Dual Forms of Cognition in the Middle Ages

Let us once more bear in mind a few things which characterise this modern life of the spirit. By departing from various standpoints, we have gradually struggled through to the conclusion that the fundamental note of this modern life of the spirit is intellectualism, the intellectual, understanding attitude towards the world and man. This does not contradict the fact that in our times the essential character of a world-conception is sought in the observation and elaboration of external phenomena which can be observed through the senses. This, in particular, will be unfolded in the next few days. We may say that intellectualism, as such, has made its first appearance in the course of human evolution during the time comprised within the 300 years prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, and then it has gradually developed to a height which has not been surpassed during the three centuries subsequent to the Mystery of Golgotha. We may say that in the course of about six centuries, humanity has been trained to take up intellectualism. Intellectualism developed from out a spiritual world-conception, which began to ebb at that time, in the course of those six centuries. External documents (I have already called attention to this fact) hardly enable us to study the ebb of this world-conception, because the spreading of Christianity did its utmost to destroy, with but a few exceptions, every gnostic document.