{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 326/1922-12-24/p027","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"This mood pervades Cusanus's *Docta Ignorantia* published in 1440. In the development of Western civilization, men had once believed that they confronted the spirit-realm in close perspective. But then, this spirit realm became more and more remote from those men who observed it, and finally it vanished. The book of 1440 was a frank admission that the ordinary human comprehension of that time could no longer reach the remote perspectives into which the spirit realm has withdrawn. Mathematics, the most reliable of the sciences, dared to approach only with symbolic formulas what was no longer beheld by the soul. It was as though this spirit realm, receding further and further in perspective, had disappeared from European civilization. But from the opposite direction, another realm was coming increasingly into view. This was the realm of the sense world, which European civilization was beginning to observe and like. In 1440, Nicholas Cusanus applied mathematical thinking and mathematical knowledge to the vanishing spirit realm only by a timid use of symbols; but now Nicholas Copernicus boldly and firmly applied them to the outer sense world. In 1440 the *Docta Ignorantia* appeared with the admission that even with mathematics one can no longer behold the spirit realm. We must conceive the spirit realm as so far removed from human perception that even mathematics can approach it only with halting symbols; this is what Nicholas Cusanus said in 1440. “Conceive of mathematics as so powerful and reliable that it can force the sense world into mathematical formulas that are scientifically understandable.” This is what Nicholas Copernicus said to European civilization in 1543. In 1543 Copernicus published his *De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies*,) where the universe was depicted so boldly and rudely that it had to surrender itself to mathematical treatment.","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 Cite the unit by its title and locus, never by this heading, and do not quote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":301,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/326/1922-12-24/p027","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/p027","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/p019","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/326/1922-12-24/p019"},{"locus":"GA 326/1922-12-24/p020","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/326/1922-12-24/p020"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":470,"en_words":439,"ratio":0.93,"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/p019","GA 326/1922-12-24/p020"],"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."}}