There may indeed be those who would prefer to deny the
existence of a God so powerful, rather than believe that all
other things are uncertain. But let us not oppose them for
the present, and grant that all that is here said of a God is
a fable; nevertheless in whatever way they suppose that I have
arrived at the state of being that I have reached?whether they
attribute it to fate or to accident, or make out that it is by
a continual succession of antecedents, or by some other
method?since to err and deceive oneself is a defect, it is
clear that the greater will be the probability of my being so
imperfect as to deceive myself ever, as is the Author to whom
they assign my origin the less powerful. To these reasons I
have certainly nothing to reply, but at the end I feel
constrained to confess that there is nothing in all that I
formerly believed to be true, of which I cannot in some
measure doubt, and that not merely through want of thought or
through levity, but for reasons which are very powerful and
maturely considered; so that henceforth I ought not the less
carefully to refrain from giving credence to these opinions
than to that which is manifestly false, if I desire to arrive
at any certainty [in the sciences].
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