ple
demonstrations; and having observed that this great certaintie, which
all the world grants them, is founded only on this, that men evidently
conceived them, following the rule I already mentioned. I observed also
that there was nothing at all in them which ascertain'd me of the
existence of their object. As for example, I well perceive, that
supposing a Triangle, three angles necessarily must be equall to two
right ones: but yet nevertheless I saw nothing which assured me that
there was a Triangle in the world. Whereas returning to examine the
_Idea_ which I had of a perfect Being, _I_ found its existence comprised
in it, in the same manner as it was comprised in that of a Triangle,
where the three angles are equall to two right ones; or in that of a
sphere, where all the parts are equally distant from the center. Or even
yet more evidently, and that by consequence, it is at least as certain
that God, who is that perfect Being, is, or exists, as any demonstration
in Geometry can be.

But that which makes many perswade themselves that there is difficulty
in knowing it, as also to know what their Soul is, 'tis that they never
raise their thoughts beyond sensible things, and that they are so
accustomed to consider nothing but by imagination, which is a particular
manner of thinking on materiall things, that whatsoever is not
imaginable seems to them not intelligible. Which is manifest enough from
this, that even the Philosophers hold for a Maxime in the Schools, That
there is nothing in the understanding which was not first in the sense;
where notwithstanding its certain, that the _Ideas_ of God and of the
Soul never were. And (me thinks) those who use their imagination to
comprehend them, are just as those, who to hear sounds, or smell odours,
would make use of their eys; save that there is yet this difference,
That the sense of seeing assures us no lesse of the truth of its
objects, then those of smelling or hearing do: whereas neither our
imagination, nor our senses, can ever assure us of any thing, if our
understanding intervenes not.

To be short, if there remain any who are not enough perswaded of the
existence of God, and of their soul, from the reasons I have produc'd, I
would have them know, that all other things, whereof perhaps they think
themselves more assured, as to have a body, and that there are Stars,
and an earth, and the like, are less certain. For although we had such a
morall assurance of these t