mystics of the renaissance and their relation to modern thought, including meister eckhart, tauler,...

7/23/2019 Mystics of the Renaissance and Their Relation to Modern Thought, Including Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Paracelsus, J

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MYSTICSiENAISSANCtaMIDOI-F steiner


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(* DEC 12 1911 *

jn."tBV 5075 .S83 1911Steiner, Rudolf, 1861-1925Mystics of the renaissanceand their relation to


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MYSTICS OF THERENAISSANCEAND

THEIR RELATION TO MODERN THOUGHTINCLUDING

MEISTER ECKHART, TAULER, PARACELSUS,JACOB BOEHME, GIORDANO BRUNO,AND OTHERS

BYRUDOLF STEINERPh.D. (Vienna)

t^X OF Ff\lxcc* DEC 12 1911 *

'isiski list:^AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN BYBERTRAM KEIGHTLEY, M.A. (Cantab.)

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONSNEW YORK AND LONDON^be Iknfcftcrbocftcr press

1911


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Copyright, igiiBYMAX GYSI

MAX GYSI, Editor,' Adyar," Park Drive,

London, N. W.

Ube ftnlcberbocfier press, Tlevp ^ovk


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CONTENTSForeword ....IntroductionMeister EckhartFriendship with God [Tauler,

AND RuYSBROECK] .Cardinal Nicholas of CusaAgrippa von Nettesheim and

PHRASTUs Paracelsus .

Suso

Theo-

Afterword

PAGEV

52

81133

182Valentine Weigel and Jacob Boehme 223Giordano Bruno and Angelus Silesius 246

. 269

Ill


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FOREWORDThe matter which I am laying beforethe public in this book formed thecontent of lectures which I deliveredduring last winter at the TheosophicalLibrary in Berlin. I had been requestedby Grafin and Graf Brockdorff to speakupon Mysticism before an audience forwhom the matters thus dealt with con-stitute a vital question of the utmostimportance. Ten years earlier I couldnot have ventured to fulfil such a re-quest. Not that the realm of ideas, towhich I now give expression, did noteven then live actively within me. Forthese ideas are already fully containedin my Philosophy of Freedom (Berlin,1894. Emil Felber). But to give ex-


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vi FOREWORDpression to this world of ideas in suchwise as I do to-day, and to make it thebasis of an exposition as is done on thefollowing pagesto do this requiressomething quite other than merely tobe immovably convinced of the intel-lectual truth of these ideas. It demandsan intimate acquaintance with this realmof ideas, such as only many years of lifecan give. Only now, after having en-joyed that intimacy, do I venture tospeak in such wise as will be found inthis book.Any one who does not approach my

world of ideas without preconceptionsis sure to discover therein contradictionafter contradiction. I have quite re-cently (Berlin, 1900. S. Cronbach) dedi-cated a book upon the world conceptionsof the nineteenth century to that greatnaturalist, Ernst Haeckel, and closed it


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FOREWORD viiwith a defence of his thought-world.In the following expositions, I speakabout the Mystics, from Master Eckhartto Angelus Silesius, with a full measure ofdevotion and acquiescence. Other "con-tradictions," which one critic or anothermay further count up against me, I shallnot mention at all. It does not surpriseme to be condemned from one side as a"Mystic" and from the other as a"Materialist." When I find that theJesuit Father Miiller has solved a diffi-cult chemical problem, and I therefore inthis particular matter agree with himunreservedly, one can hardly condemnme as an adherent of Jesuitism withoutbeing reckoned a fool by those who haveinsight.Whoever goes his own road, as I do,

must needs allow many a misunder-standing about himself to pass. That,


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viii FOREWORDhowever, he can put up with easilyenough. For such misunderstandingsare, in the main, inevitable in his eyes,when he recalls the mental type of thosewho misjudge him. I look back, notwithout htmiorous feelings, upon manya ''critical" judgment that I have suf-fered in the course of my literary career.At the outset, matters went fairly well.I wrote about Goethe and his philosophy.What I said there appeared to many to beof such a nature that they could file itin their mental pigeon-holes. This theydid by saying: ''A work such as RudolfSteiner's Introduction to Goethe s Writingsupon Natural Science may, without hesi-tation, be described as the best that hasbeen written upon this question."When, later, I published an inde-

pendent work, I had already grown agood bit more stupid. For now a well


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FOREWORD ixmeaning critic offered the advice: "Beforehe goes on reforming further and giveshis Philosophy of Freedom to the world,he should be pressingly advised first towork himself through to an understandingof these two philosophers [Htmie andKant] ." The critic imfortunately knowsonly so much as he is himself able to readin Kant and Hume; practically, there-fore, he simply advises me to learn to seeno more in these thinkers than he him-self sees. When I have attained that, hewill be satisfied with me. Then whenmy Philosophy and Freedom appeared, Iwas found to be as much in need of cor-rection as the most ignorant beginner.This I received from a gentleman whoprobably nothing else impelled to thewriting of books except that he had notunderstood innimierable foreign ones.He gravely informs me that I should have


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X FOREWORDnoticed my mistakes if I had *'mademore thorough studies in psychology,logic, and the theory of knowledge";and he enumerates forthwith the booksI ought to read to become as wise ashimself: "Mill, Sigwart, Wundt, Riehl,Paulsen, B. Erdmann." What amusedme especially was this advice from aman who was so "impressed" with theway he "understood" Kant that hecould not even imagine how any mancould have read Kant and yet judgeotherwise than himself. He thereforeindicates to me the exact chapters inquestion in Kant's writings from whichI may be able to obtain an understandingof Kant as deep and as thorough ashis own.

I have cited here a couple of typicalcriticisms of my world of ideas. Thoughin themselves unimportant, yet they


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FOREWORD XIseem to me to point, as symptoms, tofacts which present themselves to-dayas serious obstacles in the path of anyone aiming at literary activity in regardto the higher problems of knowledge.Thus I must go on my way, indifferent,whether one man gives me the good ad-vice to read Kant, or another hunts meas a heretic because I agree with Haeckel.And so I have also written upon Mysti-cism, wholly indifferent as to how a faith-ful and believing materialist may judgeof me. I would only likeso that prin-ters' ink may not be wasted wholly with-out needto inform any one who may,perchance advise me to read Haeckel'sRiddle of the Universe, that during thelast few months I have delivered aboutthirty lectures upon the said work.

I hope to have shown in this bookthat one may be a faithful adherent of


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xii FOREWORDthe scientific conception of the worldand yet be able to seek out those pathsto the Soul along which Mysticism,rightly understood, leads. I even gofurther and say: Only he who knows theSpirit, in the sense of true Mysticism, canattain a full understanding of the factsof Nature. But one must not confusetrue Mysticism with the ''pseudo-mys-ticism" of ill-ordered minds. How Mys-ticism can err, I have shown in myPhilosophy of Freedom (page 131 etseq.).

Rudolf Steiner.Berlin, September, 1901.


