The Great Philosophers

THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS
The Original Thinkers

Other works available in English translation
THE FUTURE OF MANKIND
THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY
TRUTH AND SYMBOL
MAN IN THE MODERN AGE

REASON AND EXISTENZ
THE ORIGIN AND GOAL OF HISTORY
TRAGEDY IS NOT ENOUGH
REASON AND ANTI-REASON IN OUR TIME
THE WAY TO WISDOM
THE PERENNIAL SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY
THE QUESTION OF GERMAN GUILT
THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS! THE FOUNDATIONS
GENERAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
NIETZSCHE AND CHRISTIANITY
PHILOSOPHY AND THE WORLD
THREE ESSAYS! LEONARDO, DESCARTES, MAX WEBER

KARL JASPERS
THE GREAT
PHILOSOPHERS
ANAXIMANDER HERACLITUS PARMENIDES
PLOTINUS ANSELM NICHOLAS OF CUSA
SPINOZA LAO-TZU NAGARJUNA
EDITED BY HANNAH ARENDT

TRANSLATED BY RALPH MANHEIM
A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York
PUBLIC
Copyright © 1957, 1964 by R. Piper & Co. Verlag, Miinchen y ^J^ m ^^L*
English translation copyright (c) 7966 by Har court, Brace & World, Inc.
All rights reserved.

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First edition
"Nicholas of Cusa"
was originally published in Germany as Nil{plaus Cusanus;
the rest of this book, as part of
Die grossen Philosophen J.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62-9436

Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following: For the

quotations from Early Gree\ Philosophy by J. Burnet, Barnes & Noble, Inc.,
and A. & C. Black Ltd. For the quotations from The Way of Lao Tzu, trans-
lated by Wing-tsit Chan, copyright © 1963, The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc. For the quotations from Plotinus: The Enneads (third edition), trans-
lated by Stephen MacKenna, Faber and Faber Ltd. and Pantheon Books, a
Division of Random House, Inc. For the quotations from Plato and Par-
menides, translated with Introduction and running commentary by Francis
Macdonald Cornford, Humanities Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
For the quotations from Benedict de Spinoza The Chief Wor\s, 2 volumes,
:
translated by R. H. M. Elwes, Dover Publications, Inc., New York; Ethics in

the W. H. White translation, Hafner Library of Classics Philosophy Series,
Hafner Publishing Company.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION J
ANAXIMANDER 9
HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES 15
HERACL1TUS
1. The logos jy
2. Struggle, the salutary way 20
3. Characterization 23
4. Influence 23
PARMENIDES
1. Being 2$
2. The world of appearance 28
3. The decision 29
4. The insoluble difficulties 30
5. Influence 31
COMPARISON BETWEEN HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES

1. Theircommon situation 34
2. The common new element in their thinking 34
3. Agreement and opposition 35
4. Pure thought 35
5. Prophecy and will to power 36
6. Historical appraisal 37
PLOT/MJS
I. Life and works 38
II. Description of the Plotinian "System" 40

a. Matter and the One 40
b. The scale of beings 41
vii
viii Contents
c. The categories 41
d. Spirit, soul, nature 42
e. Descent and ascent 43
III. Transcending as a Whole 47
IV. The Stages of Knowledge 5/
V. Speculative Transcending 56
1. The categories 57
2. Categorial transcending 58
3. Transcending in images of the All 69
VI. Fall and Resurgence 69

a. Necessity and freedom 7/
b. Twofold guilt and twofold freedom J2

c. Evil 7j
d. The two souls 74
e. The twofold longing j$
f. The situation of the soul in the world j6
g. Philosophy is ascent to the One jj
VII. Against Materialism and Gnosis yg
VIII. Critical Characterization 83

a. Contradictions 8j
b. Empirical knowledge and mythical conceptions 84
c. The existential meaning 85
IX. Historical Position and Influence 89
ANSELM
I. Life and Works 93
II. Anselm's Fundamental Philosophical Idea 94

1. Inward quietness, not mysticism 95
2. Insight and empty thought 96
3. A unique idea, meaningful only in relation to God 96
4. No object 9J
5. Anselm's "theory of contradiction" 97
Contents ix
6. Anselm's thought as an invocation of God o8
7. The significance of his "proof" in Anselm's life 100
8. Gaunilon against Anselm 101
III. Characterization of Anselm's Thinking no
NICHOLAS OF CUSA
Introduction 116
Life iij
Works ug
PART ONE: PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATION 120
I. The Fundamental Idea 120
II. The Mind 128
1. The mind in general 128
2. Cognition as conjecture (coniectura) 132
3. Methods and aim /J5
III. Faith 14s

Introduction 143
1. What is faith? 146
2. Revealed faith and philosophical faith, theological and philosophical
thinking 14J
3. Speculative metaphor (cipher) and revealed bodily presence (spatio-
temporal reality) 150
4. Whence comes the content of faith? 752
5. Authority and originality 755

6. Faith and obedience 756
IV. Truth in Mathematics 756
PART TWO: THE WHOLE OF BEING 163
I. God 164
1. Dialogue on the hidden God 164
2. On speculation 765
3. Examples of speculative attempts to approach God 766
4. From speculative thinking to acceptance of revelation 772
5. Example of a conceptualization of revelation: the Trinity 774

Contents
II. The World 777

1. The cosmos ijj
2. Cosmological ideas 185
3. The eternity of the world 18 j
4. Individuals 188
5. Summary: The significance of Cusanus' world 190
III. Christ 193
PART THREE: NICHOLAS OF CUSA AND MODERN SCIENCE 195
1. Did Cusanus help to found modern science? 195

2. Speculative method and experimental method. So-called "anticipa-
tions" 201
3. The meaning of science 202
PART FOUR: MAN'S TASK 207
I. The Individual 2oy
II. Peace 214

Fundamental reality of the Church. Cusanus' thinking in the
Concordantia 214
1. De concordantia catholica 215
2. De pace fidei 222
3. Faith and communication 223
PART FIVE: POLITICAL ACTION AND THE CONDUCT OF LIFE 228
1. The Council of Basel 229

2. Brixen 236
3. The reform movement 238
4. The crusade against the Turks 239

5. Ecclesiastical benefices 239
6. His conduct of life —summary 240
PART SIX: HIS PLACE IN HISTORY 243
1. Between the Middle Ages and the modern era 243

2. On historical interpretation 245
3. Cusanus' life and thought in relation to subsequent history 246
4. Lack of influence 253

Contents xi
PART SEVEN: CRITICAL ESTIMATE 254
Introduction: The Meaning of Criticism 254

1. The significance of Cusanus' contradictions 255
2. The philosophical limits disclosed in Cusanus' life, ciphers and
speculation 258
3. Cusanus the man 267
4. Cusanus' greatness lies in his metaphysics 2ji
SPINOZA
I. Life and Works 273
II. Philosophy and Way of Life 2jj
III. The Metaphysical Vision 279

a. Substance, attribute, mode 279
b. God 280
c. The two attributes 286
d. The modes 288
e. Time; necessity 2go

f. The cleavage between God and the world and the question of their
unity 291
IV. Theory of Knowledge 2%

a. The stages of knowledge 2%
b. Ideas 298
c. Relation to God 300
d. Spinoza's geometrical method 30/
e. Mysticism, rationalism, speculative thought 303
V. Man 30J
a. Man is not substance but mode 30J
b. Human and divine thinking 308
c. Man is mind and body 30S
d. Man and animal and the difference among men j/j

e. Immortality and eternity 3/2
xii Contents
VI/ Freedom from Aims and Values 314

a. Purposes and values are prejudices arising from a perversion of the
idea of God 314
b. Our limited intelligence 316
c. Reality and value 5/7
d. The shift from one class of knowledge to another 318
e. The ethos of freedom from values 3/9
VII. Servitude and Freedom of Mind 320

a. The theory of the affects 323
b. Description of bondage 325
c. The idea and possibility of freedom 326
VIII. Religion and the State 332

A. Spinoza's Political Thinking 335
a. Principles of necessity in political life 336
b. The ideal state 341
Spinoza and Hobbes 343
B. Religion in the State 345
a. Reason and revelation 348
b. The understanding of the Bible 350
c. Freedom of thought 352
C. Critical Characterization of Spinoza's Views of Religion
and Politics 354
a. Lack of clarity as to the relationship between science and
philosophy 354
Spinoza as a scientist 358
b. Biblical science, faith, philosophy 359
c. Objections to Spinoza's conception of God 363
d. Spinoza's destiny and personal decisions 369
e. Spinoza and the Jewish question 372
IX. Critical Characterization of Spinoza's Philosophy 378

a. A glance at Spinoza's philosophy and character 3J8
b. Spinoza's limitations 382
X. Spinoza's Influence 386

Contents xiii
LAO-TZU
Life and Works 388
I. Exposition of Lao-tzu's Philosophy 389

1. The Tao 389
2. Tao and world 391
Cosmogony and the process of the individual in the world 393
3. Tao and the individual (ethics) 594
4. Tao and government 402
II. Characterization and Criticism 408

1. The meaning of Lao-tzu 408
2. Lao-tzu's successors 411
3. Lao-tzu's historical position and limitations 414
NAGARJUNA
I. The Operations of Thought 416
Summary of the Doctrine 420
II. The Meaning of the Doctrine 421

Historical Comparisons 431
BIBLIOGRAPHY 43$
INDEX OF NAMES 445

ANAXIMANDER
HERACLITUS
PARMENIDES
PLOTINUS
ANSELM
NICHOLAS OF CUSA
SPINOZA
LAO-TZU
NAGARTUNA
INTRODUCTION
Ever since Kant revolutionized philosophy with his critique and the meth-
ods of modern scientific knowledge became clear, metaphysics has seemed
questionable. Many have rejected its speculations and constructions, and in
general its way of looking at things. Metaphysical speculation results in

images of the totality of being, which cannot stand up to investigation if
taken as objective truth, demonstrable and valid for all.
And indeed, honest metaphysical thinking can no longer have the same
form and content as before. Today any attempt to think in disregard of
Kantian critique and of cogent scientific knowledge can only end in con-
fusion. In our intellectual situation a metaphysics in the old style, considered
as knowledge of being, as a revelation of what underlies all being and
happening, can only degenerate into a brand of magic which, failing to see
through its illusions, follows in the groove of the older metaphysics, but
loses its earnestness. Where preconceived forms are not subjected to the
critical scrutiny that has become indispensable, they lead to an artificial
thinking without roots in existence. It is as though phantoms with a
strangely seductive appearance of life drank the blood of those who, afflicted
by their emptiness, hoped to find themselves by surrendering to the old
systems. Having exerted its seduction, the ghost vanishes. It is not a reality
elucidated through the existence of those who think it.
Should we forgo metaphysics? Even if we wished to, that would be im-

possible. From time immemorial men have fashioned metaphysical images,
and such thinking has not been devoid of truth. We are captivated by these
visions of world and transcendence, where we perceive their earnestness,
fulfilled in the personality of the thinker. The a remark-
best of them show
able consistency,though none is free from contradiction. But even in the be-
ginnings their authority was not based on compelling knowledge, such as
that of the sciences. As mere representations of the objective world, such
visions are no more binding than poetry. But they are not poetry; they are
truth, grounded in the thinker's subjectivity. They define an area of belief
in which an existence achieved self-awareness. Seen in this light, the form
and content of every great system of metaphysics possess an enduring
truth that may be repeated and assimilated in accordance with the pre-
suppositions of post-Kantian critique. The great metaphysicians do not
3
4 The Original Thinners
claim to provide scientifically irrefutable knowledge, nor are they purveyors

of merely aesthetic intellectual pleasure— except, of course, when they are
misinterpreted; they do point out possible paths to a transcending apper-
ception of the absolute.
Since the critical turn in philosophy metaphysics can no longer be held
to supply the certain knowledge which the great metaphysicians, at least
on the imputed to it. But if we situate the real truth of metaphysics in
surface,
the experience of independent thinking, this truth need not be lost to us.
The question, rather, is how to experience it again at the present time
a question that is left unanswered in the present book. The question of
whether or not there will be a new metaphysics cannot be answered by
prophecy, but only by creative acts. Here we confront the thoughts of the
metaphysicians of the past.
In our approach to the older metaphysics, it is all-important that we sub-
mit to none of its systems. Each one of the authors of these captivating
visions of thought shows us being in a special form, to which they remain
committed. They were creative in giving form to what was thought before
them, but not (in the greatest sense, like Plato, Augustine, or Kant) in
generating the ideas of those who came after them. The successors of the
metaphysicians to be dealt with here merely expatiate on their ideas and
complicate their relatively clear and single-minded figures, or distort them.
As for ourselves, though we are no longer able to create new visions, we can
recognize every system of metaphysics forged in the past as a potentiality
within ourselves, and assimilate it as such. Like men of all times, we can
hear the language of transcendence. But today this language can assume
a variety of forms, and if we are not to lose ourselves and the ground of
being in illusory visions mistaken for objective knowledge, we must take
this multiplicity into account and look for the deeper meaning by the
methods of critical awareness (the formal transcending of pure thought,
the elucidation of the ties between existence and transcendence, the decoding
of ciphers).
Today a historical treatment of the metaphysical visions cannot be con-
tent with studying them only as rational systems. They need to be under-
stood in their origins and aims. Then the content of these systems is seen
to be what basically it always was, not an object of knowledge but a
world of thought, eloquent in reference to potential existence, but meaning-
less when taken as cut-and-dried doctrine. Such reawakening of meta-
physical possibilities should not destroy metaphysics, but prepare the way
for its transformation in the light of critical awareness.
There are radically different ways of discussing metaphysical problems.
Mere discussion of facts, as though we were dealing with objects of scienti-
fic knowledge, results in interminable intellectual operations with concepts,
analyses of their diverse meanings, distinctions and combinations, all of
which yields no progress. Purely factual investigation without existential
INTRODUCTION 5
grounding can provide no guidance but merely fosters the historicist illu-
sion of a scientific metaphysics developing progressively despite interrup-
tions and setbacks. is based on the assumption that these
Such an approach
and solved; it presupposes an objective
are problems that can be investigated
standard by which the truth and error of metaphysical ideas down through
history might be judged with universal validity, as though they were scien-
tific statements.
A radically different approach is rooted in a metaphysical awareness which
goes back to the grounds and finds itself again in knowledge. The true
metaphysical discussion to which it gives rise is guided by a fundamental
knowledge with the help of which it re-enacts the questions and possible
answers, the arguments and counter-arguments, the decisions and questions
that have been left open. Such discussion finds what is always identical in
the divergent material; it sees all things in the light of this fundamental
knowledge, which it amplifies in the play of conceptual modifications,
elucidating the most meaningful ciphers of the various systems. Anyone who
expects to arrive at results resembling scientific findings will be disappointed.
To recapitulate metaphysical speculations in their original spirit is not a
scientific operation.
Still, this distinction between metaphysics as a set of problems to be

worked out and metaphysics as a process of existential transcending does
not mean that the problems were without importance as an instrument of
transcending thought. It would be possible (with the methods of the history
of ideas) to follow the destinies of this conceptual apparatus: the categories
and their ramifications, the figures of thought. In such an attempt, the
metaphysical situation would be presented as a totality of possibilities, per-
mutations, and combinations. The field thus constituted would be bound-

less but accessible to rational inquiry. The individual philosophers would
then be seen as "examples," through which to develop particular figures
of thought. Seen in such a light, certain of the historical systems prove to
be homogeneous, most appear to be mixtures that can be broken down, or
confused eclectical compendia in which no lines can be drawn. For an
eclectical thinker can touch on any possibility he pleases and forget it when
he pleases.
Let us sum up the contrast between intellectual and existential meta-
physics: metaphysicians play a game composed of rational acts oriented
toward the ground of all being. This game may be a mere intellectual occu-
pation, a pastime —such metaphysicians cling to positions adopted without
inner necessity, throw themselves into the quarrels of the schools, and
pileup rational deductions which they claim objective cogency (aca-
for
demic metaphysics) or else — it may be guided by a fundamental knowledge
which governs the climate of thinking and carries immediate conviction

because it supplies not only rationality but also its fulfillment. Carried on as
a pastime, metaphysics ends in weariness, or at best it occupies the mind
like any other But guided by fundamental knowledge,

intellectual function.
the game can Then thought, through an activity
be played in earnest.
analogous to prayer, moves toward certainty at the source. Such meditation
creates a contact with the ground of being. It reinforces the fundamental
knowledge which can sustain a man in his daily life (the metaphysics of
the great philosophers)
The great metaphysicians achieved peace in their thinking, because they
lived by a timeless, fundamental knowledge which they never ceased to clar-
ify in thought. Like a musical composition, this knowledge develops in-
finite richness from a few themes; it moves in a circle within itself and
takes form in marvelous images of thought, which are its unique histori-
cal manifestations, valid for all who understand them.

Perhaps two pure metaphysicians among the great philoso-
only
phers of the West (apart from the pre-Socratics, of whom we have only
fragmentary knowledge) have been fully independent, that is, free from
ecclesiastical religion: Plotinus and Spinoza. And there have been only
a few who, substantially accepting Church religion and living wholly

within it, have nevertheless philosophized with such originality that the
dogmatic contents came to them as consequences of their philosophiz-
ing: the greatest and purest of these are Anselm, Eckhart, Cusanus.
Anselm did his thinking in an early period, a period of transition when
the separation between faith and knowledge was already leading to the secu-
lar power of faith; but Anselm was not affected by this cleavage; he was
still able to philosophize truly, with a wonderful naivete. Under the pressure
of authority, but unclear as to the real nature of his conflict with it,
Eckhart ventured to think freely in a time of Church domination, and was

suspected of heresy. In a period of disintegration that permitted of full
intellectual freedom, Cusanus achieved a new naivete, encompassing all
truth.
It is only through the earnestness of such metaphysics that a philos-
opher could attain to a realm where religion him by Church
as defined for
and cult, by holy sites, days, objects and dogmas, became
and books, by rites
superfluous for him, even if he did not reject it or combat it. In certain in-
stances the concepts of a philosophy that enabled a man to live by his own
reason and his immediate bond with transcendence were taken over by the
theological thinking of the Church and became instrumental in constitut-
ing Church dogma (e.g., Plotinus). Sometimes the ideas are subjected to
the requirements of Church authority and claimed as a part of it, or else
the philosophy was combated as inimical by the Church (Spinoza), re-
viled, subjected to all manner of suspicion, and suppressed by force when
possible. For a true philosophical independence built on the certainty of
God proper to the human reason is far worse than heresy and other, com-
peting religions. Authoritarian Church religion treats such an adversary
either as though he did not exist, or else it transforms his thinking into a
INTRODUCTION y
mere intellectual construction, whose arguments can be refuted. It is attacked

as something it is not and for thoughts it does not think.
The metaphysicians who had no connection with Church religion
(Plotinus and Spinoza) and those who lived within the Christian Church
(Anselm, Eckhart, Cusanus) have one point in common: they present con-
vincingly a life sheltered in the reality of transcendence, as actualized in
speculative thinking. Their speculations are not a random occupation of
their leisure, an interesting subject among others, nor are they scientific in-
quiry. They enact a fundamental knowledge; by expounding it they bring

it to their own consciousness and to that of the world. Some of them knew the
great moment of inspiration (Anselm, Cusanus), which is nothing other
than pure thought in which transcendence manifests itself. This thought,
which cannot be adequately formulated in any statement, is then rationally
developed. It belongs to its time, but in essence it is eternal knowledge of
being.
Because the substance of this thinking is eternal and ahistorical, because
it rises above all history, metaphysical thinking is not confined to any one
cultural sphere; it is not limited to the West. I shall speak here of Lao-tzu and
Nagarjuna.
The metaphysicians framed their thoughts in short treatises, lectures,
maxims, dialogues, letters, and only occasionally in longer works. In every
case the whole of their thought is compressed into succinct figurations. They
did not devise systems in the sense of ontological constructions aspiring to
encompass the whole of being with all its manifestations. Reproduction of
their intellectual worlds in terms of systems can help us to understand them
but is bound to falsify the content. The metaphysicians themselves expatiate,
repeat, experiment with new material, but all their operations originate in
a center to which no system can gain access; intense and self-enclosed,
this center is present everywhere and nowhere in their work.

ANAXIMANDER
Anaximander (c. was a citizen of Miletus, the largest of the

610-546)
Ionian commercial centers and as such a gathering point of knowledge
emanating from the Mediterranean regions and the Near East. Empirical
knowledge and technical skills were reflected in navigation, commerce, colo-
nial undertakings, temple architecture, and such enterprises as the tunnel
built by Eupalinos on Samos. Anaximander was said to have directed the
founding of a colony on the Black Sea (Apollonia). He was said to have
demonstrated, in Sparta, a gnomon, or sun dial, imported from Babylonia.
He was sixty-four, and his work was complete, when the Persian invasion
put an end to Ionian freedom.
Anaximander was the first man to draw a map of the earth (geographia)
and to construct a celestial globe (sphaira); the first to conceive the clear
and simple idea, so revolutionary for his time because it contradicted
immediate perception, that the earth floated free in cosmic space and that
the sun and stars were moving on the other side of it between their setting
and rising; thanks to his radical, constructive imagination, he was the
first to represent the cosmos, both in its form and in its movements, as a
coherent whole. And he was also the first thinker to develop, in concepts,
a metaphysical vision transcending all sense perception; the first to give the
name of the Divine to what is achieved in the fundamental thinking that
transcends all that exists, or, in other words, to find the divine with the
help of thought, instead of accepting it as given in traditional religious
conceptions. He was the first Greek to find in prose the appropriate form
in which to communicate such insights. And he effected all these momentous
innovations of human consciousness quietly, without polemics against any-
one.
His point was an empirical knowledge which, by primitive
starting
standards, was already considerable. It provided him with material for
projections that reached out ahead of what he knew. Based on the notion
of proportional reduction, his map of the earth was a speculative geometrical
construction filled in with the meager and diffuse data supplied by Ionian
navigators. Thus it was soon superseded as more reliable data became avail-
able. The greatness lay in the general conception and in the discovery of a
principle of representation. Anaximander mapped not only the inhabited
9
io The Original Thinkers
earth but also the cosmos as a whole —he did so without empirical proofs,
on the basis of his inner vision, proceeding in accordance with the un-
formulated principle that the whole cosmos in all its parts must be subject
to the same spatial and numerical relations as the things we perceive around
us. In his view the earth has the shape of a cylinder, a kind of truncated
column, its thickness equal to one-third the diameter of its surface. We live
on the one surface. The earth is suspended in the center of the cosmos, at
rest because there is nothing to cause it to move. Around it the heavens form
a sphere (and no longer a bowl), or rather, three concentric spheres, the
sphere of the stars, which is closest to the earth,and those of the moon and
the sun, at intervals of 9, 18, and 27 diameters of the earth. There is no
absolute above and below.
This world came into being. After the separation of hot and cold, a part
of the cold damp interior was transformed into vapor by the heat of the
fiery sphere, and the vapor split the fiery sphere into rings. These rings
cloaked in vapor have breathing holes through which the flames shine. These
are the stars, the moon, and the sun. On the earth everything was at first
moist. The sun dried out some of the moisture. The evaporation created
wind. The remaining moisture was the sea, which became smaller and
smaller and will, in the end, disappear altogether. Eclipses of the heavenly
bodies occur when the air holes are temporarily stopped up; the phases of
the moon and reopening of the holes (Burnet).
are caused by a slow closing
Living creatures sprang from the moisture.The first were encased in a
prickly bark. Some moved to the dry land, the bark fell away, and they
changed their form of life. Man developed from animals of another species.
For if he had been originally as he is now, he would never have survived.
Unlike the animals, who from birth can find their food by themselves, he
alone requires a long period of suckling. Originally, says Anaximander,
man was similar to a fish.
There are innumerable worlds such as ours, coexisting at equal intervals;
and all these worlds, including ours, come into being and pass away in
periodic recurrence. The destruction of our world will be followed by a
regeneration.
Such views are imputed to Anaximander by other writers. Only one
sentence, though introduced in indirect discourse, is quoted verbatim, and
its content is entirely different. This venerable monument runs: Anaximander
said that "the material cause and first element (arche) of existing things
was the infinite (apeiron); but the source from which existing things derive
their existence is also that to which they return at their destruction according
to necessity; for they must pay the penalty and make atonement to one
another for their injustice according to Time's decree." This sentence
formulates a metaphysical vision. We do not know whether it is a maxim
or, as seems likelier, fragment of a larger exposition. In attempting to
a
understand it we —
are under a disadvantage we cannot help operating with
ANAX1MANDER n
the rigid concepts of later times and with our own thinking; nevertheless,
with the help of what other ancient authors have written about Anaximander,
let us attempt an interpretation.
i. What arc existing things {ta onto)} Everything: the events and con-
ditions in the polis, the stars, the water, the earth, men and animals, the
totality of present things.
i. What is the apeiron? The meaning of the word is infinite, boundless,

undetermined. Thus the apeiron is not an object of intuition. The ancients
understood Anaximander 's apeiron as the matter from which the worlds
arise and to which they return — analogous to the water from which all
things originated, according to the earlier Thales. But water was visibly
present in the world. Anaximander took the leap to positing a source that
was not only invisible but could not even be defined. Aristotle interprets:
The one cannot be a part of what springs from it (as in the case of water). It
cannot be a particular thing — if it were a particular thing, the whole could
not spring from it. It must encompass (periechein) everything, it cannot be
encompassed (periechomenon) Furthermore, it cannot be finite. For then

.
becoming would have an end. In order that becoming should not cease, the
ground of becoming must be infinite, inexhaustible. It is the origin of all
and has itself no origin. Accordingly Anaximander calls the apeiron immortal
and indestructible. Unlike all things in the world {ta onta) which come and
go, it is everlasting.
3. How are the things (of the worlds) related to the apeiron? Simplicius
writes: Anaximander "did not attribute the genesis of things to any change
in matter but said that the opposites were differentiated in the substrate,
which is an unlimited body." The differentiation of opposites is the origin
of existing things. It seems futile to inquire further how oppositions arise
in the imperishable apeiron that has been said to be free from opposition.
The oppositions within existing things are as such insuperable. Even as
I inquire, I am in them. I arrive at no better understanding by distinguishing
an "eternal motion" that leads to oppositions from the motion in the
existing, perpetually changing world. The emergence of things from the
apeiron and their return to it might perhaps be distinguished from the
emergence of things from one another. But whether we conceive of the
apeiron according to later concepts as matter (with which, however, no
form is contrasted), or as empty space (though without any energy to fill
it), or, in accordance with the earlier view, as chaos — its essential character-
that while free from opposition, it is the source of oppositions. The
istic is
world comes into being with the opposition between hot and cold. When
the oppositions annul one another, the world will have ceased to be. The
totality of things already in opposition {ta onta) is called physis. Physis is
none of the antagonistic things but encompasses them all.
4. What is the injustice of things? By their very nature, the opposites

war with one another. Once differentiated, they produce one another and
destroy one another: hot and cold, air and water, light and darkness. The
predominance of one is injustice to the other. Hence they must make
atonement to one another. But the apeiron does not participate in this
struggle.
In this view certain authors (Nietzsche, Rohde) have seen an allusion
to the guilt that comes of individualization, the fall from grace involved
in entering existence: man's greatest guilt is having been born (Calderon).
Such an interpretation is not in keeping with the general climate of this

thinking, but perhaps there is a trace of truth in it. Anaximander does
not impute guilt to the genesis of the world (and the birth of man is not
even mentioned in this connection); but once the world has come into
being, guilt is no doubt an inevitable consequence of its antagonisms.
5. How is the apeiron related to the world? It plays a part in the world
process, for it "steers all things." simile, it is Dike
But in Anaximander's
(Justice), the which imposes a balance among
foundation of the polis,
conflicting things by making them atone for their wrongs to one another. In
the polis justice is administered and the penalty appointed by the judge.
Taking this reality as his guide, Solon taught the existence of a more en-
compassing dike, which is no longer dependent on human jurisdiction, for
it will inevitably be fulfilled in the course of time. The power of Dike is
inexorable. Anaximander finds such an equilibration in the world process

as a whole: things are in conflict with each other, as men in a court of
justice. The penalty is meted out "according to Time's decree." But time
is not itself the judge; it brings about the judgment. Time is not the
apeiron, but the apeiron governs temporal events. Anaximander was the
first Western thinker to conceive of the world as a community of justice,
as an order among things (Jager).
6. What is necessity? Certain writers have found in Anaximander a con-
ception which was not to be clearly formulated until later: as cosmic law,
law of nature, the necessity of process. In Anaximander things come into
being and pass away "according to necessity" (the Greek words have also
been translated as "according to duty" and "as it is decreed"). But this
necessity is not a clearly defined natural law, open to investigation; it
would be more accurate to say that by his intellectual leap Anaximander

arrived at an abstraction which was later to generate the determinate idea
of natural law. In Anaximander's necessity norm and causality, determina-
tion and fate, the justice of atonement and the automatism of the world
process are not differentiated; nevertheless, it is superior to all the mythical
explanations of events, based on the personal caprice of superhuman powers
or the concept of mere chance. And Anaximander's "necessity" pre-
serves what is lost in later thinkers who effect these differentiations, namely
the metaphysical visions of what from Spinoza's "necessity" to Nietzsche's
"shield of necessity" was thought to transcend all categories, or, considered
as fate, became a problem inaccessible to rational thought.
ANAX1MAN DER 13
7. What, view of the apeiron, are the gods? Anaximander

in this total
called the apeiron itself divine. Moreover, Cicero tells us: "The view of
Anaximander is that the gods are not everlasting but are born and perish
at long intervals of time, and that they are worlds, countless in number."
We do not know whether Anaximander rebelled against the traditional

faith, as later Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Plato rejected the Homeric
pantheon. With the sober detachment that enabled him to overturn all
existing views, he saw the divine in a new way, but in two forms: on the one
hand the apeiron, on the other, the plurality of worlds.
Interpretations in terms of crystallized concepts tend to see too much or
too little in Anaximander —his wealth of potential meaning far exceeds
all such interpretations. Beguiled by the hidden possibilities, subsequent
thinkers have found all sorts of ideas in Anaximander. Some of these
interpretations are demonstrably false, some can be shown to be possible, a
few can be definitely substantiated.
Anaximander is the earliest philosopher perceptible as a personality,
though we know him only as a shadow of himself. It was he who first
entered the realm where philosophy and science in their Western forms
became possible. The known contents of his thinking are no longer an
indispensable element of philosophy; what speaks to us is the magnificent
originality of his thinking. He is the first Western philosopher whose style
of thought bears an unmistakable stamp.
Anaximander's profound impression on us flows from the whole of
his thinking, in which we perceive the awakening of Western reason; the
veils of mist are dispersed and the light is born. To his new way of thinking
no one else had been able to think
the simplest things were revealed that
of before. Once the leap was made, man was able to reach out for the
knowledge that would change his world completely. What is so exciting
is the beginning as such. At this moment man first learned to look at
himself and the world with detachment; thought came into its own and
ventured, in defiance of custom, tradition, and appearance, to put forth

ideas which at first sight may have seemed utterly absurd and sacrilegious.
In rejecting all authority other than its own insights, thought penetrated
to the depths.
Admirably simple, yet so radical in their implications, these steps were
made possible by a threefold process of abstraction, leading first from
immediate appearance, through an imaginary change of standpoint, to
new representations and, through a real change of standpoint, to new per-
ceptions (the suspension of the earth in cosmic space, the absence of an
absolute above and below, the proportional reduction of the earth's surface
in cartography) secondly, from all these representations to what can be
;
definitely thought but not intuited (necessity, justice, reciprocity in opposi-

tion); and thence, finally, to what, unthinkable in determinate form, pre-
cedes the oppositions.
Wherever this thinker turns, his mind shows equal power: in his observa-
tion of the sensuous here and now, in technical invention, in his devising of
convincing demonstrations, in his use of a primitive mathematics, in ordering
his intuitions (even if and in the pure speculative
these are unverifiable) ,
thinking that carries himground of all being. With the same energy
into the
he encompasses speculation and the world, metaphysics and empirical
thinking. It is by one and the same mode of thought that he produced the
map of the earth and the celestial globe, discovered that the world hung
free in cosmic space, gave concrete form to his view of the genesis of the
worlds, conceived of all existing things as grounded in the apeiron, and
looked upon the apeiron as the divine. The mind of a great philosopher is
one. No factor may be removed. In every direction of his thinking, Anaxi-
mander discloses this unity; the independence of the individual, provided
by the Ionian became the independence of thought which came to
polis,
grips with the world and allowed things to show themselves as they are.
Here we see our own Western existence as it began, manifesting itself in a
—
grandiose prototype a miracle, but a miracle whose content is perfectly
self-evident and natural. Anaximander confronted the real world with
—
measurement, observation, reason in short, with the human intellect.
He had the courage to formulate speculative schemas that were subject to
verification; with his magnificent Ionian open-mindedness, he was alive
to all the possibilities of his world.
In the ensuing period, this comprehensive thought, erupting from a world
of myth, was to make movements: the pure
possible highly varied intellectual
speculation of Parmenides and Heraclitus, cosmic views of the world,
scientific inquiry.
HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES
Both lived at the turn of the sixth century, Heraclitus in Ephesus (Asia
Minor), Parmenides in Elea (southern Italy). Since "the coming of the
Medes" the Greek world of Asia Minor had freedom and lived
lost its
under a constant threat that was to be averted only by the Persian Wars.
Anaximander's polis had undergone a change. It had ceased to enjoy un-
disturbed freedom in an open Mediterranean; the internal consequences
of the threat were first democracy, then tyranny. Elea was a colony of
Ionian Greeks who had fled from the Medes. This was the situation in
which Heraclitus and Parmenides, at opposite ends of the Greek world,
did their thinking; philosophically, both were rooted in the Ionian soil.
15
HERACLITUS
Born of an old noble family, Heraclitus ceded the inherited rights of a

priest-king (basileus) to his younger brother. Asked by the Ephesians to
give them laws, he declined, saying that bad government had already become
entrenched in the city. He deposited his writings in the temple of the
Ephesian Artemis.
This work, of which some one hundred and thirty fragments have come
down to us, consisted of incisive, powerfully formulated maxims. They
did not form a systematic edifice, but there is a unity in their mode of
thought. The original arrangement cannot be reconstructed. Their suc-
cinctness invites the reader to interpret endlessly. That is why Heraclitus
was known in antiquity as "the obscure."
The style is solemn, prophetic. Heraclitus speaks like a man convinced
that his thinking is absolutely unprecedented and extraordinary, and that it
illumines everything once and for all.
/. The logos. Heraclitus sets out to "put words and deeds to the test" by
explaining "things each by its own nature and pointing out the real state
of the case." Looking at the whole, he sees what is; he sees the "logos that
is everlasting"and what it does. "All things come to pass in accordance
with this logos." The logos pervades all things and encompasses the whole
of Heraclitus' thinking. Logos can neither be translated into any other
term nor defined as a concept. Logos can signify: word, discourse, content
of discourse, meaning; reason, truth; law; even Being. In Heraclitus it is
not defined; it carries all these meanings at once and is never limited to
any one of them. The logos is the Encompassing, undefined and endlessly
definable (like all the great and basic terms of philosophy).
Always implicit in the logos is the unity of opposites. "Men do not
understand how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement
of opposite tensions like that of the bow and the lyre." "The hidden harmony
is better than the visible."
The is stated abstractly: "Whole and not
idea of the unity of opposites
whole —drawing and drawing apart, concord and discord
together . . .
From all one and from one all." It is also formulated in concrete, sensuous
terms: "Cold things grow hot, hot things grow cold, the wet dries, the
17
parched is moistened." "And it is the same thing in us that is quick and
dead, awake and asleep, young and old; the former by their changing
become the latter, and the latter in turn are changed and become the
former." Pleasure springs from its opposite: "Sickness makes health pleasant
and good, hunger satisfaction, weariness rest." "It recovers through change"
(or in a different translation: "In changing it takes its rest").
Opposition is life, change is necessary to life: "It is a weariness to labor

for the same masters and be ruled by them." "Even the posset separates if
it is not stirred." It is absurd to wish that all conflict may cease. "There would
be no harmony without high and low, nor any living creatures without the
opposites male and female."
Everything we know we know through its opposite. We would not
know justice if there were no injustice. From different points of view, we
can form diametrically opposite ideas of one and the same thing: "In the
circumference of a circle beginning and end are." "For the fuller's screw,
the way, straight and crooked, is one and the same." "The way up and down
is one and the same." Sea water is life-giving (for fish) and destructive
(for men).
In the ground of things, all is one: "Immortals are mortal, mortals are
immortal; each lives the life of the other, and dies their life." Hades (death)
is the same as Dionysus (jubilant life) in whose honor they rave and perform
the Bacchic revels. "We are and we are not."

The logos is the the coming together of opposites in struggle. And yet,
he who has listened to the logos knows that: "All things are one." In the
world of opposites, that is, in the cosmos and in our existence as well: "War
is king and father of all."
Heraclitus does not expressly distinguish the ways in which the opposites
are linked or the ways in which one shifts into the other; he does not
state clearly in what sense it is possible to speak of the identity of opposites.
He is guided by his great intuition of all existence as opposition, of the unity

of opposites, and finally of the godhead as the unity encompassing all
opposites. He makes no attempt to formulate a logic of opposition (dialec-
tics) his theme is his great vision: everywhere identical unity.
;
Thus the logos is the unity of opposites. It is also the source of law (notnos).
Rational thought takes hold of logos and nomos. Therein lies wisdom
(to sophon).
The logos is the essence of the world and the soul
The cosmological notions developed by the Milesian thinkers provide
Heraclitus with the material by which to apprehend the logos in the world.
He was not interested in concrete investigation, but only in discerning
the operation of logos and nomos in the world. For him fire is not merely
one state of matter, side by side with water andwhich the natural
air (in
philosophers found the substance of things), but the symbol, and at the same
time, the reality of world, life, and soul. Fire is the cause of cosmic order,
// E R A C LIT U S 19
but is itself endowed with reason (phronimon). "The thunderbolt (i.e.

eternal fire) steers all things." The soul is fire. The more fiery it is, the more
reason it has. The dry soul is wise, the moist (drunken) soul is tipsy. We
breathe in the divine logos and become rational.
The foundation of the world is rest {eternal fire), the world itself is
motion. The world is unceasing change. Everything flows and nothing
remains. You cannot step twice into the same river. "It is impossible to
touch the same mortal substance twice; through the rapidity of change they
scatter and again combine, and separate." But the eternal flux is subject to
the law of the logos, which is called justice (dike). "The sun will not
overstep his measures, for otherwise the Erinyes, Dike's deputies, will
findhim out."
The logos is hidden and can become manifest: It is hidden, although it
presides over all happening. "Nature (physis) likes to hide." All that
happens is ordered according to the logos, even when men fail to know it
and act against But the logos can be manifested to man's reason. It is
it.
not disclosed by much knowledge, but by authentic knowledge, which

man can achieve only through himself. "Men have the capacity of self-
knowledge and of insight." "I searched myself," said Heraclitus (in
another translation: "I looked for myself"). But such insight does not yield
knowledge as a possession: "You will never find the limits of the soul,
though you travel in every direction, so deep is its logos." Such searching
brings growth, both in the knower and in the known. "The soul has its own
logos which grows according to its needs."
The logos is the common bond (to xynon).
First: "Insight (phronein) is common to all." Insight is alertness. "The
waking have one common world, but the sleeping turn aside each into a
world of his own." Second: "War is common to all and justice is conflict;
all life springs from conflict and necessity."
The common bond is elucidated in thought and action. In thinking we

understand together, in acting we fulfill together. In thought the common
bond of the logos opposes the isolating particular (idion). In action, the
community of opposites resulting from conflict is opposed to the isolation
that springs from complete rest and peace.
In Heraclitus as in most of the pre-Socratics, the gods are not the
originators; they are beings in the world. "This ordered universe (cosmos),
which is was created by neither a god nor a man, it
the same for all,
always was and is and However, when Heraclitus

will be ever-living fire."
speaks not of the gods, but of God (which in the language of Greek
philosophy is called the God, the Divine, the gods), he speaks of him as he
speaks of the Logos, the Cosmos, Fire. But there is also an intimation of a
greater, more profound vision of God: "One thing, the Wise alone, is unwill-
ing and yet willing to be called by the name of Zeus." The Wise steers all
things, but "of all those whose teaching I have heard no one has gone far
enough Wise is something apart (\echorismenon) from

to teach that the
all things." Here the transcendent is represented as absolutely other, an
idea of whose novelty and deep significance Heraclitus is fully aware.
This proudest of thinkers refers frequently to the distance between God
and man. "Human nature has no insights, but the Divine has them." "Com-
pared with man, the most beautiful ape is ugly; compared with God, the
wisest of men seems like an ape in wisdom, beauty, and everything else."
God's power is everywhere: "The things that crawl are protected by God's
whiplash." No one can escape it. "How can anyone hide from that which
never sets?"
The views of God and man are fundamentally different and incommensur-
able: "To God all men have
things are beautiful, good, and just; but
assumed some things to be unjust, others just." Men and gods are not, as
in the traditional Greek religion, taken as beings of the same kind (dis-
tinguished only by mortality and immortality). Man is completely and essen-
tially different from God.
2. Struggle, the salutary way. Heraclitus' vision of God and the world
isno mere contemplation of eternal being; it is itself in the world, a struggle
against falsehood and evil, a proclamation of the salutary way.
Accordingly Heraclitus pictures what is false in the world. Most men
(hoi polloi) do not understand the logos. "They know not what they are
doing when awake, just as they forget what they do in sleep." Though they
are in constant association with the logos, they are at odds with it. What they
encounter every day remains strange to them, they succumb to illusion.
Nor does Heraclitus' teaching help them. "Even when they have heard, they
do not understand. . . . Present, they are absent. . .
." "Even when they
hear it, they fail to grasp; but they suppose they have understood."
Men are under illusion when they act, yet their actions follow the
hidden logos. "Those who sleep are fellow workers (in the activities of the
world)." Hence the twofold aspect of the human world: "Time is a child
playing a game of draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child."
"Human opinions are the games of a child." But what is fortuitous and
meaningless to those who do not know is actually hidden order: "A heap of
rubble piled up at random is the fairest universe."
In ignorance of the logos but unconsciously obeying it, all things and
creatures perform the appropriate actions: "Pigs in mud, wash themselves
birds in dust or ashes." "Donkeys prefer chaff to gold." "A foolish man is
startled at every meaningful word (logos) ." "Dogs bark at those they do not
recognize."
In practice, Heraclitus' insight into life as community in conflict is his
struggle. He seems to attack everything in the world around him: the
inherited tradition, the prevailing religion, the men and doctrines hitherto
HERACLITUS 21
regarded as great, the political condition of his native city, the thoughtless
behavior of men impelled by their passions.
1. Against prevailing religion: "They purify themselves by staining them-
selves with other blood, as if one were to step into mud to wash off mud."
"They talk to statues (of the gods) as if one were to converse with buildings."
He threatens the "night revelers, magicians, Bacchants, Maenads and
Mystics" with punishment after death. For "the rites accepted by mankind
in the Mysteries are unholy."
But often Heraclitus points to the truth in religion. "He called the
shameful rites of the Mysteries remedies." He distinguished "two kinds of
sacrifice; the one is offered by the few who are inwardly purified, the
other is material." If the phallic cult "were not conducted in honor of

Dionysos, it would be utterly shameless." And he takes a purely positive
view of religion when he says: "The Sybil with raving mouth uttering her
unlaughing, unadorned, unincensed words reaches out over a thousand
years with her voice, for she is inspired by the God." Or: "The lord
whose oracle is at Delphi, neither speaks nor conceals, but indicates."
Immortality for Heraclitus is unquestionable: "When men die, things
await them that they neither expect nor imagine." "The greater the death,
the greater the reward." ". . . the souls arise and become watchful guard-
and dead."
ians of the living
2. Heraclitus condemns all those who had hitherto been regarded as
great. "Homer deserves to be thrown out of the contest and beaten; likewise
Archilochos." Hesiod, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Hecataeus all show that
much knowledge does not confer reason. Pythagoras, in particular, read
many books and established a wisdom of his own; he was the ancestor of
all swindlers. What is the thing they called reason? "They put reliance in
street singers and their teacher is the populace, for they do not know that
the many are evil and that only few are good."
3. The political condition of his city aroused Heraclitus' anger. "The

Ephesians would do well to hang themselves, every man of them, since they
have expelled Hermodoros, the most valuable man among them, saying:
Let us not have even one valuable man; but if we do, let him go elsewhere
and live among others." "To me [on the contrary] one man is worth ten thou-
sand if he is the best." "To obey the will of one man is also law." And he cries
out bitterly: "May wealth never fail you, men of Ephesus, so that your evil
may become visible." But he also states the fundamental truth of political
life: "The citizens should fight for their law as if for their city wall."
4. The struggle against the passions of the individual.What is happiness?
"If happiness lay in bodily pleasures, we should have to say that oxen were
happy when they found vetch to eat." "It is not best for men to obtain every-
thing they wish." The passions are powerful. "It is hard to fight against
impulse; whatever it wishes, it buys at the expense of the soul." "Arro-
gance is more in need of quenching than fire." "He called self-conceit epi-
lepsy."
Heraclitus combats the false and gives instruction for a life in truth. The
philosopher of the logos bids man to be awake. "Men should not act and
speak as though asleep." We should knowingly follow the hidden logos
that binds all, not sink into the individual; nor should we let ourselves be
driven unconsciously by the logos; we should open ourselves to the uni-
versal and partake of it knowingly; deep within the logos we should find
the universal which is already there but becomes the common, unifying
bond only in being discovered.
In regard to the true life his teaching hinges on three points: i. Par-
ticipation in the logos of struggle. 2. Participation in the logos of knowledge.
3. Fundamental knowledge.
a) "Men should know thatwar is common to all." "War is king and father
of all. And some he has made gods and some men, some slaves and some
free." The victor is free, the vanquished is a slave, and he who falls in battle
is immortal. For "the best choose one thing above all else: everlasting fame
rather than things mortal." Those who fall in battle are "honored by gods
and men."
b) "The greatest perfection (arete) resides in thinking wisely (phronein) :
to speak the truth and to act in accordance with nature (physis) — this is
wisdom."
c) Wisdom does not reside in the heaping up of information, which
makes for dispersion and distracts one from authentic knowledge. But this
rejection of pseudo-erudition does not imply that knowledge is unnecessary:
"Men who love wisdom must inquire into very many things."
Nor does wisdom consist in speculative construction. Reason is revealed
in physical actuality. Heraclitus rejects the cosmic constructions of the Mi-
"Those things of which there is sight, hearing, and knowl-
lesian philosophers.
—
edge these I honor most." He seems to be relapsing into vulgar empiricism
when he says that the sun as it appears to us has the width of a human foot
and that the sun is born anew each day. But perhaps such statements were
merely intended to provoke. For elsewhere he doubts the value of sense
perception: "The ears and eyes are poor witnesses to men if they have bar-
barian souls."
Knowledge is guided by something that is more than knowledge. "Most
of what is divine escapes recognition through unbelief (apistia)" "If a man
does not hope, he will not find the unhoped for, since there is no trail lead-
ing to it and no path." This is the import of the moving words: "A man's
ethos (character) is his daimon," that is, not something that is merely given
by nature, but something more. The daimon who guides me is not a strange
being outside myself; it is myself as I authentically am, though I do not know
myself as such.
All knowledge of logos and nomos is summed up in this one statement:
// ERACL1TU S 23
"If we are to speak with intelligence (nous), we must build our strength on
that which is common to all, as the polis on the law, but even more so. All
human laws are nourished by one, which is divine; for it governs as far as it
will, and is sufficient for all, and then some."
j. Characterization. Heraclitus sees the logos, the unity of opposites, the

flux of the world, the transcendent godhead; and he sees the possibility of
man's ascent to wisdom.
The beginning of wisdom is not scientific inquiry, but the One, upon
which everything depends; the philosopher's goal is not to know the world,
but to put men on the right path.
Everything happens in accordance with the logos. It is hidden until the
thinker reveals it. But Heraclitus does not ask why it is hidden, nor why
there is a world in addition to the pure, peaceful fire, free from opposites,
the ever-present source which is also eternal reason. An answer is provided
in the Heraclitean tradition: Because of the opposition between satiety and
need, all things come into being and pass away in an eternal cycle of world
creation and world fire (el^pyrosis) But this answer seems to conflict with
.
Heraclitus' mode of thinking (and is not contained in any of the directly

quoted fragments) for it extends the principle of opposition, which Hera-
clitus himself attributed only to the warring world, to the totality.
Heraclitean thinking is not a systematic construction but a vision formu-

lated in maxims. His thinking is comprehensive, but revealed only in brief
apercus. It would be a mistake to look in Heraclitus for a construction of
being, free from contradiction (and no philosopher who has attempted such
a construction has ever succeeded). Confident in his profound insight,
Heraclitus dispensed it in intermittent flashes of light.
He has only to ask and the answers are present. The questions are not
developed; instead, the answers are proclaimed.
Heraclitus' ethos draws nourishment in thought from the ground of being,
the logos, wisdom. Such thinking is a challenge. It strives toawaken, but
counts on few, if any. Though the logos is common to all and can be made
manifest, there is between two conflicting tendencies in Heraclitus
a tension
he wishes to announce the logos to men, to make them aware of it and so to
lead them to a better communal life; but at the same time, faced with the
many who resist change, he resigns himself to solitary ineffectiveness, re-
nouncing all hope of actualizing his vision of the logos except in the proud
reality of his own life.
4. Influence. Heraclitus was in no way a founder; he did not establish a

community, he addressed himself to all, to the few, to individuals, to no
one. He was revered in antiquity but with the kind of respect that keeps its
distance. There is an anecdote to the effect that Socrates, when questioned
about Heraclitus by Euripides, replied: "What I have understood is ex-
cellent, and I am certain that what I have not understood is also excellent
but it requires a Delian diver."
The Stoics cited the authority of Heraclitus. Hegel admired him. Karl
Marx's earliest work was devoted to him. Lassalle wrote a book about him.
Nietzsche praised him extravagantly.
Two of his ideas, the logos and the dialectic of opposites, have had an
extraordinary influence, though his name has not always been explicitly
related to them.
i. The an enormous role since Anaxi-
principle of opposition has played
mander. was taken up by the Pythagoreans and Parmenides. But only in
It
Heraclitus did it become the dominant form of thought. All Western dialec-
tic goes back to Heraclitus and the successors of Parmenides. Heraclitus did
not systematically distinguish the modes of opposition; he lets them play side
by side and converge: contradiction, opposition, dichotomy, polarity, tension;
the whole-the part, unity-multiplicity, harmony-discord; life-death, wak-
ing-sleep, day-night. He did not differentiate the ways in which opposites
shift into one another, the modes of reversal, of dialectic movement in the
logical and in the real worlds. He expressed the notion of the opposites with
all the means at his disposal, including puns. Since Heraclitus touched upon
it in his universal vision, it has permeated the whole history of philosophy,
and to this day has not been elucidated in full systematic clarity.
In reference to Heraclitus, Aristotle wrote: Nature too seems to strive
toward the opposite; it produces harmony from opposites, not from likes:
for example, the male sex mates with the female. In painting, white is mixed
with black, yellow with red; in music high and low, long and short tones
are mingled to produce a unitary harmony; in the art of writing, vowels are
mingled with consonants.
Hegel claimed to have incorporated every one of Heraclitus' sayings in
his logic. And it is perfectly true that Hegel, with the help of the intervening
two thousand years of philosophical thought, developed his dialectic, or sys-
tem of the categories of opposition, from what first made its appearance in the
thinking of Heraclitus.
2. The Her-
Stoics (beginning in the third century b.c.) interpreted the
aclitean logos as all-pervading cosmic reason and
For Philo (c. 25 b.c. to
fate.
a.d. 50) the logos was the power of reason dwelling with God; it was the
first son of God, the second God, the mediator between God and man: the
word, God's eternal thought which created the world. In the Gospel of
St. John (second half of the first century) and from then on in Christian
theology the logos has been personalized as the incarnate word of God;
born into the world in Jesus, the logos is the second person of God.
Heraclitus had conceived the logos as a thought that opens the way to new
insights and extends man's horizons. In these historical transformations
it was objectivized, frozen into a philosophical doctrine.
PARMENIDES
Parmenides was a citizen of Elea, in southern Italy, at the turn of the sixth
century b.c. He came of a wealthy and distinguished family. Some one
hundred and thirty verses of his work in hexameters have been preserved.
The introduction to his poem relates the thinker's journey to the heavens:
as a young man, he mounts the chariot of the sun maidens, who drive him
from night to daylight, so swiftly that the axle "gave forth a pipe-like sound";
at the boundary between the two, they pass through a gate which Dike
opens for them, and he is led into the presence of the goddess, who receives
him graciously. From her lips he learns the truth "And now you must study :
all things: not only the unshaken heart of well-rounded truth (aletheia)
but also mortals' opinions (doxa), in which there is no true reliance." Accord-
ingly, the goddess' communication, and with it the poem, falls into two parts.
Considerable fragments of the first part and a few reports concerning the
second part have come down to us.
/. Being. The first fundamental idea is: "It is necessary to say and to think
that being is, for it is possible for it to be, but it is not possible for 'nothing' to
be." "Thou could'st not know that which is not nor utter it." "For never
shall this be proved: that things that are not are." In terms of formal logic:
being is or is not; its nonbeing, all nonbeing, is unthinkable; therefore
being is and nonbeing is not.
Especially in the original Greek, these lines can either seem wonderfully
meaningful or else startlingly empty. They bear witness to a profound emo-
tion and yet they state only tautologies. For the first time in the West a thinker
expresses his surprise that being is, that it is impossible to think that nothing
is. His statement of what most obvious is perfectly clear and at the same
is
time supremely puzzling. Being is and nothing is not; this, for Parmenides,
is a revelation of thinking through thinking.

The fundamental knowledge which sustains this philosopher's life the —
actuality of being — is expressed in seemingly trivial sentences. Parmenides
temple to the Pythagorean Ameinias, because through him he had
built a
—
found peace (he sy chid) in fundamental knowledge of the actuality of
being.
It is futile to look in these sentences for a hidden meaning that might tell
25
us more about being. Being cannot be expressed in terms of anything else;

it can only be contemplated. Yet with Parmenides we can go further toward
determining what this being is. For on way, the true way (in contradis-
this
tinction to the false way, which is to think nonbeing), many signs (semata)
of being are disclosed. They follow
from the process of thinking:
necessarily
It is No
unborn. what birth of it wilt thou look
origin can be found. "For
for? In what way and whence did it grow?" Not from any existing thing,
for then there would be another, pre-existing being. Not from any non-
existent thing, for then there would be no cause or necessity impelling it to
spring sooner or later from nothingness and begin to grow. Only nothing
can spring from nothingness. Hence being must either be whole or not at
all. If it had been born at some time, it would not authentically be. Nor is it
limited to the future. In it, rather, becoming and passing away are annulled.
It is imperishable. It was not nor will be, "since it is now all at once, one, con-
tinuous."
Being is one, always identical, of equal power, cohesive. Being is insepar-
ably close to being. It is not sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker;
rather, it is everywhere wholly filled with being and indivisible. It is being
(on, so first used by Parmenides), not a multiplicity of existing things (onta,
as was said before Parmenides).
It is unique. For there is nothing and will be nothing outside of being.
It is whole. It is the extreme limit, hence complete on all sides. In other
words, it is not something to be ended (thus it is not endless), or to be com-
pleted.It is comparable to a sphere. "It is immovable in the limits of its
mighty bonds, without beginning or cessation. The same and abiding . . . in

the same [place], it is set by itself, and thus it abides there firm and unmoved."
In Parmenides the signs (semata) of being are not images illustrating an
abstract idea. Rather, they are what must necessarily be thought; when we
think them, being itself is present. Thus Parmenides with his "signs" is not
moving toward a sign language as later developed by mathematics and sym-
bolic logic, but toward the cipher language peculiar to metaphysical specu-
lation.
The emptiest thought carries the most enormous meaning. But as an empty
thought that is quickly and easily mastered by the understanding, it remains
an empty idea, without further meaning. Its meaning is expressed in the
necessity of thinking the semata, for in this thinking the vision of being is
re-enacted and the experience of peace in being is attained. Along with nec-
essary contradiction and identity, the semata are images of thought not
based on visual perception. Parmenides' fundamental statement is not an
empty identity, but understood solely in its logical form, it is objectively
empty. It is a thinking action which was possible in the naivete (not primitiv-
ism) of creative beginning; it is though we cannot recapture
still possible,
the old candor. Logic and being merged, and both were unfolded in thought.
Logic was not yet empty because it was not yet intended as logic. Accord-
PARMEN1DES 27
ingly, the vision is not a metaphor, but a necessary part of the thought.
The tone of this thought is compounded of a compelling, imperious logic
and of jubilant certainty in the ground of all things. The inexplicable is
explained; the form is that of prophetic revelation.

Though knowledge that being is and must be and dis-
being, that is, the
closes certain signs, him an overwhelming emotional experience,
was for
Parmenides was obliged to think these signs in forms that were later termed
categories. But his emotion also impelled him to devise images analogous to
mythical images: Being is constrained by the Moira to be a whole and immov-
able. Overpowering necessity (Anan\e) holds it within the bonds of the
limit. Dike does not relax the fetters of being, leaving it free to become or
pass away, but holds it fast.
Parmenides' thinking experience of being is so powerful that it transforms

the thinker. He enters into another "world," no longer world. He which is
knows that his path leads "far from the path of mortals," and that to attain
it through Themis and Dike is a happy lot in contrast to the unhappy lot of
ignorant mankind. The story of the journey to the heavens, from darkness
into light, is not poetic ornament, but the sensuous, imaged form of the
thought itself: truth is imparted, divine powers help lead the thinker to the
goddess who communicates the pure truth; his own yearning for truth has
itself this divine character. It is not a long, slow journey, but swift and sud-
den. The dividing line is the gate guarded by Dike.

Image and thought can and must be seen in one. The poetry is not an
external, artificial form, but the very essence of the thought. More than
almost anywhere else, this thought must be understood in the form the
philosopher gave it if it is to be understood at all.
Through on being, Parmenides became aware that certainty of
reflection
being has its origin in thinking: "Thinking and being are one and the same."
And: "Thinking and that in respect of which it is thought are one and the
same." "For you will not find thought apart from that which is, in respect
of which it is uttered." Because our thought is necessary, what we think
must be.
But this is not the thinking of common sense. Thought, we suppose, con-
fronts being. But Parmenides distinguishes his thinking (authentic thinking
in the nous) from the thinking that splits and differentiates "Look at things :
which though far off are yet surely present to thought. For you cannot cut
off being from holding fast to being." Thus in thought (the nous) being
itself is present as a whole; the absent is also present.
The greatness of Parmenides' conception of being is lost if we attempt to
put into it what is not truly his own. Measured by the logical richness of the
differentiated categories or the perceptual richness of the world, Parmenides'
being is so poor that it vanishes. For his boldly transcending thinking of this
being is directed toward an imageless pre-categorial, or trans-categorial
realm; yet transcendence in Parmenides is not somewhere else, it is wholly
present. But this presence does not lie in the plenitude of the sensuous, tem-
poral world. The radical distinction that gives Parmenides' thinking its
power is between the seriousness of being and the trivial world of opinion.
Parmenides' "thinking" of "being" is clarified by contrasts
In sharpest opposition to Anaximander's apeiron, this being is comparable
to a sphere bound by limits (peirata). Being is not apeiron but
and is
peras, because it must be thinkable. What is thought is determined and

therefore has limits. Only what can be understood through a logical opera-
tion carries the conviction of compelling thought. What being is, is thinkable.
Only the thinkable isThinking has become an absolute.
being.
This also brings Parmenides into contrast with Heraclitus, whose logos
is divine; mortals breathe it in and it becomes human thinking, a mere echo,
not an absolute in itself.
2. The world of appearance. The counterpart to the fundamental thought,

which is Parmenides' one and all, is the world of appearance. Nevertheless,
he devotes considerable attention to it. The goddess first tells Parmenides
the truth, then the false opinions of mortals. In the latter, Parmenides builds
the world of appearance with the materials provided by traditional cos-
mology and traditional science, but contributes no new observations.
The genesis of the world and the genesis of false opinion (doxa) are the
same. Illusion arose with the splitting of the one, which is linked to name-
giving. Men named two appearances, light and darkness. They separated
the ethereal fire and the lightless night, the one gentle, light, always identi-
cal with itself, the other dense and heavy.
But in this they erred. These are mere names, established in the language
of deluded mortals who believe them to be true, as they believe of becoming
and passing-away, being and nonbeing, change of place and variation of
bright color, etc.: "Thus therefore, according to opinion, were these things
created and are now, and shall hereafter grow and then come to an end.
And from these things men have established a name as a distinguishing
mark for each."
Few details of Parmenides' cosmology have come down to us. As in
Anaximander, there were spheres occupied by fire, sun and moon, earth
and life. But in the middle is the goddess who governs all. First she created
Eros. Everywhere the goddess incites to mating. "Cruel birth and mating."
But why is there not only the one truth ? Why is there a world of appearance
and not only being? We find no answer in Parmenides other than the
description of the error. We can only construct an answer in the spirit of
Parmenides: Appearance arises which enters into a

through being itself,
process of transformation and so gives rise to the modes of half-being the —

being which is at the same time nonbeing, which, as we know, cannot be
and at the same time to the modes of appearance. Then the whole of being
PARMENIDES 29
is lost, no longer present, the present is detached from the past

the absent is
and future. With the world of appearance, delusion is born.

Why, we may further ask, did Parmcnides concern himself so much with
the world of appearance? The goddess said to him in the beginning: "But
nevertheless thou shalt learn these things (opinions) also, how one should
go through all the things that seem, without exception, and test them." And
when she has finished expounding the true doctrine of being, she repeats:
"This disposition of things (diafosmos), all plausible, I tell thee; for so no
mortal judgment shall ever outstrip thee." In view of the level and depth of
Parmenides' thinking, it is inconceivable that he should set forth the science
of illusion, anti-philosophy as it were, in order to be superior to men. What he
actually does isexamine the world of appearance on the basis of its own
to
—
necessity that is, he surveys it and penetrates it from the standpoint of truth.
Doxa must be thought in a way that is not identical with the thinking of
wavering mortals. Philosophical thinking about the world of appearance
must be above delusion, unfettered by appearance, finding, as it were, the
truth of appearance in the ground of its unfolding; investigating appearance
by means of a knowledge of appearance.
The fragments do not tell us how Parmenides related his view of appear-
ance to his fundamental conception, but we find an indication in the reports
of other writers. He not only taught that thinking and being are the same,
but also held with the theorem, first made famous by Empedocles and often
reiterated from Plotinus to Goethe, that like is perceived and known only
through like. Thus Parmenides believed that for lack of fire the dead
do not perceive light and warmth, but that they do perceive cold and silence.
Everything that is has a knowledge {gnosis). Man knows being with the
nous, appearance with his mixed essence, and non-being when he is dead.
j. The decision. Parmenides demands decision (\risis) between the two ways,
the way of truth (the thinking of being) and of error (the thinking of non-
being). But since the thinking of nonbeing is impossible, he has no more
to say about it. The great ubiquitous error, disastrous for all men, is a third
possibility, halfness, themixture of thinking of being and thinking of noth-
ing. Those mortals who know nothing wander on this way, "two-headed,
for perplexity guides the wandering thought in their breasts, and they are
borne along, both deaf and blind, bemused, as undiscerning hordes, who
have determined to believe that it is and is not, the same and not the same,
and for whom there is a way of all things that turns back upon itself." Here
Parmenides reduces the average man's opinion, lacking in self-awareness, to
its essential meaning, or rather unmeaning, in formulas that are to be found
in Heraclitus. (Scholars are in disagreement as to whether this passage is

directed against Heraclitus himself; if it is, what more eloquent way of
expressing contempt for Heraclitus than to interpret his formula, in which
the older philosopher purports to state a world-shattering truth that the

crowd fails to understand, as the opinion of this selfsame crowd, couched
in clear language.) The goddess warns: Do not "let custom that comes of
much experience force thee to cast along this way an aimless eye and a dream-
ing ear and tongue."
What Parmenides communicates as his own fundamental experience (at the
very outset in the image and reality of the journey to the heavens), namely
the transformation of his whole nature through his transformed conscious-
ness of being, he now demands
of all men and proclaims as the way of sal-
vation. But it is typical of Parmenides as a philosopher, as a "knowing man,"
that this way should be opened up by compelling logical thought: "]udge
by reasoning the much-debated proofs I utter."
4. The insoluble difficulties. The difficulties of this philosophizing do not

reside in the fragmentary character of the tradition; they are rooted in the
problem itself.
The sun maidens (divine powers) drive the young man in their chariot
from the world of night world of light; and at the limit between
to the
the two, he is admitted by Dike, who opens the gate. What is revealed to
him within, the day, the light, pertains to the truth of being; what he has
left behind him, the darkness, the night, pertains to opinion and appear-
ance, that is, nonbeing. But in addition he learns that the difference between
day and night is itself appearance. From out of the realm of appearance,
remaining within appearance, he hears what makes even his ascent to the
light illusory.
This difficulty stands at the very beginning of speculative philosophy:
in the course of its operations, the philosopher's undertaking is destroyed
by the very truth it attains. In arriving at truth, philosophy meets failure
and vanishes. It speaks at the cost of departing from the truth it has already
gained.
Or to put the same thing in a different way: if we think something, we
must same time think something else, from which the first something
at the
differs or to which it is related. For Parmenides this thinking is the source

of illusion through separation and name-giving. The truth must be thought
as inseparably one, but in the thinking, differentiations are born. Parmenides
thinks being, which is opposed to nothingness. But nothingness is unthink-
able and, because it is illusory, should not be thought. Man is called upon
to decide between two ways; this means that two ways have been differen-
tiated and that both have been thought. But where a differentiation is made,
it is not being that is thought; we are already in the realm of doxa.
In answer to this objection it is possible to argue: The opposition between
being and nothingness is absolute. Once it is apprehended in thought, it
ceases to be an opposition, for nothingness is not, only being is. With the
P ARM EN DES I 31
true thought of the one perfect being, free from opposition, the other
vanishes. If we take the true way, we perceive that it is the only way, that
there is no other. Where Parmenides thinks being, there is no longer a
decision. The imperative of transcending thought drives the thinker beyond
opposition into the realm where there is no opposition.
Yet interpret as we is not refuted. But far from destroy-
will, the objection
ing the philosophy, only makes

this its meaning clearer. This meaning
cannot be saved in the form of a compelling rational knowledge of some-

thing. Thus the objection is justified only when the philosophical meaning
is abandoned. The philosophical meaning, in turn, can be acquired and pre-
served only at one with the thinker's thinking existence.
5. Influence. Parmenides' influence has been enormous. This may seem

surprising in view of the predominantly logical character of his thinking.
But Parmenides the seeming emptiness of his statement was supreme
for
and for all who came after him it represented a challenge to fill his
fullness,
molds of thought, which, once communicated, become purely formal.
But there are other reasons for his historical influence. The methods of
thought he developed came to be utilized independently, while their original
meaning was overshadowed or lost.
Parmenides wished by thought to gain

1. a foothold beyond the origin
of the world, which, under the name of arche (origin, principle),had already
been conceived in a number of ways. However, his thought was interpreted
as a new approach to this very same arche. Later thinkers tried to fulfill
the demands raised by Parmenides' conception of being by reflecting on
the origins as before, but now with the help of such "semata" of being as
the elements (Empedocles), the infinitesimal, infinitely different particles
(Anaxagoras), or the atoms (Democritus).
2. Parmenides did not formulate the axiom of contradiction, but he was
first to apply it with a clarity that brings out the possibility of compelling
thought through alternatives. Parmenides' aim was to permit being, eternal
truth, to manifest itself, but his method became an instrument of compelling
thought applicable to correct statements about anything whatever. From it
developed logic and dialectics.
Thus what was originally a whole broke down into separate parts: first
logic, which sets forth compelling formal relationships; secondly, meta-
physical speculation, which looks upon itself as a methodical game that
makes the profoundly serious communicable; thirdly, the aesthetic view of
being and the world, the intellectual frivolity which traces an endless
variety of figures of thought, none of them binding.
3. It was Parmenides who first explicitly stated that thinking is being,
or being thinking. Only where this equation is recognized can we be

certain that in pure thought we are not merely reflecting on a thought
content, not only effecting logical operations according to rules, but that
thinking puts us into the very midst of being. Thought is the reality in
which the whole of being is actualized as such. Being itself thinks.
Only when this thesis had been stated thus radically did it become
possible to oppose it and to ask whether being and thinking must not, on
the contrary, be conceived as separate if we are to discern the relation
between them (it was Kant who first stated this position with full clarity).
From this point of view, thought can no longer apprehend being, but can
gain valid insight only into certain manifestations of being, which are
accessible to it, while an intimation of being itself is conferred more by the
failure of thought than by our thinking of any thought content. Thinking
is no longer being, but a human activity oriented toward being. The idea
that being itselfis thinking becomes a cipher and ceases to be literal reality.
Parmenidean thinking became the nesting place of an attitude of thought

rooted in faith. The thinkers of this type supposed that in cogent thought
they possessed the bodily presence of being and in a valid idea the absolute
truth. They concluded that this gave them the right to repress by violence any
other thinking that might lay claim to truth. But when thinking becomes
aware of its limits and of the diversity of its methods, the violence and
fanaticism born of such an attitude disappear.
4. Parmenides operates with the inflections of the word "being." From the
standpoint of subsequent logical and linguistic reflection, he employs the

most universal form, the copula "is," which is present explicitly or implicitly
in every statement. He uses the most universal category; for once it is
thought, anything whatever is a mode of being. With Parmenides, the
words whirh have always, before and since, been used unconsciously in
all speech, took on special meanings: Greek: estin, einai, onta, on, ousia; —
Latin: est, esse, existentia, essentia; —English: is, being, existent, existence,
essence.
To consider only the universality of these words is to conceive them in
their formal emptiness. They are indeed a factor in Parmenidean thinking,
but the thinking itself, in this empty universality, has lost its meaning.
For the instrument a thinker makes use of is not the whole of his thinking,
least of all when the thinker is not even conscious of his instrument as an
instrument, but in his very use of it is one with the substance of his
thinking, as was the case in the magnificent innocence of the beginning.
It is a paradox of speculation that what is emptiest can at the same time
be most meaningful. When the essential meaning of "being," that most
universal of words, resides not in its logical or linguistic form, but in an
undefined emotion in the presence of all that is being, then the most abstract
question about being becomes the most powerful.
For once the question was asked, nothing, nonbeing, made its appearance
and from then on has left thinkers no peace. Parmenides said it was not
thinkable and simply non-existent. Plato found that nonbeing could in a
P ARM EN DES I 33
certainway be. The question of why being is and nothing is not attained
itsmost penetrating formulation in Schelling: Why is there something
and not nothing?
In order to fill out the thought of being, academic thinkers defined it
and determined its fundamental modes. In the seventeenth century, after
such thinking had been going on for two thousand years, it became known
as ontology. Parmenides' thinking is the beginning of "ontology," but in
the dogmatic, academic forms of ontology his provocative meaning was
lost.
Parmenides does not call being God. But what he conceived as the
5.
signs of being, became a field of categories which were subsequently trans-

ferred to God when theologians sought to define His attributes. From
Parmenides came the motifs appropriate to a thought structure embracing
the imageless God, to the apprehending of transcendence by pure thought.
His "ontology" provided "theology" with its tools.
6. The distinction betweeen truth and opinion, between the being of
being and the illusion of the world, was later fixated in the so-called
theory of the two worlds. This became possible once a certain independent
reality was imputed to nature, i.e. the world of illusion, once illusion became
a natural phenomenon, i.e. an appearance, while being became a tran-
scendent realm, another being, a second world, a "world behind the
world." With this the Parmenidean unity of being and knowledge was
transformed into a dualism which, in a variety of forms, has run through
all Western history.
Thanks to the radicalism of his propositions and the acuteness of his
challenge, Parmenides was the great point of departure. Through him
thought achieved self-awareness as an independent power; compelling
in its conclusions, it unfolded its potentialities and so attained to the limits
—
where thought incurs failure a failure which Parmenides did not discern,
but which he invited with the enormous demand he made upon thought.
In the Theaetetus Plato erected a monument to Parmenides, whom he
regarded as the greatest of the pre-Socratic philosophers: "Parmenides is
in my eyes, as Homer and awe-inspiring' figure. I thought

says, a 'revered
there was a sort of depth in him that was altogether noble. I am afraid we
might not understand his words and still less follow the thought they
express." Nietzsche, on the other hand, sensed the extraordinary in Par-
menides and thought he understood it, but did not. He speaks of the "type
of a prophet of the truth, who seems however to be made, not of fire but of
ice," of "absolutely bloodless abstraction," of a "mind which logical rigidity
has almost transformed into a thinking machine." Henceforth the truth

would reside "only in the palest, most abstract generalities, in the empty
husks of the vaguest words, as in a house of spider-webs."
COMPARISON BETWEEN
HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES
/. Their common and Parmenides were familiar with

situation. Heraclitus
the thinking of their predecessors: the mythical thinking of Hesiod and
the philosophical liberation from myth, the haphazard knowledge and the
cosmological and cosmogonic constructions of the Milesians, the Pythagorean
doctrine of the soul and transmigration, the monotheism of Xenophanes'
"enlightenment"; they participated in the newly achieved independence of
thinking, and knew Anaximander. They were in the same intellectual
situation and both responded to an experience that had shaken the Greek
mind. The new task they confronted presents an analogy to the powerful
religious movements which rose at the same time, perhaps in connection
with the Persian conquest of the Greek cities of Asia Minor. They sought
peace in the thought of authentic being.
2. The common new element in their thinking. Essentially they achieved the
same thing, but by different means: Parmenides with logical identity and the
exclusion of the contradictory, Heraclitus with the dialectic that encompasses
contradictions. Both were alive to the power of pure thought; their thinking
is not determined by sense perception and concrete observation, which they
used merely as a language in which to clothe their meaning. Always by
rational means, both performed an operation that is not only rational.
They discovered the possibility of a thinking that transcends all knowledge
of the world, that looks into the world from somewhere else. They both
looked upon this thinking as the absolute truth.
Both took great pains in the molding of their language, seeking simplicity
and concentrating on the essential. This was the period of the severe
"archaic" style in sculpture and of the beginnings of Attic tragedy.
Parmenides wrote epic hexameters, Heraclitus wrote prose in the manner
of the ancient maxims of wisdom. The solemnity of Parmenides' poetry
has its counterpart in the dignity of Heraclitus' prose. Within the traditional
forms, both devised a new style. There had never been poetry like that of
Parmenides. Even in form none of the older maxims equaled those of

Heraclitus.
34
PARMENIDES 35
j. Agreement and opposition. In antiquity they were regarded as adver-

saries. it was said, teaches being, Heraclitus becoming. This
Parmenides,
sounds though they had given opposite answers to the same question
as
(what is the ground of all things?); as though one had said: it is being,
forever identical and unchanging, and the other: it is eternal flux (panta
rhei). Actually, both disclose being as well as becoming. Parmenides' being
{to on) has its counterpart in the logos (or to sophon or the God) of
Heraclitus; unborn, imperishable being in the always identical logos;
Parmenides' distinction between truth and appearance in Heraclitus' hidden
logos. Through Parmenides apprehends the whole of being
insight (noein)
with disciplined thinking (phronein)
at once, the absent is also present;
Heraclitus participates in the clash of opposites, in which the one
logos is present and governs. The two thinkers' ideas are not mutually
exclusive. Both think what eternally is, but in different, parallel ways.
The one thinks being in logical identity, in the transcendent peace of always
identical perfection, the other in logical dialectic, in the transcendent peace
of the always identical law. The one finds the ground in identity, through
which contradiction is destroyed, the other in which is
contradiction,
transcended in the unity of opposites. A conflict between the two becomes
inevitable only if the claim of absoluteness is raised for their formulas.
They disclose, to be sure, very different casts of mind. In Heraclitus the
accent is on separation in on the task of apprehending being in
struggle,
opposites, of finding peace conflict, of gaining measure and dis-
through
cerning the law through thought. Parmenides dwells, from the outset, on
the peace of always identical contemplation.
Did Heraclitus and Parmenides know each other and did the conflict
between them help them to differentiate their ideas more sharply? Or was
the elder merely combated by the younger? Or did they, though contem-
poraries, know nothing of one another? There is no sure answer to these
questions. Even in our era with its highly developed communications, it
is two thinkers not to know each other. (Nietzsche never heard
possible for
of Kierkegaard, who was thirty years his senior.) All we know with certainty
is that Heraclitus and Parmenides lived at roughly the same time; the
difference in their ages cannot have amounted to more than a decade or
two. To our historical way of thinking, they are two independent but
parallel thinkers, inseparably linked by their disagreements as much as by
what they have common. The character of their thinking becomes
in fully
clear to us only when we consider them side by side.
4. Pure thought. Both move in the newly won area of pure thought.
Measured by the standards of definite, empirical object thinking, such think-
ing is incomprehensible. Its statements seem to say nothing. Others have
praised this mode of thinking, piously repeating its solemn figures, discern-
36 The Original Thinkers
ing in it the "revealed face of necessity" or an "illumination of fate," or

maintaining that its vision of being confers peace or heroic endurance in
the face of suffering and disaster. While not entirely untrue, such statements
falsify the thought of Heraclitus and Parmenides by representing
it as com-
plete.For what began in this philosophizing can never be completed as an

objective possession and always remains to be completed in existential reality.
Perhaps such heroism and peace of mind had a higher reality in those think-
ers than they have in the men of today. But their communication, as well
as their confirmation in thought, action, and day-to-day conduct, is a proc-
ess that can never be concluded.
5. Prophecy and will to power. The personalities of both philosophers

share a trait that seems to exclude the possibility of taking the truth they
discovered as anything but a beginning, extraordinary to be sure, but in this
form unrepeatable and, above all, not exemplary. This common trait is their
prophetic self-certainty. Though they invoked not the authority of God, but
the force of their own insight, this insight was total and overpowering.
Parmenides puts it into the mouth of the goddess and Heraclitus, though
invoking no divinity, deposited his work in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
Both saw the source of their truth not in the voice of God but in the compell-
ing power of thought. The essential is not obedience to a divine word, but
revelation through thinking. Having discovered the truth by their own re-
sources, they felt far superior to other men. Favored with an unprecedented
insight, with an absolute certainty that made all further questions superfluous,
they took the attitude of intellectual tyrants. They knew their utterances to
be the language of being. Through their mouth spoke Truth itself, inspired
by the goddess (in Parmenides' image) or by all-pervading world reason
(in Heraclitus' conception). They saw an unbridgeable gulf between their
insight into the ground of things and the manner of thinking common to
other men. Thus, though their writings show a desire to convince and in-
fluence, they stood alone, beyond communication. They demanded obedience,
not friendship. They realized the form of existence of the solitary aristocratic
thinker, enhancing the aristocratic privilege conferred by right of birth
with the new claim to intellectual superiority. The self-sufficiency bestowed
by their certainty of being implied the right to dominate all others through
the truth which they alone had recognized.
Their attitude toward other thinkers was one of boundless arrogance.
Heraclitus cites many illustrious names, all with the most violent condem-
nation. Parmenides mentions no names, but seems to have disposed with
the utmost contempt even of Heraclitus (if Bernays is right) or of Anaxi-
mander (if Reich is right). Their work is permeated by exclusion, antago-
nism, a furious aggressiveness. There is a despotic spirit in both men.
With all the greatness of their insight, they failed to understand the nature
of such insight.
PARMENIDES 37
The seduction exercised by them is reflected in their influence on modern

philosophy. Nietzsche's mimicry of pre-Socratic thinking, which led him
to his inventive interpretations, culminated in a monstrous self-assurance
(manifested, it is true, against the background of his mental illness and in
no way detracting from his real greatness). We can look at it with awe and
pity as on a unique historical phenomenon. But to imitate it today would
be ludicrous, despicable, indeed impossible.
6. Historical appraisal. What preceded Heraclitus and Parmenides is for

us historically interesting and emotionally stirring because it gives us a
glimpse of ancient ways of thinking, but the content, in so far as known
it is
to us, belongs to the dead past. It is Heraclitus and Parmenides who gave
us the first texts with which we can still With their
directly philosophize.
simplicity, they arouse inexhaustible thought. The elucidation of their mean-
ing confronts us as an endless task. Here we find propositions that are as
actual and timeless as only great philosophy can be.
Nevertheless, these two, the earliest philosophers whose writings still
exert an Whereas
influence, can also mislead. Anaximander brought about
a revolutionary upheaval in man's thinking attitude toward things and
examined all the possibilities with universal openness, these two limited
their scope to metaphysics which they proclaimed to be the only true knowl-
edge. In so doing, they succumbed to a new prejudice, magnificent in its
way but dangerous. For though their speculation was deeper and clearer
than any that preceded it, even that of Anaximander, they showed nothing
but incomprehension and contempt for all the thought which, by virtue
of its intellectual weight and creative potentialities, was pregnant with the
future, condemning it as pseudo-knowledge or false erudition, fortunately
for us, in vain. For in our temporal existence the only way to follow
the marvelous paths that Heraclitus and Parmenides pointed out is to
assume the tasks of mankind and not haughtily to brush aside the realms
of politics and science and close our eyes to the world.
PLOTINUS
I. LIFE AND WORKS

Plotinus (c. 203-270) lived amid the collapse of ancient civilization in a
period of transition when the beauty of the ancient world knew a last
flowering before entering the era of late antiquity, soon to be inaugurated
by Diocletian and Constantine.
We do not know exactly where Plotinus was born, nor have we any inkling
of his ethnic and social origins. He himself never mentioned his parents or
childhood. The report that he was born in Lycopolis, Egypt, did not make
its appearance until long after his death. The name Plotinus is Roman; he
spoke and wrote Greek, "often making mistakes in pronunciation."
At the age of twenty-eight he was drawn to Alexandria by his interest in
philosophy, but was dissatisfied until he heard Ammonios Saccas. "This
was the man I was looking for," he declared after the first lecture, and
stayed with him for eleven years. When thirty-nine, he took part in the
Emperor Gordianus' Eastern campaign in order to familiarize himself with
—
Indian wisdom. At the age of forty when Philip "the Arabian" was Em-
—
peror he went to Rome, where he organized conferences at which philo-
sophical texts were read and discussed, and gathered students and support-
ers. "When he was speaking, his intellect visibly illuminated his face, a
slight moisture gathered on his forehead. He spoke with fervid inspiration.

. . . He was far removed from Sophist grandiloquence, his delivery
suggested friendly conversation."
Plotinus "seemed ashamed of being in the body." When Amelius wished
to paint his portrait, he declined with the words: "Is it not enough to carry
about this image in which nature has enclosed us? Do you really think
I must also consent to leave, as a desirable spectacle to posterity, an image

of the image?"
He lived in Rome for twenty-six years, had wealthy friends whose estates
he was free to visit, was on friendly terms with the Emperor Gallienus and
his empress Salonina. Under their auspices a of philosophers —Plato-
city
nopolis —was to be established in Campania, under the direction of Plotinus,

but the project was not carried out. Distinguished men and women on the
point of death brought him their children to educate and entrusted him
38
PLOT NU S 1 39
with their fortunes to administer. "Consequently, his house was full of

boys and girls." He was called upon as an arbiter in quarrels, but never had
an enemy.
murder of Emperor
In 26S Plotinus' situation changed completely. After the
Gallienus, his school disintegrated. Some of his most important disciples
left Rome. Long a suflerer from leprosy, Plotinus fell mortally ill. He grew
hoarse and blind, his hands and feet festered. His remaining students
avoided him, "since he still insisted on greeting everyone at close quarters."
He was isolated on the estate of his friend Zethos in Campania. Only his phy-
sician went to see him. He attached little importance to the care of his body.
He died two years after Gallienus at the age of sixty-six.
Even Porphyry, in his biography, tells strange stories about Plotinus, re-
calling the lives of the saints: he possessed a superior knowledge of spirits.
He could identify a thief in a crowd. He could predict what would happen to
young men in later life. A certain Olympius attempted by the use of magical
formulas to bring down the harmful influence of the stars on Plotinus.
Plotinus saw what was happening and the harm fell on Olympius. An
Egyptian priest decided to conjure up Plotinus' daimon in the temple of
Isis. "When the daimon was called, a god appeared. Happy art thou," said
the Egyptian, "who hast a god for a daimon and no guardian spirit of low
degree." A friend came to see Plotinus on his deathbed. When Plotinus told
him he would try to make his "divine-in-us" rise up to the divine-in-the-
universe, a snake glided under the bed and disappeared into a hole in the
wall. Plotinus was dead. (The snake was one of the forms taken by the soul
as it left the room of one who had just died.) Plotinus' own writings show
that he was utterly indifferent to magic. But soon after his death his philos-
ophy was appropriated by magical and theurgic sects, who wove such
legends into his biography.
The wor\: Plotinus and two other disciples were said to have pledged
themselves to keep the teachings of Ammonios secret. The others had broken
silence. It was only late in life, at the age of forty-nine, that Plotinus, in
response to the urgent pleas of his students, began to write. After his death,
Porphyry collected his work. He divided it into six groups of nine treatises
(Enneads). The whole work was written during a period of seventeen years.
According to Porphyry, the chronological order is established for some of
the groups.
Some of the writings are didactic treatises, others are brief lectures;
some seem carefully constructed, others are long critical exchanges; some are
vivid descriptions of intellectual visions, others ask question upon question,
present possibilities, and leave almost everything undecided. This "inquiring"
style also expresses meditative action, the presence of the thinking soul in
the realm of the essential. The same metaphysical mood pervades all the
writings. Not infrequently the style takes on a note of religious solemnity.
In addressing the logical faculty of speculative insight, Plotinus adjures the
soul to remember its home. He deals with experience, the contempla-

eternal
tion of the beautiful, freedom of action, the movement of dialectical
thinking, and finally, incommunicable ecstatic union with the One. His
truth lies not in the abstractions of a schema, but in the power of concrete
discussion. He wrote as he thought (Brehier) and must have spoken as he
wrote. Hence the unusual persuasiveness of the texts.
Porphyry tells us that once Plotinus "had worked out his design mentally
from first to last ... he wrote out at one jet all he had stored in his mind, as
though copying from a book. He never looked over what he had written
his sight did not allow of it. His handwriting was slovenly; he misjoined
his words and cared nothing for spelling; his one concern was for the
idea." This manner of writing makes philological reconstruction extremely
difficult.
The form of Plotinus' communication is in keeping with the content

of his philosophizing. He never wrote a "system of philosophy." In a wealth
of detailed analyses he repeats the whole over and over, in different contexts.
n. DESCRIPTION OF THE PLOTINIAN "SYSTEM"
It will be useful at the outset to draw up a schema of the whole structure.

This schema recurs in nearly all the writings, though it is not the essential.
A knowledge of it will help us to understand Plotinus' basic philosophical
acts:
a. Matter and the One: The world is being. It is not self-grounded but is
an intermediate being between Above-Being and nonbeing.

Above-Being, the supreme, is unthinkable and hence ineffable. Plotinus
calls it the One, but goes on to say that it is neither the number one, nor the
one as contrasted with the other, nor the unity of a multiplicity, but the
One which as such cannot be thought, for any attempt to think the One
produces duality and multiplicity.
Nonbeing is matter. Like Above-Being, it cannot be thought. Thus both
have the same negative attributes: they are undetermined, formless, without
quality and without quantity. They enter into no category. But in contrast
to the Supreme One, the nonbeing of matter is not only without measure
and limit, but also unstable, passive, and always deficient. It is utterly poor.
The lowest level {bathos) of every single existence is matter and is utterly
dark.
Being emanates from Above-Being but is contingent on nonbeing. Orig-
inating in the One, the stream of existence flows downward, engendering
descending stages of being culminating in nonbeing. All beings are because
there is nonbeing; in order to be, they must contain nonbeing. Although
PLOT IN U S 41
matter is not, it is not nothing. In so far as it is, it is the falsehood of non-

being, which is present in everything that is.
b. The scale of beings: The scale of beings extends from the Above-Being of
the One to the nonbeing of matter; in its center is the soul. The soul looks
upward toward the One through the intermediary of the nous (the spirit,
the intelligible world of pure forms) and downward toward matter through
the intermediary of nature (the corporeal world). Thus there are five de-
scending principles: the One, the spirit, the soul, nature, matter. Being em-
braces the three middle stages: spirit, soul, nature.
In the looking-upward of rational insight, the soul sees the timeless, self-
sufficient world of forms, which taken together constitute a closed totality
(the cosmos of the spirit). These forms are called Ideas. They are the
archetypes of all existing things, and as such they are true Being, while
everything that comes after them is a mere copy, having only apparent
Being.
In its looking-downward, the soul becomes the world-soul which gives
life to nature as a whole, while individual souls give living unity to all the
many beings. Entering into nature, which is spatial and temporal, the souls
become in part spatial and temporal. But in their true Being they are above
nature, timeless and immortal. In the course of natural existence, the soul
is wrapped in veils and ultimately, in its lowest descent, is hidden from
itself, but its innermost essence remains indestructible.
c. The categories: Objective Being consists of the two remaining stages,

the intelligible world and the sensory world (spirit and nature) which are
known to us through their categories.As an intermediate link, the soul has
no own.
categories of its It isand knows only in terms of the two other
worlds above and below it. It knows the realm of the spirit through the
intelligible categories: Being, identity, difference, motion and rest (taken

from Plato's Sophist); it knows the realm of nature through the sensory
categories: space, time, quality, quantity, etc. (the categories of Aristotle).
Matter and the One, however, cannot be encompassed in categories, for
they are beyond thought.
Where existence is conceived in stages, there is a tendency to intercalate
more and more stages. This is what happened in later Neoplatonic thinking
with its endlessly expanding "geography" of spheres, realms,
and powers.
But Plotinus and only three hypostases:
states expressly that there are three
the One, the spirit, and the soul. Nature plays no part in his meditation on
authentic being. Natural phenomena are of no interest to him. Matter is

merely the ultimate limit of the emanations of the One.
Thus for Plotinus there are not two powers as in dualistic doctrines.
Light and darkness, spirit and matter, good and evil are not two independ-
ent, conflicting principles. In Plotinus' thinking of the One and the Other,
matter is the counterpart of the logos of spirit, not of the Supreme One.
For Plotinus there is only the One, whence beings are engendered and to
which they return in an eternal process.
d. Spirit, soul, nature are the three intermediate realms, the realms of being.
Though the one is above it, the spirit (nous) is true being. It is the timeless
life of the pure forms (archetypes or ideas). It is thought; therefore in the
spirit thinking and the object it confronts coincide; thinking and Being
become identical. The spirit does not think an Idea as something alien, but
as itself. It is self-consciousness. But since this self-thinking implies a
cleavage between thinking and its object, the spirit contains both the One
and the Other the : spirit is unity in multiplicity.
The spirit is praised as the most beautiful of all things. It dwells in pure
light. It embraces all being, of which the beautiful world of nature is
only a shadow. There is nothing unspiritual, dark, or unmeasured in it.
It leads a life of bliss.

The soul is a copy and product of the nous. In looking up at the nous,
the soul engenders nature, the cosmos. It is the creator of the world, the
animating principle of the itself immaterial and
temporal world, but
indivisible. As and majestically at rest. As individual
world-soul, it is eternal
soul, it inhabits astral gods, demons, men, animals, and plants. The world-
soul, which is also the soul that inhabits the astral gods, is immortal. For
it links beginning and end in rotary motion to form an eternal present. The
other individual souls contain a mortal and an immortal part. Having

taken on the husks of finite, temporal existence, which is perpetually coming
into being and passing away, they too are mortal.
In the soul everything is present, nature in its perception, the nous in its
thinking, the One in the dialectical transcending of all thought and in
ecstasy. But matter is present in not-seeing and not-thinking; when we peer
into the darkness of night, our seeing is a not-seeing.
Nature is the sensuous world situated in space and time, the corporeal
world that can be seen, heard, and touched. It is not matter, which is in-
corporeal, imperceptible, and unthinkable. Substances and bodies are matter
that has been already formed and so drawn into being.
Nature owes its existence in part to the eye of the soul and is itself an
—
unconscious seeing for its innumerable living forms are permeated by the
logos of the soul. Thus, though nature is without representations or con-
cepts, it sees into itself. It creates like an artist in accordance with ideas,
but without conscious images. The things and beings of nature are the
product of this silent seeing. It creates as a geometer draws figures, but it
does not design, the bodies take shape of their own accord. Its consciousness
is that of a sleeper: nature is a sleeping soul. This soul has brought forth,
and breathed life into, all the beings of the land and sea and air, as well
as the sun and the divine luminaries of heaven.
Individual things come into being and pass away according as the soul
PLOT NU S I 43
gives them life or departs from them. But the world as a whole does
not cease, because the spirit and the world-soul shine forever.
e. Descent and ascent: The question now arises: Why this descent from the
One? Why are the spirit, the soul, nature, matter? Plotinus' answers, though
abounding in formulations of the problem, ofTer no solution.
The One is motionless and self-sufficient. If there is something
a second
after it, it must come into being without any will or motion on the part of
the One. What comes after the One is an unwilled consequence. Those who
say that "the Creator decided at some time to bring it forth" are mistaken.
The "copy" has existed as long as the "archetype." In Plotinus there is
no Platonic demiurge who produces the world from matter while con-
templating the Ideas, nor a Biblical God who creates it from nothing, nor
does the world develop from eternal potentialities as in Aristotle. In
Plotinus die world comes into being by a process that was later termed
emanation. He himself had no concept for it, but merely set forth the
mystery in countless images:
The Other is like a radiance bursting forth from the One, like the light
surrounding the sun, or the heat radiated by fire, or the cold given of? by
a lump of ice, or the fragrance shed by a perfume. The greater the distance
from the One, the weaker becomes the light, until it loses itself in darkness,
emptiness, nothingness.
In another image, the universe flows from a source which feeds rivers
but never runs dry. Or it is which pervades the
like the life of a great tree,
whole, though its principle remains concentrated in the root and is not
dispersed. Or the One is compared to the center around which a circle
moves.
Other metaphors are based on generation, vision, and love: generation is
not a creation from nothing, or a fashioning out of some material, but the
mysterious process of transmitting life —the product is no less an independ-
ent being than is its source. A son is not an artifact depending for its
existence maker; he is an independent self, yet it was not himself but

on its
his father who brought him into being. Plotinus calls the One the father,
the nous the son, and the world-soul the grandson. But generation comes
to pass through vision. All Being is a product of seeing. Thus the One
engenders the nous. Standing still in order to see, it becomes nous and enters
into being. Looking upon the earlier stage as a prototype, each stage engenders
its copy in the following stage which sees in turn, vision engendered by
vision, and carries on the cycle. Descent-generation and upward contem-

plation are two aspects of the same process. To see is to love. The lovers
are the seers who strive toward the Ideas. Even the animals, in procreating,
are moved by the unconscious concepts within them. Generation, the act
of vision, is a drive to create many forms, to fill the universe. But every be-
gotten creature yearns toward the begetter and loves him.
Because the One is perfect, without need or desire, it overflowed and so
brought forth the world. But in overflowing the One incurred no loss
(like the sun, which remains unchanged despite the rays it sends forth).
Nor is any stage diminished in producing the next after it.
is simpler and better than the be-

In every stage, however, the begetter
gotten. The what follows it, but the product needs
principle does not need
the principle. Nothing is subtracted from the higher, preceding stage. Why
must the begotten be inferior to the begetter? It might be argued that, on
the contrary, the product can grow and become better, that generation tends
not downward but upward. Plotinus does not ask this question. But in
all his metaphors he gives us the answer. The light is inferior to its source.
Each transition from stage to stage has a character of own. The One its
is self-contained, eternally at rest, but something happens "around it." How

so?
The One is not spirit, is not "an intellectual Principle; how then does it
engender an intellectual principle? Simply by the fact that in its self-quest,
it has vision: this very seeing is the intellectual principle." The spirit should
not be derived from the One, but from the spirit itself. Thinking, the
spirit "begins as one, yet does not remain as it began, but unawares, as
though drunk with sleep, becomes many. It unfolds, because it wants to
possess all things."
From the nous the next step is to the world-soul and to nature. Looking
upon the archetypes in the Ideas of the nous, the world-soul engenders the
world without plan or activity, without sound or effort. Nothing escapes it.
Perpetually it regains its domination over conflicting things. For it is always

the All.
Plotinus conceives the process as necessary. What sort of necessity is
this? Plotinus replies: It was impossible that the All should remain at
rest in the intelligible as long as something other could come into being in
the hierarchy of things. Every stage engenders the stage below it. Only
matter, because it is without energy, engenders no ensuing stage. In achiev-
ing maturity and fulfillment, all beings engender something other, for
they are not content to remain within themselves. So it is with the One.
For "how could the most perfect remain self-set the first good how — . . .
could it grudge or be powerless to give of itself?"

Like all Plotinus' images and concepts, his notion of being as an unwilled
product of the Supreme One, which it is impelled by necessity to engender,
aims at something that cannot be attained in any image or concept. What
he has in mind is not a necessity superior to the One. For such a necessity
would be the source, more powerful than the Supreme One.
To each step downward in the generative process, there corresponds an
ascending movement: the contemplation of the higher stage, the love of
the begotten for the begetter.
But are all the lower stages in this ascending movement surpassed and
negated for the benefit of the highest? Does Plotinus hold that in the end,
PL0T1 NU S 45
when the reversed and evil overcome, the One will stand all alone in
fall is
and self-sufficiency? Not at all. If Above-Being were all alone,

infinite bliss
the world would have remained within it, hidden and formless; there
would be no beings.
Thus the world is a place of transition, situated at once in light and
darkness. It is beautiful and divine, because it originates in the One. It is
a shadow, a reflection, incomplete and full of failings, because it is every-
where vitiated by orderless matter, the untruth of nonbeing. In so far as
Being is formed, it is beauty, truth, the good; but in so far as every existent,
even the best, contains a vestige of unformed matter, it partakes of ugliness,
untruth, and evil.
Hence in Plotinus both are possible and true: love of the world's Being
in all its stages, as a revelation and reflection of the One (which in its
superabundance cannot but overflow), and the yearning to be free from the
world, to return from existence, considered as a shadow distorted by the
nonbeing of matter, to true Being and beyond it to the One, to cast off the
veil of illusion and become fullness of Being. (It would have been better, says
Plotinus, if the spirit had not unfolded its self; for in this unfolding, the One
was followed by the second, which ushered in the whole hierarchy of stages
and the cycle of the world.)
When Plotinus' thinking is thus set forth as a "system," it produces the

effect of a story in conceptsand images. But in the presence of these
logical relations and illustrative metaphors, one wonders: how does he
know all this? Nowhere is there an empirical or logical derivation from a
source. Is he, then, not merely spinning out fairy tales that bring no insight?
The system is pure invention and might have taken an entirely different
form.
The first reply to such criticism is that any such exposition of Plotinus'
system is in itself a distortion. His writings contain no such rounded

picture. We find the formulations, but always in different contexts and
modulations, Plotinus himself points the way to true philosophical insight
as follows
We should dwell where the One is present, which is none of all that
which comes after it; we should marvel and rest and behold. We should
perceive it in the things that are after it, its reflection.
We should pray. Asked why the One did not remain within itself and
how being grew from it, Plotinus says : "We should speak of it by invoking
God, by extending our soul in prayer when we alone confront Him alone."
This has been interpreted as meaning that Plotinus prayed God to grant
him insight. Not at all. He does not pray for anything; it is in prayer
itself, alone with the One, that he hopes to gain the presence which can
enable a man to speak meaningfully of the Supreme. This way of knowledge
does not begin with a theorem from which corollaries are derived, but
with a vision which remains its sole source and goal. It does not select
an object to be examined, but in the objective world of appearances finds a
fullness that transcends subject and object.
Plotinus teaches us to make our way through representations that are
transcended, to attain, through the things of the world, to that which is
not an object. "Call on God . . . and pray Him to enter. And may He
come bringing His own universe with all the gods that dwell in it." We
speak of the One, but we do not utter it. We do not have it by knowledge,
but we are not entirely without it.
He tells us to start from the experience of our own reality. "Even when
we call the One the cause, we are saying nothing of the One itself; we are
merely affirming something that comes to us, for something comes to us
from it, whereas the One is self-enclosed. We who circle around it, so to
speak, from outside, may only interpret our own experience, as we alter-
nately approach and fall away from it." "To the best of our ability, we
it
characterize it (the One), by something similar in ourselves. For in us, too,

there is something of it, or rather, there is no point at which it is not, for
those to whom it is granted to partake of it." In applying concepts to the One,
"we say nothing about the One itself, but seek merely to make it as intel-
ligible as we can to ourselves." We speak of the workings of the One after
the manner of mystics, who "know that they have something higher within
them, but do not know what it is."
This experience which Plotinus takes as his starting point cannot be

described as a psychological phenomenon; it draws all its light from
objectifying thoughts that do not attain the goal of their quest but circle
around it, deriving their meaning from it alone. This is not a psychological
knowledge of experiences or states, but an illumination of myself, the thinker,

in so far as I am in the realm of Being.
Here Plotinus presents a parallel to other thinkers with fundamentally
different positions. Plotinus does not know the One but his own experience,
which in a certain measure shares in the One; Luther rejects the theologia
gloriae (objective knowledge of God) in favor of the theologia crucis
(God's revelation, which shows us the way to Him) ; Kant perceives the
emptiness of all metaphysical knowledge and gives our knowledge of the
intelligible new depth through free action.
Plotinus' point of departure explains the methods employed in the
philosophical acts which we shall now retrace in attempting to understand
the content of his thinking:
1. Plotinus carries out operations of thought which transcend all definite
objects and every tangible form: from the multiplicity of beings to the one
Being, from many gods to God, from the spirit to its source, from the
intelligible to the unintelligible, from Being to Above-Being. Every being
and everything that is thinkable is transcended in a movement toward that

which is above and before it (toward the epekeina panton).
PLOT IN U S 47
2. This transcending is effected in a series of stages. The goal, an

ineffable ultimate experience, is always present as a point of reference. It
is called union with the One. In it culminate all the stages of knowledge.
3. The total process of transcending is composed of speculative operations,

all fundamentally the same but varied according to a wide range of cate-
gories. From life the eye is directed toward the true life, from forms to the
eternal forms, from motions to the first motion, from the many beautiful
things to beauty as such. Oriented by what is accessible, the way leads toward
that which is in principle inaccessible. Much use is made of metaphors,
images pointing to the archetype. "From the way the shadow of the Good
appears we must conceive what its archetype is like." As we approach the
cosmos of the spirit, we find this shadow playing around it. And once we
have "beheld the cosmos of the spirit (we) must inquire after the Creator
who has begotten so glorious a son."

4. In all the methods a single impulse is at work: the soul's drive toward
its source, which it finds in contemplation and love; in the recollection of
its origin; in self-purification. To attain this source is the soul's greatest
joy. It confronts two possibilities: ascent or further fall. Philosophical
thinking elucidates the alternative, showing the way and filling the soul
with beatitude, the loving vision of knowledge.

The instrument (but also the symbol) of this whole manner of thinking
is the systematic view of the universe outlined in our schema. In principle
it is always the same, though represented in many different ways. It provides
a frame for the various operations deriving from the traditional modes of
speculation.
In this philosophizing purely rational evidence is not yet the criterion of
truth.Wherever we stand, we look upward in love and yearning to some-
thing higher. Here we have an absolute consciousness, certain of itself,
seeking enlightenment through self-understanding, not the explanation of
one thing by another. Accordingly, we cannot find the truth of such think-
ing by logical operations or objective experience, which are merely its
medium, but only in our own Existenz; we agree or disagree in so far as

we perceive our own existential potentialities in it. In either case our under-
standing of it comprises a self-understanding. Without this existential test-
ing of its truth, a purely objective or historical exposition of Plotinus'

thinking must remain hopelessly alien from it, providing no contact or
the slightest glimmer of understanding.
m. TRANSCENDING AS A WHOLE
For Plotinus as for Plato the process of transcending consists of two steps.
The first transcends sense perception and attains to that which cannot be
seen but only thought. A visible triangle is never exactly identical with the
triangle of thought. Mathematical truth applies to the objects of an ideal

world. But this ideal world encompasses more than mathematical forms,
namely everything thinkable, everything that exists in thought. This ideal
world of necessary thoughts is the infinite world of archetypes, of which
the sensuous world discloses infinite copies.
Both the sensuous and the spiritual world are immanent; both are within
the range of man's perceiving and thinking. The first transcending step
from the perceptible to the intelligible, to that which can only be thought,
merely provides the starting point for the second step, in which not only
the visible is transcended, but the thinkable as well. In the world of the
thinkable Plotinus still finds no rest, but goes on to search for its ground,
its source. But this question cannot be answered by determinate thought.
Anything we can think belongs to the intellectual world we are trying to

transcend. Thinking, we take a step which is no longer thought, for as
thought it cannot stand up against the proposition that the existence of the
unthinkable is thinkable. Thinking presses to the limit that it cannot trans-
cend but, in thinking this limit, spurs us to pass beyond it.
What is Plotinus' goal? The unthinkable. "It is called the First, because
it is simpler and without need, because it is not manifold. ... It is un-
contained. ... If then it neither originates in another, nor is any sort of
composition, nothing can be above it." It is called the One. It is called the
Good. The soul strives toward it: "And as long as there is something that
is higher than what is present, (the soul) strives upward, but it cannot rise
above the Good."

The aim of this transcending is named: the First, the One, the Good.
But it is not what these words mean. And so Plotinus enjoins us: "Proceed
thus: if you say 'The Good,' add nothing in your thought: for if you add
something, you will diminish it by as much as you add." That is to say: to
name it does not make it thinkable. The mere statement "that it is One, is
false." Any notion that the unthinkable might be thought must be dispelled
by negative statements. It is described as needing nothing, possessing nothing,

supremely independent, existing for itself, unalloyed, removed from all con-
tingency and association. All these are negative statements, they say what
it is not. It is not being, not any existing thing, not thought, not self-
awareness, not life, not motion. Whatever we can think, we must say: it is
not this.
Over and over again Plotinus enjoins us: Take away all other things
when you wish to speak of the One or to achieve awareness of it. And when
you have taken everything away, do not try to add something to it but
ask whether there might be something that you have not yet taken away
from it in your thinking. Even Being is imputed to it only "under the
pressure of words." Strictly speaking, we may not call it "this" or "that."
It is not different from something other, and there are no differentiations
within it. It does not think, it is not mind, for, since it is unwanting and re-
PLOT NU S 1 49
lated to nothing outsideit, it has no need to think; nor does it think itself,
for in no differentiation or multiplicity, hence it has no self-

it there is
consciousness. However— and this is all-important what is not thought in —

thinking must not be interpreted as nothingness but rather as superabun-
dance.
For we are always repelled by the negative. "Should we," asks Plotinus,
"crow sceptical and suspect that it is nothingness?" And he answers: "As-
suredly it is none of the things whose primal source it is." The only reason
why it cannot be said to be being, or thinking, or life is that it is above all these.
It is what it is not, not because it is less, but because it is more than what it
is not. Thus Plotinus turns the "not" into a positive. Because the One is
more, it encompasses and does not exclude what it is not. "Yet it is not
unconscious, for all contents are in it . . . there is life in it ... it is a think-
ing turned upon itself, a kind of self-awareness; it signifies a thinking in
eternal immobility— different from the thinking of the intellect." Its nonbeing
is a superabundance: "The giver is not necessarily identical with what he
gives: . . . the giver is the higher, the given the lesser. ... If spirit is
life, the giver has given life, but he himself is more beautiful and of higher
value than life . . . the life of the spirit is his reflection, not his life."
What cannot be thought can also not be said. Thus discourse concerning
the unthinkable One is a perpetual saying and unsaying. To call it the
absolutely other is to inject the category of difference into it; in being
thought, the transcendent is reduced to immanence. Thus such turns of
speech as: it is it is "beyond all things," "it is entirely
outside of all categories;
different"; "more than" or "above"; it is the completion of all things
it is
all must be unsaid. Such locutions serve a purpose in the operation of
transcending, but in the end they must be dropped because of their inad-
equacy.
One way in which Plotinus unsays such statements is to point out that
what is said of the One does not apply to the One itself but only to the One in
relation to us, not to the One as such but from our point of view. "It is not
good for itself; it is the good for other things." When we "call it the cause,
we are not saying what it does, but what is done to us." Here the cause is not
a cause, but only seems so from the standpoint of the effect. The relation of
the One to us is not a relation, but only appears to be from our point of
view. Yet this unsaying unsaid, for Plotinus speaks most emphati-
is itself
cally of the One as that "from out of which everything else is and lives."
"All beings yearn for it, as though suspecting that without it they could not
be."
In speaking of the One Plotinus, carried away by enthusiasm, speaks
from the depths of his soul, but in so doing renounces the possibility of
knowledge. His imagination is inexhaustible in paradoxes: The First loses
nothing, since the cause does not dissolve in the effect — it causes things to
become but need not — it overflows but loses none of its fullness. The One
perseveres in perfect rest and does not look down to what comes after it.
It would be all the same had been no second. It remains
to the First if there
undivided, loses nothing, and wants for nothing. But that which has become
turns to it and looks upon it and is filled with it.
How differently Plotinus' thinking appears to us when we describe
it objectively as a system of the universe, and when we participate in the
transcending thought itself. Only in the actual progress of the ideas and
actualizations is the basic riddle of existence disclosed in the Plotinian
manner, but never is an answer found that can stand as a content of knowl-
edge.
Plotinus also calls the One, the ultimate transcendence, God. Everything
visible, everything thinkable, everything we and can apprehend becomes
are
subordinate to the godhead. This transcending of all immanence, all glory
and greatness in the world and of all spirit toward the divine is by no means
self-evident, much less the radicalism with which, in Plotinus, transcend-
ence is safeguarded against any attempt to think it, to bring it closer, to
touch or embody it. There is nothing self-evident about ascribing all depth
and power and making it the one and only center.
to this transcendence
But God in Plotinus is also called the cosmos of the spirit (nous) and
the world-soul; the heavenly bodies are gods, and there are also the demons
that fill the atmosphere. In accordance with the Greek tradition, Plotinus
imputes multiplicity to the divine. Transcending takes place within the
divine as within all being. And only in this transcending is Plotinus en-
raptured by that which is the goal of all his thinking, but which he cannot
think or utter and for which "God" is only one name among many. This
name, however, is not expressly unsaid, although this godhead cannot be
considered on the same level as all the many gods. No philosopher has
lived more in the One than Plotinus. But his One is not the living God of
the Bible, it is not moved by anger, is not a bringer of mercy and redemption.
Plotinus' God is infinitely loved but does not love in return. Everything is
through Him, but not by virtue of His will. This one God has no cult and
no congregation. The soul takes flight with the One-in-it to the Only-One.
The godhead is reached by means of an ethical life and, in philosophizing,
through a speculative dialectic that forbids all intelligible, and a fortiori
sensuous, fixation. Prayer is a philosophizing self-movement toward God.
For us everything depends on God, on the One: "We are in higher
degree when we move toward him; to be far from Him signifies a lower
degree of being." Life on earth is homelessness, exile. But this God is not
a personal being who turns to us in love. "The Godhead does not yearn for
us as though it existed for us; we yearn for it, we exist for it." Like many of
the great philosophers (Aristotle, Spinoza), Plotinus recognizes no love of
God for man, but only the love of man for God, which is the foundation of
all authentic life.
PLOTINUS 51
IV. THE STAGES OF KNOWLEDGE

The process of transcending toward that which cannot be transcended
passes through the stages of knowledge. Plotinus distinguishes perception
(aisthesis), understanding (logismos), and reason (nous). Perception comes
before thought. Understanding achieves knowledge in differentiation, by
proofs, inferences, and reflection; its knowledge is indirect. Reason sees
the unity of what has been One in the many, immediately

differentiated, the
and without reflection. What
beyond these three stages no longer par-
lies
takes of thought, it is more than thought; namely, union with the One;
every object vanishes and I myself with it; filled with the ground of all
being, both become one with it.
Thus thought occupies an intermediate position between Less-than-
thought and More-than-thought. What is thinking? It is a process which
distinguishes between itself and the object of thought and between one
object and another. Thought implies diversity.
In this intermediate sphere between sense perception and the unity
beyond thought Plotinus distinguishes mere understanding and reason,
spirit (nous). The understanding operates indirectly, through reflections
and inferences, it makes things with tools. Reason, on the other hand, be-
holds: it has immediate vision of the One in the many. As the Egyptians
see the thing itself in the hieroglyph, so vision apprehends its objects, not
by discursive thinking, but in a single act. In bringing forth the universe
the Creator does not think out one thing after another like an artisan
making things with his hands and with tools, but produces the whole at
one stroke. Such is the nature of man's vision when, transcending thought,
he apprehends the essence of things.
— —
But and this is crucial for Plotinus' thinking the goal is not achieved
in what would seem to be the highest thought, the vision of reason, the
thinking of the eternal forms or essences. For reason is thought and implies
otherness. The One of reason, copy of the undifferentiated One, is both
subject and object of thought; its objects are differentiated. Without duality-
cleavage and otherness— the One is silence. An immediate self-apprehend-
ing of the One would be "a simple, wholly identical act and would bear
no relation to thought."
Vision in Plotinus has two meanings: (1) the beholding of the essences
in objects, (2) union, beyond thought, with the objectless One. This union
is not achieved by thought; in it, thought is transcended and discarded.
Thus union with the One is also said to transcend vision.
To rise beyond thinking, beyond reason, beyond Being, to attain to the
One, that is the supreme possibility. It is the center of Plotinus' thinking,

and it is from this vantage point that we must seek to understand him. He
couches his experience of the One in such statements as the following:
i. "Often when from the slumber of the body I awake to myself and,
relinquishing the outer world, hold converse with myself, I behold a
marvelous beauty: then more than ever I am assured of community with a
higher world, I inwardly enact the noblest life and become one with the
godhead. . . . When after that sojourn in the divine, I descend to intellec-
tual activity, I ask myself how it happens that I am now descending and
how the soul ever entered into my body, although, even within the body,
it is the high thing it has shown itself to be."
2. The unioncompared to the experience of the adept who has left
is
the idols behind him and has become one with the divine in the inner
sanctuary (adyton). There beholding and beheld are one, perfect simplicity,
there is no object and no subject. "The beholder has become another, no
longer himself and no longer his own." But returned from the adyton,
he encounters the idols he had left behind him. "Thus these become the
second visions."
3. "But there is which he who has apprehended it
the truly lovable, with
and truly possesses it can remain united, for it is not veiled in flesh and
blood. He who has beheld it knows the truth of what I say, namely how the
soul receives a new life and needs no other. On the contrary, he must cast
off everything else, remain in this alone and become this alone. . . .
There we behold God and ourselves, ourselves as pure light, weightless,

becoming, or rather being, God."
When, having been one with true being, he returns to this existence,
"mindful of his state at the moment of union, he bears within him an image
of the One." But when he tries to speak, it will be of a realm outside him,
where there was absolute unity without otherness, "and that is why the
vision is so hard to describe." The difficulty is "that we cannot gain aware-
ness of the One by means of scientific knowledge or pure thought, but
only through a presence which is higher than knowledge." Hence it can be
encompassed neither "We speak and write only
in speech nor in writing.
in order to lead to it, For instruction serves only
to awaken, to indicate.
to show the way; if you wish to see, you yourself must do the seeing."
Plotinus devises increasingly penetrating images for what cannot be ade-
quately expressed.
The beholder was one with the beheld. Thus what took place "was not
really a beholding but more in the nature of a union," not with an idol or
a likeness, but with God Himself.
Such "beholding" is not thinking, for its subject and object are one.
United with the One, I do not think, nor does the One think. This "vision"
is greater than reason, before reason, above reason. Here the soul scorns
thought, which it otherwise loves so dearly. Satiated with thought, the

PL0T1NUS 53
soul, attaining to the intelligible realm of the nous, puts all thoughts behind
it.
Nor is this vision life or motion; it is a standing-still, disturbed neither

by anger nor by desire. In seclusion the soul is distracted by nothing, nor
turned toward itself. "There the soul is not even soul, because the One
does not live; it is above life."
Having entered into the perfection of the One, the soul "no longer
perceives that it is in a body. Nor does it call itself anything else, not
man, nor living creature, nor being, nor the whole."
What no longer vision, thinking, or life, Plotinus calls a standing-out
is
(e\stasis) from oneself, a giving of oneself, a growing-simple (haplosis).

It is a beholding no longer in successive parts, but "all at once." It can
"not be perceived with mortal eyes." Filled with God, the soul stands
serenely "in solitary repose and without change, nowhere deviating from
its essence, not even rotating round itself, everywhere standing fast as
though had become rest itself." "No longer itself nor belonging to
it itself,
it and belonging to the One it is one with it, communicable

arrives there to
no one apart from those who are themselves favored with vision." It is
in such terms that Plotinus speaks of the ineffable.

i. The impelling force: Through thought reason (nous) perceives what
is in it, and by intuition apprehends what is beyond it. Thanks to this
intuition, the soul is filled with love and yearning; transcending reason, it
becomes drunk in a way that is better than sober earnestness. The soul
beholds the One by muddling and dispelling, as it were, its intellective
faculty (reason, nous). Thus it attains to the One.
2. Plotinus compares: In the darkness or through closed eyelids our eye
can see a light that has no outside source but springs from within. It sees
unseeing, and it is then that it sees most authentically, for it sees light,
whereas other things, though light-like, are not light. "Thus reason, in
veiling itself from other things and withdrawing within itself, will see
unseeing; it something other, but a pure
will not see another light in
light of its own, which suddenly flares up from within."
3. Place and time disappear: When reason sees without seeing, when the
One is suddenly manifested, reason does not know where it comes from,
whether from without or within. And when the vision has passed, reason
says: It was within and yet not within. We must not ask whence. For
there no Whence. For it does not come and does not go; rather, it
is
appears at one moment, and at another it does not appear. It came like one
who does not come, for it was not seen as we see one who has come but
as we see one who has always been present. We must not try to pursue it,
but quietly, preparing ourselves for the vision, wait for it to appear as the
eye awaits the sunrise. Without coming it is miraculously here and nowhere;
yet where it is not, there is nothing! The soul in this life shuts itself off;
not so the One. —Only from its memory of the timeless Being in which it
forever partakes does the soul know of the One, in moments when time
is extinguished —such moments are not units of time. Here the soul finds
no "place," but spaceless presence. "He (God, the One) raises them so
high that they are neither in a place nor anywhere where one thing is in
another." The One is nowhere. "For what is not somewhere is nowhere
absent. ... If it is not absent from any thing and yet is not somewhere,
it must be everywhere, self -subsisting. It is whole and it is everywhere; no
thing has it and yet every thing has it, that is to say, it has every thing."
In all our thinking we involuntarily employ spatial images that are
often misleading. As Plotinus explicitly states, we posit a space and introduce
the One into it. Then we ask how it got there, assuming that it must have
come from above or below. But our vision of the One must be spaceless;
we must not situate it in any space whatever, whether eternally at rest
within it or recently arrived there; rather, we must presume that space,
like all other determinations, comes afterward. In thus thinking the space-
less One, we do not surround it with something. In our representations, to
be sure, everything takes on a spatial character and has its place, but in
reality space belongs only to the last stage of knowledge, the stage of nature.
4. "In the One there is no deception. What can the soul find that is
truer than the true? It is what it says, and it says this later; it says it
and it is not deceived in its well-being. Nor does it say this because
silently,
the body feels well-being, but because it has become what it was when it
was happy."
What Plotinus calls perfection, the source and goal, is for him absolute
reality, the highest stage, not Being, but before all Being. The soul knows
its authentic Being. It knows that its customary state of consciousness is a
decline. But in its participation in the source, it experiences deep satisfac-
tion: transcending everything that is, it experiences what has no further
goal beyond it. Plotinus' writings are an unexcelled record of this funda-
mental experience, which is understood and produced by philosophical
thinking. The experience he pursues is not one that is enjoyed as an
event in time; it pervades all the moments
and is the source of existence
of all meaning; it is which imprints finite
the absolute consciousness
consciousness. He actually experienced as a perfect whole what in this
immanent world we can know only in the duality of loving and loved,
beholding and beheld, that is, he experienced the goal that gives our im-
perfect yearning its direction.
This experience seems to permit of psychological description, but it is
essentially different from any describable psychological experience. It is not a

drunken clouding of consciousness nor a passing sensual euphoria. It is
a vision which presupposes intellectual activity, but is realized only when

we transcend reason, not when we sink beneath it. In my
most lucid, super-
lucid consciousness my certainty of belonging to a higher world ceases to
be a mere belief; this world becomes actually present. Such lucidity is not a
PLOT IN U S 55
state akin to sleeping or dreaming, from which I awaken to everyday
consciousness, which I take as the norm in attempting to interpret a puzzling
state. The reverse is true. This state is experienced rather as a waking from
the customary mists of existence into another existence, in which I rise
above my usual thinking, spatiotemporal experience.

Yet we are told that this state sets in at particular moments. This seems
paradoxical, for how can an experience which transcends all experience and
is by definition beyond time take place in time? It is Porphyry, to be sure,

who speaks of four definite instances. Plotinus himself tells us only that
he had the experience "often." What, according to Porphyry, would seem to
have been a rare, anomalous experience is, in the statement of Plotinus,
the natural reality, which gives all existence its meaning.
Though for Plotinus himself this experience transcends all experience,
it inevitably raises a psychological question once it is localized in time. We
inquire into its nature and possible causes and look for parallels. But in
Plotinus we find no trace of abnormal psychic states, no description of
abnormal sensations or visions, of involuntary seizure by an overpowering
force, no word of any symptoms that may have struck the attention of
those around him. He speaks of no artificial measures, no physical devices
or techniques of meditation, employed to induce states of ecstasy.
Ecstatic states and mystical experiences play an important part in the
history of all cultures. They are a field of psychological observation in
which certain basic forms of experience always recur. Plotinus' transcend-
ing of thought seems to differ from such experience. His accounts contain
the barest minimum of psychological phenomena and no psychopathological
indications whatever. One is impressed by the simplicity of his communi-
cation from the depths. What Plotinus describes is the summit of his whole
thinking. It is not an isolated, anomalous state, but the completion and con-
firmation of his intellectual life. Even without any special experience, local-
ized in time, it would still be an effective picture of the ultimate perfection
which is always present in transcending love and vision, as disclosed in
temporary psychological processes.
But if, as is possible, Plotinus' experience can be explained in psycholog-
ical terms, the question arises whether in Plotinus such experience, which is
also to be met with elsewhere, derives from his philosophizing a meaning

it would otherwise not have. For psychological whether universal or states,
abnormal, may may, by being interpreted

either be ignored as irrelevant or
in connection with a man's life, take on extraordinary significance. Thus,
after certain states are observed by psychological methods, the question of
interpretation remains, and this cannot be answered by psychological ob-
servation and experience. The question of meaning cannot be decided by the
methods of psychology. Seemingly identical psychological states may conceal
—
very different extra-psychological impulses one may prove to be an utterly
meaningless experience, while the other may be the beginning of a profound,
lifelong certainty. In Plotinus the realities of love and vision, transcending

the world and yet enacted in the world, derive their meaning from his
interpretation of his ecstatic experience. This interpretation is enacted in the
realm of the Supreme One, which, whether directly experienced or merely
constructed, derives its meaning from, and lends new meaning to, existential
experience in the world.

The knowledge are actualized in experience. They range from
stages of
lowest to highest, from unseeing perception of darkness to union with the
One. Are we then dealing with a subjective hierarchy extending from
sensory perception to unio mystica rather than with degrees of being, from
nonbeing to Above-Being? For Plotinus there is no such alternative of sub-
jective and objective. At every level like is recognized by like, and every level
is a human potentiality. Thus the scale of Being, from matter (nonbeing)
to the One (Above-Being), is actualized in the stages of man's knowledge.

