(M27) You ask me whether the books are in the study now, when no one is there to see them? I answer, Yes. You ask me, Are we not in the wrong for imagining things to exist when they are not actually perceiv’d by the senses? I answer, No. The existence of our ideas consists in being perceiv’d, imagin’d, thought on. Whenever they are imagin’d or thought on they do exist. Whenever they are mentioned or discours’d of they are imagin’d & thought on. Therefore you can at no time ask me whether they exist or no, but by reason of yt very question they must necessarily exist. (M28) But, say you, then a chimæra does exist? I answer, it doth in one sense, i.e. it is imagin’d. But it must be well noted that existence is vulgarly restrain’d to actuall perception, and that I use the word existence in a larger sense than ordinary.(68) N. B.—According to my doctrine all things are _entia rationis_, i.e. solum habent esse in intellectum. (M29) [(69)According to my doctrine all are not _entia rationis_. The distinction between _ens rationis_ and _ens reale_ is kept up by it as well as any other doctrine.] You ask me whether there can be an infinite idea? I answer, in one sense there may. Thus the visual sphere, tho’ ever so small, is infinite, i.e. has no end. But if by infinite you mean an extension consisting of innumerable points, then I ask yr pardon. Points, tho’ never so many, may be numbered. The multitude of points, or feet, inches, &c., hinders not their numbrableness (i.e. hinders not their being numerable) in the least. Many or most are numerable, as well as few or least. Also, if by infinite idea you mean an _idea_ too great to be comprehended or perceiv’d all at once, you must excuse me. I think such an infinite is no less than a contradiction(70). (M30) The sillyness of the current doctrine makes much for me. They commonly suppose a material world—figures, motions, bulks of various sizes, &c.—according to their own confession to no purpose. All our sensations may be, and sometimes actually are, without them; nor can men so much as conceive it possible they should concur in any wise to the production of them. (M31) Ask a man, I mean a philosopher, why he supposes this vast structure, this compages of bodies? he shall be at a stand; he’ll not have one word to say. Wch sufficiently shews the folly of the hypothesis. (M32) Or rather why he supposes all ys Matter? For bodies and their qualities I do allow to exist independently of _our_ mind. (M33) Qu. How is the soul distinguish’d from its ideas? Certainly if there were no sensible ideas there could be no soul, no perception, remembrance, love, fear, &c.; no faculty could be exerted(71). (M34) The soul is the Will, properly speaking, and as it is distinct from ideas. (M35) The grand puzzling question, whether I sleep or wake, easily solv’d. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