For it is not only manifest by the natural light
that nothing cannot be the cause of anything whatever, and that the
more perfect cannot arise from the less perfect, so as to be thereby
produced as by its efficient and total cause, but also that it is
impossible we can have the idea or representation of anything
whatever, unless there be somewhere, either in us or out of us, an
original which comprises, in reality, all the perfections that are
thus represented to us; but, as we do not in any way find in
ourselves those absolute perfections of which we have the idea, we
must conclude that they exist in some nature different from ours,
that is, in God, or at least that they were once in him; and it most
manifestly follows [from their infinity] that they are still there.
XIX. That, although we may not comprehend the nature of God, there
is yet nothing which we know so clearly as his perfections.
This will appear sufficiently certain and manifest to those who have
been accustomed to contemplate the idea of God, and to turn their
thoughts to his infinite perfections; for, although we may not
comprehend them, because it is of the nature of the infinite not to
be comprehended by what is finite, we nevertheless conceive them
more clearly and distinctly than material objects, for this reason,
that, being simple, and unobscured by limits,[Footnote: After
LIMITS, "what of them we do conceive is much less confused.
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