Part 7

[14] _Cp._ Helmholtz, _Die Thatsachen der Wahrnehmung_, p. 12 _et seq._ I have characterised this kind of conception in detail in my _Philosophie der Freiheit_, Berlin, 1894, and in my _Welt- und Lebensanschauungen im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert_, vol. ii., p. i., etc.

Let us follow out step by step the line of thought which this view makes its own. It is assumed that something happens outside of me in space; this produces an effect upon my sense-organs; and my nervous system conducts the impression thus made to my brain. There another occurrence is brought about. I experience the sensation “red.” Now follows the assertion: therefore the sensation “red” is not outside, not external to me; it is _in_ me. All our sensations are merely symbols or signs of external occurrences of whose real quality we know nothing. We live and move in our sensations and know nothing of their origin. In the spirit of this line of thought, it would thus be possible to assert that if we had no eyes, colour would not exist; for then there would be nothing to translate this, to us, wholly unknown external happening into the sensation “red.”

For many people this line of thought possesses a curious attraction; but nevertheless it originates in a complete misconception of the facts under consideration. (Were it not that many of the present day scientists and philosophers are blinded even to absurdity by this line of thought, one would need to say less about it. But, as a matter of fact, this blindness has ruined in many respects the thinking of the present day.) In truth, since man is but one object or thing among other things, it naturally follows that if he is to have any experience of them at all, they must make an impression upon him somehow or other. Something that happens outside the man must cause something to happen within him, if in his visual field the sensation “red” is to make its appearance.

The whole question turns upon this: What is without? what within? Outside of him something happens in space and time. But within there is undoubtedly a similar occurrence. For in the eye there occurs such a process, which manifests itself to the brain when I perceive the colour “red.” This process which goes on “inside” me, I cannot perceive directly, any more than I can directly perceive the wave motions “outside” which the physicist conceives of as answering to the colour “red.” But really it is only in this sense that I can speak of an “inside” and an “outside” at all. Only on the plane of sense-perception can the opposition between “outside” and “inside” hold good.

The recognition of this leads me to assume the existence “outside” of a process in space and time, although I do not directly perceive it at all. And the same recognition further leads me to postulate a similar process within myself, although I cannot directly perceive that either. But, as a matter of fact, I habitually postulate analogous occurrences in space and time in ordinary life which I do not directly perceive; as, for instance, when I hear piano-playing next door, and assume that a human being in space is seated at the piano and is playing upon it. And my conception, when I speak of processes happening outside of, and within me, is just the same. I assume that these processes have qualities analogous to those of the processes which do fall within the province of my senses, only that, because of certain reasons, they escape my direct perception.

If I were to attempt to deny to these processes all the qualities which my senses show me in the domains of space and time, I should in reality and in truth be trying to think of something not unlike the famous knife without a handle, whose blade was wanting. Therefore, I can only say that space and time processes take place “outside” me; these bring about space and time processes “within” me; and both are necessary if the sensation “red” is to appear in my field of vision. And, in so far as this “red” is not in space and time, I shall seek for it equally in vain, whether I seek “without” or “within” myself. Those scientists and philosophers who cannot find it “outside,” ought not to want to find it “inside” either. For it is not “inside,” in exactly the same sense in which it is not “outside.” To declare that the total content of that which the sense-world presents to us is but an inner world of sensation or feeling, and then to endeavour to tack on something “external” or “outside” to it, is a wholly impossible conception.

Hence, we must not speak of “red,” “sweet,” “hot,” etc., as being symbols, or signs, which as such are only aroused within us, and to which “outside” of us something totally different corresponds. For that which is really set going within us, as the effect of some external happening, is something altogether other than what appears in the field of our sensations. If we want to call that which is within us a symbol, then we can say: These symbols make their appearance within our organism, in order to mediate to us the perceptions which, as such, in their immediacy, are neither within nor outside of us, but belong, on the contrary, to that common world, of which my “external” world and my “internal” world are only parts. In order to be able to grasp this common world, I must, it is true, raise myself to that higher plane of knowledge, for which an “inner” and an “outer” no longer exist. (I know quite well that people who pride themselves on the gospel that our entire world of experience builds itself up out of sensations and feelings of unknown origin will look contemptuously upon these remarks; as, for instance, Dr. Erich Adikes in his book, _Kant contra Haeckel_, observes condescendingly: “At first people like Haeckel and thousands of his type philosophise gaily away without troubling themselves about theory of knowledge or critical self-reflection.” Such gentlemen have no inkling of how cheap their own theories of knowledge are. They suspect the lack of critical self-reflection only in others. Let us leave to them their “wisdom.”)

