William Shakespeare - "The Tragedy of King Lear"

K. (Katie) Langloh Parker (1856 1940) - "Australian Legendary Tales "

Robert Hillyer - "The Five Books of Youth"

Kahlil Gibran - "The Madman"

Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous,

G >> George Berkeley >> Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous,



THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS,
IN OPPOSITION TO SCEPTICS AND ATHEISTS
by George Berkeley (1685-1753)



THE FIRST DIALOGUE



PHILONOUS. Good morrow, Hylas: I did not expect to find you abroad so
early.

HYLAS. It is indeed something unusual; but my thoughts were so taken up
with a subject I was discoursing of last night, that finding I could not
sleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden.

PHIL. It happened well, to let you see what innocent and agreeable
pleasures you lose every morning. Can there be a pleasanter time of the
day, or a more delightful season of the year? That purple sky, those wild
but sweet notes of birds, the fragrant bloom upon the trees and flowers,
the gentle influence of the rising sun, these and a thousand nameless
beauties of nature inspire the soul with secret transports; its faculties
too being at this time fresh and lively, are fit for those meditations,
which the solitude of a garden and tranquillity of the morning naturally
dispose us to. But I am afraid I interrupt your thoughts: for you seemed
very intent on something.

HYL. It is true, I was, and shall be obliged to you if you will permit
me to go on in the same vein; not that I would by any means deprive
myself of your company, for my thoughts always flow more easily in
conversation with a friend, than when I am alone: but my request is, that
you would suffer me to impart my reflexions to you.

PHIL. With all my heart, it is what I should have requested myself if
you had not prevented me.

HYL. I was considering the odd fate of those men who have in all ages,
through an affectation of being distinguished from the vulgar, or some
unaccountable turn of thought, pretended either to believe nothing at
all, or to believe the most extravagant things in the world. This however
might be borne, if their paradoxes and scepticism did not draw after them
some consequences of general disadvantage to mankind. But the mischief
lieth here; that when men of less leisure see them who are supposed
to have spent their whole time in the pursuits of knowledge professing an
entire ignorance of all things, or advancing such notions as are
repugnant to plain and commonly received principles, they will be tempted
to entertain suspicions concerning the most important truths, which they
had hitherto held sacred and unquestionable.

PHIL. I entirely agree with you, as to the ill tendency of the affected
doubts of some philosophers, and fantastical conceits of others. I am
even so far gone of late in this way of thinking, that I have quitted
several of the sublime notions I had got in their schools for vulgar
opinions. And I give it you on my word; since this revolt from
metaphysical notions to the plain dictates of nature and common sense, I
find my understanding strangely enlightened, so that I can now easily
comprehend a great many things which before were all mystery and riddle.

HYL. I am glad to find there was nothing in the accounts I heard of you.

PHIL. Pray, what were those?

HYL. You were represented, in last night's conversation, as one who
maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind
of man, to wit, that there is no such thing as MATERIAL SUBSTANCE in
the world.

PHIL. That there is no such thing as what PHILOSOPHERS CALL MATERIAL
SUBSTANCE, I am seriously persuaded: but, if I were made to see anything
absurd or sceptical in this, I should then have the same reason to
renounce this that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion.

HYL. What I can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common
Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is
no such thing as MATTER?

PHIL. Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold
there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain
more paradoxes and repugnances to Common Sense, than I who believe no
such thing?

HYL. You may as soon persuade me, the part is greater than the whole,
as that, in order to avoid absurdity and Scepticism, I should ever be
obliged to give up my opinion in this point.

PHIL. Well then, are you content to admit that opinion for true, which
upon examination shall appear most agreeable to Common Sense, and remote
from Scepticism?

HYL. With all my heart. Since you are for raising disputes about
the plainest things in nature, I am content for once to hear what you
have to say.

PHIL. Pray, Hylas, what do you mean by a SCEPTIC?

HYL. I mean what all men mean--one that doubts of everything.

PHIL. He then who entertains no doubts concerning some particular
point, with regard to that point cannot be thought a sceptic.

HYL. I agree with you.

PHIL. Whether doth doubting consist in embracing the affirmative or
negative side of a question?

HYL. In neither; for whoever understands English cannot but know that
DOUBTING signifies a suspense between both.

PHIL. He then that denies any point, can no more be said to doubt of
it, than he who affirmeth it with the same degree of assurance.

HYL. True.

PHIL. And, consequently, for such his denial is no more to be esteemed
a sceptic than the other.

HYL. I acknowledge it.

