Reflections on God and Religion

REFLECTIONS.

[Whatever is] seen by man, has neither essence nor power,
Is vanity and a dream. They rest upon lies, then,
Who build upon a nothingness, the never-seen God.
This is refuted.

But surely this conclusion hangs loose, and without a lock Meaning the argument is logically unsound or "unfastened.",
And contradicts itself. Nature has with five senses
Endowed man too richly, through which the understanding within
Reaches light regarding all that happens from time to time;
Therefore, there is more than each can grasp through the eyes.
The eye brings news of shape, work, and colors.
The nose receives the stench, or smells healthy scents.
The tongue passes judgment on the taste, in food and drink.
Every limb feels. The ear perceives the sound.
What is never audible is perceived with no ears;
The tasteless with no tongue. The untouchable and unborn The "unborn" here likely refers to things that have not yet taken physical form.
One feels with no limb. No nose ever
Could smell the scentless, and the eye never perceived the invisible:
For each of the senses has its prescribed boundaries,
And focal point original: "grontpunt" – the specific object or domain a sense is designed to perceive., beyond which it rests, and cannot work.
He raves wildly then, who subjects invisibility to the light
Of the eyes, and to human sight;
And cannot find God outside the focal point of vision.
This one judges colors more ignorantly than the blind.
The air is invisible and yet a primary substance original: "hooft-stof" – a fundamental element., known by its works.

Even if the eye sees no air, yet the air is known
As the neighbor of the fiery element,
And by whose favor everything that lives here must draw breath,
Or die, should it happen to wander from its nature,
And draw in a poison, and vapor, which infects the blood,
Suffocates the spirits original: "geesten" – in 17th-century science, "animal spirits" were thought to be subtle fluids that moved through the nerves to animate the body., and prevents the heart, the source of life,
From sharing life with all the remaining members,
And heat, and flames, which play through vessel and nerve.
Deprive the lungs of air, and you extinguish the spirit in the body.
If a field cannon original: "veltkortou" – a heavy piece of artillery. with force drives a ball
Through the open air at a gate, or roof, or stone walls,
You hear two bodies The cannonball and the air itself, which Vondel treats as a physical body. scraping against each other most powerfully.