Nicholas of Cusa expresses some very telling thoughts bearing directly upon this very point. The clear and distinct way in which he holds apart the lower and the higher knowledge enables him, on the one side, to arrive at a full and complete recognition of the fact that man as a sense-being can only have in himself processes which, as effects, must necessarily be altogether unlike the corresponding external processes; while, on the other side, it guards him against confusing the inner processes with the facts which make their appearance in the field of our perceptions, and which, in their immediacy, are neither outside nor inside, but altogether transcend this opposition of “in” and “out.”

But Nicholas was hampered in the thorough carrying through of these ideas by his “priestly garments.” So we see how he makes a fine beginning with the progress from “knowing” to “not-knowing.” At the same time we must also note that in the domain of the higher knowledge, or “ignorance,” he unfolds practically nothing but the content of the theological teaching which the Scholastics also give us. Certainly he knows how to expound this theological content in a most able manner. He presents us with teachings about Providence, Christ, the creation of the world, man’s salvation, the moral life, which are kept thoroughly in harmony with dogmatic Christianity. It would have been in accordance with his mental starting point, to say: I have confidence in human nature that after having plunged deeply into the science of things in all directions, it is capable of transforming from within itself this “knowing” into a “not-knowing,” in such wise that the highest insight shall bring satisfaction. In that case, he would not simply have accepted the traditional ideas of the soul, immortality, salvation, God, creation, the Trinity, and so forth, as he actually did, but he would have represented his own.

But Nicholas personally was, however, so saturated with the conceptions of Christianity that he might well believe himself to have awakened in himself a “not-knowing” of his own, while yet he was merely bringing to light the traditional views in which he was brought up. But he stood upon the verge of a terrible precipice in the spiritual life of man. He was a _scientific_ man. Now science, primarily, estranges us from the innocent harmony in which we live with the world so long as we abandon ourselves to a purely naïve attitude towards life. In such an attitude to life, we dimly feel our connection with the world-whole.

We are beings like others, forming links in the chain of Nature’s workings. But with knowledge we separate ourselves off from this whole; we create within us a mental world, wherewith we stand alone and isolated over against Nature. We have become enriched; but our riches are a burden which we bear with difficulty; for it weighs primarily upon ourselves alone. And we must now, by our own strength, find the way back again to Nature. We have to recognise that we ourselves must now fit our wealth into the stream of world activities, just as previously Nature herself had fitted in our poverty. All evil demons lie in wait for man at this point. His strength can easily fail him. Instead of himself accomplishing this fitting in, he will, if his strength thus fails, seek refuge in some revelation coming from without, which frees him again from his loneliness, which leads back once more to the knowledge that he feels a burden, into the very womb of being, into the Godhead. Like Nicholas of Cusa, he will believe that he is travelling his own road; and yet in reality he will be only following the path which his own spiritual evolution has pointed out for him.

Now there are--in the main--three roads which one can follow, when once one has reached the point at which Nicholas had arrived: the one is positive faith, forcing itself upon us from without; the second is despair; one stands alone with one’s burden, and feels the whole universe tottering with oneself; the third road is the development of the deepest, most inward powers of man. Confidence, trust in the world must be one of our guides upon this third path; courage, to follow that confidence whithersoever it may lead us, must be the other.

AGRIPPA VON NETTESHEIM AND THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS

Both Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1487-1535) and Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) followed the same road along which points Nicholas of Cusa’s way of conceiving things. They devoted themselves to the study of Nature, and sought to discover her laws by all the means in their power and as thoroughly as possible. In this knowledge of Nature, they saw the true basis of all higher knowledge. They strove to develop this higher knowledge from within the science or knowledge of Nature by bringing that knowledge to a new birth in the spirit.

Agrippa von Nettesheim led a much varied life. He sprang from a noble family and was born in Cologne. He early studied medicine and law, and sought to obtain clear insight into the processes of Nature in the way which was then customary within certain circles and societies, or even among isolated investigators, who studiously kept secret whatever of the knowledge of Nature they discovered. For these purposes he went repeatedly to Paris, to Italy, and to England, and also visited the famous Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim in Würzburg. He taught at various times in learned institutions, and here and there entered the service of rich and distinguished people, at whose disposal he placed his abilities as a statesman and a man of science. If the services that he rendered are not always described by his biographers as unobjectionable, if it is said that he made money under the pretence of understanding secret arts and conferring benefits on people thereby, there stands against this his unmistakable, unresting impulse to acquire honestly the entire knowledge of his age, and to deepen this knowledge in the direction of a higher cognition of the world.

