Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous
                                
                         George Berkeley
                                
                              1713
                                

Copyright 1996, James Fieser (jfieser@utm.edu). See end note for
details on copyright and editing conventions. This text file is
based on the 1910 Harvard Classics edition of Berkeley's <Three
Dialogues>. Pagenation follows T.E. Jessop's 1949 edition of
<Three Dialogues>, in <The Works of George Berkeley>, Vol. 2.
This is a working draft; please report errors.[1]

                             * * * *
                                
                         THREE DIALOGUES
                             Between
                       HYLAS AND PHILONOUS
                                
  The Design of which is Plainly to Demonstrate the Reality and
                          Perfection of
                                
                         HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
                  The Incorporeal Nature of the
                                
                              SOUL
                And the Immediate Providence of a
                                
                              DEITY
                        In Opposition to
                                
                      SCEPTICS AND ATHEISTS
                                
   Also to Open a Method for Rendering the Sciences More Easy,
                     Useful, and Compendious
                                
                                

{171}

                       THE FIRST DIALOGUE

     . Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find
you abroad so early.

     . It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts
were so taken up with a subject I was discoursing of last night,
that finding I could not sleep, I resolved to rise and take a
turn in the garden.

     . It happened well, to let you see what innocent and
agreeable pleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a
pleasanter time of the day, or a more delightful season of the
year? That purple sky, those wild but sweet notes of birds, the
fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers, the gentle influence
of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless beauties of
nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its faculties too
being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those
meditations, which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of
the morning naturally dispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt
your thoughts: for you seemed very intent on something.

     . It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you
will permit me to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any
means deprive myself of your company, for my thoughts always flow
more easily in conversation with a friend, than when I am alone:
but my request is, that you would suffer me to impart my
reflexions to you.

     . With all my heart, it is what I should have
requested myself if you had not prevented me.

     . I was considering the odd fate of those men who have
in all ages, through an affectation of being distinguished from
the vulgar, or some unaccountable turn of thought, pretended
either to believe nothing at all, or to believe the most
extravagant things in the world. This however might be borne, if
their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them some
consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief
lieth {172} here; that when men of less leisure see them who are
supposed to have spent their whole time in the pursuits of
knowledge professing an entire ignorance of all things, or
advancing such notions as are repugnant to plain and commonly
received principles, they will be tempted to entertain suspicions
concerning the most important truths, which they had hitherto
held sacred and unquestionable.

     . I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of
the affected doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical
conceits of others. I am even so far gone of late in this way of
thinking, that I have quitted several of the sublime notions I
had got in their schools for vulgar opinions. And I give it you
on my word; since this revolt from metaphysical notions to the
plain dictates of nature and common sense, I find my
understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily
comprehend a great many things which before were all mystery and
riddle.

     . I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I