '
4 Berkeley's Letter on Clayton's Essay on Spirit^
The letter printed below was addressed to a Dr Thomas McDon-

nell, FTCD, who was at the time a clergyman in Bishop Clayton's
own diocese of Glogher. McDonnell published the letter in 1754; it
has never been reprinted. The battle of books which led to its pub-
lication is briefly as follows. In 1753 McDonnell issued An Essay
towards an Answer... to the Essay on Spirit in which he criticized Clay-
ton's Essay section by section; he also made some complimentary
references to Berkeley. Clayton rejoined with Some Remarks on Dr.
McDonnell's Essay towards... (1754). Two passages in this tract are
noteworthy, because they figure in McDonnell's reasons for print-
ing Berkeley's letter. Here is one passage:
As to the doctrine of the Platonick or Pythagorean Trinity etc.

the author of the Essay on Spirit would never have troubled his
head with such a rhapsody of nonsense, if some great names,
such as Cudworth and Berkeley, had not first produced them
in confirmation of the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity.
Here is the other passage:
As to those compliments which the doctor [McDonnell] is

pleased to pay the Bench of Bishops at the expense of the author
of the Essay on Spirit, I shall only say at present, that those bishops,
who have hitherto shewed themselves most virulent against the
Essay on Spirit, are those, who are confessedly the least knowing of
the whole Bench, either in, or out of, their profession . . . 7
In the same year, 1754, McDonnell replied with A Short Vindication

of the passages in the Essay towards an answer... (Dublin) in which Ber-
keley's letter is included. McDonnell's own statement provides a
good commentary on how the letter came to be published. Berke-
ley's letter follows McDonnell's statement.
The Good Bishop 223
If a strong contempt [writes McDonnell] and an avowed disap-
probation of the Essay on Spirit be what its author means by viru-
lence, I know of none of the bishops, who then adorned the Bench,
that expressed himself so strongly against it, as that confessedly
learned and ingenious prelate, the late bishop of Cloyne: one
whom even this gentleman allows to be a person of great name,
and whose letter, therefore, which I had the honour to receive
from him, upon my application for leave to lay my labours
before him, I shall take the liberty to make publick, the rather,
as it can in no sort appear to redound to my own praise, or in the
least injure the memory of that great man.
Text
**Sir,
The Weakness and Presumption of the Book stiled an Essay on
Spirit, render it undeserving of any serious Answer. I find there
are some anonymous persons who have treated it in a ludicrous
Manner. But if you are minded to confute it seriously, I make
no Doubt of your being singly an Over-match for such an
Adversary. I shall therefore leave him to yourself, and wishing
you good success remain,
Sir,
Your Faithful,
Humble Servant,
G. CLOYNE
Cloyne, May 7, 1752
** The Original lies in the bookseller's hands for the satisfaction

10
of those who may desire to see it.
This letter was written three months before Berkeley left Cloyne
for Oxford. It is apparently the last extant letter that we have
by him.
Notes
a. This section originally appeared in Hermathena in 1968.

1. I wish to acknowledge the help I received from Professor Luce and Pro-
fessor Furlong, in presenting this letter.
2. In his Authentick Narrative, p. 1, Prior admitted authorship of this piece.
For information concerning the affidavits, see Berkeley's letter to Prior,
19 June 1744, in Works, vol. viii, pp. 271—2, and Professor Luce's note in
vol. ix.
b. Since we now know that Ward's letters in the Authentick Narrative were
addressed to Berkeley, rather than Prior, it is possible that other letters
in the Authentick Narrative were also sent to Berkeley - a fact which would
be useful in the event of an edition of Berkeley's correspondence, with
letters not only from but also to him.
3. Part of this second letter is included in an anonymous communication,
which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, February 1745, pp. 77—8.
Since Prior's Narrative came out in the following year, this communica-
tion, it would seem, is either by Berkeley, or, which is more likely, by
Prior. Whichever case, as it paraphrases another letter by Berkeley,
I quote the relevant section:
Mr. Urban, Permit me, to inform the public, that tho' some physicians
suppose that tar water is hurtful in inflammatory cases and sanguin
constitutions, the bishop of Cloyne has lately written to a gentleman,
that he never knew one instance of it; and further says, that he had
just before given to his own son [William?] not eight years old, who
had a fever, five quarts of tar water (which had been stirred six min-
utes) in the space of nine hours, and that the next day the child was
well without any other medicine; an effect which he had often experi-
enced. A gentleman in the North of England has also written, that after
he had taken the tar water a month, he received much ease in a dread-
ful asthma... .
4. See London Magazine, December, p. 614.

