o perhaps they possess no reality beyond my thought,
and which are not framed by me, tho it may be in my power to think, or
not to think them, but possess true and immutable natures of their
own.

As, for example, when I imagine a triangle, altho there is not perhaps
and never was in any place in the universe apart from my thought one
such figure, it remains true, nevertheless, that this figure possesses
a certain determinate nature, form, or essence, which is immutable and
eternal, and not framed by me, nor in any degree dependent on my
thought; as appears from the circumstance, that diverse properties of
the triangle may be demonstrated, viz., that its three angles are
equal to two right, that its greatest side is subtended by its
greatest angle, and the like, which, whether I will or not, I now
clearly discern to belong to it, altho before I did not at all think
of them, when, for the first time, I imagined a triangle, and which
accordingly can not be said to have been invented by me.

Nor is it a valid objection to allege that perhaps this idea of a
triangle came into my mind by the medium of the senses, through my
having seen bodies of a triangular figure; for I am able to form in
thought an innumerable variety of figures with regard to which it can
not be supposed that they were ever objects of sense, and I can
nevertheless demonstrate diverse properties of their nature no less
than of the triangle, all of which are assuredly true since I clearly
conceive them: and they are therefore something, and not mere
negations; for it is highly evident that all that is true is something
(truth being identical with existence); and I have already fully shown
the truth of the principle, that whatever is clearly and distinctly
known is true. And altho this had not been demonstrated, yet the
nature of my mind is such as to compel me to assent to what I clearly
conceive while I so conceive it; and I recollect that even when I
still strongly adhered to the objects of sense, I reckoned among the
number of the most certain truths those I clearly conceived relating
to figures, numbers, and other matters that pertain to arithmetic and
geometry, and in general to the pure mathematics.

But now if because I can draw from my thought the idea of an object it
follows that all I clearly and distinctly apprehend to pertain to this
object does in truth belong to it, may I not from this derive an
argument for the existence of God? It is cer