Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
George Berkeley
1713
Copyright 1996, James Fieser (
[email protected]). See end note for
details on copyright and editing conventions. This text file is
based on the 1910 Harvard Classics edition of Berkeley's <Three
Dialogues>. Pagenation follows T.E. Jessop's 1949 edition of
<Three Dialogues>, in <The Works of George Berkeley>, Vol. 2.
This is a working draft; please report errors.[1]
* * * *
THREE DIALOGUES
Between
HYLAS AND PHILONOUS
The Design of which is Plainly to Demonstrate the Reality and
Perfection of
HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
The Incorporeal Nature of the
SOUL
And the Immediate Providence of a
DEITY
In Opposition to
SCEPTICS AND ATHEISTS
Also to Open a Method for Rendering the Sciences More Easy,
Useful, and Compendious
{171}
THE FIRST DIALOGUE
<Philonous>. Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find
you abroad so early.
<Hylas>. It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts
were so taken up with a subject I was discoursing of last night,
that finding I could not sleep, I resolved to rise and take a
turn in the garden.
<Phil>. It happened well, to let you see what innocent and
agreeable pleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a
pleasanter time of the day, or a more delightful season of the
year? That purple sky, those wild but sweet notes of birds, the
fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers, the gentle influence
of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless beauties of
nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its faculties too
being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those
meditations, which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of
the morning naturally dispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt
your thoughts: for you seemed very intent on something.
<Hyl>. It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you
will permit me to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any
means deprive myself of your company, for my thoughts always flow
more easily in conversation with a friend, than when I am alone:
but my request is, that you would suffer me to impart my
reflexions to you.
<Phil>. With all my heart, it is what I should have
requested myself if you 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 some unaccountable turn of thought, pretended
either to believe nothing at all, or to believe the most
extravagant things in the world. This however might be borne, if
their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them some
consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief
lieth {172} here; that when men of less leisure see them who are
supposed to have spent their whole time in the pursuits of
knowledge professing an entire ignorance of all things, or
advancing such notions as are repugnant to plain and commonly
received principles, they will be tempted to entertain suspicions
concerning the most important truths, which they had hitherto
held sacred and unquestionable.
<Phil>. I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of
the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical
conceits of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of
thinking, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I
had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you
on my word; since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the
plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my
understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily
comprehend a great many 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 who maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever
entered into the mind of man, to wit, that there is no such thing
as <material substance> in the world.
<Phil>. That there is no such thing as what <philosophers
call material substance>, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I
were made to see anything absurd or sceptical in this, I should
then have the same reason to renounce this that I imagine I have
now to reject the contrary opinion.
<Hyl>. What I can anything be more fantastical, more
repugnant to Common Sense, or a more manifest piece of
Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as <matter>?
<Phil>. Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that
you, who hold there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater
sceptic, and maintain more paradoxes and repugnances to Common
Sense, than I who believe no such 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 be obliged to give up my opinion in this point.
<Phil>. Well then, are you content to admit that opinion for
true, which upon examination shall appear most agreeable to
Common Sense, and remote from Scepticism?
<Hyl>. With all my heart. Since you are for raising disputes
{173} about the plainest things in nature, I am content for once
to hear what you have 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
particular point, with regard to that point cannot be thought a
sceptic.
<Hyl>. I agree with you.
<Phil>. Whether doth doubting consist in embracing the
affirmative or negative side of a question?
<Hyl>. In neither; for whoever understands English cannot
but know that <doubting> signifies a suspense between both.
<Phil>. He then that denies any point, can no more be said
to doubt of it, 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 esteemed a sceptic than the other.
<Hyl>. I acknowledge it.
<Phil>. How cometh it to pass then, Hylas, that you
pronounce me <a sceptic>, because I deny what you affirm, to wit,
the existence of Matter? 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; but every false step a man makes in discourse is not
to be insisted on. I said indeed that a <sceptic> was one who
doubted of everything; but I should 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 consequently independent of Matter. The denial
therefore of this doth not imply the denying them.
<Hyl>. I grant it. But are there no other things? What think
you of distrusting the senses, of denying the real existence of
sensible things, or pretending to know nothing of them. Is not
this sufficient to denominate a man a <sceptic>?
<Phil>. Shall we therefore examine which of us it is that
denies the reality of sensible things, or professes the greatest
ignorance of them; since, if I take you rightly, he is to be
{174} esteemed the greatest <sceptic>?
<Hyl>. That is what I desire.
<Phil>. What mean you by Sensible Things?
<Hyl>. Those things which are perceived by the senses. Can
you imagine that I mean anything else?
<Phil>. Pardon me, Hylas, if I am desirous clearly to
apprehend your notions, since this may much shorten our inquiry.
Suffer me then to ask you this farther question. Are those things
only perceived by the senses which are perceived immediately? Or,
may those things properly be said to be <sensible> which are
perceived mediately, or not without the intervention 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 notions of God, virtue, truth, &c. Now, that the
letters are truly sensible things, or perceived by sense, there
is no doubt: but I would know whether you take the things
suggested by them to be so too.
<Hyl>. No, certainly: it were absurd to think <God> or
<virtue> sensible things; though they may be signified and
suggested to the mind by sensible marks, with which they have an
arbitrary connexion.
<Phil>. It seems then, that by <sensible things> you mean
those only which can be perceived <immediately> by sense?
<Hyl>. Right.
<Phil>. Doth it not follow from this, that though I see one
part of the sky red, and another blue, and that my reason doth
thence evidently conclude there must be some cause of that
diversity of colours, yet that cause cannot be said to be a
sensible thing, or perceived by the sense of seeing?
<Hyl>. It doth.
<Phil>. In like manner, though I hear variety of sounds, yet
I cannot be said 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, I cannot say, with any truth or propriety, that I feel
the cause of its heat or weight?
<Hyl>. To prevent any more questions of this kind, I tell
you once for all, that by <sensible things> I mean those only
which are perceived by sense; and that in truth the senses
perceive nothing which they do not perceive <immediately>: for
they make no {175} inferences. The deducing therefore of causes
or occasions from effects and appearances, which alone are
perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason.
<Phil>. This point then is agreed between us -- That
<sensible things are those only which are immediately perceived
by sense>. You will farther inform me, whether we immediately
perceive by sight anything beside light, and colours, and
figures; or by hearing, anything but sounds; by the palate,
anything beside tastes; by the smell, beside odours; or by the
touch, more than tangible qualities.
<Hyl>. We do not.
<Phil>. It seems, therefore, that if you take away all
sensible qualities, there remains nothing sensible?
<Hyl>. I grant it.
<Phil>. Sensible things therefore are {250} nothing else but
so many sensible 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 bears no 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 the mind, and distinct from their being
perceived?
<Hyl>. I mean a real absolute being, distinct from, and
without any relation to, their being perceived.
<Phil>. Heat therefore, if it be allowed a real being, must
exist without the mind?
<Hyl>. It must.
<Phil>. Tell me, Hylas, is this real existence equally
compatible to all degrees of heat, which we perceive; or is there
any reason why we should attribute it to some, and deny it to
others? And if there be, pray let me know that reason.
<Hyl>. Whatever degree of heat we perceive by sense, we may
be sure the same 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 more sensibly perceived; and
consequently, if there is {176} any difference, we are more
certain of its real existence than we can be of the reality of a
lesser degree.
<Phil>. But is not the most vehement and intense degree of
heat a very great 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 endowed with 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, since you acknowledge this to be no small pain?
<Hyl>. I grant it.
<Phil>. What shall we say then of your external object; is
it a material Substance, or no?
<Hyl>. It is a material substance with the sensible
qualities inhering in it.
<Phil>. How then can a great heat exist in it, since you own
it cannot in a material substance? I desire you would clear this
point.
<Hyl>. Hold, Philonous, I fear I was out in yielding intense
heat to be a pain. 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 simple uniform 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 same time, and the fire affects you only with one simple
or uncompounded idea, it follows that this same simple idea is
both the intense heat immediately perceived, and the pain; and,
consequently, that the intense heat immediately perceived is
nothing distinct from a particular sort of pain.
<Hyl>. It seems so.
<Phil>. Again, try in your thoughts, Hylas, if you can
conceive a vehement sensation to be without pain or pleasure.
{177}
<Hyl>. I cannot.
<Phil>. Or can you frame to yourself an idea of sensible
pain or pleasure in 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
nothing distinct from those sensations or ideas, in an intense
degree?
<Hyl>. It is undeniable; and, to speak the truth, I begin to
suspect a very great heat cannot exist but in a mind perceiving
it.
<Phil>. What! are you then in that sceptical state of
suspense, between affirming and denying?
<Hyl>. I think I may be positive in the point. A very
violent and painful heat 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 really hot?
<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 equally real; or, if there was any difference, that the
greater were more undoubtedly real than the lesser?
<Hyl>. True: but it was because I did not then consider the
ground there is for distinguishing between them, which I now
plainly see. And it is this: because intense heat is nothing else
but a particular kind of painful sensation; and pain cannot exist
but in a perceiving being; it follows that no intense heat can
really exist in an unperceiving corporeal substance. But this is
no reason wh' we should deny heat in an inferior degree to exist
in such a substance.
<Phil>. But how shall we be able to discern those degrees of
heat which exist only in the mind from those which exist without
it?
<Hyl>. That is no difficult matter. You know the least pain
cannot exist unperceived; whatever, therefore, degree of heat is
a pain exists only in the mind. But, as for all other degrees of
heat, nothing obliges us to think the same of them.
<Phil>. I think you granted before that no unperceiving
being was capable of pleasure, any more than of pain.
<Hyl>. I did. {178}
<Phil>. And is not warmth, or a more gentle degree of heat
than what causes uneasiness, a pleasure?
<Hyl>. What then?
<Phil>. Consequently, it cannot exist without the mind in an
unperceiving substance, or body.
<Hyl>. So it seems.
<Phil>. Since, therefore, as well those degrees of heat that
are not painful, as those that are, can exist only in a thinking
substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are
absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?
<Hyl>. On second thoughts, I do not think it so evident that
warmth is a pleasure as that a great degree of heat is a pain.
<Phil>. <I> do not pretend that warmth is as great a
pleasure as heat is a pain. But, if you grant it to be even a
small pleasure, it serves to make good my conclusion.
<Hyl>. I could rather call it an <indolence>. It seems to be
nothing more than a privation of both pain and pleasure. And that
such a quality or state as this may agree to an unthinking
substance, I hope you will not deny.
<Phil>. If you are resolved to maintain that warmth, or a
gentle degree of heat, is no pleasure, I know not how to convince
you otherwise than by appealing 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: it cannot 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, we perceive a moderate degree of heat, must be concluded
to have a moderate degree of heat or warmth in them; and those,
upon whose application we feel 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 an absurdity?
<Hyl>. Without doubt it cannot.
<Phil>. Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing
should be at the same time both cold and warm?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other
cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of
{179} water, in an intermediate state; will not the water seem
cold to one hand, and warm to the other?
<Hyl>. It will.
<Phil>. Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to
conclude it is really both cold and warm at the same time, that
is, according to your own concession, to believe an absurdity?
<Hyl>. I confess it seems so.
<Phil>. Consequently, the principles themselves are false,
since you have granted that no true principle leads to an
absurdity.
<Hyl>. But, after all, can anything be more absurd than to
say, <there is no heat in the fire>?
<Phil>. To make the point still clearer; tell me whether, in
two cases exactly 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 the fibres 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
itself occasioned by the pin, nor anything like it to be in the
pin; you should not, conformably to what you have now granted,
judge the sensation occasioned 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, and acknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations
existing in our minds. But there still remain qualities enough to
secure the reality of external things.
<Phil>. But what will you say, Hylas, if it shall appear
that the case is the same with regard to all other sensible
qualities, and that they can no more be supposed to exist without
the mind, than heat and cold?
<Hyl>. Then indeed you will have done something to the
purpose; but that is what I despair of seeing proved.
<Phil>. Let us examine them in order. What think you of
<tastes>, do they exist without the mind, or no?
<Hyl>. Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is
sweet, or wormwood bitter?
<Phil>. Inform me, Hylas. Is a sweet taste a particular kind
of pleasure or pleasant sensation, or is it not? {180}
<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
corporeal substances 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 asked whether heat and cold, sweetness at were not particular
sorts of pleasure and pain; to which simply, that they were.
Whereas I should have thus distinguished: those qualities, as
perceived by us, are pleasures or pair existing in the external
objects. We must not therefore conclude absolutely, 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 fire or
sugar. What say you to this?
<Phil>. I say it is nothing to the purpose. Our discourse
proceeded altogether concerning sensible things, which you
defined to be, <the things 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
what use can be made of this to your present purpose, I am at a
loss to conceive. Tell me then once more, do you acknowledge that
heat and cold, sweetness and bitterness (meaning those qualities
which are perceived by the senses), do not exist without the
mind?
<Hyl>. I see it is to no purpose to hold out, so I give up
the cause as to those mentioned qualities. Though I profess it
sounds oddly, to say that 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 persons perceive different tastes in the same
food; since that which one man delights in, another abhors. And
how could this be, if the taste was something really inherent in
the food?
<Hyl>. I acknowledge I know not how.
<Phil>. In the next place, <odours> are to be considered.
And, with regard to these, I would fain know whether what hath
{181} been said of tastes doth not exactly agree to them? Are
they not so many pleasing or displeasing sensations?
<Hyl>. They are.
<Phil>. Can you then conceive it possible that they should
exist in an unperceiving thing?
<Hyl>. I cannot.
<Phil>. Or, can you imagine that filth and ordure affect
those brute animals that feed on them out of choice, with the
same smells which we perceive in them?
<Hyl>. By no means.
<Phil>. May we not therefore conclude of smells, as of the
other forementioned qualities, that they cannot exist in any but
a perceiving substance or mind?
<Hyl>. I think so.
<Phil>. Then as to <sounds>, what must we think of them: are
they accidents 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 sends forth 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 sound greater or lesser, according to the air's
motion; but without some motion in the air, we never hear any
sound at all.
<Phil>. And granting that we never hear a sound but when
some motion is produced in the air, yet I do not see how you can
infer from thence, that the sound itself is in the air.
<Hyl>. It is this very motion in the external air that
produces in the mind the sensation of <sound>. For, striking on
the drum of the ear, it causeth a vibration, which by the
auditory nerves being communicated to the brain, the soul is
thereupon affected with the sensation called <sound>.
<Phil>. What! is sound then a sensation?
<Hyl>. I tell you, as perceived by us, it is a particular
sensation in the 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 by the <air> you mean a senseless substance existing
without the mind?
<Hyl>. You must distinguish, Philonous, between sound as it
is {182} perceived by us, and as it is in itself; or (which is
the same thing) between the sound we immediately perceive, and
that which exists without us. The former, indeed, is a particular
kind of sensation, but the latter is merely a vibrative or
undulatory motion the air.
<Phil>. I thought I had already obviated that distinction,
by answer I gave when you were applying it in a like case before.
But, to say no more of 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 be attributed to motion?
<Hyl>. It may.
<Phil>. It is then good sense to speak of <motion> as of a
thing that is <loud>, <sweet>, <acute>, <or grave>.
<Hyl>. <I> see you are resolved not to understand me. Is it
not evident those accidents or modes belong only to sensible
sound, or <sound in> the common acceptation of the word, but not
to <sound> in the real and philosophic sense; which, as I just
now told you, is nothing but a certain motion of the air?
<Phil>. It seems then there are two sorts of sound -- the
one vulgar, or that 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 of motion belongs? to the hearing?
<Hyl>. No, certainly; but to the sight and touch.
<Phil>. It should follow then, that, according to you, real
sounds may possibly be <seen or felt>, but never <heard>.
<Hyl>. Look you, Philonous, you may, if you please, make a
jest of my opinion, but that will not alter the truth of things.
I own, indeed, the inferences you draw me into sound something
oddly; but common language, you know, is framed by, and for the
use of the vulgar: we must not therefore wonder if expressions
adapted to exact philosophic notions seem uncouth and out of the
way.
<Phil>. Is it come to that? I assure you, I imagine myself
to have gained no small point, since you make so light of
departing from common phrases and opinions; it being a main part
of our inquiry, to examine whose notions are widest of the {183}
common road, and most repugnant to the general sense of the
world. But, can you think it no more than a philosophical
paradox, to say that <real sounds are never heard>, and that the
idea of them is obtained by some other sense? And is there
nothing in this contrary to nature and the truth of things?
<Hyl>. To deal ingenuously, I do not like it. And, after the
concessions already made, I had as well grant that sounds too
have no real being without the mind.
<Phil>. And I hope you will make no difficulty to
acknowledge the same of <colours>.
<Hyl>. Pardon me: the case of colours is very different. Can
anything be plainer than that we see them on the objects?
<Phil>. The objects you speak of are, I suppose, corporeal
Substances existing 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 perceive immediately?
<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 there is anything immediately perceived by the senses,
except sensible qualities. I know you asserted there was not; but
I would now be informed, whether you still persist in the same
opinion.
<Hyl>. I do.
<Phil>. Pray, is your corporeal substance either a sensible
quality, or made 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 object hath that colour which we see in it>, you make
visible objects to be corporeal substances; which implies either
that corporeal substances are sensible qualities, or else that
there is something besides sensible qualities perceived by sight:
but, as this point was formerly agreed between us, and is still
maintained by you, it is a clear consequence, that your
<corporeal substance> is nothing distinct from <sensible
qualities>. {184}
<Hyl>. You may draw as many absurd consequences as you
please, and endeavour to perplex the plainest things; but you
shall never persuade me out of my senses. I clearly understand my
own meaning.