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MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCE


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Mystics of the Renaissance

INTRODUCTIONThere are certain magical formulaewhich operate throughout the centuriesof Man's mental history in ever newways. In Greece one such formulawas regarded as an oracle of Apollo. Itruns: "Know Thyself.*' Such sentencesseem to conceal within them an unend-ing life. One comes upon them when fol-lowing the most diverse roads in mentallife. The further one advances, the moreone penetrates into the knowledge ofthings, the deeper appears the significanceof these formulae. In many a momentof our brooding and thinking, they flash


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2 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEout like lightning, illuminating our wholeinner being. In such moments therequickens within us a feeling as if weheard the heart-beat of the evolution ofmankind. How close do we not feelourselves to personalities of the past,when the feeling comes over us, throughone of their winged words, that they arerevealing to us that they, too, had hadsuch moments!We feel ourselves then brought intointimate touch with these personalities.For instance, we learn to know Hegelintimately when, in the third volumeof his Lectures on the Philosophy ofHistory we come across the words:"Such stuff, one may say, the abstrac-tions that we contemplate when weallovvT the philosophers to quarrel andbattle in our study, and make it out tobe thus or so^mere verbal abstractions


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INTRODUCTION 3No! No! These are deeds of the world-spirit and therefore of destiny. Thereinthe Philosophers are nearer to the Masterthan are those who feed themselves withthe crumbs of the spirit; they read orwrite the Cabinet Orders in the originalat once; they are constrained to writethem out along with Him. The Philoso-phers are the Mystae who, at the crisisin the inmost shrine, were there and tookpart." When Hegel said this, he hadexperienced one of those moments justspoken of. He uttered the phrases when,in the course of his remarks, he hadreached the close of Greek philosophy;and through them he showed that once,like a gleam of lightning, the meaningof the Neoplatonic philosophy, of whichhe was just treating, had flashed uponhim. In the instant of this flash, he hadbecome intimate with minds like Plotinus


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4 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEand Proklus; and we become intimatewith him when we read his words.We become intimate, too, with thatsolitary thinker, the Pastor of Zschopau,M. Valentin Weigel, when we read theopening words of his little book KnowThyself, written in 1578: "We read in thewise men of old the useful saying, 'KnowThyself,* which, though it be right wellused about worldly manners, as thus:* regard well thyself, what thou art, seekin thine own bosom, judge thyself andlay no blame on others,' a saying, Irepeat, which, though thus used of humanlife and manners, may well and appro-priately be applied by us to the naturaland supernatural knowing of the wholeman; so indeed, that man shall not onlyconsider himself and thereby rememberhow he should bear himself before people,but that he shall also know his own


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INTRODUCTION 5nature, inner and outer, in spirit and inNature; whence he cometh and whereofhe is made, to what end he is ordained.'*So, from points of view pecuHar to him-self, Valentin Weigel attained to insightwhich in his mind summed itself up inthis oracle of Apollo.A similar path to insight and a like re-

lation to the saying ''Know Thyself*' maybe ascribed to a series of deep-naturedthinkers, beginning with Master Eckhart( 1 250-1 327), and ending with AngelusSilesius (i 624-1 677), among whom maybe found also Valentin Weigel himself.

All these thinkers have in common astrong sense of the fact that in man'sknowing of himself there rises a sunwhich illuminates something very differ-ent from the mere accidental, separatedpersonality of the beholder. What Spi-noza became conscious of in the ethereal


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6 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEheights of pure thought, viz., that ''thehuman soul possesses an adequate know-ledge of the Eternal and Infinite Beingof God,"that same consciousness livedin them as immediate feeling; and self-knowledge was to them the path leadingto this Eternal and Infinite Being. Itwas clear to them that self-knowledge inits true form enriched man with a newsense, which unlocked for him a worldstanding in relation to the world acces-sible to him without this new sense asdoes the world of one possessing physicalsight to that of a blind man.

It would be difficult to find a betterdescription of the import of this new sensethan the one given by J. G. Fichte in hisBerlin Lectures (1813):

''Imagine a world of men born blind,to whom all objects and their relationsare known only through the sense of


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INTRODUCTION . 7touch. Go amongst them and speak tothem of colours and other relations,which are rendered visible only throughlight. Either you are talking to themof nothing,and if they say this, it isthe luckier, for thus you will soon seeyour mistake, and, if you cannot opentheir eyes, cease your useless talking,^

or, for some reason or other, they willinsist upon giving some meaning or otherto what you say; then they can onlyinterpret it in relation to what theyknow by touch. They will seek tofeel, they will imagine they do feellight and colour, and the other inci-dents of visibility, they will inventsomething for themselves, deceive them-selves with something within the worldof touch, which they will call colour.Then they will misunderstand, distort,and misinterpret it."


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8 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEThe same thing appHes to what thethinkers we are speaking of sought after.

They beheld a new sense opening in self-knowledge, and this sense yielded, ac-cording to their experiences, views ofthings which are simply non-existentfor one who does not see in self-knowledgewhat distinguishes it from all other kindsof knowing. One in whom this new sensehas not been opened, believes that self-knowing, or self-perception, is the samething as perception through the outersenses, or through any other meansacting from without. He thinks : ' ' Know-ing is knowing, perceiving is perceiving."Only in the one case the object is some-thing lying in the world outside, in theother this object is his own soul. Hefinds words merely, or at best, abstractthoughts, in that which for those who seemore deeply is the very foundation of


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INTRODUCTION 9their inner life; namely, in the propo-sition: that in every other kind ofknowing or perception we have the ob-ject perceived outside of ourselves, whilein self-knowledge or self-perception westand within that object; that we seeevery other object coming to us alreadycomplete and finished off, while in our-selves we, as actors and creators, are weav-ing that which we observe within us.This may appear to be nothing but amerely verbal explanation, perhaps evena triviality; it may appear, on the otherhand, as a higher light which illuminatesevery other cognition. One to whom itappears in the first way, is in the po-sition of a blind man, to whom one says:there is a gHttering object. He hears thewords, but for him the glitter is not there.He might unite in himself the whole sumof knowledge of his time; but if he


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10 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEdoes not feel and realise the significanceof self-knowledge, then it is all, in thehigher sense, a blind knowledge.The world, outside of and independent

of us, exists for us by communicatingitself to our consciousness. What is thusmade known must needs be expressed inthe language peculiar to ourselves. Abook, the contents of which were offeredin a language unknown to us, would forus be without meaning. Similarly, theworld would be meaningless for us didit not speak to us in our own tongue ; andthe same language which reaches usfrom things, we also hear from withinourselves. But in that case, it is we our-selves who speak. The really importantpoint is that we should correctly appre-hend the transposition which occurs whenwe close our perception against externalthings and listen only to that wnich then


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INTRODUCTION iispeaks from within. But to do thisneeds this new sense. If it has not beenawakened, we beHeve that in what isthus told us about ourselves we are hear-ing only about something external to uswe fancy that somewhere there is hiddensomething which is speaking to us in thesame way as external things speak. Butif we possess this new sense, then weknow that these perceptions differ essen-tially from those relating to externalthings. Then we realise that this newsense does not leave what it perceivesoutside of itself, as the eye leaves theobject it sees; but that it can take upits object wholly into itself, leaving noremainder. If I see a thing, that thingremains outside of me; if I perceive my-self, then I myself enter into my per-ception. Whoever seeks for somethingmore of himself than what is perceived,


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12 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEshows thereby that for him the real con-tent in the perception has not come toHght. Johannes Tauler (i 300-1361), hasexpressed this truth in the apt words:"If I were a king and knew it not, thenshould I be no king. If I do not shineforth for myself in my own self-percep-tion, then for myself I do not exist. Butif for myself I do shine out, then I pos-sess myself also in my perception, in myown most deeply original being. Thereremains no residue of myself left outsideof my perception.'*

J. G. Fichte, in the following words,vigorously points to the difference be-tween self-perception and every otherkind of perception: ''The majority ofmen could be more easily brought to be-lieve themselves a lump of lava in themoon than an 'ego.' Whoever is notat one with himself as to this, under-


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INTRODUCTION 13stands no thorough-going philosophy andhas need of none. Nature, whose ma-chine he is, will guide him in all thethings he has to do without any sort ofadded help from him. For philosophising,self-reliance is needed, and this one canonly give to oneself. We ought not towant to see without the eye; but also weought not to maintain that it is the eyewhich sees."Thus the perception of oneself is also

the awakening of oneself. In our cog-nition we combine the being of thingswith our own being. The communi-cations, which things make to us in ourown language, become members of ourown selves. An object in front of meis not separated from me, once I haveknown it. What I am able to receivefrom it becomes part and parcel of myown being. If-, now, I awaken my own


