because the sense is depressed by extremes, and delighted by means.  It is observed in so far as it forms the ground of efficacy and impression, which is proportional when the agent, in impressing, satisfies the need of the patient, and this is to preserve and nourish it, as appears chiefly in taste and touch.  And thus we see how, by pleasure, external delightful things enter through similitude into the soul, according to the threefold method of delectation.

After this apprehension and delight there comes discernment, by which we not only discern whether this thing be white or black (because this alone belongs to the outer sense), and whether this thing be wholesome or hurtful (because this belongs to the inner sense), but also discern why this delights and give a reason therefor.  And in this act we inquire into the reason of the delight which is derived by the sense from the object.  This happens when we inquire into the reason of the beautiful, the sweet, and the wholesome, and discover that it is a proportion of equality.  But a ratio of equality is the same in great things and in small.  It is not extended by dimensions; it does not enter into succession, or pass with passing things; it is not altered by motions.  It abstracts therefore from place, time, and motion; and for this reason it is immutable, uncircumscribable, interminable, and altogether spiritual.  Discernment, then, is an action which, by purifying and abstracting, makes the sensible species, sensibly received through the senses, enter into the intellective power.  And thus the whole of this world enters into the human soul by the gates of the five senses, according to the three aforesaid activities.

All these things are footprints, in which we may behold our God.  For, since an apprehended species is a similitude generated in a medium and then impressed upon the organ, and through that impression leads to the knowledge of its principle,—­that is, of its object,—­it manifestly implies that that eternal light generates from itself a similitude or splendor co-equal, consubstantial, and co-eternal; and that He who is the image and similitude of the invisible God, and the splendor of the glory, and the figure of the substance which is everywhere, generates by his first generation of himself his own similitude in the form of an object in the entire medium, unites himself by the grace of union to the individual of rational nature, as a species to a bodily organ, so that by this union he may lead us back to the Father as the fontal principle and object.  If therefore all cognizable things generate species of themselves, they clearly proclaim that in them, as in mirrors, may be seen the eternal generation of the Word, the Image, and the Son, eternally emanating from God the Father....