| God is omnipotent--that is a necessary judgement. |
| His omnipotence cannot be denied, if the existence of a Deity is posited--the existence, that is, of an infinite being, the two conceptions being identical. |
| But when you say, God does not exist, neither omnipotence nor any other predicate is affirmed; they must all disappear with the subject, and in this judgement there cannot exist the least self-contradiction. |
| You have thus seen that when the predicate of a judgement is annihilated in thought along with the subject, no internal contradiction can arise, be the predicate what it may. |
| There is no possibility of evading the conclusion--you find yourselves compelled to declare; There are certain subjects which cannot be annihilated in thought. |
| But this is nothing more than saying; There exist subjects which are absolutely necessary--the very hypothesis which you are called upon to establish. |
| For I find myself unable to form the slightest conception of a thing which when annihilated in thought with all its predicates, leaves behind a contradiction; and contradiction is the only criterion of impossibility in the sphere of pure a priori conceptions. |
| Against these general considerations, the justice of which no one can dispute, one argument is adduced, which is regarded as furnishing a satisfactory demonstration from the fact. |
| It is affirmed that there is one and only one conception, in which the non-being or annihilation of the object is self-contradictory, and this is the conception of an ens realissimum. |
| It possesses, you say, all reality, and you feel yourselves justified in admitting the possibility of such a being. |
| (This I am willing to grant for the present, although the existence of a conception which is not self-contradictory is far from being sufficient to prove the possibility of an object.)* Now the notion of all reality embraces in it that of existence; the notion of existence lies, therefore, in the conception of this possible thing. |
| If this thing is annihilated in thought, the internal possibility of the thing is also annihilated, which is self-contradictory. |
| [*Footnote; A conception is always possible, if it is not self-contradictory. |
| This is the logical criterion of possibility, distinguishing the object of such a conception from the nihil negativum. |
| But it may be, notwithstanding, an empty conception, unless the objective reality of this synthesis, but which it is generated, is demonstrated; and a proof of this kind must be based upon principles of possible experience, and not upon the principle of analysis or contradiction. |
| This remark may be serviceable as a warning against concluding, from the possibility of a conception--which is logical--the possibility of a thing--which is real.] |
| I answer; It is absurd to introduce--under whatever term disguised--into the conception of a thing, which is to be cogitated solely in reference to its possibility, the conception of its existence. |
| If this is admitted, you will have apparently gained the day, but in reality have enounced nothing but a mere tautology. |
| I ask, is the proposition, this or that thing (which I am admitting to be possible) exists, an analytical or a synthetical proposition? |
| If the former, there is no addition made to the subject of your thought by the affirmation of its existence; but then the conception in your minds is identical with the thing itself, or you have supposed the existence of a thing to be possible, and then inferred its existence from its internal possibility--which is but a miserable tautology. |
| The word reality in the conception of the thing, and the word existence in the conception of the predicate, will not help you out of the difficulty. |