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 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