enter into him and speak forth from him; God must only be in him
as an image. In reality, the Godhead must be external to the self.
Accordingly, also, it could not reveal itself from within through
the spiritual life, but must reveal itself from outside, through
supernatural communication. What is aimed at in this, is just exactly
what is least of all attained thereby. It is sought to attain to the
highest possible conception of the Godhead. In reality, the Godhead
is dragged down and made a thing among other things; only that these
other things reveal themselves to us naturally, through experience;
while the Godhead is supposed to reveal Itself to us supernaturally.
A difference, however, between the knowledge of the divine and of
the created is attained in this way: that as regards the created,
the external thing is given in experience, so that we have knowledge
of it; while as regards the divine, the object is not given to us in
experience; we can reach it only in faith.
The 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 if in a certain domain only knowledge, and in
another only faith reigned. For “the knowledge of that which is, is
possible to us, because it, itself, springs from a creative element;
things are for the spirit, because they are from the spirit; they
have something to tell us, because they have a meaning which a higher
intelligence has placed in them.”[12] Because God has created the
world according to thoughts, we too are able, when we grasp the
thoughts of the world, to seize also upon the traces of the Divine in
the world, through scientific reflection. But what God is, according
to His own being, we can learn only from that revelation which He has
given to us in supernatural ways, and in which we must believe. What
we ought to think about the highest things, must be decided not by
any human knowledge, but by faith; and “to faith belongs all that is
contained in the writings of the New and of the Old Testament, and in
the divine traditions.”[13]
[12] Otto Willman, _History of Idealism_, vol. ii., p. 383.
[13] Joseph Kleutgen, _Die Theologie der Vorzeit_, vol. i., p. 39.
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 faith-content originates from some actual inner human
experience that has once been undergone. Such an experience is then
preserved, as far as its outer form goes, without the consciousness
of how it was acquired. And people maintain in regard to it that it
came into the world by supernatural revelation. The content of the
Christian faith was simply accepted by the Scholastics. Science, inner
experience, had no business to claim any rights over it. As little
as science can create a tree, just so little dared Scholasticism to
create a conception of God; it was bound to accept the revealed one
ready-made and complete, just as natural science has to accept the
tree ready-made. That the spiritual itself can shine forth and live in
man’s inner nature, could never, never be admitted by the Scholastic.
He therefore drew the frontier of the rightful power of knowledge at
the point where the domain of outer experience ceases. Human knowledge
must not dare to beget out of itself a conception of the higher beings;
it is bound to accept a revealed one. The Scholastics naturally could
not admit that in doing so they were accepting and proclaiming as
“revealed” a conception which in truth had really been begotten at an
earlier stage of man’s spiritual life.
Thus, in the course of its development, all those ideas had vanished
from Scholasticism which indicated the ways and means by which man had
begotten, in a natural manner, his conceptions of the divine. In the
first centuries of the development of Christianity, at the time of the
Church Fathers, we see the doctrinal content of theology growing bit
by bit by the assimilation of inner experiences. In Johannes Scotus
Erigena, who stood at the summit of Christian theological culture
in the ninth century, we find this doctrinal content being handled
entirely as an inner living experience. With the Scholastics of the
following centuries, this characteristic of an inner, living experience
disappears altogether: the old doctrinal content becomes transposed
into the content of an external, supernatural revelation.
One might, therefore, understand the activity of 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, as inner living
experience, a similar content.
* * * * *
Nicholas of Cusa sets out to mount from the knowledge one acquires in
the isolated sciences up to the inner living experiences. 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 appropriate
to the age in Scholasticism. We find him so far along the road, that
a single step further would necessarily have carried him out of the
Church. We shall therefore understand the Cardinal best if we complete
the one step more which he did not take; and then, looking backwards,
throw light upon what he aimed at.
