pendous furnaces, preparing for the beings that move and dispute on the crust of the abyss, a remedy for pain and a balsam for disease. The continual application bestowed by Mr. Bergman on his studies having affected his health, he was advised to interrupt them if he wished to prolong his life but he found happiness only in study, and would not forfeit his title to reputation by a few years more of inactivity and languor. By this enthusiasm, however, he exhausted his strength, and died July 8, 1784. The university of Upsal paid the most distinguished honours to his memory; and the academy of Stockholm consecrated to him a medal to perpetuate the regret of all the learned in Europe for his loss. His principal publications were: 1. "A physical description of the Earth," 1770-74, 2 vols. 8vo, a much admired work, and translated into the Danish, German, and Italian languages. 2. Various "Eloges" of the members of the academy of Stockholm. 3. An edition of Scheffer's" Physics." Physics." 4. Many papers in the Transactions of the Academies of Stockholm, Berlin, Montpellier, and the Royal Society, London. These smaller pieces form 6 vols. 8vo, under the title "Opuscula physica et chemica," 1779-90, a part of which was translated under the title of "Physical and Chemical essays," and published by Dr. Edmund Cullen, London, 1786, 2 vols.' BERGOMASCO. See CASTELLO. BERIGARD or BEAUREGARD (CLAUDE GUILLERMET, SIGNOR DE), was born at Moulins in 1578, and taught philosophy with reputation at Pisa and at Padua, where he died of an umbilical hernia, in 1663. We have by him, 1. "Circulus Pisanus," printed in 1641, at Florence, 4to. This book treats of the ancient philosophy, and that of Aristotle. 2. Dubitationes in dialogum Galilæi pro terræ immobilitate," 1632, 4to, under the fictitious name of Galilæus Lynceus; a work which brought upon him the charge of pyrrhonism and materialism, not without foundation. He has been reproached with acknowledging no other moving principle of the world than primitive matter. Whatever he professed, his works are now in little repute, yet Chaufepie has bestowed a copious article on him.2 BERING (VITUS), a Latin poet, born in Denmark in 1617, whose taste for letters does not appear to have im Eloges des Academiciens, Berlin, 12mo, vol. IV. 36.-Biog. Universelle. peded his fortune, was a member of the royal council of finances, and historiographer to his majesty. It was to justify his promotion to this last office, that he published "Florus Danicus, sive Danicarum rerum a primordio regni ad tempora usque Christiani I. Oldenburgici Breviarium." This work was printed in fol. 1698, at Odensee, the capital of Funen, at the private press of Thomas Kingorius, bishop of that island, who spared no expence to make an elegant book. The bookseller, however, to whom the sale was consigned, eager to get rid of the unsold copies, printed a new title with the date of 1700, and when that did not quite answer his expectations, he printed another with the date of 1709, and notwithstanding this obvious trick, there are connoisseurs who think the pretended edition of 1709 preferable to that of 1698. In 1716, however, a second edition was published in 8vo, at Tirnaro, under the direction of the Jesuits of that place. Bering's poetry, printed separately, was collected in the 2d vol. of "Delicia quorundam Danorum," Leyden, 1693, 12mo. The smaller pieces, lyrics, sonnets, &c. are the best; he had not genius for the more serious efforts of the muse. He died in 1675.1 BERKELEY (GEORGE), an eminent and learned prelate, was born in Ireland, at Kilcrin, near Thomastown, the 12th of March 1684. He was the son of William Berkeley of Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny; whose father, the family having suffered for their loyalty to Charles I. went over to Ireland after the restoration, and there obtained the collectorship of Belfast. George had the first part of his education at Kilkenny school, under Dr. Hinton; was admitted pensioner of Trinity college, Dublin, at the age of fifteen, under Dr. Hall; and chosen fellow of that college June the 9th, 1707, after a very strict examination, which he went through with great credit. The first public proof he gave of his literary abilities was his "Arithmetica absque Algebra aut Euclide demonstrata;" which, from the preface, he appears to have written before he was twenty years old, though he did not publish it till 1707. It is dedicated to Mr. Palliser, son to the archbishop of Cashel; and is followed by a mathematical miscellany, containing observations and theorems 1 Biog. Univ.-Baillet Jugemens des Savans.-Moreri.-Saxii Onomast. inscribed to his pupil Mr. Samuel Molineux, whose father was the friend and correspondent of Locke. This little piece is so far curious, as it shews his early and strong passion for the mathematics, his admiration of those great names in philosophy, Locke and Newton, some of whose positions he afterwards ventured to call in question, and the commencement of his application to those more subtile metaphysical studies, to which his genius was peculiarly adapted. In 1709, came forth the "Theory of Vision," which, of all his works, seems to do the greatest honour to his sagacity; being, as Dr. Reid observes, the first attempt that ever was made to distinguish the immediate and natural objects of sight, from the conclusions we have been accustomed from infancy to draw from them. The boundary is here traced out between the ideas of sight and touch; and it is shewn, that, though habit has so connected these two classes of ideas in our minds, that they are not without a strong effort to be separated from each other, yet originally they have no such connection; insomuch, that a person born blind, and suddenly made to see, would at first be utterly unable to tell how any object that affected his sight would affect his touch; and particularly would not from sight receive any idea of distance, outness, or external space, but