Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition Part 14

HYL. Yes, Philonous, I grant the existence of a sensible thing consists in being perceivable, but not in being actually perceived.

PHIL. And what is perceivable but an idea? And can an idea exist without being actually perceived? These are points long since agreed between us.

HYL. But, be your opinion never so true, yet surely you will not deny it is shocking, and contrary to the common sense of men. Ask the fellow whether yonder tree hath an existence out of his mind: what answer think you he would make?

PHIL. The same that I should myself, to wit, that it doth exist out of his mind. But then to a Christian it cannot surely be shocking to say, the real tree, existing without his mind, is truly known and comprehended by (that is EXISTS IN) the infinite mind of G.o.d. Probably he may not at first glance be aware of the direct and immediate proof there is of this; inasmuch as the very being of a tree, or any other sensible thing, implies a mind wherein it is. But the point itself he cannot deny. The question between the Materialists and me is not, whether things have a REAL existence out of the mind of this or that person, but whether they have an ABSOLUTE existence, distinct from being perceived by G.o.d, and exterior to all minds. This indeed some heathens and philosophers have affirmed, but whoever entertains notions of the Deity suitable to the Holy Scriptures will be of another opinion.

HYL. But, according to your notions, what difference is there between real things, and chimeras formed by the imagination, or the visions of a dream--since they are all equally in the mind?

PHIL. The ideas formed by the imagination are faint and indistinct; they have, besides, an entire dependence on the will. But the ideas perceived by sense, that is, real things, are more vivid and clear; and, being imprinted on the mind by a spirit distinct from us, have not the like dependence on our will. There is therefore no danger of confounding these with the foregoing: and there is as little of confounding them with the visions of a dream, which are dim, irregular, and confused. And, though they should happen to be never so lively and natural, yet, by their not being connected, and of a piece with the preceding and subsequent transactions of our lives, they might easily be distinguished from realities. In short, by whatever method you distinguish THINGS FROM CHIMERAS on your scheme, the same, it is evident, will hold also upon mine. For, it must be, I presume, by some perceived difference; and I am not for depriving you of any one thing that you perceive.

HYL. But still, Philonous, you hold, there is nothing in the world but spirits and ideas. And this, you must needs acknowledge, sounds very oddly.

PHIL. I own the word IDEA, not being commonly used for THING, sounds something out of the way. My reason for using it was, because a necessary relation to the mind is understood to be implied by that term; and it is now commonly used by philosophers to denote the immediate objects of the understanding. But, however oddly the proposition may sound in words, yet it includes nothing so very strange or shocking in its sense; which in effect amounts to no more than this, to wit, that there are only things perceiving, and things perceived; or that every unthinking being is necessarily, and from the very nature of its existence, perceived by some mind; if not by a finite created mind, yet certainly by the infinite mind of G.o.d, in whom "we five, and move, and have our being." Is this as strange as to say, the sensible qualities are not on the objects: or that we cannot be sure of the existence of things, or know any thing of their real natures--though we both see and feel them, and perceive them by all our senses?

HYL. And, in consequence of this, must we not think there are no such things as physical or corporeal causes; but that a Spirit is the immediate cause of all the phenomena in nature? Can there be anything more extravagant than this?

PHIL. Yes, it is infinitely more extravagant to say--a thing which is inert operates on the mind, and which is unperceiving is the cause of our perceptions, without any regard either to consistency, or the old known axiom, NOTHING CAN GIVE TO ANOTHER THAT WHICH IT HATH NOT ITSELF.

Besides, that which to you, I know not for what reason, seems so extravagant is no more than the Holy Scriptures a.s.sert in a hundred places. In them G.o.d is represented as the sole and immediate Author of all those effects which some heathens and philosophers are wont to ascribe to Nature, Matter, Fate, or the like unthinking principle. This is so much the constant language of Scripture that it were needless to confirm it by citations.

HYL. You are not aware, Philonous, that in making G.o.d the immediate Author of all the motions in nature, you make Him the Author of murder, sacrilege, adultery, and the like heinous sins.

PHIL. In answer to that, I observe, first, that the imputation of guilt is the same, whether a person commits an action with or without an instrument. In case therefore you suppose G.o.d to act by the mediation of an instrument or occasion, called MATTER, you as truly make Him the author of sin as I, who think Him the immediate agent in all those operations vulgarly ascribed to Nature. I farther observe that sin or moral turpitude doth not consist in the outward physical action or motion, but in the internal deviation of the will from the laws of reason and religion. This is plain, in that the killing an enemy in a battle, or putting a criminal legally to death, is not thought sinful; though the outward act be the very same with that in the case of murder. Since, therefore, sin doth not consist in the physical action, the making G.o.d an immediate cause of all such actions is not making Him the Author of sin.

Lastly, I have nowhere said that G.o.d is the only agent who produces all the motions in bodies. It is true I have denied there are any other agents besides spirits; but this is very consistent with allowing to thinking rational beings, in the production of motions, the use of limited powers, ultimately indeed derived from G.o.d, but immediately under the direction of their own wills, which is sufficient to ent.i.tle them to all the guilt of their actions.

