Mystics Of The Renaissance - Rudolf Steiner
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MYSTICS iENAISSANCt aMIDOI-F steiner
(*
DEC 12
1911
•
*
jn."t
BV 5075 .S83 1911 Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925 Mystics of the renaissance and their relation to
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE AND
THEIR RELATION TO MODERN
THOUGHT
INCLUDING
MEISTER ECKHART, TAULER, PARACELSUS, JACOB BOEHME, GIORDANO BRUNO,
t^X
AND OTHERS BY
*
RUDOLF STEINER
OF Ff\lxcc
DEC 12
Ph.D. (Vienna)
'isiski
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, M.A. (Cantab.)
P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON
G.
^be
Iknfcftcrbocftcr 1911
press
1911
list:^
*
Copyright, igii BY
MAX
MAX '
GYSI
GYSI,
Editor,
Adyar," Park Drive, London, N. W.
Ube
ftnlcberbocfier press, Tlevp
^ovk
CONTENTS Foreword
....
PAGE
V
Introduction
Meister Eckhart
52
Friendship with God AND RuYSBROECK]
[Tauler, Suso 81
.
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
.
.
Ill
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 utmost
importance.
Ten years
not have ventured to
earlier I
fulfil
could
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
Only now,
intel-
demands
this
realm
years of
life
after having en-
joyed that intimacy, do
speak in such wise as
I
will
venture to
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 full 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
"Materialist."
When
I
find
that the
Jesuit Father Miiller has solved a cult chemical problem,
and
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
however, he can
put
For such
enough.
are, in the
up
with
easily
misunderstandings
main, inevitable in his eyes,
when he recalls the mental type of those who misjudge him. I look back, not upon many judgment that I have suf-
without htmiorous a
''critical"
feelings,
fered in the course of
At the I
my
outset, matters
literary career.
went
fairly well.
wrote about Goethe and his philosophy.
What
I said
there appeared to
many to be
of such a nature that they could in their
mental pigeon-holes.
file it
This they
did by saying: ''A work such as Rudolf Steiner's Introduction to Goethe s Writings
upon Natural Science may, without hesitation, be described as the best that has been written upon
When,
later,
bit
published
an
inde-
had already grown a more stupid. For now a well
pendent work,
good
I
this question."
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 .
Kant] " only so in
two philosophers [Htmie and The critic imfortunately knows
much
is
himself able to read
Kant and Hume;
fore,
me
to learn to see
in these thinkers
than he him-
When
self sees.
be
will
practically, there-
he simply advises
no more
my
as he
satisfied
I
have attained that, he
Then when
with me.
Philosophy and Freedom appeared,
was found
to be as
much
in
I
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
innimierable
informs
me that
foreign 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 of typical
criticisms of in
obtain an understanding
my
themselves
world of ideas. unimportant,
Though yet
they
FOREWORD
XI
seem to me to point, as symptoms, to facts which present themselves to-day as serious obstacles in the path of any one aiming at literary activity in regard to the higher problems of knowledge.
Thus
I
must go on
whether one
man
my
gives
way,
me
indifferent,
the good ad-
vice to read Kant, or another hunts
as a heretic because
And
I
agree with Haeckel.
have also written upon Mysti-
so I
cism, wholly indifferent as to ful
me
how a faith-
and believing materialist may judge
of me.
I
would only
like
—so that prin-
ink
may
not be wasted wholly with-
out need
—to
inform any one
ters'
me
perchance advise
who may,
to read Haeckel's
Riddle of the Universe, that during the last
few months
I
have delivered about
upon the said work. have shown in this book
thirty lectures I
hope to
that one
may
be a faithful adherent of
FOREWORD
xii
the scientific conception
and yet be able to
the
rightly
to seek out those paths
along
Soul
the world
of
understood,
which
Mysticism,
leads.
I
even go
further and say: Only he
who knows
Spirit, in the sense of true
Mysticism, can
the
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
magical
certain
are
formulae
which operate throughout the centuries of
Man's mental history In
ways.
Greece
was regarded as an runs:
"Know
one
new
in ever
such
formula
oracle of Apollo.
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 our brooding
In
many
a
moment
and thinking, they
flash
!
2
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
out like lightning, illuminating our whole
moments
such
In
inner being.
quickens within us a feeling as
there if
we
heard the heart-beat of the evolution of
How
mankind.
close
do we not of
ourselves to personalities
when the
feeling
comes over
feel
the past,
through
us,
one of their winged words, that they are
had had
revealing to us that they, too,
such moments!
We
feel
ourselves
then brought into
intimate touch with these personalities.
For instance, we learn to know Hegel intimately when, in the third volume of
Lectures
his
History
"Such
on
we come one
stuff,
the
Philosophy
across
may
the
of
words:
say, the abstrac-
we contemplate when we
tions
that
allovvT
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 worldTherein spirit and therefore of destiny. 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 Mystae who, at the
crisis
inmost shrine, were there and took When Hegel said this, he had part."
in the
experienced one of those
spoken in
of.
moments
just
He uttered the phrases when,
the course 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 flash, he had
become intimate with minds
like Plotinus
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
4
and Proklus; and we become intimate with him when we read his words.
We
become intimate,
with that
too,
solitary thinker, the Pastor of Zschopau,
M.
Valentin Weigel,
opening words of his
when we read
wise
men
*
"We read
of old the useful saying,
Thyself,* which, though
used
book Know
little
Thyself, written in 1578:
it
the
in the
'Know
be right well
about worldly manners, as thus:
regard well thyself, what thou art, seek
in thine
own bosom, judge
lay no blame on
others,'
thyself
and
a saying,
repeat, which, though thus used of
I
human
and manners, may well and appropriately be applied by us to the natural life
and supernatural knowing
man;
so indeed, that
man
of the
shall not only
consider himself and thereby
how he
whole
remember
should bear himself before people,
but that he
shall
also
know
his
own
INTRODUCTION
5
nature, inner and outer, in spirit and in
Nature; whence he cometh and whereof
he
is
So, self,
made, to what end he
is
ordained.'*
from points of view pecuHar to himValentin Weigel attained to insight
which
in his
mind summed
itself
up
in
this oracle of Apollo.
A
similar path to insight
lation to the saying
be ascribed to a
like re-
''Know Thyself*' may
series of
deep-natured
Master Eckhart
thinkers, beginning with (1
and a
250-1 327), and ending with Angelus
Silesius (i 624-1 677),
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
which illuminates something very
a
sun
differ-
ent from the mere accidental, separated personality of the beholder.
noza became conscious of
What
Spi-
in the ethereal
— MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
6
heights of pure thought,
human
soul possesses
viz.,
that ''the
an adequate know-
ledge of the Eternal and Infinite Being of
God,"
—that same consciousness lived
in
them
as immediate feeling; and
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,
which unlocked
for
It
in
with a new
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.
difficult to find
description of the import of this
than the one given by
J.
a better
new sense
G. Fichte in his
Berlin Lectures (1813):
''Imagine a world of to
are
whom
all
objects
men born
and
known only through
blind,
their relations
the sense
of
•
INTRODUCTION
Go amongst them and
touch.
them
.
of
and other
colours
which are rendered
7
speak to relations,
visible only
through
Either you are talking to them
light.
of nothing,
—and
if
they say
this,
is
it
the luckier, for thus you will soon see
your mistake, and, their eyes, cease for
or,
if
you cannot open
your useless
some reason or
—
talking,^
other, they will
upon giving some meaning or other what you say; then they can only
insist
to
interpret
it
know by feel,
they
light
and
dents
in
relation to
They
touch. will
imagine
colour,
of
what they
will
they
seek
do
and the other
visibility,
they
will
to feel
inci-
invent
something for themselves, deceive themselves with of
touch,
Then they
something within the world
which they will
and misinterpret
will
call
colour.
misunderstand, distort, it."
8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
The same thing appHes 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,
which
things for
one
what
simply
are
who does not
distinguishes
One
of knowing.
it
in
views of
non-existent
see in self-knowledge
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 finds
is
his
words merely, or at
own
soul.
best, abstract
thoughts, in that which for those
more deeply
is
He
who
see
the very foundation of
INTRODUCTION their inner
life;
that
sition:
in
9
namely, in the propoevery
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 off, while in ourselves we, as actors
ing that which
This
may
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 sition of
there
is
first
One
way,
is
whom
it
in the po-
whom one says: He hears the object.
a blind man, to
a gHttering
words, but for him the glitter
He might of
to
is
not there.
unite in himself the whole
knowledge of his time; but
sum
if
he
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
10
does not
and
feel
realise the significance
of self-knowledge, then
it
in the
all,
is
higher sense, a blind knowledge.
The world, of us,
outside of and independent
exists for us
by communicating
What
to our consciousness.
itself
made known must needs be
thus
is
expressed in
A
the language peculiar to ourselves.
book, the contents of which were offered in a language
unknown
to us,
us be without meaning.
would
for
Similarly, the
world would be meaningless for us did it
not speak to us in our
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,
we
our-
The
really important
we should
correctly appre-
speak.
that
it is
hend the transposition which occurs when
we
close our perception against external
things and listen only to that wnich then
;
INTRODUCTION
ii
But
speaks from within.
needs this new sense.
If it
to
do
this
has not been
awakened, we beHeve that in what thus told us about ourselves
we
is
are hear-
ing only about something external to us
we fancy
that somewhere there
something which
same way
is
is
hidden
speaking to us in the
as external things speak.
new
But
then we
we know
that these perceptions differ essen-
tially
from those relating to external
possess this
if
Then we
things.
realise that this
what
sense does not leave
outside of object its
it
itself,
sees;
but that
If I see
then
ception.
more
I
perceives
it
it
can take up
itself,
leaving no
a thing, that thing
remains outside of me; self,
if I
perceive
my-
my
per-
myself enter into
Whoever
of himself
new
as the eye leaves the
object wholly into
remainder.
sense,
seeks for something
than what
is
perceived,
12
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
shows thereby that
for
him the
real con-
come
tent in the perception has not
Johannes Tauler
Hght.
(i 300-1361),
to
has
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
do not
I
do shine
myself also in
own most deeply
my
my J.
not, then
self -percep-
But
exist.
out, then I pos-
perception, in
original being.
remains no residue of myself of
it
do not shine
my own
forth for myself in tion,
knew
left
my
There outside
perception.'*
G. Fichte, in the following words,
vigorously points to the difference be-
tween
self -percept ion
kind of perception:
men
and every other ''The majority of
could be more easily brought to be-
lieve themselves a
lump of lava moon than an 'ego.' Whoever
in the is
at one with himself as to this,
under-
not
INTRODUCTION
13
stands no thorough-going philosophy and
Nature, whose ma-
has need of none. chine he
is,
him
will guide
in
the
all
things he has to do without any sort of
added help from him. For philosophising, self-reliance is needed, and this one can
We
only give to oneself.
want
ought not to
to see without the eye; but also
ought not to maintain that
which
it is
we
the eye
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 our nition
own is
selves.
An
object in front of
not separated from me, once
known
it.
What
I
am
I
me
have
able to receive
becomes part and parcel of my own being. If-, now, I awaken my own
from
it
THE RENAISSANCE
AIYSTICS OF
14
self, if I
become aware
my own
inner being, then
mode
to a higher
from without
own
me
my
whatever
I
also
awaken which
have made part of
I
that
falls
upon
awakening
falls
also
upon
have made
my own
of
springs
up within me and
the
me
world.
outside
that
all
from the
A
light
iiltmiines
me,
have cognised of
I
Whatever I might know would
the world.
remain blind knowledge, did not light fall
my
light
things
and with
I
of being, that
The
being. at
of the content of
upon
I
it.
this
might search the
my
world through
and through with
perception;
the world would not be
still
that which in
me
must become, unless that perception were awakened in me to it
a higher mode of being.
That which this
awakening
an enrichment
add to things through
I is
not a new idea,
of
the
content
is
of
not
my
INTRODUCTION knowing;
an uplifting
it is
15
of the
know-
ledge, of the cognition, to a higher level,
where everything sciousness to this
new
do not raise my conlevel, all knowledge con-
So long as
glory.
suffused with a
is
I
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
their
possible
meaning
linking with their
being, which they have outside
from me, another
being
and apart
spiritual existence in
addition, 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,
the mental content of these things
upon a higher then
my own
I
level.
When
this occurs,
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
taken up into a conscious content. ideal replica of the tree
is
is
An
within me, and
that has infinitely more to say about the tree than tell
me.
what the
tree
itself,
Then, for the
first
outside,
can
time there
shines out from within me, towards the tree,
what the
no longer the
tree
is.
The
tree
isolated being that
is it is
now out
INTRODUCTION becomes a link
It
there in space.
17 in
the entire conscious world that lives in
me.
It links its content
that are in me.
It
with other ideas
becomes a member of
the whole world of ideas that embraces
kingdom;
vegetable
the
takes
it
its
place, fiirther, in the series of all that lives.
Another example:
I
throw a stone
away from me. a curved line and after some
in a horizontal direction It
moves
time
in
falls
to
the ground.
in
I see it
moments of time in different Through observation and re-
successive places.
flection I acquire the following: its
motion the stone
influences.
If
it
is
During
subject to different
were subject only to
the influence of the impulse which
parted to
it,
it
would go on
ever in a straight its velocity.
line,
I
im-
flying for
without altering
But now the earth
exerts
an
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
i8
influence
upon
towards
itself.
and
its
instead
If,
ing the stone, I
would have
It attracts the stone
it.
had simply
fallen
throw-
of
let it go, it
vertically to
earth;
velocity in doing so would have
From
constantly increased. interaction of these
two
the mutual
influences arises
that which I actually see.
Let us assume 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. occurrence takes place twice. side,
and then
my
eye sees
The whole Once outit;
then
mind causes the whole happening
my 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 becomes clear to that sense that I, by
directed
my own
awaken that
inner power,
occur-
rence as a mental one.
another
Again, Fichte's this
may
sentence
new
''Thus the
J.
G.
be quoted which brings
clearly
fact
of
the
before
sense
is
mind.
the sense for
the spirit; that for which there exists
only spirit and absolutely nothing
and
for
which also the
itself
into spirit, for which
therefore being in its
has
actually
has
been
the
all
that
is
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 humanity, 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 imion
is
of union."
by the
created
fact that the inner sense grasps in its
which
spirituality the spiritual element it
awakens
in
outer world.
our
into
things
its
intercourse with the
That which we take up
consciousness
thereby ceases
mere meaningless as something
to
from
appear as a
repetition.
new over
outside
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 when
higher light
make
I
clear to myself
my
the kind of task which
si
inner sense
has to perform in regard to the whole
In order to
thing.
the two
fit
influences
together in thought
and
their
modes
of
action, an amount of mental content is needed which I must already have acquired when I cognise the flying stone. I
apply a spiritual content
therefore
already stored up within that confronts
And
this
world
fits itself
me
in the external world.
occurrence
in
the
external
into the spiritual content
already present.
own
me to something
It reveals itself in its
special individuality as
an expres-
sion of this content.
Through inner
me
sense,
the
obtains sense
the
understanding
there
nature
between
my
thus disclosed to
is
of
of
the
the
and the things
relation
content of
of
that this
the external
22
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE Fichte would say that without
world.
the
understanding
world
falls
of
this
me
into
apart for
into things outside of me,
the
sense,
two halves:
and into
pic-
The
tures of these things within 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
it
perceives
how
the Spirit enlightens the sense-world by
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
on a higher
a
level.
as a
An
ex-
completely known when
is
no part
undergone
itself
of
it
which has not thus
spiritual
every external object
re-birth. fits
itself
Thus into a
INTRODUCTION when
which,
content,
spiritual
23
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
self,
no
re-
mainder behind.
These developments contain nothing which is susceptible or even in need of logical
proof.
They
nothing
are
the results of inner experience.
ever
calls
into
experience.
dispute with him;
lacking in this
is
It
as
impossible
is
must
man.
not, however, be contended
that this inner experience sible only
to
could one
little
discuss colour with a blind It
Who-
question this content,
shows only that he inner
but
is
through the special
of a few chosen people.
made posendowment
It is
a
common
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
24
property.
Every one can enter upon
the path to
not of his
this experience
own
who does
will shut himself against
This closing up of oneself against
it.
it, is,
however,
common
And
enough.
in
dealing with objections raised in this direction, is
it
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
It
is
all
kinds
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
all 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-
They then believe that the remainder so left over must be just as much in the external world as standing can cognise.
are the things of our perceptions themselves.
They think
that there must be
something which remains unknown to
What
cognition.
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
—this they trans-
something inaccessible and unknown
into the external world.
Then they
knowledge which prevent
of the limits of
our reaching the ''thing -in -itself." talk of the
That
this
unknown "being"
not
They
of things.
very ''being" of things shines
out when the inner sense fall
talk
upon the recognise.
things,
The
lets its
light
what they will famous "Ignora-
is
26
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bimus" speech
Reymond,
of the scientist,
in the year
Du
Bois-
furnished
1876,
a particularly blatant example of this We are supposed to be able to error. get in every direction only so far as to in all natural processes
be able to see
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
life
is
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 NaBut ture-knowledge itself cannot give.
he refuses to follow the road,— the 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 obtains light not only as regards
man itself
but also as regards external things. From this
point
of
view
Within him shines a
illiunination
which
is
lights
up
makes
endless
is
not
all reality
light
restricted
within him.
its
per-
before man's know-
spective opens out ledge.
an
It is a
at once.
to
whose that
sun which
Something
appearance in us which links
us with the whole world.
No
we simply
isolated,
human
no longer
this or that individual.
chance
longer are beings,
The
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
28
entire world reveals itself in us. veils
to us
own coherence; and it how we ourselves as inbound up with it. From
its
unveils to us
dividuals are
out of self-knowledge the
of
It un-
world.
And
is
born knowledge
our
own
limited
individuality merges itself spiritually into
the
interconnected
great
world-whole,
because in us something has come to life
that
reaches
dividuality, it
out beyond
this
in-
that 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 book Das Ich
und das Ding an ''Let us
make
it
Sich, p. 14 et seq.):
clear
—
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 something totally
that
it
so
without losing ourselves
from the mere surface starts
is
from ourselves that we cannot
penetrate into
the
that
we do not understand,
different
different,
back
imknown
afraid.
of
which thought
This one thing
bearer of
all
is
these qualities
the thing-in-itself, which constitutes the
inmost
self of
the object.
Thus Hegel
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
is
in
itself,
—which
we do not know
ultimately, since
the thing
remain merely subjective and have no objective itself,
Conceptual thought, on the other
value.
hand, has no such unknowable subject,
whose determinations might be mere accidents, but the objective subject falls within the concept. thing,
then
fulness in
it
my
is
cognise any-
If I
present in
conception; I
its
am
at
entire
home
in the inmost shrine of its being,
because of its
it
has no proper being-in-itself
own, but because
re-think
not
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
reveals itself to us at the
there
same time,
as
:
INTRODUCTION
—just as this activity — the true
Hegel says, jective
is
31
our
able to illuminate the
sub-
nature of the
So can speak only a
object."
own
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.
are here con-
just
the reason
seem to confront
mysteriously: that
I
am
that
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
32
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
point for a consideration of the worldprocess than that of thought."
For one who looks thus upon the inner life of man, it is also obvious what is the
meaning
of
human
cognition within the
a mere
whole world-process.
It is not
empty accompaniment
to the rest of the
world happenings.
would be such
it
of
It
if
represented merely an ideal repetition
what
is
outwardly
in cognition something
which accomplishes
present. is
But
accomplished
itself
nowhere
in
the outer world: the world -process sets before
itself its
own
spiritual being.
world-process would be to
a mere half -thing, this
if it
confrontation.
all
The
eternity
did not attain to
Therewithal man's
inner experience finds
its
place in the
objective world-process; and without
it
that process would be incomplete. It is 'apparent that
only the
life
which
INTRODUCTION is
ruled
by the inner
spiritual life in its this
is
man's highest
most proper
sense,
For only
himself.
it
in this life
does the being of things unveil before
—
only which can thus raise
life
man above
sense,
33
The matter
itself.
lies
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
My
other external process.
members things,
of the spacial
and
world
any
others.
their being only appears
sunk into the inner other
life;
the
objects,
life
life.
of
which
own embodiment and its
organs are like other
their perceptions are pro-
cesses in time like
double
any
organs what
lies
Further,
when they I
are
thus live a
an object among lives
within
its
perceives through
outside this embodi-
34
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ment; and above
this life a higher
knows no such
that
and
outside,
and bridging
stretching
extends,
that
inside
over both the outside world and I shall therefore
time
I
am
itself.
be forced to say: at one
an individual, a limited "self*;
at another time I ''Self."
life,
am
a general, universal
This, too, Paul
Asmus has
ex-
pressed in excellent words {cp. his book:
Die indogermanischen Religionen in den
Hauptpunkten
Hirer Entwickelung, p. 29
of Vol. I.):
''The
activity
in something else, ing'; in thinking, its
concept,
a single
do we
it
thing;
of is
merging ourselves
what we
call
the ego has
has given therefore,
find ourselves in a sphere
alike for
all,
ness which
think-
fulfilled
itself
in
'
up
as
thinking
which
is
for the principle of separate-
is
involved in the relation of
our 'self to that which
is
other than
INTRODUCTION has vanished in
itself
the
self-cancening of
35
the activity of
the
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 natiire of
some
of the attributes of
real
God
to an adequate knowledge of the nature
This advancing
of things."
is
no other
than the illimiination 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 by this method of knowing thus he who can grasp things in this mode of knowing greater, the
;
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
mode
this
knowing the highest peace
of
of soul that
possible."
is
He who knows
things in
this
way,
transforms himself within himself; his
single
at such
separated
''self"
moments absorbed by
for
becomes 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
only as
individuals; the individual which works
one and the same.
But
this fact it is impossible to
argue
within us
about
is
INTRODUCTION who has no
with one
He
That
and you are two. in
all multiplicity,
the outbursting
level
experience of
it.
everlastingly emphasise: Plato
will
that
37
duality,
reborn as unity
is
of
life
knowledge:
of
this
the highest
proved, that must be experienced. doxical as
it
may
sound,
be
cannot
that
it is
Para-
the truth:
the idea which Plato conceived and the like idea
It
ideas.
which is
conceive are not two
I
one and the same idea.
there are not two ideas: one
in.
And
Plato's
head and one in mine but in the higher ;
sense Plato's head and mine interpenetrate each other; all heads interpenetrate
which grasp one and the same idea; and this idea is
only once there as a single
idea.
there;
It
to one
have
is
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,
beautiful words
ful to the fate
live long
about
which Wilhelm
was thankwhich had allowed him to
enough to become acquainted
light declares:
in
indicated in
said that he
In this poem, the inner
with this work.
self,
is
he
by the Hindu poem, the
Bhagavad-Gita,
von Humboldt
man when
"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
the
bodies it
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
The taste
and bears them away with
inner
and
light
rules
the
ear,
it.
touch,
smell, as also the emotions:
INTRODUCTION it
knits together the
and the objects ignorant
of
39
Hnk between the
know not when
itself
The
senses.
the inner light
when it is married to objects; only he who partakes of the inner light can know shines forth or
is
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,
the
of
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 kills
nor does he
stain
though he should have
himself, slain
even
another."
This points only to the same basic
mood
40
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
of
the
from the highest
flowing
soul
knowledge, of which Spinoza, after having described it in his Ethics, breaks out into
"Here
passionate words:
the
cluded that which
ward
aimed to bring
I
in regard to the
over
its affections
dom
of the soul.
is
power
confor-
of the soul
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, ful
than he who
is
ruled only
For the ignorant
is
by
his lusts.
not merely driven
and thither by external causes in many ways and never attains to the
hither
true peace of soul, but he also lives in
ignorance
of
himself,
and when
of
God and
of
suffering
ceases,
his existence ceases also; while
on the
things,
his
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
the road which
I
41
have outlined
as leading thereto appears very difficult, still it
be
And
can be found. because
difficult,
For how could lay close at
it
it is
is
noble
be possible,
as difficult as
form the point
of
should be
it
it is
in
rare/'
monumental
in the words: "If I
myself
that
all
view of the highest
know my
and to the outer
relation
to
world,
call it truth.
I
salvation
Yet
all?
Goethe has indicated knowledge
if
hand and could be found
by almost
is
And
thus every
one can have his own truth, and yet is
always one and the
has his
own
individual,
same."
truth: because each
it
Each is
an
separate being, beside and
along with others. act
it
so seldom found.
without great trouble, that neglected
may
well
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,
up
builds
own
his
he
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
is
merged
the universal Truth; and this uni-
versal
Truth
is
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
43
repetition in thought, but
Not a mere
a real part of the world-process,
which goes on
man's inner
in
it is if
belonging thereto in the
human
its part.
highest which
And
if
the factor
one
soul did calls
the
by man the
attainable
is
The
life.
world would not be what
not play
that
is
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
man. right
that without
instant;
if
I
Angelus
words
for
me God
can
has *'I
live
no
worm:
if
then
must straightway
he can make
such
that
in
''With-
single smallest
I do not sustain
presupposes
this:
up the ghost."
me God may make no it
Silesius
is
become nothing, He must
of necessity give
out
that this Divine
it
with Him,
perish."
Only
an assertion who
man
something
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
44
comes to
light,
being cannot taining to the
without which external
exist.
If
everything per-
"worm" were
there present
without man, then one could not possibly say that sustain
it
must
if
man
comes to
life
knowledge.
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
did not
it.
The innermost
ledge
perish
He who
permeated with self-knowledge natur-
ally carries out his
own
action in the
Himian action determined by motives.
light of self-knowledge. is
—in
general
—
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
motives.
He
more
sensible
closely.
meaning
in
Is
them?
what-
will
Look again
ever he pleases?
words
cannot
45
at these
there
any
Freedom
of
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*
preferring
for
willing
to
do or endeavour to
To
attain this, rather than that?
will
something without reason, without motive, would mean to will something 'without willing is
it.'
The concept
of
motive
inseparably bound up with that of will-
ing.
Without a
definite
motive the
will
an empty potentiality: only through a motive does it become active and real. It is therefore quite correct that man's
is
will is in so far not free as its direction is
always determined by the strongest
motive."
46
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE For
action that
all
the
in
light
motive,
felt
not accomplished the
self-knowledge,
of
reason
the
needs be
is
for
must But the
action,
as a constraint.
when the reason
matter
is
otherwise
motive
is
taken up into self-knowledge.
Then
this reason
self.
The
mined;
it
becomes a part
willing
of the
no longer deter-
is
determines
itself.
The law-
abidingness, the motives of willing,
no longer
rule over the one
who
now wills,
but are one and the same with willing.
To
or
this
illuminate the laws of one's
action with the light of self -observation
means motive.
to
overcome
By
constraint
all
of
so doing, will transfers itself
into the realm of freedom.
human
action which bears
the marks of freedom.
Only such action
It
is
is
not
all
free action
lighted
which
in its every part
up with the glow
is
of self-observa-
INTRODUCTION tion.
And because
the individual
self
47
self -observation raises
up
therefore free action
to the Universal Self, is
that which flows
from the Universal Self. The old controversy whether man's will is free or subject to
a universal law, to an unalterable
a problem wrongly stated. All action is bound which is done by necessity,
a
man
is
as an individual;
all
action free
is
accomplished after his spiritual
re-birth.
Man, therefore, is not, in general,
which
either free or
He
bound.
He
is
both the one
bound before his re-birth and he can become free through The individual upward this re-birth.
and the
other.
is
;
development
of
transformation
man 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-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
48
abidingness and therewith of un-freedom.
Freedom of
not from the outset a fact
is
himian 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
universal
being.
He
being.
harmony with
He
feels
every
discord between himself and another as
the outcome of a not yet fully awakened
But such
self.
that
only
whole can
in it
its
off as
from everything
himself
out
self,
from the
else;
and
again
It belongs
if
he
an individual
self
but also he
not
in the highest sense
as such a shut-off
Self.
separation
would not be man
were not shut
man
the fate of the
find its contact with this
Man
whole.
is
if
isolated
into
is
he does not,
the
self,
widen
Universal
through and through to
INTRODUCTION the nature of
come
man
that
it
49
should over-
an inherent contradiction which has
lain therein
from the beginning.
Any one who
regards spirit as, in the
may
main, logical understanding, feel his
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 coloiir, with the cold, faded,
schematic thought of the flower. feel
himself particularly
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 purely 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 a
of "dry,
in things purely spiritual possesses
gift of
perception like that in things
of the senses, finds
life
assuredly not the
INTRODUCTION poorer
51
when he has enriched
spiritual content.
flower,
why
If I
should
it
with
its
look out upon a colours lose
its rich
aught whatever of their freshness, because not only does
my
my eye
see the colours,
inner sense also perceives the spiritual
Why
being of the flower? life
but
of
because
my I
become poorer,
personality
do not follow
should the
my
passions and
impulses in spiritual blindness, but
il-
luminate them throughout with the light
Not
of higher knowledge? fuller, richer, is
back again
that
life
in the spirit.
poorer,
which
is
but
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 will
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 hannony with
the teachings of the Christian Church as
he assumed a
like
agreement on the part 52
MEISTER ECKHART
53
Thomas.
Eckhart had neither the desire to take aught away from the of
St.
content of Christianity, nor the wish to
add anything to
it;
but he desired to
bring forward this content
own way.
It
forms no part
spiritual needs of
he was to
set
anew
in his
of
the
a personaHty such as
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
it
it
craves
a new 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
in matters of faith,
ledge: Revelation,
and Reason,
in those of research.
Reason
recognises the laws of things, that
Reason can
spiritual in nature.
above nature and grasp
self
is,
the
raise it-
in the spirit
from one side the Divine Being underlying nature. this
way
But
it
does not attain in
to merging itself in the full be-
ing of God.
A
still
higher truth-content
must come to meet it. That is given in the Holy Scripture, which reveals what man cannot self.
The
attain to through him-
truth-content of the Scripture
must be accepted by man; Reason can defend it. Reason can seek to understand it
as well as possible through
of knowing; but never can
its
powers
Reason en-
gender that truth from within the of is
man.
Not what
spirit
the spirit perceives
the highest truth, but what has
to this spirit from without.
come
MEISTER ECKHART St.
55
Augustine declares himself unable
to find within himself the source for that
He
says: "I
which he should
believe.
would not believe
in the Gospel, did not
the authority of the Catholic Church move me thereto.'' That is in the same spirit as
who
the Evangelist,
points to
"That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked the
external
testimony:
.
.
.
upon, and our hands have handled, of the
Word
of Life;
.
.
.
that which
we
have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us." But Meister Eckhart would rather impress upon ''It is
man
the words of Christ:
expedient for you that
I
go away:
go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you"; and he explains these words by saying: ''Ji^st as if he for
had
if I
said:
Ye have
set
too
much
joy
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
56
my
Upon the
full
come
present appearance, therefore
joy of the Holy Ghost cannot
to you."
Eckhart thinks that he of
speaking
is
of
whom
Evangelist,
and
no God other than that God
and
Augustine,
the
Thomas, speak, and yet
God
as to
witness to see
is
is
not
this testimony
not his testimony, their his.
God with
''Some people want
the same eyes they see
a cow withal, and want to love God as they would love a cow.
God
of outer riches
and
comfort; but such folk do
not
for the
inner
love
rightly
sake
God.
.
.
.
fancy they should behold
He is
of
So they love
Simple
God
as though
stood there and they here.
not
so.
God and
I
mouth
such is
But
it
are one in the act
knowing {im Erkennen).'"
derlies
folk
expressions
in
What
un-
Eckhart's
nothing else than the experience
MEISTER ECKHART and
of the inner sense;
shows him things therefore beUeves
57
this experience
He
in a higher Hght.
himself to have no
need of an external light in order to attain to the highest insight:
*'A Master
God became man, whereby the whole hiiman 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 sitteth at the right
hand
and
of the Father.
That Master spake well; but, in truth, What would it I would give little for it. help me, had I a brother who was a rich man, and
I
What would who was a fool?
.
getteth
therewithal a poor it
help me, had
wise man,
and
I
man?
a brother I
were a
The Heavenly Father beHis Only-Begotten Son in Him.
.
self
and
and
in
in
me?
me. I
Wherefore in Himself
am
one with Him; and
58
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
has no power to shut
self -same
me
In the
out.
work, the Holy Ghost receives
being and proceeds from me, as from
its
Wherefore?
God.
I
am
the Holy Ghost takes not
me, neither does
am
no wise
When
shut
Eckhart
St. Paul:
means
I
it
take
it
God, and
in
if
being from
its
In
from God.
out.**
saying of
recalls the
"Put ye on Jesus
Christ," he
to imply in this saying the
mean-
ing: Sink yourselves into yourselves, dive
into self -contemplation
down
:
out the depths of your being, shine forth to meet you;
He
and from
God
will
illumines
you have found Him within you; you have become united with God's Being. *'God became man, all
things for you;
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:
59
"Here thou must know that the
Masters say that in every man there called are two kinds of man: the one is the outer man, and yet he acts through is the power of the soul. The other man called the inner is
within
know
man, that
the man.
that every
Now
man who
maketh no more use the soul in the outer
that which
is,
thou must loveth
powers of
of the
man
God
than so far as
the five senses absolutely require; and that which is within turns not itself to the five senses, save in so far as it is the guide and conductor of the five senses, and
shepherds them, so that they follow not after their craving to bestiality.*'
who
speaks in such wise of
One
the inner man
can no longer direct his gaze upon a Being sees of things lying outside himself for he ;
from no kind or species of the outer world can this Being come to him.
clearly that
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
6o
An
objector might urge:
What can
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
tion of the outer world. terate,
senses
by a mental give you in
you informa-
Do
addition,
not adul-
what your
purity, without ad-
mixture, as the image of the outer world.
