You deny the existence of God.  On what ground do you rest this denial?  On the ground of your reason.  You believe then that your reason is good, you believe it very good, since you do not hesitate to trust it, while you undertake to prove false the fundamental instincts of human nature.  But you would not venture to say that this reason which you believe in with a faith so firm is your own separate reason merely, your personal and exclusive property.  You believe in the universal reason; you believe in God, considered at least as the source of the understanding.  The man therefore who denies God, affirms Him in a certain sense at the same time that he denies Him.  He denies Him in his words, in the external form of his thought; he affirms Him in reality, as the Supreme Intelligence, by the very trust which he places in his own thought.  Our understanding is only the reflected ray of the Divine verity.  Therefore it is that Descartes, as soon as he has laid the first foundations of his system, interrupts the chain of his reasonings to trace these lines:  “Here I think it highly meet to pause for a while in contemplation of this all-perfect God, to ponder deliberately his marvellous attributes, to consider, admire, and adore the incomparable beauty of that immense light, at least so far as the strength of my mind, which remains in a manner dazzled by it, shall allow me to do so."[19] Thus it is that while descending into the depths of the understanding, the philosopher who is supposed to be absorbed in pure abstractions, discovers all at once a sublime brightness, and exclaims with the ancient patriarch:  “The LORD is in this place, and I knew it not!"[20] God is everywhere; He is in the heights of heaven, He is in the depths of thought.  Remember those celebrated words of Lord Chancellor Bacon:  “A little knowledge inclineth the mind to atheism, but a further acquaintance therewith bringeth it back to religion.”

God is not demonstrated, in the ordinary sense which we attach to the word demonstrate;[21] He is pointed out[22] as the source of all light.  The attempt to demonstrate God as anything else is demonstrated, by descending, that is, from higher principles until the object in view is arrived at—­this attempt implies a contradiction.  God is in fact the first principle, the foundation of all principles, the principle beyond which there is nothing.  We may describe the process by which the human mind rises to this supreme idea; but to wish to demonstrate God by mounting higher than Himself in order to look for a point of departure—­this is literally to wish to light up the sun.  If the sun of intelligences is extinguished, reason sets out on its way vaguely enlightened still with the remains of the light which it has reflected; but it is not long ere it is stumbling in darkness.  Then it is that—­be not deceived about it!—­the doubts which Descartes called up by an act of his own will do in good earnest invade the soul.  We possess a natural certainty, which does not suppose