would imagine all objects to be in his eye, or rather in his mind. This was surprisingly confirmed in the case of a young man born blind, and couched at fourteen years of age by Mr. Cheselden, in 1728. "A vindication of the Theory of Vision" was published by him in 1733. In 1710 appeared "The Principles of human knowledge;" and, in 1713," Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous" but to them the same praise has not been given, and to this day their real tendency is a disputed point. The object of both pieces is to prove that the commonly received notion of the existence of matter is false; that sensible material objects, as they are called, are not external to the mind, but exist in it, and are nothing more than impressions made upon it by the immediate act of God, according to certain rules termed laws of nature, from which, in the ordinary course of his government, he never deviates; and that the steady adherence of the Supreme Spirit to these rules is what constitutes the reality of things to his creatures. These works are declared to have been written in opposition to sceptics and atheists; and the author's inquiry is into the chief cause of error and difficulty in the sciences, with the grounds of scepticism, atheism, and irreligion; which cause and grounds are found to be the doctrines of the existence of matter. He seems persuaded that men never could have been deluded into a false opinion of the existence of matter, if they had not fancied themselves invested with a power of abstracting substance from the qualities under which it is perceived; and hence, as the general foundation of his argument, he is led to combat and explode a doctrine maintained by Locke and others, of there being a power in the mind of abstracting general ideas. Mr. Hume says, that these works "form the best lessons of scepticism, which are to be found either among the ancient or modern philosophers, Bayle not excepted." Dr. Beattie also considers them as having a sceptical tendency. He adds, that if Berkeley's argument be conclusive, it proves that to be false which every man must necessarily believe, every moment of his life, to be true, and that to be true which no man since the foundation of the world was ever capable of believing for a single moment. Berkeley's doctrine attacks the most incontestable dictates of common sense, and pretends to demonstrate that the clearest principles of human conviction, and those which have determined the judgment of men in all ages, and by which the judgment of all reasonable men must be determined, are certainly fallacious, It may just be observed, that Berkeley had not reached his 27th year when he published this singular system. The author of his life in the Biog. Brit. asserts that "the airy visions of romances, to the reading of which he was much addicted, disgust at the books of metaphysics then received in the university, and that inquisitive attention to the operations of the mind which about this time was excited by the writings of Locke and Malebranche, probably gave birth to his disbelief of the existence of matter." Whatever influence the other causes here assigned might have had, we have the authority of his relict, Mrs. berkeley, that he had a very great dislike to romances, and indeed it would be difficult to discover in any of these volumes of absurd fiction the grounds of such a work as Berkeley's. In 1712 he published three sermons in favour of passive obedience and non-resistance, which underwent at least three editions, and afterwards had nearly done him some injury in his fortune. They caused him to be represented as a Jacobite, and stood in his way with the house of Hanover, till Mr. Molineux, above-mentioned, took off the impression, and first made him known to queen Caroline, whose secretary, when princess, Mr. Molineux had been. Acuteness of parts and beauty of imagination were so conspicuous in his writings, that his reputation was now established, and his company courted even where his opinions did not find admission. Men of opposite parties concurred in recommending him; sir Richard Steele, for instance, and Dr. Swift. For the former he wrote several papers in the Guardian, and at his house became acquainted with Pope, with whom he afterwards lived in friendship. It is said he had a guinea and a dinner with Steele for every paper he wrote in the Guardian. Swift recommended him to the celebrated earl of Peterborough, who being appointed ambassador to the king of Sicily and the Italian states, took Berkeley with him as chaplain and secretary in November 1713. He returned to England with this nobleman in August 1714, and towards the close of the year had a fever, which gave occasion to Dr. Arbuthnot to indulge a little pleasantry on Berkeley's system. philosopher Berkeley," says he to his friend Swift, "has now the idea of health, which was very hard to produce in him; for he had an idea of a strange fever on him so strong, that it was very hard to destroy it by introducing a contrary one." "Poor His hopes of preferment expiring with the fall of queen Anne's ministry, he some time after embraced an offer made him by Dr. St. George Ashe, bishop of Clogher, of accompanying his son in a tour through Europe. When he arrived at Paris, having more leisure than when he first passed through that city, Mr. Berkeley took care to pay his respects to his rival in metaphysical sagacity, the illustrious Pere Malebranche. He found this ingenious father in his cell, cooking in a small pipkin a medicine for a disorder with which he was then troubled, an inflammation on the lungs. The conversation naturally turned on our author's system, of which the other had received some knowledge from a translation just published. But the issue of this debate proved tragical to poor Malebranche. In the heat of disputation he raised his voice so high, and gave way so freely to the natural impetuosity of a man of parts and a Frenchman, that he brought on himself a |