presently they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself
suddenly in the net of those ancient controversies between species
and individual, between the one and the many, which arise out of the
necessarily 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