The natural and supernatural have the same object, but differ in
the mode of attainment. By supernatural grace, bearing perfect fruit,
man sees God with the eyes of his soul, as we see the faces of our
friends on earth. In perfect happiness of the natural order, creatures
alone are directly apprehended, or seen, and from the creature is
gathered the excellence of the unseen God. The process is an ascent,
as described by Plato, from the individual to the universal, and from
bodily to moral and intellectual beauty, till we reach a Beauty
eternal, immutable, absolute, substantial, and self-existent, on which
all other beauties depend for their being, while it is independent of
them. (Plato, _Symposium_, 210, 211.) Unless the ascent be prosecuted
thus far, the contemplation is inadequate, the happiness incomplete.
The mind needs to travel to the beginning and end of things, to the
Alpha and Omega of all. The mind needs to reach some perfect good:
some object, which though it is beyond the comprehension, is
nevertheless understood to be the very good of goods, unalloyed with
any admixture of defect or imperfection.
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