or forms.  The first three of these bring nature out of the dark element to the point where contact with the light is possible.  Boehme calls them harshness, attraction, and anguish, which in modern terms are contraction, expansion, and rotation.  The first two are in deadly antagonism, and being forced into collision, form an endless whirl of movement.  These two forces with their resultant effect are to be found all through manifested nature, within man and without, and are called by different names:  good, evil and life, God, the devil and the world, homogeneity, heterogeneity, strain, or the three laws of motion, centripetal and centrifugal force, resulting in rotation.  They are the outcome of the “nature” or “no” will, and are the basis of all manifestation.  They are the “power” of God, apart from the “love,” hence their conflict is terrible.  When spirit and nature approach and meet, from the shock a new form is liberated, lightning or fire, which is the fourth moment or essence.  With the lightning ends the development of the negative triad, and the evolution of the three higher forms then begins; Boehme calls them light or love, sound and substance; they are of the spirit, and in them contraction, expansion, and rotation are repeated in a new sense.  The first three forms give the stuff or strength of being, the last three manifest the quality of being good or bad, and evolution can proceed in either direction.

The practical and ethical result of this living unity of nature is the side which most attracted Law, and it is one which is as simple to state as it is difficult to apply.  Boehme’s philosophy is one which can only be apprehended by living it.  Will, or desire, is the radical force in man as it is in nature and in the Godhead, and until that is turned towards the light, any purely historical or intellectual knowledge of these things is as useless as if hydrogen were to expect to become water by study of the qualities of oxygen, whereas what is needed is the actual union of the elements.

The two most important of Law’s mystical treatises are An Appeal to all that Doubt, 1740, and The Way to Divine Knowledge, 1752.  The first of these should be read by any one desirous of knowing Law’s later thought, for it is a clear and fine exposition of his attitude with regard more especially to the nature of man, the unity of all nature, and the quality of fire or desire.  The later book is really an account of the main principles of Boehme, with a warning as to the right way to apply them, and it was written as an introduction to the new edition of Boehme’s works which Law contemplated publishing.

The following is the aspect of Boehme’s teaching which Law most consistently emphasises.