BERKELEY (George)

, the virtuous and learned bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, was born in that kingdom, at Kilcrin, the 12th of March 1684. After receiving the first part of his education at Kilkenny school, he was admitted a pensioner of Trinity College, Dublin, at 15 years old; and chosen fellow of that college in 1707.

The first public proof he gave of his literary abilities was, Arithmetica absque Algebra aut Euclide demonstrata; which from the preface it appears he wrote before he was 20 years old, though he did not publish it till 1707. It is followed by a Mathematical Miscellany, containing observations and theorems inscribed to his pupil Samuel Molineux.

In 1709 came out the Theory of Vision; which of all his works it seems does the greatest honour to his sagacity; being, it has been observed, the first attempt that ever was made to distinguish the immediate and natural objects of sight, from the conclusions we have been accustomed from infancy to draw from them. The boundary is here traced out between the ideas of sight and touch; and it is shewn, that though habit hath so connected these two classes of ideas in the mind, that they are not without a strong effort to be separated from each other, yet originally they have no such connection; insomuch, that a person born blind, and suddenly made to see, would at first be utterly unable to tell how any object that affected his sight would affect his touch; and particularly would not from sight receive any idea of distance, or external space, but would imagine all objects to be in his eye, or rather in his mind.

In 1710 appeared The Principles of Human Knowledge; and in 1713 Dialogues hetween Hylas and Philonous: the object of both which pieces is, to prove that the commonly received notion of the existence of matter, is false; that sensible material objects, as they are called, are not external to the mind, but exist in it, and are nothing more than impressions made upon it by the immediate act of God, according to certain rules termed laws of nature.

Acuteness of parts and beauty of imagination were so conspicuous in Berkeley's writings, that his reputation was now established, and his company courted; men of opposite parties concurred in recommending him. For Steele he wrote several papers in the Guardian, and at his house became acquainted with Pope, with whom he always lived in friendship. Swift recommended him to the celebrated earl of Peterborough, who being appointed ambassador to the king of Sicily and the Italian States, took Berkeley with him as chaplain and secretary in 1713, with whom he returned to England the year following.

His hopes of preferment expiring with the fall of queen Anue's ministry, he some time after embraced an offer made him by Ashe, bishop of Clogher, of accompanying his son in a tour through Europe. In this he employed four years; and besides those places which fall within the grand tour, he visited some that are less frequented, and with great industry collected materials for a natural history of those parts, but which were unfortunately lost in-the passage to Naples. He arrived at London in 1721; and being much affected with the miseries of the nation, occasioned by the South-sea scheme in 1720, he published the same year An Essay towards preventing the ruin of Great Britain: reprinted in his Miscellaneous Tracts.

His way was now open into the very first company. Pope introduced him to lord Burlington, by whom he was recommended to the duke of Grafton, then appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, who took Berkeley over as one of his chaplains in 1721. The latter part of this year he accumulated the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity: and the year following he had a very unexpected increase of fortune from the death of Mrs. Vanhomrigh, the celebrated Vanessa, to whom he had been introduced by Swift: this lady had intended Swift for her heir; but perceiving herself to be slighted by him, she left her fortune, of 8000l. between her two executors, of whom Berkeley was one. In 1724 he was promoted to the deanery of Derry, worth 1100l. a year.

In 1725 he published, and it has since been reprinted in his Miscellaneous Tracts, A Proposal for converting the savage Americans to Christianity, by a college to be erected in the Summer Isles, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda. The proposal was well received, at least by the king; and he obtained a charter for founding the college, with a parliamentary grant of 20,000l. toward carrying it into execution: but he could never get the money, it being otherwise employed by the minister; so that after two years stay in America on this business, he was obliged to return, and the scheme dropped.

In 1732 he published The Minute Philosopher, in 2 volumes 8vo, against Freethinkers. In 1733 he was made bishop of Cloyne; and might have been removed in 1745, by lord Chesterfield, to Clogher; but declined it. He resided constantly at Cloyne, where he faithfully discharged all the offices of a good bishop, yet continued his studies with unabated attention.

