Excerpt from Milton and Jacob Boehme Through a study of the part played by Gottfried Arnold's Kirchen und Ketzerhistorie in Goethe's intellectual life my inter est in mysticism and the whole neoplatonic movement was aroused. I found that in the mysticism of Goethe I was considering only one slight manifestation of a tremendous world power that reaches far into all the spiritual realms Open to the mind and heart of man. The conclusion seemed forced upon me however that the grave importance of the relation of the neoplatonic movement to literature has been systematically overlooked in our literary histories, both English and German. Particularly has it seames strange that a mystic with such ardent admirers and so pronounced a following as Jacob Bohme had had from the time of the first appearance of his writings down to the new edition that is even now being published in Chicago, that such a man should have had practically no accredited influence on the literary life that mirrored the great spiritual movements rising, apparently, about the time of Bohme's activity. The suggestion of a relationship between Milton and Bohme was made by Dr. Julius Goebel. To his unfailing inspiration and guid ance I owe what results this paper may have to show. The more deep ly I have worked into the subject, the more clearly have I felt the importance of Bme's influence in England for the whole literary history of neoplatonism, and the more firmly am I convinced that so far as I have been able to treat only the most purely superficial aspects of the subject. It seems not too bold a statement to make. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.