A Sketch of Universal Wisdom

OUTLINE original Latin: "DIATYPOSIS"

starting from formless, confused, and dark beginnings; but ending in the most distinct, most perfect, and most beautiful forms. He impressed this same law upon Nature herself, so that whatever is born, is born small and formless from seeds, and gradually takes on growth, until it reaches the perfection determined for each kind.

XX. He subjected the human race to this same condition in all things. For although He could have produced them in full number (just as He did with the Angels and the Stars, as many as He wished), He created only a single stock, a Man with a Woman: and having granted them the power of multiplying their kind, He assigned several thousand years for the progeneration of men, until the whole earth should be filled with inhabitants.

XXI. And although He could have revealed the secrets of all mysteries (in things Natural, Artificial In this context, "Artificial" refers to the "Arts" or things created by human skill and technology., Moral, and Divine) to these same men all at once; He preferred to use his accustomed gradation, and gradually [unfold the secrets] of the Sciences, of the Arts,