Note 724 — Chapter V · (continued 2)

‘Bishop Berkeley surely did not duly consider that it is by means of the material world that we have any correspondence with thinking beings, or any knowledge of their existence, and that by depriving us of the material world, he deprived us at the same time of family, friends, country, and every human creature; of every object of affection, esteem or concern, except ourselves. The good bishop surely never intended this. He was too warm a friend, too zealous a patriot, and too good a Christian to be capable of such a thought. He was not aware of the consequences of his system’ (poor, ignorant Berkeley), ‘and therefore they ought not to be imputed to him; but we must impute them to the system itself. It stifles every generous and social principle.’ Reid's Essays, vol. ii. pp. 251, 252.