Neither our thoughts, nor passion, nor ideas formed by the imagination, exist without the mind. It seems no less evident that the various senations or ideas imprinted on the senses, however blended or combined together (that is, whatever objects they compose), cannot exist otherwise than in the mind perceiving them... The table i write on i say exists—that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study, i should say it existed—meaning thereby that if i was in my study i might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it... For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse' is 'percipi' not is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.
In paragraph 23 he added, forseeing objections:
But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody to perceive them. I answer, you may say so, there is no difficulty in it, but what is all this, i beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call 'books' and 'trees', and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that might perceive them? But do not you youself perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the purpose; it only shows you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your own mind; but it does not show that you can conceive it possible the object of your thought may exist without the mind...
In another paragraph, number 6, he had already declared:
Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind that a man need only open his eyes to see them. Such i take this important one to be, to wit, that all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any substance without mind, that their 'being' is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some Eternal Spirit...
Unless the outer reaches of explorative thought maintain their relationship with the real world, and constantly define their own system of ethics, there could and will occur often disastrous results.
Children, of tender age, whose parent dies are introduced to tragedy in a primitive and subjective way. Their subconscious has a long time in which to fairly unbiasedly contemplate this shattering and mysterious incident, either to grow deeper from this shocking insight into the "real" world, or to let it stunt and blunt their development. It requires a spontaneous, yet often lengthy, effort to overcome this trauma and become used to having only the one universal force (male or female) upon which to test themselves.