第80章

(17) The form is rather a mistaken one, and it only generally expresses the opposition in which self-consciousness stands to the consciousness of what is different, of the objective; and we have to deal with the unity of both - the question being whether what is in thought likewise possesses objectivity. This unity rests in God or is God Himself. I shall put these assertions in the manner of Descartes: “Amongst these various conceptions possessed by us there likewise is the conception of a supremely intelligent, powerful, and absolutely perfect Being; and this is the most excellent of all conceptions.” This all-embracing universal conception has therefore this distinguishing feature, that in its case the uncertainty respecting Being which appears in the other conceptions, finds no place. It has the characteristic that “In it we do not recognize existence as something merely possible and accidental, as we do the conceptions of other things which we perceive clearly, but as a really essential and eternal determination. For instance, as mind perceives that in the conception of a triangle it is implied that the three angles are equal to two right angles, the triangle has them; and in the same way from the fact that mind perceives existence to be necessarily and eternally implied in the Notion of the most perfect reality, it is forced to conclude that the most perfect reality exists.” (18) For to perfection there likewise pertains the determination of existence, since the conception of a non-existent is less perfect. Thus we there have the unity of thought and Being, and the ontological proof of the existence of God; this we met with earlier (p.

63, seq.) in dealing with Anselm.

The proof of the existence of God from the Idea of Him is in this wise: In this Notion existence is implied; and therefore it is true. Descartes proceeds further in the same direction, in so far as after the manner of empirical axioms he sets forth: “There are different degrees of reality or entity, for the substance has more reality than the accident or the mode, and infinite substance has more than finite.” “In the Notion of a thing existence is implied, either the merely potential or the necessary,” i.e., in the ‘I’ there is Being as the immediate certainty of an other-being, of the not-I opposed to the I. “No thing or no perfection of a thing which really exists actu can have the Nothing as original cause of its existence. For if anything could be predicated of nothing, thought could equally well be predicated of it, and I would thus say that I am nothing because I think.”