TWO ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COSMOS

7. From these "modes of being" of the world around us which, in greater or lesser degrees of comprehension, are noted with equal evidence by both the philosopher and the human mind in general, there are two which modern science has, in a marvelous degree, fathomed, verified and deepened beyond all expectations: (1) the mutability of things, including their origin and their end; and (2) the teleological order which stands out in every corner of the cosmos.

8. The contribution thus made by science to the two philosophical arguments which hinge on these facts and which constitute the first and the fifth ways of St. Thomas, is most notable. To the first way, physics especially has provided an inexhaustible mine of experiments, revealing the fact of mutability in the deepest recesses of nature, where previously no human mind could ever even suspect its existence and vastness. Thus physics has provided a multiplicity of empirical facts which are of tremendous assistance to philosophical reasoning. We say "assistance," because the very direction of these same transformations, precisely in view of the certainty afforded by physics, seems to Us to surpass the value of a mere confirmation and acquires almost the structure and dignity of a physical argument which is in great part new, and more acceptable, persuasive and welcome to many minds.

9. With similar richness other sciences, especially the astronomical and the biological sciences, have in our own day contributed to the argument from order such a vast array of knowledge and, so to speak, so stupefying a vision of the conceptual unity animating the cosmos, and of the teleology directing its movements, as to anticipate for modern man the joy which the poet imagined in the empyrean heaven when he beheld in God

"Into one volume bound by love, the same that the universe holds scattered through its maze" (Alighieri Dante, Paradiso, Canto 33, 85-87).

10. Nevertheless, Providence has disposed that just as the notion of God, which is so essential to the life of each individual, can be gathered easily from a simple look at the world-in such a way that not to understand the voice of creation is foolishness (Wis., 13, 1-2)-so also this same idea of God finds confirmation in every new development and progress of scientific knowledge.

11. Wishing to give here only a rapid summary of the priceless services rendered by modern science to the demonstration of the existence of God, We shall limit Ourselves, first of all, to the fact of changes, pointing out principally their amplitude and vastness and, so to speak, their totality which modern physics meets in the inanimate cosmos. We shall then dwell on the significance of their direction, which is likewise verified by science. Thus, in Our treatment of these points, we shall, so to speak, be lending an ear to a miniature concert of the immense universe, which nevertheless has a voice strong enough to sing "the glory of Him who moveth all that is." (Dante, Paradiso, 1, 1).