:iiiiisMiii
so 1S 1^1
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE
SAGE
ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF
H^nrg M. Sage A^ak^yo-i
I
;
Mnd\L 5931
OEC 1
7 1959
G %
36^
JAN1C1949HZ
^
it
Cornell University Library
I
BV5075 .S82 1911
Mystics of the renaissance and their
3 olin
1924 029 351 321
'
rel
The tlie
original of
tliis
book
is in
Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright
restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.
http ://arch ive .0 rg/detai Is/cu31 924029351 32
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE AND
THEIR RELATION TO MODERN
THOUGHT
INCLUDING
MEISTER ECKHART, TAULER. PARACELSUS, JACOB BOEHME, GIORDANO BRUNO,
AND OTHERS BY
RUDOLF STEINER Ph.D. (Vienna)
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, M.A. (Cantab.)
G.
P.
PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON Zbe
Iftnfcfterbocftct
1911
©rcsg
7
^ \y
/
Copyright, 1911 BY
MAX
GYSI
MAX GYSI, Editor, " Adyar," Park Drive, London, N. W.
Ube
Itntcltetboclier gStesB,
Wew
IBotli
CONTENTS PAGE
Foreword Introduction
.....
v i
....
52
Friendship with God [Tauler, Suso AND RuYSBROECK]
81
Meister Eckhart
.
.
Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa
.
.
.
-133
Agrippa von Nettesheim and TheoPHRASTUS Paracelsus .182 .
.
Valentine Weigel and Jacob Boehme
223
Giordano Bruno and Angelus Silesius
246
Afterword
269
......
FOREWORD The the
matter which public
in
am
I
laying before
book formed
this
content of lectures which
I
the
delivered
during last winter at the Theosophical Library in Berlin.
I
had been requested
by Grafin and Graf Brockdorff to speak upon Mysticism before an audience for
whom stitute
the matters thus dealt with con-
a
vital question of the
importance.
Ten
utmost
years earlier I could
not have ventured to
fulfil
such a re-
Not that the realm of ideas, to which I now give expression, did not quest.
even then
live actively
within me.
For
these ideas are already fully contained in
my
1894.
Philosophy
Emil
of
Felber).
Freedom
But
(Berlin,
to give ex-
FOREWORD
vi
pression to this world of ideas in such
wise as basis of
I
do to-day, and to make
an exposition as
following
pages
—to
the
done on the
is
do
it
requires
this
something quite other than merely to
be immovably convinced of the lectual truth of these ideas.
It
an intimate acquaintance with of ideas, such as only
can give.
many
intel-
demands
this
realm
years of
life
Only now, after having en-
joyed that intimacy, do
I
venture to
speak in such wise as will be found in this book.
Any one who world of is
does not approach
my
ideas without preconceptions
sure to discover therein contradiction
after
contradiction.
cently (Berlin, 1900.
I
have quite
S.
Cronbach) dedi-
re-
cated a book upon the world conceptions of the nineteenth century to that great
naturalist, Ernst Haeckel,
and closed
it
FOREWORD
vii
with a defence of his thought- world. In the following expositions,
speak
I
about the Mystics, from Master Eckhart to Angelus Silesius, with a fuU measure of
devotion and acquiescence. tradictions,"
may
which one
further count
not mention at
me
Other "con-
critic or
another
up against me,
all.
It does
I shall
not surprise
condemned from one side as a "Mystic" and from the other as a to be
"MateriaHst." Jesuit Father
When
I
find
MuUer has
cult chemical problem,
and
that the
solved a I
diffi-
therefore in
him unreservedly, one can hardly condemn this
me
particular matter agree with
as an adherent of Jesuitism without
being reckoned a fool by those
who have
insight.
Whoever goes his own road, as I do, must needs allow many a misunderstanding about himself to pass.
That,
FOREWORD
viii
For such
enough.
are, in the
up with
put
however, he can
easily
misunderstandings
main, inevitable in his eyes,
when he recalls the mental type of those who misjudge him. I look back, not without humorous feelings, upon many a "critical" judgment that fered in the course of
At the I
my
outset, matters
I
have
siif-
literary career.
went
fairly well.
wrote about Goethe and his philosophy.
What
I
said there appeared to
many to
of such a nature that they could in their
mental pigeon-holes.
did by saying:
"A work
be
file it
This they
such as Rudolf
Steiner's Introduction to Goethe s Writings
upon Natural Science may, without tation,
hesi-
be described as the best that has
been written upon this question."
When,
later,
bit
published
an inde-
had already grown a more stupid. For now a well
pendent work,
good
I I
FOREWORD meaning
critic offered
ix
the advice " Before :
he goes on reforming further and gives Freedom to the world,
his Philosophy of
he should be pressingly advised
first
to
work himself through to an understanding of these
two philosophers [Hume and
The critic unfortunately knows only so much as he is himself able to read in Kant and Hume; practically, thereKant]."
fore,
me
to learn to see
in these thinkers
than he him-
he simply advises
no more
When I have
self sees.
be
will
my
satisfied
attained that, he
Then when
with me.
Philosophy and Freedom appeared, I
was found
to be as
much
in
need of cor-
most ignorant beginner. received from a gentleman who
rection as the
This
I
probably nothing
else
impelled to the
writing of books except that he had not
understood
He gravely
innumerable informs
foreign
me that I
ones.
should have
FOREWORD
X
noticed
my
mistakes
if
I
had "made
more thorough studies in psychology, logic, and the theory of knowledge"; and he enumerates forthwith the books ought to read to become as wise as
I
himself:
"Mill, Sigwart,
Paulsen, B.
Erdmann."
Wundt, Riehl, What amused
me especially was this advice from a man who was so "impressed" with the way he "understood" Kant that he could not even imagine how any man could have read Kant and yet judge otherwise
than himself.
indicates to
me
He
therefore
the exact chapters in
question in Kant's writings from which I
may be able to
of
Kant
his
own.
I
as deep
and as thorough as
have cited here a couple
criticisms of in
obtain an understanding
my
themselves
world of ideas. unimportant,
of typical
Though yet
they
FOREWORD me
seem to
to point, as
xi
symptoms, to
which present themselves to-day
facts
as serious obstacles in the path of any
one aiming at literary activity in regard to the higher
Thus
I
problems of knowledge.
my
must go on
whether one
man
gives
way,
me
indifferent,
the good ad-
vice to read Kant, or another hunts
me
as a heretic because I agree with Haeckel.
And
so I have also written
upon Mysti-
how a faithmaterialist may judge
cism, wholly indifferent as to
and believing
ful
of
me.
ters'
I
may
ink
out need
would only
—so that prin-
not be wasted wholly with-
—to inform any one me
perchance advise Riddle of the last
like
who may,
to read Haeckel's
Universe, that during the
few months
I
have delivered about
upon the said work. hope to have shown in this book
thirty lectures I
that one
may be
a faithful adherent of
FOREWORD
xii
the scientific conception of the world
and yet be able to
rightly
further
along
Soul
the
to seek out those paths
understood,
which
Mysticism,
leads.
I
even go
and say: Only he who knows the
Spirit, in
the sense of true Mysticism, can
attain a full understanding of the facts of Nature.
But one must not confuse
true Mysticism with the "pseudo-mys-
How Mysshown in my
ticism" of ill-ordered minds. ticism
can
Philosophy
err,
of
I
have
Freedom
(page
131
seq.).
Rudolf Steiner. Berlin, September, 1901.
et
MYSTICS OF
THE RENAISSANCE
Mystics of the Renaissance INTRODUCTION There
are
magical
certain
formulae
which operate throughout the centuries of
Man's mental
ways.
In
history
Greece
one
in ever
such
new-
formula
was regarded as an oracle of Apollo. runs:
"Know
Thyself."
It
Such sentences
seem to conceal within them an unending
life.
One comes upon them when
fol-
lowing the most diverse roads in mental life.
The further one advances, the more
one penetrates into the knowledge of things, the deeper appears the significance
of these formulae. of otu" brooding
In
many
a
moment
and thinking, they
flash
2
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
out like lightning, illuminating our whole In such moments there
inner being.
quickens within us a feeling as
if
we
heard the heart-beat of the evolution of
How
mankind.
close
do we not
feel
ourselves to personalities of the past,
when the
feeling
comes over
us,
through
one of their winged words, that they are
had had
revealing to us that they, too,
such moments!
We
then brought into
feel ourselves
intimate touch with these personalities.
For instance, we learn to know Hegel intimately when, of
Lectures
his
History
"Such tions
on
we come one
stuff,
that
the third volume
in
the
Philosophy
across
may
the
of
words:
say, the abstrac-
we contemplate when we
allow the philosophers to quarrel and battle in our study,
be thus or so
and make
it
out to
—mere verbal abstractions!
INTRODUCTION
3
No! No! These are deeds of the worldspirit and therefore of destiny. Therein the Philosophers are nearer to the Master
than are those who feed themselves with the crumbs of the spirit; they read or write the Cabinet Orders in the original at once; they are constrained to write
them out along with Him.
The
Philoso-
phers are the Mystee who, at the in the
part."
When
Hegel said
experienced one of those
spoken in
crisis
inmost shrine, were there and took
of.
this,
he had
moments
just
He uttered the phrases when,
the covirse of his remarks, he had
reached the close of Greek philosophy;
and through them he showed that once, like
a gleam of lightning, the meaning
of the Neoplatonic philosophy, of
which
he was just treating, had flashed upon him.
In the instant of this
become intimate with minds
flash,
he had
like Plotinus
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
4
and Proklus; and we become intimate with him when
We
we
read his words.
become intimate,
too,
with that
solitary thinker, the Pastor of Zschopau,
M.
when we read
Valentin Weigel,
opening words of his
the
book Know
little
"We read in the the useful saying, Know
Thyself, written in 1578:
wise
men
of old
Thyself,' which,
used
'
though
it
be right well
about worldly manners, as thus:
'regard well thyself, in thine
what thou
own bosom, judge
lay no blame on
others,'
art,
seek
thyself
and
a saying,
repeat, which, though thus used of life
I
human
and manners, may well and appro-
by us to the natural and supernatural knowing of the whole man; so indeed, that man shall not only consider himself and thereby remember priately be applied
how he
should bear himself before people,
but that he shall also know his
own
INTRODUCTION
5
nature, inner and outer, in spirit and in Nattire;
he
is
So,
whence he cometh and whereof
made, to what end he
is
ordained."
from points of view peculiar to him-
self,
Valentin Weigel attained to insight
which
in his
this oracle of
A
mind summed
itself
up
in
ApoUo.
similar path to insight
lation to the saying
be ascribed to a
and a
like re-
"Know Thyself" may
series of
thinkers, beginning with
deep-natured
Master Eckhart
(1250-1327), and ending with Angelus Silesius (1624-1677),
among whom may
be found also Valentin Weigel himself. All these thinkers have in
common a
strong sense of the fact that in man's
knowing
of himself
there rises
a
sun
which illuminates something very different from the mere accidental, separated personality of the beholder.
What
Spi-
noza became conscious of in the ethereal
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
6
heights of piire thought,
human
soul possesses
viz.,
that "the
an adequate know-
ledge of the Eternal and Infinite Being of God,"in
them
—that same consciousness lived and
as immediate feeling;
self-
knowledge was to them the path leading to this Eternal
was
clear to
and
Infinite Being.
them that self-knowledge
man
true form enriched
its
sense,
It
in
with a new
which unlocked for him a world
standing in relation to the world accessible
to
him without
this
new
sense as
does the world of one possessing physical sight to that of a blind It
would be
man. a better
difficult to find
description of the import of this
than the one given by
J.
new sense
G. Fichte in his
Berlin Lectiures (1813):
"Imagine a world to are
whom
all
objects
of
men bom
and
blind,
their relations
known only through the
sense
of
INTRODUCTION
7
Go amongst them and
touch.
them
of
and other
colours
speak to relations,
which are rendered visible only through Either you are talking to them
light.
of nothing,
—and
if
they say
the luckier, for thus
your mistake, and, their eyes, cease or,
for
if
you
this,
will
it
is
soon see
you cannot open
your useless talking,
some reason or
other, they will
upon giving some meaning or other to what you say; then they can only interpret it in relation to what they They will seek to know by touch. insist
feel,
they
light
and
dents
of
will
imagine
colour,
they
do
and the other
visibility,
they
will
feel
inci-
invent
something for themselves, deceive themselves with of touch,
Then they
something within the world
which they wiU will
and misinterpret
call
colour.
misunderstand, distort, it."
8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
The same thing applies to what the thinkers we are speaking of sought after. They beheld a new sense opening in selfknowledge,
and
this sense yielded, ac-
cording to their experiences, views of things for
which are
simply
non-existent
one who does not see in self-knowledge
what
distinguishes
One
of knowing.
it
in
from
all
other kinds
whom this new sense
has not been opened, believes that
knowing, or
self -perception,
the same
is
thing as perception through senses,
or
through
acting from without ing
is
Only
.
any
in the
the outer
means
other
He thinks
knowing, perceiving
is
self-
:
' '
Know-
perceiving."
one case the object
is
some-
thing lying in the world outside, in the
other this object
is
his
own
soul.
He
finds words merely, or at best, abstract
thoughts, in that which for those
more deeply
is
who
see
the very foundation of
INTRODUCTION their inner sition:
namely, in the propo-
life;
that
9
in
every
kind
other
of
knowing or perception we have the object perceived outside of ourselves, while in self-knowledge or
self-perception
we
we
see
stand within that object; that
every other object coming to us already
complete and finished selves we, as actors
ing that which
This
may
off,
whUe
in our-
and creators, are weav-
we observe within
us.
appear to be nothing but a
merely verbal explanation, perhaps even a triviality;
it
may
appear, on the other
hand, as a higher light which illuminates every other cognition.
appears in the
is
way,
it
in the po-
is
man, to
words, but for him the glitter
He might tinite of
whom
to
whom one says: a glittering object. He hears the
sition of a blind
there
first
One
is
in himself the
not there.
whole simi
knowledge of his time; but
if
he
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
10
does not
and
feel
realise the significance
of self-knowledge, then
it
is
in the
all,
higher sense, a blind knowledge.
The world,
outside of and independent
of us, exists for us
by communicating
What
to our consciousness.
itself
made known must needs be
thus
is
expressed in
the language peculiar to otirselves.
A
book, the contents of which were offered in a language
unknown
to us, wovdd for
us be without meaning.
Similarly, the
world would be meaningless for us did it
not speak to us in oux
the
own tongue and ;
same language which reaches us
from things, we also hear from within ourselves.
selves
who
point
is
But
in that case, it is
speak.
that
The
we should
really
we
otor-
important
correctly appre-
hend the transposition which occurs when
we
close our perception against external
things and listen only to that wnich then
INTRODUCTION But
speaks from within.
new awakened, we
needs this
ii
sense.
If it
to
this
has not been
believe that in
thus told us about ourselves
do
we
what
is
are hear-
ing only about something external to us
we fancy
that somewhere there
something which
is
is
hidden
speaking to us in the
same way as external things speak.
But
we possess this new sense, then we know that these perceptions differ essenif
from those relating to external
tially
Then we
things.
realise that this
what
sense does not leave
outside of object its
it
itself,
sees;
but that
If I see
remains outside of self,
then
ception.
more
I
perceives
it
as the eye leaves the
object wholly into
remainder.
it
can take up
itself,
leaving no
a thing, that thing
me
;
if
I
perceive
my-
my
per-
myself enter into
Whoever
of himself
new
seeks for something
than what
is
perceived,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
13
him the
real con-
tent in the perception has not
come to
shows thereby that
for
Johannes Tauler (1300-1361), has
light.
expressed this truth in the apt words:
"If I were a king and
should
I
be no king.
if
then for myself
for myself I
sess
If I
I
do not
do shine
myself also in
own most deeply
my J.
not, then
self-percep-
But
exist.
out, then I pos-
my perception,
original being.
remains no residue of myself of
it
do not shine
my own
forth for myself in tion,
knew
left
my
in
There outside
perception."
G. Fichte, in the following words,
vigorously points to the difference be-
tween self-perception and every other kind of perception:
men
"The majority
of
could be more easily brought to be-
lieve themselves
moon than an
a liimp of lava in the 'ego.'
Whoever
is
not
at one with himself as to this, under-
INTRODUCTION
13
stands no thorough-going philosophy and
Nature, whose ma-
has need of none. chine he
is,
will guide
him
in all the
things he has to do without any sort of
added help from him. For philosophising, self-reliance is needed,
and
only give to oneself.
We
want
this
one can
ought not to
to see without the eye; but also
ought not to maintain that
it is
we
the eye
which sees."
Thus the perception
of oneself is also
the awakening of oneself.
In our cog-
we combine the being of things with our own being. The communications, which things make to us in our own language, become members of onr own selves. An object in front of me nition
is
not separated from me, once
known from
own
it
it.
What
I
am
I
able to receive
becomes part and parcel
being.
If,
now,
I
have
awaken
of
my
my own
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
14
self, if I
become aware
my own
inner being, then
mode
to a higher
from without
own
me
at
whatever
I
awakening have made
falls
springs
up within me and
my
upon upon
from the
world.
of
me
also
my own
outside
the
of
light that falls
things
and with
which
of being, that
The
my
awaken
I also
have made part
I
being.
of the content of
A
light
iilumines me,
that I have cognised of
all
Whatever I might know would
the world.
remain blind knowledge, did not this light fall
upon
I
it.
might search the
world through and through with perception;
my
the world would not be
still
me
must become, unless that perception were awakened in me to
that which in
it
a higher mode of being.
That which this
awakening
an enrichment
add to things through
I is
not a
of
new
idea, is
the content
of
not
my
INTRODUCTION knowing;
it is
an uplifting
15
of the
know-
ledge, of the cognition, to a higher level,
where everything glory.
sviffused
is
So long as
do not
I
with a new
raise
my con-
sciousness to this level, aU knowledge con-
tinues to be for me, in the higher sense, valueless.
my
The
things are there without
They have
presence.
in themselves.
What
my
could there be in being, which they
meaning
possible
linking with their
spiritual existence in
which repeats the things over
again within
me?
If
only a mere repeti-
tion of things were involved, senseless to carry
mere repetition I
is
it
out.
it
would be
But, really, a
only involved so long as
have not awakened, along with
self,
being
have outside and apart
from me, another addition,
their
my own
the mental content of these things
upon a higher level. When this occurs, then I have not merely repeated within
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
i6
myself the being of things, but
brought
to a
new
birth on a higher
With the awakening
level.
there
it
is
have
I
my
of
self,
accomplished a spiritual re-birth
of the things of the world.
What
the things reveal in this re-birth
did not previously belong to them. There, without, stands the tree. to
my
consciousness.
I
take
throw
I
it
up
my
in-
inner
upon that which I have thus conceived. The tree becomes in me more than it is outside. That in it which finds
light
entrance through the gate of the senses
An
taken up into a conscious content. ideal replica of the tree is within
tell
me.
what the
me, and
more to say about the
that has infinitely tree than
is
can
tree itself, outside,
Then, for the
first
time there
shines out from within me, towards the tree,
what the
tree
is.
The
tree
no longer the isolated being that
is
now
it is
out
INTRODUCTION there in space.
17
becomes a link
It
in
the entire conscious world that lives in
me.
with other ideas
It links its content
that are in me.
It
becomes a member of
the whole world of ideas that embraces
kingdom;
vegetable
the
takes
it
its
place, further, in the series of all that lives.
Another example:
throw a stone
I
in a horizontal direction It
moves
time
in
a curved
line
away from me. and
to the ground.
falls
after
some
I see it
in
moments of time in different Through observation and re-
successive places.
flection I acquire the following: its
motion the stone If it
influences.
is
During
subject to different
were subject only to
the influence of the impulse which I im-
parted to
it,
it
would go on
ever in a straight its velocity.
line,
flying for
without altering
But now the earth
exerts an
1
8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
influence
upon
towards
itself.
ing the stone, I
would have
and
its
It attracts the stone
it.
instead
If,
had simply
fallen
throw-
of
let it go, it
vertically to
earth;
velocity in doing so
would have
From
the mutual
constantly increased. interaction of these
two influences
arises
that which I actually see.
Let us assiome that
I
could not in
thought separate the two influences, and
from
this orderly
combination put to-
gether again in thought what I see: in that case, the matter would end with the actual happening.
It
would be mentally
a blind staring at what happened; a perception of the successive positions which
the stone occupies.
But
in actual fact,
matters do not stop there.
The whole Once out-
occurrence takes place twice. side,
and then
my
eye sees
it;
then
my
mind causes the whole happening to
INTRODUCTION repeat
19
again, in a mental or con-
itself
My
scious manner.
must be
inner sense
upon the mental occurrence, which my eye does not see, and then it
directed
becomes
clear to that sense that
my own
awaken that
inner power,
I,
by
occur-
rence as a mental one.
another
Again, Fichte's this
may
sentence
J.
G.
be quoted which brings
clearly
fact
of
"Thus the new
sense
is
mind.
the
before
the sense for
the spirit; that for which there exists
only spirit and absolutely nothing
and
for
which also the
itself
into spirit,
therefore being in its
has
actually
has
been
the
all
that
is
for
which
own proper form
disappeared. faculty
this sense ever since
and
'other,' the given
the form of spirit and
being, assumes
transforms
else,
of
.
.
.
There
seeing with
men have
existed,
great and excellent in the
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
20
world, which alone upholds htomanity, originates in
what has been seen by means
of this sense.
It
is,
however, not the
case that this sense has been perceived
or
known
trast
and
in its difference
its
con-
with that other, ordinary sense.
The impressions
of the
into one another,
two senses melted
life fell
apart into these
two halves without a bond
The bond
of union
is
of imion."
created
by the
fact that the inner sense grasps in its spirituality the spiritual it
awakens
element which
in its intercourse
with the
That which we take up consciousness from outside
outer world.
our
into
things
thereby ceases to
mere meaningless as something
appear as a
repetition.
new over
It
appears
against that which
only external perception can give.
The
simple occurrence of throwing the stone,
and
my
perception thereof, appear in a
INTRODUCTION higher Hght
when
I
make
clear to myself
my
the kind of task which
21
inner sense
has to perform in regard to the whole
In order to
thing.
fit
together in thought
the two influences and their action,
modes
of
an amotmt of mental content
is
needed which
when
quired
therefore
I
I
must already have
apply a spiritual content
already stored up within that confronts
And
this
world
fits itself
me
me to something
in the external world.
occurrence
in
the
external
into the spiritual content
already present.
own
ac-
cognise the flying stone.
I
It reveals itself in its
special individuality as
an expres-
sion of this content.
Through
the
understanding
inner sense, there
me
the
obtains sense
nature
my
thus disclosed to
is
of
of
the
between the
and the things
relation
content of
the
of
that this
external
22
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE Fichte would say that without
world.
the
understanding
world
falls
this
me
into
apart for
two halves:
and
into things outside of me,
of these things within
tiores
the
sense,
of
into pic-
The
me.
two halves become united when inner self understands
itself
the
and con-
sequently recognises clearly what sort of illumination
throws upon things in
it
And
the cognitive process.
Fichte could
also venture to say that this inner sense sees only Spirit.
For
perceives
it
how
the Spirit enlightens the sense-world
making world.
it
part and parcel of the spiritual
The inner
sense causes the outer
sense-world to arise within spiritual being
ternal object
there
is
by
on a higher
no part
undergone
a
level.
completely
is
of
it
itself
as a
An
ex-
known when
which has not thus
spiritual
every external object
re-birth. fits
itself
Thus into a
INTRODUCTION content,
spiritual
which,
23
when
has
it
been grasped by the inner sense, shares the destiny of self-knowledge.
The
tual content, which belongs to
an object
through
merges
illumination
its
itself
spiri-
from within,
wholly, like the very
into the world of ideas, leaving
no
self,
re-
mainder behind.
These developments contain nothing which
is
logical
susceptible or even in need of
proof.
They
nothing
are
the results of inner experience.
ever
calls
into
experience.
lacking in this
is
It
dispute with him; as
is
impossible to
must
could one
little
discuss colour with a blind It
Who-
question this content,
shows only that he inner
but
not, however,
man.
be contended
made possible only through the special endowment of a few chosen people. It is a common
that this inner experience
is
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
84
property.
Every one can enter upon
the path to
this experience
who does
not of his own will shut himself against This closing up of oneself against
it.
it, is,
however,
common
enough.
And
in
dealing with objections raised in this direction, it
is
one always has the feeling that
not so
much a matter
of people
being unable to attain this inner perience, as of their
ex-
having hopelessly
blocked the entrance to
it
of logical spiders' webs.
with aU kinds
It
is
almost as
some one looking through a telescope
if
and discovering a new yet deny lations
its
planet
should
existence because his calcu-
have shown that there can be no
planet in that position.
But with aU
this there
is still
in
most
people the clearly marked feeling that all
that really
lies in
the being of things
cannot be completely given in what the
INTRODUCTION
25
outer senses and the analysing under-
standing can cognise.
They then beleft over must
lieve that the remainder so
be just as
much
in the external world as
are the things of our perceptions themselves.
They think that
there
must be
something which remains unknown to cognition.
What
they ought to attain
by again perceiving with the inner
sense,
on a higher plane, the very object which they have already cognised and grasped with the understanding, fer as
something inaccessible and unknown
into the external world. of the limits of 01U-
—this they transThen they
knowledge which prevent
reaching the "thing-in-itself."
taUc of the
talk
unknown "being"
They
of things.
That this very "being" of things shines out when the inner sense lets its light fall upon the things, is what they will not recognise. The famous "Ignora-
26
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bimus" speech
Reymond,
of the scientist,
in the year
Du
Bois-
fiarnished
1876,
a particularly blatant example of this error.
We
are supposed to be able to
get in every direction only so far as to
be able to see in
natural processes
all
What
the manifestations of "matter."
"matter"
itself is,
we
are supposed
to
Du Bois-Reymond
be unable to know.
contends that we shall never succeed in penetrating to wherever
ter" leads
reason
its
ghostly
why we
it is
life
that "mat-
in space.
cannot get there
however, in the fact that there
is
The lies,
nothing
whatsoever to be looked for there.
Who-
ever speaks like
Du
have a
that the knowledge of
feeling
Nature yields
Bois-Reymond must
results
which point to a
something further and other which Nature-knowledge
itself
cannot give.
he refuses to follow the
road,^
—the
But road
INTRODUCTION
27
which leads to
of inner experience,
this
Therefore he stands at a com-
other.
"mat-
plete loss before the question of
In him
ter" as before a dark riddle.
who
treads the path of inner experience, objects attain to a
new
and that
birth;
them which remains unknown
in
to outer
experience then shines forth.
In such wise the inner being of
man
obtains light not only as regards
itself
but also as regards external things.