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14 AIYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEself, if I become aware of the content ofmy own inner being, then I also awakento a higher mode of being, that whichfrom without I have made part of myown being. The light that falls uponme at my awakening falls also uponwhatever I have made my own from thethings of the outside world. A lightsprings up within me and iiltmiines me,and with me all that I have cognised ofthe world. Whatever I might know wouldremain blind knowledge, did not thislight fall upon it. I might search theworld through and through with myperception; still the world would not bethat which in me it must become, unlessthat perception were awakened in me toa higher mode of being.That which I add to things through

this awakening is not a new idea, is notan enrichment of the content of my


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INTRODUCTION 15knowing; it is an uplifting of the know-ledge, of the cognition, to a higher level,where everything is suffused with a newglory. So long as I do not raise my con-sciousness to this level, all knowledge con-tinues to be for me, in the higher sense,valueless. The things are there withoutmy presence. They have their beingin themselves. What possible meaningcould there be in my linking with theirbeing, which they have outside and apartfrom me, another spiritual existence inaddition, which repeats the things overagain within me? If only a mere repeti-tion of things were involved, it would besenseless to carry it out. But, really, amere repetition is only involved so long asI have not awakened, along with my ownself, the mental content of these thingsupon a higher level. When this occurs,then I have not merely repeated within


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i6 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEmyself the being of things, but I havebrought it to a new birth on a higherlevel. With the awakening of my self,there is accomplished a spiritual re-birthof the things of the world.What the things reveal in this re-birth

did not previously belong to them. There,without, stands the tree. I take it up in-to my consciousness. I throw my innerlight upon that which I have thus con-ceived. The tree becomes in me morethan it is outside. That in it which findsentrance through the gate of the senses istaken up into a conscious content. Anideal replica of the tree is within me, andthat has infinitely more to say about thetree than what the tree itself, outside, cantell me. Then, for the first time thereshines out from within me, towards thetree, what the tree is. The tree is nowno longer the isolated being that it is out


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INTRODUCTION 17there in space. It becomes a link inthe entire conscious world that lives inme. It links its content with other ideasthat are in me. It becomes a member ofthe whole world of ideas that embracesthe vegetable kingdom; it takes itsplace, fiirther, in the series of all thatlives.

Another example: I throw a stonein a horizontal direction away from me.It moves in a curved line and after sometime falls to the ground. I see it insuccessive moments of time in differentplaces. Through observation and re-flection I acquire the following: Duringits motion the stone is subject to differentinfluences. If it were subject only tothe influence of the impulse which I im-parted to it, it would go on flying forever in a straight line, without alteringits velocity. But now the earth exerts an


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i8 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEinfluence upon it. It attracts the stonetowards itself. If, instead of throw-ing the stone, I had simply let it go, itwould have fallen vertically to earth;and its velocity in doing so would haveconstantly increased. From the mutualinteraction of these two influences arisesthat which I actually see.

Let us assume that I could not inthought separate the two influences, andfrom this orderly combination put to-gether again in thought what I see: inthat case, the matter would end with theactual happening. It would be mentallya blind staring at what happened; a per-ception of the successive positions whichthe stone occupies. But in actual fact,matters do not stop there. The wholeoccurrence takes place twice. Once out-side, and then my eye sees it; then mymind causes the whole happening to


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INTRODUCTION 19repeat itself again, in a mental or con-scious manner. My inner sense must bedirected upon the mental occurrence,which my eye does not see, and then itbecomes clear to that sense that I, bymy own inner power, awaken that occur-rence as a mental one.

Again, another sentence of J. G.Fichte's may be quoted which bringsthis fact clearly before the mind.''Thus the new sense is the sense forthe spirit; that for which there existsonly spirit and absolutely nothing else,and for which also the 'other,' the givenbeing, assumes the form of spirit andtransforms itself into spirit, for whichtherefore being in its own proper formhas actually disappeared. . . . Therehas been the faculty of seeing withthis sense ever since men have existed,and all that is great and excellent in the


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20 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEworld, which alone upholds humanity,originates in what has been seen by meansof this sense. It is, however, not thecase that this sense has been perceivedor known in its difference and its con-trast with that other, ordinary sense.The impressions of the two senses meltedinto one another, life fell apart into thesetwo halves without a bond of union."The bond of imion is created by the

fact that the inner sense grasps in itsspirituality the spiritual element whichit awakens in its intercourse with theouter world. That which we take upinto our consciousness from outsidethings thereby ceases to appear as amere meaningless repetition. It appearsas something new over against that whichonly external perception can give. Thesimple occurrence of throwing the stone,and my perception thereof, appear in a


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INTRODUCTION sihigher light when I make clear to myselfthe kind of task which my inner sensehas to perform in regard to the wholething. In order to fit together in thoughtthe two influences and their modes ofaction, an amount of mental content isneeded which I must already have ac-quired when I cognise the flying stone.I therefore apply a spiritual contentalready stored up within me to somethingthat confronts me in the external world.And this occurrence in the externalworld fits itself into the spiritual contentalready present. It reveals itself in itsown special individuality as an expres-sion of this content.Through the understanding of my

inner sense, there is thus disclosed tome the nature of the relation thatobtains between the content of thissense and the things of the external


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22 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEworld. Fichte would say that withoutthe understanding of this sense, theworld falls apart for me into two halves:into things outside of me, and into pic-tures of these things within me. Thetwo halves become united when theinner self understands itself and con-sequently recognises clearly what sort ofillumination it throws upon things inthe cognitive process. And Fichte couldalso venture to say that this inner sensesees only Spirit. For it perceives howthe Spirit enlightens the sense-world bymaking it part and parcel of the spiritualworld. The inner sense causes the outersense-world to arise within itself as aspiritual being on a higher level. An ex-ternal object is completely known whenthere is no part of it which has not thusundergone a spiritual re-birth. Thusevery external object fits itself into a


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INTRODUCTION 23spiritual content, which, when it hasbeen grasped by the inner sense, sharesthe destiny of self-knowledge. The spiri-tual content, which belongs to an objectthrough its illumination from within,merges itself wholly, like the very self,into the world of ideas, leaving no re-mainder behind.

These developments contain nothingwhich is susceptible or even in need oflogical proof. They are nothing butthe results of inner experience. Who-ever calls into question this content,shows only that he is lacking in thisinner experience. It is impossible todispute with him; as little could onediscuss colour with a blind man.

It must not, however, be contendedthat this inner experience is made pos-sible only through the special endowmentof a few chosen people. It is a common


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24 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEproperty. Every one can enter uponthe path to this experience who doesnot of his own will shut himself againstit. This closing up of oneself againstit, is, however, common enough. And indealing with objections raised in this di-rection, one always has the feeling thatit is not so much a matter of peoplebeing unable to attain this inner ex-perience, as of their having hopelesslyblocked the entrance to it with all kindsof logical spiders' webs. It is almost asif some one looking through a telescopeand discovering a new planet shouldyet deny its existence because his calcu-lations have shown that there can be noplanet in that position.But with all this there is still in most

people the clearly marked feeling thatall that really lies in the being of thingscannot be completely given in what the


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INTRODUCTION 25outer senses and the analysing under-standing can cognise. They then be-lieve that the remainder so left over mustbe just as much in the external world asare the things of our perceptions them-selves. They think that there must besomething which remains unknown tocognition. What they ought to attainby again perceiving with the inner sense,on a higher plane, the very object whichthey have already cognised and graspedwith the understanding,this they trans-fer as something inaccessible and unknowninto the external world. Then they talkof the limits of knowledge which preventour reaching the ''thing-in-itself." Theytalk of the unknown "being" of things.That this very ''being" of things shinesout when the inner sense lets its lightfall upon the things, is what they willnot recognise. The famous "Ignora-


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26 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEbimus" speech of the scientist, Du Bois-Reymond, in the year 1876, furnisheda particularly blatant example of thiserror. We are supposed to be able toget in every direction only so far as tobe able to see in all natural processesthe manifestations of "matter." What''matter" itself is, we are supposed tobe unable to know. Du Bois-Reymondcontends that we shall never succeed inpenetrating to wherever it is that "mat-ter" leads its ghostly life in space. Thereason why we cannot get there lies,however, in the fact that there is nothingwhatsoever to be looked for there. Who-ever speaks like Du Bois-Reymond musthave a feeling that the knowledge ofNature yields results which point to asomething further and other which Na-ture-knowledge itself cannot give. Buthe refuses to follow the road,the road


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INTRODUCTION 27of inner experience, which leads to thisother. Therefore he stands at a com-plete loss before the question of "mat-ter" as before a dark riddle. In him whotreads the path of inner experience, ob-jects attain to a new birth; and that inthem which remains unknown to outerexperience then shines forth.

