642 GEORGEBERKELEY
HYLAS: If it comes to that the point will soon be decided. What more easy than to
conceive a tree or house existing by itself, independent of, and unperceived by, any
mind whatsoever? I do at this present time conceive them existing after that manner.
PHILONOUS: How say you, Hylas, can you see a thing which is at the same time
unseen?
HYLAS: No, that were a contradiction.
PHILONOUS: Is it not as great a contradiction to talk of conceivinga thing which is
unconceived?
HYLAS: It is.
PHILONOUS: The tree or house therefore which you think of is conceived by you?
HYLAS: How should it be otherwise?
PHILONOUS: And what is conceived is surely in the mind?
HYLAS: Without question, that which is conceived is in the mind.
PHILONOUS: How then came you to say, you conceived a house or tree existing
independent and out of all minds whatsoever?
HYLAS: That was I own an oversight; but stay, let me consider what led me into it.—
It is a pleasant mistake enough. As I was thinking of a tree in a solitary place, where no
one was present to see it, methought that was to conceive a tree as existing unperceived or
unthought of; not considering that I myself conceived it all the while. But now I plainly
see that all I can do is to frame ideas in my own mind. I may indeed conceive in my own
thoughts the idea of a tree, or a house, or a mountain, but that is all. And this is far from
proving that I can conceive them existing out of the minds of all spirits.
PHILONOUS: You acknowledge then that you cannot possibly conceive how any
one corporeal sensible thing should exist otherwise than in the mind?
HYLAS: I do.
PHILONOUS: And yet you will earnestly contend for the truth of that which you
cannot so much as conceive?
HYLASI profess I know not what to think, but still there are some scruples remain
with me. Is it not certain I seethings at a distance? Do we not perceive the stars and
moon, for example, to be a great way off? Is not this, say, manifest to the senses?
PHILONOUS: Do you not in a dream too perceive those or the like objects?
HYLAS: I do.
PHILONOUS: And have they not then the same appearance of being distant?
HYLAS: They have.
PHILONOUS: But you do not thence conclude the apparitions in a dream to be without
the mind?
HYLAS: By no means.
PHILONOUS: You ought not therefore to conclude that sensible objects are without
the mind, from their appearance, or manner wherein they are perceived.
HYLAS: I acknowledge it. But does not my sense deceive me in those cases?
PHILONOUS: By no means. The idea or thing which you immediately perceive, neither
sense nor reason informs you that it actually exists without the mind. By sense you only
know that you are affected with such certain sensations of light and colours, etc. And these
you will not say are without the mind.
HYLAS: True: but, beside all that, do you not think the sight suggests something of
outnessor distance?
PHILONOUS: Upon approaching a distant object, do the visible size and figure
change perpetually, or do they appear the same at all distances?
HYLAS: They are in a continual change.