Dual Forms of Cognition in the Middle Ages

Within the evolution of human world-conceptions, these gnostic documents represent that particular element which has, on the one hand, taken up something from older traditions, from what existed in Asia, Africa and southern Europe in the form of an ancient wisdom, from what could still be reached in these later times, in accordance with the faculties of human beings who were no longer able to rise to great heights of super-sensible vision. This older form of wisdom, the last echoes of which may still be found in the pre-Socratic philosophers and which contains last, pale gleams of Plato's arguments, this world-conception did not work with intellectual forces; essentially speaking, its contents were obtained through super-sensible vision, even if this was instinctive. At the same time, this super-sensible vision supplied what may be designated as an inner logical system. If we have within us the contents of super-sensible vision, no intellectual elaboration is needed, for the human being already possesses a logical structure through his own nature. Thus we may say that in the course of human evolution intellectualism has, in a certain respect, risen out of Gnosticism. It has risen out of super-sensible, spiritual contents. The spiritual contents have dried up and the intellectual element has remained.