I am here under no obligation to throw light by presumptuous investigation upon a relationship as to which any one, who understands how to read the writings[4] in question, will know that it should remain a secret. [4] The writings in question are, among others: _Von eime eigenwilligen weltwisen manne, der von eime heiligen weltpriestere gewiset wart uffe demuetige gehorsamme_, 1338; _Das Buch von den zwei Mannen_; _Der gefangene Ritter_, 1349; _Die geistliche stege_, 1350; _Von der geistlichen Leiter_, 1357; _Das Meisterbuch_, 1369; _Geschichte von zwei fünfzehnjährigen Knaben_. If one says of Tauler, that at a certain stage of his life a transformation took place in him, that will be amply sufficient. Tauler’s personality need no longer be in any way considered in this connection, but only a personality “in general.” As regards Tauler, we are only concerned with the fact that we must understand his transformation from the point of view set forth in what follows. If we compare his later activity with his earlier, the fact of this transformation is obvious without further search. I will leave aside all outer circumstances and relate the inner occurrences in the soul of the “Master” under “the influence of the layman.” What my reader will understand by the “layman” and the “Master” depends entirely upon his own mentality; what I myself think about it is a matter as to which I cannot know for whom it is of any weight. A Master is instructing his disciples as to the relationship of the soul to the All-Being of things. He speaks of the fact that when man plunges into the abysmal depths of his soul, he no longer feels the natural, limited forces of the separated personality working within him. Therein the separated man no longer speaks, therein speaks God. There man does not see God, or the world; there God sees Himself. Man has become one with God. But the Master knows that this teaching has not yet awakened to full life in him. He thinks it with his understanding: but he does not yet live in it with every fibre of his personality. He is thus teaching about a state of things which he has not yet completely lived through in himself. The description of the condition corresponds to the truth; yet this truth has no value if it does not gain life, if it does not bring itself forth in reality as actually existent.