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 statement that it represented the random pencil-strokes made by a blindfolded child ignorant of geometry? On the other hand, if a fretful baby is allowed to divert himself by hammering the piano keys, is the result ever remotely akin to a tune? We know perfectly well that we never get harmony, order, beauty, rationality by accident; and there is only one other alternative--design, purpose, guidance. Professor Fiske quotes a quaint observation of Kepler's illustrating this very point, which we may be allowed to reproduce:--