Mathematical Mirror

in 1 Metaphysics, ch. 2. Nor, however, is it fitting that the divine nature should be envious; rather, it imparts whatever of it there is to divine men who turn their minds away from factions to the study of letters, so that they may either contemplate the nature of the stars, or examine the forms of the Elements, and gaze upon the secrets hidden deep within the earth, or undertake the investigation of the number and figure of things, or if they cannot attain any of these clearly, they may enter into civil life, encourage the study of virtues, persuade the multitude of society to approve laws and the state, and entrust the care of domestic affairs; or those to whom a somewhat more divine spirit is given lead their minds from those coverings which lie hidden in matter toward a nature similar to their own, toward spirits and divine minds, and as much as can be done in this weakness of nature, if they do not comprehend God Himself, they at least apprehend Him, as is in Constantinus Sarnanus, Directorium Theologicum, page 78 (in my edition), from Augustine’s 83 Questions, and Francis of Mayronis in 1, d. 36. That science is indeed a divine thing is evident according to the opinion of the Academics, which is taught in the most subtle Duns [Scotus] in 1, d. 3, § "In this question there is one opinion such as this." They posit, according to Plato in the Timaeus, a double exemplar for the cognition of truth: namely, created and uncreated. And they call the created exemplar the universal species abstracted from the thing, but the uncreated exemplar the idea in the divine mind. And they say that the former fails, partly by reason of the object from which the exemplar is extracted, partly by reason of the subject in which it is, partly by reason of the exemplar in itself. But this one, in the contrary way, cannot fail: for from it is essentially whatever truth there is in things; for we measure the truth of a thing as it has its being, according to Aristotle in 2 Metaphysics. But a thing has as much of essence as it participates from the first cause, and it participates according to the Ideas, which are in the first cause. And for that reason, the truth of each thing is true: and since that is the foundation of science, [it has] as much cognition and science as it has from the first cause. And since the subject of the Idea itself—if it is permitted to call God so—is subject to no change whatever, which the exemplar itself follows since it is the same as it, it would follow entirely that if it were permitted for us to see the uncreated exemplar, the method of the sciences would be most certain, and we would suffer no falsity in it. And the Academics err in that they place the foundation of our science and truth in this...