5. The following lines are extracted from: 'To the author of a late piece of
versify'd railing, intitled Tar-Water', in the London Magazine, August
1744, p. 406. For other poems about tar-water, of which I have not seen
previous mention, see Gentleman's Magazine, 1745, p. 160; 1747, p. 146;
1752, p. 578; London Magazine, 1744, p. 303; Universal Magazine, 1748,
The Good Bishop 225
p. 223; and the Newcastle Courant, 1744, numbers 2646 and 2648. The
contemporary magazines were very attentive to Berkeley's medical
interests; one finds in them numerous reprints of his shorter letters to
Prior. In the Magazine of Magazines (1752), there is also a reproduction
of his Farther Thoughts on Tar-water which I have not seen noticed; see
pp. 267-72 and 458-61.
c. This section originally appeared in the Berkeley Newsletter in 1977.
d. This section originally appeared in the Berkeley Newsletter in 1979.
e. This section originally appeared as the Appendix to my 'Berkeley, Clay-
ton and An Essay on Spirit', Journal of the History of Ideas, 1971.
6. See pp. 9, 11 and 235-6. About Clayton's assertion in section one of
the Essay, which connected Berkeley with Malebranche and Spinoza,
McDonnell says: "Whether he [Spinoza] yet lives in the writings of
P. Malebranche or Bishop Berkley [sic], it is not my present purpose to
enquire. But if they have adopted any thing valuable in him, (as what is
there so depraved, that hath not in it something worthy of preservation?)
he, of those two learned men, who is amongst us, will doubtless be able to
maintain and defend it' (p. 2).
7. See Clayton, Some Remarks (Dublin, 1754), pp. 14 and 33, respectively.
8. See first long quotation above.
9. This would be An Essay towards an Answer . . . ( 1 7 5 3 ) .
10. Berkeley is probably alluding to: A Friendly Conference, between Matter and
Spirit, in the Characters of Somebody and Nobody: being a Compleat Illustration of
a learned. . . treatise, entitled an Essay on Spirit (Dublin, 1752), and A Modern
Preface [to the Essay] put into plain English by way of Abstract, for the use of the
poor. And made plain to vulgar capacities (Dublin, 1752).
11. This, and the first sentence, might refer to McDonnell's statement in his
An Essay . . . , quoted above (note 6), or perhaps to a request in McDon-
nell's letter, that Berkeley also answer Clayton's Essay.
12. McDonnell's comments run from pp. 20-1; Berkeley's letter is on p. 21.
12
Beckett and Berkeley'
It is tempting to connect Beckett and Berkeley. They studied and

taught at the same university; both are recognized masters of
a prose whose content still baffles and provokes. Berkeley was
also the object of considerable literary interest in the 1930s
in Ireland: in 1931 Yeats's enthusiastic Introduction to Bishop
Berkeley, by Hone and Rossi, appeared; and in 1935 Padraic
Colum wrote in the Dublin Magazine on 'George Berkeley and
the Modern Artist'. More specifically, Beckett's tutor at Trinity
College was the late A. A. Luce, the most eminent Berkeley scholar
of the twentieth century. Nor, perhaps, should it be forgotten
that Beckett's middle name is Barclay (which Berkeley sounds
the same as, at least in Great Britain). Finally — to move beyond
this catalogue of external parallels — Beckett is on record as com-
paring his viewpoint with that of Berkeley. Speaking with Lawr-
ence E. Harvey about his sense of 'being absent' and 'existence
by Proxy', he
made an association between this feeling and the idealist philo-

sophy of Berkeley. Perhaps it was an Irish thing, basically a
skepticism before nature as given, complicated by a skepticism
about the perceiving subject as well.
Three works - Murphy (1938), Waiting for Godot (1954), and