Prom
this
point
of
view
Within him shines a
illumination
which
is
lights
up
makes
endless
is
not
all reality
whose
light
restricted
within him.
its
per-
before man's know-
spective opens out ledge.
an
It is a
at once.
to
that
sun which
Something
appearance in us which links
us with the whole world.
No
we simply
human beings,
isolated,
chance
longer are
no longer this or that individual.
The
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
28
It un-
entire world reveals itself in us. veils
own coherence; and it how we ourselves as inbound up with it. From
to us its
unveils to us
dividuals are
out of self-knowledge the
of
world.
And
is
bom
our
knowledge
own
limited
individuality merges itself spiritually into
the
interconnected
great
world-whole,
because in us something has come to life
that
reaches
that
dividuality, it
out beyond
this
in-
embraces along with
everything of which this individuality
forms a part.
Thinking which does not block up
own road
its
to inner experience with logical
preconceptions
always
comes,
in
the
long run, to a recognition of the entity that rules in us and connects us with the entire world, because through this entity
we overcome and "outer"
the opposition of "inner" in regard to
man.
Paul
INTRODUCTION
29
Asmus, the keen-sighted philosopher, who died young, expressed himself as follows
about
this position {cp. his
und das Ding an
Sich, p.
"Let us make
clear
it
book Das Ich 14
et seq.):
—
by an example:
imagine a piece of sugar;
it
is
square,
sweet, impenetrable, etc., etc., these are
one and
all
which we under-
qualities
stand; one thing, however, hovers before us as
that
something totally
we do not understand,
difEerent
it
is
so
without losing ourselves
from the mere surface the
that
from ourselves that we cannot
penetrate into
starts
different,
back
afraid.
unknown bearer
of
which thought
This one thing
is
of all these qualities;
the thing-in-itself, which constitutes the
inmost
self of
Thus Hegel
the object.
rightly says that the entire content of
our perception
is
related as
mere
acci-
dent to this obscure subject, while we,
30
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
without
penetrating
into
depths,
its
merely attach determinations to what it
in itself,
is
—which
we do not know
ultimately, since
the thing
itself,
remain
merely subjective and have no objective Conceptual thought, on the other
value.
hand, has no such unknowable subject,
whose
might be mere
determinations
accidents, but the objective subject falls
within the concept.
then
thing,
fulness in in the
my
is
present in
conception
;
inmost shrine of
because of its
it
it
I its
its
am
at
entire
home
being, not
has no proper being-in-itself
own, but because
re-think
cognise any-
If I
its
it
compels
me
to
concept, in virtue of that
necessity of the concept which hovers
over us both and appears subjectively in
me and
itself.
objectively in the concept
Through
this
re-thinking there
reveals itself to us at the
same
time, as
INTRODUCTION
—just as activity —the
Hegel says, jective
this is
31
our
sub-
true, nature of the
So can speak only a
object."
own
able to illuminate the
man who
thought
of
life
is
with the light of inner experience. In
my
Philosophy of Freedom (Berlin,
1894, Verlag
Emil Felber), starting from
other points of view, I have also pointed
out the root-fact of the inner "It
is
life (p.
46)
therefore unquestionable: in our
we hold
thinking
by
the world-process
one corner, where we must be present,
come about
to
if
it is
is
just the very thing
cerned with.
why
things
That
at
we
is
And
all.
just
the reason
seem to confront
mysteriously: that I
am
that
are here con-
me
so without
so
any
share in their coming into existence.
simply
find
however,
I
them
there;
know how
it is
in
I
thinking,
done.
Hence
one can find no more original starting
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
32
point for a consideration of the worldprocess than that of thought."
For one who looks thus upon the inner life
of
man,
meaning
of
it is
also obvious
human
what
is
the
cognition within the
mere
whole world-process.
It is not a
empty accompaniment
to the rest of the
world happenings.
would be such
it
It
if
represented merely an ideal repetition
what
of
is
outwardly
present.
But
in cognition something is accomplished
which accomplishes
itself
nowhere in
the outer world: the world-process sets before itself
its
own
spiritual being.
The
world-process would be to aU eternity
a mere half-thing, this
if it
confrontation.
did not attain to
Therewithal man's
inner experience finds
its
objective world-process;
place in the
and without
it
that process would be incomplete. It
is
'apparent that only the
life
which
INTRODUCTION
33
by the inner sense, man's highest spiritual life in its most proper sense, it is
ruled
—
is
this
life
man above
only which can thus raise himself.
For only in this
does the being of things unveil before
itself.
The matter
lies
life
itself
quite
differently in regard to the lower per-
For instance, the eye
ceptive power.
which meditates the seeing of an object is
the theatre of a process which, in con-
trast to the inner
life, is
exactly like any
My
other external process.
organs are
members of the spacial world like other things, and their perceptions are proFurther, cesses in time like any others. their being only appears when they are sunk into the inner double other
life;
the
objects,
life
life.
of
which
own embodiment and its
organs what
lies
I
thus live a
an object among lives
within
its
perceives through
outside this embodi-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
34
ment; and above
this life
a higher
life,
that knows no such inside and outside,
and bridging over both the outside world and itself. that
stretching
extends,
I shall therefore
am an individual, a limited "self"; another time I am a general, universal
time at
be forced to say: at one
I
This, too, Paul
"Self."
Asmus has
ex-
pressed in excellent words {cp. his book:
Die indogermanischen Religionen in den
Hauptpunhten
ihrer Entwickelung, p.
29
of Vol. I.):
"The in
activity
something
of
else, is
ing'; in thinking, its
concept,
a single
thing;
do we find alike for
'self'
what we cah
chink-
the ego has fulfilled
has given therefore,
otirselves in
all,
ness which
our
it
merging ourselves
itself
in
up
as
thinking
a sphere which
is
for the principle of separate-
is
involved in the relation of
to that which
is
other than
INTRODUCTION vanished in
has
itself
the activity of
the
self-canceUing of
the
35
single
and there remains then only hood'
common
'self,'
the^' Self-
to all."
Spinoza has exactly the same thing in
view when he describes, as the highest activity of knowing, that
which" advances
from an adequate conception of the nattire of
some
of the attributes of
real
God
to an adequate knowledge of the nature
This advancing
of things."
is
no other
than the illumination of things with the light
Spinoza de-
of inner experience.
scribes 'in glowing colours the life in this
"The highest virtue of know God, or to obtain in-
inner experience:
the soul
is
to
sight into things in the third
—mode of
knowing.
—the highest
This virtue
is
the
more the soul knows things method of knowing thus he who
greater, the
by
this
;
can grasp things in this mode of knowing
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
36
human
highest
the
attains
and consequently becomes
perfection
filled
with the
by
highest joy, accompanied, moreover,
the conceptions of himself and of virtue.
Thus
there
from
arises
this
mode
of
knowing the highest peace of soul that possible."
is
He who knows
things in this way,
transforms himself within himself; his
single
at such
separated
"self"
for
becomes
moments absorbed by the
uni-
versal "Self"; all beings appear not to
a single limited individual in subordinated importance, they appear to "themselves."
On
difference
this level there
remains no
between Plato and me; what
separated us belongs to a lower level of cognition.
We
are
separated
individuals; the individual
which works
one and the same.
But
this fact it is impossible to
argue
within us
about
only as
is
INTRODUCTION
37
with one who has no experience of
He
everlastingly emphasise: Plato
will
That
and you are two. that in
all multiplicity, is
the outbursting
level
it.
life
knowledge:
of
this
duality,
reborn as unity of the highest
cannot
that
proved, that must be experienced. doxical as
it
may
sound,
it is
be
Para-
the truth:
the idea which Plato conceived and the like idea
which
It is
ideas.
conceive are not two
I
one and the same idea.
And
two ideas: one in Plato's head and one in mine but in the higher there are not
;
sense Plato's head and
mine interpene-
trate each other all heads interpenetrate ;
which grasp one and the same idea; and this idea is only
idea.
It
to one
have
is
once there as a single
there;
and the heads
and the same place
this idea in
all
go
in order to
them.
The transformation that
is
brought
38
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
about in the whole being of learns to see things thus,
man when
is
he
indicated in
by the Hindu poem, the Bhagavad-Git^, about which Wilhelm von Humboldt said that he was thankftil to the fate which had allowed him to live long enough to become acquainted beautiful words
In this poem, the inner
with this work. light declares: self,
in
"An
eternal ray
from my-
having attained a distinct existence world
the
around
itself
personal
of
life,
draws
the five senses and the in-
dividual soul, which belong to nature.
When bodies it
the
spirit,
itself in
quits
shining from above, em-
space and time, or
embodiment,
things and
carries
it
seizes
when upon
them away with
it,
as the zephyr seizes the perfumes of the flowers and bears
The taste
inner light
and
them away with
rules
the ear,
it.
touch,
smell, as also the emotions:
INTRODUCTION it
knits together the link between itself
and the objects ignorant
is
of
the
know not when
shines forth or it
39
is
married to
partakes of the
The
senses.
the inner light
when objects; only he who inner light can know
extinguished, nor
thereof."
So strongly does the Bhagavad-Gita insist
upon the transformation
man, that
it
says of the wise
he can no longer he
apparently,
must illuminate
err,
errs
man
no longer or
sins,
of
the that
sin.
If,
then he
his thoughts or his ac-
tions with a light wherein that
no longer
appears as error or as sin which to the ordinary consciousness appears as such.
"He who knowledge not,
has raised himself and whose is
of the purest kind,
he
nor does he stain himself,
though he should have
slain
This points only to the same
kills
even
another."
basic
mood
40
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
of
the soul flowing from the highest
knowledge, of which Spinoza, after having described
it
in his Ethics, breaks out into
"Here is conarmed to bring for-
passionate words:
the
cluded that which
ward
I
in regard to the
over
its affections
dom
of the soul.
power
of the soiol
or in regard to the free-
Hence
it is
clear
how
man is superior to and how much more power-
very greatly the wise the ignorant, fill
than he who
is
For the ignorant
ruled only is
by his
lusts.
not merely driven
and thither by external causes in many ways and never attains to the hither
but he also
true peace of
sotil,
ignorance
himself,
things,
of
and when
his existence ceases
his
of
lives in
God and
of
suffering
ceases,
also; while
on the
other hand, the wise man, as such, feels
hardly any disturbance in his
spirit
and
ever enjoys the true peace of the soul.
INTRODUCTION Even
if
41
the road which I have outlined
as leading thereto appears very
stm be
it
And
can be found. because
difficult,
For how could
it
it is
diffictilt,
well
may
it
so seldom found.
be possible,
if
salvation
lay close at hand and could be found
without great trouble, that
by almost
neglected is
noble
is
Goethe has indicated form the point
of
it is
in
world,
to
myself
rare."
monumental
view of the highest
knowledge in the words: "If relation
I
know my
and to the outer
And
I call it truth.
thus every
one can have his own truth, and yet is
always one and the
has his
own
individual, separate
act
same."
truth: because each
along with others.
be
Yet aU that
all?
as difficult as
shoiold
it
being,
beside
it
Each is
an
and
These other beings
upon him through
his organs.
From
the individual standpoint at which he
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
42
placed,
is
and according to the
consti-
tution of his power of perception, he
up
builds
own
his
truth for himself in
intercourse with the things around him.
He
acquires his relation to things.
If,
he enters into self-knowledge,
then,
if
he learns to know his relation to himself, then his special separate truth in the universal
versal
Truth
is
is
merged
Truth; and this uni-
in all the
The understanding
same.
of the raising of
the individual, of the single
self,
into the
Universal Self in the personality,
is
re-
garded by deeper natures as the secret
which reveals of
man
itself in
the inmost heart
as the root -mystery of
life.
And
Goethe has found an apt expression this:
"And
for
so long as thou hast not that,
Then thou art but a melancholy guest upon this dark this:
Die and Become!
earth."
INTRODUCTION Not a mere
43
repetition in thought, but
a real part of the world-process,
which goes on
in
man's inner it is if
belonging thereto in the
human
And
its part.
highest which
is
if
the factor
one
attainable
The
Hfe.
world would not be what
not play
that
is
soul did calls
the
by man the
then one must say that this
Divine,
is
not present as something ex-
ternal, to
be repeated pictorially in the
Divine
human mind, but awakened found
know
in
the
that this Divine
man. right
Angelus
words
that without
Silesius
for
me God
has "I
this:
can
is
live
no
become nothing, He must "Withof necessity give up the ghost." out me God may make no single smallest worm: if I do not sustain it with Him, instant;
then
it
if
I
must straightway
he can make presupposes
such
that
in
perish."
Only
an assertion who
man
something
44
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
comes
which external
to light, without
being cannot exist.
If
everything per-
taining to the " worm " were there present
without man, then one say that sustain
it
must
perish
comes to
life
knowledge. ledge
man
if
kernel
of
the world
as spiritual content in self-
The experience of self-know-
means for man working and weaving
within the kernel of the world. is
He who
permeated with self-knowledge natur-
ally carries out his
own
light of self-knowledge. is
did not
it.
The innermost
;
not possibly
coiold
—in
general
action in the
Human
—determined
action
by motives.
Robert Hamerling, the poet-philosopher, has rightly said {Atomistik des Willens, p. 213):
"A man
—but
he
can indeed do what he cannot
pleases, because his
will will
whatever is
wills
he
determined
INTRODUCTION by
He
motives.
cannot
45
what-
will
Look again at these words more closely. Is there any sensible meaning in them? Freedom of
ever he pleases?
the will ought then to consist in being able to will something without reason,
But what does
without motive.
mean
other than the 'having a reason'
do or endeavotir to
to
preferring
for
willing
To
attain this, rather than that?
will
something without reason, without motive,
would mean to
out willing is
Without a
of
motive
up with that
of will-
definite
motive the
will
an empty potentiality: only through
a motive does It is
become active and real. therefore quite correct that man's it
will is in so far is
something 'with-
The concept
inseparably bound
ing. is
it.'
will
not free as
its
direction
always determined by the strongest
motive."
46
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE For
action that
all
the
in
motive,
reason
the
needs be
felt as
the
self-knowledge,
of
light
not accomplished
is
for
must But the
action,
a constraint.
when the reason
matter
is
otherwise
motive
is
taken up into self-knowledge.
Then
this reason
self.
The
mined;
becomes a part
willing
is
The lawwilling, now
itself.
abidingness, the motives of
no longer
of the
no longer deter-
determines
it
or
rule over the one
who
wills,
but are one and the same with this willing.
To
illuminate the laws of one's
action with the light of self-observation
means motive.
to
overcome
By so
all
constraint
doing, will transfers
of
itself
into the realm of freedom. It is
not
the marks
human
action which bears
of freedom.
Only such action
all
is free action
lighted
which in
its
every part
is
up with the glow of self-observa-
INTRODUCTION tion.
And because
the individual
self
self -observation raises
up
to the Universal Self,
therefore free action
from the Universal
is
that which flows
The
Self.
troversy whether man's will ject to
47
is
old con-
free or sub-
a universal law, to an tmalterable
problem wrongly stated.
necessity, is a
AU action is bound which is done by a man as an individual; all action free which
is
accomplished after his spiritual
re-birth.
Man, therefore, is not, in general,
He
either free or bound.
He
is
both the one
bound before his re-birth and he can become free through this re-birth. The individual upward
and the
other.
is
;
development
man
of
transformation
of
consists
unfree
willing
will possessing the character of
The man who has
in
the into
freedom.
realised the law-abid-
ingness of his action as his own, has
overcome the constraint
of
this
law-
48
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
abidingness and therewith of tin-freedom.
Freedom
is
not from the outset a fact
of htiman existence, but a goal thereof.
With the attainment
man
of free action,
a contradiction between
resolves
His own deeds
the world and himself.
become deeds
of universal
feels himself in
the fullest
this
harmony with
He
being.
universal
discord between himself
He
being.
feels
every
and another as
the outcome of a not yet fully awakened
But such
self.
that only
in
whole can
it
would not be man off
from everything as such a shut-off
Self.
the
else;
and
out again
It belongs
if
he
as an individual self
but also he
in the highest sense
himself
self,
find its contact with this
were not shut
man
the fate of the separation from
its
Man
whole.
is
if
not
he does not,
isolated
into
is
the
self,
widen
Universal
through and through to
INTRODUCTION the nature of
man
that
it
49
should over-
come an inherent contradiction which has lain therein
from the beginning.
Any one who
regards spirit as, in the
main, logical understanding, feel his
may
well
blood run cold at the idea that
objects should be supposed to undergo their re-birth in spirit.
He
will
compare
the fresh, living flower, outside there in its
fulness of colour, with the cold, faded,
schematic thought of the flower. feel
himself partictolarly
the conception that the his motives
ill
He will
at ease with
man who draws
from the solitude of his own
self-consciousness
is
more
free
than the
original,
naive personality which acts
from
immediate impulses, from the
its
fulness of its
own
nature.
To one who
sees only one-sided logic, another
who
sinks himself into his
own
man inner
being will appear like a mere walking
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
50
scheme
of concepts,
in contrast with the his
own
a mere ghost
like
man who
remains in
natural individuality.
Such objections to the re-birth
of things
be heard from
in spirit are especially to
those whose power of perception
fails in
the presence of things with a purely spiritual content; although
they are well
provided with healthy organs of senseperception and with impulses and passions full of life.
As soon
as they are called
upon to perceive the ptuely spiritual, the power to do so fails them they can deal only with mere conceptual husks, when ;
even they are not limited to empty words.
They remain,
therefore, in
what
concerns spiritual content,
men
abstract understanding."
But the man
who
of "dry,
in things purely spiritual possesses
a gift of perception like that in things of the senses, finds
life
assuredly not the
INTRODUCTION poorer
when he has
spiritual content.
flower,
why
enriched
If I
shotdd
51 it
with
its
look out upon a colours lose
its rich
aught whatever of their freshness, because not only does
my
my eye
inner sense also perceives the spiritual
being of the flower? life
but
see the colotirs,
of
my
Why
become poorer,
personality
because I do not follow
should the
my
passions
and
impulses in spiritual blindness, but
il-
luminate them throughout with the light of higher ftitler,
knowledge?
Not
richer, is that life
back again
in the spirit.
poorer, but
which
is
given
MEISTER ECKHART The
world of Meister Eckhart's con-
ceptions
is
aglow through and through
with the feeling that things become
born as higher entities in the
man.
re-
spirit of
Like the greatest Christian theo-
logian of the Middle Ages, St.
Aquinas,
who
lived
from 1225
Thomas till
1274,
Meister Eckhart belonged to the Dominican Order.
Eckhart was an unqualified
admirer of St. Thomas; and this wiU
when we fix our gaze upon Eckhart's whole manner seem the more
intelligible
of conceiving things. self to
He
believed him-
be as completely in harmony with
the teachings of the Christian Church as
he assiimed a
like
agreement on the part 52
MEISTER ECKHART of
St.
Thomas.
53
Eckhart had neither
the desire to take aught
away from the
content of Christianity, nor- the wish to
add anything to
it;
but he desired to
bring forward this content
own way.
It
anew
forms no part
spiritual needs of
in his
of
the
a personality such as
he was to set up new truths of this or the other kind in the place of old ones. '
Such a personality has grown completely intertwined with the content which
has received from tradition but ;
to give to this content a
new
it
it
craves
form, a
new
life.
Eckhart desired, without doubt, to remain an
orthodox
Christian.
The
Christian truths were his own; only he desired to regard these truths in another
way from that, for instance, in which St. Thomas Aquinas had done. St. Thomas accepted two sources of know-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
54
ledge: Revelation,
and Reason,
in matters of faith,
in those of research.
Reason
recognises the laws of things, that
Reason can
spiritual in nature.
above
self
from one
natxire
side the Divine
lying nature. this
way
and grasp
But
it
to merging
ing of God.
A
still
is,
the
raise it-
in the spirit
Being under-
does not attain in
itself in
the
ftill
be-
higher truth-content
must come to meet it. That is given in the Holy Scripture, which reveals what man cannot attain to through him-
The truth-content of the Scripture must be accepted by man; Reason can self.
defend it
it.
Reason can seek to understand
as well as possible through its powers
of knowing; but never can
Reason en-
gender that truth from within the of is
man.
Not what
spirit
the spirit perceives
the highest truth, but
what has come
to this spirit from without.
MEISTER ECKHART St.
55
Augustine declares himself unable
to find within himself the source for that
He
which he should
believe.
would not believe
in the Gospel, did not
says: "I
the authority of the Catholic Chtu-ch
move me
That
thereto."
is
in the
who
spirit as the Evangelist,
same
points to
"That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the
external
Word
the
testimony:
of Life;
.
.
.
.
that which
.
.
we
have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also
may have
fellowship with
But Meister Eckhart would rather impress upon man the words of Christ: "It is expedient for you that I go away:
us."
for
if I
go not away, the Comforter
will
not come unto you"; and he explains these words
had
said:
by
saying: "Just as
Ye have
set
too
if
much
he joy
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
56
my
upon the
joy of the Holy Ghost cannot
full
come
present appearance, therefore
to you."
Eckhart thinks that he of
of
whom
Evangelist,
and
no God other than that God
and
Augustine,
the
Thomas, speak, and yet
God
as to
witness
is
not
his.
God with
a cow
withal,
"Some
for the
inner
the same eyes they see
sake
comfort; love
rightly
of
So they love
of outer riches
God.
.
.
.
Simple
God
so.
God and
I
mouth
such is
But
it
are one in the act
knowing {im Erkennen)."
derlies
folk
as though
stood there and they here.
not
and
but such folk do not
fancy they should behold
He
people want
and want to love God as
they would love a cow.
God
this testimony
not his testimony, their
is
to see
is
speaking
is
expressions
in
What
un-
Eckhart's
nothing else than the experience
MEISTER ECKHART of the inner sense;
shows him things
and
57
this experience
in a higher Kght.
therefore believes
need of an external
He
himself to have no light in order to
tain to the highest insight:
"A
at'^^
Master
God became man, whereby the whole htiman race is uplifted and made worthy. Thereof may we be glad that Christ our brother of His own strength says:
rose
above
all
the choirs of angels and
sitteth at the right
hand
of the Father.
That Master spake well; but, in truth, I would give little for it. What would it help me, had I a brother who was a rich man, and I therewithal a poor man? What would it help me, -had I a brother who was a wise man, and I were a fool? The Heavenly Father begetteth His Only-Begotten Son in Himself and in me. Wherefore in Himself and in me? I am one with Him; and .
.
.
58
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
has no power to shut
self-same work, the
me
out.
In the
Holy Ghost
receives
being and proceeds from me, as from
its
God.
Wherefore?
I
am
the Holy Ghost takes not
me, neither does
no wise
am
When St. Paul:
means
to
I
it
take
it
God, and
in its
if
being from
from God.
In
shut out."
Eckhart
recalls
the saying of
"Put ye on Jesus Christ," he imply in this saying the mean-
ing Sink yourselves into yourselves, dive :
down
into self -contemplation
:
and from
out the depths of yoiu: being,
God wiU
He
illumines
shine forth to meet you;
you have found Him within you; you have become imited all
things for you;
with God's Being.
"God became man,
that I might become God."
In his booklet upon Loneliness, Eckhart expresses himself as follows lation
of
the
outer
upon the
re-
perception to the
MEISTER ECKHART inner:
"Here thou must know that the
man
Masters say that in every
two kinds
are
59
of
man: the one
there called
is
the outer man, and yet he acts through
The other man
the power of the soul. called the inner is
within
know
man, that
that every
man who
maketh no more use the soul in the outer
that which
is,
Now
the man.
thou must loveth
of the
man
is
God
powers of
than so far as
the five senses absolutely require; and
that which
is
within turns not
the five senses, save in so far as
itself it is
to
the
guide and conductor of the five senses, and
shepherds them, so that they follow not after their craving to bestiality."
One
who
man
speaks in such wise of the inner
can no longer direct his gaze upon a Being of things lying outside himself; for
clearly that
he sees
from no kind or species
outer world can this Being
come
of the
to him.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
6o
An
What can
objector might urge:
it
matter to the things of the outer world,
what you add to them out of your own mind? Do but rely upon your own
They alone
senses.
give you informa-
tion of the outer world. terate,
senses
Do
not
adiol-
by a mental addition, what yotir give you in purity, without ad-
mixture, as the image of the outer world.
you what colour is; what your mind knows about colovir, of that Yoiur eye teUs
there itself.
nothing
is
To
this,
whatever
in
colour
from Meister Eckhart's
standpoint, the answer would have to be:
The
senses are a physical apparatus;
therefore
what they have to
tell
us about
objects can concern only that which
physical in the objects. sical factor in itself to
me
And
this
is
phy-
the objects communicates
in such wise that in myself
a physical process
is
set going.
MEISTER ECKHART
6i
Colour, as a physical process of the
outer world, sets up a physical process in
my
Thereby
eye and brain.
But
ceive colour.
in this
manner
perceive of colour only so physical, sensuous.
much
I
can
as
is
Sense-perception cuts
everything non-sensuous from ob-
out jects.
Objects are thus by sense-percep-
tion stripped of everything about
which
non-sensuous.
is
vance to the I
per-
I
spiritual,
If
I
them
then ad-
the ideal content,
in fact only reinstate in the objects
what sense-perception has shut out therefrom. Thus sense-perception does not exhibit to jects,
being.
it
me
the deepest Being of ob-
rather separates
But the
ception, seizing
me
me
from that
spiritual, the ideal con-
upon them
with that being.
It
again, unites
shows
me
objects are inwardly of exactly the
that
same
spiritual (geistigen) nature as I myself.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
62
The
myself and the
barrier between
outer world
falls
through this spiritual
am
conception of things.
I
from the external world
in so far as I
separated
am
a thing of the senses among other things of the senses.
two
Colour and
different entities.
My
my
eye are
brain and a
plant are two different things.
But the
and
of coloiir
ideal content of the plant
belong together with the ideal content of
my
brain and eye alike to a single
ideal entity.
This
way
of looking at things
must not
be confused with the very widespread anthropomorphising conception world, which imagines that
it
objects of the outer world
by
to
them
which
the
grasps the ascribing
qualities of a physical natvire,
are
supposed
to
resemble
the
human soul. This view When we meet another human
qualities of the asserts:
of
MEISTER ECKHART we
being,
fellow-man's
what
his
life,
inner
anything which I
from
infer
I
life.
him, his inner
of
Thus the
soul.
my
cannot see into
I
and hear
see
I
him only sensuous
perceive in
characteristics.
63
soul
never
is
can directly perceive;
I
perceive a soul only within myself.
My thoughts, my ings,
no
man
such an inner
imaginations,
Now
sees.
my
just as I
feel-
have
alongside of the
life
which can be outwardly perceived,
so,
life,
too, all other beings
inner
must have such an
life.
Thus concludes one who occupies the standpoint of
the
anthropomorphising
conception of the world.
What
ceive externally in the plant,
must equally
I per-
be the outer side of something inward, of a soul,
which
to
what
for
me
I
must add
in
my imagination
I actually perceive.
