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. There
is, besides, no speculation more calculated to aid in perfecting our
understanding, and which is more important than this, inasmuch as
the consideration of an object that has no limits to its perfections
fills us with satisfaction and assurance."-FRENCH.] they occupy our
mind more fully.

XX. That we are not the cause of ourselves, but that this is God,
and consequently that there is a God.

But, because every one has not observed this, and because, when we
have an idea of any machine in which great skill is displayed, we
usually know with sufficient accuracy the manner in which we
obtained it, and as we cannot even recollect when the idea we have
of a God was communicated to us by him, seeing it was always in our
minds, it is still necessary that we should continue our review, and
make inquiry after our author, possessing, as we do, the idea of the
infinite perfections of a God: for it is in the highest degree
evident by the natural light, that that which knows something more
perfect than itself, is not the source of its own being, since it
would thus have given to itself all the perfections which it knows;
and that, consequently, it could draw its origin from no other being