THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

2

WHAT I here make public has, after a long and scrupulous inquiry, seemed to me evidently true, and not unuseful to be known-particularly to those who are tainted with Scepticism1, or want a demonstration of the Existence and Immateriality of God, or the Natural Immortality of the Soul. Whether it be so or no I am content the reader should impartially examine; since I do not think myself any farther concerned for the success of what I have written than as it is agreeable to truth. But, to the end this may not suffer, I make it my request that the reader suspend his judgment till he has once at least read the whole through with that degree of attention and thought which the subject-matter shall seem to deserve. For, as there are some passages that, taken by

1 SCEPTICISM,' in the form of doubt or disbelief of dogmatic assumptions of Theology, was what gave rise to Berkeley's reconsideration of the meaning of what we call Matter. Hume afterwards, putting a purely empirical interpretation on the philosophy of Locke and Berkeley, transformed the spiritualised universe of the latter into universal sceptical nescience.

2 Does he here use 'demonstration' in its looser meaning of analogical proof which leaves no room for reasonable doubt that a thing is true in fact, or in its strict sense of something shown to be necessary in itself, the opposite being contrary to the absolute nature of things? It appears that Berkeley had intended to explain this in the Principles, but the intention was not carried out. I shall demonstrate all my doctrines. The nature of demonstration to be set forth and insisted on in the Introduction. In that I must differ from Locke, for he makes all demonstration to be about abstract ideas, which I say we have not and cannot have' (Commonplace Book, in Works, vol. IV. p. 439).—Locke held that we cannot know external things except while they are actually present to our senses: all beyond is presumed as more or less probable. Except the existence of God, only the relations of abstract ideas are demonstrable according to Locke.

themselves, are very liable (nor could it be remedied) to gross misinterpretation, and to be charged with most absurd consequences, which, nevertheless, upon an entire perusal will appear not to follow from them; so likewise, though the whole should be read over, yet, if this be done transiently, it is very probable my sense may be mistaken; but to a thinking reader I flatter myself it will be throughout clear and obvious. As for the characters of novelty and singularity which some of the following notions may seem to bear, it is, I hope, needless to make any apology on that account. He must surely be either very weak, or very little acquainted with the sciences, who shall reject a truth that is capable of demonstration, for no other reason but because it is newly known, and contrary to the prejudices of mankind. Thus much I thought fit to premise, in order to prevent, if possible, the hasty censures of a sort of men who are too apt to condemn an opinion before they rightly comprehend it.

THE AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION.

I. PHILOSOPHY being nothing else but the study of wisdom and truth', it may with reason be expected that those who have spent most time and pains in it should enjoy a greater calm and serenity of mind, a greater clearness and evidence of knowledge, and be less disturbed with doubts and difficulties than other men. Yet so it is, we see the illiterate bulk of mankind, that walk the high-road of plain common sense, and are governed by the dictates of nature, for the most part easy and undisturbed. To them nothing that is familiar appears unaccountable or difficult to comprehend. They com

1 The definitions of Philosophy which have been given are various. They imply in general that it is the deepest and truest insight into the ultimate meaning of our experience. Its aim, as distinguished from ordinary knowledge and science, is, if possible, to conceive the universe under the unity of a single rational principle.

But it does not follow that this aim is fully attainable, or that our experience can (by us) be reduced to a rational unity in which faith is entirely eliminated by being converted into reasoned knowledge. Philosophy as the study of wisdom' may issue in the discovery that this result is inconsistent with a due recognition of our physical and moral experience. Bacon thus puts it in speaking of theology :-'As for perfection or completeness in divinity it is not to be sought. For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art will make it round and uniform; but in divinity many things must be left abrupt' (Advancement of Learning). The history of Philosophy has been the history of a struggle between, on the one side, Idealism or Materialism, as complete explanations, and, on the other side, those who find themselves obliged by the data of experience to leave many things abrupt.'—In this and the four sections which follow, the imaginative ardour of Berkeley too much encourages the expectation that philosophy can solve all difficulties; and in the end he professes to have done this-as far as the material world is concerned. All through, however, there is even with him an unexplained residuum-a moral duality in experience— and the recognition of an end higher than philosophical science.

plain not of any want of evidence in their senses, and are out of all danger of becoming Sceptics. But no sooner do we depart from Sense and Instinct to follow the light of a superior principle-to reason, meditate, and reflect on the nature of things, but a thousand scruples spring up in our minds concerning those things which before we seemed fully to comprehend. Prejudices and errors of sense do from all parts discover themselves to our view; and, endeavouring to correct these by Reason, we are insensibly drawn into uncouth paradoxes, difficulties, and inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in speculation, till at length, having wandered through many intricate mazes, we find ourselves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn Scepticism 1.

2. The cause of this is thought to be the obscurity of things, or the natural weakness and imperfection of our understandings. It is said, 'the faculties we have are few, and those designed by nature for the support and pleasure of life, and not to penetrate into the inward essence and constitution of things. Besides, the mind of man being finite, when it treats of things which partake of infinity, it is not to be wondered at if it run into absurdities and contradictions, out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate itself, it being of the nature of infinite not to be comprehended by that which is finite 2.'

1 The aim of Berkeley was to reconcile Philosophy-the ultimate meaning of the universe in which we find ourselves-with the unphilosophised experience of common sense. He worked for this by trying to substitute facts for empty verbal abstractions.

2 Cf. Descartes' Third Meditation; also Locke's Essay, Introduction, sect. 4-7. Locke attributes the perplexities and unprogressiveness of Philosophy to our narrow faculties, which are meant only to regulate our lives, and not to make the universe perfectly intelligible. The uncertainty of metaphysics, and the inability of the mass of mankind to understand its language, is a constant complaint, paralleled by the constancy with which metaphysical speculation is nevertheless sustained in each successive age-to satisfy a want that is deeply seated, if not in many intelligently developed.

3. But, perhaps, we may be too partial to ourselves in placing the fault originally in our faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we make of them. It is a hard thing to suppose that right deductions from true principles should ever end in consequences which cannot be maintained or made consistent. We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully with the sons of men than to give them a strong desire for that knowledge which he had placed quite out of their reach. This were not agreeable to the wonted indulgent methods of Providence, which, whatever appetites it may have implanted in the creatures, doth usually furnish them with such means as, if rightly made use of, will not fail to satisfy them'. Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves-that we have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.

4. My purpose therefore is, to try if I can discover what those Principles are which have introduced all that doubtfulness and uncertainty, those absurdities and contradictions, into the several Sects of Philosophy; insomuch that the wisest men have thought our ignorance incurable, conceiving it to arise from the natural dulness and limitation of our faculties. And surely it is a work well deserving our pains to make a strict inquiry concerning the First Principles of Human Knowledge, to sift and examine them on all sides; especially since there may be some grounds to suspect that those lets and difficulties, which stay and embarrass the mind in its

1 Have we any reason à priori to suppose that our moral and physical experience is (by us) resolvable into an intelligible unity? Does it not at last issue in the moral trust that it is somehow capable of solution, though not by us, whose experience is intelligible only under relations of time? To take the universe as we find it, after we have exhausted reflection upon it, is 'wisdom,' even if we find that it consists at last of irreducible facts. We are not to assume that the chief end of man is to reach a knowledge which makes no demand upon faith, because purged of all that is mysterious or inexplicable.