Now reason looks round for the conception of a being that may be admitted, without inconsistency, to be worthy of the attribute of absolute necessity, not for the purpose of inferring a priori, from the conception of such a being, its objective existence (for if reason allowed itself to take this course, it would not require a basis in given and actual existence, but merely the support of pure conceptions), but for the purpose of discovering, among all our conceptions of possible things, that conception which possesses no element inconsistent with the idea of absolute necessity.For that there must be some absolutely necessary existence, it regards as a truth already established.Now, if it can remove every existence incapable of supporting the attribute of absolute necessity, excepting one- this must be the absolutely necessary being, whether its necessity is comprehensible by us, that is, deducible from the conception of it alone, or not.
Now that, the conception of which contains a therefore to every wherefore, which is not defective in any respect whatever, which is all-sufficient as a condition, seems to be the being of which we can justly predicate absolute necessity- for this reason, that, possessing the conditions of all that is possible, it does not and cannot itself require any condition.And thus it satisfies, in one respect at least, the requirements of the conception of absolute necessity.In this view, it is superior to all other conceptions, which, as deficient and incomplete, do not possess the characteristic of independence of all higher conditions.It is true that we cannot infer from this that what does not contain in itself the supreme and complete condition- the condition of all other things- must possess only a conditioned existence; but as little can we assert the contrary, for this supposed being does not possess the only characteristic which can enable reason to cognize by means of an a priori conception the unconditioned and necessary nature of its existence.
The conception of an ens realissimum is that which best agrees with the conception of an unconditioned and necessary being.The former conception does not satisfy all the requirements of the latter;but we have no choice, we are obliged to adhere to it, for we find that we cannot do without the existence of a necessary being; and even although we admit it, we find it out of our power to discover in the whole sphere of possibility any being that can advance wellgrounded claims to such a distinction.
The following is, therefore, the natural course of human reason.
It begins by persuading itself of the existence of some necessary being.In this being it recognizes the characteristics of unconditioned existence.It then seeks the conception of that which is independent of all conditions, and finds it in that which is itself the sufficient condition of all other things- in other words, in that which contains all reality.But the unlimited all is an absolute unity, and is conceived by the mind as a being one and supreme; and thus reason concludes that the Supreme Being, as the primal basis of all things, possesses an existence which is absolutely necessary.
This conception must be regarded as in some degree satisfactory, if we admit the existence of a necessary being, and consider that there exists a necessity for a definite and final answer to these questions.In such a case, we cannot make a better choice, or rather we have no choice at all, but feel ourselves obliged to declare in favour of the absolute unity of complete reality, as the highest source of the possibility of things.But if there exists no motive for coming to a definite conclusion, and we may leave the question unanswered till we have fully weighed both sides- in other words, when we are merely called upon to decide how much we happen to know about the question, and how much we merely flatter ourselves that we know-the above conclusion does not appear to be so great advantage, but, on the contrary, seems defective in the grounds upon which it is supported.
For, admitting the truth of all that has been said, that, namely, the inference from a given existence (my own, for example) to the existence of an unconditioned and necessary being is valid and unassailable; that, in the second place, we must consider a being which contains all reality, and consequently all the conditions of other things, to be absolutely unconditioned; and admitting too, that we have thus discovered the conception of a thing to which may be attributed, without inconsistency, absolute necessity- it does not follow from all this that the conception of a limited being, in which the supreme reality does not reside, is therefore incompatible with the idea of absolute necessity.For, although I do not discover the element of the unconditioned in the conception of such a being- an element which is manifestly existent in the sum-total of all conditions- I am not entitled to conclude that its existence is therefore conditioned; just as I am not entitled to affirm, in a hypothetical syllogism, that where a certain condition does not exist (in the present, completeness, as far as pure conceptions are concerned), the conditioned does not exist either.On the contrary, we are free to consider all limited beings as likewise unconditionally necessary, although we are unable to infer this from the general conception which we have of them.Thus conducted, this argument is incapable of giving us the least notion of the properties of a necessary being, and must be in every respect without result.