Dual Forms of Cognition in the Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages it was, on the one hand, quite natural to apply the intellectual technique, which had reached such a high degree of development, but on the other hand, it was evident that the intellect was not allowed to determine anything in connection with the contents of these dogmas. The highest truths required by the human beings were sought within the dogmas. They had to be presented by theology, which was supernatural, and contained the essence of everything relating to the higher destinies of man's soul-life. The conceptions of that time were, on the other hand. permeated by the idea that Nature could be grasped and explained by the unfolding intellect, and that ratio, that is to say, the intellect, enabled one to grasp in a certain abstract manner the beginning and the end of the world, that it enabled one to grasp even the existence of God, etc. etc. These things were altogether considered as forming part—although in a certain abstract manner—of the truths which could still be reached through the intellectual technique. Human cognition was thus divided into two spheres: The sphere of the super-sensible, which could only become accessible to man through revelation and was preserved within the Christian dogmas, and the other sphere, which contained a knowledge of Nature, to the extent in which this was possible at that time, and which could only be reached, in its whole extent through an intellectual technique.