We may see in him very plainly the endeavour to attain to a clear and definite attitude towards natural science on the one hand, and to the higher knowledge on the other. But he only can attain to such an attitude who is possessed of a clear insight as to the respective roads which lead to one and to the other kind of knowledge. As true as it is on the one hand that natural science must eventually be raised into the region of the spirit, if it is to pass over into higher knowledge; so, also, it is true on the other, that this natural science must, to begin with, remain upon its own special ground, if it is to yield the right basis for the attainment of a higher level. The “spirit in Nature” exists only for spirit. So surely as Nature in this sense is spiritual, so surely too is there _nothing_ in Nature, of all that is perceived by my bodily organs, which is immediately spiritual. There exists nothing spiritual which can appear to my eye as spiritual.

Therefore, I must not seek for the spirit as such in Nature; but that is what I am doing when I interpret any occurrence in the external world immediately as spiritual; when, for instance, I ascribe to a plant a soul which is supposed to be only remotely analogous to that of man. Further, I again do the same when I ascribe to spirit itself an existence in space and time; as, for instance, when I assert of the human soul that it continues to exist in time without the body, but yet after the manner of a body; or again, when I even go so far as to believe that, under any sort of conditions or arrangements perceivable by the senses, the spirit of a dead person can show itself.

Spiritualism, which makes this mistake, only shows thereby that it has not attained to a true conception of the spirit at all, but is still bent upon directly and immediately “seeing” the spirit in something grossly sensible. It mistakes equally both the real nature of the sensible and also that of the spirit. It de-spiritualises the ordinary world of sense, which hourly passes before our eyes, in order to give the name of spirit immediately to something rare, surprising, uncommon. It fails to understand that that which lives as the “spirit in nature” reveals itself to him who is able to perceive spirit in the collision of two elastic balls, for instance; and not only in occurrences which are striking from their rarity, and which cannot all at once be grasped in their natural sequence and connection.

But the spiritist further drags the spirit down into a lower sphere. Instead of explaining something that happens in space, and that he perceives through his senses only, in terms of forces and beings which in their turn are spacial and perceptible to the senses, he resorts to “spirits,” which he thereby places exactly on a level with the things of the senses. At the very root of such a way of viewing things, there lies a lack of the power of spiritual apprehension. We are unable to perceive spiritual things spiritually; we therefore satisfy our craving for the spiritual with mere beings perceptible to the senses. Their own inner spirit reveals to such men nothing spiritual; and therefore they seek for the spiritual through the senses. As they see clouds flying through the air, so they would fain see spirits hastening along. Agrippa von Nettesheim fought for a genuine science of Nature, which shall explain the phenomena of Nature, not by means of spirits phenomenalising in the world of the senses, but by seeing in Nature only the natural, and in the spirit only the spiritual.

Of course, Agrippa will be entirely misunderstood if one compares _his_ natural science with that of later centuries which dispose of wholly different experiences. In such a comparison, it might easily seem that he was still actually and entirely referring to the direct action of spirits, things which only depend upon natural connections or upon mistaken experience. Such a wrong is done to him by Moriz Carrière when he says, not in any malicious sense, it is true:

“Agrippa gives a huge list of things which belong to the Sun, the Moon, the Planets and the fixed stars, and receive influences from them; for instance: to the Sun are related Fire, Blood, Laurel, Gold, Chrysolite; they confer the gifts of the Sun: Courage, Cheerfulness, and Light.... Animals have a natural sense, which, higher than human understanding, approaches the spirit of prophecy.... Men can be bewitched to love and hate, to sickness and health. Thieves can be bewitched so that they cannot steal at some particular place, merchants, that they cannot do business, mills, that they cannot work, lightning flashes, that they cannot strike. This is brought about through drinks, salves, images, rings, incantations; the blood of hyenas or basilisks is adapted to such a purpose--it reminds one of Shakespeare’s witches’ cauldron.” No; it does not remind one of that, if one understands Agrippa aright. He believed--it goes without saying--in many facts which in his time everybody regarded as unquestionable. But we still do the same to-day. Or do we imagine that future centuries will not relegate much of what we now regard as “undoubted fact” to the lumber-room of “blind” superstition?

