Berkeley, George
"Three Dialogues Between Hylas And Philonous"
. Answer me, Philonous. Are all our ideas perfectly
inert beings? Or have they any agency included in them?
. They are altogether passive and inert.
. And is not God an agent, a being purely active?
. I acknowledge it.
. No idea therefore can be like unto, or represent the
nature of God?
. It cannot.
. Since therefore you have no of the mind of
God, how can you conceive it possible that things should exist in
His mind? Or, if you can conceive the mind of God, without having
an idea of it, why may not I be allowed to conceive the existence
of Matter, notwithstanding I have no idea of it?
. As to your first question: I own I have properly no
, either of God or any other spirit; for these being
active, cannot be represented by things perfectly inert, as our
ideas are. I do nevertheless know that 1, who am a spirit or
thinking substance, exist as certainly a s I know my ideas exist.
Farther, I know what I mean by the terms I ; and I
know this immediately or intuitively, though I do not perceive it
as I perceive a triangle, a colour, or a sound.
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