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real tree?
HYL. KNOW? No, it is impossible you or any man alive should know it. All you know is, that you have
such a certain idea or appearance in your own mind. But what is this to the real tree or stone? I tell you
that colour, figure, and hardness, which you perceive, are not the real natures of those things, or in the
least like them. The same may be said of all other real things, or corporeal substances, which compose
the world. They have none of them anything of themselves, like those sensible qualities by us perceived.
We should not therefore pretend to affirm or know anything of them, as they are in their own nature.
PHIL. But surely, Hylas, I can distinguish gold, for example, from iron: and how could this be, if I knew
not what either truly was?
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Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, by George Berkeley (chapter3)
HYL. Believe me, Philonous, you can only distinguish between your own ideas. That yellowness, that
weight, and other sensible qualities, think you they are really in the gold? They are only relative to the
senses, and have no absolute existence in nature. And in pretending to distinguish the species of real
things, by the appearances in your mind, you may perhaps act as wisely as he that should conclude two
men were of a different species, because their clothes were not of the same colour.
PHIL. It seems, then, we are altogether put off with the appearances of things, and those false ones too.
The very meat I eat, and the cloth I wear, have nothing in them like what I see and feel.
HYL. Even so.
PHIL. But is it not strange the whole world should be thus imposed on, and so foolish as to believe their
senses? And yet I know not how it is, but men eat, and drink, and sleep, and perform all the offices of
life, as comfortably and conveniently as if they really knew the things they are conversant about.
HYL. They do so: but you know ordinary practice does not require a nicety of speculative knowledge.
Hence the vulgar retain their mistakes, and for all that make a shift to bustle through the affairs of life.
But philosophers know better things.
PHIL. You mean, they KNOW that they KNOW NOTHING.
HYL. That is the very top and perfection of human knowledge.
PHIL. But are you all this while in earnest, Hylas; and are you seriously persuaded that you know
nothing real in the world? Suppose you are going to write, would you not call for pen, ink, and paper,
like another man; and do you not know what it is you call for?
HYL. How often must I tell you, that I know not the real nature of any one thing in the universe? I may
indeed upon occasion make use of pen, ink, and paper. But what any one of them is in its own true
nature, I declare positively I know not. And the same is true with regard to every, other corporeal thing.
And, what is more, we are not only ignorant of the true and real nature of things, but even of their
existence. It cannot be denied that we perceive such certain appearances or ideas; but it cannot be
concluded from thence that bodies really exist. Nay, now I think on it, I must, agreeably to my former
concessions, farther declare that it is impossible any REAL corporeal thing should exist in nature.
PHIL. You amaze me. Was ever anything more wild and extravagant than the notions you now
maintain: and is it not evident you are led into all these extravagances by the belief of MATERIAL
SUBSTANCE? This makes you dream of those unknown natures in everything. It is this occasions your
distinguishing between the reality and sensible appearances of things. It is to this you are indebted for
being ignorant of what everybody else knows perfectly well. Nor is this all: you are not only ignorant of
the true nature of everything, but you know not whether anything really exists, or whether there are any
true natures at all; forasmuch as you attribute to your material beings an absolute or external existence,
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Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, by George Berkeley (chapter3)
wherein you suppose their reality consists. And, as you are forced in the end to acknowledge such an
existence means either a direct repugnancy, or nothing at all, it follows that you are obliged to pull down
your own hypothesis of material Substance, and positively to deny the real existence of any part of the
universe. And so you are plunged into the deepest and most deplorable scepticism that ever man was.
Tell me, Hylas, is it not as I say?
HYL. I agree with you. MATERIAL SUBSTANCE was no more than an hypothesis; and a false and
groundless one too. I will no longer spend my breath in defence of it. But whatever hypothesis you
advance, or whatsoever scheme of things you introduce in its stead, I doubt not it will appear every whit
as false: let me but be allowed to question you upon it. That is, suffer me to serve you in your own kind,
and I warrant it shall conduct you through as many perplexities and contradictions, to the very same
state of scepticism that I myself am in at present.
PHIL. I assure you, Hylas, I do not pretend to frame any hypothesis at all. I am of a vulgar cast, simple
enough to believe my senses, and leave things as I find them. To be plain, it is my opinion that the real
things are those very things I see, and feel, and perceive by my senses. These I know; and, finding they
answer all the necessities and purposes of life, have no reason to be solicitous about any other unknown
beings. A piece of sensible bread, for instance, would stay my stomach better than ten thousand times as
much of that insensible, unintelligible, real bread you speak of. It is likewise my opinion that colours
and other sensible qualities are on the objects. I cannot for my life help thinking that snow is white, and
fire hot. You indeed, who by SNOW and fire mean certain external, unperceived, unperceiving
substances, are in the right to deny whiteness or heat to be affections inherent in THEM. But I, who
understand by those words the things I see and feel, am obliged to think like other folks. And, as I am no
sceptic with regard to the nature of things, so neither am I as to their existence. That a thing should be
really perceived by my senses, and at the same time not really exist, is to me a plain contradiction; since
I cannot prescind or abstract, even in thought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being perceived.
Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron, and the like things, which I name and discourse of, are things that I
know. And I should not have known them but that I perceived them by my senses; and things perceived
by the senses are immediately perceived; and things immediately perceived 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
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