416. After this the two angels seeing me nearby said this about me to the bystanders, 'We know that this man has written about God and nature; let us hear what he has to say.' So they came to me and asked me to read to them what I had written about God and nature. What I read was as follows.* 'Those who believe that God's workings are to be seen in the details of nature can find very many facts about nature to convince themselves that they are of Divine origin, as many, or rather more than those who convince themselves that their origin is nature. For those who convince themselves of Divine origin pay attention to the remarkable facts to be observed in the production of both vegetable and animal species. In the production of vegetables, a seed cast into the ground produces a root, the root produces a stalk, and in due sequence leaf-buds, leaves, flowers, fruits and so on until finally new seeds. It is exactly as if the seed knew the order in which these succeed and develop, so as to renew itself. Can any rational person believe that the sun, which is undiluted fire, can know this? Or that it can transmit such effects through its heat and light, or could achieve such wonderful forms in them, and plan their purpose? Anyone with his rational faculty raised cannot help, on seeing and reflecting on these facts, thinking that they arise from Him whose wisdom is infinite, that is, from God. Those who acknowledge the existence of the Divine also see this and think like this. But those who do not, do not see this or think like this, because they do not want to do so. Thus they depress their rational faculty to the level of the senses; and this makes them gather all their ideas from the dim light provided by the bodily senses, and makes them strengthen their belief in their fallacies, saying, "Surely you can see that the sun produces these results by its heat and light. What is something you cannot see? Surely it is nothing."
[2] Those who convince themselves of the Divine origin pay attention to the remarkable facts to be observed in the reproduction of animals. Here for instance I may mention only what happens in eggs. The chick is concealed in the egg in its seed or rudiment together with everything it needs up to the time of hatching. It also has what it needs after hatching, until it becomes a bird or flying creature resembling its progenitor. If anyone pays attention to its formation, he can hardly help, if he thinks deeply, coming into a state of amazement. For instance, the smallest creatures as the largest, even those that are invisible as well as those that are visible, insects, that is, as well as birds or large animals have sense organs for sight, [hearing],** smell, taste and touch, as well as organs of motion, muscles to enable them to fly or walk, and viscera surrounding heart and lungs, controlled by a brain. It is well known that even lowly insects enjoy such organs, as has been shown by descriptions of their anatomy, especially those published by Swammerdam*** in his nature books.
[3] Those who ascribe everything to nature can indeed observe such facts, but they think of them merely as facts and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have set their minds against thinking about the Divine; and those who do this, on seeing the wonders of nature, cannot think rationally, much less spiritually, about them. Their thinking is based on sense-impressions and material ideas, so that they think from nature within nature, and not above that level; as do those who are in hell. Their only difference from animals is their rationality; that is to say, they can understand and think differently if they wish.
[4] Those who have set their minds against thinking about the Divine, and thus become subservient to their senses, never stop, when they see the wonders of nature, to consider that the sight of the eye is so coarse that it sees a number of tiny insects as one dark mass. Yet each one of them is provided with organs to enable it to feel and to move, and is therefore equipped with fibres and vessels, small hearts, lung-tubes, viscera and brains; and that these are constructed of the purest substances in nature, and that these constructions correspond to some sort of life by which the smallest parts of them are individually impelled. Since the sight of the eye is so coarse as to see a number of such objects, together with the countless parts in each, as a small dark mass, and yet those who rely on the senses base their thought and judgment on this, it is obvious how undiscriminating their minds are, and so how unilluminated they are in spiritual matters. * The following passage down to 422 is repeated with some changes from DLW 351-357. ** This word is omitted in the original, but is clearly needed here. *** The writings of the Dutch naturalist J. Swammerdam were published by H. Boerhaave in 1737-38 under the title Biblia Naturae or Nature Books.
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