Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age
GA 7
Cardinal Nicolas of Cusa
[ 1 ] A gloriously shining star in the firmament of medieval spiritual life is Nicolas Chrypffs of Cusa (near Treves, 1401–1464) He stands upon the heights of the learning of his time. In mathematics he has produced outstanding work. In natural science he may be described as the precursor of Copernicus, for he held the point of view that the earth is a moving heavenly body like others. He had already broken with the view on which the great astronomer, Tycho Brahe, still relied a hundred years later when he flung the following sentence against the teaching of Copernicus: “The earth is a coarse and heavy mass, unsuited for movement; how can Copernicus make a star of it and lead it around in the atmosphere?” Nicolas of Cusa, who not only encompassed the knowledge of his time but developed it further, also to a high degree had the capacity of awakening this knowledge to an inner life, so that it not only elucidates the external world but also procures for man that spiritual life for which he must long from the most profound depths of his soul. If one compares Nicolas with such spirits as Eckhart or Tauler, one reaches an important conclusion. Nicolas is the scientific thinker who wants to raise himself to a higher view as the result of his research into the things of the world; Eckhart and Tauler are the believing confessors who seek the higher life through the contents of their faith. Nicolas finally reaches the same inner life as Meister Eckhart, but the content of the inner life of the former is a rich learning. The full meaning of the difference becomes clear when one considers that for one who interests himself in the various sciences there is a real danger of misjudging the scope of the way of knowing which elucidates the different fields of learning. Such a person can easily be misled into the belief that there is only one way of knowing. He will then either under—or over—estimate this knowing, which leads to the goal in things pertaining to the different sciences. In the one case he will approach objects of the highest spiritual life in the same way as a problem in physics, and deal with them in terms of concepts that he uses to deal with the force of gravity and with electricity. According to whether he considers himself to be more or less enlightened, to him the world becomes a blindly acting mechanism, an organism, the functional construction of a personal God, or perhaps a structure directed and penetrated by a more or less clearly imagined “world soul.” In the other case he notices that the particular knowledge of which he has experience is useful only for the things of the sensory world; then he becomes a skeptic who says to himself: we cannot know anything about the things which lie beyond the world of the senses. Our knowledge has a boundary. As far as the needs of the higher life are concerned, we can only throw ourselves into the arms of a faith untouched by knowledge. For a learned theologian like Nicolas of Cusa, who was at the same time a natural scientist, the second danger was especially real. In his education he was after all a product of Scholasticism, the dominant philosophy in the scholarly life of the Church of the Middle Ages, which had been brought to its highest flower by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the “Prince of Scholastics.” This philosophy must be used as a background if one wants to depict the personality of Nicolas of Cusa.
[ 2 ] Scholasticism is in the highest degree a product of human ingenuity. In it the logical faculty celebrated its greatest triumphs. One who aims to elaborate concepts in their sharpest and clearest contours should serve an apprenticeship with the Scholastics. It is they who provide the highest schooling for the technique of thinking. They have an incomparable agility in moving in the field of pure thought. It is easy to underestimate what they were capable of accomplishing in this field. For in most areas of learning the latter is accessible to man only with difficulty. Most people attain it clearly only in the realms of counting, of arithmetic, and in thinking about the properties of geometric forms. We can count by adding a unit to a number in our thoughts, without calling sensory images to our help. We also calculate without such images, in the pure element of thought alone. As for geometric forms, we know that they do not completely coincide with any sensory image. In the reality of the senses there exists no (conceptual) circle. And yet our thinking occupies itself with the latter. For objects and processes which are more complicated than numerical and spatial structures, it is more difficult to find conceptual counter-parts. This has led to the claim made in some quarters that there is only as much real knowledge in the various fields of investigation as there is that in them which can be measured and counted. This is as decidedly wrong as is anything one-sided; but it seduces many, as often only something one-sided can. Here the truth is that most people are not capable of grasping purely conceptual when it is no longer a matter of something measurable or countable. But one who cannot do this in connection with higher realms of life and knowledge resembles in this respect a child who has not yet learned to count in any other way than by adding one pea to another. The thinker who said that there is as much true knowledge in any field of learning as there is mathematics in it, did not grasp the full truth of the matter. One must require that everything which cannot be measured and counted, is to be treated in the same conceptual fashion as numerical and spatial structures. And this requirement was respected by the Scholastics in the highest degree. Everywhere they sought the conceptual content of things, just as the mathematician seeks it in the area of the measurable and countable.
[ 3 ] In spite of this accomplished logical skill the Scholastics attained only a one-sided and subordinate concept of cognition. According to this concept, in the process of cognition man produces in himself an image of what he is to grasp. It is quite obvious that with such a concept of cognition, one must place all reality outside of cognition. For in the process of cognition one cannot then grasp a thing itself, but only an image of this thing. Man also cannot grasp himself in his self-knowledge; what he grasps of himself is only an image of his self. It is quite in the spirit of Scholasticism that someone who is closely acquainted with it says (K. Werner in his Franz Suarez und die Scholastik der letzten Jahrhunderte, Francisco Suarez and the Scholasticism of the Last Centuries, p. 122): “In time man has no perception of his self, the hidden foundation of his spiritual nature and life; ... he will never be able to look at himself; for either, forever estranged from God, he will find in himself only a bottomless dark abyss and endless emptiness, or he will, blessed in God, and turning his gaze inward, find only God, Whose sun of grace shines within him, and Whose image reflects itself in the spiritual traits of his nature.” One who thinks about all cognition in this way has only a concept of that cognition which is applicable to external things. What is sensory in a thing always remains external to us. Therefore into our cognition we can only receive images of what is sensory in the world. When we perceive a color or a stone we cannot ourselves become color or stone in order to know the nature of the color or of the stone. And neither can the color or the stone transform itself into a part of our own natura! But it must be asked, Is the concept of such a cognition, focused as it is upon the external in things, an exhaustive one?—It is true that for Scholasticism all human cognition coincides in its essentials with this cognition. Another writer who knows Scholasticism extremely well, (Otto Willmann, in his Geschichte des Idealismus, History of Idealism, V. 2, 2nd ed., p. 396) characterizes the concept of cognition of this philosophy in the following way: “Our spirit, associated with the body as it is in earthly life, is primarily directed toward the surrounding world of matter, but focused upon the spiritual in it; that is, the essences, natures, and forms of things, the elements of existence which are akin to it and provide it with the rungs by which it ascends to the supra-sensory; the field of our cognition is thus the realm of experience, but we should learn to understand what it offers, penetrate to its sense and idea, and thereby open to ourselves the world of ideas.” The Scholastic could not attain a different concept of cognition. He was prevented from doing so by the dogmatic teaching of his theology. If he had fixed his spiritual eye upon what he considered to be a mere image, he would have seen that the spiritual content of things reveals itself in this supposed image; he would then have found that God does not merely reflect Himself within him, but that He lives in him, is present in him in His essence. In looking within himself he would not have beheld a dark abyss, an endless emptiness, nor merely an image of God; rather would he have felt that a life pulses in him which is the divine life itself, and that his own life is the life of God. This the Scholastic could not admit. In his opinion God could not enter into him and speak out of him; He could only exist in him as an image. In reality, the Divinity had to be presupposed outside the self. Thus it had to reveal itself through supernatural communications from the outside, and could not do so within, through the spiritual life. But what is intended by this is exactly what is least achieved. It is the highest possible concept of the Divinity which is to be attained. In reality, the Divinity is degraded to a thing among other things, but these other things reveal themselves to man in a natural manner, through experience, while the Divinity is to reveal Itself to him supernaturally. However, a difference between the cognition of the Divine and of the creation is made in saying that, as concerns the creation, the external thing is given in the experience, that one has knowledge of it. As concerns the Divine, the object is not given in the experience; one can only attain it through faith. Thus for the Scholastic the highest things are not objects of knowledge, but only of faith. It is true that, according to the Scholastic view, the relationship of knowledge to faith is not to be imagined in such a way that in a certain field only knowledge reigns, in another only faith. For “cognition of the existing is possible for us, because it originates in a creative cognition; things are for the spirit because they are from the spirit; they tell us something because they have a meaning which a higher intelligence has put into them.” (O. Willmann, Geschichte des Idealismus, History of Idealism, V. 2, p. 383.) Since God has created the world according to His ideas, if we grasp the ideas of the world, we can also grasp the traces of the Divine in the world through scientific reflection. But what God is in His essence we can only grasp through the revelation which He has given us in a supernatural manner, and in which we must believe. What we must think concerning the highest things is not decided by any human knowledge, but by faith; and “to faith belongs everything that is contained in the Scriptures of the New and Old Covenant, and in the divine traditions.” (Joseph Kleutgen, Die Theologie der Vorzeit, The Theology of Antiquity, V. 1, p. 39.)—We cannot make it our task here to describe in detail and to explain the relationship of the content of faith to that of knowledge. In reality, the content of all faith originates in an inner experience man has had at some time. It is then preserved, according to its external import, without the consciousness of how it was acquired. It is said of it that it came into the world through supernatural revelation. The content of the Christian faith was simply accepted by the Scholastics as tradition. Science and inner experience were not allowed to claim any rights over it. Scholasticism could no more permit itself to create a concept of God than science can create a tree; it had to accept the revealed concept as given, just as natural science accepts the tree as given. The Scholastic could never admit that the spiritual itself shines and lives within man. He therefore drew a limit to the jurisdiction of science where the field of external experience ends. Human cognition could not be permitted to produce a concept of the higher entities out of itself. It was to accept revealed one. That in doing this it actually only accepted one which had been produced at an earlier stage of human spiritual life, and declared it to be a revealed one, this the Scholastics could not admit.—In the course of the development of Scholasticism therefore, all those ideas had disappeared from it which still indicated the manner in which man has produced the concepts of the Divine in a natural way. In the first centuries of the development of Christianity, at the time of the Fathers of the Church, we see how the content of the teachings of theology came into being little by little through the inclusion of inner experiences. This content is still treated entirely as an inner experience by Johannes Scotus Erigena, who stood at the height of Christian theological learning in the ninth century. Among the Scholastics of the succeeding centuries this quality of an inner experience is completely lost; the old content is reinterpreted as the content of an external, supernatural revelation.—One can therefore interpret the activity of the mystical theologians Eckhart, Tauler, Suso and their companions by saying: They were inspired by the content of the teachings of the Church, which is contained in theology, but had been reinterpreted, to bring forth a similar content out of themselves anew as an inner experience.
[ 4 ] Nicolas of Cusa enters upon the task of ascending by oneself to inner experiences from the knowledge one acquires in the different sciences. There can be no doubt that the excellent logical technique the Scholastics had developed and for which Nicolas had been educated, furnishes an excellent means for attaining inner experiences, although the Scholastics themselves were kept from this road by their positive faith. But one will only understand Nicolas completely when one considers that his vocation as priest, which raised him to the dignity of Cardinal, prevented him from making a complete break with the faith of the Church, which found its contemporary expression in Scholastic theology. We find him so far advanced along a certain path that every further step would of necessity have led him out of the Church. Therefore we understand the Cardinal best if we complete that step which he did not take, and then in retrospect illuminate what had been his intention.
