BERKELEY, GEORGE (1685-1753), Irish bishop and philosopher, the eldest son of William Berkeley (an officer of customs), was born on March 12, 1685, in a cottage near Dysert Castle, Thomastown, Ireland. He passed from the school at Kil kenny to Trinity college, Dublin (1700). During his career at Dublin the works of Descartes and Newton were superseding the older textbooks, and the doctrines of Locke's Essay were eagerly discussed. Thus he "entered on an atmosphere which was begin ning to be charged with the elements of reaction against tradi tional scholasticism in physics and in metaphysics" (A. C. Fraser). He became a fellow in 17o7. His interest in philosophy led him to take a prominent share in the foundation of a society for discussing the new doctrines, and is further shown by his Common Place Book (first discovered and published in 1871), which throws much light on the growth of his ideas and enables us to understand the significance of his early writings. We find here the consciousness of creative thought focused in a new principle which is to revolutionize speculative science. The new principle (nowhere in the Common Place Book explicitly stated) may be expressed in the proposition that no existence is con ceivable (and therefore possible) which is not either conscious spirit or the ideas (i.e. objects) of which such spirit is conscious. In the language of a later period this principle may be expressed as the absolute synthesis of subject and object ; no object exists apart from mind. Mind is, therefore, prior both in thought and in existence, if for the moment we assume the popular distinc tion. Berkeley thus diverted philosophy from its beaten track of discussion as to the meaning of matter, substance, cause, and preferred to ask first whether these have any significance apart from the conscious spirit. In the pursuit of this enquiry he rashly invaded other departments of science, and much of the Common Place Book is occupied with a polemic, as vigorous as it is ignorant, against the fundamental conceptions of the infinitesimal calculus.
In i707 Berkeley published two short mathematical tracts; in 1709, in his Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, he applied his new principle for the first time, and in the following year stated it fully in A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part 1. In these works he attacked the existing theories of externality which to the unphilosophical mind is proved by visual evidence maintaining that, on ultimate analysis, nature is conscious experience, and forms the sign or symbol of a divine, universal intelligence and will.
In 1711 Berkeley delivered his Discourse on Passive Obedience in which he deduces moral rules from the intention of God to promote the general happiness, thus working out a theological utilitarianism, which may be compared with the later expositions of Austin and J. S. Mill. From i 7o7 he had been engaged as college tutor; in 1712 he paid a short visit to England, and in April 1713 he was presented by Swift at court. His abilities, his courtesy and his upright character made him a universal favourite. While in London he published his Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713), a more popular exposition of his new theory ; for exquisite facility of style these are among the finest philosophical writings in the English language. In November he became chaplain to Lord Peterborough, whom he accompanied on the continent, returning in Aug. 1714. He travelled again in 1715-2o as tutor to the only son of Dr. St. George Ashe (i'1658 1718, bishop successively of Cloyne, Clogher and Derry). In 1721, during the disturbed state of social relations consequent on the bursting of the South Sea bubble, he published anony mously an Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain, which shews the intense interest he took in practical affairs. In the same year he returned to Ireland as chaplain to the duke of Grafton, and was made divinity lecturer and university preacher. In 1722 he was appointed to the deanery of Dromore, a post which seems to have entailed no duties, as we find him holding the offices of Hebrew lecturer and senior proctor at the university. The following year Miss Vanhomrigh, Swift's Vanessa, left him half her property. It would appear that he had only met her once at dinner. In 1724 he was nominated to the rich deanery of Derry, and immediately began to devote himself to his scheme of founding a college in the Bermudas, and extending its benefits to the Americans. He obtained from government a promise of f 20,000, and after four years of preparation sailed in Sept. 1728, accompanied by some friends and by his wife, daughter of Judge Forster, whom he had married in August. Three years of quiet retirement and study were spent in Rhode Island, but the promised grant was not forthcoming, and Berkeley was compelled to give up his cherished plan. Soon after his return he published the fruits of his studies in Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher (1732), a finely written work in the form of dialogue, critically examining the various forms of freethinking in the age, and bringing forward in antithesis to them his own theory, which shews all nature to be the language of God. In 1734 he was raised to the bishopric of Cloyne. The same year, in his Analyst, he attacked the higher mathematics as leading to freethinking; this involved him in a hot controversy. The Querist, a work concerned with practical social reform, appeared in three parts, In 1744 was published the Siris, partly occasioned by the controversy as to the efficacy of tar water in cases of small-pox, but rising far above the circumstances of its origin, to an exposition of the principles of Berkeleian metaphysics. In 1751 his eldest son died, and in 1752 he removed with his family to Oxford for the sake of his son George, who was studying there. He died suddenly on Jan. and was buried in Christ Church, Oxford.
Berkeley's theory, briefly stated, is this : External things are produced by the will of the divine intelligence; they are caused, and caused in a regular order ; there exist in the divine mind archetypes, of which sense experience may be said to be the realization in our finite minds. Our belief in the permanence of something which corresponds to the association in our minds of actual and possible sensations means belief in the orderliness of nature; and that is merely assurance that the universe is pervaded and regulated by mind. Physical science is occupied in endeav ouring to decipher the divine ideas which find realization in our limited experience, in trying to interpret the divine language of which natural things are the words and letters, and in striving to bring human conceptions into harmony with the divine thoughts. Instead, therefore, of fate or necessity, or matter, or the unknown, a living, active mind is looked upon as the centre and spring of the universe, and this is the essence of the Berkeleian metaphysics.
standard edition of Berkeley's works is that of A. Campbell Fraser in 4 vols. (i.–iii. Works; iv. Life, Letters and Dissertation) published by the Clarendon Press (1871) ; this edition, revised throughout and largely re-written, was re-published by the same author (19oI) . Another complete edition edited by G. Sampson, with a biographical sketch by A. J. Balfour, and a useful bibliographical summary, appeared in 1897-98. Prof. Fraser also published an excellent volume of selections (5th ed., 1899), and a short general account in a volume on Berkeley in the Blackwood Philos. Class. For Berkeley's theory of vision see manuals of psychology (e.g. G. F. Stout, Wm. James) ; for his ethical views, A. Bain, Mental and Moral Science (1872) ; H. Sidgwick, Hist. of Ethics (5th ed., I9o2). See also J. McCosh, Locke's Theory of Knowledge (1884) ; John Watson, Outline of Philos. (New York, 1898) ; T. Lorenz, Ein Beitrag zur Lebensge schichte G. Berkeleys (1900) and Weitere Beitrage z. Leb. G. B.'s (19o1) ; Sir L. Stephen, English Thought in the i8th Century (3rd. ed., 1902) ; J. S. Mill's Dissertations, vols. ii. and iv.; T. Huxley, Critiques and Addresses, pp. 32o seq.; G. S. Fullerton, System of Metaphysics (New York, 1904) ; histories of modern philosophy generally. (R. A. ; X.)