_Against the Third Meditation of God._
* _Some of These (viz. ~Humane Thoughts~) are as it were the Images of
Things, and to these alone belongs properly the Name of an Idea, as when
I Think on a Man, a Chimera, Heaven, an Angel, or God._
When I Think on a _Man_ I perceive an _Idea_ made up of _Figure_ and
_Colour_, whereof I may _doubt_ whether it be the _Likeness_ of a _Man_
or not; and so when I think on _Heaven_. But when I think on a Chimera, I
perceive an _Image_ or _Idea_, of which I may _doubt_ whether it be the
_Likeness_ of any _Animal_ not only at present Existing, but possible to
Exist, or that ever will Exist hereafter or not.
But thinking on an _Angel_, there is offer’d to my Mind sometimes the
_Image_ of a _Flame_, sometimes the _Image_ of a _Pretty Little Boy_
with _Wings_, which I am certain has no _Likeness_ to an _Angel_, and
therefore that it is not the _Idea_ of an _Angel_; But beleiving that
there are some Creatures, Who do (as it were) wait upon God, and are
Invisible, and Immaterial, upon the _Thing Believed_ or _supposed_ we
Impose the _Name_ of _Angel_; Whereas the _Idea_, under which I Imagine
an Angel, is compounded of the Ideas of sensible Things.
In the like manner at the Venerable Name of _God_, we have _no Image_ or
_Idea_ of God, and therefore we are forbidden to _Worship God_ under any
_Image_, least we should seem to _Conceive_ Him that is inconceivable.
Whereby it appears that we have no _Idea_ of _God_; but like one _born
blind_, who being brought to the _Fire_, and perceiving himself to be
_Warmed_, knows there is _something_ by which he is _warmed_ and Hearing
it called _Fire_, he Concludes that _Fire Exists_, but yet knows not of
what _shape_ or _Colour_ the Fire is, neither has he any _Image_ or
_Idea_ thereof in his _Mind_.
So Man knowing that there must be some _Cause_ of his _Imaginations_
or _Ideas_, as also an other _cause before That_, and so _onwards_, he
is brought at last to an _End_, or to a _supposal_ of some _Eternal
Cause_, Which because it never _began_ to _Be_ cannot have any other
_Cause before it_, and thence he Concludes that ’tis _necessary_ that
some _Eternal Thing Exist_: and yet he has no _Idea_ which He can call
the _Idea_ of this _Eternal Thing_, but he names this _Thing_, which he
believes and acknowledges by the Name _God_.
But now _Des-Cartes_ proceeds from this Position, _That we have an Idea
of God in our Mind_, to prove this Theoreme, _That God (that if an
Almighty, Wise, Creatour of the World) Exists_, whereas he ought to have
explain’d this _Idea_ of _God_ better, and he should have thence deduced
not only his _Existence_, but also the _Creation_ of the World.