[ 5 ] The most important concept of the spiritual life of Nicolas is that of “learned ignorance.” By this he understands a cognition which represents a higher level, as opposed to ordinary knowledge. Knowledge in the subordinate sense is the grasping of an object by the spirit. The most important characteristic of knowledge is that it gives information about something outside the spirit, that is, that it looks at something which it itself is not. In knowledge, the spirit thus is occupied with things thought of as being outside of it. But what the spirit forms in itself concerning things is the essence of things. Things arc spirit. At first man sees the spirit only through the sensory covering. What remains outside the spirit is only this sensory covering; the essence of things enters into the spirit. When the spirit then looks upon this essence, which is substance of its substance, it can no longer speak of knowledge, for it does not look upon a thing which is outside of it; it looks upon a thing which is a part of itself; it looks upon itself. It no longer knows; it only looks upon itself. It is not concerned with a “knowing,” but with a “not-knowing.” It no longer grasps something through the spirit; it “beholds, without grasping,” its own life. This highest level of cognition, in relation to the lower levels, is a “not-knowing.”—It will be seen that the essence of things can only be communicated through this level of cognition. With his “learned not-knowing” Nicolas of Cusa thus speaks of nothing but the knowledge reborn as inner experience. He himself tells how he came to have this inner experience. “I made many attempts to unite my thoughts about God and the world, about Christ and the Church in one fundamental idea, but of them all none satisfied me until finally, during the return from Greece by sea, the gaze of my spirit lifted itself, as if through an inspiration from on high, to the view in which God appeared to me as the highest unity of all contrasts.” To a greater or lesser extent the influences which derive from a study of his predecessors are involved in this inspiration. In his way of thinking one recognizes a peculiar renewal of the ideas we encounter in the writing of a certain Dionysius. Scotus Erigena, mentioned above, had translated this work into Latin. He calls the author “the great and divine revealer.” These writings were first mentioned in the first half of the sixth century. They were ascribed to that Dionysius the Aeropagite mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, who was converted to Christianity by Paul. Here we shall not go into the problem as to when these writings were really composed. Their contents had a strong effect on Nicolas, as they already had on Johannes Scotus Erigena, and as they must also have been stimulating in many respects for the way of thinking of Eckhart and his companions. The “learned not-knowing” is prefigured in a certain way in these writings. Here we shall record only the main feature of the way of thinking of these writings. Man first comes to know the things of the sensory world. He reflects on their existence and activity. The primordial foundation of all things must lie higher than the things themselves. Man therefore cannot expect to grasp this primordial foundation with the same concepts and ideas as he grasps the things themselves. If therefore he attributes to the primordial foundation (God) qualities which he knows from lower things, these qualities can only be auxiliary ideas of the weak spirit, which draws the primordial foundation down to itself in order to be able to imagine it. In reality, therefore, no quality which lower things have can be said to belong to God. It cannot even be said that God is. For “being” too is a concept which man has formed in connection with lower things. But God is exalted above “being” and “not-being.” Thus the God to Whom we ascribe qualities is not the true one. We arrive at the true God if we imagine a “Supergod” above a God with such qualities. Of this “Supergod” we can know nothing in the ordinary sense. In order to reach Him, “knowing” must flow into “not-knowing.”—One can see that such a view is based on the consciousness that out of what his sciences have furnished him man himself—in a purely natural way—can develop a higher cognition, which is no longer mere knowledge. The Scholastic view declared knowledge to be incapable of such a development, and at the point where knowledge is supposed to end, it had faith, based on an external revelation, come to the aid of knowledge.—Nicolas of Cusa thus was on the way toward once again developing that out of knowledge which the Scholastics had declared to be unattainable for cognition.
[ 6 ] From the point of view of Nicolas of Cusa therefore, one cannot say that there is only one kind of cognition. Cognition, on the contrary, is clearly divided into what mediates a knowledge of external things, and what is itself the object of which one acquires knowledge. The former kind of cognition rules in the sciences which we acquire concerning the things and processes of the sensory world; the latter kind is in us when we ourselves live in what has been acquired. The second kind of cognition develops from the first. Yet it is the same world to which both kinds of cognition refer, and it is the same man who shares in both. The question must arise, How does it come about that one and the same man develops two kinds of cognition of one and the same world?—The direction in which the answer to this question is to be sought was already indicated in our discussion of Tauler (cf. above). Here this answer can be formulated even more definitely with regard to Nicolas of Cusa. First of all, man lives as a separate (individual) being among other separate beings. To the influences which the other beings exercise upon one another, in him is added the faculty of (lower) cognition. Through his senses he receives impressions of the other beings, and he works upon these impressions with his spiritual faculties. He directs his spiritual gaze away from external things and looks at himself, at his own activity. Thus self-knowledge arises in him. As long as he remains upon this level of self-knowledge he does not yet look upon himself in the true sense of the word. He can still believe that there is some hidden entity active within him, and that what appears to him as his activity are only the manifestations and actions of this entity. But the point can come at which it becomes clear to man through an incontrovertible inner experience that in what he perceives and experiences within himself he possesses, not the manifestation, the action, of a hidden force or entity, but this entity itself in its primordial form. He can then say to himself: All other things I encounter in a way ready-made, and I, who stand outside them, add to them what the spirit has to say with regard to them. But in what I myself thus creatively add to things in myself, in that I myself live, that is what I am, that is my own essence. But what is it that speaks in the depths of my spirit? It is knowledge that speaks, the knowledge I have acquired about the things of the world. But in this knowledge it is not some action, some manifestation which speaks; something speaks which keeps nothing back of what it has in itself. In this knowledge speaks the world in all its immediacy. But I have acquired this knowledge from things and from myself, as from a thing among things. Out of my own essence it is I myself and the things who speak. In reality I no longer merely express my nature; I express the nature of things. My “I” is the form, the organ through which things declare themselves with regard to themselves. I have gained the experience that I experience my own essence within myself, and for me this experience becomes enlarged into another, that in me and through me the universal essence expresses itself, or, in other words, knows itself. Now I can no longer feel myself to be a thing among things; I can only feel myself to be a form in which the universal essence has its life.—It is therefore only natural that one and the same man should have two kinds of cognition. With regard to the sensory facts he is a thing among things, and, insofar as this is the case, he acquires a knowledge of these things; but at any moment he can have the higher experience that he is the form in which the universal essence looks upon itself. Then he himself is transformed from a thing among things into a form of the universal essence—and with him the knowledge of things is changed into an utterance of the nature of things. This transformation however can in fact be accomplished only by man himself. What is mediated in the higher cognition is not yet present as long as this higher cognition itself is not present. It is only in creating this higher cognition that man develops his nature, and only through the higher cognition of man does the nature of things come into actual existence. If therefore it is required that man should not add anything to the things of the senses through his higher cognition, but should express only what already lies in them in the outside world, then this simply means renouncing all higher cognition.—From the fact that, as regards his sensory life, man is a thing among things, and that he only attains higher cognition when as a sensory being he himself accomplishes his transformation into a higher being, from this it follows that he can never replace the one cognition by the other. Rather, his spiritual life consists of a perpetual moving to and fro between the two poles of cognition, between knowing and seeing. If he shuts himself off from seeing, he foregoes the nature of things; if he were to shut himself off from sensory knowing, he would deprive himself of the things whose nature he wants to understand.—The same things reveal themselves to the lower understanding and to the higher seeing, only they do this at one time with regard to their external appearance, at the other time with regard to their inner essence.—Thus it is not due to things themselves that at a certain stage they appear only as external objects; rather it is due to the fact that man must first transform himself to the point where he can reach the stage at which things cease to be external.
[ 7 ] It is only with these considerations in mind that certain views natural science elaborated in the nineteenth century appear in their proper light. The adherents of these views say to themselves: We hear, see, and touch the things of the material world through the senses. The eye, for instance, communicates to us a phenomenon of light, a color. We say that a body emits red light when, by the mediation of our eye, we have the sensation “red.” But the eye gives us this sensation in other cases too. If it is struck or pressed, if an electric current passes through the head, the eye has a sensation of light. Hence in those instances also in which we have the sensation that a body emits light of a certain color, something may be occurring in that body which does not have any resemblance to color. No matter what is occurring in outside space, as long as this process is suitable for making an impression upon the eye, a sensation of color arises in me. What we perceive arises in us because we have organs that are constituted in a certain way. What goes on in outside space remains outside of us; we know only the effects which external processes bring forth in us. Hermann Helmholtz (1821–1894) has given expression to this idea in a clearly defined way. “Our perceptions are effects produced in our organs by external causes, and the way such an effect manifests itself is of course substantially dependent on the kind of apparatus acted upon. Insofar as the quality of our perception gives us information about the characteristics of the external influence by which it is caused, it can be considered as a sign of the latter, but not as a likeness of it. For of an image one requires some kind of similarity to the object represented: of a statue, similarity of form; of a drawing, similarity of the perspective projection in the field of view; of a painting, in addition to this, similarity of colors. But a sign need not have any kind of resemblance to that of which it is a sign. The relationship between the two is limited to this, that the same object, exercising its influence under the same circumstances, calls forth the same sign, and that therefore unlike signs always correspond to unlike influences ... If in ripening berries of a certain variety develop both a red pigment and sugar, then red color and sweet taste will always be found together in our perception of berries of this kind.” (cf. Helmholtz: Die Tatsachen der Wahrnehmung, The Facts of Perception, p. 12 f.) I have characterized this way of thinking in detail in my Philosophie der Freiheit, Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, and in my Rätsel der Philosophie, Riddles of Philosophy, 1918.—Let us now follow step by step the train of thought which is adopted in this view. A process is assumed in outside space. It produces an effect upon my sensory organ; my nervous system transmits to my brain the impression produced. Another process is effected there. I now perceive “red.” Now it is said: The perception of “red” is thus not outside; it is in me. All our perceptions are only signs of external processes, the real character of which we know nothing. We live and act among our perceptions, and know nothing about their origin. In line with this way of thinking one can also say: If we had no eye there would be no color; nothing would then transform the external process, which is unknown to us, into the perception “red.” For many this train of thought is something seductive. Nevertheless it rests upon a complete misinterpretation of the facts under consideration. (If many contemporary natural scientists and philosophers were not deluded to a truly monstrous degree by this train of thought, one would not have to talk about it so much. But this delusion has in fact vitiated contemporary thinking in many respects.) Since man is a thing among things, it is of course necessary that things should make an impression upon him if he is to find out anything about them. A process outside of man must give rise to a process in man if the phenomenon “red” is to appear in the field of vision. One must only ask, What is outside, what inside? Outside is a process which takes place in space and time. But inside doubtless is a similar process. Such a process exists in the eye and communicates itself to the brain when I perceive “red.” I cannot directly perceive the process which is “inside,” any more than I can immediately perceive the wave motion “outside,” which physicists consider corresponds to the color “red.” But it is only in this sense that I can speak of an “outside” and an “inside.” Only on the level of sensory perception does the contrast between “outside” and “inside” have any validity. This perception leads me to assume a spatial-temporal process “outside,” although I cannot perceive it directly. And, further, the same perception leads me to assume such a process within me, although I cannot perceive it directly either. But, after all, I also assume spatial-temporal processes in ordinary life which I cannot directly perceive. For example, I hear a piano being played in the next room. Therefore I assume that a human being with spatial dimensions sits at the piano and plays. And my way of representing things to myself is no different when I speak of processes within me and outside of me. I assume that these processes have characteristics analogous to those of the processes which fall within the domain of my senses, only that, for certain reasons, they are not accessible to my direct observation. If I were to deny to these processes all those qualities my senses show me in the realm of the spatial and the temporal, I would in truth be imagining something like the famous knife without a handle of which the blade is missing. Thus I can only say that “outside” occur spatial-temporal processes, and that they cause spatial-temporal processes “inside.” Both are necessary if “red” is to appear in my field of vision. Insofar as it is not spatial-temporal I shall look for this red in vain, no matter whether I look for it “outside” or “inside.” The natural scientists and philosophers who cannot find it “outside” should not attempt to look for it “inside” either. It is not “inside” in the same sense in which it is not “outside.” To declare that the entire content of what the world of the senses presents to us is an inner world of perceptions, and to look for something “external” corresponding to it, is an impossible idea. Therefore we cannot say that “red,” “sweet,” “hot,” etc. are signs which as such, are only caused to arise in us and to which something quite different on the “outside” corresponds. For what is really caused in us as the effect of an external process is something quite different from what appears in the field of our perceptions. If one wants to call what is in us signs, then one can say: These signs appear within our organism in order to communicate perceptions to us which, as such, in their immediacy are neither inside nor outside us, but rather belong to that common world of which my “external world” and my “interior world” are only parts. It is true that in order to be able to grasp this common world I must raise myself to that higher level of cognition for which an “inside” and an “outside” no longer exist. (I am well aware that people who rely on the gospel that “our entire world of experience” is made up of sensations of unknown origin will look down haughtily upon this exposition, in somewhat the same way as Dr. Erich Adikes in his work, Kant contra Haeckel says condescendingly: “For the time being, people like Haeckel and thousands of his kind philosophize merrily on, without worrying about any theory of cognition or about critical introspection.” Such gentlemen of course have no suspicion of how paltry their theories of cognition are. They suspect a lack of critical introspection only in others. We shall not begrudge them their “wisdom.”)
