philosophy

Adib Taherzadeh's account, in *The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh*, of the *Lawḥ-i-Ḥikmat* — the *Tablet of Wisdom* — addressed by Bahá'u'lláh to Nabíl-i-Akbar in Egypt, in which He surveys the lineage of Greek and Persian philosophy and the proper relation between divine Revelation and human inquiry.

In the opening chapter of *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá takes up Laura Clifford Barney's question about nature itself — and gives, in one sentence, a sweeping definition: nature is the appearance of composition and decomposition, the meeting and parting of life and death, governed by a single universal law.

In *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá takes up the question of miracles with characteristic clarity: extraordinary events may have occurred and may yet occur, but they are not the proofs by which a Manifestation of God is finally known. *Miracles are proofs for the eyewitness only*.

In *Some Answered Questions*, 'Abdu'l-Bahá presses the case that humanity, left to itself, does not by some natural process improve. It *requires* an educator of universal scope — and the Manifestations of God are precisely the educators sent for that purpose.