[46] See Appendix XXXV. LECTURE IX. _A PRIORI_ THEISTIC PROOF. I. The arguments which we have been considering are not merely proofs that God is, but indications of what He is. They testify to the Divine existence by exhibiting the Divine character. They are expressions of how He manifests Himself, and expositions of how we apprehend His self-manifestations. We have seen that against each of them various objections have been urged, but that these objections when examined do not approve themselves to reason; they leave the arguments against which they have been thrown quite unshaken. These arguments, however, although perfectly conclusive so far as they go, do not, even in combination, yield us the full idea of God which is entertained wherever theism prevails. They show Him to be the First Cause of the world--the Source of all the power, wisdom, and goodness displayed therein. They do not prove Him to be infinite, eternal, absolute in being and perfection. Yet it cannot be questioned that the cultivated human mind thinks of God as the absolute, infinite, eternal, perfect First Cause, and that no lower idea of God can satisfy it. The intellect cannot accept, and the heart also revolts against, the thought that God is dependent on any antecedent or higher Being; that He is limited to a portion either of time or space; or that He is devoid of any excellence, deficient in any perfection. Such a thought is rejected as at once utterly unworthy of its object, and inherently inconsistent.