Your eye tells you what your mind knows about there itself.
nothing
is
To
this,
colour
is;
what
colour, of that
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
6l
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
per-
I
manner
I
can
is perceive of colour only so much as cuts physical, sensuous. Sense-perception
out
everything non-sensuous from ob-
jects.
Objects are thus by sense-percep-
tion stripped of everything about
which
non-sensuous.
is
vance to the I
If
I
them
then ad-
spiritual, the ideal content,
objects in fact only reinstate in the
what sense-perception has shut out thereThus sense-perception does not from. the deepest Being of obrather separates me from that
exhibit to jects,
being.
it
me
But the
ception, seizing
me
spiritual, the ideal con-
upon them
with that being.
It
again, unites
shows
me
that
same objects are inwardly of exactly the myself. spiritual (geistigen) nature as I
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
62
The
myself and the
barrier between
outer world
falls
through this spiritual
am
separated
conception of things.
I
from the external world
in so far as I
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 colour
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 of the grasps the
world, which imagines that
it
objects of the outer world
by
to
them
which
qualities of a physical nature,
are
supposed
to
resemble
the
human soul. This view When we meet another human
qualities of the asserts:
ascribing
MEISTER ECKHART we
being,
fellow-man's
what
his
life,
inner
anything which I
from
infer
I
life.
of him, his inner
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,
ings,
no
man
such an inner
my
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
I
must add
in
my imagination
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
this line of
my own
inner
argument 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
physical content
its
And what
through the external senses. I call {i.e.,
all in
my
inner
life
in the
thoughts, feelings, the higher sense,
above sense
etc.),
my
is
not at
spirit {Geist).
MEISTER ECKHART This so-called inner
come
only the out-
life is
of purely sensuous processes,
belongs to
me
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
outer things,
fact, 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
soul to other
definite nervous system.
to transfer this
should only be entitled to do
things.
I
so
happened to
if
I
find
an3rwhere a
similarly organised nervous system.
my
individual soul
spiritual
is
not the highest
element in me.
spiritual element
must
But
first
This highest
be awakened
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
66
through the inner sense; and
ened spiritual element
in
and the same with the in
spiritual
also one
element
The plant appears imits own proper spirituality
to this spiritual element,
endow
my
is
awak-
things.
all
mediately in
to
me
this
—
I
have no need
with a spirituality like unto
it
own.
All talk about the
unknown
''thing-in-
any kind of meaning with
itself" loses
this conception of the world; for
just
that very
reveals
itself
''thing-in-itself "
to
the
inner
it
is
which
sense.
All
such talk originates simply in the fact
who
that those recognise their
in
own
themselves in their
and
talk thus are unable to
the
spiritual
inner being . '
'
own
schemes
the
contents
of
''things-in-
They think that they know inner selves mere shadows
without
being,
concepts and ideas" of things.
— ''mere But as
MEISTER ECKHART they
still
67
sort of premonition of
have a
the ''thing-in-itself," they therefore believe that this ''thing-in-itself"
is
conceal-
and that there are limits set One cannot to man's power of knowing.
ing
itself,
prove to such as are entangled in this
must grasp the
beHef, that they in-itself"
even
if
in their
own
inner being, for
one were to put
they would
still
before them,
it
never recognise or admit
this ''thing-in-itself."
But
recognition with which
we
All
that
saturated
Meister
with
this take a
''thing-
this
it is
just this
are concerned.
Eckhart
says
recognition.
comparison:
A
and shuts upon a hinge. compare the outer plank
is
"Of
door opens If,
of 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
to
and
fro,
while yet the hinge
!
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
68
remains constantly immovable and
is
in
no way changed thereby. In like manner As an individual senseit is here also." being, I can investigate things in all directions
—the door opens and
shuts,-
not spiritually give birth within
—
if I
me to the
perceptions of the senses, then do I
nothing of their nature
do
know
—the hinge does
move The illumination brought about through
not
the inner sense
according
the entrance of
hart's view,
the soul.
is,
The
light of
to
Eck-
God
into
knowledge which
flames up through this entrance, he calls
the
"little
spark
the
of
soul."
The
point in man's inner being at which this
"spark" flames up
and so noble
is
"so pure, so
in itself, that
lofty,
no creature
can be therein, but only God alone dwells therein with His purely Divine Nature."
Whosoever has kindled
this
"spark"
in
MEISTER ECKHART himself,
no longer
ordinary
with
man
his
69
sees only as sees the
with his outer senses, and
logical
understanding
which
orders and classifies the impressions of
the senses, but he sees
The
themselves. classifying
individual
make
how
things are in
outer senses and the
understanding
man from
separate
the
other things; they
him an individual in space and time, who also perceives the other things in space and time. The man illuminated by the "spark'* ceases to be a single of
He
separated being. arateness. difference
All
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
creattires,
all
image without image, and image upon image."
Eckhart proclaims nificent
words the extinction
being:
lated
in the
''It
most magof the iso-
to
be
it is
one
therefore
is
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
and to know. enlighteneth, it
is
enlightens;
because
know
it is
we
maketh us
to
builds
purely
this
up
air,
which
nothing other than what for the
giveth light,
air
enlightened; even so do
that
On
the
as
are known, and that
know
we
He
Himself."
foundation Meister Eckhart his relation to
spiritual
one,
God.
and
It
cannot
is
a
be
modelled according to any image bor-
MEISTER ECKHART
71
rowed from human individual experience.
Not
as one separated individual loves
another can
God
love his creation: not
as an architect builds a house can
have created
All such thoughts van-
it.
ish before the inner vision.
to God's very being that
A God who
the world.
God
not love at pleasure,
He
It belongs
should love
could love or
imagined ac-
is
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 Godhead,
He must
fruitful wise."
tion
His being, in His nature
is
He
keeps nothing
ever pour
And
all
forth in
the inner illumina-
something that the soul must
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
^2
necessarily find
when
it
sinks itself deep
into the basis of its being.
From
this it is already obvious that
God's communication to htmianity cannot be conceived after the fashion of the revelation of one himian being
This communication
another.
be cut off
off,
for
may
also
man can shut himself but God must, by virtue
one
from another
;
of His very nature, reveal Himself. is
a sure and certain truth, that
necessity for if
to
God
''It
it is
a
to seek us, exactly as
His very Godhead depended upon
it.
we with Him. Even though we turn away from God, yet God can never turn away
God can
from to
as
us.'*
little
dispense with us as
Consequently, man's relation
God cannot be
conceived of as though
something image-like, something taken
from the individual himian being, were contained therein.
MEISTER ECKHART Eckhart
73
thus conscious that
is
be-
it
longs to the perfectness of the Root-Being of the world to find Itself in the
human
This Root -Being indeed would be
soul.
imperfect, incomplete,
part of
its
if
lacked that
it
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 would
be but a part of
man
can
In this sense,
Itself.
feel himself as
a necessary part
of the Being of the universe.
This Eck-
by describing
his feelings
hart expresses
towards God as follows:
God
that
He
''I
loveth me, for
do otherwise; whether
He
thank not
He may
will it or no,
His nature yet compelleth Him. Therefore will
me
I
not pray to
God
anything, nor will I praise
that which
But
He hath
not
given me.
.
.
.
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 Root-
The
Being.
soul which
entangled in
is
the sense-world, and so in the as such not yet got within tent of the Root-Being. first
finite,
itself
The
has
the con-
soul
develop that content within
must itself.
must annihilate itself as an isolated being; and Meister Eckhart most aptly It
characterises
I
come
head, none ask
where
I
me, for
annihilation
(un-becoming
werdung
''When
this
or
as Ent-
involution)
to the root of the
me whence
I
God-
come and
have been, and none doth miss here there is an E?itwerdung.''
Again, the following phrase speaks very " I take a cup clearly about this relation: of it
water and lay therein a mirror and set The sun under the disc of the sun.
casts out its shining light on the mirror
MEISTER ECKHART The
and yet doth not pass away. ing of the mirror in the sun
So
is.
is
sun in the
is
God
about God.
it
soul with His very nature
Godhead, and yet
The
He
which
The inner
sotil
God,
is
still
is
God that
it is."
which gives
soul
illimiination
which
this
knows
in itself not
soul it
with
God
was before knows also
only
soul
became
^'We must
through this illimiination. united
up to the
itself
but
illimiination;
that
in the
not the soul.
is
only what this same its
is
it
and being and
reflecting of the soul in
God, and yet the
be
reflect-
and yet the mirror remains what
sun,
in
75
in
being;
we
God uniquely; we must be united with God wholly. How shall we be united with God
must be
in
being?
beholding
united
with
That must happen and
not
in
the
in
the
Wesung.
'
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
76
His being
may
not become our being,
Not an already existent life a Wesung is to be known in the logical sense but the higher knowing the beholding shall itself become life; the spiritual, the ideal must be so felt by the beholder, as ordinary daily life is felt by individual human nature. but
it
shall
be our
life."
—
—
;
—
—
From
such
starting
Meister
points,
Eckhart also builds up a pure conception of
Freedom.
soul
is
In
its
not free; for
ordinary
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
But by
is
' '
by
beholding
raised out of the
'
domain
and acts no longer as a
separated individual soul.
being
impelled
is
The
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
wills
it
Himself
He
sets the will free, so that
and the
wills;
and
we
not
is
God
not otherwise than what
to will other than
that
77
spirit desires
what God
un-freedom:
its
wills:
and
it is its
true
For freedom
real freedom.
that
is
are not bound, but free and pure
unmixed, as we were in our pouring, as
we were
not
and
first
out-
set free in the
Holy
Ghost." It
man
may
be said of the illuminated
that he
from within
himself the being which
is
itself
good and what
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 out in
man
is
*'The
serveth neither God, nor
the creature; for he
he
him.
is free,
and the nearer
to righteousness, the
Freedom's very
self."
more he
What
is
then, for
78
THE RENAISSANCE
MYSTICvS OF
Meister Eckhart, can
be?
evil
It
can
be only action under the influence of the
mode
lower
—the
regarding
of
things;-
acting of a soul which has not passed
through the state of Entwerdung (un-
Such a soul
becoming). sense that
wills only itself.
it
not bring
moral
in the
could
It
outwardly into
willing
its
with
accord
is selfish
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
itself, it
lordship
made
itself
can no longer
ends of the lower nature, for longer aught in nature. ideals
To
common
of
yet the
into this will it
the
has no
with this lower
act in conformity with moral
implies for
the
soul
which has
no compulsion, no deprivation. "The man who standeth in God's will
vision,
and
in
God's love, to him
it is
a craving
MEISTER ECKHART to
do
good things that God
all
and leave undone
evil
all
And
are contrary to God.
him
sible for
that
God
walking
will
willeth,
things that it
is
impos-
undone anything
to leave
Even
have done.
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." Eckhart
moreover
guards
expressly
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
he
men
no longer
wills anything.
say:
If I
have God and God's freedom,
then
I
may
just
**
Certain
do whatever
Such understand wrongly
I please.
this saying.
long as thou canst do aught that
is
So con-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
8o
God and His commandment,
trary to
long thou
God's love;
hast not
so
even
though thou mayest well deceive the world, as
thou
if
Eckhart
hadst."
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
and
ception,
and an
human
"For grasp, is
and
life
makes
heavens.
and the
.
God.
order-
appearance.
Where understanding
which .
it is
dark, there
There that power unfolds
.
bliss of
the righteous
is full
its
new
that desiring can desire,
all
shineth God.
is
entirely
desiring end, there
in the soul
con-
that the understanding can
all
verily not
and
all logical
acting in the ordinary
all
sense, ceases,
ing of
that there
;
of bliss.'*
is
wider than the wide
The bliss of the God is one bliss full of bliss,
righteous ;
for there
where God
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD In Johannes Tauler Suso
(1
( 1
300-1 36 i),Heinrich
295-1 365), and Johannes Ruys-
broeck (1293--1381), one makes acquaint-
ance with
men whose
Hfe
exhibit in a very striking
and work
manner those
''motions of the soul" to which such a spiritual
hart of
is
path as that of Meister Eck-
calculated to give rise in natures
depth and power.
seems
like
a
man
While Eckhart
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, appear
rather like pilgrims, to re-birth has 6
whom
their inner
shown a new road which they 81
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
82
fain
would
to vanish before
them
into the illimitable
Eckhart dwells more upon the
distance.
his
of
glories
whose goal seems
tread, but
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
He He
ruled.
product of that world.
and
by which that is
himself a
lives
because
materials are at
work
its
forces
in
him; nay, he perceives this sense-
its
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 -format ion,
—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
siimmit
and
overlook
at
once
both
84
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ourselves and the
outer world in their
mutual interplay.
a something working higher than sonality
the
in
here
not
there
Is
us,
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
and the outer world? judges and gains for
That which here itself insight is no
longer our separated personality; rather
the general world -being,
has torn
down
alike.
As
is
which
the barrier between the
inner and outer worlds and
both
it
true as
now embraces
it is
that, judged
by the outer appearance, I still remain the same separated individual when I have thus torn down this barrier, so true is
it
also that,
sential being, I
arated unit.
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
soul the All -Being, which embraces both
myself and the entire world.
This
''Man
said:
men^
what Tauler
is
is
just as
—his 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
is
.
his understanding
—
lit.
man
and
far this third
is
spirit,
emotional, feeling nature),
How
man
is
above the
first
words: ''The eye through which
God, that sees me. Cp.
W.
and
Eckhart has expressed in the
second,
'
.
rea-
the very highest part of the soul." ^
p. 161.
.
the inner, understanding
soning powers; the third (Gemilth
man.
the outer, animal, sensuous
the other
man, with
godlike
man and
is
I
see
the same eye with which
God
My
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
as well as this.
He
is
active
has fought his
through to a real vision of the
way
spiritual,
and does not constantly confuse, as do the false materialists and the false idealists,
the
spiritual.
If,
sensibly-natural with
with his disposition, Tauler
had become a insisted upon
scientist,
he would have
explaining
all
natural, including the whole of
the
first
natural
that
is
man, both
and the second, purely upon He would never have lines.
transferred purely
nature
the
itself.
spiritual
He would
forces
never
into
have
talked of a " purposef ulness " in nature
conceived of according to men's notions.
He knew
that there, where
with our senses, are to be found.
we
no "creative
perceive ideas'*
Far rather he was most
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD keenly conscious of the fact that
And
a purely natural being.
87
man
is
as he felt
himself to be, not a scientist, but a de-
votee of moral
he therefore
felt
most
keenly the contrast which reveals
itself
between
life,
this natural 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
itself
finds himself as
reveal to
him anything
than that he
nature.
cannot
a
As a get
is
natural creation.
In
And
life
yet his inner
and beyond
it.
single being, a
science can
else
about this
such a creature of
creature
outside
mean-
to his eyes.
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 him or show to him.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
88
If
he
calls
'Hhat which to reach
''that
is,"
then he must be able
out to the vision which as
cognises
only this nature Being or
which
no God who
the higher, is is
not.**
re-
Non-being,
or
Tauler seeks for
present in the same sense
as a natural force; he seeks no
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 found idealised
to as
nature's working and her laws are found,
by
science.
Tauler
we must not add nature as God.
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 nature in thought.
who has
Therefore,
Tauler seeks not to think God, but to
THE FRIENSDHIP OF GOD think divinely, to think as
God
89 thinks.
The knowledge by the knowledge of God, but transformed. The knower of God does not know a of nature is not enriched
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
of
Not
God
nature; but
through his whole knowing of nature there shines a
What of
new
light.
root-feelings will take possession
a man's soul
who
contemplates the
world from this point of view,
will
depend
upon how he regards that experience of the soul which brings about spiritual re-birth. is
Within
this
experience,
man
wholly a natural being, when he con-
siders
himself
in
his
interaction with
the rest of nature; and he spiritual
is
wholly a
being when he considers the
conditions into which this re-birth has
90
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE Thus we can say with
brought him. equal truth, soul
is still
the
inmost depth of the
natural; as also
it is
already
Tauler emphasised the former
divine.
with his own tendency of
in accordance
However far we may penetrate our souls, we still remain separated
thought. into
individual htiman beings, said he to himself.
But yet
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
91
reproduces the All-Being as a picture; but this All-Being itself does not shine it
forth in thee.
Starting from such con-
came
ceptions, Tauler
to the idea of a
Godhead that never merges wholly
into
the himian world, never flows quite comMore, he attaches impletely into it.
portance to his not being confused with those who maintain that man's inmost being
is
itself
divine.
Union with God
is
in a fleshly sense, shall
He
says:
''The
taken by fooHsh
men
and they say that they
be transformed into divine nature
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 still remain lofty, yea, higher than the loftiest; 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
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.
deepen through
speaks as
a pious priest of the content of Holy Writ.
But
this
same scripture
still
becomes
in
means
for
the world of his conceptions a
the expression of the inmost experiences of his soul.
y
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
born
when one
begetteth in the soul? of
Is
it
of
God?
Nay:
it is
a likeness is it
some-
neither picture
nor likeness of God, but the same
and the same Son
whom
less.
God
says:
God, or a picture of God, or
what
begetteth
more, nor
in eternity, neither is
He
God
the Father be-
getteth in eternity and naught else than
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD the blissful divine word, that
Him
person in the Trinity, begetteth in the soul, the
The
dignity."' for
.
.
.
the second
the Father
and thereof
hath thus great and special
soul
come
is
93
stories of scripture be-
Tauler the garment in which he
clothes the happiness of the inner
who drove
''Herod,
sought to slay him, world,
should and must desire to
is
flee
kill
this
man, therefore one therefrom, if we do us,
but
and every man.'* directs his gaze
the natural man, he
concerned to the higher ^Cp. Preger: 219
a likeness of the
the enlightened believing soul
As Tauler
p.
is
keep that child alive in
that child of each
out the child and
which yet seeketh to
child in a believing
life.
e^ seg_.
tell
man
is
mainly upon
comparatively
less
us what happens 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
if
they are to be transmuted into
the higher
moral
life,
As a devotee of the he desires to show to men the life.
roads to the All-Being. ditional faith
and
shines forth in
if
his life that there shall
But
man
up
his
in
world:
a
off
man
shuts him-
mere natural separated
is
creature,
The more man
in
much
energies
member
of
the less can the All-
Being find place in him. reality to
Tauler's
shuts himself
within this his being as a
the world, so
off
merely one member of the
single
language.
can
this All-Being
Such a man, separated
personality. in himself,
will so order
be in him a shrine
never shine forth while self
has uncon-
trust that the All-Being
man,
for the Divine.
He
''If
man
is
become one with God, then
and powers even
in all
of the inner
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
95
and become silent. The will must turn away even from the Good and from all willing, and become void "Man must escape from of willing."
man must
all
die
his senses
and turn inwards
his
all
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
higher perspectives,
Thus
possibilities. is
him the
to
more exalted and defined as
still
clear
direction in which he has
to turn his steps,
him
inexhaustible,
says to himself: whatever thou hast reached, there remain
level still
is
He
endless.
it
is
equally clear to
that he can never speak of a goal:
for a
new
new
path.
man
reaches a certain level of evolution:
but
evolution
goal
is
only the beginning of a
Through such a new goal itself
continues
inimit-
And what that evolution may upon some more distant level, it can never know upon its present stage. There is no knowing the final goal: only ably.
attain
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
our
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD spirit.
For the higher
inner being, there
is
hfe
97
man's
of
no such knowing.
Here the powers of our
spirit
must
first
transfer the object itself into the realm of the existent; they
for
it
must
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
himself
unfoldment.
what
for earlier
stages he only knows.
He
cording to the object,
that which, for
what has gone
before,
creates, ac-
he only copies
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
98
in accordance
with
That truth
not one with the existent
is
spiritual nature.
its
but naturally embraces both
in nature,
the existent and the non-existent: of this
truth Tauler all
his
down
feelings.
by
Friend of
We
It
has been handed
was
led to this
an illuminated
layman, a
to us that Tauler
fulfilling **
to overflowing in
filled
is
God from
the Mountains."
have here a mysterious story.
God"
lived
there exist only conjectures; as to
who
As
to where this ''Friend of
he was, not even these.
He
seems to
have heard much of Tauler 's way
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
the
upon the former, 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
Book
''The
of
a
ler himself.
title,
Therein
whom some
same who came
lations with Tauler, gives " Master,"
the
the Master."
a Friend of God, in recognise the
under
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
when he
latter,
*'
Master" and how the
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 speaks.
He
that
the knowledge
all
from him
is
whom
the book
asks this on the that
ground proceeds
yet not really from him.
"For know ye that God hath brought all to pass through me, poor worm, and
100
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
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
but that
existed,
fiction
effort
and that the
books ascribed to him come from another hand (Rulman Merswin).
On
the
other hand Wilhelm Preger has sought
with
many arguments
German Mysticism)
(in his
History of
to support the exist-
ence, the genuineness of the writings,
and
the correctness of the facts that relate to Tauler. I
am
light
here under no obligation to throw
by presumptuous investigation upon
a relationship as to which any one, who ^Denifle: Die Dictungen des GoUesjreu7ides itn Oherlande.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD understands
how
question,
will
in
remain a
loi
to read the writings^
know
that
should
it
secret.
one says of Tauler, that at a certain
If
stage of his
life
a transformation took
place in him, that will be
amply
sufficient.
Tauler 's personality need no longer be
any way considered
in
but only a personality "in general."
tion,
As regards Tauler, we with the fact that his
in this connec-
transformation
view
we must understand from the point
what
follows.
his later activity
with his
forth in
set
compare
are only concerned
the fact of this transformation
without '
The
further
search.
writings in question are,
I
among
is
we
earlier,
obvious
will others
If
of
:
leave Von eime
manne, der von eime heiligen weltpriestere gewiset wart life demuetige gehorsamme, 1338; Das Buck von den zwei Mannen; Der gefangene Ritter, 1349; Die geistliche stege, 1350; Von der geistlicJien Letter, 1357;
eigenwilligen weltwisen
Das Meisterbuch, 1369; igen
Knaben.
Geschichte von zwei fimfzehnjahz-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
102
aside all outer circumstances
and
relate
the inner occurrences in the soul of the
''Master" under
**the influence of the
What
layman."
my
reader
will
understand by the "layman" and the ''Master" depends entirely upon his mentality; what
myself think about
a matter as to which
it is
for
I
whom
A
it is
Master
as to
is
of
I
cannot know
any weight.
instructing his disciples
the relationship of the soul to
the All-Being of things. fact
own
that
when
man
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.
man does God
There
not see God, or the world; there
sees Himself.
with God.
Man
has become one
But the Master knows that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD this teaching has not yet full life in
him.
He
103
awakened to
thinks
with his
it
understanding: but he does not yet live in
with every fibre of his personality.
it
He
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
it,
without even in the
with
least living in accordance
it.
in that case he has nothing other in
But him
than the natural knowledge of the un-
He
derstanding.
then
speaks
of
this
were the
natural
knowledge as
highest,
equivalent to the working of
the All-Being.
it
if
It is 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
only
remains
life.
a
What one
natural
natural,
man, that
—even
one afterwards expresses
in
ac-
when
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
must evolve something new must level,
;
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD come
105
into existence through this ftirther
evolution.
Man must
backwards upon
the
not
lies
highest
that
cording
thereto
which in
look
evolution
which
—claim
as the
behind him
already
only
shapes his
spirit
itself
ac-
—but
he
must look forward upon the uncreate: his knowledge must be a beginning of a
new
content, not an end to the content
of evolution which already lies before
Nature advances from the worm to the mammal, from the mammal to man, it.
not in a conceptual but in an actual, real
Man
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 nature; 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
level.
God who contem-
talk about the
plates Himself in man's inner being, takes
on a
He
recognised this.
portance
to
the
attaches
fact
that
depths
the
of
All-Being;
spiritual nature acquires a It
unfolds
itself
direction determined
Such a
man
differently
by
little
im-
an insight
him
already attained has led
ter.
who has
different character in one
into the
instead,
new
further
his
charac-
the
in
the All-Being.
not only looks at the world
from one who merely under-
stands: he lives his
life
He
otherwise.
does not talk of the meaning which
life
already has through the forces and laws of the world: but he gives
anew a
fresh
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD meaning to
his
As little as the itself what makes
life.
has in
already
107 fish its
appearance on a later level of evolution
mammal,
as the
man
standing
as
has the under-
little
already in himself what
be born 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
man
must be so. He gives himself a meaning in reality; he In
also
this
does not halt and stand
meaning
he
already
contemplation leaps out
stands
has,
shows him.
beyond
itself, if
itself aright.
at
the
which
his
still
Knowledge
only
it
under-
Knowledge cannot
deduce the world from a ready-made
God;
it
germ
in the direction
can only unfold
itself
from a
towards a God.
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 mammal is unknown ;
to the
fish.
He
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 was a "Friend
to the Master,
God"
of
109
in
this sense,
and through him the Master became from a contemplator God, one who
the being
of
of
''alive in the spirit,*'
is
one who not only contemplated, but The Master lived in the higher sense.
now no
longer brought forth concepts
and ideas
his inner nature,
ideas burst
actuahsed
but these concepts and
forth
from him as
He
spirit.
longer
of
their
being.
plunged
their
souls
inner being; he led
This
is
living,
no longer merely
he shook the very
edified his hearers;
foundations
from
understanding
the
of
them
He no into
into a
their
new
life.
recounted to us symbolically:
about forty people his preaching
H:
fell
and lay as H<
down through if
*
dead.
no MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE As a guide
such a new
to
possess
a
book
nothing
is
known.
known
about
has
Pfeiffer,
whose
Luther
The
in print.
first
with
original
book
the
it
ac-
year
the
trans-
What
text.
indicates
it
Franz
modern German
a
lation facing the
precedes
made
printed
recently
we
author
philologist,
cording to a manuscript of 1497,
life,
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
this follows
man from
"Al-mighty, Eternal
uttered this
little
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
1
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD insight
pecially
know and
Divine Wisdom,
into
1 1
and
es-
how and whereby one may
the true, righteous friends of God,
the
also
thinkers,
who
unrighteous,
false,
free-
are very hurtful 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 Master.
It
died,
not
known who the
But what does that mean? not known when he was born and or what he did in his outer life.
author was. It is
is
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
112
That
the
author
aimed
preserve
to
eternal secrecy about these facts of his
outer
life,
which he desired to work.
in
the
"I"
way
belongs naturally to the
of this or the other
at a definite point of time,
speak to us, but
not
It is
man, born
who
is
to
the "I-ness" in the
depths whereof ''the separateness of individualities** (in the sense of
saying
must
first
unfold
Paul Asmus*
itself.
"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 pure suffering, so that '
God
alone doeth and worketh
Vide ante, page 34.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD and
all
things in me,
all
His works and His divine not submit to
will
if I
myself with egotism, I,
suffer
I
this,
i.e.,
113
Him and will.
But
but possess
with mine, and
to me, for me, and the like, that hinders
God
me
so that
He
cannot work His work in
purely alone and without hindrance.
remain
my
my
away thus not made good." The
Therefore
fall
and
turning
^'man from Frankfurt" aims to speak not as a separated individual; he desires to let
God
this only as
speak.
a
That he yet can do
single, distinct personality
he naturally knows
full well;
but he
a "Friend of God," that means a
who aims not of
life
pointing
is
man
at presenting the nature
through contemplation, but at out the beginning of a
new
evolutionary pathway through the living spirit.
The explanations 8
in
the
book
are
114
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
how one comes The root-thought
various instructions as to to
X
pathway.
this
strip
and
again
returns off
man must
again:
everything that
connected
is
with that which makes him appear as a single, separate personahty.
This thought
seems to be worked out only in respect of the
moral
should be extended,
life; it
without further ado, to the higher of
knowledge as
hilate
separateness
then
:
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
us.
the
We
comes into
separateness
when we
existence
already dwelt within
as it.
when
us,
us
to
least
of
in
have the All-Life
just then,
separated
It
so regard our if
the
This
Whole
first
to light in the separated existence
comes
when
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD this separated existence
sion
no longer claims
be anything.
for itself to
115
This preten-
on the part of the separated existence
our text terms ''assumption."
Through it
asstmiption " the self makes
' '
impossible
versal self
for
itself
that the Uni-
should enter into
Self
then puts
itself
it.
The
as a part, as some-
thing imperfect, in the place of the whole,
"The
of the perfect.
perfect
that in itself and in
its
and resolved
beings,
all
is
a being,
being has conceived
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
all
unchangeable and
immovable, and changes and moves
all
But the divided and the that which has sprung from
other things.
imperfect
is
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,
so far as
felt,
is
sun
For just as the whole world and
it
possible
.
is
come?
and not
I is
it
is
But that
is
in
it.
the
illuminates
just as near to the
man
sees
of the
sun
one as to the other, yet a blind not.
.
tasted in the soul; for the
defect lies wholly in us
it
.
the perfect cometh, the divided
despised.
say:
is
no defect
man. ... If my eye to see anything, it must become is cleansed, or be already cleansed from all
but
of the blind
other things.
.
.
.
Now
one might be
inclined to say: In so far then as
unknowable and inconceivable creatures,
and
since the soul
is
it
for
also
is
all
a
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD how can
creature,
it
as
is
is
known as a
the creature shall be
This
known
then be
Answer: Therefore
the soul?
much
117
it
in
said,
creature.'"
as to say that
all
creatures shall be regarded as created
and creation and not regard themselves
and
I-ness
as
knowing
is
whereby
self-ness,
made
whatever creature be known, there
impossible.
thing of the kind must be
fore
The
its
look within
from the
perfect.
it
Chap,
i.,
Book
it
therefinds
thereby cuts
itself off
If
If it regards its I-ness it
were, and
will
be seized
as
it
in spirit,
oj the
must
remains
upon by the stream ^
be and
it
only as a thing lent to annihilates
lost,
there
itself;
it
shall
and every-
soul
I-ness, its self-ness.
standing there,
one
creature-being, cre-
ated-being, I-ness, self-ness,
become naught."'
''For in
this perfect
all
this
it
of the All-Life, of
Man from
Frankfurt.
Ii8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE ''When
Perfection.
sumes to
creature
the
somewhat
itself
as-
good, as
of
Being, Life, Knowledge, Power, in short,
aught of that which one thinks that to
it
much
calls
that, or that
it is
or comes from
good and it
belongs
and so
so often
it,
as that happens, does the creature
"The created soul of man The one is the possibiUty
turn away.'*
has two eyes.
of seeing in eternity; the other of seeing in time
and
therefore stand himself, that
me, mine, he as
and what
is
for
little is
"Man
in creation.''
and be quite without
me and
seeks
free
should
without
self-ness, I-ness,
the
like,
and thinks
so that
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
fact in regard
the
writer of
these
thought-content,
to which he gives a direction
higher ideas
and feehngs,
by
We
his
that of a
is
believing priest in the spirit of his
time.
19
take account of the
to the
that
sentences,
1
own
are here concerned not with
the thought-content, but with the direction, not with the thoughts
the
way
of thinking.
but with
Any one who
does
not live as he does in Christian dogmas,
but in the conceptions of natural science, finds
his
in
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
seeketh and willeth
and
"For God's and that, void
and
and
does or leaves undone,
receive
its
own
benefit
"When, now, the loseth his own-ness himself,
God
it
and
that
own
in all
that
seeketh to profit.
creature or the
and
his self-ness
and goeth out from
it
its
and
itself
'that';
is
man and
himself, then
entereth in with His Own-ness, that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD is
with his Self -hood ."
Man
'
wards, from a view of his
makes the very
soars up-
"Ego" which
appear to him as his
latter
being,
121
a
to
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
hand belongeth
God
just as a
to him,
then
man's
let
him
content himself and seek no further."^
That
is
not
intended
when man has reached a of
his
there,
as
is
evolution
he
mean
to
that
certain stage
shall
stand
still
but that, when he has got as far indicated in the above words, he
should not set on foot further investigations into the
rather
make
meaning
of the hand,
use of the hand, in order /
^
^
but
Chap, xxiv, Book of Ibid., Chap. liv.
the
Man
from Frankfurt.
z'
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
122
that
it
may
to which
it
render service to the body belongs.
Heinrich Suso and Johannes RuysBROEK possessed a type of mind which
may be characterised as genius for feeHng. Their feeHngs are drawn by something
Hke
instinct
in
the same direction in
which Eckhart's and Tauler's feeHngs were guided by their higher thoughtHfe.