The most significant thought in Nicholas’s mental life is that of
“learned ignorance.” By this he means a form of knowing which occupies
a higher level as compared with ordinary knowledge. In the lower sense,
knowledge is the grasping of an object by the mind, or spirit. The
most important characteristic of knowing is that it gives us light
about something outside of the spirit, that therefore it directs its
gaze upon something different from itself. The spirit, therefore, is
concerned in the knowing-process with things thought of as outside
itself. Now what the spirit develops in itself about things is the
being of those things. The things are spirit. Man sees the spirit so
far only through the sensible encasement. What lies outside the spirit
is only this sensible encasement; the being of the things enters into
the spirit. If, then, the spirit turns its attention to this being of
the things, which is of like nature with itself, then it can no longer
talk of knowing; for it is not looking at anything outside of itself,
but is looking at something which is part of itself; is, indeed,
looking at itself. It no longer knows; it only looks upon itself. It
is no longer concerned with a “knowing,” but with a “not-knowing.”
No longer does man “grasp” something through the mind; he “beholds
without conceiving” his own life. This highest stage of knowing is, in
comparison with the lower stages, a “not-knowing.”
But it is obvious that the essential being of things can only be
reached through this stage of knowing. Thus Nicholas of Cusa in
speaking of his “learned not-knowing” is really speaking of nothing
else but “knowing” come to a new birth, as an inner experience. He
tells us himself how he came to this inner experience. “I made many
efforts to unite the ideas of God and the world, of Christ and the
Church, into a single root-idea; but nothing satisfied me until at
last, on my way back from Greece by sea, my mind’s vision, as if by
an illumination from above, soared up to that perception in which God
appeared to me as the supreme Unity of all contradictions.” To a
greater or lesser extent this illumination was due to influences derived
from the study of his predecessors. One recognises in his way of
looking at things a peculiar revival of the views which we meet with in
the writings of a certain Dionysius. The above-mentioned Scotus Erigena
translated these writings into Latin, and speaks of their author as the
“great and divine revealer.”
The works in question are first mentioned in the first half of the
sixth century. They were ascribed to that Dionysius, the Areopagite,
named in the Acts of the Apostles, who was converted to Christianity
by St. Paul. When these writings were really composed may here be left
an open question. Their contents worked powerfully upon Nicholas as
they had already worked upon Scotus Erigena, and as they must also
have been in many ways stimulating for the way of thinking of Eckhart
and his colleagues. This “learned not-knowing” is in a certain way
preformed in these writings. Here we can only indicate the essential
trait in the way of conceiving things found in these works. Man
primarily knows the things of the sense-world. He forms thoughts about
its being and action. The Primal Cause of all things 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, which drags down the
Root-Being to itself, in order to conceive it.
In truth, therefore, no attribute whatsoever which lower things
possess can be predicated of God. It must not even be said that God
“is.” For “being” too is a concept which man has formed from lower
things. But God is exalted above “being” and “not-being.” The God to
whom we ascribe attributes, is therefore not the true God. We come to
the true God, when we think of an “Over-God” above and beyond any God
with such attributes. Of this “Over-God” we can know nothing in the
ordinary sense. In order to attain to Him, “knowing” must merge into
“not-knowing.”
One sees that at the root of such a view there lies the consciousness
that man himself is able to develop a higher knowing, which is no
longer mere knowing--in a purely natural manner--on the basis of what
his various sciences have yielded him. The Scholastic view declared
knowledge to be impotent to such a development; and, at the point where
knowledge is supposed to cease, it called in to the help of knowledge
a faith basing itself 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 itself into two, first into
such knowing as mediates our acquaintance with external objects, and
second into such as is itself the object of which one gains knowledge.
The first mode of knowing is dominant in the sciences, which teach us
about the things and occurrences of the outer world; the second is
in us when we ourselves live in the knowledge we have acquired. This
second kind of knowing grows out of the first. Now, however, it is
still one and the same world with which both these modes of knowing
are concerned; and it is one and the self-same man who is active in
both. Hence the question must arise, whence comes it that one and the
self-same man develops two different kinds of knowledge of one and the
same world.
Already, in connection with Tauler, the direction could be indicated
in which the answer to this question must be sought. Here in Nicholas
of Cusa this answer can be still more definitely formulated. In the
first place, man lives as a separated (individual) being amidst other
separated beings. In addition to the effects which the other beings
produce on each other, there arises in his case the (lower) knowledge.
