Dual Forms of Cognition in the Middle Ages

If we wish to grasp the spiritual development of our modern times, we must penetrate into this dual character of cognition during the Middle Ages. New spheres of knowledge slowly begin to appear from the fifteenth century onwards, and then more and more quickly; new spheres of knowledge, which then became the contents of the modern scientific world-conception. Up to the fifteenth century, the intellect, as such, had developed, its technique had gradually unfolded, but throughout that time it had not enriched itself with contents of a natural-scientific character. The knowledge of Nature which existed up to that time, was an old traditional knowledge which could no longer be grasped to its full extent: the intellect had. as it were, not been tested by contents of an immediate and elemental kind.