And
since
there exists but one single inner
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
64
my
world, namely,
own, therefore
I
can
conceive of the inner world of other beings only as resembling
Along
world.
comes to a all
my own
inner
this line of argtiment
one
sort of universal ensouling of
nature (Pan-psychism).
This view depends,
what the awakened
failure to recognise
inner sense really gives us. {geistig)
The
spiritual
content of an external object,
which reveals self,
to
itself
me
in
my
inner
not anything added in or by
is
thought to the outer perception. just as little this as
man.
on a
however,
I
is
It is
the spirit of another
perceive this spiritual content
through the inner sense just in the same
way
as I perceive
its
physical content
And what
through the external senses. I call {i.e.,
all in
my
inner
life
in the
above sense
thoughts, feelings, etc.), the higher sense,
my
is
not at
spirit (Geist).
MEISTER ECKHART This so-called inner
come
only the out-
life is
of ptirely sensuous processes,
me
belongs to
personality,
and
only as a purely individual
which
the result of
its
is
nothing more than
physical organisation.
If I transfer this inner life to I
65
am, as a matter of
fact,
outer things,
thinking in the
air.
My
personal
soul -life,
my
thoughts,
memories, and feelings, are in me, because
I
am
a nature-being organised in
such and such a way, with a perfectly definite sense-apparatus,
with a perfectly I
have no right
my human
sovd to other
definite nervous system.
to transfer this
should only be entitled to do
things.
I
so
happened to find anywhere a
if
I
similarly organised nervous system.
my
individual soul
spiritual spiritual
is
not the highest
element in me.
element must
But
first
This highest
be awakened
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
66
through the inner sense; and this awak-
ened spiritual element in
and the same with the in
also one
element
spiritual
The plant appears imits own proper spirituality
—
to this spiritual element,^
endow
my
is
things.
all
mediately in
to
me
I
have no need
with a spirituality like unto
it
own.
AU
talk about the
itself" loses
unknown
"thing-in-
any kind of meaning with
this conception of the world; for
just
" thing-in-itself "
that very
reveals
itself
to
it
is
which
the inner sense.
All
such talk originates simply in the fact
who
that those recognise their
in
own
talk thus are unable to
the spiritual
inner being
the
contents
of
"things-in-
.
They think that they know in their own inner selves mere shadows and schemes without being, "mere concepts and ideas" of things. But as themsel ves "
—
MEISTER ECKHART they
sort of premonition of
have a
still
67
the " thing -in-itself," they therefore believe that this "thing-in-itself" is conceal-
ing
itself,
to man's
and that there are
power
limits set
One cannot
of knowing.
prove to such as are entangled in this belief,
that they must grasp the "thing-
in-itself" in their
even
if
own
inner being, for
one were to put
they would
still
it
never recognise or admit
this "thing-in-itself."
But
recognition with which
we
All
that
saturated
Meister
with
this take a
before them,
this
it is
just this
are concerned.
Eckhart
says
recognition.
comparison:
A
and shuts upon a hinge. compare the outer plank of
is
"Of
door opens If,
this
now,
I
door to
must then compare the hinge to the inner man.' Now, when the door opens and shuts, the outer plank the outer man,
I
moves
fro,
to
and
while yet the hinge
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
68
remains constantly immovable and
no way changed thereby. it is
As an
here also."
In
like
^the
door opens and shuts,
not spiritually give birth within
manner
all direc-
—
^if
I
do
me to the
perceptions of the senses, then do I
nothing of their nattire
in
individual sense,-
being, I can investigate things in tions—
is
know
—the hinge does
not move!
The illumination brought about through the inner sense
is,
according
hart's view, the entrance of
the soul.
The
light of
to
Eck-
God
into
knowledge which
flames up through this entrance, he calls
the
"little
spark
the
of
sotd."
The
point in man's inner being at which this
"spark" flames up
and
so noble in
is
"so
itself,
can be therein, but only
piore, so lofty,
that no creature
God
alone dwells
therein with His purely Divine Nature."
Whosoever has kindled
this
"spark"
in
MEISTER ECKHART himself,
no longer sees only as
man
ordinary
with
69
his
sees the
with his outer senses, and iinderstanding
logical
which
orders and classifies the impressions of
the senses, but he sees
The
themselves. classifying
individual
make time,
of
in space
things are in
outer senses and the
understanding separate the
man from
him an
who
how
other things; they
individual in space and
also perceives the other things
The man
and time.
illuminated
by the "spark"
ceases to be a single
separated being.
He
arateness. difference
AU
brings
about the
between himself and things
ceases to be. is
that
annihilates his sep-
That
he, as
a single being,
that which perceives, no longer comes
into consideration. self
are
Things and he him-
no longer separated.
and with them, God, him.
"This spark
is
Things,
see themselves in in very
deed God,
70
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
in that
within
it
a single oneness and bears
is
it
the imagery of
creatures,
all
image without image, and image upon image."
Eckhart proclaims in the most magnificent
words the extinction "It
being:
lated
is
of the iso-
to
be
it is
one
therefore
known, that according to things
and the same to know God and to be known by God. Therein do we know God and see, that He makes us to see and to know. And as the air, which enlighteneth, it
is
enlightens;
because
know
it is
we
maketh us
to
builds
purely
this
up
for the
air
giveth
light,
enlightened; even so do
that
On
nothing other than what
are known, and that
we
He
know Himself."
foundation Meister Eckhart his relation to
spiritual
one,
God.
and
It
cannot
is
a
be
modelled according to any image bor-
MEISTER ECKHART rowed
Not
frora
human
71
individual experience.
as one separated individual loves
another can
God
love his creation: not
as an architect builds a house can
have created
it.
All such thoughts van-
ish before the inner vision.
to God's very being that
the world.
God
He
A God who
not love at pleasure,
is
It belongs
should love
could love or
imagined ac-
cording to the likeness of the individual
man.
"I speak in good truth and in
eternal truth
and
in everlasting truth,
God must needs ever pour Himself forth in every man who has reached down that
to his true root to the utmost of possibility, so
His
life
and
in
back;
wholly and completely that in
and
in His being, in His nature
His Godhead,
He must
fruitful wise."
tion
is
He
keeps nothing
ever pour
And
all
forth in
the inner illtmiina-
something that the soul must
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
72
necessarily find
when
it
sinks itself deep
into the basis of its being.
From
this
it
already obvious that
is
God's communication to humanity cannot be conceived after the fashion of the revelation of one himian being to
This commtmication
another.
be cut
off,
for
one
man
may
also
can shut himself
off
from another; but God must, by virtue
of
His very nature, reveal Himself.
is
a sure and certain truth, that
necessity for if
God
it is
a
to seek us, exactly as
His very Godhead depended upon
God can
"It
it.
we with Him. Even though we turn away from God, yet God can never turn away as
from us." to
little
dispense with us as
Consequently, man's relation
God cannot be
conceived of as though
something image-like, something taken
from the individual human being, were contained therein.
MEISTER ECKHART Eckhart
73
thus conscious that
is
be-
it
longs to the perfectness of the Root-Being
human
of the
world to find
soul.
This Root-Being indeed would be
Itself in
imperfect, incomplete, of its
pari;
if
it
the
lacked that
unfoldment which comes to
What happens
light in the soul.
belongs to the Root-Being; and
in
man did
if it
not happen, then the Root-Being woxold be but a part of
man
can
of the
In this sense,
Itself.
feel himself as
a necessary part
Being of the universe.
This Eck-
by describing
his feelings
hart expresses
towards God as follows:
God
that
He
"I thank not
loveth me, for
do otherwise; whether
He may
He wiU
it
or no.
His nature yet compelleth Him. Therefore will
me
I
not pray to
anything, nor will
that which
But
He
I
God
praise
hath given me.
not
.
.
.
to give
Him
for ."
.
.
this relationship of the soul to the
74
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Root-Being must not be conceived of as if
the soul in
its
individual nature were
declared to be identical with this RootBeing.
The
soul which
is
entangled in
the sense-world, and so in the
finite,
has
as such not yet got within itself the con-
The
tent of the Root-Being. first
It
soul
develop that content within
must annihilate
must itself.
as an isolated
itself
being; and Meister Eckhart most aptly characterises
annihilation
(un-becoming
werdung
"When
this
or
as Ent-
involution).
come to the root of the Godhead, none ask me whence I come and where I have been, and none doth miss I
me, for here there
is
an Entwerdung."
Again, the following phrase speaks very clearly about this relation: "I take a
cup
of
water and lay therein a mirror and set
it
under the disc of the sun.
casts out its shining light
The sun
on the mirror
MEISTER ECKHART
The reflect-
and yet doth not pass away. ing of the mirror in the sun
sun in the
is
and yet the mirror remains what
sun,
So
is.
Godhead, and yet
The
God
about God.
is it
soul with His very nature
He
is
The
it
in the
not the soul.
reflecting of the soul in
which
is
and being and
God, and yet the soul
in
75
God, is
is
still
God that
it is."
up to the
soul which gives itself
knows in itself not only what this same soul was before but it also knows its illumination; that which soul only became this through this illumination. "We must inner
be
illiunination
united
with
God
in
being;
we
must be united with God uniquely we must be united with God wholly.
How in
shall
being?
beholding
we
be
united
with
That must happen and
not
in
the
in
God the
Wesung.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
76
His being
may
but
be our
it
shall
existent
life
—a
not become our being,
—
Wesung
in the logical sense;
ing
—the
life;
Not an
life."
beholding
is
already-
to be
known
but the higher know-
—
shall itself
become
the spiritual, the ideal must be so
by the beholder, as ordinary daily is felt by individual himian nature.
felt life
From such
starting
Meister
points,
Eckhart also builds up a pure conception of
Freedom.
soul
is
not
In
its
ordinary
free; for it is
life
the
interwoven with
the realm of lower causes, and accomplishes that to
which
these lower causes.
or "vision"
it is
of these causes,
it
impelled
is
But by
' '
by
beholding
raised out of the
'
domain
and acts no longer as a
separated individual soul.
The
being is laid bare in this soul,
root of
and that
can be moved to action by naught save by itself. "God does not compel the
MEISTER ECKHART will; rather
sets the will free, so that
Himself
and the
wills;
to will other than
that
and
we
not
is
God
not otherwise than what
wills
it
He
77
its
spirit desires
what God wiUs: and
vm-freedom
it is its
:
For freedom
real freedom.
are not bound, but free
we were
is
true
that
and pure and
unmixed, as we were in our pouring, as
not
first
out-
set free in the
Holy
Ghost." It
man
may be that he
from within
of the
said
is
himself the being which
itself
good and what
illuminated
determines what
is evil.
is
He can do naught
absolutely, but accomplish the good.
For
he does not serve the good, but the good realises
and
righteous
lives itself
man
and the nearer to righteousness, the more he is ;
is
"The
serveth neither God, nor
the creature for he
he
out in him.
Freedom's very
is free,
self."
What
then, for
78
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Meister Eckhart, can
evil
be?
It
can
be only action under the influence of the
mode
lower
regarding
of
—
things;'
^the
acting of a soul which has not passed
through the state of Entwerdung (un-
Such a soul
becoming). sense that
not bring
only
wills
it
willing
its
moral
accord with
is selfish
in the
It
could
itself.
outwardly into
The
ideals.
soul
having vision cannot in this sense be
Even
selfish.
could
will
ideal;
for
very
it
if
only it
ideal.
has It
willed
the
made
itself, it
lordship
longer aught in
can no longer
nature.
To
common with
will it
the
has no
this lower
act in conformity with moral
ideals implies for vision,
the
into this
itself
ends of the lower nature, for
of
yet
the
soul which
has
no compulsion, no deprivation.
"The man who standeth in God's will and in God's love, to him it is a craving
MEISTER ECKHART to
do
good things that God
all
and leave undone
all
are contrary to God.
him
sible for
that
God
walking
to leave
will
evil
And
willeth,
things that it
is
impos-
imdone anything
have done.
Even
as
impossible to one whose legs
is
are bound, just so for a
79
man who
it
would be impossible
standeth in God's will to
do aught unvirtuous." moreover
Eckhart
expressly
guards
himself against the idea that, with this
view of
his, free license is
given for any-
thing and everything that the individual
may is
The man
will.
possessing vision
indeed to be recognised by the very
fact that as a separated individual
" Certain
he
men
no longer
wills anything.
say:
If I
have God and God's freedom,
then
I
may
just
do whatever
I please.
Such understand wrongly this saying. So long as thou canst do aught that is con-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
8o
God and His commandment,
trary to
long thou hast not
so
even
God's love;
though thou mayest well deceive the world, as
Eckhart
thou hadst."
if
is
convinced that to the soul which dives
down
own
root, the
most per-
fect morality will shine forth
from that
into its
root to meet
it
;
that there
and aU acting
ception,
sense, ceases,
and an
ing of hiiman
life
"For grasp, is
and
all
God.
and the is
.
appearance.
Where understanding
which .
.
bliss of
is
it is
dark, there
wider than the wide
The bliss of the God is one bliss
the righteous full of
is full
order-
There that power unfolds
shineth God.
heavens.
its
new
that desiring can desire,
desiring end, there
in the soul
in the ordinary
entirely
makes
con-
that the understanding can
all
verily not
and
all logical
of bhss."
bliss,
righteous ;
for there
where God
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD In Johannes Tauler
(1
300-1 36 1 ) Heinrich ,
Suso (1295-1365), and Johannes Ruysbroeck (1293-138 1), one makes acquaint-
men whose
ance with
life
and work
exhibit in a very striking
manner those
"motions
which such a
spiritual
hart of
is
of the soul" to
path as that of Meister Eck-
calculated to give rise in natures
depth and power.
seems
like
a
While Eckhart
man who,
in the blissful
experiencing of spiritual re-birth, speaks of
the nature of Knowledge as of a
picture which he has succeeded in painting; these others, followers of his,
rather like pilgrims, to re-birth has 6
whom
appear
their inner
shown a new road which they 81
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
82
fain
would tread, but whose goal seems
to vanish before
into the illimitable
Eckhart dwells more upon the
distance. glories
them
of his
difficulties of
the
new
To understand personalities
they upon the
picture;
path.
the difference between
Eckhart and Tauler,
like
one must see quite clearly
how a man
stands
towards his higher cognitions.
Man
interwoven with the sense-world
is
and the laws sense- world
is
of nature
product of that world. its forces
in
and
by which
He He
ruled.
is
that
himself a
lives
because
materials are at work
its
him; nay, he perceives this sense-
by
laws, according
to which both he himself
and that world
world and judges of
are alike built up.
it
If
he turns
his eyes
upon an
object, not only does the object,
present
itself
to
him
interacting forces, ruled
as a complex of
by nature's
laws,
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
83
but the eye, with which he sees the object is itself
a body built up according to just
such laws and of just such forces and the ;
seeing, too, takes place
and
forces.
of natural
by
similar laws
we had reached the goal science, we should be able to If
follow out this play of the forces of nature
according to natural laws right up into the highest regions of thought -formation,
—but
•
in the very act of doing this,
we
raise ourselves above this play of forces.
For do we not stand above and beyond all
the "uniformities which
make up
the
when we over-see the whole and recognise how we ourselves laws of nature,"
fit
into nature?
We
see
with our eyes
according to laws of nature.
know also we see.
We
But we
the laws, according to which
can take our stand upon a higher
summit
and
overlook
at
once
both
84
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ourselves
and the outer world
mutual interplay.
there
Is
a something working higher than sonality
the
in
us,
in
their
not
here
which
is
sensuous-organic per-
working with Nature's forces
and according
to
Nature's
such activity does there
still
In
laws?
remain any
wall of division between our inner selves
That which here
and the outer world? judges and gains for
itself insight is
longer our separated personality; rather the general world -being,
has torn
down
alike.
As
is
which
the barrier between the
inner and outer worlds
both
it
no
and now embraces
true as
it is
that, judged
by the outer appearance, I still remain the same separated individual when I have thus torn down is
it
also that,
sential being, I
arated tmit.
this barrier, so true
judged according to
am
no longer
Henceforth there
es-
this seplives in
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
me
85
my
the feeling that there speaks in
sovil
the All-Being, which embraces both
myself and the entire world.
This
what Tauler
is
"Man
said:
men—
^his
is
just as
animal
man
if
when he
felt,
he were three
as he
according
is
to the senses; then his rational lastly,
The one
man
;
highest,
his is
man.
is
his understanding
{Gemiiih —
^lit.
far this third
sees me.
W.
is
rea-
spirit,
emotional, feeling nature),
man
is
above the
How
'
'
^
first
"The eye through which
God, that
Cp.
.
and
Eckhart has expressed in the
second,
'
and
man
the very highest part of the soul.
p. 161.
.
the inner, understanding
soning powers; the third
words:
.
the outer, animal, sensuous
the other
man, with
godlike
man and
is
I see
the same eye with which
My
God
eye and God's eye, that
Preger: Geschichte der Deutschen Mystik, vol.
iii,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
86 is
one eye and one knowing and one
feeling."
But
Tauler another feeling
in
He
as well as this.
is
active
has fought his way-
through to a real vision of the
spiritual,
and does not constantly confuse, as do the false materialists and the false the sensibly-natural with the
idealists,
spiritual.
If,
with his disposition, Tauler
had become a
upon
insisted
scientist,
he would have
explaining
all
that
is
man, both and the second, purely upon lines. He would never have
natural, including the whole of
the
first
natural
transferred purely
nature
itself.
talked of a
spiritual
He would
forces
never
into
have
" piirposefillness " in nature
conceived of according to men's notions.
He knew
that there, where
with our senses, are to be found.
we
perceive
no "creative ideas" Far rather he was most
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
87
man
keenly conscious of the fact that
And
a purely natural being.
is
as he felt
himself to be, not a scientist, but a defelt
most
keenly the contrast which reveals
itself
votee of moral
between
life,
he therefore
this nattiral being of
that vision of
God which
arises naturally
and within nature, but as
And
spirituality.
just in that very contrast the
ing of
Man
life
presented
finds himself as
reveal to
cannot
a
is
outside
natural creation.
In
And
life
yet his inner
and beyond
it.
to his eyes.
science can
else
about
this
such a creattire of
As a creature get
mean-
single being, a
him anything
than that he
natiu-e.
itself
And no
creature of nature.
life
man and
of it
nature
of
the
sphere
he of
he must remain.
leads
him
outside
He must have
confi-
dence in that which no science of outer nature can give hrm or show to him.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
88
If
he
calls
"that which to reach cognises
only this nature Being or is,"
then he must be able
out to the vision which as
"that which
no God who
the higher, is
is
not."
Non-being,
re-
or
Tauler seeks for
present in the same sense
as a natural force; he seeks tio
God who
has created the world in the sense of
human
creation.
In him lives the clear
insight that the conception of creation
even of the Fathers of the Church
is only-
human creating. It is clear him that God is not to be foimd idealised
nature's working
by
science.
nature as God.
as
and her laws are found,
Tauler
we must not add
to
in
is
well aware that
thought anything to
He knows
that whoever
thinks God, in his sense, no longer thinks
thought-content, as does one
grasped natirre in thought.
who has
Therefore,
Tauler seeks not to think God, but to
THE FRIENSDHIP OF GOD think divinely, to think as
The knowledge
God
89
thinks.
of nattire is not enriched
by the knowledge of God, but transformed. The knower of God does not know a different thing
from the knower of nature,
but he knows in a different way. one
single letter
can the knower of
add to the knowledge
Not God
of nature; but
through his whole knowing of nature there shines a
What of
new
Ught.
root-feelings will take possession
who contemplates
a man's soul
the
world from this point of view, will depend
upon how he regards that experience of the soul
re-birth. is
which brings about
spiritual
Within this experience,
man
wholly a natural being, when he con-
siders
himself
in
his
interaction with
the rest of nature; and he spiritual
being
when he
is
wholly a
considers the
conditions into which this re-birth has
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
90
brought him.
the
equal truth, soul
Thus we can say with inmost depth of the
natural; as also
is still
it is
already
Tauler emphasised the former
divine.
in accordance
with his own tendency of
However far we may penetrate our souls, we still remain separated
thought. into
individual self.
human
But yet
beings, said he to him-
in the
very depths of the
soul of the individual being there gleams forth the All-Being.
Tauler was dominated by the feeling:
Thou canst not free thyself from ness, nor purify thyself
from
separate-
There-
it.
fore the All-Being in its purity can never
make
its
only shed soul.
appearance within thee, its light
Thus
reflection,
a
comes into
in its
it
can
into the depths of thy
depths only a mere
picture existence.
of
the
Thou
All-Being canst
so
transform thy separated personality that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD it
91
reproduces the All-Being as a picture;
but this All-Being forth in thee.
itself
does not shine
Starting from such con-
came
ceptions, Tauler
to the idea of a
Godhead that never merges wholly
into
the htunan world, never flows quite completely into
More, he attaches im-
it.
portance to his not being confused with those
who maintain
being
is
itself
that man's inmost
divine.
Union with God
is
in a fleshly sense,
He
says:
"The
taken by foolish
men
and they say that they
be transformed into divine nature;
shall
but such
is
false
and an
evil heresy.
For
even in the very highest, most inward
Union with God, God's nature and God's being the
still
remain
loftiest;
lofty, yea,
higher than
that passeth into a divine
abyss, where never yet
was creature."
Tauler wishes, and rightly, to be called
a good Catholic in the sense of his age
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
92
and
desire to oppose
and
deepen
desires only to
spiritualise that Christianity
way
has no
any other conception to
He
Christianity.
his
He
of his priestly calling.
of looking at
He
it.
through
speaks as
a pious priest of the content of Holy Writ.
But
this
same scripture
becomes
still
means
the world of his conceptions a
in for
the expression of the inmost experiences of his soul. in the soul
"God worketh
all his
works
and giveth them to the
soul;
and the Father begetteth His only begotten Son
in the soul, as truly as
Him What
bom when
one
begetteth in the soul? of
Is it
of
God?
Nay
:
it is
less.
God
says:
God, or a picture of God, or
what
begetteth
more, nor
in eternity, neither is
He
a likeness is it
some-
neither picture
nor likeness of God, but the same
and the same Son
whom
getteth in eternity
and naught
God
the Father beelse
than
THE FRIENDSHIP OP GOD the blissful divine word, that
Him
person in the Trinity, begetteth in the soul,
is
.
.
the second
the Father
and thereof
.
the soul hath thus great and
The
dignity."'
come
93
special
stories of scripture be-
for Tauler the
garment
in
which he
clothes the happiness of the inner
life.
"Herod, who drove out the child and sought to slay him, world,
is
a likeness of the
which yet seeketh to
this
kill
child in a beKeving
man, therefore one
should and must
therefrom,
desire to
is
but
the enlightened believing
soiol
and every man." directs his gaze
the natural man, he
concerned to the higher '
Cp. Preger:
2ig
we do us,
As Tauler
p.
if
keep that child alive in
that child of each
flee
et seq.
tell
man
is
mainly upon
comparatively
us what happens
less
when
enters into the natural
History of German Mysticism, vol.
iii..
94
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
man, than
to discover the paths
which
the lower forces of the personaHty must follow
they are to be transmuted into
if
the higher
moral
life,
As a devotee
life.
he desires to show to
roads to the All-Being. ditional faith
man,
his life that there
if
man
his
world:
a
will so order
man
can
shuts him-
mere natural separated
Such a man, separated
personality. in himself,
has imcon-
this All-Being
never shine forth while in
the
shaU be in him a shrine
But
for the Divine.
up
men
and trust that the All-Being
shines forth in
self
He
of the
is
off
merely one member of the
single
creature,
in
Tauler's
The more man shuts himself off within this his being as a member of the world, so much the less can the All-
language.
Being find place in him.
"If
man
is
in
become one with God, then all energies and powers even of the inner
reality to
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD man must
and become
die
95
The
silent.
must turn away even from the Good
will
and from
all willing,
of
willing."
aU
his senses
and become void
"Man must
escape from
and turn inwards
all his
powers, and come into a forgetting of
"For the true
things and of himself."
and eternal Word in the desert,
of
God
is
uttered only
when the man hath gone
out from himself and from
and
is
all
all
things
quite untrammelled, desolate and
alone."
When
Tauler stood at his zenith, the
problem which occupied the central point of his
mental
overcome and
was:
life
kill
How
can
man
out in himself his
separated existence, so as to live in perfect
unison with the All-life?
For one
in this position, all feelings towards the
All-Being this
concentrate
one thing:
Awe
themselves
into
the
All-
before
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
96
Being as that which
He
endless.
says to himself: whatever
thou hast reached, there remain
level still
higher perspectives,
Thus
possibilities. is
inexhaustible,
is
him the
to
still
and defined as
clear
direction in
to turn his steps,
it
is
more exalted
which he has
equally clear to
him that he can never speak of a goal: for a new goal is only the beginning of a new path. Through such a new goal
man
reaches a certain level of evolution:
but
evolution
itself
continues
ably.
And what
attain
upon some more distant
that
can never know upon
There
is
evolution
its
no knowing the
inimit-
may
level, it
present stage.
final goal:
only
a trusting in the path, in evolution self.
There
which
man
is
knowing
has
already
for everything
attained.
consists in the penetration of
present
object
it-
It
an already
by the powers
of
ovj:
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD For the higher
spirit.
inner being, there
Here the powers
is
97
man's
of
life
no such knowing.
of oiir spirit
must
first
transfer the object itself into the realm
they must
of the existent;
for
it
create
first
an existence, constituted as
is
natural existence.
Natural Science follows the evolution of beings
from the simplest up to the
most perfected, to evolution pleted. it
lies
man
himself.
This
before us as already com-
We know
it,
by penetrating
When humanity, man
with the powers of our
evolution has reached
spirit.
then finds nothing further there before
him
as
its
accomplishes
He
continuation.
the
Henceforward he
further lives
stages he only knows.
unfoldment.
what
He
himself
for earlier creates, ac-
cording to the object, that which, for
what has gone
before,
he only copies
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
98
in accordance
with
That truth
not one with the existent
in nature,
is
its spiritual
nature.
but naturally embraces both
the existent and the non-existent: of this truth Tauler all
his
down
filled
is
feelings.
It
to overflowing in
has been handed
to us that Tauler
fulfilling
was
led to this
by an illuminated layman, a
"Friend of God from the Mountains."
We
have here a mysterious
story.
God"
lived
there exist only conjectures; as to
who
As
to where this "Friend of
He seems Taiiler's way
he was, not even these.
to
have heard much
of
of
preaching, and to have resolved accordingly
to
journey to
Tauler,
who was
then working as a preacher in Strassburg, in order to
by him. of
fulfil
a certain duty
Tauler's relation to the Friend
God, and the
latter exercised
influence which
upon the former,
the
are to
THE FRIENSDHIP OF GOD
99
be found described in a text which
is
printed along with the oldest editions of
sermons
Tauler's
"The Book
of the
a Friend of God, in recognise the
under the
a "Master," ler himself.
