not though it
give us occasion to mistrust the truth of those Ideas, because that they
may also often enough cozen us when we doe not sleep; As when to those
who have the Jaundies, all they see seems yellow; or, as the Stars or
other bodies at a distance, appear much less then they are. For in fine,
whether we sleep or wake, we ought never to suffer our selves to be
perswaded but by the evidence of our Reason; I say, (which is
observable) Of our Reason, and not of our imagination, or of our senses.
As although we see the Sun most clearly, we are not therefore to judge
him to be of the bigness we see him of; and we may well distinctly
imagine the head of a Lion, set on the body of a Goat, but therefore we
ought not to conclude that there is a _Chimera_ in the world. For reason
doth not dictate to us, that what we see or imagine so, is true: But it
dictates, that all our Idea's or notions ought to have some grounds of
truth; For it were not possible, that God who is all perfect, and all
truth, should have put them in us without that: And because that our
reasonings are never so evident, nor so entire while we sleep, as when
we wake, although sometimes our imaginations be then as much or more
lively and express. It also dictates to us, that our thoughts, seeing
they cannot be all true by reason that we are not wholly perfect; what
they have of truth, ought infallibly to occur in those which we have
being awake, rather then in our dreams.

Part. V.

I should be glad to pursue this Discourse, and shew you the whole Series
of the following Truths, which I have drawn from the former: But because
for this purpose, it were now necessary for me to treat of severall
questions, which are controverted by the learned, with whom I have no
desire to imbroil my self, I beleeve it better for me to abstain from
it; and so in generall onely to discover what they are, that I may leave
the wisest to judge whether it were profitable to inform the publick
more particularly of them. I alwayes remained constant to my resolution,
to suppose no other Principle but that which I now made use of, for the
demonstration of the Existence of God, and of the Soul; and to receive
nothing for true, which did not seem to me more clear and more certain
then the demonstrations of Geometry had formerly done. And yet I dare
say, that I have not onely found out the means to satisfie my self, in a
short time, concerning all the principall difficulties wh