George Berkeley: Quotes about the trip

“I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceit of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of think, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you on my word, since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily comprehend a great many thing which before were all mystery and riddle.”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Said by Philonous (Berkeley) to Hylas in the opening of dialog 1 with reference to the recent surge philosophic endeavors (Locke, Newton, et al) that seemed to lead to skepticism about the existence of the world
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

School , Way , Understanding , Nature

“Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last.”

George Berkeley

On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America (written in 1726), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Westward the star of empire takes its way", Epigraph to Bancroft's History of the United States; "What worlds in the yet unformed Occident / May come refin'd with th' accents that are ours?", Samuel Daniel, Musophilus (1599), Stanza 163.
According to W. Cleon Skousen, the first four empires are the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Macedonian Empire, and the (Western, Eastern, and Holy) Roman Empire (Gospel Diamond Dust, Volume Two, Verity Publishing, 1998).

Way , Time , Past

“We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrument sheweth the agent to be limited by rules of another’s prescription, and that he cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited agent useth no tool or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself above all limitation or prescription whatsoever.”

George Berkeley book Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous

Philonous to Hylas. The Second Dialogue.
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713)

Law , Way , Nature