Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/186

 certainly known, determinations, from such things as are already known to us. We have presuppositions here, certainly known conditions, implying that the triangle, the right-angle exists. Certainly known connections are presupposed, and in such demonstrations we point out that, if such and such a determination exist, then such and such another must also exist; that is to say, we make the result dependent on given conditions which are already present.

The attitude assumed is that the result we aim at is represented as something dependent upon presuppositions. Geometrical proof, as simply the work of the understanding, is undoubtedly the most perfect kind of proof; the proof of the understanding, in which a thing is shown to be dependent upon something else, is carried through with the utmost consistency and thoroughness. But when we apply this to the Being of God, the inadequacy involved in attempting to exhibit such a connection in regard to God becomes evident at once. And it indeed appears especially in that first movement which we called rising up to God, for when we conceive of this in the form of proof, what is implied is that the finite becomes the foundation or basis upon which the Being of God is demonstrated. In this connection, the Being of God appears as an inference, as dependent on the Being of the finite.

And thus the inadequacy of this process which we call proof to exhibit that which we represent to ourselves under the name of God, becomes apparent. For we conceive of Him precisely as that which is undeduced, underived, absolutely existent in and for itself. That, then, is the perversion above referred to. But if it be thought that in consequence of an observation of this kind, this movement has been shown to be futile, such an idea would in turn imply a one-sidedness which would at once be found to be in contradiction with the universal consciousness of man.

Man contemplates the world, and because he is a thinking, rational being, since he finds no satisfaction in