Suso's heart turns devoutly towards
that Root-Being which embraces the individual
man
just as
much
remaining world, and in
as the whole
whom
forgetting
himself, he yearns to 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 he desires to of
it
embrace
in thought;
he speaks
as a natural impulse, that
makes
his
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
123
drunken with desire
the
soul
annihilation
and
its
of
separated existence
its
re-awakening to of
efficiency
the
being in
being.
its ptire
naked
thou mayest
that
alone,
with not-being; for all
''Turn
let fall
Take unmoved
manifold being.
that itself
life.
endless
simplicity, so that
and
in the all-
life
thine eyes to this being in
this
for
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 or not-being except
know mixed being by some mark of
For
being as a whole.
if
one
will under-
stand a thing, the reason
first
encounters
being,
and that
all things.
is
It is a divided being of this
or that creature, all
a being that worketh
—for
divided being
is
mingled with something of other-ness,
with a possibility of receiving something.
MYSTICS OF THE RENALSSANCE
124
Therefore
must it
the
nameless
divine
so be a whole being in
sustaineth
all
being
itself,
that
divided beings by
its
presence.'*
Thus speaks Suso in the autobiography which he wrote in conjunction with his pupil Elsbet Staglin. priest
and
circle of if it
He, too,
is
a pious
lives entirely in the Christian
He
thought.
lives therein as
were quite unthinkable that anybody
with his mental tendency could
any other world.
But
of
him
live in
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
for
him actual
and
his
relation
inner experience,
become a own spirit and the Christ has
Christian
become
relation
to
between his
eternal truth in a
purely ideal, spiritual way.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD He composed a
''Little
Wisdom" speak
to
not?
How
its
servant, in
"Knowest thou
other words to himself:
me
of Eternal
In this he makes the "Eter-
Wisdom.'' nal
Book
125
art thou so cast
down, or
hast thou lost consciousness from agony of heart, is I,
my
merciful
Behold
tender child?
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
who might make it is I,
thy worthiness;
suffered bitter death, that I
thee to live again!
I
stand
here pale and bleeding and lovely, as I
stood on the lofty gallows of the cross
between the stem judgment of
and
thee.
is I,
thy spouse!
It
is I,
I
my Father
thy brother; look,
it
have therefore wholly
126
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
forgotten as
it
if
thou hast done against me,
all
had never been,
turnest wholly to self
me and
if
only thou
separatest thy-
no more from me.'*
All that
bodily and temporal in the
is
become
has
conception
Christian
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
through
revelations,
visions.
But he expresses
to
not
the
truth
through
about
his
One
this.
through
let
action
but through
spiritual power,
clearly
he had
by the mere
external
quite
if
ghostly
meaning attains
reasonableness,
any kind
of
revelation.
''The difference between pure truth and
y
two-souled
knowledge
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
it
all
be
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 spiritual way found an active opponent in Johannes Gerson (born 1363), who was for some time Chancellor of the
128
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
University of Paris and played a mo-
mentous
role at the Council of Constance.
Some
light is
of the
mysticism which was practised by
Tauler,
compares
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
all
those
who, through an easy-going judgment of the understanding, hold that
all
things
proceed from one Root-Being,
who
there-
fore see in the world only a manifoldness
God the unity of this manifoldness. Ruysbroek does not count himself among these, for he knew that one cannot attain and
in
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 man, in his separated exist-
ence
(in
his creature-being),
He
nature also.
deplored not a
the error which confuses in
the
his higher
sense- world,
and
all
little
differences
asserts
light-
mindedly that things are different only but that in their being
in appearance,
they are
all alike.
This would amount,
for a
way of thinking like
the
same thing as saying:
fact that the trees in
Ruysbroek's, to
That the
an avenue seem to
our seeing to come together does not In reality they are every-
concern us.
where equally
far apart,
therefore our
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 our 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 him that
things of the senses, he accepts
they
and
are,
standing in
senses
is
clear to
no judgment
through
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 beheve
in this
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD For them, what
self -shining.
131
man
can
behold remains always a something external, that
come
from some
them
to
side or other
Ruysbroek
externally.
believed that the highest
must
wisdom must
needs shine forth for mystic contem-
Gerson believed only that the
plation.
can illuminate the content of an
soul
external teaching (that of the Church).
For else
Gerson,
faith,
that
For
teaching.
is
warm
but possessing a
everything
was
Mysticism
is
born
feeling for
revealed
Ruysbroek,
that the content of
also
in
nothing
the
all
clearness,
but that
there expresses All-Being.
the
itself
in
Therefore
in that
All-Being this
a
teaching
latter imagines that not only has
power to behold
this
was
it
soul.
Gerson blames Ruysbroek
in
the
he the with
beholding
an activity
of the
Ruysbroek simply could not
132
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
be understood by Gerson. of
two wholly
different
Both spoke Ruys-
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
Chrysippus
Nicholas
He
Trevis, 1401-1464).
summit In
of
Cusa
of
(at
stands upon the
the knowledge of his time.
mathematics
markable work.
may
sky
he
accomplished
re-
In natural science he
be described as the forerunner of
Copernicus, for he took up the standpoint that the earth
body
like others.
is
a moving celestial
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
it
The same man who braced
all
it
thus not only em-
further,
external
man
knowledge
this
so that
life,
a
about in the air?"
possessed
addition, in a high degree, the
awakening
make
the knowledge of his time, but
extended
also
movement;
Copernicus
and run
it
for
it
in
power
of
in the inner
not only illuminates the
world, but
that spiritual
also
life,
mediates
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
inner
life
of
as Meister Eckhart;
knowledge as
The
but the
of the former has a rich store its
content.
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
either over- or under-rate this
which leads us to the goal special will
sciences.
knowledge
in the various
In the one case he
approach the subject-matter of the
highest spiritual
lem
will
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,
an organism,
or
or
as
God:
teleological structure of a personal
perhaps even as a form which
pervaded by a more or ceived ''World-Soul.'*
is
the
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
can know nothing about
things which senses.
lie
sceptic, saying
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,
—
from Scholasticism, the way of conceiving things which was dominant in scientific life within the Mediaeval Church; a
mode of thought that St. Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), the ''Prince of Scholastics,"
had brought to its highest perfection. We must take this 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
it
highest
striving to
work out concepts in their most clear-cut outlines, ought the
in
sharpest,
to go to
instruction.
They
138
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE High School They thinking.
afford us the
nique
of
incomparable
skill in
of pure thinking.
for the tech-
possess
moving
an
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
calculation,
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,
in the
without
such
concep-
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
difficult to find
This has even led so far
has been contended, from various
sides, that in the
of
the ideal
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. that for
But the man who cannot do 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
140
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
was
much
just so
any
science in
real
domain as there was mathematics in it, was not very much at home in the matter.
One ought thing
rather to
which
demand
cannot
that every-
measured
be
or
counted should be handled just as ideally as the forms of
number and
And
space.
way did They sought
the Scholastics in the fullest justice
to
this
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,
this:
creates
in himself It
of
is
to
without further
discussion, that with such a conception of the
knowing process
all reality
must
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
For
be located outside of the knowing. one can grasp, itself,
in
141
knowing, not the thing
but only an image of that thing.
knowing himself man cannot
Also, in
grasp himself, but again, what he does
know
himself
of
himself.
It
is
only an image of
is
from out
entirely
of the
spirit of
Scholasticism that an accurate
student
thereof^
time no
and
perception
ground of
hidden
says:
life,
... he
of his
will
*^Man has
in
his ego, of the spiritual
being
never attain to
beholding himself; for either, estranged for ever
from God, he
will find in himself
only a fathomless, dark abyss, an endless emptiness, or
he
else,
made
blessed in God,
on turning his gaze inwards
will find
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 nature/^
Whoever thinks
like
this
about
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 our knowledge
pictures of whatever
When we
world. stone,
we
is
sensible in the
perceive a colour or a
are unable, in order to
know
the being of the colour or the stone, to
become ourselves the colour or the Just
as
little
stone transform
own
being.
It
stone.
can the colour or the itself into
a part of our
may, however, be ques-
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
manner: life
*^Our
but
is
ordered
the
in
therein:
in this
following earth-
in
primarily focussed
surrounding
the
spiritual
allied
spirit,
with the body,
upon
char-
conception of knowledge
acterises the
with
143
the
bodily
world,
direction
the
of
beings, natures,
forms of things, the elements of existence,
and
which are related to our offer to
it
the rungs for
its
spirit
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.,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
144
The Scholastic could not attain any other conception of knowledge, the dogmatic
content
prevented his doing
of his
so.
If
to for
theology
he had
rected the gaze of his spiritual eye
di-
upon
that which he regards as an image only,
he would then have seen that the spiritual content of things reveals
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.
gazing into his
own
His
beheld in
inner being, not a
dark abyss, an endless emptiness, but also not merely
would have him, which
and that
that a
life
pulses within
the very
life
of
felt is
his
an image of God; he
own
life is
God
itself;
verily just
God's
life.
This the Scholastic dared not admit.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA The God must not, in into him and speak
God must
145
his opinion, enter
forth
from him;
only be in him as an image.
In reahty, the Godhead must be external to the
Accordingly, also,
self.
not reveal
from within through
itself
the spiritual
life,
could
it
but must reveal
itself
from outside, through supernatural communication. 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 10
is
attained in this way: that as
146
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
regards the created, the external thing
given in experience, so that
is
knowledge
of
while as regards the
it;
divine, the object
experience;
The
we have
is
not given to us in
we can reach
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
that which it, itself,
is,
in
and
only knowledge, faith reigned.
if
a certain domain in
another only
For "the knowledge is
of
possible to us, because
springs from a creative element;
things are for the spirit, because they are from the spirit
to
tell us,
;
they have something
because they have a meaning
which a higher intelligence has placed Because God has created in them.'" '
Otto Willman, History of Idealism, vol.
ii.,
p. 383.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
147
we
the world according to thoughts,
too
when we grasp the thoughts the world, to seize also upon the
are able, of
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 himian knowledge, but by faith; and "to faith belongs
all
writings
of
that
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 himian experience that has once
Such an experience
been undergone.
then preserved, as far as
its
outer form
goes, without the consciousness of it
And
was acquired.
in 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.
had
Science,
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 rightful
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
bound to accept a revealed
one.
The
naturally
Scholastics
could
not admit that in doing so they were accepting and proclaiming as ''revealed*'
a conception which in truth had really been begotten at an
man's
spiritual
earlier
of
life.
Thus, in the course of all
stage
its
development,
those ideas had vanished from Scholas-
ticism
which
indicated
the ways and
means by which man had begotten,
in
a
natural manner, his conceptions of the divine.
In
development of
the
doctrinal
the
of
the
of Christianity, at the
time
Church
first
centuries
Fathers,
we
see
the
content of theology growing
150
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bit
by
by the
bit
In Johannes
experiences.
gena, ian
Scotus
Eri-
stood at the summit of Christ-
who
theological
century,
assimilation of inner
we
culture
the
in
ninth
find this doctrinal content
being handled entirely as an inner ing
experience.
of the
With the
liv-
Scholastics
following centuries, this charac-
teristic
of
an inner, living experience
disappears altogether: the old doctrinal
content
becomes transposed
content
of
an
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
themselves were held back
from this 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
152
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
appropriate to the age in Scholasticism.
We a
find
him
so far along the road, that
would necessarily
single step further
have carried him out
We
we complete
if
more which then,
he
looking
the one step
not
did
backwards,
mental
ignorance/' of
as
is
life
By
this
that
and
take;
throw
upon what he aimed at. The most significant thought las's
Church.
understand the Card-
shall therefore
inal best
the
of
of
in
light
Nicho-
"learned
he means a form
knowing which occupies a higher
level
compared with ordinary knowledge.
In the lower sense, knowledge
is
the
grasping of an object by the mind, or spirit.
The most important
istic of
knowing
is
that
it
character-
gives us light
about something outside of the that therefore
something
it
directs its gaze
different
from
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
enters
is
the
spirit.
If,
the
itself,
then
knowing
;
outside of
looking at it
is
being of
of like nature with
is
not looking at anything
it is
itself,
thing which
the
can no longer talk of
it
for
things
then,
spirit turns its attention to this
the things, which
What
only this sensible
being of
the
into
the
sees the spirit so far only
outside the spirit
encasement;
is
things are
through the sensible encasement. lies
spirit
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 being
is
it
obvious that the essential
things
of
can only be reached
Thus
through this stage of knowing.
Cusa
Nicholas of ''learned
not-knowing"
of nothing else but
new
in
birth, as
''
speaking is
his
of
really speaking
knowing" come
to a
He
an inner experience.
how he came to this '*I made many efforts inner experience. to unite 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 sea,
my
my way
by an from above, soared up
that perception in which to
me
until
back from Greece by
mind's vision, as
Itmiination
me
single
as the
if
il-
to
God appeared
supreme Unity
of all con-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA To
tradictions."
this illumination
a greater or
extent
less
was due to
155
influences
derived from the study of his prede-
One
cessors.
recognises in his
way
of
looking at things a peculiar revival of the views which writings
we meet with
in the
The
a certain Dionysius.
of
above-mentioned Scotus Erigena translated
these
writings
into
Latin,
and
speaks of their author as the ''great and divine revealer.**
The works tioned
in
century.
in question are first
the
first
half
They were
of
the
mensixth
ascribed to that
Dionysius, the Areopagite,
named
in the
Acts of the Apostles, who was converted to Christianity
by
writings were really
be
left
When these composed may here
St. Paul.
an open question.
Their con-
worked powerfully upon Nicholas as they had already worked upon Scotus
tents
156
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Erigena, and as they must also have
been in
way
of
many ways thinking
colleagues.
This
of ' '
stimulating for the
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.
things
in these
indicate of con-
found in these works.
knows the things
of the
He forms thoughts about its
being and action. all
* '
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 is
God
a concept which
and
"being"
whom we
must not even *
For
"
man
'
being
is
'
too
exalted above
The God
ascribe attributes,
We
God.
'
has formed from
"not-being."
fore not the true
true God,
is.
It
But God
lower things.
to
*'
when we think
is
there-
come
to the
of
an "Over-
God" above and beyond any God with such attributes.
Of
this
we can know nothing
in the ordinary
In order to attain to
sense.
"Over-God"
Him
' '
know-
ing" must merge into "not-knowing."
One there
sees that at the root of such a
lies
the consciousness that
self is able to
which
is
man him-
develop a higher knowing,
no longer mere knowing
purely natural manner
what
view
—on
his various sciences
—in
a
the basis 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 in
is
supposed to cease,
the help
to
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
of
knowing.
On
the contrary, for
him, knowing clearly divides two,
first
into such
itself
into
knowing as mediates
our acquaintance with external objects,
and second into such as is itself the object of which one gains knowledge.
The in
first
mode
of
knowing
is
dominant
the sciences, 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 in
selves live
acquired.
in us
is
This second kind of knowing
Now, however, it is still one and the same world with which both these modes of knowing are
grows out of the
concerned; and
same man who
first.
is
it
is
one and the
Hence whence comes it
active in both.
the question must arise,
that one and the self-same
two
self-
different kinds of
man
develops
knowledge of one
and the same world. 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
Through
knowledge.
(lower)
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 well as his
own
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,
He
can
some hidden being
is
whose manifestations
and effects are only that which appears to him to be his own activities. But
now
the
moment may come
in which,
through
an incontrovertible inner ex-
perience,
it
becomes clear to the
he experiences,
in whq,t
man
that
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
its
Then he In a certain way I
and intimate form.
can say to himself:
find all other things ready given,
myself, standing apart from of
them, add
spirit I
most
has to
and
I
and outside
them whatever the about them. But what
to
tell
thus creatively add to the things in
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
spirit?
It is the
knowledge which
have acquired of the things of the world. But in this knowledge there I
speaks no longer an
effect,
a manifest-
ation; that which speaks expresses itself
wholly, it
holding back nothing of what
contains.
In this knowledge, there
speaks the world in IX
all
its
immediacy.
i62
But
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE have acquired
I
knowledge
this
of
among From out my own being
things and of myself, as one thing
other things. I
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
the experience that in myself
my own
essential
perience
expands
have gained I
experience
being; and this ex-
me
in
itself
to
the
further one that in myself and througn
myself
the
Itself, or I
can
thing feel
All-Being
in other words,
expresses
knows
Itself.
now no longer feel myself as a among other things I can now only ;
myself as a form
Being
Itself
lives
out Its
in
own
which the
life.
All-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA It is
thus only natural that one and
man
the same
he
is
should have two modes
Judging by the facts of the
of knowing. senses,
163
a thing
and, in so far as he
among is
other things,
that, he gains for
himself a knowledge of these things; but
any moment he can acquire the higher experience that he is really the form in
at
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
i64
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE and
knowledge;
through
only
man's
higher knowledge can things also bring their being forth into real existence.
therefore,
If,
we demand
that
man
add nothing to things through inner knowledge, but merely give
shall
pression
his
ex-
to whatever already exists in
the things outside of himself, that would really
amount
to a complete abnegation
From
of all 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,
himself accomplishes with
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,
he abandons the real
nature of things: himself
off
he shuts himself
from
if
he seeks to shut
he
sense-perception,
would shut out from himself the things
whose nature he seeks to know.
It is
same things which reveal themselves alike in the lower knowing these
very
and the higher
seeing; only in the
one
case they reveal themselves according 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 fact that all
raise
level
man must
is
first of
and transform himself to the
upon which the things cease
to be
external and outside.
In the light of these considerations,
some
of the views
which natural science
i66
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
has developed
during
the
nineteenth
century appear for the
first
time in the
views
The supporters of these us that we hear, see, and touch
Hght.
right
tell
the objects of the physical world through
The eye, for instance, transmits to us a phenomenon of light, a colour. 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 sen-
our senses.
sation in other cases also. is
If
struck or pressed upon, or
spark
is
if
the eyeball
an
allowed to pass through the
head, the eye has a sensation of It is thus
we have
a body emitting red really
light.
evident that even in the
cases in which
may
electric
the sensation of light,
be happening
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
(i
up
which the Her-
in us.
821-1893) 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
i68
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to
the peculiar nature 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
addition.
symbol,
how-
not required to have any sort
of resemblance bolises.
A
The
to
that which
it
sym-
necessary connection be-
tween the object and the symbol limited
to
this:
is
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
coloiira-
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
which
of thought
own.
It
me
of
produces an effect upon
my
I
is
brain.
brought
experience the sensation *^red."
is
Cp. Helmholtz, Die
in detail in
my
my
follows 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
assumed that something
is
happens outside
and
view makes
this
1
not outside, not ex-
Thatsachen der Wahrnehmung, this kind of conception
have characterised
my
Welt-
Philosophie der Freiheit, Berlin, 1894, and und Lehensanschauungen im Neunzehntcn
Jahrhundert, vol.
ii.,
p.
i.,
etc.
170
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE me;
ternal to tions
All our sensa-
in me.
it is
merely symbols or signs of
are
external occurrences of whose real quality
we know
We
nothing.
live
and move
in
our sensations and know nothing of their In
origin.
the
of
spirit
this
of
line
would thus be possible to assert that if we had no eyes, colour would not exist; for then there would be thought,
it
this, to us,
nothing to translate
unknown
wholly
happening into the
external
sensation "red.'*
For many people possesses
a
nevertheless
this line of
attraction;
curious it
thought
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 matter
1
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA of fact, this blindness has ruined in
1
7
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
is
to have
naturally
it
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
For
a similar occurrence.
undoubtedly 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
I
any more than
cannot perceive I
can directly
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
172
wave
perceive the
which
the
motions "outside'*
physicist
conceives
But
answering
to
really
only in this sense that
it is
the
colour
as
of
''red/' I
can
speak of an "inside" and an "outside" at
Only on the plane
all.
ception
can
of sense-per-
opposition
the
between
"outside" and "inside" hold good.
The
recognition of this leads
assume the existence "outside"
me
to
a
of
process in space and time, although
do not directly perceive
it
at
the same recognition further to
postulate
I
ceive that either. I
And leads me
all.
a similar process within
myself, although
fact,
I
habitually
cannot directly perBut, as a matter of postulate
analogous
occurrences in space and time in ordinary life
which
I
do not directly perceive;
for instance,
when
I
as,
hear piano-playing
next door, and assume that a human being
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA in space
seated at the piano and
is
playing upon
when
And my
it.
173
is
conception,
speak of processes happening
I
and within me,
is
just the
outside
of,
same.
asstime that these processes have
I
quaUties analogous to those of the pro-
which do
cesses
my
of
senses,
within the province
fall
only
that,
because
my
certain reasons, they escape
of
direct
perception. If
I
were to attempt to
these processes
my
senses
I
to
the qualities which
all
show me
space and time,
deny
in the
domains
of
should in reality and
be trying to think something not unlike the famous knife without in truth
a
Therefore,
time
was wanting. can only say that space and
whose
handle, I
processes
blade
take
place
''outside"
me; these bring about space and time processes ''within" me; and both are
»
174
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
necessary
if
appear in
the sensation "red"
my
field
so far as this "red"
of vision. is
time, I shall seek for I
myself.
Those
it
For
find
it is
and
philoso-
"outside,
it
it
"inside
>>
J
not "inside," in exactly
the same sense in which
To
in
equally in vain,
ought not to want to find
side."
And,
not in space and
scientists
who cannot
either.
to
seek "without" or "within"
whether
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
is
within
say:
These
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 out-
but belong, on the contrary, to that common world, of which my
side of us,
''external"
world and
world are only parts. able to grasp this it
is
true,
raise
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
remarks;
unknown upon
contemptously
look
will
these
feelings of
as,
Dr.
instance,
for
Erich Adikes in his book, Kant contra Haeckel, observes condescendingly:
people like Haeckel and thousands
first
of
type
his
without
philosophise
knowledge
reflection."
inkling of
of
others.
how cheap are.
critical
Let
about
critical
self-
Such gentlemen have no
knowledge
lack
or
away
gaily
themselves
troubling
theory of
of
^'At
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
177
man
plete recognition of the fact that
as a sense-being can only have in himself processes which, as effects, sarily
must
neces-
be altogether unlike the corres-
ponding external processes; while, the other side,
it
on
guards him against
confusing the inner processes with the facts
which make their appearance
in
the field of our perceptions, and which, in their
immediacy, are neither outside
nor 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
knowing" to "notknowing." At the same time we must also note that in the domain of the higher the progress from
*'
knowledge, or "ignorance," he unfolds practically nothing but the content of 12
178
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
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
Christianity.
in 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
it is
from within
"knowing** into a
capable
itself
"not-knowing,"
this in
such wise that the highest insight shall bring
satisfaction.
In
that
case,
he
would not simply have accepted the traditional ideas of the soul, immortality,
Trinity,
salvation,
and so
God, forth,
creation,
as he
the
actually
-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
179
but he would have represented his
did,
own.
But Nicholas personally was, however, saturated
so
with 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 to light the traditional views in which he was brought
he
up.
But he stood upon the verge precipice
terrible
of
man.
He was
in
a
the
spiritual
scientific
man.
science, primarily, estranges us
innocent harmony in which the world so long as
of a
we
life
Now
from the live
with
we abandon
our-
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 Nature'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 are a burden which culty; for selves
strength,
we
we bear with
diffi-
And we must now, by
again to Nature. that
but our riches
weighs primarily upon our-
alone.
own
our
it
;
We
ourselves
way back
the
find
have to recognise
must now
fit
our
wealth into the stream of world activities, just
as previously
our poverty.
fitted in lie
Nature
in wait for
man
strength can easily
herself
All evil
demons
at this point. fail
him.
had 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 loneliness, which leads back once more refuge in
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
i8i
the knowledge that he feels a burden, into the very
Godhead.
womb
of being, into the
Like Nicholas of Cusa, he
will believe that
he
is
own
travelling his
road; and yet in reality he will 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)
phrastus Paracelsus
and
(i 493-1 541)
Theofollowed
the same road along which points Nicholas of
Cusa's
way
of conceiving things.
They devoted themselves of Nature,
laws by
all
to the study
and sought to discover her the means in their power and
as thoroughly as possible.
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
in
medicine
studied
much
sprang from a noble
family and was early
183
He
Cologne.
and law, and
sought to obtain clear insight into the
way which was then customary within certain circles and societies, or even among isolated processes of Nature in the
investigators,
who
studiously kept secret
whatever of the knowledge of Nature they
For
discovered.
he went repeatedly to to England,
and
He
purposes
Paris, to Italy,
also visited the
Abbot Trithemius burg.
these
of
Sponheim
and
famous
in Wiirz-
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
ground,
is
it
if
upon its own
to yield the right basis
the attainment of a higher level.
for
The
Nature"
"spirit in
spirit.
exists only for
So surely as Nature
is spiritual,
so surely too
is
in this sense
there nothing
in Nature, of all that is perceived
bodily
which
organs,
There
spiritual.
Therefore,
I
is
my
interpret
the external world
spiritual;
immediately
must not seek for the spirit ;
I
my
eye as spiritual.
as such in Nature but that
doing when
by
nothing spiritual
exists
which can appear to
in
special
is
I
am
any occurrence immediately as
when, 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;
as, for instance,
assert of the hiiman soul that
it
when
I
continues
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
sensible.
spirit in
some-
mistakes
It
equally both the real nature of the sensible
and
also that
de-spiritualises
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
once
rarity,
and which cannot
be grasped
in
their
all
natural
sequence and connection.
But the
spiritist
down
spirit
further
drags the
into a lower sphere.
of explaining
Instead
something that happens in
and that he perceives through his senses only, in terms of forces and beings which in their turn are spacial and perspace,
ceptible
to
senses,
he resorts to
which he thereby places exactly
''spirits,"
on a
the
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;
i88
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
we
therefore satisfy our craving for the
spiritual
with mere beings perceptible
Their own inner
to the senses. reveals to such
men
and therefore they seek through the senses. flying
through the
spirit
nothing spiritual; for the spiritual
As they
see clouds
so they would
air,
fain see spirits hastening along.
Agrippa
von Nettesheim fought
genuine
science
the
of Nature,
phenomena
for
which
a
shall
of Nature, not
explain
by means
of spirits phenomenalising in the world of the senses, but by seeing in
Nature only
the natural, and in the spirit only the spiritual.
Of course, Agrippa misunderstood
if
will
be entirciy
one compares his natural
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
NETTESHEIAd AND PARACELSUS
189
entirely referring to the direct action of
things which only depend
spirits,
upon
natural connections or upon mistaken
Such a wrong
experience.
is
done to
him by Moriz Carriere when he
says,
not in any malicious sense,
true:
it
is
''Agrippa gives a huge list of things which belong to the Sun, the Moon, the
Planets and the fixed stars, and receive influences from
them;
for
instance:
to
the Sun are related Fire, Blood, Laurel, Gold,
Chrysolite;
they confer the
of the Sun: Courage, Cheerfulness,
Light.
.
.
.
Animals
sense, which, higher
have
a
.
.
.
Men
and
natural
than himian under-
standing, approaches the spirit of
phecy.
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,
190
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
mills, that flashes, that
they cannot work, lightning
they cannot
strike.
This
is
brought about through drinks, salves, images, rings, incantations; the blood of hy-
enas or basilisks purpose'
—
it
is
adapted to such a
reminds one of Shakespeare's
cauldron."
witches'
remind one
of that,
Agrippa aright. without saying his time
tionable.
—
No; if
it
does
not
one understands
He believed-— it goes in many facts which in
everybody regarded as unques-
But we
still
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 lumberroom of "blind" superstition? I
am
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-
with
pared
all
previous
similar
creation,"
marked by
that
to
of
''theories
the recognition of the roundness of the earth
contrasted with
as
speculations as to
am
less, I
learned
to be
is
which
will
works and
found
treatises
many a
"fact**
seem to future centuries to be
just as little of a fact as
celsus
Neverthe-
form.
vividly conscious that in our
scientific
there
its
previous
all
much
that Para-
and Agrippa maintain; but the
really important point
is
not what they
regarded as "fact," but hoWy in spirit,
what
they interpreted their "facts."
In Agrippa 's time, there
understanding
or
sympathy
was for
little
the
"natural magic" he represented, which
192
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
sought
Nature
in
spiritual only
to
the
in
the
natural
— the
men
clung
the spirit
"supernatural
;
magic,"
which
sought the spiritual in the realm of the
and which Agrippa combated. Therefore the Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim was right in giving him the sensible,
advice to communicate his views only as a secret teaching to a few chosen
who
pupils of
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
to this
point
of
be that Agrippa
same Abbot view.
In
his his
Steganography, Trithemius has produced
a book in which he handled with the
most subtle irony that mode of conceiving things which confuses nature with spirit.
In this book he apparently speaks of
•
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS but
nothing
Any one
occurrences.
supernatural
reading
it
as
believe that the author
is
193
stands must
it
talking of conju-
rations of spirits, of spirits flying through
the
air,
and so on.
however, one
If,
drops certain words and letters under the table,
remain
there
—as
Wolfgang
Ernst Heidel proved in the year 1676 letters
which, combined into words, de-
scribe purely natural occurrences.
one
case,
last
one must drop
words
entirely,
(In
a formula of
for instance, in
conjuration,
and
—
the
first
and then cancel
from the remainder the second, fourth, sixth,
over,
and so on. one must
In the words
again cancel the
third, fifth letters
and so
combines what
then
and the itself
13
conjtiration
into a
cation.)
is
on.
left
left first,
One next
into words;
formula
resolves
purely natural communi-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
194
How
difficult
was
it
Agrippa to
for
work himself free from the prejudices of his time and to rise to a pure perception is
proved by the fact that he did not
allow his "Occult Philosophy" {Philoso-
phia Occulta), already written in 15 lo, to appear before the year 1531, because
he considered
dence of this fact ' *
Further evi-
unripe.
it
is
given by his work
On the Vanity of the Sciences
tate
Scientiarum)
with
of
bitterness
the
'
difficulty
and
He
there
he has only with
wrenched himself
phantasy which beholds tions
immediate
external
facts
speaks
scientific
other activities of his time. states quite clearly that
{De Vani-
he
which
in
'
free
from the
in external ac-
spiritual
processes, in
prophetic 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
calls
on
and other
Nature, in so far as
this level,
is
it
given for its
phy-
forces.
He
substances,
its
chemical
sical,
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
its
natural inter-
orders things according
it
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 surroimdings.
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, item
is
in
which each individual
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
'
is
world
'
.
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
in a similar
manner, only
fected form.
consider
Theophrastus Paracelsus,
them
more
in
per-
It is better, therefore, to
with
in connection
the
latter.
Paracelsus characterises himself aptly,
when he
writes
under
portrait:
his
''None shall be another's slave, who for himself can remain alone.'' attitude towards knowledge
these words.
He
strives
His whole is
given in
everywhere to
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
197
go back himself to the deepest foundations of natural knowledge, in order to
by
rise
own
his
strength to the loftiest
regions of cognition.
As Physician, he
will not, like his contemporaries,
simply
accept what the ancient investigators,
who then counted
as authorities,
—Galen
or Avicenna, for instance, asserted long
ago; he
is
resolved to read for himself
directly in the
book
of Nature.
**The
Physician must pass Nature's examination,
which
origins.
is
And
the
world,
and
the
very
same
all its
that
Nature teaches him, he must command to his wisdom, but seek for nothing in his
wisdom, only and alone in the light
of
Nature."
He
shrinks from nothing,
in order to learn to
her workings in
know Nature and
all directions.
For
this
purpose he made journeys to Sweden,
Hungary, Spain, Portugal, and the East.
198
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
can truly say of himself:
have
'*I
followed the Art at the risk of
my
life,
and have not been ashamed to learn from wanderers, executioners and sheepMy doctrine was tested more shearers. 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
upward
if
he himself experiences the
from
climb the
Nature to
the knowledge of
highest
living, personal experience
mouth the proud will
follow truth,
monarchy.
.
.
.
puts into his
utterance: ''He
must come
into
After me; not
you, Avicenna, Rhases, Galen,
After me; not
This
insight.
I after
you,
I
who
my after
Mesur!
ye of Paris,
ye of Montpellier, ye of Swabia, ye of Meissen, ye of Cologne, ye of Vienna and
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
199
on the Danube and the Rhine; ye islands in the sea, thou Italy, thou Dalmatia, thou Athens, thou Greek,
what
of
lies
thou Arab, thou I
Israelite; after
me, not
the Monarchy."
after you!
Mine
It is easy to
misunderstand Paracelsus
because
of
his
is
rough
exterior,
which
sometimes conceals a deep earnestness behind a jest. Does he not himself say: ''By nature I am not subtly woven, nor brought up on
figs
and wheat-bread, but
on cheese, milk and rye-bread, wherefore I may well be rude with the over-clean and superfine for those who were brought ;
up
in
soft
clothing
and we who were
bred in pine needles do not easily understand one another. When in myself I
mean
to be kindly, I
be taken as rude. strange to one in the
sun?"
must
How
therefore often
can
I
not be
who has never wandered
200
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
In his book about Winkelmann, Goethe
man
has described the relation of
Nature
self
the following beautiful sen-
"When
tence:
man
in
to
nature
healthy
the
acts as a whole;
when he
feels
of
him-
as one with a great, beautiful, noble
and worthy whole; when the sense
of
harmonious well-being gives him a pure then would the Universe,
and
free delight
if it
could 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
With
being/'
own
its
a
be-
feeling
such as finds expression in these sentences,
From
Paracelsus
out of
its
is
simply saturated.
depths the riddle of
humanity takes shape for him. Let us watch how this happens in Paracelsus's sense.
