Hylas: Including also all the changing ideas of size, shape and colour exhibited by the apple as it has grown on the tree? Hylas: Including ideas that finite spirits have never, and may never, perceive, such as those relating to its flesh, core, and pips? Philonous: In fact, the sensory ideas we presently experience are merely a subset of the virtual infinity of ideas constituting that apple that exist in the mind of God.

Hylas: Since neither you nor I have observed the apple before, and thus have no memories of it, does this collection we see as the apple comprise only our current visual ideas? You know the apple constitutes not a single idea, but a collection of ideas.

Philonous: Perhaps you are trying to catch me out. That large apple nearest to us, for example. Hylas: Then please look up at that apple tree and tell me how many visual ideas you perceive. In sight, for example, we perceive the ideas of light, colours and shapes. Hylas: You argue then that through our senses we perceive only ideas? We blend or combine together these sensory ideas into collections comprising objects. The ideas we perceive through our senses are not of our own choosing, and therefore must be implanted in us by God, since material substance, if it existed at all, would necessarily be incapable of generating them. There are finite spirits, such as you and me and other perceiving creatures, and an infinite spirit, namely God. You assert that nothing exists except perceiving spirits and perceived ideas. Hylas: Let me start by summarising your position as I understand it. Philonous: That’s duelling talk, Hylas! But very well, fire away, and we will see where our conversation leads us. Hylas: Whilst abroad I have given them much thought, and I have come to realise their wholly tendentious nature. But as for our discussions, what more is there to say? By the end of our last meeting you appeared to accept all my reasonings. Philonous: I would be delighted to pass the time of day with you. Having returned from my travels, I am keen to renew our former discussions. Hylas: I came in the hope of finding you. It is an unexpected pleasure to find you in the garden at so early an hour.

Roger Jennings considers how it might have continued…

SUBSCRIBE NOW Articles The Fourth Dialogue Between Hylas & Philonous In 1713 George Berkeley wrote Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous on the nature of reality.

Dialogues between hylas and philonous