"Both truth and goodness are in the nature of perfectives or, in other words, have perfection. Now, we may consider the order existing between certain perfectives under a twofold aspect: first of all, on the part of the perfections themselves, or, secondly, on the part of those things which are perfectible. If, then, we consider truth and goodness in themselves, truth is conceptually prior to goodness; seeing that the former is perfective of a thing after the manner of a species, while goodness is perfective, not only after the manner of a species, but also by virtue of its real being" (Ibid., a. 3). And, again, "There is a twofold perfection in all entities: the one belonging to the absolute subsistence of an entity in itself; the other arising out of its order of relation to other entities. . . . Cognition appertains to that perfection of the intelligent being, by which he is perfected in himself; but the will appertains to that perfection of an entity, arising out of its order of relation to other entities" (In. 3. d. XXVII, q. I, a. 4).
The elements of finite goodness are, according to St. Thomas, measure, species, and order: "Species, by reason of its specific nature; Measure, by reason of its existence; Order, by virtue of its perfective character" (De verit., q. XXI, a. 6). This very building in which I write is good, for it has been fashioned after an architectural plan which represented its species. The practical realization of this plan is the element of mode or measure; and the purposes, many and various, but not conflicting, which it subserves, are the order of this edifice. Good, then, is inconceivable except as an end to which something may tend, and so the manifold perfections of nature disclosing the beauty of their first cause have brought us also to that final cause on account of which they exist and operate. John Stuart Mill "recommends all who wish to establish the existence of God to stick to the argument from design." Let us therefore examine the fifth proof given by St. Thomas.
"We see things," he writes, "that are destitute of cognition, such as inanimate bodies, tending to an end. . . . And this is manifest from the fact that they always, or at least very often, act in the same way to compass the best result.