At the
outset,
the
road
by which
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS Nature has travelled to attain her altitude
hidden
is
of comprehension.
from
201
loftiest
man's power
She has climbed,
deed, to the stmimit; but the
does not proclaim:
whole of Nature;
I feel it
in-
summit
myself as the
proclaims, on the
contrary: I feel myself as this single,
separated
human
reality
an achievement of the whole
is
universe,
feels
being.
itself
That which a
as
separated,
isolated being, standing alone
This indeed viz.,
is
that he
in
by
itself.
the true being of man,
must needs
feel
himself to
be something quite different from what, in ultimate analysis, if
he really
that be a contradiction,
man
is.
And
then must
be called a contradiction come to
life.
Man
is
particular
the
universe
way; he regards
in
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
This
a single being.
which Paracelsus
as
is;
but
a repetition, as is
feels as
the
contrast
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
his
is
This
spirit.
spirit
way,
appears
bound to a single being, to a single organism: and this organism belongs, by
as
if
the very nature of
its
whole being, to the
mighty stream 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
appears as an out-
this single, separated organism, itself
at the outset as
only with that organism. this
or
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-
man and
tween the
in
basic
the universe
foundations
connection which presence of
**
is
hidden
lies
of
being,
a
hidden through the
That
spirit/*
spirit
which
by making
leads us to higher
insight
knowledge
and leads on
possible,
this
knowledge to a new birth on a higher
—this
level'
men, to
has, as its first result 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
and our highest nature, our
universe; spirit,
which
lives
its
man*s nature Paracelsus
a purely
in
life
The
manner.
spiritual
first
factor
calls
the
mentary body " the second, the ;
heavenly,
or
in
Paracelsus
the
''ele-
ethereal-
Soul.'*
"astral"
phenomena,
an
intermediate
recognises
stage between
in
body"; and the
''astral
names "the
third he
Thus
entire
the purely physical and
the properly spiritual or soul-phenomena.
Therefore these astral activities will come into view veils
when the
spirit or soul,
which
or conceals the natural basis
our being, suspends
its activity.
of
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
occurrences
and with
205
significant connection
in
environment
our
states of our inner nature, are
products of our natural basis or rootbeing, which are obscured light of the soul.
by the
brighter
For example, when a
chair falls 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
see
that
in
come sense and
these dreams natural operations to
light
which are
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.
full,
is
clear consciousness
Connected with
this region
phenomena belonging to the domain of hypnotism and suggestion; and in the latter are we not compelled are all the
2o6
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to recognise an interaction between hu-
man
beings,
nection
which points to some con-
or relation
Nature, which
is
between beings
normally hidden by the
From
higher activity of the mind? starting point
in
we can
this
reach an under-
standing of what Paracelsus meant by the
*'
astral" body.
It is the simi total
of those natural operations
influence
we
stand,
or
under whose
may
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
man, Paracelsus
the
nature of
him
into seven factors or prin-
which are the same as those we
ciples,
wisdom of the ancient Egyptians, among the Neoplatonists and
also find in the
in
Kabbalah.
the
man
a
is
In the
physical-bodily
therefore subject to the
He
every other body.
is,
place,
first
being,
and
same laws as in this respect,
therefore, a purely ''elementary" body.
The purely into
physical-bodily laws combine
an organic
life-process,
and Para-
celsus denotes this organic sequence of
law by the terms
''
spiritus
Next, the organic rises into a
vitcey
region
''archceus'' or
of
phenomena resembling
the
spiritual,
but which are not yet properly
spiritual,
and these he
classifies as
From amidst
tral"
phenomena.
astral
phenomena, the functions
"asthese
of the
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
2o8
**
animal
Man
make
soul**
their appearance.
becomes a being of the
Then he connects
together his sense
impressions according to
by
comes
nature,
their
his understanding or mind,
"human
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
that
he
was
himself, but that in
was uttering
Itself.
come about
in
speaking
felt
no
within
him the Root-Being The condition has
which the
All-Spirit
in
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
man
beholds
stamped the
Itself.
Paracelsus
"And
that
thing whereon to dwell: there
heaven or upon earth that
also
With nature,
is
a great
is
naught
is
not in
And God who dwelleth in Heaven,
Man.
He
has
feeling of this condition with
the simple words:
in
209
is
in Man.'*
these seven principles of htiman
Paracelsus
aims at expressing
nothing else than the facts of inner and outer
The
experience.
unquestioned that, what for perience subdivides plicity
reality
of
itself
exists just for the
human
ex-
into a multi-
seven factors,
a unity.
remains
fact
in
higher
But the higher
insight
is
very purpose of exhibit-
ing the unity 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 in its spirituality, when he enters into
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,
him wholly, immediately one then
first
divine.
is
for
Must
ascribe to the plant a soul
after the kind of a himian 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
to
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
211
proceed from the root-matter,
the
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.
Word"
When
he says that the ''Divine
called
forth the multiplicity of beings
from the root-matter, one must understand this also only in such wise as per-
haps
in
must Force
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
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
212
when he
"There
says:
is
nothing which
does not possess and carry with
a
spirit
hidden
in
Also,
not
withal.
which
stirs itself
mals, the in the
and that
it
only
has
it
lives
that
and moves, as men,
worms
also
not life,
ani-
in the earth, the birds
sky and the
fishes in water,
but
bodily and actual things as well.'*
all
But
such sayings Paracelsus only
in
aims at warning us against that supercontemplation of Nature which ficial fancies
it
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
at
putting
into
some imaginary being, but at
setting in
motion
all
the powers of
man
to bring out that which in actual fact lies
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. to is,
man, a
He
ascribes
for instance, a dual flesh, that
dual
bodily constitution.
"The
must also be understood, that it is of two kinds, namely the flesh that comes from Adam and the flesh which is not flesh
from Adam.
The
gross flesh, for besides flesh,
flesh
it is
Adam
from
that can be
bound and
the
Adam,
it
The other is
a subtle
and cannot be bound or grasped,
flesh
for
not from
a
earthly and nothing
grasped like wood and stone. flesh is
is
it
is
flesh
not
made
that
everything that
is
What from Adam? It
of earth."
is
is
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 modern
conceptions of
scientific
and those
inherited characteristics
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 a
was
''gross flesh" like the animal,
flesh that
like
"can be bound and grasped
wood and
In a
stone."
sense, therefore, the soul
is
scientific
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
Naturally of
Adam."
that comes from
flesh
I
the
blurring
between a
have not the
least intention
that
difference
scientist of the sixteenth
one of the nineteenth century. indeed, this latter century first
exists
time was able to
scientific sense, the
and
It was,
which for the
see,
in the full
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 Linnaeus in the eighteenth
century
saw
a
characterised
it
are counted
as
spiritual
process
in the words:
many
species
and
"There of living"
beings, as there were created different
forms
in
the beginning."
While thus
in Linnaeus'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 '*
creating*'
spirit-
or
life,
them: the natural science
the nineteenth
of
century could give to
Nature what belonged to Nature, and
what belonged
to Spirit
Nature
is
even assigned the task of exher
plaining
own
and the
creations;
Spirit can plunge into itself there,
alone of
it is
To
to Spirit.
where
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 For to man a self-creative activity. if
the divine root of being
given once for
as
is,
it
were,
then there can be no
all,
question of any truly creative activity in
man.
who then
It is
not man, living in time,
but
creates,
from Eternity, that Paracelsus there Eternity.
is
it
is
God, who
creates.
for
no such God from
For him there
eternal happening,
But
is
and man
in this eternal happening.
is is
only
an
one link
What man
forms, was previously in no sense existent.
What man
creates,
is,
as he creates
new, original creation. called divine,
it
If
it
is
it,
a
to be
can only be so-called in
the sense in which
it is
a
human
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 beings
is
2i8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
without man, not that which
it
is
with
man. ''For nature brings nothing to light,
which as such
make it perfect ity of is
man
perfect,
is . '
This
'
but
man must
self -creative activ-
in 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 stumbling-block therein that neither Gold nor Silver shall
thee therefrom.
come
But have regard
to
there-
unto, that the Arcana [curative means]
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS be revealed unto thee. pillar
of
medicine
preparation
come
to pass without
.
The
.
Alchemy,
is
medicines
the
of
.
219
third
for the
cannot
because Nature
it,
cannot be made use of without Art." In the strictest sense, therefore, the eyes of Paracelsus are directed to Nature, 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
as
an Alchemist.
tures to 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,
call
we
have
still
to-day.
these four "elements"
no
longer "elements," but states of aggre-
gation and have for them the designations: solid, liquid, gaseous
The Earth,
for
and
was
instance,
etheric.
for
the
ancients not earth, but the "solid."
Again,
we can
recognise the
clearly
three root-substances
of
Paracelsus in
contemporary conceptions, though not present
in
names
of
like
sound.
Paracelsus, dissolution in a liquid
For
and
burning are the two most important chemical If
processes
which
he
a body be dissolved or burnt,
up
into its parts.
utilises. it
breaks
Something remains
behind as insoluble; something dissolves, or
is
burnt.
What
is
left
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
the
spirit
all costs
will
with his senses,
people these processes with
all sorts
ensouling beings.
He, however, who
Paracelsus knows
how
in
connection
permits
its
the
with
secret to
to regard
to
of
like
them which
whole,
become revealed
in
man's inner being,—he accepts them, as the senses offer them; he does not first re-interpret
them;
for
currences of Nature
lie
sensible reality, so too
own way,
reveal
existence.
That
to
just as the
oc-
before us in their
do they,
in their
us the riddle of
which
through
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 that
or
revealed
get
suppositious ''Spirit of
man
all
super-
can invent
him about
to
There
''spirit."
their is
^no
Nature," capable of uttering
loftier truths
Nature
for
than the mighty works of
herself,
when our
in friendship with that
soul links itself
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
Nature which should breathe the spirit of the higher insight that he represented.
A
thinker related to him,
the same his
mode
own nature
WEIGEL
(1
who
applied
of conceiving things to
especially,
533-1 588).
is
valentine
He grew up
out
of Protestant theology in a like sense to
that in which Eckhart, Tauler, and Suso
grew up out
of
Roman
Catholic theology.
has predecessors in Sebastian Frank and Caspar Schwenckfeldt. These two,
He
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.
whom
Jesus
For them
become lower
is
not that
the Gospels preach
of value, but the Christ
man
in every
it
who
is
who can be born
as his deeper nature,
and
him the Saviour from the and the guide to ideal uplifting.
for
life
Weigel performed silently and humbly 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 *
The
named:
following,
Der
from among
zu erkennen, vielen Ilochgelehrten Menschen nothwendig zu wis sen; Ort der Welt.
his
writings,
may
be
Ding oJme Irr thumb unbekandt, and dock alien Erkenne dich selbst; Vom
gulde?ie 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,
a question as to which
is
he can only give himself an account when he knows how
man
knows.
from the lowest kind
How
asks himself: object,
when
it
do
Weigel starts
of knowing. 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
object, the
"counterpart"
stand opposed.
sense-organ)
and the
{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,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
226
or the perceiver, which sees or
knows the
do thou hold over against each other: whether the knowledge comes object, so
object to the eye;
forth from the
or
whether the judgment, or the cognition, flows out from the eye into the object/''
Weigel
now
cognition
says
himself:
to
knowledge)
(or
the "counterpart"
flowed
(or thing)
eye, then of necessity
If
the
from
into the
from one and the
same thing a similar and perfect cogniBut that tion must come to all eyes. not the case, for each
man
sees accord-
ing to the measure of his
own
eyes.
is
the
eyes,
not
the
''counterpart*'
Only (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
giildene Griff, p.
26 et seq.
WEIGEL AND BOEHME naturally could not read still
in
be there, and yet
it,
if
reading.
I
The book
everything
ception.
I
it
If
can give
me
must draw
not
forth
' '
counter-
can give the eye nothing
The eye must recogitself, what colour is.
itself.
as the content of the
the reader, just so eye.
I
it
read from within myself.
from out of
little
must be
therefore
Colour is there as the
from out of
As
might
also the nature of sensible per-
part," but
nise,
it
did not understand the art of
the smallest thing;
is
but
could read nothing
I
there; but, from itself
That
it;
22^
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
is
it
also with the sensible
object.
What
him
that does not flow from outside
is;
the sensible thing before
228
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE man, but from within out-
into the
wards.
from
Starting
might say:
from not
man
If all
is
in
one
knowledge flows out
into the object, then one does
know what
what
thoughts,
these
is
in the object,
man.
The
but only
detailed working
out of this line of thought, brought about
Kant (1724-1804).^ Weigel says to himself: Even if the knowledge flows out from man, it is still
the view of Immanuel
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 exbook, The Philosophy of Freedom, Berlin,
plained in 1894.
so
it,
my
Here
I
must
limit myself to mentioning that Val-
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 itself. Man cannot remain passive when 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,
within
himself.
object) merely in the spirit.
ledge
atti-
and bring forth the knowledge from
when
The counterpart
Man his
''counterpart.'*
(or
awakens the knowledge 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
but only an inner awakening.
revelation,
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
be his own
''counterpart ** (or object) until the
ledge of his in
him.
senses,
own
If,
in
know-
being shall be awakened
through the
cognition
man must
assimie an active atti-
tude in order that he the "counterpart** the higher knowing, self
must
may
its
bring to meet
own
being, so in
man must
passive, 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/'
Mercy"
is,
in reaHty,
This
231
"Light
of
nothing other than spirit in
the self-knowledge of the
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 is it also the case
He
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
can
the
regard
latter
as
only as far as the starting-
point. *
*
*
;
232
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
What works Htz,
meet us from the
rings out to
Master-Shoemaker
of the
Jacob Boehme
(i 575-1624),
hke the joyous outburst miring her
A man
sounds
Nature ad-
of
own being upon
of her evolution.
of Gor-
the summit
appears before
us whose words have wings,
woven out
of the inspiring feeHng of having seen
knowledge shining within him as Higher Jacob Boehme describes his
Wisdom.
own
state as Piety
to be
which
strives only
Wisdom, and as a Wisdom that
seeks to live only in Piety: wrestling
and
"As
I
was
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 himself as
its in-
an organ of
WEIGEL AND BOEHME the
great
22,2>
speaking in him.
All-Spirit,
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 was not thereby and did not myself see
him be
I
it.
said that in the essence of
and body, when
soul 'I,'
it
but when
I
was
I
still
To
my
was not yet the Adam's essence,
was there present and myself squandered
away
my
Only
glory in Adam.'*
in
external similes
able to indicate
how
in his inner being.
is
Boehme
the light broke forth
When
once as a boy
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
;
A
and he goes
on his way without touching the treasure. Later on he in
apprenticed to a shoemaker
A
Gorlitz.
shop
is
stranger steps into the
and demands a pair
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
little,
to
him
but thou wilt
some day become quite another man,
whom
over
wonder."
the world will break out into
In riper years, Jacob
Boehme
sees the reflection of the bright sun in a tin vessel: the
view that thus presents
him seems to him to unveil a profound secret. Even after the impres-
itself
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, hum-
lives as
bly earning his living by his trade, and
between
recollection,
in his inner being
The
the Spirit in himself.
makes
of priestly fervour
the
man;
own
his
he notes down the harmonies
which resound feels
though for
whiles, as
he,
who
desires
life
when he z ealotry
hard for
naught but to
read the Scripture which the light of his inner nature illtmiinates for him, is
persecuted and tortured
whom
by those
only the external writ, the rigid,
dogmatic confession of
faith, is accessible.
One world -riddle remains ing
presence in Jacob
driving
to
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 ment.
Nature
human
develop-
own
is
governed by
great laws; yet
its
harmony
by happenings
of
no purport, and the
warfare of the elements.
is
its
disturbed
How
is
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
The
plain the world?
unexplained exdiscord
must be
explained out of the harmony, the evil
out of the good
itself.
Let us restrict
ourselves, in speaking of these things, to
the good and the of
harmony
in the
evil,
wherein the lack
narrower sense finds
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
For, fundamentally, Ja-
expression.
its
Boehme
cob
He
this.
237
also
can do
himself
restricts
so, for
Nature and
appear to him as a single entity. purposeless seems to
him an
man
He sees The
both similar laws and processes.
in
to
evil
some-
thing in Nature, just as evil seems to
him something purposeless lar
and
in
man. Simi-
fundamental forces rule both here there.
To one who has known
origin of evil in
man, the source
Nature
open and
also lies
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 OF THE RENAISSANCE
238
members, so
human
as
life
multiplicity of
Being
is
is
poured out into this
members, so too the Root-
poured out into the manifoldness
As true
of the things of this world.
that the entire
it is
so true
life,
own
its
is it
life.
dicts the
man
that every
And
as
little
whole harmonious
it
own body and wound
as
has only one
that his hand should turn his
And
also the Root-Being.
member has as
it
life
of a
itself it,
contra-
man,
against
so little
is
impossible that the things of the world,
which
live the life of the
own way, should turn themselves
their
against
each
other.
Being, in dividing lives,
confers
is
forth, lives.
Thus the Root-
itself
among
upon each such
capacity to turn It
Root-Being in
itself
different 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
it
pierces the darkness, so the
can bring
meates
239
itself
its
to
only
life
From
opposite.
''fathomless
when
abyss'' of
darkness there
;
of
the
per-
out of the
streams forth the light from the lessness"
it
good
indifferent
brought to birth the Good.
' '
ground-
there
And
is
as in
the shadow only the brightening demands a pointing to the Hght; but the darkness, as a matter of course,
weakens the
is felt
as that which
light; so too in the world,
only the law-abiding character that sought for in all things; and the evil,
it is is
the purposeless,
is
accepted as a matter
of course, intelligible in itself.
Thus, in
Jacob Boehme the All, still nothing
spite of the fact that for
the Root-Being
is
be understood, unless one has an eye both to the Root-Being and its opposite at once. ''The good
in the world can
has swallowed up into
itself
the evil or
240
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the hideous. itself
.
.
good and
ment, as
Every being has
.
and
evil,
becomes a contradiction one seeks to overcome the
Hence
in its unfold-
passes over into division,
it
it
of qualities, as other.'*
altogether in accordance
is
it
in
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**
Being.
''The external world
and eternally only
through the Root-
will
.
.
.
not God,
not be called God, but
a being wherein
Himself.
is
When
God
manifests
one says:
God
is
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
241
heaven and earth, and also the outer world, so is that true: for from
God
all,
is
him and rooted.
him all stands originally But what am I to do with such in
a saying, which
is
no
religion?**
With such a view in the background, Jacob Boehme's conceptions as to the being of the whole world built themselves
up
mind, so that he makes the
in his
orderly world emerge in a series of steps
from
''fathomless
the
world builds
itself
up
abyss/'
This
in seven natural
In dark astringency the Root-
forms.
Being receives form, dumbly shut up within itself and motionless. This as-
Boehme
tringency
grasps
under
the
In
employing such
designations he leans
upon Paracelsus,
symbol
of
Salt.
who had borrowed from chemical cesses
his
Nature. 16
names
By
for the
swallowing up
pro-
processes its
of
opposite,
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)
the symbol for this second form.
is
Rest and Motion,
In the struggle of of
Quicksilver (Mer-
it.
Death with
the third form of
Life,
Nature unveils
Life battling within
itself,
becomes mani-
thenceforward no
fest to itself; it lives
longer an outer battle of there quivers through
unifying
up
its
form living
glowing
own
of
battle
flash,
as
of
first,
there
On is
it
were a lighting
This fourth
in
this level,
as
present an inner
astringency and dumbness; only
not an absolute
rest,
opposites, but
an
the
fifth,
resting
parts
the
members;
itself
to the
rises
themselves (Water).
upon the
it
its
being (Fire).
Nature
This
(Sulphur).
itself
it
is
a silence of the inner
interior
movement
of
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
It is not the motionless
the opposites. resting in
itself,
but the moved, that
which has been kindled by the of
the fourth
level,
Upon
stage.
the Root-Being
of itself as such inner
itself life.
fire-flash
the
sixth
becomes aware Living beings
endowed with senses represent of Nature.
243
Jacob Boehme
this
form
calls it
the
"Clang*' or Call, and in so doing adopts the
sense-perception
symbol
sound as the
for sense-perception in general.
The seventh form raising itself
perceptions self
of
of
Nature
is
on the basis of (Wisdom).
He
the Spirit, its
finds
sense-
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
Boehme
such
with seeks
to
views
that
Jacob
fathom that world
which for him, according to the knowledge
was reckoned as the actual For him all is fact which fact.
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
of the Bible
and the
geological knowledge
and the
devils,
but Lyell's
and the
facts
Haeckel's The History of Creation.
who can
fight
of
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 Morgenrothe
im Aufgang; Die
drei Prinzi-
das dreifache Leben des Menschen; Das umgewandte Auge; *' Signafura rerum" oder von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen; Das pien gottlichen Lebens oder
' *
Mysterium Magnum.
'
iiher
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
which compels the
intellectual structure
men
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
stars,
however, were for them beings
of 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 in the pure aether, which seemed like some spiritual nature filling
space.
Nicholas of Cusa had
al-
ready formed other ideas.
Through Copernicus, earth became
man
heavenly others.
to
for
a brother-being in face of the other
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
of
earth.
He
much
as the
could 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
come
to
expanded
In earlier centuries, of
man
stood before
Now he was confronted new task. No longer could the
a world of
with a
mind
this
after
facts.
things of earth only express this nature
from within man's inner being. This inner nature of his was called on to embrace 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
249
have conquered the universe of space; henceforth the Spirit
found
in space.
is
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 nattiral
knowledge forces humanity.
The
sun of those ideas, which later should shine
upon a new view still
of Nature, with
stands below the horizon
light already
at a time itself still
The
;
but their
appears as the early
when men's thoughts
them
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 OF THE RENAISSANCE
science
had advanced so
far that,
even
within the phenomena of plant, animal,
and human
life,
it
could assign to the
world of sensible facts that which belongs to
it.
Neither, then, in the ^ther 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 century 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 a
further,
that
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
251
attained
standpoint,
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
reality,
this immaterial Spirit is not
even
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
thinker,
B.
Carneri, ventured to say (in his book:
Empfindung und Bewusstsein,
"The dictum: ^
No
spirit
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe.
p.
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.
Man's
soul
is
a sum of processes in which Spirit appears most immediately as fact. In the
form
of such a soul, however, Spirit is
man
present in
only.
And
it
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
254
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
not experienced Spirit within himself;
he has only experienced that outer form of appearance of Spirit, the Soul,
reigns in him.
But that
is
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 assume also such a soul-form in non-
human things, may not need
in order that thereby
to remain rooted in the
materiality of the gross senses. of thinking the
he
Instead
Root-Being of the world
as Spirit, he thinks of
it
as World-Soul,
and postulates a general ensoulment
of
Nature.
Giordano Bruno, upon
whom
the
Copernican view of Nature forced
new
itself,
could grasp Spirit in the world, from
which
it
had been expelled
in its old form,
BRUNO AND in
On
SILESIUS
255
no other manner than as World-Soul. plunging into Bruno's writings
pecially
deeply
his
De Rerum
Principiis
thoughtful 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 of the
human
encountered
soul, it.
wherein alone he has
When
he
of
in the following
Spirit,
he conceives of
way:
''The universal reason
it
speaks
is
the in-
most, most effective and most special
and a potential part of the World-Soul it is something one and iden-
capacity,
;
tical,
which
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-
256
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
brate," but
it is
to the
is like
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,
become a
to
plant,
finds a sub-
an animal, and
itself
that
ordinarily called ensouled.
is
Spirit is to
or-
any body you choose
ganises
to
out
reaches
be found in
For
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
it
come
to life."
Because
Giordano
Bruno
had
not
really experienced the Spirit, as Spirit, in
the
himself, life
he could therefore confuse
of the Spirit with the external
mechanical processes,
mond
wherewith Ray-
Lully (1235-13 1 5) wanted to unveil
the secrets of the Spirit in his so-called
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
A
"Great Art*' (Ars Magna). philosopher, Franz
257
recent
Brentano, describes
this ''Great Art'' thus: ''Concepts
to be inscribed
upon
rately revolving discs,
concentric,
were 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 Brimo, 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 scientific
of
thinking beyond the confines
earth; he thought of the heavenly
bodies no longer as bodily spirits; but
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 of heaven in the same view of the universe
which hitherto had been
applied only to things upon earth, even
though Bruno did
still
think of the sen-
sible as soul-like. :{:
«
4:
In the seventeenth century there appeared Johann Scheffler, called Angelus SiLESius
whom
624-1 677), a personality in
(1
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
were, into a
and shining with enhanced
power,
the
named make
in his book:
it
ideas
of
the
their appearance
" Cherubinischer
Wanders-
BRUNO AND mann.
And
Silesius utters
259
und
Schluss-
Sinn-
Geistreiche
reime/'
SILESIUS
everything that Angelas
appears as such an im-
mediate, inevitable, natural revelation of his personality, that
man had
it is
as 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
what he says
the breath of another world, freed
beforehand from
all
that
is
gross
and
impure, wherefrom htmian wisdom generally only toilsomely
He of
only
Angelus
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 Hght
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 in most intimate communion one with another?"— ''I am as rich as God; there and
fire,
I in
can be no grain of dust that
me, man, Him."-
—^have
— ''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
water
lives
the
fish,
my
God's own hand."— "Art thou
born of God, then bloometh God in thee; and His Godhead is thy sap and thy
adornment."—' Halt '
thou?
God
Heaven
is
!
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 himself
as.
does he
feel
all
that there
is
of
world,
it
that so
thee,
— bound." ''Man has
holds
strongly
is
all
things;
if
lacking to him, then in truth he
not his
As a
own
thee,
in
captive
never perfect
before that unity has swallowed
— "Man ness."-
itself.
holds thee not; thou art
thyself the world
with
him
own proper
being, indeed, as that World- Whole
thee,
feels
a single individual; rather
as a part of the world, his
"The
self
up
bliss
other-
aught
is
knoweth
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 him;
and time out-
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 that
there
earlier
is
spiritual;
and nothing
time have
is
later; space
vanished in the
of the All-Spirit.
nothing
Only so long as
there;
and
man
he here
is
and only so long as
he looks forth as an individual, earlier,
and
contemplation
looks forth as an individual,
and the thing
is
this later.
**Man,
is if
this
thou
swingest thy spirit over time and place, so each
— nity."
moment ''I
am
canst thou be in eter-
myself eternity when
I
self in
God and
that here thine outer eye doth
see, it so
leave time behind, and
God
in self
— together grasp."' "The rose
hath bloomed in God from
— "In
all
eternity."
centre set thyself, so see'st thou
what then and now occurred, here and in heaven's realm." "So long for thee, my friend, in mind lies place
all
at once:
—
and time: so long graspest thou not what 's God, nor what eternity. "^
—
BRUNO AND "When man from
SILESIUS
263
manifoldness with-
draws, and inward turns to God, so Com-
The stmimit has thus
eth he to unity/*
man
been climbed, whereon
steps forth
**!'*
and abolishes every opposition between the world and
beyond
his individual
A
himself.
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 self
and
spirit
lettest
happens
raise thyself
God
overrule;
ascenvsion
above thythen in thy
into heaven.**
— "The body in the spirit must God:
spirit, too, in
man,
'I* in
decrease; so
the
thou in him,
my
ever
will live for
much mine
if
arise,
me
much
doth *minish and
therefore to power
Cometh the Lord's own
From such a nises his
— "So blessed."-
'I.'**
point of view,
man
recog-
meaning and the meaning
of all
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
264
things in the realm of eternal necessity.
natural All appears to
The
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
All-Spirit
things, so
appears
all,
if
it
outpoured
so
becomes one
things, that
at
This
as a superseded conception.
into
in being with the
could no longer be thought
even one single member were
thought away from
its
being.
**
Naught
and thou; and if we twain were not then is God no more God, and heaven
is
but
I
;
falleth
in."
—Man
feels
as
himself
a
His
necessary link in the world-chain.
doing has no longer aught of arbitrariness or of individuality in it. What he does is
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
not
worm:
SILESIUS
make without me a
if
single little
with him uphold
I
straightway must
it
265
not,
it
burst asunder. '*^
know that without me God can no moment live: if I come to naught, he needs must give up the ghost." Upon *'I
—
man
this height,
for the first time sees
things in their real being.
He no
longer
needs to ascribe from outside to the smallest thing, to the grossly sensible, a
For just as
this
mi-
in all its smallness
and
spiritual entity.
nutest thing
is,
gross sensibility,
it is
''No grain of dust
is
a link in the Whole. so vile, no
be so small: the wise
most gloriously tard seed, is
if
man
mote can
seeth
— therein."- "In
God
a mus-
thou wilt imderstand
the image of
all
it,
things above and
beneath."
Man feels himself free upon this height. For constraint
is
there only where a thing
— MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
266
can constrain from without. that
all
within, <<
I II
and
is
But when
without has flowed into the
when the
opposition
between
"Without and Within,'*
world,'*
Nature and Spirit," has disappeared,
man
then feels
own
impulse.
thou
wilt,
him as his "Shut me, as strongly as
all
in a
that impels
thousand irons:
I
still
will
be quite free and unfettered.''
"So
far as
my
God do what
will is dead, so far
I will
;
I
him the pattern and the point cease
all
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, still 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.
SILESIUS
267
the tasks that are set
fulfils
him
in the feeling of
He
says to himself: Through this iron
necessity
it
is
withdraw from
an external necessity.
given into thy hand to
very iron necessity
this
the link which has been allotted to thee.
meadow
''Ye men, learn but from the flower:
how ye
beautiful
without
shall please
well."
as
why and
—''The
God and be rose
exists
because, she blooms
because she blooms; she takes no heed of herself, asks not
man who has feels
in
if
arisen
men
see her."
upon the higher
himself the eternal,
The level
necessary
meadow meadow flower
pressure of the All, as does the flower; he acts, as the
The
blooms. sibility
grows in
immeasurable. not do
feeling of his
is
all
moral respon-
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 If
it
— "All thee."
with him.
Thou
need'st
dumb
flowers
must be
slain.
thou slayest 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 Angelas Silesius gathered up
wisdom
the profound
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 others,
have laboured further of this 'Cp.
my
way
of
in the direction
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
realm 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
up
development in a purely
natural manner.
And,
further, J. G. Fichte's penetra-
tion has
the
thrown
human
man where
ego,
light into the being of
and shown the soul
to seek itself
and what
of
it is.'
Hegel has extended the realm 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 creations of the
How,
human
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
2']2
being.
no longer any being
It sees
Nature that
is like
and that creates It
unto the
after the
human
manner
man.
of
their
development
it
follows
in the sense-world
Meis-
according to purely natural laws. ter Eckhart, as well as Tauler,
Jacob
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
What
understood.
unable to do,
viz,\
when they
it is
were
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 creation'* 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 ceivable
is
fruit.
that Spirit as per-
a result of evolution, and
that upon lower levels of evolution such
must not be sought for. They would understand that no "creative Spirit
thought" ruled Spirit 18
in
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
spoke of them.
But there
Boehme
exists
a point
of view, even in this present day,
brings Jacob Boehme' s
way
which
of regarding
things near to a view of the world that
takes account of modern natural science.
There
is
no need to
one finds
Many
lose the Spirit,
Nature only the natural.
in
believe to-day that
indeed,
do,
when
one must needs lose oneself in a shallow
and prosaic materialism, accepts the
ence fully
ural
has
''facts''
upon the ground I
one simply
which natural
discovered.
science.
if
I
myself
sci-
stand
same natand through
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 approaches
self
world. glorious,
with a shallow thought-
something higher, more
feel
I
it
275
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
In no ''holy
upon me.
know aught
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
our hearts with the glory of the facts
that our senses behold, then little
left
we shall have
over for "wonders" which do
not He 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
if
I
people
''more
me
me
against
things of the just
being of
in
it.
my
inner being
I 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
it,
believe that the insight which
shines forth for
guards
I
world for
soulful"
do not even assume
things; nay, I I
information.
in the external
''deeper,"
because
with souls of which
it
me no
senses give
do not seek a
an animal, gains nothing
plant,
God
in Nature,
I
because
believe that I perceive the nature of
the
human
admit
spirit
my animal
in myself.
I
calmly
ancestry, because I be-
AFTERWORD lieve myself to
know
277
that there, where
these animal ancestors have their origin,
no spirit of
like
nature with soul can work.
can only agree with Ernst Haeckel when he prefers the "eternal rest of the grave" I
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 of some of our contemporaries. But for
me
there rings out from confessions
facts,
which give a discord with natural naught of the spirit of the higher
piety
which
of faith,
and Angelus
I
find
Silesius.
stands far more in '
Cp. Haeckel's Riddle of
in
Jacob Boehme
This higher piety full
harmony with
the Universe.
278
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the working of the natural.
no contradiction
There
lies
in the fact of saturating
oneself with the knowledge of the
most
recent natural science, and at the
same
time
treading
the
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 with
me
in like
will
manner the
understand last
of the Cheruhinean Wanderer, with also this
book
shall close:
saying
which
''Friend,
it is
even enough.
