Wolfenbüttel, 1778

Most Gracious Duke,

I, too, was at the well of truth and have drawn from it. How deeply I have drawn, only he can judge from whom I await permission to draw more deeply. – The people have long craved refreshment and are dying of thirst. –

Your Grace's

most humble servant

Preface by a third party

If the following pages do not contain the true ontology of Freemasonry, I would very much like to know in which of the countless writings inspired by it a more precise definition of its essential nature is provided.

But if all Freemasons, whatever their stamp, will readily concede that the point of view indicated here is the only one from which healthy eyes can distinguish a true image (rather than a mere phantom as it appears to defective eyesight), the only question which remains to be answered is this: why has no one spoken out so clearly long ago?

This question could be answered in many different ways. But it would be difficult to find another question which resembled it more closely than this: why did the systematic textbooks of Christianity arise at so late a stage? why have there been so many good Christians who neither could nor would define their faith in an intelligible manner?

And this might still have come too soon for Christianity – for the faith has perhaps derived little benefit from it – even if Christians had not taken it into their heads to define their faith in a completely absurd manner.