About this time he engaged in a controversy with the mathematicians, which made a good deal of noise in the literary world; and the occasion of it was this: | Addison had given the bishop an account of the behaviour of their common friend Dr. Garth in his last illness, which was equally unpleasing to both these advocates of revealed religion. For when Addison went to see the doctor, and began to discourse with him seriously about another world, “Surely, Addison, replied he, I have good reason not to believe those trifles, since my friend Dr. Halley, who has dealt so much in demonstration, has assured me, that the doctrines of christianity are incomprehensible, and the religion itself an imposture.” The bishop therefore took up arms against Halley, and addressed to him, as to an Infidel Mathematician, a discourse called The Analyst; with a view of shewing that mysteries in faith were unjustly objected to by mathematicians, who he thought admitted much greater mysteries, and even falshoods in science, of which he endeavoured to prove that the doctrine of Fluxions furnished a clear example. This attack gave occasion to Robins's Discourse concerning the Method of Fluxions, to Maclaurin's Fluxions, and to other smaller works upon the same subject; but the direct answers to The Analyst were made by a person under the name of Philalethes Cantabrigiensis, but commonly supposed to be Dr. Jurin, whose first piece was, Geometry no Friend to Infidelity, 1734. To this the bishop replied in A Defence of Freethinking in Mathematics; with an Appendix concerning Mr. Walton's Vindication, 1735; which drew a second answer the same year from Philalethes, under the title of The Minute Mathematician, or the Freethinker no just Thinker, 1735. Other writings in this controversy, beside those before mentioned, were

1. A Vindication of Newton's Principles of Fluxions against the objections contained in the Analyst, by J. Walton, Dublin, 1735.

2. The Catechism of the Author of the Minute Philosopher fully answered, by J. Walton, Dublin, 1735.

3. Reasons for not replying to Mr. Walton's Full Answer, in a letter to P. T. P. by the author of the Minute Philosopher, Dublin, 1735.

4. An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and Defence of the Mathematicians against the objections of the author of the Analyst, &c. Lond. 1736.

5. A new Treatise of Fluxions; with answers to the principal objections in the Analyst, by James Smith, A. M. Lond. 1737.

6. Mr. Robins's Discourse of Newton's Methods of Fluxions, and of Prime and Ultimate Ratios, 1735.

7. Mr. Robins's Account of the preceding Discourse, in the Repub. of Letters, for October 1735.

8. Philalethes's Considerations upon some passages contained in two letters to the author of the Analyst &c, in Repub. of Letters, Novemb. 1735.

9. Mr. Robins's Review of some of the principal objections that have been made to the doctrine of Fluxions &c. Repub. of Letters for Decem. 1735.

10. Philalethes's Reply to ditto, in the Repub. of Letters, Jan. 1736.

11. Mr. Robins's Dissertation, shewing that the account of the doctrines of Fluxions &c, is agreeable to the real sense and meaning of their great Inventor, &c, Repub. of Letters, April 1736.

12. Philalethes's Considerations upon ditto, in Repub. of Letters, July 1736.

13. Mr. Robins's Remarks on ditto, in Repub. of Letters, Aug. 1736.

14. Mr. Robins's Remainder of ditto, in an Appendix to the Repub. of Letters, Sept. 1736.

15. Philalethes's Observations upon ditto, in an Appendix to the Repub. of Letters, Nov. 1736.

16. Mr. Robins's Advertisement in Repub. of Letters, Decemb. 1736.

17. Philalethes's Reply to ditto, in an Appendix to the Repub. of Letters for Decem. 1736.

18. Some Observations on the Appendix to the Repub. of Letters for Decem. 1736, by Dr. Pemberton, in the Works of the Learned for Feb. 1737. With some smaller pieces in the same.

In 1736 bishop Berkeley published The Querist, “a discourse addressed to magistrates, occasioned by the enormous licence and irreligion of the times;” and many other things afterward of a smaller kind. In 1744 came out his celebrated and curious book, “Siris; a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the virtues of Tar-water.” It had a second impression, with additions and emendations, in 1747; and was followed by Farther Thoughts on Tar-water, in 1752. In July the same year he removed, with his lady and family, to Oxford, partly to superintend the education of a son, but chiefly to indulge the passion for learned retirement, which had always strongly possessed him. He would have resigned his bishoprick for a canonry or headship at Oxford; but it was not permitted him. Here he lived highly respected, and collected and printed the same year all his smaller pieces in 8vo. But this happiness did not long continue, being suddenly cut off by a palsy of the heart Jan. 14, 1753, in the 69th year of his age, while listening to a sermon that his lady was reading to him.

The excellence of Berkeley's moral character is conspicuous in his writings: he was certainly a very amiable as well as a very great man; and it is thought that Pope searcely said too much, when he ascribed