39. Since all things are always co-ordinated in the universe, and
since all trend to one single and identical aim, it is not surprising
that all (events) are indicated by (astrological) signs. "Virtue has
no master," as Plato said[158]; "she attaches herself to all who
honor her, and abandons those who neglect her; God is innocent."[159]
Nevertheless, her works are bound up with the universal order; for all
that is here below depends on a divine and superior principle, and
even the universe participates therein. Thus all that happens in the
universe is caused not only by the ("seminal) reasons," but by reasons
of a higher order, far superior to those (that is, the ideas). Indeed,
the seminal reasons contain the reasons of nothing produced outside of
seminal reasons, neither of what is derived from matter, nor from the
actions of begotten things exercised on each other. The Reason of the
universe resembles a legislator who should establish order in a city.
The latter, knowing the probable actions of the citizens, and what
motives they would probably obey, regulates his institutions thereupon,
intimately connects his laws with the conduct of the individuals
subject to them, establishes rewards and punishments for their deeds,
so that automatically all things conspire in mutual harmony by an
inerrant current. Each therefore is indicated by (astrological) signs,
without this indication being an essential purpose of nature; it is
only the result of their concatenation. As all these things form but a
single one, each of them is known by another, the cause by the effect,
the consequent by the antecedent, the compound by its elements.