THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



antee of the human reason in all the acts which form 

 the special domain of human intelligence. 



Descartes arrives thus at the proof of the existence 

 of God : " We find that all our ideas of limits, of 

 sorrows and of weaknesses, presuppose an infinite, 

 perfect and ever-blessed something, beyond and in- 

 cluding them; that all our ideas converge to one cen- 

 tral idea, in which they find their explanation. The 

 formal fact of thinking is what constitute our being ; 

 but this thought of which we are certain leads us 

 back to the necessary pre-supposition on which our 

 ideas depend the ultimate totality, in which they 

 are all reconciled ; the permanent cause on which 

 they and we, as conscious beings, depend. We have, 

 therefore, the idea of an infinite, perfect and all- 

 powerful being, which cannot be the creation of our- 

 selves, and must be given by some being who really 

 possesses all that we in idea attribute to him." Such 

 a being he identified with God. But thus far Des- 

 cartes was confined within the sphere of his own ideas. 

 From this embarrassment he escaped by invoking 

 the veracity of God. He invoked it as the support 

 of the testimony of the senses, which no longer ap- 

 peared to him doubtful. "Now that I know myself," 

 he says, "and that I know God, I have not the same 

 reason to doubt. All that nature teaches (and by 

 nature I mean God, or the order and disposition that 



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