In case thou more wilt
read, go forth,
and thyself become the
book, thyself the reading.'*
THE END
ililStiliillKll
:iiT:FMl»7TFf?T7
(*
DEC 12
1911
•
*
jn."t
BV 5075 .S83 1911 Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925 Mystics of the renaissance and their relation to
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE AND
THEIR RELATION TO MODERN
THOUGHT
INCLUDING
MEISTER ECKHART, TAULER, PARACELSUS, JACOB BOEHME, GIORDANO BRUNO,
t^X
AND OTHERS BY
*
RUDOLF STEINER
OF Ff\lxcc
DEC 12
Ph.D. (Vienna)
'isiski
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BY BERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, M.A. (Cantab.)
P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON
G.
^be
Iknfcftcrbocftcr 1911
press
1911
list:^
*
Copyright, igii BY
MAX
MAX '
GYSI
GYSI,
Editor,
Adyar," Park Drive, London, N. W.
Ube
ftnlcberbocfier press, Tlevp
^ovk
CONTENTS Foreword
....
PAGE
V
Introduction
Meister Eckhart
52
Friendship with God AND RuYSBROECK]
[Tauler, Suso 81
.
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
.
.
Ill
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 utmost
importance.
Ten years
not have ventured to
earlier I
fulfil
could
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
Only now,
intel-
demands
this
realm
years of
life
after having en-
joyed that intimacy, do
speak in such wise as
I
will
venture to
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 full 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
"Materialist."
When
I
find
that the
Jesuit Father Miiller has solved a cult chemical problem,
and
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
however, he can
put
For such
enough.
are, in the
up
with
easily
misunderstandings
main, inevitable in his eyes,
when he recalls the mental type of those who misjudge him. I look back, not upon many judgment that I have suf-
without htmiorous a
''critical"
feelings,
fered in the course of
At the I
my
outset, matters
literary career.
went
fairly well.
wrote about Goethe and his philosophy.
What
I said
there appeared to
many to be
of such a nature that they could in their
mental pigeon-holes.
file it
This they
did by saying: ''A work such as Rudolf Steiner's Introduction to Goethe s Writings
upon Natural Science may, without hesitation, be described as the best that has been written upon
When,
later,
bit
published
an
inde-
had already grown a more stupid. For now a well
pendent work,
good
I
this question."
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 .
Kant] " only so in
two philosophers [Htmie and The critic imfortunately knows
much
is
himself able to read
Kant and Hume;
fore,
me
to learn to see
in these thinkers
than he him-
When
self sees.
be
will
practically, there-
he simply advises
no more
my
as he
satisfied
I
have attained that, he
Then when
with me.
Philosophy and Freedom appeared,
was found
to be as
much
in
I
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
innimierable
informs
me that
foreign 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 of typical
criticisms of in
obtain an understanding
my
themselves
world of ideas. unimportant,
Though yet
they
FOREWORD
XI
seem to me to point, as symptoms, to facts which present themselves to-day as serious obstacles in the path of any one aiming at literary activity in regard to the higher problems of knowledge.
Thus
I
must go on
whether one
man
my
gives
way,
me
indifferent,
the good ad-
vice to read Kant, or another hunts
as a heretic because
And
I
agree with Haeckel.
have also written upon Mysti-
so I
cism, wholly indifferent as to ful
me
how a faith-
and believing materialist may judge
of me.
I
would only
like
—so that prin-
ink
may
not be wasted wholly with-
out need
—to
inform any one
ters'
me
perchance advise
who may,
to read Haeckel's
Riddle of the Universe, that during the last
few months
I
have delivered about
upon the said work. have shown in this book
thirty lectures I
hope to
that one
may
be a faithful adherent of
FOREWORD
xii
the scientific conception
and yet be able to
the
rightly
to seek out those paths
along
Soul
the world
of
understood,
which
Mysticism,
leads.
I
even go
further and say: Only he
who knows
Spirit, in the sense of true
Mysticism, can
the
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
magical
certain
are
formulae
which operate throughout the centuries of
Man's mental history In
ways.
Greece
was regarded as an runs:
"Know
one
new
in ever
such
formula
oracle of Apollo.
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 our brooding
In
many
a
moment
and thinking, they
flash
!
2
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
out like lightning, illuminating our whole
moments
such
In
inner being.
quickens within us a feeling as
there if
we
heard the heart-beat of the evolution of
How
mankind.
close
do we not of
ourselves to personalities
when the
feeling
comes over
feel
the past,
through
us,
one of their winged words, that they are
had had
revealing to us that they, too,
such moments!
We
feel
ourselves
then brought into
intimate touch with these personalities.
For instance, we learn to know Hegel intimately when, in the third volume of
Lectures
his
History
"Such
on
we come one
stuff,
the
Philosophy
across
may
the
of
words:
say, the abstrac-
we contemplate when we
tions
that
allovvT
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 worldTherein spirit and therefore of destiny. 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 Mystae who, at the
crisis
inmost shrine, were there and took When Hegel said this, he had part."
in the
experienced one of those
spoken in
of.
moments
just
He uttered the phrases when,
the course 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 flash, he had
become intimate with minds
like Plotinus
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
4
and Proklus; and we become intimate with him when we read his words.
We
become intimate,
with that
too,
solitary thinker, the Pastor of Zschopau,
M.
Valentin Weigel,
opening words of his
when we read
wise
men
*
"We read
of old the useful saying,
Thyself,* which, though
used
book Know
little
Thyself, written in 1578:
it
the
in the
'Know
be right well
about worldly manners, as thus:
regard well thyself, what thou art, seek
in thine
own bosom, judge
lay no blame on
others,'
thyself
and
a saying,
repeat, which, though thus used of
I
human
and manners, may well and appropriately be applied by us to the natural life
and supernatural knowing
man;
so indeed, that
man
of the
shall not only
consider himself and thereby
how he
whole
remember
should bear himself before people,
but that he
shall
also
know
his
own
INTRODUCTION
5
nature, inner and outer, in spirit and in
Nature; whence he cometh and whereof
he
is
So, self,
made, to what end he
is
ordained.'*
from points of view pecuHar to himValentin Weigel attained to insight
which
in his
mind summed
itself
up
in
this oracle of Apollo.
A
similar path to insight
lation to the saying
be ascribed to a
like re-
''Know Thyself*' may
series of
deep-natured
Master Eckhart
thinkers, beginning with (1
and a
250-1 327), and ending with Angelus
Silesius (i 624-1 677),
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
which illuminates something very
a
sun
differ-
ent from the mere accidental, separated personality of the beholder.
noza became conscious of
What
Spi-
in the ethereal
— MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
6
heights of pure thought,
human
soul possesses
viz.,
that ''the
an adequate know-
ledge of the Eternal and Infinite Being of
God,"
—that same consciousness lived
in
them
as immediate feeling; and
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,
which unlocked
for
It
in
with a new
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.
difficult to find
description of the import of this
than the one given by
J.
a better
new sense
G. Fichte in his
Berlin Lectures (1813):
''Imagine a world of to
are
whom
all
objects
men born
and
known only through
blind,
their relations
the sense
of
•
INTRODUCTION
Go amongst them and
touch.
them
.
of
and other
colours
which are rendered
7
speak to relations,
visible only
through
Either you are talking to them
light.
of nothing,
—and
if
they say
this,
is
it
the luckier, for thus you will soon see
your mistake, and, their eyes, cease for
or,
if
you cannot open
your useless
some reason or
—
talking,^
other, they will
upon giving some meaning or other what you say; then they can only
insist
to
interpret
it
know by feel,
they
light
and
dents
in
relation to
They
touch. will
imagine
colour,
of
what they
will
they
seek
do
and the other
visibility,
they
will
to feel
inci-
invent
something for themselves, deceive themselves with of
touch,
Then they
something within the world
which they will
and misinterpret
will
call
colour.
misunderstand, distort, it."
8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
The same thing appHes 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,
which
things for
one
what
simply
are
who does not
distinguishes
One
of knowing.
it
in
views of
non-existent
see in self-knowledge
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 finds
is
his
words merely, or at
own
soul.
best, abstract
thoughts, in that which for those
more deeply
is
He
who
see
the very foundation of
INTRODUCTION their inner
life;
that
sition:
in
9
namely, in the propoevery
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 off, while in ourselves we, as actors
ing that which
This
may
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 sition of
there
is
first
One
way,
is
whom
it
in the po-
whom one says: He hears the object.
a blind man, to
a gHttering
words, but for him the glitter
He might of
to
is
not there.
unite in himself the whole
knowledge of his time; but
sum
if
he
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
10
does not
and
feel
realise the significance
of self-knowledge, then
it
in the
all,
is
higher sense, a blind knowledge.
The world, of us,
outside of and independent
exists for us
by communicating
What
to our consciousness.
itself
made known must needs be
thus
is
expressed in
A
the language peculiar to ourselves.
book, the contents of which were offered in a language
unknown
to us,
us be without meaning.
would
for
Similarly, the
world would be meaningless for us did it
not speak to us in our
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,
we
our-
The
really important
we should
correctly appre-
speak.
that
it is
hend the transposition which occurs when
we
close our perception against external
things and listen only to that wnich then
;
INTRODUCTION
ii
But
speaks from within.
needs this new sense.
If it
to
do
this
has not been
awakened, we beHeve that in what thus told us about ourselves
we
is
are hear-
ing only about something external to us
we fancy
that somewhere there
something which
same way
is
is
hidden
speaking to us in the
as external things speak.
new
But
then we
we know
that these perceptions differ essen-
tially
from those relating to external
possess this
if
Then we
things.
realise that this
what
sense does not leave
outside of object its
it
itself,
sees;
but that
If I see
then
ception.
more
I
perceives
it
it
can take up
itself,
leaving no
a thing, that thing
remains outside of me; self,
if I
perceive
my-
my
per-
myself enter into
Whoever
of himself
new
as the eye leaves the
object wholly into
remainder.
sense,
seeks for something
than what
is
perceived,
12
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
shows thereby that
for
him the
real con-
come
tent in the perception has not
Johannes Tauler
Hght.
(i 300-1361),
to
has
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
do not
I
do shine
myself also in
own most deeply
my
my J.
not, then
self -percep-
But
exist.
out, then I pos-
perception, in
original being.
remains no residue of myself of
it
do not shine
my own
forth for myself in tion,
knew
left
my
There outside
perception.'*
G. Fichte, in the following words,
vigorously points to the difference be-
tween
self -percept ion
kind of perception:
men
and every other ''The majority of
could be more easily brought to be-
lieve themselves a
lump of lava moon than an 'ego.' Whoever
in the is
at one with himself as to this,
under-
not
INTRODUCTION
13
stands no thorough-going philosophy and
Nature, whose ma-
has need of none. chine he
is,
him
will guide
in
the
all
things he has to do without any sort of
added help from him. For philosophising, self-reliance is needed, and this one can
We
only give to oneself.
want
ought not to
to see without the eye; but also
ought not to maintain that
which
it is
we
the eye
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 our nition
own is
selves.
An
object in front of
not separated from me, once
known
it.
What
I
am
I
me
have
able to receive
becomes part and parcel of my own being. If-, now, I awaken my own
from
it
THE RENAISSANCE
AIYSTICS OF
14
self, if I
become aware
my own
inner being, then
mode
to a higher
from without
own
me
my
whatever
I
also
awaken which
have made part of
I
that
falls
upon
awakening
falls
also
upon
have made
my own
of
springs
up within me and
the
me
world.
outside
that
all
from the
A
light
iiltmiines
me,
have cognised of
I
Whatever I might know would
the world.
remain blind knowledge, did not light fall
my
light
things
and with
I
of being, that
The
being. at
of the content of
upon
I
it.
this
might search the
my
world through
and through with
perception;
the world would not be
still
that which in
me
must become, unless that perception were awakened in me to it
a higher mode of being.
That which this
awakening
an enrichment
add to things through
I is
not a new idea,
of
the
content
is
of
not
my
INTRODUCTION knowing;
an uplifting
it is
15
of the
know-
ledge, of the cognition, to a higher level,
where everything sciousness to this
new
do not raise my conlevel, all knowledge con-
So long as
glory.
suffused with a
is
I
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
their
possible
meaning
linking with their
being, which they have outside
from me, another
being
and apart
spiritual existence in
addition, 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,
the mental content of these things
upon a higher then
my own
I
level.
When
this occurs,
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
taken up into a conscious content. ideal replica of the tree
is
is
An
within me, and
that has infinitely more to say about the tree than tell
me.
what the
tree
itself,
Then, for the
first
outside,
can
time there
shines out from within me, towards the tree,
what the
no longer the
tree
is.
The
tree
isolated being that
is it is
now out
INTRODUCTION becomes a link
It
there in space.
17 in
the entire conscious world that lives in
me.
It links its content
that are in me.
It
with other ideas
becomes a member of
the whole world of ideas that embraces
kingdom;
vegetable
the
takes
it
its
place, fiirther, in the series of all that lives.
Another example:
I
throw a stone
away from me. a curved line and after some
in a horizontal direction It
moves
time
in
falls
to
the ground.
in
I see it
moments of time in different Through observation and re-
successive places.
flection I acquire the following: its
motion the stone
influences.
If
it
is
During
subject to different
were subject only to
the influence of the impulse which
parted to
it,
it
would go on
ever in a straight its velocity.
line,
I
im-
flying for
without altering
But now the earth
exerts
an
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
i8
influence
upon
towards
itself.
and
its
instead
If,
ing the stone, I
would have
It attracts the stone
it.
had simply
fallen
throw-
of
let it go, it
vertically to
earth;
velocity in doing so would have
From
constantly increased. interaction of these
two
the mutual
influences arises
that which I actually see.
Let us assume 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. occurrence takes place twice. side,
and then
my
eye sees
The whole Once outit;
then
mind causes the whole happening
my 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 becomes clear to that sense that I, by
directed
my own
awaken that
inner power,
occur-
rence as a mental one.
another
Again, Fichte's this
may
sentence
new
''Thus the
J.
G.
be quoted which brings
clearly
fact
of
the
before
sense
is
mind.
the sense for
the spirit; that for which there exists
only spirit and absolutely nothing
and
for
which also the
itself
into spirit, for which
therefore being in its
has
actually
has
been
the
all
that
is
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 humanity, 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 imion
is
of union."
by the
created
fact that the inner sense grasps in its
which
spirituality the spiritual element it
awakens
in
outer world.
our
into
things
its
intercourse with the
That which we take up
consciousness
thereby ceases
mere meaningless as something
to
from
appear as a
repetition.
new over
outside
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 when
higher light
make
I
clear to myself
my
the kind of task which
si
inner sense
has to perform in regard to the whole
In order to
thing.
the two
fit
influences
together in thought
and
their
modes
of
action, an amount of mental content is needed which I must already have acquired when I cognise the flying stone. I
apply a spiritual content
therefore
already stored up within that confronts
And
this
world
fits itself
me
in the external world.
occurrence
in
the
external
into the spiritual content
already present.
own
me to something
It reveals itself in its
special individuality as
an expres-
sion of this content.
Through inner
me
sense,
the
obtains sense
the
understanding
there
nature
between
my
thus disclosed to
is
of
of
the
the
and the things
relation
content of
of
that this
the external
22
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE Fichte would say that without
world.
the
understanding
world
falls
of
this
me
into
apart for
into things outside of me,
the
sense,
two halves:
and into
pic-
The
tures of these things within 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
it
perceives
how
the Spirit enlightens the sense-world by
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
on a higher
a
level.
as a
An
ex-
completely known when
is
no part
undergone
itself
of
it
which has not thus
spiritual
every external object
re-birth. fits
itself
Thus into a
INTRODUCTION when
which,
content,
spiritual
23
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
self,
no
re-
mainder behind.
These developments contain nothing which is susceptible or even in need of logical
proof.
They
nothing
are
the results of inner experience.
ever
calls
into
experience.
dispute with him;
lacking in this
is
It
as
impossible
is
must
man.
not, however, be contended
that this inner experience sible only
to
could one
little
discuss colour with a blind It
Who-
question this content,
shows only that he inner
but
is
through the special
of a few chosen people.
made posendowment
It is
a
common
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
24
property.
Every one can enter upon
the path to
not of his
this experience
own
who does
will shut himself against
This closing up of oneself against
it.
it, is,
however,
common
And
enough.
in
dealing with objections raised in this direction, is
it
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
It
is
all
kinds
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
all 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-
They then believe that the remainder so left over must be just as much in the external world as standing can cognise.
are the things of our perceptions themselves.
They think
that there must be
something which remains unknown to
What
cognition.
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
—this they trans-
something inaccessible and unknown
into the external world.
Then they
knowledge which prevent
of the limits of
our reaching the ''thing -in -itself." talk of the
That
this
unknown "being"
not
They
of things.
very ''being" of things shines
out when the inner sense fall
talk
upon the recognise.
things,
The
lets its
light
what they will famous "Ignora-
is
26
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bimus" speech
Reymond,
of the scientist,
in the year
Du
Bois-
furnished
1876,
a particularly blatant example of this We are supposed to be able to error. get in every direction only so far as to in all natural processes
be able to see
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
life
is
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 NaBut ture-knowledge itself cannot give.
he refuses to follow the road,— the 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 obtains light not only as regards
man itself
but also as regards external things. From this
point
of
view
Within him shines a
illiunination
which
is
lights
up
makes
endless
is
not
all reality
light
restricted
within him.
its
per-
before man's know-
spective opens out ledge.
an
It is a
at once.
to
whose that
sun which
Something
appearance in us which links
us with the whole world.
No
we simply
isolated,
human
no longer
this or that individual.
chance
longer are beings,
The
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
28
entire world reveals itself in us. veils
to us
own coherence; and it how we ourselves as inbound up with it. From
its
unveils to us
dividuals are
out of self-knowledge the
of
It un-
world.
And
is
born knowledge
our
own
limited
individuality merges itself spiritually into
the
interconnected
great
world-whole,
because in us something has come to life
that
reaches
dividuality, it
out beyond
this
in-
that 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 book Das Ich
und das Ding an ''Let us
make
it
Sich, p. 14 et seq.):
clear
—
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 something totally
that
it
so
without losing ourselves
from the mere surface starts
is
from ourselves that we cannot
penetrate into
the
that
we do not understand,
different
different,
back
imknown
afraid.
of
which thought
This one thing
bearer of
all
is
these qualities
the thing-in-itself, which constitutes the
inmost
self of
the object.
Thus Hegel
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
is
in
itself,
—which
we do not know
ultimately, since
the thing
remain merely subjective and have no objective itself,
Conceptual thought, on the other
value.
hand, has no such unknowable subject,
whose determinations might be mere accidents, but the objective subject falls within the concept. thing,
then
fulness in
it
my
is
cognise any-
If I
present in
conception; I
its
am
at
entire
home
in the inmost shrine of its being,
because of its
it
has no proper being-in-itself
own, but because
re-think
not
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
reveals itself to us at the
there
same time,
as
:
INTRODUCTION
—just as this activity — the true
Hegel says, jective
is
31
our
able to illuminate the
sub-
nature of the
So can speak only a
object."
own
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.
are here con-
just
the reason
seem to confront
mysteriously: that
I
am
that
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
32
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
point for a consideration of the worldprocess than that of thought."
For one who looks thus upon the inner life of man, it is also obvious what is the
meaning
of
human
cognition within the
a mere
whole world-process.
It is not
empty accompaniment
to the rest of the
world happenings.
would be such
it
of
It
if
represented merely an ideal repetition
what
is
outwardly
in cognition something
which accomplishes
present. is
But
accomplished
itself
nowhere
in
the outer world: the world -process sets before
itself its
own
spiritual being.
world-process would be to
a mere half -thing, this
if it
confrontation.
all
The
eternity
did not attain to
Therewithal man's
inner experience finds
its
place in the
objective world-process; and without
it
that process would be incomplete. It is 'apparent that
only the
life
which
INTRODUCTION is
ruled
by the inner
spiritual life in its this
is
man's highest
most proper
sense,
For only
himself.
it
in this life
does the being of things unveil before
—
only which can thus raise
life
man above
sense,
33
The matter
itself.
lies
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
My
other external process.
members things,
of the spacial
and
world
any
others.
their being only appears
sunk into the inner other
life;
the
objects,
life
life.
of
which
own embodiment and its
organs are like other
their perceptions are pro-
cesses in time like
double
any
organs what
lies
Further,
when they I
are
thus live a
an object among lives
within
its
perceives through
outside this embodi-
34
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ment; and above
this life a higher
knows no such
that
and
outside,
and bridging
stretching
extends,
that
inside
over both the outside world and I shall therefore
time
I
am
itself.
be forced to say: at one
an individual, a limited "self*;
at another time I ''Self."
life,
am
a general, universal
This, too, Paul
Asmus has
ex-
pressed in excellent words {cp. his book:
Die indogermanischen Religionen in den
Hauptpunkten
Hirer Entwickelung, p. 29
of Vol. I.):
''The
activity
in something else, ing'; in thinking, its
concept,
a single
do we
it
thing;
of is
merging ourselves
what we
call
the ego has
has given therefore,
find ourselves in a sphere
alike for
all,
ness which
think-
fulfilled
itself
in
'
up
as
thinking
which
is
for the principle of separate-
is
involved in the relation of
our 'self to that which
is
other than
INTRODUCTION has vanished in
itself
the
self-cancening of
35
the activity of
the
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 natiire of
some
of the attributes of
real
God
to an adequate knowledge of the nature
This advancing
of things."
is
no other
than the illimiination 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 by this method of knowing thus he who can grasp things in this mode of knowing greater, the
;
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
mode
this
knowing the highest peace
of
of soul that
possible."
is
He who knows
things in
this
way,
transforms himself within himself; his
single
at such
separated
''self"
moments absorbed by
for
becomes 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
only as
individuals; the individual which works
one and the same.
But
this fact it is impossible to
argue
within us
about
is
INTRODUCTION who has no
with one
He
That
and you are two. in
all multiplicity,
the outbursting
level
experience of
it.
everlastingly emphasise: Plato
will
that
37
duality,
reborn as unity
is
of
life
knowledge:
of
this
the highest
proved, that must be experienced. doxical as
it
may
sound,
be
cannot
that
it is
Para-
the truth:
the idea which Plato conceived and the like idea
It
ideas.
which is
conceive are not two
I
one and the same idea.
there are not two ideas: one
in.
And
Plato's
head and one in mine but in the higher ;
sense Plato's head and mine interpenetrate each other; all heads interpenetrate
which grasp one and the same idea; and this idea is
only once there as a single
idea.
there;
It
to one
have
is
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,
beautiful words
ful to the fate
live long
about
which Wilhelm
was thankwhich had allowed him to
enough to become acquainted
light declares:
in
indicated in
said that he
In this poem, the inner
with this work.
self,
is
he
by the Hindu poem, the
Bhagavad-Gita,
von Humboldt
man when
"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
the
bodies it
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
The taste
and bears them away with
inner
and
light
rules
the
ear,
it.
touch,
smell, as also the emotions:
INTRODUCTION it
knits together the
and the objects ignorant
of
39
Hnk between the
know not when
itself
The
senses.
the inner light
when it is married to objects; only he who partakes of the inner light can know shines forth or
is
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,
the
of
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 kills
nor does he
stain
though he should have
himself, slain
even
another."
This points only to the same basic
mood
40
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
of
the
from the highest
flowing
soul
knowledge, of which Spinoza, after having described it in his Ethics, breaks out into
"Here
passionate words:
the
cluded that which
ward
aimed to bring
I
in regard to the
over
its affections
dom
of the soul.
is
power
confor-
of the soul
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, ful
than he who
is
ruled only
For the ignorant
is
by
his lusts.
not merely driven
and thither by external causes in many ways and never attains to the
hither
true peace of soul, but he also lives in
ignorance
of
himself,
and when
of
God and
of
suffering
ceases,
his existence ceases also; while
on the
things,
his
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
the road which
I
41
have outlined
as leading thereto appears very difficult, still it
be
And
can be found. because
difficult,
For how could lay close at
it
it is
is
noble
be possible,
as difficult as
form the point
of
should be
it
it is
in
rare/'
monumental
in the words: "If I
myself
that
all
view of the highest
know my
and to the outer
relation
to
world,
call it truth.
I
salvation
Yet
all?
Goethe has indicated knowledge
if
hand and could be found
by almost
is
And
thus every
one can have his own truth, and yet is
always one and the
has his
own
individual,
same."
truth: because each
it
Each is
an
separate being, beside and
along with others. act
it
so seldom found.
without great trouble, that neglected
may
well
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,
up
builds
own
his
he
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
is
merged
the universal Truth; and this uni-
versal
Truth
is
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
43
repetition in thought, but
Not a mere
a real part of the world-process,
which goes on
man's inner
in
it is if
belonging thereto in the
human
its part.
highest which
And
if
the factor
one
soul did calls
the
by man the
attainable
is
The
life.
world would not be what
not play
that
is
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
man. right
that without
instant;
if
I
Angelus
words
for
me God
can
has *'I
live
no
worm:
if
then
must straightway
he can make
such
that
in
''With-
single smallest
I do not sustain
presupposes
this:
up the ghost."
me God may make no it
Silesius
is
become nothing, He must
of necessity give
out
that this Divine
it
with Him,
perish."
Only
an assertion who
man
something
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
44
comes to
light,
being cannot taining to the
without which external
exist.
If
everything per-
"worm" were
there present
without man, then one could not possibly say that sustain
it
must
if
man
comes to
life
knowledge.
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
did not
it.
The innermost
ledge
perish
He who
permeated with self-knowledge natur-
ally carries out his
own
action in the
Himian action determined by motives.
light of self-knowledge. is
—in
general
—
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
motives.
He
more
sensible
closely.
meaning
in
Is
them?
what-
will
Look again
ever he pleases?
words
cannot
45
at these
there
any
Freedom
of
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*
preferring
for
willing
to
do or endeavour to
To
attain this, rather than that?
will
something without reason, without motive, would mean to will something 'without willing is
it.'
The concept
of
motive
inseparably bound up with that of will-
ing.
Without a
definite
motive the
will
an empty potentiality: only through a motive does it become active and real. It is therefore quite correct that man's
is
will is in so far not free as its direction is
always determined by the strongest
motive."
46
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE For
action that
all
the
in
light
motive,
felt
not accomplished the
self-knowledge,
of
reason
the
needs be
is
for
must But the
action,
as a constraint.
when the reason
matter
is
otherwise
motive
is
taken up into self-knowledge.
Then
this reason
self.
The
mined;
it
becomes a part
willing
of the
no longer deter-
is
determines
itself.
The law-
abidingness, the motives of willing,
no longer
rule over the one
who
now wills,
but are one and the same with willing.
To
or
this
illuminate the laws of one's
action with the light of self -observation
means motive.
to
overcome
By
constraint
all
of
so doing, will transfers itself
into the realm of freedom.
human
action which bears
the marks of freedom.
Only such action
It
is
is
not
all
free action
lighted
which
in its every part
up with the glow
is
of self-observa-
INTRODUCTION tion.
And because
the individual
self
47
self -observation raises
up
therefore free action
to the Universal Self, is
that which flows
from the Universal Self. The old controversy whether man's will is free or subject to
a universal law, to an unalterable
a problem wrongly stated. All action is bound which is done by necessity,
a
man
is
as an individual;
all
action free
is
accomplished after his spiritual
re-birth.
Man, therefore, is not, in general,
which
either free or
He
bound.
He
is
both the one
bound before his re-birth and he can become free through The individual upward this re-birth.
and the
other.
is
;
development
of
transformation
man 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-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
48
abidingness and therewith of un-freedom.
Freedom of
not from the outset a fact
is
himian 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
universal
being.
He
being.
harmony with
He
feels
every
discord between himself and another as
the outcome of a not yet fully awakened
But such
self.
that
only
whole can
in it
its
off as
from everything
himself
out
self,
from the
else;
and
again
It belongs
if
he
an individual
self
but also he
not
in the highest sense
as such a shut-off
Self.
separation
would not be man
were not shut
man
the fate of the
find its contact with this
Man
whole.
is
if
isolated
into
is
he does not,
the
self,
widen
Universal
through and through to
INTRODUCTION the nature of
come
man
that
it
49
should over-
an inherent contradiction which has
lain therein
from the beginning.
Any one who
regards spirit as, in the
may
main, logical understanding, feel his
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 coloiir, with the cold, faded,
schematic thought of the flower. feel
himself particularly
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 purely 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 a
of "dry,
in things purely spiritual possesses
gift of
perception like that in things
of the senses, finds
life
assuredly not the
INTRODUCTION poorer
51
when he has enriched
spiritual content.
flower,
why
If I
should
it
with
its
look out upon a colours lose
its rich
aught whatever of their freshness, because not only does
my
my eye
see the colours,
inner sense also perceives the spiritual
Why
being of the flower? life
but
of
because
my I
become poorer,
personality
do not follow
should the
my
passions and
impulses in spiritual blindness, but
il-
luminate them throughout with the light
Not
of higher knowledge? fuller, richer, is
back again
that
life
in the spirit.
poorer,
which
is
but
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 will
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 hannony with
the teachings of the Christian Church as
he assumed a
like
agreement on the part 52
MEISTER ECKHART
53
Thomas.
Eckhart had neither the desire to take aught away from the of
St.
content of Christianity, nor the wish to
add anything to
it;
but he desired to
bring forward this content
own way.
It
forms no part
spiritual needs of
he was to
set
anew
in his
of
the
a personaHty such as
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
it
it
craves
a new 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
in matters of faith,
ledge: Revelation,
and Reason,
in those of research.
Reason
recognises the laws of things, that
Reason can
spiritual in nature.
above nature and grasp
self
is,
the
raise it-
in the spirit
from one side the Divine Being underlying nature. this
way
But
it
does not attain in
to merging itself in the full be-
ing of God.
A
still
higher truth-content
must come to meet it. That is given in the Holy Scripture, which reveals what man cannot self.
The
attain to through him-
truth-content of the Scripture
must be accepted by man; Reason can defend it. Reason can seek to understand it
as well as possible through
of knowing; but never can
its
powers
Reason en-
gender that truth from within the of is
man.
Not what
spirit
the spirit perceives
the highest truth, but what has
to this spirit from without.
come
MEISTER ECKHART St.
55
Augustine declares himself unable
to find within himself the source for that
He
says: "I
which he should
believe.
would not believe
in the Gospel, did not
the authority of the Catholic Church move me thereto.'' That is in the same spirit as
who
the Evangelist,
points to
"That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked the
external
testimony:
.
.
.
upon, and our hands have handled, of the
Word
of Life;
.
.
.
that which
we
have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us." But Meister Eckhart would rather impress upon ''It is
man
the words of Christ:
expedient for you that
I
go away:
go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you"; and he explains these words by saying: ''Ji^st as if he for
had
if I
said:
Ye have
set
too
much
joy
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
56
my
Upon the
full
come
present appearance, therefore
joy of the Holy Ghost cannot
to you."
Eckhart thinks that he of
speaking
is
of
whom
Evangelist,
and
no God other than that God
and
Augustine,
the
Thomas, speak, and yet
God
as to
witness to see
is
is
not
this testimony
not his testimony, their his.
God with
''Some people want
the same eyes they see
a cow withal, and want to love God as they would love a cow.
God
of outer riches
and
comfort; but such folk do
not
for the
inner
love
rightly
sake
God.
.
.
.
fancy they should behold
He is
of
So they love
Simple
God
as though
stood there and they here.
not
so.
God and
I
mouth
such is
But
it
are one in the act
knowing {im Erkennen).'"
derlies
folk
expressions
in
What
un-
Eckhart's
nothing else than the experience
MEISTER ECKHART and
of the inner sense;
shows him things therefore beUeves
57
this experience
He
in a higher Hght.
himself to have no
need of an external light in order to attain to the highest insight:
*'A Master
God became man, whereby the whole hiiman 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 sitteth at the right
hand
and
of the Father.
That Master spake well; but, in truth, What would it I would give little for it. help me, had I a brother who was a rich man, and
I
What would who was a fool?
.
getteth
therewithal a poor it
help me, had
wise man,
and
I
man?
a brother I
were a
The Heavenly Father beHis Only-Begotten Son in Him.
.
self
and
and
in
in
me?
me. I
Wherefore in Himself
am
one with Him; and
58
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
has no power to shut
self -same
me
In the
out.
work, the Holy Ghost receives
being and proceeds from me, as from
its
Wherefore?
God.
I
am
the Holy Ghost takes not
me, neither does
am
no wise
When
shut
Eckhart
St. Paul:
means
I
it
take
it
God, and
in
if
being from
its
In
from God.
out.**
saying of
recalls the
"Put ye on Jesus
Christ," he
to imply in this saying the
mean-
ing: Sink yourselves into yourselves, dive
into self -contemplation
down
:
out the depths of your being, shine forth to meet you;
He
and from
God
will
illumines
you have found Him within you; you have become united with God's Being. *'God became man, all
things for you;
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:
59
"Here thou must know that the
Masters say that in every man there called are two kinds of man: the one is the outer man, and yet he acts through is the power of the soul. The other man called the inner is
within
know
man, that
the man.
that every
Now
man who
maketh no more use the soul in the outer
that which
is,
thou must loveth
powers of
of the
man
God
than so far as
the five senses absolutely require; and that which is within turns not itself to the five senses, save in so far as it is the guide and conductor of the five senses, and
shepherds them, so that they follow not after their craving to bestiality.*'
who
speaks in such wise of
One
the inner man
can no longer direct his gaze upon a Being sees of things lying outside himself for he ;
from no kind or species of the outer world can this Being come to him.
clearly that
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
6o
An
objector might urge:
What can
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
tion of the outer world. terate,
senses
by a mental give you in
you informa-
Do
addition,
not adul-
what your
purity, without ad-
mixture, as the image of the outer world.
