ABSTRACT
George Berkeley (1685-1753) is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter-a denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God. A limerick by Ronald Knox, with a reply, sets forth Berkeley’s theory of material objects:
REPLY Dear Sir:
Berkeley was an Irishman, and became a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of twenty-two. He was presented at court by Swift, and Swift’s Vanessa left him half her property. He formed a scheme for a college in the Bermudas, with a view to which he went to America; but after spending three years (1728-31) in Rhode Island, he came home and relinquished the project. He was the author of the well-known line:
on account of which the town of Berkeley in California was called after him. In 1734 he became Bishop of Cloyne. In later life he abandoned philosophy for tarwater, to which he attributed marvellous medicinal properties. It was concerning tar-water that he wrote: ‘These are the cups that cheer, but do not inebriate’—a sentiment more familiar as subsequently applied by Cowper to tea.
