THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS, IN OPPOSITION TO SCEPTICS AND ATHEISTS

by

George Berkeley (1685-1753)

THE FIRST DIALOGUE

PHILONOUS. Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad soearly. 

HYLAS. It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken upwith a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could notsleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden. 

PHIL. It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeablepleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a pleasanter time of theday, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wildbut sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers, the gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand namelessbeauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its facultiestoo being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those meditations, which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of the morning naturallydispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt your thoughts: for you seemedvery intent on something. 

HYL. It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you will permitme to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any means deprivemyself of your company, for my thoughts always flow more easily inconversation with a friend, than when I am alone: but my request is, thatyou would suffer me to impart my reflexions to you. 

PHIL. With all my heart, it is what I should have requested myself ifyou had not prevented me. 

HYL. I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages, through an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or someunaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing atall, or to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This howevermight be borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after themsome consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischieflieth here; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposedto have spent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing anentire ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as arerepugnant to plain and commonly received principles, they will be temptedto entertain suspicions concerning the most important truths, which theyhad hitherto held sacred and unquestionable. 

PHIL. I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affecteddoubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceits of others. I ameven so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quittedseveral of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgaropinions. And I give it you on my word; since this revolt frommetaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, Ifind my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easilycomprehend a great many things which before were all mystery and riddle. 

HYL. I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you. 

PHIL. Pray, what were those?

HYL. You were represented, in last night's conversation, as one whomaintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mindof man, to wit, that there is no such thing as MATERIAL SUBSTANCE inthe world. 

PHIL. That there is no such thing as what PHILOSOPHERS CALL MATERIALSUBSTANCE, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I were made to see anythingabsurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason torenounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion. 

HYL. What I can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to CommonSense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there isno such thing as MATTER?

PHIL. Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who holdthere is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintainmore paradoxes and repugnances to Common Sense, than I who believe nosuch thing?

HYL. You may as soon persuade me, the part is greater than the whole, as that, in order to avoid absurdity and Scepticism, I should ever beobliged to give up my opinion in this point. 

PHIL. Well then, are you content to admit that opinion for true, whichupon examination shall appear most agreeable to Common Sense, and remotefrom Scepticism?

HYL. With all my heart. Since you are for raising disputes aboutthe plainest things in nature, I am content for once to hear what youhave to say. 

PHIL. Pray, Hylas, what do you mean by a SCEPTIC?

HYL. I mean what all men mean--one that doubts of everything. 

PHIL. He then who entertains no doubts concerning some particularpoint, with regard to that point cannot be thought a sceptic. 

HYL. I agree with you. 

PHIL. Whether doth doubting consist in embracing the affirmative ornegative side of a question?

HYL. In neither; for whoever understands English cannot but know thatDOUBTING signifies a suspense between both. 

PHIL. He then that denies any point, can no more be said to doubt ofit, than he who affirmeth it with the same degree of assurance. 

HYL. True. 

PHIL. And, consequently, for such his denial is no more to be esteemeda sceptic than the other. 

HYL. I acknowledge it. 

PHIL. How cometh it to pass then, Hylas, that you pronounce me ASCEPTIC, because I deny what you affirm, to wit, the existence ofMatter? Since, for aught you can tell, I am as peremptory in my denial, as you in your affirmation. 

HYL. Hold, Philonous, I have been a little out in my definition; butevery false step a man makes in discourse is not to be insisted on. Isaid indeed that a SCEPTIC was one who doubted of everything; but Ishould have added, or who denies the reality and truth of things. 

PHIL. What things? Do you mean the principles and theorems of sciences?But these you know are universal intellectual notions, and consequentlyindependent of Matter. The denial therefore of this doth not imply thedenying them. 

HYL. I grant it. But are there no other things? What think you ofdistrusting the senses, of denying the real existence of sensible things, or pretending to know nothing of them. Is not this sufficient todenominate a man a SCEPTIC?

PHIL. Shall we therefore examine which of us it is that denies thereality of sensible things, or professes the greatest ignorance of them;since, if I take you rightly, he is to be esteemed the greatestSCEPTIC?

HYL. That is what I desire. 

PHIL. What mean you by Sensible Things?

HYL. Those things which are perceived by the senses. Can you imaginethat I mean anything else?

PHIL. Pardon me, Hylas, if I am desirous clearly to apprehend yournotions, since this may much shorten our inquiry. Suffer me then to askyou this farther question. Are those things only perceived by the senseswhich are perceived immediately? Or, may those things properly be said tobe SENSIBLE which are perceived mediately, or not without theintervention of others?

HYL. I do not sufficiently understand you. 

PHIL. In reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters;but mediately, or by means of these, are suggested to my mind the notionsof God, virtue, truth, &c. Now, that the letters are truly sensiblethings, or perceived by sense, there is no doubt: but I would knowwhether you take the things suggested by them to be so too. 

HYL. No, certainly: it were absurd to think GOD or VIRTUE sensiblethings; though they may be signified and suggested to the mind bysensible marks, with which they have an arbitrary connexion. 

PHIL. It seems then, that by SENSIBLE THINGS you mean those onlywhich can be perceived IMMEDIATELY by sense?

HYL. Right. 

PHIL. Doth it not follow from this, that though I see one part of thesky red, and another blue, and that my reason doth thence evidentlyconclude there must be some cause of that diversity of colours, yet thatcause cannot be said to be a sensible thing, or perceived by the sense ofseeing?

HYL. It doth. 

PHIL. In like manner, though I hear variety of sounds, yet I cannot besaid to hear the causes of those sounds?

HYL. You cannot. 

PHIL. And when by my touch I perceive a thing to be hot and heavy, Icannot say, with any truth or propriety, that I feel the cause of itsheat or weight?

HYL. To prevent any more questions of this kind, I tell you once forall, that by SENSIBLE THINGS I mean those only which are perceived bysense; and that in truth the senses perceive nothing which they do notperceive IMMEDIATELY: for they make no inferences. The deducingtherefore of causes or occasions from effects and appearances, whichalone are perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason. 

PHIL. This point then is agreed between us--That SENSIBLE THINGS ARETHOSE ONLY WHICH ARE IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVED BY SENSE. You will fartherinform me, whether we immediately perceive by sight anything besidelight, and colours, and figures; or by hearing, anything but sounds; bythe palate, anything beside tastes; by the smell, beside odours; or bythe touch, more than tangible qualities. 

HYL. We do not. 

PHIL. It seems, therefore, that if you take away all sensiblequalities, there remains nothing sensible?

HYL. I grant it. 

PHIL. Sensible things therefore are nothing else but so manysensible qualities, or combinations of sensible qualities?

HYL. Nothing else. 

PHIL. HEAT then is a sensible thing?

HYL. Certainly. 

PHIL. Doth the REALITY of sensible things consist in being perceived?or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bearsno relation to the mind?

HYL. To EXIST is one thing, and to be PERCEIVED is another. 

PHIL. I speak with regard to sensible things only. And of these I ask, whether by their real existence you mean a subsistence exterior to themind, and distinct from their being perceived?

HYL. I mean a real absolute being, distinct from, and without anyrelation to, their being perceived. 

PHIL. Heat therefore, if it be allowed a real being, must exist withoutthe mind?

HYL. It must. 

PHIL. Tell me, Hylas, is this real existence equally compatible to alldegrees of heat, which we perceive; or is there any reason why we shouldattribute it to some, and deny it to others? And if there be, pray let meknow that reason. 

HYL. Whatever degree of heat we perceive by sense, we may be sure thesame exists in the object that occasions it. 

PHIL. What! the greatest as well as the least?

HYL. _I_ tell you, the reason is plainly the same in respect of both. They are both perceived by sense; nay, the greater degree of heat is moresensibly perceived; and consequently, if there is any difference, we are more certain of its real existence than we can be of the realityof a lesser degree. 

PHIL. But is not the most vehement and intense degree of heat a verygreat pain?

HYL. No one can deny it. 

PHIL. And is any unperceiving thing capable of pain or pleasure?

HYL. No, certainly. 

PHIL. Is your material substance a senseless being, or a being endowedwith sense and perception?

HYL. It is senseless without doubt. 

PHIL. It cannot therefore be the subject of pain?

HYL. By no means. 

PHIL. Nor consequently of the greatest heat perceived by sense, sinceyou acknowledge this to be no small pain?

HYL. I grant it. 

PHIL. What shall we say then of your external object; is it a materialSubstance, or no?

HYL. It is a material substance with the sensible qualities inhering init. 

PHIL. How then can a great heat exist in it, since you own it cannot ina material substance? I desire you would clear this point. 

HYL. Hold, Philonous, I fear I was out in yielding intense heat to be apain. It should seem rather, that pain is something distinct from heat, and the consequence or effect of it. 

PHIL. Upon putting your hand near the fire, do you perceive one simpleuniform sensation, or two distinct sensations?

HYL. But one simple sensation. 

PHIL. Is not the heat immediately perceived?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. And the pain?

HYL. True. 

PHIL. Seeing therefore they are both immediately perceived at the sametime, and the fire affects you only with one simple or uncompounded idea, it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heatimmediately perceived, and the pain; and, consequently, that the intenseheat immediately perceived is nothing distinct from a particular sort ofpain. 

HYL. It seems so. 

PHIL. Again, try in your thoughts, Hylas, if you can conceive avehement sensation to be without pain or pleasure. 

HYL. I cannot. 

PHIL. Or can you frame to yourself an idea of sensible pain or pleasurein general, abstracted from every particular idea of heat, cold, tastes, smells? &c. 

HYL. I do not find that I can. 

PHIL. Doth it not therefore follow, that sensible pain is nothingdistinct from those sensations or ideas, in an intense degree?

HYL. It is undeniable; and, to speak the truth, I begin to suspect avery great heat cannot exist but in a mind perceiving it. 

PHIL. What! are you then in that sceptical state of suspense, betweenaffirming and denying?

HYL. I think I may be positive in the point. A very violent and painfulheat cannot exist without the mind. 

PHIL. It hath not therefore according to you, any REAL being?

HYL. I own it. 

PHIL. Is it therefore certain, that there is no body in nature reallyhot?

HYL. I have not denied there is any real heat in bodies. I only say, there is no such thing as an intense real heat. 

PHIL. But, did you not say before that all degrees of heat were equallyreal; or, if there was any difference, that the greater were moreundoubtedly real than the lesser?

HYL. True: but it was because I did not then consider the ground thereis for distinguishing between them, which I now plainly see. And it isthis: because intense heat is nothing else but a particular kind ofpainful sensation; and pain cannot exist but in a perceiving being; itfollows that no intense heat can really exist in an unperceivingcorporeal substance. But this is no reason why we should deny heat in aninferior degree to exist in such a substance. 

PHIL. But how shall we be able to discern those degrees of heat whichexist only in the mind from those which exist without it?

HYL. That is no difficult matter. You know the least pain cannot existunperceived; whatever, therefore, degree of heat is a pain exists only inthe mind. But, as for all other degrees of heat, nothing obliges us tothink the same of them. 

PHIL. I think you granted before that no unperceiving being was capableof pleasure, any more than of pain. 

HYL. I did. 

PHIL. And is not warmth, or a more gentle degree of heat than whatcauses uneasiness, a pleasure?

HYL. What then?

PHIL. Consequently, it cannot exist without the mind in an unperceivingsubstance, or body. 

HYL. So it seems. 

PHIL. Since, therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are notpainful, as those that are, can exist only in a thinking substance; maywe not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of anydegree of heat whatsoever?

HYL. On second thoughts, I do not think it so evident that warmth is apleasure as that a great degree of heat is a pain. 

PHIL. _I_ do not pretend that warmth is as great a pleasure as heat isa pain. But, if you grant it to be even a small pleasure, it serves tomake good my conclusion. 

HYL. I could rather call it an INDOLENCE. It seems to be nothing morethan a privation of both pain and pleasure. And that such a quality orstate as this may agree to an unthinking substance, I hope you will notdeny. 

PHIL. If you are resolved to maintain that warmth, or a gentle degreeof heat, is no pleasure, I know not how to convince you otherwise than byappealing to your own sense. But what think you of cold?

HYL. The same that I do of heat. An intense degree of cold is a pain;for to feel a very great cold, is to perceive a great uneasiness: itcannot therefore exist without the mind; but a lesser degree of cold may, as well as a lesser degree of heat. 

PHIL. Those bodies, therefore, upon whose application to our own, weperceive a moderate degree of heat, must be concluded to have a moderatedegree of heat or warmth in them; and those, upon whose application wefeel a like degree of cold, must be thought to have cold in them. 

HYL. They must. 

PHIL. Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a man into anabsurdity?

HYL. Without doubt it cannot. 

PHIL. Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing should be atthe same time both cold and warm?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and thatthey are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in anintermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm tothe other?

HYL. It will. 

PHIL. Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to conclude it isreally both cold and warm at the same time, that is, according to yourown concession, to believe an absurdity?

HYL. I confess it seems so. 

PHIL. Consequently, the principles themselves are false, since you havegranted that no true principle leads to an absurdity. 

HYL. But, after all, can anything be more absurd than to say, THERE ISNO HEAT IN THE FIRE?

PHIL. To make the point still clearer; tell me whether, in two casesexactly alike, we ought not to make the same judgment?

HYL. We ought. 

PHIL. When a pin pricks your finger, doth it not rend and divide thefibres of your flesh?

HYL. It doth. 

PHIL. And when a coal burns your finger, doth it any more?

HYL. It doth not. 

PHIL. Since, therefore, you neither judge the sensation itselfoccasioned by the pin, nor anything like it to be in the pin; you shouldnot, conformably to what you have now granted, judge the sensationoccasioned by the fire, or anything like it, to be in the fire. 

HYL. Well, since it must be so, I am content to yield this point, andacknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations existing in our minds. But there still remain qualities enough to secure the reality of externalthings. 

PHIL. But what will you say, Hylas, if it shall appear that the case isthe same with regard to all other sensible qualities, and that they canno more be supposed to exist without the mind, than heat and cold?

HYL. Then indeed you will have done something to the purpose; but thatis what I despair of seeing proved. 

PHIL. Let us examine them in order. What think you of TASTES, do theyexist without the mind, or no?

HYL. Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is sweet, orwormwood bitter?

PHIL. Inform me, Hylas. Is a sweet taste a particular kind of pleasureor pleasant sensation, or is it not?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. And is not bitterness some kind of uneasiness or pain?

HYL. I grant it. 

PHIL. If therefore sugar and wormwood are unthinking corporealsubstances existing without the mind, how can sweetness and bitterness, that is, Pleasure and pain, agree to them?

HYL. Hold, Philonous, I now see what it was delude time. You askedwhether heat and cold, sweetness at were not particular sorts of pleasureand pain; to which simply, that they were. Whereas I should have thusdistinguished: those qualities, as perceived by us, are pleasures or pairexisting in the external objects. We must not therefore concludeabsolutely, that there is no heat in the fire, or sweetness in the sugar, but only that heat or sweetness, as perceived by us, are not in the fireor sugar. What say you to this?

PHIL. I say it is nothing to the purpose. Our discourse proceededaltogether concerning sensible things, which you defined to be, THETHINGS WE IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVE BY OUR SENSES. Whatever other qualities, therefore, you speak of as distinct from these, I know nothing of them, neither do they at all belong to the point in dispute. You may, indeed, pretend to have discovered certain qualities which you do not perceive, and assert those insensible qualities exist in fire and sugar. But whatuse can be made of this to your present purpose, I am at a loss toconceive. Tell me then once more, do you acknowledge that heat and cold, sweetness and bitterness (meaning those qualities which are perceived bythe senses), do not exist without the mind?

HYL. I see it is to no purpose to hold out, so I give up the cause asto those mentioned qualities. Though I profess it sounds oddly, to saythat sugar is not sweet. 

PHIL. But, for your farther satisfaction, take this along with you:that which at other times seems sweet, shall, to a distempered palate, appear bitter. And, nothing can be plainer than that divers personsperceive different tastes in the same food; since that which one mandelights in, another abhors. And how could this be, if the taste wassomething really inherent in the food?

HYL. I acknowledge I know not how. 

PHIL. In the next place, ODOURS are to be considered. And, withregard to these, I would fain know whether what hath been said oftastes doth not exactly agree to them? Are they not so many pleasing ordispleasing sensations?

HYL. They are. 

PHIL. Can you then conceive it possible that they should exist in anunperceiving thing?

HYL. I cannot. 

PHIL. Or, can you imagine that filth and ordure affect those bruteanimals that feed on them out of choice, with the same smells which weperceive in them?

HYL. By no means. 

PHIL. May we not therefore conclude of smells, as of the otherforementioned qualities, that they cannot exist in any but a perceivingsubstance or mind?

HYL. I think so. 

PHIL. Then as to SOUNDS, what must we think of them: are theyaccidents really inherent in external bodies, or not?

HYL. That they inhere not in the sonorous bodies is plain from hence:because a bell struck in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump sendsforth no sound. The air, therefore, must be thought the subject of sound. 

PHIL. What reason is there for that, Hylas?

HYL. Because, when any motion is raised in the air, we perceive a soundgreater or lesser, according to the air's motion; but without some motionin the air, we never hear any sound at all. 

PHIL. And granting that we never hear a sound but when some motion isproduced in the air, yet I do not see how you can infer from thence, thatthe sound itself is in the air. 

HYL. It is this very motion in the external air that produces in themind the sensation of SOUND. For, striking on the drum of the ear, itcauseth a vibration, which by the auditory nerves being communicated tothe brain, the soul is thereupon affected with the sensation calledSOUND. 

PHIL. What! is sound then a sensation?

HYL. I tell you, as perceived by us, it is a particular sensation inthe mind. 

PHIL. And can any sensation exist without the mind?

HYL. No, certainly. 

PHIL. How then can sound, being a sensation, exist in the air, if bythe AIR you mean a senseless substance existing without the mind?

HYL. You must distinguish, Philonous, between sound as it isperceived by us, and as it is in itself; or (which is the same thing)between the sound we immediately perceive, and that which exists withoutus. The former, indeed, is a particular kind of sensation, but the latteris merely a vibrative or undulatory motion the air. 

PHIL. I thought I had already obviated that distinction, by answer Igave when you were applying it in a like case before. But, to say no moreof that, are you sure then that sound is really nothing but motion?

HYL. I am. 

PHIL. Whatever therefore agrees to real sound, may with truth beattributed to motion?

HYL. It may. 

PHIL. It is then good sense to speak of MOTION as of a thing that isLOUD, SWEET, ACUTE, or GRAVE. 

HYL. _I_ see you are resolved not to understand me. Is it not evidentthose accidents or modes belong only to sensible sound, or SOUND in thecommon acceptation of the word, but not to sound in the real andphilosophic sense; which, as I just now told you, is nothing but acertain motion of the air?

PHIL. It seems then there are two sorts of sound--the one vulgar, orthat which is heard, the other philosophical and real?

HYL. Even so. 

PHIL. And the latter consists in motion?

HYL. I told you so before. 

PHIL. Tell me, Hylas, to which of the senses, think you, the idea ofmotion belongs? to the hearing?

HYL. No, certainly; but to the sight and touch. 

PHIL. It should follow then, that, according to you, real sounds maypossibly be SEEN OR FELT, but never HEARD. 

HYL. Look you, Philonous, you may, if you please, make a jest of myopinion, but that will not alter the truth of things. I own, indeed, theinferences you draw me into sound something oddly; but common language, you know, is framed by, and for the use of the vulgar: we must nottherefore wonder if expressions adapted to exact philosophic notions seemuncouth and out of the way. 

PHIL. Is it come to that? I assure you, I imagine myself to have gainedno small point, since you make so light of departing from common phrasesand opinions; it being a main part of our inquiry, to examine whosenotions are widest of the common road, and most repugnant to thegeneral sense of the world. But, can you think it no more than aphilosophical paradox, to say that REAL SOUNDS ARE NEVER HEARD, andthat the idea of them is obtained by some other sense? And is therenothing in this contrary to nature and the truth of things?

HYL. To deal ingenuously, I do not like it. And, after the concessionsalready made, I had as well grant that sounds too have no real beingwithout the mind. 

PHIL. And I hope you will make no difficulty to acknowledge the same ofCOLOURS. 

HYL. Pardon me: the case of colours is very different. Can anything beplainer than that we see them on the objects?

PHIL. The objects you speak of are, I suppose, corporeal Substancesexisting without the mind?

HYL. They are. 

PHIL. And have true and real colours inhering in them?

HYL. Each visible object hath that colour which we see in it. 

PHIL. How! is there anything visible but what we perceive by sight?

HYL. There is not. 

