never formed the conception put forward here that the soul acts
according to fixed laws, and is as it were an immaterial automaton.

[86] (1) Hence, as far as is possible at the outset, we have
acquired a knowledge of our understanding, and such a standard of
a true idea that we need no longer fear confounding truth with
falsehood and fiction. (2) Neither shall we wonder why we
understand some things which in nowise fall within the scope of
the imagination, while other things are in the imagination but
wholly opposed to the understanding, or others, again, which
agree therewith. (3) We now know that the operations, whereby the
effects of imagination are produced, take place under other laws
quite different from the laws of the understanding, and that the
mind is entirely passive with regard to them.

[87] (1) Whence we may also see how easily men may fall into grave
errors through not distinguishing accurately between the imagination
and the understanding; such as believing that extension must be
localized, that it must be finite, that its parts are really distinct
one from the other, that it is the primary and single foundation of
all things, that it occupies more space at one time than at another
and other similar doctrines, all entirely opposed to truth, as we
shall duly show.

[88] (1) Again, since words are a part of the imagination - that is,
since we form many conceptions in accordance with confused
arrangements of words in the memory, dependent on particular bodily
conditions, - there is no doubt that words may, equally with the
imagination, be the cause of many and great errors, unless we
strictly on our guard.