In such wise the inner being of manobtains light not only as regards itselfbut also as regards external things. Fromthis point of view an endless per-spective opens out before man's know-ledge. Within him shines a light whoseilliunination is not restricted to thatwhich is within him. It is a sun whichlights up all reality at once. Somethingmakes its appearance in us which linksus with the whole world. No longer arewe simply isolated, chance human beings,no longer this or that individual. The


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28 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEentire world reveals itself in us. It un-veils to us its own coherence; and itunveils to us how we ourselves as in-dividuals are bound up with it. Fromout of self-knowledge is born knowledgeof the world. And our own limitedindividuality merges itself spiritually intothe great interconnected world-whole,because in us something has come tolife that reaches out beyond this in-dividuality, that embraces along withit everything of which this individualityforms a part.

Thinking which does not block up itsown road to inner experience with logicalpreconceptions always comes, in thelong run, to a recognition of the entitythat rules in us and connects us with theentire world, because through this entitywe overcome the opposition of ''inner"and ''outer" in regard to man. Paul


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INTRODUCTION 29Asmus, the keen-sighted philosopher, whodied young, expressed himself as followsabout this position {cp. his book Das Ichund das Ding an Sich, p. 14 et seq.):''Let us make it clear by an example:imagine a piece of sugar; it is square,sweet, impenetrable, etc., etc., these areone and all qualities which we under-stand; one thing, however, hovers be-fore us as something totally different,that we do not understand, that is sodifferent from ourselves that we cannotpenetrate into it without losing ourselvesfrom the mere surface of which thoughtstarts back afraid. This one thing isthe imknown bearer of all these qualitiesthe thing-in-itself, which constitutes theinmost self of the object. Thus Hegelrightly says that the entire content ofour perception is related as mere acci-dent to this obscure subject, while we,


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30 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEwithout penetrating into its depths,merely attach determinations to whatit is in itself,which ultimately, sincewe do not know the thing itself, remainmerely subjective and have no objectivevalue. Conceptual thought, on the otherhand, has no such unknowable subject,whose determinations might be mereaccidents, but the objective subject fallswithin the concept. If I cognise any-thing, then it is present in its entirefulness in my conception; I am at homein the inmost shrine of its being, notbecause it has no proper being-in-itselfof its own, but because it compels me tore-think its concept, in virtue of thatnecessity of the concept which hoversover us both and appears subjectivelyin me and objectively in the conceptitself. Through this re-thinking therereveals itself to us at the same time, as


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INTRODUCTION 31Hegel says,just as this is our own sub-jective activitythe true nature of theobject." So can speak only a man who isable to illuminate the life of thoughtwith the light of inner experience.

In my Philosophy of Freedom (Berlin,1894, Verlag Emil Felber), starting fromother points of view, I have also pointedout the root-fact of the inner life (p. 46)*'It is therefore unquestionable: in ourthinking we hold the world-process byone corner, where we must be present,if it is to come about at all. And thatis just the very thing we are here con-cerned with. That is just the reasonwhy things seem to confront me somysteriously: that I am so without anyshare in their coming into existence. Isimply find them there; in thinking,however, I know how it is done. Henceone can find no more original starting


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32 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEpoint for a consideration of the world-process than that of thought."For one who looks thus upon the inner

life of man, it is also obvious what is themeaning of human cognition within thewhole world-process. It is not a mereempty accompaniment to the rest of theworld happenings. It would be such ifit represented merely an ideal repetitionof what is outwardly present. Butin cognition something is accomplishedwhich accomplishes itself nowhere inthe outer world: the world-process setsbefore itself its own spiritual being. Theworld-process would be to all eternitya mere half-thing, if it did not attain tothis confrontation. Therewithal man'sinner experience finds its place in theobjective world-process; and without itthat process would be incomplete.

It is 'apparent that only the life which


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INTRODUCTION 33is ruled by the inner sense, man's highestspiritual life in its most proper sense,itis this life only which can thus raiseman above himself. For only in this lifedoes the being of things unveil itselfbefore itself. The matter lies quitedifferently in regard to the lower per-ceptive power. For instance, the eyewhich meditates the seeing of an objectis the theatre of a process which, in con-trast to the inner life, is exactly like anyother external process. My organs aremembers of the spacial world like otherthings, and their perceptions are pro-cesses in time like any others. Further,their being only appears when they aresunk into the inner life. I thus live adouble life; the life of an object amongother objects, which lives within itsown embodiment and perceives throughits organs what lies outside this embodi-


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34 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEment; and above this life a higher life,that knows no such inside and outside,that extends, stretching and bridgingover both the outside world and itself.I shall therefore be forced to say: at onetime I am an individual, a limited "self*;at another time I am a general, universal''Self." This, too, Paul Asmus has ex-pressed in excellent words {cp. his book:Die indogermanischen Religionen in denHauptpunkten Hirer Entwickelung, p. 29of Vol. I.):

''The activity of merging ourselvesin something else, is what we call ' think-ing'; in thinking, the ego has fulfilledits concept, it has given itself up asa single thing; therefore, in thinkingdo we find ourselves in a sphere which isalike for all, for the principle of separate-ness which is involved in the relation ofour 'self to that which is other than


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INTRODUCTION 35itself has vanished in the activity ofthe self-cancening of the single *self/and there remains then only the_* Self-hood' common to all."

Spinoza has exactly the same thing inview when he describes, as the highestactivity of knowing, that which'' advancesfrom an adequate conception of the realnatiire of some of the attributes of Godto an adequate knowledge of the natureof things." This advancing is no otherthan the illimiination of things with thelight of inner experience. Spinoza de-scribes in glowing colours the life in thisinner experience: "The highest virtue ofthe soul is to know God, or to obtain in-sight into things in the thirdthe highestmode of knowing. This virtue is thegreater, the more the soul knows thingsby this method of knowing ; thus he whocan grasp things in this mode of knowing


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36 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEattains the highest human perfectionand consequently becomes filled with thehighest joy, accompanied, moreover, bythe conceptions of himself and of virtue.Thus there arises from this mode ofknowing the highest peace of soul thatis possible."He who knows things in this way,

transforms himself within himself; forhis single separated ''self" becomesat such moments absorbed by the uni-versal "Self"; all beings appear not toa single limited individual in subordin-ated importance, they appear to ''them-selves." On this level there remains nodifference between Plato and me; whatseparated us belongs to a lower level ofcognition. We are separated only asindividuals; the individual which workswithin us is one and the same. Butabout this fact it is impossible to argue


