idende_) intellect. The office
of the former is to present perceptions to the latter, set out under
the forms of time and space. In his Strassburg period, the spark or
_Ganster_, the _intellectus agens, diu oberste Vernunft_, and
_synteresis_, seem to be identical; but later he says, "The active
intellect cannot give what it has not got. It cannot see two ideas
together, but only one after another. But if God works in the place of
the active intellect, He begets (in the mind) many ideas in one
point." Thus the "spark" becomes supra-rational and uncreated--the
Divine essence itself.]

[Footnote 251: The following sentence, for instance, is in the worst
manner of Dionysius: "Thou shalt love God as He is, a non-God, a
non-Spirit, a non-Person, a non-Form: He is absolute bare Unity." This
is Eckhart's theory of the Absolute ("the Godhead") as distinguished
from God. In these moods he wishes, like the Asiatic mystics, to sink
in the bottomless sea of the Infinite. He also aspires to absolute
[Greek: apatheia] (_Abgeschiedenheit_). "Is he sick? He is as fain to
be sick as well. If a friend should die--in the name of God. If an eye
should be knocked out--in the name of God." The soul has returned to
its pre-natal condition, having rid itself of all "creatureliness."]

[Footnote 252: Many passages might be quoted. The ordinary conclusion
is that Mary chose the better part, because activity is confined to
this life, while contemplation lasts for ever. Augustine treats the
story of Leah and Rachel in the same way (_Contra Faust. Manich_.
xxii. 52): "Lia interpretatur Laborans, Rachel autem Visum principium,
sive Verbum ex quo videtur principium. Actio ergo humanae mortalisque
vitae ... ipsa est Lia prior uxor Jacob; ac per hoc et infirmis oculis
fuisse commemoratur. Spes vero aeternae contemplationis Dei, habens
certam et delectabilem intelligentiam veritatis, ipsa est Rachel, unde
etiam dicitur bona facie et pulcra specie," etc.]

[Footnote 253: Moreover, he is never tired of insisting that the
_Will_ is everything. "If your will is right, you cannot go wrong," he
says. "With the will I can do everything." "Love resides in the
will--the more will, the more love." "There is nothing evil but the
evil will, of which sin is the appearance." "The value of human life
depends entirely on the aim which it sets before itself." This
over-insistence on purity of intention as the end, as well as the
beginning, of virtue, is no doubt conn