own 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 circumstances. 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
themselve