Special Collections
Book of the Month, April 2010
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge>
George Berkeley
Dublin: J. Pepyat, 1710
[S.L.] I [Berkeley – 1710]
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge is the classic exposition of the philosophy of immaterialism expounded by the philosopher and Bishop of Cloyne, George Berkeley (1685-1753). In 156 numbered paragraphs, Berkeley explains his view that minds or spirits are the only ultimate existence, and that the existence of physical bodies is in their being perceived or their capability of being perceived – “esse is percipe” (“to be is to be perceived”).
The title page declares the volume to be Part I. In fact, no more was published, as Berkeley recounted in a letter to Dr Samuel Johnson of Connecticut on 25 November 1729: “As to the Second Part of my Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, the fact is that I had made a considerable progress in it; but the MS. Was lost about fourteen years ago, during my travels in Italy, and I never had leisure since to do so disagreeable a thing as writing twice on the same subject.”
Berkeley joins Locke and Hume as one of the three most famous eighteenth-century British empiricists. He influenced Hume and Kant, and was described by Schopenhauer as ‘the father of idealism’. The Treatise, reprinted in 1734 and 1776, is one of Berkeley’s most widely read works and has had a critical influence upon the course of European thought.
This copy is one of a minority of non-literary works from the library of Sir Louis Sterling, which focuses on first and fine editions of English literature. Its presence there testifies to Sterling’s view of its wide significance.
shl.specialcollections@london.ac.uk 
020 7862 8470
