Word of God, through whom alone ¹ man can attain to the knowledge of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our ² being.

Turning now to nature, the handiwork of the Creator, we shall try to show from it that, in one sense, the idea of plurality does not necessarily conflict with that of unity. But before dealing with this subject at all we must beg our readers to remember that we fully admit (1) that no perfect analogy can be drawn between God Most High and any of His creatures and, (2) that we are not now endeavouring to prove by these illustrations the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. We fully grant that this doctrine cannot be proved in any way but one, and that is by reference to the revealed word of God Himself. Man did not discover this truth, nor could he discover it. We have already proved that the doctrine is clearly taught in the holy Scriptures, and we conceive that this proof is sufficient for all who accept those Scriptures as containing a revelation from God Most High. Our present object is merely to show that the doctrine is not inconsistent with what we learn from a careful study of God's works in the world around us, and of man's own inner nature. Should any one of our illustrations in this section fail to commend itself to our readers, or should they all seem devoid of weight, then the result will evidently be

merely that our attempt to remove difficulties from his path has been unsuccessful. But such failure on our part cannot in any way alter the fact that the holy Scriptures teach the doctrine of the Trinity, for we are not now dealing with the holy Scriptures. Nor are we attempting to show that nature unequivocally teaches this divine mystery, and that it may be learned without a divine revelation. Should any opponent, therefore, assert that nature does not clearly teach this mystery, we fully agree with him. Our whole object in this section, as we have said before, is only to illustrate from nature the facts taught us by revelation in the holy Scriptures.

Philosophers have held that all things that exist may be considered to possess severally three relations (نِسْبَةُ) or categories, those of Essence, Form and Effect (الذّات واْلصّورة واْلقُوّة‬).¹ Somewhat similarly it may be said that, in our thoughts of anything that is visible or cognizable to the senses, we consider it under the three categories of Quantity, Quality and Relation.² Therefore our knowledge of that object is made up of knowledge of these three matters. Or, if we leave abstract thought and come to the examination of such a common object as fire, we find that it may be said to consist