Film (1969) have been singled out by writers on Beckett for Berke-
ley glosses. But how Berkeleian are they? To answer this I propose
to examine Beckett's explicit references to Berkeley; from this safe
area I shall then comment on possible indirect allusions. That
Beckett and Berkeley 227
caution is warranted may be shown by the claim that Beckett
'largely inherited' his enthusiasm for Berkeley from his tutor
A. A. Luce, a claim which must be dismissed, I think, since Beck-
ett has asserted that he '. . . was not influenced by Luce's work
on Berkeley.''
Consider the following from Murphy, Chapter six: Murphy's
conception of mind 'did not involve Murphy in the idealist tar.
There was the mental fact and there was the physical fact, equally
real if not equally pleasant.' Berkeley's advocacy of tar-water in
later life clearly identifies him as the target of this repudiation of
idealism or immaterialism. Now there is a similar dismissal of Ber-
keley's idealism in the first act of Waiting for Godot, although I am
not sure that commentators have seen it.
Three lines after Lucky utters'... since the death of Bishop Ber-
keley being', he says:
. . . in a
word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are
there . .
These 'facts [that] are there' I take to be 'There was the mental
fact and . . .'. The dismissive jest, which turns on a pun on
'matter', may have its source in Lord Byron's jibe:
When Bishop Berkeley said 'there was no matter'.

And proved it — 'twas no matter what he said.
But Byron was not the originator of the jest. It has a good Anglo-
Irish provenance in Oliver Goldsmith. In the first (but very little-
known) biographical essay on Berkeley, published in 1759/60,
Goldsmith writes: ' . . . walking one day in one of the squares
[in Trinity College], and intent upon something else he ran his
nose against a post, which stunned him for some time; never mind
it Doctor [Berkeley], says a Sophister who was by, there's no
Matter in it'. 7 Beckett's dismissal of Berkeley's immaterialism is like

