I think it is beyond
question, that man has a clear idea of his own being; he knows
certainly he exists, and that he is something. He that can doubt
whether he be anything or no, I speak not to; no more than I would
argue with pure nothing, or endeavour to convince nonentity that it
were something. If any one pretends to be so sceptical as to deny
his own existence, (for really to doubt of it is manifestly
impossible,) let him for me enjoy his beloved happiness of being
nothing, until hunger or some other pain convince him of the contrary.
This, then, I think I may take for a truth, which every one's
certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz.
that he is something that actually exists.
3 He knows also that nothing cannot produce a being; therefore
something must have existed from eternity. In the next place, man
knows, by an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more
produce any real being, than it can be equal to two right angles. If a
man knows not that nonentity, or the absence of all being, cannot be
equal to two right angles, it is impossible he should know any
demonstration in Euclid. If, therefore, we know there is some real
being, and that nonentity cannot produce any real being, it is an
evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something;
since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a
beginning must be produced by something else.
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