iple
of investigation--to assume hypothetically a necessary ultimate ground in
behalf of the systematic unity of knowledge--as an objective principle
applying to things in themselves. The _ontological argument_, finally,
which the two nominally empirical arguments hoped to avoid, but in which in
the end they were forced to take refuge, goes to wreck on the impossibility
of dragging out of an idea the existence of the object corresponding to it.
Existence denotes nothing further than the position of the subject with all
the marks which are thought in its concept--that is, its relation to our
knowledge, but does not itself belong to the predicates of the concept, and
hence cannot be analytically derived from the latter. The content of the
concept is not enriched by the addition of being; a hundred real dollars do
not contain a penny more than a hundred conceived dollars. All existential
propositions are synthetic; hence the existence of God cannot be
demonstrated from the concept of God. It is a contradiction, to be sure, to
say that God is not almighty, just as it is a contradiction to deny that
a triangle has three angles: _if_ posit the concept I must not remove
the predicate which necessarily belongs to it. If I remove the subject,
however, together with its predicate (the almighty God is not), no
contradiction arises, for in that case nothing remains to be contradicted.

Thus all the proofs for the existence of a necessary being are shown to be
illusory, and the basis of speculative theology uncertain. Nevertheless the
idea of God retains its validity, and the perception of the inability of
reason to demonstrate its objective reality on theoretical grounds has
great value. For though the existence of God cannot be proved, it is true,
by way of recompense, that it cannot be disproved; the same grounds which
show us that the assertion of his existence is based on a weak foundation
suffice also to prove every contrary assertion unfounded. And should
practical motives present themselves to turn the scale in favor of the
assumption of a supreme and all-sufficient Being, reason would be obliged
to take sides and to follow these grounds, which, it is true, are not
objectively sufficient,[1] but still preponderant, and than which we know
none better. After, however, the objective reality of the idea of God is
guaranteed from the standpoint of ethics, there remains for transcendental
theology the important negative duty ("censo