He necessarily seeks something of which he stands in
need. And although theologians and metaphysicians distinguish between
the end of want and the end of assimilation (_finem indigentiae et finem
assimilationis_), they confess that God has done all things for His own
sake, and not for the sake of the things to be created, because before
the creation they can assign nothing excepting God for the sake of which
God could do anything; and therefore they are necessarily compelled to
admit that God stood in need of and desired those things for which He
determined to prepare means. This is self-evident. Nor is it here to be
overlooked that the adherents of this doctrine, who have found a
pleasure in displaying their ingenuity in assigning the ends of things,
have introduced a new species of argument, not the _reductio ad
impossible_, but the _reductio ad ignorantiam_, to prove their position,
which shows that it had no other method of defense left.

For, by way of example, if a stone had fallen from some roof on
somebody's head and killed him, they will demonstrate in this manner
that the stone has fallen in order to kill the man. For if it did not
fall for that purpose by the will of God, how could so many
circumstances concur through chance (and a number often simultaneously
do concur)? You will answer, perhaps, that the event happened because
the wind blew and the man was passing that way. But, they will urge, why
did the wind blow at that time, and why did the man pass that way
precisely at the same moment? If you again reply that the wind rose then
because the sea on the preceding day began to be stormy, the weather
hitherto having been calm, and that the man had been invited by a
friend, they will urge again--because there is no end of
questioning--But why was the sea agitated? why was the man invited at
that time? And so they will not cease from asking the causes of causes,
until at last you fly to the will of God, the refuge for ignorance.

So, also, when they behold the structure of the human body, they are
amazed; and because they are ignorant of the causes of such art, they
conclude that the body was made not by mechanical but by a supernatural
or divine art, and has been formed in such a way so that the one part
may not injure the other. Hence it happens that the man who endeavors to
find out the true causes of miracles, and who desires as a wise man to
understand Nature, and not to gape at it like a fool, is gener