The impulse to Philosophy is an inevitable one, native to the human mind, and he shows that it is to the Divine Reason working in all things, to Providence, that we must attribute it. {278} "Everything, so far as its nature permits, came into being, and does so still, advancing to what is better than itself. So that it is not out of the way that Philosophy too should have been given in Divine Providence, as a preliminary training towards the perfection that comes by Christ.... 'Your hairs are numbered' and your simplest movements; can Philosophy be left out of the account? [An allegory follows from Samson's hair.] Providence, it says, from above, from what is of first importance, as from the head, reaches down to all men, as 'the myrrh,' it says, 'that descends upon Aaron's beard and to the fringe of his garment'--viz.: the Great High Priest, 'by whom all things came into being, and without him nothing came'--not, that is, on to the beauty of the body; Philosophy is outside the people [possibly Israel is meant] just as raiment is. The philosophers then, who are trained by the perceptive spirit for their own perception,--when they investigate not a part of Philosophy, but Philosophy absolutely, they testify in a truth-loving way and without pride to truth by their beautiful sayings even with those who think otherwise, and they advance to understanding (_synesin_), in accordance with the divine dispensation, that unspeakable goodness which universally brings the nature of all that exists onward toward the better so far as may be."[54] Thought (_phronesis_) takes many forms, and it is diffused through all the universe and all human affairs, and in each sphere it has a separate name--Thought, Knowledge, Wisdom or Faith. In the things of sense it is called Right Opinion; in matters of handicraft, Art; in the logical discussion of the things of the mind, it is Dialectic. "Those who say that Philosophy is not from God, come very near saying that God cannot know each several thing in particular and that He is not the cause of all good things, if each of them is a particular thing. Nothing that is could have been at all without God's will; and, if with His will, then Philosophy is from God, since He willed it to be what it is for the sake of those who would not otherwise abstain from evil." "He seeth all things and he heareth all[55] {279}