Ecstasy as a state of consciousness corresponds to the One, a thought
construction situated beyond all thinkables. The stages of Being have their
correlates in the lower levels of knowledge; they stand in the same re-
lation to ecstasy as do the levels of being to Above-Being. As in conceptual
thinking the One is not cogitated in itself but only in its derivatives; as in
the temple cult the formless godhead of the adyton is manifested only in-
directly through the divine images, so it is only through love and vision,
as enacted in the world, that the ecstasy of hendsis {unio) becomes acces-
sible to retrospective and prospective self-awareness.
V. SPECULATIVE TRANSCENDING
To philosophize is to think. The thinkable is an intermediate realm at
whose limits the unthinkable is encountered. If this limit is surpassed in

moments of union with the One, such moments are arrived at by thought,
and, as long as man is engaged in temporal existence, they are followed by
a return to thought.
For Plotinus thought has no other purpose than such union with the
One. Consequently he seeks knowledge of the things of this world, not
for their own sake, but only in order to transcend them. But this itself re-
quires a wide range of thought in the world. A philosopher should "not re-
duce the divine to a point. God has revealed Himself in breadth and fullness."
Man cannot abide in the One. Accordingly, all recorded philosophy consists
in exercises of thought, schematic images,and constructions of total Being.
All these serve as guides by which to arrive at the One and, on returning,
means by which to retain the presence of the one and only essential.
In Plotinus we find three main elements, whose consequences are inter-
twined in his metaphysical thinking: (1) a system of categories peculiar
PLOTINUS 57
to him (the preparation); (2) methods of categorial transcending (the

principles of a thinking that shatters against the unthinkable) ; (3) a think-
ing in images of the All (rest in objective contemplation).
1. The categories: What I think and have before me as an object "is." The
self-evident appears to me as "Being." But what "is" Being? With this ques-
tion I turn away from objective, self-evident thinking to examine the mean-
ing of Being in all that is thought and thinkable. I set out to elucidate Being,
without new objective knowledge. Plotinus supports Aristotle's thesis "that
Being is not synonymous in all things." The categories serve to distin-
guish and classify the different kinds of Being. The purpose of each category
is to characterize a mode or class of Being, for example, substantive Being,
qualitative Being, quantitative Being, etc. The statement that something is
(or the term Being) does not always mean the same thing. But is there a
total body which develop coherently from a principle and can
of categories
be conceived as parts or classes of the one Being?
What may be called Plotinus' doctrines of categories is on the surface an
aggregate. He found doctrines of categories originating in Plato, elaborated
by Aristotle, modified by the Stoics. In his system, he stresses only one
original point. He puts forward a radical critique of all his predecessors
(with the exception of Plato) : "In their classification they do not speak of
the intelligible; thus they did not attempt to classify all modes of Being, but
disregarded the most important." For Plotinus there are only two classes
of thinkable Being: the sensory and the intelligible. Intelligible Being is
Being par excellence, archetypal Being; sensory Being is only reflected and
secondary. In considering every category, we must ask to which class of
Being it applies, the sensory or the intelligible, or to both, whether it is
rooted in one and transferable to the other, or whether it is specific to the

one and not transferable.
In Plotinus only these two levels of Being are subject to the categories.
They are encompassed by nonbeing and Above-Being, which cannot be
grasped in categories. Nor has the soul any category of its own, it occupies
a middle position in which everything, from Above-Being to nonbeing,
comes together in a totality. But of course Plotinus requires categories
when it comes to thinking this middle position and describing the soul.
The question arises: Do other categories than those occurring in the sensory
and intelligible world crop up in the process ?
Plotinus' doctrine of categories is a composite of Plato and Aristotle. To
the intelligible world pertain the five categories of Plato's Sophist: Being,
identity and difference, motion and rest; to the sensory world apply the ten
Aristotelian categories (in particular, substance, quantity, place and time,
action and passivity, relation).
The division of the categories into those of the sensory and the super-
sensory world cuts across another classification: on the one hand the catego-
ries that reside in the thing itself (motion, rest, quality, quantity, etc.), on the
other hand, the subjective categories (the \ategoremata), namely, the
categories of relation.
The two categorial worlds are not parallel. The categories of the sensory
world disappear in the intelligible world and are not transferable to it. Those
of the intelligible world, however, are present in the sensory world, but not
in the same way —the difference is that between archetype and copy.
In the intelligible world the fundamental categories are identity and dif-
ference. They occur also in the sensory world, but here they signify estrange-
ment, the separation of the many things from one another, while in the
intelligibleworld the opposites are not only logically connected, they are one.
This transformation of one and the same category from intelligible arche-
type to copy, that takes place in the sensory world, is brought about by space,
time, and matter. Free from space and time, the intelligible categories subsist
in the unity of opposites. Here, consequently, there no separation among is
things; they are not isolated from one another and do not clash with one
another. With space comes separation, with time generation and transience.
In the sensory world, matter is the principle of formlessness which disrupts
the formed figures, and of separation which dissolves their unity. The things
of the sensory world are not only thought but must also be perceived.
Thought and being are no longer identical.
2. Categorial transcending: This doctrine of categories is itself a means of

transcending from the sensory to the intelligible. But this transcending, still
within the realm of the thinkable, is only the first step in his doctrine of
categories.
The next and final step consists in a transcending to the unthinkable,
a thinking of the unthinkable. This is possible only if the thinker's orienta-
tion in the thinkable is such that the thinkable becomes a jumping-ofT
place. The thinkable can be transcended only with the help of elucidated
thinkables. In this transcending the thinkable world must shatter, but this
does not mean that thought gives way to a confused stammering; the think-
able is surpassed by the methods of dialectical speculation.
Thus Plotinus does not content himself with the orientation in the think-
able world provided by his system of categories. He makes use of other
categories, borrowed from traditional philosophy, which are not explicitly
included in his doctrine. These are: form and matter, reality and potentiality,
cause, life, and others. Plotinus has given us an abundance of speculations
in this direction. A few examples:
Unity: Everything that exists in the world is a unity of many. The amazing
principle that makes a thing one must be fundamental. "All beings are
beings by virtue of unity. What could exist at all except as one? Neither an
army, nor a chorus, nor a flock can be without unity, nor is there any house
or ship without it. The same is true of plants and animals, each of which
PL0T1NUS 59
forms a unity." Without unity these — army,

all chorus, flock, house, ship,
plant, animal —cease to be. "Health, too, is the condition of a body acting as
a co-ordinate unity. Beauty appears when limbs and features are controlled
by this principle, unity; moral excellence is present when a soul acts as a
concordant total, brought to unity."
His wonderment at this universal unity, through which each being—in
itself a multiplicity —becomes a thing, the mystery of this "one out of many,"
leads Plotinus to the transcending leap: each particular unity comes about
through an absolute One, a principle of unity. It is through the transcendent
One that every existing thing is one.
No unity in the world of existence is the One. Rather, each thing or being
derives its rank in the scale of reality from its particular mode of being-one.
"Among the things that are said to be one, each is one in a particular way,
according to its nature." Thus the unity of the soul varies with its rank and
authenticity, but even the highest, most authentic soul is different from the
One and is not the One itself. Similarly, things are nearer to the One or
farther away from it according to the manner of their unity. "The discrete,
a flock, for example, is fartherfrom the One, the continuous is closer to it;
the soul is in still closer bond with it." Things partake of the One, they are
not the One itself. "When we apprehend the unity of plants, i.e. the endur-
ing principle, and the unity of animals and the unity of the soul, and the
unity of the all, in each case we are apprehending what is strongest and most
valuable in those things."
Transcending all modes of unity in the thinkable world, Plotinus arrives
at the one itself (hen) and questions it. At this point begins his speculative
dialectic: What one thinks in the category of unity ought to be transcendence
itself. But once thought, once conceived as a category, the One always takes
on a finite meaning: The One is opposed to the other; the number one is
opposed to the numerical series; the one that makes many into one is opposed
to the many. In any of these finite meanings, the One is no longer the tran-
scendent One. In each case it ceases to be the absolute One, for it is always
at the same time not-one, because it is connected with the other, with the
numerical series, the multiplicity of the manifold. Consequently Plotinus

discards every finite meaning of the One, which he retains only as a name
(hen) for something which defies all thinking in finite meanings.
The absolute One is necessarily beyond the One and the Other, beyond
numbers, beyond multiplicity; this Unity is the source of all modes of
unity, including the oneness of the number One. But even to speak of the
source leads to a finite categorial manifestation of the One, which, though
useful as a means of expression, must be surpassed at every step.
This form of transcending thought, which negates all finite con-
tents, is frequently met with on the summits of speculation. Kant conceives
of the unity of transcendental synthesis as the principle of all categorial
formation, but goes on to say that this unity is not the category of unity;
it is what makes the category of "unity" possible. Similarly Plotinus calls
upon us to think by means of a category (unity) what is not itself within

the category. In the mere name of the One the category is left behind, but
perhaps the name thereby takes on a richer meaning. Plotinus transcends
from the category of identity (tautotes, which can also be translated as
unity) and difference (heterotes) to the unity that is the ground of both.
Schelling will speak of the unity of unity and opposition, Hegel of the
and nonidentity (difference). The unthinkable
identity of identity is circled
around with formulations: the One and the Other are not each for itself,
rather, the One is with itself in the Other; clarifying one another, they are
a totality; thinking and what is thought, subject and object, are not
differentiated.Here we have a rich and complex world of logical thinking,
which always derives its meaning from its one goal: to shatter against un-
thinkableness, which alone touches upon the essential.
Form and matter: Thanks to the artist, the shapeless marble takes on form
as a statue. By analogy, all perceptible being is considered as a whole,
consisting of intelligible form and the matter to which it gives shape. In
every object of thought, even in mathematical figures and numbers, a
distinction is made between form and matter. The opposition proves to
be universal. In every existing or thinkable thing the two factors are
present, but in an ascending scale, so that what in one case is form becomes
matter in relation to another form (marble is in itself formed matter, but

becomes matter in relation to the form of the artist). Using this pair of
categories, form and matter, Plotinus transcends in two steps:
a) From the sensory to the intelligible: All existents are form and matter.
"The lowest part of every thing is its matter, for which reason it is utterly
dark." But the existent is either intelligible, eternal, free from time and space,
or else it is sensuous, coming into being and passing away in time and space.
Hence there are two matters. The darkness of the intelligible world differs
from that of the spatiotemporal, sensory world. "The matter pertaining to
the two worlds is different, and likewise the form." For the divine matter
that receives the definition of form has itself a definite, thinking life.
Earthly matter receives definition, but it does not take on life and thought,
it is formed but dead. In the intelligible world matter is wholly formed, in
the sensory world a part of it is recalcitrant to form. Intelligible matter lends

itself only to the higher principle; sensuous matter contains an element of
resistance. In the intelligible world matter is everything at once, there is no
form it cannot take, for it has everything in itself. Sensuous matter is
everything possible by turns, but in each case it is only a particular thing.

Intelligible matter is eternally the same, sensuous matter takes on ever new
forms.
The essential difference between archetypal, intelligible matter and ectypal,
sensuous matter is this: "There above, quasi-matter is also form, just as the
soul, too, is form, yet in relation to something other it is matter."
In the intelligible world form and matter are equally eternal. They are
PLOT N U S 1 61
both created in so far as they have a source, increate in so far as their source
is not situated in time.
Beyond form and matter: By way of form Plotinus arrives at what
b)
is no longer form, because it is without matter, the Supreme One. By way
of matter he arrives at what is no longer matter, because it is without form,
the nonbeing of matter. Plotinus transcends the form-matter relationship
by dissolving it.
These two processes of transcending have one thing in common. In both

thought takes a step that is an end of thought. In both the unthinkable is
ineffable, formless. "What is this nonexisting thing? We must depart from
it in silence and, leaving our opinion uncertain, cease to inquire further."
This statement applies to both directions of transcending.
When I think, I think in terms of form and matter. In transcending I
strive to think pure form and the mere matter of nonthinking. What is
thought in this way is outside of all being. But at the opposite poles, Above-
Being and nonbeing are named.
But since all existents are rooted in something that is not an existent,
the nonexistent cannot in either case be nothing. The nonbeing of matter
is not nothing (not an ou\ on but a me on). Plotinus writes: "But the
nonexistent is not absolute nonbeing, but only something other than Being;
it is as nonexistent as a copy of Being, or far more nonexistent." So much
for matter. Above-Being, the One, is also called nonbeing (me on). The
"above" indicates the direction of transcending; in content it too is a
negation of being: "This miracle confronting the mind is the One, because
it is nonbeing (me on)." The same operation of thought leads to opposite
extremes.
Where thought is transcended, the One is apprehended by more-than-
thinking, in fulfillment by e\stasis, hapldsis, henosis. Contact with matter,
on the other hand, is achieved neither by sensory perception nor by thinking,
but by a less-than-thinking, an "inauthentic thinking" (Plato), as when the
eye sees darkness.
The essential difference lies in what I myself am in the two opposite
processes of transcending. In confronting matter, I think unthinking; with
the undefined within me, I think the undefined outside me; I am lost. When
I confront the One, the failure of my thinking raises me above all thinking.
For Plotinus true transcendence is disclosed only in the One and in the
soaring of the spirit, and not in the other direction, which is characterized
only as nonbeing, deficiency, privation. The parallel between the formal

operations leading to failure in both directions might admit of the notion
that, concealed in this outward polarity, the one transcendence occurs in
both directions. But there is no explicit statement of this notion in Plotinus.
Potentiality and actuality: Logical impossibility (the contradictory) is

distinguished from what is really impossible (for lack of foundation in
reality) and a corresponding distinction is made between logical and real
potentiality. What is logically possible may not be really possible. Real

potentiality is considered as passive matter, capable of receiving form, or
as inactive energy or latent capacity; these real possibilities are themselves
reality, but they are not fulfilled reality.
We seem to be transcending when we conceive the totality of being as

the totality of potentialities, from which actuality springs. Here it is assumed
that all actuality is possible, but that every potentiality is not actual. Plotinus
follows this line of reasoning in a first step : "The Supreme was beyond Being.
It is only the potentiality (dynamis) of all things; their actuality begins with
the Second (Spirit)."
But Plotinus' speculative transcending culminates in a radically different
answer to the question concerning the First: The One is self-sufficient,
perfect, undivided. "For no one will say that there is a potential One and an
actual would be absurd, in the realm of essential reality, to posit
One. It
different classes of nature by distinguishing between potentiality and actu-

ality." In other words: at their source, beyond all existents, potentiality
and actuality are one. A logical relation (potentiality and actuality) serves
as a metaphor for something unfathomable. In seeking to express an
intuition of the unfathomable in terms of a thought content, we must avoid
the distinction between potentiality and actuality that is indispensable in
our thinking of Thus we arrive at the logically absurd proposition
existents.
(for which Cusanus coined the word "possest") that potentiality and actu-
ality are identical.
It is only from our own standpoint, as from existence in the world we

look upon the source, that we see the source as the anterior potentiality,
followed by the actual existence of the world. As though it were possible
to occupy an outside vantage point, from which to survey the source and
the process of the world's unfolding, we even go so far as to suppose that
our world achieved actuality by virtue of a choice from among the totality
of potentialities present in the source. Plotinus does not go to such lengths,
though he does allow himself to consider the process from our point of
view. "While the Supreme subsists in its own nature, a second energy takes
on independent existence." What is true of all existents
—"A part of the
energy of each thing isBeing and a part moves outward
contained in its
—
from its Being" applies equally to the emergence of the spirit and hence
of all existents from the One. But whatever Plotinus thinks in this connec-
tion is overshadowed by the true transcending in which thought shatters
against the identity of potentiality and actuality.
The ground: Every thought content is subject to the questions: Why?

Whereby ? Whence ? To what end ? "Ground" is the category of the answers
to such questions.
In response to the question: What is the ground of all Being? Plotinus
answers: That which is beyond Being. And if asked: Whence this Beyond-
PLOT IN U S 63
Being?— he replies: In the source, Being and the ground of Being are one.
Further questioning is futile. In other words: The category of the "ground"
becomes a form of transcending by virtue of the idea: "ground of itself."
For the understanding this idea is a contradiction or a vicious circle. For
a ground is no longer a ground when it is said to be identical with what it
grounds. By eliminating the questions "whence" and "why," this idea in
transcending encounters the ungrounded Being which, precisely because it
is ungrounded, ceases to be Being and becomes the ground of Being. This
ground of Being cannot be thought as a knowable thing. For then the

understanding, which questions each thing as to its ground, would be
right. Since the understanding looks upon everything that exists for it, that
is, every thinkable, as an object, it must refuse to eliminate the why and the
whence. Either it must deny the object and rightly so when asked to —
—
objectify the unthinkable or it must inquire further as to its ground.
Whatever object is set before it or created by it, the understanding cannot
stop questioning.
The idea of the unthinkable is possible only through the failure of the
understanding. This statement is itself a tautology. Its meaning is not
apprehended by the understanding, but through the failure of the under-
standing, by reason. For the understanding it is nothing; it is fulfilled from
out of another source. The transcending idea, an impossibility from the
standpoint of the understanding, posits two entities, being and the ground
of being, and goes on to say that they are not two but one. By way of
clarifying this idea, Plotinus circles around it with the help of other
categories —contingency, necessity, freedom, selfness.
"Whathas its ground in itself" is not contingent precisely because it —

has ground in itself. Nor may we say that it is necessary, for it is free,
its
because it owes its Being to itself. But then again it does not possess
freedom, because it is the ground of freedom, not free but something
more than freedom. It is situated beyond those modes of being which we,
in connection with existent things, regard as contingent, necessary, or
free. It is itself. Plotinus has impressive formulations of all these ideas.
Contingency: Concerning the "One," the "First," we are not justified in

saying: "That is how it happened." The First cannot be contingent, for
contingency "prevails in the derived and the many." Contingency "comes
from the Other and first makes its appearance in the world of becoming."
The First, which has nothing outside it or before it, might be called
contingent if measured by a preceding, thinkable necessity, such as a
natural law or a rational plan. But such a law or plan does not precede the
First but follows from it.
To speak of the contingency of the First can be meaningful only if the
category of "contingency" is disrupted. The "contingency" of the First
would not be an accident obstructing the above-mentioned laws, but would
be something preceding and conditioning them. What logical thought,

which transforms everything into the thinkable, regards as contingent
because it cannot be derived, would then become meaningful, the
source of necessity as well as freedom; it would be the contingency of all
natural laws and laws of freedom.

Contingency is what cannot be understood on the basis
the category of
of any necessity or rationality.But in the world contingency is an expression
of failure to understand for want of the knowledge that is indispensable in
the finite world. In transcendence it becomes a symbol for the fullest meaning
of the incomprehensible.
Necessity: But if we now conceive of the One as necessity, in contradistinc-

tion to contingency, the proposition will be: It is not by chance no other
than what what it is by
it is; it is necessity. But by this definition, it would
again lose what makes it the First.
It did not have to be, because it was the source of everything that had to
be. It did not have to be; rather, everything else, including necessity, had
to wait for it.
It would be wrong to say that the First is not master of its own becoming,
if only "because it never became." But in no respect may we say that "this
first nature is not master of what it is; that it does not take what it is from
itself; that it does or does not do what it is compelled to do or not to do."
For it "is not restrained by necessity; rather, it is itself necessity and for
other things the law." But it would also be wrong to conclude that this
necessity brought itself into existence: it does not even exist, for all existence
came into existence after the First and for the sake of the First. The First
is what it is, not because it cannot be different, but because it is the best.
Plotinus finally arrives at the following formula: "The Good created itself.
For if the will sprang from the Good and is its work, the Good provided
its own hypostasis. Consequently it is what itself willed." Is the First then
freedom ?
Freedom: Freedom would then seem to be the category appropriate to

the First. But the category of freedom has something incomprehensible
about it, which sets it apart from all those categories which make objects
of knowledge possible. Thus it is the principle of an entirely different group
of categories. That is why in reference to the First Plotinus speaks very
differently of freedom than of the other categories, but also why he ulti-
mately withdraws this category along with the others, so resolutely safe-
guarding the unthinkable ground of all things against all determination.
The first step: Rising up from our own freedom, we think the perfect
freedom of the First: We know ourselves to be free, but divided. We are
composite, not an original substance (ousia), "hence we are not masters of
our own substance . . . substance is one thing, we are another . . . sub-
PL0T1NU S 65
stance governs us. . . . But since in a way we ourselves are this substance
that governs us, we may be called masters of ourselves." From our freedom
we take the step to the freedom of the One. "That which is wholly what it
is, at one with its substance, is governed by its own Being and no longer
contingent on something else." Undivided, it is perfectly free. The One
"is inconceivable otherwise than willing to be what it is. It coincides with

itself, for it wills to be itself and is what it wills."
In the second step, the transcending continues, but the positive statements
about the freedom of the One are withdrawn. No more than any other predi-
cate is the predicate "free" applicable to the One. Like all other formu-
lable concepts —the beautiful, the venerable, thinking, or Being—free will and
freedom are One. For freedom implies effect on some-
also posterior to the
thing else, it implies that something else exists, and that the effect, if free, is
unobstructed. But the One must be posited outside all relation.
These two steps are repeated: Our consciousness of freedom resides in
our striving toward the Good. If freedom is striving toward the Good,
we cannot deny freedom to that which is itself the supreme Good. It would
be still more absurd to deny freedom to the Good itself, the One, on the
ground that it remains within itself, feeling no need to move toward some-
thing other. But if we say that the freedom of the One is directed toward
itself, what we know as our freedom vanishes. We choose ourselves on the
basis of models and standards. But the One cannot be thought of in this way.
"Even if we assume that it chooses what it wishes to become, that it is free to
transform its own nature into something other, we are not entitled to
suppose that it would wish to become something other." For "Where there
is no two-as-one, but only One —
there can be no self-mastery." "The Good is
the willing of itself; it chooses itself, because no other is present to exert a
necessary attraction upon it."
Our choosing and willing of ourselves must have its ground in the First,
but it is not in the First. The First is "the truly self-governing power which
is what it wills," or rather, as Plotinus makes haste to add, "which relegates
its will to the world of existence, whereas in itself it is greater than all willing
and leaves willing behind it."
Itself: The One which "in a manner of speaking creates itself, rests on itself,
and looks upon itself," "has nothing other, but is itself alone." "Other things
are in themselves inadequate to being, but even in its isolation this (the One)
is what it is." Just as it is above reason, it is above freedom and independence.
What for us finite rational beings is a formula for evil (Richard III: "I am
I") becomes thought the supernal principle which is the
in transcending
source of personal, loving, free life; yet it is not this life itself, but more than
this life, its ground. "Thus everything came forth from a source which did
not reflect but all at once provided the ground and with it being." This
First "is itself the ground of itself, through itself and for its own sake; for
it is originally itself and superessentially itself." "Itself": that is the last

word.
The formulas for this being which is alone and entirely itself, but lacks
all determination, hence every predicate, are tautologies: "It is what it is"
(as Yahweh says: "I am

am"), that is, it has no determination, be-
that I
cause all determination applies to something particular, ensuing, posterior.

"Concerning what thus has not issued from itself, but everlastingly belongs
to itself, we may say in the most eminent sense: it is what it is." It is unique
in its kind, but not because there are other kinds beside it, "but because it is
itself and well pleased as it were with itself, and has nothing better than
itself."
In human existence such transcending thought kindles that spark of the

self which in all flux and dispersion knows itself to be itself through identi-
fication with a Being that is beyond all Being, untouched by all the comings
and goings of existence, not even subject to the timeless intelligible cate-
gories, but theground of these too. Like is recognized by like. Accordingly:
"If each thing makes itself into something, it becomes clear that that [the
One] is primarily and originally a principle whereby all other things can
be through themselves."
All questioning into the ground of the One takes place in the shattering
category of the ground that is groundless. "It did not come in order that
you should ask: How did it come? What fate brought it about? For before
it there was neither fate nor chance."
Life: Plotinus sees life in plants, animals, man. Happiness is the lot of those
who live in higher degree: In the world of existence, the best is the authentic
and perfect life. The question of what this life is points to the supersensory
source. Though experienced and seen in this world, life has its source in the
intelligible. If I wish to understand life, I must transcend toward the intel-
ligible: the perfect, authentic, and real life resides in intelligible nature; all
other life is imperfect, a mere reflection of life, incomplete, impure. This

perfect life is the life of the nous, it is itself thought. In the descending scale
of life as well as of thoughts, the degree of darkness increases. But the "bright
and first life and the first spirit are one. A first thought then is the first life,
and the second life is a second thought, and the last life is a last thought."
But in transcending toward the original life, the philosophical eye sees how
"vital energy extends everywhere and is nowhere absent." Existence is per-
meated by life, it is not dead, but life diminishes by degrees in a scale descend-
ing to the dead. Dead is what cannot create something else, as for example
the last concept, and above all matter: even when informed, it does not
"become a living, thinking thing, but a kind of decorated corpse."
Because the true life is the first life, the immaterial life of the soul in the
nous, it does not die. But life belongs to the existent, i.e., to the intermediate
realm between Above-Being and nonbeing. Hence life goes beyond itself,
but in two opposite directions: toward More-than-life in the One of

PLOT IN V S 67
Above-Being and toward death in the nonbeing of matter. Hence the am-
biguity of death, which ambiguity is annulled in transcending: for death
is more and less than life, the fullness of Above-Being and the emptiness
of nonbeing. Life rises to fulfillment in the transcendent source of life
and in death becomes nothingness.
It would be interesting to develop this speculative transcending into a

comprehensive system. Instead, we shall have to limit ourselves to a few
aspects that may clarify the examples cited above.
Plotinus' classification of the categories into those of the sensory and those
of the intelligible world allows him to feel at home in the intelligible cosmos
of eternal forms. We do not conceive this cosmos of Ideas as something
strange and alien; rather, it is present in our thinking of the intelligible.
The intelligible cosmos is not an object for us; rather, our thinking par-
ticipates in it. If Being is present in thinking and pure thought strikes at
the heart of Being, logical structure becomes the structure of Being. Think-
ing in the categories apprehends the essence of Being.
But all this takes place in the vestibule. The true transcending, the part
of Plotinus' thinking that is not (like the differentiation of the two catego-
rial worlds) a didactic exercise but a fundamental operation of thought, is
something radically namely the striving to go beyond both groups

different,
of categories, beyond the sensory world and the cosmos of the intelligible
to Above-Being and nonbeing.
The methods employed in practice, though Plotinus never sets them forth
with full systematic awareness, are as follows
Certain categories are involuntarily absolutized (unity, the ground, poten-
tiality, life, etc.) so for a moment take on a depth that surpasses their
and
actual meaning, though they were possessed of real existence. The
as
transformation of a category into the ultimate ground of all things annuls
its determinateness and qualitative particularity. But since, objectively con-
sidered, the category remains a determinate category, since as such it is only

a false absolute, thinking in this category takes on a form in which every
statement is destroyed by an inner contradiction, or else antagonistic catego-
ries are posited as identical. The rigid categories of the spiritual cosmos
take on a fluidity (or surpass and destroy themselves) by becoming the
basis of transcending operations leading to the One.
Whatever category is employed in the thinking of transcendence, it is
inapplicable as a determinate category, while in becoming indeterminate

it ceases to be thinkable. "Even if we were to say, it is the Good and the
simplest, we shall, though speaking the truth, be making no clear statement,

as long as we have no point of support for our thinking." But in respect of
our thinking, such a "point of support" is at once the condition of its
objective clarity and the germ of its speculative untruth.

What is said is taken back. To every sentence, Plotinus tells us, an "as it
were" must be added. "For purposes of persuasion," names are used, "and
in our expression we are entitled to deviate somewhat from rigorous think-
ing." On pain of remaining silent, there is no other possibility for discourse:
"It is thus that we must speak of God, since we cannot speak of him as we
should like to."
As we follow these contradictory thoughts that ultimately dissolve into
nothing, we may be tempted to suppose that, because they have no object,
they are only empty and meaningless discourse. In answer to this, it must
be said that these are methods whose meaning lies in a fulfillment that
transcends thought.
A mind conscious of transcendence can achieve clarity through operations
of thought, without objective knowledge —for transcendence cannot be
known as an object. On and transcendence,
the dividing line between world
the thinker surpasses his consciousness of this limit: with logical methods
which may be purely formal from the standpoint of the mere understand-
ing, he enriches his awareness of the superabundance, depth, inexplicability
of transcendence, while at every step the nonabsoluteness of all thinkables
without exception becomes more compellingly evident. An obscure, formal
consciousness of the limit is transformed into a radiant, real, and effective
consciousness.
In the objective world, I continually think Being. This is never the ulti-
mate Being. And so I go further. In the ascent from one to the other, from
every attainment to its ground, my understanding can find no beginning
and source. I should have to decide on an ultimate, and at this arbitrarily
chosen point cease to question. Only if, instead of rising ad infinitum in this
series from object to object, I effect a leap by transcending from object to
nonobject, can I, without fixating an object, meditate my way into the
source, dreaming as I think. This is what Plotinus does: his First is not
an object, it is without predicate and cannot be thought. It is not the first
member of a series. To think it is not to think it. Thus in the pursuit of each
category it becomes necessary to effect a leap into the realm where thinking
ceases. The thinking of the understanding leads to the endless. But trans-
cending thought arrives at the source or goal where it finds rest.
The dialectic of this thinking that aspires to become nonthinking results
in: a shift of thinking into inability to think; a thinking that negates itself
and so transcends itself as thinking; a nonthinking which in ceasing to

think something, does not think nothing, but thinks the nonbeing that is not
Being or Above-Being. This dialectic that continually transcends itself is
a specific kind of thinking, meaningless as long as objectivity and intuition
are the conditions of meaning, but essential for the elucidation of the con-
sciousness of Being and its limit.
This speculative dialectic achieves a meaningful failure in the failure of
discourse. Meaningful, first because it makes us receptive to that which
cannot be apprehended as a thinkable, and second, because it enables us
PLOT INU S 69
to think the thinkables in such a way as to free ourselves from them and
overcome our tendency to find an ultimate and absolute in any object of
thought.
All speculative thinking as a logical construction has been and always
will be doomed to failure, if what is expected is a knowledge of something,
a derivation, an understanding of one thing through another, a determina-
tion in categories. However, such thinking derives new meaning from the
consequence of its failure. Yet this meaning cannot be preserved in dogmas,
but only through participation in the thinking of the creative metaphysi-
cians, which is always unique, though it loses its radiance and power in
being expounded and analyzed. Still, exposition and analysis are indispen-
sable, for they alone can provide us with the equipment with which to
understand the wonderful language of the great metaphysicians.
j. Transcending in images of the All: The movement of transcending

achieves rest and contemplation in almost tangible images of the One, of
Spirit, and Nature. The movements that have led to this point are forgotten.
The levels of being are disclosed not through the process of search, but
through vision. At no cleavage between mythical vision
this point there is
and image becomes a metaphor for what cannot

logical clarity. Just as the
be stated in terms of rational thought, so thought itself becomes a logical
myth. These schemas of Plotinus' poetic truth accept philosophical respon-
sibility for their truthfulness and are illumined, in their form and method,
by this philosophical earnestness. To put the main emphasis on the logical

myth (as in our initial representation of the Plotinian system) would be to
neglect the other, more essential pole of this thinking: the sublime forms
of speculative transcending, the ascent of the soul by way of thought.
The myths and mysteries were not indifferent to Plotinus.
traditional
As in Plato, the yoke of mythology is thrown off, transformed into a
sovereign capacity for thinking in myths, which enables him to make
traditional myths his own. This use of mythology plays a minor role in
Plotinus, but it does occur (and was developed into a deceptive and in-
creasingly empty system by the Neoplatonists)
VI. FALL AND RESURGENCE

Philosophy is vision and speculative dialectic, and in both cases a purifica-
tion of the soul. The aim of philosophy is not merely to know Being and
the world, but through this knowledge to lift up the soul. The soul has the
alternative of slipping downward or of rising upward.
In present existence the soul is moved by a drive to transcend all things
and attain to the realm where there is perfect union. Filled with loathing
for the fetters that bind us to this existence, it yearns to hasten away. When
the soul is seized with intense love of that place, it "casts off every form it
has, even the intelligible form." Only when the soul has freed itself from
what it has, is the One suddenly revealed to it.
But no will can induce immediate union with the One by design. It
comes as a gift. To seize it directly is "to fly as in a dream." In so doing, I
merely close myself off from the possibility of becoming God. The human
soul can become God "only insofar as the Spirit leads it upward; any
attempt to go beyond the Spirit involves a fall into the spiritless."
Here, in this existence, accordingly, we must content ourselves with
little. The only possibility of philosophizing lies in contemplation of the
One in the spiritual archetypes and beyond these in the speculative dialectic
of self-negating thoughts. We are limited to the upward
path of the knowing
soul in the world. If I must look upon "the divine
aspire to see the One, I
images closer to the periphery." Before the First, the One, I must stop
short of the First, the One, "and say nothing more concerning it, but
inquire how things came into being after it." The greatness of the One is
to be seen in that "which is after it and for its sake."
Anyone who has been in the realm of perfection, says Plotinus, knows
whither his yearning tends. There the flame was kindled, which dies down
when man redescends. "Why does man not remain there? Because he has
not wholly departed from here," because he is still "weighed down by the
body's unrest."
But if in this existence he has achieved an encounter with the One, a
tension arises between his yearning and his resignation. The fundamental
is transformed. It has knowledge of the essential. When
attitude of the soul
it is and has itself become the object of its yearning, "there is nothing
there
for which it would exchange this gift, even if someone were to offer it the
whole of heaven, for there is nothing better. For the soul can rise no . . .
higher, and only in its descent can it see those other things." From that
realm, a shadow of vanity falls upon all things in this world. "When the
soul is united with it (the One) and ceases to behold anything at all, it
fears no misfortune. Even if everything round it should perish, this would

only mean the fulfilment of its desire to be alone with the One." Recollection
of the One changes the whole world. "Everything else in which the soul
formerly took pleasure, glory, power, wealth, beauty, science: upon all
this it looks with contempt and says as much."

Plotinus' metaphysics is at once speculative knowledge and elevation of
the soul. His knowledge of transcendence is inseparable from his conscious-
ness of his own freedom. The soul is not in a final state. It is fallen. It can
fall still lower, or it can return.
If, in considering Plotinus' vision, we start from his cosmic schema, we
find all being engaged in an eternal and necessary cycle of descent and
ascent, from the Above-Being of the One to the Nonbeing of matter and
back again. In this system freedom seems to be a foreign element. The cosmic
PLOT N U S I 71
vision docs not explain why individual souls, endowed with wills of their
own, break loose from the All-Soul, why, in addition to the necessary
descent of the cycle, there is a falling of the individual soul.
But conversely, if we take Plotinus' consciousness of freedom as our
starting point, it will elucidate the meaning of his cosmic vision. I myself
am responsible for my wretched state, and this guilt of mine implies a pre-
existential choice. It is the idea that I am free to rise or fall by my own
activity that engenders the cosmic vision as a means of interpreting life.
Freedom seemed to be a foreign element in the objective schema, but is
actually grounding
its principle. It is freedom that gives the schema truth
and meaning.
My awareness that the present state of my soul is not final transcends
existence and is explained by the origin of my soul: I did not spring from
nothingness; rather, it was by my own will, before my time, that I fell into
this condition; I still discern the workings of this will in motives which I
experience in my present existence, motives which I do not identify with
myself and from which, in my ascending movement, I strive to free myself.
Consequently Plotinus' vision of Being has two aspects which, though
constantly merging, are essentially different. First, the eternal presence of
the totality in its which lives and moves but changes
everlasting cycle,
nothing, and second, the and resurgence, in time, of individual souls
fall
through their own guilt and freedom. We must consider Plotinus' philosophy
in the tension between on the one hand the eternity of Above-Being and
Nonbeing, Spirit and world, and on the other hand the temporality of each
soul's supersensory destiny.
With
their conception of the creation and end of the world, Gnosticism
and Christian theology drew being into the temporal process; they combated
the doctrine that world and matter are eternal. Plotinus took the opposite
step, raising the temporal world, considered as the intermediate realm of
nature, above time. In his view the motion of the timeless whole is only
apparent, while motion in nature is temporal. Entering into nature through
its union with the body, the soul is caught up in temporal motion. Entering
into the corporeality of the world, the soul became involved in fate. But
something in the soul, its nucleus of eternal Being, remains intact, free from
temporal motion. This eternal Being is forgotten but not extinct. Within
thehusk of the body, the soul enacts its fate, in which the recollection and
reawakening of the center play a vital part. No decision is final. As low as
the soul may fall, its center cannot die. A return is always possible. The
soul has plenty of time, for the world is eternal.
Let us take a closer look at this view of fate and of the alternatives
facing the soul.
a. Necessity and freedom: In Above-Being as the source of all things,

there is neither necessity nor freedom.There is necessity in everything
that comes after it. But is there also freedom? In current usage freedom
means: what we do without constraint, what is done with our knowledge,

and what is in our power. But Plotinus shows that mere process without
constraint and in accordance with our nature is not free: if it were, un-
controlled fire happening with knowledge free, when
would be free. Nor is
I merely observe a process that would take place without me. Nor is what
is in my power free, if it is done without right reflection and right striving.
Nor is action free, for neither the conditions nor the situations nor the
consequences of action are in our power.
Yet there is freedom: "Freedom does not depend upon act, but is a thing
of the mind. Freedom and free will pertain not to action but to
in actions
inner activity, to the thinking and contemplation of virtue itself." Only
reason (the nous) has "no master over it." It is possible only as freedom.
"Freedom dwells in all those who conduct their lives according to
reason and a rational striving." "The soul becomes free when through
reason it strives unhindered toward the Good. Reason is free through
itself." Freedom, for Plotinus, is inviolable. "God gave us virtue, subject to
no master." The concept of freedom applies to that "which possesses the

power of decision over itself" and to that which is distinct from "the
existent that serves something other." Freedom is the best. The best begins
with ourselves. "It is our nature when we are alone."
But freedom cannot mean that we make ourselves. "For it is impossible
that something create itself and bring itself into being."
b. Twofold guilt and twofold freedom: "There is a twofold guilt for the
soul." The one consists in the from its super-
motive for the soul's fall
sensory home, the other in the crimes commits here in the world. The
it
soul atones for the first guilt by the sufferings it must bear in this world. It
atones for the second by rebirth in other incarnations. To these two kinds
of guilt correspond two kinds of freedom, the freedom of pretemporal
choice and freedom of action in the world.
The mystery of pretemporal choice: "What caused souls to forget God the
Father? The beginning of evil for them was their overweening pride,
. . .
the desire for change, the first otherness, and the craving to belong to
themselves. Rejoicing in their own splendor, they forgot that they were
descended from thence." They saw neither God nor themselves. From igno-
rance of their source, they did not honor themselves; they honored the
Other and admired everything more than themselves.
Freedom in embodiment: Against Stoic determinism and the astrologers,
Plotinus resolutely asserts our freedom. To be sure, Providence guides all
things. But "Providence must not be such as to make us nothing." We try

to blame Providence for the evil that accrues to the soul through its own
guilt. Even if Providence subsequently transforms the soul's action into
a link in the whole and so employs it for good ends, nevertheless, "the act
of choice must be imputed to the soul." Man is not merely what he is in
PLOT IN U S 73
his earthly body. He is free in origin, but not outside the sphere of Provi-
dence.
c. Evil: Freedom itself is not becomes evil, not through something

evil. It
arising from within it, but through something other. We are not the source
of evil; evil is anterior to us. "The evil that enters into men does not enter
into them by their will; nevertheless, there is an escape from evil for
those who are able, but not all men are able." This other, which is itself
evil, is matter.
In answer to those who assert that matter is not evil, that "we should
not seek evil in something other, but situate it in the soul itself," Plotinus
declares that the soul, by definition, is life and hence good. It is not evil
through itself.
Evil is a weakness of the soul. Weakness of the soul is not the same as
weakness of the body. The cause of the soul's weakness, however, is not
in itself, but in its bond with the body, whereby it has fallen into the
corporeality of the world. And this weakness does not spring from a
privation of something, but from the presence of something essentially
different, matter.
Plotinus explains how this came about. Matter and soul occupy the same
place. The soul inhabits a separate place only insofar as it does not dwell
in matter. The soul could not have entered into a process of change except
through the presence of matter. Soul and matter have merged into one.
Matter is like a weight attached to the soul. The matter that dwells with
the soul draws life from it and weighs down; matter strives
it to penetrate
the innermost core of the soul. The light emanating from the radiation of
the soul is darkened and enfeebled by matter. The radiation of the soul
was made possible by matter, for without matter the soul would not have
descended. That is the "fall" of the soul: to have entered into matter and to
have been enfeebled, to have been made evil by matter.
The consequences of an orientation toward matter spring from matter:
freedom is limited. "Without a body, it is its very own master, free and
outside of cosmic causes —drawn down into the body, it ceases to be in
every way its own companion is governed largely by
master. For its
contingencies." Composition with the body makes the passions more violent,
blunts the judgment, and gives rise to states of mind that vary according
as we are hungry or satisfied. Through the material body the soul is easily
aroused to desire, easily inclined to anger, overhasty in judgment, and
surrenders readily to turbid imaginings, just as among the creatures the
weakest succumb most readily to the wind or the heat of the sun.
To the argument that the soul should have mastered matter, Plotinus
replies: The soul is not in a pure state, hence its power of mastery is
diminished.
But the faculty of mastering matter is present. Freedom is not denied.
Hence, after the primal evil, the first evil, of matter, there is a second evil
springing from weakness of the soul. The first evil is the disorder of
matter, the second evil is that which becomes disorder by assimilation to
matter, or participation in matter. The first evil is darkness, the second is
that which is darkened. Consequently the soul obeys matter because of

the second evil, but by virtue of its freedom it is able to govern the con-
sequences of matter. "An inferior soul is driven to lust or anger; it becomes
base in poverty, soft in wealth, tyrannical in the possession of power. . . .
A good soul resists under all these circumstances." We can act "under the
influence of outward forces, as though obeying a blind impulse." Then the

soul is not free. "If on the other hand the soul follows reason, the pure,
passionless, and authentic guide in its will, then such a will alone is free."
Plotinus makes both statements: "Men are involuntarily evil, insofar as sin
is involuntary." And: "It is the agent who acts, consequently it is he
himself who sins."
The soul deteriorates in consequence of the fall. Once it has fallen into
the body and been filled with matter, it remains in matter even when
separated in death from its present body, "until the day when it rises
upward and at some point averts its gaze from the muck." In consequence
of an evil life the soul is re-embodied in an inferior form: one who has
killed unjustly will be killed in another existence —unjustly as far as the
agent is concerned, but justly so for the victim. What I do, I must suffer.
The crime I inflict will be inflicted upon me. "For it should not be supposed
that anyone is by chance a slave, or by chance taken prisoner. One who
has slain his mother will himself become a woman in order to be killed
by his son, and one who has violated a woman will himself become a woman
and suffer the same fate." But transmigration is incidental in Plotinus. It
is limited to the lower sphere, to natural existence.
d.The two souls: The fall and regeneration of the soul are seen in terms of
—
"two souls" a fundamental conception with Plotinus. The one soul is
eternal, indestructible, and
remaining always in the intelligible
rational,
world; the other change and suffering, bound to the body
is subject to
in the world; it approaches the first soul or moves away from it, and passes
through many forms of existence. The second soul is suspended, as it were,
from the first, like its shadow; projected into the body, it takes on corporeal
existence; through the body it communicates with the sensory world. We
are a twofold being; an animal has attached itself to our godliness. We
carry the animal about with us.
The pure supersensory soul takes on the veils of spatiotemporal existence.
But evil pertains only to existence, not to the soul. The soul is indestructible
and merely changes its garment. "The changing souls become body now
in this, now in that form; when it can, the soul departs from the world of
change and remains at one with the world-soul."
In this world, however, the second soul suffers impurity. "Consider an
PLOT NU S 1 75
ugly, unrighteous soul, full of unrest, craven fear, petty envy, forever
occupied with base, transient thoughts, guileful, cringing in the byways,
a lover of impure pleasures, wholly dependent on bodily influences, a soul
that delights in ugliness: shall we not say that it has lost all purity of life
and feeling, that mingled with evil it leads an impure life shot through with
death, that it has ceased to behold what a soul should behold, that it cannot
remain in itself, because it is perpetually drawn to the external, earthly,
and dark?"
e. The twofold longing: The soul enters into the world, which partakes of
nonbeing insofar as it is evil but is not absolute nonbeing. In the opposite
direction, however, it attains not to something other, but to itself. It is
itself in its association with the One. Only its primal ground perceives the
primal ground, for like perceives like.
Driven by a twofold longing, the soul moves downward and upward.

The moment it attains to the One, it falls away from the One. "As a chorus
gathered round its leader may turn once again to look outward, but sings
well and is truly in unison with him only when looking inward, so we too
are always gathered round the One, but do not always look toward it; but
when we do look, we are at the goal, we circle round it without discord in
a chorus truly inspired by God."
Plotinus discerns all these motifs —the soul's twofold longing, its self-
forgetfulness through the fall, its power to choose between the two directions
—in the old myths. The fall of the soul is compared to young Dionysus
looking into the mirror before being torn to pieces by the Titans. The bond
with the body is the water of Lethe; drinking it, the soul forgets its true
self. The soul allows itself to be carried away by nature: nature is Pandora,
whom all the gods unite in decking out. Seeking the divine in the beauty of
its own natural aspect, the soul is Narcissus, who flings himself into the
pool while trying to embrace his reflection. In its twofold longing, for
sensory beauty and eternal beauty, the soul is guided by a twofold Aphrodite,
the one begotten by Uranus, the other by Zeus. The soul in the world is
likened to Odysseus, who forsakes the carnal beauty of Circe and strives
heavenward. And it is comparable to Herakles, who dwells now with the
gods and now in Hades.
The soul rises through vision. Only from incapacity for vision, from weak-
ness, does the soul, dissatisfied, turn to activity; it begins to make things in
the hope of achieving what its Spirit could not. Thus "boys of lazy mind,
incapable of philosophy, turn to crafts and skills."
But the vision of the soul is love and creation. By way of the eye the soul
sees the visible forms of the beautiful. Loving, it perceives the imageless
in the image, and gazing toward it attains peace and perfection. As the
soul looks up at that which is above it, a copy of the archetype comes quietly
into being, as though of its own accord; love is the artist.
But this twofold direction of longing introduces an ambiguity into love:
beauty guides physical generation. Though essentially inferior to heavenly

love, earthly love is good, insofar as it derives reason from contemplation
of the beautiful and the will to endure in time; it becomes evil only in
decadence, in perversion, when without the image of the beautiful it is
wholly oriented toward sensuality.
f. The situation of the soul in the world: The one eternal soul achieves its
pure fulfillment in the spiritual world. "There it thinks; there it is without

passions. And there alone is its authentic life; for its present life without
God is That is the life of gods and of divine, happy
only an echo of life."
men, who have broken away from everything here below. But the "flight
of the One to the One continues even beyond that blissful life."
The existence of two souls has an extraordinary consequence: the one
soul is unaffected by all the evil in the world. Poverty and sickness mean
nothing to good men, for the soul that has turned back from its self-forget-
fulness is not touched by them. Yet like all evils, poverty and sickness benefit
the wicked, for they punish and teach. Just as there is no good for the
wicked, i.e., the self-forgetful soul that has descended to matter, so for the
good there is no evil. The soul that has awakened to the One bears all the
miseries of the world with patience, it attunes itself "to the natural law
of the All." was in the last period of his life, while desperately ill, that
It
moving tractate on Happiness.

Plotinus wrote his
"The Soul embarks with its tutelary spirit in the skiff of the universe.
. The universal circuit is like a breeze, and a voyager ... is carried
. .
forward by it. He has a hundred varied experiences, fresh sights, changing

circumstances, all sorts of events. The vessel itself furnishes incident, tossing
as it drives on." The Soul plays its appointed role in the cosmic drama (this
great metaphor in Plato, the Stoics, Calderon, and the thinkers of India):
"In the dramas of human art the poet provides the words, but the actors
add their own quality, good or bad . . . and in the truer drama which
dramatic genius imitates in its degree, the Soul displays itself in a part
assigned by the Creator of the piece. As the actors of our stages get their
masks and their costume, robes of state or rags, so a Soul is allotted its
and not at haphazard but always under

fortunes, a Reason: it adapts itself
to the fortunes assigned to it, attunes itself, ranges itself rightly to the
drama, to the whole Principle of the piece; then it speaks out its business,
exhibiting at the same time all that a Soul can express of its own quality,
as a singer in a song. A voice, a bearing, naturally fine or vulgar, may in-
crease the charm of a piece; on the other hand, an actor with his ugly voice
may make a sorry exhibition of himself, yet the drama stands as good a
work as ever: the dramatist taking the action which a sound criticism sug-
gests, disgraces one, taking his part from him, with perfect justice: another
man he promotes to more serious roles or to any more important play he
may have, while the first is cast for whatever minor work there may be."
PLOT IN U S 77
This similarity between life and a role in a play determines the inner
attitude of the man of insight: he does not complain of the particular role
assigned him at birth. Nor does any reasonable man find fault with the
other living creatures, which are beneath man but serve to beautify the
earth. In considering the plants, we do not ask why they have no feeling,
nor in considering the animals why they are not men. This would be as
absurd as to ask why men are not the same as gods. "Universal equality
there cannot be." The diversity of men is no ground for complaint; we do
not find fault with a play "because its characters are not all heroes, but
also include slaves and rustics."
A role has been assigned to us — let us play it well. This means that we
should see the situation in the world and fulfill it. From the vast diversity
of men, each man must draw the consequences for his role. For example:
Men who are like irrational voracious beasts wish to do violence to others.
The victims "are no doubt better than those who do them violence; if never-
theless they allow the wicked to defeat them, it is precisely because they
themselves are evil in certain respects and not truly good." Our role demands
that we fight for our own existence. Those who "from softness and in-
dolence let the wolves tear them to pieces like fatted lambs" are visited with
terrible sufferings for their inactivity. Since the world is governed by force,
"not even a god will defend unwarlike men. The divine law decrees that
those who fight bravely should be rescued from battle, not those who pray."
Similarly, where work is called for, the harvest is reaped by those who till
the soil, not by those who sit and pray. Would it not be absurd to follow
our own opinion in all other matters, even in opposition to the gods, and
then to expect the gods to save us? The gods gave us a commandment by
which to save ourselves —we did not obey it. The wicked prevail because
of their victims' unmanly conduct. Violence and war will be necessary as

long as men do not truly contemplate the One, as long as they are not good.
For Providence forbids that a world full of vices and unreason should
obtain peace.
When Plotinus says: Fight, do not pray —does he mean to give action in
the world precedence over vision? Not at all. Authentic vision is more
powerful than action; but on the basis of his vision, a man should play his
role in the world drama to the best of his ability; knowing his role, he
should labor and do battle in accordance with it. But if he is in earnest, he
will not be deceived. He will concern himself earnestly with earnest things,
with vision, love, and ascent to the One. Playing his role, he will do battle,
and not allow himself to be dominated by the wicked. But only those "who
do not understand serious things, who are themselves playthings," play the
role in earnest.
g. Philosophy is ascent to the One: Philosophy can find the upward path
and travel it. It supplies a knowledge which in itself bears the soul upward.
j$ The Original Thinners
The regeneration of the soul is accomplished first of all through ethos.

The soul is purified by a philosophical way of life. "Without true goodness
discourse on God is mere babbling." The good life is the presupposition
as well as the consequence of philosophical thinking. A philosopher strives
to depart from matter, from the body. But this flight is not a removal to
an elsewhere in space; it is effected through the action of the rational soul
in the world itself. There is no other means of flight from the world.
Given an ethical life, the soul can be purified by dialectic. But only the
method can be taught. To follow it is the concern of the individual. "In
speaking and writing, we employ concepts as a means of arousing the
spirit to vision. For teaching shows the way; that is the beginning of the
journey; but the actual seeing is up to the man who has made the decision
to see."
Consequently the content of the doctrine is not in itself fulfillment.
The doctrine of the One supplies only "analogies, negations, knowledge
of its and of certain degrees of ascent." Essentially, it provides a
effects,
soul living in the world with two "demonstrations": it shows the vanity
of the things it now prizes and reminds the soul of its origin and worth.
These demonstrations are not logically compelling. They can succeed only
if the soul becomes one with what it is investigating.
But not all earth-bound souls are equally capable of discerning their
authentic being in the One. A soul must know "whether it has the power
to undertake such an investigation, whether it has an eye capable of seeing.
For if things are beyond its scope, what can its search avail? If it is bound
to them in inner kinship, it will be able to find them." Plotinus was pro-
foundly aware that we cannot adequately understand the teachings of
philosophy with our reason, but only with our own being. Only our daily
relation to ourselves and our memory of something that precedes all thought
can kindle the meaning of philosophy within us; but once this happens,
we in turn are magnified by our reflection on that meaning. In the temporal
world the soul awakens to something that was already present within it.
The soul in its embodiment is not a completed product which need only
be examined to be known; its very being hinges on the freedom that seizes
upon its potentiality. Refusal to seek ourselves in the ground of being is an
assertion of our own emptiness. Those who say defiantly: I am what I
am, cannot understand philosophy because they reject the possibility of
an ascending movement.
Ascending thought is oriented toward the Supreme One: "the presence
(parousia) that exceeds knowledge." "We must cast off all earthly veils,
stand in this alone and become this alone." "Impatient with our fetters,
we must Hence the often repeated demand:
hasten to escape from here."
"Let then him who can turn inward. Let him leave outside what the eye
beholds, nor turn back to what formerly appeared to him as the radiance
PLOT NU S 1 79
of corporeal beauty. For in beholding corporeal beauty, he must be aware

that it discloses only contours and shadows, and flee to that of which it is
the copy."
VII. AGAINST MATERIALISM AND GNOSIS
As beings of sense and understanding, we tend to think in terms of bodies

and objects or not at all. We have then the choice of denying transcendence
—
as happens in materialism or of transforming transcendence into a physical
—
object with which to devaluate the real world as in Gnosis. Plotinus defends
his philosophy against both.
Against materialism for transcendence: There are men, says Plotinus, who
look upon matter as the only true Being, the source of all things. That is
the fault of appearance; to their mind bodies are Being. Troubled by the
coming and going of corporeal forms, they conclude that Being is something
underlying these bodies, which endures amid change. This something is
matter.
Against the "enduring" as the characteristic of Being: Instead of regarding

what somehow endures as Being, these thinkers should first have asked what
the attributes of a true Being must be. A shadow, for example, remains
present while the object changes, but it is not above the object in the
scale of Being. If permanence were the hallmark of Being, we should have
to rank space above bodies in respect to Being, because space is indestruct-
ible.
Against the primacy of matter in the sensory world: Those who have
identified reality with matter have taken sense perception as their starting
point, but they do not find matter itself in sense perception. All perceptible
things are said to be merely the transient manifestation of imperceptible
matter. "The astonishing part of it is that those who make sense perception
the test of the true existence of all things, hold that Being cannot be
apprehended by sense perception." Either they indicate characteristics of
invisible matter that are perceptible to the senses (but when, for example
they impute the power of resistance to matter, they are mistaken, for this
too is a sensory quality like visibility, audibility, etc.), or else they try to
explain matter by reason, which they go on to explain on the basis of
matter. But is this not "an odd kind of reason, which gives matter precedence
over itself and attributes being to matter rather than to itself"? What faith
can one have in a reason which asserts its own nonbeing?
Imperceptible matter is conceived to be composed of atoms or elements

(which are themselves formed matter). But the combination of atoms
does not account for the qualities of things. Atoms and elements cannot
be taken as the source of what is incommensurate with them, namely life,
soul, spirit. An integral unity (e.g., the soul's unity of feeling) cannot be
conceived as an aggregate of elements. What has no body, e.g., thought,
memory, cannot spring from bodies.
Most untenable of all is the notion that the aggregate of atoms gave rise
to things through chance. "Any attempt to derive order, reason, or the

directing soul from the unordered motion of atoms or elements is absurd
and impossible." Nothing in the world can be understood on the basis of
matter alone. "For matter does not form itself, nor endow itself with
soul. Thus there must be something else that leads the dance of life."
Nothing would come into being, there would only be the nonbeing of
matter if there were not some power to mold things and give them form.
"Probably there would not even be matter and the All would disintegrate,
were it dependent on the cohesive power of the corporeal."
Plotinus' critique of the materialists runs then as follows: If I see Being
as such in sensible, corporeal presence, the diversity and instability of
phenomena oblige me to conceive of something permanent underlying
them. But if this something is matter, it is not accessible to sense perception.
Such an operation of thought explains nothing. Matter alone can account
neither for the diversity of phenomena, nor for the soul, nor for the
thinking that thinks matter.
Plotinus adjures us to break with our tendency to find the reality of Being
in matter. "''Seek not therefore to see with mortal eyes such a thing as the
One, the Spirit, the Soul." The prevailing opinion that all Being consists in
the things of the senses must be abandoned, for it imputes the most Being
to what has the most Nonbeing. Those who are unable to turn from the
supposedly absolute reality of things to spiritual transcending will "remain
bereft of the god like the gluttons who at feasts stuff themselves full of
forbidden things, supposing these to be more substantial than contemplation
of the god to whom the feast is dedicated. For also at these holy festivals
(of philosophy) the invisible god causes those who rely only on what they
see with the eyes of the flesh to doubt of his existence."
Against Gnosis in favor of the beauty of the world: Those who conceive
the supersensory in corporeal terms and then, setting one body against
another, reject the reality of the world are Gnostics. Their sensory vision
of the supersensory blinds them to the real world of the senses. A spiritual
vision of the supersensory, on the other hand, opens our eyes to the reflected
radiance of the sensuous world. Plotinus justifies nature despite its low
rank in the universal hierarchy and remoteness from pure being; in ithe
perceives the beauty of appearance.
PL0T1NUS 81
The world is not Being. Those who condemn the world can do so only
"because they do not know the hierarchical law extending from First to
last." To condemn the world because of the many evil things in it means
two things, first that we put too high a value on the world and second
that we are blind to its true value as a copy. It is a mistake to expect the
sensible world to resemble the intelligible world; let us recognize it,
rather, as the best possible copy of the intelligible world.

Right vision of any particular being presupposes a vision of the whole.
all, but not here below." Here in the
In the spiritual cosmos "all things are
world all things cannot be the same. For if they were, the mode of the
world's being, the articulation and order of the whole in the separation of
its parts, would be impossible. Thus the world as a whole is comparable to
a living organism. Accordingly we should not ask whether one thing is
inferior to another, but whether, taken as it is, it occupies its right place.
In a living organism "everything cannot be eye. The legs, the eyes, the
mind do different things. We must not demand the same of things that
are not alike. Seeing is not the concern of the finger. Each has its own
function."Even the imperfect has its place. It is a mistake to condemn the
whole because of the parts, as though in looking at a man we were to con-
sider only a hair or a toe rather than the whole man.
The structure of the universe resembles that of the organism. In every
living being the parts, the face and head, are more beautiful than
upper
the rest, and lower parts do not resemble them. In the All, men
the middle
are in the middle, above them heaven and its gods, below them the scale
of living creatures extending down to the inanimate. Reason does not
wish everything to be equally good, any more than an artist in painting an
animal makes nothing but eyes. Reason does not people the All exclusively
with gods, but divides it among gods, demons, men, and animals, each in
turn, not out of envy, but because reason implies intellectual diversity.
The world is like a painting with its light and shadows; the shadows,
too, contribute to its beauty. The world is not uniformity but a harmony of
the dissimilar. Thus even evil is necessary in the world. If it were lacking,
the whole would be incomplete.
The world discloses all things in a process of change. Every particular
being is perishable. One thing limits and displaces another. All are en-
gaged in a reciprocal war of annihilation. Through spatial separation diver-
sity engenders hostility and makes friendship possible. "The part is not self-
sufficient, it is preserved by something other, and is nevertheless hostile
to that which preserves it. By its passing away one thing enables another
to come into being." Each thing asserts itself in consequence of the will to
live. The consequences are pain, suffering, death. "Living creatures devour
one another, so that there is always war, which in all likelihood will never
cease or end."
Not only must there be differences, but oppositions as well. As harmony
arises from opposite tones, so the All accords with itself, while the parts
battle one another. Reason derives its unity from conflicting concepts. "For
if reason did not comprise multiplicity, it would not be a totality, it would be
no reason at all." Because there is good, there must also be evil; because
there is law and order, there must also be lawlessness and disorder.
Only particular beings perish. The world as a whole is eternal. "Perhaps
it is necessary that beings devour one another in order that they may inter-
change and replace one another, for even if they were not killed, they
could not endure forever. If they have benefited others, what ground is
there for complaint?" "Destruction is not an evil to what has come into
being through the death of something else; the fire that has been destroyed
is replaced by other fire."
form the world resembles an organism, happening in the world is

If in
comparable to a drama. Death is a change of role. An actor murdered on
the stage changes his costume and appears with another mask; in reality
he has not died. "The conflicts among mortal men indicate that all human
life is a game and show us that death is not bad, that by dying in war and
struggle one anticipates a little what happens in old age, that one leaves the
stage sooner in order to re-enter sooner. And as on a stage we must con-
sider the murders, the different kinds of death, the conquest and pillage of
cities, mere changes of scene, mere representations of sorrow and
all as
lamentation. For here too it is not the innermost soul that laments, but the
outward shadow of the man."
All happening in the world is governed by a law. Everything in the world
springs from reason and is therefore good, but at the same time everything
is matter formed by reason and therefore bad. Because matter retains a
certain power of Nonbeing, because everything is divided according to

space and time, the necessity and contingency which result in disproportion
and ugliness are everywhere present. But even these become in turn matter
for the reason of Providence, which, though it did not will this matter,
makes use of it once it has come into being, and integrates it with the
rational context of the whole. "And this ability to make good use even of
what is bad is proof of the highest power."
Providence exerts its guidance through inaction, which is
irresistible
more encompassing, and more powerful than action. The ability to
deeper,
do something with my own hands indicates that I lack something. Thus
"the most godly are quite content to repose within themselves and to be
what they are. To such men bustling activity would be dangerous, for it
would take them out of themselves." In this sense the All is godly. Without
action it accomplishes great things, precisely by resting in itself. The creation
of the All was not planned. Unlike the human artist who works upon a
material outside him, the world-soul makes no effort to produce anything.
From its being the world arises spontaneously, without deliberation, for the
spontaneity of the world-soul is above deliberation. "And so, quietly and
PLOT NU S 1 83
without upheaval, the Spirit engendered the All by giving a fragment of

itself to matter." Thus the All is a mixture of Spirit and Necessity (ananke).
The world-soul "governs this All without effort, as though by its mere
presence.
Viewing the whole, Plotinus says: "It is far better that beings and men
live as if from the very beginning they had not come into being. For life
would be impoverished by such a coming-into-being. But [without it]

there is a rich life in the All, which incessantly produces beautiful and well-
shaped playthings."
Plotinus lets the beautiful world speak for itself: "God created me, and I
came from thence, perfect among all living beings, sufficient unto myself,
needful of nothing, because everything is in me: plants and animals, many
gods, multitudes of demons, good souls and men blessed with virtue. The
earth is adorned with alland animals, nor has the power
manner of plants
of the soul stopped at the sea, leaving the air, the ether, and the heavens
without a soul, for there dwell all the good souls that give life to the stars.
Each thing within me strives toward the Good and each attains it according
to its ability."
VIII. CRITICAL CHARACTERIZATION
a. Contradictions: Plotinus employs concepts that have two meanings, the
one definable, the other serving to express the ineffable. Some of these are:
vision (seeing, contemplation), the One, the Good, Being, the First, etc.
Employed as means of thinking the unthinkable, they negate themselves
and must be withdrawn. This structure contradiction, tautology, vicious —
circle — is inevitable and appropriate when thought invites failure by trying
to express what is beyond thought. Examples
1. We are told that the One is attainable only through the negation of all
determinations; however, numerous determinations, beginning with the

"One" itself, are attached to it, often with the restriction "as it were." Sim-
ilarly matter is denied all determination, yet Plotinus not only speaks of
matter, but speaks of it in contradictory terms: matter is the counterpart of
the Idea, the absolutely formless, and then again, considered as the last
derivative, it is still, "in a manner of speaking, Idea."
2. A contradiction arises when individuality is considered first in oppo-
sition to the Idea and then as itself an Idea. On the one hand and this is —
—
the dominant view in Plotinus only the universal forms are Ideas, there
is no Idea of the individual; there is an Idea of man, but not of Socrates. But
on the other hand Plotinus says: "Individual men differ not only because of
matter, but also by virtue of innumerable differences of form. They are not
related to one another as the portraits of Socrates to their original." Their
difference springs rather from different primal forms. "Perhaps there are as
many forms as there are different particular things, insofar as the difference
does not rest merely on a lag behind the idea." "It need not frighten us that
the number of forms is necessarily infinite."
3. Plotinus' conception of ascending and descending movement involves

a contradiction inherent in the very nature of his philosophy.
The world is corruption and the world is miraculous beauty. Plato, says
Plotinus, regarded the entire sensible world, especially the body, as an evil,
as the prison or tomb of the soul; and then again, Plato in Timaeus called
the world a blessed god, because it is endowed with soul, hence reason.
Consequently the souls' descent into the world has a twofold aspect.
Each individual soul is sent in order that the All may be complete; but
each one is also guilty through an act of freedom. The soul is sent down to
be a force in the beautiful world; at the same time, it has fallen through a
pretemporal choice that ought not to have been made. It sprang from an
original self-will, from pride and lust for change.
Both in the formation of the world as a whole and in the destiny of the
individual soul, freedom and necessity are one. "Each soul has its own
time: when that time comes, it descends as though at the call of a herald
and enters into the body that is fit to receive it." It descends neither volun-
tarily nor under compulsion. Freedom is not to be understood as free choice,
but is more "like" a natural drive, whether to mate or to perform heroic
deeds. "There is no contradiction between the voluntary and the involun-
tary character of the descent." "In accordance with the eternal laws of its
being," what it does freely, though "against its will," is necessary. What the
soul takes upon itself redounds to the benefit of the body. "Its descent may
be called a sending-down by God."
4. There is a contradiction in the concept of evil: Evil is only the less
good, that which throughout the scale contains less Being; matter is absolute
evil because it is Nonbeing. But elsewhere Plotinus departs from this
negative concept and speaks of positive evil. Evil is only the shadow of
the good, a necessary part of the total harmony; it is mere deficiency and
nothing in itself; and then again it is an active power of seduction, man's
subservience to which is the "second evil."
5. Plotinus' concept of the divine is equally contradictory. God is the One,
yet there are many gods. The One dominates all Plotinus' thinking, but
he reveres more than one god.
All these contradictions seem meaningful when Plotinus' vision of Being
is considered as a whole. Where he himself notices them, he overcomes them
by his doctrine of degrees or by his knowledge of the inadequacy of speech.
To disclose them is more to elucidate the philosophy of Plotinus than to
criticize it.
b. Empirical \nowledge and mythical conceptions: Plotinus' indifference

to the world prevents him from taking any interest in natural science. He
I
PLOT 1NU S 85
does not inquire into the particulars of nature, because he is concerned only
with the One. Consequently he takes over unquestioningly the mythical
conceptions of his time and its barbaric notions of science. He recognizes
demons and love magic.
But Plotinus was a man of natural good sense. In connection with the
nature of disease, astrology, demonological healers, etc., he expresses certain
criticaldoubts. He attacks the thaumaturges who "hypostasize diseases as
demonic beings" and the populace who let themselves be impressed by
their supposedly miraculous powers: "They will never convince anyone
who thinks clearly that diseases are not caused by overexertion, too much or
too little food, and processes of putrefaction."
But both the mythical-magical conceptions and the good sense apply
only to the subordinate world of nature, which is of no importance to men
of wisdom. This is the realm of material influences on the body-bound soul.
Those who would rather be guided by sensory experience than by philos-
ophy can also resort to oracles. But a man rises to the truth only by thinking,
that is, by immersion in the depths of his own soul and spirit, not through
the gods. That is why Plotinus takes no more interest in magic and astrology
than in empirical investigation and knowledge. All these fields of knowl-
edge occupy a low rank. Yet in dealing with them he shows the "simplicity
of character, combined with pure and clear thinking," to which he aspired
in all his philosophizing.
from his philosophy. The stream of
Plotinus excluded science and politics
the world process, springing from the One and returning to the One, is
ahistorical, pure actuality. The soul achieves self-certainty and transcend-
ence by thinking this one vast cipher of being. Plotinus is the purest and
most exclusive of metaphysicians.
c. The existential meaning: Let us attempt a deeper characterization of

Plotinus' philosophy. In it the soul gains awareness that its core is intangible,
indestructible, and immortal, and this is what gives him his wonderful
serenity. If the soul can know and unfold its pure essence, nothing in the
world can affect it.
Such serenity is possible, because the soul knows its home to be elsewhere.
Beholding the source of all things, it gains contentment in its intuition of
universal harmony.
But this contentment is that of an onlooker. The soul is twofold, affected
by sufferings, but in its innermost core unaffected, as a participant in the
world, involved in its torments, as an onlooker untouched. A wise man,
Plotinus quotes, is happy, even when slowly burned in the glowing bronze
The harmony of the whole is not disturbed by the dis-
bull of Phalaris.
harmony of the individual: Plotinus speaks of the "men who are the joy
of God, who bear all the miseries of the world with patience, even when
through the cyclical motion of the All they are afflicted with a necessary
evil. For our attention must be directed not at the desires of the individual,
but at the interest of the whole."

Such contentment seems questionable. Harmony is found in a theoretical
vision of the whole and in the many beauties of the world; the particular
evil is not interpreted and taken into account. Is this not to ask the impos-
sible of men? Can a man overwhelmed by suffering content himself with
the harmony of the whole if this harmony is not manifested in his actual
life? Who benefits by the concrete harmony which demands this terrible
present suffering? In order to believe in this harmony must I not delib-

erately delude myself?
It is possible no doubt to bear physical suffering with equanimity, but
even that is contingent on my physical and mental constitution; it ceases
to be possible when suffering impairs my consciousness. Even a "wise man"
would not reject the modern techniques of easing pain. —But what of the
sufferings that come with the crises of life, when the whole world pales to
nothingness, or the torment arising from guilt, or seemingly hopeless
solitude, or a friend's betrayal? Where such sufferings are ignored, the
question of suicide loses its depth. The only motive recognized by Plotinus
is anger, an impure passion. Plotinus asks whether a man is justified
in taking his life if he feels that his mind is failing. His answer shows his
tendency to smooth over the difficulties of existence: "Perhaps that will not
happen and virtuous man." But if it does, suicide is to be counted
to a wise
among "necessary" actions, those to which we are driven by the course of
nature, which are justified under certain circumstances, but not in any
absolute sense. For Plotinus mental disorder was not a problem. Altogether
we must question this serenity of the onlooker who accepts the sufferings
of the innocent and all the recurrent injustice of the world as a necessary
part of the universal harmony.
Is Plotinus blind to the realities which directly conflict with any idea of
harmony? He is unwilling to consider evil as a positive power; it is
mere deficiency, mere Nonbeing (and yet in the course of his thinking he
is sometimes compelled to recognize a positive evil). Anyone who ponders
the undeniable sufferings and injustices of the world cannot but rebel
against the Plotinian "peace in harmony."
In becoming a mere change of scene, death loses its sting. And this
present life loses its weight as the unique and only life. The eternal soul
has entered into this life as into one of many successive roles, its core is
unaffected. If it lives badly, it has the possibility of purification after death,
in new forms of existence. Both life and death lose their earnestness.
With this devaluation of our worldly existence and death, the particular
circumstances of life become indifferent. Bodily pain, mental torment, loss
of the necessities of life, "destruction of the city," death of our loved ones
all become meaningless appearance. Nothing in the world has absolute
importance. Only those lacking in wisdom can concern themselves seriously
with the world.
PLOT N U SI 87
The extreme situations which awaken man, but which, even after they
have brought home to him the earnestness of his existence and made
transcendence a reality tor him, never lose their real power to call everything
into question all over again, are veiled or spirited away by Plotinus' vision
of universal Being. Since fundamentally all problems raised by such a
vision are solved in advance, they lose their power. Such a system is a closed
circle: the belief in harmony annuls the extreme situations, while insensibil-
ity to extreme situations makes possible the belief in harmony.

All real danger ceases with the experience of worldless transcendence,
which is repeated over and over again in speculation. This speculation
confers a benign sense of security; it does not penetrate the world, but
accepts it passively and without trying to understand it. Hence Plotinus'
serenity, his tranquil radiance. In this realm there is no quarreling and no
despair.
The individual and his individual interests become matters of indiffer-
ence. Peace will descend when I as myself vanish; I gain insight in union
with the One, when subject and object vanish.
Even though Plotinus sometimes asserts the uniqueness of the human
individual, all his categorial thinking presupposes the pre-eminence of the
universal: the individual is unknowable but also unimportant. For matter
is the principle of individuation (even as intelligible matter, it is the prin-
ciple underlying the diversity of the eternal forms). With Plato, Plotinus
holds that "the unity of Being is fragmented ad infinitum." The lowest
class, which cannot be subdivided into further classes, is infinite and,

once relegated to infinity, ceases to be of interest. The individual is without
interest, because it has no Being in the sense of the universal, the eidos,
but owes his infinity to matter.
is without importance, Plotinus has no mind for
Because the individual
history. He
demands, to be sure, that man should play his role in the
world, but here he envisages mere action without inner participation:
the world is robbed of its significance as unique realization. Plotinus does
not take up his destiny in the awareness that he can gain substance only
as a historical being. He is not awake to the significance of absolute
decision in time, of a historicalhappening that can bring the certainty
of authentic being.Whatever happens, the soul is immortal and can make
atonement in new forms of existence; whatever is done can be undone.
Thus Plotinus' conception of freedom is not grounded in action in the
world. He does not know the unity of time and eternity. For the historical
consciousness, the eternal is decided in time; the things of the world are
phenomenal and at the same time infinitely important; the world is the
only medium in which being no such thing as flight
is disclosed; there is
out of the world. This paradoxical union of time and eternity is unknown
to Plotinus. In his view the world is a mere stage, my life is only a role.
No decision I can make carries the weight of eternity. There is only a
rising and falling, the possibilities remain always the same. Nothing in
the world is really serious, the only thing that counts is purity of soul —and
this purity is situated in an innermost core, inaccessible to the world, which
finds fulfillment in incommunicable ecstasy.
Because the individual is without importance, Plotinus' conception of
love, directed toward the One, seems at once grandiose and empty. Our
love should be directed at the simple and absolute, not at anything partial
and contingent. We must see the beautiful as such, "not any of its finite
embodiments." That the "contingent," "partial," "finite" are the manifesta-
tion of an existence which is always historical, whose essential being is
distilled in the crucible of loyalty and integrity —
such an idea is alien to
Plotinus. The impersonal love of the One deprives marriage and friendship
of their meaning. Plotinus' love does not grow into the substance of the
soul through existential decision in an irreplaceable historical context; it
merely contemplates the eternal forms in degrees ranging from the genera-
tive power of nature to union with the One.
Thus it is characteristic of Plotinus that he should reject every indication
of the individual's historical substance or social setting. He declines to
speak of his own parents or origin. He refuses to love any woman, for
"there are no marriages in heaven." He cares nothing for
political existence
and unaware of its historicity. He does not know the profound meaning
is
of political action as an always unique process, to which the individual

contributes with his freedom.
Because Plotinus is indifferent to the irreplaceable individual, because
he transfers love from the real world to transcendence, because he dismisses
the earnestness of historical decisionfrom his purview and concentrates on
an intangible eternal self beyond all worldly reality, transcendence and the
immortal soul become punctual abstractions in his thinking. They are
ciphers rich in potential meaning that can be fulfilled only through exist-
ence in the world.
Plotinus' vision of the harmonious whole, his indifference to the temporal
by men, his passionate striving for purity of soul, his experi-
roles played
ence of transcendence in thinking toward the unthinkable, which in
—
supreme moments anticipates union with the One all these leave a strangely
mixed impression. They carry the ring of manifest truth, and yet one
cannot help wondering: Is this ultimate peace not a serene death in life?
Plotinus soars magnificently to the One,
from the unity of things in the
world to the One itself from unity in the beauty of a
in transcendence,
particular living being to the sublime beauty of the All and beyond the
beauty of the soul to the ground of the One itself. But all this is pure
contemplation. Lacking are the other meanings of the One, which would
give such contemplation practical efficacy: the One in historical fulfillment
of the one idea I serve; the one love, in which I become myself or lose myself;
the transcendent One, which in the ciphers of thought remains ambiguous,
and achieves self-certainty only in practice. In order to pass from potentiality
PLOTINUS 89
to reality, Imust become existentially one, objectively limited in time, which

through the One becomes historical. In Plotinus' life practice the necessary
One is only the soul's ascent to the One; "the goal must be one and not
many; otherwise, we should seek not a goal but goals."
The limitations of Plotinus' philosophy become apparent in epochs when

action in the world is essential, when the individual takes on importance,
when history speaks as the presence of the eternal, when extreme situations
are taken seriously.
IX. HISTORICAL POSITION AND INFLUENCE

Plotinus believed his ideas to be those of Ammonios Saccas, his teacher in
Alexandria. But Ammonios the man has no place in Plotinus' writings, and
we know next to nothing about him. It is Plato, not Ammonios, whose
presence we feel in Plotinus' philosophizing. He also speaks of Aristotle,
the pre-Socratics, and the Stoics. He thought in the forms laid down in the
philosophical tradition of the schools, but shattered their content, not out
of polemical destructiveness but because he was obsessed by the supersensory
One, an idea that he developed and with all its consequences.
in full purity
On the surface, his work may seem to be a combination of traditional
(Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic) elements. Actually they are transformed by
a process of transcending that had never before been carried out so per-
sistently and radically. Unlike Heraclitus and Parmenides, Plotinus had
the concepts of the intervening Greek philosophers to work with. He was
not a creator; he refashioned existing concepts into a great, new, self-
contained unity. And he was conscious of repeating the ancients, especially

Plato. "These ideas are not new; they were stated long ago, though not
clearly and sharply. The present ideas are interpretations of those old
ideas."
Plotinus knew how close he was to Plato. For Plato had elucidated the
transcendence of the One (in the notion of "Beyond-Being") in his negative
theology, and in his derivation of the world from unity and Being in the
first and second "hypotheses" of the Parmenides. But he was also very
different from Plato. An operation which Plato carried out with playful
inventiveness and regarded as merely one factor in his dialectical philosophy
became for Plotinus the exclusive absolute. Plato looked upon philosophizing
asan activity through which man comes to resemble the divine, and never
thought of bridging the gulf between them; for Plotinus philosophizing
was a union with the divine, whereby the distance between man and God
was annulled. Plato observed a dividing line between world and transcend-
ence; Plotinus crossed it. Plato carries out transcending movements in
human existence; Plotinus lives in the one transcendence. In a playful tale,
Plato invents a world-architect, a demiurge; Plotinus makes everything

issue from the One. Although Plotinus quotes Plato literally in support of
his own central ideas, he is actually drawing on a very different source to
establish an all-pervading metaphysical way of life.
With incomparable devotion Plotinus seized upon the idea of God

explicitly formulated by Xenophanes, meditated upon by Parmenides (with-
out being called God) and by Plato, which in Aristotle had degenerated into
a logical construction and in Stoicism into pantheism. This was the
philosophical idea of God.
Plotinus drew on the cosmology of Poseidonius (c. 135-50 B.C.), who in
turn had taken his view of nature from Plato's Timaeus. But there is an
essential difference between the two systems: in the Stoic materialism of
Poseidonius the transcendent One is lacking; his world-reason is the fiery
pneuma, consubstantial with the human spirit, while Plotinus transcends
spirit as well as matter. In Poseidonius there is not so much as a suggestion
ofwhat students of Plotinus have always found so deeply moving.
In those days there was a body of thought associated with the Mysteries,
Orphic ideas, and Oriental lore. The form it assumed in the period of
Plotinus isknown as Gnosis. In the Gnostic conception, the soul has a
heavenly home from which it has fallen. It is wrapped in veils that conceal
it from itself. It longs to be gone from the illusion, impurity, and evil of
this existence and return to its home. The true life is the life which enables
the soul to find the way back. In its fall the soul is clothed in foreign
substance, which it casts off in returning upward. The cosmos is the
scene of these journeys, whose successive stations constitute its geography.
This schema is one of the backgrounds of Plotinus' thinking. But
Plotinus opposed Gnosticism with its materialized stages and its redeemer
sent by the transcendent God, who guides the soul upward from this world
created by an evil being. His purpose is purely philosophical, the self-
liberation of the individual soul; he acknowledges the splendor of this
world, and rejects both the Gnostic conception of a temporal history of
Being and the fanciful multiplication of intermediate stages which
later Neoplatonists took over from the Gnostics.
Quite apart from the vagueness of such historical concepts as "Oriental"

and "Greek," the thesis that Oriental thinking invaded Greek philosophy
with Plotinus must be rejected. The dignity of the human personality,
which through thinking achieves awareness of its independence, is an
effective force in Plotinus. He is moved by the beauty of the cosmos. He
revered the "divine Plato" and the ancient philosophers from Parmenides
and Heraclitus to Aristotle. The Greeks had been subject to Oriental
influence since the earliest times. In assimilating it, they transformed it,
giving speech to something which without them would have remained

mute. This is also true of Plotinus, who from early youth was passionately
interested in the wisdom of India and the Orient.
PLOT IN US 91
When we consider the philosophical life of his day, we can only agree
with Dodds that amid Philo's theosophical dreams, Tertullian's poisoned
fanaticism, Porphyry's amiable pieties, and the unspeakable inanities of
the Mysteries, Plotinus alone has the appeal of a true thinker; that he
rejected Gnosis and theurgy and resolutely raised the claim of reason as
instrument of philosophy and key to the structure of reality.
Both in his being and in his achievement, Plotinus was above his times.
Under the Emperor Gallienus, to be sure, art experienced a "renaissance,"
which was also the swan song of ancient classicism; but it is a far cry
from this sculpture, whose interest today is purely historical, to the philos-
ophy of Plotinus, which is an eternal monument of Western culture.
It would be mistaken to interpret the attitude of Plotinus as a weariness
reflecting the dying civilization of his age. Quite the contrary, his life and
thinking are an example of the irresistible vigor of philosophy. But his
thinking does have the power to help people in overcoming their world-
weariness.
Plotinus' influence down to our own day has been extraordinary. He
is the father of all "speculative mysticism," surpassed by none of its later
representatives. His influence is remarkable for its depth and also for the
distortions it has undergone.
Plotinus is regarded as the founder of "Neoplatonism." He lived in the
third century, Iamblichus in the fourth, Proclus in the fifth, Damascius and
Simpiicius in the sixth century. But "the influence of Plotinus' original
text on the Neoplatonists is almost non-existent. Actual quotations are
rare" (Harder). Plotinus' successors did not derive from his spirit. They
were chiefly interested in pagan religion, in transforming the
restoring
figures of the philosophers into saints, in founding a philosophical religion.
They were given to undisciplined flights of fancy. At the same time, they
developed a philosophical scholarship some of whose achievements are
still highly valued, and some of them were extraordinary teachers of
philosophy.
was also taken over by Christian thinkers, above all by Augus-
Plotinus
tine. Here the philosophical source was negated. Plotinus' transcendent
One was manifest to reason; the Christian God manifested Himself through
Christ. The new philosophy was based, not on philosophical inquiry as
such, but on faith in a unique revelation. Plotinus' Above-Being was
degraded to Being, the spiritual cosmos was elevated to become God's
thoughts. The two merged and became a personal God. Plotinus' three
hypostases (the One, Spirit, the World-Soul) were replaced by the Trinity;
Plotinus'emergence of all being, by the Creation and the mysterious
between the members of the Trinity.
relations
In Neoplatonism the materialization of Plotinian thinking found its
most impressive representative in Proclus (410-485). The ideas of Proclus
were taken up in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita (c. 500),
through whom they became an element in all medieval thinking. Plotinus

himself achieved new influence with the Renaissance (Marsilius Ficino,
M33-I499)-
A
misunderstanding fraught with enormous consequences was the
identification of Plotinus with Plato. Long seen as a kind of Plotinus,
Plato was rediscovered step by step. Finally, in the course of the last
hundred years, he became visible as himself. It was only then that an
understanding of Plotinus' own characteristic greatness became possible.
ANSELM
I. LIFE AND WORKS

Life:Anselm was born in 1033 m
Aosta, an Alpine town in the border
zone between Burgundy and Lombardy. His father Gundulph and his
mother Ermenberga were descended from the old nobility. He quarreled
with his father, left home, and wandered about for years in France until
1060, when he became a monk in the Benedictine monastery of Bee in
Normandy and studied under the Abbot Lanfranc. In 1063 he became prior,
in 1078 abbot of the monastery, and in 1093 Archbishop of Canterbury.
Twice driven into exile in the course of his struggle in behalf of Church
rights with Kings William II and Henry I, he lived in Rome, Lyon, and
other cities. In 1106, when was ended, he returned to Canterbury,
the dispute
where he died in 1109 at the age of seventy-five. He showed equal greatness
as a monk by his piety, as archbishop by his courageous defense of Church
rights, and as a thinker by his originality, depth, and clarity.
Wor\s: The greater part of his work was written in the monastery of Bee.
His writings deal with God (Monologiutn de divinatis essentia, Proslogium),
with God and man (De veritate, De libero arbitrio, De casu Diaboli), As
archbishop he thought through the great dogmatic questions (in his contro-
versy with Roscellinus: De fide trinitatis, 1093; on the occasion of the Synod
of Bari with the Greeks: De processione Spiritus Sancti; in exile: Cur deus
homo and De conceptu virginali et originali peccato; finally, in the last
years of his on the conjunction between predestination and

life, free will).
He also wrote numerous sermons and letters.
The The vast majority of the European population lived

historical situation:
from the world by lack of communications and education.
in villages, cut off
Through the monastic orders, the Roman Catholic Church represented
a force for order and civilization. Though not a large social group, the
clergy numbered many men of distinction and possessed an imposing unity
of language (Latin), knowledge, and faith. While the common people never
left their home districts and were without vision of the outside world, the
monks led a rich, active life, unrestricted by national frontiers. Born in Italy,
93
Anselm became a monk in France and in England Archbishop of Canter-

bury.
and mode of life, the Normans conquered
Carriers of the French language
England and founded a state, embracing Normandy and England,
in 1066
which, under William the Conqueror, was more powerful, more unified,
and more solidly organized than any other political structure of the time.
The Normans were a barbaric people, energetic and cruel. The nobles
could neither read nor write, the entire population was devoted to the
Church. Sole possessors of education and tradition, the clergy provided
the men who organized and guided society. The conquerors appropriated
all the land and distributed it among Norman nobles. This nobility
spoke French, the clergy wrote Latin, the people spoke the despised
language of the oppressed, which later developed into English.
n. ANSELM'S FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHICAL IDEA
a. Exposition. The no God. The faithful

fool hath said in his heart: there is
—
believe Him to be. Can pure thought unclouded by folly and uninfluenced
—
by the obedience of faith acquire certainty of God's being? Yes, says Anselm.
His demonstration is as follows:
Think: God is "a being than which nothing greater can be conceived
(Quo maius cogitari non potest)."
The fool replies: There is no God, because the idea of the greatest is
only a thought in the mind; merely by being thought, its content does not
become real.
To this we answer: It is one thing to exist only in the mind and another
A painter can have a picture in his mind without
to exist also in reality.
having painted But with the idea of God it is a different matter. The
it.
fool must admit "that something exists in the understanding at least, than
which nothing greater can be conceived." This admission suffices. For a
thing, than which nothing greater can be thought, cannot exist only in the
understanding. Why not? Because then the greatest thing that really is
would be greater than the greatest that is only thought and does not exist
in reality. If the greatest were only in the understanding, the greatest which
in addition really existed would be greater than that which is present only
in thought.
To conceive of a greatest that is present only in the understanding and not
in reality, so that something greater can be thought, which exists also in

reality, gives rise to a contradiction. For then we have conceived of a great-
est that is not the greatest. It is said to be the greatest thing conceivable,
but is something greater, namely, that which is also real,
not, because
is conceivable. Thus pure thought gives us the certainty that that beyond
ANSELM 95
which no greater can be conceived exists both in the mind and in reality.
This certainty is free from doubt. It is perfect certainty, because we cannot,
without contradiction, think that the greatest, beyond which no greater is
thinkable, does not exist.
The same idea can be expressed in a number of variants:
If the greatest beyond which no greater can be conceived, is not conceived
as existing, it is not the greatest.
It is so true that that beyond which no greater can be conceived really
exists, that its nonexistence is not even conceivable.

If in my thought I really have that beyond which a greater cannot be
conceived, this idea, though it seems at first to be present only in my thought,
encompasses its Being.
It is possible to conceive of a being whose Nonbeing is inconceivable.
But something whose Nonbeing is inconceivable cannot in reality not be.
It is.
If I think of the being beyond which no greater is thinkable as non-

existent, by that same token I have not thought of the greatest thinkable
being.
As soon as I conceive of the greatest that can be thought as existing
only in my idea, it also vanishes in my idea; is no longer the greatest.
it
Either I must abandon the idea, or I must conceive of its content as real.
b. Interpretation. Anselm's fundamental thought is not mere mathematical

juggling with the category of quantity. Considered out of context, it can be
mistaken for a logical operation by which the existence of an object, e.g.,
the never visible far side of the moon, is "proved"; such a proof is immediately
refuted, because it cannot be confirmed by experience. Seen in this light,
Anselm's idea may appear to be a logical trick demanding to be exposed.

This would be a misunderstanding, which we can avoid by examining
the circumstances of Anselm's thinking.
i. Inward quietness, not mysticism: Anselm introduces his exposition

of his idea with an invitation to silent inwardness: "Flee thy occupations,
cast aside thy burdensome cares and put away thy toilsome business. Hide
thyself from thy disturbing thoughts. Yield room to God and rest for a
little time in him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts
save that of God; close thy door and seek him."

This is more than an insistence on mere attentiveness, more than a
summons to quiet thinking. With these words Anselm points to the realm
of concentration, seclusion, withdrawal from the world and its cares,
the realm which is not nothingness but where, on the contrary, through
questioning, we can gain certainty of God's existence.
If we compare this with the prescriptions of the mystics, the crucial
difference is that Anselm does not devise a technique of meditation and its
stages, and does not strive for visions and ecstasies. His concern is pure
thought. He aims not at psychic experience, not at emotional intoxication,
but at sober, compelling clarity, in regard to the all-important.
2. Insight and empty thought: Anselm drew a clear distinction between

authentic thinking and empty, purely rational thought. "For in one sense
an object is conceived when the word signifying it is conceived; and in
another, when the very entity, which the object is, is understood."
The nonexistence of God can be conceived in the first kind of thought,
which contents itself with the literal meaning of words, but never in the
second, authentic mode of thought. If I think authentically, with insight,
thatGod is, I cannot think that God is not. The man who says the words
"God is not" cannot think what he says.
This applies to the idea that something, nothing greater than which
is conceivable, must be. If I understand the idea, I cannot at the same time
believe that what is thus thought does not exist. I can speak of nonbeing
only if I do not understand what I am saying.
Consequently the purely formal proposition that the nonexistence of the
highest,beyond which nothing higher can be thought, is unthinkable, is not
enough. As a logical proposition it is empty. But taken in relation to its
ground and fulfillment, it engenders understanding.

Anselm's idea can be meaningful only if there is a thinking which is
based neither on experience nor on previously defined concepts, but which,
transcending all concepts, touches the heart of reality. Then the formal
operation is filled with meaning by an "insight," which is at once impulsion
and goal. In its application to the reality of thinking, Anselm's idea
is an existential vicious circle expressed in a logical vicious circle.
3. A unique idea, meaningful only in relation to God: The idea in which

the certainty that God exists springs solely from the fact that His non-
existence cannot be thought is a unique idea applicable only to God. There
is no other being besides God whose existence can be derived from its
essence. The nonexistence of every other object is thinkable. The existence
must be demonstrated by its existence in the world.
of every other object
But Anselm's idea is derived neither from universal premises nor from
experience.
The ontological proof had already been conceived as a mere universal,
that is, in rational abstraction, by Anselm's contemporary and adversary,
Gaunilon. In disagreement with Gaunilon, Anselm denied that the idea
of God as that being "than which nothing greater can be conceived,"
could apply to Gaunilon's "island which is more excellent than all islands."
According to Anselm, the existence of such an island does not follow from
its excellence. Invoking God, Anselm declares "Everything that is, excepting
:
AN SELM 97
thee alone, can be conceived as not being. Thou alone of all things hast Being
in the truest sense, and hence most of all."
Thus the idea cannot be dissociated from its content and stated as a
syllogism with the major premise: Every thing that is conceived as the
most perfect of its kind also has existence. This relation between being-
thought and being applies only to God. One who thinks of God can think
of Him only as being. Consequently all other existents, which can be
conceived also to be nonexistent, are other and poorer in being than God.
God's being or existence, or whatever we may choose to call it, is not
the mode an island
of reality of something, of any thing in the world, of
(Gaunilon) or of a hundred thalers (Kant). It alone is the being by virtue
of which it is impossible that it is not and that nothing is and which as —
such is a certainty in our thinking.
This impossibility of nothingness takes the form of the unthinkable
only in connection with God. It is manifested to thought, which is itself
being, though only created being. As an image of God's creative thinking,
it perceives the necessary being of God through itself.
4.No object: The "being than which nothing greater can be conceived"
{quo maius cogitari nequit) must be conceived in its authentic essence. It
is not, Gaunilon said, "greater than all beings" {maius omnibus).
as
For then would merely be a thing. If God is conceived as the highest
it
of beings, His nonbeing is not as unthinkable as Anselm supposes. As

highest in the series, it is not the highest than which nothing higher can
be conceived. For what is called the highest being in the series need not
be highest in an absolute sense.
Anselm's God does not, in being thought, become an object. Thus,
according to Anselm, God is "not only the being than which a greater
cannot be conceived, but ... a being greater than everything that can
be conceived." This is crucial: with the idea that the greatest must exist
Anselm combines the more profound thought that this greatest is also
unthinkable. In so doing he counteracts the intellectual pride for which
thought and Being, thinkability and reality, coincide.
A painter paints the picture hehad in his imagination. By thinking

God, however, a thinker does not produce God, but only assures himself
of God's reality. God gives Himself in man's thinking— again a corrective
to the intellectual pride which supposes that man has power over God, that
God is dependent on man's thinking.
5. Anselm's "theory of contradiction": Anselm operates with the assumption

that contradiction is unthinkable. He does not use the word "contradiction";
no more than Parmenides does he formulate the logical proposition. He
says only that it is impossible to think nonexistence. Contradiction is
employed an idea which goes far beyond the notions of

as a function of
contradiction or freedom from contradiction.
In an operation of transcending, formal logic cannot supply such proofs
as are possible in connection with finite objects. Thus, measured by the
logical rigor of object thinking, Anselm's proof discloses the same formal
flaw as all transcending thought, that is, thought which tries by finite means
to attain the infinite. The alternative: God is or is not, is lacking. Such an
alternative would put God into the category of objects to which the "is"
and the "is not" apply. If the concept of contradiction is to be used in a
transcending proof, it must lose its usual meaning, which belongs to the
realm of our finite thinking. It becomes a symbol by which to elucidate
the impossibility of God's nonexistence. In his philosophy, Cusanus made
the opposite use of the contradiction: God is and is not; here the coincidentia
oppositorum becomes a means of attaining the godhead.
Such methodological reflections on the logical forms of transcending
are far removed from the rich spontaneity of Anselm's thinking. Thus we
can only assimilate his central idea by noting that it is developed with
wonderful clarity in accordance with a method that was not explicitly
formulated until much later. We can understand Anselm. With him we can
work out the function of contradiction in his idea and so experience the
perpetual mystery of man's ability to think, as a medium of transcending.
6. Anselm's thought as an invocation of God: Anselm does not set forth

his thought as though expounding an objective, scientific truth, but as an
invocation of God, a prayer: "Teach my heart where and how it may
seek thee." "I was created to see, and not yet have I done that for which I
was made."
He cannot succeed in his meditation by his own strength. "I strove
toward God, and I stumbled on myself." "Enlighten us, reveal thyself to
us." "Teach me to seek thee, and unveil thyself to me, when I seek thee,
for I cannot seek thee, except thou teach me, nor find thee, except thou
reveal thyself.I will seek thee in yearning, and yearn for thee in my seek-
ing." Prayer and invocation are not only at the beginning and end; they
permeate the whole thought process. It is not a mere logical operation
applying to something seen from outside.
The treatise in which the idea is put forward is significantly entitled:
Proslogium, The Invocation of God; Anselm had originally meant to
call it "Fides quaerens intellectum ," "Faith Seeking Understanding,"
but this title was dropped. The work presupposes faith, not any dogmatic
article of faith (nor a logical premise from which the idea would be de-
rived), but a fundamental human state or attitude, or the being or essence
of man. With this as his basis, Anselm strives "to lift his mind to the
contemplation of God, and seeks to understand what he believes."
AN SELM 99
In an earlierwork (Monologium) Anselm had given an example of

reflection on the rational content of faith {ratio fidei). But now he is
clearly striving for something more. He is looking for "a single argument
which would require no other for its proof than itself alone; and alone
would suffice to demonstrate that God truly exists." The change of title is
essential. The foundation of the new treatise is not a definite Christian
dogma but a believing invocation of God.
Consciously, to be sure, Anselm takes the Christian faith as his starting
point. But in the idea of his "proof of the existence of God" a larger area
is discernible (and there is no mention of Christ) all that remains is a
:
faith without object, a fulfillment in the Encompassing; the actuality of

being, as a source in which the believer finds himself.
Thus the whole treatise isa seeming contradiction. Anselm
marked by
begins: "For do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe
I
—
in order to understand. For this also I believe that unless I believe, I should
not understand." But at the end of the "proof" he writes "What I formerly :
believed by thy bounty {te donante), I now so understand by thine illumi-

nation {te ill um in ante) that if I were unwilling to believe that thou dost
,
exist, I should not be able to understand this to be true!'

Anselm's operation requires the sentence at the beginning and
first
makes possible the second at the end. But the second sentence tells us that
in his idea, once attained, Anselm sees more than a mere interpretation of
the ratio fidei.
In relation to God's being, the principle of contradiction takes on the

force of revelation. The most formal thinking expresses the deepest mean-
ing. What seems to be the simplest operation of the mere understanding
becomes the medium of a knowledge that overwhelms the thinker, a
knowledge that is more than knowledge, namely faith. This was possible
only because in Anselm thinking did not break away from the source to
become a purely intellectual process. Through the presence of the being
than which no greater can be conceived, faith took on the certainty of
necessary insight.
Such insight must also be termed faith. The authoritarian Christian faith
which Anselm took as his starting point is not the only faith. The difference
between an abstract idea, which is thought only in a formal sense, and
actual thought, which fills such an idea with a fundamentally human con-
sciousness of Being, is the difference between a mere intellectual operation
(in which form the idea is without validity) and the insight of faith (which
is accessible to all thinking men insofar as they are favored with God's
illumination te illuminante) This insight of faith
. is reason, which is freely
given to itself Encompassing and knows God without recourse to

in the
authority. Just as Anselm's faith-knowledge of God's existence is not an
interpretation of any dogma or of any revealed text, so philosophical prayer
ioo The Original Thinners
is not essentially Christian, but an expression of human life as such in

relation to transcendence. It is thinking that becomes one with the thinker's
existence.
Have we then two kinds of faith, Christian and rational? In Anselm's
opinion, no, but in the reality of his thinking, yes. In Anselm the autonomy
of philosophizing, of philosophical faith, implies no consciousness of self-
sufficiency, no breach with, let alone opposition to, the unquestionable
certainty of Christian faith. That was possible in the northern and central
Europe of Anselm's age, when Christianity was the only true faith, because
other faiths were unknown. It was only later that contact with Islam through
the crusades had its extraordinary effect on men's thinking. In Anselm's
day the one Christian Church was still the sole repository of all higher
thinking, of all education and tradition, a position of pre-eminence to
which a number of outstanding figures bear witness. There was nothing
else. There was no ground for questioning it. Even heretics doubted only
particular dogmas, not the foundation of the edifice.
7. The significance of his "proof" in Anselm's life: That Anselm's funda-

mental idea was not a rational finding but the climax and foundation of
his existence as a thinker is stated by Anselm himself in the words "Although
:
I and earnestly directed

often my thought to this, and at some times that
which I sought seemed to be just within my reach, while again it wholly
evaded my mental vision, at last in despair I was about
from to cease, as if
the search for a thing which could not be found. But I wished to when
exclude this thought altogether then more and more, though I was
. . .
unwilling and shunned it, it began to force itself upon me, with a kind of
importunity. So, one day, when I was exceedingly wearied with resisting
its importunity, in the very conflict of my thoughts, the proof of which I
had despaired offered itself, so that I eagerly embraced the thoughts which
I was strenuously repelling." Anselm's biographer, Eadmer, writes: "This
thought allowed him neither to sleep, eat, nor drink and, what troubled
him still more, it interfered with his devotions at matins and at other times.
He believed that such thoughts might be temptations of the Devil and
endeavored to banish them from his mind entirely. But the more violently
he sought to do so, the more they besieged him. And one night, as he
lay awake, it happened: God's grace illumined his heart, the object of his
quest lay bared to his understanding, and his whole innermost being
was filled with boundless rejoicing."
This isfrom being the only instance of a fundamental philo-
far
sophical ideacoming to a thinker as a gift, after a long period of inner
—
struggle somewhat in the same way as prophetic revelation or conversion.
Parmenides built a temple in thanks to the god; Cusanus relates that his
fundamental idea descended upon him as an "illumination from above,"
on his return journey from Constantinople; while Descartes tells us that
ANSELM 101
his central idea came to him in winter quarters at Neuburg and that he
gave thanks for it by going on a pilgrimage. The mere fact that great
philosophers have attached so much biographical importance to cer-
tain thoughts forbids us to take them lightly.
8. Gaunilon against Anselm: Anselm maintained that his fundamental idea

was true only in authentic thinking (intelligere), not in empty discourse,
and secondly, that it derived its certainty from the impossibility of the
contradictory (in cogitare) .
The monk Gaunilon agreed with both these assertions but took them as
premises with which to develop his objections to Anselm. To his mind,
a thinking conscious of the reality of its object is not cogitare (understand-
ing) but intelligere (higher insight). If Anselm took thinking in this
specific sense as intelligere, he would not distinguish between the mere
possession of an object in thought and knowledge of its reality. For in
intellection the two coincide.
In answer to this Anselm said: It is the failure of thinking (in the sense
of cogitare) that first leads to authentic intellection. For in relation to all
finite things, the immediate knowledge (intelligere) of a reality does not
preclude the possibility of conceiving its nonexistence. Only in one case,
the knowledge (intelligere) of the highest being, is our knowledge (intel-
ligere) of the reality grounded in our inability to think (cogitare) His

nonexistence. Anselm, says Gaunilon, should have shown that the idea of
the Supreme Being is of a kind that includes certainty of His existence.
Anselm says that this knowledge of the reality of God is not immediate,
but derives its certainty through cogitation, through thinking the impos-
sibility of God's nonexistence.
In his way of operating with the principle of contradiction, it might be
asked, did Anselm not employ the emptiest and most formal aspect of
finite thinking in order to gain insight into the infinite? This would be so
only if the infinite, the godhead, were considered as an object, a thing among
others, and drawn into the sphere of finite knowledge. But for Anselm
contradiction is only a lever whereby thought is raised above finite thinking
to become insight into the reality of God, which is radically different from
knowledge of the real things of the world.
Gaunilon did not doubt the reality of God, but denied that he could
gain insight into this reality through thought and demonstration. It is
impossible, he says, to gain an adequate idea of the Supreme Being. From
this it follows that I must conceive of this being as real, not that it really
exists. Actual reality does not follow from imagined reality or reality
in representation. First the reality itself must be demonstrated; from this

it follows that this reality is the highest reality.
Gaunilon says finally that it is not possible to contest God's existence.
But, Anselm replies, it is always being contested by the fools who deny it.
True, they cannot really know what they are saying; but thinking (cogitare)
can impel them to perceive the vanity of their discourse and put them on the
path to authentic insight.
Gaunilon's arguments all have one thing in common. Based as they are
on pious faith, they seem more reliable than Anselm's philosophical argu-
ments. But they move in the realm of the understanding, into which they
also draw the distinction between cogitare and intelligere; for actually
Gaunilon's intelligere refers only to the reality of finite things. This pre-
vents Gaunilon from getting to the heart of Anselm's thought. For Anselm
arrives at his intelligere by way of cogitare.
With Gaunilon philosophical thinking breaks down into two parts:
on the one hand the empty formalism of correct or incorrect statements
(from which Anselm's meanings are excluded), and on the other hand,
the immediate, indubitable, unthinking certainty of God. But neither the
rationality of compelling but empty statements nor immediate unthinking
faith is capable of gaining certainty in thought or of philosophical tran-
scending. Such rationality degenerates into an indifferent correctness, while
unthinking faith culminates in blind obedience to an unknown authority.
The cleavage between the two stifles true, free philosophizing. It appeals to
common sense, the common sense of godlessness as well as authoritarian
faith. Where either of these becomes the supreme authority, philosophy
dies.
c. The history of Anselm's fundamental idea. In Anselm Western philos-

ophy is reborn. Like Parmenides, he stands at the beginning. But the
historical difference between the two is this: Untrammeled by the historical
presuppositions of faith, Parmenides took the great step to philosophy
without hesitation. Bound to Anselm did not fathom the
ecclesiastical faith,
consequences of his own act of thought. There is in Anselm an authentic

philosophical impulse, but it did not, for the present, gain wider influence.
It was submerged in the mounting stream of specifically Christian dog-
matism.
No one has ever achieved certainty of God's reality in the same way as
Anselm, but his proof was to be taken up by other original thinkers.
Anselm's proof carries force of conviction only for a reader of his text who
thinks along with him, not when set forth in a bare rational form, sep-
arately from the whole. Thus separated from its context, Anselm's thought
was transformed which God became an
into a simple rational proof, in
object in the realm of finite knowledge. In such form (though vestiges
of Anselm's substance are still present as overtones) it was affirmed by
Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, Descartes, Leibniz, and Hegel, rejected by
Thomas Aquinas and Kant.
Thomas Aquinas discusses and refutes Anselm's proof: once God has been
known in intellection, it is impossible to understand how anyone might
AN SELM 103
think He does not exist. This Thomas denies. In his view someone can
perfectly well think that God is not. He might think, for example, that
there is no being than which a greater cannot be conceived. Thus Anselm's
proposition actually starts from the premise that there is something than
which no greater can be conceived. Since Anselm assumes this, he does
not prove it. And elsewhere: according to Anselm, the knowledge that
God's name signifies God signifies also that God is. The name signifies
the being than which no greater can be conceived. What exists in reality
and in the mind is greater than that which exists only in the mind. Hence
from our insight into the meaning of God's name there follows the insight
that He is in reality. Thus God's existence is self-evident. In answer to
this, Thomas says: Granted that God is essentially His Being; but to us
who do not know what God is, it is not self-evident that He is. We cannot
assert that He really is unless we assume that there really is something
than which no greater can be conceived.
What is the meaning of Thomas' position? Anselm and Thomas are
one in the certainty that God is that being than which no greater can be
conceived. But whence this certainty? It may derive from something out-
side, from the reality of the world, which leads us to infer the existence of
—
God as Creator Anselm does not deny this possibility. For Thomas it
is the only way open to the natural intelligence. Or else it may have its
source in an assurance from within, in thinking as thinking, in the existence

of thought; this is Anselm's view, which Thomas denies. Or finally and —
here again both thinkers are agreed —the certainty of God's reality can come
to us from outside, guaranteed by authority.
Two modes of thought confront one another in the crucial point wherein
they differ. On the one hand, a thinking that I enact with my own existence,
which consequently is not empty, but oriented, through its own inherent
lucidity, toward the reality of God. Through the reality of my thinking,
God becomes real to my insight. This is a thinking which withdraws
from all distractions and dispersions to immerse itself in the One, a thinking
into which the thinker gathers himself and all being. Anselm does not
start from any facts, but from thoughts; he strives to demonstrate God's
being in pure thinking, deriving it from thought as such.

Thomas, on the other hand, takes a radically different point of view:
our thinking is dependent on the senses. We gain our concepts by abstraction
from sensibility. We rise up to God by way of concepts. But the foundation
remains the sensible world. From the world we can infer God, from the
visible the invisible through which the visible is. In pure thought we find
no reality. The understanding requires sense perception in order to arrive

at reality.
Thus Thomas employs the traditional ancient proofs of God's existence.

He arranges them in a clear order, which still has currency in textbooks.
He regards them as compelling for the mere natural understanding, even
without faith. Since our thinking must always start from our experience,
all inferences must be based on sense perception in the world. These infer-
ences are classified according to their grounds: from the fact of motion,
we infer the existence of a first unmoved mover; from the series of causes,
because of the impossibility of an endless regressus, we infer a first cause;

from the contingency and mere potentiality of all things in the world, we
infer a necessary being as ground of all reality (via causalitatis) Another .
group of inferences is based on the degrees of perfection in the world. From

degrees of perfection the supreme perfection is inferred as the ground of
all perfection. By rising in the scale of perfections, our thinking arrives
at God (via eminentiae) . Most particularly, the ground of purposiveness
is derived from the purposiveness observed in the world. Natural phenomena
endowed neither with consciousness nor knowledge nevertheless operate
purposively; this is possible only if they are guided by a being endowed
with knowledge: thus God is the cause which lays down purpose. But all these
proofs are restricted by the old ideas of negative theology. Where the proofs
impute determinations God, these determinations must be annulled.
to God
cannot be apprehended through determinations (via negationis).
Anselm knew all the proofs of the existence of God; he himself repeated
them and thought them correct. But they did not suffice him. Enraptured by
thought as thought, he found the fundamental idea to which he clung all
his life. But for Thomas this idea was a fallacy of which he disposed in
passing, so simply that one is amazed at Anselm as well as Thomas. What
does this mean ?
Thomas thought with the natural understanding, which for him was
empirical and rationalistic. Or in receiving revelation, he thought mystery.
Anselm knew no such cleavage. Because he understood revelation with
reason, he was able, in his fundamental thought, to exercise pure reason even
without revelation.
Thomas' proofs of the existence of God demand no other thinking than
that of the natural understanding. What Thomas apprehends in this way is
available to every man without the ground of existence, it is convincing

reality to the common sense (though, to be sure, as we have known since
Kant, this common-sense reasoning is deceptive). This mediocre, essentially
anchorless common sense knows neither the play of thought in speculation
nor the objectless apperception of reality through thinking existence. Thomas
supposes himself to be in possession of tangible knowledge; he has the cer-
tainty of reality. In this reality, rising by degrees, he believes he can disclose
the reality of God by demonstration. Over the poverty of this method and
its contents arches the radiant mystery of revelation and its contents as formu-
lated by theological thinking.
Anselm's fundamental idea belongs neither to the realm of the natural
understanding, delimited by Thomas, nor to that of revelation. It lies in
between, and in Thomas there is no place for it. For it is original philosophy,
A N SELM 105
thinking filled with the philosopher's own existence. Anselm trusts pro-
foundly in the unity of thought and faith in the source of reason, that is, of
philosophy. In the age of Thomas, the danger of thought for authority had
become more evident than in Anselm's day. Thomas tried to conjure
far
this danger, on the one hand by accepting common-sense thinking but defin-
ing its limits, and on the other hand by complementing it with the mystery
of revelation. He accepted common-sense thinking at the cost of subordinat-
ing all thinking to mystery. There was no longer room for Anselm's great
philosophizing. It slipped away between the two tangible corporeal realities.
It might seem as though Thomas had sensed the enormous danger for
Church authority inherent in Anselm's philosophizing. Of this, however,

there is no indication in the writings of Thomas, but only the admirable
theologian's utter incomprehension of everything that did not fit into his
world, so vast, so well ordered, so brilliant, and yet so dogmatically limited.
In Thomas fulfilled thinking, thinking as an existential act, has vanished.
At thisone point in Anselm's thinking the soul stands in direct contact with
God without the mediation of realities or revelation.
Was Anselm The advocates both of Thomism and of common
extravagant ?
sense, of naive realism and of the highly developed rationalism of authoritar-
ian religion, are agreed that he was, though the opinion is stated with
varying sharpness. We still find it in Gilson's mild formulation: "To our
feeling, St. Anselm deviated from the sound way passing over ex- . . .
perience to the mere necessity of the concept."

I shall not discuss the affirmations of Anselm's idea by Bonaventura,
Duns Scotus, and Hegel, which in many variants disclose a trace of Anselm's
spirit. I shall also pass over Spinoza, who simply made Anselm's funda-
mental idea into the first of his definitions, from which he constructs his
figures of thought: "By cause of itself I mean that whose essence comprises
existence or that whose nature can only be conceived as existing." Instead,
I shall consider Descartes and Leibniz, who both affirm Anselm's idea, but
degrade it into a proof of objectively compelling character, treating its object
as a fact and trying
improve man's understanding of this fact.
to
Descartes: Descartes held Anselm's proof to be correct. Only of the high-
est being, of God alone, can it be said that His essence includes existence.
Only in connection with God is the proof compelling: existence can no

more be separated from the essence of God than from the essence of a
triangle the fact that the sum of its angles is equal to two right angles or the
notion valley from the notion mountain. My thinking does not impose this
necessity on things. On the contrary, the reality itself, namely God's existence,
imposes this necessity on my thinking. I am free to conceive of God without
existence as I am free to think of a horse with or without wings.
But Descartes wishes to improve on Anselm's idea. Anselm's inference
draws its cogency from the idea of the highest being, of perfection. Its indis-
pensable premise is that I have this idea. Descartes takes it as a fact that I
have and this fact becomes the ultimate ground of Anselm's proof. The
it,
idea of the most perfect being, even the idea of a being more perfect than I,
cannot stem from myself and cannot come from nothing. It must have an
adequate cause. I who have this idea could not exist if there were not such
a being. "The whole compelling force of this proof lies in my recognition
that I myself with my nature —insofar as I have the idea of God in me—could
not possibly exist if God did not really exist." Existence as such, knowing it-
self to beand imperfect existence, presupposes the existence of God as

finite
standard of the infinite and perfect.

The idea of the infinite perfect God is in Descartes innate and unchang-
ing; it has attained its object. In Anselm the idea is in motion: its content
is not the summum esse, but the quo mains cogitari non potest, not an object
but a task. The fixity of the object in Descartes suggests a transference of
thinking to the infinite, which I now possess; while Anselm is perpetually
in motion toward the infinite. In Descartes we have a transcendent godhead,
in Anselm God is present without becoming an object.
Although Descartes transfers the proof to the level of objectively com-
pelling knowledge, he knows how difficult the operation is. "There is surely
nothing that I easily and readily than God if my mind
would know more
were not clouded by prejudices and if the images of corporeal things did not
fully occupy my consciousness." Are these words spoken as one might speak
of any difficult idea, in mathematics for example, or do they reveal an aware-
ness of the source that was at work in Anselm?
Leibniz: Like Descartes, Leibniz does not regard the ontological proof as
valid in itself and tries to improve on it by adding a new premise that will
make it absolutely secure. This new premise lies in the very thought that
God, or perfect Being, is possible. If this thought is possible, its object

must be real. And it is possible. For nothing can impede the possibility of
what knows no limitations, no negation, and consequently no contradiction.
This idea in itself suffices to give me a priori knowledge of God's existence.
Descartes and Leibniz introduce Anselm's proof into the context of other
proofs. They transform it into a fact among other facts, and remove it
from existence, that is, from the thinking which experiences reality and not
mere logical necessity, or rather which in logical necessity experiences
something more. Both try characteristically to improve on the proof, inject-
ing a new presupposition that is supposed to give it full validity. Neverthe-
less,something of Anselm's substance remains; God's uniqueness and relation
to my own existence are still present. Without these, the proof, transformed
into an objective logical operation, becomes empty and meaningless. This
was understood by Kant, who did not know Anselm's proof in the original,
but only as paraphrased by the rationalists. Finding Anselm's idea in this
denatured form, Kant termed it the ontological proof of the existence of
God, and refuted it.
AN SELM 107
Kant: Like Anselm, Kant perceived the unique value of the idea over
against the many proofs of the existence of God. "If the absolute necessity
of a thing is to be known in theoretical consciousness, this might be done
solely on the basis of concepts a priori, never on the basis of a cause in relation
to a being that is given in experience."

Since Kant it has been clear that all proofs of the existence of God based
on facts in the world are false, because they move on the plane of reality,
which is the experience of objects in the world. When Thomas with the
ancients infers the unchanging from the changing, the mover from the
moved, the most perfect being from the degrees of perfection, the absolute
from the relative, his starting point is a set of facts. Interpreted in concep-
tual terms, these facts call for completion by something which is not a fact,
but derived as a concept, and which can never occur as a fact.
Kant noted that all these proofs do essentially the same thing as the
denatured ontological proof: they infer the reality of an object from its
concept. This ontological proof is indeed at the heart of all proofs of God's
existence.
Rejecting what he termed the ontological proof, Kant argues that no
reality can ever be inferred from concepts. "When, therefore, I think a being
as the supreme reality, without any defect, the question still remains whether
it exists or not." How can I ascertain its real existence? If it were an object
of sense perception, I should be dependent on the context of my experience;
through it, my thinking would gain another possible perception. But if we
wish to think of existence through pure category alone, "we cannot specify
a single mark distinguishing it from mere possibility."
In other words: Our consciousness of existence pertains in every case
to the unity of experience. Only in "relation to my whole state of thinking,"
namely to the fact that knowledge of an object is possible through the expe-
rience of perception, can its existence be demonstrated. In speaking of an
object of sense perception, we would not confuse the existence of a thing
with the concept of that thing. But in dealing with an object of pure
thought, even ifwe impute every perfection to it, even if it is free from all
contradiction, we still have no means of proving it to be real. For reality
is not one of the predicates of a concept, but pertains to the relation of a
thing to our existence and experience. "A hundred real thalers do not con-
tain the least coin more than a hundred possible thalers. . . . My financial
position is, however, affected very differently by a hundred real thalers
than it is by the mere concept of them (that is, of their possibility)."
Here Kant radically rejects the possibility of attaining certainty of Being
by thinking pure and simple. For thought is as such objectless (mere possi-
bility) and, in order to gain objective significance, requires completion.
From an idea we cannot "pick out" the existence of a corresponding object.
The ontological proof must either take existence into the concept (the "most
real being") : then the thought itself would have to be a thing, which is
impossible; or else the being we wish to demonstrate must be presupposed:

then we should have a "wretched tautology."
Kant's whole critique of the ontological proof remains within the category
of being as an empirical reality. He considered Anselm's "idea of God" on the
same plane as it occupies in Descartes and Leibniz, but in addition he dis-
pelled the last vestige of Anselm's spirit, which is perhaps still discernible
in Descartes and Leibniz. In his whole discussion of the matter, Kant moves
exclusively in the realm of concepts which are indeed inappropriate to the
idea of God. He speaks of empirical, not transcendent, reality. Kant sharply
rejected the old philosophical habit of making transcendence a bodily reality,
existing in some place and time.
If Kant rejects all proofs of the existence of God, including the so-called
ontological proof, we must go beyond his particular arguments and ask:
Why?
Kant's philosophical motive is the reality of the transcendent itself. I
cannot know the transcendent as I know things in the world. I cannot gain
possession of it by knowledge and have it as I can have an object. It is
equally fallacious to objectify God, to consider Him as we consider the

reality of the sensible world, and to demonstrate His existence by mathemati-
cal or logical reasoning.
For Kant the question is very much the same as for Anselm: How shall
I gain certainty of God's reality? Anselm indicates the meditative path of

transcending thought, Kant the practical path of ethical action. Anselm
knows the philosophical experience of inner action, leading to the certainty
of God's existence. Kant knows reflection on the ethical action of man, who
understands the meaning of his action only through the practical postulates
of freedom and the existence of God. Kant's intuition of God, which is
grounded in the reality of ethical action, appears at the limit of
essentially
every realm of reason: as Ding an sich, as the created ground of the phe-
nomenal world; as the supersensory substrate of humanity in the contempla-
tion of the beautiful; as the unity of all our faculties of reason in the
intelligible; as the source of ideas. Kant also develops from his thinking
the "transcendental ideal," the "material of all possibility," but these, as he
states expressly, are only representations of the "flawless ideal"; they do not
imply a knowledge of the real God. "Necessity, infinity, unity, existence
outside of the world (not as world-soul), eternity (without temporal con-
ditions), omnipresence (without spatial conditions), omnipotence, etc."
all these are for Kant predicates of transcendence that can be thought a
priori. To "work out the purified concept (of transcendence) that is so much
needed by theology" is for Kant But thought can
a philosophical task.
give all these no reality. For the ultimate ground of existential insight, which
first lends weight to all these limiting concepts, is not theory but ethical
practice.
AN SELM 109
Between Anselm and Kant there is a kinship that skips over all the inter-
vening historical links. An indication of this is that for both of them there
is only one essential proof. This one proof is not a mere content of thought,
Our thinking moves in several directions, actuality is
but God's presence.
famous saying about the two things the starry heavens above
one. In his —
me and the moral law within me— that fill the heart with ever-renewed
wonder and awe, he adds: "I see them before me and link them directly
with the consciousness of my existence."
In the consciousness of their own Existenz, elucidated in thinking, both
gain certainty of God's existence. Kant, who rejects the ontological proof,
does not call his "ethical" demonstration of the existence of God a proof,
but a postulate. Because the certainty of God's existence is not grounded in
an objective proof of the understanding, Kant, after setting forth the
thought that leads to God, does not say "He is a certainty," but "I am certain."
Anselm and Kant apprehend the one source of a certainty that can be
expressed in rational terms but not demonstrated by reason. Their thinking
is not a thinking "about" something, but a thinking Existenz, in which what
they think becomes real for them. All the others, Thomas, Descartes, or
Leibniz, whether for or against Anselm's proof, think in a very different
way from Anselm and Kant.
These two in turn differ in their fundamental experience. Both attain
to being in thought, but Anselm does so in pure thought, which is not
cogitare but intelligere, Kant in practical thinking governed by an absolute
law. For Kant my thinking awareness of the law I ought to follow contains
something more than law, namely God. For Anselm, my thinking of the
being than which no greater can be conceived, contains more than thought.
In both cases, God becomes a certainty through their existence.
For neither thinker is God an acquisition of disinterested knowledge;
He is present only to believing reason. Certainty is sought in the never-
ending movement of our existence in time. For Anselm it requires purity
of heart, without which his "idea" cannot be realized. In Anselm reflection
is meditative and leads back to Christian faith. For Kant it is reflexive,
leading back to the rational existence of ethical action.
Such ideas may appear to be mere technical devices by which to gain
certainty of God's existence, but for those who first enact them, they are
events: these thinkers have found something never to be forgotten, that
sustains their lives for ever after. Later, such ideas are disseminated in a
rational simplification and become ineffectual, mere doctrine. Nevertheless,
them is an impulse,
they preserve an inexhaustible power, for hidden within
a spark, which can take any moment, whenever it falls on a soul
fire at
prepared for the flame of certainty in God.

