The Dialogues have been translated into French and German. The French version appeared at Amsterdam in 1750. The translator's name is not given, but it is attributed to the Abbé Jean Paul de Gua de Malves[780], by Barbier, in his Dictionnaire des Ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes, tom. i. p. 283. It contains a Prefatory Note by the translator, with three curious vignettes (given in the note below) meant to symbolise the leading thought in each Dialogue[781]. A German translation, [pg 367] by John Christopher Eschenbach, Professor of Philosophy in Rostock, was published at Rostock in 1756. It forms the larger part of a volume entitled Sammlung der vornehmsten Schriftsteller die die Wirklichkeit ihres eignen Körpers und der ganzen Körperwelt läugnen. This professed Collection of the most eminent authors [pg 368] who are supposed to deny the reality of their own bodies and of the whole material world, consists of Berkeley's Dialogues, and Arthur Collier's Clavis Universalis, or Demonstration of the Non-existence or Impossibility of an [pg 369]External World. The volume contains some annotations, and an Appendix in which a counter-demonstration of the existence of Matter is attempted. Eschenbach's principal argument is indirect, and of the nature of a reductio ad absurdum. He argues (as others have done) that the reasons produced against the independent reality of Matter are equally conclusive against the independent reality of Spirit.
An interesting circumstance connected with the Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous was the appearance, also in 1713, of the Clavis Universalis, or demonstration of the impossibility of Matter, of Arthur Collier, in which the merely ideal existence of the sensible world is maintained. The production, simultaneously, without concert, of conceptions of the material world which verbally at least have much in common, is a curious coincidence. It shews that the intellectual atmosphere of the Lockian epoch in England contained elements favourable to a reconsideration of the ultimate meaning of Matter. They are both the genuine produce of the age of Locke and Malebranche. Neither Berkeley nor Collier were, when they published their books, familiar with ancient Greek speculations; those of modern Germany had only begun to loom in the distance. Absolute Idealism, the Panphenomenalism of Auguste Comte, and the modern evolutionary conception of nature, have changed the conditions under which the universal problem is studied, and are making intelligible to this generation a manner of conceiving the Universe which, for nearly a century and a half, the British and French critics of Berkeley were unable to entertain.
Berkeley's Principles appeared three years before the Clavis Universalis. Yet Collier tells us that it was “after a ten years' pause and deliberation,” that, “rather than the world should finish its course without once offering to inquire in what manner it exists,” he had “resolved [pg 370] to put himself upon the trial of the common reader, without pretending to any better art of gaining him than dry reason and metaphysical demonstration.” Mr. Benson, his biographer, says that it was in 1703, at the age of twenty-three, that Collier came to the conclusion that “there is no such thing as an external world”; and he attributes the premises from which Collier drew this conclusion to his neighbour, John Norris. Among Collier's MSS., there remains the outline of an essay, in three chapters, dated January, 1708, on the non-externality of the visible world.
There are several coincidences between Berkeley and Collier. Berkeley virtually presented his new theory of Vision as the first instalment of his explanation of the Reality of Matter. The first of the two Parts into which Collier's Clavis is divided consists of proofs that the Visible World is not, and cannot be, external. Berkeley, in the Principles and the Dialogues, explains the reality of Matter. In like manner the Second Part of the Clavis consists of reasonings in proof of the impossibility of an external world independent of Spirit. Finally, in his full-blown theory, as well as in its visual germ, Berkeley takes for granted, as intuitively known, the existence of sensible Matter; meaning by this, its relative existence, or dependence on living Mind. The third proposition of Collier's system asserts the real existence of visible matter in particular, and of sensible matter in general.
The invisibility of distances, as well as of real magnitudes and situations, and their suggestion by interpretation of visual symbols, propositions which occupy so large a space in Berkeley's Theory of Vision, have no counterpart in Collier. His proof of the non-externality of the visible world consists of an induction of instances of visible objects that are allowed by all not to be external, although they seem to be as much so as any that are called external. His Demonstration consists of nine proofs, [pg 371] which may be compared with the reasonings and analyses of Berkeley. Collier's Demonstration concludes with answers to objections, and an application of his account of the material world to the refutation of the Roman doctrine of the substantial existence of Christ's body in the Eucharist.
The universal sense-symbolism of Berkeley, and his pervading recognition of the distinction between physical or symbolical, and efficient or originative causation, are wanting in the narrow reasonings of Collier. Berkeley's more comprehensive philosophy, with its human sympathies and beauty of style, is now recognised as a striking expression and partial solution of fundamental problems, while Collier is condemned to the obscurity of the Schools[782].