Given nature, with its elements, laws, and unity, and man as the being in whom the whole of nature is summed up, with self-consciousness, self-determination, and self-activity; the only first principle sufficient to account for the facts is a self-conscious, self-determining, self-active personal God. It is only such a first principle that is large enough to account for the number, and order, and drift, and collocations of the facts; and to such a first principle the number, and order, and drift, and collocations of the facts may be traced. If we see red and violet and blue colors appearing in the carpet on one side of the loom, we are warranted in assuming that red and violet and blue threads are entering the carpet on the other side of the loom. Nature is a marvelous loom. At first there are simple elements, then there are compounds, then there are plants, then there are animals. At last all the elements, as so many strands, with their manifold hues and variegated colors, appear in the life of man. Man is the harbor where all the freight, started on its stormy course at creation, comes to shore. Its matter takes majestic form in his body, its power lends itself as wind to his sail, as heat to his engine, as light to his street: its truth is arranged by the intellect into literature and science: its law is formulated into statutes, enactments, and constitutions: its beauty is built into oratorios and spread in radiant visions: its love is accepted and turned into tenderness, and sacrifice, and hope. Infinite personality at the beginning, self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active. Finite personality at the conclusion, self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active. If you call the process evolution, then no more has been evolved than was involved. If you prefer direct creation, then nothing is seen in the creature that was not built into him by the Creator. Either way, if a self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active man appears on one side of nature, a self-conscious, self-determining, and self-active personal God is, we may know, on the other. I. The importance of a correct first principle, and of a right idea of the nature of that first principle, cannot be urged too strongly. In the right solution of the question we are considering, everything depends on it. If we start with water, as Thales did, we will be forced to conclude that individual lives, like bubbles, will eventually fall back and mingle with the waves of the sea. If we start with the unknowable, as Spencer did, we shall be led to see that human spirits will lose themselves at death, as candles lose their light when the wicks are consumed.