Hence it also
happens that many are unable to conceive any substance except what
is imaginable and corporeal, and even sensible. For they are
ignorant of the circumstance, that those objects alone are
imaginable which consist in extension, motion, and figure, while
there are many others besides these that are intelligible; and they
persuade themselves that nothing can subsist but body, and, finally,
that there is no body which is not sensible. And since in truth we
perceive no object such as it is by sense alone [but only by our
reason exercised upon sensible objects], as will hereafter be
clearly shown, it thus happens that the majority during life
perceive nothing unless in a confused way.
LXXIV. The fourth source of our errors is, that we attach our
thoughts to words which do not express them with accuracy.
Finally, since for the use of speech we attach all our conceptions
to words by which to express them, and commit to memory our thoughts
in connection with these terms, and as we afterwards find it more
easy to recall the words than the things signified by them, we can
scarcely conceive anything with such distinctness as to separate
entirely what we conceive from the words that were selected to
express it.
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