Weigel says to himself: Even if the knowledge flows out from man, it is still only the being of the “counterpart” (or object) which comes to light in this indirect way through man. As I learn the content of the book by reading it, and not by my own content, so also I learn the colour of the “counterpart” through the eye, not any colour to be found in the eye, or in myself. (Thus Weigel arrives by a road of his own at a result that we have already encountered in Nicholas of Cusa. Cp. pages 151-160). In this way Weigel attained to clearness as to the nature of sense-perception. He arrived at the conviction that everything which external things have to tell us can only flow forth from our own inner nature itself. Man cannot remain passive when he tries to know sensible objects and seeks merely to allow them to act upon him; but he must assume an active attitude, and bring forth the knowledge from within himself. The counterpart (or object) merely awakens the knowledge in the spirit. Man rises to higher knowledge when his spirit becomes its own “counterpart.” One can see from sensible cognition that no cognition can flow into man from outside. Therefore there can be no such thing as an external revelation, but only an inner awakening. As now the external counterpart waits till there comes into its presence man, in whom it can express its being, so too must man wait, when he seeks to be his own “counterpart” (or object) until the knowledge of his own being shall be awakened in him. If, in cognition through the senses, man must assume an active attitude in order that he may bring to meet the “counterpart” its own being, so in the higher knowing, man must hold himself passive, because he is himself now the “counterpart.” He must admit its being into himself. Therefore the cognition of the spirit appears to him as enlightenment from above. In contrast to cognition through the senses, Weigel therefore terms the higher cognition the “Light of Mercy” This “Light of Mercy” is, in reality, nothing other than the self-knowledge of the spirit in man, or the re-birth of knowledge on the higher level of beholding. Now just as Nicholas of Cusa, in following up his road from knowing to beholding, does not really bring about the re-birth of the knowledge he has gained, on the higher level, but only the faith of the Church in which he was brought up appears deceptively before him as such a re-birth, so is it also the case with Weigel. He guides himself to the right road, but loses it again in the very moment in which he steps upon it. He who will travel the road that Weigel points out, can regard the latter as his guide only as far as the starting-point. * * * * *