n.

HYL. One great oversight I take to be this--that I did not sufficiently
distinguish the OBJECT from the SENSATION. Now, though this latter
may not exist without the mind, yet it will not thence follow that the
former cannot.

PHIL. What object do you mean? the object of the senses?

HYL. The same.

PHIL. It is then immediately perceived?

HYL. Right.

PHIL. Make me to understand the difference between what is immediately
perceived and a sensation.

HYL. The sensation I take to be an act of the mind perceiving; besides
which, there is something perceived; and this I call the OBJECT. For
example, there is red and yellow on that tulip. But then the act of
perceiving those colours is in me only, and not in the tulip.

PHIL. What tulip do you speak of? Is it that which you see?

HYL. The same.

PHIL. And what do you see beside colour, figure, and extension?

HYL. Nothing.

PHIL. What you would say then is that the red and yellow are coexistent
with the extension; is it not?

HYL. That is not all; I would say they have a real existence without
the mind, in some unthinking substance.

PHIL. That the colours are really in the tulip which I see is manifest.
Neither can it be denied that this tulip may exist independent of your
mind or mine; but, that any immediate object of the senses,--that is, any
idea, or combination of ideas--should exist in an unthinking substance,
or exterior to ALL minds, is in itself an evident contradiction. Nor
can I imagine how this follows from what you said just now, to wit, that
the red and yellow were on the tulip you SAW, since you do not pretend
to SEE that unthinking substance.

HYL. You have an artful way, Philonous, of diverting our inquiry from
the subject.

PHIL. I see you have no mind to be pressed that way. To return then to
your distinction between SENSATION and OBJECT; if I take you right,
you distinguish in every perception two things, the one an action of the
mind, the other not.

HYL. True.

PHIL. And this action cannot exist in, or belong to, any unthinking
thing; but, whatever beside is implied in a perception may?

HYL. That is my meaning.

PHIL. So that if there was a perception without any act of the mind, it
were possible such a perception should exist in an unthinking substance?

HYL. I grant it. But it is impossible there should be such a
perception.

PHIL. When is the mind said to be active?

HYL. When it produces, p