Dr Johnson's - any kick will show that matter is a plain fact,
although not so indignant.
Earlier in Murphy there is another Berkeleian passage (p. 36),
both less dismissive and less easy to interpret. Wylie mentions 'the
young Fellow of Trinity College' which is taken up by Neary
as follows: 'I don't wonder at Berkeley, ... He had no alternative.
A defence mechanism. Immaterialize or bust. The sleep of sheer
terror. Compare the opossum'. Immaterialism, it would seem,
was Berkeley's way of protecting himself from certain of life's ter-
rors. (This interpretation of immaterialism as a defence mechan-
ism would fit in with the Logical Positivism which used psycho-
analysis to explain the pathology of metaphysics.) But what is
'The sweated sinecure' which Berkeley was supposed to be suffer-
ing from? At first I thought it was a contradiction. Now I believe it
stands for a Trinity College fellowship, which in Berkeley's day,
and even in Beckett's, was won by an arduous examination; the
successful candidate, however, was assured of free College rooms
and commons for life. Here Beckett may have been identifying
himself with Berkeley, who also abandoned teaching at Trinity
('the sleep of sheer terror'?).
In Murphy and in Godot there are other passages which may be
Berkeleian. But it is hard to pin these to Berkeley. Some sentences
which sound Berkeleian, and have been glossed as such, are really
most un-Berkeleian. One can deal with these in two ways: firstly,
by reclassifying them as relating really to Malebranche or to Scho-
penhauer, say, philosophers doctrinally close to Berkeley, who are
known to have interested Beckett. Secondly, one may suppose that
Beckett did have Berkeley in mind, but that he intentionally (or
unintentionally) misunderstood him. For example, in A Student's
Guide to the Plays of Samuel Beckett, the authors provide a Berkeleian
gloss for the following two lines in Godot': 'Do you think God sees
me?' (p. 76) and 'At me someone is looking' (p. 91). The authors
comment: 'According to Berkeley, that which is not perceived
Beckett and Berkeley 229
cannot be held to exist; God however perceives everything and
thus ensures its existence'. But they interpret Berkeley wrongly;
for he holds that God cannot perceive me, or any other person or
mind. Minds can perceive only the passive sensations, such as
blackish hair, smoothish flesh, which make up the 'bodies' that
are concomitant with the persons or minds. A Malebranchean
gloss would be more feasible.
Consider, however, the opening sentence of Film: (Esse est
per dpi \ Surely everyone knows that Berkeley said it. So Becke
must have Berkeley in mind. Yet in Film Beckett once again por-
trays the self as perceived, which, according to Berkeley, it can-
not be, by either God or finite minds. (See Principles, sect. 27.)
We know minds, Berkeley holds, by an analogical inference; from
intelligent sensations (effects) we infer an intelligent cause, that is,
a mind. Consider also the third sentence of the 'script' for Film:
'Search of non-being in flight from extraneous perception break-
ing down in inescapability of self-perception'. This strikes me as
Schopenhaurian rather than Berkeleian.
On the other hand, Beckett may be wishing to apply to mind
Berkeley's notion of the relativity and dependency of the sensible
object. There is evidence in Murphy, in Godot and in Film to support
this, and it is also in line with the quotation (above) from Lawrence
Harvey. One way of briefly bringing out what Beckett may be
doing in the un-Berkeleian but Berkeley-sounding lines is to see
them against Yeats's view of Berkeley, the Berkeley who proved
All things a dream
That this pragmatical preposterous pig of a world, its farrow
that so solid seem,
Must vanish on the instant, if the mind but change its theme. l l
Beckett, in short, goes further than Yeats's Berkeley; he casts down
the imperious mind; it, too, becomes a 'pragmatical preposterous
pig' which 'so solid seem[ed]'. Minds become dependent, vulner-
able beings; they need the support and comfort of being perceived.
Notes
a. This article was originally published in the Irish University Review

