Magic, or the Secret System

XII

Preface.

Since our unknown authors Refers to the "Unknown Philosophers" (Philosophes Inconnus), a title used by the followers of the French mystic Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. know the value of common knowledge and what can be achieved through it so well—to the extent that even the most famous discoveries of modern times are not foreign to them—then their dissatisfaction with common scientific methods must surely be based on something more than pure ignorance. They must see by a light in which everything counts for what it is worth, but which itself reaches further,

...spoken in earnest, they have done so. One should therefore not have attacked the good Mr. Cl. Abbreviation for Matthias Claudius (1740–1815), the prominent German poet and journalist who published the German translation of Saint-Martin's work in 1782. in such a strutting and scornful manner, as if he must have translated his original entirely incorrectly simply because of the aforementioned circumstance. He certainly has not! Rather, I doubt whether many could be found who, taken as a whole, could have translated it as well as he did. Furthermore, Mr. Cl. possesses such good feeling and striking power of judgment that he does not easily fall into the temptation of mistaking an Abaddon A biblical name for the "Destroyer" or an angel of the abyss; the author is arguing that Claudius is too perceptive to be deceived by evil disguised as good. for an angel of light, as soon as he occupies himself with the same by profession original: ex professo. In short, the whole rumor of Jesuitry is a miserable trifle and nothing more original: praetereaque nihil. —