ighly serviceable to
religion in what you advance. But do you not think it looks very like a
notion entertained by some eminent moderns, of SEEING ALL THINGS IN
GOD?

PHIL. I would gladly know that opinion: pray explain it to me.

HYL. They conceive that the soul, being immaterial, is incapable of
being united with material things, so as to perceive them in themselves;
but that she perceives them by her union with the substance of God,
which, being spiritual, is therefore purely intelligible, or capable of
being the immediate object of a spirit's thought. Besides the Divine
essence contains in it perfections correspondent to each created being;
and which are, for that reason, proper to exhibit or represent them to
the mind.

PHIL. I do not understand how our ideas, which are things altogether
passive and inert, can be the essence, or any part (or like any part) of
the essence or substance of God, who is an impassive, indivisible,
pure, active being. Many more difficulties and objections there are which
occur at first view against this hypothesis; but I shall only add that it
is liable to all the absurdities of the common hypothesis, in making a
created world exist otherwise than in the mind of a Spirit. Besides all
which it hath this peculiar to itself; that it makes that material world
serve to no purpose. And, if it pass for a good argument against other
hypotheses in the sciences, that they suppose Nature, or the Divine
wisdom, to make something in vain, or do that by tedious roundabout
methods which might have been performed in a much more easy and
compendious way, what shall we think of that hypothesis which supposes
the whole world made in vain?

HYL. But what say you? Are not you too of opinion that we see all
things in God? If I mistake not, what you advance comes near it.

PHIL. Few men think; yet all have opinions. Hence men's opinions are
superficial and confused. It is nothing strange that tenets which in
themselves are ever so different, should nevertheless be confounded with
each other, by those who do not consider them attentively. I shall not
therefore be surprised if some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasm
of Malebranche; though in truth I am very remote from it. He builds on
the most abstract general ideas, which I entirely disclaim. He asserts an
absolute external world, which I deny. He maintains that we are deceived
by our senses, and, know not the real natures or the true forms an