- More properly to be called right or wrong.
Upon the whole matter, I think that our ideas, as they are considered by the mind,—either in reference to the proper signification of their names; or in reference to the reality of things,—may very fitly be called RIGHT or WRONG ideas, according as they agree or disagree to those patterns to which they are referred. But if any one had rather call them true or false, it is fit he use a liberty, which every one has, to call things by those names he thinks best; though, in propriety of speech, TRUTH or FALSEHOOD will, I think, scarce agree to them, but as they, some way or other, virtually contain in them some mental proposition. The ideas that are in a man’s mind, simply considered, cannot be wrong; unless complex ones, wherein inconsistent parts are jumbled together. All other ideas are in themselves right, and the knowledge about them right and true knowledge; but when we come to refer them to anything, as to their patterns and archetypes then they are capable of being wrong, as far as they disagree with such archetypes.