s, 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 assert 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 constitute in the strictest sense a mind or spirit. The
powerful cause, therefore, of my ideas is in strict propriety of speech a
SPIRIT.

HYL.