Note 226 — Chapter V · SOME METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ETHICS AND RELIGION

Kant’s criticism had been in part anticipated on the first circulation of the Meditations by both Mersenne and Gassendi. See particularly Gassendi’s strictures on Descartes’ confusion of existence with properties in the “Fifth Objections,” with Descartes’ unsatisfactory reply. Leibnitz repeated the same objection, and proposed to amend the Cartesian proof by a formal demonstration that God’s existence is possible, i.e. does not imply a formal contradiction. He then argues—If God’s existence is possible, He exists (by the Cartesian proof). But God’s existence is possible, therefore God exists. See, e.g., Leibnitz, Works, ed. Erdmann, p. 177; and Latta, Monadology of Leibniz, p. 274. Hume’s comments are even more akin to Kant’s. “Whatever we conceive as existent we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no being whose existence is demonstrable.” (Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, part 9.)