And God's.[529]
We have seen that the agencies which constitute the universal order have each its own inner principle of finality; that these agencies are not isolated but mutually related in such ways that the ends of each subserve an extrinsic and remoter end which is none other than this universal order whereby we recognize the world as a cosmos. The maintenance of this order is the intrinsic end of the universe as a whole: an end which is immanent in the universe, an end which is of course a good. But this universal order itself is for an end, an extrinsic, transcendent end, distinct from itself; and this end, too, must be a good. “The universe,” says St. Thomas,[530] “has the good of order and another distinct [pg 433] good.” The universal order, says Aristotle, has itself an end, a good, which is one, and to which all else is ordained: “πρὸς ἕν ἅπαντα συντέτακται”.[531] What can this Supreme Good be, this absolutely Ultimate End, this Transcendent Principle of all nature, and of all nature's tendencies and activities? Whence comes this universal tendency of all nature, if not from the Being who is the One, Eternal, Immutable Prime Mover,[532] and whose moving influence is Love?[533] Such is the profound thought of Aristotle, a thought re-echoed so sublimely by the immortal poet of Christian philosophy in the closing line of the Paradiso:—
L'amor che muove il Sole e l'altre stelle.
The immediate factors of the universal order of nature, themselves devoid of intelligence, must therefore be the work of Intelligent Will. To arrange these factors as parts of one harmonious whole, as members of one orderly system, Supreme Wisdom must have conceived the plan and chosen the means to realize it. The manifestation of God's glory by the realization of this plan, such is the ultimate transcendent end of the whole created universe. “The whole order of the universe,” writes St. Thomas, developing the thought of Aristotle,[534] “is for the Prime Mover thereof; this order has for its purpose the working out in an orderly universe of the plan conceived and willed by the Prime Mover. And hence the Prime Mover is the principle of this universal order.”
The truths so briefly outlined in this closing chapter on the order and purpose of the universe have nowhere found more apt and lucid philosophical formulation than in the monumental writings of the Angel of the Christian Schools; nor perhaps have they ever elsewhere appeared in a more felicitous setting of poetic imagery than in these stanzas from the immortal epic of the Poet of the Christian Schools:—
... Le cose tutte quante
Hann' ordine tra lora; e questa è forma
Che l'universo a Dio fa simigliante.
Qui veggion l'alte creature l'orma
Dell'eterno Valore, il quale è fine