PART ii HUMAN DESIRE 181 



4 ' Universal Nature" or Spirit is able to satisfy the 

 appetite of each " particular nature " or mode of itself, 

 and that of itself as a whole, then the understanding and 

 desire which are innate, inseparable from and co-substan- 

 tial with each and all shall not be in vain, nor look 

 hopelessly to a false and impossible end. Again, were 

 universal nature and the efficient cause content with 

 finite truth and good, they would not satisfy the infinite 

 aspiration of particular things. It is true that even the 

 desire for continuance of our present life is not satisfied ; 

 a particular mode of matter cannot realise all <c forms " 

 or ideas at once, but only in succession and one by one ; 

 it knows and therefore desires only that which is present 

 to it at any given time : by force of nature, therefore, it 

 comes in its ignorance (which arises from the " contrac- 

 tion " of the form to this or that particular matter and 

 the limitation of matter by this or that form) to desire 

 to be always that which it now is. The wise soul, how- 

 ever, will not fear death, will indeed sometimes wish for 

 it, since there awaits every substance eternity of duration, 

 immensity of space, and the realisation of all being. 

 " Whatever the good be for which a man strives, let 

 him turn his eyes to the heavens and the worlds ; there 

 is spread before him a picture, a book, a mirror, in which 

 he may behold, read, contemplate the imprint (vestigium), 

 the law, and the reflection of the highest good and 

 with his sensible ears drink in the highest harmony, and 

 raise himself as by a ladder, according to the grades of 

 the forms of things, to the contemplation of another, 

 the highest world." * The contemplation of the extended 

 infinite and " explicate " or unfolded nature is thus only 

 a means by which we may rise to the contemplation of 

 the infinite in itself, "implicate" 3 nature, God. "It is no 



1 Op. Lat. i. I. p. 203. 



