cessarily imperfect methods of the human mind. Upon these matters
there has been much pregnant writing during the last half century. Such
ideas as this writer has to offer are to be found in a previous little
book of his, "First and Last Things," in which, writing as one without
authority or specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man
vividly interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to
elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, by
which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it here to
say that theological discussion may very easily become like the vision
of a man with cataract, a mere projection of inherent imperfections. If
we do not use our phraseology with a certain courage, and take that
of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us with a certain
politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any discussion in
so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, denials, and
wranglings. And about this word "person" it is necessary to be as clear
and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a definition of
mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case impossible.

Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of a
man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay;
we forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has
forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, divided
against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On the
contrary we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to suppose him
continuous, definite, acting consistently and never forgetting. But only
abstract and theoretical persons are like that. We couple with him the
idea of a body. Indeed, in the common use of the word "person" there is
more thought of body than of mind. We speak of a lover possessing the
person of his mistress. We speak of offences against the person as
opposed to insults, libels, or offences against property. And the
gods of primitive men and the earlier civilisations were quite of that
quality of person. They were thought of as living in very splendid
bodies and as acting consistently. If they were invisible in the
ordinary world it was because they were aloof or because their "persons"
were too splendid for weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated
view of the person of the Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who
insisted upon