[ 8 ] It is just on the point under consideration here that Nicolas of Cusa has excellent ideas. His keeping the lower and the higher cognition clearly separated from each other permits him on the one hand to gain a full insight into the fact that as a sensory being man can have within himself only processes which must, as effects, be unlike the corresponding external processes; on the other hand, it preserves him from confusing the inner processes with the facts which appear in our field of perception and which, in their immediacy, are neither outside nor inside, but are elevated above this contrast.—Nicolas was “prevented by his priestly cloth” from following without reservations the path which this insight indicated to him. We see him making a good beginning with the advance from “knowing” to “not-knowing.” But at the same time we must observe that in the field of “not-knowing” he has nothing to show except the theological teachings which are offered to us by the Scholastics also. It is true that he knows how to develop this theological content in an ingenious manner: on providence, Christ, the creation of the world, man's redemption, the moral life, he presents teachings which are altogether in line with dogmatic Christianity. It would have been in keeping with his spiritual direction to say: I have confidence that human nature, having immersed itself in the sciences of things on all sides, is able from within itself to transform this “knowing” into a “not-knowing,” hence that the highest cognition brings satisfaction. Then he would not have accepted, as he has, the traditional ideas of soul, immortality, redemption, God, creation, the Trinity, etc., but would have upheld those which he himself had found.—But Nicolas, personally was so penetrated with the concepts of Christianity that he could well believe he was awakening his own proper “not-knowing” within himself, while he was only putting forth the traditional views in which he had been educated—However it must be considered that he was standing before a fateful abyss in human spiritual life. He was a scientific man. And science at first removes man from the innocent concord in which he exists with the world as long as the conduct of his life is a purely naïve one. In such a conduct of life man dimly feels his connection with the totality of the universe. He is a being like others, integrated into the chain of natural effects. With knowledge he separates himself from this whole. He creates a spiritual world within himself. With it he confronts nature in solitude. He has become richer, but this wealth is a burden which he bears with difficulty. For at first it weighs upon him alone. He must find the way back to nature through his own resources. He must understand that now he himself must integrate his wealth into the chain of universal effects, as nature herself had integrated his poverty before. It is here that all the evil demons lie in wait for man. His strength can easily fail. Instead of accomplishing the integration himself, when this occurs, he will take refuge in a revelation from the outside, which again delivers him from his solitude, and leads the knowledge he feels to be a burden back into the primordial origin of existence, the Divinity. He will think, as did Nicolas of Cusa, that he is walking his own road, while in reality he will only find the one his spiritual development has shown him. Now there are three roads—in the main—upon which one can walk when one arrives where Nicolas had arrived: one is positive faith, which comes to us from outside; the second is despair: one stands alone with one's burden and feels all existence tottering with oneself; the third road is the development of man's own deepest faculties. Confidence in the world must be one leader along this third road. Courage to follow this confidence, no matter where it leads, must be the other.3Addendum III to the 1923 Edition:
In a few words I hint here at the road to the cognition of the spirit which I have described in my later writings, especially in Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten, How does one Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Umriss einer Geheimwissenschaft, Outline of a Secret Science, Von Seelenrätseln, Riddles of the Soul.—Addendum III to the 1923 Edition
III. Der Kardinal Nicolaus von Kues
[ 1 ] Ein herrlich leuchtendes Gestirn am Himmel mittelalterlichen Geisteslebens ist Nicolaus Chrypffs aus Kues (bei Trier 1401-1464). Er steht auf der Höhe des Wissens seiner Zeit. In der Mathematik hat er Hervorragendes geleistet. In der Naturwissenschaft darf er als Vorläufer des Kopernikus bezeichnet werden, denn er stellte sich auf den Standpunkt, daß die Erde ein bewegter Himmelskörper ist gleich anderen. Er hat schon gebrochen mit einer Anschauung, auf die sich noch hundert Jahre später der große Astronom Tycho de Brahe stützte, als er der Lehre des Kopernikus den Satz entgegenschleuderte: «Die Erde ist eine grobe, schwere und zur Bewegung ungeschickte Masse; wie kann nun Kopernikus einen Stern daraus machen und ihn in den Lüften herumführen?» Nicolaus von Kues, der das Wissen seiner Zeit nicht nur umfaßte, sondern auch weiterführte, hatte auch in hohem Grade das Vermögen, dieses Wissen zum inneren Leben zu erwecken, so daß es nicht nur über die äußere Welt auf klärt, sondern auch dem Menschen dasjenige geistige Leben vermittelt, nach dem er sich, aus den tiefsten Gründen seiner Seele heraus, sehnen muß. Vergleicht man Nicolaus mit Geistern wie Eckhart oder Tauler, so erhält man ein bedeutsames Ergebnis. Nicolaus ist der wissenschaftliche Denker, der sich aus der Forschung über die Dinge der Welt auf die Stufe einer höheren Anschauung heben will; Eckhart und Tauler sind die gläubigen Bekenner, die aus dem Glaubensinhalt heraus das höhere Leben suchen. Zuletzt kommt Nicolaus zu demselben inneren Leben wie der Meister Eckhart; aber das des ersteren hat ein reiches Wissen zum Inhalt. Die volle Bedeutung des Unterschiedes wird klar, wenn man bedenkt, daß für denjenigen, der sich in den verschiedenen Wissenschaften umtut, die Gefahr nahe liegt, die Tragweite der Erkenntnisart zu verkennen, die über die einzelnen Wissensgebiete auf klärt. Ein solcher kann leicht zu dem Glauben verführt werden, daß es nur eine einzige Art der Erkenntnis gebe. Er wird dann diese Erkenntnis, die in Dingen der einzelnen Wissenschaften zum Ziele führt, entweder unter- oder überschätzen. In dem einen Falle wird er auch an die Gegenstände des höchsten Geisteslebens so herantreten, wie an eine physikalische Aufgabe, und sie mit Begriffen behandeln, mit denen er die Schwerkraft oder Elektrizität behandelt. Die Welt wird ihm, je nachdem et sich mehr oder weniger aufgeklärt glaubt, eine blind wirkende Maschine, oder ein Organismus, oder der zweckmäßige Bau eines persönlichen Gottes; vielleicht auch ein Gebilde, das von irgendeiner mehr oder weniger klar vorgestellten «Weltseele» regiert und durchdrungen ist. In dem anderen Falle merkt er, daß die Erkenntnis, von der er allein eine Erfahrung hat, nur für die Dinge der Sinnenwelt taugt; dann wird er ein Zweifler, der sich sagt: Wir können über die Dinge nichts wissen, die über die Sinneswelt hinausliegen. Unser Wissen hat eine Grenze. Wir können uns für die Bedürfnisse des höheren Lebens nur einem vom Wissen unberührten Glauben in die Arme werfen. Für einen gelehrten Theologen wie Nicolaus von Kues, der zugleich Naturforscher war, lag die zweite Gefahr besonders nahe. Er ging ja, seiner gelehrten Erziehung nach, aus der Scholastik hervor, der Vorstellungsart, welche innerhalb des wissenschaftlichen Lebens in der Kirche des Mittelalters die herrschende war, und die durch Thomas von Aquino (1225 bis 1274), dem «Fürsten der Scholastiker», zu ihrer höchsten Blüte gebracht worden war. Diese Vorstellungsart muß man zum Hintergrunde machen, wenn man die Persönlichkeit des Nicolaus von Kues malen will.
[ 2 ] Die Scholastik ist im höchsten Maße ein Ergebnis des menschlichen Scharfsinnes. Die logische Fähigkeit feierte in ihr die höchsten Triumphe. Wer darnach strebt, Begriffe in den schärfsten, reinlichsten Konturen auszuarbeiten, der sollte zu den Scholastikern in die Lehre gehen. Sie bieten die hohe Schule für die Technik des Denkens. Sie haben eine unvergleichliche Gewandtheit, sich im Felde des reinen Gedankens zu bewegen. Was sie auf diesem Felde zu leisten imstande waren, das wird leicht unterschätzt. Denn für die meisten Gebiete des Wissens ist es den Menschen nur schwer zugänglich. Die meisten erheben sich zu ihm nur deutlich auf dem Gebiete der Zähl- und Rechenkunst, und beim Nachdenken über den Zusammenhang geometrischer Gebilde. Wir können zählen, indem wir im Gedanken eine Einheit zu einer Zahl fügen, ohne daß wir uns sinnliche Vorstellungen zu Hilfe rufen. Wir rechnen auch, ohne solche Vorstellungen, nur im reinen Elemente des Denkens. Für die geometrischen Gebilde wissen wir, daß sie sich mit keiner sinnlichen Vorstellung vollkommen decken. Es gibt in der Wirklichkeit der Sinne keinen (ideellen) Kreis. Dennoch beschäftigt sich unser Denken mit diesem. Für die Dinge und Vorgänge, welche komplizierter sind als Zahlen- und Raumgebilde, ist es schwieriger, die ideellen Gegenstücke zu finden. Das hat dazu geführt, daß von manchen Seiten behauptet wird, in den einzelnen Erkenntnisgebieten sei nur so viel wirkliche Wissenschaft, als sich darin messen und zählen läßt. So ausgesprochen ist das unrichtig, wie ein Einseitiges unrichtig ist; aber es besticht viele, wie das eben oft nur Einseitigkeiten gelingt. Die Wahrheit darüber ist, daß die meisten Menschen nicht imstande sind, auch da noch das rein Gedankliche zu ergreifen, wo es sich nicht mehr um Meß- oder Zählbares handelt. Wer das aber nicht vermag für höhere Lebens- und Wissensgebiete, der gleicht in dieser Beziehung einem Kinde, das noch nicht gelernt hat, anders zu zählen, als indem es Erbse zu Erbse fügt. Der Denker, der gesagt hat, es sei so viel wirkliche Wissenschaft in einem Wissensgebiete, als darin Mathematik ist, hat die volle Wahrheit der Sache nicht überschaut. Man muß verlangen: es sollte alles andere, was sich nicht messen und zählen läßt, gerade so ideell behandelt werden, wie die Zahl- und Raumgebilde. Und diesem Verlangen trugen die Scholastiker in vollkommenster Weise Rechnung. Sie suchten überall den Gedankeninhalt der Dinge, wie ihn der Mathematiker auf dem Gebiete des Meß- und Zählbaren sucht.
