excite this or that motion in our own bodies. But for a fuller
information in this point I refer to the Essay itself.

45. FOURTH OBJECTION, FROM PERPETUAL ANNIHILATION AND
CREATION.--ANSWER.--Fourthly, it will be objected that from the foregoing
principles it follows things are every moment annihilated and created
anew. The objects of sense exist only when they are perceived; the trees
therefore are in the garden, or the chairs in the parlour, no longer than
while there is somebody by to perceive them. Upon SHUTTING MY EYES all
the furniture in the room is reduced to nothing, and barely upon opening
them it is again created. In ANSWER to all which, I refer the reader to
what has been said in sect. 3, 4, &c., and desire he will consider
whether he means anything by the actual existence of an idea distinct
from its being perceived. For my part, after the nicest inquiry I could
make, I am not able to discover that anything else is meant by those
words; and I once more entreat the reader to sound his own thoughts, and
not suffer himself to be imposed on by words. If he can conceive it
possible either for his ideas or their archetypes to exist without being
perceived, then I give up the cause; but if he cannot, he will
acknowledge it is unreasonable for him to stand up in defence of he knows
not what, and pretend to charge on me as an absurdity the not assenting
to those propositions which at bottom have no meaning in them.

46. ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM.--It will not be amiss to observe how far
the received principles of philosophy are themselves chargeable
with those pretended absurdities. (1) It is thought strangely absurd
that upon closing my eyelids all the visible objects around me
should be reduced to nothing; and yet is not this what philosophers
commonly acknowledge, when they agree on all hands that light and
colours, which alone are the proper and immediate objects of sight,
are mere sensations that exist no longer than they are perceived?
(2)Again, it may to some perhaps seem very incredible that things should
be every moment creating, yet this very notion is commonly taught in the
schools. For the SCHOOLMEN, though they acknowledge the existence of
Matter, and that the whole mundane fabric is framed out of it, are
nevertheless of opinion that it cannot subsist without the divine
conservation, which by them is expounded to be a continual creation.

47. (3) Further, a little thought will discover to us that though w