When it is said, “In the realm that we observe, precision and flawless arrangement point to the agent’s knowledge; therefore the same must hold for what lies beyond our observation,” or it is said, “The cause for calling someone a ‘knower’ in the perceptible world is that knowledge inheres in him; the same, then, applies to the imperceptible,” or it is said, “Life is a prerequisite for knowledge in the visible realm; thus it is likewise in the invisible,” or it is said, “The definition of a knower, as observed, is ‘one in whom knowledge subsists’; consequently the same definition applies to the unseen”—these four common denominators that those who affirm the divine attributes employ when linking the unseen to the seen are: the definition, the proof, the efficient cause, and the condition. Mentioning the perceptible instance simply presents the heart with a concrete image; thereafter the intellect grasps the universal rule, namely, that precision and perfect order necessarily imply that the agent possesses knowledge, for a finely wrought act can issue only from a knower—and the same reasoning follows for the remaining attributes.

The matter resembles other ordinary universals that we come to know. When someone says, “This medicine purges yellow bile and ripens such-and-such a humor,” experiment has attested only to particular cases; it has not itself conveyed a general rule. Yet the intellect infers that the operative factor is the shared element—either because it notes the absence of every other factor and perceives the congruence, or even without perceiving that congruence. Sometimes this knowledge is certain, as when we know that eating bread satisfies hunger, drinking water quenches thirst, and scammony purges yellow bile, although the expected effect may fail when a necessary condition is lacking. We have already pointed out that in natural phenomena, which operate by habitual patterns, there is no universal that is absolutely exception-less. Accordingly, citing the “original” case in rational analogy serves to alert the mind to the overarching common element that necessitates the ruling, not because the mere establishment of the ruling in one instance suffices to establish it in another without a cause that necessitates it.

If it be asked, “How, then, is it known that the common element entails the ruling?” the answer is: through one’s awareness of the major premise in the universal syllogism. When someone states, “This agent has produced a perfectly wrought act, and every agent whose act is perfectly wrought is a knower,” whatever is adduced as the cause of that universal proposition is also present in the analogical inference by example—indeed, with the added advantage that an original case is cited in which the ruling actually appears together with the common element. By contrast, the universal syllogism mentions none of the individual instances in which the ruling holds. It is clear, then, that mentioning the universal common element together with