It is a remarkable fact that the typical exponent of popular so-called 'scientific' Agnosticism, and the founder of that higher metaphysical Agnosticism which has played so large a part in the history of modern Philosophy, should before their deaths have both made confessions which really amount to an abjuration of all Agnosticism. If the ultimate Reality is to be thought of as a rational Will, analogous to the will which each of us is conscious of himself having or being, he is no longer the Unknown or the Unknowable, but the God of Religion, who has revealed Himself in the consciousness of man, 'made in the image of God.' What more about Himself we may also hold to be revealed in the human spirit, I hope to consider in our next lecture. But, meanwhile, a word may be uttered in answer to the question which may very probably be asked--Is God a Person? A complete answer to the question would involve elaborate discussions, but for our present purpose the question may be answered very {55} briefly. If we are justified in thinking of God after the analogy of a human soul--if we are justified in thinking of Him as a self-conscious Being who thinks, feels, and wills, and who is, moreover (if I may a little anticipate the subject of our next lecture) in relation with, capable of loving and being loved by other such beings--then it seems most natural to speak of God's existence as personal. For to be a self-conscious being--conscious of itself and other beings, thinking, willing, feeling, loving--is what we mean by being a person. If any one prefers to speak of God as 'super-personal,' there is no great objection to so doing, provided that phrase is not made (as it often is) an excuse for really thinking of God after the analogy of some kind of existence lower than that of persons--as a force, an unconscious substance, or merely a name for the totality of things. But for myself, I prefer to say that our own self-consciousness gives us only an ideal of the highest type of existence which it nevertheless very imperfectly satisfies, and therefore I would rather think God is a Person in a far truer, higher, more complete sense than that in which any human being can be a person. God alone fully realizes the ideal of Personality. The essence of Personality is something positive: it signifies to us the highest kind of being within our knowledge--not (as is too often supposed) the mere limitations {56} and restraints which characterize human conscious life as we know it in ourselves. If we are justified in thinking of God after the analogy of the highest existence within our knowledge, we had better call Him a Person. The word is no doubt inadequate to the reality, as is all the language that we can employ about God; but it is at least more adequate than the terms employed by those who scruple to speak of God as a Person. It is at least more adequate and more intelligent than to speak of Him as a force,