The term “Philosophy” comes from _phileo_, to love, and _sophia_, wisdom, and its true meaning is the love of wisdom and the knowledge resulting therefrom; for love itself is knowledge; it is the recognition of self in another form; the love of wisdom is the recognition by wisdom in man of the same principle of wisdom that is manifested in Nature, and from this recognition springs the realisation of the knowledge of truth. True philosophy is therefore not that thing which at present goes by that name, which consists in wild speculations about the mysteries of Nature for the purpose of gratifying scientific curiosity; a system in which there is a great deal of self-love but very little love of the truth, and whose followers, by means of logic and argument, inferences, theories, postulates, hypotheses, inductions and deductions seek, so to say, to break through the back windows in the temple of truth, or to peep through the keyhole for the purpose of seeing the goddess unveiled. This speculative philosophy does not constitute real knowledge. It constitutes that artificial building of philosophy and so-called science, founded upon arguments and opinions, which change their aspect in every century, and of which Paracelsus said that “the things which are looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge are found to be an absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century forms the basis of science of the following one.” All information gained by means whose basis is not a love of truth does not constitute immortal knowledge or true theosophy; but serves only for temporal purposes and as ornaments for egotism, springing as it does from the love of the illusion of self and having illusions for its object. The whole of nature is a manifestation of truth; but it requires the eye of wisdom to see the truth and not merely its delusive appearance. The philosophy of which Paracelsus speaks consists in the power of recognizing the truth in all things independent of any books or authorities, all of which can only serve to show us the way to avoid errors and how to remove the obstacles in our path; but which cannot make us realise that which we do not realise in ourselves. He who is not labouring under a load of misconceptions and erroneous teachings, requires no other book than the book of nature to teach him the truth. There are few who can read the book of nature in the light of nature; because having had their minds filled with perverted images and false views, they have themselves become unnatural, and the light of nature cannot penetrate into their souls; living in the false light of the moonshine of speculation and sophistry, they have lost their receptivity for the light of the truth. Such philosophers live in illusions and dreams but do not know that which is real: