Address delivered at Kiel, May 8, 1897--translated from the German by Mrs. D. S. Hehner and printed as Introduction to Watkin's edition of _The Three Principles_ (1910); Christopher Walton's _Notes and Materials for a Biography of William Law_ (London, 1854)--a volume of great value to the student of Boehme; Rudolph Steiner's _Mystics of the Renaissance_ (translated, London, 1911), pp. 223-245; A. J. Penny's _Studies in Jacob Boehme_ (London, 1912), uncritical and written from the theosophical point of view; Hegel's _History of philosophy_ (translated by Haldane and Simson, London, 1895), iii. pp. 188-216. [2] Aurora, John Sparrow's translation (London, 1656), ii. 79-80. [3] _Aurora_, iii. 1-3. [4] _Third Epistle_, 15. [5] _Aurora_, xiii. 27. [6] _Ibid._ viii. 19. [7] _Ibid._ ix 90. [8] _Ibid._ xiii. 2-4. [9] _Third Epistle_, 22. [10] Many thinkers of prominent rank have borne testimony to the greatness of Boehme's genius. I shall mention only a few of these estimates: "I would recommend you to procure the writings of Boehme and diligently read them. For though I have studied philosophy and theology from my youth . . . yet I must acknowledge that the above writings have been to me of more service for the understanding of the Bible than all my University learning."--"J. G. Gictell, 1698. "Jacob Boehme, as a religious and philosophical genius, has not often had his equal in the world's history."--"Jacob Boehme: His Life and Philosophy." An Address by Dr. Paul Deussen. "Jacob Boehme est le seul, au moins dont on ait eu les ecrits jusqu'a lui, auquel Dieu ait decouvert le fond de la nature, tant des choses spirituelles, que des corporelles."--Peter Poiret, in a note at the end of his _Theologie germanique_, 1700. "As a chosen servant of God, Jacob Boehme must be placed among those who have received the highest measures of light, wisdom, and knowledge from above. . . . All that lay in religion and nature as a mystery unsearchable was in its deepest ground opened to this instrument of God."--William Law, _Works_ (ed. 1893), vi. p. 205. "To Jacob Boehme belongs the merit of having taught more profoundly than any one else before or after him the truth that back of and behind all that has come to appear of good and evil there is an immaterial World which is the essence and reality of all that is."--Franz von Baader, _Werke_ (Leipzig, 1852), iii. p. 382. Novalis wrote in a letter to Ludwig Tieck in 1800: "Man sieht durchaus in ihm [Jakob Boehme] den gewaltigen Fruehling mit seinen quellenden, treibenden, bildenden, und mischenden Kraeften, die von innen heraus die Welt gebaeren. Ein echtes Chaos voll dunkler Begier und wunderbarem Leben--einen wahren auseinandergehenden Mikrokosmos."--Quoted from Edgar Ederheimer's _Jakob Boehme und die Romantiker_ (1904), p. 57.