hings, that without being extravagant we
could not doubt of them. However, unless we be unreasonable when a
metaphysicall certainty is in question, we cannot deny but we have cause
enough not to be wholly confirmed in them, when we consider that in the
same manner we may imagine being asleep, we have other bodies, and that
we see other Stars, and another earth, though there be no such thing.
For how doe we know that those thoughts which we have in our dreams,
are rather false then the others, seeing often they are no less lively
and significant, and let the ablest men study it as long as they please,
I beleeve they can give no sufficient reason to remove this doubt,
unless they presuppose the existence of God. For first of all, that
which I even now took for a rule, to wit, that those things which were
most clearly and distinctly conceived, are all true, is certain, only by
reason, that God is or exists, and that he is a perfect being, and that
all which we have comes from him. Whence it follows, that our Idea's or
notions, being reall things, and which come from God in all wherein they
are clear and distinct, cannot therein be but true. So that if we have
very often any which contain falshood, they cannot be but of such things
which are somewhat confus'd and obscure, because that therein they
signifie nothing to us, that's to say, that they are thus confus'd in us
only, because we are not wholly perfect. And it's evident that there is
no less contrariety that falshood and imperfection should proceed from
God, as such, then there is in this, that truth and falshood proceed
from nothing. But if we know not that whatsoever was true and reall in
us comes from a perfect and infinite being, how clear and distinct
soever our Idea's were, we should have no reason to assure us, that they
had the perfection to be true.

Now after that the knowledge of God, and of the Soul hath rendred us
thus certain of this rule, it's easie to know; that the extravaganceys
which we imagin in our sleep, ought no way to make us doubt of the truth
of those thoughts which we have being awake: For if it should happen,
that even sleeping we should have a very distinct Idea; as for example,
A Geometritian should invent some new demonstration, his sleeping would
not hinder it to be true. And for the most ordinary error of our
dreames, which consists in that they represent unto us severall objects
in the same manner as our exterior senses doe, it matters