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Technometry: Theses 48-60 - Types - Metaphysics?

Ames defines type as things created and ruled by God or (secondarily) things created or conceived by humans in imitation of God. Type is "that in which all art shines and from which its principles, which produce human understanding, are gathered by man."

God creates a thing, and from it shines arts and principles which help us to understand the arts and the thing itself. Then we use the arts to imitatively create and these works of creation bring glory to God. To understand this further, I recommend the illustrations in this article by David Hill Scott:
http://www.leaderu.com/aip/docs/scott.html

Theses 50-54 deal with metaphysics. Ames attacks scholastic metaphysics and he makes a logical case that the field of metaphysics was overstepping its rightful bounds ("put its sickle into a harvest not its own").  He says that the arts themselves, and by implication his theory of technometry, ought to replace much of metaphysics' stolen ground. He also has a long discussion of "being" which I am going to skip because it is over my head.

Thesis 55: back to types.
This type, which we have said is things themselves or being itself, has taken form from all the arts' principles, which not only appear and shine forth around the type but also in it.
Ames illustrates how we get the liberal arts from God's creation (theses 56-60).
  1. The principles of discoursing (logic) are collected via reason and affection directly to our understanding from the reason, relation, and mutual affection of things themselves. What is the order of things? What principles govern how we answer that question?
  2. The principles of speaking and communicating (grammar and rhetoric) are comprehended from words that mediate between things and the reason, relation, and mutual affection of them. Which words are used to understand and help others understand things? What principles govern how we answer that question?
  3. The principles of measuring (mathematics) are seen in the quantity of the types that are made from matter. Of material things, how are they measured and what principles govern how we measure?
  4. The principles of the natures of things (physics) are seen in the types themselves because they differ in form. How do things differ in form from other things? What principles govern how we describe the natures of things?
  5. The principles of living (theology) are seen in the ends of the types. The end is that which all things look toward, which is universal goodness. Here Ames quotes Plato, saying that things shoot forward "with the greatest piety to the contemplation and worship of God." What is the ultimate purpose of created things? What principles determine how we find the answer to this question?

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