Therein
Master."
whom some
same who came
lations with Tauler, gives
title,
seek to into re-
an account
of
whom some assert to be TauHe relates how a transfor-
mation, a spiritual re-birth, was brought
about in a certain "Master" and how the
when he
latter,
felt
near, called his friend to
him
drawing
his death
him and begged
to write the story of his "enlight-
enment," but yet to take care that no one should ever learn of
whom
speaks.
He
that
the knowledge that
all
from him
is
the book
asks this on the
ground proceeds
yet not really from him.
"For know ye that God hath brought all to pass through me, poor worm, and
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
100
that what
it
is,
is
not mine,
it
is
of
God."
A
learned controversy which has con-
nected
itself
with
the
occurrence
is
not of the very smallest importance for
An
the essence of the matter.
was made to prove on one Friend of
God never
existence
his
was
side' that the
existed,
fiction
effort
but that
and that the
books ascribed to him come from another hand (Rulman Merswin).
On
the
other hand Wilhehn Preger has sought
with
many arguments
(in his
History of
German Mysticism) to support the existence, the genuineness of the writings,
and
the correctness of the facts that relate to Tauler. I
am here
light
under no obligation to throw
by presumptuous
investigation
upon
a relationship as to which any one, who 'Denifle: Die Dictungen des Gottesfreundes
im Oberlande.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD understands question,
in
remain a
how
loi
to read the writings^
know
will
that
should
it
secret.
one says of Tauler, that at a certain
If
stage of his
life
a transformation took
amply sufficient. Tauler's personality need no longer be in any way considered in this connecplace in him, that will be
but only a personality "in general."
tion,
As regards Tauler, we are only concerned with the fact that we must understand his
transformation
view
compare
from the point
what
follows.
his later activity
with his
set forth in
the fact of this transformation
without '
The
further
search.
writings in question axe,
I
among
is
we
earlier,
obvious
will others
If
of
:
leave Von eime
eigenwilligen weltwisen manne, der von eime heiligen welt-
gehorsamme, 1338; Das Buck von den zwei Mannen; Der gefangene Ritter, 1349; Die geistliche siege, 1350; Von der geistlichen Leiter, 1357; Das Meisterbuch, 1369; Geschichte von zwei fiinfzehnjdhzpriestere gewiselwart uffe demueiige
igen
Knaben.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
102
aside
all
outer circtimstances and relate
the inner occurrences in the soul of the
"Master" under "the
my
What
layman."
influence of the
reader
will
understand by the "layman" and the
"Master" depends mentaUty; what it is
for
I
it is
Master
as to
his
is
of
know
any weight.
instructing his disciples
the relationship of the
that
own
myself think about
the All-Being of things. fact
upon
a matter as to which I cannot
whom
A
entirely
when
man
soul to
He speaks of the plunges
into
the abysmal depths of his soul, he no longer feels the natural, limited forces of
the separated personality working within
him.
Therein
the
separated
man no
longer speaks, therein speaks God.
There
man does not see God, or the world there God sees Himself. Man has become one ;
with God.
But the Master knows that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD this teaching has not yet full life in
He
him.
103
awakened
thinks
to
with his
it
understanding: but he does not yet live in
with every
it
He
fibre of his personality.
thus teaching about a state of
is
things which he has not yet completely lived through in himself.
The
descrip-
tion of the condition corresponds to the truth; yet this truth it
does not gain
bring
itself
life,
no value
has if
it
does
if
not
forth in reality as actually
existent.
The "layman"
or "Friend
of
God"
hears of the Master and his teachings.
He
is
no
less
saturated with the truth
which the Master utters than the Master
But he possesses
himself.
this
truth
not as a matter of the understanding;
he has
it
as the whole force of his
life.
He knows that when this truth has come to a man from outside, he can himself
I04
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
give utterance to
than the
without even in the
accordance with
least living in
in that case
it,
it.
he has nothing other in
knowledge of the un-
natiu-al
He
derstanding.
But him
then
speaks
this
of
were the
natural
knowledge as
highest,
equivalent to the working of
the All-Being.
It is
it
if
not
so,
has not been acquired in a
because
life
it
that has
approached to this knowledge as a transformed, a reborn only
quires
as
What one
natural
a
natiu-al,-
ac-
man, that
—even
only
remains
life.
when
one afterwards expresses in words the
fundamental characteristic of the higher knowledge.
Outwards, from within the
very nature
itself,
must the transform-
ation be accomplished.
Nature, which by living has evolved itself
to
a certain
further through
life
level, ;
must evolve
something new must
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD come
105
into existence through this further
Man must
evolution.
not
only
look
backwards upon the evolution which already
lies
highest
that
behind him
which
cording thereto
—claim
shapes his
in
as the
itself
spirit
—but
ac-
he
must look forward upon the uncreate: his
knowledge must be a beginning
new
of evolution it.
the
of
a
content, not an end to the content
which already
lies
before
Nature advances from the worm to
mammal, from
the
mammal
to
man,
not in a conceptual but in an actual,
Man
real process.
process not
in
has to repeat this
mind
his
mental repetition
is
alone.
The
only the beginning
of a fresh, real evolution, which, however,
despite
its
being spiritual,
then, does not merely
is real.
Man,
know what nature
has produced; he continues natiire; he translates his knowledge into living ac-
io6
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
tion.
the
gives birth within himself to
and
spirit,
onwards from
advances thence
this spirit
level to level of evolution,
Spirit begins
as nature itself advances.
a natural process upon a higher
The
God who contem-
talk about the
man's inner being, takes
plates Himself in
on a
who has
different character in one
recognised
portance
He
this.
the
to
attaches
fact
depths
the
of
him
All-Being;
spiritual nature acquires a It
unfolds
itself
direction determined
Such a
man
differently
little
im-
an insight
that
already attained has led
ter.
level.
into the
instead,
new
further
by the
his
characin
the
All-Being.
not only looks at the world
from one who merely under-
stands: he lives his
life
otherwise.
does not talk of the meaning which
He life
already has through the forces and laws of the world:
but he gives anew a fresh
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD meaning to
107
already has in
As little as the itself what makes
appearance on a
later level of evolution
his
life.
mammal,
as the
as
little
fish its
has the under-
standing
man
already in himself what
be
bom
from him as the higher
shall
man.
know
the fish could
If
the things around
it,
it
and
itself
would regard
the being-a-fish as the meaning of It
would say: the All-Being
fish:
in the fish
Thus would the
long as
it
remained constant to not
does
It
reaches
with
its activity.
and
later it
its
under-
In reality
remain constant thereto.
out beyond
a
the
speak as
fish
standing kind of knowledge.
which
is like
the All-Being beholds
itself.
it
life.
It
its
knowledge
becomes a
mammal.
reptile
The meaning
gives to itself in reality reaches
out beyond the meaning which contemplation gives to
it.
mere
io8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
must be so. He gives himself a meaning in reality; he does not halt and stand still at the meaning he already has, which his contemplation shows him. Knowledge In
man
leaps out
also
this
beyond
itself, if
only
it
under-
Knowledge cannot deduce the world from a ready-made God; it can only unfold itself from a germ in the direction towards a God. stands
itself aright.
The man who has understood this will not regard God as something that is outside of him; he will deal with God as a being who wanders with him towards a goal, which at the outset is just as unknown as the nature of the to the
fish.
He
mammal
is
tinknown
does not aim to be the
knower of the hidden, or of the self -revealing existent God, but to be the friend of the divine doing is
and working, which
exalted over both being
and non-being.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD The layman, who came
109
to the Master,
was a "Friend, of God" in this sense, and through him the Master became from a contemplator of the being of God, one who one
"aHve
is
who not
in the spirit,"
lived in the higher sense.
now no
of
ideas burst
understanding from
the
his inner nature,
but these concepts and
forth
from him as
He no
actualised spirit.
foundations
is
longer merely
of
their
being.
plunged
their
souls
inner being; he led
living,
he shook the very
edified his hearers;
This
The Master
longer brought forth concepts
and ideas
longer
but
only contemplated,
them
He no into
into a
their
new
life.
recounted to us symbolically:
about forty people his preaching
fell
and lay as
down through if
dead.
no MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE As a guide possess
a
book
nothing
is
known.
known
about
has
first
with
it
indicates
ac-
year
the
trans-
What
original text.
book
the
it
Franz
modern German
a
lation facing the
precedes
made
printed
recently
we
author
philologist,
cording to a manuscript of 1497,
life,
whose
Luther
The
in print.
Pfeiffer,
new
to such a
its
pur-
"Here begins the man from Frankfurt and saith many very lofty and very beautiful things pose and
its
goal:
about a perfect
life."
the "Preface about the furt":
Upon
man from
"Al-mighty, Eternal
uttered this
little
this follows
Frank-
God hath
book through a
wise,
understanding, truthful, righteous man, his friend,
who
in
former days was a
German nobleman, a priest and a custodian in the German House of Nobles at Frankfurt;
it
teacheth
many a
lovely
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD insight
know and
Divine Wisdom,
into
pecially
1 1
and
es-
how and whereby one may
the true, righteous friends of God, the
also
thinkers,
who
unrighteous,
false,
free-
are very hiartful to
Holy
Church."
By
"free-thinkers" one
who
understand those conceptual
world,
may
live in
like
the
perhaps
a merely
"Master"
described above before his transformation
by means of the "Friend of God," and by the "true, righteous friends of God," such as possess the disposition of the
"layman."
One may
further ascribe to
the book the intention of so working
upon its readers as the "Friend of God from the Mountains" did upon the
known who the author was. But what does that mean? It is not known when he was bom and Master.
died, or
It
is
not
what he did
in his outer
life.
112
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
That
the
author
aimed
preserve
to
eternal secrecy about these facts of his
outer in
life,
way
belongs naturally to the
which he desired to work.
bom
the "I" of this or the other man, at a definite point of time,
speak to
us,
not
It is
who
is
to
but the "I-ness" in the
depths whereof "the separateness of individualities" (in the sense of Paul saying')
must
first
unfold
itself.
Asmus' "If
God who
men who are or have ever been, and became man in them, and they became God in Him, and it did not happen to me also, then my fall and my turning away would never be made good, unless it also happened in me too. And in this restoration and making good, I neither can nor may nor should do anytook to Himself
all
thing thereto save a mere pvire suffering, so that '
God
alone doeth and worketh
Vide ante, page 34.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD all
things in me, and
all
His works and His divine
if I
will
not submit to
myself with egotism, I,
suffer
I
this,
i.e.,
1
13
Him and will.
But
but possess
with mine, and
to me, for me, and the like, that hinders
God so that He cannot work His work in me purely alone and without hindrance. remain
my
my
away thus not made good." The
Therefore
"man from
fall
and
turning
Frankfurt" aims to speak
not as a separated individual; he desires to let
God
speak.
That he yet can do
this only as a single, distinct personality
he naturally knows
full well;
but he
a "Friend of God," that means a
who aims of
life
pointing
is
man
not at presenting the nature
through contemplation, but at out the beginning of a new
evolutionary pathway through the living spirit.
The explanations
in
the
book are
114
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
how one comes The root-thought
various instructions as to to
pathway.
this
strip
and
again
returns ofif
man must
again:
everything that
connected
is
with that which makes him appear as a single, separate personality.
This thought
seems to be worked out only in respect of the
moral
life; it
should be extended,
without further ado, to the higher of
knowledge as
hilate
then
separateness:
anni-
whatever appears as
oneself
in
One must
well.
life
separated
existence
We
ceases; the All-Life enters into us.
cannot master this All-Life by drawing it
towards
we reduce silence. all
the
We
comes into
separateness
when we
existence
already dwelt within
as it.
when
us,
us to
in
have the All-Life
just then,
separated
It
us.
least
of
so regard our if
the
This
Whole
first
to light in the separated existence
comes
when
THE FRIENDSHIP OP GOD this separated existence
sion
no longer claims This preten-
be anything.
for itself to
115
on the part of the separated existence
our text terms "assumption."
Through "assumption" the it
impossible
versal self
for
itself
then puts
itself
makes
the Uni-
that
enter into
shoiild
Self
self
it.
The
as a part, as some-
thing imperfect, in the place of the whole,
"The
of the perfect.
perfect
is
a being,
that in itself and in its being has conceived
and resolved
beings,
all
and without
which and apart from which there
is
no
true being, and in which all things have their being;
things and
for
is
it
is
in itself
the being of
unchangeable and
immovable, and changes and moves other things. imperfect
is
all
all
But the divided and the
that which has sprung from
out of this perfect, or becomes, just as a
ray or a light that flows forth from the
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ii6
sun or a light and shines upon something, this
And
or that.
and
creature,
none
that
the
called
of all these divided things
Therefore also
the perfect.
is
is
the perfect none of the divided.
When
But when does
When
known, defect
so far as
lies
is
come?
it
possible
sun is
But that
is
the
man
sees
no defect of the sun
anything,
other things.
If
my
eye
.
.
.
it
Now
one might be
inclined to say: In so far then as
unknowable and inconceivable creatures,
it.
must become or be already cleansed from all
see
cleansed,
is
just as near to the
but of the blind man. ... to
it
illuminates
one as to the other, yet a blind
is
is
I
wholly in us and not in
whole world and
not.
.
tasted in the soul; for the
felt,
For just as the
it
.
the perfect cometh, the divided
despised.
say:
.
is
and
since the soul
is
it
for
also
is
all
a
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD how can
creature,
it
as
is
much
in
is it said,
known as a
the creature shall be
This
known
then be
Answer: Therefore
the soul?
117
creature.''
as to say that
all
creatures shall be regarded as created
and creation and not regard themselves as
and
I-ness
knowing
is
whereby
self-ness,
made
be known, there
"For
impossible.
whatever creature
in
one shall
this perfect
all
this
creature-being, cre-
and everything of the kind must be lost, be and become naught."' The soul must thereated-being, I-ness, self-ness,
fore look its
within
from the
it
perfect.
it
thereby cuts
itself off
i.,
in spirit,
Book of
the
If
If it regards its I-ness
upon by the stream Chap,
finds
remains
only as a thing lent to annihilates
it
it
I-ness, its self-ness.
standing there,
•
there
itself;
it
were, and
will
be seized
as
it it
of the All-Life, of
Man from
Frankfurt.
ii8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
"When
Perfection.
sumes to
the
creature
somewhat
itself
as-
good, as
of
Being, Life, Knowledge, Power, in short,
aught of that which one thinks that to
it
much
it is
calls
good and
that, or that it belongs
or comes from
so often
it,
and so
as that happens, does the creature
"The created soul of man The one is the possibility
turn away."
has two eyes.
of seeing in eternity; the other of seeing in time
and
"Man
in creation."
therefore stand
and be quite
himself, that
without
me, mine, he as
for
little
and what
is
is
me and
free
should
without
self-ness, I-ness,
the
so that
like,
seeks and thinks of himself his in all things as
if it
did
not exist; and he should therefore also think
little of
and as
if
himself, as
another
if
he were not,
had done
deeds."' '
Chap. XV. Book of ,
the
Man from
Frankfurt.
all
his
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD One must
also take account
fact in regard
to
that
sentences,
the
and
these
thought-content,
the
by
We
his
feelings, is that of
believing priest in the spirit of his
time.
19
of the
writer of
to which he gives a direction
higher ideas
1
a
own
are here concerned not with
the thought-content, but with the direction, not with the thoughts
the
way
of thinking.
Any
one
but with
who does
not live as he does in Christian dogmas,
but in the conceptions of natural science, in his
finds
sentences other thoughts;
but with these other thoughts he points in the
tion
is
same
direction.
And
this direc-
that which leads to the over-
coming
of the self -hood,
itself.
The
in his
Ego.
by the
Self -hood
highest light shines for
But
this light
man
only then
imparts to his concept-world the right reflection,
when he becomes aware
that
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
I20
it
not
is
own
his
but the
self-light,
universal world- light.
Hence there
no more important
is
knowledge than self-knowledge; and there is
equally no knowledge which leads so
completely out beyond "self"
knows
no longer a
When
itself.
itself aright, it is
own
In his
"self."
the
already
language,
the writer of the book in question expresses
as
this
'own-ness' of self-ness
is
void of this
and
and own-ness
follows:
I-ness;
it
'this'
but the nature
of the creature is that
seeketh and willeth
and
"For God's and that, void
and
'that';
and
does or leaves undone,
receive its
own
benefit
"When, now, the loseth his own-ness himself,
God
its
own
in all
that
and
itself
it
and
seeketh to profit.
creature or the
and
his self-ness
and goeth out from
it
man and
himself, then
entereth in with His Own-ness, that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
Man
with his Self-hood."'
is
wards, from a view of his
makes the very
a
to
soars up-
"Ego" which
appear to him as his
latter
being,
121
view
such
that
it
shows him his Ego as a mere organ,
in
which the All-Being works upon
itself.
In the concept-sphere of our text, this
means: "If
man
can attain thereto that
he belongeth unto
God
just as a
man's
hand belongeth to him, then let him content himself and seek no further."^ That is not intended to mean that
when man has reached a of
his
is
he
shall
stand
still
but that, when he has got as far
there,
as
evolution
certain stage
indicated in the above words, he
should not set on foot further investigations into the
rather '
make
meaning
but
use of the hand, in order
Chap, xxiv, Book of Chap. liv.
'Ibid.,
of the hand,
the
Man
from Frankfurt.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
122
that
it
may
to which
it
render service to the body belongs.
Heinrich Suso and Johannes RxjysBROEK possessed a type of mind which
may be characterised as genius for feeling. Their feelings are drawn by something like
instinct
in
the same direction in
which Eckhart's and Tauler's feelings were guided by their higher thoughtlife.
Suso's heart turns devoutly towards
that Root-Being which embraces the individual
man
just as
much
remaining world, and in himself,
he yearns to
as the whole
whom
forgetting
lose himself as a
drop of water in the mighty ocean.
He
speaks of this his yearning towards the All -Being, not as of something that desires to of
it
embrace
in thought;
he
he speaks
as a natural impulse, that
makes
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD drunken with desire
soul
his
annihilation
and
its
of
of
the
endless
life.
its
with not-being; for being.
let fall
Take unmoved
manifold being.
that
being in itseh alone, that
all
"Turn
pure naked
thou mayest
simplicity, so that
and
the
in the all-
life
thine eyes to this being in
this
for
separated existence
its
re-awakening to
efficiency
123
all
is
not-being denies
A thing that is yet to become,
or that has been,
is
not
now
in actual
presence."
"Now, one cannot know mixed being or not-being except by some mark of For
being as a whole.
if
stand a thing, the reason being,
and that
all things.
is
It is
or that creature, all
one will underfirst
encounters
a being that worketh
a divided being of this
—for
divided being
is
mingled with something of other-ness,
with a possibility of receiving something.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
124
Therefore
must it
the
nameless
so be a whole being in
sustaineth
all
being
divine itself,
that
divided beings by
its
presence."
Thus speaks Suso in the autobiography which he wrote in conjunction with his He, too,
pupil Elsbet Staglin. priest
and
circle of if it
He
a pious
the Christian
lives entirely in
thought.
is
lives therein as
were quite unthinkable that anybody
with his mental tendency could live in
any other world.
But
of
him
also it is
true that one can combine another con-
cept-content with his mental tendency.
This in
is
clearly borne out
by the way
which the content of the
teaching
has
Christian
become
for
him
and
his
relation
inner experience,
actual to
become a relation between his own spirit and the eternal truth in a Christ has
purely ideal, spiritual way.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD He composed a Wisdom y
"Little
to
not?
How
its
servant, in
"Knowest thou
other words to himself:
me
of Eternal
In this he makes the "Eter-
Wisdom" speak
nal
Book
125
art thou so cast
down, or
hast thou lost consciousness from agony of heart, is I,
my
merciful
tender child?
Behold
it
Wisdom, who have opened
wide the abyss of fathomless compassion which yet
hidden from
is
saints, tenderly to receive thee
repentant hearts;
it
is
I,
all
the
and
all
sweet Eternal
Wisdom, who was there poor and miserable, so as to bring thee to
thy worthiness;
who suffered bitter death, that I might make thee to live again! I stand it is I,
here pale and bleeding and lovely, as I
stood on the lofty gallows of the cross
between the stem judgment
and
thee.
is I,
thy spouse!
It is
I,
I
of
my Father
thy brother; look,
it
have therefore wholly
126
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
forgotten as
if
thou hast done against me,
all
had never been,
it
tumest wholly to self
me and
if
only thou
separatest thy-
no more from me."
All that
bodily and temporal in the
is
conception
Christian
become
has
for
Suso, as one sees, a spiritual-ideal process
From some
in the recesses of his soul.
chapters of Suso's biography mentioned
above,
it
might appear as
himself be guided not of his
own
spiritual power,
visions.
But he expresses
to
not
the
two-souled
knowledge
One
ghostly
meaning attains
reasonableness,
any kind
difference
his
this.
through
truth
through
"The
about
let
but through
through
revelations,
clearly
he had
by the mere action
external
quite
if
of
revelation.
between pure truth and
visions
in
the
I will also tell
matter
of
An
im-
you.
mediate beholding of the bare Godhead,
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD that
is
right
pure truth,
127
without
doubt; and every vision, so that
all
be
it
reasonable and without pictures and the
more
like it
be unto that bare beholding,
the purer and nobler
it
is."
Meister Eckhart, too, leaves no doubt that he puts aside the view which seeks to be spiritual in bodily-spacial forms, in appearances
which one can perceive
by any senses. Minds of the type Suso and Eckhart are thus opponents
of
of
such a view, as that which finds expression in the spiritualism which has devel-
oped during the nineteenth century.
Johannes Ruysbroek, the Belgian mystic, trod the same path as Suso.
His
way foimd an active opponent Johannes Gerson (bom 1363), who
spiritual
in
was
for
some time Chancellor
of
the
128
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
University of Paris and played a mo-
mentous
r61e at the Council of Constance.
Some
light
of the
mysticism which was practised by
Tauler,
compares
is
Suso it
thrown upon the nature
and
Ruysbroek,
if
one
with the mystic endeavours
of Gerson,
who had
Richard de
St. Victor,
his predecessors in
Bonaventura, and
others.
Ruysbroek himself fought against those
whom
he reckoned among the heretical
mystics.
As such he considered aU those
who, through an easy-going judgment of the understanding, hold that all things
proceed from one Root-Being, fore see in the
and
in
who
there-
world only a manifoldness
God the unity
of this manifoldness.
Ruysbroek does not count himself among these, for
he knew that one cannot attain
by the contemplation but only by raising oneself from
to the Root-Being of things,
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD this lower
mode
129
of contemplation to a
higher one Similarly, he turned against those
who
seek to see without further ado, in the individual
ence
man,
in his separated exist-
(in his creattire-being),
He
nature also.
deplored not a
the error which confuses
and
the sense- world,
in
his higher little
all differences
asserts
light-
mindedly that things are different only in appearance,
they are for
but that in their being
all alike.
This would amount,
a way of thinking
like
Ruysbroek's, to
the same thing as saying: fact that the trees in otu"
seeing to
That the an avenue seem to
come together does not
In reality they are every-
concern us.
where equally
far apart,
therefore oiir
eyes ought to accustom themselves to see correctly.
That the
But our eyes
trees
see aright.
run together depends
130
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
upon a necessary law of nature; and we have nothing to reproach ovir seeing with, but on the contrary to recognise in
why we
spirit
see
them
thus.
Moreover, the mystic does not turn
away from
the things of the senses.
As
them as to him that
things of the senses, he accepts
they
and
are,
through
in
senses
is
clear
no judgment
standing
But
it
can spirit
of
the
under-
become otherwise. he passes beyond both
they
and understanding, and then only
does he find the unity.
His faith
is
unshakable that he can develop himself to the beholding of this unity.
does he ascribe to the nature of
fore
man
the divine
brought to shine its
There-
own
spark which in
can be
him, to shine by
light.
People of the otherwise.
type of Gerson think
They do not
believe in this
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
man
For them, what
self -shining.
131
,
can
behold remains always a something external, that
come
from some
them
to
side or other
must
Ruysbroek
externally.
beheved that the highest wisdom must needs shine forth for mystic contem-
Gerson believed only that the
plation.
an
soul can illuminate the content of
external teaching (that of the Church).
For else
Gerson,
For
teaching. faith,
that
is
was
warm
but possessing a
everything
is
Mysticism
bom
feeling for
revealed
Ruysbroek,
that the content of
also
in
nothing
the
in
was
it
all
soul.
this
a
teaching
Therefore
Gerson blames Ruysbroek in that the latter imagines that not only
has he the
power to behold the AU-Being with clearness,
but
there expresses
AU-Being.
beholding
that
in
itself
an activity
this
of the
Ruysbroek simply could not
132
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
be understood by Gerson. of
two wholly
Both spoke Ruys-
different things.
broek has in his mind's eye the the soul that lives
with
its
life
of
into
oneness
God; Gerson, only a
soul-life
itself
that seeks to love the
never actually live in
God whom itself.
Like
it
can
many
others, Gerson fought against something
that was strange to
him only because he
could not grasp
in experience.
it
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
A
GLORIOUSLY shining
star in the
Middle Ages
of the thought-life of the is
Nicholas
Trevis,
of
Cusa
(at
stands upon the
the knowledge of his time.
mathematics
markable work.
may
He
1 401- 1464).
simimit of
In
Chrysippus
sky
he
accomplished
re-
In natural science he
be described as the forerunner of
Copernicus, for he took up the standpoint that the earth
is
a moving celestial
body like others. He had already broken away from a view upon which even a hundred years later the great astronomer, Tycho Brahe, based himself, when he hurled against the teaching of Copernicus
the
sentence: 133
"The
earth
is
a
134
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
gross,
heavy mass inapt
how,
then,
star of
can
and run
it
for
movement;
Copernicus it
make
a
about in the air?"
The same man who thus not only embraced
all
the knowledge of his time, but
extended
also
it
fiu-ther,
possessed in
addition, in a high degree, the
awakening
man
it
of
knowledge in the inner
this
so that
life,
external
power
not only illuminates the
world, but also mediates
that spiritual
life,
for
which from the
profounder depths of his soul he needs
must long
after.
we compare Nicholas with such spirits as Eckhart or Tauler, we obtain If
a remarkable
result.
Nicholas
is
the
scientific thinker, striving to lift himself
from research about the things
of the
world on to the level of a higher perception; ful
Eckhart and Tauler are the
believers,
who
faith-
seek the higher
life
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA from within the content
135
of this faith.
Eventually Nicholas arrives at the same inner
life
as Meister Eckhart;
inner
life
of the former has a rich store
of
knowledge as
The
but the
content.
its
full significance of this difference
becomes clear when we
reflect that for
the student of science the danger
lies
very near at hand of misunderstanding the scope of that species of knowing
which enlightens us regarding the various special
departments of knowledge.