(Samuel Beckett issue) 1984.
1. Samuel Beckett: Poet and Critic (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1970), p. 247.
2. See John Pilling, Samuel Beckett (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1976), p. 2; also see pp. 116—17.
3. In a private note to the present writer, 26 May 1983.
4. Murphy (London: Picador, 1973), p. 63.
5. Waiting for Godot (2nd edn, London: Faber and Faber, 1965), p. 44.
In the original French edition Beckett had: 'depuis la mort de Vol-
taire'. In the 1954 (Grove Press) edition he changed this to: 'since
the death of Bishop Berkeley'; 'Samuel Johnson' replaced 'Bishop Berke-
ley' in the London edition, but 'Bishop Berkeley' reappeared in the
1965 edition.
6. Don Juan, canto XI, i.
7. See Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1966), edited by Arthur Friedman, vol. iii, p. 36.
8. B. Fletcher, J. Fletcher, B. Smith and W. Bachem, A Student's Guide to the
Plays of Samuel Beckett (London: Faber and Faber, 1978); see p. 70; also
see p. 194.
9. In fact, Berkeley never wrote (Esse estpercipi'\ the closest he ever came is
in section 3 of his Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), where, of
'unthinking things', he says: 'Their esse is percipi.,.'.
10. Film (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), p.l 1.
11. Quoted in J. M. Hone and M. M. Rossi, Bishop Berkeley (London: Faber
and Faber, 1931), p. 22.
INDEX
abstraction 10-12, 28-30, 43, 46, 48, Passive Obedience 27-32, 190
51, 105n20 Philosophical Commentaries 64, 71, 104
active mind 14-15, 32, 51-2 nn16, 17
aesthetics, Irish 153-4 Principles 27-32
air travel 182 Proposal 39
Aldridge, A. O. 153 Querist 47
Alison, F. 156 Siris 47-48, 196
ArbuckleJ. 106-7 his strategy 24, 42-44, 192-4
asthma 215, 217 Berkeley, G., Jnr 48, 116, 136nl2,
atheism 100-1, 107-8, 163-5 187-8, 207-8
Aver, A. J. 37, 44 Berkeley, R., Rev. 187, 195, 200 n24
Berkeley, W. 189, 210
Bailyn, B. 160 -3 blasphemy 108
Baxter, A. 50 Blasters 108
Beattie,J. 210, 214 n11 blictri 83, 87, 110
Bayle, P. 22 blind man 86-7, 130, 138-9, 144,
Beckett, S. 226f 146n2, 148nl3
Bennett, J. 59f Boswell,J. 211-12
Berkeley, Mrs A. 2, 40, 186f Boyle, R. 72, 75nl4, 89
Berkeley, Bp G. Bracken, H. M. 38, 179-83, 184 n8
Alaphron 40-1, 48, 129, 153-5 Browne, Bp P. 23, 47, 79-80, 82, 85, 94,
Analyst 46-7 97,99-101, 114, 159
his Bermuda project 2, 193, 202f his sensationalism, 94-96, 112,
and luxury 191-2 130-1
and trade 191-2, 208-9 Burbridge, D. 17nl2, 17nl3
bibilography of 53-7 Burke, E. 4, 23, 79-80, 126-7, 129-34,
criticisms of his philosophy 49-52 137n24, 168, 116-17
De Motu 39
and Irish philosophy 82,97-102 Chambers, E. 147n9, 179-80, 184n8
early reception 177, 182f, 190, Chesselden, W. 41
209-10,213nll, Clarke, DrH. 218
as eidetic imager 6,8-10, 13 Clarke, S. 63, 200n21
Essay of Vision 23-7, 40-1, 72, 132, Clayton, BpR. 1,23,79,82,109-12,
140-2, 178 117, 212, 222-3, 133n8
influences on 22 Cloy
and Ladies Library 160 Collier, A. 50, 178, 183n2, 183n3
his letters 2, 211-12, 217-19, 222-3 Collins, A. 162
his life 16n5 commonsense 38, 49-50
his maxims 194-5 conspiracy theory 122-24, 134
232 Index
Cowper,W. 217 Hume, D. 4, 13, 23, 36-7, 114, 143,
Curry, J. 133 165, 183n3, 213nll
Hutcheson, F. 4, 23, 79, 107, 128-9,
Declaration of Independence 152, 156 137n23, 140, 144-5, 152-3, 170
deism, opposition to 42-43, 117
Descartes, R. 24, 34-5, 60-4, 69, 74 Idealism 37-8, 226-7
Devalera, E. 119, 136nl7, 172 ideolo
Dodwell, H. 79, 96, 98 Irish philosophy 79f
DrozJ. P. 113, 122 causes of 117-25
Duddy,T. 103nb recent work on 103nb, 173nlO
