XI. Before the Door of the Spiritual Soul

We shall better comprehend the peculiar character of the tone of soul that finds its expression in Descartes, if we compare this philosopher with Augustine, who, so far as external formulation, employs the same point of support for his realization of the spiritual world as Descartes does. Only, with Augustine, it is done out of the full imaginative force of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. (He lived from 354 to 430 A.D.) People find, and rightly, an affinity between Augustine and Descartes. Only the intellect of Augustine is the last remains of the cosmic one, whilst that of Descartes is the intellect that has already begun to make its entry into the individual human soul. Precisely by the road which the human mind has traveled in its searchings from Augustine to Descartes, it may be seen how the cosmic character of the Thought-forces disappears, and how the same thing reappears anew in the soul of Man. Yet at the same time it can be seen, under what difficulties Michael and the soul of Man are able so to meet together that Michael can direct in Man what he once directed in the Cosmos.