Free Thoughts on God, the Universe, Man, Freemasons, Rosicrucians, and the Philosopher's Stone

...right? Have you even done anything good for God’s sake? And what evil have you avoided for God’s sake?

If the narrow space allotted to these pages permitted, I would wish to prove that it is a chimera In this context, a "chimera" (Schimäre) refers to a groundless fear or a fabricated illusion—specifically the belief that the public is too fragile to handle the truth. to fear telling the truth to the common man out of concern that he might misuse it. I would show that through this well-meaning but counterproductive policy Original: "Politik" — here referring to the social or ecclesiastical strategy of withholding information from the lower classes., nothing but secret hypocrites are bred—those who fear not God, but only other men, the loss of their honor, and earthly punishments. I would describe the bliss and the foretaste of paradise that would bloom for the state and the individual citizen if a healthy Enlightenment Original: "Aufklärung" — the 18th-century intellectual movement emphasizing reason and individual judgment over tradition and blind obedience. were once to reign universally upon the earth.

I want to venture a small experiment: whether the modest student of nature Naturweise A "Naturweise" is a natural philosopher or sage who seeks to understand the divine by studying the physical laws and beauty of the natural world., if his soul is inquisitive and thirsts for truth, might not be safely guided along the path to divine wisdom by the help of his reason.

„He reflects upon himself, he looks around, and finds that he stands in connection with a great physical world; he searches for the origin of things,

God’s will, chimera, truth, policy, hypocrite, Enlightenment, natural philosopher, reason, divine wisdom, physical world