be sufficient to produce the ideas of them. Yet on
looking more closely into the matter I discover that this cannot be; for
in the first place, although it were true that my knowledge daily
acquired new degrees of perfection, and although there were potentially
in my nature much that was not as yet actually in it, still all these
excellences make not the slightest approach to the idea I have of the
Deity, in whom there is no perfection merely potentially, but all
actually existent; for it is even an unmistakable token of imperfection
in my knowledge, that it is augmented by degrees. Further, although my
knowledge increase more and more, nevertheless I am not therefore
induced to think that it will ever be actually infinite, since it can
never reach that point beyond which it shall be incapable of further
increase. But I conceive God as actually infinite, so that nothing can
be added to his perfection. And in fine, I readily perceive that the
objective being of an idea cannot be produced by a being that is merely
potentially existent,--which properly speaking is nothing, but only a
being existing formally or actually.

And truly, I see nothing in all that I have now said which it is not
easy for any one who shall carefully consider it, to discern by the
natural light; but when I allow my attention in some degree to relax,
the vision of my mind being obscured and as it were blinded by the
images of sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why the
idea of a being more perfect than myself must of necessity have
proceeded from a being in reality more perfect. On this account I am
here desirous to inquire further whether I, who possess this idea of
God, could exist supposing there were no God. And I ask, from whom could
I in that case derive my existence? Perhaps from myself, or from my
parents, or from some other causes less perfect than God; for anything
more perfect, or even equal to God, cannot be thought or imagined. But
if I were independent of every other existence, and were myself the
author of my being, I should doubt of nothing, I should desire nothing,
and in fine, no perfection would be wanting to me; for I should have
bestowed upon myself every perfection of which I possess the idea, and I
should thus be God. And it must not be imagined that what is now wanting
to me is perhaps of more difficult acquisition than that of which I am
already possessed; for on the contrary, it is quite manifest that it