Benedict de Spinoza, THE ETHICS
Page: 43

whereby we signify things. These three--namely, images, words,
and ideas--are by many persons either entirely confused
together, or not distinguished with sufficient accuracy or care,
and hence people are generally in ignorance, how absolutely
necessary is a knowledge of this doctrine of the will, both for
philosophic purposes and for the wise ordering of life. Those
who think that ideas consist in images which are formed in us by
contact with external bodies, persuade themselves that the ideas
of those things, whereof we can form no mental picture, are not
ideas, but only figments, which we invent by the free decree of
our will; they thus regard ideas as though they were inanimate
pictures on a panel, and, filled with this misconception, do not
see that an idea, inasmuch as it is an idea, involves an
affirmation or negation. Again, those who confuse words with
ideas, or with the affirmation which an idea involves, think
that they can wish something contrary to what they feel, affirm,
or deny. This misconception will easily be laid aside by one,
who reflects on the nature of knowledge, and seeing that it in
no wise involves the conception of extension, will therefore
clearly understand, that an idea (being a mode of thinking) does
not consist in the image of anything, nor in words. The essence
of words and images is put together by bodily motions, which in
no wise involve the conception of thought.

These few words on this subject will suffice: I will therefore
pass on to consider the objections, which may be raised against
our doctrine. Of these, the first is advanced by those, who
think that the will has a wider scope than the understanding, and
that therefore it is different therefrom. The reason for their
holding the belief, that the will has wider scope than the
understanding, is that they assert, that they have no need of an
increase in their faculty of assent, that is of affirmation or
negation, in order to assent to an infinity of things which we
do not perceive, but that they have need of an increase in their
faculty of understanding. The will is thus distinguished from