climax. In more detail: that these celestial
systems and bodies, the ether, attraction and gravitation should exist,
and that everything should be governed by definite laws, all literally "as
if shot from a pistol," there must undoubtedly be some sufficient reason,
certain as it is that we shall never discover it. It is true, as some one
has said, that we live not only in a very fortuitous world, but in an
incredibly improbable one. And this is not affected by the fact that the
world is completely governed by law. Law only confirms it. The fact that
all details may be clearly and mathematically calculated in no way
prevents them from being fundamentally contingent. For they are only so
calculable on the basis of the given fundamental characters of the world.
And that is precisely the problem: "Why do these characters exist and not
quite different ones, and why should any exist at all?"

If any one should say: "Well, we must just content ourselves with
recognising the essentially 'contingent' nature of existence, for we shall
never be able to get beyond that," he would be right in regard to the
second statement. To get beyond that and to see what it is--eternal and in
itself necessary--that lies at the basis of this world of "contingency" is
indeed impossible. But he would be wrong as to the first part of the
assertion. For no one _will_ "content himself." For that all chance is
only apparently chance, and is ultimately based in necessity, is a
deeply-rooted and fundamental conviction of our reason, one which directs
all scientific investigation, and which cannot be ignored. It demands
ceaselessly something necessary as the permanent basis of contingent
existence. And this fact is and remains the truth involved in the
"cosmological proofs of the existence of God" of former days. It was
certainly erroneous to suppose that "God" could be proved. For it is a
long way from that "idea of necessity" to religious experience of God. And
it was erroneous, too, to suppose that anything could be really "proved."
What is necessary can never really be proved from what is contingent. But
the recognition of the contingent nature of the world is a stimulus that
stirs up within our reason the idea of the necessary, and it is a fact
that reason finds rest only in this idea.

The Real World.

(4.) What was stated separately in our first and second propositions, and
has hitherto been discussed, now unites and culminates in the four