‘3. That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what every body will allow; and to me it is no less evident that the various sensations or ideas imprinted on the sense, however blended or combined together, (that is, whatever objects they compose,) cannot exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving them. I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term _exist_, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on, I say, exists; _i.e._ I see and feel it, and if I were out of my study, I should say it existed, meaning thereby, that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, _i.e._ it was smelt; there was a sound, _i.e._ it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their _esse_ is _percipi_, nor is it possible they should have any existence, out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them. ‘4. It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing among men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what, I pray you, do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? And is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived?