Elevated as is the character of Man, still he is but a mere bundle of Ideas, and Ideas differ nothing in their nature from dreams and phantoms.— He may think and reason for ages, were his existence to extend through them, without advancing one jot in the knowledge of that existence; and he is obliged at last, to remain in passive ignorance of it. The common observation made by every idle, thoughtless being, when any thing novel or intricate appears before him, may with great propriety be adopted by the Man of thought; nay more, he is obliged, when considering his own nature and existence, to cry out “I cannot believe my senses”. All that a man, or any multitude or series of men, could of themselves ascertain, without information from a superior power; would be, that he or they were, and had existence; and the whole of that existence would be comprised in the sensations of which they were conscious. What that was in which the sensations existed; what those sensations were; or how excited; they could not tell: nor could they have the least idea of any thing external to the sentient power. The internal proof which a man has of his own existence, is his consciousness of it; and it is the only proof he possesses; but this not being in his power as it regards other beings, he really has no proof that they have an existence similar to his own.

The perceptions however which a man has, make up his existence, and whether those perceptions relating to society are founded on the real & external existence of beings similar to himself, or are caused in any other way, still they are to be the rule of his conduct; and the internal monitor he possesses, is as much to be attended to, on the idea of his being an insulated being, as on that which makes him one of many individuals: A point of great importance however I think is gained, by the consideration that a man has no proof of the external existence, of what appear his fellow creatures; namely, that he should in every case of conduct, first gain the approbation of the being he knows to exist i.e. himself; before he submits himself in subordination to the opinions of those creatures who perhaps have merely an apparent and fancied existence.