darkened; and just in the same way, if a man's intellect aim at fully beholding the holy nature of the True Spiritual Sun, nought but darkness will be the result. For sun, moon and stars in all their brightness are but drops from the ocean of that Sun's glory, they are but motes in the atmosphere of His greatness. So it was that a sage of olden times, when asked, 'What is God?', confessed that, the more he pondered that question, the less could he answer it. Every wise man of our own times, if he depends for a knowledge of God's nature only upon his own intellect, will say the same.

We conclude, therefore, that, if God Most High reveals nothing regarding His own Most Holy Nature in His word, then man can say nothing certain about it; and, although in His word He has given us certain teaching about Himself, yet man has no power to add anything to what has thus been divinely revealed. Nay more, the truth is that, however much all sages together have ever said or will ever say about God's Most Holy Nature, basing their teaching on their own intellects, the statements of the word of God and the teaching of Christ Himself are infinitely more reliable than it all. What man cannot discover for himself, however, he yet can accept and believe when God has taught it to him; and if man in his pride of intellect and foolish self-confidence rejects what God has revealed, then he condemns himself and is in

God's sight responsible for his wilful ignorance and blindness.

It has been supposed, and it seems quite possible, that in God's word such subjects may be sometimes mentioned and such subtle distinctions in God's holy nature revealed, that man's feeble and finite intellect may be unable to grasp them in their entirety; for man is entirely unable fully to comprehend that eternally existent nature and that absolute wisdom. Besides this, man is so circumstanced that in this lower world he acquires all knowledge by outward observation and inward induction, that is to say, all his sciences are based upon seeing things and reflecting upon them. So it is also with the science of theology. For example, from the power and wisdom manifested in creation, and from the intelligence, love, justice, mercy, and other good attributes which are found in some measure in man himself, we may trace our way back towards our Creator, and, by ascribing to Him these good attributes in absolute perfection, we can thus, and only thus, conceive to ourselves in some slight degree what is meant by speaking of these good attributes as existing in God. But men of intelligence are well aware that in the unseen world, and therefore in God's Most Holy Nature also, there must needs be innumerable subtle distinctions and particular points (نكته) of which man is quite unaware, and which have nothing similar or analogous in the visible creation. If,