owd of worlds. Is not the whole system
immense, beautiful, glorious beyond expression and beyond thought! What
treatment, then, do those philosophers deserve, who would deprive these
noble and delightful scenes of all REALITY? How should those Principles
be entertained that lead us to think all the visible beauty of the
creation a false imaginary glare? To be plain, can you expect this
Scepticism of yours will not be thought extravagantly absurd by all men
of sense?

HYL. Other men may think as they please; but for your part you have
nothing to reproach me with. My comfort is, you are as much a sceptic as
I am.

PHIL. There, Hylas, I must beg leave to differ from you.

HYL. What! Have you all along agreed to the premises, and do you now
deny the conclusion, and leave me to maintain those paradoxes by myself
which you led me into? This surely is not fair.

PHIL. _I_ deny that I agreed with you in those notions that led to
Scepticism. You indeed said the REALITY of sensible things consisted in
AN ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE OUT OF THE MINDS OF SPIRITS, or distinct from
their being perceived. And pursuant to this notion of reality, YOU are
obliged to deny sensible things any real existence: that is,
according to your own definition, you profess yourself a sceptic. But I
neither said nor thought the reality of sensible things was to be defined
after that manner. To me it is evident for the reasons you allow of, that
sensible things cannot exist otherwise than in a mind or spirit. Whence I
conclude, not that they have no real existence, but that, seeing they
depend not on my thought, and have all existence distinct from being
perceived by me, THERE MUST BE SOME OTHER MIND WHEREIN THEY EXIST. As
sure, therefore, as the sensible world really exists, so sure is there an
infinite omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it.

HYL. What! This is no more than I and all Christians hold; nay, and all
others too who believe there is a God, and that He knows and comprehends
all things.

PHIL. Aye, but here lies the difference. Men commonly believe that all
things are known or perceived by God, because they believe the being of a
God; whereas I, on the other side, immediately and necessarily conclude
the being of a God, because all sensible things must be perceived by Him.

HYL. But, so long as we all believe the same thing, what matter is it
how we come by that belief?

PHIL. But neither do we agree in the same opinion. For