Kant moved in the same area of philosophical depth as Anselm, and it
was for that very reason that he rejected the simplified logical form in
which he encountered the idea. But the question remains: Is there room in
no The Original Thinners
the area of Kantian critical thinking for Anselm's idea as Anselm intended
it: the power of logical thought to transcend thought with thought in an
attitude of prayer ?
III. CHARACTERIZATION OF ANSELM'S THINKING

a. Anselm's original philosophy as Christian thinking: There is a radiant
power in Anselm's philosophy. It is not a preparatory stage; it is a fulfill-
ment, but one belonging to an early period, unaffected by the cleavages

resulting from the reflection and the realities of a later day.
His thinking treats of truth, free will, evil, and the doctrines of the God-
man {cur deus homo) and the Trinity. He believed that faith could be
made accessible to reason. When Kant writes of religion within the limits
of mere reason and Anselm seeks reason in the contents of faith (according
to the Augustinian principle: credo ut intelligam), the difference between
them is that one did his thinking before the cleavage into faith and reason,
theology and philosophy, the other afterward. In both the will to auton-
omous reason and were at work; both knew
a lofty concept of reason
that the reality of reason does not haveground in itself.
its
Anselm was the great original thinker of the Middle Ages. To be sure, the
continuity of Christian thinking paved the way for his philosophy. But
this was only the source of the power which enabled him, like Augustine,
to philosophize independently. Like Augustine, he saw faith as the source
of thinking, so that he knew both formulations: believe in order to under-

stand the content of faith; understand in order to gain the certainty of
faith. The seeming contradiction between the primacy of faith and the
independent power of thinking is a confluence of the motives of this
original philosophizing.
His extensive, crystal-clear discussions of fundamental human knowledge
and the great dogmas form a background against which we discern his
central philosophical preoccupations: purity of thought as an effective
force; the power of simplicity; the simple, spontaneous, ahistorical, which
lends infinite depth to everything else; the nullity of ideas if they are
treated as finite facts by the mere understanding. He was moved by the
Existenz of the idea, and even in the most abstract thought he looked for
the Existenz that fills it with meaning.
Philosophically Anselm
stands at a beginning, which can neither be
outdone nor be repeated. In reading him, we breathe a pure air that
reminds us of Parmenides and Heraclitus. This is one of the rare moments
in which Biblical faith is elucidated in philosophical thinking without
self-deception or magic.
ANSELM in
b. What is thinking in Anselm? In the Middle Ages thinking about the

nature of thought and cognition was situated in an area defined by the
antithetic.il views of realism (the universals, universalia, are real, realia)
and nominalism (the universals are mere names, nomind). The controversy
developed in connection with statements of Porphyry and Boethius. Con-
sidering that Plato speaks of an independent existence of ideas, separate
from things, and that Aristotle grants their existence only in things,
Boethius declared that he did not wish to decide whether they exist only
in our understanding (as mere words or names) or whether they exist
objectively (are real), whether, in other words, Plato or Aristotle was
right,and further whether they are corporeal or incorporeal.
Through the centuries the question was answered in radical antitheses
or in compromises. The one-sided standpoints are: (i) Only the universals
are truly real; particular things are only representations of the universal
that is identical in them all. (2) Only individuals are truly real. The
universals are words, which have reality only as audible, visible things
that signify something.
In both one-sided solutions a new fundamental problem makes its
appearance in opposite forms: (1) If the universal is the real, then the
question arises: Where do the individuals come from (the question of the
principium individuationis) ? (2) If the individuals are the real, the op-
posite question arises: What is the source of the universal (the existence of
the universal as names, signs, meanings derived by abstraction) ?
The insoluble difficulties inherent in both these one-sided answers gave

rise to a compromise drew a distinction between the
solution. First it
divine and the human mind. The

mind sees the universals in their
divine
simplicity as models (exemplaria) The human mind starts from the objects
.
of sense perception and arrives at the universal. Hence in relation to the

human mind the universals have three modes of existence: ante rem (in
themselves, in the divine spirit), in re (in things, connected with individ-
uals), post rem (in the human mind, as abstraction).
This simplified schema embodies an enduring problem that is formulated
in the questions: What is? What is the relation between my cognition and
real objects? What is the meaning of objective knowledge?
If the universal is real, then my cognition strikes the reality itself. If
it is not real, it is only an instrument of my

knowledge, through which
I never attain reality itself, but can only play with unreal meanings; the
inferences drawn from this game enable me, it is true, to intervene in the
course of events and to subjugate nature, but I remain blind to the es-
sence and the whole, since in this activity I am without knowledge of
reality.
The methodological awareness of the modern sciences developed

on the foundation of so-called nominalism. What the sciences actually know
and do not know is to this day a question of the first importance; an

ultimate answer has never been given, but the question has come to be
understood more and more clearly.
In the Middle Ages these sciences existed only in germ. But from time
immemorial man's natural drive for knowledge has rebelled against the
notion that science has no connection with reality itself. As early a thinker
as Gerbert of Aurillac (c. iooo) wrote that the classification of the things
of nature into genera and species was not the result of human designs but
of the Creator of all arts, who produced it as part of the nature of things,
where men of discernment discovered it.
Here we shall not enter into the question of the relation between knowl-
edge and reality, or of the kind of reality that is revealed to scientific
knowledge. Anselm and the great medieval thinkers who recognized no —
difference between philosophy and science, who in their philosophy looked
to the essential which even today is not accessible to any science saw this —
question in a very different light; for them it was of the utmost gravity for
faith and salvation.
To Anselm nominalist thinking was no true thinking at all. For it is
no thinking that declares its concepts to be empty, mere words (flatus vocis,
emissions of voice). Anselm attacks this manner of thinking, which he
regarded as unbelief or dangerous to belief. These men, he says, are so
ensnared by sensory images (imaginationibus corporalibus) that they cannot
tear themselves freefrom them. They cannot see what reason must con-
template in its own
light. In Anselm's dogmatic attacks on Roscellinus
(a contemporary, often called the "founder" of nominalism, whose only

extant work is a letter to his pupil Abelard) the rejection of nominalist
thinking plays an essential role. If a thinker declares God to be a universal,
an abstractum, but the three persons, God the Father, Christ, and the Holy
Ghost, to be individuals, he is thinking like a nominalist and has three
Gods. But if the universal, God, is Himself reality, then God is one, and
the three persons are forms of the one: this idea is "realist," because it
upholds the reality of the universals. Church dogma seems to demand

"realist" thinking. Anyone, Anselm, who fails to understand that
says
several people are, as to species, one man, will surely not be able to under-
stand that in the most mysterious of beings the three persons, though each
is God, are nevertheless only one God.
Anselm speaks of the "modern dialecticians," who accept nothing as

real unless they can form representations of it (imaginationibus compre-
hendere), and of people who are so beset by the multitude of images within
them that they cannot rise to the simplicity of the idea (intellectus) .
To Anselm the most natural kind of thinking is that which does not
lose itself amid the emptiness of mere discourse or let itself be confined by
representations, but rises to the essential. He knows the peace deriving from
the identity of thought and object and attains to it by a kind of thinking
ANSELM 113
which is not a technical instrument, not reflection, not a playful revolving

around things, but which in its action is with reality itself, which is indeed
itself this reality.
Such thinking attains to the place where truth is reality and there finds
fulfillment, in God. In the created world the truth is split: into things and
the knowledge of these things, into the reality of things and what they
ought to be. Hence all created things are still in quest of their being,
they are not yet that being; in our transient lives, we find it and lose it
again. But this is made possible only by the reality of the truth; everything
that is real without being perceptible to the senses relates to that reality,
which, however is not a subjective fiction, produced by thinking, but
objective reality for thinking.
This philosophical thinking is so different from finite object thinking
that from the standpoint of the latter it can only seem empty and absurd.
It presupposes that true being is itself the being of thinking, a thinking-
being, and that our thought is not a mere abstraction, but also something
very concrete, which penetrates to the thinking-being in the ground of
all things. Only under this assumption can man's thinking lay claim to a
higher reality than that of empirical events in time. If this presupposition
is taken away, authentic thinking ceases, and I fall back into an existence
which is real only to an outsider who thinks it, but which does not know
itself and, because it lacks true self-knowledge, is not master of itself.
Being is actualized in thought, not to be sure in empty logical operations,

not in mere discourse and opinion, but in the substantial thinking which
is itself reality.
I seem to be threatened either by lifeless thought (a random splashing

about with words and abstractions) or by unthinking life ("experience").
Authentic thought rises above both of these. It is the self-transformation
of existence through an inner thinking action. Such thinking soars to touch
upon Being itself. It is a life that moves closer to the infinite Being, which
in its thinking it already is. My empirical actuality becomes human life
only when my thinking and unfolds the Being within it.

finds
To understand Anselm we must bear in mind that to him thought was
real. The self-certainty of this thinking that takes its substance from God is
attested by its action in existence. In the dichotomies of finite thinking the

logical forms will always be man's instrument and medium of communica-
tion; in authentic thinking they point the way to something beyond them-
selves.
It is in this we must judge the function of contradiction

same light that
in Anselm. Contradiction in Anselm becomes a lever by which thought
lifts itself from cogitare to intelligere and a means of securing the intel-
ligere through the cogitart. As such it is a necessary element, but once this
aim is attained, there is no further need for it. To Anselm contradiction
was intolerable. It is not masked by factors of other origin, which hide
1
14
The Original Thinners
by clustering around a manifest contradiction. Nor is it represented as

something which we must submit believing
to — in the absurd —because
it comes from God. Rather, it is valid as a method. It destroys that wherein
it manifests itself, way to the place where there
but in so doing points the
is freedom from contradiction, where finite think-
neither contradiction nor
ing becomes authentic, infinite thinking and achieves certainty in the
truth that is reality.
c. Authority: Man can live only under authority, and this has been true
at all times. If he is unwilling to accept authority, he will merely succumb
to a more external violence. The
being free from all authority
illusion of
causes men to fling most absurd and destructive
themselves into the
obedience. The claim that each individual is entitled to absolute freedom
of opinion dulls men's minds and leads to some form of total subjugation.
Man has only the choice of which authority to accept, that is, on what set
of beliefs to ground his life. There is no outside vantage point from which
to survey all authority. To stand outside means to stand in nothingness
and to be blind. But my choice of authority is not deliberate; I can only
gain a purified awareness of the authority in which I am already living,
that is, I can awaken the latent authority within me by recollecting the
ground of my being. I cannot look deep enough for this ground, because
it is there that what has absolute validity for me.
I shall find
In Anselm we see the bond of authority and the freedom of reason in
its acceptance. He knows that empty reasoning achieves nothing. But he
also knows that faith is not enough: "It strikes me as negligence if, once
we are secure in faith, we do not try to understand what we believe."
Anselm's faith is still sheltered in the authority of the Church. He finds
authority for his thinking in the Catholic Church Fathers. He desires above
all that what he himself thinks "should accord with what was written by
St. Augustine."
Anselm could not be aware of the special historical character of his
time. To him it could not seem extraordinary that in a still barbarous world
the Church, thanks to the self-sacrificing lives of the monastic orders,
should be the sole source of all intellectual greatness, of all philosophy and
education, and indeed of all reading and writing, and that not only the
most learned but also the noblest men of the day were members of the
clergy. The Church still signified an identity of spirit and power; this
most "catholic" of Western organizations still signified the power of the
spirit against raw violence. And it meant absolute certainty. To question
the Church and its monastic orders in those days would have been to
question everything that men live by.
Hence the magnificent self-certainty that Anselm possessed as a monk,

as an abbot, and as an archbishop, creating in order to transmit the one
and only truth and impress it on the minds of men, terrified at the abyss
ANSELM 115
of arbitrary thinking. Thus when a conflict arose, he called for submission

to Church authority. He insisted that there should be no debate with
Roscellinus; he should first be made to retract. Once this was done, Anselm
tried to persuade him by his treatise on the Trinity. But faced with the
alternatives of martyrdom and hypocrisy, Roscellinus for fear of death, —
as he said later —chose hypocrisy.
Anselm's thinking is the free thinking of a man of the Church, whom the
reality of God's rule through the Church made humble, but at the same
time courageous and mighty in the struggle against the King and the world.
Anselm's attitude might be called grandiose naivete, were it not a sub-
limated awareness, lacking in only one thing, which in that age was un-
thinkable: doubt in the legitimacy of the kingdom of God claimed by the
Church, in the ethical rank of the Church as a real political power. Like
Plato's political venture in Syracuse, Anselm's struggle in behalf of the
Church was a phenomenon of transition, possible only once with true
integrity, without superstition and magic, without of dema-
the help
gogically aroused mass instincts. That such action was taken once, with
such human power, purity, and greatness, is inspiring forever, even if
the concrete solution has proved questionable and a source of violence

whenever it has been attempted since.
This was the period of meditative Romanesque piety, discernible in its
architecture, a time when it seemed that Plato's idea of philosopher-kings
might become a reality. Even then, to be sure, there was a divergence
between aspiration and reality, but it was still possible to believe, sincerely
and without restriction, that the two would someday be one. That the
— —
peak the eleventh century was at the same time a period of crisis is his-
torically self-evident. For in temporal existence every maturation is at the
same time a dying. All history is transition. The sublime cannot endure. It
makes its appearance in some form at all times, and at all times it passes
away. But seldom does the sublime reside in the reality of institutions, so
that the kingdom of God and the secular kingdom, spiritual rank and phys-
ical power, coincide. In Anselm's lifetime the tendency was downward. At
the moment of its supreme action, the Church became an evil power. But
what was overpoweringly great in the idea, what for a moment achieved
reality in approximations, what fired men's enthusiasm while preserving a
discipline of moderation, does not lose its substance through failure. It
endures for memory in the eternal realm of the spirit. In a new world, where
men seek transcendence under new conditions, this thing that once happened
can still serve as an orientation.
NICHOLAS OF CUSA
INTRODUCTION
Nikolaus Krebs (or ChryfTs) was born in Kues on the Moselle, the son of
a prosperous winegrower and boatman. He has come to be known as
Cusanus after Cusa, the Latinized form of Kues, his birthplace. He is the
only one of the great philosophers to have led a busy life in the world
from an early age to the day of his death. He served the Church as a member
of the Council of Basel, as cardinal, bishop, and vicar general in Rome.
The great Christian thinkers had all been members of religious orders;
monastic life left its imprint upon them. Cusanus was a secular priest.
Deeply religious, he enjoyed the friendship of monks. In his old age, a
monk's cell was always kept in readiness for him in Tegernsee in case
he should wish to retire into a life of meditation. Though his stormy politi-
cal activities and arduous travels might have sufficed to consume his energies,
he produced a body of philosophical writings whose great importance is
generally recognized today.
This work was not a hobby or avocation pursued in it grew
his free time:
out of his practical activities and was intended to give them meaning. But
while his quest for a union between theory and practice endows both with
a character of grandeur, his attempts to achieve that union proved more and
more disappointing as he grew older. He wished his actions to be an integral
part of the intellectual order embracing God and the world, man and the
Church. He must have been inspired by a fundamental impulse that tran-
scended both his thought and his action. Having failed in his primary inten-
tion, he fell back on philosophical speculation, but his philosophy was not
of a kind that could provide him with a constant serenity and equanimity
in dealing with things of the world.
His modesty, his renunciation of the ostentatious splendors attaching to
his position as a prince of the Church, his simplicity free from the rigors of
asceticism, gave him dignity. We cannot doubt his sense of responsibility
or the genuineness of his commitment. But the realities confronting him
were not what he believed them to be, and he was essentially unaware of
this fact and its consequences. What is "reality"? The question becomes
especially urgent when we consider this man whose worldly activities
were oriented toward God and eternity, yet in the end it remains unanswered.
116
NICHOLAS OF CUSA 117
Cusanus was a German who became a European at an early date; yet

though his life was centered in Rome, he did not forget his origins. In his
native Cusa he left a memorial to himself, upon which he lavished most
of the income he gained from his position: he founded a home for the
aged with extensive living quarters and farm buildings, a church, and con-
siderable land holdings. It survived many wars and revolutions and today,
five centuries later, is still standing. The old building, Cusanus' library, his
manuscripts, and his instruments remain intact. The institution still owns
the vineyards he inherited from his father and is still governed by the
statutes he drew up for it. (The charter is reprinted in ScharpfT, 1843,
pp. 387 fT.) It is a living symbol of historical continuity —as we shall see, the
will to endure is inherent in his thought.
In his testamentary dispositions the Cardinal directed that he be buried
in S. Pietro in Vincoli, the church in Rome attached to his cardinalcy,
where his tomb with an impressive portrait engraved in stone can be seen
today. His heart was transferred in a casket to the church of his foundation
in Cusa.
LIFE
Cusanus (1401-64) left home at the age of twelve. According to tradition,

he was estranged from his father, who mistreated him. At all events, he
became independent at an early date. Still according to tradition, a certain
Count von Manderscheid sent him in 1413 to the Brothers of the Common
Life at Deventer to be educated. Here he must have obtained his elementary
schooling and lived in an atmosphere of mystical piety, of the type known
to us from Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ. In 1416 he was a student
at Heidelberg (this is the earliest fact of which we have documentary evi-
dence) in 1417 he went to Padua, where he studied for six years. In Padua
;
he was initiated into the intellectual world of his period. At least two of
his teachers became his friends —
Toscanelli, the physician, geographer, and
physicist, who was with Cusanus when he died, and Giuliano Cesarini,
later Cardinal and President of the Council of Basel, who sponsored his
ecclesiastical career at its beginnings in Basel. Cusanus studied with the
zeal of a young man determined to master all knowledge. He familiarized

himself with mathematics and astronomy, physics and medicine, ancient
literature and the new humanism. His principal study was law; in 1423 he
became a doctor of Canon Law at Padua.
Only then did he take up the study of theology, at the University of
Cologne, where he was registered as doctor in jure canonico (1425). He
wrote legal opinions. In 1427 he was appointed Dean at the St. Florin
Foundation in Coblenz, and in 1430 he became secretary to Ulrich von
Manderscheid, who had been elected Archbishop of Trier by the local
chapter. In 1432 his patron sent him to the Council of Basel to defend his
n8 The Original Thinners
claim to his ecclesiastical post against an archbishop appointed by the Pope.

In this mission Cusanus was unsuccessful. In 1435 he declined a chair
at the University of Louvain.
Cusanus' youth must have been marked by the spirit of the times. In 1417,
with the election of Pope Martin V, the Council of Constance had finally
put an end to the papal schism. Nevertheless, was clear that the world
it
had undergone a major change. By what reforms might the disorder in

Church and Empire be surmounted? The problem confronting the Council
of Basel began with great expectations on all sides. The accident of his
mission led Cusanus into the main stream of world events. At first he be-
came a passionate champion of the conciliar principle against the views of
Pope Eugenius, and defended this position in his first, most voluminous
work, De concordantia catholica. Later, deeply disappointed by the threat
of a new and became its most suc-
schism, he went over to the papal party
cessful propagandist in Germany. In recognition of his extraordinary con-
tributions to Church unity and the power of the papacy, he was in 1448
appointed cardinal and assigned the Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli as his
titular parish. This was an unusual distincton for a German.
In 1450 Nicholas V appointed him Bishop of Brixen (in southern Tyrol).

This spelled his political doom. His unremitting efforts in behalf of internal
reform and his defense of the rights of the Church against secular rulers
(such as Duke Sigismund of Austria) fired conflicts which did not cease
until shortly after Cusanus' death, when the Church agreed to a compro-
mise.
In 1451 and 1452 Cusanus traveled through Germany as papal nuncio,
charged with the mission of reforming the churches and monasteries, and
of promulgating the Jubilee indulgence of 1450. On the whole his mission
was a resounding failure.
Right down to his death he continued to work for the papacy, the last
six years in the post of vicar general in Rome, the highest ecclesiastical
office next to the papacy itself. During these last years he acted as the
most trusted adviser of Pius II (Enea Silvio de' Piccolomini), who had
been his friend for decades.
Cusanus died in the midst of his last mission, on August 11, 1464, at Todi
in Umbria. Three days later Pius II died in Ancona and the fantastically
unrealistic crusade against the Turks, which the Pope had championed
against Cusanus' advice, came to an inglorious end.
Some writers have described Cusanus in his last years as tired and re-
signed. I cannot agree. His last writings show the keenest intellectual energy
and concentration. They bear witness to an undiminished preoccupation
with fundamentals. For all his great disappointments in the field of active
politics, he never carried out his earlier plan of withdrawing to a monas-
tery in his old age. His turning away from the political activity which had
provided an outlet for the stormy exuberance of his youth had nothing in
common with weariness.
WORKS
Nicholas of Cusa was familiar with the scholastics and mystics, with the
philosophers of antiquity and the Church Fathers. He was interested in all
the sciences of his time. As and statesman and priest, he was a
a jurist
powerful and effective speaker. Nearly all his thinking revolved around
a single idea: God is revealed in everything that is, in everything that is
known and done.

The literary form is very different from that of the summae
of his writings
characteristic of the Middle Ages. Cusanus gives us no vast, all-inclusive
conceptual system. Nor do his works display anything like the precision
of Anselm's treatises, which, though written in sections composed over
the decades, fall into place like parts of a planned totality. Cusanus' writings
are a loose sequence of treatises, dialogues, letters, sermons. Only one, the
first (De concord antia catholica, 1435), is relatively voluminous. Only
one {De docta ignorantia, 1440), taken in conjunction with De coniecturis
(1440), can be said to provide a complete outline of his philosophy. Philo-
sophical writings in the narrower sense make up barely one-third of the
whole.
His actual writing was done in days or hours of leisure over a period
of years, but his mind can never have been inactive. He wrote rapidly and
seems to have revised very little if at all. But his thought had long been
ripening in his mind. He was particularly productive between July and
September 1450: from this period date two mathematical works and the
books Idiota de sapientia, Idiota de mente, De staticis experimentis.
From 1463 date some especially fine and mature works in which he once
again takes cognizance of the whole: De venatione sapientiae, De ludo globi,
Compendium theologiae, De apice theoriae, and the letter to Albergati.
Outstanding among the other philosophical writings are De deo abscondito
(1445), De visione dei (1453), and his letters to the monks at Tegernsee:
De beryllo (1458), De possest (1460), De non aliud (1462).
At times, when he was most caught up in practical affairs, he did not,
if writing is equated with production, produce at all (e.g., 1437-39, 1451—52,
M54-57) •
The language and literary form of Cusanus' works are not classical.
Self-sufficient little masterpieces such as De deo abscondito are rare, though

there are admirable passages in nearly all his writings. There is a great
deal of incidental matter. Magnificent, unforgettable formulations turn up
in otherwise complicated, difficult texts. His Latin is never simple, clear,
or exact. But an inimitable philosophical tone is sustained over long passages.
His awareness of God is richly expressed in flashing insights as well as
grave meditations, and many of the dialogues abound in vivid, dramatic
images. But he can also lapse into traditional, schematic thinking or become
painfully long-winded.
It has been maintained, especially with reference to a statement about
himself at the beginning of De apice theoriae, that Cusanus' philosophy
develops progressively. I cannot accept this view.His writings as a whole
represent, rather, the continual transformation and enrichment of a single
insight. In each of them, one or another aspect is stressed, e.g., experience
or, on the contrary, the need to transcend the limits of our conceptual think-
ing. But this does not imply a progressive development in which earlier
theses are rejected as false, and new and purer truth attained.
A different question is whether the kind of thinking first disclosed in
De docta ignorantia now clearly and methodically, now soaring in full
flight, betokens a sudden advance in the development of Cusanus' thought.
In his letter to Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini, which concludes De docta

ignorantia, he says: "Now receive what I have long sought by different
paths, but found only while I was on shipboard, returning from Greece;
I think it was by a gift from on high, from the Father of Light whence
comes all that is best, that I was led to conceive the incomprehensible in
an incomprehensible way in the knowledge of nonknowledge, by going
beyond [per transcensum] the indestructible truths as they are known in
the human way." Is this merely a literary effusion, or does it refer to some
reality such as we encounter in the autobiographical references of other
great philosophers (Anselm, Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche) ? I am convinced
that the latter is the case. The whose
illuminating power of the new idea,
development was now had left
to supply the content of his intellectual life,
an indelible impression. This was not just one more idea, it was a new
kind of thinking. It marked Cusanus' "initiation" into philosophy. His
extraordinary intelligence and his underlying faith remained unchanged;
but all this was now absorbed in a new intellectual perspective, carried
into a new dimension of depth. An insight into this new dimension is
indispensable for an understanding of Cusanus.
Part One: Philosophical Speculation
I. THE FUNDAMENTAL IDEA

Cusanus tells us that the concepts of docta ignorantia ("learned ignorance")
and coincidentia oppositorum ("the coincidence of opposites") were be-
stowed upon him by a higher power: this implies a claim to have been the
first to introduce them. The claim would appear unjustified. The coincides
N 1CH OLAS OF CU S A 121
tia oppositorum, or at least the idea that all opposites are transcended, is
very old: it is to be found in Neoplatonic writings. As for the term

docta ignorantia, it occurs once in St. Augustine. As it is not unusual to
make such discoveries in philosophical texts from Plato on, we are tempted
to ask the disabused old question: What, then, is really new? If we look long
and hard enough, we find that everything has already been said. And this
is true enough for the mere verbal formulations. But it is not true in respect
of the thought itself. The originality of an idea lies in the thinker's sudden
insight, perhapstouched off by something he is studying or perhaps by
something he once read and has since forgotten. The objective novelty of
an idea is recognizable by the fact that, when related to the other ideas in a
work, it discloses a unique, irreplaceable quality, a fundamental tone, so to
speak, which governs the development of the work as a whole. I shall try
to outline what is fundamental in Nicholas of Cusa's philosophical specula-
tions.
a. and the finite. When I think, I think something

Discursive thinking
distinctand apart from other things. At the same time the things I think
of in this way are related to one another. I compare one with another
(comparand). I apply some standard of measurement to whatever is, so as
to define it (mensuratio). To think is to judge. In propositions that express
judgments, a subject is related to a predicate. But what is thought or judged
confronts the thinking subject as the object of his thought.
Thus we always thinkin dichotomies: a dichotomy between the thinking
I and the object of thought, a dichotomy we bring about in the object by
drawing distinctions, by discerning oppositions or contradictions.
Every object is particular, distinct. When I perceive, represent, or think
something, I remain in the world of the determined, i.e., the world of
limited, finite things.
Between the standard of measurement and the thing measured there is
always a difference. There are always further differences, and as we progress
we discover endless degrees of difference. This is the domain of the more

and the less, the larger and the smaller, the domain of the relative, not of the
absolute.
In the more or less of finite things I never reach either the largest or the
smallest. Every limit reached has a beyond. Beyond every smallest there is
a smaller, beyond every largest a larger.

Whenever we transcend a limit, we have limited that which we transcend,
and we immediately discover a new limit. This goes on endlessly.
b. Beyond the domain of the finite. Such is the world as it appears to our
discursive reason. But to stay within it leaves us dissatisfied. We should
like to go beyond this world in which there is always a larger and a
smaller, into a world of the absolutely largest and the absolutely smallest,
that is, we should like to pass from the domain of limits to the unlimited,
from the domain of the finite to infinity.
c. Between the finite and the infinite there is no common term. This im-
pulse encounters strong resistance. We can have knowledge only of finite
Nowhere do we reach the infinite, no matter how

things, not of the infinite.
far and how unendingly we progress in the finite: our work of comparing
and measuring never ceases. No matter how great or how small the finite
as we discern it may be, it remains finite.

The fundamental situation of our cognition is this: there is no common
term between the finite and the infinite (finiti ad infinitum nulla est propor-
tio, De 3). All relations remain within the finite.
doc. ignor., I, Hence there
is a gap, a discontinuity between the finite and the infinite. If the term
"world" denotes the finite and the cosmos of the finite and "God" the
infinite, then this gap, this discontinuity, this unbridgeable gulf lies
between the world and God. Plato called it tmema (cut, incision).
"Thus, in the concrete, there is no ascent to the absolutely greatest and
no descent to the absolutely smallest. Therefore, just as the divine, abso-
lutely greatest being cannot be diminished to such an extent that it becomes
limited and finite, so the concrete cannot relinquish its concreteness to the
extent of becoming absolute" {De doc. ignor., Ill, 1).
d. Docta ignorantia and the coincidentia oppositorum. Even though the

infinite eludes all relating to the finite, it is nevertheless present to our
awareness: it is that in the face of which our reason breaks down when we
try to understand and define it. It discloses itself in the awareness of the
thinker who, when his reason breaks down, discovers in himself a power
bursting the bonds of discursive reason, whose logic is valid only within
its own sphere. This power is the intellect, or speculative reason (intellectus) ,
which makes use of discursive reason (ratio) but is able to obtain insights
into what is not accessible to discursive reason.
The godhead is not accessible to discursive knowledge, but
infinity of the
the intellect can touch upon it as long as discursive reason is in a state of
ignorance. Now this ignorance is not the empty ignorance of someone
unaware of not knowing, or indifferent to what he is incapable of knowing.
It is, rather, a "learned ignorance" (docta ignorantia), which is developed
in thinking and can be filled with content.

Learned ignorance requires a new kind of logic. When discursive think-
ing breaks down, a different kind of thinking comes into being, which has
no object. The oppositions and contradictions which in the world of the —
finite are either tied to distinctions or destroy them by reducing them to
absurdity —coincide in this latter kind of thinking (coincidentia opposi-
torum).
Thus, "learned ignorance" is not resignation, not the expression of an
agnosticism indifferent to the unknowable. Rather, it is achieved through

speculation, which provides it with content by methods that can be dis-
cerned through truly metaphysical thinking. This is the sense of Cusanus'

lifelong intellectual effort, the fruit of the meditations expressed in his
writings —a series of variations on this theme: "No man, even the most
learned in his discipline [doctrina], can progress farther along the road
to perfection than the point where he is found most knowing in the very
ignorance that characterizes him; and he will be the more learned [doctior],
the more he comes to know himself for ignorant [ignorantem]" (De
doc. ignor., I, 1).
The coincidentia oppositorum is one form this ignorance takes. It defies
discursive reason, which can only condemn it as absurd. It presupposes a

resolve — stemming from an experience essentially different from sensory
and rational experience —to elucidate this new experience in a logical-alog-
ical, internally disciplined, methodical manner, and thereby to unfold it,
producing it by thought, in ever greater richness.
e. The "Wall." Cusanus had his own way of describing the boundary line
between the finite and the domain of the
objects of discursive reason
infinite to which the around the domain
intellect aspires. There is a wall
of the godhead, too high for us to climb over. Yet what lies behind the
wall is active, present, all-underlying. We fail when we try to break through
the wall, but in the process of coming up against it, we recognize it as the
sign of godhead.
Cusanus addresses God: God, because
"I give Thee thanks, my . . .
Thou hast shown me that Thouwherecanst not be seen elsewhere than

impossibility meets and faces me. Thou hast inspired me ... to do violence
to myself, because impossibility coincides with necessity, and I have learnt
1
. the place where Thou art found unveiled" (De vis. dei, pp. 43-44)
. . -
This place "is girt round with the coincidence of contradictories," and
this is "the wall of Paradise" wherein God abides. The spirit of discursive
reason guards the door, "and unless he be vanquished, the way in will
not lie beyond the coincidence of contradictories that Thou
open. Thus it is
mayest be seen" (ibid., p. 44). "That which seems impossible is necessity

itself. This is why for him who approaches Thee, they meet in the
. . .
wall surrounding the place where Thou abidest in coincidence" (ibid.,

p. 50).
Cusanus calls the godhead complicatio (enfolding), and the world
explicatio (unfolding) —these metaphorical terms will be discussed below.
The wall is the point where complicatio and explicatio meet. These terms
provide Cusanus with a way in and a way out. "When I find Thee as
1 The Vision of God. Translated by Emma Gurney Salter. Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New
York. Republished i960 by arrangement with E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. First published
1928. The translation is here slightly modified.
the power go out. When I find Thee as the power that

that unfolds I
alike enfolds and unfolds,

go in and out alike. When I behold Thee,
I . . .
My God, in Paradise, girt by this wall of the coincidence of opposites,

I see that Thou dost neither enfold nor unfold. For disjunction and . . .
conjunction alike are that wall of coincidence beyond which Thou existest,
set free from all that can be spoken or thought" (ibid., p. 53).
f. Examples illustrating the coincidentia oppositorum

1. Polygon and circle: The square and the circle are specific finite figures.
They and can never be geometrically congruent. I can replace

are opposites
the square (quadrangle) by a regular pentagon, hexagon and so on, . . .
that is, by a polygon with ever more sides, but the polygon will never
coincide with the circle. Yet if the number of sides is infinite, the situation
is altered: a polygon with an infinite number of sides is identical with a
circle.
"The infinite polygon" —in which the opposites polygon and circle
coincide — is an inherently contradictory term. It is not an objective reality.
We conceive of it as the result of an endless progression, not of a finite
operation —we cannot actually run through an infinite series.
The infinite is conceived as that in which polygon and circle coincide.

The mathematical ideal of infinity leads to the idea that all opposites are
synthesized in the infinity which is called God.
2. God and Christ: I think the very greatest that is, than which there can
be no greater (the absolute fullness, De doc. ignor., I, 2). This can be only
one, not many, for if it were more than one, any member of the multi-
plicity would fall short of absolute fullness, because it could be still greater.
Which signifies: the One, the Greatest, is Unity, whence follows its unique-
ness.
This Unique One cannot be a compound. It is one and not many. It is
free from all relation to the Other. The infinite can have nothing outside
it. It is all and all is within it. Nor can it be opposed to any Other, to the
finite. Rather, it has transcended all oppositions within itself.
Because all opposites coincide in it, the greatest and the smallest also
coincide in it. In it the absolutely greatest and the absolutely smallest are
identical.
Cusanus makes use of this in his interpretation of Christ, the God-Man:
When God becomes man, visible in the world, the extreme opposites must
coincide in this mystery. "Then the smallest coincides with the greatest:
the greatest humiliation with the greatest elevation, the most ignominious
death of the pious with life everlasting, and the same is true of the rest,
as we are shown by Christ's life, passion, and death on the Cross" (De doc.
ignor., Ill, 6).
3. Time and Providence: The eternity of God is timeless, the things

of the world are temporal. But God's infinity comprehends finitude;
finitude is not opposed to infinity, but contained in it. In it the opposites

of time and timelessness coincide. "For in eternity in which Thou conceivest,
all succession in time coincides in the same Now of eternity" (De vis. dei,
loc.cit., p. 4c)).
This insight elucidates the meaning of "Providence." Providence does

not signify a decision by God anticipating things to come in time, such
as would make them inevitable. Rather, it signifies that time is abolished in

eternity. "I may read or not read tomorrow, yet whatever I do, I cannot
escape that Providence which comprehends all opposites, and hence what-
ever I do will be in conformity with God's providence" (De doc. ignor.,
I, 22). Discursive reason cannot comprehend Providence. It turns it into
the antecedent choice of a subsequent event, which God makes in time.
Only the intellect clearly grasps Providence as the coincidence of tempo-
rality with eternity.
g. The fundamental difficulty in this thinking is that although the operation

is effected with the help of discursive reason (ratio), what makes it in-
comprehensibly comprehensible is not discursive reason but the intellect

(intellectus) . We still need rational categories, with which to distinguish
and to oppose, even where we conceive of them as abolished.
It is a kind of thinking which, each time it expresses itself, falls into
an essential contradiction, but in such a way that the contradiction itself
reveals the truth "intended." Where a proposition is established as absolute,

the mind has strayed into a blind alley of false rational propositions.
The absolute cannot be adequately conceived of in rational categories,
but only in the coincidentia oppositorum) and yet the moment the absolute
itself is expressed in words, it is reduced to rational opposites (as we shall
see later: archetype-copy, oneness-otherness, complicatio-explicatio , God-
world).
Because this thinking is continually becoming rational, it is misleading,
for instance, in the conception of two superimposed worlds (the so-called
two-worlds theory). Whereas speculative thinking recognizes only unity,
that is, the One which is beyond all opposites, the thinker is in fact con-
tinually led back to opposites, the one and the multiple, the one and the
other.
A rational solution of this difficulty turns out to be impossible. When
expressed in such terms, the gap, the leap, the tmema, the unbridgeable
gulf, itself becomes an object, a rational idea.
Speculative thinkingmust remain the thinking of the unthinkable, it
must preserve an unresolvable tension. The fundamental concepts remain
paradoxical. For example: is the coincidentia oppositorum the essence of
absolute divine infinity, or is it rather the form in which alone our intellect,
through discursive reason, can refer in thought to the incomprehensible?
Cusanus seems to tend now in the one direction, now in the other. If the
coincidentia is seen as the essence of the godhead, the consequence is an

objectivization in the sense of something known in the coincidentia. If the
coincidentia is the essence of our intellectual contact with the absolute, the
form is that of human thinking of God.
The same difficulty recurs at every point. That which demands that we
push beyond the objective, beyond distinctions, comparisons, and opposi-
tions, in order to reach it, reverts to the objective, and is expressed in terms
of distinctions, comparisons, oppositions.
The impetus given by the coincidentia oppositorum nevertheless leads
to something definite. We are repeatedly swept up in a vortex: things
are not as I think them in objective terms —but when I think them in
terms of the coincidentia oppositorum, I am made aware of them as non-
objective reality.
h. On and —
beyond what? whither? Speculative thinking leads to
on
points of rest where truth itself seems to be really present. But once stated,
the thought does not bring repose and gratification. Rather, the impulse
is aroused to carry speculation further, beyond what has been attained and
what it was possible to say. In speculation the transcending never comes

to an end. If it is supposed that a concept, an insight, a movement of
thought confers possession, as it were, of what we have been looking for,
this merely means that the goal has eluded us again and will continue to
lead our thinking onward. This dissatisfaction with momentary satisfaction,

this need to go on despite passing gratification at the completion of a
thought, is the dominant feature of Cusanus' speculation. Here is an example:

What is meant by "creator" and "creation"? Cusanus asks God: "If with
Thee to see is to create, and Thou seest nothing other than Thyself, but
art Thyself the object of Thyself . . . how then dost Thou create things
other than Thyself?" (De vis. dei, loc. cit., p. 56).
Our thinking runs into "the wall of absurdity" which is the coincidence
of creating with being-created. Yet this with God,is no real difficulty, for
creation and existence are the same. "And creating and being created
alike are nothing else than the sharing of Thy being among all, that Thou
mayest be and yet mayest abide freed from all" (ibid.).
all in all,
In other words, on this side of the wall is the thinking that tries to
comprehend the creating creator; the wall itself is the coincidence of
opposites: creating and being created; beyond the wall lies unrestricted
infinity, to which no name is adequate, which cannot be seen through
the veils of thinking and speaking, which is in no sense a thing to be

expressed or comprehended, but which towers infinitely high above all
things.
This perspective is characteristic of all Cusanus' speculation: The infinite
impels speculative thinking to progress infinitely; itmay pause for a moment
nonknowledge, but must then
to rest in silent resume the movement that
no temporal thinking can evade:
"Thus, while I am borne to loftiest heights, I behold Thee as infinity. . . .
He who approaches Thee must needs ascend above every limit and end
and finite thing. . . . He who ascends above the end, does he not enter . . .
into ignorance and which pertain to intellectual confusion?

obscurity, . . .
The intellect knows that it is ignorant, and that Thou canst not be grasped
because Thou art infinity. For to understand infinity is to comprehend the
incomprehensible" (De vis. dei, loc. cit., p. 60).
Because God is infinite, He is the goal of our longing. "That which
sates the intellect, or that is the end thereof, is not that which it understands;
neither can that sate it which it does not understand at all, but that alone
which it understands by not understanding. For the intelligible which it
knows does not sate it, nor the intelligible of which it is utterly ignorant,
but only the intelligible which it knows to be so intelligible that it can never
be fully understood —this alone can sate it" (op. cit., pp. 78-79).
This is the paradox of Cusanus' thinking: By its power of attraction
the infinite engenders longing. When we accede to this longing, we are
brought into the presence of the infinite. Longing and repose coincide.
1. Why speculate? According to Cusanus, speculative reason goes beyond

discursive reason; because of its explicitly contradictory character, it "under-
stands by not understanding." Yet Cusanus applied himself wholeheartedly
to just such speculation; for him
was the only kind appropriate to its
it
subject, "the sweetest of Was it superfluous, a mere hobby

man's delights."
of the cardinal's leisure hours? One of his last works, in which he once
again summed up his speculations, was titled De venatione sapientiae,
"Concerning the Hunt for Wisdom" (sapientia as distinguished from
scientid). He says that his purpose was "to record the main results of my
forays in pursuit of wisdom and bequeath them to posterity; I have
always kept them before my mind's eye, and have become more and more
convinced of their truth as I grew older."
Cusanus had but one goal, a single idea in which all ideas meet: in his
thinking to attain to the One, in which all things are and whence they
spring, in which I too have my source. What must a man think in order
to come into contact with the incomprehensible? What can he say in order
to express the ineffable, to make it communicable? What methods must be
devised ?
The hunt for wisdom does not bring results that can be possessed in the
form of ready-made knowledge; it only discovers movements of thought
that we must carry out, intellectual experiences that we must repeat.
Such thinking is a persistent contemplation, the movement of which
promotes the awareness of being that sustains life. The state of speculative
meditation leads to a consciousness freed from practical concerns, drawing
its contents from other sources. Cognition becomes love, and love engenders
cognition. What attains clarity in the calm of meditation is what has
always sustained life and must ever more consciously sustain all future
128 It he Original Thinners
life. By sounding the depths of infinitely changing becoming, thought

enables us to cast anchor.
How should speculative writings be read? We
must go along with the
movement it in its truth, participate in it. Only
of the thought, experience
a certain musical ear for ideas can attune us to this kind of thinking, and
for a profound understanding of it our ear must be trained.
Philological studies, which draw comparison, ascertain the meanings of
words, point out discrepancies, and discuss historical influences, are useful
as a preliminary to understanding, but often lead us astray, encouraging
rationalistic misinterpretation.
To read works in their chronological order confers a certain biographical
insight. But the essential is to grasp at every point the constant presence of
the One.
We shall consider three questions in detail: (i) What is the mind which
experiences this kind of thinking? (2) What is the faith that sustains it?
(3) What kind of truth is inherent in mathematics?

At the heart of each question we find a concept that is not a discursive
concept. In this thinking concepts are not defined with logical cogency
and are not related to one another, but denote guiding threads whose
meaning is disclosed in the course of attempts at speculative thinking.
In the present case such concepts are Mind, Faith, Truth.
II. THE MIND

1. The mind in general
a. The image of God, which \nows itself. If every created thing is an—
image of God, the human mind {mens) is one par excellence. For not
only is it His image; it also knows it is His image. Cusanus writes: Man,
the living and spiritual image of God, knows when he enters into himself
that he is an image of the same kind as its original (in se intrat et scit se
talem esse imaginem, quale est suum exemplar). He glimpses in himself
this original, his God (deum suum), whose likeness (similitudo) he is
(De ven. sap., 17).
Because man's knowledge is merely an image of divine knowledge, it
cannot resemble God's. This too he knows. When an animal does not
know, it does not know that it does not know. Only man knows that he
does not originally, fundamentally know. Through this knowing non-
knowledge he finds the way to truth.
When with the help of the method of the coincidentia oppositorum,
the mind goes beyond discursive reason, passes through the intellect, and
arrives at intuition of the absolute truth (intuitio veritatis absolutae), it is
making use of itself in its capacity as an image of God's mind {De mente, 7).
b. Man as a "second God." — Conscious of his mind's likeness to the divine

mind, Cusanus is filled with powerful self-confidence. He is elated by the
spontaneity of his thinking, by the experience of its creative power.
With its forming images, the human mind is in-
infinite capacity for
exhaustible in producing conceptual schemas and in creating ingenious
forms. Man does not know how far he can carry this ability to produce
images of the infinite: Man is a "second God" {De beryllo, 5).
c. Divine mind and —

human mind. Cusanus' humility is equal to his self-
confidence. The human mind is merely an image. A gulf separates it from
the divine mind. "Man is God, but not absolutely, for he is man. Therefore
he is a human God" {homo enim deus est, sed non absolute, quoniam
homo; humanus est igitur Deus) {De con., sect. II, 14). The differences
between the divine and the human mind are as follows:
All things are in God, but in God they are the models of things. They
are also in our mind, but here they are the likenesses of things {De mente, 7).
The divine mind creates when it conceives; when our mind conceives
things, it shapes its thinking to the forms of created realities {assimilat). It
produces concepts or intellectual visions, not the things themselves {De

mente, 7). "Just as the word of God creates essences, so our mind produces
copies" {To Albergati, 22).
This may be clarified as follows : The multitude of things is the unfolding
{explicatio) of the enfolding {complicatio) of the infinite mind. If we call
the world the unfolding of God's enfolding, the knowledge achieved by

the human mind is a copy of that original process.
For example, the mind knows number as the unfolding of the One,
magnitude as the unfolding of the point, composition as the unfolding of
simplicity, time as the unfolding of the present, temporality as the unfolding
of eternity. With these copied contents of its thinking, the mind is able to
assimilate them to the originals; it cannot know the originals themselves.
But in so doing, it copies in every way the unfolding of the divine mind.
Furthermore, God has exact knowledge of things, because He creates
them. We do not produce the being of things, hence our knowledge of
them is inaccurate, approximate, conjectural. In the divine mind all things
subsist in their exact and original truth. In our mind all things are imaged
representations of the original truth, i.e., the form of our thinking is con-
ceptual {notionaliter) .
d. Greatness of the human mind.— The power of the human mind, says
Cusanus, is admirable.
Although God creates real things {entia realia), man creates concepts
(entia rationalid) —mathematical concepts and concepts of the real things.

Further, he creates artifacts (formae artificiales) , things not found in nature
but produced with materials provided by nature: tools, spoons, bowls, pots,
works of art.
This high degree of creativity is something to be proud of:"Do not
imitate, says the carver of spoons, the form of any natural thing. The forms
of spoons, bowls, and pots are products of human art alone. My art, then,
consists not in imitating created forms but in producing them, wherein
it comes closer to the art of the infinite" (De mente, 2).
Though the human mind is only a copy, it is analogous to the infinite
mind in its inexhaustible capacity for producing images. What is latent in
it has no definite form, but as soon as it is affected from the outside
(unlike the divine mind, it needs to be so affected), it can adapt itself to
any form and create concepts of all things (De mente, 4).
e. Judgment as mind. —The "living mind" in us can do more than produce

copies. Our experience shows that it speaks in us and passes judgment:
This is good, this is right, this is true. It censures us when we deviate from
the right. The mind passes "sentence and judgment, without ever having
been taught to do so, by an inborn faculty" (De mente, 4).
f. Man as microcosm. —
When man as image of God's infinity discovers the
creative bent of his mind, he embraces the whole universe with it. Just as
he is a second God, so he is a second world, the microcosm (De con., II, 4).
Man, however, comprises the universe only in a limited human way.
Man is a world, but, because he man, he is not the concrete universe.
is
Therefore he is a human world (humanus mundus). Man can be everything,

God, angel, beast, lion, or bear, but always in a human way.
Second God and microcosm, the two hang together in man's mind:
"The mind sees all things in itself as in a mirror. Man sees all things as
made like him. His assimilation of them gives him the living image of
the creator of all things and he recognizes himself as made in the image
of God ." (De ven. sap.,
. .
17).
The mind's eminent position leads to this proposition: "Only the mind
is an image of God." All other things, of a lesser eminence, are images of
God only in so far as the mind reflects itself in them it is reflected to a —
greater extent in living beings endowed with sensation than in plants, and
to a greater extent in plants than in minerals. "Hence the creatures that
have no mind should be called mere unfoldings of God's enfolding, rather
than images of it" (De mente, 4).
g. Not to become God, but to approximate God. —The human mind is
the otherness of the infinite One. The more it detaches itself from its other-
ness and ascends to the simplest One, the closer it comes to perfection.
Just how far can the mind go in this sense?
Since the other can he known only in relation to the one, the human
mind, because of its otherness, can see itself only in relation to the divine
One. Man, however, cannot know the divine One in itself, but only as
theOne is humanly conceived (De con., II, 16). This signifies: Even when
the mind its truth, it does not become divine
attains the highest degree of
in thus coming God, it only comes closer to the best possible image,
closer to
which remains separated from the original by an unbridgeable gulf. Yet
in this copy— the human mind —
we find all things that are God and cre-
ation alike.
h. Judgment and measure have their origin in the infinite. —Discursive

reason thinks the finite in finite terms. It sees the finite as commensurable
only with the finite. Finite things can be known only in relation to infinite
things. Discursive reason cannot think the infinite adequately; it remains
within the domain of the finite.
Cusanus sees, however, that the thinking of the finite becomes true only
in the light of the infinite, when discursive reason yields to the intellect.
Under the assumption of the infinite, the finite becomes truly known. The
mind possesses its faculty of an image of what
judgment only because it is
is the original of all things. It possesses within itself something toward
which it directs its attention, and according to which it can make judgments
concerning finite things.
How does this come about? This Cusanus explains with the help of an
analogy: If, in addition to rationally determined (dead, as it were) written
laws, there were also a living law, it would, as a living law, be able to read
in itself the decisions it has to make {De mente, 5). Thus discursive reason
is limited to the domain of the finite, which in itself is meaningless; but
the mindis the activity of intellectual thinking, which does not make
inferences from finite propositions, but judges on the basis of the infinite.
The same is true of measurement. Knowledge involves measurement.
But all finite standards of measurement originate in and are guided by
the standard of the infinite.As an image, the mind is a living standard of
measurement; it measures itself by itself (in the same way as a living
circle might measure itself by itself). The mind is an absolute standard of
measurement, which cannot grow either greater or smaller. It sets itself

up as the model of all things, the better to discover itself in all things (De
mente, 9).
However, the standard of measurement and the thing measured are
commensurable only when both are in the same domain. The living or
absolute standard is the source and guiding principle of all determined,
finite measurements, but it is not commensurable with them.
13 2 The Original Thinners
2. Cognition as conjecture (coniectura)
a. The universal character of the distinction between exact and conjec-

tural knowledge. —We obtain cognition of things by comparing them and
applying a common measure. When we compare and measure them, we
find that they are never perfectly equal. Two
or more things are never so
similar that they might not be infinitelymore similar. A difference always
remains between the standard of measurement and the thing measured.
This shows that perfect precision is never achieved. Our conception of a
thing is never so exact that it might not be infinitely more exact.
How do we account for this? Where truth is not seen and thought in
itself, but only in and through something else, accuracy is impossible. For
example: As a rational thing, the circle cannot be exactly conceived on the
sensory plane. Any circle we perceive falls short of the perfect circle we
hold in our minds. The same falling short may be noted when we compare
any finite knowledge with the divine intellection which apprehends things
in themselves.
Our knowledge is always inadequate, and yet, in so far as it is true, it
is linked with truth Our knowledge reflects in various ways the dis-
itself.
tance between what we know and what we are striving to know. Our
knowledge is conjectural. "Since exact knowledge of the truth cannot be
achieved, every positive human assertion about the true is a conjecture.
Therefore our knowledge of the unity of unattainable truth is knowledge
in conjectural otherness [alternate coniecturaliY (De con., I, 2).
The categories of our discursive reason permit us to conceive of things
only as finite. When confronted with the which we can neither
infinite,
forget nor yet attain, discursive down; our thinking can

reason breaks
grasp the infinite only in terms of opposites that no longer exclude each
other (as discursive reason demands), but coincide. Within the domain of
the finite, however, we can achieve only conjectural knowledge.
The knowledge is universal, but denotes
conjectural character of our
different things in different domains.Our knowledge comes close to the
truth even in sensory experience, and never quite attains the truth even
when the finite mind has ascended as high as it can. For then it comes up
against "the wall."
b. The conjectural in cognition and in being. —Not only cognition but

the existent itself is a copy and as such is never exactly commensurate with
the original. Cusanus also uses the term "conjectural" for merely approxi-
mate being. Neither the existent nor cognition is exact, they are merely
"conjectural." All human knowledge is conjectural in relation to truth as
such. Conjectural, too, is the reality of the copy in relation to the original.
Thus CusanilS refers to the Church as it is in the world as the ecclesia
coniecturalis (Letter of 1442, Basel edition, p. 826).
c. Greatness and limits of conjectural {nowledge— Conjectures reveal

both the greatness and the limits of our knowledge. They constitute the
spiritual creative process in mankind. "Conjectures must be produced by
our mind just as the real world is produced by the divine intellect (De
con. ,1,3).
Our conjectural knowledge defines our limits; it separates us forever
from the infinite divine knowledge, but at the same time manifests the truth
to us. All positive assertions are mere conjectures, but as such they participate
in the truth (id., 1, 13)

If in man's finite existence absolute truth can be known only through
participatio, it is not because of any intrinsic flaw in this truth, but because
it someone who is not human. Spiritual participation in that
resides in
incommunicable but most effective light is the very essence of finite human
knowledge otherness. Hence conjectures are the form of truth itself
. . .
created minds know the truth only in so far as it can be copied (De con.,
d. Conjectures and points of view. —Every conjecture is advanced from

a point of view. Its content is seen in a particular perspective. "Because
the mortal mind is of finite efficacy and different in every individual,
the conjectures of a number of men about the same unfathomable truth
are bound to differ in degree and in various other ways. Possibly one man
grasps better than another, but no one grasps the sense . . . with unfailing
sureness. Accordingly I present what I have to communicate here as my
own conjectures" (De con., I, 2).
Cusanus speaks of human existence in all its variety, and here too he
speaks in "conjectures." For instance (following the pattern of ancient
tradition) he describes the "variety of the inhabitants of the earth in respect
of their mental disposition, bodily constitution, form, color, way of life,
moral failings." But mankind is not an aggregate of unrelated parts. All

countries have produced their famous men in all branches of knowledge,
in order that one and the same human nature may be made manifest in
various ways (De con., II, 15).
Cusanus speaks of various worlds, the spheres, as it were, of the universe
(the choruses of the Pseudo-Areopagite), in their hierarchical order. Each
world judges differently in its being-for-itself, and differently in its relation
to the worlds above it. No world counts or speaks or acts like the others.
Purely intellectual natures (intelligence) are not numerable like stones or
animals, they do not speak like men; rather, each world has its own way
(De con., 1, 15).
e. The mind is never satisfied. — Because the human mind is confined to

conjectures, it is never satisfied. It is always trying to go beyond successive
conjectures to arrive at a better conjecture, beyond each particular stage or
type of thinking to a higher stage. This infinite longing is not despair over
ultimate inability to know, but rather a fulfillment in nonknowledge, attain-
able through the guidance of the infinite.

The human mind alone is characterized by this unceasing striving. It is
restless even in repose. All created things other than man desire nothing
beyond what they have received, that is, each is content with its particular
likeness to God. "But when our spiritual nature recognizes itself as the
living image of God, it has the power to become ever purer and closer in
form to God, although, being a copy, it never becomes the original, the
creator" {To Albergati, 7).
f. What the conjectural is not. — As the fundamental structure of the

truth as we know of it, the conjectural is true because it refers to the truth
itself, which resides solely in the infinity of the divine. Therefore the con-
jectural character of the human mind is not to be confused with arbitrary
conjecture, nor with skepticism in the sense of universal doubt; neither is
it mere relations, without unity

a relativism that dissolves everything into
and without direction. Because our finite knowledge recognizes its con-
jectural character, it implies the presence of the infinite as its standard and
guiding principle. The infinite itself, which cannot be known, guides finite
knowledge and is present in it directly. Finally, the conjectural, as under-
stood by Cusanus, has little in common with "hypotheses," which require
to be confirmed or refuted.
g. Liberation through awareness of the conjectural character of human

\nowledge. —Because the mind is aware of the conjectural character of
its cognition and of the things existing in the world, it strives in each
domain to come closer [to the truth], to arrive at better conjectures, to
deepen its insights. This is a process that can never be completed. But
through it the human mind is also liberated from the fetters which are
imposed on mankind in every field of inquiry, whenever we lose sight of
the conjectural nature of our concepts.
h. Intelligibility and unintelligibility. —In modern times the principle

that the world is intelligible has been recognized explicitly and implicitly.
Modern science has come to the conclusion that some elements of the
world are intelligible; it investigates the foundations of these intelligible
contexts, and the knowledge it achieves has compelling certainty, although
we do not know exactly how far we can go in this direction. At the same
time, however, science has arrived at the insight that the world as a whole
cannot be an object, nor be made intelligible as such. Scientific superstition
has taken the intelligibility of the world for granted and assumed that what
we do not yet understand will soon be understood.
For Cusanus intelligibility has a higher meaning, since according to
him human thinking consists in copying divine cognition. At the same
time, however, he stresses the unintelligibility of the world, since according
to him the imititative character of human cognition in relation to divine
cognition can can never be overcome. Attracted by divine truth, we achieve
knowledge through a process of conjecture. But because our knowledge
remains conjectural, we experience the unintelligibility of the world.
1. The "theory of knowledge." — It is clear from the foregoing that

Cusanus' "theory of knowledge" (to use a term coined in the nineteenth
century) is metaphysical from the outset, that is, he does not presuppose
some initial void —allegedly involving no presuppositions —as the starting
point for his investigation of knowledge. The finite mind is a copy of the
infinite divine cognition, understands itself to be such a copy, and on this
basis takes cognizance both of its tremendous potentialities and of its in-
surmountable limits. The subjectivity of human cognition is not self-
contained, but transcended in the objectivity of God's creation.
3. Methods and aim
a. Metaphor as a state of being and as method. —We must distinguish the

following: first, the metaphorical character of everything that has existence
for us; second, the mirror images or "enigmatic words" in which we
formulate our reflections when we come up against "the wall" that separates
our finite being from infinite being; third, the artificial metaphors which we
produce in a spirit of play.
(1) In the structure of being everything that is, is a copy of the original
or a metaphor. The world is the eternally present language of the eternally
infinite being of the godhead. The finite human mind is an imperfect copy
of the infinite divine mind.
(2) When we think the infinite mind, we thin\ in "enigmatic images"

produced by the human mind. These, too, are called metaphors. Concepts
of discursive reason, sensory intuitions, and other activities of the human
mind serve as such metaphors. For example
Otherness, relation, leap; participation, image; enfolding, unfolding are
concepts which first become clear to us in the finite sphere, and which then
serve as metaphors for the relation between God and the world, between
transcendence and man. But where the metaphor, because it is forever
leading us astray, must itself be discarded, we speak in paradoxes whose
inherent contradictoriness cancels out their rational, objective content:
coincidentia oppositorum, docta ignorantia.
Metaphors become paradoxical when a concrete image is used to illustrate

an abstract idea. Cusanus says, for example, that God is like an infinite
sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.
A metaphor is called a "symbol" when only the sign is given and its
relation to what it signifies is not explicitly stated. That which is symbolized
is entirely given in the symbol without being referred to; it is known
symbolically as not known. Therefore, symbolic knowledge is present only

as ignorance, a not-knowing which we have to carry ever further, and
which is completed only momentarily by means of a symbol whenever our
discursive thinking breaks down.
(3) In order to clarify something we cannot visualize, we invent metaphors

for what we would understand even without them.
Such metaphors are not symbols but guiding threads. Cusanus is very
fond of them and well aware of what he is doing when he invents them.
Often they become for him more than metaphors i.e., they become symbols. —
Even a child's toy can serve as a metaphor. A spinning top, for example.
The faster it spins, the more it seems still: this shows how
to be standing
the greatest motion same time the smallest, or even no motion at
is at the
all. Thus in God the most tremendous motion is at the same time perfect
rest. Children's games reflect the order of nature, and the latter reflects God
(De possest).
Although these three types of the metaphoric (the metaphorical charac-
ter of all things, the mirror images and enigmatic words of our thinking,
the lessons to be learned from games) can be distinguished from one
another, they come together in the single field of speculative cognition,
where the metaphorical relation is a fundamental structure. The experience
of metaphorical being and the production of enigmatic images are the
substance of speculative philosophy. The invention of metaphors as vivid
illustrations is an integral part of speculative exposition.
Inspired by the living truth of metaphorical thinking, Cusanus says:
"To grasp the inner meaning we must rise above the power of words \ver-
borum] rather than be bound to the peculiarities of names [vocabulorum].
These can never be adequate to such great mysteries. And metaphors
should serve only to point the way: they have to be transcended, their
sensory meaning must be dropped if we are to ascend to simple intellectual
knowledge" {De doc. ignor., I, 2). But since no one way is right once and
—
for all "for what needs to be said cannot be expressed adequately" it is —
very useful to say things in many ways {De mente, 4).
And so we come to the final step, to which Cusanus never refers as such:
The fact that we speak of metaphors when interpreting speculative thought
and the appearance of things is itself a metaphor. This follows inescapably:
if everything that is, everything we imagine and think, is metaphorical,
then this statement itself is a metaphor. Only thinking which grasps the
metaphorical character of all thinking results in the perfect state of suspen-
sion, which enables us to move freely within every type of symbolism. But
as long as we express ourselves in words, we cannot go beyond "metaphor."
In a deeply moving letter to a young monk, written in 1463, a year before
he died, Cusanus said: "Keep inmind that in this world we walk in the
ways of metaphors and enigmatic images, because the spirit of truth is not
of this world and can be grasped by us only in so far as metaphors and sym-
bols which we recognize as such carry us onward to that which is not
known (To Albergati, 48).
And where is that? "When a man, in whom there is a living image of
God, recognizes himself as the living image of his creator, he contemplates
his creator by looking into himself, because he is carried onward from the
copy to the original." the summons: "Mind the living, spiritual
Hence
image of God within you. would not be a living spiritual image if it
It
did not know itself to be an image" (To Albergati, 5, 6).

But how did this situation, which even metaphors cannot express ade-
quately, come about? "The Creator of all things wanted to be known, in
order to show His glory. Therefore, in His desire to be known, He created
rational beings capable of cognition" (To Albergati, 3). Another metaphor!
Another in the endless circle of metaphors which cannot detach itself from
the metaphorical to become real and substantial! (And yet this does come
—
about the conditions under which speculation as a whole gains content
for Cusanus will be discussed in section III, "Faith.")
b. —
Degrees of \nowledge. In his treatment of the mind, Cusanus follows
two lines. On the one hand, he describes it as a copy of the divine original.
On the other hand, he describes in objective terms the successive degrees

of knowledge, leading from sense perception to the intuition of God. He
distinguishes three principal degrees or stages: the senses, the discursive
reason, the intellect (sensus, ratio, intellectus) .
The sense organs apprehend real things, those created by God; discur-
sive reason supplies its categories —forms, genera, species; when discursive
reason breaks down, the intellect brings us closer to godhead.
Sensory knowledge is inherently confused. As soon as it makes dis-
tinctions, reason is already present in it. Reason brings clarity by drawing
distinctions, noting oppositions, and excluding contradiction. The intellect
leads us to learned ignorance by demonstrating how opposites actually
coincide.
Sensory knowledge is entirely positive: it affirms. Discursive reason both
affirms and negates. The intellect goes beyond affirmation and negation.
Sensory knowledge does not question. Reason questions on the assump-
tion that either affirmation or negation must be correct. The intellect ques-
tions by inquiring into the presupposition of questioning. As questioning
progresses, it becomes evident that rational statements invariably presuppose
what can be clearly grasped only by the intellect.
An example: Only the absolute One makes cognition possible. The mind
cannot formulate any question that does not presuppose this underlying
unity."The very question whether it is, presupposes its being; why it is,
the ground; for what purpose, the purpose of all things. Thus, what is
presupposed in every doubt must be that which is most certain" {De
con.,I,j).
At each stage of cognition, our thinking is true only in respect of the
adequacy between thinking and object characteristic of that stage. For ex-
ample: when we speak about God at the rational stage, which is not
adequate to God, "We subject God to the laws of discursive reason, and
assert His Oneness, while negating His Otherness. This is what is done
by nearly all modern theologians" {De con., 1, 10).
But no stage of cognition is self-contained for us; the truth lies in none
of them taken singly. Rather, we attain to truth as we ascend and descend
the degrees of knowledge. Each stage contributes something indispensa-
ble, but its truth resides in the whole of which it is only a part. In the
ascending order: "The mind unifies the being-other of sense perception
in the productive imagination, it unifies the various images of the productive
imagination in discursive reason, it unifies the being-other of rational cog-
nition in simple intellectual unity." In the descending order: The unity of
the intellect descends into the being-other of discursive reason, the unity
of reason into the being-other of representation, the latter into the being-
other of the senses. "Because cognition begins with the senses, it is true
not absolutely but only relatively: rational in discursive reason, true in rep-
resentation after the manner of representation, and in the senses after the
manner of the senses" {De con., II, 16).
Each stage strives for autonomy. Thus "the intellect does not wish to
become sensory," but to remain "perfect intellect in full activity." And yet
it can achieve this activity only by calling upon the senses, "in order to pass
from possibility to reality." The slumbering discursive reason must be
awakened by the senses, which arouse it to wonderment. "Thus the intellect
comes back to itself via a circular movement" {De con., II, 16).
All this activity of the mind, the various stages of which form a cycle, has
its purpose and goal entirely in itself. "Just as God does all things for His
own sake, in order to be the spiritual beginning and end of all things, so the
unfolding of the conceptual world, which is produced by our mind in
comprehending it, is present for the sake of the creative mind itself. The
infinite intellect is the heart and core of the human mind" {De con., I, 3).
Cusanus is inconsistent in his enumeration of the stages or degrees of

knowledge and in the terminology he applies to them. Discursive reason,
for example, is sometimes split into the faculty of representation and the
faculty of apprehension. And sometimes he adds a fourth stage, a stage
beyond thinking, which is contemplation {visio, intuitio) and the process

NICHOLAS OF CU S A 139
of becoming One (ttnio). At this point the question of Cusanus' mysticism

arises.
c. Speculative ecstasy and mysticism. — 1. Cusanus himself had no mystical

experience. He called the experience of his thinking "a kind of mental
trance" (De vis, dei, op. cit., p. 87). The nature of this speculative ex-
perience is explained in Cusanus' letters to the monks at Tegernsee.
The vision of the divine is sometimes called "rapture." But those who
"regard self-produced images and visionary illusions as true vision" are
mistaken. The truth is "an intellectual object" and can only be seen "without
seeing."
Nor is it possible, Cusanus says, to speak adequately of the other rapture,
that of intellectual vision. He "One man may
declares forthrightly, soberly:
be able to show another the way which he knows from hearsay to be
the right one, even if But a man who has
he has not traveled it himself.
traveled it in vision can point it out more reliably.
were to say anything If I
of the kind, it would be rather unreliable. For I have not yet been given
the taste of how friendly the Lord is." Thus, Cusanus himself denies having
had mystical experience, though he does not deny its reality.
On the subject of his own speculations, this is what Cusanus said to
the monks: "The study whose purpose is the ascent of our intellectual
mind to union with God is not completed so long as God is conceived in
rational terms." Where negation and affirmation (negative theology and
positive theology) coincide, there lies "the most secret doctrine of God, to
which none of the philosophers has access so long as the principle common
to all philosophy is recognized as valid, the principle that things that con-
tradictone another do not coincide." The man who investigates the doctrine
of God must "sacrifice himself and plunge into darkness." There he dis-
covers "that confusion is certainty, darkness light, and ignorance knowl-
edge." There, beyond the coincidence of opposites, lies the domain "of the
divine hunt," the perilous hunt. This movement is never completed; the
plunger is forever being deflected from the true way, into side paths which
lead to corrupting illusions.
2. Experience, not words or logic. —"We
are led on by the eternal and
infinite wisdom, which indeed from all things, giving us a kind
radiates
of foretaste of its effects, such that a wondrous longing impels us to meet
it halfway." This is the true life of the intellectual mind, its very own and
authentic life.
We "ground and source, through which, in which, and out

sense the
of which we are and move when we conceive its life-giving power of
attraction in nonconceptual insight." But "he who regards as truth that
which is conceivable, is removed from true infinite wisdom" {De sap.).
Hence "those whose judgments are based only on analysis, who speak only
in words and not out of inner experience," are not wise; the wise are those
who, thanks to such experience, "know all things and to the same extent
know nothing at all" (ibid.).
All thinking about God to which man's power of apprehension is
adequate must remain conjectural, and this is true also of the word of
God. In the Bible God speaks in human language. Although, because they
are God's, the words are more exact than any others, nevertheless the
language remains conjectural.
3. The "goal" cannot be described. —The goal, the inner disposition
whereby the infinite, God Himself, is present, cannot be described as a
"something." It seems to be nowise the same in different persons. It may
be adumbrated more or less as follows: it awakens
becomes to itself; it
maturer or becomes flatter and dimmer; it apprehends itself; it is enhanced

through experience of people and things and of itself, all of which point
back to an authentic source that is elucidated in meditation; it is never
—
present ready-made all statements of this type circle around something
that is not grasped in them. When we think we have grasped it, it vanishes.
"You might adduce countless paraphrases of this kind and so gain some
idea of the lofty height at which wisdom dwells. Infinity alone is so . . .
high" (De sap.).

4. "Beyond it."
—"Wisdom is experienced only in the awareness that
it reaches higher than any knowledge and that it is unknowable" (De sap.).
Consequently thinking always strives to go further. Whatever may be
formulated in a proposition, in a word, is for this very reason not yet the
point which thinking strives to attain —a point beyond the formulation,
the "absolute ground," "being itself," "what precedes being." And even
these expressions are only signs.
The Whence? Whither? imply an attempt
very questions, to capture the
infinite,and hence are inappropriate. There is no such thing as an ultimate

question. Questioning, too, questions beyond every question.
This thinking does not lead Cusanus to mystical experience. And yet
his own thinking is continually drawing him on to the point where thought
itself can go no further, but can only move in dialectical circles, repeat
itself in endless variations. His thinking is forever trying to take of? and
soar into the unthinkable, the ineffable, failing again and again to do so,
and rising to a new attempt.

At this point we encounter two possibilities. Does the forward-impelling
thinking that goes from thought-experience to thought-experience in its
drive for knowledge resign itself to failure as thinking and as experience,
and by that same token find, in the given concrete situation, a motive for
transcendence-related activity in the world? Or has God disclosed Himself
personally to a man who now falls to the ground, as it were, and overawed
by the majesty of His bodily presence, renounces his philosophical freedom?
Cusanus often seems to take the first course, but then at other times
NICHOLAS OF CVS A 141
resolutely pursues the second, combining the two in some way we do not
understand.
d. Love. — 1. Love is the ultimate criterion. —What is the impulse behind

so perilous a line of speculation? Whither falls the man who plunges into
it? How does he wrest himself free from the illusions that lie in wait for
him?
By love alone. Although this word has taken on innumerable meanings,
and has often been abused, it has lost none of its force and weight. The
ultimate criterion for man's motives and goals, guidance and conduct,
is his love of God. Of this love every other love is a copy; or, in other
words, every other love finds its consummation in the love of God.
2. Description of love. —"In the lovable we find endless and ultimately
unfathomable motives for love." Happiness in love is mediocre where the
loved object is something conceivable and finite. Love is truly blissful only
where "the lovable quality in the loved object is beyond all measure,
illimitable, and inconceivable." It is learned, love-inspired igno-
infinite,
rance (De sap.).

Love is life itself. Obscurely it knows in advance what it desires. Just
as the infant in arms thirsts for milk, so the intellect thirsts for wisdom.
"It has a kind of foretaste of it" (De sap.).
The spirit of love is not of this world. Love is "the power that illuminates
the man born blind and enables him to acquire sight through faith,
although we cannot say how this comes about" (De possest).

3. Love inseparable from insight. —
But the criterion of love is by no
means unambiguous. Love itself often takes deceptive forms. It must not
draw self-certainty from mere emotions and delusions (this and what
follows, from the letters to the monks at Tegernsee). For there can be no
love without insight; indeed, love is clairvoyant.
What is wholly unknown can neither be truly loved nor found in the
quest for knowledge. Accordingly, the loving ascent without knowledge
is not reliable. "In the guise of a messenger of light, Satan's messenger
easily deceives the over-confident, who imagines he has experienced God
when he has only discovered something metaphorical." A striving toward
love in disregard of the intellect is illusory. If "the highest goal is the
beatitude of knowing God," then "knowledge is here identical with love
and love identical with knowledge."
We have come full circle. "He who loves God is recognized by God. He
who is known by God, recognizes God." Here lies the perfect love "beyond
the coincidence of opposites, beyond the containing and the contained,"
beyond the comprehending and the comprehended.
4. Love in everything that is. —
Love is omnipresent in the world. It is
the "nexus" that holds things together. It is active at every level of reality.
It is the spirit (spiritus) that sheds its light down to the least ramifications
of the existent, that glows in the ratio, in the soul, and finally in all nature.
In reality everything is united with everything else. In the same way the
soul is linked with the body. The soul forms its own appropriate body just
as this particular body demands this particular soul. Accordingly, the
physiognomists are justified in making inferences about the soul on the
strength of the body (De con., II, 10).
Love, too, is linked with the body. One of his sermons (Basel edition,
p. 555) indicates the intricacy of Cusanus' thinking in this matter. He is
delighted by feminine beauty. One who "beholds a beautiful woman and

meditates on the sight glorifies the Lord and admires the infinite beauty
of whose light this earthly beauty is as a distant shadow." But although in
this context Cusanus says of such an admirer only: "Beauty does not
move him carnally, but moves his mind," he writes a little later: "If the
rapture is so great even in the union of bodies, how much greater must be
the rapture of the mind's union with wisdom, which is beauty itself."
The statement that "even in perishable matter beauty attracts us in its own
way as absolute beauty attracts the mind" might apply both to the rapture
that is free from desire and to carnal union. One might suppose that here
for a moment even in the erotic union of lovers Cusanus recognized the
beauty of the world —the reality of living things as a reflection of eternal
beauty. But this is not the case.
The flesh is covetous and everywhere at odds with the spirit. The
choleric are easily angered, the sanguine are inclined to dissipation. "The
flesh is like an overheated pot, which seethes and bubbles. The soul is
continually throwing wood on the fire — namely, living nourishment which
it finds where it may. Thus it keeps the fire going: with beautiful colors
through the lovely melodies through the ears, tastes through the
eyes,
mouth, scents through the nostrils. All flesh is corrupt and impure.
. . .
Because the soul is warped and partial to the flesh, it is corrupted and
becomes bestial."
Whenever, on the basis of his philosophical views, Cusanus asserts the
excellence of the world and all created things, he immediately goes on

to remind us of the fundamental corruption of the flesh. There is no way
of reconciling these two views. In all its manifestations at every level,
love, because it is a copy of the divine, has the character of truth and
goodness. But the flesh, like all worldly things, was corrupted by mankind's
original sin. On the one hand, the world is glorious and beautiful, on
the other Eros is the work of the Devil. There is no connection between
these two ideas.
Although Cusanus assures us that love permeates nature and matter
down to their least ramifications, he does not grant it a capacity for
spiritualizing earthly reality. If eroticism is excluded, what is left? A love
which is powerless because it is without an object, hypocrisy? No, something
entirely different —a love of God which draws its inspiration from God's
love for every individual within the framework of the living Church, as
realized in religious orders, in religious ideas and institutions, in a religious

authority, directed away from, not toward, mankind and the world, and
toward the beyond.
We can detect in disarms an atmosphere of remoteness from Eros, an
atmosphere in which the grandeur and misery of the human condition,
its tragic involvement, seem to pale. The possibility of great love in this
world, rootedin, but not limited by, Eros, was beyond his horizon. Far
from carrying him away, such love did not even arouse his wonder.
Confronted with reality, he fell back at once upon traditional views and
evaluations: the superiority of asceticism, marriage as the sole legitimation
of Eros. For the sake of another, different afterworld in the beyond, he
casts a veilover what is eternal in Eros here and now. He devaluates the
reality of existence in the world by absolutizing the ascetic way of life.
Asceticism has been practiced by men in all high cultures as an authentic

possibility of existence, but it is an excess, not a fulfillment of the human
reality. It proclams the world to be judgment actually keeps
sinful. Such a
us from glimpsing the true yawning gulfs that threaten and that we cannot
close; there can be no human self-realization if we turn aside from the
dangers that confront us. Openness to risk and danger yields to the fixed
idea of a total sinfulness produced by the Fall, which can be wiped out only
by the redemption of mankind through the operation of heavenly grace.
Thus Cusanus takes an attitude of shallow realism toward everything
that happens to be as it is in this sinful world.
Cusanus' attitude toward Erosis matched by his evaluation of science.
His occasional affirmations of a boundless will to knowledge stand side

by side with a total condemnation of scientific curiosity. In his view,
science has value only in so far as it leads to the knowledge of God. Con-
sequently, he does less than justice to the authentic will to knowledge,
which seeks to penetrate everywhere, which recognizes no limits, which
discovers no totality and no harmony. He never experienced the kind of
knowledge that can lead to an indictment of God and to the destruction
of pious illusion. He would have condemned such knowledge as blasphemy,
this in the name of a world-negation which is itself blasphemous, a product
of religious bigotry.
III. FAITH
Introduction
a. Formal transcending. —Under the impact of Cusanus' philosophical

thinking we are apt to forget that he was a Christian and a prince of the
Church. He takes us into the realm of Plato, Plotinus, and certain Asian
thinkers, the realm of great speculative metaphysics.
Speculation of this sort, which we may call formal transcending, is not

an end in itself. Its only purpose is to illuminate the realm inaccessible to
thinking, the realm that derives its content from what we call "faith."
The conceptual structure of formal transcending is often dismissed as
laborious, pompous nonsense, continually repeated in the convolutions of
thought. Speculative philosophers are attracted to this kind of thinking
because it opens the door to infinity. The attraction is strongest when the
thinker is captivated by the infinite itself. He seems then to hear its voice.
The goal of formal transcending, the Archimedean point situated out-
side is insubstantial, a mere point. In itself it provides no
everything,
support. Such thinking must receive its weight from elsewhere. What is the
source of this something which is not only experienced as limit but, though
for all object thinking it is nothing, takes hold of us by virtue of the attrac-
tive power of being itself ?
It is that from out of which and with which we are given to ourselves.
Does it dawn upon us in an act of infinite trust? But what do we trust?

Is it the fundamental experience of love? But what do I love? Is it what
speaks to us in ciphers from the infinitely remote realm that we try to

reach by transcending? But where is that which speaks to us in ciphers?
Is it clarified in a faith which, in Nicholas of Cusa, understands itself
as the intellect, the image of infinity, But on what

and hence trusts itself?
ground does the intellect conceive of itself as the image of infinity? Does
this awareness come to us directly as the language of divine revelation?
But what revelation is convincing, let alone demonstrable, to all men?

Trust, love, the language of ciphers, our awareness that our intellect in
its movement is an image of God all these are subjective states
infinite —
of mind in men to whom an objective reality has been disclosed. But although
these states of mind can easily be named, they cannot be pointed out from
outside. Like transcendence itself, the existential source cannot be defined
in objective terms.
b. The fundamental Christian-ecclesiastical attitude. — Cusanus considered

his thinking to be Christian and in accord with the teachings of the Church
—this he never doubted. Christ, the Trinity, the sacraments, the Church,
the hierarchy, the dogmas— these constitute the point, situated at a depth
he cannot fathom, to which all his thinking is referred.
Time and again he tells us that God
beyond the reach of the human
is
intellect. "No ascent, however high, can enable us to see God from the
natural standpoint otherwise than in an enigmatic image." The seeker's
vision is obscured by mist. How nevertheless can he gain a glimpse of the
invisible? Never unless God "makes Himself visible in the real world by
revealing Himself" (De possest).
We in our weakness cannot help ourselves. When man has abandoned
hope in himself, convinced that he "is sick, as it were, and entirely unable
N 1 Cll OLAS OF CU S A 145
to obtain what he longs for," he turns for help to the revealed God.
But there is only one such revelation: that of Jesus Christ. God the Father
discloses Himself in the Christ. Having begotten His Son, God dwells in
Him bodily (corporaliter) for He has assumed a body in which He "has
remained the perfect God" (Exc, IX, 637; Scharpflf, p. 484).
If, contrary to Cusanus' intentions, we were to separate his philosophy
from his faith, we might underestimate the earnestness both of his philos-
ophy and of his Christian faith.
c. Independent speculation and Christian faith. —Perhaps Cusanus' philo-

sophical thinking is independent after all, in the sense that he employs cog-
nitive methods that do not spring from Christian faith though they support
it and throw light on it.
Is not speculative thinking, when it is not merely a tiresome intellectual
game, always rooted in some faith —the pieties of the ancient Greeks, the
Asiatic religions, or Christianity? —
Cusanus assumes and on this point
he is obviously mistaken —that this faith is everywhere one and the same.
He takes it for granted that the revealed faith of Christianity is the only true
one, which all other men espouse without knowing it, and which they will
profess once they have understood themselves properly.
For Cusanus, speculative philosophical thinking and the Christian faith
merge into one. We can spend a long time in his company, studying his
meditations on many subjects, without ever encountering specific Christian
dogmas. We can follow him perfectly well in his attempts to transcend dis-
cursive reason through the paradoxes of seeking and yet never finding,
of touching in nontouching, of knowledge in ignorance, of proximity in
distance. Inspired by his grandiose human self-confidence we may well
make his ideas our own, without ever thinking of Christ. And yet from his
point of view, this is quite inadmissible.
Is such a procedure justified? For the purposes of our own present
philosophical realization, assuredly, but not from the standpoint of adequate
historical understanding, not if we wish to provide a historical exposition.
To him everything was Christian, to us it is not. To Cusanus the implications
of his faith were fully realized in the Christian religion; to us, what he ex-
presses in Christian formulas often holds a truth that has no need of
Christian wrappings. Actually, the independence of reason characteristic
of a philosophical faith is as inseparable from Cusanus' thinking as are
its Christian underpinnings.
d. Philosophical writings and sermons. —In studying Cusanus we must

make an effort to share his understanding of revealed faith. This faith is
with the single exception of De staticis experi-

explicit in all his writings
mentis, which seems to be little more than a technical note and is in my
opinion unworthy of the fame it has achieved. The truths of Christian rev-
elation are an integral part of Cusanus' thinking. To consider his philosoph-

ical writings separately from his sermons is to obscure the great thinker's
over-all conception.
His sermons are permeated with philosophizing. But in selecting the
philosophical material of his sermons, he asks himself: "What is edifying?"
—he does not expound philosophical speculations for their own sake. In
the margin of difficult passages, especially those that might induce doubt
or misunderstanding in the faithful, he often notes: "non aedificat"
But his philosophical writings always treat, along with other subjects, of
Christian beliefs. Both categories of works are animated by the same spirit,
though traditional religious conceptions, including some that are very odd,
play a far larger part in the sermons.
1. What is faith?
Cusanus replies as follows (primarily in his sermons).
a. Faith and reason. —Even when the human mind is only moderately
endowed with reason, it is able to believe. If it has no reason at all, it
cannot believe, for then it cannot think, and hence cannot assent.
Just as nature reveals light to our vision, and just as a truth strikes
us as evident, so the pleasant and the useful disclose themselves to our
will. All this takes place spontaneously and implies no merit on our part.
We can speak of merit only when the nonvisible, the improbable, the
indemonstrable, the redemption that is not disclosed spontaneously by our
nature, is believed by virtue of faith.
Faith produces conflict in the mind. The mind assents necessarily to what
has been proved. But faith must struggle. The improbability of its content
clashes directly with discursive reason. Without courage in the struggle
that faith must wage, there is no victory.
Because of its weakness, discursive reason looks for points of support
in demonstration and proof. Because of its inherent strength, faith needs
no external support. Discursive reason that asks for proofs is like a money-
lender who demands security for a loan. The heathen demand such security
before they are ready to believe. Christians believe in God's revelation with-
out it.
The believer's self-understanding is called the knowledge of faith. Only

by reflecting upon faith do we achieve clarity about it. In thinking about
his philosophical faith, man comes to understand his experience of his
fellow men, of the world, and of fate.
b. Faith —
and will. "Faith is a kind of thinking that is associated with
assent" {cum assensione cogitare). Because the will is free, it lies in our
power to believe or not. God has conferred upon us this capacity for faith
the ability to grasp revelation when we hear it. In its pride, reason will
not believe what it does not understand. The humble man, however, does
not understand unless he believes. Adam and Lucifer fell because they tried
to live by their own knowledge. He who believes in the Resurection and in
life everlasting — beliefs which reason and experience refute, rather than
confirm —
must necessarily let this reason die away. "He must become as
a fool and a slave who renounces the freedom of his reason and willingly
lets himself be taken captive. This is the greatest combat, not against flesh
and blood, but against proud, presumptuous reason." The ability to believe
is our greatest virtue {maxima nostrae animae virtus); it is the power of
the will, God's greatest gift (donum).
c. Faith is more than hearing and less than seeing. —To see God would
be to come face to face with Him. Merely to hear the Word is not yet to
more than hearing, but less than
believe. Faith is seeing. To believe what
we have only heard is to assent to what we have not seen.
Faith is the light of the soul. "Just as the eyes see the stars only thanks
to the light they emit, so we gain knowledge of the divine only in the
light of the divine." The light of the living faith surpasses "the natural light
of the senses and even of the intellect, as we see in the sacrament of the
Mass, where the senses are vanquished by faith." In this faith the visible
"coincides" with the invisible.
d. The power of faith. —Faith surpasses nature bywhat it itself is and by

the goal it has in view. It alsosurmounts the power of nature, for nothing
is impossible to the believer. Faith raises us above every limitation.
The knows what he wants. His knowledge of God is both his
believer
power (potentia). "He who knows what he desires to
strength and his
know, and who is what he knows," has achieved "the peace that passeth
understanding."
2. Revealed faith and philosophical faith , theological

and philosophical thinking
When we read what Cusanus says about faith, we are not unmoved. Al-
though his faith in revealed religion is alien to us, he seems to say things
in which we can recognize our own capacities for faith. How is this to be
interpreted ?
In order to go beyond discursive reason, Cusanus proceeds in two ways:
he appeals both to the dogmas of the Church and to the philosophical
intellectus. He
never discusses the relationship between the two. All we can
do is note what he actually does in his thinking.
An example: In most of his works he discusses the Trinity, through which

he godhead and the world as its copy. But he does not
sees the original
always refer to the dogmatic formulation of the mysteries: he arrives at
his conclusions through the pure intellectus whose logical movement is
incomprehensible to discursive reason. Actually such dialectical thinking

presupposes the conclusions toward which he is progressing. It is set in
motion by anticipation of the gratifications it goes in search of. It does not
compel the assent of discursive reason, but it is convincing to the intellect.
It marks a point of culmination, a momentary exaltation. But then, that
which has been conceived in terms of philosophical speculation, and which

Cusanus regards as consistent with the thinking of the Greek philosophers,
is suddenly identified, as though this were the most natural thing in the
world, with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This twofold approach
is a general feature of Cusanus' thinking:
tf.lt is not theological thinking. For he does not interpret the articles
of Christian faithon the basis of the Biblical "word of God." He does not
employ the language of dogmatic theology. On the contrary, his thinking
takes the form of a philosophical thinking accessible to all men, Christians
and non-Christians alike.
His speculations aim from the outset to arrive at the point where the
dogmas, the Trinity and the Incarnation, for example, take on their true
meaning. In his treatment, the articles of faith seem to coincide with his
philosophical ideas.
His philosophizing does not presuppose particular articles of faith,
b.
but does imply a fundamental attitude of faith, which he explicitly calls

it
Christian. Because Cusanus regards his mind as a copy of the divine orig-
inal, philosophical faith and revealed faith are for him identical. In the
Bible man is described as "made in the image and likeness of God." In
philosophy this serves as a cipher of human self-awareness.
What we call "the duality" of his thinking was to him no such thing.
He does not recognize multiple sources of faith, but only the one, the
Christian. He recognizes no philosophical faith. Not being in search of
one, he neither rejects nor accepts this possibility.
The interest in faith inherent in such a fundamental attitude is not the
same in the philosopher and in the religious believer. Nor is the founda-
tion of faith that gives the existential impulse to speculation by any means
the same in all the great thinkers, although they are often in agreement on
specific points.
Because Cusanus assumes that Pythagoras, Plato, and Proclus are essen-
tially in agreement with revelation, his ideas are developed so undogmati-
cally —and for long passages without reference to Church dogmas that a —
modern reader can easily forget he is reading a Christian author. It never
occurs to Cusanus that his philosophical ideas and his theological ideas
might conflict. To him philosophy was not a rational substructure support-

ing the higher, the mystery. Reflection on the mystery of revelation was
itself philosophy.
At the same time Cusanus insists that "understanding in freedom" is
essential to this kind of thinking. He tells us what this is. A man who does
"what the intellect orders him to do," does not obey in the manner of a
slave; a slave is one who "is compelled for fear of punishment to obey a
law he does not understand because it contains something secret" (Exc,
V, 499; Scharpff, 412). The free man is the man who has achieved maturity,
who is capable of understanding. Although Cusanus' freedom illumines
the mysteries of faith in its own way, it does not dispel them by intellec-
tual ingenuity nor reduce them to a bloodless, purely logical freedom from
contradiction.
The freedom of this thinking becomes apparent when we compare it
with the rationalistic, unfree thinking of John of Segovia (Haubst,

Fromherz). At first Cusanus' ally at the Council of Basel, John turned
against him when Cusanus went over to the papal party, though he kept
up friendly relations with him until the end of Cusanus' life. John of
Segovia was a man of rationally fixed principles, and for this reason he
never departed from the conciliar line. After the conquest of Constantinople
by the Turks in 1453, his sole interest became union with Islam. He believed
that such a union (in the most literal sense) could be achieved without
delay if Moslems were confronted with rationally compelling proofs of
the
the dogma Cusa also worked for peace and
of the Trinity! Nicholas of
religious unity, but bore in mind the needs of the moment. When the
Church was being threatened with a new schism, he sacrificed logical con-
sistency to combat the immediate danger. In the face of the Moslem threat,
he wrote a colloquy of the sages of all nations in Heaven before the throne
of God, dealing with eventualities in the distant future. He had no illusions
about the possibility of a Christian crusade against the Turks. Reliance
on logic drove John of Segovia to advocate an unrealistic course of action,
both when he championed and when he imagined
the conciliar principle
arguments on the Trinity would overcome the mili-
that rationally correct
tancy of Islam. Both he and Nicholas of Cusa were convinced of the
power of the mind, but where John of Segovia bogged down theoretically
and practically in his slavish devotion to rational logic, Cusanus incorpo-
rated rational logic in his dialectical logic. John of Segovia was unwittingly
drawn into a vacuum by the superstitious belief, ever recurrent over the
millennia, in the absolute power of proof in all things. As though either
religious mysteries or political conflicts could be settled by disputations! It
would seem that John himself began in the end to waver on this score.
Cusanus may have been perplexed in given concrete situations, but he was
never uncertain about the truth of his philosophical thinking.
3. Speculative metaphor [cipher) and revealed bodily
presence [spatio-temporal reality)
a. The twofold character of Cusanus' thin\ing. —Cusanus is perfectly

straightforward whenever his faith in the Church is speaking: The cer-
tainty of faith surpasses all things {omnia certitudine superat).
From the ambiguity of ciphers he passes to the certainty of sensory
knowledge. From the historicity of his existential reality, he passes to the
historical reality of space and time. In Christ God assumed a body, in which
He dwells bodily (corporaliter) in all His glory.
Cusanus developed, in philosophical terms, the necessity of a unique

human being, who, as the consummation of the human and thereby of the
world, is the reality of God. The speculatively necessary place of the Greatest
is occupied by the historical "fact" —Jesus Christ. What the speculative in-
tellect thinks it understands, faith sees as real: the Man-God.
b. The turning point. — Cusanus regards all metaphors as provisional. In

order to attain to the highest unity, we must discard everything that can
be thought or imagined, and hence we must also transcend all figures of
speech.
His ideas lead up to a point where they become a sort of metaphor and
yet strain to surmount figurative language. This occurs when to the ques-
tion, What is the infinite One, he replies: "Itself." Or when he thinks the
highest unity and says that it can be conceived only as triunal —as unity,
equality, connection, and in other categories —he no longer regards his
thoughts as images or metaphors or conjectures, i.e., to be conceived in
human categories, but rather as thoughts which directly grasp the being of
God. And when all the categories have been transcended in the coincidentia
oppositorum, that which is actually being sought suddenly turns up again,
in categories. The unintelligible becomes intelligible in categories.
On the pathway we must transcend all finite things in the

to the highest
coincidentia oppositorum, but where are we led from there? Merely to the
furthest limit, "the wall," past which we can go no further? Or into the
obscurity of Nothingness, the objectless darkness, from which everything
that is finite nevertheless takes its scale of measurement? Or to the light
which arises in this darkness? But how does this come about?
In two ways: the categories of our thinking cease to be categories and
grasp "the One itself." The thinkable ceases to be merely thought, God be-
comes incarnate.
c. Liberation through speculation and reimprisonment in the content of

faith. — Cusanus carries out the process of intellectual liberation that is
characteristic of all great metaphysics. But in him liberation does not con-
tent itself with metaphor. His speculation, which has just broken through
every barrier and overcome every difficulty to bring us face to face with
the infinite, is recaptured and fettered to dogmatic views or mysteries.
Whenever this occurs, there is a break in the continuity of thought. His
logical-alogical thinking opens up immeasurable spaces, which are gradually
filled with ciphers (enigmatic images, metaphors, signs). As these ideas
become available for specific contents of the revealed faith, the openings
are sealed up again.
d. Superstition. —To see the absolute as an object or to make an object into

an absolute is For this reason we also speak of scientific super-
superstition.
stition when, on the basis of scientific findings, something is conceived of
as Being itself, or when science is expected to answer mankind's every
question. Scientific superstition is an alarming modern attitude fraught with
disastrous consequences. Cusanus had no knowledge of this phenomenon.
Here we are referring to another superstition, this one age-old. We en-
counter it whenever, as above, a content of faith, instead of being clarified by
the language of ciphers and so oriented toward the infinite, becomes the
object of a sense perception or an object in categorial thinking. Superstition
arises when the language of ciphers is transformed into a fixed corporeal
thing.
Cusanus was one of a long line of Christian thinkers, faithful to the
teaching of the Church, who whether
resisted the inroads of superstition
from inside or outside the Church. He condemned many practices of the
Church of his day: "When consecrated things are used for purposes for
which they are not intended, we have superstition. For example, when holy
water is used as a remedy against sickness or to increase fertility. The same
holds true of the light of the Easter candle, of baptismal water, and other
things: bathing on Christmas Eve and Shrove Tuesday to combat fever or
toothache . . . begging the intercession of St. Valentine in a case of epilepsy
. . . carrying a cross around the fields in spring to ward off storms. There
is superstition, too, in certain offerings laid upon the altar, such as stones
on St. Stephen's day and arrows on St. Sebastian's day" {Sermons, pp. 158
ff .) . Firm adherence to the simple faith, as laid down in the teachings of the
Apostles, is quite enough. The rest is of no consequence, mere human in-
vention. Superstitious practices lead to idolatry {Sermon, Scharpff, p. 484).
They intrude on meditation and mystical experience, so fomenting fraud,
self-deception,and self-indulgence in the form of spurious visions.
Cusanus never draws a clear distinction between faith and superstition.
He does say, however "It is superstitious to accord divine honors to persons
:
other than God, indeed, it is idolatry" {Sermons, p. 197). But how are we
to distinguish God in His corporeal form from an idol? Nor does he state
clearly how superstition arises. The "human inventions" referred to above,
he says, are inspired by the Devil. Evil as well as good spirits induce
thoughts and images in the mind {Sermons, p. 195). Thus the origin of
superstition is accounted for by another superstition.
However, Cusanus dismisses this whole domain—superstition, demons,
the Devil —as of superficial importance. "We must recognize that the Devil
cannot penetrate the innermost sphere of the rational soul and be inwardly
present to Being; only God can do that. Only He who created the . . .
human mind can enter it. And because the Devil cannot do this, he
. . .
does not know the secrets of the human heart; God alone knows them.
No creature can know the secrets of conscience" {Sermons, pp. 192 ff.).
4. Whence comes the content offaith?
Just as every man acquires understanding and self-knowledge with the

help of his mother tongue, so he acquires his faith with the help of traditional
beliefs (i.e., the philosophical as well as the revealed faith) in living communi-
cation with his fellow men, in practical experience, and by reading. Cusanus
grasps the miraculous character of language and writing. "Through the
written language the dead speak with the living, the absent with the
present —a truly divine masterpiece" (ScharpfT, 411).
No one understands what another has written unless he penetrates
the author's meaning (intentio). This is possible only when the spirit that
—
moves both of them speaker or writer and listener or reader is one and —
the same. The Bible bears witness to "the word of God." Since man was
made in the image of God, he can understand God's language, the natural
language of the world, and the supernatural language of revelation. He
understands the divine words of the Holy Scriptures thanks to "the light
of the Word that already dwells in him." But for the same reason— "He —
who has not the same spirit as Jesus cannot understand the Gospels."
Hence the radical manner in which Cusanus founds faith solely and
exclusively upon revelation. For example, when the believer asks in what
way Jesus was borne by the Virgin, and how one and the same God can be
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, his faith replies: "We know this for certain
because the Gospels tell us it is so" (To Albergati, 42). Again: "The
authority of the Gospels is incomparably superior to everything else that
can be thought or uttered" (ibid., 47). The word of the Bible is proof against
all doubt, because it is not man, but God, who speaks to us in the Bible. The
word of God cannot be false.
Cusanus would deny the validity of such an objection as the following:

What is asserted as a reality in the world, yet goes against all experience
and standards of intelligibility, has to be false as a statement of fact;
consequently there can be no such things (in the sense of corporeal things
in the world) as the conceiving of life through the Holy Spirit (which is
i
not a biological reality), the virgin birth, the resurrection from the dead
of a man who, after a short stay on earth, ascends to Heaven. Cusanus
forestalls all such objections: Because nothing is impossible to God, questions
such as these as to how events attested by believers actually came about are
irrelevant. To human thought, many things are inconceivable. Human
cognition is confined within modes appropriate to human understanding,
but this is not true of God. Therefore, the man who does not believe that
God is capable of acts unintelligible to man "is making a judgment about
himself rather than about God and is utterly in error" (To Albergati, 43).
The which Cusanus subscribes without reservation is
revealed faith to
based upon the Scriptures, the word of God, the Church, the body of
Christian tradition. Philosophical faith, on the contrary, though also based
on traditional views expressed in a variety of works, both sacred and
profane and assuming many contradictory forms, assimilates freely this
philosophical tradition. The speculative metaphors (ciphers) speak to phil-
osophical faith in the medium of its rationality and essential love for
freedom. This possibility is outside Cusanus' horizon when he speaks as
a Christian, though perhaps not when, hardly aware of what he is doing, he
speaks of man as an autonomous being, as a rational individual, different
from all others, and attuned to the language of all things whenever, that —
is, he philosophizes freely.
5. Authority and originality
a. Unquestioning submission to the Church. —In dedicating a work to

Pope Pius II, who formerly, when he still bore the name of Enea Silvio
de' Piccolomini, had called Cusanus his teacher, he wrote: "I submit to
your judgment all I have ever written or ever and myself as
shall write,
well, without reservation, as behoves a believer in any who will never
matter be in disagreement with Your Apostolic Throne." Although the
words are traditional, they are perfectly sincere in this case. The philos-
opher's submission lacks any touch of self-castigation, such as it might
have had if he had felt that there was any conflict between his philosophy
and the teachings of the Church; his faith in the One Truth was never
shaken. As a matter of historical fact, he was always left perfectly free to
think as he wished.
b. Criticisms of authority. The layman. Faith is the beginning of \nowledge.

—He was amazingly outspoken in criticizing the authorities (primarily
in the dialogues on the layman). The layman (idiota) becomes the vehicle
and discoverer of the truth, who defends it against the book learning of
the theologians. The truth is to be found in the streets and market places,
not in the circles of the learned.
The layman remonstrates with his erudite interlocutor: "Your insights

depend too much on the prestige of writers and their doctrinal opinions.
You live on the nourishment others supply, not on food that is naturally
suitable to you. The man who walks in the ways of wisdom bears witness
not merely to what he has been told, but also to what he himself has ex-
perienced. It is not enough to know what has been written about wisdom.
Rather, we must ourselves arrive at insights, achieve knowledge at first,
not at second hand."
The figure of nature and the world as a book to be read, as distinguished
from the books composed by men, goes back to the Church Fathers. The
significance of the "layman" is a topos that became familiar to Cusanus
during his stay with the monks at Deventer. He invested it with freshness
and force.
His anti-authoritarianism is not directed against the Bible. Nor is it
directed against book learning as such, the value of which he does not
deny: "I do not say that there is no wisdom in books. But I do say that
books are not its source." Cusanus' respect for experience reflects a will
to get back to the source. He sees the source of all knowledge in the
thoughts and acts of men going about their business in the market place,
in the way they count, measure, and weigh, in the activities of artisans who
create works after the models in their own minds. Cusanus was himself a
great reader and left a large library; many of the volumes are crammed with
marginal notes in his own hand. His idiota is thoroughly familiar with
the ideas of the philosophers. It is in the name of authentic appropriation
that Cusanus opposes merely learned wisdom. What books awaken in us
must be freshly tested for ourselves in our own experience whether in —
the world or in our own soul, in the experience of faith and speculation.
Nowhere does Cusanus voice even the slightest criticism of the authority
of revelation. But he does insist on our need to grasp its message directly;
we must not simply pay it lip service, in the absence of understanding. In
the authentic life of the spirit, the authority of revelation is unshakable
wherever matters of faith are concerned. In this Cusanus
connection,
repeats Augustine {fides praecedit intellectum) and Anselm {credo ut
intelligam). In one passage {De doc. ignor., II, n) he writes: "Faith is
the beginning of knowledge {fides est initium intellectus) ." And again:
"The man who wants to arrive at an insight must have faith, for without it
he will get nowhere." Hence, "Where there is no true faith, there is no true
knowledge."
c. Not even in germ a heretic. — Certain of Cusanus* statements might have

been declared heretical, as had been the case with some of Meister Eckhart's.
But no danger threatened Cusanus, prince of the Church, who had rendered
extraordinary political services to the cause of papal power and had labored
for Church unity. An attack on him by Wenck, a professor at Heidel-
berg, might have led to his condemnation. Cusanus was stung into refuting
the passionate pamphlet of this rationalistic scholastic —the only time he
ever did such a thing.
However, the Church paid no attention to Cusanus* ideas. In the nine-
teenth century, a few Catholic theologians took up the old attack again
and amplified it, but the Church remained silent. His thinking fell into
oblivion. After 1565 (date of the Basel edition of his works), neither the
Church nor any monastic order arranged for a new edition. The Heidelberg
A\ademieausgabe (begun in 1932) was initiated by non-Catholics.
Cusanus himself had no heretical leanings. His sincere quest for the
truth was inseparable from his determination to submit to the judgment
—
of the Church the visible, existing Church of his day. Entirely foreign
to him was the sort of radicalism that stops at nothing in its conflict with
the world as it is, envisages the possibility of revolution, and compels the
world to transform itself. He did not fight for the truth as such, only for
the truth within the Church. He did not champion the faith of the New
Testament against its corruption by the Church, which claims a monopoly
on Christianity and imposes its faith by brute force when it has the means
of doing so. Cusanus was not a revolutionary; his own reform activities
were carried on within the Church, on orders from his superiors.
d. "Esoterism." —He feared that wisdom, by giving rise to misunderstand-

ing, might impair the faith of the multitude. He has the layman himself
say: "I am not sure that it is right to lay bare such great mysteries and
to disclose such bottomless depths so casually" (De sap.). He expressed the
wish that "Books for the understanding of which the multitude is not
prepared be removed from public places" (Apol., p. 25). And yet the
truth that is thus to be kept hidden is for Cusanus
same time the at the
truth which man has the innate capacity to understand. The layman utters
the truth, and the same layman expresses concern over its possible harmful
effect.
The distinction between a knowledge accessible to all and a knowledge

accessible only to initiates is an old one (in India as well as in the West).
According to Cusanus, propositions which acquire their true meaning

only in the light of "knowing ignorance" are capable of being misunder-
stood, because, once formulated in rational terms, their meaning becomes
fixed. This was how certain of Meister Eckhart's propositions, which
Cusanus defends, came to be condemned as heretical. People unprepared
to understand such things should not read them. But whom are we to call
unprepared? The multitude? The merely learned? After all, what the
layman stands for and is momentarily inclined to keep secret, is the truth
which is directly and fundamentally accessible to man as man. Cusanus
was aware of the ever-recurrent problem involved, but did not solve it
any more than any other thinker has done.
6. Faith and obedience
Faith based upon revelation demands obedience. "When we opt for faith
we submit to the Word, we willingly surrender both our reason and our
will" (Sermon, Scharpff, 482). Such a statement is surprising: for, as we
have seen, Cusanus demands that we should understand authentically, that
we should make insights our own, that our thinking should not be second-
hand.
Cusanus would presumably reply: Faith resides fundamentally in obedi-
ence itself. "Obedience" does not imply that we come by our faith at
second hand. Faith in obedience to the Church is authentic as such. The

truth is one. True philosophy and true Christian faith cannot be at variance.
In theory, submission to the dogmatic decisions of the Church cannot
involve any conflict. Nicholas of Cusa never experienced actual conflicts and
we can hardly doubt that, had any occurred, he would have submitted to
the Church.
Religious obedience of this kind is not obedience to one's own con-
science, but definitely and explicitly consists in an obedience to the Church
as automatic as the monk's obedience to his superior. Cusanus justifies
such obedience: "Where there is obedience, there is love of God. Love of

God makes man and obedient as wax subjected to the action of
as pliable
fire" (Sermons, p. 144). Hence, obedience to it "is meritorious, even though
the man who commands obedience is blameworthy. Obedience is the more

meritorious when your superior demands it on an unjust ground" (ibid.,
p. 143).
IV. TRUTH IN MATHEMATICS

Cusanus composed twelve works dealing explicitly with mathematics
(between 1445 and 1459). They show what great importance he attached
to mathematics.
a. Infinity. —And Cusanus is really interested in only one aspect of

yet
mathematics: At no point does he address himself, like a profes-
infinity.
sional mathematician, to solving mathematical problems as such. In the

best professional judgment he was a mathematical dilettante. He confines
himself to problems such as the relation of a circle's circumference to its
diameter, of the circle to the square, of the arc to the chord. Since in each
of these problems, one member of the pair is incommensurable with the
other, they all involve the notion of infinity. He was unable to solve any
of them.
If we suppose that a circle is extended indefinitely, we arrive at an infinite

circle, in which arc and chord coincide. An infinite circle would be an
The sum of three angles of a triangle
infinite straight line. is equal to two
right angles. Ifwe make one of the angles progressively greater, so that it
approaches in magnitude the sum of two right angles, the apex of the
triangle will move ever closer to the base, and finally the sides of the
triangle will coincide with the base.
The infinity of the figures in which the opposites of circle and straight
line coincide is seen by Cusanus as an expression of God's infinity. He
quotes Anselm, who likened God's supreme truth to an infinite straight
line, and others who likened Him to an infinite triangle, an infinite circle,
an infinite sphere. According to Cusanus, all these conceptions are correct,
and for all their seeming divergence essentially identical.
We cannot visualize a Cusanus says, the
circle as a straight line, but,
intellect can readily conceive it as such. The

comprehends the
intellect
coincidence of opposites, which leads by various paths to the same goal,
whatever our starting point in the finite may be. Just as the differences
between geometrical figures are equalized, all dissolving in the one infinity,
so all finite things are equalized and absorbed in the infinity of God. And
just as the plurality of finite geometrical figures is grounded in infinity, so
are all finite things grounded in the infinity of God.
b. Progression and leap. —

Progression toward an infinity that can never
be attained becomes, when consciously effected, an amazing experience.
We move on and on, beyond each successive limit (of number, line, space,
or causality). No beginning or end is ever attained.

Something entirely different, however, may happen. The never-ending
progression or regression (the progressus and regressus in indefinitum)
becomes intolerable, we feel that we are out of our depth. At such times we
are prepared to believe that Aristotle was right in saying that whenever
such a regressus in indefinitum turns up, our point of departure must
have been faulty. The necessity of an end comes to be regarded as an
argument against infinite process. Infinity is impossible to conceive of.
Or the problem is solved by a "leap." The infinite (in the sense of a

progressus in indefinitum) suddenly becomes the completed infinite. Cu-
sanus believes that this completion is achieved in the coincidentia op-
positorum. The indefinite progression signifies an endless intellectual ac-
tivity; its completion cannot be grasped as reality.
signifies a fiction that
At this point Cusanus' train of thought changes direction: thus understood,

infinity ground out of which arise all finite figures as limitations.
is the
Both thought became symbols for Cusanus. The first symbolizes
trains of
how the human intellect ascends to God: just as in the coincidentia
oppositorum contact with mathematical infinity is established, so in the
thinking of the coincidentia oppositorum as a whole the intellect makes
contact with God. The second course symbolizes the descent from infinity
to the finite: just as the longest, infinite line contains all other lines, so the
absolutely greatest, absolute infinity, contains all finite things.
c. Mathematical infinity and the infinity of God. —All these mathematical

ideas —the indefinite progression of the series of numbers and figures,
and the leap into the infinite —are intended as symbols. But infinity is
also the essence of the divine Being. Cusanus searches for the purest
mathematical symbolism as a way of giving us an intimation of God's
infinity. He proceeds by the following stages: First, "Since all mathematical
signs are finite, we must regard mathematical figures, with all their possible
variations, as finite." Second, "The finite relations must accordingly be
transposed into infinite figures." Third, "These relations of the infinite
figures are transposed into infinity pure and simple, which is independent
of any figure" (De doc. ignor., 1, 12).
The finite figures cannot be proper symbols —only from finite
the ascent
to infinite figures is a symbol. Mathematical infinity becomes a symbol of
absolute infinity. As finite mathematical figures are to infinite figures, so
all finite things are to the infinity of God.
In mathematics, which may be regarded as the science of the infinite,
infinity can be grasped only to the extent that specific concepts of infinity
(indicated by special signs) are employed for the solution of specific prob-
lems. But behind each symbol "for the infinite" that enters into mathematical
operations, there always remains another infinity that is beyond our grasp.
How mathematical infinity can become a symbol of divine infinity is
the constant concern of Cusanus' speculation. Infinity in a problem of

mathematics is not the same thing as infinity conceived of as object of
metaphysical speculation. The former serves as a metaphor for the latter.
Infinite approximation in geometry (for example, in the "nonmeasurable"
relations between polygon and circle, diameter and circumference, arc and
chord) is used as an image of something entirely different —the way
knowledge approaches the infinity of the godhead. Because geometrical
operations can be visualized, they provide us with analogies illustrating
how the mind proceeds from knowledge of finite things to knowledge of
the infinite God. The "infinite" mathematical figures become the image of
divine infinity "by transposition" (translative) {De doc. ignor., I, 16).
d. Mathematics a symbol of divine creative power. The lengths to which —

Cusanus carries his mathematical symbolism are most fully disclosed in
passages where not only numbers or figures or single operations, but the
whole process of mathematical cognition is seen as a copy of divine cogni-
tion. In mathematics we know exactly what our reason produces, and we
know it with complete precision because we ourselves have brought it

forth. Thus mathematical reasoning is the most appropriate symbol for
the divine mind, which produces the things themselves (not merely intel-
lectual and hence knows them as exactly as we know the
schemata)
mathematical figures we ourselves construct. "Since nothing in our knowl-
edge is certain save for mathematics," mathematics provides "an enigmatic
image for the hunting out of God's work" {De possest, Opera, 259; et
aenigma ad venationem operum Dei). Mathematical knowledge is
ilia est
the only exact knowledge,and in it the mind knows itself and its powers.
Because it is a copy of divine knowledge, the godhead reveals itself in
it {ibid.).
The copy is not so much the numbers and geometrical figures as the
activity of our mind in producing them. Cusanus denies that such math-
ematical entities could have "another, stillmore real being over and above
the mind" {De beryllo, 32). The truth they embody originates in the human
mind, and they owe their character of certainty to its creative power, not
to some other world. (Indeed there is here no alternative. A self-subsistent
ideal world of mathematical objects discovered by investigation, and such
a world constructed by the mind, are aspects of one and the same thing.
What we produce we also discover. What the mind creates is valid as such.)
e. Number. —"Without number there would be no distinction, order,

proportion, harmony, or even the multiplicity of things in general" {De
doc. ignor., I, 5). "What does not fall under quantity or magnitude can
be neither conceived nor visualized"{De possest, tr. 32) Since all our cogni- .
tion bound up with quantity, magnitude, number, figures, "number

is
constitutes the method of cognition itself" {De mente, 6). "Number is the
archetype of all our intellectual concepts."
Quantity is inseparable from finitude; whatever quantity we deal with,
we can always conceive of more or less. Discursive reason can give names
to things only because quantity (or "number") is one of their characteris-
tics. If number were something infinite, the greatest would coincide with
the smallest, and all determinations would be null and void. For it amounts
to the same thing to say that number is infinite or to say that it is nothing
at all {De doc. ignor., I, 5).
What is the origin of number? Mathematical number is a creation of the
human mind. But even as such, it is a copy of divine number. The latter
is inconceivable to us; we call it "number," just as we speak by a remote
analogy of the divine "mind" {De mente). Just as the mind as a whole is
a copy of the divine mind, so the mind's creations are copies of divine
creation. Mathematical number is a copy of the archetypal divine number,
which is the ultimate source of number as we know it.
The is different from the abstract
actual plurality of things, however,
plurality of number. In our cognition of things, plurality is our human
contribution. For only the mind enumerates. There is no such thing as
number in itself, in abstraction from the work of the mind {De mente, 6).
But the reality of the things which to us appear in the plural lies in the
divine mind. God is the original Creator of the real world of the human
mind, which is a copy of His mind. (That the archetype of real things in the
Creator's mind is number is proved by the beauty inherent in all things; for
beauty consists in proportion, and proportion rests upon number; De
mente.)
In brief, Cusanus says In the Creator's mind, the first pattern of things is
:
number, the archetypal number inconceivable to us. But the first pattern
of our knowledge of things (of the conceptual world created by us in the
likeness of things) is the number of our discursive reason (De doc. ignor.,
II, 13). The human mind accomplishes three things with the help of num-
ber. First: It gains insight into the mathematical world it creates. Second:
Number enables it to know finite created things. Third: With the help of
number our mind godhead whenever, guided by
obtains a glimpse of the
purely human imitative notions of number, it rises to an intimation of the
archetypal divine number.
f. The importance of mathematics for philosophical speculation. —Cusanus

is interested in mathematics for several reasons :
(1) "Everyone knows that in mathematics truth is grasped with greater

certainty than in the other liberal arts" (Compl. theol., cap. 2). Because of
their certainty, mathematical propositions serve as guides to philosophy in
its own investigations (De doc. ignor., I, 11). But above all: The most cer-
tain knowledge —for it is produced by the mind itself — is the best copy of
the divine mind.
(2) In constructing figures and numbers we effect a transition from the
sensory, not, to be sure, to the supersensory, but to the nonsensory. A triangle
perceived by the senses is never identical with the mathematically conceived
triangle. All sensory perception is subject to fluctuation. The mathematical
object has stability (De doc. ignor., I, 11). The mathematical object frees us
from attachment to the merely sensory. Practice in contemplating mathe-
matical forms and in operations leading up to their construction teaches
us how to deal with nonsensory things, and is thereby a preliminary step to
dealing with the supersensory.
(3) as symbols. Figures and numbers become
Mathematical insights serve
signs of a no longer mathematical, but metaphysical.
cognition that is
Mathematical relations and mathematical constructions become an image

and likeness of the divine creation. Cusanus appended a Complementum
theologicum to his mathematical writings. His aim is to show that through
intellectual vision in the mirror of mathematics, the truth we seek in all that
is knowable is reflected —and not merely in remote similarity but in a kind
of radiant proximity (non modo remota similitudine , sed fulgida quadam
propinquitate) (Basel edition, p. 1107).
The great tradition of mathematically oriented philosophy goes back to
I
the Pythagoreans, to Plato and the Neoplatonists. Proclus believed that

without mathematics no knowledge of the divine is possible. Cusanus
shared this belief.
g. Relations between mathematics and philosophy. —Today we can sharply

distinguish: First: Pure, free development in the field of mathematics,
without regard for empirical reality or applicability to natural science.
Second: Mathematics in the natural sciences, which presuppose the math-
ematically graspable order of material things, and progress in knowledge
to the extent that mathematics supplies the means or, conversely, to the
extent that empirically measurable phenomena make possible the applica-
tion of previously developed, but hitherto "useless" mathematical insights.
This is done in full awareness of the fact that such a method achieves knowl-
edge of the real world, not as such, but only in a certain perspective, in
which other realities are deliberately disregarded. Third: The symbolism of
numbers, in which the mathematical mind becomes a metaphor for the
divine mind, or numbers, proportions, and figures are looked upon as
symbols for divine realities.
Cusanus is often clear about the relation between mathematical knowl-

edge and mathematical symbolism, but not consistently. Like many other
thinkers, he seems have been misled by two currents of thought:
to
(i) Modern philosophy was powerfully influenced by mathematics,
which became model and whose methods it applied. This had disastrous
its
results when made to mathematize philosophy. In some

attempts were
cases the independence of philosophy was in effect preserved (e.g., in
Spinoza), in others philosophy was led astray. The radical difference be-
tween mathematics and philosophy began to be apparent with Descartes
but did not become completely clear until Kant. To the German speculative
metaphysicians (Hegel, Schelling) the difference between their kind of
cognition and mathematics was self-evident. Kierkegaard had nothing to
do with mathematics. Cusanus still took mathematics as his guide and
failed to achieve fundamental clarity.
(2) The other current of thought is the mysticism of numbers. To be

sure, Cusanus' fundamental thinking is purely speculative: it actually
creates metaphors and employs them as such, without deception. Only
occasionally does he relapse into the ancient mysticism of numbers and pro-
duce schematisms whose lifelessness is in strange contrast to the authen-
ticity of his fundamental speculative ideas.
The tremendous appeal of mathematics for philosophers rests upon

certain facts that never cease to astonish us. Among these are: the self-
evident character of mathematically construed relations; the fascinating
"beauty" of mathematical insights, which seem to be governed by a hidden
purposiveness; the difference between indifferent observations and fas-
cinating mathematical insights — a difference which the mathematicians
may not be able to justify objectively; the capacity of the human mind, on
the basis of self-posited assumptions, to perform operations which lead to
the discovery of ever new splendors; the applicability of mathematics to
nature, in so far as it is governed by measure, number, and weight —
(partial) coincidence, which is anything but self-evident, between mathe-
matical laws and the laws we discover in nature, the fact that the same
laws and the same order are to be found in both.
All this provides an inexhaustible source of philosophical wonder. How
can this be? Why is it so? The answers arouse further wonder. No final
solution has been arrived Cusanus lived in just such an intellectual
at.
climate, which began with Western philosophy and is still very much alive
today.
h. Was the Creator of the world a mathematician? —Cusanus writes: "In

creating the world, God made use of arithmetic, geometry, music, and
astronomy, arts that we also make use of today in studying the relations
between things, elements and motions" (De doc. ignor., II, 13). This does
not mean that the world was created by a mathematician. Cusanus is speak-
ing allegorically, momentarily putting the imitative human mind in the
place of the original. He is aware that the whole of mathematics is a. pro-
duction of the human mind, which was God and endowed by
created by
Him with its productive faculty. Hence mathematical thinking is human
thinking. Man, not God, is the mathematician. "The things of mathematics
are neither a What nor a How, they are merely signs which our reason has
discovered for itself, and without which it could not do its work of building
and measuring" (De possest)
The assumption of natural science that no matter how far it progresses
it will always discover a mathematical order in things does not do away
with the fact that we see, feel, understand, and distinguish forms which re-
main inaccessible to mathematics. The most we can say is this: no definable

limits are set to the mathematical investigation of reality. The proposition,
"We are trying to investigate the mathematical order of the world ad infini-
tum," does not entail this other proposition, "The world in its entire
reality is subject to mathematical laws." In brief: The methodological
assumption under which we attempt to progress as far as we can must not
be interpreted as a theoretical anticipation of our knowledge of the world
as a whole.
1. From speculation to mathematical science. —Two tendencies are implied

in the idea of attaining or even of approaching the infinite through the
coincidentia oppositorum.
First: Cusanus' real intention is to "go beyond" —
i.e., his goal is the abso-
lutely infinite, which God. He looks upon his mathematical and physical
is
conceptions as metaphors or signs or enigmatic images of this infinite. Herein
l
lies the meaning and the achievement of his philosophizing. Is it futile be-
cause the most it can promise us is clearer awareness in nonknowledge ? In

my opinion, the infinitely progressing elucidation of nonknowledge is enough.
When Cusanus seeks to approach the infinite through the coincidentia
oppositorum, mathematical operations serve as metaphors. Moreover, when
infinity is seen from the point of view of the finite, the experience
of the limits of the finite casts some light on the finite. But in no way is the
infinite conceived of as a methodological tool for the scientific investigation
of the finite.
Second: The special feature of Cusanus' mathematical symbolism is that
this line of reasoning is turned around: What, in the coincidentia opposito-
rum, was intended only to bring us closer to the knowledge of God, is now
conceived as the source of mathematical knowledge in the world. The aim is
no longer to use mathematics as a guide in metaphysical speculation, but to

further mathematics itself. What was originally a philosophical method is
now expected to lead to mathematical discoveries. "It is my intention to use

the coincidence of opposites for the improvement of mathematics" (De
math, perfectione)
In going beyond the opposition between curved and straight lines in
geometry, beyond the opposition between motion and rest in physics, and
beyond all other such oppositions, Cusanus is attempting to attain the infinite,
w here
T
all and from which they are produced. In
opposites are united
mathematics this would
knowledge that grasps mathematical in-
lead to a
finity through various signs and operations. What "lies beyond" would be
made knowable in the world. Cusanus hoped that his principle of the
coincidentia oppositorum would prove methodologically useful to this end,
though his own efforts to make it so appear to have been in vain. He
arrived at ideas of mathematical possibilities and anticipations of a future
mathematics, but he failed to find the crucial step which, indeed, is objec-
tively unrelated to his speculative assumptions.
Part Two: The Whole of Being
Nicholas of Cusa does not construct a self-contained system of being and

empirical existence. Such a system is precluded by his type of thinking, in
which intellectual operations yield only images and metaphors, strike out
now in one direction, now in another, and are consummated in nonknowl-
edge.
For this reason Cusanus' writings do not form a system in which particular
works, subjects, or ideas take a permanent place. Cusanus is always beginning

afresh. In its speculativemovement his thinking goes back to the sources
again and again. Whenever it begins to disclose a tendency to schematiza-
tion, we must distinguish, according to his own standards, between the living
speculation and the system of knowledge that may result from it. Sometimes
his speculation produces conceptual schemata that stand in the way of the
speculation itself.
For this reason a systematic exposition of his ideas on being would fail
to do him justice. It is possible to select passages from his writings and
shuffle them around until they seem to fall into a system. But to do so would
be unrewarding. There would still be many discrepancies, because the argu-
ments and the terminology of different works fail to harmonize as parts of
a systematic whole. There are schemata in his thinking, but there is no
construction of a systematic whole. His speculative mode of thinking opens
up experience. To be communicated this experience has to be objectivized.
Accordingly it will be worth our while to supply some explicit objectiviza-
tions.
This we shall attempt from several points of view. Our exposition will
necessarily be disjoined; we shall not attempt to deduce a single systematic
whole from one or more arbitrarily chosen principles. The "one idea" that
shines through constantly cannot be grasped directly. In our exposition of
the "whole of being" we shall resort to paraphrase, as we did in connection
with the "fundamental ideas."
In his early work, De docta ignorantia, Cusanus adopted a threefold
division: God, the World, Christ. We shall follow this division.
I. GOD
1. Dialogue on the hidden God
In a dialogue (De deo abscondito) between a heathen and a Christian the

following argument is developed:
(1) The heathen: What do you \now about the God you worship? The
Christian: All that I know is not God, and all that I grasp conceptually
does not resembleHim. He is above all things.
—
Then nothing is God? Is God nothing? By no means. He is not nothing.
The name of nothing is nothing.
If God is not nothing, is He then something? Not at all: God is all —
things rather than any one thing.
How very strange! You maintain that God is not nothing, yet is not
any one thing. But this is beyond the grasp of all reason! God is above —
nothing and above any one thing. Nothingness obeys him, so that something
comes into being. He surpasses all that is and all that is not, and both obey
Him. He is not any of the things which follow from His omnipotence.
(2) Can God be named at all?— He is ineffable, because all namable
things are insignificant in comparison with His inconceivable greatness.
But He can be named over and above all things, since He is the original
ground of all things namable. He who confers names upon others cannot
Himself be without a name.
Then is God both ineffable and effable?— That is not the case either.
He is neither named nor not named, nor is He both named and not named.
Nothing that can be said is adequate to His sublime infinity, which lies
above every possible idea of Him.
(3) Then God cannot be subsumed under that which is? —He cannot.
—Then He is just nothing?— He negates these contradictory designations,
so that He neither is nor is not; similarly, it cannot be said that He both is and
is not, or that He is or is not. None of these statements attains to the source
which precedes all that is utterable {De princ). He is the fountainhead of

all the springs of being and nonbeing.
The heathen mulls this over: Then God is the fountainhead of all the
springs of being and nonbeing? He is told in reply: No! and is surprised:
—
But those were your very words! Whereupon the Christian says: I spoke
the truth when I and now too I speak the truth when I deny it.
affirmed it,
For if there are any springs of being and nonbeing, God is prior to them all.
—
(4) Is not God the truth? No, He is prior to all truth. Nor yet is He
by any means something different from the truth. He is infinitely far above
and prior to everything we conceive of as truth.
(5) God, who is free from every sort of determination characteristic of
created things, cannot be discovered anywhere in the domain of creation.
All composite things in the world and every individual composite thing
are what they are only because of Him; He who is not Himself a composite
thing remains unrecognized in this domain. In the eyes of all philosophers,
God is the hidden God.
2. On speculation
—
Nothing can be said about God and there is no limit to what is said about
Him. Hence the thesis: No statement is applicable to the One. For every
statement implies otherness or duality. No name applies to that which is self-
posited. Even the term "the One" does not really apply to it {De princ.).
Whether we call it "the One," the "Non-Other," "Capability as such," the
"source," or something else, such names will always be inadequate. Cusanus
writes: "The unnamable source of the namable source cannot itself be named
source. For it is anterior to all that is namable and surpasses it" {De princ.).
Yet so peremptory a thesis is not allowed to stand in the way of a specula-
tion in the course of which infinitely many things are said about God; rather,
it serves to clarify the sense of such speculation. We learn what takes place
when speculation ventures the impossible and what it produces when it
breaks down —how our thinking deepens as it comes closer to the hidden
God, and makes us feel the overwhelming reality of what is hidden how —
what eludes the thinker attracts him ever more strongly.
Although the inability to make statements is taken seriously, the result
is not silence. Impressive images and categorial connections occur time and
again in the course of conceptual operations which lead to that abyss in the
sight of which all statements and existence itself become for the first time
transparent. —Also the statements of negative theology are made retroactive
and are freed from the "non." Positives and negatives are alike transcended.
The speculative ideas go in pursuit of what is hidden in concepts which,
though they cancel one another out when clarity has been attained, do so in
such a way that, in the light they produce, the world is transformed for the
thinker and the thinker himself is transformed.
The supreme art of pure thinking consists in giving lucid expression to
speculative experience in the sequence of propositions. Often in the last
two and a half thousand years such thinking has seemed to die out in the
Western world, but has repeatedly reasserted itself. It has often been choked
off by underbrush, shot through with the weeds of habit and idle fantasy.
And it can also degenerate into rational schematisms.
3. Examples of speculative attempts to approach God
a. Beyond the coincidentia oppositorum. —We repeat Cusanus' most cher-

ished idea: God is inconceivably conceived in the coincidence of opposites.
His infinite abundance is attested by the infinite differences which become
one again in the coincidence of opposites. Being and nonbeing, the greatest
and the smallest, Being and Potential Being, past, present, and future, all
coincide.
The wisdom"—or for God — unsuccessful so long
speculative "hunt for is
—"Everything either
as the rational principle or not"— observed. Be-
is is is
cause God anterior to

is principle — which
this valid only within a limited
is
sphere which God surpasses —those who remain under the sway of this
principle cannot possibly find God (De ven. sap., p. 13).
The magical phrase "coincidentia oppositorum" can either be dismissed
as nonsense or extolled as dialectical profundity. With reference to the
absolute to which the idea is supposed to lead us, it remains ambiguous.
At times it seems to mean: God is the coincidence of opposites. At other
times the idea is only a springboard from which we are supposed to leap
—
in order to touch the absolute no one can tell how. But whoever makes
the leap falls back to his starting point. We are left this side of "the wall."
!
This ambiguity hints at a reality the truth of which comes to life only
within ourselves through our thinking, yet which is not present merely
because we Thought is a sort of speculative knocking
think. at the door,
a pounding away at some insurmountable obstacle. It is still a far cry from

gratification at having reached a long-sought goal.
b. —
The non-other (non aliud). Cusanus calls God the non aliud. This
means: Without being other, God comprises everything within Himself.
The world is otherness (alteritas) because whatever is in it is either one
thing or another.
But the non aliud and otherness must not be allowed to freeze into rigid
opposition. For all things are in God. There is nothing outside Him, and
in Him nothing is different from anything else. He is perfect identity with

Himself. "If infinity could ever exist, and something else exist outside
it, then neither infinity nor anything else could exist" (The Vision of God,
op. cit.,p. 62).
What is not in God is not in itself either. Otherness is not a positive
principle. Otherness derives its name from nonbeing (alteritas dicitur e non
esse)
If the non aliud were set in opposition to alteritas (an opposition we
cannot help stating the moment we talk about anything at all), we should
miss the point. The speculative attempt must break down as such in the
rational statement: only then is its full truth disclosed. Were we to overlook
the breakdown of rationality and interpret the statement literally, we should
be saying something that can never apply to God. For the statement as
such makes the infinite and turns God into a determined concept.
finite
But God, who is is the definition of Himself and

indefinable rationally,
of all things. Therefore we find Him nowhere more clearly than in non-
otherness. But non-otherness is not the opposite of otherness, for otherness
is "defined" by the fact that non-otherness is anterior to it.
God has no opposite. He is non-otherness, which is opposed neither by

otherness nor by nothingness, for He is also anterior to nothingness and
defines it. This is why Pseudo-Dionysius says that God is all in all and
nothing in nothing (De ven. sap., 14).
c. "Potentiality": (1) The category. —Possibility is distinguished from ac-

tuality. Possibility denotes either logical or real possibility. Real possibility
implies potentiality (potentia), which is a power (potestas). In Cusanus'
speculation these categories are interdependent.
(2) Ascending speculation. —In the world of otherness, possibility is
separated from actuality, potential being from actualization. What is in the

world is just what it is and yet can always be other than it is. This is its
inconstancy. To man, however, this limitation of his actuality by pos-

sibility also signifies his freedom to set in motion his actuality —which is
inadequate, which has already escaped him, but which is destined to take
—
wing thanks to the horizons opened up by possibility.
Not so God. Here is perfect actuality. Every potentiality has become
actuality, everything that can be has already achieved being. Here, what
can be and what is are indistinguishable. Cusanus coins a new term to
designate this particular coincidentia oppositorum: possest. Only God
possest ("can-is") because He is actually what He can be. God cannot
become anything that He has not been for all eternity {De ven. sap., 13).
In one of his last works De apice theoriae ("The Pinnacle of Theory"),
Cusanus takes another speculative step forward. The capability that cannot
be surpassed by any limited entity, he now calls "Capability as such";
without it there can be no capability of any kind. Every other faculty pre-
supposes Capability Nothing antecedes, nothing is stronger,
as such.
more solid, more essential, more glorious than Capability as such, the
capability of the first ground and the first source, the capability of every
faculty. And in another passage he says the same thing: Nothing can be
anterior to Capability as such, nothing better, nothing more powerful,
more accomplished, simpler, clearer, better known, truer, more adequate,
more constant, more accessible. Because it is anterior to any and every
determined faculty, it can neither be nor be named, neither felt, imagined,
nor understood.
Capability as such is not potential being or living or understanding, it
is not potentiality qualified in any way. It is precisely the potentiality of

potential being and living and understanding. Every qualified faculty is an
image of Capability as such. Thus ability to be is an image; ability to live
is a truer image than mere ability to be, and a still truer image is ability to
understand.
(3) Capability as such in the mind. —All things are manifestations of
Capability as such, and nothing else. But one of these manifestations is pre-
eminent: "The living, discerning light that is called the mind contemplates
Capability as such within itself, and at the same time sees itself as its image."
Ability to see is the mind's highest capability. This is illustrated in parables:
Just as a traveler forms in advance an idea of his destination, such

that he can direct his steps toward the desired goal, so the mind can see
in advance the goal of its aspiration. If it could not see from a distance
the goal of rest and joy, how could it ever attain that goal? The faculty of
sight is which in all its splendor is
directed toward Capability as such,
alone able to satisfy the mind's longing. Another parable: "Just as books
were composed to enable the spirit to disclose itself, not under compulsion,
but because the free and noble spirit wishes to reveal itself, so Capability
as such proceeds in all things."
Capability as such —than which nothing can be more powerful or better,
and to which nothing anterior—now seems to Cusanus far more
is ap-
propriate to the Godhead "than capability {possest) or any other term
designating that without which nothing can ever be or live or understand."

