unity, according as we consider it as the beginning or as
the end of things. The one creates : the other creates not,
the c rest for which nature strives and which consists
in the restoration of things to their original unity . Be
tween these terms lie the two forms of created things.
They have the same division as the other two. The
second creates : the third creates not. The one is the
world of ideas, the pattern upon which the other, the
sensible universe, is made. It contains the abstractions :
goodness the first of things, essence, life, wisdom,
truth, intellect, reason, virtue, justice, health, greatness,
omnipotence, eternity, peace, and all the virtues and
reasons which the Father created once for all in his Son,
and according to which the order of all things is framed,
each considered by itself and apart from sensible objects.
These are the primordial causes of things, the e effects of
which are manifested in time and place in the third form
of nature. But it is impossible to keep the effects apart
from the causes; f they are involved in them, and with
them eternal, though not eternal as God; for & eternity,
like every other attribute, can only be predicated of him
in an improper sense, he is more than eternal. h Place
and time exist not with him : he has nothing accidental,
cause and effect with him are one. Therefore the i universe,
as his creation, is eternal : non erat quando non erant.
In such fashion this clear-sighted idealist represented the
accepted belief, according to which creation is bringing into
being in the sense of bringing into the sensible world : his
opinion was perhaps an inevitable deduction from the
premises of formal Platonism, and something very like it
was k maintained by so correct a theologian as saint
Anselm. To John Scotus thought is the only real being,
and, philosophically speaking, l body has no existence except
as dependent on thought.[1] But he chooses to express
- ↑ It has often been remarked that John has in plain terms the argument of Descartes : When I say I understand that I am, I prove that I am, that I can understand that I am, and that I do understand that I am; Dum ergo dico, Intdligo me esse, nonne in hoc
