If, therefore, sensibles are ever experienced by us at all, in any sense other than that of being directly apprehended by us, we must, I think, hold that they are so in an entirely new sense, quite different both from that in which to be experienced means to be directly apprehended, and from that in which to be experienced means to occur in some individual's mind. And I can only say that I see no reason to think that they ever are experienced in any such sense. If they are, the fact that they are so is presumably open to the inspection of us all; but I cannot distinguish any such fact as occurring in myself, as I can distinguish the fact that they are directly apprehended. On the other hand, I see no way of showing that they are _not_ experienced in some such sense; and perhaps somebody will be able to point it out to me. I do not wish to assume, therefore, that there _is_ no such sense; and hence, though I am inclined to think that the _only_ sense in which they are experienced is that of being directly apprehended, I shall, in what follows, use the phrase "experienced" to mean _either_ directly apprehended _or_ having to something this supposed different relation, if such a relation there be. (3) We may now, therefore, raise the question: Do sensibles ever exist at times when they are not being experienced at all? To this question it is usual to give a negative answer, and two different _a priori_ reasons may be urged in favour of that answer. The first is what should be meant by Berkeley's dictum that the _esse_ of sensibles is _percipi._ This should mean, whatever else it may mean, at least this: that to suppose a sensible to exist and yet _not_ to be experienced in self-contradictory. And this at least seems to me to be clearly false. Anything which was a patch of colour would be a sensible; and to suppose that there are patches of colour which are not being experienced is clearly not self-contradictory, however false it may be. It may, however, be urged (and this is the second argument) that, though to suppose a thing to be a sensible and _yet_ not experienced is not self-contradictory, yet we can clearly see that nothing can have the one property without having the other. And I do not see my way to deny that we may be able to know, _a priori_ that such a connection holds between two such properties. In the present case, however, I cannot see that it does hold, and therefore, so far as _a priori_ reasons go, I conclude that there is no reason why sensibles should not exist at times when they are not experienced.