Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

PHILONOUS: Good morrow, Hylas. I did not expect to find you abroad so early. HYLAS: It is indeed something unusual. But my thoughts were so taken up with a subject I was discoursing of last night that, finding I could not sleep, I resolved to rise and take a turn in the garden.... You were rep‐ resented in last nightʹs conversation as one who maintained the most extravagant opinion that ever entered into the mind of man, to wit, that there is no such thing as material substance in the world. PHILONOUS: That there is no such thing as what philosophers call material substance, l am seriously persuaded. But, if I were made to see anything absurd or skeptical in this, I should then have the same reason to renounce this, that I imagine I have now to reject the contrary opinion. HYLAS: What! Can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to com‐ mon sense, or a more manifest piece of skepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as matter?