Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) :
The Search after Truth,
translated by 'Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp

ELUCIDATION TEN
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When a man values the life of his horse more than the life of his coachman, he has his reasons for doing so; but they are particular reasons that every reasonable man abhors. They are reasons that at bottom are unreasonable, because they do not conform with Sovereign Reason, or the Universal Reason that all men consult.
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It seems to me worthwhile to point out that the mind knows objects in only two ways: through illumination and through sensation. It sees things through illumination when it has a clear idea of them, and when by consulting this idea it can discover all the properties of which these things are capable. It sees things through sensation when it finds no clear idea of these things in itself to be consulted, when it is thus unable to discover their properties clearly, and when it knows them only through a confused sensation, without illumination and without evidence. Through illumination and through a clear idea, the mind sees numbers, extension, and the essences of things. Through a confused idea or through sensation, it judges about the existence of creatures and knows its own existence.

The things the mind preceives through illumination or through a clear idea it perceives in very perfect fashion, and it even sees clearly that whatever obscurity or imperfection there is in its knowledge is due to its own weakness and limitation or some lack of attentiveness on its part, and not to the imperfection of the idea it perceives. But what the mind perceives through sensation is never clearly known to it, not because of some lack of attentiveness on its part, but because of the inadequacy of the idea, which is extremely obscure and confused. From this we can judge that it is in God or in an immutable nature that we see all that we know by means of illumination or clear idea ....., but also because we know these things in very perfect fashion, and because we would even know them in an infinitely perfect fashion if our capacity for thought were infinite, since nothing is lacking to the idea representing them. We must also conclude that everything we know through sensation is seen in itself. However, this is not to say that we can produce in ourselves any new modification, or that our soul's sensations or modifications can represent objects upon whose occasion God excites them in us, but only that our sensations can, nonetheless, represent the existence of beings or, rather, make us judge that they exist. For as God, upon the presence of objects, excites our sensations in us through an insensible action that we do not perceive, we imagine that we receive from the object not only the idea that represents its essence but also the sensation that makes us judge that it exists - for there is always a pure idea and a confused sensation in the knowledge we have of the existence of beings, the knowledge of God and of our soul excepted.

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For although he(Saint Augustine) agrees that we now know God only in very imperfect fashion, he nonetheless claims in several passages that God is better known to us than the things we imagine we know best. "He who made all things," he says, "is closer to us than the very things He made, for it is in Him that we live and move and have our being. The greater part of the things He made are not suited to our mind because they are corporeal and of a kind different from it." And further on: 'Those who have known the secrets of nature are justly condemned in the Book of Wisdom, for if they can have penetrated what is most hidden from men, how much more easily should they be able to discover the Author and Sovereign of the universe? The foundations of the earth are hidden from our eyes, but He who has cast down these foundations is close to our minds." This is why the holy doctor(Saint Augustine) believes that he who has charity can know God better than he knows his brother.