He
can very readily be misled into believing that there really or
mode
of
only one single kind
is
knowledge; and then he
will
either over- or under-rate this knowledge
which leads us to the goal special will
sciences.
In the one case he
approach the subject-matter of the
highest spiritual
lem
in the various
in physics,
life
as he
would a prob-
and proceed
to deal with
136
it
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
by means
he would
of concepts such as
apply to gravitation or
Thus,
electricity.
according as he believes himself to be
more
or less enlightened, the world will
appear to him as a blindly working machine,
or
an organism,
teleological structure of
ceived "World-Soul."
the
a personal God:
perhaps even as a form which
pervaded by a more or
as
or
is
ruled and
less clearly
con-
In the other case
he notes that the knowledge, of which alone he has any experience,
is
adapted
only to the things of the sense-world;
and then he will become a to himself:
We
things which senses.
lie
sceptic, saying
can know nothing about
beyond the world
Our knowledge
has
For the needs of the higher
life
a
of the limit.
we have
no choice but to throw ourselves blindly into
the
arms
knowledge.
of
And
faith for
a
untouched by learned
theo-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
137
who was
logian like Nicholas of Cusa,
also a scientist, this second danger lay
peculiarly near at hand.
For he emerged,
along the lines of his learned training,
—the way of conceiv-
from Scholasticism,-
ing things which was dominant in scientific life
within the Mediseval Church; a
mode of thought that St. Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), the "Prince of Scholastics,"
had brought to
We
must take
its
this
highest perfection.
mode
of conceiving
when we
background,
things
as
the
desire
to
portray
the
personality
of
Nicholas of Cusa. Scholasticism
a product
of
is,
in the highest degree,
human
the logical capacity celebrated
triumphs.
and
sagacity;
Any one who
is
its
Scholastics
for
highest
striving to
work out concepts in their most clear-cut outlines, ought the
in it
sharpest, to go to
instruction.
They
138
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
afford us the
nique
of
High School
thinking.
incomparable
skill in
of pure thinking.
for the tech-
They possess an moving in the field
It is easy to under-
value what they were able to achieve in this field; for it is only with difficulty
accessible to
man
partments of knowledge. rise to its level
numbers and ing
most de-
as regards
The majority
only in the domains of
calctilation,
upon the connection
and
in reflect-
of geometrical
figures.
We
can count by adding in thought a
unity to a number, without needing to call
We
to our help sense-conceptions.
calculate tions,
also,
without
such
concep-
in the pure element of thought.
In regard to geometrical figures,
we know
that they never perfectly coincide with
any
sensible
perception.
There
is
no
such thing within sensible reality as an
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA "ideal" cerns
Yet our thinking con-
circle.
itself
139
with the purely ideal
circle.
For things and processes which are more complicated than forms of number and space,
it is
more
counterparts.
that
it
sides,
of
difficult to find
the ideal
This has even led so far
has been contended, from various
that in the separated departments
knowledge there
real science as there
is is
only so
much
of
of
measuring and
is
that most
counting.
The
truth about this
are not capable
of
men
grasping the pure
thought-element where
it
is
no longer
concerned with what can be counted or
measured.
But the man who cannot do
that for the higher realms of
life
and
knowledge, resembles in that respect a child,
which has not yet learned to count
otherwise than by adding one pea to another.
The
thinker
who
said
there
I40
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
was
much
just so
domain
as there was mathematics in
was not very much at home
One ought thing
any
science in
real
rather to
which
in the matter.
demand
cannot
it,
that every-
measured
be
or
counted should be handled just as ideally as the forms of
number and
the Scholastics in the fullest justice
to
this
And
space.
way
did
They sought
demand.
everywhere the thought-content of things, just as the field of
mathematician seeks
what
is
it
in the
measurable and countable.
In spite of this perfected logical
art,
the Scholastics attained only to a onesided
and
subordinate
Knowledge.
conception
Their conception
that in the act of knowing,
man
is
an image of what he
know.
is
obvious,
without
this:
creates
in himself It
of
is
to
fiorther
discussion, that with such a conception
of the
knowing process
all
reality
must
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
141
For
be located outside of the knowing.
one can grasp, in knowing, not the thing itself,
but only an image
of that thing.
man
knowing himself
Also, in
cannot
grasp himself, but again, what he does
know
of himself
himself.
only an image of
is
It is entirely
from out
of the
spirit of
Scholasticism that an accurate
student
thereof^
time no
life,
... he
has
in
his ego, of the
perception of
hidden ground of
and
"Man
says:
spiritual
his
being
never attain to
will
beholding himself; for either, estranged for ever
from God, he
will find in himself
only a fathomless, dark abyss, an endless emptiness, or
he
will find
else,
made
on turning
blessed in God,
his gaze inwards
just that very God, the sun of
mercy '
is
whose
shining within him, whose image
K. Werner, in
his
book upon Frank Suarez and
Scholasticism of the Last Centuries, p. 122.
the
142
and
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE likeness shapes itself in the spiritual
traits of his nattire."
Whoever thinks
about
this
like
all
knowing, has only such a conception of
knowing
as
The
things.
is
applicable
to
external
sensible factor in anything
always remains external for us; therefore
we can only
take up into
pictures of whatever
When we
world. stone,
we
is
oiu*
knowledge
sensible in the
perceive a colour or a
are unable, in order to
know
the being of the colotu" or the stone, to
become ourselves the colour or the Just
as
little
can the
colour
stone.
or
the
a part of our
stone transform
itself into
own
may, however, be ques-
being.
It
tioned whether the conception of such a
knowing-process, wholly directed to what is
external in things,
is
For Scholasticism,
an exhaustive one.
all
human knowing
does certainly in the main coincide with
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
Another admi-
kind of knowing.
this
rable authority on Scholasticism'
which we are concerned thought in the
direction of
"Our
manner: life
but
is
the
in
therein:
in this
following earth-
in
primarily focussed
surrounding
ordered
spiritual
allied
spirit,
with the body,
upon the
char-
conception of knowledge
acterises the
with
143
the
bodily
world,
direction
the
of
beings, natures,
forms of things, the elements of
exist-
which are related to our
spirit
ence,
and
offer to it the
rungs for
its
ascent
to the super-sensuous; the field of our is
therefore the realm of ex-
perience, but
we must learn to understand
knowledge
what
it offers,
to penetrate to its
meaning
and thought, and thereby unlock
for
ourselves the world of thought." 'Otto Willman, in P- 395-
his
History of Idealism, vol.
ii.,
144
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
The
Scholastic
any other conception the dogmatic
not attain to
could
of knowledge, for
content
prevented his doing
theology
of his
so.
he had
If
rected the gaze of his spiritual eye
di-
upon
that which he regards as an image only,
he would then have seen that the content of things reveals
spiritual
itself
in this
supposed image; he would then have
found that in his own inner being the
God
He
not alone images Himself, but that
lives therein, is present there in
own
He would have
nature.
own
gazing into his
His
beheld in
inner being, not a
dark abyss, an endless emptiness, but also not merely
would have him, which
and that
his
of
God; he
that a
life
pulses within
the very
life
of
felt is
an image
own
life is
God
itself;
verily just God's
life.
This the Scholastic dared not admit.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
145
The God must not, in his opinion, enter into him and speak forth from him; God must only be in him as an image. In reahty, the Godhead must be external to the
Accordingly, also,
self.
not reveal
itself
the spiritual
life,
it cotild
from within through but must reveal
itself
from outside, through supematiiral commtmication. is
just exactly
thereby.
What what
is is
aimed at
in this,
least of all attained
sought to attain to the
It is
highest possible conception of the God-
head.
In reality, the Godhead
down and made a things;
only
that
is
dragged
thing
among
these
other
other things
reveal themselves to us naturally, through
experience; while the
posed to reveal rally.
A
Godhead
Itself to
difference,
is
sup-
us supematu-
however, between
the knowledge of the divine and of the created
is
attained in this way: that as
146
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
regards the created, the external thing
given in experience, so that
is
knowledge of
it;
divine, the object
The
is
not given to us in
we can reach
experience;
we have
while as regards the
it
only in faith.
highest things, therefore, are for
the Scholastic not objects of knowledge,
but mainly of
faith.
It
is
true that
the relation of knowledge to faith must
not be so conceived, according to the Scholastic view, as
only knowledge,
it, itself,
in
and
a certain domain in
another only
For "the knowledge
faith reigned.
that which
if
is,
is
of
possible to us, because
springs from a creative element;
things are for the spirit, because they are from the spirit; they have something
to
tell us,
because they have a meaning
which a higher intelligence has placed in '
them."'
Because God has created
Otto Willman, History of Idealism, vol.
ii.,
p.
383.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA the world according to thoughts, are able,
when we grasp
the world,
of
147
we
too
the thoughts
to seize also upon
the
traces of the Divine in the world, through
But what God
scientific reflection.
according to His
own
being,
we can
only from that revelation which
is,
learn
He
has
given to us in supernatural ways, and
which we must
in
What we
believe.
ought to think about the highest things,
must be decided not by any hioman knowledge, but by faith; and "to faith belongs
all
that
writings of the
is
contained
New and
of
in
the
the Old
Testament, and in the divine traditions." It
is
not our task here to present and
establish in detail the relation of the
content of faith to the content of knowledge. '
In truth,
all
and every
Joseph Kleutgen, Die Theologie der
P- 39-
faith-
Vorzeit, vol.
i.,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
148
content
some
from
originates
actual
inner htiman experience that has once
Such an experience
been imdergone.
then preserved, as far as
its
outer form
goes, without the consciousness of it
in
And
was acquired. regard to
it
that
is
how
people maintain
came
it
into the
world by supernatural revelation.
The
content of the Christian faith was simply-
accepted by inner
the
experience,
Scholastics.
Science,
had no business to
claim any rights over
it.
As
little
science can create a tree, just so
as
little
dared Scholasticism to create a concep-
was bound to accept the revealed one ready-made and complete, tion of
just
as
God;
it
natural science has to accept
the tree ready-made. itself
can shine forth
That the spiritual and live in man's
inner nature, could never, never be ad-
mitted by the Scholastic.
He
therefore
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA drew the
149
power
frontier of the rightfiil
knowledge at the point where the
of
domain
Hu-
of outer experience ceases.
man knowledge must
not dare to beget
out of
itself
a conception of the higher
beings;
it is
botmd to accept a revealed
one.
The
Scholastics
naturally
could
not admit that in doing so they were accepting and proclaiming as "revealed''
a conception which
in truth
been begotten at an
man's
spiritual
Thus, in the all
had
earlier
really
stage
of
life.
cotirse of its
development,
those ideas had vanished from Scholas-
ticism
which indicated the ways and
means by which man had begotten, natiu"al
in
a
manner, his conceptions of the
divine.
In the
first
centuries
of
the
development of Christianity, at the time of
the
doctrinal
Church Fathers,
we
see
the
content of theology growing
ISO
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bit
by
by the
bit
In Johannes Scotus Eri-
experiences.
gena, ian
who
stood at the summit of Christ-
theological
centtiry,
assimilation of inner
we
culttire
the
in
ninth
find this doctrinal content
being handled entirely as an inner ing
With the
experience.
of the
liv-
Scholastics
following centtiries, this charac-
teristic
of
an
inner,
experience
living
disappears altogether: the old doctrinal
content
becomes
content
of
an
transposed external,
into
the
supernatural
revelation.
One might, activity
of
therefore, understand the
the
mystical
theologians,
Eckhart, Tauler, Suso and their associates, in the following sense:
they were
stimulated by the doctrines of the Church,
which were contained
in
its
theology,
but had been misinterpreted, to bring to birth afresh from within themselves,
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA as
inner
living
experience,
a
151
similar
content.
Nicholas of Cusa sets out to
mount
from the knowledge one acquires isolated sciences
experiences.
up
in the
to the inner living
There can be no doubt that
the excellent logical technique which the Scholastics
have developed, and
for
which
Nicholas himself was educated, forms a
most
effective
means
of
attaining
to
these inner experiences, even though the Scholastics
from
this
themselves were held back
road by their positive
faith.
But one can only understand Nicholas fully when one reflects that his calling as a priest, which raised him to the dignity of Cardinal, prevented him from coming to a complete breach with the faith of
the Church, which found an expression
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
152
appropriate to the age in Scholasticism.
We a
him
find
so far along the road, that
single step fiarther
would necessarily
have carried him out
We
the
of
shall therefore tinderstand the
inal best
we complete
if
more which then,
he
not
did
las's
mental
and
take;
backwards, throw
looking
ignorance."
Card-
the one step
upon what he aimed at. The most significant thought
of
Church.
life
By
is
this
that
of
in
light
Nicho-
"learned
he means a form
knowing which occupies a higher
level
compared with ordinary knowledge.
as
In the lower sense, knowledge .
grasping of an object
by the mind,
spirit.
The most important
istic of
knowing
is
that
it
something
it
gives us light
directs its gaze
different
from
or
character-
about something outside of the that therefore
the
is
itself.
spirit,
upon
The
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA spirit,
therefore,
concerned
is
in
153
the
knowing-process with things thought of as outside
develops
Now
itself.
in
itself
what the
about things
The
being of those things. spirit.
Man
spirit is
things are
sees the spirit so far only-
What
through the sensible encasement. lies
outside the spirit
encasement; enters
only this sensible
is
being of
the the
into
spirit.
the
the things, which
then
knowing
;
outside of
looking at it
is
with
not looking at anything
it is
itself,
thing which
being of
of like nature
is
the
can no longer talk of
it
for
things
then,
If,
spirit turns its attention to this
itself,
the
but
is
part of
itself.
only looks upon
It
looking at someitself;
is,
indeed,
no longer knows;
itself.
It is
no longer
concerned with a "knowing," but with
a "not-knowing."
No
longer does
man
"grasp" something through the mind;
154
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
he
"beholds
own
conceiving"
his
This highest stage of knowing
life.
comparison with the lower stages,
in
is,
without
a "not-knowing."
But
is
it
obvious that the essential
being of things can only be reached
Thus
through this stage of knowing. Nicholas of
Cusa
in
"learned not-knowing" of nothing else but "
new
birth, as
speaking is
of
his
really speaking
knowing" come to a
He
an inner experience.
how he came to this " I made many efforts inner experience. to vinite the ideas of God and the world,
tells
us himself
and the Church, into a
of Christ
root-idea; but nothing satisfied
at last, on
my
my way
me
single
until
back from Greece by
by an lumination from above, soared up
sea,
mind's vision, as
that perception in which to
me
as the
if
il-
to
God appeared
supreme Unity
of all con-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA To
tradictions."
this illumination
a greater or
from the study
derived
One
cessors.
of
extent
less
was due to
155
influences
prede-
his
recognises in his
way
of
looking at things a peculiar revival of
the views which writings
of
we meet with
in the
The
a certain Dionysius.
above-mentioned Scotus Erigena transthese
lated
writings
into
Latin,
and
speaks of their author as the "great and divine revealer."
The works tioned
in
century.
in question are first
the
half
first
They were
to Christianity
by
left
tents
sixth
named
in the
who was converted
When these composed may here
St. Paul.
writings were really
be
the
ascribed to that
Dionysius, the Areopagite,
Acts of the Apostles,
of
men-
an open question.
Their con-
worked powerfully upon Nicholas
as they had already
worked upon Scotus
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
156
Erigena, and as they must also have
been in
many ways
way
thinking
of
colleagues.
This
stimulating for the
of ' '
Eckhart and his
learned not -knowing
way preformed writings. Here we can only the essential trait in the way is
in
a certain
ceiving
Man
things
primarily
sense- world.
found
things
in these
indicate of con-
these
knows the things
works. of the
He forms thoughts about its
being and action. all
in
'
The Primal Cause
of
must lie higher than these things
themselves.
Man therefore must not seek
to grasp this Primal Cause by means of the
same concepts and ideas as
things.
If
he therefore ascribes to the Root-Being (God) attributes which he has learned to
know
in lower things, such attributes
can
be at best auxiliary conceptions of his
weak
spirit,
Being to
which drags down the Root-
itself,
in order to conceive
it.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
157
In truth, therefore, no attribute whatsoever which lower things possess can
be predicated of God. be said that God is
a concept which
and
"being"
whom we
It
must not even " being
For
is. "
man
But God
lower things.
to
"
is
too
exalted above
The God
ascribe attributes,
We
God.
'
has formed from
"not-being."
fore not the true
'
is
there-
come
to the
when we think of an "OverGod" above and beyond any God with true God,
such attributes.
Of
this
we can know nothing
"Over-God"
in the ordinary
In order to attain to Him,
sense.
' '
know-
ing" must merge into "not-knowing."
One there
sees that at the root of such
lies
the consciousness that
self is able to
which
is
man him-
develop a higher knowing,
no longer mere knowing
purely natural manner
what
a view
—in
—on the basis
his various sciences
a of
have yielded
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
158
The
him.
Scholastic
view
declared
knowledge to be impotent to such a development; and, at the point where
knowledge
supposed to cease,
the help
to
in
is
basing
itself
of
it
called
knowledge a
faith
upon external
revelation.
Nicholas of Cusa was thus upon the road to develop out of knowledge itself that
which the Scholastics had declared to be unattainable for knowledge.
We
thus see that, from Nicholas of
Cusa's point of view, there can be no question of there being only one kind or
mode
On
of knowing.
the contrary, for
him, knowing clearly divides two, otu"
first
into such
itself into
knowing as mediates
acquaintance with external objects,
and second
such as
into
is
itself
the
object of which one gains knowledge.
The
first
mode
in the sciences,
of
knowing
is
dominant
which teach us about
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
159
the things and occurrences of the outer
when we ourthe knowledge we have
world; the second selves live
acquired.
in
is
in us
This second kind of knowing
Now, however, it is still one and the same world with which both these modes of knowing are concerned; and it is one and the selfsame man who is active in both. Hence the question must arise, whence comes it that one and the self -same man develops two different kinds of knowledge of one and the same world. grows out of the
first.
connection with Tauler,
Already, in
the direction could be indicated in which the answer to this question must be sought.
Here
answer can be lated.
still
In the
a separated
in Nicholas of
more
first
definitely
place,
(individual)
other separated beings.
Cusa
man
this
formu-
lives as
being amidst
In addition to
i6o
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the effects which the other beings produce
on each other, there the
arises in his case
knowledge.
(lower)
Through
his
senses he receives impressions from other beings,
with
and works up these impressions inner
his
spiritual
He
powers.
then turns his spiritual gaze away from external things, and beholds himself as
weU
own
as his
self-knowledge
activity.
arises
in
In so doing him.
But
long as he remains on this level of
so
self-
knowledge, he does not, in the true sense of the word, still
behold himself.
believe that
active within him,
and
He
can
some hidden being
is
whose manifestations
effects are only that
which appears
him to be his own activities. But now the moment may come in which,
to
through an perience,
it
incontrovertible
inner
ex-
becomes clear to the man that
he experiences,
in
what he perceives or
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA feels
i6i
within himself, not the manifestation
or effect of
any hidden power or being,
but this very being essential
itself
in
and intimate form.
its
most
Then he
can say to himself: In a certain way
I
aU other things ready given, and
I
find
myself, standing apart from and outside
them whatever the spirit has to tell about them. But what I thus creatively add to the things in of
them, add
to
myself, therein do I myself live; that
myself,
my
very
own
being.
is
But what
is
that which speaks there in the depths
of
my
I
have acquired
spirit?
It is the
of
knowledge which
the things of the
But in this knowledge there speaks no longer an effect, a manifest-
world.
ation
;
that which speaks expresses
itself
wholly, holding back nothing of what it
contains.
In this knowledge, there
speaks the world in
all
its
immediacy.
i62
But
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE have acquired
I
this
knowledge
of
among own being
things and of myself, as one thing
other things. I
From
my
out
myself speak, and the things,
too,
speak.
Thus, in truth,
no longer only to
I
am
giving utterance
my own being
;
I
am also
giving utterance to the being of things
themselves.
My
"ego"
is
the form, the
organ in which the things express themselves about themselves.
I
have gained
the experience that in myself I experience
my own
essential
perience
expands
being; and this exin
itself
me
to
the
further one that in myself and through
myself
the
Itself, or
I
can
thing feel
All-Being
Itself
in other words,
expresses
knows
Itself.
now no longer feel myself as a among other things I can now only ;
myself as a form in which the All-
Being
lives
out Its
own
life.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA It is
163
thus only natural that one and
same man should have two modes knowing. Judging by the facts of the
the of
senses,
he
is
a thing among other things,
and, in so far as he
that,
is
he gains for
himself a knowledge of these things; but at
any moment he can acquire the higher
experience that he
is
really the
form
in
which the All-Being beholds Itself.
Then
man
thing
transforms himself from a
among
other things into a form of the
All-Being
—and,
knowledge
along with himself, the things
of
transforms
itself
into the expression of the very being of things.
But
as a matter of fact this
transformation can only be accomplished
That which
through man. in the higher
is
mediated
knowledge does not exist
as long as this higher knowledge itself is
not present.
Man
becomes only a
real being in the creation of this higher
1
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
64
knowledge;
and
through
only
man's
higher knowledge can things also bring their being forth into real existence. If,
shall
therefore,
we demand
that
man
add nothing to things through
inner knowledge, pression
his
but merely give ex-
to whatever already exists in
the things outside of himself, that would really of
amount
to a complete abnegation
From
aU higher knowledge.
the fact
that man, in respect of his sensible is
life,
merely one thing among others, and
that he only attains to the higher knowledge
when he himself accomplishes with
himself,
as a being
the senses, the
of
transformation into a higher being,
it
follows that he can never replace the
one kind of knowledge by the other.
His
spiritual life consists,
on the contrary,
in a ceaseless oscillation
two poles
of
knowledge
between these
—between know-
ing
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
165
and
off
seeing.
from the
If
seeing,
nature of things: himself
off
he shuts himself
he abandons the real if
he seeks to shut
from sense-perception,
he
would shut out from himself the things whose nature he seeks to know. these
It is
very same things which reveal
themselves alike in the lower knowing
and the higher
seeing; only in the one
they reveal themselves according
case
to their outer appearance; in the other
according to their inner being. is
Thus
it
not due to the things themselves that,
at a certain stage, they appear only as
external things; but their doing so
due to the all
raise
fact that
man must
first of
and transform himself to the
upon which the things cease external and outside. level
is
to be
In the light of these considerations,
some
of the views which natural science
1
66
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
has
developed
during
the
nineteenth
century appear for the
first
time in the
Hght.
right
views
tell
The
us that
supporters
we
these
of
hear, see,
and touch
the objects of the physical world through
our senses.
The
eye, for instance, trans-
mits to us a phenomenon
of
light,
a
Thus we say that a body emits red light, when with the help of the eye we experience the sensation "red." But the eye can give us this same sencolour.
sation in other cases also. is
If
struck or pressed upon, or
spark
is
the eyeball
if
an
electric
allowed to pass through the
head, the eye has a sensation of light. It
is
cases in
thus evident that even in the
which we have the sensation
a body emitting red
may
really
light,
be happening
of
something
in that
body
which has no sort of resemblance to the colour
we
sensate.
Whatever may be
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
167
actually happening "outside of us" in space, so long as of
what happens
is
capable
making an impression on the
eye,
there arises in us the sensation of light.
Thus what we experience arises in us, because we possess organs constituted in a particular
manner.
What happens
outside in space, remains outside of us;
we know only
the
effects
external happenings call
mann Helmholtz a
clearly
up
which the Her-
in us.
(1821-1893) has given
outlined
expression
to
this
thought
"Our
sensations
which are produced
are in
simply
effects
our organs by
manner in which such an effect will show itself depends, naturally enough, altogether upon the kind of apparatus upon which the action
external causes, and the
takes place.
In so far as the quality
of our sensation gives us information as
168
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to
the peculiar nattire of the external
action which produces the sensation, so far can the sensation
be regarded as a
sign or symbol of this external action,
but not as an image or reproduction it.
For we expect
in
of
a picture some
kind of resemblance to the object
it
represents; thus in a statue, resemblance of form; in
a drawing, resemblance in
the perspective projection of the'
field
of view; in a painting, resemblance of
colour ever,
in is
symbol,
how-
not required to have any sort
of resemblance bolises.
A
addition.
to
that which
it
sym-
The necessary connection
tween the object and the symbol limited
to
this:
beis
that the same object
coming into action under the same conditions shall call
up the same symbol,
and
that
shall
always correspond to different ob-
therefore
different
symbols
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
When
jects.
in ripening
tion
169
berries of a certain kind
produce together red coloura-
and sugar, then red colour and a
sweet taste will always find themselves together in our sensation of berries of this form."'
Let us follow out step by step the line thought which this view makes
of
own.
It
is
assumed that something
happens outside
me
of
produces an effect upon
and
my
I
is
brain.
brought
experience the sensation "red."
is
Cp. Helmholtz, Die
in detail in
my
my
foUows the assertion: therefore the
p. 12 et seq.
in
to
occurrence
sensation "red" '
space; this
my sense-organs;
made
thus
There another
Now
in
nervous system conducts the
impression
about.
its
I
not outside, not ex-
Thatsachen der Wahrnehmung, this kind of conception
have characterised
my
Welt-
Philosophie der Freiheit, Berlin, 1894, and und Lebensanschauungen im Neunzehnten
Jahrhundert, vol.
ii.,
p.
i.,
etc.
I70
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
me
temal to tions
;
in me.
it is
All our sensa-
merely symbols or signs of
are
external occiirrences of whose real quality
we know
We
nothing.
In
of
spirit
this
in
of their line
of
would thus be possible to that if we had no eyes, colour
thought, assert
the
and move
know nothing
our sensations and origin.
live
it
would not
exist; for
then there would be
nothing to translate
unknown
this,
to us, wholly
happening into the
external
sensation "red."
For many people possesses
a
nevertheless
this line of
curious it
thought
attraction;
but
originates in a complete
misconception of the facts under consideration.
(Were
it
not that
many
of
the present day scientists and philoso-
phers
by
are
blinded
even
this line of thought,
to say less about
it.
to
absurdity
one would need
But, as a rriatter
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA of fact, this blindness has ruined in
171
many
respects the thinking of the present day.)
man
In truth, since thing
among
follows that of
them
pression
if
is
but one object or
other things,
he
to
is
naturally
it
have any experience
make an imupon him somehow or other.
at
all,
they must
Something
that
man must
cause something to happen
within him,
if
sation "red"
happens
outside
the
in his visual field the senis
to
make
its
appearance.
The whole question turns upon this: What is without? what within? Outside of him something happens in space and time. But within there is undoubtedly For
a similar occurrence.
in
the eye
there occurs such a process, which manifests itself to the brain
the colour "red."