PHIL. How cometh it to pass then, Hylas, that you pronounce me A
SCEPTIC, because I deny what you affirm, to wit, the existence of
Matter? Since, for aught you can tell, I am as peremptory in my denial,
as you in your affirmation.

HYL. Hold, Philonous, I have been a little out in my definition; but
every false step a man makes in discourse is not to be insisted on. I
said indeed that a SCEPTIC was one who doubted of everything; but I
should have added, or who denies the reality and truth of things.

PHIL. What things? Do you mean the principles and theorems of sciences?
But these you know are universal intellectual notions, and consequently
independent of Matter. The denial therefore of this doth not imply the
denying them.

HYL. I grant it. But are there no other things? What think you of
distrusting the senses, of denying the real existence of sensible things,
or pretending to know nothing of them. Is not this sufficient to
denominate a man a SCEPTIC?

PHIL. Shall we therefore examine which of us it is that denies the
reality of sensible things, or professes the greatest ignorance of them;
since, if I take you rightly, he is to be esteemed the greatest
SCEPTIC?

HYL. That is what I desire.

PHIL. What mean you by Sensible Things?

HYL. Those things which are perceived by the senses. Can you imagine
that I mean anything else?

PHIL. Pardon me, Hylas, if I am desirous clearly to apprehend your
notions, since this may much shorten our inquiry. Suffer me then to ask
you this farther question. Are those things only perceived by the senses
which are perceived immediately? Or, may those things properly be said to
be SENSIBLE which are perceived mediately, or not without the
intervention of others?

HYL. I do not sufficiently understand you.

PHIL. In reading a book, what I immediately perceive are the letters;
but mediately, or by means of these, are suggested to my mind the notions
of God, virtue, truth, &c. Now, that the letters are truly sensible
things, or perceived by sense, there is no doubt: but I would know
whether you take the things suggested by them to be so too.

HYL. No, certainly: it were absurd to think GOD or VIRTUE sensible
things; though they may be signified and suggested to the mind by
sensible marks, with which they have an arbitrary connexion.

PHIL. It seems then, that by SENSIBLE THINGS you mean those only
which can be perceived IMMEDIATELY by sense?

HYL. Right.

PHIL. Doth it not follow from this, that though I see one part of the
sky red, and another blue, and that my reason doth thence evidently
conclude there must be some cause of that diversity of colours, yet that
cause cannot be said to be a sensible thing, or perceived by the sense of
seeing?

HYL. It doth.

PHIL. In like manner, though I hear variety of sounds, yet I cannot be
said to hear the causes of those sounds?

HYL. You cannot.

PHIL. And when by my touch I perceive a thing to be hot and heavy, I
cannot say, with any truth or propriety, that I feel the cause of its
heat or weight?

HYL. To prevent any more questions of this kind, I tell you once for
all, that by SENSIBLE THINGS I mean those only which are perceived by
sense; and that in truth the senses perceive nothing which they do not
perceive IMMEDIATELY: for they make no inferences. The deducing
therefore of causes or occasions from effects and appearances, which
alone are perceived by sense, entirely relates to reason.

PHIL. This point then is agreed between us--That SENSIBLE THINGS ARE
THOSE ONLY WHICH ARE IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVED BY SENSE. You will farther
inform me, whether we immediately perceive by sight anything beside
light, and colours, and figures; or by hearing, anything but sounds; by
the palate, anything beside tastes; by the smell, beside odours; or by
the touch, more than tangible qualities.

HYL. We do not.

PHIL. It seems, therefore, that if you take away all sensible
qualities, there remains nothing sensible?

HYL. I grant it.

PHIL. Sensible things therefore are nothing else but so many
sensible qualities, or combinations of sensible qualities?

HYL. Nothing else.

PHIL. HEAT then is a sensible thing?

HYL. Certainly.

PHIL. Doth the REALITY of sensible things consist in being perceived?
or, is it something distinct from their being perceived, and that bears
no relation to the mind?

HYL. To EXIST is one thing, and to be PERCEIVED is another.

PHIL. I speak with regard to sensible things only. And of these I ask,
whether by their real existence you mean a subsistence exterior to the
mind, and distinct from their being perceived?

HYL. I mean a real absolute being, distinct from, and without any
relation to, their being perceived.

PHIL. Heat therefore, if it be allowed a real being, must exist without
the mind?

HYL. It must.

PHIL. Tell me, Hylas, is this real existence equally compatible to all
degrees of heat, which we perceive; or is there any reason why we should
attribute it to some, and deny it to others? And if there be, pray let me
know that reason.

