would not accept his resignation--the
philosopher, who was blest, to use Shakespeare's fine epithet, with a
'tender-hefted nature,' passed away in 1753, leaving behind him one of
the most fragrant of memories.

That Berkeley was a philosophical thinker from his earliest manhood is
evident from his _Commonplace Book_ published for the first time in the
Clarendon Press edition of his works (vol. iv., pp. 419-502).

He delighted in recondite thought as much as most young men delight in
action, and as a philosopher he is said to have commenced his studies
with Locke, whose famous _Essay_ appeared in 1690. Of Plato, too,
Berkeley was an ardent admirer, and the spirit of Plato pervades his
works. His _Essay towards a New Theory of Vision_ contains some
intimations of the famous metaphysical theory which was developed a
little later in the _Treatise on Human Knowledge_.

A good deal of foolish ridicule was excited by this book. Berkeley was
supposed to maintain the absurd paradox that sensible things do not
exist at all. The reader will remember how Dr. Johnson undertook to
refute the postulate by striking his foot against a stone, while James
Beattie (1735-1803), the poet and moral philosopher, in a volume for
which he was rewarded with a pension of L200 a year, denounced
Berkeley's philosophy as 'scandalously absurd.' 'If,' he writes, 'I
were permitted to propose one clownish question, I would fain ask ...
Where is the harm of my believing that if I were to fall down yonder
precipice and break my neck, I should be no more a man of this world? My
neck, Sir, may be an idea to you, but to me it is a reality, and a very
important one too. Where is the harm of my believing that if in this
severe weather I were to neglect to throw (what you call) the idea of a
coat over the ideas of my shoulders, the idea of cold would produce the
idea of such pain and disorder as might possibly terminate in my real
death? What great offence shall I commit against God or man, church or
state, philosophy or common sense if I continue to believe that material
food will nourish me, though the idea of it will not, that the real sun
will warm and enlighten me, though the liveliest idea of him will do
neither; and that if I would obtain here peace of mind and
self-approbation, I must not only form ideas of compassion, justice and
generosity, but also really exert those virtues in external
performance?'[61]

Beattie continues in this foolish strain t