I
perceive
This process which
goes on "inside" me, directly,
when
cannot perceive
I
any more than
I
can directly
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
172
wave
perceive the
which
the
motions "outside"
physicist
conceives
answering
to
really
only in this sense that
it is
the
colour
as
of
But
"red." I
can
speak of an "inside" and an "outside" at
Only on the plane of sense-per-
all.
ception
can
opposition
the
between
"outside" and "inside" hold good.
The
recognition of this leads
assume the existence "outside" process in space
it
at
the same recognition further postulate
of
and time, although
do not directly perceive to
me
to
a I
And leads me
all.
a similar process within
myself, although I cannot directly per-
ceive that either. fact,
I
habitually
But, as a matter of postulate
analogous
occurrences in space and time in ordinary life
which
I
do not
for instance,
when
directly perceive; as, I
hear piano -playing
next door, and assume that a human being
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA in space is seated at the piano
playing upon
when
And my
it.
and
1
73 is
conception,
speak of processes happening
I
and within me,
outside
of,
same.
assume that these processes have
I
is
just the
quaHties analogous to those of the pro-
which do
cesses
my
of
senses,
fall
within the province
only
that,
because
my
certain reasons, they escape
of
direct
perception. If
I
were to attempt to
these processes
my
show me
senses
space and time, in truth
the
in the
domains
of
should in reality and
famous knife without
whose
handle,
Therefore, I
time
to
be trying to think something
not unlike a
I
deny
the qualities which
all
was wanting. can only say that space and
processes
blade
take
place
"outside"
me; these bring about space and time processes
"within" me; and both are
174
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
necessary
the sensation "red"
if
appear in
my
so far as this
field of vision.
"red"
is
time, I shall seek for
whether
I
myself.
Those
it
For
To
in
equally in vain,
scientists
find
it is
and
philoso-
"outside,"
it
it
"inside"
not "inside," in exactly
the same sense in which side."
And,
not in space and
ought not to want to find either.
to
seek "without" or "within"
who cannot
phers
is
it is
not "out-
declare that the total content
of that
which the sense-world presents
to us
but an inner world of sensation
is
or feeling, and then to endeavour to tack
on something "external" or "outside" to
it,
is
a wholly impossible conception.
Hence, we must not speak of "red," "sweet," "hot,"
etc.,
as being symbols, or
signs,
which as such are only aroused with-
in us,
and to which "outside "
of us some-
thing totally different corresponds.
For
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA that which
is
175
really set going within us,
some external happening, something altogether other than what
as the effect of is
appears in the If
we want
field
of our sensations.
to call that which
us a symbol, then
we can
within
is
These
say:
symbols make their appearance within our organism, in order to mediate to us the perceptions which, as such, in their
immediacy, are neither within nor outside of us,
to
that
but belong, on the contrary,
common
"external"
world,
world and
world are only parts. able to grasp this it
is
true,
raise
of
my
which
my
"internal"
In order to be
common world,
I
must,
myself to that higher
plane of knowledge, for which an "inner"
and an
know
"outer"
no longer
quite well that people
exist.
who
(I
pride
themselves on the gospel that our entire
world of experience builds
itself
up out
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
176
and
of sensations origin
will
unknown upon
contemptously
look
remarks;
these
feelings of
Dr.
instance,
for
as,
Erich Adikes in his book, Kant contra
"At
Haeckel, observes condescendingly: first
of
people like Haeckel and thousands
type
his
without
philosophise
theory of knowledge
inkling of of
how cheap are.
lack of critical
Let
critical
self-
Such gentlemen have no
knowledge
others.
or
away about
themselves
troubling
reflection."
gaily
us
their
They
own
to
the
suspect
self-reflection
leave
theories
only
them
in
their
"wisdom.") Nicholas of Cusa expresses some very telling
thoughts bearing directly upon this
very point. in
The
clear
and
distinct
way
which he holds apart the lower and
the higher knowledge enables him, on the one side, to arrive at a
full
and com-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA plete recognition of the fact that
as a sense-being can only
have
processes which, as effects, sarily
177
man
in himself
must
neces-
be altogether unlike the corres-
ponding external processes; while, on the other side,
it
guards him against
confusing the inner processes with the facts
the
which make their appearance in
field of
in their
nor
our perceptions, and which,
immediacy, are neither outside
inside,
but altogether transcend
this
opposition of "in" and "out."
But Nicholas was hampered
in
the
thorough carrying through of these ideas
by
his "priestly garments."
how he makes a
fine
So we see
beginning with
the progress from "knowing" to "not-
knowing."
At the same time we must
also note that in the
domain
of the higher
knowledge, or "ignorance," he unfolds practically nothing but the content of
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
178
the theological teaching which the SchoCertainly he knows
lastics also give us.
how
to
in a
most able manner.
expound
this theological content
He
presents us
with teachings about Providence, Christ, the creation of the world, man's salvation, the moral
life,
which are kept thoroughly
in
harmony with dogmatic
It
would have been
his
in
Christianity.
accordance with
mental starting point, to say:
confidence in
human
I
have
nature that after
having plunged deeply into the science of things in all directions, of transforming
"knowing"
it
from within
into
is
capable
itself
"not-knowing,"
a
this
in
such wise that the highest insight shall bring
In
satisfaction.
that
case,
he
would not simply have accepted the traditional ideas tality,
Trinity,
salvation,
and so
of
the
God, forth,
soul,
immor-
creation,
as he
the
actually
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
179
but he wotild have represented his
did,
own.
But Nicholas personally was, however, saturated with
so
the
conceptions
of
Christianity that he might well believe
himself to have awakened in himself a
"not-knowing" of his own, while yet
was merely bringing
he
to
traditional views in which he
up.
was brought
But he stood upon the verge precipice
terrible
of
the
light
man.
He was
in
a
the
of
spiritual
scientific
man.
a
life
Now
science, primarily, estranges us
from the
innocent harmony in which
live
with
we abandon
our-
the world so long as
we
selves to a purely naive attitude towards life.
In such an attitude to
dimly
feel
life,
we
our connection with the world-
whole.
We
are
beings like
others,
forming
links in the chain of Natture's workings.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
i8o
But with knowledge we separate ourselves off from this whole; we create within us a mental world, wherewith we stand alone and isolated over against Nature.
We
have become enriched but our ;
are a burden which culty; for
it
riches
we bear with
diffi-
weighs primarily upon our-
And we must now, by own strength, find the way back
selves
our
alone.
again to Nature. that
we
We
ourselves
have to recognise
must now
fit
our
wealth into the stream of world activities, just
as
previously Natiire herself had
our poverty.
fitted in lie
in wait for
man
strength can easily
All evil
demons
at this point. fail
him.
His
Instead
of himself accomplishing this fitting in,
he
will,
if
his strength thus
fails,
seek
some revelation coming from without, which frees him again from his refuge in
loneliness,
which leads back once more
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
i8i
the knowledge that he feels a burden,
womb
into the very
Godhead.
of being, into the
Like Nicholas of Cusa, he
will believe that
he
is
travelling his
own
road; and yet in reality he wUl be only following the path which his
own spiritual
evolution has pointed out for him.
Now
there are
—
in
the main
roads which one can follow,
—three
when once
one has reached the point at which Nicholas had arrived: the one
is
positive
faith, forcing itself
upon us from with-
out; the second
despair; one stands
is
alone with one's burden, and feels the
whole universe tottering with oneself; the third road deepest,
is
the development of the
most inward powers
of
man.
Confidence, trust in the world must be
one of our guides upon this third path; courage, to follow that confidence whither-
soever
it
may
lead us,
must be the
other.
AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM AND THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS Both
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von
Nettesheim
(1487 -1535)
and
Theo-
phrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) followed the same road along which points Nicholas of
Cusa's
way
of conceiving things.
They devoted themselves
to the study
of Nature,
and sought to discover her
laws by
the
all
means
in their
as thoroughly as possible.
power and
In this know-
ledge of Nature, they saw the true basis of all higher knowledge.
They
strove
to develop this higher knowledge from
within the science or knowledge of Nature
by bringing that knowledge birth in the spirit. 182
to a
new
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS Agrippa von Nettesheim led a varied
He
life.
bom
He
in Cologne.
medicine
studied
much
sprang from a noble
family and was early
183
and law, and
sought to obtain clear insight into the processes of Nature in the
way which
was then customary within certain circles and societies, or even among isolated investigators,
who
studiously kept secret
whatever of the knowledge they
For
discovered.
he went repeatedly to to England,
and
He
these
of
Nature
ptirposes
Paris, to Italy,
also visited the
Abbot Trithemius burg.
of
Sponheim
and
famous
in
Wurz-
taught at various times in
learned institutions, and here and there
entered the service of rich and distin-
guished
people,
at
whose disposal he
placed his abilities as a statesman and a
man
of science.
If the services that
he
rendered are not always described by his
1
84
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
biographers as unobjectionable, said that he
if
made money under the
it
is
pre-
tence of understanding secret arts and conferring
on people thereby,
benefits
there stands against this his unmistakable,
unresting
impulse to acquire honestly
the entire knowledge of his age, and to
deepen
this
knowledge
in the direction
of a higher cognition of the world.
We may
see
him very
in
plainly
the endeavour to attain to a clear and definite attitude
towards natural science
on the one hand, and to the higher knowledge on the other.
But he only can
attain to such an attitude
who
is
pos-
sessed of a clear insight as to the respective roads
which lead to one and to the
other kind of knowledge. is
true as
it
on the one hand that natural science
must eventually be of
As
the
spirit,
if
it
raised into the region is
to pass over into
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS higher knowledge;
so, also, it is
185
true on
the other, that this natural science must, to begin with, remain upon
ground,
is
it
if
its
own special
to yield the right basis
the attainment of a higher level.
for
The
Nature"
"spirit in
spirit.
exists only for
So surely as Nature so surely too
is spiritual,
is
in this sense
there nothing
in Nature, of all that is perceived
bodily
which
organs,
spiritual.
There
my
in
I
must not seek for the spirit interpret
the external world
spiritual;
immediately
eye as spiritual.
as such in Nature; but that
doing when
my
nothing spiritual
exists
which can appear to Therefore, I
is
by
when,
is
I
am
any occurrence immediately as
for instance,
to a plant a soul which
what
is
I
ascribe
supposed to be
only remotely analogous to that of man. Further, I again do the same ascribe to
spirit
itself
when
an existence
I
in
1
86
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
space and time: assert of the
as, for instance,
human
soul that
when
I
continues
it
to exist in time without the body, but
yet after the manner of a body or again, ;
when
even go so far as to believe that,
I
under any sort of conditions or arrange-
ments perceivable by the
senses,
a dead person can show
spirit of
Spiritualism,
which makes
only shows thereby that
the
itself.
this mistake,
has not at-
it
tained to a true conception of the spirit at
all,
but
is still
bent upon directly and
immediately "seeing" the thing
grossly
spirit in
mistakes
It
sensible.
some-
equally both the real nature of the sensible
and
also that
de-spuitualises sense,
the
of
the
ordinary
spirit.
world
It
of
which hourly passes before our
eyes, in order to give the
immediately prising,
to
name
something
uncommon.
of spirit
rare,
sur-
It fails to under-
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
187
stand that that which lives as the "spirit in nature" reveals itself to
him who
is
able to perceive spirit in the collision of
two
elastic balls, for instance;
and not
only in occurrences which are striking
from their at
rarity,
and which cannot
once be grasped
in
their
all
natural
sequence and connection.
But the
down
spirit
spiritist
something that happens in
"spirits,"
to
the
senses,
his
and beings
in their turn are spacial
ceptible
on a
Instead
and that he perceives through
senses only, in terms of forces
which
drags the
into a lower sphere.
of explaining
space,
further
and
per-
he resorts to
which he thereby places exactly
level with the things of the senses.
At the very
root of such a
way
of viewing
things, there lies a lack of the spiritual
apprehension.
We
power
of
are unable
to perceive spiritual things spiritually;
1
88
we
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE therefore satisfy otir craving for the
spiritual
with mere beings perceptible
to the senses.'
Their
reveals to such
men
own
nothing spiritual;
and therefore they seek through the senses.
inner spirit
for the spiritual
As they
flying through the air,
see clouds
would
so they
fain see spirits hastening along.
Agrippa
von Nettesherm fought
genuine
for
science of Nature, which
the
phenomena
a
shall
of Nature, not
explain
by means
of spirits phenomenalising in the of the senses,
world
but by seeing in Nattire only
the natural, and in the spirit only the spiritual.
Of course, Agrippa misunderstood
if
will
be entirely
one compares his natiu"al
science with that of later centuries which
dispose of wholly different experiences.
In such a comparison,
seem that he was
it
still
might
easily
actually
and
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
189
entirely referring to the direct action of
which only depend upon
spirits, things
natural connections or upon mistaken
Such a wrong
experience.
him by Moriz
Carridre
done to
is
when he
not in any malicious sense,
"Agrippa gives a huge
list
it
says,
true:
is
of
things
which belong to the Sun, the Moon, the Planets and the fixed stars, and receive from them;
influences
for
instance:
to
the Sun are related Fire, Blood, Laurel,
they confer the
Gold,
Chrysolite;
of the
Sun: Courage, Cheerfulness, and
Light.
.
.
.
Animals
sense, which, higher
have
than
a
human
natural
under-
standing, approaches the spirit of
phecy.
.
.
.
Men
gifts
pro-
can be bewitched to
love and hate, to sickness and health.
Thieves can be bewitched so that they cannot steal at some particular place, merchants, that they cannot do business,
I90
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE they cannot work, lightning
mills, that flashes, that
they cannot
This
strike.
is
brought about through drinks, salves, images, rings, incantations; the blood of hy-
enas or basilisks
purpose
—
it
adapted to such a
is
reminds one of Shakespeare's
No;
cauldron."
witches'
remind one of that,
if
it
does
not
one understands
He believed'— it goes —in many facts which in
Agrippa aright. without sayinghis time
tionable.
everybody regarded as tmques-
But we
stiU
do the same to-day.
Or do we imagine that future centuries will not relegate much of what we now regard as "undoubted fact" to the lumber-
room I
of
am
"blind"
superstition?
convinced that in our knowledge
of facts there has been a real progress.
When
once the "fact" that the earth
round had been discovered,
all
is
previous
conjectures were banished into the do-
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS main
of
191
"superstition"; and the same
holds'good of certain truths of astronomy, biology,
The
etc.
doctrine of natural
evolution constitutes an advance, as com-
pared with creation,"
previous
all
similar
"theories
marked by
that
to
of
the recognition of the roundness of the earth
contrasted with
as
speculations as to
am
less, I
learned
works and
to be found
is
which
will
many
treatises
a "fact"
seem to future centuries to be
just as little of a fact as
celsus
Neverthe-
form.
its
vividly conscious that in our
scientific
there
aU previous
much
that Para-
and Agrippa maintain; but the
really important point is not
what they
regarded as "fact," but how, in spirit,
what
they interpreted their "facts."
In Agrippa's time, there
understanding
or
sympathy
was for
little
the
"natural magic" he represented, which
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
192
sought
Nature
in
the
natural
— the
men
clung
spiritual only in the spirit;
to
the
which
magic,"
"supernatural
sought the spiritual in the realm of the sensible,
and which Agrippa combated.
Therefore
the
Sponheim was
Abbot
Trithemius
right in giving
of
him the
advice to communicate his views only as a secret teaching to a few chosen pupils of
who
could rise to a similar idea
Nature and
spirit,
because one "gives
only hay to oxen and not sugar as to singing birds."
himself
own
owed
correct
It
may be
to this
point
that Agrippa
same Abbot
his
In
his
of
view.
Steganography, Trithemius has produced
a book in which he handled with the
most subtle irony that mode
of
con-
ceiving things which confuses nature with spirit.
In this book he apparently speaks of
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS but
nothing
Any one
supernatural
reading
it
as
believe that the author
is
it
193
occurrences.
stands must
talking of conju-
rations of spirits, of spirits flying through
the
air,
and so on.
however, one
If,
drops certain words and there remain
the table,
letters
—as
under
Wolfgang
Ernst Heidel proved in the year 1676 letters
which, combined into words, de-
scribe piu-ely natural occurrences.
one
case,
for instance, in
conjviration,
and
last
a formula of
one must drop the
words
entirely,
(In
first
and then cancel
from the remainder the second, foiuth, sixth,
and so on.
In the words
left
must again cancel the first, third, fifth letters and so on. One next combines what is then left into words; and the conjuration formula resolves itself into a purely natural commimiover, one
cation.) 13
194
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
How
difficult
work himself
is
for
Agrippa to
from the prejudices of
free
time and to
his
was
it
rise to
a pure perception
proved by the fact that he did not
allow his "Occult Philosophy" {Philoso-
phia Occulta), already written in 1510, to appear before the year 1531, because
he considered
dence of this fact ' '
Further evi-
unripe.
it
given by his work
is
On the Vanity of the Sciences
tate
Scientiarum)
with
bitterness
which
in
of
the
'
'
{De Vani-
he
speaks
scientific
and
He
there
other activities of his time.
states quite clearly that he has only with difficulty
wrenched himself
free
from the
phantasy which beholds in external actions
immediate spiritual
external facts prophetic
processes, in
indications
of
the future, and so forth.
Agrippa advances to the higher knowledge in three stages.
He
treats as the
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS first
stage the world as
the senses, with
on
Nature, in so far as
this level,
is
it
given for its
phy-
forces.
He
substances,
and other
chemical
sical,
calls
its
it
195
is
looked at
"elementary Nature."
On
the second stage, one contemplates the
world as a whole in connection, as to measure,
and so
it
its
natural inter-
orders things according
number, weight, harmony,
forth.
The
first
stage proceeds
from one thing to the next nearest.
It
seeks for the causes of an occurrence in its
immediate svuroundings.
stage
regards
connection It carries
thing
is
a
with
single
the
The second
occurrence
entire
in
universe.
through the idea that every-
subject to the influence of
all
other things in the entire world-whole.
In
its
eyes this world-whole appears as
a vast harmony, in which each individual item
is
a member.
Agrippa terms the
196
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
world, regarded from this point of view,
the
' '
astral " or " heavenly
third stage of
the
spirit,
knowing
'
world
'
is
The
.
that wherein
by plunging deep
into
itself,
perceives immediately the spiritual, the
Root-Being of the world.
Agrippa here
speaks of the world, of soul and
spirit.
The views which Agrippa develops about the world, and the relation of man to the world, present themselves to us in the case of
Theophrastus Paracelsus,
in a similar
manner, only in more per-
fected form.
It is better, therefore, to
consider
them
in connection with
the
latter.
Paracelsus characterises himself aptly,
when he writes under "None shaU be another's
slave,
himself can remain alone." attitude towards knowledge
these words.
He
strives
portrait:
his
who
for
His whole is
given in
everywhere to
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
19
go back himself to the deepest founda tions of natural knowledge, in order
by
rise
own
his
ti
strength to the lofties
regions of cognition.
As
Physician, h
will not, like his contemporaries,
simph
accept what the ancient investigators
who then counted
as authorities,— Galei
or Avicenna, for instance, asserted Ion;
ago; he
is
resolved to read for himsel
directly in the
book
of Nature.
"Th^
Physician raust pass Nature's examina tion,
which
origins.
is
And
the world,
the
very
and
all it
same
tha
Nature teaches him, he must commanc to his wisdom, but seek for nothing
ii
his
wisdom, only and alone in the ligh
of
Nattire."
He
shrinks from nothing
in order to learn to
her workings in
know Nature
an(
For
thi
all directions.
purpose he made journeys to Sweden
Hungary, Spain, Portugal, and the East
198
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
can truly say of himself: "I
followed the Art at the risk of
have
my
and have not been ashamed to
life,
learn
from wanderers, executioners and sheep-
My
shearers.
doctrine
was tested more
severely than silver in poverty, fears,
wars and hardships."
What has been handed down by ancient authorities has for
him no
value, for he
believes that
he can attain to the right
view only
he himself experiences the
upward
if
from
climb
Nature to
the
the knowledge of
highest
living, personal experience
mouth the proud will
This
insight.
puts into his
utterance:
"He who
my
foUow truth, must come into
monarchy.
.
.
.
After me; not
I
after
you, Avicenna, Rhases, Galen, Mesur!
After me; not I after you,
ye of Montpellier, ye
ye of Paris,
of Swabia,
ye of
Meissen, ye of Cologne, ye of Vienna and
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS what
of
199
on the Danube and the
lies
Rhine; ye islands in the
sea,
thou
Italy,
thou Dahnatia, thou Athens, thou Greek, thou Arab, thou
It
is
Mine
you!
I after
me, not
Israelite; after is
the Monarchy."
easy to misunderstand Paracelsus
because
of
rough exterior,
his
which
sometimes conceals a deep earnestness behind a
"By
Does he not himself say:
jest.
nature
I
am
brought up on
on cheese, I
may
figs
and wheat-bread, but
mUk and
rye-bread, wherefore
well be rude with the over-clean
and superfine
up
not subtly woven, nor
;
who were brought and we who were
for those
in soft clothing
bred in pine needles do not easily understand one another.
mean
to be kindly, I
be taken as rude. strange to one in the
sun?"
When must
How
in myself I
therefore often
can
I
not be
who has never wandered
fioo
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
In his book about Winkelmann, Goethe
man
has described the relation of
Nature
man self
in the following beautiful sen-
"When
tence:
to
healthy nature of
the
when he
acts as a whole;
feels
him-
as one with a great, beautiful, noble
and worthy whole; when the sense
of
harmonious well-being gives him a pure
and
free delight then
if it
cotild
;
would the Universe,
be conscious of
its
own
feeling,
burst forth in joy at having attained goal,
its
and contemplate with wondering
admiration the summit of
coming
and
its
With a
being."
own
be-
feeling
such as finds expression in these sentences,
From
Paracelsus
out of
is
simply saturated.
depths the riddle of
its
humanity takes shape watch how
this
for him.
happens
Let us
in Paracelsus's
sense.
At the
outset,
the
road by which
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
201
Nature has travelled to attain her
loftiest
hidden from man's
power
altitude
is
of comprehension.
She has climbed,
deed, to the summit; but the
in-
summit
myself as the
does not proclaim: I
feel
whole of Nature;
proclaims, on the
it
myself as this single,
contrary:
I
separated
human
reality
an achievement of the whole
is
universe,
feel
feels
being.
itself
as
That which a
separated,
isolated being, standing alone
This indeed viz.,
is
in
by
itself.
the true being of man,
that he must needs feel himself to
be something quite different from what, in ultimate analysis, if
he really
is.
And
must a contradiction come to
that be a contradiction, then
man
be called
life.
Man
is
particular
the
universe
in
way; he regards
his
own
his oneness
with the universe as a duality:
he
is
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
202
the very same that the universe
he
is
the universe
as
This
a single being.
which Paracelsus
is;
but
a repetition, as is
the contrast
feels as the
Microcosm
(Man) and the Macrocosm (Universe). Man, for him, is the universe in miniaThat which makes man regard ture. his relationship to the world in this
that
This
his spirit.
is
spirit
way,
appears
bound to a single being, to a single organism: and this organism belongs, by as
if
the very nature of
mighty stream
its
whole being, to the
of the universe.
It
is
one member, one link in that whole, having with
its
all
thereof.
come of and sees
very existence only in relation the
other
But
spirit
links
members
this single, separated organism, itself
at the outset as
only with that organism. this
or
appears as an out-
bound up
It tears loose
organism from the mother earth
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS out of which
has grown.
it
203
So,
for
Paracelsus, a deep-seated connection be-
tween in
man and
the
basic
the universe Hes hidden
foundations
connection which
is
of
a
hidden through the
That
presence of "spirit."
leads us to higher insight
knowledge
being,
spirit
which
by making
and leads on
possible,
this
knowledge to a new birth on a higher level-
—this
men, to
has, as its first resiilt for us
veil
from us our own oneness
with the whole.
Thus the nature
of
man
resolves itself
for Paracelsus in the first place into three
factors:
our
sensuous-physical
nature,
our organism which appears to us as a natural being
and
is
among
other natural beings
of like nature with all other natural
beings; our concealed or hidden nature,
which
is
universe,
a link in the chain of the whole
and therefore
is
not shut up
204
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
within the organism or limited to
it,
but radiates and receives the workings of
upon and from the
energy
entire
and our highest nature, our which lives its life in a purely-
tmiverse; spirit,
The
manner.
spiritual
man's nature Paracelsus
first
factor in
calls
the "ele-
mentary body " the second, the ethereal;
heavenly,
or
body"; and the
names "the Soul."
third he
Thus
"astral
in
Paracelsus
the
"astral"
phenomena,
an
intermediate
recognises
stage between
the purely physical and
the properly spiritual or
soul-phenomena.
Therefore these astral activities will come into view veils
when the
or conceals
spirit or soul,
which
the natural basis of
our being, suspends
its activity.
In the
dream-world we see the simplest phe-
nomena
of
this
realm.
which hover before us
in
The
pictures
dreams, with
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS their
remarkably
with
occtirrences
and with
significant connection
environment
our
in
states of our inner nature, are
products of
oiu-
natural basis or root-
being, which are obscured light of the soul.
chair
205
falls
by the
brighter
For example, when a
over beside
my
bed and
I
dream a whole drama ending with a shot fired in a duel; or when I have palpitation of the heart and dream of a boiling
cauldron,
we can
these dreams natural to
light
which are
see
that
in
come sense and
operations
full
meaning, and disclose a
of life
lying be-
tween the purely organic functions and the
concept-forming activity which
carried on in the of the spirit.
are all the
domain of and in the
full,
is
clear consciousness
Connected with
this region
phenomena belonging to the hypnotism and suggestion; latter are
we not compelled
206
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to recognise
an interaction between hu-
man
which points to some con-
beings,
nection or relation between beings in
Nature, which
is
normally hidden by the
higher activity of the mind? starting point
we can
From
this
reach an tinder-
standing of what Paracelsus meant by the "astral" body.
It is the
sum
of those natural operations under
influence
we
stand, or
may
total
whose
in special
circumstances come to stand, or which
proceed from us, without our souls or
minds coming into consideration
in con-
nection with them, but which yet cannot
be included under the concept of purely physical
phenomena.
The
fact
that
Paracelsus reckons as truths in this do-
main things which we doubt to-day, does not come into the question, from the point of view which I have already described.
