CHAPTER IV
1. It is evident, then, that the ultimate end of man is eternal happiness with God. The subordinate ends, also, at which we aim in this transitory life, are evident from the words of the divine soliloquy which the Creator uttered when about to make man. “Let us make man,” He said, “in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Gen. i. 26).
2. From which it is plain that man is situated among visible creatures so as to be
(iii)(i) A rational creature.
(iii)(ii) The Lord of all creatures.
(iii) A creature which is the image and the joy of its Creator.
These three aspects are so joined together that they cannot be separated, for in them is laid the basis of the future and of the present life.
3. To be a rational creature is to name all things, and to speculate and reason about everything that the world contains, as we find it in Gen. ii. 19, or, in the words of
