{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 326/1922-12-24/p024","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"It was, alas, human destiny that the path that was still accessible to mankind in earlier centuries was no longer open in Meister Eckhart's time. Exploring along the same avenues as John Scotus Erigena or even Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart could not sink himself into God-the-Spirit, but only into the “nothingness” of the Divine, and from this “nothing” he had to take hold of the I. This shows that mankind could no longer see the spirit in inner vision. Meister Eckhart brought the I out of the naught through the deep fervor of his heart. His successor, Nicholas Cusanus,[^18] admits with complete candor: All thoughts and ideas that lead us in our exploration of the world become lame, become as nothing, when we would venture into the realm of spirit. The soul has lost the power to find the spirit realm in its inner being. So Cusanus says to himself: When I experience everything that theology can give me, I am led into this naught of human thinking. I must unite myself with what dwells in this nothingness in order to at least gain in the *docta ignorantia* the experience of the spirit.—Then, however, such knowledge, such perception, cannot be expressed in words. Man is rendered dumb when he has reached the point at which he can experience the spirit only through the *docta ignorantia*.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Lecture I","site_heading":"Nicholas Cusanus and the Birth of Modern Science","site_heading_note":"A heading the site wrote for this unit from a summary of it; not in the edition, and not the words of Rudolf Steiner or of the translator. Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote it.","date":"1922-12-24","location":null,"word_count":225,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/326/1922-12-24/p024","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"established","translator":"Maria St. Goar and Norman MacBeth","identified_edition":"AP1985","book_title":"The Origins of Natural Science","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA326/English/AP1985/19221224p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/326/1922-12-24/p024","paragraph_aligned":true}],"record":{"record_type":"unknown","scope":"volume","note":"How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.","evidence":null,"evidence_translation":null,"evidence_source":null},"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1922-12-24","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 326/1922-12-24/p017","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/326/1922-12-24/p017"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":314,"en_words":299,"ratio":0.95,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.19,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":5437,"original_word_count":4579,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"recorded","translator":"Maria St. Goar and Norman MacBeth","identified_edition":"AP1985","book_title":"The Origins of Natural Science","publisher":"Anthroposophic Press","publisher_inferred":true,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA326/English/AP1985/19221224p01.html","evidence":"lecture_list_row","publisher_note":"The publisher is inferred from the edition code in this lecture's source URL, not stated by the source page. The translator IS verified for this lecture: its own source names the translator (evidence: the lecture's page, rsarchive's lecture list, or the cover of the book it was published in), and that page's text was matched against this unit (see match_score and source_url). Cite the translator with confidence; attribute the publisher only as probable."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 326/1922-12-24/p017"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}