If, then, the universe is a created effect, it must furnish some indications of the character of its cause. If, as Plato taught, the world is a "created image" of the eternal archetypes which dwell in the uncreated Mind, and if the subjective ideas which dwell in the human reason, as the offspring of God, are "copies" of the ideas of the Infinite Reason--if the universe be "the autobiography of the Infinite Spirit which has also repeated itself in miniature within our finite spirit," then may we decipher its symbols, and read its lessons straight off. Then every approach towards a scientific comprehension and generalization of the facts of the universe must carry us upward towards the higher realities of reason. The more we can understand of Nature--of her comprehensive laws, of her archetypal forms, of her far-reaching plan spread through the almost infinite ages, and stretching through illimitable space--the more do we comprehend the divine Thought. The inductive generalization of science gradually ascends towards the universal; the pure, essential, à priori reason, with its universal and necessary ideas, descends from above to meet it. The general conceptions of science are thus a kind of ideœ umbratiles--shadowy assimilations to those immutable ideas which dwell in essential reason, as possessed by the Supreme Intelligence, and which are participated in by rational man as the offspring and image of God.
Without making any pretension to profound scientific accuracy, we offer the following tentative classification of the facts of the universe, material and mental, which may be regarded as hints and adumbrations of the ultimate ground, and reason, and cause, of the universe. We shall venture to classify these facts as indicative of some fundamental relation; (i.) to Permanent Being or Reality; (ii.) to Reason and Thought; (iii.) to Moral Ideas and Ends.
(i.) Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Permanent Being or Reality.
1. Qualitative Phenomena (properties, attributes, qualities)--the predicates of a subject; which phenomena, being characterized by likeness and unlikeness, are capable of comparison and classification, and thus of revealing something as to the nature of the subject.
2. Dynamical Phenomena (protension, movement, succession)--events transpiring in time, having beginning, succession, and end, which present themselves to us as the expression of power, and throw back their distinctive characteristics on their dynamic source.
3. Quantitative Phenomena (totality, multiplicity, relative unity)--a multiplicity of objects having relative and composite unity, which suggests some relation to an absolute and indivisible unity.
4. Statical Phenomena (extension, magnitude, divisibility)--bodies co-existing in space which are limited, conditioned, relative, dependent, and indicate some relation to that which is self-existent, unconditioned, and absolute.
(ii.) Facts of the universe which indicate some fundamental relation to Reason or Thought.
1. Numerical and Geometrical Proportion.--Definite proportion of elements (Chemistry), symmetrical arrangement of parts (Crystallography), numerical and geometrical relation of the forms and movements of the heavenly bodies (Spherical Astronomy), all of which are capable of exact mathematical expression.
2. Archetypal Forms.--The uniform succession of new existences, and the progressive evolution of new orders and species, conformable to fixed and definite ideal archetypes, the indication of a comprehensive plan(Morphological Botany, Comparative Anatomy).