Phil.  Look you, Hylas, when I speak of objects as existing in the mind, or imprinted on the senses, I would not be understood in the gross literal sense; as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an impression upon wax.  My meaning is only that the mind comprehends or perceives them; and that it is affected from without, or by some being distinct from itself.  This is my explication of your difficulty; and how it can serve to make your tenet of an unperceiving material substratum intelligible, I would fain know.

HYL.  Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use can be made of it.  But are you not guilty of some abuse of language in this?

Phil.  None at all.  It is no more than common custom, which you know is the rule of language, hath authorised:  nothing being more usual, than for philosophers to speak of the immediate objects of the understanding as things existing in the mind.  ’Nor is there anything in this but what is conformable to the general analogy of language; most part of the mental operations being signified by words borrowed from sensible things; as is plain in the terms comprehend, reflect, discourse, &C., which, being applied to the mind, must not be taken in their gross, original sense.

HYL.  You have, I own, satisfied me in this point.  But there still remains one great difficulty, which I know not how you will get over.  And, indeed, it is of such importance that if you could solve all others, without being able to find a solution for this, you must never expect to make me a proselyte to your principles.

Phil.  Let me know this mighty difficulty.

HYL.  The Scripture account of the creation is what appears to me utterly irreconcilable with your notions.  Moses tells us of a creation:  a creation of what? of ideas?  No, certainly, but of things, of real things, solid corporeal substances.  Bring your principles to agree with this, and I shall perhaps agree with you.

Phil.  Moses mentions the sun, moon, and stars, earth and sea, plants and animals.  That all these do really exist, and were in the beginning created by God, I make no question.  If by ideas you mean fictions and fancies of the mind, then these are no ideas.  If by ideas you mean immediate objects of the understanding, or sensible things, which cannot exist unperceived, or out of a mind, then these things are ideas.  But whether you do or do not call them ideas, it matters little.  The difference is only about a name.  And, whether that name be retained or rejected, the sense, the truth, and reality of things continues the same.  In common talk, the objects of our senses are not termed ideas, but things.  Call them so still:  provided you do not attribute to them any absolute external existence, and I shall never quarrel with you for a word.  The creation, therefore, I allow