And inasmuch as [since ideas
resemble images] there cannot be any ideas which do not appear
to represent some things, if it is correct to say that cold is
merely a privation of heat, the idea which represents it to me
as something real and positive will not be improperly termed
false, and the same holds good of other similar ideas.
To these it is certainly not necessary that I should
attribute any author other than myself. For if they are
false, i.e. if they represent things which do not exist, the
light of nature shows me that they issue from nought, that is
to say, that they are only in me so far as something is
lacking to the perfection of my nature. But if they are true,
nevertheless because they exhibit so little reality to me that
I cannot even clearly distinguish the thing represented from
non-being, I do not see any reason why they should not be
produced by myself.
As to the clear and distinct idea which I have of
corporeal things, some of them seem as though I might have
derived them from the idea which I possess of myself, as those
which I have of substance, duration, number, and such like.
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