 you ask me in quo genere causae Deus disposuit aeternas veritates [in what kind of cause God has disposed the eternal truths]. I reply to you that it is in eodem genere causae [in the same kind of cause] that he has created everything, that is ut efficients et totalis causa [as efficient and total cause]. (Descartes to Mersenne, May 27 1630, AT I: 151–2).