them;
and so, when we try to penetrate the essence of Mysticism by
investigating its historical manifestations, we must always consider
what was the system which in each case it was trying to purify and
spiritualise. Weigel's Mysticism moves in the atmosphere of Lutheran
dogmatics. But it also marks a stage in the general development of
Christian Mysticism, by giving a positive value to scientific and
natural knowledge as part of the self-evolution of the human soul.
"Study nature," he says, "physics, alchemy, magic, etc.; for _it is
all in you, and you become what you have learnt_." It is true that his
religious attitude is rigidly quietistic; but this position is so
inconsistent with the activity which he enjoins on the "reason," that
he may claim the credit of having exhibited the contradiction between
the positive and negative methods in a clear light; and to prove a
contradiction is always the first step towards solving it.

A more notable effort in the same direction was that of Jacob Boehme,
who, though he had studied Weigel, brought to his task a philosophical
genius which was all his own.

Boehme was born in 1575 near Goerlitz, where he afterwards settled as a
shoemaker and glover. He began to write in 1612, and in spite of
clerical opposition, which silenced him for five years, he produced a
number of treatises between that date and his death in 1624.

Boehme professed to write only what he had "seen" by Divine
illumination. His visions are not (with insignificant exceptions)
authenticated by any marvellous signs; he simply asserts that he has
been allowed to see into the heart of things, and that the very Being
of God has been laid open to his spiritual sight.[348] His was that
type of mind to which every thought becomes an image, and a logical
process is like an animated photograph. "I am myself my own book," he
says; and in writing, he tries to transcribe on paper the images which
float before his mind's eye. If he fails, it is because he cannot find
words to describe what he is seeing. Boehme was an unlearned man; but
when he is content to describe his visions in homely German, he is
lucid enough. Unfortunately, the scholars who soon gathered round him
supplied him with philosophical terms, which he forthwith either
personified--for instance the word "Idea" called forth the image of a
beautiful maiden--or used in a sense of his own. The study of
Paracelsus obscured his style still more, filling his trea