PHIL. And, do we perceive anything by sense which we do not perceiveimmediately?

HYL. How often must I be obliged to repeat the same thing? I tell you, we do not. 

PHIL. Have patience, good Hylas; and tell me once more, whether thereis anything immediately perceived by the senses, except sensiblequalities. I know you asserted there was not; but I would now beinformed, whether you still persist in the same opinion. 

HYL. I do. 

PHIL. Pray, is your corporeal substance either a sensible quality, ormade up of sensible qualities?

HYL. What a question that is! who ever thought it was?

PHIL. My reason for asking was, because in saying, EACH VISIBLE OBJECTHATH THAT COLOUR WHICH WE SEE IN IT, you make visible objects to becorporeal substances; which implies either that corporeal substances aresensible qualities, or else that there is something besides sensiblequalities perceived by sight: but, as this point was formerly agreedbetween us, and is still maintained by you, it is a clear consequence, that your CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE is nothing distinct from SENSIBLEQUALITIES. 

HYL. You may draw as many absurd consequences as you please, andendeavour to perplex the plainest things; but you shall never persuade meout of my senses. I clearly understand my own meaning. 

PHIL. I wish you would make me understand it too. But, since you areunwilling to have your notion of corporeal substance examined, I shallurge that point no farther. Only be pleased to let me know, whether thesame colours which we see exist in external bodies, or some other. 

HYL. The very same. 

PHIL. What! are then the beautiful red and purple we see on yonderclouds really in them? Or do you imagine they have in themselves anyother form than that of a dark mist or vapour?

HYL. I must own, Philonous, those colours are not really in the cloudsas they seem to be at this distance. They are only apparent colours. 

PHIL. APPARENT call you them? how shall we distinguish these apparentcolours from real?

HYL. Very easily. Those are to be thought apparent which, appearingonly at a distance, vanish upon a nearer approach. 

PHIL. And those, I suppose, are to be thought real which are discoveredby the most near and exact survey. 

HYL. Right. 

PHIL. Is the nearest and exactest survey made by the help of amicroscope, or by the naked eye?

HYL. By a microscope, doubtless. 

PHIL. But a microscope often discovers colours in an object differentfrom those perceived by the unassisted sight. And, in case we hadmicroscopes magnifying to any assigned degree, it is certain that noobject whatsoever, viewed through them, would appear in the same colourwhich it exhibits to the naked eye. 

HYL. And what will you conclude from all this? You cannot argue thatthere are really and naturally no colours on objects: because byartificial managements they may be altered, or made to vanish. 

PHIL. I think it may evidently be concluded from your own concessions, that all the colours we see with our naked eyes are only apparent asthose on the clouds, since they vanish upon a more close and accurateinspection which is afforded us by a microscope. Then' as to what you sayby way of prevention: I ask you whether the real and natural stateof an object is better discovered by a very sharp and piercing sight, orby one which is less sharp?

HYL. By the former without doubt. 

PHIL. Is it not plain from DIOPTRICS that microscopes make the sightmore penetrating, and represent objects as they would appear to the eyein case it were naturally endowed with a most exquisite sharpness?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. Consequently the microscopical representation is to be thoughtthat which best sets forth the real nature of the thing, or what it is initself. The colours, therefore, by it perceived are more genuine and realthan those perceived otherwise. 

HYL. I confess there is something in what you say. 

PHIL. Besides, it is not only possible but manifest, that thereactually are animals whose eyes are by nature framed to perceive thosethings which by reason of their minuteness escape our sight. What thinkyou of those inconceivably small animals perceived by glasses? must wesuppose they are all stark blind? Or, in case they see, can it beimagined their sight hath not the same use in preserving their bodiesfrom injuries, which appears in that of all other animals? And if ithath, is it not evident they must see particles less than their ownbodies; which will present them with a far different view in each objectfrom that which strikes our senses? Even our own eyes do not alwaysrepresent objects to us after the same manner. In the jaundice every oneknows that all things seem yellow. Is it not therefore highly probablethose animals in whose eyes we discern a very different texture from thatof ours, and whose bodies abound with different humours, do not see thesame colours in every object that we do? From all which, should it notseem to follow that all colours are equally apparent, and that none ofthose which we perceive are really inherent in any outward object?

HYL. It should. 

PHIL. The point will be past all doubt, if you consider that, in casecolours were real properties or affections inherent in external bodies, they could admit of no alteration without some change wrought in the verybodies themselves: but, is it not evident from what hath been said that, upon the use of microscopes, upon a change happening in the burnouts ofthe eye, or a variation of distance, without any manner of realalteration in the thing itself, the colours of any object areeither changed, or totally disappear? Nay, all other circumstancesremaining the same, change but the situation of some objects, and theyshall present different colours to the eye. The same thing happens uponviewing an object in various degrees of light. And what is more knownthan that the same bodies appear differently coloured by candle-lightfrom what they do in the open day? Add to these the experiment of a prismwhich, separating the heterogeneous rays of light, alters the colour ofany object, and will cause the whitest to appear of a deep blue or red tothe naked eye. And now tell me whether you are still of opinion thatevery body hath its true real colour inhering in it; and, if you think ithath, I would fain know farther from you, what certain distance andposition of the object, what peculiar texture and formation of the eye, what degree or kind of light is necessary for ascertaining that truecolour, and distinguishing it from apparent ones. 

HYL. I own myself entirely satisfied, that they are all equallyapparent, and that there is no such thing as colour really inhering inexternal bodies, but that it is altogether in the light. And whatconfirms me in this opinion is, that in proportion to the light coloursare still more or less vivid; and if there be no light, then are there nocolours perceived. Besides, allowing there are colours on externalobjects, yet, how is it possible for us to perceive them? For no externalbody affects the mind, unless it acts first on our organs of sense. Butthe only action of bodies is motion; and motion cannot be communicatedotherwise than by impulse. A distant object therefore cannot act on theeye; nor consequently make itself or its properties perceivable to thesoul. Whence it plainly follows that it is immediately some contiguoussubstance, which, operating on the eye, occasions a perception ofcolours: and such is light. 

PHIL. Howl is light then a substance?

HYL. . I tell you, Philonous, external light is nothing but a thin fluidsubstance, whose minute particles being agitated with a brisk motion, andin various manners reflected from the different surfaces of outwardobjects to the eyes, communicate different motions to the optic nerves;which, being propagated to the brain, cause therein various impressions;and these are attended with the sensations of red, blue, yellow, &c. 

PHIL. It seems then the light doth no more than shake the optic nerves. 

HYL. Nothing else. 

PHIL. And consequent to each particular motion of the nerves, the mindis affected with a sensation, which is some particular colour. 

HYL. Right. 

PHIL. And these sensations have no existence without the mind. 

HYL. They have not. 

PHIL. How then do you affirm that colours are in the light; since byLIGHT you understand a corporeal substance external to the mind?

HYL. Light and colours, as immediately perceived by us, I grant cannotexist without the mind. But in themselves they are only the motions andconfigurations of certain insensible particles of matter. 

PHIL. Colours then, in the vulgar sense, or taken for the immediateobjects of sight, cannot agree to any but a perceiving substance. 

HYL. That is what I say. 

PHIL. Well then, since you give up the point as to those sensiblequalities which are alone thought colours by all mankind beside, you mayhold what you please with regard to those invisible ones of thephilosophers. It is not my business to dispute about THEM; only I wouldadvise you to bethink yourself, whether, considering the inquiry we areupon, it be prudent for you to affirm--THE RED AND BLUE WHICH WE SEE ARENOT REAL COLOURS, BUT CERTAIN UNKNOWN MOTIONS AND FIGURES WHICH NO MANEVER DID OR CAN SEE ARE TRULY SO. Are not these shocking notions, andare not they subject to as many ridiculous inferences, as those you wereobliged to renounce before in the case of sounds?

HYL. I frankly own, Philonous, that it is in vain to longer. Colours, sounds, tastes, in a word all those termed SECONDARY QUALITIES, havecertainly no existence without the mind. But by this acknowledgment Imust not be supposed to derogate, the reality of Matter, or externalobjects; seeing it is no more than several philosophers maintain, whonevertheless are the farthest imaginable from denying Matter. For theclearer understanding of this, you must know sensible qualities are byphilosophers divided into PRIMARY and SECONDARY. The former areExtension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity, Motion, and Rest; and thesethey hold exist really in bodies. The latter are those above enumerated;or, briefly, ALL SENSIBLE QUALITIES BESIDE THE PRIMARY; which theyassert are only so many sensations or ideas existing nowhere but in themind. But all this, I doubt not, you are apprised of. For my part, I havebeen a long time sensible there was such an opinion current amongphilosophers, but was never thoroughly convinced of its truth until now. 

PHIL. You are still then of opinion that EXTENSION and FIGURES areinherent in external unthinking substances?

HYL. I am. 

PHIL. But what if the same arguments which are brought againstSecondary Qualities will hold good against these also?

HYL. Why then I shall be obliged to think, they too exist only in themind. 

PHIL. Is it your opinion the very figure and extension which youperceive by sense exist in the outward object or material substance?HYL. It is. 

PHIL. Have all other animals as good grounds to think the same of thefigure and extension which they see and feel?

HYL. Without doubt, if they have any thought at all. 

PHIL. Answer me, Hylas. Think you the senses were bestowed upon allanimals for their preservation and well-being in life? or were they givento men alone for this end?

HYL. I make no question but they have the same use in all otheranimals. 

PHIL. If so, is it not necessary they should be enabled by them toperceive their own limbs, and those bodies which are capable of harmingthem?

HYL. Certainly. 

PHIL. A mite therefore must be supposed to see his own foot, and thingsequal or even less than it, as bodies of some considerable dimension;though at the same time they appear to you scarce discernible, or at bestas so many visible points?

HYL. I cannot deny it. 

PHIL. And to creatures less than the mite they will seem yet larger?

HYL. They will. 

PHIL. Insomuch that what you can hardly discern will to anotherextremely minute animal appear as some huge mountain?

HYL. All this I grant. 

PHIL. Can one and the same thing be at the same time in itself ofdifferent dimensions?

HYL. That were absurd to imagine. 

PHIL. But, from what you have laid down it follows that both theextension by you perceived, and that perceived by the mite itself, aslikewise all those perceived by lesser animals, are each of them the trueextension of the mite's foot; that is to say, by your own principles youare led into an absurdity. 

HYL. There seems to be some difficulty in the point. 

PHIL. Again, have you not acknowledged that no real inherent propertyof any object can be changed without some change in the thing itself?

HYL. I have. 

PHIL. But, as we approach to or recede from an object, the visibleextension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred times greaterthan another. Doth it not therefore follow from hence likewise that it isnot really inherent in the object?

HYL. I own I am at a loss what to think. 

PHIL. Your judgment will soon be determined, if you will venture tothink as freely concerning this quality as you have done concerning therest. Was it not admitted as a good argument, that neither heat nor coldwas in the water, because it seemed warm to one hand and cold to theother?

HYL. It was. 

PHIL. Is it not the very same reasoning to conclude, there is noextension or figure in an object, because to one eye it shall seemlittle, smooth, and round, when at the same time it appears to the other, great, uneven, and regular?

HYL. The very same. But does this latter fact ever happen?

PHIL. You may at any time make the experiment, by looking with one eyebare, and with the other through a microscope. 

HYL. I know not how to maintain it; and yet I am loath to give upEXTENSION, I see so many odd consequences following upon such aconcession. 

PHIL. Odd, say you? After the concessions already made, I hope you willstick at nothing for its oddness. But, on the other hand, should it notseem very odd, if the general reasoning which includes all othersensible qualities did not also include extension? If it be allowed thatno idea, nor anything like an idea, can exist in an unperceivingsubstance, then surely it follows that no figure, or mode of extension, which we can either perceive, or imagine, or have any idea of, can bereally inherent in Matter; not to mention the peculiar difficulty theremust be in conceiving a material substance, prior to and distinct fromextension to be the SUBSTRATUM of extension. Be the sensible qualitywhat it will--figure, or sound, or colour, it seems alike impossible itshould subsist in that which doth not perceive it. 

HYL. I give up the point for the present, reserving still a right toretract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover any false step inmy progress to it. 

PHIL. That is a right you cannot be denied. Figures and extension beingdespatched, we proceed next to MOTION. Can a real motion in anyexternal body be at the same time very swift and very slow?

HYL. It cannot. 

PHIL. Is not the motion of a body swift in a reciprocal proportion tothe time it takes up in describing any given space? Thus a body thatdescribes a mile in an hour moves three times faster than it would incase it described only a mile in three hours. 

HYL. I agree with you. 

PHIL. And is not time measured by the succession of ideas in our minds?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. And is it not possible ideas should succeed one another twice asfast in your mind as they do in mine, or in that of some spirit ofanother kind?

HYL. I own it. 

PHIL. Consequently the same body may to another seem to perform itsmotion over any space in half the time that it doth to you. And the samereasoning will hold as to any other proportion: that is to say, accordingto your principles (since the motions perceived are both really in theobject) it is possible one and the same body shall be really moved thesame way at once, both very swift and very slow. How is this consistenteither with common sense, or with what you just now granted?

HYL. I have nothing to say to it. 

PHIL. Then as for SOLIDITY; either you do not mean any sensiblequality by that word, and so it is beside our inquiry: or if you do, itmust be either hardness or resistance. But both the one and the other areplainly relative to our senses: it being evident that what seems hard toone animal may appear soft to another, who hath greater force andfirmness of limbs. Nor is it less plain that the resistance I feel is notin the body. 

HYL. I own the very SENSATION of resistance, which is all youimmediately perceive, is not in the body; but the CAUSE of thatsensation is. 

PHIL. But the causes of our sensations are not things immediatelyperceived, and therefore are not sensible. This point I thought had beenalready determined. 

HYL. I own it was; but you will pardon me if I seem a littleembarrassed: I know not how to quit my old notions. 

PHIL. To help you out, do but consider that if EXTENSION be onceacknowledged to have no existence without the mind, the same mustnecessarily be granted of motion, solidity, and gravity; since they allevidently suppose extension. It is therefore superfluous to inquireparticularly concerning each of them. In denying extension, you havedenied them all to have any real existence. 

HYL. I wonder, Philonous, if what you say be true, why thosephilosophers who deny the Secondary Qualities any real existence shouldyet attribute it to the Primary. If there is no difference between them, how can this be accounted for?

PHIL. It is not my business to account for every opinion of thephilosophers. But, among other reasons which may be assigned for this, itseems probable that pleasure and pain being rather annexed to the formerthan the latter may be one. Heat and cold, tastes and smells, havesomething more vividly pleasing or disagreeable than the ideas ofextension, figure, and motion affect us with. And, it being too visiblyabsurd to hold that pain or pleasure can be in an unperceiving substance, men are more easily weaned from believing the external existence of theSecondary than the Primary Qualities. You will be satisfied there issomething in this, if you recollect the difference you made between anintense and more moderate degree of heat; allowing the one a realexistence, while you denied it to the other. But, after all, there is norational ground for that distinction; for, surely an indifferentsensation is as truly a SENSATION as one more pleasing orpainful; and consequently should not any more than they be supposed toexist in an unthinking subject. 

HYL. It is just come into my head, Philonous, that I have somewhereheard of a distinction between absolute and sensible extension. Now, though it be acknowledged that GREAT and SMALL, consisting merely inthe relation which other extended beings have to the parts of our ownbodies, do not really inhere in the substances themselves; yet nothingobliges us to hold the same with regard to ABSOLUTE EXTENSION, which issomething abstracted from GREAT and SMALL, from this or thatparticular magnitude or figure. So likewise as to motion; SWIFT andSLOW are altogether relative to the succession of ideas in our ownminds. But, it doth not follow, because those modifications of motionexist not without the mind, that therefore absolute motion abstractedfrom them doth not. 

PHIL. Pray what is it that distinguishes one motion, or one part ofextension, from another? Is it not something sensible, as some degree ofswiftness or slowness, some certain magnitude or figure peculiar to each?

HYL. I think so. 

PHIL. These qualities, therefore, stripped of all sensible properties, are without all specific and numerical differences, as the schools callthem. 

HYL. They are. 

PHIL. That is to say, they are extension in general, and motion ingeneral. 

HYL. Let it be so. 

PHIL. But it is a universally received maxim that EVERYTHING WHICHEXISTS IS PARTICULAR. How then can motion in general, or extension ingeneral, exist in any corporeal substance?

HYL. I will take time to solve your difficulty. 

PHIL. But I think the point may be speedily decided. Without doubt youcan tell whether you are able to frame this or that idea. Now I amcontent to put our dispute on this issue. If you can frame in yourthoughts a distinct ABSTRACT IDEA of motion or extension, divested ofall those sensible modes, as swift and slow, great and small, round andsquare, and the like, which are acknowledged to exist only in the mind, Iwill then yield the point you contend for. But if you cannot, it will beunreasonable on your side to insist any longer upon what you have nonotion of. 

HYL. To confess ingenuously, I cannot. 

PHIL. Can you even separate the ideas of extension and motion from theideas of all those qualities which they who make the distinction termSECONDARY?

HYL. What! is it not an easy matter to consider extension and motion bythemselves, abstracted from all other sensible qualities? Pray how do themathematicians treat of them?

PHIL. I acknowledge, Hylas, it is not difficult to form generalpropositions and reasonings about those qualities, without mentioning anyother; and, in this sense, to consider or treat of them abstractedly. But, how doth it follow that, because I can pronounce the word MOTIONby itself, I can form the idea of it in my mind exclusive of body? or, because theorems may be made of extension and figures, without anymention of GREAT or SMALL, or any other sensible mode or quality, that therefore it is possible such an abstract idea of extension, withoutany particular size or figure, or sensible quality, should bedistinctly formed, and apprehended by the mind? Mathematicians treat ofquantity, without regarding what other sensible qualities it is attendedwith, as being altogether indifferent to their demonstrations. But, whenlaying aside the words, they contemplate the bare ideas, I believe youwill find, they are not the pure abstracted ideas of extension. 

HYL. But what say you to PURE INTELLECT? May not abstracted ideas beframed by that faculty?

PHIL. Since I cannot frame abstract ideas at all, it is plain I cannotframe them by the help of PURE INTELLECT; whatsoever faculty youunderstand by those words. Besides, not to inquire into the nature ofpure intellect and its spiritual objects, as VIRTUE, REASON, GOD, or the like, thus much seems manifest--that sensible things are only tobe perceived by sense, or represented by the imagination. Figures, therefore, and extension, being originally perceived by sense, do notbelong to pure intellect: but, for your farther satisfaction, try if youcan frame the idea of any figure, abstracted from all particularities ofsize, or even from other sensible qualities. 

HYL. Let me think a little--I do not find that I can. 

PHIL. And can you think it possible that should really exist in naturewhich implies a repugnancy in its conception?

HYL. By no means. 

PHIL. Since therefore it is impossible even for the mind to disunitethe ideas of extension and motion from all other sensible qualities, dothit not follow, that where the one exist there necessarily the other existlikewise?

HYL. It should seem so. 

PHIL. Consequently, the very same arguments which you admitted asconclusive against the Secondary Qualities are, without any fartherapplication of force, against the Primary too. Besides, if you will trustyour senses, is it not plain all sensible qualities coexist, or to themappear as being in the same place? Do they ever represent a motion, orfigure, as being divested of all other visible and tangible qualities?

HYL. You need say no more on this head. I am free to own, if there beno secret error or oversight in our proceedings hitherto, that allsensible qualities are alike to be denied existence without the mind. But, my fear is that I have been too liberal in my former concessions, oroverlooked some fallacy or other. In short, I did not take time to think. 

PHIL. For that matter, Hylas, you may take what time you please inreviewing the progress of our inquiry. You are at liberty to recover anyslips you might have made, or offer whatever you have omitted which makesfor your first opinion. 

HYL. One great oversight I take to be this--that I did not sufficientlydistinguish the OBJECT from the SENSATION. Now, though this lattermay not exist without the mind, yet it will not thence follow that theformer cannot. 

PHIL. What object do you mean? the object of the senses?

HYL. The same. 

PHIL. It is then immediately perceived?

HYL. Right. 

PHIL. Make me to understand the difference between what is immediatelyperceived and a sensation. 

HYL. The sensation I take to be an act of the mind perceiving; besideswhich, there is something perceived; and this I call the OBJECT. Forexample, there is red and yellow on that tulip. But then the act ofperceiving those colours is in me only, and not in the tulip. 

PHIL. What tulip do you speak of? Is it that which you see?

HYL. The same. 

PHIL. And what do you see beside colour, figure, and extension?

HYL. Nothing. 

PHIL. What you would say then is that the red and yellow are coexistentwith the extension; is it not?

