BOHME, or BoITIVI, JANon, a German thebsophist and mystic, was born of poor parents at Altseidenberg, near Giirlitz, in Upper Lusatia, 1575, and Spent his boyhood in tending cattle. He received no instruction till he was ten years of age; but even then. the contemplation of earth and sky had so excited his naturally pious imagination, that he conceived himself inspired. • Ile learned the trade of a shoemaker, but contin ued to devote much of his time to meditation on divine things. About 1612 was pub lished his first book, called Aurora, or the Morning Redness. It contains revelations and meditations upon God, man, and nature; betokens aaemarkable knowledge of Scripture, especially of the apocalyptical books; as also a familiarity with the writings of the mvs tico-philosophic alchemists. It was condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities of Got. litz ; but the persecutions to which its author was subjected, had not the effect of con vincing him of his errors. B.'s fundamental speculation is, that the forthcoming of the creation out of the divine unity—which is itself distinguishable into a trinity—can be contemplated by mystic illmnination, and expressed in words. The object of his mystic contemplation, accordingly, is twofold; first, God himself apart from creation, or, to use sonic of B.'s own synonyms, the groundless, the eternal one, the silent nothing, the tinuperamenturn; and, secondly. the forthcoming of the creature out of God. This forthcoming of the creation, which is also an in-going of the silent nothing, is, accord ing to B., the principle of negation, and he calls it "contrariety." "All things," lie says, "consist in yes and no. The yes is pure power and life, the truth of God, or God himself. The no is the reply to the yes, or to the truth, and is indispensable to the revelation of the truth. So, then, the silent nothing becomes something, by entering into duality;" and so on into what most minds will think utter unintelligibility. Numerous attacks from theologians disturbed B.'s last years, but he bore them all with great meek ness. They were probably occasioned by a tract on repentance which his friends had printed without his knowledge; and so great was the interest excited. that he was induced
by the solicitations of certain courtiers and of his friends, to visit Dresden for the pur pose of having his doctrines investigated. The court applauded and protected him. On returning to GOrlitz lie took ill. and died 27th Nov., 1624. The first collection of his writings was published by Betke (Amsterdam, 1675); the most complete in 1730, at the same place; and the latest (1831-46) by &Welder, at Leipsic. Next to Germany, Holland and England am the countries in which B.'s works have been received with most favor. In England, *here B. called Behmen, a translation in 2 vols.
quarto was published in 1764. Sir Isaac Newton studied him; William Law, of Oxford, might be called a disciple; in 1697, Jane Lead, a fanatical disciple of B., founded a sect called the Philadelphists, for the exposition of his writings; and John Pordage, a phy sician, is also famed among his English interpreters. Abraham von Frankenberg, who died in 1652, published the earliest biography of Bohm. In modern times, and in connection with speculative philosophy in Germany, his view e, which had come to be regarded as empty mysticism, have acquired fresh interest and importance. This arises from the kindred character of his fundamental principle with the spirit pervading the systems of Spinoza, Schelling, and Hegel. The intellectual contemplation of the absolute, out of which the contradictions in the world of phenomena proceed, and into which they return, is common to these systems and to B.; Hegel, indeed, expressly rep resents B. 's negativity, the active principle of development, as an obscure foreshadowing of his own intuitions, and on that account places him at the head of modern philosophy. The terminology of his philosophy, as will be seen from what we have quoted, is utterly fantastic; but his imagination often conceives splendid ideas, which are more profoundly appreciated in the 19th than they were in the 17th century. See Hamberger's (1844), Fechner's (1837), Peip's (1890), and Ilarless's (1870) works on B. and his philosophy.