 To take an example important for the history of philosophy, our belief in free will, on Spinoza’s analysis, is precisely a false belief that follows from sense experience not offset by countervailing ideas: it arises because “we are conscious of [our] actions and ignorant of [their] causes” (E2p35s). Any perception of my own action will be “inadequate” (i.e., merely partial or “mutilated” by comparison to God’s infallible idea of that same action) if the ideas of all the necessitating causes of that action are not also part of my mind. Such a “mutilated” and “inadequate” idea of my own action can generate a false belief in free will as long as I lack potentially offsetting ideas – say, of the general necessity of all actions in nature (e.g. E1p33), together with an understanding of myself as subject to the very same laws as any other natural thing (E3pref; G/II/138).