BERKELEY AND IDEALISM.[1]
Among all philosophers, ancient or modern, we are acquainted with none who presents fewer vulnerable points than Bishop Berkeley. His language, it is true, has sometimes the appearance of paradox; but there is nothing paradoxical in his thoughts, and time has proved the adamantine solidity of his principles. With less sophistry than the simplest, and with more subtlety than the acutest of his contemporaries, the very perfection of his powers prevented him from being appreciated by the age in which he lived. The philosophy of that period was just sufficiently tinctured with common sense to pass current with the vulgar, while the common sense of the period was just sufficiently coloured by philosophy to find acceptance among the learned. But Berkeley,
- ↑ 'A Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, designed to show the unsoundness of that celebrated speculation.' By Samuel Bailey, author of 'Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions,' &c. London: Ridgway. 1842.
