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A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God

A nest of three arguments for the Reality of God has now been sketched, though none of them could, in the limits of a single article, be fairly presented. The first is that entirely honest, sincere, and unaffected, because unprepense, meditation upon the Idea of God, into which the Play of Musement will inevitably sooner or later lead, and which by developing a deep sense of the adorability of that Idea, will produce a truly religious Belief in His Reality and His nearness. It is a reasonable argument, because it naturally results in the most intense and living determination (Bestimmung) of the soul toward shaping the Muser's whole conduct into conformity with the Hypothesis that God is Real and very near; and such a determination of the soul in regard to any proposition is the very essence of a living Belief in such proposition. This is that "humble argument," open to every honest man, which I surmise to have made more worshippers of God than any other.

The second of the nest is the argument which seems to me to have been "neglected" by writers upon natural theology, consisting in showing that the humble argument is the natural fruit of free meditation, since every heart will be ravished by the beauty and adorability of the Idea, when it is

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