Your eye tells you what your mind knows about there itself.
nothing
is
To
this,
colour
is;
what
colour, of that
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
6l
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
per-
I
manner
I
can
is perceive of colour only so much as cuts physical, sensuous. Sense-perception
out
everything non-sensuous from ob-
jects.
Objects are thus by sense-percep-
tion stripped of everything about
which
non-sensuous.
is
vance to the I
If
I
them
then ad-
spiritual, the ideal content,
objects in fact only reinstate in the
what sense-perception has shut out thereThus sense-perception does not from. the deepest Being of obrather separates me from that
exhibit to jects,
being.
it
me
But the
ception, seizing
me
spiritual, the ideal con-
upon them
with that being.
It
again, unites
shows
me
that
same objects are inwardly of exactly the myself. spiritual (geistigen) nature as I
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
62
The
myself and the
barrier between
outer world
falls
through this spiritual
am
separated
conception of things.
I
from the external world
in so far as I
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 colour
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 of the grasps the
world, which imagines that
it
objects of the outer world
by
to
them
which
qualities of a physical nature,
are
supposed
to
resemble
the
human soul. This view When we meet another human
qualities of the asserts:
ascribing
MEISTER ECKHART we
being,
fellow-man's
what
his
life,
inner
anything which I
from
infer
I
life.
of him, his inner
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,
ings,
no
man
such an inner
my
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
I
must add
in
my imagination
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
this line of
my own
inner
argument 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
physical content
its
And what
through the external senses. I call {i.e.,
all in
my
inner
life
in the
thoughts, feelings, the higher sense,
above sense
etc.),
my
is
not at
spirit {Geist).
MEISTER ECKHART This so-called inner
come
only the out-
life is
of purely sensuous processes,
belongs to
me
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
outer things,
fact, 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
soul to other
definite nervous system.
to transfer this
should only be entitled to do
things.
I
so
happened to
if
I
find
an3rwhere a
similarly organised nervous system.
my
individual soul
spiritual
is
not the highest
element in me.
spiritual element
must
But
first
This highest
be awakened
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
66
through the inner sense; and
ened spiritual element
in
and the same with the in
spiritual
also one
element
The plant appears imits own proper spirituality
to this spiritual element,
endow
my
is
awak-
things.
all
mediately in
to
me
this
—
I
have no need
with a spirituality like unto
it
own.
All talk about the
unknown
''thing-in-
any kind of meaning with
itself" loses
this conception of the world; for
just
that very
reveals
itself
''thing-in-itself "
to
the
inner
it
is
which
sense.
All
such talk originates simply in the fact
who
that those recognise their
in
own
themselves in their
and
talk thus are unable to
the
spiritual
inner being . '
'
own
schemes
the
contents
of
''things-in-
They think that they know inner selves mere shadows
without
being,
concepts and ideas" of things.
— ''mere But as
MEISTER ECKHART they
still
67
sort of premonition of
have a
the ''thing-in-itself," they therefore believe that this ''thing-in-itself"
is
conceal-
and that there are limits set One cannot to man's power of knowing.
ing
itself,
prove to such as are entangled in this
must grasp the
beHef, that they in-itself"
even
if
in their
own
inner being, for
one were to put
they would
still
before them,
it
never recognise or admit
this ''thing-in-itself."
But
recognition with which
we
All
that
saturated
Meister
with
this take a
''thing-
this
it is
just this
are concerned.
Eckhart
says
recognition.
comparison:
A
and shuts upon a hinge. compare the outer plank
is
"Of
door opens If,
of 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
to
and
fro,
while yet the hinge
!
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
68
remains constantly immovable and
is
in
no way changed thereby. In like manner As an individual senseit is here also." being, I can investigate things in all directions
—the door opens and
shuts,-
not spiritually give birth within
—
if I
me to the
perceptions of the senses, then do I
nothing of their nature
do
know
—the hinge does
move The illumination brought about through
not
the inner sense
according
the entrance of
hart's view,
the soul.
is,
The
light of
to
Eck-
God
into
knowledge which
flames up through this entrance, he calls
the
"little
spark
the
of
soul."
The
point in man's inner being at which this
"spark" flames up
and so noble
is
"so pure, so
in itself, that
lofty,
no creature
can be therein, but only God alone dwells therein with His purely Divine Nature."
Whosoever has kindled
this
"spark"
in
MEISTER ECKHART himself,
no longer
ordinary
with
man
his
69
sees only as sees the
with his outer senses, and
logical
understanding
which
orders and classifies the impressions of
the senses, but he sees
The
themselves. classifying
individual
make
how
things are in
outer senses and the
understanding
man from
separate
the
other things; they
him an individual in space and time, who also perceives the other things in space and time. The man illuminated by the "spark'* ceases to be a single of
He
separated being. arateness. difference
All
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
creattires,
all
image without image, and image upon image."
Eckhart proclaims nificent
words the extinction
being:
lated
in the
''It
most magof the iso-
to
be
it is
one
therefore
is
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
and to know. enlighteneth, it
is
enlightens;
because
know
it is
we
maketh us
to
builds
purely
this
up
air,
which
nothing other than what for the
giveth light,
air
enlightened; even so do
that
On
the
as
are known, and that
know
we
He
Himself."
foundation Meister Eckhart his relation to
spiritual
one,
God.
and
It
cannot
is
a
be
modelled according to any image bor-
MEISTER ECKHART
71
rowed from human individual experience.
Not
as one separated individual loves
another can
God
love his creation: not
as an architect builds a house can
have created
All such thoughts van-
it.
ish before the inner vision.
to God's very being that
A God who
the world.
God
not love at pleasure,
He
It belongs
should love
could love or
imagined ac-
is
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 Godhead,
He must
fruitful wise."
tion
His being, in His nature
is
He
keeps nothing
ever pour
And
all
forth in
the inner illumina-
something that the soul must
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
^2
necessarily find
when
it
sinks itself deep
into the basis of its being.
From
this it is already obvious that
God's communication to htmianity cannot be conceived after the fashion of the revelation of one himian being
This communication
another.
be cut off
off,
for
may
also
man can shut himself but God must, by virtue
one
from another
;
of His very nature, reveal Himself. is
a sure and certain truth, that
necessity for if
to
God
''It
it is
a
to seek us, exactly as
His very Godhead depended upon
it.
we with Him. Even though we turn away from God, yet God can never turn away
God can
from to
as
us.'*
little
dispense with us as
Consequently, man's relation
God cannot be
conceived of as though
something image-like, something taken
from the individual himian being, were contained therein.
MEISTER ECKHART Eckhart
73
thus conscious that
is
be-
it
longs to the perfectness of the Root-Being of the world to find Itself in the
human
This Root -Being indeed would be
soul.
imperfect, incomplete,
part of
its
if
lacked that
it
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 would
be but a part of
man
can
In this sense,
Itself.
feel himself as
a necessary part
of the Being of the universe.
This Eck-
by describing
his feelings
hart expresses
towards God as follows:
God
that
He
''I
loveth me, for
do otherwise; whether
He
thank not
He may
will it or no,
His nature yet compelleth Him. Therefore will
me
I
not pray to
God
anything, nor will I praise
that which
But
He hath
not
given me.
.
.
.
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 Root-
The
Being.
soul which
entangled in
is
the sense-world, and so in the as such not yet got within tent of the Root-Being. first
finite,
itself
The
has
the con-
soul
develop that content within
must itself.
must annihilate itself as an isolated being; and Meister Eckhart most aptly It
characterises
I
come
head, none ask
where
I
me, for
annihilation
(un-becoming
werdung
''When
this
or
as Ent-
involution)
to the root of the
me whence
I
God-
come and
have been, and none doth miss here there is an E?itwerdung.''
Again, the following phrase speaks very " I take a cup clearly about this relation: of it
water and lay therein a mirror and set The sun under the disc of the sun.
casts out its shining light on the mirror
MEISTER ECKHART The
and yet doth not pass away. ing of the mirror in the sun
So
is.
is
sun in the
is
God
about God.
it
soul with His very nature
Godhead, and yet
The
He
which
The inner
sotil
God,
is
still
is
God that
it is."
which gives
soul
illimiination
which
this
knows
in itself not
soul it
with
God
was before knows also
only
soul
became
^'We must
through this illimiination. united
up to the
itself
but
illimiination;
that
in the
not the soul.
is
only what this same its
is
it
and being and
reflecting of the soul in
God, and yet the
be
reflect-
and yet the mirror remains what
sun,
in
75
in
being;
we
God uniquely; we must be united with God wholly. How shall we be united with God
must be
in
being?
beholding
united
with
That must happen and
not
in
the
in
the
Wesung.
'
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
76
His being
may
not become our being,
Not an already existent life a Wesung is to be known in the logical sense but the higher knowing the beholding shall itself become life; the spiritual, the ideal must be so felt by the beholder, as ordinary daily life is felt by individual human nature. but
it
shall
be our
life."
—
—
;
—
—
From
such
starting
Meister
points,
Eckhart also builds up a pure conception of
Freedom.
soul
is
In
its
not free; for
ordinary
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
But by
is
' '
by
beholding
raised out of the
'
domain
and acts no longer as a
separated individual soul.
being
impelled
is
The
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
wills
it
Himself
He
sets the will free, so that
and the
wills;
and
we
not
is
God
not otherwise than what
to will other than
that
77
spirit desires
what God
un-freedom:
its
wills:
and
it is its
true
For freedom
real freedom.
that
is
are not bound, but free and pure
unmixed, as we were in our pouring, as
we were
not
and
first
out-
set free in the
Holy
Ghost." It
man
may
be said of the illuminated
that he
from within
himself the being which
is
itself
good and what
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 out in
man
is
*'The
serveth neither God, nor
the creature; for he
he
him.
is free,
and the nearer
to righteousness, the
Freedom's very
self."
more he
What
is
then, for
78
THE RENAISSANCE
MYSTICvS OF
Meister Eckhart, can
be?
evil
It
can
be only action under the influence of the
mode
lower
—the
regarding
of
things;-
acting of a soul which has not passed
through the state of Entwerdung (un-
Such a soul
becoming). sense that
wills only itself.
it
not bring
moral
in the
could
It
outwardly into
willing
its
with
accord
is selfish
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
itself, it
lordship
made
itself
can no longer
ends of the lower nature, for longer aught in nature. ideals
To
common
of
yet the
into this will it
the
has no
with this lower
act in conformity with moral
implies for
the
soul
which has
no compulsion, no deprivation. "The man who standeth in God's will
vision,
and
in
God's love, to him
it is
a craving
MEISTER ECKHART to
do
good things that God
all
and leave undone
evil
all
And
are contrary to God.
him
sible for
that
God
walking
will
willeth,
things that it
is
impos-
undone anything
to leave
Even
have done.
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." Eckhart
moreover
guards
expressly
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
he
men
no longer
wills anything.
say:
If I
have God and God's freedom,
then
I
may
just
**
Certain
do whatever
Such understand wrongly
I please.
this saying.
long as thou canst do aught that
is
So con-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
8o
God and His commandment,
trary to
long thou
God's love;
hast not
so
even
though thou mayest well deceive the world, as
thou
if
Eckhart
hadst."
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
and
ception,
and an
human
"For grasp, is
and
life
makes
heavens.
and the
.
God.
order-
appearance.
Where understanding
which .
it is
dark, there
There that power unfolds
.
bliss of
the righteous
is full
its
new
that desiring can desire,
all
shineth God.
is
entirely
desiring end, there
in the soul
con-
that the understanding can
all
verily not
and
all logical
acting in the ordinary
all
sense, ceases,
ing of
that there
;
of bliss.'*
is
wider than the wide
The bliss of the God is one bliss full of bliss,
righteous ;
for there
where God
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD In Johannes Tauler Suso
(1
( 1
300-1 36 i),Heinrich
295-1 365), and Johannes Ruys-
broeck (1293--1381), one makes acquaint-
ance with
men whose
Hfe
exhibit in a very striking
and work
manner those
''motions of the soul" to which such a spiritual
hart of
is
path as that of Meister Eck-
calculated to give rise in natures
depth and power.
seems
like
a
man
While Eckhart
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, appear
rather like pilgrims, to re-birth has 6
whom
their inner
shown a new road which they 81
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
82
fain
would
to vanish before
them
into the illimitable
Eckhart dwells more upon the
distance.
his
of
glories
whose goal seems
tread, but
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
He He
ruled.
product of that world.
and
by which that is
himself a
lives
because
materials are at
work
its
forces
in
him; nay, he perceives this sense-
its
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 -format ion,
—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
siimmit
and
overlook
at
once
both
84
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
ourselves and the
outer world in their
mutual interplay.
a something working higher than sonality
the
in
here
not
there
Is
us,
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
and the outer world? judges and gains for
That which here itself insight is no
longer our separated personality; rather
the general world -being,
has torn
down
alike.
As
is
which
the barrier between the
inner and outer worlds and
both
it
true as
now embraces
it is
that, judged
by the outer appearance, I still remain the same separated individual when I have thus torn down this barrier, so true is
it
also that,
sential being, I
arated unit.
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
soul the All -Being, which embraces both
myself and the entire world.
This
''Man
said:
men^
what Tauler
is
is
just as
—his 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
is
.
his understanding
—
lit.
man
and
far this third
is
spirit,
emotional, feeling nature),
How
man
is
above the
first
words: ''The eye through which
God, that sees me. Cp.
W.
and
Eckhart has expressed in the
second,
'
.
rea-
the very highest part of the soul." ^
p. 161.
.
the inner, understanding
soning powers; the third (Gemilth
man.
the outer, animal, sensuous
the other
man, with
godlike
man and
is
I
see
the same eye with which
God
My
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
as well as this.
He
is
active
has fought his
through to a real vision of the
way
spiritual,
and does not constantly confuse, as do the false materialists and the false idealists,
the
spiritual.
If,
sensibly-natural with
with his disposition, Tauler
had become a insisted upon
scientist,
he would have
explaining
all
natural, including the whole of
the
first
natural
that
is
man, both
and the second, purely upon He would never have lines.
transferred purely
nature
the
itself.
spiritual
He would
forces
never
into
have
talked of a " purposef ulness " in nature
conceived of according to men's notions.
He knew
that there, where
with our senses, are to be found.
we
no "creative
perceive ideas'*
Far rather he was most
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD keenly conscious of the fact that
And
a purely natural being.
87
man
is
as he felt
himself to be, not a scientist, but a de-
votee of moral
he therefore
felt
most
keenly the contrast which reveals
itself
between
life,
this natural 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
itself
finds himself as
reveal to
him anything
than that he
nature.
cannot
a
As a get
is
natural creation.
In
And
life
yet his inner
and beyond
it.
single being, a
science can
else
about this
such a creature of
creature
outside
mean-
to his eyes.
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 him or show to him.
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
88
If
he
calls
'Hhat which to reach
''that
is,"
then he must be able
out to the vision which as
cognises
only this nature Being or
which
no God who
the higher, is is
not.**
re-
Non-being,
or
Tauler seeks for
present in the same sense
as a natural force; he seeks no
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 found idealised
to as
nature's working and her laws are found,
by
science.
Tauler
we must not add nature as God.
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 nature in thought.
who has
Therefore,
Tauler seeks not to think God, but to
THE FRIENSDHIP OF GOD think divinely, to think as
God
89 thinks.
The knowledge by the knowledge of God, but transformed. The knower of God does not know a of nature is not enriched
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
of
Not
God
nature; but
through his whole knowing of nature there shines a
What of
new
light.
root-feelings will take possession
a man's soul
who
contemplates the
world from this point of view,
will
depend
upon how he regards that experience of the soul which brings about spiritual re-birth. is
Within
this
experience,
man
wholly a natural being, when he con-
siders
himself
in
his
interaction with
the rest of nature; and he spiritual
is
wholly a
being when he considers the
conditions into which this re-birth has
90
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE Thus we can say with
brought him. equal truth, soul
is still
the
inmost depth of the
natural; as also
it is
already
Tauler emphasised the former
divine.
with his own tendency of
in accordance
However far we may penetrate our souls, we still remain separated
thought. into
individual htiman beings, said he to himself.
But yet
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
91
reproduces the All-Being as a picture; but this All-Being itself does not shine it
forth in thee.
Starting from such con-
came
ceptions, Tauler
to the idea of a
Godhead that never merges wholly
into
the himian world, never flows quite comMore, he attaches impletely into it.
portance to his not being confused with those who maintain that man's inmost being
is
itself
divine.
Union with God
is
in a fleshly sense, shall
He
says:
''The
taken by fooHsh
men
and they say that they
be transformed into divine nature
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 still remain lofty, yea, higher than the loftiest; 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
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.
deepen through
speaks as
a pious priest of the content of Holy Writ.
But
this
same scripture
still
becomes
in
means
for
the world of his conceptions a
the expression of the inmost experiences of his soul.
y
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
born
when one
begetteth in the soul? of
Is
it
of
God?
Nay:
it is
a likeness is it
some-
neither picture
nor likeness of God, but the same
and the same Son
whom
less.
God
says:
God, or a picture of God, or
what
begetteth
more, nor
in eternity, neither is
He
God
the Father be-
getteth in eternity and naught else than
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD the blissful divine word, that
Him
person in the Trinity, begetteth in the soul, the
The
dignity."' for
.
.
.
the second
the Father
and thereof
hath thus great and special
soul
come
is
93
stories of scripture be-
Tauler the garment in which he
clothes the happiness of the inner
who drove
''Herod,
sought to slay him, world,
should and must desire to
is
flee
kill
this
man, therefore one therefrom, if we do us,
but
and every man.'* directs his gaze
the natural man, he
concerned to the higher ^Cp. Preger: 219
a likeness of the
the enlightened believing soul
As Tauler
p.
is
keep that child alive in
that child of each
out the child and
which yet seeketh to
child in a believing
life.
e^ seg_.
tell
man
is
mainly upon
comparatively
less
us what happens 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
if
they are to be transmuted into
the higher
moral
life,
As a devotee of the he desires to show to men the life.
roads to the All-Being. ditional faith
and
shines forth in
if
his life that there shall
But
man
up
his
in
world:
a
off
man
shuts him-
mere natural separated
is
creature,
The more man
in
much
energies
member
of
the less can the All-
Being find place in him. reality to
Tauler's
shuts himself
within this his being as a
the world, so
off
merely one member of the
single
language.
can
this All-Being
Such a man, separated
personality. in himself,
will so order
be in him a shrine
never shine forth while self
has uncon-
trust that the All-Being
man,
for the Divine.
He
''If
man
is
become one with God, then
and powers even
in all
of the inner
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
95
and become silent. The will must turn away even from the Good and from all willing, and become void "Man must escape from of willing."
man must
all
die
his senses
and turn inwards
his
all
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
higher perspectives,
Thus
possibilities. is
him the
to
more exalted and defined as
still
clear
direction in which he has
to turn his steps,
him
inexhaustible,
says to himself: whatever thou hast reached, there remain
level still
is
He
endless.
it
is
equally clear to
that he can never speak of a goal:
for a
new
new
path.
man
reaches a certain level of evolution:
but
evolution
goal
is
only the beginning of a
Through such a new goal itself
continues
inimit-
And what that evolution may upon some more distant level, it can never know upon its present stage. There is no knowing the final goal: only ably.
attain
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
our
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD spirit.
For the higher
inner being, there
is
hfe
97
man's
of
no such knowing.
Here the powers of our
spirit
must
first
transfer the object itself into the realm of the existent; they
for
it
must
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
himself
unfoldment.
what
for earlier
stages he only knows.
He
cording to the object,
that which, for
what has gone
before,
creates, ac-
he only copies
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
98
in accordance
with
That truth
not one with the existent
is
spiritual nature.
its
but naturally embraces both
in nature,
the existent and the non-existent: of this
truth Tauler all
his
down
feelings.
by
Friend of
We
It
has been handed
was
led to this
an illuminated
layman, a
to us that Tauler
fulfilling **
to overflowing in
filled
is
God from
the Mountains."
have here a mysterious story.
God"
lived
there exist only conjectures; as to
who
As
to where this ''Friend of
he was, not even these.
He
seems to
have heard much of Tauler 's way
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
the
upon the former, 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
Book
''The
of
a
ler himself.
title,
Therein
whom some
same who came
lations with Tauler, gives " Master,"
the
the Master."
a Friend of God, in recognise the
under
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
when he
latter,
*'
Master" and how the
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 speaks.
He
that
the knowledge
all
from him
is
whom
the book
asks this on the that
ground proceeds
yet not really from him.
"For know ye that God hath brought all to pass through me, poor worm, and
100
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
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
but that
existed,
fiction
effort
and that the
books ascribed to him come from another hand (Rulman Merswin).
On
the
other hand Wilhelm Preger has sought
with
many arguments
German Mysticism)
(in his
History of
to support the exist-
ence, the genuineness of the writings,
and
the correctness of the facts that relate to Tauler. I
am
light
here under no obligation to throw
by presumptuous investigation upon
a relationship as to which any one, who ^Denifle: Die Dictungen des GoUesjreu7ides itn Oherlande.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD understands
how
question,
will
in
remain a
loi
to read the writings^
know
that
should
it
secret.
one says of Tauler, that at a certain
If
stage of his
life
a transformation took
place in him, that will be
amply
sufficient.
Tauler 's personality need no longer be
any way considered
in
but only a personality "in general."
tion,
As regards Tauler, we with the fact that his
in this connec-
transformation
view
we must understand from the point
what
follows.
his later activity
with his
forth in
set
compare
are only concerned
the fact of this transformation
without '
The
further
search.
writings in question are,
I
among
is
we
earlier,
obvious
will others
If
of
:
leave Von eime
manne, der von eime heiligen weltpriestere gewiset wart life demuetige gehorsamme, 1338; Das Buck von den zwei Mannen; Der gefangene Ritter, 1349; Die geistliche stege, 1350; Von der geistlicJien Letter, 1357;
eigenwilligen weltwisen
Das Meisterbuch, 1369; igen
Knaben.
Geschichte von zwei fimfzehnjahz-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
102
aside all outer circumstances
and
relate
the inner occurrences in the soul of the
''Master" under
**the influence of the
What
layman."
my
reader
will
understand by the "layman" and the ''Master" depends entirely upon his mentality; what
myself think about
a matter as to which
it is
for
I
whom
A
it is
Master
as to
is
of
I
cannot know
any weight.
instructing his disciples
the relationship of the soul to
the All-Being of things. fact
own
that
when
man
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.
man does God
There
not see God, or the world; there
sees Himself.
with God.
Man
has become one
But the Master knows that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD this teaching has not yet full life in
him.
He
103
awakened to
thinks
with his
it
understanding: but he does not yet live in
with every fibre of his personality.
it
He
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
it,
without even in the
with
least living in accordance
it.
in that case he has nothing other in
But him
than the natural knowledge of the un-
He
derstanding.
then
speaks
of
this
were the
natural
knowledge as
highest,
equivalent to the working of
the All-Being.
it
if
It is 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
only
remains
life.
a
What one
natural
natural,
man, that
—even
one afterwards expresses
in
ac-
when
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
must evolve something new must level,
;
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD come
105
into existence through this ftirther
evolution.
Man must
backwards upon
the
not
lies
highest
that
cording
thereto
which in
look
evolution
which
—claim
as the
behind him
already
only
shapes his
spirit
itself
ac-
—but
he
must look forward upon the uncreate: his knowledge must be a beginning of a
new
content, not an end to the content
of evolution which already lies before
Nature advances from the worm to the mammal, from the mammal to man, it.
not in a conceptual but in an actual, real
Man
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 nature; 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
level.
God who contem-
talk about the
plates Himself in man's inner being, takes
on a
He
recognised this.
portance
to
the
attaches
fact
that
depths
the
of
All-Being;
spiritual nature acquires a It
unfolds
itself
direction determined
Such a
man
differently
by
little
im-
an insight
him
already attained has led
ter.
who has
different character in one
into the
instead,
new
further
his
charac-
the
in
the All-Being.
not only looks at the world
from one who merely under-
stands: he lives his
life
He
otherwise.
does not talk of the meaning which
life
already has through the forces and laws of the world: but he gives
anew a
fresh
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD meaning to
his
As little as the itself what makes
life.
has in
already
107 fish its
appearance on a later level of evolution
mammal,
as the
man
standing
as
has the under-
little
already in himself what
be born 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
man
must be so. He gives himself a meaning in reality; he In
also
this
does not halt and stand
meaning
he
already
contemplation leaps out
stands
has,
shows him.
beyond
itself, if
itself aright.
at
the
which
his
still
Knowledge
only
it
under-
Knowledge cannot
deduce the world from a ready-made
God;
it
germ
in the direction
can only unfold
itself
from a
towards a God.
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 mammal is unknown ;
to the
fish.
He
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 was a "Friend
to the Master,
God"
of
109
in
this sense,
and through him the Master became from a contemplator God, one who
the being
of
of
''alive in the spirit,*'
is
one who not only contemplated, but The Master lived in the higher sense.
now no
longer brought forth concepts
and ideas
his inner nature,
ideas burst
actuahsed
but these concepts and
forth
from him as
He
spirit.
longer
of
their
being.
plunged
their
souls
inner being; he led
This
is
living,
no longer merely
he shook the very
edified his hearers;
foundations
from
understanding
the
of
them
He no into
into a
their
new
life.
recounted to us symbolically:
about forty people his preaching
H:
fell
and lay as H<
down through if
*
dead.
no MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE As a guide
such a new
to
possess
a
book
nothing
is
known.
known
about
has
Pfeiffer,
whose
Luther
The
in print.
first
with
original
book
the
it
ac-
year
the
trans-
What
text.
indicates
it
Franz
modern German
a
lation facing the
precedes
made
printed
recently
we
author
philologist,
cording to a manuscript of 1497,
life,
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
this follows
man from
"Al-mighty, Eternal
uttered this
little
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
1
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD insight
pecially
know and
Divine Wisdom,
into
1 1
and
es-
how and whereby one may
the true, righteous friends of God,
the
also
thinkers,
who
unrighteous,
false,
free-
are very hurtful 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 Master.
It
died,
not
known who the
But what does that mean? not known when he was born and or what he did in his outer life.
author was. It is
is
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
112
That
the
author
aimed
preserve
to
eternal secrecy about these facts of his
outer
life,
which he desired to work.
in
the
"I"
way
belongs naturally to the
of this or the other
at a definite point of time,
speak to us, but
not
It is
man, born
who
is
to
the "I-ness" in the
depths whereof ''the separateness of individualities** (in the sense of
saying
must
first
unfold
Paul Asmus*
itself.
"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 pure suffering, so that '
God
alone doeth and worketh
Vide ante, page 34.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD and
all
things in me,
all
His works and His divine not submit to
will
if I
myself with egotism, I,
suffer
I
this,
i.e.,
113
Him and will.
But
but possess
with mine, and
to me, for me, and the like, that hinders
God
me
so that
He
cannot work His work in
purely alone and without hindrance.
remain
my
my
away thus not made good." The
Therefore
fall
and
turning
^'man from Frankfurt" aims to speak not as a separated individual; he desires to let
God
this only as
speak.
a
That he yet can do
single, distinct personality
he naturally knows
full well;
but he
a "Friend of God," that means a
who aims not of
life
pointing
is
man
at presenting the nature
through contemplation, but at out the beginning of a
new
evolutionary pathway through the living spirit.
The explanations 8
in
the
book
are
114
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
how one comes The root-thought
various instructions as to to
X
pathway.
this
strip
and
again
returns off
man must
again:
everything that
connected
is
with that which makes him appear as a single, separate personahty.
This thought
seems to be worked out only in respect of the
moral
should be extended,
life; it
without further ado, to the higher of
knowledge as
hilate
separateness
then
:
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
us.
the
We
comes into
separateness
when we
existence
already dwelt within
as it.
when
us,
us
to
least
of
in
have the All-Life
just then,
separated
It
so regard our if
the
This
Whole
first
to light in the separated existence
comes
when
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD this separated existence
sion
no longer claims
be anything.
for itself to
115
This preten-
on the part of the separated existence
our text terms ''assumption."
Through it
asstmiption " the self makes
' '
impossible
versal self
for
itself
that the Uni-
should enter into
Self
then puts
itself
it.
The
as a part, as some-
thing imperfect, in the place of the whole,
"The
of the perfect.
perfect
that in itself and in
its
and resolved
beings,
all
is
a being,
being has conceived
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
all
unchangeable and
immovable, and changes and moves
all
But the divided and the that which has sprung from
other things.
imperfect
is
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,
so far as
felt,
is
sun
For just as the whole world and
it
possible
.
is
come?
and not
I is
it
is
But that
is
in
it.
the
illuminates
just as near to the
man
sees
of the
sun
one as to the other, yet a blind not.
.
tasted in the soul; for the
defect lies wholly in us
it
.
the perfect cometh, the divided
despised.
say:
is
no defect
man. ... If my eye to see anything, it must become is cleansed, or be already cleansed from all
but
of the blind
other things.
.
.
.
Now
one might be
inclined to say: In so far then as
unknowable and inconceivable creatures,
and
since the soul
is
it
for
also
is
all
a
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD how can
creature,
it
as
is
is
known as a
the creature shall be
This
known
then be
Answer: Therefore
the soul?
much
117
it
in
said,
creature.'"
as to say that
all
creatures shall be regarded as created
and creation and not regard themselves
and
I-ness
as
knowing
is
whereby
self-ness,
made
whatever creature be known, there
impossible.
thing of the kind must be
fore
The
its
look within
from the
perfect.
it
Chap,
i.,
Book
it
therefinds
thereby cuts
itself off
If
If it regards its I-ness it
were, and
will
be seized
as
it
in spirit,
oj the
must
remains
upon by the stream ^
be and
it
only as a thing lent to annihilates
lost,
there
itself;
it
shall
and every-
soul
I-ness, its self-ness.
standing there,
one
creature-being, cre-
ated-being, I-ness, self-ness,
become naught."'
''For in
this perfect
all
this
it
of the All-Life, of
Man from
Frankfurt.
Ii8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE ''When
Perfection.
sumes to
creature
the
somewhat
itself
as-
good, as
of
Being, Life, Knowledge, Power, in short,
aught of that which one thinks that to
it
much
calls
that, or that
it is
or comes from
good and it
belongs
and so
so often
it,
as that happens, does the creature
"The created soul of man The one is the possibiUty
turn away.'*
has two eyes.
of seeing in eternity; the other of seeing in time
and
therefore stand himself, that
me, mine, he as
and what
is
for
little is
"Man
in creation.''
and be quite without
me and
seeks
free
should
without
self-ness, I-ness,
the
like,
and thinks
so that
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
fact in regard
the
writer of
these
thought-content,
to which he gives a direction
higher ideas
and feehngs,
by
We
his
that of a
is
believing priest in the spirit of his
time.
19
take account of the
to the
that
sentences,
1
own
are here concerned not with
the thought-content, but with the direction, not with the thoughts
the
way
of thinking.
but with
Any one who
does
not live as he does in Christian dogmas,
but in the conceptions of natural science, finds
his
in
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
seeketh and willeth
and
"For God's and that, void
and
and
does or leaves undone,
receive
its
own
benefit
"When, now, the loseth his own-ness himself,
God
it
and
that
own
in all
that
seeketh to profit.
creature or the
and
his self-ness
and goeth out from
it
its
and
itself
'that';
is
man and
himself, then
entereth in with His Own-ness, that
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD is
with his Self -hood ."
Man
'
wards, from a view of his
makes the very
soars up-
"Ego" which
appear to him as his
latter
being,
121
a
to
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
hand belongeth
God
just as a
to him,
then
man's
let
him
content himself and seek no further."^
That
is
not
intended
when man has reached a of
his
there,
as
is
evolution
he
mean
to
that
certain stage
shall
stand
still
but that, when he has got as far indicated in the above words, he
should not set on foot further investigations into the
rather
make
meaning
of the hand,
use of the hand, in order /
^
^
but
Chap, xxiv, Book of Ibid., Chap. liv.
the
Man
from Frankfurt.
z'
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
122
that
it
may
to which
it
render service to the body belongs.
Heinrich Suso and Johannes RuysBROEK possessed a type of mind which
may be characterised as genius for feeHng. Their feeHngs are drawn by something
Hke
instinct
in
the same direction in
which Eckhart's and Tauler's feeHngs were guided by their higher thoughtHfe.
Suso's heart turns devoutly towards
that Root-Being which embraces the individual
man
just as
much
remaining world, and in
as the whole
whom
forgetting
himself, he yearns to 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 he desires to of
it
embrace
in thought;
he speaks
as a natural impulse, that
makes
his
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD
123
drunken with desire
the
soul
annihilation
and
its
of
separated existence
its
re-awakening to of
efficiency
the
being in
being.
its ptire
naked
thou mayest
that
alone,
with not-being; for all
''Turn
let fall
Take unmoved
manifold being.
that itself
life.
endless
simplicity, so that
and
in the all-
life
thine eyes to this being in
this
for
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 or not-being except
know mixed being by some mark of
For
being as a whole.
if
one
will under-
stand a thing, the reason
first
encounters
being,
and that
all things.
is
It is a divided being of this
or that creature, all
a being that worketh
—for
divided being
is
mingled with something of other-ness,
with a possibility of receiving something.
