again in this work, in a variety of ways. St. Bonaventura plays upon its

various shades of meaning - reflection, speculation, consideration - for he

seems haunted by the basic metaphor of the universe's being a sort of

mirror (speculum) in which God is to be seen. The Italian and French

translators have the advantage of those of us who write English, for they

have merely to transliterate the Latin word. We have a similar difficulty

in the Latin word "vestigia," which I have translated traces. It will

hardly do to write vestiges or footprints, and traces is not much better.

St. Bonaventura simply means that by considering the work of art one will

know the artist. This handiwork shows traces of his workmanship. But we are

likely to think of traces as something which are left behind, whereas God

is not to be thought of as having created the world and then left it alone,

as Pascal said of Descartes' God.