Wesley Corpus

Sensible things are those which are perceived by the senses; everything perceived by the senses is immediately perceived (for the senses make no inferences, that is the province of reason); everything immediately perceived is a sensation; no sensation can exist but in a mind: ergo no sensible thing can exist but in a mind, which was to be proved. Another of his arguments to the same purpose is this: Nothing can exist in fact the very notion of which implies a contradiction; nothing is impossible to conceive, unless the notion of it imply a contradiction. But 'tis absolutely impossible to conceive anything existing otherwise than in some mind, because whatever any one conceives is at that instant in his mind. Wherefore as matter is supposed to be a substance exterior to all minds, and as 'tis evident nothing can be even conceived exterior to all minds, 'tis equally evident there can be no such thing in being as matter. Or thus: Everything conceived is a conception, every conception is a thought, and every thought is in some mind; wherefore to say you can conceive a thing which exists in no mind is to say you conceive what is not conceived at all. The flaws in his arguments, which do not appear at a distance, [may be] easily seen on a nearer inspection. He says, artfully enough in the preface, [in] order to give his proofs their full force, it will be necessary to place them in as many different lights as possible. By this means the object grows too big for the eye; whereas, had he contracted it into a narrower compass, the mind might readily have taken it in at one view and discerned where the failing lay. How miserably does he play with the words 'idea' and 'sensation'! Everything immediately perceived is a sensation. Why Because a sensation is what is immediately perceived by the senses -- that is, in plain English, everything immediately perceived is immediately perceived; a most admirable discovery, the glory of which I dare say no one will envy him. And again: all sensible qualities are ideas, and no idea exists but in some mind -- that is, all sensible qualities are objects of the mind in thinking, and no image of an external object painted on a mind exists otherwise than in some mind. And what then