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
207
Starting from the basis of these views as
to
divides ciples,
man, Paracelsus
the
nature of
him
into seven factors or prin-
which are the same as those we
wisdom of the ancient Egyptians, among the Neoplatonists and also find in the
in
the Kabbalah.
man
a
is
In the
physical-bodily
therefore subject to the
He
every other body. therefore, a purely
The purely into
is,
first
place,
being,
and
same laws as in this respect,
"elementary" body.
physical-bodily laws combine
an organic
life-process,
and Para-
celsus denotes this organic sequence of
law by the terms " archaus" or "spiritus Next, the organic rises into a
vitce."
region
phenomena resembling
of
the
spiritual,
but which are not yet properly
spiritual,
and these he
classifies as
From amidst
"as-
tral"
phenomena.
astral
phenomena, the functions of the
these
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
2o8
"animal soul" make
Man
becomes a being
Then he connects impressions
by
their appearance. of
the
together his sense
according to
their natiire,
his understanding or mind,
"human comes
senses.
and the
soul" or "reasoning soul" be-
He
alive in him.
sinks himself
deep into his own mental productions,
and
learns to recognise "spirit" as such,
and thus he has level of
he
risen at length to the
the "spiritual soul."
must come
recognise
to
this spiritual soul
Finally,
he
is
that
in
experiencing the
ultimate basis of universal being; the spiritual soul ceases to
be separated. of
Then
be individual, to
arises the
knowledge
which Eckhart spoke when he
longer himself,
felt
no
was speaking within but that in him the Root-Being
that
he
was uttering
Itself.
come about
in
The
which the
condition has All-Spirit in
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
man
beholds
stamped the
Paracelsus
Itself.
has
feeling of this condition with
"And
the simple words:
that
thing whereon to dwell: there in
209
heaven or
upon earth that
is
a great
is
naught
is
not in
And God who dwelleth in Heaven, He also is in Man." With these seven principles of human Man.
nature,
Paracelsus
aims at expressing
nothing else than the facts of inner and outer
The
experience.
remains
fact
unquestioned that, what for hiiman experience subdivides plicity
reality
of
itself
into a multiin
higher
But the higher
insight
seven factors,
a unity.
exists just for the
is
very ptirpose of exhibit-
ing the tmity in all that appears as multiplicity to
man, owing to
spiritual organisation.
his bodily
On
and
the level of
the highest insight, Paracelsus strives to the utmost to fuse the unitary Root-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
210
Being of the world with his own
spirit.
But he knows that man can only cognise Nature into
when he
in its spirituality,
enters
immediate intercourse with that
Man
Nature.
by peopling arbitrarily
it
does not grasp Nature
from within himself with
assumed
cepting and valuing
entities; it
as
it is,
but by acas Nature.
Paracelsus therefore does not seek for
God
or for spirit in Nature; but Nature,
just as
it
comes before
his eyes, is for
him wholly, immediately one then
first
divine.
Must
ascribe to the plant a soul
after the kind of a
human
soul, in order
to find the spiritual?
Hence Paracelsus explains to himself the development of things, so far as that
means
of
his age, altogether in such wise that
he
is
possible with the scientific
conceives this development as a sensible-
natural process.
He makes
all
things
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS to
211
from the root-matter, the
proceed
root-water (YHaster).
And he
regards
as a further natural process the separation of the root-matter (which he also
the great Limbus)
calls
into the four
elements: Water, Earth, Fire and Air.
When
he says that the "Divine
Word"
called forth the multiplicity of beings
from the root-matter, one must understand this also only in such wise as per-
haps
must Force
in
more recent natural
understand to
the
A
Matter.
matter-of-fact sense, this stage.
is
science one
relationship "Spirit,"
of
in
a
not yet present at
This "Spirit"
is
no matter-
of-fact basis of the natural process,
but
a matter-of-fact result of that process. This Spirit does not create Nature,
but develops
itself
out of Nature.
Not
a few statements of Paracelsus might be interpreted in the opposite sense.
Thus
212
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
when he
"There
says:
nothing which
is
does not possess and carry with
a
hidden
spirit
withal.
which
Also,
stirs itself
mals, the
that
life,
ani-
in the earth, the birds
sky and the
in the
has
only
and moves, as men,
worms
also
and that Hves not
in it
not
it
fishes in water,
but
bodily and actual things as well."
all
But
in
such sayings Paracelsus only
aims at warning us against that supercontemplation
ficial
fancies
it
of
Nature which
can exhaust the being of a
thing with a couple of "stuck-up" concepts, according to Goethe's apt expres-
He aims
sion.
things
not
putting
into
some imaginary being, but at
setting in
motion
all
to bring out that lies
at
the powers of
which
man
in actual fact
in the thing.
What
matters
is
not to
let oneself
be
misled by the fact that Paracelsus ex-
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
213
presses himself in the spirit of his time. It
is
far
more important
to recognise
what things really hovered before his mind when, looking upon Nature, he expresses his ideas in the forms of expression proper to his age.
He
ascribes
to man, for instance, a dual flesh, that is,
a
flesh
of
dual
must
also be understood, that
two kinds, namely the
from
"The
bodily constitution.
Adam and
from Adam.
The
gross flesh, for
besides flesh,
flesh
it is
comes
flesh that
the flesh which
from
it is
is
Adam
not is
a
earthly and nothing
that can be bound and
grasped like wood and stone.
The
other
Adam, it is a subtle flesh and cannot be bound or grasped, What is for it is not made of earth." the flesh that is from Adam? It is flesh is
not from
everything that
man has received through
natural development, everything, there-
214
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
To
heredity.
man
on to him by
has passed
that
fore,
that
has acquired
is
added, whatever himself
for
in
intercourse with the world around
his
him
in the course of time.
The modem
scientific
inherited characteristics
conceptions of
and those
ac-
quired by adaptation easily emerge from the above-cited thought of Paracelsus.
The "more
subtle flesh" that
makes man
capable of his intellectual activities, has
not existed from the beginning in man.
Man was a
"gross flesh" like the animal,
flesh that
like
"can be bound and grasped
wood and
stone."
In a
scientific
sense, therefore, the soul is also
an
ac-
quired characteristic of the "gross flesh."
What
the
scientist
of
the
nineteenth
century has in his mind's eye when he speaks of the factors inherited from the
animal world,
is
just
what Paracelsus
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
215
has in view when he uses the expression,
"the
Natiirally I
of
have not the the
blurring
between a
Adam."
that comes from
flesh
least intention
that
difference
exists
scientist of the sixteenth
one of the nineteenth century.
and
It was,
indeed, this latter century which for the first
time was able to
scientific sense,
see,
in the full
the phenomena of living
beings in such a connection that their natural relationship and actual descent, right
up
to
man, stood out
one's eyes.
clearly before
Science sees only a natural
process where Linnseus in the eighteenth
century
saw a
characterised
it
are counted as
spiritual
process
in the words:
many
and
"There
species of living'
beings, as there were created different
forms in the beginning."
While thus
in Linnseus's time, the Spirit
had
still
to be transferred into the spacial world
2i6
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
and have assigned to
it
the task of
ually generating the forms of
spirit-
life,
or
"creating" them: the natural science of the nineteenth
century could give to
Nature what belonged to Nature, and
To
to Spirit what belonged to Spirit. Natture
is
even assigned the task of exher
plaining
own
and the
creations;
where
Spirit can plunge into itself there,
alone of
it is
to be found, in the inner being
man.
But although
in
a certain sense Para-
celsus thinks according to the spirit of his age, yet
ship of
he has grasped the relation-
man
to
Nature
manner, especially in
in
a profound
relation
idea of Evolution, of Becoming.
to
the
He
did
not see in the Root-Being of the universe
something which in any sense
is
there
as a finished thing, but he grasped the
Divine
in
the
process
of
Becoming.
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
217
Thereby he was enabled truly to ascribe to if
man
a
self-creative
the divine root of being
given once for
For
activity.
as
is,
were,
it
then there can be no
all,
question of any truly creative activity in
man.
who then
It is not
man,
but
creates,
from Eternity, that Paracelsus there Eternity.
is
it
living in time, is
God, who
creates.
for
no such God from
For him there
eternal happening,
But
is
and man
in this eternal happening.
is is
an
only
one link
What man
forms, was previously in no sense existent.
What man
creates,
is,
as he creates
it,
a
new, original creation.
If
called divine, it can only
be so-called in
the sense in which
it is
it
is
to be
a htiman creation.
Therefore Paracelsus can assign to
man
a r61e in the building of the universe,
which makes him a co-architect creation.
The
in its
divine root of being
is
2i8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
without man, not that which
it
with
is
man.
"For nature brings nothing to Hght, which as such is perfect, but man must
make it perfect ity of is
man in
. '
This self -creative activ-
'
the building of the universe
what Paracelsus
calls
Alchemy.
"This
Thus the Alchemist is the baker, when he bakes bread, the vintager, when he makes wine, the weaver, when he makes cloth." perfecting
is
Alchemy.
Paracelsus aims at being an Alchemist in
his
own domain
"Therefore
I
may
as
a
Physician.
well write so
here about Alchemy, that ye
understand it is
it,
and how
much
may
well
and experience that which it is
to be understood
;
and
not find a sttimbling-block therein that neither Gold nor Silver shall
thee therefron;.
come
But have regard
to
there-
unto, that the Arcana [curative means]
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS be revealed unto thee. pillar
of medicine
preparation
come
is
the
of
to pass without
cannot be made
.
.
The
.
Alchemy, medicines
219
third
for the
cannot
because Nature
it,
use of without Art."
In the strictest sense, therefore, the eyes of Paracelsus are directed to Natixre, in order to overhear
from
herself
what
she has to say about that which she
He
brings forth.
seeks to explore the
laws of chemistry, so that, in his sense,
he
may work
tvires to
as
an Alchemist.
himself all bodies as
He
pic-
compounded
out of three root-substances: Salt, Sul-
and
phur,
Mercury.
What he
thus
names, naturally does not coincide with that which later chemistry solely and strictly little
calls
by
these names;
just
as
as that which Paracelsus conceives
of as the root-substance
is
such in the
sense of our later chemistry.
Different
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
220
by the same names
things are called
What
times.
different
the
at
ancients
called the four elements: Earth, Water,
and
Air,
But we
Fire,
we
have
still
call these four
to-day.
"elements" no
longer "elements," but states of aggre-
gation and have for them the designations: solid, liquid, gaseous
The Earth,
for
instance,
and
was
etheric.
for
the
ancients not earth, but the "solid."
Again,
we can
clearly recognise the
three root-substances of Paracelsus in
contemporary conceptions, though not present
in
names
of
like
sound.
For
Paracelsus, dissolution in a liquid and
burning are the two most important chemical
processes
which
he
a body be dissolved or burnt,
If
up
into its parts.
is
burnt.
What
it
breaks
Something remains
behind as insoluble; something or
utilises.
is
left
dissolves,
behind
is
to
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS him
221
of the nature of Salt; the soluble
(liquid) of the
nature of Mercury; while
he terms Sulphur -like the part that can
be burnt. All this, taken as relating to material
may
things,
man
the
leave
who
cold
cannot look out beyond such natural processes;
grasp
whoever seeks at
with his senses, will
the spirit
people these processes with
in
with
its secret
become revealed
—
^he
the senses offer them;
them;
currences of Nature
which
the whole,
to
man's inner being,
re-interpret
like
knows how to regard them
connection
permits
all sorts of
He, however, who
ensouling beings.
Paracelsus
all costs to
in
accepts them, as
he does not
first
for
just as the oc-
lie
before us in their
sensible reality, so too
do they,
own way,
reveal to us the
existence.
That
which
in their
riddle
through
of
their
222
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
sensible
reality
have
they
to
unveil
from within the soul of man, stands,
him who
strives after the light of higher
knowledge,
higher than
far
natural wonders or
get
for
revealed
suppositious
man
that
all
super-
can invent
him about
to
There
"spirit."
their is
no
"Spirit of Nature," capable of uttering loftier truths
Nature
than the mighty works of
herself,
in friendship
when our
soul links itself
with that Nature and listens
to the revelations of her secrets in inti-
mate
and
tender
intercourse.
friendship with Nature celsus sought.
Such
was what Para-
VALENTINE WEIGEL AND JACOB
BOEHME In the view of Paracelsus, what mattered most
was
to acquire ideas about
Nattire which should breathe the spirit of the higher insight that
A
thinker related to him,
the same his
he represented.
mode
own nature
who
applied
of conceiving things to especially, is
WEIGEL (1533-1588).
valentine
He grew up
out
of Protestant theology in a like sense to
that in which Eckhart, Tauler, and Suso
grew up out
He
of
Roman
Catholic theology.
has predecessors in Sebastian Frank
and Caspar Schwenckfeldt.
These two,
as contrasted with the orthodox Church-
men
clinging
to
external 223
profession,
224
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
pointed downwards to the deepening of the inner Hfe. Jesus
whom
For them
it
is
not that
the Gospels preach
who
but the Christ who can be
of value,
man
in every
as his deeper nature,
is
bom and
him the Saviour from the lower life and the guide to ideal uplifting. Weigel performed silently and humbly become
for
the duties of his office as clergyman in
Zschopau.
he
left
It
was only from the writings
behind, printed
first in
the seven-
teenth century, that the world learned
anything of the significant ideas which
had come to him about the nature
of
man.' Weigel
feels himself
driven to gain a
clear understanding of his relation to the writings, may be Ding ohne Irrlhumb zu erkennen, vielen Hochgelehrten unbekandt, und dock alien Menschen nothwendig zu wissen; Erkenne dich selbsl; Vom '
The
named:
following,
Der
Ort der Welt.
from among
his
giildene Griff, das ist alle
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
225
teaching of the Church; and that leads
him on
further to investigate the basic
foundations of
man
all
Whether
knowledge.
can know anything through a con-
fession of faith,
is
a question as to which
he can only give himself an account when he knows how
man knows.
Weigel starts
from the lowest kind of knowing.
How
asks himself: object,
when
it
do
I
presents
know itself
He
a sensible
before
me?
Thence he hopes to be able to mount upwards to a point of view whence he can give himself an account of the highest
knowledge.
In cognition through the senses, the instrument (the sense-organ) and the object, the
"counterpart"
stand opposed.
(Gegenwurf)
"Since in natural per-
ception there must be two things, as the object or 'counterpart,' which
known and
seen
is
to be
by the eye and the ;
eye,
226
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
or the perceiver, which sees or object, so
other:
knows the
do thou hold over against each
whether the
forth from the
knowledge
comes
object to the eye;
or
whether the judgment, or the cognition, flows out from the eye into the object."'
Weigel
now
cognition
says
(or
to
'
himself
knowledge)
the "counterpart"
flowed
(or thing)
eye, then of necessity
If
:
the
from
into the
from one and the
same thing a similar and perfect cognition must come to all eyes. But that not the case, for each
man
sees accord-
ing to the measure of his
own
eyes.
is
the
eyes,
not
the
Only
"counterpart"
(or
object) can be in fault, in that various
and
different conceptions are possible of
one and the same thing.
To
clear
up
the matter, Weigel compares seeing with reading. '
Der
If
the book were not there, I
giiliene Griff, p.
26 et seq.
WEIGEL AND BOEHME naturally could not read still
in
be there, and yet
it,
if I
reading.
but
it
might
could read nothing
I
did not understand the art of
The book
there; but,
from
everything
I
therefore
itself it
the smallest thing;
That
it;
227
I
must be
can give
me
must draw
not
forth
read from within myself.
is
also the nature of sensible per-
ception.
Colour is there as the " counter-
part," but
from out of nise,
As
it
can give the eye nothing
itself.
from out of
little
as the content of the
the reader, just so eye.
If
The eye must recogitself, what colour is. little is
book
is
colour in the
the content of the book were in
the reader, he would not need to read
Yet
in
in reading,
this
it.
content does not
flow out from the book, but from the reader.
So
object.
What
him
that does not flow from outside
is;
is
it
also with the sensible
the sensible thing before
228
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE man, but from within out-
into the
wards.
from
Starting
might say:
man
from not
If all
one
knowledge flows out
into the object, then one does
know what
what
thoughts,
these
is in
is
in the object,
man.
The
but only
detailed working
out of this line of thought, brought about
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).^ Weigel says to himself: Even if the knowledge flows out from man, it is still the view of
only the being of the "counterpart" (or object) which direct
comes to
light in this in-
way through man.
As
I
learn the
content of the book by reading
not
my own
by
content,
learn the colour of the 'The
and
also
I
"counterpart"
error in this line of thought will be found ex-
plained in 1894.
so
it,
my
Here
I
book, The Philosophy of Freedom, Berlin, limit myself to mentioning that Val-
must
entine Weigel, with his simple, robust things, stands far higher than Kant.
way
of conceiving
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
229
through the eye, not any colour to be
found
in the eye, or in
(Thus
myself.
Weigel arrives by a road of his own at a result that
we have
in Nicholas of Cusa.
In this
way Weigel
already encountered
Cp. pages
1
51-160).
attained to clearness
He
as to the nature of sense-perception.
arrived at the conviction that everything
which external things have to
tell
us can
own inner nature Man cannot remain passive when itself. he tries to know sensible objects and only flow forth from our
seeks merely to allow
them
to act
upon
him; but he must assume an active tude,
and bring forth the knowledge from
within
himself.
object) merely in the spirit.
ledge
atti-
when
The counterpart
awakens the knowledge
Man his
"counterpart."
(or
rises to
spirit
One
sensible cognition that
higher know-
becomes can
its
see
own from
no cognition can
230
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
flow into
man from
Therefore
outside.
there can be no such thing as an external revelation,
but only an inner awakening.
As now the till
external counterpart waits
there comes into
its
presence man, in
whom it can express its being, man wait, when he seeks to
so too
must
be his own
"counterpart " (or object) until the knowledge of his in
him.
own being
If,
in
shall
cognition
be awakened through the
man must assume an active attiin order that he may bring to meet
senses,
tude
the "counterpart" the higher knowing, self passive,
its
own
being, so in
man must
because he
is
hold him-
himself
now
the "counterpart."
He must admit
being into himself.
Therefore the cog-
nition of the spirit
appears to him as
enlightenment from above.
its
In contrast
to cognition through the senses, Weigel therefore terms the higher cognition the
WEIGEL AND BOEHME "Light
of
Mercy"
is,
Mercy."
This
"Light
in reaHty, nothing other
the self-knowledge of the
231
spirit in
of
than
man,
or the re-birth of knowledge on the higher level of beholding.
Now
just as Nicholas of Cusa, in fol-
lowing up his road from knowing to beholding, does not really bring about
the re-birth of the knowledge he has gained, on the higher level, but only the faith of the
Church
in
which he was
brought up appears deceptively before
him as such a with Weigel.
re-birth, so
He
is it
also the case
guides himself to the
right road, but loses
it
again in the very
moment in which he steps upon it. He who will travel the road that Weigel points
out,
his guide
point.
can regard the latter as
only as far as the starting-
232
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
What works
rings out to
meet us from the
Master-Shoemaker
of the
of Gor-
Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), sounds hke the joyous outburst of Nature adHtz,
miring her
own
of her evolution.
being upon the summit
A man
appears before
us whose words have wings,
woven out
of the inspiring feeling of having seen
knowledge shining within him as Higher Jacob Boehme describes his
Wisdom.
own
state as Piety
which
strives
only
Wisdom, and as a Wisdom that seeks to live only in Piety: "As I was to be
wrestling
and
fighting in God's behalf, be-
hold a wondrous light shone into
my
soul,
such as was quite foreign to savage nature
knew what God and man were, and what God had to do with men." Jacob Boehme no longer feels himself therein I
first
as a separated being expressing sights;
he
feels
its in-
himself as an organ of
WEIGEL AND BOEHME the
great
All-Spirit,
233
speaking in him.
The limits of his personality do not appear to him as the limits of the Spirit that speaks from within him. for
This Spirit
him present everywhere.
is
He knows
that "the Sophist will blame him"
when
he speaks of the beginning of the world
and
its
creation: "the while I
thereby and did not myself see
was not it.
To
him be it said that in the essence of my soul and body, when I was not yet the 'I,' but when I was still Adam's essence, I was there present and myself squandered away my glory in Adam." Only in external similes is Boehme
how the light broke forth When once as a boy being.
able to indicate in his inner
he finds himself on the top of a mountain,
he sees above him a place where
seem to shut up the mountain; the entrance is open and in large red stones
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
234 its
depth he sees a vessel
full of gold.
shudder runs through him
on
and he goes
way without touching the treasure.
his
Later on he in
;
A
is
apprenticed to a shoemaker
A
Gorlitz.
stranger steps into the
and demands a pair
shop
Boehme
is
not allowed to
absence of his master.
of
shoes.
them in the The stranger
sell
departs, but after a while calls the ap-
prentice out of the shop
"Jacob, thou art
and says to him
little,
but thou wilt
some day become quite another man, over
whom
the world will break out into
In riper years, Jacob
Boehme
sees the reflection of the bright
sun in a
wonder."
tin vessel: the
view that thus presents
him seems to him to unveil a profound secret. Even after the impresitself
to
sion of this appearance, he believes himself to
be in possession of the key to the
riddles of Nature.
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
He
235
a spiritual anchorite, hiim-
lives as
bly earning his living by his trade, and
between
in his inner being
man;
he,
who
makes
desires
when he
The zealotry
the Spirit in himself.
of priestly fervotir
the
own
for his
he notes down the harmonies
which resound feels
though
whiles, as
recollection,
life
hard for
naught but to
read the Scripture which the light of his inner nature illuminates for him, is
by those
persecuted and tortured
whom
to
only the external writ, the rigid,
dogmatic confession of
faith, is accessible.
One world -riddle remains ing presence in Jacob driving
him on
lieves himself to in a divine
as a disquiet-
Boehme's
He
to knowledge.
be in his
spirit
soul,
be-
enfolded
harmony; but when he looks
around him, he sees discord everywhere in the divine workings.
the light of
To man
belongs
Wisdom and yet he is exposed ;
236
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to error; in
him
lives
the impulse to the
good, and yet the discord of evil sounds
throughout the whole of
human
develop-
is
governed by
great laws; yet
its
by happenings
of
harmony is disturbed no purport, and the
ment.
Nature
warfare of the elements.
its
How
is
own
this
discord in the harmonious world-whole to
be understood?
This question tortures
Jacob Boehme.
It strides into the centre
of the world of his thought.
He
strives
to gain a view of the world as a whole,
which
shall include the discordant.
how can a
For
conception which leaves the
actual present discord unexplained ex-
The
plain the world?
discord
must be
explained out of the harmony, the
out of the good
itself.
Let us
evil
restrict
ourselves, in speaking of these things, tc
the good and the of
harmony
in the
evil,
wherein the lack
narrower sense
finde
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
For, fundamentally, Ja-
expression.
its
Boehme
cob
He
this.
also
can do
restricts
so, for
himself
Nature and
appear to him as a single entity. in
237
him an
man
He sees The
both similar laws and processes.
purposeless seems to
to
evil
some-
thing in Nature, just as evil seems to
him something purposeless in man. lar
and
Simi-
fundamental forces rule both here there.
To one who has known
origin of evil in
Nature also
lies
man, the source open and
Now, how can the
the
of evil in
clear.
evil as well as the
good flow forth from the very same RootBeing? sense,
Speaking
in
Jacob
Boehme's
one would give the following an-
The Root-Being does not live out The multiplicity its existence in itself. As of the world shares in this existence. the human body lives its life, not as a
swer.
single
member, but as a multiplicity
of
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
238
members, so also the Root-Being.
human
as
life
multiplicity of
Being
is
poured out into
poured out into the manifoldness
is
that the entire so true
life,
own
its
is it
life.
dicts the
man
As
And
as
little
whole harmonious
it
own body and wound
true as
has only one
that every
that his hand should turn his
this
members, so too the Root-
of the things of this world. it is
And
member has as
it
contra-
of
a man,
life
itself
against
so
little is
it,
impossible that the things of the world,
which
live the life of
the Root-Being in
own way, should turn themselves each other. Thus the RootBeing, in dividing itself among different
their
against
lives,
confers
upon each such
capacity to turn It is
forth, lives.
itself
life
the
against the whole.
not from the good that evil streams
but from the way in which the good
As the
light is only able to shine
WEIGEL AND BOEHME when
239
pierces the darkness, so the
it
can bring
meates
itself
its
to
only when
life
From
opposite.
good
it
per-
out of the
"fathomless abyss" of darkness there streams forth the light from the
'
;
lessness"
of
the
'
ground-
there
indifferent
And
brought to birth the Good.
is
as in
the shadow only the brightening demands
a pointing to the light but the darkness, ;
as a matter of course,
weakens the it is is
is felt
as that which
light; so too in the world,
only the law-abiding character that
sought for in
the purposeless,
all is
things;
and the
accepted as a matter
Thus, in
of course, intelligible in itself. spite of the fact that for
the Root-Being in the
is
evil,
Jacob Boehme
the All,
still
nothing
world can be understood, unless
one has an eye both to the Root-Being
and
its
opposite at once.
has swallowed up into
itself
"The good the evil or
240
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the hideous.
.
.
good and
itself
ment, as
Every being has
.
and
evil,
in its unfold-
passes over into division,
it
becomes a contradiction
in
it
of qualities, as
one seeks to overcome the other."
Hence
altogether in accordance
is
it
with Jacob Boehme's view to see in every-
and
thing,
in every process of the world,
both good and
evil
;
but
it is
not in accord
with his meaning, without more ado to seek the Root-Being in the mingling of
good and
The Root-Being must
evil.
swallow up the
evil;
but the
part of the Root-Being.
evil is
not a
Jacob Boehme
seeks the Root-Being of the world; but
the world
itself
has sprung forth from the
"fathomless abyss" through the RootBeing.
"The
and eternally only
external world will
.
.
.
not God,
not be called God, but
a being wherein
Himself.
is
When
God
manifests
one says:
God
is
WEIGEL AND BOEHME all,
God
is
heaven and earth, and also
the outer world, so
him and
241
is
that true: for from
him all stands originallyrooted. But what am I to do with such a saying, which is no religion?" With such a view in the background, in
Jacob Boehme's conceptions as to the being of the whole world built themselves
up
in his
mind, so that he makes the
orderly world emerge in a series of steps
from
the
"fathomless
world builds forms.
itself
up
abyss."
This
in seven natural
In dark astringency the Root-
Being receives form, dumbly shut up within
itself
tringency
symbol
of
and motionless.
Boehme Salt.
grasps
In
This as-
under
the
employing such
upon Paracelsus, who had borrowed from chemical processes his names for the processes of Nature. By swallowing up its opposite, designations he leans
16
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
242
the
nature-form passes over into the
first
form of the second; the astringent, the
movement; Power
motionless, takes on
and
Life enter into
cury)
Quicksilver (Mer-
it.
the symbol for this second form.
is
In the struggle of Rest and Motion, of
Death with
the third form of
Life,
Nature unveils
Life battling within
itself,
fest to itself; it lives
becomes mani-
thenceforward no
longer an outer battle of there quivers through
unifying
up
its
form living
glowing
of
Nature
battle
(Fire).
of
first,
its
as
members; it
itself
were a lighting
This fourth
to the
rises
the
fifth,
the parts resting
themselves (Water).
upon the
it
flash,
own being
This
(Siilphur).
itself
there
On is
this level,
rest,
opposites, but
an
as
present an inner
astringency and dumbness; only
not an absolute
in
it
is
a silence of the inner
interior
movement
of
WEIGEL AND BOEHME the opposites. resting in
It is not the motionless
itself,
but the moved, that
which has been kindled by the of
the fourth
level,
itself
of itself as such inner
"Clang" or
Call,
sixth
Living beings
life.
and
in so
of
calls it
the
doing adopts
sound as the
for sense-perception in general.
