A man of every virtue under heaven

He almost died from hanging when he wanted to have a near-death experience but went on to become an important philosopher and man of action. George Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne, died 250 years ago today Pasodos wants to make ballet more accessible and succeeds with its new tango show, discovers Christine Madden

Esse is percipi - to be is to be perceived. Looked at objectively, this statement, now supported by the benefits of almost three centuries of scholarship, appears eminently common sensical. It is also fundamental to the thought of the great Irish philosopher, George Berkeley, who viewed experience as central to all and argued thus in his, then radical, Principles of Human Knowledge which was published in 1710.

On this day 250 years ago, Berkeley died in Oxford, aged 67, two months short of his 68th birthday. His passing inspired his friend, the poet Alexander Pope, to eulogise: "To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven". A brief examination of his life and a reading of any of the Bishop's major works, most particularly Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713), confirms that Pope was a fine judge of character.

Even by the remarkable standards of his time, George Berkeley - Trinity College student, turned lecturer, later Dean of Derry and later again, beloved Bishop of Cloyne - was a singular individual. Ireland's most original and influential and possibly, most unlikely, philosopher. The practical and the whimsical were essential elements in an energetic personality that invariably engages his reader despite the complexity of his thought.

Mathematician, theologian, a prose stylist and writer on all subjects from language, to economics, to politics, to the medicinal benefits of tar water, he was humane and kindly, persuasive, fearless in his beliefs and a man of action who took on some daring projects.

There are stories about his regularly rising between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., and summoning his family for music lessons. It was Berkeley who, as the writer Oliver Goldsmith would record in the earliest biographical essay (1759), attempted a near death experience of a type we nowadays might associate more with rock stars than philosophers.

According to Goldsmith, Berkeley persuaded a fellow student to hang him, in order for the philosopher to experience "what were the pains and symptoms . . . felt upon such an occasion". It was intended, writes Goldsmith, that Berkeley's friend, Goldsmith's uncle, "would take him down at a signal agreed upon. Berkeley was therefore tied up to the ceiling, and the chair taken from under his feet, but soon losing the use of his senses, his companion it seems waited a little too long for the signal agreed upon, and our enquirer had like to have been hanged in good earnest; for as soon as he was taken down he fell senseless and motionless upon the floor."

As David Berman concludes in his wonderful and stylish guide, Berkeley: Experimental Philosophy (1997), part of the Great Philosophers series and itself a lively study: "In trying to experience the sensations immediately preceding death, Berkeley may have been testing to see whether he perceived totally new ideas, as he was emerging from the 'sepulchre of the flesh'." However extreme hanging himself seems to be, it is in keeping with Berkeley's adventurous, idealistic personality. From his earliest days, he looked to personal experience, investigating Dunmore Cave - referred to in Old Irish literature as one of the darkest places in Ireland - in his native Co Kilkenny when he was a boy.

Little is known about his childhood. Berkeley was born on March 12th 1685, nine days before Johann Sebastian Bach. It was also the year of Handel's birth. Berkeley grew up at Dysart Castle, or in a house on the remains of the castle, about two miles south-east of Thomastown. His family must have been comfortable enough to have sent him, aged 11, in 1696, to Kilkenny College where the future playwright, William Congreve, was a fellow student and Swift, some 18 years Berkeley's senior and later a friend, was already a past pupil.

A year after his visit to Dunmore Cave, Berkeley, not yet 16, entered Trinity College, Dublin. It was 1700. Within two years, he was elected scholar and received his B.A. in 1704. Within two years, he had completed what is believed to be his first written work, an account of his experience in Dunmore Cave. This is important because it confirms his belief in experience as central to human knowledge. Berman refers to Berkeley having written an account of witnessing Mount Vesuvius erupting. Berkeley travelled throughout Italy and Sicily and his travel writings around 1717 reveal his interest in natural history and of course, all of this reiterates that here was a philosopher whose theories were founded on personal experience and perception.

In 1707, Berkeley was elected a Junior Fellow of Trinity. It is from this point that he began developing his immaterialist philosophy, while also working as a junior college lecturer in Greek. His early Trinity years, spanning 1707-1712 would prove his most intense period of philosophical writing. What is believed to have been his first sermon, taking immortality as its theme, was delivered on January 11th, 1708. The next two years would prove very important; having already completed the introduction to Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, he published An Essay Towards A New Theory of Vision (1709) - analysing the foundation of our judgements of distance, size and position - he was ordained and also completed Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710.

His decision to write Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in the form of conversations taking place in a garden between two speakers, one of whom Philonous is clearly himself, was to compound the thesis that physical things consist of nothing but ideas in minds. Indeed, only two things exist - minds and ideas. His intention was also that these Dialogues, as accessible and as engaging as those of Plato, his favourite author, would reiterate points made in the Principles which he felt had been poorly received. The Dialogues also focus more on the philosophy of the mind than the earlier work does.

To understand Berkeley the philosopher of mind not matter, it is important to study him in the context of his immediate influences, four European pioneering giants: Descartes (1596-1650), Nicholas Malebranche (1638-1715), author of The Search After Truth, John Locke (1632-1704) whose work Berkeley had studied as a student at Trinity and Isaac Newton (1642-1727) whom Berkeley particularly admired. Of Newton, it should be pointed out his work is predominately in the area of maths and physics. Yet Berkeley challenged Newton.

