not this a plain contradiction?

HYL. I know not what to think of it.

PHIL. Besides, since you distinguish the ACTIVE and PASSIVE in
every perception, you must do it in that of pain. But how is it possible
that pain, be it as little active as you please, should exist in an
unperceiving substance? In short, do but consider the point, and then
confess ingenuously, whether light and colours, tastes, sounds, &c. are
not all equally passions or sensations in the soul. You may indeed call
them EXTERNAL OBJECTS, and give them in words what subsistence you
please. But, examine your own thoughts, and then tell me whether it be
not as I say?

HYL. I acknowledge, Philonous, that, upon a fair observation of what
passes in my mind, I can discover nothing else but that I am a thinking
being, affected with variety of sensations; neither is it possible to
conceive how a sensation should exist in an unperceiving substance. But
then, on the other hand, when I look on sensible things in a different
view, considering them as so many modes and qualities, I find it
necessary to suppose a MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM, without which they cannot
be conceived to exist.

PHIL. MATERIAL SUBSTRATUM call you it? Pray, by which of your senses
came you acquainted with that being?

HYL. It is not itself sensible; its modes and qualities only being
perceived by the senses.

PHIL. I presume then it was by reflexion and reason you obtained