<Phil>. I wish you would make me understand it too. But,
since you are unwilling to have your notion of corporeal
substance examined, I shall urge that point no farther. Only be
pleased to let me know, whether the same 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 yonder clouds really in them? Or do you imagine they have in
themselves any other form than that of a dark mist or vapour?
<Hyl>. I must own, Philonous, those colours are not really
in the clouds as they seem to be at this distance. They are only
apparent colours.
<Phil>. <Apparent> call you them? how shall we distinguish
these apparent colours from real?
<Hyl>. Very easily. Those are to be thought apparent which,
appearing only at a distance, vanish upon a nearer approach.
<Phil>. And those, I suppose, are to be thought real which
are discovered by the most near and exact survey.
<Hyl>. Right.
<Phil>. Is the nearest and exactest survey made by the help
of a microscope, or by the naked eye?
<Hyl>. By a microscope, doubtless.
<Phil>. But a microscope often discovers colours in an
object different from those perceived by the unassisted sight.
And, in case we had microscopes magnifying to any assigned
degree, it is certain that no object whatsoever, viewed through
them, would appear in the same colour which it exhibits to the
naked eye.
<Hyl>. And what will you conclude from all this? You cannot
argue that there are really and naturally no colours on objects:
because by artificial 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 as those on the clouds, since they vanish upon a
more close and accurate inspection which is afforded us by a
microscope. Then' as to what you say by way of prevention: {185}
I ask you whether the real and natural state of an object is
better discovered by a very sharp and piercing sight, or by one
which is less sharp?
<Hyl>. By the former without doubt.
<Phil>. Is it not plain from <Dioptrics> that microscopes
make the sight more penetrating, and represent objects as they
would appear to the eye in case it were naturally endowed with a
most exquisite sharpness?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. Consequently the microscopical representation is to
be thought that which best sets forth the real nature of the
thing, or what it is in itself. The colours, therefore, by it
perceived are more genuine and real than those perceived
otherwise.
<Hyl>. I confess there is something in what you say.
<Phil>. Besides, it is not only possible but manifest, that
there actually are animals whose eyes are by nature framed to
perceive those things which by reason of their minuteness escape
our sight. What think you of those inconceivably small animals
perceived by glasses? must we suppose they are all stark blind?
Or, in case they see, can it be imagined their sight hath not the
same use in preserving their bodies from injuries, which appears
in that of all other animals? And if it hath, is it not evident
they must see particles less than their own bodies; which will
present them with a far different view in each object from that
which strikes our senses? Even our own eyes do not always
represent objects to us after the same manner. In the jaundice
every one knows that all things seem yellow. Is it not therefore
highly probable those animals in whose eyes we discern a very
different texture from that of ours, and whose bodies abound with
different humours, do not see the same colours in every object
that we do? From all which, should it not seem to follow that all
colours are equally apparent, and that none of those 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 case colours were real properties or affections inherent
in external bodies, they could admit of no alteration without
some change wrought in the very bodies themselves: but, is it not
evident from what hath been said that, upon the use of
microscopes, upon a change happening in the burnouts of the eye,
or a variation of distance, without any manner of real alteration
{186} in the thing itself, the colours of any object are either
changed, or totally disappear? Nay, all other circumstances
remaining the same, change but the situation of some objects, and
they shall present different colours to the eye. The same thing
happens upon viewing an object in various degrees of light. And
what is more known than that the same bodies appear differently
coloured by candle-light from what they do in the open day? Add
to these the experiment of a prism which, separating the
heterogeneous rays of light, alters the colour of any object, and
will cause the whitest to appear of a deep blue or red to the
naked eye. And now tell me whether you are still of opinion that
every body hath its true real colour inhering in it; and, if you
think it hath, I would fain know farther from you, what certain
distance and position of the object, what peculiar texture and
formation of the eye, what degree or kind of light is necessary
for ascertaining that true colour, and distinguishing it from
apparent ones.
<Hyl>. I own myself entirely satisfied, that they are all
equally apparent, and that there is no such thing as colour
really inhering in external bodies, but that it is altogether in
the light. And what confirms me in this opinion is, that in
proportion to the light colours are still more or less vivid; and
if there be no light, then are there no colours perceived.
Besides, allowing there are colours on external objects, yet, how
is it possible for us to perceive them? For no external body
affects the mind, unless it acts first on our organs of sense.
But the only action of bodies is motion; and motion cannot be
communicated otherwise than by impulse. A distant object
therefore cannot act on the eye; nor consequently make itself or
its properties perceivable to the soul. Whence it plainly follows
that it is immediately some contiguous substance, which,
operating on the eye, occasions a perception of colours: and such
is light.
<Phil>. Howl is light then a substance?
<Hyl>.. I tell you, Philonous, external light is nothing but
a thin fluid substance, whose minute particles being agitated
with a brisk motion, and in various manners reflected from the
different surfaces of outward objects 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. {187}
<Hyl>. Nothing else.
<Phil>. And consequent to each particular motion of the
nerves, the mind is 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 by <light> you understand a corporeal substance
external to the mind?
<Hyl>. Light and colours, as immediately perceived by us, I
grant cannot exist without the mind. But in themselves they are
only the motions and configurations of certain insensible
particles of matter.
<Phil>. Colours then, in the vulgar sense, or taken for the
immediate objects 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
sensible qualities which are alone thought colours by all mankind
beside, you may hold what you please with regard to those
invisible ones of the philosophers. It is not my business to
dispute about <them>; only I would advise you to bethink
yourself, whether, considering the inquiry we are upon, it be
prudent for you to affirm -- <the red and blue which we see are
not real colours>, <but certain unknown motions and figures which
no man ever did or can see are truly so>. Are not these shocking
notions, and are not they subject to as many ridiculous
inferences, as those you were obliged 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>, have certainly no existence without the
mind. But by this acknowledgment I must not be supposed to
derogate, the reality of Matter, or external objects; seeing it
is no more than several philosophers maintain, who nevertheless
are the farthest imaginable from denying Matter. For the clearer
understanding of this, you must know sensible qualities are by
philosophers divided into <Primary> and <Secondary>. The former
are Extension, Figure, Solidity, Gravity, Motion, and Rest; {188}
and these they hold exist really in bodies. The latter are those
above enumerated; or, briefly, <all sensible qualities beside the
Primary>; which they assert are only so many sensations or ideas
existing nowhere but in the mind. But all this, I doubt not, you
are apprised of. For my part, I have been a long time sensible
there was such an opinion current among philosophers, but was
never thoroughly convinced of its truth until now.
<Phil>. You are still then of opinion that <extension> and
<figures are> inherent in external unthinking substances?
<Hyl>. I am.
<Phil>. But what if the same arguments which are brought
against Secondary Qualities will hold good against these also?
<Hyl>. Why then I shall be obliged to think, they too exist
only in the mind.
<Phil>. Is it your opinion the very figure and extension
which you perceive 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 the figure 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 all animals for their preservation and well-being in life?
or were they given to men alone for this end?
<Hyl>. I make no question but they have the same use in all
other animals.
<Phil>. If so, is it not necessary they should be enabled by
them to perceive their own limbs, and those bodies which are
capable of harming them?
<Hyl>. Certainly.
<Phil>. A mite therefore must be supposed to see his own
foot, and things equal or even less than it, as bodies of some
considerable dimension; though at the same time they appear to
you scarce discernible, or at best as 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
another extremely minute animal appear as some huge mountain?
{189}
<Hyl>. All this I grant.
<Phil>. Can one and the same thing be at the same time in
itself of different dimensions?
<Hyl>. That were absurd to imagine.
<Phil>. But, from what you have laid down it follows that
both the extension by you perceived, and that perceived by the
mite itself, as likewise all those perceived by lesser animals,
are each of them the true extension of the mite's foot; that is
to say, by your own principles you are led into an absurdity.
<Hyl>. There seems to be some difficulty in the point.
<Phil>. Again, have you not acknowledged that no real
inherent property of 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
visible extension varies, being at one distance ten or a hundred
times greater than another. Doth it not therefore follow from
hence likewise that it is not 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 to think as freely concerning this quality as you have
done concerning the rest. Was it not admitted as a good argument,
that neither heat nor cold was in the water, because it seemed
warm to one hand and cold to the other?
<Hyl>. It was.
<Phil>. Is it not the very same reasoning to conclude, there
is no extension or figure in an object, because to one eye it
shall seem little, 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 eye bare, and with the other through a microscope.
<Hyl>. I know not how to maintain it; and yet I am loath to
give up <extension>, I see so many odd consequences following
upon such a concession.
<Phil>. Odd, say you? After the concessions already made, I
hope you will stick at nothing for its oddness. [But, on the
other hand, should it not seem very odd, if the general reasoning
{190} which includes all other sensible qualities did not also
include extension? If it be allowed that no idea, nor anything
like an idea, can exist in an unperceiving substance, then surely
it follows that no figure, or mode of extension, which we can
either perceive, or imagine, or have any idea of, can be really
inherent in Matter; not to mention the peculiar difficulty there
must be in conceiving a material substance, prior to and distinct
from extension to be the <substratum> of extension. Be the
sensible quality what it will -- figure, or sound, or colour, it
seems alike impossible it should subsist in that which doth not
perceive it.][2]
<Hyl>. I give up the point for the present, reserving still
a right to retract my opinion, in case I shall hereafter discover
any false step in my progress to it.
<Phil>. That is a right you cannot be denied. Figures and
extension being despatched, we proceed next to <motion>. Can a
real motion in any external 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 to the time it takes up in describing any given space?
Thus a body that describes a mile in an hour moves three times
faster than it would in case 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 as fast in your mind as they do in mine, or in that
of some spirit of another kind?
<Hyl>. I own it.
<Phil>. Consequently the same body may to another seem to
perform its motion over any space in half the time that it doth
to you. And the same reasoning will hold as to any other
proportion: that is to say, according to your principles (since
the motions perceived are both really in the object) it is
possible one and the same body shall be really moved the same way
at once, both very swift and very slow. How is this consistent
either with common sense, or with what you just now granted?
{191}
<Hyl>. I have nothing to say to it.
<Phil>. Then as for <solidity>; either you do not mean any
sensible quality by that word, and so it is beside our inquiry:
or if you do, it must be either hardness or resistance. But both
the one and the other are plainly relative to our senses: it
being evident that what seems hard to one animal may appear soft
to another, who hath greater force and firmness of limbs. Nor is
it less plain that the resistance I feel is not in the body.
<Hyl>. I own the very <sensation> of resistance, which is
all you immediately perceive, is not in the body; but the <cause>
of that sensation is.
<Phil>. But the causes of our sensations are not things
immediately perceived, and therefore are not sensible. This point
I thought had been already determined.
<Hyl>. I own it was; but you will pardon me if I seem a
little embarrassed: I know not how to quit my old notions.
<Phil>. To help you out, do but consider that if <extension>
be once acknowledged to have no existence without the mind, the
same must necessarily be granted of motion, solidity, and
gravity; since they all evidently suppose extension. It is
therefore superfluous to inquire particularly concerning each of
them. In denying extension, you have denied them all to have any
real existence.
<Hyl>. I wonder, Philonous, if what you say be true, why
those philosophers who deny the Secondary Qualities any real
existence should yet 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 the philosophers. But, among other reasons which may be
assigned for this, it seems probable that pleasure and pain being
rather annexed to the former than the latter may be one. Heat and
cold, tastes and smells, have something more vividly pleasing or
disagreeable than the ideas of extension, figure, and motion
affect us with. And, it being too visibly absurd to hold that
pain or pleasure can be in an unperceiving substance, men are
more easily weaned from believing the external existence of the
Secondary than the Primary Qualities. You will be satisfied there
is something in this, if you recollect the difference you made
between an intense and more moderate degree of heat; allowing the
one a real existence, while you denied it to the other. But,
after all, there is no rational ground for that distinction; for,
surely an indifferent sensation is as {191} truly <a sensation>
as one more pleasing or painful; and consequently should not any
more than they be supposed to exist in an unthinking subject.
<Hyl>. It is just come into my head, Philonous, that I have
somewhere heard of a distinction between absolute and sensible
extension. Now, though it be acknowledged that <great> and
<small>, consisting merely in the relation which other extended
beings have to the parts of our own bodies, do not really inhere
in the substances themselves; yet nothing obliges us to hold the
same with regard to <absolute extension>, which is something
abstracted from <great> and <small>, from this or that particular
magnitude or figure. So likewise as to motion; <swift> and <slow>
are altogether relative to the succession of ideas in our own
minds. But, it doth not follow, because those modifications of
motion exist not without the mind, that therefore absolute motion
abstracted from them doth not.
<Phil>. Pray what is it that distinguishes one motion, or
one part of extension, from another? Is it not something
sensible, as some degree of swiftness 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 call them.
<Hyl>. They are.
<Phil>. That is to say, they are extension in general, and
motion in general.
<Hyl>. Let it be so.
<Phil>. But it is a universally received maxim that
<Everything which exists is particular>. How then can motion in
general, or extension in general, exist in any corporeal
substance? {193}
<Hyl>. I will take time to solve your difficulty.
<Phil>. But I think the point may be speedily decided.
Without doubt you can tell whether you are able to frame this or
that idea. Now I am content to put our dispute on this issue. If
you can frame in your thoughts a distinct <abstract idea> of
motion or extension, divested of all those sensible modes, as
swift and slow, great and small, round and square, and the like,
which are acknowledged to exist only in the mind, I will then
yield the point you contend for. But if you cannot, it will be
unreasonable on your side to insist any longer upon what you have
no notion of.
<Hyl>. To confess ingenuously, I cannot.
<Phil>. Can you even separate the ideas of extension and
motion from the ideas of all those qualities which they who make
the distinction term <secondary>?
<Hyl>. What! is it not an easy matter to consider extension
and motion by themselves, abstracted from all other sensible
qualities? Pray how do the mathematicians treat of them?
<Phil>. I acknowledge, Hylas, it is not difficult to form
general propositions and reasonings about those qualities,
without mentioning any other; and, in this sense, to consider or
treat of them abstractedly. But, how doth it follow that, because
I can pronounce the word <motion> by 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 any mention of <great> or
<small>, or any other sensible mode or quality, that therefore it
is possible such an abstract idea of extension, without any
particular size or figure, or sensible quality,[3 ] [should be
distinctly formed, and apprehended by the mind? Mathematicians
treat of quantity, without regarding what other sensible.
qualities it is attended with, as being altogether indifferent to
their demonstrations. But, when laying aside the words, they
contemplate the bare ideas, I believe you will find, they are not
the pure abstracted ideas of extension.
<Hyl>. But what say you to <pure intellect>? May not
abstracted ideas be framed by that faculty?
<Phil>. Since I cannot frame abstract ideas at all, it is
plain I cannot frame them by the help of <pure intellect>; {194}
whatsoever faculty you understand by those words. Besides, not to
inquire into the nature of pure intellect and its spiritual
objects, as <virtue>, <reason>, <God>, or the like, thus much
seems manifest -- that sensible things are only to be perceived
by sense, or represented by the imagination. Figures, therefore,
and extension, being originally perceived by sense, do not belong
to pure intellect: but, for your farther satisfaction, try if you
can frame the idea of any figure, abstracted from all
particularities of size, 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 nature which implies a repugnancy in its conception?
<Hyl>. By no means.
<Phil>. Since therefore it is impossible even for the mind
to disunite the ideas of extension and motion from all other
sensible qualities, doth it not follow, that where the one exist
there necessarily the other exist likewise?
<Hyl>. It should seem so.
<Phil>. Consequently, the very same arguments which you
admitted as conclusive against the Secondary Qualities are,
without any farther application of force, against the Primary
too. Besides, if you will trust your senses, is it not plain all
sensible qualities coexist, or to them appear as being in the
same place? Do they ever represent a motion, or figure, 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 be no secret error or oversight in our proceedings
hitherto, that all sensible qualities are alike to be denied
existence without the mind. But, my fear is that I have been too
liberal in my former concessions, or overlooked 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 in reviewing the progress of our inquiry. You are at
liberty to recover any slips you might have made, or offer
whatever you have omitted which makes for your first opinion.
<Hyl>. One great oversight I take to be this -- that I did
not sufficiently distinguish the <object> from the <sensation>.
Now, though this latter may not exist without the mind, yet it
will not thence follow that the former cannot.
<Phil>. What object do you mean? the object of the senses?
<Hyl>. The same.
<Phil>. It is then immediately perceived? {195}
<Hyl>. Right.
<Phil>. Make me to understand the difference between what is
immediately perceived and a sensation.
<Hyl>. The sensation I take to be an act of the mind
perceiving; besides which, there is something perceived; and this
I call the <object>. For example, there is red and yellow on that
tulip. But then the act of perceiving 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 coexistent with the extension; is it not?
<Hyl>. That is not all; I would say they have a real
existence without the 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 your mind or mine; but, that any immediate object
of the senses, -- that is, any idea, or combination of ideas --
should exist in an unthinking substance, or exterior to <all>
minds, is in itself an evident contradiction. Nor can I imagine
how this follows from what you said just now, to wit, that the
red and yellow were on the tulip <you saw>, since you do not
pretend to <see> that unthinking substance.
<Hyl>. You have an artful way, Philonous, of diverting our
inquiry from the subject.
<Phil>. I see you have no mind to be pressed that way. To
return then to your distinction between <sensation> and <object>;
if I take you right, you distinguish in every perception two
things, the one an action of the mind, the other not.
<Hyl>. True.
<Phil>. And this action cannot exist in, or belong to, any
unthinking thing; but, whatever beside is implied in a perception
may? {196}
<Hyl>. That is my meaning.
<Phil>. So that if there was a perception without any act of
the mind, it were possible such a perception should exist in an
unthinking substance?
<Hyl>. I grant it. But it is impossible there should be such
a perception.