Through his senses he receives impressions from other beings, and works
up these impressions with his inner spiritual powers. He then turns his
spiritual gaze away from external things, and beholds himself as well
as his own activity. In so doing self-knowledge arises in him. But so
long as he remains on this level of self-knowledge, he does not, in the
true sense of the word, behold himself. He can still believe that some
hidden being is active within him, 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 experience,
it becomes clear to the man that he experiences, in what he perceives
or feels within himself, not the manifestation or effect of any hidden
power or being, but this very being itself in its most essential and
intimate form. Then he can say to himself: In a certain way I find all
other things ready given, and I myself, standing apart from and outside
of them, add to them whatever the spirit has to tell about them. But
what I thus creatively add to the things in myself, therein do I myself
live; that is myself, my very own being. But what is that which speaks
there in the depths of my spirit? It is the knowledge which I have
acquired of the things of the world. But in this knowledge there speaks
no longer an effect, a manifestation; that which speaks expresses
itself wholly, holding back nothing of what it contains. In this
knowledge, there speaks the world in all its immediacy. But I have
acquired this knowledge of things and of myself, as one thing among
other things. From out my own being I myself speak, and the things,
too, speak.
Thus, in truth, I am giving utterance no longer only to my own being;
I am also giving utterance to the being of things themselves. My “ego”
is the form, the organ in which the things express themselves about
themselves. I have gained the experience that in myself I experience
my own essential being; and this experience expands itself in me to
the further one that in myself and through myself the All-Being Itself
expresses Itself, or in other words, knows Itself. I can now no longer
feel myself as a thing among other things; I can now only feel myself
as a form in which the All-Being lives out Its own life.
It is thus only natural that one and the same man should have two
modes of knowing. Judging by the facts of the senses, he is a thing
among other things, and, in so far as he is that, he gains for himself
a knowledge of these things; but at any moment he can acquire the
higher experience that he is really the form in which the All-Being
beholds Itself. Then man transforms himself from a thing among other
things into a form of the All-Being--and, along with himself, the
knowledge of things transforms itself into the expression of the very
being of things. But as a matter of fact this transformation can only
be accomplished through man. That which is mediated in the higher
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
knowledge; and only through man’s higher knowledge can things also
bring their being forth into real existence.
If, therefore, we demand that man shall add nothing to things through
his inner knowledge, but merely give expression to whatever already
exists in the things outside of himself, that would really amount to a
complete abnegation of all higher knowledge. From the fact that man,
in respect of his sensible life, is merely one thing among others,
and that he only attains to the higher knowledge when he himself
accomplishes with himself, as a being of the senses, the 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 between these two poles of
knowledge--between knowing and seeing. If he shuts himself off from
the seeing, he abandons the real nature of things: if he seeks to shut
himself off from sense-perception, he would shut out from himself the
things whose nature he seeks to know. It is these very same things
which reveal themselves alike in the lower knowing 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. Thus
it is not due to the things themselves that, at a certain stage, they
appear only as external things; but their doing so is due to the fact
that man must first of all raise and transform himself to the level
upon which the things cease to be external and outside.
In the light of these considerations, some of the views which natural
science has developed during the nineteenth century appear for the
first time in the right light. The supporters of these views tell us
that we hear, see, and touch the objects of the physical world through
our senses. 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 sensation in other cases also. If the eyeball is struck or
pressed upon, or if an electric spark is allowed to pass through the
head, the eye has a sensation of light.
It is thus evident that even in the cases in which we have the
sensation of a body emitting red light, something may really be
happening in that body which has no sort of resemblance to the colour
we sensate. Whatever may be actually happening “outside of us” in
space, so long as what happens is capable of 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 which the external happenings call
up in us. Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1893) has given a clearly outlined
expression to this thought:
“Our sensations are simply effects which are produced in our organs
by external causes, and the manner in which such an effect will show
itself depends, naturally enough, altogether upon the kind of apparatus
upon which the action takes place. In so far as the quality of our
sensation gives us information as 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 of it. For we expect in 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 in addition.
