[144] To this
they all lead up. In one of those curious chapters of the _Convito_,[145]
where he points out the analogy between the sciences and the heavens,
Dante tells us that he compares moral philosophy with the crystalline
heaven or _Primum Mobile_, because it communicates life and gives motion
to all the others below it. But what gives motion to the crystalline
heaven (moral philosophy) itself? "The most fervent appetite which it has
in each of its parts to be conjoined with each part of that most divine
quiet heaven" (Theology).[146] Theology, the divine science, corresponds
with the Empyrean, "because of its peace, the which, through the most
excellent certainty of its subject, which is God, suffers no strife of
opinions or sophistic arguments."[147] No one of the heavens is at rest
but this, and in none of the inferior sciences can we find repose, though
he likens physics to the heaven of the fixed stars, in whose name is a
suggestion of the certitude to be arrived at in things demonstrable.
Dante had this comparison in mind, it may be inferred, when he said,
"Well I perceive that never sated is
Our intellect unless the Truth illume it
Beyond which nothing true[148] expands itself.
It rests therein as wild beast in his lair;
When it attains it, and it can attain it;
If not, then each desire would frustrate be.
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