From English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876)

Berkeley’s ‘Minute Philosopher’ is the least admirable performance of that admirable writer. The most characteristic part is the attempt to erect a proof of theology upon his own peculiar metaphysical theory. The remainder consists for the most part of the familiar commonplaces, expressed in a style of exquisite grace and lucidity, but not implying any great originality. The general tendency of his remarks, both upon Mandeville and Shaftesbury, may be described as utilitarian. Although, as already noticed, he seems to be incapable of detecting the economical fallacy involved in Mandeville’s eulogy upon extravagance, he, of course, sees, and has no difficulty in proving, that vice is prejudicial to a community. He establishes with rather superfluous care that immorality of all kinds is ruinous to the constitution of individuals, and destructive to a state. Virtue is not a mere fashion, but implies obedience to the laws upon which men’s physical and spiritual health depends. Shaftesbury is condemned on the same grounds. Admitting Shaftesbury’s leading principle of the beauty of virtue, Berkeley argues that our sense of beauty consists essentially in our perception of the right adaptation of means to ends. The beauty of the universe consists, therefore, in the existence of an intelligent principle, governing all things, punishing the wicked, protecting the virtuous. ‘In such a system, vice is madness, cunning is folly, wisdom and virtue all the same thing’; ⁷⁷ and whatever seems amiss, will, in the last act, be ultimately wound up according to the strictest rules of wisdom and justice. Shaftesbury’s ruling mind must, therefore, be either the Christian Deity, or another name for blind Fate. In the latter case, a man must be a ‘Stoic or a Knight-errant’ ⁷⁷ to be virtuous; the ‘minute philosopher’ is the devotee of ‘an inexplicable enthusiastic notion of moral beauty’, ⁷⁸ or, as Lysicles, the representative of Mandeville, puts it, his doctrine ‘hath all the solid inconveniences, without the amusing hopes and prospects, of the Christians’. ⁷⁹