654 GEORGEBERKELEY
HYLAS: I will no longer maintain that matter is an instrument. However, I would
not be understood to give up its existence neither; since, notwithstanding what hath
been said, it may still be an occasion.
PHILONOUS: How many shapes is your matter to take? Or, how often must it be
proved not to exist, before you are content to part with it? But, to say no more of this
(though by all the laws of disputation I may justly blame you for so frequently
changing the signification of the principal term)—I would fain know what you mean
by affirming that matter is an occasion, having already denied it to be a cause. And,
when you have shown in what sense you understand occasion,pray, in the next place
be pleased to show me what reason induces you to believe there is such an occasion
of our ideas?
HYLAS: As to the first point: by occasionI mean an inactive unthinking being, at
the presence whereof God excites ideas in our minds.
PHILONOUS: And what may be the nature of that inactive unthinking being?
HYLAS: I know nothing of its nature.
PHILONOUS: Proceed then to the second point, and assign some reason why we
should allow an existence to this inactive, unthinking, unknown thing.
HYLAS: When we see ideas produced in our minds, after an orderly and constant
manner, it is natural to think they have some fixed and regular occasions, at the presence
of which they are excited.
PHILONOUS: You acknowledge then God alone to be the cause of our ideas, and
that he causes them at the presence of those occasions.
HYLAS: That is my opinion.
Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Beginning in 1700, Berkeley attended Trinity College. After becoming a
Fellow of the College in 1707, he was a tutor and Greek lecturer. Today, one of the libraries on campus is
named after him. (© 2008, Pilise Gábor)