HO W MA TERIAL THINGS EXIST. 615 



nor passion, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind, is 

 what everybody will allow." To this I assent, but not to what follows: "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 can be obtained of this by any one that shall attend to what 

 is meant by the term exist, when applied to sensible things. The table 1 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 per- 

 ceive it, or, that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odor, 

 that is, it was smelled ; there was a sound, that is to say, it was heard ; a color or 

 figure, and it was perceived by sight or touched. This is all that I can under- 

 stand 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 \?> percipi, nor is it possible they should 

 have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them." 



Though our perception of real ideas or material objects is the result of the 

 action of the Divine Will on our minds, and the Eternal Spirit constantly sustains 

 and presents these real ideas for the contemplation of created spirits, yet they 

 have an existence out of the minds which perceive them. The table I write on 

 exists, I see and feel it, and if I was out of my study, I should say it existed, 

 but I mean thereby not only that " if I were in my study I might perceive it, or 

 that some other spirit actually does peceive it," but that the table has an actual 

 existence there, in that place, whether any one is there to perceive it or not. 



Both space and time, " the prime elements of the cosmos," have a real exist- 

 ence independently of ethereal action, and in space and time all things exist; 

 they {i. e., space and time) are attributes of the Divine Being. We have a clear 

 and necessary intuitive, knowledge of these because they are attributes of Him in 

 whom we truly live, move, and have our being, arid because they are necessary 

 to our existence. 



An ingenious gentleman suggests the use of burning oil for repelling hostile 

 fleets, and for harbor defense. He says: "A hundred thousand barrels of oil 

 poured upon an out-flowing tide would cover a large area of water, and when set 

 on fire would sweep a fleet with a torrent of destruction that nothing could resist. 

 When a stream of burning oil ran down the Alleghany River last winter, the 

 flames sometimes leaped up nearly loo feet, and threw out lateral tongues of fire 

 terrible to see. Such flames around an iron-clad fleet would asphyxiate all on 

 board. 



