Chapter 33: On the harmony of things
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. On the harmony of things.
Thus far concerning fate: next comes harmony, which is the great influx of divine love, granting things a mode by which their order sounds together toward a good and delightful end. Because no order exists for its own sake but for an end, and the end is the best among things, therefore the respect of order to the end is for us harmony — the sounding-together of many things toward one delightful good. We have taken the word from music, where on one instrument many strings, varied, thick and thin, stretched in various ways, with art going before and cooperating, when struck by the musician produce a sweet melody for the delight of the soul.
Therefore harmony seems the object of love, and indeed of love as active influx, just as fate is of active wisdom; and as love is the offspring of wisdom, so harmony is the offspring of order. The harmony of the whole world may be hunted out from its parts. We see every agent act for an end, and when the end is gained the action ceases, and the agent rests in the good of the end — as a stone tends downward because it is preserved among like body and, once among its like, rests as if the cause of motion were confessed; but fire goes upward and, joined to heaven, is carried round with heaven as if it had attained the end that consists in the conservation of the thing.
Latin
CAPUT TRICESIMUM TERTIUM, De harmonia rerum. HActenus de fato: sequitur harmonia, quae est magnus divini amoris influxus, praebens rebus modum, quo earum ordo consonat in bonum ac delectabilem finem. Quoniam nullus ordo propter se est, sed propter finem, finis autem optimum rerum: idcirco ordinis respectus ad finem nobis est harmonia, quae est multorum consonantia ad unum delectabile bonum, et e musicis hoc vocabulum sumpsimus, ubi in uno instrumento plures chordae, variae, crassae et graciles, variis tensae modis, arte praeeunte et cooperante, a musico pulsatae, suavem efficiunt melodiam ad animae delectationem. Quapropter harmonia videtur obiectum amoris, et quidem amoris activi influxus, sicuti fatum activae sapientiae, et sicuti amor est proles sapientiae, ita harmonia ordinis. Totius mundi harmoniam licet venari ex partibus. Videmus quidem omne agens agere propter finem et acquisito fine cessare actionem, et in bono finis agentem quiescere, sicut lapis tendit deorsum, quia apud consimile corpus servatur et cum est in suo consimili quiescit, quasi confessa causa motus; ignis vero sursum it et caelo adiunctus simul cum caelo circumfertur, quasi adeptus finem, qui in rei conservatione consistit.