(4) Light or darkness? —At this point in his speculations Cusanus arrives
at a proposition that seems to reverse the sense of his previous thinking.
On being told that nothing is clearer, truer, and more easily understood
than the term "Capability as such," the disciple says: I find nothing more
difficult than something that is always sought and yet can never be entirely
found. Cusanus replies: "The clearer the truth, the more readily it can be
grasped; formerly, however, I thought that it was more easily found in
darkness." But it would be wrong to speak of a real reversal. What we have
here is not a new attitude, but the paradox inherent in the coupling of the
terms "light" and "dark." Precisely when darkness is deepest, another,
inconceivable light is born, a light that can be attained only by passing
through the darkness.
(5) Reason for Cusanus' enthusiasm. —The enthusiasm with which Cu-
sanus speaks of "Capability as such" may seem surprising. With the help
of this category he believes that he has attained in a unique manner that
which, to his mind, cannot be named in any way.
This is the astonishing thing about all categorial speculation: seen from
the point of view of discursive reason, it disintegrates into an idle playing
with words. If there is truth in speculation, it is discernible only through the
echo it arouses in man's Existenz at times when the wonder of our
being here and now is not allowed to seep away but driven into unfathom-
able depths. The questions and answers give rise to a
form of truth which
becomes more intense and more present as, amid the tension between vain
solutions and insolubility, answers give rise to new questions.
(6) Posse facer e, posse fieri, posse factum. —Cusanus' speculations about
"Capability" supply him with the possibility of conceiving the world under
the aspect of a tripartite division: posse facere, posse fieri, posse factum
(the faculty of creating, the faculty of coming into being, the faculty of
having come into being.
Capability as such is the faculty of creating (posse facere). It creates the
world, namely, the world that can come into being (posse fieri). This
faculty does not have its source in itself. Anterior to it is what is eternal and
cannot be created, Capability as such, which is all things that can be. The
faculty of coming into being could not arise of itself. Whence would it
arise ? It presupposes a having-been-created.

Because it has been created, the faculty of coming into being has a
"beginning," but not in time, for it is simultaneous with time, which was
created along with the faculty of coming into being.
The created faculty of coming into being, which is so to speak initial
in relation to beginningless eternity, is itself constant and permanent and
does not come into being. In it lie all things and every individual thing
as it will be when fully unfolded.
What has developed out of the faculty of coming into being —the phenom-
ena in the world — is of two kinds. First: the things that have come into
being but in doing so have fulfilled their potentiality, for example, celestial
and spiritual nature (the prima moon,

facta), that is to say, the sun, the
the and the angels. These remain constant, just as they are. Second:
stars,
the things that have come into being but without fully realizing their
potentiality. These are forever defective, unstable, changeable. In these
things the process of coming into being has never fully attained its limit.
In the world as a whole the faculty of coming into being is fully actualized,
for there is indeed nothing that is greater than the world; but the things
that have come into being in the world are always singular and perishable.
The eternal (aeternum) is everything that comes into being, although it
does not itself come into being, but rather is the principle and end (terminus)
of every thing that can come into being. On the other hand, the faculty of
coming into being is ever enduring; it has its end (or reaches its pinnacle)
not in itself, but in eternity (De ven. sap., especially 37-39).
The eternal, the creator, or Capability as such cannot become nothing
or other than it is, because it is prior to nothingness and the ability to come
into being (De ven. sap., 39).
d. Origin. —In De
Cusanus discusses the meaning of the prop-
principio
osition that God is mean origin of the world
origin. Origin here does not
(creation). Before the world came into being, in eternity, God was origin
and origin of the origin, and that which originated in both (De princ., 11).
Cusanus elucidates: "Everything that is seen in eternity is eternity." The
origin in eternity cannot exist without that which originates in eternity. But
eternity is not some sort of extended duration, it is wholly simultaneity,
even at the source. We have an intellectual intuition of the origin that
has no origin and the origin of the origin (De princ., 10).
e. Being and nothing. —The origin must be itself, through itself. For if
we failed to understand that it is, we could not understand that there is
anything at all (De princ, 18). Here Cusanus implicitly asks the question:
Why is there something, why is there not nothing? At this question no abyss
opens before him — God discloses Himself. We understand that something
is because God created it. But where does God come from? This question
Cusanus does not answer, for at this point the thinking of something
ceases. Yet thinking itself does not cease. The answer lies in the speculative
movement of Cusanus' thought.
Even before he comes in view of the abyss, of the possibility that nothing
is, he has led us away from it. He says: The Origin, Absolute Being, must
be One. "If this be eliminated, the intellect concludes that nothing can be"
(De princ, 7) Because this conclusion simply does not come under consider-
.
ation, the One is at the source, the One God demonstrated.

Cusanus then asks: Since nonbeing is, which comes first, being or non-
being? He answers: Nonbeing presupposes being. Without that which is
negated there can be no negation. Where there is negation, that which is
negated has been before. A logical proposition is here applied to being

itself, nothingness cannot be of itself. It comes after being. It receives its
nonbeing from being.
Negation implies that what is negated is not eternal. Therefore only that
—
which is posterior to the eternal and this without exception can be negated. —
Accordingly negation of the eternity of being is impossible.
Nonbeing cannot
of itself enter into being. But everything that is posterior
to nonbeing has been produced from nonbeing not by nonbeing, but by
being which is prior to nonbeing. If being came after nonbeing, it would
have been produced by nonbeing or would have originated in nonbeing.
But nothing comes from nothing.
Nevertheless, Being, the eternal being of the creator, contains nonbeing.
Nonbeing is everything that can be. Because everything that exists is produced
by eternal being from nonbeing and is still tainted with nonbeing
as limitation, perishability, destructibility, this production is called "creation"
—creatio ex nihilo (De possest, toward the end).
Retrospective.—The speculative impulse never comes to a stop. It con-
tinues to push beyond everything that can be said and defined in the saying
—for everything utterable, every actual thought, is thereby finite. Even the
infinite, once uttered and become an object of thought, has been made
finite.
To carry out the transcending movement, we must think. When our

mind has gone beyond the thinkable, it seems to us for a moment that we
have arrived at the deepest insight, but then, once we have formulated it
in words, we are disappointed and our impulse to go beyond is reawakened.
Thus speculation is the means of finding the real goal, which lies far beyond
all images, ciphers, definite ideas, the harbor where we can cast anchor and
come to rest.
In all transcending thinking, we transcend only our ability to think. The
transcendent remains ambiguous for us. For this reason, the modes of
"beyondness" turn up time and again at crucial points in speculative think-
ing: beyond being {plus quam ens), beyond being and nothingness, beyond
substance, beyond the one, in short beyond each successive conceptualiza-
tion.
Only few terms seem for a moment to designate the absolute
a very
accurately enough to require no movement "beyond." The "infinite" is one
of these; yet each successive form of a determined infinite is transcended
as the mind moves toward an ever-receding infinite. The "itself" is another
such term (Being as such, Capability as such, the Origin as such, the One
as such), but this "as such" is more a pounding away at something that has
arrested our thinking than a fulfillment. In our ability to think, we remain

in relation to God and do not think God. When we call Him "Himself"we
do not think God Himself.
The "beyond" is meant to be more than a merely negative statement
about God. It carries us "further than" the "not" (God is not this and not
that). Hence To know through nonknowledge.
the paradoxical expression:
In disregarding everything we come close enough to the transcendent
else,
to touch it in some inconceivable way (and we touch it by thinking, not by

ecstasy and not by the mystical unio, not by abolishing the subject-object
dichotomy)
In transcending thinking we arrive at a point beyond all ciphers. Our
thinking outdoes itself. It is unseemly for thought to stammer, but not to
outdo and in so doing to
itself in full lucidity become certain of itself and
which it seeks. In the extreme situations of human life, when Existenz
of that
becomes actuality, we say "the rest is silence." Not so Nicholas of Cusa, a
Christian believer in revelation.
4. From speculative thinking to acceptance of Revelation
Cusanus addresses God: "I behold Thee and I know not what I see,
. . .
for I see nothing visible" (The Vision of God, op. cit., p. 58). Do such
meditations content him as assurances of the reality of God? God is real,
but in a unique, incomparable way, not like the real things in the world, not
as a hypothetically discovered reality, not as an object of thought. He is
"neither an abstraction of the discursive reason nor a blending with things"

(De doc. ignor., II, 3). Is Cusanus brought closer to the reality of God
through thinking?
When we read his speculative texts, in which he operates with ideas
accessible to allmen, borrowed from the philosophers of pagan antiquity,
it is were written by a believing Christian.
possible to forget that they
Faith can scarcely be distinguished from speculation when he writes:
"It is not our task to get closer to the inaccessible." God Himself "turned
our faces toward Him so that we may seek Him most zealously." When
we do this, He discloses Himself to us in all His majesty (De doc. ignor.,
11,13).
Whenever Cusanus comes across questions that resist investigation (e.g.,
immortality), he takes it for granted that no man can know such things
unless he has been instructed in them by God (De doc. ignor., II, 12).
He leaves no doubt as to the direction of his speculations. When we have
attained the highest insight, freed from all representational images, when all
that exists has fallen away, we discover God as the One who cannot be
understood. Our mind catches a glimpse of Him in shadow or in fog,
in darkness. The speculative vision veils the hidden God in mystery. If
N ICHOLAS OF CU S A 173
He Himself does not dispel the shadows with His light and reveal Himself,
He remains unknown to those who would
totally Him throughsearch for
intellectual insight. "All we have said amounts only to this, that we should
like to understand how He surpasses all understanding." But the "vision
which is so easy, and the only one that fills us with bliss" the vision of —
—
that which surpasses all understanding "was promised to all believers by
the truth itself, the Son of God, if only we will follow in His footsteps and
cleave to the path He showed us in His words and deeds" (De possest, end).
To Cusanus the content of his speculation coincides with the content of
revealed faith as interpreted by the Church. To us this is ambiguous. In
studying him we participate in a thinking which he intends to be universal,
authentic, independent. Yet in nearly all his writings we come to a point
in his reasoning —a point that is never so marked by him —where a sudden
break occurs, and where independent thinking gives way to the contents of
revelation.
As long as his philosophizing is related to age-old philosophical specula-
tion, which Christianity calls pagan (though it is not pagan at all, but
marks the highest refinement of speculative thinking), we recognize his
greatness, especially where he expresses a new self-awareness of man.
Viewed in the context of more than a thousand years of philosophy, his
speculations are meaningful, quite apart from their references to Christ.
Now it is true that such speculations cannot, by their very nature, be
self-resolving. What gives them their real weight and at the same time
supplies their motive power comes from elsewhere. We are reminded of
this by those of Cusanus' teachings in which we cannot follow him.
God (the eternal, the infinite, the One, He Himself) is "touched without
being touched" in the course of speculation. He is experienced in the think-
ing of the human mind which understands itself as a mere image. He is
seen in the world taken as the visible splendor of His invisibility. But
the revelation through which God spoke in the flesh, as Christ, at a specific
place and a specific time, is of crucial importance.
Revealed faith says: After the creation of the world, the "Origin" spoke
in time, to theJews ("Hear, O Israel, thy God is One") and to all men
through Christ, the Logos. He was present in the flesh. To the question,
Who art Thou? He answered: "Even the same that I said unto you from
the beginning" (John 8, 25). Jesus says: "Then shall ye know that I am"
(John 8, 28). Cusanus comments: Only he who owes his Being to himself
can say truly, "I am" {De princ.) .
But does the language out of the "Origin," which is Revelation, ade-
quately express this Origin? No, for this language is human, not divine.
In Cusanus' own words: "Human statements about the divine are inac-
curate. But concerning that which Christ said about the divine in human
language— since men can grasp it only in the human way— we must assume
that the statements in the Gospels, which are couched in human terms, are
more accurate than any others; for in them the word of God speaks about
(De princ, 18)
itself"
5. Example of a conceptualization of Revelation: the Trinity
In nearly all of Cusanus' works, trinitarian thinking occupies a very impor-

tant place. Now we shall try to determine what his starting points were in
this connection, intuitively and conceptually, and discuss some of the re-
current figures he employs.
a. Unitas, aequalitas, connexio. —Thegreatest infinite One is triune. For

oneness implies equality (with and the bond between oneness and
self)
equality {unitas, aequalitas, connexio). This inner articulation of the divine

Being is to be thought of without recourse to "otherness." In this sense
"equality" does not, for example, signify equality between two entities, a
One and an Other, each equal to the other, but identity with self. Similarly,
the bond between oneness and equality is not a bond between different
things, but oneness itself.
We are thus asked to apply categories such as oneness and otherness,

difference and equality, separation and combination, to that which is
devoid of otherness, difference, or separation — in other words, to that
which is rationally unthinkable. We are supposed to carry our thought
into regions where thought cannot go, i.e., regions where we are not
supposed to make distinctions. And yet we have constantly to do just this
if we are to conceive a one that is not one, an equality that is not an equality
between two, a nexus that does not link several entities.
This is expressed as follows: Oneness is anterior to the one and the other,
and to the number one; equality is anterior to equality between different
entities, also to inequality; the nexus is anterior to the act of linking. That
which in graspable thinking is anterior or presupposed, is obtained again
in transcending the domain of the thinkable, where all is otherness,
distinction, and combination {De doc. ignor., 1, 7).
To conceive of a triune oneness we must transcend all concepts. We
must renounce everything that comes from the senses, the imagination,
and discursive reason, if we are to achieve the simplest, most abstract
insight, namely, that all things are one. In terms of this insight, the highest
One can be conceived only as triune {De doc. ignor., 1, 10).
b. Why not four in one? The triangle. — It might be asked: Why three in
one, why not four or five in one? That the latter alternatives are out of the
question is demonstrated with the help of a mathematical figure. The
simplest element in any polygon is the triangle. The triangle is the smallest
i,
polygon: no polygon can have fewer sides. Since the smallest coincides
with the greatest, the greatest polygon is the infinite triangle. It contains
all polygons. The quadrangle is not the smallest polygon, and hence it
cannot coincide with the absolutely greatest. The greatest triangle is the
simple measure of all triune things (De doc. ignor., I, 20).
The first figure is the triangle. All other figures can be reduced to it,
but the triangle cannot be broken down into figures having two angles
or one angle. "This shows that the beginning of mathematics is triune"
(De possest). The origin is the simple. The simple is that which is not
One any more than it is triune, and therefore is One. In the enigmatic
image of the triangle it is seen as the triune God (ibid.) .
c. Number. — It seems impossible that three should not be a number. "When

anyone says one, one, one, he is saying one three times. . . . Yet he cannot
say it three times without the number three, even if he does not name
three. When he says one three times, he is repeating the same without
numbering it, for to number it is to make the one other, but to repeat one
and the same thing three times over is to make plurality without number."
Therefore the plurality that is seen in God is a numberless three, an other-
ness without otherness, an otherness which is identity (The Vision of God,
op.cit.,p.$2).
d. How the Trinity is reflected in all things. —As the Trinity, threeness is
reflected in all things, and all things are reflected in it —objects, events,
and activities.
The unity of cognition comprises the knower, the knowable, and knowl-
edge. He who knows most is also he who is most knowable, and marks the
highest degree of knowledge.
The trinity of love includes the lover, the lovable, and the bond between
the lover and the lovable. Love is in essence triune (The Vision of God,
chap. 17). What is experienced in finite love is experienced most fully in
infinite love. The infinite capacity to love and the infinite capacity to be
loved are one in the infinite bond of love. The triune God is perfect love.
e. The Christian Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.— Concepts do not come
alive until they are visualized. There is no Trinity until we see it as God the
Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
God the Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit lives and breathes in
them.
Trinity comprises Him whose selfhood presupposes no ground,
The
Him whose selfhood presupposes a ground, and Him who presupposes
the two others.
The one God is all-powerful in the triad. He begets Himself in the Word
(logos) which is the Son, in whom He sees Himself and all that can come
into being through Him. The Holy Spirit is the bond between them and
produces that which is love of God.
f. Critical observations. —We cannot fail to notice what deep satisfaction

Cusanus derives from his recurrent trinitarian thinking. All we can ask
is, why ?
(1) Speculative conceptions lead to mental experiences, the test of which
lies in their formal purity. We do not contest the possibility of such ex-
periences we believe them to be philosophically ir-
(on the contrary:
replaceableand to have been so ever since they made their first appearance
in the West with Anaximander), but their truth is surely to be determined
by a criterion which cannot be a fixed and universally valid standard.
Where discursive reason breaks down, we have recourse to figures of
thought which speak to us or remain empty or become distorted, and
which one of these is the case can scarcely be decided on objective grounds.
The crux of the matter is not correct reasoning but an existential act of
appropriation, rejection, or transformation. Such an act does not have the
universal validity of a rational statement. Only their existential repercus-
sions endow such experiences with meaning.
Opposed to trinitarian thinking is the kind of philosophizing that forgoes
any attempt to penetrate the inner life of transcendence. Such a penetration
appears incompatible with the elucidation of Existenz in the area of ciphers.
From the point of view of such elucidation, there is no transcendence in
itself, but only transcendence for Existenz within the all-encompassing. An
alleged "penetration" of transcendence results in a narrowing of Existenz.
We must abandon such presumptuous attempts, which aim at more than
man can achieve, if philosophy is to lead us to the broad horizons actually
open to us. Trinitarian thinking signifies a limiting of man's capacity for
experiencing transcendence.
(2) From the outset Cusanus' speculative trinitarian thinking is devoid
of independent philosophical energy which in
and leans on revealed faith,
the Trinity created an uncommonly rich dogma of its mystery. Those who
do not share this faith can only shrug their shoulders and acknowledge
their inability to understand.
(3) The more Cusanus' thinking is directed toward the godhead as
such, the more his philosophizing, like any other speculation, loses itself
in the pure light produced by the breakdown of categories, a light in

which there is nothing more to be seen. The moment representations,
intuitions, conceptual constructions reappear, he is no longer concerned
with the godhead but with viewed by man on the basis of ex-
God as
perience in the world. Ideas, representations, images i.e., guidelines are — —
always in danger of being inadvertently mistaken for God. God is thus
hedged around with limitations, however magnificent these may seem as
I
ciphers. Then a point may be reached where, in the collapse of prevailing

errors, men, drifting without guidance on the seas of perplexity, lose all
notion of transcendence.
Cusanus' thinking discloses a world drenched in the brilliance of God;
it does not succeed in drawing the hidden God out of His hiddenness,
save in terms of the revelation in which Cusanus believes. His philosophical
powers are no doubt more fully disclosed in his ideas about the world,
which is illumined by his experience of transcendence. But the two belong
together —his on God and his speculation on the real world.
speculation
Cusanus' vision of the cosmos is simple, beautiful, and grandiose. We
shall outline its main features.
II. THE WORLD

1 . The cosmos
The relation between God and the world, as conceived by Cusanus, is

dominated by this fundamental idea: The bottomless gulf between the
infinite and the finite is bridged by the idea that the finite participates in
the infinite. Plato speaks of participation (methexis, participatio), of how
indefinite Becoming participates in the eternal Ideas. Participation means to
be an image, i.e. informed by an Idea. Everything that the world is

to be
or that is in the world is, in so far as it is, an image of the original Form.
It is an age-old thought: The phenomena, said Anaxagoras, are what we
see of the nonmanifest. All the sages agree, writes Cusanus, that the visible
is in truth a part of the invisible. The Creator can be known from the
creatures as in a mirror or as through a riddle, not through inference from
the known to the unknown. Our gaze passes over the definiteness of the
world and discovers the indefiniteness of original Being. Only to this gaze
is the essence of the world itself disclosed.
The and hence the limited and restricted by virtue of the fact
definite, —
that it is, it is and how it comes into being
by virtue of what is a copy or —
image and participates in the original, which remains hidden even when it
manifests its presence by the very fact that it is being copied.
All ideas about the relation between God and the world involve an
insoluble difficulty. The principle: "There is no common measure between
the finite and the infinite" (finiti et infiniti nulla est proportio) seems to
exclude any link between the two. Between the infinite and the finite there
is neither a measurable distance nor any transition. Between the eternal
idea and Becoming there lies an unbridgeable gulf, whether we conceive of

it with Plato as a "cut" (tmema) or in terms of the Biblical creatio ex
nihilo.
Must we, then, conclude that God's infinity and the cosmos of finite things
are totally unrelated, one being above the other? The very fact that both
are referred to in such a proposition introduces a minimal relationship
into their unrelatedness. Cusanus' speculation is entirely focused on this
relationship, in an effort to do justice to its reality.
The God-World relation cannot be conceived in the manner of a relation
between finite things in the world nor yet as a relation between two worlds.
The very category of relation, which is a category of discursive reason,
must take on new meaning. With this category we arrive at a relation that
cannot be compared with any relation in the world.
a. Infinity of God and infinity of the world. —The absolute infinity of God
has its counterpart in the infinity of the world as an image. But how?
Is not everything in the world finite ? God's infinity and the world's finitude
remain infinitely far apart.
The infinite God might have created an infinite world. But the world,
because its possibility as such is not absolute, could not actually be infinite,
could not be greater or other than it is. Since the limitation of its possibility
originates in God and the limitation of its actuality in contingency, the world,
which is necessarily limited, is finite through contingency (De doc. ignor.,
11,8).
This finiteness, however, has a special character in Cusanus. Ascent to the
absolutely greatest or descent to the absolutely smallest is impossible. Rather,
in relation to every given finite thing, there is always a greater or a smaller
{De doc. ignor., II, 1). This results in another kind of infinity of the finite
world: we can always go further in the world. This is the endlessness of
the world. God's infinity is the archetype, perfection as infinity. The infinity
of the world is an image of God's infinity — it is mere endlessness.
Therefore the universe as a whole is neither finite nor infinite, but both
at the same time. It is infinite in the sense that it cannot be greater than it is
and hence is unlimited (interminatum). It cannot grow ever greater in actu.

Nor is there anything actually greater that limits it. But it is finite in the
sense that its actuality is restricted (contracte) (De doc. ignor., II, 11).
The infinity of God is complete
—"Thou, God, art the End of Thine
own self" (De vis. dei, chap. XIII). The infinity of the world is incomplete,
it has no end. — God is infinite because He is what He has. The world is end-
less because it is in a state of constant insufficiency. "The infinite source is
absorbed only finitely, so that all created Being is in a sense a finite infinity"
(De doc. ignor., II, 2).
b. The world as otherness (alteritas). —Otherness consists of the one and

the other (alteritas constat ex uno et altero). Oneness (unitas), however,
is anterior to all otherness (unitas natura prior est alternate). It is also called
unitas aeterna. It is not a number. It is called the non aliud (the non-other),
it is the godhead.
1
NICHOLAS OF CUS A 179
Discursive reason cannot conceive this oneness because it is bound to the
one and the other. There is nothing outside this oneness. It is anterior to
alteritas, hence alteritas is not its opposite. This "opposite" — without which
discursive reason cannot conceive anything — is unum et alterum (the one
and the other). The misleading expression {unum et alterum as the opposite
of unitas) is linguistically unavoidable to discursive reason. Because dis-
cursive reason invariably thinks in terms of relations, it inquires into the
relation between unitas and alteritas, and with this very inquiry leaves the
plane of knowing nonknowledge, which is that of speculative thinking.
Still, speculation is obliged to make use of the expressions it condemns.
The world is not Origin, but otherness. Nevertheless, each of its realities
is related to the origin through which it is. It is image, copy, expression,

representation, mirror, or whatever other name we may give this funda-
mental relation.
is a form of
Related to the Origin, "the world perceived by the senses the
world not perceived by the and the temporal world is a form of
senses, the
eternal and nontemporal world. The formed world is a copy of the un-
formable world." It is "form of the unformable and representation of the
unrepresentable" (De princ, y^).
The world is not the truth, but its origin is the truth. Therefore nothing in
the created world is exactly true; the created world cannot grasp the truth
in its exactness (De princ, 37)
The world in its relation to the Origin is inconceivable to discursive
reason. This is why one
discursive reason perceives only contradictions: the
origin from which all things receive their own nature "is neither different
from them nor identical with them." The world's otherness seems com-
pletely separated from its origin and then again completely connected. Even
though "the Creator is not identical with the creature, yet He is not so far
removed as to be different." Cusanus quotes St. Paul (De princ.) God is :
"not far from every one of us For in Him we live, and move, and have our
:
being" (Acts 17, 27 f .)

The connection between otherness and the Origin is attested by oneness
in otherness. The world is neither the absolute One nor the scattered Many.
It is oneness in the manifold of infinite multiplicity and variety.
What is in the world, as well as the world itself, does not derive being
from itself, but originates in the eternal One. The eternal One cannot impart
a diminished Being. Hence, difference, multiplicity and the divisibility it
entails, perishabilityand imperfection do not originate in the One or in any

positive cause, but only in otherness and contingency. The more unity there
is in created otherness, the more it resembles God (De doc. ignor., II, 2).
The God cannot, as such, be in the world. But all one-

absolute oneness of
ness of the world and in the world is a copy and originates in the Creator,
whereas difference and multiplicity originate in otherness.
This line of argument starts from a graspable, definite sense, which is
supplied in advance. What is first taken as a determination in the finite is
then turned into a symbol and finally transcended toward indeterminabil-

ity, whence we are expected to glimpse the infinity of authentic being and
so gain insight into the metaphysical essence of the world. Such reasoning
carries three implications. First: We cannot think anything without distin-
guishing between the one and the other. This fact becomes a symbol for the
essence of the world as alteritas in relation to the Origin. Second: We think
the oneness of a whole as the relation of the parts to a totality. This becomes a
symbol for the absolute, intrinsically harmonious oneness, which has nothing
outside itself. Third: We think the one as number. Just as the series of num-
bers is produced out of the one, so the multiplicity of things is produced out
of oneness, and the world out of God. The one and the numbers become
symbols for the production of the explicit from the implicit.
c. Complicatio and explicatio. —With the help of analogies, Cusanus eluci-

dates the relation between God and the world in several ways.
In every case, this relation becomes ambiguous (when interpreted ration-
ally), and true only when it is grasped in knowing nonknowledge. Thus the
infinite is present in the finite and at the same time separated from it by an
unbridgeable gulf. God is present in creation (immanent) and yet as
Creator separate from His Creation (transcendent)
(i) Complicatio and explicatio. —Regardless of the gulf, Cusanus con-
ceives the relation between God and the world as a relation between enfold-
ing {complicatio, also implicatio) and unfolding {explicatio).
The infinite oneness is the enfolding of all things {complicatio). The
world is unfolding {explicatio). God is enfolding in so far all things are
in Him; He is unfolding in so far as He is in all things {De doc. ignor., II, 3).
The world of the finite makes explicit in multiplicity what is implicitly one
in the infinite.
The notions of enfolding and unfolding occur in several analogies. One is
the number from which all numbers are unfolded; the point is the one
from which lines, surfaces, and bodies are unfolded; rest is the enfolding
of which motion is the unfolding; the now is the enfolding of time, from
which the successive moments in time are unfolded; identity is the enfolding
of difference {ibid.).
Just as the One, the point, rest, the now, identity, enfold that which is
produced from them, so from the absolute oneness of the infinite is unfolded
the manifold of the finite.
(2) Absolute and contracted. —The absolute of the godhead reappears
as the contractedness or concreteness {contr-actum seu concretum) of the
world. God is absolute Being, the world is contracted Being. Because this
concrete world receives from the absolute everything it is, everything that
is predicated absolutely of the absolute must be predicated of the contracted
contractedly {De doc. ignor., II, 4). Everything that is said of the absolute
may also be said of the world, but in an entirely different sense: thus the
infinity of the world is "contracted" (infinitas contractu). The absolutely

greatest becomes the contracted greatest, the eternal becomes the endless
duration of the one-after-the-other, the simple the totality of a compound,
the one the unity of the many, identity the equality of the different.
( }) The one God and the universe. — Because there can be only one God,
there can also be only one world. God, as the simplest One, isin the one
world. He is, as it were, at the center of the world, in all things, and things in
their multiplicity are through the mediation of the one world in God {De
doc.ignor., 11,4).
(4) On the meaning of analogies as guidelines. —Here as throughout

Cusanus' work, analogies are guidelines, not cognitions. They serve to make
the unintelligible intelligibly communicable. The how of this enfolding and
unfolding beyond discursive reason. We cannot understand how the multi-
is
plicity of things is produced by the divine mind, since God is the infinite
oneness. God seems to be multiplied, as it were, in things, and yet it is im-
possible that the infinite and supreme One should multiply itself {De doc.
ignor.,ll,i).
d. Degrees: (1) Cusanus rejects the traditional view of a hierarchically

ordered cosmos with intermediate beings. —The idea of the cosmos as a
hierarchy of beings, suggested by Plato and fixated by Aristotle, was current
throughout the Middle Ages. The earth is the center; ascending from the
sublunary sphere one attains to the spheres of the moon and the planets,
then to the pure celestial spheres of the fixed stars, and finally to the Paradise
of the godhead; descending one arrives in the interior of the earth, in Hell.
Dante gave the most beautiful picture of this hierarchically ordered cosmos
in his poem describing his journey "down" into the innermost circle of Hell,
and then "up" again through each successive sphere to Paradise. This view
of the cosmos divided into layers, inhabited by intermediate beings in a
gradual progression from the world to God, was rejected by Cusanus in his
speculation. He presents a radically different picture:
At every level we remain in the world; the different modes of being
(a)
and modes of cognition relate not to the cosmos but to our existence in the
world.
(b) The cosmos is infinite. It has no center. The earth, or sublunary
sphere, and the celestial bodies are not ordered hierarchically according to
their nobility and purity. The cosmos is homogeneous.
(c) We are constantly soaring toward God or falling away
from Him, but
we are "immediate to God" —there
no mediation. There is only a leap over
is
the unbridgeable gulf: the gulf between God and all created things. This
conception, which has been recurrent from Plato down to the present,
allows the question, What is man ? to be answered in accordance with man's
existential answer to another question, Does he live in awareness of this
leap, or does it not exist for him ?
This sharp distinction between God and the world, the infinite and the
finite, leaves room for no intermediate beings. Cusanus speaks of angels
and demons in the traditional way, but as existing within creation, not as
intermediate beings between man and God.
(2) Levels of God's creation. —Rejecting the hierarchically ordered cosmos
does not imply rejection of the idea of levels or degrees. In creating the
world, God created the levels of being in the world. No individual thing
can be all things, for then itwould be God. Consequently God created levels
to which all things are assigned (De doc. ignor., II, 5). Every created
thing is held to be perfect in its kind, that is, according to its place in the
hierarchy of beings. The world is one. Nothing is separate, everything falls
within the system. Hence nothing is superfluous, everything is part of the
whole which could not exist without this multiplicity.
Development in the world leads to progress ad infinitum. Only between
God's infinity and the imitative endlessness of the world is there an un-
bridgeable gulf, not within the world. But within the world, it is only in
relation to God's infinity that all things are seen in their proper proportions,
at their right places, in hierarchical orders.
(3) Levels of reality. — Cusanus puts forward several hierarchical

schemata. They do not contradict one another, but they vary the picture.
Examples:
(a) The ascending series begins with elemental matter, existence without
order, chaos. The minerals represent a somewhat more highly ordered stage.
Then comes organic growth, and within it, living creatures endowed with
senses, the faculty of representation, reason, and intellect (this is the highest
level, for it is wisdom) {De sap., I).

the closest image of the eternal
(b) The God, intellect, soul, body {De con., I, 6). Here the schema
series:
is as follows: God: beyond the opposites, Truth itself; mind: intellect and
discursive reason, the oppositions of reason transcended in the intellect; soul:
unfolding of the unity of the intellect and reflection in it; bodies: the final
unfolding which no longer contains anything else.
The schema of the soul is as follows: As the light of intelligence descends

into the dark realm of sensibility and sensibility ascends to it, two inter-
mediate stages between the two are produced in discursive reason {ratio)
the faculty of comprehension, which is closer to the intellect, and the faculty
of imagination, which is closer to the senses. Thus we obtain the four ele-
ments of the human soul. Their truth lies solely in the whole {De con., II, 16).
Sensibility apprehends only sensory data, but in a confused way; it does
not discriminate (even in connection with sensory data this is done by dis-
cursive reason); it does not negate, for to negate is to distinguish; it merely
asserts the presence of sensory data, but it does not assert this or that. Dis-
cursive reason uses sensibility as a tool {De con., 1, 10).
(c) The schema of the real world is presented in the form of an image:
Two pyramids (one on a base of oneness, the other on a base of otherness)
interpenetrate so that the apex of each touches the base of the other. On one
side light,
is on the other darkness. Or: The world is situated between God
and nothingness. This image shows that the progression of oneness into
otherness is simultaneously a progression in the opposite direction, from
otherness into oneness. The two contrary movements are disclosed in every
existent in the world, in all things. A realm of light and a realm of shadows
interpenetrate (De con., 1, 11 f.).
(d) General notions. —The world is concrete in the changing individual

entities that come into being and pass away, and abstract as the plurality of
general notions (categories, universals). The human mind produces these
abstractions as instruments by which to approach the cognition of things.
This immense domain of the general is a creation of the mind, but as such it
has a timelessness of own. It has no intrinsic reality, but remains within

its
the human mind between the absolute actuality of God and the actuality
of individuals, which is the only real actuality in the world (De doc. ignor.,
11,6).
e. Motion in the world. —Nothing in the world can be devoid of movement;

all things share in the movement of being or of thinking. Cusanus distin-
guishes three kinds of movement: First, the ever-present circular movement

starting with absolute oneness, descending through all beings in the world,
down to the levels of intellectual, rational, and sensory nature, and then back
to absolute oneness. In this movement the light of the supreme heights
reaches down to the lowest, darkest depths. As we ascend to the successive
levels, we find everywhere some residue of darkness, though less and less as
we ascend, until it is entirely dissolved in the utter purity and radiance of
God (De con., I, 11 f.). Thus there is a two-way movement in the reality of
the world. Second, the rectilinear movement in the production of the other,
which never turns back upon itself. Third, a movement of inner tension
and opposition: "A natural impulse and a contingent impulse goad and
drive each other on, so that we have uninterrupted production and destruc-
tion, production of the one being, destruction of the other" (De con., II, 7).
Motive power permeates the entire universe. This power is called nature.
Cusanus calls the movement of the universe a created spirit, without which
nothing is unity, nothing can subsist. This movement brings about the
loving union of all things. No individual thing moves entirely like any other,
but each in its own way shares in movement, so that we have one universe
(De doc. ignor., II, 10).
f. Why existence? The idea of the Creation. —Cusanus never asks, Why is
there anything at all, why is God ? Rather, he asks, Why is the world ? Imita-
tion, otherness, enfolding and unfolding, levels of reality — all these notions
are attempts to grasp what the world is. From this follows the question: Why
is the world ? The answer is the idea of the Creation.
The idea of the Creation is itself a metaphor. God conceived in eternity

the idea that he would create. Since nothing had yet been created, He could
have created something else that we cannot conceive. "The eternal divine
mind, with perfect freedom to create or not to create, to create in this way
or in another way, determined His own omnipotence from eternity, accord-
ing to His will" (De ven. sap., 27).
Seen in rational terms as the divine will pursuing an end, the act of
Creation may be interpreted roughly as follows: God creates the world out
of kindness, because He wants to be generous; or He does so in order to see
Himself in His creations and to be seen by the created intellect; or in order
to glorify and exalt His own eternity.
Elsewhere, when the metaphors express absence of purpose, the creation
of the world is conceived as the unfolding of that which is enfolded. In this
process "the concrete infinity descends in an infinite way (incommensur-
ably) from the absolute. The whole universe was brought into being by an
emanation of the concrete greatest from the absolute greatest, and this
applies to all beings that are parts of the universe as well as to the universe
itself"(De doc. ignor., II, 4). In another context Cusanus describes the
emanation in the manner of Plotinus, as a flow toward the world and back
from the world "In the absolute One is the beginning of the flowing out and
:
the end of the flowing back; in the sensory one the end of the flowing out
and the beginning of the flowing back coincide."
All such images must be discarded when the unbridgeable gulf between
God and the world, between infinity and finitude, is resolutely asserted in
keeping with Cusanus' fundamental idea. Here we interpret his meaning as
follows: Because the world does not flow (emanate) from God, does not
develop from Him, it is not, as world, a process of the godhead. God is not
the seed from which the world grows, God is not a God in process of de-
velopment. Rather, the world, as a creation, is endlessly changing in time,
cutting across time but oriented toward God as an image to its original. It
is always turned toward the original in its endless movement, and yet it is
always the same and always a new reality. The world itself, as change, is not
a development in time with a beginning and an end. Its existence remains
essentially the same from the Creation to the end of the world. The ciphers
of the Creation and the end of the world are an intimation of the timeless
actuality of the infinite eternity, in which all temporality, which has neither
beginning nor end in time, is transcended.
c. N (incomprehension and further examples of the incomprehensible. —

Reason does not comprehend things that lie beyond the domain of the finite.
Our noncomprehension is manifested in conceptions that are absurd from
the point of view of discursive reason. But by apprehending these absurdi-
ties, reason prepares a springboard from which we are enabled to attain the
other kind of comprehension.
I
N1 CHOLAS OF CU SA 185
The nature of the world (of the concrete, contractionis) cannot be known
unless the absolute original is known. Not only in our knowledge of God,
but also in our knowledge of the world, we must never lose sight of a non-
comprehension which lies within our comprehension (De doc. ignor., II).
Discursive reason cannot comprehend such matters as the following:
(1) God is totally free from ill-will (invidid), and yet the beings He
created disclose such features as divisibility, difference, plurality, imperfec-
Whence do these come? They cannot have a positive
tion, perishability.
cause.They have no cause at all, but are contingent (contingenter). But who
can comprehend the Creation, if it must be conceived at the same time as nec-
essary and as contingent ? Created beings, which are neither God nor nothing,
seem to be situated somewhere between God and nothingness. Yet they can-
not be compounded of being and nonbeing. Thus it seems that they neither
are nor are not. Discursive reason, which cannot transcend opposites, does
not grasp the being of created things (De doc. ignor., II, 2). "All we can
say is : The plurality of things is produced by the fact that God is in nothing-
ness" (De doc. ignor., II, 3).
(2) If God is all things, how can we conceive that created beings are not
eternal, since God's being is eternity itself? In so far as creation is the being
of God, it is eternity, but in so far as it is subject to time, it is not of God. Who
can comprehend that creation is from eternity and nevertheless in time ? (De
doc. ignor., II, 2.)
(3) Who can comprehend how God can be revealed to us through visible
creatures? God cannot be manifested in concrete signs, for such signs in-
evitably require other signs to explain their meaning, and so on ad infinitum.

(4) Who can comprehend how the infinite One becomes multiple or how
God unfolds Himself in the plurality of things? If you consider God in so
far as He is in things, you imagine that things are something in which He
is. But this is an error, because the being of a thing is not a separate being, but
is derived from the being of the Greatest. Without God things are nothing,
just as number is nothing without the One. How God enfolds things in
Himself and unfolds them is beyond our understanding (De doc. ignor.,
11,3).
2. Cosmological ideas
a. Image of the infinite. Center and periphery. —The old metaphor "God
is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose periphery is no-
where" is not an analogy applied to the world, but an apt description of its
imitative character.
Because the cosmos is an image, it is infinite, but its infinity is of the
imitative kind, which denotes endlessness, the possibility of always going
further. In time, eternity is endless duration. In space, the infinite is the end-
less; in the division of matter, it is the impossibility of ever arriving at the

smallest part. Neither the greatest nor the smallest, neither the most distant
boundary in space nor the smallest particle of matter, neither the beginning
nor the end in time is accessible to us. When we conceive of the world as
having been created simultaneously with time, we speak metaphorically of
a beginning and an end of time, not in time. The cosmos is not infinite in
the same sense as God, nor can it be conceived as finite, since no boundaries
confine it.
Thus the cosmos has no center and no periphery. If it had a periphery, it
would be bounded by something else. If it had a center, it would also have a

periphery, which it does not have. If the cosmos had a center and a periphery,
itwould have its beginning and end in itself; outside it there would be some-
thing else, empty space, for example. As a copy, the cosmos cannot be con-
tained between a center and a periphery. For God alone is both the center
and the periphery.
The earth is not the center of the world and the fixed stars do not constitute
the periphery of the physical cosmos. Neither the earth nor any other
place is the center of the cosmos.
b. Measure, motion, direction are relative. —Every measure is relative: in

the world, measure and the measured are necessarily different. But there is
no absolute measure, and because there is no absolute measure, no measure-

ments are completely accurate. Astronomy makes the false assumption that
the movements of all planets can be measured by the movement of the sun.
But no two points are exactly congruent in time and space, hence our judg-
ments about the celestial bodies are far from accurate (De doc. ignor., II, i).
Every motion is relative. No motion can be the absolutely greatest, because
that coincides with rest. Everything in the cosmos must be in motion,
though not uniformly so. There are no fixed poles of the sky. "Since we can
perceive motion only in relation to something motionless, to a pole or to a
center, we (falsely) presuppose the latter when we measure motions."
Every direction is relative. Wherever a man stands, he believes himself
to be at the center. The antipodes have the sky above them, just as we have.
But what is "above" to the one is "below" to the other.
c. The earth. —And now our own planet, the earth. Since everything in
the cosmos is in motion, obviously the earth too is in motion {De doc. ignor.,
II, n ). Because nothing in the world is mathematically exact, "the earth is
not spherical, although it tends to a spherical form."

Since in the world there is no greatest single perfection, motion, or form
for the world is the oneness of the many, homogeneous in space and time,
and no place in it is superior to any other (i.e. it is not the hierarchical cosmos
of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and the Middle Ages) — it follows that "this earth is
not in any sense the smallest or lowest part of the world" {De doc. ignor.,
NI C H O LAS OF CU S A 187
II, 12). Nor is the earth's darkness a proof of its inferiority. If we were on the
sun, we should not perceive the sun's great brightness, for the brightness
would be above us, as the region of fire is for us. If we were outside the earth,
we should perceive it as a bright star. "The earth is a noble star, which re-
ceives light, heat, and influences from all the other stars." But these influences
are not evidence of its imperfection, because, being a star, it in turn in-
fluences the sun. The influence is reciprocal. No star can subsist without the
others. The earth is as adequate a dwelling place for men, animals, and
plants as the other stars are for the living beings which inhabit them. "We
conjecture that no star is uninhabited."
What Cusanus calls "the world" is not just the world that is visible to us.
The one world contains many worlds invisible to us. We imagine that all
things refer to us and exist for us. But countless stars, far greater than the
earth we inhabit, have not been created just for this earth, but for the glory
of their Creator. The philosophers fail to grasp this when they interpret
everything solely from the point of view of the world visible to ourselves,
as if this earthly world were the crown and summit of all God's works
(De ven.sap., 22).
d. The smallest parts. —The infinite is present also in the smallest. "We
cannot arrive at the demonstrably simplest elementary units, which are en-
tirely in actu, because there is no absolutely Greatest or Smallest in re-
spect of the gradually different, even though discursive reason believes that
such exist" {De con., 1, 12).
The term "element" does not denote the same thing to the senses, to dis-
cursive reason, and to the intellect. What the senses regard as the elements
(fire, earth, water, air) are, to discursive reason, composite (elementata) ,
universal first products of the elements. "What sensibility holds to be an

element, is to discursive reason a composite, and what reason regards as an
element, the intellect regards as a compound" (De con., II, 4).
3. The eternity oj the world
The world is eternal, but it is not eternity itself. It is eternal by virtue of its
participation in eternity. "The eternal world" is the world that cannot end,
that endures forever.
The world did not. begin in time, but time began with it. Hence we can say
both that the world has a beginning and that the world has no beginning.
For the world was not preceded by time, but by eternity (the term "pre-
ceded" has no temporal connotation here). The world is neither eternal
absolutely, of itself, nor has it a beginning in time. Time itself has no
beginning in time.
Cusanus carries this formulation still further. Time has its ground in the
world, not the world in time. The "duration" of the world does not depend
on For when the motion of the sky and time ceases, the world does
time.
not cease to be. But if the world came to an end, time too would come to an
end (De ludo globi, I).
The following statement by Meister Eckhart had been declared heretical:
"When God was and when He begat His Son, who is as eternal as Himself
and equal to Him in everything, at the same time He created the world as
1
well." Cusanus defends Eckhart's position. God and the world were in the
same now of eternity. For the world did not begin in another now of eternity,
but in the same now in which God is. "The assertion, Eternity is, was never
true unless the assertion, The world is, was true at the same time."
—
Such formulations like all speculative thought are absurd to discursive —
reason, because the representations which unavoidably guide such thinking
cannot be visualized. We speak in terms of time, although the things we
speak of cannot be represented under the category of time. This is made
evident by the questions which discursive reason, unguided by speculation,
asks:
Where was God before He created the world? The question is absurd
because it presupposes a time and place when they did not yet exist. The
appropriate answer is: God never "was" anywhere; "was" is a statement
about existence in time. Why did God not create the world earlier? The
question makes no sense, for "earlier" and "later" designate differences in
time; accordingly, He could never have created anything "earlier" or "later."
Such questions are suggested by the terms we use to express our rational
representations. The proper way to deal with them is not by condemning
them as "foolish" or "blasphemous," but by systematically elucidating the
speculative mode of thinking.
4. Individuals
Only individuals really exist (De doc. ignor., Ill, 1).
a. Necessary particularity. —Every existent thing in

the world differs from
every other existent thing; we no two or more individual things so
find
alike that they might not be infinitely more alike. Absolute identity between
them is impossible (De doc. ignor., I, 3). "No entity can be entirely identical
with any other entity at any one time" (ibid.). "There is nothing in the
universe that does not enjoy a certain singularity, which is not to be found
in any other being" (ibid.).
1
Josef Koch, Sitzttng der Heidelberger Academic der Wissenschaften, Cusanus Texte I. Predigten.
1937. PP- 5i #.
NICHOLAS OF CUS A 189
b. Eiery individual the whole of the universe. —The

is world is one, and
one in such a way that everything is in everything. In every created thing,
the universe is that created thing. The universe exists "concretely" (contracte)
in every individual thing.
Each thing is the whole world in a limited form, as participation in the
whole, as mirror of the whole, as drawn into the whole by interaction. "All
things are in all things, and each thing in each thing" (De doc. ignor., II, 5).
Since the universe is concretely in things, each actually existing thing is a
concrete representation of the universe. To his friend, Cusanus says: "Every-
thing universal, general, and special 'Julianizes' *n y ou Julian, just as
>
harmony 'flutes' in the flute, and 'cithers' in the cither" (De con., II, 3).
Since each individual existent cannot actually be all things, because it is
limited, it limits all things in itself.

Like the universe as a whole, each individual is immediate to God (De
doc. ignor., II, 5). God turns His face to every individual. Cusanus illustrates
this idea by referring to the self-portrait of Rogier van der Weyden, which
seems to be looking directly at the viewer no matter where he stands, and to
follow him with its eyes wherever he moves; even when several viewers
move in different directions, the eyes of the portrait still seem to be looking
at each of them. Similarly, God gazes upon all beings simultaneously and
sees each of them in particular (De vis. dei, Preface).
c Uniqueness and irre piaceability. —Every created thing is as such perfect

in its own way, even though itmay seem inferior or superior in relation to
another created thing. "Since God communicates Being, which is received
in such a way that it could not have been received otherwise, every created
being rests in the perfection it received from divine Being, and does not
desire to be another creature, as though it could thus attain to a higher
perfection, but prefers the being from the Greatest as a gift of
it received
the godhead, which it strives to preserve without impairment and to bring
yet closer to perfection" (De doc. ignor., II, 2). Everyone is pleased with
himself, though he admires others. "In his homeland, his own birthplace
seems by far the most beautiful place and the same is true of local customs
and the local dialect" (id., Ill, 1). "Each actually existing thing finds its
peace in this, that everything in it is itself, and itself in God" (id., II, 5).
The human spirit cannot desire to be angelic, because the human spirit
cannot desire not to be. "Since he cannot be another spirit unless he ceases to
be what he was, his desire is enclosed in his being. Therefore he not only
does not desire to be different, but is happy in that he cannot be different.
Indeed, to have one's own being means to have being by participating in the
divine" (Exc, Basel edition, p. 696). Hence Cusanus exclaims in one of his
sermons: "Take, O man, all come your way as the gift of God
things that
and speak in admiration. . . . God gave me Being. ... I, who was nothing,
am through His omnipotence that which I am. . . . He has left me weak

and sickly in order to display His strength. He has me fall into sin in
let
order to show me His mercy" (quoted in Billinger, pp. 43 if.)*
5. Summary: The significance of Cusanus world
a. The earth no longer the center of the world. —The case of Cusanus
proves that removal of the earth from the center of the world did not
necessarily shake Christian faith. Actually, the new view originated in a
change, consistent with the Christian faith, in the traditional ideas about
the created world.
Nietzsche wrote: "Since Copernicus has removed the earth from the
center of the world, man has found himself, as it were, on an inclined
plane; he has been rolling ever faster away from the center —whither?
into nothingness?" But what has the position of the earth in the cosmos to
do with man's position in Being? Nothing at all, unless he is subject to the
superstition that God is present in the flesh —a superstition which, to be
sure, has deep historical roots.
By his thinking adherence to the Christian Cusanus shows us that

faith,
the shifting of the earth from its central position (Cusanus believed the
center to be everywhere and nowhere) does not affect the position of man,
for man is still aware of his place in the totality of Being. Long before
Copernicus, Cusanus undermined the idea that the earth is the center, and
did so far more radically than the astronomer. (Copernicus still believed
the sun to be the center, not only of the solar system, but also of the cosmos.)
At the same time, however, Cusanus, unlike Nietzsche, saw man in his
unique greatness, as not in the least diminished by this change.
In Nietzsche the astronomical conception becomes the symbol of an en-
tirely different and very important experience: that of an existential nihilism
which has been steadily growing in modern times under the cover of super-
ficially retained traditions. The idea that astronomical and other scientific
discoveries determine man's faith instead of serving him by broadening the

horizons of his knowledge presupposes a general intellectual flattening. But
in Cusanus we are dealing with ideas which from the outset transcend the
narrow-mindedness that chains men to matter, to a material cosmos, and to
technical skill.
b. The infiniteness of the world. — (1) Toward

the close of the Middle
Ages, for the first time since Greek antiquity (whose example had been
forgotten), Cusanus broke with a finite conception of the world, such as we
find expressed with poetic eloquence in Dante's poem. Only gradually, with
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, did empirical science
follow up this radical speculative break-through.
The modern conception of the world as infinite is of religious origin;

it can be traced back to the idea of an infinite God. The created world came
to be seen as the copy of God's infinity, as another, "limited" kind of in-
finity. The infinite greatness of God required the infinite greatness of the
world.
Cusanus does not develop his conception in the spirit of scientific research,
which leads us inevitably to abandon all efforts to grasp the world as a
whole, in favor of the critical cognition of reality. Nor is Cusanus related
to Giordano Bruno, who looked upon the world's infinity as an absolute,
and identified the infinite world with God.
(2) It has been said that Cusanus' idea of the infinite was the first ex-
pression of the modern sense of life —that its impact has been felt for
centuries, Giordano Bruno, Baroque art, the Romantic movement,
that
all drew inspiration from it. Because this view confuses two radically dif-
ferent ideas of infinity, it is so vague as to be meaningless. It disregards the
presence of the idea of infinity in the Middle Ages, even, for example, in
Dante's seemingly finite conception of the world. Moreover, Copernicus
did not operate with the concept of the infinite; he remained within the
Aristotelian-Ptolemaic framework of a finite world.
(3) To be captivated by the infinite can mean two different things. In

the world, it is the impulse to go ever further, beyond every limit. It
signifies a progress that refuses to stop anywhere. To be captivated by

the infinite is something entirely different when the idea inspires us to
ascend from the finite to the infinite, from the given world to that which
is prior to or above the world, from the awareness that we are chained in
the finite (and we remain so fettered even when we progress endlessly
within the world) to freedom in the infinite. Cusanus glimpses the infinite
in the finite, in that which the finite presupposes: this "pre" is the absolute
measurement, the condition of every finite measurement. It becomes possible
to experience God's absolute infinity in the world itself, when God's infinity
is seen as the original of the imitative endlessness of the world.
The fundamental attitude of insatiable curiosity in finite progress is not
abandoned, but placed in a higher perspective. The fundamental attitude
of a life in and pathways we
the infinite becomes a guide over the roads
find in the world, which lead endlessly in all directions. While essentially
different, progress and spiritual aspiration must be combined if progress
is to be a path upward rather than a servitude.
(4) The fundamental human situation implies both the urge to the
infinite, which draws man on ever further toward penetration of the
ground of being, and the urge to the finite, in which he feels more secure
because he is at home. Both are ciphers for man's openness to transcendence,
but cease to be so when they lead to mere endlessness or imprison man in
the worldly finite.
Progress in the conquest of the cosmos is ambiguous. Is it —as in

Dante's Ulysses —hubris

and sacrilege, or is it a heroic effort to a break
through to authentic humanity? This is a question Cusanus does not ask.
c. The impossibility of a closed world. —In terms of worldly knowledge,

the world cannot be closed in. Cusanus does away with every fixed point
in it, every variety of the absolute. To those who strive for a graspable
picture of a finite world, Cusanus shows the relative character of all
knowable worldly things. Through intellect we gain the insight "that it
is impossible to circumscribe the world, to assign to it motion or figure,

because it will appear to us a circle within a circle, or a sphere within a
sphere, having nowhere center or circumference" (De doc. ignor., II, 11).
d. The splendor of the world. —God made the world as perfect as it could
be. Therefore it is very perfect {De ludo globi). Though it is an image, the
world is illumined by the splendor of God.
"In God is everything, outside Him nothing." He alone is "center and
circumference of the universe." Hence we know the world only in God
and in relation to God. Just as the splendor of the world, though it is
only an image, celebrates God's splendor, so our knowledge of the world is
a true reflection of God's own knowledge.

I know that the world is very beautiful "because it reflects the highest
goodness, the wisdom, and the beauty of the most high God" {De ven.
sap., 2). Cusanus Greek fosmos. The world originates in the
refers to the
ineffable eternal beauty. The world is the making visible of the invisible
God. The world unveils its Creator, so that He can be known as in a mirror,
as in a riddle {De possesi).
God wills "that the marvels of the universe should move us to admiration.
Yet the more we admire them, the more He conceals them from us." No
created being has the power to manifest what it really is, for without Him
who is in all beings, any one being is nothing. Asked what and why and for
what they are, created beings can only answer: "We are nothing by our-
selves, nor can we answer your question, for by ourselves we have no
knowledge of ourselves. We are all mute. He who created us speaks in
all of us, He alone knows what, how, and for what we are. You who seek
to know something about us, ask the ground of our being, not ourselves"
{De doc. ignor., II, 13).
e. The individual. —Cusanus discovers the great, simple, transcendent justi-

fication for each individual's right to an irreplaceable value, a unique
essence, a role in life —the right to be the particular individual he is. Every
individual may love himself and must necessarily love every other indi-
vidual when he sees him as he really is.For the universe is in every
individual, each of whom is, as it were, a copy of one of God's words.
N 1 C H O LAS OF CU SA 193
III. CHRIST
a. Christ —
and the world. By giving Christ the privileged position of a God
incarnate, Cusanus vitiates his conception of the world as a plurality of
individuals, none of whom is the absolutely greatest, none supremely per-
fect. He expounds in speculative terms what in fact is merely his dogmatic
belief. If the concretely greatest exists, he reasons, it must be something
more than concrete. If the concretely greatest were an individual, this

individual would have to contain all truth and reality within himself in
supreme perfection. He would have to transcend all concreteness, to be its
climax, limit, end (terminus). Neither would he be purely concrete, for he
would be more, namely, God, nor, in so far as he is concrete, would he be
God. He would be simultaneously concrete and absolute, creature and
creator in one. Such a combination is entirely beyond our rational powers
of comprehension.
b. How Man-God is misunderstood. According to Cu-

the essence of the —
sanus, would be false to conceive of the Man-God as the union of two
it
persons which had been separate before and are now united, Man and God.
He could not be a union at all, for He is a self-contained individual person.
"This marvelous union is more sublime than all thinkable unions. Therefore
we must conceive of this concretely greatest as God, but at the same time
creature, and same time Creator, Creator and creature,
as creature but at the
without admixture or composition. Such a union is beyond all our concepts"

(De doc. ignor., Ill, 2).
It would also be false, according to Cusanus, to conceive of Jesus Christ
merely as a man outstanding in certain respects, more accomplished than
other men, as Solomon surpassed all in wisdom, Absalom in beauty, Samson
in strength. Since, in respect of accomplishment, the variety of points of
view produces different judgments, "accomplishment" in this sense receives
praise from one point of view and blame from another. And since the
majority of men, scattered throughout the world, are unknown to us, we
cannot say who is the most excellent of all. We are not even in a position
to gain complete knowledge of a single one of them (De doc. ignor., Ill, 1).
c. God as man. —Since mankind (humanitas) could not in supreme per-

fection exist in any other way, Christ's humanity (also called humanitas)
must be rooted in divinity. The perfect, actually existing rational being,
Jesus Christ, can be rooted only in the divine intellect, which alone is all
things in actuality. Since the supreme intellect marks the culmination
(terminus, limit, end) of all intellectual nature, it must, like God, be all
in all.
This very greatest, which isman and God in one, can only be one —can
only be one man. For were He not unique, He would not be the greatest.
This one man, who is God, possessed a body appropriate to His spirit-
uality. He
was not begotten in the natural way. The Holy Spirit, which is
absolute love, formed a living body out of the Virgin's blood. The Mother
of God was necessarily free from whatever might have impaired the purity
of such a birth: she had never known a man and she was free from carnal
desire.
The one Man-God is a physical event in time. He is historical. But
He is also eternal. "The man could come forth from the virgin mother
only in time, from God the Father only in eternity!" (De doc. ignor., Ill, 5).
But the temporal birth required a special time: "the fullness of time."
When this time came, the Man-God was born, but He remained hidden
as such from all creatures.
What we call the immaculate conception and nativity "was not effected
in temporal sequence, as in the case of human conception, but in a single
moment of supra-temporal activity" {De doc. ignor., Ill, 5).
d. Why did all this ta\e place?— God enveloped the eternal Logos, the
word, His only-begotten Son, in human nature, because we could grasp
Him only in a form resembling our own. Thus He revealed Himself to
us in accordance with our capacity to receive Him (De doc. ignor., Ill, 5).
Two mysteries are associated with this revelation of God in Jesus Christ
and that of the Resurrection.
that of the Cross
The Death on the Cross. "The smallest coincides with the greatest, the
most ignominious death of the righteous with the glory of everlasting
Mic" (Dedoc.ignor.,U\,6).
And: "The voluntary and so undeserved, cruel and ignominious death
of the man Christ on the Cross, was the eradication, gratification, and puri-
fication of all the carnal desires of human nature."
For each man this means: the closer he comes to perfection through
steadfastness and courage, through love and humanity, the closer he comes
to Christ. "In the real Christian there is in fact only Christ." The Christian
must put behind him all the things of this world. "In such withdrawal into
himself he sees Christ without recourse to enigmatic images, because then
he sees himself in detachment from the world, as one who has taken on
the form of Christ" (De possest).
The Resurrection (De doc. ignor., Ill, 7) : Christ died in order that
human nature might be raised with Him
from the dead to life everlasting,
in order that the mortal body might become an indestructible spiritual
body.
Immortality can be attained only through death and the overcoming of
death in the Resurrection. If Christ, as God, had never died, He would have
remained mortal. Had He never died, He would not have been able to
I
N 1 CHOLAS OF CU SA 195
win immortal life for human nature. Consequently, He had to be freed

from the possibility of death through death itself. Only through the Resur-
rection did immortality become real.
In its temporal manifestation, the truth is symbol and image of the
supra-temporal truth. The humanity of Jesus was destructible since it
was confined to time; it was indestructible in so far as it was freed from
time, above time, united with the godhead.
No man could be raised from the dead before Him, because human nature
had not yet attained its highest point (ad maximum) in time. No one was
capable of this until the advent of Him who said: "I have the power to
give my life and to take it back." Because Christ rose from the dead,
having undergone the full course of destruction in time, all men are assured
through Him of everlasting life — though not all will share in the glory of the
godhead, but only those who share in Christ through faith, hope, and love
(De doc. ignor., 111,%).
Part Three: Nicholas ofCusa and Modern Science
Among the precursors of modern science were the Paris nominalists, the
Italian artists who made discoveries in their work-
(such as Leonardo)
shops, the astronomer Copernicus, etc. One of the founders of modern
historical science was Lorenzo Valla, who proved the spuriousness of
the so-called Donation of Constantine. Ought we to place Cusanus among
such pioneers? He never carried out a systematic empirical investigation,
he never made a single real discovery. To this extent he has no place in
the history of any one science. Nor was he interested in a universal
scientific method, such as eventually came into being. But he occasionally
had penetrating insights and put forward tentative hypotheses. Above all,
he developed aspects of speculative thought which can, in retrospect, be

related to modern scientific theories. Finally, he broached the fundamental
problem of the meaning of science, a problem which has continued to
haunt us down to the present day— which, indeed, has only today become
really urgent.
1. Did Cusanus help to found modern science?
a. Natural science: experiments with scales--Only one work of Cusanus',

the De staticis experiments ("Experiments with Scales"), contains no
speculative or theological discussion. This treatise is commonly regarded

as scientific. The leading idea is uniform methods of
that systematic,
determining weights should be devised. Everything that can be weighed
should be weighed, either directly on scales or by indirect methods. Once
the weights have been determined, comparison of the results will permit
inferences to be drawn concerning things that otherwise remain hidden.
—
This will prove useful in practical matters in medical diagnosis, for exam-
ple, for testing the genuineness of materials, for investigating the elements of
matter.
This sounds scientific; but let us look into the matter more closely.
Cusanus urges that extensive tables of weights be drawn up for purposes
of comparison. He proposes a number of experiments to this end, some
practically feasible, others fantastic. One thing is clear: these descriptions
of experiments are not the work of a man who handled real things. They do
not reflect the ideas of a man who
thought with his hands. In all likelihood
Cusanus never performed any of his experiments. Often the descriptions
say nothing of how to carry out the experiment and do not even enable us
to visualize it.
The great theme of the treatise is really this: The world of the finite,
which by its very nature consists of the more and the less, should be studied
by counting, measuring, and weighing operations. The question of weights
should be given special attention. In this connection Cusanus anticipates
a line of development that was to prove extraordinarily fruitful. But he
does not follow up his own suggestions. He lacked the essential element
of modern science —the development of mathematical theory in conjunction
with controlled observations based on accurate weights, measures, and
computations. He does not anticipate measurement as a criterion for con-
firming or refuting a predictive hypothesis. Not until such a method was
evolved did science become exact science and embark on steady progress.
Cusanus gives us mere tabulations of weights (to no definite purpose),
along with an assortment of imaginary experiments, designed to make
ad hoc inferences possible. These are a mixture of shrewd anticipation and
nonsense. All this does not come to very much, because he did not actually
put any of his proposals to the test. The book has been noticed because
of its theme and was once reprinted in the sixteenth century, but it does
not seem to have inspired or stimulated any actual research.
b. Astronomy. —We have referred to Cusanus' astronomical views, some of

which anticipate later scientific findings. All are based purely on speculation
or unverifiable hypotheses. Not a single observation is adduced as proof.
Cusanus may very well have owned astronomical instruments, but there is
no hint in his writings that he ever used them. His speculation on the nature
of the cosmos as a copy of the divine Original has nothing in common with
astronomical investigation based on observation and measurement.
N I CH O LAS OF CU S A 197
c. Mathematics. — disarms' mathematical ideas have also been discussed

above. His intentions in this connection are quite clear. He writes: "The
smallest possible chord would have no sagitta [the distance between the
chord and the apex of the arc], hence would no longer be smaller than
its arc. Thus, chord and arc would coincide if we could reach the smallest
possible in such things. The mind apprehends this as necessary if it knows
that neither arc nor chord, because they are quantities, can simply be the
actually smallest. For the continuous is always divisible. But in order to
attain knowledge of their relationship, I make use of my mind's eye, and I
say that I 'see' where the arc and chord are equal, namely, when both are
as small as possible" (quoted after Jonas Cohn). Although Cusanus de-
veloped ideas such as these, which were to lead in the seventeenth century
to the infinitesimal calculus, he himself made no such discovery.
d. —
Study of documents and critical history. Cusanus had experience of
documentary research in archives and libraries, and of historical investiga-
tion. He discovered a manuscript of Plautus' in 1426. Before Valla, he
recognized the spuriousness of the Donation of Constantine (De cone,

cath., Ill, 1), but did not prove it. He was in direct touch with the texts of the
ancient philosophers (he read the Greeks in Latin translation). Neverthe-
less, we cannot regard him as a critical historian or philologist.
e. Political thinking. Comparison with the Defensor pacis. How anti- —

quated Cusanus was as a political thinker becomes clear when we compare
him with Marsilius of Padua, who wrote a century earlier. Marsilius'
Defensor pacis is a work of secular thinking comparable to modern
"political science," whereas Cusanus' De concordantia catholica is a specula-
tive work which interprets secular phenomena as an image of divine har-
mony. To Marsilius, God is a causa remota and as such has no place in
science. He confines himself to the real phenomena, the secular causalities,
and judges them by secular standards. How the will of God asserts itself
is beyond rational grasp; the political thinker confines himself to the
earthly origin of political power. Cusanus, on the other hand, conceiving
of political relationships as "representations" of divine originals, interprets
and evaluates them on that basis.
According to Marsilius, the secular power of the Church is incompatible
with its own spiritual goals and is therefore harmful. The state should
serve human welfare in this world, and though it is possible to maintain that
one of its tasks is to appoint priests in order to prepare the citizens for life
in another world, it is also possible to hold that priests as a class have no place
among the classes which make up civil society. According to Cusanus,
the highest task of the state is to guide the citizen to eternal salvation,
and accordingly to see to it that the subjects profess the true Catholic re-
ligion. Marsilius, on the other hand, is completely unconcerned with the
defense of inviolable individual freedoms, but champions the sovereignty of

the people, whose organ is an elected government. In his view, for example,
measures against heretics are justified when they are demanded by the
people and the state. The Church is subject to the sovereignty of the people,
i.e., to the state, which should determine the number of clerics required and
should guide citizens in their choice of occupation, according to their various
abilities. Both Marsilius and Cusanus advocated reforms of state and Church
alike; both desired to put the Church-state relationship on an orderly basis.
But Marsilius thought along purely intellectual lines and, with the principle
of popular sovereignty as his point of departure, ended up by championing
the omnipotent state, so anticipating the anti-liberal ideas of a later day,
such as were first fully developed by Hobbes. Cusanus had in mind the
political realities of his own day, he himself and was politically active, his
thinking is permeated with the idea of man's dignity and the freedom of his
spirit in view of its perpetual bond with God.
f. / know only what I can ma\e. —Modern thinking is characterized by one

proposition: I know only what I myself can produce. This has a twofold
sense. To Vico (1668-1744) it signifies that we human beings can know
adequately and certainly only what human beings have produced, so
that history is to be regarded as the one sure science above all others. To
scientists it signifies: My knowledge consists not in retrospective under-
standing, but in productive activity; what I construct, what I bring into
existence from my own blueprints that is what I know. —
Cusanus seems to have been the first to hit upon the proposition. To be
sure, he does not apply it to empirical knowledge. But in his speculations,
he looks upon our entire intellectual activity as the image and likeness of
God's activity, as a kind of creation. God knows the real things because He
has created them out of nothing. We know intellectual things because we
ourselves produce them, namely, the mathematical and rational concepts
which help us to approach the real things. Since we are not truly creative,
we produce all this in an unreal space, but in such a way that, in real
we can produce a new reality from a given reality, which we shape
space,
according to our creative intellectual patterns.
This sounds so modern that Cusanus has been regarded as a precursor
on this score. But what he has in mind is a metaphysical conception of the
mind, grounded in the godhead. On the basis of the self-experienced
spontaneity of thought, he interprets things already done. His conception
does not lead to practical "producing."
c. Knowledge and power. —God's knowledge and God's will are inter-
changeable concepts. What God knows, He wills. His knowledge and His
will are not two separate things. Rather, His knowledge is also the reality
of that which can be. In Him

knowledge and omnipotence coincide.
perfect
In human knowledge— an image medium of otherness— knowledge
in the
and will are separate. But man aspires to the original knowledge. "To share
in this knowledge is immortal joy." Here is an example of a knowledge
which is also will and hence power: The grammarian would be extremely
pleased if he could discover a simple rule that would enable him to under-
stand the whole of grammar in an instant; similarly the rhetorician would
be delighted if he could find a little word that would at one stroke make
him than Cicero (Exc, Scharpft", 492) A perfect mind, whose
a better orator .
knowledge was identical with power, would be omnipotent.

At first sight, such statements may have an ultra-modern ring. In
fact they are not modern at all. "Knowledge is power" today means: Thanks
to technological knowledge, I can achieve my ends through means available
in the world. To Cusanus "Knowledge is power" means something else:
Knowledge transforms man, actualizing his potentialities. He does not

merely possess knowledge and the possibility of applying it —he himself
has become the knowledge that he himself puts into operation.
h. Novelty and progress. —Modern science sets a high value on novelty, and
great importance is attached to priority in time. The scientist feels that
whenever he discovers something, no matter how insignificant in itself, he
has contributed to the progress of his discipline. Does Cusanus share in
this attitude ?
Cusanus is aware of the novelty of his fundamental idea. He says that he

has revealed things hitherto unheard of (De doc. ignor., II, 11). In one of
his mathematical works {De geom. transmut.) we read: "The ancients,
gifted with a strong spirit of inquiry, brought many hidden things to light,"
but "in some of the higher disciplines they did not achieve all their objec-
tives." Is thisan early expression of the modern idea of progress? Further
on in thesame work, we read: "The best preserver of all things so decreed
in order that the divine faculty of cognition in us should not become stunted,
but should be directed toward that which is still hidden, yet accessible to
knowledge. . . . We devote ourselves passionately to exploring the darkness,
in order that we may
the more peacefully enjoy the strength of our mind."
These words do not connote the modern idea of progress, but the ac-
tivity of the mind, its perpetual quest as it has been carried on in every age.
The latter-day notion of progress signifies: I am taking a step forward,

which my predecessors made possible, and my successors will in turn take
a step beyond this one. I am destined to be surpassed by future generations,
which will in turn be surpassed in the course of an endless progression;
the final goal is not knowable. Cusanus means something entirely different.
The eternal truth is present here and now; by following the path allotted
to me I share in it, and I have the constant gratification of being in it. On
my way, I am at the same time at my When

Cusanus seems to come
goal.
close to the idea of progress, as in the above-quoted remarks about the
ancients, he is not implying the modern (and true) idea of an advance
in our knowledge as a whole. Cusanus' happiness in his knowledge is not
comparable to the modern scientist's certainty that he has made some lasting
contribution, however small, to the progress of knowledge. Cusanus is con-
cerned not with an endless progression, but with a deepening of speculative
thinking in individuals. Summing up his ideas in a late work (De pen.
sap.), he writes: his aim is to move men keener than himself to deepen
their understanding, be it ever so slightly (Preface). In other words,
Cusanus expects his successors to make a fresh start and to be stimulated
to deeper thinking by his thinking. "On my way" does not imply taking
part in an objective, temporal progress. Rather, cognition is the eternal
presence of the truth in time. "Man's creative activity has no goal other
than itself. Mankind never goes outside itself in its creations. It creates
nothing new; what it creates was already in it before" {De con., II, 14).
Philosophical speculation penetrates deeply into the truth. Each philosophy
is an original and unsurpassable achievement; speculation does not progress
in the manner would be possible only if there were a
of the sciences. This
single current of true speculation, which discovered universally valid truths
and aspired to arrive at the totality of these truths. If this were the case,
earlier false philosophies would be outstripped by later true philosophies. But
it is not the case. When in his treatise, On the Hunt for Wisdom, Cusanus
says: "I have made progress," his meaning is that his later treatises expand
and supplement his earlier work, that he has devised new forms and
concepts relative to the method of transcending. But this "progress" actually
consists of his own version of the same speculations on which as Cusanus —
—
himself recognized all the great philosophers before him had embarked
(especially Plato, Proclus, and the Pseudo-Dionysius). In his work he
aspires merely to enrich the method of exposition, to devise new comparisons
and modes of intellection, to replace some of the old categories with new
ones.
The historical very different from
sequence of the speculative systems is
the progress of knowledge in the world, which has become autonomous.

In that sequence, the early thinkers no doubt supply later ones with
intellectual instruments, but the transcendent content is each time original
and unique. In the progress of knowledge, however, everything that is
correct is preserved as part of the steadily growing store of knowledge of
the world. Now and then Cusanus evokes the idea of progress, but
actually he means a renewal of the speculative impulse, and it would be a
mistake to interpret his statements as anticipating the modern idea of a
progressing science, in the sense of a steady enrichment of universally valid
knowledge.
Thus Cusanus can hardly be regarded as a founder of modern science.
N CH
I O LAS OF CU S A 201
2. Speculative method and experimental method.

So-called "anticipations"
a. —In Cusanus the essential is not the will to knowledge, but the symbolic
power of the knowable, considered as a copy of the divine. Speculative ideas
are mirrored in the empirical world.
He does not discover methods of actual investigation, his suggestions
for methods are formulated so vaguely that we cannot tell
possible
whether they are workable or not; he never develops, works out, or applies
methods of investigation. His thinking is dominated by speculative methods.
Actually— though Cusanus did not suspect this—his fresh approach to the
ancient themes of metaphysical speculation carried him even further away
from the attitude of a mathematician, scientist, historian, or political thinker.
What was dominant was his fundamentally religious attitude, his experience
of the world illumined by transcendence. As though imprisoned in his own
symbolic thinking, he seems to draw justification from the fundamentally
"conjectural" character of all reality and knowledge of the world.
b. —In creating images, Cusanus broadened the intellectual horizon and

so helped to lay the foundations of modern science. But his motives are not
really scientific. The way in which scientists set about methodically, step
by step, to achieve the solution of a factual problem is alien to him. He fails
to understand that all scientific investigation must proceed from particular
assumptions to particular goals. He still believes that it is possible to form
an over-all scientific view of the cosmos; he lacks the modern scientist's
awareness that we can investigate only objects in the world, not the world
as a whole. Although Cusanus has some surprising ideas, he does not
solve any scientific problems. Still, his mind blazes trails into unexplored
territory where marvelous possibilities seem to loom. He appears to be on
the brink of science.
"Speculative anticipations" should never be confused with actual antici-
pations of scientific discoveries. Scientific discovery is achieved solely on the
basis of a cogent, verifiable method which needs no philosophical justifica-
tion. Cusanus' so-called "anticipations" are not cognition but a playing with
ideas, a mixture of truths arrived at by accident and of inextricable fallacies.
c. —Cusanus believed that he could deduce empirical knowledge and meth-

ods of investigation from his speculative methods and insights. The spec-
ulative becomes for him an object of mathematical calculation,
infinite
and his speculative "measuring" is identified with empirical measurement.
God's infinity, of which the world is an image, becomes the endless cosmos.
Historically speaking, a number of scientific insights have originated in
metaphysics. Copernicus accepted the Aristotelian picture of the world,

merely intending to improve upon it, and yet, thanks to his stubborn
adherence to an idea, he made real discoveries concerning the solar system.
Inspired by the metaphysical belief in a cosmic harmony, Kepler evolved
and it was by applying the vast fund of astronomical
verifiable theories,
measurements collected by Tycho Brahe that he discovered his laws of
planetary motion. Yet metaphysics plays no part in the work of their succes-
sors; the scientific achievements which originally derived from metaphysics
carried on independently of their origin and continued to develop by their
own power.
3. The meaning of science
a. Science is —
Cusanus condemns the indiscriminate curiosity of
a whore.
discursive reason; to him knowledge has meaning only when guided by
the intellect to wisdom in God: "J ust as carnal lust finds its consecration
and appeasement only when channeled in the sacrament of marriage, so love
of knowledge finds its appeasement only when channeled in true union with
the Bridegroom. So long as the mind indulges without restraint in vain
knowledge, it no more finds the object of its natural desire than does a man
who cohabits with every whore. There can be no true marriage with a fickle
woman, only with eternal wisdom" (Exc, V, 473; Scharpff, 492). This
comparison of the urge for knowledge with sensual lust condemns neither,
but is intended to show that the one achieves its true purpose only in the
sacrament of marriage, the other in faith. Discursive reason in itself is barren
because, for all its passion, it is endless and empty. It dissolves all things into
a multiplicity without constructive unity. It attains truth only in the trans-
cendent, which is objectively called "God," and subjectively "faith." Mere
discursive reason can momentarily stir up overwhelming desire, but it re-
mains fruitless. The pleasure it gives is vain and swollen with pride, it pro-
duces no divine joy.
Thus
science is a whore (when not guided by its ultimate purpose); it
is knowledge of God (when guided by its true purpose). Though these
statements originate in faith, the question implied in them is still timely.
But our answers are different and more complex.
b. Cusanus and modern science. —To Cusanus, knowledge of the Whole

encompasses all particular knowledge. Modern science pursues particular
goals. It is characterized by an irresolvable tension between the fragmentary
and the idea of unity.
To Cusanus, knowledge is completed a priori. It is realized in time, in the
unending process of the conjectural. Modern science is fundamentally in-
complete. Because it is aimless as a whole, it is without end or meaning.
I
To Cusanus, experiments are means of exposition. Measurements are

always approximate; this is justified by the idea that all human knowledge is
conjectural. Modern science strives for ever greater accuracy, degrees of in-
accuracy being themselves objects of investigation.
To Cusanus, technical application is a matter of secondary importance. It
is symbolic of the mind's creative power. To modern science, technical appli-
cation leads to the creation of a new technological world. This technology
in turn serves to promote the advance of science.
To Cusanus, knowledge is certain of itself as an image of the divine
original. Modern science strives to find its own limits. Having reached a
limit on the one hand, driven to put further questions, whereby, time
it is,
and again, it surpasses new limits; and on the other hand, it runs into ques-
tions it cannot answer.
To Cusanus, the whole is eternity manifesting itself. Modern science
changes with the object to be known in an interminable process whose
movement affects both object and method.
To rest upon God and
Cusanus, the world and knowledge of the world
are sheltered in God. To modern science, the being of the world has no
roots, and the world is fragmented. The will to knowledge can take the
form of rebellion against God.

Cusanus does not share the sapere aude (dare to know) of the great
modern scientists; he is confident in a foreordained serenity. To him, scien-
tific cognition is a continuously gratifying activity entailing no threat to the
peace of the soul. Cognition involves no risk ; it is the happiness of encounter-
ing God in the reality of the world.
c.The question of meaning in modern science and in Cusanus. Did —

Cusanus have any intimation of what a science pursued entirely for its
own sake could become? Probably not, for modern science sacrifices all
metaphysical motives to the pursuit of universally valid insights.
When it is not aimless, having lost all sense of its own meaning, modern
science is guided by some principle that cannot beon the basis of justified
rational science.Such a principle imposes no limits upon science, but makes
science aware of its particular methods and their factual limits. It is in the
very choice of themes and methods that the principle discloses itself, though
indirectly, by liberating the will to knowledge. For those engaged in scien-
tific pursuits, this principle is the unconscious source of sense and purpose.
But what is this principle? Only in modern science has the meaning of
science become a great problem, one that does not admit of scientific solution.
Kant made an essential contribution toward its clarification with his doctrine
of the regulative Ideas and his insights into the radical difference between
systematic knowledge and scattered information about facts.
Discursive reason, the logic of contradiction, and rationalism as such can
at any time become ends in themselves, laying claim to the status of absolute
knowledge; modern science is only one of several historical cases in point.

When Cusanus inquired into the meaning of science, this was what he had
in mind, not the problematic character of modern science. Today the ques-
tion is often obscured by the sheer weight of technological developments,
but for some thinkers it has taken on unprecedented urgency.
To Cusanus, the technical ability conferred by knowledge is a splendid,
noble thing, because it is a copy of the creative mind. Man's creation presents
an analogy to divine creation. For Cusanus, however, "technique" was
still the age-old artisanal technique, not the entirely new structure of
scientific which have systematized the spirit of invention.
techniques
Cusanus is also aware of the noncreative use to which the mind can be
put: cognition becomes dependent when it subordinates itself to utilitarian
ends, when it becomes a mere servant and is thereby cut off from its own
origins. "In order to live comfortably by this-worldly standards, men every-
where use their minds only as slaves, with whose help they acquire posses-
sions, praise, and honor we — see this in the arts, both liberal and mechanical"
(To Albergati,Tf).
d. Knowledge as the loving imitation of God. —Cusanus has a simple

answer to the question of the meaning of science. Human knowledge is a
copy of divine knowledge, hence it is the apprehension of a truth that can
be apprehended only in and through itself. We are in the truth when the
object apprehended and the man who apprehends have both come within
the self-sustaining closed circle.
We cannot arrive at the truth from outside it. We arrive at our knowledge
of man, or stones, or other objects, by distinguishing different forms and
behaviors. We assign names on the basis of such distinctions. But this
activity of discursive reason never penetrates to the essence of things, it
merely shows how they are related externally, according to the circumstances,
as grasped by measurement and other determinations.A man who believes
he can attain truth in this know what truth is.
way does not
A wise man is, rather, one who knows how ignorant this mode of knowl-
edge leaves him. But such a man also knows that without the truth he does
not attain to being, life, or insight. Therefore, as he becomes aware of his
ignorance, he longs with his whole being to stand in the truth. But he cannot
achieve this through external, discursive knowledge (cf. the treatise On the
Hidden God).
Cusanus is guided by the idea of a perfect knowledge, which only God
possesses; man knowledge is an image of the original divine
imitates it, his
knowledge. True knowledge is knowledge of God. All the roads of knowl-
edge, including the knowledge of ignorance, lead to knowledge of God.
The meaning of all knowledge of the finite is the experience of the infinite as
revealed in the finite. Knowledge of the finite is not self-contained, is not
i
N ICH OLAS OF CU S A 205
grounded in itself. The purpose of science is to serve this true knowledge.

The supreme happiness of the man who pursues knowledge is to recog-
nize himself consciously as God's image and to recognize images of God in
all things that exist but are not conscious of being images, i.e., to experience
the one great harmonious order of the whole in the objects known and in
the process of cognition itself. He blissfully contemplates "all things in the
truth which is his only love" (De con., II, 6).
Such knowledge is love and the knowledge of love. "He who has no
loving knowledge stands in ignorance. Therefore the mind, if it is to live,
must know love, which can be known only by loving" (To Albergati, 12).
e. Science, philosophy, theology. —

To avoid confusion, we must distinguish
the very different senses in which we have been using the terms "knowledge"
and "science."
Modern science is a body of cogent knowledge which is grounded in a
conscious methodology, which not only lays claim to universal validity,
but actually is universally valid. Modern science has no universal method,
but only specific methods, evolved for specific purposes on the basis of ex-
plicit assumptions. It is universal in the sense that there is nothing which
from a certain point of view might not become its object. It is not universal
if universality is taken to imply a possible knowledge of all things in their
totality. Modern science cannot justify its own purpose. Cusanus would call
it knowledge purely of external things, relations, modes of behavior, forms.

a
Cusanus had not learned (any more than any other philosopher before
the nineteenth century, except for Kant) to distinguish scientific knowledge
in this sense from philosophical and theological cognition. An enormous
intellectual domain which makes use of the sciences but itself has no scientific
character is called "philosophy"; within the framework of the revealed faith,
it is called "theology."
The source of philosophical insight is a faith which is expressed by
methods of thinking characteristic of philosophy. To Cusanus, this faith
coincides with revealed faith. Today we make a distinction he did not
make. We call science the thinking which is aimed at a cognition of objects
world and based on rationally defined assumptions. We call philosophy

in the
the thinking based on rationally ungraspable assumptions concerning
human Existenz. The thinking based on revealed faith is called theology.
f. Faith within science. —All three of these types of thinking seem to be

present in Nicholas of Cusa. But in him they almost merge into one. He
was not aware of modern science, nor was he aware of the autonomy of
philosophy. Only by taking cognizance of what distinguished it from modern
science did philosophy become clearly aware of its autonomy. Furthermore,
Cusanus failed to see that the distinction between philosophy and theology
is essentially different from the distinction between science and theology. He

uses the term "science" in the old sense, as the unity of scientific, philosophi-
cal, and theological cognition.
In the light of the foregoing, we recognize the validity of Cusanus' con-
tention that the purpose of science, indeed of all cognition, cannot be
brought to thinking awareness without philosophy. The situation in
Cusanus' thinking was very different from what own. To him, it is in our
all knowledge of the world culminates in the knowledge of God, and
moreover, he conceived of his knowledge of the world itself as dependent

upon the knowledge of God. To his mind, finite things are comprehensible
only through awareness of their grounding in the incomprehensible. The
ideas through which we approach the infinite without comprehending it
are for him the starting point of true cognition of comprehensible things
in the finite world.
Although Cusanus does not distinguish between cognition of reality
and the philosophical reading of ciphers, his cognition contributes in fact
to the clarity of the ciphers, and derives its meaning from this function.
Very nearly down to our own day, the majority of creative men (in
science, history, philosophy, and politics) have probably been believing
Christians. Few, however, have explicitly interpreted the language of the
world, in so far as they were trying to investigate it, as the language of
God. Striving to preserve the purity of science, they were careful not to let
their faith influence their theories or their observations. They sought God
not in mere feeling, but through the knowledge of things. Cognition was
sustained by feeling and in consequence thinking became clearer to itself.
The loss of this fundamentally religious attitude and its concomitant

spirituality has brought about a transformation in science itself. In our tech-
nological age, science is in danger of losing itself in innumerable factual
findings that are no longer mastered intellectually, and in techniques
evolved by specialists unaware of anything outside their own specialties.
Although modern scientific progress depends exclusively on technical

specialization, the particular sciences nevertheless point to a greater whole.
We feel its presence in the scientist and in his achievement, but it is not an
object of cognition and is not explicitly recognized. When this greater whole
is lost sight of, specialized scientists, for all their sublety of mind, become
stunted both in matters of knowledge beyond their domains and spiritually
in their own lives. The same fate seems to await a science which strives to
become an end in itself, not only in respect of methods and certainty, but
also in respect of its meaning. The fact that it cannot be an end in itself is
attested by the growth of scientific superstitions as substitutes for a lost

faith: positivist, naturalist, and spiritualist fictions, equally devoid of trans-
cendence and of the scientific spirit.
A man of purely scientific outlook might say: Why not stay within the
graspable bounds of the real world? Here lies our only certainty, because
it is valid for everyone. The world is to be understood in itself and only

through itself. What eludes our knowledge, we shall one day know; if it
is unknowable, it is of no consequence to us, because for all practical purposes

it is nonexistent.
Andyet, thanks to science, it has been becoming ever clearer that the
world cannot be understood on the sole basis of science. Because perfect

factual accuracy is unattainable and because at every point we come up
against the infinite as against a limit, the world itself offers no ground of
certainty. There are discontinuities, "leaps," in nature and in history. When
we enter the domain of the infinite, paradoxes arise which science cannot
tolerate. Everything that escapes empirical observation though existentially
present in time —the unconditional in ethical action, the experience of ex-
treme and nobility of man can be elucidated, but
situations, the greatness —
not in terms of a thinking grounded in universally valid scientific knowl-
edge.
Even if we do not accept Cusanus' ideas in their specifically Christian
formulations, the great question they raise in regard to the meaning of
science is more acute today than ever before, because today the meaning of
science has been called into question more radically than at any other time.
Part Four: Mans Task
I. THE INDIVIDUAL
a. To be oneself. —
Cusanus addresses God: "Thou makest reply within my
heart, saying: Be thou thine and I too will be thine [sis tu tuus, et ego ero
tuus]." This is his fundamental experience: I should be myself. Not until I
have come to be myself can I experience the reality of God. God's first gift
to us is the freedom to be ourselves : "Thou hast left me free to be mine own

self, if I desire [ut sim, si volam, mei ipsius]." If I am not myself, God is
not real for me. But the freedom to be oneself is not self-created, it comes
from God. Freedom means: I must be myself if God is to be mine. Because
He has left me free, He does not constrain me. He expects me to choose
to be my own (ut ego eligam mei ipsius esse). "This rests then
with me,
and not with Thee." But what rests with me is nevertheless awakened by
God: "If I hearken unto Thy Word, which ceases not to speak within me
and continually enlightens my reason, I shall be mine own, free" (The
Vision of God, op. cit., p. 32)
Here we stand with Cusanus at one of the summits of philosophical
thinking: my attitude toward myself in the face of the transcendent. But
one thing gives us pause: Cusanus is speaking in general terms, not about
actual personal experience. He did not strive unremittingly to become
transparent to himself —an experience that is both disquieting and re-
vealing. This is perhaps why his actual life (which will be discussed in
Part Five) does not come up to the level of his self-certainty. The truth of
his magnificent statements would have been deeper had he ventured to
apply it to himself, to the historicity of human Existenz, which is always
individual and unique. Cusanus is too sure of himself, too bland in his
general statements. And yet they are a magnificent formulation of man's
task.
b. Individuality and selfhood. —To be an individual is not yet to be oneself.

Every real thing in the world is an individual thing. But man is the only
creature whose mind is conscious of being a copy [of the divine] and thus
man alone can become himself. The will to be oneself signifies the will to
be this individual in his uniqueness and not another, to be true to one's own
God-created individuality and to accept it fully. Yet with this self-restriction
the individual who is in process of becoming himself comes closer to eternity.
Of all existent things man has the distinction of not merely being an
image, but also of knowing himself to be one. Because he knows this,
he can rise toward the original, can make the copy more real. His cognition
is participation in divine cognition and thereby rises above the abyss of
radical otherness. Because the original is infinity, the copy can be seen as
an infinite movement of the productive mind: because the copy knows that
it participates in the original, this movement is upward. The infinite is
present as the life of the finite.
c. The leap. — If man, whose thinking in the world is finite, does not lose
himself in forgetfulness of his situation, he has an ineradicable urge to
soar from the from the shifting soil of the finite to a firm
finite to the infinite,
support in the But the springboard for this leap is the world itself,
infinite.
and we do not gain elevation above the world by leaving it.

Cusanus' speculation elucidates this soaring movement. Through non-
knowledge it arrives at concepts which are unlike the concepts of finite
thinking.
The abyss of nonknowledge serves as a bridge and yet remains an abyss.
In the world all cognition is comparative. It takes us ever further, without
arriving at the infinite. We cannot attain to the infinite by moving closer. The
leap from the finite to the infinite can be effected only by the leap from
discursive thinking to intellectuaal thinking (from the ratio to the intel-
lectus). We swing ourselves over the abyss, and leave the whole realm of
the finite behind.
This, however, is not accomplished by extravagant imaginings, but by
thinking. Unlike discursive thinking, which tolerates no contradiction and
attempts to eliminate it by posing finite alternatives, intellectual thinking,
through the coincidentia oppositorum, grasps the infinite beyond the world
of objects.
In this darkness is born the light which now illuminates all finitude and
is the source of our true awareness of being. It discloses truth in the finite
itself. For not until the birth of this light is the finite recognized as such by
virtue of its reference to the infinite, which is unlike any finite relation.
In the finite we become conscious of the infinite, in relative being of absolute
being, in rational knowledge of the supra-rational presuppositions which
give meaning to finite knowledge.
Although between the infinite and the finite there obtains no relation
that would enable us to think the infinite (which would then become finite)
by relating it to the finite, the infinite can guide us. Freed from limitations,
it sets the standards of the finite.
d.Mans tas\. To strive toward becoming an ever closer image of God.—

Man is great by virtue of his task. By carrying it out he becomes himself.
But whatever he achieves for himself is given him by God. His task is to
become an increasingly closer copy of the original, though not to become
the original itself. Nor can the copy of the original achieve perfection in
the finite, in time. A man in process of becoming himself is exalted by
his sublime awareness of being attracted to the original God. mind of
All our intellectual thinking is tied to enigmatic images and metaphors;
but a perfect intellect would jump over the wall and contemplate the
eternal truth itself. These two themes are to be found in all Cusanus'
writings.
Cusanus calls perfect insight in contemplation filiatio, which is his
translation of the Greek term thedsis (De filiatione Dei). Once again the
twofold theme: True, eternal contemplation goes beyond every possible
contemplation in this world; but it is present in the believer as the ex-
perience of divine filiation.
The Platonic idea of participation and St. John's concept of divine filiation
seem to merge into one in Cusanus.
e. Man see\s God and God wants to be \nown. — Man is created in order
that he may seek God and find peace in this quest alone. Yet God is not to
be found in the world of the senses; discursive reason is too weak to know
God; our abstractions fail to arrive at any similarity to God. But if the
world of the senses and of discursive reason were of no use in the quest
for God, man would have been set down in the world in vain (De quaerendo
Deum).
What is the purpose of the world? Cusanus answers: God wants to be
known, to be seen in His omnipotence. Therefore simultaneously with
the world He created man, who comes to know the world and, through it,
God.
The world is the order of all existents, of every object of cognition,
from sensory knowledge to intellectual insight. The objects of the senses

are disclosed by their colors, thanks to light, by their sounds, odors, etc.
Man is cosmographer to whom messages are brought through
a sort of
gateways (the sense organs). From this image of the external
five different
world, which he creates, he rises above the various modes of knowing

objects to the contemplation of the Creator of the world, the objective cos-
mographer {Compendium, 8). Thus we obtain a ladder of spiritual ascent
from the senses and discursive reason to the intellect.
The unknown God attracts us to Himself. He can be known only when
He shows Himself. But He wants us to seek Him. To those who seek Him,
He gives the light without which they could not go on seeking. Man shuts
himself off from the truth so long as he holds true only that which he can
measure with discursive reason (De quaerendo Deum).
f. Metaphors for the ascent through thought. —Just as our body needs food,
so our spirit needs spiritual nourishment. Our intellect is on the "hunt
for wisdom," guided by an innate knowledge of what kind of nourish-
ment it needs. By means of our thinking we strike out in every direction
{De ven. sap., i).
in our search for immortal food
Our way is illustrated by a comparison with a game
erratic search for the
Cusanus invented, "the ball game" (which is the title of one of his works,
De ludo globi). It is played with a wooden ball with a spherical hollow
off center. When the ball is bowled, it does not, since one side is heavier
than the other, roll in a straight line, but takes a spiral path. The players
toss the ball over a surface divided into ten concentric circles. At the
center is the king —Christ. The winner is the player whose ball has touched
number of circles and comes closest to the center.
the greatest
Our mind has the nature of fire. God sent it into the world for the sole
purpose of burning, of becoming a flame. The flame increases when the
mind is kindled by wonder. The wonder we experience in contemplating
God's works is the wind that increases our longing by turning it into
love for the Creator and into contemplation of wisdom {De quaerendo
Deum).
Man's consummation in the world is the joy we experience through
our senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, through feeling, life,
and movement, and through the use of our discursive reason and our
intellect. Its culmination is an infinite, ineffable joy, in which all joy, all
delight come to rest {De quaerendo Deum).
g. To become Christ. —Magnificently as Cusanus points out the successive

philosophical stages along the path to selfhood, the crucial part of the
journey, the part on which everything depends, is not, in his view,
philosophical. Man cannot help himself, he must rely on God. Consequently,
the one thing that can help him is implicit trust in the promise of Christ.
Man "knocks at the door in fervent prayer, confident that he will not
be abandoned it only he continues without cease to enter into Christ"
{Dc possest).
Did we not believe in Christ as the Son of God, says Cusanus, we would
never follow His teaching as the teaching of the One true God. All the great
philosophers and sages were merely men, and "every man who is not God
may be a liar." We —
must therefore believe nothing can be more certain
that He is the Son of God. Therein lies our salvation (To Albergati, 37).
"No believer in Christ has ever been disappointed" (ibid., 54).
At the close of De docta ignorantia (III, 12) we read: "Nothing can
resist the man who enters into Christ, and nothing will be difficult for him,
neither the Scriptures nor this world, for he has been transformed into
Christ by the spirit of Christ that dwells in him, which is the goal of
intellectual yearning [intellectualium desideriorum\r
What is the meaning of "transformation into Christ"? What is the mean-
ing of "the spirit of Christ dwells in me"? Such questions cannot be
answered in other terms, but perhaps they can be elucidated indirectly.
We may call such expressions ciphers for the presence of the eternal
within me, for the experience of "absolute consciousness," manifesting itself
in empirical consciousness. But such paraphrases do not satisfy a believing
Christian.
To us the "Christian within me" signifies roughly a way of understanding
the eternal, not in the subjectivity of Existenz with the objectivity of ciphers,
but on the basis of an objective revelation. The physical presence of the
God-Man in time, the physical presence of the Church as the incarnation
of spirituality, sole authority for proclaiming the one absolute universal

truth — all this the nonbeliever would at least like to understand. No analogy
from our own experience can serve, but for centuries down to our own day
philosophical, or at least philosophically intelligible, accounts of such an
experience have been repeatedly put forward.
The Stoics tell us: My reason is identical with the reason of the universe,
my we have been told about the
logos with the cosmic logos. Since Plato
light"from above," the radiance of the Ideas and the Idea of Ideas. We are
told how our "knowledge participates in the creation." We are told about
being given to ourselves in love. We are told about the inner constitution
of Reason as the bond connecting the modes of the Encompassing, about the
Encompassing of all Encompassing as the presence of transcendence. The
difference between what is philosophically expressed in such formulations
and the thesis of belief in the God-Man which Cusanus puts forward with
such manifest fervor is this: My certainty that Christ is in me, based on the
belief that God revealed Himself in the man Jesus, is so absolute, so far-
reaching, so exclusive, and lays claim to a certainty so radically different in
origin, that all philosophical certainty seems to pale before it. But the con-
sequences of this belief often include a restriction of vision, an inhuman
intolerance. Even a man of Cusanus' stature did not wholly escape these
consequences (as we shall see in discussing the ideas advanced in De pace
fidei and elsewhere). And the Christian certainties have made possible a
kind of dishonesty unparalleled in history and disastrous to the entire Chris-
tian world. The remoteness of transcendence in spite of the nearness of
being-given-to-oneself excludes approximation to God and the possibility
of becoming godlike. Something far more difficult is required: the striving
to apprehend man's being in itself, to fulfill it, to advance in it without
knowing exactly what it is.
h. Comparison with Pico della Mirandola (7465-94). —Cusanus' extraor-

dinary self-confidence has little in common with the Renaissance conception
of the uomo singolare perfectly content with himself in his own uniqueness,
with his own greatness as exemplified in his finest achievements; it has just
as little in common with the conception of the uomo universale, who desires
to realize humanity in a superhuman way, to be and to know all things,

while remaining untrammeled by the ecclesiastic-political-social order.
Pico's Oratio de dignitate hominis (i486) provides an instructive contrast
to Cusanus' conception of man's task. The two are in agreement in respect
of the creativity of the human spiritand man's God-created freedom. Pico,
too, adhered to the ecclesiastical faith and was a friend of Savonarola. But
Pico's image of man is as follows:
Man is a great marvel, the most admirable thing on the vast stage of the
world. But though he is placed at the center of all creation, represented as
the bond between the world and the angels, as spiritually akin to the
supraterrestrial world, as the lord of all creatures, all this does not con-
stitute man's true greatness, which Pico finds in man's origin:
The world had been created in its magnificence, from the supraterrestrial
down to the material regions. All beings had been assigned their proper
places within the hierarchy. The world was complete. Then the Divine
Architect was moved by a desire to create a being capable of discovering
the laws of the cosmos, capable of loving its beauty and admiring its
grandeur. But to create such a being God had neither a worldlymodel nor
particular treasures at His disposal. Above all, there was no place left on
earth for him, who was to make the universe the object of his contemplation,
to live in. For all the places were taken.
Therefore God made man in His image and likeness, ordained that he
should possess the endowments that every individual calls his own, and said
to him: We have given you, Adam, no definite form, no special inheritance.

We have subjected all other creatures to specific laws. You alone are in no
wise restricted, but free to take whatever gifts you choose according to your
desire and judgment. I have placed you at the center of the world to enable
you to look around and see whatever you wish. You will be your own artisan
and sculptor and fashion yourself from the material that appeals to you. You
are free to degenerate to the basest animality or to rise to the highest spheres
of divinity. And after putting these words into the mouth of God, Pico
cries out jubilantly: What good fortune! Man can be what he desires. The
animals possess at birth all they will ever possess. The higher spirits are
from the first all they will be for eternity. In man alone God planted the
seed of every form of activity and the germs of every form of life. Who can
admire this capacity for
fail to change! It was for good reason that mankind
was symbolized by the figure of Proteus in the mysteries.
The Creation had been completed. Only then did God decide to do
something more than to create a world. Did He then proceed to create
something which, once created, would be removed from His control, namely,
freedom? Pico replies: It is a sign of His omnipotence that He was con-
fronted with a dilemma in creating the last living being a sign of His —
wisdom that He hesitated as to which gifts He should confer upon it—
sign of His love that He compelled Himself to endow that very being with
original sin from the outset.
Pico holds that man was not created according to a model; subject to no
standard, he is the inexhaustible possibility of freedom. He has unique
dignity, for thanks to God's creative will, man is entirely on his own. Pico
omits to tell us in what sense man is dependent on something other and
hence limited in his freedom, how he experiences the source of his freedom in
his very consciousness of freedom.
Though no less aware of the sublimity of man's task, Cusanus limits it
by what he interprets as man's imitative character. He never yields to the

temptation of asserting an absolute freedom, which would lead to boundless
corruption. Cusanus' conception of freedom as freedom of choice, a choice
to be oneself (eligere), is freedom to create oneself.
in Pico perverted into the
Both see man as insame time outside the world. In Pico, man
and at the
is not originally a part of a world complete in itself, but a later addition, set
down in a world that has no particular place for him. To Cusanus, man,
with his freedom and the possibilities it opens up, remains at a distance
from God as His image and likeness sheltered in the world by the Creator,
who also encompasses his freedom; for all the possibilities of his freedom,
man stands within the world. To Pico, he is opposed to the world as a
whole. He can make it an object of his cognition, but he can also shatter it.
Pico's conception strikes us as the aesthetic game of a recklessly self-

sufficient mind, but in actual fact his mind was bound to the rituals and
dogmas Church and was sustained by the promise of immortality.
of the
Cusanus* conception of man bespeaks the earnestness of a thinker whose
ventures are marked by humility. Pico seems to forget all about the Church
when he is writing, just as in his adherence to the Church he must have
forgotten what he had written. There is in Pico a recklessness that antici-
pates a number of later errors and superstitions. Cusanus is more temperate
his thinking is a painstaking development, he takes account of contradic-
2I 4 The Original Thinners
tions. He formulates speculative and existential ideas, the truth of which

remains open and which appeal to us even now.
We may ask today whether there is not a third possibility, a safer position
than either Cusanus' adherence to the Catholic Church or Pico's reckless
assertion of freedom as an absolute. May we not find strength in awareness
of the great destiny of freedom, in our progress toward the uncertain —
progress illumined by ambiguous ciphers—bound to time by our historicity
(without which freedom remains empty) and encompassed by transcendence?
II. PEACE
9
Fundamental reality of the Church. Cusanus thinking
in the Concordantia
The task of humanity community is to preserve the peace. Peace

living in
is the subject of Cusanus'first book, and it was the objective of his political
activity on behalf of the Church. If both Church and Empire were adequate
to the divine archetypes, peace internal and external would be achieved
through the unity of Church and Empire.
In Cusanus' day, the Church as an eternal reality was taken for granted
by Western man. The deeply religious Cusanus was no different. The Pope
might be held prisoner, priests and monks might be openly abused and held
in contempt, but nobody rejected the Church. Men could neither live nor
die without it. The widespread dissatisfaction was not with the Church as
such, but with its condition at the time. The corruption of the Church, the
need for reform, was the great political issue of the day.
Cusanus, who lived in God's unity whose image is the one world, shows
us how this illumines all present reality, even now giving us an intimation
of eternal peace. Peace through unity is the God-created reality. The only
way to restore it in the world is to make
image a better likeness of the
the
original. However muddled the relations of Church and Empire may be
in reality, they owe their existence to this harmony which resides in the
—
cosmos in individual man and in the order of Church and Empire.
Although the individual becomes himself only in confrontation with God,
he is not on his own, but a member of the entire community of mankind.
While the individual is himself through participating in the infinite, his
participation in the world makes him a member of a community in bond
with God; every individual is united with every other within the world.
The harmony of this world, which is an image of the divine original, is
all-embracing concord (concordantia catholica) and manifests itself as the
agreement of all men (consensus omnium).
Nothing in the universe is to be loved save as an aspect of the unity and
I
order of the universe. No man is to be loved save as an aspect of the unity and
order of human nature. Every love has its truth in love of the One God who
is absolute, infinite love and the source of all unity.
Peace unites because in it oppositions are stilled. Through peace all
things are linked with the center, so that the whole is preserved from disin-
tegration. Peace is the object of our longing, for without it nothing can
subsist. Only in peace can truth endure. All those who have written subtly
about truth have for this reason sought to present in a peaceful way the
truth contained in divergent opinions. The philosopher who is caught up
in opposites cannot see peace. Peace, the home of truth, cannot be attained by
discursive thinking; it can only be intuited above and beyond all opposites
(Exc, V, 4S7; ScharpfT, p. 532).
On the other hand: Although God is at peace with all men, not every
man is at peace with God. For by virtue of his freedom, man can not only
move closer to peace, but can also move away from it. He has only one
recourse: "We are born as the children of wrath, but through faith in Christ
we are reconciled with the author of peace." Hence Cusanus' certainty: "For
the peace of Christ all things have been prepared from the beginning, so
that there may be one world and in it the final goal of Christ."
1. De concordantia catholica
De concordantia catholica (1433) is Cusanus' first and longest book;

De docta ignorantia (1440) is his first comprehensive philosophical work.
Did some change take place between the writing of the one and the other ?
Not really. The fundamental idea of the coincidentia oppositorum methodi-
cally developed in De docta ignorantia probably occurred to him as a
sudden illumination, but his deeper fundamental attitude, part of which is
his thinking harmony, peace, as well as his method of symbolic

on unity,
interpretation of had remained unchanged.
all things,
In methodically surmounting the operations of discursive reason by
another kind of thinking, he attains new awareness, but not a new funda-
mental attitude. The new idea is anything but revolutionary. It merely
provides a deeper foundation for his original view of harmony.
De concordantia catholica argues the cause of Church reform and was
written for the Council of Basel. It is based on sources which Cusanus studied
in monastery libraries. He took for his model the Councils of the early
Church and the ideas of the Fathers. The juridical and political conceptions
and scholastic past are examined and co-ordinated. According
of the patristic
to Cusanus, the power of the Councils had been allowed to lapse, to the
detriment of the Church. The spirit of the enlightened ancients should be
revived. Cusanus' projects for reform, which he justified historically and
theoretically, are based on his insights into the origin, nature, and purpose of
both Church and Empire. He invokes no irrevocable authority, but rediscovers

in the thinking of the early Church Fathers his own answer to the problems
of a later day.
In De concordantia catholica he draws a picture of the ideal Christian
society, comprising both Church and Empire. Its unity derives from God,
who as Christ is its head. The Church is His representative on earth, the
Empire looks to Him as to a guide. The two institutions are of different
origin.
a. The supernatural origin of Church and State. —Because of its super-

natural origin, the existing community must be looked upon as a copy of the
original. The copy points to the original, expresses it symbolically. Because
the mind grasps this, it can continually improve the form of the copy.
In the copied reality of the world, unity lies in the concord {concordantia)
many.
of the It is unification with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit.
The Church is grounded in the Trinity, the sole source of Through
life.
faith and love all men are united with God. No man is grounded solely
upon himself.
The Church in its purity, as eternal order from the beginning of time
until the Resurrection of the Dead, is Christi ecclesia triumphans, but in
the world it is ecclesia militans. For as long as we live here below, there
must be a steady increase of faith and love. Every many must strive to
surpass the degree he has already achieved, knowing that there will be
no completion in time.
Among many vividly concrete metaphysical interpretations of the founda-
tion and early manifestations of theChurch, we shall mention only a few.
God, the and the saints in Paradise are the Church triumphant in
angels,
eternity. Within the Church in time, the sacraments correspond to God,
the priests to the angels, the people to the saints. Sacraments, priesthood,
and the body of the faithful are the principal elements of the Church
militant.
God alone knows the Christians united with Him through love. The
angels know those who are allied with God through faith. An act of
faith is like the striking of a chord which reverberates throughout the
heavenly kingdom. The angels perceive it the moment a believer touches
the chord.
b. The idea of unity. Pope and Council. —The main theme of the Council
of Basel was the relations between Papacy and Council. How can they work
together? Which should have precedence in the event of disagreement? From
what does each derive its legitimacy?
Fundamental and exceeding all else in importance is the idea of unity.
To Cusanus, the unity and harmony of all things are present everywhere
in the world. The unity of the Church is the unity of the faith. A difference
of views is justifiable, as long as it is not maintained with obstinacy. To

set line's own views above the welfare of the Church is to deny the pos-
sibility of unity.
Concord (concordantia) is a unification of differences. The less the
differences, the less will be the antagonism between them and the stronger
the concord. Here below there can be no perfect concord, although life
would be impossible without some measure of concord. Only in eternity,
where there are no oppositions, is perfect concord possible.

On the practical plane unity is the supreme consideration. It takes
precedence over everything else. It tips the scales in every difference of
opinion. Conversely, schism signifies absolute corruption. Which should
prevail in policy-making decisions, the Pope or the Council? Do the Pope's
orders have to be obeyed under all circumstances ? What appeal is there from
them? Does a Universal Council have the authority to enforce its decisions
against the Pope, and can a Council prevent him from dissolving it? Does
a majority decision in the Council represent the truth for all, even for
those who voted against it? Can a consensus be obtained in this way?
From whom does the authority of the Universal Council emanate? Can a
Council be summoned by high-ranking ecclesiastics, by the entire priest-
hood, by the body of the faithful? Since not all members of the Church
can attend, how should representatives be elected? Do all bishops auto-
matically have the right to sit as members of the Council, as true repre-
body of Christendom ? To all such questions Cusanus
sentatives of the entire
givesno final answers. Studying his statements, we find him giving clear
enough answers in one context, but contradicting them in another. On the
whole, we have the impression that he sees the problems as they really are
and formulates them clearly, but that his metaphysical interpretation ob-
scures his statements. The splendor of the supernatural is expected to
hold everything together, but as soon as practical issues arise, the splendor
is dimmed, if not extinguished. The following arguments are cases in
point. Unity, hence power, reside in the Church, but de facto supreme
authority resides either in the Pope or in the Council or in both. The
resolutions of the Council are absolutely
valid, but only if the Council
is really universal, approved by the entire body of Christendom (that is,
as I see it, never). The Pope's privileges, which had been defined by earlier
Councils, are inviolable —but only if the motives of the Pope who invokes
them are pure, untroubled by extraneous considerations (which, I believe,
can occur only in exceptional individuals and never completely). Council
and Pope should work together because both are rooted in and unified
by the Church —
but the resolutions passed by the Council become binding
only after the Pope has confirmed them.
The foregoing is not intended as an absolute condemnation of this
gigantic effort to establish peace and unity in theory as in practice. But it
does discredit this particular historical event as an expression of the absolute

2i The Original Thinners
truth. To be honest we must acknowledge that the world cannot be perfectly

organized. We are always on the way.
c. State and Empire. — Cusanus ascribes a separate origin to the secular power.
Side by side with the Church, we have the autonomous Empire. Sacerdotium
and imperium constitute a unity of different elements.
Just as the vicar of Christ takes Christ as his model, so the prince is to be
guided by Christ. His power has both a divine and a human origin.
It follows from the unity of mankind that there should be a single emperor
whose power surpasses that of all other princes. The emperor is the equal
of the Pope. In matters of government the emperor takes precedence; in
religious matters, the Pope. The latter 's claim to temporal power had been
based on the spurious Donation of Constantine. Imperial power, by its
very nature, is independent of the Church; it is dependent only on God.
d. Repraesentatio. —In the discussion concerning the respective roles of

the Pope, the Council, and the body of the faithful, one concept plays an
essential part
—"representation" (Kallen). In its practical application this
concept was a source of endless confusion.
In the first place, all things, qua finite copies, represent the infinite
original. In the second place, the forms of the Church and the Empire
represent the permanent spirit of these communities. In the third place,
elected members of the Council represent the limited number of those
entitled to vote, who in turn represent the entire body of the faithful.
The confusion of symbolic representation with actual representation
(in other words, of the expression of the spirit of a community with its
specific institutions) leads to obscurity and untruthfulness. Particular insti-
tutions are justified by ad hoc arguments.

How do the and political community, both
will of the universal religious
supposedly "copies" of the divine and the consensus omnium sup-
will,
posedly flowing from the divine spirit, become manifest? In practice, this
will is determined by advisory and executive bodies which are appointed
or elected. The characteristic of truth is unity, but here it becomes una-
nimity.
Cusanus reflected to an equal extent on the unifying spirit of the truth,
on the meaning of metaphysical repraesentatio, and on the technique of
elections. He desired institutions whose actual power would be legitimate
in a technical-juridical sense and sanctioned supernaturally. Such con-
gruence of secular and spiritual power cannot be realized in practice, ex-
cept at unusual, unpredictable, and short-lived moments when a whole
community acts unanimously.
e. The method of symbolic interpretation. — Cusanus' method of symbolic

interpretation employed for the purpose of justifying practical demands
strikes us as very strange today. To us, it seems that interpretation of
this type can be varied almost at will. This lies in the very nature of symbolic
interpretation. It embraces opposite* and shifts the emphasis as needed
within one and the same over-all view. The dangers that result are two-
fold. First: When such a method is employed to justify practical measures,
it leads to contradictions which encourage real or seeming opportunism.

Second: Through rationalization, the interpretations degenerate into sche-
matic thinking and playing with words. In either case, the symbolic truth
of the ciphers, the language that motivates the earnestness of action, is
lost. Symbolic thinking remains true only so long as it remains in suspense,

confines itself to creating a background, leaves room for the communal
spirit to make itself felt and communicable. To use it for rational arguments
on behalf of practical ends is to abuse it.
Because language can elucidate meanings, it can communicate truths

for which there are no rational criteria. Truth is tested rather by the emo-
tional effectiveness of the language, by its consequences in the conduct of
life.
Cusanus has full mastery over symbolic thinking. It gives spiritual force
to his ideas. Perhaps it is in his conception of the imitative, reflected,
metaphorical being of all finite things that his symbolic thinking achieves
its greatest clarity. Everything that is, everything that is thinkable, every-
thing that is to be done, he envisages in terms of metaphysical "meaning."
As we put it : he reads the ciphers. Yet, for all the magnificence of his images,
the fact that in his arguments and justifications he, like so many others
throughout history, mistakes this meaning for reality itself leads him time
and again to practical-existential confusion.
The metaphysical images, the juridical forms and arguments, the real
decisions are interrelated. Traditional faith, rational form, practical interest
support and combat one another. Any one of the three may prevail for a
time. On the plane of language they slip and slide into one another. In
concrete situations, the real will can be obscured by metaphysical ideas and
beguiled into surrendering to brute force. Conversely, practical interests
can make use of metaphysical ideas in the actual struggle, deceiving the
adversary without gaining the commitment of those who proffer them.
The power of the practical interests is veiled. Multiple interpretations on
the merely rational plane do not make for clarity. Because of their very
depth, metaphysical ciphers, unless their methodological character is clearly
recognized, can becloud vision and obscure the real powers at work.
Metaphysical interpretations cannot serve as arguments for a worldly
goal save by deceiving. No specific course of action can be adequately based
on them; their real function is to elucidate one's own faith. Universally
valid justifications in theworld cannot be based on historically documented
contracts, unless the principle that contracts are binding is accepted. Noth-
ing can be justified as a means to an end unless the end is recognized as
such, in terms rationally defined, by all the parties concerned.
Characteristic of this bewildering confusion is the double meaning of
repraesentatio —metaphysically, image of the one whole; juridically, repre-

sentation by election or appointment. The proposition, concilium reprae-
sentat ecclesiam, tends to imply the idea of juridical representation. The
proposition papa repraesentat ecclesiam is more metaphysical, denoting the
symbolic incarnation of the corpus mysticum ecclesiae in one person, who
is primarily the representative of Christ on earth and only secondarily the
representative of the historical Church. Conflict arose between the two
propositions as a result of the opposition between the conciliar and the
papal movements. At the time, the papal party was victorious, but the
victory reflected only the actual balance of power. It had nothing to do with
the validity of the arguments used by either party.
Cusanus' ideas have to be grasped within the framework of his encompass-
ing interpretative thinking. To isolate any one of them is to do him an
injustice. He did not foreshadow the absolutist state, the absolutist Triden-
tine Church of the modern era, or the parliamentary constitutional state.
Cusanus advocated neither absolutism nor popular sovereignty. Rather, he
had both in view as articulated within his over-all conception of the political
order.
f. —
Comparison with Dante. Cusanus' purpose is to encourage reform in
the Church and the Empire; his philosophical thinking is intended to
assist in this task. When we compare him with Dante, we see how very
modest a role he assigned to philosophy as such.

