give it what bears no proportion with what is limited
within any bounds? Let us suppose the mind of man to be like a
looking-glass, wherein the images of all the neighbouring bodies
imprint themselves. Now what being was able to stamp within us the
image of the infinite, if the infinite never existed? Who can put
in a looking-glass the image of a chimerical object which is not in
being, and which was never placed against the glass? This image of
the infinite is not a confused collection of finite objects, which
the mind may mistake for a true infinite. It is the true infinite
of which we have the thought and idea. We know it so well, that we
exactly distinguish it from whatever it is not; and that no subtilty
can palm upon us any other object in its room. We are so well
acquainted with it, that we reject from it any propriety that
denotes the least bound or limit. In short, we know it so well,
that it is in it alone we know all the rest, just as we know the
night by the day, sickness by health. Now, once more, whence comes
so great an image? Does it proceed from nothing? Can a stinted
limited being imagine and invent the infinite, if there be no
infinite at all? Our weak and short-sighted mind cannot of itself
form that image, which, at this rate, should have no author. None
of the outward objects can give us that image: for they can only
give us the image of what they are, and they are limited and
imperfect. Therefore, from whence shall we derive that distinct
image which is unlike anything within us, and all we know here
below, without us? Whence does it proceed? Where is that infinite
we cannot comprehend, because it is really infinite: and which
nevertheless we cannot mistake, because we distinguish it from
anything that is inferior to it? Sure it must be somewhere,
otherwise how could it imprint itself in our minds?

SECT. LIV. The Ideas of Man are the Immutable Rules of his
Judgment.

But besides the idea of the infinite, I have yet universal and
immutable notions, which are the rule and standard of all my
judgments; insomuch that I cannot judge of anything but by
consulting them; nor am I free to judge contrary to what they
represent to me. My thoughts are so far from being able to correct
or form that rule, that they are themselves corrected, in spite of
myself, by that superior rule; and invincibly subjected to its
decision. Whatever effort my mind can make, I can never be brought,