We may still linger for a moment to observe how closely part of Anselm’s nature was his proof of the existence of God.[349] It sprang directly from his saintly soul and the compelling idealism of his reason. In the _Monologion_ Anselm ranged his many arguments concerning the nature and attributes of the _summum bonum_ which is God. Its chain of inductions failed to satisfy him and his pupils. So he set his mind to seek a sole and unconditioned proof (as Eadmer states in the _Vita_) of God’s existence and the attributes which faith ascribes to Him. Anselm says the same in the Preface to the _Proslogion_: “Considering that the prior work was woven out of a concatenation of many arguments, I set to seek within myself (_mecum_) whether I might not discover one argument which needed nothing else than itself alone for its proof; and which by itself might suffice to show that God truly exists, and that He is the _summum bonum_ needing nothing else, but needed by all things in order that they may exist and have well-being (_ut sint et bene sint_); and whatever we believe concerning the divine substance.” The famous proof which at length flashed upon him is substantially this: By very definition the word _God_ means the greatest conceivable being. This conception exists even in the atheist’s mind, for he knows what is meant by the words, the absolutely greatest. But the greatest cannot be in the intellect alone, for then conceivably there would be a greater which would exist in reality as well. And since, by definition, God is the absolutely greatest, He must exist in reality as well as in the mind.[350] Carrying out the scholia to this argument, Anselm then proves that God possesses the various attributes ascribed to Him by the Christian Faith.