298 Dean Berkeley ’j scheme examine

when they are conscious of a thing, .can be sure that they are conscious of

XXV. ^

but to defend this, was, I think, to own. themsel veS ^

in effect. . _ _., n0 t

(a) The argument in this paragraph, which is ' alto be intelligible enough, would perhaps become pl 3 * 11 ^’if we should alk the question. Whether it is a ^ ?ing man , or a Jleeping man , who proposes the doAnd to this we may reasonably expect an answer, 11 jthe doubt supposes a Difference of the two states, ^that this difference hath been observed ; for otherwiseground of doubting vanishes. It may, I think, he P f °bably supposed that Plato , and Cartes were awake,

s

they proposed this nice and philosophical manner of d° uing; and that they started it from some experiencethe two different states, otherwise they would still I 13doubted without reason; and yet that very experience 3,1swers the doubt. The doubt could never be greater th® 3the experience on which it was found ed: If this eXp erlence is supposed nothing , the doubt becomes noth'ml ^the fame time; -and the greater the experience is 1" U P'posed to be, the doubt becomes the less ; stnce m uC ^’experience of the difference could best teach themdifference, This, I presume, makes the argument ,ntelligible; and strews the inconsistency of such doubting’if a man allows himself to be awake. And if hehe dreams when he doubts thus , what he owns here a*so answers itself; when he awakes, he will find it b ut

3 dream. Besides, he owns the difference between drea# 1

ing