d and conditioned, unlimited and
limited--an impossibility."

To this plea there are, however, two answers. The first may be made in
the unprejudiced words of Mr. Vivian, who observes,[4]

"We must not forget that in philosophy and theology the word 'person'
simply implies 'a nature endowed with consciousness,' and does not
involve limits."

But secondly, without committing ourselves to Professor Hudson's dictum
that personality implies limitation, we have to point out that we are not
concerned to defend any inference that might be drawn from the infinity,
in the sense {81} of the "allness" of God. We do not deny, but on the
contrary affirm, that in the act of creation God imposes limitations upon
Himself; so that this last obstacle also is disposed of.

So far, then, we have dealt with the _a priori_ arguments against the
Personality of God, and have seen why none of these--neither that from
His non-materiality, nor from His alleged absoluteness or
infinity--raises any real bar to His being thought of as personal. We
are now in a position to inquire positively whether there is sufficient
ground for regarding Him as conscious, intelligent and purposive; if He
possesses these qualities, we repeat that He certainly possesses that of
personality.

The method by which we must proceed is obvious, and will at once occur to
the reader who recalls our opening chapter; the question resolves itself
simply into this--Are the phenomena of nature such as to indicate
intelligence and directivity in their Cause? We submit that
incontrovertible proof of the _absence_ of such directive intelligence
would be furnished, if the world were, as a matter of fact, chaotic--if
it disclosed neither regularity nor continuity--if, in a word, we could
never be sure what would happen next. True, in such a state of things
life itself could not be sustained, for life is only possible in a world
of orderly sequences and uniform laws; but seeing that as a matter of
fact such orderly sequences and uniform laws meet us everywhere {82} in
nature, is not the inference fairly inevitable? Let us be quite clear on
one point: there are two ways, and two only, in which any phenomenon can
be accounted for--design or chance; what is not purposed must be
accidental. Does, then, nature impress us as the outcome of chance? If
we saw a faultlessly executed mathematical diagram illustrating a
proposition in Euclid, should we really be satisfied with the st