602 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
sufficient in itself, to prove the divine existence. The argument was the result of long reflection and rooted in piety and prayer. Day and night the author was haunted with the idea that God's existence could be so proved. He was troubled over it to such a degree that at times he could not sleep or take his meals. Finally, one night, dur ing vigils, the argument stood clearly before his mind in complete outline. The notes were written down while the impression was still fresh in Anselm's mind. The first copy was lost ; the second was inadvertently broken to pieces.
Anselm's argument, which is the highest example of religious meditation and scholastic reasoning, is prefaced with an exhortation and the words, " I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may understand, for of this I feel sure, that, if I did not believe, I would not understand."
The reasoning starts from the idea the mind has of God, and proceeds to the affirmation of the necessity of God's ob jective existence. The mind has a concept of something than which nothing greater can be conceived.1 This even the fool has, when he says in his heart, "there is no God," Ps. 14 : 1. He grasps the conception when he listens, and what he grasps is in his mind. This something, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist solely in the mind. For, if it existed solely in the mind, then it would be possible to think of it as existing also in reality (objec tively), and that would be something greater.2 This is impossible. This thing, therefore, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists both in the mind and in reality. This is God. " So truly," exclaims Anselm, " dost Thou exist, O Lord God, that it is not possible to conceive of Thee as not existing. For, if any mind could conceive of anything better than Thou art, then the creature would ascend above the Creator and become His judge, which is supremely absurd. Everything else besides Thyself can be conceived of as not existing."
1 aliquid quo majus nihil cngitari potest.
2 si vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse et in re, quod majus est.
§ 98. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY. 603
The syllogism, compact as its presentation is and precise as its language seems to be, is nevertheless defective, as a logical statement. It begs the question. It offends against the principle that deductions from a definition are valid only on the supposition that the thing defined exists. The defi nition and the statement of God's existence are in the major premise, " there is something than which nothing greater can be conceived." And yet it was the objective existence of this being, Anselm wanted to prove. Setting this objection aside, there is the other fatal objection that objective exist ence is not a predicate. Objective being is implied when we affirm anything. This objection was stated by Kant.1 Again, Anselm confused, as synonymous, understanding a thing and having a conception in the understanding.2
The reasoning of the Proslogium was attacked by the monk Gaunilo of Marmontier, near Bee, in his Liber pro insipiente. He protested against the inference from the subjective conception to objective reality on the ground that by the same method we might argue from any of our con ceptions to the reality of the thing conceived, as for example for the existence of a lost island, the Atlantis. "That, than which nothing greater can be thought," does not exist in the mind in any other way than does the perfection of such an island. The real existence of a thing must be known before we can predicate anything of it. Gaunilo's objection An selm answered by declaring that the idea of the lost island was not a necessary conception while that of the highest
1 Thomas Aquinas said that, even if the name of God means illud quo majus cogitari non potest, yet it would not be possible to proceed to the affirmation of God's real existence, because the atheist denies that there is aliquid quo majus cogitari non potest, Summa, I. ii. 2. Hegel replied to Kant that the Bcgriff an und fur sich selbst enthdlt das Sein also eine Bestimmtheit. Professor E. Caird, in an article, Anselm? s Argument for the Being of God (Journal of Theolog. Studies, 1900, pp. 23-39), sums up his objection to Anselm's argument by saying, "It is the scholastic distortion of an idea which was first presented in the Platonic philosophy," etc. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, p. 217, makes the same objection when he says Anselm confuses reality and thought.
2 intelligere and in intellectu esse.