proof for the existence of anything which is not perceived by sense.
We are not for having any man turn sceptic and disbelieve his
senses; on the contrary, we give them all the stress and assurance
imaginable; nor are there any principles more opposite to Scepticism
than those we have laid down, as shall be hereafter clearly shewn.

  41. Secondly, it will be objected that there is a great difference
betwixt real fire for instance, and the idea of fire, betwixt dreaming
or imagining oneself burnt, and actually being so: if you suspect it
to be only the idea of fire which you see, do but put your hand into
it and you will be convinced with a witness. This and the like may
be urged in opposition to our tenets. To all which the answer is
evident from what hath been already said; and I shall only add in this
place, that if real fire be very different from the idea of fire, so
also is the real pain that it occasions very different from the idea
of the same pain, and yet nobody will pretend that real pain either
is, or can possibly be, in an unperceiving thing, or without the mind,
any more than its idea.

  42. Thirdly, it will be objected that we see things actually without
or at distance from us, and which consequently do not exist in the
mind; it being absurd that those things which are seen at the distance
of several miles should be as near to us as our own thoughts. In
answer to this, I desire it may be considered that in a dream we do
oft perceive things as existing at a great distance off, and yet for
all that, those things are acknowledged to have their existence only
in the mind.

  43. But, for the fuller clearing of this point, it may be worth
while to consider how it is that we perceive distance and things
placed at a distance by sight. For, that we should in truth see
external space, and bodies actually existing in it, some nearer,
others farther off, seems to carry with it some opposition to what
hath been said of their existing nowhere without the mind. The
consideration of this difficulty it was that gave birth to my "Essay
towards a New Theory of Vision," which was published not long since,
wherein it is shewn that distance or outness is neither immediately of
itself perceived by sight, nor yet apprehended or judged of by lines
and angles, or anything that hath a necessary connexion with it; but
that it is only suggested to our thoughts by certain visible ideas and
sensations attending vision, which in their own nature have no
manner of similitude or relation either with distance or things placed
at a distance; but, by a connexion taught us by experience, they
come to signify and suggest them to us, after the same manner that
words of any language suggest the ideas they are made to stand for;
insomuch that a man born blind and afterwards made to see, would
not, at first sight, think the things he saw to be without his mind,
or at any distance from him. See sect. 41 of the fore-mentioned
treatise.

  44. The ideas of sight and touch make two species entirely
distinct and heterogeneous. The former are marks and prognostics of
the latter. That the proper objects of sight neither exist without
mind, nor are the images of external things, was shewn even in that
treatise. Though throughout the same the contrary be supposed true
of tangible objects- not that to suppose that vulgar error was
necessary for establishing the notion therein laid down, but because
it was beside my purpose to examine and refute it in a discourse
concerning Vision. So that in strict truth the ideas of sight, when we
apprehend by them distance and things placed at a distance, do not
suggest or mark out to us things actually existing at a distance,
but only admonish us what ideas of touch will be imprinted in our
minds at such and such distances of time, and in consequence of such
or such actions. It is, I say, evident from what has been said in
the foregoing parts of this Treatise, and in sect. 147 and elsewhere
of the Essay concerning Vision, that visible ideas are the Language
whereby the Governing Spirit on whom we depend informs us what
tangible ideas he is about to imprint upon us, in case we excite
this or that motion in our own bodies. But for a fuller information in
this point I refer to the Essay itself.

  45. 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. It will not be amiss to observe how far the received
principles of philosophy are themselves chargeable with those
pretended absurdities. 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? Again, it may
to some perhaps seem very incredible that things should be every