MYSTICS OF THE RENALSSANCE
124
Therefore
must it
the
nameless
divine
so be a whole being in
sustaineth
all
being
itself,
that
divided beings by
its
presence.'*
Thus speaks Suso in the autobiography which he wrote in conjunction with his pupil Elsbet Staglin. priest
and
circle of if it
He, too,
is
a pious
lives entirely in the Christian
He
thought.
lives therein as
were quite unthinkable that anybody
with his mental tendency could
any other world.
But
of
him
live in
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
for
him actual
and
his
relation
inner experience,
become a own spirit and the Christ has
Christian
become
relation
to
between his
eternal truth in a
purely ideal, spiritual way.
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD He composed a
''Little
Wisdom" speak
to
not?
How
its
servant, in
"Knowest thou
other words to himself:
me
of Eternal
In this he makes the "Eter-
Wisdom.'' nal
Book
125
art thou so cast
down, or
hast thou lost consciousness from agony of heart, is I,
my
merciful
Behold
tender child?
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
who might make it is I,
thy worthiness;
suffered bitter death, that I
thee to live again!
I
stand
here pale and bleeding and lovely, as I
stood on the lofty gallows of the cross
between the stem judgment of
and
thee.
is I,
thy spouse!
It
is I,
I
my Father
thy brother; look,
it
have therefore wholly
126
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
forgotten as
it
if
thou hast done against me,
all
had never been,
turnest wholly to self
me and
if
only thou
separatest thy-
no more from me.'*
All that
bodily and temporal in the
is
become
has
conception
Christian
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
through
revelations,
visions.
But he expresses
to
not
the
truth
through
about
his
One
this.
through
let
action
but through
spiritual power,
clearly
he had
by the mere
external
quite
if
ghostly
meaning attains
reasonableness,
any kind
of
revelation.
''The difference between pure truth and
y
two-souled
knowledge
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
it
all
be
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 spiritual way found an active opponent in Johannes Gerson (born 1363), who was for some time Chancellor of the
128
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
University of Paris and played a mo-
mentous
role at the Council of Constance.
Some
light is
of the
mysticism which was practised by
Tauler,
compares
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
all
those
who, through an easy-going judgment of the understanding, hold that
all
things
proceed from one Root-Being,
who
there-
fore see in the world only a manifoldness
God the unity of this manifoldness. Ruysbroek does not count himself among these, for he knew that one cannot attain and
in
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 man, in his separated exist-
ence
(in
his creature-being),
He
nature also.
deplored not a
the error which confuses in
the
his higher
sense- world,
and
all
little
differences
asserts
light-
mindedly that things are different only but that in their being
in appearance,
they are
all alike.
This would amount,
for a
way of thinking like
the
same thing as saying:
fact that the trees in
Ruysbroek's, to
That the
an avenue seem to
our seeing to come together does not In reality they are every-
concern us.
where equally
far apart,
therefore our
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 our 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 him that
things of the senses, he accepts
they
and
are,
standing in
senses
is
clear to
no judgment
through
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 beheve
in this
THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD For them, what
self -shining.
131
man
can
behold remains always a something external, that
come
from some
them
to
side or other
Ruysbroek
externally.
believed that the highest
must
wisdom must
needs shine forth for mystic contem-
Gerson believed only that the
plation.
can illuminate the content of an
soul
external teaching (that of the Church).
For else
Gerson,
faith,
that
For
teaching.
is
warm
but possessing a
everything
was
Mysticism
is
born
feeling for
revealed
Ruysbroek,
that the content of
also
in
nothing
the
all
clearness,
but that
there expresses All-Being.
the
itself
in
Therefore
in that
All-Being this
a
teaching
latter imagines that not only has
power to behold
this
was
it
soul.
Gerson blames Ruysbroek
in
the
he the with
beholding
an activity
of the
Ruysbroek simply could not
132
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
be understood by Gerson. of
two wholly
different
Both spoke Ruys-
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
Chrysippus
Nicholas
He
Trevis, 1401-1464).
summit In
of
Cusa
of
(at
stands upon the
the knowledge of his time.
mathematics
markable work.
may
sky
he
accomplished
re-
In natural science he
be described as the forerunner of
Copernicus, for he took up the standpoint that the earth
body
like others.
is
a moving celestial
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
it
The same man who braced
all
it
thus not only em-
further,
external
man
knowledge
this
so that
life,
a
about in the air?"
possessed
addition, in a high degree, the
awakening
make
the knowledge of his time, but
extended
also
movement;
Copernicus
and run
it
for
it
in
power
of
in the inner
not only illuminates the
world, but
that spiritual
also
life,
mediates
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
inner
life
of
as Meister Eckhart;
knowledge as
The
but the
of the former has a rich store its
content.
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
either over- or under-rate this
which leads us to the goal special will
sciences.
knowledge
in the various
In the one case he
approach the subject-matter of the
highest spiritual
lem
will
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,
an organism,
or
or
as
God:
teleological structure of a personal
perhaps even as a form which
pervaded by a more or ceived ''World-Soul.'*
is
the
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
can know nothing about
things which senses.
lie
sceptic, saying
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,
—
from Scholasticism, the way of conceiving things which was dominant in scientific life within the Mediaeval Church; a
mode of thought that St. Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), the ''Prince of Scholastics,"
had brought to its highest perfection. We must take this 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
it
highest
striving to
work out concepts in their most clear-cut outlines, ought the
in
sharpest,
to go to
instruction.
They
138
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE High School They thinking.
afford us the
nique
of
incomparable
skill in
of pure thinking.
for the tech-
possess
moving
an
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
calculation,
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,
in the
without
such
concep-
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
difficult to find
This has even led so far
has been contended, from various
sides, that in the
of
the ideal
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. that for
But the man who cannot do 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
140
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
was
much
just so
any
science in
real
domain as there was mathematics in it, was not very much at home in the matter.
One ought thing
rather to
which
demand
cannot
that every-
measured
be
or
counted should be handled just as ideally as the forms of
number and
And
space.
way did They sought
the Scholastics in the fullest justice
to
this
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,
this:
creates
in himself It
of
is
to
without further
discussion, that with such a conception of the
knowing process
all reality
must
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
For
be located outside of the knowing. one can grasp, itself,
in
141
knowing, not the thing
but only an image of that thing.
knowing himself man cannot
Also, in
grasp himself, but again, what he does
know
himself
of
himself.
It
is
only an image of
is
from out
entirely
of the
spirit of
Scholasticism that an accurate
student
thereof^
time no
and
perception
ground of
hidden
says:
life,
... he
of his
will
*^Man has
in
his ego, of the spiritual
being
never attain to
beholding himself; for either, estranged for ever
from God, he
will find in himself
only a fathomless, dark abyss, an endless emptiness, or
he
else,
made
blessed in God,
on turning his gaze inwards
will find
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 nature/^
Whoever thinks
like
this
about
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 our knowledge
pictures of whatever
When we
world. stone,
we
is
sensible in the
perceive a colour or a
are unable, in order to
know
the being of the colour or the stone, to
become ourselves the colour or the Just
as
little
stone transform
own
being.
It
stone.
can the colour or the itself into
a part of our
may, however, be ques-
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
manner: life
*^Our
but
is
ordered
the
in
therein:
in this
following earth-
in
primarily focussed
surrounding
the
spiritual
allied
spirit,
with the body,
upon
char-
conception of knowledge
acterises the
with
143
the
bodily
world,
direction
the
of
beings, natures,
forms of things, the elements of existence,
and
which are related to our offer to
it
the rungs for
its
spirit
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.,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
144
The Scholastic could not attain any other conception of knowledge, the dogmatic
content
prevented his doing
of his
so.
If
to for
theology
he had
rected the gaze of his spiritual eye
di-
upon
that which he regards as an image only,
he would then have seen that the spiritual content of things reveals
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.
gazing into his
own
His
beheld in
inner being, not a
dark abyss, an endless emptiness, but also not merely
would have him, which
and that
that a
life
pulses within
the very
life
of
felt is
his
an image of God; he
own
life is
God
itself;
verily just
God's
life.
This the Scholastic dared not admit.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA The God must not, in into him and speak
God must
145
his opinion, enter
forth
from him;
only be in him as an image.
In reahty, the Godhead must be external to the
Accordingly, also,
self.
not reveal
from within through
itself
the spiritual
life,
could
it
but must reveal
itself
from outside, through supernatural communication. 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 10
is
attained in this way: that as
146
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
regards the created, the external thing
given in experience, so that
is
knowledge
of
while as regards the
it;
divine, the object
experience;
The
we have
is
not given to us in
we can reach
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
that which it, itself,
is,
in
and
only knowledge, faith reigned.
if
a certain domain in
another only
For "the knowledge is
of
possible to us, because
springs from a creative element;
things are for the spirit, because they are from the spirit
to
tell us,
;
they have something
because they have a meaning
which a higher intelligence has placed Because God has created in them.'" '
Otto Willman, History of Idealism, vol.
ii.,
p. 383.
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
147
we
the world according to thoughts,
too
when we grasp the thoughts the world, to seize also upon the
are able, of
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 himian knowledge, but by faith; and "to faith belongs
all
writings
of
that
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 himian experience that has once
Such an experience
been undergone.
then preserved, as far as
its
outer form
goes, without the consciousness of it
And
was acquired.
in 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.
had
Science,
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 rightful
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
bound to accept a revealed
one.
The
naturally
Scholastics
could
not admit that in doing so they were accepting and proclaiming as ''revealed*'
a conception which in truth had really been begotten at an
man's
spiritual
earlier
of
life.
Thus, in the course of all
stage
its
development,
those ideas had vanished from Scholas-
ticism
which
indicated
the ways and
means by which man had begotten,
in
a
natural manner, his conceptions of the divine.
In
development of
the
doctrinal
the
of
the
of Christianity, at the
time
Church
first
centuries
Fathers,
we
see
the
content of theology growing
150
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
bit
by
by the
bit
In Johannes
experiences.
gena, ian
Scotus
Eri-
stood at the summit of Christ-
who
theological
century,
assimilation of inner
we
culture
the
in
ninth
find this doctrinal content
being handled entirely as an inner ing
experience.
of the
With the
liv-
Scholastics
following centuries, this charac-
teristic
of
an inner, living experience
disappears altogether: the old doctrinal
content
becomes transposed
content
of
an
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
themselves were held back
from this 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
152
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
appropriate to the age in Scholasticism.
We a
find
him
so far along the road, that
would necessarily
single step further
have carried him out
We
we complete
if
more which then,
he
looking
the one step
not
did
backwards,
mental
ignorance/' of
as
is
life
By
this
that
and
take;
throw
upon what he aimed at. The most significant thought las's
Church.
understand the Card-
shall therefore
inal best
the
of
of
in
light
Nicho-
"learned
he means a form
knowing which occupies a higher
level
compared with ordinary knowledge.
In the lower sense, knowledge
is
the
grasping of an object by the mind, or spirit.
The most important
istic of
knowing
is
that
it
character-
gives us light
about something outside of the that therefore
something
it
directs its gaze
different
from
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
enters
is
the
spirit.
If,
the
itself,
then
knowing
;
outside of
looking at it
is
being of
of like nature with
is
not looking at anything
it is
itself,
thing which
the
can no longer talk of
it
for
things
then,
spirit turns its attention to this
the things, which
What
only this sensible
being of
the
into
the
sees the spirit so far only
outside the spirit
encasement;
is
things are
through the sensible encasement. lies
spirit
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 being
is
it
obvious that the essential
things
of
can only be reached
Thus
through this stage of knowing.
Cusa
Nicholas of ''learned
not-knowing"
of nothing else but
new
in
birth, as
''
speaking is
his
of
really speaking
knowing" come
to a
He
an inner experience.
how he came to this '*I made many efforts inner experience. to unite 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 sea,
my
my way
by an from above, soared up
that perception in which to
me
until
back from Greece by
mind's vision, as
Itmiination
me
single
as the
if
il-
to
God appeared
supreme Unity
of all con-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA To
tradictions."
this illumination
a greater or
extent
less
was due to
155
influences
derived from the study of his prede-
One
cessors.
recognises in his
way
of
looking at things a peculiar revival of the views which writings
we meet with
in the
The
a certain Dionysius.
of
above-mentioned Scotus Erigena translated
these
writings
into
Latin,
and
speaks of their author as the ''great and divine revealer.**
The works tioned
in
century.
in question are first
the
first
half
They were
of
the
mensixth
ascribed to that
Dionysius, the Areopagite,
named
in the
Acts of the Apostles, who was converted to Christianity
by
writings were really
be
left
When these composed may here
St. Paul.
an open question.
Their con-
worked powerfully upon Nicholas as they had already worked upon Scotus
tents
156
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Erigena, and as they must also have
been in
way
of
many ways thinking
colleagues.
This
of ' '
stimulating for the
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.
things
in these
indicate of con-
found in these works.
knows the things
of the
He forms thoughts about its
being and action. all
* '
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 is
God
a concept which
and
"being"
whom we
must not even *
For
"
man
'
being
is
'
too
exalted above
The God
ascribe attributes,
We
God.
'
has formed from
"not-being."
fore not the true
true God,
is.
It
But God
lower things.
to
*'
when we think
is
there-
come
to the
of
an "Over-
God" above and beyond any God with such attributes.
Of
this
we can know nothing
in the ordinary
In order to attain to
sense.
"Over-God"
Him
' '
know-
ing" must merge into "not-knowing."
One there
sees that at the root of such a
lies
the consciousness that
self is able to
which
is
man him-
develop a higher knowing,
no longer mere knowing
purely natural manner
what
view
—on
his various sciences
—in
a
the basis 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 in
is
supposed to cease,
the help
to
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
of
knowing.
On
the contrary, for
him, knowing clearly divides two,
first
into such
itself
into
knowing as mediates
our acquaintance with external objects,
and second into such as is itself the object of which one gains knowledge.
The in
first
mode
of
knowing
is
dominant
the sciences, 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 in
selves live
acquired.
in us
is
This second kind of knowing
Now, however, it is still one and the same world with which both these modes of knowing are
grows out of the
concerned; and
same man who
first.
is
it
is
one and the
Hence whence comes it
active in both.
the question must arise,
that one and the self-same
two
self-
different kinds of
man
develops
knowledge of one
and the same world. 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
Through
knowledge.
(lower)
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 well as his
own
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,
He
can
some hidden being
is
whose manifestations
and effects are only that which appears to him to be his own activities. But
now
the
moment may come
in which,
through
an incontrovertible inner ex-
perience,
it
becomes clear to the
he experiences,
in whq,t
man
that
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
its
Then he In a certain way I
and intimate form.
can say to himself:
find all other things ready given,
myself, standing apart from of
them, add
spirit I
most
has to
and
I
and outside
them whatever the about them. But what
to
tell
thus creatively add to the things in
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
spirit?
It is the
knowledge which
have acquired of the things of the world. But in this knowledge there I
speaks no longer an
effect,
a manifest-
ation; that which speaks expresses itself
wholly, it
holding back nothing of what
contains.
In this knowledge, there
speaks the world in IX
all
its
immediacy.
i62
But
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE have acquired
I
knowledge
this
of
among From out my own being
things and of myself, as one thing
other things. I
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
the experience that in myself
my own
essential
perience
expands
have gained I
experience
being; and this ex-
me
in
itself
to
the
further one that in myself and througn
myself
the
Itself, or I
can
thing feel
All-Being
in other words,
expresses
knows
Itself.
now no longer feel myself as a among other things I can now only ;
myself as a form
Being
Itself
lives
out Its
in
own
which the
life.
All-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA It is
thus only natural that one and
man
the same
he
is
should have two modes
Judging by the facts of the
of knowing. senses,
163
a thing
and, in so far as he
among is
other things,
that, he gains for
himself a knowledge of these things; but
any moment he can acquire the higher experience that he is really the form in
at
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
i64
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE and
knowledge;
through
only
man's
higher knowledge can things also bring their being forth into real existence.
therefore,
If,
we demand
that
man
add nothing to things through inner knowledge, but merely give
shall
pression
his
ex-
to whatever already exists in
the things outside of himself, that would really
amount
to a complete abnegation
From
of all 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,
himself accomplishes with
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,
he abandons the real
nature of things: himself
off
he shuts himself
from
if
he seeks to shut
he
sense-perception,
would shut out from himself the things
whose nature he seeks to know.
It is
same things which reveal themselves alike in the lower knowing these
very
and the higher
seeing; only in the
one
case they reveal themselves according 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 fact that all
raise
level
man must
is
first of
and transform himself to the
upon which the things cease
to be
external and outside.
In the light of these considerations,
some
of the views
which natural science
i66
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
has developed
during
the
nineteenth
century appear for the
first
time in the
views
The supporters of these us that we hear, see, and touch
Hght.
right
tell
the objects of the physical world through
The eye, for instance, transmits to us a phenomenon of light, a colour. 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 sen-
our senses.
sation in other cases also. is
If
struck or pressed upon, or
spark
is
if
the eyeball
an
allowed to pass through the
head, the eye has a sensation of It is thus
we have
a body emitting red really
light.
evident that even in the
cases in which
may
electric
the sensation of light,
be happening
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
(i
up
which the Her-
in us.
821-1893) 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
i68
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to
the peculiar nature 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
addition.
symbol,
how-
not required to have any sort
of resemblance bolises.
A
The
to
that which
it
sym-
necessary connection be-
tween the object and the symbol limited
to
this:
is
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
coloiira-
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
which
of thought
own.
It
me
of
produces an effect upon
my
I
is
brain.
brought
experience the sensation *^red."
is
Cp. Helmholtz, Die
in detail in
my
my
follows 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
assumed that something
is
happens outside
and
view makes
this
1
not outside, not ex-
Thatsachen der Wahrnehmung, this kind of conception
have characterised
my
Welt-
Philosophie der Freiheit, Berlin, 1894, and und Lehensanschauungen im Neunzehntcn
Jahrhundert, vol.
ii.,
p.
i.,
etc.
170
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE me;
ternal to tions
All our sensa-
in me.
it is
merely symbols or signs of
are
external occurrences of whose real quality
we know
We
nothing.
live
and move
in
our sensations and know nothing of their In
origin.
the
of
spirit
this
of
line
would thus be possible to assert that if we had no eyes, colour would not exist; for then there would be thought,
it
this, to us,
nothing to translate
unknown
wholly
happening into the
external
sensation "red.'*
For many people possesses
a
nevertheless
this line of
attraction;
curious it
thought
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 matter
1
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA of fact, this blindness has ruined in
1
7
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
is
to have
naturally
it
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
For
a similar occurrence.
undoubtedly 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
I
any more than
cannot perceive I
can directly
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
172
wave
perceive the
which
the
motions "outside'*
physicist
conceives
But
answering
to
really
only in this sense that
it is
the
colour
as
of
''red/' I
can
speak of an "inside" and an "outside" at
Only on the plane
all.
ception
can
of sense-per-
opposition
the
between
"outside" and "inside" hold good.
The
recognition of this leads
assume the existence "outside"
me
to
a
of
process in space and time, although
do not directly perceive
it
at
the same recognition further to
postulate
I
ceive that either. I
And leads me
all.
a similar process within
myself, although
fact,
I
habitually
cannot directly perBut, as a matter of postulate
analogous
occurrences in space and time in ordinary life
which
I
do not directly perceive;
for instance,
when
I
as,
hear piano-playing
next door, and assume that a human being
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA in space
seated at the piano and
is
playing upon
when
And my
it.
173
is
conception,
speak of processes happening
I
and within me,
is
just the
outside
of,
same.
asstime that these processes have
I
quaUties analogous to those of the pro-
which do
cesses
my
of
senses,
within the province
fall
only
that,
because
my
certain reasons, they escape
of
direct
perception. If
I
were to attempt to
these processes
my
senses
I
to
the qualities which
all
show me
space and time,
deny
in the
domains
of
should in reality and
be trying to think something not unlike the famous knife without in truth
a
Therefore,
time
was wanting. can only say that space and
whose
handle, I
processes
blade
take
place
''outside"
me; these bring about space and time processes ''within" me; and both are
»
174
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
necessary
if
appear in
the sensation "red"
my
field
so far as this "red"
of vision. is
time, I shall seek for I
myself.
Those
it
For
find
it is
and
philoso-
"outside,
it
it
"inside
>>
J
not "inside," in exactly
the same sense in which
To
in
equally in vain,
ought not to want to find
side."
And,
not in space and
scientists
who cannot
either.
to
seek "without" or "within"
whether
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
is
within
say:
These
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 out-
but belong, on the contrary, to that common world, of which my
side of us,
''external"
world and
world are only parts. able to grasp this it
is
true,
raise
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
remarks;
unknown upon
contemptously
look
will
these
feelings of
as,
Dr.
instance,
for
Erich Adikes in his book, Kant contra Haeckel, observes condescendingly:
people like Haeckel and thousands
first
of
type
his
without
philosophise
knowledge
reflection."
inkling of
of
others.
how cheap are.
critical
Let
about
critical
self-
Such gentlemen have no
knowledge
lack
or
away
gaily
themselves
troubling
theory of
of
^'At
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
177
man
plete recognition of the fact that
as a sense-being can only have in himself processes which, as effects, sarily
must
neces-
be altogether unlike the corres-
ponding external processes; while, the other side,
it
on
guards him against
confusing the inner processes with the facts
which make their appearance
in
the field of our perceptions, and which, in their
immediacy, are neither outside
nor 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
knowing" to "notknowing." At the same time we must also note that in the domain of the higher the progress from
*'
knowledge, or "ignorance," he unfolds practically nothing but the content of 12
178
MYSTICS OP THE RENAISSANCE
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
Christianity.
in 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
it is
from within
"knowing** into a
capable
itself
"not-knowing,"
this in
such wise that the highest insight shall bring
satisfaction.
In
that
case,
he
would not simply have accepted the traditional ideas of the soul, immortality,
Trinity,
salvation,
and so
God, forth,
creation,
as he
the
actually
-
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
179
but he would have represented his
did,
own.
But Nicholas personally was, however, saturated
so
with 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 to light the traditional views in which he was brought
he
up.
But he stood upon the verge precipice
terrible
of
man.
He was
in
a
the
spiritual
scientific
man.
science, primarily, estranges us
innocent harmony in which the world so long as
of a
we
life
Now
from the live
with
we abandon
our-
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 Nature'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 are a burden which culty; for selves
strength,
we
we bear with
diffi-
And we must now, by
again to Nature. that
but our riches
weighs primarily upon our-
alone.
own
our
it
;
We
ourselves
way back
the
find
have to recognise
must now
fit
our
wealth into the stream of world activities, just
as previously
our poverty.
fitted in lie
Nature
in wait for
man
strength can easily
herself
All evil
demons
at this point. fail
him.
had 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 loneliness, which leads back once more refuge in
CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA
i8i
the knowledge that he feels a burden, into the very
Godhead.
womb
of being, into the
Like Nicholas of Cusa, he
will believe that
he
is
own
travelling his
road; and yet in reality he will 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)
phrastus Paracelsus
and
(i 493-1 541)
Theofollowed
the same road along which points Nicholas of
Cusa's
way
of conceiving things.
They devoted themselves of Nature,
laws by
all
to the study
and sought to discover her the means in their power and
as thoroughly as possible.
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
in
medicine
studied
much
sprang from a noble
family and was early
183
He
Cologne.
and law, and
sought to obtain clear insight into the
way which was then customary within certain circles and societies, or even among isolated processes of Nature in the
investigators,
who
studiously kept secret
whatever of the knowledge of Nature they
For
discovered.
he went repeatedly to to England,
and
He
purposes
Paris, to Italy,
also visited the
Abbot Trithemius burg.
these
of
Sponheim
and
famous
in Wiirz-
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
ground,
is
it
if
upon its own
to yield the right basis
the attainment of a higher level.
for
The
Nature"
"spirit in
spirit.
exists only for
So surely as Nature
is spiritual,
so surely too
is
in this sense
there nothing
in Nature, of all that is perceived
bodily
which
organs,
There
spiritual.
Therefore,
I
is
my
interpret
the external world
spiritual;
immediately
must not seek for the spirit ;
I
my
eye as spiritual.
as such in Nature but that
doing when
by
nothing spiritual
exists
which can appear to
in
special
is
I
am
any occurrence immediately as
when, 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;
as, for instance,
assert of the hiiman soul that
it
when
I
continues
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
sensible.
spirit in
some-
mistakes
It
equally both the real nature of the sensible
and
also that
de-spiritualises
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
once
rarity,
and which cannot
be grasped
in
their
all
natural
sequence and connection.
But the
spiritist
down
spirit
further
drags the
into a lower sphere.
of explaining
Instead
something that happens in
and that he perceives through his senses only, in terms of forces and beings which in their turn are spacial and perspace,
ceptible
to
senses,
he resorts to
which he thereby places exactly
''spirits,"
on a
the
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;
i88
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
we
therefore satisfy our craving for the
spiritual
with mere beings perceptible
Their own inner
to the senses. reveals to such
men
and therefore they seek through the senses. flying
through the
spirit
nothing spiritual; for the spiritual
As they
see clouds
so they would
air,
fain see spirits hastening along.
Agrippa
von Nettesheim fought
genuine
science
the
of Nature,
phenomena
for
which
a
shall
of Nature, not
explain
by means
of spirits phenomenalising in the world of the senses, but by seeing in
Nature only
the natural, and in the spirit only the spiritual.
Of course, Agrippa misunderstood
if
will
be entirciy
one compares his natural
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
NETTESHEIAd AND PARACELSUS
189
entirely referring to the direct action of
things which only depend
spirits,
upon
natural connections or upon mistaken
Such a wrong
experience.
is
done to
him by Moriz Carriere when he
says,
not in any malicious sense,
true:
it
is
''Agrippa gives a huge list of things which belong to the Sun, the Moon, the
Planets and the fixed stars, and receive influences from
them;
for
instance:
to
the Sun are related Fire, Blood, Laurel, Gold,
Chrysolite;
they confer the
of the Sun: Courage, Cheerfulness,
Light.
.
.
.
Animals
sense, which, higher
have
a
.
.
.
Men
and
natural
than himian under-
standing, approaches the spirit of
phecy.
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,
190
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
mills, that flashes, that
they cannot work, lightning
they cannot
strike.
This
is
brought about through drinks, salves, images, rings, incantations; the blood of hy-
enas or basilisks purpose'
—
it
is
adapted to such a
reminds one of Shakespeare's
cauldron."
witches'
remind one
of that,
Agrippa aright. without saying his time
tionable.
—
No; if
it
does
not
one understands
He believed-— it goes in many facts which in
everybody regarded as unques-
But we
still
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 lumberroom of "blind" superstition? I
am
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-
with
pared
all
previous
similar
creation,"
marked by
that
to
of
''theories
the recognition of the roundness of the earth
contrasted with
as
speculations as to
am
less, I
learned
to be
is
which
will
works and
found
treatises
many a
"fact**
seem to future centuries to be
just as little of a fact as
celsus
Neverthe-
form.
vividly conscious that in our
scientific
there
its
previous
all
much
that Para-
and Agrippa maintain; but the
really important point
is
not what they
regarded as "fact," but hoWy in spirit,
what
they interpreted their "facts."
In Agrippa 's time, there
understanding
or
sympathy
was for
little
the
"natural magic" he represented, which
192
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
sought
Nature
in
spiritual only
to
the
in
the
natural
— the
men
clung
the spirit
"supernatural
;
magic,"
which
sought the spiritual in the realm of the
and which Agrippa combated. Therefore the Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim was right in giving him the sensible,
advice to communicate his views only as a secret teaching to a few chosen
who
pupils of
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
to this
point
of
be that Agrippa
same Abbot view.
In
his his
Steganography, Trithemius has produced
a book in which he handled with the
most subtle irony that mode of conceiving things which confuses nature with spirit.
In this book he apparently speaks of
•
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS but
nothing
Any one
occurrences.
supernatural
reading
it
as
believe that the author
is
193
stands must
it
talking of conju-
rations of spirits, of spirits flying through
the
air,
and so on.
however, one
If,
drops certain words and letters under the table,
remain
there
—as
Wolfgang
Ernst Heidel proved in the year 1676 letters
which, combined into words, de-
scribe purely natural occurrences.
one
case,
last
one must drop
words
entirely,
(In
a formula of
for instance, in
conjuration,
and
—
the
first
and then cancel
from the remainder the second, fourth, sixth,
over,
and so on. one must
In the words
again cancel the
third, fifth letters
and so
combines what
then
and the itself
13
conjtiration
into a
cation.)
is
on.
left
left first,
One next
into words;
formula
resolves
purely natural communi-
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
194
How
difficult
was
it
Agrippa to
for
work himself free from the prejudices of his time and to rise to a pure perception is
proved by the fact that he did not
allow his "Occult Philosophy" {Philoso-
phia Occulta), already written in 15 lo, to appear before the year 1531, because
he considered
dence of this fact ' *
Further evi-
unripe.
it
is
given by his work
On the Vanity of the Sciences
tate
Scientiarum)
with
of
bitterness
the
'
difficulty
and
He
there
he has only with
wrenched himself
phantasy which beholds tions
immediate
external
facts
speaks
scientific
other activities of his time. states quite clearly that
{De Vani-
he
which
in
'
free
from the
in external ac-
spiritual
processes, in
prophetic 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
calls
on
and other
Nature, in so far as
this level,
is
it
given for its
phy-
forces.
He
substances,
its
chemical
sical,
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
its
natural inter-
orders things according
it
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 surroimdings.
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, item
is
in
which each individual
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
'
is
world
'
.
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
in a similar
manner, only
fected form.
consider
Theophrastus Paracelsus,
them
more
in
per-
It is better, therefore, to
with
in connection
the
latter.
Paracelsus characterises himself aptly,
when he
writes
under
portrait:
his
''None shall be another's slave, who for himself can remain alone.'' attitude towards knowledge
these words.
He
strives
His whole is
given in
everywhere to
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
197
go back himself to the deepest foundations of natural knowledge, in order to
by
rise
own
his
strength to the loftiest
regions of cognition.
As Physician, he
will not, like his contemporaries,
simply
accept what the ancient investigators,
who then counted
as authorities,
—Galen
or Avicenna, for instance, asserted long
ago; he
is
resolved to read for himself
directly in the
book
of Nature.
**The
Physician must pass Nature's examination,
which
origins.
is
And
the
world,
and
the
very
same
all its
that
Nature teaches him, he must command to his wisdom, but seek for nothing in his
wisdom, only and alone in the light
of
Nature."
He
shrinks from nothing,
in order to learn to
her workings in
know Nature and
all directions.
For
this
purpose he made journeys to Sweden,
Hungary, Spain, Portugal, and the East.
198
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
He
can truly say of himself:
have
'*I
followed the Art at the risk of
my
life,
and have not been ashamed to learn from wanderers, executioners and sheepMy doctrine was tested more shearers. 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
upward
if
he himself experiences the
from
climb the
Nature to
the knowledge of
highest
living, personal experience
mouth the proud will
follow truth,
monarchy.
.
.
.
puts into his
utterance: ''He
must come
into
After me; not
you, Avicenna, Rhases, Galen,
After me; not
This
insight.
I after
you,
I
who
my after
Mesur!
ye of Paris,
ye of Montpellier, ye of Swabia, ye of Meissen, ye of Cologne, ye of Vienna and
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
199
on the Danube and the Rhine; ye islands in the sea, thou Italy, thou Dalmatia, thou Athens, thou Greek,
what
of
lies
thou Arab, thou I
Israelite; after
me, not
the Monarchy."
after you!
Mine
It is easy to
misunderstand Paracelsus
because
of
his
is
rough
exterior,
which
sometimes conceals a deep earnestness behind a jest. Does he not himself say: ''By nature I am not subtly woven, nor brought up on
figs
and wheat-bread, but
on cheese, milk and rye-bread, wherefore I may well be rude with the over-clean and superfine for those who were brought ;
up
in
soft
clothing
and we who were
bred in pine needles do not easily understand one another. When in myself I
mean
to be kindly, I
be taken as rude. strange to one in the
sun?"
must
How
therefore often
can
I
not be
who has never wandered
200
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
In his book about Winkelmann, Goethe
man
has described the relation of
Nature
self
the following beautiful sen-
"When
tence:
man
in
to
nature
healthy
the
acts as a whole;
when he
feels
of
him-
as one with a great, beautiful, noble
and worthy whole; when the sense
of
harmonious well-being gives him a pure then would the Universe,
and
free delight
if it
could 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
With
being/'
own
its
a
be-
feeling
such as finds expression in these sentences,
From
Paracelsus
out of
its
is
simply saturated.
depths the riddle of
humanity takes shape for him. Let us watch how this happens in Paracelsus's sense.
