implied in nearly everything he wrote. Seven "qualities" or
"principles" or "sources" appear and reappear in ever shifting forms
throughout the entire literature of Gnosticism, alchemy, and
nature-mysticism.

[26] _Aurora_, viii. 32-35.

[27] Some of Boehme's enthusiastic friends insist that Sir Isaac
Newton, who was an admirer of Boehme, "ploughed with Boehme's heifer,"
_i.e._ got his suggestion of the law of universal gravitation from the
philosopher of Goerlitz. See Walton, _Notes_, p. 46 and _passim_.

[28] _Sig. re._ iv. _passim_.

[29] _Sig. re._ xiii.

[30] For fuller treatment of this point see Boutroux, _Historical
Studies in Philosophy_, chapter on "Jacob Boehme, the German
Philosopher," pp. 199-201.

[31] _Third Epistle_, 33.

[32] _Twenty-fourth Epistle_, 7; _Sig. re._ i.

[33] _The Threefold Life_, vi. 47.

[34] _The Three Princ._ xiv. 89; _First Epistle_, 42.

[35] _The Three Princ._ x. 26; xvi. 50.

[36] _Ibid._ x. 13.

[37] _Aurora_, xviii. 49.

[38] _Myst. mag._ xxii. 41.

[39] _Ibid._ xviii. 31-43, given in substance.

[40] _Ibid._ xxvi. 19. The place of Christ in Boehme's system will be
given in the next chapter.

[41] _Myst. mag._ xxvi. 5.

[42] _Incarnation_, part ii. ix. 12-14.

[43] _Aurora_, x. 100-103.

[44] _Ibid._ xix. 56-59.

[45] _The Supersensual Life_, 36.

[46] _The Three Princ._ ix. 25-27 and xix. 33.

[47] _Myst. mag._ viii. 28.

[48] _The Supersensual Life_, 38. Every reader will naturally be
reminded of Milton's great lines:

"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

There were no doubt many _sources_ in Milton's time for such a
conception, but the poet surely would read the translations of Boehme
which were coming from the press all through the period of his literary
activity.

[49] _The Threefold Life_, xi. 106.

[50] _Election_, i. 10-17.

[51] _Aurora_, ii. 63.

[52] _Theosoph. Quest._ iii. 2-4.

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CHAPTER XI

JACOB BOEHME'S "WAY OF SALVATION"

"I will write a Process or Way which I myself have gone."[1] Most
writers who have treated of Boehme have mainly dealt with his
_Weltanschauung_--his theosophical view of the Abyss and the worlds of
time and eternity,--or they have devoted themselves to descriptions of
his type of mysticism.[2] His important permanent contribution to
Christianity is, however, to be found in his interpretation of the way,
or, as he calls