Berkeley writes, "In short, if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now." By this he means?

British philosopher George Berkeley believed in immaterialism, which rejects the existence of physical matter and considers that material objects are only ideas of those who perceive them. In the quotation, he believes that it is impossible to know whether there are things outside the mind. In that matter, he maintains that there exists the same evidence now for thinking that there are things outside the mind, and that same evidence would also exist if there were no things outside the mind.