Both conceive the unity of the world order in two forms: Church and
Empire, Pope and Emperor; the two forms are related by virtue of a higher
unity. The unity of mankind is the guiding idea of both Dante's De
monarchia and Cusanus' De concordantia catholica.
The picture painted by Dante is clear, simple, and beautiful. Cusanus
not infrequently seems to lose his way in his tremendous subject. Dante's
exposition is and moves rapidly from point to point. Cusanus is
concise
forever running off into digressionsand side issues.
Dante's picture has monumental beauty. There is a certain beauty in
Cusanus' ideas, images, and metaphors, but the work as a whole is formless.
The unity of Dante's work, though rationally constructed, is enchanting.
The unity of Cusanus' work, though less pure in its logic and its images,
is intellectually convincing. Dante's unity is charged with tension; it calls
for heroes and saints. Cusanus' unity appears as a temperate harmony of

balanced forces.
Philosophically speaking, the great difference between the two is this:
Cusanus speaks as an ecclesiastic, Dante as a layman. Dante was in reality
the great layman of whom Cusanus merely talked. In both, philosophy
achieves autonomy. But Cusanus raises no claim to independence for his
philosophy, while in Dante the autonomy is explicit and takes a highly
questionable form.
In Dante, philosophy appears as a third power, superior to Emperor

and Pope alike, but not yet embodied in human institutions. By virtue of
their offices, the Emperor and
Pope head the orders of the world.
the
Above them, but without official status, stands the individual man, any
man or every man, in whom we glimpse the archetypal man. Philosophy
is always a given philosopher, never an impersonal authority.
It would be a mistake to identify this third power with studium in
accordance with the medieval classification "sacerdotium, imperium, stu-

dium" having their summit in Italy (Rome), Germany, and France (Paris),
and thus to rank studium above sacerdotium and imperium. For this
studium is a theological discipline, and thus remains within the province
of the Church. Dante's philosophy, though permeated with studium as it
is with his experience of Church and Empire, is autonomous and lays
claim to an authority superior to both Church and Empire. The enormity

of this claim prevented Dante from saying directly where he stood. He
concealed his real position in allusions. Although he manages to convey
what he really thought, he nowhere states explicitly that he lays claim to
an authority superior to Church and Empire a claim that would be —
extravagant for any human being. How, indeed, could he have designated
himself as the man to whom he refers as the veltrol # (Olschki). He plainly
describes himself as a poet, a teacher, not as a superhuman individual en-
dowed with authority over other men. Nevertheless, in respect of the great
cause of truth, justice, and freedom, which can be realized only by persons,
he staked out such a claim for the great philosopher, whom he identified
with himself, not explicitly, but in effect.
Plato said: the Good will never attain to reality until the philosophers
have become rulers or the rulers philosophers. Dante aspires —though not
explicitly —to rule the world without holding office, through the authority
of his counsel, by virtue of his intellectual superiority, his earnestness,
and his poetic power. Neither Plato nor Dante envisaged the solution
which to Kant seemed the only practical one: a form of government which
Kant called "republican" (because it realizes political freedom in the public
interest res publica —
as the foundation on which everything else rests),
which leaves suprapersonal authority to be achieved by thinking persons

debating issues with one another. Such an authority embodies the public
spirit; the rulers are influenced by it because it has educated them to be what
they are, and the people regard it as their own authority though it has no
official status. Because it does not lay claim to official powers, because it
represents the spirit itself, because it is embodied in individual personalities

rather than in collective bodies, it effectively influences education, manners,
and customs, and provides guidance for rulers and professional men. What
appears as superhuman in a single individual's irrational claims and leads
•Translator's Note: The symbolic Greyhound (Deliverer of Italy?) mentioned in Inferno, Canto
I, line 100.
to violence and despotism, can be humanized only through full and open
discussion of differences. This is merely to recognize that we are never
whole and entire.
in possession of the truth
Dante was under the delusion that his towering artistic and intellectual
gifts placed him so far above his contemporaries that by his own strength he
could achieve what is actually possible for finite men only through a process
of communication and recognition of differences by responsible citizens,

a process by which they make themselves capable of a public exercise of
authority. Dante demanded too much, and on the whole his example proved
to be disastrous. Nicholas of Cusa, on the other hand, demanded too little.
Essentially he did not adopt the role of the autonomous philosopher, though
he helped to pave the way for independent philosophy.
2. De pace fidei
The conciliar struggle provided the occasion for De concordantia catholica

with its program of reforms; the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks
(1453) provided the occasion for De pace fidei. In both cases the main
idea is the will to peace and unity.
Cusanus starts from the mistaken assumption that the conflict with the
Turks was a religious war which could be stopped if only there were
agreement on religious matters. He did not see that Islam was a religion
of warriors interested in dominating the world and only incidentally in
converting it. Religious constraint, which Cusanus rightly regarded as
hideous and inhuman but falsely ascribed to the Turks, had in fact been a
specific feature of Christianity whenever the Church had had the necessary
power. In his old age even Augustine, breaking with all his earlier thinking,
wished to force men to believe.
De pace fidei is a Utopia in the form of a conversation in Heaven around
the throne of God. Whether a letter subsequently addressed by Pius II
to the Sultan was inspired by Cusanus' work is as uncertain as whether the

letter ever reached the Sultan. The speakers are God, the Logos, Peter,
Paul, and representatives of seventeen nations —a Greek, an Italian, an
Arab, a Hindu, a Chaldaean, a Jew, a Scythian, a Frenchman, a Persian,
Turk, a German, a Tartar, an Armenian, a Bohemian,
a Syrian, a Spaniard, a
and an Englishman. The substance of the conversation is familiar to us
from Cusanus' other writings. No attempt is made to describe the doctrines
of the other great religions.
war between religious faiths, an archangel
In the face of the terrible evil of
begs God emerge from His concealment. Then swords will be idle.
to
All mankind will become aware that for all the variety of rituals, there is
only one religion {una religio in rituum varietate).
God replies, however, that He has left man free and by this freedom
created him capable of human society. Because earthly man was held in
J
God sent down the prophets and finally

ignorance by the prince of darkness,
the Logos, Christ, through whom He had created the world. Their mission
was to show mankind how to find for themselves the immortal food of
truth.
Now same who had begged God to come out of His
the archangel, the
concealment, replies that the Logos is bound by God's decision: man has
to find the truth by exercising choice upon which his freedom of will
depends. But man's situation is this: Since nothing in the world of the
senses is permanent, since views and conjectures, like languages and inter-
pretations, change according to circumstances, human nature requires
frequent re-examination of the essentials. Only thus are errors dissipated and
the truth enabled to shine through enduringly.
How is this to be accomplished? Since there is only one truth and since
every free will can apprehend it, it would be expedient to reduce all different
religions to the one true faith. Strange! No sooner has Cusanus opened
the door to the possibility of man's constantly testing himself, striving in
freedom for the truth, than he shuts it again by invoking the one truth,
which the free will must recognize as one and indivisible.
Cusanus does not condemn the existing diversity of religious faiths.
According to his context, he notes several reasons for it. Diversity is
required by the sheer richness of the manifestations of the One. Earlier,

in De coniecturis (III, 15) we read: The unity of intellectual religion is
received in different aspects of otherness (in varia igitur alternate unitas

intellectualis illius religionis recipitur). Let the nations retain their various
ceremonies and exercises in piety. Competition between nations to surpass
one another in the splendor of their worship may even contribute to the
growth of reverence for religion. The diversity of rites should be tolerated
in view of mankind's weakness, so long as they are not offensive to the god-
head. The main point is the thesis to which all the speakers subscribe:
Differences between religions are purely a matter of usage. Common to all
is worship of the one true God. However, the common people, led astray
by the prince of darkness, have not always understood the meaning of

own actions.
their
The work concludes with the statement that "A general agreement
among religions in keeping with these reasonable considerations was decreed
in Heaven." God orders the sages to lead their respective nations to join
together in knowledge of the true God. They are to be invested with full
powers and to meet in Jerusalem, the center of the world, to accept one
faith in the name of all, and on this basis to conclude a perpetual peace.
3. Faith and communication
It is often thought that once an event has been understood "historically,"

it has thereby been justified. But man is forever confronted by a task that
goes beyond his historical circumstances. Thus we shall take no account of

so-called "historical necessity" in considering the meaning of Cusanus'
will to peace.
a. Speculative thin\ing, fanaticism, communication, loving struggle. —Tak-

ing as his premise a metaphysically grounded unity, Cusanus sets out both
to define and to bring about union in the world, that is, to achieve peace.
He on the power of speculative thinking, which transcends discursive
relies
reason. His adversaries are all fanatics (whether Christian or non-Chris-

tian); they assume in others a hostility to God, which they regard as a
challenge. Fanatics always try to compel their adversaries to embrace the
true faith and, when this fails, to destroy them.
Cusanus agrees with the fanatics, however, that there is only one true
religion. Like the fanatics, he overlooks the only way in which men can
achieve peace and unity. The one truth cannot be the possession of any one
individual, community, or Church, an absolute possessing objective validity
for every thinking mind. Communication among men is the only medium
in which different faiths and ways of life can meet; because these are in-
compatible, they cannot exist simultaneously in any one man, but they can
look upon one another with sympathetic interest once it is assumed that
all contain truth as a possibility. Where no faith raises a claim to exclusivity,
men, though engaged in loving struggle, will be able to live in peace with
one another. For all the disparity of their ways of life, they will try to
understand each other and learn to love one another. Disparity among
faiths and ways of life does not preclude peace, for peace requires only one
resolution: never to resort to violence in the name of religion, never to
subordinate religious belief to practical interests.
In the temporal world, my ultimate duty is communication
to enter into
with other men, never claiming to know what I myself am
definitively
or what the other is. In perceiving the transcendent meaning of the ciphers,
we can never attain universal validity. Transcendence is accessible to us
only through the reading of ciphers, but the meaning we derive is never
without ambiguity. All we know is what others say and what we ourselves
say, and in neither case can we be sure of understanding correctly. For the
speaker can misunderstand himself in the very act of expression. He comes
closer to himself through a process of understanding that never ceases to
test itself, he deepens his understanding by asking questions —whether to
defend himself against adversaries suspected of hostility to the truth or for
motives arising out of concrete situations. Only in this way can we learn
to know ourselves in the face of the transcendent which is hidden and
becomes clearer only in the experience of the ciphers. We live with one
another as companions in the journey of human fate.
In matters of practical life, agreement is achieved by compromise on the

basis of rational considerations. For practical problems are not absolute,
but finite; they can be taken one by one, and in solving them we may be
guided by what is merely expedient. However, the will to peace as such has
a metaphysical source: although it leaves room for reasonable settlements
of practical problems, it has an absolute character. Only this metaphysically

grounded will to peace separates honest readiness to compromise from dis-
honest opportunism.
This distinction between questions of faith and practical problems is
presupposed when an agreement concerning external matters involves a

spiritual struggle to establish communication between irreconcilable faiths.
Even on where the adversaries are furthest apart, they try to establish
points
contact, recognizing that their will to peace offers a common ground despite
the diversity of its manifestations. Such contact does not of itself bring
about unity, but is oriented toward the One, which neither party possesses
exclusively. In such contacts the solidarity of common action in the empir-
ical world is less important than the possibility that even radically different
faiths have a common source. When this possibility is kept in mind, the
deeper unity between man and man can be respected despite practical
differences of opinion. Then the contending parties act "chivalrously."
The Must the plurality of faiths, ways of life, attitudes to
question is:
life, and metaphysical modes of existential awareness lead necessarily to
contention on the empirical plane? At just what point are spiritual attitudes
What kind of faith is needed to link all
perverted into practical claims?
men and to keep practical problems clearly separated from questions of
faith? What faith— or what element present in every variety of faith—must
be common to all men if mankind is to be united in peace ?
This element is faith in freedom, faith rooted in freedom. This is the
only faith that gives rise to demands for freedom
and political
at the social
levels. I shall not deal here with the idea of how political freedom reflects
man's will to secure the conditions of human fulfillment. Within the

framework of political freedom, the freedom which itself creates this
framework leads to loving struggle between rival faiths. On the empirical
plane, rivalry may stoop to methods dictated by discursive reason or the
passions, it may induce hatred and culminate in violence. Only faith in
freedom can persuade men to distinguish practical problems from questions
of faith. Such faith is not grounded in politics, but is itself the ground of
politics, that is to say, of all politics deserving of the name a politics aimed —
unconditionally at freedom, unity, and peace in empirical existence. Only
when these ultimate objectives have been achieved will man be able to
realize his potentialities and experience the full grandeur of his destiny.
b. The individual and the historical. — Cusanus' conception of individuals,

each unique and irreplaceable, enjoying his own
and wishing to
life as it is
be no other, rests on the following assumption. Since, by the nature of the

divine creation, each individual is content with himself, while admiring
those who are more accomplished or more outstanding, unity and peace
prevail without ill-will. But he adds directly: "In so far as this is possible."
For although peace is the power that makes possible the life of all men, it
is disturbed by the disparities prevailing in this world of mere images

(De doc. ignor., Ill, i).
Although Cusanus recognizes the diversity of substantial individual
existence, he rejects the idea of a plurality of substantial faiths. There can
be only one faith, the one true faith. But many religions and conflicting
revelations divide mankind. Dismayed by this fact, Cusanus distinguishes
religious rites — infinitely various —
from faith itself, which can only be one.
He strives vainly to make all men realize that they are actually living in
one and the same faith; at the same time he acknowledges their right on
the empirical plane to unfold the richness of the one faith in a variety of
rites and customs.
No clear line drawn, however, between the permissible diversity of
is
religious customs and the true faith which is supposed to be the same for
all. This lack of clarity is not accidental. Human faith discloses an original
substantial diversity such that unification is impossible at the deepest level.
What limits Cusanus' perspective is his certainty that the Christian faith
is absolutely true, a certainty that excludes the other truth and seeks to
impose on all men its own unacknowledged limitations.
Cusanus does not distinguish between the diversity of individuals and
the plurality of the historical forms of selfhood. He gives magnificent
expression to the all-important philosophical idea of unity, but he weakens
it by positing a particular historicity as universal, thereby going counter
to his own will to peace.
c. The metaphysical awareness of being and action. — Because Cusanus

considers the problems he deals with in their metaphysical ground, he
gains an exceptionally wide horizon in which he considers particular
instances. Since this horizon transcends the concrete, temporal issues, he
has room for contradictory practical decisions and is able to cope with new
situations.
This is why the impact of a particular situation never determines his
deliberations (not even when, in behalf of Pope Eugenius IV, he tried to
dissuade the Germans from their attitude of neutrality). The historically
unconditional stand of the great statesman was utterly alien to him. So long
as peace has not been achieved, a statesman, as a man in the world, must
confront other men in the struggle for survival, championing his own
community as one power against other powers. Precisely because he is
caught up in such struggles, he can take an unconditional stand only on

historically limited truths.
The divine truth is eternal. Attempts to ascertain it in terms of tran-
scendence lift us out of the world (at the peril of our lives) and we are in
effect cut off from the world even when we look back upon it from on high.
For then we see the world as a marvelously transparent metaphor or

allegory. When we follow this path, we do not attain the truth we are
capable oi attaining, for truth exists only as we create it by our actions in
the world. Because the finite is never more than an inadequate image of
the original, man must improve the world by championing the cause of
finite truth in real situations. But this is an endless task which cannot be
laid out in advance in any program or determined by any rules. It can
only be carried out in history.
d. The spirit of a whole. —Nicholas of Cusa has a highly developed sense

of "the spirit" of a whole —that to is say, of the Encompassing which holds —
a community together and sustains it through all dissensions, the common,
life-giving element which is as natural to the community as the air it
breathes. But to Cusanus himself this spirit is so self-evident that we cannot
go along with him without certain reservations.
Sheltered in such a spirit and relying on it unconsciously, we can feel
its presence, or —
this possibility could not have occurred to Cusanus we —
can remain unsheltered, perpetual refugees in the world, when the world
becomes a dispersed congeries of rationality, technology, and violence, lost
in self-destruction.
If, however, we conjure up such a spirit in order to share in it more
lucidly and more fully, and on this basis address men
companions as our
in fate, we shall conceive of it as a kind of substance that contains and
sustains everything. Cusanus' philosophy may be regarded as just such a
conjuring up of the spirit incarnated in the world, on the strength of which
he means to live along with all others.
But when we try to understand this "spirit" or even to survey the variety
of "spirits" that have lived in the course of the centuries, we apprehend
none of them as a whole. Each comes to us in an image, and this image
is not unitary. The understanding apprehension of a "spirit" is achieved,
rather, through an unlimited plurality of ideal types, constructions of
meaningful relationships which more or less reflect the historical reality
of a spirit. The more consistent our constructions, the more instructive
they are, but also the falser they are if we mistake them for reality itself.
The endless historical reality of a spirit is always more or less than such
ideal types disclose. They enable us to see the spirit of a whole as the result
of countless factors produced and handed down in the medium of education,
language, forms of social life, These produce
patterns of conduct, ideas.
the "spirit" of a historical epoch, and within it great men produce the
supratemporal in works and actions that break through the spirit of an
age or a community.
e. The modes of "tolerance" Vilification of Saracens and Jews. To Cusanus —

"tolerance" signifies willingness to put up with foreign customs and even
to approve of them, provided the inner faith is the one truth of Christian
revelation. Actually, this is not tolerance at all, for it presupposes that

the adversary shares the same "self-evident" faith. Cusanus' tolerance is
neither an indifference toward the other (as in the shallow variety of
rationalism) nor freedom to see the originally alien in the depths of the
other's faith, to respect it as such, and to be moved by it (as in genuine
tolerance). Rather, it is an unconscious intolerance; Cusanus* own Christian
faith remains for him the only true faith, absolutely valid for all men
everywhere. Cusanus either rediscovers his own faith in the outwardly
alien manifestations of the other's faith or sees this other faith as the work
of the Devil.
Because Cusanus believes that no religion can lead to peace unless
grounded in faith in the —
God-Man who is the Word, the Light, and the
Life (John) —he can make statements which in fact exclude peace. He
speaks of the "superstitious aberration {absona credulitas) of the Saracens,
who deny the godhead of Without reason they persecute the Cross,
Christ.
they are blinded (obcaecati). The Jews
are afflicted with the same diabolical
blindness (eadem diabolica caecitate), for they, too, deny the godhead of
Christ" (De doc. ignor., Ill, 8). Can such a scorn be so inherent in the
Christian faith that even in a man like Cusanus, whose will to peace was
a basic motive of all his thought, it must raise its ugly head? When I read
such passages in Cusanus, I am amazed, shaken with indignation, and I
think of the Gospel according to St. John in which the author has Christ
(who is not the historical Jesus) say to the Jews: Ye are of your father
the devil (John 8, 44).
Part Five: Political Action and the Conduct of Life
Did Cusanus' theories spring from his experience of life, and if so, did they
in turn influence it? At what points was there agreement, and at what
points not?
We whether he lived in accordance with his beliefs. His
are not asking
reflectionswere not such as to provide practical prescriptions for man's
conduct (nor does any real philosophy). What we are asking, rather, is in
what way his philosophical thinking affected his fundamental attitudes
toward life. Were his pious speculations matched by equal piety in his
practical activities ?
Did a specific practice of life attain self-understanding in this philosophy?
Did his philosophy help him to achieve self-certainty in respect of his
political activity, for example? To what extent did his life motivate and
I
N 1CH0LAS OF CU S A 229
reflect his philosophy? Did his philosophical composure remain unshaken

throughout the vicissitudes of life?
Reality shattered nearly all his deeper convictions and practical aspirations.
Did his vision of Being turn out to be an illusion for not having withstood
the test of practice? Was he unable to immerse himself in his historical
tasks because he clung so fervently to the promise of eternal bliss held
out by Christian revelation ?
In the last analysis, such questions cannot be answered. All we can
attempt here is to look at the factual data in relation to which such questions
arise.
1. The Council of Basel
Sent to the Council of Basel by Count von Manderscheid to press the

Count's claims to the bishopric of Trier, Cusanus became a leader at the
Council after presenting his great work, De concordantia catholica (1433).
At that time he was a supporter, along with the best among those present,
of the conciliar party, which advocated reform and opposed the Pope. The
Council seemed to be united in its views and was at first victorious over
the Pope.
But the was modified by the prospect of another Council,
situation
summoned by Pope to discuss a union between the Latin and the Greek
the
Church, and by dissensions arising within the Council of Basel, which
Eugenius IV shrewdly exploited. In the course of a crucial session on
May 7, 1437, the split within the Council burst into the open. Cusanus now
voted with the papal minority. The supporter of the Council had become
a supporter of the Pope. His defection was interpreted by many as a
betrayal, and his political attitude has remained a subject of discussion
to this day.
Cusanus left Basel with the minority on May 20, 1437. As minority spokes-
man he accompanied the papal envoys on a journey to Constantinople to
lay the groundwork for the Council which was to promote unity between
the Latin and Greek branches of Christianity.
Meanwhile the conciliar idea lived on. The German princes took a
neutral attitude. In the prime of life, Cusanus devoted himself to the
cause of Eugenius IV, expending inexhaustible energy, his superior intel-
lect, and uncommon eloquence in an effort to win over the princes to the
Pope. This he did on repeated occasions: in 1438, at the Imperial Diet

in Nuremberg; in 1439 at the Diet of Electors in Mainz; in 1440 and 1442
at the Imperial Diet in Frankfurt; in 1443 again in Nuremberg, and in 1447
at the Diet of Princes in Aschaffenburg. Piccolomini, his humanist friend,

later Pope Pius II, at this time still a partisan of the Council, called him
Hercules Eugenianorum.
In a letter to Cesarini (Posch, p. 169) Cusanus says that on one occasion

he spoke in a "a strong virile voice" from seven to eleven very effectively,
as he hoped, and that he feared danger to his person. The upshot of all
this activity was the concordat of 1447-48, a victory for Cusanus. The
Germans declared their obedience to the Pope. The Council of Basel
had disbanded in 1443.
Why had Cusanus defected from the conciliar party? The determining
factor was the threat of a new schism. In reality the Pope alone could
preserve the unity of the Church. The Council had failed. The consensus
omnium had given way to endless quarreling and sanctimonious faction-
alism. The Holy Spirit no longer seemed to be guiding the proceedings.
The authority of the Council to represent the entire Church had declined.
It no longer had any real power, although it continued to promulgate
decrees. At the time when Piccolomini was still undecided and wrote "There
was no Christian there who did not weep, the Holy Spirit could not have been
among us," and "God sees where the truth lies, I do not," Cusanus had
already made up his mind.
The unity of the Church was the all-important consideration. Unity could
not survive unless backed up by power. As a mere article of faith, a mere
opinion, it was meaningless. If there was power anywhere now, it was not
with the Council but with the Pope, however objectionable his personal
character may have been. To work for unity does not mean to believe in
it and do nothing. It has to be fought for in the real world, with the world's
own methods, that is, politically. Cusanus did just that. His actions were
widely interpreted as a betrayal of his ideal conception of the Church,
but in shifting his position on this particular question he remained faithful
to his primary objective of unity. As he saw it, this now required a new
orientation on the plane of reality.
There is no doubt that he made a political volte-face. Did he at the

same time change his opinions and formulations? There is no doubt on
this point either. Many of his statements seem to reflect some fundamental
change in his interpretation of the respective roles of Pope and Council.

Closer scrutiny, however, shows that statements about the role of the Pope
in his first pro-Council work foreshadow his later thinking —for even then
he had expressed himself in favor of the Pope. Nor did he subsequently
abandon altogether his views as to the ideal role of the Council. But an
unchanging belief in the absolute importance of Church unity guided his
interpretations of the realities of the day, which are reflected in statements
that vary to the point of being contradictory. Though his justifications are
of great philosophical interest, they are anything but easy to grasp.
a. His arguments: (1) Is the Pope above the Council or is the Council
above the Pope? —The question presupposes unanimity regarding Church
organization. In the discussions of that time no one contested the principle
of the One Church, unique and infallible, not to mention the theological
status of God or Christ or the Gospels, or the dogma of the Church as the
mystic body of Christ.
Both Pope and Council possess their high and inviolable significance.
Both are in their temporal reality represented by persons whose "spirit"
must have qualities that meet the requirements of the institution.
The Pope must not fail to carry out his duties as Vicar of Christ, as
interpreted by the decisions of his predecessors and the early Church
councils whose decrees are binding upon him. The councils, under the
guidance of the Holy Spirit, must express unanimously the inner disposi-
tions of their members, and their decrees, moreover, must be universal,
must represent the entire Church.
But what is to be done when one of the two chief authorities —or the men
who embody authority — fails to act in accordance with the principles
stated above? Can Pope? Can the Pope dissolve
the Council depose the
the Council? Who is which of them is right? There exists no
to decide
authority superior to both, no supreme court of judgment, to which
appeal can be made in the case of conflict between Pope and Council.
The idea of the One Church, in which Pope and Council are interrelated
parts of a single whole, loses its force when a state of corruption prevails
in the body of the Church. In the event of conflict a judge is needed to
settle it. But his verdict can be enforced only if Pope or Council is clearly
recognized as superior, and by all concerned, or at least by a majority.

But this is a merely juridical and political solution; it is not a matter of
faith. What actually takes place in the event of such conflict becomes a
question of power and political adroitness; which party will gain the sup-
port of princes and governments? The weaker "the spirit," the more
decisive becomes the role of brute force. And this is what happened at that
time.
—
(2) The contradictory formulations. From the outset Cusanus looked
upon Pope and Council as the highest authority within the One Church.
He regarded them as equally indispensable. But faced with actual situations,
he arrived at contradictory formulations.
At first he wrote that the Church is more certainly and infallibly

represented by the Council than by the Pope alone (De cone, cath., II, 18;
Basel edition, p. 687). As the presiding member, Cusanus says, the Pope
is part of the Council, and since the whole is superior to its parts, the
authority of the Council is superior to that of the Pope. He salutes the
Council of Basel with these words: "Oh, that in spite of everything God
may have gathered His elect in this holy Council and revealed His glorious
Coming in these troubled times" (Jaeger, I, 22).
Later, however, he asserts the superior authority of the Pope, though by
no means recognizing his absolute autocracy. The Pope is limited by the
rulings of his predecessors, by the canons of the Church, by his status as
the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy (Posch, 165 ff., report on the letter
to Rodrigo Sanchez, May 20, 1442). Such limitations, however, merely

describe what is imposed by
valid in principle; they could not legally be
any other authority, not even by a council. This same letter is why in the
Cusanus declares that the Pope is completely free. He depends on no
one, no one can pass judgment on him. Because the Council of Basel had
done just that, he called its action dreadful sacrilege, vain presumptuous-
ness, rebellion against the Apostle (horridum nefas, vanissima ambitio,
apostolica rebellio) .
The most significant statements are quoted by Posch from the records
of the imperial diets. Cusanus now grants the Pope constitutional rights
he had formerly denied him, and develops this new idea in great detail.
The Pope, for example, has the right to grant prebends (that is, he is not
bound to respect the choice of the local chapters). And a council represent-
ing all of Christendom save the Pope would not be a council.
But this is the crucial point: The question of how the Church is to
proceed against a bad Pope should not even be discussed; to do so would
be disrespectful and unedifying. At a diet in Frankfurt he said: "The
Council can do nothing about a fallible Pope" (Posch, 170). He does not
deny that the Pope, like any other man, may be fallible (deviabilis), but
"We are to asume that he is less fallible than other men" (Kallen, 81).
The Pope holds his powers directly from Christ, whereas the powers of
the Council derive from the Pope. The Council without the Pope is like a
tree without leaves. It would be absurd to maintain that the power of
individual leaders in the Church can equal that of the Supreme Pontiff.
He rules absolutely. To argue that he both rules and obeys would be
absurd. Within the Church each separate authority is valid only when it is
subordinated to the single supreme authority.
(3) An example: the argument involving the role of Peter. No man —
who does not worship at the throne of Peter is a believer; such a man
stands outside the unity of the Church (De cone, cath., I, 14; Basel edition,
p. 685). There is only one cathedra of St. Peter. All of St. Peter's successors
to the throne have the same rights as he. Just as Peter was prince among
the Apostles, so the Bishop of Rome is prince among the bishops (De cone,
cath., 1, 15).
Yet, in another passage of the same work, these emphatic statements on
the position of the Pope are seemingly retracted by a number of finely drawn
symbolic distinctions concerning the role of St. Peter. Their eflect is to
limit the extent of papal power. The rock of the Church is Christ. Just as
Christ is the truth and the rock (petra) is a figure or symbol (figura sive
significatio) of Christ, so the Church is the rock of Christ and Peter is a
figure or symbol of the Church. Or again: Just as Christ is the truth and
the rock His figure and symbol, so the rock of the Church is the truth
and Peter is a figure and symbol of the truth. This shows clearly that
the Church is above Peter, just as Christ is above the Church (De cone.
cath.. II, 18; Basel edition, 739).
(4) Argument based on changing historical conditions within the

Church. — What
was true of Church government when the Church was
being founded is no longer true of the Church in its present form. Since
then there has developed a specific hierarchical order allowing for degrees
of power. Furthermore: what was true for such an emergency as a schism
within the Church is no longer true for a period of unity, when the Pope
enjoys universal recognition but is threatened with a new schism. Thus,
many of the decrees promulgated by the Council of Constance were
emergency measures and as such appropriate only for the duration of the
schism. For at that time, beyond any doubt, there was no legitimate Pope
able to dissolve the Council. Now that there is such a Pope, the Basel
Fathers insult the Council of Constance when they invoke the earlier body
as a precedent (Posch, 170).
(5) Free elections and the majority. —A universal council can be con-
vened only through elections. All lawful authority is based on free election
(De cone, cath., II, 19; Basel edition, p. 687).
The Fathers assembled in council require a majority of votes to pass a

resolution.But Cusanus makes contradictory statements concerning the
powers of the majority. Atfirst: According to St. Augustine, a majority of
the Council can overrule the Pope, because it is a more reliable and less
fallible repraesentatio (representation, manifestation, presence) of the
Church (De cone, cath., II, 18; Basel edition, p. 687). But later Cusanus
condemns the majority principle (holding that the minority at the Council,
to which he himself belonged, represented the truth). Where the unity
of the Church is at stake, he says, mathematics has no bearing. Only the
practical consequences of a course of action decided upon by the ballot can
determine whether it furthers the cause of unity. For example: from the
standpoint of the Council for uniting the Latin and Greek Churches,
planned in opposition to the Council of Basel, the Council of Basel was a
mere incident without universal significance.
b. The meaning of such arguments. Today they are called "ideological."

What do they mean in themselves ? What lies behind them ?
(1) Rationalization —
and dialectics. Cusanus thinks in ciphers, drawing
inferences from them as to practical decisions. But this kind of thinking
is bound up with a "spirit" which is not itself definable. When the spirit
is absent, the multifarious practical interests and aims, as well as sophisms
of discursive reason, make all arguments futile. In the end everyone does
what he wanted to do in the first place, putting forward arguments as a
smoke screen. When this point is reached, all the parties to the dispute
work inadvertently toward their own destruction.
Interpretations derived from thinking in ciphers are by nature dialectical
in the sense that opposites are combined to form a unity, so that one
opposite tilts over into the other and opinions change while the underlying
will to unity remains unchanged. The shift of opinions becomes sophistical
when it serves the will to power, which is not itself dialectical. It can avoid
sophistry only if it remains within the bounds of some substantial spiritual
whole.
It does not seem likely that Cusanus was aware of the dialectical
relativity of the various positions he maintained theoretically. That he had
a dim intimation along these lines may be attested by his use of expressions
like "the basis of this consideration" (jund amentum huius considerationis,
Basel edition, p. 687).
Only with meaningful, not sophistical dialectics, rooted in a sense of the
whole, could Cusanus have served both the conciliar and the papal party
without dishonesty. Actually his idea of unity— which, being metaphysical,
is adequately grounded only in the coincidentia oppositorum —remains un-
changed. Unity has to be realized unconditionally, though just how depends
on the situation. Thus there is nothing to show that Cusanus was unfaithful
to his fundamental goal when he shifted allegiance. His faith remained
the same; he merely altered his means of attaining it in finite reality.
(2) Source and logic. —The source of faith and of a will grounded in it
cannot be rationally justified. The doctrine is not the faith itself, but only
one manifestation of it.
The force of logic is compelling only to the extent that it avails itself
of definable concepts. The presuppositions of faith can be expressed in

ciphers, but they are not rationally definable. Communication in indefinable
concepts — which despite their rational aspect are in themselves without
rational content — existentially convincing only when
is a shared faith gives
meaning to the conceptsand guides the thinking. And since agreement in
faith can never be rationally certain on the plane of the utterable, it discloses
itself only in the struggle of ideas. In philosophical thinking logic gives
way to sophistry whenever it ceases to be guided by the content of faith,
and the discussion bogs down in the contingency of sham concepts.

The openness of self-understanding can be founded on rational proposi-
tions only when these are in close union with the content of the faith. With-
out such union the result is first emptiness and then sophistry, because the
words, exposed to endless ambiguities, lose their original meanings.
(3) Arguments of faith. —There are extreme cases where faith is ex-
perienced with purity, also cases where faith deceives.
In the former, faith speaks directly as such, as "the spirit." It is conscious
of man's task in the world as the imperative of a higher authority.
Formulated as a doctrine, faith is no longer the same. The doctrine may
invoke a revealed God, historical necessity, natural necessity, some meta-
physical necessity governing all happenings, or something else.
Any such doctrine, in which faith seeks to understand itself, is the

product of our own thinking and indemonstrable because its ultimate
higher authority can never be demonstrated. Historically, there have always

been several such doctrines, mutually exclusive on the rational plane even
though attempts have been made to combine them all in a single great
systematic structure. Likewise, there are several historical faiths, and there
is no Archimedean point outside them from which one man can survey
them. With few exceptions, each faith not only lays claim to unconditional
truth but also looks upon its doctrine as absolutely valid for all. Vainly it
struggles to assert itself against other doctrines by means of arguments. It
owes its existence to a human claim to power.
The claim to power also leads to blatant religious deceit the other —
extreme case, opposed to pure religious experience. Discussions ostensibly
of religious matters may in fact be motivated by selfish interests; religious
feelings are exploited for material purposes.
In real life, pure religious experience is as rare as the pure claim to
power; the motives are usually mixed. Who can claim to penetrate another
person's mind, who can be sure he knows his adversary's true motives?
In ideological quarrels we often complain about the endless argumentation,
the possibility of proving or contradicting anything at all. When men who
have lost their faith speak in the language of faith on a rational plane, we
may say with the poet,
You speak of reasons, ah, be still,
With reasons I can all your reasons kill.
The existential force of metaphysical thinking apprehends events and

actions in another dimension, as though eternity were present in them.
Such thinking is truthful. But when speculative thinking in ciphers har-
nesses the propositions it arrives at to worldly ends, the result is bewilder-
ment and confusion, a permanent deception in speech and argument.
(4) Cusanus touches upon the problems of truth and freedom but does
—
not grasp them. Because Cusanus believed the truth he possessed through
revelation and speculative thinking to be the voice of God in the world,
he was unaware of this great problem: Since only the individual can gain
—
insight into truth, freedom, and peace not an isolated individual, but
—
only one who shares his thinking with others how can the best individuals
concerned with community welfare gain the support of the many? How
can the co-operation of the best and the many produce not merely external
decisions, but rather express the inner moral and political reality of the
community? In discussing the conciliar controversy, he touches upon the
questions of institutional freedom and of the way in which the co-operation
of all the faithful is to be attained, but these problems are never brought to
full awareness.
(5) Cusanus did not disguise the shift in his allegiance, but obscured the
fundamental human situation. After Cusanus' defection, his adversaries in
the Council criticized him for his inconsistency, and rightly so.
Did Cusanus try to conceal the fact that he had turned his back on his
earlier position? Did he refuse to admit that his opinions had undergone
a radical change ? Did he dodge the issue ? I believe that his manner of think-
ing prevented him from attaining clarity on this score. This was why, on the
one hand, he felt that he had not contradicted himself with respect to the
inner disposition of his faith, and why, on the other hand, he did not take
seriously the contradictions that are so clearly evident when his statements
are considered from a rational point of view.
Logically unclear statements as to the relations between Pope and Council
occur both before and after his shift of allegiance. In the course of his
hesitations, he occasionally encompasses the two opposites, but then he also
speaks as an extreme advocate of each position.
He never grasped clearly the dialectical character of his approach to
practical problems. The reason for this (we shall discuss it in greater detail
later) seems to be that his metaphysics postulates a harmony realizable in
the world. He thus loses sight of the fundamental situation of our existence
in the world.
2. Brixen
In 1450 Cusanus became Bishop of Brixen. He was appointed by the Pope

against the wishes of the local Chapter. His administration proved dis-
astrous to the province of South Tyrol. He was opposed by the clergy who
had been bullied into accepting him, by the monastic institutions (especially
one convent under an energetic abbess) which he tried to reform, and by
the Archduke Sigismund of Austria from whom Cusanus tried to regain
certain prerogatives ofwhich the Church had been deprived. His miserly
financial policy was unpopular. He gained the support of a number of
peasants and of some enemies of the Habsburgs, such as the Swiss who —
made use of him to the same extent as he tried to make use of them. In
the struggle he applied the harshest measures, including excommunication.
He enforced a ban on foreign trade, so that the province lost the income it
had derived from commerce between Venice and the north. With the loss
of prosperity political and moral standards declined. Violence and contempt
for the Church increased (Jaeger, I, 4). Cusanus himself was absent for
long periods; at first his duties as him traveling in
papal legate kept
Germany, and his last years Rome.
were spent in
When he died, the new Pope and the Emperor quickly settled the
conflict. The
claims Cusanus had fought so stubbornly to have recognized
were abandoned. A partisan of Cusanus, who realized what a great blow
this was to the prestige of the Church, wrote: "Ah, if only they had never
begun this dispute that has come to so shocking an end" (Jaeger, II, 432).
During the years in Austria, Cusanus was often exposed to personal
danger. In 1457 he went to Innsbruck to negotiate with the Archduke
N1CH O LAS OF CU SA 237
(Koch, 63 ft".; Mcuthen, 15) and on his way back he saw some armed men.
On the basis of rumors he publicly accused the Archduke of plotting to
ambush and kill him. Koch, who studied all the relevant documents,
wonders whether the Cardinal was not more frightened than the situation
called for, and suspects that he exploited it for all it was worth. Koch
believes that the incident was deliberately staged to intimidate the unpopular
foreigner and severe reformer. Cusanus tells us, however, that he escaped
only with God's help. The castle of Buchenstein on the southern boundary
of the diocese seemed to provide him with some measure of safety. He
resided there for a year, and in September 1458 moved to Rome.
From there he carried on his struggle against the Archduke. He returned
to his diocese in 1460, taking every precaution to protect his life. The
journey was anything but a success. When the Archduke laid siege to the
castle of Bruneck, Cusanus capitulated. He signed an agreement
giving
in on all points at issue, and when the Curia protested, he defended the
Archduke. But once back on Italian territory, he declared that he had
been made to sign the agreement under duress. The episode marked the
lowest point in his career; both materially and spiritually it was a defeat.
For he was well aware of how badly he had behaved. In a letter to the Bishop
of Eichstatt, dated June 11, 1460, he writes: "I had hoped to end my days
with a glorious death in the cause of justice, but I was not worthy of that
honor" (Jaeger, II, 62). A short time later he said (De ludo globi):
A Christian is a man who puts the honor of Christ above his own life. The
test is how he stands up to persecution. "Christ lives in him, he himself
does not live." A Christian despises this world and this life. "It is a simple
matter for one who has the true faith. But it is impossible . . . for a non-
believer." Are we to conclude that Cusanus broke down when put to the
test because he did not truly believe, but only believed in faith —that he
failed at the crucial moment ?
Yet same letter he goes on to say: "I did not wish I had not
in the
suffered what happened to me, I was glad of my suffering. Moreover, . . .
I became convinced that a bishop's duty is not to increase the temporalia

[financial resources, etc.] of his church, but only to preserve them. . . .
Alms for the poor, not the wealth of the bishops, are what ought to be
increased. Therefore, I rejoice in my misfortune, because it has enriched
my knowledge. ... At the time I did not see my error, but I see it now,
for I was punished for it. . . . This is what I thought, to comfort myself
and to recover my peace of mind, and we can congratulate each other that
God has been willing to show us our imperfections by sending us such
little trials" (Jaeger, II, 62).
There are also glimpses of Cusanus* thoughts about himself in his letters
addressed a few years earlier to his friend the Abbot of Tegernsee: "If
only I might hope for some results, I would not be deterred by the work,
for after all there is no peace anywhere in this world; but to spend oneself
for nothing at all is absurd. ... I bear the difficulties with patience, sooner
or later I shall surmount them with God's help" (1458). A year later: "It is
impossible for me to concentrate and get on with it [the composition of the
work]. If I am not given more freedom, I shall be lost . .
."
(1455).
Do not such reflections sound like those of a man who is uncertain of
his goal and, instead of striving to become transparent to himself, falls
back on traditional ideas ?
5. The reform movement
The best among Cusanus' contemporaries demanded thoroughgoing

reform of the Church (extending from the papacy down to the parish level),
and reform of the Empire as well. Cusanus himself reflected on these matters
all his life. The intention was to bring back to living reality the eternal
elements of faith within the Church organization. The reform movement,
however, proved a complete failure.
In 1451-52 Cusanus was sent to Germany with the mission of spurring
on reform. The churches and monasteries received him with honors, but
when the question of reform came up, they resisted or made token gestures
that lasted only as long as his visit. Later, in Brixen, his attempts at reform
met with violent resistance from both the monasteries and the clergy.
Commissioned to reform the Church in Rome itself, he failed completely
because the Pope and the cardinals had no intention of allowing their
own authority to be interfered with. Lastly, at Orvieto apparently no —
place was too large or too small for Cusanus to be sent to reform it! the —
burghers were at first overjoyed at the presence of the great man, but soon
they resisted him stubbornly. Why did all these attempts at reform end in
failure ?
No reform conceived merely as an external change of institutions can

succeed. Reform presupposes a change of heart by the participants, a serious
resolve to make Cusanus himself never experienced any such
a fresh start.
change of heart. He faith he inherited. His
remained within the world of
personal life was modest and irreproachable. All this is respectable, but
there was no passionate devotion to a cause. A few isolated individuals
among the clergy and the monastic orders were alone willing to accept
reforms. That so many attempts at reform were fruitless or violently
resisted shows that the reformers were not really in earnest, were not
prepared to make sacrifices. Cusanus was not motivated by his philosophical
ideas concerning man's task (which he expressed so magnificently in his
meditations), nor did he go back to the Bible. He merely invoked doctrinal
considerations and the ascetic principles sanctioned by the Church. He
sincerely advocated reform, but he did not realize that reform is meaningless
unless the men who carry it out have undergone an authentic change of
heart.
disarms' failure on both the material and the spiritual plane teaches us
to see moreclearly how difficult the task of the truth is, what tremendous
obstacles must be surmounted by those engaged in it. Quite possibly no
one has ever surmounted them. Socrates and Jesus came closest. But we
also learn that all evil springs from lack of sufficient truthfulness.
4. The crusade against the Turks
The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks shook the West to its
foundations and was felt to be a turning point in history. The humanist

Enea Silvio de' Piccolomini (later Pius II) lamented the fate of the land of
Homer, overrun by barbarians. Cusanus wrote De pace fidei in the hope
of restoring peace through union of the faithful of all religions.
When Piccolomini became Pope, his main goal was to launch a crusade
against Turks. Cusanus saw that the project was unfeasible and
the
repeatedly warned the Pope against vain hopes. He advised, for example,
against convoking a congress of princes at Mantua, predicting that not even
the Emperor would attend. And indeed, the congress proved a humiliating
failure for the Pope.
A crusade could have been successful only had there been political peace
West and if the Church had been reformed and unified. An internally
in the
united West conscious of its common danger would have been strong
enough to carry out such a crusade. Cusanus saw clearly how unrealistic the
project was because he knew that Europe was divided. Faithful to his
principles,he nonetheless served the Pope obediently in his hopeless cause.
He accompanied him to Mantua and conducted himself thereafter as though
he shared the Pope's views about the crusade.
The humanist Pope dreamed his irresponsible dream. As he lay dying in
Ancona on the Adriatic coast, a few Venetian ships he had long been
awaiting suddenly appeared in the harbor. With he reflected:
tragic irony
Formerly I had crusaders but no fleet, now I have a fleet but no crusaders.
It had been Cusanus' responsibility to look after the penniless adventurers
who rallied to the Pope's banner, to keep them out of trouble and prevent
them from pillaging the countryside. A few days before Pius II, Cusanus
himself died, quietly and undramatically, in Todi, while on his way to
join the Pope.
5. Ecclesiastical benefices
—
Cusanus lived on revenues from benefices as was perfectly normal for a
Church dignitary. As early as 1427 (when he was twenty-six years old)
he obtained a dispensation granting him the right to hold several mutually
exclusive benefices. During the 1430s he was given more benefices (Munster-
maifeld, St. Martin in Worms) When . he took over a richly endowed arch-
deaconry in Liege, the local clergy found fault with him for being unable to
administer the office himself.
An exchange of with Jacob von Sirck, Archbishop of Trier (1453),
letters
deals with a benefice which Cusanus had verbally promised to turn over to
the Archbishop. He wished nevertheless to keep it for himself, and his
attitude in the matter is ambiguous. To Sirck: "I will be giving up the
archdeaconry one of these years." On the same day, to a friend in Rome:
"I have no intention of rushing my resignation." Although he had promised
to pass on the benefice to Sirck, he wrote to Rome that he would submit
his resignation to the Pope —
which meant that another candidate would be
appointed. When Sirck learned of this, he was indignant. And actually
Cusanus held on to all his benefices until he died. He gives several reasons
why he could not surrender them. The most important was the home for
the aged he founded at Cues: "What God hath given should go to the
poor" (Koch).
Despite his influential position in the Curia (which rested solely on his
friendship with Pius II), Cusanus never amassed a personal fortune. But
in acquiring his comparatively modest benefices, he showed himself at
times to be a scheming realist, inconstant, and occasionally untrustworthy.
The consequences of his Christian philosophizing did not reach into these
domains.
6. His conduct of life —summary

a. Historical situation. —The historical situation confronted Cusanus with
a plurality of powers. This was the age of the sovereign individual, in-
different to good and type that was gaining ground within the Church
evil, a
as elsewhere. In the end the Renaissance Popes, who carried this kind of
individualism to extremes, discredited the Church completely, though they
helped to produce an unprecedented flowering in the arts. Ruthless repre-
sentatives of territorial and national particularism reduced the office
of Emperor to a purely decorative function. The Emperor enjoyed a
measure of authority only in the country he ruled by hereditary right;
otherwise he was scarcely more than a figurehead. Nevertheless those who
were eligible aspired to the title, for it retained a certain traditional prestige
and various prerogatives that could be exploited. Within the Church there
were conflicts, both major and minor —occasioned
by the conciliar move-
ment, the Hussites, and contending and secular claims. In
ecclesiastical
Rome there were rivalries between the cardinals, and intrigues of French,
Italian, and Spanish factions. The Papal State was involved in conflicts
with many city states and tyrants, and problems of world-wide importance
were interwoven with local Italian interests. Particular interests might join
in common cause or press their claims separately, depending on the situation
of the moment; everyone tried to make use of everyone else. Diplomatic

intrigues were rampant, everything was in a state of flux. Cusanus lived in
the thick of all this complicated activity, which historians find so pictur-
esque.
b. Adaptability and inconsistency .—In order to take an active part in this

world, Cusanus could not avoid making certain adjustments and involving
himself in certain inconsistencies. He could not get ahead with the great
task he had set himself —the achievement of peace and unity— unless he
first tackled the lesser concrete tasks that Rome set him. As a result, he
virtually lost sight of his primary task. As adviser and agent plenipotentiary
to the Pope, he played the part assigned him, and like everyone else took a
hand in events which brought about no significant change.
Good will, such as Cusanus possessed, was not enough to produce
results. Only a force as elemental as the ruthless destructive forces of that
epoch could have opposed those forces effectively. Cusanus was not such
a man. What he lacked above all was a passionate faith based upon a real
change of heart.
Examples of Cusanus' inconsistencies: He condemned the project of a
crusade against the Turks, yet participated in the preparations for it. He
looked upon the Emperor's rights as inviolable on the ground that the —
Emperor represented the unity of the Empire and was the protector of the
—
Church yet appealed to the real power of the King of France against him.
How did Cusanus become involved in such a situation? Active by
nature, especially at the beginning of his career, he wished to be where
public events were being decided, a penchant that remained with him to
the end of his life. The impression made by his intellectual superiority,
his talents as a preacher and negotiator, made him a valuable servant of
the Church. And he himself not only identified the ideal unity of the
Church with the unity of mankind, but also championed the power of a
Church which was not in fact universal but merely laid claim to universal-
ity. He also sought power for himself. Although Cusanus took life more
seriously than the humanists, Thomas More was far superior to him in his
—
conduct of life. Cusanus lacked the consuming seriousness of faith. He
lacked the courage of his convictions, the courage of the truly responsible
statesman. He was a man of half-measures, too easily satisfied. No doubt
it was quite an accomplishment for a boy from a village on the Moselle
to become a cardinal and the vicar general in Rome. But, except for
persuading the neutral Germans to support Pope Eugenius, he failed in
all his undertakings, and brilliant representative of the Church that he
was, he attained none of his objectives.
c. Violence. —Cusanus' moral and political failure can be accounted for

by his attitude toward violence.
We discern in him a will to power that sought to subordinate everything
to his Church, to his faith, to his vision of the world order. He was not
motivated by a will to communication, such as strives for the peaceful co-
was that of a
existence of fundamentally different faiths. Rather, his faith
doctrinaire Churchman. In pronouncing the words "We Christians," he
was so sure of his cause and of himself that he was incapable of active
tolerance. He had no sympathetic understanding of other religions, no
readiness to recognize that they are fully entitled to their different rituals
and customs, whose importance he minimized. He failed to see that other
faiths may be just as wholehearted, true, meaningful, and comprehensive
as his own. For all his concessions, he naively assumed and asserted the
absolute truth of Christianity in the specific form of his own Church. To
achieve peace he did not resort to communication but, in the last analysis,
to violence.
To carry out his reforms he needed the support of the princes, a secular
power at the disposal of the Church. He appealed to them in vain; they
refused to help him. Again, it was naive of him to take for granted that the
secular princes would serve his (and the Church's) will to power. Clearly,
he did not rely solely on the freedom of faith and the word, on the power
of philosophical arguments.
In actual fact Cusanus took the path of compulsion. But he had no power.
We shudder to think what his life and character would have been had he
possessedpower and made use of it!
As a philosopher Cusanus was more understanding, more profound, and
more communicative than he could ever be in his practical activities. In his
bestworks he often moves us deeply by his magnificent open-mindedness
and the vast range of his vision. The obtuseness of his political practice is
something else again. Was he lacking in the honesty that is inseparable
from the unremitting will to understand oneself? Was he incapable of
seeing how incompatible his philosophy was with his ecclesiastical practice?
d. Is his philosophy discernible in his conduct of life?

(1) De docta ignorantia marked an important step forward in his
philosophy, but despite certain new formulations his fundamental political
attitudes never changed. The fact that he eventually applied the concepts
of complicatio and explicatio to Pope and Church, or to Peter, Pope, and
Church, amounts only to a slight enrichment of his symbolic language.
For example: the Pope is "implicitly" what the Church is "explicitly," or:
Peter is "implicitly" what the entire Church with the Pope as its head is
"explicitly." This means: the Pope is not Peter, but together with all the
bishops and the rest of the clergy he is part of the explicatio corresponding
to the complicatio Petri.
The coincidentia oppositorum makes it easier to advocate contradictory
theses (successively or even simultaneously) about the one and the whole
regardless of the actual alternatives involved in practical, temporal decisions:
Pope vs. Council, Empire vs. nations, etc.
(2) The original model of the eternal order as we see it in De concordantia

catholica goes back to the patristic epoch and the Middle Ages. Cusanus was
not in search of something new, but trying to restore the old. What had
become virtually powerless in reality, remained for Cusanus the guiding
idea.But after having used it for a time to justify practical decisions,
Cusanus made no further mention of it. The more deeply he became en-
tangled in practical politics, the less he resorted to justification.
Eventually he stopped trying to justify his actions by his philosophy as he

had done so impressively in connection with the conciliar question. To
attempt anything of the kind today would merely produce an empty con-
struction. own inability to do so throws a significant light on
Cusanus'
his politics,which was always a pursuit of short-range objectives and which
dissatisfied him because it had gradually lost all philosophical meaning.
(3) Down to the last year of his life, as some of the finest and most mature
of his minor works show, he meditated with undiminished energy. But
there was no point of contact between his philosophical meditation and
his politics. He conceived of philosophy as the one and only possible
happiness in the world. It was an accompaniment to his practical activi-
ties but did not influence them. The hours and days he was able to devote
to philosophical reflection were especially precious, the retreat of a monk

unwilling to give up his whole life and withdraw from the world. In the
world he found disorder and disappointment but was compelled to play
the game in order to survive. In philosophy he found justification and the
often repeated satisfaction of piety. This was the refuge of a man lost in the
world.
Part Six: His Place in History
1. Between the Middle Ages and the modern era
Cusanus lived in a complex, disintegrating, intellectually flourishing world.

The schism within the Church seemed to have been averted by the Council
of Constance, but it remained a threat. A general awareness of the disorder
into which the Church had fallen gave rise to demands for internal reform
whose need no one contested. The impotence of the Empire, the arbitrary
power of the German princes, of the city tyrants in Italy, and of the King of
France had undermined all secular authority. Each of these potentates was
determined to assert himself in his own way and to rely on himself alone.
Since the rediscovery of Cusanus (in the nineteenth century) he has
been looked upon as a transitional figure between the Middle Ages and the
modern era— sometimes as the last great medieval thinker and sometimes
as the founder of the modern era. To Cusanus himself the notion of the
Middle Ages was entirely unknown. He was not conscious of living in a
transitional age, at the dawn of the modern era. It was only the genera-
tion after him that became aware of its novelty and referred to the Middle
Ages as a thing of the past.
We may Cusanus a last culminating point of the Christian eccle-
see in
siastical faith,which was still Catholic and constitutive of the unity of the
West, illumined with the clarity of philosophical understanding for one
last time, before "modernism" made its appearance on the stage of history.
He never doubted that he was at home in eternity; in the teeth of all evidence
he asserted the essential unity of life in its plurality, and was confident that
the existing organic whole would survive. He perceived the language of
God everywhere in the world, incorporated within one all-encompassing
Church. The vision with which he sought to temper and surmount the
chaos of his age was one of the noblest concord, uniting a universal authority
which understands and educates all men with sublime freedom under God's
guidance.
No less impressive, however, is the other, opposite aspect of Cusanus.
Measured by the spiritual coherence and infinite richness of Thomas
Aquinas, Cusanus' thinking marks a decline. He lived with a consciousness
of the whole, but no longer made use of it to create an all-embracing system.
We have seen that, although he did not take the path of modern science,
he contributed to the intellectual climate which heralded the advent of
modern science (and philosophy), especially by his conception of the mind
as creative activity. He sensed that mathematics could be an important tool
of investigation, that the world is infinite, that individual beings are the
true reality — all insights that foreshadowed the science to come. His spec-
ulative ideas are harbingers of subsequent modern philosophizing (Bruno,
Leibniz, Hamann, Schelling).
To Cusanus, the two aspects of his intellectual world (as we think of
it today) —the medieval —
and the modern were not incompatible. Whatever
tendencies to "modern" aggressiveness and destructiveness might be
detected in his thinking are still entirely overshadowed by his faith, which
is safely wrapped in official Christian doctrine. True, his passion for finding
the truth at the source by independent inquiry and his discovery of the
"layman" point to a later anti-authoritarian, revolutionary element. But
none of his ideas has explosive force.
The view that Cusanus represents a transitional figure between the
Middle Ages and the modern era does not strike me as very fruitful. It is
in fact misleading if the spiritual essence of this great metaphysician is taken
to reflect the inner conflict of his epoch. Such a view would imply that
Cusanus, as the last medieval thinker, was engulfed in contradictory currents
which he neither understood nor tried to surmount, and that as the first
modern thinker he was buried under the ruins of the medieval tradition.
I
N 1 CH O LAS F CU SA 245
Both these pictures are false and obscure Cusanus' originality. It is not
true that the duality of his nature resulted from the transitional character
of his epoch.
The truth is that his thinking displays features that can be met with in
any period: strength of metaphysical insight, weakness in practical adapta-

tion, willingness to put up with a climate of equivocation, the germs of an
intellectual approach to the structure of the future— a structure which is
always superseded by the time it becomes a reality. But before we come to
grips with these matters, a brief digression.
2. On historical interpretation
Historical views of the course of things as a whole are often plausible but
never compelling. The idea of a historical necessity, ascertainable by men,
is a fallacy that deprives historical thinking of its meaning: "trends" are
never inevitable. The unexpected, the "leap," "the miracle" of the fresh
start are essential characteristics of knowable history, within which particu-
lar chains of causal necessity and meaningful relationships which are
always susceptible of different interpretations play a part.
The idea of absolute historical (the content of which can
necessity
never be known) is by man's authentic possibilities. By
contradicted
virtue of his faith and his reason he can fight against the allegedly in-
evitable, against ideas intended to make him follow a path determined in
advance. Those who are caught up in such ideas try to persuade him that
he has no alternative. Some enthusiastically applaud history; others resign
themselves to its absurd "necessity"; both views are paralyzing. Authentic
men are those who take risks in their thinking or their actions, those who,
far from being "shown up," are on the contrary transfigured by failure, who,
perhaps by their very failure, exert a real influence on the future of mankind.
When philosophers are explained in terms of their epoch or national
origin, this done under the tacit assumption (which, today, under the
is
influence of Hegel and his follower Marx, we are in danger of mistaking

for self-evident "fact") that history is a substantial process and that the
various philosophies, ideas, poems, and works of art are its by-products or
epiphenomena. Unwittingly influenced by this conception of history even
when we contest it, and making use of its facile methods, we employ such
inaccurate expressions as "Greek thought," "Christian thought," "modern
thought." Such expressions have a relative meaning when applied to certain
phenomena, but in reality they are no more revealing than physiognomy
is revealing of character. At best they remind us of men's complexity,
which increases with their stature.

In connection with Cusanus it is particularly important to keep in
mind these dangers of historical interpretation. It is much easier to avoid
the shoals of pure historicism in dealing with the greatest —Plato, Spinoza,
Kant— than in approaching philosophers who fall short of classical clarity
and simplicity in their language, thinking, or conduct of life. But even
these, if they are in any sense philosophically significant, cannot be treated
as mere by-products of history. To take a purely historical view of
Cusanus would be to relegate him once again to oblivion, to lose sight
of what he really was and thought. Our task is to let him speak for himself.
Like all important philosophers, Cusanus is neither old nor new, neither
medieval nor modern. Living in time, he is timeless in spirit, one of those
who, clad in the raiment of their day and nation, meet as equals over the
millennia to discuss the destiny of man.
So long as we remain aware of their limited significance, we can formulate
historically meaningful comparisons without deluding ourselves. They
serve merely as ideal types, intellectual constructions that never do full
justice to reality. Such constructions combine particular insights with over-
all metaphorical views. With their help we, inspired by our own tendencies,
our own complaints and accusations, and our own hopes, ask questions of
history. Let us attempt to formulate a few such questions.
3. Cusanus life and thought in relation to subsequent history
a. The —
For all practical purposes, Cusanus'
decision at the Council of Basel.
choice was between corruption through conciliar rule and corruption
through papal rule. Either way he was bound to fail, whether he opted for
the idea of unity or for that of internal reform.
Had
he decided to go along with the conciliar movement, however, his
failure would have reflected personal impotence in a corrupt world. He
might have become a monk, devoted himself entirely to philosophy and
meditation, composed works revealing the corruption of the conciliar,
papal, and governmental powers, and thereby run the risk of being branded
a heretic and incurring martyrdom. Then, with his intellectual clarity he
would have disclosed the seemingly inevitable evil and proclaimed the
truth of the original Biblical faith with all its historical consequences. He
would have become a beacon to all thoughtful men and have helped to
awaken moral and religious impulses.
But because he decided in favor of the papacy his failure was associated
with a prominent position in a corrupt world. He became powerful amid
the confusion and blundering of the epoch, but was powerless to realize the
truth and the good. A man of vast knowledge, but not a thinker striving
for concrete clarity at any cost, he became unwittingly "coresponsible" for
what actually happened.
He was not in the least aware of this either-or. Our formulation implies
no accusation. But it characterizes Cusanus in his historical situation.
b. Cusanus was not a precursor of Protestantism of the Counter-Reforma- ,
tion, or of the Enlightenment. —

After Cusanus came Protestantism, the
Counter-Reformation, democratic (republican) and absolutist develop-
ments, the Enlightenment and the anti-Enlightenment.
Cusanus was not a precursor of Protestantism. His efforts to reform the —
ecclesiastical establishment are not to be confused with the Reformation
which was eventually Western Church.

to shatter forever the unity of the
The condition for the which he worked remained a

preservation of
condition of untruth, of continual momentary expedients. He had no
understanding of the gathering storm of fanatical Protestant faith in
alliance with regional interests. The precursors of Protestantism were hostile
to Cusanus: the monks and priests who opposed the rule of celibacy, the
laymen who condemned the wealth of the Church and the interference
of Rome, and the princes who chafed at sharing their power with the
Church. Allied with these forces was Luther's courageous faith, unknown
and alien to Cusanus, which at its best was marked by a seriousness and
depth that Cusanus never achieved.
He had no premonition of what was coming. The shadow of the
religious wars had not yet descended on the world. There was still a
liberality of spirit; for all the chaos, the prevailing atmosphere was still
one of serene piety and inspiring faith. The spirit of the Catholic Church
was still, to some extent, truly universal.
The Reformation came as a storm because the reforms so long clamored
forand fitfully attempted for more than a century had all failed. But the
Reformation itself led into new blind alleys; it curtailed and finally did
away with the freedom that had prevailed in the medieval world. The
unleashed forces spent themselves in religious wars between the various
sects, and Catholicism ceased to be anything more than a sect. A new and
modern freedom, which had been merely Middle Ages, came

latent in the
into being in the wars of religion, but was a different and much more
it
dangerous political and philosophical freedom than anything the Middle

Ages had known.
Nietzsche believed that the Catholic Church had been well on the way
to achieving a magnificent new "paganism," a true freedom of the spirit,
and that Germans disastrously prevented this with their religious
the
fanaticism.But the fact is that the new freedom of science and philosophy
developed most notably (though not exclusively) in the Protestant coun-
tries.
Cusanus was far from being a champion of humanistic paganism, let

alone the precursor of a Reformation that destroyed Church unity and
released a profound Biblical impulse with the force of a volcano. Compared
with Nietzsche's vision or the Protestant revolution as it actually occurred,
Cusanus' thinking strikes us as intellectually noble, but pale and feeble in
its practical effects. For all the brilliance of his intellect, his activity helped,
paradoxically enough, to make the Church more contemptible, with the

consequence that entire nations were led by faith to turn their backs on a
Church they no longer trusted.
Cusanus was not a precursor of the Counter-Reformation. —The gloomily
magnificent, dogmatically ferocious, sensually enchanting, stricdy papal and
absolutist Church created after the Council of Trent was not Cusanus'
Church. His Church had not yet lost its spiritual breadth.
He was a champion of Church unity (and hence, in the situation as he
saw it, of papal supremacy), but not by any means of an absolutist papal
Church, a new organization with a fundamentally new attitude, such as
emerged in reaction to Protestantism. Taking as his standard the eternal
original model, he wanted the Church to be reformed profoundly in all —
itsmembers, the Pope and the princes of the Church, the secular clergy and
the orders. But this was not to be achieved through a rigidly disciplined
power structure, holding every member in subjection and leaving no room
for the development of a plurality of autonomous individuals.
Today we know that the subsequent course of history has been marked
by a parting of the ways between the conciliar, "parliamentary" reality and
the papal "absolutist," totalitarian reality. Cusanus had no clear idea of
either, and wanted neither. He wanted unity in plurality and plurality in
unity, unconditionally guided only by the idea of unity. It never occurred
to him that such a unity can develop only in free human communication,
through institutions of a federative type, through agreement and co-operation.
He was bound to forfeit true unity in the real world, because he took for
granted that it could be achieved by compulsion.
Thereby he helped to prepare the way not back to medieval Catholicism,
but to modern, fanatical Counter-Reformation Catholicism animated by a
new spirit of a mere spiritual and political violence, a mere denomination
among denominations, its claim to catholicity unjustified and pointless
after the definitive schism.This Catholicism was by nature alien to Cusanus.
Cusanus was not a precursor of the Enlightenment. He was interested —
not in a rational interpretation of symbols, which, as in the shallow ration-
alism of the Enlightenment, makes them superfluous, but in speculative
thinking, in which the symbols illumine ever greater depths but retain
their enigmatic and metaphorical character. Cusanus' world is not the en-
lightened world of "dis-enchanted" realities, but a sensual and intellectual
world, illumined by the radiance of the supernatural. He did not think
that things are "never more than" what we know about them, that there
is nothing "behind them," but was led by his nonknowing knowledge to
unfathomable depths.
His political philosophy is not a program; he elucidates the political
domain, guided by his vision of the divine model. His operative idea is
not that of rectilinear progress toward an ever better future, but the idea
of a steady, ever renewed ascent to the ideal. What he has in mind is not
I
the modus operandi of such an ascension, but the idea of the whole to
which we come ever closer by virtue of our spiritual essence.
Shallow rationalism loses sight of the intellect by raising discursive reason
an absolute and by exalting sensory experience. It believes in
to the level of
progress, rejects speculative philosophy along with theology, and allows the
roots of personality to become stunted. Cusanus was the very opposite of
all this.
But neither was Cusanus a precursor of the other, constructive kind of

Enlightenment, represented by Kant and Lessing, which avoids superficial
rationalism and embodies an infinitely continuing will to enlightenment.
The Enlightenment implies communication between originally dif-
true
ferent sources, and no one who follows this path can lay claim to possession
of the truth, even if he chooses to pursue an unconditional course in his
relations with men. Such a possibility of unrestricted extension of one's
mode of thinking falls outside Cusanus' conscious perspectives.
When Cusanus envisages the union and peaceful coexistence of all religions,
he assumes that they are all essentially Christian. When the false Enlighten-
ment envisaged the unity of all religions, it had in mind a universal religion,
a kind of distillation of the element common to all religions, under the
assumption that the contents of the religions can be formulated rationally,
perhaps at religious congresses.
Transcending both is the philosophical approach, which aims, not at
securing the uniformity of all historical religions, but at discovering their
deeper roots, under the assumption that they stem from different sources
and that communication between them is the thing to be achieved. Then
and this goes counter both to Cusanus and to superficial rationalism— the
goal is not unity of the explicit contents (in the form of a credo accepted
by all), but boundless communication in respect of the deeper contents.
The presuppositions of such communication may be sought in a common
fundamental knowledge, which is not itself formulated once and for all
time. The only alternative to this search is the breaking off of communication
and a consequent recourse to brute force.
Cusanus stands apart from Protestantism, the Counter-Reformation, and
the Enlightenment. He cannot justly be regarded as a forerunner of any of
these movements. Although Cusanus championed the papal cause, he did
not really adhere to any cause, for he saw everything from the lofty height
of his awareness of God and the world. He advocated no radical solutions,
though the practical problems of the day cried out for them. His political
activity never went deeper than the superficial skirmishing which con-
tinued until the situation was altered by definitive schism within the Church
and by the rise of sovereign national states.
Cusanus was not aware that the immediate future belonged to the powers
against which he fought. Because he was not farsighted enough to envisage
the possibility of such a future, he fought blindly. He lacked the mighty
energy of faith because he relied entirely on the Church. He unwittingly

helped to give the Church a form he himself rejected.
c. The "crisis" since Cusanus: (1) From Cusanus to our own day. —
Cusanus can seem modern because he thought at a time of progressive
moral and political decline (a time like our own), and because the purpose
of his thinking was to check this decline. His insights lacked the power to
penetrate the deceptions of his time. His thinking could not become real in
the hearts and minds of his contemporaries. He followed paths that did
not lead to the centuries succeeding his own.
Protestantism took hold of the people with a violence long unknown in
religious matters. The Catholic world exploded in a series of schisms. The
Empire, meanwhile, gave way to an aggregate of regional absolutisms.
A new, seemingly stabilized European world emerged from the chaos.
Just as the medieval order attained a seeming perfection in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, so in the seventeenth century a European order at-
tained its apogee, after which it too was destroyed. Once again, in the nine-
teenth century, the semblance of a liberal order came into being despite the
Revolution, and its contemporary situation,
collapse in turn has produced the
no longer produce a European
a state of affairs which, in theory at least, can
but only a world order. In each historical instance, seeming perfection and
stability concealed the seeds of self-destruction, brought about by its own
shortcomings.
The age of Cusanus may major spiritual crisis of
appear as the first
Europe's upper classes, foreshadowing the crisis of modernity as such. It
was a first upsurging of the flood that has repeatedly risen and threatened
to overwhelm us, though each time in a different way. Since Cusanus
much the same situation has occurred several times. Light-mindedness and
half-measures have led to anarchy, the reaction to which was violence
justified in terms of fanaticism. By recourse to violence the state (with
the help of the Church
some similar institutionalization of doctrine,
or
Marxism being the latest) managed for a time to enforce an absolute order.
In the end, the revolution of the Enlightenment, which was rooted in
reason, engendered political revolution and its reign of terror justified by a
degenerated discursive reason.
Later, liberalism gave rise to a more sophisticated totalitarian rule. Our
picture of the course of things is that of a whirlpool which changes shape
from time to time, but engenders no lasting order.
Until now the ineradicable forces of darkness have been repeatedly
victorious in the world. They have triumphed over reason, humanity, and
freedom, over all such "weakness," which they despise.
(2) The crisis generated by the sciences. —Cusanus has no place in the
history of modern science, nor did he correctly understand its spirit; at
the same time, his philosophy is relevant to the scientific world which has
developed since his epoch.
The attitude toward life characteristic of the modern world was shaped
by a science and a philosophy independent of revealed faith. This world
has generated evils against which it has carried on titanic struggles. The
human spirit became confused when it lost its existential roots, science
became meaningless when it lost sight of its goal, philosophy ceased to be
serious when it conceived of itself as a science and behaved accordingly.
Freedom turned to anarchy and irresponsibility, liberal-mindedness into
doctrinaire liberalism, the intellect into mere discursive reason. This vast
fragmentation has led to radical reversals that ostensibly re-established an
order: as formerly it led to absolutism, so in our time it has led to total
domination.
Freedom has been replaced by command and obedience. Like the mon-
arch's under absolutism, so the Leader's under totalitarianism is
will
recognized as the supreme law, whether or not it happens to be expressed
in laws. The people have been freed from freedom. All, those who command
as well as those who obey, are turned into slaves. The road to such a con-
dition is paved with illiberal thinking and violent conduct in the little
things of everyday life. Neither those who command nor those who obey
are amenable to reason. They break off human communication, ceasing
to recognize it as a goal, or seek only a semblance of it, hedged round

with every sort of mental reservation.
It is a matter of the most crucial importance that we achieve clarity as
to what science can accomplish: namely, progress in the cognition of
objects, indefinitely, and what it cannot do: namely, give purpose to our
life. This the contemporary forms of superficial rationalism positivism —
—
and Marxism fail to grasp. Superstitious reliance on science has led to
the confusion embodied in conventional slogans and turns of speech in
all walks of life, especially in politics.
Anyone who is willing to think can free himself from such conceptions.
All he needs to do is remove the scales of falsely self-evident truths from
his mind's eye. It cannot be accomplished in the manner of a Baron von
Munchhausen swamp by his own pigtail, but
pulling himself out of the
in communication with other thinking people, who can achieve in common
and in freedom what an individual cannot achieve for himself alone. This
is not a Utopian idea. The alternative is to despair of humanity.
In our world today, an understanding of the nature of science is essential.

Cusanus said that a science indiscriminately concerned with everything is
"a whore." The provocative phrasing points to the existential problem of

all rationality, including that of modern science. Let us cast a glance at the
world of modern science, even though it carries us beyond the scope of
Cusanus' thinking.
Is "disenchantment of the world" the necessary consequence of science?
By no means, for the disenchantment extends only as far as science extends.
By experiencing its limits, pure science serves only to enhance our con-
sciousness of the mysterious depths of all things that are in the world.
Total disenchantment is brought about not by science, but by scientific

superstition posing as science: when we absolutize our changing epistemo-
logical assumptions, mistaking them for the truth as such and our changing
scientific theories for knowledge of Being; when we declare that science is
an end in itself, or when science asserts that it leads us to true faith, true
art, true poetry, true happiness, true Being.
Authentic science, which is aware of its limits and does not transgress
them, does not leave the world disenchanted. It clears the way for new
ciphers and does not destroy the old ones when it shows that they fail to
provide us with tangible, real knowledge; it does not destroy the miracle
which beyond everything we call "meaning."
lies
To pure science, things are no more than what we know of them finite, —
fragmentary phenomena. We can never know things as an all-encompassing
whole embracing all phenomena. To the questions What is this whole? —
What is the meaning of the world? or What do the things we know
signify? —science gives no answer. The answers are given in ciphers.
These are understood at the level of human Existenz, the "meaning" of
which transcends all meaning.
Transcendence is not encountered by science, but can be apprehended in
the meaning of the ciphers. The ciphers do not exist in themselves, but for
Existenz, just as the objects of science have no universally valid existence
in themselves, but only as phenomena for consciousness as such.
In Cusanus there is no trace of the modern "disenchantment" of the
world. Following him in his speculations, we enter a world where all
things are symbolic, where their "significance" is perceived with naive

wonderment.
In recent decades, the movement toward recovery of metaphysical freedom
has been furthered by what has been called "the crisis in the sciences."
It is a crisis of the nonscientific element in the sciences, of scientific super-
stition still unsurmounted. It is a cleansing process, which has purified and
broadened the sciences. The "crisis" has in no way affected science itself,
but only a pseudo-science based on fallacious axioms, which advanced

"scientific" conceptions of the world —when there can be no such things as
a scientific conception of the world. Scientific minds that had gone astray
have sought a way out of this error. As a result, new scientific discoveries
and a purer science have become possible, and a purer philosophy as well.
To be sure, "the crisis in the sciences" signifies that the process of dis-
enchantment with the world has become complete within the scientific
framework itself. But complete disenchantment, including the rejection
of all unproven metaphysical assumptions, such as the absolute validity of
causality, is necessary to clear the way, so that a further domain long —
—
obscured by scientific superstition can at last be experienced and eluci-
dated: the domain where all things and the existence of science itself become
ciphers. At this point, however, universal validity ceases, though it does
not necessarily follow that we must surrender to ever-changing subjective
fantasies. Here begins a struggle of powers, which no man can ever survey
as a whole.
It is in this domain that Cusanus is situated with his magnificent cipher
world. But because he himself was unaware of this, he did not achieve
complete philosophical freedom.
4. Lack of influence
For all the brilliance of his career, Cusanus remained a secondary figure
in the history of his times. Highly respected for his superior mind, he
had no real power even as a prince of the Church, because he was not
sufficiently wealthy. Toward the end of his life he exerted a certain influence
as favored adviser to Pope Pius II, an old friend.
Nor, apart from a few monks, did his philosophical ideas exert any
influence. As we have seen, Cusanus was not a precursor of such Western
developments as the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, absolute mon-
archy, the Enlightenment, and modern science. Nor is he cited by those
who at an early date chose the path of human reason and freedom (certain
humanists, Italian humanist heretics, the great philosophers beginning with
Spinoza). Only one of the great figures remembered him
(we need at all
not count Faber Stapulensis and Bovillus). The famous eulogy by Giordano
Bruno (in his speech at Wittenberg) stands alone across the ages: "Where
is there to be found a man comparable to that native of Cusa, who was the
less accessible the greater he was? If his priestly robe had not now and
then veiled his genius, I would go so far as to say that he was not the equal
of, but far greater a figure than, Pythagoras." Through Bruno's writings,
Cusanus' ideas became known to others who had no direct knowledge of
him —Leibniz, Hamann, Schelling. Probably the first to rediscover him
was Schlegel, though nobody paid attention at the time. Why was Cusanus
forgotten for so long ?
It would be rash to say that metaphysical speculation as such cannot
influence the multitude. Speculative thought does exert a powerful influence
when it is originally embodied in a way of life (as in the case of the
Buddhists), or when it constitutes a real cultural world (as in the case of
the Roman Stoics), or when it is expressed in a religious way of life (as in
the case of Christianity). It is through such practice that speculative thought
gains in influence.
On the other hand, when speculative thought serves only to procure
aesthetic gratification, when it
is pursued as a mere hobby or avocation, it
exerts no influence. So pursued, speculation may lead to profound insights,

but as it does not affect everyday life, it falls into oblivion. Although it is
a kind of liberation, it is not a real liberation because it does not put its
own consequences to the test. There is a momentary feeling of liberation,

but the impetus is soon absorbed by some religious belief or by some

nihilistic mode of life concealed by social convention.
Cusanus does not fall within either of these two categories. As a meta-
physician he was a creative thinker meditating in solitude and finding no
echo. Metaphysics has efficacy only in the independent selfhood of the
thinker himself. Cusanus' independence had limits of which he was not
aware:
First: Cusanus did not battle for true faith; indeed, he was scarcely
aware of any challenge to it. The Catholic Christian Church was for him
eternally one and the same, the physical object of faith, which leaves no
room for even the slightest doubt. Second: Out of some innate, inherited
disposition, stimulated perhaps by the turmoil of his age, he set out to
recognize in the real world the pattern of eternal order which is always
present,and to restore it by his call for unity, peace, and faith.
Cusanus is the only important philosopher of his century who did not
belong to any school or found a school. He is a solitary figure, standing
completely alone —
rather like Duns Scotus Erigena in the ninth century.
Like Erigena a metaphysician, Cusanus was attracted to him, though
Erigena's views were then considered heretical.
Are we closer today to Cusanus than were the intervening centuries?
Did he, long before the upheavals of recent generations, aspire to unity
and order based on an encompassing metaphysically grounded knowledge
(though in a sense that is no longer possible today) ? Do we keep going
back tohim from our own chaos because we are asking the same questions
as he, only more urgently and with greater awareness of our danger?
Similar questions are suggested by every philosopher. We hope to find
in each some help in exploring our own possibilities. We should like to
appropriate the truth of their insights without falling into their historically
conditioned errors.
Part Seven: Critical Estimate
INTRODUCTION
The Meaning of Criticism
To apply finite logical standards to Cusanus' metaphysical thinking would

be to miss its import entirely. It is not an "object" but a meditative movement
of thought in which objects serve only as guideposts. We must place our-
selves within the movement if we are to criticize it adequately.
To grasp disarms' thinking we must not draw up a set of alternatives,
trying to clarity his "point of view" by envisaging an opposite point of

view. Everything has to be referred to the infinite mind of which our own
mind is an image. A critical estimate of Cusanus is possible only if we too
examine this infinite mind under his guidance.
The essential What is the existential meaning of his
questions are:
conceptual ciphers? What is their truth? What new perspectives does he open
up to our experience? What perspectives does he shut off? Such a critique
cannot be carried out by logical methods alone.
Philosophy is not a "point of view" but a "mode of thinking." Studying
it, we can understand by making it our own, or we can miss its point
it
entirely, deceiving ourselves with secondary rational interpretations. We

can choose to go along with the philosopher or refuse to do so. We can,
looking at it eye to eye, as it were, participate in the struggle between antag-
onistic powers which is the essence of every philosophy. But we must never
put it in the straitjacket of a "point of view" and then, on that basis, decide for
or against it.
Like every great philosopher, Cusanus can be approached in terms of his

and background, and his place in the philosophical tradition.
ideas, his life
But we should like to go further. We should like to gain an inkling of what
he himself really was underneath all this, to meet him face to face, as it
were, with reverence but not without questioning and criticism.
In attempting a critical characterization, we are fully aware that we can
never recapture the whole of Cusanus. To criticize we must have the
courage to expose our own limitations. What we are attempting will be
corrected, supplemented, or rejected for deeper insights by other students
of this philosopher, provided that, aided by their own philosophizing,
they base their judgments on documents and texts.
l. The significance of Cusanus contradictions
a. Cusanus' speculations do not give rise to a systematically ordered con-

ceptual system. Divergent trains of thought run side by side, presenting
contradictions which are sometimes methodologically meaningful and
sometimes not. Often ideas are set forth in no particular order, and their
content is obscured by digressions. Cusanus used such contradictions as
a method what he could not convey in other fashion. His state-
of saying
ments often sound as if some crucial truth has just been discovered, and
as if this is a step forward in knowledge rather than yet another variation
in a meditation forever unresolved. We do not encounter the pure play of

a mind surveying and methodically mastering its categorial inventions.
Let us discuss the significance of the many contradictions to be met with
in Cusanus' practice and thought.
b. Cusanus speaks of God and yet he knows that to do so is impossible.

This contradiction is unavoidable and implies no lack of Cusanus
clarity.
knew that speculative truth can be elucidated only in the form of contra-
diction.
False contradictions arise only when ideas that are paradoxical from
the standpoint of discursive reason, though meaningful from that of the
intellect, are perverted into rational concepts or imaginary physical realities.
Criticism fails in its purpose when it transforms speculative ideas into

rational statements or theorems. Speculative insight is lost when it is
frozen into a lesson that can be learned.
c. Cusanus did not believe that the negations of "negative theology" mark
a terminal point of thinking, beyond which we are left in a vacuum. On
reaching the point where he was confronted with a choice between mysti-
cism (in the sense of an experience from which the world and the self
are absent, perhaps infinitely meaningful but completely incommunicable)
and the world as a reality without transcendence, Cusanus rejects both
alternatives, and embarks upon the way of speculation, which is the medium
of lucid human Existenz in the world.
d. The questions arise:

How is it possible to prove or disprove any statement or idea if we cannot
refute it by discovering that it contradicts itself?
If we admit contradictions in our thinking, if they become a character-
istic of the truth, how can such a thinking be convincing, how can it have
the ring of authentic truth ?
Can we distinguish between a meaningful speculative contradiction and

an empty, rationally destructive contradiction?
Is not the door to intellectual anarchy opened by the admission of any
contradictions whatsoever?
The answer is: We can only try and see what happens. There is no
criterion outside speculative experience itself, unless it be the criterion of
how such experience affects the man who has it.
e. One fundamental contradiction in Cusanus is this: God is separated
from mankind by an unbridgeable gulf: the infinite and the finite are
incommensurable, and God is unknowable. But at the same time God is
present in the world He created. He can be known by human beings, and
all things reflect His essence, for God is in all things. God is completely
separated from the world, yet God is in the world the contradiction is —
stated too unmistakably to be overlooked. Our human limitations being
what they are, we cannot avoid falling into this contradiction, but we can
be aware that we are doing so. When we reach this point, the contradictory
I
N ICHOLAS OF CU SA 257
terms cancel each other out, and the intellect is free to go on in pursuit of
speculative insights which transcend this form of objectivity.
It is a difTerent matter when we are confronted with contradictions in

practical situations that require a choice. The conciliar movement and the
papal claim are not in contradiction as Cusanus subordinates them to the
idea of unity. But in a concrete situation involving a real Council and a
real Pope, their meaning is perverted into antagonistic arguments, which
meet and clash.
On the practical plane, choice between alternatives is inevitable. It is
imposed by the reality of the temporal situation. Now there is a line of

reasoning that might be taken here, which is not implicit in the vision of
unity. The unity of the Church makes it imperative to support the Pope
in the real situation of a council that is spiritually a failure. The exactly
opposite choice might be made if a universal council, demonstrating by
its unanimity that it isHoly Spirit, were able to assert itself
inspired by the
against an inadequate Pope without causing a schism. But Cusanus does
not reason in this way. Without being conscious of doing so, he breaks up
his philosophical vision of the Church into two mutually exclusive rational
theories. He employs one as an argument in support of his own choice
and drops the other, which is now taken by his adversaries. Thus Cusanus
contradicts himself by regarding the papal theory as the only true one. In
the actual polemical struggle he fell a victim to the concrete situation. In
this case, Cusanus cannot be defended against the accusation of objective
rational inconsistency, although his mode of thinking and the fundamental
attitude expressed in De concordantia catholica need not have led to such
a contradiction.
Cusanus might be justified on the ground that alternatives between which
a choice must be made in real situations cannot be maintained simultaneously
in theory without weakening the contestant's position. But such a weaken-
ing is possible only if the philosophical theory itself is abandoned. Philosophy
need not sacrifice its total vision for the sake of alternative arguments,
nor is weakened by a concrete situation. But in
the philosopher's resolve
practice he must choose even if his choice is not adequately grounded in
universal principles; he must take a calculated risk, conscious of his histor-
ical responsibility. Because he was not clearly aware of this, Cusanus was
led into needless contradictions.
f. In the meandering course of his speculations Cusanus uses incompatible

expressions. It is impossible to expound his works at an internally con-
sistent system.
He himself says that the ungraspable One can be usefully designated by
many terms. To know what he means it is more important to keep his aim
in mind than to make a comparative study of the terms he employs.
To understand Cusanus one must be willing to meditate with him, to

bear with him when he repeats the same idea in different words. We must
experience the ever-present speculative attitude as well as the prevailing
mood of pious perspicacity, of ascent through thought.
g. We should distinguish (1) contradictions forcefully expressed, which

lead to further speculative thinking and have been sought and found with
this purpose in mind (their effect is liberating) (2) contradictions which
;
seem to result from shifts in linguistic usage (they are not real contradictions
and their clarification merely requires a certain effort); and (3) false con-
tradictions, which demand correction, have nothing to do with the specu-
lative method, and occur on the rational plane purely as a result of
negligence (they lead to error and obstruct the course of the meditations).
One defect in Cusanus' philosophizing is that he does not distinguish
between contradiction and such related concepts as difference, polarity,
and opposition. Nor does he put his thinking to test categorially and system-
atically (we have to go to Hegel to gain clarity on this point). He
sometimes identifies opposition {oppositio) with contradiction (contradictio)
9
The philosophical limits disclosed in Cusanus life,
ciphers and speculation
At moments, certain of Cusanus' ideas seem to burst the bounds of his

philosophy. But these ideas remain inoperative, because he holds to the
view that the universe is essentially harmonious. Contemplation of the
harmony of all things in the ground of being is the supreme goal of all
his speculative endeavors.
a. His interpretations of his own epoch. —The type of criticism which

holds that he failed to recognize the emergent forces of the future, that he
waged a losing battle for the past, the view that he was an "extraordinary
man who lacked nothing but an understanding of his own epoch" (Jaeger,
II, 425), has significance only for those who believe in a necessary course
of history and suppose that they can tell what it is by the results. I am in-
terested here in something else, namely, Cusanus' explicit evaluation of his

own epoch.
We find it in a New Year's sermon of 1440 (Scharpff, Reformator, p.
292) and in a work of 1452, Coniectura de ultimis diebus (Akademieaus-
gabe, 1959). Cusanus' reflections follow a traditional pattern. The course of
history (he writes in 1440) reproduces the course of Jesus' life: the former
is to the latter as an image is to the original. One year in Christ's life corre-
sponds to fifty years in the history of the Church (for the following reason
time runs in septenaries —in periods of seven days, seven years, and seven
times seven or forty-nine years; the fiftieth year is the Sahbath that com-
pletes the laborious cycle). Jesus was twelve years old when He appeared
in the Temple: these twelve years correspond to the first six hundred years
of our era, down epoch of Gregory the Great. For the next seventeen
to the
years Jesus seems to have done nothing —

these correspond to the 850 years
following the epoch of Gregory the Great. Now begins the period of His
Epiphany which extends down to the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.
"Therefore I make it known to you," says Cusanus in his New Year's
sermon (1440), "that what is now beginning for us is the last fifth of the
twenty-ninth year of Jesus' life, the time when He appeared in public and
was baptized in the Jordan." This means: the time of the betrayal and the
Passion is approaching.
In 1452 Cusanus once again foretells what is to come (in 1450, the
twenty-ninth Sabbath had been celebrated in Rome as a jubilee year by
representatives of the The body of Christ, i.e., the
whole Western world) :
Church, is to be purified so that the spirit of God may enter it visibly, as it

were, just as it descended upon Christ in the form of a dove. Some saintly
souls will withdraw and practice a more severe asceticism, until, after
vanquishing the Tempter, they will come back into the world to spread
the word of eternal life. They will suffer persecution, but the number of
the faithful will increase rapidly, until the thirtieth Jubilee has been attained.
Then the satanic spirit of the Antichrist will touch off a persecution
against the body of Christ, the Church. This will be a time of sore affliction.
The Passion of Christ will be repeated. The Church will seem to have be-
come extinct. The holy apostles will desert it and flee. There will be no
successor to St. Peter upon the throne.
But this will not be the end. Holy men will gather their strength and
repent, because they will see the Church rising anew, in greater brilliance
than ever before. Peter will shed bitter tears at having fled, and so will
the other apostles, the bishops, and the priests. Gloriously resurrected, the
Church will calmly envisage eternal peace. But the consummation will not
come at once. First the Church, the bride of Christ, must become worthy
of her bridegroom, cast off her blemishes. Then Christ will come to judge
the living and the dead, and to destroy the world by fire. He will take the
Him in all His Glory, so that she may rule with Him for all eternity.
bride to
This "Resurrection" will coincide with the thirty-fourth Jubilee corre- —
sponding to the Resurrection of Christ —that is, it will come after 1700
and before 1734.
This is how Cusanus interprets the present and foretells the future.
Characteristically, he calls such interpretation "conjecture." For, he says, we
should refrain from "curious investigation of the future," if only because
almost all who have so far tried to predict the course of future events have
been mistaken, even the Fathers of the Church, whose holiness of life and
profound learning we lack entirely. And yet such thinking is not repre-
hensible. Although the decrees of God remain hidden even to the wisest
men, "He, in His great kindness, permits us, worms that we are, to make
conjectures about things He alone knows." Only God sees all things
from outside time. Only He can determine the moments of time. In such
traditional schemata of history Cusanus sees catastrophe ahead; but it is
followed by apotheosis.
So general a characterization of the epoch may seem to us mere trifling,
but his inner attitude toward contemporary events was serious. In a letter
to Jacob von Sirck, dated October 1453, he had the following to say of the
Turkish peril after the conquest of Constantinople: "I fear greatly that
this violence may defeat us, for I see no possible uniting in resistance. I
believe that we must address ourselves to God alone, though He will not
hear us sinners." What does he mean? His insight into the situation does
not result in an urgent appeal for action. He speaks in general terms of
sinners, not of the need to contemporary sins, which
understand very specific
must be surmounted if men are to unite against a deadly peril. The only
—
action he recommends is prayer though he himself judges it to be ineffec-
tual under the circumstance. A keen appreciatioon of impending disaster
simmers down into passivity.
b. Cusanus' attitude toward death. — He speaks about death in three ways.

First: "Nothing is entirely destructible, but every individual thing can
pass into another mode of being. A given mode of being comes to an end,
and yet, as Vergil said, no real death occurs: For death seems to be nothing
but the dissolution of a compound into its elements" (De doc. ignor., II, 12).
This implies a certain conception of nature: the thinker looks serenely upon
himself as partaking of the changes undergone by an indestructible sub-
stance, the nature of which he does not investigate.
Second: When a man burden of his body has become an
feels that the
obstacle on the path wisdom, he desires to be separated from it and

to eternal
does not fear death, for he wishes, as an immortal soul, to feast on God's
eternal wisdom. Fired by such love that they renounce themselves and all
else, those worthy of this wisdom prefer it even to their own life (De ven.
sap., 15).
Third: Cusanus comments on the voluntary character of the suffering and

death of Christ in his letter to Albergati. This text is incomparably more
profound than the two just quoted. We do not really know, he says, what
death is. No one, save only Jesus Christ, ever possessed or will possess the
knowledge of death and suffering. Because He had this knowledge, He
was "exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Mat. 26, 38) and prayed in
agony at Gethsemane. And His sweat was like unto drops of blood. The
death of Christ encompassed the suffering of all who die here below. Indeed,
none of us knows what death is. Therefore only the death of Christ is the
perfect death. Christ died for all and gives life to all.
Therefore Cusanus says to the young monk: "Learn to imitate Christ,

when I lc prayed on the Mount of Olives. Do not imagine that you are
praying unless you struggle unto death and rise from your prayer at least
mentally drenched in your blood and scalded by hot tears. Then you will be
comforted as Christ was and be filled with joy, victorious over the death of
the body and the sufferings you have taken on yourself."
But what if the experience is not merely mental, but actual? We must
not forget how Cusanus conducted himself when his life was threatened.
Did Cusanus even remotely imitate Christ? Did he not, rather, evade the
concrete situation by taking refuge in a metaphysical magnificence un-
justified by his own existential experience?
What does mean "to be victorious over
it death"? We have found the
following three ideas in the texts just referred to: The first is impersonal,
a vision of nature, a cipher of the eternity of Being; it expresses an attitude,
unmarred by transient self-interest, of serenity in the face of death. The
second idea contrasts soul and body. The body denotes everything that is
natural and inescapable, everything that limits us and holds us in subjection.

The soul is conceived of as incorporeal and immortal, as yearning for the
joy of God's presence, of perfect philosophical knowledge conceived as a
desirable permanent state. This is an artificial notion without real substance:

the conception of eternity as endless time and of the incorporeal soul as
existing in time is no more than a self -deluding form of our will to survive.
This is not a victory over death. The third idea is that the more painful
death may be, the more likely it is to usher in a most blessed union with
God, that an agonizing death can confer victory over death. This third
idea raises the following questions
(1) Is the experience of "reliving" something in one's mind comparable
to actually experiencing it ? When I imagine that I can imitate Christ as He
was on the Mount of Olives and die like Him, I am on an entirely different
plane of reality, I am envisaging a mere possibility and running no real
risk. (2) Is not true imitation of Christ an essentially boundless readiness
to die in mortal anguish, a readiness that proves genuine only when actually
put to the test? To become Jesus' mirror, freed through Him to one's own
freedom to speak and to be the truth: that is, really to repeat His sacrifice?
(3) Can we speak of an imitation of Christ in connection with every

case of agonizing torment, even suffered involuntarily? Can imitation of
Christ give us the strength to rebel no more but to assent, and even when
deserted by God to counter our despair by addressing to Him the question,
My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? those unfathomable —
words from the Psalms, which were Christ's last questioning words on the
Cross ?
Cusanus does not ask such questions. Accordingly, we find no answer
to them in his writings. For it cannot be called an answer when, after his
profound interpretation of Jesus' prayer on the Mount of Olives (though he
does not really convince us that he takes it seriously), he says to young

Albergati: Victory over death lies in the obedience of the monk who lives
away from the world, who has died to the world. "Great is the privilege of
the monk whoalways has Christ present in his father superior so that he may
die to himself and live forever in Christ."
His attitude toward death and immortality remains unclear. This is not
surprising: crucial insights can be achieved in philosophy only if the
philosopher applies them in practice. Otherwise scientific ideas, sublime
emotional flights, extravagant dreams are all self-deceptions. They are not
errors, but reflections of existential failure, of blindness to reality.
In Cusanus theological and philosophical discussions, occasional flashes

of truth, are overshadowed by traditional arguments. For example (from the
letter to Albergati) : Only God has the immortality to which we aspire. Only
He can give it to us. —A man who suffers for justice and truth suffers for
God. If he chooses to die rather than to offend against justice, God will not
let him lose his life, but give him immortality. Therefore if a man accepts
death,which has no end, for God's sake, God will confer upon him immortal,
life, and it will be a life that knows it is living.
everlasting
Cusanus has neither theoretical nor practical knowledge of the courage
a man must have to risk his life without renouncing his will to live, but
rising above it, mastering it, to die calmly like Socrates, without expectations,
in the serenity of nonknowledge.
c. Freedom and evil.

1. Freedom of choice. — Cusanus asserts the freedom of choice: "The
faculty of free will in no way depends on the body, as does the faculty of
desire." Our freedom of choice remains entire even when the body is weak-
ened. "It is never impaired as are the desires and senses of old men."
Freedom is here meant in its full sense. "The ability to choose implies
the faculty of being, the faculty of living, and the faculty of understanding"
(posse eligere in se complicat posse esse, posse vivere et posse intelligere).
Capability as such (which we have discussed above) is powerfully and
indestructibly present in the capability of the mind. As we know from ex-
perience, it possesses a being separate from the body (De apice theoriae).
What a man really is, is not determined by natural necessity nor by what
is called predestination, fate, ill fortune. "For every man has the freedom to
choose, namely, to will or not to will. He should choose the good and shun
evil. For he has within him the king and judge over these things. Because
the animals do not know all this, this power is a human attribute" (De
ludo globi)
2. Evil has no real existence. —What is evil? Cusanus gives the old
answer: Evil exists, but has no reality of itsown. "Being is good and noble
and precious. Hence everything that is has some value. Nothing can be
without having some value" (De ludo globi).
There is only one principle, God, Capability as such. What is actual is
actual because if reflects Capability as such. "What does not reflect it has no
essential original being." "Futility, defectiveness, error, vice, sickness, death,
corruption, and other such things lack all the quality of being" (De apice
theoriae). In this view, which identifies misfortune, suffering, defect, and
error with evil, evil is flattened and shorn of all reality.
Ideas that assert the nonbeing of evil greatly reduce its significance, unless,
in die face of the reality of evil, they scan its abysses and ciphers and reach
out beyond all ciphers.
3. The origin of evil: freedom. —Though evil does not originate in

being, it is present. How is this possible? Cusanus answers: God willed that
man, who without free will could not have been a noble creature, should
be capable of error and sin. God did not create man a vulgar slave subject to
the yoke of necessity, but free and ready to carry out the divine tasks in
freedom of choice, out of love. This implies that those who serve of their own
free choice can also choose not to obey (Exc, VI, 527)
Evil rejection of God
is is preferred to God.
in favor of something that
"How demented is he who seeks Thee," Cusanus says addressing himself
to God, "and while seeking Thee, withdraws from Thee. Every . . .
sinner, then, strays from Thee and departs afar off" (The Vision of God,
chapter V, op. cit.).
4. The origin of evil: chance. —
Does evil arise solely through misuse of
freedom? Cusanus sees another source which evil has in common with
all bad things, all disasters, all imperfections. None of these things comes
from God. For things derive from God their essence, their unity, their
perfection —but not their finiteness. And the origin of finiteness is chance
(contingentia). In De ludo globi, Cusanus
comes about. tells us how this
God creates all things, including things subject to otherness and change
and passing-away, yet he does not create otherness and changeability and
passing-away, as such. It is by chance that things perish, change, become
imperfect. God does not produce defectiveness, but only opportunity
(opportunitas) or possibility. Defectiveness is only one consequence of
and is added only by chance. "Evil and potential sin and death
possibility,
and becoming-other are not God's creations."

This is illustrated by the following image: "When we throw several
peas down over a plane surface, no single pea moves in exactly the same way
as any other . . . this otherness, this difference does not originate with the
man who has thrown them down together, but comes about by chance
[ex contingentia]. For it is not possible that they should move in the same
way or stand still on the same spot."
Must we conclude, then, that chance is a condition of freedom? Cusanus
may appear to think so. In his metaphysical analysis of finitude and its
consequences, "the freedom to do evil" is relegated to the domain of chance.

But in his psychology, he recognizes that man has the freedom to choose.
We have here two points of view. On the one hand, an objective analysis
of finitude which reduces all imperfections to a common denominator (and
one of these imperfections is the possibility of freely choosing evil) ; on the
other, a more subjective analysis of freedom, which is attributed exclusively
to man. When the two points of view are combined, the meaning of freedom
is lost. We ask: Is freedom possible only thanks to the imperfection of the
finite world, with chance marking the point at which evil can enter? This
would be the kind of freedom that is supposed to characterize the motions
of intra-atomic particles and that is today foolishly asserted to be the con-
dition of the possibility of human freedom.
Or does Cusanus here touch upon an idea of which he is not conscious,
does he for a moment attain an extreme point without seeing it ? This idea,
which is alien to Cusanus, can be formulated as follows: Is not finitude in-
separable from order just as infinitude is inseparable from chaos? Are both
inseparable from the truth of the being in which we find ourselves? The
concrete answers of our Existenz and the speculative answers of our meta-
physical thinking are true only if both —
finitude and order on the one hand,
—
and infinitude and chaos on the other are not lost sight of. Existential
seriousness does not deal with chaos by denying its reality.
The order of finite things must be wrested from chaos, there is continual
struggle between the two; similarly, there between
is a continual struggle
the light of existential reason and the darkness of passion which is all- and
self-destructive. The struggle may take place with no communication between
the two, each side aiming only at destruction of the other; it may take the
form of a frank exchange of views, without practical results; or finally, the
form of a life and death struggle, tempered only by awareness of a common
purpose transcending the inevitable conflict. We shall not go into all this
here, but merely note the limitations of Cusanus' thinking: When he fails
to distinguish between imperfections and evil, reducing everything to the

level of the negative, he misses the true significance of both freedom and
evil.The insoluble conflict between the two, which, as far as we can see,
reaches down to the very ground of things, gives way to an illusion of a
harmonious whole.
d. The view that the universe is fundamentally harmonious.

1. life was not affected by his profound ideas
Cusanus' attitude toward
on freedom. Of the problem of evil he was scarcely aware. In his eyes the
world was beautiful, self-contained, and fundamentally harmonious; con-
sequently, any sort of radicalism was alien to him.
Nor does Cusanus belong to the tradition exemplified by works such
as De miseria conditionis humanae (by Pope Innocent III). Pascal said,
"The I is always hateful." Cusanus said, "We cannot hate ourselves" {The
Vision of God, p. 74, op. cit.).
2. The view that reality is fundamentally harmonious implies that the
goal of eternal peace has already been achieved. In this view, knowledge is
inseparable from faith and love. The single articulated totality of Cusanus'
harmony casts its light over every one of its elements, even rationality,
even sensuous beauty, even the vital impulses. What may appear to us as
on the plane of the
transitory finite, remains for him an image of the original
and, seen with the eyes of faith and love, reflects its light. Nothing is
isolated in the hierarchical structure of the truth. Robbed of the hardness

and violence of the particular, all things can be recognized as a reflection of
the eternal truth. Such recognition is effected through an enthusiastic,
selfless, objectless love of the truth —an emotion related to mystical experi-
ence. It is opposed to any feeling of power in possession of the truth (such as
peremptory satisfaction in logical correctness) and to the sort of dogmatism
that is impervious to argument, leads to ruthlessness in action, and is
destructive of the truth of the whole. Here violence begins and peace
becomes impossible.
Visions of universal harmony can function as ciphers. Their beauty
appeals to us at certain moments, but soon we come to question their truth.
At all times two ciphers of the world have been current. One is expressed in
the philosophical view that the world and all things in it are governed by a
fundamental harmony; the other, in the view that the world originated in
deviltry and that its existence is a kind of fraud. Both must be rejected. They
are to be taken only as symbolic expressions or ciphers of passing experiences;
apart from this, they have no validity.
The image of a harmonious universe is a cipher; as such, it may appeal to
us because of its reassuring quality, but we must not be seduced by it. Be-
cause it gains the upper hand consistently in Cusanus, it sets limits to his
philosophy.
Harmonious to whom? Even to men driven to despair by suffering and
death, tortured, abandoned by all? Or only to a God who takes pleasure in
the hideous sport, for whom the dissonances are resolved in a whole unknown
to us, yet into which we are helplessly flung? To men given to the practice
of false humility and existential self-deception ?
3. As we have said, Cusanus takes the truth of official Christian doctrine
for granted. His faith is anything but a belief in Christ softened by in-
tellectual liberalism. It seems absolutely unreflective, childlike, imperturbable,
and this proves a barrier to the speculative movement of his reflections,
though Cusanus never seems aware of it (save perhaps occasionally in
sermons addressed to listeners whose faith is in danger). He does not
transcend the endless movement of reflection. Nor does he have any sense
of the fermenting forces which were undermining the Christian faith and
every faith —forces such as asserted themselves with fanatical savagery a
century later, in Protestantism and in the Counter-Reformation. To these
earnest believers Cusanus' faith in universal harmony must surely have
seemed superficial.
4. This is how Cusanus interprets the imperfection of earthly existence:

and deed, life and existence alike,
in the realm of the finite, every thought
nowhere complete or completable, never more than
are merely "conjectural,"
approximations. To Cusanus, however, this does not throw everything
open to doubt. On the contrary, the conception of all things as conjectural
becomes itself a source of reassurance. For according to this conception,
things are not corrupt but merely inadequate, there is not wickedness
but weakness, not destructive evil but only limitation.
Cusanus' belief in universal harmony has something to do with the fact
that he has virtually no feeling for human greatness, let alone the ability
to perceive greatness even in one's mortal enemy. He did not, like the
humanists, admire heroes, poets, and thinkers for their sheer greatness alone.
Thus, he sees in oppositions and contradictions only the possibility of
surmounting them, not symptoms of some fundamental conflict. He does
not see how mankind and the world are torn by conflicts, or how contending
forces can rage within a man who remains unaware of this and believes
himself to be at peace.
In Cusanus' eyes, revealed faith is not opposed to philosophy, any more
than the authority of the Church to genuinely free thought. On the contrary,
he believes that in both cases the former implies the latter, and that the two
form one harmonious whole. Thus Cusanus was anything but a battlefield
for the conflicting tendencies of his age. He stands in the vortex of the
creative whirlpool itself, rather the advocate of a questionable subjective
harmony than a classical thinker.
The belief in universal harmony gives false reassurance in practical affairs.
It authorizes shams and half-measures. It provides an illusory security, which
leads to complacency in respect to avoidable evils. In the midst of great
activity, it gives rise to spiritual paralysis, great energy is coupled with
helplessness, impatience, or capriciousness. Such are the psychological con-
sequences of this basic untruth, a belief in universal harmony which rules
out all inconvenient experience.
Once we perceive the limitation of the cipher of harmony, we ask: What is
the real core of Cusanus' over-all attitude? Or no core? Are we merely

has it
dealing with different attitudes in juxtaposition? Should we conclude that

he never attains full clarity about the concrete situation, that he never makes
a resolute existential choice? That he arrived neither in his thinking nor in
his life at a clear-cut either-or ? That he never took on the full, awe-inspiring
burden of responsibility?
Against the background of his belief in universal harmony, how are we
to account for his peculiar helplessness in practical action, for the uncer-
tainty that overwhelmed him at crucial moments despite the firmness of his
claims? He
fought for the power of the one Church rather than for the
authenticity of Existenz, and yet the potential grandeur of Existenz is ex-
pressed in his philosophical thinking.
X I CH O L A S () F C U S A 267
3. Cusanus the man
a. Impotence of reason? — Open-mindedness satisfies nobody in so far as
everyone represents a party and seeks support for it. The completely open
mind is at best a sky beneath which everyone in the world must occupy the
place he does occupy. All that reason can do for a man is to help save
him from falling entirely under the dominance of his place and party,
from losing his selfhood. The open mind does not supply us with un-
ambiguous, tangible principles. In so far as it aspires not only to understand
everything but also to penetrate to the great heart of things, it accomplishes
nothing. The strangely grandiose conception of a wholly rational man goes
hand in hand with failure in matters of practice.
Or is all this untrue? Are we not, in accusing reason of weakness, blaming
rather our own weakness, our inability really to rise to the level of reason?
The weaknesses of the rational mind are inherent in the reality of this
mind itself. They show that it is not rational enough, not mind enough.
Once it believes it has attained the truth, it settles into self-complacent
certainty instead of testing and renewing itself in the light of the resistances
and incompatibilities it encounters in practical life. When it insists on the
absolute validity of a specific point of view, it is anti-rational, it loses its
grip on reality.
To what extent all this applies to Cusanus is shown by his limitations.
—
Although his pure speculation a mode of thinking that is by nature
—
timeless makes him at times free and open, it does not keep him suffi-
ciently free and open in the flux of life. He soars to marvelous heights but
cannot remain for long in the realm where all is metaphor and enigmatic
image and even this metaphoric world is a metaphor for the state of
detachment he has achieved.
His speculation becomes impure, tainted with foreign elements. It lapses
into defense of the established Church and its dogmas, and because he
the historical character of his own faith, he cuts himself off
fails to realize
from free communication with other human faiths.

While talking about peace in the name of the Biblical faith, the established
churches split mankind into warring camps a contradiction in terms if —
ever there was one. As a man of the Church, Cusanus was bound to
acquiesce in such a practice. The self-certainty of his philosophizing does
not remain at the proud level of independent human Existenz, which
implies that the consequences of immersion in historical reality are
its
unpredictable. Instead, he arrives at an (objectively presumptuous) cer-

tainty, based on a revealed faith defined as absolutely valid, and guaranteed
by the reality of the only true Church. Since we reject such a faith, we must
conclude that Cusanus shares responsibility for historical crimes and errors
which he did not perceive, did not combat, and did not surmount.
As we follow Cusanus, sharing in his weaknesses, testing ourselves in

our own, we discover that he was not a hero who faced extreme danger
unflinchingly, not a man with the courage to look death in the face. He
was not a martyr who would sacrifice his life for his faith and his Church.
He was not a sage who, rising above himself, preserved his sovereignty and
bowed only to the ambiguous language of transcendence. He lacked the
aura of holiness possessed by certain other men in his time. He lacked the
innocence, the mysterious charm, the poignant quality of a life sustained by
pure spirituality.
Because Cusanus was not a hero, not a martyr, not a sage, not a saint,
the failure of his reason to run the risk of total lucidity constitutes a weak-
ness. His reason failed to assert its rights against the brutality and super-
stition of his time —nor does it help us to cope with such forces as they
appear today.
Yet, for all his weaknesses, he is never base. There is genuine exaltation
in his finest flights, in his knowledge of his true home, in the enthusiasm
with which he pursues his philosophical path. how, for briefWe see
moments, he and openness,
attains to great clarity but we also see how, in
his life, he remained satisfied with the traditional dogmas. We see him
animated by good intentions in his efforts to reform the Church. He is
confident of success, and his failure does not shake his confidence but
merely puts him in a bad temper.
On the whole, Cusanus is not one of those philosophers whose greatness
is so pure that merely to think of them is gratifying.
b. The modes of Cusanus' failure. —Only in occasional moments did

Cusanus' life match his ideas. When he became involved in political action,
he did not achieve the grand style of the statesman. To an ever greater
extent in the course of his life, his acts were incompatible with his ideas.
Nor were his acts those of a man wholeheartedly concerned with realizing
his goals —furthering political and moral salvation through education,
institutions, laws.
He is neither an oak that stands unshaken (like Spinoza or Kant) nor

yet a thinker so shaken to the depths of his soul (like Kierkegaard or
Nietzsche) as to be compelled to utter truths never heard before. He was
not —through the representative greatness of his humanity —a beacon to
later generations.
Considering the profundity of his speculations, we cannot help being

surprised by the kinds of failure he incurred. The following questions
arise: Did his philosophical pursuits become for him a sort of refuge from
the cares of everyday life, an edifying distraction for his leisure moments,
comparable as such to the occasional retreat of a man of the world to a
monastery? Do his ideas express no more than the heightened emotions
that may touch us when we read poetry or listen to music, are they merely a
N 1 CH O LAS OF CU S A 269
purification and broadening of emotional experience? Can metaphysics

remain detached from life (merely inspiring magnificent meditative flights),
without the consuming and fulfilling seriousness that we experience in

Plotinus or Spinoza? Does Cusanus, as has happened so often in modern
philosophy, find some purely aesthetic pleasure in subtle speculation? Does
such thinking generate a guiding force or does it evaporate in its failure to
commit Although when studying his works we participate in his

itself?
speculative vision, are we not at the same time dismayed because this
vision is not pure, because it is cluttered up with elements that have no
connection with it, but come from a different source?
I hesitate to answer such questions by a simple affirmation. I feel, to be
sure, that Cusanus is far from the purity of Plotinus or Spinoza or Kant.
But what is true in his speculation is convincingly so. His limitations
seem due not to any great tragic guilt, not to the violence of some powerful
passion, but to commonplace shortcomings, such as forgetfulness, distraction,
lack of consistency, conformism.
c. Characterization of Cusanus the man. —

(1) Leaving home at an early
age, Cusanus was prompt to take his fate in his own hands. While still
very young, he was energetic in the pursuit of benefices. He played a
leading intellectual role at the Council of Basel. He fought stubbornly in
Brixen. As a propagandist and later as papal nuncio in Germany, he was
indefatigable. He showed himself capable of making crucial decisions:
when he left home, when he dropped jurisprudence for theology, and
when he went over to the papal party at the Council of Basel.
Once he had decided on a course of action, however —as in Basel and
later in Brixen —he was often inconsistent in his statements, uncertain in
his reasoning, unclear in his over-all attitude. He did not consciously
try to obscure issues, but he obscured them nonetheless. He countenanced
the formation of an organized opposition to his views but did not always
show a noble sincerity in his dealings with it. Like any diplomat, he
occasionally made use of his great intelligence to dodge issues. Wherever
he went, his intellectual superiority made a great impression, and to it
he owed his personal success.
(2) Where his intellectual powers were best displayed was in his grasp
and assimilation of all the movements of his age. He participated in the
humanist movement, in the awakening of scientific curiosity, and in the
political life of his day. At the same time, he was never caught up wholly
in any of these developments. His true vocation seemed to be elsewhere.

He expressed this "elsewhere" in an original speculative manner. His was
a meditative as well as an active nature. Time and again he succeeded in
tearing himself away from mere practical action, in finding time to think
quiedy and to set down his ideas in writing.
(3) Several times toward the end of his life, when he was serving as
adviser to his friend Pius II and engaging in the struggle against the
Archduke, he expressed distaste for what he was doing. He wrote to the
Bishop of Padua (quoted from Meuthen, 108) "If I manage to make peace :
[with the Archduke] I would

in the [Venetian] domi-
prefer to live
nium, perhaps on the revenues of the [Brixen] church which is so close to
his heart. There there is peace, and a climate suitable for me. I am tired
of the goings on in the Curia."
Stillmore revealing is a scene at the Curia, which was noted by Pius II
himself (quoted from Paolo Botta, Nicolo Cusano, Milan, 1942, pp. 103-06).
The Pope was trying to appoint a new cardinal. His choice was motivated
by political opportunism and the cardinals opposed it violently. The Pope
said to Cusanus: "We beg you not to take the side of those who think this
way. You who esteem Cusanus gave the Pope an
us, help us now!"
angry look and complained of the Pope's toward him. Then: "You ill-will
wish me to approve of everything you do; I cannot and will not be a

flatterer; I hate sycophants." And he gave full vent to his bitterness. "If
you are capable of listening to me, I want you to know that I dislike every-
thing that goes on in this Curia; no one does his duty as he should; neither
you nor the cardinals care anything about the Church. All are a prey to
ambition or greed. When I try to speak about reforms in the consistory, I
am jeered at. I am superfluous here. Give me your permission to leave. I
cannot bear this kind of life. Let me withdraw, and since public life is
intolerable to me, let me live by myself." And he burst into tears.

"You may censure everything that is done in the Curia," the Pope
"Nor do we ourselves find everything worthy of praise. Neverthe-
replied.
less, it is not your business to criticize. St. Peter's frail craft has been en-
trusted to us and not to you. Your task is to give honest But advice.
nothing obliges us to take your advice. . . . The survival of the Church is
at stake. I look upon you as a cardinal, not as the Pope. Up until now we
have supposed you to be reasonable, but today you are unlike yourself.
You ask me for permission to leave. It is not granted. . . . We try to act
as a father, but we shall not yield to unreasonable demands. You say you
wish to find peace and solitude outside the Curia. But where will you find
peace? If you wish to find peace, it is not the Curia but your own restless
mind you must Wherever you may go, you will find no peace unless
escape.
you temper your impetuousness and tame your spirit. Go home now, and
you may come to see us again tomorrow if you so decide."
Cusanus wept. Silently, his features expressing shame and grief, holding
back his tears with great he made his way through the assembled
effort,
dignitaries and wentmodest residence in the Church of S. Pietro in

to his
Vincoli. A little later he went back to see Pius II. "He displayed a more
moderate attitude and gave up much of his foolish obstinacy, thus showing
that the Pope's criticism had not been in vain." Cusanus had given in.
4. Customs' greatness lies in his metaphysics
Cusanus is not fully characterized when we list the issues of his day in
which he was involved: humanism, secular scientific curiosity, mystical
piety, conciliar and papal politics, the idea of universal reform, the rise of
individualism. Our purpose has been to expound his metaphysics, to know
and understand it, and only incidentally to raise questions that have a positive
or negative bearing on it. Philosophy cannot be separated from the philos-
opher, but Cusanus' greatness lies wholly in his metaphysics.
The "authentic arrive at a fundamental questioning
metaphysicians"
which takes nothing for granted. In permanent ciphers of thought, they
find answers on which everything seems to hinge. The peaks were Parmen-
ides and Heraclitus, Plotinus, Spinoza, and some Asian thinkers. In their
all-encompassing thinking the "seminal thinkers," as we call Plato, Au-
gustine,and Kant, are also metaphysicians, and not lesser ones. But precisely
because they were so encompassing, we do not include them in this series.
They go deeper than metaphysics, which to them was a mere instrument.
Cusanus is one of the "original metaphysicians," and no more. In the chain
of the great metaphysicians he is an irreplaceable link. He projected in
cipher a great and original vision of Being, which is of enduring value
even without the Christian trappings.
Cusanus exerts a powerful attraction through his grasp of these funda-
mental truths:
First: Man's self-awareness in the face of transcendence. As the image and
likeness of the Creator, man can be certain of his own creative powers, can
be a second God. Yet as an image of the original, in his otherness, he is
humble, because he is separated from the original as though by an unbridge-

able gulf. He is never self-sufficient.
Cusanus' image of man is clearer to us than his image of God. But it is
clear only because it reflects the radiance of the godhead.

Perhaps no earlier thinker so compellingly placed at the core of things an
image of man's greatness and limitations in respect of his creative intel-
lectual powers.
Second: The will to unity. Cusanus was anything but the uomo universale
of the Renaissance, interested in everything, forever trying to produce
something new. And yet he was always seeking new ways to unity.Without
unity in multiplicity, thought and action would be dispersed. The meaning
of the One is: the truth, in which nothing is forgotten; thought, because it
points the way to the truth, sees it unseeing in its ground, touches it without
touching it; piety, because truth has its ground only in the Encompassing
One; peace, because all things must come together.
Third: The rapture of \nowledge. With the freedom of the created mind
(Cusanus knows himself as such) he takes wing in the sphere of the finite
and soars into the sphere of the infinite. Speculative meditation makes him
aware of his origin and goal. In it he experiences the meaning of cognition
and of all science. All essential cognition by the intellect is achieved in
images, metaphors, and symbols. It never attains the precision that character-
izes divine cognition, but stays within "the conjectural."
Fourth: Mans tas\. In his finite existence as image and likeness of God,
man has an obligation to move as close to the original ashe can, though the
process has no end, to discover in the unity of the ultimate ground the
order of peace in which all things are joined.
In Cusanus' speculation we feel awareness of freedom certain of itself.
This does not entitle us to look upon him as belonging to our own world,
as though he intended and were able to guide it. Our world tries tofound
its existence upon political freedom, attains to the unrestrained freedom of
the sciences and to the venture of unrestrained power to produce through
knowledge, and plunges into the maelstrom of the inexhaustible pos-
sibilities of the mind. Our freedom has become license because it has no
roots. It is already far gone toward its own destruction.
We are faced with the question of our destiny: Is it possible to save
freedom on the freedom of the individual's Existenz? We still
basis of the
need help, which can only come from the ground of things. This help
cannot be known. Hence we cannot rely upon it or compel it or obtain it
by prayer. We trust in it when we trust ourselves. We hope to obtain this
help to the extent that we truthfully and lovingly do what we can do in
order to be free and deserve our freedom.
Freedom can be elucidated by metaphysical speculation which encompasses
it. It can also be paralyzed by irresponsible retreat into the bliss of pure
intellectual exercise. Freedom lives in the great millennial metaphysics of
Europe and Asia, to which Cusanus bore witness. He is one of its
representatives. Metaphysics alone does not bring freedom. But in keeping

alive our consciousness of freedom, it performs its essential traditional
function.
SPINOZA
I. LIFE AND WORKS

Spinoza (1632-1677) came of a family of Spanish Jews who had been
His parents had emigrated to Holland.
exiled to Portugal. He grew up in
the great tradition of Judeo-Spanish culture. He knew the Jewish philoso-
phers, studied the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the commentators, and
Spanish literature. At the age of fifteen, he was looked upon as a future
light of the Synagogue.
Later he came into conflict with Jewish scholars, stayed away from the
synagogue, and at the age of twenty-four was expelled from the Jewish
community. Every effort was made to hold him in the orthodox faith, he
was offered an annual stipend if he would go to the synagogue even oc-
casionally. Spinoza refused. When a fanatic tried to murder him, he left
Amsterdam and took refuge with a friend. The Synagogue pronounced the
anathema against him. Since this measure also had civil consequences,
Spinoza protested. But the title of the lost work that he wrote in self-
—
defense "Apology, to justify himself for leaving the Synagogue" shows —
that he himself had taken the initiative in the break. His sisters cited
the anathema to deprive him of his paternal inheritance. He went to court
and established his rights as a Dutchman. But then he voluntarily abandoned
the whole inheritance with the exception of a bed. He never uttered a
word of complaint about his sisters except at the end, when he left them
out of his will: "Their conduct did not deserve it." Quietly and without
recriminations he had broken with his family.
With a view to financial independence, he learned to grind lenses, which
were a novelty at the time and very much in demand. He became a master
of the craft. However, he did not live by it, but was supported by friends.
A number of people offered him money. He often refused. But he accepted
the help of Simon de Vries, though he declined to be appointed his heir,
since by law and nature the inheritance was due to Simon's brother. When
after Simon's death his brother wished to give him five hundred guilders a
year, Spinoza reduced the sum to three hundred. Jan de Witt had given
him two hundred guilders, attested in writing. When de Witt's
a pension of
heirs showed unwillingness to continue the pension, he brought them de
273
274 The Original Thin\ers
Witt's promise and renounced his claim. Whereupon they decided to meet
their obligation. Spinoza lived very simply. "The cloak does not make the
man. Why a costly covering for a worthless thing?" But he did not neglect
his person. He was neat and orderly in his dress and domestic arrangements.
Spinoza spent money freely on only one thing: he left behind him a choice
and valuable library.
After his excommunication Spinoza led a quiet, modest life in rented
rooms in various parts of Holland: 1656-60, in a country house between
Amsterdam and Ouverkerk; 1660-63, in Rijnsburg near Leiden; 1663-69,
in Voorburg near The Hague; and finally in The Hague, first, from 1669
to 1671, boarding with a widow, then, after 1671, in the house of the painter
Hendryk van der Speyk, where he kept house for himself. Here he died
of tuberculosis in 1677 at the age of forty-five.
Spinoza did not choose his fate but accepted it it meant
as inevitable:
exclusion from any community and from his
of faith, blood, or tradition,
own family. Rejected by the Jews, he did not become a Christian. But he
was a Dutch citizen, determined to perform the duties and assert the rights
of a citizen.
The Dutch state had developed in struggle against Spanish oppression.
The moral force behind the Dutch independence movement had not been
nationalism, but a striving for political freedom, justified by religious faith.
At the time when
the state was founded under the leadership of the house
of Orange, the paramount consideration had been military strength. Once
Dutch independence had been recognized in the Peace of Westphalia
(1648) and the new state began to feel secure, military organization and
unified leadership ceased to seem all-important. The republican party
(the Dutch patriciate, the oligarchical party) triumphed over the house of
Orange. For twenty years the republicans under Jan de Witt maintained a
regime of peace and prosperity. Military expenditure was reduced, the
state was secured by foreign alliances. Unlike the Orange party, which in
practice had been extremely intolerant, the republicans stood for true reli-
gious freedom. This gratifying state of affairs came to a sudden end when
Louis XIV, in alliance with the King of England, invaded Holland.
Regarded as a traitor, Jan de Witt was murdered by the mob (1762). The
Orange party returned to power, but the republican spirit preserved a
considerable influence.
Spinoza participated in politics. The T heologico-Political Treatise (1670)
is not only a philosophical investigation; was conceived and published
it
in support of the political aims of his friend Jan de Witt and the republicans.
Jan de Witt was dependent on public opinion for his power. It was
essential that the spirit of the government should find an echo in the
spirit of the population. Freedom of conscience and independence of the
state from Church orthodoxy were among the government's fundamental

principles. Spinoza's treatise argued in favor of both.
SPINOZA 275
After the murder of de Witt, the republicans (oligarchical party) strove

to carryon in his spirit and to restore peace. With the party's knowledge
and approval, Spinoza went to the Prince of Conde's headquarters in
Utrecht to promote the cause of peace, though it is possible that he had
merely been hoodwinked by a courtier who wished to satisfy Conde's
supposed desire to speak to the famous Jew. We are told that Spinoza
bore himself with remarkable ease and assurance at Conde's court. But he
did not succeed in seeing the Prince and returned home empty-handed.
The populace regarded him as a spy. Spinoza's landlord was afraid the
mob would break into his house. Spinoza replied: "Do not be alarmed. I
am innocent, and there are many among the nobles who know perfectly
well why I went to Utrecht. As soon as you hear the least disturbance at
your door, I shall go out to the people, even if they choose to deal with me as
they did with the good de Witt. I am an honest republican, and the welfare
of the Republic is my sole concern." Such was Spinoza's conduct as a
Dutch citizen.
The Orange party won out. It introduced (according to the classical
definition of state forms, which was accepted also by Spinoza) a monarchy
as opposed to the aristocracy of the oligarchical party. In a posthumous
political treatise, Spinoza outlined the ideal types of monarchy and aristoc-
racy. At the time of his death he was about to investigate the third type,
democracy.
Spinoza was a Dutchman, not by descent but by political right. No
longer a member of the Jewish community, he had no other source of
security than justice in the political existence of his state. As a man left to
his own resources, he recognized his human bond with every other man,
and for him this human bond was the self-certainty of reason. Spinoza had
not chosen to uproot himself, but when this lot was thrustupon him he
found new roots in the eternal reason that is accessible to man as man. His
thinking became a refuge for rejected individuals, compelled to stand
entirely on their own feet, an orientation for every man who seeks in-
dependence. He found the self-certainty of reason in philosophy, which
illumined and guided his life. When someone, wishing to convert him to
the Catholic faith, accused him of regarding his philosophy as the best, he
replied: "I do not claim to have found the best philosophy, but I do know
that I recognize the true philosophy."
made good only by the political security
Spinoza's uprootedness could be
and by personal relations of a purely human kind.
of a constitutional state
Spinoza had numerous friends and acquaintances, and he carried on an
extensive correspondence. He was welcome among the Collegiants, an
association of nondenominational Christians. He was a lover of philosoph-
ical companionship. "It is essential to my happiness that I make every
effort to bring it about that many others should have the same insights as
I. and that their knowledge and will coincide completely with my knowledge
and will." He never forced his teachings on anyone. But what he said
carried conviction. And no one could escape the nobility of his personality;
even his enemies could not help respecting him. He liked to associate with
simple people. When his landlady asked him if she could find salvation in
her religion, he replied: "Your religion is good. There is no need to look
for another as long as you lead a quiet life in devotion to God." Although he
had good friends, he suffered cruel disappointments in his human relation-
ships; he was misunderstood, exploited, forsaken; toward the end Leibniz
came to see the remarkable Jew, whom he was later to disavow completely.
It is not easy to put the right interpretation on Spinoza's desire for
independence. He wished to think and to live nothing other than the
truth, which for him meant: to be in God. This independence, this confi-
dence in his own judgment: this was the godly was not con- life. He
cerned with his own person. This man, who was was so entirely himself,
without self-seeking. He was free from pride and violence and seemed
never to think of himself. He wished his Ethics to appear only after his
death and without his name. For the truth is impersonal. It does not
matter who first formulated its propositions. He did not claim to possess
the truth (it is a very different matter with scientists and mathematicians
who justifiably claim priority for their achievements as mere achievements).
Spinoza concluded his letters with a seal inscribed with the Latin word
caute. He was indeed cautious, for he wished to live in peace. He was very
careful to whom he communicated his ideas and gave his manuscripts
to read. He postponed publication, and most of his work appeared after
his death. He had no desire to be a martyr: "I believe that each man should
live as he sees fit; and let those who will die for their happiness, if only
I may be permitted to live for the truth." Although he had been assured of
full freedom, he declined a call to the University of Heidelberg (1673)
"I have misgivings," he wrote to the Palatine minister, "about the limits
to be imposed on the freedom to philosophize. ... I do not hesitate
because I hope for better fortune, but for love of a tranquillity which I
think cannot be preserved in any other way."
Spinoza was neither a solitary eccentric nor an active statesman. He
undertook no other occupation than to develop his ideas systematically
and set them down on paper. In other respects, he was an independent
man, a citizen, a friend, who reacted to the situations of life with natural
—
good sense and always in an attitude of piety.
His quiet dignity seems to have been as much an innate disposition as
the consequence of his philosophy. But a number of anecdotes show that
his serenitywas not apathy, that his nature was not lukewarm, that he was
not lacking in temperament. At the murder of Jan de Witt, he burst into
tears. He wrote a handbill addressed to the mob, beginning: ultimi bar-
barorum, and was going to rush out and post it. When his landlord locked
him in his room to save him too from being killed, he came to his senses.
SPINOZA 277
Of the portraits that have come down to us, the one in Wolfenbuttel
shows the noble Sephardi. But even such a picture can give only an intima-
tion of the nobility and purity of soul to which his life and work bear
witness.
Worlds: In his lifetime he published under his own name only the didactic,
mathematically formulated Principles of Descartes' s Philosophy (1663)
and anonymously the Theologico-Political Treatise (1670). Immediately
after his death, the Ethics, the Political Treatise, On the Improvement of
the Understanding, Letters, and Compendium of a Hebrew Grammar
appeared in one volume. In 1852, the Treatise on God and Man and
Man's Happiness was found.
Chronology: From the period before the anathema nothing has come down
to us. The oldest document is the Short Treatise, found in 1852 (written
before September, 1661, probably between 1658 and 1660), the earliest
formulation of Spinoza's thinking. Among the oldest works is the unfinished

Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding, important for a compre-
hension of Spinoza's cast of mind. The Principles of Descartes' s Philosophy
was written in 1662-63. The first draft of his main work, the Ethics,
was written in 1662-65. It contained three books, which later grew to be
five. Spinoza worked on the manuscript up to the time of his death. The
Theologico-Political Treatise was begun in 1665 and published in 1670.
Shortly before his death Spinoza wrote the unfinished Political Treatise.
H. PHILOSOPHY AND WAY OF LIFE
Philosophy was implicit in Spinoza's life; it was his only means of attaining
his goal. In his early work on theImprovement of the Understanding, he

reflected on his future course. Everything, he reflected, contains good or
evil insofar as the soul is affected by it. What life commonly offers proves
to be vain and worthless. And so "I finally resolved to inquire whether
there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which
would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else; whether, in fact,
there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would
enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness. I say
'I -finally resolved,' for at first sight it seemed unwise willingly to lose
hold on what was sure for the sake of something then uncertain." Riches,
fame, the pleasures of sense seem to be certainties. But it is not certain that
the highest good is to be found in them. For sensual pleasure results in a
confusion and blunting of the mind. Wealth calls for more and more
wealth. In search of honor, I must incline to the opinions of men, avoid
what they avoid and seek what they seek. If I am to strive in earnest for the
I must renounce
new, the truly good, all these things. For they are so demand-
ing that the mind preoccupied with them cannot think any other good.
Thus my quest for the true good requires me to sacrifice a good that is
uncertain by its very nature for a good which is also at first uncertain, but
which is not by nature uncertain. In the midst of a life fettered to question-
able, perishable goods, which are certain to melt into nothingness, I shall do
well to seek salvation along the new path as a remedy, although it too is
uncertain.
The first question is: On what
do happiness and unhappiness depend?
And the answer: On the nature of the objects thatwe love. There are two
kinds of object. In our love of perishable objects and of those which all men
cannot acquire in equal measure, we expose ourselves to envy, fear, and
hatred. "But love toward a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly
with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness." Experience taught
Spinoza that though the mind, enlightened by such insight, can turn away
from perishable things, it cannot abolish them. His moments of liberation
became longer and more frequent, but he became truly free only after he had
gained a second insight, namely, that the acquisition of money, the pleas-
ures of the senses, and honors, are harmful only as long as they are pursued
as ends in themselves. For once they are treated as means, they are moder-
ated and cease to be harmful. This attitude of natural moderation is charac-
teristic of Spinoza. His highest good does not destroy everything else. It is
not to be expected in the beyond, but to be seized upon and fulfilled in this
world.
What is good? In his youth Spinoza stated the answer briefly:
this highest
insight into the unitywhich binds the human spirit to all nature and
enables me, in community with other men, to participate in nature. What-
ever comes my way should be considered as a means to this end; I should
concern myself with it only insofar as it is necessary as a means. From this
certain conclusions can be drawn:
We must understand as much of nature as is necessary in order to bring
about the highest possible nature in man.
We must establish the kind of society that is necessary if many men are to
attain this end as easily and surely as possible.
We must find an ethical philosophy and a doctrine of education leading
in this direction.
We must promote medicine for the sake of men's health, which is far
from means to our end.
negligible as a
We must improve mechanics in order to make difficult things easy, so
saving much time and trouble.
We must find means to purify the understanding, in order that it may
know things readily, without error, and as completely as possible.
Thus all the sciences should be oriented toward a single aim, which is the
highest human perfection.
SPINOZA 279
Provisional rules for life to this end:

Speak according to the people's power of comprehension and do everything
that does not interfere with the attainment of the goal. In this way, you will
bring men to lend a willing ear to the truth.
Take as much pleasure as necessary to preserve your health.
Try to acquire only as much money and other things as are needful to
sustain life and health.
Observe the customs of the country insofar as they do not conflict with
your aims.
Wc shall set forth Spinoza's philosophy according to the following schema:
The highest good is growth of philosophical insight
attained through the
in a vision of what is Such insight is
eternal (metaphysical total vision).
secured by a of Knowledge. Both bring awareness of what man is.
Theory
The attainment of such insight is freedom and has as its consequence
freedom in practical life (the ethical elucidation of servitude to the affects
and of freedom through knowledge)
The personal freedom of the individual is not enough. We do not live
singly, but in the real, social world, in which all depend upon all. Social
existence is grounded in man and should be mastered by man. It is realized
in the state and in the faith of revealed religion. While adhering to the
recognized philosophical norms, Spinoza's thinking is always political
and theological.
III. THE METAPHYSICAL VISION

If we are to understand Spinoza's manner of living and his judgment in
ethical, scientific, political, and theological questions, we must consider
the fundamental view that precedes everything else. It is to be sought in the
metaphysical vision which dominated his life from the beginning to the
end of his conscious development.
This total vision came to Spinoza suddenly, almost complete from the
first moment. If it is asked how Spinoza arrived at it, only one answer is
possible By elucidation of his innate intuition of God. Awakened in him as

:
a child by the Biblical tradition, this experience of God became for him
the one thing on which everything else depended.
A. Substance, attribute, mode
These fundamental concepts with which Spinoza sets forth a vision

are the
of Being, illumined by his awareness of God. They may seem strange at
first sight. To the question "What is?" he replies: Substance, its attributes
and modes.
Substance: The source must be that which requires no further ground.

