ABSTRACT
Most of George Berkeley’s memoranda in the Commonplace Book have Locke in view; and in order to appreciate their meaning it is necessary to have in mind Locke’s theory of ethics. Locke had pointed out that the complexity of moral ideas increases the difficulty of dealing with them by the mathematical method. The only difficulty in the way of such a system of ethics which Berkeley mentions is the practical difficulty of reaching agreement with regard to its definitions. In Berkeley’s works subsequent to the Principles no mention is made of a possible mathematical science of ethics. For Berkeley, as for all other British moralists, the problem of the relation of egoism and altruism is urgent. It is noteworthy that nearly every philosopher of the seventeenth century believed in a mathematical treatment of ethics. In the Ethica of Geulincx there are many suggestions of the applicability of mathematics to morals.
