Lot 37: Berkeley, George. , A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Dublin: Aaron Rhames, 1710

8vo, first edition , contemporary calf tooled in bind, the leaves generally browned, binding rebacked, upper right corner of cover scorched, also affecting the same corner of the text block

Keynes, Berkeley 5; Norman 196; PMM 176

Geo. Duffield, signature on flyleaf and title, the latter deleted; Hon. John Rose, engraved armorial bookplate; William Turnbull, book label pasted over former, and signature on title

DUBLIN: AARON RHAMES, 1710
?Part one of A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) is the classic exposition of? [Berkeley?s] philosophy of immaterialism as an antidote to infidelity, prefaced with an influential essay in the philosophy of language? (ODNB), and in which he famously puts forward the idea that ?no object can exist without a mind to conceive it?. Although Berkeley?s works did not initially prompt much reaction, they came to have a profound effect on the intellectual life of the later eighteenth-century, and were not uncontroversial. Famously, Dr Johnson was not an admirer: ?After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it ? ?I refute it thus?? (Boswell?s Life of Johnson). Part two of the work was lost while still in manuscript form.