sciences, or is endowed with such force of genius, that he was able
of himself to invent it, without having elsewhere seen anything like
it; for all the ingenuity which is contained in the idea objectively
only, or as it were in a picture, must exist at least in its first
and chief cause, whatever that may be, not only objectively or
representatively, but in truth formally or eminently.

XVIII. That the existence of God may be again inferred from the
above.

Thus, because we discover in our minds the idea of God, or of an
all-perfect Being, we have a right to inquire into the source whence
we derive it; and we will discover that the perfections it
represents are so immense as to render it quite certain that we
could only derive it from an all-perfect Being; that is, from a God
really existing. 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.