admit of
any. It cannot be said that what I have affirmed about the centre
of perfect circles is true only in relation to a certain number of
circles; for that proposition is true, through evident necessity,
with respect to all circles ad infinitum. These unbounded ideas can
never be changed, altered, impaired, or defaced in us; for they make
up the very essence of our reason. Whatever effort a man may make
in his own mind, yet it is impossible for him ever to entertain a
serious doubt about the truths which those ideas clearly represent
to us. For instance, I never can seriously call in question,
whether the whole is bigger than one of its parts; or whether the
centre of a perfect circle is equally distant from all the points of
the circumference. The idea of the infinite is in me like that of
numbers, lines, circles, a whole, and a part. The changing our
ideas would be, in effect, the annihilating reason itself. Let us
judge and make an estimate of our greatness by the immutable
infinite stamp within us, and which can never be defaced from our
minds. But lest such a real greatness should dazzle and betray us,
by flattering our vanity, let us hasten to cast our eyes on our
weakness.

SECT. LIII. Weakness of Man's Mind.

That same mind that incessantly sees the infinite, and, through the
rule of the infinite, all finite things, is likewise infinitely
ignorant of all the objects that surround it. It is altogether
ignorant of itself, and gropes about in an abyss of darkness. It
neither knows what it is, nor how it is united with a body; nor
which way it has so much command over all the springs of that body,
which it knows not. It is ignorant of its own thoughts and wills.
It knows not, with certainty, either what it believes or wills. It
often fancies to believe and will, what it neither believes nor
wills. It is liable to mistake, and its greatest excellence is to
acknowledge it. To the error of its thoughts, it adds the disorder
and irregularity of its will and desires; so that it is forced to
groan in the consciousness and experience of its corruption. Such
is the mind of man, weak, uncertain, stinted, full of errors. Now,
who is it that put the idea of the infinite, that is to say of
perfection, in a subject so stinted and so full of imperfection?
Did it give itself so sublime, and so pure an idea, which is itself
a kind of infinite in imagery? What finite being distinct from it
was able to