ism seems implied in the fact of self-existence which is given in the general fact of being, perceived in myself; until I perceive that I am a dependent power, other than that upon which I depend. The burden rests upon the theist to show this. It must appear that to God my action is objective, external.

Objection has been made to the idea of an infinite person. Spinoza, first, in modern times, and finally Matthew Arnold, advanced the criticism that the infinite is limited by regarding it as personal; that is, personality is necessarily finite, limited. But this is an oversight in this class of thinkers, an oversight which comes of regarding the infinite as the aggregate of all things. This is the same as supposing there can be an infinite quantity, which supposition is, of course, absurd and a contradiction in terms. Quantity is identical with limitation, and to speak of an infinite made up of limited things is but a contradiction in terms.

Another snare into which these eminent thinkers have fallen is in regarding personality as quantitative. Their charge of anthropomorphism and fetichism, upon theists, is because they suppose personality to consist in certain defined limits, personal organization, physical or mental. Anthropomorphism, the conceiving of God as a man on a large or infinite scale, is certainly a fatal notion in theology when the personality of either God or man is supposed to consist in quantitative dimensions or qualitative degrees. Fetichism, the attributing life or personal identity to material objects, organic or inorganic, comes of the same quantitative idea of personality. Nor is there any radical change in the idea as it exists in the mind of the child who strikes the chair for throwing him down, the Bushman who worships his

son.

or the agnostic who rejects a personal infinite lest personality may impose quantitative limitations upon the infinite. We can discriminate the infinite only as unconditioned action, absolute freedom. So, also, personality is not a quantity nor an organization of quantities, not a quality nor a collection of qualities, subject to degrees, but is purely a matter of original action. Size, weight, form, or physical organization cannot make man a perNeither does thought nor feeling. He may have all these and still be a mere animal or machine if all his qualities are determined for him, in kind and degree, by some other power. But it is because man determines himself, in certain respects, that he is entitled a person. He can surmount and throw off many of his limitations, if he choose, or can impose upon himself other or greater limitations; but in either case he originates his choice, and initiates the process by which he is determined upward or downward in the scale of limitations.

He alone forms his intentions; he may intend injury to others, but may be restrained from effecting such injury; yet he affects and degrades himself by such intentions, which none else can prevent. He may develop or abuse his qualities of mind and body, and thus elevate or degrade his nature, while his free choice either way determines his character. That character, good or bad, reacts favorably or unfavorably upon his natural qualities, and so gives them higher uses or deeper abuses, as he may decide. Because of self-determination, man forms a character, and character is made up of those qualities, so determined, upon which men estimate human worth.

Again, progress is that which is attained by individuals and communities, by comparing simple facts and from

are compared, and from this comparison higher conclusions are drawn and acted upon. So sciences are built, governments are constructed and improved, culture is amplified, and progress in every way achieved by man's self-chosen use of himself and his environment, and his self-determining power to transcend his elementary conditions. Being a person, he is capable of rising from the limitations of savagery to the less limiting conditions of refinement; being a person, he can abuse the enhanced. advantages of refinement, and thereby bring upon himself the limitations of a brute.

Self-determination is personality. A mere thing which is determined in all respects by action external to it, as a grain of sand, a block of wood, or a graven image, is wholly without personality. Brutes, being but creatures of impulse, volitionally, never devoting themselves to self-improvement, nor deemed blameworthy for lack of such devotement, likewise fall short of personality. Person is distinguished from thing or brute in being able to determine himself to be this or that in any or all respects. I am free to form my intentions and determine my character, but am limited in resources from which to contrive or gain objects concerning which to choose and intend; and also limited in my instrumentalities by which to realize intentions. But these limitations are simply like hedges around my personality, merely limited resources and instruments. In the use of such resources and instruments as I have I am arbiter. In this respect I am free, without limit in the freedom of choice.

Personal consciousness resides in self-determination. Hence, I am a person and realize my personality, not in degrees and quantities, but in actual freedom in certain respects. But I am not a perfect, or infinite, person for

I have not determined my own nature, have not adjusted my environment, and am dependent upon forces external to me for my interaction with all that is external to my conscious power; in these respects I am an effect, and, hence, a dependent, or finite, person. An infinite person is thought as one who determines himself in all respects; his nature, character, and environment are dependent in no respect. Independent action, or unconditioned action, however it may be phrased, is perfect, or infinite, selfdetermination; and since self-determination is personality, infinite self-determination is infinite personality.

That independent action is unconditioned action is axiomatic. That the independent is an infinite person is the same as to say he is the unconditioned person. He has no characteristic of an effect other than what is selfimposed. Whatever he is, he is by his own self-determination, limited by no preëxisting conditions or principles. We hear, sometimes, of "eternal principles," but there are no such things apart from the action of the Infinite Being. A principle is nothing but an order or relation in actions, established by the actor; without action or actor the principle vanishes.

Moreover, we can discriminate nothing as infinite except self-determining power, nothing unconditioned but freedom; and all talk of anything being infinite except self-determining action and its qualities is but a jumbling of terms-often a use of the word "infinite" in the sense of "indefinite." The infinite cannot be pictured to our imagination, nor in any way grasped by our minds, except by logically discriminating it as an independent actor, the personal infinite. It is, therefore, impossible to think of independent action as other than personal self-determination, or of primary being as other than

We close this chapter with the theistic formula: 1. Perceived, dependent being unavoidably implies independent being.

2. Independent being is infinitely self-determining. 3. Self-determination is personality; and infinite selfdetermination is infinite personality.

4. Hence, the perceived fact, my dependent being, unavoidably implies the Infinite Person, God.

"I am, O God; and surely thou must be."