Kabbala to its baroque representatives—Böhme, Gichtel, Pordage, Rosenroth, Arnold—to Swedenborg and to Franz von Baader. But because in reading all these and many others he fully appropriates them for himself, the muddy stream runs through him as if through a purifying agent and is distilled in crystal-clear, disinfected waters, answering the needs of his own philosophical spirit, which (in contrast to that of so many of his speculative compatriots) can live and breathe only in an atmosphere of unqualified