5 Supra rationem sed non præter rationem.
6 Supra rationem videtur esse præter rationem.
The office of Imagination to which the first two belong is Thought (Cogitatio); the office of Reason, Investigation (Meditatio); that of Intelligence, Contemplation (Contemplatio).—Ibid. cap. 3. These three states are distinguished with much care, and his definition of the last is as follows:—Contemplatio est perspicax et liber animi contuitus in res perspiciendas undequaque diffusus.—Ibid. cap. 4. He draws the distinction between intelligibilia and intellectibilia in cap. 7; the former = invisibilia ratione tamen comprehensibilia; the latter = invisibilia et humanæ rationi incomprehensibilia. The four lower kinds are principally occupied, he adds, with created objects, the two last with what is uncreated and divine.—Fol. 45.
[71]. The Heiligenleben of Hermann von Fritslar has been recently edited by Franz Pfeiffer, in his Ausgabe der Deutschen Mystiker (Leipsig, 1845). Hermann says himself repeatedly that he had caused his book to be written (schreiben lassen) and there is every reason to believe that he was, like Rulman Merswin and Nicholas of Basle, his contemporaries, a devout layman,—one of a class among the laity characteristic of that age and neighbourhood, who, without entering into an order, spent the greater part of their time in the exercises of religion, and of their fortune on religious objects. Though he could not write, he could read, and his book is confessedly a compilation from many books and from the sermons and the sayings of learned and godly men. He says, Diz buch ist zu sammene gelesen ûzze vile anderen bucheren und ûzze vile predigâten und ûzze vil lêrêren.—Vorrede.
[72]. Concerning these sects, see Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, vol. ii. pp. 1-18. The fullest account is given of them in a masterly Latin treatise by Mosheim, De Beghardis et Beguinabus. He enters at length into the discussion of their name and origin; details the various charges brought against them, and gives the bulls and acts issued for their suppression. See especially the circular of John Ochsenstein, Bishop of Strasburg, cap. iv. § xi. p. 255.
[73]. Authority for these statements concerning the literature of the period, will be found in Gervinus, Geschichte der poetischen National-Literatur der Deutschen, part vi. §§ 1, 2, 5.
[74]. Johannes Tauler von Strasburg, by Dr. Carl Schmidt, pp. 8-10; and Laguille’s Histoire d’Alsace, liv. xxiv.
[75]. Meister Eghart spricht: wer alle cit allein ist, der ist gottes wirdige; vnt wer alliu cit do heimenen ist, dem ist got gegenwürtig; vnt wer alliu cit stat in einem gegenwürtigen nu, in dem gebirt got der vatter sinen sune an vnderlas.—Sprüche Deutscher Mystiker, in Wackernagel’s Altdeutsches Lesebuch, p. 889.