SOURCE: “The Meaning of Berkeley,” in George Berkeley: A Study of his Life and Philosophy, Russell & Russell, 1962, pp. 480-502.

In the following essay, which was written in 1936, Wild provides a survey of Berkeley's career and an overview of his philosophical development.

Berkeley completed the Siris, his last and definitive philosophical work, in 1744. His health, already failing, was further impaired by the exhausting study and meditation which had been necessary for its composition. He himself declared, according to his first biographer Stock, “that this work cost him more time and pains than any other he had ever been engaged in.” He was able, however, to carry on his episcopal duties with unabated zeal, and several more or less occasional writings of this period have survived.

Among these is a “Letter to the Roman Catholics of The Diocese of Cloyne,” which he wrote in 1745 in a remarkably sympathetic tone, advising...