The Composition and Decomposition of All Things

Between 1904 and 1906 the American Bahá'í Laura Clifford Barney made several extended visits to 'Abdu'l-Bahá in 'Akká, where He was still a prisoner of the Ottoman government, and put questions to Him on a wide range of subjects. "Many of the conversations took place at the lunch table." One of His sons-in-law or one of His secretaries took down His replies in Persian, and 'Abdu'l-Bahá twice corrected a selection of these notes in His own hand. The collection was published in 1908 in Persian, English and French. In English it is *Some Answered Questions*.

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The book opens with a chapter titled "Nature Is Governed by One Universal Law," which begins with a definition:

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> Nature is that condition, that reality, which in appearance > consists in life and death, or, in other words, in the > composition and decomposition of all things.

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The chapter goes on to say that nature is subject to an absolute organization and to determined laws. From "the smallest invisible atom up to such large bodies of the world of existence as the globe of the sun or the other great stars and luminous spheres," all are "in the highest degree of organization and are under one law from which they will never depart."

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Yet nature itself, He points out, has no intelligence and no will. Fire burns, water flows, the sun shines and vapor ascends, each "without will or intelligence." The only voluntary movements are those of animals and, above all, of man. Man is able to resist nature, "because he discovers the constitution of things, and through this he commands the forces of Nature." His example is the telegraph, "which is the means of communication between the East and the West."

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From this He draws the chapter's conclusion. Since nature has neither perception nor intelligence, its order shows that it "is in the grasp of Almighty God, Who is the Ruler of the world of Nature; whatever He wishes, He causes Nature to manifest." He adds a further argument:

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> Considered from this point of view man is the branch; nature is > the root. Then can the will and the intelligence, and the > perfections which exist in the branch, be absent in the root?

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The next chapters of the book take up the proofs of the existence of God and the need of an Educator.

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*A retelling based on **Some Answered Questions** (chapter 1, "Nature Is Governed by One Universal Law"). For the fuller account, see the original.*

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