One should never judge anything unless it is known. - René Descartes

For it seemed to me that much more truth could be found in the reasonings which a man makes concerning matters that concern him than in those which some scholar makes in his study about speculative matters. For the consequences of the former will soon punish the man if he judges wrongly, whereas the latter have no practical consequences and no importance for the scholar except that perhaps the further they are from common sense the more pride he will take in them, since he will have had to use so much more skill and ingenuity in trying to render them plausible.

But this could not be the case with-the idea of a nature more perfect than myself; for to receive it from nothing was a thing manifestly impossible; and, because it is not less repugnant that the more perfect should be an effect of, and dependence on the less perfect, than that something should proceed from nothing, it was equally impossible that I could hold it from myself:

Son olarak yanlış veya düzmece öğretilere gelince, ne bir simyacının verdiği sözler, ne bir astroloğun kehanetleri, ne bir sihirbazın düzenbazlıkları, ne de bildiklerinden fazlasını bilir görünmeyi meslek edinmişlerin hileleri ve övüngenlikleri tarafından artık aldatılamayacak kadar bunların değerinin ne olduğunu zaten yeterince bildiğimi düşünüyordum.