extreme limits of the intellectual world is the _Idea of the Good_,
which is perceived with difficulty, but, in fine, can not be perceived
without concluding that it is the source of all that is beautiful and
good; that in the visible world it produces light, and the star whence
light directly comes; that in the invisible world it directly produces
truth and intelligence."[898] This _absolute Good is God_.

[Footnote 897: "Banquet," Sec. 34.]

[Footnote 898: "Republic," bk. vii. ch. iii.]

The order in which these several methods of proof were developed, will
at once present itself to the mind of the reader as the natural order of
thought. The first and most obvious aspect which nature presents to the
opening mind is that of movement and change--a succession of phenomena
suggesting the idea of _power_. Secondly, a closer attention reveals a
resemblance of phenomena among themselves, a uniformity of nature--an
order, proportion, and harmony pervading the _cosmos_, which suggest an
_identity and unity of power and of reason_, pervading and controlling
all things. Thirdly, a still closer inspection of nature reveals a
wonderful adaptation of means to the fulfillment of special ends, of
organs designed to fulfill specific functions, suggesting the idea of
_purpose_, _contrivance_, and _choice_, and indicating that the power
which moves and determines the universe is a _personal_, _thinking_, and
_voluntary_ agent. And fourthly, a profounder study of the nature of
thought, an analysis of personal consciousness, reveals that there are
necessary principles, ideas, and laws, which universally govern and
determine thought to definite and immovable conceptions--as, for
example, the principles of causality, of substance, of identity or
unity, of order, of intentionality; and that it is only under these laws
that we can conceive the universe. By the law of substance we are
compelled to regard these ideas, which are not only laws of thought but
also of things, as inherent in a subject, or Being, who made all things,
and whose ideas are reflected in the reason of man. Thus from universal
and necessary ideas we rise to the _absolute Idea_, from immutable
principles to a _First Principle of all principles_, a _First Thought_
of all thoughts--that is, to _God_. This is the history of the
development of thought in the individual, and in the race--_cause_,
_order_, _design_, _idea_, _being_, GOD.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PROPAEDEUTI