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INTRODUCTION 37with one who has no experience of it.He will everlastingly emphasise: Platoand you are two. That this duality,that all multiplicity, is reborn as unityin the outbursting life of the highestlevel of knowledge: that cannot beproved, that must be experienced. Para-doxical as it may sound, it is the truth:the idea which Plato conceived and thelike idea which I conceive are not twoideas. It is one and the same idea. Andthere are not two ideas: one in. Plato'shead and one in mine ; but in the highersense Plato's head and mine interpene-trate each other; all heads interpenetratewhich grasp one and the same idea; andthis idea is only once there as a singleidea. It is there; and the heads all goto one and the same place in order tohave this idea in them.The transformation that is brought


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38 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEabout in the whole being of man when helearns to see things thus, is indicated inbeautiful words by the Hindu poem, theBhagavad-Gita, about which Wilhelmvon Humboldt said that he was thank-ful to the fate which had allowed him tolive long enough to become acquaintedwith this work. In this poem, the innerlight declares: "An eternal ray from my-self, having attained a distinct existencein the world of personal life, drawsaround itself the five senses and the in-dividual soul, which belong to nature.When the spirit, shining from above, em-bodies itself in space and time, or whenit quits embodiment, it seizes uponthings and carries them away with it,as the zephyr seizes the perfumes of theflowers and bears them away with it.The inner light rules the ear, touch,taste and smell, as also the emotions:


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INTRODUCTION 39it knits together the Hnk between itselfand the objects of the senses. Theignorant know not when the inner lightshines forth or is extinguished, nor whenit is married to objects; only he whopartakes of the inner light can knowthereof."

So strongly does the Bhagavad-Gitainsist upon the transformation of theman, that it says of the wise man thathe can no longer err, no longer sin. If,apparently, he errs or sins, then hemust illuminate his thoughts or his ac-tions with a light wherein that no longerappears as error or as sin which to theordinary consciousness appears as such."He who has raised himself and whoseknowledge is of the purest kind, he killsnot, nor does he stain himself, eventhough he should have slain another."This points only to the same basic mood


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40 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEof the soul flowing from the highestknowledge, of which Spinoza, after havingdescribed it in his Ethics, breaks out intothe passionate words: "Here is con-cluded that which I aimed to bring for-ward in regard to the power of the soulover its affections or in regard to the free-dom of the soul. Hence it is clear howvery greatly the wise man is superior tothe ignorant, and how much more power-ful than he who is ruled only by his lusts.For the ignorant is not merely drivenhither and thither by external causes inmany ways and never attains to thetrue peace of soul, but he also lives inignorance of himself, of God and ofthings, and when his suffering ceases,his existence ceases also; while on theother hand, the wise man, as such, feelshardly any disturbance in his spirit andever enjoys the true peace of the soul.


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INTRODUCTION 41Even if the road which I have outlinedas leading thereto appears very difficult,still it can be found. And well may itbe difficult, because it is so seldom found.For how could it be possible, if salvationlay close at hand and could be foundwithout great trouble, that it should beneglected by almost all? Yet all thatis noble is as difficult as it is rare/'

Goethe has indicated in monumentalform the point of view of the highestknowledge in the words: "If I know myrelation to myself and to the outerworld, I call it truth. And thus everyone can have his own truth, and yet itis always one and the same." Eachhas his own truth: because each is anindividual, separate being, beside andalong with others. These other beingsact upon him through his organs. Fromthe individual standpoint at which he


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42 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEis placed, and according to the consti-tution of his power of perception, hebuilds up his own truth for himself inintercourse with the things around him.He acquires his relation to things. If,then, he enters into self-knowledge, ifhe learns to know his relation to himself,then his special separate truth is mergedin the universal Truth; and this uni-versal Truth is in all the same.The understanding of the raising of

the individual, of the single self, into theUniversal Self in the personality, is re-garded by deeper natures as the secretwhich reveals itself in the inmost heartof man as the root-mystery of life. AndGoethe has found an apt expression forthis: "And so long as thou hast not that,this: Die and Become! Then thou artbut a melancholy guest upon this darkearth."


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INTRODUCTION 43Not a mere repetition in thought, but

a real part of the world-process, is thatwhich goes on in man's inner life. Theworld would not be what it is if the factorbelonging thereto in the human soul didnot play its part. And if one calls thehighest which is attainable by man theDivine, then one must say that thisDivine is not present as something ex-ternal, to be repeated pictorially in thehuman mind, but that this Divine isawakened in man. Angelus Silesius hasfound the right words for this: *'Iknow that without me God can live noinstant; if I become nothing, He mustof necessity give up the ghost." ''With-out me God may make no single smallestworm: if I do not sustain it with Him,then it must straightway perish." Onlyhe can make such an assertion whopresupposes that in man something


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44 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEcomes to light, without which externalbeing cannot exist. If everything per-taining to the "worm" were there presentwithout man, then one could not possiblysay that it must perish if man did notsustain it.The innermost kernel of the world

comes to life as spiritual content in self-knowledge. The experience of self-know-ledge means for man working and weavingwithin the kernel of the world. He whois permeated with self-knowledge natur-ally carries out his own action in thelight of self-knowledge. Himian actionisin generaldetermined by motives.Robert Hamerling, the poet-philosopher,has rightly said {Atomistik des Willens,p. 213):"A man can indeed do what he wills

^but he cannot will whatever hepleases, because his will is determined


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INTRODUCTION 45by motives. He cannot will what-ever he pleases? Look again at thesewords more closely. Is there anysensible meaning in them? Freedom ofthe will ought then to consist in beingable to will something without reason,without motive. But what does willingmean other than the 'having a reason*for preferring to do or endeavour toattain this, rather than that? To willsomething without reason, without mo-tive, would mean to will something 'with-out willing it.' The concept of motiveis inseparably bound up with that of will-ing. Without a definite motive the willis an empty potentiality: only througha motive does it become active and real.It is therefore quite correct that man'swill is in so far not free as its directionis always determined by the strongestmotive."


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46 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEFor all action that is not accomplished

in the light of self-knowledge, themotive, the reason for action, mustneeds be felt as a constraint. But thematter is otherwise when the reason ormotive is taken up into self-knowledge.Then this reason becomes a part of theself. The willing is no longer deter-mined; it determines itself. The law-abidingness, the motives of willing, nowno longer rule over the one who wills,but are one and the same with thiswilling. To illuminate the laws of one'saction with the light of self-observationmeans to overcome all constraint ofmotive. By so doing, will transfers itselfinto the realm of freedom.

It is not all human action which bearsthe marks of freedom. Only such actionis free action which in its every part islighted up with the glow of self-observa-


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INTRODUCTION 47tion. And because self-observation raisesthe individual self up to the Universal Self,therefore free action is that which flowsfrom the Universal Self. The old con-troversy whether man's will is free or sub-ject to a universal law, to an unalterablenecessity, is a problem wrongly stated.All action is bound which is done bya man as an individual; all action freewhich is accomplished after his spiritualre-birth. Man, therefore, is not, in general,either free or bound. He is both the oneand the other. He is bound before hisre-birth ; and he can become free throughthis re-birth. The individual upwarddevelopment of man consists in thetransformation of unfree willing intowill possessing the character of freedom.The man who has realised the law-abid-ingness of his action as his own, hasovercome the constraint of this law-


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48 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEabidingness and therewith of un-freedom.Freedom is not from the outset a factof himian existence, but a goal thereof.With the attainment of free action,

man resolves a contradiction betweenthe world and himself. His own deedsbecome deeds of universal being. Hefeels himself in the fullest harmony withthis universal being. He feels everydiscord between himself and another asthe outcome of a not yet fully awakenedself. But such is the fate of the self,that only in its separation from thewhole can it find its contact with thiswhole. Man would not be man if hewere not shut off as an individual selffrom everything else; but also he is notman in the highest sense if he does not,as such a shut-off and isolated self, widenhimself out again into the UniversalSelf. It belongs through and through to


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INTRODUCTION 49the nature of man that it should over-come an inherent contradiction which haslain therein from the beginning.Any one who regards spirit as, in the

main, logical understanding, may wellfeel his blood run cold at the idea thatobjects should be supposed to undergotheir re-birth in spirit. He will comparethe fresh, living flower, outside there inits fulness of coloiir, with the cold, faded,schematic thought of the flower. He willfeel himself particularly ill at ease withthe conception that the man who drawshis motives from the solitude of his ownself-consciousness is more free than theoriginal, naive personality which actsfrom its immediate impulses, from thefulness of its own nature. To one whosees only one-sided logic, another manwho sinks himself into his own innerbeing will appear like a mere walking


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50 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEscheme of concepts, like a mere ghostin contrast with the man who remains inhis own natural individuality.

