possessed of all possible perfections, and is an intelligent free agent that is, this Being is God."

The demonstration of the Divine existence given by the Chevalier Ramsay is contained in the First Book of his 'Philosophical Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion' (1748). It is as elaborately mathematical in form as the reasoning in Spinoza's 'Ethics,' and has continuous reference to that reasoning. It is impossible to give any distinct conception of its nature by a brief description.

The argument of Dr Hamilton, Dean of Armagh, is fully set forth in his 'Attempt to prove the Existence and Absolute Perfection of the Supreme Unoriginated Being, in a Demonstrative Manner' (1785). It assumes the "axiom" that "whatever is contingent, or might possibly have been otherwise than it is, had some cause which determined it to be what it is. Or in other words: if two different or contrary things were each of them possible, whichever of them took place, or came to pass, it must have done so in consequence of some cause which determined that it, and not the other, should take the place." The propositions which he endeavours to demonstrate are these: I. There must be in the universe some one being, at least, whose non-existence is impossible-whose existence had no cause, no beginning, and can have no end. II. The whole nature of the unoriginated being, or the aggregrate of his attribute, is uncaused, and must be necessarily and immutably what it is; so that he cannot have any attribute or modification of his attributes but such as were the eternal and necessary concomitants of his existence. III. Whatever are the attributes of the unoriginated being, he must possess each of them unlimitedly, or in its whole extent, such as

cause, and wherever existence is possible it must be either of a necessary or a contingent being. Therefore, necessary existence must be wherever existence is possible—that is, it must be infinite. 7. There can be but one necessarily existent being; for two necessarily existent beings could in no respect whatever differ from each other—that is, they would be one and the same being. 8. The one necessarily existent being must have all possible perfections: for all possible perfections must be the perfections of some existence; all existence is either necessary or contingent; all contingent existence is dependent upon necessary existence; consequently, all possible perfections must belong either to necessary existence or to contingent existence—that is, to contingent beings, which are caused by and are dependent upon necessary being. Therefore, since there can be but one necessarily existent being, that being must have all possible perfections. 9. The one necessarily existent being must be a free agent: for contingent existence is possible, as the conception of it involves no contradiction; but necessary existence must be the cause or producing agent of contingent existence, otherwise contingent existence would be impossible, as an effect without a cause; and necessary existence as the cause of contingent existence does not act necessarily, for then contingent existence would itself be necessary, which is absurd as involving a contradiction. Therefore necessary existence, as the cause of contingent existence, acts not necessarily but freely-that is, is a free agent, which is the same thing as being an intelligent agent. 10. Therefore, there is one necessarily existent being, the cause of all contingent existence-that is, of all other existences besides himself; and this being is eternal, infinite,

in the 'Papers on Literary and Philosophical Subjects' of Professor P. C. Macdougall.

NOTE XXXIX., page 301.

RECENT SPECULATIVE THOUGHT AND THEISTIC PROOF.

Kant supposed that his critical researches into the nature and limits of knowledge would deter reason from speculative adventures. They had just the opposite effect; they excited it to an extraordinary activity, and even audacity. Nowhere and never have attempts speculatively to construe and explain the universe of existence and thought been more prevalent than in Germany in the nineteenth century. Hence it would require at least a volume to trace in an adequate manner how the speculative philosophy and speculative theology of Germany dealt, during the period specified, with the idea of God. The philosophies of Schelling and Hegel, of Baader and Krause, had their whole characters determined by this idea. It is the central thought in these systems, and the key to the right understanding of them. Among those who have laboured most earnestly to elucidate this greatest of all ideas, J. H. Fichte, K. P. Fischer, Weisse, Sengler, Wirth, Hanne, Ulrici, Rothe, and Dorner may be named. In the present work I have not found that I could judiciously make much use of the profound theories of these authors. It must be otherwise if I am ever permitted to attempt a general positive exposition of the doctrine of the Divine nature and attributes.

The main current of speculative thought in Italy

during the nineteenth century has been, like that of Germany, of an idealistic or ontological and theological character. In the systems of Rosmini, Gioberti, and Mamiani, the idea of God is central and vital, and the confirmation of it is sought in the nature and validity of speculative reason. See the 'Teodicea' and 'Teosofia' of Rosmini, the Teoria del Sopranaturale' and the 'Filosofia della Rivelazione' of Gioberti, and the 'Confessioni di un Metafisico' and the Religione del' Avvenire' of Mamiani.

Among the recent philosophies of our own land, there is at least one which professes to be at once strictly demonstrative and an ontological proof of Deity. The final proposition of Professor Ferrier's 'Institutes of Metaphysic' is thus enunciated: "All absolute existences are contingent except one: in other words, there is One, but only one, Absolute Existence which is strictly necessary; and that existence is a supreme, and infinite, and everlasting Mind in synthesis with all things." "Speculation," says this most subtle thinker and most graceful writer, "shows us that the universe, by itself, is the contradictory; that it is incapable of self-subsistency, that it can exist only cum alio, that all true and cogitable and non-contradictory existence is a synthesis of the subjective and the objective; and then we are compelled, by the most stringent necessity of thinking, to conceive a supreme intelligence as the ground and essence of the Universal Whole. Thus the postulation of the Deity is not only permissible, it is unavoidable. Every mind thinks, and must think, of God (however little conscious it may be of the operation which it is performing), whenever it thinks of anything as lying beyond all human observation, or as subsisting in the absence or annihilation of all finite intelli

gences. To this conclusion, which is the crowning truth of the ontology, the research has been led, not by any purpose aforethought, but simply by the winding current of the speculative reason, to whose guidance it had implicitly surrendered itself. That current has carried the system, nolens volens, to the issue which it has reached. It started with no intention of establishing this conclusion, or any conclusion which was not forced upon it by the insuperable necessities of thought. It has found what it did not seek; and it is conceived that this theistic conclusion is all the more to be depended upon on that very account, inasmuch as the desire or intention to reach a particular inference is almost sure to warp in favour of that inference the reasoning by which it is supported. Here metaphysics stop; here ontology is merged in theology. Philosophy has accomplished her final work; she has reached by strict demonstration the central law of all reason (the necessity, namely, of thinking an infinite and eternal Ego in synthesis with all things); and that law she lays down as the basis of all religion.

Principal Caird, in his remarkable work, 'Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion,' has sought to popularise the Hegelian view of religion and its "speculative idea" of God. "The real presupposition of all knowledge, or the thought which is the prius of all things, is not the individual's consciousness of himself as individual, but a thought or self-consciousness which is beyond all individual selves, which is the unity of all individual selves and their objects, of all thinkers and all objects. of thought." Although Dr Caird's 'Introduction' shows an ingenuity and force of thought as rare as its beauty. of style, it seems to me to be in various respects incon