merely to substitute a few weak temporary supports, so that the ruin might not fall on him, but that he might have time to escape. Now, as regards the performance of the task, no critique of reason was necessary for the refutation of the _ontological_ proof of the existence of God; for without presupposing the æsthetic and analytic, it is quite easy to make clear that that ontological proof is nothing but a subtle playing with conceptions which is quite powerless to produce conviction. There is a chapter in the “_Organon_” of Aristotle which suffices as fully for the refutation of the ontological proof as if it had been written intentionally with that purpose. It is the seventh chapter of the second book of the “_Analyt. Post._” Among other things, it is expressly said there: “το δε ειναι ουκ ουσια ουδενι,” _i.e._, _existentia nunquam ad essentiam rei pertinet_. The refutation of the _cosmological_ proof is an application to a given case of the doctrine of the Critique as expounded up to that point, and there is nothing to be said against it. The _physico-theological_ proof is a mere amplification of the cosmological, which it presupposes, and it finds its full refutation only in the “Critique of Judgment.” I refer the reader in this connection to the rubric, “Comparative Anatomy,” in my work on the Will in Nature. In the criticism of this proof Kant has only to do, as we have already said, with speculative theology, and limits himself to the School. If, on the contrary, he had had life and popular theology also in view, he would have been obliged to add a fourth proof to the three he has considered—that proof which is really the effective one with the great mass of men, and which in Kant’s technical language might best be called the _keraunological_. It is the proof which is founded upon the needy, impotent, and dependent condition of man as opposed to natural forces, which are infinitely superior, inscrutable, and for the most part threatening evil; to which is added man’s natural inclination to personify everything, and finally the hope of effecting something by prayers and flattery, and even by gifts. In every human undertaking there is something which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. “_Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor_” is an old and true saying of Petronius. It is principally this proof which is criticised by Hume, who throughout appears as Kant’s forerunner in the writings referred to above. But those whom Kant has placed in a position of permanent embarrassment by his criticism of speculative theology are the professors of philosophy. Salaried by Christian governments, they dare not give up the chief article of faith.(9) Now, how do these gentlemen help themselves? They simply declare that the existence of God is self-evident. Indeed! After the ancient world, at the expense of its conscience, had worked miracles to prove it,