HYL. Whatever degree of heat we perceive by sense, we may be sure the
same exists in the object that occasions it.

PHIL. What! the greatest as well as the least?

HYL. _I_ tell you, the reason is plainly the same in respect of both.
They are both perceived by sense; nay, the greater degree of heat is more
sensibly perceived; and consequently, if there is any difference,
we are more certain of its real existence than we can be of the reality
of a lesser degree.

PHIL. But is not the most vehement and intense degree of heat a very
great pain?

HYL. No one can deny it.

PHIL. And is any unperceiving thing capable of pain or pleasure?

HYL. No, certainly.

PHIL. Is your material substance a senseless being, or a being endowed
with sense and perception?

HYL. It is senseless without doubt.

PHIL. It cannot therefore be the subject of pain?

HYL. By no means.

PHIL. Nor consequently of the greatest heat perceived by sense, since
you acknowledge this to be no small pain?

HYL. I grant it.

PHIL. What shall we say then of your external object; is it a material
Substance, or no?

HYL. It is a material substance with the sensible qualities inhering in
it.

PHIL. How then can a great heat exist in it, since you own it cannot in
a material substance? I desire you would clear this point.

HYL. Hold, Philonous, I fear I was out in yielding intense heat to be a
pain. It should seem rather, that pain is something distinct from heat,
and the consequence or effect of it.

PHIL. Upon putting your hand near the fire, do you perceive one simple
uniform sensation, or two distinct sensations?

HYL. But one simple sensation.

PHIL. Is not the heat immediately perceived?

HYL. It is.

PHIL. And the pain?

HYL. True.

PHIL. Seeing therefore they are both immediately perceived at the same
time, and the fire affects you only with one simple or uncompounded idea,
it follows that this same simple idea is both the intense heat
immediately perceived, and the pain; and, consequently, that the intense
heat immediately perceived is nothing distinct from a particular sort of
pain.

HYL. It seems so.

PHIL. Again, try in your thoughts, Hylas, if you can conceive a
vehement sensation to be without pain or pleasure.

HYL. I cannot.

PHIL. Or can you frame to yourself an idea of sensible pain or pleasure
in general, abstracted from every particular idea of heat, cold, tastes,
smells? &c.

HYL. I do not find that I can.

PHIL. Doth it not therefore follow, that sensible pain is nothing
distinct from those sensations or ideas, in an intense degree?

HYL. It is undeniable; and, to speak the truth, I begin to suspect a
very great heat cannot exist but in a mind perceiving it.

PHIL. What! are you then in that sceptical state of suspense, between
affirming and denying?

HYL. I think I may be positive in the point. A very violent and painful
heat cannot exist without the mind.

PHIL. It hath not therefore according to you, any REAL being?

HYL. I own it.

PHIL. Is it therefore certain, that there is no body in nature really
hot?

HYL. I have not denied there is any real heat in bodies. I only say,
there is no such thing as an intense real heat.

PHIL. But, did you not say before that all degrees of heat were equally
real; or, if there was any difference, that the greater were more
undoubtedly real than the lesser?

HYL. True: but it was because I did not then consider the ground there
is for distinguishing between them, which I now plainly see. And it is
this: because intense heat is nothing else but a particular kind of
painful sensation; and pain cannot exist but in a perceiving being; it
follows that no intense heat can really exist in an unperceiving
corporeal substance. But this is no reason why we should deny heat in an
inferior degree to exist in such a substance.

PHIL. But how shall we be able to discern those degrees of heat which
exist only in the mind from those which exist without it?

HYL. That is no difficult matter. You know the least pain cannot exist
unperceived; whatever, therefore, degree of heat is a pain exists only in
the mind. But, as for all other degrees of heat, nothing obliges us to
think the same of them.

PHIL. I think you granted before that no unperceiving being was capable
of pleasure, any more than of pain.

HYL. I did.

PHIL. And is not warmth, or a more gentle degree of heat than what
causes uneasiness, a pleasure?

HYL. What then?

PHIL. Consequently, it cannot exist without the mind in an unperceiving
substance, or body.

HYL. So it seems.

PHIL. Since, therefore, as well those degrees of heat that are not
painful, as those that are, can exist only in a thinking substance; may
we not conclude that external bodies are absolutely incapable of any
degree of heat whatsoever?

HYL. On second thoughts, I do not think it so evident that warmth is a
pleasure as that a great degree of heat is a pain.

PHIL. _I_ do not pretend that warmth is as great a pleasure as heat is
a pain. But, if you grant it to be even a small pleasure, it serves to
make good my conclusion.

