"NO OBJECT CAN EXIST WITHOUT A MIND TO CONCEIVE IT": FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF BERKELEY'S LANDMARK TREATISE CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS

BERKELEY, George. A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the Grounds of Scepticism, Atheism and Irreligion, are Inquir'd into. First Printed in the Year 1710. To which are added Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, in Opposition to Scepticks and Atheists. First Printed in the year 1713. London: Jacob Tonson, 1734. Octavo, contemporary full brown calf rebacked, red morocco spine label, raised bands. $3000.

First combined edition of Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge together with his Three Dialogues, the last appearance of both works in his lifetime, with Principles—"his most important work"—and Three Dialogues profoundly anticipating the ideas of Hume, Kant and later scientific thinkers such as Ernst Mach.

Berkeley "was an important link… between the period of Descartes and Locke and that of Hume and Kant… He also anticipated many of the ideas of 20th-century philosophers of science" (DSB). His Principles of Human Knowledge is widely "regarded as his most important work" (Dictionary of 18th-Century Philosophers). "The essence of Berkeley's philosophy, as expressed in his Principles of Human Knowledge, is a rejection of the notion that abstract ideas… constitute a primal and absolute necessity to any theory of human knowledge." Over time, as the importance of his ideas was seen, "Hume used them as the foundation of his theory of the function of general terms" (Norman 196). Berkeley also "formulated views that Ernst Mach and his 20th-century followers have advocated. Furthermore, although he did not himself adopt it, he briefly formulated the theory of the physical world known as phenomenalism" (Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

"The principle which underlay all Berkeley's philosophical writing was based on a rejection of all speculation, such as Locke's, about the meaning and necessity of matter as a primal necessity to any theory of human understanding. Briefly, Berkeley maintained that no existence is conceivable or possible which is not conscious spirit or the ideas of which such a spirit is conscious. This presupposes complete equation of subject and object: no object and exist without a Mind to conceive it. Without the pre-existence of the Mind, matter and substance, cause and effect, can have no meaning. In the Principles of Human Knowledge, externality absolutely independent of all mind is shown to be an unreal, impossible conception: true substance is the conscious spirit and true causality the free action of such a spirit… the universe is the sum of human experience, and form a symbol of the divine universal intelligence: esse est percipi… it is a measure of Berkeley's greatness that the difficulties in his theory have been the subject matter of later philosophical thinking" (PMM). Principles first appeared as "Part I" in Dublin in 1710; Part II, lost in manuscript form, was never issued. This volume contains the second and last edition of Principles published in Berkeley's lifetime. It is, as well, the first collected edition to contain his Three Dialogues, first issued in 1713. After that work's disappointing sales, "in 1725 a new title-page was printed for the old sheets, and the remaining issues were sold." As with Principles, this volume contains the last edition of Three Dialogues issued in Berkeley's lifetime (Dictionary of 18th-Century Philosophers). With woodcut-engraved initials head- and tailpieces; continuously paginated with separate title pages. ESTC T73934. Keynes, 6.

Only occasional light spotting, chiefly marginal, expert paper restoration to excised owner signature on front free endpaper. Light expert restoration to extremities of contemporary calf boards. A very good copy.