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Of True and False Ideas

§ 1. THOUGH Truth and Falshood belong, in Propriety of Speech, only to Propositions; yet Ideas are oftentimes termed true or false […]. Though, I think, that when Ideas themselves are termed true or false, there is still some secret or tacit Proposition, which is the Foundation of that Denomination: as we shall see, if we examine the particular Occasions, wherein they come to be called true or false. In all which, we shall find some kind of Affirmation, or Negation, which is the Reason of that Denomination. For our Ideas, being nothing but bare Appearances or Perceptions in our Minds, cannot properly and simply [378]in themselves be said to be true or false, no more than a single Name of any thing, can be said to be true or false.

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§ 3. […] For Truth or Falshood, lying always in some Affirmation, or Negation, Mental or Verbal, our Ideas are not capable any of them of being false, till the Mind passes some Judgment on them; that is, affirms or denies something of them.

§ 4. When-ever the Mind refers any of its Ideas to any thing 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. 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 it self, 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