HYL.  But, Philonous, you do not seem to be aware that you allow created things, in the beginning, only a relative, and consequently hypothetical being:  that is to say, upon supposition there were men to perceive them; without which they have no actuality of absolute existence, wherein creation might terminate.  Is it not, therefore, according to you, plainly impossible the creation of any inanimate creatures should precede that of man?  And is not this directly contrary to the Mosaic account?

Phil.  In answer to that, I say, first, created beings might begin to exist in the mind of other created intelligences, beside men.  You will not therefore be able to prove any contradiction between Moses and my notions, unless you first shew there was no other order of finite created spirits in being, before man.  I say farther, in case we conceive the creation, as we should at this time, a parcel of plants or vegetables of all sorts produced, by an invisible Power, in a desert where nobody was present—­that this way of explaining or conceiving it is consistent with my principles, since they deprive you of nothing, either sensible or imaginable; that it exactly suits with the common, natural, and undebauched notions of mankind; that it manifests the dependence of all things on God; and consequently hath all the good effect or influence, which it is possible that important article of our faith should have in making men humble, thankful, and resigned to their great Creator.  I say, moreover, that, in this naked conception of things, divested of words, there will not be found any notion of what you call the actuality of absolute existence.  You may indeed raise a dust with those terms, and so lengthen our dispute to no purpose.  But I entreat you calmly to look into your own thoughts, and then tell me if they are not a useless and unintelligible jargon.

HYL.  I own I have no very clear notion annexed to them.  But what say you to this?  Do you not make the existence of sensible things consist in their being in a mind?  And were not all things eternally in the mind of God?  Did they not therefore exist from all eternity, according to you?  And how could that which was eternal be created in time?  Can anything be clearer or better connected than this?

Phil.  And are not you too of opinion, that God knew all things from eternity?

HYL.  I am.

Phil.  Consequently they always had a being in the Divine intellect.

HYL.  This I acknowledge.

Phil.  By your own confession, therefore, nothing is new, or begins to be, in respect of the mind of God.  So we are agreed in that point.

HYL.  What shall we make then of the creation?