HYL. I could rather call it an INDOLENCE. It seems to be nothing more
than a privation of both pain and pleasure. And that such a quality or
state as this may agree to an unthinking substance, I hope you will not
deny.

PHIL. If you are resolved to maintain that warmth, or a gentle degree
of heat, is no pleasure, I know not how to convince you otherwise than by
appealing to your own sense. But what think you of cold?

HYL. The same that I do of heat. An intense degree of cold is a pain;
for to feel a very great cold, is to perceive a great uneasiness: it
cannot therefore exist without the mind; but a lesser degree of cold may,
as well as a lesser degree of heat.

PHIL. Those bodies, therefore, upon whose application to our own, we
perceive a moderate degree of heat, must be concluded to have a moderate
degree of heat or warmth in them; and those, upon whose application we
feel a like degree of cold, must be thought to have cold in them.

HYL. They must.

PHIL. Can any doctrine be true that necessarily leads a man into an
absurdity?

HYL. Without doubt it cannot.

PHIL. Is it not an absurdity to think that the same thing should be at
the same time both cold and warm?

HYL. It is.

PHIL. Suppose now one of your hands hot, and the other cold, and that
they are both at once put into the same vessel of water, in an
intermediate state; will not the water seem cold to one hand, and warm to
the other?

HYL. It will.

PHIL. Ought we not therefore, by your principles, to conclude it is
really both cold and warm at the same time, that is, according to your
own concession, to believe an absurdity?

HYL. I confess it seems so.

PHIL. Consequently, the principles themselves are false, since you have
granted that no true principle leads to an absurdity.

HYL. But, after all, can anything be more absurd than to say, THERE IS
NO HEAT IN THE FIRE?

PHIL. To make the point still clearer; tell me whether, in two cases
exactly alike, we ought not to make the same judgment?

HYL. We ought.

PHIL. When a pin pricks your finger, doth it not rend and divide the
fibres of your flesh?

HYL. It doth.

PHIL. And when a coal burns your finger, doth it any more?

HYL. It doth not.

PHIL. Since, therefore, you neither judge the sensation itself
occasioned by the pin, nor anything like it to be in the pin; you should
not, conformably to what you have now granted, judge the sensation
occasioned by the fire, or anything like it, to be in the fire.

HYL. Well, since it must be so, I am content to yield this point, and
acknowledge that heat and cold are only sensations existing in our minds.
But there still remain qualities enough to secure the reality of external
things.

PHIL. But what will you say, Hylas, if it shall appear that the case is
the same with regard to all other sensible qualities, and that they can
no more be supposed to exist without the mind, than heat and cold?

HYL. Then indeed you will have done something to the purpose; but that
is what I despair of seeing proved.

PHIL. Let us examine them in order. What think you of TASTES, do they
exist without the mind, or no?

HYL. Can any man in his senses doubt whether sugar is sweet, or
wormwood bitter?

PHIL. Inform me, Hylas. Is a sweet taste a particular kind of pleasure
or pleasant sensation, or is it not?

HYL. It is.

PHIL. And is not bitterness some kind of uneasiness or pain?

HYL. I grant it.

PHIL. If therefore sugar and wormwood are unthinking corporeal
substances existing without the mind, how can sweetness and bitterness,
that is, Pleasure and pain, agree to them?

HYL. Hold, Philonous, I now see what it was delude time. You asked
whether heat and cold, sweetness at were not particular sorts of pleasure
and pain; to which simply, that they were. Whereas I should have thus
distinguished: those qualities, as perceived by us, are pleasures or pair
existing in the external objects. We must not therefore conclude
absolutely, that there is no heat in the fire, or sweetness in the sugar,
but only that heat or sweetness, as perceived by us, are not in the fire
or sugar. What say you to this?

PHIL. I say it is nothing to the purpose. Our discourse proceeded
altogether concerning sensible things, which you defined to be, THE
THINGS WE IMMEDIATELY PERCEIVE BY OUR SENSES. Whatever other qualities,
therefore, you speak of as distinct from these, I know nothing of them,
neither do they at all belong to the point in dispute. You may, indeed,
pretend to have discovered certain qualities which you do not perceive,
and assert those insensible qualities exist in fire and sugar. But what
use can be made of this to your present purpose, I am at a loss to
conceive. Tell me then once more, do you acknowledge that heat and cold,
sweetness and bitterness (meaning those qualities which are perceived by
the senses), do not exist without the mind?