HYL. But the denying Matter, Philonous, or corporeal Substance; there is the point. You can never persuade me that this is not repugnant to the universal sense of mankind. Were our dispute to be determined by most voices, I am confident you would give up the point, without gathering the votes.

PHIL. I wish both our opinions were fairly stated and submitted to the judgment of men who had plain common sense, without the prejudices of a learned education. Let me be represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains no doubts of their existence; and you fairly set forth with all your doubts, your paradoxes, and your scepticism about you, and I shall willingly acquiesce in the determination of any indifferent person. That there is no substance wherein ideas can exist beside spirit is to me evident. And that the objects immediately perceived are ideas, is on all hands agreed.

And that sensible qualities are objects immediately perceived no one can deny. It is therefore evident there can be no SUBSTRATUM of those qualities but spirit; in which they exist, not by way of mode or property, but as a thing perceived in that which perceives it. I deny therefore that there is ANY UNTHINKING-SUBSTRATUM of the objects of sense, and IN THAT ACCEPTATION that there is any material substance.

But if by MATERIAL SUBSTANCE is meant only SENSIBLE BODY, THAT which is seen and felt (and the unphilosophical part of the world, I dare say, mean no more)--then I am more certain of matter's existence than you or any other philosopher pretend to be. If there be anything which makes the generality of mankind averse from the notions I espouse, it is a misapprehension that I deny the reality of sensible things. But, as it is you who are guilty of that, and not I, it follows that in truth their aversion is against your notions and not mine. I do therefore a.s.sert that I am as certain as of my own being, that there are bodies or corporeal substances (meaning the things I perceive by my senses); and that, granting this, the bulk of mankind will take no thought about, nor think themselves at all concerned in the fate of those unknown natures, and philosophical quiddities, which some men are so fond of.

HYL. What say you to this? Since, according to you, men judge of the reality of things by their senses, how can a man be mistaken in thinking the moon a plain lucid surface, about a foot in diameter; or a square tower, seen at a distance, round; or an oar, with one end in the water, crooked?

PHIL. He is not mistaken with regard to the ideas he actually perceives, but in the inference he makes from his present perceptions.

Thus, in the case of the oar, what he immediately perceives by sight is certainly crooked; and so far he is in the right. But if he thence conclude that upon taking the oar out of the water he shall perceive the same crookedness; or that it would affect his touch as crooked things are wont to do: in that he is mistaken. In like manner, if he shall conclude from what he perceives in one station, that, in case he advances towards the moon or tower, he should still be affected with the like ideas, he is mistaken. But his mistake lies not in what he perceives immediately, and at present, (it being a manifest contradiction to suppose he should err in respect of that) but in the wrong judgment he makes concerning the ideas he apprehends to be connected with those immediately perceived: or, concerning the ideas that, from what he perceives at present, he imagines would be perceived in other circ.u.mstances. The case is the same with regard to the Copernican system. We do not here perceive any motion of the earth: but it were erroneous thence to conclude, that, in case we were placed at as great a distance from that as we are now from the other planets, we should not then perceive its motion.

HYL. I understand you; and must needs own you say things plausible enough. But, give me leave to put you in mind of one thing. Pray, Philonous, were you not formerly as positive that Matter existed, as you are now that it does not?

PHIL. I was. But here lies the difference. Before, my positiveness was founded, without examination, upon prejudice; but now, after inquiry, upon evidence.

HYL. After all, it seems our dispute is rather about words than things.

We agree in the thing, but differ in the name. That we are affected with ideas FROM WITHOUT is evident; and it is no less evident that there must be (I will not say archetypes, but) Powers without the mind, corresponding to those ideas. And, as these Powers cannot subsist by themselves, there is some subject of them necessarily to be admitted; which I call MATTER, and you call SPIRIT. This is all the difference.

PHIL. Pray, Hylas, is that powerful Being, or subject of powers, extended?

HYL. It hath not extension; but it hath the power to raise in you the idea of extension.

PHIL. It is therefore itself unextended?

HYL. I grant it.

PHIL. Is it not also active?

HYL. Without doubt. Otherwise, how could we attribute powers to it?

PHIL. Now let me ask you two questions: FIRST, Whether it be agreeable to the usage either of philosophers or others to give the name MATTER to an unextended active being? And, SECONDLY, Whether it be not ridiculously absurd to misapply names contrary to the common use of language?

HYL. Well then, let it not be called Matter, since you will have it so, but some THIRD NATURE distinct from Matter and Spirit. For what reason is there why you should call it Spirit? Does not the notion of spirit imply that it is thinking, as well as active and unextended?