When thought, it does not point beyond itself. In regard to it, the question
"Whence?" falls silent. which presupposes nothing other
Substance is that
as its ground of being. In other words: substance is the ground which is
ground, or cause, of itself (causa sui). Hence the concept of substance
must not postulate the concept of another thing outside it. Substance is
that which is in itself and is apprehended only through itself.
Concerning everything in the world, we can think that it might possibly
not exist. But of the source, of substance and only of substance, we must
say: It is conceivable only as existing. "By cause of itself I understand that
whose essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived
unless existing." It would be a contradiction to conceive of substance as
nonexisting. For this would be to think that nothing exists. Of course it is
the easiest thing in the world to utter such a pseudo-thought, to say that it
is possible that nothing exists. But really to think it out is impossible.
—
The being of Being or of substance, as Spinoza calls it is for him not a —
mere idea; it is the overwhelming, all-encompassing, infinitely rich intuition
of God, which finds confirmation in all thought and experience, whenever
we look into their ground.
Attribute: What we know of the one substance we know through its
attributes, thought and extension (cogitatio and extensio). Everything we

experience is either the one (from inside) or the other (from outside). They
are called attributes, on the one hand "in respect to the understanding which
imputes a certain nature to substance." On the other hand, attribute ex-
presses (exprimit) or explains (explicat) the essence of substance. In their
qualitative determination, the attributes are two (thought and extension),
but each of these, like substance, is infinite and thinkable only through
itself. But the attributes are infinite only in their kind, not absolutely infinite
like substance. For substance has not only these two attributes, but infinitely
many attributes that are unknown to us.
Mode: Modes are the individual things, these modes of thought and
these bodies.They are "that which is in another thing through which also it
is conceived." Substance and its attributes are eternal and infinite, the modes
are temporal and finite. Since substance is God, Spinoza says: "Individual
things are nothing but affections or modes of God's attributes, expressing

those attributes in a certain and determinate manner."
What is can be stated in the one sentence: There is only substance and
its attributes or the affections of the attributes. And: "All things, which are,
are in God, and nothing can either be or be conceived without God."
B. God
To conceive of substance means to know God. Let us look more closely

into Spinoza's idea of God.
SPINOZA 281
1) God exists. Why is the thinking of substance or of God one with the
knowledge that He exists?
That something exists is made certain by our existence. But our existence
is transient; each individual existence is not necessary but contingent. We
can think that it is not. Its Being must have a ground. We can find a ground
of this existence in another, and of this second existence in still another, and
so on ad infinitum, without ever arriving at an absolute ground. Such an
absolute ground can lie only in a necessary existence, that is, an existence
which does not exist contingently through something else, but through
itself. But such an existence is necessary only if it is impossible to think
that there is nothing. If nothing could be, Being would not be necessary.
Let us recapitulate: If we attempt to think that the mere finite beings we
are and those we encounter in the world exist necessarily, it "follows that
things finite are more powerful than the absolutely infinite Being." Only
infinite, not finite, beings can exist necessarily. Hence the conclusion : "Either
nothing exists, or Being absolutely infinite also necessarily exists."
Once again: It is inconceivable that only what is not necessary exists.
But we finite, contingent beings exist. "And so of no existence can we be

more sure than of the existence of the being absolutely infinite or perfect,
that is to say, God."
This is for Spinoza the clearest, most definite, greatest of all certainties.
Once substance is thought in earnest, doubt must vanish. "If anyone, there-
fore, were he possessed a clear and distinct, that is to say, a true idea
to say that
of substance, and that he nevertheless doubted whether such a substance
exists, he would forsooth be in the same position as if he were to say that he
had a true idea and nevertheless doubted whether or not it was false."
In this fundamental idea concerning the existence of God we must dis-
tinguish two elements: (1) it starts from the existence of finite things, but
(2) the existence of the infinite substance as such is absolutely necessary.
The derivation is only a thread guiding us from what is self-evident to our
everyday consciousness (our existence) through the question of the ground
of this existence (since there is nothing to be gained by an endless regress
from object to object in the world) to the idea of necessary existence. For
Spinoza the idea of substance or God is a certainty, not through derivation,
but in itself. The idea of God requires no grounding or derivation. Rather,
it precedes everything else. It is clear and certain in itself. Consequently,
Spinoza rejects the proofs in which God's existence is inferred from the
existence of the world. When theologians working with such proofs accused
Spinoza of atheism, he attacked them on the strength of his original cer-
tainty of God's existence. He expressed surprise that they should call him an
atheist;on the contrary, he said, those who needed such threadbare proofs
were not certain of God's existence.
2) God is infinite. The substance that necessarily exists is infinite. If it were
not, it would not exist through itself alone, but in relation to something
other. Nor would it be total being, that is, all reality. Substance or God is
therefore absolutely infinite. It has infinitely many attributes: "The more

reality of being a thing has, the more attributes it possesses expressing ne-
cessity or eternity and infinity. Nothing consequently is clearer than that
Being absolutely infinite is necessarily defined as Being which consists of
infinite attributes." Every attribute is also infinite, but only in its kind (in suo
genere) and not absolutely.
We men know only two attributes: thought and extension. But if there
were only these two attributes, substance would not be absolutely infinite.
God's infinity allows of no limitation. In its knowledge of God, to be sure,
the human mind can attain to no other attribute besides these two. It can
neither disclose nor understand any other. The infinite number of attri-
butes which man must necessarily conceive of bears witness to God's tran-
scendence. The knowledge of God must therefore stop at the over-
clearest
whelming unknowableness of the godhead with its many attributes.
3) God is indivisible. In God, or substance, there is no division. There is
no distinction between potentiality and actuality. What God was able to

create, He also did create. In God's infinite intellect there is nothing that
does not exist in reality.
In particular, freedom and necessity are one and inseparable in God.

"In truth, God acts with the same necessity with which He understands
Himself." In other words: "Just as it follows from the necessity of the
divine nature that God understands Himself, with the same necessity it
follows that God does infinite things in an infinite way."

God's freedom is not the arbitrary free will that men believe they possess,
but action without outward compulsion, without dependence on deficiency
and need, on purposes and a good that remains to be attained, but solely
from out of His own essence. This freedom is identical with necessity.
Those who look upon God as a person see God's freedom in His arbi-
trariness and His power in His ability to do whatever He wills. Spinoza
replies: Such power would actually be a limitation of His power, it would not
be the infinity of His action, which is both free and necessary, but a deter-
minate choice between possibilities, a lapse into the finite.
God's infinite action is indivisible and omnipresent. "Thus it is just as
impossible for us to conceive of God not acting as of God not being."
4) God is one. If there were several different substances none would be

substance, because it would be limited by something else. Thus in the nature
of things there cannot be several substances, but only a single one. Nor can
one substance be produced by another. "Hence it follows with the greatest
clearness that God is one, that is to say, in nature there is but one substance,
and it absolutely infinite."
But this unity and uniqueness of God is not that of the number one.
SPINOZA 283
When we perceive an entity, we first, in view of its existence, speak of one

or several exemplars. We
"subsume things under a number only after we
have brought them under a common genus." Hence, "we cannot call any
thing one or single until we have conceived of another thing that accords
with But since God's essence and existence are one and the same, it
it."
would be inappropriate to speak of Him as one. "Since we can form no

general idea of His essence, he who calls God one or single has no true
idea of God, or is speaking of Him inappropriately." "Only very improperly
can God be called one or single."
Even in this first idea, which seemingly subjects God to determination,
Spinoza transcends such determination by declaring that God's unity and
singleness must not be conceived as the unity and singleness of things in the
world. In formulation such contradiction is inevitable. Spinoza calls God
one and withdraws his statement as inappropriate. And yet for finite man
the statement that "God is one" remains in force.
5) God is indeterminable and unimaginable. It is Spinoza's philosophical

purpose to purify his own consciousness of God's greatness and of God's re-
ality as the only authentic existing power. Consequently he is tireless in
combating false ideas of God. We can only think God. All reifications,
determinations, imaginations cloud our consciousness of God. Spinoza

criticizes all ideas of God which effect such determinations. They impinge
on God's truth. They take a finite (worldly) reality for God's all-encompass-
ing infinite reality. They set something else up as God in God's place.
This is what the populace does. They endow God with human faculties.
"God is seen by the people as a man or in the image of a man." If triangles
—
and circles had consciousness says Spinoza, varying the old ideas of
—
Xenophanes they would conceive of God as triangular or circular. The
notion of Jesus as a God-man is just such an error. "Certain churches
maintain that God took on human
I have stated expressly that I
nature.
do not know what they mean. In fact, quite frankly, what they say strikes
me as just as absurd as if someone were to tell me that a circle had assumed
the nature of a square."
They conceive of God's faculty of free will roughly as follows: God can
do what He wills. He has a right to everything that is; He has the power to
destroy everything and send it back to nothingness. They look upon God's
power as the power of kings. In opposition to this, the purity of Spinoza's
idea of God impels him to say "No one will be able to understand properly
:
what I have in mind unless he takes good care not to confuse God's power
with human power or the right of kings."
The basic reason for such error is that God cannot be imagined but can
only be thought. In thought nothing could be clearer and more certain.
But every representation or imagination limits Him: "To your question
whether I have as clear an idea of God as I have of a triangle, I answer in
the affirmative. But if you ask me whether I have as clear a mental image
of God as I have of a triangle, I shall answer No. For we cannot imagine

God, but we can, indeed, conceive Him."
To imagine God as a person is in itself such a limitation. God has
neither understanding nor will, but the attribute of thought, from which
understanding and will issue as modes. He has neither motion nor rest,
but the attribute of extension, from which spring the modes of motion and
rest. Understanding and will, like motion and rest, are created nature;
they are not God Himself, but consequences of God.

"Personality" is an imagination which diminishes God by assimilating
Him to ourselves. Only finite beings have something else confronting them,
and they confront each other in their self-consciousness. They determine
themselves and they determine purposes which they make their own.
But God in His infinity causes such beings to arise as consequences, while
He Himself is above any such determinateness. God desires nothing, lacks
nothing, sets Himself no purposes. "One may not say that God demands
anything of anyone and just as little that something is displeasing or pleas-
ing to Him. All these are human attributes that have no place with God."
Spinoza's Biblical consciousness, secured by reason, of the overpowering
presence and reality of God in all things forbids him to denature God
through representations contrary His transcendent nature. In his serene
to
awareness of God, he rejects the tangible embodiments of God in cults
and which obscure our conception of Him,
revelations, in favor of the
absolute certainty to be gained by meditating on His eternally present
reality.
But revelations and cults and churches with their representations of the
divine are a part of man's life. The people are attached to them. Spinoza
acknowledges that this is necessary, a consequence of our finite essence.
And he does not say that these representations are devoid of truth. He
combats only the intolerance and violence which result from them. We
shall have more to say of this in connection with Spinoza's philosophy
of politics.
6) God is jar and near. In Spinoza's thinking God is utterly different

from the world and at the same time infinitely close to it. The difference
is expressed in such sentences as the following: "His essence would have
to differ entirely from our intellect and will, and could resemble ours in
nothing except name. There could be no further likeness than that between
the celestial constellation of Dog and the animal which barks."
He expresses the nearness by saying that everything is a consequence of
God, that accordingly God is in all things. God is not separate from the
world; He is not a cause that passes into it (causa transiens) i but a cause
that remains in it (causa immanens).
SPINOZA 285
Thus the radical difference between substance and modes is combined

with the fundamental idea that all things are through God and in God,
and that God is in them. But God in turn is so radically other that things
cannot have anything in common with Him, because they are in every
respect modes and not substance.
In the infinite extension of His being, God is the absolutely other, but
in His consequences He is present to the world and to us. His remoteness
is the substance that exists through itself; His nearness expresses itself in
the fact that this substance, by virtue of the two attributes that are known
to us, is the nature in which we are.
It is a mark of the radical difference between God and the world that
of God's infinitely many attributes only two are accessible to us; it is a
sign of His nearness that these two are wholly present to us as attributes
and modes of the divine substance. The infinitely many attributes signify
God's transcendence, the two known attributes His immanence. Our
human thinking is grounded in the infinite mode of thought, which in
turn has its ground in the attribute of God's substance. Our thinking is
radically different from God's thought, but it is a mode and expression of
God's thought.
Doctrines which assert God's immanence in the world are termed pan-
theistic. Is Spinoza a pantheist? Such formulas are inapplicable to great
philosophy. Spinoza is a pantheist only insofar as for him the world is
in God, but he does not believe that God's being in the world is the
whole of His being. On the contrary, God's Being in the world is to God's
authentic Being as the two attributes are to the infinitely many attributes.
Recapitulation: Spinoza's godhead. Spinoza's God has no history and

brings about no supersensory history. History is only in the world of the
modes, which as a whole is substance, whose eternal con-
as eternal as
sequence it is. In this world of modes things come and go, but the whole
remains. God is eternal and unchanging as in the great Biblical visions.
Spinoza's God is without personality, because He is without determina-
tions, without imaginable qualities. In His infinity, He is to clear thinking
the greatest of certainties, the only cause which is everywhere effective.
Even where God is not recognized, He is the greatest of certainties.
Spinoza's God is a logical entity which, however, is arrived at by means

that transcend finite logic (for Spinoza's thinking starts from principles
and definitions that are logically untenable).
But this ahistorical, impersonal, logical entity has immense power, for
it is the foundation of everything that Spinoza thinks and does. If we ask:
How can a man live with an idea of God which forbids all representation,
which withdraws all categorial definitions in our statements about God,
which knows no revelation and sets God so high over everything that we
call purpose, commandment, good and evil, that He seems to vanish
—
beyond everything we know? the answer must be sought in Spinoza's
life and judgment and concrete insight.
Spinoza has been accused of atheism on the ground that his substance
is "incapable of all predicates worthy of God." In view of Spinoza's
all-encompassing idea of God, in whose presence the world disappears,
Hegel thought it more accurate to call this philosophy acosmism than
atheism. Spinoza's philosophy cannot be subsumed under either of these
terms. It breaks through all such definitions.
Consequently there is more truth in such poetic judgments as: "Spinoza
was a God-intoxicated man" (Novalis). "Perhaps it is here that God has
been seen closest at hand" (Renan). "The infinite was his beginning and
end" (Schleiermacher).
c. The two attributes
Metaphysical systems begin with a concept of being, and on this foundation

a construction arises —
in Spinoza's case through his concepts of attribute
and mode. If this construction is taken as a knowledge of objects in the
world, it becomes a mere rational prolongation without metaphysical con-
tent. The arguments raised against it have no bearing on the content but
are directed against the construction, taken as knowledge of the world.

This is what happened in connection with the two attributes of thought
and extension.
The mathematician Ehrenfried Walter von Tschirnhaus asked Spinoza:
Why do we not know more than two attributes? Spinoza could not prove
it, he merely stated it to be so.
Tschirnhaus asked further: If there are infinitely many attributes of God,
there must be beings that know nothing of extension, to whom extension
would be as strange and unimaginable as to us the attributes of God per-
ceived by them? Spinoza gives no answer.
Tschirnhaus asked finally: Are there totally unknown worlds {modi)
that spring from the infinitely many attributes that are unknown to us?
Spinoza referred him in answer to his scholion to Proposition 7 in the sec-
ond part of the Ethics. We look it up. In this passage he writes that the
order and interrelation of ideas is the same as the order and interrelation
of things, because all attributes belong only to a single substance. "Whether
we think of nature under the attribute of extension, or under the attribute
of thought, or under any other attribute whatever, we shall discover one
and the same order." According to the aspect in which we see it, we must
explain the order of all nature solely by the attribute of thought or solely
by the attribute of extension, "and so with other attributes. Therefore God
is in truth the cause of things as they are in themselves, insofar as He con-
SPINOZA 287
sists of infinite attributes, nor for the present can I explain the matter more
clearly."
This is no answer to Tschirnhaus' question. One might continue to

beset the silent Spinoza and ask: In view of the coincidence of orders,
must not all attributes be present in all phenomena through the one sub-
stance? Hut since only two are present for us, are the others present in
other worlds of modes? If this is not the case, why does only the world of
the two attributes in which we ourselves are modes exist, and in what
form are God's infinitely many attributes realized? But if there is a multi-
plicity of worlds which in their modes appear (express, explain themselves)
on the basis of essentially different attributes, are there any indications of

their existence? Are there for example worlds lacking the attribute of
thought as our world lacks the infinitely many attributes apart from the
two ?
Spinoza neither asked these questions nor answered them when raised.
Why not? Because the idea of the infinite attributes serves him only as an
apt expression for God's transcendence; it does not lead him to spin fan-
tasies of other worlds. The infinitely many attributes are for him an ex-
pression of a limit to our knowledge, not a field to be investigated. In
general Spinoza's thinking is not directed toward the unknown and un-
knowable, but only toward actual reality. Hence God's being can at one and
the same time be for him the totally other in the obscurity of the infinite
and the totally lucid in the most certain knowledge.
How are the two attributes related ? Is there a difference in rank between
thought and extension? For Spinoza there is none. Spinoza argues against
those who distinguish between "extensive substance" and divine substance,
declaring the former to be unworthy of God, hence a mere creation of God,
a created substance.
To be sure, Spinoza denies God's corporeality. "There are those who
imagine God to be like a man, composed of body and soul." By body "we
understand a certain quantity possessing length, breadth and depth, limited
by some fixed form; to attribute these to God, a being absolutely infinite,
is the greatest absurdity."

But it is something very different "to remove altogether from the divine
nature substance itself corporeal or extended, affirming that it was created
by God." That is a fallacy. For there can be no substance outside of God, nor
can any be conceived of. Hence extended substance must be one of God's
attributes.
In order to understand this correctly, we must bear in mind the meaning
of "attribute" for Spinoza: in the attribute of extension substance remains
infinite and indivisible. Only if we suppose extension to be finite and divisible,
confusing it with the modes, do the contradictions arise which make it
impossible for us to regard it as an attribute of God. Similarly it is false to

argue that because corporeal substance is divisible, it is acted upon, but that
God cannot be acted upon. No, only the modes are acted upon, and not in-
divisible, infinite substance. While modes as affections of substance are finite,
divisible, and particular, corporeal substance (in the attribute of extension,
matter) can only be everywhere the same, infinite, indivisible, one. It would
be absurd to conceive of it as manifold, composed of finite parts. Conse-
quently, it is not unworthy of the divine nature. Thus it is false to say that
by attributing extension to God Spinoza "naturalized" Him, if we take
account of what the attribute of extension meant to Spinoza.
might further be asked whether the supposed equality of all the
It
attributesis not negated by a priority of thought. For all other attributes,
it would seem, must be thought, whereas only thought thinks itself. Thus
extension and all the other unknown attributes seem to confront thought
as an attribute unique in its kind. This is another question that Spinoza
does not ask. The only other attribute known to us is extension. In Spinoza
it does not occupy a lower rank than thought.
All these arguments against Spinoza have the value of showing what
Spinoza is not talking about. It must be admitted that Spinoza invited such
criticism by his method of mathematical proof, which cannot help moving
in the area of finite determination. If Spinoza has nothing to say in the face
of such arguments, it is not, as one might think, because they are well
founded, but only because the vision of God, which he is trying to explicate,
makes him regard them as nonessential.
The essential is that by declaring extension to be an attribute of God, he

has restored divinity and sanctity to the world. No aspect of reality is without
God or opposed to God.
d. The modes
Individual things taken together (omnia) are the world. They are modes.
Let us now examine in some detail the process in which the world is con-
stituted, from substance and passing through the
starting attributes of
thought and extension, to the modes.
Individual beings are finite. The totality of these finite beings, each of
which exists through another, is endless. Finite individual beings belong to
the totality of the finite, which and infinite. This infinity is a
itself is endless
consequence of God's grounded in a third infinity, that
infinity, but is itself
of the infinite modes, which are not God's infinity and not the endlessness
of individual things, but between the two. They are: the infinite intellect
(intellects infinitus), corresponding to the attribute of thought, motion and
rest (mot us et qnies), corresponding to the attribute of extension, and the
whole of the world (facies totius universi). The individual things (res
particulares) are situated in the whole of the world.
Thus Spinoza conceives of a series extending from substance as natura
SPINOZA 289
naturans to natura naturata as the totality of the modes, and another series
within it, from the infinite modes to the individual things. In the world of
individual things the two attributes of substance are expressed as ideas and
bodies. On the one hand, the series runs from thought (the attribute of
(as an infinite mode) to ideas as finite
cogitatio) to the infinite intellect
modes {modi cogitandi) on the other, from space (the attribute
of thought ;
of extension) to motion and rest (as an infinite mode) to the finite modes
of bodies. Both series run from substance through the whole of the world
(infinite mode: fades totius universi) to the individual things, which,
according to their aspect, we see as ideas or bodies.
The whole of the world or of nature is "one individual, whose parts, that
is to say, all bodies, differ in infinite ways, without any change of the whole
individual."
The totality of nature would be known if we knew how every part is
related to the whole and to the other parts. But such knowledge "is beyond
me, for it would require a knowledge of all nature and of all its parts."
Thus all that can be obtained is the conviction "that each part of nature
accords with the whole and with the other parts." But this conviction is
grounded in metaphysical vision or in the idea of God.

From the two attributes of substance it follows: that in nature we
apprehend only bodies and modes of thought {modi cogitandi), and that
all and thought. Where there is thought there is exten-
things are extension
sion, and where there is extension there is thought. Thought and extension
do not act upon one another, but since both are rooted in the attributes of
substance, "the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and
connection of things." The body and its idea, the idea and its body are one
and the same thing, considered under one or the other attribute.
Here again we run into considerable difficulties if we try to consider this
view of the world as an object of scientific knowledge. Are thought and
body conceived in the relation of thought to its object or as a parallel between
two independent series of events? There are suggestions of both possibilities
in Spinoza. But although Spinoza clearly distinguished the infinity of scien-
tific inquiry in the world from the fundamental metaphysical knowledge
of the world's Being (in the first case, enduring fundamental ignorance, in
the second total and ultimate conviction), his propositions are not without
contradiction. In particular, it remains unclear to what extent the investiga-
tion of the relation between body and soul is possible in practice and in what
sense the parallel between two independent but coinciding series is to be
taken. Mistakenly, yet encouraged by statements of Spinoza, the proponents
of the so-called theory of psychophysical parallelism in nineteenth-century
psychology invoke his authority. In any event it is necessary, in studying
Spinoza, to distinguish between those conceptions of the world which are
elements in his vision of metaphysical being and those of his ideas which
are subject to confirmation or refutation in scientific experience.
E. Time; necessity
The world is seen under aspects of spatial extension and thought. Time does
not pertain to Being itself, to substance, but only to the modes. What is
duration in time is eternity in the realm of Being. Thus under the concept of
duration we can only explain the existence of the modes; we can conceive of
substance only under the concept of eternity. We can conceive of the duration
of the modes as longer and shorter, but substance admits of no such concep-
tions. "In eternity thereno when nor before nor after." To know things
is
philosophicallymeans to know them in their eternity. But when we "con-

ceive of duration and magnitude abstractly, detached from substance and
from the way in which they are descended from the eternal things, time and
measurement arise; time by which to determine duration and measure by
which to determine magnitude in the manner easiest for us to apprehend."
But philosophical insight can penetrate and transcend all knowledge and all
representations of finite things: "It is of the nature of reason to perceive
things under a certain form of eternity."
While Spinoza sees everything in God and through God, and knows
things in their eternity, he derives his perfect serenity from the idea of
necessity.
With the category of "necessity" he goes beyond the definite necessities
thatwe recognize in the world: the necessity of natural laws as rules
governing the temporal process by which the individual, finite modes
emerge from one another guides him to that other necessity, in which all
things issue eternally from God, that from substance and its attributes.
is,
The necessity of the causal relation among the modes is perceived by

experience ad infinitum and can never be fully known. The necessity of
the eternal emergence or being of all things is known intuitively. This
intuitive knowledge can be secured and expressed by logical thought.
The natural laws of the endless modes may serve as a metaphor for the
natural law of eternal necessity, but they are not the same thing. The former
signify outward necessity or constraint, the latter inner necessity or freedom.
Spinoza delights in the experience of necessity. He expresses it over and
over again with the serenity of his idea of God: The infinite follows in an
infinite way from God. Everything that is is included in this necessity.
For "all things, I God, and everything which takes place takes
say, are in
place by the laws alone of the infinite nature of God, and follows from the
necessity of His essence." This necessity and these consequences are timeless;
they follow "in the same way as it follows from the nature of a triangle from
eternity to eternity, that its three angles are equal to two right angles." Hence
causa and ratio are here the same (for where thought in categories goes
beyond categories, the determinateness of the category ceases). The idea of
SPINOZA 291
this necessity leaves logical necessity, causality, providence, and destiny

behind it, and can employ them all in turn as vanishing metaphors.
God's necessity is freedom, but not the limited freedom of the arbitrary.
Hence it is an absurdity and a denial of freedom to say that God can cause
it not to follow from the nature of a triangle that the sum of its angles is
equal to two right angles.

Nietzsche took over this attitude toward necessity, this peace in necessity:
"Shield of necessity! Supreme luminary of being —which no desire attains,
which no negation sullies, eternal affirmation of being, I say yes to you
eternally: for I love you, O eternity!"
F. The cleavage between God and the world and the question oj their unity
The profoundest is that between substance

cleavage in the totality of Being
and its on the one hand and the modes on the other hand, or, in
attributes
traditional language, between God and the world. It is a cleavage between
the infinite and the finite
The infinite exists in itself, the finite always exists through some other
finite thing: the former is causa sui, the latter caused by another finite thing;
that is to say: the infinite contains existence in itself; the finite has its existence
from another finite thing; the infinite is apprehended in itself, the finite
through another. The infinite is unlimited, the finite limited by something
else; the infinite is unconditioned, the finite conditioned. And everything
that exists is either the one or the other, "is either in itself or in something
other." Being-through-itself and being-through-something-other designates
the absolute cleavage between God and things in the world.
Only the finite is individualized; the infinite is one. Hence where there
is individuation, there is finiteness. "Every species of which more than
one individual can exist must necessarily have an outward cause for its
existence." Infinity and uniqueness go together, as do finiteness and indi-
dividuation.
In its perfect positiveness the infinite excludes all determinations. The
"determinations" of the infinite, the attributes, are themselves infinite and
hence not determining predicates, but manifestations. Every determination
is limitation, hence negation (omnis determinatio est negatio), and pertains
to the finite. In the infinite there is no negation, but only positiveness. Any
predicates that are imputed to it must be withdrawn forthwith (in the
manner of negative theology)
This is the greatness of such thinking as Spinoza's: ordinarily we see
the positiveand concrete in definite finite figures. The Encompassing is
in danger of becoming empty for us. Since we find nothing tangible in it,
we suppose it to be nothing. Only what we can demonstrate, take hold of,
differentiate has reality for us. Spinoza, to be sure, enters into this manifold
just as we do, but coming from somewhere else, from God. For him God
alone wholly positive, and measured by God, every concrete thing is
is
a mode, determined by negation. As a finite being, Spinoza too was obliged

to live in the finite manifold, but as a rational being he was able, permeated
through and through by the One, to see the negative irradiated by, and
transcended in, the positive. Accordingly God and the world, one and all
(hen \ai pan), became the motto of those who shared Spinoza's faith.
Every single finite thing is caused by another finite thing ad infinitum
("transitive cause"). But the finite taken as a whole is caused by God
("immanent cause"). Thus if everything that exists exists in God, the
question arises: Are God's infinite attributes different from the finite indi-
vidual things? For these too are in God, or else they would not be. But their
being-in-God is of a different nature, because the relation of finite individual
things (the modes) to God is not only direct, but also indirect, by way of
finite connections. Spinoza states this as follows: "The idea of an individual
thing actually existing has God for a cause, not insofar as it is infinite, but
insofar as it is considered to be affected by another idea of an individual
thing actually existing, of which idea also He is the cause insofar as He is
affected by a third, and so on ad infinitum."

The relation between substance and the modes or between God and the
world is the ancient, never-to-be-solved question of the metaphysicians,
who, however, each in his own way, seem to think they have solved it. Why,
if the godhead is perfect, should there be a world at all? It is possible to
draw up a schema of the possible solutions: Either a transition from God

to world is conceived, or both are seen in such an opposition that the world
vanishes and becomes mere illusion (but here the question remains: What
is the source of the illusion?). Or God and world are conceived as one and
the same. In the first case, the world is seen as creation (by God's will and
decision) from matter or from nothing. Or as an overflowing from the One
in a descending scale of Being. Or it is seen as an unfolding on an ascending
scale. In the second case, the world is a phantasmagoria, an illusion, a dream,
a mass hallucination, such as those provoked by magicians. It owes its
existence solely to the radical delusion of men. It does not exist through
God but through an error. In the third case the world is itself God. The
question "Whence the world?" loses its relevance because the world dis-
closes itself not only as divine, but in its totality as God itself. There is no
transcendent godhead, and there is no world but God.
It would be a great mistake to assign any of the great metaphysicians to
a definite place in such a schema. The answers given in the schema all
have the definiteness that is possible and requisite in the knowledge of finite
objects. But the later metaphysicians master the entire schema. They do not
think in terms of finite objects, their thought is a transcending. Hence their
positions have always been assailed from the standpoint of logical analysis,
SPINOZA 293
which deals in defined concepts, because, seen from outside, they reveal
contradictions. Such is also the case with Spinoza.
He seems to reject all the positions noted in the above schema: creation,
for God has neither intellect nor will; the descending overflow, for the
connection is eternal, while time exists only in the series of the modes; up-
ward development, for Being is eternal presence, there has been no progress.
And Spinoza would also have to reject the notion that the world is illusion.
For he explains it not only on the basis of human representation, but as the
eternal necessity of a mode of existence which does indeed exist. Spinoza
expressly rejects the unity of God and world as one substance, whose parts
are individual things. God is not world matter, from whose division the
things come into being; He is indivisible substance, while the individual
things are not substance but modes, divisible, coming into being and passing
away.
But what does Spinoza think? In vain we look for a precise formulation
of the question and an unequivocal answer. He speaks in metaphors which
indicate that all existing things must be understood as a consequence of the
one substance. There are not two modes of being, God and world, hence he
cannot inquire into the relation between them; there is only the one being,
which expresses itself, explicates itself, has necessary consequences. According
to Spinoza, everything follows as necessarily in eternity as it follows from
the concept of the triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right
angles. Yet this too is a metaphor; the two consequences are not the same:
the metaphysical consequence is "as" the mathematical consequence.
An explanatory derivation of the world from its source in God is im-
possible, nor does Spinoza achieve any such thing. His thinking has its
source in his original awareness of God, and the content of his expressed
thought is a guide to that source.
Thus it is impossible to start from a source, however concretely con-
ceived, in order to encompass all things in one. But it is still possible to
think toward a source.
Where philosophy has misunderstood itself and derived the world from
its ground, the metaphysical idea has degenerated into a hypothesis for the
explanation of phenomena. Such a hypothesis has methodological justi-
fication only where the possibility of refuting or confirming it opens

up the way to endless progress in the knowledge of the world. Metaphysics
as a hypothesis of the world as a whole is meaningless. In metaphysical
thinking derivation has another purpose: to express the mystery itself. It is
a discourse addressed to the mystery, purporting to illuminate it, not to ex-

plain it.
But are we justified in interpreting Spinoza's ideas in this way? He

stresses the cogency of his thinking, which excludes all contradictions and
asserts itself by refuting contradictions. To stress the contradictions in his
thinking and interpret them meaningfully seems to run counter to his

innermost intention. This objection can be answered by an exposition of
Spinoza's theory of knowledge, which alone can give us an adequate logical
insight into his metaphysical vision, which is, to be sure, arrived at and
expressed by thinking, but cannot be fully encompassed by rational means.
We shall speak of this in the next section.
Spinoza's schema of Being is extremely simple: substance, attributes,
modes —and his thinking in these modes is uncommonly sober, even when
God is substituted for substance and world for the modes. But the simplicity
is deceptive: his edifice is complex and full of logical and epistemological
difficulties. And the sobriety too is deceptive: this thinking is not cool, but
burning; it embraces Spinoza's whole life, which it transforms into a pure
flame in God's all-pervading presence.
Substance, attribute, mode are words drawn from ancient philosophical
tradition. Their meanings have undergone many changes. "Substance" is
the Latin translation of the Greek hypo\eimenon (the underlying). But

"substance" was also used as a translation for the Greek ousia (essence),
more often translated directly as essentia. To these were added numbers of
other words that were used in the same sense or for purposes of distinction.
Eckhart translated substances as "Selbstende Wesen" (beings that produce
a "self"). Leibniz translated substance as Selbststand (self-sufficiency). In
following these sources of philosophical usage, we observe historical shifts
of meaning, not in a single line, but in a complex interchange. By going
back we arrive at a concrete meaning (as in the
to the etymological origins,
case of substance, as that which underlies the phenomenon) or at a symbol.
All this is interesting, but what counts in philosophy is the imprinting of
word meanings through great, new, original ideas, and the reinforcement
of such meanings not through definition, which is always inadequate, but
by the use of words in movements of thought. By taking advantage of the
possible connotations of words, language becomes a medium for the com-
munication of new ideas. Sometimes a word takes on a new richness of
meaning that had never before been associated with it: examples of this
are "the Idea" in Plato, "reason" in Kant, "existence" (Existenz) in Kierke-
gaard, and "substance" in Spinoza. Spinoza's "substance" is neither matter,
nor the underlying, nor the enduring, nor any of the other things the word
had previously meant, but a new and original word for the philosophical
idea of God. Attribute means "what is attributed to," or "property." In this
sense, "divine attributes" were a familiar concept. Spinoza took over the
word and filled it with new content. Mode means manner, whether of
being, or happening, or consciousness, or of figures of thought; it can also
mean state. For Spinoza "mode" is the concept designating the common
essence of all finite things.
It is to be noted that when philosophical concepts pass into general usage
they lose their speculative connotation and resume their old tangible, con-
SPIX OZ A 295
tc meanings ; thus "substance" becomes matter and "essence" a

sublimated body; "mode" becomes species or the way in which something
is done, while "attribute** becomes a distinctive property of things, etc.
For an under s
g of philosophical ideas, it is important that these
famil p should be clearly known; but they must be kept distinct
from the speculative ideas to which, h daey may serve as guides.
IV. THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

How does Spinoza know what he tells us? He answers this question by
elucidating the ways in which we know. It is his theory of the stages of
knowledge which first explains the nature of Spinoza's certainty that God,
as the one and only reality, is present in our thinking.
a The stages of knowledge
The three stages are set forth in the early treatise, On theImprovement
of the Understanding. First, the delusion of opinion and imagination,
fed only by hearsay or isolated experience. Second, true belief. Third,
:.ti: ::.: :j:a;: «;- : -'.tizt 7:.: ~\tzr„z.z :: --- ;::::; -• r.::,\ti :?.
an example. Given the problem, 2:3 = 4:3s, following the dictate of au-
thority, I find the value of x by multiplying the second and third figures and
ng by the first, and verify by repetition and observation (first stage);
drawing the correct inference from the rule of proportion (second
stage); or else I ;:: die fourth term on the strength of my intuition of
proportion (third stage). In the first case, the arithmetical principle is not
a truth for me but a mere opinion; in the second case, the truth is derived,
in the third it is intuited- "But we term clear insight only that insight
which tl not by rational conviction, but by feeling and intuition of
things themselves this : is far superior to the others."
In the later works, the three stages are further characterized. First stage:
rerceive individual things in a mutilated, confused way through the
senses —here we have "knowledge deriving from uncertain experience."
Or signs and words remind us of such things and we imagine them with
equal imprecision. This is the stage of opinion and imagination. Second
stage: We have clear and distinct common concepts (notiones com-
munes)', these are adequate ideas of things.We operate with them in the
second kind of knowledge, reason (ratio). Third stage: Intuitive knowledge
(seientza tntuhiva) attains "to an adequate knowledge of the essence of
In this theory, of knowledge, two distinctions are essential : between imag-

ination (imaginatio) and intellect (intellectus) , and between reason and

intellect.
i. "There are many things to which we can never attain by imagination

but only with the intellect." Substance, eternity, and metaphysical concepts
in general are not imaginable objects. We come up against confusing
concepts and insoluble problems "if we have not distinguished between
what we only understand but cannot imagine and what we can also
imagine."
Spinoza illustrates his meaning by the example of magnitude. It can be
conceived in two ways: abstractly and superficially, as we imagine it (then
it is finite, divisible, has measure), or in its eternal essence, as it is known by
the intellect alone. In the imagination, the infinite is held to be greater or

smaller than another infinite, and itself divisible; the intellect conceives
of it as indivisible and incommensurable with anything else.
"If anyone attempts to explain such things with concepts that are mere
expedients of the imagination, he is doing nothing more than were he to
strive to lose his mind by means of his imagination." The mind is confused
by the expedients of the imagination. We move away from being by trans-

forming it into imagination. In the imagination that which is beyond all
thingness is transformed into a thing. An example: time is generally thought
to be composed of moments; but this is no better than to mistake number
for a mere aggregate of zeroes. All those concepts "by which the common
people are in the habit of explaining nature are only different sorts of
imaginations, and do not reveal the nature of anything in itself, but only
the constitution of imagination."
2. In the realm of thought (which is always held apart from the
imagination) Spinoza takes over a traditional distinction but gives it a
special form: on the one hand, intellectus on the other, ratio
(intellect),
(reason). The reason of the second stage obtains knowledge indirectly,

through inferences. The intellect of the third stage has immediate knowl-
edge. Only when we see a thing is it present to us; only then are we, in a
manner of speaking, one with it. Thus reason with its inferences and
derivations merely points the way; the goal is attained only in immediate
intuition.
In common usage, intellect and reason are synonymous. A distinction
between them is essential for the philosopher, because the two refer to
fundamentally different certainties; the one attained indirectly, discursively,
by logical inference; the other immediate, intuitive, attained by a logical
vision. This intuition is not sensory intuition in space and time, and it is
not psychic, emotional experience; it is an asensory, luminous intuition in
timeless presence.
It is generally supposed that we need sense perception, not only in order
to have a real object (which is correct), but also in order to experience
reality as such, and that thought becomes empty when it is not supported
SPINOZA 297
or filled by sensory intuitions. What philosophers have said concerning

another, supersensory intuition is regarded as fantasy, mystical fiction, ab-
surdity.
Within the limits of our human existence, knowledge of the third variety
can be communicated and acquire self-certainty only in the forms of reason
(the second variety). Hence rationality is the eternal medium for what is
more than rationality (namely, the intuitive thinking of the intellect). With-
out this "more," mere rationality is endless and empty. Rationality, medita-
tion in rational movements, takes on content only if the presence of God is

expressed in it. Though free from sensory experience, reason is not self-
sufficient; only through its experience of the intellect as a timeless, ever

present source does reason become the language of truth, which expresses
eternal reality.
Spinoza was determined not to confuse the sources of our knowledge. In
the empirical world we have experience ad infinitum, nothing is ever com-
plete, everything Our experience
is relative. of reality is always present; we
are and remain in a self-sufficient realm of absolute perfection. When this
experience enters into time,it is explicated in movements of thought, whose
purpose it is whence they came.

to return
This supreme knowledge is the knowledge of God; it is "not a conse-
quence of something else, but immediate." For "God is the cause of all
knowledge, which is known solely through itself and not through some-
thing else." And "we are by nature so united with Him that without Him
we cannot subsist and cannot be conceived of."
The source of the insight which is at the center of Spinoza's thinking is
God's presence. This is stated very clearly even in his early writings. In
the earliest treatise, written in Dutch, the Short Treatise on God, on Man,
and His Well-Being, the distinction is made between verstand (intellectus)
and reeden (logos, ratio). And here Spinoza also states clearly the decisive
practical consequence of this distinction: the proper use of intellect and
reason liberates us from the affections that enslave us. "I say: our intellect,
because do not believe that reason alone has the power to liberate us from
I
all these," since reason hasno power to lead us to the attainment of our
well-being, which results "from a direct revelation of the object itself to our
intellect. And if that object is glorious and good, then the soul becomes
necessarily united with it."
Here Spinoza presents an analogy to certain historical doctrines: to the

"inner light," to the "spirit" through which the believer understands the
Bible, to the highest rung of contemplation in the thinking of the mystics
but also to Kant's Ideas and reflecting judgment, through which all the
investigations of the understanding first acquire meaning and systematic
significance.
The distinction between the second and third varieties of knowledge is
crucial for Spinoza's thinking. But since the second is in the service of the
third and provides the field in which what is "seen" in the third is communi-
cated, Spinoza sometimes speaks of them in one breath, or seems to use
them interchangeably. (If we translate Spinoza's intellectus as "understand-
ing —as he himself does in his Dutch letters —and his ratio as "reason,"
his use of the terms becomes the opposite of Kant's. Insofar as a comparison
is possible, Kant's "understanding" is Spinoza's "reason," and conversely.)
B. Ideas
By idea Spinoza means "a conception of the mind which the mind forms
because it is a thinking thing." But Ideas also have objective existence
(there are Ideas in God) : they "are the same and will continue to be so,
even if neither I nor any man has never thought of them." The Ideas in
themselves are adequate or inadequate; they are from the start a unity of
idea and will, active insofar as they are adequate, passive insofar as they
are inadequate; adequate Ideas possess perfect certainty, capable of with-
standing all doubt.
Adequate and inadequate ideas: By an adequate idea Spinoza means "an
idea insofar as it is considered in itself, without reference to the object."
As such, it "has all properties of a true Idea." These are "internal signs,"
whereas that which is external, the agreement, namely, of the idea with its
object, "must be excluded." But a consequence of the truth is that "A true
idea must agree with its object."
By inadequate ideas Spinoza means mutilated (incomplete) and confused
ideas. Among its modes of thought, our mind encompasses love, desires,
and all the affections, which, however, are dependent for their existence on
our idea of a loved or desired thing. A pure idea, on the other hand, can
exist without the presence of any other mode of thought. There are ideas
without affections. When in the common order of nature the human mind
perceives and is acted upon by the outside objects with which it acciden-
tally comes into contact, or when it knows itself amid the affections of the
body, its ideas are confused and inadequate. Only when the mind is moved
from within, as when it considers several objects at once, and understands
their similarities and the differences and oppositions between them, can it
have adequate ideas.
The nature of this pure thinking of the ideas is clarified by Spinoza's
distinction between common notions and universal notions. Universal no-
tions are generic concepts such as horse, man, dog. Since they designate only
what is universal in things, they are incomplete concepts, accompanied by
dillcrent representations in each man who thinks them. Other universal
concepts are essence, thing, something. They arise because the limited
human body can form only a limited number of clear images at once.
SPINOZA 299
Where the limit is passed, the images become confused and are collected, as
it were, under a concept such as essence, thing, something. "These terms
signify ideas in the highest sense contused."
The common concepts <,m\ the other hand arc those that are common to
all men; they are complete and form the basis of pure thought. In contrast
to the mutilating abstraction of the universal, they designate the common
essence of things. Such common concepts are extension and thought and in
the highest degree God. "The human mind has adequate knowledge of
God's eternal and infinite essence."
Idea and will: In Spinoza idea and will are one and the same. Will is
more than desire, it is the power to affirm or negate. But affirmation and
negation are bound up with ideas. "In the mind there is no volition or
affirmation and negation excepting that which the idea, insofar as it is an
idea, involves." An idea is not a static image, "a mute painting," but acts
by affirmation and negation. An adequate idea is not passive but expresses
an action of the mind.
The usual distinction between intellect and will (and the resulting op-
position between intellectualism and voluntarism) is not relevant to Spinoza.
Pure volition resides in pure thought, and conversely. An idea that is not
effective is not an idea; a will that is no
not illumined by the purest idea is
will. Only confused, passive thoughts and impulses are left when the One,
which is at once idea and will, is veiled.
Hence necessity is an attribute both of the will and of the idea, and this
in the highest degree in connection with God, who is free from all obscurity.
Hence "God acts and understands Himself with the same necessity." God
never acts arbitrarily like a despot, who has it in his power to destroy every-
thing and restore it to nothingness; He has the freedom of necessity.
Spinoza attacks Bacon and Descartes for asserting that the will is free
and superior to reason. Acts of the will, he says, do not have "the will" as
their cause. Each particular act of will must have a cause of its own. The
will is not, as Descartes supposed, the cause of error. An inadequate idea is
untruth; it wills only passively.

Certainty: A true idea comprises certainty. Anyone who has a true idea
knows it to be true. Anyone who has an adequate idea knows it. In other
words: "Anyone who truly understands a thing has at the same time an
adequate idea of his understanding." An idea is not a mute image, it is
the very act of understanding. "Who can know that he understands a thing
unless he first of all understands it?" This knowing-in-advance is the true
idea. Nothing could be clearer or more certain than this idea, which is the
norm of truth. "Just as light reveals both itself and the darkness, so truth
is the standard of Truth illuminates itself and error as
itself and the false."
well, just as waking consciousness throws light on a dream.

A false idea on the other hand comprises no certainty but at most an
absence of doubt. "However much a man may cling to a falsehood, we shall

never say that he is certain of it. For by certainty we mean something positive
and not absence of doubt.
The ideas, the modes of thought which Spinoza looks upon as independ-
ent structures, as parts of the infinite divine intellect (the modus infinitus),
must not be what we commonly call concepts or representa-
identified with
tions. An idea "is not an image of anything, nor does it consist of words.
For the essence of words and images is formed of bodily motions alone, which
involve in no way whatever the conception of thought."
c. Relation to God
In our knowledge we are guided either by experience or by the pure thinking

of adequate ideas. In our knowledge of the particular modes, experience is
the norm. Since individual modes are known through other individual
modes, this knowledge is never concluded. The knowledge of pure reason,
on the other hand, depends on thought alone. Without experience of the
world, this knowledge attains to Being itself. The necessity of thinking
implies the existence of what is thought. In other words: that which must
necessarily be thought also exists. Or: thinking and Being are identical. But
this is true only of substance, of God's eternal Being, and of what eternally
follows from it. Hence particular things as such do not disclose the neces-
sity of thought. However, the existence of the modes as a whole is conceived
as necessary, and similarly, each individual thing, insofar as it is seen "under
a certain mode of eternity" {sub quadam specie aeternitatis) Experience .
knows things to be real "in relation to a particular time and place." But
when the mind conceives these things from the standpoint of eternity, it
knows them to be necessary.
Particular things do not exist without God and cannot be conceived of
without God. However, God does not belong to their essence. Hence the
twofold aspect of particular things: on the one hand they can be investigated
endlessly, but on the other hand we can have complete and fundamental
knowledge of their mode of being.
Since everything is in God and known in God,
becomes necessary "toit
observe the right order in philosophizing." Spinoza, who from the outset
orients his entire inquiry toward the knowledge of God, denies that indi-
vidual things can be properly known without the knowledge of God. God
is the first, the fundamental. The sciences of things in the world become
aimless and meaningless if only their never concluded findings are consid-
ered. They are all ways to the knowledge of God, and take on meaning as
such. Accordingly, Spinoza attacks those who
have reversed the order of
knowledge: "For although the divine nature ought to be studied first, be-
cause it is first in the order of knowledge and in the order of things, they
J
I
SPINOZA 301
think it last; while, on the other hand, those things which are called
objects of the senses are believed to stand before everything else. Hence
it has come was nothing of which men thought less than
to pass that there
the divine nature while they have been studying natural objects, and when
they afterwards applied themselves to think about God, there was nothing
of which they could think less than those prior fictions upon which they
had built their knowledge of natural things, for these fictions could in no
way help to the knowledge of the divine nature. It is no wonder, therefore,
if we find them continually contradicting themselves."
d. Spinoza s geometrical method
Spinoza expounded his philosophy in his Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demon-

strata. On
the model of Euclid, he starts out with definitions and axioms;
then come theorems and their proofs, and finally notes {scholia). In addition
there are introductions and appendices.
Spinoza was convinced that his ideas were of rationally compelling cer-
tainty. He spoke of "philosophical or mathematical certainty." And in
rejecting the false conception of God, he wrote: The human race would
have been kept "in darkness to all eternity, if mathematics, which does not
deal with ends, but with the essences and properties of forms, had not placed
before us another rule of truth." But Spinoza's use of the mathematical form
of exposition has been almost universally criticized as an error. The following
objections to it can be made:
It is obvious that Spinoza's whole philosophy is contained in the unproved
definitions and axioms for which he lays claim to immediate evidence. Thus
the geometrical exposition is a great circle which recapitulates, and fills with
concrete content, what must be granted from the first. But the fundamental
concepts themselves lack the unequivocal clarity of geometrical definitions
and axioms (and are from being constructed according to the rules
far
governing a modern system of mathematical axioms). Quite on the contrary,
they are ambiguous, or unthinkable in rational terms, or plethoric —as
metaphysical concepts have always been. Spinoza's basic concepts with their
speculative character —which means precisely that they are rationally un-
thinkable —are not concepts of the kind that serve for unequivocally com-
pelling operations, but inherent paradoxes by which to attain metaphysical
certainty.
Spinoza's proofs leave us indifferent if we interpret them as compelling
rational proofs,and moreover, if this is done, they prove not to be compelling
at all. The proofs have force as a form of actualization. Spinoza carries out
his proofs in the second category of knowledge (which in disregard of his

own distinction he calls intellect or reason), that is, they are not based on
perception and imagination or on the intuitive knowledge of the third cate-
gory. But the proofs have meaning only when this last is present as a guide.
The demonstrations as such are concerned with objects, oppositions, contra-
dictions. But in this medium, there is a recollection or anticipation of in-
tuitive knowledge, the world-transcending knowledge of God, and an appeal
to the motives underlying a right conduct of life. It does not suffice to carry
out the simple rational operations with the concepts as defined. We under-
stand only if we are moved by the contents which these operations serve
to elucidate.
One may judge this method to be unsuitable for philosophy. Descartes
expressly rejected it. He points out that in mathematics simple, self-evident
aim
principles are the point of departure, while in philosophy they are the
and goal (only once did Descartes employ the mathematical method of
exposition, and then playfully). And it must indeed be admitted that
Spinoza's method is inappropriate where others have tried to imitate it
(cf. Schelling in his early works).
If nevertheless this unique work makes a profound impression, it is
because Spinoza's use of mathematics as a metaphor for the knowledge of

things eternal (of the rational power metaphor
of cogent demonstration as a
knowledge) became an effective form
for the intuition of the third variety of
of meditation. Spinoza does not seek certainty of God, he has it. He does not
search for what is eternal, for the fixed and enduring relationships, but
describes them. Thus it is in keeping with the nature of this philosophy
that it should be set forth as an unfolding of the fundamental knowledge,
in which whatever is implied in the fundamental concepts apprehended by
intuition is made explicit. The aim is not to discover, but to clarify, not to
advance, but to delve deeper by repetition. The demonstrations are a medi-
tative elucidation of the unfathomable axioms.
Most readers are repelled by the demonstrations. This is unfortunate, for
to think them through is to penetrate the inner structure of this conceptual
edifice, which arrives at no conclusion but elucidates Spinoza's vision of
Being and of life. Still, it must be admitted that the constant references to
previous theorems make continuous reading very difficult. (By dropping
the geometrical form and inserting the theorems to which Spinoza refers,
Carl Gebhardt in his translation has obtained a readable text. But he has
omitted many of the demonstrations, and moreover the work loses much of
its expressive power when shorn of its geometrical form.)
Spinoza clearly understood the nature of his thinking, as he shows by

his differentiation of the three classes of knowledge. But, although he always
seems to be slipping back into the rationality of compelling logic, his
fundamental idea is always at work: the essence of man is knowledge; in
knowledge God Himself is present;the purest form of knowledge is
mathematics, with its absolute clarity.
But though he speaks of "philosophical or mathematical method,"
Spinoza did not identify philosophy and mathematics. He chose an imitation
SPINOZA 303
of mathematical form as the most suitable way to communicate his vision.

He chose mathematics as a metaphor, because he claimed unique and uni-
versal truth far his philosophical knowledge. The timelessness of logical
and mathematical was for him the best possible symbol for the
relations
timeless truth and reality which disclose themselves only sub specie aeter-
nitatis. The mathematical method thus becomes a metaphor for the funda-
mental metaphysical experience, in which things are seen "from the stand-
point of eternity." In rationality the thinker gains certainty of what rational-
ity as such can never attain.
e. Mysticism, rationalism, speculative thought
In view of Spinoza's description of the stages of knowledge, and its highest,

the intellect, which in thought and experiences eternal
{ratio) ascertains
reality, the question arises: Do all these things exist? Are they not fictions?
Are the examples of immediate mathematical intuition not irrelevant? But

the heart of the matter is elsewhere. The essential is a manner of thinking,
in which nothing apprehended objectively but perfect certainty
is is obtained
in union with the object, not through feeling but through thought.
Is it not overbold to affirm the unique self-certainty of our thinking in
this process of all rationality by rational means? Some incline
transcending
to do For everything is falsified where such certainty
so but lose courage.
is denatured into a knowledge of something that we have and can state as
we have and state our knowledge of objects in the world, of things that can
be perceived by the senses, and of concepts that can be logically defined. When
this is done, what in Spinoza was existential actuality in thinking loses all
validity.
The Neo-Kantians have attacked Spinozism as uncritical dogmatism.
Kant himself had no relation to Spinoza and scarcely studied him. Kant's
criticism applies only to Spinozist perversions in which the philosophical
core of Spinoza's thinking had been lost.
There is no doubt that Spinoza, who was far removed from critical
thinking in the manner of Kant, gave ground for misunderstanding in his

formulations. But this does not touch the heart of his philosophy. We may
close our minds to such thinking. But then we must abandon the hope of
understanding Spinoza (and all original metaphysicians). And for those
who reject such thinking the question remains: What
by? For will they live
by sensory experience and rationality they cannot attain to any meaning that
will sustain life; to live by sheer vitality like the animals is to renounce the
possibilities of human existence. Or they may
meaning in revela-
find the
—
tion without, against, or above reason. On the plane where Spinoza
moves, revealed faith is the only alternative, and it was indeed his only
problem (we shall speak of it later).
Neither mysticism nor rationalism: Spinoza's philosophy has been called

if by mysticism is meant either the experience of union
mystical, unjustly,
with the godhead (in which subject and object disappear) or of concrete
supersensory visions. Spinoza knows no such experiences and denies them
any character of truth. His pure thought, in which union with the godhead is
achieved in the third stage of knowledge, merely presents an analogy to

mysticism.
Spinoza has been called a rationalist. Nowhere has thought raised so vast
a claim, nowhere has philosophical thought attained such heights of happi-
ness. "Blissful through reason," said Nietzsche. In Spinoza, however, we
find the "beatitude" not of the rationalist, who takes pleasure in explaining
everything reasonably and in debunking everything he lays eyes on, but of
the thinker who, indefatigably ascending and descending the ladder of
world and himself, who here in the world seeks means
stages, illumines the
of communicating his insight; his is the beatitude which finds its fulfill-
ment and justification in amor intellectualis. To call Spinoza a rationalist
is to forget that his philosophy, conceived intuitively in the third category
of knowledge and expressing itself through the second {ratio), is neither
exhausted nor ultimately grounded in these kinds of knowledge.
Certain of Spinoza's positions remind us of Descartes and Malebranche
(Descartes: cogitatio and extensio; Malebranche: the knowledge of all things
in God). But their thinking moved background of ecclesiastical
against a
faith; they supported its authority without restriction. Their thinking could
not achieve the philosophical earnestness of Spinoza, for it did not embrace
man's most central concerns. In Pascal, on the other hand, authoritarian
faith was carried to its most unexpected consequences, which most others
have veiled, and so thought was devaluated. Spinoza differs from all these.
For him thought is the summit of human power, God is in thought, and
nothing is left in the background. Such thinking was bound to be different
in every phase from that of the thinkers who set their faith in authority.
Spinoza had the perfect earnestness which made possible complete peace and
a purity of personal existence that cannot spring from a philosophy which
already possesses a faith somewhere else, so that, robbed of its philosophical
core, it degenerates into a factual discussion, questionable from the stand-
point of science and irrelevant to faith.
What Spinoza does in his thinking: Our is immersed in
usual thinking
darkness. It moves in abstractions, and words which
schemata, types,
distort even our perception. Governed by conventions and prejudices, its
vision and concept are blind.
All great philosophy strives for deliverance from the veils of distortion
and forgetfulness, from the endless thinking which is meaningless for lack
of aim or fulfillment, which loses itself because at every step its direction
changes, and despairs when it takes stock of itself. But it is not enough to
I
SPINOZA 305
learn how and conventions and to "look at the things

to disregard prejudices
themselves": such an orientation is negative and destructive, the things
seen become all equally indifferent. The essential and positive step is toward
a fulfilled thinking, a thinking grounded in the substance of Being. Such
is Spinoza's philosophizing. He carries out its operations and speaks of it
with a grandiose simplicity and assurance. For without self-conscious action

no speculative truth is possible.
The reader of Spinoza often starts out with the impression that he under-
stands nothing, or that he is reading sheer nonsense. Such an attitude is
only natural as long as we are immersed in the darkness of everyday life.
Some stubbornly cling to it. Others leap into a mystical reverie, lose their
footing in the world and cannot regain it; their spirit dwells worldless in
the elsewhere, while they, in the flesh, carry on a random existence in the
world. Spinoza is not one of these. His thinking leads beyond but does
not lose the world. As in Kant the Idea does not exist without the under-
standing it governs, so Spinoza's thinking does not take leave of the living
man it guides, even though the guidance is acquired in a ground that is
fully disclosed only in pure thought. For "we do not need experience for
that whose existence is not differentiated from its essence. Indeed, no ex-
perience can ever teach us anything about it."
But as finite modes, we are beings of mind and body, living in nature,
hence bound to place and time, which we transcend in pure insight but do
not for one moment leave.
On transcending with categories: The godhead is said to be without
determinations, to be pure cause and necessity, without purposes. But each
one of these statements effects a determination. Inevitably, when I think, I
determine in categories. If with Spinoza I think necessity, ground, cause,

effect, I am thinking just as much in categories as when I think in the
categories of purpose and volition, which Spinoza rejects.
There are several methods of thinking beyond the categories in cate-
gories :
1. When Spinoza thinks necessity, he compares. He compares a necessity

conceived as indeterminate and all-embracing with the determinate mathe-
matical necessity in which one theorem follows timelessly from another.
But eternal necessity is only as mathematical necessity, not identical with
it. Again he compares eternal necessity to the necessity of the temporal
principle of causality, but eternal necessity as an all-embracing power is
only as the principle of causality, not identical with it. To think the absolute
is to effect differentiations that can give only a distorted
in definite categories
view of it, such as we obtain in our representations. Thus categorial deter-
mination can be taken only as a comparison.
2. In another method different or opposite categories are identified.
Spinoza says causa sive ratio, intelligere sive agere, deus sive natura, and so
on. Here cause and logical ground, thought and action, God and nature, are
conceived as identical. It is easy to point out the "fallacy" in such identifica-
tions. Descartes made abundant use of this sive as a means of doing away
with scholastic distinctions (e.g. notiones sive idea, intellectus sive ratio, est
sive existit) ; here the identification is merely a leveling, which prepares the
way for new concepts, and the loss of essential insights must be regarded as
a negative element in Descartes. In Spinoza such identifications are powerful
instruments of transcending thought (except in cases where inattention leads
him to equate concepts —
such as ratio and intellectus between which he —
himself has drawn an essential distinction).
This method of positing differentiated and opposed categories as identical
runs as follows: As differentiated and opposed, they can be determined; in
the identification they become rationally unthinkable; their meaning becomes
indeterminate, but thanks to their differentiated origins they do not become
empty. Thus they become signs for the determination of the indeterminable.
The statements are untrue (because contradictory) as assertions of fact, true
as a transcending beyond determinations.

Spinoza used the method of categorial transcending, but he did not
raise it to clear consciousness. It would be absurd to accuse him of failing
to distinguish between causa and ratio and of coming to false conclusions
by confusing them. He saw the difference very clearly. To have identified

them despite this clarity was creative philosophical naivete. In him it is
possible, because his thought does not transcend but is fundamentally rooted
in transcendence. He does not think toward God, but comes from God in
his thinking of things. He knows that every determination makes for
finiteness (omnis determinatio est negatio) and knows that thought operates
in determinations. But all determinations are a guiding thread which enables
us, by negating them, to arrive at the place where the thought that expresses
itself in discourse (the thought which applies to the modes) is transcended
in the authenticthought of that which is without determination.
But why did Spinoza prefer the categories of substance, necessity, ground,
and eternity, and reject those of purpose and volition? A transcending in
categories should after all be possible in all categories. This too we can only
interpret as grandiose naiveteon the part of Spinoza, who in the one group
of categories finds his consciousness of Beingand his view of life confirmed,
and in the other impaired. Quite apart from their function in his method of
transcending, the categories become realities for him instead of remaining
symbols of thought. In this he resembled all original metaphysicians. If with
a method in view we undertake to transcend in categories and actually find
this possibility in all the categories, we take the method as our starting
point and our thinking becomes an unreal game, or else we are merely build-
ing up a thinking machine that we can call on whenever we need it.
In true transcending, the reality of transcendence is present before the

method, and speaks in the method. Then thinking ceases to be a game and
SPINOZA 307
becomes a means of elucidating reality itself in a real situation. What makes

Spinoza so impressive is not that he invents methods, but that the reality
of God is present in his thinking.
V. MAN
On the basis of what follows necessarily from God, of the infinite which
follows from the infinite in infinite ways, Spinoza now sets out to explain
that "which may lead us as it were by the hand to a knowledge of the
human mind and its highest happiness." What man is, his consciousness of
himself if he is authentic, that is, if he thinks in God, must guide his action
and his life.
A. Man is not substance but mode
Substance, or God, is the essence which necessarily includes existence.

Man's essence does not necessarily comprise existence. Rather, in the order
of nature, it can "just as well come about that this or that man exists as
that he does not exist." Hence, "the Being of substance does not pertain to
the essence of man."
That men are not substances is further demonstrated by the fact "that
they are not created but only engendered, and that their bodies existed
previously, though shaped in another way."
Spinoza's intention is to show that man is infinitely remote from God and
at the same time infinitely close to Him. No created things can exist and be
thought without God, but God's nature does not belong to their essence.
This is true also of man. Substance, or God, is infinitely more existent or
more powerful than all the modes and hence also than man. But both are
true: Godis utterly other, infinitely remote with His infinitely many at-
tributes,and God is present in us, though only with two attributes.

This tension between the remoteness and presence of God, which in
Spinoza's thinking is at the same time peace the peace of being in God, —
though infinitely far away from Him disappears when, arguing objec- —
tively, we try to pin him down to one or the other position. (1) We take
Spinoza at his word and try to force him to be consistent: in man, to be

sure, there are only two attributes, but through these alone he is a part of
God. But in this case, since in Spinoza's God all the attributes work together
and are of equal rank, all the other infinitely many attributes must, without
our knowing it, be in us men along with the two. According to this
doctrine, man is a part of the divine substance, God's nearness is identity
with us. (2) But then we find that Spinoza radically denies substantial
Being to man as to all other modes and interpret this unsubstantial "mo-
dality" of man as absolute remoteness from God.
The two views seem to contradict each other. On the one hand, Spinoza
negates the infinite difference between God and man, and on
the other, he
degrades man to the level of an unsubstantial mode, lacking the natural
spontaneity of an independent being.
Such objections, which can be found in any number of variations, turn
Spinoza's concepts into an objectively determined apparatus, a model. The
meaning of the concepts is lost. For the only plausible interpretation is
that they designate an intuitive insight, expressed in the medium of ration-

ality but finding its fulfillment and verification in the higher realm of
knowledge.
b. Human and divine thinking
The vast difference between divine thought and human thought is that
human thought, because of its origin in a determinate mode, can attain
only to two of God's attributes. "In order to understand something that is
not contained in the deepest foundations of our knowledge, a man's mind

would have to be far higher and more excellent than the human mind."
Our knowledge of the modes in the world is also related to God but not
divine. God thinks the infinite in an infinite way. Man thinks the finite in a
finite way. But although the human mind is not part of the divine substance,
it is nevertheless a part of God's infinite understanding, of the infinite mode.
When we understand something, we say that our idea comes from God,
"not insofar as He is infinite, but insofar as He is manifested through the
nature of the human mind." We say, further, that God has this idea insofar
as He, concurrently with the human mind, also has the idea of another
thing. But this means that the human mind understands this other thing
only partially or inadequately.
c. Man is mind and body
Like all things, so also "the essence of man is grounded in certain modifica-
tions of God's attributes."
Cogitatio and extensio, thought and extension (taken over from Descartes,
not as substances, but as attributes of substance), mark the evident difference
between inwardness and outwardness. They are not two beings: mind (or
soul) and body. Rather, they are one thing in two aspects; one is never
present without the other. This is true of all things. All bodies have mind,
allminds have body. At any one time our knowledge can be directed only
toward one of the two aspects, the mind or the body. But through the inner
SP1 X OZ A 309
structure of the one aspect it discerns the corresponding structure of the

other.
Spinoza leaves no doubt mind and body. The actual
as to the unity of
existence of the human mind, grounded in the idea of an
he says, is
actually existing particular thing. And the object of this idea, in which the
human mind is grounded, is the body or a certain actually existing mode of
extension. ("But the human mind or the idea of the human body" ex-
presses no other attributes of God besides the two attributes, thought and ex-
tension.) Mind and body are accordingly "one and the same thing, con-
ceived at one time under the attribute of thought, and at another under
that of existence."
These statements make it very clear that mind and body are two aspects
of the same thing but that there is an unbridgeable difference between them
mind and body cannot act upon one another; the mind and body are both
closed systems, each with its own causal relationships, but the two coincide
"The body cannot determine the mind to thought, neither can the mind
determine the body to motion or At every moment, to be sure, we are
rest."
convinced by our immediate action that at a mere sign from the mind the
body sometimes moves and sometimes rests. But: "Nobody knows by what
means or by what method the mind moves the body.'" We do not know how
what we think we are doing at any moment comes about. But, according to
Spinoza's fundamental principle, what in the body seems to be caused by
the mind can and must have its ground in the body itself. The immediate
experience, in which we suppose our mind to be moving our body, does
not carry our knowledge one step further. In investigating ourselves as
what we are, as a mode, we can proceed only within one or the other aspect.
the mind or the body. To mix the two is confusing for knowledge and
fruitless. In investigating the modes, we must remain within one or the
other aspect; we must explain all bodily phenomena by the body and all
mental phenomena by the mind.
If it is argued that those bodily phenomena which are clearly under-
standable as effects of the mind cannot be explained on the basis of their

bodily causes, Spinoza answers: No one has thus far determined what the
body can do, that is, what it can do merely in accordance with the laws of
nature, insofar as nature is regarded as purely corporal. No one knows the
body so thoroughly as to explain all its functions. "The structure of the
human body exceeds in artifice anything that human art has ever con-
structed." And finally: "In animals we often observe an acuteness of the
senses far superior to that of human beings." Thus when people say that this
body springs from the mind, they do not know what
or that action of the
they are saying. They are merely admitting in high-sounding words that
they do not know the true cause of an action and that this does not surprise
them. But merely by acting in accordance with the laws of nature, a body
can do many things at which the mind is amazed when it sees them. Such
inquiry, which seeks to explain everything connected with man's body

such as speech, the production of works that are manifested corporeally,
or a man's bodily reaction to a piece of devastating news can go on end- —
lessly. In view of the endless possibilities of our
knowledge and of the
fundamental coincidence of extension and thought (or, in man, of body and
mind), we cannot tell what progress can still be made toward an organic
explanation of the phenomena of life, which will throw light on this bodily
aspect that today is only seemingly understood as an effect of the mind.
It seems absurd to look for a bodily explanation for what is understand-
able to us as thought, but must be manifested bodily in order to become

real. But Spinoza would reply: Understanding in terms of thought applies
only to the aspect of the mind, not to that of the body. It is impossible to
understand bodily phenomena by interpreting them as signs in a context
of thought. We can investigate only within one or the other aspect, under one
or the other attribute. Any inquiry that shuttles back and forth between one
domain and the other ends in confusion.
Here one cannot but ask: If mind and body are two aspects of the one,
should not this one entity that unites them both be investigated? But this
one thing does not exist separately or before or after, as an independent
object of investigation. The unity of body and soul is true only as funda-
mental philosophical knowledge; considered as an object of investigation, it
is an illusion. Spinoza conceives of our mind-body unity as a mode in God

but is not concerned with man as an anthropological reality.
Here it is not our task to consider the scientific methods of modern

psychology and to address critical questions to Spinoza from that vantage
point: To what degree is the separation of the two aspects sound and
fruitful for investigation? At what point do they cease to be instruments
of psychological inquiry? What methods are there that leave the difference
out of account, not because they apprehend a substantial unity of body and
soul which is in fact inaccessible, but because they envisage concrete phe-
nomena which are at once mental and bodily (expression, language, etc.),
or because they deal with facts in which the differentiation disappears

(enumeration of actions) ? A world of innumerable methods and psycho-
logical objects (in Spinoza's usage, modes) has opened up. Spinoza is in
need of amplification. But critical scientific research requires an awareness
of its methods and limits. This means that such research must remain open
toward the realm to which it can never attain. It is from this realm that
Spinoza speaks.
In differentiating mind and body in their unity, Spinoza's speculation
pursues a practical aim. He rejects all calumny of the body. He says that
"the human body, as we feel it, exists." He neither despises nor glorifies
the body. He approves neither an attitude of ascetic violence toward it,
nor devotion to the body as the only reality. He recognizes neither a dis-
SPINOZA 311
embodied will of the mind nor a mindless body. He sees the unity of the
two, which is grounded in the unity of God's substance.
To sum up: Philosophically, we know the unity of body and soul only in
Being as a whole. Man is not a substantial part of God, he is not substance.
For man is not a source; only God is the source. In considering the mind
and body of man, the thinker looks toward the ground in God, but not
toward a substance in man. Spinoza goes beyond man, in order to arrive at
a fundamental understanding of man.
We remain modes and are in God; that is, we are finite modes within the
infinite modes, namely, within the infinite intellect (corresponding to the
attribute of thought) and in "motion and rest," corresponding to the at-
tribute of extension. To be sure, we know philosophically that the order

and context of corporeal things are the same as the order and context of
ideas. But our actual knowledge of the modes is always directed either at
the modes of the attribute of extension (at the motion and rest of bodies)
or at the modes of the attribute of thought (intellect and will). We do not
know the one through the other; we know no effect of one on the other,
and assuredly we have no knowledge of a process, whose two aspects
would correspond to the inwardness of thought and the outwardness of
extension.
D. Alan and animal and the difference among men
Since according to Spinoza all things in this world of modes are at once
mind and body, man takes his place in the scale of natural beings. The
gradations are explained as follows: "In proportion as one body is better
adapted than another to do or suffer many things, in the same proportion
will the mind at the same time be better adapted to perceive many things,
and the more the actions of a body depend upon itself alone, and the less
other bodies co-operate with it in action, the better adapted will the mind
be for directly understanding." Thus far there is no fundamental difference,
but only a difference in degree, between the divers modes and hence between
man and other beings. But the difference between animal and man is never-
theless radical for Spinoza, for man can think and therefore has affects
whose nature is rooted in thinking. This distinction results in an equally

radical difference between man's attitude toward other men and toward
beasts. Sound reason
"teaches us to unite in friendship with men, and not
with brutes, nor with things whose nature is different from human nature."
We have the same right over the animals as they over us. Spinoza does not
deny that animals have feelings. But we have a right to use "them for our own
pleasure and treat them as is most convenient for us, inasmuch as they do
not agree in nature with us, and their affects are different from our own."
The hallmark of man is that he knows that he knows; he has reason. The
more rational he is, the freer he is, the more real, the more perfect. Here
the question arises: "Why did God not create men in such a way that they
would be governed only by the guidance of reason?" Answer: "Because He
did not lack the matter with which to make everything from the highest to
the lowest degree of perfection, or, to speak more accurately, because the
laws of nature were so all-embracing that they sufficed to produce everything
that could be understood by an infinite intellect."
Everything arises of necessity, in accordance with God's eternal laws.
This applies equally to the actions of the pious, that is, of those who have a
clear idea of God, by which all their thoughts and actions are determined,
and to the godless, that is, those who do not possess an idea of God, but
merely ideas of the earthly things by which their thoughts and actions are
determined. The acts of these two groups are different not in degree but in
content. Within the necessary consequences of God's substance, in the
infinite universe of nature, there is a natural necessity, which is the necessity
of a rational life. But what diversities there are among men and nations,
only experience can tell us. It teaches that men of authentic reason, philoso-
phers, are rare. It teaches that some peoples are freedom-loving and others
servile. This diversity becomes an essential element in Spinoza's political
thinking.
It may be asked: Does the imperfect exist because everything that is
possible should exist? In other words, does it exist for the sake of the
richest possible diversity, and not of the good? Or in order that there should
be an unbroken scale from best to worst, in which everything occurs and
has its place? Spinoza gives but one answer: Everything follows necessarily
from God. The evaluations, however, spring from the mind of man. Eter-
nal necessity is beyond good and evil, beauty and ugliness.
E. Immortality and eternity
The soul, Spinoza writes in the early Treatise, has the choice of uniting with
the body, whose idea it is, or with God, without whom it cannot subsist or
be conceived of. If it is it must die with the body.
united only with the body,
But if it unites with immutable and enduring, it will
something that is
necessarily endure with it. This is what happens when the soul unites with
God; then it is reborn in knowing love of God. For its first birth was to be
united with the body; in the second birth, we experience the effects not of
the body but of love, which corresponds to the knowledge of that incor-
poreal object.
This line of thought is made clearer in the Ethics by the distinction between
immortality as duration and eternity as timeless existence. The body-soul
SPINOZA 313
unit is utterly mortal. Only as long as the body endures can the soul
imagine anything and remember things past. Thus it is not possible for us
to remember that we existed before the body: "Only insofar, therefore, as it
involves the actual existence of the body can the mind be said to possess
duration, and its existence be limited by a fixed time, and so far only has it the
power of determining the existence of things in time, and of conceiving them
under the form of duration." Thus, inevitably, "the present existence of the
mind and its power to form ideas are annulled as soon as the mind ceases to
affirm the present existence of the body."
Nevertheless we feel ourselves to be eternal, "for demonstrations are the
eyes of the mind by which it sees and observes things." Although we do not
remember having existed before the body, we feel that our mind, insofar as
it knows and encompasses the nature of the body under the form of eternity,
is removed from time. Hence "the human mind cannot be absolutely de-
stroyed with the body, but something of it remains which is eternal."

But this "eternity cannot be defined by time, or have any relationship to
it." True immortality cannot be understood in terms of time and duration.
The opinion of men, who are rightly conscious of the eternity of the mind,
confuses it with duration. "They impute eternity to the faculty of forming
ideas or to the memory, supposing them to endure after death."
Immortality, which is not duration in time but eternity, cannot encompass
what is purely temporal. Hence it can be imputed only to that which is "con-
ceived under the form of eternity" and which in thought is experienced as
a participation in eternity. Knowledge of the third and highest variety
knows the eternal and is itself eternal. "No other love is eternal than
spiritual love." The unity of mind and body signifies, however, that the
body is not nothing or doomed to vanish into nothingness, but ceases to be
only in its variable aspect. "In God there necessarily exists an idea which
expresses the essence of this or that body under some form of eternity" and
so enables what is a temporal figure in the successive ages of life to subsist
timelessly in eternity. Spinoza insisted with equal force on the transience
of the mind's bodily existence and on the eternity of its essence.
In bodily existence we are subject to affects, hence to fear of death. But
as naturally rational beings we free ourselves through knowledge from
affects, including the fear of death, and attain the peace of eternal Being, to
which we already and at all times belong. The brighter our rational insight
and concomitantly the power of our love, the more perfectly we attain to
it. In our existence as modes, we remain imprisoned in inadequate ideas,
in a limited faculty of knowledge. But in this same existence we, as rational
beings, gain adequate ideas, though they are always limited. With them we
partake of that Being which, in our immediate relationship to God, in God,
in substance, we ascertain through thought. By thinking, we pass from
existence as a mode to the Being of substance. We ourselves do not become
substance, but we belong to it as a mode of its attributes. In principle this is
so of all things, but only in rational beings is it so by virtue of their own

knowledge and the inner attitude corresponding to this knowledge.
From the standpoint of corporeal existence in time, the desire of all things
to assert their existence is the passion to go on living as long as possible. But
in the ground of this existence there speaks the certainty of eternal being,
unrelated to duration, memory, imagination; this certainty is elucidated in
thought.
VI. FREEDOM FROM AIMS AND VALUES
A. Purposes and values are prejudices arising from

a perversion of the idea of God
"We can be more certain of the existence of no thing than of the existence
of the absolutely infinite or perfect being, that is, of God." But it is Spinoza's
perpetual concern that this idea of God should not be perverted, that God
should not be degraded and sullied by our imaginations. If the idea of God
becomes false, all judgments become false.
The pure idea of God implies His necessary existence. He exists and
acts solely by the necessity of His nature. He is the free cause of all things.
Everything is in God, so that without Him it can neither be nor be under-
stood. Everything is predetermined by God, not, however, through an
arbitrary choice, but through God's unconditioned nature or infinite power.
This idea of God is obscured by men's prejudices, which all in turn
spring from one prejudice: the common assumption that all things act, like
men, for a purpose. Thus men suppose that God guides everything toward
a definite end; that God created all things for the sake of man and man in
order that man might worship Him.
The source of this human prejudice is that all men come into the world
without knowledge of the causes of things and that they all seek their
profit, that is, they act for a purpose and are conscious of this drive in
themselves. Accordingly, they look upon everything in nature as a means to
their own profit, and when they find something useful that they themselves
have not produced, they believe that another being of their own kind has
made it for their benefit. Their understanding of things is based on the
utility of these things to themselves, hence on final causes. Consequently
they do not inquire into their own cause. This prejudice turns to supersti-
tion when men meet with harmful things, such as storms, earthquakes,
disease. They imagine that the gods who have made things for their benefit
are angry because men have offended them. They cast about for ways of
SPINOZA 315
pleasing the gods. Believing that the gods provide useful things in order to
obligate men and so receive their highest veneration, men have devised
different ways of worshiping God, each group in the hope that He will
love them more than all others. They imagine the gods and nature to be
as insane as they themselves. And this conception is not corrected by the
daily experience that useful and harmful things come in equal measure to
those who perform such superstitious worship and to those who do not.
They cling to their deep-rooted prejudice, saying that the judgments of the
gods are far beyond human understanding.
Spinoza opposes such prejudice with the conviction, supported and
elucidated by his whole philosophy, that all final causes are nothing but
human imagination. Everything in nature happens with eternal necessity
and supreme perfection. God acts, but has no purpose. For He needs no
other. There is nothing that He lacks.
Although Spinoza denies the "purpose" in Being, he understands purpos-
ive thinking in human existence as a part of man's situation of finiteness
and deficiency. In the substance of being, in God, there is no deficiency,
hence no purpose. Nor has nature any purposes. All natural reality is free
not only from purposes but from values. Spinoza shows how we transfer
our value judgments to nature, as though values were given objectively in
nature : A man intends to build a house. If it is not yet finished, the builder
will say it is imperfect. Once universal models of houses have been con-
ceived, structures are to the degree to which they corre-
judged according
spond to such models. In thesame way, men form universal ideas of natural
things, which they look upon as models, and when things in nature do not
agree with such ideas they say that nature has blundered. Good and evil
are not positive properties of things; they are modes of thought.
By transferring their judgments of things to Being itself, men color the
world with values that are unrelated to its intrinsic reality. But though
Spinoza denies the independent existence of values, he recognizes them as
modes of thought in our limited existence.
The deformation of God into a purposive, hence deficient being, who
obligates men, benefits them, or is angry with them, who allows Himself
to be influenced by men's and devotions, results in a distorted view of
acts
everything. For values are thus removed from the perspective of a being
who exists as a mode circumscribed by time and space and desires His
profit, and transformed into things endowed with objective, independent,
and absolute existence, which are called by such names as good and evil,
order and confusion, beauty and ugliness, virtue and vice. But any such per-
spective is alien to God. To transfer it to God is to remove God's sublimity
from the view of reason.
Only in our limited perspective do we suppose that we find an order in
things themselves. For, because it is easier and hence pleasant, we prefer
order to confusion, as though there were an order in nature apart from its
relation to our faculty of thought. The prejudice is not dispelled by the

knowledge that there are infinitely many things which far surpass our
understanding, and many things that confuse our feeble powers of thought.
Even certain philosophers, Spinoza observes, are convinced that the move-
ments of the heavenly bodies form a harmony. Each one, in Spinoza's
opinion, views things according to the constitution of his own mind. That
is why there are so many controversies among men, and the final outcome
is skepticism. Everything goes to show that men prefer to imagine things
than to know them. But modes of imagining do not disclose the nature of
any thing; all they show is the state of our imagination.
Only a perversion of the idea of God leads to the notion of theodicy (the
supposed justification of God in the face of the supposed evil, wickedness,
and misery of the world). "What then is the source of so much imperfec-
tion in nature, of the stench and putrefaction of things, their loathsome
misshapenness, of confusion, evil, crime, etc.?" Spinoza answers by denying
that this evil state of affairs is true in an absolute sense. It exists only in the
imagination of modal beings, who, in their drive to assert themselves in
this world, judge things, with their finite intelligence, according to the
criterion of usefulness to man.
But this mode is itself necessary and understandable because
of thought
man is a mode, a finite being. Thus Spinoza describes the finiteness, limi-
tation, and confusion of man's modal existence.
b. Our limited intelligence
We need not be wholly dominated by our limited state of being, for as
thinking beings we know it, understand it, and can thereby rise above it.
Spinoza clarifies by comparisons what pure thought has revealed to him

concerning our state.
He compares our state with that of a fictitious worm in the blood stream,
which has the faculty of sight in order to differentiate the components of
the blood, and reason in order to observe how they act upon one another.
"This little worm would live in the blood as we live in this part of the uni-
verse." It would observe the blood but fail to notice that our movements
and other outward modifications affect the blood as a whole. We are com-
pelled to understand all natural bodies in the same way as this worm does
the blood. But because the nature of the universe is not limited like the
nature of the blood, but absolutely infinite, each particle is governed in an
infinite way and compelled to suffer infinite modifications. Thus the human
body is a part of infinite nature and likewise the human mind, namely of
the infinite mode of thought. The infinite intellect (intellectus infinitus)
contains all nature objectively within itself. The human mind is this same
power, but only as a finite part of the infinite mind. Hence it does not
SPIN ()'/ A 3*7
understand infinite nature any more than it is itself infinite. We can, to be

sure, acquire the conviction that every part of nature is related to the whole.
But we remain in ignorance as to how the whole and every part accord
with the whole. For "to know this it would be necessary to know all nature
and all its parts."
Spinoza offers another comparison for the way in which we pursue our
purpose. "Bees store up provisions for the winter, but man, who is over
them, who raises them and cares for them, has an entirely different purpose,
namely to keep the honey for himself. Thus man, insofar as he is a particu-
lar being, hasno purpose other than that which his limited nature can
attain, but insofar as he is at the same time a part and instrument of nature
as a whole, each of man's purposes cannot be the ultimate purpose of

nature, for nature is infinite and makes use of him as of all others as its
instrument."
The comparison of man with the fictitious worm in the blood refers to
his limited knowledge in this part of the world and in the infinite universe.
The comparison of man with the bees refers to the "ultimate purpose of
nature," which elsewhere Spinoza does not call purpose, but purposeless
necessity. In relation to this natural purpose, man can only be a subordinate
instrument, whose purposes are mere means for the great superior power,
which destroys them by making use of them; just as man's transient exist-
ence remains subordinate to the cosmos and does not govern it. But this
whole perspective of purpose is rooted in finite conceptions. Spinoza drops
it and effects the leap to universal freedom from purpose.
Both comparisons are attempts to disclose the situation of our modal

existence and so overcome anthropocentric thinking. Spinoza's great intui-
tion of the infinite world as the infinite mode of substance implies on the
one hand that man, bound to his modal existence, is vanishingly small, but
on the other hand that he is great by virtue of his reason, which renders
him capable of this intuition. Man's knowledge of his limitation is itself a
factor in the beatitude of being-in-God, which this knowledge makes possi-
ble.
c. Reality and value
To evaluate reality, to glorify one reality and to deplore or indignantly

reject another, is for Spinoza a sign of confinement in modal existence. But
Spinoza himself is constantly evaluating things (and particularly man) as
more or less perfect. He overcomes this contradiction by equating perfec-
tion and reality ("By reality and perfection I understand the same thing")
and by the thesis that there are degrees of reality equivalent to greater or
Value is graduated reality.
lesser perfection.
Here Spinoza has taken over an ancient concept of reality. In his view,
empirical things in space and time either have reality or have not, they are
without degrees of reality, but the reality of substantiality in the modes is
graduated. Thus from different standpoints Spinoza can say: "All happen-
ing in nature is supremely perfect." But on the other hand: "That effect is
the most perfect which is immediately produced by God, end a thing is
imperfect in proportion as intermediate causes are necessary for its produc-

tion."
The reason for the perfection of things is not that they "delight or offend
the senses of men, or that they appeal to or antagonize human nature,"
but lies solely in their "nature and force." In reality, "perfection and imper-
fection are only modes of thought; that is to say, notions which we are in
the habit of forming from the comparison with one another of individuals
of the same species or genus." But such a comparison is not based on the
relation of these individuals to our purpose. It shows, rather, that some indi-
viduals "possess more Being or reality than others insofar do we call some —
more perfect than others; and insofar as we assign to the latter anything
which, like limitation, termination, impotence, involves negation, shall we
call them imperfect."
This difference of value, which is always a difference in degree of reality,
power, proximity to God, and our ideas: "One idea is more

lies in ourselves
valuable than another and contains more reality, according as the object
of the one is more valuable than the object of the other and contains more
"The farther a man has advanced in this class of knowledge, the
reality."
more conscious he is of himself and of God, that is, the more perfect he is."
Thus Spinoza's view of the identity of reality and value is twofold in its
consequences; on the one hand there are no values, but on the other hand,
value judgments are repeatedly put forward, on the supposition that they
apply to degrees of reality.
D. The shift from one class of knowledge to another
We have two related kinds of knowledge: an immediate knowledge of God

by the intellect, and a mediated knowledge of Him through the other
modes. In immediate knowledge, philosophical thought is turned freely

toward God's infinity and filled with it; in its mediated relation to the
modes, finite knowledge is unfree and limited. For, being finite, it is un-
able to encompass the infinity of the modes, and can only go forward end-
lessly, while remaining ignorant of the whole.
Because man is a finite mode which
amid bodily affects, but is at the
lives
same time a rational being that loves God, Spinoza's sentences contain a
persistent contradiction (which can be overcome only by the differentia-
tion of the second and third classes of knowledge).
In line with his fundamental idea, Spinoza is constantly effecting a shift
SPINOZA 319
which the reader first, but which then seems to con-

finds disturbing at
firm the truth of the whole: from purposive thinking to freedom from pur-
poses; from value judgments to the valueless intuition of necessity; from the
demand tor activity to the perfect peace that comes of leaving all things as
thev are.
These shifts of viewpoint can also be interpreted the other way around:
from God's purposeless eternity to an understanding of purposive think-
ing as a limitation of thought in modal existence; from a value-free intui-
tion of the totality to an understanding of the relativity of false valuations;
from peace in the certainty of God to the activity of man as a mode; from
eternal, divine necessity in which there is no "ought" to the ought of
determinate human laws.
is in one case an ascending movement
In metaphysical terms, the shift
from the modes to substance, and in the other the descending movement
from substance to modes. But in the modes lies the expression of substance
itself.
e. The ethos offreedom from values
"I shall consider human actions and appetites just as if I were considering
lines, planes, or bodies." "Most persons who have written about the affects
. . . attribute the cause of human weakness and changeableness, not to the

common power of nature, but to some vice of human nature, which they
therefore bewail, laugh at, mock, or . . . detest. . . . [But] nothing happens
in nature which can be attributed to any vice in nature." In the Political
Treatise he repeats: "I have labored carefully not to mock, lament, or exe-
crate, but to understand human actions; and to this end I have looked upon
passions, such as love, hatred, envy, ambition, pity and the other perturba-
tions of the mind, not in the light of vices of human nature, but as proper-
ties, just as pertinent to it, as are heat, cold, storm, thunder, and the like,
which phenomena, though inconvenient, are yet necessary, and have fixed
causes."
Spinoza envisages an attitude "beyond good and evil." He does not wish
to condemn, to judge, to appraise, for he takes the philosophical attitude
implied by knowledge of God. If everything happens according to the eter-
nal laws, according to God's necessity, it becomes possible to view events
as Spinoza viewed two spiders that he had put into the same net, watching
them fight until one had enmeshed, killed, and eaten the other. But in this
attitude, two elements are involved: devotion to God's necessity and striv-
ing for the truth of objective scientific knowledge, which suspends all
value judgments and purposes in order to apprehend things in their pure
objectivity.
What Galileo inaugurated in the natural sciences when he contested the
pre-eminent rank that had hitherto been accorded to spheres and circles,
and what Max Weber completed in the humanities when he showed how
value judgments could be investigated without recourse to values, would
have met with Spinoza's approval. But Spinoza had much more in mind:
not only a suspension of one's own evaluations during the hours of investi-
gation and every moment inward and general
of objective judgment, but an
attitude of mind, in which value judgments are not only suspended for a
limited time, but transcended as a whole: the affirmation of everything
that is, because it follows from God's necessity in accordance with the laws
of nature.
It is valid to ask whether there is an inner relationship between the
greatness and force of the idea of God and the possibility of a science truly
free from value judgments, and the question can be answered in the affirma-
tive. Nevertheless, we are dealing with two different things on two dif-
ferent planes when we speak of overcoming the value judgments which

becloud our objective knowledge of things in the world, and of overcoming
the perverted view of God which arises when our God-given serenity is
disturbed by notions of theodicy.
VII. SERVITUDE AND FREEDOM OF MIND
Spinoza's fundamental intuition that Being is free from purposes and that
our true knowledge from values has two consequences: first, it

is free
enables us to understand the servitude to purposes and value judgments
imposed on man by his affects; and second, it shows the way leading out of
his servitude to freedom. But this freedom is nothing other than insight.
Put into practice, the fundamental intuition is itself freedom.
Accordingly, Spinoza does two things: casting off all values, he investi-
gates the affects and the necessary conditions of their origin, relationships,
—
and process and then, by a reversal, effects the most radical philosophical
evaluation; he considers the highest good and examines everything ac-
cordingly as it promotes or obstructs this highest good. As consciousness of
necessity, philosophy investigates the nature of things. As life practice,
philosophy subordinates itself to the idea of the highest good.
Spinoza knows this. After saying that good and evil are not in things
themselves, but are only modes in our thinking, he continues: "But although
things are so ... we must retain these words . . . since we desire to form
for ourselves an idea of man upon which we may look as a model of human
good what is a means of coming closer to
nature." Consequently, he calls
the model of human nature that we set before us; and evil, what prevents
us from approaching it. And men will be termed more or less perfect
according as they come more or less close to the model.
SPINOZA 321
From which man's mind is determined at every step by pur-

a state in
poses and values, it attains, through a reversal in its understanding of
"purpose," to the highest good. To deny the existence of purposes is not to
renounce the will to reason.
Thus Spinoza rejects all ideas of purpose purporting to convey an

understanding of being, but allows of preference, choice, evaluation in
man's quest of salvation as the rational good. Or in other words: in respect
of human affairs, Spinoza leaves room for value judgments; in respect of
the totality, he does not. But this freedom from values can be attained only
by a process of evaluation.
Thus despite Spinoza's rejection of values, he speaks of the "right mode
of life," of "decrees of reason," of the "highest good." The contradiction is
not solved by the possibility of choosing one's way of life arbitrarily. Quite
the contrary, the highest good also springs necessarily, in the nature of
things, from reason. The evaluation that occurs on the way to it is a factor
in the all-embracing reality that must be regarded as free from values. But
what distinguishes the highest good from all other goods and values is that
as the ultimate purpose it ceases to be a purpose. Not only does it serve no
other purpose, but, insofar as it is willed, it is already present. It is not
willed as something else; rather the will to it, reason, is itself. The highest
good is present in rational thought, which is always at the same time action.
It cannot be intended unless in a certain sense it has already been attained.
The crucial problem is freedom. The contradiction in Spinoza seems
unbridgeable. He denies freedom and asserts it. His whole philosophy is
based on freedom. In thought and work and practice, his ethos aims at the
promotion of freedom. The solution lies in the different meaning of free-

dom.
On the one hand: There
is no freedom. Everything is necessary. Spinoza
explains why freedom of the will is self-deception: "Created things are all
determined from without. From an external cause a stone receives a certain
quantum of motion. The stone's perseverance in motion is necessary, be-
cause it is determined by the impact of the external cause. Now let us . . .
imagine that the stone thinks while continuing to move, and knows itself
to be striving to remain as far as possible in motion. This stone will cer-

tainly be of the opinion that it is perfectly free and persists in motion only
because it so wills. Such is human freedom of whose possession
the all are
so proud; all it signifies, however, is that men are conscious of their desire,
but do not know the causes by which they are determined. Thus a child
thinks free when it desires milk, a boy when in anger he desires re-
itself
venge, a fearful person when he wishes to run away. Even a drunken

man supposes that he speaks from free choice. And since this preju- . . .
dice is men, they do not easily free themselves of it."

innate in all
On the other hand: There is freedom. But what does Spinoza mean by
freedom? Freedom is one with necessity. A distinction is made between
necessity by outward compulsion, or external cause, and necessity as action

in inner obedience to one's own nature. Where the action results purely
from the consequences of one's own essence, this necessity is at the same
time the most perfect freedom. This perfect freedom belongs only to God.
God's freedom is not free will, but free cause; it is not choice, but perfect
self-determination, "free necessity." "God acts from the laws of His own
nature only, and is compelled by no one." "Godalone exists from the
necessity alone of His own nature and acts from the necessity alone of His
own nature. Therefore He alone is a free cause."
It is different with the modes, with men. Man is free only insofar as he is
the adequate cause of his action in clear knowledge of its cause and effect.
But he is unfree insofar as he thinks and acts on the basis of inadequate
ideas, moved by affects from inside and outside, in the endless interaction
of the modes. Since man in his existence as a whole is never, in the lucidity
of adequate ideas, the sole and complete cause, he is always unfree.
But even if man is not perfectly free, he can become freer by conceiving
adequate ideas, that is, by becoming rational. In reason he knows necessity.
Consequently, there is no freedom, everything is necessary; but man's in-
sight into the necessity of his own essence is itself freedom, for freedom is
knowing participation in necessity. The will to freedom, which is identical
with the will to knowledge, understands itself as necessity. Freedom consists
in looking upon all things and events as necessary, in understanding even
value judgments and purposive thinking as conditioned by the necessity
of modal being; finally, freedom is the self-understanding of reason as the
necessary nature of man.
Spinoza's conception of freedom and necessity is complicated by the
notion of an "ought." The moral law ordains something that does not
necessarily happen, but can also not happen. According to Spinoza, there
are two kinds of laws: those which determine the invariable course of
things, and those which are norms according to which men should, but do
not always, act. We ordinarily suppose that our freedom resides in our
ability to follow the moral law or not. What Spinoza means by freedom is
first made clear by his conception of law: only laws that cannot be trans-
gressed are divine; those that can be transgressed are human. Freedom
consists in union with divine necessity; it acts without choice. Where I
choose but might act otherwise, I am unfree.

The laws of men are an expression of their finiteness. "All laws that
can be transgressed are human laws, because when men decide something
for their own good, it does not follow that this thing will redound to the
good of nature as a whole; on the contrary, it may bring about the destruc-
tion of many other things." But more powerful than the laws of men are
which the former in turn are subordinated.
the laws of nature, to
The contradiction between freedom and necessity is thus resolved by the
following view: The moral law is situated within necessity; here necessity
S P 1 No Z A 323
elucidates itself and understands itself as such, or, in Spinoza's words, it is
not incurred but enacted. For adequate knowledge is identical with action,
not with passivity. It is realization of the soul in accordance with divine
necessity. Achieved through thought, freedom is an actively self-conscious
element of divine, all-embracing, absolute necessity.
But to suppose that God promulgates laws like men, that He rewards
obedience and punishes disobedience to these laws, is one of the false
notions that spring from the transference of human action and human
limitation to God. It is first of all a diminution of God, for everything that
happens happens really in accordance with His own de-
and irresistibly
cision,and nothing can be done in opposition to Him. Moreover, the idea

of a reward corrupts moral virtue: for virtue has its reward in itself, not
in something else.
In many of its formulations, Spinoza's necessity resembles Calvin's pre-
destination, although the origin of Spinoza's idea and the inner attitude
that follows from it are entirely different. Spinoza writes: "No one is justi-
fied in finding fault with God for giving him a weak nature or an im-
potent mind. This would be as absurd as if a circle were to complain that
God had not given it the properties of a sphere." "Men are unpardonable
before God if only for the reason that they are in God's power, as clay in
the hands of a potter, who from the same mass makes vessels, the ones to
His honor, the others to His dishonor." Against Spinoza it may be argued
here that if man is necessarily as he is, he is pardonable. Spinoza answers:
"Men can always be pardonable and nevertheless want for happiness and
be tormented in many ways."
Spinoza has a certain inclination to Calvinism. He writes that the view
that everything depends on God's judgment is closer to the truth than the
opinion thatGod does everything with a view to the good. For this latter
view assumes the existence of something outside of God, which does not
depend on Him, but to which He looks as to a model. "In practice this is to
subordinate God But there is a radical difference between
to blind fate."
Spinoza and Calvin: Spinoza knows no preference on the part of God, no
arbitrary decision, no "decretum horribile" but only necessity. But a more
profound difference is to be found in the very core of their doctrine: in
Calvin, consciousness of sin and the need of redemption through faith; in
Spinoza, fundamental freedom from all consciousness of guilt or sin and
the peace bestowed by freedom grounded in the certainty of God.
A. The theory of the affects
Spinoza reduces the operation of the affects to a few simple principles,

which explain the highly diversified varieties. Since antiquity there had
been a traditional doctrine of the affects, which at Spinoza's time had been
renewed and transformed, especially by Descartes and Malebranche. Spinoza

knew the tradition. "But no one, so far as I know, has determined the
nature and strength of the affects, and what the mind is able to do toward
controlling them."
The third book of the Ethics deals with the origin and nature of the
affects. It has become famous. Johannes Miiller, a great physiologist, re-
garded this section as an unexcelled analysis of the affects and included the
whole of it in his Handbook of Physiology (1833-40).
The fundamental principles are as follows:
1. All finite modes produce each other, help and destroy one another.
No thing can be destroyed by itself. Rather, each thing strives to endure
in being for an indeterminate time. The striving for self-preservation is
the real essence of each thing and also of man.

Spinoza calls the striving for self-preservation desire when it is conscious
of itself and appetite when it is not. According to the aspect in which it is
considered, it also has many other names. Accordingly, says Spinoza, "it
combines all the strivings of human nature, which we designate by the

names appetite, will, desire, or impulse."
Striving is motion. But motion is based on a state of the finite essence.
Spinoza calls the state of the human essence affection (whether the state is
innate or acquired, conceived under the attribute of thought or that of ex-

tension, or related to both at once). Desire (or endeavor, appetite, volition)
can differ according to the state of the same man, or it may even take an
opposite course, so that the man is drawn in different directions and does
not know which way to turn.
2. The transition to greater reality in perfection is equivalent to the
affect of joy; the transition to lesser reality or perfection is equivalent to
the affect of sorrow. The affect resides in transition. "If a man were born
with the perfection to which he passes, he would possess it without the
affect of joy." Sorrow is also in transition. In a permanent state of lesser
perfection it ceases.
3. "I acknowledge only three primary affects, those of joy, sorrow, and
desire . . The others spring from these."
.
What gives rise to these affects? The mind represents objects, which
govern the movement of the affects. In relation to the striving for self-
preservation, all objects take on a coloration of the advantageous or dis-

advantageous. "We neither strive for, wish, seek, nor desire anything be-
cause we adjudge it to be good, but, on the contrary, we adjudge a thing
to be good because we strive for, wish, seek, or desire it."
The mind strives to represent what will increase the effectiveness of the
mind-body totality, and Thence result
resists the contrary representations.
the first fundamental, objectively determinedand hate. Love is affects: love
joy, accompanied by the idea of an external cause. Hate is sorrow, ac-

companied by the idea of an external cause.
SPINOZA 325
All our experience is interrelated. There is, for example, a temporal

relationship: we may love or hate a thing merely because we have con-
sidered it while experiencing an affect of joy or sorrow that it did not
bring about. Similarities between things produce the same result. Thus we
can hate and love the same thing, and our state of mind often fluctuates.
The affects are also determined in relation to representations of past
and future things. A "p an g of conscience" is sorrow, accompanied by the
idea of a past thing that happened unexpectedly. Fear and hope, which are
inseparable, are sorrow and joy accompanied by the representation of a
future thing —when the vacillation ceases, the result is certainty or despair.
Here it will not be possible to reproduce the whole of Spinoza's penetrating
analysis of the affects.
4. The principal dividing line between the affects is created by the dif-
ference between adequate and inadequate ideas. Desire (striving for self-
assertion) and joy and sorrow are either actions or passions (active or
passive). The mind experiences joy in adequate ideas, through which it is
active, experiences sorrow in inadequate ideas, through which it is passive.

In both cases the fundamental striving is the will to remain in being; in the
one case, clearly and rationally, in the other, confusedly and blindly.
Rational striving results in mastery over the affects, or freedom; con-
fused and blind striving brings servitude to the affects, or bondage.
b. Description of bondage
The modes including man is characterized by the fact

situation of all finite
that there no individual thing in nature to which some other individual
is
thing is not superior in power. There is always something more powerful.

Hence the power with which a man perseveres in existence is limited and
infinitely exceeded by the power of external causes.
Instead of adequate ideas, he has confused representations which indicate

more the present state of the human body than the nature of an object
outside it. These representations (as, for example, of the size and distance
of the sun) do not conflict with the truth and do not disappear in its
presence. Representations are not dispelled because the truth is present, but
because they are opposed by more powerful representations.
If man incurred only changes that could be understood on the basis of
his own nature, he would not pass away but would exist forever, he
would be infinite. But he is finite, exposed to external forces. He follows
the common order of nature, that is, he exists necessarily not only through
his actions, but is always necessarily subject to the "passions," or affects.
The growth and the duration of every passion are determined by the
power of the external cause in proportion to our own power. A passion,
or affect, can so exceed all a man's other actions as to cling to him per-
manently. Affects can only be resisted and eliminated by other, opposed and
more powerful affects. Consequently, an affect can be resisted by a true
knowledge of good and evil when this knowledge itself takes the form of
an affect.
Things present have greater power than those that are absent. An affect
relating to something that is immediately present in space and time is more
powerful than one relating to something that is swiftly approaching or to
something that is far removed from our actuality. That is why an opinion
produced by an object that stands before us is so much more powerful than
true reason. As the poet said "I see the good and approve of it, but I cede to
:
evil."
For Spinoza a man who follows his affect and opinion is "in bondage."
One who lives solely in accordance with his reason is free. The former acts
without knowing what he is doing. The latter, obedient only to himself,
does only what he regards as most important in life and consequently
desires most.
c. The idea and possibility offreedom
The decrees of reason are grounded in the necessary fact that everyone
strives to preserve his being to the best of his ability. Since "all our strivings
follow from the necessity of our nature," "the foundation of virtue (virtus,
power) is that endeavor itself to preserve our own being, and happiness
consists in this —that a man can preserve his own being." "To act according
to reason is nothing but to do those things which follow from the necessity
of our nature." There is no nobler motivation than the striving for self-
preservation. "Since reason demands nothing which is opposed to nature,
it demands, therefore, that every person should love himself, should seek
his own profit." To act according to the guidance of reason, to pre-
serve one's being, to live —these three mean the same thing, to act according
to virtue. Spinoza knew himself to be at variance with the prevailing ethical
view. "Many suppose that the principle which obliges every man to seek his
profit, is the basis of immorality and not of virtue and sense of duty." But
the truth, he declares, "is the exact opposite."
It may be argued that there is no need to strive for what will happen in
any case according to natural necessity. This seeming paradox in Spinoza
is explained by the twofold meaning of nature and necessity, which may
be either the unconscious necessity of inadequate ideas or the conscious
necessity of adequate ideas. For Spinoza demands that we seek the profit
"that is truly profit," that we should not desire blindly, but strive for
"what truly leads man to greater perfection," that we should not take finite
aims our ultimate goal, but only reason itself and what is revealed to it.
as
Spinoza expounds this ethos in three ways: (1) he indicates procedures,
SPINOZA 327
makes recommendations, and sets up rules of life; (2) he recalls over and
over again that all truth has its ground and point of reference in the cer-
tainty of God; (}) he sets forth a model of the rational life.
1. Procedures and rules of life

It is necessary "to know the strength and weakness of our nature in order
to determine what reason can accomplish in mastering the affects and what
it cannot accomplish." The notion of a will which on the basis of fixed
judgments can subjugate the affects and passions (the Stoics, Descartes) is
a delusion. The passions cannot be counteracted by such violence. Only

"knowledge of the soul" can help us to determine what measures will be
effective.
Spinoza shows that an affect that is a passion ceases to be a passion

as soon as we form it. "Thus the better known
a clear and distinct idea of
an affect is to us the more and the less the soul suffers
it is in our power,
from it." Everyone has the power to know his affects clearly and distinctly,
if not wholly then at least in part, and consequently to suffer less from
them. Impulses and desires are passions only insofar as they spring from
inadequate ideas; they may all be counted as virtues as soon as they are
aroused or created by adequate ideas. In the soul there is no other power
than the power to think and to form adequate ideas. In the course of time,
clear ideas gain the upper hand over the unclear ideas of the affects.
In thinking I become master of my affects by following certain proce-
dures, which can be clearly elucidated:
I overpowered by an affect when all my thinking is chained to the
am
external object to which I relate the affect. I become free when I "detach
the affect from my thought of its external causes and connect it with other
thoughts." Then love and hate of the external cause are extinguished.
I am overwhelmed by blind chance. What has happened to me need not
have happened. But once I recognize the necessity of things, I suffer less
from my affects and gain power over them. Thus "grief over a lost
possession is diminished as soon as the man who has lost the possession
considers that he could not have preserved it in any way."
I am taken unawares. Suddenly I am assailed by something that offends,
angers, frightens me. To defend myself against it, I must order my affects,
that is, project in my mind a sound mode of life or certain rules of con-
duct, imprint these on my memory, and apply them to every situation that
occurs.
Spinoza rejects certain emotions that are generally held in high esteem:
pity, as such, is evil and A wise man strives not to be moved by pity,
useless.
for it is a weak affect that weakens. He endeavors, rather, to obey the pure
decree of reason in performing the helpful action that he knows to be good.
To pity no one, but to do good. He adds, however: "But this I say ex-
pressly of the man who loves according to the guidance of reason. For he
who is moved neither by reason nor by pity to be of any service to others is
properly called inhuman; for he seems to be unlike a man." Humility is
not a virtue, for it does not spring from reason and is a source of weakness.
Repentance is not a virtue; one who repents of an action is doubly
wretched and weak.
Highly characteristic of Spinoza is his discussion of the theorem: What
brings joy is good. In the ordering of our thoughts and representations we
should, as far as possible, consider only the good in each thing, in order
that the affect of joy should impel us to act. To revile, accuse, despise is not
only useless, but results from an unnoticed perversion. The most ambi-
tious of men deplores the vanity of the world when he is unsuccessful. A
man forsaken by his loved one reviles the inconstancy of women, but all
is forgotten the moment she takes him back. The complaints of those who
suffer an adverse fate are an expression of weakness. Hence a man desirous
of freedom tries to fill his mind with the joy that comes from a sound
knowledge of the virtues and their causes; he will not expend his powers
in considering the failings of men, in disparaging men, and in enjoying a
false appearance of freedom. He will avoid listing the failings of men and
speak only sparingly of human weakness.

But only the joy which is reason itself is good. According to the nature
and states of men their joys are very different, as for example the joy of the
drunkard and that of the philosopher. The latter is the highest goal. "If a
man affected with joy were led to such perfection as to conceive ade-
quately himself and his actions, he would be fitted better than ever be- —
—
fore for the performance of those actions to which he is now determined
by affects which are passions." "The greater the joy with which we are
affected, the greater the perfection to which we pass, and consequently the
more do we participate in the divine nature."
Opposed to the unique value of joy is the superstitious belief that what
causes unhappiness is good. But only an envious man takes pleasure in my
helplessness and misfortune. "Nothing but a gloomy and sad superstition
forbids enjoyment. . . . No God . . . esteems as any virtue in us tears,
sighs, fears . . . ;on the contrary ... to make use of things and to de-
light in them as much as possible ... is the part of a wise man."
2. All truth relates to God

Any way of life that does not have its ultimate source in the certainty of
God is futile. Thus rules and methods, prescriptions and programs for the
conduct of life, are not enough. They may, to be sure, be helpful in showing
the way to "right" behavior, but even right behavior draws its meaning
and force from the underlying ground. Hence it is not possible to master
the confusion of the affects by psychological insight alone, as though
operating a machine that responds to specific manipulations.
Spinoza states this idea repeatedly: "The final aim of a man who is
SPINOZA 329
guided by reason, that is to say, the chief desire by which he strives to

govern all his other desires, is that by which he is led adequately to con-
ceive himself and all things which can be conceived by his intelligence."
To conceive adequately is to conceive in the third class of knowledge. But a
necessary consequence of this knowledge is the intellectual love of God
{amor intellect ualis accompanied by the idea of God as its
dei), "joy,
cause." Or rather, this knowledge is itself this love of God. Hence the
highest happiness is "the knowledge of God, which leads us to do only

what love and the sense of duty demand."
The certainty and power of the consciousness of God's reality, of the
all-encompassing, all-permeating reality which is always present to the man
who does not close himself to it, has immediate consequences for every
day of a man's life. Because God is present, the moral law is real; it is not a
product of constraint but springs up as though of itself.
Our entire philosophical endeavor is to attain to God's presence and to

return when we have fallen away from it. Always reflecting and aiming in
that direction, the mind "can bring it about that all bodily affections or
imaginations of things will relate to the idea of God." And the power of
thisknowledge and love of God "is magnified when we conceive that
more and more men are joined with God by the same bond of love."
3. Project of a rational life
Freedom from purpose: Being is wholly present; as love it is eternal

presence; it is not somewhere else, not to be looked for and anticipated in
another world.
Consequently, the third class of knowledge does not operate as a means
to an end, but is itself the end: happiness resides in this amor intellectualis
dei. It is subservient to nothing else; it is not merely the way to something
else, but is itself the goal.
This is essential for an understanding of true virtue: "Blessedness is
not the reward of virtue, but is virtue itself." Consequently the rational,
ethical life is to be sought after for its own sake, not for the sake of some-
thing else. When it is regarded as a means to something else, it ceases to
be a virtue. "There is nothing more valuable and nothing more useful

to ourselves" than virtue itself. Hence it is absurd to seek virtue for the
sake of something else. To degrade it to the level of a means of attaining
a reward or to induce it by threats destroys its value. Both attitudes are
false. "God does not give men laws in order to reward them and to punish
them." Thus those who expect God to reward them for their good actions
"as though for the completest servitude" are far from the true idea and
reality of virtue. They behave "as if virtue itself and the service of God
were not happiness itself and the highest freedom."
Freedom from purpose is the principle of ethics; like the definition of
God as causa sui, it involves a vicious circle.
Activity and serenity: Spinoza teaches the potential wise man to live en-
tirely with God and entirely in the world. "A free man thinks of nothing
less than of death, and his wisdom is not a meditation upon death but
upon life." His conduct is not determined by fear of death; rather, he
desires to do good, to live, and to preserve his being.
Spinoza bids the wise man to look upon all things, all events, and himself
as necessary and invariable in their eternal essence and to find peace in this
necessity, to participate in modal existence, recognizing its manifest neces-
sity, to observe it and be above it. In Spinoza (as elsewhere throughout
history) the idea of absolute necessity is a spur to activity; I am active
because I know that I am doing what is necessary. The great difference
between Spinoza and other believers in necessity (Calvin or Marx, for
example) lies in their view of what is necessary.
Thus the intuition of necessity results in activity, but also in serenity:
evil, folly, failure, the experience of my own ruin, all are necessary; conse-
quently do not revile my enemy, or the treacherous man, or the blind
I
fool. There is no room for hatred or contempt. Rational insight finds
necessity in all things. Value-free knowledge in the world, as far as such

knowledge goes, gains an intimation of necessity, which is fully known by
metaphysical consciousness. Even when it becomes necessary to differentiate,
evaluate, and choose in human existence, this act of the mode does not
conflict with the value-free attitude, for evaluation itself is seen as a factor
in perfect necessity. Value-free knowledge operates in the conduct of ra-
tional beings: in extinguishing resentment, anger, and violence, in patience
and watchful waiting, in the recognition of necessity in all its forms, even
in the form of an alien, irrational existence.
Equanimity: Human strength is limited and is infinitely exceeded by the
power of external causes. "We are disturbed by external causes in a number
of ways, and waves of the sea agitated by contrary winds, we
like the
fluctuate in our ignorance of our future and destiny."
This state of the mode is unalterable. But philosophy "teaches us how
we ought to behave with regard to the things of fortune, or those which
are not in our power ... for it teaches us with equal mind to wait for and
bear each form of fortune." The striving of philosophy is "to make us more
independent of hope, to free us from fear, [so that we may] command our
fate to the best of our powers."
This we shall do if we regulate our actions and our thoughts and our
imaginations "according to the clear counsel of reason." We shall meet
contrary fortune with equanimity if we are aware that we have done our
best and that our strength was not sufficient to enable us to avoid misfor-
tune.
It is essential that we should be wholly permeated by the knowledge
"that all things follow from the eternal decree of God, according to that
same necessity by which itfollows from the essence of a triangle that its
three angles are equal to two right angles." Insight demands only what is
SPINOZA 331
necessary. Consequently, the striving "of the better part of our self" is
consonant with the order of nature as a whole. For "whatever a man, who
is after all a part of nature, does for his own sake, for his self-preservation,
or what nature does to him without his participation, all this is effected
only by the divine power which operates in part through his human nature
and in part through external things." The highest happiness resides in
harmony with divine necessity. But for Spinoza absolute necessity is God's
being, substance, not the idea of some natural or historical process.
Insight into this necessity makes for fortitude, that is, the inspiring,
powerful, active affects. Fortitude, for Spinoza, consists of strength of mind
(animositas), which enables a man to live according to the decrees of
reason, and generosity, which causes him, in sole obedience to the decree
of reason, to help his fellow men and join with them in friendship.
The man of fortitude hates and envies no one, is angry with no one,
underestimates no one, and is free from pride. He knows "that everything
he conceives to be good and bad, and everything which appears to be dis-
orderly, horrible, unjust, and shameful, springs from his disordered, per-
verted, and confused view of things." This confusion vanishes once he
has understood the necessity of things. Then, indeed, "he will find nothing
deserving of hatred, mockery, or contempt, nor will he pity anyone;
rather, he will endeavor, to the best of his ability, to act well and be happy."
4. Characterization
The fundamental attitude recommended by Spinoza is distinguished
from Stoic equanimity, to which
might seem related, by Spinoza's con-
it
ception of God, which is different from the Stoic doctrine of God, just as
Spinoza's third class of knowledge (scientia intuitiva) differs from Stoic
reason, and as Spinoza's serene self-assertion differs from the Stoic assertion
of a punctual, absolute self.
Spinoza lacks the violence of the Stoics. He does not teach men to
drive or repress themselves. To
mind, such compulsion is ineffectual
his
(an affect can only be combated by another affect) and fraught with dis-
astrous and unnatural consequences. Reason does not combat an affect but
lets it die away. Consequently, Spinoza's prescriptions are directed solely
toward the efficacy of knowledge. Herein he knows himself to be co-

operating with natural necessity. In Spinoza there is no torment, no de-
fiance, no coercion. Beyond good and he serenely accepts all things.

evil,
Nor can Spinoza's thinking be equated with the ethical demand of reason
in Kant. Spinoza denies that any absolute demand springs from reason it-
self. Consequently he knows rules of life but no absolute imperatives, no
prohibitions, no obedience to the recognized ethical law, nor the self-
violation it implies. Where reason is kindled, the ethical life develops of

itself, according to natural law, because natural law is divine and hence
identical with reason.
Spinoza's understanding of Christ is characteristic of his philosophy. He
held that Christ possessed such perfection as no other man. "No one except
Christ received the revelations of God without the aid of imagination,
whether in words or vision."
What Christ experienced, He translated into words, in large part adapted
to the comprehension of the multitude. He "was not so much a prophet as
a mouthpiece of God." He "perceived truly what was revealed for a . . .
matter is understood when it is perceived by the mind without words or

symbols." However, "He doubtless taught His doctrines as eternal truths
and did not lay them down as laws." Spinoza was obviously thinking of
Christ when he wrote: "It may be that God imprinted His idea so strongly
on one man that for love of God that man would forget the world and
would love other men as himself."
It has been thought that Spinoza contradicted his own philosophy in
speaking of Christ in this way. Not at all. In the same context he says re-
peatedly that he does not understand the Church doctrine of Christ as son
of God. And he goes on to say that if God is represented as a lawgiver or
ruler and called just, compassionate, etc., this is "according to the people's
power of understanding." In truth, says Spinoza, God acts purely from out
of the necessity of His nature and perfection. "His decrees and volitions
are eternal truths, and always involve necessity."
It is perfectly obvious that Spinoza sometimes, unavoidably and inten-
tionally, adapts himself to the "people's capacity for understanding," es-
pecially in speaking of political matters. But this veneration of Christ is not

such an adaptation. The certainty of God, which for Spinosa had pre-
cedence over all else, God and man that filled him—all these he
the love of
found in Jesus the man. Though he rarely said so, he revered Jesus above
all other men, and the words in which he expressed this veneration sug-
gest an identification of Jesus' knowledge of God, which he experienced
directly from mind to mind, with Spinoza's own philosophical knowledge
of God.
Although the path that Spinoza points out is difficult, it can assuredly be
found. As he writes at the end of the Ethics: "It must indeed be difficult,
since it is so seldom discovered; for if salvation lay ready at hand and
could be discovered without great labor, how could it be possible that it
should be neglected by almost everybody? But all noble things are as dif-
ficult as they are rare."
VIII. RELIGION AND THE STATE

Political thinking was at work in Spinoza's earliest, lost treatise. In it he
protested against the anathema as it affected his civic existence. Political
thinking remained with him for the rest of his life; it supplies the content
SPINOZA 333
of the longest and most powerful of the works that he himself published,
the T heologico-Political Treatise, and of his last, unfinished work, the
Political Treatise.
Man two laws: the law arising from his bond with
finds within himself
God and that arising his bond with other men. The first bond is
from
absolutely necessary, not so the second. For the law according to which a
man lives before God and with God must be borne constantly in mind;
whereas the law which springs from his bond with other men in the
world of modes "is not so necessary, inasmuch as he can isolate himself
from men." All his life Spinoza remembered these two laws, though he
dropped the idea (expressed in his youth) that an individual can cut him-
self of? from other men. He came to recognize that "for man nothing is
more useful than man" We can never arrive at the point where we re-
quire nothing from other men for the preservation of our existence. Our
intelligence would be less complete if the mind knew nothing but itself.
Without mutual aid men can neither live their lives nor develop their
minds.
But despite this unique value of man for man, a reliable common bond is
not achieved simply by free association among men. With all their simi-
larity, men differ from one another. The same thing seems good to one
and bad to another; to the one ordered, to the other confused; to the one
pleasant, to another unpleasant. Hence such sayings as "Many men, many
minds"; "Each man to his taste," and so on. This only goes to show that
men would rather imagine things (according to the disposition of their
minds) than know them (according to reason). Imaginations separate
men, only reason brings them together. From the affections of the imagina-
tion spring disputes and ultimately skepticism; from reason spring harmony
and true insight.
Consequently, the great impulse to agree with others is ambivalent. In
the realm of the imagination it has an opposite effect: "Each man strives to
the best of his ability to bring it about that others should love what he
loves and hate what he hates. But inasmuch as all strive equally to this
end, they impede one another equally; and inasmuch as all wish to be
praised and loved by all, the outcome is mutual hatred." But in the realm
of reason, the impulse attains its goal. It fulfills itself in the community by
causing the one common truth to be revealed to all. There is nothing more
desirable and "more precious for the preservation of (men's) being than
that all should agree with all in such a way that all seem to form a single
mind and a single body." Men who are guided by reason "seek nothing for
themselves that they do not also desire for other men."
But such rules are not a sufficient foundation for real community. For
men's life together seldom determined by reason, but more often by the
is
affective nature of men who do everything in accordance with their desires.

