s regarded under and explained through the
attribute of thought, and a conditioned state, when it is
regarded under the attribute of extension, and deduced from the
laws of motion and rest. This will appear yet more plainly in
the sequel. For the present I wish to call attention to another
point, namely, that we cannot act by the decision of the mind,
unless we have a remembrance of having done so. For instance, we
cannot say a word without remembering that we have done so.
Again, it is not within the free power of the mind to remember or
forget a thing at will. Therefore the freedom of the mind must
in any case be limited to the power of uttering or not uttering
something which it remembers. But when we dream that we speak,
we believe that we speak from a free decision of the mind, yet we
do not speak, or, if we do, it is by a spontaneous motion of the
body. Again, we dream that we are concealing something, and we
seem to act from the same decision of the mind as that, whereby
we keep silence when awake concerning something we know. Lastly,
we dream that from the free decision of our mind we do something,
which we should not dare to do when awake.

Now I should like to know whether there be in the mind two
sorts of decisions, one sort illusive, and the other sort free?
If our folly does not carry us so far as this, we must
necessarily admit, that the decision of the mind, which is
believed to be free, is not distinguishable from the imagination
or memory, and is nothing more than the affirmation, which an
idea, by virtue of being an idea, necessarily involves (II.
xlix.). Wherefore these decisions of the mind arise in the mind
by the same necessity, as the ideas of things actually existing.
Therefore those who believe, that they speak or keep silence or
act in any way from the free decision of their mind, do but dream
with their eyes open.

PROP. III. The activities of the mind arise solely from adequate
ideas; the passive states of the mind depend solely on
inadequate ideas.

Proof.--The first element, which constitutes the essence of
the mind, is nothing else but the idea of the actually existent
body (II. xi. and xiii.), which (II. xv.) is compounded of many
other ideas, whereof some are adequate and some inadequate (II.
xxix. Coroll., II. xxxviii. Coroll.). Whatsoever therefore
follows from the nature of mind, and has mind for its proximate
cause, through which it must be understood, must necessaril