EPISTLE

me; so my own reasoning led me, being willing, to entrust this work to the patronage of Your Name, Prince, since you have deigned to embrace me and my affairs with your favor, and under whose rule and protection these writings had their origin. And although I know that you chiefly desire solid Truth and Piety, which are drawn from the Sacred oracles A common scholarly way of referring to the Bible., and it might not seem particularly appropriate to propose Philosophical Speculations at a time when, after the loss of the most illustrious family members who were so dear, military fury has devastated Your Duchy of Zweibrücken original: "Ducatum Tuum Bipontinum." Bipontum is the Latin name for Zweibrücken, a state within the Holy Roman Empire.; nevertheless, even Divine revelation itself calls us, even in the midst of calamities, to natural considerations—indeed, to the governance of the stork, the oxen, and other animals and elements—by which, being recalled to God, we may find Him merciful.

How much less, therefore, should a serious return to our own Mind (which the sacred pages also emphasize) be judged out of place? For in the Mind, the Divine Mind has not left itself without witness original: "ἀμάρτυρον" (amartyron). This is a direct reference to the Book of Acts 14:17, suggesting that God's presence is evident in the structure of human thought.; there, more solid and eternally lasting goods are shown, compared to which all other things so vanish that when we are deprived of them, they affect us less. There also the origin of true evils lies hidden, and can be so uncovered that it becomes clear that external calamities should not be counted among the primary ones; but rather those evils by which minds are confused and scattered by the tumult of objects and passions. This evil must be remedied without delay if...