'(4.) To offer a comprehensive conception of his implied philosophy as a whole.'
These objects have been so well realized that we are enabled for the first time to survey Berkeley's character and opinions as a whole, to see how his life and philosophy act and react on each other, to view his great principles dimly shaping themselves in his earliest speculation recorded in his student common-place book, and to see how his latest and deepest thoughts are but the more adequate expression of his early musings. Professor Fraser's summary of Berkeley's philosophy, given in the fourth volume, will do much to destroy and render impossible the one-sided criticism to which the opinions of the philosopher have been so long subjected. He has shown that Berkeley's philosophy is not the dried-up intellectual cistern of a solitary thinker of the last century—is not a barren 'subjective idealism' which a breath of 'common sense' can 'for ever render impossible,' but is a living fountain from which our greatest modern English thinkers have not disdained to draw; and he might have shown that it is instinct with the germs of those philosophical principles which under the name of the Ideal-Realismus, are leavening modern German thought. We venture to predict that hereafter every historian and critic of philosophy will have to reconsider the commonplace verdict which, first pronounced by Dr. Thomas Reid in this country, by Kant in Germany, and by Cousin in France, has been repeated wearisomely by their successors. At the same time, we would not homologate every statement which Professor Fraser has made about the philosophy of his author. We are inclined to think that he has not sufficiently recognised the historical position of Bishop Berkeley. He has too much regarded him as occupying a unique place in the history of speculation, and neglected some of those facts of English philosophy which serve to explain Berkeley's position and principles. No thinker, and especially no great thinker, can occupy a position historically inexplicable. He is the exponent of the thoughts and feelings of his time, the interpreter of their present meaning, and the unconscious prophet of their future development. And Berkeley was no exception to this rule. It is just because he lived in an age in which two different streams met, and because he alone of the thinkers then living combined them, that he is to be reckoned among the few great English thinkers; and it is because the two tendencies then at work and conflicting with each other contained the undeveloped germs of the living principles now combining that Berkeley's philosophy is not to be thrown aside as a useless relic of the past, but to be studied as the inadequate expression of much that is deepest and truest in the present English and German philosophy.[219] 'England's Antiphon' against the sensational psychology, sceptical metaphysics, and utilitarian ethics, which form the bulk of her contributions to the general stock of philosophy, has usually found expression in her poetry and religion rather than in her philosophy; but there have always been thinkers who have refused to accept the common creed, and to suffer themselves to glide down the stream of popular opinion. Their protest has seldom been loud-voiced. They have generally lived solitary, unheeded lives; but their presence, like a scent unseen, has had its impalpable, invisible influence. English mysticism is a fact, though unrecorded in the pages of the history of her philosophers; and English mysticism was never stronger than in the generation preceding Berkeley. The Cambridge Platonists had but lately passed away. Four or five translations of Jacob Böhmen had showed the popular studies, Norris of Bemerton was so well known that his philosophy could be ridiculed in an elaborate parody, and Tom Brown, 'of facetious memory,' could tickle a not too fastidious public with a caricature of his Platonic love. The influence of Malebranche was felt upon English philosophy. Fénélon and Madame Guyon had their English disciples, and the gross immorality of the times of the earlier Georges had its opposite in the refined mysticism which appears in many of the religious and philosophical writers of the period. By education, training, studies and temperament, Berkeley was fitted to combine this mystical philosophy with the ruder and more practical sensationalism of Locke. He did so; and because he did so, he begins the second period of modern philosophy. However we regard Berkeley—whether as a man, as a Christian philanthropist, or as a metaphysician—we find the same unconscious combination of practical sagacity and of refined enthusiasm, a keen eye for fact, and a deep mind for theory, along with a continual incapacity to combine adequately or express fully, either by action or speech, the double tendency which is the secret of his power. We feel as if Berkeley were always struggling with a great thought which he did not wholly see, and could not adequately express. The young student of Trinity College is labouring to record in his commonplace book a principle which will prove to be the universal solvent, and set right everything that is wrong. The young philosopher has elaborated the principles of human knowledge which are to banish scepticism, re-establish theology, philosophy, and the physical sciences on new and lasting foundations. The missionary has a scheme for transplanting the virtues, arts, and sciences to a new continent, since an extravagant nobility and a reckless and dishonest passion for speculation have impoverished and demoralized the chief countries in Europe. The philanthropic bishop finds that a national bank will redeem his country from all her troubles, and that tar-water is a panacea for every ill the flesh is heir to. Everywhere we find the practical man and the idealist. Everywhere we find the same keen eye for facts not quite comprehensive enough; the same wealth of ideas which, nevertheless, wants the intellectual momentum needed to carry out a great philosophical conception; the same prophetic vision of principles and facts which are afterwards to become plain, accompanied by the inability to clear the way for their present manifestation.
Professor Fraser has given us a beautiful picture of young Berkeley and his surroundings in Trinity College, Dublin. Born at Dysart Castle, in the beautiful valley of the Nore, and educated at the famous Kilkenny School, the Eton of Ireland, Berkeley came up to Trinity College in the spring of 1700, and at once found himself near a whirl of intellectual life, into which he threw himself with ardour. The influence of the discoveries of Newton, Boyle, and Hooke, and the speculations of Descartes, Locke, and Malebranche, was beginning to show itself in the University, and was gradually displacing the old scholasticism; and the bright, clever lad looked with eagerness towards all the new lights which were beginning to shine upon him. An amusing story is told of his fondness for experiment, and his dreamy disregard of consequences. He had gone to see an execution, and returned pensive and melancholy, but strangely inquisitive about the sensations experienced by the unfortunate criminal in the crisis of his fate. He took counsel with an intimate college friend, Conterini, the uncle of Oliver Goldsmith, and
'it was agreed between them that he should himself try the experiment, and be relieved by his friend on a signal arranged, after which Conterini, in his turn, was to repeat the experiment. Berkeley was accordingly tied up to the ceiling, and the chair removed from under his feet. Losing consciousness, his companion waited in vain for the signal. The enthusiastic inquirer might have been hung in good earnest,—and as soon as he was relieved he fell motionless upon the floor. On recovering himself his first words were—"Bless my heart, Conterini, you have rumpled my band."'
