Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/268

 is Being which has to show itself to be what is mediated. It is this proposition which forms the real point of interest in the Ontological Proof, and has to appear as the result. So far as the demands of the kind of proof sought by the Understanding, and of the mere knowledge of the Understanding, are concerned, the proof of this second proposition as connected with the first proposition of the Cosmological Argument may be dispensed with; but it is certainly demanded by the requirements of reason in its higher form, though this higher requirement of reason appears in Kant’s criticism disguised, so to speak, as a mere piece of chicanery, which has been deduced from some more remote consequence.

The fact, however, that these two propositions are necessary rests on the nature of the Notion, in so far as this latter is conceived of in accordance with its true nature, that is, in a speculative way. Here, however, it is presupposed that this knowledge of the Notion has been got from logic, just as it is presupposed in the same way that logic tells us that a true proof is rendered impossible by the very nature of such propositions as the two referred to. This may, however, be briefly indicated here as well, in accordance with the explanation which has been given regarding the peculiar nature of these judgments, and it is all the more fitting to make this plain at this point, since the current principle of so-called immediate knowledge recognises and takes into consideration just this very proof of the Understanding and no other, a proof which is inadmissible in philosophy. What has to be demonstrated is a proposition, a judgment, in fact, with a subject and predicate. We cannot, to begin with, find any fault with the demand here implied, and it looks as if the whole point turned on the nature of the act of proof. But the very fact that it is a judgment which has to be proved at once renders any true philosophical proof impossible. For it is the subject which is presupposed, and consequently becomes the standard for the predicate