Since rational men are extremely rare, a rational man understands that the
state is indispensable to all men, to the rational as well as the irrational and
antirational. For the state alone possesses a power that can check the power
and arbitrary will of individuals.
The advantage of an ordered political community is far greater than the
disadvantage. "Let satirists scoff at human affairs, let theologians denounce
them, and let the melancholy praise a life rude and without refinement,
despising men and admiring brutes, men will nevertheless find out . . .
that it is only by their united strength that they can avoid the dangers
which everywhere threaten them." To give up the state would be as absurd
as the action of the young man who, after a scolding from his parents,
leaves home and joins the army, preferring tyrannical discipline to domestic
discomforts and the admonitions of his parents. The rational attitude is to
accept offenses at the hands of men and the state with equanimity and
zealously do what fosters harmony and friendship. "A man who is
guided by reason is freer in a State where he lives according to the common
laws than he is in solitude, where he obeys himself alone."
Toward the state as toward our destiny, Spinoza seems to demand a
contradictory attitude: on the one hand, we should recognize its necessity
and bear this necessity without fear; but on the other hand, we should
conceive models and ideas of the best possible state, hence of the state that
will prove best in our concrete situation, and act in accordance with it.
Accordingly, Spinoza says that his philosophy is "of no little benefit to the
political community, insofar as it teaches in what way the citizens are to be
governed and guided, namely, in such a way that they should not serve as
slaves, but should voluntarily do what is best." To the necessity of known
events (events in the world of modes) he opposes the freedom of the active
man, but both are included in all-encompassing divine necessity.
Thus this philosophy aspires to bring reason into political life by recog-
nizing the nature of events in the world of modes, and arriving, on the
basis of this knowledge, at norms according to which it is reasonable to
act in making laws and shaping institutions.
Here a distinction must be made. In political life as in the life of the
individual, the ultimate goal is clear: that as many men as possible should
be philosophers, living in the perfection of reason based on the knowledge
of God. But the norms are ambivalent. For in the ever-changing life of
states there are several forms offering relative permanence; and here, as in
the study of nature, no particular form can exhaust the infinite possibilities.
There are several models, hence their virtue is relative, and in practice
none can attain perfection. There is more than one path to betterment.
The states and institutions that can be arrived at along these paths
should be judged by ideal types set up in accordance with the criteria of
such inherent necessities as permanence, security, and freedom (Spinoza
attempted to do this in his last political treatise).
Spinoza starts out by examining the requirements of political life inde-
SPINOZ A 335
pendently, but after his initial exposition, religion occupies a central posi-
tion in his discussion of the state. Hence the title of his most important
work: Theologico-Political Treatise.
Here again we find an apparent contradiction, namely, between Spi-
noza's purely philosophical thinking and his theologico-political thinking.
For when in a political context he discusses the origins of religious
authority, in particular of the Bible, it is clear that he is not speaking in the

area of the philosophical metaphysics of eternal necessity, but in that of
human social existence, that is, in the world of the endless modes, with
special reference to the situation in contemporary Holland. Moving in a
different realm of knowledge, he seems —but only seems —to forget his
philosophy when he sets forth political necessities and approaches religion
itself as a politically active citizen.
A. Spinoza s Political Thinking
The must be known through experience and not through

reality of the state
the pure concept. For existence does not follow from the concept of essence
(except in the case of God); the reality and subsistence of things are
manifested only to experience. Consequently "statesmen have written
much more aptly about politics than have philosophers." Because they had
experience, they taught "what is consonant with practice." Spinoza held
Machiavelli in high esteem. He himself aspired to supply nothing new, but
"only to represent in a sure and incontrovertible way what is most com-
patible with practice."
His starting point, in the Political Treatise, is the observation of human
nature: In their overwhelming majority, men are guided not by reason,
but by passions. Every man would like others to live according to his
opinion; consequently, men come into conflict and do their utmost to
oppress one another. They pity the unfortunate and envy the fortunate,
but incline more to vengeance than to compassion. "Although all are per-
suaded that religion teaches every man to love his neighbor as himself
... yet this persuasion has little power over the passions." It asserts itself
on the deathbed, when sickness has quelled the passions and a man lies
helpless, or in church, "where men do not deal with one another, but not at
all . . . in the law-court or the palace." Reason, to be sure, can do a good
deal to moderate the affects, but its path is always an arduous one. It is
as wonderful as it is rare. Hence it is pure fantasy to suppose "that the

multitude of men distracted by politics can ever be induced to live accord-
ing to the bare dictate of reason."
Experience further teaches that men are exceedingly different. Some
peoples are barbarous and servile (the Turks), others are freedom-loving
(the Dutch).
A. PRINCIPLES OF NECESSITY IN POLITICAL LIFE
1. Spinoza s principles of natural right

a.Everything that is, including man, desires to persist in being, and
consequently to assert itself against dangers and obstacles. What is and
asserts itself has might. Its might is its right.
b. Spinoza calls the principle according to which power increases and

decreases natural right. In common usage, natural right designates a body
of norms which are valid for men in every condition, even when they are
not followed. But Spinoza has in mind the reality of actual events. Disregard-
ing such ideal norms, Spinoza says: The more might, the more right; where
there is no might, there is also no right. Natural might is itself the law of
necessity. Right is not something that should be, but something that is.
"By natural right I understand the very laws or rules of nature, in accord-
ance with which everything takes place. And so the natural right ... of
. . .
every individual thing extends as far as power; and accordingly, whatever

its
any man does after the laws of his nature, he does by the highest natural
right."
c. Reason as such is the greatest might. Its weakness is that it is so rare
among men. But it is not entirely powerless. Statesmanship treats both
reason and the passions as factors, the latter being so much more powerful
only because in practice they are so much more widespread. Both are
natural. In this connection no distinction is recognized "between desires
springing from reason and those springing from other sources."
"If nature had been so constituted that man should live according
human
to the mere dictate of reason ... in that case natural right, considered as
special to mankind, would be determined by the power of reason only.
But men are more led by blind desire than by reason: and therefore the
natural power or right of human beings should be limited not by reason,
but by every appetite whereby they are determined to action."
d. The origin of the state should be understood on the basis of natural
right, not of a rational plan. Because all men create some sort of political
institutions, "we must not try to derive the causes and natural foundations
of the state from doctrines of reason, but must take them from the universal
nature and disposition of man." Men are by nature enemies in envy, anger,
and hatred. My worst enemy is the man I most fear. A man strives in vain
to defend himself singly against all. Hence the natural right of the individ-
ual, because it is determined by his might, is virtually nonexistent. The

more ground for fear he has, the less might he has and the less right. But
the more men band together, the more might and hence right they acquire.
From this it follows that we can properly speak of natural right as a
characteristic of man only where men in common have rights, where they
SPINOZA 337
secure the land they inhabit and cultivate against all violence and live
according to the common will of the community. In such countries all
may be said to live according to one mind.
e. In this political condition the individual has "only as much right to
nature as the common law accords him." He is subject "to the concerted
will of the community charged with care commonwealth," namely
for the
the right laws, to decide on questions of
to make, interpret, and repeal
war and peace. This government can be a democracy (government by an
assembly constituted by the whole people) or an aristocracy (government
by a few privileged persons) or a monarchy (government by one man).
f. It is only through the state that there exist laws, which are not neces-
sarily compelling laws of nature, but civil laws which demand but do not
always obtain obedience. "Wrongdoing is conceivable only in a common-

wealth, where the common law of the whole state decides what is good
and what is evil. Obedience is the constant will to do what is good according
to the law and what must be done in accordance with the decision of the
community."
Only through the state do there exist contracts, which are enforced by
the state's instruments of power. But what comes into being through the
state is not the foundation or binding power of the state. What compels
the citizen does not compel the state itself. Hence the treaties and agreements
between states "remain valid so long as the will of him who gave his word
remains unchanged. For he who has authority to break faith has, in fact,
relinquished nothing of his own right, but only made a present of words.
If then he, being by natural right judge in his own case, comes to the
conclusion thatmore harm than profit will come of his promise, by the
judgment of his own mind he decides that the promise should be broken,
and by natural right he will break the same." (One who orders his life
according to the rules of reason acts differently; even when no power
compels him, he keeps his promise.) The state is compelled for its own sake
to inspire fear and respect. However, the rules for doing so do not pertain
to the domain of civil law, but to that of natural right. Fear and respect are
maintained only through the right of war. "In order to remain free, a
commonwealth must order its conduct according to no one but itself, and
consider as good and bad nothing other than what it recognizes in its own
mind as good and bad."
In accordance with natural right, the same independence toward laws and
contracts applies in the relation of a state to its citizens. The state is not
bound by what binds all its citizens. "Contracts or laws, by which the popu-
lace transfers its rights to a council or an individual man, must be broken
as soon as thecommon good demands it."
But who decides what the common good requires? "No private citizen is
entitled to judge." Only the possessor of state power is free to interpret the
laws, which are not in fact binding upon him.
2. The po litica I p rocess

Does natural right permit the arbitrary use of power? It neither allows
nor forbids, but lets the consequences of every action take effect. Breach
of lawand contract is permitted in accordance with the same natural right
which causes mistaken action to result in the destruction of the state or the
diminution of its power. A "criminal" may achieve lasting success by breach
of law and contract; in this case, he is right according to natural right. Or
he may be ruined by so doing, and then he is wrong. A commonwealth is
subject to no other rules than man in the state of nature. But above all it
must "not be its own enemy." Destruction of power is the punishment of

natural right for arbitrary abuse of power. Breach of law and contract
by a state diminishes the power of that state by transforming the common
fear of most citizens into rebellion. "In such cases the state disintegrates.
Accordingly, the possessor of government power is obliged to observe the
conditions of a contract by the same motive which prevents a man in the
state of nature from bringing about his own death." The equivalence of
might and right means that an action which results in a lessening of power
also leads to the loss of right. "A commonwealth then does wrong when it
does, or suffers to be done, things which may be the cause of its own ruin;
and we can say that it then does wrong in the sense in which philosophers
or doctors say that nature does wrong; and in this sense we can say that a
commonwealth does wrong when it acts against the dictates of reason."
For because the hallmark of power is permanence and stability, the power
of the moment can be deceptive. Only a state guided by reason has perma-
nence. Only reason results in permanence; the passions result in change.
How does reason make itself felt in the state? Men are not rational, nor
is the state as such. It is fear that first paves the way for reason. Thus motiva-
tions rejected by philosophical reason help the state to become rational:
humility, repentance, the veneration of prophets.
Reason demands peace. But it is the striving for the permanence and
security of state power that first impels men to desire peace. "More perma-
nent than all others is the commonwealth which can only what has
protect
been acquired but not desire foreign acquisitions, and which therefore
strives in every way to avert war and exerts every effort to preserve peace."
In order that the state should become rational, it does not suffice that a
ruler (like one of the good Roman Emperors) should govern according
to reason. A state cannot achieve permanence by being rationally and con-
scientiously governed by one man, for it then becomes dependent on this
one man. It must, if it is to endure, "be so ordered that those charged with
administering it cannot, regardless of whether they obey reason or their
affects, be put into a position to act badly or unconscientiously. The security
of a commonwealth is not affected by the motives that make men adhere to
sound government, provided the government is sound. For freedom of mind
SPINOZA 339
and strength of mind are private virtues. Security is the virtue of the state."
Reason of state is necessitated by the passion itself, by the passionate
will of a ruler who desires the permanence and security of his own power.
But reason as such is to be expected neither of the multitude nor of leading
politicians. For both are driven by passions.
Fear alone holds them in check. Commenting on the dictum "Terrible
is the crowd when it is not afraid," Spinoza says: To suppose that the
populace is without moderation, that it serves slavishly or rules arrogantly,
that it is terrible when it is not afraid, is to limit "all errors to the common
people" and to forget that nature is the same in all. All men are arrogant
when they rule and terrible when they are not afraid, and everywhere "truth
is most falsified by the embittered and by servile minds."
Thus it is the passion for secure power that necessitates the realization
of reason in the state. This is a necessary consequence of the enduring
tension in political life. Every individual, to be sure, has made over to the
state the right "to live as he pleases," at the same time entrusting the state
with "the power to defend him." But "no one can be robbed of the right
to defend himself to such a degree that he ceases to be a man." Con-
sequently, "the subjects have retained, by natural right as it were, what
cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state." Just as the
anarchic self-will of the individual leads the state to intervene against him,
so the arbitrary power of the rulers leads to the rebellion of the people.
The state does not exist through reason alone; the concept of a state
does not suffice to bring one into existence. coming-into-existence and "The
survival of natural things cannot be deduced from their definition. For
their conceptual essence remains the same." But what has power as its
origin requires power for its survival. "In order to endure, things require
the same power as they needed in order to enter into existence."
Spinoza's political thinking encounters an antinomy. On the one hand,
the natural foundations of the state "cannot be derived from the principles
of reason but must be taken from the universal nature of men." And on
the other, a stable state endures solely through reason, which, to be sure,
is not its foundation, but is necessitated by the ruling power's need for
security and permanence.
j. Encompassing necessity
Wemay speak of natural right but not of natural wrong. Everything has
right insofar as it has might. Wrongdoing, injustice, presupposes the ex-
istence of the state as a law-giving power. But all this right and wrong are
encompassed in the right of necessity.
Though laws may be given by states and proclaimed by prophets, they
all exist through the power of God. But God's right, the power that encom-
passes all others, is superordinate to every particular law and to every legal
order. When we obey the laws of the state and the laws of God as
34° The Original Thinkers
proclaimed by the Prophets, we must never forget "that we are in God's

power as clay in the power of the potter." "Man, to be sure, can act in opposi-
tion to God's decrees, as they are inscribed like laws in our minds or the
minds of the Prophets, but never to the eternal decision of God, which is
inscribed in all nature and governs the order of all nature."
This distinction must be understood if we are not to miss the philosoph-
ical meaning of all Spinoza's political thinking. What does Spinoza mean
by "all nature"? He means natura naturata in its totality, upon which
God, or natura naturans (hence deus sive natura), inscribes a law that en-
compasses and transcends all particular laws.
The laws of nature are disclosed in natura naturata, the cosmos. Just as
Spinoza endows God with infinitely many attributes, so he imputes infi-
nitely many laws to natura naturata. Our knowledge of these laws is
for all time "fragmentary, because the order and system of all nature remains
largely unknown to us." Are then, we ask, the eternally necessary laws of
nature identical with the laws that are knowable, and in part known to us,
through the natural sciences? Spinoza answers in the affirmative. But can
all cosmic reality, nature as natura naturata, be encompassed in a system of
natural laws? Only by God's infinite intellect, says Spinoza, not by us.
For neither by experience nor by its concepts can our finite understanding
know the infinite reality of the cosmos, though it is well able to arrive at an
itself. For Spinoza the magnitude
adequate theoretical conception of infinity
of all-encompassing nature more than known nature and than
is infinitely
our reason, which is effective in the knowledge of finite things. To our

finite reason, much in nature "seems ridiculous, absurd, or evil." But "in
fact, what our reason pronounces bad is not bad as regards the order and
laws of universal nature, but only as regards the laws of our own nature
taken separately," because we "should like to see everything directed accord-
ing to the rule of our reason." Nature "is not subject to the laws of human
reason, which aim only at the true profit and preservation of man; but to
innumerable other laws, which relate to the eternal order of universal
nature."
The finite known to us, relate to something
laws of nature, which are
that is and freedom. But the encompassing
inferior to philosophical reason
divine law of eternal necessity is above everything we can definitely know.
It encompasses and transcends all finite knowledge and its utilization as a
means to ends as well as every law that is given in the form of ethical
obligation in society.
Spinoza elucidates this fundamental situation in detail. "Man, whether
a wise man or a fool, is a part of nature." Reason and desire are equally
subordinate to nature. "Whether governed by reason or by mere desire, man
always acts in accordance with the laws and rules of nature, that is, accord-
ing to natural right."
It is a mistake to suppose that fools do not follow but only confuse the
SPINOZA 341
order of nature. Most particularly it is an error to suppose that the human

mind was created directly by God, that man in nature resembles a state
within the state, wholly independent of other things, possessing absolute
power to determine his own destiny and to make proper use of his reason.
Experience teaches the contrary. It is no more in our power to have a
sound mind than a sound body. And it is not within our power to determine
whether we shall live by reason or follow blind desire.
The mankind derives from the

theologians say that this weakness of
original sin of Adam. But if the first man was incorrupt and had power
over his mind, how could he fall? Because he was deceived by the Devil,
the theologians reply. But who deceived the Devil? Who was able to instill
such madness in the first of all rational creatures that he desired to be more
than God? Surely not this creature himself. How could the first man, if
he was master of his mind and lord of his will, allow himself to be seduced
and his mind to be confused? Accordingly, it must be "admitted that it
was not in the first man's power to make proper use of his reason; he was
just as subject to the passions as we are."
To sum up this view, fundamental to Spinoza, of the all-embracing neces-
sity God, or nature: According to the finite and limited judgment of his
of
own understanding, man is subject to what is for him the most terrible
of evils, namely, total annihilation. But he is not caught up in a chaos of
blind natural forces. For even if he should fall from all humanly sheltered
and sheltering existence, he cannot fall away from the world and from God.
He is always in the hand of God, because he partakes of eternal necessity,
from which he cannot escape and in which he finds himself. By philosoph-
ical insight he knows that he and everything that befalls him are part of
eternal necessity. This knowledge appeases his spirit and gives him peace.
Spinoza does not complain, he does not find fault with things as they are.
In him there is nothing of a Job. But his serenity is not the indifference of
an irrationalist or amoralist; it springs from the love of God.
B. THE IDEAL STATE
Spinoza's account of the affects as necessary forces is followed by a picture

of the philosopher in the freedom of his reason. His exposition of the
natural theory of the state is followed by a picture of the right state.
The coolness with which Spinoza discusses the practical necessities of

political life gives way to a restrained enthusiasm when he speaks of reason
and freedom in the state. Amid the opaque necessity of the finite things of
nature, a philosopher who thinks politically and pursues political aims turns
to reason. For reason is itself a factor in the all-embracing necessity of
nature. The natural striving of reason for self-realization is also a part of
nature. In the state, it aspires to attain the best possible condition of the
human community, in which all individuals will be enabled to live and

to think in freedom, thanks to a legality recognized by common consent.
Where there is reason there is harmony, and only where reason prevails can
all the truly human potentialities be realized. Accordingly, Spinoza finds
in man "not merely the circulation of the blood, butfirst and foremost what
is termed reason, true virtus, and the true life of the mind."
i. Freedom: Spinoza elucidates the nature of political freedom:
I have another man my

power if I have (i) bound him, (2) deprived
in
him of his weapons and means to defend himself or run away, (3)
of the
inspired him with fear, or (4) so obligated him with rewards that he would
rather obey me than himself and rather live as I see fit than as he himself
sees fit. In the first and second cases, the wielder of power possesses only
the body of the man he has deprived of his freedom, but not his mind;
in the third and fourth, he has subjected the mind as well as the body, but
only as long as fear or hope is maintained.
But even when deprived of his freedom, every individual remains under
his own right, which has only seemingly been destroyed. As soon as he
ceases to fear violence and hope for reward, this right recovers its effective-
ness. A man remains under his own right by virtue of his mind, which
belongs to him as a man. But even his mind is under its own right only
insofar as it can make proper use of reason. "Judgment can also become
subject to alien right insofar as one mind can be deceived by another."
The purpose of political freedom is to make room for the freedom of
reason. Man's reason as such is his freedom and greatest power. "Nay, inas-
much as human power is to be reckoned less by physical vigor than by
mental strength, it follows that those men are most independent whose
reason is strongest, and who are most guided by it. And so I am altogether
for calling a man so far free as he is led by reason."
Man is more free, the more he
the is at one with himself, the more he
loves God. Hence "reason teaches us and to be of good
to practice piety
and tranquil mind." But this is possible only in the state.
2. Stability and freedom: In the natural theory of the state the criterion
of the good state was stability. But the goal of the ideal state is freedom. This
primacy of freedom throws a new light on the criterion of stability, for the
essential now is not stability as such but freedom in stability. Mere stability
can be deceptive. Where political freedom is at stake, Spinoza, who does not
wish "to condemn, lament, despise, or deplore," hands down radical judg-
ments. In this connection his love of peace, which elsewhere seems uncon-
ditional, is suspended. For a state can have stability without freedom. Turkey
is an example. "A commonwealth whose peaceful condition depends on the
cowardice of its subjects, who let themselves be led like cattle and learn only
to serve, can more aptly be called a wilderness than a state." "Peace is not
freedom from war but a virtue, which springs from strength of mind." "If
SPINOZA 343
slavery, barbarism, and desolation are called peace, then there is nothing
more pitiful far man than peace. For peace does not consist in the absence of
war but in a unity and harmony of minds."
Spinoza once drew a picture of himself dressed as Masaniello, the then
famous Neapolitan revolutionary. This peace-loving, reasonable man, who
desired nothing more than harmony with his fellow men and peace in God,
knew that where rational, political freedom was at stake he had the strength
of a rebel within him.
Spinoza discusses publicity, because he regards it as essential to political
freedom. Only a ruler intent on absolute domination maintains that the
on in secret. He praises
interest of the state requires his affairs to be carried
Machiavelli, who "was for freedom and gave the most salutary counsels
for its defense." This "very astute man" showed "how unintelligently many
persons act, who try to do away with a tyrant when they have been unable
to do away with the causes that make a prince into a tyrant." But above all
Machiavelli wished to show "how very careful a free people must be not to
entrust its welfare unreservedly to one man." Spinoza attaches little impor-
tance to the question of whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy is the
best form of government. The all-important question is to establish, within
each of the three forms, the best possible type from the standpoint of stability
and freedom.
3. For whom did Spinoza write? For whose benefit did Spinoza divulge
his ideas? By whom did he wish to be read? He said: "I know that it is
impossible to rid the people of superstition and fear. I know that the per-
severance of the people is obstinacy, and that they are not guided by
reason but carried away by blind passion for better or worse. Consequently,
I do not invite the people or any of those who share the same affects to read
this." Despite its relevance to the political situation of Holland, the Theo-
logico-Political Treatise is written not in Dutch but in Latin. Spinoza

addressed himself to the educated man who was prepared for reason and
possessed a true yearning for freedom. His aim was to raise to full con-
sciousness what such readers already desired.
SPINOZA AND HOBBES
Spinoza had great praise for Machiavelli but borrowed few ideas from him.
He scarcely mentions Hobbes, with whom many of his own ideas clearly
originated. The only plausible explanation is that Spinoza felt a kinship of
mind with Machiavelli and not with Hobbes. Purely rational ideas are as
such a means of communication; in their universality they are mere forms,
to which no right of possession can be acquired. It is worth-while to examine
the difference between Spinoza and Hobbes.
For Hobbes the ultimate motive of political life is security against violent
death; for Spinoza it is freedom. Thus in Spinoza all the elements taken
from Hobbes acquire a new meaning:
For both, the purpose of the state is the preservation of life. But for Spinoza
this is not the ultimate end. To his mind, government loses its meaning when
men cease to be rational beings and become subjects obeying out of fear. For
the ultimate end of the state is not security but freedom, in which men can
develop the powers of their body and mind and attain to reason.
Hobbes' reason constructs and calculates the conditions of security, one of
which is absolute rule. Spinoza's reason is the knowledge of God and the
love of man. Thus in the medium of a natural theory of the state, which
largely coincides with Hobbes, Spinoza develops aims that are alien to
Hobbes. Hobbes' reason is calculating and utilitarian, interested primarily
in securing the peace. Spinoza's reason, which is his first and all-embracing
concern, is an intuition and certainty of God.
Hobbes does not deal with religion, except to say that if peace and security
are to be guaranteed, all questions of cult and dogma must be decided ex-
clusively by the state. Spinoza is in the religious tradition, whose true content
he develops as philosophical reason. Hobbes looks upon religion as largely
superfluous. Spinoza recognizes its necessity for the multitude who lack
insight and are incapable of philosophical reason.
Hobbes looks upon all men as equal: every man is capable of killing
another; all have the same faculty of thought; through proper methods of
thought, every man can become the equal of every other; there are no
natural differences among men. For security in the state it suffices to elabo-
rate a proper apparatus of institutions and laws. Spinoza concedes that
because most men are incapable of philosophy, they require something which
is not philosophy but religion, and which differs from vulgar superstition
only in that it is recognized by the state or establishes an order which is

the foundation of the state ("On the State of the Hebrews," in the Theo-
logico-Political Treatise). Since the people are many and philosophers are
but few, the reason of the state must be based on the attributes of the mul-
titude.
Unlike Hobbes, Spinoza believes that some peoples more than others
are endowed with a natural love of freedom. According to Spinoza, the
good state derives its strength from this love of freedom. For this reason,
he regards war as inevitable and holds that in war freedom will prove the
stronger. "The supreme reward armed service is freedom." Even in
for
the state of nature, "each man no other reward from his warlike
expects
virtue than to be master of himself." "In war there can be no stronger or
more powerful claim to victory than the image of freedom." "Assuredly
those men fight most bravely who fight for home and hearth." No army of
mercenaries can resist an army that is fighting for freedom. Princes "can
oppress the people by means of an army to whom they pay wages." But
SPINOZA 345
they must fear nothing so much "as a free army of the people, which has
created the glory of its fatherland by its courage, its effort, and its blood."
Hobbes condemns all breach of contract, because its consequences are
harmful under all circumstances. Spinoza recognizes it as a necessity which
is in keeping with natural right, whether embodied in the will of the
rulers concerned with the welfare of the state or in the rebellion of the
people — and this necessity can be judged only by its consequences, accord-
ing as they tend to preserve, save, or destroy the state. He recognizes,
however, that a philosopher, living by the ethos of reason, is not prepared to
break any treaty.
Hobbes mastery of nature and looks into the
sees progress in the technical
future with amazing optimism. Spinoza regards man's mastery over nature
as a significant task, but for him it does not assume central importance.
In his vision, the future is overshadowed by the present task (in Holland),
and by eternal necessity, which knows no history.
B. Religion in the State
Spinoza speaks in the Theologico-Political Treatise of the piety which is
indispensable to political freedom and which philosophically resides in

reason, or certainty of God. It assumes reality for the common people as
religion, or "obedience to God." We men, whether philosophers or be-
lievers in revelation, are obedient, but in two different ways. For God either
revealed the commandments of reason as speaking within ourselves (in
this case philosophical reason is powerful in its own and spontaneously
right
obedient to God), or He revealed them to the Prophets in the form of laws
(and then they operate through the demand for blind obedience).
Since antiquity the political importance of religion — its value as a force
for order and its power to impose order upon the people has been discussed. —
There were two fundamental views. According to one, religion is an instru-
ment of political domination. Critias declared religion to be an invention of
wise statesmen, a means of guiding the multitude, which cannot be con-
trolled by external power alone. In this view, it is a benevolent deception
or simply an instrument of power, which through religion penetrates to
the innermost souls of men. In the opposing view, religion is fundamental
and enduring truth, common to all men. But there are degrees in the form
of truth. In revelation, something is given which is adapted by reason. The
degree of such rational penetration marks the level of philosophy. This
was the view of Averroes, Maimonides, and Hegel.
Spinoza's position is neither of these. He looks upon religion as necessary
for the people.Yet he himself does not partake of it. He stands aloof, but
he does not reject it; he regards as necessary what he neither needs for
himself nor views with sympathy: where there is reason, phantasms dis-
appear. Reason does freely and reliably what religious obedience does un-
freely and —because of the tendency to sectarianism inherent in all super-
stition —unreliably.
Spinoza quotes Quintus Curtius Rufus, the Roman biographer of Alex-
ander the Great: "Nothing controls the crowd more effectively than
superstition." He recognizes the all-dominating reality of revealed faith
in Judaism, Christianity, Islam.But is this superstition? Yes, says Spinoza.
But he on the basis of this revelation, love and justice are
also says that,
demanded and through obedience partly obtained. Thus in practice this
belief accords with reason, though it lacks the theoretical knowledge of
reason. Spinoza therefore does not simply criticize revealed religion out of
existence, he recognizes its rational core and declares it to be indispensable
to the building of a free society.
The evil of superstition is the fanatical hatred of multiple superstitions

for one another. This feature is especially marked in revealed religion
despite its rational core; it is the dangerous, malignant aspect of revealed
religion. In Spinoza's view, the only way
this danger of countering
politically is to deprive the church and itson the state;
priests of all influence
further, theology and philosophy must be kept strictly separate. Theology

teaches obedience to faith, philosophy teaches rational knowledge. Both
are justified in their spheres. But where they come into conflict, the result
is incurable disharmony, because there is no common ground for discussion.
The truth of philosophy is based on the universal concepts (notiones

communes) that are common to all men; the truth of theology, on Holy
Scripture. The former are known through the natural light, the latter
through supernatural revelation.
Spinoza's central theologico-political idea is based on the impotence of
the wise. Philosophers are by nature the mightiest of men, but they are
numerically so few that they can play no role in the state. Neither the
masses of the people nor the statesmen are guided by reason. Spinoza is far
from the Platonic idea of a philosopher-king.
The philosopher must therefore say: The better we observe and know
the customs and conditions of men, the more wisely we shall be able to live
among them and the better we shall be able to adapt our actions to their
character. Consequently, insight into the conditions of peace and security
should lead the state to recognize revealed religion. Political thinking should
be limited to the aims of the state; from this standpoint, revealed faith and
philosophy are judged according to their advantages and the dangers they
involve.
But all this political thinking is transcended. The state is not the ultimate
goal. Its existence is only the condition for the highest possible development
of each man. For this he requires freedom. This freedom encompasses an
aim which points beyond the state, and at the same time, it is the condition
of the security and permanence of the state itself.
SPINOZA 347
Spinoza's philosophical rejection of religious faith is unequivocal. There

can be QO revelation. Does God reveal Himself in spoken words or imme-
diately, without making use of something else? "Certainly not in words, for
then man would know the meaning of the words before they
have had to
were addressed to God says: "I am the Lord thy God," man, in
him." If
order to understand, must previously, without the words, have known who
God is. Thus Spinoza says it is impossible that God should have revealed
Himself to man by any outward sign. Only the intellect of man can know
God, since the intellect can neither exist nor be conceived of without God.
Nothing is so close to the intellect as God. In order to reveal Himself to
man, God needs Himself alone, not words, miracles, inspirations, or any other
created thing.
Yet because men, the rulers as well as the ruled, are as they are, neither
revelation nor miracles are to be despised in the ordering of state affairs, and
not only because these imaginings are ineradicable, but also because super-
stition can take on a form compatible with the truth of philosophy (which is
realized through reason as knowledge of God, charity, affability, and har-

mony) and because superstition or religion thus prepares the way for rational
truth. Thus piety can be achieved not only on the basis of philosophical
independence, but also, and indeed for the majority, through obedience to
the law, through faith in the revelation contained in sacred books.
Nevertheless, superstition, which is still with us in the form of religion,
conceals great dangers for the commonweal. It drives men to fanatical
exclusiveness and violence, because, unlike reason which thinks the one God,
it is multiple. Only reason binds; superstition divides. Spinoza expresses his
surprise "that men who boast of professing the Christian religion, that is,
love, joy, peace, moderation, and loyalty to all, nevertheless quarrel most
bitterly among themselves" —that "each one, whether Christian, Turk, Jew,
or heathen, can be recognized only by his outward appearance and his
cult; in other respects all have the same mode of life"
—"that the people con-
sider it part of religion to look upon Church offices as dignities and bene-
fices and to hold the clergy in high honor."
This universal superstition gives rise to tyranny, which, where the
means are available, restricts the freedom of each man to develop in accord-
ance with his own nature, forbids free thought, and strives for control over
the state.
In the face of this politico-theological reality, Spinoza devotes his thinking
to the cause of freedom. "It is utterly contrary to universal freedom that
every man's free judgment should be restricted by prejudices or curtailed
in any way . . . that opinions should be considered punishable after the
manner is why differences of opinion lead to disorder and
of crimes." This
rebellion. Such
would be impossible if, in accordance with the law of the
evils
state, "only acts were judged, but words exempted from punishment."
Spinoza sets out to show that freedom (of judgment, and freedom to
worship God in one's own way) "can be permitted without danger to

religion and the peace of the state, and moreover that to do away with it is
to do away with religion and political peace."
A. REASON AND REVELATION
Catholics, Protestants,and Jews base their religion on revelation. The

historical reality of faithand its importance for life in society led Spinoza to
"evaluate Holy Writ or revelation very highly from the standpoint of its
utility and necessity." For, "since all men are capable of unconditional obedi-
ence and only a very few attain to a virtuous way of life by the mere guidance
of reason, we should have to doubt of the salvation of almost all men if we
did not have the testimony of Scripture." It would be folly, "merely because
it cannot be demonstrated by mathematics, not to recognize something which
has been confirmed by the testimony of so many Prophets, which has brought
so much consolation precisely to those who are not strong of mind, which
has been of no little utility to the state, and which we can believe without
harm or danger." If we are to order our lives wisely, we may not accept
as true only that which there is
—
no reason to doubt "As though most
of our actions were not highly uncertain and a prey to chance."
Yet from a philosophical standpoint Spinoza regards revelation as impos-
sible. Such statements as the above are made only in a political context,
and he recognizes revelation only in a particular sense. (1) He is able to
describe and characterize revelation as one of the innumerable phenomena
existing in the world of modes, but he cannot explain it except in relation
to the needs of finite thinking beings. (2) In discussing these things, Spinoza
knowingly speaks "according to the comprehension of the multitude," and
here "multitude" includes the circle of enlightened men for whom he is
writing this particular work. (3) Spinoza takes the point of view of the
oligarchical party, where a liberal, tolerant faith was taken for granted.
But the essential point for Spinoza is that he finds the Biblical laws of
love and righteousness to be in full agreement with the prescriptions of
reason, and sees "the word of God," not in certain canonical writings, but
only in these prescriptions. The Prophets, he declares, "taught no morality
that is not in perfect agreement with reason. For it is no mere accident
that the word of God in the Prophets agrees perfectly with the word of God
that speaks within us."
But then Spinoza turns to the disastrous struggle of the denominations
and their theologians against those whom they regard as heretics. By way
of putting an end to such disputes, he regards a clear separation between
reason and revelation as expedient and necessary. They are two different
realms: "Reason is the realm of truth and wisdom, theology that of piety
and obedience."
SPINOZA 349
The truth of theology is restricted to the practice of obedience, namely,

the practice of love and righteousness. Hence it should define the dogmas
of faith only insofar as it is necessary for this obedience. "But it should leave
the more dogmas
precise definition of these to reason, which is the true
light of the mind, without which the mind sees only dream figures and
phantasms." Theological pseudo-knowledge is not only harmful, but also
unnecessary for faith. "We know for certain that those things which without
prejudice to love men can dispense with knowing, have no bearing on
theology or on the word of God."
But the two realms are connected. For man is one and undivided. If he
is obedient in faith and wise in reason, reason appears in faith insofar as
faith thinks, and faith in reason, insofar as it becomes an object of reason.

But disastrous errors arise when the boundary between the two commu-
nicating realms is not kept clearly in mind. "Neither must theology be
subservient to reason nor reason to theology; each must assert itself in its
own sphere." Each "has its own realm, in which the other should not
contradict it."
Since what is believed in obedience cannot be proved by reason, why,

Spinoza asks, "do we believe in it?" If we accept it without reason like
blind men, we are acting foolishly and without judgment. But if on the
other hand we were to maintain that the foundation of obedience can be
proved by reason, theology would be an inseparable part of philosophy.
And Spinoza replies: "Without restriction I maintain that the fundamental
dogma of theology cannot be explained by natural enlightenment, and
that for this reason revelation was very necessary; nevertheless, we can
make use of our judgment in order at least to recognize with moral cer-
tainty what has already been revealed. We must not expect to attain greater
certainty concerning it than the Prophets themselves, whose certainty was
only a moral one." '
Their authority cannot be substantiated by mathematical proofs. It can

be demonstrated by no other and no stronger arguments than those with
which the Prophets in their time convinced the people, namely, first by a
lively imagination, second by "signs," such as the occurrence of predicted
events, third,by a good and righteous frame of mind. Consequently, even
where the signs are confirmed, we owe the Prophets belief only when they
recommend righteousness and love beyond all things, and teach them with
an upright heart.
When contradictions arise between the tenets of philosophy and of
theology, Spinoza denies that theology can justify its principles. At first,
to be sure, he justifies the efforts of the theologians to build a solid founda-
tion for theology, demonstrate it. "For who would wish to renounce
and to
truth or despise science and deny the certainty of reason?" But later on he
finds them unforgivable. For in attempting to justify theology by reason,
they are "asking the help of reason to banish reason." The theologians
seek "to justify authority by proofs, in order to rob reason and natural en-
lightenment of their authority." Or they pretend to submit theology to
the rule of reason, on "the supposition that the authority of theology has
radiance onlywhen illumined by the natural light of reason.'*
But theology gains nothing by such attempts to overstep its limits and
become knowledge. In matters of insight, only reason can testify. Anyone
who invokes another witness speaks from the prejudice of his affects. "But
in vain, for what sort of altar can that man build who offends against the
majesty of reason?"
B. THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE BIBLE
Jews, Catholics, and Protestants base the claims of their faith on the Bible.
All argue with Bible quotations. The interpretation of the Bible is a power
not only for faith, but also for political ends. In order to avert the harm
done by this power in creating conflicts, often with bloody consequences,
Spinoza advocates the "right interpretation of the Bible."
Exegesis can be based on two fundamentally different assumptions. The
question arises: Are they mutually exclusive, or can they be reconciled?
The first assumption is that the Bible is the word of God. Being of
fundamentally different origin from all other books written by men, it
alone is Holy Scripture. Since it is the word of God, it can contain no
contradictions. Everything in it is true.
The second assumption is that the Bible is a collection of books written
by men, and originally no different in character from other works of litera-
ture.
Interpretation of the Bible according to the first assumption involves
the following methods:
i. If no contradiction is admissible in the Bible, the exegete must eliminate
the numerous contradictions that actually occur (as well as the objectionable
passages) by invoking an allegorical sense in addition to the literal sense.
2. The irrationality of the text is interpreted as a mystery. The exegete en-
deavors "to explain the absurdity" by supposing "the profoundest mysteries
to be concealed in the text." 3. An attempt is made to adapt Scripture to
reason, for example, to Aristotelian or Platonic speculations. Because Scrip-
ture is divine, hence true throughout, the exegete assumes that study of it
what philosophically he already knows.

will disclose
Spinoza often attacks Maimonides, in whom he finds these false methods.
Maimonides assumes that the Prophets accord with one another and that
they were great philosophers and theologians, who concealed their ideas
in images addresed to the people, that the words of Scripture must be inter-
preted not according to their literal sense but in accordance with the pre-
SPINOZA 351
conceived opinions of the exegetes, and that the meaning of Scripture cannot
be gathered from Scripture itself.
These methods of exegesis contradict the pure evidence of unprejudiced

reason. They rest on authority, that of the Pharisaic tradition, of the insti-
tutionally recognized scholars, of the Popes. The guarantor of truth becomes
a reason grounded in authority, not the free reason which is its own founda-
tion.
Spinoza rejects such methods on the strength of the other assumption:
the Bible must be understood in a natural way, like any other book. He
"undertook to examine Scripture afresh, with a free and unbiased mind."
His methods are as follows:
1. His first principle is to make no assumption concerning the Bible which
cannot be supported by the text, to impute no doctrine to it which is not

clearly stated in the Bible itself. 2. To investigate how each individual
book came into being, at what time and place, under what circumstances
and in what situations, by whom and for whom it was written, and to
consider the life, customs, and aspirations of the author. "The better we
know a man's mind and way of thinking, the better able we shall be to
interpret his words." 3. The history of all Prophetic books should be
studied: through whose hands they passed, what variants of the text exist;
who decided to include them among the Holy Scriptures, how they are
organized into a whole. 4. To collate everything relating to the same sub-
ject, including what is ambiguous or seemingly contradictory. 5. The ques-
tion of whether the meaning of a passage has been properly established
must not be confused with the question of the truth of its content. Historical
exegesis is concerned with the intended meaning, not with the truth of
this meaning. We should determine the former, but make no decision as to
the latter.
These methods led Spinoza to found modern Bible study as a branch of
historical research. He recognized the importance of the Hebrew language:
"Because all the authors of the Old and New Testament were Hebrews, a
history of the Hebrew language is first of all The books of
indispensable."
the New Testament are to be sure couched in another language, "but they
are Hebrew in character." The Bible as a whole
is a product of the Jews.
Every part of the Old and New

Testaments was written by Jews. The
question of whether a given element in the Bible is Jewish or Christian is
of secondary importance to the historian.
But the question of truth is of burning interest to Spinoza. Hence he
does not limit himself to ascertaining historical fact. He interprets, but
on the basis of natural reason. He regards the Prophets as men endowed
with heightened imagination, which for him diminishes truth. He further
interprets this imaginative character in the Biblical texts by saying "that
the teachings of Scripture are adapted to the intelligence and opinions of
those to whom the Prophets and the Apostles preached the word of God,
in order that men might accept it without resistance and with their whole
hearts." In an extraordinary simplification of the Bible, he interprets the truth

of its show that the revealed word of God does not reside in a
teachings: "I
given number of books, but in the simple concept of the divine spirit, as it
was revealed to the Prophets to obey God with one's whole soul, by practic-
:
ing righteousness and love." Accordingly, Spinoza says that "the authority of
the Prophets is meaningful only in questions of life conduct and true virtue,
that in other matters their views are of little concern to us." In particular, he
interprets the mass of Mosaic legislation (in contradistinction to the Ten
Commandments, which are concerned with the right conduct of life) : it
was "solely the legal order of the Hebrew kingdom," which accordingly had
no reason to be accepted by anyone but the Hebrews, and to which "they
themselves were bound only so long as their state endured."
Spinoza interprets some of the contradictions in the Bible historically,
by considering in what situation and for what reason a statement was made.
The oldest books of the Bible breathe a warlike spirit. But Jesus said:
"Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also" (Matthew 5: 17). Here He speaks not as a lawgiver (for He did not
wish to destroy the law of Moses) but as a teacher of oppressed men in a
corrupted state, whose destruction He held to be impending. In Lamenta-
tions, Jeremiah spoke similarly in a similar situation. But only in such times
would Jesus and Jeremiah have bidden men to suffer injustice. In a good
state, they would have said the exact opposite.
C. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT
Spinoza's interest in the understanding of the Bible had its source in the
bloody conflicts over interpretation and in his rejection of all interpretations
based on authority, regardless of where they originated.
Since men are different, said Spinoza in opposition to all authoritarian
claims, each man must be granted freedom of judgment and the opportunity
to develop the foundations of his faith as he sees fit. He justifies this thesis
by the following arguments.

1. Whether a man is pious or godless should be judged solely by his
works, not by his opinions and professions. "Only thus will all be enabled
to obey God freely and only thus will righteousness and love come to be
esteemed by all."
A distinction must be made between the true authority of the state,

2.
to which every citizen should bow, and the false authority of religious
dogmas and laws. The law of the state relates, and rightly so, to outward
actions; religion is concerned with an inner attitude, from which acts of
love and righteousness follow freely, and not through coercion.
SPINOZA 353
The laws of Moses were once state laws. They then rightly claimed public
authority. "For if the individual had the right to interpret public law as
he saw fit, do state could endure." The old Hebrew state is no more; our
states are no longer theocracies. Religion today has relevance solely to
"simplicity and trueness of heart," to love and righteousness. But "no one
can be coerced into beatitude." Instead of force, "fraternal admonition" is
in order, and "above all individual freedom of judgment is required." Thence

it follows that in matters of religion each man is entitled to complete
freedom of opinion. It is inconceivable that anyone should renounce this
right. Just as the state is the supreme authority in interpreting the laws,
because here public right is involved, so each individual is the supreme
authority in explaining religion, because it falls under the right of the in-
dividual.
3. This free interpretation, implying also the science and criticism of
the Bible, is possible only in a free state. "In a free state every man is allowed
to think what he will and to say what he thinks." Spinoza argued this
position with passion
a) Freedom of thought is a part of the natural right of every individual,
and cannot be alienated even to the natural right of the state. For according
to the highest natural right, every man is master of his thoughts. Conse-
quently "the supreme powers will never cause men to renounce the right to
judge things as they see fit, in accordance sometimes with one and some-
times with another affect."
b) It is true that the supreme powers have the right to consider everyone
as an enemy who does not in all his actions agree with them uncondition-
ally. But government is tyranny if it extends to men's minds, that is, tries
to prescribe what each mind should accept and what it should reject as
false.
It is not any transcendent, eternal right of man that forbids a government

to exercise such tyranny but the natural right of the state, for only in this
way can it endure, avoid the evils of revolt and
strife, and attain the goal
of a free life for all. Thus Spinoza shows

freedom of thought redounds
that
to the advantage of the state. Violence against the mind is a danger to the
whole state and is incompatible with sound reason; it can only lead to the
annihilation of the state.
c) The consequence of violence against the mind is that base men gain
power. The anger of those who tolerate no free minds in their midst can
easily transform the bigotry of a riotous populace into madness. Such men
stir up the insolent mob against the authors of books that they consider
undesirable. A state ruled by such men can tolerate no noble spirits. Men
whose minds are free are declared to be enemies, banished, and threatened
with death. But they do not fear death like criminals; they consider it an
honor to die for freedom. Laws concerning opinion strike not the wicked
but the noble.
Where such laws prevail, peace becomes impossible. Where the state
authorities seek to settle quarrels among scholars by laws, conflicts arise,
not through zeal for the truth but through lust for domination. The true
breakers of the peace in a state are those who wish to destroy freedom of
judgment, which cannot be repressed.
d) Freedom of thought must be distinguished from freedom of action.
In respect to action Spinoza formulates the following fundamental situa-
tion: In a state, each man, pursuant to reason, decides once and for all to
transfer his right to act according to his own judgment to the decision of
the supreme power. To be sure, unanimous decisions are rare; "but every
decision is looked upon as a decision of the whole community, of those
who have voted against it as well as those who have voted for it." But
since in human societies the decision of all can in practice be determined
only through the majority, its application is limited. It is applicable only to
actions and not to thoughts. Moreover, each decision is made with the
reservation "that it will be modified if something better should appear."
Those who are outvoted comply in their actions, not in their thoughts.
Accordingly, a state must be so governed "that men whose opinions are
openly at variance may nevertheless live in harmony."
But Spinoza sets limits to the free expression of opinion. Freedom of
faith and freedom to philosophize remain unrestricted. But it should be
determined what opinions in the state are "subversive" to the state order
and the freedom of all, or, in other words, to what extent each man can be
allowed the freedom to speak without prejudice to the peace of the state.
Unrestricted freedom of thought and hence of speech is permitted each
man only on condition "that he speak or teach simply and with the sole
help of reason, but not put forward his opinion with deception, anger,
and hatred." The restriction of affective speech is no less necessary than
freedom of rational speech for the preservation of peace.
C. Critical Characterization of Spinoza's Views of Religion and Politics
A. LACK OF CLARITY AS TO THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY
Science and philosophy were for Spinoza, as for all the thinkers of his time
(and for many even today), the same. Spinoza spoke in the name of the
one which through natural reason presupposes, and tries to find,
science,
one truth that is valid for all reason. But Spinoza is doing two very different
things when on the one hand he employs the methods of science, interpreted
as universally valid knowledge, to attack the assertions of the theologians
or of the Bible, which can be proved to be historically or scientifically

false, and when, on the other hand, in the name of reason (as philosophy),
S r I A' O Z A 355
he declares other views of being or of ethical practice to be errors. In the

first case, the power of universally valid knowledge is opposed to errors,
and this power is indeed inescapable for every thinking man (when, for
example, the miracle of Joshua, resurrection in the flesh, Moses' authorship

of the Pentateuch are considered from the standpoint of astronomy, physics,
biology, or history). In the second case faith stands against faith.
Confidence in universal agreement through the one reason is justified
only in science. But this agreement does not apply to men in their whole
being; it resides only in an everywhere identical, abstract area of understand-
ing, which is removed from the richness of life or rather does away with it:
men, for example, are agreed as to the rules governing the atomic process,
but this does not prevent them from dropping atom bombs on each other's
cities. It is a mistake to suppose that science brings men together. A very
different matter is which wholly permeates man's being, which
the reason
is the medium of each man's irreplaceable existence, the reason which is
dependent on unlimited openness to communication and is determined to

achieve it. But this reason does not bring about agreement among men. It
admits of an unlimited diversity of ways of life, of conceptions of Being and
of God. In it the historically unique reality of each existence sees and
questions itself and lets itself be questioned. This diversity cannot be com-
bined in one man. But where there is reason, the drive to communication is
unlimited, not only in order that each man may know the reality of others,
but in order that through understanding he may gain for himself the
greatest possible scope, clarity, and certainty; for this reason does not aspire
to level and destroy.
Spinoza regarded philosophy as one, and this knowable by reason
one as
and exclusively true. In this belief, he confused it He was
with science.
able to convince certain critics (Jacobi, Lichtenberg) that if reason were the
foundation of all life, it could lead only to Spinozism. This is a philosoph-
ical fallacy. In the study and acquisition of Spinoza we must differentiate:
i. Where he is dealing with scientific questions, he is fundamentally
right, though not in detail. Even this is valid only for those who strive
without restriction for science, who regard a bond with scientific possibili-
ties as the condition of all integrity, who take an affirmative attitude toward
science and find human dignity in pursuing it. Those who are unwilling
cannot be convinced, because they close themselves off from thought and
communication is broken; there is nothing for it but to leave them to
themselves. Unconditional support of scientific truth is an element of philo-
sophical faith. In this respect Spinoza is one of the long line of men who
have worked for knowable truth against error. This attitude has given rise
to great transformations in our world view (Copernicus; the discovery of
the whole earth, the discovery of other, entirely different men; realistic
history and its extension over unknown millennia). Where such changes
are felt to be unbearable, the old truths that they put in jeopardy cannot be
defended from the standpoint either of sound knowledge or of communi-

cable universality.
2. Where philosophy is concerned, Spinoza, after the manner of philos-
ophers, expresses the truth which is unconditional in his own life as a
thinker, but which once formulated is not universally valid for all.
These two concepts of truth are different in origin. Science is concerned

with a truth that is universally valid; but this truthfrom cer- is inseparable
tain specific methods and definable premises; it is always particular and in
actual fact comes to be accepted by all who understand it. Philosophy is con-
cerned with a truth which in its statement does not become universally
valid, which in practice does not gain universal acceptance, but comes from
a source that is taken as an absolute.

A consequence of this distinction between science and philosophy is
that their opposition to the theology of any church takes two fundamentally
different forms. Science opposes theology insofar as it makes statements
about realities in the world or hands down supposedly logical demonstra-
tions, which in both cases can be compellingly refuted to the satisfaction
of every thinking mind. In this realm theology regularly gets the worst of
the argument and tends to adapt itself. Philosophy also opposes theology,
but not in reference to particular positions; what philosophy attacks is the
authority of its ground. While in the first case better knowledge triumphs
over ignorance, in the second case philosophical faith opposes ecclesiastical-
authoritarian faith. When philosophical faith, which gains self-certainty in
thinking from the source, takes itself for and soon
science, it is in error
comes into a position of inferiority to theology. When it understands itself
on the basis of its own origin, it holds its ground. But then there are not
two adversaries, one of whom must triumph; there is a living polarity, in-
herent in the possibilities of human existence. The independence of science
is always particular, relating to the knowledge of those objects that are
within its reach. The independence of philosophy is total, relating to the
quest for the source of metaphysical and ethical knowledge. The independ-
ence of knowledge might be reconciled with authoritarian theo-
scientific
logical knowledge; but the same can hardly apply to the independence of
philosophical faith once its twofold nature has become clear. An example of
magnificent original naivete is Anselm; the first great example of a truly
modern philosophical independence is Spinoza.
When orthodox faith and Spinoza's rational insight are considered on
—
the same plane on the plane of faith, for on no other is such a comparison
justified —
we see that conflict is inevitable. But a consequence of their diver-
gent origins is that not only their methods of discussion but also their
existential implications in the conflict with violence are fundamentally dif-
ferent. Philosophical faith gives battle only intellectually, its attitude toward
violence is defensive; theological faith makes offensive use of violence.
Failing to suspect the difference between science and philosophy and
hence the ground of his philosophical faith, which he identified with scien-
SPINOZA 357
tific evidence, Spinoza looked upon his philosophy not as the best but as
the only true philosophy. This is why he takes such a resolute stand against
scepticism, which he rejects as pusillanimity. But skepticism can have two
meanings: it can mean doubt in the objective and universal validity of
philosophical truth, and then it is not pusillanimity, but the force of faith,
which has achieved self-awareness by drawing a distinction between scien-
tifically valid statements on the one hand and philosophical statements on
the other. Or skepticism can be a doubt in the reliability of our scientific
knowledge; in this case it is a force for improved methods in specific
branches of inquiry, and here again it cannot be called pusillanimity. Pusil-

lanimous and ultimately nihilistic doubt is the attitude of those who
do not live by the earnestness of any form of faith; it is the general attitude
of those who assume all science to be uncertain without systematic ex-
amination of its particular achievements. Both varieties of skeptical pusil-
lanimity lose themselves in abstract generalizations.
The absoluteness of philosophical insight as Spinoza understood it derives
a character of philosophical struggle from its dogmatism. Spinoza recog-
nizes the adversary as a natural necessity; he does not wish to destroy him,
but to defend himself against this adversary who threatens his existence.
He defends himself by caution and by the publication of his ideas, which,
he hopes, will increase the sum of reason in the world. Both Spinoza and
his theological adversaries can be accused of intolerance. But Spinoza's in-
tolerance was purely intellectual, brought about by his failure to understand
the powers of faith that were utterly alien to him; he was not intolerant in
his life, never contemplated violence, and relied only on the power of reason.
The intolerance of the theological powers of faith intervenes violently in
men's existence, striving to destroy all those who do not comply.
In conclusion it may be asked: Is any discussion possible between powers
and scien-
so different in origin as authoritarian faith, philosophical faith,
tificknowledge? Is it not inevitable that any attempt of men dominated by
one of these powers to address the others will fall on deaf ears? Must all
not feel misunderstood, because there is nowhere a "common ground"?
The answer: Scientific and philosophical discussions differ in character.
When properly conducted, scientific discussion leads to a compelling result
in the realm of the understanding (consciousness as such), which cannot
but induce agreement; philosophical discussion, on the other hand, leads to
reciprocal illumination in human communication on the basis of something
that is common to all men, of men's ability to understand one another amid
enduring existential diversity.
Scientific discussion presupposes the common ground of "consciousness
as such," which is men. Exceptions occur where a
indeed present in all
sacrificium intellectus is exacted, that is, where the mind is called upon to
submit to something that is an absurdity for any thinking man. Here the
consequence can only be a common bond in the absurd (while it lasts) or
a break in communication. Discussion has become impossible. Men behave
as though they were no longer men, that is, thinking beings —and this while
invoking something which they assert to be the will of God.
Philosophical discussion requires "correctness" as an indispensable instru-
ment; it operates with scientific knowledge, but aim is something
its essential
else. The communication with
truth of one possible existence enters into
another. How this can come about it is hard to explain, for there is no
great concrete example in history (except in Plato and Kant, and even so
their vision of a community was never realized in practice)
Spinoza could not seek such communication; he was not aware of com-
munication as a task, because he thought himself to be in possession of the
true and explicit philosophy.
SPINOZA AS A SCIENTIST
Spinoza took an interest in the modern sciences; he experimented, ground

lenses, busied himself with mathematics, and studied medicine. His political
thinking is based on Machiavelli. He made a philological and historical
study of the Bible, contributed to the dating of various sections by catalogu-

ing the use of certain words and by analyzing indications given in the texts.
His work in this field was thorough and conscientious (just as the lenses
he ground were said to be of particular excellence). He possessed a modern
consciousness of reality.
But he made no outstanding new discovery and no discovery at all in
the strict sciences. And though the principles he applied to the study of the
Bible have remained virtually unchanged, his own investigations in this

field yieldedno epoch-making results. It was known before Spinoza that
Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch (Hobbes).
Spinoza understood neither the traditional interpenetration of philosophy
and science nor the fundamentally absurd marriage between modern science
and the philosophy of his time. Not only did he philosophize entirely in the
old spirit of the unity of philosophy and science, but moreover, he did not
understand the specifically new, modern spirit of science. This becomes
evident in his discussion with Boyle, the chemist. It was in the old, scho-
lastic manner (like Bacon) that Spinoza discussed the new facts which
Boyle had discovered by new methods, and it was in this manner that he
made his own fruitless experiments in connection with Boyle's problem.
To be sure, Spinoza understood the endlessness of investigation in the
world of modes, stressed our enduring ignorance, and left room for all
the new knowledge But his false method of dis-
that could be gained.
cussion was not in keeping with this insight. For he continued to treat
natural science as a fundamentally closed and complete body of knowledge.
Formerly it had been the Aristotelians, now it was the Baconians who
thought in this manner. His attitude was approximately that in which
Siger of Brabant defended the independence of natural science against
SPINOZA 359
revelation. Spinoza cannot be included in the great movement of scientists

who have worked toward a boundless future that will bring knowledge as
yet unsuspected. While Bacon was less interested in scientific progress than
in speculations about future technological developments, Spinoza attached
little importance to the progress of science, because in his view the essential,
the fundamental, the whole was already established: like the ancients, he
confused philosophical speculation with scientific knowledge. Thus in its
basic attitude Spinoza's natural science is not science in the modern sense,
but natural philosophy.
Yet Spinoza was touched by the breath of modern science. He seems to
have had modern science in mind when he said that his method of explain-
ing the Bible differs in no way from the method of explaining nature. But in
his philosophy all this has the air of a garment that can be changed at will, or
of a means of communication which he employs without being committed
to it.
The necessity, into which reason has insight as into divine eternity, is
expressed through its mathematical and scientific manifestations. Actually

Spinoza's use of these new tools does not bear witness to any scientific con-
sciousness and method; as was customary in those days, he employed them

as technical aids in a realm unrelated to their own content. This is evident
from his use of the geometric method in the Ethics. In this work there is no
trace of the spirit of mathematical discovery or of the mathematical concep-
tion of certainty. But it is quite in the spirit of traditional logical argumenta-
tion that Spinoza gives this mathematical cloak to his metaphysical specula-
tions as a means of demonstrating the connections between his concepts.
Spinoza's philosophical method of deriving and confirming his ethical views
has nothing to do with modern science. The freedom from bias, power of
observation, natural intelligence which Spinoza shows in his judgment of
reality are not specific to modern science but characteristic of rational human
beings at all times. Finally, when Spinoza speaks of the "fictions of Aristotle,
Plato, or others of their ilk" and of "Aristotle's buffoonery," it is not in the
spirit of the modern sciences, but in the independent spirit of his century,
which viewed and great names with suspicion and disrespect.

tradition
Though all and philosophers of Spinoza's time
the thinkers, scientists,
spoke of "method," Spinoza's method is far more a way of salvation than
a method of research. When he seeks the way to "improvement of the
understanding," it is in order to arrive, by the stages of knowledge, at the
intuitive insight of amor intellectualis dei.
B. BIBLICAL SCIENCE, FAITH, PHILOSOPHY
/. The importance of Biblical science for faith: Either of the two conflicting
assumptions on which Biblical exegesis is based (the Bible as the word of
God or as a literary document) can lead to a profound knowledge of the
Bible. In both ways it is possible to read the Bible, to study it, and to reflect
upon Both are justified in calling themselves Biblical science. But the
it. first
assumption implies an acquisition that will sustain the student's whole life,
the second a historical knowledge of the meaning intended by the authors,

and of the context, origin, and influence of the ideas communicated.
The Biblical science of believers in revelation is as old as the canon. His-
torical Bible criticism began in the eighteenth century on the foundations
laid by Spinoza, and developed enormously in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. The question arose: What does historical Bible criticism mean to
those who believe in revelation? Kierkegaard's answer was: Nothing; his-
torical Bible criticism is detrimental to faith. Few theologians followed him
in this belief. Most, sharing the esteem of their age for science, held that
historical knowledge of the Bible was useful to the religious reader. Others,
however, felt that historical Bible criticism is in itself an expression of un-
belief. The same assertion was made from the opposite standpoint by the
average proponents of enlightenment: science has refuted Biblical faith.
Those historical critics who regarded themselves as believers were faced with
a new question: How can faith itself be made more authentic by this new
historical knowledge?
Spinoza did not ask the question in this way. Nor could he have done
so, for the Bible criticism that he helped to found was not yet an established
discipline. He seldom seemed to respect the pious interpretation. He held it
to be situated in the realm of the imagination, to be inherently unintelligent,

but under certain conditions harmless. As a rule he condemns it in the
sharpest terms. It is "a prejudice of superstition to honor the books of
Scripture more than the word of God itself." The theological exegetes repre-
sent their fictions as the word of God. Under the pretext that religion
requires it, they try to compel others to share their opinion. Frivolously and
unscrupulously, they squeeze their inventions out of the Holy Scriptures.
But their own mode of life shows them to be lacking in piety. Their ambi-
tion and profligacy go so far that not "obedience to the teachings of the
Holy Ghost, but the advocacy of human fictions is looked upon as the mark
of religion," which "consists no longer in love, but in raging hatred."
Nevertheless we are entitled to ask: Can a religious exegesis of the Bible,
based on the assumption that the Bible is the word of God, not be reconciled
in the mind of a believer with one based on historical inquiry? To be sure,
the proponents of the two interpretations cannot carry on a discussion, for
they have no common ground. Each can merely point out the consequences
of the other's assumptions. One, for example, may say: By denying the
uniqueness and holiness of Scripture, you lose God's revelation, you lose
what millennia have attested by their faith. And the other may answer: You
are turning your back on natural reason, which makes the Scriptures acces-
sible by treating their contents as the opinions of those who wrote them;
which, on the basis of all available documents, investigates the historical
SPINOZA 361
conditions and origins and shows how the tenets of faith change, how they
gain and lose in depth. To relinquish reason is to lose your authenticity by
closing your eyes to reality. But in such an exchange both are mistaken.
Might not both ways lead to insights that can coexist in one mind without
clashing, since they relate to totally different realities, on the one hand
the eternal reality of Godon the other, the empirical reality of the
in faith,
Bible as an object of inquiry? The two conceptions of reality become in-
compatible only when confused and identified.
Spinoza neither asked this question clearly nor answered it. For one thing,
he did not clearly differentiate his own rational, philosophical interpretation
from the orthodox interpretation, and he distinguished neither of these
strictly from a scientific determination of facts or from the (always hypo-
thetical) psychological and sociological theories of the origins of the Bible.
Spinoza made such distinctions, to be sure, but he did not hold them fast
in developing his ideas.
2. The importance of philosophy for faith: Spinoza's distinction between

revealed faith and rational insight is a distinction between the realms of
theology and philosophy. But did Spinoza really wish to distinguish theology
and philosophy as two independent realms of equal rank? Over and over
again, he represents reason as the highest criterion. Revelation as an instru-
ment of obedience is held to be a necessity rooted in the nature of most men,
but subordinate. There are two planes: the historical plane of man as a finite
mode with inadequate ideas and the eternal plane of man as a rational being
who, with his adequate ideas, cuts across time, revelation, and tradition, to
enter into animmediate relation to God.
In Spinoza's thinking a motive is at work which is at once philosophical
and political: the self-assertion of philosophical reason. What is accom-
plished in the mind of the philosopher is not identical with what is known
as reality in the realm of modes. Reason itself becomes a mode in its histor-
ical manifestation.The knowledge of the modes of history is finite knowl-
edge, but as such is also a demand of reason.
Spinoza often fails to make clear whether he recognizes revelation as an
act of God or whether he is only speaking "according to the comprehension
of the multitude." It is certain that Spinoza regards this historical reality of
faith, like everything else that exists, as a consequence of God, but this
does not mean that he believes in the reality of revelation as a specific act
of God, localized in space and in time. This last possibility, even if he some-
times seems to imply it, is philosophically excluded.
Does Spinoza in general fail to establish a systematic connection between
his actual philosophy and concrete knowledge in the realm of modes? Or
in the present case: does he fail to establish a systematic connection between
his denial of revelation and his recognition of revelation ? The matter is not
made clear. For according to Spinoza's fundamental principles, everything
that resides in the realm of modes —and this would include all political
and ecclesiastical thinking — is absolutely endless. In the present context he

does not speak with the rigor of philosophical speculation. He adopts stand-
points and delivers judgments which are relative insofar as they are situated
in finite existence and take the form of representations. He strives to advance
reason in the world of representations. The result is a lack of clarity, which
the reader must correct by interpretation.
Ultimately superstition is so termed only if it leads to conflict, disorder,
evil. But when in the form of imaginations, of prophetic proclamation of

God's commandments, it contains truth, then in fact, though not as knowl-
edge, it is identical with philosophical practice, with love and righteousness,
with harmony and peace. The prevalence of superstition in the organized
Biblical religions is shown by their conflicts, their fanaticism, their mutual
accusations of heresy, their lust for power. But to what extent the truth of
reason is effective through the Bible in these religions is shown by the piety
which true believers evince in their actions.

It might be said that for Spinoza superstition ceases to be superstition
when its content is in keeping with rational practice. But the connection
between superstitious form and true content must be understood on the
basis of the human mind's attachment to imaginations or inadequate ideas,
and of most men's inability to develop their reason to the point where they
are truly governed by it and derive strength from it.
The historical study of the Bible shows how from the very beginning
enormous changes occurred in the content of faith from the Mosaic to the—
Prophetic to the theological, legalistic religion —and how in each of these
was interpreted and assimilated in a different way. It may be
the tradition
asked how the source lives on through transformations, even through
seemingly radical breaks, as exemplified by Jesus, or by Spinoza for that
matter. In each new amid new social forms and condi-
historical situation,
tions of life, where the source contains truth and has been con-
the task,
firmed as historical reality, is to renew the experience of God's original
presence. But no one can devise a plan by which to carry out this task. The
only answer lies in the reality of each man's life and thinking.
Spinoza himself takes his place in this history of Biblical religion. His
experience of God is akin to Jeremiah's: it suffices that God is. Like the Bible,
he knows love of God as love of his neighbor and as righteousness. With
all the earnestness of an immemorial tradition, he rejects all embodiments,
determinations, limitations of God: thou shalt not make unto thyself any
graven image. In Spinoza as in the Bible, God-given reason opposes nature
gods, demigods, and demons, which vanish in the face of God's reality.
Every abasement of God is forbidden, not by any so-called enlightenment,
but by the very idea of God.
Biblical consciousness of God in philosophical form takes Bible criticism
as a historical means of approaching the source. No science of the Bible
SPINOZA 363
can impair this consciousness of God. On the contrary, it helps us to redis-

cover the source. It brings US fact to lace wnh a great historical unity forged
bv catastrophe mk\ suffering, the fundamental experience of a people and
its many extraordinary individuals.
Spinoza sees the historical unity of the Bible; he sees Jesus as one of a
long line of Prophets, as "the mouthpiece of God."
spirit created by spirit, as
With God, Spinoza expounds the mean-

his philosophical consciousness of
ing that runs through the whole Bible: the one God, in whose faith are
grounded love and justice among men, and who is the foundation of men's
peace, solely because He is.
Bible criticism teaches us to understand the contradictions that occur
throughout the Bible, either as a meaningful unity of polarities in faith or
as a consequence of the changing historical garments through which faith
has passed. A thorough knowledge makes the one God shine all
historical
the more radiantly and enables us to accept or reject the whole with greater
clarity.
C. OBJECTIONS TO SPINOZA S CONCEPTION OF GOD
/. Abstractness: It cannot be denied that the fundamental ideas, in which

Spinoza's idea of God is expressed, are highly abstract. Insofar as this term
is taken as a reproach, it may be replied:
The more abstract a philosophical idea, the more concrete is its meta-
physical reality. The more abstract an idea of God, the greater unanimity
can be achieved among thinking believers; for they fill it with their diverse
historical reality.
A thinker who is able with his speculation to strike at the ground of

being addresses every man. But from the standpoint of objects and rep-
resentations, his ideas become increasingly empty. Those who do not fill in
this emptiness with their own substance cannot help regarding such ideas as
purely abstract, as mere indifferent form. They experience none of their
effectiveness.
Hence the striving to bring God closer in images, figures, myths and
symbols, in rites, ceremonies, cults, and sacred books. These are the source
of historical diversity, but they are also the body of the absolute, its existence
in time, the historicity of origin, tradition, language. This is the realm of the
fairy tales that we hear from childhood on, of the truths that I accept "because
my father told me so."
Spinoza was expelled from his community because of his insistence on

free speech. He drew the consequence: constrained to live without historical
ground, he would find his ground in God Himself. This accounts for
Spinoza's ahistoricism, for his radical abstraction of the Biblical idea of
God, for the earnestness of his determination to make no graven image, to
live without prayer in the pure ether of thought. In this rarefied medium
he found the cool yet radiant reality of God that dominated his life. This
divine reality, manifest in pure thought, is the focal point at which all
merely historical origins, which left to themselves tend to be mutually ex-

clusive and to establish themselves as objective, dogmatic truth, can converge
and submit to a higher authority.
In this encompassing area of thought, which as such can never become
an actual institutional religion, Spinoza consequently takes two steps:
The first is to the comprehensive Biblical religion, where the diversities
between the churches and denominations of the Old and New Testaments
disappear, where all find God and all invoke Him with the words "God is
one." Objectively considered, the Biblical religions (including Islam) are one
big family, but actually, to their own shame, they are, and potentially remain,
an area of bloody conflict over shadings of dogma and liturgy and law. As
men attain to reason, such formal thinking as Spinoza's can become a bond
among them; it need not involve any sacrifice of their historicity, provided
abandons all claim to absoluteness for its contents, conceptions,
that each faith
and life forms.
utterances,
The second step leads beyond the forms of Biblical faith to the abstract
realm where we come into contact with China and India, and where the
words of speculation contain something which each party understands
as an echo of its own thinking, but only in the almost inaccessible abstraction
which bears within itself and makes perceptible the one concreteness of
the absolute historicity of brought about by God.
all reality as it is
Spinoza may be said to have made a personal sacrifice of his historicity

to the supra-historical. But his sacrifice is painless. In Spinoza there is
no trace of the suffering servant of God (Isaiah) or of the sacrificial death

of Jesus; in him there is no depth of suffering, but instead equanimity, joy,
serenity, beatitude in God's one reality.
2. The disappearance of transcendence: Let us once again sum up

Spinoza's idea of God with its consequences: God is the immanent cause
of the world. All might is God's might. Might is right. Natural laws are
God's laws. In man's state of nature as in all nature, nothing is forbidden
or decreed. Prohibitions and commandments spring from a common human
will, which has power and legislates, effectively, as long as its power endures.
As nature, as a mode of substance, all that exists is beyond good and

evil. Thus the appropriate attitude of reason is: despise nothing, ridicule
nothing, deplore nothing.
Let us construct a pantheistic view of the world. In it we find three
factors: the elimination of transcendence; the disappearance of personality
in the totality of God- world-Being; the denial of freedom. In opposition,
we construct a theistic view: God's absolute transcendence; insistence on
the personality as unique, irreplaceable, and of eternal significance; the
assertion of freedom and decision.
SPINOZA 365
Where does Spinoza stand? He has been accused of pantheism; his
philosophy has been said to be a philosophy of immanence without tran-

scendence. It has been said that in his view God and the world are the
same, that the uniqueness of the individual vanishes, that there is no freedom
and no purpose.
But this is not true. The personal subject, to be sure, is a mere mode, but
it is present as a reality and drawn to God with all the power of loving
insight. Freedom seems to be denied, but it is restored in the form of a new
concept: and this freedom, which is peace, clarity, and the rational conduct
of life, is the very foundation of Spinoza's philosophy.
God's transcendence is attested in Spinoza by His infinitely many attri-
butes; by the transcending of all purposes in a more powerful principle

which is necessary and free from purposes; by the infinity of the never
known totality of natural laws; by the fact that man is not the center, but
only a mode in the world. of modes discloses infinitely many
The world
things which, without reference to man, attest the independence of this
infinite totality as an effect of God. Spinoza's consciousness of God is
serene, loving acceptance of the infinity which is God, inner consent, and
serene indifference toward all finite things.
But Spinoza's transcendence does not take the form of an irruption into
the world from elsewhere or of a revelation to man; it is not present as a
divine commandment or mission. Further, there is in Spinoza no absolute
ethical injunction to act in the world against the world, no unconditional
obligation, no Kantian categorical imperative; for Spinoza's freedom is
the action of reason as the natural essence of man; man is not a funda-
mentally different being, but one natural being among others. Finally,
transcendence is for Spinoza not a reference point for eternal decision; for
in his view there is no eternal decision in time, and consequently no existential
historicity.
Spinoza did not expressly reject these conceptions that we have found
lacking in him; they were simply outside his field of vision. It may reasonably
be asked, however, whether the alternative between immanence and tran-
scendence is applicable to Spinoza's thinking. For Spinoza's love of God
is not a universal love, if by universe we mean the totality of the modes.
When Spinoza says deus sive natura, he has in mind God as natura naturans,
not naturata. "It is utterly false," he writes, "to suppose that it is my intention
to equate God and nature" (taken to mean some mass or matter). By this
he means that God "does not manifest Himself outside of the world in an
imagined and represented space," but rather, as St. Paul says, that we "live
and breathe in God." The pantheist formula "One and All" (hen \ai pan)
would apply to Spinoza only if the "One" preserved its transcendence and
the "All" were not interpreted as the totality of finite things.
5. The loss of historicity: The idea of God has been embodied in two op-
posite ways.
God is looked upon as above all temporal and spatial phenomena,

First:
historyand nature, nations and laws, good and evil, doom and salvation,
and men live with this utterly remote God as though He were intangibly
near and present. Where God is viewed in this way, it is not possible to
invoke Him for one's own advantage, for it is recognized that all things
in space and time come from God. When two human adversaries regard
each other as men—in reference to this remote God—chivalric combat is
possible between them. And even when this is not the case, when a merciless
life-and-death struggle takes place (massacres, wars of annihilation, betrayal,
Spinoza's "natural right"), there remains nevertheless a fundamental cer-
tainty that God is not lost, that whatever happens God will still be with
me, and that even the most terrible calamity must originate with God.
Second: God is close at hand; a nation, an ecclesiastical faith claims Him
for itself: We are with God, the others are not; we serve God, the others
do not. The others are heretics, godless, heathen. There is an absolute cleavage
between men, for God is denied the others. Our struggle for existence with
these others is God's battle against the enemies of God: We fight for God
against false gods (as were God's will). The superior truth
though this
of our own faith hallows our own interests and strivings for power.
On the one hand, faith in God as the God of all men and of the world;
on the other, national or ecclesiastical belief. Both conceptions are in the
Bible: universal religion and national religion; universal religion assuredly
since the Prophets, possibly since Moses, perhaps even since Abraham. In
this polarity of farand near the idea of God achieves clarity. Nevertheless,
the process involves two oppositions, which are sometimes equated but are
in fact very different:
First: The opposition between universal religion and the historical par-
ticularity of its manifestation. History is and time,
the middle link in space
through which the abstract Encompassing embodied and handed down
is
in a community, through which it governs every hour and every moment of

a man's life.
Second: The opposition between a universal religion and the exclusive

pretension of a particular historicalembodiment which claims to speak
for all mankind: a church calls itself "Catholic," a people claims to be
"chosen," it is anticipated that one day all men will worship in Jerusalem.
Both these oppositions are present in the Bible. The substance of the
Bible is man's struggle for his eternal reality, which cannot dispense either
with historicity or with the all-encompassing one God. Blind to the im-
portance of the historical, Spinoza was entirely on the side of the universal.
This aspect of Spinoza's philosophy reveals its depths and its limits. The
supreme abstraction of philosophy actually makes possible the purest
historicity. It purifies the historical embodiment of the absolute by stripping
its dogmas, views, images, and institutions of false claims to exclusive
truth and universal validity.
S P 1 N Z A 367
Spinoza moves entirely on the side of free possibility. The significance

of history passed him by. For him, to be sure, the highest abstraction had
its greatest power in ethical practice, and this sufficed him. What remains is
the equanimity and activity of reason, both free from mythical, dogmatic,
legal ciphers. There is in Spinoza a superior truth but if this truth is to —
live, it cannot remain an empty abstraction; it must be filled with human
existence, which in turn it transforms.

In the year when the anathema was pronounced against Spinoza, Rem-
brandt's property was sold at auction. Spinoza became an outcast; Rembrandt
was socially declassed. Both derived the clarity of their metaphysics from
their extreme situation. There is no indication that they ever met.
What Rembrandt saw in created images, and communicates to us in
his paintings, Spinoza did not see. Spinoza was without visionary power:
even his figures of thought lack the plastic force of symbols. Spinoza had
to accentuate this deficiency in himself in order to restore to consciousness
and express the full force of the transcendent God, the God who extends
over all things, the God before whom there are no demons and gods, no
intermediaries. The goal of his thinking was the eternally superordinate,
the immutable and intangible, which in Rembrandt's work is the hidden
guide but does not stand out as such, because it cannot be embodied in
any image and likeness, even though image and likeness are indispensable
and become the most moving of languages when they possess Rembrandt's
truth.
Perhaps the most noteworthy indication of Spinoza's blindness to the
historical embodiment Rembrandt saw the Jewish soul, he
is that while
himself partook of it it. Rembrandt saw the Jewish soul
but failed to see
as no one before or after him. And what Rembrandt saw Spinoza did not
see. If it is asked where a primordial experience of God such as that which
sustained Spinoza, where a life such as that of Jesus, where such power to
remain true to oneself in the midst of suffering, where such willingness
to draw the extreme consequence, such love, capable of every sacrifice,
such fire of the soul is not only conceived of, not only present as an echo,
a theoretical interpretation of one's own existence, but utterly real, where
men like Jesus (the Jesus of the synoptic Gospels) occur most frequently,
we may answer They are everywhere exceedingly rare, but the most striking
:
examples are among the Jews. With this in mind we shall miss in Spinoza
an eye for the Jewish soul, we shall miss the love that perceives such love.
4. The absence of God's fundamental characteristics: In the light of the

horrors of human existence, it is argued that the Biblical God is not only
unfathomable but also an angry and a jealous God (Thou shalt have no
other gods before me), a giver of laws. He is a terrible God. Man knows
not only the law of the day, but also the passions of the night; God is
manifested in both. But Spinoza denies the jealous God, he takes away God's
sting. He knows only the love, not the fear of God. He cannot understand
the execution of heretics by pious men acting out of a sense of responsibility
to God, nor does he understand the terrible purpose of the anathema ex-
cluding the godless man from the community. Spinoza seeks only appease-
ment, consolation, and happiness.
In reply to this it can be said: Spinoza perceives the hardness of necessity:
when he looks on as flies are strangled in a spider web, when he senses
the kinship between his thinking and the Calvinist theory of predestination
(though without the concept of sin). But actually Spinoza lives without
fear of the extremes whose existence he states. He rejects fear as irrational.
Fear does not lead to the truth, the goal is equanimity. This criticism
combines heterogeneous factors which have nothing in common but
their irrationality. It cannot be denied that in respect to the passions of the
night Spinoza lacks the openness of reason which, though well aware
that communication with the irrational is in all likelihood impossible,
attempts it nevertheless. In the face of the sufferings and injustices (by
human standards) of existence he is without the spirit of rebellion, which
calls peace of mind an evasion and rejects all veiling of the world's horrors.
He does not know Job's rebellion with God against God, which seeks
salvation not in peace of mind but in God's mercy.
Spinoza, this criticism goes on, disregards the Thou, man's dialogue with
God in prayer. Thus he
loses the covenant with God, which is the founda-
tion of both Jewish and Christian life, and with it the self-consciousness of
the historical person, which comes to itself only in dialogue with the
personal God.
Further, it is argued, Spinoza knows only the love of man for God, not
the love of God for man. He tried to prove that "He who loves God cannot
strive that God should love him in return." According to Spinoza, God
loves or hates no one, because He is moved by no afTects of joy or sorrow.
However, in speaking of the true love with which amor intellectualis dei
and its consequences suffuse our whole attitude toward men and the world,
he said that "God, insofar as He loves Himself, loves men and consequently
that the love of God toward men and the intellectual love of the mind
toward God are one and the same thing."
All these criticisms show a tendency to reject Spinoza. They spring, to
be sure, from the ineradicable drives of finitemen, who need the language
of ciphers and historical actuality in space and time. But man can transcend
all these in figures of thought. Spinoza's figures of thought are among the
greatest ever produced and are in turn historical.
When the criticisms spring from an incapacity for such transcending,

they merely bear witness to a failure on the part of the critic. The void opens
before him; Spinoza's overwhelming Encompassing becomes nothingness.
He is which pervades all things
closed to the reality in timeless presence, the
reality upon which Spinoza touches in his thinking.

SPINOZA 369
But when the criticisms fixate as an absolute what Spinoza transcends,

thev disclose a state of mind which reduces men to despair once such
fixations (myths, ciphers, dogmas) lose their etlectiveness, a despair which
can be overcome only by the existential enactment of Spinoza's transcendent
idea.
In these criticisms, images and metaphors, which are indispensable to
us men, are taken for the reality itself. They identify God with the Less,
rather than with the More which Spinoza caught sight of in his thinking.
Those who raise such criticisms decline to participate in the great his-
torical process whereby the Biblical idea of God has undergone continuous
purification. In this process Spinoza, like Jesus, played a vital part as one
of the true prophets,who have taken seriously the second commandment
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness — for
though it is beyond human strength to fulfill this commandment, without
the idea expressed in it every form of belief in God becomes superstition.
The Bible laid the foundations of a faith which rejects the falsehood re-
siding in a confusion or amalgamation of belief in God with belief in
sacred books, rites, cults, nations, churches, or sacraments. Spinoza was
one of the world's truly pious men.
his critics may be right in saying that Spinoza neglects the middle
Still,
links which connect man, in the finiteness of his thoughts and imaginations,
with God. Spinoza took the step to supreme transcendence whither, as he
knew, only few can follow. He did not take part in the difficult task of
helping, in the community of men, to transmit images and metaphors and
to influence the structure of life. The supreme abstraction of thought is
indeed unique. It can form a bond between all those who understand it.
It provides a horizon in which a historical embodiment can no longer be
absolutized, but in so doing it takes no account of historical reality as the

temporal fulfillment of existence in its incalculable diversity.
To keep the Biblical consciousness of God alive in this horizon, to re-
awaken it in its diverse manifestations amid the ever-changing conditions

of human existence —that is the great task of the practicing priest. In this
task Spinoza took no part. But he did reopen a horizon in which all em-
bodiments can meet one another in communication. The unity of the
diverse historical modes of faith becomes perceptible as a center, which
finds an expression and index not directly but indirectly through philosoph-
ical abstraction.
D. SPINOZA S DESTINY AND PERSONAL DECISIONS
In the course of his life Spinoza made decisions which determined his
personal destiny and were also of fundamental historical importance. The
reality of his life became a symbol by which many men in a new age have
37° The Original Thinners
oriented themselves, some taking it as a model, others as an antitype. It is

not possible to think with Spinoza without coming into personal contact
with him.
Spinoza combined the Jew's experience of homelessness (his ancestors
had been driven out of Spain, his parents emigrated from Portugal to
Holland), Spanish culture and Jewish tradition, humanistic education and
new philosophy, and finally the political consciousness of a citizen of Hol-
land, to which he remained loyal in his thoughts and actions.
The crucial event of his life was the excommunication, his exclusion
from Jewry. Both the Synagogue and Spinoza wished to avoid it. Spinoza
claimed the right to remain a member of the Synagogue even if he thought
what he held to be true and said what he thought, even if he did not attend
divine services or perform the prescribed rites. Spinoza recognized both
revelation and reason. It was because they conflicted that he left the Syn-
agogue. He was not permitted to remain under the conditions he demanded;
on the contrary, he was abused for his "loathsome blasphemies against God
and Moses" (presumably his thesis that the Pentateuch was not written by
Moses) and for his "monstrous acts" (no doubt, his disregard of the Jewish
ceremonial law)
But why did Spinoza attach so much importance to membership in the
Synagogue that he protested the anathema in a work of self-justification
(which has not been preserved) ? Evidently because of the possible conse-
quences for his civic rights. On the strength of his excommunication, his
sisters seem to have contested his right to his paternal heritage. It is certain,
in any case, that Rabbi Morteira wrote the Amsterdam magistrate that
Spinoza's views on the Bible were also hostile to the Christian religion,
and consequently demanded Spinoza's removal from the city. The pastors
of the Reformed Church agreed. Spinoza was actually banished from Amster-
dam for a few months. He went to Ouverkerk, where he lived under the
protection of the municipal authorities. Shortly before, a fanatical Jew had
made an attempt on his life, which Spinoza had escaped by his quickness
and presence of mind. He saved the coat in which the dagger had cut a
hole.
Which of the two parties was in the right? No answer is possible, for
their premises are irreconcilable. Spinoza carried the matter to the Dutch
civil courts and so obtained protection; the religious question was a matter
of indifference to him.
On from the Jewish community, Spinoza did not become a
his exclusion
Christian. He was friendly with the Collegiants, but his conduct had noth-
ing in common with that of many Jews who were converted to Christianity.
We possess no documents relating to Spinoza's motives. But clearly it was
impossible for him to participate in a community of faith into which he
had not been born. For his philosophy was itself a form of faith in God.
He required no religious denomination.
SPINOZA 371
Spinoza desired peace amor intcllccttialis dci. But in-

in the beatitude of
evitably the step he took became a public act. He did not try to sidestep his
destiny. What would have happened if he had avoided the break, if he had
continued to observe the forms with skeptical indifference? For him, who
was not skeptical in the least, this would have meant a life of perpetual dis-
honesty. would have been impossible for him to think his philosophy,
It
to write the Ethics and the T heologico-Political Treatise. He would have be-
come what innumerable others had already been. But might he not have
waited and written his philosophy first? No, his thinking was possible
only if he could enjoy free speech and refrain from attending divine
services. And so, before any of his work came into being, he compelled
the Synagogue, by his philosophically so self-evident demands, to expel

him. And in all likelihood it was this event which first gave him the full
clarity of his philosophy and the will to communicate it to all those who
wished to live as free men in the certainty of God.

When Spinoza's reason brought him into conflict with the institution
representing his people and church, when in consequence he was rejected
by his coreligionaries, relatives, and countrymen, did he fall into a void ? No,
in an age when every man found spiritual shelter in the authority of his
church, an age which for a hundred years had witnessed bloody wars of
religion, an age in which the multiplicity of faiths cast doubt upon the
truth of faith as such, in which skepticism and unbelief were openly ex-
pressed, but in which most men vacillated or with sovereign skepticism paid
lip service to church and state, Spinoza dared, with unflagging resolution
and the serene self-confidence of one for whom no other choice was possible,
tochoose a realm which every thinking man is free to enter, where every
man can be at home regardless of his origins or tradition, which cannot be
taken away, the realm of God's reality manifested in the certainty of reason.
Was Spinoza at home anywhere else? He was a Dutchman. But though
he felt obligated to Holland for giving him the citizenship which made him
a free man, Holland was not in the deeper sense his home. Spinoza believed
Dutch citizenship to be a sufficient foundation for his living-in-the-world.
Holland protected him against the consequences of his excommunication
by the Synagogue. Though in those days Holland was free only in com-
parison with the other European states of the time, though he was still
in such danger that when he did publish a book it was with great hesitation,
he was nevertheless grateful: "To us has been granted the rare good for-
tune to live in a state where each man is accorded full freedom to judge
and to worship God as he sees fit, a state in which freedom is looked upon
as the most cherished and precious of treasures."
Spinoza's sober view of the nature of the state was in keeping with this
situation. His state is far from Platonic. Nor is it ecclesiastical; it has no
religious foundation, but requires, as the conditions of peace and freedom,
tolerance toward all faiths and denominations. It is not absolutist as in
Hobbes, but liberal, allowing for contending opinions. It has no pedagogic

function, but is solely a community of law aiming at the freedom of all.
Nor is the state ethnic, for it is based on a purely political principle.

In view of the realities of those times it may be asked: How is it possible
that a man who had expressed such opinions as Spinoza should have been
treated so mildly? One would have expected him to be destroyed or ban-
ished. The reasons were these: He was a Jew, not a Christian. Thus in
Christian eyes he was not a heretic, for he had not fallen away from Christ-
ianity. Had he been a Christian, the Church authorities would have had the
power to persecute him in earnest. His excommunication by the Jews was of
little interest to the Christians. Moreover, Spinoza lived quietly, unobtru-
sively. His personality aroused sympathy even in his opponents. He made
no propaganda, never engaged in active rebellion. Resolute as he was in his

philosophy, he was never provocative or insulting in his personal conduct.
Finally and above all, he had a keen sense of reality and was very careful.
E. SPINOZA AND THE JEWISH QUESTION
/. Our As a Jew Spinoza had already encountered the experience

question.
of exclusion.But in addition he was excluded from Jewry. His destiny
seems to foreshadow the uprootedness forced on many men in the modern
world and to set an example of how a man can bear himself in this situa-
tion. He himself is famous as the great, remarkable, or abominable Jew.
We cannot help looking for Jewish motives in his thinking, for the influence
of Jewish religious and political sentiment on his way of life.
In Spinoza such a question finds no answer. He never tells us that he

felt himself to be a Jew. His origin was not a matter of essential importance
to him. He was not conscious of any Jewish question. He looked upon the
persecutions of the Jews without emotion, as an objective historical ob-
server. He could not suspect what the Jewish question was to become in
the second half of the nineteenth century. Nor did his theologico-political
thinking lead him to conceive of any such thing as Jewish "rights"; in
general he had no notion of the political rights of man.
What would Spinoza say in the present situation? The modern Jew and
every man who felt the shock of the extermination of the Jews by Hitler's
Germany must ask himself: What shall I do if my fellow men suspend my
civil rights, persecute me, and set out to destroy me because of my demon-
strable origins (religion, race, class) ? Spinoza would reply by referring to
the natural principle of self-assertion, not by appealing to eternal justice
or invoking any right. Only one thing can help: the self-assertion of those
who men and compelled by this same persecu-
are persecuted by their fellow
tion to become a community.
Spinoza would add that this has no more to do with God than any other
self-assertion. For all spring from His eternal necessity. Spinoza would not
SPINOZA 373
equate this assertion of a people's existence with a covenant which God con-
cluded with the Jews. He would not identify the sheltering certainty of
God's existence with belief in a God who gave my people and myself
guarantees for existence. Even in the face of the destruction of his own
people, he would say with Jeremiah: "The Lord saith thus: Behold, that
which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will
pluck up. . . . And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not.
.
." Spinoza would say that in a situation of threat the concept "Jew"
.
embraced believers and unbelievers alike, who belong together because and
insofar as they are marked by demonstrable historical origin and are united
by the threat and reality of extermination.
Spinoza would see only the struggle for existence under the natural right
which alone where peoples wish to live and to live in their own
prevails,
way, and desire freedom because they are not barbarians. No people's right
is greater than its might. Peoples live by the same right as fishes the larger —
eat the smaller.
Hence there is no superordinate authority which guarantees my rights.
For right exists only in the state and through the state, as far as its might
extends. The superordinate authority is all-encompassing divine necessity,
in which everything that happens has its place. It is above all civil laws,
which are valid only in states. The particulars of this authority of divine
necessity cannot be inferred from any known natural law (for complete
knowledge is situated in the infinite). Man can only do his best and accept
what happens in accordance with the supreme authority of divine necessity.
Thus destiny remains hard and terrible and ambivalent, and Spinoza's only
response to this destiny is equanimity based on certainty of God's existence.
But philosophical insight cannot countenance the delusion that there exists
any halfway reliable superordinate authority to guarantee right. All argu-
ments seeking to derive a right without might are mere self-deception. They
inspire the mightless with feelings of resentment, unjustified because based
on the principle of a nonexistent superior right, through which the impotent
expect to gain prestige and power. Or on the side of the mighty, eager to
increase their momentary power, such arguments encourage an unwarranted
belief in a principle of legitimacy based on superior value (race, election,
descent from the gods). They strive to enhance their real power by marking
its holders with a character of eternal superiority and merit. Both delusions
blind those who harbor them to the realities which in both cases are those
of natural right, and so cause both the mighty and the mightless to neglect
the measures necessary to the assertion of their existence. Such self -exaltation
induces confusion through inadequate ideas, or affects, and invariably leads
to disaster.
2. Spinoza on the Jews. But Spinoza himself spoke of the destiny of the
Jews. This is his view:
Moses established the Hebrew state by his covenant with God. "God alone
held dominion over the Hebrews, whose state, by virtue of the covenant,
was called God's kingdom, and God was said to be their king; conse-
quently the enemies of the Jews were said to be the enemies of God, and the
citizens who tried to seize the dominion were guilty of treason against
God; and, lastly, the laws of the state were called the laws and command-
ments of God. . Civil and religious authority were one and the same.
. .
The dogmas of religion were not precepts, but laws and ordinances. . . .
Anyone who fell away from religion ceased to be a citizen and on that
ground alone was accounted an enemy." This specific historical condition
had extraordinary consequences for the inner attitude of the Hebrews.
"The love of the Hebrews for their country was not mere patriotism, but
also piety, and was cherished and nurtured by daily rites until, like their
hatred of other nations, it must have passed into their nature." Not only
was the daily cult of the Hebrews entirely different from the cults of other
peoples; it was also directed against them. "Such daily reprobation naturally
gave rise to a lasting hatred, deeply implanted in the heart: For of all
hatreds none is more deep and tenacious than that which springs from
extreme devoutness of piety, and is itself cherished as pious." Other peoples
responded with hatred to the hatred of the Jews, which was thus further en-
hanced.
Spinoza believed the situation of the Jews to be entirely different in his
day. Since the loss of their state, he held, the Hebrews exist only through
their religion. "Today, there is absolutely nothing that Jews can arrogate to
themselves beyond other nations." "As to their continuance so long after
dispersion and the loss of empire, there is nothing marvelous in it, for they
so separated themselves from every other nation as draw down upon
to
themselves universal hate, not only by their outward rites, which conflict
with those of other nations, but also by the sign of circumcision which they
most scrupulously observe." Spinoza regarded the sign of circumcision as
"so important that I could persuade myself that it alone would preserve
the nation for ever."
He believed that he could prove by the events in Spain and Portugal that
the chief reason for the survival of Jewry was the hatred of other peoples:
"When the King of Spain compelled the Jews to embrace the state religion
or go into exile, a large number of Jews accepted Catholicism. Now, as
these renegades were admitted to all the native privileges of Spaniards and
deemed worthy to fill all honorable offices, they soon became so inter-
mingled with the Spaniards as to leave of themselves no relic or remem-
brance. But exactly the opposite happened to those whom the King of
Portugal compelled to become Christians, for they always, though converted,
lived apart, for they were considered unworthy of civic honors."
Spinoza understands the "election" of the Jewish people as applying only
to their native country and material welfare. "If anyone wishes to maintain
that the Jews, from this or from any other cause, have been chosen by God
SPINOZA 375
tor over, I will not gainsay him if he will admit that this choice, whether
temporary or eternal, has no regard, insofar as it is peculiar to the Jews, to
anything but dominion and physical advantages (for by such alone can one
nation be distinguished from another), whereas in regard to intellect and
true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest, and God has not in these
respects chosen one people rather than another." But today, says Spinoza,
they have lost the land of Palestine. Their election is suspended. Yet Spinoza
thought the Jews would probably survive. "I would go so far as to believe
that if the foundations of their religion have not emasculated their minds
they may even, if occasion offers, so changeable are human affairs, raiseup
their empire afresh, and that God may a second time elect them."
j. Spinoza's political attitude toward the Jewish question. Spinoza, whose

ancestors had been driven from Spain, whose parents had emigrated from
Portugal to Holland, never said a word in anger or accusation about the
persecution of the Jews, never invoked the rights of man in their behalf.
He no desire to help his people. They were prospering in Holland. The
felt
Synagogue was influential enough to persuade the Dutch authorities to

banish Spinoza from Amsterdam. Spinoza was gravely threatened by the
Jews (although the attempt on his life cannot be imputed to the Synagogue)
and protected by a state constituted in freedom for freedom. Because the
Jews in Holland were not in danger, Spinoza was aware of no immediate
occasion to reflect on the future and the destiny of the Jews. The religion
of the law and the ceremonies were matters of indifference to him.
As far as the security and rights of the Jews in Holland are concerned,
Spinoza's view has been magnificently borne out. Never since the sixteenth
century have the Jews in Holland been persecuted, never have their rights
been impaired. When Hitler Germany was committing its crimes against
Dutch Jews and the non-Dutch Jews living in Holland, the small, power-
less country, though unable to save most of them, did more to protect the
Jews than any other of the countries overrun by Hitler with the exception —
of Italy.
4. Spinoza's abandonment of his bond with Jewry. The Jews, but not
Spinoza, lived by the covenant which their people had made with God
through Moses, which gave them confidence that insofar as they obeyed
God they would, as the chosen people, find happiness also in earthly ex-
istence. They interpreted the calamities that struck them as God's punishment
for disobedience and questioned themselves as to their guilt. But then it
became evident to those Jews, who in accordance with God's commandment

all else, that the pious were far from being always
revered the truth above
rewarded or the godless always punished. Thus Job disputed with God
for God's justice, but recovered his confidence when overwhelmed by the
word of God, who provides no answer to the question, who does not untie
the knot, but gives satisfaction by the mere fact that He is. We may ask Is :
Spinoza's certainty of God a modified form of this Jewish certainty? Did

unfathomable ?
his eternal necessity replace the
Spinoza dropped the ceremonial laws, the Messianic idea, the covenant;
did he not thereby drop all reality in the world, so that nothing remained
but the area in which an individual lives as an individual? The butt of
Spinoza's antagonism was not Jewry but the Synagogue. He rebelled against
the restriction on freedom of thought and the constraint of the ceremonial
laws, against censorship and The conflict of his youth was
intolerance.
enhanced by his question as to the nature and conditions of freedom, by
his meditation on the state, in which each man is allowed to think as he
sees fit and to say what he thinks. This was not merely a Jewish question,
but the great question of the Occident and ultimately of mankind, to whom
Spinoza addressed his grandiosely simple words.
I cannot agree with thosewho speak of the "hard, nay hostile judgments
which Spinoza made against the people from which he issued" (Gebhardt).
His tone is no different than when he speaks of Christian affairs. He was
radical in his judgment of all revealed religion; to him it was self-evident
that the Old and the New Testament must be taken together as documents
of a progressive religious experience; he had the same words of violent
condemnation, "insane," etc., for both Christian and Jewish fanaticism.
Spinoza was cognizant of no bond of any kind with Jewry. His thinking
has its ground solely in human reason, not in any presupposed historical
substance of Jewry (though from our point of view, he is very much a
part of this substance). In Spinoza we find no trace of a claim to his ancient
heritage. Neither in his evaluations nor in his affections did he show any
preference for his own people. He had no feeling for the ideas of election
or of the covenant as ciphers for a demand not on others but of the Jews
upon themselves. He seems to have been blind not only to the rich history
of his people but also to their depth of soul, which was the source of his
own. Spinoza combated the philosophy of Maimonides because of its ties
with Judaism; it never occurred to him that the historical bond of a Jew
with the Jewish people could be of an entirely different nature.
Despite his extraordinary philosophical radicalism, Maimonides speaks
as a pious Jew to pious Jews (Leo Strauss). He assumed that the Bible can
be understood in terms of reason (and to this end employed the allegorical
which Spinoza condemns as fictitious). He further believed
interpretation,
that revelationwas necessary on rational grounds and could be understood
in terms of reason. He did what the Moslem Averroes and the Christian
Anselm did in their own way: he found reason in revealed faith itself.
"Born as a Jew among Jews, he carried out his argumentation for them in
the context of Jewish life."
If Maimonides wrote a critique of revelation on the basis of revelation,
Spinoza criticized revelation on the basis of the God-confident reason that

SPINOZA 377
is innate in all men. Spinoza also recognized the historical and political
function of revelation, but he did not presuppose revelation on the strength
of his own belief. Spinoza submitted Judaism, as he did all things human,
such as Christianity and the state, to the highest authority, that of philosoph-
ical reason.
5. Judgments concerning Spinoza as a Jew. Nietzsche's love and deep

respect for Spinoza did not prevent him from criticizing him: "Hatred of
the Jews corroded the Jewish God" —a statement for which there is not the
slightest justification in Spinoza. Spinoza neither hated nor loved the Jews,
and in general he loved no groups or peoples, but only God and man as man.
The anathema of the Synagogue (one must read it with its blood-curdling
curses) has led all orthodox Jews to reject Spinoza. But it seems strange
that Hermann Cohen, a German professor of philosophy, should have
judged no differently. Cohen regarded the excommunication of Spinoza
as absolutely justified, "quite regardless of the need to protect the community
against the informer type so prevalent in the history of Jewish persecutions."
For Spinoza remains "the true accuser of Jewry before the Christian world."
He "rejected the religion in which he was born, casting ignominy upon
his own people." He completed "the annihilation of the religion from
which he He set Christ above Moses (Spinoza made no such
issued."
statement; Cohen must have inferred it). Spinoza's influence has been
monstrous: "The orgies of anti-Semitic hatred" in the nineteenth century
"would be inexplicable if the evil spirit of Spinoza had not inwardly and
outwardly poisoned the atmosphere." Cohen became the prototype of the
modern Spinoza hater. Strange to say, Franz Rosenzweig, who is not without
merit as a philosopher, supported Cohen's judgment, though in a somewhat
attenuated form.
Most nonorthodox Jews have taken a very different view. They are proud
of this great Jew. In the three hundredth year after the excommunication
a block of granite was sent to The Hague from Israel with the inscription:
"Your People." Spinoza would have been surprised. He never thought in
terms of his people. No people, no state, can lay claim to a man of Spinoza's
rank. A Jew, to be sure, is entitled to feel that in all likelihood only
Jewry was capable of producing a man like Spinoza. A Dutchman is en-
tided to feel proud that Spinoza regarded his love of freedom as Dutch and
at the same time his own, and that Holland made it possible for him to live.
But great men are a challenge, not a possession. Peoples and states must
themselves ask whether they have a right to the great men who have
come from among them. The only appropriate answer
forth is to recognize
the standards of these great men as their own.
IX. CRITICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF

SPINOZA'S PHILOSOPHY
A. A glance at Spinoza s philosophy and character
1. Rationalism. Spinoza appears to be the most thoroughgoing of rational-

But it is a strange fact that although in Spinoza compelling logical
ists.
thought expresses the absolute and is itself authentic reality, this thought
is amor intellectualis dei and as such beatitude. This thought is freedom
from passions which, when elucidated by it, cease to be passions. It is not,

like finite thinking, content to apprehend objects which are modes, but finds
its completion as reason in the third class of knowledge, in the free specula-
tion of loving intuition. Such thinking was bound to be more than the
compelling logical thought which on the surface it always remained.
Spinoza transcended thought, insofar as thought is taken as a universally
valid operation with fixed concepts. His thinking is a new form of the
age-old philosophical contemplation which is an inner action and shapes
the whole man.
We have encountered Spinoza's mode of fundamental certainty, built on
rational proofs. Let us recapitulate in Spinoza's own words: "Once I am
in possession of a reliable proof, I cannot fall back into such ideas as ever to
make me doubt this proof. Consequently I am perfectly satisfied with what
my understanding shows me, without the least anxiety that I might have
been mistaken in it. . . . And even if I should once mistakenly invent the
fruit that I have gained from my natural understanding, it would still
make me happy, because I strive to spend my life not in sorrow and grief,
but in peace, joy, and serenity, and so up by degrees. In so doing I rise
recognize (and this is what gives me the and peace of greatest satisfaction
mind) that everything so happens through the power of the most perfect
being and of His immutable decision."
Spinoza lived and thought on the basis of the fundamental certainty for
which God's reality is present in the third class of knowledge as the one
all-embracing reality. Starting from this reality, Spinoza takes three courses
in the world: to metaphysical knowledge, to personal existence, to the
political order. In the language of the second class of knowledge, he develops
the communicable knowledge of the totality of Being, of God, the world,

and man. By investigating man's affects he finds the way to liberation
from them, the happiness and salvation of man through pure insight. In
viewing the reality of human society, he investigates the state and revealed
religion, in order to set forth an ideal frame in which all human potential-
ities may unfold in accordance with reason.
SPINOZA 379
2. The independence of Spinoza's philosophy. This self-conscious rational

dunking was Spinoza's was the only one among the great philos-
lite. lie
ophers of the seventeenth century to build his whole life on philosophy
without the security of authority and revealed faith, without any misleading
concessions to the powers of the time. He was the great, truly independent
thinker representative of the Occident, who found in philosophy what
churchgoers called their faith. In him was renewed the independence of
philosophy, which has no need of ecclesiastical faith, because it is itself faith.
Such philosophy has been called "philosophical religion" in contrast to

ecclesiastical religion. In this sense the great philosophy of antiquity was
religion, and in this sense all metaphysics is religion. But in using this
word we must not forget that philosophical religion has neither cult, nor
prayer, nor institutions, nor Church. Like "philosophical faith," "philo-
sophical religion" refers to a thinking with which and by which philosophical
man lives, so that everything he does, everything that happens to him, every-
thing he knows, is brought into this area, is illumined, assimilated, and
judged from this source.
Pascal wrote: "God can never be the end of a philosophy if He was not
its beginning." So it was with Spinoza. Spinoza thinks in the source,
because he is certain of it before all else. He does not rise up from the world
(through investigation pressed to the limits) to derive the ground. Nor
is it only in extreme situations that he glimpses a cipher of Being, which
provides us with a wavering light. Before all investigation of things and
all experience of the failure of thought in extreme situations, he is sheltered
in the all-embracing reality of God.
Through certainty of God, this philosophical religion of Spinoza brings
peace, joy, acceptance of everything that is. "Insofar as we understand that
God is the cause of sorrow, we rejoice." From the consciousness of necessity
arises the serenity which demands nothing. Amor intellectualis dei leads to
Nietzsche's amor jati: to desire nothing to be different from what it is.
From the very beginning, from his first utterance, this miraculous peace is
present, this purity of soul, this freedom from purpose even in his volition.
Spinoza's philosophy means the self-assertion of the individual through
his experience of God, it means independence of the world through security
in the ground of all things. This self-assertion is not individualist pre-
occupation with his own no inclination toward egocentric
existence; there is
reflection, but instead the most perfect devotion, in reason, to God. Nor does
it mean withdrawal into his own existence from the reality of human
society; his interest in mankind was just as great as but no greater than —
his interest in his own existence.
Thinking oriented toward the well-being of the individual and political
thinking go hand in hand. But here there is no cult either of the state or of
the individual. The realities of practical life are seen with sobriety. But this
sobriety itself springs from amor intellectualis dei, which does not allow
him to set anything else in God's place or to forget the hierarchical orders
of reality, but compels him to keep always in mind the all-embracing eternal
reality.
_?. Caution and solitude. From the very beginning Spinoza's philosophy
was ethos. This is attested by the explanation that he gave in his youth for
his decision to takeup philosophy, and by the title of his main work, the
Ethics. We have tried to show the depth of this ethos. It includes features
that do not spring from Spinoza's innate being but are a consequence of
Spinoza's contact with the world.
God that was present in Spinoza's whole
Caution: Despite the love of
view of the world, despite the benevolence he felt toward every man he
met, Spinoza also felt keen distrust; for he knew the reality of the world.
Hence his caution without defiance or blame.
Spinoza gave freely of himself but did not squander his strength: he
was on his guard against negligence, and reasonably so, for he knew the
harm that can spring from it.
He renounced all idea of fame. Even academic activity involved too much
danger in those days, and so he declined it. He delayed publication of his
works, but he wrote them without haste — —in the hope of broadening
the scope of reason in the world.
Not a recluse, but solitary: Spinoza was formerly regarded as a recluse.
The studies of the last half-century have exploded this legend. Not only
was Spinoza in touch, through friends and acquaintances, with the whole
cultural world of Europe, but he also took part in political activity. There
was nothing of the eccentric about him; wherever he went his bearing was
easy, natural, noble; he was not only respected, but loved as well.
It is a different matter to say that Spinoza was a solitary man. In his
philosophizing he gained a "standpoint outside," in God, and he did not
relate his philosophy to worldly affairs. On the one hand he was perfectly
many
independent thanks to his certainty of God, on the other hand he had
human contacts which sufficed him, but did not take away his solitude.
The consequence is that for us Spinoza seems to lack the love which
unites men in their uniqueness, which through companionship and com-
munity of destiny leads to unconditional historical commitment. Spinoza
was always himself. And what he thought and set forth was the universal,
the cool but utterly satisfying realm of thought, the amor intellectualis dei,
which was his life itself in its highest aspect, in reason. In conversation
Spinoza must have been very different from Kant or Max Weber, for ex-
ample. His almost superhuman calm would elate us. Imperturbable in all
situations, he would speak from the standpoint of eternal truth. He would
not concern himself seriously with actual realities, but pass them over as
nonessential. We should sit in silence, increasingly aware of our own re-
belliousness against fate.
SPINOZA 381
4. Neither prototype nor exception. Did Spinoza wish to be a model and

prototype? We have no reason to suppose so. Did he wish to show future
generations the way? He did not think in historical, reformist perspectives.
He wished to live and work in reason, uncertain as to what would come of
it.
Or did he regard himself as an exception, condemned by the conflict

between his own nature and the existing order to suffer a repugnant fate?
No, this too was not the case. He was confident of the natural and appro-
work as in his life, he was
priate character of his living and thinking. In his
a healthy, normal man, free from psychological upheavals and crises, free
from the endless reflection that drains the mind, never touched by despair
in the presence of the void (his illness, tuberculosis, was purely physical;
it was able to carry him off at any early age, but not to affect his nature).
He must have incurred eclipses of reason, he must have experienced the

affects, of which he spoke so knowingly, but only as passing states that
vanish once they are understood.
5. The ideas that Spinoza borrowed. The origin of nearly all Spinoza's
ideas can be determined: from the Stoics he took his attitude of equanimity
based on reason, from the Bible the one God, from Scholasticism such
concepts as substance, attribute, mode, of natura naturans and natura naturata,
from Giordano Bruno the infinity of the cosmos, from him and Leo
Hebraeus the doctrine of Eros, from Bacon empirical method and the re-
jection of prejudices, from Descartes the distinction between extension and
thought and his regard for mathematical certainty, from Machiavelli and
Hobbes his political thinking. It might appear as though Spinoza's entire
thinking could be derived from someone else. But Spinoza's thinking is
authentic and spontaneous, and his highly original work fused all these
rationally definable elements into the language of the One. The totality
of this thinking, the fundamental insight, is present from the first. There
is development only insofar as the figures of thought are imperceptibly
modified, more richly elaborated, clarified and purified. There are no breaks
or reversals.
It has been said that with Spinoza for the first time reason stands on its
own foundation. But this had long been the case in the "science," the
"critique" and "unbelief," that characterize the Renaissance. Spinoza had
little in common with this aggressive independence, which for the most
part was poor in faith. His thinking was more a continuation of ancient
philosophical reason, now clothed in the garments of modern science and
critique, and constructed as metaphysical reason. The meaning and aim
of knowledge were not for Spinoza the multiplicity of experience and

the technical mastery of the world (Bacon), not mathematically intelligible
nature (Galileo), not the state (Hobbes), not certainty as such (Descartes),
but all these, yet in the service of the One which alone is important, of cer-
tainty in God and ethical practice, of the true good.
If we wish to understand Spinoza, we must make no mistake. His
foundation is not that of modern science whose nature and method he
did not really know (even though the sciences received powerful impulses
from certain of his insights, such as his idea of an infinite, never to be
completed progression whereby we gain knowledge of the modes in their
endless multiplicity and his insistence on freedom from values). He him-
self was not a scientist and did not possess the scientist's immense capacity
for factual knowledge. Spinoza was blind to the special character of exact
science and hence ignored it. He did not base his philosophizing on mathe-
matics, even though he employed a supposedly mathematical method of
expounding it. He was also a stranger to the spirit of construction, which
made Hobbes and Leibniz such great builders and so inventive. Though
all these thinkers provided him with ideas, these ideas were incorporated
into his metaphysics. It is great because it is authentic and one with his
life. He thought necessity in rational concepts subservient to the intuition
of his third class of knowledge. He is the only great metaphysician of
modern times; both in his life and in his work, his style is simple, clear,
convincing — and inimitable.
B. Spinoza s limitations
1. False criticism. Spinoza has been called a paid propagandist in the

service of Jan de Witt. Such nonsense deserves no refutation.
Spinoza has been called a naturalistic, atheistic, amoral philosopher and
a precursor of Marxism. But nature in Spinoza is neither the nature of a
modern, mechanical, mathematical physics, nor an organic, teleologically
structured nature, nor a demonic, sympathetic world; it is the nature of
God, conceived as natura naturans; in Spinoza's "deus sive natura," the
accent is on God. Spinoza's thinking is so far from atheism that Hegel
preferred to call it acosmism, because everything is in God, so that no
independent, created world, separate from God, is left. His sober view of
the natural realities and of God's reality as beyond good and evil has been
misinterpreted as amoralism. Actually his life and work are unswervingly
sustained by the living morality of natural reason.
It has been said that as a political thinker Spinoza was interested only
in the security of philosophers, in the question: How must state and re-
ligion be conceived and actually constructed in order that the wise man
may be unmolested in his private life? Epicureans and skeptics may have
looked at the state in this light, but neither Plato nor Spinoza. They did
not seek to guarantee the security of the philosopher by showing that
philosophy and politics are incommensurable and advising philosophers to
SPINOZA 383
withdraw from the world (except in particular times and under particular
circumstances). They are concerned, rather, with philosophical politics over
against blind politics; they have in mind all men and aspire to a state in
which all will obtain their proper place and right according to their gifts,
insight, and aflectivity. The impulse which has been mistaken as a striving
for the philosopher's security (which can be safeguarded only by private
caution) is rather the impulse to promote reason in the world.
Another criticism is that Spinoza's "Being" is geometrical and static,
that time is dismissed as mere appearance. Consequently nature is conceived

in timeless mathematical formulas, process is denied and with it history.
In the opposite direction a "dynamic" view has been imputed to Spinoza:

striving, power, perseverance-in-being and self-assertion, all involved in
everlasting change in the realm of modes. These criticisms cancel each
other out. Both are right to a certain degree, but they apply only to certain
elements in the philosophy, not to its substance. The fallacy of such criticism
is to take mere figures of thought for the whole instead of understanding

their function for the philosopher's fundamental thought. Although Spi-
noza's thinking is systematic, it cannot adequately be set forth as a system.
It is a simple matter to "refute" it by picking out one systematic view

and neglecting the rest. This is to treat philosophy as statement of fact and
absolute assertion, as objective and finite knowledge.
2. The limits of reason. Spinoza's limits are the limits of reason. Because
Spinoza does not seem to see the limits of reason, perhaps reality as a whole
is closed to him. This is where the profoundest criticism of Spinoza sets in.
The limits of reason can be seen by reason itself. Spinoza seems to have
an inkling of this when, in speaking of the infinity of the modes, he says
that our ignorance of the endlessness of finite relationships is everlasting
and that so many — in fact, nearly all — particulars are incomprehensible to
us. But this ignorance is only a consequence of finiteness. In principle,
knowledge of these matters is possible, because everything comes from God
and is rational.
Spinoza seems to see beyond reason still more clearly when he considers
that all our reason is encompassed in divine necessity and represents our
human reason as helplessly at the mercy of the necessity of all nature, which
it is powerless to understand. But Spinoza seems to take it for granted that
this necessity is also divinely rational. The irrational only appears to be
irrational to our finite understanding. The encompassing God is not a dark
abyss. He is not accessible by any obscure ways, but only through the light
of reasonitself, which if it could overcome its bond with the limited mode
would understand everything as reason. Our human reason is itself divine

reason, but in a limited form. Our reason is itself natural, an element in
natura naturata, but not encompassed and not threatened and not limited
by something that is more than reason, by a god that is above and before
reason, source of reason but also of everything else. God in Spinoza is reason
itself. His consciousness of God does not transcend reason.
Thus convinced of the absoluteness of reason, Spinoza anticipated a day
when all men would necessarily unite in reason a grandiose assumption, —
but only in reference to practical endeavor, not as an insight into the
universe and mankind as a whole.
Another aspect of Spinoza's belief in the absoluteness of reason was the
pure, passionless joy of his awareness of God. To him freedom was freedom
from affects, pure unclouded clarity, beatitude. Freedom is not decision,
not the basis of destiny.
Finally, Spinoza's rationalism made him despise all feelings of wonder-
ment. A reasoning man tries to understand the things of nature "with wis-
dom," "not to gape at them like a fool." "If ignorance is removed, amaze-
ment is also taken away." Amazement becomes harmful when it induces
blind subjection to authority, miracles, and supernatural forces.
j. Blindness to personality and historicity. Spinoza was unaware of the

limits of reason.
a) He found no answer to the question: Why are there individuals? For
to say that all things "follow" eternally from God (as the sum of the angles
of a triangle follows from the essence of a triangle) is not an answer, but a
mere statement of the fact that individual things are connected with their
source. It is only a metaphor pointing to something that thought cannot
fathom, a leap from logos to reality. Conceived from the standpoint of
eternity, the individual —a —

mere mode loses all importance and vanishes.
The statement that omnis determinatio est negatio expresses the truth
as to the insignificance of individuals, but it also makes possible the error
of denying that Existenz derives eternal importance from the irreplace-
able character of its embodiment.
Does the renunciation of individuality bring with it blindness to the
irreplaceable character of Existenz (though not to the reality of Spinoza's
own Existenz) ? Liberation from the bonds of individuality might mislead
one into sacrificing Existenz in its historicity, into sacrificing that which is
eternal in human destiny. As Spinoza states it, eternal immortality of the

soul is not very different from the immortality of impersonal reason as
such (the intellectus agens of Averroes).
b) By negating time, Spinoza destroys historicity. The world ceases to be
fragmented by the riddle of time, the depth of historicity, the opaque ground
of all things. No longer is it incumbent on us to attain to transcendence in
time, through historical Existenz. History loses its meaning as a temporal
process that can never be completed, because the weight of Existenz is ab-
sorbed by God. There seems to be only eternity, not time, only God and
no world.
The weight of action rooted in our situation is lost; there remains only
SPINOZA 385
the inner action of loving ascent to God. Spinoza knows necessity, but he
does not know uncertainty, hope, and failure in the active historicity of
Existenz. Time is effaced, but it should also be preserved, because without
it there can be no true consciousness of eternity. There can be no historicity
in a life which moves from metaphysics to metaphysics without striking
meaningful roots in temporal reality. Historicity is absent when activity is
limited to reasonable thinking without a driving will, when the great ven-
ture of reason is not experienced as historical destiny. Consequently Spinoza
is not attracted by the depth and grandeur which (as in the Jewish Prophets)
are still obscure and demand that a man venture all and sacrifice all.
Wholly taken up by pure reason as the type of human being and of all
being, he is blind to the passions of the night, which to him are mere irra-
tional affects. He is blind to evil.
Spinoza rejected not only the anticipation of an actual Messiah and the
corresponding expectation of a second coming of Christ as religious im-
aginations incompatible with philosophical reason, but also the cipher of
Messianic thinking. He had no passion to work actively for the transforma-
tion of the world. He knew no hope of a better world grounded in human
responsibility. A man who lives in eternity cannot live in the future. God
is immutable and His actions are themselves eternal. Immutable is the
existence of the infinite modes,though within the unchanging whole all
modes are subject to perpetual change.
the finite
c) Spinoza knows no extreme situations. He knows no abyss of terror,
no despair in the face of the void, no struggle with God, no power of the
absurd manifested to reason itself as no absolutely
a positive possibility,
hidden mystery. His peace is in the positive immensity that is God. But
God is seen only in reason and as reason — all horror is reduced to mere
inadequate ideas, the irrational, antirational, suprarational are simply thrust
aside. And yet they leave man no peace. His certainty in the ground of all
things can strike us either as a narrowing of the horizon or as a retreat into

the unattainable.
Human nature reacts very differently to extreme situations: it invites
suffering, it does not try to withdraw, it regards any attempt at liberation
from the overpowering afTect as a betrayal. But Spinoza can calmly say of
suicides "that they are impotent in mind and have been thoroughly over-
come by external causes opposed to their nature." He can declare with
complete certainty: "That it is as impossible that a man, from the necessity
of his nature, should endeavor not to exist, or to be changed into some
other form, as it is that something should be begotten from nothing."
d) Spinoza's joy in existence is without egocentrism but also without
the anguish of decision. He lived in the truth of God's reality and the
consequence was a reliable selfhood, but this selfhood was not conscious
of itself. In opposition to Spinoza it may be asked: Is all the anguish to
which man is subjected grounded only in the finiteness of modal being and
in inadequate ideas? Or is there a very different anguish relating to the

reality of the eternal amid the historicity of our existence? Did Spinoza
gain his perfect peace at the expense of the God-related anguish of temporal
existence, at the expense of the eternal decision in time? Is there not in this
philosophy of necessity an impersonality which is at once moving and
dangerous ?
e) Because Spinoza was without consciousness of historicity, he was
also unaware of the historicity of his own figures of thought. Because he
believed that he had conceived the one absolute, compelling truth in a
form universally valid for all time, he was a dogmatist. For us the truth
of Spinoza does not lie in his dogmatized figures of thought. They them-
selves are historical symbols; uniquely illuminating, they have become in-
dispensable to us, but they are not objectively absolute.
X. SPINOZA'S INFLUENCE
What carries conviction is not the abstract thought, but the reality lived
with this thought. What appeals to us in Spinoza's work is not his solution
of so-called objective problems, but the power of philosophical striving
for certainty. Men's reactions to Spinoza, as to no other philosopher of
modern times, were determined by the philosopher he really was. No other
aroused so much warm affection and so much bitter hatred. The name of
no other has so unique a ring, no other has been so despised and so loved
by Christians and Jews alike. He became almost a mythical figure. No one
who knows him can remain indifferent to him, for in connection with
Spinoza even expressions of indifference mask a self-protective aggressive-
ness.
Spinoza had no "school." There have been no Spinozists among pro-
fessorsof philosophy in the sense that there have been Cartesians and
Leibnizians. But a furious distaste resulted in incomprehensible injustices
and misrepresentations, even on the part of Bayle, who effectively distorted
the image of Spinoza for many years to come. Spinoza was the "ill-famed
Jew" (Leibniz), he was a "miserable atheist," "a malignant spirit," a
"ridiculous chimera" (Malebranche). Down to the second half of the
eighteenth century nearly all those who mentioned the name of Spinoza
were immediately at pains to disavow him. With few exceptions no one
wanted to be associated with him. Even Brucker (1767) speaks of the
"scandalous success of Spinoza's godlessness."
Spinoza was first taken up by a few pastors of the Dutch Reformed
Church, by mystics, and among artisans in "a movement which stirred up
the Dutch people and aroused the Church, and whose after-effects extended
into the nineteenth century" (Freudenthal). As late as 1862 there are reports
SPINOZA 387
of small groups "in which Spinozist mysticism is the only balm of the soul."
But Spinoza's great influence was on German philosophy and literature.
Lessing, Herder, Goethe held him in high esteem. Goethe: "I feel very close
to him although his mind was far deeper and purer than mine" (1784).
"The figures of this world pass; I should like to concern myself only with
the lasting relationships, and so, in accordance with the teachings of Spinoza,
gain eternity for my (from Rome, 1787). As late as 1817 he said that
spirit"
the two men who had most influenced him were Shakespeare and Spinoza.
Spinoza, in whom he found "boundless selflessness," gave him "appease-
ment and clarity."
Kant was scarcely touched by Spinoza, whose work he hardly knew. But
German philosophy after Kant was equally influenced by Kant and Spi-
noza. Jacobi (1785) believed that only Spinoza's philosophy was consistent
and thus exposed error and inadequacy. Lichtenberg said the same in a
positive sense: "The universal religion will be purified Spinozism. Left to
itself, reason can lead nowhere else" (1901). Fichte was fascinated by the
system, by the method of strict deduction. He himself took Spinoza as a

standard by which to oppose Spinoza: "There are only two fully consistent
systems, the Critical and the Spinozist." The Critical system recognizes the
limits of the "I am," the Spinozist system surpasses them. Schelling regarded
Spinoza as the last philosopher to have concerned himself with the truly
great objects of philosophy and showed the greatest regard for him as long
as he lived. Hegel regarded Spinoza as absolutely indispensable. "Every
thinker must have taken the standpoint of Spinozism, that is the essential
beginning of all philosophizing." "Either Spinozism or no philosophy."
Kindled by Spinoza, the philosophy of German idealism turned against him.
The influence of Spinoza's Biblical science is without philosophical im-
portance. Actually, few of the theologians who have raised the historical
study of the Bible to such magnificent heights ever mention him. Johannes
Muller, the physiologist, included a translation of Spinoza's theory of the
afreets in his once famous Hand buck der Physiologie des Menschen (1833-
40), but despite this evidence of admiration for Spinoza, he did not make
use of his analysis in his own work. Certain psychologists of the nineteenth
century mistakenly traced their sterile theory of psycho-physical parallelism
back to Spinoza. Here again we cannot speak of a philosophical influence.
LAO-TZU
LIFE AND WORKS

The story of Lao-tzu's life is told by Ssu-ma Ch'ien (c. ioo B.C.). He was
born in the state of Ch'u, in the present province of Honan in northern
China. For a time he was state archivist (historian) for the central govern-
ment, the Chou emperor. He did his best to live in obscurity and to remain
nameless. At an advanced age, when conditions in his home state of Ch'u
became intolerable, he journeyed westward. At the behest of the border
guard he wrote the Tao Te Ching, in five thousand words. Then he van-
ished into the West. "No one knows where he ended his life." Chuang-tzu
says, however, that Lao-tzu died at home, surrounded by his scribes. He is
said to have lived in the sixth century b.c. (the traditional view, for this
alone would make possible the conversations between him and Confucius,
which others put down as legendary), but other traditions place him in the
fifth (Forke) or even the fourth century. The question will probably never
be settled with any degree of certainty. His name is mentioned neither by

Confucius nor by Mencius nor by Mo Ti. In view of the state in which the
literature of that greatest century of Chinese culture has come down to us,
it seems doubtful, at least to an outsider, whether Sinologists will ever suc-
ceed in dating the Tao Te Ching accurately by comparing its style with that
of other texts. The dating is unimportant for the interpretation of the text.
The discussions on the subject merely bear witness to the uncertainty of the
tradition.
The authorship of the Tao Te Ching and the authenticity of certain parts
have been contested. However, its inner cohesion is so convincing that
despite possible interpolations and distortions —one cannot doubt that it was
created by a thinker of the highest rank. The man seems to stand before us
and speak to us.
Tao Te Ching, the Book of Tao and Te, is a work of maxims of varying
length, divided into eighty-one short chapters. The arrangement follows no
one system. Sometimes, as toward the end of the "political" section, there
are groups of connected chapters. The essential is stated at the very be-
ginning and then recurs in richly meaningful amplifications. Although there
is no argumentative development, only aphoristic statement of the com-
same idea in numerous modifications gives a
plete thought, repetition of the
388
LAO-TZU 389
magnificent impression of consistency. Without systematic terminology, there

is a unity of thought which lends itself to systematic interpretation. The
power of its paradoxical formulations (without playfulness or irresponsible
wit), its and the impact of a seemingly unfathomable depth
earnestness,
make book one of the irreplaceable works of philosophy.
the
A layman can study the text only by comparing the numerous transla-
tions and their commentaries. We cannot read Lao-tzu as we read Kant,
Plato, or Spinoza. The text does not speak to us directly in its own lan-
guage, but through a medium which clouds and muffles it or on occasion —
sets it off in too glaring a light. The differences in meaning between one
translation and another are sometimes enormous, quite particularly in Chap-
ter 6: according to de Groot it deals with regulation of the breath, in other
translations with the root of the universe, the "spirit of the valley," or the
"underlying womanly"; according to Lieh-tzu, to be sure (Strauss), the
whole chapter is a quotation from an older book; Lao-tzu was in the habit
of quoting lines of poems, songs, and hymns. The reader is advised to make
use of several translations. The figures designate chapters of the Tao Te
Ching.
An understanding of Lao-tzu is facilitated by a knowledge of Chinese
thought, of the age in which he lived, of earlier traditions. If we are able
here to dispense with a historical introduction, it is because of the timeless
character of this metaphysical thinking, which seems especially true and
moving when considered apart from its historical setting.
I. EXPOSITION OF LAO-TZU'S PHILOSOPHY
Tao is and goal of the world and all things, hence also of the
the origin
thinker. The philosophy
tells us first, what Tao is; secondly, how all being
proceeds from it and moves toward it; thirdly, how man lives in Tao, how
he can lose it and regain it, both as an individual and in a political society.
Thus in Western terms, it deals with metaphysics, cosmogony, ethics, and
politics. In Lao-tzu all these are one in the all-pervading fundamental idea.
In a single short chapter all four elements can appear at once. While in an
exposition we must differentiate these factors and treat them successively, in
the book as in the philosophy they are one fundamental idea. An exposition
can be considered successful if it conveys an awareness of this fundamental
unity.
1. The Tao
Penetrating to the remotest depths, the book begins: "The Tao that can be
told of is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal
name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth" (1). In these lines
the author declares not only all over-hasty knowledge, but in general the
mode of knowledge with which man approaches finite things, to be inappli-
cable to the Tao. "I do not know its name; I call it Tao" (25).
If we are to speak of it, it can only be in negative statements (as in saying
that it is unnamable, that is, inaccessible to human naming). For example:
"We look at it and do not see it; Its name is The Invisible. We listen to it and
do not hear it; Its name is The Inaudible. We touch it and do not find it; Its
name is The Subtle (formless)" (14).