A symbol, however, is not required to have any sort of resemblance to
that which it symbolises. The necessary connection between the object
and the symbol is limited to this: that the same object coming into
action under the same conditions shall call up the same symbol, and
that therefore different symbols shall always correspond to different
objects. When berries of a certain kind in ripening produce together
red colouration and sugar, then red colour and a sweet taste will
always find themselves together in our sensation of berries of this
form.”[14]
[14] _Cp._ Helmholtz, _Die Thatsachen der Wahrnehmung_, p. 12 _et
seq._ I have characterised this kind of conception in detail in
my _Philosophie der Freiheit_, Berlin, 1894, and in my _Welt- und
Lebensanschauungen im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert_, vol. ii., p. i., etc.
Let us follow out step by step the line of thought which this view
makes its own. It is assumed that something happens outside of me in
space; this produces an effect upon my sense-organs; and my nervous
system conducts the impression thus made to my brain. There another
occurrence is brought about. I experience the sensation “red.” Now
follows the assertion: therefore the sensation “red” is not outside,
not external to me; it is _in_ me. All our sensations are merely
symbols or signs of external occurrences of whose real quality we
know nothing. We live and move in our sensations and know nothing of
their origin. In the spirit of this line of thought, it would thus be
possible to assert that if we had no eyes, colour would not exist; for
then there would be nothing to translate this, to us, wholly unknown
external happening into the sensation “red.”
For many people this line of thought possesses a curious attraction;
but nevertheless it originates in a complete misconception of the
facts under consideration. (Were it not that many of the present day
scientists and philosophers are blinded even to absurdity by this line
of thought, one would need to say less about it. But, as a matter of
fact, this blindness has ruined in many respects the thinking of the
present day.) In truth, since man is but one object or thing among
other things, it naturally follows that if he is to have any experience
of them at all, they must make an impression upon him somehow or other.
Something that happens outside the man must cause something to happen
within him, if in his visual field the sensation “red” is to make its
appearance.
The whole question turns upon this: What is without? what within?
Outside of him something happens in space and time. But within there
is undoubtedly a similar occurrence. For in the eye there occurs such
a process, which manifests itself to the brain when I perceive the
colour “red.” This process which goes on “inside” me, I cannot perceive
directly, any more than I can directly perceive the wave motions
“outside” which the physicist conceives of as answering to the colour
“red.” But really it is only in this sense that I can speak of an
“inside” and an “outside” at all. Only on the plane of sense-perception
can the opposition between “outside” and “inside” hold good.
The recognition of this leads me to assume the existence “outside” of
a process in space and time, although I do not directly perceive it at
all. And the same recognition further leads me to postulate a similar
process within myself, although I cannot directly perceive that either.
But, as a matter of fact, I habitually postulate analogous occurrences
in space and time in ordinary life which I do not directly perceive;
as, for instance, when I hear piano-playing next door, and assume that
a human being in space is seated at the piano and is playing upon it.
And my conception, when I speak of processes happening outside of,
and within me, is just the same. I assume that these processes have
qualities analogous to those of the processes which do fall within the
province of my senses, only that, because of certain reasons, they
escape my direct perception.
If I were to attempt to deny to these processes all the qualities which
my senses show me in the domains of space and time, I should in reality
and in truth be trying to think of something not unlike the famous knife
without a handle, whose blade was wanting. Therefore, I can only say
that space and time processes take place “outside” me; these bring
about space and time processes “within” me; and both are necessary if
the sensation “red” is to appear in my field of vision. And, in so far
as this “red” is not in space and time, I shall seek for it equally in
vain, whether I seek “without” or “within” myself. Those scientists and
philosophers who cannot find it “outside,” ought not to want to find it
“inside” either. For it is not “inside,” in exactly the same sense in
which it is not “outside.” To declare that the total content of that
which the sense-world presents to us is but an inner world of sensation
or feeling, and then to endeavour to tack on something “external” or
“outside” to it, is a wholly impossible conception.