iv LOTZE S MONISM 83 



invariably breaks down. In Lotze s case, e.g., the world 

 would just as much imply a God whether its interactions 

 were perfectly harmonious or utterly discordant; and God, 

 therefore, cannot be conceived as a principle deciding 

 which of these thinkable cases is to be realised. 



Now all this is not at all what we wanted the proofs 

 of God s existence to do. We did not want a proof 

 which held good in all thinkable universes, but one 

 which should hold in our actual given world, and give us 

 an assurance that whatever might be the misfortunes of 

 possible universes, there was in ours a power able and 

 willing to direct its course. But this the proofs 

 haughtily declined to do ; they mocked us instead with 

 characterless deities for application to any universe. 

 Yet there is not, at least in the case of the cosmological 

 and physico - theological proofs, any reason why they 

 should not be given a specific application. On the contrary, 

 a much stronger argument can be made for assuming a 

 cause and beginning of its motion for our existing order 

 of things than for a universe as such, for interpreting 

 the actual order and development of our world by an 

 intelligent purpose than a mere order in the abstract. 

 Even the ontological proof, if we adopt Lotze s version of 

 its real meaning (Phil, of Religion, 6), may be given 

 a more pointed reference by making it express the con 

 viction that the totality of the True and the Good and 

 the Beautiful must be provided with a home in our world. 



Thus the objections to all the proofs may be obviated 

 by making the proofs a posteriori, and basing them, not 

 on the nature of existence in the abstract, but on the 

 nature of our empirical world. The same might be done 

 also with the argument from interaction : it might be 

 claimed that the peculiar nature of the interaction of 

 things was such that a single underlying existence might 

 be inferred in our case, although in general a unity in the 

 Many was alone needed. And indeed Lotze comes very 

 near at times to seeing that this was the proper method 

 of proving the unity of things, as, e.g., when (Met. 85, 

 90) he insists that his Absolute is never actual as an 



