ON THE DEVELOPED CONCEPTION" OF GOD. 353 



unaccountably possessed of ; an idea or . goal that invites 

 and beckons the reason to follow it, and which finally 

 shows itself as the most abstract and attenuated concep- 

 tion of absolutely unconditioned being, further described 

 after the manner of Leibnitz as if to infuse some life 

 and reality into it as " the sum of all possible realities.'* 

 But secondly, and in a more concrete form, Kant proved 

 the existence of God from the Practical Reason. God 

 veritably exists, and stands in a most important relation 

 to us as the Author of the moral law ; a postulate which 

 the practical reason is compelled to make from the abso- 

 lutely imperative and unconditional character of the 

 notion of Duty a notion which we find in ourselves, 

 which admits of no human origin or explanation, but 

 which constantly refers us back to a Divine Author and 

 an abiding Will, at once intelligent and virtuous, as its 

 only conceivable source. Such was Kant's manner of 

 proof; and it may be added that in this notion of duty, 

 followed up, he recovered all the interests that he had 

 himself put in jeopardy, not only God, but freedom of 

 the will and immortality. 



" We ought, therefore we can ; " we feel the cate- 

 gorical order of duty, therefore it must be within our 

 power to follow it. In this argument Kant recovers 

 free-will. And a future life is necessary to bring into 

 final harmony virtue and happiness, which reason re- 

 quires, but which never has place in tjiis world. But 

 subsequent criticism has not ratified Kant's practical 

 proof, or rather postulate, of God's existence. It has 

 been considered as irreconcilable with the remainder of 

 his philosophic system, an after-thought, prompted by 

 the weakness of age and an unwillingness to part with 

 the personal Deity of his youth and the masses. On the 

 other hand, his destructions of the old proofs of the 



2 A 



