BOOK I PART II
and contradictory than this reasoning? What-
ever can be conceived by a clear and distinct
idea necessarily implies the possibility of exis-
tence; and he who pretends to prove the im-
possibility of its existence by any argument de-
rived from the clear idea, in reality asserts, that
we have no clear idea of it, because we have a
clear idea. It is in vain to search for a contradic-
tion in any thing that is distinctly conceived by
the mind. Did it imply any contradiction, it is
impossible it coued ever be conceived.
There is therefore no medium betwixt allow-
ing at least the possibility of indivisible points,
and denying their idea; and it is on this latter
principle, that the second answer to the fore-
going argument is founded. It has been pre-
tended (L’Art de penser.), that though it be
impossible to conceive a length without any