At the
outset,
the
road
by which
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS Nature has travelled to attain her altitude
hidden
is
of comprehension.
from
201
loftiest
man's power
She has climbed,
deed, to the stmimit; but the
does not proclaim:
whole of Nature;
I feel it
in-
summit
myself as the
proclaims, on the
contrary: I feel myself as this single,
separated
human
reality
an achievement of the whole
is
universe,
feels
being.
itself
That which a
as
separated,
isolated being, standing alone
This indeed viz.,
is
that he
in
by
itself.
the true being of man,
must needs
feel
himself to
be something quite different from what, in ultimate analysis, if
he really
that be a contradiction,
man
is.
And
then must
be called a contradiction come to
life.
Man
is
particular
the
universe
way; he regards
in
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
This
a single being.
which Paracelsus
as
is;
but
a repetition, as is
feels as
the
contrast
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
his
is
This
spirit.
spirit
way,
appears
bound to a single being, to a single organism: and this organism belongs, by
as
if
the very nature of
its
whole being, to the
mighty stream 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
appears as an out-
this single, separated organism, itself
at the outset as
only with that organism. this
or
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-
man and
tween the
in
basic
the universe
foundations
connection which presence of
**
is
hidden
lies
of
being,
a
hidden through the
That
spirit/*
spirit
which
by making
leads us to higher
insight
knowledge
and leads on
possible,
this
knowledge to a new birth on a higher
—this
level'
men, to
has, as its first result 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
and our highest nature, our
universe; spirit,
which
lives
its
man*s nature Paracelsus
a purely
in
life
The
manner.
spiritual
first
factor
calls
the
mentary body " the second, the ;
heavenly,
or
in
Paracelsus
the
''ele-
ethereal-
Soul.'*
"astral"
phenomena,
an
intermediate
recognises
stage between
in
body"; and the
''astral
names "the
third he
Thus
entire
the purely physical and
the properly spiritual or soul-phenomena.
Therefore these astral activities will come into view veils
when the
spirit or soul,
which
or conceals the natural basis
our being, suspends
its activity.
of
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
occurrences
and with
205
significant connection
in
environment
our
states of our inner nature, are
products of our natural basis or rootbeing, which are obscured light of the soul.
by the
brighter
For example, when a
chair falls 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
see
that
in
come sense and
these dreams natural operations to
light
which are
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.
full,
is
clear consciousness
Connected with
this region
phenomena belonging to the domain of hypnotism and suggestion; and in the latter are we not compelled are all the
2o6
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
to recognise an interaction between hu-
man
beings,
nection
which points to some con-
or relation
Nature, which
is
between beings
normally hidden by the
From
higher activity of the mind? starting point
in
we can
this
reach an under-
standing of what Paracelsus meant by the
*'
astral" body.
It is the simi total
of those natural operations
influence
we
stand,
or
under whose
may
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
man, Paracelsus
the
nature of
him
into seven factors or prin-
which are the same as those we
ciples,
wisdom of the ancient Egyptians, among the Neoplatonists and
also find in the
in
Kabbalah.
the
man
a
is
In the
physical-bodily
therefore subject to the
He
every other body.
is,
place,
first
being,
and
same laws as in this respect,
therefore, a purely ''elementary" body.
The purely into
physical-bodily laws combine
an organic
life-process,
and Para-
celsus denotes this organic sequence of
law by the terms
''
spiritus
Next, the organic rises into a
vitcey
region
''archceus'' or
of
phenomena resembling
the
spiritual,
but which are not yet properly
spiritual,
and these he
classifies as
From amidst
tral"
phenomena.
astral
phenomena, the functions
"asthese
of the
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
2o8
**
animal
Man
make
soul**
their appearance.
becomes a being of the
Then he connects
together his sense
impressions according to
by
comes
nature,
their
his understanding or mind,
"human
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
that
he
was
himself, but that in
was uttering
Itself.
come about
in
speaking
felt
no
within
him the Root-Being The condition has
which the
All-Spirit
in
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
man
beholds
stamped the
Itself.
Paracelsus
"And
that
thing whereon to dwell: there
heaven or upon earth that
also
With nature,
is
a great
is
naught
is
not in
And God who dwelleth in Heaven,
Man.
He
has
feeling of this condition with
the simple words:
in
209
is
in Man.'*
these seven principles of htiman
Paracelsus
aims at expressing
nothing else than the facts of inner and outer
The
experience.
unquestioned that, what for perience subdivides plicity
reality
of
itself
exists just for the
human
ex-
into a multi-
seven factors,
a unity.
remains
fact
in
higher
But the higher
insight
is
very purpose of exhibit-
ing the unity 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 in its spirituality, when he enters into
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,
him wholly, immediately one then
first
divine.
is
for
Must
ascribe to the plant a soul
after the kind of a himian 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
to
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS
211
proceed from the root-matter,
the
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.
Word"
When
he says that the ''Divine
called
forth the multiplicity of beings
from the root-matter, one must understand this also only in such wise as per-
haps
in
must Force
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
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
212
when he
"There
says:
is
nothing which
does not possess and carry with
a
spirit
hidden
in
Also,
not
withal.
which
stirs itself
mals, the in the
and that
it
only
has
it
lives
that
and moves, as men,
worms
also
not life,
ani-
in the earth, the birds
sky and the
fishes in water,
but
bodily and actual things as well.'*
all
But
such sayings Paracelsus only
in
aims at warning us against that supercontemplation of Nature which ficial fancies
it
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
at
putting
into
some imaginary being, but at
setting in
motion
all
the powers of
man
to bring out that which in actual fact lies
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. to is,
man, a
He
ascribes
for instance, a dual flesh, that
dual
bodily constitution.
"The
must also be understood, that it is of two kinds, namely the flesh that comes from Adam and the flesh which is not flesh
from Adam.
The
gross flesh, for besides flesh,
flesh
it is
Adam
from
that can be
bound and
the
Adam,
it
The other is
a subtle
and cannot be bound or grasped,
flesh
for
not from
a
earthly and nothing
grasped like wood and stone. flesh is
is
it
is
flesh
not
made
that
everything that
is
What from Adam? It
of earth."
is
is
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 modern
conceptions of
scientific
and those
inherited characteristics
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 a
was
''gross flesh" like the animal,
flesh that
like
"can be bound and grasped
wood and
In a
stone."
sense, therefore, the soul
is
scientific
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
Naturally of
Adam."
that comes from
flesh
I
the
blurring
between a
have not the
least intention
that
difference
scientist of the sixteenth
one of the nineteenth century. indeed, this latter century first
exists
time was able to
scientific sense, the
and
It was,
which for the
see,
in the full
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 Linnaeus in the eighteenth
century
saw
a
characterised
it
are counted
as
spiritual
process
in the words:
many
species
and
"There of living"
beings, as there were created different
forms
in
the beginning."
While thus
in Linnaeus'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 '*
creating*'
spirit-
or
life,
them: the natural science
the nineteenth
of
century could give to
Nature what belonged to Nature, and
what belonged
to Spirit
Nature
is
even assigned the task of exher
plaining
own
and the
creations;
Spirit can plunge into itself there,
alone of
it is
To
to Spirit.
where
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 For to man a self-creative activity. if
the divine root of being
given once for
as
is,
it
were,
then there can be no
all,
question of any truly creative activity in
man.
who then
It is
not man, living in time,
but
creates,
from Eternity, that Paracelsus there Eternity.
is
it
is
God, who
creates.
for
no such God from
For him there
eternal happening,
But
is
and man
in this eternal happening.
is is
only
an
one link
What man
forms, was previously in no sense existent.
What man
creates,
is,
as he creates
new, original creation. called divine,
it
If
it
is
it,
a
to be
can only be so-called in
the sense in which
it is
a
human
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 beings
is
2i8
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
without man, not that which
it
is
with
man. ''For nature brings nothing to light,
which as such
make it perfect ity of is
man
perfect,
is . '
This
'
but
man must
self -creative activ-
in 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 stumbling-block therein that neither Gold nor Silver shall
thee therefrom.
come
But have regard
to
there-
unto, that the Arcana [curative means]
NETTESHEIM AND PARACELSUS be revealed unto thee. pillar
of
medicine
preparation
come
to pass without
.
The
.
Alchemy,
is
medicines
the
of
.
219
third
for the
cannot
because Nature
it,
cannot be made use of without Art." In the strictest sense, therefore, the eyes of Paracelsus are directed to Nature, 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
as
an Alchemist.
tures to 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,
call
we
have
still
to-day.
these four "elements"
no
longer "elements," but states of aggre-
gation and have for them the designations: solid, liquid, gaseous
The Earth,
for
and
was
instance,
etheric.
for
the
ancients not earth, but the "solid."
Again,
we can
recognise the
clearly
three root-substances
of
Paracelsus in
contemporary conceptions, though not present
in
names
of
like
sound.
Paracelsus, dissolution in a liquid
For
and
burning are the two most important chemical If
processes
which
he
a body be dissolved or burnt,
up
into its parts.
utilises. it
breaks
Something remains
behind as insoluble; something dissolves, or
is
burnt.
What
is
left
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
the
spirit
all costs
will
with his senses,
people these processes with
all sorts
ensouling beings.
He, however, who
Paracelsus knows
how
in
connection
permits
its
the
with
secret to
to regard
to
of
like
them which
whole,
become revealed
in
man's inner being,—he accepts them, as the senses offer them; he does not first re-interpret
them;
for
currences of Nature
lie
sensible reality, so too
own way,
reveal
existence.
That
to
just as the
oc-
before us in their
do they,
in their
us the riddle of
which
through
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 that
or
revealed
get
suppositious ''Spirit of
man
all
super-
can invent
him about
to
There
''spirit."
their is
^no
Nature," capable of uttering
loftier truths
Nature
for
than the mighty works of
herself,
when our
in friendship with that
soul links itself
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
Nature which should breathe the spirit of the higher insight that he represented.
A
thinker related to him,
the same his
mode
own nature
WEIGEL
(1
who
applied
of conceiving things to
especially,
533-1 588).
is
valentine
He grew up
out
of Protestant theology in a like sense to
that in which Eckhart, Tauler, and Suso
grew up out
of
Roman
Catholic theology.
has predecessors in Sebastian Frank and Caspar Schwenckfeldt. These two,
He
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.
whom
Jesus
For them
become lower
is
not that
the Gospels preach
of value, but the Christ
man
in every
it
who
is
who can be born
as his deeper nature,
and
him the Saviour from the and the guide to ideal uplifting.
for
life
Weigel performed silently and humbly 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 *
The
named:
following,
Der
from among
zu erkennen, vielen Ilochgelehrten Menschen nothwendig zu wis sen; Ort der Welt.
his
writings,
may
be
Ding oJme Irr thumb unbekandt, and dock alien Erkenne dich selbst; Vom
gulde?ie 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,
a question as to which
is
he can only give himself an account when he knows how
man
knows.
from the lowest kind
How
asks himself: object,
when
it
do
Weigel starts
of knowing. 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
object, the
"counterpart"
stand opposed.
sense-organ)
and the
{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,
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
226
or the perceiver, which sees or
knows the
do thou hold over against each other: whether the knowledge comes object, so
object to the eye;
forth from the
or
whether the judgment, or the cognition, flows out from the eye into the object/''
Weigel
now
cognition
says
himself:
to
knowledge)
(or
the "counterpart"
flowed
(or thing)
eye, then of necessity
If
the
from
into the
from one and the
same thing a similar and perfect cogniBut that tion must come to all eyes. not the case, for each
man
sees accord-
ing to the measure of his
own
eyes.
is
the
eyes,
not
the
''counterpart*'
Only (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
giildene Griff, p.
26 et seq.
WEIGEL AND BOEHME naturally could not read still
in
be there, and yet
it,
if
reading.
I
The book
everything
ception.
I
it
If
can give
me
must draw
not
forth
' '
counter-
can give the eye nothing
The eye must recogitself, what colour is.
itself.
as the content of the
the reader, just so eye.
I
it
read from within myself.
from out of
little
must be
therefore
Colour is there as the
from out of
As
might
also the nature of sensible per-
part," but
nise,
it
did not understand the art of
the smallest thing;
is
but
could read nothing
I
there; but, from itself
That
it;
22^
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
is
it
also with the sensible
object.
What
him
that does not flow from outside
is;
the sensible thing before
228
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE man, but from within out-
into the
wards.
from
Starting
might say:
from not
man
If all
is
in
one
knowledge flows out
into the object, then one does
know what
what
thoughts,
these
is
in the object,
man.
The
but only
detailed working
out of this line of thought, brought about
Kant (1724-1804).^ Weigel says to himself: Even if the knowledge flows out from man, it is still
the view of Immanuel
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 exbook, The Philosophy of Freedom, Berlin,
plained in 1894.
so
it,
my
Here
I
must
limit myself to mentioning that Val-
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 itself. Man cannot remain passive when 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,
within
himself.
object) merely in the spirit.
ledge
atti-
and bring forth the knowledge from
when
The counterpart
Man his
''counterpart.'*
(or
awakens the knowledge 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
but only an inner awakening.
revelation,
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
be his own
''counterpart ** (or object) until the
ledge of his in
him.
senses,
own
If,
in
know-
being shall be awakened
through the
cognition
man must
assimie an active atti-
tude in order that he the "counterpart** the higher knowing, self
must
may
its
bring to meet
own
being, so in
man must
passive, 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/'
Mercy"
is,
in reaHty,
This
231
"Light
of
nothing other than spirit in
the self-knowledge of the
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 is it also the case
He
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
can
the
regard
latter
as
only as far as the starting-
point. *
*
*
;
232
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
What works Htz,
meet us from the
rings out to
Master-Shoemaker
of the
Jacob Boehme
(i 575-1624),
hke the joyous outburst miring her
A man
sounds
Nature ad-
of
own being upon
of her evolution.
of Gor-
the summit
appears before
us whose words have wings,
woven out
of the inspiring feeHng of having seen
knowledge shining within him as Higher Jacob Boehme describes his
Wisdom.
own
state as Piety
to be
which
strives only
Wisdom, and as a Wisdom that
seeks to live only in Piety: wrestling
and
"As
I
was
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 himself as
its in-
an organ of
WEIGEL AND BOEHME the
great
22,2>
speaking in him.
All-Spirit,
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 was not thereby and did not myself see
him be
I
it.
said that in the essence of
and body, when
soul 'I,'
it
but when
I
was
I
still
To
my
was not yet the Adam's essence,
was there present and myself squandered
away
my
Only
glory in Adam.'*
in
external similes
able to indicate
how
in his inner being.
is
Boehme
the light broke forth
When
once as a boy
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
;
A
and he goes
on his way without touching the treasure. Later on he in
apprenticed to a shoemaker
A
Gorlitz.
shop
is
stranger steps into the
and demands a pair
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
little,
to
him
but thou wilt
some day become quite another man,
whom
over
wonder."
the world will break out into
In riper years, Jacob
Boehme
sees the reflection of the bright sun in a tin vessel: the
view that thus presents
him seems to him to unveil a profound secret. Even after the impres-
itself
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, hum-
lives as
bly earning his living by his trade, and
between
recollection,
in his inner being
The
the Spirit in himself.
makes
of priestly fervour
the
man;
own
his
he notes down the harmonies
which resound feels
though for
whiles, as
he,
who
desires
life
when he z ealotry
hard for
naught but to
read the Scripture which the light of his inner nature illtmiinates for him, is
persecuted and tortured
whom
by those
only the external writ, the rigid,
dogmatic confession of
faith, is accessible.
One world -riddle remains ing
presence in Jacob
driving
to
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 ment.
Nature
human
develop-
own
is
governed by
great laws; yet
its
harmony
by happenings
of
no purport, and the
warfare of the elements.
is
its
disturbed
How
is
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
The
plain the world?
unexplained exdiscord
must be
explained out of the harmony, the evil
out of the good
itself.
Let us restrict
ourselves, in speaking of these things, to
the good and the of
harmony
in the
evil,
wherein the lack
narrower sense finds
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
For, fundamentally, Ja-
expression.
its
Boehme
cob
He
this.
237
also
can do
himself
restricts
so, for
Nature and
appear to him as a single entity. purposeless seems to
him an
man
He sees The
both similar laws and processes.
in
to
evil
some-
thing in Nature, just as evil seems to
him something purposeless lar
and
in
man. Simi-
fundamental forces rule both here there.
To one who has known
origin of evil in
man, the source
Nature
open and
also lies
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 OF THE RENAISSANCE
238
members, so
human
as
life
multiplicity of
Being
is
is
poured out into this
members, so too the Root-
poured out into the manifoldness
As true
of the things of this world.
that the entire
it is
so true
life,
own
its
is it
life.
dicts the
man
that every
And
as
little
whole harmonious
it
own body and wound
as
has only one
that his hand should turn his
And
also the Root-Being.
member has as
it
life
of a
itself it,
contra-
man,
against
so little
is
impossible that the things of the world,
which
live the life of the
own way, should turn themselves
their
against
each
other.
Being, in dividing lives,
confers
is
forth, lives.
Thus the Root-
itself
among
upon each such
capacity to turn It
Root-Being in
itself
different 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
it
pierces the darkness, so the
can bring
meates
239
itself
its
to
only
life
From
opposite.
''fathomless
when
abyss'' of
darkness there
;
of
the
per-
out of the
streams forth the light from the lessness"
it
good
indifferent
brought to birth the Good.
' '
ground-
there
And
is
as in
the shadow only the brightening demands a pointing to the Hght; but the darkness, as a matter of course,
weakens the
is felt
as that which
light; so too in the world,
only the law-abiding character that sought for in all things; and the evil,
it is is
the purposeless,
is
accepted as a matter
of course, intelligible in itself.
Thus, in
Jacob Boehme the All, still nothing
spite of the fact that for
the Root-Being
is
be understood, unless one has an eye both to the Root-Being and its opposite at once. ''The good
in the world can
has swallowed up into
itself
the evil or
240
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the hideous. itself
.
.
good and
ment, as
Every being has
.
and
evil,
becomes a contradiction one seeks to overcome the
Hence
in its unfold-
passes over into division,
it
it
of qualities, as other.'*
altogether in accordance
is
it
in
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**
Being.
''The external world
and eternally only
through the Root-
will
.
.
.
not God,
not be called God, but
a being wherein
Himself.
is
When
God
manifests
one says:
God
is
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
241
heaven and earth, and also the outer world, so is that true: for from
God
all,
is
him and rooted.
him all stands originally But what am I to do with such in
a saying, which
is
no
religion?**
With such a view in the background, Jacob Boehme's conceptions as to the being of the whole world built themselves
up
mind, so that he makes the
in his
orderly world emerge in a series of steps
from
''fathomless
the
world builds
itself
up
abyss/'
This
in seven natural
In dark astringency the Root-
forms.
Being receives form, dumbly shut up within itself and motionless. This as-
Boehme
tringency
grasps
under
the
In
employing such
designations he leans
upon Paracelsus,
symbol
of
Salt.
who had borrowed from chemical cesses
his
Nature. 16
names
By
for the
swallowing up
pro-
processes its
of
opposite,
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)
the symbol for this second form.
is
Rest and Motion,
In the struggle of of
Quicksilver (Mer-
it.
Death with
the third form of
Life,
Nature unveils
Life battling within
itself,
becomes mani-
thenceforward no
fest to itself; it lives
longer an outer battle of there quivers through
unifying
up
its
form living
glowing
own
of
battle
flash,
as
of
first,
there
On is
it
were a lighting
This fourth
in
this level,
as
present an inner
astringency and dumbness; only
not an absolute
rest,
opposites, but
an
the
fifth,
resting
parts
the
members;
itself
to the
rises
themselves (Water).
upon the
it
its
being (Fire).
Nature
This
(Sulphur).
itself
it
is
a silence of the inner
interior
movement
of
WEIGEL AND BOEHME
It is not the motionless
the opposites. resting in
itself,
but the moved, that
which has been kindled by the of
the fourth
level,
Upon
stage.
the Root-Being
of itself as such inner
itself life.
fire-flash
the
sixth
becomes aware Living beings
endowed with senses represent of Nature.
243
Jacob Boehme
this
form
calls it
the
"Clang*' or Call, and in so doing adopts the
sense-perception
symbol
sound as the
for sense-perception in general.
The seventh form raising itself
perceptions self
of
of
Nature
is
on the basis of (Wisdom).
He
the Spirit, its
finds
sense-
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
Boehme
such
with seeks
to
views
that
Jacob
fathom that world
which for him, according to the knowledge
was reckoned as the actual For him all is fact which fact.
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
of the Bible
and the
geological knowledge
and the
devils,
but Lyell's
and the
facts
Haeckel's The History of Creation.
who can
fight
of
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 Morgenrothe
im Aufgang; Die
drei Prinzi-
das dreifache Leben des Menschen; Das umgewandte Auge; *' Signafura rerum" oder von der Geburt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen; Das pien gottlichen Lebens oder
' *
Mysterium Magnum.
'
iiher
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
which compels the
intellectual structure
men
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
stars,
however, were for them beings
of 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 in the pure aether, which seemed like some spiritual nature filling
space.
Nicholas of Cusa had
al-
ready formed other ideas.
Through Copernicus, earth became
man
heavenly others.
to
for
a brother-being in face of the other
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
of
earth.
He
much
as the
could 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
come
to
expanded
In earlier centuries, of
man
stood before
Now he was confronted new task. No longer could the
a world of
with a
mind
this
after
facts.
things of earth only express this nature
from within man's inner being. This inner nature of his was called on to embrace 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
249
have conquered the universe of space; henceforth the Spirit
found
in space.
is
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 nattiral
knowledge forces humanity.
The
sun of those ideas, which later should shine
upon a new view still
of Nature, with
stands below the horizon
light already
at a time itself still
The
;
but their
appears as the early
when men's thoughts
them
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 OF THE RENAISSANCE
science
had advanced so
far that,
even
within the phenomena of plant, animal,
and human
life,
it
could assign to the
world of sensible facts that which belongs to
it.
Neither, then, in the ^ther 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 century 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 a
further,
that
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
251
attained
standpoint,
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
reality,
this immaterial Spirit is not
even
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
thinker,
B.
Carneri, ventured to say (in his book:
Empfindung und Bewusstsein,
"The dictum: ^
No
spirit
Haeckel, Riddle of the Universe.
p.
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.
Man's
soul
is
a sum of processes in which Spirit appears most immediately as fact. In the
form
of such a soul, however, Spirit is
man
present in
only.
And
it
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
254
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
not experienced Spirit within himself;
he has only experienced that outer form of appearance of Spirit, the Soul,
reigns in him.
But that
is
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 assume also such a soul-form in non-
human things, may not need
in order that thereby
to remain rooted in the
materiality of the gross senses. of thinking the
he
Instead
Root-Being of the world
as Spirit, he thinks of
it
as World-Soul,
and postulates a general ensoulment
of
Nature.
Giordano Bruno, upon
whom
the
Copernican view of Nature forced
new
itself,
could grasp Spirit in the world, from
which
it
had been expelled
in its old form,
BRUNO AND in
On
SILESIUS
255
no other manner than as World-Soul. plunging into Bruno's writings
pecially
deeply
his
De Rerum
Principiis
thoughtful 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 of the
human
encountered
soul, it.
wherein alone he has
When
he
of
in the following
Spirit,
he conceives of
way:
''The universal reason
it
speaks
is
the in-
most, most effective and most special
and a potential part of the World-Soul it is something one and iden-
capacity,
;
tical,
which
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-
256
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
brate," but
it is
to the
is like
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,
become a
to
plant,
finds a sub-
an animal, and
itself
that
ordinarily called ensouled.
is
Spirit is to
or-
any body you choose
ganises
to
out
reaches
be found in
For
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
it
come
to life."
Because
Giordano
Bruno
had
not
really experienced the Spirit, as Spirit, in
the
himself, life
he could therefore confuse
of the Spirit with the external
mechanical processes,
mond
wherewith Ray-
Lully (1235-13 1 5) wanted to unveil
the secrets of the Spirit in his so-called
BRUNO AND
SILESIUS
A
"Great Art*' (Ars Magna). philosopher, Franz
257
recent
Brentano, describes
this ''Great Art'' thus: ''Concepts
to be inscribed
upon
rately revolving discs,
concentric,
were 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 Brimo, 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 scientific
of
thinking beyond the confines
earth; he thought of the heavenly
bodies no longer as bodily spirits; but
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 of heaven in the same view of the universe
which hitherto had been
applied only to things upon earth, even
though Bruno did
still
think of the sen-
sible as soul-like. :{:
«
4:
In the seventeenth century there appeared Johann Scheffler, called Angelus SiLESius
whom
624-1 677), a personality in
(1
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
were, into a
and shining with enhanced
power,
the
named make
in his book:
it
ideas
of
the
their appearance
" Cherubinischer
Wanders-
BRUNO AND mann.
And
Silesius utters
259
und
Schluss-
Sinn-
Geistreiche
reime/'
SILESIUS
everything that Angelas
appears as such an im-
mediate, inevitable, natural revelation of his personality, that
man had
it is
as 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
what he says
the breath of another world, freed
beforehand from
all
that
is
gross
and
impure, wherefrom htmian wisdom generally only toilsomely
He of
only
Angelus
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 Hght
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 in most intimate communion one with another?"— ''I am as rich as God; there and
fire,
I in
can be no grain of dust that
me, man, Him."-
—^have
— ''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
water
lives
the
fish,
my
God's own hand."— "Art thou
born of God, then bloometh God in thee; and His Godhead is thy sap and thy
adornment."—' Halt '
thou?
God
Heaven
is
!
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 himself
as.
does he
feel
all
that there
is
of
world,
it
that so
thee,
— bound." ''Man has
holds
strongly
is
all
things;
if
lacking to him, then in truth he
not his
As a
own
thee,
in
captive
never perfect
before that unity has swallowed
— "Man ness."-
itself.
holds thee not; thou art
thyself the world
with
him
own proper
being, indeed, as that World- Whole
thee,
feels
a single individual; rather
as a part of the world, his
"The
self
up
bliss
other-
aught
is
knoweth
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 him;
and time out-
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 that
there
earlier
is
spiritual;
and nothing
time have
is
later; space
vanished in the
of the All-Spirit.
nothing
Only so long as
there;
and
man
he here
is
and only so long as
he looks forth as an individual, earlier,
and
contemplation
looks forth as an individual,
and the thing
is
this later.
**Man,
is if
this
thou
swingest thy spirit over time and place, so each
— nity."
moment ''I
am
canst thou be in eter-
myself eternity when
I
self in
God and
that here thine outer eye doth
see, it so
leave time behind, and
God
in self
— together grasp."' "The rose
hath bloomed in God from
— "In
all
eternity."
centre set thyself, so see'st thou
what then and now occurred, here and in heaven's realm." "So long for thee, my friend, in mind lies place
all
at once:
—
and time: so long graspest thou not what 's God, nor what eternity. "^
—
BRUNO AND "When man from
SILESIUS
263
manifoldness with-
draws, and inward turns to God, so Com-
The stmimit has thus
eth he to unity/*
man
been climbed, whereon
steps forth
**!'*
and abolishes every opposition between the world and
beyond
his individual
A
himself.
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 self
and
spirit
lettest
happens
raise thyself
God
overrule;
ascenvsion
above thythen in thy
into heaven.**
— "The body in the spirit must God:
spirit, too, in
man,
'I* in
decrease; so
the
thou in him,
my
ever
will live for
much mine
if
arise,
me
much
doth *minish and
therefore to power
Cometh the Lord's own
From such a nises his
— "So blessed."-
'I.'**
point of view,
man
recog-
meaning and the meaning
of all
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
264
things in the realm of eternal necessity.
natural All appears to
The
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
All-Spirit
things, so
appears
all,
if
it
outpoured
so
becomes one
things, that
at
This
as a superseded conception.
into
in being with the
could no longer be thought
even one single member were
thought away from
its
being.
**
Naught
and thou; and if we twain were not then is God no more God, and heaven
is
but
I
;
falleth
in."
—Man
feels
as
himself
a
His
necessary link in the world-chain.
doing has no longer aught of arbitrariness or of individuality in it. What he does is
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
not
worm:
SILESIUS
make without me a
if
single little
with him uphold
I
straightway must
it
265
not,
it
burst asunder. '*^
know that without me God can no moment live: if I come to naught, he needs must give up the ghost." Upon *'I
—
man
this height,
for the first time sees
things in their real being.
He no
longer
needs to ascribe from outside to the smallest thing, to the grossly sensible, a
For just as
this
mi-
in all its smallness
and
spiritual entity.
nutest thing
is,
gross sensibility,
it is
''No grain of dust
is
a link in the Whole. so vile, no
be so small: the wise
most gloriously tard seed, is
if
man
mote can
seeth
— therein."- "In
God
a mus-
thou wilt imderstand
the image of
all
it,
things above and
beneath."
Man feels himself free upon this height. For constraint
is
there only where a thing
— MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
266
can constrain from without. that
all
within, <<
I II
and
is
But when
without has flowed into the
when the
opposition
between
"Without and Within,'*
world,'*
Nature and Spirit," has disappeared,
man
then feels
own
impulse.
thou
wilt,
him as his "Shut me, as strongly as
all
in a
that impels
thousand irons:
I
still
will
be quite free and unfettered.''
"So
far as
my
God do what
will is dead, so far
I will
;
I
him the pattern and the point cease
all
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, still 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.
SILESIUS
267
the tasks that are set
fulfils
him
in the feeling of
He
says to himself: Through this iron
necessity
it
is
withdraw from
an external necessity.
given into thy hand to
very iron necessity
this
the link which has been allotted to thee.
meadow
''Ye men, learn but from the flower:
how ye
beautiful
without
shall please
well."
as
why and
—''The
God and be rose
exists
because, she blooms
because she blooms; she takes no heed of herself, asks not
man who has feels
in
if
arisen
men
see her."
upon the higher
himself the eternal,
The level
necessary
meadow meadow flower
pressure of the All, as does the flower; he acts, as the
The
blooms. sibility
grows in
immeasurable. not do
feeling of his
is
all
moral respon-
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 If
it
— "All thee."
with him.
Thou
need'st
dumb
flowers
must be
slain.
thou slayest 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 Angelas Silesius gathered up
wisdom
the profound
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 others,
have laboured further of this 'Cp.
my
way
of
in the direction
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
realm 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
up
development in a purely
natural manner.
And,
further, J. G. Fichte's penetra-
tion has
the
thrown
human
man where
ego,
light into the being of
and shown the soul
to seek itself
and what
of
it is.'
Hegel has extended the realm 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 creations of the
How,
human
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
2']2
being.
no longer any being
It sees
Nature that
is like
and that creates It
unto the
after the
human
manner
man.
of
their
development
it
follows
in the sense-world
Meis-
according to purely natural laws. ter Eckhart, as well as Tauler,
Jacob
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
What
understood.
unable to do,
viz,\
when they
it is
were
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 creation'* 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 ceivable
is
fruit.
that Spirit as per-
a result of evolution, and
that upon lower levels of evolution such
must not be sought for. They would understand that no "creative Spirit
thought" ruled Spirit 18
in
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
spoke of them.
But there
Boehme
exists
a point
of view, even in this present day,
brings Jacob Boehme' s
way
which
of regarding
things near to a view of the world that
takes account of modern natural science.
There
is
no need to
one finds
Many
lose the Spirit,
Nature only the natural.
in
believe to-day that
indeed,
do,
when
one must needs lose oneself in a shallow
and prosaic materialism, accepts the
ence fully
ural
has
''facts''
upon the ground I
one simply
which natural
discovered.
science.
if
I
myself
sci-
stand
same natand through
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 approaches
self
world. glorious,
with a shallow thought-
something higher, more
feel
I
it
275
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
In no ''holy
upon me.
know aught
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
our hearts with the glory of the facts
that our senses behold, then little
left
we shall have
over for "wonders" which do
not He 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
if
I
people
''more
me
me
against
things of the just
being of
in
it.
my
inner being
I 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
it,
believe that the insight which
shines forth for
guards
I
world for
soulful"
do not even assume
things; nay, I I
information.
in the external
''deeper,"
because
with souls of which
it
me no
senses give
do not seek a
an animal, gains nothing
plant,
God
in Nature,
I
because
believe that I perceive the nature of
the
human
admit
spirit
my animal
in myself.
I
calmly
ancestry, because I be-
AFTERWORD lieve myself to
know
277
that there, where
these animal ancestors have their origin,
no spirit of
like
nature with soul can work.
can only agree with Ernst Haeckel when he prefers the "eternal rest of the grave" I
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 of some of our contemporaries. But for
me
there rings out from confessions
facts,
which give a discord with natural naught of the spirit of the higher
piety
which
of faith,
and Angelus
I
find
Silesius.
stands far more in '
Cp. Haeckel's Riddle of
in
Jacob Boehme
This higher piety full
harmony with
the Universe.
278
MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE
the working of the natural.
no contradiction
There
lies
in the fact of saturating
oneself with the knowledge of the
most
recent natural science, and at the
same
time
treading
the
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 with
me
in like
will
manner the
understand last
of the Cheruhinean Wanderer, with also this
book
shall close:
saying
which
''Friend,
it is
even enough.
In case thou more wilt
read, go forth,
and thyself become the
book, thyself the reading.'*
THE END
ililStiliillKll
:iiT:FMl»7TFf?T7
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