* 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.
ANSWER.
Here the Philosopher will have the Word Idea be only Understood for the Images of Material Things represented in a Corporeal Phantasie, by which Position he may Easily Prove, that there can be no Proper Idea of an Angel or God. Whereas as I declare every Where, but especially in this Place, that I take the Name Idea for whatever is immediately perceived by the Mind, so that when I Will, or Fear, because at the same time I perceive that I Will or Fear, this very Will or Fear are reckon’d by me among the number of Ideas; And I have purposely made use of that Word, because It was usual with the Antient Philosophers to signifie the Manner of Perceptions in the Divine Mind, altho neither we nor they acknowledge a Phantasie in God: and besides I had no fitter Word to express it by.
And I think I have sufficiently explain’d the Idea of God for those that will attend my meaning, but I can never do it fully enough for those that will Understand my Words otherwise then I intend them.