By wisdom here we mean all that which
belongs to judgement and thought. That these three are a one in the
effect, is evident. That they also make a one in ideas before the
effect, is perceived from the consideration, that determination only
intervenes; for in the mind an end goes forth from the will and produces
for itself a cause in the understanding, and presents to itself an
intention; and intention is as an act before determination; hence it is,
that by a wise man, and also by the Lord, intention is accepted as an
act. What rational person cannot see, or, when he hears, acknowledge,
that those three principles flow from some first cause, and that that
cause is, that from the Lord, the Creator and Conservator of the
universe, there continually proceed love, wisdom, and use, and these
three are one? Tell, if you can, in what other source they originate.
401. A similar progression from end through cause into effect belongs
also to the sphere of procreating and of protecting the things
procreated. The end in this case is the will or love of procreating; the
middle cause, by which the end is effected and into which it infuses
itself, is conjugial love; the progressive series of efficient causes is
the loving, conception, gestation of the embryo or offspring to be
procreated; and the effect is the offspring itself procreated.
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