7. Imagine a luminous point which serves as centre, and imagine around
it a transparent sphere, so that the clearness of the luminous point
shines in the whole body that surrounds it without the exterior
receiving any light from elsewhere; you will surely have to acknowledge
that this interior light, by remaining impassible, penetrates the
whole surrounding mass, and that it embraces the whole sphere from
the central point in which it is seen to shine. The truth is that the
light did not emanate from the little body placed in the centre; for
this little body did not glow inasmuch as it was a body, but inasmuch
as it was a luminous body; that means, by virtue of an incorporeal
power. Now in thought annihilate the mass of the little luminous body,
and preserve its luminous power; could you still say that light is
somewhere? Will it not be equally in the interior, and in the whole
exterior sphere? You will no longer perceive where it was fixed before,
and you will no longer say whence it comes, nor where it is; in this
respect you will remain uncertain and astonished; you will see the
light shine simultaneously in the interior and in the exterior sphere.
An example of this is the solar light that shines in the air when
you look at the body of the sun, at the same time that you perceive
everywhere the same light without any division; that is demonstrated
by objects that intercept the light; they reflect it nowhere else
than in the direction from which it came; they do not shatter it into
fragments. But if the sun were an incorporeal power, you could not,
when it would radiate light, tell where the light began, nor from where
it was sent; there would be but a single light, the same everywhere,
having neither point of beginning, nor principle from which it proceeds.