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?
_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(800).
_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 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(801). 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_(802). How then can motion in general, or extension
in general, exist in any corporeal substance?
_Hyl._ I will take time to solve your difficulty.
_Phil._ But I think the point may be speedily decided. Without doubt 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(803) 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(804).
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(805), 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_; whatsoever faculty you
understand by those words(806). 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(807). 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_(808). 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?
_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(809)?
_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(810); but, whatever beside is implied in a perception may?
_Hyl._ That is my meaning.
_Phil._ So that if there was a perception without any act of the mind, 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?
_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(811).
_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?
_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.
_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 _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 a mind?
_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(812), 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: 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(813)?
_Hyl._ It is.