Chapter II.
On the Contemplation of God in His Vestiges in this Sensible World.
1. But since concerning the mirror of sensible things it happens that we contemplate God not only through them as through vestiges, but also in them, insofar as He is in them by essence, power, and presence; and this consideration is higher than the preceding: therefore this kind of consideration holds the second place as the second grade of contemplation, by which we ought to be led by the hand to contemplating God in all creatures which enter our mind through the bodily senses.
2. It is to be noted, therefore, that this world, which is called the macrocosm, enters into our soul, which is called the lesser world , through the gates of the five senses, according to the apprehension, delight, and judgment of the sensible things themselves.
This is evident as follows: because in it certain things are generating, certain things generated, and certain things governing both the former and the latter. The generating things are simple bodies, namely the celestial bodies and the four elements. For from the elements, through the power of light reconciling the contrariety of the elements in mixed things, whatever things are generated and produced through the operation of natural power must be generated and produced.
The generated things are bodies composed from the elements, such as minerals, plants, sentient beings, and human bodies.
Those governing both the former and the latter are spiritual substances, either entirely conjoined, as are the souls of brutes, or separably conjoined, as are rational spirits, or entirely separate, as are celestial spirits, whom the philosophers call Intelligences, and we call Angels. To whom, according to the philosophers, it belongs to move the celestial bodies, and through this the administration of the universe is attributed to them, receiving from the first cause, namely God, the influx of power, which they pour back according to the work of governance, which regards the natural subsistence of things. But according to the theologians, the governance of the universe is attributed to the same according to the command of the supreme God with respect to the works of reparation, according to which they are called ministering spirits, sent for the sake of those who receive the inheritance of salvation.
3. Man, therefore, who is called the lesser world, has five senses as though five gates, through which the knowledge of all things that are in the sensible world enters into his soul. For through sight enter sublime and luminous bodies and other colored things, through touch solid and terrestrial bodies, and through the three intermediate senses enter intermediate things, as through taste watery things, through hearing airy things, through smell vaporous things, which have something of a moist nature, something of an airy nature, something of a fiery or hot nature, as is evident in the smoke released from aromatics.
Therefore through these gates enter both simple and composite bodies, and those mixed from them. Since indeed by sense we perceive not only these particular sensibles, which are light, sound, odor, taste, and the four primary qualities which touch apprehends, but also the common sensibles, which are number, magnitude, figure, rest, and motion — and "everything that is moved is moved by another," while certain things move and rest of themselves, as do animals — so while through these five senses we apprehend the motions of bodies, we are led by the hand to the knowledge of spiritual movers, as through effect to the knowledge of causes.
4. Therefore with respect to three genera of things, this entire sensible world enters into the human soul through apprehension. Now these exterior sensibles are what first enter into the soul through the gates of the five senses; they enter, I say, not through their substances, but through their likenesses, first generated in the medium, and from the medium into the organ, and from the exterior organ into the interior, and from this into the apprehensive power; and thus the generation of the species in the medium, and from the medium into the organ, and the turning of the apprehensive power upon it, produces the apprehension of all those things which the soul apprehends exteriorly.
5. Upon this apprehension, if it be of a fitting thing, there follows delight. Now the sense takes pleasure in an object perceived through an abstracted likeness, either by reason of beauty, as in sight, or by reason of sweetness, as in smell and hearing, or by reason of wholesomeness, as in taste and touch, speaking by way of appropriation. All delight, moreover, is by reason of proportionality. But since the species holds the character of form, power, and operation, according as it has relation to the principle from which it emanates, to the medium through which it passes, and to the terminus upon which it acts, therefore proportionality is either considered in the likeness insofar as it holds the character of species or form, and thus it is called beauty, because "beauty is nothing other than numerical equality," or "a certain disposition of parts together with sweetness of color." Or proportionality is considered insofar as it holds the character of potency or power, and thus it is called sweetness, when the active power does not disproportionately exceed the recipient, for sense is pained by extremes and delighted by what is moderate. Or it is considered insofar as it holds the character of efficacy and impression, which is then proportional when the agent by impressing fills the need of the patient, and this is to preserve and nourish it, which is most apparent in taste and touch. And thus through delight, exterior delectable things enter into the soul according to the threefold reason of delighting, through likeness.
6. After this apprehension and delight comes judgment, by which one judges not only whether this thing is white or black, for this pertains to the particular sense; not only whether it is healthful or harmful, for this pertains to the interior sense; but also by which one judges and gives the reason why this thing delights: and in this act one inquires into the reason for the delight that is perceived in the sense from the object. This is what happens when the reason for the beautiful, the sweet, and the healthful is sought: and it is found that this is a proportion of equality. Now the reason of equality is the same in great things and small; it is not extended by dimensions, nor does it pass away with transient things, nor is it altered by motions. It therefore abstracts from place, time, and motion, and by this it is immutable, uncircumscribable, interminable, and entirely spiritual. Judgment, therefore, is an action which causes the sensible species, received sensibly through the senses, to enter by purifying and abstracting it into the intellective power. And thus this entire world has to enter into the human soul through the gates of the senses according to the three aforesaid operations.
7. Now all these things are vestiges in which we can behold our God.
For since the apprehended species is a likeness generated in the medium and then impressed upon the organ itself, and through that impression leads to its principle, namely to the object to be known; it manifestly suggests that that eternal light generates from itself a likeness or splendor coequal, consubstantial, and coeternal; and that he who is the image of the invisible God and the splendor of glory and the figure of his substance, who is everywhere through his primary generation, just as an object generates its likeness throughout the entire medium, is united through the grace of union, as a species to a bodily organ, to an individual of rational nature, so that through that union he might lead us back to the Father as to the fontal principle and object. If therefore all knowable things have to generate a species of themselves, they manifestly proclaim that in them as in mirrors can be seen the eternal generation of the Word, the Image, and the Son, eternally emanating from God the Father.
