Note 309 — Chapter XXI · [287]

Essay, bk. iv. chap. 2, § 14. In another place: "He that sees a candle burning and hath experimented the force of its flame by putting his finger into it, will little doubt that this is something existing without him, which does him harm and puts him to great pain.... And if our dreamer pleases to try whether the glowing heat of a glass furnace be barely a wandering imagination in a drowsy man's fancy by putting his hand into it, he may, perhaps, be awakened into a certainty greater than he could wish, that it is something more than bare imagination. So that the evidence is as great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our pleasure or pain, i.e. happiness or misery; beyond which we have no concernment, either of knowledge or being. Such an assurance of the existence of things without us is sufficient to direct us in the attaining the good and avoiding the evil which is caused by them, which is the important concernment we have of being made acquainted with them," (Ibid. bk. iv. chap. 11, § 8.)