HYL. That is not all; I would say they have a real existence withoutthe mind, in some unthinking substance. 

PHIL. That the colours are really in the tulip which I see is manifest. Neither can it be denied that this tulip may exist independent of yourmind or mine; but, that any immediate object of the senses, --that is, anyidea, or combination of ideas--should exist in an unthinking substance, or exterior to ALL minds, is in itself an evident contradiction. Norcan I imagine how this follows from what you said just now, to wit, thatthe red and yellow were on the tulip you SAW, since you do not pretendto SEE that unthinking substance. 

HYL. You have an artful way, Philonous, of diverting our inquiry fromthe subject. 

PHIL. I see you have no mind to be pressed that way. To return then toyour distinction between SENSATION and OBJECT; if I take you right, you distinguish in every perception two things, the one an action of themind, the other not. 

HYL. True. 

PHIL. And this action cannot exist in, or belong to, any unthinkingthing; but, whatever beside is implied in a perception may?

HYL. That is my meaning. 

PHIL. So that if there was a perception without any act of the mind, itwere possible such a perception should exist in an unthinking substance?

HYL. I grant it. But it is impossible there should be such aperception. 

PHIL. When is the mind said to be active?

HYL. When it produces, puts an end to, or changes, anything. 

PHIL. Can the mind produce, discontinue, or change anything, but by anact of the will?

HYL. It cannot. 

PHIL. The mind therefore is to be accounted ACTIVE in its perceptionsso far forth as VOLITION is included in them?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. In plucking this flower I am active; because I do it by themotion of my hand, which was consequent upon my volition; so likewise inapplying it to my nose. But is either of these smelling?

HYL. NO. 

PHIL. I act too in drawing the air through my nose; because mybreathing so rather than otherwise is the effect of my volition. Butneither can this be called SMELLING: for, if it were, I should smellevery time I breathed in that manner?

HYL. True. 

PHIL. Smelling then is somewhat consequent to all this?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. But I do not find my will concerned any farther. Whatever morethere is--as that I perceive such a particular smell, or any smell atall--this is independent of my will, and therein I am altogether passive. Do you find it otherwise with you, Hylas?

HYL. No, the very same. 

PHIL. Then, as to seeing, is it not in your power to open your eyes, orkeep them shut; to turn them this or that way?

HYL. Without doubt. 

PHIL. But, doth it in like manner depend on YOUR will that in lookingon this flower you perceive WHITE rather than any other colour? Or, directing your open eyes towards yonder part of the heaven, can you avoidseeing the sun? Or is light or darkness the effect of your volition?

HYL. No, certainly. 

PHIL. You are then in these respects altogether passive? HYL. I am. 

PHIL. Tell me now, whether SEEING consists in perceiving light andcolours, or in opening and turning the eyes?

HYL. Without doubt, in the former. 

PHIL. Since therefore you are in the very perception of light andcolours altogether passive, what is become of that action you werespeaking of as an ingredient in every sensation? And, doth it not followfrom your own concessions, that the perception of light and colours, including no action in it, may exist in an unperceiving substance? And isnot this a plain contradiction?

HYL. I know not what to think of it. 

PHIL. Besides, since you distinguish the ACTIVE and PASSIVE inevery perception, you must do it in that of pain. But how is it possiblethat pain, be it as little active as you please, should exist in anunperceiving substance? In short, do but consider the point, and thenconfess ingenuously, whether light and colours, tastes, sounds, &c. Arenot all equally passions or sensations in the soul. You may indeed callthem EXTERNAL OBJECTS, and give them in words what subsistence youplease. But, examine your own thoughts, and then tell me whether it benot as I say?

HYL. I acknowledge, Philonous, that, upon a fair observation of whatpasses in my mind, I can discover nothing else but that I am a thinkingbeing, affected with variety of sensations; neither is it possible toconceive how a sensation should exist in an unperceiving substance. Butthen, on the other hand, when I look on sensible things in a differentview, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find itnecessary to suppose a MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM, without which they cannotbe conceived to exist. 

PHIL. MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM call you it? Pray, by which of your sensescame you acquainted with that being?

HYL. It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only beingperceived by the senses. 

PHIL. I presume then it was by reflexion and reason you obtainedthe idea of it?

HYL. I do not pretend to any proper positive IDEA of it. However, Iconclude it exists, because qualities cannot be conceived to existwithout a support. 

PHIL. It seems then you have only a relative NOTION of it, or thatyou conceive it not otherwise than by conceiving the relation it bears tosensible qualities?

HYL. Right. 

PHIL. Be pleased therefore to let me know wherein that relationconsists. 

HYL. Is it not sufficiently expressed in the term SUBSTRATUM, orSUBSTANCE?

PHIL. If so, the word SUBSTRATUM should import that it is spreadunder the sensible qualities or accidents?

HYL. True. 

PHIL. And consequently under extension?

HYL. I own it. 

PHIL. It is therefore somewhat in its own nature entirely distinctfrom extension?

HYL. I tell you, extension is only a mode, and Matter is something thatsupports modes. And is it not evident the thing supported is differentfrom the thing supporting?

PHIL. So that something distinct from, and exclusive of, extension issupposed to be the SUBSTRATUM of extension?

HYL. Just so. 

PHIL. Answer me, Hylas. Can a thing be spread without extension? or isnot the idea of extension necessarily included in SPREADING?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. Whatsoever therefore you suppose spread under anything must havein itself an extension distinct from the extension of that thing underwhich it is spread?

HYL. It must. 

PHIL. Consequently, every corporeal substance, being the SUBSTRATUMof extension, must have in itself another extension, by which it isqualified to be a SUBSTRATUM: and so on to infinity. And I ask whetherthis be not absurd in itself, and repugnant to what you granted just now, to wit, that the SUBSTRATUM was something distinct from and exclusiveof extension?

HYL. Aye but, Philonous, you take me wrong. I do not mean that Matteris SPREAD in a gross literal sense under extension. The wordSUBSTRATUM is used only to express in general the same thing withSUBSTANCE. 

PHIL. Well then, let us examine the relation implied in the termSUBSTANCE. Is it not that it stands under accidents?

HYL. The very same. 

PHIL. But, that one thing may stand under or support another, must itnot be extended?

HYL. It must. 

PHIL. Is not therefore this supposition liable to the same absurditywith the former?

HYL. You still take things in a strict literal sense. That is not fair, Philonous. 

PHIL. I am not for imposing any sense on your words: you are at libertyto explain them as you please. Only, I beseech you, make me understandsomething by them. You tell me Matter supports or stands under accidents. How! is it as your legs support your body?

HYL. No; that is the literal sense. 

PHIL. Pray let me know any sense, literal or not literal, that youunderstand it in. --How long must I wait for an answer, Hylas?

HYL. I declare I know not what to say. I once thought I understood wellenough what was meant by Matter's supporting accidents. But now, the moreI think on it the less can I comprehend it: in short I find that I knownothing of it. 

PHIL. It seems then you have no idea at all, neither relative norpositive, of Matter; you know neither what it is in itself, nor whatrelation it bears to accidents?

HYL. I acknowledge it. 

PHIL. And yet you asserted that you could not conceive how qualities oraccidents should really exist, without conceiving at the same time amaterial support of them?

HYL. I did. 

PHIL. That is to say, when you conceive the real existence ofqualities, you do withal conceive Something which you cannot conceive?

HYL. It was wrong, I own. But still I fear there is some fallacy orother. Pray what think you of this? It is just come into my head that theground of all our mistake lies in your treating of each quality byitself. Now, I grant that each quality cannot singly subsist without themind. Colour cannot without extension, neither can figure without someother sensible quality. But, as the several qualities united or blendedtogether form entire sensible things, nothing hinders why such things maynot be supposed to exist without the mind. 

PHIL. Either, Hylas, you are jesting, or have a very bad memory. Thoughindeed we went through all the qualities by name one after another, yetmy arguments or rather your concessions, nowhere tended to prove that theSecondary Qualities did not subsist each alone by itself; but, that theywere not AT ALL without the mind. Indeed, in treating of figureand motion we concluded they could not exist without the mind, because itwas impossible even in thought to separate them from all secondaryqualities, so as to conceive them existing by themselves. But then thiswas not the only argument made use of upon that occasion. But (to pass byall that hath been hitherto said, and reckon it for nothing, if you willhave it so) I am content to put the whole upon this issue. If you canconceive it possible for any mixture or combination of qualities, or anysensible object whatever, to exist without the mind, then I will grant itactually to be so. 

HYL. If it comes to that the point will soon be decided. What more easythan to conceive a tree or house existing by itself, independent of, andunperceived by, any mind whatsoever? I do at this present time conceivethem existing after that manner. 

PHIL. How say you, Hylas, can you see a thing which is at the same timeunseen?

HYL. No, that were a contradiction. 

PHIL. Is it not as great a contradiction to talk of CONCEIVING athing which is UNCONCEIVED?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. The tree or house therefore which you think of is conceived byyou?

HYL. How should it be otherwise?

PHIL. And what is conceived is surely in the mind?

HYL. Without question, that which is conceived is in the mind. 

PHIL. How then came you to say, you conceived a house or tree existingindependent and out of all minds whatsoever?

HYL. That was I own an oversight; but stay, let me consider what led meinto it. --It is a pleasant mistake enough. As I was thinking of a tree ina solitary place, where no one was present to see it, methought that wasto conceive a tree as existing unperceived or unthought of; notconsidering that I myself conceived it all the while. But now I plainlysee that all I can do is to frame ideas in my own mind. I may indeedconceive in my own thoughts the idea of a tree, or a house, or amountain, but that is all. And this is far from proving that I canconceive them EXISTING OUT OF THE MINDS OF ALL SPIRITS. 

PHIL. You acknowledge then that you cannot possibly conceive how anyone corporeal sensible thing should exist otherwise than in the mind?

HYL. I do. 

PHIL. And yet you will earnestly contend for the truth of that whichyou cannot so much as conceive?

HYL. I profess I know not what to think; but still there are somescruples remain with me. Is it not certain I SEE THINGS at a distance?Do we not perceive the stars and moon, for example, to be a great wayoff? Is not this, I say, manifest to the senses?

PHIL. Do you not in a dream too perceive those or the like objects?

HYL. I do. 

PHIL. And have they not then the same appearance of being distant?

HYL. They have. 

PHIL. But you do not thence conclude the apparitions in a dream to bewithout the mind?

HYL. By no means. 

PHIL. You ought not therefore to conclude that sensible objects arewithout the mind, from their appearance, or manner wherein they areperceived. 

HYL. I acknowledge it. But doth not my sense deceive me in those cases?

PHIL. By no means. The idea or thing which you immediately perceive, neither sense nor reason informs you that it actually exists without themind. By sense you only know that you are affected with such certainsensations of light and colours, &c. And these you will not say arewithout the mind. 

HYL. True: but, beside all that, do you not think the sight suggestssomething of OUTNESS OR DISTANCE?

PHIL. Upon approaching a distant object, do the visible size and figurechange perpetually, or do they appear the same at all distances?

HYL. They are in a continual change. 

PHIL. Sight therefore doth not suggest, or any way inform you, that thevisible object you immediately perceive exists at a distance, or will beperceived when you advance farther onward; there being a continued seriesof visible objects succeeding each other during the whole time of yourapproach. 

HYL. It doth not; but still I know, upon seeing an object, what objectI shall perceive after having passed over a certain distance: nomatter whether it be exactly the same or no: there is still something ofdistance suggested in the case. 

PHIL. Good Hylas, do but reflect a little on the point, and then tellme whether there be any more in it than this: from the ideas you actuallyperceive by sight, you have by experience learned to collect what otherideas you will (according to the standing order of nature) be affectedwith, after such a certain succession of time and motion. 

HYL. Upon the whole, I take it to be nothing else. 

PHIL. Now, is it not plain that if we suppose a man born blind was on asudden made to see, he could at first have no experience of what may beSUGGESTED by sight?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. He would not then, according to you, have any notion of distanceannexed to the things he saw; but would take them for a new set ofsensations, existing only in his mind?

HYL. It is undeniable. 

PHIL. But, to make it still more plain: is not DISTANCE a line turnedendwise to the eye?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. And can a line so situated be perceived by sight?

HYL. It cannot. 

PHIL. Doth it not therefore follow that distance is not properly andimmediately perceived by sight?

HYL. It should seem so. 

PHIL. Again, is it your opinion that colours are at a distance?

HYL. It must be acknowledged they are only in the mind. 

PHIL. But do not colours appear to the eye as coexisting in the sameplace with extension and figures?

HYL. They do. 

PHIL. How can you then conclude from sight that figures exist without, when you acknowledge colours do not; the sensible appearance being thevery same with regard to both?

HYL. I know not what to answer. 

PHIL. But, allowing that distance was truly and immediately perceivedby the mind, yet it would not thence follow it existed out of the mind. For, whatever is immediately perceived is an idea: and can any idea existout of the mind?

HYL. To suppose that were absurd: but, inform me, Philonous, can weperceive or know nothing beside our ideas?

PHIL. As for the rational deducing of causes from effects, thatis beside our inquiry. And, by the senses you can best tell whether youperceive anything which is not immediately perceived. And I ask you, whether the things immediately perceived are other than your ownsensations or ideas? You have indeed more than once, in the course ofthis conversation, declared yourself on those points; but you seem, bythis last question, to have departed from what you then thought. 

HYL. To speak the truth, Philonous, I think there are two kinds ofobjects:--the one perceived immediately, which are likewise calledIDEAS; the other are real things or external objects, perceived by themediation of ideas, which are their images and representations. Now, Iown ideas do not exist without the mind; but the latter sort of objectsdo. I am sorry I did not think of this distinction sooner; it wouldprobably have cut short your discourse. 

PHIL. Are those external objects perceived by sense or by some otherfaculty?

HYL. They are perceived by sense. 

PHIL. Howl Is there any thing perceived by sense which is notimmediately perceived?

HYL. Yes, Philonous, in some sort there is. For example, when I look ona picture or statue of Julius Caesar, I may be said after a manner toperceive him (though not immediately) by my senses. 

PHIL. It seems then you will have our ideas, which alone areimmediately perceived, to be pictures of external things: and that thesealso are perceived by sense, inasmuch as they have a conformity orresemblance to our ideas?

HYL. That is my meaning. 

PHIL. And, in the same way that Julius Caesar, in himself invisible, isnevertheless perceived by sight; real things, in themselvesimperceptible, are perceived by sense. 

HYL. In the very same. 

PHIL. Tell me, Hylas, when you behold the picture of Julius Caesar, doyou see with your eyes any more than some colours and figures, with acertain symmetry and composition of the whole?

HYL. Nothing else. 

PHIL. And would not a man who had never known anything of Julius Caesarsee as much?

HYL. He would. 

PHIL. Consequently he hath his sight, and the use of it, in as perfecta degree as you?

HYL. I agree with you. 

PHIL. Whence comes it then that your thoughts are directed to the Romanemperor, and his are not? This cannot proceed from the sensations orideas of sense by you then perceived; since you acknowledge you have noadvantage over him in that respect. It should seem therefore to proceedfrom reason and memory: should it not?

HYL. It should. 

PHIL. Consequently, it will not follow from that instance that anythingis perceived by sense which is not, immediately perceived. Though I grantwe may, in one acceptation, be said to perceive sensible things mediatelyby sense: that is, when, from a frequently perceived connexion, theimmediate perception of ideas by one sense SUGGESTS to the mind others, perhaps belonging to another sense, which are wont to be connected withthem. For instance, when I hear a coach drive along the streets, immediately I perceive only the sound; but, from the experience I havehad that such a sound is connected with a coach, I am said to hear thecoach. It is nevertheless evident that, in truth and strictness, nothingcan be HEARD BUT SOUND; and the coach is not then properly perceived bysense, but suggested from experience. So likewise when we are said to seea red-hot bar of iron; the solidity and heat of the iron are not theobjects of sight, but suggested to the imagination by the colour andfigure which are properly perceived by that sense. In short, those thingsalone are actually and strictly perceived by any sense, which would havebeen perceived in case that same sense had then been first conferred onus. As for other things, it is plain they are only suggested to the mindby experience, grounded on former perceptions. But, to return to yourcomparison of Caesar's picture, it is plain, if you keep to that, youmust hold the real things, or archetypes of our ideas, are not perceivedby sense, but by some internal faculty of the soul, as reason or memory. I would therefore fain know what arguments you can draw from reason forthe existence of what you call REAL THINGS OR MATERIAL OBJECTS. Or, whether you remember to have seen them formerly as they are inthemselves; or, if you have heard or read of any one that did. 

HYL. I see, Philonous, you are disposed to raillery; but that willnever convince me. 

PHIL. My aim is only to learn from you the way to come at the knowledgeof MATERIAL BEINGS. Whatever we perceive is perceived immediately ormediately: by sense, or by reason and reflexion. But, as you haveexcluded sense, pray shew me what reason you have to believe theirexistence; or what MEDIUM you can possibly make use of to prove it, either to mine or your own understanding. 

HYL. To deal ingenuously, Philonous, now I consider the point, I do notfind I can give you any good reason for it. But, thus much seems prettyplain, that it is at least possible such things may really exist. And, aslong as there is no absurdity in supposing them, I am resolved to believeas I did, till you bring good reasons to the contrary. 

PHIL. What! Is it come to this, that you only BELIEVE the existenceof material objects, and that your belief is founded barely on thepossibility of its being true? Then you will have me bring reasonsagainst it: though another would think it reasonable the proof should lieon him who holds the affirmative. And, after all, this very point whichyou are now resolved to maintain, without any reason, is in effect whatyou have more than once during this discourse seen good reason to giveup. But, to pass over all this; if I understand you rightly, you say ourideas do not exist without the mind, but that they are copies, images, orrepresentations, of certain originals that do?

HYL. You take me right. 

PHIL. They are then like external things?

HYL. They are. 

PHIL. Have those things a stable and permanent nature, independent ofour senses; or are they in a perpetual change, upon our producing anymotions in our bodies--suspending, exerting, or altering, our facultiesor organs of sense?

HYL. Real things, it is plain, have a fixed and real nature, whichremains the same notwithstanding any change in our senses, or in theposture and motion of our bodies; which indeed may affect the ideas inour minds, but it were absurd to think they had the same effect on thingsexisting without the mind. 

PHIL. How then is it possible that things perpetually fleeting andvariable as our ideas should be copies or images of anything fixed andconstant? Or, in other words, since all sensible qualities, assize, figure, colour, &c. , that is, our ideas, are continually changing, upon every alteration in the distance, medium, or instruments ofsensation; how can any determinate material objects be properlyrepresented or painted forth by several distinct things, each of which isso different from and unlike the rest? Or, if you say it resembles someone only of our ideas, how shall we be able to distinguish the true copyfrom all the false ones?

HYL. I profess, Philonous, I am at a loss. I know not what to say tothis. 

PHIL. But neither is this all. Which are material objects inthemselves--perceptible or imperceptible?

HYL. Properly and immediately nothing can be perceived but ideas. Allmaterial things, therefore, are in themselves insensible, and to beperceived only by our ideas. 

PHIL. Ideas then are sensible, and their archetypes or originalsinsensible?

HYL. Right. 

PHIL. But how can that which is sensible be like that which isinsensible? Can a real thing, in itself INVISIBLE, be like a COLOUR;or a real thing, which is not AUDIBLE, be like a SOUND? In a word, can anything be like a sensation or idea, but another sensation or idea?

HYL. I must own, I think not. 

PHIL. Is it possible there should be any doubt on the point? Do younot perfectly know your own ideas?

HYL. I know them perfectly; since what I do not perceive or know can beno part of my idea. 

PHIL. Consider, therefore, and examine them, and then tell me if therebe anything in them which can exist without the mind: or if you canconceive anything like them existing without the mind. 

HYL. Upon inquiry, I find it is impossible for me to conceive orunderstand how anything but an idea can be like an idea. And it is mostevident that NO IDEA CAN EXIST WITHOUT THE MIND. 

PHIL. You are therefore, by your principles, forced to deny theREALITY of sensible things; since you made it to consist in an absoluteexistence exterior to the mind. That is to say, you are a downrightsceptic. So I have gained my point, which was to shew your principles ledto Scepticism. 

HYL. For the present I am, if not entirely convinced, at leastsilenced. 

PHIL. I would fain know what more you would require in order to aperfect conviction. Have you not had the liberty of explaining yourselfall manner of ways? Were any little slips in discourse laid hold andinsisted on? Or were you not allowed to retract or reinforce anything youhad offered, as best served your purpose? Hath not everything you couldsay been heard and examined with all the fairness imaginable? In a wordhave you not in every point been convinced out of your own mouth? And, ifyou can at present discover any flaw in any of your former concessions, or think of any remaining subterfuge, any new distinction, colour, orcomment whatsoever, why do you not produce it?

HYL. A little patience, Philonous. I am at present so amazed to seemyself ensnared, and as it were imprisoned in the labyrinths you havedrawn me into, that on the sudden it cannot be expected I should find myway out. You must give me time to look about me and recollect myself. 

PHIL. Hark; is not this the college bell?

HYL. It rings for prayers. 

PHIL. We will go in then, if you please, and meet here again tomorrowmorning. In the meantime, you may employ your thoughts on this morning'sdiscourse, and try if you can find any fallacy in it, or invent any newmeans to extricate yourself. 

HYL. Agreed. 

THE SECOND DIALOGUE

HYL. I beg your pardon, Philonous, for not meeting you sooner. Allthis morning my head was so filled with our late conversation that I hadnot leisure to think of the time of the day, or indeed of anything else. 

PHILONOUS. I am glad you were so intent upon it, in hopes if there wereany mistakes in your concessions, or fallacies in my reasonings fromthem, you will now discover them to me. 

HYL. I assure you I have done nothing ever since I saw you but searchafter mistakes and fallacies, and, with that view, have minutely examinedthe whole series of yesterday's discourse: but all in vain, for thenotions it led me into, upon review, appear still more clear and evident;and, the more I consider them, the more irresistibly do they force myassent. 

PHIL. And is not this, think you, a sign that they are genuine, thatthey proceed from nature, and are conformable to right reason? Truth andbeauty are in this alike, that the strictest survey sets them both off toadvantage; while the false lustre of error and disguise cannot endurebeing reviewed, or too nearly inspected. 

HYL. I own there is a great deal in what you say. Nor can any one bemore entirely satisfied of the truth of those odd consequences, so longas I have in view the reasonings that lead to them. But, when these areout of my thoughts, there seems, on the other hand, something sosatisfactory, so natural and intelligible, in the modern way ofexplaining things that, I profess, I know not how to reject it. 

PHIL. I know not what way you mean. 

HYL. I mean the way of accounting for our sensations or ideas. 

PHIL. How is that?

HYL. It is supposed the soul makes her residence in some part of thebrain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are thence extended toall parts of the body; and that outward objects, by the differentimpressions they make on the organs of sense, communicate certainvibrative motions to the nerves; and these being filled with spiritspropagate them to the brain or seat of the soul, which, accordingto the various impressions or traces thereby made in the brain, isvariously affected with ideas. 

PHIL. And call you this an explication of the manner whereby we areaffected with ideas?

HYL. Why not, Philonous? Have you anything to object against it?

PHIL. I would first know whether I rightly understand your hypothesis. You make certain traces in the brain to be the causes or occasions of ourideas. Pray tell me whether by the BRAIN you mean any sensible thing. 

HYL. What else think you I could mean?

PHIL. Sensible things are all immediately perceivable; and those thingswhich are immediately perceivable are ideas; and these exist only in themind. Thus much you have, if I mistake not, long since agreed to. 

HYL. I do not deny it. 

PHIL. The brain therefore you speak of, being a sensible thing, existsonly in the mind. Now, I would fain know whether you think it reasonableto suppose that one idea or thing existing in the mind occasions allother ideas. And, if you think so, pray how do you account for the originof that primary idea or brain itself?

HYL. I do not explain the origin of our ideas by that brain which isperceivable to sense--this being itself only a combination of sensibleideas--but by another which I imagine. 

PHIL. But are not things imagined as truly IN THE MIND as thingsperceived?

HYL. I must confess they are. 

PHIL. It comes, therefore, to the same thing; and you have been allthis while accounting for ideas by certain motions or impressions of thebrain; that is, by some alterations in an idea, whether sensible orimaginable it matters not. 

HYL. I begin to suspect my hypothesis. 

PHIL. Besides spirits, all that we know or conceive are our own ideas. When, therefore, you say all ideas are occasioned by impressions in thebrain, do you conceive this brain or no? If you do, then you talk ofideas imprinted in an idea causing that same idea, which is absurd. Ifyou do not conceive it, you talk unintelligibly, instead of forming areasonable hypothesis. 

HYL. I now clearly see it was a mere dream. There is nothing in it. 

PHIL. You need not be much concerned at it; for after all, this way ofexplaining things, as you called it, could never have satisfied anyreasonable man. What connexion is there between a motion in the nerves, and the sensations of sound or colour in the mind? Or how is it possiblethese should be the effect of that?

HYL. But I could never think it had so little in it as now it seems tohave. 

PHIL. Well then, are you at length satisfied that no sensible thingshave a real existence; and that you are in truth an arrant sceptic?

HYL. It is too plain to be denied. 

PHIL. Look! are not the fields covered with a delightful verdure? Isthere not something in the woods and groves, in the rivers and clearsprings, that soothes, that delights, that transports the soul? At theprospect of the wide and deep ocean, or some huge mountain whose top islost in the clouds, or of an old gloomy forest, are not our minds filledwith a pleasing horror? Even in rocks and deserts is there not anagreeable wildness? How sincere a pleasure is it to behold the naturalbeauties of the earth! To preserve and renew our relish for them, is notthe veil of night alternately drawn over her face, and doth she notchange her dress with the seasons? How aptly are the elements disposed!What variety and use in the meanest productions of nature! Whatdelicacy, what beauty, what contrivance, in animal and vegetable bodies IHow exquisitely are all things suited, as well to their particular ends, as to constitute opposite parts of the whole I And, while they mutuallyaid and support, do they not also set off and illustrate each other?Raise now your thoughts from this ball of earth to all those gloriousluminaries that adorn the high arch of heaven. The motion and situationof the planets, are they not admirable for use and order? Were those(miscalled ERRATIC) globes once known to stray, in their repeatedjourneys through the pathless void? Do they not measure areas round thesun ever proportioned to the times? So fixed, so immutable are the lawsby which the unseen Author of nature actuates the universe. Howvivid and radiant is the lustre of the fixed stars! How magnificent andrich that negligent profusion with which they appear to be scatteredthroughout the whole azure vault! Yet, if you take the telescope, itbrings into your sight a new host of stars that escape the naked eye. Here they seem contiguous and minute, but to a nearer view immense orbsof fight at various distances, far sunk in the abyss of space. Now youmust call imagination to your aid. The feeble narrow sense cannot descryinnumerable worlds revolving round the central fires; and in those worldsthe energy of an all-perfect Mind displayed in endless forms. But, neither sense nor imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundlessextent, with all its glittering furniture. Though the labouring mindexert and strain each power to its utmost reach, there still stands outungrasped a surplusage immeasurable. Yet all the vast bodies that composethis mighty frame, how distant and remote soever, are by some secretmechanism, some Divine art and force, linked in a mutual dependence andintercourse with each other; even with this earth, which was almost sliptfrom my thoughts and lost in the crowd of worlds. Is not the whole systemimmense, beautiful, glorious beyond expression and beyond thought! Whattreatment, then, do those philosophers deserve, who would deprive thesenoble and delightful scenes of all REALITY? How should those Principlesbe entertained that lead us to think all the visible beauty of thecreation a false imaginary glare? To be plain, can you expect thisScepticism of yours will not be thought extravagantly absurd by all menof sense?

HYL. Other men may think as they please; but for your part you havenothing to reproach me with. My comfort is, you are as much a sceptic asI am. 

PHIL. There, Hylas, I must beg leave to differ from you. 

HYL. What! Have you all along agreed to the premises, and do you nowdeny the conclusion, and leave me to maintain those paradoxes by myselfwhich you led me into? This surely is not fair. 

PHIL. _I_ deny that I agreed with you in those notions that led toScepticism. You indeed said the REALITY of sensible things consisted inAN ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE OUT OF THE MINDS OF SPIRITS, or distinct fromtheir being perceived. And pursuant to this notion of reality, YOU areobliged to deny sensible things any real existence: that is, according to your own definition, you profess yourself a sceptic. But Ineither said nor thought the reality of sensible things was to be definedafter that manner. To me it is evident for the reasons you allow of, thatsensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence Iconclude, not that they have no real existence, but that, seeing theydepend not on my thought, and have all existence distinct from beingperceived by me, THERE MUST BE SOME OTHER MIND WHEREIN THEY EXIST. Assure, therefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure is there aninfinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it. 

HYL. What! This is no more than I and all Christians hold; nay, and allothers too who believe there is a God, and that He knows and comprehendsall things. 

PHIL. Aye, but here lies the difference. Men commonly believe that allthings are known or perceived by God, because they believe the being of aGod; whereas I, on the other side, immediately and necessarily concludethe being of a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by Him. 

HYL. But, so long as we all believe the same thing, what matter is ithow we come by that belief?

PHIL. But neither do we agree in the same opinion. For philosophers, though they acknowledge all corporeal beings to be perceived by God, yetthey attribute to them an absolute subsistence distinct from their beingperceived by any mind whatever; which I do not. Besides, is there nodifference between saying, THERE IS A GOD, THEREFORE HE PERCEIVES ALLTHINGS; and saying, SENSIBLE THINGS DO REALLY EXIST; AND, IF THEYREALLY EXIST, THEY ARE NECESSARILY PERCEIVED BY AN INFINITE MIND:THEREFORE THERE IS AN INFINITE MIND OR GOD? This furnishes you with adirect and immediate demonstration, from a most evident principle, of theBEING OF A GOD. Divines and philosophers had proved beyond allcontroversy, from the beauty and usefulness of the several parts of thecreation, that it was the workmanship of God. But that--setting aside allhelp of astronomy and natural philosophy, all contemplation of thecontrivance, order, and adjustment of things--an infinite Mind should benecessarily inferred from the bare EXISTENCE OF THE SENSIBLE WORLD, isan advantage to them only who have made this easy reflexion: that thesensible world is that which we perceive by our several senses; and thatnothing is perceived by the senses beside ideas; and that no ideaor archetype of an idea can exist otherwise than in a mind. You may now, without any laborious search into the sciences, without any subtlety ofreason, or tedious length of discourse, oppose and baffle the moststrenuous advocate for Atheism. Those miserable refuges, whether in aneternal succession of unthinking causes and effects, or in a fortuitousconcourse of atoms; those wild imaginations of Vanini, Hobbes, andSpinoza: in a word, the whole system of Atheism, is it not entirelyoverthrown, by this single reflexion on the repugnancy included insupposing the whole, or any part, even the most rude and shapeless, ofthe visible world, to exist without a mind? Let any one of those abettorsof impiety but look into his own thoughts, and there try if he canconceive how so much as a rock, a desert, a chaos, or confused jumble ofatoms; how anything at all, either sensible or imaginable, can existindependent of a Mind, and he need go no farther to be convinced of hisfolly. Can anything be fairer than to put a dispute on such an issue, andleave it to a man himself to see if he can conceive, even in thought, what he holds to be true in fact, and from a notional to allow it a realexistence?

HYL. It cannot be denied there is something highly serviceable toreligion in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like anotion entertained by some eminent moderns, of SEEING ALL THINGS INGOD?

PHIL. I would gladly know that opinion: pray explain it to me. 

HYL. They conceive that the soul, being immaterial, is incapable ofbeing united with material things, so as to perceive them in themselves;but that she perceives them by her union with the substance of God, which, being spiritual, is therefore purely intelligible, or capable ofbeing the immediate object of a spirit's thought. Besides the Divineessence contains in it perfections correspondent to each created being;and which are, for that reason, proper to exhibit or represent them tothe mind. 

PHIL. I do not understand how our ideas, which are things altogetherpassive and inert, can be the essence, or any part (or like any part) ofthe essence or substance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible, pure, active being. Many more difficulties and objections there are whichoccur at first view against this hypothesis; but I shall only add that itis liable to all the absurdities of the common hypothesis, in making acreated world exist otherwise than in the mind of a Spirit. Besides allwhich it hath this peculiar to itself; that it makes that material worldserve to no purpose. And, if it pass for a good argument against otherhypotheses in the sciences, that they suppose Nature, or the Divinewisdom, to make something in vain, or do that by tedious roundaboutmethods which might have been performed in a much more easy andcompendious way, what shall we think of that hypothesis which supposesthe whole world made in vain?

HYL. But what say you? Are not you too of opinion that we see allthings in God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it. 

PHIL. Few men think; yet all have opinions. Hence men's opinions aresuperficial and confused. It is nothing strange that tenets which inthemselves are ever so different, should nevertheless be confounded witheach other, by those who do not consider them attentively. I shall nottherefore be surprised if some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasmof Malebranche; though in truth I am very remote from it. He builds onthe most abstract general ideas, which I entirely disclaim. He asserts anabsolute external world, which I deny. He maintains that we are deceivedby our senses, and, know not the real natures or the true forms andfigures of extended beings; of all which I hold the direct contrary. Sothat upon the whole there are no Principles more fundamentally oppositethan his and mine. It must be owned that I entirely agree with whatthe holy Scripture saith, "That in God we live and move and have ourbeing. " But that we see things in His essence, after the manner above setforth, I am far from believing. Take here in brief my meaning:--It isevident that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and that no idea canexist unless it be in a mind: nor is it less plain that these ideas orthings by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes, existindependently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their author, itbeing out of my power to determine at pleasure what particular ideas Ishall be affected with upon opening my eyes or ears: they must thereforeexist in some other Mind, whose Will it is they should be exhibitedto me. The things, I say, immediately perceived are ideas or sensations, call them which you will. But how can any idea or sensation exist in, orbe produced by, anything but a mind or spirit? This indeed isinconceivable. And to assert that which is inconceivable is to talknonsense: is it not?

HYL. Without doubt. 

PHIL. But, on the other hand, it is very conceivable that they shouldexist in and be produced by a spirit; since this is no more than I dailyexperience in myself, inasmuch as I perceive numberless ideas; and, by anact of my will, can form a great variety of them, and raise them up in myimagination: though, it must be confessed, these creatures of the fancyare not altogether so distinct, so strong, vivid, and permanent, as thoseperceived by my senses--which latter are called RED THINGS. From allwhich I conclude, THERE IS A MIND WHICH AFFECTS ME EVERY MOMENT WITH ALLTHE SENSIBLE IMPRESSIONS I PERCEIVE. AND, from the variety, order, andmanner of these, I conclude THE AUTHOR OF THEM TO BE WISE, POWERFUL, AND GOOD, BEYOND COMPREHENSION. MARK it well; I do not say, I seethings by perceiving that which represents them in the intelligibleSubstance of God. This I do not understand; but I say, the things by meperceived are known by the understanding, and produced by the will of aninfinite Spirit. And is not all this most plain and evident? Is there anymore in it than what a little observation in our own minds, and thatwhich passeth in them, not only enables us to conceive, but also obligesus to acknowledge. 

HYL. I think I understand you very clearly; and own the proof you giveof a Deity seems no less evident than it is surprising. But, allowingthat God is the supreme and universal Cause of an things, yet, may therenot be still a Third Nature besides Spirits and Ideas? May we not admit asubordinate and limited cause of our ideas? In a word, may there not forall that be MATTER?

PHIL. How often must I inculcate the same thing? You allow the thingsimmediately perceived by sense to exist nowhere without the mind; butthere is nothing perceived by sense which is not perceived immediately:therefore there is nothing sensible that exists without the mind. TheMatter, therefore, which you still insist on is something intelligible, Isuppose; something that may be discovered by reason, and not by sense. 

HYL. You are in the right. 

PHIL. Pray let me know what reasoning your belief of Matter is groundedon; and what this Matter is, in your present sense of it. 

HYL. I find myself affected with various ideas, whereof I know I am notthe cause; neither are they the cause of themselves, or of one another, or capable of subsisting by themselves, as being altogether inactive, fleeting, dependent beings. They have therefore SOME cause distinctfrom me and them: of which I pretend to know no more than that it is THECAUSE OF MY IDEAS. And this thing, whatever it be, I call Matter. 

PHIL. Tell me, Hylas, hath every one a liberty to change the currentproper signification attached to a common name in any language? Forexample, suppose a traveller should tell you that in a certain countrymen pass unhurt through the fire; and, upon explaining himself, you foundhe meant by the word fire that which others call WATER. Or, if heshould assert that there are trees that walk upon two legs, meaning menby the term TREES. Would you think this reasonable?

HYL. No; I should think it very absurd. Common custom is the standardof propriety in language. And for any man to affect speaking improperlyis to pervert the use of speech, and can never serve to a better purposethan to protract and multiply disputes, where there is no difference inopinion. 

PHIL. And doth not MATTER, in the common current acceptation of theword, signify an extended, solid, moveable, unthinking, inactiveSubstance?

HYL. It doth. 

PHIL. And, hath it not been made evident that no SUCH substance canpossibly exist? And, though it should be allowed to exist, yet how canthat which is INACTIVE be a CAUSE; or that which is UNTHINKING be aCAUSE OF THOUGHT? You may, indeed, if you please, annex to the wordMATTER a contrary meaning to what is vulgarly received; and tell me youunderstand by it, an unextended, thinking, active being, which is thecause of our ideas. But what else is this than to play with words, andrun into that very fault you just now condemned with so much reason? I doby no means find fault with your reasoning, in that you collect a causefrom the PHENOMENA: BUT I deny that THE cause deducible by reasoncan properly be termed Matter. 

HYL. There is indeed something in what you say. But I am afraidyou do not thoroughly comprehend my meaning. I would by no means bethought to deny that God, or an infinite Spirit, is the Supreme Cause ofall things. All I contend for is, that, subordinate to the Supreme Agent, there is a cause of a limited and inferior nature, which CONCURS in theproduction of our ideas, not by any act of will, or spiritual efficiency, but by that kind of action which belongs to Matter, viz. MOTION. 

PHIL. I find you are at every turn relapsing into your old explodedconceit, of a moveable, and consequently an extended, substance, existingwithout the mind. What! Have you already forgotten you were convinced; orare you willing I should repeat what has been said on that head? In truththis is not fair dealing in you, still to suppose the being of that whichyou have so often acknowledged to have no being. But, not to insistfarther on what has been so largely handled, I ask whether all your ideasare not perfectly passive and inert, including nothing of action in them. 

HYL. They are. 

PHIL. And are sensible qualities anything else but ideas?

HYL. How often have I acknowledged that they are not. 

PHIL. But is not MOTION a sensible quality?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. Consequently it is no action?

HYL. I agree with you. And indeed it is very plain that when I stir myfinger, it remains passive; but my will which produced the motion isactive. 

PHIL. Now, I desire to know, in the first place, whether, motion beingallowed to be no action, you can conceive any action besides volition:and, in the second place, whether to say something and conceive nothingbe not to talk nonsense: and, lastly, whether, having considered thepremises, you do not perceive that to suppose any efficient or activeCause of our ideas, other than SPIRIT, is highly absurd andunreasonable?

HYL. I give up the point entirely. But, though Matter may not be acause, yet what hinders its being an INSTRUMENT, subservient to thesupreme Agent in the production of our ideas?

PHIL. An instrument say you; pray what may be the figure, springs, wheels, and motions, of that instrument?

HYL. Those I pretend to determine nothing of, both the substance andits qualities being entirely unknown to me. 

PHIL. What? You are then of opinion it is made up of unknownparts, that it hath unknown motions, and an unknown shape?

HYL. I do not believe that it hath any figure or motion at all, beingalready convinced, that no sensible qualities can exist in anunperceiving substance. 

PHIL. But what notion is it possible to frame of an instrument void ofall sensible qualities, even extension itself?

HYL. I do not pretend to have any notion of it. 

PHIL. And what reason have you to think this unknown, thisinconceivable Somewhat doth exist? Is it that you imagine God cannot actas well without it; or that you find by experience the use of some suchthing, when you form ideas in your own mind?

HYL. You are always teasing me for reasons of my belief. Pray whatreasons have you not to believe it?

PHIL. It is to me a sufficient reason not to believe the existence ofanything, if I see no reason for believing it. But, not to insist onreasons for believing, you will not so much as let me know WHAT IT ISyou would have me believe; since you say you have no manner of notion ofit. After all, let me entreat you to consider whether it be like aphilosopher, or even like a man of common sense, to pretend to believeyou know not what and you know not why. 

HYL. Hold, Philonous. When I tell you Matter is an INSTRUMENT, I donot mean altogether nothing. It is true I know not the particular kind ofinstrument; but, however, I have some notion of INSTRUMENT IN GENERAL, which I apply to it. 

PHIL. But what if it should prove that there is something, even in themost general notion of INSTRUMENT, as taken in a distinct sense fromCAUSE, which makes the use of it inconsistent with the Divineattributes?

HYL. Make that appear and I shall give up the point. 

