A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

In these sections, Berkeley begins to draw his final conclusions. Many of these have to do with the goal of philosophy itself, which for Berkeley is the knowledge of God.

Berkeley reiterates his main conviction that mind or spirit is the basis of reality and the only force that acts in nature. He believes that philosophers would do better to examine the final causes of things rather than dwelling on efficient causes. This is because we cannot assume that God “always operates uniformly” (76) in nature; thus, we can be easily misled into making inaccurate generalizations.

Instead of reducing natural phenomena to “general rules,” it is more in keeping with the “dignity” of philosophy to strive to come to an appreciation of the “beauty,” “order,” and “variety” of nature and, hence, to the “grandeur, wisdom, and beneficence” (76) of God and our place in the natural order which God established.

Berkeley rejects the notion that nature produces effects on its own; only spirit can act, and God is the ultimate spirit who is responsible for all that exists. Berkeley consequently rejects deism, in which God is conceived as setting the laws of nature in motion but taking no active Part 1n the life of creatures.