Hyl. It seems so.
Phil. Again, try in your thoughts, Hylas, if you can conceive a vehement sensation to be without pain or pleasure.
Hyl. I cannot.
Phil. Or can you frame to yourself an idea of sensible pain or pleasure in general, abstracted from every particular idea of heat, cold, tastes, smells? &c.
Hyl.—I do not find that I can.
Phil. Doth it not therefore follow, that sensible pain is nothing distinct from those sensations or ideas, in an intense degree?
Hyl. It is undeniable; and, to speak the truth, I begin to suspect a very great heat cannot exist but in a mind perceiving it.
Phil. What! are you then in that sceptical state of suspense, between affirming and denying?
Hyl. I think I may be positive in the point. A very violent and painful heat cannot exist without the mind.
Phil. It hath not therefore, according to you, any real being?