Phil.  The ideas formed by the imagination are faint and indistinct; they have, besides, an entire dependence on the will.  But the ideas perceived by sense, that is, real things, are more vivid and clear; and, being imprinted on the mind by a spirit distinct from us, have not the like dependence on our will.  There is therefore no danger of confounding these with the foregoing:  and there is as little of confounding them with the visions of a dream, which are dim, irregular, and confused.  And, though they should happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, by their not being connected, and of a piece with the preceding and subsequent transactions of our lives, they might easily be distinguished from realities.  In short, by whatever method you distinguish things from chimeras on your scheme, the same, it is evident, will hold also upon mine.  For, it must be, I presume, by some perceived difference; and I am not for depriving you of any one thing that you perceive.

HYL.  But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in the world but spirits and ideas.  And this, you must needs acknowledge, sounds very oddly.

Phil.  I own the word idea, not being commonly used for thing, sounds something out of the way.  My reason for using it was, because a necessary relation to the mind is understood to be implied by that term; and it is now commonly used by philosophers to denote the immediate objects of the understanding.  But, however oddly the proposition may sound in words, yet it includes nothing so very strange or shocking in its sense; which in effect amounts to no more than this, to wit, that there are only things perceiving, and things perceived; or that every unthinking being is necessarily, and from the very nature of its existence, perceived by some mind; if not by a finite created mind, yet certainly by the infinite mind of God, in whom “we five, and move, and have our being.”  Is this as strange as to say, the sensible qualities are not on the objects:  or that we cannot be sure of the existence of things, or know any thing of their real natures—­though we both see and feel them, and perceive them by all our senses?

HYL.  And, in consequence of this, must we not think there are no such things as physical or corporeal causes; but that a Spirit is the immediate cause of all the phenomena in nature?  Can there be anything more extravagant than this?

Phil.  Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say—­a thing which is inert operates on the mind, and which is unperceiving is the cause of our perceptions, without any regard either to consistency, or the old known axiom, nothing can give to another that which it hath not itself.  Besides, that which to you, I know not for what reason, seems so extravagant is no more than the Holy Scriptures assert in a hundred places.  In them God is represented as the sole and immediate Author of all those effects which some heathens and philosophers are wont to ascribe to Nature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthinking principle.  This is so much the constant language of Scripture that it were needless to confirm it by citations.