"Fourthly, our senses in many cases bear witness to the truth of each other's report, concerning the existence of sensible things without us. He that sees a fire may, if he doubt whether it be anything more than a bare fancy, feel it too; and be convinced by putting his hand in it: which certainly could never be put into such exquisite pain by a bare idea or phantom, unless that the pain, be a fancy too, which yet he cannot, when the burn is well, by raising the idea of it, bring upon himself again. "Thus I see, whilst I write this, I can change the appearance of the paper: and by designing the letters tell beforehand what new idea it shall exhibit the very next moment, by barely drawing my pen over it: which will neither appear (let me fancy as much as I will), if my hands stand still; or though I move my pen, if my eyes be shut: nor, when those characters are once made on the paper, can I choose afterward but see them as they are: that is, have the ideas of such letters as I have made. Whence it is manifest, that they are not barely the sport and play of my own imagination, when I find that the characters that were made at the pleasure of my own thought, do not obey them; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall fancy it; but continue to affect the senses constantly and regularly, according to the figures I made them. To which if we will add, that the sight of those shall, from another man, draw such sounds as I beforehand design they shall stand for; there will be little reason left to doubt that those words I write do really exist without me, when they cause a long series of regular sounds to affect my ears, which could not be the effect of my imagination, nor could my memory retain them in that order." This is quite a long citation, but I have given it at length because it may stand as the type of by far the greater part of the objections urged against Idealism, and because a better instance of the confusion of two samenesses could scarcely be desired. Notice how constantly it is assumed that the thing given in perception is the "real" thing, a thing which is, nevertheless, characterized as distinct from, and the cause of, the idea. At the outset Locke distinguishes well enough between the idea and the "external" thing. The having the idea of any thing in the mind, he declares, no more proves the existence of that thing than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world. It is only the receiving of ideas from without that gives us notice of things as causes of the ideas. It would seem quite fair here to ask how we know that some ideas come from without? Of course, if the realm of the "without" were open to inspection, the question could be answered at once. But it is not open to inspection--certainly not to a consistent Lockian. How, then, may I distinguish ideas coming from without from other ideas? No ideas are perceived until they are what Locke would call "within."