The Author’s Address

To the Reader.

I view this life as the progression of a royal being; the soul leaves its court only to inspect the land. Heaven contains within itself a theater of the Earth; had these depictions satisfied the soul, she would have traveled no further than what maps indicate. But excellent patterns point to their prototypes: Nature, shining so lovely in her original model, could certainly not appear ugly after her artistic refinement was complete. This moves the soul to hasten here and examine the imprint according to the die The author uses a metaphor of coin-making: the "die" or "stamp" is the divine idea, and physical nature is the "imprint" or "coin."; yet, as she progresses in her own symmetry, she prepares that very same thing.

God, who loves His own beauty, prepares a glass original: "Glaß"; likely meaning a mirror to see it through a reflection; but the fragility of matter original: "Materia", and its separation from eternity, caused the [assembly/union]—