Full Idea
What I mean by an idea is not a certain act of thinking, but a power or faculty such that we have an idea of a thing even if we are not thinking about it but know that we can think it when the occasion arises.
Gist of Idea
By an 'idea' I mean not an actual thought, but the resources we can draw on to think
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (What is an Idea? [1676], p.281)
Book Reference
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Leibniz Selections', ed/tr. Wiener,Philip P. [Scribners 1951], p.281
A Reaction
'Idea' tends to be used in the seventeenth century to mean an actual mental event. It is because Leibniz believes in the unconscious mind that he can offer this rather different, and probably superior, notion of an 'idea'.
Related Idea
Idea 19427 True ideas represent what is possible; false ideas represent contradictions [Leibniz]