Of God and His Creatures

My mouth shall discuss truth, and my lips shall detest the ungodly (Prov. vii, 7).

ACCORDING to established popular usage, which the Philosopher considers should be our guide in the naming of things, they are called ‘wise’ who put things in their right order and control them well. Now, in all things that are to be controlled and put in order to an end, the measure of control and order must be taken from the end in view; and the proper end of everything is something good. Hence we see in the arts that art A governs and, as it were, lords it over art B, when the proper end of art B belongs to A. Thus the art of medicine lords it over the art of the apothecary, because health, the object of medicine, is the end of all drugs that the apothecary’s art compounds. These arts that lord it over others are called ‘master-building,’ or ‘masterful arts’; and the ‘master-builders’ who practise them arrogate to themselves the name of ‘wise men.’ But because these persons deal with the ends in view of certain particular things, without attaining to the general end of all things, they are called ‘wise in this or that particular thing,’ as it is said, ‘As a wise architect I have laid the foundation’ (1 Cor. iii, 10); while the name of ‘wise’ without qualification is reserved for him alone who deals with the last end of the universe, which is also the first beginning of the order of the universe. Hence, according to the Philosopher, it is proper to the wise man to consider the highest causes.