Such objections to the re-birth of thingsin spirit are especially to be heard fromthose whose power of perception fails inthe presence of things with a purelyspiritual content; although they are wellprovided with healthy organs of sense-perception and with impulses and passionsfull of life. As soon as they are calledupon to perceive the purely spiritual, thepower to do so fails them ; they can dealonly with mere conceptual husks, wheneven they are not limited to emptywords. They remain, therefore, in whatconcerns spiritual content, men of "dry,abstract understanding." But the manwho in things purely spiritual possessesa gift of perception like that in thingsof the senses, finds life assuredly not the


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INTRODUCTION 51poorer when he has enriched it with itsspiritual content. If I look out upon aflower, why should its rich colours loseaught whatever of their freshness, becausenot only does my eye see the colours, butmy inner sense also perceives the spiritualbeing of the flower? Why should thelife of my personality become poorer,because I do not follow my passions andimpulses in spiritual blindness, but il-luminate them throughout with the lightof higher knowledge? Not poorer, butfuller, richer, is that life which is givenback again in the spirit.


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MEISTER ECKHARTThe world of Meister Eckhart's con-ceptions is aglow through and throughwith the feeling that things become re-born as higher entities in the spirit ofman. Like the greatest Christian theo-logian of the Middle Ages, St. ThomasAquinas, who lived from 1225 till 1274,Meister Eckhart belonged to the Domin-ican Order. Eckhart was an unqualifiedadmirer of St. Thomas; and this willseem the more intelligible when we fixour gaze upon Eckhart's whole mannerof conceiving things. He believed him-self to be as completely in hannony withthe teachings of the Christian Church ashe assumed a like agreement on the part

52


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MEISTER ECKHART 53of St. Thomas. Eckhart had neitherthe desire to take aught away from thecontent of Christianity, nor the wish toadd anything to it; but he desired tobring forward this content anew in hisown way. It forms no part of thespiritual needs of a personaHty such ashe was to set up new truths of this orthe other kind in the place of old ones.Such a personality has grown completelyintertwined with the content which ithas received from tradition; but it cravesto give to this content a new form, a newlife.Eckhart desired, without doubt, to

remain an orthodox Christian. TheChristian truths were his own; only hedesired to regard these truths in anotherway from that, for instance, in whichSt. Thomas Aquinas had done. St.Thomas accepted two sources of know-


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54 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEledge: Revelation, in matters of faith,and Reason, in those of research. Reasonrecognises the laws of things, that is, thespiritual in nature. Reason can raise it-self above nature and grasp in the spiritfrom one side the Divine Being under-lying nature. But it does not attain inthis way to merging itself in the full be-ing of God. A still higher truth-contentmust come to meet it. That is givenin the Holy Scripture, which revealswhat man cannot attain to through him-self. The truth-content of the Scripturemust be accepted by man; Reason candefend it. Reason can seek to understandit as well as possible through its powersof knowing; but never can Reason en-gender that truth from within the spiritof man. Not what the spirit perceivesis the highest truth, but what has cometo this spirit from without.


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MEISTER ECKHART 55St. Augustine declares himself unable

to find within himself the source for thatwhich he should believe. He says: "Iwould not believe in the Gospel, did notthe authority of the Catholic Churchmove me thereto.'' That is in the samespirit as the Evangelist, who points tothe external testimony: "That . . .which we have heard, which we haveseen with our eyes, which we have lookedupon, and our hands have handled, ofthe Word of Life; . . . that which wehave seen and heard declare we unto you,that ye also may have fellowship withus." But Meister Eckhart would ratherimpress upon man the words of Christ:''It is expedient for you that I go away:for if I go not away, the Comforter willnot come unto you"; and he explainsthese words by saying: ''Ji^st as if hehad said: Ye have set too much joy


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56 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEUpon my present appearance, thereforethe full joy of the Holy Ghost cannotcome to you."

Eckhart thinks that he is speakingof no God other than that God of whomAugustine, and the Evangelist, andThomas, speak, and yet this testimonyas to God is not his testimony, theirwitness is not his. ''Some people wantto see God with the same eyes they seea cow withal, and want to love God asthey would love a cow. So they loveGod for the sake of outer riches andinner comfort; but such folk do notrightly love God. . . . Simple folkfancy they should behold God as thoughHe stood there and they here. But itis not so. God and I are one in the actof knowing {im Erkennen).'" What un-derlies such expressions in Eckhart'smouth is nothing else than the experience


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MEISTER ECKHART 57of the inner sense; and this experienceshows him things in a higher Hght. Hetherefore beUeves himself to have noneed of an external light in order to at-tain to the highest insight: *'A Mastersays: God became man, whereby thewhole hiiman race is uplifted and madeworthy. Thereof may we be glad thatChrist our brother of His own strengthrose above all the choirs of angels andsitteth at the right hand of the Father.That Master spake well; but, in truth,I would give little for it. What would ithelp me, had I a brother who was a richman, and I therewithal a poor man?What would it help me, had I a brotherwho was a wise man, and I were afool? . . . The Heavenly Father be-getteth His Only-Begotten Son in Him-self and in me. Wherefore in Himselfand in me? I am one with Him; and


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58 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEHe has no power to shut me out. In theself-same work, the Holy Ghost receivesits being and proceeds from me, as fromGod. Wherefore? I am in God, and ifthe Holy Ghost takes not its being fromme, neither does it take it from God. Inno wise am I shut out.**When Eckhart recalls the saying of

St. Paul: "Put ye on Jesus Christ," hemeans to imply in this saying the mean-ing: Sink yourselves into yourselves, divedown into self-contemplation : and fromout the depths of your being, God willshine forth to meet you; He illuminesall things for you; you have found Himwithin you; you have become unitedwith God's Being. *'God became man,that I might become God.**

In his booklet upon Loneliness, Eckhartexpresses himself as follows upon the re-lation of the outer perception to the


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MEISTER ECKHART 59inner: "Here thou must know that theMasters say that in every man thereare two kinds of man: the one is calledthe outer man, and yet he acts throughthe power of the soul. The other man iscalled the inner man, that is, that whichis within the man. Now thou mustknow that every man who loveth Godmaketh no more use of the powers ofthe soul in the outer man than so far asthe five senses absolutely require; andthat which is within turns not itself tothe five senses, save in so far as it is theguide and conductor of the five senses, andshepherds them, so that they follow notafter their craving to bestiality.*' Onewho speaks in such wise of the inner mancan no longer direct his gaze upon a Beingof things lying outside himself ; for he seesclearly that from no kind or species of theouter world can this Being come to him.


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6o MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEAn objector might urge: What can it

matter to the things of the outer world,what you add to them out of your ownmind? Do but rely upon your ownsenses. They alone give you informa-tion of the outer world. Do not adul-terate, by a mental addition, what yoursenses give you in purity, without ad-mixture, as the image of the outer world.Your eye tells you what colour is; whatyour mind knows about colour, of thatthere is nothing whatever in colouritself. To this, from Meister Eckhart'sstandpoint, the answer would have tobe: The senses are a physical apparatus;therefore what they have to tell us aboutobjects can concern only that which isphysical in the objects. And this phy-sical factor in the objects communicatesitself to me in such wise that in myselfa physical process is set going.


