of the
universe alone reveals to us as the Author of everything, as omnipotent,
free, all-provident, omniscient, infallible, pure, immutable, all-wise,
and good, is He whom we call GOD.

VI. But our conviction of the existence of God need not be derived
exclusively from the wonders of the universe; for every man can find in
himself the evident proof of the existence of that supreme cause. In
fact, man feels within himself that he thinks; and if he were even to
doubt it, he could not deny that at least he doubts; and the doubt
itself is already a thought. Admitting that he possesses the faculty of
thinking, he must admit that there is within himself a substance, a
being, a something which thinks. But this being, who is conscious of his
own thoughts, is also conscious that he exists not by himself, that he
has not existed from all eternity, that he is subject to changes, that
even the simple ideas, which compose his thoughts, are not produced by
himself, but acquired through his senses from external objects; and, in
short, that he depends upon various causes placed without himself, and
undergoes vicissitudes, which it is not in his power to remove.
Therefore man has not within himself the reason of his own existence,
but he must trace it to another, who is the Author of it. Now, this
Author cannot have received His own existence from another, if He is to
be considered the primary cause; otherwise we should fall into a
succession of causes and effects to infinity. Then, the true Author of
our existence is one who exists by Himself, and as such He is eternal,
omnipotent, all-wise, etc., etc.; He is God.

VII. Another source, affording the proof of the existence of God, man
finds in himself when his intellectual faculties have attained a certain
degree of culture and maturity. He then knows himself to be a moral
being; that is to say, a being who, placed between good and evil, can,
of his own free will, adhere to the former and reject the latter, if he
follows the dictates of his reason. Then the moral sense awakens in his
mind the idea of a supreme blessing, of a progressive and infallible
moral perfection, of a future final accord between virtue and felicity,
and their necessary co-existence. Now, he cannot expect this supreme
blessing from anything that surrounds him in nature, because he does not
find in the latter the desired union of happiness with virtue, enjoyment
with merit. He must, therefore, seek it in a Sup