Duncombe, J. 186-7, 197n3 imagination 32—3, 66
Dunmore cave 9-11 images 4-6, 9f, 51-52
eidetic 9, 17nl7
Edwards, J. 152-4, 159-60 Irish philosophy,
Ellis, J. 114-116, 127 135n9, aesthetics 129-133
135-6nll recent writing on 103nb
Emlyn, T. 79, 84-85, 88, 97, 101 typical 167, 226
emotive words 32, 43-44, 130, 132,
137n26 James II, King 117-18, 121
emotive mysteries 45 James, W. 5, 12
Enlightenment and Jefferson, T. 152
Counter-Enlightenment 81, 85, Johnson, Dr S. 202, 208-10, 228, 230n5
100, 150—1, 171; see also Lockeanism Johnson, S. (American) 27, 38, 44,
Epicurus 23, 67, 73 157-8, 188, 216
epistemological rationa Johnson, W. S. 188, 194
Erigena, J. S. 167, 169
experiment 3-4, 41, 68, 70, 86 Kant, I. 37
Kearney, R. 156
J. Ferrier 4 King, AbpW. 2, 23-4, 44, 82, 85,
Franklin, B. 157-8, 164 88-91, 94, 98-9, 119-21, 133, 159
Fraser, A. C. 48 his pragm
Ketchersyde, E. 187-8, 197n5, 201n27
Galton, F. 4,5,7,12-15 Kippis, A
George I, King 202-4
Gibson, BpE. 202, 205-7, 211 Laird, J. 79
Gleig, G. 207-10, 213nll Leibniz, G. 140,142-3
God 14-15, 26, 32-37, 43, 52, 62, 90-1, Leland,T. 137n26
180, 229 Leslie, C. 103nl0, 119
optic-language proof of 26, 102 Locke, J. 4, 13, 23, 26, 28, 30, 33, 41,
Goldsmith, O. 132-3, 199nl2, 213n8 44-6, 58-9, 60f, 72-4, 80, 99, 114,
his Berkeley joke, 227-8 138-9, 189
gravi Lockeanism, left and
Grote, G. 37 see also Enlightenment and Counter-
Grub -Stree enlightenment
Luce, A. A. 2, 16n5, 22, 37, 48, 71,
Herschel, Major J. 6-7, 12 136nll, 188, 197nl, 217, 226-7
Hobbes, T. 4, 23, 60-61, 63-66, 73, 164 Lucretius 23
Index 233
Luria, A. R. 9, 17nl7 primary-secondary qualities 29, 67—72,
lying, theologically 163-5 89, 91, 189
Prior, T. 196, 201 n25, 205, 211, 216,
Mace, W. 140, 143, 147n9, 148nlO 224nb
Madison, J. 152 Psychological philosophy 3-4
Malebranche, N. 22, 39, 63-4, 71,
225n6, 228-9 Reid, T. 37
McDonnell, T. 111-12, 116, 136nI2, representationalism 89-92, 97-8;
222-3 see also
matter 29-30, 62, 144, 189-90 revolut
contradictory 31-2, 51,61 Rhode Island 192-5, 200n25, 211
meaningless 30, 32, 51, 61 Russell, B. 2-3
Ryle, G, 96
Mill, J. S, 4, 37
Molesworth, R, 81, 106-7, 134nl Skelton, P. 79, 112-13, 116-17, 122,
Molesworth circle 106-7, 110, 128, 128, 136, 155
135n5, 152 smell 145, 148nl3
Molyneux, W. 80-81, 146n2, 151-2, Smith, Dr E. 161
158 smoking 216, 218
Molyneux problem 23-27, 41, 87, Spinoza, B. 22-3, 73, 83, 164
103nlO, 134,138-41 solipsism 34, 49
moon illusion 24-5, 42 space and time 35
motion 69-70 Steele, R. 39, 190
mysteries 87, 101, 147n2 Stephen, L. 108-10
Stillingfleet, Bp E. 64-5, 75nlO
Stock, Bp J. 187, 213n6
negative theology 88, 92
substance 58-61, 65-7, 144
Newman, Bp J. 167-9
Swift, J. 39, 80, 100, 105nl8, 122,
Newton, I. 23, 34, 89
125-6, 134, 148nl3, 169, 190-1
non-cognitive words 29
synaesthesia 130, 148nl3
Norton, D, F. 156
Synge, Abp E. 79, 85-7, 94, 97, 100,
number 145-6, 147n8
116, 136nl3, 139, 140
number forms 7-8
Synge, Bp E. 107
O'Conor, C. 133 tar-water 2, 47-48, 186, 195-6,
Orrery, Ld 108, 133n8 220, 220-1 200n25, 215f, 224n3, 227
Oswald, J. 104nl7, 183 theological representationalism 44, 88,
96, 111-16, 124-5, 168
penal laws 118, 133 Thompson, W. 112, 116, 127, 136n12
PepuschJ.G. 199nl2 Tipton, I. 38, 200n25,
Percival, J. 35, 43 Toland, J. 2, 23, 44, 82-7, 96-7, 106,
Petrie, F, 6-10 110, 118, 119, 122-4, 168-9, 172n6
Pitcher, G. 73-4 Touchstone 177-183
Plato 23, 28, 201n29 Trench
Pope, A. 84,120 Trinity College, Dublin 96, 103n2,
Popper, K. 39 111-12, 119, 131, 161, 181, 189,
prejudices 193-4 200n24, 226
234 Index
Turbayne, C. M. 38 Walpole, SirR. 191,205-6