Any attempt to express its being in positive terms reduces it to the finite.
"Tao is empty (like a bowl)" (4); it is the infinite abyss; "It may be used,
but its capacity never exhausted" (4). If we name it, grasp it, understand
is
it, if we attempt to differentiate it in our thinking or to see distinctions in

it, it vanishes: "It reverts to nothingness" (14). is more Its original fullness
than any fullness we more than any
can comprehend, its shapelessness is
shape we can understand. "This is called shape without shape, form without
objects. It is The Vague and Elusive. Meet it and you will not see its head.
Follow it and you will not see its back" (14).
What for usbecomes an object is finite: for us and defini-
differentiation
tion constitute being. A rectangle is by virtue of its by virtue
angles, a vessel
of its image by virtue of its
content, an form. But when an object becomes
infinite and undifferentiated like the Tao, it loses its distinctness, ceases to
be what it was when differentiated. Thus to think of an object that has be-
come infinite can guide us to the thinking of the Tao; Lao-tzu says:
"The great square has no corners. The great implement (or talent) is slow
to finish (or mature). Great music sounds faint. Great form has no shape"
(41)-
Insofar as being is what we see, hear, and grasp, insofar as it is image
and form, Tao is nothing. Only in the Tao that is free from being is the
source attained. This source is not nothing in the sense of not-at-all, but in
the sense of more-than-being, whence come existing things: "And being
comes to nonbeing" (40).
Nonbeing is the source and aim of all being. In itself it is essential
being and as such beyond being. After such statements by negation about
this nonbeing a load of seemingly positive statements is put upon it. Tao is
unchanging. "It depends on nothing and does not change" (25). It does not
age (30, 55). Tao is dependent on itself, while man, earth, heaven, and all
things outside of the Tao are dependent on something else (25). Tao is
simple (32, 37), it is still (25), it is undifferentiated yet complete in its
repose (25).
But the repose of Tao cannot be the opposite of motion; for then it would
be merely negative, less than being. Tao moves, but in motion it is at the
same time at rest; its motion is "reversion" (40). It moves, but not because
it wishes to attain something that it is not and has not, for Tao is without
need, "without desires" (34, 37).
In Lao-tzu's day Tao was already a traditional concept. The original mean-
LAO-TZU 391
ing of the word was "Way"; then it came to mean the order of the cosmos
and, what was seen as identical, the right conduct of man. It has been trans-
lated as reason, logos, God, meaning, right way, etc. It has even been
interpreted as a personalized deity, either female or male.
Lao-tzu gave the word a new meaning. He used it as a name for the
ground of all being, although the ground of being is as such nameless and
unnamable. Using this word, he transcended everything that was called
being, including the universe, and even the Tao as cosmic order. He re-
tained, to be sure, the concept of cosmic being and the idea of its all-per-
vading order, but both of these are rooted in the transcendent Tao.
Tao antecedes the world, hence antecedes all differentiation. It can neither
be confronted with anything else nor can it be in itself differentiated. In it,
for example, what

and what ought to be are identical; things that are
is
separate and opposed in the world are one before the world; identical are
the law according to which everything happens and the law according
to which everything ought to happen; identical are the order that has
been from all eternity and the order that remains to be ushered in by
true ethical action. But this unity of opposites cannot at the same time
be a particular reality in the world nor can it be the whole of the world. It
remains the source of the world and the goal of the world. To become
world means to separate and to be differentiated, it means cleavage and
opposition.
For us the multiplicity of things in the world results from separation and
opposition. Tao is called empty, because it is undifferentiated, without ob-
ject, without opposition, because it is not world. In fulfilling itself, Tao
posits objects, produces the world. But Tao itself is never filled in this way
(4). If it could be filled by the created world, it would become one with it.
In emptiness it remains —we are justified in interpreting —richer in poten-

tiality than all mere nonbeing it is more than being,
reality in the world, in
in the undifferentiated ground greater than all determinate, objectively dif-
ferentiated being. It remains the Encompassing.
2. Tao and world
Itwas before Heaven and Earth came into being (25); it was even before
Ti, theLord on High, the supreme god of the Chinese (4). But Tao is not
something inaccessible and totally other, it is present. Imperceptible, it can
nevertheless be experienced as the true being in all being. Present in all
things, it is that from which all things, whatever they may be, derive their
being. The signs of its presence in the world are
a. // is present as nonbeing: Eye, ear, hand seek the Tao in vain, but it is
everywhere. "The Great Tao flows everywhere" (34). It is comparable to

the tangible nonbeing through which all determinate being is: just as the
utility of the vessel depends on the empty space which it contains and the
utility of the house depends on the emptiness of doors and windows (n).
Thus the nothingness of Tao is the nonbeing that first gives things being.
It is comparable to something that would permeate even the most mas-
sive and unporous body: "Nonbeing penetrates that in which there is no
space" (43). Because it is like nothingness, no existing thing resists it.
"Though its simplicity seems insignificant, none in the world can master
it" (32). "It operates everywhere and is free from danger" (25).
b. // acts as though not acting: "Tao invariably takes no action, and yet
there is nothing left undone" (37). It acts imperceptibly as though power-
less. "Weakness is the function of Tao" (40). Tao is infinitely active because
it produces all things, but it acts with discreet quietness that does nothing.
Although Tao is the superior power that produces all things, it leaves all
things free, as though each thing were what it is not through Tao but
through itself. Hence the worship of Tao is instilled in all beings by their
origin, but each being is left free to worship according to his own essence:
"Tao is worshiped not by command but spontaneously" (51). Tao brings
about the free compliance of beings: "For it is the way of Heaven not to
strive but none the less to conquer; not to speak but none the less to get an
answer; not to beckon; yet things come to it of themselves" (73).
Tao is able to move beings without constraint because it makes itself dis-
appear in their presence, as though it did not act and had never acted.
It "produces but does not appropriate, it acts but does not rely (on the
result), and raises (beings) without lording it over them" (51). "It accom-
plishes its task, but does not claim credit for it. It clothes and feeds all
things but does not claim to be master over them" (34).

Working irresistibly, it conceals its irresistible nature; it humbles itself
and blends with the surroundings: "It blunts its sharpness, subdues its
brilliance, becomes one with its dust" (4).
c. Tao is the source of the One within all oneness: All things have being
insofar as they are held by the bond of oneness, of the One, which is the
productive form of the Tao, not one as a number, but Oneness as essence.
"Of old those One: Heaven obtained the One and became
that obtained the
clear. One and became tranquil. The spiritual beings
Earth obtained the
obtained the One and became divine. The valley obtained the One and be-
came full. The myriad things obtained the One and lived and grew. Kings
and barons obtained the One and became rulers of the empire" (39).
d. All existence derives its being from Tao: "It is bottomless, perhaps the
ancestor of all things!" (4). "It may be considered as the mother of the uni-
verse" (25). All things owe their preservation to this father —or mother.
"Tao gave them birth; the power of Tao reared them . . . developed them"
LAO-TZU 393
(51). Without Tao all things are lost; but "it does not turn away from them"
(34). "The essence is very real; in it are evidences" (21).
E. Tao is beyond good and evil but is infinitely helpful: All beings without
exception, both good and evil, have their being through Tao; in it they have
their foundation, hence a kind of permanence. "Tao is the storehouse of all
things. It is good man's treasure and the bad man's refuge" (62).
the
Though termed love, faith, reliability, Tao is not moved by human com-
passion, it prefers no one and does not take sides. This is shown in the image
of the cosmos; the coming and going of all things is endless and vain:
"How Heaven and Earth are like a bellows! While vacuous, it is never ex-
hausted. When active, it produces even more" (5). The cosmos is indif-
ferent to individuals: "Heaven and Earth are not humane. They regard all
things as straw dogs" (5). "The Way of Heaven has no favorites. It is
always with the good man" (79). "The Way of Heaven is to benefit others
and not to injure" (81).
Thus the principal signs of the existence of Tao in the world were all-
pervading nonbeing, the imperceptible nonaction that accomplishes all things,
the all-producing power of oneness, the power beyond good and evil which
sustains the beings "that come and go."
Cosmogony and the process of the individual in the world
Lao-tzu strives to go beyond his vision of Tao in the world to the cosmo-
gonic process, to the riddle: Why did the world spring from Tao? But he
merely hinted at such speculation, he did not develop it constructively. He
did not ask why Nor did he ask how things strayed from the
the world is.
right path. He seems to know of no cosmic process in time, marked by a

series of crucial founding events or catastrophes. One would tend rather
to infer from his sayings a timeless eternal presence as the fundamental

essence of being. The hints at a cosmic process that occur in Lao-tzu should
perhaps be interpreted as an eternal becoming.
a. There are two Taos, which were originally one: First the Tao that is not
namable, nonbeing, and secondly, the Tao that can be named, or being. The
unnamable Tao is called "origin of Heaven and Earth," the namable is
called the "mother of the ten thousand things" (1). This "mother" is being:
"All things in the world come from being" (40); nonbeing has no name:
"And being comes from nonbeing" (40). The Tao is not namable as such
but only as manifested in being. The emergence of things from the namable
Tao is itself the ever-recurring genesis of the namable: "As soon as Tao be-
gins to create and to order, it has a name. Once the block is carved there
will be names, and as soon as there are names they will be known" (32).
Both the unnamable and the namable Tao, nonbeing and being, "are the
same, but after they are produced, they have different names" (i). Viewing
the unnamable through the namable, thought penetrates to the unfathom-
able: "They both may be called deep and profound" (i).
Elsewhere the cosmogonic process is outlined as follows: "Tao produced
the One. The One produced The two produced the three. And
the two. the
three produced the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things carry the
yin and embrace the yang, and through the blending of the material force
they achieve harmony" (42).
b. The productive Tao bears within it the elements of being, which may
be conceived of as forms, images, substances, or forces: "Eluding and vague,
in it are things. Deep and obscure, in it is the essence. The essence is very
real; in it are evidences" (21).
c. Within the cosmic process the process of the individual is contained.

The motion of beings in the cosmos seems to be of two kinds: a futile coming
and going from nothingness to nothingness or a return home to the source:
"All things flourish, but each one returns to its root. This return to its root
means tranquillity. It is called returning to its destiny. To return to destiny
is called the eternal (Tao)" (16).
3. Tao and the individual (ethics)
"The All-embracing quality of the great virtue follows alone from the
Tao" (21). High virtue, authentic life (te), is unison with Tao. Only with
Tao can man follow the right path. Thus the salient characteristics of the
—
Tao action through nonaction, being through nonbeing, strength through
softness —
will reappear in the True Man.
But man does not, like nature, follow the Tao by necessity: man can fall
away from Tao; most men have already done so, but they can again become
one with the Tao.
a. The from Tao: intention and self-striving: The original fall from
fall
Tao is which is identical with intention in action, hence with

self-striving,
self-reflection, with zeal, and with purposive bustle.
"The man of superior virtue is not (conscious of) his virtue, and in this
way he really possesses virtue. The man of inferior virtue never loses (sight
of) his virtue, and in this way he loses his virtue" (38). In other words, what
I pursue as a purpose, I lose, inasmuch as the content of this purposiveness is
true reality. Only finite, perishable things can be taken as purposes, not
eternal being.
Thus purposive willing of the essential destroys it. Similarly, self-reflec-
LAO-TZU 395
tion destroys my being if by reflection I seek knowledge of it, and through

knowledge possession and enjoyment of possession. "He who shows him-
self is not luminous. He who justifies himself is not prominent. He who
boasts of himself is not given credit. He who brags does not endure for
long" (S4).
Purposiveness, self-reflection, self-striving, go hand in hand. The Tao is
forsaken, the living action that flows from the Tao is impaired. Authentic
life is destroyed.
The purposive man loses his encompassing awareness of opposites. He sees
alternatives, always clinging to one as correct. In the world the Tao is mani-
fested in antinomies, and a life rooted in the Tao embraces opposites. Thus
to void opposites by purposive pursuit of one term, or to close one's eyes
to them, is to fall away from the Tao. In order to take something as a
purpose, I must differentiate.Thus the intentional man splits the organic
pairs of opposites and isolates the terms. He ceases to see one in the other
and to act accordingly; instead he sees one or the other, or vacillates be-
tween the two. This is to live on the surface of things and to lose the Tao.
Instead of opening myself in devotion to the encompassing reality, I try to
grasp reality in the form of a particular manifestation which I know.
b. Nonaction (wu wei) as the source of ethics: Purposive will, directed at
finite particular things in the world, can gain fundamental reality only if
it is gathered into a nonwilling. This nonwilling or nonaction is the core of

Lao-tzu's ethos.
Wu wei is the spontaneity of the origin itself. It is not a doing nothing, not
passivity, dullness of soul, a paralysis of the impulses. It is man's authentic
action which he performs as though not acting. In this action the accent is
not on works. It is all-embracing nonaction which encompasses all ac-
tion, engenders it, and lends it meaning.
The antithesis between "action" and "nonaction" may suggest some sort of
rule. But the origin to which this word refers cannot be subsumed under
any law. It is not possible to give a rule for wu wei that would demand one
thing and exclude another. For this would be to bring it back into the realm
of purposive zeal, which precisely it transcends. What embraces the oppo-
sites cannot be adequately uttered in the oppositions of language. Thus Lao-
tzu says of Tao: "Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing
left undone" (37), and correspondingly he says of the Superior Man: "No
action is undertaken, and yet nothing is left undone" (48). The nonaction
of the Superior Man is an action of nonaction: "Therefore the sage man-
ages affairs without action" (2)
If purposelessness denotes the activity that springs from the origin, pur-
posiveness characterizes the activity that born of particularizing, con-
is
fining, intentional thinking. The former occurs unwilled and guides the pur-
posive will; the latter is willed, but is ultimately without guidance and
ground. Unintentionality starts from the Tao to arrive at being; intention-

ality starts from finiteness and arrives, by a process of destruction, at nothing-
ness.
In unintentional action rooted in the Tao, a man does not demand assur-
ance that he is acting well. He does not collect testimonials to his good will
and try to prove himself in works. Unintentional action does not mean
"Don't For in Lao-tzu the accent is on the activity of a life
resist evil."
grounded in Tao and one with it, not on suffering and sacrifice. Lao-tzu's
nonaction is a living force out of the depths, while nonaction that "does
not resist evil" becomes a weapon, a means of conquering by abandoning
resistance, by shaming the enemy.
The collecting of testimonials to one's good actions and suffering in sacri-
fice are both highly intentional. Perhaps in no other philosophy is uninten-
tionality, this concept so puzzling in its simplicity, taken so resolutely as the
foundation of all ethical action. But this absence of all intentions cannot be
defined, it cannot be invoked as a prescription. One can speak of it only in-
directly.
c. Wu wei and unison with the Tao: It is as hard to characterize the Sage
—the Saint, the Superior Man, the Perfect Man, etc. —as it is to speak of the
Tao. Unison with Tao can never be taken as one of two opposites. Here
there is no choice between two possibilities of equal rank. The description
of the Saint is without clear contours; his reality conceals itself in opposi-
tions. To put the accent on either of the two terms is to misunderstand it.
For example:
"What is most perfect seems to be incomplete. . . . What is most full
seems to be empty. . . . What is most straight seems to be crooked. The

greatest skill seems to be clumsy. The greatest eloquence seems to stutter"
(45)-
"The Tao which is bright appears to be dark. . . . Great virtue appears
like a valley (hollow). Great purity appears like disgrace. Far-reaching
virtue appears as if insufficient. Solid virtue appears as if unsteady" (41).
We shall again encounter such antitheses in descriptions of the Sage.
Taken literally, such statements are misleading, because they seem to press
for rational decision between opposites or to play with paradoxical reversals.
What they actually express is the very simple principle, which transcends all
rational decisions by the gentle power of fulfilling certainty, the encompass-

ing purposeless reality which guides us even in our purposive action.
Act through softness: "The weak and the tender overcome the hard and
the strong" (36). "The softest things in the world overcome the hardest
things in the world" (78). "The Way of the Sage is to act but not to compete"
(81).
A metaphor is used to elucidate the strength of softness: "All things, the
grass as well as trees, are tender and supple while alive. When dead they are
LAO-TZU 397
withered and dried. Therefore the and the hard are companions of
stiff
death. The tender and the weak arecompanions of life. The strong . . .
and the great are inferior, while the tender and the weak are superior"
(76). Or: "The female always overcomes the male by tranquillity, and by
is underneath" (61).
tranquillity she
Often weakness is likened to water. "There is nothing softer and weaker
than water, and yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong
things" (78). "The great rivers and seas are kings of all mountain streams
because they skillfully stay below them" (66). "Tao in the world may be
compared to rivers and streams running into the sea" (32). "The best is like
water. Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.
It dwells in places that all disdain" (8).
Selflessness: The Superior Man lives by the example of Tao: "Therefore
the Sage places himself in the background but finds himself in the fore-
ground. He puts himself away, and yet he always remains" (7). Thus there
are two selves, the desiring, self-seeking, self-reflecting self which seeks
riches and prestige, and the true self which comes to the fore only when
the other dies away. "He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers
himself mighty" (33). This
is self-conquest has a number of consequences:
Freedom from desire: "The five colors cause one's eyes to be blind. The
five tones cause one's ears to be deaf. The five flavors cause one's palate to be
spoiled.Racing and hunting cause one's mind to be mad. Goods that are
hard to get injure one's activities. For this reason the Sage is concerned
with the belly and not the eyes" (12). "To force the growth of life means ill
omen. For the mind to employ the vital force means violence" (55). "It is
only those who do not seek after life that excel in making life valuable"
(75). "Only he who rids himself forever of desire can see the Secret Es-
sences; he that has never rid himself of desire can see only the Outcomes"
(1). "When there are music and dainties, passing strangers will stay. But
the words uttered by Tao, how insipid and tasteless!" (35).
Freedom from vanity: "He does not show himself; therefore he is lumi-
nous. He does not justify himself, therefore he becomes prominent" (22).
"He accomplishes his task, but does not claim credit for it" (77).
Moderation: The Superior Man "manages affairs without action and

spreads doctrines without words" (2). Therefore (the Sage) "never strives
himself for the great, and thereby the great is achieved" (34)
"Withdraw as soon as your work is done" (9) . The Sage "has no desire to
display his excellence" (77). "He accomplishes his task but does not
claim credit for it" (2). "He does not boast of himself; therefore he is given
credit" (22).
Knowledge: To live in unity with the Tao is at the same time to know
the Tao. To know it means also to live in it.
Knowledge of the Tao is not like a knowledge of something. Measured

by ordinary knowledge, knowledge of the Tao is as nothing: "The pur-
suit of learning is to increase day after day. The pursuit of Tao is to de-
crease day after day. It is to decrease and further decrease until one reaches
the point of taking no action" (48). "In penetrating the four quarters with
your intelligence, can you be without knowledge?" (10). "A wise man has
no extensive knowledge; he who has extensive knowledge is not a wise
man" (81).
Knowledge of Tao is not acquired from outside; it grows up within:
"One may know the world without going out of doors. One may see the
Way of Heaven without looking through the windows. The further one
goes, the less one knows" (47).
Knowledge of Tao is not a dispersed knowledge of many things; it is a
knowledge of the One: "To know eternity is to attain enlightenment" (55).
"He who does not know eternity runs blindly into disaster" (16).
All this means that the depth of Tao is disclosed only to the depth of
man. Tao withholds itself from man's surface thoughts and wrong thoughts,
from his desire and self-seeking, from his self-regard and acquisitiveness.
But in a man's depth rests the possibility of a knowledge that is one with
the source. If this depth is choked up, the waves of worldly life pass over it as
though it did not exist.
Consequently true self-knowledge is possible only with knowledge of the
Tao. "He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened"
(33). This self-knowledge, which has nothing in common with self-reflec-
tion, with a desire to possess oneself by knowledge of oneself, is the knowl-
edge of being oneself in Tao, which sees through and does away with the
false striving for selfhood. "To know that you do not know is the best. To
pretend to know when you do not know is a disease. Only when one
recognizes this disease as a disease can one be free from the disease. The
Sage isfrom the disease. Because he recognizes this disease to be disease,
free
he is free from it" (71). Only the self-knowledge rooted in the primordial
source, the mother of all things, is positive: "When a man has found the
Mother, he will know the children accordingly; though he has known the
children, he still keeps to the Mother" (52).
Openness to all things: He who has regained Tao and thus extinguished
his self-striving and become himself lives amply. He sees things in their
fundamental being: "Knowing eternity, he is all-embracing. All-embracing,
he is without prejudice" (16). This comprehensiveness has far-reaching im-
plications:
"The Sage has no fixed ideas. He regards the people's ideas as his own"
(49). There is no limit to his participation in the lives of others: "All things
arise, and he does not turn away from them" (2). He forsakes no man, for
"none is rejected" (27).
He is not afraid to treat all men alike: "I treat those who are good with
goodness. And I also treat those who are not good with goodness. ... I am
honest to those who are honest, and I am also honest to those who are not
LAO-TZU 399
honest" (49). And he goes still further to demand of himself: "Repay hatred
with virtue" (6$).
But this breadth of scope also implies detachment. Perceiving and loving
the essence, he sees through the finite appearance and becomes impervious to
the particular. This indifference is not empty; it is filled with the Tao; imi-
tating the Tao, he is beyond good and evil. He is not indifferent, but his
profound vision of justice and love is concerned only with the essence:
"Heaven and Earth are not humane; they regard all things as straw dogs.
The Sage is not humane; he regards all people as straw dogs" (5).
The general attitude of the Sage: The Enlightened One behaves like the
masters of antiquity: "Cautious, like one crossing a frozen stream in the
winter, being at a loss, like one fearing danger on all sides, reserved, like one
visiting. Supple and pliant, like ice about to melt. Genuine, like a piece of
uncarved wood, open and broad, like a valley, merged and undifferentiated,
like muddy water" (15). Or: he has "three treasures, guard and keep them:
the first is deep love, the second is frugality, and the third is not to dare to be
ahead of the world" (67) The Sage does not talk much.
. "Much talk will of
course come to a dead end" (5).
The Sage is as simple and unself -conscious as a child: "He returns to the
state of infancy" (28)."Can you be like an infant?" (10). "He who possesses
virtue in abundance may be compared to an infant. . . . His bones are weak,
his sinews tender, but his grasp is firm" (55).
The Sage is steadfast: ". . . it is impossible either to be intimate and close
to him or to be distant and indifferent to him. It is impossible either to

benefit him or to harm him. It is impossible either to honor him or to dis-
grace him" (56)
d. The fall: Lao-tzu's premise is that the world of men has fallen away from
the Tao. Most men and consequently official opinion are far from the Tao.
"Few in the world can understand the teaching without words and the ad-
vantage of taking no action" (43).
Why the fall? Antiquity possessed the Tao and lived in it (14, 15). The
fall was brought about by men, but this event did not take the form of a
natural catastrophe that happened once and for all in the past; rather, it
happens every day. The fall is brought about by intentionality, self-reflection,
and self-seeking.
According to Chuang-tzu, Lao-tzu stated the power and impotence of in-
tentionality in his conversation with Confucius: "Finding the Tao is not a
simple happening that can be willed; similarly losing the Tao is not a
simple happening, but it can be willed." Which means a man cannot come :
to the Tao by intentional willing. But finding Tao is not an automatic proc-
ess; it is effected by the Tao within me and the Tao outside me. Nor does
loss of the Tao take place of its own accord: it is brought about by a man's
—
own action "you can will it" by your intentionality and self-striving.
But whence comes this intentionality ? Lao-tzu does not inquire. He does
not ask whether the Tao might have remained one with world and man,
whether the fall need not have taken place. For him the fall is a plain fact.
Stages in the jail: "He who follows the Tao becomes one with the Tao;
he who follows virtue becomes one with virtue; he who follows corruption
becomes one with corruption" (23). This means that intentional right con-
duct, or virtue, lies halfway between the Tao and corruption. Definite vir-
tues and rules of conduct arise only when the Tao is forsaken. Indicative
of a fallen state, they represent an attempt at partial salvation. Man has
duties only after he has fallenaway from the Tao. The seemingly noblest
virtues are signs of a lower stage of humanity, which achieves authentic
being only in unity with the Tao. "When the great Tao declined, the doc-
trine of humanity and righteousness arose. When knowledge and wisdom
appeared, there emerged great hypocrisy. When the six family relationships
are not in harmony, there will be the advocacy of filial piety and deep love
to children. When a country is in disorder, there will be the praise of loyal
ministers" (18).
Thus Lao-tzu develops a hierarchy descending from the lofty existence
that moves in the Tao
("exalted virtue") to decreed virtue and the conven-
tional respectabilitywhich ultimately uses force against those who do not
comply with it: "The man of superior virtue takes no action, but has no
ulterior motive to do so. The man of inferior virtue takes action, and has an
ulterior motive to do so. The man of superior righteousness takes action,
and has an ulterior motive to do so. The man of superior propriety takes
action and when people do not respond to it, he will stretch his arms and
force it on them. Therefore when Tao is lost, only then does the doctrine
of virtue arise. When virtue is lost, only then does the doctrine of humanity
arise. When humanity is lost, only then does the doctrine of righteousness
arise" (38).
The hierarchy is also characterized from another point of view: "When
the highest type of men hear Tao, they diligently practice it. When the
average type of men hear Tao, they half believe in it. When the lowest type
of men hear Tao, they laugh heartily at it" (41).
The way bac\ to the Tao: No one is utterly rejected (27). In all men
there is an inclination to esteem Tao voluntarily— without any command
from outside (51). The essence is always unconsciously present even if it is
consciously despised. The element of Tao that was instilled in creatures at
birth is never wholly lost. Why should a man be rejected for his wickedness?
"Why did the ancients highly value this Tao? Did they not say, 'Those who
seek shall have it and those who sin shall be freed'?" (62).
Lao-tzu offers no instructions, no methods for finding the way back to
the Tao, because unintentionality cannot be produced intentionally. He
shows what is needful. But since this cannot be willed as a finite purpose,
as a clearly knowable something, it is not possible to indicate a systematic
LAO-TZU 401
method. Any method would be a perversion. Images and metaphors are not
instructions.
Still, there is one apparent recipe: to follow the masters of antiquity: "Of
old those who were the best masters were subtly mysterious and profoundly
penetrating; too deep to comprehend. And because they cannot be compre-
hended, I can only describe them arbitrarily" (15).
However, there is an ambiguity in this turn back to ancient times. As
Strauss says, it does not mean to repeat the past identically through knowl-
edge of the literary tradition —that is the way of Confucius — it means to
renew the eternal beginnings by retracing the threads of the Tao, which run
through all history : "Hold on to the Tao of old in order to master the things
of the present. From this one may know the primeval beginning (of the
universe). This is called the bond of Tao" (14).
e.Nothingness or eternity: If asked what the meaning of life is, Lao-tzu

would answer: To partake of Tao and so to be authentic, that is, eternal,
immortal —to grasp the imperishable in the perishable. Lao-tzu expresses the
idea of immortality with dark depth. "He who attains Tao is everlasting.
Though body may decay, he never perishes" (16). "He who may die but
his
not perish has longevity" (33) "Use the light. Revert to enlightenment. And
.
—
thereby avoid danger to one's life this is called practicing the eternal" (52).
"To control the vital breath with the mind means rigidity. (For) after
things reach their prime, they begin to grow old, which means being con-
trary to Tao. Whatever is contrary to Tao will soon perish" (30)
Immortality here is an expression for participation in Tao, for rest in the
timelessness of eternity, not an endless prolongation of existence either in
another world or through a cycle of rebirths. The nature of immortality is
never indicated in an image. Only the consciousness of eternity is eluci-
dated. To life belongs death: "Man comes in to life and goes out to death"
—
(50). But unchanging is what when a man is at one with the Tao re- —
lieves life and death of their danger, what remains when the body dies: "I
have heard that one who is a good preserver of his life will not meet tigers
or wild buffaloes, and in fighting will not try to escape from weapons of
war. The wild buffalo cannot butt its horns against him, the tiger cannot
fasten its claws in him, and weapons of war cannot thrust their blades
into him. And for what reason? Because in him there is no room for death"
(50) . Here the "body" is taken metaphorically. Though his body may die, a
man who is at one with Tao has no spot where death can strike. He is
fearless because itno longer means anything to him to lose his body.
f. The life of the follower of —

Tao — Lao-tzu in the world: In a world that
has degenerated from a communion into a fabricated order of violence and
law, a man who lives with true being will inevitably be reduced to solitude:
not because he is an eccentric who shuns the world, but because society
and government have lost their truth, that is, no longer follow the Tao;
not because he is a maverick, but because the desires and pleasures, pur-
poses and impulses of the crowd are far from Tao. Like Jeremiah and
Heraclitus, Lao-tzu was one of the early solitary men, not because he wished
to be, but by necessity.
few remarkable and very personal sentences Lao-tzu has described
In a
the of the Sage in this world: "The multitude are merry, as though
life
feasting on a day of sacrifice. Or like ascending a tower in the springtime.

I alone am inert, showing no sign (of desires), like an infant that has not yet
smiled. Wearied, indeed, I seem to be without a home. The multitude all

possess more than enough. I alone seem to have lost all. Mine is indeed the
mind of an ignorant man, indiscriminate and dull! Common folks are in-
deed brilliant; I alone seem to be in the dark. Common folks see differences
and are clear-cut; I alone make no distinctions. I seem drifting as the sea;
like the wind blowing about, seemingly without destination. The multi-
tude all have a purpose; I alone seem to be stubborn and rustic. I alone
differ from others, and value drawing sustenance from Mother (Tao)" (20).
In another passage Lao-tzu speaks of being misunderstood: "My doctrines
are very easy to understand and very easy to practice, but none in the world
can understand or practice them. My doctrines have a source; my deeds
have a master. It is because people do not understand this that they do not
understand me. Few people know me, and therefore I am highly valued.
Therefore the Sage wears a coarse cloth on top and carries jade within his
bosom" (70).
According Ssu-ma Ch'ien, when the young Confucius came to see Lao-
to
tzu, Lao-tzu his projects for reform and said: "When the Sage
condemned
finds his time, he rises; when he does not find his time, he lets the weeds
pile up and goes. Away with the master's weeds and with fanciful
. . .
plans! All this is of no use to the master himself."
4. Tao and government
The truth— unison with the Tao —can be present in rulers, in govern-
ments, in the economic system, and even in warfare. Thus the truth of
government resides in nonaction, in release, in imperceptible influence, in
short, in weakness. The ruler is a single person. His character and conduct
determine the life of the whole state. The sum of human affairs in the state
will be what this one man is.
a. The ruler: The quality of rulers is shown by the way in which the
people see them. "The best are those whose existence is (merely) known by
the people. The next best are those who are loved and praised. The next are
.
LAO-TZU 403
those who are feared. And the next are those who are despised. . . . They
accomplish their task; they complete their work. Nevertheless their people
say that they simply follow Nature" (17). "And the world will be at peace
of its own accord" (37).
A perfect ruler "takes no action and therefore does not fail" (64). He acts
by nonaction. "Can you love the people and govern the state without knowl-
edge? (10). "Administer the empire by engaging in no activity" (57).
Accordingly a good ruler is humble, makes himself inconspicuous, de-
mands nothing. "Therefore, in order to be the superior of the people, one
must, in the use of words, place himself below them. And in order to be
ahead of the people, one must, in one's own person, follow them. Therefore
the Sage places himself above the people and they do not feel his weight.
He places himself in front of them and the people do not harm him" (66).
Such a ruler, who knows his rank but humbles himself and therefore calls
himself "the Orphan," "the Lonely One," "the Destitute One" (39), "be-
comes the valley of the world" (28).
Only one who does not desire to govern can succeed in governing by
nonactivity. If he is concerned with winning power and fears to lose it, he
cannot truly govern. "They are difficult to rule because their ruler does too
many things" (75). Elsewhere Lao-tzu speaks more severely of the bad ruler:
"The courts are exceedingly splendid, while the fields are exceedingly
weedy, and the granaries are exceedingly empty. Elegant clothes are worn,
sharp weapons are carried, foods and drinks are enjoyed beyond limit, and
wealth and treasures are accumulated in excess. This is robbery and extrav-
agance" (53).
b. The action of nonaction: It is hard to understand this action by non-

action (wu wet) on the part of a ruler. It causes all beings to unfold, but
truly and not arbitrarily: "If kings and barons can keep it, all things will
transform spontaneously" (37)
It is a magical influence in keeping with Chinese universism: the ruler's
harmony with Tao guides not only the kingdom but nature and all things
upon the right course. It is the source of good harvests and prevents floods,
drought, plagues, and wars. This magical conception is also to be found
in Lao-tzu (if this passage is authentic and not a later addition): "If Tao
is employed to rule the empire, spiritual beings will lose their supernatural
power. Not that they lose their spiritual power, but their spiritual power
can no longer harm people" (60). In Lao-tzu, however, this magical con-
ception is secondary, though it is nowhere expressly disavowed.
The value of great models is often stressed. "Hold fast to the great form
(Tao), and all the world will come" (35). "Virtue becomes deep and far-
reaching, and with it all things return to their original state. Then complete
harmony will be reached" (65). The influence of the Superior Man and
consequently the imitation of the Tao put the realm and the people in order.
By virtue of his inner being, man is the carrier of the model image. "The
adherence of the empire garnered by letting-alone" (57)
is
In the action of nonaction the essential is spontaneity. It would be absurd

to suppose that we accomplish something by doing nothing. Nonaction is
not a doing of nothing. It is the universal action which encompasses all
plans, which precedes all definite action, which is neither passivity nor plan-
less action. It is an intervention not according to mere finite ends, but rising
from the source, the Tao itself. Any attempt to define the operation of this
nonaction more closely would be out of place. Like the speculation that
tries to penetrate into the Tao and the elucidation of individual nonaction,
this political thinking is oriented toward the inerrable and undifferentiated.
Only at the next lowest step does differentiation set in —here definite
discourse becomes possible. In negations : "The more taboos and prohibitions
there are in the world, the poorer the people will be. The more sharp
weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be. The more . . .
laws and ordinances are promulgated, the more thieves and robbers there
will be" (57). Or the same statement is made in a positive but indefinite form:
once intervention, prohibition, and command cease, all will become true
and authentic "of its own accord." "I take no action and the people of them-
selves are transformed. I love tranquillity and the people of themselves be-
come correct. I engage in no activity and the people of themselves become
prosperous. I have no desires and the people of themselves become simple"
(57). In contrast with this, only an external causality is expressed in the
words: "The people starve, because the ruler eats too much tax-grain" (75).
Anyone who takes Lao-tzu's maxims as rules of conduct is bound to ob-
ject: All that is impracticable, men are simply not made that way. But to
raise such an argument is to forget that these are not rules for purposive
action. Lao-tzu's maxims, which find their norm in not acting, not planning,
not intervening, can only become meaningless if taken as a summons to act
and to plan. Lao-tzu points the way to a possibility which is not a program
for the understanding but, preceding all purposive political action, an appeal
to the source within each man. Conceived as a concrete institution, realizable
by finite means, his ideal would be a futile Utopia of magical inactivity. But
it is a truth insofar as it gives an intimation of the human possibility in
may sound fantastic when Lao-tzu says: "If kings and barons
political life. It
would hold on to it, all things would submit to them spontaneously. Heaven
and Earth unite to drip sweet dew. Without the command of men, it drips
evenly over all" (32). But anyone who actively and by design introduced
anarchy into the world on the supposition that men would automatically
keep order because they are good, would merely be showing that he had
misunderstood this philosophy. And even more so if he used force to quell
the ensuing chaos. If the one who misunderstood Lao-tzu and introduced
anarchy were a "saint," if he were sincere and consistent and men gave
LAO-TZU 405
heed to him, he would still be doomed to destruction. Actually Lao-tzu

had no intention of giving instructions by which to revolutionize human
institutions. Keeping in mind his own maxim that no one knows how far he
can go, he declares: "If one can overcome everything, then he will acquire a
capacity the limit of which is beyond anyone's knowledge. When his capacity
is beyond anyone's knowledge, he is fit to rule a state" (59).
c. U'jr and punishment: How does Lao-tzu observe the ideal of nonaction
in connection with the indispensable acts of political violence: in connection
with war abroad and punishment at home? How is the principle "to act,
not contend," manifested here?
War is in any case evil: "Fine weapons are instruments of evil, they are
hated by men" (31). "Wherever armies are stationed, briers and thorns grow.
Great wars are always followed by famines" (30). But there are situations in
which even a Sage cannot avoid war. "When he uses them [weapons] un-
avoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle" (31). But once he
makes up his mind, he imposes limits on his manner of fighting and con-
quering. "A good [general] achieves his purpose and stops, but dares not
seek to dominate the world. He achieves his purpose but does not brag
about it. . . . He achieves his purpose but only as an unavoidable step" (30).
Even by nonaction applies. Since "the weak
in battle the principle of action
and the tender overcome the hard and the strong" (36), since "the softest
things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world" (43), Lao-
tzu concludes with surprising consistency: "Therefore if the army is strong,
it will not win. . . . The strong and the great are inferior, while the tender
and the weak are superior" (76). "For deep love helps one to win in the
case of attack, and to be firm in the case of defense" (67) Offensive warfare .
is expressly condemned. And even in batde one should act as little as possi-
ble : "A strategist of old has said : 'I dare not take the offensive but I take the
defensive; I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot.' This means: 'To
march without formation, to stretch one's arm without showing it, to con-
front enemies without seeming to meet them; to hold weapons without
seeming to have them' " (69).
Lao-tzu describes the good warrior: "A skillful leader of troops is not
oppressive with his military strength. A skillful fighter does not become
angry. A skillful conqueror does not compete with people" (68). "Even
when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy. . For the . .
slaughter of the multitude, let us weep with sorrow and grief. For a victory,
let us observe the occasion with funeral ceremonies" (31).
The internal violence of the state is manifested in punishments, especially
in the death penalty (72-74). Observance of the Tao is manifested in the

Only "what heaven hates" should be punished. But the
judge's restraint.
heavenly judge hidden. Hence the human judge who wishes to avoid
is
unjust punishment derives comfort from the knowledge that an unjustly

acquitted criminal will not evade punishment: "Heaven's net is indeed vast.
Though its meshes are wide, it misses nothing" (73).
d. Action in the changing world of things: Men move away from the eternal
Tao and return to it. It is essential to return each day afresh, but this does not
mean to make the world over into something entirely new. For Lao-tzu and
the Chinese there is no unique course of history, no undecided future, but
only the eternal, infinitely agitated life of the Tao. In this life men fluctuate
between harmony with Tao and deviation from it. Nonaction brings about
perfect harmony.
Nonaction is not the repose of the onlooker but the dominant ground of
action. Political life is fraught with unrest: enemies of the government, seeds
of new enmity, changing conditions. Political nonaction is therefore attended
by constant tension. While frantic activity never really accomplishes any-
thing but imagines that by pursuing its comes into possession of
aims it
everything, everything is unchangingly present to him who acts on the

ground of nonaction; he is alive to the immediate and remote consequences
of every act: "People in their handling of affairs often fail when they are
about to succeed. If one remains as careful at the end as he was at the be-
ginning, there will be no failure" (64).

Thus the wise ruler lives in close contact with all things. He sees the
beginnings, the seeds of development, and follows the maxim: "Prepare
for the difficult while it is still easy. Deal with the big while it is still small"
(63). All-important is the imperceptible touch at the right time. "What
remains still is easy to hold. What is not yet manifest is easy to plan for.
What is brittle is easy to crack. What is minute is easy to scatter. Deal with
things before they appear. Put things in order before disorder arises. A
tree as big as a man's embrace grows from a tiny shoot. A tower of nine
stories begins with a heap of earth. The journey of a thousand // starts
from where one stands" (64).

To make these imperceptible touches at all times, that is the difficult thing,
for means keeping in contact with the ground of things. That is why
it
nonaction which produces universal order is far removed from light-

heartedness. The nonactive ruler fastens himself to "the heavy." "Gravity
is the root of lightness; stillness the master of agitation. Thus a nobleman
travels all day without leaving his baggage- wagon. How then should a lord
of ten thousand chariots conduct himself lightly in regard to his empire? If
he conducts himself lightly, he will lose the root" (26).
e. The desirable political condition: In keeping with Chinese universism

Lao-tzu sees human existence as a single hierarchically ordered realm ex-
tending from the one ruler through states, communities, and families to
the individual man (54). This realm is not a planned institution, not an
LAO-TZU 407
organization of functionaries such as that set up centuries later by Shih
Huang-Ti, but a "spiritual thing.' "He who acts on it harms it. He who
1
holds on to it loses it" (29). Lao-tzu had before him the decaying feudal
regime, whose original condition he regarded as in keeping with the Tao.
The general political condition was that of a number of small states
connected by the one Empire. The best: "A small country with few people"
(80). In order that life should be happy in this small state: "Let there be
ten times and hundred times as many utensils but let them not be used.
a . . .
Even if there are ships and carriages, none will ride in them. Even if there
are arrows and weapons, none will display them" (80). The relation between
large and small states must be the right one: "A big state can take over
a small state if it places itself below the small state. And the small state can
take over a big state if it places itself below the big state" (61). Happy
countries live quietly side by side; their people do not grow restless and
enter into relations with one another: "Though neighboring communities
overlook one another and the crowing of cocks and barking of dogs can
be heard, yet the people there may grow old and die without ever visiting
one another" (80).
f. The truth of the primordial: Idyllic descriptions of antiquity, injunctions

to return to a precultural primitivism ("Where the people may be induced
to return to the use of knotted cords" [namely, to the era before the invention
of writing]) (80), may suggest that Lao-tzu's return to nature "was a return
to barbarism." One more step, and this would indeed be so.
The statement that knowledge and enlightenment should be withheld
from the people seems to point in the same direction. The wise ruler "con-
stantly insures that the people are without knowledge and without desires
and that those who have knowledge dare not act" (3). "In ancient times
those who practiced Tao well did not seek to enlighten the people, but to
make them ignorant. People are difficult to govern because they have too
much knowledge. Therefore he who rules the state through knowledge is
a robber of the state" (65). One step further, and this would be a devious
method to make things easier for rulers by keeping the people in a state
of ignorance.
human culture and morality:
Lao-tzu seems to condemn the lofty values of
"Abandon and discard wisdom; then the people will benefit
sageliness
a hundredfold. Abandon humanity and discard righteousness; then the
people will return to filial piety and deep love. Abandon skill and discard
profit; then there will be no thieves or robbers" (19). This is only a step
from the indifferent quietism of a mere onlooker, who sees only his imagin-
ings and rejects all visible reality.
We
must try to consider such sentences in the light of the teachings as a
whole and recognize the twofold meaning of the "primordial." The primary
meaning, the meaning intended by Lao-tzu, is "that which is in keeping

with the Tao." But it is remote, hidden, easy to mistake: one can gain an
intimation of it, but not postulate it in terms of human reality. The second
meaning is "what was in the beginning," the primitive, and this, because it
is used as a metaphor for the first, is confused with it. Despite the power of
his philosophical thought, despite his insight into the source of the highest
human potentiality, Lao-tzu's sentences sometimes obscure and distort
his original vision — and it is perfectly possible that the thinker himself
was sometimes led astray.
H. CHARACTERIZATION AND CRITICISM

1. The meaning of Lao-tzu
a. The contradiction: to spea\ of the ineffable: "He who knows does not
speak. He who speaks does not know" (56). Lao-tzu repeatedly utters this
The Sage "spreads doctrines without words" (2).
basic insight:
Thus Lao-tzu condemns his own attempt to communicate the deepest
knowledge by way of what can be said. And indeed, every sentence that
is spoken distracts from the fundamental truth. To take the statements
literally is to tie oneself to objects. One must transcend both statement
and object, that is, attain to the ineffable, in order to perceive the truth.
Thus every statement must vanish in the ineffable if it is to become true.
Why, then, does Lao-tzu write a book? He offers no justification. It is
only the legend which tells us that he did not wish to, that it was the frontier
guard who demanded it, and that nolens volens Lao-tzu complied. We may
answer: He meant these written statements to induce the reader to tran-
scend them, he meant them to guide us, through reflection, to the ineffable.
This work of Lao-tzu is the first on

great example of the indirect statement
which true philosophical thought always depends.
Only by communication does thought pass from man to man. Total
silence can accomplish nothing. We are dependent on speaking and listen-
ing. In understanding itself and making itself understood by others, insight
that is communicated must enter into the realm of the thought that reasons,
names, defines, differentiates, and relates. Once it speaks, the ineffable
philosophical insight comes into conflict with itself. But it is only in speech
(and first of all in the discourse of the thinker with himself) that this
insight becomes knowable to man.
b. To what part of us is philosophical speech addressed? Lao-tzu has told

us: Not to the understanding, which is a knowledge of objects, not to the
LAO-TZU 409
will, which aims at purposes and acts according to plans. Lao-tzu addresses
the source within us, which is obscured by understanding and purposes.
Hence he aims not at self-domination by the power of the will, but at a
deeper examination of our impulses themselves.
What can thus be awakened lies dormant within us. Otherwise —though
this Lao-tzu does not say — there is only an emptiness in which there is
nothing to be awakened. He is confident that something, the Tao within

us, can be awakened. But patience is needed to overcome resistance, obscurity,
exhaustion, forgetfulness.
Lao-tzu's political discussion may serve as an example. His maxims come
so close to rules that one is tempted to consider them as such and to think
them through in this light. But then it becomes clear that in Lao-tzu all such
rules are only metaphors. Taken as rules, they become false, for then they
lead to passivity, while actually they are an expression for the ground of
all activity. Properly understood, they arouse self-understanding, the reflec-
tion that flow's from the all-embracing source. They combat the blind
rage, thoughtless activity, and violence of those who see only the finite things
about them.
These maxims can act as correctives to the tendency to regulate every-
thing by laws and decrees. They can make us aware of the need to let
things alone as much as possible. They can teach us to subordinate all
laws and rules to a condition which itself cannot be formulated as a rule,

but can only make itself heard in communication between man and man.
They convey ideas of the kind that we need if we are not to succumb to
the endless activity which with all its purposiveness defeats its own purpose,
so that everything turns out wrong in the end.
From time immemorial all states of any size have been administered by
bureaucracies. It is striking to note that the vast majority of decisions in
such bureaucracies have been made by purposive, "practical" men who,
lacking a knowledge of the whole, produce the greatest absurdities with
their purposiveness. The man and of the body
self-education of the active
politic requires reflection and responsibility to norms that go far beyond
the mechanism of laws and prescriptions. Such responsibility demands an
awareness of all regulations in the totality of life and of the relation between
them. In all simplicity, it demands not only that we find the definite order
appropriate to every situation, but also that all men be made freer in their
daily lives, more available to the incalculable opportunities.
Lao-tzu's thoughts are addressed to the encompassing ground within
us and outside us. They remind us of what is regularly forgotten in the
realm of purposive will and finite understanding. Lao-tzu appeals to us
in moments when, in daily life, in our work or political activity, our pur-
poses have been divorced from that which must guide them if they are
not to relapse into sterile futility, into a destructiveness that is only enhanced
by activity and into perplexity in the face of the question: What for? Lao-
tzu reminds us of what man must hold fast to if he is not to sink into the
void.
c.Lao-tzu's forms of thought: Lao-tzu does not search; he knows the

ground of being and speaks from the source. Filled with knowledge, he
communicates. He answers without having been questioned.
He does not reflect on his methods of thought. But if we examine the
ideas he communicates we note certain characteristic features.

i) Lao-tzu is a spur to our thinking, because his utterance is always
incomplete, yet any attempt we may make to correct it proves inappropriate.
For example: "If forced to give it a name, I shall call it Great. Now being
great means functioning everywhere. Functioning everywhere means far-
reaching. Being far-reaching means returning to the original point" (25).
Strauss interprets: "If I force myself to give it a name, I call it great. But
the absolutely great is the absolutely remote. It is this remote thing which
pervades all things, which is now in my thinking, and therefore I designate
it as returning."
2) The which the author endeavors to characterize the Tao

ideas with
end in antinomies, contradictions, paradoxes. Antinomies are joined to-
gether in various ways. They engender, complete, elucidate one another,
they are relative to one another, follow or depend on one another. For
example: "Being and nonbeing produce each other; difficult and easy
complete each other; long and short contrast each other; high and low
distinguish each other; sound and voice harmonize each other; front and
behind accompany each other" (2). Another example: "The heavy is the
root of the light. The tranquil is the ruler of the hasty" (26).
Lao-tzu uses these varied forms of antinomies in order to echo the in-
effable, being through nonbeing, knowledge through nonknowledge, action
through nonaction. Such repetition of an identical form may strike one as
a tedious mannerism. In this game the antinomies hide, or extinguish
one another, or change words seem to be their opposite"
places: "Straight
(78). We form of thought, as yet unconscious of itself,

discern a dialectical
the shifting of opposites into one another, the appearance of the one in the
opposite of its other, the paradox of the unity of opposites. This is the
form in which Lao-tzu speaks to us from the depths, summons us to medita-
tion.
This playing with opposites disappoints us if we are looking for definite
knowledge. It has compelling power only if it awakens a resonance in our
own Our finite understanding is supposed to be stood on its head

depths.
as were when it hears that the encompassing ground is nonbeing, from
it
which springs being, nonknowledge, with which we apprehend the truth,

nonaction whereby we act.
3) The Tao and what exists through the Tao can only be thought in
:
LAO-TZU 411
circular reasoning. It cannot be conceived as derived from something else
or in relation to something else. Because it is unrelated to anything else, I
can only express its being in the ground of nonbeing by saying that it is
through itself; that it is known in nonknowledge by saying that it is known

through itself; I can only express its action in nonaction by saying that it
determines itself. This circular reasoning is an expression for the Tao's cir-
cling within itself. Thus: "Tao is a law unto itself" (25). I know it "through
itself" (21); I know it "by itself" (54). If the veils are drawn aside and per-
versions done away with, if the will conforms to the Tao, the source is laid
bare. And what awaits us there is not Nothingness but "itself."
The forms of progression, antinomy, reversal, and circular reasoning are
means of bringing us closer to the source. This source is One. Hence Lao-tzu
does not distinguish between metaphysics, ethics, and politics, as we have
done in expounding his thought. Repeatedly Lao-tzu weaves them together
in a few sentences. Consequently his thinking is always whole, whether he
is speaking of politics, ethics, or metaphysics; that is to say, since in every
case he is concerned with the common ground, he is always speaking of
the same thing. When things are joined in the Tao, nothing is separate.
When they are forsaken by the Tao, one separates from another and falsely
sets itself up as the whole, as an absolute —the consequence is antinomies,

intentionality, morality.
2. Lao-tzu s successors
Lao-tzu speaks from the standpoint of perfection or eternity. He speaks from

the Encompassing to the Encompassing. If the objective content of his state-
ments is taken literally as a knowable guide to action, its meaning is lost.
In view of the form of Lao-tzu's communication it is easy to see how such
misunderstanding could arise. What was meant metaphorically was taken
as reality; what was meant as a guide for movements of thought was mis-
taken for the thought itself; what was meant as a way to the foundation of
ethical life was interpreted as rule for intentional action. Lao-tzu spoke of
the ineffable, an indispensable paradox of which he was well aware. But in-
stead of being taken as a guide to the ineffable his words were misunder-
stood as objective knowledge of reality or as a prescription for ethical action
or as a plan for proper government. Thus the imitation of Lao-tzu crystallized
into certain set figures
The hermit: Lao-tzu transcended the world with his thinking of the Tao,
but he did not forsake the world, not even when he left his home. Drawing
from his source in the Tao, he lived in the world itself. In thinking the Tao,
he did not go the way of ecstasy; he did not seek access to the ground by
modifications of consciousness, by inducing states of absence from the self
and the world. In this sense, Lao-tzu was not a mystic. His thinking is a
search for certainty in a movement that leads us to glimpse being in all

things, confirms this vision, and makes possible its repetition. Lao-tzu saw and
followed the Tao in the world. Hence metaphysics, ethics, and politics are
aspects of his philosophy.
The profound peace of the Tao is present in every one of Lao-tzu's
thoughts. This peace beyond all aims and goals, it is the haven and refuge
is
of all beings, it is source and shelter, end and perfection. But this peace is no
passive peace of indifference, it is not vitalist contemplation of vegetative
existence, but rest amid the unrest of suffering at the hands of a world alien
to the Tao. It is present even in the suffering of loneliness, in the necessity
to live like a fool in a world that has become a stranger to the Tao.
In the following misunderstandings, the meaning of Lao-tzu is diamet-
rically reversed : Freedom from desire, said Lao-tzu, is the condition of vision
of the Tao. From a distortion of this idea it is inferred that a man without
passions or a man who does nothing comes closer to the source. Lao-tzu
suffered, but he did not hide away from the world or deny its existence. In
a distortion of his thinking, the world was absolutely rejected for its corrup-
Hermits and monks took up his maxims in disregard of their meaning.
tion.
From time immemorial China had known its hermits, who broke with family,
community, and state, to live alone in the wilderness. Solitude is praised in
the ancient songs of the Shih Ching: "Solitude by brook and rivulet is
the serene choice of the Saint. He is alone in his sleeping, his waking and
his speaking solitude on the mountain slope
. . . . . . Solitude on the lofty
summit ." There have been monks at all times in China. Chinese monas-
. .
ticism was exclusively Taoist until the advent of Buddhism. The Taoist
monks invoked the name of Lao-tzu.
The "Epicurean": Conversely, the repose of the Tao could also be found
in the world. Then the Tao was interpreted as a refined art of spiritual
enjoyment of life under all conditions. Real life is not taken as a task, as
a set of duties to be performed and state. The indi-
in family, profession,
vidual achieveshappy and peaceful life by adapting himself to all
a
sorts of realities which are not to be taken seriously in themselves. This
achieving of the beautiful life is developed into a high art. One is reminded
of the old story about the three vinegar drinkers. Vinegar is the symbol of
life. Confucius finds it sour, Buddha bitter, Lao-tzu sweet. Down through
the centuries the Confucians have attacked Lao-tzu, whom they identify with
an artificial discipline of living. Chu Hsi (1131-1200) declared that Lao-
tzu, whether speaking of emptiness, purity, nonaction, or self-abasement,
thought only of his own advantage, that he came into conflict with no one
and always went about with a satisfied smile.
The man of letters: Chuang-tzu was the most famous of Lao-tzu's
disciples. Unlike the Tao Te Ching, he is easy to read even in translation,
witty, exciting, imaginative, rich in fluent disquisitions and sharp aphorisms,
skillful in modulating his ideas and in varying his forms. An inventive
LAO-TZU 413
writer, he holds OUT attention by anecdotes, conversations, situations.
But he is a tar cry from Lao-tzu. Lao-tzu moves us by his fundamental

earnestness, bv his freedom from vanity, as much by the truth and depth ot
his suffering as by his serenity. Chuang-tzu startles us with surprise effects;
his prevailing mood is one of irony and skepticism; he treats Lao-tzu's

ideas as material for his literary invention. One feels that he deliberately
set out to produce literature. Thus the meaning of every single word of
Lao-tzu is transformed. What in Lao-tzu was painful paradox, indispensable
detour in the quest for the unattainable, and as such so profoundly appeal-
ing, becomes the literary method and artistic life of the Sage. Thus Lao-tzu
can be reached only by long reflection and is inexhaustible. Chuang-tzu
seems easily understandable, but what ought to have been the substance
of any imitation of Lao-tzu is lost.
The atmosphere in Lao-tzu is peaceful; in Chuang-tzu it is polemical,

full of arrogance, mockery, contempt. Chuang-tzu seems to know nothing
of what Lao-tzu discloses as the strength of weakness, as the gende power
of the lowly, as the force of the water that flows always downward to the
most lowly places; he knows nothing of Lao-tzu's humility. Lao-tzu bears
the immeasurable suffering of the world's estrangement from the Tao.
Chuang-tzu expresses only man's natural grief over transience and death,
his plaint over the vain question Whence, whither, and to what end ?
:
Chuang-tzu's admirable gift of invention, his penetrating ideas about

world and reality, about language, his insight into psychological states,
make him one of the most interesting Chinese authors. But he

his richness,
must not be confused with Lao-tzu, in relation to whom he is not even an
adequate commentator.
The magician: Lao-tzu was invoked by Taoists who (like mystics
throughout the world) strove by breathing techniques to induce states of
profound revelation; he was invoked by those who strove to find or make
the elixir, the potion, of immortality, by magicians who claimed to walk
on any place they wished whenever they wished.
clouds, to be present at
The power politician: The maxims
concerning the Tao and the Superior
Man who is beyond good and evil were divested of their meaning and
twisted into a system for conducting human affairs without recourse to
norms or morality. Insurrectionists perverted the ideal of eternal anarchic
peace in a life according to the Tao into a justification of their efforts to
induce such a state of affairs by violence. A Confucian said critically that
Lao-tzu looked upon men as clay figures, that his heart remained cold,
that even when a man was killed he no pity, and that
felt this was why his
supporters often lent themselves to rebellion and betrayal.
Ch'in Shih Huang-Ti, the greatest of Chinese tyrants, who in the third
century reorganized the Chinese Empire along unprecedented totali-
b.c.
tarian lines based on technical planning, had the Confucian books burned
but preserved the Taoist scriptures along with works on military, agricul-
tural, and other useful subjects. He and

desired individual immortality
sent an expedition to the islands of the eastern sea,where the potion of
immortality was to be found. It is worth remembering that this ruler was
a Taoist. It is the profoundest thinker who can be the most radically per-
verted.
3. Lao-tzu s historical position and limitations
Lao-tzu is anonymous tradition. His achievement

rooted in an immemorial
was world view new depth and to transcend it in
to give the mythological
philosophical thought. The original form of this thinking is associated with
his name. He was followed not only by an elegant literature which made
his thought more accessible, but also by superstition; his maxims were dis-
torted into tangible prescriptions. But down through the ages he has re-
mained an awakener of true philosophy.

Historically, Lao-tzu's greatness is inseparable from the Chinese spirit.
His limits are its limits: his mood is one of serenity amid suffering. He
knows neither the threat of Buddhist rebirths, and hence the urge to depart
from this wheel of torment, nor the Christian Cross, the dread of inexorable
sin, man's dependence on the grace of redemption by the sacrificial death
of the incarnate God. One might be tempted to say that the Western and
Indian conceptions are hideous nightmares measured by the naturalness of
the Chinese and regard the early Chinese as fortunate for having escaped
such phantasms. But this absence of the historical intuitions of Indian and
Western mankind more than an absence of the unnatural and absurd.
is
What charm is which could lament so

exercised by this Chinese spirit,
grievously, but did not rebel against the ground of all things or succumb
to abject obedience to the unfathomable in the shape of revealed authority.
And yet therewas something lacking. It is this deficiency that makes
Chinese thought, for all its charm, seem so alien to us, as though here the
abyss of horror had never opened in all its depth. The Chinese never de-
veloped an art of tragedy, and great as their vision and experience of evil
have been, the tragic has remained inaccessible to them.
How then do we perceive this deficiency, this limit in Lao-tzu? Like all
the great philosophers of mankind, Lao-tzu thinks from out of the En-
compassing and does not allow himself to be fettered to any content of
knowledge. His all-embracing thinking omits nothing. He himself cannot
be identified as a mystic, a moralist, a political thinker. His profound peace
in the Tao is gained in a transcending of all finiteness, but in his thinking
finite things themselves, insofar as they are true and real, are permeated by
the Tao. The limit of such philosophizing is first disclosed by what is or
is not represented as in need of being transcended, by the links which are
indispensable to our temporal consciousness. For these links are the stages
LAO-TZU 415
of transcending, or the modes of the actuality of the real, through which

the ground is first experienced. They are preserved in transcending and
give the transcending, which without them would be empty, its content.
The limits perceptible to us in Lao-tzu are not in the summit of his philos-
ophizing, but in the intermediate stages.
The fundamental intuition in which all these intermediate stages are
situated can perhaps be schematized as follows: For the Chinese mind the
world is moving cosmos. All
natural process, living cycle, the tranquilly
deviations from the Tao of the whole are incidental and temporary; they
are always reabsorbed into the imperishable Tao itself. To us Westerners
the world is not a self-contained whole; it is related to something that can-
not be understood on the basis of the world as natural process. The world and
our mind are engaged in the tension of struggle, with each other and with
the other-worldly; they are a decisive event in the struggle, they have a
unique historical meaning. Lao-tzu does not know the symbol of the angry,
demanding God, theGod who battles and desires battle.
In the world, in time, in finiteness —in the area of the intermediate stages
—we need what is lacking in Lao-tzu: life in question and answer and
new question, the weight of the alternative, of decision and resolution, the
fundamental, paradoxical truth that the eternal is decided in time. In Lao-
tzu there is not so much as a suggestion of this boundless self-reflection, of
this movement which (in contrast to perfect peace in the Tao) never
ceases in time; he lacks this self-clarification, this dialogue with oneself, this
eternal process of dispelling the self-deceptions and mystifications and dis-
tortions which never cease to beset us.

NAGARTUNA
Roughly from the first to the eighth century a.d. a philosophy based on
grew up in India, both among the Hindus (the Nyaya
logical operations
school) and among the sects of Mahayana Buddhism. The most famous
of the Buddhist thinkers were Nagarjuna (roughly second century a.d.),
Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Dharmakirti (seventh century). The lit-
erature has come down to us not in its original form but in later works,
which became the fundamental texts of philosophical Buddhism, especially
in China.
In this world of dialectical logic as the conscious expression of a way of
life, the Shunyavadin, the sect to which Nagarjuna belonged, drew the
most radical conclusions from the assumptions common to all Buddhist
sects. All is empty, they taught. Things have only a momentary, phantom
existence without permanent substance. Consequently true knowledge lies
in Emptiness. Iit by detachment, that is, by a thinking that is
acquire
free from signs and signification, stirred by no inclination or goal. This
doctrine is called the "diamond-splitting Perfection of Wisdom"; it also
calls itself the middle way {mad hy ami\a) between the two theses that
life is and that life is not: emptiness {shunya vada) has neither being nor
nonbeing. Perfect Wisdom lies in perfect freedom from conflict.
We gain an idea of this philosophy from two books, Prajhaparamitd

and Nagarjuna. They have been translatedfrom Chinese and Tibetan; the
Sanskrit originals have been lost. Along with these works we must also
consider a few passages in the Sutra of the Forty-two Chapters. We can
gain little idea of Nagarjuna as an individual. We know him only as a
representative of this extreme possibility of transcending metaphysics by
means of metaphysics.
I. THE OPERATIONS OF THOUGHT

I. A fundamental concept in this thinking is dharma. All existence is dharma.
Dharma is thing, attribute, state; it is content and consciousness of content;
it is subject and object, order, creation, law, and doctrine. The underlying
416
:
N AG ARJU N A 417
conception is "that the content of the world is not an established order or

form, but a process of ordering and form-giving, and that every order
must make way for another order, every form for another form" (Olden-
berg). Although each dharma is independent, the dharmas are listed,
some seventy-five of them, to form a system of categories. Dharma has
as many meanings as our Occidental "Being." The word cannot be trans-
lated, because its meanings are all-embracing.
2. The goal of this thinking is stated to be " nonattachment" to the dharmas.
By not accepting them, not apprehending them, by breaking free from

them, I attain Perfect Wisdom. Consequently the Enlightened One (Bo-
dhisattva) "will stand outside appearance, outside sensation, outside concepts,
outside forms, and outside consciousness" (Pr. 37).
Children and common men cling to the dharmas. Though the dharmas
are not real, theyform images of them. After imagining them, men cling
to name and form. Not so the Enlightened One: in learning, a Bodhisattva
does not learn any dharma. "To him the dharmas are present in a different
way."
Detachment requires a last step. I might suppose that at least the doctrine
exists, that thisone dharma has being, that the Buddha existed, that the
Bodhisattvas who attain Perfection of Wisdom exist. Are they not reality?
No, this too is empty. "I do not see that dharma Bodhisattva, nor a dharma
called Perfect Wisdom" (35-53). Perfection of Wisdom cannot be perceived,
it is not present as an existing thing. For we cannot speak of appearance
in the face of that which is nonperception of appearance, nor speak of
consciousness where there is no awareness of sensation, concept, form.
This is the fundamental and radical idea: to detach myself from all things
and then from detachment; to cling to nothing.
3. The instrument of this thinking is the dialectic as it had been developed

by Indian logic. Such dialectic alone enables me to understand and achieve
complete breaks down every concept, undermining its
detachment. It
application to an object. These operations, in which Nagarjuna was par-

ticularly ingenious, became in their turn a kind of doctrine. Let us carry
out a few of them
a) All designations are meaningless: When I speak, I suppose that the
signs (nimitta) I employ "signify" things. If for example I wish to speak
of becoming and perishing, I must devise different signs. But designation

and differentiation lead us into error. Designation and thing designated
cannot be one, nor can they be different. For if they were one, the word
would burn when we said "fire." If they were different, there could be no
designation without a thing designated, and conversely no thing designated
without a designation; hence they cannot be different. Thus designation and
thing designated are neither the same nor different; thus in my discourse
they are nothing at all. But if the designation is said to be a mirror image,
as a mere image it is again false. Thus what is thought and differentiated
under a false designation cannot truly exist.
Since designation and thing designated can be neither one nor different,
distinctions between things designated —such as coming and going, becom-
ing and perishing —are also untenable. To live by signs is to live in illusion,
farfrom Perfect Wisdom. But every man lives by signs when he lives in the
—
realm of appearance whether he assumes that "appearance is a sign," or
that "appearance is empty," when he lives in the assumption "I live" or
"I am conscious."
With the resources of language there is no escape from speech through
significations (signs). Every sentence ensnares me anew in what I was

trying to escape from.
b) To judge by the evidence, everything is and at the same time is not:
All statements can be proved or refuted by reference to evidence. As an in-
stance: "Perishing" is untenable, for in the world things are seen to be
imperishable, for example: the rice exists today because it has always ex-
isted. Since it is present, there is no "perishing." "Becoming" is also unten-
able: in the world all things are seen to be "unproduced." And in the
same vein: Destruction is not, for the rice plant sprouts from the seed.
Since becoming is perceived, there is no destruction. Or the other way around:
There is no eternity, because eternal things do not occur in the world: at
sprouting time the rice seed is not seen. Thus one thing after another is
demonstrated by evidence: things are not one, they are not different; there
is no coming, there is no going, etc.
This notion is all categories can be found somewhere

based on the fact that
in the world. Instead of asking where certain categories apply and where
they do not apply, the author shows that they are always applicable in
certain respects; then he goes on to endow them with absolute validity,
and once they are taken as absolutely valid, he easily disproves them.
c) How being and nonbeing are refuted: Being is, nothing is not. This
position, as well as the contention that nothing exists, is rejected by
Nagarjuna. He takes the following steps, each time setting up a thesis
and refuting it to make way for a new thesis which is refuted in turn.
i): Things exist independently. No, for to exist independently means
to have come into being without causes and conditions. All things owe
their existence to causes and conditions. Consequently nothing exists inde-
pendently, everything exists through something else.
2) : // there is no independent existence, then at least there is otherness.

No, for ifno independent existence, what would be the source
there is
of otherness? It is an error to call the independent existence of another

thing otherness. If there is no independent being, there is also no otherness.
3) Even without independent being and otherness, there must be things.
:
This is impossible. For what being can there be without being-as-such and
N AG A RJU N A 419
being-different? Consequently: Only where there are being-as-such and

being-different, is being attained.
4) : Then there is nonbeing. Not at all. For without being there can be
no nonbeing. What people call nonbeing is only the otherness of a being.
The core of the idea is the demonstration that both being and nonbeing
are equally impossible.
If there were being-as-such (independent being), its nonbeing would
not be. Never can something that is in itself become other. If there really
exists something that is in itself, otherness is not possible. But if there is
no being-as-such, in relation to what can there be otherness or nonbeing?

It follows that both being and nonbeing are untenable. Thus the follower
of Perfect Wisdom must take neither being nor nonbeing as his foundation,
he must assert neither that the world is eternal nor that it is perishable.
Those who see being-as-such and being-otherwise, being and nonbeing,
have failed to understand the teachings of the Buddha. When the Buddha
refutes being, men infer falsely that he asserts nonbeing. When the Buddha
refutes nonbeing, it is falsely inferred that he asserts being. Actually, he
refuted them both, and both views must be abandoned.
d) : The technique of refutation consists in methodically demonstrating
that every possible statement can and must be refuted: "The Sankhyas
assume that cause and effect are one; thus, to refute them, assert: they are
not one. The Vaisesikas assume that cause and effect are different; thus to
refute them, assert: they are not different."
This method crystallized into a typical formula, which consisted in
considering four possibilities one at a time and in rejecting them all: 1.
Something is. 2. It is not. 3. It both is and is not. 4. It neither is nor is not. Thus
every possibility of a final valid statement is excluded.
The consequence is that everything can be formulated negatively and
positively. The Buddha taught one thing and the opposite as well. Not only
is the opposition between true and false transcended but also the opposite
of this opposition. In the end no definite statement is possible. The four
statements are repeated and rejected in connection with each dharma. For
example: There is an end; there is no end; there is and is not an end; the
end neither is nor is not. Or: After Nirvana the Buddha exists; he does not
exist; he exists and does not exist; he neither exists nor does not exist.
e) : What is refuted: The operation is constantly repeated, but the content
varies —modes of thought, opinions, statements, in short, the categories of
Indian philosophy, are refuted in turn. Just as the nature of a flame depends
on the kind of fuel consumed, so the operation of refutation depends on what
is refuted. Many of these categories are familiar to us, others are not; but
it must not be forgotten that translation obscures the specifically Indian
coloration of such concepts as being and nonbeing, becoming and perishing,
causality, time, matter, self,, etc.
Summary of the Doctrine
a) There are two truths: the veiled worldly truth and the highest truth.
According to the veiled truth, all the dharmas have a cause. According to the
highest truth, they are perceived to be without cause. But the highest truth
cannot be obtained independently of the veiled truth. And Nirvana is not
obtained without the highest truth. Thus the Buddha's doctrine is depend-
ent on two truths, or in other words, the true can be attained only through
the false. But this path can be traveled only with the help of enlightenment,
which comes to me from the highest truth. Thanks to this enlightenment,
I cease, even in my thinking of the inherently empty dharmas, to accept the
illusion of the world; even while I think the dharmas and participate in
them, I cease to cling to them.
b) Thus the one is conceived in terms of two truths. But this conception
leads to two opposed views: all things do and do not possess independent
being. If things exist independently and as such, they are without cause
and condition. Then there is no cause and no effect, no action and no
agent, no becoming and no perishing. If things are held to be nonexistent,
all becomes phantasm. Nagarjuna rejects both these views in favor of
"Emptiness." Things do not exist eternally in themselves, but at the same

time they are not nothing. They are midway between being and nonbeing,
but they are empty. There is no dharma that has come into being independ-
ently, hence all dharmas are empty.
Nagarjuna calls this the doctrine of "conditioned becoming." For him
it is an expression of the deepest truth. But in formulating it, he is compelled
to employ terms that are inadequate from the standpoint of his own method,
as when he sums up the doctrine: "Without becoming, also without perish-
ing, not eternal, also not cut-off, not one, also not differentiated, without
coming, also without going — who can thus teach conditioned becoming,
the quiet extinction of development: before him I bow my head."
This view of the emptiness of things becoming" saves
in "conditioned
For if there
the reality of the conquest of suffering, the reality of the way.
were independent being, there would be no coming-into-being and no pass-
ing-away. What exists through itself, cannot come into being and will endure
forever. Thus if there is independent being, nothing further can be attained,
nothing more can be done, because everything already exists. If there were
independent being, living creatures would be free of diversity. There would
be no suffering. But if things are empty, there is becoming and perishing,
action and accomplishment. To contest the emptiness of things is to contest

their actuality in the world. Suffering is a reality precisely because it does
not exist in itself and is not eternal.
c) This has an amazing consequence, which is clearly formulated: If
NAGARJUNA 421
nothing authentically is, must we not infer the nonexistence of the Buddha,
of the doctrine, of knowledge, of ritual practice, of the congregation, of
monks, of the Sages who have attained the goal? The answer is that they
do exist in emptiness, which is neither being nor nonbeing. Because there
is emptiness, the Buddha exists. If things were not empty, if there were no
becoming, no perishing, and no suffering, there would be no Buddha; nor
would there be his doctrine of suffering, the negation of suffering, and the
way to the negation of suffering. If suffering existed independently, it
could not be destroyed. If the way existed in itself, it would not be possible
to travel it, for eternal being precludes motion and development. If we
postulate independent being, there is nothing more to be achieved. Hence
the Buddha, his teaching, and what is achieved by his teaching are all in
emptiness. Only when a man sees all the dharmas as conditioned becoming
in emptiness, can he see the doctrine of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths,
and transcend suffering.
Those who take the Buddha's doctrine of unsubstantiality as an argument
against that same doctrine, have not understood it. Their argument ceases
to apply if all thought, representation, and being are seen in emptiness.
Those who accept emptiness accept everything, the worldly and the
transcendent. To those who do not accept emptiness, nothing is acceptable.
Those who differentiate the four views of the logical schema move in
veiled truth. They are beset by many kinds of representations. They still
cling to the alternative: "If this is true, the other is false." But for those in
whom the eye of Perfect Wisdom has opened, the four views disappear.
The spiritual eye of those who suppose that they see the Buddha through
developments such as: being —nonbeing, eternal —not eternal, body — spirit,
etc., has been injured by these developments. They no more see the Buddha
than a man born blind sees the sun. But those who see conditioned becoming,
see suffering, its coming-into-being and the manner of its annihilation, that
is, they see the way, just as a man endowed with eyes is enabled by the
shining of a light to see the appearances of things.
II. THE MEANING OF THE DOCTRINE

/. Teachability: Insofar as this method of refuting every assertion of being
or nonbeing is represented as universally valid, we have before us a doctrine.
As such it has been called negativism or nihilism. But this is not correct.
For what this doctrine seeks is an authentic truth which cannot itself become
a doctrine. Hence, all its operations end in paradoxical statements that can-
cel each other out and so point to something else: "The Buddha says: My
doctrine is to think the thought that is unthinkable, to practise the deed that
is not-doing, to speak the speech that is inexpressible, and to be trained in
the discipline that is beyond discipline" (The Sutra of the Forty-two Chap-
ters, 1 8).
Actually, the doctrine was set forth as a doctrine, both orally and in
writing, and was also reflected in exercises and in ethical practice. "A Bo-
dhisattva must above all hear this Perfection of Wisdom, take it up, bear it
in mind, recite, study, spread, demonstrate, explain and write it" (Pr. 36-38)
But this is only the first stage. Hearing the doctrine, the monk who is not
yet at the goal "follows his trust" (Pr. 38). He is not yet in the truth. The
truth is not arrived at by any knowable, logically determined content, but
"awakens suddenly to unexcelled perfect enlightenment" (Pr. 41).
This process of hearing and learning until the truth itself is kindled is a
process of thought upon the whole man. The operations as
which seizes
such leave nothing in place, they confuse the mind and make it dizzy. Accord-
ingly: "If, hearing these thoughts, he is not alarmed and does not take
fright . . . , if in the presence of such a doctrine he does not sink down in
terror, if mind is not broken
the backbone of his then this man should . . .
be instructed in the Perfection of Wisdom" (Pr. 35, 77).

Reading the texts, we see that the doctrine consists in practice, in constant
repetition, and that this repetition with variations creates a mood of its
own which is in keeping with the content of the doctrine. The logical element
itself is seldom clearly and systematically developed. The dialectic takes the
form of mere lists. This is perhaps appropriate to the mode of thought. For
this negative logic prepares the way, not for a positive insight developed
in logical terms, but for a silence filled from another source. Here all reason-
ing annuls itself.
This is illustrated by a number of anecdotes (related after Hackmann).

Bodhidharma asked his disciples why they did not express their experience.
All the answers are correct, but each in succession comes closer to the
authentic truth. The first disciple says that the experience is unrelated to
spoken words, though associated with them in instruction. The second:
The experience is like a paradise, but vanishes immediately and therefore
cannot be expressed. The third: Since all existing things have only an
illusory existence, the content of his experience, once framed in words, would
be mere illusion and emptiness. The fourth, instead of answering, steps
before the master in an attitude of veneration, and keeps silence. The last
has given the truest answer and becomes the patriarch's successor. —Or:
Bodhidharma speaks with the Emperor Liang Wu Ti. The Emperor says:
I have never ceased to build temples, to commission the writing of sacred
books, to give new monks permission to enter monasteries. What is my
merit?—None at all. All this is only the shadow that follows the object and
is without true being. —The
Emperor: What then is true merit? To be —
surrounded by emptiness and stillness, immersed in thought. Such merit
cannot be gained by worldly means. The Emperor: What is the most —
N AG A RJU X .1 423
important of the holy doctrines?—In a world that is utterly empty, nothing

can he called holy.— The Emperor: Who is it who confronts me thus?— I do
not know.
But now the question arises: Not rinding, not perceiving, not seeing a
Perfection of Wisdom, what Perfection of Wisdom should I teach? Answer:
Practice in such a way that in exercising you do not pride yourself on the
idea of illumination. This thought is pure, for it is in fact nonthought. But
because this thought of Perfect Wisdom is nonthought, is it therefore non-
existent? The answer: In a nonthought there is neither being nor nonbeing;
hence it is impossible to ask whether the thought that is nonthought exists
pv.35).
2. The purpose of the operations: This thinking demands that we should

never hold fast to a position from all assertions, that we
but free ourselves
should not rely on any dharma, neither on sound nor tangible things
nor thoughts nor representations, that we should shatter all explanations,
for "what is explained is precisely not explained" (Pr. 149). Consequently,
we should admit no alternative thinking, no decision between opposites,
but let all differentiations cancel themselves out. There is no limit, no
ultimate point of rest, but only, through the failure of thought, a transcending
of thought into a more-than-thought, into the Perfection of Wisdom. The
emptiness that is arrived at by compelling thought will awaken the infinite
meaning of the unthinkable.
Thus thinking becomes a perpetual overturning of thoughts. Every state-
ment as such is absurd. All statement is self-negating. But this self-negation
can kindle the truth. The authentic truth can become manifest only by
negating itself in statement. Thus the way leads through a truth which when
thought is no truth, to the truth which is manifested in ceasing to be
thought. This authentic truth is a thinking that lives by the combustion of
provisional truth.
But what nonthought attained by thought, this liberation from all
is this
liberations? The answer: Apprehending
that which cannot be apprehended,
it is itself not apprehended, for it can no longer be apprehended by signs
(Pr. 3S). When he has arrived at that point, the Bodhisattva "stands fast in
the sense of not-standing" (Pr. 48) ; "he will not stand somewhere; in Perfect
Wisdom he will stand in the mode of not-standing."
The teacher of this doctrine contradicts himself whenever he speaks, and
such self-contradiction becomes a deliberate method. Questioned from the
standpoint of any dharma whatsoever, he can always find a way out. Because
he is independent of all the dharmas he does not, in speaking, come into
contradiction with the essence of his doctrine, although he does contradict
all statements, even his own. Consequently, every false statement is justi-
fied, because statement as such is always false.

This thinking may be interpreted as follows: Through thinking man

has become fettered to the thought content, the d harm as; this is the reason
for our fall into the suffering of existence. Through the same thinking, but
in the opposite direction, the thought content is dissolved. Fettered by
thought, we employ the weapons of thought to destroy its fetters and so
penetrate to the freedom of nonthought.
Nagarjuna strives to think the unthinkable and to say the ineffable.
He knows this and tries to unsay what he has said. Consequently he moves
in self-negating operations of thought. The obvious logical flaws in the texts
are only in part mistakes that can be corrected; for the rest, they are logically
necessary, resulting from an attempt to do the impossible —namely, to
express absolute truth.
In Nagarj una's thinking we may find a formal analogy on the one hand
to the dialectics of the second part of Plato's Parmenides, and on the other
hand to modern symbolic logic (Wittgenstein). Symbolic logic might be
employed as a means of systematically correcting the mistakes which, in the
Indian texts as in the far more highly developed thinking of Plato's Par-
menides, are so disturbing to modern Occidentals. Only occasionally does
the logical operation effected in the Indian texts break through the mists
in full clarity. But on the other hand, these Indian philosophers, as well as
Plato, raise the question : What is the meaning of these purely logical endeav-
ors ? Only in Wittgenstein do I find an inkling of what it might mean to carry
thought, by pure thought free from error, to the limit where it shatters.
Amid the clarity which is possible today, but which as mere clarity remains
an empty pastime, the depth that is discernible in the Indian texts for all
their cloudiness might well become a spur to self-reflection.
5. The uses of logic: To the analytic mind which thinks in terms of alter-
natives, such concepts as motion, time, the One are unthinkable. In the
Western world the search for logical operations with which these problems,
always under specific assumptions, can in some measure be mastered, has
opened up magnificent fields of finite knowledge, in which even the in-
finite, in certain forms or under certain aspects, has become an instrument
of finite thinking.
In India the barest beginnings were made toward the consideration of
these problems. These beginnings served an entirely different purpose from
the solution of specific problems (a purpose which might, in view of the
subtle logical insights of recent centuries, be revived in a sense which today
cannot be foreseen).
Operations which shatter all definite statements, so that everything dis-
solves into otherness, opposition, contradiction, so that all determinations
vanish and no position stands fast, must ultimately lead either to nothing-
ness or to an intimation of authentic being, even if it can no longer be
NAGARJUNA 425
called being. Or to put it in another way: The end is either a playful concern
with "problems" or a state of mind which in such methods finds a means
of understanding and actualizing the self, an attitude of perfect superiority
to the world] of perfect detachment from all things and from one's own
existence, and hence of perfect superiority to oneself.
In Asia the visible embodiment of this way of thinking may be a monastic
life of meditation enhanced by practice, or form of rites
it may take the
and magic and gestures. But the dialectic of the philosophers served
cults,
neither the one nor the other. Within these embodiments, its aim was
negative: the rejection of all metaphysics as a knowledge of another, objective
being distinct from myself (as in the Hindu system); and positive: the
acquisition of Perfect Wisdom which may be termed nonthought, because
through thought it has become more-than-thought.
4. Against metaphysics: Nagarjuna rejects all metaphysical thinking. He

rejects the creation of the world, whether by a God (Isvara) or by purusha,
whether by time or by itself. He opposes attachment to all fixed concepts —of
attributes, being as such, atoms, etc.; he opposes the view that everything
will be destroyed and the view that everything is eternal; he rejects the
notion of the self.
The metaphysics he has rejected is replaced by this logical thinking.

Buddha's fundamental attitude, the rejection of ontological questions in
favor of salvation and the truth necessary for this salvation, is carried to
its logical conclusion. The earlier ontological speculation becomes a clarifi-
cation through movements which cancel each other out.

of thought
Over a period of centuries Indian philosophy had elaborated a rich logic.
But this logic had been intended for public discussion and worldly science.
Even in later centuries certain Tibetan sects looked upon logic as a worldly
discipline (Stcherbatsky). But here logic became a means of union with
authentic being, not through ontological knowledge but through a process
which consists in the self -combustion of thought itself.
This thinking can only destroy metaphysical ideas, it cannot produce
them. It finds no home, either in the world or in a cogitated realm of
transcendence. Metaphysical speculation is extinct, mythical thinking has
become meaningless. But as long as the world endures, metaphysics and
myth remain; they are the fuel which must forever be consumed anew.
Stcherbatsky contrasts the Buddhist antimetaphysical philosophy with the
metaphysical philosophy of the Vedanta. Both deny the reality of the world.
But though the Buddhist denies the reality of the world of appearance,
he remains within it, because beyond it begins a realm that is inaccessible
to our insight. The Vedantist on the other hand denies the reality of the
world of appearance only in order to establish the true being of Brahman.
The Buddhist says: Knowledge is undivided; only to our deluded eye
does it present itself in the cleavage of subject and object. The Vedantist
says, however: The whole world is a simple substance that never ceases;
the division of consciousness into subject and object is mere illusion.
5. The state of Perfect Wisdom: It is called freedom from conflict. The

thinking which, forever in conflict, negates every statement, is directed
toward the place where all conflict ceases, where "dwells" the unconflicting
(Pr. 36, 54). The seeker after wisdom is bidden to "dwell in the unconflict-
ing." What kind of state is this ?
It is described: when the work

done and the task carried out, the
is
burden is cast off; that Thoughts are made free, mastery over
is the goal.
all thought is gained in the detached knowledge which masters itself. The
fetters of existence have vanished, impurities fall away, freedom from torment
is achieved (Pr. 34)

Through passion and the deception of signs, all the dharmas bring about
suffering. Once the emptiness of suffering is perceived, it is overcome. Now
man has achieved a state free both from illusion and from torment. In this
perfect peace the emptiness of the dharmas does not cease to exist, but I am
no longer touched by them, they have lost their terrors, their poison, their
power. In emptiness I gain awareness of that to which signs such as birth and
death no longer apply, of something motionless, for which all coming and
going have lost their meaning.
This attitude is not what is ordinarily known as skepticism. For the opera-
tions of thought which lead beyond the antinomy of true and false, that is,
beyond thought, also carry it beyond dogmatism and skepticism. To call
it negativism is to fail to see that here the no as well as the yes has vanished.
To call it nihilism is to forget that the alternative between being and nothing-
ness has been dismissed.
How in Perfect Wisdom "being" is experienced as the emptiness of the
world is illustrated in images. To the Bodhisattva all things are like an
echo, he does not think them, he does not see them, he does not know them
(Pr. 75). He lives in the world as in the "emptiness of a city of ghosts"
(Nag. 27). The "illusory nature" of things, the fact that they at once are and
are not (and are adequately conceived in none of the four views), is com-
pared with the materializations (regarded as real in India) of a magician
(Pr. 46): a magician at a crossroads conjures up a large crowd of people
and makes them disappear again; so is the world. No one has been killed or
destroyed by the magician; so without destroying them, the Bodhisattva
makes multitudes of beings disappear.
The Bodhisattva knows, sees, and believes all things by virtue of a concept
which is contained neither in the concept of a thing (dharmd) nor of a
non-thing (adharma). The right attitude would be achieved by one who
could fully explain lines like the following: "The stars, darkness, a light,
an illusion, dew, a bubble, a dream, a streak of lightning, a cloud" (Pr. 157).
N A G ARJU N A 427
In keeping with this attitude worldly values are disparaged. The Buddha
is quoted as saying: "In my eyes the dignity of a king or prince is no more
than a grain of dust in the sun; in my eyes a treasure of gold and jewels is
no more than clay and shards ... in my eyes the thousand systems of the
cosmos are no more than the fruit of the myrobalan ... in my eyes the
ritual objects (of Buddhism)
no more than a heap of worthless treasures
are
... in my Buddhas is no more than the sight of a
eyes the path of the
flower ... in my eyes Nirvana is no more than a waking from sleep by
day or night ... in my eyes the error and truth (of the various schools)
is no more than the game of the six dragons" (Hackmann).
Are we entitled to say that the possessor of such wisdom sees nothing
but a vast unutterable nothingness? That he is submerged in the shoreless
ocean of the undifferentiated? We must hesitate. The thinker whose aim
is redemption from the fetters of the dharmas is beyond our understanding
and our judgment. "His way, like that of the birds in the air, is hard to
follow" {Dharnmapada 92). But it is certain that in perversions of the
original thought futility and meaninglessness soon make their appearance.
6. The perversions: The attitude of superiority to world and self in the

emptiness of Perfect Wisdom becomes ambiguous:
Sovereign "emptiness" is open to every fulfillment, hence never fulfilled
in life and never at an end. One who takes this attitude looks upon life
from a distance, countenances fulfillment but neversuccumbs to it, accepts

it but is never moved. Present, he is always beyond; in satisfaction he ex-
periences boundless dissatisfaction, which receives only the reflected radiance

of the realm against which all finite strivings shatter. Thus in the temporal
world such an attitude, although sustained by quietness in the source, is
open, that is, mobile, active, concerned, but all actions are considered by a
standard which destroys their reality. But this emptiness can be perverted.
This occurs when all existence vanishes in the quiet of nothingness. Then
my own existence shrivels in time, because all fulfillment is rejected in
favor of an abstract fulfillment of being-notbeing, of emptiness, of quiet
as such. When the fuel of veiled truth is no longer present, the combustion
process leading to the unfathomable depths of Nirvana can no longer take
place. Along with the fuel, with the reality of existence, the language of
understanding vanishes; the consequence is a fall into the incommunicable.
This is seen in Western terms. The philosophical
possibility of perversion
texts ofNagarjuna describe the perversion of Perfect Wisdom in a manner
consonant with his own thinking. Since everything that is said from the
standpoint of Perfect Wisdom is open to misunderstanding, it is immediately
misused. Consequently, the liberation of men in the course of generations
is not an advance; rather, misunderstanding leads to ruin.
On the whole the prognosis is unfavorable. "After Buddha's Nirvana,

after five hundred years in a dharma that is mere imitation, after the minds
of men have gradually grown

dull, they no longer recognize Buddha's
meaning and cling only to words and written characters" (Nag. II, 2) How .
does this come about? They hear and speak of absolute emptiness but do
not understand its source. They express such skeptical thoughts as: If all
is empty, how can we distinguish the consequences of good and evil? They
can ask such questions only from a worldly point of view, because for the
worldly there is no difference between worldly truth and absolute truth.
In other words, what was intended speculatively they understand as purposive
knowledge. In objectivizing thought, they lose the meaning of the doctrine
of emptiness, because, in their attachment to mere logical propositions,
they draw conclusions that have nothing to do with emptiness. They fail
to understand that to include the Buddha, the doctrine, the congregation
in emptiness, is not to deny them but to consider them as dharma and as such
to bring them into a state of suspension. Such a state of suspension is
possible Only if we refrain from absolutizing any representation, idea, or
proposition. This is to travel the true path, in dharma, toward the dis-
appearance of suffering in Perfect Wisdom. Thus to look upon all things

as without absolute being is the profoundest elucidation of world and self.
But they lose this light by their attachment to the word of the doctrine.
Ceasing to take the doctrine as a sign, an indicator, and looking upon it as
an object of knowledge, they lose the thought.
Concern with the profound doctrine is salutary, but also dangerous. When
it is not properly understood, it kills. For if emptiness is seen imperfectly,
it leads those of little understanding not only into error but into destruction,
just as poisonous snakes, if improperly handled, and magic and conjuring
if improperly executed, lead to destruction (Nag. I, 151).
What emptiness ultimately came to mean in popular Buddhism is shown
by a Chinese book of wisdom written in the twelfth century: He who has
understood the emptiness of corporeal things ceases to set any store by
opinions; he will refrain from all activity and sit still without a thought
(Hackmann).
7. The Encompassing: This strange thinking

original consciousness of the
does not have an object, knowledge of which is gained through reasons and
facts. Its presupposition is not a thesis but the Encompassing, which is
manifested through figures of thought and metaphors. All ideas are immersed
in an atmosphere without which they would wither away. They throw
light on the presupposed attitude of the thinker, which without this thinking
he would be unable to maintain.
The fundamental view is seemingly gained by logical thought. The in-
tention is to destroy logic with logic and so demonstrate that thinking is
itself illusion; to prove that nothing can be proved, that nothing can be
asserted, and that nothingness can also not be asserted.
With all this, logical necessities are discovered, which have validity as
NAGARJUNA 429
such. But they are no more than a rational game, concerning which it
must be asked: Why play it?
In the Asian form of this thinking, we see a surface picture which mis-
leads us as to the origin: in discussion, whatever another may assert is
denied. There is a triumphant consciousness of destruction, against which

nothing can stand up. By the same endlessly repeated tricks, everything that
is said is shown to be untenable. Behind these playful abuses lies the true
meaning, namely, that all statements concerning being and nonbeing must
be transcended in the unconflicting. The self-destruction of all thought
must free us for something else. This something else can be fulfilled by
experience in the higher meditative techniques of Yoga. But it is also
accessible to normal consciousness. Where emptiness is actualized, things
are suspended between being and nonbeing; then they point to something
which is inexpressible but experienced with full certainty.
This Encompassing cannot be described as an empirical psychological
state, but it can be adumbrated. Schayer attempts to give an idea of it by
indicating the senses in which certain words were originally employed.
"Shunyata" (emptiness) is employed as a stage of meditation (in the Pali
Canon) "And now let him catch sight of an empty village, and let every
:
house he enters be forsaken, deserted, and empty; and let every dish he
touches be empty and without content." Here man's sensibility is likened
to an empty village; this emptiness does not signify a denial of being, but
indifference, insipidity, imperviousness. "Animitta" ("without definite
suchness," "signlessness") means in the Pali Canon: nonattachment to
the attributes of perceived things; it does not mean a denial of their
existence, but a mode of practical behavior, in which the monk, like a
vigilant gatekeeper, bars access to the sensory stimuli streaming in on him
from without. "Maya" (magic) means comparison of the world to a
phantasm, as an expression of the arbitrariness and futility of being, not as
a denial of its reality. Here it should not be forgotten that the Indians looked
upon images, echoes, and dreams as realities. Existence is not denied; what
is denied is its authenticity.
8. Survey of the Buddhist sects and the ultimate meaning of all doctrines:
The Shunyavadins are one sect among many. What is common to all is
the Buddhist striving for redemption, the knowledge of suffering and of
the insignificance of the world's reality. On this common ground, reflection
on the possibility of knowing reality had resulted in numerous opinions:
The outside world is real and can be known directly through perception
(the Sarvastivadins) ; it is not perceived by the senses but its existence can
be inferred through perceptions (the Sautrantikas) ; only consciousness
is certain and the source of this certainty is consciousness itself; only the
inner world is real, and object has no real
the difference between subject
existence (the Yogacaras); neither outside nor inner world can be recog-
43° The Original Thinners
nized as real, independent being; there is no difference between subjective

and objective reality (the Shunyavadins, to which Nagarjuna belonged).
In this schema of "epistemological" standpoints we can recognize the
Western schema of idealism and realism, rationalism and empiricism, pos-
itivism and nihilism, especially in reference to the question of the reality
of the outside world. But such comparisons apply only to the rational by-
products of the philosophical operations effected by the Indian thinkers.
Obviously, the essential cannot be appropriately expressed in terms of a
formulable doctrine. This would be possible if the instrument of salvation
were a definite knowledge. But since all knowledge in the sense of positively
formulable contents signifies "attachment," the way of salvation is to be
sought rather in the shattering of all knowledge, all possibility of knowledge,
and all opinions.
The emptiness of all worldly reality becomes the positive being of the
source, whence man fell into the coming-and-going, the evil and suffering of
the world, and to which he must return. All thinking and all being-thought
pertain to the fall. The aim of true thinking is a return from the unfolding
of thought to nonthinking. What happened through the unfolding of thought
can be undone by better thought in the dissolution of thought. The final
step is to perceive the untruth of all signs and hence of language. Once it is
understood that a word is a mere sign without real meaning, the word dis-
appears, and that is deliverance. Consciousness, which created suffering by
shaping emptiness into the many worlds, is carried back to its source.
But in the world there still remain doctrine, language, the teaching of
the way of salvation, the disintegration of thought by the same thought
that brought about the fall by thought. Consequently, despite all the insight
a philosopher could gain into his own thinking by the self-annulment of
thinking, he could not help taking a position —unless the need for silence
were taken seriously and all discourse, all listening, all communication
ceased. And so Nagarjuna's position, his doctrine of "conditioned becoming,"
became a fixed formula for emptiness.
The sense of this doctrine of "conditioned becoming" is that since every-
thing at once is and is not, everything is conditional. Because he knows
this, the Bodhisattva becomes master of all thoughts, enslaved to none.
Moving among finite thoughts, he hovers over them, and in this state
of suspension he includes himself and his own existence. I myself and my
thinking are the condition of all things and of the phantasm which is the
existence of this world. This world of the dharmas and the self as well
are conditioned. The process of conditioned becoming produces a world
in which we think ourselves at home and at the same time suffer without
hope of surcease. But we see through this whole world of conditioned
becoming, including the formulated doctrine, and that is salvation. The
illusion recedes and that of which it is impossible to speak lies open before
us. The doctrine is the ferryboat that will carry us across the river of exist-
AT A G A RJUNA 431
ence. Once we have reached the other shore, the boat is superfluous. Since
the doctrine belongs to the illusory stream of worldly existence, to take
it along with us on the other side would be as foolish as to carry the boat on
our shoulders as we leave the shore to enter the new country. The Sage
abandons it to the stream which lies behind him. The doctrine is useful in
helping us to escape, but there is nothing to be gained by holding it fast.
Historical Comparisons
When we compare different forms of thought, analogies merely accentuate

the differences in historical content.
a. Dialectic: Dialectic is themovement of thought through opposition and

contradiction, but this can mean very different things: it may lead by way
of contradictions to limits, at which it discloses the abyss but also an open
horizon; the situation at the limit becomes a goal and a demand. — It may
lead to closed circles, in which contradictions are transcended in a synthesis;
all the stages of the thought process are integrated into a living totality. — It
may be conceived and carried out as a reality, in which negation as such

yields a positive result by the negation of the negation; the new is expected to
be born automatically from negative thought and action.
None of these possibilities is essential in the dialectic of the Buddhists.
Here becomes a means of rising above thought to the unthinkable,
dialectic
which, measured by thinking, is neither being nor nothingness, but both in
equal degree, though even in such statements it remains beyond our grasp.
Sometimes Nietzsche seems to approach this method. He, too, prevents
us from coming to rest in any position. He flings us into a whirl of oppo-
sitions, and at some time negates every statement he makes by its opposite.
In this way he has created in the modern world a spiritual situation which he
himself brought about in the belief that the best way to overcome nihilism
was to carry it to its ultimate consequences. But Nietzsche, who without
systematically elaborating this dialectic set out to employ it as an instrument
for the complete liberation of mankind, conceived of this liberation as a step
not into an unthinkable otherness, but rather into a worldly reality, the full
and unconditional possession of which he thought he was making possible.

When Nietzsche said: Nothing is true, everything is permissible, he aspired
to open men's minds, not to a transcendence which he denied, but to the
earth and the ascent of man in his own earthly world, through himself and
—
beyond himself beyond good and evil.
Like the Buddhists, Nietzsche tried to break down all the categories.
There is, he said, no unity, no causality, no substance, no subject, etc. All
these are useful fictions, perhaps indispensable to life. Of all things, says
Nagarjuna, none exists in itself, no thought or object of thought is true, all
are conditioned. Both agree that there is no being; everything is mere

interpretation. But in this form of thought that is common to them, in their
negative operations, they pursue very different aims. To determine the
true nature of these aims is for us a never-ending task. In Nagarjuna and the
Buddhists the stated aim is Nirvana and the will to salvation; in Nietzsche
it is the will to power and the will to engender a superman.
b. The structure of being, the categories: The Buddhists have their so-
called formula of causality (the circle of the fundamental categories of
being). The Yogacaras speak in particular of the primordial consciousness,
the germinal consciousness, whose unfolding brings with it the illusion of
the world. The development of this idea shows the nature and form of a
world that does not truly exist, the structure of all appearances. This Indian
conception has been likened to Western idealism. And indeed, Kant con-
ceives the whole world as appearance, its forms defined by the categories of
consciousness as such. All knowable objects are produced, not as to their
being but as to their forms, by the subject. So-called transcendental idealism
created a systematic schema of this reality that unfolds in thought.
But the analogy at once discloses a difference. The Indians devised this
structure in order to divest scientific knowledge it is dream
of its truth, for
and illusion. Kant conceived and developed his similar structure in order
to justify scientific knowledge within the limits of possible experience. For
him the world is appearance, but not illusion. The idealists who followed
Kant did not conceive these categorial structures as limited to appearance,
but as the eternal truth itself, as God's thoughts. Neither view bears any
kinship to Buddhist thinking. For the German idealists justify knowledge
of the world and activity in the world, while the Buddhists on the contrary
stand for abandonment of the world, for renunciation of scientific knowl-
edge, which they look upon as unrewarding because fundamentally false;
they reject action in shaping the world, which is not only futile but holds
us in a state of captivity.
c. Emptiness and openness: Emptiness permits of the greatest openness,

the greatest willingness to accept the things of the world as a starting point
from which to make the great leap. Indifference toward all worldly things
also leaves every possibility open. Hence the tolerance of Buddhism toward
other religions, modes of life, views of the world. The Buddhist lives with
all these as expressions of a lower, worldly truth, each equally satisfactory as
a point of departure toward higher things. This unrestricted openness
attractsmen. Buddhism won Asia; though repressed here and there, it
never resorted to violence, never forced dogmas on anyone. Buddhism had
no religious wars, no inquisition, and never engaged in the secular politics
of an organized church.
Western reason presents an analogy to this Buddhist mode of thought,
NA G ARJUNA 433
which is as infinitely open as emptiness. Both listen, both respect the opinions
of others. But the difference is this: the Buddhist Sage goes through the
world duck; he no longer gets wet. He has transcended the world
like a
by dropping He seeks fulfillment in an unthinkable unworld. For West-
it.
ern man, however, reason finds its fulfillment, not in any absolute, but in
the historicity of the world itself,which he gathers into his own Existenz.
Only in historical realization, becoming identical with it, does he find
his ground; he knows that this is the source of his freedom and of his
relation to transcendence.
d. Detachment: Detachment from the world and myself, the inner libera-
tion that I achieve by dissociating myself from everything that happens to
me in the world and everything I myself do, think, and am, is a form which
was embodied in very different ways.
The Bhagavad Gita praises the warrior who remains indifferent and
aloof despite his impetuous heroism, who plays the game conscientiously
and acts energetically, while regarding all activity as vain. In Epicurus —
the fundamental attitude is: I have passions, but they do not have me. In —
St. Paul, I act and live in the world as though I were not there. Nietzsche —
regards detachment from oneself as the hallmark of the aristocratic soul.
Despite this analogy in the form of detachment, the fundamental attitude
of the Buddhists and of Nagarjuna is an entirely different one: the accent
is on the impersonal; as the world becomes a matter of indifference, the
self is extinguished. The detachment has its source not in a "myself," but in
a transcendent reality which is not a self.

In all Western forms of detachment from the world, the essential is sought
in something that is present in the world in the empty freedom of a punctual
:
self, or in a self which in historical immersion, in self-identification, takes
upon itself the burden of being-given-to-oneself but nevertheless illumines

itself infinitely and achieves self-detachment in reflection.
Considered from the standpoint of Asian thought, these forms of de-

tachment will always be imperfect, for they all preserve a bond with the
world. From the Western standpoint, however, the Asian form will always
seem to be an escape from the world into the inaccessible and incommuni-
cable.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EDITOR S NOTE!
The Bibliography is based on that given in the German original. English trans-
lations are givenwherever possible. Selected English and American worlds have
been added; these are marked by an asterisk?.
The Pre-Socratics:
Anaximander —Heraditus—Parmenides
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Kroner, 1935.
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435
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2d ed.,
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*Basic Writings, trans, by Sidney Norton Deane. 2d ed. La Salle, 111., Open Court
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Barth, Karl: Fides quarens intellectum: Anselms Beweis der Existenz Gottes im
Zusammenhang seines theologischen Programms. Munich, Kaiser Verlag, 1931.
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ments im Proslogion des hi. Anselm. Miinster, 1909.
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•Roth, Leon: Spinoza, Descartes and Maimonides. Oxford, 1924; New York, Russell
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• Spinoza. London, Allen & Unwin,
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Serouya, Henri: Spinoza, sa vie, sa philosophic New ed., rev. & augm. Paris, A.
Michel, 1947.
Strauss, Leo: Die Religions\riti\ Spinozas als Grundlage seiner Bibelwissenschajt.
Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1930.
Verniere, Paul: Spinoza et la pensee francaise avant la Revolution. Paris, Presses Uni-
versitaires de France, 1954.
*Wolf, Abraham: Spinoza, Benedictus de: Short Treatise on God, Man and His Weil-
Being, trans, and ed. with introduction, commentary and a life of Spinoza by
Abraham Wolf. London, A. & C. Black, 1910.
*Wolfson, Harry Austryn: The Philosophy of Spinoza. 2 vols. Cambridge, Harvard
University Press, 1934; 2 vols, in 1, New York, Meridian Books, i960.
* :Spinoza: A Life of Reason. New York, Modern Classics, 1932.
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Ascensianis.) Frankfurt am Main, Minerva, 1962.
Nicolai de Cusa Opera Omnia, ed. by Ernst Hoffmann and Raymond Klibansky. 14
vols. Leipzig, F. Meiner, 1932-64.
Texte seiner philosophischen Schriften, ed. by Alfred Petzelt. Vol. I. Stuttgart, Kohl-
hammer, 1949.
*The Vision of God, trans, by Emma Gurney Salter. New York, F. Ungar Publishing
Co., i960 (first published, 1928).
*0f Learned Ignorance, trans, by Germain Heron. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1954.
*Unity and Reform: Selected Writings, ed. by John Patrick Dolan. Notre Dame, In-
diana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1962.
*Oeuvres Choisies de Nicolas de Cues, French trans, by Maurice de Gandillac. Aubier,
Editions Montaigne, 1942.
Schriften des Nikplaus von Cues in deutscher Uebersetzung, ed. by Ernst Hoffmann.
Leipzig, F. Meiner, 1936.
Predigten 1430-1441, German trans, by J. Sikora & E. Bohnenstadt. (Vol. 2 of
Schriften. .) Heidelberg, 1952.
. .
Ueber den Ursprung, German trans, by Maria Feigl. (Vol. 1 of Schriften. . . .)
Heidelberg, 1949.
Die Kalenderverbesserung, German trans, by Viktor Stegemann. (Vol. 3 of Schrif-
ten. . Heidelberg, 1955.
. .)
Scharpff, Franz Anton, tr.: Wichtigste Schriften. Freiburg, 1862.

Billinger, Martin: Das Philosophische in den Excitationen des Nicolaus von Cues.
Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1938.
Bredow, Gerda von: Cusanus-Texte, IV. Brief wechsel des Ni\olaus von Kues. 3d
Sammlung. Das Vermachtnis des Nikplaus von Kues. Der Brief an Ni\olaus
Albergati nebst der Predigt in Mont Oliveto (1463). (Sitzungsberichte der Hei-
delberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Jahr-
gang 1955.) Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1955.
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C. Winter, 1935.
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man trans., trans, by Walter Kunzmann), ed. by Horst Kusch. Berlin, Riitten &
Loening, 1958.
*Vxe\ itc-Orton, C. W., ed.: The Defensor Pacts of Marsilius of Padua. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1928.
•Enea Silvia Piccolomini: Commcntarii return ntcmontbilium: The Commentaries of
Pius II, trans, by Florence Alden Gragg, with historical introduction and notes
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1936-January, 1937); XXV
(Nos. 1-4, October, 1939-June, 1940); (1947); XXX
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of History, 1936-57.
*Gabel, Leona C, ed.: Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope: The Commentaries of Pius II:
An Abridgment of the Translation by Florence A. Gragg. New York, Putnam,
1959.
*Enea Stlvio Piccolomini, Papst Pius II: Ausgewahlte Texte aus seinen Schriften, ed.
and trans, by Bertha Widmer. (Latin and German.) Basel, Benno Schwabe,
i960.
SECONDARY WORKS:
*Bett, Henry: Nicholas of Cusa. London, Methuen, 1932.
Bredow, Gerda von: Das Sein der Freiheit. Diisseldorf, L. Schwann, i960.
Cassirer, Ernst: Individuum und Kosmos in der Philosophic der Renaissance; Liber de
mente (Nicolaus Cusanus) trans, into German as Vber den Geist by Heinrich
Cassirer. Leipzig and Berlin, Teubner, 1927; 2d ed., Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1963.
Creutz, Rudolf: Medizinisch-physifalisches Den\en bei Nicolaus von Cues. (Sitzungs-
berichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische
Klasse, Jahrgang 1938/39.) Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1939.
Falckenberg, Richard: Grundzuge der Philosophic des Nicolaus Cusanus mit be son-
derer Beriic\sichtigung der Lehre vom Er\ennen. Breslau, W. Koebner, 1880.
Fromherz, Uta: Johannes von Segovia als Geschichtsschreiber des Konzils von Basel.
(Basler Beitrage zur Geschichtswissenschaft, Vol. 81.) Basel and Stuttgart, Hel-
bing & Lichtenhahn, i960.
Gandillac, Maurice Patronnier de: La Philosophic de Nicolas de Cues. Aubier, Edi-
Montaigne, 1941.
tions
Glossner, Michael: Nicolaus von Cusa und Marius Nizolius als Vorlaufer der neueren
Philosophic Minister, 1891.
Haubst, Rudolf: "Johannes von Segovia im Gesprach mit Nicolaus von Kues, und
Jean Germain iiber die gottliche Dreieinigkeit und ihre Verkiindigung vor den
Mohammedanern," in Munchener Theologische Zeitschrift, II (2d year, No. 2,
1951), 115-29.
* : Das Bild des Einen und Dreieinen Gottes in der Welt nach Ni\olaus von Kues.
Trier, Paulinus-Verlag, 1952.
Hoffmann, Ernst: Nicolaus von Cues und seine Zeit; Nicolaus von Cues und die
deutsche Philosophic (Two H. Kerle, 1947.
lectures.) Heidelberg, F.
:Cusanus-Studien, I. Das Universum des Nicolaus von Cues. (Sitzungsberichte
der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse,
Jahrgang 1929/30.) Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1930.
Der Streit des Cardinals Nicolaus von Cusa mit dem Herzoge Sigmund
Jager, Albert:
von Osterreich als Grafen von Tirol. 2 vols, in 1. Innsbruck, 1861.
Kallen, Gerhard: Nikolaus von Cues als politischer Erzieher. (Wissenschaft und Zeit-
geist, Vol. V.) Leipzig, F. Meiner, 1937.

Kallen, Gerhard: Die politische Theorie im philosophischen System des Nikolaus von
Cues," Historische Zeitschrijt (Munich), CLXV (1942), 246-77.
:Die handschriftliche Vberlieferung der Concordantia catholica des Nicolaus von
Kues. (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie. Philosophisch-historische
Klasse, Jahrgang 1963.) Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1963.
Kleinen, Hans, and Robert Danzer: Cusanus-Bibliographie ig20-ig6i: Mitteilungen
und Forschungsbeitrage der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, Vol. I, published by R. Haubst.
Mainz, Griinewald, 196 1.
Klibansky, Raymond: Ein Promos-Fund und seine Bedeutung. (Sitzungsberichte der
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse,
Jahrgang 1928/29.) Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1929.
Koch, Josef: "Nikolaus von Cues 1401-1464," in Die grossen Deutschen, I, 275-87.
Berlin, Propylaen-Verlag, 1935.
: "Nikolaus von Cues als Mensch nach dem Briefwechsel und personlichen
Aufzeichnungen," in Humanismus, Mysti\ und Kunst in der Welt des Mittel-
alters, pp. 56 ff. Leyden, Brill, 1953.
: Nikolaus von Cues und seine Umwelt. Untersuchungen zu Cusanus-Texte, IV.

Brief e, 1st Sammlung. (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissen-
schaften. Philosophisch-historische Klasse, Jahrgang 1942/43; Jahrgang 1944-48.)
Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1948.
Kymeus, Johannes: Des Babsts Hercules wider die Deudschen, Wittenberg, 1538, als
Beitrag zum Nachleben des Nikolaus von Cues im 16. Jahrhundert, ed. by Otto-
kar Menzel. (Sitzungsberichte Heidelberger Akademie. Philosophisch-historische
Klasse, Jahrgang 1940/41.) Heidelberg, C. Winter, 1941.
Meuthen, Erich: Die letzten Jahre des Nikolaus von Cues. Cologne, Westdeutscher
Verlag, 1958.
: "Die universalpolitischen Ideen des Nikolaus von Kues in seiner Erfahrung
der politischen Wirksamkeit," in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen
Archiven und Bibliotheken (Deutsches Historisches Institut, Rome), XXXVII,
192-221. Tubingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1957.
Olschki, Leonardo: Dante "Poeta Veltro." Florence, Olschki, 1953.
Posch, Andreas: Die "Concordantia catholica" des Nikolaus von Cusa. (Gorres-
Gesellschaft zur Pflege der Wissenschaft im kath. Deutschland, VerofTentlichun-
gen der Sektion fur Rechts- und Staatswissenschaft, Vol. LIV.) Paderborn,
Schoningh, 1930.
Rotta, Paolo: Nicolb Cusano. Milan, Bocca, 1942.
ScharpfT, Franz Anton: Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cusa. Part I: Das
kirchltchc Wirken: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Reformation innerhalb der
katholischcn Kirchc im fiinfzehntcn Jahrhundert. Mainz, Kupferberg, 1843.
Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cusa als Reformator in Kirche, Reich
:
und Philosophic des fimfzehntcn Jahrhunderts. Tubingen, Laupp'sche Buch-

handlung, 1871.
•Sigmund, Paul E.: Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought. Cambridge,
Mass., Harvard University Press, 1964.
Stimming, Manfred: "Marsilius von Padua und Nikolaus von Cues: Zwei politische
Denker des spiiteren Mittelalters," in Kultur- und Universalgeschichte: Walter
Goetz zu seinem 60. Geburtstage dargebracht von Fachgenossen, Freunden und
Schiilern, pp. 108-26. Leipzig and Berlin, Teubner, 1927.
Obinger, Johannes: Die Gotteslehre des Nikolaus Cusanus. Miinster and Paderborn,
Sch6ningh, 1888.
Vansteenberghe, Edmond: Le cardinal Nicolas de Cues (1 401-1464): Uaction —la
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ufiJ Moscl, Vol. IV. Cologne, Augsburg, and Vienna, Filter, 1927.
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•Lin Yutang, trans.: The Wisdom of Laotse. New York, Random House, Modern
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Inc., 1963.
Nagarjuna
sources:
Die Buddhistische Philosophic in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwic\lung. 4 vols. Heidel-
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Nagarjuna, trans, from the Chinese version by Max Walleser (1912).
*Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli: Indian Philosophy, Vol. I. New York, Humanities Press,
1958.
INDEX OF NAMES
Abelard, Peter, 112 Ch'in Shih Huang-Ti, 413-414

Abraham, 366 Chuang-tzu, 388, 399, 412-413
Absalom, 193 Chu Hsi, 412
Adam, 147, 212, 341 Cicero, 13, 199
Albergati, 119, 129, 134, 137, 152, 153, 204, Circe, 75
205, 211, 260, 262 Cohen, Hermann, 377
Alexander the Great, 346 Cohn, Jonas, 197
Ameinias, 25 Conde, Prince of, 275
Amelius, 38 Confucius, 388, 399, 401, 402, 412
Ammonios Saccas, 38, 39, 89 Constantine I, Emperor, 38
Anaxagoras, 31, 177 Copernicus, Nicholas, 190, 191, 195, 202,
Anaximander, 9-14, 15, 24, 28, 34, 36, 37, 355
176 Critias,
345
Anselm, St., 6-7, 93-115, 119, 120, 154, Cusanus, see Nicholas of Cusa
157, 356, 376
Aphrodite, 75 Damascius, 91
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 102-105, 107, 109, Dante, 181, 190, 191, 192, 220-222
244 Democritus, 31
Archilochos, 21 Descartes, Rene, 100, 102, 105-106, 108,
Aristotle, 11, 24, 41, 43, 50, 57, 89, 90, 109, 120, 161, 277, 299, 302, 304, 306,
III, 157, 181, 186, 359 308, 324, 327, 381
Asanga, 416 Dharmakirti, 416
Augustine, St., 4, 91, no, 114, 121, 154, Dignaga, 416
222, 233, 271 Dike, 19, 25, 27, 30
Averroes, 345, 376, 384 Diocletian, Emperor, 38
Dionysus, 18, 75
Bacon, 299, 358, 359, 381 Dodds, E. R., 91
Bayle, Pierre, 386 Duns Scotus, John, 102, 105
Bernays, Jacob, 36
Billinger, Martin, 190 Eadmer, 100
Bodhidharma, 422 Eckhart, Meister, 6-y, 154, 155, 188, 294
Boethius, in Eichstatt, Bishop of, 237
Bonaventura, St., 102, 105 Einstein, Albert, 190
Botta, Paolo, 270 Empedocles, 29, 31
Bovillus, 253 Epicurus, 433
Boyle, Robert, 358 Erigena, Duns Scotus, 254
Brahe, Tycho, 202 Erinyes, 19
Brehier, £mile, 40 Eros, 28, 142-143, 381
Brucker, Johann, 386 Euclid, 301
Bruno, Giordano, 191, 244, 253, 381 Eugenius IV, Pope, 118, 226, 229, 241
Buddha, 412, 419-421, 425, 427-428 Eupalinos, 9
Burnet, John, 10 Euripides, 23
Calderon, 12, 76 Fichte, J. G., 387

Calvin, John, 323, 330 Ficino, Marsilius, 92
Cesarini, Cardinal Giuliano, 117, 120, 230 Forke, Alfred, 388
445
446 Index of Names
Freudenthal, Jacob, 386 Kierkegaard, Soren, 35, 161, 268, 294, 360
Fromherz, Uta, 149 Koch, Josef, i88n., 237, 240
Galileo, 190, 319, 381 Lanfranc, Abbot, 93

Gallienus, Emperor, 38-39, 91 Lao-tzu, 7, 388-415
Gaunilon, 96-97, 101-102 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 24
Gebhardt, Carl, 302, 376 Leibniz, Gottfried, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109,
Gerbert of Aurillac, 112 244, 253, 276, 294, 382, 386
Gilson, fitienne, 105 Leonardo da Vinci, 195
Goethe, Johann, 29, 387 Lessing, Gotthold, 249, 387
Gordianus, Emperor, 38 Liang Wu Ti, Emperor, 422-423
Gregory I, St., 259 Lichtenberg, Henri, 355, 387
Groot, J. J. M. de, 389 Lieh-tzu, 389
Louis XIV, King, 274
Hackmann, 422, 427, 428 Luther, Martin, 46, 247
Hamann, J. G., 244, 253
Harder, Richard, 91 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 335, 343, 358, 381
Haubst, Rudolf, 149 Maimonides, 345, 350, 376
Hebraeus, Leo, 381 Malebranche, Nicolas de, 304, 324, 386
Hecataeus, 21 Manderscheid, Count Ulrich von, 117, 229
Hegel, Georg, 24, 60, 102, 105, 161, 245, Marsilius of Padua, 197-198
258, 345, 382, 387 Martin V, Pope, 118
Henry I, King, 93 Marx, Karl, 24, 245, 330
Heraclitus, 13, 14, 15-24, 28, 29, 34-37, Masaniello, 343
89, 90, no, 271, 402 Mencius, 388
Herakles, 75 Meuthen, Erich, 237, 270
Herder, Johann, 387 More, Sir Thomas, 241
Hermodoros, 21 Morteira, Rabbi, 370
Hesiod, 21, 34 Moses, 352, 353, 355, 358, 366, 370, 373,
Hitler, Adolf, 372, 375 375, 377
Hobbes, Thomas, 198, 343-345, 358, 372, Mo Ti, 388
381, 382 Muller, Johannes, 324, 387
Homer, 21, 33, 239 Munchhausen, Baron von, 251
Iamblichus, 91 Nagarjuna, 7, 41 6-433

Innocent III, Pope, 264 Narcissus, 75
Newton, Sir Isaac, 190
Jacobi, F. H., 355, 387 Nicholas V, Pope, 118
Jaeger, Werner, 236, 237, 258 Nicholas of Cusa, 6-7, 62, 98, 100, 116-
Jager, Albert, 12 272
Jeremiah, 352, 362, 373, 402 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 12, 24, 33, 35, 37,
Jesus Christ, 24, 99, 112, 124, 144-145, 150, 120, 190, 247, 268, 291, 304, 377, 379,
152, 164, 173, 193-195* 210-21 1, 215, 216, 431-432, 433
218, 220, 223, 228, 231, 232-233, 237, Novalis, 286
239, 258-259, 260-262, 265, 283, 331-
332, 352, 362, 363, 364, 367, 369, 377, Odysseus, 75
385 Oldenberg, Hermann, 417
Job, 368, 375 Olschki, Leonardo, 221
John, St., 24, 173, 209, 228 Olympius, 39
John of Segovia, 149
Joshua, 355 Padua, Bishop of, 270
Pandora, 75
Kallen, Gerhard, 218, 232 Parmenides, 14, 15, 24, 25-37, 89, 90, 97,
Kant, Immanuel, 3, 4, 32, 46, 59, 97, 102, 100, 102, no, 271
104, 106-110, 120, 161, 203, 205, 221, Pascal, Blaise, 264, 304, 379
246, 249, 268, 269, 271, 294, 297, 298, Paul, St., 179, 222, 365, 433
303, 305, 33i, 358, 380, 387, 389, 432 Peter, St., 222, 232-233, 242, 259, 270
Kempis, Thomas 117 a, Phalaris, 85
Kepler, Johannes, 190, 202 Philip "the Arabian," Emperor, 38
Index of Names 447
Philo, 24, 91 Siger of Brabant, 358

Piccolomini, Enca Silvio dc\ see Pius II, Si^ismund of Austria, Archduke, 118, 236-
Pope 237> 270
Pico dclla Mirandola, 212-214 Simplicius, 11, 91
Pius II, Pope, 118, 153, in, 229-230, 239, Sirck, Jacob von, 240, 260
240, 253, 270 Socrates, 23, 83, 239, 262
Plato, 4, 13, 32-33, 41, 47, 57, 61, 69, 76, Solomon, 193
84, 87, 89-92, in, 115, 121, 122, 143, Solon, 12
148, 161, 177, 181, 200, 211, 221, 246, Speyk, Hendryk van der, 274
271, 294, 358, 359, 382, 389, 424 Spinoza, Baruch, 6-7, 12, 50, 105, 161,
Plautus, 197 246, 253, 268, 269, 271, 273-387, 389
Plotinus, 6-7, 29, 38-92, 143, 184, 269, Ssu-ma Ch'ien, 388, 402
271 Stapulensis, Faber, 253
Porphyry, 39, 55, 91, m Stcherbatsky, T., 425
Posch, Andreas, 230, 232, 233 Strauss, Leo, 376
Poseidonius, 90 Strauss, Victor von, 389, 401, 410
Proclus, 91, 148, 200
Proteus, 213 Tegernsee, Abbot of, 237
Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, 91, 133, 167, Tertullian, 91
200 Thales, 11
Ptolemy, 186 Themis, 27
Pythagoras, 21, 148, 253 Toscanelli, Paolo, 117
Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walter von, 286-
Reich, Klaus, 36 287
Rembrandt van Rijn, 367
Renan, Ernest, 286 Uranus, 75
Rohde, Erwin, 12
Roscellinus, 93, 112, 115 Valla, Lorenzo, 195, 197
Rosenzweig, Franz, 377 Vasubandhu, 416
Rufus, Quintus Curtius, 346 Vergil, 260
Vico, Giovanni, 198
Salonina, Empress, 38 Vries, Simon de, 273
Salter, Emma Gurney, 123m
Samson, 193 Weber, Max, 320, 380
Sanchez, Rodrigo, 232 Wenck, Professor, 154
Savonarola, Girolamo, 212 Weyden, Rogier van der, 189
Scharpff, Franz Anton, 145, 149, 151, 152, William the Conqueror, 94
156, 199, 202, 215, 258 William II, King, 93
Schayer, 429 Witt, Jan de, 273-275, 276, 382
Schelling, Friedrich, 33, 60, 161, 244, 253, Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 424
302, 387
Schlegel, Friedrich von, 253 Xenophanes, 13, 21, 34, 90, 283
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 286
Shakespeare, William, 387 Zethos, 39
Shih Huang-Ti, 407 Zeus, 19, 75
B82
Jaspers, K J313
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The Original Thinkers

THE FUTURE OF MANKIND

THE IDEA OF THE UNIVERSITY

TRUTH AND SYMBOL

MAN IN THE MODERN AGE

THE ORIGIN AND GOAL OF HISTORY

TRAGEDY IS NOT ENOUGH

REASON AND ANTI-REASON IN OUR TIME

THE WAY TO WISDOM

THE PERENNIAL SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY

THE QUESTION OF GERMAN GUILT

THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS! THE FOUNDATIONS

NIETZSCHE AND CHRISTIANITY

PHILOSOPHY AND THE WORLD

THREE ESSAYS! LEONARDO, DESCARTES, MAX WEBER

ANAXIMANDER HERACLITUS PARMENIDES

PLOTINUS ANSELM NICHOLAS OF CUSA

SPINOZA LAO-TZU NAGARJUNA

EDITED BY HANNAH ARENDT

A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., New York

All rights reserved.

system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62-9436

Acknowledgment is made for permission to use the following: For the

translated by R. H. M. Elwes, Dover Publications, Inc., New York; Ethics in

HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES 15

COMPARISON BETWEEN HERACLITUS AND PARMENIDES

II. Description of the Plotinian "System" 40

III. Transcending as a Whole 47

IV. The Stages of Knowledge 5/

VI. Fall and Resurgence 69

b. Twofold guilt and twofold freedom J2

VII. Against Materialism and Gnosis yg

VIII. Critical Characterization 83

IX. Historical Position and Influence 89

II. Anselm's Fundamental Philosophical Idea 94

6. Anselm's thought as an invocation of God o8

7. The significance of his "proof" in Anselm's life 100

8. Gaunilon against Anselm 101

III. Characterization of Anselm's Thinking no

I. The Fundamental Idea 120

II. The Mind 128

1. The mind in general 128

2. Cognition as conjecture (coniectura) 132

3. Methods and aim /J5

III. Faith 14s

temporal reality) 150

4. Whence comes the content of faith? 752

5. Authority and originality 755

IV. Truth in Mathematics 756

PART TWO: THE WHOLE OF BEING 163

3. Examples of speculative attempts to approach God 766

4. From speculative thinking to acceptance of revelation 772

5. Example of a conceptualization of revelation: the Trinity 774

II. The World 777

3. The eternity of the world 18 j

5. Summary: The significance of Cusanus' world 190