It is unnecessary to discuss all these alleged proofs at length; but the powerlessness of the most of them to establish the transcendent fact they profess to reach, demands much more serious thought than it has yet received. The ontological proof has always possessed a singular fascination for the speculative mind. It promises, and would accomplish so much, if only it were valid. It would be so powerful, if only it were conclusive. But had demonstration been possible, the theistic argument, like the proofs of mathematics, would have carried conviction to the majority of thinkers long ago. The historical failure is signal. Whether in the form in which it was originally cast by Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, or in the more elaborate theory of Descartes, or as presented by the ponderous English minds of Cudworth, Henry More, and Dr. Samuel Clarke, it is altogether a _petitio principii_. Under all its modifications, it reasons from the necessary notion of God, to his necessary existence; or from the necessary existence of space and time, which are assumed to be the properties or attributes of a substance, to the necessary existence of that substance. A purely subjective necessity of the reason is carried from within, and held conclusive in the realm of objective reality. But the very essence of the problem is the discovery of a valid pathway by which to pass from the notions of the intellect to the realities of the universe beyond it; we may not, therefore, summarily identify the two, and at the outset take the existence of the one as demonstrative of the other. In the affirmation of real existence we pass from the notion that has entered the mind (or is innate), to the realm of objective being, which exists independently of us who affirm it; and how to pass warrantably from the ideal world within to the real world without is the very problem to be solved. To be valid at its starting-point, the ontological argument ought to prove that the notion of God is so fixed in the very root of our intelligent nature that it cannot be dislodged from the mind; and this some thinkers, such as Clark, have had the hardihood to affirm. To be valid as it proceeds, it ought to prove that the notion thus necessary in thought, has a real counterpart in the realm of things, in order to vindicate the step it so quietly takes from the ideal notion to the world of real existence. It passes from thought to things, as it passes from logical premiss to conclusion. But to be logical, it must rest contented with an ideal conclusion deduced from its ideal premises. And thus, the only valid issue of the ontological argument is a system of absolute idealism, of which the theological corollary is pantheism. But as this is not the Deity the argument essays to reach, it must be pronounced illogical throughout.