PHIL. What mean you by the general nature or notion of INSTRUMENT?

HYL. That which is common to all particular instruments composeth thegeneral notion. 

PHIL. Is it not common to all instruments, that they are applied to thedoing those things only which cannot be performed by the mere act of ourwills? Thus, for instance, I never use an instrument to move my finger, because it is done by a volition. But I should use one if I were toremove part of a rock, or tear up a tree by the roots. Are you of thesame mind? Or, can you shew any example where an instrument is madeuse of in producing an effect IMMEDIATELY depending on the will of theagent?

HYL. I own I cannot. 

PHIL. How therefore can you suppose that an All-perfect Spirit, onwhose Will all things have an absolute and immediate dependence, shouldneed an instrument in his operations, or, not needing it, make use of it?Thus it seems to me that you are obliged to own the use of a lifelessinactive instrument to be incompatible with the infinite perfection ofGod; that is, by your own confession, to give up the point. 

HYL. It doth not readily occur what I can answer you. 

PHIL. But, methinks you should be ready to own the truth, when it hasbeen fairly proved to you. We indeed, who are beings of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the use of an instrumentsheweth the agent to be limited by rules of another's prescription, andthat he cannot obtain his end but in such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear consequence, that the supreme unlimited agentuseth no tool or instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit isno sooner exerted than executed, without the application of means; which, if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account of anyreal efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to produce anyeffect, but merely in compliance with the laws of nature, or thoseconditions prescribed to them by the First Cause, who is Himself aboveall limitation or prescription whatsoever. 

HYL. I will no longer maintain that Matter is an instrument. However, Iwould not be understood to give up its existence neither; since, notwithstanding what hath been said, it may still be an OCCASION. 

PHIL. How many shapes is your Matter to take? Or, how often must it beproved not to exist, before you are content to part with it? But, to sayno more of this (though by all the laws of disputation I may justly blameyou for so frequently changing the signification of the principalterm)--I would fain know what you mean by affirming that matter is anoccasion, having already denied it to be a cause. And, when you haveshewn in what sense you understand OCCASION, pray, in the next place, be pleased to shew me what reason induceth you to believe there is suchan occasion of our ideas?

HYL. As to the first point: by OCCASION I mean an inactiveunthinking being, at the presence whereof God excites ideas in our minds. 

PHIL. And what may be the nature of that inactive unthinking being?

HYL. I know nothing of its nature. 

PHIL. Proceed then to the second point, and assign some reason why weshould allow an existence to this inactive, unthinking, unknown thing. 

HYL. When we see ideas produced in our minds, after an orderly andconstant manner, it is natural to think they have some fixed and regularoccasions, at the presence of which they are excited. 

PHIL. You acknowledge then God alone to be the cause of our ideas, andthat He causes them at the presence of those occasions. 

HYL. That is my opinion. 

PHIL. Those things which you say are present to God, without doubt Heperceives. 

HYL. Certainly; otherwise they could not be to Him an occasion of acting. 

PHIL. Not to insist now on your making sense of this hypothesis, oranswering all the puzzling questions and difficulties it is liable to: Ionly ask whether the order and regularity observable in the series of ourideas, or the course of nature, be not sufficiently accounted for by thewisdom and power of God; and whether it doth not derogate from thoseattributes, to suppose He is influenced, directed, or put in mind, whenand what He is to act, by an unthinking substance? And, lastly, whether, in case I granted all you contend for, it would make anything to yourpurpose; it not being easy to conceive how the external or absoluteexistence of an unthinking substance, distinct from its being perceived, can be inferred from my allowing that there are certain things perceivedby the mind of God, which are to Him the occasion of producing ideas inus?

HYL. I am perfectly at a loss what to think, this notion of OCCASIONseeming now altogether as groundless as the rest. 

PHIL. Do you not at length perceive that in all these differentacceptations of MATTER, you have been only supposing you know not what, for no manner of reason, and to no kind of use?

HYL. I freely own myself less fond of my notions since they have beenso accurately examined. But still, methinks, I have some confusedperception that there is such a thing as MATTER. 

PHIL. Either you perceive the being of Matter immediately or mediately. If immediately, pray inform me by which of the senses you perceive it. Ifmediately, let me know by what reasoning it is inferred from those thingswhich you perceive immediately. So much for the perception. Then for theMatter itself, I ask whether it is object, SUBSTRATUM, cause, instrument, or occasion? You have already pleaded for each of these, shifting your notions, and making Matter to appear sometimes in oneshape, then in another. And what you have offered hath been disapprovedand rejected by yourself. If you have anything new to advance I wouldgladly bear it. 

HYL. I think I have already offered all I had to say on those heads. Iam at a loss what more to urge. 

PHIL. And yet you are loath to part with your old prejudice. But, tomake you quit it more easily, I desire that, beside what has beenhitherto suggested, you will farther consider whether, upon suppositionthat Matter exists, you can possibly conceive how you should be affectedby it. Or, supposing it did not exist, whether it be not evident youmight for all that be affected with the same ideas you now are, andconsequently have the very same reasons to believe its existence that younow can have. 

HYL. I acknowledge it is possible we might perceive all things just aswe do now, though there was no Matter in the world; neither can Iconceive, if there be Matter, how it should produce' any idea in ourminds. And, I do farther grant you have entirely satisfied me that it isimpossible there should be such a thing as matter in any of the foregoingacceptations. But still I cannot help supposing that there is MATTER insome sense or other. WHAT THAT IS I do not indeed pretend to determine. 

PHIL. I do not expect you should define exactly the nature of thatunknown being. Only be pleased to tell me whether it is a Substance; andif so, whether you can suppose a Substance without accidents; or, in caseyou suppose it to have accidents or qualities, I desire you will let meknow what those qualities are, at least what is meant by Matter'ssupporting them?

HYL. We have already argued on those points. I have no more to say tothem. But, to prevent any farther questions, let me tell you I at presentunderstand by MATTER neither substance nor accident, thinking norextended being, neither cause, instrument, nor occasion, but Somethingentirely unknown, distinct from all these. 

PHIL. It seems then you include in your present notion of Matternothing but the general abstract idea of ENTITY. 

HYL. Nothing else; save only that I super-add to this general idea thenegation of all those particular things, qualities, or ideas, that Iperceive, imagine, or in anywise apprehend. 

PHIL. Pray where do you suppose this unknown Matter to exist?

HYL. Oh Philonous! now you think you have entangled me; for, if I sayit exists in place, then you will infer that it exists in the mind, sinceit is agreed that place or extension exists only in the mind. But I amnot ashamed to own my ignorance. I know not where it exists; only I amsure it exists not in place. There is a negative answer for you. And youmust expect no other to all the questions you put for the future aboutMatter. 

PHIL. Since you will not tell me where it exists, be pleased to informme after what manner you suppose it to exist, or what you mean by itsEXISTENCE?

HYL. It neither thinks nor acts, neither perceives nor is perceived. 

PHIL. But what is there positive in your abstracted notion of itsexistence?

HYL. Upon a nice observation, I do not find I have any positive notionor meaning at all. I tell you again, I am not ashamed to own myignorance. I know not what is meant by its EXISTENCE, or how it exists. 

PHIL. Continue, good Hylas, to act the same ingenuous part, and tell mesincerely whether you can frame a distinct idea of Entity in general, prescinded from and exclusive of all thinking and corporeal beings, allparticular things whatsoever. 

HYL. Hold, let me think a little--I profess, Philonous, I do not findthat I can. At first glance, methought I had some dilute and airy notionof Pure Entity in abstract; but, upon closer attention, it hath quitevanished out of sight. The more I think on it, the more am I confirmed inmy prudent resolution of giving none but negative answers, and notpretending to the least degree of any positive knowledge or conception ofMatter, its WHERE, its HOW, its ENTITY, or anything belonging toit. 

PHIL. When, therefore, you speak of the existence of Matter, you havenot any notion in your mind?

HYL. None at all. 

PHIL. Pray tell me if the case stands not thus--At first, from a beliefof material substance, you would have it that the immediate objectsexisted without the mind; then that they are archetypes; then causes;next instruments; then occasions: lastly SOMETHING IN GENERAL, whichbeing interpreted proves NOTHING. So Matter comes to nothing. Whatthink you, Hylas, is not this a fair summary of your whole proceeding?

HYL. Be that as it will, yet I still insist upon it, that our not beingable to conceive a thing is no argument against its existence. 

PHIL. That from a cause, effect, operation, sign, or othercircumstance, there may reasonably be inferred the existence of a thingnot immediately perceived; and that it were absurd for any man to argueagainst the existence of that thing, from his having no direct andpositive notion of it, I freely own. But, where there is nothing of allthis; where neither reason nor revelation induces us to believe theexistence of a thing; where we have not even a relative notion of it;where an abstraction is made from perceiving and being perceived, fromSpirit and idea: lastly, where there is not so much as the mostinadequate or faint idea pretended to--I will not indeed thence concludeagainst the reality of any notion, or existence of anything; but myinference shall be, that you mean nothing at all; that you employ wordsto no manner of purpose, without any design or signification whatsoever. And I leave it to you to consider how mere jargon should be treated. 

HYL. To deal frankly with you, Philonous, your arguments seem inthemselves unanswerable; but they have not so great an effect on me as toproduce that entire conviction, that hearty acquiescence, which attendsdemonstration. I find myself relapsing into an obscure surmise of I knownot what, MATTER. 

PHIL. But, are you not sensible, Hylas, that two things must concur totake away all scruple, and work a plenary assent in the mind? Let avisible object be set in never so clear a light, yet, if there is anyimperfection in the sight, or if the eye is not directed towards it, itwill not be distinctly seen. And though a demonstration be never so wellgrounded and fairly proposed, yet, if there is withal a stain ofprejudice, or a wrong bias on the understanding, can it be expected on asudden to perceive clearly, and adhere firmly to the truth? No; there isneed of time and pains: the attention must be awakened and detained by afrequent repetition of the same thing placed oft in the same, oft indifferent lights. I have said it already, and find I must still repeatand inculcate, that it is an unaccountable licence you take, inpretending to maintain you know not what, for you know not what reason, to you know not what purpose. Can this be paralleled in any art orscience, any sect or profession of men? Or is there anything sobarefacedly groundless and unreasonable to be met with even in the lowestof common conversation? But, perhaps you will still say, Matter mayexist; though at the same time you neither know WHAT IS MEANT byMATTER, or by its EXISTENCE. This indeed is surprising, and the moreso because it is altogether voluntary and of your own head, you notbeing led to it by any one reason; for I challenge you to shew me thatthing in nature which needs Matter to explain or account for it. 

HYL. THE REALITY of things cannot be maintained without supposing theexistence of Matter. And is not this, think you, a good reason why Ishould be earnest in its defence?

PHIL. The reality of things! What things? sensible or intelligible?

HYL. Sensible things. 

PHIL. My glove for example?

HYL. That, or any other thing perceived by the senses. 

PHIL. But to fix on some particular thing. Is it not a sufficientevidence to me of the existence of this GLOVE, that I see it, and feelit, and wear it? Or, if this will not do, how is it possible I should beassured of the reality of this thing, which I actually see in this place, by supposing that some unknown thing, which I never did or can see, exists after an unknown manner, in an unknown place, or in no place atall? How can the supposed reality of that which is intangible be a proofthat anything tangible really exists? Or, of that which is invisible, that any visible thing, or, in general of anything which isimperceptible, that a perceptible exists? Do but explain this and I shallthink nothing too hard for you. 

HYL. Upon the whole, I am content to own the existence of matter ishighly improbable; but the direct and absolute impossibility of it doesnot appear to me. 

PHIL. But granting Matter to be possible, yet, upon that accountmerely, it can have no more claim to existence than a golden mountain, ora centaur. 

HYL. I acknowledge it; but still you do not deny it is possible; andthat which is possible, for aught you know, may actually exist. 

PHIL. I deny it to be possible; and have, if I mistake not, evidently proved, from your own concessions, that it is not. In thecommon sense of the word MATTER, is there any more implied than anextended, solid, figured, moveable substance, existing without the mind?And have not you acknowledged, over and over, that you have seen evidentreason for denying the possibility of such a substance?

HYL. True, but that is only one sense of the term MATTER. 

PHIL. But is it not the only proper genuine received sense? And, ifMatter, in such a sense, be proved impossible, may it not be thought withgood grounds absolutely impossible? Else how could anything be provedimpossible? Or, indeed, how could there be any proof at all one way orother, to a man who takes the liberty to unsettle and change the commonsignification of words?

HYL. I thought philosophers might be allowed to speak more accuratelythan the vulgar, and were not always confined to the common acceptationof a term. 

PHIL. But this now mentioned is the common received sense amongphilosophers themselves. But, not to insist on that, have you not beenallowed to take Matter in what sense you pleased? And have you not usedthis privilege in the utmost extent; sometimes entirely changing, atothers leaving out, or putting into the definition of it whatever, forthe present, best served your design, contrary to all the known rules ofreason and logic? And hath not this shifting, unfair method of yours spunout our dispute to an unnecessary length; Matter having been particularlyexamined, and by your own confession refuted in each of those senses? Andcan any more be required to prove the absolute impossibility of a thing, than the proving it impossible in every particular sense that either youor any one else understands it in?

HYL. But I am not so thoroughly satisfied that you have proved theimpossibility of Matter, in the last most obscure abstracted andindefinite sense. 

PHIL. . When is a thing shewn to be impossible?

HYL. When a repugnancy is demonstrated between the ideas comprehendedin its definition. 

PHIL. But where there are no ideas, there no repugnancy can bedemonstrated between ideas?

HYL. I agree with you. 

PHIL. Now, in that which you call the obscure indefinite sense of theword MATTER, it is plain, by your own confession, there wasincluded no idea at all, no sense except an unknown sense; which is thesame thing as none. You are not, therefore, to expect I should prove arepugnancy between ideas, where there are no ideas; or the impossibilityof Matter taken in an UNKNOWN sense, that is, no sense at all. Mybusiness was only to shew you meant NOTHING; and this you were broughtto own. So that, in all your various senses, you have been shewed eitherto mean nothing at all, or, if anything, an absurdity. And if this be notsufficient to prove the impossibility of a thing, I desire you will letme know what is. 

HYL. I acknowledge you have proved that Matter is impossible; nor do Isee what more can be said in defence of it. But, at the same time that Igive up this, I suspect all my other notions. For surely none could bemore seemingly evident than this once was: and yet it now seems as falseand absurd as ever it did true before. But I think we have discussed thepoint sufficiently for the present. The remaining part of the day I wouldwillingly spend in running over in my thoughts the several heads of thismorning's conversation, and tomorrow shall be glad to meet you here againabout the same time. 

PHIL. I will not fail to attend you. 

THE THIRD DIALOGUE

PHILONOUS. Tell me, Hylas, what are the fruits of yesterday'smeditation? Has it confirmed you in the same mind you were in at parting?or have you since seen cause to change your opinion?

HYLAS. Truly my opinion is that all our opinions are alike vain anduncertain. What we approve to-day, we condemn to-morrow. We keep a stirabout knowledge, and spend our lives in the pursuit of it, when, alas Iwe know nothing all the while: nor do I think it possible for us ever toknow anything in this life. Our faculties are too narrow and too few. Nature certainly never intended us for speculation. 

PHIL. What! Say you we can know nothing, Hylas?

HYL. There is not that single thing in the world whereof we can knowthe real nature, or what it is in itself. 

PHIL. Will you tell me I do not really know what fire or water is?

HYL. You may indeed know that fire appears hot, and water fluid; butthis is no more than knowing what sensations are produced in your ownmind, upon the application of fire and water to your organs of sense. Their internal constitution, their true and real nature, you are utterlyin the dark as to THAT. 

PHIL. Do I not know this to be a real stone that I stand on, and thatwhich I see before my eyes to be a real tree?

HYL. KNOW? No, it is impossible you or any man alive should know it. All you know is, that you have such a certain idea or appearance in yourown mind. But what is this to the real tree or stone? I tell you thatcolour, figure, and hardness, which you perceive, are not the realnatures of those things, or in the least like them. The same may be saidof all other real things, or corporeal substances, which compose theworld. They have none of them anything of themselves, like those sensiblequalities by us perceived. We should not therefore pretend to affirm orknow anything of them, as they are in their own nature. 

PHIL. But surely, Hylas, I can distinguish gold, for example, from iron: and how could this be, if I knew not what either truly was?

HYL. Believe me, Philonous, you can only distinguish between your ownideas. That yellowness, that weight, and other sensible qualities, thinkyou they are really in the gold? They are only relative to the senses, and have no absolute existence in nature. And in pretending todistinguish the species of real things, by the appearances in your mind, you may perhaps act as wisely as he that should conclude two men were ofa different species, because their clothes were not of the same colour. 

PHIL. It seems, then, we are altogether put off with the appearances ofthings, and those false ones too. The very meat I eat, and the cloth Iwear, have nothing in them like what I see and feel. 

HYL. Even so. 

PHIL. But is it not strange the whole world should be thus imposed on, and so foolish as to believe their senses? And yet I know not how it is, but men eat, and drink, and sleep, and perform all the offices of life, as comfortably and conveniently as if they really knew the things theyare conversant about. 

HYL. They do so: but you know ordinary practice does not require anicety of speculative knowledge. Hence the vulgar retain their mistakes, and for all that make a shift to bustle through the affairs of life. Butphilosophers know better things. 

PHIL. You mean, they KNOW that they KNOW NOTHING. 

HYL. That is the very top and perfection of human knowledge. 

PHIL. But are you all this while in earnest, Hylas; and are youseriously persuaded that you know nothing real in the world? Suppose youare going to write, would you not call for pen, ink, and paper, likeanother man; and do you not know what it is you call for?

HYL. How often must I tell you, that I know not the real nature of anyone thing in the universe? I may indeed upon occasion make use of pen, ink, and paper. But what any one of them is in its own true nature, Ideclare positively I know not. And the same is true with regard to everyother corporeal thing. And, what is more, we are not only ignorant of thetrue and real nature of things, but even of their existence. It cannot bedenied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas; but it cannotbe concluded from thence that bodies really exist. Nay, now I thinkon it, I must, agreeably to my former concessions, farther declare thatit is impossible any REAL corporeal thing should exist in nature. 

PHIL. You amaze me. Was ever anything more wild and extravagant thanthe notions you now maintain: and is it not evident you are led into allthese extravagances by the belief of MATERIAL SUBSTANCE? This makes youdream of those unknown natures in everything. It is this occasions yourdistinguishing between the reality and sensible appearances of things. Itis to this you are indebted for being ignorant of what everybody elseknows perfectly well. Nor is this all: you are not only ignorant of thetrue nature of everything, but you know not whether anything reallyexists, or whether there are any true natures at all; forasmuch as youattribute to your material beings an absolute or external existence, wherein you suppose their reality consists. And, as you are forced in theend to acknowledge such an existence means either a direct repugnancy, ornothing at all, it follows that you are obliged to pull down your ownhypothesis of material Substance, and positively to deny the realexistence of any part of the universe. And so you are plunged into thedeepest and most deplorable scepticism that ever man was. Tell me, Hylas, is it not as I say?

HYL. I agree with you. MATERIAL SUBSTANCE was no more than anhypothesis; and a false and groundless one too. I will no longer spend mybreath in defence of it. But whatever hypothesis you advance, orwhatsoever scheme of things you introduce in its stead, I doubt not itwill appear every whit as false: let me but be allowed to question youupon it. That is, suffer me to serve you in your own kind, and I warrantit shall conduct you through as many perplexities and contradictions, tothe very same state of scepticism that I myself am in at present. 

PHIL. I assure you, Hylas, I do not pretend to frame any hypothesis atall. I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to believe my senses, and leavethings as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real thingsare those very things I see, and feel, and perceive by my senses. These Iknow; and, finding they answer all the necessities and purposes of life, have no reason to be solicitous about any other unknown beings. A pieceof sensible bread, for instance, would stay my stomach better than tenthousand times as much of that insensible, unintelligible, real bread youspeak of. It is likewise my opinion that colours and other sensiblequalities are on the objects. I cannot for my life help thinkingthat snow is white, and fire hot. You indeed, who by SNOW and fire meancertain external, unperceived, unperceiving substances, are in the rightto deny whiteness or heat to be affections inherent in THEM. But I, whounderstand by those words the things I see and feel, am obliged to thinklike other folks. And, as I am no sceptic with regard to the nature ofthings, so neither am I as to their existence. That a thing should bereally perceived by my senses, and at the same time not really exist, isto me a plain contradiction; since I cannot prescind or abstract, even inthought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being perceived. Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the like things, which I nameand discourse of, are things that I know. And I should not have knownthem but that I perceived them by my senses; and things perceived by thesenses are immediately perceived; and things immediately perceived areideas; and ideas cannot exist without the mind; their existence thereforeconsists in being perceived; when, therefore, they are actually perceivedthere can be no doubt of their existence. Away then with all thatscepticism, all those ridiculous philosophical doubts. What a jest is itfor a philosopher to question the existence of sensible things, till hehath it proved to him from the veracity of God; or to pretend ourknowledge in this point falls short of intuition or demonstration! Imight as well doubt of my own being, as of the being of those things Iactually see and feel. 

