among Christians, as well as illustrious among metaphysicians, the name of Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. His well-known "Dialogues" are, to many minds, perhaps the most attractive display of metaphysical doctrine which the English language contains. This philosopher is, moreover, worthy of notice for more than even his elegant fancy, and refined discussion, and graceful diction. The scenes and music of material nature, which have infused so much poetry into his writings, and which he would connect with something less gross than the cumbrous apparatus of an external world, are all regarded by Berkeley as direct manifestations of God. With this Christian philosopher, visible nature is not an aggregate of merely unconscious substances—the refuge of atheism and materialism—the veil by which God is concealed from man, and then banished from his thoughts. In the seeming solitude of idealism, he finds himself in the immediate presence of the "Father of Spirits," in whom we thus literally "live, and move, and have our being."
Thus, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, there were two philosophers, representing the two opposed schools of philosophy, whose speculations conducted them to immaterialism.[1] The "demonstrative
- ↑ We must not omit a reference to a writer of recluse and studious temperament, who, in the peaceful seclusion of a rural English parsonage, constructed a series of acute arguments in defence of an immaterialism similar to that of Berkeley, and whose recorded speculations have secured the respectful mention of Reid and Stewart. We refer to Arthur Collier, Rector of Langford Magna, in the county of Wilts, from 1704 to 1732. His Clavis Universalis, published in 1713, was seemingly unknown, at least in his own country, till a short notice of it was given by Dr. Reid in his Essays. Long extremely scarce, it is now generally accessible. Not less than two editions of it have issued from the press within the last ten years, the last of them associated with a curious and interesting biography of this metaphysician, by Mr. Benson. London, 1837.
