THREEDIALOGUES(1) 643
PHILONOUS: Sight therefore does not suggest, or any way inform you, that the visible
object you immediately perceive exists at a distance, or will be perceived when you
advance farther onward; there being a continued series of visible objects succeeding each
other during the whole time of your approach.
HYLAS: It does not; but still I know, upon seeing an object, what object I shall
perceive after having passed over a certain distance: no matter whether it be exactly the
same or no: there is still something of distance suggested in the case.
PHILONOUS: Good Hylas, do but reflect a little on the point, and then tell me whether
there be any more in it than this: from the ideas you actually perceive by sight, you have
by experience learned to collect what other ideas you will (according to the standing order
of nature) be affected with, after such a certain succession of time and motion.
HYLAS: Upon the whole, I take it to be nothing else.
PHILONOUS: Now, is it not plain that if we suppose a man born blind was on a sudden
made to see, he could at first have no experience of what may be suggested by sight?
HYLAS: It is.
PHILONOUS: He would not then, according to you, have any notion of distance
annexed to the things he saw; but would take them for a new set of sensations, existing
only in his mind?
HYLAS: It is undeniable.
PHILONOUS: But, to make it still more plain: is not distancea line turned endwise
to the eye?
HYLAS: It is.
PHILONOUS: And can a line so situated be perceived by sight?
HYLAS: It cannot.
PHILONOUS: Does it not therefore follow that distance is not properly and immedi-
ately perceived by sight?
HYLAS: It should seem so.
PHILONOUS: Again, is it your opinion that colours are at a distance?
HYLAS: It must be acknowledged they are only in the mind.
PHILONOUS: But do not colours appear to the eye as coexisting in the same place
with extension and figures?
HYLAS: They do.
PHILONOUS: How can you then conclude from sight that figures exist without,
when you acknowledge colours do not; the sensible appearance being the very same
with regard to both?
HYLAS: I know not what to answer.
PHILONOUS: But, allowing that distance was truly and immediately perceived by
the mind, yet it would not thence follow it existed out of the mind. For, whatever is
immediately perceived is an idea: and can any ideaexist out of the mind?
HYLAS: To suppose that were absurd: but, inform me, Philonous, can we perceive
or know nothing beside our ideas?
PHILONOUS: As for the rational deducing of causes from effects, that is beside our
inquiry. And, by the senses you can best tell whether you perceive anything which is not
immediately perceived. And I ask you, whether the things immediately perceived are
other than your own sensations or ideas? You have indeed more than once, in the course of
this conversation, declared yourself on those points; but you seem, by this last question, to
have departed from what you then thought.
HYLAS: To speak the truth, Philonous, I think there are two kinds of objects:—the one
perceived immediately, which are likewise called ideas;the other are real things or external