<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 an act of the will?
<Hyl>. It cannot.
<Phil>. The mind therefore is to be accounted <active> in
its perceptions so far forth as <volition> is included in them?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. In plucking this flower I am active; because I do it
by the motion of my hand, which was consequent upon my volition;
so likewise in applying it to my nose. But is either of these
smelling?
<Hyl>. <No>.
<Phil>. I act too in drawing the air through my nose;
because my breathing so rather than otherwise is the effect of my
volition. But neither can this be called <smelling>: for, if it
were, I should smell every 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 more there is -- as that I perceive such a particular
smell, or any smell at all -- 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, or keep 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 looking on this flower you perceive <white> rather than
any other colour? Or, directing your open eyes towards yonder
part of the heaven, can you avoid seeing the sun? Or is light or
darkness the effect of your volition?
<Hyl>. No, certainly.
<Phil>. You are then in these respects altogether passive?
{197}
<Hyl>. I am.
<Phil>. Tell me now, whether <seeing> consists in perceiving
light and colours, or in opening and turning the eyes?
<Hyl>. Without doubt, in the former.
<Phil>. Since therefore you are in the very perception of
light and colours altogether passive, what is become of that
action you were speaking of as an ingredient in every sensation?
And, doth it not follow from your own concessions, that the
perception of light and colours, including no action in it, may
exist in an unperceiving substance? And is not this a plain
contradiction?
<Hyl>. I know not what to think of it.
<Phil>. Besides, since you distinguish the <active> and
<passive> in every perception, you must do it in that of pain.
But how is it possible that pain, be it as little active as you
please, should exist in an unperceiving substance? In short, do
but consider the point, and then confess ingenuously, whether
light and colours, tastes, sounds, &c. are not all equally
passions or sensations in the soul. You may indeed call them
<external objects>, and give them in words what subsistence you
please. But, examine your own thoughts, and then tell me whether
it be not as I say?
<Hyl>. I acknowledge, Philonous, that, upon a fair
observation of what passes in my mind, I can discover nothing
else but that I am a thinking being, affected with variety of
sensations; neither is it possible to conceive how a sensation
should exist in an unperceiving substance. But then, on the other
hand, when I look on sensible things in a different view,
considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it
necessary to suppose a <material substratum>, without which they
cannot be conceived to exist.
<Phil>. <Material substratum> call you it? Pray, by which of
your senses came you acquainted with that being?
<Hyl>. It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities
only being perceived by the senses.
<Phil>. I presume then it was by reflexion and reason you
obtained
the idea of it?
<Hyl>. I do not pretend to any proper positive <idea> of it.
However, I conclude it exists, because qualities cannot be
conceived to exist without a support.
<Phil>. It seems then you have only a relative <notion> of
it, or that you conceive it not otherwise than by conceiving the
relation it bears to sensible qualities? {198}
<Hyl>. Right.
<Phil>. Be pleased therefore to let me know wherein that
relation
consists.
<Hyl>. Is it not sufficiently expressed in the term
<substratum>, or <substance>?
<Phil>. If so, the word <substratum> should import that it
is spread under 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
distinct
from extension?
<Hyl>. I tell you, extension is only a mode, and Matter is
something that supports modes. And is it not evident the thing
supported is different from the thing supporting?
<Phil>. So that something distinct from, and exclusive of,
extension is supposed to be the <substratum> of extension?
<Hyl>. Just so.
<Phil>. Answer me, Hylas. Can a thing be spread without
extension? or is not the idea of extension necessarily included
in <spreading>?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. Whatsoever therefore you suppose spread under
anything must have in itself an extension distinct from the
extension of that thing under which it is spread?
<Hyl>. It must.
<Phil>. Consequently, every corporeal substance, being the
<substratum> of extension, must have in itself another extension,
by which it is qualified to be a <substratum>: and so on to
infinity. And I ask whether this be not absurd in itself, and
repugnant to what you granted just now, to wit, that the
<substratum> was something distinct from and exclusive of
extension?
<Hyl>. Aye but, Philonous, you take me wrong. I do not mean
that Matter is <spread> in a gross literal sense under extension.
The word <substratum> is used only to express in general the same
thing with <substance>.
<Phil>. Well then, let us examine the relation implied in
the term <substance>. Is it not that it stands under accidents?
<Hyl>. The very same.
<Phil>. But, that one thing may stand under or support
another, must it not be extended?
<Hyl>. It must. {199}
<Phil>. Is not therefore this supposition liable to the same
absurdity with 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 liberty to explain them as you please. Only, I beseech
you, make me understand something 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 you understand 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 well enough what was meant by Matter's supporting
accidents. But now, the more I think on it the less can I
comprehend it: in short I find that I know nothing of it.
<Phil>. It seems then you have no idea at all, neither
relative nor positive, of Matter; you know neither what it is in
itself, nor what relation it bears to accidents?
<Hyl>. I acknowledge it.
<Phil>. And yet you asserted that you could not conceive how
qualities or accidents should really exist, without conceiving at
the same time a material support of them?
<Hyl>. I did.
<Phil>. That is to say, when you conceive the real existence
of qualities, you do withal conceive Something which you cannot
conceive?
<Hyl>. It was wrong, I own. But still I fear there is some
fallacy or other. Pray what think you of this? It is just come
into my head that the ground of all our mistake lies in your
treating of each quality by itself. Now, I grant that each
quality cannot singly subsist without the mind. Colour cannot
without extension, neither can figure without some other sensible
quality. But, as the several qualities united or blended together
form entire sensible things, nothing hinders why such things may
not be supposed to exist without the mind.
<Phil>. Either, Hylas, you are jesting, or have a very bad
memory. Though indeed we went through all the qualities by name
one after another, yet my arguments or rather your concessions,
nowhere tended to prove that the Secondary Qualities did not
subsist each alone by itself; but, that they were not {200} <at
all> without the mind. Indeed, in treating of figure and motion
we concluded they could not exist without the mind, because it
was impossible even in thought to separate them from all
secondary qualities, so as to conceive them existing by
themselves. But then this was not the only argument made use of
upon that occasion. But (to pass by all that hath been hitherto
said, and reckon it for nothing, if you will have it so) I am
content to put the whole upon this issue. If you can conceive it
possible for any mixture or combination of qualities, or any
sensible object whatever, to exist without the mind, then I will
grant it actually to be so.
<Hyl>. If it comes to that the point will soon be decided.
What more easy than to conceive a tree or house existing by
itself, independent of, and unperceived by, any mind whatsoever?
I do at this present time conceive them existing after that
manner.
<Phil>. How say you, Hylas, can you see a thing which is at
the same time unseen?
<Hyl>. No, that were a contradiction.
<Phil>. Is it not as great a contradiction to talk of
<conceiving> a thing which is <unconceived>?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. The, tree or house therefore which you think of is
conceived by you?
<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 existing independent and out of all minds whatsoever?
<Hyl>. That was I own an oversight; but stay, let me
consider what led me into it. -- It is a pleasant mistake enough.
As I was thinking of a tree in a solitary place, where no one was
present to see it, methought that was to conceive a tree as
existing unperceived or unthought of; not considering that I
myself conceived it all the while. But now I plainly see that all
I can do is to frame ideas in my own mind. I may indeed conceive
in my own thoughts the idea of a tree, or a house, or a mountain,
but that is all. And this is far from proving that I can conceive
them <existing out of the minds of all Spirits>.
<Phil>. You acknowledge then that you cannot possibly
conceive how any one corporeal sensible thing should exist
otherwise than in the mind? {201}
<Hyl>. I do.
<Phil>. And yet you will earnestly contend for the truth of
that which you cannot so much as conceive?
<Hyl>. I profess I know not what to think; but still there
are some scruples 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 way off? 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 be without the mind?
<Hyl>. By no means.
<Phil>. You ought not therefore to conclude that sensible
objects are without the mind, from their appearance, or manner
wherein they are perceived.
<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 the mind. By sense you only know that you are
affected with such certain sensations of light and colours, &c.
And these you will not say are without the mind.
<Hyl>. True: but, beside all that, do you not think the
sight suggests something of <outness or distance>?
<Phil>. Upon approaching a distant object, do the visible
size and figure change 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 the visible object you immediately perceive exists at a
distance, or will be perceived when you advance farther onward;
there being a continued series of visible objects succeeding each
other during the whole time of your approach.
<Hyl>. It doth not; but still I know, upon seeing an object,
what object I shall perceive after having passed over a certain
distance: {202} no matter whether it be exactly the same or no:
there is still something of distance suggested in the case.
<Phil>. Good Hylas, do but reflect a little on the point,
and then tell me whether there be any more in it than this: from
the ideas you actually perceive by sight, you have by experience
learned to collect what other ideas you will (according to the
standing order of nature) be affected with, 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 a sudden made to see, he could at first have no
experience of what may be <suggested> by sight?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. He would not then, according to you, have any notion
of distance annexed to the things he saw; but would take them for
a new set of sensations, existing only in his mind?
<Hyl>. It is undeniable.
<Phil>. But, to make it still more plain: is not <distance>
a line turned endwise 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 and immediately 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 same place 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 the very same with regard to both?
<Hyl>. I know not what to answer.
<Phil>. But, allowing that distance was truly and
immediately perceived by 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 exist out of the mind?
<Hyl>. To suppose that were absurd: but, inform me,
Philonous, can we perceive or know nothing beside our ideas?
<Phil>. As for the rational deducing of causes from effects,
{203} that is beside our inquiry. And, by the senses you can best
tell whether you perceive anything which is not immediately
perceived. And I ask you, whether the things immediately
perceived are other than your own sensations or ideas? You have
indeed more than once, in the course of this conversation,
declared yourself on those points; but you seem, by this last
question, to have departed from what you then thought.
<Hyl>. To speak the truth, Philonous, I think there are two
kinds of objects: -- the one perceived immediately, which are
likewise called <ideas>; the other are real things or external
objects, perceived by the mediation of ideas, which are their
images and representations. Now, I own ideas do not exist without
the mind; but the latter sort of objects do. I am sorry I did not
think of this distinction sooner; it would probably have cut
short your discourse.
<Phil>. Are those external objects perceived by sense or by
some other faculty?
<Hyl>. They are perceived by sense.
<Phil>. Howl Is there any thing perceived by sense which is
not immediately perceived?
<Hyl>. Yes, Philonous, in some sort there is. For example,
when I look on a picture or statue of Julius Caesar, I may be
said after a manner to perceive him (though not immediately) by
my senses.
<Phil>. It seems then you will have our ideas, which alone
are immediately perceived, to be pictures of external things: and
that these also are perceived by sense, inasmuch as they have a
conformity or resemblance to our ideas?
<Hyl>. That is my meaning.
<Phil>. And, in the same way that Julius Caesar, in himself
invisible, is nevertheless perceived by sight; real things, in
themselves imperceptible, are perceived by sense.
<Hyl>. In the very same.
<Phil>. Tell me, Hylas, when you behold the picture of
Julius Caesar, do you see with your eyes any more than some
colours and figures, with a certain symmetry and composition of
the whole?
<Hyl>. Nothing else.
<Phil>. And would not a man who had never known anything of
Julius Caesar see as much? {204}
<Hyl>. He would.
<Phil>. Consequently he hath his sight, and the use of it,
in as perfect a degree as you?
<Hyl>. I agree with you.
<Phil>. Whence comes it then that your thoughts are directed
to the Roman emperor, and his are not? This cannot proceed from
the sensations or ideas of sense by you then perceived; since you
acknowledge you have no advantage over him in that respect. It
should seem therefore to proceed from reason and memory: should
it not?
<Hyl>. It should.
<Phil>. Consequently, it will not follow from that instance
that anything is perceived by sense which is not, immediately
perceived. Though I grant we may, in one acceptation, be said to
perceive sensible things mediately by sense: that is, when, from
a frequently perceived connexion, the immediate perception of
ideas by one sense <suggests> to the mind others, perhaps
belonging to another sense, which are wont to be connected with
them. For instance, when I hear a coach drive along the streets,
immediately I perceive only the sound; but, from the experience I
have had that such a sound is connected with a coach, I am said
to hear the coach. It is nevertheless evident that, in truth and
strictness, nothing can be <heard but sound>; and the coach is
not then properly perceived by sense, but suggested from
experience. So likewise when we are said to see a red-hot bar of
iron; the solidity and heat of the iron are not the objects of
sight, but suggested to the imagination by the colour and figure
which are properly perceived by that sense. In short, those
things alone are actually and strictly perceived by any sense,
which would have been perceived in case that same sense had then
been first conferred on us. As for other things, it is plain they
are only suggested to the mind by experience, grounded on former
perceptions. But, to return to your comparison of Caesar's
picture, it is plain, if you keep to that, you must hold the real
things, or archetypes of our ideas, are not perceived by 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
for the existence of what you call <real things or material
objects>. Or, whether you remember to have seen them formerly as
they are in themselves; or, if you have heard or read of any one
that did. {205}
<Hyl>. I see, Philonous, you are disposed to raillery; but
that will never convince me.
<Phil>. My aim is only to learn from you the way to come at
the knowledge of <material beings>. Whatever we perceive is
perceived immediately or mediately: by sense, or by reason and
reflexion. But, as you have excluded sense, pray shew me what
reason you have to believe their existence; 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 not find I can give you any good reason for it. But,
thus much seems pretty plain, that it is at least possible such
things may really exist. And, as long as there is no absurdity in
supposing them, I am resolved to believe as I did, till you bring
good reasons to the contrary.
<Phil>. What! Is it come to this, that you only <believe>
the existence of material objects, and that your belief is
founded barely on the possibility of its being true? Then you
will have me bring reasons against it: though another would think
it reasonable the proof should lie on him who holds the
affirmative. And, after all, this very point which you are now
resolved to maintain, without any reason, is in effect what you
have more than once during this discourse seen good reason to
give up. But, to pass over all this; if I understand you rightly,
you say our ideas do not exist without the mind, but that they
are copies, images, or representations, 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 of our senses; or are they in a perpetual change,
upon our producing any motions in our bodies -- suspending,
exerting, or altering, our faculties or organs of sense?
<Hyl>. Real things, it is plain, have a fixed and real
nature, which remains the same notwithstanding any change in our
senses, or in the posture and motion of our bodies; which indeed
may affect the ideas in our minds, but it were absurd to think
they had the same effect on things existing without the mind.
<Phil>. How then is it possible that things perpetually
fleeting and variable as our ideas should be copies or images of
anything fixed and constant? Or, in other words, since all
sensible {206} qualities, as size, figure, colour, &c., that is,
our ideas, are continually changing, upon every alteration in the
distance, medium, or instruments of sensation; how can any
determinate material objects be properly represented or painted
forth by several distinct things, each of which is so different
from and unlike the rest? Or, if you say it resembles some one
only of our ideas, how shall we be able to distinguish the true
copy from all the false ones?
<Hyl>. I profess, Philonous, I am at a loss. I know not what
to say to this.
<Phil>. But neither is this all. Which are material objects
in themselves -- perceptible or imperceptible?
<Hyl>. Properly and immediately nothing can be perceived but
ideas. All material things, therefore, are in themselves
insensible, and to be perceived only by our ideas.
<Phil>. Ideas then are sensible, and their archetypes or
originals insensible?
<Hyl>. Right.
<Phil>. But how can that which is sensible be like that
which is insensible? 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. you not perfectly know your own ideas?
<Hyl>. I know them perfectly; since what I do not perceive
or know can be no part of my idea.
<Phil>. Consider, therefore, and examine them, and then tell
me if there be anything in them which can exist without the mind:
or if you can conceive anything like them existing without the
mind.
<Hyl>. Upon inquiry, I find it is impossible for me to
conceive or understand how anything but an idea can be like an
idea. And it is most evident that <no idea can exist without the
mind>.
<Phil>. You are therefore, by your principles, forced to
deny the <reality> of sensible things; since you made it to
consist in an absolute existence exterior to the mind. That is to
say, you are a downright sceptic. So I have gained my point,
which was to shew your principles led to Scepticism. {207}
<Hyl>. For the present I am, if not entirely convinced, at
least silenced.
<Phil>. I would fain know what more you would require in
order to a perfect conviction. Have you not had the liberty of
explaining yourself all manner of ways? Were any little slips in
discourse laid hold and insisted on? Or were you not allowed to
retract or reinforce anything you had offered, as best served
your purpose? Hath not everything you could say been heard and
examined with all the fairness imaginable? In a word have you not
in every point been convinced out of your own mouth? And, if you
can at present discover any flaw in any of your former
concessions, or think of any remaining subterfuge, any new
distinction, colour, or comment whatsoever, why do you not
produce it?
<Hyl>. A little patience, Philonous. I am at present so
amazed to see myself ensnared, and as it were imprisoned in the
labyrinths you have drawn me into, that on the sudden it cannot
be expected I should find my way 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 tomorrow morning. In the meantime, you may employ your
thoughts on this morning's discourse, and try if you can find any
fallacy in it, or invent any new means to extricate yourself.
<Hyl>. Agreed. {208}
THE SECOND DIALOGUE
<Hylas>. I beg your pardon, Philonous, for not meeting you
sooner. All this morning my head was so filled with our late
conversation that I had not 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 were any mistakes in your concessions, or fallacies in
my reasonings from them, you will now discover them to me.
<Hyl>. I assure you I have done nothing ever since I saw you
but search after mistakes and fallacies, and, with that view,
have minutely examined the whole series of yesterday's discourse:
but all in vain, for the notions it led me into, upon review,
appear still more clear and evident; and, the more I consider
them, the more irresistibly do they force my assent.
