e it should be so, at
this time of day, and in a Christian country.

HYL. As for the difficulties other opinions may be liable to, those
are out of the question. It is your business to defend your own opinion.
Can anything be plainer than that you are for changing all things into
ideas? You, I say, who are not ashamed to charge me WITH SCEPTICISM.
This is so plain, there is no denying it.

PHIL. You mistake me. I am not for changing things into ideas, but
rather ideas into things; since those immediate objects of perception,
which, according to you, are only appearances of things, I take to be the
real things themselves.

HYL. Things! You may pretend what you please; but it is certain you
leave us nothing but the empty forms of things, the outside only which
strikes the senses.

PHIL. What you call the empty forms and outside of things seem to me
the very things themselves. Nor are they empty or incomplete, otherwise
than upon your supposition--that Matter is an essential part of all
corporeal things. We both, therefore, agree in this, that we perceive
only sensible forms: but herein we differ--you will have them to be empty
appearances, I, real beings. In short, you do not trust your senses, I
do.

HYL. You say you believe your senses; and seem to applaud yourself that
in this you agree with the vulgar. According to you, therefore, the true
nature of a thing is discovered by the senses. If so, whence comes that
disagreement? Why is not the same figure, and other sensible qualities,
perceived all manner of ways? and why should we use a microscope the
better to discover the true nature of a body, if it were discoverable to
the naked eye?

PHIL. Strictly speaking, Hylas, we do not see the same object that we
feel; neither is the same object perceived by the microscope which was by
the naked eye. But, in case every variation was thought sufficient to
constitute a new kind of individual, the endless number of confusion of
names would render language impracticable. Therefore, to avoid this, as
well as other inconveniences which are obvious upon a little thought, men
combine together several ideas, apprehended by divers senses, or by the
same sense at different times, or in different circumstances, but
observed, however, to have some connexion in nature, either with respect
to co-existence or succession; all which they refer to one name, and
consider as one thing. Hence it follows that when I examine, by my other