FIFTH PROOF
О my sceptical friend! Come, look carefully at the inscriptions of this vast palace, look at all the adornments of the town, see the ordering of this whole land, and reflect on all the works of art in this world! See! If these inscriptions are not worked by the pen of one hidden who possesses infinite miracles and skills, and are attributed to unconscious causes, to blind chance and deaf Nature, then every stone and every plant in this land has to be an inscnber so wondrous il can write a thousand books in every letter and include millions of works of art in a single inscription. Because look at the inscription on these stones;¹⁰ in each are the inscriptions of all the palace, and the laws ordering all the town, and the programmes for organizing the whole country. That means that to make these inscriptions is as wonderful as making the whole country. In which case, all the inscriptions, all the works of art, are proclamations of that hidden one, and seals of his.
Since a letter cannot exist without showing the one who wrote it, and an artistic inscription cannot exist without making known its inscribes how is it that an inscriber who writes a huge book in a single letter and inscribes a thousand inscriptions in a single inscription, should not be known through his writing and through his inscribing?
SIXTH PROOF
Come, let us go out onto this broad plain.¹¹ n it is a high mountain whose summit we shall climb so that we can see all the surrounding country. We shall take with us a good pair of binoculars which wilt bring everything close, for strange things are happening in this strange land. Every hour things are happening that we could not imagine. Look! These mountains, plains, and towns are suddenly changing. And how? In such a way that millions of changes are being brought about İn a most regulated and orderly fashion one within the other. The most wondrous transformations are being wrought as though millions of various cloths are being woven one within the other. Look! These flowery things which we know and are familiar with are disappearing and others have come in their place in orderly fashion which resemble them in nature but are different in form. It is quite simply as though this plain and the mountains are each a page, and within them are being written hundreds of thousands of different books. And they are being written faultlessly and without defect.
It is impossible a hundred times over that these matters should have come about on their own. Yes, for these works which are skilfully and carefully fashioned to an infinite degree to have occurred on their own is impossible a thousand times, for rather than themselves, they show the artist who fashioned them. Moreover, the one who did this displays such miracles that nothing at all could be difficult for him. It is as easy for him to write a thousand books as to write one book. Look all around you: he both puts everything in its proper place with perfect wisdom, and he munificently showers the favours on everyone of which they are worthy, and he draws back and opens general veils and doors so bountifully that everyone's desires are satisfied. And he sets up tables so generously that a feast of bounties is given to ail the people and animals of this land; each group and individual is given one particular and suitable for it, even. Is there therefore anything more impossible in the world than that among these matters which we see there is anything attributable to chance, or thai there should be anything purposeless or vain, or that many hands should be interfering in them, or that their таксі should noi be capable of everything, or ihat everything should not be subjugated to him'' And so, my friend, find a pretext in the face of these if you can!
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10. This alludes to man. the fruii of Ihe tree of creation, and to the fruit which bears iti tree's prgramme and index. For whatever the pen of power has written in the great book of the universe, it has written its summary in man's nature. And whatever the pen of Divine Determining has written in a tree the size of a mountain, it has also included it in its fruit the size of a finger nail.
11. This indicates the face of the earth in the spring and summer. For the groups of hundreds of thousands of different creatures ate created one within the other and written there. They are changed without fault or error and with perfect order. Thousands of tables of the Most Merciful One are laid oul, then removed and replaced by fresh ones. All the nets as [hough bear trays, all the gardens are like cauldrons.