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; or to pretend our knowledge in this point falls short of intuition or demonstration!  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?

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.  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.

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.

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.  Farther, I know what I mean by the terms I and myself; and I know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not perceive