The lord Shaikh Muhammed Shosterí,[177] in his treatise _Hak al yakín_,[178] “the truth of conviction,” has stated, that the action of choice prevails with the self-existent Being over necessity, because choice is presupposed in the nature of might, and provident choice, as well as vicissitudes and excitement, are parts suitable to a purpose, and providence came to succour every one of the necessitous crowd, by procreating remedies against the evils without number which are determined by necessity, in opposition to that necessity whence pure procreation proceeds. When the free agent is straightened in his choice, then choice assumes the nature of necessity. Thus _Ibn Mâyín eddin Maibedí_[179] relates, in his _Favátah_, “Prolegomena,” that the Súfis say: The wished for, but never-found Being proceeds from the field of pure non-entity, and the bare negation puts no foot into the station of evidence and habitation of bodily existence, in the same manner as the wished-for but never-found Being never assumes the color of bodily existence; certainly, the real Being also does not take the color of non-entity. The substance of any thing cannot be caused to vanish into non-existence; thus, if thou consumest a stick in the fire, its substance is not annihilated although its form changes, and becomes manifest in the form of ashes. The self-existent Being is an essence which is stable in all conditions, and in the accidents of existence, in the forms and states which undergo changes, the divine procreation of the world is the manifested light of his absolute reality, under the shape of divers combinations which thou beholdest. “Certainly God made the heaven and earth to shine.” In the book of the sagacious is found that the beautiful of this world enjoys the advantage of his beauty, when he beholds and considers its reflexion in a looking-glass; on that account, the absolute Being, having been revealed in the mirror of existences and appropriate places, and having seen his beauty in various mirrors, and in every one of them being exhibited under a shape worthy of himself, become manifest in a series of multitudinous appearances.