e. is elicited from certain notions that are
innate in me, or else it is formed by me in some other manner;
in accordance with it the sun appears to be several times
greater than the earth. These two ideas cannot, indeed, both
resemble the same sun, and reason makes me believe that the
one which seems to have originated directly from the sun
itself, is the one which is most dissimilar to it.
All this causes me to believe that until the present time
it has not been by a judgment that was certain [or
premeditated], but only by a sort of blind impulse that I
believed that things existed outside of, and different from
me, which, by the organs of my senses, or by some other method
whatever it might be, conveyed these ideas or images to me
[and imprinted on me their similitudes].
But there is yet another method of inquiring whether any
of the objects of which I have ideas within me exist outside
of me. If ideas are only taken as certain modes of thought, I
recognise amongst them no difference or inequality, and all
appear to proceed from me in the same manner; but when we
consider them as images, one representing one thing and the
other another, it is clear that they are very different one
from the other.
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