<Phil>. And is not this, think you, a sign that they are
genuine, that they proceed from nature, and are conformable to
right reason? Truth and beauty are in this alike, that the
strictest survey sets them both off to advantage; while the false
lustre of error and disguise cannot endure being reviewed, or too
nearly inspected.
<Hyl>. I own there is a great deal in what you say. Nor can
any one be more entirely satisfied of the truth of those odd
consequences, so long as I have in view the reasonings that lead
to them. But, when these are out of my thoughts, there seems, on
the other hand, something so satisfactory, so natural and
intelligible, in the modern way of explaining 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 the brain, from which the nerves take their rise, and are
thence extended to all parts of the body; and that outward
objects, by the different impressions they make on the organs of
sense, communicate certain vibrative motions to the nerves; and
these being filled with spirits propagate them to the brain {209}
or seat of the soul, which, according to the various impressions
or traces thereby made in the brain, is variously affected with
ideas.
<Phil>. And call you this an explication of the manner
whereby we are affected 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 our ideas. 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 things which are immediately perceivable are ideas; and
these exist only in the mind. 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, exists only in the mind. Now, I would fain know whether
you think it reasonable to suppose that one idea or thing
existing in the mind occasions all other ideas. And, if you think
so, pray how do you account for the origin of that primary idea
or brain itself?
<Hyl>. I do not explain the origin of our ideas by that
brain which is perceivable to sense -- this being itself only a
combination of sensible ideas -- but by another which I imagine.
<Phil>. But are not things imagined as truly <in the mind>
as things perceived?
<Hyl>. I must confess they are.
<Phil>. It comes, therefore, to the same thing; and you have
been all this while accounting for ideas by certain motions or
impressions of the brain; that is, by some alterations in an
idea, whether sensible or imaginable 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 the brain, do you conceive this brain or no? If
you do, then you talk of ideas imprinted in an idea causing that
same idea, which is absurd. If you do not conceive it, you talk
unintelligibly, instead of forming a reasonable hypothesis. {210}
<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 of explaining things, as you called it, could never have
satisfied any reasonable 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 possible these should be the effect of
that?
<Hyl>. But I could never think it had so little in it as now
it seems to have.
<Phil>. Well then, are you at length satisfied that no
sensible things have 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? Is there not something in the woods and groves, in the
rivers and clear springs, that soothes, that delights, that
transports the soul? At the prospect of the wide and deep ocean,
or some huge mountain whose top is lost in the clouds, or of an
old gloomy forest, are not our minds filled with a pleasing
horror? Even in rocks and deserts is there not an agreeable
wildness? How sincere a pleasure is it to behold the natural
beauties of the earth! To preserve and renew our, relish for
them, is not the veil of night alternately drawn over her face,
and doth she not change her dress with the seasons? How aptly are
the elements disposed! What variety and use [in the meanest
productions of nature]![4] What delicacy, what beauty, what
contrivance, in animal and vegetable bodies I How exquisitely are
all things suited, as well to their particular ends, as to
constitute opposite parts of the whole I And, while they mutually
aid and support, do they not also set off and illustrate each
other? Raise now your thoughts from this ball of earth to all
those glorious luminaries that adorn the high arch of heaven. The
motion and situation of the planets, are they not admirable for
use and order? Were those (miscalled <erratic>) globes once known
to stray, in their repeated journeys through the pathless void?
Do they not measure areas round the sun ever proportioned to the
times? So fixed, so immutable are the laws by which the unseen
Author of nature actuates the universe. {211} How vivid and
radiant is the lustre of the fixed stars! How magnificent and
rich that negligent profusion with which they appear to be
scattered throughout the whole azure vault! Yet, if you take the
telescope, it brings 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 orbs of fight at various distances, far
sunk in the abyss of space. Now you must call imagination to your
aid. The feeble narrow sense cannot descry innumerable worlds
revolving round the central fires; and in those worlds the energy
of an all-perfect Mind displayed in endless forms. But, neither
sense nor imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundless
extent, with all its glittering furniture. Though the labouring
mind exert and strain each power to its utmost reach, there still
stands out ungrasped a surplusage immeasurable. Yet all the vast
bodies that compose this mighty frame, how distant and remote
soever, are by some secret mechanism, some Divine art and force,
linked in a mutual dependence and intercourse with each other;
even with this earth, which was almost slipt from my thoughts and
lost in the crowd of worlds. Is not the whole system immense,
beautiful, glorious beyond expression and beyond thought! What
treatment, then, do those philosophers deserve, who would deprive
these noble and delightful scenes of all <reality>? How should
those Principles be entertained that lead us to think all the
visible beauty of the creation a false imaginary glare? To be
plain, can you expect this Scepticism of yours will not be
thought extravagantly absurd by all men of sense?
<Hyl>. Other men may think as they please; but for your part
you have nothing to reproach me with. My comfort is, you are as
much a sceptic as I 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 now deny the conclusion, and leave me to maintain those
paradoxes by myself which you led me into? This surely is not
fair.
<Phil>. <I> deny that I agreed with you in those notions
that led to Scepticism. You indeed said the <reality> of sensible
things consisted in <an absolute existence out of the minds of
spirits>, or distinct from their being perceived. And pursuant to
this notion of reality, <you> are obliged to deny sensible things
any {212} real existence: that is, according to your own
definition, you profess yourself a sceptic. But I neither said
nor thought the reality of sensible things was to be defined
after that manner. To me it is evident for the reasons you allow
of, that sensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or
spirit. Whence I conclude, not that they have no real existence,
but that., seeing they depend not on my thought, and have all
existence distinct from being perceived by me, <there must be
some other Mind wherein they exist>. As sure, therefore, as the
sensible world really exists, so sure is there an infinite
omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it.
<Hyl>. What! This is no more than I and all Christians hold;
nay, and all others too who believe there is a God, and that He
knows and comprehends all things.
<Phil>. Aye, but here lies the difference. Men commonly
believe that all things are known or perceived by God, because
they believe the being of a God; whereas I, on the other side,
immediately and necessarily conclude the 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 it how 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, yet they attribute to them an absolute
subsistence distinct from their being perceived by any mind
whatever; which I do not. Besides, is there no difference between
saying, <There is a God>, <therefore He perceives all things>;
and saying, <Sensible things do really exist>; <and>, <if they
really exist>, <they are necessarily perceived by an infinite
Mind>: <therefore there is an infinite Mind or God>? This
furnishes you with a direct and immediate demonstration, from a
most evident principle, of the <being of a God>. Divines and
philosophers had proved beyond all controversy, from the beauty
and usefulness of the several parts of the creation, that it was
the workmanship of God. But that -- setting aside all help of
astronomy and natural philosophy, all contemplation of the
contrivance, order, and adjustment of things -- an infinite Mind
should be necessarily inferred from the bare <existence of the
sensible world>, is an advantage to them only who have made this
easy reflexion: that the sensible world is that which we perceive
by our several senses; and that nothing is perceived by the
senses beside ideas; and that no {213} idea or archetype of an
idea can exist otherwise than in a mind. You may now, without any
laborious search into the sciences, without any subtlety of
reason, or tedious length of discourse, oppose and baffle the
most strenuous advocate for Atheism. Those miserable refuges,
whether in an eternal succession of unthinking causes and
effects, or in a fortuitous concourse of atoms; those wild
imaginations of Vanini, Hobbes, and Spinoza: in a word, the whole
system of Atheism, is it not entirely overthrown, by this single
reflexion on the repugnancy included in supposing the whole, or
any part, even the most rude and shapeless, of the visible world,
to exist without a mind? Let any one of those abettors of impiety
but look into his own thoughts, and there try if he can conceive
how so much as a rock, a desert, a chaos, or confused jumble of
atoms; how anything at all, either sensible or imaginable, can
exist independent of a Mind, and he need go no farther to be
convinced of his folly. Can anything be fairer than to put a
dispute on such an issue, and leave 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 real existence?
<Hyl>. It cannot be denied there is something highly
serviceable to religion in what you advance. But do you not think
it looks very like a notion entertained by some eminent moderns,
of <seeing all things in God>?
<Phil>. I would gladly know that opinion: pray explain it to
me.
<Hyl>. They conceive that the soul, being immaterial, is
incapable of being 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 of being the immediate object of a
spirit's thought. Besides the Divine essence contains in it
perfections correspondent to each created being; and which are,
for that reason, proper to exhibit or represent them to the mind.
<Phil>. I do not understand how our ideas, which are things
altogether passive and inert, can be the essence, or any part (or
like any part) of the essence or substance of God, who is an
{214} impassive, indivisible, pure, active being. Many more
difficulties and objections there are which occur at first view
against this hypothesis; but I shall only add that it is liable
to all the absurdities of the common hypothesis, in making a
created world exist otherwise than in the mind of a Spirit.
Besides all which it hath this peculiar to itself; that it makes
that material world serve to no purpose. And, if it pass for a
good argument against other hypotheses in the sciences, that they
suppose Nature, or the Divine wisdom, to make something in vain,
or do that by tedious roundabout methods which might have been
performed in a much more easy and compendious way, what shall we
think of that hypothesis which supposes the whole world made in
vain?
<Hyl>. But what say you? Are not you too of opinion that we
see all things in God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes
near it.
<Phil>. [Few men think; yet all have opinions. Hence men's
opinions are superficial and confused. It is nothing strange that
tenets which in themselves are ever so different, should
nevertheless be confounded with each other, by those who do not
consider them attentively. I shall not therefore be surprised if
some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasm of Malebranche;
though in truth I am very remote from it. He builds on the most
abstract general ideas, which I entirely disclaim. He asserts an
absolute external world, which I deny. He maintains that we are
deceived by our senses, and, know not the real natures or the
true forms and figures of extended beings; of all which I hold
the direct contrary. So that upon the whole there are no
Principles more fundamentally opposite than his and mine. It must
be owned that][5] I entirely agree with what the holy Scripture
saith, "That in God we live and move and have our being." But
that we see things in His essence, after the manner above set
forth, I am far from believing. Take here in brief my meaning: --
It is evident that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and
that no idea can exist unless it be in a mind: nor is it less
plain that these ideas or things by me perceived, either
themselves or their archetypes, exist independently of my mind,
since I know myself not to be their author, it being out of my
power to determine at pleasure what particular ideas I shall be
affected with upon opening my eyes or ears: they must therefore
exist in some other Mind, whose {215} Will it is they should be
exhibited to 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, or be produced by, anything but a
mind or spirit? This indeed is inconceivable. And to assert that
which is inconceivable is to talk nonsense: is it not?
<Hyl>. Without doubt.
<Phil>. But, on the other hand, it is very conceivable that
they should exist in and be produced by a spirit; since this is
no more than I daily experience in myself, inasmuch as I perceive
numberless ideas; and, by an act of my will, can form a great
variety of them, and raise them up in my imagination: though, it
must be confessed, these creatures of the fancy are not
altogether so distinct, so strong, vivid, and permanent, as those
perceived by my senses -- which latter are called <red things>.
From all which I conclude, <there is a Mind which affects me
every moment with all the sensible impressions I perceive>.
<And>, from the variety, order, and manner of these, I conclude
<the Author of them to be wise>, <powerful>, <and good>, <beyond
comprehension>. <Mark> it well; I do not say, I see things by
perceiving that which represents them in the intelligible
Substance of God. This I do not understand; but I say, the things
by me perceived are known by the understanding, and produced by
the will of an infinite Spirit. And is not all this most plain
and evident? Is there any more in it than what a little
observation in our own minds, and that which passeth in them, not
only enables us to conceive, but also obliges us to acknowledge.
<Hyl>. I think I understand you very clearly; and own the
proof you give of a Deity seems no less evident than it is
surprising. But, allowing that God is the supreme and universal
Cause of an things, yet, may there not be still a Third Nature
besides Spirits and Ideas? May we not admit a subordinate and
limited cause of our ideas? In a word, may there not for all that
be <Matter>?
<Phil>. How often must I inculcate the same thing? You allow
the things immediately perceived by sense to exist nowhere
without the mind; but there is nothing perceived by sense which
is not perceived immediately: therefore there is nothing sensible
that exists without the mind. The Matter, therefore, which you
still insist on is something intelligible, I suppose; something
that may be discovered by reason, and not by sense.
<Hyl>. You are in the right. {216}
<Phil>. Pray let me know what reasoning your belief of
Matter is grounded on; and what this Matter is, in your present
sense of it.
<Hyl>. I find myself affected with various ideas, whereof I
know I am not the 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 distinct from me and
them: of which I pretend to know no more than that it is <the
cause of my ideas>. And this thing, whatever it be, I call
Matter.
<Phil>. Tell me, Hylas, hath every one a liberty to change
the current proper signification attached to a common name in any
language? For example, suppose a traveller should tell you that
in a certain country men pass unhurt through the fire; and, upon
explaining himself, you found he meant by the word fire that
which others call <water>. Or, if he should assert that there are
trees that walk upon two legs, meaning men by the term <trees>.
Would you think this reasonable?
<Hyl>. No; I should think it very absurd. Common custom is
the standard of propriety in language. And for any man to affect
speaking improperly is to pervert the use of speech, and can
never serve to a better purpose than to protract and multiply
disputes, where there is no difference in opinion.
<Phil>. And doth not <Matter>, in the common current
acceptation of the word, signify an extended, solid, moveable,
unthinking, inactive Substance?
<Hyl>. It doth.
<Phil>. And, hath it not been made evident that no <such>
substance can possibly exist? And, though it should be allowed to
exist, yet how can that which is <inactive> be a <cause>; or that
which is <unthinking> be a <cause of thought>? You may, indeed,
if you please, annex to the word <Matter> a contrary meaning to
what is vulgarly received; and tell me you understand by it, an
unextended, thinking, active being, which is the cause of our
ideas. But what else is this than to play with words, and run
into that very fault you just now condemned with so much reason?
I do by no means find fault with your reasoning, in that you
collect a cause from the <phenomena>: <but> I deny that <the>
cause deducible by reason can properly be termed Matter.
<Hyl>. There is indeed something in what you say. But I am
{217} afraid you do not thoroughly comprehend my meaning. I would
by no means be thought to deny that God, or an infinite Spirit,
is the Supreme Cause of all 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 the production 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
exploded conceit, of a moveable, and consequently an extended,
substance, existing without the mind. What! Have you already
forgotten you were convinced; or are you willing I should repeat
what has been said on that head? In truth this is not fair
dealing in you, still to suppose the being of that which you have
so often acknowledged to have no being. But, not to insist
farther on what has been so largely handled, I ask whether all
your ideas are 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 my finger, it remains passive; but my will which
produced the motion is active.
<Phil>. Now, I desire to know, in the first place, whether,
motion being allowed to be no action, you can conceive any action
besides volition: and, in the second place, whether to say
something and conceive nothing be not to talk nonsense: and,
lastly, whether, having considered the premises, you do not
perceive that to suppose any efficient or active Cause of our
ideas, other than <Spirit>, is highly absurd and unreasonable?
<Hyl>. I give up the point entirely. But, though Matter may
not be a cause, yet what hinders its being an <instrument>,
subservient to the supreme 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 and its qualities being entirely unknown to me.
<Phil>. What? You are then of opinion it is made up of {218}
unknown parts, that it hath unknown motions, and an unknown
shape?
<Hyl>. I do not believe that it hath any figure or motion at
all, being already convinced, that no sensible qualities can
exist in an unperceiving substance.
<Phil>. But what notion is it possible to frame of an
instrument void of all 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, this
inconceivable Somewhat doth exist? Is it that you imagine God
cannot act as well without it; or that you find by experience the
use of some such thing, when you form ideas in your own mind?
<Hyl>. You are always teasing me for reasons of my belief.
Pray what reasons have you not to believe it?
<Phil>. It is to me a sufficient reason not to believe the
existence of anything, if I see no reason for believing it. But,
not to insist on reasons for believing, you will not so much as
let me know <what it is> you would have me believe; since you say
you have no manner of notion of it. After all, let me entreat you
to consider whether it be like a philosopher, or even like a man
of common sense, to pretend to believe you know not what ' and
you know not why.
<Hyl>. Hold, Philonous. When I tell you Matter is an
<instrument>, I do not mean altogether nothing. It is true I know
not the particular kind of instrument; 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 the most general notion of <instrument>, as taken in a
distinct sense from <cause>, which makes the use of it
inconsistent with the Divine attributes?
<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 the general notion.
<Phil>. Is it not common to all instruments, that they are
applied to the doing those things only which cannot be performed
by the mere act of our wills? 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 to remove part of a rock, or tear
up a tree by the roots. Are you of the same mind? {219} Or, can
you shew any example where an instrument is made use of in
producing an effect <immediately> depending on the will of the
agent?
<Hyl>. I own I cannot.
<Phil>. How therefore can you suppose that an All-perfect
Spirit, on whose Will all things have an absolute and immediate
dependence, should need 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 lifeless inactive instrument to be
incompatible with the infinite perfection of God; 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 has been fairly proved to you. We indeed, who are beings
of finite powers, are forced to make use of instruments. And the
use of an instrument sheweth the agent to be limited by rules of
another's prescription, and that he cannot obtain his end but in
such a way, and by such conditions. Whence it seems a clear
consequence, that the supreme unlimited agent useth no tool or
instrument at all. The will of an Omnipotent Spirit is no sooner
exerted than executed, without the application of means; which,
if they are employed by inferior agents, it is not upon account
of any real efficacy that is in them, or necessary aptitude to
produce any effect, but merely in compliance with the laws of
nature, or those conditions prescribed to them by the First
Cause, who is Himself above all limitation or prescription
whatsoever.
