awakened to an apprehension of the reality and transcendent value of his own spiritual nature, he purges from his concept of God all material elements and thinks of him as a pure spiritual existence. But he has no idea or notion of spiritual existence different in nature from his own. Conscious in himself of thought, volition, and affection, he is compelled by the laws of his nature to separate these spiritual powers from his bodily organization. Matter, however modified or organized, cannot think or will, or feel. These powers must therefore enter into and constitute the essential characteristics of a spiritual being. Man is conscious there is "a spirit within him;" and the conception thus obtained of spiritual existence by reflection on his own nature he instinctively attributes to God. If the spirituality of God is anything different from his own he has no conception of it.

Power, wisdom, and goodness are attributed to God, but man's conception of these attributes is drawn from what he finds in himself. The power attributed to God is of the same nature as he himself is conscious of possessing and exercising. In degree, there may be no comparison between the two, but in nature they are identical. By experience he finds that he can produce changes in himself and in things around him; by the exertion of his will certain results are found to be effected: hence his idea or notion of power. In thinking of God he projects into the concept of Him the power of which he himself is conscious. The wisdom and goodness attributed to God are also exact reflections of human wisdom and goodness. The wisdom of God may indeed be perfect, free altogether from the falterings and shortsightedness of human wisdom, and operating on a scale of grandeur baffling the comprehension of man; the goodness may likewise be free from corrupting mixture and surpassing in vastness human goodness as the ocean surpasses a single drop of water; but the conception man has of the wisdom and goodness of God is radically the same as what he has of human wisdom and goodness.

So far we have found nothing in the concept of God but human elements. And are we to conclude that it contains nothing else? Is the concept simply and solely an image of man enlarged and ennobled? It will be found as we proceed with our analysis that there enter into its constitution other and altogether different elements. The elements already found and which we call human because drawn from man's own nature and experience, are absolutely necessary to bring God near to man, to render God apprehensible by man; the intellectual links by which he is held. in contact with the human mind. But these elements by no means complete or exhaust the concept of God; nay, of themselves they possess nothing specially distinctive of God. Personality,

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spirituality, power, wisdom, goodness, are all shared in by man. However separate from imperfection when attributed to God, they are in their nature and first conception human, and are actually in human possession. But the concept of God embodies other and higher elements, which, for lack of better expression, and to mark their transcendent nature, we call Divine. Let us examine these.

We think of God as the First Cause. A first cause is a necessity of thought. No intelligible theory of the universe can be framed without this as a primary principle and necessary postulate. The universe is found to be a congeries of causes and effects. The causes seen in operation may be traced to antecedent causes; but the supposition of an infinite series of causes is an intellectual absurdity. A chain of an infinite number of links, each one dependent on its predecessor, and yet the whole dependent on nothing, cannot be construed in thought; there must be a first cause from which all created existence sprang, and God is thought of as that cause. Unoriginated himself, he is the origin of all things. All things are of him.

We think of God as a being whose existence is Eternal. If his existence had a beginning, it must have been created by some other being, or self-created. If created by another, he is not the first cause, he is not God; if he created himself, he acted before he existed. Eternity must therefore be predicated of him. From everlasting to everlasting he is God.

We think of God as a being whose existence is Necessary. All other existence is contingent, it might or might not have been: and though existing now it may hereafter cease to exist. There would be no incongruity in thought to suppose that the universe or any existence in it had not come into being at all, or that the time may arrive when it will entirely disappear like the baseless fabric of a vision. But we cannot think so of God without committing intellectual suicide. As his existence is uncaused it must be necessary. The reason for it is in himself. He cannot but be. We think of God as Absolutely Infinite. As his existence fills all time, his being fills all space. We cannot conceive of any portion of space where he is not. where he is not. His being is commensurate with immensity. "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I fice from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." Psalm cxxxix. 7-10. In the language of the old philosophers, God is a being "whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."

These are the principal elements in the concept of God, to which

by way of eminence and distinctiveness we apply the word Divine, and which in strictness of logical thought, as well as for convenience in discussion, may all be resolved into the transcendent unity of The Infinite.

The question, whether we can think or conceive of God as infinite, has in every age proved a perplexing problem to thoughtful men. Generally, it has been concluded that while compelled to think of and believe in God as infinite, we are totally incapable of grasping infinity in its fulness as an object of thought, and that our conception of it though truthful is necessarily inadequate. This seems to have been the view of the interlocuter in the book of Job, who asks, in language which for sublimity has never been surpassed, "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? It is high as heaven, what canst thou do? It is deep as hell, what canst thou know? The measure of it is longer than the earth and broader than the sea." Theological writers of every age and of every creed have, almost without exception or challenge, maintained that man has a conception of the infinity of God, but that the conception is necessarily inadequate, for the self-evident reason that the finite can never comprehend the infinite. This opinion, however, has been attacked by the late Sir William Hamilton in his review of Consin's Philosophy, with a vigour of thought and keenness of logical analysis, which produced no small commotion among metaphysical divines and led to fierce polemical strifes, not yet wholly composed. In justice to Sir William, it ought to be said that his views have been frequently misunderstood, and consequently misrepresented by his antagonists. In many instances he has been held to deny the infinity of God as a fact of existence, and even to shut out God from the knowledge of his creatures altogether. This representation is grossly incorrect. Sir William indeed denies that man can have any conception of infinity; but in this denial he does not erect man's conceptive power into a measure of actual existence; and while denying to man the power to conceive of God as infinite, he holds that faith suppliments the weakness and deficiency of the conceptive power in relation to the infinitude of God. By faith we have an apprehension of and belief in the Infinite; though incapable of forming a consistent conception of it, logically considered, such a conception as will bear the test of logical analysis, we nevertheless have an apprehension of it, and a belief in it. He says: "We must believe in the infinity of God; but the infinite God cannot by us, in the present limitation of our faculties, be comprehended or conceived. A deity understood would be no deity at all; and it is blasphemy to say that God is only as we are able to think him to be. We know God according

