Either (a while the fact has not changed and the (observer has
neither forgotten nor lost belief in the true opinion which he had,
that opinion has disappeared, or (b) if he retains it then his opinion
is at once true and false. A true opinion, however, becomes false only
when the fact alters without being noticed.
Imagination is therefore neither any one of the states enumerated,
nor compounded out of them.
But since when one thing has been set in motion another thing may be
moved by it, and imagination is held to be a movement and to be
impossible without sensation, i.e. to occur in beings that are
percipient and to have for its content what can be perceived, and
since movement may be produced by actual sensation and that movement
is necessarily similar in character to the sensation itself, this
movement must be (1) necessarily (a) incapable of existing apart
from sensation, (b) incapable of existing except when we perceive,
(such that in virtue of its possession that in which it is found may
present various phenomena both active and passive, and (such that it
may be either true or false.
The reason of the last characteristic is as follows. Perception
(1) of the special objects of sense is never in error or admits the
least possible amount of falsehood. (2) That of the concomitance of
the objects concomitant with the sensible qualities comes next: in
this case certainly we may be deceived; for while the perception
that there is white before us cannot be false, the perception that
what is white is this or that may be false.
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