<Hyl>. I will no longer maintain that Matter is an
instrument. However, I would 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 be proved not to exist, before you are content to
part with it? But, to say no more of this (though by all the laws
of disputation I may justly blame you for so frequently changing
the signification of the principal term) -- I would fain know
what you mean by affirming that matter is an occasion, having
already denied it to be a cause. And, when you have shewn in what
sense you understand <occasion>, pray, in the next place, be
pleased to shew me what reason induceth you to believe there is
such an occasion of our ideas?
<Hyl>. As to the first point: by <occasion> I mean an
inactive {220} unthinking 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 we should allow an existence to this inactive,
unthinking, unknown thing.
<Hyl>. When we see ideas produced in our minds, after an
orderly and constant manner, it is natural to think they have
some fixed and regular occasions, at the presence of which they
are excited.
<Phil>. You acknowledge then God alone to be the cause of
our ideas, and that 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 He perceives.
<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, or answering all the puzzling questions and
difficulties it is liable to: I only ask whether the order and
regularity observable in the series of our ideas, or the course
of nature, be not sufficiently accounted for by the wisdom and
power of God; and whether it doth not derogate from those
attributes, to suppose He is influenced, directed, or put in
mind, when and 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 your purpose; it not being easy to
conceive how the external or absolute existence of an unthinking
substance, distinct from its being perceived, can be inferred
from my allowing that there are certain things perceived by the
mind of God, which are to Him the occasion of producing ideas in
us?
<Hyl>. I am perfectly at a loss what to think, this notion
of <occasion> seeming now altogether as groundless as the rest.
<Phil>. Do you not at length perceive that in all these
different acceptations 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 been so accurately examined. But still, methinks, I
have some confused perception that there is such a thing as
<Matter>. {221}
<Phil>. Either you perceive the being of Matter immediately
or mediately. If immediately, pray inform me by which of the
senses you perceive it. If mediately, let me know by what
reasoning it is inferred from those things which you perceive
immediately. So much for the perception. Then for the Matter
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 one shape, then in another. And what you have
offered hath been disapproved and rejected by yourself. If you
have anything new to advance I would gladly bear it.
<Hyl>. I think I have already offered all I had to say on
those heads. I am at a loss what more to urge.
<Phil>. And yet you are loath to part with your old
prejudice. But, to make you quit it more easily, I desire that,
beside what has been hitherto suggested, you will farther
consider whether, upon. supposition that Matter exists, you can
possibly conceive how you should be affected by it. Or, supposing
it did not exist, whether it be not evident you might for all
that be affected with the same ideas you now are, and
consequently have the very same reasons to believe its existence
that you now can have.
<Hyl>. I acknowledge it is possible we might perceive all
things just as we do now, though there was no Matter in the
world; neither can I conceive, if there be Matter, how it should
produce' any idea in our minds. And, I do farther grant you have
entirely satisfied me that it is impossible there should be such
a thing as matter in any of the foregoing acceptations. But still
I cannot help supposing that there is <Matter> in some 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 that unknown being. Only be pleased to tell me whether it is a
Substance; and if so, whether you can suppose a Substance without
accidents; or, in case you suppose it to have accidents or
qualities, I desire you will let me know what those qualities
are, at least what is meant by Matter's supporting them?
<Hyl>. We have already argued on those points. I have no
more to say to them. But, to prevent any farther questions, let
me tell you I at present understand by <Matter> neither substance
nor accident, thinking nor extended being, neither cause,
instrument, nor occasion, but Something entirely unknown,
distinct from all these. {222}
<Phil>. It seems then you include in your present notion of
Matter nothing but the general abstract idea of <entity>.
<Hyl>. Nothing else; save only that I super-add to this
general idea the negation of all those particular things,
qualities, or ideas, that I perceive, 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 say it exists in place, then you will infer that it
exists in the mind, since it is agreed that place or extension
exists only in the mind. But I am not ashamed to own my
ignorance. I know not where it exists; only I am sure it exists
not in place. There is a negative answer for you. And you must
expect no other to all the questions you put for the future about
Matter.
<Phil>. Since you will not tell me where it exists, be
pleased to inform me after what manner you suppose it to exist,
or what you mean by its <existence>?
<Hyl>. It neither thinks nor acts, neither perceives nor is
perceived.
<Phil>. But what is there positive in your abstracted notion
of its existence?
<Hyl>. Upon a nice observation, I do not find I have any
positive notion or meaning at all. I tell you again, I am not
ashamed to own my ignorance. 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 me sincerely whether you can frame a distinct idea
of Entity in general, prescinded from and exclusive of all
thinking and corporeal beings, all particular things whatsoever.
<Hyl>. Hold, let me think a little -- I profess, Philonous,
I do not find that I can. At first glance, methought I had some
dilute and airy notion of Pure Entity in abstract; but, upon
closer attention, it hath quite vanished out of sight. The more I
think on it, the more am I confirmed in my prudent resolution of
giving none but negative answers, and not pretending to the least
degree of any positive knowledge or conception of Matter, its
<where>, its <how>, its <entity>, or anything belonging to it.
<Phil>. When, therefore, you speak of the existence of
Matter, you have not any notion in your mind?
<Hyl>. None at all.
<Phil>. Pray tell me if the case stands not thus -- At
first, from a belief of material substance, you would have it
that the {223} immediate objects existed without the mind; then
that they are archetypes; then causes; next instruments; then
occasions: lastly <something in general>, which being interpreted
proves <nothing>. So Matter comes to nothing. What think 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 being able to conceive a thing is no argument against its
existence.
<Phil>. That from a cause, effect, operation, sign, or other
circumstance, there may reasonably be inferred the existence of a
thing not immediately perceived; and that it were absurd for any
man to argue against the existence of that thing, from his having
no direct and positive notion of it, I freely own. But, where
there is nothing of all this; where neither reason nor revelation
induces us to believe the existence of a thing; where we have not
even a relative notion of it; where an abstraction is made from
perceiving and being perceived, from Spirit and idea: lastly,
where there is not so much as the most inadequate or faint idea
pretended to -- I will not indeed thence conclude against the
reality of any notion, or existence of anything; but my inference
shall be, that you mean nothing at all; that you employ words to
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 in themselves unanswerable; but they have not so great an
effect on me as to produce that entire conviction, that hearty
acquiescence, which attends demonstration. I find myself
relapsing into an obscure surmise of I know not what, <matter>.
<Phil>. But, are you not sensible, Hylas, that two things
must concur to take away all scruple, and work a plenary assent
in the mind,? Let a visible object be set in never so clear a
light, yet, if there is any imperfection in the sight, or if the
eye is not directed towards it, it will not be distinctly seen.
And though a demonstration be never so well grounded and fairly
proposed, yet, if there is withal a stain of prejudice, or a
wrong bias on the understanding, can it be expected on a sudden
to perceive clearly, and adhere firmly to the truth? No; there is
need of time and pains: the attention must be awakened and
detained by a frequent repetition of the same thing placed oft in
the same, oft in different lights. I have said it already, and
find I must still repeat and inculcate, that it is an
unaccountable licence {224} you take, in pretending 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 or science, any
sect or profession of men? Or is there anything so barefacedly
groundless and unreasonable to be met with even in the lowest of
common conversation? But, perhaps you will still say, Matter may
exist; though at the same time you neither know <what is meant>
by <Matter>, or by its <existence>. This indeed is surprising,
and the more so because it is altogether voluntary [and of your
own head],[6] you not being led to it by any one reason; for I
challenge you to shew me that thing in nature which needs Matter
to explain or account for it.
<Hyl>. <The reality> of things cannot be maintained without
supposing the existence of Matter. And is not this, think you, a
good reason why I should 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
sufficient evidence to me of the existence of this <glove>, that
I see it, and feel it, and wear it? Or, if this will not do, how
is it possible I should be assured 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 at all? How
can the supposed reality of that which is intangible be a proof
that anything tangible really exists? Or, of that which is
invisible, that any visible thing, or, in general of anything
which is imperceptible, that a perceptible exists? Do but explain
this and I shall think nothing too hard for you.
<Hyl>. Upon the whole, I am content to own the existence of
matter is highly improbable; but the direct and absolute
impossibility of it does not appear to me.
<Phil>. But granting Matter to be possible, yet, upon that
account merely, it can have no more claim to existence than a
golden mountain, or a centaur.
<Hyl>. I acknowledge it; but still you do not deny it is
possible; and that which is possible, for aught you know, may
actually exist.
<Phil>. I deny it to be possible; and have, if I mistake
not, {225} evidently proved, from your own concessions, that it
is not. In the common sense of the word <Matter>, is there any
more implied than an extended, solid, figured, moveable
substance, existing without the mind? And have not you
acknowledged, over and over, that you have seen evident reason
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, if Matter, in such a sense, be proved impossible, may
it not be thought with good grounds absolutely impossible? Else
how could anything be proved impossible? Or, indeed, how could
there be any proof at all one way or other, to a man who takes
the liberty to unsettle and change the common signification of
words?
<Hyl>. I thought philosophers might be allowed to speak more
accurately than the vulgar, and were not always confined to the
common acceptation of a term.
<Phil>. But this now mentioned is the common received sense
among philosophers themselves. But, not to insist on that, have
you not been allowed to take Matter in what sense you pleased?
And have you not used this privilege in the utmost extent;
sometimes entirely changing, at others leaving out, or putting
into the definition of it whatever, for the present, best served
your design, contrary to all the known rules of reason and logic?
And hath not this shifting, unfair method of yours spun out our
dispute to an unnecessary length; Matter having been particularly
examined, and by your own confession refuted in each of those
senses? And can any more be required to prove the absolute
impossibility of a thing, than the proving it impossible in every
particular sense that either you or any one else understands it
in?
<Hyl>. But I am not so thoroughly satisfied that you have
proved the impossibility of Matter, in the last most obscure
abstracted and indefinite sense.
<Phil>.. When is a thing shewn to be impossible?
<Hyl>. When a repugnancy is demonstrated between the ideas
comprehended in its definition.
<Phil>. But where there are no ideas, there no repugnancy
can be demonstrated between ideas?
<Hyl>. I agree with you.
<Phil>. Now, in that which you call the obscure indefinite
sense of the word <Matter>, it is plain, by your own confession,
there {226} was included no idea at all, no sense except an
unknown sense; which is the same thing as none. You are not,
therefore, to expect I should prove a repugnancy between ideas,
where there are no ideas; or the impossibility of Matter taken in
an <unknown> sense, that is, no sense at all. My business was
only to shew you meant <nothing>; and this you were brought to
own. So that, in all your various senses, you have been shewed
either to mean nothing at all, or, if anything, an absurdity. And
if this be not sufficient to prove the impossibility of a thing,
I desire you will let me know what is.
<Hyl>. I acknowledge you have proved that Matter is
impossible; nor do I see what more can be said in defence of it.
But, at the same time that I give up this, I suspect all my other
notions. For surely none could be more seemingly evident than
this once was: and yet it now seems as false and absurd as ever
it did true before. But I think we have discussed the point
sufficiently for the present. The remaining part of the day I
would willingly spend in running over in my thoughts the several
heads of this morning's conversation, and tomorrow shall be glad
to meet you here again about the same time.
<Phil>. <I> will not fail to attend you. {227}
THE THIRD DIALOGUE
<Philonous.> Tell me, Hylas,[7] what are the fruits of
yesterday's meditation? 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 and uncertain. What we approve to-day, we condemn to-morrow.
We keep a stir about knowledge, and spend our lives in the
pursuit of it, when, alas I we know nothing all the while: nor do
I think it possible for us ever to know 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 know the 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; but this is no more than knowing what sensations are
produced in your own mind, upon the application of fire and water
to your organs of sense. Their internal constitution, their true
and real nature, you are utterly in the dark as to <that>.
<Phil>. Do I not know this to be a real stone that I stand
on, and that which 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 your own mind. But what is this to the real
tree or stone? I tell you that colour, figure, and hardness,
which you perceive, are not the real natures of those things, or
in the least like them. The same may be said of all other real
things, or corporeal substances, which compose the world. They
have none of them anything of themselves, like those sensible
qualities by us perceived. We should not therefore pretend to
affirm or know anything of them, as they are in their own nature.
<Phil>. But surely, Hylas, I can distinguish gold, for
example, {228} 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 own ideas. That yellowness, that weight, and other
sensible qualities, think you they are really in the gold? They
are only relative to the senses, and have no absolute existence
in nature. And in pretending to distinguish 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 of a different
species, because their clothes were not of the same colour.
<Phil>. It seems, then, we are altogether put off with the
appearances of things, and those false ones too. The very meat I
eat, and the cloth I wear, 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 they are conversant about.
<Hyl>. They do so: but you know ordinary practice does not
require a nicety of speculative knowledge. Hence the vulgar
retain their mistakes, and for all that make a shift to bustle
through the affairs of life. But philosophers 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 you seriously persuaded that you know nothing real in the
world? Suppose you are going to write, would you not call for
pen, ink, and paper, like another 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 any one 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, I declare positively I know not.
And the same is true with regard to every, other corporeal thing.
And, what is more, we are not only ignorant of the true and real
nature of things, but even of their existence. It cannot be
denied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas; but it
cannot be concluded from thence that bodies really exist. {229}
Nay, now I think on it, I must, agreeably to my former
concessions, farther declare that it is impossible any <real>
corporeal thing should exist in nature.
<Phil>. You amaze me. Was ever anything more wild and
extravagant than the notions you now maintain: and is it not
evident you are led into all these extravagances by the belief of
<material substance>? This makes you dream of those unknown
natures in everything. It is this occasions your distinguishing
between the reality and sensible appearances of things. It is to
this you are indebted for being ignorant of what everybody else
knows perfectly well. Nor is this all: you are not only ignorant
of the true nature of everything, but you know not whether
anything really exists, or whether there are any true natures at
all; forasmuch as you attribute to your material beings an
absolute or external existence, wherein you suppose their reality
consists. And, as you are forced in the end to acknowledge such
an existence means either a direct repugnancy, or nothing at all,
it follows that you are obliged to pull down your own hypothesis
of material Substance, and positively to deny the real existence
of any part of the universe. And so you are plunged into the
deepest 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 an hypothesis; and a false and groundless one too. I will no
longer spend my breath in defence of it. But whatever hypothesis
you advance, or whatsoever scheme of things you introduce in its
stead, I doubt not it will appear every whit as false: let me but
be allowed to question you upon it. That is, suffer me to serve
you in your own kind, and I warrant it shall conduct you through
as many perplexities and contradictions, to the 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 at all. I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to
believe my senses, and leave things as I find them. To be plain,
it is my opinion that the real things are those very things I
see, and feel, and perceive by my senses. These I know; and,
finding they answer all the necessities and purposes of life,
have no reason to be solicitous about any other unknown beings. A
piece of sensible bread, for instance, would stay my stomach
better than ten thousand times as much of that insensible,
unintelligible, real bread you speak of. It is likewise my
opinion that colours and other sensible qualities are on the
{230} objects. I cannot for my life help thinking that snow is
white, and fire hot. You indeed, who by <snow> and fire mean
certain external, unperceived, unperceiving substances, are in
the right to deny whiteness or heat to be affections inherent in
<them>. But I, who understand by those words the things I see and
feel, am obliged to think like other folks. And, as I am no
sceptic with regard to the nature of things, so neither am I as
to their existence. That a thing should be really perceived by my
senses, and at the same time not really exist, is to me a plain
contradiction; since I cannot prescind or abstract, even in
thought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being
perceived. Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the like
things, which I name and discourse of, are things that I know.
And I should not have known them but that I perceived them by my
senses; and things perceived by the senses are immediately
perceived; and things immediately perceived are ideas; and ideas
cannot exist without the mind; their existence therefore consists
in being perceived; when, therefore, they are actually perceived
there can be no doubt of their existence. Away then with all that
scepticism, all those ridiculous philosophical doubts. What a
jest is it for a philosopher to question the existence of
sensible things, till he hath it proved to him from the veracity
of God; or to pretend our knowledge in this point falls short of
intuition or demonstration! I might as well doubt of my own
being, as of the being of those things I actually see and feel.
<Hyl>. Not so fast, Philonous: you say you cannot conceive
how sensible things should exist without the mind. Do you not?
<Phil>. I do.
<Hyl>. Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive
it possible that things perceivable by sense may still exist?
<Phil>. <I> can; but then it must be in another mind. When I
deny sensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean
my mind in particular, but all minds. Now, it is plain they have
an existence exterior to my mind; since I find them by experience
to be independent of it. There is therefore some other Mind
wherein they exist, during the intervals between the times of
{231} my perceiving them: as likewise they did before my birth,
and would do after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is
true with regard to all other finite created spirits, it
necessarily follows there is an <omnipresent eternal Mind>, which
knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view
in such a manner, and according to such rules, as He Himself hath
ordained, and are by us termed the <laws of nature>.
<Hyl>. Answer me, Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly
inert beings? Or have 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 of God?
<Phil>. It cannot.
<Hyl>. Since therefore you have no <idea> of the mind of
God, how can you conceive it possible that things should exist in
His mind? Or, if you can conceive the mind of God, without having
an idea of it, why may not I be allowed to conceive the existence
of Matter, notwithstanding I have no idea 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 be represented by things perfectly inert, as our
ideas are. I do nevertheless know that 1, who am a spirit or
thinking substance, exist as certainly a s I know my ideas exist.
Farther, I know what I mean by the terms I <and myself>; and I
know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not perceive it
as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound. The Mind, Spirit,
or Soul is that indivisible unextended thing which thinks, acts,
and perceives. I say <indivisible>, because unextended; and
<unextended>, because extended, figured, moveable things are
ideas; and that which perceives ideas, which thinks and wills, is
plainly itself no idea, nor like an idea. Ideas are things
inactive, and perceived. And Spirits a sort of beings altogether
different from them. I do not therefore say my soul is an idea,
or like an idea. However, taking the word <idea> in a large
sense, my soul may be said to furnish me with an idea, that is,
an image or likeness of God -- though indeed extremely
inadequate. For, all the notion I have of God is obtained by
reflecting on my own soul, heightening its powers, and removing
its {232} imperfections. I have, therefore, though not an
inactive idea, yet in <myself> some sort of an active thinking
image of the Deity. And, though I perceive Him not by sense, yet
I have a notion of Him, or know Him by reflexion and reasoning.
