this has a greater objective reality than every other, so is there no other which I have so little reason to doubt. But now since I am certain that the idea of God has come to me from God himself, it only remains for me to examine the way in which I have received it from God. I have never derived it directly nor indirectly from the sense, for ideas through the sense arise only by affecting the external organs of sense; neither have I devised it, for I can neither add to it nor diminish it in any respect,—it must, therefore, be innate as the idea of myself is innate. Hence the first proof we can assign for the being of a God is the fact that we find the idea of a God within us, and that we must have a cause for its being. Again, the being of a God may be concluded from my own imperfection, and especially from the knowledge of my imperfection. For since I know that there is a perfection which is wanting in me, it follows that there must exist a being who is more perfect than I, on whom I depend and from whom I receive all I possess.—But the best and most evident proof for the being of a God is, in fine, that which is gained from the conception of a God. The mind among all its different ideas singles out the chiefest of all, that of the most perfect being, and perceives that this has not only the possibility of existence, _i. e._ accidental existence like all other ideas, but that it possesses necessary existence in itself. And as the mind knows that in every triangle its three angles are equal to two right angles, because this is involved in the very idea of a triangle, so does the mind necessarily infer that necessary existence belongs to the conception of the most perfect being, and that, therefore, the most perfect being actually exists. No other idea which the mind finds within itself contains necessary existence, but from the idea of the highest being existence cannot be separated without contradiction. It is only our prejudices which keep us from seeing this. Since we are accustomed in every thing to separate its conception from its existence, and since we often make ideas arbitrarily, it readily happens, that when we contemplate the highest being we are in doubt whether its idea may not be one also arbitrarily devised, or at least one in whose conception existence does not lie.—This proof is essentially different from that of Thomas (Anselm of Canterbury). His argument was as follows: “If we understand what is indicated by the word GOD, it is all that can be conceived of greatness; but now there is actually and in thought more belonging to him than the word represents, and therefore God exists not only in word (or representation), but in fact.” Here the defect in the syllogism is manifest, for from the premise it could only be concluded that God must therefore be _represented_ as existing in fact, while his actual existence would not follow. My proof on the other hand is this,—we may predicate of a thing what we clearly see belongs to its