is based on that of Paracelsus; and his psychology also
reminds us of him. Man is a microcosm, and his nature has three
parts--the outward material body, the astral spirit, and the immortal
soul, which bears the image of God. The three faculties of the soul
correspond to these three parts; they are sense, reason (_Vernunft_),
and understanding (_Verstand_). These are the "three eyes" by which we
get knowledge. The sense perceives material things; the reason,
natural science and art; the understanding, which he also calls the
spark, sees the invisible and Divine. He follows the scholastic
mystics in distinguishing between natural and supernatural knowledge,
but his method of distinguishing them is, I think, original. Natural
knowledge, he says, is not conveyed by the object; it is the
percipient subject which creates knowledge out of itself. The object
merely provokes the consciousness into activity. In natural knowledge
the subject is "active, not passive"; all that appears to come from
without is really evolved from within. In supernatural knowledge the
opposite is the case. The eye of the "understanding," which sees the
Divine, is the spark in the centre of the soul where lies the Divine
image. In this kind of cognition the subject must be absolutely
passive; its thoughts must be as still as if it were dead. Just as in
natural knowledge the object does not co-operate, so in supernatural
knowledge the subject does not co-operate. Yet this supernatural
knowledge does not come from without. The Spirit and Word of God are
_within_ us. God is Himself the eye and the light in the soul, as well
as the object which the eye sees by this light. Supernatural knowledge
flows from within outwards, and in this way resembles natural
knowledge. But since God is both the eye that sees and the object
which it sees, it is not we who know God, so much as God who knows
Himself in us. Our inner man is a mere instrument of God.

Thus Weigel, who begins with Paracelsus, leaves off somewhere near
Eckhart--and Eckhart in his boldest mood. But his chief concern is to
attack the Bibliolaters (_Buchstabentheologen_) in the Lutheran
Church, and to protest against the unethical dogma of imputed
righteousness. We need not follow him into either of these
controversies, which give a kind of accidental colouring to his
theology. Speculative Mysticism, which is always the foe of formalism
and dryness in religion, attacks them in whatever forms it finds