to the finitude of our faculties; but we believe much that we are incompetent properly to know. The Infinite,-the infinite God is what, to use the words of Pascal, is infinitely inconceivable. Faith, Belief,-is the organ by which we apprehend what is beyond our knowledge." (Metaphysics, Vol. II. p. 374.) And in reply to Henry Calderwood, who, though a pupil of his own and cherishing for him the profoundest reverence, had attacked his doctrine of the Infinite with marked ability, Sir William says, "The Infinite which I contemplate is considered only as in thought; the Infinite beyond thought being, it may be, an object of belief, but not of knowledge. . . . . The sphere of our belief is much more extensive than the sphere of our knowledge; and, therefore, when I deny that the Infinite can by us be known, I am far from denying that by us it is, must, and ought to be believed. When, therefore, you maintain that in denying to man any positive cognizance of the Infinite I virtually exterminate his belief in the infinitude of God, I must hold you to be wholly wrong, in respect both of my opinion and of the theological dogma itself." (Metaphysics, vol. II. pp. 530, 531.)

It is, then, not against the objective fact of God's infinitude, nor the subjective belief in it, that Sir William directs his powerful reasonings, but solely against the logical conception of it. Now in so far as this conception is regarded as a mental image, of specific dimensions and distinctive features, capable of being decomposed and reconstructed in harmony with the laws of logical thought, man has and can have no such conception. In this restricted meaning of the term Sir William is correct, and his reasonings in defence of it are invulnerable; but as he asserts that man has a belief in the Infinite, it may pertinently be asked, how can he have a belief in that of which he has no conception? If he have no conception of that in which he nevertheless believes, he believes in nothing, in what he cannot construe in thought.

The gist of the argument centres in the use made by Sir William of the term conception. Although singularly precise and felicitous in his ordinary diction, choosing and combining his words with rare skill and force, he is by no means consistent at all times in the use he makes of the word in question. For instance, he says, "We are altogether unable to conceive space as bounded, as finite, that is, as a whole beyond which there is no further space. On the other hand, we are equally powerless to realise in thought the possibility of the opposite contradictory. We cannot conceive space infinite or without bound." (Metaphysics, vol. II. pp. 369, 370.) The word conceive is used here in two different and altogether opposite senses. In the first instance it is used in the sense of to think, to judge, to believe; and in this sense it is undoubtelly true we cannot conceive space as bounded; the conception is

self-contradictory; reason disowns and destroys it. In the second instance it is used in the sense of picturing, imagining, representing; and in this sense it is equally true we cannot conceive space infinite, or without bound; in attempting to form a picture of it the conceptive faculty is utterly confounded. But reverse the use made of the word conceive in the above passage, transpose the different senses in which it is applied, and then we can affirm the direct opposite of what Sir William affirms, while at the same time we are in perfect harmony with the teachings of his own philosophy. (1.) We are quite competent to conceive space as bounded, to form a picture of it in our mental vision. This conception would not indeed bear the test of logical analysis, inasmuch as it would contradict objective reality; but it might nevertheless be conceived. (2.) We are equally competent to conceive space as unbounded, to think of it, and believe in it, though unable to form a mental image of it, just as we can conceive of spiritual existence or of abstract qualities. The infinity of God cannot be imaged in the mind; in that sense we can have no conception of it; but it may be realised in thought, it may be cognised by the intellective faculties, and in this sense man may have a concept of the infinite God. Indeed, this must be allowed as a foundation for that belief of the Infinite for which Sir William contends.

Sir William leaves theology precisely where he found it. The result of his magnificent reasonings, as far as theology is concerned, may be thus summed up :-Man has a concept of God as infinite, but the concept is imperfect, cannot be imaged in the mind, cannot be logically construed, and is realised by faith rather than by reason. And what is this but a repetition of the teachings of theologians from time immemorial? In listening to some of the idolatrous admirers of Hamilton it might be thought that he had entirely reconstructed theological science, and that henceforth, guided by the principles he has enunciated, theological writers must pursue a course altogether new in discoursing of the being and attributes of God. Such conclusions are utterly erroneous. The views of religious men respecting the highest of all subjects of thought have not been and are not likely to be affected in any appreciable degree by the Hamiltonian philosophy. Undoubtedly that philosophy tells with irresistible effect against those men who subject the infinitude of God to the manipulations and measurements of the logical faculty, but against the orthodox creeds of the church and the teachings of her standard writers it breathes not a word of antagonism.

The concept of God contains, as we have seen, two main elements, the human and the divine. We are compelled by the laws of our nature to think of God as human, or not to think of him at all. If we drop the human element, the concept vanishes,