Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/155

 the assumption of an architect or governor of the universe, not to that of a creator.

The cosmological argument goes into the matter more profoundly: the universe must have a cause (both as to its matter as well as to its plan).—But the law of causality leads only from one member of the causal series to another —it only furnishes causes which are in turn conditioned, i. e. effects, and hence never establishes the assumption of an unconditioned, necessary being. In the case of every existing thing, even the highest, it always remains not only possible but necessary to inquire: Whence doth it come?

The ontological argument, if it were tenable, is the only one that would lead to the desired goal. It is also the tacit presupposition of all the other arguments. This argument proceeds as follows: to think of God as nonexistent were a contradiction, because He is the perfect being and existence belongs to perfection!—But existence or being is a predicate which differs from all other predicates. The concept of a thing does not change because the particular thing does not exist. My concept of a hundred dollars is the same, no matter whether I possess them or only think of them. The problem of existence is independent of the problem of the perfection of the concept. And, as the investigation of the categories has shown, we have but a single criterion of existence or reality: namely, the systematic uniformity of experience.

B.

1. There is a sense in which Kant's ethical ideas develop along parallel lines with his ideas of theoretical knowledge. Rousseau's influence evidently affected him on this point at two different periods with telling effect. Kant declares, in an interesting fragment, that Rousseau