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MEISTER ECKHART 6lColour, as a physical process of the

outer world, sets up a physical processin my eye and brain. Thereby I per-ceive colour. But in this manner I canperceive of colour only so much as isphysical, sensuous. Sense-perception cutsout everything non-sensuous from ob-jects. Objects are thus by sense-percep-tion stripped of everything about themwhich is non-sensuous. If I then ad-vance to the spiritual, the ideal content,I in fact only reinstate in the objectswhat sense-perception has shut out there-from. Thus sense-perception does notexhibit to me the deepest Being of ob-jects, it rather separates me from thatbeing. But the spiritual, the ideal con-ception, seizing upon them again, unitesme with that being. It shows me thatobjects are inwardly of exactly the

samespiritual (geistigen) nature as I myself.


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62 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEThe barrier between myself and theouter world falls through this spiritual

conception of things. I am separatedfrom the external world in so far as I ama thing of the senses among other thingsof the senses. Colour and my eye aretwo different entities. My brain and aplant are two different things. But theideal content of the plant and of colourbelong together with the ideal contentof my brain and eye alike to a singleideal entity.This way of looking at things must not

be confused with the very widespreadanthropomorphising conception of theworld, which imagines that it grasps theobjects of the outer world by ascribingto them qualities of a physical nature,which are supposed to resemble thequalities of the human soul. This viewasserts: When we meet another human


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MEISTER ECKHART 63being, we perceive in him only sensuouscharacteristics. I cannot see into myfellow-man's inner life. I infer fromwhat I see and hear of him, his innerlife, his soul. Thus the soul is neveranything which I can directly perceive;I perceive a soul only within myself.My thoughts, my imaginations, my feel-ings, no man sees. Now just as I havesuch an inner life, alongside of the lifewhich can be outwardly perceived, so,too, all other beings must have such aninner life.Thus concludes one who occupies the

standpoint of the anthropomorphisingconception of the world. What I per-ceive externally in the plant, must equallybe the outer side of something inward, of asoul, which I must add in my imaginationto what I actually perceive. And sincefor me there exists but one single inner


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64 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEworld, namely, my own, therefore I canconceive of the inner world of otherbeings only as resembling my own innerworld. Along this line of argument onecomes to a sort of universal ensouling ofall nature (Pan-psychism)

.

This view depends, however, on afailure to recognise what the awakenedinner sense really gives us. The spiritual{geistig) content of an external object,which reveals itself to me in my innerself, is not anything added in or bythought to the outer perception. It isjust as little this as is the spirit of anotherman. I perceive this spiritual contentthrough the inner sense just in the sameway as I perceive its physical contentthrough the external senses. And whatI call my inner life in the above sense{i.e., thoughts, feelings, etc.), is not atall in the higher sense, my spirit {Geist).


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MEISTER ECKHART 65This so-called inner life is only the out-come of purely sensuous processes, andbelongs to me only as a purely individualpersonality, which is nothing more thanthe result of its physical organisation.If I transfer this inner life to outer things,I am, as a matter of fact, thinking in theair.My personal soul -life, my thoughts,memories, and feelings, are in me, be-cause I am a nature-being organised insuch and such a way, with a perfectlydefinite sense-apparatus, with a perfectlydefinite nervous system. I have no rightto transfer this my human soul to otherthings. I should only be entitled to doso if I happened to find an3rwhere asimilarly organised nervous system. Butmy individual soul is not the highestspiritual element in me. This highestspiritual element must first be awakened


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66 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEthrough the inner sense; and this awak-ened spiritual element in me is also oneand the same with the spiritual elementin all things. The plant appears im-mediately in its own proper spiritualityto this spiritual element,I have no needto endow it with a spirituality like untomy own.

All talk about the unknown ''thing-in-itself" loses any kind of meaning withthis conception of the world; for it isjust that very ''thing-in-itself " whichreveals itself to the inner sense. Allsuch talk originates simply in the factthat those who talk thus are unable torecognise in the spiritual contents oftheir own inner being the ''things-in-themselves . ' ' They think that they knowin their own inner selves mere shadowsand schemes without being,

''mereconcepts and ideas" of things. But as


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MEISTER ECKHART 67they still have a sort of premonition ofthe ''thing-in-itself," they therefore be-lieve that this ''thing-in-itself" is conceal-ing itself, and that there are limits setto man's power of knowing. One cannotprove to such as are entangled in thisbeHef, that they must grasp the ''thing-in-itself" in their own inner being, foreven if one were to put it before them,they would still never recognise or admitthis ''thing-in-itself." But it is just thisrecognition with which we are concerned.

All that Meister Eckhart says issaturated with this recognition. "Ofthis take a comparison: A door opensand shuts upon a hinge. If, now, Icompare the outer plank of this door tothe outer man, I must then compare thehinge to the inner man. . Now, when thedoor opens and shuts, the outer plankmoves to and fro, while yet the hinge


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68 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEremains constantly immovable and is inno way changed thereby. In like mannerit is here also." As an individual sense-being, I can investigate things in all direc-tionsthe door opens and shuts,-if I donot spiritually give birth within me to theperceptions of the senses, then do I knownothing of their naturethe hinge doesnot moveThe illuminationbrought about through

the inner sense is, according to Eck-hart's view, the entrance of God intothe soul. The light of knowledge whichflames up through this entrance, he callsthe "little spark of the soul." Thepoint in man's inner being at which this"spark" flames up is "so pure, so lofty,and so noble in itself, that no creaturecan be therein, but only God alone dwellstherein with His purely Divine Nature."Whosoever has kindled this "spark" in


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MEISTER ECKHART 69himself, no longer sees only as sees theordinary man with his outer senses, andwith his logical understanding whichorders and classifies the impressions ofthe senses, but he sees how things are inthemselves. The outer senses and theclassifying understanding separate theindividual man from other things; theymake of him an individual in space andtime, who also perceives the other thingsin space and time. The man illuminatedby the "spark'* ceases to be a singleseparated being. He annihilates his sep-arateness. All that brings about thedifference between himself and thingsceases to be. That he, as a single being,is that which perceives, no longer comesinto consideration. Things and he him-self are no longer separated. Things,and with them, God, see themselves inhim. "This spark is in very deed God,


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70 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEin that it is a single oneness and bearswithin it the imagery of all creattires,image without image, and image uponimage."

Eckhart proclaims in the most mag-nificent words the extinction of the iso-lated being: ''It is therefore to beknown, that according to things it is oneand the same to know God and to beknown by God. Therein do we knowGod and see, that He makes us to seeand to know. And as the air, whichenlighteneth, is nothing other than whatit enlightens; for the air giveth light,because it is enlightened; even so do weknow that we are known, and that Hemaketh us to know Himself."On this foundation Meister Eckhart

builds up his relation to God. It is apurely spiritual one, and cannot bemodelled according to any image bor-


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MEISTER ECKHART 71rowed from human individual experience.Not as one separated individual lovesanother can God love his creation: notas an architect builds a house can Godhave created it. All such thoughts van-ish before the inner vision. It belongsto God's very being that He should lovethe world. A God who could love ornot love at pleasure, is imagined ac-cording to the likeness of the individualman. ''I speak in good truth and ineternal truth and in everlasting truth,that God must needs ever pour Himselfforth in every man who has reached downto his true root to the utmost of possi-bility, so wholly and completely that inHis life and in His being, in His natureand in His Godhead, He keeps nothingback; He must ever pour all forth infruitful wise." And the inner illumina-tion is something that the soul must


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^2 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEnecessarily find when it sinks itself deepinto the basis of its being.From this it is already obvious that

God's communication to htmianity can-not be conceived after the fashion ofthe revelation of one himian being toanother. This communication may alsobe cut off, for one man can shut himselfoff from another ; but God must, by virtueof His very nature, reveal Himself. ''Itis a sure and certain truth, that it is anecessity for God to seek us, exactly asif His very Godhead depended upon it.God can as little dispense with us as wewith Him. Even though we turn awayfrom God, yet God can never turn awayfrom us.'* Consequently, man's relationto God cannot be conceived of as thoughsomething image-like, something takenfrom the individual himian being, werecontained therein.


