Signatura Rerum: or the Signature of all Things.

shewing the sign, and signification of the severall forms and shapes in the creation: and what the beginning, ruin, and cure of every thing is; it proceeds out of eternity into time, and again out of time into eternity, and comprizeth all mysteries. Written in High Dutch, MDCXXII. by Jacob Behmen, alias Teutonicus Phylosophus.
London: Printed by John Macock for Giles Calvert.. 1651.

"the first German philosopher"

First edition. Small 4to. 178x130mm. pp. [8], 224. Collates A4-Ff4. Contemporary calf, double fillet borders in blind. Rebacked to style with red morocco label lettered in gilt. Corners bumped and worn and edges rubbed. Internally, there is some browning and foxing especially to the edges. Title page has the ownership inscription "Wm. Dyer. Feb 1774" and a previous owner has inscribed "Translated by J. Ellistone" at the foot of the title page. Some marginal handwritten annotations. Overall a very good copy of a rare and important book.
Jacob Böhme (1575-1624, the name is anglicised to Behmen) was a shoemaker and glover. But this does little justice to his intellectual significance. He is regarded as the founder of Christian theosophy, reflecting his coupling of orthodox Lutheranism and visionary mysticism. In 1600, an encounter with a beam of sunlight reflected in a pewter dish revealed to him the spiritual structure of the world, the relationship between God and man and between good and evil. Ten years later, another vision revealed the unity of the cosmos. His first book, Morgenröte im Aufgang ("Dawn of the Day in the East"), appeared in 1612 but was attacked as heretical. Chastened, Böhme descended into self-imposed silence only starting to write again in 1618. Between 1620 and his death in 1624, Böhme published twenty-five works including De Signatura Rerum. Böhme's doctrine of signatures is a belief that God marks all objects with a signature indicating their purpose. In Böhme's words, "to that Signature, his inward form is noted in the form of his face; and thus also is a beast, an herb, and the trees; every thing as it is inwardly [in its innate virtue and quality] so it is outwardly signed". Put more simply, a plant that has characteristics resembling the body parts of a human being will be useful for healing that body part. In essence, it is a belief in the interconnectedness of all things which formed the core of his earlier mystical experiences.
It is a beautiful idea and it, and Böhme's writings more generally, have had a huge influence on western thought. Hegel described him as "the first German philosopher" and he was a key figure in the early workings out of German Romanticism. In turn, the English Romantics, especially Coleridge and Blake, drew heavily on his ideas. And poets and novelists from Milton and Yeats to Joyce and Cormac McCarthy have all been inspired by Böhme. But it is probably in the more counter-cultural mystical, esoteric movements that Böhme's influence is most obvious. Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Millenarianism, Martinism, Gurdjeff's the Fourth Way and Radical Pietism have all borrowed from Jacob Böhme's extraordinarily fertile spiritual mind.

Ref. 5342
ESTC: R19165