THE REPRESENTATIVE THEORY OF IDEAS 57 



supporting truth on which all other truth depends. 1 Needless 

 to say, this is the more characteristically rationalistic position. 

 The epistemological dualism of idea and ideatum passes over 

 very easily into an ontological dualism of mind and matter. 

 The ideas are regarded as modes of thinking substance, and those 

 ideata, which are not themselves ideas, are regarded as modes of 

 extended substance. This is, of course, what we find in Descartes 

 and (substantially) in Locke. But other ontological interpreta- 

 tions are by no means impossible. The distinction between idea 

 and ideatum may be regarded as defining, not two kinds of sub- 

 stance, but two kinds of existence; that is to say, a single reality 

 may be regarded as existing both as idea and as thing objectively 

 and subjectively. This is the conception which underlies the onto- 

 logical proof of the existence of God in its original medieval form ; 

 for the proof turns upon the principle, that, since that which 

 exists both as idea and as thing is more perfect than that which 

 exists as idea alone, the most perfect being cannot be conceived 

 as having the former kind of existence alone., In the period with 

 which we are dealing, this conception is represented by Spinoza, 

 by whom, however, it is carried to an extreme. Not only may 

 the same reality exist both as idea and as thing, but nothing 

 can exist otherwise. There is but one substance, which in each of 

 its modes exists both as idea and as thing, that is to say, in the at- 

 tributes of thinking and extension. The correspondence between 

 idea and thing is, therefore, a universal parallelism ; and if, to a su- 

 perficial reflection, this does not appear to be the case, that is only 

 because ideas are confused. All error is confusion. Every dis- 

 tinct idea (including, of course, every simple idea) is true; and 

 the real content of every confused idea is likewise true. Truth 

 here means the correspondence, not of one entity with another, 



*It should be recalled that the ontological proof of the existence of God, in the 

 form which Descartes gives it, is not a proof that is to say, a deduction in the 

 ordinary sense of the term at all. It is a piece of exposition, calling attention to 

 the fact, that the judgment that God exists is analytical and therefore requires 

 no deduction. "Its conclusion may be known without proof by those who are free 

 from all prejudice." Cf. Proposition I of the "geometrical" account of the proofs 

 of God's existence, in the Reply to the Second Objections. 



