I
know not how to part with it: to say, there is no MATTER in the world,
is still shocking to me. Whereas to say--There is no MATTER, if by that
term be meant an unthinking substance existing without the mind; but if
by MATTER is meant some sensible thing, whose existence consists in
being perceived, then there is MATTER:--THIS distinction gives it
quite another turn; and men will come into your notions with small
difficulty, when they are proposed in that manner. For, after all, the
controversy about MATTER in the strict acceptation of it, lies
altogether between you and the philosophers: whose principles, I
acknowledge, are not near so natural, or so agreeable to the common sense
of mankind, and Holy Scripture, as yours. There is nothing we either
desire or shun but as it makes, or is apprehended to make, some part of
our happiness or misery. But what hath happiness or misery, joy or grief,
pleasure or pain, to do with Absolute Existence; or with unknown
entities, ABSTRACTED FROM ALL RELATION TO US? It is evident, things
regard us only as they are pleasing or displeasing: and they can please
or displease only so far forth as they are perceived. Farther, therefore,
we are not concerned; and thus far you leave things as you found them.
Yet still there is something new in this doctrine. It is plain, I do not
now think with the Philosophers; nor yet altogether with the vulgar. I
would know how the case stands in that respect; precisely, what you have
added to, or altered in my former notions.

PHIL. I do not pretend to be a setter-up of new notions. My endeavours
tend only to unite, and place in a clearer light, that truth which was
before shared between the vulgar and the philosophers:--the former being
of opinion, that THOSE THINGS THEY IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVE ARE THE REAL
THINGS; and the latter, that THE THINGS IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVED ARE
IDEAS, WHICH EXIST ONLY IN THE MIND. Which two notions put together,
do, in effect, constitute the substance of what I advance.

HYL. I have been a long time distrusting my senses: methought I saw
things by a dim light and through false glasses. Now the glasses are
removed and a new light breaks in upon my under standing. I am clearly
convinced that I see things in their native forms, and am no longer in
pain about their UNKNOWN NATURES OR ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. This is the
state I find myself in at present; though, indeed, the course that
brought me to it I do not yet thoroughly comprehen