The Fawning Courtier And The Surly Squire

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.

So Long As I Confine My Thoughts To My Own Ideas Divested Of Words, I Do Not See How I Can Be Easily Mistaken.

Did Men But Consider That The Sun, Moon, And Stars, And Every Other Object Of The Senses, Are Only So Many Sensations In Their Minds, Which Have No Other Existence But Barely Being Perceived, Doubtless They Would Never Fall Down And Worship Their Own Ideas; But Rather Address Their Homage To That Eternal Invisible Mind Which Produces And Sustains All Things.

Upon The Whole, I Am Inclined To Think That The Far Greater Part, If Not All, Of Those Difficulties Which Have Hitherto Amused Philosophers, And Blocked Up The Way To Knowledge, Are Entirely Owing To Our Selves. That We Have First Raised A Dust, And Then Complain, We Cannot See.

That Food Nourishes, Sleep Refreshes, And Fire Warms Us; That To Sow In The Seed-time Is The Way To Reap In The Harvest, And, In General, That To Obtain Such Or Such Ends, Such Or Such Means Are Conducive, All This We Know, Not By Discovering Any Necessary Connexion Between Our Ideas, But Only By The Observation Of The Settled Laws Of Nature, Without Which We Should Be All In Uncertainty And Confusion, And A Grown Man No More Know How To Manage Himself In The Affairs Of Life Than An Infant Just Born.