HYL. I see it is to no purpose to hold out, so I give up the cause as
to those mentioned qualities. Though I profess it sounds oddly, to say
that sugar is not sweet.

PHIL. But, for your farther satisfaction, take this along with you:
that which at other times seems sweet, shall, to a distempered palate,
appear bitter. And, nothing can be plainer than that divers persons
perceive different tastes in the same food; since that which one man
delights in, another abhors. And how could this be, if the taste was
something really inherent in the food?

HYL. I acknowledge I know not how.

PHIL. In the next place, ODOURS are to be considered. And, with
regard to these, I would fain know whether what hath been said of
tastes doth not exactly agree to them? Are they not so many pleasing or
displeasing sensations?

HYL. They are.

PHIL. Can you then conceive it possible that they should exist in an
unperceiving thing?

HYL. I cannot.

PHIL. Or, can you imagine that filth and ordure affect those brute
animals that feed on them out of choice, with the same smells which we
perceive in them?

HYL. By no means.

PHIL. May we not therefore conclude of smells, as of the other
forementioned qualities, that they cannot exist in any but a perceiving
substance or mind?

HYL. I think so.

PHIL. Then as to SOUNDS, what must we think of them: are they
accidents really inherent in external bodies, or not?

HYL. That they inhere not in the sonorous bodies is plain from hence:
because a bell struck in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump sends
forth no sound. The air, therefore, must be thought the subject of sound.

PHIL. What reason is there for that, Hylas?

HYL. Because, when any motion is raised in the air, we perceive a sound
greater or lesser, according to the air's motion; but without some motion
in the air, we never hear any sound at all.

PHIL. And granting that we never hear a sound but when some motion is
produced in the air, yet I do not see how you can infer from thence, that
the sound itself is in the air.

HYL. It is this very motion in the external air that produces in the
mind the sensation of SOUND. For, striking on the drum of the ear, it
causeth a vibration, which by the auditory nerves being communicated to
the brain, the soul is thereupon affected with the sensation called
SOUND.

PHIL. What! is sound then a sensation?

HYL. I tell you, as perceived by us, it is a particular sensation in
the mind.

PHIL. And can any sensation exist without the mind?

HYL. No, certainly.

PHIL. How then can sound, being a sensation, exist in the air, if by
the AIR you mean a senseless substance existing without the mind?

HYL. You must distinguish, Philonous, between sound as it is
perceived by us, and as it is in itself; or (which is the same thing)
between the sound we immediately perceive, and that which exists without
us. The former, indeed, is a particular kind of sensation, but the latter
is merely a vibrative or undulatory motion the air.

PHIL. I thought I had already obviated that distinction, by answer I
gave when you were applying it in a like case before. But, to say no more
of that, are you sure then that sound is really nothing but motion?

HYL. I am.

PHIL. Whatever therefore agrees to real sound, may with truth be
attributed to motion?

HYL. It may.

PHIL. It is then good sense to speak of MOTION as of a thing that is
LOUD, SWEET, ACUTE, or GRAVE.

HYL. _I_ see you are resolved not to understand me. Is it not evident
those accidents or modes belong only to sensible sound, or SOUND in the
common acceptation of the word, but not to sound in the real and
philosophic sense; which, as I just now told you, is nothing but a
certain motion of the air?

PHIL. It seems then there are two sorts of sound--the one vulgar, or
that which is heard, the other philosophical and real?

HYL. Even so.

PHIL. And the latter consists in motion?

HYL. I told you so before.

PHIL. Tell me, Hylas, to which of the senses, think you, the idea of
motion belongs? to the hearing?

HYL. No, certainly; but to the sight and touch.

PHIL. It should follow then, that, according to you, real sounds may
possibly be SEEN OR FELT, but never HEARD.

HYL. Look you, Philonous, you may, if you please, make a jest of my
opinion, but that will not alter the truth of things. I own, indeed, the
inferences you draw me into sound something oddly; but common language,
you know, is framed by, and for the use of the vulgar: we must not
therefore wonder if expressions adapted to exact philosophic notions seem
uncouth and out of the way.

PHIL. Is it come to that? I assure you, I imagine myself to have gained
no small point, since you make so light of departing from common phrases
and opinions; it being a main part of our inquiry, to examine whose
notions are widest of the common road, and most repugnant to the
general sense of the world. But, can you think it no more than a
philosophical paradox, to say that REAL SOUNDS ARE NEVER HEARD, and
that the idea of them is obtained by some other sense? And is there
nothing in this contrary to nature and the truth of things?

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.