The Third Dialogue closes with a representation of the new principle regarding Matter being the harmony of two apparently discordant propositions—the one-sided proposition of ordinary common sense; and the one-sided proposition of the philosophers. It agrees with the mass of mankind in holding that the material world is actually presented to our senses, and with the philosophers in holding that this same material world is realised only in and through the percipient experience of living Spirit.
Most of the objections to Berkeley's conception of Matter which have been urged in the last century and a half, by its British, French, and German critics, are discussed by anticipation in these Dialogues. The history of objections is very much a history of misconceptions. Conceived or misconceived, it has tacitly simplified and [pg 364] purified the methods of physical science, especially in Britain and France.
The first elaborate criticism of Berkeley by a British author is found in Andrew Baxter's Inquiry into the Nature of the Human Soul, published in 1735, in the section entitled “Dean Berkeley's Scheme against the existence of Matter examined, and shewn to be inconclusive.” Baxter alleges that the new doctrine tends to encourage scepticism. To deny Matter, for the reasons given, involves, according to this critic, denial of mind, and so a universal doubt. Accordingly, a few years later, Hume sought, in his Treatise of Human Nature, to work out Berkeley's negation of abstract Matter into sceptical phenomenalism—against which Berkeley sought to guard by anticipation, in a remarkable passage introduced in his last edition of these Dialogues.
In Scotland the writings of Reid, Beattie, Oswald, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and Sir W. Hamilton form a magazine of objections. Reid—who curiously seeks to refute Berkeley by refuting, not more clearly than Berkeley had done before him, the hypothesis of a wholly representative sense-perception—urges the spontaneous belief or common sense of mankind, which obliges us all to recognise a direct presentation of the external material world to our senses. He overlooks what with Berkeley is the only question in debate, namely, the meaning of the term external; for, Reid and Berkeley are agreed in holding to the reality of a world regulated independently of the will of finite percipients, and is sufficiently objective to be a medium of social intercourse. With Berkeley, as with Reid, this is practically self-evident. The same objection, more scientifically defined—that we have a natural belief in the existence of Matter, and in our own immediate perception of its qualities—is Sir W. Hamilton's assumption against Berkeley; but Hamilton does not explain the reality thus [pg 365] claimed for it. “Men naturally believe,” he says, “that they themselves exist—because they are conscious of a Self or Ego; they believe that something different from themselves exists—because they believe that they are conscious of this Not-self or Non-ego.” (Discussions, p. 193.) Now, the existence of a Power that is independent of each finite Ego is at the root of Berkeley's principles. According to Berkeley and Hamilton alike, we are immediately percipient of solid and extended phenomena; but with Berkeley the phenomena are dependent on, at the same time that they are “entirely distinct” from, the percipient. The Divine and finite spirits, signified by the phenomena that are presented to our senses in cosmical order, form Berkeley's external world.
That Berkeley sows the seeds of Universal Scepticism; that his conception of Matter involves the Panegoism or Solipsism which leaves me in absolute solitude; that his is virtually a system of Pantheism, inconsistent with personal individuality and moral responsibility—these are probably the three most comprehensive objections that have been alleged against it. They are in a measure due to Berkeley's imperfect criticism of first principles, in his dread of a departure from the concrete data of experience in quest of empty abstractions.
In England and France, Berkeley's criticism of Matter, taken however only on its negative side, received a countenance denied to it in Germany. Hartley and Priestley shew signs of affinity with Berkeley. Also an anonymous Essay on the Nature and Existence of the Material World, dedicated to Dr. Priestley and Dr. Price, which appeared in 1781, is an argument, on empirical grounds, which virtually makes the data of the senses at last a chaos of isolated sensations. The author of the Essay is said to have been a certain [pg 366] Russell, who died in the West Indies in the end of the eighteenth century. A tendency towards Berkeley's negations, but apart from his synthetic principles, appears in James Mill and J.S. Mill. So too with Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.
The Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous were published in London in 1713, “printed by G. James, for Henry Clements, at the Half-Moon, in St. Paul's churchyard,” unlike the Essay on Vision and the Principles, which first appeared in Dublin. The second edition, which is simply a reprint, issued in 1725, “printed for William and John Innys, at the West End of St. Paul's.” A third, the last in the author's lifetime, “printed by Jacob Tonson,” which contains some important additions, was published in 1734, conjointly with a new edition of the Principles. The Dialogues were reprinted in 1776, in the same volume with the edition of the Principles, with Remarks.