I hear a shrill discord when the scientific facts in Haeckel’s presentation come up against the “piety” of the confessions of some of our contemporaries. But for me there rings out from confessions of faith, which give a discord with natural facts, naught of the spirit of the higher piety which I find in Jacob Boehme and Angelus Silesius. This higher piety stands far more in full harmony with the working of the natural. There lies no contradiction in the fact of saturating oneself with the knowledge of the most recent natural science, and at the same time treading the path which Jacob Boehme and Angelus Silesius have sought. He who enters on that path in the sense of those thinkers has no need to fear losing himself in a shallow materialism when he lets the secrets of Nature be laid before him by a “natural history of creation.” Whoever has grasped my thoughts in this sense will understand with me in like manner the last saying of the _Cherubinean Wanderer_, with which also this book shall close: “Friend, it is even enough. In case thou more wilt read, go forth, and thyself become the book, thyself the reading.” THE END TRANSCRIBERS’ NOTES All obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected, while original spellings and inconsistent hyphenation have been preserved to maintain the authenticity of the original text. In the text version of this book, underscores were used to indicate a word originally printed in _italics_. All words/phrases originally printed as small caps have been converted to capital letters. The following changes have been implemented to improve the clarity and flow of the text: Page 105: “uncreate” changed to “uncreated”: _but he must look forward upon the uncreated: his knowledge must be a beginning_ Page 155: “less” changed to “lesser”: _To a greater or lesser extent this illumination_ Page 173: “of” added: _I should in reality and in truth be trying to think of something not unlike_ Page 181: “to” added: _which leads back once more to the knowledge_ Page 254: “of” added: _Instead of thinking of the Root-Being of the world as Spirit_ The chapter headings have been synchronized with the Table of Contents for consistency. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.