thing. Thus, for example a certain colour, taste, smell, figure and
consistence having been observed to go together, are accounted one
distinct thing, signified by the name APPLE. Other collections of ideas
constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things--which
as they are pleasing or disagreeable excite the passions of love,
hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.

2. MIND--SPIRIT--SOUL.--But, besides all that endless variety of ideas or
objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives
them, and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering,
about them. 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.

3. HOW FAR THE ASSENT OF THE VULGAR CONCEDED.--That neither our thoughts,
nor passions, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist WITHOUT the mind,
is what EVERYBODY WILL ALLOW. 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 may 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 I 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 perceive it, or that some other
spirit actually does perceive it.[Note.] There was an odour, that is, it
was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure,
and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand