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 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
[(846) and of your own head], 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, 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 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 to-morrow shall be glad to meet you here again
about the same time.
_Phil._ I will not fail to attend you.
The Third Dialogue
_Philonous._ (847)Tell me, Hylas, 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! 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, 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. 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(848) 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(849). 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(850). 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(851) 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 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(852), 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(853); or to pretend our knowledge in this point
falls short of intuition or demonstration(854)! 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(855)?
_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(856). There
is therefore some other Mind wherein they exist, during the intervals
between the times of 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_(857).
_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(858).
_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
I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my
ideas exist(859). 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 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(860). Farther, from my own being, and from the dependency I find in
myself and my ideas, I do, by an act of reason(861), 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(862) objectively, as
you do an inactive being or idea; nor know it, as you do yourself, by a
reflex act(863); neither do you mediately apprehend it by similitude of
the one or the other(864); nor yet collect it by reasoning from that which
you know immediately(865). All which makes the case of _Matter_ widely
different from that of the _Deity_.
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[(866)_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 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(867). 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(868). 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(869), a
thinking, active principle that perceives, knows, wills, and operates
about ideas. I know that I, one 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 all other sensible things and inert
ideas. But, I am not in like manner conscious either of the existence or
essence of Matter(870). 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.]
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_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(871). Ask the fellow
whether yonder tree hath an existence out of his mind: what answer think
you he would make?