[ 3 ] Trotz dieser vollendeten logischen Kunst brachten es die Scholastiker nur zu einem einseitigen und untergeordneten Begriff vom Erkennen. Dieser ist der, daß der Mensch beim Erkennen in sich ein Bild von dem erzeugt, was er erkennen soll. Es ist ohne weiteres einleuchtend, daß man bei einem solchen Begriffe vom Erkennen alle Wirklichkeit außer das Erkennen versetzen muß. Denn im Erkennen kann man dann kein Ding selbst, sondern nur ein Bild dieses Dinges ergreifen. Auch nicht sich selbst kann der Mensch in seiner Selbsterkenntnis ergreifen, sondern auch, was er von sich erkennt, ist nur ein Bild seines Selbst. Ganz aus dem Geiste der Scholastik heraus sagt ein genauer Kenner derselben (K. Werner in seinem Buche «Franz Suarez und die Scholastik der letzten Jahrhunderte», 2. Bd., S.122): «Der Mensch hat in der Zeit keine Anschauung von seinem Ich, dem verborgenen Grunde seines geistigen Wesens und Lebens; ... er wird ... nie dazu kommen, sich selbst anzuschauen; denn entweder wird er, auf immer Gott entfremdet, in sich nur einen bodenlosen finsteren Abgrund, eine endlose Leere finden, oder er wird, in Gott beseligt, den Blick nach innen wendend, eben nur Gott finden, dessen Gnadensonne in ihm leuchtet, dessen Bild in den geistigen Zügen seines Wesens sich abgestaltet.» Wer so über alles Erkennen denkt, der hat nur einen Begriff von dem Erkennen, das auf äußere Dinge anwendbar ist. Das Sinnliche an einem Ding bleibt uns immer äußerlich. Deshalb können wir von dem, was an der Welt sinnlich ist, nur Bilder in unsere Erkenntnis aufnehmen. Wenn wir eine Farbe oder einen Stein wahrnehmen, können wir nicht, um das Wesen der Farbe oder des Steines zu erkennen, selbst zur Farbe oder zum Stein werden. Ebensowenig können die Farbe oder der Stein sich in einen Teil unseres eigenen Wesens verwandeln! Es fragt sich aber, ob der Begriff einer solchen auf das Äußere an den Dingen gerichteten Erkenntnis ein erschöpfender ist? - Für die Scholastik fällt allerdings im wesentlichen alles menschliche Erkennen mit diesem Erkennen zusammen. Ein anderer vorzüglicher Kenner der Scholastik (Otto Willmann, in seiner «Geschichte des Idealismus», 2. Bd., 2. Aufl., S. 396) charakterisiert den für diese Denkrichtung in Betracht kommenden Erkenntnisbegriff in der folgenden Weise: «Unser Geist, im Erdenleben dem Körper gesellt, ist in erster Linie eingestellt auf die umgebende Körperwelt, aber hingeordnet auf das Geistige in dieser: die Wesenheiten, Naturen, Formen der Dinge, welche Daseinselemente ihm verwandt sind und ihm die Sprossen zum Aufsteigen zum Ãœbersinnlichen darbieten; das Feld unserer Erkenntnis ist also das Gebiet der Erfahrung, aber wir sollen, was sie bietet, verstehen lernen, bis zu seinem Sinne und Gedanken vordringen und uns damit die Gedankenwelt erschließen.» Zu einem anderen Begriffe vom Erkennen konnte der Scholastiker nicht gelangen. Daran hinderte ihn der dogmatische Lehrgehalt seiner Theologie. Hätte er den Blick seines geistigen Auges auf das geheftet, was er als bloßes Bild ansieht, dann hätte er gesehen, daß in diesem vermeintlichen Bilde sich der geistige Inhalt der Dinge selbst offenbart; dann hätte er gefunden, daß in seinem Innern sich der Gott nicht bloß abbildet, sondern daß er darin lebt, wesenhaft gegenwärtig ist. Er hätte bei dem Hineinblicken in sein Inneres nicht einen finstern Abgrund, eine endlose Leere erblickt, aber auch nicht bloß ein Bild Gottes; sondern er hätte gefühlt, daß ein Leben in ihm pulsiert, welches das göttliche Leben selbst ist; und daß sein eigenes Leben eben Gottes Leben ist. Das durfte der Scholastiker nicht zugeben. Der Gott durfte, seiner Meinung nach, nicht in ihn einziehen und aus ihm sprechen; er durfte nur als Bild in ihm sein. In Wirklichkeit mußte die Gottheit außer dem Selbst vorausgesetzt werden. Sie konnte sich also auch nicht im Innern durch das geistige Leben, sondern sie mußte sich von außen, durch übernatürliche Mitteilungen offenbaren. Was dabei angestrebt wird, ist dadurch gerade am allerwenigsten erreicht. Es soll von der Gottheit ein möglichst hoher Begriff erreicht werden. In Wirklichkeit wird die Gottheit erniedrigt zu einem Ding unter anderen Dingen; nur daß sich dem Menschen diese anderen Dinge auf natürlichem Wege offenbaren, durch Erfahrung; während die Gottheit sich ihm übernatürlich offenbaren soll. Es wird aber ein Unterschied zwischen der Erkenntnis des Göttlichen und des Geschöpflichen dadurch erreicht, daß beim Geschöpflichen das äußere Ding in der Erfahrung gegeben ist, daß man von ihm ein wissen hat. Bei dem Göttlichen ist der Gegenstand nicht in der Erfahrung gegeben; man kann ihn nur im Glauben erreichen. Die höchsten Dinge sind also für den Scholastiker keine Gegenstände des Wissens, sondern lediglich des Glaubens. Es ist das Verhältnis des Wissens zum Glauben allerdings, nach scholastischer Auffassung, nicht so vorzustellen, daß in einem gewissen Gebiete nur das Wissen, in einem andern nur der Glaube herrschte. Denn die «Erkenntnis des Seienden ist uns möglich, weil es selbst aus einem schöpferischen Erkennen stammt; die Dinge sind für den Geist, weil sie aus dem Geiste sind; sie haben uns etwas zu sagen, weil sie einen Sinn haben, den eine höhere Intelligenz in sie gelegt hat». (O. Willmann, «Geschichte des Idealismus», 2. Bd., S. 383.) Weil Gott die Welt nach Gedanken geschaffen hat, können wir, wenn wir die Gedanken der Welt erfassen, auch die Spuren des Göttlichen in der Welt durch wissenschaftliches Nachdenken erfassen. Was Gott, seinem Wesen nach, ist, können wir aber nur durch die Offenbarung erfassen, die er uns auf übernatürliche Weise gegeben hat, und an die wir glauben müssen. Was wir von den höchsten Dingen zu halten haben, darüber entscheidet keine menschliche Wissenschaft, sondern der Glaube; und «zum Glauben gehört alles, was in den Schriften des neuen und alten Bundes und in den göttlichen Ãœberlieferungen enthalten ist». (Joseph Kleutgen, «Die Theologie der Vorzeit», 1. Bd., S. 39) - Es kann hier nicht eine Aufgabe sein, das Verhältnis des Glaubensinhalts zum Wissensinhalt ausführlich darzustellen und zu begründen. In Wahrheit stammt aller Glaubensinhalt aus einer irgend einmal gemachten inneren menschlichen Erfahrung. Er wird dann, seinem äußerlichen Gehalte nach, aufbewahrt, ohne das Bewußtsein, wie er erworben ist. Es wird von ihm behauptet, er sei durch übernatürliche Offenbarung in die Welt gekommen. Der christliche Glaubensinhalt wurde von den Scholastikern als Ãœberlieferung einfach hingenommen. Die Wissenschaft, das innere Erleben durfte sich über ihn keine Rechte anmaßen. So wenig die Wissenschaft einen Baum schaffen kann, so wenig durfte die Scholastik einen Gottesbegriff schaffen; sie mußte den geoffenbarten als fertig hinnehmen, wie die Naturwissenschaft den Baum als fertig hinnimmt. Daß das Geistige selbst im Innern aufleuchtet und lebt, durfte der Scholastiker nimmermehr zugeben. Er begrenzte daher die Rechtskraft der Wissenschaft da, wo das Gebiet der äußeren Erfahrung aufhört. Die menschliche Erkenntnis durfte keinen Begriff der höheren Wesenheiten aus sich heraus erzeugen. Sie wollte einen geoffenbarten hinnehmen. Daß sie damit doch nur einen in Wahrheit auf einer früheren Stufe des menschlichen Geisteslebens erzeugten annahm und ihn als geoffenbart erklärte, das konnten die Scholastiker nicht zugeben. - Es waren daher aus der Scholastik im Laufe ihrer Entwicklung alle Ideen geschwunden, welche noch auf die Art und Weise hindeuteten, wie der Mensch auf natürlichem Wege die Begriffe des Göttlichen erzeugt hat. In den ersten Jahrhunderten der Entwicklung des Christentums, zur Zeit der Kirchenväter, sehen wir den Lehrinhalt der Theologie Stück für Stück durch Aufnahme innerer Erlebnisse entstehen. Bei Johannes Scotus Erigena, der im neunten Jahrhunderte auf der Höhe der christlichen theologischen Bildung stand, finden wir diesen Lehrinhalt noch ganz wie ein inneres Erlebnis behandelt. Bei den Scholastikern der folgenden Jahrhunderte verliert sich vollkommen dieser Charakter eines inneren Erlebnisses; der alte Lehrgehalt wird zum Inhalte einer äußeren, übernatürlichen Offenbarung umgedeutet. - Man kann deshalb die Tätigkeit der mystischen Theologen Eckhart, Tauler, Suso und ihrer Genossen auch so auffassen, daß man sagt: sie wurden durch den Lehrgehalt der Kirche, der in der Theologie enthalten, aber umgedeutet war, angeregt, einen ähnlichen Gehalt als inneres Erlebnis aus sich selbst wieder aufs neue zu gebären.
[ 4 ] Nicolaus von Kues begibt sich auf den Weg, von dem Wissen, das man in den einzelnen Wissenschaften erwirbt, selbst zu den inneren Erlebnissen aufzusteigen. Es ist kein Zweifel, daß die vorzügliche logische Technik, welche die Scholastiker ausgebildet haben, und für die Nicolaus erzogen war, ein treffliches Mittel bietet, zu inneren Erlebnissen zu kommen, wenn die Scholastiker selbst auch durch den positiven Glauben von diesem Wege zurückgehalten wurden. Vollkommen verstehen wird man Nicolaus aber nur, wenn man bedenkt, daß sein Beruf als Priester, der ihn bis zur Kardinalswürde emporhob, ihn zu einem völligen Bruch mit dem Kirchenglauben, der in der scholastischen Theologie seinen zeitgemäßen Ausdruck fand, nicht kommen ließ. Wir finden ihn auf einem Wege so weit, daß ihn jeder Schritt weiter auch aus der Kirche hätte hinausführen müssen. Wir verstehen den Kardinal deshalb am besten, wenn wir den Schritt, den er nicht mehr gemacht hat, auch noch vollziehen; und dann, rückwärts, das beleuchten, was er gewollt hat.
[ 5 ] Der bedeutsamste Begriff des Geisteslebens Nicolaus' ist derjenige der «gelehrten Unwissenheit». Er versteht darunter ein Erkennen, das gegenüber dem gewöhnlichen Wissen eine höhere Stufe darstellt. Wissen im untergeordneten Sinne ist Erfassen eines Gegenstandes durch den Geist. Das wichtigste Kennzeichen des Wissens ist, daß es Aufklärung gibt über etwas außer dem Geiste, daß es also auf etwas blickt, was es nicht selbst ist. Der Geist beschäftigt sich also im Wissen mit außerhalb seiner gedachten Dingen. Nun ist aber dasjenige, was der Geist in sich über die Dinge ausbildet, das Wesen der Dinge. Die Dinge sind Geist. Der Mensch sieht zunächst den Geist nur durch die sinnliche Hülle. Was außerhalb des Geistes bleibt, ist nur diese sinnliche Hülle; das Wesen der Dinge geht in den Geist ein. Blickt dann der Geist auf dieses Wesen, das Stoff von seinem Stoffe ist, dann kann er gar nicht mehr von Wissen reden, denn er blickt nicht auf ein Ding, das außerhalb seiner ist; er blickt auf ein Ding, das ein Teil von ihm ist; er blickt auf sich selbst. Er weiß nicht mehr; er schaut nur auf sich. Er hat es nicht mit einem «Wissen», sondern mit einem «Nicht-Wissen» zu tun. Er begreift nicht mehr etwas durch den Geist; er «schaut, ohne Begreifen» sein eigenes Leben an. Diese höchste Stufe des Erkennens ist im Verhältnis zu den niedrigen Stufen «Nicht-Wissen». - Es ist aber einleuchtend, daß das Wesen der Dinge nur durch diese Stufe der Erkenntnis vermittelt werden kann. Nicolaus von Kues spricht also mit seinem «gelehrten Nichtwissen» von nichts anderem als von dem als inneres Erlebnis wiedergeborenen Wissen. Er erzählt selbst, wie er zu diesem inneren Erlebnis gekommen ist. «Ich machte viele Versuche, die Gedanken über Gott und Welt, Christus und Kirche in einer Grundidee zu vereinigen, aber keiner von allen befriedigte mich, bis sich endlich bei der Rückkehr aus Griechenland zur See wie durch eine Erleuchtung von oben der Blick meines Geistes zu der Anschauung erhob, in welcher mir Gott als die höchste Einheit aller Gegensätze erschien.» Mehr oder weniger sind an dieser Erleuchtung die Einflüsse beteiligt, die von dem Studium seiner Vorgänger herrührten. Man erkennt in seiner Vorstellungsart eine eigenartige Erneuerung der Anschauungen, die uns in den Schriften eines gewissen Dionysius begegnen. Der schon genannte Scotus Erigena hat diese Schriften ins Lateinische übersetzt. Er nennt den Verfasser «den großen und göttlichen Offenbarer». Die in Rede stehenden Schriften werden zuerst in der ersten Hälfte des sechsten Jahrhunderts erwähnt. Man schrieb sie dem in der Apostelgeschichte erwähnten Areopagiten Dionysius zu, der von Paulus zum Christentum bekehrt worden ist. Wann diese Schriften wirklich abgefaßt worden sind, möge hier dahingestellt bleiben. Ihr Inhalt wirkte stark auf Nicolaus, wie er schon auf Johannes Scotus Erigena gewirkt hatte, und wie er auch vielfach anregend für die Denkart Eckharts und seiner Genossen gewesen sein muß. Das «gelehrte Nichtwissen» ist in einer gewissen Art in diesen Schriften vorgebildet. Es sei hier nur der Grundzug in der Vorstellungsart dieser Schriften aufgezeichnet. Der Mensch erkennt zunächst die Dinge der Sinneswelt. Er macht sich Gedanken über ihr Sein und Wirken. Der Urgrund aller Dinge muß höher liegen als diese Dinge selbst. Der Mensch kann daher diesen Urgrund nicht mit denselben Begriffen und Ideen erfassen wollen wie die Dinge. Sagt er daher von dem Urgrund (Gott) Eigenschaften aus, welche er an den niederen Dingen kennengelernt hat, so können solche Eigenschaften bloße Hilfsvorstellungen des schwachen Geistes sein, der den Urgrund zu sich herabsieht, um ihn vorstellen zu können. In Wahrheit wird daher nicht irgendeine Eigenschaft, welche niedere Dinge haben, von Gott behauptet werden dürfen. Es wird nicht einmal gesagt werden dürfen, daß Gott ist. Denn auch das «Sein» ist eine Vorstellung, die sich der Mensch an den niederen Dingen gebildet hat. Gott aber ist erhaben über «Sein» und «Nicht-Sein». Der Gott, dem wir Eigenschaften beilegen, ist also nicht der wahre. Wir kommen zu dem wahren Gotte, wenn wir über einen Gott mit solchen Eigenschaften einen «Ãœbergott» denken. Von diesem «Ãœberzogt» können wir nichts im gewöhnlichen Sinne wissen. Um zu ihm zu gelangen, muß das «Wissen» in das «Nicht-Wissen» einmünden. - Man sieht, einer solchen Anschauung liegt das Bewußtsein zugrunde, daß der Mensch aus dem heraus, was ihm seine Wissenschaften geliefert haben, selbst - auf rein natürlichem Wege - ein höheres Erkennen entwickeln kann, das nicht mehr bloßes Wissen ist. Die scholastische Anschauung erklärte das Wissen ohnmächtig zu einer solchen Entwicklung und ließ an dem Punkte, wo das Wissen aufhören soll, den auf äußerliche Offenbarung sich stützenden Glauben dem Wissen zu Hilfe kommen. - Nicolaus von Kues war also auf dem Wege, das aus dem Wissen heraus wieder zu entwickeln, wovon die Scholastiker erklärt hatten, daß es für das Erkennen unerreichbar sei.
