hould be allowed to exist, yet how can
that which is INACTIVE be a CAUSE; or that which is UNTHINKING be a
CAUSE OF THOUGHT? You may, indeed, if you please, annex to the word
MATTER a contrary meaning to what is vulgarly received; and tell me you
understand by it, an unextended, thinking, active being, which is the
cause of our ideas. But what else is this than to play with words, and
run into that very fault you just now condemned with so much reason? I do
by no means find fault with your reasoning, in that you collect a cause
from the PHENOMENA: BUT I deny that THE cause deducible by reason
can properly be termed Matter.

HYL. There is indeed something in what you say. But I am afraid
you do not thoroughly comprehend my meaning. I would by no means be
thought to deny that God, or an infinite Spirit, is the Supreme Cause of
all things. All I contend for is, that, subordinate to the Supreme Agent,
there is a cause of a limited and inferior nature, which CONCURS in the
production of our ideas, not by any act of will, or spiritual efficiency,
but by that kind of action which belongs to Matter, viz. MOTION.

PHIL. I find you are at every turn relapsing into your old exploded
conceit, of a moveable, and consequently an extended, substance, existing
without the mind. What! Have you already forgotten you were convinced; or
are you willing I should repeat what has been said on that head? In truth
this is not fair dealing in you, still to suppose the being of that which
you have so often acknowledged to have no being. But, not to insist
farther on what has been so largely handled, I ask whether all your ideas
are not perfectly passive and inert, including nothing of action in them.

HYL. They are.

PHIL. And are sensible qualities anything else but ideas?

HYL. How often have I acknowledged that they are not.

PHIL. But is not MOTION a sensible quality?

HYL. It is.

PHIL. Consequently it is no action?

HYL. I agree with you. And indeed it is very plain that when I stir my
finger, it remains passive; but my will which produced the motion is
active.

PHIL. Now, I desire to know, in the first place, whether, motion being
allowed to be no action, you can conceive any action besides volition:
and, in the second place, whether to say something and conceive nothing
be not to talk nonsense: and, lastly, whether, having considered the
premises, you do not perceive that to suppose any efficient or active
Cause of o