8. This certainty is as great as our condition needs.
But yet, if after all this any one will be so sceptical as to
distrust his senses, and to affirm that all we see and hear, feel and taste, think and do, during our whole being, is
but the series and deluding appearances of a long dream, whereof there is no reality; and therefore will question
the existence of all things, or our knowledge of anything: I must desire him to consider, that, if all be a dream,
then he doth but dream that he makes the question, and so it is not much matter that a waking man should answer
him. But yet, if he pleases, he may dream that I make him this answer, That the certainty of things existing in
rerum natura when we have the testimony of our senses for it is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but as
our condition needs. For, our faculties being suited not to the full extent of being, nor to a perfect, clear,
comprehensive knowledge of things free from all doubt and scruple; but to the preservation of us, in whom they
are; and accommodated to the use of life: they serve to our purpose wen enough, if they will but give us certain
notice of those things, which are convenient or inconvenient to us. For he that sees a candle burning, and hath
experimented the force of its flame by putting his finger in it, will little doubt that this is something existing
without him, which does him harm, and puts him to great pain; which is assurance enough, when no man requires
greater certainty to govern his actions by than what is as certain as his actions themselves. 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 wakened into a certainty greater than he could wish, that it is
something more than bare imagination. So that this 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 knowing 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.