[ 6 ] Vom Gesichtspunkte des Nicolaus von Kues aus kann man somit nicht davon sprechen, daß es nur eine Art des Erkennens gebe. Es legt sich das Erkennen vielmehr deutlich auseinander in ein solches, welches ein Wissen von äußeren Dingen vermittelt, und in ein solches, welches der Gegenstand, von dem man eine Erkenntnis erwirbt, selbst ist. Das erstere Erkennen herrscht in den Wissenschaften, die wir uns über die Dinge und Vorgänge der Sinneswelt erwerben; das zweite ist in uns, wenn wir in dem Erworbenen selbst leben. Die zweite Art des Erkennens entwickelt sich aus der ersten. Nun ist es aber doch dieselbe Welt, auf die sich beide Arten des Erkennens beziehen; und es ist derselbe Mensch, welcher sich in beiden betätigt. Die Frage muß entstehen, woher kommt es, daß ein und derselbe Mensch von ein und derselben Welt zweierlei Arten der Erkenntnis entwickelt? - Auf die Richtung, in welcher die Antwort auf diese Frage zu suchen ist, konnte bereits bei Tauler (vgl. S. 25) gedeutet werden. Hier bei Nicolaus von Kues läßt sich diese Antwort noch entschiedener formen. Der Mensch lebt zunächst als einzelnes (individuelles) Wesen unter anderen einzelnen Wesen. Zu den Wirkungen, welche die anderen Wesen aufeinander ausüben, kommt bei ihm noch das (niedere) Erkennen. Er erhält durch seine Sinne Eindrücke von den anderen Wesen und verarbeitet diese Eindrücke mit seinen geistigen Kräften. Er lenkt den geistigen Blick von den äußeren Dingen ab und sieht sich selbst, seine eigene Tätigkeit an. Daraus geht ihm die Selbsterkenntnis hervor. Solange er auf dieser Stufe der Selbsterkenntnis bleibt, schaut er sich noch nicht, im wahren Sinn des Wortes, selbst an. Er kann noch immer glauben, in ihm sei irgendeine verborgene Wesenheit tätig, deren Äußerungen, Wirkungen das nur seien, was ihm als seine Tätigkeit erscheint. Nun kann aber der Punkt kommen, wo dem Menschen durch eine unwiderlegliche innere Erfahrung klar wird, daß er in dem, was er in seinem Inneren wahrnimmt, erlebt, nicht die Äußerung, die Wirkung einer verborgenen Kraft oder Wesenheit, sondern diese Wesenheit selbst in ihrer ureigensten Gestalt hat. Er darf sich dann sagen, alle anderen Dinge finde ich in einer gewissen Weise fertig vor; und ich, der ich außer ihnen stehe, füge zu ihnen hinzu, was der Geist über sie zu sagen hat. Was ich so aber selbst zu den Dingen in mir hinzu schaffe, darin lebe ich selbst, das bin ich; das ist mein eigenes Wesen. Was aber spricht da auf dem Grunde meines Geistes? Es spricht das Wissen, das ich mir über die Dinge der Welt erworben habe. Aber in diesem Wissen spricht nicht mehr irgendeine Wirkung, eine Äußerung; es spricht etwas, was nichts zurückbehält von dem, was es in sich hat. Es spricht in diesem Wissen die Welt in aller ihrer Unmittelbarkeit. Dieses Wissen habe ich aber von den Dingen und von mir selbst, als einem Dinge unter Dingen, erworben. Aus meinem eigenen Wesen spreche ich selbst, und es sprechen die Dinge. Ich spreche also, in Wahrheit, gar nicht mehr bloß mein Wesen aus; ich spreche das Wesen der Dinge aus. Mein «Ich» ist die Form, das Organ, in dem sich die Dinge über sich selbst aussprechen. Ich habe die Erfahrung gewonnen, daß ich in mir meine eigene Wesenheit erlebe; und diese Erfahrung erweitert sich mir zu der anderen, daß sich in mir und durch mich die All-Wesenheit selbst ausspricht, oder, mit anderen Worten, erkennt. Ich kann mich nun nicht mehr als ein Ding unter Dingen fühlen; ich kann mich nur mehr als eine Form fühlen, in der das All -Wesen sich auslebt. - Es ist daher nur natürlich, daß ein und derselbe Mensch zwei Arten von Erkenntnis hat. Er ist, den sinnlichen Tatsachen nach, ein Ding unter Dingen, und, insofern er ein solches ist, erwirbt er sich ein Wissen von diesen Dingen; er kann aber in jedem Augenblicke die höhere Erfahrung machen, daß er die Form ist, in der sich das All-Wesen anschaut. Dann verwandelt er sich selbst, von einem Ding unter Dingen, zu einer Form des All-Wesens - und mit ihm verwandelt sich das Wissen von den Dingen zum Aussprechen des Wesens der Dinge. Diese Verwandlung kann aber tatsächlich nur durch den Menschen selbst vollzogen werden. Das, was in der höheren Erkenntnis vermittelt wird, ist noch nicht da, solange diese höhere Erkenntnis selbst noch nicht da ist. Erst im Schaffen dieser höheren Erkenntnis wird der Mensch wesenhaft; und erst durch des Menschen höhere Erkenntnis bringen auch die Dinge ihr Wesen zum tatsächlichen Dasein. Wenn also verlangt würde, der Mensch solle durch seine höhere Erkenntnis nichts zu den Sinnendingen hinzufügen, sondern nur aussprechen, was in diesen Dingen draußen schon liegt, so hieße das nichts anderes, als auf alle höhere Erkenntnis verzichten. - Aus der Tatsache, daß der Mensch, seinem sinnlichen Leben nach, ein Ding unter Dingen ist, und daß er zur höheren Erkenntnis nur gelangt, wenn er mit sich als Sinneswesen die Verwandlung zum höheren Wesen selbst vollzieht, folgt, daß er niemals die eine Erkenntnis durch die andere ersetzen kann. Sein geistiges Leben besteht vielmehr in einem fortwährenden Hin- und Herbewegen zwischen beiden Polen der Erkenntnis, zwischen dem Wissen und dem Schauen. Schließt er sich von dem Schauen ab, so verzichtet er auf das Wesen der Dinge; wollte er sich von dem sinnlichen Erkennen abschließen, so entzöge er sich die Dinge, deren Wesen er erkennen will. - Es sind dieselben Dinge, die sich dem niederen Erkennen und dem höheren Schauen offenbaren; nur das eine Mal ihrer äußeren Erscheinung nach; das andere Mal ihrer inneren Wesenheit nach. - Es liegt also nicht an den Dingen, daß sie auf einer gewissen Stufe, nur als äußere Dinge erscheinen; sondern es liegt daran, daß der Mensch sich zu der Stufe erst hinauf verwandeln muß, auf der die Dinge aufhören, äußere zu sein.
[ 7 ] Von diesen Betrachtungen aus erscheinen gewisse Anschauungen, welche die Naturwissenschaft im neunzehnten Jahrhundert ausgebildet hat, erst im rechten Lichte. Die Träger dieser Anschauungen sagen sich: Wir hören, sehen und tasten die Dinge der körperlichen Welt durch die Sinne. Das Auge z. B. vermittelt uns eine Lichterscheinung, eine Farbe. Wir sagen, ein Körper sende rotes Licht aus, wenn wir mit Hilfe unseres Auges die Empfindung «rot» haben. Aber das Auge bringt uns eine solche Empfindung auch in anderen Fällen. Wenn es gestoßen oder gedrückt wird, wenn ein elektrischer Funke durch den Kopf strömt, so hat das Auge eine Lichtempfindung. Es kann somit auch in den Fällen, in denen wir einen Körper in einer bestimmten Farbe leuchtend empfinden, in dem Körper etwas vorgehen, was gar keine Ähnlichkeit mit der Farbe hat. Was auch immer draußen im Raume vorgeht: wenn dieser Vorgang nur geeignet ist, auf das Auge einen Eindruck zu machen, so entsteht in mir eine Lichtempfindung. Was wir also empfinden, entsteht in uns, weil wir so oder so beschaffene Organe haben. Was draußen im Raume vorgeht, das bleibt außer uns ; wir kennen nur die Wirkungen, welche die äußeren Vorgänge in uns hervorbringen. Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894) hat diesem Gedanken einen klar umrissenen Ausdruck gegeben. «Unsere Empfindungen sind eben Wirkungen, welche durch äußere Ursachen in unseren Organen hervorgebracht werden, und wie eine solche Wirkung sich äußert, hängt natürlich ganz wesentlich von der Art des Apparats ab, auf den gewirkt wird. Insofern die Qualität unserer Empfindung uns von der Eigentümlichkeit der äußeren Einwirkung, durch welche sie erregt ist, eine Nachricht gibt, kann sie als ein Zeichen derselben gelten, aber nicht als ein Abbild. Denn vom Bilde verlangt man irgendeine Art der Gleichheit mit dem abgebildeten Gegenstände, von einer Statue Gleichheit der Form, von einer Zeichnung Gleichheit der perspektivischen Projektion im Gesichtsfelde, von einem Gemälde auch noch Gleichheit der Farben. Ein Zeichen aber braucht gar keine Art der Ähnlichkeit mit dem zu haben, dessen Zeichen es ist. Die Beziehung zwischen beiden beschränkt sich darauf, daß das gleiche Objekt, unter gleichen Umständen zur Einwirkung kommend, das gleiche Zeichen hervorruft, und daß also ungleiche Zeichen immer ungleicher Einwirkung entsprechen ... Wenn Beeren einer gewissen Art beim Reifen zugleich rotes Pigment und Zucker ausbilden, so werden in unserer Empfindung bei Beeren dieser Form rote Farbe und süßer Geschmack sich immer zusammenfinden.» Vgl. Helmholtz, «Die Tatsachen in der Wahrnehmung», S.12 f.) Ich habe diese Vorstellungsart ausführlich charakterisiert in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» und in meinen «Rätseln der Philosophie». - Man gehe dem Gedankengange, den diese Anschauung zu dem ihrigen macht, nur einmal Schritt vor Schritt nach. Draußen im Raume wird ein Vorgang vorausgesetzt. Der übt eine Wirkung auf mein Sinnesorgan; mein Nervensystem leitet den gewordenen Eindruck zu meinem Gehirn. Da wird wieder ein Vorgang bewirkt. Ich empfinde nunmehr «rot». Nun wird gesagt: also ist die Empfindung des «Rot» nicht draußen; sie ist in mir. Alle unsere Empfindungen sind nur Zeichen von äußeren Vorgängen, über deren wirkliche Qualität wir nichts wissen. Wir leben und weben in unseren Empfindungen, und wissen nichts von deren Ursprung. Man kann im Sinne dieser Denkweise auch sagen: Hätten wir kein Auge, so wäre keine Farbe; nichts würde dann den uns unbekannten äußeren Vorgang in die Empfindung «rot» umsetzen. Dieser Gedankengang hat für viele etwas Bestrickendes. Er beruht aber doch nur auf einer völligen Verkennung der Tatsachen, über die man sich dabei Gedanken macht. (Wären viele Naturforscher und Philosophen der Gegenwart nicht bis zur Ungeheuerlichkeit durch diesen Gedankengang verblendet, so brauchte man weniger über ihn zu reden. Aber diese Verblendung hat in der Tat das Denken der Gegenwart in vieler Beziehung verdorben.) Da der Mensch ein Ding unter Dingen ist, so müssen die Dinge natürlich auf ihn einen Eindruck machen, wenn er von ihnen etwas erfahren soll. Ein Vorgang außer dem Menschen muß einen Vorgang im Menschen erregen, wenn im Blickfeld die Erscheinung «rot» auftreten soll. Es fragt sich nur, was ist draußen, was ist drinnen? Draußen ist ein in Raum und Zeit ablaufender Vorgang. Drinnen ist aber zweifellos ein ähnlicher Vorgang. Ein solcher ist im Auge und setzt sich ins Gehirn fort, wenn ich «rot» wahrnehme. Der Vorgang, der «drinnen» ist, den kann ich nicht, ohne weiteres, wahrnehmen; ebensowenig, wie ich die Wellenbewegung «draußen» unmittelbar wahrnehmen kann, welche die Physiker der Farbe «rot» entsprechend denken. Aber nur in diesem Sinne kann ich von einem «draußen» und «drinnen» sprechen. Nur auf der Stufe des sinnlichen Erkennens hat der Gegensatz von «draußen» und «drinnen» Geltung. Es führt mich dieses Erkennen dazu, «draußen» einen räumlich-zeitlichen Vorgang anzunehmen, wenn ich diesen auch nicht unmittelbar wahrnehme. Und weiter führt mich das gleiche Erkennen dazu, in mir einen