typical mind fallacy 11-13 Ward, W. 215f, 224nb
Tyrconnell, Earl of 118, 121 Warnock, G. 38
Wecter, D. 131-2
veil-of-perception 59, 60, 63-6, 70; see West, G. 221
also representationalism Wild,J. 48, 136nll
visual language 41-2 Wilks, W. 107-8

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BERKELEY AND IRISH PHILOSOPHY

Continuum Studies in British Philosophy:

Duncan Richter, Wittgenstein at his Word

© David Berman 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

ISBN: HB: 0-8264-8590-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Berman, David, 1942-

Typeset by Aarontype Limited, Easton, Bristol

Note on the Text viii

Part I BERKELEY'S PHILOSOPHY 19

Part II THE GOLDEN AGE OF IRISH

Part III NEW BERKELEY LETTERS AND

Chapter 1: 'George Berkeley', was originally published in British

Chapter 7: Section 1 was originally published as 'Irish Philoso-

I am grateful for permission to reprint from the above publica-

So while it contains some arguments and assessments of argu-

2 Berkeley and psychological philosophy

In his History of Western Philosophy (1 Oth printing, New York: Simon

in philosophy at the beginning of the twentieth century. This was

3 Berkeley and Galton on images

(Dublin, 1710), where he says that they, together with ideas of

controlled by the imager. The first of these combines Galton's

Extremely dim. The impressions are in all respects so dim,

But the most interesting of the low-imagers was, as we now

The questions presuppose assent to some sort of a proposi-

Herschel goes on to say that he thinks the fallacy involves making

reconcile me to the general fact of what you denote by visualiza-

The image once seen is perfectly clear and bright...

Eidetic imaging is usually understood as the extreme end of the

4 Berkeley: eidetic imager

Why, then, do I think that Berkeley was, like Flinders Petrie, a

images of considerable detail that could be used for observa-

I find [writes Berkeley] I can excite an idea in my mind at plea-

That Berkeley is thinking of images here is clear from his speak-

Whether others have this wonderful faculty of abstracting their

What we need to focus on here is what Berkeley says he is able and,

5 The typical mind fallacy

But why, if this is so evident, has Berkeley's unusual imaging abil-

Until very recent years [writes James] it was supposed by all

The rejection of the typical mind became one of the hallmarks of

because he himself wasn't aware of it as something special. He did

Having established that Berkeley was a strong or eidetic imager,

1 Background and early work

Understanding (1690) had been put on the course at Trinity College

declared enemy of religion comes to ye ground'. Of course, as

2 The Essay of Vision: limited immaterialism

The importance of the Irish context can be seen straightaway in

Vision, published in Dublin in 1709. Here the main influence was

(1) We do not immediately see the size of an object (sect. 2).

In asserting (1) Berkeley was not distinguishing himself signifi-

Berkeley has another way of expressing this thesis which reveals

3 Complete immaterialism: the Principles

The authorative statement of Berkeley's philosophy, generally

Principles was to be the 'reconciliation of God's foreknowledge

In arguing that no one could have such a contradictory idea,

What else, after all, do we directly perceive? The widely accepted