Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 6.9.5

6.9.5

let these vessels go where they will, they always remain in the same ocean, in the same water ; and if they should break, the water they contain would then be united to the whole, to that ocean of which they were but parts. — Or they will tell you that it is with God as with the light, which is the same everywhere, but causes the objects on which it falls to assume a hundred different appearances, according to the various colours or forms of the glasses through which it passes. — They will never attempt to satisfy you, I say, but with such comparisons as these, which bear no proportion with God, and which serve only to blind an ignorant people. In vain will you look for any solid answer. If one should reply that these vessels might float in a water similar to their own, but not in the same ; and that the light all over the world is indeed similar, but not the same, and so on to other strong objections which may be made to their theory, they have recourse continually to the same similes, to fine words, or, in the case of the Soufys, to the beautiful poems of their Goulshen-raz.