solchen Vorgang anzunehmen, wenn ich auch diesen nicht unmittelbar wahrnehmen kann. Aber ich nehme ja auch im gewöhnlichen Leben räumlich-zeitliche Vorgänge an, die ich nicht unmittelbar wahrnehme. Ich höre z.B. in meinem Nebenzimmer Klavier spielen. Ich nehme deshalb an, daß ein räumliches Menschenwesen am Klavier sitzt und spielt. Und nicht anders ist mein Vorstellen, wenn ich von Vorgängen in mir und außer mir spreche. Ich setze voraus, daß diese Vorgänge analoge Eigenschaften haben, wie die Vorgänge, die in den Bereich meiner Sinne fallen, nur daß sie, wegen gewisser Ursachen, sich meiner unmittelbaren Wahrnehmung entziehen. Wollte ich diesen Vorgängen alle Eigenschaften absprechen, die mir meine Sinne im Bereich des Räumlichen und Zeitlichen zeigen, so dächte ich in Wahrheit so etwas wie das berühmte Messer ohne Griff, dem die Klinge fehlt. Ich kann also nur sagen, «draußen» spielen sich räumlich-zeitliche Vorgänge ab; sie bewirken «drinnen» räumlich-zeitliche Vorgänge. Beide sind notwendig, wenn in meinem Blickfeld «Rot» erscheinen soll. Dieses Rot, insofern es nicht räumlich-zeitlich ist, werde ich vergeblich suchen, gleichgültig, ob ich «draußen» oder «drinnen» suche. Die Naturforscher und Philosophen, die es «draußen» nicht finden können, sollten es auch nicht «drinnen» suchen wollen. Es ist in demselben Sinne nicht «drinnen», in dem es nicht «draußen» ist. Den gesamten Inhalt dessen, was uns die Sinnenwelt darbietet, für eine innere Empfindungswelt erklären, und zu ihr etwas «Äußeres» suchen, ist eine unmögliche Vorstellung. Wir dürfen also nicht davon sprechen, daß «rot», «süß», «heiß» usw. Zeichen seien, die als solche nur in uns erregt werden und denen «außen» etwas ganz: anderes entspricht. Denn, was wirklich in uns als Wirkung eines äußeren Vorganges erregt wird, das ist etwas ganz anderes als was in unserem Empfindungsfeld auftritt. Will man das, was in uns ist, Zeichen nennen, so kann man sagen: Diese Zeichen treten innerhalb unseres Organismus auf, um uns die Wahrnehmungen zu vermitteln, die als solche, in ihrer Unmittelbarkeit, weder innerhalb noch außerhalb unser sind, sondern die vielmehr zu der gemeinschaftlichen Welt gehören, von der meine «Außenwelt» und meine «Innenwelt» nur Teile sind. Um diese gemeinschaftliche Welt erfassen zu können, muß ich mich allerdings zu der höheren Stufe des Erkennens erheben, für die es ein «Innen» und «Außen» nicht mehr gibt. (Ich weiß ganz gut, daß Leute, welche auf das Evangelium pochen, daß «unsere ganze Erfahrungswelt» sich aus Empfindungen von unbekanntem Ursprunge aufbaut, hochmütig auf diese Ausführungen herabsehen werden, wie etwa Herr Dr. Erich Adikes in seiner Schrift: «Kant contra Haeckel» von oben herab sagt: «Vorerst philosophieren Leute wie Haeckel und Tausende seines Schlages noch munter darauf los, ohne sich um Erkenntnistheorie und kritische Selbstbesinnung zu bekümmern.» Solche Herren ahnen eben gar nicht, wie billig ihre Erkenntnistheorien sind. Sie vermuten den Mangel an kritischer Selbstbesinnung nur - bei andern. Es sei ihnen ihre «Weisheit» gegönnt.)
[ 8 ] Nicolaus von Kues hat gerade über den hier in Betracht kommenden Punkt treffende Gedanken. Sein klares Auseinanderhalten von niederem und höherem Erkennen läßt ihn auf der einen Seite zur vollen Einsicht in die Tatsache kommen, daß der Mensch als Sinneswesen in sich nur Vorgänge haben kann, welche als Wirkungen den entsprechenden äußeren Vorgängen unähnlich sein müssen; es bewahrt ihn aber andererseits vor der Verwechslung der inneren Vorgänge mit den Tatsachen, die in unserem Wahrnehmungsfelde auftauchen, und die, in ihrer Unmittelbarkeit, weder draußen, noch drinnen sind, sondern die über diesen Gegensatz erhaben sind. - An der rückhaltslosen Verfolgung des Weges, den ihm diese Einsicht gewiesen hat, wurde Nicolaus «durch das Priestergewand gehemmt». So sehen wir denn, wir er mit dem Vorschreiten vom «Wissen» zum «Nichtwissen» einen schönen Anfang macht. Zugleich aber auch müssen wir bemerken, daß er auf dem Felde des «Nicht-Wissens» doch nichts anderes zeigt als den theologischen Lehrgehalt, den uns auch die Scholastiker darbieten. Allerdings weiß er diesen theologischen Inhalt in geistvoller Form zu entwickeln. Ãœber Vorsehung, Christus, Weltschöpfung, Erlösung des Menschen, über das sittliche Leben stellt er Lehren dar, die durchaus im Sinne des dogmatischen Christentums gehalten sind. Seinem geistigen Ausgange hätte es entsprochen, zu sagen: Ich habe das Vertrauen in die Menschennatur, daß diese, nachdem sie sich in die Wissenschaften über die Dinge nach allen Seiten vertieft hat, aus sich selbst heraus dieses «Wissen» in ein «Nichtwissen» zu verwandeln vermag, daß also die höchste Erkenntnis Befriedigung bringt. Nicht die überlieferten Ideen von Seele, Unsterblichkeit, Erlösung, Gott, Schöpfung, Dreieinigkeit usw. hätte er dann angenommen, wie er es getan hat, sondern die selbstgefundenen hätte er vertreten. - Nicolaus war aber persönlich mit den Vorstellungen des Christentums so durchsetzt, daß er wohl glauben konnte, er erwecke ein eigenes «Nichtwissen»in sich, während er doch nur die überlieferten Anschauungen zum Vorschein brachte, in denen er erzogen war. - Er stand aber auch an einem verhängnisvollen Abgrund im menschlichen Geistesleben. Er war wissenschaftlicher Mensch. Die Wissenschaft entfernt den Menschen ja zunächst von der unschuldigen Eintracht, in der er mit der Welt steht, solange er sich einer rein naiven Lebenshaltung hingibt. Bei einer solchen Lebenshaltung fühlt der Mensch dumpf seinen Zusammenhang mit dem Weltganzen. Er ist ein Wesen wie die anderen, eingegliedert in den Strom der Naturwirkungen. Mit dem Wissen trennt er sich von diesem Ganzen ab. Er erschafft in sich eine geistige Welt. Mit dieser steht er einsam der Natur gegenüber. Er ist reicher geworden; aber der Reichtum ist eine Last, die er schwer trägt. Denn sie lastet zunächst auf ihm allein. Er muß, aus eigener Kraft, den Weg zurückfinden zur Natur. Er muß erkennen, daß er selbst seinen Reichtum nunmehr eingliedern muß in den Strom der Weltwirkungen, wie früher die Natur selbst seine Armut eingegliedert hat. Hier lauern alle schlimmen Dämonen auf den Menschen. Seine Kraft kann leicht erlahmen. Statt die Eingliederung selbst zu vollziehen, wird er bei solchem Erlahmen seine Zuflucht zu einer von außen kommenden Offenbarung nehmen, die ihn aus seiner Einsamkeit wieder erlöst, die das Wissen, das er als Last empfindet, wieder zurückführt in den Urschoß des Daseins, in die Gottheit. Er wird, wie Nicolaus von Kues, glauben, seinen eigenen Weg zu gehen; und er wird doch in Wirklichkeit nur den finden, den ihm seine geistige Entwicklung gezeigt hat. Es gibt nun drei Wege - im wesentlichen -, die man gehen kann, wenn man da ankommt, wo Nicolaus angekommen war: Der eine ist der positive Glaube, der von außen auf uns eindringt; der zweite ist die Verzweiflung; man steht einsam mit seiner Last und fühlt das ganze Dasein mit sich wanken; der dritte Weg ist die Entwicklung der tiefsten, eigenen Kräfte des Menschen. Vertrauen in die Welt muß der eine Führer auf diesem dritten Wege sein. Mut, diesem Vertrauen zu folgen, gleichviel, wohin es führt, muß der andere sein. 1Hier ist andeutungsweise in wenigen Worten auf den Weg zur Geist-Erkenntnis gewiesen, den ich in meinen späteren Schriften, besonders in »Wie erlang man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», «Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß», «Von Seelenrätseln» gekennzeichnet habe.
III Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa
[ 1 ] A glorious shining star in the sky of medieval intellectual life is Nicolaus Chrypffs from Kues (near Trier 1401-1464). He was at the height of knowledge of his time. He achieved outstanding results in mathematics. In natural science, he can be described as a forerunner of Copernicus, because he took the view that the earth is a moving celestial body like others. He had already broken with a view that the great astronomer Tycho de Brahe still relied on a hundred years later when he hurled the following sentence against Copernicus' doctrine: "The earth is a coarse, heavy mass that is awkward to move; how can Copernicus make a star out of it and guide it around in the skies?" Nicolaus of Cusa, who not only embraced the knowledge of his time but also advanced it, also had the great ability to awaken this knowledge to inner life, so that it not only enlightens man about the outer world but also imparts to him that spiritual life for which he must long from the deepest reasons of his soul. If we compare Nicolaus with spirits such as Eckhart or Tauler, we arrive at a significant result. Nicolaus is the scientific thinker who wants to raise himself from research into the things of the world to the level of a higher view; Eckhart and Tauler are the devout confessors who seek the higher life out of the content of faith. Finally, Nicolaus arrives at the same inner life as the master Eckhart; but that of the former has a rich knowledge as its content. The full significance of this difference becomes clear when one considers that for those who study the various sciences there is a danger of misjudging the scope of the kind of knowledge that enlightens the individual fields of knowledge. Such a person can easily be deceived into believing that there is only one kind of knowledge. He will then either underestimate or overestimate this knowledge, which leads to the goal in matters of the individual sciences. In the one case he will also approach the objects of the highest spiritual life as he would a physical task, and treat them with concepts with which he treats gravity or electricity. The world becomes to him, depending on whether he believes himself more or less enlightened, a blindly working machine, or an organism, or the purposeful construction of a personal God; perhaps also an entity that is governed and permeated by some more or less clearly imagined "world soul". In the other case he realizes that the knowledge of which alone he has an experience is only suitable for the things of the sense world; then he becomes a doubter who says to himself: We can know nothing about the things that lie beyond the sense world. Our knowledge has a limit. For the needs of the higher life, we can only throw ourselves into the arms of a faith untouched by knowledge. For a learned theologian like Nicolaus von Kues, who was also a natural scientist, the second danger was particularly obvious. According to his scholarly upbringing, he emerged from scholasticism, the mode of thought which was the dominant mode of scientific life in the Church of the Middle Ages and which had been brought to its highest flowering by Thomas Aquinas (1225 to 1274), the "prince of the scholastics". This way of thinking must be taken as the background if one wants to paint the personality of Nicolaus of Cusa.
