It is evident to any one who takes

It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually
imprinted on the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind; or lastly,
ideas formed by help of memory and imagination—either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally
perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light and colours, with their several degrees and variations.
By touch I perceive hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to
quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours; the palate with tastes; and hearing conveys sounds to the mind
in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come
to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example a certain colour, taste, smell, figure
and consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple;
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other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things—which as they are pleasing or
disagreeable excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.
Part One, Section Two
But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives
them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, about them. This perceiving, active
being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely
distinct from them, wherein, they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived—for the existence
of an idea consists in being perceived.
Part One, Section Three
That neither our thoughts, nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is what everybody
will allow. And it seems 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 exists, when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists, that is, 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, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, 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 seems
perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percepi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking
things which perceive them.
Part One, Section Four
It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst 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 fore-mentioned
objects but the things we perceive by sense? And what 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?
Part One, Section Five
If we thoroughly examine this tenet it will, perhaps, be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas.
For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived,
so as to conceive them existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and figures—in a word,
the things we see and feel—what are they but so many sensations, notions, ideas, or impressions on the sense? and is it
possible to separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For my part, I might as easily divide a thing from
itself. I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things which, perhaps I never
perceived by sense so divided. Thus, I imagine the trunk of a human body without the limbs, or conceive the smell of a
rose without thinking on the rose itself. So far, I will not deny, I can abstract—if that may properly be called abstraction
which extends only to the conceiving separately such objects as it is possible may really exist or be actually perceived
asunder. But my conceiving or imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or perception.
Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for
me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it.
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Part One, Section Six
Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such I take
this important one to be, viz., that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which
compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind, that their being is to be perceived
or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of
any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit—it
being perfectly unintelligible, and involving all the absurdity of abstraction, to attribute to any single part of them an
existence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect, and try to separate in his own
thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived.
Part One, Section Seven
From what has been said it follows there is not any other Substance than Spirit, or that which perceives. But, for the
fuller proof of this point, let it be considered the sensible qualities are colour, figure, motion, smell, taste, etc., i.e., the
ideas perceived by sense. Now, for an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a manifest contradiction, for to have an
idea is all one as to perceive; that therefore wherein colour, figure, and the like qualities exist must perceive them; hence
it is clear there can be no unthinking substance or substratum of those ideas.
Part One, Section Eight
But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof
they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an unthinking substance. I answer, an idea can
be like nothing but an idea; a colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure. If we look but never so
little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again,
I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be
themselves perceivable or no? If they are, then they are ideas and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I
appeal to any one whether it be sense to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something
which is intangible; and so of the rest.
Part One, Section Nine
Some there are who make a distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities. By the former they mean extension,
figure, motion, rest, solidity or impenetrability, and number; by the latter they denote all other sensible qualities, as
colours, sounds, tastes, and so forth. The ideas we have of these they acknowledge not to be the resemblances of anything
existing without the mind, or unperceived, but they will have our ideas of the primary qualities to be patterns or
images of things which exist without the mind, in an unthinking substance which they call Matter. By Matter, therefore,
we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. But
it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind,
and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea, and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist
in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is plain that that the very notion of what is called Matter or corporeal substance,
involves a contradiction in it.
Part One, Section Ten
They who assert that figure, motion, and the rest of the primary or original qualities do exist without the mind in
unthinking substances, do at the same time acknowledge that colours, sounds, heat cold, and suchlike secondary qualities,
do not—which they tell us are sensations existing in the mind alone, that depend on and are occasioned by the
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different size, texture, and motion of the minute particles of matter. This they take for an undoubted truth, which they
can demonstrate beyond all exception. Now, if it be certain that those original qualities are inseparably united with the
other sensible qualities, and not, even in thought, capable of being abstracted from them, it plainly follows that they
exist only in the mind. But I desire any one to reflect and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive
the extension and motion of a body without all other sensible qualities. For my o