8. According to this mode, the species that delights as beautiful, sweet and wholesome intimates that in that first species there is the first beauty, sweetness and wholesomeness, in which there is the highest proportionality and equality to the one generating; in which there is power, entering in not through a phantasm but through the truth of apprehension; in which there is an impression that saves and suffices and expels every need of the one apprehending. If, therefore, "delight is the conjunction of the fitting with the fitting"; and the likeness of God alone holds the character of the supremely beautiful, sweet, and wholesome; and is united according to truth and according to intimacy and according to fullness seizing every capacity: it can manifestly be seen that in God alone is the fontal and true delight, and that from all delights we are led by the hand to seek it.
9. In a more excellent and more immediate way, however, judgment leads us to contemplate eternal truth more certainly. For if judgment must be made by a reason abstracting from place, time, and mutability, and thus from dimension, succession, and transmutation, by a reason that is immutable and uncircumscribable and interminable ; and nothing whatsoever is immutable, uncircumscribable and interminable, except what is eternal; and everything that is eternal is God, or in God: if, therefore, all things whatsoever we judge more certainly, we judge by a reason of this kind; it is clear that he himself is the reason of all things and the infallible rule and the light of truth, in which all things shine forth infallibly, indelibly, indubitably, irrefragably, injudicably, immutably, unrestrictedly, interminably, indivisibly, and intellectually. And therefore those laws by which we judge with certitude concerning all sensible things coming into our consideration — since they are infallible and indubitable to the intellect apprehending, indelible from the memory recollecting as always present, irrefragable and injudicable to the intellect judging, because, as Augustine says, "no one judges concerning them, but through them": it is necessary that they be immutable and incorruptible as necessary, unrestricted as uncircumscribed, interminable as eternal, and therefore indivisible as intellectual and incorporeal, not cast forth, but uncreated, existing eternally in the eternal art, from which, through which, and according to which all beautiful things are formed: and therefore they cannot be judged with certitude except through that which was not only the form producing all things, but also conserving and distinguishing all things, as the being holding the form in all things and the rule directing, and through which our mind judges all things that enter into it through the senses.
10. Now this contemplation is expanded according to the consideration of the seven differences of numbers, by which one ascends to God as if by seven steps, as Augustine shows in the book On True Religion and in the sixth book of On Music, where he assigns the differences of numbers ascending by degrees from these sensible things up to the Maker of all, so that God may be seen in all things.
For he says that numbers are in bodies and especially in sounds and voices, and these he calls sounding: numbers abstracted from these and received in our senses, and these he calls encountering: numbers proceeding from the soul into the body, as is evident in gesticulations and dances, and these he calls advancing ; numbers in the delights of the senses from the turning of attention upon the received form, and these he calls sensual; numbers retained in memory, and these he calls memorial: numbers also by which we judge concerning all of these, and these he calls judicial, which, as has been said, are necessarily above the mind as infallible and beyond judgment. From these, however, there are imprinted upon our minds artistic numbers, which nevertheless Augustine does not enumerate among those degrees, because they are connected to the judicial: and from these flow advancing numbers, from which the numerous forms of artifacts are created, so that from the highest through the middle there may be an ordered descent to the lowest. To these we also ascend by degrees from sounding numbers, through the mediation of encountering, sensual, and memorial numbers.
Since therefore all things are beautiful and in a certain way delightful: and beauty and delight do not exist without proportion: and proportion is found first in numbers: it is necessary that all things be numerical: and accordingly "number is the principal exemplar in the mind of the Creator" and in things the principal vestige leading to Wisdom. Since this is most evident to all and nearest to God, it leads most proximately, as if through seven differences, to God and causes Him to be known in all corporeal and sensible things, when we apprehend things that are numerical, delight in numerical proportions, and judge irrefragably through the laws of numerical proportions.
11. From these first two steps, by which we are led by the hand to contemplate God in vestiges, as it were after the manner of two wings descending about the feet, we can gather that all creatures of this sensible world lead the mind of the one who contemplates and savors to the eternal God, because of that most powerful, most wise, and best first principle, of that eternal origin, light, and plenitude, of that, I say, efficient, exemplifying, and ordering art, they are shadows, resonances and pictures, they are vestiges, likenesses and spectacles set before us for beholding God, and signs divinely given; which, I say, are exemplars or rather copies, set before minds still unrefined and sense-bound, so that through sensible things which they see, they may be carried over to intelligible things which they do not see, as through signs to things signified.
12. Moreover, such creatures of this sensible world signify the invisible things of God , partly because God is every creature's origin, exemplar and end, and every effect is a sign of its cause, and every copy of its exemplar, and every way of the end to which it leads; partly from proper representation; partly from prophetic prefiguration; partly from angelic operation: partly from superadded institution. For every creature by nature is a certain effigy and likeness of that eternal wisdom, but especially that which in the book of Scripture was taken up through the spirit of prophecy for the prefiguration of spiritual things; more especially, however, those creatures in whose likeness God willed to appear through angelic ministry; but most especially that which He willed to institute for the purpose of signifying, which holds not only the character of a sign according to the common name, but also of a Sacrament.
13. From all of which it is gathered that the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, being understood through those things which have been made, are clearly seen: so that those who are unwilling to attend to these things and to know, bless, and love God in all of them are without excuse , since they are unwilling to be transferred from darkness into the admirable light of God. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, who from darkness has transferred us into His admirable light, while through these lights given outwardly to the mirror of our mind, in which divine things shine forth, we are disposed to re-enter.