[Footnote 34: This does not mean that any human being is at liberty to choose to decline proffered grace. The human race _en masse_ is elected to grace, and at least all those to whom the faith is proposed have the proffer of grace, with a precept to accept it. Moreover, God has not provided any order except the supernatural for mankind in which the race can attain its proper perfection and felicity.] God alone is _actus purissimus_ without any admixture of potentiality. The finite is always inchoate and potential, because finite. Its very nature implies what is called metaphysical evil, or a limitation of the possession of good in act. Every finite nature except that of the incarnate Word is limited, not only in respect to the infinite, but also in respect to some other finite nature superior to itself. It's proper perfection consists in the possession of good, with that limitation {157} which the will of God has prefixed to it as its term. The perfection and order of the universe, as a whole, are constituted by the subordination and harmony of all its parts in reference to the predetermined end. The individual felicity of a rational creature and his due relation to the final cause of the universe, do not require his being elevated to the utmost summit of existence of which he is capable, unless God has predetermined him to that place. The mere inert capacity of receiving an augmentation or elevation of his intellectual and voluntary operation does not give him any tendency to exceed his actual limit, unless that inert capacity begins to be actualized, or unless the principle of a new development is implanted and vitalized. The inert capacity of being united to the divine nature by the hypostatic union, is actualised only in Christ. If, therefore, rational nature could not attain its proper end and completion without the utmost actualization of its passive capacity, Christ alone would attain his final end. We most certainly admit, however, that the blessed in heaven all attain their final end and a perfect beatitude, each one in his own degree. We are not to understand, therefore, that the relation of the creation to God as final cause consists solely and purely in the return of the creature to God in the most sublime manner possible, and that everything which exists is created solely as a means to that end. If this were so, the hypostatic union of the human to the divine nature in the person of Jesus Christ would be the sole terminus of the creative act, the only end proposed by God in creating. Nothing else could or would have been created, except as a means to that end. The rest of creation, however, cannot contribute to that end. The union of the human nature to the divine in Christ and its filiation to God, by which it is beatified, glorified, and deified, is completely fulfilled within itself; and the rest of creation adds nothing to it. If God had no other end in view, in the