PHIL. My reason is this: because I have a mind to have some notion of meaning in what I say: but I have no notion of any action distinct from volition, neither can I conceive volition to be anywhere but in a spirit: therefore, when I speak of an active being, I am obliged to mean a Spirit. Beside, what can be plainer than that a thing which hath no ideas in itself cannot impart them to me; and, if it hath ideas, surely it must be a Spirit. To make you comprehend the point still more clearly if it be possible, I a.s.sert as well as you that, since we are affected from without, we must allow Powers to be without, in a Being distinct from ourselves. So far we are agreed. But then we differ as to the kind of this powerful Being. I will have it to be Spirit, you Matter, or I know not what (I may add too, you know not what) Third Nature. Thus, I prove it to be Spirit. From the effects I see produced, I conclude there are actions; and, because actions, volitions; and, because there are volitions, there must be a WILL. Again, the things I perceive must have an existence, they or their archetypes, out of MY mind: but, being ideas, neither they nor their archetypes can exist otherwise than in an understanding; there is therefore an UNDERSTANDING. But will and understanding const.i.tute in the strictest sense a mind or spirit. The powerful cause, therefore, of my ideas is in strict propriety of speech a SPIRIT.

HYL. And now I warrant you think you have made the point very clear, little suspecting that what you advance leads directly to a contradiction. Is it not an absurdity to imagine any imperfection in G.o.d?

PHIL. Without a doubt.

HYL. To suffer pain is an imperfection?

PHIL. It is.

HYL. Are we not sometimes affected with pain and uneasiness by some other Being?

PHIL. We are.

HYL. And have you not said that Being is a Spirit, and is not that Spirit G.o.d?

PHIL. I grant it.

HYL. But you have a.s.serted that whatever ideas we perceive from without are in the mind which affects us. The ideas, therefore, of pain and uneasiness are in G.o.d; or, in other words, G.o.d suffers pain: that is to say, there is an imperfection in the Divine nature: which, you acknowledged, was absurd. So you are caught in a plain contradiction.

PHIL. That G.o.d knows or understands all things, and that He knows, among other things, what pain is, even every sort of painful sensation, and what it is for His creatures to suffer pain, I make no question. But, that G.o.d, though He knows and sometimes causes painful sensations in us, can Himself suffer pain, I positively deny. We, who are limited and dependent spirits, are liable to impressions of sense, the effects of an external Agent, which, being produced against our wills, are sometimes painful and uneasy. But G.o.d, whom no external being can affect, who perceives nothing by sense as we do; whose will is absolute and independent, causing all things, and liable to be thwarted or resisted by nothing: it is evident, such a Being as this can suffer nothing, nor be affected with any painful sensation, or indeed any sensation at all. We are chained to a body: that is to say, our perceptions are connected with corporeal motions. By the law of our nature, we are affected upon every alteration in the nervous parts of our sensible body; which sensible body, rightly considered, is nothing but a complexion of such qualities or ideas as have no existence distinct from being perceived by a mind. So that this connexion of sensations with corporeal motions means no more than a correspondence in the order of nature, between two sets of ideas, or things immediately perceivable. But G.o.d is a Pure Spirit, disengaged from all such sympathy, or natural ties. No corporeal motions are attended with the sensations of pain or pleasure in His mind. To know everything knowable, is certainly a perfection; but to endure, or suffer, or feel anything by sense, is an imperfection. The former, I say, agrees to G.o.d, but not the latter. G.o.d knows, or hath ideas; but His ideas are not conveyed to Him by sense, as ours are. Your not distinguis.h.i.+ng, where there is so manifest a difference, makes you fancy you see an absurdity where there is none.

HYL. But, all this while you have not considered that the quant.i.ty of Matter has been demonstrated to be proportioned to the gravity of bodies.

And what can withstand demonstration?

PHIL. Let me see how you demonstrate that point.

HYL. I lay it down for a principle, that the moments or quant.i.ties of motion in bodies are in a direct compounded reason of the velocities and quant.i.ties of Matter contained in them. Hence, where the velocities are equal, it follows the moments are directly as the quant.i.ty of Matter in each. But it is found by experience that all bodies (bating the small inequalities, arising from the resistance of the air) descend with an equal velocity; the motion therefore of descending bodies, and consequently their gravity, which is the cause or principle of that motion, is proportional to the quant.i.ty of Matter; which was to be demonstrated.

PHIL. You lay it down as a self-evident principle that the quant.i.ty of motion in any body is proportional to the velocity and MATTER taken together; and this is made use of to prove a proposition from whence the existence of CARTER is inferred. Pray is not this arguing in a circle?

HYL. In the premise I only mean that the motion is proportional to the velocity, jointly with the extension and solidity.

PHIL. But, allowing this to be true, yet it will not thence follow that gravity is proportional to MATTER, in your philosophic sense of the word; except you take it for granted that unknown SUBSTRATUM, or whatever else you call it, is proportional to those sensible qualities; which to suppose is plainly begging the question. That there is magnitude and solidity, or resistance, perceived by sense, I readily grant; as likewise, that gravity may be proportional to those qualities I will not dispute. But that either these qualities as perceived by us, or the powers producing them, do exist in a MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM; this is what I deny, and you indeed affirm, but, notwithstanding your demonstration, have not yet proved.

HYL. I shall insist no longer on that point. Do you think, however, you shall persuade me that the natural philosophers have been dreaming all this while? Pray what becomes of all their hypotheses and explications of the phenomena, which suppose the existence of Matter?

PHIL. What mean you, Hylas, by the PHENOMENA?