This completes the idea of God so far as it can be reached or formed by natural reason. And it gives consistency to the idea. The conclusions of the _a posteriori_ arguments fail to satisfy either mind or heart until they are connected with, and supplemented by, this intuition of the reason--infinity. The conception of any other than an infinite God--a God unlimited in all perfections--is a self-contradictory conception which the intellect refuses to entertain. The self-contradictions inherent in such a conception have been exposed times without number, and in ways which cannot possibly be refuted. The chief value of most of the _a priori_ arguments lies in such demonstration; and no theologian who has thoughtfully discussed either the immanent or the transitive attributes of God has been able to dispense with as much of _a priori_ reasoning as necessary to establish that a denial of the eternity, or immutability, or omnipotence, or ubiquity, or omniscience, or any other attribute implied in the infinity of the Divine Being, logically leads to absurdity. If the infinity or independence, for example, of the First Cause be questioned, whoever would maintain it must return some such answer as that which Mr Spencer, although not assenting to it, puts in these words: "If we go a step further, and ask what is the nature of this First Cause, we are driven by an inexorable logic to certain further conclusions. Is the First Cause finite or infinite? If we say finite, we involve ourselves in a dilemma. To think of the First Cause as finite is to think of it as limited. To think of it as limited necessarily implies a conception of something beyond its limits: it is absolutely impossible to conceive a thing as bounded without conceiving a region surrounding its boundaries. What now must we say of this region? If the First Cause is limited, and there consequently lies something outside of it, this something must have no First Cause--must be uncaused. But if we admit that there can be something uncaused, there is no reason to assume a cause for anything. If beyond that finite region over which the First Cause extends there lies a region which we are compelled to regard as infinite, over which it does not extend--if we admit that there is an infinite uncaused surrounding the finite caused--we tacitly abandon the hypothesis of causation altogether. Thus it is impossible to consider the First Cause as finite. And if it cannot be finite it must be infinite. Another inference concerning the First Cause is equally unavoidable. It must be independent. If it is dependent, it cannot be the First Cause; for that must be the First Cause on which it depends. It is not enough to say that it is partially independent; since this implies some necessity which determines its partial dependence, and this necessity, be it what it may, must be a higher cause, or the true First Cause, which is a contradiction. But to think of the First Cause as totally independent,