w whether it is possible for us to understand what is meant by the
ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE OF SENSIBLE OBJECTS IN THEMSELVES, OR WITHOUT THE MIND.
To me it is evident those words mark out either a direct contradiction, or
else nothing at all. And to convince others of this, I know no readier or
fairer way than to entreat they would calmly attend to their own
thoughts; and if by this attention the emptiness or repugnancy of those
expressions does appear, surely nothing more is requisite for the
conviction. It is on this therefore that I insist, to wit, that the
ABSOLUTE existence of unthinking things are words without a meaning, or
which include a contradiction. This is what I repeat and inculcate, and
earnestly recommend to the attentive thoughts of the reader.

25. THIRD ARGUMENT.[Note: Vide sect. iii. and vii.]--REFUTATION
OF LOCKE.--All our ideas, sensations, notions, or the things which we
perceive, by whatsoever names they may be distinguished, are visibly
inactive--there is nothing of power or agency included in them. So that
ONE IDEA or object of thought CANNOT PRODUCE or make ANY ALTERATION IN
ANOTHER. To be satisfied of the truth of this, there is nothing else
requisite but a bare observation of our ideas. For, since they and every
part of them exist only in the mind, it follows that there is nothing in
them but what is perceived: but whoever shall attend to his ideas, whether
of sense or reflexion, will not perceive in them any power or activity;
there is, therefore, no such thing contained in them. A little
attention will discover to us that the very being of an idea implies
passiveness and inertness in it, insomuch that it is impossible for an
idea to do anything, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything:
neither can it be the resemblance or pattern of any active being, as is
evident from sect. 8. Whence it plainly follows that extension,
figure, and motion cannot be the cause of our sensations. To say,
therefore, that these are the effects of powers resulting from the
configuration, number, motion, and size of corpuscles, must certainly
be false. [Note: Vide sect. cii.]

26. CAUSE OF IDEAS.--We perceive a continual succession of ideas, some are
anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore
some cause of these ideas, whereon they depend, and which produces and
changes them. That this cause cannot be any quality or idea or combination
of ideas, is clear from the preceding sect