In the second place, the order and life of things has its source in God, as the _Monas ordinatrix_; the whole order of nature, both as it is simultaneously, as it has been, and as it shall be, lies "complicitly," grasped in one thought, and realised in one act, in his Mind. "What immutable substance wills, it wills immutably, _i.e._ it wills necessarily, not as determined by an alien will, which enforces the necessity, but of its own will; this necessity is far from being contrary to liberty; liberty itself, will, and necessity are one and the same" (in God).[596] Divine necessity differs from natural causation, the sequence of causes and effects, in that in nature the causes, will, and knowledge may be frustrated, the effect averted; but divine necessity is necessity in all respects--to will, to know, to act, are one. In the third place, God is above and beyond both natural things and their order in the universe as a whole. In the later works, it is no longer as a mystical being--inaccessible, because wholly abstract, empty of content, the sublimated unity of things--that God is posited. The Neoplatonism of the earlier works, although remaining in the language and even in much of the thoughts of the later, has been overcome in fact.[597] God is indeed transcendent, beyond the world, but He is so only as comprehending the world in Himself, its source, its truth--yet more than the source of things or of their order. In all other things we may distinguish between existence and essence (_i.e._ the fact of their being, their historical presence in the world, and their nature, through which they are what they are); in God alone these are one or indistinguishable.[598] God and things differ by a greater difference than substance and accident--_i.e._ things are not accidents, or "modes" of God. They differ from one another by their special _differentiae_, but resemble in other respects. God differs, not as marked off, limited by them, but as containing them all in essence, presence, power and eternity.[599] He is not apart from things, but in them; in _them_ not as comprehended or contained by them, but as comprehending and containing them, and as the essential basis of all things, the centre of the universal life and substance.[600] He is all things in all, because He gives existence to all; He is none of them, because above all, transcending each and all in essence, nobility and power.[601] He comprises all things, not as excluded and, as it were, looking upon them from apart and from above, for He is also comprised by all things. He is comprised also not as included, contained, repressed within alien limits, for He also comprises all things. He is therefore within all things, as He who gives essence to all things; and is the basis of all being, the heart and source of all life. He comprises all things, as excelling them, governing, moving, disposing, limiting--Himself unlimited.[602] Hence, also, as we saw, He is nameless; names are for