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.

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.