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Of the Center of the Eternal Nature. CHAP. 3.

ion of the powers. Here, each power perceives and feels itself within itself. It is also the origin of taste and smell. When the perception of these powers in their distinct forms has mutual intercourse and enters into each other, they then feel, taste, smell, hear, and see one another. Herein arises the source of life, which could not exist in the absolute stillness of the power of God. Therefore, the Divine Understanding brings itself into spiritual properties so that it might be manifest to itself and become a working life.

14. Now we must consider the anguish original: "Anguish"; Böhme uses this to describe the internal tension or laboring of spiritual forces in its own generation and peculiar property. Just as there is a mind (meaning an understanding) in the liberty within the Word of the power of God, so also the first will toward desire brings itself into a mind within the desire of darkness. This mind is the anguish source (namely, a sulfurous source), and yet here only the spirit is to be understood.

d Contracts.

15. The anguish-source is to be understood in this way: the astringent desire original: "Astringent Desire"; the contracting, tightening force conceives itself and d contracts into itself. It makes itself full, hard, and rough. Now, the attraction is an enemy of the hardness: the hardness is retentive, while the attraction is fugitive. One wants to go into itself, and the other wants to go out of itself. Since they cannot sever or part from one another, they remain within each other like a rolling wheel; one wants to ascend, and the other to descend.

e That flying.

f Or to be understood.

16. For the hardness causes substance and weight, and the compunction original: "Compunction"; the stinging or pricking movement of the spirit gives spirit and the e active life. These both mutually circulate within themselves and out of themselves, yet they cannot go anywhere separately. Whatever the desire (meaning the magnet) makes hard, the attraction breaks into pieces again. It is the greatest unrest within itself, like a raging madness, and it is in itself a horrible anguish. Yet no true feeling is f understood original: "perceived" until the fire [the igniting of the fire in nature, which is the fourth form, wherein the manifestation of each life appears]. I leave it to the consideration of the true, understanding searcher of nature to realize what this is or means. Let him search and reflect; he shall find it in his own natural and inherited knowledge.

b.

g Or poison-life.

17. The anguish makes the sulfurous spirit, and the compunction makes the Mercury (that is, the master-worker of nature). He is the life of nature. The astringent desire makes the keen salt-spirit. And yet all three are only one, though they divide themselves into three forms called Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal original: "Sal"; Latin for salt. These three properties impress the free Lubet into themselves, so that it also provides a material essentiality. This is the oil of these three forms (meaning their life and joy), which softens, meeks, and allays their wrathfulness. No rational man can deny this: there is a salt, sulfur, and oil in all things. Mercurius (that is, the g vital venom original: "vitall venome"; Böhme often uses venom or poison to describe the sharp, driving force of life) makes the essence in all things. Thus, the Abyss original: "Abysse"; the bottomless void brings itself into the Byss original: "Bysse"; a foundation or ground and into nature.

☉ Sol original: "Sol"; Latin for Sun

18. The fourth form of nature is the igniting of the fire, where