ithout the mind, yet there may be things LIKE them, whereof they
are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an
unthinking substance. I ANSWER, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a
colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we
look but never so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible
for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask
whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas
are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? If
they are, THEN THEY ARE IDEAS and we have gained our point; but if you say
they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a colour
is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which
is intangible; and so of the rest.

9. THE PHILOSOPHICAL NOTION OF MATTER INVOLVES A CONTRADICTION.--Some
there are who make a DISTINCTION betwixt PRIMARY and SECONDARY
qualities. By the former they mean extension, figure, motion, rest,
solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all
other sensible qualities, as colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The
ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of
anything existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have
our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or images of things
which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call
MATTER. By MATTER, therefore, we are to understand an inert, senseless
substance, in which extension, figure, and motion DO ACTUALLY SUBSIST.
But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension,
figure, and motion are ONLY IDEAS EXISTING IN THE MIND, and that an idea
can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they
nor their archetypes can exist in an UNPERCEIVING substance. Hence, it is
plain that that the very notion of what is called MATTER or CORPOREAL
SUBSTANCE, involves a contradiction in it.[Note.]

[Note: "Insomuch that I should not think it necessary to spend more time
in exposing its absurdity. But because the tenet of the existence of
matter seems to have taken so deep a root in the minds of philosophers,
and draws after it so many ill consequences, I choose rather to be
thought prolix and tedious, than omit anything that might conduce to
the full discovery and extirpation of the prejudice."--Edit 1710.]

10. ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.--They wh