seems. Beyond this modest result, so far, we
have the most complete liberty of conjecture. Leibniz tells us it is a
community of souls: Berkeley tells us it is an idea in the mind of God;
sober science, scarcely less wonderful, tells us it is a vast collection
of electric charges in violent motion.

Among these surprising possibilities, doubt suggests that perhaps there
is no table at all. Philosophy, if it cannot _answer_ so many questions
as we could wish, has at least the power of _asking_ questions which
increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder
lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.

CHAPTER II. THE EXISTENCE OF MATTER

In this chapter we have to ask ourselves whether, in any sense at all,
there is such a thing as matter. Is there a table which has a certain
intrinsic nature, and continues to exist when I am not looking, or is
the table merely a product of my imagination, a dream-table in a very
prolonged dream? This question is of the greatest importance. For if
we cannot be sure of the independent existence of objects, we cannot
be sure of the independent existence of other people's bodies, and
therefore still less of other people's minds, since we have no grounds
for believing in their minds except such as are derived from observing
their bodies. Thus if we cannot be sure of the independent existence of
objects, we shall be left alone in a desert--it may be that the whole
outer world is nothing but a dream, and that we alone exist. This is an
uncomfortable possibility; but although it cannot be strictly proved to
be false, there is not the slightest reason to suppose that it is true.
In this chapter we have to see why this is the case.

Before we embark upon doubtful matters, let us try to find some more
or less fixed point from which to start. Although we are doubting the
physical existence of the table, we are not doubting the existence
of the sense-data which made us think there was a table; we are not
doubting that, while we look, a certain colour and shape appear to us,
and while we press, a certain sensation of hardness is experienced by
us. All this, which is psychological, we are not calling in question.
In fact, whatever else may be doubtful, some at least of our immediate
experiences seem absolutely certain.

Descartes (1596-1650), the founder of modern philosophy, invented a
method which may still be used with profit--the method