we need a power of thinking in order to affirm that
to be true which is true, equal to that which we need in order to affirm
that to be true which is false. For these two affirmations, if we look
to the mind, are related to one another as being and non-being, for
there is nothing positive in ideas which constitutes a form of falsity.

Here therefore particularly is it to be observed how easily we are
deceived when we confuse universals with individuals, and the entities
of reason and abstractions with realities.

With regard to the fourth objection, I say that I entirely grant that if
a man were placed in such a state of equilibrium he would perish of
hunger and thirst, supposing he perceived nothing but hunger and thirst,
and the food and drink which were equidistant from him. If you ask me
whether such a man would not be thought an ass rather than a man, I
reply that I do not know; nor do I know what ought to be thought of a
man who hangs himself, or of children, fools, and madmen.

_The Independence of Mind and Body_

All modes of thought have God for a cause in so far as He is a thinking
thing, and not in so far as He is manifested by any other attribute.
That which determines the mind to thought, therefore, is a mode of
thought and not of extension, that is to say, it is not the body. Again,
the motion and rest of the body must be derived from some other body,
which has also been determined to motion or rest by another, and,
absolutely, whatever arises in the body must arise from God, in so far
as He is considered as affected by some mode of extension, and not in so
far as He is considered as affected by any mode of thought, that is to
say, whatever arises in the body cannot arise from the mind, which is a
mode of thought. Therefore, the body cannot determine the mind to
thought, neither can the mind determine the body to motion nor rest, nor
to anything else, if there be anything else.

This proposition will be better understood from what has been said, that
is to say, that the mind and the body are one and the same thing,
conceived at one time under the attribute of thought, and at another
under that of extension. For this reason, the order or concatenation of
things is one, whether nature be conceived under this or under that
attribute, and consequently the order of the actions and passions of our
body is coincident in Nature with the order of the actions and passions
of the mind.

Although these things