d lays down the rule that God is our highest good--in
other words, that the knowledge and love of God is the ultimate aim to
which all our actions should be directed. The worldling cannot
understand these things, they appear foolishness to him, because he has
too meager a knowledge of God, and also because in this highest good he
can discover nothing which he can handle or eat, or which affects the
fleshly appetites wherein he chiefly delights, for it consists solely in
thought and the pure reason. They, on the other hand, who know that they
possess no greater gift than intellect and sound reason, will doubtless
accept what I have said without question.

We have now explained that wherein the Divine law chiefly consists, and
what are human laws, namely, all those which have a different aim unless
they have been ratified by revelation, for in this respect also things
are referred to God (as we have shown above) and in this sense the law
of Moses, although it was not universal, but entirely adapted to the
disposition and particular preservation of a single people, may yet be
called a law of God or Divine law, inasmuch as we believe that it was
ratified by prophetic insight. If we consider the nature of natural
Divine law as we have just explained it, we shall see

I. That it is universal or common to all men, for we have deduced it
from universal human nature.

II. That it does not depend on the truth of any historical narrative
whatsoever, for inasmuch as this natural Divine law is comprehended
solely by the consideration of human nature, it is plain that we can
conceive it as existing as well in Adam as in any other man, as well in
a man living among his fellows as in a man who lives by himself.

The truth of a historical narrative, however assured, cannot give us the
knowledge nor consequently the love of God, for love of God springs from
knowledge of Him, and knowledge of Him should be derived from general
ideas, in themselves certain and known, so that the truth of a
historical narrative is very far from being a necessary requisite for
our attaining our highest good.

Still, though the truth of histories cannot give us the knowledge and
love of God, I do not deny that reading them is very useful with a view
to life in the world, for the more we have observed and known of men's
customs and circumstances, which are best revealed by their actions, the
more warily we shall be able to order our lives among them, and s