Berkeley

This volume is an attempt to present, for the first time, Berkeley’s philosophic thought in its organic unity. He is a unique figure in the eighteenth century, which was hardly able to interpret him. His spiritual growth is here traced in the three distinct periods of his personal history, and its issue is compared with the results of later philosophical endeavours of scientific or theological interest.
Besides new biographical material, the author is fortunate in being able to present an original portrait of Berkeley from a picture taken at an earlier period in his life than those hitherto published. It was painted when he was in Rome, in his thirty-fourth year, and was inherited by his descendant, the late Mr. Robert Berkeley. This glimpse of his sanguine youth may be preferred by some to the familiar engravings which represent him at a more advanced age.
The revived study of Berkeley, in this country and abroad, has, I believe, contributed to that reconciliation of faith in natural science with faith in religious thought, of which there are signs in the closing years of the nineteenth century.