After making those matters clear, I should, in the next place, have
desired to set forth the grounds for holding that the true
principles by which we may reach that highest degree of wisdom
wherein consists the sovereign good of human life, are those I have
proposed in this work; and two considerations alone are sufficient
to establish this--the first of which is, that these principles are
very clear, and the second, that we can deduce all other truths from
them; for it is only these two conditions that are required in true
principles. But I easily prove that they are very clear; firstly, by
a reference to the manner in which I found them, namely, by
rejecting all propositions that were in the least doubtful, for it
is certain that such as could not be rejected by this test when they
were attentively considered, are the most evident and clear which
the human mind can know. Thus by considering that he who strives to
doubt of all is unable nevertheless to doubt that he is while he
doubts, and that what reasons thus, in not being able to doubt of
itself and doubting nevertheless of everything else, is not that
which we call our body, but what we name our mind or thought, I have
taken the existence of this thought for the first principle, from
which I very clearly deduced the following truths, namely, that
there is a God who is the author of all that is in the world, and
who, being the source of all truth, cannot have created our
understanding of such a nature as to be deceived in the judgments it
forms of the things of which it possesses a very clear and distinct
perception.
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