DISCOURSE ONMETAPHYSICS 601
was could doubt the possibility of such a line, though indeed it was a reciprocal prop-
erty of an endless screw, since the other lines whose parts are congruent are planar
(the circumference of the circle and the straight line only), that is they can be drawn in a
plane. This shows that every reciprocal property can be used in a nominal definition,
whereas when the property makes known the possibility of the thing, it makes the defi-
nition real. As long as we have a mere nominal definition, we could never be sure of the
consequences drawn from it, for if it concealed some contradiction or impossibility,
contrary conclusions could be drawn from it. That is why truths do not depend on
names and are not arbitrary as held by some new philosophers.
- IN WHATCASEOURKNOWLEDGEISJOINED
TO THECONTEMPLATION OF THEIDEA
Now it is obvious that we have no idea of a notion when it is impossible. And when our
knowledge is merely suppositive, when we have the idea we do not contemplate it, for
such a notion is known only in the same way as those that are occultly impossible, and
if it is possible it is not learned by that method of knowing. For example, when I think
of a thousand, or of chiliagon [a group of one thousand things], I often do so without
contemplating the idea, as when I say that a thousand is ten times a hundred without
putting myself to the trouble of thinking what ten and a hundred are. That is because
IsupposeI know it and see no need for the present to pause to conceive it. Thus it can
easily happen, as indeed it does often enough, that I am in error with respect to a notion
I suppose or believe I understand, although in truth it is impossible, or at least incom-
patible with the others I join it to. Whether or not I am in error, this suppositive way of
conceiving remains the same. Hence, it is only when our knowledge of confused things
is clearor our knowledge of distinct things intuitive, that we contemplate the complete
idea of them.
- WEHAV EALLIDEAS INUS; PLATO’SNOTION OFREMINISCENCE
If we are to conceive properly what an idea is, we must avoid an ambiguity. For there
are some who take the idea to be the form or way of distinguishing our thoughts. On
this view we have the idea in our minds only to the extent that we think of it, and
whenever we think of it again, we have ideas of the same thing different from though
similar to the previous ones. But it seems that others take the idea to be an immediate
object of thought, or some permanent form remaining when we do not contemplate it.
Indeed, there is always in our souls the capacity to conceive any nature or form what-
ever, when the opportunity of thinking of it presents itself. I think that this capacity of
our souls, to the extent that it expresses some nature, form or essence, is properly
speaking the idea of the thing, in us and always in us, whether we think of it or not. For
our soul expresses God and the universe, and all essences as well as all existences.
This follows from my principles, for nothing enters our minds naturally from out-
side, and it is a bad habit of ours to think as if our souls received some messenger—
species or had gates and windows. We have all the forms in our minds, for all time even,
because the mind always expresses all its future thoughts, and already thinks confusedly
everything it will ever think distinctly. Nothing could be taught us whose idea was not
already present in our minds as the matter from which this thought was formed.