eat and drink and are clad with the immediate objects of sense, which
cannot exist unperceived or without the mind, I shall readily grant it is
more proper or conformable to custom that they should be called things
rather than ideas.

39. THE TERM IDEA PREFERABLE TO THING.--If it be demanded why I make
use of the word IDEA, and do not rather in compliance with custom
call them THINGS. I answer, I do it for two reasons:--first, because
the term THING in contra-distinction to IDEA, is generally supposed
to denote somewhat existing without the mind; secondly, because
THING has a more comprehensive signification than IDEA, including
SPIRIT or thinking things as well as IDEAS. Since therefore the
objects of sense exist only in the mind, and are withal thoughtless
and inactive, I chose to mark them by the word IDEA, which implies
those properties.

40. THE EVIDENCE OF THE SENSES NOT DISCREDITED.--But, say what we can,
some one perhaps may be apt to reply, he will still believe his
senses, and never suffer any arguments, how plausible soever,
to prevail over the certainty of them. Be it so; assert the evidence
of sense as high as you please, we are willing to do the same.
That what I see, hear, and feel DOTH EXIST, THAT IS to say, IS PERCEIVED
BY ME, I no more doubt than I do of my own being. But I do not see how
the testimony of sense can be alleged as a proof for the existence of
anything which is not perceived by sense. We are not for having any man
turn SCEPTIC and disbelieve his senses; on the contrary, we give them all
the stress and assurance imaginable; nor are there any principles more
opposite to Scepticism than those we have laid down [Note.], as shall be
hereafter clearly shown.