HYL. Not so fast, Philonous: you say you cannot conceive how sensiblethings should exist without the mind. Do you not?

PHIL. I do. 

HYL. Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive it possiblethat things perceivable by sense may still exist?

PHIL. _I_ can; but then it must be in another mind. When I denysensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind inparticular, but all minds. Now, it is plain they have an existenceexterior to my mind; since I find them by experience to be independent ofit. There is therefore some other Mind wherein they exist, during theintervals between the times of my perceiving them: as likewise theydid before my birth, and would do after my supposed annihilation. And, asthe same is true with regard to all other finite created spirits, itnecessarily follows there is an OMNIPRESENT ETERNAL MIND, which knowsand comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such amanner, and according to such rules, as He Himself hath ordained, and areby us termed the LAWS OF NATURE. 

HYL. Answer me, Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly inert beings? Orhave they any agency included in them?

PHIL. They are altogether passive and inert. 

HYL. And is not God an agent, a being purely active?

PHIL. I acknowledge it. 

HYL. No idea therefore can be like unto, or represent the nature ofGod?

PHIL. It cannot. 

HYL. Since therefore you have no IDEA of the mind of God, how can youconceive it possible that things should exist in His mind? Or, if you canconceive the mind of God, without having an idea of it, why may not I beallowed to conceive the existence of Matter, notwithstanding I have noidea of it?

PHIL. As to your first question: I own I have properly no IDEA, either of God or any other spirit; for these being active, cannot berepresented by things perfectly inert, as our ideas are. I donevertheless know that I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist ascertainly as I know my ideas exist. Farther, I know what I mean by theterms I AND MYSELF; and I know this immediately or intuitively, thoughI do not perceive it as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound. TheMind, Spirit, or Soul is that indivisible unextended thing which thinks, acts, and perceives. I say INDIVISIBLE, because unextended; andUNEXTENDED, because extended, figured, moveable things are ideas; andthat which perceives ideas, which thinks and wills, is plainly itself noidea, nor like an idea. Ideas are things inactive, and perceived. AndSpirits a sort of beings altogether different from them. I do nottherefore say my soul is an idea, or like an idea. However, taking theword IDEA in a large sense, my soul may be said to furnish me with anidea, that is, an image or likeness of God--though indeed extremelyinadequate. For, all the notion I have of God is obtained by reflectingon my own soul, heightening its powers, and removing itsimperfections. I have, therefore, though not an inactive idea, yet inMYSELF some sort of an active thinking image of the Deity. And, thoughI perceive Him not by sense, yet I have a notion of Him, or know Him byreflexion and reasoning. My own mind and my own ideas I have an immediateknowledge of; and, by the help of these, do mediately apprehend thepossibility of the existence of other spirits and ideas. Farther, from myown being, and from the dependency I find in myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason, necessarily infer the existence of a God, and of allcreated things in the mind of God. So much for your first question. Forthe second: I suppose by this time you can answer it yourself. For youneither perceive Matter objectively, as you do an inactive being or idea;nor know it, as you do yourself, by a reflex act, neither do youmediately apprehend it by similitude of the one or the other; nor yetcollect it by reasoning from that which you know immediately. All whichmakes the case of MATTER widely different from that of the DEITY. 

HYL. You say your own soul supplies you with some sort of an idea orimage of God. But, at the same time, you acknowledge you have, properlyspeaking, no IDEA of your own soul. You even affirm that spirits are asort of beings altogether different from ideas. Consequently that no ideacan be like a spirit. We have therefore no idea of any spirit. You admitnevertheless that there is spiritual Substance, although you have no ideaof it; while you deny there can be such a thing as material Substance, because you have no notion or idea of it. Is this fair dealing? To actconsistently, you must either admit Matter or reject Spirit. What say youto this?

PHIL. _I_ say, in the first place, that I do not deny the existence ofmaterial substance, merely because I have no notion of it' but becausethe notion of it is inconsistent; or, in other words, because it isrepugnant that there should be a notion of it. Many things, for aught Iknow, may exist, whereof neither I nor any other man hath or can have anyidea or notion whatsoever. But then those things must be possible, thatis, nothing inconsistent must be included in their definition. Isay, secondly, that, although we believe things to exist which we do notperceive, yet we may not believe that any particular thing exists, without some reason for such belief: but I have no reason for believingthe existence of Matter. I have no immediate intuition thereof: neithercan I immediately from my sensations, ideas, notions, actions, orpassions, infer an unthinking, unperceiving, inactive Substance--eitherby probable deduction, or necessary consequence. Whereas the being of mySelf, that is, my own soul, mind, or thinking principle, I evidently knowby reflexion. You will forgive me if I repeat the same things in answerto the same objections. In the very notion or definition of MATERIALSUBSTANCE, there is included a manifest repugnance and inconsistency. But this cannot be said of the notion of Spirit. That ideas should existin what doth not perceive, or be produced by what doth not act, isrepugnant. But, it is no repugnancy to say that a perceiving thing shouldbe the subject of ideas, or an active thing the cause of them. It isgranted we have neither an immediate evidence nor a demonstrativeknowledge of the existence of other finite spirits; but it will notthence follow that such spirits are on a foot with material substances:if to suppose the one be inconsistent, and it be not inconsistent tosuppose the other; if the one can be inferred by no argument, and thereis a probability for the other; if we see signs and effects indicatingdistinct finite agents like ourselves, and see no sign or symptomwhatever that leads to a rational belief of Matter. I say, lastly, that Ihave a notion of Spirit, though I have not, strictly speaking, an idea ofit. I do not perceive it as an idea, or by means of an idea, but know itby reflexion. 

HYL. Notwithstanding all you have said, to me it seems that, accordingto your own way of thinking, and in consequence of your own principles, it should follow that YOU are only a system of floating ideas, withoutany substance to support them. Words are not to be used without ameaning. And, as there is no more meaning in SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE thanin MATERIAL SUBSTANCE, the one is to be exploded as well as the other. 

PHIL. How often must I repeat, that I know or am conscious of my ownbeing; and that _I_ MYSELF am not my ideas, but somewhat else, athinking, active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operatesabout ideas. I know that I, one and the same self, perceive bothcolours and sounds: that a colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound acolour: that I am therefore one individual principle, distinct fromcolour and sound; and, for the same reason, from aft other sensiblethings and inert ideas. But, I am not in like manner conscious either ofthe existence or essence of Matter. On the contrary, I know that nothinginconsistent can exist, and that the existence of Matter implies aninconsistency. Farther, I know what I mean when I affirm that there is aspiritual substance or support of ideas, that is, that a spirit knows andperceives ideas. But, I do not know what is meant when it is said that anunperceiving substance hath inherent in it and supports either ideas orthe archetypes of ideas. There is therefore upon the whole no parity ofcase between Spirit and Matter. 

HYL. I own myself satisfied in this point. But, do you in earnest thinkthe real existence of sensible things consists in their being actuallyperceived? If so; how comes it that all mankind distinguish between them?Ask the first man you meet, and he shall tell you, TO BE PERCEIVED isone thing, and TO EXIST is another. 

PHIL. _I_ am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense of the worldfor the truth of my notion. Ask the gardener why he thinks yondercherry-tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell you, because he seesand feels it; in a word, because he perceives it by his senses. Ask himwhy he thinks an orange-tree not to be there, and he shall tell you, because he does not perceive it. What he perceives by sense, that heterms a real, being, and saith it IS OR EXISTS; but, that which is notperceivable, the same, he saith, hath no being. 

HYL. Yes, Philonous, I grant the existence of a sensible thing consistsin being perceivable, but not in being actually perceived. 

PHIL. And what is perceivable but an idea? And can an idea existwithout being actually perceived? These are points long since agreedbetween us. 

HYL. But, be your opinion never so true, yet surely you will not denyit is shocking, and contrary to the common sense of men. Ask thefellow whether yonder tree hath an existence out of his mind: what answerthink you he would make?

PHIL. The same that I should myself, to wit, that it doth exist out ofhis mind. But then to a Christian it cannot surely be shocking to say, the real tree, existing without his mind, is truly known and comprehendedby (that is EXISTS IN) the infinite mind of God. Probably he may not atfirst glance be aware of the direct and immediate proof there is of this;inasmuch as the very being of a tree, or any other sensible thing, implies a mind wherein it is. But the point itself he cannot deny. Thequestion between the Materialists and me is not, whether things have aREAL existence out of the mind of this or that person, but whether theyhave an ABSOLUTE existence, distinct from being perceived by God, andexterior to all minds. This indeed some heathens and philosophers haveaffirmed, but whoever entertains notions of the Deity suitable to theHoly Scriptures will be of another opinion. 

HYL. But, according to your notions, what difference is there betweenreal things, and chimeras formed by the imagination, or the visions of adream--since they are all equally in the mind?

PHIL. The ideas formed by the imagination are faint and indistinct;they have, besides, an entire dependence on the will. But the ideasperceived by sense, that is, real things, are more vivid and clear; and, being imprinted on the mind by a spirit distinct from us, have not thelike dependence on our will. There is therefore no danger of confoundingthese with the foregoing: and there is as little of confounding them withthe visions of a dream, which are dim, irregular, and confused. And, though they should happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, bytheir not being connected, and of a piece with the preceding andsubsequent transactions of our lives, they might easily be distinguishedfrom realities. In short, by whatever method you distinguish THINGS FROMCHIMERAS on your scheme, the same, it is evident, will hold also uponmine. For, it must be, I presume, by some perceived difference; and I amnot for depriving you of any one thing that you perceive. 

HYL. But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in the world butspirits and ideas. And this, you must needs acknowledge, sounds veryoddly. 

PHIL. I own the word IDEA, not being commonly used for THING, sounds something out of the way. My reason for using it was, because anecessary relation to the mind is understood to be implied by thatterm; and it is now commonly used by philosophers to denote the immediateobjects of the understanding. But, however oddly the proposition maysound in words, yet it includes nothing so very strange or shocking inits sense; which in effect amounts to no more than this, to wit, thatthere are only things perceiving, and things perceived; or that everyunthinking being is necessarily, and from the very nature of itsexistence, perceived by some mind; if not by a finite created mind, yetcertainly by the infinite mind of God, in whom "we five, and move, andhave our being. " Is this as strange as to say, the sensible qualities arenot on the objects: or that we cannot be sure of the existence of things, or know any thing of their real natures--though we both see and feelthem, and perceive them by all our senses?

HYL. And, in consequence of this, must we not think there are no suchthings as physical or corporeal causes; but that a Spirit is theimmediate cause of all the phenomena in nature? Can there be anythingmore extravagant than this?

PHIL. Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say--a thing which isinert operates on the mind, and which is unperceiving is the cause of ourperceptions, without any regard either to consistency, or the old knownaxiom, NOTHING CAN GIVE TO ANOTHER THAT WHICH IT HATH NOT ITSELF. Besides, that which to you, I know not for what reason, seems soextravagant is no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundredplaces. In them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author ofall those effects which some heathens and philosophers are wont toascribe to Nature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthinking principle. Thisis so much the constant language of Scripture that it were needless toconfirm it by citations. 

HYL. You are not aware, Philonous, that in making God the immediateAuthor of all the motions in nature, you make Him the Author of murder, sacrilege, adultery, and the like heinous sins. 

PHIL. In answer to that, I observe, first, that the imputation of guiltis the same, whether a person commits an action with or without aninstrument. In case therefore you suppose God to act by the mediation ofan instrument or occasion, called MATTER, you as truly make Him theauthor of sin as I, who think Him the immediate agent in all thoseoperations vulgarly ascribed to Nature. I farther observe that sin ormoral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action ormotion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reasonand religion. This is plain, in that the killing an enemy in a battle, orputting a criminal legally to death, is not thought sinful; though theoutward act be the very same with that in the case of murder. Since, therefore, sin doth not consist in the physical action, the making God animmediate cause of all such actions is not making Him the Author of sin. Lastly, I have nowhere said that God is the only agent who produces allthe motions in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any otheragents besides spirits; but this is very consistent with allowing tothinking rational beings, in the production of motions, the use oflimited powers, ultimately indeed derived from God, but immediately underthe direction of their own wills, which is sufficient to entitle them toall the guilt of their actions. 

HYL. But the denying Matter, Philonous, or corporeal Substance; thereis the point. You can never persuade me that this is not repugnant to theuniversal sense of mankind. Were our dispute to be determined by mostvoices, I am confident you would give up the point, without gathering thevotes. 

PHIL. I wish both our opinions were fairly stated and submitted to thejudgment of men who had plain common sense, without the prejudices of alearned education. Let me be represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains nodoubts of their existence; and you fairly set forth with all your doubts, your paradoxes, and your scepticism about you, and I shall willinglyacquiesce in the determination of any indifferent person. That there isno substance wherein ideas can exist beside spirit is to me evident. Andthat the objects immediately perceived are ideas, is on all hands agreed. And that sensible qualities are objects immediately perceived no one candeny. It is therefore evident there can be no SUBSTRATUM of thosequalities but spirit; in which they exist, not by way of mode orproperty, but as a thing perceived in that which perceives it. I denytherefore that there is ANY UNTHINKING-SUBSTRATUM of the objects ofsense, and IN THAT ACCEPTATION that there is any material substance. But if by MATERIAL SUBSTANCE is meant only SENSIBLE BODY, THATwhich is seen and felt (and the unphilosophical part of the world, I daresay, mean no more)--then I am more certain of matter's existence than youor any other philosopher pretend to be. If there be anything which makesthe generality of mankind averse from the notions I espouse, it isa misapprehension that I deny the reality of sensible things. But, as itis you who are guilty of that, and not I, it follows that in truth theiraversion is against your notions and not mine. I do therefore assert thatI am as certain as of my own being, that there are bodies or corporealsubstances (meaning the things I perceive by my senses); and that, granting this, the bulk of mankind will take no thought about, nor thinkthemselves at all concerned in the fate of those unknown natures, andphilosophical quiddities, which some men are so fond of. 

HYL. What say you to this? Since, according to you, men judge of thereality of things by their senses, how can a man be mistaken in thinkingthe moon a plain lucid surface, about a foot in diameter; or a squaretower, seen at a distance, round; or an oar, with one end in the water, crooked?

PHIL. He is not mistaken with regard to the ideas he actuallyperceives, but in the inference he makes from his present perceptions. Thus, in the case of the oar, what he immediately perceives by sight iscertainly crooked; and so far he is in the right. But if he thenceconclude that upon taking the oar out of the water he shall perceive thesame crookedness; or that it would affect his touch as crooked things arewont to do: in that he is mistaken. In like manner, if he shall concludefrom what he perceives in one station, that, in case he advances towardsthe moon or tower, he should still be affected with the like ideas, he ismistaken. But his mistake lies not in what he perceives immediately, andat present, (it being a manifest contradiction to suppose he should errin respect of that) but in the wrong judgment he makes concerning theideas he apprehends to be connected with those immediately perceived: or, concerning the ideas that, from what he perceives at present, he imagineswould be perceived in other circumstances. The case is the same withregard to the Copernican system. We do not here perceive any motion ofthe earth: but it were erroneous thence to conclude, that, in case wewere placed at as great a distance from that as we are now from the otherplanets, we should not then perceive its motion. 

HYL. I understand you; and must needs own you say things plausibleenough. But, give me leave to put you in mind of one thing. Pray, Philonous, were you not formerly as positive that Matter existed, as youare now that it does not?

PHIL. I was. But here lies the difference. Before, my positiveness wasfounded, without examination, upon prejudice; but now, after inquiry, upon evidence. 

HYL. After all, it seems our dispute is rather about words than things. We agree in the thing, but differ in the name. That we are affected withideas FROM WITHOUT is evident; and it is no less evident that theremust be (I will not say archetypes, but) Powers without the mind, corresponding to those ideas. And, as these Powers cannot subsist bythemselves, there is some subject of them necessarily to be admitted;which I call MATTER, and you call SPIRIT. This is all the difference. 

PHIL. Pray, Hylas, is that powerful Being, or subject of powers, extended?

HYL. It hath not extension; but it hath the power to raise in you theidea of extension. 

PHIL. It is therefore itself unextended?

HYL. I grant it. 

PHIL. Is it not also active?

HYL. Without doubt. Otherwise, how could we attribute powers to it?

PHIL. Now let me ask you two questions: FIRST, Whether it beagreeable to the usage either of philosophers or others to give the nameMATTER to an unextended active being? And, SECONDLY, Whether it benot ridiculously absurd to misapply names contrary to the common use oflanguage?

HYL. Well then, let it not be called Matter, since you will have it so, but some THIRD NATURE distinct from Matter and Spirit. For what reasonis there why you should call it Spirit? Does not the notion of spiritimply that it is thinking, as well as active and unextended?

PHIL. My reason is this: because I have a mind to have some notion ofmeaning in what I say: but I have no notion of any action distinct fromvolition, neither can I conceive volition to be anywhere but in aspirit: therefore, when I speak of an active being, I am obliged to meana Spirit. Beside, what can be plainer than that a thing which hath noideas in itself cannot impart them to me; and, if it hath ideas, surelyit must be a Spirit. To make you comprehend the point still moreclearly if it be possible, I assert as well as you that, since we areaffected from without, we must allow Powers to be without, in a Beingdistinct from ourselves. So far we are agreed. But then we differ as tothe kind of this powerful Being. I will have it to be Spirit, you Matter, or I know not what (I may add too, you know not what) Third Nature. Thus, I prove it to be Spirit. From the effects I see produced, I concludethere are actions; and, because actions, volitions; and, because thereare volitions, there must be a WILL. Again, the things I perceive musthave an existence, they or their archetypes, out of MY mind: but, beingideas, neither they nor their archetypes can exist otherwise than in anunderstanding; there is therefore an UNDERSTANDING. But will andunderstanding constitute in the strictest sense a mind or spirit. Thepowerful cause, therefore, of my ideas is in strict propriety of speech aSPIRIT. 

HYL. And now I warrant you think you have made the point very clear, little suspecting that what you advance leads directly to acontradiction. Is it not an absurdity to imagine any imperfection in God?

PHIL. Without a doubt. 

HYL. To suffer pain is an imperfection?

PHIL. It is. 

HYL. Are we not sometimes affected with pain and uneasiness by someother Being?

PHIL. We are. 

HYL. And have you not said that Being is a Spirit, and is not thatSpirit God?

PHIL. I grant it. 

HYL. But you have asserted that whatever ideas we perceive from withoutare in the mind which affects us. The ideas, therefore, of pain anduneasiness are in God; or, in other words, God suffers pain: that is tosay, there is an imperfection in the Divine nature: which, youacknowledged, was absurd. So you are caught in a plain contradiction. 

PHIL. That God knows or understands all things, and that He knows, among other things, what pain is, even every sort of painful sensation, and what it is for His creatures to suffer pain, I make no question. But, that God, though He knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can Himself suffer pain, I positively deny. We, who are limited anddependent spirits, are liable to impressions of sense, the effects of anexternal Agent, which, being produced against our wills, aresometimes painful and uneasy. But God, whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by sense as we do; whose will is absolute andindependent, causing all things, and liable to be thwarted or resisted bynothing: it is evident, such a Being as this can suffer nothing, nor beaffected with any painful sensation, or indeed any sensation at all. Weare chained to a body: that is to say, our perceptions are connected withcorporeal motions. By the law of our nature, we are affected upon everyalteration in the nervous parts of our sensible body; which sensiblebody, rightly considered, is nothing but a complexion of such qualitiesor ideas as have no existence distinct from being perceived by a mind. Sothat this connexion of sensations with corporeal motions means no morethan a correspondence in the order of nature, between two sets of ideas, or things immediately perceivable. But God is a Pure Spirit, disengagedfrom all such sympathy, or natural ties. No corporeal motions areattended with the sensations of pain or pleasure in His mind. To knoweverything knowable, is certainly a perfection; but to endure, or suffer, or feel anything by sense, is an imperfection. The former, I say, agreesto God, but not the latter. God knows, or hath ideas; but His ideas arenot conveyed to Him by sense, as ours are. Your not distinguishing, wherethere is so manifest a difference, makes you fancy you see an absurditywhere there is none. 

HYL. But, all this while you have not considered that the quantity ofMatter has been demonstrated to be proportioned to the gravity of bodies. And what can withstand demonstration?

PHIL. Let me see how you demonstrate that point. 

HYL. I lay it down for a principle, that the moments or quantities ofmotion in bodies are in a direct compounded reason of the velocities andquantities of Matter contained in them. Hence, where the velocities areequal, it follows the moments are directly as the quantity of Matter ineach. But it is found by experience that all bodies (bating the smallinequalities, arising from the resistance of the air) descend with anequal velocity; the motion therefore of descending bodies, andconsequently their gravity, which is the cause or principle of thatmotion, is proportional to the quantity of Matter; which was to bedemonstrated. 

PHIL. You lay it down as a self-evident principle that the quantity ofmotion in any body is proportional to the velocity and MATTERtaken together; and this is made use of to prove a proposition fromwhence the existence of CARTER is inferred. Pray is not this arguing ina circle?

HYL. In the premise I only mean that the motion is proportional to thevelocity, jointly with the extension and solidity. 

PHIL. But, allowing this to be true, yet it will not thence follow thatgravity is proportional to MATTER, in your philosophic sense of theword; except you take it for granted that unknown SUBSTRATUM, orwhatever else you call it, is proportional to those sensible qualities;which to suppose is plainly begging the question. That there is magnitudeand solidity, or resistance, perceived by sense, I readily grant; aslikewise, that gravity may be proportional to those qualities I will notdispute. But that either these qualities as perceived by us, or thepowers producing them, do exist in a MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM; this is whatI deny, and you indeed affirm, but, notwithstanding your demonstration, have not yet proved. 

HYL. I shall insist no longer on that point. Do you think, however, youshall persuade me that the natural philosophers have been dreaming allthis while? Pray what becomes of all their hypotheses and explications ofthe phenomena, which suppose the existence of Matter?

PHIL. What mean you, Hylas, by the PHENOMENA?

HYL. I mean the appearances which I perceive by my senses. 

PHIL. And the appearances perceived by sense, are they not ideas?

HYL. I have told you so a hundred times. 

PHIL. Therefore, to explain the phenomena, is, to shew how we come tobe affected with ideas, in that manner and order wherein they areimprinted on our senses. Is it not?

HYL. It is. 

PHIL. Now, if you can prove that any philosopher has explained theproduction of any one idea in our minds by the help of MATTER, I shallfor ever acquiesce, and look on all that hath been said against it asnothing; but, if you cannot, it is vain to urge the explication ofphenomena. That a Being endowed with knowledge and will should produce orexhibit ideas is easily understood. But that a Being which is utterlydestitute of these faculties should be able to produce ideas, or in anysort to affect an intelligence, this I can never understand. This I say, though we had some positive conception of Matter, though we knewits qualities, and could comprehend its existence, would yet be so farfrom explaining things, that it is itself the most inexplicable thing inthe world. And yet, for all this, it will not follow that philosophershave been doing nothing; for, by observing and reasoning upon theconnexion of ideas, they discover the laws and methods of nature, whichis a part of knowledge both useful and entertaining. 

HYL. After all, can it be supposed God would deceive all mankind? Doyou imagine He would have induced the whole world to believe the being ofMatter, if there was no such thing?

PHIL. That every epidemical opinion, arising from prejudice, orpassion, or thoughtlessness, may be imputed to God, as the Author of it, I believe you will not affirm. Whatsoever opinion we father on Him, itmust be either because He has discovered it to us by supernaturalrevelation; or because it is so evident to our natural faculties, whichwere framed and given us by God, that it is impossible we should withholdour assent from it. But where is the revelation? or where is the evidencethat extorts the belief of Matter? Nay, how does it appear, that Matter, TAKEN FOR SOMETHING DISTINCT FROM WHAT WE PERCEIVE BY OUR SENSES, isthought to exist by all mankind; or indeed, by any except a fewphilosophers, who do not know what they would be at? Your questionsupposes these points are clear; and, when you have cleared them, I shallthink myself obliged to give you another answer. In the meantime, let itsuffice that I tell you, I do not suppose God has deceived mankind atall. 

HYL. But the novelty, Philonous, the novelty! There lies the danger. New notions should always be discountenanced; they unsettle men's minds, and nobody knows where they will end. 

PHIL. Why the rejecting a notion that has no foundation, either insense, or in reason, or in Divine authority, should be thought tounsettle the belief of such opinions as are grounded on all or any ofthese, I cannot imagine. That innovations in government and religion aredangerous, and ought to be discountenanced, I freely own. But is therethe like reason why they should be discouraged in philosophy? The makinganything known which was unknown before is an innovation in knowledge:and, if all such innovations had been forbidden, men would havemade a notable progress in the arts and sciences. But it is none of mybusiness to plead for novelties and paradoxes. That the qualities weperceive are not on the objects: that we must not believe our senses:that we know nothing of the real nature of things, and can never beassured even of their existence: that real colours and sounds are nothingbut certain unknown figures and motions: that motions are in themselvesneither swift nor slow: that there are in bodies absolute extensions, without any particular magnitude or figure: that a thing stupid, thoughtless, and inactive, operates on a spirit: that the least particleof a body contains innumerable extended parts:--these are the novelties, these are the strange notions which shock the genuine uncorruptedjudgment of all mankind; and being once admitted, embarrass the mind withendless doubts and difficulties. And it is against these and the likeinnovations I endeavour to vindicate Common Sense. It is true, in doingthis, I may perhaps be obliged to use some AMBAGES, and ways of speechnot common. But, if my notions are once thoroughly understood, that whichis most singular in them will, in effect, be found to amount to no morethan this. --that it is absolutely impossible, and a plain contradiction, to suppose any unthinking Being should exist without being perceived by aMind. And, if this notion be singular, it is a shame it should be so, atthis time of day, and in a Christian country. 

HYL. As for the difficulties other opinions may be liable to, thoseare out of the question. It is your business to defend your own opinion. Can anything be plainer than that you are for changing all things intoideas? You, I say, who are not ashamed to charge me WITH SCEPTICISM. This is so plain, there is no denying it. 

PHIL. You mistake me. I am not for changing things into ideas, butrather ideas into things; since those immediate objects of perception, which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I take to be thereal things themselves. 

HYL. Things! You may pretend what you please; but it is certain youleave us nothing but the empty forms of things, the outside only whichstrikes the senses. 

PHIL. What you call the empty forms and outside of things seem to methe very things themselves. Nor are they empty or incomplete, otherwisethan upon your supposition--that Matter is an essential part of allcorporeal things. We both, therefore, agree in this, that we perceiveonly sensible forms: but herein we differ--you will have them to be emptyappearances, I, real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses, Ido. 

HYL. You say you believe your senses; and seem to applaud yourself thatin this you agree with the vulgar. According to you, therefore, the truenature of a thing is discovered by the senses. If so, whence comes thatdisagreement? Why is not the same figure, and other sensible qualities, perceived all manner of ways? and why should we use a microscope thebetter to discover the true nature of a body, if it were discoverable tothe naked eye?

PHIL. Strictly speaking, Hylas, we do not see the same object that wefeel; neither is the same object perceived by the microscope which was bythe naked eye. But, in case every variation was thought sufficient toconstitute a new kind of individual, the endless number of confusion ofnames would render language impracticable. Therefore, to avoid this, aswell as other inconveniences which are obvious upon a little thought, mencombine together several ideas, apprehended by divers senses, or by thesame sense at different times, or in different circumstances, butobserved, however, to have some connexion in nature, either with respectto co-existence or succession; all which they refer to one name, andconsider as one thing. Hence it follows that when I examine, by my othersenses, a thing I have seen, it is not in order to understand better thesame object which I had perceived by sight, the object of one sense notbeing perceived by the other senses. And, when I look through amicroscope, it is not that I may perceive more clearly what I perceivedalready with my bare eyes; the object perceived by the glass being quitedifferent from the former. But, in both cases, my aim is only to knowwhat ideas are connected together; and the more a man knows of theconnexion of ideas, the more he is said to know of the nature of things. What, therefore, if our ideas are variable; what if our senses are not inall circumstances affected with the same appearances. It will not thencefollow they are not to be trusted; or that they are inconsistent eitherwith themselves or anything else: except it be with your preconceivednotion of (I know not what) one single, unchanged, unperceivable, realNature, marked by each name. Which prejudice seems to have taken its risefrom not rightly understanding the common language of men, speakingof several distinct ideas as united into one thing by the mind. And, indeed, there is cause to suspect several erroneous conceits of thephilosophers are owing to the same original: while they began to buildtheir schemes not so much on notions as on words, which were framed bythe vulgar, merely for conveniency and dispatch in the common actions oflife, without any regard to speculation. 

HYL. Methinks I apprehend your meaning. 

PHIL. It is your opinion the ideas we perceive by our senses are notreal things, but images or copies of them. Our knowledge, therefore, isno farther real than as our ideas are the true REPRESENTATIONS OF THOSEORIGINALS. But, as these supposed originals are in themselves unknown, it is impossible to know how far our ideas resemble them; or whether theyresemble them at all. We cannot, therefore, be sure we have any realknowledge. Farther, as our ideas are perpetually varied, without anychange in the supposed real things, it necessarily follows they cannotall be true copies of them: or, if some are and others are not, it isimpossible to distinguish the former from the latter. And this plunges usyet deeper in uncertainty. Again, when we consider the point, we cannotconceive how any idea, or anything like an idea, should have an absoluteexistence out of a mind: nor consequently, according to you, how thereshould be any real thing in nature. The result of all which is that weare thrown into the most hopeless and abandoned scepticism. Now, give meleave to ask you, First, Whether your referring ideas to certainabsolutely existing unperceived substances, as their originals, be notthe source of all this scepticism? Secondly, whether you are informed, either by sense or reason, of the existence of those unknown originals?And, in case you are not, whether it be not absurd to suppose them?Thirdly, Whether, upon inquiry, you find there is anything distinctlyconceived or meant by the ABSOLUTE OR EXTERNAL EXISTENCE OF UNPERCEIVINGSUBSTANCES? Lastly, Whether, the premises considered, it be not thewisest way to follow nature, trust your senses, and, laying aside allanxious thought about unknown natures or substances, admit with thevulgar those for real things which are perceived by the senses?

HYL. For the present, I have no inclination to the answering part. Iwould much rather see how you can get over what follows. Pray are not theobjects perceived by the SENSES of one, likewise perceivable toothers present? If there were a hundred more here, they would all see thegarden, the trees, and flowers, as I see them. But they are not in thesame manner affected with the ideas I frame in my IMAGINATION. Does notthis make a difference between the former sort of objects and the latter?

PHIL. I grant it does. Nor have I ever denied a difference between theobjects of sense and those of imagination. But what would you infer fromthence? You cannot say that sensible objects exist unperceived, becausethey are perceived by many. 

HYL. I own I can make nothing of that objection: but it hath led meinto another. Is it not your opinion that by our senses we perceive onlythe ideas existing in our minds?

PHIL. It is. 

HYL. But the SAME idea which is in my mind cannot be in yours, or inany other mind. Doth it not therefore follow, from your principles, thatno two can see the same thing? And is not this highly, absurd?

PHIL. If the term SAME be taken in the vulgar acceptation, it iscertain (and not at all repugnant to the principles I maintain) thatdifferent persons may perceive the same thing; or the same thing or ideaexist in different minds. Words are of arbitrary imposition; and, sincemen are used to apply the word SAME where no distinction or variety isperceived, and I do not pretend to alter their perceptions, it followsthat, as men have said before, SEVERAL SAW THE SAME THING, so they may, upon like occasions, still continue to use the same phrase, without anydeviation either from propriety of language, or the truth of things. But, if the term SAME be used in the acceptation of philosophers, whopretend to an abstracted notion of identity, then, according to theirsundry definitions of this notion (for it is not yet agreed wherein thatphilosophic identity consists), it may or may not be possible for diverspersons to perceive the same thing. But whether philosophers shall thinkfit to CALL a thing the SAME or no, is, I conceive, of smallimportance. Let us suppose several men together, all endued with the samefaculties, and consequently affected in like sort by their senses, andwho had yet never known the use of language; they would, withoutquestion, agree in their perceptions. Though perhaps, when they came tothe use of speech, some regarding the uniformness of what was perceived, might call it the SAME thing: others, especially regarding thediversity of persons who perceived, might choose the denomination ofDIFFERENT things. But who sees not that all the dispute is about aword? to wit, whether what is perceived by different persons may yethave the term SAME applied to it? Or, suppose a house, whose walls oroutward shell remaining unaltered, the chambers are all pulled down, andnew ones built in their place; and that you should call this the SAME, and I should say it was not the SAME house. --would we not, for allthis, perfectly agree in our thoughts of the house, considered in itself?And would not all the difference consist in a sound? If you should say, We differed in our notions; for that you super-added to your idea of thehouse the simple abstracted idea of identity, whereas I did not; I wouldtell you, I know not what you mean by THE ABSTRACTED IDEA OF IDENTITY;and should desire you to look into your own thoughts, and be sure youunderstood yourself. --Why so silent, Hylas? Are you not yet satisfied menmay dispute about identity and diversity, without any real difference intheir thoughts and opinions, abstracted from names? Take this fartherreflexion with you: that whether Matter be allowed to exist or no, thecase is exactly the same as to the point in hand. For the Materialiststhemselves acknowledge what we immediately perceive by our senses to beour own ideas. Your difficulty, therefore, that no two see the samething, makes equally against the Materialists and me. 

HYL. Ay, Philonous, but they suppose an external archetype, towhich referring their several ideas they may truly be said to perceivethe same thing. 

PHIL. And (not to mention your having discarded those archetypes) somay you suppose an external archetype on my principles;--EXTERNAL, _I_MEAN, TO YOUR OWN MIND: though indeed it must be' supposed to exist inthat Mind which comprehends all things; but then, this serves all theends of IDENTITY, as well as if it existed out of a mind. And I am sureyou yourself will not say it is less intelligible. 

HYL. You have indeed clearly satisfied me--either that there is nodifficulty at bottom in this point; or, if there be, that it makesequally against both opinions. 

PHIL. But that which makes equally against two contradictory opinionscan be a proof against neither. 

HYL. I acknowledge it. But, after all, Philonous, when I considerthe substance of what you advance against SCEPTICISM, it amounts to nomore than this: We are sure that we really see, hear, feel; in a word, that we are affected with sensible impressions. 

PHIL. And how are WE concerned any farther? I see this cherry, I feelit, I taste it: and I am sure NOTHING cannot be seen, or felt, ortasted: it is therefore red. Take away the sensations of softness, moisture, redness, tartness, and you take away the cherry, since it isnot a being distinct from sensations. A cherry, I say, is nothing but acongeries of sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses:which ideas are united into one thing (or have one name given them) bythe mind, because they are observed to attend each other. Thus, when thepalate is affected with such a particular taste, the sight is affectedwith a red colour, the touch with roundness, softness, &c. Hence, when Isee, and feel, and taste, in such sundry certain manners, I am sure thecherry exists, or is real; its reality being in my opinion nothingabstracted from those sensations. But if by the word CHERRY you, meanan unknown nature, distinct from all those sensible qualities, and by itsEXISTENCE something distinct from its being perceived; then, indeed, Iown, neither you nor I, nor any one else, can be sure it exists. 

HYL. But, what would you say, Philonous, if I should bring the verysame reasons against the existence of sensible things IN A MIND, whichyou have offered against their existing IN A MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM?

PHIL. When I see your reasons, you shall hear what I have to say tothem. 

HYL. Is the mind extended or unextended?

PHIL. Unextended, without doubt. 

HYL. Do you say the things you perceive are in your mind?

PHIL. They are. 

HYL. Again, have I not heard you speak of sensible impressions?

PHIL. I believe you may. 

HYL. Explain to me now, O Philonous! how it is possible there should beroom for all those trees and houses to exist in your mind. Can extendedthings be contained in that which is unextended? Or, are we to imagineimpressions made on a thing void of all solidity? You cannot say objectsare in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted onit, as the figure of a seal upon wax. In what sense, therefore, are we tounderstand those expressions? Explain me this if you can: and I shallthen be able to answer all those queries you formerly put to me about mySUBSTRATUM. 

PHIL. Look you, Hylas, when I speak of objects as existing in the mind, or imprinted on the senses, I would not be understood in the grossliteral sense; as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal tomake an impression upon wax. My meaning is only that the mind comprehendsor perceives them; and that it is affected from without, or by some beingdistinct from itself. This is my explication of your difficulty; and howit can serve to make your tenet of an unperceiving material SUBSTRATUMintelligible, I would fain know. 

HYL. Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use can be madeof it. But are you not guilty of some abuse of language in this?

PHIL. None at all. It is no more than common custom, which you know isthe rule of language, hath authorised: nothing being more usual, than forphilosophers to speak of the immediate objects of the understanding asthings existing in the mind. 'Nor is there anything in this but what isconformable to the general analogy of language; most part of the mentaloperations being signified by words borrowed from sensible things; as isplain in the terms COMPREHEND, reflect, DISCOURSE, &C. , which, being applied to the mind, must not be taken in their gross, originalsense. 

HYL. You have, I own, satisfied me in this point. But there stillremains one great difficulty, which I know not how you will get over. And, indeed, it is of such importance that if you could solve all others, without being able to find a solution for this, you must never expect tomake me a proselyte to your principles. 

PHIL. Let me know this mighty difficulty. 

HYL. The Scripture account of the creation is what appears to meutterly irreconcilable with your notions. Moses tells us of a creation: acreation of what? of ideas? No, certainly, but of things, of real things, solid corporeal substances. Bring your principles to agree with this, andI shall perhaps agree with you. 

PHIL. Moses mentions the sun, moon, and stars, earth and sea, plantsand animals. That all these do really exist, and were in the beginningcreated by God, I make no question. If by IDEAS you mean fictionsand fancies of the mind, then these are no ideas. If by IDEAS you meanimmediate objects of the understanding, or sensible things, which cannotexist unperceived, or out of a mind, then these things are ideas. Butwhether you do or do not call them IDEAS, IT matters little. Thedifference is only about a name. And, whether that name be retained orrejected, the sense, the truth, and reality of things continues the same. In common talk, the objects of our senses are not termed IDEAS, butTHINGS. Call them so still: provided you do not attribute to them anyabsolute external existence, and I shall never quarrel with you for aword. The creation, therefore, I allow to have been a creation of things, of RED things. Neither is this in the least inconsistent with myprinciples, as is evident from what I have now said; and would have beenevident to you without this, if you had not forgotten what had been sooften said before. But as for solid corporeal substances, I desire you toshow where Moses makes any mention of them; and, if they should bementioned by him, or any other inspired writer, it would still beincumbent on you to shew those words were not taken in the vulgaracceptation, for things falling under our senses, but in the philosophicacceptation, for Matter, or AN UNKNOWN QUIDDITY, WITH AN ABSOLUTEEXISTENCE. When you have proved these points, then (and not till then)may you bring the authority of Moses into our dispute. 

HYL. It is in vain to dispute about a point so clear. I am content torefer it to your own conscience. Are you not satisfied there is somepeculiar repugnancy between the Mosaic account of the creation and yournotions?

PHIL. If all possible sense which can be put on the first chapter ofGenesis may be conceived as consistently with my principles as any other, then it has no peculiar repugnancy with them. But there is no sense youmay not as well conceive, believing as I do. Since, besides spirits, allyou conceive are ideas; and the existence of these I do not deny. Neitherdo you pretend they exist without the mind. 

HYL. Pray let me see any sense you can understand it in. 

PHIL. Why, I imagine that if I had been present at the creation, Ishould have seen things produced into being--that is becomeperceptible--in the order prescribed by the sacred historian. I everbefore believed the Mosaic account of the creation, and now find noalteration in my manner of believing it. When things are said to begin orend their existence, we do not mean this with regard to God, butHis creatures. All objects are eternally known by God, or, which is thesame thing, have an eternal existence in His mind: but when things, before imperceptible to creatures, are, by a decree of God, perceptibleto them, then are they said to begin a relative existence, with respectto created minds. Upon reading therefore the Mosaic account of thecreation, I understand that the several parts of the world becamegradually perceivable to finite spirits, endowed with proper faculties;so that, whoever such were present, they were in truth perceived by them. This is the literal obvious sense suggested to me by the words of theHoly Scripture: in which is included no mention, or no thought, either ofSUBSTRATUM, INSTRUMENT, OCCASION, or ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. And, uponinquiry, I doubt not it will be found that most plain honest men, whobelieve the creation, never think of those things any more than I. Whatmetaphysical sense you may understand it in, you only can tell. 

