211. Since all things civil, moral and spiritual, progress through degrees just as natural things do, not only through continuous, but also through discrete degrees, and since the progressions of discrete degrees are like progressions of ends to causes, and of causes to effects, I have purposed to illustrate and confirm the present subject-matter which is that the ultimate degree is the complex, containant and base of prior degrees, by the things above mentioned, namely, by those things pertaining to love and wisdom, to will and understanding, to affection and thought, and to charity and faith.