I am convinced that in our knowledge of facts there has been a real progress. When once the “fact” that the earth is round had been discovered, all previous conjectures were banished into the domain of “superstition”; and the same holds good of certain truths of astronomy, biology, etc. The doctrine of natural evolution constitutes an advance, as compared with all previous “theories of creation,” similar to that marked by the recognition of the roundness of the earth as contrasted with all previous speculations as to its form. Nevertheless, I am vividly conscious that in our learned scientific works and treatises there is to be found many a “fact” which will seem to future centuries to be just as little of a fact as much that Paracelsus and Agrippa maintain; but the really important point is not _what_ they regarded as “fact,” but _how_, in what spirit, they interpreted their “facts.”

In Agrippa’s time, there was little understanding or sympathy for the “natural magic” he represented, which sought in Nature the natural--the spiritual only in the spirit; men clung to the “supernatural magic,” which sought the spiritual in the realm of the sensible, and which Agrippa combated. Therefore the Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim was right in giving him the advice to communicate his views only as a secret teaching to a few chosen pupils who could rise to a similar idea of Nature and spirit, because one “gives only hay to oxen and not sugar as to singing birds.” It may be that Agrippa himself owed to this same Abbot his own correct point of view. In his _Steganography_, Trithemius has produced a book in which he handled with the most subtle irony that mode of conceiving things which confuses nature with spirit.

In this book he apparently speaks of nothing but supernatural occurrences. Any one reading it as it stands must believe that the author is talking of conjurations of spirits, of spirits flying through the air, and so on. If, however, one drops certain words and letters under the table, there remain--as Wolfgang Ernst Heidel proved in the year 1676--letters which, combined into words, describe purely natural occurrences. (In one case, for instance, in a formula of conjuration, one must drop the first and last words entirely, and then cancel from the remainder the second, fourth, sixth, and so on. In the words left over, one must again cancel the first, third, fifth letters and so on. One next combines what is then left into words; and the conjuration formula resolves itself into a purely natural communication.)

How difficult it was for Agrippa to work himself free from the prejudices of his time and to rise to a pure perception is proved by the fact that he did not allow his “Occult Philosophy” (_Philosophia Occulta_), already written in 1510, to appear before the year 1531, because he considered it unripe. Further evidence of this fact is given by his work “On the Vanity of the Sciences” (_De Vanitate Scientiarum_) in which he speaks with bitterness of the scientific and other activities of his time. He there states quite clearly that he has only with difficulty wrenched himself free from the phantasy which beholds in external actions immediate spiritual processes, in external facts prophetic indications of the future, and so forth.

Agrippa advances to the higher knowledge in three stages. He treats as the first stage the world as it is given for the senses, with its substances, its physical, chemical and other forces. He calls Nature, in so far as it is looked at on this level, “elementary Nature.” On the second stage, one contemplates the world as a whole in its natural interconnection, as it orders things according to measure, number, weight, harmony, and so forth. The first stage proceeds from one thing to the next nearest. It seeks for the causes of an occurrence in its immediate surroundings. The second stage regards a single occurrence in connection with the entire universe. It carries through the idea that everything is subject to the influence of all other things in the entire world-whole. In its eyes this world-whole appears as a vast harmony, in which each individual item is a member. Agrippa terms the world, regarded from this point of view, the “astral” or “heavenly” world. The third stage of knowing is that wherein the spirit, by plunging deep into itself, perceives immediately the spiritual, the Root-Being of the world. Agrippa here speaks of the world, of soul and spirit.

The views which Agrippa develops about the world, and the relation of man to the world, present themselves to us in the case of Theophrastus Paracelsus, in a similar manner, only in more perfected form. It is better, therefore, to consider them in connection with the latter.

Paracelsus characterises himself aptly, when he writes under his portrait: “None shall be another’s slave, who for himself can remain alone.” His whole attitude towards knowledge is given in these words. He strives everywhere to go back himself to the deepest foundations of natural knowledge, in order to rise by his own strength to the loftiest regions of cognition. As Physician, he will not, like his contemporaries, simply accept what the ancient investigators, who then counted as authorities,--Galen or Avicenna, for instance, asserted long ago; he is resolved to read for himself directly in the book of Nature. “The Physician must pass Nature’s examination, which is the world, and all its origins. And the very same that Nature teaches him, he must command to his wisdom, but seek for nothing in his wisdom, only and alone in the light of Nature.” He shrinks from nothing, in order to learn to know Nature and her workings in all directions. For this purpose he made journeys to Sweden, Hungary, Spain, Portugal, and the East. He can truly say of himself: “I have followed the Art at the risk of my life, and have not been ashamed to learn from wanderers, executioners and sheep-shearers. My doctrine was tested more severely than silver in poverty, fears, wars and hardships.”