Whether such
substances as these can possibly exist or no, it is probable we do not
know: but be that as it will, these ideas of substances, being made
conformable to no pattern existing that we know; and consisting of
such collections of ideas as no substance ever showed us united
together, they ought to pass with us for barely imaginary: but much
more are those complex ideas so, which contain in them any
inconsistency or contradiction of their parts.
Chapter XXXI
Of Adequate and Inadequate Ideas
1. Adequate ideas are such as perfectly represent their
archetypes. Of our real ideas, some are adequate, and some are
inadequate. Those I call adequate, which perfectly represent those
archetypes which the mind supposes them taken from: which it intends
them to stand for, and to which it refers them. Inadequate ideas are
such, which are but a partial or incomplete representation of those
archetypes to which they are referred. Upon which account it is plain,
2. Simple ideas all adequate. First, that all our simple ideas are
adequate. Because, being nothing but the effects of certain powers
in things, fitted and ordained by God to produce such sensations in
us, they cannot but be correspondent and adequate to those powers: and
we are sure they agree to the reality of things.
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