Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Alciphron: or the Minute Philosopher

1732

"To remove and cast off a heap of rubbish that has been gathering upon the soul from our very infancy, requires great courage and great strength of faculties."

Alciphron, who heard this discourse with some uneasiness, very gravely replied: Disputes are not to be decided by the weight of authority, but by the force of reason. You may pass, indeed, general reflections on our notions, and call them brutal and barbarous if you please: but it is such brutality and such barbarism as few could have attained to if men of the greatest genius had not broken the ice, there being nothing more difficult than to get the better of education, and conquer old prejudices. To remove and cast off a heap of rubbish that has been gathering upon the soul from our very infancy, requires great courage and great strength of faculties. Our philosophers, therefore, do well deserve the name of esprits forts, men of strong heads, free-thinkers, and such like appellations betokening great force and liberty of mind. It is very possible, the heroic labours of these men may be represented (for what is not capable of misrepresentation?) as a piratical plundering and stripping the mind of its wealth and ornaments, when it is in truth the divesting it only of its prejudices, and reducing it to its untainted original state of nature. Oh nature! the genuine beauty of pure nature!
(p. 54)

Uncategorized::Rubbish

Reading

At least 9 entries in ESTC (1732, 1752, 1755, 1757, 1767).

Alciphron: or, the Minute Philosopher. In Seven Dialogues. Containing an Apology for the Christian Religion, Against Those Who Are Called Free-Thinkers. (Dublin: Printed for G. Risk, G. Ewing, and W. Smith, 1732). <Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II>

See also Alciphron: or the Minute Philosopher (London: J. Tonson, 1732). <Link to Google Books>

03/31/2011