As Jonathan Dancy observes in his Oxford Philosophical Texts 1998 edition of George Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous: "Newton's work raised three different sorts of problem for Berkeley. The first was a general problem how to make sense of the new science without matter. How can there be a real physical science without real material things to investigate?

"The second was a more particular difficulty derived from Newton's distinction between relative and absolute space, time and motion. Berkeley is forced to deny the possibility of the absolute sorts, which he does in the First Dialogue. The third concerned the nature of infinitesimals in mathematics, and the infinite divisibility of finite extension. These are only briefly alluded to in the Third Dialogue, they are more fully treated in the Principles of Human Knowledge."

In 1713, shortly after completing Three Dialogues, Berkeley arrived in London. There, he was presented at the Court of Queen Anne by Swift and entered a formidable circle of wits that included Addison, Steele, John Gay and Pope. Swift invited the younger man whom he saw as "a great philosopher" to write for his journal, The Guardian. On Swift's recommendation, Berkeley was on his way to Sicily to act as chaplain to the Earl of Peterborough, then newly appointed to the court of the King of Sicily. This ended on the Earl's recall to London following Queen Anne's death. But Swift came to the rescue by nominating Berkeley as tutor to the son of a wealthy friend. This opportunity again saw him headed for Europe and a second period of extensive travel.

All the while, he managed to maintain his position as a Fellow of Trinity - albeit an absent one. By 1721, he has completed De Motu, an examination of the principles of motion. He also secured a Doctor of Divinity degree.

Yet some might wonder at this point exactly how committed Berkeley was; having sampled the attractions of the London literary set as well as the Continent with all it had to offer an intellectual with an interest in culture and the history of civilisation moving as he did between Italy and France. But he did devise an ambitious project. He wanted to establish a college in Bermuda with the purpose of educating American colonists, as well as training missionaries to covert the native Indians. Berkeley devoted his energies to gathering support.

Helping to buoy up his plans was a legacy from Hester van Homrigh, Swift's Vanessa. In 1724, Berkeley, no longer quite a prodigy, was at 39 appointed Dean of Derry with a salary of £1,100 a year. He was also granted a Royal Charter for his project, now acknowledged as St Paul's College, Bermuda and promised £20,000. Even when teased over his scheme, Berkeley could win his critics over. He raised monies and persuaded five of his former Trinity College colleagues to join him in Bermuda.

Berkeley married Anne Forster, daughter of the speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and in 1728 set sail for the New World.

Their first stop, however, was not Bermuda. They settled at Newport, Rhode Island. There Berkeley bought a farm intended to help to finance the college and spent three years waiting for the £20,000 to arrive. It never did. The then Prime Minister Walpole maintained such money could be put to better use. Late in 1731, Berkeley, his wife and their child returned to London. He published Alciphron written during the final phase of his US stay, and also wrote Theory of Vision Vindicated and Explained. The mission may have failed but it does show that as well as being a visionary, a scholar and a thinker, Berkeley was a man of action. In the US, he is well-remembered, giving his name to one of the country's most famous universities, while his former home on Rhode Island is a national monument.

Appointed Bishop of Cloyne in 1734, he left London and returned to Ireland. He was then 49 and continued to write. Defence of Freethinking in Mathematics was swift in coming, as was the first of the three parts of The Querist. He also became part of the community, buying all his supplies in the village. After all, he had always viewed the practical as more important than the theoretical.

His presence in Cloyne attracted visitors such as Swift to the Manse House. He preached in the simple but beautiful small cathedral, St Colman's, which is surrounded by an atmospheric churchyard of ancient headstones.

In 1985, the 300th anniversary of Berkeley's birth, a replica of the Cross of Cloyne given to the National Museum in about 1885, was presented to the cathedral. Little of the medieval church remains as it underwent extensive renovations in the 18th century. Two of Berkeley's children, William and Sarah, are buried in the north transept, their resting places marked by the letter "B". There is also an impressive marble monument to Berkeley, a recumbent, Italian-style statue by an Irish sculptor, Bruce Joy.

Across from the cathedral stands a round tower, one of only two in Co Cork. Its original conical top is long gone. It was sketched by the antiquarian Austin Cooper on June 8th 1781. The tower has survived more than the centuries. During the night of January 10th 1749, it endured a furious lightening storm. Berkeley described the storm as producing the loudest thunderclap he had ever heard "in Ireland".

Life continued pleasantly for Berkeley at Cloyne, and his home was host to musical evenings and much cultural discussion. He appears to have established a more intimate variation of the arts salon Goethe would later enjoy at Weimar.

His son, William, died in 1751 and Berkeley delivered what is believed to be his last sermon - Thy Will be Done. The following year, in August 1752, he decided to move to Oxford where his surviving son lived. Before leaving, he directed his demesne lands be given to the village's Catholic poor. Padraig Ó Loingsigh, writing in The Book of Cloyne, records "great crowds accompanied him" on the 20-mile journey to Cork. In a newspaper article dated June 4th 1744, and quoted by Ó Loingsigh, it is written of Berkeley: "Whether he teaches, reasons, prescribes, or analyses, he does all with the humanity of a gentleman and to crown it all, with a good Bishop's piety and leaves us uncertain whether to admire in him the chemist, physician, philosopher or divine."

On this, his 250th anniversary, we should remember Ireland's greatest philosopher, a vigorous, humane thinker and most elegant writer who believed in the physical world's ultimate dependence on the spirit.