Between
Hylas and Philonous
The design of which is plainly to demonstrate the reality and perfection of human knowledge, the incorporeal nature of the soul, and the immediate providence of a deity: In opposition to skeptics and atheists.
Also, to open a method for rendering the sciences more easy, useful, and compendious.
BY GEORGE BERKELEY, M.A.
FELLOW OF TRINITY-COLLEGE, DUBLIN
First Printed in the Year 1713
To the Right Honorable The Lord Berkeley of Stratton,* Master of the Rolls in the Kingdom of Ireland, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and One of the Lords of Her Majesty’s Most Honorable Privy-Council.
MY LORD,
The virtue, learning, and good sense which are acknowledged to distinguish your character would tempt me to indulge myself the pleasure men naturally take in giving applause to those whom they esteem and honor; and it should seem of importance to the subjects of Great Britain that they know the eminent share you enjoy in the favor of your sovereign; and the honors she has conferred upon you have not been owing to any application from your lordship, but entirely to Her Majesty’s own thought, arising from a sense of your personal merit and an inclination to reward it. But as your name is prefixed to this treatise with an intention to do honor to myself alone, I shall only say that I am encouraged by the favor you have treated me with to address these papers to your lordship. And I was the more ambitious of doing this, because a philosophical treatise could not so properly be addressed to anyone as to a person of your lordship’s character, who, to your other valuable distinctions, have added the knowledge and relish of philosophy.
I am, with the greatest respect, My Lord, Your lordship’s most obedient and most humble servant,
GEORGE BERKELEY
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* This dedicatory letter appeared in the 1713 and 1725 editions of the Dialogues, but was omitted in the 1734 edition. According to his diary, Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) introduced George Berkeley to William Berkeley, Fourth Lord Berkeley of Stratton, (c.1663–1741) at Court in London on April 12, 1713. There is some evidence that the two Berkeleys were distant relatives.
Though it seems the general opinion of the world, no less than the design of nature and providence, that the end of speculation is practice or the improvement and regulation of our lives and actions, yet those who are most addicted to speculative studies seem as generally of another mind. And, indeed, if we consider the pains that have been taken to perplex the plainest things—that distrust of the senses, those doubts and scruples, those abstractions and refinements that occur in the very entrance of the sciences—it will not seem strange that men of leisure and curiosity should lay themselves out in fruitless disquisitions1 without descending to the practical parts of life or informing themselves in the more necessary and important parts of knowledge.
Upon the common principles of philosophers, we are not assured of the existence of things from their being perceived. And we are taught to distinguish their real nature from that which falls under our senses. Hence arise skepticism and paradoxes. It is not enough that we see and feel, that we taste and smell a thing. Its true nature, its absolute external entity, is still concealed. For, though it is the fiction of our own brain, we have made it inaccessible to all our faculties. Sense is fallacious, reason defective. We spend our lives in doubting of those things which other men evidently know, and believing those things which they laugh at and despise.
In order, therefore, to divert the busy mind of man from vain researches, it seemed necessary to inquire into the source of its perplexities and, if possible, to lay down such principles as, by an easy solution of them, together with their own native evidence, may at once recommend themselves for genuine to the mind and rescue it from those endless pursuits it is engaged in. This, with a plain demonstration of the immediate providence of an all-seeing God and the natural immortality of the soul, should seem the readiest preparation, as well as the strongest motive, to the study and practice of virtue.
This design I proposed in the First Part of a treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, published in the year 1710.2 But, before I proceed to publish the Second Part, I thought it requisite to treat more clearly and fully of certain principles laid down in the First and to place them in a new light, which is the business of the following Dialogues.
In this treatise, which does not presuppose in the reader any knowledge of what was contained in the former, it has been my aim to introduce the notions I advance into the mind in the most easy and familiar manner, especially because they carry with them a great opposition to the prejudices of philosophers, which have so far prevailed against the common sense and natural notions of mankind.
If the principles which I here endeavor to propagate are admitted for true, the consequences which, I think, evidently flow from them are that atheism and skepticism will be utterly destroyed, many intricate points made plain, great difficulties solved, several useless parts of science retrenched, speculation referred to practice, and men reduced from paradoxes to common sense.
And although it may, perhaps, seem an uneasy reflection to some that when they have taken a circuit through so many refined and unvulgar3 notions they should at last come to think like other men, yet I think this return to the simple dictates of nature, after having wandered through the wild mazes of philosophy, is not unpleasant. It is like coming home from a long voyage—a man reflects with pleasure on the many difficulties and perplexities he has passed through, sets his heart at ease, and enjoys himself with more satisfaction for the future.
As it was my intention to convince skeptics and infidels by reason, so it has been my endeavor strictly to observe the most rigid laws of reasoning. And, to an impartial reader, I hope it will be manifest that the sublime notion of a God and the comfortable expectation of immortality do naturally arise from a close and methodical application of thought—whatever may be the result of that loose, rambling way, not altogether improperly termed free-thinking4 by certain libertines in thought who can no more endure the restraints of logic than those of religion or government.
It will, perhaps, be objected to my design that, so far as it tends to ease the mind of difficult and useless inquiries, it can affect only a few speculative persons; but if, by their speculations rightly placed, the study of morality and the law of nature were brought more into fashion among men of parts5 and genius, the discouragements that draw to skepticism removed, the measures of right and wrong accurately defined, and the principles of natural religion reduced into regular systems, as artfully disposed and clearly connected as those of some other sciences—there are grounds to think these effects would not only have a gradual influence in repairing the too much defaced sense of virtue in the world, but also, by showing that such parts of revelation as lie within the reach of human inquiry are most agreeable to right reason, would dispose all prudent, unprejudiced persons to a modest and wary treatment of those sacred mysteries which are above the comprehension of our faculties.
It remains that I desire the reader to withhold his censure of these Dialogues until he has read them through. Otherwise, he may lay them aside in a mistake of their design or on account of difficulties or objections which he would find answered in the sequel. A treatise of this nature would require to be once read over coherently in order to comprehend its design, the proofs, solution of difficulties, and the connection and disposition of its parts. If it is thought to deserve a second reading, this, I imagine, will make the entire scheme very plain—especially if recourse is had to an essay I wrote some years since upon Vision,6 and the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. In which various notions advanced in these Dialogues are further pursued or placed in different lights, and other points handled which naturally tend to confirm and illustrate them.
1. disquisitions: investigations or researches.
2. Principles of Human Knowledge: Berkeley’s A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I.
3. unvulgar: uncommon.
4. free-thinking: the free exercise of reason, unrestrained by deference to authority.
5. parts: talents.
6. Vision: Berkeley’s An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (1709).
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* This Preface was included in the 1713 and 1725 editions, but was omitted in the 1734 edition.