BISHOP BERKELEY : HIS LIFE, WRITINGS AND PHILOSOPHY By .1.
M. Hone and M. M. Rossi
That Bishop Berkeley said there was no matter is a bit of inlinmation (it is hardly worth calling knowledge) which most people possess. But any more exact acquaintance with that brilliant and versatile thinker is less widely diffused. Never- theless, Berkeley remains a living influence in European philosophy ; and much in his system is congenial to the present trend in metaphysics. Therefore Bishop Berkeley : HIS Life, Writings and Philosophy, by J. M. Hone and M. M. Rossi (Faber and Faber, 15s.), should attract many readers. Berkeley's varied life, his freedom of thought and solid piety, the passionate feeling with which his philosophy is charged, all tend to make him one of the most interesting figures in the history of Western thought. He was essentially a subjectivist, deriving from Locke, and profoundly convinced of the inability of the human mind to reach beyond the veil of perception to the reality of things. His casual statement that the great merit of the Anglican Church " is that it allows mystery " gives us a valuable clue to the real temper of his mind. In the last years of his life he turned from empiricism to a deep admiration of Plato ; though he never became a Platonist. Mr, Hone and Mr. Rossi have produced a careful, but hardly an inspired, study of the Bishop's life and thought. Mr. W. 1-1.. Yeats contributes a characteristic introduction, from which we rescue one jewel of price : the account of his visit to " a: Cabbalist who spent the day trying to look out of the eyes of his canary."
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