1 TO BISHOP GEORGE BERKELEY EVERY VIRTUE UNDER HEAVEN “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet.” — Ouisa, in John Guare’s “SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION” 1. Cf. Pope’s line “To Berkeley every Virtue under Heaven.” HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1677 The Reverend Cotton Mather, the Reverend Ezra Stiles, and George Berkeley have all tried to decipher the messages chiseled into the 55-square-foot westward-facing flat surface of a 40-ton piece of feldspathic sandstone, a glacial erratic noticed at this timeperiod upside down at the tidewater line on the left bank of the Taunton River at Berkley, Massachusetts, that would become known as the Dighton Rock. Although the sandstone chunk was above water only four hours per day, Stiles of Yale College would convince himself that the inscription on the seventy-degree sloping flat surface was made up of ancient Phoenician petroglyphs. “Dighton Rock is like the rocks you see along the highways, filled with graffiti,” says Jim Whitall. “It’s where everyone wanted to leave a message, and it’s the first stone in America that anyone paid any attention to. It was a bulletin-board for ancients, Native Americans, and colonials alike.” The rock with the mysterious hieroglyphs was moved to dry land a few years ago by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and a building was built around it to preserve the inscriptions. Winter ice and constant submergence at high tide under the Taunton River began obliterating some of the older markings. Also, in case one of the great scholars who deciphered the stone over the past 300 plus years is right, it’s best to preserve what may be a most important piece of history. Even if the hodgepodge of scratches and scribblings can’t ever be deciphered, Dighton Rock is a unique rock of ages. Sam Morison said, “if the history of the Dighton Rock is nothing else, it is a remarkable demonstration of human credulity.” Right on, Sam! -Campbell Grant, ROCK ART OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, 1967 2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1685 March 12: George Berkeley was born at Dysert Castle in Kilcrin near Thomastown, Ireland, the son of William Berkeley of Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny, whose father had gone over to Ireland after the Restoration (the family having been loyal to King Charles I) and there obtained the collectorship of Belfast. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY 1704 After an education at Kilkenny school under Dr. Hinton, George Berkeley had been admitted a pensioner of Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of fifteen, under the tuition of Dr. Hall. In this year he received his Bachelor’s degree. PHILOSOPHICAL COMMENTARIES, printed in 1871, amounts to his COMMON-PLACE BOOK from these undergraduate years and indicates the formative influence of John Locke’s AN ESSAY CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, which was being used as a text book. BERKELEY THE COLLEGE LAD According to the catalog of Henry Thoreau’s personal library that has come down to us, his copy of AN ESSAY CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, acquired presumably during his formal education, had been printed in Philadelphia in one volume. I can offer you, however, as a one-volume edition, only something prepared by Google Books, that had been printed in 1849 in London by William Tegg & Co., Cheapside. HUMAN UNDERSTANDING “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3 HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1705 From the preface to George Berkeley’s ARITHMETICA ABSQUE ALGEBRA AUT EUCLIDE DEMONSTRATA, this writing would appear to have been in existence at this point, though he would not have it published until 1707. The volume is dedicated to Mr. Palliser, son of the archbishop of Cashel, and is followed by a MATHEMATICAL MISCELLANY containing some observations and theorems inscribed to his pupil Mr. Samuel Molyneux. 1707 June 9: George Berkeley obtained his MA at Trinity College in Dublin and became a fellow of that college. He would fill various college offices including tutor, Junior Dean, and Junior Greek Lecturer. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY June 23, Monday: In the Boston News Letter: Dateline Piscataqua, June 20 [Friday]. “The Indians are Sculking every where on our Frontiers; and on Monday last 7 of them came to Spruce Creek in Kitters, and kill’d Philip Carpenter, his Wife & two Children, but had not time to pillage the House. A Party of our Forces went in pursuit of the Enemy.” 4 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1709 George Berkeley’s ESSAY TOWARD A NEW THEORY OF VISION, an examination of visual consciousness that concludes that it offers no proof for the existence of any object apparently viewed. BERKELEY ON VISION “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 5 HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1710 George Berkeley’s TREATISE CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, which presents the theory of idealism for which he is now chiefly remembered. BERKELEY’S TREATISE 1712 The principles inculcated in John Locke’s TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT seem to have turned George Berkeley’s attention to the doctrine of passive obedience; in support of which he printed the substance of three “Common-place” discourses delivered by him that year in the college chapel. Lord Galway heard of this and presumed somehow that the author must be a Jacobite. This would turn out to help him rather than harm him, for upon being defended by others upon the evidence, as indeed no Jacobite, he would become known to Queen Caroline. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY 6 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1713 February: George Berkeley’s THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS, a popularized account of his theory of idealism as it appears in his PRINCIPLES. Having taken holy orders, he abandoned Dublin for London. BERKELEY’S 3 DIALOGUES November: The Earl of Peterborough, upon being appointed Ambassador to the King of Sicily and to the other Italian states, took George Berkeley along with him to Europe as a chaplain and secretary. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY 1714 August: George Berkeley returned from Europe to England. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1716 For the next four years George Berkeley would be again traveling in Europe, this time as the traveling companion of a Mr. Ashe who stood to inherit a great fortune. While traveling he would be working on a 2nd part to his PRINCIPLES, but then would lose this manuscript during the sea passage from Sicily to Naples — and abandon the effort. Let the fishes be alone ideally wise! REV. BERKELEY’S TRAVELS 1717 July: In absentia, George Berkeley was elected a senior fellow of his college in Dublin. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY 8 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1721 George Berkeley’s treatise in Latin, DE MOTU, which he had drafted while staying in Lyon and presented to the royal academy of sciences at Paris, was printed in London. BERKELEY’S DE MOTU Also, his anonymous ESSAY TOWARDS PREVENTING THE RUIN OF GREAT BRITAIN, a reaction to the collapse of the South Sea bubble. BERKELEY RECOMMENDATION November 14: George Berkeley received the degrees of bachelor and doctor in divinity of his college in Dublin and began again to fill college offices including Divinity Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Hebrew Lecturer, Proctor, Dean of Dromore, and Dean of Derry. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 9 HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1722 A lady who discovered that she had been cheated by her lover left the whole of her fortune, amounting to nearly £8,000, to be divided between her lawyer, a Mr. Marshal, and the Reverend Doctor George Berkeley, S.F.T.C.D., whom she had never met, evidently on the basis of his position. —Well, at least since she had never met him, he was a man who had done her no harm. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY 10 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1724 The Reverend Dr. George Berkeley was back in London talking up his project for a university in the New World. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 11 HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY May 18: Having been promoted by his patron, the Duke of Grafton, to the deanery of Derry, with a substantial annual income, the Rev. Dr. George Berkeley resigned his fellowship at Trinity College. A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY 1725 Dr. Christopher Witt (1675-1765) had been with the German Pietists at Wissahickon. Two decades before Friend John Bartram, he started the 1st botanical garden in America. He corresponded with Peter Collinson and discoursed with Bartram. 12 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith HDT WHAT? INDEX GEORGE BERKELEY GEORGE BERKELEY 1728 August 1: George Berkeley and Anne Forster, the eldest daughter of the Right Honourable John Forster, Esq; speaker of the Irish house of Commons, were wed. (Presumably she didn’t know that after becoming a married man he was going to become such a couch potato.) A LIFE OF GEORGE BERKELEY Here, in an image by John Smybert presently held at Yale University, is what the Berkeley family would look like after it had had a chance to develop for awhile. The image is curious in that, ordinarily, when such scenes are painted, the artist will go to great pains to avoid any appearance that any of the male figures