The Only Thing We Have Power Over

In Philosophy, When We Make Use Of False Principles, We Depart The Farther From The Knowledge Of Truth And Wisdom Exactly In Proportion To The Care With Which We Cultivate Them, And Apply Ourselves To The Deduction Of Diverse Consequences From Them, Thinking That We Are Philosophizing Well, While We Are Only Departing The Farther From The Truth; From Which It Must Be Inferred That They Who Have Learned The Least Of All That Has Been Hitherto Distinguished By The Name Of Philosophy Are The Most Fitted For The Apprehension Of Truth.

Whatever I Have Up Till Now Accepted As Most True And Assured I Have Gotten Either From The Senses Or Through The Senses. But From Time To Time I Have Found That The Senses Deceive, And It Is Prudent Never To Trust Completely Those Who Have Deceived Us Even Once.

I Suppose Therefore That All Things I See Are Illusions; I Believe That Nothing Has Ever Existed Of Everything My Lying Memory Tells Me. I Think I Have No Senses. I Believe That Body, Shape, Extension, Motion, Location Are Functions. What Is There Then That Can Be Taken As True? Perhaps Only This One Thing, That Nothing At All Is Certain.

By 'god', I Understand, A Substance Which Is Infinite, Independent, Supremely Intelligent, Supremely Powerful, And Which Created Both Myself And Everything Else [...] That Exists. All These Attributes Are Such That, The More Carefully I Concentrate On Them, The Less Possible It Seems That They Could Have Originated From Me Alone. So, From What Has Been Said It Must Be Concluded That God Necessarily Exists.

Because Reason...is The Only Thing That Makes Us Men, And Distinguishes Us From The Beasts, I Would Prefer To Believe That It Exists, In Its Entirety, In Each Of Us.