ExtractRichard Brook Berkeley’s De Motu [hence DM] was first published in 1721 and republished in 1752. Its full title was De Motu: Sive de motus principio & natura et de causa communicationis motuum (On Motion: Or The Principle and Nature of Motion and the Cause of the Communication of Motions) . The essay was evidently unsuccessfully submitted for a prize offered by The Royal Academy of Paris in 1720. Although dismissed by some, DM offers important accounts of Berkeley’s distinction between religion (metaphysics) and science or natural philosophy (here mainly mechanics, optics and astronomy) , particularly how Berkeley conceived his work in relation to that of Isaac Newton’s discussion in the Principia of scientific explanation, for example, the status of forces in astronomy and mechanics, and the nature of space, and motion (Newton, 1687) . These issues are dealt with in other works, particularly the Philosophical Notebooks, The Principles of...