300 
96. It is perfectly true, that as long as man is man he can 
only represent truth in human conceptions. No less so is it that 
multitudes of his conceptions are inadequate representations of 
the realities beyond. If our reasonings were to be confined to 
conceptions which are adequate representations of things, they 
would be few indeed. The truth is, there is a law of our 
intellectual being which compels us to transcend the limits ot 
the finite, and to assert that there must exist something beyond 
our highest conceptions of it. It is the very condition of thought. 
97 But this philosophy affirms that the conception of a being 
who is at the same time personal and infinite involves a direct 
contradiction, and that a philosophy which asserts the existence 
of a personal God must be rotten at its foundations. 
98. It is perfectly true that we have no experience ot per- 
sonality except as an attribute of finite beings. Let us inquire 
what we mean when we affirm that we are persons. A being 
who is a person is one who can predicate “ I ” of himself, who 
is conscious that he is distinct from all other persons, and non- 
persons, whose identity is preserved throughout all changes, and 
through protracted intervals of time, who feels himself to be a 
free agent, and is the subject of moral affections. There is no 
reason why an infinite being should not be capable of all these. 
The objection would be equally valid against introducing infinite 
quantities into calculations, because all our conceptions are 
finite. These, however, exist for the practical operations ot 
mathematicians. _ . . n 
99. There is no doubt that the habit of theologians ot 
reasoning about the infinite in the abstract, and not m the 
concrete, has involved the whole controversy m d ™“ 
culties What do we really mean when we assert that Ixod is 
infinite? I answer that He is a being who transcends our 
highest thoughts, and that He is something beyond which we 
cannot fathom; that there is no point of space where His 
energv is not present; that there is nothing which is pos- 
sible, which He cannot effect; nor any knowledge which He 
does not possess. His moral attributes ought to be designa e 
perfect rather than infinite. The conception of infinite is 
quantitive, a moral one has nothing to do with q« a “ 1 J- 
Perfection, not infinitude, is properly applied to our ideas ot 
iustice, holiness, truthfulness, benevolence. The conception of 
a personal being, who in this sense is both infinite and perfect, 
nlainlv involves no contradiction ; and is evidently not un- 
thinkable, though our conception of Him ma ? ^e mad equate. 
100 Now, while it is a law of our nature that all our ideas 
must be human ones, there is no possible reason why they may 
