[56] (1) We now proceed to consider those cases which are commonly called fictions, though we clearly understood that the thing is not as we imagine it. (2) For instance, I know that the earth is round, but nothing prevents my telling people that it is a hemisphere, and that it is like a half apple carved in relief on a dish; or, that the sun moves round the earth, and so on. (56:3) However, examination will show us that there is nothing here inconsistent with what has been said, provided we first admit that we may have made mistakes, and be now conscious of them; and, further, that we can hypothesize, or at least suppose, that others are under the same mistake as ourselves, or can, like us, fall under it. (4) We can, I repeat, thus hypothesize so long as we see no impossibility. (56:5) Thus, when I tell anyone that the earth is not round, &c., I merely recall the error which I perhaps made myself, or which I might have fallen into, and afterwards I hypothesize that the person to whom I tell it, is still, or may still fall under the same mistake. (6) This I say, I can feign so long as I do not perceive any impossibility or necessity; if I truly understood either one or the other I should not be able to feign, and I should be reduced to saying that I had made the attempt. [57] (1) It remains for us to consider hypotheses made in problems, which sometimes involve impossibilities. (2) For instance, when we say--let us assume that this burning candle is not burning, or, let us assume that it burns in some imaginary space, or where there are no physical objects. (3) Such assumptions are freely made, though the last is clearly seen to be impossible. (4) But, though this be so, there is no fiction in the case. (57:5) For, in the first case, I have merely recalled to memory, [x] another candle not burning, or conceived the candle before me as without a flame, and then I understand as applying to the latter, leaving its flame out of the question, all that I think of the former. (6) In the second case, I have merely to abstract my thoughts from the objects surrounding the candle, for the mind to devote itself to the contemplation of the candle singly looked at in itself only; I can then draw the conclusion that the candle contains in itself no causes for its own destruction, so that if there were no physical objects the candle, and even the flame, would remain unchangeable, and so on. (7) Thus there is here no fiction, but, [y] true and bare assertions.