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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,
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Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, by George Berkeley (chapter2)
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.
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 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
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Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, by George Berkeley (chapter2)
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 unknown parts, that it hath unknown motions, and
an unknown shape?
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Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, by George Berkeley (chapter2)
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
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