The seventh form raising itself
perceptions self
the
senses represent this form
sense-perception
symbol
fire- flash
becomes aware
Jacob Boehme
of Nature.
the
Upon
stage.
the Root-Being
endowed with
243
of
Nature
on the basis (Wisdom).
is
the Spirit,
of its sense-
He
finds
him-
again as himself, as the Root-Being,
within the world that has grown up out of the "fathomless abyss," shaping itself
out of the harmonious and the discordant.
"The Holy Ghost this
brings the Glory of
Majesty into the being, wherein the
Godhead stands
revealed."
244
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
It
is
with
Boehme
such
seeks
to
views
that
Jacob
fathom that world
which for him, according to the knowledge
was reckoned as the actual fact. For him all is fact which
of his time,
world of is
by the natural science time and by the Bible. His way
so regarded
his
conceiving things
is
of
of
one thing, his world
of facts quite another.
One can imagine
the former applied to a totally different
knowledge of
facts.
And
thus
appears before our eyes a Jacob
there
Boehme
as he might stand at the parting of the
nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.
Such a one would not saturate with
way
his
of conceiving things the six days'
creation
work
of the angels
geological
of the Bible
and the
and the
devils,
but Lyell's
knowledge and the facts of
Haeckel's The History of Creation.
who can
fight
He
penetrate into the spirit of Jacob
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
245
Boehme's writings must arrive at
this
conviction.
'We may
here
name
the most important of Boehme's
writings: Die Morge?ir6the
im Aufgang; Die
drei Prinzi-
das dreifache Leben des Menschen; Das umgewandte Auge; " Signatura rerum" oder von der Geburl und Bezeichnung alter Wesen; Das pien gottlichen Lebens oder
"Mysterium Magnum."
iiber
GIORDANO BRUNO AND ANGELUS SILESIUS In the
first
decennium
of the sixteenth
century, the scientific genius of Nicholas
Copernicus
(1473-1543)
thinks out in
the castle of Heilsberg, in Prussia, an intellectual structure
men
which compels the
of subsequent epochs to look
up to
the starry heavens with other conceptions than those in antiquity
To them
which their forefathers
and the Middle Ages had.
the earth was their dwelling-
place, at rest in the centre of the Universe.
The of
stars,
however, were for them beings
a perfect nature, whose motion took
place in circles because the circle representative of perfection. 246
is
the
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
247
In that which the stars showed to
human
senses they beheld something of
the nature of soul, something spiritual.
was one kind of speech that the things and processes upon earth spoke to man; It
quite another, that of the shining stars,
beyond the moon which seemed filling
space.
like
the
in
some
pure
asther,
spiritual nature
Nicholas of Cusa had
al-
ready formed other ideas.
Through Copernicus, earth became
man
a brother-being in face of the other
heavenly others.
to
for
show
bodies,
a
star
moving
like
All the difference that earth has for
man
to this: that earth
He was no
he could now reduce is
his dwelling-place.
longer forced to think differ-
ently about the events of this earth and
those of the rest of universal space.
The
world of his senses had expanded
itself
into the
most remote
spaces.
He was
248
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
compelled henceforth to allow that which penetrated his eye from the aether to
count as sense-world just as things
He
earth.
of
much
could
as the
no longer
seek in the aether in sensuous fashion for
the Spirit.
Whoever,
henceforth,
strove
higher knowledge, must needs
an understanding with world of the senses. the brooding
a world of with a
mind
facts.
new
this
after
come to expanded
In earlier centuries, of
man
stood before
Now he was confronted
task.
No
longer could the
things of earth only express this nature
from within man's inner being. inner nature of his
was
called
This
on to em-
brace the spirit of a sense- world, which fills
the All of Space everywhere alike.
The thinker of Nola, Philotheo Giordano Bruno (1548- 1600) found himself faced by such a problem. The senses
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
have conquered the universe henceforth the Spirit
found in space.
is
249
of space;
no more to be
Thus man was guided
from without to seek henceforward
for
the Spirit there alone where from out of
profound inner experiences those ous thinkers sought
it,
glori-
whose ranks our
previous expositions have led before us.
These thinkers drew upon a view of the world to which, later on, the advance of natiural
knowledge forces humanity.
The
sun of those ideas, which later should shine
upon a new view still
of Nature, with
them
stands below the horizon; but their
light already appears as the early
at a time itself still
The
when men's thoughts
of
dawn
Nature
lay in the darkness of night.
sixteenth century gave the heav-
enly spaces to natural science for the sense-world to which
by the end
it
rightfully belongs
of the nineteenth century, this
250
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
had advanced so far that, even within the phenomena of plant, animal, science
and htunan
life,
it
could assign to the
world of sensible facts that which belongs to
it.
Neither, then, in the aether above,
nor in the development of living creatures,
can this natural science henceforth seek for anything
but sensible, matter-of-fact
As the thinker in the sixteenth centtuy had to say: "The earth is a star among other stars, subject to the same laws as other stars"; so must the processes.
thinker of the nineteenth century say:
"Man, whatever may be his future,
is
mammal, and
his origin
and
for anthropology only further,
that
a
mammal
whose organisation, needs and diseases are the most complex, whose brain, with its
marvellous capacities, has reached the
highest level of development."' '
Paul Topinard
:
Anthropologie, Leipzig, 1888, p. 528.
BRUNO AND From such a
SILESIUS
standpoint,
251
attained
through natural science, there can no longer occur any confusion between the
and the
spiritual
sensible,
provided
understands himself rightly. natural science makes
it
man
Developed
impossible to
seek in Nature for a Spirit conceived of after the fashion of something material,
just as healthy thinking
possible to seek
for
forward movement not
in
makes
it
im-
the reason of the the clock-hand,
of
mechanical laws (the Spirit of
inorganic
Nature), but
in
a
special
Daimon, supposed to bring about the
movements of the hands. Ernst Haeckel was quite right in rejecting, as a scientist, the gross conception of a of in material fashion.
God
conceived
"In the higher
and more abstract forms of religion, the bodily appearance is abandoned and God is
worshipped as pure
Spirit,
devoid of
252
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE 'God
body.
is
a Spirit, and they that
worship him must worship him in
and
in
truth.'
But,
spirit
the
nevertheless,
soul-activity of this pure Spirit remains
quite the
same as that
of the anthropo-
morphic personal God.
In
even
reality,
this immaterial Spirit is not
thought of
as bodiless, but as invisible, like a gas.
We
thus arrive at the paradoxical con-
ception of
In
God
reality,
as a gaseous vertebrate."
^
the matter-of-fact, sensible
existence of something spiritual
may
assumed only when immediate
sensible
be
experience shows something spiritual, and
only such a degree of the spiritual
may
be assumed as can be perceived in this
manner.
That
first
rate
Cameri, ventured to say
thinker, (in his
Empfindung und Bewusstsein,
"The dictum: No '
spirit
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe.
p.
B.
book: 15):
without matter,
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
but also no matter without entitle us to
253
spirit,
—would
extend the question to the
plant also, nay, even to any block of stone taken at random, wherein there
seems very
little
to speak in favour of
these correlative conceptions.
'
Spiritual
'
occurrences as matters of fact are the results of various doings of
the Spirit of the world
is
an organism;
not present in
the world in a material sense, but precisely after a spiritual fashion.
a
sum
of processes in
Man's
which
present in
man
soul,
In the
however. Spirit
only.
And
is
Spirit ap-
pears most immediately as fact.
form of such a
soul
it
is
implies
that one misunderstands Spirit, that one
commits the worst
sin against Spirit, to
seek for Spirit in the form of Soul else-
where than in man, to imagine other beings thus ensouled as
ever does
this,
man
is.
Who-
only shows that he has
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
254
not experienced Spirit within himself;
he has only experienced that outer form of
appearance of
reigns in him.
Spirit,
the
But that
is
Soiol,
same drawn
just the
as though one regarded a circle
with a pencil as the ideal circle. self
real,
which
mathematically
Whoever experiences
in him-
nothing other than the soul-form of
the Spirit, feels himself thereupon driven to assimie also such a soul-form in non-
human
may
things, in order that thereby
he
not need to remain rooted in the
materiality of the gross senses. of thinking the
Instead
Root-Being of the world
as Spirit, he thinks of
it
as World-Soul,
and postidates a general ensoulment
of
Nature.
Giordano Bruno, upon
Copemican view
of
whom
the
Nature forced
new
itself,
could grasp Spirit in the world, from
which
it
had been expelled
in its old form,
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
255
no other manner than as World-Soul.
in
On
plunging into Bruno's writings
pecially
deeply
his
De Rerum
thoughtful
Principiis
et
(es-
book:
Elementis
et
Causis) one gets the impression that he
thought of things as ensouled, although
He has not, in reality,
in varying degree.
experienced in himself the Spirit, therefore he conceives Spirit after the fashion
human
of the
encountered
soul, it.
wherein alone he has
When he
Spirit,
he conceives of
way:
"The
it
speaks
of
in the following
universal reason
is
the in-
most, most effective and most special capacity,
and a potential part
World-Soul tical,
;
which
of the
it is
something one and iden-
fills
the All, illuminates the
universe and instructs Nature
how
to
bring forth her species as they ought to be." is
In these sentences
Spirit, it is true,
not described as a "gaseous verte-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
256
brate," but is
it is
like to the
described as a being that
human
soul.
"Let now a
thing be as small and tiny as you please, it
yet has within
a portion of spiritual
it
substance, which,
when
it
stratum adapted thereto, to
become a
plant,
ganises itself to
that
is
finds a sub-
out
reaches
an animal, and
any body you choose For
ordinarily called ensouled.
Spirit is to
or-
be found in
all things,
there does not exist even the tiniest
and little
body which does not embrace
in itself
such a share thereof as causes
to
to
it
come
life."
Because
Giordano
Bruno had
not
really experienced the Spirit, as Spirit,
in himself,
the
life
he could therefore confuse
of the Spirit
mechanical processes,
mond LuUy
with the external
wherewith Ray-
(1235-1315) wanted to unveil
the secrets of the Spirit in his so-called
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
257
A
"Great Art" (Ars Magna).
recent
philosopher, Franz Brentano, describes this
"Great Art" thus: "Concepts were
to be inscribed
upon
rately revolving discs,
concentric,
sepa-
and then the most
varied combinations produced
by turning
them about." Whatever chance brings up in the turning of these discs, was shaped into a judgment about the highest
And Giordano Bruno, in his maniwanderings through Europe, made
truths. fold his
appearance at various seats of learning
as a teacher of this
"Great Art."
He
possessed the daring courage to think of
the stars as worlds, perfectly analogous to our earth; he widened the outlook of
thinking beyond the confines
scientific
he thought of the heavenly bodies no longer as bodily spirits; but of earth;
he
still
spirits. 17
thought
of
them
as
soul-like
One must not be unjust towards
258
the
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
man whom
Church
Catholic
the
caused to pay with death the penalty for his
advanced way
of thinking.
It
re-
quired something gigantic to harness the
whole space
heaven
of
of the universe
in the
same view
which hitherto had been
applied only to things upon earth, even
though Bruno did
still
think of the sen-
sible as soul-like. *
*
*
In the seventeenth century there appeared Johann SchefHer, called
Angelus
SiLESlus (1624-1677), a personality in
whom
more shone forth, in mighty harmony of soul, what Tauler, Weigel, Jacob Boehme, and others, had there once
Gathered, as
prepared.
spiritual focus
light-giving
thinkers in his
were, into a
and shining with enhanced
power,
the
named make
book:
it
ideas
of
the
their appearance
" Cherubinischer
Wanders-
BRUNO AND mann.
Geistreiche
And
reime."
Silesius utters
SILESIUS
259
und
Schluss-
Sinn-
everything that Angelus
appears as such an im-
mediate, inevitable, natural revelation of his personality, that it is as
man had
though
this
been called by a special provi-
dence to embody wisdom in a personal form.
The
simple, matter-of-course
which he
in
expression
way
wisdom, attains
lives
by being
forth
set
in
its
say-
ings which, even in respect of their art
and
their form, are
worthy
of admiration.
He
hovers like some spiritual being over
all
earthly existence; and
is
like the breath of
beforehand from
another world, freed gross
and
human wisdom
gen-
all
impure, wherefrom
that
erally only toilsomely
He of
only
Angelus
is
what he says is
works
itself free.
truly a knower, in the sense
Silesius,
who
brings the eye
of the All to vision in himself;
he alone
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
260
who
sees his action in the true light
that this action
wrought
is
"God
the hand of the All:
him by
in is
feels
in
me
the
him the light; are we not most intimate communion one with
fire,
in
and
I in
another?"-
— "I am as rich as God; there
can be no grain of dust that
me, man,
—^have
— Him."- "God
not in
loves
me
I
—believe
common
with
above Himself;
Him above myself: I so give Him as much as He gives me from Himself."
if I
love
"The
bird
flies
on the earth; spirit in
in the air, the stone rests
in
God's
water lives the
born of God, then bloometh
and His Godhead
is
— " Halt
adornment ." thou?
God
Heaven
is
!
God
my
fish,
own hand." — "Art
thou
in thee;
thy sap and thy whither
runnest
in thee: seekest
otherwhere, thou missest
Him
thou ever
and ever." For one who thus
feels himself in
the
BRUNO AND All,
SILESIUS
261
every separation ceases between
and another being; he no longer
self
feels
himself as a single individual; rather
does he
feel
all
that there
as a part of the world, his
is
of
own proper
being, indeed, as that World- Whole
"The
world,
it
with
itself.
holds thee not; thou art
thyself the world thee,
him
thee,
that holds thee, in so
— bound." "Man has
strongly
captive
never perfect
bliss
before that unity has swallowed up otherness."
— "Man
is all
things;
if
aught
is
lacking to him, then in truth he know3th
not his
As a
own
riches."
sense-being,
man is a thing among
other things, and his sense-organs bring to him, as a sensible individuality, sense-
news
of the things in space
side of
and time out-
him; but when Spirit speaks in
man, then there remains no without and no within; nothing is here and nothing
262 is
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE there that
and nothing
earlier
nothing
spiritual;
is
is
later; space
is
and
time have vanished in the contemplation
Only so long as
of the All-Spirit.
looks forth as an individual,
and the thing
there;
is
he here
and only so long as
he looks forth as an individual,
and
earlier,
this later.
swingest thy so each
spirit
moment
— "I nity."
am
"Man,
in self
I
God and
— together grasp."' "The rose God from
all
see, it so
eternity."
centre set thyself, so see'st thou
at once:
what then and now occurred,
here and in heaven's reakn." for thee,
my
and time: what
thou place,
myself eternity when
hath bloomed in
all
if
this
canst thou be in eter-
that here thine outer eye doth
— "In
is
over time and
leave time behind, and self in
God
man
's
so
God,
friend, in
— "So long
mind
lies
place
long graspest thou not
nor
what
eternity."
BRUNO AND
SILESIUwS
263
"When man
from manifoldness withdraws, and inward turns to God, so cometh he to unity."
The summit has thus
man
been climbed, whereon
beyond
his individual
steps forth
"I" and
abolishes
every opposition between the world and himself.
A
higher
begins for him.
life
The inner experience that comes over him appears to him as the death of the old and a resurrection in a new life.
"When thou dost raise thyself above thyself
and
spirit
lettest
God
o'errule;
then in thy
happens ascension into heaven."
— "The body in the spirit must God:
spirit, too, in
man,
if
thou in him,
will live for ever
much mine
the
my
blessed."'—-"So
me doth 'minish and much therefore to power
'I' in
decrease; so
Cometh the Lord's own
From such a nises his
arise,
'I.'"
point of view,
man
recog-
meaning and the meaning
of all
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
264
things in the reahn of eternal necessity.
The
natural All appears to
ately as the Divine Spirit.
him immediThe thought
who
of a divine All-Spirit,
could
still
have being and sub-existence over and beside the things of the world, vanishes
away
as a superseded conception.
appears
All-Spirit
things, that
at
all,
if
it
but
I
;
falleth
in being with the
even one single member were its
being.
and thou; and
not then
into
could no longer be thought
thought away from is
outpoured
so
becomes one
things, so
This
is
if
"Naught
we twain were
God no more God, and heaven
—Man
in."'
feels
himself
as
a
His
necessary link in the world-chain.
doing has no longer aught of arbitrariness or of individuality in is
it.
What he
does
necessary in the whole, in the world-
chain, which his doing
would
were to
fall
fall
to pieces
out from
it.
if
this
"God
BRUNO AND may
SILESIUS
265
make without me a single worm: if I with him uphold it not
straightway must
me God
come needs must give up the live: if I
this height,
man
not,
burst asunder."
it
"I know that without
moment
little
to naught, he
—Upon
ghost."-
time sees
for the first
things in their real being.
can no
He no
longer
needs to ascribe from outside to the smallest thing, to the grossly sensible, a
For just as
spiritual entity.
nutest thing
is, in all its
this
smallness and
gross sensibility, it is
a link in the
"
so vile, no
No
grain of dust
is
be so small: the wise
mi-
man
Whole.
mote can
seeth
God
most gloriously therein."— "In a mustard seed, if thou wilt vmderstand it, is
the image of
all
things above and
beneath."
Man feels himself free upon this height. For constraint
is
there only where a thing
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
266
But when
can constrain from without. that
all
within,
is
without has flowed into the
when the
opposition
between
"I and world," "Without and Within,"
"Nature and
man
then
own
impulse.
thou
Spirit," has
feels all
wilt,
be quite
"So
far as
that impels
a thousand irons: free
my
will is dead, so far ;
all
as his
I
still
and unfettered."
God do what I will I him the pattern and the point cease
him
"Shut me, as strongly as
in
will
disappeared,
must
myself prescribe to goal."
—At this
moral obligations, coming
man becomes to himself measure and goal. He is subject to no from without:
law; for the law, too, has become his
"For the wicked is the law; were there no command written, stUl would
being.
the pious love
God and
their neighbour."
Thus, on the higher level of knowledge, the innocence of Nature
is
given back to
BRUNO AND He
man.
267
the tasks that are set
fulfils
him in the feeling
He
SILESIUS
of
an external
necessity.
says to himself: Through this iron
necessity
it
given into thy hand to
is
withdraw from
very iron necessity
this
the link which has been allotted to thee.
"Ye men, learn but from the meadow flower: how ye shall please God and be as
beautiful
without
well."
why and
— "The
rose
exists
because, she blooms
because she blooms; she takes no heed of herself, asks not
if
men
man who has arisen upon feels
in
see her."
The
the higher level
himself the eternal,
necessary
meadow meadow flower
pressure of the All, as does the flower; he acts, as the
The feeling of his moral respon-
blooms. sibility
grows in
immeasurable. not do
is
all his
doing into the
For that which he does
withdrawn from the
All, is
a
slaying of that All, so far as the possi-
268
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bility of
"What
such a slaying
is it,
lies
not to sin?
not question long: go, the will tell it If
with him.
Thou
need'st
dumb
flowers
— "All must thee."
be
slain.
thou slay est not thyself for God, then
at last eternal death shall slay thee for
the enemy."
AFTERWORD Nearly two and
a half centuries have
passed since Angelus Silesius gathered up the profound wisdom of his predecessors in his Cheruhinean Wanderer.
These cen-
have brought rich insights into
turies
Goethe
Nature.
opened
a
spective to natural science. to follow
up the
eternal,
vast
He
per-
sought
unchangeable
laws of Nature's working, to that summit where, with like necessity, they cause
man
to
come
into being, just as
on a
lower level they bring forth the stone. ^
Lamarck, Darwin, Haeckel, and
have laboured further of this '
Cp.
my
way
others,
in the direction
of conceiving things.
The
book: Goethe's Weltanschauung, Weimar, 1897. 269
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
270
"question
of
questions,"
all
regard to the natural
origin
found
the
century;
and
in
other
of
in
man,
nineteenth
related problems
reakn of natural events have
the
in
answer
its
that
also found their solutions.
comprehend that
it is
To-day men
not necessary to
step outside of the realm of the actual
and the
sensible in order to understand
the serial succession of beings, right
man,
to
in its
development
in
up
a purely
natural manner.
And,
further, J. G. Fichte's penetra-
tion has thrown light into the being of
human
the
man where
ego,
and shown the soul
to seek itself
and what
of
it is.^
Hegel has extended the reakn of thought over
all
the provinces of being, and striven
to grasp in thought the entire sensible '
Cp. ante, and the section upon Fichte in my book: und Lebens-anschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert,
Weltvol.
i.,
Berlin, S. Cronbach.
AFTERWORD
271
existence of Nature, as also the loftiest
human
creations of the
How,
spirit.'
then, do those
men
of genius
whose thoughts have been traced
in the
preceding pages, appear in the light of a
world-conception which takes into ac-
count the
scientific
centuries
that
They
believed in a "supernatural"
still
achievements of the
followed
their
epoch?
How do their thoughts
story of creation.
appear when confronted with a "natural history of creation, which the science of
the nineteenth century has built up?
This natural
science
has
given
to
Nature naught that did not belong to her; it has only taken from her what did not belong to her.
Nature but
is
all
that
is
It
has banished from
not to be sought in her,
to be found only in man's inner
' Cp. my presentation of Hegel in Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, vol. i.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
272
being.
Nature that
is like
and that creates It
no longer any being
It sees
unto the hiunan
after the
manner
man.
of
their
it
ter Eckhart, as well as Tauler,
Jacob
follows
development in the sense-world Meis-
according to purely natural laws.
Boehme with Angelus
would needs in
soul,
no longer makes the organic forms to
be created by a man-like God;
up
in
feel
and
also
Silesius,
the deepest satisfaction
contemplating this natural science.
The spirit in which they desired to behold the world has passed over in the fullest sense to this view of Nature, rightly still
of
it is
What they were
understood.
unable to do,
when
viz.:
to bring the facts
Nature themselves into the light which
had risen for them, that, undoubtedly, would have been their longing, if this same natural fore them.
science
had been
laid be-
They could not do
it;
for
AFTERWORD
273
no geology, no "natural history
of crea-
tion" told them about the processes in
The Bible alone told them in its own way about such processes. ThereNature.
fore they sought, so far as they could, for
the spiritual where alone
it
is
to be
found: in the inner nature of man.
At the present quite other aids at time, to Spirit is
time, they would have
hand than
in their
own
show that an actually existing They to be found only in man.
would to-day agree unreservedly with those
who
seek Spirit as a fact not in
the root of Nature, but in her
They would admit that ceivable
is
fruit.
Spirit as per-
a result of evolution, and
that upon lower levels of evolution such
must not be sought for. They wotdd understand that no "creative Spirit
thought" ruled Spirit in l8
in the
forthcoming of the
the organism, any more than
274
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
such a "creative thought" caused the
ape to evolve from the marsupials.
Our present age cannot speak about the facts of Nature as Jacob Boehme spoke of them. But there exists a point of view,
even in this present day, which
brings Jacob Boehme's
way
of regarding
things near to a view of the world that
takes account of
There
is
modem
no need to
natural science.
lose the Spirit,
when
one finds in Nature only the natural.
Many
do,
indeed,
believe to-day that
one must needs lose oneself in a shallow
and prosaic materialism,
if
one simply
accepts the "facts" which natural
ence has discovered. fully
ural
upon the ground science.
I
I
myself
sci-
stand
same natthrough and
of this
have,
through, the feeling that, in a view of
Nature such as Ernst Haeckel's, only he can lose himself amid shallows who him-
AFTERWORD self
approaches
world.
feel
I
glorious,
275
with a shallow thought-
it
something higher, more
when
I
let
the, revelations of
the "natural history of creation" work
upon me, than when the supernatural miracle stories of the confessions of faith force themselves
book" do
I
upon me.
know aught
In no "holy
that unveils for
me
anything as lofty as the "sober"
fact,
that every
er's
womb
human germ
in the
moth-
repeats in brief, one after the
other, those animal types
which its animal
ancestors have passed through. If only we fill
ovu-
hearts with the glory of the facts
that our senses behold, then little
not
left
lie
we shall have
over for "wonders" which do
in the course of
Nature.
experience the Spirit in ourselves,
have no need In lin,
my 1894)
we then we If
of such in external Nature.
Philosophy of Freedom, (BerI
have described
my
view
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
276
which has no thought of
of the world,
driving out the Spirit, because
it
beholds
Nature as Darwin and Haeckel beheld
A
her.
me
for
my
plant,
if
I
people
"more
me
me
against
things of the just
soulful"
being of it,
my
in
it.
I
inner being
believe that the
sense-world are, in fact,
as they present themselves to us,
because
I see
that a right self-knowledge
leads us to this that in Nature :
we should
seek nothing but natural processes. seek no Spirit of I
I
world for
believe that the insight which
shines forth for
guards
information.
do not even assume
things; nay, I I
with souls of which
in the external
"deeper,"
because
it
me no
senses give
do not seek a
an animal, gains nothing
believe that
I
God
in Nature, because
perceive the nature of
the hiiman spirit in myself.
admit
my animal
I
I
calmly
ancestry, because I be-
AFTERWORD lieve myself to
know
277
that there, where
these animal ancestors have their origin,
no spirit of I
like
nature with soul can work.
can only agree with Ernst Haeckel when
he prefers the "eternal
rest of the
grave"
to an immortality such as
is
some
a dishonour-
religions.'
For
I find
taught by
ing of Spirit, an ugly sin against the Spirit, in the conception of exist after the I tific
hear a
a soul continuing to
manner
shrill
of a sensible being.
discord
when the
facts in Haeckel's presentation
scien-
come
up against the "piety" of the confessions But of some of our contemporaries. for
me
there rings out from confessions
of faith, facts,
piety
which give a discord with natural
naught of the
which
I
spirit of
find in
the higher
Jacob Boehme
and Angelus SUesius. This higher piety stands far more in full harmony with '
Cp. Haeckel's Riddle of
the Universe.
278
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the working of the natural.
There Has
no contradiction
in the fact of saturating
oneself with the
knowledge of the most
recent natural science, and at the
time
the
treading
same
path which Jacob
Boehme and Angelus Silesius have sought. He who enters on that path in the sense of those thinkers has
no need to fear
losing himself in a shallow materialism
when he
lets
laid before
creation."
the secrets of Nature be
him by a "natural history of Whoever has grasped my
thoughts in this sense will understand with
me
in like
manner the
last saying
of the Cherubinean Wanderer, with also this
book
shall close:
which
"Friend,
it is
even enough.
In case thou more wilt
read, go forth,
and
thyself
book, thyself the reading."
THE END
become the