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war, as being heroic and involving a contempt for comfort and ease. Those who adopted a utilitarian ethic, on the contrary, tended to regard most wars as folly. This, again, at least in the nineteenth century, brought them into alliance with the capitalists, who disliked wars because they interfered with trade. The capitalists' motive was, of course, pure self-interest, but it led to views more consonant with the general interest than those of militarists and their literary supporters. The attitude of capitalists to war, it is true, has fluctuated. England's wars of the eighteenth century, except the American war, were on the whole profitable, and were supported by business men; but throughout the nineteenth century until its last years, they favoured peace. In modern times, big business, everywhere, has come into such intimate relations with the national State that the situation is greatly changed. But even now, both in England and in America, big business on the whole dislikes war.

Enlightened self-interest is, of course, not the loftiest of motives, but those who decry it often substitute, by accident or design, motives which are much worse, such as hatred, envy, and love of power. On the whole, the school which owed its origin to Locke, and which preached enlightened self-interest, did more to increase human happiness, and less to increase human misery, than was done by the schools which despised it in the name of heroism and self-sacrifice. I do not forget the horrors of early industrialism, but these, after all, were mitigated within the system. And I set against them Russian serfdom, the evils of war and its aftermath of fear and hatred, and the inevitable obscurantism of those who attempt to preserve ancient systems when they have lost their vitality.

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16

BERKELEY

George Berkeley (1685–1753) is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter—a denial which he supported by a number of ingenious arguments. He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if no one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives everything; if there were no God, what we take to be material objects would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at them; but as it is, owing to God's perceptions, trees and rocks and stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God. A limerick by Ronald Knox, with a reply, sets forth Berkeley's theory of material objects:

There was a young man who said, 'God

Must think it exceedingly odd

If he finds that this tree

Continues to be

When there's no one about in the Quad.'

REPLY

Dear Sir:

Your astonishment's odd:

I am always about in the Quad.

And that's why the tree

Will continue to be,

Since observed by

Yours faithfully,

God.

Berkeley was an Irishman, and became a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of twenty-two. He was presented at court by Swift, and Swift's Vanessa left him half her property. He formed a scheme for a college in the Bermudas, with a view to which he went to America; but after spending three years (1728–31) in Rhode Island, he came home and relinquished the project. He was the author of the well-known line:

Westward the course of empire takes its way.

on account of which the town of Berkeley in California was called after him. In 1734 he became Bishop of Cloyne. In later life he abandoned philosophy for tar-water, to which he attributed marvellous medicinal properties. It was concerning tar-water that he wrote: 'These are the cups that cheer, but do not inebriate'—a sentiment more familiar as subsequently applied by Cowper to tea.

All his best work was done while he was still quite young: A New Theory of Vision in 1709, The Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710. The Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous in 1713. His writings after the age of twenty-eight were of less importance. He is a very attractive writer,