we can distinctly conceive, seem to be all equally
distant from the present, and are set down, as it were, to the
same moment of time.)

VII. By an end, for the sake of which we do something, I mean a
desire.

VIII. By virtue (virtus) and power I mean the same thing; that
is (III. vii), virtue, in so far as it is referred to man, is a
man's nature or essence, in so far as it has the power of
effecting what can only be understood by the laws of that nature.

AXIOM.

There is no individual thing in nature, than which there is
not another more powerful and strong. Whatsoever thing be given,
there is something stronger whereby it can be destroyed.

PROPOSITIONS.

PROP. I. No positive quality possessed by a false idea is
removed by the presence of what is true, in virtue of its being
true.

Proof.--Falsity consists solely in the privation of knowledge
which inadequate ideas involve (II. xxxv.), nor have they any
positive quality on account of which they are called false (II.
xxxiii.); contrariwise, in so far as they are referred to God,
they are true (II. xxxii.). Wherefore, if the positive quality
possessed by a false idea were removed by the presence of what is
true, in virtue of its being true, a true idea would then be
removed by itself, which (IV. iii.) is absurd. Therefore, no
positive quality possessed by a false idea, &c. Q.E.D.

Note.--This proposition is more clearly understood from II.
xvi. Coroll. ii. For imagination is an idea, which indicates
rather the present disposition of the human body than the nature
of the external body; not indeed distinctly, but confusedly;
whence it comes to pass, that the mind is said to err. For
instance, when we look at the sun, we conceive that it is distant
from us about two hundred feet; in this judgment we err, so long
as we are in ignorance of its true distance; when its true
distance is known, the error is removed, but not the imagination;
or, in other words, the idea of the sun, which only explains
tho nature of that luminary, in so far as the body is affected
thereby: wherefore, though we know the real distance, we shall
still nevertheless imagine the sun to be near us. For, as we
said in II. xxxv. note, we do not imagine the sun to be so near
us, because we are ignorant of its true distance, but because the
mind conceives the magnitude of the sun to the extent that the
body is affected thereby. Thus, when the rays of the sun falling
on the su