eality which is present in the idea objectively. So Descartes says, "It is clear to me by the light of nature that the ideas that are in me are like images that can easily fail to match the perfection of the things from which they have been drawn, but which can contain nothing greater or more perfect" (37). This reference to the natural light marks this claim both as one which Descartes claims to know for certain, and as an important step in the proof of God.
             Descartes' first argument which is often termed the traditional cosmological argument of God's existence is based on two principles. The first is the principle of sufficient reason. This thesis states that everything has a cause and something cannot come from nothing. The second principle is the principle of adequate reality which is the thesis that there must be at least as much reality in the cause as the effect. He believes that the principle of adequate reality follows the principle of sufficient reason (36-37).
             Of his ideas of God, Descartes claims that on
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