composed while he was yet but a young man. He afterwards entered the Anglican church and participated in the controversy against the Free-thinkers. His missionary zeal inspired an interest in America, and he conceived a plan of founding a college in America. The sublime ambition to which he devoted the best years of his life comprehended not only the conversion of the Indians, but likewise the regeneration of science and art in the western hemisphere. He was forced to give up his plan however after a three years' sojourn in America. He afterwards served as Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, equally zealous as pastor, philanthropist and patriot.
In his chief work. The Principles of Human Knowledge (1710), Berkeley shows that, strictly speaking, we cannot form any general ideas. His criticism is directed particularly against Locke ’s theory of "abstract " ideas. We can form an idea of part of an object without its remaining parts, but we are unable to form new separate ideas which are supposed to contain that which is common to several qualities, e. g. an idea of color in general, which should contain that which is common to red, green, yellow, &c. If I wish to have an idea which may be applied to a whole series of things which are qualitatively different, I must either use a sign, e. g. a word, or, what amounts to the same thing, regard a simple member of the series as representative or typical.
The idea of matter conceived as a general idea is fallacious. Matter is supposed to be the basis of sensible attributes. Suppose we grant that secondary attributes have only subjective significance: it must follow that matter can only be described by means of its primary attributes. But how can we have an idea whose content
