Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/48

 9. In fashioning the world, therefore, God produces an image of Himself, so that every creature stands in a definite relation to its creator.

10. As all things share in the “ideas” of the Divine mind, they are also mutually connected and stand in a definite relation to one another.

11. It follows that the rational conceptions of things are identical, and only differ in the form of their manifestation, existing in God as an Archetype, in nature as an Ectype, and in art as an Antitype.

12. Therefore the basis of producing as of apprehending all things is harmony.

13. The first requisite of harmony is that there should be nothing dissonant.

14. The second is that there should be nothing that is not consonant.

15. The third is that the infinite variety of sounds and concords should spring from a few fundamental ones, and should come into being by definite and regular processes of differentiation.

16. Therefore, if we know the fundamental conceptions and the modes of their differentiation, we shall know all things.

17. Such rational conceptions can be abstracted from phenomena by means of a certain method of induction, and must be posited as the norms of phenomenal existence.

18. These norms of truth must be abstracted from those objects whose nature is such that they cannot be otherwise, and which are at every one’s disposal for the purpose of making experiments, that is to say, from natural phenomena.

These aphorisms constitute the philosophic basis of Pansophia. The work constructed with reference to them is to be “an accurate anatomy of the universe, dissecting the veins and limbs of all things in such a way that there shall be nothing that not seen, and that each part shall appear in its proper place and without confusion.” Great care is to be taken that terms, especially general terms,