[ 2 ] Scholasticism is to the highest degree a result of human ingenuity. The logical faculty celebrated its greatest triumphs. Anyone who strives to work out concepts in the sharpest, purest contours should be apprenticed to the scholastics. They offer the high school for the technique of thought. They have an incomparable skill in moving in the field of pure thought. What they were able to achieve in this field is easily underestimated. For in most areas of knowledge it is difficult for people to access. Most people only reach it clearly in the field of counting and arithmetic, and when thinking about the relationship between geometric shapes. We can count by adding a unit to a number in our thoughts without resorting to sensory concepts. We also calculate without such ideas, only in the pure elements of thought. In the case of geometrical formations we know that they do not correspond perfectly with any sensory conception. There is no (ideal) circle in the reality of the senses. Nevertheless, our thinking is concerned with it. For things and processes that are more complicated than numerical and spatial formations, it is more difficult to find their ideal counterparts. This has led to some people claiming that there is only as much real science in the individual fields of knowledge as can be measured and counted in them. This is as incorrect as a one-sided statement is incorrect; but it bribes many, as often only one-sidedness succeeds. The truth of the matter is that most people are unable to grasp the purely intellectual even where it is no longer a question of what can be measured or counted. But he who is not able to do so in the higher spheres of life and knowledge is in this respect like a child who has not yet learned to count other than by adding pea to pea. The thinker who has said that there is as much real science in a field of knowledge as there is mathematics in it has not grasped the full truth of the matter. One must demand that everything else that cannot be measured and counted should be treated just as idealistically as the numerical and spatial formations. And the scholastics met this demand in the most perfect way. They sought everywhere the thought content of things, as the mathematician seeks it in the field of the measurable and countable.
[ 3 ] Despite this consummate logical art, the scholastics only arrived at a one-sided and subordinate concept of cognition. This is that in cognizing, man creates an image in himself of what he is supposed to recognize. It is readily apparent that with such a concept of cognition all reality must be set aside from cognition. For in cognition one cannot then grasp a thing itself, but only an image of this thing. Nor can man grasp himself in his self-knowledge, but what he recognizes of himself is also only an image of himself. Entirely in the spirit of scholasticism, a precise connoisseur of the same (K. Werner in his book "Franz Suarez und die Scholastik der letzten Jahrhunderte", 2nd vol., p.122) says: "Man has in time no view of his ego, the hidden ground of his spiritual being and life; ... he will ... ... he will never come to look at himself; for either, alienated from God forever, he will find in himself only a bottomless dark abyss, an endless emptiness, or, blessed in God, turning his gaze inwards, he will find only God, whose sun of grace shines in him, whose image is formed in the spiritual features of his being." Anyone who thinks this way about all cognition only has a concept of the cognition that is applicable to external things. The sensual aspect of a thing always remains external to us. That is why we can only include images of what is sensual in the world in our cognition. When we perceive a color or a stone, we cannot become the color or the stone itself in order to recognize the essence of the color or the stone. Nor can the color or the stone transform into a part of our own being! The question is, however, whether the concept of such a cognition directed towards the exterior of things is an exhaustive one? - For scholasticism, however, essentially all human cognition coincides with this cognition. Another excellent expert on scholasticism (Otto Willmann, in his "Geschichte des Idealismus", 2nd vol. 2nd ed, S. 396) characterizes the concept of knowledge relevant to this school of thought in the following way: "Our spirit, associated with the body in earthly life, is primarily attuned to the surrounding physical world, but directed towards the spiritual in it: the essences, natures, forms of things, which elements of existence are related to it and offer it the rungs to ascend to the super-sensible; the field of our cognition is therefore the field of experience, but we are to learn to understand what it offers, to penetrate to its sense and thought, and thus open up the world of thought to ourselves. " The scholastics could not arrive at any other concept of knowledge. The dogmatic doctrinal content of his theology prevented him from doing so. If he had fixed the gaze of his spiritual eye on what he regarded as a mere image, then he would have seen that in this supposed image the spiritual content of things themselves is revealed; then he would have found that within himself God is not merely image, but that he lives in it, is essentially present. Looking into his inner being, he would not have seen a dark abyss, an endless emptiness, but also not merely an image of God; rather he would have felt that a life pulsates within him, which is the divine life itself; and that his own life is precisely God's life. The scholastic was not allowed to admit this. In his opinion, God was not allowed to enter into him and speak out of him; he was only allowed to be in him as an image. In reality, the deity had to be presupposed apart from the self. It could therefore not reveal itself internally through spiritual life, but had to reveal itself externally through supernatural communications. What is being striven for here is achieved in the least. The aim is to achieve the highest possible concept of the deity. In reality the Deity is degraded to a thing among other things; only that these other things reveal themselves to man naturally, through experience; while the Deity is to reveal itself to him supernaturally. But there is a difference between the knowledge of the divine and the creaturely in that with the creaturely the external thing is given in experience, that one has a knowledge of it. With the divine, the object is not given in experience; it can only be attained in faith. The highest things are therefore not objects of knowledge for the scholastics, but only of faith. However, according to the scholastic view, the relationship of knowledge to faith cannot be imagined in such a way that in a certain area only knowledge prevails, in another only faith. For the "knowledge of the existing is possible for us because it itself comes from a creative cognition; things are for the spirit because they are from the spirit; they have something to say to us because they have a meaning which a higher intelligence has placed in them". (O. Willmann, "Geschichte des Idealismus", 2nd vol., p. 383.) Because God created the world according to thoughts, if we grasp the thoughts of the world, we can also grasp the traces of the divine in the world through scientific reflection. But we can only grasp what God is according to his nature through the revelation he has given us in a supernatural way, and in which we must believe. What we are to think of the highest things is not decided by human science, but by faith; and "faith includes everything contained in the writings of the new and old covenants and in the divine traditions". (Joseph Kleutgen, "Die Theologie der Vorzeit", 1st vol., p. 39) - It cannot be a task here to describe and justify in detail the relationship of the content of faith to the content of knowledge. In truth, all content of faith originates from an inner human experience made at some point. It is then preserved according to its external content, without the awareness of how it was acquired. It is claimed to have come into the world through supernatural revelation. The content of the Christian faith was simply accepted by the scholastics as tradition. Science, inner experience, was not allowed to assume any rights over it. Just as science could not create a tree, so scholasticism was not allowed to create a concept of God; it had to accept the revealed as finished, just as natural science accepts the tree as finished. The scholastic could never admit that the spiritual itself lights up and lives within. He therefore limited the legal force of science where the field of external experience ends. Human knowledge was not allowed to generate a concept of the higher beings out of itself. It wanted to accept a revealed one. The scholastics could not admit that they were only accepting a concept that had in truth been generated at an earlier stage of human spiritual life and declaring it to be revealed. - Therefore, in the course of its development, all ideas that still pointed to the way in which man naturally generated the concepts of the divine had disappeared from scholasticism. In the first centuries of the development of Christianity, at the time of the Church Fathers, we see the doctrinal content of theology emerging bit by bit through the absorption of inner experiences. In Johannes Scotus Erigena, who stood at the height of Christian theological education in the ninth century, we still find this doctrinal content treated entirely as an inner experience. With the scholastics of the following centuries, this character of an inner experience is completely lost; the old doctrinal content is reinterpreted as the content of an external, supernatural revelation. - The activity of the mystical theologians Eckhart, Tauler, Suso and their comrades can therefore also be understood in such a way that one can say: they were inspired by the doctrinal content of the Church, which was contained in theology but reinterpreted, to give birth to a similar content as an inner experience from within themselves anew.
[ 4 ] Nicolaus of Cusa sets out on the path of ascending from the knowledge acquired in the individual sciences to inner experiences themselves. There is no doubt that the excellent logical technique which the Scholastics had developed, and for which Nicolaus was educated, offers an excellent means of arriving at inner experiences, even if the Scholastics themselves were held back from this path by positive faith. Nicolaus can only be fully understood, however, if one considers that his profession as a priest, which elevated him to the dignity of cardinal, did not allow him to make a complete break with the faith of the Church, which found its contemporary expression in scholastic theology. We find him on a path so far that every step further would have led him out of the Church. We therefore understand the cardinal best if we also take the step he no longer took; and then, looking backwards, illuminate what he wanted.
[ 5 ] The most significant concept of Nicolaus' intellectual life is that of "learned ignorance". He understands this to mean a cognition that represents a higher level than ordinary knowledge. Knowledge in the subordinate sense is grasping an object through the mind. The most important characteristic of knowledge is that it provides enlightenment about something outside the mind, i.e. that it looks at something that it is not itself. In knowledge, the spirit is thus concerned with things outside of its own conceptualization. But what the spirit forms in itself about things is the being of things. Things are spirit. Man initially sees the spirit only through the sensual shell. What remains outside the spirit is only this sensual shell; the essence of things enters into the spirit. If the spirit then looks at this being, which is the substance of its substance, then it can no longer speak of knowledge, for it does not look at a thing that is outside itself; it looks at a thing that is a part of itself; it looks at itself. He does not know more; he only looks at himself. He is not dealing with a "knowledge", but with a "not-knowing". He no longer comprehends something through the spirit; he "looks at his own life without understanding". This highest level of cognition is "not-knowing" in relation to the lower levels. - However, it is obvious that the being of things can only be conveyed through this level of cognition. Nicolaus of Cusa's "learned not-knowing" therefore refers to nothing other than knowledge reborn as an inner experience. He himself explains how he arrived at this inner experience. "I made many attempts to unite my thoughts about God and the world, Christ and the Church in one basic idea, but none of them satisfied me, until finally, on my return from Greece to the sea, the view of my mind rose as if by an enlightenment from above to the vision in which God appeared to me as the highest unity of all opposites." To a greater or lesser extent, this enlightenment was influenced by the studies of his predecessors. One recognizes in his way of thinking a peculiar renewal of the views that we encounter in the writings of a certain Dionysius. The aforementioned Scotus Erigena translated these writings into Latin. He calls the author "the great and divine revelator". The writings in question are first mentioned in the first half of the sixth century. They were attributed to the Areopagite Dionysius mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, who was converted to Christianity by Paul. It remains to be seen when these writings were actually written. Their content had a strong effect on Nicolaus, as it had already had on Johannes Scotus Erigena, and as it must also have been stimulating in many ways for the way of thinking of Eckhart and his comrades. The "learned ignorance" is prefigured in a certain way in these writings. Only the basic feature of the conception of these writings is recorded here. Man first recognizes the things of the sensory world. He thinks about their being and working. The origin of all things must lie higher than these things themselves. Therefore, man cannot want to grasp this primordial ground with the same concepts and ideas as the things themselves. If, therefore, he says that the primordial cause (God) has qualities which he has come to know in the lower things, then such qualities can be mere auxiliary ideas of the weak spirit, which looks down on the primordial cause in order to be able to imagine it. In truth, therefore, no attribute which lower things possess may be claimed of God. It cannot even be said that God is. For "being" is also an idea that man has formed from the lower things. God, however, is exalted above "being" and "non-being". The God to whom we ascribe attributes is therefore not the true one. We arrive at the true God when we think of a God with such attributes as an "overgod". We cannot know anything about this "overgod" in the ordinary sense. In order to reach him, "knowledge" must lead to "non-knowledge". - One can see that such a view is based on the awareness that man can develop a higher cognition from what his sciences have provided him with - in a purely natural way - which is no longer mere knowledge. The scholastic view declared knowledge powerless to such a development and, at the point where knowledge should cease, allowed faith, which is based on external revelation, to come to the aid of knowledge. - Nicolaus of Cusa was thus on the way to developing that out of knowledge again, of which the scholastics had declared that it was unattainable for knowledge.