We need not wonder that this incident caused Berkeley to be looked upon as an eccentric by his fellow-students, nor that he had to bear the usual annoyances which befall those who get the name. With all his eccentricity, however, he seems to have been the centre of a company of friends, who thought him a prodigy of learning and amiability; and his college career was very successful.
'He was made a Scholar in 1702. In the spring of 1704 (the year Locke died) he became Bachelor of Arts. He took his Master's degree in the spring of 1707. After the customary arduous examination of that University, conducted in presence of nobility, gentry, and high officials, he passed with unprecedented applause, and was admitted to a Fellowship, June 9, 1707, "the only reward of learning that kingdom has to bestow," as one of his biographers curtly says.'
It is his commonplace book, however, and the other records of his college life, now first published, that show us how the young student employed himself, and what were his favourite studies and opinions. In these early days one sees that he learned mostly by negation. Locke is not right in this particular, Malebranche is wrong in that, More is not to be trusted in a third,—are the most usual entries in the young student's journal. It is curious to look at those imperfect jottings and see as through a window into the eager young soul, sharpening and training itself by living contact with the thoughts of the great thinkers who then ruled the intellectual world, and preparing itself to take rank among them at some future day. Mathematics, metaphysics, optics, physics, and natural theology were all studied. Locke was his great teacher, then Malebranche, then the English Platonists; Barrow, Boyle, Newton, and Molyneux taught him physics and mathematics. He is always independent, perhaps too fond of independence, perhaps scarcely aware that as much is learned from what we find ourselves compelled to deny, as from what we are obliged to affirm. There seems to have been a great deal of intellectual life in the University, when Thomas Prior and Samuel Madden—the two founders of the Royal Irish Society—were fellow-students of Berkeley, when King was translated to the see of Dublin, and Bishop Browne was Provost of Trinity. Berkeley and his young friends formed themselves into a society for the purpose of discussing the problems which life and the new philosophy were presenting to them. We are not told who the members of this society were, but we can guess, from jottings in the commonplace book, that the subjects of discussion were mainly suggested by portions of Locke's essays, and we can fancy the young metaphysicians disputing with great eagerness, ardour, and confusion, all manner of soluble and insoluble questions. It is more than probable that out of the chaos of the thoughts and opinions which must have formed the intellectual outcome of such a society, there gradually arose clearly and more clearly before Berkeley the intellectual insight into the wants and difficulties of modern metaphysics, pure and applied, which at last realized itself in the 'Essay towards a New Theory of Vision,' and in the 'Principles of Human Knowledge.' At all events we know that these two works, on which Berkeley's fame as a metaphysician has rested, were written and published not many years after the date of the founding of the College Society; and that many of the questions discussed are to be found among the list of subjects which Professor Fraser thinks were there debated. Both works everywhere show traces of the reading and thinking which the commonplace book reveals, and the results of the two are the expression of the double tendency to the inductive philosophy and to mysticism, which, we have said, is the distinguishing feature in Berkeley's life and philosophy. 'The Theory of Vision' is Malebranche's seeing all things in God, but on a rational and experimental basis. We see God in all things, and we see all things by means of his continual contrivance. The outcome of the 'Principles of Human Knowledge' is, in the main, the attempt to explain clearly, fully, and in accordance with Baconian principles, the mystical thought of Norris, that God is the immediate author of our sensations, and that we therefore participate in Him when we see, feel, or desire, and the doctrine of providence on which Dr. More delighted to expatiate.
In 1713, we find Berkeley at the court of Queen Anne, in company with Swift. He had come over from Dublin chiefly for the purpose of gaining attention for his metaphysical system. He had endeavoured, while in Dublin, to interest English philosophers in his new principle, but the attempt was not very successful. He now tried by personal intercourse and more popular exposition, in his Essays in the 'Guardian' and in his Dialogues, to gain adherents to those opinions from which he expected so much; and in this he was pretty successful. Swift, writing to Lord Carteret from Dublin some years after, says that 'he (Berkeley) was a Fellow of the University here: and going to England very young about thirteen years ago, he became founder of a sect called the Immaterialists, by the force of a very curious book upon that subject. Dr. Smalridge and many other eminent persons were his proselytes.' We have very pleasant glimpses of the young Irish metaphysician among the wits of Queen Anne's court. Then, as afterwards, his amiability and enthusiasm disarmed enmity and gained friends among all factions. He was intimate with Steele and Addison, as well as the companion of Swift and Pope. Swift procured for him the appointment of secretary to Lord Peterborough, and in that capacity, and afterwards as tutor to Mr. St. George Ashe, he spent some years abroad. On his return,
'he found London and all England in the agitation and misery consequent upon the failure of the South Sea Scheme. This occasioned one of his most characteristic productions as an author. He now addressed himself for the first time publicly to questions of social economy. If I am not mistaken, the deep impression which the English catastrophe of 1720 made upon him was connected with the project of social idealism which, as we shall see, filled and determined his life in its middle period.'
He was shocked at the tone of social morality and his imaginative enthusiasm perhaps helped to make him fancy the plague more wide-spreading and more incurable than it really was. His thoughts found vent in his 'Essay toward Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,' and he then probably first began to meditate on the romantic scheme of missionary enterprise which filled so much of his life.