It is to
this you are indebted for being ignorant of what everybody else
knows perfectly well. Nor is this all: you are not only ignorant
of the true nature of everything, but you know not whether
anything really exists, or whether there are any true natures at
all; forasmuch as you attribute to your material beings an
absolute or external existence, wherein you suppose their reality
consists. And, as you are forced in the end to acknowledge such
an existence means either a direct repugnancy, or nothing at all,
it follows that you are obliged to pull down your own hypothesis
of material Substance, and positively to deny the real existence
of any part of the universe. And so you are plunged into the
deepest and most deplorable scepticism that ever man was. Tell
me, Hylas, is it not as I say?
. I agree with you. was no more
than an hypothesis; and a false and groundless one too. I will no
longer spend my breath in defence of it. But whatever hypothesis
you advance, or whatsoever scheme of things you introduce in its
stead, I doubt not it will appear every whit as false: let me but
be allowed to question you upon it.
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