e Mind" if the infinite be not a primitive
intuition? How can he conceive of "a Righteous Governor" if he have no
idea of right, no sense of obligation, no apprehension of a retribution?
Words are empty sounds without ideas, and God is a mere name if the mind
has no apperception of a God.

[Footnote 92: Nitzsch, "System of Christian Doctrine," p. 10.]

[Footnote 93: "Ideas must pre-exist their sensible signs." See De
Boismont on "Hallucination," etc., p. iii.]

It may be affirmed that, preceding or accompanying the announcement of
the Divine Name, there was given to the first human pair, and to the
early fathers of our race, some visible manifestation of the presence of
God, and some supernatural display of divine power. What, then, was the
character of these early manifestations, and were they adequate to
convey the proper idea of God? Did God first reveal himself in human
form, and if so, how could their conception of God advance beyond a rude
anthropomorphism? Did he reveal his presence in a vast columnar cloud or
a pillar of fire? How could such an image convey any conception of the
intelligence, the omnipresence, the eternity of God? Nay, can the
infinite and eternal Mind be represented by any visible manifestation?
Can the human mind conceive an image of God? The knowledge of God, it is
clear, can not be conveyed by any sensible sign or symbol if man has no
prior rational idea of God as the Infinite and the Perfect Being.

If the facts of order, and design, and special adaptation which crowd
the universe, and the _a priori_ ideas of an unconditioned Cause and an
infinite Intelligence which arise in the mind in presence of these
facts, are inadequate to produce the logical conviction that it is the
work of an intelligent mind, how can any preternatural display of
_power_ produce a rational conviction that God exists? "If the universe
could come by chance or fate, surely all the lesser phenomena, termed
miraculous, might occur so too."[94] If we find ourselves standing amid
an eternal series of events, may not miracles be a part of that series?
Or if all things are the result of necessary and unchangeable laws, may
not miracles also result from some natural or psychological law of which
we are yet in ignorance? Let it be granted that man is _not_ so
constituted that, by the necessary laws of his intelligence, he must
affirm that facts of order having a commencement in time prove mind; let
it be granted that man h