Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/39

28 K. PEARSON : 7). 1 The soul then which has attained to the higher know- ledge grasps things in an ' eternal now/ or, as we may ex- press it, sub specie cctcrnitatis. We can now grasp more clearly Eckehart's pantheistic idealism. By placing all reality in the supersensuous and identifying that super- sensuous reality with God, he avoids many of the contra- dictions of pantheistic materialism. God is the substance of all things (Ib., 163), and in all things, but as the reality of things has not existence in space or time there can be no question as to how the unchangeable can exist in the pheno- menal (Ib., 389). Since all things are what they are owing to the peculiarity of God's nature, it follows that the indi- vidual though a work of God is yet an essential element of God's nature, and may be looked upon as productive with God of all being (Ib., 581). The soul then which has at- tained the higher knowledge sees itself in its reality as an element of the divine nature ; it obtains a clear perception of its own uncreated form (or vorgendez bild) which is in reality its life ; it becomes one with God. The will of the individual henceforth is identical with the will of God : and the Holy Ghost receives his essence or proceeds from the individual as from God (dd enpfdhct dcr Hcilig Geist sin wcsen unde sin werk unde sin werden von mir als von Gote. Ib., 55). The soul stands to God in precisely the same relation as Christ does ; nay, it attains to " the essence, and the nature, and the substance, and the wisdom, and the joy, and all that God has " (Ib., 41, 204). " Have I attained this blessedness, so are all things in me and in God (sc<-mi<l/i m esse intelligibile ?}, and where I am, there is God " (Ib., 32). From this it follows that the ' higher knowledge ' of the soul and God's knowledge are one. 2 It is scarcely necessary to remark that Eckrhart demies this state of ' higher know- ledge ' as blessedness. Thus both Spino/a and Kckrliart base their beatitude on the knowledge of God, but in how 1 Cp. Wyclif- < >, in/> <[iinilfnit . vhich is liasi-il upon the concep- tion that things s<-i-ini<linn u# nit'UiijHiilf are ever in the time- and BJ) free ri. : _;i,ition .if tin- Deity. 7Y <'"/<</". ed. Lechler, p. .").}. - Tlu- whole of this may lie most instinctively compared with Spino/a's J-lfli it-it, v. Prop. -2-2 : In Deo tanien datur nece-sirio idea (Kckeharfs '"'/(/), (|ii;e hujus et illins rorporis hiimani e.-M-ntiam (Kckehart's Azewendiget dtngj suli ;iMcrnitati> specie exprimit. Pro] i. ~23 : Mens humaiia non polest eum on-pore alisolute de>ti-ui ; Bed ejus illiquid i-einanet, ([iiod a'ternum est (the < 'id exi.-ts in an I'roji. ^!) : Quioiuid ineiis suli sjieejr a'ternitatis iiitelli^'it, i<l non intelliiiit, ijUotl corjioris j.i'a'.-enteni actualem exi.-tentiam uoneipit ; sed ex i'o, nu^d ci'r]iori> e.mtiam eonfi]>it suh specie a'ternitatis. (The