My own mind and my own ideas I have an immediate knowledge of;
and, by the help of these, do mediately apprehend the possibility
of the existence of other spirits and ideas. Farther, from my own
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 all created things in the mind of God. So much for
your first question. For the second: I suppose by this time you
can answer it yourself. For you neither perceive Matter
objectively, as you do an inactive being or idea; nor know it, as
you do yourself, by a reflex act, neither do you mediately
apprehend it by similitude of the one or the other; nor yet
collect it by reasoning from that which you know immediately. All
which makes 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 or image of God. But, at the same time, you acknowledge
you have, properly speaking, no <idea> of your own soul. You even
affirm that spirits are a sort of beings altogether different
from ideas. Consequently that no idea can be like a spirit. We
have therefore no idea of any spirit. You admit nevertheless that
there is spiritual Substance, although you have no idea of 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 act consistently, you must either admit Matter or reject
Spirit. What say you to this?
<Phil>. <I> say, in the first place, that I do not deny the
existence of material substance, merely because I have no notion
of it' but because the notion of it is inconsistent; or, in other
words, because it is repugnant that there should be a notion of
it. Many things, for aught I know, may exist, whereof neither I
nor any other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever.
But then those things must be possible, that is, nothing {233}
inconsistent must be included in their definition. I say,
secondly, that, although we believe things to exist which we do
not perceive, yet we may not believe that any particular thing
exists, without some reason for such belief: but I have no reason
for believing the existence of Matter. I have no immediate
intuition thereof: neither can I immediately from my sensations,
ideas, notions, actions, or passions, infer an unthinking,
unperceiving, inactive Substance -- either by probable deduction,
or necessary consequence. Whereas the being of my Self, that is,
my own soul, mind, or thinking principle, I evidently know by
reflexion. You will forgive me if I repeat the same things in
answer to the same objections. In the very notion or definition
of <material Substance>, there is included a manifest repugnance
and inconsistency. But this cannot be said of the notion of
Spirit. That ideas should exist in what doth not perceive, or be
produced by what doth not act, is repugnant. But, it is no
repugnancy to say that a perceiving thing should be the subject
of ideas, or an active thing the cause of them. It is granted we
have neither an immediate evidence nor a demonstrative knowledge
of the existence of other finite spirits; but it will not thence
follow that such spirits are on a foot with material substances:
if to suppose the one be inconsistent, and it be not inconsistent
to suppose the other; if the one can be inferred by no argument,
and there is a probability for the other; if we see signs and
effects indicating distinct finite agents like ourselves, and see
no sign or symptom whatever that leads to a rational belief of
Matter. I say, lastly, that I have a notion of Spirit, though I
have not, strictly speaking, an idea of it. I do not perceive it
as an idea, or by means of an idea, but know it by reflexion.
<Hyl>. Notwithstanding all you have said, to me it seems
that, according to your own way of thinking, and in consequence
of your own principles, it should follow that <you> are only a
system of floating ideas, without any substance to support them.
Words are not to be used without a meaning. And, as there is no
more meaning in <spiritual Substance> than in <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 own being; and that <I myself> am not my ideas, but
somewhat else, a thinking, active principle that perceives,
knows, wifls, and operates about ideas. I know that I, one {234}
and the same self, perceive both colours and sounds: that a
colour cannot perceive a sound, nor a sound a colour: that I am
therefore one individual principle, distinct from colour and
sound; and, for the same reason, from aft other sensible things
and inert ideas. But, I am not in like manner conscious either of
the existence or essence of Matter. On the contrary, I know that
nothing inconsistent can exist, and that the existence of Matter
implies an inconsistency. Farther, I know what I mean when I
affirm that there is a spiritual substance or support of ideas,
that is, that a spirit knows and perceives ideas. But, I do not
know what is meant when it is said that an unperceiving substance
hath inherent in it and supports either ideas or the archetypes
of ideas. There is therefore upon the whole no parity of case
between Spirit and Matter.][8]
<Hyl>. I own myself satisfied in this point. But, do you in
earnest think the real existence of sensible things consists in
their being actually perceived? 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> is one thing, and <to exist>
is another.
<Phil>. <I> am content, Hylas, to appeal to the common sense
of the world for the truth of my notion. Ask the gardener why he
thinks yonder cherry-tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell
you, because he sees and feels it; in a word, because he
perceives it by his senses. Ask him why 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 he terms a real,
being, and saith it <is or exists>; but, that which is not
perceivable, the same, he saith, hath no being.
<Hyl>. Yes, Philonous, I grant the existence of a sensible
thing consists in being perceivable, but not in being actually
perceived.
<Phil>. And what is perceivable but an idea? And can an idea
exist without being actually perceived? These are points long
since agreed between us.
<Hyl>. But, be your opinion never so true, yet surely you
will not deny it is shocking, and contrary to the common sense of
men. {235} Ask the fellow whether yonder tree hath an existence
out of his mind: what answer think you he would make?
<Phil>. The same that I should myself, to wit, that it doth
exist out of his mind. But then to a Christian it cannot surely
be shocking to say, the real tree, existing without his mind, is
truly known and comprehended by (that is <exists in>) the
infinite mind of God. Probably he may not at first 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. The question between the Materialists and me is not,
whether things have a <real> existence out of the mind of this or
that person, but whether they have an <absolute> existence,
distinct from being perceived by God, and exterior to all minds.
This indeed some heathens and philosophers have affirmed, but
whoever entertains notions of the Deity suitable to the Holy
Scriptures will be of another opinion.
<Hyl>. But, according to your notions, what difference is
there between real things, and chimeras formed by the
imagination, or the visions of a dream -- 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 ideas perceived 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 the like dependence on our will. There
is therefore no danger of confounding these with the foregoing:
and there is as little of confounding them with the visions of a
dream, which are dim, irregular, and confused. And, though they
should happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, by their
not being connected, and of a piece with the preceding and
subsequent transactions of our lives, they might easily be
distinguished from realities. In short, by whatever method you
distinguish <things from chimeras> on your scheme, the same, it
is evident, will hold also upon mine. For, it must be, I presume,
by some perceived difference; and I am not for depriving you of
any one thing that you perceive.
<Hyl>. But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in
the world but spirits and ideas. And this, you must needs
acknowledge, sounds very oddly.
<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 a necessary relation to the mind is understood to
{236} be implied by that term; and it is now commonly used by
philosophers to denote the immediate objects of the
understanding. But, however oddly the proposition may sound in
words, yet it includes nothing so very strange or shocking in its
sense; which in effect amounts to no more than this, to wit, that
there are only things perceiving, and things perceived; or that
every unthinking being is necessarily, and from -the very nature
of its existence, perceived by some mind; if not by a finite
created mind, yet certainly by the infinite mind of God, in whom
"we five, and move, and have our being." Is this as strange as to
say, the sensible qualities are not 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 feel them, and
perceive them by all our senses?
<Hyl>. And, in consequence of this, must we not think there
are no such things as physical or corporeal causes; but that a
Spirit is the immediate cause of all the phenomena in nature? Can
there be anything more extravagant than this?
<Phil>. Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say -- a
thing which is inert operates on the mind, and which is
unperceiving is the cause of our perceptions, [without any regard
either to consistency, or the old known axiom, <Nothing can give
to another that which it hath not itself>].[9] Besides, that
which to you, I know not for what reason, seems so extravagant is
no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundred places. In
them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author of all
those effects which some heathens and philosophers are wont to
ascribe to Nature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthinking
principle. This is so much the constant language of Scripture
that it were needless to confirm it by citations.
<Hyl>. You are not aware, Philonous, that in making God the
immediate Author 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 guilt is the same, whether a person commits an
action with or without an instrument. In case therefore you
suppose God to act by the mediation of an instrument or occasion,
called <Matter>, you as truly make Him the author of sin as I,
who think Him the immediate agent in all those operations
vulgarly ascribed to Nature. I farther observe that sin or moral
turpitude {237} doth not consist in the outward physical action
or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the
laws of reason and religion. This is plain, in that the killing
an enemy in a battle, or putting a criminal legally to death, is
not thought sinful; though the outward 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 an immediate 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 all
the motions in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any
other agents besides spirits; but this is very consistent with
allowing to thinking rational beings, in the production of
motions, the use of limited powers, ultimately indeed derived
from God, but immediately under the direction of their own wills,
which is sufficient to entitle them to all the guilt of their
actions.
<Hyl>. But the denying Matter, Philonous, or corporeal
Substance; there is the point. You can never persuade me that
this is not repugnant to the universal sense of mankind. Were our
dispute to be determined by most voices, I am confident you would
give up the point, without gathering the votes.
<Phil>. I wish both our opinions were fairly stated and
submitted to the judgment of men who had plain common sense,
without the prejudices of a learned education. Let me be
represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he knows the
things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of their
existence; and you fairly set forth with all your doubts, your
paradoxes, and your scepticism about you, and I shall willingly
acquiesce in the determination of any indifferent person. That
there is no substance wherein ideas can exist beside spirit is to
me evident. And that the objects immediately perceived are ideas,
is on all hands agreed. And that sensible qualities are objects
immediately perceived no one can deny. It is therefore evident
there can be no <substratum> of those qualities but spirit; in
which they exist, not by way of mode or property, but as a thing
perceived in that which perceives it. I deny therefore that there
is <any unthinking>-<substratum> of the objects of sense, and <in
that acceptation> that there is any material substance. But if by
<material substance> is meant only <sensible body>, <that> which
is seen and felt (and the unphilosophical part of the world, I
dare say, mean no more) -- then I am more certain of matter's
existence than you or any other philosopher pretend to be. If
there be anything which makes ,die generality of mankind {238}
averse from the notions I espouse, it is a misapprehension that I
deny the reality of sensible things. But, as it is you who are
guilty of that, and not 1, it follows that in truth their
aversion is against your notions and not mine. I do therefore
assert that I am as certain as of my own being, that there are
bodies or corporeal substances (meaning the things I perceive by
my senses); and that, granting this, the bulk of mankind will
take no thought about, nor think themselves at all concerned in
the fate of those unknown natures, and philosophical quiddities,
which some men are so fond of.
<Hyl>. What say you to this? Since, according to you, men
judge of the reality of things by their senses, how can a man be
mistaken in thinking the moon a plain lucid surface, about a foot
in diameter; or a square tower, 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
actually perceives, but in the inference he makes from his
present perceptions. Thus, in the case of the oar, what he
immediately perceives by sight is certainly crooked; and so far
he is in the right. But if he thence conclude that upon taking
the oar out of the water he shall perceive the same crookedness;
or that it would affect his touch as crooked things are wont to
do: in that he is mistaken. In like manner, if he shall conclude
from what he perceives in one station, that, in case he advances
towards the moon or tower, he should still be affected with the
like ideas, he is mistaken. But his mistake lies not in what he
perceives immediately, and at present, (it being a manifest
contradiction to suppose he should err in respect of that) but in
the wrong judgment he makes concerning the ideas he apprehends to
be connected with those immediately perceived: or, concerning the
ideas that, from what he perceives at present, he imagines would
be perceived in other circumstances. The case is the same with
regard to the Copernican system. We do not here perceive any
motion of the earth: but it were erroneous thence to conclude,
that, in case we were placed at as great a distance from that as
we are now from the other planets, we should not then perceive
its motion.
<Hyl>. I understand you; and must needs own you say things
plausible enough. But, give me leave to put you in mind of {239}
one thing. Pray, Philonous, were you not formerly as positive
that Matter existed, as you are now that it does not?
<Phil>. I was. But here lies the difference. Before, my
positiveness was founded, 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 with ideas <from without> is evident; and it is
no less evident that there must be (I will not say archetypes,
but) Powers without the mind, corresponding to those ideas. And,
as these Powers cannot subsist by themselves, 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 the idea 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 be agreeable to the usage either of philosophers or others to
give the name <Matter> to an unextended active being? And,
<Secondly>, Whether it be not ridiculously absurd to misapply
names contrary to the common use of language?
<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 reason is there why you should call it Spirit?
Does not the notion of spirit imply that it is thinking, as well
as active and unextended?
<Phil>. My reason is this: because I have a mind to have
some notion of meaning in what I say: but I have no notion of any
action distinct from volition, neither. can I conceive volition
to be anywhere but in a spirit: therefore, when I speak of an
active being, I am obliged to mean a Spirit. Beside, what can be
plainer than that a thing which hath no ideas in itself cannot
impart them to me; and, if it hath ideas, surely it must be a
Spirit. To make you comprehend the point still more {240} clearly
if it be possible, I assert as well as you that, since we are
affected from without, we must allow Powers to be without, in a
Being distinct from ourselves. So far we are agreed. But then we
differ as to the 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 conclude there are actions; and,
because actions, volitions; and, because there are volitions,
there must be a <will>. Again, the things I perceive must have an
existence, they or their archetypes, out of <my> mind: but, being
ideas, neither they nor their archetypes can exist otherwise than
in an understanding; there is therefore an <understanding>. But
will and understanding constitute in the strictest sense a mind
or spirit. The powerful cause, therefore, of my ideas is in
strict propriety of speech a <Spirit>.
<Hyl>. And now I warrant you think you have made the point
very clear, little suspecting that what you advance leads
directly to a contradiction. 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 some other Being?
<Phil>. We are.
<Hyl>. And have you not said that Being is a Spirit, and is
not that Spirit God?
<Phil>. I grant it.
<Hyl>. But you have asserted that whatever ideas we perceive
from without are in the mind which affects us. The ideas,
therefore, of pain and uneasiness are in God; or, in other words,
God suffers pain: that is to say, there is an imperfection in the
Divine nature: which, you acknowledged, 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 and dependent
spirits, are liable to impressions of sense, the effects of an
{241} external Agent, which, being produced against our wills,
are sometimes painful and uneasy. But God, whom no external being
can affect, who perceives nothing by sense as we do; whose will
is absolute and independent, causing all things, and liable to be
thwarted or resisted by nothing: it is evident, such a Being as
this can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful
sensation, or indeed any sensation at all. We are chained to a
body: that is to say, our perceptions are connected with
corporeal motions. By the law of our nature, we are affected upon
every alteration in the nervous parts of our sensible body; which
sensible body, rightly considered, is nothing but a complexion of
such qualities or ideas as have no existence distinct from being
perceived by a mind. So that this connexion of sensations with
corporeal motions means no more than a correspondence in the
order of nature, between two sets of ideas, or things immediately
perceivable. But God is a Pure Spirit, disengaged from all such
sympathy, or natural ties. No corporeal motions are attended with
the sensations of pain or pleasure in His mind. To know
everything knowable, is certainly a perfection; but to endure, or
suffer, or feel anything by sense, is an imperfection. The
former, I say, agrees to God, but not the latter. God knows, or
hath ideas; but His ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense, as
ours are. Your not distinguishing, where there is so manifest a
difference, makes you fancy you see an absurdity where there is
none.
<Hyl>. But, all this while you have not considered that the
quantity of Matter 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 of motion in bodies are in a direct compounded reason
of the velocities and quantities of Matter contained in them.
Hence, where the velocities are equal, it follows the moments are
directly as the quantity of Matter in each. But it is found by
experience that all bodies (bating the small inequalities,
arising from the resistance of the air) descend with an equal
velocity; the motion therefore of descending bodies, and
consequently their gravity, which is the cause or principle of
that motion, is proportional to the quantity of Matter; which was
to be demonstrated.
<Phil>. You lay it down as a self-evident principle that the
quantity of motion in any body is proportional to the velocity
{242} and <Matter> taken together; and this is made use of to
prove a proposition from whence the existence of <Carter> is
inferred. Pray is not this arguing in a circle?
<Hyl>. In the premise I only mean that the motion is
proportional to the velocity, jointly with the extension and
solidity.
<Phil>. But, allowing this to be true, yet it will not
thence follow that gravity is proportional to <Matter>, in your
philosophic sense of the word; except you take it for granted
that unknown <substratum>, or whatever else you call it, is
proportional to those sensible qualities; which to suppose is
plainly begging the question. That there is magnitude and
solidity, or resistance, perceived by sense, I readily grant; as
likewise, that gravity may be proportional to those qualities I
will not dispute. But that either these qualities as perceived by
us, or the powers producing them, do exist in a <material
substratum>; this is what I 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, you shall persuade me that the natural philosophers have
been dreaming all this while? Pray what becomes of all their
hypotheses and explications of the 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 to be affected with ideas, in that manner and order
wherein they are imprinted on our senses. Is it not?
<Hyl>. It is.
<Phil>. Now, if you can prove that any philosopher has
explained the production of any one idea in our minds by the help
of <Matter>, I shall for ever acquiesce, and look on all that
hath been said against it as nothing; but, if you cannot, it is
vain to urge the explication of phenomena. That a Being endowed
with knowledge and will should produce or exhibit ideas is easily
understood. But that a Being which is utterly destitute of these
faculties should be able to produce ideas, or in any sort to
affect an intelligence, this I can never understand. This I say,
though {243} we had some positive conception of Matter, though we
knew its qualities, and could comprehend its existence, would yet
be so far from explaining things, that it is itself the most
inexplicable thing in the world. And yet, for all this, it will
not follow that philosophers have been doing nothing; for, by
observing and reasoning upon the connexion of ideas, they
discover the laws and methods of nature, which is a part of
knowledge both useful and entertaining.
