exist in me by way of defect.
But it could not be the same with the idea of a being more perfect than
my own; for to derive it from nothing was manifestly impossible; and,
because it is no less repugnant that the more perfect should follow and
depend upon the less perfect than that something should come forth out
of nothing, I could not derive it from myself.

It remained, then, to conclude that it was put into me by a nature truly
more perfect than was I, and possessing in itself all the perfections of
what I could form an idea--in a word, by God. To which I added that,
since I knew some perfections which I did not possess, I was not the
only being who existed, but that there must of necessity be some other
being, more perfect, on whom I depended, and from whom I had acquired
all that I possessed; for if I had existed alone and independent of all
other, so that I had of myself all this little whereby I participated in
the Perfect Being, I should have been able to have in myself all those
other qualities which I knew myself to lack, and so to be infinite,
eternal, immutable, omniscient, almighty--in fine, to possess all the
perfections which I could observe in God.

Proposing to myself the geometer's subject matter, and then turning
again to examine my idea of a Perfect Being, I found that existence was
comprehended in that idea just as, in the idea of a triangle is
comprehended the notion that the sum of its angles is equal to two right
angles; and that consequently it is as certain that God, this Perfect
Being, is or exists, as any geometrical demonstration could be.

That there are many who persuade themselves that there is a difficulty
in knowing Him is due to the scholastic maxim that there is nothing in
the understanding which has not first been in the senses; where the
ideas of God and the soul have never been.

Than the existence of God all other things, even those which it seems to
a man extravagant to doubt, such as his having a body, are less certain.
Nor is there any reason sufficient to remove such doubt but such as
presupposes the existence of God. From His existence it follows that our
ideas or notions, being real things, and coming from God, cannot but be
true in so far as they are clear and distinct. In so far as they contain
falsity, they are confused and obscure, there is in them an element of
mere negation (_elles participent du neant_); that is to say, they are
thus confused in us because we our