name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example a certain
colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to
go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name
apple; other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a
book, and the like sensible things- which as they are pleasing or
disagreeable excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so
forth.

  2. But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of
knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives
them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining,
remembering, about them. This perceiving, active being is what I
call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any
one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein,
they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived-
for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived.

  3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by
the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody will allow.
And it seems no less evident that the various sensations or ideas
imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together (that is,
whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in a
mind perceiving them.- I think an intuitive knowledge may be
obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what is meant by
the term exists, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on
I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my
study I should say it existed- meaning thereby that if I was in my
study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does
perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a
sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived
by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and
the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence
of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived,
that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percepi, nor is
it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or
thinking things which perceive them.

  4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that
houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an
existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the
understanding. But, with how great an assurance and acquiescence
soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever
shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake
not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For, what are
the fore-mentioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and
what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not
plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them,
should exist unperceived?

  5. If we thoroughly examine this tenet it will, perhaps, be found at
bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas. For can there be a
nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of
sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them
existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension
and figures- in a word the things we see and feel- what are they but
so many sensations, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense? and
is it possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from
perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from itself.
I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each
other, those things which, perhaps I never perceived by sense so
divided. Thus, I imagine the trunk of a human body without the
limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking on the rose
itself. So far, I will not deny, I can abstract- if that may
properly be called abstraction which extends only to the conceiving
separately such objects as it is possible may really exist or be
actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or imagining power
does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or
perception. Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel
anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it
impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or
object distinct from the sensation or perception of it.

  6. Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a
man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take this important
one to be, viz., that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the
earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of
the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being
is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not
actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any
other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or
else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit- it being perfectly
unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to
attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a
spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect, and
try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from
its being perceived.

  7. From what has been said it follows there is not any other
Substance than Spirit, or that which perceives. But, for the fuller
proof of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities are
colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, etc., i.e. the ideas perceived
by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a
manifest contradiction, for to have an idea is all one as to perceive;
that therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist
must perceive them; hence it is clear there can be no unthinking
substance or substratum of those ideas.

  8. But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without
the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies
or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an