<Hyl>. After all, can it be supposed God would deceive all
mankind? Do you imagine He would have induced the whole world to
believe the being of Matter, if there was no such thing?
<Phil>. That every epidemical opinion, arising from
prejudice, or passion, or thoughtlessness, may be imputed to God,
as the Author of it, I believe you will not affirm. Whatsoever
opinion we father ' on Him, it must be either because He has
discovered it to us by supernatural revelation; or because it is
so evident to our natural faculties, which were framed and given
us by God, that it is impossible we should withhold our assent
from it. But where is the revelation? or where is the evidence
that extorts the belief of Matter? Nay, how does it appear, that
Matter, <taken for something distinct from what we perceive by
our senses>, is thought to exist by all mankind; or indeed, by
any except a few philosophers, who do not know what they would be
at? Your question supposes these points are clear; and, when you
have cleared them, I shall think myself obliged to give you
another answer. In the meantime, let it suffice that I tell you,
I do not suppose God has deceived mankind at all.
<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 in sense, or in reason, or in Divine authority, should be
thought to unsettle the belief of such opinions as are grounded
on all or any of these, I cannot imagine. That innovations in
government and religion are dangerous, and ought to be
discountenanced, I freely own. But is there the like reason why
they should be discouraged in philosophy? The making anything
known which was unknown before is an innovation in knowledge:
and, if all such innovations had been forbidden, {244} men would
have made a notable progress in the arts and sciences. But it is
none of my business to plead for novelties and paradoxes. That
the qualities we perceive 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 be assured even of their existence: that
real colours and sounds are nothing but certain unknown figures
and motions: that motions are in themselves neither 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 particle of a
body contains innumerable extended parts: -- these are the
novelties, these are the strange notions which shock the genuine
uncorrupted judgment of all mankind; and being once admitted,
embarrass the mind with endless doubts and difficulties. And it
is against these and the like innovations I endeavour to
vindicate Common Sense. It is true, in doing this, I may perhaps
be obliged to use some <ambages>, and ways of speech not common.
But, if my notions are once thoroughly understood, that which is
most singular in them will, in effect, be found to amount to no
more than this. -- that it is absolutely impossible, and a plain
contradiction, to suppose any unthinking Being should exist
without being perceived by a Mind. And, if this notion be
singular, it is a shame it should be so, at this time of day, and
in a Christian country.
<Hyl>. As for the difficulties other opinions may be liable
to,. those are 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 into ideas? 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, but rather ideas into things; since those immediate
objects of perception, which, according to you, are only
appearances of things, I take to be the real things themselves.
<Hyl>. Things! You may pretend what you please; but it is
certain you leave us nothing but the empty forms of things, the
outside only which strikes the senses.
<Phil>. What you call the empty forms and outside of things
seem to me the very things themselves. Nor are they empty or
incomplete, otherwise than upon your supposition -- that Matter
{245} is an essential part of all corporeal things. We both,
therefore, agree in this, that we perceive only sensible forms:
but herein we differ -- you will have them to be empty
appearances, I, real beings. In short, you do not trust your
senses, I do.
<Hyl>. You say you believe your senses; and seem to applaud
yourself that in this you agree with the vulgar. According to
you, therefore, the true nature of a thing is discovered by the
senses. If so, whence comes that disagreement? Why is not the
same figure, and other sensible qualities, perceived all manner
of ways? and why should we use a microscope the better to
discover the true nature of a body, if it were discoverable to
the naked eye?
<Phil>. Strictly speaking, Hylas, we do not see the same
object that we feel; neither is the same object perceived by the
microscope which was by the naked eye. But, in case every
variation was thought sufficient to constitute a new kind of
individual, the endless number of confusion of names would render
language impracticable. Therefore, to avoid this, as well as
other inconveniences which are obvious upon a little thought, men
combine together several ideas, apprehended by divers senses, or
by the same sense at different times, or in different
circumstances, but observed, however, to have some connexion in
nature, either with respect to co-existence or succession; all
which they refer to one name, and consider as one thing. Hence it
follows that when I examine, by my other senses, a thing I have
seen, it is not in order to understand better the same object
which I had perceived by sight, the object of one sense not being
perceived by the other senses. And, when I look through a
microscope, it is not that I may perceive more clearly what I
perceived already with my bare eyes; the object perceived by the
glass being quite different from the former. But, in both cases,
my aim is only to know what ideas are connected together; and the
more a man knows of the connexion 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 in all circumstances
affected with the same appearances. It will not thence follow
they are not to be trusted; or that they are inconsistent either
with themselves or anything else: except it be with your
preconceived notion of (I know not what) one single, unchanged,
unperceivable, real Nature, marked by each name. Which prejudice
seems to have taken its rise from not rightly {246} understanding
the common language of men, speaking of several distinct ideas as
united into one thing by the mind. And, indeed, there is cause to
suspect several erroneous conceits of the philosophers are owing
to the same original: while they began to build their schemes not
so much on notions as on words, which were framed by the vulgar,
merely for conveniency and dispatch in the common actions of
life, without any regard to speculation.
<Hyl>. Methinks I apprehend your meaning.
<Phil>. It is your opinion the ideas we perceive by our
senses are not real things, but images or copies of them. Our
knowledge, therefore, is no farther real than as our ideas are
the true <representations> of those <originals>. But, as these
supposed originals are in themselves unknown, it is impossible to
know how far our ideas resemble them; or whether they resemble
them at all. We cannot, therefore, be sure we have any real
knowledge. Farther, as our ideas are perpetually varied, without
any change in the supposed real things, it necessarily follows
they cannot all be true copies of them: or, if some are and
others are not, it is impossible to distinguish the former from
the latter. And this plunges us yet deeper in uncertainty. Again,
when we consider the point, we cannot conceive how any idea, or
anything like an idea, should have an absolute existence out of a
mind: nor consequently, according to you, how there should be any
real thing in nature. The result of ;all which is that we are
thrown into the most hopeless and abandoned scepticism. Now, give
me leave to ask you, First, Whether your referring ideas to
certain absolutely existing unperceived substances, as their
originals, be not the 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 distinctly conceived or meant
by the <absolute or external existence of unperceiving
substances>? Lastly, Whether, the premises considered, it be not
the wisest way to follow nature, trust your senses, and, laying
aside all anxious thought about unknown natures or substances,
admit with the vulgar those for real things which are perceived
by the senses?
<Hyl>. For the present, I have no inclination to the
answering part. I would much rather see how you can get over what
follows. Pray are not the objects perceived by the {247} <senses>
of one, likewise perceivable to others present? If there were a
hundred more here, they would all see the garden, the trees, and
flowers, as I see them. But they are not in the same manner
affected with the ideas I frame in my <imagination>. Does not
this 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 the objects of sense and those of imagination. But what
would you infer from thence? You cannot say that sensible objects
exist unperceived, because they are perceived by many.
<Hyl>. I own I can make nothing of that objection: but it
hath led me into another. Is it not your opinion that by our
senses we perceive only the ideas existing in our minds?
<Phil>. It is.
<Hyl>. But the <same> idea which is in my mind cannot be in
yours, or in any other mind. Doth it not therefore follow, from
your principles, that no two can see the same thing? And is not
this highly, absurd?
<Phil>. If the term <same> be taken in the vulgar
acceptation, it is certain (and not at all repugnant to the
principles I maintain) that different persons may perceive the
same thing; or the same thing or idea exist in different minds.
Words are of arbitrary imposition; and, since men are used to
apply the word <same> where no distinction or variety is
perceived, and I do not pretend to alter their perceptions, it
follows that, as men have said before, <several saw the same
thing>, so they may, upon like occasions, still continue to use
the same phrase, without any deviation either from propriety of
language, or the truth of things. But, if the term <same> be used
in the acceptation of philosophers, who pretend to an abstracted
notion of identity, then, according to their sundry definitions
of this notion (for it is not yet agreed wherein that philosophic
identity consists), it may or may not be possible for divers
persons to perceive the same thing. But whether philosophers
shall think fit to <call> a thing the <same or> no, is, I
conceive, of small importance. Let us suppose several men
together, all endued with the same faculties, and consequently
affected in like sort by their senses, and who had yet never
known the use of language; they would, without question, agree in
their perceptions. Though perhaps, when they came to the use of
speech, some regarding the uniformness of what was perceived,
might call it the <same> thing: others, especially {248}
regarding the diversity of persons who perceived, might choose
the denomination of <different> things. But who sees not that all
the dispute is about a word? to wit, whether. what is perceived
by different persons may yet have the term <same> applied to it?
Or, suppose a house, whose walls or outward shell remaining
unaltered, the chambers are all pulled down, and new 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 all
this, 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 the house the simple abstracted idea of
identity, whereas I did not; I would tell 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 you understood
yourself. -- Why so silent, Hylas? Are you not yet satisfied men
may dispute about identity and diversity, without any real
difference in their thoughts and opinions, abstracted from names?
Take this farther reflexion with you: that whether Matter be
allowed to exist or no, the case is exactly the same as to the
point in hand. For the Materialists themselves acknowledge what
we immediately perceive by our senses to be our own ideas. Your
difficulty, therefore, that no two see the same thing, makes
equally against the Materialists and me.
<Hyl>. [Ay, Philonous,][10] But they suppose an external
archetype, to which referring their several ideas they may truly
be said to perceive the same thing.
<Phil>. And (not to mention your having discarded those
archetypes) so may you suppose an external archetype on my
principles; -- <external>, <I mean>, <to your own mind>: though
indeed it must be' supposed to exist in that Mind which
comprehends all things; but then, this serves all the ends of
<identity>, as well as if it existed out of a mind. And I am sure
you yourself will not say it is less intelligible.
<Hyl>. You have indeed clearly satisfied me -- either that
there is no difficulty at bottom in this point; or, if there be,
that it makes equally against both opinions.
<Phil>. But that which makes equally against two
contradictory opinions can be a proof against neither.
<Hyl>. I acknowledge it. But, after all, Philonous, when I
consider {249} the substance of what you advance against
<Scepticism>, it amounts to no more 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 feel it, I taste it: and I am sure <nothing> cannot be
seen, or felt, or. tasted: it is therefore red. Take away the
sensations of softness, moisture, redness, tartness, and you take
away the cherry, since it is not a being distinct from
sensations. A cherry, I say, is nothing but a congeries of
sensible impressions, or ideas perceived by various senses: which
ideas are united into one thing (or have one name given them) by
the mind, because they are observed to attend each other. Thus,
when the palate is affected with such a particular taste, the
sight is affected with a red colour, the touch with roundness,
softness, &c. Hence, when I see, and feel, and taste, in such
sundry certain manners, I am sure the cherry exists, or is real;
its reality being in my opinion nothing abstracted from those
sensations. But if by the word <cherry> you, mean an unknown
nature, distinct from all those sensible qualities, and by its
<existence> something distinct from its being perceived; then,
indeed, I own, 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 very same reasons against the existence of sensible things
<in a mind>, which you have offered against their existing <in a
material substratum>?
<Phil>. When I see your reasons, you shall hear what I have
to say ,to them.
<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, 0 Philonous! how it is possible
there should be room for all those trees and houses to exist in
your mind. Can extended things be contained in that which is
unextended? Or, are we to imagine impressions made on a thing
void of all solidity? You cannot say objects are in your mind, as
books in your study: or that things are imprinted on it, as the
figure of a seal upon wax. In what sense, therefore, are we to
understand those expressions? Explain me this if you can: and I
shall then be able to answer all those queries you formerly put
to me about my <substratum>.
<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 gross literal sense; as when bodies are said to
exist in a place, or a seal to make an impression upon wax. My
meaning is only that the mind comprehends or perceives them; and
that it is affected from without, or by some being distinct from
itself. This is my explication of your difficulty; and how it can
serve to make your tenet of an unperceiving material <substratum>
intelligible, I would fain know.
<Hyl>. Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use
can be made of 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 is the rule of language, hath authorised: nothing being
more usual, than for philosophers to speak of the immediate
objects of the understanding as things existing in the mind. 'Nor
is there anything in this but what is conformable to the general
analogy of language; most part of the mental operations being
signified by words borrowed from sensible things; as is plain in
the terms <comprehend>, reflect, <discourse>, &<c>., which, being
applied to the mind, must not be taken in their gross, original
sense.
<Hyl>. You have, I own, satisfied me in this point. But
there still remains 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 to make me a proselyte to your
principles.
<Phil>. Let me know this mighty difficulty.
<Hyl>. The Scripture account of the creation is what appears
to me utterly irreconcilable with your notions. Moses tells us of
a creation: a creation of what? of ideas? No, certainly, but of
things, of real things, solid corporeal substances. Bring your
principles to agree with this, and I shall perhaps agree with
you.
<Phil>. Moses mentions the sun, moon, and stars, earth and
sea, plants and animals. That all these do really exist, and were
in the beginning created by God, I make no question. {251} If by
<ideas> you mean fictions and fancies of the mind, then these are
no ideas. If by <ideas> you mean immediate objects of the
understanding, or sensible things, which cannot exist
unperceived, or out of a mind, then these things are ideas. But
whether you do or do not call them <ideas>, <it> matters little.
The difference is only about a name. And, whether that name be
retained or rejected, the sense, the truth, and reality of things
continues the same. In common talk, the objects of our senses are
not termed <ideas>, but <things>. Call them so still: provided
you do not attribute to them any absolute external existence, and
I shall never quarrel with you for a word. The creation,
therefore, I allow to have been a creation of things, of <red>
things. Neither is this in the least inconsistent with my
principles, as is evident from what I have now said; and would
have been evident to you without this, if you had not forgotten
what had been so often said before. But as for solid corporeal
substances, I desire you to show where Moses makes any mention of
them; and, if they should be mentioned by him, or any other
inspired writer, it would still be incumbent on you to shew those
words were not taken in the vulgar acceptation, for things
falling under our senses, but in the philosophic acceptation, for
Matter, or <an unknown quiddity>, <with an absolute existence>.
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 to refer it to your own conscience. Are you not satisfied
there is some peculiar repugnancy between the Mosaic account of
the creation and your notions?
<Phil>. If all possible sense which can be put on the first
chapter of Genesis may be conceived as consistently with my
principles as any other, then it has no peculiar repugnancy with
them. But there is no sense you may not as well conceive,
believing as I do. Since, besides spirits, all you conceive are
ideas; and the existence of these I do not deny. Neither do 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, I should have seen things produced into being -- that
is become perceptible -- in the order prescribed by the sacred
historian. I ever before believed the Mosaic account of the
creation, and now find no alteration in my manner of believing
it. When things are said to begin or end their existence, we
{252} do not mean this with regard to God, but His creatures. All
objects are eternally known by God, or, which is the same thing,
have an eternal existence in His mind: but when things, before
imperceptible to creatures, are, by a decree of God, perceptible
to them, then are they said to begin a relative existence, with
respect to created minds. Upon reading therefore the Mosaic
account of the creation, I understand that the several parts of
the world became gradually 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 the Holy Scripture: in
which is included no mention, or no thought, either of
<substratum>, <instrument, occasion, or absolute existence. And,
upon inquiry, I doubt not it will be found that most plain honest
men, who believe the creation, never think of those things any
more than I. What metaphysical sense you may understand it in,
you only can tell.
<Hyl>. But, Philonous, you do not seem to be aware that you
allow created things, in the beginning, only a relative, and
consequently hypothetical being: that is to say, upon supposition
there were <men> to perceive them; without which they have no
actuality of absolute existence, wherein creation might
terminate. Is it not, therefore, according to you, plainly
impossible the creation of any inanimate creatures should precede
that of man? And is not this directly contrary to the Mosaic
account?
<Phil>. In answer to that, I say, first, created beings
might begin to exist in the mind of other created intelligences,
beside men. You will not therefore be able to prove any
contradiction between Moses and my notions, unless you first shew
there was no other order of finite created spirits in being,
before man. I say farther, in case we conceive the creation, as
we should at this time, a parcel of plants or vegetables of all
sorts produced, by an invisible Power, in a desert where nobody
was present -- that this way of explaining or conceiving it is
consistent with my principles, since they deprive you of nothing,
either sensible or imaginable; that it exactly suits with the
common, natural, and undebauched notions of mankind; that it
manifests the dependence of all things on God; and consequently
hath all the good effect or influence, which it is possible that
important article of our faith should have in making men humble,
thankful, and resigned to their [great][11] Creator. I say,
moreover, that, in this naked {253} conception of things,
divested of words, there will not be found any notion of what you
call the <actuality of absolute existence>. You may indeed raise
a dust with those terms, and so lengthen our dispute to no
purpose. But I entreat you calmly to look into your own thoughts,
and then tell me if they are not a useless and unintelligible
jargon.
<Hyl>. I own I have no very clear notion annexed to them.
But what say you to this? Do you not make the existence of
sensible things consist in their being in a mind? And were not
all things eternally in the mind of God? Did they not therefore
exist from all eternity, according to you? And how could that
which was eternal be created in time? Can anything be clearer or
better connected than this?
<Phil>. And are not you too of opinion, that God knew all
things from eternity?
<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 to be, 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 of finite spirits; so that things, with regard to us, may
properly be said to begin their existence, or be created, when
God decreed they should become perceptible to intelligent
creatures, in that order and manner which He then established,
and we now call the laws of nature? You may call this a
<relative>, <or hypothetical existence> if you please. But, so
long as it supplies us with the most natural, obvious, and
literal sense of the Mosaic history of the creation; so long as
it answers all the religious ends of that great article; in a
word, so long as you can assign no other sense or meaning in its
stead; why should we reject this? Is it to comply with a
ridiculous sceptical humour of making everything nonsense and
unintelligible? I am sure you cannot say it is for the glory of
God. For, allowing it to be a thing possible and conceivable that
the corporeal world should have an absolute existence extrinsical
to the mind of God, as well as to the minds of all created
spirits; yet how could this set forth either the immensity or
omniscience of the Deity, or the necessary and immediate
dependence of all {254} things on Him? Nay, would it not rather
seem to derogate from those attributes?
