Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous The Design Of Which Is Plainly To Demonstrate The Reality And Perfection Of Human Knowledge, The Incorporeal Nature Of The Soul, And The Immediate Providence Of A Deity, In Opposition To Sceptics And Atheists, Also To Open A Method For Rendering The Sciences More Easy, Useful, And Compendious
First published in 1713
Editor's Preface
This work is the gem of British metaphysical literature. Berkeley's claim to be the great modern master of Socratic dialogue rests, perhaps, upon Alciphron, which surpasses the conversations between Hylas and Philonous in expression of individual character, and in dramatic effect. Here conversation is adopted as a convenient way of treating objections to the conception of the reality of Matter which had been unfolded systematically in the book of Principles. But the lucid thought, the colouring of fancy, the glow of human sympathy, and the earnestness that pervade the subtle reasonings pursued through these dialogues, are unique in English metaphysical literature. Except perhaps Hume and Ferrier, none approach Berkeley in the art of uniting metaphysical thought with easy, graceful, and transparent style. Our surprise and admiration are increased when we recollect that this charming production of reason and imagination came from Ireland, at a time when that country was scarcely known in the world of letters and philosophy.
The immediate impression produced by the publication [pg 352] of the Principles, is shewn in Berkeley's correspondence with Sir John Percival. Berkeley was eager to hear what people had to say for or against what looked like a paradox apt to shock the reader; but in those days he was not immediately informed by professional critics. “If when you receive my book”—he wrote from Dublin in July, 1710, to Sir John Percival[777], then in London,—“you can procure me the opinion of some of your acquaintances who are thinking men, addicted to the study of natural philosophy and mathematics, I shall be extremely obliged to you.” In the following month he was informed by Sir John that it was “incredible what prejudice can work in the best geniuses, even in the lovers of novelty. For I did but name the subject matter of your book of Principles to some ingenious friends of mine and they immediately treated it with ridicule, at the same time refusing to read it, which I have not yet got one to do. A physician of my acquaintance undertook to discover your person, and argued you must needs be mad, and that you ought to take remedies. A bishop pitied you, that a desire of starting something new should put you upon such an undertaking. Another told me that you are not gone so far as a gentleman in town, who asserts not only that there is no such thing as Matter, but that we ourselves have no being at all.”
Berkeley's reply is interesting. “I am not surprised,” he says, “that I should be ridiculed by those who won't take the pains to understand me. If the raillery and scorn of those who criticise what they will not be at the pains to understand had been sufficient to deter men from making any attempts towards curing the ignorance and errors of mankind, we should not have been troubled with some very fair improvements in knowledge. The common [pg 353] cry's being against any opinion seems to me, so far from proving false, that it may with as good reason pass for an argument of its truth. However, I imagine that whatever doctrine contradicts vulgar and settled opinion had need be introduced with great caution into the world. For this reason it was that I omitted all mention of the non-existence of Matter in the title-page, dedication, preface and introduction to the Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge; that so the notion might steal unawares upon the reader, who probably might never have meddled with the book if he had known that it contained such paradoxes.”