Whenever the mind refers any of its ideas to anything
extraneous to them, they are then capable to be called true or
false. Because the mind, in such a reference, makes a tacit
supposition of their conformity to that thing; which supposition, as
it happens to be true or false, so the ideas themselves come to be
denominated. The most usual cases wherein this happens, are these
following:
5. Other men's ideas; real existence; and supposed real essences,
are what men usually refer their ideas to. First, when the mind
supposes any idea it has conformable to that in other men's minds,
called by the same common name; v.g. when the mind intends or judges
its ideas of justice, temperance, religion, to be the same with what
other men give those names to.
Secondly, when the mind supposes any idea it has in itself to be
conformable to some real existence. Thus the two ideas of a man and
a centaur, supposed to be the ideas of real substances, are the one
true and the other false; the one having a conformity to what has
really existed, the other not.
Thirdly, when the mind refers any of its ideas to that real
constitution and essence of anything, whereon all its properties
depend: and thus the greatest part, if not all our ideas of
substances, are false.
6. The cause of such reference. These suppositions the mind is
very apt tacitly to make concerning its own ideas.
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