this
or that thought, according to the manner in which he has been accustomed
to connect and bind together the images of things in his mind.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] [Similarly, it can be demonstrated that] extension is an attribute
of God, or God is an extended thing.

[15] Chapter Eight.

[16] The formal Being of things which are not modes of thought does not
follow from the divine nature because of His prior knowledge of these
things, but, just as ideas follow from the attribute of thought, in the
same manner and with the same necessity the objects of ideas follow and
are concluded from their attributes.

[17] From a letter to Henry Oldenburg (1665).

CHAPTER X

THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

_Of Truth_

All the ideas which are in God always agree with those things of which
they are the ideas. Therefore, all ideas, in so far as they are related
to God, are true.

A true idea[18] (for we possess a true idea) is something different from
its correlate (_ideatum_); thus a circle is different from the idea of a
circle. The idea of a circle is not something having a circumference and
a center, as a circle has; nor is the idea of a body that body itself.
Now, as it is something different from its correlate, it is capable of
being understood through itself; in other words, the idea, in so far as
its actual essence (_essentia formalis_) is concerned, may be the
subject of another subjective essence. And, again, this second
subjective essence will, regarded in itself, be something real and
capable of being understood; and so on indefinitely. For instance, the
man Peter is something real; the true idea of Peter is the reality of
Peter represented subjectively, and is in itself something real, and
quite distinct from the actual Peter. Now, as this true idea of Peter is
in itself something real, and has its own individual existence, it will
also be capable of being understood--that is, of being the subject of
another idea which will contain by representation all that the idea of
Peter contains actually. And, again, this idea of the idea of Peter has
its own individuality, which may become the subject of yet another idea;
and so on indefinitely. This every one may make trial of for himself, by
reflecting that he knows what Peter is, and also knows that he knows,
and further knows that he knows that he knows, etc. Hence, it is plain
that, in order to understand the actual Peter, it is not necessary first