[ 6 ] From Nicolaus of Cusa's point of view, we cannot therefore say that there is only one way of knowing. Rather, cognition is clearly divided into that which conveys knowledge of external things and that which is the object itself from which one acquires knowledge. The former kind of cognition prevails in the sciences that we acquire about the things and processes of the sensory world; the latter is within us when we live in what we have acquired. The second kind of cognition develops from the first. Now, however, it is the same world to which both kinds of cognition refer; and it is the same human being who is active in both. The question must arise, whence is it that one and the same man develops two kinds of knowledge of one and the same world? - The direction in which the answer to this question is to be sought has already been indicated by Tauler (cf. p. 25). Here in Nicolaus of Cusa this answer can be formed even more decisively. Man first lives as a single (individual) being among other single beings. In addition to the effects that the other beings exert on each other, he also has (lower) cognition. He receives impressions of the other beings through his senses and processes these impressions with his spiritual powers. He diverts his spiritual gaze from external things and looks at himself, at his own activity. Self-knowledge emerges from this. As long as he remains at this stage of self-knowledge, he does not yet look at himself in the true sense of the word. He can still believe that some hidden entity is active in him, whose manifestations and effects are only what appear to him as his activity. Now, however, the point can come when man realizes through an irrefutable inner experience that what he perceives and experiences in his inner being is not the manifestation, the effect of a hidden power or entity, but this entity itself in its very own form. He may then say to himself, I find all other things finished in a certain way; and I, who stand apart from them, add to them what the spirit has to say about them. But what I myself thus add to the things within me, I myself live in, that is me; that is my own being. But what is it that speaks at the bottom of my spirit? It is the knowledge that I have acquired about the things of the world. But in this knowledge no longer speaks some effect, an expression; it speaks something that retains nothing of what it has in itself. In this knowledge, the world speaks in all its immediacy. But I have acquired this knowledge from things and from myself, as a thing among things. I myself speak from my own being, and things speak. So, in truth, I no longer merely express my essence; I express the essence of things. My "I" is the form, the organ in which things speak about themselves. I have gained the experience that I experience my own essence in myself; and this experience expands for me into the other experience that in me and through me the All-Being expresses itself, or, in other words, recognizes itself. I can no longer feel myself as a thing among things; I can only feel myself as a form in which the All-Being lives itself out. - It is therefore only natural that one and the same person should have two kinds of cognition. He is, according to sensory facts, a thing among things, and, in so far as he is such, he acquires a knowledge of these things; but he can at any moment have the higher experience that he is the form in which the All-Being beholds itself. Then he transforms himself, from a thing among things, into a form of the All-Being - and with him the knowledge of things is transformed into the expression of the essence of things. However, this transformation can actually only be accomplished by man himself. That which is conveyed in the higher knowledge is not yet there as long as this higher knowledge itself is not yet there. Only in the creation of this higher knowledge does man become essential; and only through man's higher knowledge do things also bring their essence to actual existence. If, therefore, it were demanded that man should add nothing to the sense things through his higher knowledge, but only express what already lies outside in these things, this would mean nothing other than renouncing all higher knowledge. - From the fact that man, according to his sensuous life, is a thing among things, and that he only attains to higher knowledge when he himself, as a sensuous being, accomplishes the transformation into a higher being, it follows that he can never replace the one knowledge with the other. Rather, his spiritual life consists in a continual moving back and forth between the two poles of knowledge, between knowing and seeing. If he closes himself off from seeing, he renounces the essence of things; if he wanted to close himself off from sensory cognition, he would deprive himself of the things whose essence he wants to recognize. - It is the same things that reveal themselves to the lower cognition and the higher vision; only one time according to their outer appearance; the other time according to their inner essence. - So it is not because of the things that they appear at a certain level, only as external things; but it is because man must first transform himself to the level at which the things cease to be external.
[ 7 ] On the basis of these considerations, certain views which natural science developed in the nineteenth century first appear in the right light. The bearers of these views say: We hear, see and feel the things of the physical world through the senses. The eye, for example, conveys to us an appearance of light, a color. We say that a body emits red light when we have the sensation of "red" with the help of our eyes. But the eye also gives us such a sensation in other cases. When it is pushed or pressed, when an electric spark flows through the head, the eye has a sensation of light. Thus, even in cases where we perceive a body as glowing in a certain color, something can be going on in the body that bears no resemblance to the color. Whatever is going on outside in space: if this process is only capable of making an impression on the eye, then a sensation of light arises in me. So what we feel arises within us because we have organs of one kind or another. What happens outside in space remains outside us; we only know the effects that the external processes produce in us. Hermann Helmholtz (1821-1894) gave this idea a clear expression. "Our sensations are precisely effects which are produced in our organs by external causes, and how such an effect manifests itself naturally depends quite essentially on the nature of the apparatus which is acted upon. In so far as the quality of our sensation informs us of the peculiarity of the external influence by which it is excited, it can be regarded as a sign of it, but not as an image. For from a picture we require some kind of likeness to the object represented, from a statue likeness of form, from a drawing likeness of perspective projection in the field of vision, from a painting also likeness of color. A sign, however, does not need to have any kind of similarity with the sign of which it is a sign. The relation between the two is limited to the fact that the same object, coming into action under the same circumstances, produces the same sign, and that therefore dissimilar signs always correspond to dissimilar action ... If berries of a certain kind form red pigment and sugar at the same time when ripening, then red color and sweet taste will always come together in our perception of berries of this form." Cf. Helmholtz, "Die Tatsachen in der Wahrnehmung", p.12 f.) I have characterized this type of conception in detail in my "Philosophy of Freedom" and in my "Riddles of Philosophy". - Just follow the train of thought that this view makes its own, step by step. Outside in space a process is presupposed. It exerts an effect on my sense organ; my nervous system conducts the impression to my brain. There again a process is brought about. I now perceive "red". Now it is said: therefore the sensation of "red" is not outside; it is inside me. All our sensations are only signs of external processes whose real quality we know nothing about. We live and weave in our sensations and know nothing of their origin. In the sense of this way of thinking, one could also say: If we had no eye, there would be no color; nothing would then convert the external process unknown to us into the sensation of "red". This train of thought is somewhat beguiling for many people. However, it is only based on a complete misunderstanding of the facts that are being considered. (If many contemporary natural scientists and philosophers were not blinded to the point of monstrosity by this train of thought, there would be less need to talk about it. But this blindness has indeed corrupted contemporary thinking in many respects). Since man is a thing among things, things must naturally make an impression on him if he is to learn anything from them. A process outside man must excite a process in man if the appearance "red" is to appear in the field of vision. The only question is, what is outside and what is inside? Outside is a process taking place in space and time. Inside, however, is undoubtedly a similar process. Such a process is in the eye and continues into the brain when I perceive "red". I cannot perceive the process that is "inside" without further ado; just as little as I can directly perceive the wave movement "outside", which physicists think corresponds to the color "red". But only in this sense can I speak of an "outside" and an "inside". Only at the level of sensory cognition is the contrast between "outside" and "inside" valid. This cognition leads me to assume that "outside" is a spatio-temporal process, even if I do not perceive it immediately. And furthermore, the same cognition leads me to assume such a process within me, even if I cannot perceive it directly. But I also assume spatio-temporal processes in ordinary life that I do not perceive directly. For example, I hear a piano playing in the room next door. I therefore assume that a spatial human being is sitting at the piano and playing. And my imagination is no different when I speak of processes inside me and outside me. I presuppose that these processes have analogous properties to the processes that fall within the realm of my senses, except that, because of certain causes, they elude my direct perception. If I wanted to deny these processes all the properties that my senses show me in the realm of the spatial and temporal, I would in truth be thinking something like the famous knife without a handle, which lacks a blade. So I can only say that "outside" spatial-temporal processes take place; "inside" they cause spatial-temporal processes. Both are necessary if "red" is to appear in my field of vision. I will search in vain for this red, insofar as it is not spatio-temporal, regardless of whether I search "outside" or "inside". The natural scientists and philosophers who cannot find it "outside" should not want to look for it "inside" either. It is not "inside" in the same sense that it is not "outside". To declare the entire content of what the sense world presents to us to be an inner world of sensations and to seek something "external" to it is an impossible idea. We must therefore not speak of "red", "sweet", "hot", etc. signs which as such are only aroused in us and to which "outside" something quite: different corresponds. For what is really aroused in us as the effect of an external process is something quite different from what occurs in our sensory field. If we want to call what is within us signs, we can say: these signs occur within our organism in order to convey to us the perceptions which as such, in their immediacy, are neither within nor outside us, but rather belong to the common world of which my "outer world" and my "inner world" are only parts. In order to be able to grasp this common world, however, I must rise to the higher level of cognition, for which there is no longer an "inside" and "outside". (I know quite well that people who insist on the gospel that "our whole world of experience" is built up from sensations of unknown origin will look down on these explanations with arrogance, as Dr. Erich Adikes, for example, says from on high in his essay "Kant contra Haeckel": "For the time being, people like Haeckel and thousands of his ilk are still blithely philosophizing away without bothering about epistemology and critical self-reflection." Such gentlemen have no idea how cheap their epistemologies are. They only suspect the lack of critical introspection - in others. Let them have their "wisdom".)
[ 8 ] Nicolaus von Kues has some apt thoughts on the point under consideration here. His clear distinction between lower and higher cognition allows him on the one hand to fully realize that man as a sensory being can only have processes within himself which as effects must be dissimilar to the corresponding external processes; on the other hand, it prevents him from confusing the inner processes with the facts that appear in our field of perception and which, in their immediacy, are neither outside nor inside, but which are above this contrast. - Nicolaus was "hindered by his priestly garb" in his unrestrained pursuit of the path that this insight showed him. So we see that he makes a good start by advancing from "knowing" to "not knowing". At the same time, however, we must also note that in the field of "not-knowing" he shows nothing other than the theological doctrinal content that the scholastics also present to us. However, he knows how to develop this theological content in a spiritual form. On providence, Christ, the creation of the world, the redemption of man and the moral life, he presents teachings that are entirely in the spirit of dogmatic Christianity. It would have been in keeping with his spiritual outlook to say: I have confidence in human nature that, after it has immersed itself in the sciences of things in all directions, it is capable of transforming this "knowledge" into "ignorance" of its own accord, that is, that the highest knowledge brings satisfaction. He would then not have accepted the traditional ideas of the soul, immortality, salvation, God, creation, the Trinity, etc., as he did, but would have advocated those he had found himself. - Nicolaus, however, was so personally imbued with the ideas of Christianity that he could well believe that he was awakening his own "ignorance" within himself, while in fact he was only bringing to light the traditional views in which he had been educated. - But he also stood at a fatal abyss in human spiritual life. He was a scientific man. Science initially distances man from the innocent harmony in which he stands with the world as long as he devotes himself to a purely naïve attitude to life. With such an attitude to life, man dully feels his connection with the world as a whole. He is a being like the others, integrated into the stream of natural effects. With knowledge, he separates himself from this whole. He creates a spiritual world within himself. With this he stands alone in the face of nature. He has become richer; but this wealth is a burden that he carries heavily. For at first it weighs on him alone. He must, by his own efforts, find his way back to nature. He must recognize that he himself must now integrate his wealth into the stream of the world's effects, just as nature itself previously integrated his poverty. This is where all the bad demons lurk for man. His strength can easily flag. Instead of carrying out the integration himself, he will take refuge in a revelation coming from outside, which redeems him from his loneliness, which leads the knowledge, which he feels as a burden, back into the primordial womb of existence, into the Godhead. Like Nicolaus of Cusa, he will believe that he is going his own way; and yet, in reality, he will only find the way that his spiritual development has shown him. There are now three paths - essentially - that one can take when one arrives where Nicolaus arrived: one is positive faith, which penetrates us from outside; the second is despair; one stands alone with one's burden and feels the whole of existence tottering with it; the third path is the development of man's deepest, own powers. Confidence in the world must be the one guide on this third path. Courage to follow this trust, no matter where it leads, must be the other. 1Here is indicated in a few words the path to the knowledge of the spirit, which I have characterized in my later writings, especially in "How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?", "The Secret Science in Outline", "Of Soul Puzzles".