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.... Since therefore all things are beautiful, and in a certain way delightful, and since beauty and delight are inseparable from proportion, and proportion is primarily in numbers, all things must of necessity be full of number. For this reason, number is the chief exemplar in the mind of the artificer, and in things the chief footprint leading to wisdom. Since this is most manifest to all and most close to God, it leads us most closely and by seven differences to God, and makes him known in all things, corporeal and sensible. And while we apprehend numerical things, we delight in numerical proportions, and judge irrefragably by the laws of these.... For every creature is by nature an effigy and similitude of that eternal Wisdom: but especially so is that creature which in the book of Scriptures was assumed by the spirit of prophecy for the prefiguration of spiritual things; more especially those creatures in whose effigy God was willing to appear for the angelic ministry; and most especially that creature which he was willing to set forth as a sign, and which plays the part not only of a sign, as that word is commonly used, but also of a sacrament. GEORGE BORROW (1803-1881) BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE [Illustration: GEORGE BORROW]