e principles we have premised, so as in
truth to make any objection at all against our notions. For, though we
hold indeed the objects of sense to be nothing else but ideas which
cannot exist unperceived; yet we may not hence conclude they have no
existence except only while they are perceived by US, since THERE MAY BE
SOME OTHER SPIRIT THAT PERCEIVES THEM THOUGH WE DO NOT. Wherever bodies
are said to have no existence without the mind, I would not be understood
to mean this or that particular mind, but ALL MINDS WHATSOEVER. It does
not therefore follow from the foregoing principles that bodies are
annihilated and created every moment, or exist not at all during the
intervals between our perception of them.

49. FIFTH OBJECTION.--ANSWER.--Fifthly, it may perhaps be OBJECTED
that if extension and figure exist only in the mind, it follows
that the mind is extended and figured; since extension is a mode or
attribute which (to speak with the schools) is predicated of the
subject in which it exists. I ANSWER, (1) Those qualities are in the
mind ONLY AS THEY ARE PERCEIVED BY IT--that is, not by way of MODE
or ATTRIBUTE, but only by way of IDEA; and it no more follows the
soul or mind is extended, because extension exists in it alone,
than it does that it is red or blue, because those colours are ON
ALL HANDS acknowledged to exist in it, and nowhere else. (2) As to what
philosophers say of subject and mode, that seems very groundless and
unintelligible. For instance, in this proposition "a die is hard,
extended, and square," they will have it that the word die denotes a
subject or substance, distinct from the hardness, extension, and figure
which are predicated of it, and in which they exist. This I cannot
comprehend: to me a die seems to be nothing distinct from those things
which are termed its modes or accidents. And, to say a die is hard,
extended, and square is not to attribute those qualities to a subject
distinct from and supporting them, but only an explication of the meaning
of the word DIE.

50. SIXTH OBJECTION, FROM NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.--ANSWER.--Sixthly,
you will say there have been a great many things explained by
matter and motion; take away these and you destroy the whole
corpuscular philosophy, and undermine those mechanical principles which
have been applied with so much success to account for the PHENOMENA. In
short, whatever advances have been made, either by ancient or modern
philosophers, in the study of