CHAPTER VII.
Having commended this Lady generally, both according to the Soul and according to the Body, I proceed to praise her specially according to the Soul.
And first I praise her Soul for its goodness, that is great in itself; then I commend it for a goodness that is great in others, and useful to the World.

And that second part begins when I say, firstly, "On her fair frame Virtue Divine descends;" where it is to be known that the Divine Goodness descends into all things, and otherwise they could not exist; but, although this goodness springs from the First Cause, it is received diversely, according to the more or less of virtue in the recipients.

Wherefore it is written in the book Of Causes: "The First Goodness sends His good gifts forth upon things in one stream.

Verily each thing receives from this stream according to the manner of its virtue and its being." And we can have a sensible, living example of this in the Sun.

We see the light of the Sun, which is one thing, derived from one fountain, to be variously received by material substances; as Albertus Magnus says in his book On the Intellect, that certain bodies, through having mixed in themselves an excess of transparent brightness, so soon as the Sun sees them they become so bright that, by the multiplication of light within them, their aspect is hardly discernible, and from themselves they render back to others great splendour or brilliancy, such as is gold and any gem.