Translations:Yirmi Dördüncü Söz/271/en

Thus, on the First Way, ‘Flower’, ‘Droplet’, and ‘Atom’ can each say: “I am a mirror to the Sun of all the world.” But on the Second Way they cannot say that; they can rather say: “I am the mirror to my own Sun, or the mirror to the Sun which is manifested in my species.” For that is the manner in which they know the Sun. They cannot see a Sun which looks to the whole world; the Sun of that individual or species or genus appears to it within narrow confines and under limiting restrictions. And it cannot ascribe to that restricted Sun the works of the unrestricted, unconfined, absolute Sun. For within those narrow restrictions and limited confines it cannot attribute to the Sun with the certain witnessing of the heart its majestic works like furnishing the whole face of the earth with light and heat, stirring all plants and animals into life, and making the planets revolve around it. Indeed, even if those three things, which we suppose to have consciousness, ascribe those wondrous works to the Sun which they see under those restrictions, they can only do so with the mind and through belief, and through submitting to the fact that that restricted thing is absolute. Whereas these judgements of ‘Flower’, ‘Droplet’, and ‘Atom’, which we suppose to possess reason like a human being, that is, their ascribing those mighty works to the Sun, is through the mind and reason, it is not through illumination. Indeed, sometimes their judgements concerning belief clash with their illuminations about the cosmos. They can only believe them with great difficulty.