281 
inquiry in attempting to form one of a spirit which is not a 
self, a person. As such God was declared to the ancient 
Hebrews, to whom He was designated as the “ I [personally] 
am,” and not as the “ It [impersonally] is.” (Note that the 
expression “ I am” is more comprehensive than “ I think or 
“ I will.” It implies all the attributes— including the ethical 
ones which “the Unconscious” of Hartmann does not possess— 
which belong to an intrinsically and morally perfect personality.) 
The human personality is but “a weak imitation of the 
Divine personality. The former is limited by its dependence 
on sensible conditions and strengthened by its relation to 
God. The latter is independent of limiting conditions, and 
loses none of its absoluteness by the relations into which its 
perfect love leads it voluntarily to enter with the universe it 
has created. The former is not an original possession, but a 
gift from the Father of all spirits : “What hast thou that thou 
didst not receive?” The latter is the eternal and most 
essential attribute of the Supreme Being. 
We devoutly, and no less philosophically, ascribe all things 
to God. Yet how few of us, when it comes to definite explana- 
tion, do not shrink from recognizing and proclaiming the 
divine agency, and dwell the rather on secondary causes ! Nav, 
if God' exists, we must not be afraid— reverently be it spoken— 
to make use of Him as a principle. He is the principle of 
principles. God’s part in the universe is the only one worth 
thinking of. If others, with an unhealthy feeling of the world s 
wretchedness, allow their sense of the world’s harmony anci 
divine government to be obscured by the perception of those 
minor dissonances which, as in a grand symphony, do but 
swell the glory of the whole, and will hence have no personal 
God, let us, on the other hand, have no morbid fear of taking 
God’s part. Let us not only, as in love and duty bound, 
ascribe to God all glory, but also, as reason and the results of 
true scientific investigation of fact imperatively direct, all 
power, an omnipresent agency as well among the mean as 
among the great things of the universe; “that God may be 
all in all.” 
The Chairman (Rev. R. Thornton, D.D., V.P.). — I am sure we must all 
feel deeply grateful to Professor Morris for his very able and profound papei , 
and we are also much indebted to Mr. Gorman for the admirable way in 
which he has read it. I would point out the especial value of the paper. 
The tendency of modern infidelity is to obliterate the personality of God. 
That is a direction in which all scepticism has been for a long time 
drifting. Of course the evidence of God’s power and knowledge and 
