For how do we know that the thoughts which occur in
dreaming are false rather than those other which we experience when awake,
since the former are often not less vivid and distinct than the latter?
And though men of the highest genius study this question as long as they
please, I do not believe that they will be able to give any reason which
can be sufficient to remove this doubt, unless they presuppose the
existence of God. For, in the first place even the principle which I have
already taken as a rule, viz., that all the things which we clearly and
distinctly conceive are true, is certain only because God is or exists and
because he is a Perfect Being, and because all that we possess is derived
from him: whence it follows that our ideas or notions, which to the extent
of their clearness and distinctness are real, and proceed from God, must
to that extent be true. Accordingly, whereas we not infrequently have ideas
or notions in which some falsity is contained, this can only be the case with
such as are to some extent confused and obscure, and in this proceed from
nothing (participate of negation), that is, exist in us thus confused because
we are not wholly perfect. And it is evident that it is not less repugnant
that falsity or imperfection, in so far as it is imperfection, should proceed
from God, than that truth or perfection should proceed from nothing. But if
we did not know that all which we possess of real and true proceeds from a
Perfect and Infinite Being, however clear and distinct our ideas might be,
we should have no ground on that account for the assurance that they possessed
the perfection of being true.
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