<Hyl>. Well, but as to this decree of God's, for making
things perceptible, what say you, Philonous? Is it not plain, God
did either execute that decree from all eternity, or at some
certain time began to will what He had not actually willed
before, but only designed to will? If the former, then there
could be no creation, or beginning of existence, in finite
things. If the latter, then we must acknowledge something new to
befall the Deity; which implies a sort of change: and all change
argues imperfection.
<Phil>. Pray consider what you are doing. Is it not evident
this objection concludes equally against a creation in any sense;
nay, against every other act of the Deity, discoverable by the
light of nature? None of which can <we> conceive, otherwise than
as performed in time, and having a beginning. God is a Being of
transcerident and unlimited perfections: His nature, therefore,
is incomprehensible to finite spirits. It is not, therefore, to
be expected, that any man, whether Materialist or Immaterialist,
should have exactly just notions of the Deity, His attributes,
and ways of operation. If then you would infer anything against
me, your difficulty must not be drawn from the inadequateness of
our conceptions of the Divine nature, which is unavoidable on any
scheme; but from the denial of Matter, of which there is not one
word, directly or indirectly, in what you have now objected.
<Hyl>. I must acknowledge the difficulties you are concerned
to clear are such only as arise from the non-existence of Matter,
and are peculiar to that notion. So far you are in the right. But
I cannot by any means bring myself to think there is no such
peculiar repugnancy between the creation and your opinion; though
indeed where to fix it, I do not distinctly know.
<Phil>. What would you have? Do I not acknowledge a twofold
state of things -- the one ectypal or natural, the other
archetypal and eternal? The former was created in time; the
latter existed from everlasting in the mind 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? But you suspect
some peculiar repugnancy, though you know not where it lies. To
take away all possibility of scruple in the case, do but consider
this one point. Either you are not able to conceive {255} the
Creation on any hypothesis whatsoever; and, if so, there is no
ground for dislike or complaint against any particular opinion on
that score: or you are able to conceive it; and, if so, why not
on my Principles, since thereby nothing conceivable is taken
away? You have all along been allowed the full scope of sense,
imagination, and reason. Whatever, therefore, you could 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 notion you have of the creation by other Principles be
intelligible, you have it still upon mine; if it be not
intelligible, I conceive it to be no notion at all; and so there
is no loss of it. And indeed it seems to me very plain that the
supposition of Matter, that is a thing perfectly unknown and
inconceivable, cannot serve to make us conceive anything. And, I
hope it need not be proved to you that if the existence of Matter
doth not make the creation conceivable, the creation's being
without it inconceivable can be no objection against its non-
existence.
<Hyl>. I confess, Philonous, you have almost satisfied me in
this point of the creation.
<Phil>. I would fain know why you are not quite satisfied.
You tell me indeed of a repugnancy between the Mosaic history and
Immaterialism: but you know not where it lies. Is this
reasonable, Hylas? Can you expect I should solve a difficulty
without knowing what it is? But, to pass by all that, would not a
man think you were assured there is no repugnancy between 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 a plain obvious sense, or in a sense which is
metaphysical and out of the way?
<Hyl>. In the plain sense, doubtless.
<Phil>. When Moses speaks of herbs, earth, water, &c. as
having been created by God; think you not the sensible things
commonly signified by those 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 denied a real existence by the doctrine of the Materialist?
<Hyl>. This I have already acknowledged.
<Phil>. The creation, therefore, according to them, was not
{256} the creation of things sensible, which have only a relative
being, but of certain unknown natures, which have an absolute
being, wherein creation might terminate?
<Hyl>. True.
<Phil>. Is it not therefore evident the assertors of Matter
destroy the plain obvious sense of Moses, with which their
notions are utterly inconsistent; and instead of it obtrude on us
I know not what; something equally unintelligible to themselves
and me?
<Hyl>. I cannot contradict you.
<Phil>. Moses tells us of a creation. A creation of what? of
unknown quiddities, of occasions, or <substratum>? No, certainly;
but of things obvious 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 more jejune notion than that? Something it is so
abstracted and unintelligible that you have frankly owned you
could not conceive it, much less explain anything by it. But
allowing Matter to exist, and the notion of absolute existence to
be clear as light; yet, was this ever known to make the creation
more credible? Nay, hath it not furnished the atheists and
infidels of all ages with the most plausible arguments against a
creation? That a corporeal substance, which hath an absolute
existence without the minds of spirits, should be produced out of
nothing, by the mere will of a Spirit, hath been looked upon as a
thing so contrary to all reason, so impossible and absurd! that
not only the most celebrated among the ancients, but even divers
modern and Christian philosophers have thought Matter co-eternal
with the Deity. Lay these things together, and then judge you
whether Materialism disposes men to believe the creation of
things.
<Hyl>. I own, Philonous, I think it does not. This of the
<creation> is the last objection I can think of; and I must needs
own it hath been sufficiently answered as well as the rest.
Nothing now remains to be overcome but a sort of unaccountable
backwardness that I find in myself towards your notions.
<Phil>. When a man is swayed, he knows not why, to one side
of' the question, can this, think you, be anything else but the
effect of prejudice, which never fails to attend old and rooted
{257} notions? And indeed in this respect I cannot deny the
belief of Matter to have very much 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 us throw into the scale the great advantages that
arise from the belief of Immaterialism, both in regard to
religion and human learning. The being of a God, and
incorruptibility of the soul, those great articles of religion,
are they not proved with the clearest and most immediate
evidence? When I say the being of a God, I do not mean an obscure
general Cause of things, whereof we have no conception, but God,
in the strict and proper sense of the word. A Being whose
spirituality, omnipresence, providence, omniscience, infinite
power and goodness, are as conspicuous as the existence of
sensible things, of which (notwithstanding the fallacious
pretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there is no more
reason to doubt than of our own being. -- Then, with relation to
human sciences. In Natural Philosophy, what intricacies, what
obscurities, what contradictions hath the belief of Matter led
men into! To say nothing of the numberless disputes about its
extent, continuity, homogeneity, gravity, divisibility, &c. -- do
they not pretend to explain all things by bodies operating on
bodies, according to the laws of motion? and yet, are they able
to comprehend how one body should move another? Nay, admitting
there was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert
being with a cause, or in conceiving how an accident might pass
from one body to another; yet, by all their strained thoughts and
extravagant suppositions, have they been able to reach the
<mechanical> production of any one animal or vegetable body? Can
they account, by the laws of motion, for sounds, tastes, smells,
or colours; or for the regular course of things? Have they
accounted, by physical principles, for the aptitude and
contrivance even of the most inconsiderable parts of the
universe? But, laying aside Matter and corporeal, causes, and
admitting only the efficiency of an All-perfect Mind, are not all
the effects of nature easy and intelligible? If the <phenomena>
are nothing else but <ideas>; God is a <spirit>, but Matter an
unintelligent, unperceiving being. If they demonstrate an
unlimited power in their cause; God is active and omnipotent, but
Matter an inert mass. If the order, regularity, and usefulness of
them can {258} never be sufficiently admired; God is infinitely
wise and provident, but Matter destitute of all contrivance and
design. These surely are great advantages in <Physics>. Not to
mention that the apprehension of a distant Deity naturally
disposes men to a negligence in their moral actions; which they
would be more cautious of, in case they thought Him immediately
present, and acting on their minds, without the interposition of
Matter, or unthinking second causes. -- Then in <Metaphysics>:
what difficulties concerning entity in abstract, substantial
forms, hylarchic principles, plastic natures, substance and
accident, principle of individuation, possibility of Matter's
thinking, origin of ideas, the manner how two independent
substances so widely different as <Spirit and Matter>, should
mutually operate on each other? what difficulties, I say, and
endless disquisitions, concerning these and innumerable other the
like points, do we escape, by supposing only Spirits and ideas? -
- Even the <Mathematics> themselves, if we take away the absolute
existence of extended things, become much more clear and easy;
the most shocking paradoxes and intricate speculations in those
sciences depending on the. infinite divisibility of finite
extension; which depends on that supposition -- But what need is
there to insist on the particular sciences? Is not that
opposition to all science whatsoever, that frenzy of the ancient
and modern Sceptics, built on the same foundation? Or can you
produce so much as one argument against the reality of corporeal
things, or in behalf of that avowed utter ignorance of their
natures, which doth not suppose their reality to consist in an
external absolute existence? Upon this supposition, indeed, the
objections from the change of colours in a pigeon's neck, or the
appearance of the broken oar in the water, must be allowed to
have weight. But these and the like objections vanish, if we do
not maintain the being of absolute external originals, but place
the reality 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 the concerns of life, and distinguishes
that which is real from the <irregular visions of> the fancy.
{259}
<Hyl>. I agree to all you have now said., and must own that
nothing can incline me to embrace your opinion more than the
advantages I see it is attended with. I am by nature lazy; and
this would be a mighty abridgment in knowledge. What doubts, what
hypotheses, what labyrinths of amusement, what fields of
disputation, what an ocean of false learning, may be avoided by
that single notion of <Immaterialism>!
<Phil>. After all, is there anything farther remaining to be
done? You may remember you promised to embrace that opinion which
upon examination should appear most agreeable to Common Sense and
remote from Scepticism. This, by your own confession, is that
which denies Matter, or the <absolute> existence of corporeal
things. Nor is this all; the same notion has been proved several
ways, viewed in different lights, pursued in its consequences,
and all objections against it cleared. Can there be a greater
evidence of its truth? or is it possible it should have all the
marks 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 full assent to your opinion, and that no
unthought-of objection or difficulty will occur hereafter?
<Phil>. Pray, Hylas, do you in other cases, when a point is
once evidently proved, withhold your consent on account of
objections or difficulties it may be liable to? Are the
difficulties that attend the doctrine of incommensurable
quantities, of the angle of contact, of the asymptotes to curves,
or the like, sufficient to make you hold out against mathematical
demonstration? Or will you disbelieve the Providence of God,
because there may be some particular things which you know not
how to reconcile with it? If there are difficulties <attending
Immaterialism>, there are at the same time direct and evident
proofs of it. But for the existence of Matter there is not one
proof, and far more numerous and insurmountable objections lie
against it. But where are those mighty difficulties you insist
on? Alas! you know not where or what they are; something which
may possibly occur hereafter. If this be a sufficient pretence
for withholding your full assent, you should never yield it to
any proposition, how free soever from exceptions, how clearly and
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
{260} opinions can be proof against neither. Whenever, therefore,
any difficulty occurs, try if you 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 you cannot conceive it
easier by the help of <Materialism>, it is plain it can be no
objection against <Immaterialism>. Had you proceeded all along by
this rule, you would probably have spared yourself abundance of
trouble in objecting; since of all your difficulties I challenge
you to shew one that is explained by Matter: nay, which is not
more unintelligible with than without that supposition; and
consequently makes rather <against than> for it. You should
consider, in each particular, whether the difficulty arises from
the <non>-<existence of Matter>. If it doth not, you might as
well argue from the infinite divisibility of extension against
the Divine prescience, as from such a difficulty against
<Immaterialism>. And yet, upon recollection, I believe you will
find this to have been often, if not always, the case. You should
likewise take heed not to argue on a <petitio principii>. One is
apt to say -- The unknown substances ought to be esteemed real
things, rather than the ideas in our minds: and who can tell but
the unthinking external substance may concur, as a cause or
instrument, in the productions of our ideas? But is not this
proceeding on a supposition that there are such external
substances? And to suppose this, is it not begging the question?
But, above all things, you should beware of imposing on yourself
by that vulgar sophism which is called <ignoratio elenchi>. You
talked often as if you thought I maintained the non-existence of
Sensible Things. Whereas in truth no one can be more thoroughly
assured of their existence than I am. 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 it
may be termed <somewhat>), which is quite stripped of all
sensible qualities, and can neither be perceived by sense, nor
apprehended by the mind. 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 I affirm do exist. Though
indeed I deny they have an existence distinct from being
perceived; or that they exist out of all minds whatsoever. Think
on these points; let them be attentively considered and still
kept in view. Otherwise you will not comprehend the state of the
question; without which your objections {261} will always be wide
of the mark, and, instead of mine, may possibly be directed (as
more than once they have been) against your own notions.
<Hyl>. I must needs own, Philonous, nothing seems to have
kept me from agreeing with you more than this same <mistaking the
question>. In denying Matter,. at first, glimpse I am tempted to
imagine you deny the things we see and feel: but, upon reflexion,
find there is no ground for it. What think you, therefore, of
retaining the name <Matter>, and applying it to <sensible
things>? This may be done without any change in your sentiments:
and, believe me, it would be a means of reconciling them to some
persons who may be more shocked at an innovation in words than in
opinion.
<Phil>. With all my heart: retain the word <Matter>, and
apply it to the objects of sense, if you please; provided you do
not attribute to them any subsistence distinct from their being
perceived. I shall never quarrel with you for an expression.
<Matter>, or <material substance>, are terms introduced by
philosophers; and, as used by them, imply a sort of independency,
or a subsistence distinct from being perceived by a mind: but are
never used by common people; or, if ever, it is to signify the
immediate objects of sense. One would think, therefore, so long
as the names of all particular things, with the <terms sensible>,
<substance>, <body>, <stuff>, and the like, are retained, the
word <Matter> should be never missed in common talk. And in
philosophical discourses it seems the best way to leave it quite
out: since there is not, perhaps, any one thing that hath more
favoured and strengthened the depraved bent of the mind towards
Atheism than the use of that general confused term.
<Hyl>. Well but, Philonous, since I am content to give up
the notion of an unthinking substance exterior to the mind, I
think you ought not to deny me the privilege of using the word
<Matter> as I please, and annexing it to a collection of sensible
qualities subsisting only in the mind. I freely own there is no
other substance, in a strict sense, than <Spirit>. But I have
been so long accustomed to the <term Matter> that I know 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 that term be meant an unthinking substance existing without
the mind; but if by <Matter> is meant some sensible thing, whose
existence consists in being perceived, then there is <Matter>: --
<this> distinction gives it quite another turn; and men will come
into your notions with {262} small difficulty, when they are
proposed in that manner. For, after all, the controversy about
<Matter> in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between
you and the philosophers: whose principles, I acknowledge, are
not near so natural, or so agreeable to the common sense of
mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours. There is nothing we either
desire or shun but as it makes, or is apprehended to make, some
part of our happiness or misery. But what hath happiness or
misery, joy or grief, pleasure or pain, to do with Absolute
Existence; or with unknown entities, <abstracted from dl relation
to us>? It is evident, things regard us only as they are pleasing
or displeasing: and they can please or 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
not now think with the Philosophers; nor yet altogether with the
vulgar. I would know how the case stands in that respect;
precisely, what you have added to, or altered in my former
notions.
<Phil>. I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions.
My endeavours tend only to unite, and place in a clearer light,
that truth which was before shared between the vulgar and the
philosophers: -- the former being of opinion, that <those things
they immediately perceive are the real things>; and the latter,
that <the things immediately perceived are ideas>, <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 saw things by a dim light and through false glasses.
Now the glasses are removed and a new light breaks in upon my
under standing. I am clearly convinced that I see things in their
native forms, and am no longer in pain about their <unknown
natures or absolute existence>. This is the state I find myself
in at present; though, indeed, the course that brought me to it I
do not yet thoroughly comprehend. You set out upon the same
principles that Academics, Cartesians, and the like sects usually
do; and for a long time it looked as if you were advancing their
philosophical Scepticism: but, in the end, your conclusions are
directly opposite to theirs.
<Phil>. You see, Hylas, the water of yonder fountain, how it
is forced upwards, in a round column, to a certain height; at
{263} which it breaks, and falls back into the basin from whence
it rose: its ascent, as well as descent, proceeding from the same
uniform law or principle of gravitation. just so, the same
Principles which, at first view, lead to Scepticism, pursued to a
certain point, bring men back to Common Sense.
[1][Copyright: (c) 1996, James Fieser (
[email protected]), all
rights reserved. Unaltered copies of this computer text file may
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holder. This copyright notice supersedes all previous notices on
earlier versions of this text file. When quoting from this text,
please use the following citation: <Berkeley's Three Dialogues>,
ed. James Fieser (Internet Release, 1996).
Editorial Conventions: Letters within angled brackets (e.g.,
<Hume>) designate italics. Note references are contained within
square brackets (e.g., [1]). Original pagination is contained
within curly brackets (e.g., {1}). Spelling and punctuation have
not been modernized. Printer's errors have been corrected without
note. Bracketed comments within the end notes are the editor's.
This is a working draft. Please report errors to James Fieser
(
[email protected]).]
[2][Text within brackets is not contained in the first and second
editions.]
[3]["Size or figure, or sensible quality" -- "size, colour, &c,"
in the first and second
editions.]
[4]["In stones and minerals" -- in first and second editions.]
[5][The passage within brackets first appeared in the third
edition.]
[6][0mitted in last edition.]
[7]"Tell me, Hylas," -- "So Hylas" -- in first and second
editions.]
[8][This important passage, printed within brackets, is not found
in the first and second editions of the Didogues. It is, by
anticipation, Berkeley's answer to Hume's application of the
objections to the reality of abstract or unperceived Matter, to
the reality of the Ego or Self, of which we are aware through
memory, as identical amid the changes of its successive states.-
A. C. F.]
[9][The words within brackets are omitted in the third edition.]
[10][Omitted in authoes last edition.]
[11][In the first and second editions only.]