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MEISTER ECKHART 73Eckhart is thus conscious that it be-

longs to the perfectness of the Root-Beingof the world to find Itself in the humansoul. This Root-Being indeed would beimperfect, incomplete, if it lacked thatpart of its unfoldment which comes tolight in the soul. What happens in manbelongs to the Root-Being; and if it didnot happen, then the Root-Being wouldbe but a part of Itself. In this sense,man can feel himself as a necessary partof the Being of the universe. This Eck-hart expresses by describing his feelingstowards God as follows: ''I thank notGod that He loveth me, for He may notdo otherwise; whether He will it or no,His nature yet compelleth Him. . . .Therefore will I not pray to God to giveme anything, nor will I praise Him forthat which He hath given me. ..."But this relationship of the soul to the


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74 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCERoot-Being must not be conceived of asif the soul in its individual nature weredeclared to be identical with this Root-Being. The soul which is entangled inthe sense-world, and so in the finite, hasas such not yet got within itself the con-tent of the Root-Being. The soul mustfirst develop that content within itself.It must annihilate itself as an isolatedbeing; and Meister Eckhart most aptlycharacterises this annihilation as Ent-werdung (un-becoming or involution)

.

''When I come to the root of the God-head, none ask me whence I come andwhere I have been, and none doth missme, for here there is an E?itwerdung.''Again, the following phrase speaks veryclearly about this relation: " I take a cupof water and lay therein a mirror and setit under the disc of the sun. The suncasts out its shining light on the mirror


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MEISTER ECKHART 75and yet doth not pass away. The reflect-ing of the mirror in the sun is sun in thesun, and yet the mirror remains what itis. So is it about God. God is in thesoul with His very nature and being andGodhead, and yet He is not the soul.The reflecting of the soul in God, is Godin God, and yet the sotil is still thatwhich it is."The soul which gives itself up to the

inner illimiination knows in itself notonly what this same soul was beforeits illimiination; but it also knowsthat which this soul only becamethrough this illimiination. ^'We mustbe united with God in being; wemust be united with God uniquely;we must be united with God wholly.How shall we be united with Godin being? That must happen in thebeholding and not in the Wesung.


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76 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEHis being may not become our being,but it shall be our life." Not an alreadyexistent lifea Wesungis to be knownin the logical sense ; but the higher know-ingthe beholdingshall itself becomelife; the spiritual, the ideal must be sofelt by the beholder, as ordinary dailylife is felt by individual human nature.From such starting points, Meister

Eckhart also builds up a pure conceptionof Freedom. In its ordinary life thesoul is not free; for it is interwoven withthe realm of lower causes, and accom-plishes that to which it is impelled bythese lower causes. But by ' ' beholding 'or "vision" it is raised out of the domainof these causes, and acts no longer as aseparated individual soul. The root ofbeing is laid bare in this soul, and thatcan be moved to action by naught saveby itself. ''God does not compel the


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MEISTER ECKHART 77will; rather He sets the will free, so thatit wills not otherwise than what GodHimself wills; and the spirit desires notto will other than what God wills: andthat is not its un-freedom: it is its trueand real freedom. For freedom is thatwe are not bound, but free and pure andunmixed, as we were in our first out-pouring, as we were set free in the HolyGhost."

It may be said of the illuminatedman that he is himself the being whichfrom within itself determines what isgood and what is evil. He can do naughtabsolutely, but accomplish the good. Forhe does not serve the good, but the goodrealises and lives itself out in him. *'Therighteous man serveth neither God, northe creature; for he is free, and the nearerhe is to righteousness, the more he isFreedom's very self." What then, for


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78 MYSTICvS OF THE RENAISSANCEMeister Eckhart, can evil be? It canbe only action under the influence of thelower mode of regarding things;-theacting of a soul which has not passedthrough the state of Entwerdung (un-becoming). Such a soul is selfish in thesense that it wills only itself. It couldnot bring its willing outwardly intoaccord with moral ideals. The soulhaving vision cannot in this sense beselfish. Even if it willed itself, it yetcould will only the lordship of theideal; for it has made itself into thisvery ideal. It can no longer will theends of the lower nature, for it has nolonger aught in common with this lowernature. To act in conformity with moralideals implies for the soul which hasvision, no compulsion, no deprivation."The man who standeth in God's willand in God's love, to him it is a craving


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MEISTER ECKHART 79to do all good things that God willeth,and leave undone all evil things thatare contrary to God. And it is impos-sible for him to leave undone anythingthat God will have done. Even aswalking is impossible to one whose legsare bound, just so it would be impossiblefor a man who standeth in God's will todo aught unvirtuous."

Eckhart moreover expressly guardshimself against the idea that, with thisview of his, free license is given for any-thing and everything that the individualmay will. The man possessing visionis indeed to be recognised by the veryfact that as a separated individual heno longer wills anything. ** Certain mensay: If I have God and God's freedom,then I may just do whatever I please.Such understand wrongly this saying. Solong as thou canst do aught that is con-


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8o MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEtrary to God and His commandment, solong thou hast not God's love; eventhough thou mayest well deceive theworld, as if thou hadst." Eckhart isconvinced that to the soul which divesdown into its own root, the most per-fect morality will shine forth from thatroot to meet it ; that there all logical con-ception, and all acting in the ordinarysense, ceases, and an entirely new order-ing of human life makes its appearance."For all that the understanding can

grasp, and all that desiring can desire,is verily not God. Where understandingand desiring end, there it is dark, thereshineth God. There that power unfoldsin the soul which is wider than the wideheavens. . . . The bliss of the righteousand the bliss of God is one bliss ; for thereis the righteous full of bliss, where Godis full of bliss.'*


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THE FRIENDSHIP OF GODIn Johannes Tauler ( 1 300-1 36 i),HeinrichSuso ( 1 295-1365), and Johannes Ruys-broeck (1293--1381), one makes acquaint-ance with men whose Hfe and workexhibit in a very striking manner those''motions of the soul" to which such aspiritual path as that of Meister Eck-hart is calculated to give rise in naturesof depth and power. While Eckhartseems like a man who, in the blissfulexperiencing of spiritual re-birth, speaksof the nature of Knowledge as of apicture which he has succeeded in paint-ing; these others, followers of his, appearrather like pilgrims, to whom their innerre-birth has shown a new road which they

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82 MYSTICS OF THE RENAISSANCEfain would tread, but whose goal seemsto vanish before them into the illimitabledistance. Eckhart dwells more upon theglories of his picture; they upon thedifficulties of the new path.To understand the difference between

personalities like Eckhart and Tauler,one must see quite clearly how a manstands towards his higher cognitions.Man is interwoven with the sense-worldand the laws of nature by which thatsense-world is ruled. He is himself aproduct of that world. He lives becauseits forces and its materials are at workin him; nay, he perceives this sense-world and judges of it by laws, accordingto which both he himself and that worldare alike built up. If he turns his eyesupon an object, not only does the object,present itself to him as a complex ofinteracting forces, ruled by nature's laws,


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THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOD 83but the eye, with which he sees the objectis itself a body built up according to justsuch laws and of just such forces ; and theseeing, too, takes place by similar laws

mystics of the renaissance and their relation to modern thought, including meister eckhart, tauler,...

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