HYL. But, Philonous, you do not seem to be aware that you allow createdthings, in the beginning, only a relative, and consequently hypotheticalbeing: that is to say, upon supposition there were MEN to perceivethem; without which they have no actuality of absolute existence, whereincreation might terminate. Is it not, therefore, according to you, plainlyimpossible the creation of any inanimate creatures should precede that ofman? And is not this directly contrary to the Mosaic account?

PHIL. In answer to that, I say, first, created beings might begin toexist in the mind of other created intelligences, beside men. You willnot therefore be able to prove any contradiction between Moses and mynotions, unless you first shew there was no other order of finite createdspirits in being, before man. I say farther, in case we conceive thecreation, as we should at this time, a parcel of plants or vegetables ofall sorts produced, by an invisible Power, in a desert where nobody waspresent--that this way of explaining or conceiving it is consistent withmy principles, since they deprive you of nothing, either sensible orimaginable; that it exactly suits with the common, natural, andundebauched notions of mankind; that it manifests the dependence of allthings on God; and consequently hath all the good effect or influence, which it is possible that important article of our faith should have inmaking men humble, thankful, and resigned to their great Creator. Isay, moreover, that, in this naked conception of things, divestedof words, there will not be found any notion of what you call theACTUALITY OF ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. You may indeed raise a dust with thoseterms, and so lengthen our dispute to no purpose. But I entreat youcalmly to look into your own thoughts, and then tell me if they are not auseless and unintelligible jargon. 

HYL. I own I have no very clear notion annexed to them. But what sayyou to this? Do you not make the existence of sensible things consist intheir being in a mind? And were not all things eternally in the mind ofGod? Did they not therefore exist from all eternity, according to you?And how could that which was eternal be created in time? Can anything beclearer or better connected than this?

PHIL. And are not you too of opinion, that God knew all things frometernity?

HYL. I am. 

PHIL. Consequently they always had a being in the Divine intellect. 

HYL. This I acknowledge. 

PHIL. By your own confession, therefore, nothing is new, or begins tobe, in respect of the mind of God. So we are agreed in that point. 

HYL. What shall we make then of the creation?

PHIL. May we not understand it to have been entirely in respect offinite spirits; so that things, with regard to us, may properly be saidto begin their existence, or be created, when God decreed they shouldbecome perceptible to intelligent creatures, in that order and mannerwhich He then established, and we now call the laws of nature? You maycall this a RELATIVE, or HYPOTHETICAL EXISTENCE if you please. But, so long as it supplies us with the most natural, obvious, and literalsense of the Mosaic history of the creation; so long as it answers allthe religious ends of that great article; in a word, so long as you canassign no other sense or meaning in its stead; why should we reject this?Is it to comply with a ridiculous sceptical humour of making everythingnonsense and unintelligible? I am sure you cannot say it is for the gloryof God. For, allowing it to be a thing possible and conceivable that thecorporeal world should have an absolute existence extrinsical to the mindof God, as well as to the minds of all created spirits; yet how couldthis set forth either the immensity or omniscience of the Deity, or thenecessary and immediate dependence of all things on Him? Nay, wouldit not rather seem to derogate from those attributes?

HYL. Well, but as to this decree of God's, for making thingsperceptible, what say you, Philonous? Is it not plain, God did eitherexecute that decree from all eternity, or at some certain time began towill what He had not actually willed before, but only designed to will?If the former, then there could be no creation, or beginning ofexistence, in finite things. If the latter, then we must acknowledgesomething new to befall the Deity; which implies a sort of change: andall change argues imperfection. 

PHIL. Pray consider what you are doing. Is it not evident thisobjection concludes equally against a creation in any sense; nay, againstevery other act of the Deity, discoverable by the light of nature? Noneof which can WE conceive, otherwise than as performed in time, andhaving a beginning. God is a Being of transcendent and unlimitedperfections: His nature, therefore, is incomprehensible to finitespirits. It is not, therefore, to be expected, that any man, whetherMaterialist or Immaterialist, should have exactly just notions of theDeity, His attributes, and ways of operation. If then you would inferanything against me, your difficulty must not be drawn from theinadequateness of our conceptions of the Divine nature, which isunavoidable on any scheme; but from the denial of Matter, of which thereis not one word, directly or indirectly, in what you have now objected. 

HYL. I must acknowledge the difficulties you are concerned to clear aresuch only as arise from the non-existence of Matter, and are peculiar tothat notion. So far you are in the right. But I cannot by any means bringmyself to think there is no such peculiar repugnancy between the creationand your opinion; though indeed where to fix it, I do not distinctlyknow. 

PHIL. What would you have? Do I not acknowledge a twofold state ofthings--the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal? Theformer was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in themind of God. Is not this agreeable to the common notions of divines? or, is any more than this necessary in order to conceive the creation? Butyou suspect some peculiar repugnancy, though you know not where it lies. To take away all possibility of scruple in the case, do but consider thisone point. Either you are not able to conceive the Creation on anyhypothesis whatsoever; and, if so, there is no ground for dislike orcomplaint against any particular opinion on that score: or you are ableto conceive it; and, if so, why not on my Principles, since therebynothing conceivable is taken away? You have all along been allowed thefull scope of sense, imagination, and reason. Whatever, therefore, youcould before apprehend, either immediately or mediately by your senses, or by ratiocination from your senses; whatever you could perceive, imagine, or understand, remains still with you. If, therefore, the notionyou have of the creation by other Principles be intelligible, you have itstill upon mine; if it be not intelligible, I conceive it to be no notionat all; and so there is no loss of it. And indeed it seems to me veryplain that the supposition of Matter, that is a thing perfectly unknownand inconceivable, cannot serve to make us conceive anything. And, I hopeit need not be proved to you that if the existence of Matter doth notmake the creation conceivable, the creation's being without itinconceivable can be no objection against its non-existence. 

HYL. I confess, Philonous, you have almost satisfied me in this pointof the creation. 

PHIL. I would fain know why you are not quite satisfied. You tell meindeed of a repugnancy between the Mosaic history and Immaterialism: butyou know not where it lies. Is this reasonable, Hylas? Can you expect Ishould solve a difficulty without knowing what it is? But, to pass by allthat, would not a man think you were assured there is no repugnancybetween the received notions of Materialists and the inspired writings?

HYL. And so I am. 

PHIL. Ought the historical part of Scripture to be understood in aplain obvious sense, or in a sense which is metaphysical and out of theway?

HYL. In the plain sense, doubtless. 

PHIL. When Moses speaks of herbs, earth, water, &c. As having beencreated by God; think you not the sensible things commonly signified bythose words are suggested to every unphilosophical reader?

HYL. I cannot help thinking so. 

PHIL. And are not all ideas, or things perceived by sense, to be denieda real existence by the doctrine of the Materialist?

HYL. This I have already acknowledged. 

PHIL. The creation, therefore, according to them, was not thecreation of things sensible, which have only a relative being, but ofcertain unknown natures, which have an absolute being, wherein creationmight terminate?

HYL. True. 

PHIL. Is it not therefore evident the assertors of Matter destroy theplain obvious sense of Moses, with which their notions are utterlyinconsistent; and instead of it obtrude on us I know not what; somethingequally unintelligible to themselves and me?

HYL. I cannot contradict you. 

PHIL. Moses tells us of a creation. A creation of what? of unknownquiddities, of occasions, or SUBSTRATUM? No, certainly; but of thingsobvious to the senses. You must first reconcile this with your notions, if you expect I should be reconciled to them. 

HYL. I see you can assault me with my own weapons. 

PHIL. Then as to ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE; was there ever known a morejejune notion than that? Something it is so abstracted and unintelligiblethat you have frankly owned you could not conceive it, much less explainanything by it. But allowing Matter to exist, and the notion of absoluteexistence to be clear as light; yet, was this ever known to make thecreation more credible? Nay, hath it not furnished the atheists andinfidels of all ages with the most plausible arguments against acreation? That a corporeal substance, which hath an absolute existencewithout the minds of spirits, should be produced out of nothing, by themere will of a Spirit, hath been looked upon as a thing so contrary toall reason, so impossible and absurd! that not only the most celebratedamong the ancients, but even divers modern and Christian philosophershave thought Matter co-eternal with the Deity. Lay these things together, and then judge you whether Materialism disposes men to believe thecreation of things. 

HYL. I own, Philonous, I think it does not. This of the CREATION isthe last objection I can think of; and I must needs own it hath beensufficiently answered as well as the rest. Nothing now remains to beovercome but a sort of unaccountable backwardness that I find in myselftowards your notions. 

PHIL. When a man is swayed, he knows not why, to one side of' thequestion, can this, think you, be anything else but the effect ofprejudice, which never fails to attend old and rooted notions? Andindeed in this respect I cannot deny the belief of Matter to have verymuch the advantage over the contrary opinion, with men of a learned, education. 

HYL. I confess it seems to be as you say. 

PHIL. As a balance, therefore, to this weight of prejudice, let usthrow into the scale the great advantages that arise from the belief ofImmaterialism, both in regard to religion and human learning. The beingof a God, and incorruptibility of the soul, those great articles ofreligion, are they not proved with the clearest and most immediateevidence? When I say the being of a God, I do not mean an obscure generalCause of things, whereof we have no conception, but God, in the strictand proper sense of the word. A Being whose spirituality, omnipresence, providence, omniscience, infinite power and goodness, are as conspicuousas the existence of sensible things, of which (notwithstanding thefallacious pretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there is no morereason to doubt than of our own being. --Then, with relation to humansciences. In Natural Philosophy, what intricacies, what obscurities, whatcontradictions hath the belief of Matter led men into! To say nothing ofthe numberless disputes about its extent, continuity, homogeneity, gravity, divisibility, &c. --do they not pretend to explain all things bybodies operating on bodies, according to the laws of motion? and yet, arethey able to comprehend how one body should move another? Nay, admittingthere was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert being witha cause, or in conceiving how an accident might pass from one body toanother; yet, by all their strained thoughts and extravagantsuppositions, have they been able to reach the MECHANICAL production ofany one animal or vegetable body? Can they account, by the laws ofmotion, for sounds, tastes, smells, or colours; or for the regular courseof things? Have they accounted, by physical principles, for the aptitudeand contrivance even of the most inconsiderable parts of the universe?But, laying aside Matter and corporeal, causes, and admitting only theefficiency of an All-perfect Mind, are not all the effects of nature easyand intelligible? If the PHENOMENA are nothing else but IDEAS; God isa SPIRIT, but Matter an unintelligent, unperceiving being. If theydemonstrate an unlimited power in their cause; God is active andomnipotent, but Matter an inert mass. If the order, regularity, andusefulness of them can never be sufficiently admired; God isinfinitely wise and provident, but Matter destitute of all contrivanceand design. These surely are great advantages in PHYSICS. Not tomention that the apprehension of a distant Deity naturally disposes mento a negligence in their moral actions; which they would be more cautiousof, in case they thought Him immediately present, and acting on theirminds, without the interposition of Matter, or unthinking secondcauses. --Then in METAPHYSICS: what difficulties concerning entity inabstract, substantial forms, hylarchic principles, plastic natures, substance and accident, principle of individuation, possibility ofMatter's thinking, origin of ideas, the manner how two independentsubstances so widely different as SPIRIT AND MATTER, should mutuallyoperate on each other? what difficulties, I say, and endlessdisquisitions, concerning these and innumerable other the like points, dowe escape, by supposing only Spirits and ideas?--Even the MATHEMATICSthemselves, if we take away the absolute existence of extended things, become much more clear and easy; the most shocking paradoxes andintricate speculations in those sciences depending on the infinitedivisibility of finite extension; which depends on that supposition--Butwhat need is there to insist on the particular sciences? Is not thatopposition to all science whatsoever, that frenzy of the ancient andmodern Sceptics, built on the same foundation? Or can you produce so muchas one argument against the reality of corporeal things, or in behalf ofthat avowed utter ignorance of their natures, which doth not supposetheir reality to consist in an external absolute existence? Upon thissupposition, indeed, the objections from the change of colours in apigeon's neck, or the appearance of the broken oar in the water, must beallowed to have weight. But these and the like objections vanish, if wedo not maintain the being of absolute external originals, but place thereality of things in ideas, fleeting indeed, and changeable;--however, not changed at random, but according to the fixed order of nature. For, herein consists that constancy and truth of things which secures all theconcerns of life, and distinguishes that which is real from theIRREGULAR VISIONS of the fancy. 

HYL. I agree to all you have now said, and must own that nothing canincline me to embrace your opinion more than the advantages I see it isattended with. I am by nature lazy; and this would be a mighty abridgmentin knowledge. What doubts, what hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may beavoided by that single notion of IMMATERIALISM!

PHIL. After all, is there anything farther remaining to be done? Youmay remember you promised to embrace that opinion which upon examinationshould appear most agreeable to Common Sense and remote from Scepticism. This, by your own confession, is that which denies Matter, or theABSOLUTE existence of corporeal things. Nor is this all; the samenotion has been proved several ways, viewed in different lights, pursuedin its consequences, and all objections against it cleared. Can there bea greater evidence of its truth? or is it possible it should have all themarks of a true opinion and yet be false?

HYL. I own myself entirely satisfied for the present in all respects. But, what security can I have that I shall still continue the same fullassent to your opinion, and that no unthought-of objection or difficultywill occur hereafter?

PHIL. Pray, Hylas, do you in other cases, when a point is onceevidently proved, withhold your consent on account of objections ordifficulties it may be liable to? Are the difficulties that attend thedoctrine of incommensurable quantities, of the angle of contact, of theasymptotes to curves, or the like, sufficient to make you hold outagainst mathematical demonstration? Or will you disbelieve the Providenceof God, because there may be some particular things which you know nothow to reconcile with it? If there are difficulties ATTENDINGIMMATERIALISM, there are at the same time direct and evident proofs ofit. But for the existence of Matter there is not one proof, and far morenumerous and insurmountable objections lie against it. But where arethose mighty difficulties you insist on? Alas! you know not where or whatthey are; something which may possibly occur hereafter. If this be asufficient pretence for withholding your full assent, you should neveryield it to any proposition, how free soever from exceptions, how clearlyand solidly soever demonstrated. 

HYL. You have satisfied me, Philonous. 

PHIL. But, to arm you against all future objections, do but consider:That which bears equally hard on two contradictory opinions can beproof against neither. Whenever, therefore, any difficulty occurs, try ifyou can find a solution for it on the hypothesis of the MATERIALISTS. Be not deceived by words; but sound your own thoughts. And in case youcannot conceive it easier by the help of MATERIALISM, it is plain itcan be no objection against IMMATERIALISM. Had you proceeded all alongby this rule, you would probably have spared yourself abundance oftrouble in objecting; since of all your difficulties I challenge you toshew one that is explained by Matter: nay, which is not moreunintelligible with than without that supposition; and consequently makesrather AGAINST than FOR it. You should consider, in each particular, whether the difficulty arises from the NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER. If itdoth not, you might as well argue from the infinite divisibility ofextension against the Divine prescience, as from such a difficultyagainst IMMATERIALISM. And yet, upon recollection, I believe you willfind this to have been often, if not always, the case. You shouldlikewise take heed not to argue on a PETITIO PRINCIPII. One is apt tosay--The unknown substances ought to be esteemed real things, rather thanthe ideas in our minds: and who can tell but the unthinking externalsubstance may concur, as a cause or instrument, in the productions of ourideas? But is not this proceeding on a supposition that there are suchexternal substances? And to suppose this, is it not begging the question?But, above all things, you should beware of imposing on yourself by thatvulgar sophism which is called IGNORATIO ELENCHI. You talked often asif you thought I maintained the non-existence of Sensible Things. Whereasin truth no one can be more thoroughly assured of their existence than Iam. And it is you who doubt; I should have said, positively deny it. Everything that is seen, felt, heard, or any way perceived by the senses, is, on the principles I embrace, a real being; but not on yours. Remember, the Matter you contend for is an Unknown Somewhat (if indeed itmay be termed SOMEWHAT), which is quite stripped of all sensiblequalities, and can neither be perceived by sense, nor apprehended by themind. Remember I say, that it is not any object which is hard or soft, hot or cold, blue or white, round or square, &c. For all these things Iaffirm do exist. Though indeed I deny they have an existence distinctfrom being perceived; or that they exist out of all minds whatsoever. Think on these points; let them be attentively considered and still keptin view. Otherwise you will not comprehend the state of the question;without which your objections will always be wide of the mark, and, instead of mine, may possibly be directed (as more than once they havebeen) against your own notions. 

HYL. I must needs own, Philonous, nothing seems to have kept me fromagreeing with you more than this same MISTAKING THE QUESTION. Indenying Matter, at first glimpse I am tempted to imagine you deny thethings we see and feel: but, upon reflexion, find there is no ground forit. What think you, therefore, of retaining the name MATTER, andapplying it to SENSIBLE THINGS? This may be done without any change inyour sentiments: and, believe me, it would be a means of reconciling themto some persons who may be more shocked at an innovation in words than inopinion. 

PHIL. With all my heart: retain the word MATTER, and apply it to theobjects of sense, if you please; provided you do not attribute to themany subsistence distinct from their being perceived. I shall neverquarrel with you for an expression. MATTER, or MATERIAL SUBSTANCE, are terms introduced by philosophers; and, as used by them, imply a sortof independency, or a subsistence distinct from being perceived by amind: but are never used by common people; or, if ever, it is to signifythe immediate objects of sense. One would think, therefore, so long asthe names of all particular things, with the TERMS SENSIBLE, SUBSTANCE, BODY, STUFF, and the like, are retained, the wordMATTER should be never missed in common talk. And in philosophicaldiscourses it seems the best way to leave it quite out: since there isnot, perhaps, any one thing that hath more favoured and strengthened thedepraved bent of the mind towards Atheism than the use of that generalconfused term. 

HYL. Well but, Philonous, since I am content to give up the notion ofan unthinking substance exterior to the mind, I think you ought not todeny me the privilege of using the word MATTER as I please, andannexing it to a collection of sensible qualities subsisting only in themind. I freely own there is no other substance, in a strict sense, thanSPIRIT. But I have been so long accustomed to the term MATTER that Iknow not how to part with it: to say, there is no MATTER in the world, is still shocking to me. Whereas to say--There is no MATTER, if by thatterm be meant an unthinking substance existing without the mind; but ifby MATTER is meant some sensible thing, whose existence consists inbeing perceived, then there is MATTER:--THIS distinction gives itquite another turn; and men will come into your notions with smalldifficulty, when they are proposed in that manner. For, after all, thecontroversy about MATTER in the strict acceptation of it, liesaltogether between you and the philosophers: whose principles, Iacknowledge, are not near so natural, or so agreeable to the common senseof mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours. There is nothing we eitherdesire or shun but as it makes, or is apprehended to make, some part ofour happiness or misery. But what hath happiness or misery, joy or grief, pleasure or pain, to do with Absolute Existence; or with unknownentities, ABSTRACTED FROM ALL RELATION TO US? It is evident, thingsregard us only as they are pleasing or displeasing: and they can pleaseor displease only so far forth as they are perceived. Farther, therefore, we are not concerned; and thus far you leave things as you found them. Yet still there is something new in this doctrine. It is plain, I do notnow think with the Philosophers; nor yet altogether with the vulgar. Iwould know how the case stands in that respect; precisely, what you haveadded to, or altered in my former notions. 

PHIL. I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions. My endeavourstend only to unite, and place in a clearer light, that truth which wasbefore shared between the vulgar and the philosophers:--the former beingof opinion, that THOSE THINGS THEY IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVE ARE THE REALTHINGS; and the latter, that THE THINGS IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVED AREIDEAS, WHICH EXIST ONLY IN THE MIND. Which two notions put together, do, in effect, constitute the substance of what I advance. 

HYL. I have been a long time distrusting my senses: methought I sawthings by a dim light and through false glasses. Now the glasses areremoved and a new light breaks in upon my under standing. I am clearlyconvinced that I see things in their native forms, and am no longer inpain about their UNKNOWN NATURES OR ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. This is thestate I find myself in at present; though, indeed, the course thatbrought me to it I do not yet thoroughly comprehend. You set out upon thesame principles that Academics, Cartesians, and the like sects usuallydo; and for a long time it looked as if you were advancing theirphilosophical Scepticism: but, in the end, your conclusions are directlyopposite to theirs. 

PHIL. You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it is forcedupwards, in a round column, to a certain height; at which itbreaks, and falls back into the basin from whence it rose: its ascent, aswell as descent, proceeding from the same uniform law or principle ofGRAVITATION. Just so, the same Principles which, at first view, lead toScepticism, pursued to a certain point, bring men back to Common Sense.