The Nature of Imagination

Part 2: Common ideas

31. We can only have a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of particular things external to ourselves.

Proof: Every particular thing, like the human body, must be conditioned by another particular thing to exist and operate in a fixed and definite relation.

This other particular thing must likewise be conditioned by a third, and so on to infinity.

From this common property (1.28) of particular things, we have only a very inadequate knowledge of the duration of our body.

It follows that we can only have a very inadequate knowledge of the duration thereof. Q.E.D.

Corollary

Hence it follows that all particular things are contingent and perishable.

32. All ideas, in so far as they are referred to God, are true

Proof: All ideas which are in God agree in every respect with their objects (2.7. Coroll.), therefore (1. Ax. 6) they are all true. Q.E.D.

33. There is nothing positive in ideas, which causes them to be called false.

Proof: If this be denied, conceive, if possible, a positive mode of thinking, which should constitute the distinctive quality of falsehood.

Such a mode of thinking cannot be in God (2.32). External to God it cannot be or be conceived (1.15).

Therefore, there is nothing positive in ideas which causes them to be called false. Q.E.D.

34. Every idea, which in us is absolute or adequate and perfect, is true.

Proof: When we say that an idea in us is adequate and perfect, we say, in other words (2.11. Coroll.).

That the idea is adequate and perfect in God, in so far as he constitutes the essence of our mind.

Consequently (2. 32), we say that such an idea is true. Q.E.D. –>

35. Falsity consists in the privation of knowledge, which inadequate, fragmentary, or confused ideas involve.

Proof: There is nothing positive in ideas, which causes them to be called false (2.33).

But falsity cannot consist in simple privation (for minds, not bodies, are said to err and to be mistaken), neither can it consist in absolute ignorance, for ignorance and error are not identical.

Wherefore it consists in the privation of knowledge, which inadequate, fragmentary, or confused ideas involve. Q.E.D.

Note: In the note to 2.17, I explained how error consists in the privation of knowledge, but in order to throw more light on the subject I will give an example.

For instance, men are mistaken in thinking themselves free.

Their opinion is made up of:

• the consciousness of their own actions, and
• the ignorance of the causes by which they are conditioned

Their idea of freedom, therefore, is simply their ignorance of any cause for their actions.

As for their saying that human actions depend on the will, this is a mere phrase without any idea to correspond thereto.

None of them know what the will is and how it moves the body.

Those who boast of such knowledge, and feign dwellings and habitations for the soul, provoke either laughter or disgust.

When we look at the sun, we imagine that it is 200 feet away from us.

This error does not lie solely in this fancy.

It also lies in the fact that, while we imagine, we do not know:

• the sun’s true distance or
• the cause of the fancy

We later learn that the sun is away from us by more than 600 of the earth’s diameters, but we fancy it to be near, nonetheless.

We do not imagine the sun as near us, because we are ignorant of its true distance, but because the modification of our body involves the sun’s essence, as body is affected by it.

36. Inadequate and confused ideas follow by the same necessity, as adequate or clear and distinct ideas.

Proof: All ideas are in God (1.15), and in so far as they are referred to God are true (2.32) and (2.7. Coroll.) adequate.

Therefore there are no ideas confused or inadequate, except in respect to a particular mind (cf. 2.24 and 28).

Therefore all ideas, whether adequate or inadequate, follow by the same necessity (2.6). Q.E.D.

37. That which is common to all (cf. Lemma 2, above), and which is equally in a part and in the whole, does not constitute the essence of any particular thing.

Proof: If this be denied, conceive, if possible, that it constitutes the essence of some particular thing.

For instance, the essence of B. Then (2. Def. 2) it cannot without B either exist or be conceived.

But this is against our hypothesis.

Therefore it does not appertain to B’s essence, nor does it constitute the essence of any particular thing. Q.E.D.