. I own it.

     . Is it therefore certain, that there is no body in
nature really hot?

     . I have not denied there is any real heat in bodies. I
only say, there is no such thing as an intense real heat.

     . But, did you not say before that all degrees of heat
were equally real; or, if there was any difference, that the
greater were more undoubtedly real than the lesser?

     . True: but it was because I did not then consider the
ground there is for distinguishing between them, which I now
plainly see. And it is this: because intense heat is nothing else
but a particular kind of painful sensation; and pain cannot exist
but in a perceiving being; it follows that no intense heat can
really exist in an unperceiving corporeal substance. But this is
no reason wh' we should deny heat in an inferior degree to exist
in such a substance.

     . But how shall we be able to discern those degrees of
heat which exist only in the mind from those which exist without
it?

     . That is no difficult matter. You know the least pain
cannot exist unperceived; whatever, therefore, degree of heat is
a pain exists only in the mind. But, as for all other degrees of
heat, nothing obliges us to think the same of them.

     . I think you granted before that no unperceiving
being was capable of pleasure, any more than of pain.

     . I did. {178}

     . And is not warmth, or a more gentle degree of heat
than what causes uneasiness, a pleasure?

     . What then?

     . Consequently, it cannot exist without the mind in an
unperceiving substance, or body.

     . So it seems.

     . Since, therefore, as well those degrees of heat that
are not painful, as those that are, can exist only in a thinking
substance; may we not conclude that external bodies are
absolutely incapable of any degree of heat whatsoever?

     . On second thoughts, I do not think it so evident that
warmth is a pleasure as that a great degree of heat is a pain.

     .  do not pretend that warmth is as great a
pleasure as heat is a pain. But, if you grant it to be even a
small pleasure, it serves to make good my conclusion.

     . I could rather call it an . It seems to be
nothing more than a privation of both pain and pleasure. And that
such a quality or state as this may agree to an unthinking
substance, I hope you will not deny.

     . If you are resolved to maintain that warmth, or a
gentle degree of heat, is no pleasure, I know not how to convince
you otherwise than by appealing to your own sense. But what think
you of cold?

     . The same that I do of heat. An intense degree of cold
is a pain; for to feel a very great cold, is to perceive a great
uneasiness: it cannot therefore exist without the mind; but a
lesser degree of cold may, as well as a lesser degree of heat.

     . Those bodies, therefore, upon whose application to
our own, we perceive a moderate degree of heat, must be concluded
to have a moderate degree of heat or warmth in them; and those,
upon whose application we feel a like degree of cold, must be
thought to have cold in them.

     . They must.

     . Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a
man into an absurdity?

     . Without doubt it cannot.

     . Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing
should be at the same time both cold and warm?

     . It is.

     . Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other
cold, and that they are both at once put into the same vessel of
{179} water, in an intermediate state; will not the water seem
cold to one hand, and warm to the other?

     . It will.

     . Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to
conclude it is really both cold and warm at the same time, that
is, according to your own concession, to believe an absurdity?