ht to have cold in them.

HYL. They must.

PHIL. Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a man into an
absurdity?

HYL. Without doubt it cannot.

PHIL. Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing should be at
the same time both cold and warm?

HYL. It is.

PHIL. Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that
they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an
intermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to
the other?

HYL. It will.

PHIL. Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to conclude it is
really both cold and warm at the same time, that is, according to your
own concession, to believe an absurdity?

HYL. I confess it seems so.

PHIL. Consequently, the principles themselves are false, since you have
granted that no true principle leads to an absurdity.

HYL. But, after all, can anything be more absurd than to say, THERE IS
NO HEAT IN THE FIRE?

PHIL. To make the point still clearer; tell me whether, in two cases
exactly alike, we ought not to make the same judgment?

HYL. We ought.

PHIL. When a pin pricks your finger, doth it not rend and divide the
fibres of your flesh?

HYL. It doth.

PHIL. And when a coal burns your finger, doth it any more?

HYL. It doth not.

PHIL. Since, therefore, you neither judge the sensation itself
occasioned by the pin, nor anything like it to be in the pin; you should
not, conformably to what you have now granted, judge the sensation
occasioned by the fire, or anything like it, to be in the fire.

HYL. Well, since it must be so, I am content to yield this point, and
acknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations existing in our minds.
But there still remain qualities enough to secure the reality of external
things.

PHIL. But what will you say, Hylas, if it shall appear that the case is
the same with regard to all other sensible qualities, and that they can
no more be supposed to exist without the mind, than heat and cold?

HYL. Then indeed you will have done something to the purpose; but that
is what I despair of seeing proved.

PHIL. Let us examine them in order. What think you of TASTES, do they
exist without the mind, or no?

HYL. Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is sweet, or
wormwood bitter?

PHIL. Inform me, Hylas. Is a sweet taste a particular kind of pleasure
or pleasant sensation, or is it not?

HYL. It is.

PHIL. And is n